by Nathan Jones
Unfortunately, what they hadn't planned on was the guard standing near the barn doors halfway down the large building. There was a sliding door for vehicles, and beside it a normal one for entry and exit. It was that one the guard stood in front of, right where he wasn't supposed to be.
Nobody had been there during the day when he and Jane had been scouting, and they hadn't seen anyone there during the few inspections of the depot they'd done at night, either.
The blockhead turned their way, raising his rifle and calling an uncertain question. He didn't have night vision, and in the darkness his aim was off. Trev gave a low, incoherent shout, a warning noise, and pointed vaguely ahead in case the soldier could see his silhouette, trying to confuse him. At the same time he ducked into a full sprint, ready to drop to the ground the moment the blockhead managed to aim properly.
Neither of those happened. The soldier stayed confused and uncertain right up to the moment Trev tackled him to the ground. He cut off the enemy's cry for help with the butt of his own rifle to the man's face, and the blockhead went limp, stunned. Trev hit him again, then again, until he was sure he was at least unconscious.
Rick already had the door to the barn open. Trev grabbed the guard under the arms and started dragging him inside, and his friend ducked down to help. “What do we do now?” he hissed.
In answer Trev handed off the body to his friend. “They're expecting a guard on this door. I'll take over for him while you wait just inside, ready to pop out and start shooting if anything goes wrong.” It was a good thing Lewis had insisted on the precaution of dressing in blockhead uniforms for this. Even if that precaution was probably pointless, since none of them spoke the language or languages these conscripts used.
The younger man raised just that objection. “You can't talk to them.”
“So I'll grunt and point wildly to keep them running off after imagined enemies.” Trev glanced towards the corner, where the light was bobbing wildly and so bright he expected the patrol to pop into view at any second. He tucked his M16 just inside the door and dove for the sentry's dropped weapon, hissing over his shoulder. “Go!”
He heard the door close behind him as he came up with the captured rifle, and trying to act as natural as possible he straightened to stand where the sentry had been. At the last second he remembered the man hadn't been wearing night vision and yanked his goggles off, shoving them into his vest just as shouting soldiers rounded the corner and he was pinned by a flashlight beam.
As soon as he knew he'd been seen Trev started towards the blockheads with an urgent expression, pointing at the tents south of the barn and shouting vague noises. He felt like a moron, but he wanted to get the flashlight beam off the door as well as buy himself time to properly put away his goggles.
The blockhead patrol called questions at him, and he nodded exaggeratedly and pointed even more wildly over his shoulder while making an affirmative noise. Then he held up two fingers to indicate the number he'd “seen”.
At any second he expected to get shot in the face for trying to fool them without saying a word of their language. But either there were enough different languages among the army that had come up from Mexico that communication was a problem, or his vague noises were convincing. Either way the patrol bought him as a soldier in uniform guarding a barn door.
The flashlight swept away from him in the direction he was pointing, and as Trev slowed to a halt the blockheads rushed past him, now calling what sounded like orders. Either they were telling him to come along and guide them or to get back to his post. Trev hoped it was the latter as he returned to his position at the door and watched them run past.
After they were a hundred or so feet away among the rows of tents he pulled out his night vision to watch as they kept going. Once he could be sure they wouldn't be coming back in the next minute or so he turned to the door, which was open a crack with Rick's goggled eye peering out. He gestured. “Let's get out of here before they come back.”
The door opened a bit more and Rick poked his head out. “Wait, there might be a problem.”
Trev tensed. “What?”
“What do you think? I'm not alone in here, and if we just leave someone might be tempted to give us up.”
* * * * *
Deb huddled in her cage with a dozen other prisoners, the closest of the twenty or so cages in the barn to the front doors, fighting to keep down the slightly rotten food the blockheads had given them for dinner. She knew if she couldn't hold it down she wouldn't have the strength to work tomorrow, wasn't sure she'd have the strength anyway, but she couldn't afford to be hungry.
She only hoped she wouldn't get sick. From her experience so far the blockheads didn't care why you couldn't work, they just beat you if you didn't. And they weren't the sort to spare the rod, either.
Her group was supposed to be in transit to someplace up north, but while they were stopped at this camp waiting for something to happen, some facility to get prepared for their arrival or some road to be repaired or something, the enemy soldiers were putting them to work digging ditches and doing camp chores.
The first night here she'd tested her cage looking for weaknesses, as well as inspecting the barn for a good spot to escape. Neither one had offered much hope, not in the middle of a camp with hundreds of soldiers, with guards who checked on the prisoners every half hour or so.
Then the blockheads had put her to work the next day doing laundry, and by that night she was too exhausted to even think of escape. The work wasn't just tossing clothes into a washer and waiting for it to ding, either: the blockheads had them doing a full industrial sized operation to clean every sheet, blanket, and uniform in camp, all without technology. Instead she and several other women were forced to use an enormous tub filled with scalding water mixed with some nasty cleaning solution that made her hands burn up to her elbows, and her eyes and nose sting too if she caught more than a whiff of the steam right to the face.
The blockheads gave them dowels to literally pound the dirt out of the cloth, then they had to toss the laundry into another tub of cold water to rinse and finally hang it up to dry. The wet cloth was surprisingly heavy and difficult to handle, using the dowel deadened her arms within an hour, and if her or any of the other women slowed down in the slightest their captors were on them in a heartbeat.
Those men had dowels too, but they weren't for stirring laundry soup. So far Deb had managed to keep going fairly well, but some of the women in the cage sported more than a few bruises from failing to keep up.
A fresh wave of nausea gripped her, and she clenched her jaw around it. She had to tell herself this was bearable. Terrible as today had been, terrible as every day since she'd been taken prisoner had been, none compared to those first days when they-
Deb shuddered and did her best to blank her mind. Thankfully the gorge rising in her throat gave her something else to think about, and she determinedly focused on keeping the bad food down so she could stay strong to work.
Other women were still going through that hell, the newer prisoners who hadn't been worn down by near starvation and being worked ragged day after day. Although the rest of them who'd been around longer had to fear more of the same as well from time to time, depending on the mood of their captors.
After a lifetime of being blessed with reasonably good looks, Deb had never thought she'd be grateful for aging badly under stressful conditions. But every time she caught a glimpse of the cracked sandpaper skin of her hands, or the reflection of her haggard face and limp stringy hair in the rinse water, every time she was ignored by the soldiers as long as she kept doing her work, she was.
Which only made her feel even worse for those who weren't as fortunate.
A commotion at the door near her made her cringe back in fear. Blockheads sometimes came in the night looking for amusement, either to taunt and torment the prisoners or for . . . other things. It was a bit late for that, and anyway her cage of laundry workers was usually passed by, but the
fear was still there.
To her surprise she caught the dim silhouettes of two men dragging another man inside. One man ducked back out the door while the other closed it to a crack behind him, and she saw his faint outline standing staring out the narrow opening into the night.
Something was wrong. The blockheads who came after dark were always loud, usually drunken. These furtive men were the opposite of that. And was the body on the floor the sentry who'd been guarding that door?
Deb heard the man whispering, and to her shock he spoke in English. “Come on, run on by.”
It was stupid, but she couldn't help herself. “Who's there?” she hissed.
The man froze, then slowly turned to stare into the dark openness of the barn's interior. Deb saw a bulky shape over his eyes, goggles, and from the way he moved he seemed to be able to see. Night vision?
“Ah crap, I forgot,” he muttered.
The prisoners in other cages were stirring. “Are you American?” a man somewhere behind her hissed. “Have you come to free us?”
The man glanced back out the doorway, tense. “Not this time,” he hissed back. “There's no plan for it. If we even tried you'd probably all end up shot before you even got halfway out of camp.”
Deb had felt a surge of hope when she'd realized she could understand him, even when she'd thought he might be an enemy. After a month of being abused by soldiers she couldn't even understand, just hearing her own language from someone who wasn't a prisoner was a relief.
That hope was rising in spite of his words. “Do they know we're here?” she demanded. “Is someone going to help us?”
The man turned back to the door, calling quietly to his companion outside. After a moment that man slipped inside. He also wore night vision, and his head moved as he inspected the cages. “Can we trust you to keep quiet so we can escape?” he asked. His voice sounded familiar.
Deb lurched to her feet, pushing the nausea down through sheer willpower, and clutched the metal mesh of her cage. “Let me out!” she begged. “I don't care if they kill me, I'd rather die trying to escape than stay here!”
The man started forward until he stood only a few feet away. Deb fought the instinct to cringe away, staring at him pleadingly as he inspected her. “My God,” he breathed, sounding shocked. “Is that you, Deb?”
The haze of exhaustion, starvation, and pain lifted just long enough for her to finally recognize the voice, and hope brought something back to life inside her. “Trev?”
* * * * *
Trev barely recognized her. The Deb he knew from Newtown had only been a few years older than him, friendly and energetic and just a tad bit plump. Now she looked like she was in her 40s, gaunt and listless and with her brown hair hacked short and brittle as straw from prolonged malnutrition.
She'd cringed away fearfully in spite of herself when he came close, even when she thought he was here to help, and her face bore the marks of old bruises. She was also hunched slightly around her stomach as if in pain.
He wasn't sure he wanted to know what she'd been through. “How did you end up here?” he asked incredulously.
Other prisoners were crowded the mesh walls of their cages nearest to him and Rick, and before Deb could answer another prisoner cut in. “I'm with her,” the man said hoarsely. “Set me free and I'll strangle the first blockhead I find and take his gun, even if I get shot trying.” There was a quiet but desperate chorus of agreement. Not all of the prisoners chimed in, but most did.
“Trev, Rick?” Lewis's voice came in their earbuds. “Did you shake the patrol? I'm setting the detonator now.”
“Get outside and play sentry,” Trev told Rick as he toggled his mic. His friend nodded and took the blockhead's rifle, then slipped out the door. “I'm here, Lewis. We shook the patrol, I think, but we had to hide in the barn. There's over two hundred prisoners in here.”
There was an uncomfortable pause. “And?” Jane asked.
Trev glanced at Deb, who'd sank to her knees as if too exhausted to stand. “They want to try to escape. They say they'd rather die than stay prisoners.”
“We talked about this, Trev!” Lewis snapped. “You realize that if they try they will die. All of them, and us too!”
He realized that, of course. Blast, why'd they have to use the barn to hide? He could've kept ignoring the prisoners if he didn't have to see their plight directly. Caged like animals, starving and bruised and exhausted from hard labor. He couldn't walk away now. “Yeah, probably. But I know some of these people, Lew.”
“So get them out and try your luck with just a handful. Although even that's probably suicide.”
“What do you think the rest will do then?” Trev took a deep breath. “Listen. Set the detonator and get out. I'll try to figure out something here, so if it doesn't work at least it's just me.”
“And me,” Rick chimed in. “It may be a horrible idea, but I won't just walk away.”
His cousin swore. “I'm not leaving if you're not. If you guys are going to be idiots, at least give us a chance to plan it out so it has a shot of working.”
Trev set his jaw. “I'm not going to get you guys killed over this.”
“Then start sneaking your way out of camp, just you and Rick,” Lewis snapped. Trev had no answer for that, and his cousin continued. “Thought so. Just give me a minute, okay. Sit tight, and don't draw attention to yourselves.”
There was a slight pop as Lewis toggled off his mic. Trev turned back to the prisoners in the cages, who were all staring at him in silent expectation. “If you're willing to take the risk, we'll try to find a way to free you,” he said. “For now, though, stay quiet until we can figure something out. We only need to get you to the foothills west of here, and then you'll be safe and protected by the United States Armed Forces.” Instead of a cheer there was something more like a mass exhalation, a sigh of relief from hundreds of mouths.
He looked down at Deb, who'd started to cry, and dropped down into a crouch in front of her. “Where's the rest of the people from your town?” he asked gently.
“I-I don't know.” She pulled her knees up against her chest. “We split up once we ran into the army coming from the south, to avoid their patrols. There were only a dozen of us in my group. Half were captured along with me and the blockheads left the others behind. I haven't seen anyone I recognize in this barn with me.”
“How long ago were you captured? Up until about a month ago they were killing any US citizen they came across.”
Deb shuddered. “They did plenty of killing. I watched them shoot a woman right in front of me.” She pulled her knees tighter against her chest. “And we passed other groups who'd been gunned down by the blockheads. So many others.” Her voice dropped to the barest whisper. “Maybe they were the lucky ones.”
Trev waited, but her thoughts seemed trapped in a dark place. “But they didn't kill you and these other people, though,” he said gently.
The haggard woman raised her head to look at him. “No,” she agreed. “No, they took any adults who were young and in good health. They're taking us up north to work, they say.”
“You mean slavery?”
Deb laughed, mostly bitter but slightly hysterical. “They call it forced labor. Reparations for the Retaliation. But they're not fooling anyone, even themselves. They certainly treat us like slaves.”
Trev nodded. “Mistreat you, you mean. I hardly recognized you at first.”
“Yeah.” She lifted a skeletal forearm to look at it. “There are worse things than being ugly in this camp. Small silver linings.”
He rested a comforting hand on the mesh near her, then stood. “All right, everyone. Let's get these cages open.”
Chapter Fifteen
Desperate Measures
“We're almost finished sabotaging their vehicles,” Trent was saying. “Shouldn't be more than another few minutes.”
“And then we're out,” Gutierrez added. “Sorry, Lewis. I'd love to see those poor people freed, but when I
volunteered for this it wasn't a suicide mission.”
“I understand,” Lewis replied, double checking the detonator's wiring. As he'd hoped, the armory held a modest store of high explosives. “Be careful, you two.”
“He's got a point,” Jane whispered after he'd toggled off his mic. She was busy stuffing grenades, handguns, and loaded magazines into two packs for them to take with them. At least some of the prisoners would be armed. “We should take time to plan this properly.”
“Maybe.” Done. Now all he needed to do was set the timer and get out. Once he figured out how much time to give them. “Unless the blockheads move the prisoners before then. Or this attack makes them triple their security and we never get another chance.”
She paused with a flashbang in hand. “This wasn't part of the plan,” she said stubbornly. “I'm not ready to die.”
“Neither am I. Neither is Rick. And stupid as he's being, neither is Trev.” He gave his wife the most reassuring smile he could. “Let's make sure it doesn't happen.”
He switched his radio to the main channel and toggled his mic. “Sergeant Davis, you there?”
There was a brief delay. “Same place I was when you left hours ago, Halsson. What's up?”
“I could use a hand. Trev is about to commit suicide and get over two hundred US citizens killed.”
A new voice came over the radio, Harmon. “The blazes are you talking about?”
Lewis briefly described the situation. “I was thinking if we could make some noise we might have a better shot. When we blow the armory that'll be a start, distracting them to the north, and you could distract them to the south. I know Peterson and Anders are still alive on the rise, but if you're willing to start your attack against the blockheads there soon, you could save lives.”
“You want us to throw away our lives breaking prisoners out of the middle of a blockhead camp?” Harmon demanded.
“No,” Lewis replied, trying for calm. “But if anyone on our side already has an attack planned and is willing to speed up their timetable, it would help. Trev's going to try no matter what.”