Escaping Home

by A. American

  “We need to use the bathroom,” Jess said.

  “Oh, for cryin’ out loud. Fine, make it quick.”

  Jess and Mary quickly headed toward the latrines, saying nothing. As soon as they were inside, Mary broke down and began crying. The other women looked over, curious. Fred approached and asked what was going on.

  “We don’t know, we have to go with Singer. I don’t know where they’re taking us,” Jess said.

  “What are they going to do to us?” Mary asked through her sobs, wiping tears from her face.

  “You guys haven’t done anything wrong. It’s not your fault they were shooting people,” Fred said.

  “Let’s hurry up before she comes in here,” Jess said as she went into a stall.

  Singer was impatiently waiting at the tent, tapping her foot and gesturing for them to follow her. She wound her way through the camp to areas that neither Jess nor Mary had been to before. The camp was a warren of tents and small buildings that looked like shipping containers, only with doors and windows. The lanes between all these structures were simple sand paths that were carefully maintained. The sound and exhaust of large diesel generators filled the air the farther they went.

  Singer turned off the path into a large building that had a sign reading SECURITY hanging over the door. Jess and Mary followed her through the door, but Singer stopped them and said, “Wait here and don’t move.”

  “Look at all these computers,” Jess whispered.

  Mary was too anxious to look, staring at the floor.

  “How do they have all these? Look at that—they have cameras up somewhere.” Jess was looking at a station with three thirty-two-inch monitors. A technician sat behind them controlling the cameras. The views on the screen rotated through different shots slowly, the technician occasionally zooming in for a closer look.

  After what seemed liked forever, Singer reappeared and led them to a small office, where a haggard-looking man in a black uniform sat behind a dusty desk. Jess saw their badges lying in front of him.

  “These are the two,” Singer said, crossing her arms over her chest.

  The man looked at them and examined the badges.

  “Why are you two here?”

  Jess was getting tired of the games. Her patience had been wearing thin by waiting, and by the implied accusations. “I have no idea. Why don’t you tell me?” Mary shot Jess a look.

  Singer’s eyes narrowed. “Who do you think you’re talking to?”

  “Again, I have no idea. I wasn’t introduced.” She felt her anger rise.

  Singer looked at the man behind the desk. “I told you they were trouble.”

  Jess’s face contorted into a sneer. “Trouble? What the hell have we done? We were coming back from the bathroom when the shooting started. We got on the ground when the bullets started passing over our heads!” Jess was starting to tremble from anger. Mary was trying her best to hide behind her.

  “And how do you know bullets were passing over your head?” Singer asked.

  “Because I have been shot at before! I know what it sounds like!”

  The man behind the desk interrupted them. “Who took your badges?”

  “When the siren stopped, we stood up and two of your goons knocked us down without saying anything. They took them,” Jess answered defiantly.

  “They were in a restricted area,” Singer said.

  “What?! We were coming back from the bathroom. Is the fucking bathroom off-limits?”

  Singer moved toward Jess. “You need to watch your damn mouth!”

  Jess couldn’t contain herself. “Fuck you, bitch!”

  Singer’s eyes went wide and she lunged for Jess, grabbing her by the throat. Jess knocked her hat off and grabbed two hands full of hair as they went to the floor. Mary screamed and ran into the corner. The man behind the desk was quickly on his feet and grabbed both women.

  “Knock this shit off!” He struggled for a few seconds to get them separated, and when he finally did Jess stood glaring at Singer. Singer’s red hair hung in strands over her face, sticking out all over. With a huff, she blew the hair out of her eyes.

  “I told you these two would stir shit up,” Singer said, pointing an accusing finger at Jess.

  The man looked at her. “You just need to shut the fuck up, Singer! What have they done? That one is on the damn floor”—he paused and pointed at Singer—“and you attacked her!”

  “You heard what she called me!”

  “It’s called freedom of speech; look it up,” Jess said as she rubbed her neck.

  “You don’t have any rights,” Singer said, trying unsuccessfully to smooth out her hair.

  “Why, are we prisoners? I thought this was a humanitarian camp. You people treat us like convicts! Hell, even convicts have rights.”

  “You’re not prisoners. You’re here for your safety,” the man said.

  Jess looked at him. “So I can leave the camp, then?”

  “No, you can’t. You’re under our control,” Singer said.

  “That’s enough, Singer,” the man said.

  Singer glanced over at him, then back to Jess. Jess gave her a snarky smile.

  “No, you can’t leave. We’re under martial law and you are not free to leave,” the man said in a calm tone, trying to bring the level down. “There is a lot of bad stuff going on out there right now. You’re much safer here.”

  “So how long do we have to stay here? What’s going to happen next?” This was the first time that Jess had even been able to ask someone questions, and this man was at least willing to talk. Jess was hungry for information.

  “There has been a setback in our relocation efforts. You will soon be sent to one of the pacified zones, assigned housing and given a job.”

  “Fuck that, I don’t want to be assigned housing or given a job. I want to go take care of myself.”

  “You came here by choice. Now that you’re here you, gotta go along with the program,” the man said evenly.

  “We can make things hard on you if you don’t cooperate,” Singer snapped.

  Jess looked at her. “Bring it on, bitch!”

  “She needs to go into detention!” Singer barked.

  “I’ve already told you two to knock it off. I don’t want to hear any more of this crap.” The man pointed at Jess. “You two go back to your tent.” He tossed their badges to her as he said it.

  “I’ll see you in a little while,” Singer said, nodding her head.

  Jess looked at her, then at the man. “You send her back over there and we’re going to have issues.”

  “You don’t have a choice in the matter!” Singer barked.

  “Go, get out of here.” The man pointed at the door.

  Jess and Mary left the office. Singer went to follow them out when the man said, “You wait here.”

  Singer stopped. Jess looked over her shoulder and smiled at her, giving her the finger as the door shut. Several people in the large office area looked at them as they passed through. Jess handed Mary her badge and clipped hers to her coat as they exited the building.

  “You okay?” Jess asked Mary as they started down the path.

  Mary looked at her. “I’m fine, but girl, you’re crazy! I thought they were going to kill you!”

  “That bitch just wishes she could.” Jess held out her hand and pulled a long strand of red hair out from between her fingers, holding it up so Mary could see it before letting it drift off on the breeze. “I should have pulled out more.”

  Mary laughed and shook her head. “You are nuts.”

  Jess wrapped an arm around Mary’s shoulders, and Mary laid her head over as they walked back to the tent. When they came through the door, Fred jumped up and ran to meet them.

  “What happened?” She looked at their badges. “You got ’em back?!”

>   Mary gestured over at Jess and smiled. “Yeah, Miss Crazy here got them back.”

  Fred smiled. “I should’ve figured that you were a loose cannon.” She looked around. “Where’s Singer?”

  “Talking to her boss. Let’s just say she’s got a couple fewer hairs on her head from our interaction.”

  Fred grabbed Jess by the hand and led her toward one of the tables. “Tell me everything.”

  Chapter 17

  I went to the house to start pulling the power plant out of the shop. Thad said he’d help me while the other guys went to load up for another trip. No one was home, so I figured the girls were still out shooting. I pulled the fridge open and saw a bowl with some leftovers from last night.

  “You hungry?” I asked Thad.

  “You know it.”

  I set the bowl on the table with a couple of forks.

  “Not too bad cold,” I said.

  “No, pretty good.”

  Chewing, I said, “Found another body.”

  “Where?”

  “The house I got the trailer from, he put a bullet in his head. I found a bottle of insulin on the table next to him. Guess he didn’t want to suffer a slow death.”

  Thad thought about it for a moment. “I read somewhere how they treated diabetics before there was insulin. They had to eat a very low-calorie diet, almost like a starvation diet.”

  “I’m sure he was probably already on that at this point.”

  Thad looked at the nearly empty bowl. “Yeah, prolly so.”

  After Thad finished eating, I had to completely disconnect the power as we had to disassemble the battery bank and move the inverter into the trailer. It was a good thing that Thad is a big guy; those batteries were heavy. We were inside the trailer reconnecting the cables between the batteries when Mel came out.

  “Hey, the power’s out!”

  I looked at her and then back at the batteries in the trailer, then at Thad. “Huh, I wonder why.” Thad laughed.

  “What are you doing? Why’d you take it all apart?”

  “I’m setting it all up in here so that if we had to move real quick, we could take it with us.”

  Before Mel could comment, the girls came bouncing out the back door. Taylor had a huge smile on her face.

  “Where’d you get that?” I asked her, pointing to the H&K slung over her shoulder.

  She looked at it and smiled, “Pretty cool, huh? Ted gave them to us.”

  I looked at Mel. “Us?”

  “Yeah, we all have one. He was having a hard time getting everyone, as he put it, proficient with a pistol, so he got these out.” She looked back at the girls. “We’re all pretty good with them too.”

  Taylor swiveled the weapon around so she could hold it up. “It’s even got full auto!”

  Mel quickly looked at her. “Which you’re not going to use.”

  “Yeah, I know. Just showing Dad.”

  “That’s some fine hardware there,” Thad said.

  Taylor beamed. She was so happy, she couldn’t stand still.

  “For now, go put it in the house.” I looked at Mel. “Where are the other ones?”

  “Hanging on the hooks by the front door.”

  “Unloaded, I hope.”

  “Of course. I’m not stupid.”

  Looking at Taylor, I said, “Go put yours there too. You don’t need to carry that thing around the house.”

  “Why? You carry yours everywhere, so does he,” she said, pointing to the Glock on Thad’s hip.

  The statement really pissed me off and I almost flew off the handle. “Taylor, I agreed that you guys could be armed for self-defense. There’s nothing to defend yourself from around here, because me and Thad are armed. If we go anywhere, then you guys will be armed. For now they stay in the house.”

  She stood there looking like she was going to protest. “Now!” I said in my sternest father “or else” tone.

  Reluctantly she went inside. I told Mel the power would be back on soon, and she and Lee Ann headed for the house as well, leaving Little Bit with us.

  “Can I help?” she asked.

  “Can you finish this, Thad? I want to go pull the wire out of the shop so we can reroute it into here.”

  He nodded and went back to connecting the batteries. I looked over at Little Bit and smiled. “Come on. You can help me.”

  There were two sets of cables into the shop: one was from the solar panels, the other from the feed that went to breaker box. My connection to the house was not exactly up to code. I brought the line in from the inverter and connected it to a two-pole breaker in the panel. When the power went out, the process was to turn off the main breaker coming from the meter and turn this one on so it wasn’t feeding the grid. All of the wire was in conduit buried in the ground, which meant the trailer would have to sit beside the shop where all the wires entered.

  Inside, I let Little Bit cut cable ties and pull wires loose. Then we went outside and she used a screwdriver to take covers off the boxes so we could pull the wire out. Of course, with her help this all took longer than if I had done it alone, but it was a lot more fun. Once the wire was out of the building, it only took a couple of holes being drilled into the trailer and the wire was in. The wire outside was wrapped in rubber electrical tape and that was in turn covered with vinyl tape to protect it.

  After unhooking the trailer, I turned the power back on and went in the house to check it. Everything was up and running again, much to the relief of the girls. Heading for the door, I told Mel I was going to go over to Reggie’s house. By that point in the day, the trailer should have been loaded. I wanted to hook it up for tomorrow’s trip to the cabins. Thad was waiting in the truck when I got back, and we headed out.

  We found Sarge and Ted sitting in Sarge’s buggy at the intersection of Reggie’s road. Stopping, we got out to find Doc, Danny and Reggie walking up from his house. We gathered around the front of the truck and shot the shit for a bit about the next load.

  “You get that power plant loaded into the trailer?”

  “Yeah, we got it. Glad he was there to help.” I nodded toward Thad.

  “What about the panels? How long to get them loaded?”

  “Just a couple of minutes, they have some wing nuts and plugs and they come right down.” I looked around at everyone. “How come no one is at the barricade?”

  “We were just getting ready to figure out who was going. You want to?” Ted asked.

  “Don’t matter to me, I can. Who’s coming with me?”

  “I’ll go,” Danny said.

  Reggie stretched his arms over his head, arching his back. “Good, ’cause I didn’t—”

  He was cut off by a loud crack and crumpled to the ground. Ted, Doc and Sarge were immediately on the ground; Danny, Thad and me a second behind them, a little slower than the guys that had been in combat.

  “Did anyone hear the shot?” Sarge called out.

  “No, just the round!” Ted replied as he looked around, his M4 at his shoulder.

  “Shit! Reggie’s hit!” Doc shouted as he crawled over to him.

  “Where’d he get hit?” Sarge asked.

  Reggie was lying facedown in the road, a gurgling sound coming from him. Doc rolled him over to reveal a large exit wound in his chest. “In the back! Someone get my bag out of the buggy!”

  I got to my knees to crawl over. “Stay down, dammit!” Sarge shouted.

  Crawling to the buggy, I reached in and fumbled around for the pack. Doc looked up. “It’s in the backseat!”

  “The shot came from down there somewhere!” Sarge shouted, pointing down the road toward the barricade.

  I managed to drag Doc’s bag out and back to him. What I saw was horrible: a hole the size of a tennis ball in the center of Reggie’s chest, pooled with blood. Reggie’s eyes were op
en and he was looking up, as if beyond us. Blood trickled from his mouth.

  “Ted, can you see anything out there? Anywhere the shot could have come from?” Sarge shouted.

  “Thad, come over here and help us move him!” Doc shouted.

  Thad crawled over. “Oh shit!”

  “Come on, grab his shoulders. Morgan, help him, let’s move!”

  “I didn’t see shit; he’s got to be way out there,” Ted shouted back.

  The three of us quickly moved Reggie down the road twenty yards or so. Doc was stuffing a large dressing of some kind into the wound with one hand as we moved. “Hang on, Reggie, hang on!”

  Setting him down, Doc told us to roll him on his side. When we did, blood poured from his mouth. “Shit!” Doc screamed. “Morgan, check for a pulse.” Doc was furiously trying to stop the bleeding, though even I could tell that if he did manage to stop it, there was no way in hell we could keep him alive. The amount of blood loss was massive; he needed a transfusion now.

  “I can’t find one,” I said, checking both sides of his neck.

  “Check his femoral artery, inside his thigh.”

  “Nothing, there’s nothing there.”

  “Son of a bitch!” Doc shouted.

  “What’s the word, Doc?” Sarge called out.

  Doc looked over at him and shook his head.

  “Well, shit!” Sarge was shaking his head. “Teddy, we need to find that sumbitch!”

  “And fucking kill him!” Ted shouted back.

  “Go to the house and get my M1A. We’re going to find his ass.”

  “How are you going to do that?” Danny asked.

  Sarge looked at him, then at his buggy. “Morgan, stay low, but get in that truck and block the road. Do it fast and get out.” He paused. “Fast, understand?”

  I nodded and darted to the passenger side and climbed in. Thankfully it had a bench seat in the front, and so I crawled over to the driver’s side. Lying across the front seat, raising my head just enough to see, I started it and threw it in reverse, backing it out in a wide arch in the road. I quickly climbed out the driver’s side and ran for the side of the road. Another crack and the two rear windows on either side of the truck spiderwebbed.