Early Release

by Jason Michelsen

  That opportunity, she expected, would be a long time coming. Making Midling in a week should be simple with paved roads and mostly flat ground along the way, but what would they find there? What if the town had been wiped out like Santa Maria? What if her parents were refugees now, wandering the desert looking for someone to take them in? What if they weren't?

  Lisa hadn't left things on the best of terms when they last spoke. The fact that the conversation was nearly two years ago was proof enough of that. Still, the events of the past few days were making her desperate to see them again. Last words spoken in anger are written in the mind like carvings in stone. Please God, she prayed, give me a chance to set things right again!

  She blinked away tears as David joined her on the porch. He was carrying her backpack, which he justified by pointing out that it was heavier with all the food for both of them in it. Chivalry could be so obnoxious.

  "You sure you're ready to leave it all behind?" he asked with concern in his eyes.

  A mildly exaggerated smile of confidence seemed to at least lessen his doubts. "Yep. My biggest concern is whether or not you can carry all that weight at your age...."

  "Then after you, Miss Brittsen." David looked at her expectantly, waiting to follow.

  Lisa locked the door, mostly out of habit. Then, stepping off the porch in front of her recently acquired guardian angel, she began her new life as a homeless woman.

  As the pair marched through the small town, David explained his theories on the disasters, including the earthquakes and EMPs. There was one very vague idea of powerful solar flares that may have caused both events, but neither of the adventurers were scientifically minded enough to confirm whether it was even possible. Regardless of cause, they were accepting the facts that they would get no mechanical help, with dead vehicles littering the streets, and even wristwatches unresponsive.

  He ran through their shopping list to minimize the time spent wandering aisles once they reached the stores on the ironically named Water Street that ran through the desert in the tiny downtown area. He quizzed her on the local wildlife, as well as the terrain between Santa Maria and Midling. By the time they reached The Sportsman's Outfitter, Lisa had developed a sense of the efficiency and attention to detail that had made this man an exceptional Soldier.

  The small shop had clearly been looted already, with the plate glass window fronting the store shattered and a newspaper vending machine lying in the kayak on display there. Once inside the store, he considered and discarded every piece of overpriced equipment with a careful and discerning eye, before settling on the plainer looking alternatives, which he insisted were the real quality. When she brought him her assigned items from the list, he checked them over and nodded approval to each one. They left the store through the same broken window they had entered by, and headed to the drugstore.

  Like the sport shop, the quaint Water St. Drugs had already been picked through. Here, Lisa took the lead in assembling their medical kits. It amazed her how quickly she fell into the rhythm of calling out medications needed and choosing bandage types. Her medical life seemed to have been ages ago, but the training stayed strong in her mind. The real joy in this simple task was feeling useful; for the first time since she had met David Saul, she could do something helpful for him. It was a refreshing change from her normally timid and useless personality.

  With their shopping--or some would say stealing--completed, the amateur survivalists sat on a bus stop bench to redistribute their supplies and equipment. Medical supplies were divided into two rather thorough kits with one placed in each backpack, and two smaller first aid kits to be kept no their persons. Navigation equipment--including a compass, maps, and assorted colors of fine-point markers--went into David's pack, as did the ultralight double occupancy backpacking tent. Both small, mild weather sleeping bags went into Lisa's, and they each carried their own spare clothing. Using what seemed to be a substantial portion of his willpower, David refrained from bringing along a full arsenal. Instead, he contented himself with a rifle, a pistol, and no more than a half-dozen knives that quickly disappeared into various pockets and boots. Additionally, he made the nurse take a small handgun, which he promised to teach her to use while they traveled.

  Clothing changed, gear balanced, and sun climbing; Lisa stepped off again to lead the way to the grocery store. They stopped several times in the first thirty minutes to adjust the way the packs rode on their shoulders and hips, but after these adjustments travel was much smoother. Before long, the two were pushing grocery carts around a store having--in her estimation--the best sale ever. This was the quickest stop, consisting of the granola, jerky, and mixed nuts aisle; and the protein bar aisle. As with everything else, David valued low weight over pretty much all other considerations. Only their water supply was permitted to be heavy and bulky.

  By the time the sun peaked in the sky, the travelers were passing a crooked sign begging them to come back to visit Santa Maria soon. Lisa was fairly certain it would be disappointed.

  41

  David felt they were making good time as they hiked alongside the two-lane blacktop road out of town. With the sun settling down into the mountains behind them, he estimated their distance traveled at around fifteen to twenty miles. Not bad for the first day, when he had intentionally taken extra breaks to make sure their feet held up. The Soldier in him knew all too well how a simple blister could double the time a tough march took. Lisa turned out to be a fairly experienced backpacker, which explained her excellent conditioning. More importantly, she seemed to have a good understanding of the mental tricks to defeat fatigue and boredom on an extended trek through desolate back-country.

  And desolate it was. The landscape of the region was generally barren to begin with, and the aura of emptiness that pervaded the world today amplified the effect. Silence stretched between the normally talkative travelers, a testament to the wonder of an earth that was both the same as ever, and entirely new.

  Finding level ground within sight of the highway that also provided some shelter from the desert wind, David set up camp while Lisa found high ground to scout the area from. With the gear stowed and the tent erected, he joined his friend on the low hill. Turning in a slow circle, he realized for the first time how isolated they truly were. As dusk came, only a sky full of more stars than Saul had thought possible and a nearly full moon provided light. Lisa headed back to camp and he followed quickly, mildly afraid of losing everything in the blackness of night.

  After a light dinner of beef jerky, granola bars, and water; the two assumed the awkward position of lying next to each other in the small tent.

  "Aren't you going to ask my sign?" Lisa asked, bursting into laughter.

  The absurdity of the situation filled David with the same delirium as he replied. "No, I have more game than that. So, come here often?"

  Now they both laughed and he was certain the uproar could be heard for at least a quarter mile in every direction. Someone very wise once said that only when it's surrounded by a great weight can a heart truly be light. Well, David didn't know if someone really did say that, but they should have.

  Tension eased and mirth faded, leaving both vagabonds in a state of introspection. After a few minutes of quiet thought, Lisa spoke up. "You told me who you were, that leaves who you became and who you want to be. Shall we continue with step two?"

  David shifted uneasily before replying. "Do you really want to hear the dark side of the stranger lying next to you in the middle of nowhere? Can you fight the temptation to run through the desert blind if you don't like what you hear?"

  "I'm not going anywhere," she replied solemnly. "What I've seen in the past three days is a man of honor. I don't care who you were, it's obvious that something changed in you. Besides, the good food is all in your bag, I can't leave."

  "Well, I can't argue with that logic." He took a deep breath before continuing. "When the Army abandoned me, I didn't know where to turn. I had given myself to them in body, mi
nd, and soul. And I mean that literally. My body was probably two decades older than it should have been after the rigors of combat and training. My mind was the proud owner of a bright, shiny case of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. And my soul? Hell, I lost that when I swore an oath to obey the orders of incompetent leadership. When I was kicked out, I truly believed I was not qualified to be anything but a Soldier.

  "So what do you do when everything you've been trained for is suddenly illegal for you? After years of being told to act without thinking, how do you stop acting? I spent most of my adult life trying to stop the bad guys. Then they told me I was the bad guy because I tried too hard. Never mind the results I got. Never mind how they pushed me harder and harder to see what I could do. The moment I slipped, they called me broken and a failure. They took my past, my future, and my sanity away and they cast me aside.

  "After a few months of drinking--and a good amount of ignoring my family--I decided they must be right; I was a bad guy. So why fight that nature? I used every skill I knew to implant myself into the criminal underworld. I used my training to collect information on the major players in the local drug world, then I used my political skills to turn them on each other. Once it all boiled over, they were too distracted to notice me carving out my own piece of the pie. I wasn't quite a big time boss, but I had enough power that it was easier for those guys to buy me off than try to take me down.

  "I lived fast and loose, but it still wasn't enough. My self-loathing was so great I needed a more complete destruction of who I used to be. My family was the only link left, and since Marta--my wife--refused to leave me, I would have to break it off myself."

  David had slid into a familiar sense of numbness as he related the worst memories of his life, but even that could not keep the pain from resurfacing at the thought of his family. The pitch-black inside the tent was a blessing; he wouldn't be able to bear seeing Lisa's face right now.

  "I started disappearing for days at a time, but every time I came home she was there. Never even angry, just ready with a new idea of how we could fix our marriage. She never blamed me. Every time, she wanted us to get better, never just me. My daughter barely recognized me, but Marta kept telling her I was her daddy and I loved her."

  The inevitable breakdown began, as tears filled his eyes and his throat closed up. Fighting through, he continued. "She had to tell her, because I wouldn't. I could have, God knows I wanted to! But I just had to keep them away from the thing I had become.

  "One night I came home--sober, for once--earlier than normal. I wanted to get in and out fast, so I was being quiet so they wouldn't even know I was there. As I crept past my little girl's room I heard whispering, so I stopped to listen. She was praying with her Mommy. Right when I was about to leave, I heard her add one more petition to her prayers: 'And Jesus,' she said, 'please make sure daddy knows I love him and I'll be here when he wants to love me.'"

  "That night, I left the house and never went back. I drank myself into a blackout that lasted months. When my head cleared, the transformation was complete. I was one-hundred percent certain that I was the bad guy now, and going back to my family was not an option. So I took ahold of my new life and I ran with it.

  "About a year and a half later, I was sitting in a decidedly unfriendly D.C. underground spot. I almost choked on my beer when Marta sat down across from me. To this day I don't know how she found me or how she talked her way past the guards, but she had me. She spoke for half an hour about being willing to work it out if I would try. She gave me a recent picture of Rachel. In the end, though, my heart was too hard. When I told her to leave, she handed me divorce papers and left without a word."

  David was silent now as he recovered from the emotional exhaustion the story caused. He heard a quiet sniffle next to him, and for the first time realized Lisa was crying.

  "How long ago was that?" she asked through her tears.

  "A little over three years ago," David replied with a sigh. He was grateful for the opportunity to talk about cheerier subjects, like his arrest. "It was only a week or two after that I got busted. I exposed one of my connections as a snitch. My plan was to kick him out of town, but my competitors wanted him dead. I shot him in the shoulder so the feds would pull him out before the others got to him. Turned out he wasn't a snitch, he was undercover ATF, and I caught a case for attempted murder of a federal agent."

  "Wait, you shot him as your way of trying to save his life?" Lisa asked incredulously.

  "Yes."

  "Why not just tell him he was in danger?"

  "Did you miss the part of the story where I turned evil?" he answered in exasperation.

  The nurse seemed to consider it. "Well, I suppose you were a good marksman and knew a shoulder shot was the safest. It was kind of smart, I guess."

  "Actually," he said with a laugh, "I was pretty hammered at the time, I was aiming for his knee."

  42

  Lisa lay awake in the dark for a long while that night. While the desert wind sang its mournful lullaby outside the tent, her compatriot's revelations left her mind reeling. Even exhaustion from the strenuous activities of the day could not subdue her racing mind to bring sleep. She had always assumed the inmates she dealt with every day were different from her, somehow more bestial and less human. How many had stories and lives just like David's?

  Since the day she started work at the prison, Lisa had been taught that all prisoners were the same. While the official position of the system said they were to be treated with respect, the practice was the polar opposite. Inmates were to be used for anything staff did not want to do themselves. When you had a bad day, take it out on an inmate. If one of them comes to you for help, assume they are lying and have an ulterior motive. In general, never let your charges believe they are as human as you.

  The young, naive nurse had fought that mentality for several months, believing that if she showed respect she would receive it in kind. One day she overheard a gaunt faced man telling another in graphic detail the violations he would like to perpetrate on her, and her faith in the humanity of the general population was shattered. In her mind's eye, Lisa could still see the vulgar fervor in the man's eye as he was taken to the Hole. From that day on, they were all like him.

  Now she lie in a dark tent, miles away from anyone or anything at all, except one of those very men she could never trust. Impossibly, she trusted him completely; without hesitation. With this realization, sleep finally took her.

  43

  With the sun rising in a magnificent display of pink and orange, David woke up after the most peaceful sleep he had in years. Apparently confession truly was good for the soul. Checking the tent for snakes, scorpions, and other curious critters that may have wandered in during the night, he carefully climbed out of his bag and out of the tent.

  Lisa was already up and handed him a cup of granola and a bottle of water as he approached. Her eyes, hovering above dark circles, looked at the sunrise with a sadness only regret could cause.

  "Good morning," he said carefully, "how did you sleep?"

  Staring blankly out across the barren country, she almost seemed to have forgotten he was there. His question went unanswered, and instead she asked, "How many times can a person forgive herself before she has to accept being a failure at life?"

  Oh boy, he thought, this is going to be a long day.

  "Lisa," he spoke calmly, "we're going to be trekking through a depressingly desolate region all day. Can we save the moping for the walk?"

  Barely keeping a straight face, David met her petulant look flatly. He knew she was worried about her parents, but allowing her to wallow would not be beneficial to anyone. Plus, it was just too funny to watch someone pout about how they were spoken to, when the world ended earlier this week.

  Stomping off to load up her equipment, she never answered his question, which he took as a no. Breakfast could wait; David packed quickly, hoping to get a long day of travel in. Despite his adeptness at these long trips, he w
ould always choose a relaxing night on a comfortable couch, or maybe a wild night on a hard barstool. Regardless, sleeping on a rocky desert ground was a distant third.

  With the gear back in their packs, the travelers set off for the road again. Judging by the pace of the previous day, he expected to be in Midling in about four days. Although the time wasn't important in the way of interfering with his plans, it was critical when it came to food supply. Saul estimated they had enough rations for five full days. He planned on keeping an eye out for alternate sources of sustenance, but there would be no guarantees of finding anything.

  For the first few miles, they walked along in silence. David thought his companion could use some time alone in her head, and for her part, Lisa worked very hard at making sure they never walked at the same speed as each other. Like an angry slinky they moved erratically through the desert, their rate of march was as unpredictable as the woman's temper that governed it.

  Miles turned to hours, and the unrepentant sun worked mercilessly to slow their progress. When an abandoned service station presented the pair with an opportunity to rest in the shade, even Lisa could not maintain her anger. David, still searching for words to ease her out of her shell, settled for the friendly offer of a cool rag to wipe her face. She accepted graciously, and he suspected they were almost to the point of words again.

  After their rest stop, the trip was resumed at a far more steady pace, with both hikers practically in step. Believing her issues to be at least partially worked out, David decided to open a door for his friend and see if she would step through.

  "Forgiveness is a funny thing, isn't it? We beg people to give it to us when we don't feel we deserve it, but we won't accept it when they try to give it without our asking." There it is, if she takes that bait, the conversation could last all the way to her parent's house.