At the door, I tried to peer through the peephole. Two figures, but nothing distinguishing. It was too dark.
“I would rather not open the door,” I yelled through the door. “I sealed it with duct tape.” I heard some indistinguishable mumbling.
“That’s good. We’re going around to all the neighborhoods and informing anyone who’s still around, that there is a mandatory evacuation order for this area.”
“Mandatory?” I said through the door.
“Yes,” the voice responded.
“How big is the area?”
“What?”
“How large is the evacuation area?”
More muffled, incoherent voices behind the door. “The whole Inland Empire,” the voice answered.
I paused to grasp the magnitude of this development. If I remembered correctly, the Inland Empire had almost five million people in its geographical area. How was this even possible? Where would everyone go?
“There are evacuation centers set up in the high desert along I-15, just after you reach the summit of the Cajon pass. East along I-10, just past Banning. South along I-15 as you pass Temecula. And many others.” Answering my unasked question.
“Who’s in charge of these, evacuation centers?”
More mumbling, followed by, “I believe it’s a joint effort between the Army, FEMA, and the Red Cross, along with other volunteers. I have all the information right here.” I looked through the peephole and saw a dark shadow holding up a black rectangle to the peephole. Obviously, a piece of paper.
“How long?” I said.
“What’s that?”
“How long until we have to evacuate?”
“Three days.”
“What happens then?”
Another bout of muffled mumbling behind the door. Then the voice said, “The National Guard will be doing sweeps of the area making sure everyone is out.”
“Why?”
“What?”
“Why a mandatory evacuation? We were far enough away from the... blast.”
“I can’t answer that.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“I personally, do not know. It was given to us as excessive radiation fallout. Whatever that means. I am no expert. We were given our orders, and here I am.” I could tell the voice was getting a little flustered with my questions. He probably thought I was some kind of doomsday prepper, who had long been waiting for this day.
“Right. Just leave the paper on the doorstep, and I will grab it later.”
“Alright then.” Through the peephole the dark figure on the right bent down. “Have a good day,” he said and turned toward the house next door.
I turned away from the door and went quickly, ignoring everyone’s questioning gaze, and grabbed the Batman walkie, depressed the button and said, “Don’t answer the door. As soon as they are gone, put on a thick coat, gloves and come over here. We have a lot to discuss. Over.”
Twenty minutes later, I was standing in the hallway opening, that lead to the bedrooms. To my right were Jenna and Aaron, seated at the dining room table facing me. Also at the dining table, on the opposite side, were Ethan and Zero, with their backs to me. On my left, Kaitlyn, Drew and Alicia, on my red couch. On my rug in front of the TV were the kids, flipping through The Hobbit, looking for the pictures. The whole area was illuminated by flickering candles, that provided enough light, but also added to the ‘end of days’ discussion we were having.
“I think we should go and go now before it gets too crowded,” Aaron said.
“To the evacuation center? It will already be packed. I mean how are they even going to accommodate everyone?” Alicia responded.
“Well, it’s better than waiting here till the Army forces us out,” Aaron replied.
“Maybe the roads are clear, and we can just head to Utah now,” Zero said.
“I’m not going to Utah,” Aaron said.
“That’s fine, but what Zero said is not dependent on going to Utah, if the roads are clear we can head anywhere we want,” Alicia said.
“Yeah. We can go anywhere,” Jenna said to Aaron.
“So, do we head out tonight?” Aaron asked, ignoring her.
“I would guess so,” Ethan said.
I finally spoke up. “I wouldn’t do that.”
“Why not?” Aaron asked, not politely. “We’ve been bunkered down for three days like you suggested and now you want us to stay for at least three more, when we can get out of here now.”
“I wouldn’t go anywhere... yet,” I reiterated. Everyone stared at me, waiting for an explanation. Instead, I walked to the front door, ripped off all the duct tape around the door frame, unlocked the door and opened it. After three days in our cave, the evening air felt amazing and I smiled as the lovely, gentle, cool, breeze swept across my face. It had been four days since the bomb exploded and interrupted our lives. I reached down to my doormat which said “Welcome,” it was about as generic a doormat as one could have. Underneath the mat, sticking out halfway, lay the piece of paper that the sheriff had left. I grabbed the paper and closed the door. I didn’t bother with the duct tape. I think we ran out anyway.
Back inside, I read out loud the contents of the order: “‘Release date November thirteenth, twenty twenty-four. Time, ten a.m. By order of the United States government and the state of California, the following areas are under a mandatory evacuation due to the fallout and radiation, caused by the cowardice attacks,’” Attacks? As in multiple. “‘On this nation, occurring on November tenth, twenty twenty-four.’ There is a list of cities here. All in the Inland Empire. A city with a letter correlating to our evacuation zone. Rancho Cucamonga is supposed to evacuate to Zone C. At the bottom it says; ‘this is a mandatory evacuation. Residents should leave the area immediately. Be sure to take any medications, pets, family valuables, etc. with you, close all windows, and leave all doors closed. All residents need to be evacuated from the area by November seventeenth.’ And that’s it.” I turned over the paper and looked at the map, and my biggest fears were confirmed.
“So, that settles it. We go tonight,” Aaron said. No one argued.
Alicia asked to see the paper, and I handed it to her. “It shows that we need to go to the zone at the top of the Cajon pass, right past the summit on the west side of the fifteen. Zone C,” Alicia said.
“What’s there that could be an evacuation center?” Ethan asked, and I smiled, not out of amusement.
“It’s not a center. It’s a camp,” I said.
“A camp? Like Camp Cucamonga?” Zero asked.
“No. Definitely not like that. It’s a refugee camp.” I heard some audible gasps.
“You can’t know that,” Jenna said.
“Oh yes, I can. I spent over a year in one,” I said, and they all looked at me as if I told them that I was secretly Santa Claus.
My time in a refugee camp began in the summer of 2021. Just three months after my enlistment in the Army. A few weeks out of basic training, our unit was assigned to southern Syria. This was not a safe area. In fact, over the prior ten years, Syria was about as bad as any place on Earth. But, thanks to a variety of deals struck in 2020, mainly between Russia and the United States, the area had slowly settled down from horrible to bad. One of the components of the deal was for Russia and the US to set up temporary housing for the displaced Syrian population. Neither side called them refugee camps. This was supposed to be a joint effort between all parties, including the United Nations. The Red Cross and other emergency organizations were expected to be in charge of the ‘temporary’ camps and work with the respective countries providing the supplies and infrastructure. That had lasted about a week before each side heard the other used military troops to keep the peace inside the camps. That’s where I came in.
I arrived in late July at Mezze Air Base, just outside of Damascus, by helicopter, after spending the previous week in Israel. The one thing you feel when you are in the middle east is the history. Compared to the United St
ates, Syria and Israel were ancient, and you could see and feel it everywhere. You could also feel and see the massive destruction that the decades of fighting had left across the landscape. I was probably as wide-eyed as any infantryman, on their first assignment.
Right off the helicopter, we were loaded into a transfer truck. As I stepped inside the truck, which had wood benches for seating, I was already sweating as the temperature was well over one hundred degrees and I had arrived with all my equipment, which weighed at least ninety pounds. We headed west from the air base and into the middle of nowhere. After a half hour, we could see the rising mountain range approaching and at the base of the hills, rising out of the brown and gray landscape, a large chain-link fence, twelve feet high. This was supposed to be the temporary housing? I thought. Only one word came to my mind; Prison. And we were to be the custodians.
The camp was divided into twenty-five sections. Each section had around one thousand people. The camp was set up like a spoked wheel. The center hub was where the military and red cross were to live. Spreading out from there in a grid were the tents. Each tent held five people. Each section had two hundred tents. In the center of each section was the mess hall for the individual sections. It was all very straight and precise. Obviously, military design.
My job was simple, between ten in the evening and eight the next morning, I was to patrol Section C of the camp. Joe and I spent our nights wandering around discussing our past. He was from Boise, Idaho and came from a family of soldiers. I was not, which surprised him. Even though I had seen him in basic training, we never spoke until our late-night walks. Everyone he met, he told me, came from a military family.
“Why join the military, if you weren’t trying to please some relative,” he said with a smile on his face.
“I thought it was my duty to the country,” I told him. A lie.
Joe just smiled and said, “Well, you’re a better man than I am. I joined because that’s all I’ve known. My dad joined right after 9/11, a few months later I was born, and I didn’t see him until I was four.”
We talked like this, most of the nights. Some frivolous, sometimes serious discussion between two strangers. Most of the nights were quiet. At least in our section. We heard horror stories from elsewhere in the camp about the things they’ve seen and stories they’ve heard. But, for Joe and I, it was easy-going. I was beginning to think I had lucked out with my first assignment with this unit. But, two months later, I would start to think otherwise.
It’s hard to pinpoint where the animosity began. Was it the soldiers taking advantage of the people they were supposed to protect? Or was it the occupants slowly realizing their luck at being assigned to a US camp, was a fraud and that they had actually been taken to a US military prison? Or was it the fact that the supplies that were supposed to arrive on a regular basis, were now coming, alarmingly, at random? Whatever it was. Whatever the reason, there was no turning back from the inevitable.
There was fighting. People killing each other over food. The school, at the center of camp, was closed after a homemade bomb was detonated in the main classroom (tent). Luckily, this happened when no one was inside. Not to mention the question of how someone could smuggle an explosive into the camp. But, the message was clear. The people wanted out. Now, when we would patrol, people would mutter under their breaths or swear at us in our faces.
A massive brawl broke out, at the mess hall in Section C as I was in bed. I ran, half-asleep, to contain the situation along with twenty other soldiers. Twenty soldiers against, at least, a thousand people. Luckily the ‘prisoners’ were disarmed, and ninety percent just wanted to be left alone. But, the other ten percent were determined to cause chaos.
That’s when the rumors began. Stories of U.S. soldiers hauling people off in the middle of the night, to never be seen again. I can confirm they were not rumors. We were targeting potential undesirable individuals. Where they were taken, I do not know?
One night, Joe and I had to grab a man, while his wife was kicking me and his two children were crying. We took him to the main headquarters and never saw him again. He kept asking the same question over and over again, as we dragged him through the dirt streets, “What did I do?” in broken English.
During the first three months; Breakfast, lunch, and dinner were served daily. The last three months; only lunch, and a small meal at dinner, if available. Not only was it miserable for the inhabitants, but also for the soldiers. We were not trained as prison guards, we were trained as soldiers to kill enemy combatants. By, the end of my time there, and it shames me now, I did view them as the enemy. It was the only way I could survive.
I sighed and looked at all my friends sitting or standing in front of me and continued, “The reason I tell all of you this and believe me when I say, that is the last thing I want to do. Is to try to make you understand. We do not want to be anywhere near these camps.”
“But, surely it can’t be that bad here, right?” Jenna said, “I mean this is America.”
“I actually, think it will be worse here,” I said.
“Why’s that?” Aaron asked.
“The Syrian refugees and whoever else were there, wanted to be there at first. Most Americans, we included, will not react well to being confined to a prison camp. This is America. Don’t Tread on Me. Liberty or Death. Our ideals and freedoms, clash significantly with a military controlled refugee camp.”
“What are you saying?” Aaron asked.
“He is saying that people in this country would rather die, then be locked in a cage,” Ethan answered.
The next hour was an exercise in futile debate. On one side was Enrique’s temporary residents; Ethan, Jenna, and Aaron wanted to leave as soon as possible. On the opposite side; Drew and Alicia, along with Zero. Even though Zero would bounce back and forth if someone made a good point. Drew and Alicia wanted to stay until we were forced out. As for Kaitlyn and I, we abstained for the time being.
“Look, we are safe here for now. Why leave?” Alicia said. “What’s the rush?”
“We need to go as soon as possible, so we don’t get left behind,” Aaron said, the most fervent proponent for leaving tonight.
“Left behind?” Drew asked.
“Right now the government is acting. Organizing. FEMA has set up these, so called, camps. What if they decide to move? Or set up people in temporary housing? I don’t believe for one second these evacuation areas are as bad as Blake makes them out to be. We need to be there when they decide where we need to go.”
“That’s great and all, but once we are there, we are in their hands, at their discretion. Our freedom will not be our own,” I said.
“Freedom?” Aaron asked. “What freedom?” He took a step toward me. “You call locking ourselves in these homes, hoping the radiation isn’t that bad. Sitting on our asses, until you decide when we can leave. What’s the difference?”
“You can go at any time, no one is forcing you to be here.”
“You would like that wouldn’t you?” Now he stepped right into my personal space. I could smell his breath, which was poignant with the clam chowder he must’ve had for dinner. I didn’t say anything. Just kept eye contact. His fist clenched. Zero and Ethan approached on either side of us as if they could see what was coming.
“I know you were trying to fuck my girl, at your party,” he said.
Jenna grabbed Aaron by the arm, “Aaron!” she said. He pulled away with a brisk movement, that left Jenna grasping air.
“Your girl? You don’t own her,” I said.
“It’s never gonna happen,” Aaron said. “You can act all nice and friendly. Have us all over here at your piece of shit home. But, I know your type. You never wanted us here. Any of us. Ethan told me you had to be forced into having your party. You probably would’ve been happier if we never showed up here.”
It came like a beam of inspiration. Or desperation. I was not even aware it was happening. My right fist flew from my side in a flash, connecting right w
here the jaw curves up to the ear on Aaron’s arrogant face. There was a loud pop heard. He staggered backward instantly, while also raising his right hand to swing at me, as he grabbed his jaw with his left. But, before he could swing, Zero grabbed his right arm and pulled him away from me. Ethan stepped in front of me and held me from going after Aaron any further. I don’t think I would’ve. Zero, eventually, wrestled Aaron down to the ground.
“Fucking cheap shot,” Aaron said. I think. I saw red, so my memory may not be accurate. The moment that seemed to enact in slow motion was over in two seconds.
Aaron got up, holding his jaw. Jenna was trying to help him up, but he just shoved her away. “I’m leaving, right now. Gonna grab my stuff and getting the fuck out of this lunatics house. You all should as well.”
I saw a look in Jenna’s eye, as she locked eyes with me, that screamed disappointment. Alicia was taking the kids away and into the master bedroom. Zero had a grin on his face. Drew was standing behind me. Ethan was looking at Aaron and then back at me.
“Well?” Aaron asked.
“Sorry, dude, I ain’t going anywhere without Blakey here,” Zero said. Aaron ignored him.
“If my family wants to stay. I stay,” Drew said from behind me.
Aaron looked at Ethan, who he seemed to have a close friendship with. “Ethan?” he asked, with hope.
“Nope. Staying here,” Ethan said. “I think Blake is right. If we do anything, we shouldn’t do it half-cocked, just cause we’re scared.”
At the word, scared, Aaron flinched. He was scared, as we all were, and it seemed he believed that going to the evacuation area was the solution to his fear. Most likely, fear of the unknown. The government was the known, and he could relax once he was someplace that told him what he needed to do. Someone in authority. Not someone whom he believed tried to fuck his girlfriend.
“Fine,” Aaron said. “Let’s get our stuff and get out of here.” He walked to the kitchen and was a few feet from the kitchen door when he noticed someone wasn’t following him. He turned around. “You coming?”
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