The State

by G. Allen Mercer

  “I’m sorry,” she said, squeezing her husband’s shoulder.

  He responded by applying a similar squeeze to his wife’s hand and then stood up. It was time to get back to work. “Did the supplies arrive?”

  “Yes, part of them, at least. The Colonel said the supply trucks were ambushed, and there were no soldiers, just the two drivers.”

  “What? That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “The first driver made it through.”

  “And the second?”

  “They shot him and took the truck,” she said, her voice filled with concern at the negative side in human behavior that had become the norm. “He’s here,” Tabby said, waiving the Colonel over to the side of Nicholas’ bed.

  “Did we lose him?” asked Colonel Horn, the acting commander of the Georgia National Guard.

  Seth took a deep breath before answering. He had watched hundreds of deaths in the last five days, but this little one seemed to be the hardest yet.

  “We did.”

  Horn nodded, and then looked down at the covered boy. “You know we need the cot, right?”

  Dr. Seth Cadet nodded that he knew they needed the cot.

  “We also need supplies, water, more medical professionals, and…”

  Horn held up his hand to silence his lead doctor. “I got it doc, but you two, and the three nurses are all that we have right this moment. We only got one of the two supply trucks in from the depot. And…”

  “I heard. Will you try again?”

  “Not right now, if anything, we will be relocating and moving further out.”

  “You mean Birmingham, like we discussed?” Tabby broke in. “That’s what we talked about at the beginning of…”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Horn said, his lips pursed together.

  “Birmingham is behind the line, we can’t go there just yet. I’ve ordered the state’s western forces to concentrate what is left of the civilian population to Carrollton,” the said, revealing his intentions to leave the area.

  “What about Fort Benning in Columbus, that’s…”

  “That was gassed on the day of the attack,” the Colonel said, shutting down the question and bringing hard reality to the war that was happening around them. “It’s also too close to the enemy line.”

  “Carrollton is closer than we are now,” Seth argued.

  The Colonel nodded agreement, and then looked at his watch. He had given enough time to his doctors and needed to move to the next item to accomplish today. “We are just staging there, and then we will begin a massive evacuation to Savannah. Savannah is out of the way of the war, and…”

  “To Savannah?” Tabby was incredulous. “We’re talking about moving tens or thousands of people during the summer. They are wounded or orphaned, and…and I need to go the other way…my daughter is…”

  “Yes ma’am,” Horn said, tossing his hand up in the air. He wasn’t used to people interrupting him, but he needed these two doctors, so he put up with it. “Doctor, we have a number of trucks that are headed this way from the 1st Cav in Savannah. They are going to take us,” he said, ignoring her plea for Birmingham. “I hope to get you some more supplies soon, and also, Raven will be working with you starting today, so if you can keep an eye on her, I’d appreciate it,” he said, and turned, leaving before either doctor could respond.

  Both doctors sat down on the first empty cot available. They were tired, and the news that their supplies had been cut short and that they were being ordered in the opposite direction of their daughter was almost too much to process. Tabby put her head on her husband’s shoulder. He could hear the sobbing and knew that all he could do was hold her.

  As Seth stroked her hair, he watched the skeleton crew of medical people do what they could with what they had. He closed his eyes for a second to clear his head, and to reflect on their situation. The last five days had been grueling. There were pieces of time that he wished he could erase. But even erased time is still time that is experienced…it’s never truly gone.

  < >

  Five days earlier, Tabby could not rip her eyes off of the scene in front of her. A mushroom cloud rose to the heavens above what used to be Atlanta. The red rays of the setting sun painted the scene with orange and red brushstrokes, cast against the dense blue sky of God’s ocean.

  “Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God!” she repeated several times before she heard the faint sound of the girl crying for help. It was that girl’s voice that flipped the switch in Tabby.

  Tabby stood, using the rough cinderblock walls of the building to support her weight. She was a doctor. She was a cardiothoracic surgeon. She saved people. Not only did she save people, but she also worked on some of the most difficult cases involving the very essence of people…their heart. Tabby was the commander of her operating room, her practice, her research and, and, and her family.

  Her knees shook again.

  “Oh God, Anna!” Tabby turned her gaze away from the evil of destruction and looked to the orange glow of the setting sun. Her daughter was that way. Anna was in Birmingham.

  I need to get to her.

  “Please help! It’s burning me! Help me! Please!”

  The girl’s voice cut through Tabby’s mind fog like a lighthouse. Tabby turned away from the setting sun and looked at the crater that the pick up truck had created in the side of the building. She rushed through the opening and nearly tripped on the lifeless body of a woman.

  She was the lady in front of us in line. Damn.

  Tabby bent down and touched the side of her neck, feeling for the signs of any life. Seth held the door for the lady when they entered the store, and the lady had taken the sunny table by the glass that Tabby wanted. The decision had cost the woman her life, and had quite possibly saved theirs. There was no pulse, and Tabby moved on feeling that this would not be the last dead person that she was to encounter.

  “Where are you?” Tabby yelled. She saw several more body parts strewn around the rubble and knew that the torsos that they belonged to had passed on. She needed to concentrate on the living.

  “Here! I’m here!” a female voice answered.

  “I’m stuck in the john!” the familiar voice of her husband answered from a muffled place further away.

  Tabby stopped, looking at the truck and how it was positioned. As a surgeon, everything has a place and a function. The things that do not have a place and a function, like tumors and clots, don’t belong.

  “Okay, I hear your both,” she yelled. “Seth, can you hold on for a moment?” she asked her husband. He paused a second before answering, but knew what she was thinking. She was calculating her risks based on what she could do in the time she had. In essence, what did she need to tend to the quickest?

  “Yes! Help the girl first, and then help me,” he answered as the woman’s husband, and fellow surgeon.

  “Okay! Alright, where are you?” Tabby slowly climbed on the rubble of the truck and found herself looking down at the overturned pastry cooler.

  “I’m,” the girl paused to think about a logical answer. “I’m under the coffee shelf, and it is leaking on me. The truck’s bumper has my neck pinned to the cabinet door and the coffee is leaking down onto my leg. Please help!”

  Tabby looked past the rubble and the end of the truck and found the coffee urns on their side. She gently walked along the rubble, careful not to trip or move the stones. That is when she saw the black hair of the girl. The bumper of the truck was pressed under her chin and there was nothing but a fraction of an inch keeping her from the weight of the truck pressing into her neck and crushing her esophagus.

  Tabby looked back at the steps she had taken; nothing had shifted on her way in, but now she was faced with stepping on the bed of the truck, or over the pastry cooler. With the gentleness of a preschool teacher she began to talk to the girl.

  “What’s your name?”

  The girl tried to rotate her eyes to see Tabby above and to her right, but couldn’t do it.

&n
bsp; “Raven,” she said flatly.

  “Okay, Raven, my name is Tabby, and I’m going to help you get out of here.”

  “Okay,” Raven said. “Was it a tornado or something?” the girl asked out of the blue.

  In Tabby’s career, she had had two patients wake up during procedures. She considered this type of question one she would get from someone that had woken up. She had told both patients that they were dreaming as they were put back to sleep. In essence she had lied to keep them calm. She needed to do the same thing here.

  “I think so,” she said, following through with her logic.

  “Wow!”

  “Yea, right!” Tabby eased close enough to put her hand on the girl’s head. The girl flinched, but then began to cry. “Hey, don’t cry, we’re going to get you out of this.”

  “Okay,” the girl agreed. Her head tried to nod, but the bumper prevented any real movement.

  “Alright, I need you to remain still and as calm as you can. Okay?”

  “Yea, but the coffee is burning me,” she said, casting her eyes to her left.

  Tabby looked over at the large coffee basin. It had tipped and was slowly leaking very hot liquid on the girl.

  “Okay, hold still,” Tabby said, as she reached over to shove the coffee out of the way. The large barrel shaped vessel toppled over in the opposite direction and away from Raven.

  “Oh God, thank you!”

  “You’re welcome. Okay, now let’s get you out from behind this truck.” She looked at what was supporting the girl and the truck. She was stumped at how a 165-pound woman was supposed to move a two-ton truck off a girl. “Seth!”

  “Yeah!”

  She described the situation to her husband, who happened to be very visually oriented with description. It also helped that they had been married for over 25 years, and knew how to communicate effectively with each other.

  “So, she is pinned with her back against a cabinet?”

  Tabby looked down again just to confirm her answer. “Yes.”

  “Can you get into the cabinet? I mean behind her?”

  “Son of a bitch! You’re right, Seth! I can get behind her and remove the door!”

  “Yep! Now, the hinges are probably Phillips head, so you will need that type of screwdriver. We have one in the trunk of our car, but I have the keys.”

  “Seth, our Mercedes is not even in the parking lot anymore,” she said flatly.

  “Oh.”

  “We have a tool kit in the supply room,” Raven offered.

  “Okay, great, I’ll be right back.”

  “WAIT! DON’T LEAVE ME!”

  Tabby put her hand on the girl’s head. “I’m not, I’m just getting the tools to get you out. My husband, the guy you can hear, will be with us both. Okay?”

  The girl exhaled as best as she could and then agreed. Tabby took off on the path she had taken to get to the supply room.

  “Raven!” Seth yelled, once he knew that Tabby had left her alone.

  “I’m here.”

  “How old are you?”

  “I’m 18.”

  Seth smiled at the incredible coincidences of small miracles. He actually felt a tear well up and fall from his eye in his dark confines.

  “Really? My daughter is also 18. She’s about to graduate from high school next week.”

  There was no response at first, but after a second or two, the girl engaged her second rescuer.

  “What school does she go to, I might know her?”

  “We live in Birmingham, we were just driving back from Atlanta.”

  “Yea, so I wouldn’t know her.”

  “I just need a minute!” Tabby yelled from somewhere deep in the supply room.

  Raven continued talking to Seth. “What’s her name? Your daughter, I mean.”

  “Anna,” his voice was a whisper at first, and then he cleared his throat. “Her name is Anna, and she wants to be a doctor like her mother and I.”

  Tabby was in the supply closet when she heard the response and a tear welled up in her eyes as she fought to find the tool kit in the declining darkness. Once she put her hands on it, she also found the store’s medical kit.

  Raven sensed the woman enter the front of the store.

  “Tabby, is that you?”

  “Yes, Raven, I have the screwdriver and some medical supplies,” Tabby said, careful to use the same entry and exit points in every step that she took.

  “Do you think this will work?” Raven asked.

  Tabby gently opened the adjoining cabinet door and began removing items from inside as she answered.

  “Yes, I think it will. Wait,” she stopped and tilted her head towards the opening of the building. “What’s that noise?”

  Raven sat still for a second and then said something that caught the surgeon off guard.

  “I think it’s my dad, he’s got a big diesel Humvee, and it sounds like that.”

  “Your dad drives a Humvee?”

  “Yeah, he’s in charge of part of the Georgia National Guard.”

  CHAPTER 6

  The Tiller Farm

  Grace and Joshua walked a guard duty route on the farm. They circled the house, the vehicles and along the fence line, taking about 30 minutes to make the sweep. Satisfied that the grounds were clear, they made their way towards the stable. The horses were turned out to the pasture, so the stable was quiet. The night sky was open, the moon was bright and the stars, outside of the moon’s glow, were on full display. There was a nip in the air and Grace found herself wishing she had added her mother’s extra long sleeve wicking shirt before donning her mother’s bulletproof vest.

  “Are you cold?” Joshua asked. He saw her shiver one time before shaking it off.

  “No, I’m fine,” she answered, but obviously, Joshua wasn’t going to take ‘no’ for an answer.

  “Here,” he said, taking his windbreaker off and putting it around her shoulders. He didn’t have a bulletproof vest; that was one prep that his father had yet to afford.

  “Thanks,” she said, accepting the gesture with no further objection. The jacket held his warmth and she could smell his scent when she pulled it tight.

  “So, you don’t seem as angry or frustrated as you were in the bunker,” Joshua treaded lightly. “Is everything clear now after talking with your dad?”

  Grace walked into the stable, where the crunch of the gravel under her boots gave way to the hardness of concrete. The smells changed, as did the humidity. She liked the stable, even when the horses weren’t in it.

  Joshua lit a small lantern, casting a low light on the ground. He was sure that it could not be seen from outside of the stable.

  “Joshua,” she said, turning around. “I need to confide in you, but I need you to keep this completely between us. Do you promise?”

  “I promise,” he said, looking where her eyes were supposed to be. But the light was not pointing in the right direction and he could only see shadows instead of blue eyes.

  Grace hesitated at first, and then accepted his promise. “Okay,” she said, turning around from his stare, and reaching into the bag where the horses sugar cubes were kept. She pulled a small white cube out and rolled it through her fingers. Her mind was racing. She didn’t know how to tell Joshua that her parents were spies for the CIA. Is that really important now?

  “What made you ask my dad about Senator Payne?” she asked instead. Her mind was made up, she would tell Joshua about the CIA later.

  Joshua raised an eyebrow at the question; he had expected a different subject. “He’s the reason,” he said simply.

  “What does that mean?”

  “Well, while you were out talking with your parents earlier today, my dad and I were talking about Senator Payne. You probably don’t know, but my dad’s is an IT guy with the state. It’s his office that does all of the cyber security for the state. All that stuff your father mentioned about the shipping ports and cyber attacks,” he waited.

  “Yeah?”

&nb
sp; “My dad was living that,” Joshua divulged. “He told me there were massive firewall hits against the state’s computers. Especially against the ones that control the state’s shipping ports.”

  “So, you think that it’s linked to the invasion?”

  “Has to be. That’s why they’re breezing through our ports now. ”

  “And you think Senator Payne organized this?”

  “All arrows point to him, especially with what Ian just said,” Joshua had been thinking about this ever since they heard the broadcast from Payne. “This guy was the keystone, he had to be. I mean, he’s the one broadcasting to us; he’s the face of the bad guys. Also, your dad said he’s the Chairman of the Intelligence Committee,” Joshua said, really white boarding his ideas out loud. “Remember, it was the Intelligence Committee that had that cyber hack last year, and then our shipping ports last week! This thing started near the top, Grace. It had to!”

  Both teenagers stood quietly in the stables, mulling over their thoughts.

  “So, Senator Payne?” Graced asked again.

  “Yeah, Senator Payne,” Joshua repeated. “The guy’s a snake.”

  “Obviously! He’s working with the Chinese. He might as well have pushed the button on the nukes himself and opened the shipping ports for them to land their invasion force,” Grace surmised.

  “So, if we were to take down Senator Payne, we could really strike back for the good guys. Couldn’t we?” Joshua asked, not really expecting an answer.

  “So, how do we do that?” Grace asked.

  CHAPTER 7

  The Hill Above the Tiller Farm