A PERMUTED PRESS book
Published at Smashwords
ISBN (trade paperback): 978-1-61868-2-574
ISBN (eBook): 978-1-61868-2-581
Sleepers 4 copyright © 2013
by Jacqueline Druga
All Rights Reserved.
Cover art by Dean Samed, Conzpiracy Digital Arts
This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental.
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author and publisher.
Table of Contents
1. Mera Stevens
2. Mera
3. Sonny
4. Mera
5. Sonny
6. Mera
7. Sonny
8. Mera
9. Sonny
10. Mera
11. Sonny
12. Mera
13. Sonny
14. Sonny
15. Mera
16. Sonny
17. Mera
18. Sonny
19. Mera
20. Mera
21. Sonny
22. Sonny
23. Mera
24. Sonny
25. Mera
26. Sonny
27. Mera
28. Sonny
29. Mera
30. Sonny
31. Mera
32. Mera
33. Sonny
34. Mera
35. Sonny
36. Mera
37. Sonny
38. Sonny
39. Mera
40. Mera
41. Sonny
Respite: a short period of rest or relief from something difficult or unpleasant.
1. MERA STEVENS
Recalling ….
There wasn’t a single part of my body that didn’t feel weighed down with grief. In my heart and in my mind, at any given second, I would wake up from the madness.
It wasn’t supposed to happen.
It was only the beginning of a new chapter in a life of loss.
Two years earlier, my life had come to a complete halt. I experienced a pain no person on Earth should ever face... the loss of my son. I wasn’t the only one. Billions of people felt what I felt, they witnessed what I witnessed.
The end of life as we knew it.
The day when every child on the face of the Earth died.
There was a sense of comfort that I wasn’t alone in my suffering then, alone in the deep loss that I felt.
That wasn’t the case now. I firmly believed with every ounce of my being that no one felt what I did. This loss was singular. The whole world didn’t lose at once. We did.
I did.
It crushed my soul instantaneously.
We had come so far, we had moved on from that tragic day. We now live in a world where the Sleepers dominate and we survive, trying to plan a future where we would eventually trump them.
That all crumbled in one day and we were back to square one, only this time without Alex Sans.
Oh, God, Alex, why?
Our group had made it to Grace eighteen months earlier, and there, like settlers, we started life again. Survivors joined us along with those who had escaped from the future. We built and lived behind solid walls, protected from the horrors of the world.
Insane as it sounded, the time travelers brought with them the ability to transport through time. Not many trips, but a couple.
We had lost Beck, a member of our group prior to arriving at Grace. Alex and I shared that secret.
No one knew he had died, because Alex brought him back. He changed things during a simple trip that was supposed to give me closure about Beck’s loss. It was just one of the many secrets we shared.
Losing Beck hurt, it hurt me and caused me anger.
I was angry that he left, when I had just learned to trust again.
Alex was there during that turmoil. He helped me through it, raising the kids, being a father, as annoying as he was. His irritation was probably one of the things I loved about Alex. He made me feel again. From the moment I met him, he found that part of me that was numb and pushed at it. Pushed at it one way or another to get me to feel.
Now he’s gone.
The loss of Alex cannot be measured. I wasn’t supposed to hurt like this again.
What makes it worse is he died because he saved my daughter, Jessie. His sacrifice for her was out of love. I will never forget it.
I will never be the same.
2. MERA
“It’s time to go, Mera,” Beck said softly as his shadow cast over me. I sat on the porch of the Survival Haven. It was Alex’s home and dream business. The place where we first met him, and the place we buried him. He wanted to see his home one more time.
Ironically, the new so-called sanctuary Sonny had found was a mere twenty miles away. I could return at any time.
There I sat on that porch, knowing I could come back to get a bit of Alex, clutching memorabilia of his life in my arms, things I took from his home, and I couldn’t move.
“Come on.” Beck held out his hands.
I was frozen in my grief, still trying to comprehend it. Alex had only been gone a couple of hours. If I left there I was leaving him; I couldn’t leave him. Alex would never leave me or anyone.
Beck was a huge man, it wouldn’t cause a blink for him to lift me and carry me to the truck. After all, he’d carried Alex in his arms.
Cigar box full of pictures on my lap, my head fell forward.
“Baby,” Beck crouched before me. “I want to tell you it will be alright. I want to tell you that. But all I can say is I’m here, and the kids need you. I’ll bring you back whenever you want. We need to go now.”
He braced his arm around me and guided me to stand. I leaned on him as we walked.
Sonny stood by the truck; he was still covered in the dirt from burying Alex. Sadness exuded from him. How could it not?
We got in the truck and began to drive, back to the Indian River Correction Facility. Our new home.
All three of us were quiet. No one felt like talking. Laying my hand over Beck’s, I glanced back just one more time and watched that chapter, the chapter of the Survival Haven, get smaller and smaller as we drove down the road. I watched until I couldn’t see it any longer.
Then I closed my eyes and a single tear rolled down my cheek.
* * *
It didn’t take long to get from Alex’s Survival Haven back to Indian River Correction facility. Sonny said he knew it well because as a youth he’d spent time there. I didn’t really look at it the first time we rolled in. I was too consumed with Alex and Jessie.
On the way back, Sonny told us. “I know you didn’t see it, but keep in mind, me and Miles only just got here. We did as best a clean up as we could.”
“I’m sure it’s fine,” Beck said.
“It needs work, Beck, a lot of work if we’re gonna house over a hundred people. We pretty much did a quick dust and body removal. Miles felt at home, being how he ran that prison in Washington.”
“Well you have hands now. You were right, we needed a place and you found one,” Beck said.
“It’s big enough. We need to really open sections, clean it, stock it. But it’s safe. Especially if we reinforce the fences.”
I stared down at the box and spoke softly, “Get enough Sleepers, fences won’t make a difference. Twelve foot high walls didn’t.”
“I thought about that,” Sonny said, “not the walls. But what if we dig a huge, deep trench around the perimeter of the property?”
“You mean they ju
st fall in?” Beck asked.
“Yeah. Make it deep enough, dangerous enough, they can’t get out.”
“Got an idea how?”
“Miles and I spotted heavy equipment.”
“Who knows?” Beck said. “Maybe we won’t need them. Maybe the Sleepers on this side of the divide all died.”
I huffed.
Sonny said, “The ones we found had died of starvation.”
I shook my head. “As if only the resourceful ones were on the West side of the country? The Eastern Sleepers couldn’t find victims to eat? Hardly.”
“Mera,” Beck said firmly, “we just saying. I mean, Randy did call it a free—”
“Randy’s dead.”
Beck took a breath. “Didn’t you say Alex told you—”
“Alex,” I interrupted, “is gone and can we please—please,” I said with a snap as my hand slammed down to the cigar case, “just stop? Can we not start planning as if nothing happened?”
The truck stopped and I saw we had reached the gate. Miles opened it and we pulled through. I finally got a good look. It was everything one would imagine finding in a dead world. It was nothing like we had become accustomed to. Grace was beautiful; this place was… rotten.
“We have to live here? It’s gonna be cold. We have kids. There’s no heat there, no electricity…”
Sonny reached over to my hand. “Mera, I worked my whole life for the electric company. If I can’t get the power back, no one can.”
“I’m sure. Open the door, Beck.”
“Mera.”
“Open the goddamn door, Beck!” I blasted. He did and slipped out.
“Mera, will you stop?” Beck said as I climbed out after him.
“No, you stop. I’m getting my kids and the babies and we’re going to Alex’s place.”
“It’s not safe.”
“How do you know?” I asked coldly. “Weren’t you the one saying maybe the Sleepers all died? No, wait that was him.” I pointed to Sonny.
Sonny folded his arms and lowered his head.
“Listen to me,” Beck said firmly, stepping toward me. “Sonny found this place. We will all live here. This is the option, this is the safe plan. We need to start getting things ready and the sooner we do so—”
“There it is again.”
Beck tossed out his hands.
“You just put Alex in the ground as if burying him was the bell to start over, let’s move on as if he never died. I expect that from you. Not from Sonny.”
As I spun to walk away, Beck grabbed hold of my arm. “Mera, I know you hurt, I know you’re grieving.”
“Grieving?” I laughed derisively. “Beck, I’m not even in the grieving stage yet. It’s too early. I’m crushed. I am totally crushed. I can’t think, I don’t know how to act.” I looked at Beck. There was a sense of calm on his face as he listened to me. “I lost him. He was with me every single day when you were gone. I’m... I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I don’t mean to lash out.”
“It’s alright.” He stepped to me and took me in his arms. “We did slip into that mode, and we shouldn’t have. I just want to make sure all of you are taken care of and safe, and you know that’s what Alex would have wanted. But listen to me,” he pulled back and made meaningful eye contact with me, “Alex also would want you to take care of Jessie. She needs you and so do those babies.”
“I’d say Danny too,” Sonny added, “but he won’t let you know that. He is the one person, Mera, who will use his grief as a tool to stay busy.”
Beck told me, “They all need you. And you take all the time you need. We’ll handle this our own way. It is not going to be easy.”
“It wasn’t when you died.”
“I’m … I’m sorry?” Beck asked.
“I mean when you were gone,” I corrected myself. “But Alex had a way of taking our minds off of things.”
“Then when things get tough, think about what Alex would do or say,” Beck said. “Like now, what would he say to you?”
I shook my head.
“Come on, you knew him. What would he say?”
I honestly couldn’t think. Again, I shook my head.
“I know,” Sonny interjected. “He’d say ….” Sonny tilted his head, squinted one eye and took on that hick style manner of speaking that Alex always had, “Jeez, Mera, come on. While I appreciate the hero worship, and well, it’s rightfully deserved, don’t you think you’re being a little tough on Beck?”
“And I would say, ‘no’.”
“And he would say …” Again, Sonny did his best Alex impression, “Okay, fine, maybe not. Maybe you just need to have a drink.”
“It’s too early for a drink,” I replied.
And then just as Sonny said it, I did too. Together, the stock Alex reply. “When is it ever too early for you to have a drink?”
I lowered my head with the realization that Sonny had spent as much time with Alex as I did and knew him so well, his imitation left me breathless.
“Thank you,” I whispered and hugged Sonny.
“We’ll get through this. As hard as it will be, we will get through this.”
“One step at a time.” I stepped back.
“How about we let that one step be into our new home?” Sonny asked.
Then Beck said, “It may not be what we want right now, but more than electricity and heat, it has something else inside that’s valuable. Everyone we love. And isn’t that what this is all about?”
Beck was right. Sonny was right.
I reached out, took Beck’s hand, and took that first step.
3. SONNY
Mera’s words to Beck were stinging. But unfortunately, I saw her point. Beck hadn’t been around; he was at the ARC all that time. He didn’t know Alex like we did. He didn’t see all that Alex did, good, bad and ugly.
Who am I to say how deeply one person should be hurt merely because of time spent with a person? Mera spoke out of grief. People grieve differently, there is no right or wrong.
The fact remained that no matter how much I loved Alex, he was gone and he would not for a second want me to stop getting our new camp ready.
It was a mess when we found it. A complete and utter mess. Miles and I did what we could to make it okay for the first group, but it was not anywhere ready for when the tractor trailer arrived.
Despite Mera’s disagreement, there was an impromptu chat between Miles, Beck, Danny and myself. It happened almost immediately. I was on the mark with Danny’s mood, because as soon as Mera walked toward the building, he came to me.
“What’s the plan, Sonny? I need to stay busy. Tell me where to start.”
I thought immediately, security, because that was what Danny had been trained for by Alex. We needed hands on to get the place ready, but I needed eyes on the horizon.
There was a small security tower on the property. Nothing much, and nothing like they showed on television or movies, but it was enough for Danny to perch and watch.
He didn’t want to do that, not yet, he said.
“That’s too much quiet,” Danny told me. “Too much time to think and … miss Alex.”
“I understand,” Miles said, bracing Danny’s shoulder. “I’ll take the watch.”
Most of the children of Grace had arrived on the bus, and the adults would arrive with Michael. We were limited on what we could do until they arrived.
We had to get the place livable, consider a food supply for the upcoming winter, and I had to work on power. None of us knew heavy equipment, so I was hoping for a backhoe person on that tractor trailer, although I did like Danny’s idea of a drawbridge. All of which would take time, but time was something we didn’t have.
Truth remained, we lived in a dangerous world. I was a ‘now’ person. Typically, I didn’t think about the big picture future, I thought about our future and survival.
Despite the fact that we hadn’t run into any dangerous Sleepers since crossing the Great Divide, it didn’t mean they weren’t there
on the East side or weren’t coming from the West. I had to think worst case scenario. Even in her sarcastic, grief-stricken state, Mera brought up a valid point. They couldn’t have all starved.
If I was good at one thing in school, it was geography. We were on the East of the Mississippi. Twenty-six states were packed in roughly one-third of the Continental United States landmass. Yet that one third had sixty percent of the population. Most of the people were on the Eastern half of the Great Divide, which meant more Sleeper population. When they arrived, they would arrive in bigger numbers.
Sleepers were driven. The followed something, we knew that.
It weighed heavily on me.
Not only did the heartache of losing my friend stay with me, so did those words he whispered in my ear. Those final last words. With that on my mind, I sought out Levi, our future doctor slash scientist.
After a game of Where’s Waldo, “I saw him there”, “no I saw him there”, I found Levi where I should have looked in the first place. He was in building three, the place that held the former infirmary.
Miles and I hadn’t touched that building, and our lack of efforts were evident by the pile of bones and leather-like remains outside the infirmary doors.
I walked in and Levi was moving yet another body with a broom.
“I’m sorry. I’ll help you out later,” I said.
“No, no. This keeps me busy and my mind off of …” he took a deep breath, then shook his head, “Alex.” After a pause, and staring down to the broom, he looked up. “You’ve done well finding this place, Sonny.”
“Thank you. I spent time here as a youth.”
“Then it taught you well, no matter what your crime. Did you know that Beck’s infant son shared the same name as me?”
“No, I didn’t know that.”
“Yes, his son’s name was Levi as well. I wonder if he, too, was named after the Jewish designer.”
“I’m sorry?”
“History tells of a great Jewish designer. Judaism was a religion at one time.”
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