by J. S. Carter
Isabel forced another breath and brought her papers up. “Hayes already took every bus that we have, but I ran the numbers. For every group that they come back for, they have to use at least three times as much gas. Even if we measured everything wrong—even if they were carrying extra tanks that we didn't know about—it's physically impossible for them to be carrying enough fuel to bring everyone back. There's not a chance we're gonna get left behind. It's going to happen. They can't come back for us.” She dropped her arms and gave up to the realization. “She lied.”
Nobody said anything for a moment. I didn't even believe it, myself. “Where is she?”
Isabel shook her head, the point already mute. “Gone. The first group just left.”
Jeremy edged towards the entrance and shirked away from Olivia's grasp when she reached out for him.
“Where are you going?”
“I have to talk to her.” He walked out without bothering to add anything else and Olivia made way to follow only after prompting me to stay put.
“Stay here, Tess”
I took one look at Isabel and felt bad for having already made up my mind. There was no way in hell I wasn't following them. I stepped outside to get a face full of sun and squinted past a dwindling Tent City that was quickly turning into spotty rows of half packed down tents. I managed to spot a ray of light bounce off of what had to be one of Olivia's swords and watched it bob out of sight.
I walked into the correct tent soon after, surprised to see Badger and his men look up from equipping combat vests full of gear and even more so to see Jeremy force his way into the middle of the group and start rummaging through their supplies.
“Oi. Can I help you, mate?”
Olivia tried to pull Jeremy away, but she was too late.
Jeremy got a hold of a portable radio and started transmitting only to get a sharp squeal of feedback more piercing than the point of a knife pressed against my eardrums.
She quickly swiped it back and I took my hands off my head to hear constant static until it stopped with a sudden click. She had turned the radio off and stared Jeremy down, her words soft yet direct. “You can't reach her.”
I watched him take heavy breathes and I couldn't help but feel bad for him. I had never seen him look so helpless before. He pointed at the walkie talkie, or more specifically, the unnatural sound that had managed to come out of it.
“What the hell was that?”
The closest man to him spoke for the rest. “Radio blackout. It's been like that for weeks.”
“Bullshit,” said Jeremy. “We just tried it a few—”
“We know,” Olivia cut him off. “But it's getting worse, whatever it is. As far as anyone else is concerned, there's a black hole above the middle of the continental United States and there's nothing coming in or out. Brass set up an NFZ as soon as they could.”
NFZ?
Jeremy glanced around and another one gave him the answer.
“No Fly Zone.”
No planes...
So that was why it had been so quiet. And it explained why Hayes had to do her job on foot.
Olivia handed Jeremy the radio back, and he only looked down at it as if it had killed his dog and kept the truth hidden. “This doesn't change anything, Jeremy, and you know that. If Hayes is gone, then we're alone.” She waited a moment, and the shouting of random strangers outside only reinforced her next point. “I'm invoking martial law. I need your men to get ready. Have everyone else start moving on foot as soon as possible.”
He didn't budge. I wanted nothing more than to give him a hug.
“Sheriff...”
He finally glanced up at that, though I could tell he would still have a hard time accepting the truth.
“The plan stays the same, but I'm in charge. Is that gonna be a problem?”
He thought about it for a moment, the air tense and finally unraveling as he answered. “No—sir.” He handed off the radio and walked right through me like a ghost, as defeated as can be.
Badger spoke up as soon as he left. “Did we miss anything?”
“No,” Olivia sighed. “We're Oscar Mike in ten.”
“Yes, 'mam.”
Olivia turned around and stopped as soon as she saw me. I had known the truth of the new world thanks to her, though watching Jeremy come across the revelations for himself reopened old wounds, except that now I knew better. With the knowledge of everything that was going on—the lack of communication, the hate, all the death—I could only feel that Knox had to be behind it somehow. The idea permeated my gut. Emma might have been devious enough to think further ahead than the rest of us, but was she really that powerful? Could a Paranormal that was supposed to be dead be responsible for so much?
Olivia must have gone through the same reasoning before. I couldn't think of a better reason why she would want others to hear my testimony. I knew that she would be more than up for the task of being in charge. It was what I had wanted, though the circumstances leading up to it could have been better. I was sure nobody wanted to lead a group when the odds were increasingly being stacked against them, even a Knight such as herself.
I couldn't help but blame Hayes. “Why'd she do it?” Why hadn't she just moved the rendezvous a few miles closer? Why was she leaving us behind?
Why'd she lie to all of us?
I could see a faint ripple of tension pass through Olivia at the thought of an answer, but it ended there. She kept her own anger hidden pretty damn well.
“I don't know.” She walked past me just like Jeremy had and left me alone to gaze at the special operators as they prepped their equipment in silence.
I absentmindedly turned to follow until something caught my eye. I wandered towards the side of the tent and didn't notice I had been inside of a makeshift staging area until I practically tripped over a row of rifles leaning up against metal tins filled with bullets. One color especially stuck out among the rest. I grabbed a hold of Zach's familiar M4 assault rifle, the now faded blue ribbon still tied around the butt stock, and wondered what the odds were of me finding it in a literal city made up of identical tents after someone had found it in Arrino. Then again, the odds of our survival in light of our new situation were probably just as small.
I held the length of the rifle out in front of me and pulled the charging handle back to gauge the health of the resistance as my past mentors had taught me when I spotted something that I shouldn't have: blood—small, dry spatters on the receiver that led all the way down to the magazine-well. I froze at the sight, yet immediately all of my unforgiving reservations boiled away in an instant. To hell with thinking ahead; I wasn't going to just let people I gave a damn about get hurt without a fight.
Not again.
I slung the gun over my shoulder and reached into a pile to pull out a drop-leg magazine pouch that would suit me much better than a full vest any day; I wouldn't have known what to do with all that space. Instead, I hung the small piece of tac-gear from a loop around my belt and kept it in place by tightening the accompanying straps around my thigh. Satisfied with the little amount of play it gave away with a good tug, I moved on to filling empty magazines one bullet at a time, not caring to remember how difficult the process was while my thumb strained against the strength of a simple spring.
Badger must have noticed after I was well off into the process. “Hey, kid... you know what you're doing?”
I didn't bother saying anything, rather opting to slam a full magazine into my gun and run the handle back to give it a full, hearty smack that loaded the first bullet into the chamber at the front of the barrel, ready to fire at the push of a finger.
He came by soon after and kept his voice low, but for whose benefit I wasn't sure. He scratched his neck. “Listen... you know you don't have to do this, right?”
I stopped mid-load, a bullet in-between my fingertips, and I suddenly got angry. Of course I knew. In fact, it was one of the few things in my life at the time that I was still able to act on. Hayes
fucking the rest of us over, Knox putting in motion whatever the hell she was trying to do—those events I could only react to, but everything else I could still try to make a difference in advance when it mattered most.
I looked up at Badger and only saw the spitting image of the soldiers that I had seen in movies, though all I could think about was the one that mattered most to me at the moment. “Chris tried to teach me how to kill.” The words had come out louder than I had been expecting and I knew that the rest of his men would be listening. I thought back to how he had instructed me how and when to kill, but it didn't dawn on me until now that I finally came up with an answer to the most important question of why. It made me sad to think that he had to die and set an example first for me to realize it. “He saved my life...”
I let my eyes glaze over. I was done talking. I got back to work packing another magazine and was surprised to see Badger reach into my tin and help me along. His men eventually followed suit and I took a second to watch them all grab the small cases of metal and fill them with bullets. They didn't even say anything. I was betting if it was even possible for me to win their approval, that was probably the closest I was ever going to get to it.
I heard some voices and glanced around the tent to see that others had joined in on getting ready while I had been preoccupied, even Isabel.
She stuck her head through the strap of a rifle and struggled to get it to rest comfortably on her neck and I immediately recognized the discomfort. I had been fortunate enough to have dealt with it before. A phantom pain met my hand as I rolled it against my shoulder. As reluctant as I was to talk to her, I knew that she would need to be able to focus just as much as anyone else.
I thanked the boys in front of me and stuffed the fresh magazines into the pouch on my leg before improvising and grabbing a bandana from nearby. I walked up to Isabel with a silent stare until she looked over at me. “You're still going...” It was a simple observation, though I had not meant it to come out as an insult.
She blinked the tone away and shrugged, the strap still tugging on a soft patch of pink. “It was my idea, anyway.”
I hadn't known. I let that sink in and wondered what else Hayes had lied about. And what could she have possibly gained from it? I put the thought aside when Isabel didn't say anything else and I gestured towards her rifle sling and problem area with the bandana in hand. “It's better if you have something under it, that way the strap isn't always riding on your neck.”
She merely eyed the piece of green cotton as if it would attack her, so I motioned to offer putting it on for her. She nodded after a moment and I got close enough to reach my arms around her neck and tie a loose knot. “You probably think I'm crazy, huh?”
I glanced up to see a genuine frown along with red, puffy eyes. “No.” I refocused on the task at hand only because I didn't know what else to say. The sun had just risen, yet I felt like I was already out of my social interaction playing cards for the day. Isabel was obviously smart and productive. I was pretty sure the only reason I had not been upset as her upon the revelation of Hayes' bullshit was because I had been expecting someone to try and take advantage of me again. I still wasn't sure if that was good yet.
I finished my work and took a step back to see her test the padding with the weight of her gun.
“Thanks.” She seemed to hesitate for a moment, and I couldn't help but kick myself for not running away when I had the chance. “I'm sorry about earlier—I mean, the whole snogging thing... I didn't know you and Jer—”
“We're not.” I awkwardly checked around like a little girl to see if anyone had overheard. I wasn't sure how to explain the situation. I had never found myself in one like it before. The desire I had felt for him had sprung into existence nearly as fast as it had dissipated. I would be surprised if it didn't resurface again, though the idea of sucking face and then some in light of the threat of burning to death was getting easier to ignore by the minute. I cleared my throat. “It's complicated, I guess.”
“But it's not just him, is it?”
I drew a blank. I really had no idea where she was going with that.
She seemed a little embarrassed to continue, but fought through it and leaned in closer, her voice drying off towards the end in expectation of me to finish the thought. “You know... With everything that you did in Arrino...”
Still nothing.
“Come on, I've heard the rumors. I bet half the guys 'round here would probably kill for you in heartbeat if you asked 'em to. What'd you do to earn their respect like that?”
Oh boy...
To tell the truth or not to tell the truth? I still had no recollection of witnessing anything Isabel was describing, though I supposed it couldn't have been impossible that someone had seen the consequences of my actions and had somehow pieced the puzzle together. I gazed at her and could feel the words sit on the tip of my tongue.
I got their friends killed and I took it out on a pedophile by cutting off his fingers.
I shrugged. “No idea.”
She squinted at that, but didn't get any time to question it as Badger addressed us all at the front of the tent.
“Alright, folks, clock's ticking. Last chance to turn back now—no harm, no foul.” He looked at each one of us in turn for a second, ending with me, though nobody spoke up. “Well look at the lot of you goddamn tough mother fuckers. Let’s get this shit on the road.”
I followed the group outside and towards the beat down pickup truck that we would be using to get the Maryville. It was one of the last vehicles left in Tent City until the buses could pick up the next group of people. Jeremy and Olivia were already beside it, packing boxes of MRE's into the back. I joined them without saying a word and could see Jeremy stop to stare at me out of the corner of my eye.
“Tess, what are you doing?”
I didn't bother stopping or even look to give him an answer. “What do you think?”
I grabbed another box and was surprised to feel a hand against my arm as he turned me around and got closer, his voice already lower. “Hey, seriously. I don't wanna see you get hurt.”
Well boo-fucking-hoo.
Where the hell had he been when I had needed it most? Years ago, at sixteen years-old, I had been the most vulnerable as I was ever going to be and I had let an asshole break my heart. Nobody could have defended me then the same way anyone could shield me from my own decisions now. All I had wanted a few minutes ago was to have crazy, hot sex with Jeremy and as soon as that had fallen apart, I could only hold on to the next best thing—being angry at whatever the hell was standing in my way of getting laid. I threw my box of MRE's into his arms and glared.
I don't wanna see you get hurt? Really?
I scoffed at him. “Then don't look.”
I left him speechless at that and went around the back of the truck to jump inside when Olivia cut me off. We stared at each other for a moment and I wasn't sure if she would try to convince me to stay. I had to remind myself that she probably knew just how stubborn I could be. Still, her aptitude to understand always surprised me.
She took off her swords and handed them to me. “Stay close.”
I grabbed the heavy blades and she put a hand on my shoulder reassuringly before taking a seat at the front. I pulled myself up into the back of the truck and took a seat next to Isabel, Nick, Murphy, and one of Badger's men, all fully armed, the mood silent, yet slightly brazen. Our path would be taking us closer to the wildfire that now stretched itself across the horizon as a thin like of smoke. If anything happened, we would unequivocally be putting ourselves into a worse position than when we started, though none of us were being forced to go. We all knew the risks. We all wanted to help.
I got another nod of approval from Murphy as the engine turned over and we slowly started to make our way through flowing crowds, the ride already bumpy on the vehicle's worn shocks. I pressed Olivia's swords against my side and put both my hands on the rifle in-between my legs, the shape, weight, and le
ngth all too familiar and oddly soothing while I looked at the strangers that passed us by from the rear.
A multitude of faces glanced back at me, most of them glossed over with sleep deprived masks matched by slurred movements. It was too easy to tell who held the most vigor, if any at all. The stress from disassembling their new homes in the middle of the night and running for their lives didn’t spare anyone young or old; the terror was indiscriminate. It seeped down into their pores and soaked into the stillness of their bones, manifesting itself in the pearls of their eyes only to be contrasted by the dark shadows that bored holes deep within their cheeks.
I didn't know any of them, yet I could see kids, teenagers, brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, friends and other relatives, and I knew that I had made the right choice. They would have their own fight ahead of them. Tent City was already a vague resemblance of its former self. It had lost a convoy's worth of inhabitants and it was about to lose nine more. I only hoped that I would eventually see it all back in its full and former glory—plus the eight that were as dumb as I was to give a damn.
I should have known better.
Family
Wind-wrapped sheets of rain whipped against Zach's truck as he carefully drove us down yet another muddy, darkened road. The trip to the only town near his cabin proved to be much more difficult than originally planned. The series of storms that had passed through the area before had knocked down power lines and trees twice as thick as my waist, cutting us off at almost every turn. We had mapped out one of the longest detours imaginable to try and save time from turning back, though in the end it had taken us even longer. It was already night by the time we turned onto the last road and my stomach began to flutter again.
I glanced down at the map in my lap, an old print illuminated by the soft glow of my cellphone, and then strained to look back up through the front windshield. I could barely make anything out past the whir of the wipers and the waterfall that washed down the glass in front of us, though I knew we had to be close. We could have only made so many wrong turns before my mind had been forced to learn how to navigate while being restricted to see ten feet in any direction. “This is it.”