Following the tsunami, martial law had been implemented across the entire North American Union.
Decked out in tan uniforms and light-blue helmets, the W.U. peacekeepers patrolled the streets in white SUVs. They mandated a curfew: Everyone had to be off the streets by 11:00 P.M. Possession of private firearms was prohibited. All gun owners were required to turn their firearms over to the W.U. peacekeepers. Anyone violating this order was subject to a mandatory twenty-year jail sentence.
Becky’s dad didn’t have a gun—just an antique rifle Grandma Silver had given him for his sixteenth birthday.
Nights were unusually quiet. The only vehicles on the streets were the white government SUVs that circled the neighborhood in concentric patterns. Becky would watch them pass by her bedroom window in the late hours of the night. Their red-and-blue flashing lights bounced off the soft pink hue of her walls and cast a spooky glow over Blake Collins’s handsome face smiling from the poster over her bed. She knew the big SUVs and the strong men inside—carrying big guns—were meant to provide a sense of security. She knew they drove past her house every night to make sure no one was using the crisis of the tsunami as a reason to hurt her or her family. She knew they were there to keep order and safety in her quiet, unassuming neighborhood.
But every time she saw their heavy trucks slowly pass her window she could not escape the overwhelming feeling that they portended death.
* * * * *
“Lunch!” A husky accented voice startles Becky. Her eyes blink open, and her mind snaps back to reality.
The uniformed guard slides a large white cup under the door then disappears down the hall.
Rolling off her cot, Becky walks with swift urgency to retrieve her meal. She bends over and picks up the plastic cup with both hands. Small chunks of white meat float in the thin, watery broth.
Still standing at the doorway, she hastily places the brim of the cup against her dry lips and sips the lukewarm liquid. As the rubbery chunks of chicken and water hit her stomach she feels a rush of nausea. She forces a burp. Still hungry, she leans over and pushes the empty cup back through the opening under the door.
Returning to her cot, she tumbles down hard. The sound of the wire springs ricochets against the walls.
Chicken. How she misses eating blackened chicken. She closes her eyes and recalls the last time she ate barbecued chicken; it was the last time she spent the night at T.J.’s house and was one of the worst weekends of her entire life.
* * * * *
Becky loved going to T.J.’s house. Her parents were always so nice and always made her feel right at home.
They usually barbecued when Becky spent the night. Mrs. Smith would boil the chicken thighs over the stove then wash and drain the fat down the sink. Then she’d smother them in thick red barbecue sauce. Mr. Smith would turn them over the bright flames on the barbecue until they were burnt crispy and black.
T.J.’s mom would serve up the juicy, savory pieces of chicken with hot ears of sweet buttered corn on the cob and diet soda. Becky laughs when she recalls T.J. always passed on the corn because she hated picking it from her teeth!
Becky remembers when she first met T.J. It was in the main hall at Valley High School. She was struggling to open her locker. She tugged and pulled at the dented metal, but it was hopelessly jammed.
“Hi!” T.J. flashed her shining hazel eyes and dimples. “Need some help?”
Becky turned to find a petite girl looking up at her. Her hair was dyed blond and hung loose on her shoulders.
“Yeah, thanks!” Becky replied. She was stunned by this girl’s beauty. “It seems to be stuck.”
“Here. . .let me try.” T.J. pulled up hard on the locker handle and jerked it open.
“Hey, thanks!” Becky grinned from ear to ear.
“Sure! No problem!” T.J.’s dimples deepened. “Let me know if you need anything!” With that, T.J. disappeared down the crowded hallway.
Becky bumped into T.J. again in history and then in home economics. They soon became best friends.
T.J. was very popular at school and had many friends. But Becky admired how T.J. never let her popularity go to her head. It seemed like everybody fawned over her, especially her senior boyfriend Dennis. Becky thought he was dreamy: tall, with blond hair and brown eyes, and the quarterback of the Rebels’ football team—quite a catch for a freshman!
And Becky really liked T.J.’s father, Bob Smith. He was a retired Los Angeles police officer. Mr. Smith was very friendly and never seemed to lack words. He would always stop her and start a conversation about the former government. “I remember when. . . ,” he would begin. She always pretended to be interested while she secretly looked about for T.J. to come and rescue her.
Mr. Smith knew a lot about everything that was going on in the government from his pals who were still in the force. When the United States became a part of the North American Union, most of the police officers were sworn in under the new government.
That night she and T.J. practiced cheers, baked chocolate chip cookies and talked about the boys until the wee hours of the morning.
“Hey, Becky,” T.J. asked, “how come you don’t go out with Johnny Cooper? I know he likes you—he’s always asking me about you!”
“’Cause he’s not my type.” Becky’s mouth was full of orange cheese puffs. “He’s such a geek! Besides, I like mature men.”
“Oh! You mean mature like my sweetie Dennis?” T.J. laughed and took another bite of her chocolate chip cookie.
“Yeah, right! Like he’s available?” she answered back sarcastically. “You know your boyfriend is the cutest guy in school—but I’d never think of going out with my best friend’s boyfriend. Besides. . .I like Blake Collins. . . .” Her blue eyes took on a dreamy look.
“Yeah, Blake Collins, the professional football player—he is cute!” A chorus of giggles rang through the yellow-and-white bedroom hung with cheerleading posters.
Becky was glad T.J. had accepted her answer and didn’t press her anymore. She knew T.J. meant well. But she found it difficult to explain her feelings. She never felt comfortable with the boys in high school. She couldn’t relate to their immaturity. They just didn’t compare to handsome, pro-football player Blake Collins. . . .
It seemed as if they had just fallen asleep when
Mrs. Smith woke them up for breakfast. “Girls, breakfast is ready!” Mrs. Smith popped her dark head through the door. She was very short and of Greek descent.
T.J. threw on a white eyelet sundress while Becky headed to the bathroom. Becky used the toilet, brushed her teeth then changed into her favorite blue jeans and red tank top. She stuffed her toiletries and pink nightgown into her backpack then rolled up the borrowed navy-blue sleeping bag and tossed it in the corner of the room.
She smelled bacon as she entered the yellow kitchen, grease popping in the skillet.
“’Morning, Becky.” Mrs. Smith turned off the fire from under the iron skillet.
“Good morning, Mrs. Smith.” Becky smiled.
“Hey, girlfriend, would you like some bacon and eggs mixed with cheese and garlic salt?” T.J. sat down at the glass table, her smile wide and her brown eyes shining.
“No, thanks—I’m still full from the cookies and cheese puffs we ate last night.”
“Oink! Oink!” T.J. giggled and snorted while she motioned for Becky to sit in the empty chair next to her.
“Come on, girlfriend. You’ve got to eat something!”
“Okay. I’ll have a slice of that cantaloupe.” She reached across the table and grabbed a slice of the orange fruit. She slurped and took tiny bites while T.J. inhaled the scrambled eggs.
After they ate their breakfast, the girls chatted while they waited for Mrs. Smith to fill out her shopping list for the errands she intended doing after she took Becky home.
Bag in hand, Becky hopped into the back of the forest-green minivan and slid next to T.J. while Mrs. Smith climbed in the driver’s seat and started the
engine.
It was a short drive to her house, just over the hill off Highway 14. The girls giggled and talked as a red sports car flew by them, followed by a dozen screaming blue-and-white police cars.
“Did you see that?” Becky asked excitedly.
“Yeah, it’s probably stolen!” T.J. replied.
The rubber tires scraped the curb, leaving a black mark, as Mrs. Smith pulled up in front of the two-story, California-style, stucco tract house. The grass looked healthy and was a deep green from the iron pellets Dad had tossed on the lawn a few days earlier.
After they said their good-byes, Becky jumped out of the van. Standing on the sidewalk, she waved until the minivan disappeared down the street.
With her backpack draped over her shoulders, she turned toward the house. Her lips smiled at the sight of Momma’s white car and Dad’s beat-up pickup truck parked in front of the two-car garage. She took long strides as she hurried up the smooth driveway toward the front of the house.
By the front door she noticed a potted plant tipped over, its contents spilled over the walkway. Puzzled, Becky squatted and set the pot upright and scooped up the loose dirt.
She wiped the dark soil from her hands on her jeans then ran her fingers under the brown braided doormat. After locating the shiny silver “emergency key” she stood up and slid the key into the lock. Surprisingly the door was not locked.
That’s strange. . .Momma always keeps the door locked and dead bolted.
The door squeaked on its hinges when she pushed it open. The bright morning sunshine spilled into the foyer. The Picasso fish and Yellow Tang greeted her, swimming around the live rock begging for brine shrimp as the salt-water aquarium filter gurgled under the low water level.
She closed the door behind her and locked it. Her backpack made a thud as she dropped it on the hard wood floor.
“I’m home!” she yelled, kicking her tennis shoes off with her bare toes. She noticed the rest of the house was very dark. Her fingers flipped on the light switch. Light beamed from the brass chandelier hanging high from the vaulted ceiling. She walked around the house pulling the cords and heaving the white wood blinds up to let in the sunlight.
Her eyes focused on the black numbers on the Simi orange-crate label clock hanging over the kitchen sink; her mother loved old art and antique crate labels, and with some help from Dad she’d made this clock herself. The antique label was a lithograph of Simi Valley filled with orange groves before the area grew into a big city.
The clock read 11:15. Her parents would be awake and busy with chores at this hour, but the house was quiet and still. She was beginning to feel that something was wrong.
Maybe they took Buddy for a walk?
She walked through the kitchen and pulled back the vertical blinds on the sliding glass door. There stood
Buddy, her mother’s blond cocker spaniel, batting his long eyelashes, peeking through the clear glass. His floppy ears dragged on the ground as he licked his chops, a signal he wanted to eat.
“Hi, Buddy!” She tapped the glass with her fingers. “Where is everybody?”
His big brown eyes lit up, and his short stubby tail wagged endlessly.
Becky’s stomach stirred as she thought of a number of scenarios to explain why her family was gone. The door was unlocked, the rest of the house was dark and quiet, and yet their cars were still parked in the driveway. Maybe somebody was hurt, and they were hauled away in an ambulance? She paced back and forth as she worked to convince herself she was worrying about nothing, that they probably just went for a walk and forgot to lock the front door. But how come they didn’t take Buddy? she wondered. They always took him. . . .
“Momma? Daddy?” she shouted.
Nobody answered.
The sick feeling in her stomach wouldn’t go away. Unconsciously her mind flashed to her parents then to her brother, David.
She prayed under her breath as she headed up the stairs. “Please, God. . .please let my parents and David be okay.” She passed the gallery of family photos that lined the stairwell as she climbed to the second floor.
David’s bedroom door was ajar, and his light was on.
“David, are you there?” she called as she hurried toward his bedroom.
As she looked through David’s door, a shiver of terror ran down her back. “OH, MY GOSH!” She let out a frightened gasp. Her eyes grew wide as she tried to comprehend what she was seeing. All of David’s books, toy cars and stuffed animals were piled at the base of the bookcase. His red-and-white Timmy Time Traveler lamp was knocked over, and the white porcelain base was broken. All the drawers from his oak dresser were pulled out and the contents dumped all over the floor.
Dread escalated inside her as she fought the urge to panic. She slowly took one step backward and turned toward her parents’ room. She tried to block out the terrifying thoughts of what she might find there.
Their door was shut. “Mom? Dad?” She barely whispered their names then gently rapped on the hollow door with her knuckles.
“Rebekah?” her mother uttered.
“Oh, thank goodness!” Relieved to hear her mother’s voice, Becky pushed the door open.
The room was dark, but a large lump under the embroidered amethyst-and-tan-flowered designer comforter told Becky that her mother was still in bed.
“Momma, what’s happened? Where are Daddy and David?”
Becky walked to the window and pulled open the wood blinds to let the sunlight in.
“Oh, Rebekah. . . .”
Becky turned to see her mother’s blond hair all mussed and her deep blue eyes red and swollen as if she’d been crying all night.
The ornate wood headboard banged against the sand-colored wall, and the bed squeaked as Becky crawled up onto the queen-sized mattress and crossed her legs Indian-style.
“Momma, what’s happened? Where are Daddy and David?” Her eyebrows furrowed with worry. She unconsciously held her breath as she waited for Momma’s reply.
Stuffing two pillows behind her back her mom sat up; her black spaghetti-strapped nightgown hung on her thin shoulders. She opened her mouth to say something, but no words came out. She just shook her head as tears began to flow.
“Momma, what’s wrong? Where are Daddy and
David?”
Her mother leaned over and wrapped both of her arms around her and sobbed uncontrollably.
Becky fought back her own tears. She had never seen her mother like this. The sound of her crying sent chills through Becky’s body. She held her mother tight and tried to soothe her. “There, there, Momma. It’s all going to be okay. Just tell me what happened.”
Eventually her mother’s sobs turned to sniffles. She dabbed the tears from her eyes and wiped her dripping nose with the corner of the lavender sheet.
“Becky,” she sniffled, “they came and took them.” Sniff, sniff. “They came in the middle of the night and took David and your father away.”
Becky felt the blood rush out of her head, and the room spin. She grabbed onto the heavy wooden headboard to steady herself. Her stomach felt as if it had just gone over the five-hundred-foot drop on the roller coaster at Mystic Mountain. She gaped at Momma in disbelief. She didn’t hear her right. . .surely she couldn’t have heard her right. They? Who were they? she wondered. Who took Daddy and David in the middle of the night?
She had heard stories, rumors and urban legends—people being taken in the middle of the night, sometimes entire families, disappearing and never being seen or heard of again. Stories of camps, secret prisons where the government sent radicals, terrorists, rebels.
But why would they take her dad? What could they have wanted with David?
She was almost sure she felt the agony mirrored in her mother’s eyes. She could feel her chest tighten and her heart pound wildly pushing blood through her veins. It felt as if someone was trying to squeeze the life out of her. She swallowed hard forcing down the solid lump in her throat that was threatening to choke her.
“Who took them, Momma? And where did they take them?” Not giving her mother a chance to answer she
continued. “Are you sure they’re. . . .” Her voice trailed off. She felt weak. “. . .Gone?” She couldn’t control her tears any longer.
Momma took a deep breath. “It was sometime after midnight. There was a knock on the front door. Your father grabbed his baseball bat and went downstairs. I heard men’s voices—then I heard your father yelling. There was a lot of noise and commotion. A few minutes later two men dressed in black came into our room. One man asked me my maiden name. ‘Hansen,’ I said. ‘Kirsten Hansen.’ He asked if anybody else was in the house. I told him David was sleeping in his room and that you were spending the night at a girlfriend’s house.”
“Go on, Momma.”
“One of them went down the hall toward David’s room. I heard him pull David out of his bed. David was screaming. He was so frightened.” Becky watched her mother’s face contort with anguish as she recalled her son’s cries for help. “The man carried David past my bedroom door to the stairs. I ran to try to stop him, to make him let David go. But the other man hit me so hard. He pushed me up against the wall and threatened to shoot me if I didn’t stop.
“I followed them to the top of the stairs. That’s when I saw your father sitting in a chair with his hands behind his back. Another man was asking him a lot of questions. Another man was going through our things. He came out of your room with a book in his hands.
“He asked us where we got it. I had never seen it before, and I told him I didn’t know what it was. He said it was a Bible, an illegal copy of the Bible. That it was forbidden to have a Bible.”
Becky’s mind swirled with emotions trying to absorb everything her mother was telling her. Some men came into our house, they took Daddy and David, and they found my Bible. . . .
Becky felt her mother’s cold hands grip her shoulders tightly. Her swollen, red eyes stared intently into Becky’s. Her voice trembled with anger.
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