by G. R. Carter
“I don’t have to explain myself to you. But if you must know, survivors are easier to spot at night than in the daytime. So we patrol like this, looking for lights or some sign of life. Your guys fired at us first, so we fired back. Just so you’re aware, I have called up an armored personnel carrier which will turn this building to rubble if you don’t agree to come with us to the Safe Zone. I’m not playing here,” the young officer instructed Rusty in clipped tones.
He handed Rusty a piece of paper, only slightly decipherable in the light provided.
“This is the written order from President Johnson. Read it and sign it, and then have your people begin filing out here to the front lawn for roster,” the officer said.
“I have to take this back to show our council. Believe it or not, we believe in democracy here. You had to know we wouldn’t send our main leaders out here. I just happen to be the most expendable,” Rusty quipped. At this point, he hoped the man would be irritated with the comment. But the stone face in front of him merely returned Rusty’s stare.
Rusty continued: “Besides, we’ve got a lot of people. More than you have soldiers. How are you going to transport us all?”
“I’ve called back for a bus to arrive here soon. My men will stay here with you until it arrives. Now I’m done discussing this. You have,” the soldier glanced at his wind-up pocket watch, “two hours to comply or we’ll burn you out.”
Gotcha, kid, Rusty thought. The young man had finally given Rusty the information he was looking for. He figured the soldiers still didn’t have working radios; he could see no whip antennae on the two Humvees pointed their direction. The two-hour ultimatum was probably what the young officer allotted for the return of his support troops. Likely he sent a messenger back to his base when he stumbled across resistance.
Figure there would be another couple of Humvees on the other end of the block. A decent-sized patrol but not a full-sized attack force. That’s what I need for us to make a decision.
“Alright, Officer. I’ll have an answer for you right away.”
*****
“Rusty, read that out loud for Pastor and Charlotte to hear,” Lamar asked. “Or at least give them the highlights.”
“Basically, we give up all of our weapons, surrender our food and critical supplies, and move to their housing areas in what they call the ‘Safe Zone.’ Whatever that means,” Rusty said. “In exchange, we get our meals and housing taken care of, they provide for our safety from criminals and looters, and we all receive gainful employment and pay.”
“That sounds like a refugee camp to me,” Pastor said. “Remember that missionary to Nigeria we sponsored? He gave a talk when he came back stateside to visit family. Described the way folks who fled the civil war there lived. More folks died in the camps than outside in the war, the way he told it.”
“Mm-hmm,” Charlotte replied somberly. “They’d probably split us all up, too. Lamar, is there a chance that we can fight them off?”
“Depends if those soldiers are bluffing. If they are, we can beat them, from the way Rusty described. If they do have reinforcements coming, I think we’ll run out of ammo long before they do,” Lamar answered. Emotion was on his face: anger, fright, disgust, all wrapped into one look.
He continued: “Rusty, you met them. What’s your gut tell you?”
Rusty paused for a moment, the countdown clock unconsciously ticking as he looked for the right advice to give to his leader. What would be the right thing for the Congregation? “I’ll tell you this, the man in charge here is the same dirty cop we fought behind the bar the day we left it.”
“What? You got to be kidding me! I knew we should have killed him then,” Lamar said, ignoring the raised eyebrow of his wife. “They must be scraping the bottom of the barrel for recruits then. This isn’t regular Army guys. That’s bad news for them holding to any deals.”
Rusty nodded. “My thoughts exactly. Folks, this place is home to me. More so than any other place I’ve ever been in my life. But it’s just a building. We have to make sure our young people have a chance at life.” Rusty looked at Pastor, seeing the tears welling up in the big man’s eyes. No one knew if his wounded son would make it through the night. “My first instinct is to fight. Charlotte, you’ve taught me to trust God, and no one’s ever been able to make me do that before.”
He looked to Lamar. “Brother, I don’t think they’re bluffing. You and I both knew that whatever piece of government left after everything went dark would try to put things back together eventually. We all hoped that would be to help people right? But you also taught me that history didn’t provide very many examples of that. Usually a strongman type rises from the ashes. Some guy gets lucky, finds some others to follow him, and maybe has food to pay soldiers with. I’m guessing that’s what happened here.
“Heck, maybe this all was a coup that went wrong. The President’s name before the power went out was Aguilar. I think Johnson was a cabinet member or some advisor, so who knows how he ended up on top? Probably won’t know unless we give ourselves up and move in with them to the camps. I suppose the smart thing to do is go with them. Maybe they have enough for everyone to eat. Maybe eventually we’ll get some of our freedoms back… maybe we’ll be able to move back home,” Rusty concluded, tailing off in disbelief at this own words.
Lamar jumped in, “And maybe we get to live like slaves to a cruel master. I don’t like our odds either way. But better to die with our boots on, right, cowboy?” Lamar’s smile broke the tension for just a moment…Rusty long since gave up his fancy western boots for practical shoes. He still got grief about all those years before when snakeskin was all he wore.
The joke struck an idea in Rusty’s head; a plan that might get at least some of the Congregation out of harm’s way.
Small chance of success, but if it works, they’d at least be free to start over, Rusty thought.
“Lamar, I’ve got an idea. But we have to act quickly, before their reinforcements arrive.”
*****
“I don’t want you to do this, brother,” Lamar said to Rusty, tears welling up. “You said yourself the chances of making it back are slim.”
“'Slim to none,' I think is what I said,” Rusty replied smiling, trying to keep his friend from trying to change his mind. “You and I both know this is our only chance. With a little luck, it will work and I’ll meet you at the rendezvous point.”
“Alright, we’ve trusted each other this far. But let’s skip the luck part and go for a quick prayer.”
The two men joined hands, said a prayer, and embraced. Rusty quickly walked towards the front gate, nodding to the heavily armed young men who swung open the heavy steel plates as he ducked through. Hands up in the air, he approached at a quick pace, announcing his presence as he walked.
“I’m glad you came to your senses. I hope you’ll see that life in America can be safe for everyone once again,” the ex-cop replied curtly. Rusty could see the man glance at his watch. “Thirty-one minutes. You must have been persuasive to your leaders.”
“Yeah, they saw through this pretty quick. The writing was on the blackboard, so to speak,” Rusty said as he took quick inventory of the men surrounding them.
“Hey, good news. We’ve got our own bus to take folks out in. That way we can go ahead and get loaded right away. We’ll get as many on our bus as possible. And then the rest of us will all fit on yours when it gets here. Is that all right?” Rusty tried to be compliant and disarming with the tone of his voice, as though he was giving all authority to the officer.
Clearly surprised by this turn, the man didn’t answer right away. Finally: “All right, but it comes out empty. And we’ll load it right here in the street. You understand? Any funny business and we’ll light it up.”
“Understood. I figured you’d feel that way, so there’s just a driver in there now. I’m going to give the signal and they’ll open that big door right there and it will pull through. Don’t get alarmed, we had it armor
ed up to be bulletproof. Well, sort of bulletproof,” Rusty informed them cautiously.
The term bulletproof had the effect he was looking for, as every weapon he could see moved away from Rusty and to the metal gates slowly swinging open. The bus crept out, slowly chugging down the ramp toward the street just about two hundred feet away.
The bus just made the parallel street when Rusty quickly grabbed the pistol tucked behind his back. Should’ve frisked me, Joey. Too used to scaring people with the big guns and uniforms.
Rusty met the officer's shocked eyes just as the muzzle flash went off twice, putting both bullets into the man’s chest from short range. Before he hit the ground, Rusty emptied his clip into the soldier on top of the nearest Humvee, the one manning the .50 caliber heavy gun that was making the school shake as it raked the walls side to side. Rusty needed to take that gun out or it would rip the armor on the bus apart like tin foil.
He ejected the magazine from his .45, rolling to the ground with a thud that shook his four decades. As he scrambled around the wheel of the command Humvee, he could hear the blast of the two guards firing in his direction. Bullets whined, clanked and screeched as steel met the vehicle and surrounding concrete.
A sharp burning pain struck Rusty’s thigh, causing an unconscious grunt. He instinctively grabbed at the leg, feeling the denim in his jeans already wet with blood.
Well, that didn’t go exactly to plan, Rusty thought ironically.
He could still hear the weapons barking and the flashes light up the night air. But now the guard’s attention was focused somewhere else, and then silence except for some gunfire on the other side of the block.
“Rusty, let’s go! Get in, the other soldiers are heading our direction! It’s working, your plan is working!”
Rusty, already delirious from pain, tried to cut through the mental fog settling in on him. That sounds like Lamar. He wouldn’t…why would he be here? It was supposed to be one of the younger guys with no family that went with me on this.
“Rusty, let’s go! We don’t know how long we have!”
Definitely Lamar. I’m gonna kill him myself if I can get up.
Rusty tried to struggle to his feet, suddenly feeling a strong arm grab him around the waist, hoisting him up. The two men half-hobbled together to the idling bus. Even Lamar’s strength was tested by Rusty’s large frame, especially now that that frame was wobbly at best.
As Rusty collapsed on the front passenger bench, Lamar jumped into the driver seat, gunning the overweight school bus into motion. The adrenaline shot back into Rusty’s blood, allowing him to glance back and see the headlights of two vehicles closing on the back of the bus. The lights flickered back and forth, only visible through small firing slits in the armored plates covering the windows. Mustering his strength, Rusty grabbed one of the battle rifles strapped to the back of the seat, moving his way to the back of the swaying bus. Slammed back and forth by Lamar’s evasive maneuvers, Rusty finally stumbled to the floor, sticking his rifle out of one of the small gaps in the armor.
CLICK. Nothing happened as Rusty remembered to chamber a round.
He pulled the trigger again and the weapon leapt backward, slamming into Rusty’s shoulder.
Man I’m too old for this. Everything hurts. Gotta keep going. If they chase us, the others get away.
Rusty kept firing until the rifle clicked again. Rolling on his back, he jammed another magazine into the rifle and began firing again.
How far have we gone? Blocks, miles? Lamar kept changing directions back and forth, always away from the school and the rendezvous point. I should have never told him we weren’t going to go back to meet the others.
When Rusty came up with the plan to create a diversion and lead the soldiers away from the Congregation, he never intended to meet back up with the rest at the rendezvous point. Backtracking would have been too dangerous, giving someone a chance to follow them back and catch the whole group. Rusty just thought the young man who got this job deserved to know what their mission was in the end. And ultimately what that end would be.
Somehow, Lamar figured that part of the plan out. Should’ve known I couldn’t outsmart him.
Hopefully by now the entire group of soldiers was hot on Lamar and Rusty’s trail, trying to avenge the loss of their officer and the embarrassment of being outsmarted by a bunch of civilians. With any luck, the other two buses were loaded with every other member of the congregation, moving further south and west away from the city and towards an uncertain freedom. Rusty prayed that was the case, really truly prayed for the first time in his life.
Please, Lord, give them a chance to live. I mean really live.
Rusty’s prayer was interrupted by a thunderous crash and the groans of strained sheet metal – the loudest noise he had ever heard. Then he was weightless, thrown towards the front of the bus as the vehicle lurched into the air and turned over. Rusty tumbled like a rag doll, somersaulting and cartwheeling before crashing into unforgiving metal.
Can’t feel my legs…at least it doesn’t hurt so bad now…but that piercing headache…
Muffled shouts came from outside of the wrecked bus, and spotlights poked their beams through the crunched sheet metal and bent steel.
“Brother…” Rusty heard Lamar’s voice rasp in the darkness. “Brother… I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.”
Tears of appreciation and pain filled Rusty’s eyes as the guns outside the bus began to unload on their torn and smoking vehicle.
“You already did…”
*****
“Wake up, Momma, wake up. We’re almost there.”
Charlotte Jenkins drifted out of a restless sleep, feeling the cold steel her head leaned against.
“Lamar…” she murmured.
“No, Momma, it’s me, Junior.”
Lamar Jenkins, Jr. gently grasped his mother’s hand, smiling as she looked up at him. Charlotte could see the young man’s eyes, red and puffy from grief.
As best as she could, Charlotte smiled back, “I’m glad to see you, son. Is everything ready to go?”
“Fuel cans are filled, tanks on both buses are topped off, and we’ve got all the food we can carry and still hold the Congregation.”
“Such a fine young man, Junior. You do your daddy proud,” Charlotte assured him.
Did your Daddy proud, that is, Charlotte thought but didn’t say. Junior must have thought the same, because he immediately turned and headed back out of the bus to see to the final preparations. During the escape from the school, Charlotte read Rusty’s goodbye note to Lamar. Realizing that Lamar read it also, her heart sank. He wouldn’t let his friend go on a mission like that alone.
They had gotten out of so many tight spots together…Lamar would have thought maybe they could get out of this one, too.
Charlotte knew better. For this to really work, those two men would go to any lengths…lead the bad guys as far away from the Congregation as they could.
No way to escape from that.
When Charlotte realized the two men wouldn’t be coming back, she gave the order to bypass the predetermined rendezvous point. No sense in wasting time and letting the bad guys catch up to the rest of them.
Don’t let the sacrifice be in vain. Accept the truth, keep the Congregation strong for them.
The only stop they would make was the Manassas Battlefield Park. After the last gang attack on the school, Lamar and Rusty devised the escape plan that the Congregation just used. The diversion wasn’t part of it – the Mad Max Road Warrior trick, Rusty had said, whatever that meant – but the rest of the plan was working.
Food and fuel were hidden in the middle of the battlefield for what was supposed to be three buses. Lamar guessed that no one would be touring the museums and monuments any time soon. There would be plenty of food for the trip and for the entire group while they were settling into their new refuge several hours away. Pastor had family in Blacksburg, VA. The same trip used to establish the supply cache included
another two hundred-mile trip to find the sleepy little college town barely hanging on. Though the extra people from the Congregation might be a burden, Pastor’s family invited them. Setting up on the farm inhabited by Pastor’s family offered them plenty of extra hands to work the fields.
Briefly, the Congregation leadership even discussed making the move before trouble found them in the city. Hindsight being 20/20, wish we would have. But they had just invested too much time and effort in the community they had built around the old school to run away from it without a fight. Besides, they had been able to defend it every time before. Who would have thought it would finally be American soldiers to force us from our home?
She felt sure now; there was no doubt in her mind that the city, any city, held no safety for them. The quiet of Charlotte’s rural upbringing beckoned. God granted her those dreams and memories of her youth as a reminder and preparation for the next step in their journey, that the young ones might experience the same peace and joy she did amongst nature and fertile farm fields.
The troops might make it out that far someday. Then they’d have to fight again. The men and women on these buses weren’t hopeless refugees. Combat tested, hardened but hopeful, the farmers in Blacksburg would learn to appreciate the security that came with the trained freedom fighters riding on the bus.
Even if things got too rough and they couldn’t fight back, the hills and mountains of the area offered refuge. They’d blend into the hillside, then reappear when things got better. Things will get better. Hard times follow good times…Good times follow hard times.
Charlotte felt the tears welling up again, she knew not for the last time. Thank you, my love. I won’t let them forget what you’ve done for us.
The Story Continues with Shield of the Okaw
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Shield of the Okaw