by Dana Fraser
Stepping into the room, she jiggled the sleeping girl’s foot, her efforts concentrated on the big toe protruding from beneath the thin blanket.
“Wake up and get to the kitchen for breakfast,” she ordered in a terse whisper. “No need to change yet, so be quick about it.”
Returning to the hallway, she reached for the doorknob to her son’s bedroom, but he opened the door first and poked his head out.
She smiled softly, the shadows hiding her expression. Samson had always been the lighter sleeper, even as a baby.
“Eggs?” he asked, nose lifting to scent the air.
“And pancakes,” she confirmed. “But only if you hustle your—”
He brushed past his mother, silencing her tongue.
“Gotta pee first,” he protested, slipping into the home’s only bathroom.
Genevieve followed the hall back to the kitchen with its small corner table where they ate all their meals. A Coleman stove rested atop the electric range, its small flame the only light in the house.
Even that small, half-shielded illumination made her nervous. For two days they had remained inside, avoiding the windows. In daylight, it was anyone’s guess if the family was home. But any kind of light when it was still dark outside confirmed their presence in the home and that there was at least one resource that might be worth stealing, even though they had so little to survive on.
Pushing the anxiety down so that it left her heart and spread along her diaphragm until she could barely breathe, Genevieve occupied herself with pulling out three plates. The glasses and utensils, as well as the last of the orange juice she had put in the freezer when the power went out, were already on the table.
Tonya, despite being the last one out of bed, was the first to emerge from the hallway, Samson crowding behind her with a growling stomach.
“That’s all the eggs,” Tonya said, her voice level.
Another faint smile ghosted across Genevieve’s face. She had become pregnant with the girl when she was just a kid herself, conceiving at sixteen and delivering at seventeen. Add in poverty, and that should have been the end of both their life stories beyond the predictable footnotes of daily drudgery, living hand to mouth, and sinking deeper into oblivion and despair. But that hadn’t happened. Genevieve had found a discipline she hadn’t been raised with and had applied it to her children and herself.
Not perfectly, of course, not at the start. Otherwise sweet Samson never would have been born. But once her children came into the world, she protected them with all the fierceness of a lioness with her cubs. And she demanded their respect, which was why Tonya had kept a level tone and used neutral words in pointing out that her mother had used a dozen eggs in preparing a single morning’s breakfast.
“They were about to turn,” she explained before dropping the grenade she had been carrying around inside her chest since a little after midnight. “And we can’t take them with us.”
She looked up from the pan filled with scrambled eggs in time to see the odd look they simultaneously threw in her direction. But neither teen protested.
Her babies, her beloved children, Genevieve thought. She had spent all of their lives waiting for one of them to be murdered. In Louisville, an iron fear had gripped her chest whenever they were out on the street. That fear had mostly vanished in Bowling Green — until three nights ago. Now it wasn’t just cops or gang bangers she had to worry about. It was desperate parents, too, people who loved their kids like she loved hers.
“Mama?” Tonya asked at last as Genevieve started spooning food onto three plates.
“We’re not staying,” Genevieve announced, avoiding their gaze. “I couldn’t sleep so I loaded up the car. I think we’ve got just enough gas to make it.”
She pushed the plates at them across the kitchen island and then separate slips of paper.
“There’s a garbage bag for each of you on the counter,” she said, nodding towards the toaster. “Grab what’s on the list plus whatever you want that will fit in your backpacks.”
“Mama?” Samson asked, but Genevieve gave her head a hard shake.
“Eat fast, pack faster,” she admonished before taking her own plate to the table and shoveling a forkful of eggs into her mouth.
The teenagers joined her and wolfed down their breakfast in silence. Between bites, their gazes surreptitiously locked with one another, their expressions confused and questioning. Still, they didn’t ask, didn’t protest. When they finished, they rose to take their dishes to the sink as they had been taught to always do.
“Leave them,” Genevieve ordered with a rough whisper. She left her own plate on the table and started to disassemble the Coleman stove for transporting.
Tonya and Samson disappeared into their rooms. They packed in the same silence that had marked breakfast and returned to the kitchen within ten minutes.
Genevieve was busy loading ammunition into a rifle when they entered the room. It wasn’t something she would have ever bought for herself, but only because she couldn’t imagine having enough extra money to own such a weapon — not to mention the ammunition and range time to learn how to shoot it.
It was a gift from a family they knew in Tennessee. The brother had taught them all how to shoot the summer before.
Finished loading the rifle, she lifted her head, her gaze glancing off the teens’ stuffed garbage bags and backpacks. Seeing the football helmet on Samson’s head, she managed a chuckle.
“Well, I guess it won’t take up any extra room,” she said, swiping the keys off a peg by the door and handing them to Tonya.
“You’ll need to drive, baby girl.”
“Dover?” Tonya asked.
Genevieve nodded. It was the only place they had to go. She had left Louisville to escape the violence in which she had raised her children until three years ago. Tonya’s father was still in prison for all Genevieve knew. Samson’s dad had run off long before the doctor cut the boy’s umbilical cord.
Tonya stood with the car keys loose in her grip, her mouth working but no sound coming out.
Genevieve had a rough idea of what was running through her daughter’s mind.
The trip was almost a hundred miles.
The power had been out across the country for two full days.
There were no regular news channels on the battery operated radio they had, just one lone operator whose name sounded like it was a deliberate joke telling them the larger cities were under attack internally.
Bowling Green hadn’t devolved into chaos yet, but fear was building in the air.
“We got to go, baby girl,” Genevieve coaxed. “And I need you to drive. I’m better on the rifle and you’re a black Danica Patrick.”
The old joke that she had been teasing Tonya with since the teen had gotten her learner’s permit didn’t elicit a smile like it usually did.
“That man said it’s not just radical Muslims and illegals doing the shooting, mama…”
Genevieve had thought about that, tossed and turned with it playing in her mind. If they went outside, especially brandishing a rifle, she could be signing their death warrants. What was that thing whites liked to say?
Kill them all and let God sort them out.
Tonya tilted her head. Genevieve knew her daughter wouldn’t disobey her, but that didn’t mean the teenager wouldn’t try to squeeze another minute or two before complying to reason with her.
“Mama, you really think they’ll let us stay if we make it there?”
Genevieve blinked at the question. The thought that she and her children might be turned away burned a hole in her gut, but she tried to hide any trace of doubt. The Dover family had helped her move out of Louisville and away from the gangs trying to recruit Samson into their thuggish brotherhood and to appropriate Tonya’s body for their own enrichment. The family had fronted Genevieve the cash for the first and last month’s rent and security deposit on the home she rented and even tinkered with her beater of a car so that it ran well enough sh
e could get and keep a job without worrying where and when the buses ran.
But she would be kidding herself if she thought it was anything more than white folk charity. On the other hand, if she didn’t risk the trip now, when there was still a chance to travel safely as long as they never let off the gas pedal, her children would most certainly perish.
Her gaze dropped to the rifle. She ran her fingers along the walnut finish, remembering the lessons and the invitation to return the following summer. She hadn’t been able to get the time off work and both of the teens had their own jobs this year. Maybe if she had managed even a day up at their homestead in the last few months, she would know if their generosity had been more than charity.
A dry laugh escaped Genevieve. Friendship and charity were irrelevant. At that moment, Samson was her family’s golden ticket to survival. Her decision made, she looked up, her chin pointing defiantly toward her son in answer to Tonya’s question.
“If they don’t,” she said. “Then Marie Lodge's husband died for nothing.”
Chapter Nine
Unable to shake the rapid chunk, chunk, chunk of a .50 Cal firing, the report of one round still lingering as the next round left the barrel, Cash brought the Mylar blanket up over his face to hide the light from his wrist watch. He pressed the button and the leaves above him trembled, the ground vibrating almost imperceptibly beneath him.
His fingers slid under his jacket sleeve to pinch sharply a few inches below the inside turn of his wrist. Feeling the pain, part of him knew he was awake, the rest of him hoped he was asleep. Running another test, he picked a random letter and mentally recited the Army’s phonetic alphabet.
Juliet, Kilo, Lima, Mike, November, Oscar…
He trailed off, no longer doubting that he was awake. He couldn’t spell, do math or so much as use the alphabet when he was asleep or in one of the waking nightmare that had afflicted him the first year of his return from Iraq.
Someone really was laying down heavy fire in the night and something really had exploded, accidentally or intentionally.
With the Mylar blanket still surrounding his head and torso, he checked his watch. It was a little after four in the morning. Every movement slow and nearly silent to his own ears, Cash folded the two blankets and returned everything to the pack except for the weapons and the water bladder. Taking out the night vision monocle, he shoved it in his pocket then took a piss at the opposite end of the copse that shielded him.
Moving cautiously within the protective circle of trees, he crawled from trunk to trunk, peering with the monocle through the breaks where there was no cover. He looked first in the direction where he thought the gunfire and explosion had originated then moved in a clockwise circle until he was back to his pack, sweating thick drops despite the cool pre-dawn air. The monocle was on the lower end of available technology, nothing like the night vision goggles he had used in the Army. But it was good enough to see anything as large as a human within five hundred yards.
You don’t need to know what’s going on.
His gut told his brain to shut the fuck up. He was in a battle to get home. Instinct had to rule, and instinct was telling him he needed to know all the probable dangers in his path. He was sure he had heard a .50 Cal. That meant members of the National Guard were firing on someone. What he needed to know was their target — terrorists, criminals or innocent civilians.
The sounds had come in the direction he needed to go unless he was going to waste another half day walking around hot spots. But everywhere was a danger zone and potential hot spot.
He nodded, one hand absently caressing the rifle. He knew his route. Now it was time to decide if he would wait until daylight, where he could see better but also be seen, or start walking immediately. Quieting his thoughts, Cash listened to his body. The hand that stroked the rifle had a light shake to it. He was burning through adrenaline and would continue to burn through it whether he was walking or sitting on his ass for the next few hours.
Adrenaline was a precious commodity in battle.
If it could be tamed.
Drawing a long sip from the water bladder he had strapped to his back, Cash pulled out a protein bar. He took about ten minutes to eat it, drinking between bites so that he had the energy and hydration to go with the surge of chemicals the gunfire had triggered. When he was done, he put the empty wrapper in a pocket, looked around for anything he might have missed in loading the pack and his pockets then wiggled his body and equipment through one of the gaps between the trees.
Pack shouldered, his rifle held at arms, he picked a path that would get him to the next line of trees while providing the most cover.
He moved tree line to tree line, stopping in a familiar rhythm of pause and advance to use the monocle and let his hearing unfold like a blanket across the landscape, learning the background noises and their patterns.
Smoke-tinged wind blowing faintly against his face from the southeast gave him a final route to follow. When Cash reached its terminal point, he hunkered down as dawn broke. The sun rose over a burned out barn, the remnants of a five hundred gallon propane tank peeled open.
The stench of burnt animal skin clogged his nose. He heard the bleating of sheep and the pained scream of a cow as it tried to get up from the ground.
The only vehicles on site were farm equipment, a beat up Ford Ranger and a slightly less worn out Honda Civic. Nothing military remained, but he was sure they had been there.
After half an hour of concealed observation, Cash eased his pack off and made his way from the tree line that camouflaged him to the other side of the road, his rifle held at the ready, the M&P45 in its holster and the K-BAR skeleton knife strapped to his hip. Smoke and death stung his nostrils, made his eyes water. Seeing the familiar wide tread and deep grooves of a Humvee’s tires, his balls tightened, their retreat a plea for him to return to the safety of the road.
He couldn’t pull back, not yet. He had to know the Guard’s targets.
His training moving to the forefront, Cash swept the yard, circling to where he had a clear line of sight into the destroyed barn. He counted a few head of cows, only their charred bones remaining. Crouching low, he ran to the back of the house and flattened his body against the wall. The windows were blown out, the near total absence of shards in the frame suggesting that the explosion, rather than gunfire, had done most of the damage.
Waiting, he listened.
No creaks, no whispers, no breathing but his own.
Creeping along the wall, he reached the back door. It was half open, its screen hanging on one hinge. Through the gap, he could see cabinet doors open, drawers on the floor, utensils scattered around them. Holding the screen, he let the tip of his barrel push the door the rest of the way inward. With only early daylight to illuminate the space, the room was full of deep shadows.
Positioned halfway between the kitchen that opened onto the backyard and the living room beyond, a male lay twisted on the floor. Both hips pressed at the worn wood, but his torso was frozen mid-twist. The relaxed neck left his head touching the floor, a pool of blood from the gaping chest wound staining pale blond hair a dark scarlet.
Skirting the blood and debris as best as he could, Cash stepped past the dead man and entered the family’s living room. It was a big space, meant to act as an eating room with a table and six chairs on one side and the television and sofa on the other. Things had been pressed against the wall, four of the six chairs stacked in one corner and the sofa less than five feet from the TV. In the center was a playpen. Next to it, a bowl of water.
Red soaked the center of the playpen.
Beneath a bloody blanket was a toddler-sized lump.
Spinning toward the dead man, Cash threw up.
He kept retching until the last chunky bits of the protein bar scraped its way up his throat and past his lips. Mulhern’s words about avoiding anyone who didn’t look the same came back to him.
This family with
its blond-haired head of household was as “same” as it got. Cash knew that he’d heard the .50 Cal. He knew its timbre and pace like he knew his own mother’s voice. He also recognized the size of the holes that had shredded the front of the house.
That meant one of two things. Either some kind of enemy, terrorists or the local criminal element, had attacked the farm and the Guard had arrived too late to save the family, or…
Or the Guard had…
The Guard had…
Another sick wave washed over Cash. He backed toward the wall, refusing for the moment to contemplate that any part of the American military had done such a thing.
A rustle from down the hall jerked his spine straight, the need to puke subsiding to a level he could manage as he pivoted silently and crept down the narrow corridor. Cash counted four doors, all but one of them open. Rifle barrel leading the way, he opened the closed door to find a furnace and water heater with barely enough room for a mouse to hide. He eased down the hallway, coming to the first open door. Nothing but a small shower stall with broken glass, a toilet and a sink.
The bedrooms would be next. He braced himself, hoping there were no more kids.
No more dead kids, he amended, easing a little tension off the trigger pull.
The two bedroom doors were perfectly aligned with one another. He couldn’t step into one room without exposing himself to gunfire. A little past the doors, at the end of the hall, was a heavy cardboard box turned on one side, it’s opening pressed to the wall. The box moved. A whine issued.
A puppy’s plaintive cry plucked at Cash’s raging nerves.
Was that what had made the rustling sound?
Don’t count on it.
Obeying his training, he slid hard and quick into the bedroom on his left. His trained eye quickly took in the second hand crib, the combination changing table and dresser, an open closet filled with what had to be overflow from the parents’ bedroom. He poked at the clothes with the rifle, his ears alert for any movement in the other room.