Mom crossed her arms over her stomach and shook her head. “Was there anything inside? I created the panel for Kelly to put any pictures or special items. We had to leave before we grabbed anything of meaning, you know? In mine there’s a Bible.” She pointed indifferently toward her as-yet-untouched pack.
Turning toward hers, Charlie stared for a long while at the bag, while he groped mine. A pensive twist to his head didn’t reassure me about the encounter. He was too oily, too good at running people. I hadn’t even known him for an hour and I could already tell he took himself more seriously than other people did.
This scared me.
I reached for my mom’s hand. My movement caught Charlie’s attention and he turned his stare on me. I didn’t flinch. I hadn’t done anything. I hadn’t hidden anything in the pockets or in the room.
Sarge moved forward, upending Mom’s bag and emptying her contents onto the bed as well. At least their inconsiderate nature hadn’t extended so far they dropped stuff on the floor. He ripped open the bottom panel and Mom’s Bible thunked when hitting the hardwood flooring. Okay, never mind. I gave Sarge credit too soon.
Charlie knelt, retrieving the book and gazing at Mom while he rose. “You weren’t kidding. You never spoke of your religion at the co-op.”
“What I believe is nobody’s business.” How could Mom speak so calmly, even with a dash of attitude? The men in that room weren’t our friends. They weren’t there to help us. They wanted to do exactly what the government had done before my dad had left for the south. Taken a vote and created a buy-sell-trade mentality for gun owners and their neighbors.
If a person owned a gun, they were expected to buy a license, giving their weapon a documented address. Refusal to do so would require them to sell their weapons. If neither of those steps were done, neighbors or anyone who knew about people with guns – licensed or not – could trade information for commodities. With gas and other resources so high, need was a powerful motivator.
“Well, I disagree. We don’t allow organized religion here. So don’t start preaching or anything. I’ll hold onto your Bible in my room, so you don’t get any ideas.” He dropped my bag and reached forward to pat Mom’s stiff shoulder. “You don’t need it anyway. Can’t you see? God’s already forgotten you.” He jerked his fingers at Sarge and they tromped toward the door and disappeared without looking back.
I turned back to Mom, angry they took her Bible but also slightly vindicated someone else agreed with me on the whole religion thing. There was nothing comforting about who agreed with me.
She slumped onto the bed, her hands shaking as she reached for our things. Shirts and pants sifted through her fingers and she didn’t even grasp for them.
“Mom, are you okay?” The guys hadn’t been overly threatening, more irritating and oily, but not scary. Tears in her eyes when she lifted her gaze to mine made my stomach wring in worry. What had I missed? Why wasn’t I crying? If Mom was worried or upset, something was bad enough to be concerned about.
“You did a great job hiding the gun. I’m sure you can get your other one back.” I lamely lifted my hand, letting fall back to my side when my words failed.
She barely shook her head and looked down into her lap. Her lips moved, but I couldn’t hear her. A large tear dripped onto her pants.
I moved to sit beside her, pushing a pile of things across the mattress. “I didn’t hear you.” My fingers fiddled with the lower zipper on my outer jacket. My family wasn’t big on hugging and for the first time in my life, I wondered why.
She sniffed, wiping at her cheeks. “He took my Bible. That was... cruel.”
“Mom, I’m sorry. I know. Try to think of it as just a book. He didn’t take anything else.” I tried not to sigh. She was upset over the book. He didn’t take our last gun, which I thought was a small victory. I nudged her shoulder. “We didn’t know he would take that or we could’ve hidden the Bible too. He didn’t even think to check the rest of the room.”
She stared at me, disappointment shiny in another tear slipping through her defenses. The skin around her swollen and bruised eye tightened and flushed under her tears. “Kelly, you’re going to fit in here too fast, if you can believe all he took was a book.”
Her comment stung. I recoiled, blinking rapidly at the sudden verbal attack. “Mom, I didn’t deserve that. In the whole scheme of things, it was just a book. What do you want me to say?” But it wasn’t. I knew it wasn’t. But if I could downplay the book’s relevance, than maybe it wouldn’t be so obvious that I was glad that her book was all he’d taken. I could hide my fear a little longer.
“I want you to keep your childish opinions to yourself. That book is a foundation of beliefs. Whether you have a religious attachment to it or not the connotation in that book is understood by everyone. He took my Bible as a power play. Charlie wants to control us – me. He proved he can take anything he wants. Do anything he wants.” She pushed off the mattress and stood, spinning to thrust loose items into her pack.
“Childish? You might still see me as twelve, but I’m seventeen. I have a more developed idea of what’s going on than you might think.” I copied her actions. She wasn’t the only one in a difficult situation. I thrust random shirts and socks into the depths of my pack. “Why’d you say I’m twelve anyway?” Was I so innocent acting? So naïve?
She threw the last of her things inside her bag and turned to me, her jaw tight. “Don’t you understand what’s going on here? He just claimed me as his own. If I didn’t go along with his stupid rule, he all but promised me we would both be raped. As long as you act like you’re twelve, we might be able to save you from being claimed by anyone else. Do you understand, now?”
She looked me over, anger heating her normal professional cool. “You keep your chest wrapped and don’t tell anyone. This isn’t some game or a practice drill. This is reality now, Kelly. You don’t have the luxury of hiding behind me anymore in your disbelief.” She poked her finger into the air inches from my face. “You need to start paying attention.”
I didn’t flinch as her words hailed around me. Twelve? Binding my breasts would keep them hidden but was I really so immature looking I would pass for five years younger? Holding my face blank wouldn’t have been possible, if I were twelve. The snarky comments didn’t pass my lips. Confrontation with my mother never went well. She had an ability to not get as worked up as I did and usually watched as I went from this-is-what’s-making-me-mad to complete and uncontrollable meltdown because of her serenity.
While she packed fast, I took my time. The longer I worked on picking up, the less I would have to deal with her. I wonder if I could pack for a year.
Chapter 10
Apparently the camp announced dinner shift with a bell, the first round of diners called with one ding.
When the bell sounded, I grabbed my full pack and flung it to the floor, kicking the bag into the corner. As much as the sandwiches we hadn’t eaten looked appealing, I needed something more filling.
Mom knelt in prayer almost twenty minutes ago. No talking or other sound between us but the huffing of our breath, until she stood when I turned the door handle.
“You can’t leave, Kelly. You don’t know anyone here. I’m not sure if we can even count on the ones I thought I knew. I have no idea how these people are going to act.” She didn’t move other than to point toward the rest of the house and compound.
I leaned my forehead against the door. “Are you kidding me?” Pausing for a moment, I stared at the simple white lines of the grain of the wood. Finally, I gave in to the rush of anger and disbelief swelling over me. I spun, hurt beyond measure. “Then why are we here? What are we doing? We can do this on our own. I know we can. Let’s go. If you don’t trust them, then why?”
She rushed to me, pushing the air at waist height with her flat, opened hand. “Shh. Shh. Shh. You have to keep your voice down. They need to think we trust them.” She didn’t speak in a whisper, but more of a hushed, library tone. �
��You were at the same meeting I was. Didn’t you hear what he said? Come on, Kelly.”
We stared at each other. So many things unsaid. Too many to get over with a simple conversation. I wanted to cry out, loud as I could, and beg her to leave.
“You’re going to sleep with Charlie so I’m safe? We’re staying here because he said we can’t leave. How do we know if we haven’t even tried?” How could she not understand what was wrong with that? “We don’t need them.” If I gave her the benefit of the doubt, I could imagine she didn’t understand the bully mentality. But that wasn’t going to work when she was getting raped that evening. “No matter how voluntary you go with him tonight, it’s still rape, Mom.”
“I know that, Kelly. But can’t you see that at least it’s just me, and not you too?” She pressed her heated face close to mine, eyes searching, pleading with me to understand.
“We need to leave. Leave now. Please, Mom.” I couldn’t offer her understanding. How was I supposed to go along with her sacrifice when it only protected something as simple as my virginity?
“Where would we go? This place is everything I’ve been preparing for. Trust me, no one will survive out there by themselves. I’ve done the research and people don’t survive outside of a group.” Adamantly shaking her head, she turned to the window and the paper-thin curtains.
I folded my arms. Could that be true? I tried to recall any American history from school or anything I might have read to refute her claim, but any historical classes had culled out anything earlier than the 1980s and pop culture. Except for the last few years when the wars had started.
No, the teachers and administrators loved to replay the media blitzes of most of the Middle East disappearing under nukes while Asia, northern Europe, and the southern countries turned on each other.
The most famous of memes had been one where the American flag had been depicted sitting in a throne while all the other flags had fought below it, tearing each other apart. The caption had said, “Why fight, when they’ll do it for you?”
After surviving their own skirmishes, the leaders of the remaining countries had turned on the USA. Good ole US. I couldn’t remember any lesson mentioning the first two World Wars, and there had to be a One and a Two because they referred to this one as Three. To have a third there had to have been a previous two, right? Humanity survived those, we had a chance with this one, too. Right?
All information about anything other than approved “facts” was destroyed. Even on the internet access to anything pre-1980s required mad skills in the hacking department because most of the time the information was a ghost of what it used to be. I had only been ten when the internet had become “controllable.”
So Mom could spout off her facts and I would never know. I would never be the wiser, because my education didn’t encompass everything hers did. Hers was the lucky generation.
“I can volunteer then. You don’t need to do it. Everything about tonight will go against your beliefs and I don’t have any preconceived notions on any of it.” I laughed at myself. “I’m even a virgin still, for crying out loud. Why should you get to have all the fun before we die?” My lips tight, I refused to cry. What the heck were we doing? Talking about which of us would get raped that night to stay in a camp we didn’t feel safe in.
Mom whirled to me, arms outstretched as she pulled me to her chest. “No. I don’t care how mad at me you are. What happens tonight isn’t how anyone should be treated. We can’t leave. He all but promised me they wouldn’t let us go.”
Wouldn’t let us go? Great. That made me feel so much better about staying. I hung my head, reaching up to rub my forehead. “Fine. Can we go eat, now?” Starved, I wasn’t only hungry for food, but for conversation with people outside of my reality. Talking with someone who had different information or even a different perception, I might be able to feel a modicum of normalcy. Because I couldn’t help feeling like I had been slammed into a horrible role-playing bit and no one had given me a script.
“Charlie said we’ll be eating with the second shift. If they at least left the dining rules alone, the first bell is for the first diners. We’ll wait here for the second.” She sank to the mattress, folding her hands in her lap. Demure, her countenance seemed fake after such a fired up encounter. “We could pray for comfort?” She made the suggestion like a question, like I would want to pray for anything.
Ignoring her, I jerked my thumb toward the door. “I need to use the bathroom. Can I do that?”
She reclaimed her feet, moving to stand beside me. “I’ll go with you. I don’t know how this works, this claiming or protection thing. They’ve changed so much. Barbarianism never made sense.” Mom touched my arm, forcing me to meet her gaze. “I’m serious, Kelly. Don’t tell anyone your age. If you can’t act twelve, keep quiet, okay?”
Nodding, if not to agree, then certainly to get us going out the door, I needed to get a lay of the area. If I couldn’t count on Mom to get us out, I had to try myself.
~~~
Dinner turned out to be warmed refried beans and a poor attempt at homemade tortillas. The second shift consisted of Charlie, Mom, me, and three other men who spoke like they suspected “Big Brother” still monitored everyday things. The government could have taken things back and control reigned everywhere but in the crap camp.
We sat at a long, rough wood picnic table with attached benches like those at a public park. I sat across from Mom and picked up the simple salt shaker. Beneath the cardboard cylinder, a black brand claimed the table as Farragut State Park Property. Which guy or guys had stolen the table? How many other things had been taken before the fallout?
Someone who stole when things were safe had the potential for so much worse with danger shoved in their face.
The grass had been tamped down in the area by a lot of feet. Camp population hadn’t been very evident when we arrived. Two women and a couple men was all, if I remembered correctly.
A man to our left grunted to the guy across from him. “This isn’t something that could’ve been prevented.”
My ears perked up. I rolled the tortilla slowly, careful to take a bite and chew soft enough I could hear but not so slow I looked stupid.
“You don’t think with a little less arrogance and a lot more service, we could have avoided being bombed?” The second man put his burrito down and stared at the man across from him.
The other guy shrugged, avoiding eye contact in a more pacifist stand. “I think we could’ve protected ourselves better, if the president didn’t position all our troops in other countries and the National Guard on the borders. Fat lot of good the soldiers did anyone when illegals attacked from both sides. You can’t fight a dual-sided ambush.” He bit into his tortilla wrap, careful to keep eyes focused on his dinner.
Thumping the table, Man Number Two spluttered. “We should be helping others. Everyone was destroying each other. We had to help those lower countries.”
Slowly, the first man stopped chewing and swallowed. He met the other man’s stare. His face flushed while his eyes moistened. “They weren’t destroyed and now we are.” He shoved the rest of his burrito in his mouth and left the table.
The second man’s shoulders slumped, but he resumed eating.
Mom leaned over, reaching for the ketchup bottle. “You okay, Tom?”
Heaving a sigh, Tom stole a peek at Mom. “Thanks, Megan. He’s new, but his ideas are strong and he’s a good worker.” Tom flitted his gaze around the immediate encampment.
Charlie and the other men stood at the drink station and didn’t spare us a second’s worth of attention. He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Watch your back. Things aren’t like we planned, in case you haven’t noticed yet.” He held his gaze trained on the men. “They say one thing but have two more planned behind the door. These guys are evil.”
I bit into my burrito again, absorbing the tension crackling on the air around me.
Mom sipped her water and muttered under the cup brim. “What
else is going on? Have you heard anything?”
Tom shook his head, but watched his plate. “Mostly what we expected, except Russia didn’t bomb us. They’re out. Apparently, England took them. China and most of Asia is gone. Australia’s out. The only three countries besides the US left – if the US is left – are rumored to be UK, Poland, and Germany, if you can believe that.”
Three. Such a small number considering a week ago the whole first world had been intact. Third-world countries had disappeared under the Protective Wars last summer.
Rolling a second burrito, Tom leaned in for a bite. His lips moved the edge of the flour wrap with his words. “I’m not sure what’s going on here. Between us, you might be smart to find a way to move on.”
I couldn’t keep the small smile from my lips as I bit into the soft dinner. At least someone else – no, at least an adult had the same thoughts as me. Now Mom would have to see me as someone to take seriously. No matter what she wanted others to believe.
Mom opened her mouth to counter but Tom cleared his throat and took another bite, looking down.
My gaze hadn’t risen above the end of my burrito, but I jumped anyway when Charlie took the seat beside Mom and draped his arm across her shoulders. “How’re you girls settling in? Everything going okay?” He smirked at the other men moving in around us. “Told you guys. She’s not much to look at, but she’s motivated.”
Wincing, I smiled and raised my plastic cup. “Are other kids here?” Internally I cringed at the sickly sweet voice I used, the tone bouncing back at me from the bottom of my cup. My mom was gorgeous. The fact that her looks had been brutalized didn’t take away from her beauty.
Suddenly somber, Charlie shook his head. “No, sweetheart. The two families with children didn’t reach camp in time.”
Mom glanced sharply at Charlie’s face. “I thought the deadline was tomorrow.”
He shrugged, leaning back to stretch his legs. “No. Jeanine went back to get the last of our intel from the meetup place when you guys arrived. We’re not letting anyone else in. We need our rations.” He brazenly winked at me with my mom’s face focused downward. “Plus, there are marauders looting and killing already as far north as Rathdrum. We can’t take the chance of letting them slip through our defenses. We’re taking today and tomorrow to seal up any possible weak spots in the perimeter.”
Cost of Survival Page 7