by Patten, Sean
The moment lunch started I skipped the rations line and headed straight over to Lambert’s office. The two guards were out front, both regarding me with the same hard expression they’d greeted me with before my first meeting with the man in charge.
“State your business,” one of them said.
“Need to talk to the general.”
“Is he expecting you?” asked the other.
“No,” I said. “But—”
“If he’s not expecting you then you’re not going to be seeing him,” said the first soldier. “Please leave the area immediately.”
“Listen,” I said. “I’m with the volunteer work crew.”
I tapped my lanyard, pointing out the general’s signature on the piece of paper within. Each member of the special volunteer crew had it on their lanyard, granting them certain special privileges within the camp. Not much, and they usually just amounted to a little less hassling by the soldiers, but there I was hoping his signature would be my pass inside.
“No appointment, no meeting,” said the second soldier. “Please leave the premises before we remove you by force.”
Nothing about the two troops suggested that this was an idle bluff.
“Come on,” I said, desperation slipping into my voice. “Just five minutes!”
One of the soldiers stepped towards me, apparently ready to use the force he’d hinted at. But before he could speak again a voice spoke out from inside.
“Send him in.”
The two guards shared a look before stepping away from the door. I didn’t waste any time entering, feeling the hot stare of the guards burning a hole in me as I stepped over the threshold.
I suppressed a gasp as I looked around. The office might have been a mess the first time I’d been in here, but it had looked practically neat and tidy compared to now. Nearly every surface was covered in stacks of paper, all written on in ink and pencil. The bookshelf was disheveled, and empty ration packs had been pushed up against the walls.
And at the desk was the man in charge, his hands resting on his forehead as he focused his eyes on a piece of paper in front of him. To his right was the same bottle of whiskey we’d shared a drink from before. Now it was nearly empty, a glass next to the general’s hand still containing a few amber drops. The grenade was still on the desk, weighing down a stack of loose sheets of paper.
“General,” I said.
He ignored me at first, instead focusing on his paper. Finally, after several long moments, he turned his attention to me.
Lambert looked tired. His previously fit, fresh demeanor had vanished, like he’d aged ten years over the course of the last few days. Heavy bags were under his eyes, and his lips were dry and cracked.
“Justin,” he said.
And that was it. Silence fell as he apparently waited for me to start with whatever I’d come in for.
“Thanks for seeing me,” I said. “I’m sure you’re very busy.”
“To put it mildly,” he said. “But I’ve been in here since dawn with the latest supply numbers, figure I should talk to another human before I crack up.”
He cleared his throat and sat up straighter.
“The sewerage project,” he said. “How’s it coming along?”
“Good,” I said. “Should have it finished before the end of tomorrow. But…”
“I know, I know,” he said. “It’s barely going to deal with the waste problem. We’ll need to figure something out, something more long-term. Can’t have a camp where people are dying of cholera.”
I wondered if this comment meant that he’d heard the reports of diseases sweeping through the outer reaches of the camp. There were just rumors, as far as I knew, but word had it that over a dozen people had died from a particularly bad strain of stomach flu. I didn’t mention it to the general, though. The man had enough on his plate.
“There’s…something else, too,” I said. “The reason I wanted to meet with you.”
“Yeah?” he asked. “What is it?”
“My brother. I want to know if you found out anything about where he is.”
Lambert regarded me like I’d just asked him if Santa was real.
“Are you kidding me?” He swept his hands towards the stacks of papers. “I’m on two hours of sleep a night just staying on top of supplies for this camp. We’ve got thousands of people arriving by the day. You really think I’ve got time to find one guy with all this shit going on?”
The swear was a rare slip, I could tell. I pressed on.
“You told me that working for you meant I’d be in the loop,” I said. “Well, I want to know if there’s anything you can tell me about where I can find my brother.”
“There’s nothing,” he said. “Nothing I can tell you.”
He pointed to my lanyard. “See that signature on your lanyard there? That means you’re a little higher on the totem pole that your average refugee. Wave that thing around the right soldiers and they’ll talk. Maybe you’ll find out something about your brother.”
“I just—”
“I’ve got problems on top of problems,” Lambert said. “And as glad as I am to hear you’ve got the sewer system near done, as of right now you’re putting me further behind by the second. So, if you don’t mind—”
He gestured towards the door.
I stood frozen for a moment, more than a little pissed. Just a few days ago Lambert had been all charm to get me on board, all but promising me that my position would help me track down my brother. But now that I was following up on it he was acting like I was no more than some pain in his ass that he couldn’t get rid of fast enough.
It was tempting to give him a piece of my mind, but I knew there was no point. Not to mention the troops outside who I was sure would be more than happy to drag my ass out of there if it seemed like I was being a problem.
So, I turned to leave. But before I could, Lambert spoke up again. I looked back over my shoulder at him.
“Justin,” he said. “Thanks. I know this is hard work, maybe the hardest of your life. But it’s appreciated. Don’t forget that.”
“Yeah,” I said. “My pleasure.”
With that, I was out of there.
I grabbed a quick bite on the rations line, the food situation there seeming just as dire as everything else about the camp. I had to make do with a small fruit cocktail cup and a banana that looked to be on its deathbed.
Back on the work site, I did my best to not stew about what had gone down with Lambert. I got it, I really did. The man was up to his eyeballs in work, tens of thousands of lives depending on him. As frustrated as I was, I could understand him.
But what the hell was he planning on doing, exactly? I hadn’t heard a single bit of information down the line that Lambert had any other ideas for Esperanza other than letting the stream of refugees keep coming in. It was only a matter of time before we flat-out ran out of food and water. And when that happened…
No sense in thinking about it. Kelly was right—I needed to focus on Steve and that was it. Sure, a day of work beat a day running for my life, but it wasn’t going to last forever.
The heat was a little milder that day, so I didn’t mind pushing the guys for another hour or so just to get us ready to finish the project tomorrow. And I pitched in, of course, doing my fair share of the heavy lifting.
By the time I called it a day it was well into the evening, the last traces of sunlight vanishing over the horizon. As much as I was looking forward to seeing Kelly, I wasn’t looking forward to telling her about my lack of success on the Steve front. Lord knew she had enough to deal with at her job.
I made my way through the rows of tents, taking a path that was a little darker, away from the lights that had been hooked up one of the military’s still-functioning generators. But it was faster. I wanted to get home, break the news, and get to bed.
As I crossed the space between two rows, barely able to see through the darkness, I heard something behind me. It was like a rustli
ng, a quick movement of what almost sounded like an animal. There was no one else around, since all the homeless refugees were in the main roads between the tent sections.
“Hey,” spoke a voice in a sharp, quick whisper.
I stopped in my tracks.
“Hey!” it spoke again.
Fuck, I thought, the back of my neck tingling.
I picked up my pace again, but I didn’t get far. Something grabbed me from behind, a hand wrapping around my wrist and holding me in place.
I spun around, ready to clock the dumb bastard who’d been stupid enough to grab me. But as soon as I did, I knew it wasn’t going to be as simple as that.
“Whatever you’ve got that’s worth a damn,” spoke one of the two men. “It’s ours now.”
I could barely see a thing, but the moonlight was bright enough for me to make out the slit-smiles of the two men before me, along with the glint of the blade of a knife in his hand.
A knife that was pointed straight at me.
Chapter 11
“Whatever you’ve got, asshole,” the man repeated. “Hand it over.”
My first instinct was to look around, to see if there was a soldier nearby who could help.
“No one’s gonna hear you if you scream for help,” said the other man. “You took the wrong way home, bud.”
“Now,” said the other. “You gonna do what you’re told, or are you gonna make us have some fun with you first?”
Food and water aside, I had one valuable possession left in the world—my dad’s medal. And there wasn’t a chance these pricks were getting their hands on that, not after everything I’d been through to keep it.
“Listen,” I said. “Don’t do anything stupid. I’m one of Lambert’s volunteers. You fuck with me and you’ll have the entire base on your ass.”
Whether or not that was true, I couldn’t say. And I wasn’t a fan of having to appeal to bringing the law down on them. But I wanted to avoid a fight, and it was worth a shot.
“Who the fuck is Lambert?” asked one of them.
Great. These assholes didn’t even know the name of the man in charge.
“Just hand over whatever you’ve got,” said the other. “Food, water, booze—and hand it over nice and slow.”
Looked like talking my way out of this wasn’t an option.
“Come on, prick,” said one of them. “I’ve got kids!”
I gave the men another once-over, my eyes having adjusted to the darkness. It was plain to see that these two weren’t what I’d imagine when it came to knife-point robbers. They were both soft, dressed in what you’d expect a middle-aged man to wear to a weekend cookout, one of them with a pair of nerdy wire-frame glasses on his face. Hard to say, but they both looked like suburban types who’d gotten desperate.
Didn’t matter—there wasn’t a chance I was going to give them what I had.
“Back off, right now,” I said, my voice hard. “Last chance.”
Now I could see the knife was shaking. It made me wonder if I was the unlucky son of a bitch these two had picked for their first robbery.
“No, asshole,” said one of them. “Your last chance. Hand over what you’ve got or—”
I decided to get a jump on the situation. I threw a hard right cross, connecting with the jaw of the man on the right, the one with the knife. Pain exploded in my hand at the impact, and I realized that the darkness had resulted in a sloppy connection that might’ve broken a bone.
But it worked. The man staggered backward and landed on his ass in the dirt, the knife tumbling out of his hand. The other man and I shared a hard look before both of us dove to the ground, going for the knife. I grabbed onto the handle but the man took me by the wrist, twisting it in an unnatural angle and trying to get me to let go.
I clung on to the handle with every last bit of strength I had. But it wasn’t enough. After a few more moments of struggling, the prick got the better of me, and with one last twist the knife launched out of my hand.
Having just about recovered from my hit, the other guy didn’t waste any time swiping the knife off the ground, swiftly pointing it at me and stepping closer. I was still in the middle of grappling with the first man and in no position to fight off the second. I needed to have won in the first few seconds of the scrap, and I’d failed.
“Now,” said the man with the knife. “Time to find out how dumb of a mistake you made tonight.”
The knife moved closer and closer to my face as the second man held me down, the tip of the knife’s blade catching the glint of the moonlight.
I’d gambled, and I’d lost. Hard.
“Hey, asshole!”
A woman’s’ voice called out, and the three of us looked up to see a slender figure in the dark, something big and heavy in her hands.
Before I could get my mind around what was happening, the woman lifted the thing above her head and launched it. A split second later the object connected with the head of the man with the knife, a cry of pain sounding from him as he stumbled backward.
The women stepped forward, and she was about the sweetest sight I could’ve imagined seeing.
It was Kelly.
“Help!” she called out at the top of her lungs. “Help! Anybody!”
I heard commotion from the insides of the tents around us, Kelly’s voice evidently having been enough to get them all to notice that something was happening. Heads began poking out of tent flaps, and I turned to see the men both with worried expressions on their faces. This obviously hadn’t been part of the plan.
After each shooting me one last pissed-off glare, they turned tail and ran.
They didn’t get far, though. Kelly’s cry had attracted the attention of some nearby soldiers, a pair of them arriving in an all-terrain UTV and cutting off the robbers’ avenue of escape. Rifles pointed in their faces, the men dropped to their knees, and within seconds they were zip-tied, thrown into the back of the vehicle, and driven off.
Once the people nearby realized that the commotion was over, they pulled their heads back into their tents and zipped them back up.
“Oh my God, Justin,” said Kelly as she ran over to me and dropped down at my side. “Are you…are you okay?”
My heart was still pounding, but I otherwise felt fine.
“Yeah,” I said. “They got the worst of it.”
I glanced over at the dirt, seeing what Kelly had used as her weapon—the canteen from our ration handout. Talk about quick thinking.
“I don’t know about that,” she said, looking me over. “You’re bleeding.”
“It’s fine,” I said. “I’m fine.”
“Let me be the judge of that. Come on.”
Kelly slipped her arm around my waist and helped me to my feet. Once I was up she kept at it, like I was some little old lady who’d lost her walker.
“They didn’t break my legs,” I said.
“Sorry,” she said. “Just trying to help.”
“You did,” I said. “You really did.”
Moments later we were back in the tent. Kelly turned on the battery-powered lantern, the tent filling up with bright, harsh light.
“Damn,” she said, her eyes scanning my face and hands and arms. “You got roughed up.”
She rummaged through her nearby bag, pulling out a small but well-stocked first aid kit.
“Where’d we get that?” I asked. “Thought all that came with ours was a pack of Band-Aids and some aspirin.”
“Perks of working the infirmary,” she said, popping it open and taking out some antiseptic wipes. “Now stay still.”
She ripped open the pack and went to work, dabbing my face and arms where the fight had left me with some scuffed-up skin.
“Anything else I should know about?” she asked.
The adrenaline had faded a bit by that point, and my right hand began throbbing.
“My hand kinda hurts.”
“What happened? Did you land on it?”
“No,” I said. “I punched t
he guy and it landed funny.”
She smiled and let out a soft laugh.
“What?” I asked.
“You got jumped and you stood your ground. Brave, but stupid. Classic Justin.”
I matched her smile.
“And I was about to take down the both of them too,” I said. “Till you crashed the party with your thermos of death.”
“Didn’t look that way from where I was standing,” she said. “And besides, you gotta admit that was a hell of a throw.”
“I’ll give you that,” I said. “Hit the poor bastard square in the forehead.”
“I do what I can,” she said with a grin. “Now, your hand. Show me where it hurts.”
I balled up my right hand into a loose fist, pain flowing down the side of it.
“There,” I said. “That’s where I hit him.”
She took my hand into hers.
“Is it a throbbing pain?” she asked.
“It’s…more aching than anything,” I said. “Not awful.”
“Okay,” she said, relief in her voice. “That means it’s not broken. Probably just a hairline fracture from an imperfectly landed punch.”
“Hey!” I said. “It did the job.”
I glanced down at my hand, still in hers. I found myself savoring her touch, the warmth of her skin on mine. It felt good. Comforting. Familiar.
I cleared my throat roughly, breaking the silence.
“Okay, nurse. What’s the prescription?”
“Well,” she said, keeping my hand in hers. “Nothing we can really do for a fracture. Try not to use your hand if you have to, go easy on it for a few weeks. But I’m not too worried. If it was worse, we’d know.”
Another moment passed.
“But there’s something else you can do,” Kelly said.
“What’s that?”
She flicked her eyes up to mine, narrowing them slightly. Then, before I could say or do anything, she balled her hand up into a small fist and drove it into my shoulder. Not hard enough to hurt, but enough to make my eyes go wide.
“Whoa!” I said. “What’s that all about?”
“You can never do something stupid like that again!” she said, a sharp, fearful edge to her voice. “I don’t know what happened, but don’t ever put yourself in danger like that again, got it? If some assholes want to rob you, just give them what they want. I…just can’t…”