He jerks his head toward her. Her heart races. He lifts his sunglasses. His eyes are terrifying. She wishes she had slashed off her entire face, so no one would ever look at her like that again.
He’s getting out of the truck. His boots hit the dirt.
Emma turns and pushes back through the crowd.
“Where are you going?” asks Renee.
People trust soldiers, but she knows better. She’s seen soldiers do too many terrible things. She thrusts her way through the people. She looks back, and sees the general moving through the crowd after her. She had waited for seven hours for a spot near the trucks, and now she doesn’t care. She has to get away. Get away.
Soldiers meet her on the other side of the crowd. They look at her suspiciously. She darts, and they run after her.
The soldiers block her in with their guns. She stops, turns, and sees more soldiers holding their guns sideways to herd her. They are telling her to do things, but she can’t hear. She drops to the ground with her hands over her ears, sobbing.
A hand grabs her arm and lifts her.
“No!” she screams.
It’s him. The man with the gray face. It’s worn and weathered and old. But he’s young. His eyes are vicious.
“Emma,” he says, searching her eyes.
“No, no, please,” she begs, ripping her arm away and running as fast as she can.
The wind blows through her face. Not again, please not again. He’s more dangerous than any of them.
Another pair of soldiers blocks her way. She tries to rush past them, but they grab her and lift her, kicking in the air. She tries to pry his fingers apart, but he’s too strong.
So she bites. She bites and tastes blood. He cries and drops her to the ground.
She sees his knife strapped to his boot. She grabs the handle and slides it out.
“NO!” a voice calls.
It’s him again. The gray general.
“Please, Emma, I’m General McCatherty! Don’t do it!”
Don’t do what? She wonders.
And she’s holding the knife to her own face.
The blade is touching her cheek. She’s ready to cut it off. She wants to cut it off. Like she should have done a long time ago.
“I’m not Emma,” she says, unsure. Then why did I pick Emma, if I’m not Emma?
“Do you remember who you are?”
She doesn’t answer, the blade shaking in her fingers. A drip of blood tumbles down her cheek.
“You’re a congresswoman,” says the gray general. “We have met twice before, once in Virginia and once in D.C.”
Dangerous, she is sure. The most dangerous. All these men will do anything he says.
“What are you talking about?”
He makes a short nod.
Hands rip the blade away from her hand.
A bang slams into her head, and everything is black.
***
She opens her eyes. She’s in a small room. Her head throbs. Her hands are chained to a chair.
The gray general is sitting across from her.
I knew it. This one. The worst, the worst.
She jerks her wrists against the chain, and they snap back. She tries with all her might, until her wrists are blue and bleeding.
“Please hold her,” says the general with his nasty eyes.
He looks annoyed at her. So furious. She can’t imagine what he’ll do.
“Please hold still, Emma, we’re not here to hurt you.”
She rests in the hard grip of his men.
“Emma Wolfe,” he says, leaning back in his chair and letting go a deep exhale. “Emma Wolfe, alive.”
She realizes that there’s a bowl of hot steaming soup on the table in front of her.
“You want some soup? I’ll unchain you if you promise not to try and hurt yourself. You are safe here.”
She doesn’t believe him. But she’s hungry. And he has her anyway. She has no choice.
“OK,” she says.
They unlock her cuffs, and she grabs the spoon and slurps down the soup. Chicken. She can’t remember ever eating chicken, but she instantly knows what it is.
“I thought I recognized you before. That scar on your face—did you do that?”
Emma nods, engrossed by the soup. “The men. Men like you. Keeps them away. They don’t like me like this.”
“Emma, what do you remember of your past life?”
“The day the sun went black.”
The general looks at his men.
“Emma, what I’m going to tell you may come as a great shock to you,” he says carefully. “It’s been a year since that day. We’ve lost virtually all prominent members of the government. The cabinet—not a trace. Now, I told you that you’re a congresswoman, right?”
Emma nods, her stomach filling up.
“Emma Wolfe, you were the Speaker of the House at the time when we lost the lives of the president and the vice president. By right of succession, you, Emma, are the President of the United States.”
He stares at her. She stops eating. She’s so full she wants to puke.
About the Author
Theo Black Gangi is the author of A New Day in America and the breakout crime thriller Bang Bang. His stories have been anthologized in First Thrills, edited by Lee Child; The Greensboro Review; The Columbia Spectator; and The Kratz Sampler.
You can find Theo on:
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Author website: theogangi.com
Character website: nostradamusgreene.com
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
Full Fathom Five Digital is an imprint of Full Fathom Five
A New Day in America
Copyright © 2014 by Theo Gangi
All rights reserved.
No part of this text may be used or reproduced in any form, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in review, without written permission from the publisher.
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Cover design by Sequel Creative, LLC
ISBN 978-1-63370-030-7
First Edition
A New Day in America Page 26