by Ryan Schow
He had to get Kennicot to Charleston, West Virginia, to the Governor’s Mansion. If he could get her there on time, the next piece of the puzzle would fall into place.
He closed his eyes, tried to envision what was next, and then—as sleep nudged him, as it started to overpower him—he said a short prayer asking that God guide them to a vehicle that would be suitable for the trip ahead.
Chapter Nine
Isaiah Wright
Isaiah woke up to voices. Adi was at the window with Marley; Kennicot was sitting up in bed, fixing her hair.
“What’s going on?” he heard himself ask.
“Humvees are here,” Marley said. “They’re rounding people up.”
He threw off the blanket, got off the couch, then padded across the floor to the window that wasn’t broken or blocked by box-spring mattresses. He held himself against the cold, saw the others were cold as well.
Looking below, he saw someone trying to run, a woman. A quick burst of gunfire cut her down.
“Why do they keep running?” Marley asked. “And aren’t those our soldiers?”
He heard voices outside the door.
“Hide!” he said.
They hid as best as they could, but the pounding at the door opened it up, the broken lock doing nothing to keep them out. Soldiers poured in, started going through everything. Before long, the men found all four of them. First they found Marley and Adi, and then they found Kennicot, and finally Isaiah.
“I got all kinds of lead with your name on it, big boy,” the soldier said when Isaiah started to struggle.
“Where are you taking us?” he asked.
“To safety.”
“Whose safety? Yours or mine?”
“We got ourselves an intellectual here, fellas!” the soldier said.
“The blonde looks like something out of Scarface. Who’d you kill to get this messy?”
Marley kept the boy close and her mouth shut.
“Looks like she’s a mute, fellas,” the guy with the gun on Isaiah said. Right on cue, Marley started signing fast, the sign language coming effortlessly to the girl.
“Holy cow, she’s deaf!” one of the guys said. They all started laughing, then they pushed the four of them out the apartment door and told them if they were good, they wouldn’t accidentally fall down several flights of stairs.
The group had no choice but to comply with the soldiers, even though Isaiah’s brain was working overtime to figure a way out of this.
Out front, Kennicot tried to run, but one of the soldiers grabbed her by her hair, yanked her back, then spun her around and gut punched her. She stood there for a second, bent over, and then she fell to a knee, groaning.
The soldier didn’t let her fall down completely. He picked her back up and said, “On your feet, lady.” He then turned her back around and shoved her towards the pack of Humvees.
Isaiah didn’t just have a bad feeling about this, he had the worst feeling. Behind every Humvee was a long horse trailer.
“Get in ladies and germs,” one of the soldiers said.
“Which country do you represent?” Marley asked the soldier.
He said, “I represent the United States of get in the fucking trailer, that’s which one.”
Marley got into the trailer, followed by Kennicot and the boy. Isaiah couldn’t leave without Kennicot, otherwise there was nothing left for him. That’s why he followed the three of them into the . The people were packed in like sardines, the air stifling hot and smelling of body odor, bad breath, and fear.
“This is like when the Jews were told to get on the trains,” Kennicot said straightening her hair, pain still in her features. “They were told they’d be taken to safety.”
“Shut your trap, lady!” the soldier at the end of the trailer said as he shoved more people inside.
When they were packed tight and the gate was shut, Isaiah tried to tell himself it was not over, that there would be a way out. But then they were taken to an old COVID quarantine center where they were let out in an orderly fashion by men with guns, dogs, and bullhorns.
“If you cooperate, you will be given hot food, beds to sleep on, and a weekly bath. This is not an internment camp. You will be safe here. You will be protected. This is still the United States of America.”
“Yeah, right,” Marley muttered under her breath.
They were moved like cattle through a maze constructed of chain-link fencing and razor wire pointing in.
If this is not an internment camp, Isaiah thought, if we are indeed being protected, then why is the razor wire pointing in?
When the four of them were shoved into an overcrowded chain link cage together, Isaiah took a moment to be grateful for the tiny victory. If they had been separated, he would have been pissed off beyond belief. He had to stay near Kennicot. He needed to get the president out of there alive. He thought about Marley and the kid as well, but at the moment, they didn’t really matter. Not in the larger scope of things.
Isaiah and Marley moved through the crowded cage, drawing the ire of others, then met up with Kennicot and the kid. They started speaking, but then a few of the people inside the cage began shushing them.
“Why don’t you be quiet,” Marley fired back.
“If they think you’re conspiring, they’ll shoot you and maybe hit some of us in the process.”
“We’re not conspiring,” Kennicot whispered.
“Well, it looks like it!”
Overhead, there were old white loudspeakers mounted on poles, the kind of loudspeakers that looked like they’d come from an era long since passed. Instructions for co-operation were being pumped out of said speakers in five different languages: English, Spanish, German, Italian, and Chinese.
The recording never stopped running.
It was on a loop.
The four of them lowered their voices below the crackling of the loudspeaker, but found there was really nothing to say other than to lament their situation.
Isaiah looked at Kennicot and saw fear in her eyes. Adi had it, too. The kid was terrified and clinging to Marley like if she moved, he had to move at the same time lest he be separated at any minute. Isaiah didn’t blame him. He was probably smart to be doing that.
“Shower while you can!” a man and woman in civilian clothing were shouting with bullhorns. They had a security detail with them—two big Russian-looking men with submachine guns and the kind of stare that could ice over a fire.
No one was really sure if this was a request or an order. Pretty soon they found out it was an order. The civilian man selected half a dozen people per cage. Considering there were about thirty people stuffed into each cage, there was a good chance one of them would be taken.
This had him thinking of the showers in Auschwitz. The Jews and Jew sympathizers were taken off the train—the women, children, and elderly selected—then told they’d get hot showers. Instead, they were hit with Zyklon B, a cyanide-based pesticide. Shortly after that, their bodies were fed into the furnaces where the flames turned them to ash. Fortunately, he didn’t smell burning bodies or see the ashes of the dead raining down around them.
What did I get myself involved in here? he wondered for the hundredth time.
When the man and woman were picking people for the showers, Isaiah was selected right away, as were a few other people. But no one he’d come there with was chosen. Then the woman picked Marley and said, “Definitely her.”
The cage door opened and the Russian men pointed their guns at the door, encouraging everyone to remain in the cages unless called upon to move. Isaiah and the others were summoned forth, then walked through another maze that took them out back to a large, fenced-in corral with an old backstop people once used for handball. There were several red stains on the large wall indicating someone had died there recently. Other than that, there were about fifteen people on a concrete pad standing in a horizontal line facing the camp; instead of getting shot with bullets, they were being hosed down with what l
ooked like gravity-fed fire hoses.
The blast of water knocked everyone over. Instead of stopping, though, the hose operator laid it on them, making sure they were clean when he decided they were clean. When the water stopped, the people got up, and were then escorted back inside by their original guards.
“Next group!” the man with the hose shouted.
Isaiah looked back at Marley, who was looking at the soaking wet people walking back inside.
“Let’s go!” the man shouted, this time with some vigor.
The group stepped up to the line painted on the pavement and were promptly told to stand facing the hose. They did. Isaiah had to hold his bladder, but others let theirs go. It didn’t matter. They were about to be wet anyway, so he let his go, too.
The blast hit them hard, knocking them back. Several of the smaller women and older men fell over and were pushed back, but they got up. Marley stood and took it, just like him. She wiped her face off, then looked over at Isaiah, who nodded. He was immediately hit in the face with a blast that rocked him, but he stood his ground as well, too proud to buckle to these sadists.
“Turn around!” the hose operator barked.
A few of them got back up and stood with their backs facing the man.
“Pull down your pants and bend over!” he screamed.
No one complied. The man shouted it again. Still, no one replied. The first gunshot startled them; the second had everyone moving in compliance. He glanced over at the two people who’d been shot and frowned. Then, the water from the fire hose damn near cleansed him from the inside out. As he stood there, taking the hose, he saw the older man bleeding out, as well as an older teenaged girl. She’d been shot in the back of the head and was lying face-down, dead.
He looked over at Marley and she was still on her feet. He nodded; she nodded. Where he looked pissed off but whipped, she looked like she wanted to tear someone’s heart out of their chest and eat it.
When they were done, the rest of them were walked back to the cage and thrown back in.
“Where are the others?” one lady inside the cage asked.
“They didn’t comply,” Isaiah said. “If you do what they ask, you’ll make it back. Don’t comply and it’s over for you.”
That night they were fed what looked like busboy tubs full of pig slop; everyone ate from the same trough because they were that hungry. Night fell fast, as did the temperature. Everyone was weary, tired, downright exhausted, but there was nowhere to lay down, not with all of them in such a small space. Several people made places for the older people to sit, but that was the best they got. The people who understood how cold it would get opted to stand next to others in the hope that the combined body heat would ward off some of the cold.
The guards walked the concrete corridors in shifts, going from cage to cage, telling the “guests” there was no heat but what they made and to be quiet and try to sleep. Halfway through the night, everyone just sort of leaned on each other and managed to almost get to sleep all night long. When someone really managed to sleep, you could tell because their knees buckled and they nearly fell, waking everyone else up in the process.
Then there were the bathroom breaks. The guards’ shifts ended at eleven at night then resumed at six in the morning. Throughout the night, several people let their bladders go, including Kennicot and Adi. Neither apologized because no one else was apologizing either.
And so it went for the next two days. At least they had the darkness to lull them to sleep after the sun set. But then the civilian work crews finished wiring up the new bank of solar panels and then even the nights disappeared. The lights stayed on 24/7.
After a few days, no one knew whether it was night or day, how long they’d been in there, or for what purpose they were being detained.
More people were being selected for work duties. Isaiah didn’t want to leave the pack, but he was going stir crazy. He had to get out. Or sit down. He needed to do something, even if it was just to see daylight.
“You,” one of the Russian guards said, pointing to Isaiah. “You’re on work detail today.”
His legs were going numb for hours at a time and the bottoms of his feet felt smashed so flat, it was like standing bone-on-concrete. When he moved, he did so slowly, gingerly…until he was shoved from behind. He went down hard, tried to get up, and was kicked in the rear by one of the guards.
He got up in time to see one of the guys who had been on the work crew for several days attack the Russian. The prisoner/worker had somehow managed to pry a large splinter off of something—a shovel, a two-by-four, a four-by-four post—and drive it into the man’s neck.
The Russian howled out, took a big misstep, then started to stumble forward. The attacker grabbed the guard’s weapon before he could get his hand under his two-point sling and free his weapon.
The struggle was shorter than Isaiah expected. The attacker pressed the guard’s barrel down, head-butted the man, then snugged the barrel up against his body. Pointing down, he pulled the trigger. Half a dozen bullets ate up the Russian’s feet and he started to scream.
Before the Russian fell down, the attacker detached the sling from the weapon, ripped it free, then lit the guard up like the big sack of meat that he was.
Isaiah’s Russian guard shot the attacker, but someone else grabbed the fallen man’s weapon and unleashed a rapid-fire burst on the Russian. The first shots were wild, but several of them caught the big man across the knees, dropping him instantly. He managed to get his own gun, but with his attention fully on his pain and his intended targets, he didn’t see Isaiah until it was too late. Isaiah quickly snaked his arm around his neck and started to squeeze.
As Isaiah fought to choke him out, someone tried stripping the guard of his gun. The harness held the weapon in place, the sling refusing to snap free.
“Press your thumb in hard and pull,” Isaiah growled, still working to restrain the Russian.
The Russian swiped at the man, but two more men rolled in to help. They held the Russian’s arms and legs down while Isaiah exhausted his energy choking him.
“You’re not on the carotid,” one of the guys said.
“Yes, I am,” Isaiah growled. “The artery runs deep on this meathead.”
The man struggled, forcing Isaiah to squeeze hard. The detainees began to cheer him on, their noisy support eclipsing the overhead speakers, which were still droning out their multi-lingual warnings.
The beast of a man finally broke through the grips of the other guys, his finger getting to the trigger. Isaiah managed to wrap his legs around the man, locking his ankles around his midsection and the weapon. The trapped weapon made it hard for the guard to shoot anything other than the concrete around his knees.
Someone was now letting people out, then firing on the incoming guards. Isaiah had long suspected this COVID camp was run by a skeleton crew, but until then he’d failed to get confirmation.
The Russian finally passed out, allowing Isaiah to get around him and get the gun. He disengaged the sling’s straps, collected the weapon, then looked it over. Pulling the charging handle, he checked the chamber; he hit the mag release, checked the mag. Satisfied, he reattached the sling, slid the weapon in place, then made his way out front and started firing on the incoming guards. There were four male minders total, plus the woman who had taken them to the showers.
Isaiah put two into her chest without even thinking; she dropped down dead.
During the hostile exchange, several people were shot; some wounds were superficial while others proved to be fatal. He wasn’t concerned with any of it at that point. Not the way he taught himself to think. Ninety percent of them would be dead in a year anyway, which made him a man among ghosts as far as he was concerned. It was this type of thinking that kept him focused and on point.
When his mother died, he turned his focus to his brothers and sisters. When his brother was killed and his sister committed suicide, his focus turned to his remaining siblings. The minut
e he learned the US was slated for total collapse, his focus broadened dramatically. It wasn’t just about saving the nation, or even the world, it was about protecting what would be left of the US in a year. Then the EMP hit and he was put in the COVID cages. That didn’t derail him, rather it moved him from a sweeping focus to a more laser-tight focus. All he cared about was Kennicot, and getting her to West Virginia. Isaiah saw her coming out of the containment facility with Marley and the boy in tow, which saved him from having to go back after them. He heaved a sigh of relief.
With the people who had broken free liberating everyone, they’d need to hurry if they wanted a vehicle. Isaiah waved them over.
“We have to get to the Humvees!” Isaiah said, grabbing Kennicot and barging their way through the clots of people.
“You’re hurting me!” Kennicot said, causing Isaiah to tighten his grip even more.
He knew the people in front of them were hurting, that their legs ached and their backs were in knots, but he couldn’t keep their pace and expect to get a ride. Isaiah reasoned that if the group moved fast enough, they could get ahead of the crowds and get a Humvee.
Of the four vehicles he saw, only one of them was trailer-free. He steered the crew in that direction. “Hurry!” he kept saying over his shoulder, his eyes on the prize.
When they got inside the Humvee, he said, “Dammit, we don’t have a key!” He watched the others sag in their seats, before saying, “Just kidding. These things don’t have keys.” Laughing because he felt victorious, he turned the switch and the vehicle grumbled to life.
“No one thinks that’s funny,” Kennicot said, rubbing her wrist where he’d grabbed her.
“It’s kind of funny,” Marley said from the back seat.
A couple of men people jumped into the Humvee until they were full. “We’re heading back to the White House if you want to come,” Isaiah said to the strangers.
“What about the Hayseed Rebellion?” one of the passengers asked. He was a teenage kid, maybe seventeen or eighteen with bad pimples and rashy skin.