His Name Was Zach (Book 2): Her Name Was Abby

by Martuneac, Peter

  She put her face in her hands, massaging her temples. Footsteps approached and a man’s voice said, “You hurt?”

  “No, I’m fine,” she replied.

  Abby looked up and found herself staring at Hiamovi.

  “Wha… Ab… ” Hiamovi stammered. His eyes ballooned out of his face as he stumbled back and fell over.

  Though she didn’t show it as obviously, Abby likewise was shocked and felt mentally unprepared for meeting Hiamovi again this soon after they last spoke. “Hi, Hiamovi,” she whispered.

  Hiamovi sat in the grass with a slack-jawed look for several seconds. “Abby,” he finally said, “they said you were dead. Th-th-they showed a picture, it looked just like you, it…”

  His voice trailed off as he began to cry. Abby felt compelled to say something, but before she could Hiamovi had flung himself towards her, wrapping his arms around her and holding her tight.

  Abby embraced him as well as she fought back her own tears. “Hiamovi… I’m so sor—”

  “Don’t,” interrupted Hiamovi, pulling up his head and looking Abby in the eye. “Just… don’t. Not right now. Right now all I want to do is this.”

  Hiamovi kissed her then, a gesture she gladly returned as they sat there in the aftermath of the carnage of battle. Sounds faded away, the smell of smoke and gunpowder receded. In a moment, all their senses failed them except for the feel of their lips pressed against each other.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  With the battle over and President Arthur found dead in his office, the rebels declared victory. Heammawihio right away began to set up an interim government to order affairs until a new American government could be founded, with genuine elections. A few hours after the battle, General Sloan finally showed up at the capital with an entire division behind him in an armored convoy. He helped Heammawihio set things in order and sent messages to the other generals, letting them know that they were in charge, demanding their loyalty and obedience.

  The captured DAS agents were tended to if they were in need of medical care, but Heammawihio ordered them to be imprisoned for now. All except Derrick, that is. Abby pleaded for him to be granted mercy, arguing that he’d suffered enough in recent days, from discovering his girlfriend was an enemy spy to losing the last of his family. Heammawihio agreed with Abby and gave Derrick leave to go and do as he wished.

  Abby heard through the grapevine that Derrick was heading west, to get on a boat that would take him up the coast. But before he left, Abby wrote him a letter. In it she told Derrick how sorry she was and laid out her real life story, explained her actions without trying to justify them, and wished him happiness whether he forgave her or not.

  She managed to track him down as he was preparing to leave the city, finding him packing up an SUV with all his stuff along a sidewalk. While he was leaning into the back of the vehicle trying to sort everything, Abby hurried by, a hat pulled down over her face, and slipped the faded pink envelope containing her letter into a pouch on his backpack that he had not yet loaded. And then she walked away.

  That was the last time Abby ever saw Derrick, and she never heard from him again. She hoped, at least, that her letter was received well, and that Derrick was leading a happy life. He deserved that much, Abby thought. He was a good man, his apple falling far from his father’s tree. He had his flaws, like his misplaced loyalty to a corrupt government, but given the tragic loss of his mother and his father’s role as the president, who could blame him? Ultimately, before her true identity was revealed, he’d been nothing but kind and good to Abby, and she hoped that he found a woman who deserved his love and would love him back.

  Patching things up with Hiamovi, however, was not so easy. After their first encounter on the battlefield in front of the White House, they fell into an awkward estrangement. Neither was sure how to begin a relationship again after all that had transpired. Hiamovi, in order to avoid Abby as much as possible, threw himself into the work of rebuilding a country with his granddad, and Abby helped in cleaning up the city and tearing down the wall around District 1.

  A semblance of normalcy did not return to the city for several weeks after the battle. After receiving oaths of loyalty from the rest of the military, Heammawihio ordered the resignations of all government officials across the United States. Any who refused were to be arrested, but only a very few bothered to resist.

  Elections were held, and new mayors, governors, Senators, and a President were elected from among the populace. Heammawihio himself did not run for any office, believing that other men, like General Sloan, were better candidates. But when the results came in, over ninety percent of the votes had been cast in his name for the presidency. With that kind of support, Heammawihio reluctantly accepted the election and was sworn into office.

  In his first speech as president, Heammawihio stressed the importance of unity in these dark times. He promised to restore trust and faith in the government, and that his top priority was to restore America to its former glory, with civilization from sea to shining sea.

  Already he’d been in contact with other world leaders in an effort to figure out the general state of the world, and to spread the word about who was responsible for The Crisis. Some leaders had never spoken with Cyrus Arthur and were eager to join Heammawihio in rebuilding. Others, the ones who had accepted the virus and spread it across different continents, had to be threatened by a coalition of nations before they agreed to surrender, and only then in exchange for safe asylum until trials could be arranged.

  It was not until spring of next year that things in America began to cool down from the violent overthrow of President Arthur. The DAS was disbanded, and the Department of Defense was reorganized back into its old form. Walls were torn down and highways were repaired. A great deal of money was spent to get people out of the overcrowded cities and back into smaller towns and rural farming areas so that they could kick-start the local economies there.

  And then there was San Diego, and the rebuilding efforts that had to be taken there. The city had been pulverized by massive rocket artillery barrages and carpet bombing and then abandoned. Many years would pass before the city would return to a bustling hub of commerce and industry.

  But despite all the challenges on the road ahead, people were hopeful. Overall life had improved, and for the first time in years people believed that things were going to get better. People smiled more, made friends with strangers, and talked about returning to places like Miami or New York City before long.

  These were the kinds of conversations Abby overheard as she sat outside a little café, drinking coffee and reading a book as the morning sun rose in the sky. She was waiting on Hiamovi to show up so that they could finally talk after weeks of silence. The anxiety of this meeting was causing a buzz in her head. Her body demanded a cigarette, but Abby hadn’t touched one in weeks and she intended to keep it that way.

  “Hi, Abby,” said a voice behind her.

  Abby turned and saw Hiamovi approaching. He gave her a nervous smile which Abby returned as he sat down across from her.

  “Sorry I’m late, I was helping granddad respond to some messages,” Hiamovi said.

  “It’s okay,” Abby replied. She turned in her chair to signal the waitress who came right over with a cup of coffee for Hiamovi.

  “Thank you,” he said as the waitress turned to help another guest.

  Neither Abby nor Hiamovi spoke for several seconds after that. Both knew what they wanted to say and had spent the last couple days rehearsing their planned remarks in their heads. But seeing each other again dashed all those plans to pieces.

  “I guess I’ll start,” Abby said, snapping her book closed and setting it aside. “I really screwed up, and I’m not gonna make excuses for what I did. It was wrong, and I could have stopped it but I didn’t. And then I… I lied to you. I’m so, so sorry.”

  Hiamovi shook his head. “Well, you’re in good company, at least,” he said. “I shouldn’t have left you behind the way I
did. I acted out of anger, and that was wrong.”

  “You had every right to be angry, Hiamovi.”

  “Maybe, but that doesn’t excuse how I acted. I should have made certain you were safe with all of us first, what with everything happening. I should have set emotions aside for just half an hour until we’d both reached safety, and then we could have split.”

  “But I abandoned you. I could have got you killed, and for a couple hours there I believed I had. And Abby… I’ve never been as low as when I thought you were dead, and that my choice had killed you. I didn’t know what I was going to do with myself. I actually hoped that, during the battle, someone would just kill me and get it over with because I couldn’t live with your death on my conscience. So don’t go trying to take all the blame for what happened to us. We both screwed this up, Abby.”

  “I guess we did,” she whispered, staring down into her coffee.

  “But,” Hiamovi said after a pause, “I forgive you. You may not make excuses for what you did, so allow me. You were under an incredible amount of pressure, and honestly we asked too much of you. I mean, you were spending almost every waking moment living a separate life, only coming back to us for a few minutes every couple months. You were young, and you still had… issues that you needed to work out. All things considered, I guess I can sort of understand how you might have… gotten carried away. It was wrong and heartbreaking what you did, but I forgive you.”

  “I can’t tell you how much that means to me, Hiamovi,” Abby said. “I don’t want you to hate me.”

  “No! No, of course not,” Hiamovi said, waving his hand. “In fact, I think I’d like a chance to start over with you. I mean, we were trying to date while fighting a civil war. What chance did we really stand? So let’s try being boyfriend and girlfriend in a normal world without missions, rifles, or secret identities. Let’s just forget everything we did before, wipe the slate clean. What do you say?”

  Abby smiled. She hadn’t expected the conversation to go this direction, and it made her happy. “I would love to start over with you, Hiamovi,” she said, “but I don’t know if we can.”

  “What do you mean?” Hiamovi asked, his smile dying.

  Abby sighed and stared over her shoulder at the city behind her, back toward where the gate to District 1 used to be. It was long gone, and people walked up and down the sidewalks now talking on cellphones, or sat on benches reading newspapers.

  “How do we pretend none of that ever happened?” Abby asked without turning around. “We loved each other, but what did we really know about commitment and relationships? Like you said, we were a couple of kids trying to date while fighting a war. Were we just coping in a dismal world of oppression and death? We can promise to forgive and forget, but we’ll never really forget that I cheated on you, that you abandoned me.”

  She turned around now to face Hiamovi. “I want to start over with you, Hiamovi. I loved you. I still love you. But we burned a lot of bridges to get here today, and I don’t know if there’s any going back. I mean, just look at the way we’ve been acting the past couple months. We didn’t even have the guts to face each other for a conversation. Don’t you think that bodes ill?”

  Hiamovi nodded his head and took a sip of coffee. “Alright,” he said.

  “That’s it?”

  “I know you, Abby. I can tell when you’ve made up your mind, and I know better than to go trying to change it.”

  Another silence stretched between them as they drank their coffee. “Maybe we could try to be friends,” Abby suggested without looking up.

  “No,” Hiamovi replied. “I don’t want that. I promise you right now there’s no way I could keep that up. If we’re not gonna be together, then…”

  He waved his hand absently, then let it fall back into his lap.

  Abby meanwhile fidgeted with her coffee mug. “I just think I need some time to myself, to figure out who I am,” she said. “It’s been… a long road for me, Hiamovi. A long, hard road from The Crisis in Chicago to sitting here with you today. That girl you knew, she drank, smoked, cursed, lied, cheated, killed. I wasn’t always that way, and I’ve already decided that that’s not how I’m going to be going forward. It won’t be easy to change, but I can’t ever let myself become that girl who almost took a nosedive off a building.”

  “What?” Hiamovi asked, looking shocked.

  “Oh,” Abby said, feeling a little embarrassed. She forgot that she never told Hiamovi about the morning she spent up on the ledge of a tall building. “Yeah, just before the battle. I didn’t jump, obviously. But those demons that dragged me to that point, they’re still there. I beat them back, but they’re not defeated. That’s going to be a battle I fight every single day, for years maybe. And that’s yet another long road ahead of me before I can really say I’m better. And I need to walk that road alone. For now.”

  “For now?”

  “For now.”

  Hiamovi leaned back in his chair and blew out a breath. “Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time, huh?”

  Abby shook her head. “No, not the wrong place. We loved each other, Hiamovi. What we had was the right place, but the wrong time.”

  “I like that,” Hiamovi said, and he shot Abby another smile. “Maybe we’ll find that ‘right time’ one day.”

  Hiamovi took one more sip of coffee. “Until then, I guess this is goodbye.”

  “I guess so.”

  They both stood up, suddenly realizing they now faced an awkward question of how they were to say goodbye. A kiss? A hug? Nothing?

  Abby sighed and stuffed her hands into her pockets. “Goodbye, Hiamovi. Take care of yourself.”

  “Yeah,” Hiamovi replied. “I hope you find what you’re looking for, Abby.”

  And that was it. Hiamovi turned to leave. Shoving his hands into his jacket pockets, he left the same way he came, without a single glance over his shoulder.

  Abby watched him walk away until he became lost in a sea of people moving back and forth, and then she stayed standing and staring for another moment longer before sitting back down.

  “Don’t worry about paying for his coffee, sugar,” the waitress said as she came by to refill Abby’s mug. “He barely touched it anyhow.”

  “Thanks,” Abby replied, and she handed the waitress her tip. “I’ll be finished after this cup.”

  “Take your time, sweetheart.”

  Abby took a sip of her coffee and picked up her book, opening it back up to the page where she left off.

  Abby will return.

  One last time.

  Thank you for reading ‘Her Name Was Abby’!

  If you enjoyed this story and would like to support the author, please consider leaving a review on the site where you bought it.

  And check out the official blog ‘hisnamewaszach.wordpress.com’ for updates on future writing projects and related topics!

  Now turn the page to read a short excerpt from Abby’s next story.

  ***

  Like everyone to her right and left, Abby fired her rifle up at the yet unseen enemy, but she was not shooting with the intent of killing anyone. She aimed for the concrete above and below the windows, knowing that placing rounds that close to the shooters would keep their heads down and prevent them from shooting back with any kind of accuracy.

  Yuri’s voice crackled over Jax’s radio. “Jax, take ‘em in! We’ve got you covered!”

  A barrage of rifle fire cracked overhead, peppering the concrete and window area above Abby and the others. As one, they all stood up and sprinted towards the open door in front of them, hoping to get up to the second level and finish the fight at close range.

  Rifle-mounted flashlights pierced the darkness as the Raiders entered the plant, finding themselves in a long hallway with several doors on either side running the length of it. Chad, young and filled with a blood-lust, took the lead along with Max.

  Jax looked left and right, wondering what to do about all these doors. Doors
were dangerous for an assaulting force; behind each one could be a machine gun just waiting for a target. That was a hard-learned lesson from Fallujah.

  He was just considering a retreat from this situation when a muzzle flash appeared halfway down the hallway on the left side, spraying bullets at the Raiders who immediately returned fire. Trapped in a concrete hallway, the sounds of battle were deafening.

  “Come on!” shouted Chad. He’d seen the body of whoever had shot at them flee through the door from which it’d came and launched into pursuit.

  “Wait, goddamn it! Halt!” Jax shouted, but it was no use. Chad had already reached the door and flung it open. With a sigh, Jax fell in behind everyone else as they rushed through the open door.

  Flashlights danced this way and that as the Raiders swept their rifles around their new environment. With no other walls in sight and a ceiling high above them, it was clear that they were in the factory itself now. A row of car doors on jigs suspended about a foot above the ground filled the assembly line in front of them, and behind these were more lines on which the vehicles, in varying stages of assembly, waited silently to be completed.

  The group glided forward in two columns, advancing cautiously but at a rapid pace. In the lead, Chad caught his foot on something and he tripped, nearly falling over. He cursed, but his voice was overpowered by the sound of laughter from somewhere in the empty expanse above them.

  “The way of the wicked is as darkness: they know not at what they stumble. Book of Proverbs, chapter four, verse nineteen,” cried the voice.

  Abby shuddered. Hearing his voice on the tape recorder was one thing, but the booming echoes in the darkness felt like the cold fingers of Death itself.