Burning Nation

by Trent Reedy

  “Shit. Yeah. Caitlyn loved that scarf,” said Sweeney. “Silk. Cost a fortune. Maybe Caitlyn Ericson was the one.”

  I rolled onto my side, facing away from Sweeney. This was how every day had dragged on down here for nearly four weeks. Waiting. For nothing. And I guess I was glad that I at least had two of my best friends with me, but I’m not gonna lie. I would have given anything to just lock myself away from everyone to be alone. If this continued much longer, the Fed wouldn’t have to kill us. We’d die of boredom.

  * * *

  It happened again. Some dirty Fed’s hand brushed my shoulder, reaching for my neck in the dark. I sat up with my knife and sprang to my feet as I slashed at him. Sweat stuck my filthy clothes to my armpits, crotch, and back as I looked around for the danger.

  “Whoa, take it easy!” a whiny, nasally voice said in the dark.

  “Crocker,” I said, taking deep breaths to try to calm my pounding heart. “I told you to poke me with the cot pole to wake me up. You’re going to get yourself killed trying to grab me while I’m sleeping.” It was rare enough that I slept at all. The hard Army cots and the cement floor down in the freezing cold dungeon were as uncomfortable as it got, even though we had sleeping bags and blankets.

  When I did sleep, the nightmares came. They were distorted images of the protest in Boise that had gone wrong, where I’d accidentally fired the shot that had led to the war. Or I’d dream of that horrible day I’d first had to kill a man so I could bring my mother home to Idaho. Then my sleeping brain made me relive the moment the Fed shot her. In my dreams I could still hear her screaming, still see the blood.

  Crocker picked up his flashlight from the floor. “You awake? Sorry to scare you. It’s zero five. You’re on guard duty.”

  I took the flashlight. “Yeah, have a good sleep.”

  The flashlight cut through the darkness as I found my way to the stairs and our guard position. Everyone had a thermal cloak, but the stupid things rustled so much that we just kept one hanging there by the stairs to cut down on noise during the shift change. Like all our clothes, it needed a wash and stank pretty bad. I slipped it on anyway. Nobody went on guard duty without a therm. It was mandatory. No exceptions.

  I climbed up the stairs and turned the handle to unlock the trapdoor above me. It only moved about half of the quarter turn needed to make it unlock. The metal in the latching mechanism must have warped or something. I pushed the handle harder. No good. “Damn thing,” I whispered. I braced my back against the wall and pushed with all my strength. Finally, the lever moved and the hatch unlocked.

  My job for the next hour, until someone turned on the lights at six a.m., was to sit here and listen in case Feds came into the shop. I wasn’t sure it would matter much if I heard something. If the Fed knew we were here and sent soldiers to take us down, we wouldn’t be able to mount a real defense anyway. I sat there for a long time, wrapped in that stinking therm, letting the hour crawl by.

  A tap on my foot made me jump. I ducked down the hatch to see Sweeney.

  “Merry Christmas,” he whispered.

  “Already?” When nothing we did had any meaning, it was easy to lose track of the days.

  He came up and joined me, half sitting in the closet under the thermal cloak. “Christmas Eve.”

  “I’m sorry I got you into this, man. I ruined your life.”

  He turned to look at me. “The hell you talking about?”

  “I started this whole war, standoff, occupation, or whatever. I dragged you into it with me.”

  “You might have been a spark, but the fuel for this fire has been building for a long time. If not you, then someone else would have taken the first shot. The end result would be the same. And nobody drags Eric Sweeney into anything.” He shrugged. “Except for a beautiful woman dragging me to bed.”

  “Yeah, and I’ve even made that impossible. Sparrow doesn’t seem interested.”

  “The feeling’s mutual. Besides, she seems pretty hung up on Luchen and his wounded ass.” We laughed quietly. “And you’ve kept me alive, making it possible for me to find my one true love someday.”

  I grinned. “Your twelve true loves, maybe.”

  Sweeney chuckled. “Maybe in the past, but this war’s got me thinking maybe it’s time to find that one special girl, you know? You have JoBell, missing you through this, and where are all my old girlfriends? Do they even remember me? Do they even care if I’m alive or dead?”

  It was quiet for a long time, and I thought about JoBell, as I often did. I hadn’t seen her or heard from her in weeks. Was she okay? Did she miss me? When would I see her again?

  “Listen, man,” said Sweeney. “I think we need to do an op.”

  “A what?”

  “An op. I saw it on TV one time. It means operation. We should do an attack or something. You know, like an ambush against the Fed. Schmidty said their headquarters is in the cop shop at the end of Main Street while they build a permanent base. Kemp’s got a backpack with thirty pounds of C4. We could blast those bastards.”

  Had Cal and Sweeney somehow switched brains during the night? “That’s insane,” I said. “It won’t work.”

  “You don’t know that. We haven’t looked into it enough. Anyway, we can’t stay down here forever.”

  “We won’t,” I said. “We can go somewhere else when the Fed occupation is over.”

  “But what if they stay for a year? For ten years? We’re not going to make it down here. You know that. Besides, don’t you want to put the hit on these guys?”

  My left hand had pretty much healed from the wound I’d gotten the day the Feds killed my mom, but it ached now. “Nobody hates the Feds more than me. Nobody. I’d kill every one of those bastards if I could.”

  Sergeant Kemp’s watch alarm went off. A few seconds later, the lights went on below. I pulled the thermal cloak tighter around us. “But we’ll never pull it off,” I whispered. “Fed drones are all over. We’d be spotted and shot before we even got started. Anyway, what would be the point? The war’s over, Sweeney. We lost.”

  “Come on, man,” Sweeney said. “You can’t just give up.”

  Kemp joined us by the stairs. “Hey, guys.” His voice sounded wilted. He fell to take a seat near our feet without even looking up at us. “Will Danning is dead.”

  * * *

  “I told you that we should have taken him to the hospital!” Sparrow shouted a little later, after everyone was awake. Her eyes threatened to spill tears. “I told you! Now he’s dead.”

  “I don’t get it,” said Cal. “I thought he was getting better.”

  “Infection, you moron!” Sparrow yelled. “He’s had shit medical attention.”

  “But you cleaned your —”

  “I dipped kitchen tongs in hot water!” Sparrow said. “This whole room is filthy. We should never have tried to get the bullet out by ourselves. I basically killed him.”

  “The Fed killed him!” Cal said.

  “Enough!” shouted First Sergeant Herbokowitz. “None of this will bring Danning back!”

  Bagley picked up his sleeping bag, crumpling it into a wad instead of rolling it up. “That’s it. I’ve had it. I gotta get out of here.”

  Cal yawned. “We’ve been over this, Bagley.”

  “No, I’m serious. I can’t stand it one more day, lying around doing nothing. I’m not gonna die down here like him!” He unlatched and started to swing up the steel plate that closed off the two-foot-by-two-foot escape tunnel.

  I crossed the room to slam the tunnel lid back down with my foot. “You’re not leaving!”

  “You can’t keep me here! You got no right to keep me here! I ain’t your prisoner! Let me out!” Bagley tried to move me aside, but he was a skinny guy. I pushed him back so hard he fell on his ass.

  “Dude, I’m sorry, but we can’t let you leave,” I said. “If you get caught by the Fed, you could tell them where we are.”

  “I won’t!” Tears streamed down his face. “I promise I
won’t.” He was quieter now. “I promise. I won’t tell. You gotta let me go.” His voice, his whole body, had fallen into a shuddering whimper there on the floor, and he pulled his sleeping bag up over his head to hide himself.

  “We’ll have to get Danning out of here,” said Herbokowitz.

  “Danning was a good guy,” said Kemp. “He deserved better than this.”

  Sparrow wiped her eyes. “We won’t even be able to give him a decent funeral.”

  “We should do something, though,” said Luchen. “We shouldn’t just dump him like we’re tossing out the trash.”

  “Why don’t you say a few words before you take him out?” Herbokowitz asked me. “It’s your place and all.”

  Me? I was no preacher. What could I say that would possibly do justice to this loyal Idaho soldier who had held on for so long? Still, everyone was looking at me, waiting.

  “Specialist Danning, um … Will Danning was a great guy. He took a stand and fought for his home.” I was ruining this, just like I’d ruined everything else. “Um, I remember he used to tell a lot of funny jokes. Biggest Seattle Seahawks fan in the world.” Some people chuckled. “He was a great soldier. A hero. He was our friend.”

  The only sounds in the dungeon were Bagley’s sniffles and the hollow hum of the fluorescent lights.

  I folded my hands in front of me and bowed my head. “Let us pray.” Everyone but Sparrow joined me. “Lord, please look after Danning for us. Please don’t let him hurt anymore. God? … Please help us. Amen.”

  Moments later, we pulled Danning’s dog tags and zipped him into his bloodstained sleeping bag. Then I holstered my .45, me and Kemp put on therms, and we dragged Danning out through the escape tunnel that led to the vacant lot next door to the shop.

  I’m not gonna lie. Mixed in with the sadness over losing Danning and the misery of dungeon life, I felt a sliver of excitement at the chance to see the sun again. Of course, it was still mostly dark by the time we came out of the tunnel by the slag heap. A faint glow had begun to brighten the eastern sky, and the snow surprised me. There were at least six inches covering the ground and more coming down pretty fast. So, no sun, but at least our trail would be covered.

  We carried Danning back to the junked cars near the creek ravine, where we had the cover of trees. It would take all day to hack a grave in the frozen ground, so the best we could do was put his corpse in the old van with Nelson. The cold would preserve the bodies and keep the smell down. Come spring, we’d have to dig them graves. If we were still alive.

  “It’s getting pretty bright out,” Kemp whispered after we’d made sure the guys were covered in car seats, old mufflers, a spare car door, and other junk. “We should get back.”

  I closed the door to the van and pressed my hand against the cold metal. “I’m so sorry. Goodbye, Will.”

  We’d only taken a few steps down the little creek ravine, retracing our footprints, when we heard a branch break. Someone said, “Shh.”

  I drew my .45 and froze, completely still except for the pounding of my heart. We should have been safely out of sight down by the creek, but who knew? Maybe a drone had spotted us and given away our position. Maybe this was a random Fed patrol. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw someone step up to the edge of the ravine, and I aimed at his heart.

  The intruder stopped and put his hands up. I sighed and lowered my gun. TJ.

  He slid down the snowy slope with a big dumb grin. “Merry Christmas, Wright.” What was so merry about it? “Got a present for you.”

  I noticed the backpack-shaped bulge under his therm. Since we weren’t using all our cloaks, we’d agreed TJ should take a bunch of them to help with his runs or in case the girls got in trouble and needed them. I hoped he brought us some real food.

  “Well, let’s get inside,” I said.

  “Hang on,” said TJ. “Just don’t shoot.”

  I was about to ask him what he meant when I saw the cloaked figure of my JoBell step over the ridge.

  I wanted to drop to my knees right there. JoBell smiled. I reached out to her, and she slid down the slope right into my arms. Nothing in my whole life had ever felt so good as holding her right then.

  “I missed you so much,” I whispered. She wrapped her cloak around us, and in that small space we kissed. Who cared if Kemp and TJ were right there watching? They could deal with the show. JoBell’s kiss was warm, and wet, and hungry. For a moment, I thought about taking her upstairs to the front office of the shop so we could be alone, but that room was almost all windows, and we couldn’t risk the Fed finding us.

  That reminded me that we needed to get moving. I smiled again when I saw Becca carefully working her way down into the ravine. We hugged, and I was surprised a little at how tightly she squeezed me. “It’s so good to see you again, Danny,” she said.

  “This is touching,” Kemp said, “but we have to hide.”

  We all crawled through the tunnel, and soon Becca, JoBell, and TJ were happily greeting Cal and Sweeney down in the dungeon. I was jazzed, but I checked my smile when I saw Crocker and Bagley looking miserable. How could I be happy to see my girlfriend and one of my best friends when they hadn’t seen their loved ones for weeks? When we’d never see Danning alive again? How could I feel like celebrating on the day of our fellow soldier’s funeral?

  “Are you insane?” Sparrow came out of the corner she shared with Luchen. “What the hell are they doing here?”

  “It’s okay,” TJ said.

  “Bullshit it’s okay,” said Sparrow. “They’re going to bring the Fed down on us.”

  “TJ made it here fine before,” said JoBell.

  Sparrow folded her arms. “Yeah, princess, but he wasn’t watched twenty-four hours a day. He didn’t cut some shady deal to get out of a Fed prison cell.”

  “Hey!” Cal said. “Take it easy.”

  “We didn’t cut any deals!” Becca said. “They screamed at us for hours, asking where Danny was, but we didn’t say anything! We said we hadn’t seen him since he went off to the fight!”

  “Maybe that’s what you told them,” said Sparrow. “But I’m not so sure about her.” She jerked her head at JoBell.

  “Come on, Sparrow,” I said. “Lighten up a little.”

  Sparrow rolled her eyes. “I heard you whining to Luchen back when we were on border duty about how your girlfriend was so against the Idaho Guard, how mad she was. Then you go get her to bring her here, and she doesn’t want to come. Then the Fed arrest her and just let her go?”

  JoBell threw her thermal cloak off, and for a moment I thought she was ready to fight. Sparrow thought so too, because she widened her stance into a combat position. When JoBell spoke, her words were tight, calm, and controlled. Her eyes locked onto Sparrow’s. “I didn’t tell the Fed where you were because I did not know. As for today, maybe it’s because of Christmas, maybe something else, but the Fed car usually watching my house is gone. We were very careful coming here, and we took a very indirect and slow route until we were sure we weren’t being followed.”

  It was a little weird that the Fed would just give up watching the girls, but Sparrow was full of shit thinking JoBell had sold us out. I could tell when my own girlfriend was lying or telling the truth. Then the idea hit me. “Sparrow, if JoBell wanted to turn us in, she could have done it a long time ago.”

  “Are you really that stupid?” Sparrow asked. “If she didn’t know where we were, she would have to wait until TJ brought her here.”

  “Specialist Sparrow, that’s enough. They’re here now. This isn’t getting us anywhere,” said Herbokowitz from where he lay on his cot.

  “Oh, yes, First Sergeant.” Sparrow saluted. “Since we’re not in the Army anymore, I will of course do whatever you say.”

  “Actually, before anyone says anything they might really regret, I have something to show you. Something important,” said TJ. “This is seriously great. Like Christmas-miracle great.” He held both hands up. “So a few days ago, I was walking to
JoBell’s house to join her on the walk to school.” I tensed up, but JoBell squeezed me. TJ went on, “This guy comes up to me, checks to see if anyone else is around, and then holds his left hand up the way Wright did that day.” He put his own hand up in a clenched fist, the way I’d held it in that video that had gone all over the Internet. “Anyway, the guy says, ‘Travis Jones, you’re friends with Daniel Wright.’ Like that. He wasn’t asking a question. It was like he knew.”

  “What did you say?” Herbokowitz sounded worried.

  “What do you think I said? I figured he was a federal agent. I said I had known Wright in school, but I hadn’t seen him in months and heard he was dead. The guy was real quiet when he spoke again. He handed over this old-as-hell iPod nano and said there was a message for Daniel Wright on it.” TJ pulled the red iPod out of his pocket.

  “You brought that thing here!?” Kemp said.

  “You idiot!” Sweeney jumped to his feet. “That guy could have been CIA. The iPod probably has a tracking device on it. It’s a good bet the Fed knows where we are.”

  “Whoa, guys. Calm down,” said JoBell. “It’s not tracking us. Hear him out.”

  “Of course, she tells us not to worry about the Fed finding us,” said Sparrow.

  Herbokowitz reached for the iPod. “How do you know if —”

  TJ pulled it away from him. He plugged a little speaker into the device and tapped play.

  We all gathered around as a tiny video of Governor Montaine came onto the screen.

  “Is this current?” Kemp asked. “Is the governor alive?”

  “Quiet,” Herbokowitz said with some of his old authority. “We need to hear this.”

  Montaine nodded into the camera. He pointed out the date on an actual paper copy of a newspaper, the Idaho Statesman.

  Today is December fifteenth. This message is for Private Daniel Wright of the Idaho Army National Guard.

  I grinned at hearing my name and rank again. After a few weeks in the dungeon, we had all mostly dropped the rank and protocol thing. The governor put the newspaper down.