The Julian Year

by Gregory Lamberson

  Cheers erupted in the hall.

  Rachel stared at the camera and smiled.

  I’m going to live!

  An attendant entered the unit and cleaned Rachel’s vomit and deodorized the carpet. Cheers continued to fill the halls, and Rachel knew each outburst meant another leapfrog had failed to turn.

  At 1:00 a.m. she asked to be moved to the sofa. One soldier trained his M4 on her while the other moved her to the sofa. An hour after that, the soldiers returned and removed her straightjacket and leg chains.

  Rachel stretched and rotated her trunk. “Have you finally decided I’m not possessed?”

  “No, ma’am,” one soldier said. “We’re under orders to stay here. Leave your door open.”

  Rachel chuckled. “Whatever you say.”

  She went into her room and fell asleep to the sound of cheers. The noise woke her several times before her sleep deepened.

  When she awoke in the morning, a female soldier had replaced the two who had been there when she went to bed.

  “Good morning,” Rachel said to the black woman, who stood at attention near the sofa.

  “Good morning.”

  A covered breakfast tray was on the lacquered tabletop. She raised the lid: scrambled eggs, sausage, home fries, and white toast. “I take it I’m still confined to quarters.”

  “Until midnight. You and every guest.”

  Rachel sat. “Do you care to join me?” The woman gave her a suspicious look. “I’m not allowed.”

  “Can you at least sit with me? I’d like some company.”

  The woman sat at the table with her M4 beside her.

  Rachel looked at her name sewn over one camouflage pocket. “What’s your first name, Johnson?”

  “Janet.”

  Rachel chewed on the bland scrambled eggs. “How long have you been here?”

  “Just a couple of days. They brought me in to deal with leap-year day. Now that the fireworks are over, I guess they’ll send me somewhere else.”

  Rachel wanted to change the subject. “Are you sure you don’t want some of this? I can’t finish it all.”

  Janet shook her head. “Can’t.”

  “Where were you stationed before you came here?”

  “All over the Middle East.”

  “Fun times.”

  “There’s no such thing anymore, though it’s been pretty cheery here for the last eight hours. Congratulations.”

  “Thanks.” Rachel drank some orange juice. “What’s it like out there?”

  “In the halls?”

  “All over the complex.”

  “Everyone is overjoyed. Mankind is going to survive, hurrah, hurrah.”

  “One-third of one-quarter of 1/365th of us will survive. We’ll be surrounded by Regan MacNeils. Those aren’t very good odds.”

  Janet leveled a stare at her. “I’m sure the government will protect you.”

  “Today humanity received a reprieve,” President Rhodes said on TV. “Now we have a chance, something to strive for and something to fight for. We know that some of us will survive this epic conflict. If the Omega Disorder is the result of intelligent design, then surely our survival is part of that design as well.”

  The door buzzed and Rachel looked up from the sofa. Weston, her latest guard, opened the door, and Weizak showed his press pass to the sentry and entered carrying a dinner tray.

  Rachel giggled, which felt nice.

  “Room service,” Weizak said as he set the tray down on the table.

  Rachel muted the volume on the TV and joined him. “I just saw you being interviewed outside.”

  “I think she wanted me.”

  “So what are you doing here?”

  “Her Long Island accent turned me off.”

  “Hey, hey, watch it.” She looked at the tray. “I’m actually hungry for the first time in days.”

  Weizak removed the cover, revealing dinner for two: steak, mashed potatoes, and asparagus. “You’ve had a lot on your mind.”

  Rachel sat. “You can say that again.”

  Weizak sat beside her. “It must feel good to have that burden lifted.”

  She shrugged.

  “What?”

  Rachel sampled the steak and nodded her approval. “This isn’t for publication.”

  “Well, forget it, then.” Weizak rose to leave.

  “Sit down.”

  Grinning, he rejoined her.

  “It wasn’t hard before; it was almost easy. We were all going to be possessed and stop existing, no exceptions. Yesterday was going to be my last day, but now I know there’s going to be a tomorrow. Everything has changed.”

  Weizak ate his steak. “Tell me about it. I thought I was going to be the last reporter on earth. Now I know I’m just going to be the last reporter who wasn’t born on February 29. I was going to watch the curtain come down, but instead the fat lady is going to watch me sing, because she was born on leap-year day.”

  “Your plans haven’t changed. You still know when you’re going to die. There’s nothing you can do to change that.”

  Weizak stopped chewing for a moment. “Thank you?”

  “If I’d been possessed last night, I wouldn’t have anything to worry about now. I’d be gone. Now I have to live through ten more months of this hell, just like you, and God knows how long after that.”

  “You should be happy. At least you’ve got a chance.”

  She snorted. “Do you have any idea how bad things are going to get? What I’ll be facing come January 1?”

  Weizak nodded at the sentry. “I’m sure you’ll be somewhere safe.”

  “Don’t be so sure.”

  His expression turned grim. “No one has to stick around who doesn’t want to. I know you can pull the trigger if that’s what you want, and plenty of suicide shops have opened.”

  Rachel sighed. “It isn’t that easy. I’m not the suicide type, and I have a responsibility now. If I survive until the end of the year, I have to keep surviving.”

  Weizak leaned closer. “You won’t be alone.”

  “I hope not.”

  What sounded like gunfire crackled outside.

  “Firecrackers,” he said. “Everyone’s celebrating.”

  “It isn’t very smart setting them off this close to a military base.”

  “It’s probably soldiers who lit them. This is the first good news the world’s had in two months.”

  She nibbled on her food. “When are you leaving?”

  “I’m here until midnight—one full twenty-four-hour news cycle. I’ve already filed a few stories because I have to earn my army pay.”

  “I read them. They were strangely sentimental coming from you.”

  “What am I, a robot?”

  “No, you’re all too human. What are you doing tomorrow?”

  “I have to write my big thoughts down. What about you?”

  “I’m just going to try to be myself.”

  “That’s important to you, isn’t it?”

  “Nothing could be more important. Make sure you deliver those items.”

  “I already did.”

  Rachel raised her eyebrows.

  “That overgrown puppy dog with a badge was waiting outside the gate all night, like this was a prison execution. I gave him what I had. He wanted to respond, but smuggling stuff out is easier than getting it in. I didn’t stick around to see his reaction, and he headed back to his car for a little privacy.”

  She grunted and smiled at the same time. “It was good knowing you, Weizak.”

  “Don’t sound so glum. This is the beginning of a beautiful ten-month friendship. Think of it as a limited edition.”

  Rachel forced a smile. “Take a good look, because they’ll never let us see each other again. I’m far too valuable of a commodity to risk around a short-timer like you. They’re going to make me disappear for my own good, and I’ll be under armed guard until there are no babysitters left.”

  “It beats fighting a war again
st an insurmountable population of Regan MacNeils.”

  She thought about it. “Maybe.”

  After Weizak left, Rachel took a hot shower. Wearing a long bathrobe and ignoring her sentry, she sat on the sofa and turned on the TV. Every channel but one broadcast news, and the sole deviant aired a telenovela in Spanish. She watched a few minutes of it just to escape the news and picked out several Spanish phrases she knew. Then the characters attended a birthday party, shattering the escapism.

  She zipped through the different news specials, then switched to the cable music channels, selected a jazz station, and went to bed. Lying on her back, she thought about her parents. She knew they must be overjoyed at her survival, and she wondered if she would ever see them again.

  Twenty-three

  March 1

  Loud laughter ricocheted around the cafeteria as Rachel set her breakfast tray down at her usual table.

  “Happy birthday,” Ron said.

  She had to admit she was happy to see him. “Happy birthday.”

  “Happy birthday,” Betty and Sherry Ann said in synchronization.

  “Happy birthday.”

  Ron beamed. “I didn’t think we were going to make it. I mean, leap year? What deity or alien chariot racer subscribes to the Julian calendar?” He lowered his voice. “It’s a joke.”

  “The joke’s on us,” Rachel said. “We’re not out of the burning woods yet.”

  “Why do you have to spoil everything?” Sherry Ann said. “Why can’t you just be happy we’re not going to be possessed and executed?”

  Forcing a smile, Rachel picked up her fork. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to sound negative. It’s just that in ten months, everyone we know, love, and despise will be dead, and we’ll represent a sliver of the existing population. The rest, by an overwhelming majority, will be fiends hell-bent on our destruction. You think we’re not going to die? I think we’re going to wish we had.”

  Betty got to her feet and fled the cafeteria.

  The others looked at Rachel.

  “Was it something I said?”

  March 2

  “Why do you think you’re so aggressive?” Dr. Connor said from behind her desk. The psychiatrist had long dirty blonde hair, and she wore a black blazer over a silk blouse with a matching black skirt.

  Rachel sat in a chair facing the desk rather than on the leather couch. “Why do you think I’m so aggressive? You’re the pro.”

  “You’re alive, and you’ll still be alive after the rest of us are gone.” Dr. Connor held her gaze.

  Rachel lowered her gaze to a letter opener that gleamed on the edge of the desk. “Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe I don’t want to outlive the rest of you. Maybe I don’t want to live on a planet of possessed people.”

  Dr. Connor crossed her legs and leaned forward. “It’s safe to say that none of us wants the hand fate’s dealt us, but your hand looks pretty good from where I’m sitting.”

  Slouching in the chair, Rachel stared at the molding on the ceiling. “When’s your birthday?”

  “April 4.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I’m not afraid, and I’m trying to make the most out of the time I have left.”

  “You sure got jammed up this week.”

  “Is that how you see it?”

  Rachel sat up. “You’ve got to shrink the heads of all of us and make sure we’re who we say we are, right? That sounds like a lot of work.”

  “It’s important. If we release all of you into the world and it turns out you’ve actually turned, you could do serious damage.”

  “I’ve already told you when I get my period, what my daddy issues were growing up, and when I lost my virginity. You know more about me than my gynecologist does.”

  “We’ve barely scratched the surface. Tell me about your life in college. What was your first sexual experience there like?”

  “Would you believe me if I told you that in college I was the only female student who didn’t sleep with a professor?”

  “I might. Is that what you’re telling me?”

  “I didn’t go to college. I joined the navy. Nice try.”

  Dr. Connor smiled.

  When Rachel left, she walked with her right arm straight at her side so Dr. Connor wouldn’t see the letter opener pressed against her wrist.

  March 3

  In the exercise room, Rachel increased the speed on the treadmill. She ran faster to keep up, sweat forming on her forehead.

  Forty minutes so far . . .

  “Keep it up and you’ll wear that machine out,” a male voice drawled.

  Without breaking stride, Rachel glanced over her shoulder at Powel, who stood in the doorway. She didn’t like that he had a prime view of her ass, but she didn’t let that slow her down. “Then I’ll just have to run in the corridors.”

  “I believe you would too. Why don’t you take a breather? Everyone else is still celebrating. Take a load off your mind.”

  “What’s the point of living if you can’t have a perfect body?” She regulated her words between running footfalls.

  “Maybe you’ve got a point.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Rachel saw him turn to leave. “When do we get out of here?”

  He turned back with furrowed eyebrows. “I already I told you. I don’t make that decision.”

  “Then maybe you can tell me when whoever makes that decision intends to share the information with the rest of us.”

  Powel walked over to the treadmill. “I’m sure you’ll all be briefed as soon as possible.”

  “And until then, we’re still under house arrest, right?”

  “You’re not prisoners.”

  “I know. We’re guests.”

  “Of the president of the United States under his protection. You should feel good about that. Right now you’re probably the safest people on the planet.”

  Rachel pressed the control before her, increasing the treadmill’s speed, the rising sound making conversation impossible.

  March 4

  Returning from the cafeteria after lunch, Rachel saw a maintenance man standing on an aluminum stepladder, his head and arms inside an air vent near the ceiling, which caused him to resemble a headless corpse hanging from a tree. A toolbox sat open on top of a plastic janitorial cart on wheels. Reaching inside the toolbox, Rachel plucked a roll of duct tape and slid it inside her jacket and beneath one armpit, all without slowing down.

  March 5

  “Rachel, I’m told you’re unhappy.”

  “Thank you for your concern, Mr. President. There isn’t a whole lot in the world to be happy about.”

  “You’re young and healthy, and you’ve got your whole life ahead of you. I’d say you’ve got plenty to look forward to.”

  Rachel stood at her window, gazing at the field and trees behind the retirement home with the phone pressed against her ear. “That’s one way of looking at it.”

  “Here’s another: you’re one of the chosen people. Like it or not, an intelligence greater than our own has selected you for survival when the rest of us have perished. Do you know how important that makes you?”

  “I’m a fertile woman at a time when fertile women will be in high demand. Do you know what kind of pressure that puts on a girl?”

  “Your qualities make you far more vital to the survival of our species than being a baby machine. I’m talking about leadership skills, survival instincts, inner strength.”

  “Because I killed a bunch of Regan MacNeils?”

  “Because of your indomitable will to survive. Because you’re smart and strong. The other people born on leap-year day need your fortitude.”

  Rachel narrowed her eyes. “Are you asking me to run for office?”

  “There’s no time for elections. I’m asking you to serve as a council member appointed by me to uphold our laws and our constitution in a society that will no doubt face great hardships and difficult decisions.”

  Even greater respo
nsibility, she thought. But at least I’ll have a say regarding my own future. “That’s a lot to spring on me all at once, sir. What can you tell me about this brave new society? Where will it be? How will we defend ourselves from the Regan MacNeils?”

  “You’ll be fully briefed when the time comes to relocate you and the others. Please keep this conversation to yourself.”

  “I will.”

  “Have a nice day.”

  She waited for him to hang up before she did.

  Outside, men and women in fatigues erected what appeared to be a guard tower.

  March 6

  It made Rachel happy to see Janet Johnson standing guard in her unit each morning when she emerged from her bedroom. “Good morning, Janet.”

  “Good morning, Rachel.”

  Rachel sat at the table and uncovered her breakfast tray. “Do you care to join me?”

  “Thanks but I can’t.”

  “I won’t tell anyone.”

  “Sorry.”

  They held a variation of the same conversation every morning.

  “This is our last day together,” Janet said. “Tomorrow I report for my next assignment.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. Where are they sending you?”

  “Battery Park.”

  A heaviness settled on Rachel’s shoulders. Parents went to Battery Park to catch the ferry to Ellis Island, where they handed their children over to authorities two days before their birthday. “That’s better than Ellis Island itself, right?”

  Janet remained expressionless. “I suppose.”

  “It’s been nice getting to know you.” Not that you’ve ever shared anything with me.

  “Thanks. Same here.”

  Rachel forced herself to eat breakfast. When the cleaning woman arrived half an hour later, she requested extra sheets.

  A male soldier had long since relieved Janet by the time Rachel went to bed at 9:00 p.m. She had been closing the bedroom door since March 2, which raised no objections. Lying on her side, she watched the searchlight on the newly constructed guard tower sweep over the snowy field.