by T A Williams
“There is nothing we can do now.” Trevor whispered.
The fire crackling in the background mixed with April’s labored breathing were the only sounds that filled the room.
“She will either make it through the night or…” Trevor left the rest unsaid. “I’m going to try and catch a few hours of sleep….you good?”
“Yes for the last time, Trevor. Get some well-deserved rest.”
Trevor nodded but didn’t move.
“Hey Al, Jamie’s doing better.” he said.
“Good to hear. I told you she would come around, she’s a tough kid.”
“I understand she had some help,” Trevor said. “I talked with her and she told me what you said.”
For a moment Alec didn’t know what to say. Their conversation had gone well but even he wasn’t sure if having that conversation was crossing the line. She was Trevor’s child after all.
“Look, I hope I didn-“
“Thank you,” Trevor said simply. “You’re right she’s tough, too tough. I tried for the longest time to get her to talk to me about her mother but…..she just kept moving forward and pretending things were fine. I thought she had moved past it.”
“She told me it was this place. The feeling of a home that made it all come back.”
Trevor thought about that for a moment. “Yeah, I guess that makes sense. You’re a good man Alec.”
“Right back at you Trevor. Now why don’t you take your tired sentimental ass to bed?”
Trevor laughed softly. “I am, I am.”
“I’ll hold everything down here for the night.”
Trevor gave him a tired smile and yawned immediately after. “If she…you know….then wake me.”
Alec nodded and watched as the man left the room leaving him with his thoughts. Alec hated being alone late at night. If he was by himself during the day, he could find something to keep his mind busy, but at night if he wasn’t sleeping, he was thinking about them. A sister that was taken away and a brother that ran away. This place had a solid foundation, it didn’t need him there to help keep it together, not that it ever really did. Several times leading up to winter he had considered leaving to search for Ben and Ally, but the approaching winter had served as an excuse to put it off. Once winter passed he wasn’t sure what he was going to do. How was he going to find two people in a world so big, and did Ben even want to be found?
April’s lungs tried to expel the fluid that was slowing building up in them. Alec laid his hand on her forehead as her body shook harder and harder with every cough. She had gone from blazing hot earlier in the day to cold and clammy. Just when he thought she would never stop, she finally did, but her every breath was now filled with a wet wheezing sound.
Alec didn’t know what was going to happen next. Once the snows melted they would begin the process of strengthening this place and preparing for the next winter. Was this his life now? Building a small town in the middle of nowhere, until what? Until the lights came back on? After all this time was that even possible?
April began coughing again and Alec tried to steady her. At first the coughs came out stronger and stronger until soon the wheezing sound took over. April began to turn red as her body continued to try and cough up the fluid in her lungs while also preventing her from breathing. Panic began to rise in Alec as he realized he had no idea what he was doing. He pulled April onto her side and gave her several forceful pats on the back to help. Just as the woman seemed like she was on the brink, she stopped. He breathed a sigh of relief as she returned to her normal wheezing breaths.
She had several more fits during the night, Alec lost count as he drifted in and out of sleep. Finally sleep embraced him and he fell into it willingly. When he woke up, the first rays of sunlight were beginning to make their way into the trailer. Just as he started to appreciate how beautiful it was he realized something was wrong. The fire was down to embers so its crackling had disappeared long ago, but the room was also missing April’s wheezing. Even before Alec saw her he already knew. She was turned away from him on her side but the little bit of color she had left was gone.
He took a few long breaths to steady himself. He shouldn’t have fallen asleep. Had she started coughing in the night and he had not woken up? No, surely her coughing fits would have woken him up. There wasn’t anything he could have done, Trevor had told him that, and he fought to believe it. He had brought these people here to give them a chance, that’s all he could do.
He sat there with next to her until Trevor came. They buried her in the afternoon.
Ben
Ben kicked off the snow from his boots and walked into the house, enjoying the wave of heat that passed over and through him. He took off his snow covered jacket and gloves, and hung them out, hoping they would dry before he needed them again.
“Anything?” Mason asked from the living room.
“Nice and quiet.” Ben said as he walked past the man and collapsed onto their rickety sofa. “Ole Ray Miller in Section C is still complaining about his place but he’s not causing a problem yet.”
It had taken a few weeks before Mason had been able to talk the higher ups into allowing Ben to patrol. When they had finally agreed, it was under the condition that he was always accompanied by Mason. Within a month, he was out on regular schedule, which meant being able to go out with other soldiers beside Mason. At first the others had been skeptical of Ben but he kept his head down, worked hard and followed orders. Now they busted his chops as much as they did everyone else’s, he was a part of the group.
“You going to be up for PT in the morning?”
“Wouldn’t miss it.” Ben said sarcastically.
He had asked Mason to train him so he would at least somewhat appear to look like he knew what he was doing. He thought that would consist of learning military lingo and learning how to fire multiple types of guns. Mason had decided it needed to include everything, which meant physical fitness. Every morning they would run two miles and a couple of times a week Mason would take him up to the abandoned high school, which still had workout equipment, in order to lift weights. The first few mornings he hadn’t been able to finish one mile, but after a bit he did, and then one turned into two and soon he was keeping up with Mason. Same thing with weight-lifting. At first he struggled with the lowest of weights but soon he was surpassing even his own lofty goals.
“We need to start betting,” Mason said with a smile. “You’re younger than me, you should be able to beat me.”
“Who said I wasn’t able?” Ben said with a laugh.
He felt at place there. The base was thrown-together and poorly supplied, and the civilians that they watched over in the town had their fair share of demands and complaints, but he felt like he mattered there. For the first time ever he felt like he had a purpose.
“Uh, oh. Looks like you’re getting serious. What’s on your mind?”
He had been putting it off for as long as he could. “This is what I want to do.”
Mason’s smile disappeared but the warmth stayed in his eyes. He looked to the ground and shook his head. “Yeah, I kind of figured it was.”
“I know that doing what you do is dangerous, I saw that first hand. And I know that I will have to do things that will probably haunt me for my entire life.” Mason looked up and Ben made a point to meet his eyes. “But I want to do something that matters. I want to stand for something.”
“Damn, Ben.” He ran his hands through his hair. “What about Jack and your family?”
“I hope they are still alive. I hope that one day I will go back there and find my brother and sister there, but I can’t go back. Not yet.”
“I didn’t bring you back when I had the chance. I don’t know how I feel about turning around and letting you join the military, especially when there is a war going on.”
“For the longest time you told me I needed to learn that I didn’t need to prove myself to anybody. You need to learn you don’t need to protect me. Hiding in
your truck was a childish thing to do. I was a child then, I’m not anymore.”
“I have one question for you,” Mason said. “What’s the real reason you want to join? No bullshit.”
Ben didn’t hesitate. “I want to matter.”
“Well, shit.” Mason stood up. “A couple of higher-ups had been asking if you’d be willing to join up but I’d been putting them off. If it’s really what you want then I think you’d be a good soldier.”
Ben was on his feet and giving Mason the biggest bear hug he could manage before he even realized it. Mason laughed and gave him a pat on the back.
There was a knock on the door and a soldier that went by the name of Ace walked in and nodded to the both of them.
“Sorry to interrupt, gentlemen. Just thought I’d give you guys a heads up, looks like most of us are going to be shipping out soon.”
Mason’s face instantly turned to stone. “Shipping out where?”
“To war.”
Ally
They were all together in the backyard of their old house. The sun was shining and the grass was bright green. Alec and her father sat on the back porch talking and laughing, Ben was jumping around just outside the woods in the background, and Joseph sat alone in the middle of the yard. Ally ran to him and gave him a hug.
Joseph smiled. “Everything is going to be ok.”
“No, it’s not.” she said. She didn’t know why she said it but she knew things were not ok. She searched her mind but couldn’t pinpoint what was wrong. In the distance just outside the woods she saw her mother standing there. Ally’s heart raced.
“Joseph, look, it’s mom!” Then her mother disappeared as if she was never there. Ally didn’t understand what had happened. “Did…Joseph did you see that?”
The boy who had once just a few inches from here was gone. Panic rose in her chest. He was gone again.
“Alec! Dad!” she screamed.
She looked to the back porch and there were gone as well. Ally turned to the woods and Ben was nowhere to be seen. They were all gone, she was all by herself again.
Ally.
The voice was a whisper but seemed to travel over a great distance.
Ally, can you hear me?
The voice was familiar. She couldn’t pinpoint who it was but knew enough that the voice caused dread to bubble up from inside her.
“Ally, you awake?”
Ally opened her eyes and was met with the familiar sight of the inside of her cage. She didn’t have to look, she already knew who the voice belonged to. She searched around for the shard of glass and found it under her blanket. As he eyes adjusted, she saw the man sitting just outside her cage looking towards Roy’s room. She let go of the glass. He turned to her and his face was still swollen and bruised from when Roy beat him. The man put a single finger up to his lips.
“Be quiet, little bird. I haven’t been able to talk to you for a while but I wanted you to know I haven’t forgotten about you.” Ally had hoped that Roy had beaten his fascination with her out of the man, but that didn’t appear to be the case. “I want you to know that I won’t let him hurt us anymore. He doesn’t want us to be together but he doesn’t have a choice.”
“We aren’t together, you have me in a cage.”
“That’s temporary. Things are going to change soon. I will take care of both of us.”
“Why don’t you let me out?” Ally asked as she slipped her hand back under the blanket and rested her hand on the shard of glass. “We can run away from him.”
“No,” Ethan said firmly. “He would come after us. He would find us and he would hurt you. I don’t want us to have to hide. This is our house. We’re going to fix it up together.”
Ally considered approaching the gate and seeing if she could get him to come closer, but she had no idea if the key to the padlock was on him.
“I thought that all three of us could live together, little bird, but that’s not going to happen. He doesn’t understand us, so soon it’s going to just be the two of us. Be ready, because a change is coming.” Ethan smiled then reached his hand out to her. She didn’t reach for it. “Don’t worry, little bird, you’ll learn to trust me. We are going to be together forever.”
With that said, the man stood up and snuck out of the room. Ally let go of the shard of glass. Things were going to change soon and she was going to be ready.
Ben
The snow came down sideways and thunder struck in the distance, causing the ground to shake underneath him. Ben was oblivious to it all. His ears were filled with the sound of the helicopter blades slicing through the air, and his eyes wouldn’t budge from the giant helicopter that was sitting right in front of him. He felt a hand on his shoulders but he didn’t take his eyes away from the helicopter.
“Technically I should be the one afraid of that thing. Last time I was in one, it didn’t work out so well for me.” Ben looked up at Mason and the man gave him a warm smile.
Ben was terrified but he wasn’t sure what exactly was scaring him. He wasn’t exactly excited about getting onto a helicopter after what had happened to Mason but it didn’t scare him. The thought of where they were going also didn’t seem to be the root of his fear. While they were headed to New York which was apparently still under siege, Mason said they were landing in a safe zone just outside of the city. He searched his mind and the reason seemed to stare right back at him. He was afraid of the change. They were going from the comfort of the base to a place where Mason and Zima, along with the other people he had gotten to know, could be taken from him. In a sense this is what he wanted but he didn’t realize it would arrive so quickly.
“You’re not going to be fighting, Ben, not for a while at least.”
Mason had already told him this. The place they were going was going to continue training him along with the handful of other new recruits from their community. From everything Mason told him it would be months if not longer before they would be put in harm’s way, but Ben knew that Mason would not be the one training him. The man was a solider, a good one at that. He would be going off to fight and would be leaving Ben alone.
The man gently turned Ben to him. The man’s stone features had softened. “You can still go back home. This isn’t something you have to do.”
“I know,” Ben said truthfully. “It’s something I want to do.”
Mason studied him for a second and then gave him another pat on the back. “Then let’s do it.”
Ben covered his eyes as they walked to the helicopter and through the mini-snow storm the helicopter blades created. He was vaguely aware of sitting down and getting strapped in, and before he knew it, he felt the helicopter lift in the air and take off. As soon as he looked out the window his fear disappeared. He looked down and saw the snowy landscape passing by and was filled with excitement. He was leaving his old life behind and was headed towards something new, something frightening and unknown, but new. He was glad that Mason and Zima were with him, Stevenson had left days prior.
“Not so bad, huh?” Mason shouted in his ear when he saw Ben’s face.
Ben gave him a smile and returned his attention to the window.
They made several stops on the way there. The dropped off some, picked up more, would refuel and then take back off into the air. At their last planned stop Mason took him to the side before takeoff.
“You know that they’ll probably send me into the thick of things once we get to the base outside New York, right?”
“I figured.”
“You’ll be fine. Concentrate on your training and if even for a second you think this is something you don’t want to do then say it.”
“I will,” Ben said with a smile. “You just worry about yourself.”
Soon they were back in the air and Ben was fast asleep. He dreamed of his family, before everything happened. He remembered the smell of pancakes as he walked into the kitchen and saw his mother standing there smiling. He remembered Alec giving him a punch on the arm and asking
if he wanted to play video games. He remembered quiet Joseph playing with his action figures in the living room with cartoons blaring over the TV. And he remembered Ally tormenting everything and everyone around her. His father had not been there during those times but in his dream he was. His father was there standing in the background watching them with a smile on his face. After a few moments his mother walked over and stood next to his father, then Joseph dropped his action figures and ran over to them. The three of them, his mother, father and Joseph stood there watching Ben, Alec and Ally. Ben started to walk over and say something when the sound of the cartoons was replaced by an alarm. It started soft but soon it was all he could hear. His father looked at him and opened his mouth.
“Ben!”
Ben opened his eyes and saw Mason yelling at him. An alarm in the helicopter was going off and everyone around him was buckling up and looking out the windows panicked.
“What is it?” he yelled, unsure if Mason could hear him above the alarms and the sound of the helicopter.
Mason turned to say something to him when the helicopter swung to the left. Ben’s stomach lurched and his body was thrown to the right. He felt Mason’s hand on his arm just as the helicopter dove sharply towards the ground and then he saw it out the window across from him. As if in slow motion, he saw a trail of smoke rising from the ground heading straight towards them. They seemed to be floating gently in the air as the object shot towards them at an alarming speed.
Ben turned to Mason.
Mason turned to Ben.
Mason opened his mouth to say something. Then the rear of the helicopter exploded.
Ally
