Humanity Gone: Facade of Order

by Deremer, Derek

  Jocelyn is among them. Her hair is wrapped up behind her head, she's wearing a vest, and she even has a gun attached to her side. A gift from David's arsenal probably. He has a paper rolled out on the hood.

  “We have documented this station before. It's a little close to the capital so we always thought it was too risky.” Dave flattens the image out more. “Game plan: we'll go in quietly, hopefully she's there, and get out. This is a rough blueprint we made a little over a year ago. The building's an old urgent care center.. The rear of it faces a group of trees which should allow us to get relatively close in the darkness.”

  “After the incident on the farm they are going to be on high alert.” Ryan joins in. “This won't be easy.” I start to reconsider my decision to tell them all; I should have gone alone. Paige really would not have liked that.

  “Guys, you don't have to...” I begin. Ryan cuts my sentence off.

  “We are going Carter. If she's there, or one of them knows something, we will find out. We have been in more dangerous situations than this.”

  That is true. Still, this is more likely to turn out bad than good.

  Chapter 13: Jocelyn

  “We will arrive around midnight.” Carter finishes.

  Ryan and Dave walk out. I glance to Paige, and it's not hard to see that she is hurt. I can't really blame her. She doesn't know this girl and this doesn't seem all that safe. Carter is the only thing that mattered to her.

  I could empathize...

  For a moment, I consider saying something before I leave those two alone in silence, but I catch myself. Being with Carter is never going to happen, but I still wasn't going to help her.

  Yes. He could still be mine.

  No. No he won't be...

  My feet take me off the porch and into the grass. While I contemplate on where to go, a gust of wind drags my hair behind me. I pull it back and look up into the sun. It still feels weird to be able to go wherever I want. Sometimes, I catch myself just standing around and waiting for someone to bark orders. Yet here, no one does. It's not an easy adjustment after five years of all they made me do.

  “Hey, Jo.” a voice shouts from behind me. I turn around. Paige stands while propping the door open. “Come inside for a second. I want to give you something.”

  What does she want?

  I slowly pace back up the porch stairs and into the house. Carter is nowhere to be seen.

  “Follow me.”

  She takes me to the back room on the first floor. It's some kind of study. The carpet is maroon and the walls are a similar shade. Mahogany furniture lines the walls. It looks unused and dusty.

  “You’re probably a better soldier than me,” she starts, “But I want you to watch yourself, and him, tonight.”She reaches into a desk and pulls out a pistol in a black leather holster. As she closes the drawer, I catch a glimpse of a silver revolver as well.

  It looks like the one from years ago...

  After she hands me the holstered pistol, I pull the weapon out and briefly inspect it. The metal is a dark gray and the grip is black. By the time we left the campground five years ago, I really was a crack shot, especially with that rifle. David took me to the range a few days ago, and I am already beginning to pick back up my old shooting ability. Luckily, it really is like riding a bike, and it's all coming back to me now.

  “Jo, I really have never cared for guns; I don't even know if I could ever actually pull the trigger.” Paige looks out the window for a moment and then back at me. “Take it. Dave gave me this when I first met him and told me to always have it. Watch yourself and Carter out there.”

  The fact that she is so kind makes it difficult to really hate her, and kinda makes me feel guilty. When Carter described her on the way home from the farm I imagined someone much more self absorbed. Someone who did not compare to me. I guess I was wrong.

  “Watch yourself out there,” she repeats and walks away towards the kitchen. I undo my belt and put on the holster and gun while leaving the house again. I make my way towards the asphalt as a truck rolls up the street. Dave gets out of the driver's side door, and Ryan hops out of the truck bed. Dave tosses me a bulletproof vest. Struggling to put it on, I walk up and lean against the truck bed. Dave comes up beside me and tightens the Velcro along the back of my vest. He gestures towards the gun.

  “You ready to use that?”

  “I've been practicing; I can manage.”

  The first deer I ever brought down runs across my mind for a moment. I guess this will be the same thing. Ryan unrolls a map on the hood of the car. I walk up to get a better look. The map is of the urgent care center. It seems pretty crude, but I guess it is better than nothing.

  “Glad you are coming with us. Carter had told us several times about how tough you were so many years ago; it will mean a lot to him.”

  A smile creeps across my face. I guess Carter must have talked a lot about me.

  “Most of all,” Ryan continues, “I'll be honest. I'm a little afraid of this Caitlyn girl. Carter described her coldness that developed after the plague. He wasn't sure if Sara would still be alive, but he was certain she was. Then, the way she attacked that woman. There is a good chance this won't be the same girl you left five years ago.”

  “I know...” I say slowly. I think of how different I was five years ago. We all were different five years ago. Dave walks up to the map.

  “Just stick with us. We will all be fine.”

  Carter soon joins us. The plan seems risky, but I think we can manage if we remain silent. We load some guns into the backseat. My eyes catch a rifle protruding from the duffel. If things start to get bad, that is the first gun I'm grabbing. We stuff the backseat behind the passenger's seat, and I pile in beside the bag. There isn't a lot of room, and I am the smallest. Carter gets in.

  Right beside me.

  Our knees touch as we leave the neighborhood. I see Paige on the lawn as we drive off, and I feel like I have already done something wrong.

  Briefly, I devise this fantasy in my mind where Carter and I talk the whole trip. We both attain that connection we had so long ago, and we start to become even closer together in the backseat. Along the way we get lost. We decide to spend the night in a random house. Dave and Ryan decide to go do some investigating of the nearby houses just to be sure, leaving Carter and I alone. This time he doesn't leave after we get close. We laugh. We touch. We kiss. We...

  No. Focus.

  I am not this selfish. Paige is a good person. This is about Caitlyn. She needs us.

  She isn't this lost little girl anymore. She's nearly as old as I was when this started. She has been taking care of herself.

  No, she needs us - her family.

  I try to shake my head to get the argument out. I have done so well these past few days keeping my head on straight. There were many times I spent days alone with the New Americans. Sometimes, I spent nights where I didn't want to be. Talking to myself started as a coping mechanism. It evolved and now is something I need to put behind me, but I'm afraid it has become a part of my mind. The arguing in my head becomes exhausting, and I swear sometimes there's another voice in here. Sometimes it makes me feel crazy.

  I turn to Carter. He stares out the windshield ahead. We travel a few hours. Luckily, my fantasy doesn't come true and instead silence fills the truck for the majority of the time. The farther we get from the compound, the more uneasy Ryan and David become. This area is unfamiliar to them. They don't feel the same security, the same confidence, as they did by the school. Who could feel security in this world anyway?

  Ryan reaches up from the passenger's seat and turns on the car’s interior light to illuminate the map. The sun went down several hours ago, and it is nearly pitch black outside.

  “We are just about there. Up ahead there should be a bridge. We can park the car along the side and hoof it the rest of the way. It will be much safer on foot. I guarantee it.” We travel a few more minutes in darkness passing abandoned office buildings and stor
es. A few telephone poles are down and David swerves around them.

  “There's the bridge.” David whispers. He turns off the headlights and pulls into a parking lot right before the bridge. Several rusted and shattered cars still sit there among the weeds growing out of the cracks in the cement. He parks the truck.

  It seems to blend in well among the ruins of old cars.

  We stumble out of the truck and Ryan walks to the back passenger's door and throws David a shotgun. He grabs one for himself.

  Speak up.

  “Hey could I have that rifle?” I ask. David looks at Carter for a second. Carter nods. “I was a top shot and would feel safer with that.”

  He holds the butt of the gun out to me. I take it and sling it over my shoulder after looking down briefly through the scope. Almost the same as the one I remember. Carter walks up to the duffel in the back seat and grabs two clips. He walks to me and tucks them into my back pockets. I lose myself for a second.

  “So we cross the bridge and stick to the tree line on the left side. Move slowly. After about a quarter of a mile it should bring us to the rear of the center. Keep your eyes open.”

  The four of us move without a noise over the bridge. We pass a few more broken down cars that are rusting away. The tires have rotted away and the decayed chassis sit on their wheel wells. Once we cross the bridge, we head into a parking lot that closely resembles a field with all of the weeds growing throughout it. We move keeping low and quiet. Dave takes us along an old nearly collapsed building with swollen walls and a drooping roof. Bricks are scattered all over the ground and cause my feet to stumble a few times. I manage to keep my balance, and we soon enter some undergrowth among the trees. We head into the dark forest and are soon within eyesight of the center.

  Some guards are stationed around the complex, dressed in military fatigues and actively patrolling the area around the care center. They seemed on high alert.

  You can do this JoJo.

  I know.

  Chapter 14: Caitlyn

  No matter how hard I pull my arm, it will not break free from the leather strap that binds it to the coarse wooden chair. I move my head around, but my vision is still fuzzy. God knows how long I was unconscious. My head still hurts from where the gun stocks hit me, and my chin falls to my chest.

  Stupid.

  How could I get so distracted while looking at those papers? I lift my head up again. The room seems to spin. Acid builds up in the back of my throat. With effort, I swallow it.

  “She's conscious,” a voice yells from outside the room. “Begin the interrogation.”

  “How far do you want me to go?” a much closer voice answers.

  “As far as you need to.”

  I don't like the sound of that. A bang startles me in the chair and my body jumps, but it's still held down by the straps. The door must have slammed shut in front of me.

  A figure comes into focus near me. Squinting does not make him clearer as the throbbing worsens in my skull.

  “Who sent you here?” the voice yells. What?

  “Who sent you here?” he repeats, except his voice rumbles with even more agitation.

  “I don't... know. What are you talking about?” my words waver more than I like. I usually know better than to show weakness.

  “Tell me now.” his voice approaches a yell.

  “No one. I work for no one.”

  “You mean to tell me you just kill several of my men and walk in here for nothing.”

  “I don't...”

  “I don't think you are taking me seriously girl.”

  My eyes focus, I get a better picture of him... and the pliers in this hand. He reaches out and grabs my left pinky strapped to the chair's arm. The pliers move around the base of the finger. I try to fight, but his grip is too strong. The edge of the steel begins to press around my finger.

  What is he doing?

  God no.

  Suddenly, the pressure comes down and my eyes widen as the pain tears my insides apart. My vision clears as I try to suppress the scream in my throat as my jaw hangs open. He removes my pinky finger. My teeth grit to try and manage the pain

  The warm blood begins to trickle between the wooden armrest and under my palm. My eyes water, and I clench my hands to the chair and try to hold my mind together. It's just a pinky; I can live without it. I can still shoot. This is nothing.

  This is nothing.

  Over the past few years that I have been alone, I have been bitten, clawed, and punched. Yet, none of it hurt as much as this. It isn't just the pain, it is everything about this room that made the pain unbearable. I close my eyes and try to gain control of my breathing. This is nothing. Maybe if I lie to myself more.

  Hold it together. This could be worse.

  This is nothing.

  “If you don't start talking, I'm going to remove all the fingers on your left hand.”

  I was afraid he was going to say that. I managed to not even scream when he took the pliers to my pinky. I'm not sure if that courage will last much longer. I glance down to the bloodied stump of a finger that was tethered to the wooden chair. A pool of blood gathers around my hand and a few drops land on the white ceramic tile beneath me. Pain is no stranger to me, but it is becoming overwhelming as I feel each heart beat in where my finger once was. I avert my eyes from the blood and glance around me. The room is dark and felt like a dank washroom. It is probably an old bathroom... or an operating room. A single light illuminates only a portion of the room and the man's face. He is dressed in combat gear and his helmet sat on the nearby table. My bow and arrows are leaned against a back corner.

  If I could just get to that...

  I glare up into his face. A shadow darkens everything beneath his brow and a hint of light reflects off the brown in his eyes. There didn't seem to be any white there. Held in front of him is a pair of pliers-stained red from when it sliced through the veins in my little finger. I wanted to kill him. To make him suffer, but I really was in no position to make threats. Charging in here was so sloppy.

  They told me she could be in here.

  They were wrong.

  It is a trap as far as I can tell, and now I am strapped to a chair and they want information that I don't even have. Perhaps they were a little pissed about all of them I killed to get here, and maybe the ones I killed in the past.

  I guess counting three today, I am somewhere around fifteen at this point. I'm not really sure. The number of bodies I walked over did not matter one damn bit. Not until I found her.

  He slaps me across the face.

  “Start talking, or believe me, I can do much worse things to you.” He smirks and briefly glances down. This isn't the first time I've been threatened with that.

  “I don't know what you're talking about. I was just looking for someone.” I yell back at him. “So if you think pain is going to get me to remember something you may as well chop off my whole damn arm.”

  Perhaps it wasn't the best plan to give this guy any ideas, but maybe if I seem just crazy enough...

  The black clad man leans in close. His breath smells awful, and I turn to the left to avoid his gaze. His hand grips my hair and turns my head forward and back until my skull feels like it will hit the middle of my back. He leans over and glares down into my eyes. I can see them clearly now in the low light. They are dark and empty.

  “What do they want with us?” He pulls even tighter on my hair and it feels like it's about to rip out of my scalp.

  “I don't know what you’re talking about.” Well, I knew vaguely what he was talking about; I just didn't know anything about the people who resisted their rule. He pulls back on my hair for a few more moments and then he releases it. My chin instantly drops to my chest. He takes a step back and turns around for a second.

  “I know you know something. You're the one who has been killing our men up and down this territory with those arrows. Most of all, I know you're under order from the Sanctuary. Matthews is tired of their little game.
What he personally does to them, will make this look like child's play.”

  Sanctuary. Now that was a name I had not heard in a while.

  “Believe me; I take no orders from them. I know nothing. I've just been looking for someone this whole time. I know you have her.” I look up to him. I squint - trying my best to look threatening to the man that could easily kill me with the knife he has sheathed to his side. He did not scare me, and I wasn't going to give him any satisfaction that he did.

  He slaps me again on the other side of my head. Or was it the same side?

  His hand reaches into his pocket and retrieves the pliers. My heart seems to stop as he holds my left hand down and goes to my ring finger.

  “What do they want?” he screams into my face as I try with every ounce of my energy to free myself from the bonds. The metal pliers surround my ring finger.

  “I am just trying to find my sister.” The last part of my sentence ends in a yell as the pliers tear through skin, muscle, and then bone. He pulls the bloody tool away and I see my ring finger for a second before it falls to the floor. The pain is unimaginable, and it takes every ounce of me to not continue screaming and start crying.

  My voice quavers as I plead, “Please. I'm just trying to find my twin sister.”

  He grabs my head again and moves it within inches of his own. His hand lifts the bloodied pliers between our eyes then he slowly moves it to the side of my head.

  The sticky metal grips my ear lobe.

  He begins to pull down, and I yell.

  I scream.

  “Why are you here?” he roars. I can feel the tears stream down my cheeks and I taste the salt on my lips. I am tired of being tough. I am tired of surviving. I want to just be somewhere safe. I want my family.

  I feel broken.

  “Please... stop.” the pulling on my ear get harder.