Redemption

by Ever N. Hayes

  Suddenly there was an explosion up the south side of the dam. What the hell? A minute later I saw a helicopter lift off from the general area of the last explosion. It was coming down the valley towards us. Shit!

  I glanced at my watch. I had exactly one minute until Danny was supposed to meet me. I knew he wouldn’t be there. But I also knew I wasn’t going anywhere until I found him. The helicopter was hovering over the destroyed bridge. Probably looking for Danny too. Six minutes later, I saw a pile of sticks float up against the falls, and then a body tumbled over the rocks in the gap I’d come through. Danny!

  I ran down to the water and flipped him over. He was breathing, but barely. He must have been floating face up most of the time. How did the helicopter not see him? He had been shot at least two times. I pulled him out of the water and tried to get him to talk to me. I could see his mouth moving but couldn’t make out what he was saying. “What?” I put my ear down next to his mouth.

  “You should be gone,” he whispered.

  “Screw that. No way I was leaving you.”

  He mouthed something else, but I didn’t listen this time. Another large explosion up by the former bridge had caught my attention. I stood up and peered over the wall of debris. I could see a half dozen soldiers coming down the river fully armed and carefully searching the water. They’d be here in a minute. I had to move Danny, but I couldn’t pull him out of the water without being seen. There was only one option. I glanced at the waterfall pouring over the gap in the dam, and I dragged Danny under that waterfall with me. I lowered him as deep as I could into the water to where his face was still above the surface, flattening myself against the rock wall—underwater—as recessed as I could. With my left arm I held the Springfield—safety off—ready to fire if needed.

  I watched through a tiny gap in the waterfall as two men passed by on my left. I couldn’t afford to turn my head to the right, but I assumed a couple more were on that side. I could hear the soldiers talking to each other across the river—confirming my assumption—but I didn’t understand a word. I heard another voice coming from above the falls. My body ached, and Danny was shaking terribly, but I fought to stay still. “Come on, Danny,” I whispered in his ear. “Keep fighting, but stay calm. Please.”

  Suddenly there was a gunshot and a giant splash in front of us as a man fell off the dam into the water. He pretty much landed directly in Danny’s lap. Another gunshot followed immediately, and there was another large splash to my right. I tried to get a glimpse of what was going on but could only tell that someone was firing at these Qi Jia soldiers.

  The two men to my left were now crouching down a few feet from me, peering over the wall of debris toward the gunfire. Surely the two men to my right were doing the same. Another gunshot was followed by a scream to my right. One of the men to my right fired several shots back this time. As did the men on my left. I wanted to help whoever was attacking these men. I wanted to take out the guys I could see on my left, but I knew a single shot from me would draw fire from my blind spot on the right. That would be certain death for us. I had to stay patient. I squeezed Danny tightly and waited.

  A couple more minutes passed, and I slowly rotated my head to the right. There was still a man there, and my slight movement caught his attention. I saw him peer closer into the water and then start to swing his gun as he realized what he was seeing. I let go of Danny and switched the gun from my left to right hand in one motion, squeezing three shots off into the man’s head before he even pointed his rifle at me. I then shoved off from the wall of debris, spinning around toward the two men on my left, firing the rest of my clip in their direction. I knew for certain I hit one of the men in the back with two of my shots, but the other man fell as the result of a gunshot from a large figure hidden behind a tree to my right. Eddie. How the hell did he get down here so fast?

  Then Eddie was in the water, picking Danny up and carrying him up the hill toward the road. I raced up after them and found Flynn and Blake in a gunfight beside the road with a handful of soldiers on the other side of the river. Ava was huddled beside Blake. She had a gun but wasn’t using it. She sure had changed a lot since the bunker.

  “We must go,” Eddie shouted at Blake.

  “We can’t,” Blake hollered back. “There’s still three or four guys over there keeping us from the truck.”

  “Reload, now,” Eddie ordered. “Then when I say go, you start shooting. You cover me, and I’ll get Danny to the truck. I’ll move the truck away from gunfire and you come to me.”

  “Okay,” Blake agreed.

  “Ready?”

  “Yes,” Flynn replied, and Blake nodded.

  “Go,” Eddie shouted.

  Blake and Flynn alternated rounds, buying Eddie the ten or so seconds he needed to scamper up the ditch and toss Danny into the back seat of a Humvee. I scurried in with Danny as Eddie slid behind the wheel. He jammed the truck in reverse and spun us through the dirt out of the line of fire. A minute later, Blake was running toward us with Ava holding his hand and Flynn a few steps behind him. Eddie spun the Humvee around, and I threw open the door. Blake scrambled in and climbed up the turret, cocking the big gun in case we needed it. Flynn hopped into the passenger seat beside Eddie, and Ava slid in beside Danny, lifting his head onto her lap.

  “Find his gunshots,” Eddie hollered back at us as he drove.

  “How did you know he was shot?” I yelled back.

  “We watched him get shot,” Flynn replied. “Craziest thing I’ve ever seen.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “After the third arrow missed, Blake was trying to get in a position to take a shot at the dynamite himself, but there wasn’t anywhere he could find where he wouldn’t be seen.”

  I glanced at Ava to see if she’d give me any kind of look for missing those shots. She didn’t. “So?” I asked Flynn, who had stopped her story.

  “Well, Eddie decided he needed to do something so he told us to follow him to the parking lot on the south side of the dam. We had to take out six guys, and Eddie blew up the one helicopter, but he got the other pilot to fly us down.”

  “That was you two?” That’s how they got down so quickly.

  “Us three.” Flynn nodded towards Ava. “She saved my life. There was a guy about to shoot me and she killed him.”

  Ah. Now it made sense. She’s never killed anyone before. I remembered exactly how that first time felt—during the chemical attacks—the day I met Sam. I remember throwing up. Twice. “Really?”

  Flynn nodded. “Anyway, when those last three trucks crossed the bridge, Blake figured he had to move, and he was about to, and then Danny stands up out of the water on the other side of the bridge and blew the thing from about fifty feet away. The explosion slammed him into the river so hard, and then the soldiers that were around started shooting at him.”

  Eddie yelled, “Hold on” as he swerved suddenly and turned onto a gravel road.

  Flynn glanced out the window and then continued. “So…Eddie, Blake, and I tried to pick them off with the sniper rifles we’d picked up, but there were too many soldiers and too many people firing at him. We knew they had to have hit him.”

  The big gun above us suddenly boomed. Thwump, thwump, thwump, thwump. Hot shell cartridges dropped onto the floor beside us, still smoking. We winced and covered our ears as Blake continued to fire at something behind us. When the shooting stopped for a second, I hollered up at him. “We being followed?”

  “Negative,” Blake yelled back. “Not anymore.”

  Ava was searching Danny for gunshots. “Including his arm from earlier, I’ve found four entry wounds.”

  “Four?” Eddie glanced back at Ava.

  “Yes, four.”

  “Holes both sides?”

  “Both sides?”

  “Exit wounds,” I translated.

  “One second,” Ava answered. She rolled Danny to his side and looked at his back. “Yes, on his stomach. No on the left thigh and no on the sec
ond in his left arm.”

  “That’s good,” Eddie replied, making another sharp turn.

  “That’s good?” Ava asked in bewilderment.

  “Yes. Very good. Could be much worse.”

  We had to take Eddie’s word for that.

  SIXTY-FIVE – Quiet at the Mouse (Hayley)

  ---------- (Thursday. August 11, 2022.) ----------

  We managed to make our way around the outskirts of Redlands and Riverside without drawing any unwanted attention, and we snuck up to Disneyland’s back door. It was weird being in Anaheim without traffic—without unlicensed tourists almost killing you as they cut across five lanes to get to the carpool lane. I remembered how much that used to drive my dad nuts. “Every single time,” he’d say. I smiled at the memory. I couldn’t wait to see him again.

  We parked in what used to be Downtown Disney, and Eddie kicked in a door that read “Emergency Services.” He found a table in there to lay Danny on, as well as some rubbing alcohol, scalpels, and bandages. Blake and I held Danny down as Eddie extracted the bullets from his arm and leg. Danny was too weak to scream, but it was clear he was in pain. Still, Eddie insisted we couldn’t dull the pain without risking losing him altogether. Danny passed out during the second extraction, but that one went much easier. It was almost six o’clock now. Eddie wrapped Danny up and gave him a few shots for the pain. Then he picked him up, and we made our way toward the Disneyland fence.

  Blake cut the fence with bolt cutters, and we slid through, careful not to hurt Danny any more in the process. We were behind the Swiss Family style tree house, adjacent the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. We intended to check Pirates out first. To be safe, Blake decided he should climb the tree house and get a look around. I volunteered to go with him, and we hurried to the top.

  It was quite a sight to behold. I’d never seen such a big city—or metro area—so absolutely dead silent. The buildings looked straight out of that Will Smith I Am Legend movie—old, crumbled from drone strikes, vines growing everywhere. Stray dogs roamed with coyotes. I glanced at Blake as chills coursed through my body.

  “Freaky.” He said it for me.

  Disneyland, for its part, was absolutely silent—exactly what we were hoping for. On the other hand, it barely looked like Disneyland at all. Sleeping Beauty’s Castle was a pile of rubble—someone must not have had a daughter. Matterhorn Mountain was also gone. I shook my head and was about to tell Blake I was heading back down when a movement below caught my eye.

  There was a person—one single person—walking through Adventureland past the old Jungle Cruise ride. I couldn’t tell from here if it was a man or woman, but he or she hadn’t seen us yet. I grabbed Blake and pulled him down, pointing at the pedestrian through the slots in the railing.

  The person was wearing a hoodie and jeans, clearly not standard Qi Jia attire. American? “What do we do?”

  “Don’t frickin’ move,” Blake whispered back.

  The person passed almost directly beneath us, almost certainly gaining the attention of Eddie, Flynn, and Ava in the process. Blake slowly tiptoed down the steps as the person moved away from us. As he or she turned left around the corner, Blake picked up his pace—a little too quickly. He stepped on a loose board that snapped, and there was a large crash as he fell through to the platform below it and then through that platform as well. I jumped up and watched the corner where the person had disappeared a minute earlier. Sure enough, he or she came back, looking for the source of the sound. Blake was lying in the open, and a dust cloud had risen where he’d fallen through the boards. I could see he was okay, but I also knew the person had seen him too. In a second, he or she was gone.

  I took off in pursuit. By the time I reached the bottom and scampered around the corner, the person was long gone. But I’d also seen Flynn chasing the individual, and she was hurrying back toward me now. She ran up to me, breathing heavily.

  “She went into Pirates.”

  “Seriously? You know it was a she?” I thought so. “Did you get a look at her face?”

  “Yes.” Flynn nodded.

  “American?”

  “Don’t know for certain, but I think so. White face, dark hair.”

  “Did you see anyone else? Any signs of anyone else?”

  “No.” Flynn shook her head. “But she can’t be alone.”

  Blake had joined us now. “American?”

  “Yep. We think.” It was my turn to nod. “She went into Pirates.”

  “Small world.” Blake smiled and elbowed me.

  I got it, idiot. I can play this game too. “No, Pirates.”

  “I know. I was—”

  “I know what you were doing. You’re hilarious.” I elbowed him back. It was weird to be here and not hear that song though. “Guess Ava was right.”

  “I was right?” Ava walked up behind us with Eddie, who was still carrying Danny.

  “Seems that way,” I replied. “Flynn followed her to Pirates of the Caribbean.”

  “Yeah,” Ava nodded. “She ran right past us after she looped around the building. Think she was trying to throw you guys off.”

  “Do you know if she was American?” Eddie asked us. “We couldn’t tell.”

  “Yes,” Blake answered, and Flynn and I laughed.

  “What?” Eddie turned to us.

  “Nothing.” You had to be there.

  We slowly made our way back through Adventureland towards the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. When we were close enough to see the entrance we stepped inside an old BBQ place to lay Danny down.

  If there was more than one person inside the Pirates of the Caribbean building, they were probably watching for us. They could be armed and extremely jumpy, given they also probably hadn’t seen humans—especially Americans—around here in a while. We couldn’t take any chances.

  We also knew—if they were Americans—and if they were from the bunker, we had to get in there too. We had to let Hawaii know missiles were coming before it was too late. We had to let them know Baker was forcing Keena to drop the Shield. As darkness fell on Southern California, we knew we didn’t have much time.

  I watched Flynn slink up to the front door of the ride. She motioned at me to follow her, but as I started to move toward her she suddenly waved for me to stop. I froze and watched her as she looked above her head. Flynn pointed directly above her with one finger and then tapped her eye. A camera? I made a picture-taking motion back to her, and she nodded. They had to already know we were here. Confirming my suspicion, I suddenly saw three red dots appear on Flynn’s chest. “No!” I screamed and ran across the courtyard toward her. “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot! We’re Americans…don’t shoot!”

  I stepped in front of Flynn, and the three red dots were now front and center on my chest. I waved my arms as I continued to plead to whoever it was that had us in their sights. “We’re not here to hurt you. We’re from Hawaii. We’re just trying to get a message to them. The enemy has the bunker in Colorado. We need to get that message to Hawaii. Please…”

  There was no response. I had no way of knowing if my message had made it through. The red dots remained on my chest. Please, please, please. “Look, I understand if you don’t believe me, but you have a red phone in that bunker. Call the governor of Hawaii and ask him if he knows Captain Danny Miner. Please.”

  More silence followed, and the red dots didn’t move. Finally a voice spoke from a speaker directly above our heads. “How many of you are there?”

  “Six.” My voice cracked. “Sorry, six,” I repeated louder.

  “All Americans?” the voice replied.

  I thought about saying yes, but I knew I had to be honest. “No, we have an African major with us.”

  “Prisoner?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Names?”

  “Our names?” I asked.

  “No, the names of the chipmunks.”

  Chip and Dale? Or Alvin, Simon, and Theodore? “Sorry,” I yelled back, dismissing the sarcast
ic reply on my mind. “I’m Hayley, this is Flynn, and we have Blake, Ava, Danny, and Eddie.”

  “Don’t move,” the voice said sternly.

  Don’t worry.

  Ten minutes passed, and the voice hadn’t yet returned. What could be taking so long? Another ten minutes passed, and there was still nothing. Suddenly a female voice next to me spoke up. “Follow me.” I jumped. It was the girl from before, but this time she had a rifle. She was a little shorter than me—five-six or five-seven—with long, curly dark hair, and I detected a slight accent. UK or Australian? I asked for her name and age—I was guessing fifteen or sixteen—but she wouldn’t tell me.

  Flynn and I followed her into the darkness. I was aware of several other people moving in behind us. We were escorted through several hallways to a staircase leading down into a basement below the ride. As Flynn and I stepped through the doorway, floodlights came on and we squinted against their glare, struggling to see. Eventually, we could make out the silhouettes of twenty or so armed men and women, all with their guns pointed at us. A voice spoke from behind the spotlight directly in our face. It was the male from the loudspeaker outside.

  “We have confirmed your story.”

  “You called Hawaii?”

  “We did.”

  “And?”

  “They are thrilled you are alive, but they don’t know of an Eddie. I’m afraid you will have to make a choice. We can let you in without him, or you must all stay out.”

  “You don’t understand—”

  “Perhaps it is you that does not understand.” The man cut me off. “This is not up for debate. You are guests here, if indeed you choose to be—but your African friend is not. He is not welcome.”