The Newcomers: a novel of global invasion , human resilience, and the wild places of the planet

by Pamela Jekel

  “So do I,” she said, kissing him again. “Let’s shake on it.”

  He grinned and moved over her for what seemed like the first time in forever. “Shaking sounds kinda fun,” he murmured.

  * * *

  Miranda more than made up for her mother’s lack of resistance. When Jack and Skylar told her of their decision to leave the camp and go back to the cabin, at first she was incredulous.

  “No way!”

  Jack carefully explained their reasoning, and Sky added her voice to his, reassuring Miranda that it would be far better for them to leave now, to leave together, to be together again as a family.

  “But all of my friends are here! We can’t ever come back! The bad guys are still out there, and we’ll get raped and murdered!”

  Sky glanced at Jack. “No, Miranda, we’re going to make it. We’ve got a lot better chance of surviving together now.”

  “Bullshit!” Miranda shouted at her mother. “You can’t make me go!”

  Shocked at her outburst, Jack raised his chin. “Miranda. Don’t talk to your mother like that. We are going to go, and we’re going together. That is our decision.”

  “Go ahead and go; I don’t care.” Her hands were fists. “I’m staying here.”

  “You are not staying here. You are going with us. We are staying together as a family.”

  Sky said, “Miranda, we’ve already lost two children. If you think I’m leaving you here, you best think again. If I have to, I’ll tell your team captain that we’re leaving, and that when they close down the camp, they’ll have an orphan on their hands. Do you really think the army is going to take care of you, after we leave? They’ll put you in some sort of group home after they close down the camps, and you can fend for yourself with the rest of the kids whose parents have died. Is that what you want?”

  Miranda began to sob. Sky put her arms around her daughter. Miranda wrenched away. “I’m not crying for sadness! I’m furious at you! At you both!”

  “I understand how you feel,” Jack said. “It’s been a hard four years.”

  “You got no clue,” Miranda wept.

  Skylar sighed with frustration. “Oh, I think we’ve got a glimmer of it. Listen, Miranda, we love you. We understand how you feel. But there’s no safety here, not permanently. We need to get back to our own place. We need to get Chase back and be a family again, honey. And we need to go quickly, before the Advisors make some other decision that makes it impossible for us to leave. Do you understand?”

  Jack took Miranda on his lap, something he’d not done for more than a year. He was surprised at how heavy she felt on his thinner legs. “It’s okay to be sad, kitten. We’re sad, too. But I promise we’ll get home safe. Do you believe me?”

  Miranda looked up at her father with welling eyes. “I guess,” she said finally, her voice calmer. “God, I can’t believe this. How soon do we have to go?”

  “Soon,” Jack said. “Very soon. And we need to do it without everyone knowing about it, okay? Because if everybody knows about it, they might try to go with us. I can’t promise to take care of everybody else. I can only promise to take care of us. Can you keep a secret?”

  Her voice was listless. “I guess.”

  “Because if you tell anyone, they might not let you go,” Skylar said. “They will let us go, but they might keep you here, against your will.”

  “Okay. But what will happen to Stacey and Robin? Their parents are dead.”

  “Stacey and Robin are orphans,” Sky said, ruthless. “They will be kept in the army until they get old enough to be soldiers.”

  “I don’t want to be a soldier,” Miranda said, her voice small.

  “I know you don’t,” Sky said. “That’s why we’re leaving. So that all of us can keep having choices.”

  After they took Miranda back to the dorm, they sat in the shadows discussing their plan. “She looks older, each time we come back together. Each time, she’s a little less thrilled to see us.” Skylar sighed.

  “I noticed that too,” Jack said. “And her vocabulary! ‘Rape’ and ‘bullshit’! What’s that all about?”

  “That’s about living with older kids exclusively. You’re right. We have to get out of here. We’re losing our daughter.” She took his hand. “I can’t lose another one, Jack.”

  He put his arm around her shoulders. “Me neither. But we better move quickly now. She won’t be able to keep this secret, no matter what she promises. She’ll swear her two best friends to secrecy, and they’ll tell their two best friends, and by tomorrow night, the whole camp will know. We need to leave tomorrow.”

  Sky looked at him. “So we’re really going to do this then.”

  “I’ll find Scott tonight before curfew. He’ll help us, if he can. You go up to the room and get us ready.”

  “God knows, there’s not much to pack. Good thing our shoes are not too bad.” She hesitated. “I wonder when we’ll ever get new ones.”

  He squeezed her. “Let’s keep positive, partner. We’ll need all the strength we can muster.”

  “So what else is new?”

  * * *

  The next morning after breakfast, instead of reporting to their work teams, Jack, Skylar, and Miranda met Scott at the east gate of campus, where he helped them load onto an army truck bound for DeKalb campus. The rotation crew was headed for fields east of Clarkston. From there, Watkinsville would be fifty walking miles.

  Scott handed Jack a small satchel. “Five MRE’s and a plastic tarp. That’s all I could scrounge up.”

  “Thanks for everything,” Jack said, handing him a letter. “Will you mail this to Chase? I don’t know if we’ll ever get any answer, but at least he’ll know where we are.”

  Scott nodded and put the letter in his pocket. He hugged Miranda. “Take care, kiddo,” he said. “Write me a letter sometime and draw me a picture of you catching a fish.”

  She hugged him fiercely and handed him a slip of paper. “Give this to Stacey, okay? Maybe she can come and stay with us sometime.”

  Sky asked, “Did you hear anything more about that Navy ship going to Africa to get the kids?”

  “No more than I knew before. But if you can get a radio to work, you might be able to get some news off the emergency band.” He turned and shook Jack’s hand. “Good luck, citizen,” he said.

  They climbed up on the bumper of the truck, and hands reached out to help Sky and Miranda climb onboard. “You all leaving?” a woman asked.

  “Just rotating out,” Jack said.

  She stared at Miranda curiously, glanced at a soldier, and then thought better of it.

  The Army truck exited the campus gate, and as they drove through the streets of Decatur, Jack watched to see any signs of life. For miles, they drove, through back streets and wider avenues, and Jack saw nothing moving but their truck and crows flying from tree to tree, the occasional gull mewing and crying over an old garbage pile. No dogs, no cats, no people. They reached Highway 78, entered the onramp, and for the first time, Jack could see lines of cars abandoned and rusting on the sides of the freeway. Shoved over onto the shoulders, they looked like a jumble of mating beetles, their bright carapaces all turning slowly to the same color of brown. It was the first time in three years, they had been outside the city limits of Atlanta, and Jack scanned every empty field for any sign of livestock but he saw nothing in the overgrown fields.

  As they drove through Clarkston, the truck labored up a hill, wheezed, and slowed. He realized they were close to what used to be the mall, and he tried to look through the trees to see the parking lot. The houses were so overgrown with foliage and grasses, that some of them were swallowed, like old barns left to sag back into the woods. But these were new homes, many of them, with the paint still bright, the roofs still strong. They headed for a wide expanse of fields with a cluster of tents at the perimeter, the eastern-most outpost of the Atlanta military command.

  Jack could see why these fields had been put to the plow. There was a bold c
reek running alongside the tents, which made irrigation of these crops easy. Perhaps they were even planting crops which needed more water, like melons and tomatoes. If they left, they might not see another fruit for a long time, he thought with a pang. As they unloaded the rotation crew, he motioned Skylar to move away from the workers and to the other side of the truck. With Miranda by the hand, she walked casually up the hill and into a small copse of trees. He followed behind her, as though he was following an order, and in moments, they were out of sight of the soldiers.

  At first they hurried as if they were being pursued, but then Jack slowed them down to a steady walk. “We can’t afford to have any turned ankles,” he said. “Miranda, I think your mother can do about twenty miles a day. What about you?”

  “I can do it too, Dad.”

  He smiled. Amazing what that simple, little three-letter word could do for his spirits. “Well, I figure it’s about ten o’clock by the sun. I say we try for ten miles by lunchtime, what do you say?”

  “Are we going to follow the road?” Sky asked.

  “It looked pretty empty to me,” he said. “Let’s give it a try. It’ll certainly be easier going and shorter. We’ll get off for water and to make camp at night.”

  “We could sleep in a car,” Miranda said.

  Jack chuckled. “Indeed we can! Maybe we’ll do exactly that. Good thinking, Sacajawea.”

  “Who’s that?” Miranda asked.

  “A very famous Indian scout who led explorers across the country, all the way to the Pacific Ocean.”

  Miranda rolled her eyes. “I don’t want to go that far.”

  They tramped around the fields and the soldiers and then made their way back onto the highway, where they walked boldly right down the middle of the four-lane thoroughfare in the May sun. On both sides, clusters of cars were piled, pushed together to clear the road, sedans, trucks, luxury cars, and clunkers, all massed together without regard to rank or value.

  They walked until the sun had moved past the midway point, and they reached an intersection that Jack recognized. “This is Hairston Road,” he said. “We’re making good time.” He pointed to a Waffle House just off the highway. “I had breakfast once there with my dad.”

  “There’s a Dollar General!” Miranda shrieked with glee.

  “Your old stompin’ ground,” Sky said. There was a Checkers, a Subway, and an Aunty Vanny’s Fish restaurant, all in a line. “Should we break a window?”

  “Looks like somebody already did,” Jack said. As they drew nearer, they saw that each storefront had been violated, most of the windows broken, some of the doors standing open and twisted. Broken glass and pieces of metal strewed the street. Only the main highway had been cleared of debris.

  “This sucks,” Miranda said.

  “Let’s get out of here, Jack.” Sky looked about her nervously.

  “Okay, we can if you want to. But I don’t think anybody’s here anymore. This all happened a while ago.” He bent and fingered a piece of window flashing. “This has had time to rust out pretty good.” He stuck his head inside the Subway. “There won’t be anything left to eat, I’m sure, but there might be some water left in the pipes. That’s the good thing about this far south. They probably didn’t freeze.”

  Jack went in the front of the store cautiously, looking around. It was obvious that no one had been inside for months. Impressive spider webs festooned the corners, and ants industriously made their parades across the floor. A strong smell of decay came from the locked refrigerator unit. Looters had bashed it in, then tried to carry it off. Crushed on one side and pulled out from the wall, it stood as silent testament to the fury of the denied, still reeking slightly, now attracting only hordes of insects to its moist seams.

  Jack pulled his cup from his pack and turned on a water faucet. Nothing. Not even a puff of dust. Sky backed out of the bathroom with a grimace. “Don’t go in there,” she said. She closed the door in disgust.

  They walked out back, and Jack found a spigot with a coiled hose. “Put it under this,” he said. He turned on the spigot and pulled the hose out straight. About a half-cup of water trickled into the cup in Sky’s hand.

  “Is it safe to drink?”

  “Are you kidding? After years of baking in the Georgia sun? I’m surprised there’s even a drop left; must be a slow leak somewhere. No bacteria could survive that.” He smelled it. “Smells like rubber, but it’s okay.” He offered it to Miranda.

  “You go first,” she said. “If you don’t croak, I’ll try the next hose.”

  He drank it down. “Okay, let’s find a place for lunch.”

  They wandered off the highway towards the trees, heading downhill. In a small, tidy neighborhood, they found a culvert with a trickle of water running under a road. They sat in the shade, sharing one of the Army meals that Scott had given them.

  “We can only eat half,” Jack said. “We’ll save the other half for dinner.”

  “I’m hungry,” Miranda grumped as she quickly finished her share of something that called itself Chicken Fajita, a sleeve of crackers, a box of raisins, a power bar, and some peanut butter spread.

  “I can’t even remember what it’s like not to be,” Sky agreed. “MRE. Meals Rarely Edible.”

  Miranda grinned at that. “Mentally Retarded Edibles. Is it okay to drink this water?”

  “Probably,” Jack said, saving the water-resistant matches, napkin, moist towelette and instant sport drink in his pockets. “We’re going to give it a try, anyway. No livestock around to foul it.” He bent down and filled his cupped hands, slurping it up. “Wow. It tastes fantastic. I’d forgotten what fresh water tastes like.”

  Miranda bent down and did the same. “Almost tingly.”

  Skylar took her turn and then said, “Fish!” She pointed to a school of small minnows which hovered near a turn in the creek, glinting in the sun. Jack took his cup, laid it on its side in the water, put some grass inside and weighted it all down with a pebble. Instantly, the minnows darted at the grass, hunting for bugs. Miranda got down on her belly to watch the fish, absurdly happy at the flash and play of life.

  They walked on, and Jack estimated they had gone another six miles when they saw a man on a bicycle coming towards them on the highway just outside of Stone Mountain. They quickly hid behind a parked car close to the edge of a patch of woods. “He may have seen us,” Jack said. “Get ready to run if we have to, and Miranda, you stay between your mother and me. Sky, go up that hill and keep in deep cover, if you can. Don’t wait for me. Get very small and keep silent.”

  Jack crouched behind the trunk of the car, keeping his body behind the wheels. As the bicycle drew near, he saw that the rider was a man about thirty with a pack on his back and no visible weapon. He had two saddle bags on either side of his bike. There will be the weapon, Jack thought, lowering his body even more.

  No, now he came into closer view. He wore a handgun in a belt on his hip. Jack signaled Sky to keep down. The man pedaled easily, no sense of strain or effort. His bike was too small for him, but it seemed in reasonably good condition. He was slender, but his arm and leg muscles were well-defined; his beard was dark and full. He obviously had sufficient caloric intake.

  Jack waited until the rider was well down the road before he let them emerge from behind their cover. “From now on,” he said, “we need to keep to the far side of the road, as close as possible to the cars. We’re too obvious in the middle. We were lucky this time.”

  “That guy had a gun.” Miranda stared after him.

  “Should we stay off the road?” Sky asked.

  Jack hesitated. “I know we’ll make better time on the road, and we don’t have much food with us, so I guess it’s better to stay on the fastest route. Can you keep walking?” he asked Miranda. “I think we should keep going as long as we can.”

  “I guess so,” she said, looking up the road towards the horizon. “This was a really crappy idea.”

  Sky glanced at Jack. “I don’t wa
nt to hear that again, Miranda. We’ve made this decision because we think it’s our best chance. Your father has a plan, and we’re going with it.”

  “Nobody asked me what I thought of it.”

  “Nobody needs to,” Sky said. “You’re ten. And regardless of what they might have told you in those classes, you’re our daughter. Our child. Not your team’s or the Army’s or the aliens’ kid. Ours. We will take care of each other; that’s what families do.” She reached out and touched Miranda lightly on her hair. “Okay?”

  Miranda sighed and picked up her backpack. “I guess.”

  They walked until they reached the outskirts of Loganville, and Jack estimated they’d made about twenty miles. Clearly, Miranda could not be pushed any farther without collapsing into a weeping heap, so they walked off the highway until they turned on Rosebud Road towards a Catholic Church Jack remembered.

  “Blessed Althonsa. I came here for a Boy Scout meeting a few times,” he said. “It’s got a little pond out back, spring-fed. I remember the ducks. Maybe it’s still there.”

  By the time they reached the small chapel, Sky was obviously exhausted as well, and the deep shade of the trees outlining the pond was almost as welcome as a full meal. They settled themselves within the draping boughs of a large willow, took off their shoes, and walked up to their knees in the cool water.

  “Oh my God,” Skylar moaned as she bathed her arms and her face. “Let’s just stay here forever.”

  “Well, I don’t see any ducks,” Jack said, “so there’s probably not any fish left. Unless you want to try to live off pond scum and weeds.” He took off his shirt and made a strainer of it, filtering some of the water through it into his cup.

  “Well at least we’d die clean,” Sky muttered. She held up the cup. “It’s still green.”

  “It’s okay,” he said. “Extra roughage.”

  They shared the rest of the food left over from their lunch and then went to see if they could get inside the chapel. “Why haven’t we seen any people?” Sky asked. “Just that one guy. You’d think we’d have seen some people, anyway, walking or working outside or something. And no dogs. Not a single animal except birds.”