Night Before Dawn

by David Lucin

  “He could be a Gaianist,” Sam said. “Maybe that’s why.”

  “A Gaia-what-now?”

  “Gaianist, a believer in Gaianism. It’s a New Age movement that says you should honor Earth and respect all life.”

  Quinn made a derisive sound with her nose. “Respect all life. Right. By murdering people?”

  “If you’re a radical Gaianist, yeah.” Sam blew into his hands and rubbed them together. “When you take Gaianism to the extreme, human beings become the enemy because we’re damaging the environment. When that group of terrorists tried blowing up a dam in Washington State in ’54, the leader was a self-proclaimed Gaianist.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Beau said, teeth chattering. “I remember that.”

  “But I don’t think Gaianists actually worship Gaia,” Sam added. “The movement’s just called Gaianism because of its relationship to the Earth and environmentalism. Some neopagans worship Gaia, though.”

  “Pagans?” Jenn felt herself making a face. “Like the people who believe in Zeus and stuff?”

  Even in the dark, she could see him roll his eyes. “Yeah, like Zeus and stuff. Neopagans are people who still believe in a pantheon of gods. In ancient Greek mythology, Gaia is one of the primordial deities and the mother of all life. Neopagans usually think of her as Mother Earth or the spiritual embodiment of Earth.”

  Somehow, Quinn had ended up with most of the blanket, leaving Beau with little more than a corner. The perks of rank were real. “People still believe in one god?” she asked.

  “They never stopped. There’s something like two million pagans in the United States alone.”

  “Weird. How do you know all this stuff anyway, Samuel?”

  “Intro to World Religions and Intro to Ancient Mythology.” He smirked at her with uncharacteristic smugness. “You really should’ve taken some social sciences classes. Broaden your horizons.”

  Quinn made another sound with her nose. This one came out as a dismissive snort. “Um, no. I’ll stick with real sciences, thanks.”

  No one spoke for a minute or two. In the silence, Jenn became aware of the nausea roiling her guts. The longer she focused on it, the faster it changed and grew hotter. Sickness turned to anger—anger at the Great Khan and his followers. She recalled that little girl with her horse, and the anger threatened to become fury. “Why would anyone follow him?” she spat. “He said the White Horde’s got a thousand people. How? How could you convince a thousand people to kill for no reason?”

  “It’s a textbook cult,” Quinn said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they chant and dance naked around a fire.”

  Cult, right. Jenn had the same thought in Window Rock. But a thousand members in nine short months? Not just members, either. Soldiers. The Khan hadn’t asked them to live on a commune out in the middle of nowhere and drink Kool-Aid; he’d asked them to become murderers. That kind of indoctrination took time, didn’t it?

  Then again, she’d watched online conspiracy theories spread like an aggressive cancer. In her senior year of high school, an especially strange one claimed that President Duncan was Dom Pedro II’s secret mistress and that she planned to cede Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, and California to the Second Brazilian Empire in return for him divorcing his wife and marrying her instead. Truly bizarre, yet a group of fanatics still tried to scale the walls of the White House in order to stop her. Perhaps the Great Khan convincing a thousand people that Mother Earth had commanded him to exterminate humanity wasn’t so far-fetched.

  “Nah,” Beau said, somewhat brashly. “That’s not it.”

  Quinn threw off her hood and stared daggers at him. “Oh, no? Please, Beau, enlighten us, then.”

  With a fierce tug, he retrieved a good portion of the blanket. This time, Quinn let him have it. “I was talking with Aiden a while back. His parents are from Nigeria, came here as refugees fleeing that civil war in the thirties. He was telling me all about it one day. There was this Islamist warlord who claimed some sort of jihad against the Christians over there. Was hellbent on exterminating them. Aiden’s dad is Christian, but his mom’s Muslim, and she knew people who went to fight with—”

  “Nasir Ibrahim Abubakar,” Sam said. “He’s the guy you’re talking about.”

  “Sure. I’m not going to remember that, but as I was saying, people didn’t follow him because they wanted to kill every Christian in Nigeria—they joined him because they got to keep whatever they took from dead Christians. The economy in Nigeria was in the toilet, hardly anybody working, climate change turning half the country into desert, mass famine. A lot of people willing to do a lot of awful things for a few calories. Sound familiar?”

  Eerily familiar. If Jenn substituted nuclear winter for climate change, the situation in 2030s Nigeria didn’t seem all that different from what she was facing in post-nuclear America today.

  “So,” Quinn began, a finger on her chin, “let me get this straight. You’re saying the White Horde’s just one giant army of raiders?”

  Beau wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “I’m not saying that at all. The Khan might believe he’s doing this for Gaia, and he might have a core group of hardcore followers, but everyone else? I bet the majority only act like they believe so they get fed, and that’s it. You guys know better than most what people are willing to do when they’re hungry.”

  Jenn assumed he was referring to the Major and Vincent Grierson. While she hated the Major for kidnapping her and half of her squad, she hated Grierson more. That monster would have deported over two thousand refugees to New River, a fate that, in hindsight, would have amounted to death. Both men paled in comparison to the Great Khan. He and his White Horde represented a whole different level of evil.

  They sat quietly for another minute, watching the troopers in the barracks move about and prepare for bed. Courtney stood out among them—at six-foot-five, the woman was hard to miss—reminding Jenn that she needed to speak with her about Dylan.

  “I’ll be back in a second,” she said and threw off her blanket.

  Sam peered up at her. “Where are you going?”

  She hadn’t told him, Quinn, or Beau about Dylan’s strange behavior this afternoon. Now that they’d made it home safely, she didn’t want the others to question his leadership, especially if the incident in Window Rock proved to be a one-off blunder. It was a pretty major blunder, to be sure, and he should have to answer for how he put the team in danger, but considering his record thus far, Jenn would give him the benefit of the doubt for the time being.

  “Um,” she stuttered. “Outhouse.”

  “You were just in there like twenty minutes ago.” Sam tilted his head in what she interpreted as concern. “You feeling all right?”

  She patted her belly and pretended to grimace. “You know how I get when I’m stressed.”

  Courtney had begun heading toward the exit, possibly to visit the outhouse herself, so Jenn dashed out of the office. Zigzagging, she made her way between cots and around mattresses. Curious soldiers threw her pleading glances. One even called out, “Hey, Jansen! You gonna tell us what happened or what?”

  She ignored him and kept moving.

  As Courtney reached the door to the vestibule that led outside, Jenn said, “Courtney! Hold up!”

  Upon hearing her name, Courtney turned her head left and then right before she saw Jenn approaching in the dark. In one hand, she carried a water bottle. In the other, a clear plastic bag containing a washcloth—or, more accurately, her toilet cloth.

  Wow, I miss toilet paper.

  “Oh, hey.” Courtney gave her a wave with the hand holding the water bottle. “I thought you were hiding out.”

  “I was. I mean, I am.” Jenn sensed the troopers staring at her, silently begging for information. “You got a few minutes? There’s something I want to talk to you about.” She lowered her voice and pointed to the door. “Privately.”

  Courtney arched an eyebrow, then lifted her plastic bag as if to ask, Can it wait? But she said,
“Sure. Let’s go outside.”

  They stepped through the vestibule and into the night. The stink of feces and urine from the outhouses wafted over on a light breeze, mixing with the scent of hundreds of active wood-burning fireplaces. This must be how the world smelled in the 1800s.

  Jenn led them left, toward the quad. “Did Dylan tell you what happened when we were in Window Rock today?”

  “Yeah, he gave me the gist of it.” Courtney threw a hood over her pixie-cut hair. “I didn’t get too many details before he ran off to see Commander Kipling.”

  “Did he tell you how the Khan’s guards ended up dead?”

  She came to a stop near a leafless tree and arched another eyebrow. “He said he shot them after he saw the bodies in the council chamber.”

  The truth, so far. But what did Jenn expect? For Dylan to tell Courtney the Khan’s honor guards opened fire first? If he’d planned to lie, wouldn’t he have asked Jenn to corroborate his story? Or did he assume—wrongly—that she would lie on his behalf? “What about how they found us? What did he say about that?”

  “He figured the Khan must’ve been wearing a tracker.” Courtney sniffed and wiggled her nose. “Why are you asking me all this?”

  Jenn felt a lot like the eight-year-old girl who used to tattle on Andrew for staying up too late to play video games or on Jason for sneaking one of Dad’s beers from the fridge. But she steeled herself, thinking, It’s for Dylan’s own good. “Dylan hardly checked if there was a tracker on the Khan, just gave him a quick pat-down, nothing thorough. Then he insisted on stopping to interrogate him, even though I told him we should keep going and get out of there. He was acting really weird. After he looked into the council chamber, he turned all dark horse. He shot those two guards without warning me first, and we were completely out in the open. If the Khan had anyone else watching him, we would’ve been dead. We were lucky to make it back alive.”

  Courtney blinked a few times. “Okay, wow. That was a lot of information all at once.”

  “Sorry. I can start again. So we were—”

  She held up the hand with her toilet cloth, and Jenn instinctively shirked away from it. If Courtney’s cloth smelled like her own, she didn’t want to be anywhere near it. “No, I think I got it. You’re saying he went rogue after looking in the council chamber and then wouldn’t listen to your warnings about . . . well, anything? And if he’d listened to you, you guys might’ve been able to bring the Khan here, to Flag?”

  “Yeah, that’s pretty much it.”

  “Okay then.” Courtney popped her lips. “That doesn’t sound like him at all.”

  “I know, right? I hate to be a tattletale, but I’m worried about him.”

  “You’re not being a tattletale.” Courtney moved around the corner of the building, away from the door’s line of sight. After checking 360 degrees, she added, her voice low, “Could be PTSD, from West Ukraine.”

  That’s it! How hadn’t Jenn thought of West Ukraine? In May, he admitted to being involved in a massacre of civilians, an incident for which he was blamed and subsequently kicked out of the Canadian Forces. He claimed he wasn’t responsible, and she believed him, but seeing those bodies might have triggered terrible memories.

  Her frustration with him faded. More than most, she should understand. After shooting Yankees Hat in Payson, she’d suffered PTSD as well, according to Gary. She was irritable and angry and dismissive of anyone who tried to help. Post-traumatic stress didn’t excuse what Dylan had done, but it explained why he’d acted so rashly, at least partially.

  “You’re right. I should ask him about it.”

  Yet again, Courtney held up her hand. “Maybe let me have a word with him first.”

  “No. If you do that, he’ll know I tattled on him.”

  Courtney sighed. Or groaned. Definitely groaned, Jenn decided. “You’re not tattling on him. If he messed up as bad as you say he did, he needs to hear about it, and it’s my job to tell him.”

  “I get that, and I agree, but me and him are friends.” Jenn idly brushed her fingers against the red brick exterior of HQ. “We’ve been through a lot together. If I ask him about it, he might talk to me and this whole issue will resolve itself.” Courtney’s mouth twisted to the side, so Jenn hastened to add, “But now you know what’s up, so you can keep an eye on him. Just give me a couple days. Please.”

  A second or two ticked by as Courtney mulled over Jenn’s offer. And then, “All right. Couple days. But word of advice?”

  “Shoot.”

  “When you bring it up with him, be . . . not you.”

  Jenn recoiled at that. “Excuse me?”

  “Be tactful, is what I mean.”

  She propped a fist on her hip. “What, you don’t think I can be tactful?”

  “I didn’t say you couldn’t be. I just know it’s not one of your strengths.”

  Courtney was right. Once Freddie came around to the idea of telling people about his screenplay-turned-novel, Jenn jumped the gun, bragging that one of her fire team leaders was an author. Within forty-eight hours, word had spread among the entire Militia. Freddie was so mad he didn’t talk to her for a week. He forgave her, obviously—and in Jenn’s opinion, he was being a little dramatic—but perhaps deservedly, she’d earned herself a reputation for having a big mouth.

  “Okay. Point taken.”

  “Just don’t go in bombarding him with questions about West Ukraine,” Courtney said. “You could end up doing more harm than good. I’ve met my fair share of vets who came back from a tour all shaken up. Not all of them want to relive what they went through, so feel him out first. Ease into it.”

  Jenn could do that. Possibly. Only one way to find out. “Good advice. Thanks.”

  Courtney gave her a light punch to the arm, thankfully with the water bottle hand. “Anytime. Now, go get some rest, if you can. I’ll come get you when Dylan’s done meeting with the commander.”

  7

  After twenty-plus years, Gary wasn’t used to the sound of a screaming toddler anymore. It burned his ears, giving him a headache, and burrowed into the roots of his teeth.

  He sat at the dining room table, wearing his usual sleep attire: two undershirts, long underwear, a sweater, sweatpants, thick socks, and his favorite slippers. In the living room, Kate Roerick, a young, petite woman with her blonde hair up in a messy bun, hunched over a crib. Her husband, Daniel, a full-bearded stick of a man with a sloppy, lopsided haircut, hovered next to her. Together, they tried in vain to defuse their daughter Ashlee’s temper tantrum.

  Three mattresses lay on the floor, none farther than a dozen paces from the fireplace, which roared with orange flames. On the couch, Barbara and Kevin sat shoulder to shoulder beneath a blanket. Towels covered every window for insulation, and Gary had upgraded the weather stripping along the bottom of the door to improve the seal. A stack of firewood stood below the TV. More was stowed away in the garage, enough for several weeks of continuous burning. The setup worked well, and he was better off than those who lived in the dozens of cramped, poorly ventilated winter shelters around town, but he still missed his privacy. Mostly, though, he missed Jenn and Sam. The house wasn’t the same without them here.

  “She’s tired,” Maria said, a toothbrush in her mouth. She spat into a bucket in the kitchen sink. A force of habit, Gary assumed; they ran out of toothpaste two months ago. “You remember how grumpy Camila used to get before naptime?”

  A lump lodged itself in Gary’s throat, as it always did when he thought about his daughter. He glanced toward the hallway, where a photograph of a teenage Camila hung on the wall. He couldn’t make it out in the low light, but he could picture every detail in his mind’s eye: her mother’s blue eyes and thin lips, her father’s tan skin and dark hair. She was equal part Macdonald and Ruiz.

  “I do,” he managed to utter. “I’d like to say she outgrew that little quirk, but she never really did.”

  “Oh, God no.” Maria took a sip of water from a glass, sloshed it
around in her mouth, and spat into the bucket again. “I think she got worse all through high school. That girl needed her eight hours like no one else I’ve ever met.”

  After stashing her toothbrush in a drawer beside the oven, she sat next to him at the dining room table. She moved slowly, gingerly, as if she were afraid of injuring herself. It made her seem older than her sixty-four years. So did her white hair, which hung past her shoulders and cascaded over her pink sweater. In Gary’s eyes, she was as beautiful today as when they first met at a Starbucks in Scottsdale four decades ago.

  He put a hand atop the table, and Maria held it tight. Her skin was cold, like ice.

  The screaming quieted, replaced by Kate’s soft voice as she read from a book. Immediately, Gary’s headache receded. “She’s a good mother,” he said. “Reminds me of you.”

  Maria blushed but waved him off. “Please. Neither of us had a clue what we were doing. New parents in our forties.” She cracked a smile, but there was sadness in it. Longing, too, Gary thought. “I will most certainly be recommending that Jenn and Sam have children when they’re still young.”

  A spark of warmth flickered in Gary’s chest. It might have been hope. A strange sensation in this bleak, dangerous world.

  “I can tell you’re excited.” Maria squeezed his fingers, glasses falling down her nose. “You’re allowed to show it, especially around Jenn. She’s going to ask you to walk her down the aisle, you know.”

  The lump in his throat returned, but it felt different now. Nothing would honor him more than handing Jenn off to Sam. Thinking of her like a daughter came so naturally that he sometimes had to take a step back. He couldn’t allow his feelings for Camila, all the dreams he’d had of her growing up, inform his feelings for Jenn. They both owned homes in his heart, and in an alternate reality where Camila hadn’t been born, where he only knew Jenn, he would, without a doubt, love her equally as much.

  “I’ll happily do it,” he said, “assuming she decides to have anything resembling a traditional wedding.”

  Maria pushed up her glasses. “Good point. She might not have the wherewithal to bring it up with you. She doesn’t strike me as the kind of girl who had every detail of her wedding planned out by the time she was twelve.”