Early Release

by Jason Michelsen

  Lisa considered both viewpoints and decided she wanted a glass of lemonade. Reaching into the refrigerator's top shelf--which was now the bottom--she began to wonder how she would pour. Thankfully she went into convulsions before she had to try it. Her parents were mouthing something to her, but she couldn't make it out as the house went back dark and she shook.

  A face peered down at Lisa, eerily lit by Tiki torches set against the walls, as she was shaken awake. The stranger was quickly pulled away as the kind-looking man from earlier appeared to admonish the young woman who had disturbed her.

  "Let the nurse rest, there's nothing she can do now!"

  "But someone could be hurt!" replied the scared girl. "What if they throw someone in here bleeding to death?"

  The old man gently guided her back into the gloom, but Lisa could still discern his words. "None of our wounded are gunshot victims, Abby. If they shot someone, they won't survive long enough to get here. And you've seen how drunk some of them are; it was probably a harmless accident."

  Lisa sat up slowly, disturbed by the idea of a shooting in the night. A familiar face sat next to her, watching the argument quietly.

  "Rachel, what happened?" asked Brittsen.

  "There was a gunshot." Her reply was terse. Although Rachel was easily one of the most beautiful women Lisa had ever met, her face was now a mask of fear and anguish.

  73

  Adam's heart burned in his chest--strange considering the ice that seemed to flow through his veins. No, not ice. Nothingness. A tangible void had replaced his lifeblood; a black hole drawing all his humanity into a single infinitesimal point destined to crush itself under its own weight.

  Before him, blue eyes stared from the face of a tiny angel gone all too pale. Innocence was no more; Adam had killed it. As he stared at the motionless face, he wondered what hell would feel like.

  74

  His whole body shook. David watched the scene in front of him, unable to control his trembling. It could have been a still photograph in some twisted magazine if not for the telltale signs of wafting gunsmoke adding a surreal haze. A gentle desert breeze blew strands of golden hair across the pained expression frozen on the child's face.

  Saul stared at Adam and wondered again if redemption was possible. This obsession with saving everyone except himself was proving not only futile, but exceedingly dangerous. Of course it put him physically in danger, but more concerning was the spiritual peril. The string of failures that made up his life was taking a psychological toll that had the Soldier facing a firing squad of his own memories.

  As Adam lowered his still-smoking pistol, David wondered what his last failure would feel like.

  75

  Lisa sat quietly, sensing that something was just beneath the surface of Rachel's simple statement. There was no need to pry, the weight of the desolate night would squeeze it out soon enough. She leaned back into the bleachers to wait, gazing at the night sky through a collapsed section of the roof across from her.

  Moments later, the mournfully melodic voice spoke. "My husband tried to go for help, but they killed him. I ran out to help him, but it was too late. I was caught before I even made it to his body."

  Lisa marveled at the strength in this woman's voice. To lose someone you loved that much, yet still stand strong for the people who needed you took a special woman. She was desperately searching for words to express this admiration when Rachel's reserves ran out.

  "My baby!" the young woman cried softly. "I left my baby out there all alone!"

  Stunned, Lisa put an arm around her and joined in the silent sobs. With no words to console her, shared misery was all she had to offer. They cried for the loss of Rachel's husband, and out of fear for her child. They cried because they were trapped and powerless. Most of all they cried because the world they knew had been taken from them. Everywhere they had lived and everything they had loved would now be as foreign as the sweet, unfulfilled dreams of childhood. The world had been defiled; perverted into a toy for the sickening amusement of sadistic men not bound by morality.

  When the worst had passed, Rachel spoke again. "There were complications before my daughter was born," she began with the familiar lilt of nostalgia in her voice. "I was in the hospital every other week it seemed. Paul and I both wondered--privately, of course--if both the baby and I would make it. We had a lot of long, tearful talks about the choices we may be faced with.

  "When I finally went into labor, it took twenty-seven hours! It was three days before I was awake and coherent enough to hold my own child. But my little Lioness--she was perfect. Came out as strong as could be. We called her the Lioness because she would be as calm and quiet as any baby you'd ever seen, until you got too close to something she thought was hers. Then she roared."

  A soft smile played across the mother's face at the memory, returning some of the beauty that had hidden behind the pain. Her voice dropped lower, as if she didn't want to wake the baby she spoke of.

  "We were still terrified that something would go wrong. Once we got her home, my husband and I took turns watching her sleep. I don't know how many times I leaned into her crib to make sure she was breathing; she was so still it looked like Michaelangelo had carved an exquisite cherub for our nursery. But my Lioness would always open her eyes and smile, happy to be protecting her family. Oh, Evelyn...."

  Lisa held Rachel as a new, softer, set of sobs took her. Something tickled her mind about the story.

  Evelyn.

  The image of a beautiful young girl defiantly facing what she thought was a ghost came to mind. Proudly demanding credit for all her years. Disappearing in the night to rescue her family.

  Yes, Lioness is a very appropriate nickname.

  Gently pulling back to look at the grieving mother in the eyes, Lisa felt the smile spread across her face. Confusion, then hope, reigned in Rachel's eyes. As tears trailed down her cheeks, she looked expectantly at the nurse.

  "I saw her, Rachel." Lisa could barely contain her excitement at the only good news of the past week. "Eve escaped, she's fine!"

  76

  Somewhere in the desert a coyote cried, echoing the silent cry coming from deep within Adam. His eyes were drawn to the crumpled paper that had fallen from the hand resting limply at the girl's side. Before he could wonder what it was, another breeze blew it into the darkness.

  At the edge of his vision, Saul stood silently. It seemed strange to think that just a few days ago he would have considered that presence a comfort. Now, the man's mere existence felt like an accusation, or worse, a conviction.

  Throughout his life, people had tried to protect Adam from himself. A wild child from adolescence, his small Jersey town had never suffered a shortage of well-meaning meddlers in his life. When he talked back to teachers, they wanted to keep him in school. When he cut class, they tried to keep him off drugs. When he was a junkie in an alley, they vowed to keep him out of prison.

  When he went to prison, they gave up. He hadn't received a letter in months. Everyone on his phone list had blocked his calls. His status as unredeemable was cemented.

  Or so it seemed. David Saul rescued him; showed him compassion and trust when no one else would. Now, he seemed to appear from nowhere to bear witness to the depth of Adam's depravity.

  "Go away, Saul." He spoke quietly, still not able to tear his eyes from the ground where the paper had fallen. Her shoe was untied.

  "Adam," Saul began in a voice full of sympathy that couldn't be real. "You can't pretend this didn't happen. We have to deal with it."

  "No, we don't. I'm letting you walk away from this town, then I'm going back to the Prophet. His people accept me as I am, with no need for any of that salvation crap. I have a place here--a place where I belong--and I won't lose that again."

  Saul shook his head sadly, his disappointment seemed to force his always proud head to hang low. "You're not like them, any more than I am. You could walk away now and find your own life again."

  "No, I can't
. All I can do is learn to be like them. My last act as a decent human being will be to not kill you. You leave this place, I'll go report to Prophet and tell him the kid is dead. You survive, I get respect, and we're done. Everybody wins."

  "And what happens when they find out?"

  Adam finally lifted his eyes to meet little blond girl's terrified stare. "Take her out of here, David, and they'll never know. My partner knows I had her, and they heard the gunshot. The bloodlust in their minds will fill in the rest."

  With that he turned and walked away, leaving two survivors for what he suspected may be the last time in his life.

  77

  David watched Adam walk away with a confusing mixture of sorrow and relief. It seemed that no feelings could be simple anymore.

  Turning his attention to the girl, he filled with shame. With all his combat and criminal experience, she had just proved herself far more courageous than he would ever be. Fortunately for his pride, at that moment her knees buckled and she sat down hard. Now what? I can't leave her here to die, but I can't get saddled with the responsibility. Moving to where she sat, shaking, David dropped to a knee next to her.

  "You okay?" he asked, a bit more gruffly than he intended.

  She nodded without looking at him, hugging her knees to her chest as she tried to regain her composure. Her cheeks were teary and dirt-stained, but a hidden strength was betrayed by blue eyes burning like a gas flame. The Soldier in him couldn't help but be impressed, he had seen grown men crumble in far less trying circumstances.

  "What's your name?"

  Finally she turned to face him. When she spoke, the voice was significantly steadier than he expected. "Eve. Don't worry, you can leave, I'll be fine."

  "No, Eve, I'll get you someplace safe. There's another town up the road, we'll find someone there to take care of you." He wasn't sure when he decided to take her along, but it seemed the only way. Maybe Lisa could look after her when they got to Midling.

  "I'm not going anywhere until I find my mom. I'll hide in the shack until you're gone so I don't get you in trouble."

  This kid is insane.

  "Eve, you were very brave. I owe you my life. But you have to know that no one is going to fake shooting you next time. These men are killers, and we need to go."

  The girl began tying her shoe, and David felt a sneaking suspicion that he had somehow lost the argument. She ignored him the same way his wife and daughter did when they decided not to argue and just do it their way. This was not going to end well.

  Finishing the shoe, Eve stood and took advantage of his kneeling position to look down on him. "Just go," she began in a firm, lecturing tone. "You can save yourself. But I am not leaving my mother and Lisa to these killers."

  Saul quickly weighed the odds that she meant Brittsen. It was nearly impossible that they would know each other. There had to be a hundred other women named Lisa within a hundred mile radius. He factored his luck into the calculations.

  Yep, it's her.

  78

  Rachel's face was contorted by hope that feared exposing itself. While Lisa mentally kicked herself for not noticing the resemblance sooner, the other woman seemed frozen in shock. As she watched, relief slowly won the emotional battle that must have occurred in the mother's mind. A grateful smile took control of her features.

  "How do you know my Eve?" Rachel asked in an excited whisper. Most of the room had finally bedded down for the night.

  "Well, she came to me to see if I was a ghost."

  "She what? Oh, were you in the old shack?"

  Lisa chuckled softly. "That place made me wish I was a ghost! I'm not a fan of roaches."

  "She's always been fascinated by ghost stories, especially that one," Rachel said with a smile. "I knew eventually she would get the nerve to check the place out."

  "Well, she is a Lioness, you know."

  Lisa spent the rest of the night catching Rachel up on the week that brought her here. While trying to gloss over the more graphic details of their captor's actions, she played up David's abilities to heroic levels. There was no need to add extra details of Eve, Rachel picked her brain thoroughly on the subject.

  When exhaustion finally won them over, the nurse was pleased to see her friend fall asleep with a much-needed smile on her face. Lisa's mind floated freely as she drifted off, completely detached from the danger of the situation. When sleep came, she dreamed of David storming the school to free the hostages. She dreamed of Eve running free through fields of flowers that would never grow in this climate.

  While Lisa slept, she dreamed of hope.

  79

  Wind buffeted the shack where David woke the next morning, and the shutter clanging freely against the window had his heart ready to burst before he realized the harmless nature of the noise. Morning light filtered in through one window and four shabby walls, giving him a chance to survey the room for the first time since Eve had led him here last night.

  He was not impressed.

  Reacquiring his gear was a definite bonus, but backpacks wouldn't do much good if they were buried in rotten wood and moldy roofing.

  Eve slept soundly in Lisa's sleeping bag, oblivious to the various insects and critters skittering around on the same floor. David had slept in worse conditions, but those places tended to be in war zones. That was excusable. Then again, the world just ended on this place. Maybe this was understandable, but he still wanted a new base of operations.

  The kid woke as he came in from a quick external examination of the building. Yawning and stretching, she considered him with the penetrating look of a court ordered psychiatrist. It was rather unnerving coming from a girl that couldn't be more than eight, and he told her so.

  "I'm ten, and big for my age! Don't you know any kids?" Eve responded in that matter-of-fact way that confirmed her age.

  "Actually I have a daughter, but she's much smaller than you." Saul lowered his eyes as guilt-laden memories flooded through him. "At least, she was last time I saw her."

  "Well, why haven't you seen her? How old is she?"

  The man shook himself back to the present, knowing that if he didn't he may lose himself in grief. "That doesn't matter," he lied. "Right now we need to get somewhere safe."

  For a ten-year old, the kid had a very effective stubborn look. With arms folded and one foot cocked to the side, Eve looked almost as movable as a tank that came off its tracks.

  "I told you last night, I'm not leaving without Mom and Lisa." Vehemence in a child was an odd trait.

  David thought back to the previous night's revealing discussion. After the initial shock that the prison nurse had been captured, the surprises kept coming. She stayed to rescue him? She fought one of the convicts to help Eve? He already knew she had more backbone than she gave herself credit for, but he was still impressed.

  Saul had followed the child's lead back to the shack where Lisa had stashed all their gear. It wasn't far from the well where he had left her, but it probably took her two trips to move everything. All in all, it wasn't a bad spot to set up a temporary camp. For his purposes, however, it wouldn't work.

  Turning his attention back to Eve, he stifled a laugh. The girl seemed to be expending a significant amount of energy trying to put strength behind her commanding pose.

  "We're not abandoning them, Eve. I meant someplace safer than this shed. We can't help anyone if we're buried under a collapsed roof."

  Eve relaxed her posture as her cheeks flushed. "Oh, I thought you meant.... Never mind. So where do we go?"

  "Well, this is your town, what are our choices? We need a place close to the school, but also far enough away that guards don't see me going in and out.

  "Are all these trailers going to be locked?"

  She thought for a moment before answering. "Dad always made sure we kept our house locked, but Mom said it was just because he's from the city. I think everyone else left their homes open most of the time."

  David peered cautiously out the window, cons
idering the options. An old -- but far newer looking than their current hideout -- barn stood partially in view to the east.

  "What about that barn? Was it still being used before these guys showed up?" he asked.

  "Yep," Eve replied with a quick nod. "Mr. James used to go out there all the time. He was weird."

  Saul smiled at the character assessment that came free of charge. "Weird or not, it's tall enough to have a loft that would make a great observation point. Have you noticed the bad guys using it for anything?"

  "I don't know, I haven't watched it. I hid until I saw Lisa, then stayed inside until dark."

  "Okay, that's fine." He thought through his possible courses of action, weighing them for safety and productivity. Recon, as usual, seemed like the place to start.

  "Alright, you stay put and I'll go check the place out." David dug the 9mm out of his pack and checked the magazine. He had no intention of being caught unarmed in this town again.

  Eve settled into her nest and watched him with worry in her eyes. With a hand on the door he looked back and gave her his most reassuring smile, then he was gone.

  The little girl never knew about his silent vow to return to her, like he had never made it back to his own daughter.

  80

  Lisa was up well before the majority of the prisoners. She moved along the lines of the wounded, checking the work she had done in exhaustion the night before. Some of the less serious casualties were conscious and happily took small sips of the water she carried, offering heartfelt thanks for her compassion. At the other end of the spectrum, two men would not be waking up again.

  The first, a middle-aged Hispanic man in a silk tie that seemed out of place in Webster, had succumbed to a closed head injury. Brittsen had expected a hard road for him, and was not shocked at the result.