by Mel Odom
That’s what Zero believed.
When he thought of Zero, the fear inside Joey intensified. Zero was the most dangerous guy Joey had ever met.
That night in the mall, Zero had stepped from the shadows, leveled the .357 Magnum he carried like some Old West gunfighter, and shot the man. Seated in front of the couch in his family home, Joey shivered as the thunderous roars filled his imagination again. He wrapped his arms around his knees and wished he didn’t feel so cold and alone.
Even with his mom in the house, sleeping just down the hall, Joey felt incredibly vulnerable. He wished Goose were there. Whenever Goose was around, Joey always felt safe. Not that his mom hadn’t tried to make him feel the same way, but there was something that had always been solid and dependable about Goose.
Until Chris was born.
Thinking of his younger brother, who had disappeared with all the other young kids in the world, Joey felt sad and more than a little guilty. When Chris came along—truthfully, even before then—Joey had gotten jealous. He’d even told his mom he wished Chris hadn’t been born.
Now Chris was gone, and Joey was afraid that he’d never see him again.
After all, if his mom was right and Chris had been taken to heaven by God, Joey wouldn’t see his little brother again. Only good people went to heaven, and Joey wasn’t a good person. He’d helped get that old man killed in the mall. He’d been where he shouldn’t have been, with guys he shouldn’t have been with, and in God’s eyes he was probably just as guilty as Zero.
The gunshots rang out in his memory again.
Joey put his head down on his knees and wept silently. He wished he could tell his mom what had happened that night, but he couldn’t. He was afraid if he did, she’d have to tell the police, and he’d be locked up for murder. Then he wouldn’t see his mom either. It was bad enough that Chris was gone and Goose was over in Turkey.
I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Joey thought his apology to God, but he didn’t know if God was listening. The Bible was full of forgiveness and redemption; Joey remembered hearing about that. But he didn’t know for sure how to go about getting it. He’d just figured he soaked it up by going to church. So these last few weeks he’d been going to church with his mom. He’d felt a little better, but nothing like what he’d hoped.
The kid sleeping on the couch shifted, and his hand thumped against the back of Joey’s head.
Angry at himself, at the kids who had invaded his home, and at everything that had happened, Joey shoved the guy’s arm back onto the couch harder than he needed to.
The kid woke up. He was thirteen or fourteen, a skater dressed in ragged pants and wearing a wild haircut.
“Sorry, dude,” the kid mumbled. “My bad.”
“It’s okay,” Joey said, though he didn’t mean it. He resented all the kids now living in his house. Their presence had been one of the reasons he’d left weeks ago.
The fact that so many of the newly orphaned kids on base had found their way to his house wasn’t surprising. His mom was a counselor. She already knew a lot of them. Military kids seemed to have lots of problems.
“I was having a nightmare,” Joey said.
“It’s cool. But if you’re having nightmares, dude, maybe you oughta find something else to watch. Zombie flicks ain’t exactly bedtime stories.”
Joey glanced at the television. He’d been channel surfing with the sound muted. Dialogue scrolled across the bottom of the screen.
The television showed zombies closing in on a building. They were torn and ragged, in various stages of decomposition. Their arms were stretched out before them.
The scrolling subtitles proclaimed, Brains! Brains! Eat brains!
“Yeah, I guess not.” Joey found the remote and changed channels.
“Hey, dude,” the skater kid asked, “do you think your mom is gonna fix breakfast today? Or do you think she’s gonna have us eat at the cafeteria?”
“How should I know?” Joey replied. He flicked through the channels and hoped the kid would stop talking to him. None of the brats in the house seemed to get the idea that he wasn’t happy they were there.
“You’re Mrs. Gander’s kid. I thought maybe—”
“I’m seventeen,” Joey interrupted. “I’m not a kid.”
“Okay. Sorry. Anyway, since she’s your mom, I thought maybe she would have told you.”
“There’s a schedule on the refrigerator.”
“Oh.”
Joey tried his best to ignore the guy. He didn’t want to talk to any of the invaders. That wasn’t his job. That was his mom’s. She was so busy doing her job that she kept forgetting about him and his troubles.
“I like it when your mom makes breakfast,” the kid said. “It’s really cool.”
“Hey,” Joey said.
“Yeah?”
“Shut up, okay?”
“Dude, that’s really harsh.”
“I don’t care.”
“Whatever.” The kid rolled back the other way and pulled his blanket back over him.
Joey felt a little guilty, and he resented the emotion. He shouldn’t have to feel guilty in his own house. He tried to focus on the television and kept flipping through channels.
It was going to be dawn soon. When the sun was up, the nightmares seemed farther away. He couldn’t wait.
A news story on OneWorld NewsNet caught his eye. He recognized the reporter’s name: Danielle Vinchenzo. She was the one who was over in Turkey with Goose.
Fear tightened in Joey’s belly again. Goose was in some of the worst fighting taking place over there. Syria’s military hadn’t been as depleted as the American, United Nations, and Turkish forces by the mysterious occurrence. The dictator in Syria had attacked even before the vanishings had started, and he was keeping up the offensive.
Joey unmuted the TV so he could hear what the reporter was saying.
“—was the scene of a running firefight earlier,” Vinchenzo said.
Behind her, a ragged line of burning vehicles dotted the landscape. Black and gray smoke twisted up toward the purple sky. Camou-clad figures moved on foot through the burning vehicles. Joey didn’t know if they were American forces or Syrian.
“Sergeant Samuel Adams Gander, known to many of you through these reports simply as Goose,” Danielle said, “was leading a resupply convoy to one of the outposts overlooking the Turkish-Syrian border. Things have gotten desperate here, but the men of the United States Army’s 75th Rangers are persevering.”
The television cut to a close-up with a young soldier. Bruises and cuts showed on his face.
“I gotta tell you, ma’am,” the soldier said, “things here are mighty bad. Syria isn’t letting up, and they’d like to sweep on into this area and take over. There’s generations of bad blood between most of the people here, and those soldiers aren’t afraid of spilling any of it.”
The camera’s eye swept over a scene of the running gunfight. Joey stared at the images intently, trying to figure out which one was Goose. They all looked the same to Joey. His inability to see Goose frustrated him, making him angry and scared all at the same time.
Would Goose understand what had happened at the mall that night? Joey wasn’t sure. As much as he wanted Goose there, he was also terrified of telling his stepfather what he’d done.
“It was a close thing out here tonight,” the soldier went on. A caption identified him as Private First Class Mike Dunney. “But Goose— Sergeant Gander, I mean—he pulled us through it all right. He’s a good soldier. The best the army has to offer, if you ask me.”
Pride flushed through Joey.
“That’s your dad, isn’t it?” the kid on the couch asked.
“Yeah.” Joey was surprised at how choked his voice was. Goose had been more of a dad than Joey’s biological father had ever been.
“Must be scary. Him being over there, I mean.”
Joey wanted to be angry with the kid, but he couldn’t. It felt good to talk about Goose. “It is. I th
ink Mom’s really scared.”
“Yeah. I get that.” The kid hesitated. “I don’t know where my dad is. Don’t know where my mom is either. I got up one morning; they were gone. I was all alone in the house.”
“Scary,” Joey commented.
“Yeah.”
“That was here at the post?”
“Yeah.”
“Your dad’s army?”
“My mom. First lieutenant. Dad taught high school. Physics.”
“Never cared much for physics,” Joey said.
“Me neither. But Dad would talk about it all the time.” The kid sat up on the couch and wrapped the blanket around him, though it wasn’t really cold. Not like it would be in another month. “I kind of tuned him out when he’d talk about stuff. Wish I hadn’t done that now.”
“I know what you mean.”
They were silent for a moment, watching as Danielle Vinchenzo ran another of the pieces on Goose.
“Seems like that reporter has a thing for your stepdad,” the kid said.
“What do you mean?”
“She’s always talking about him.”
“I don’t think it’s that,” Joey replied.
“Then what?”
Joey thought about it for a moment. “I think she sees Goose as kind of every soldier over there. Goose is just … a soldier, you know. Just the kind every guy over there is like.”
“She talks about him like he’s a hero.”
“I guess he is.” Joey thought it was strange that he hadn’t thought of Goose that way before. Goose had always been there for him. Always been such a … dad. A lump formed in the back of Joey’s throat. If I told you about this—about what happened at the mall—would you understand, Goose?
Thankfully, according to the news report, Goose was all right. Joey let out a tense breath as the news program shifted to a speech Nicolae Carpathia was going to deliver to the United Nations later that day.
“Is anything else on besides the news?” the kid asked.
“Like what?”
“Cartoons. Something like that.”
Giving in to the inevitable, knowing the kid wasn’t going to shut up, Joey tossed him the television remote control. “Knock yourself out.”
“Thanks.”
Joey stood.
“Leaving?” the kid asked.
“Yeah. Gotta go walk.”
“Want company?” The kid reached for his shoes.
“No.” Joey started for the door, not giving the kid the chance to catch up to him.
Local Time 0611 Hours
Joey took his old ten-speed from the garage out back. He’d helped Goose build that garage, along with the fort that Chris had played in. For a while after Chris was born, Joey had been small enough to swing in the swings with his little brother. That had changed pretty quickly.
He made himself stop thinking about Goose and Chris as he swung aboard the ten-speed. He pedaled by memory, trying hard not to give any thought to where he was going.
Fort Benning seemed deserted. According to the news, at least a third of the people around the world had vanished. Numbers were still coming in every day. Those numbers could change. Military bases had been really hard hit, as had the police forces, fire departments, and emergency medical services.
Military jeeps with armed soldiers riding shotgun patrolled the camp housing. After the disappearances, a lot of soldiers and their families living outside the fort had moved back inside the perimeter. When it got dark, though, everyone went inside. The camp was still on alert, and the nocturnal hours were carefully watched.
Joey loved the feel of the breeze in his face. For a few moments, he could pretend that he was younger, that he was just a kid again. But as soon as the military jeep sped up behind him and switched on its lights, that feeling went away.
7
United States of America
Fort Benning, Georgia
Local Time 0617 Hours
The alarm clock woke Megan Gander. She shot out a hand and silenced it before the second offensive bleat could sound. She lay quietly on the camp cot in her bedroom and listened to the snores of the girls sleeping in her bed.
It was the most peaceful sound in the world right now. At least in this corner of the world, people were safe and well cared for.
As always, her first thoughts and prayers were for Chris. Though she felt certain in light of everything she’d come to understand about events in the world that Chris was in a far better place, her son’s absence remained difficult to deal with.
She missed Chris terribly. Some nights, when Goose was away in the field, as he was now, Megan would let Chris watch cartoons and share her bed. She’d done the same thing with Joey. Especially after the divorce from her first husband.
They’d both been lonely, and the apartment she was renting at that time had only a single bedroom. She hadn’t wanted Joey sleeping on the couch all the time. As soon as she was able, she’d gotten a two-bedroom apartment.
Her cell phone vibrated in the pocket of the flannel pajama pants she wore. Reluctantly, she pulled it from her pocket, checked caller ID, and pushed herself from the cot.
The number came from the fort’s hospital. That couldn’t mean good news. Not this early.
“Megan,” she answered in a whisper.
“Did I wake you?” Aisha Waller asked. She was the night supervisor at the hospital.
“No. The alarm did a few minutes before you called.” Megan looked at the girls sleeping in her bedroom. All seven of them, three on the bed and four in sleeping bags on the floor, were between thirteen and sixteen. All of them had lost their parents and siblings in the rapture.
“I wanted to let you know that Lindsey Perlman got admitted a couple hours ago,” Aisha said.
“What happened?”
“She tried to commit suicide. Took a straight razor to her wrists.”
The announcement hurt and scared Megan. The Tribulation had already manifested all around the world. The next seven years would be the most trying and terrifying mankind had ever seen. People who failed to find Jesus during these times ran the risk of being lost forever.
“How is she?” Megan went to her closet and took out pearl gray slacks, a midnight blue blouse, and fresh underwear.
“The docs got her leveled off,” Aisha answered, “but it was a near thing.”
“You could have called me earlier.”
“And let you miss out on sleep? Sure. But that wouldn’t have helped the kids you’ve got to counsel today, would it?”
Megan made herself relax and breathe out. “No.”
“All you could have done was the same thing I was already doing: pray for that girl. I promise, I was doing enough for both of us.”
“I know.”
“Even had a couple of MPs in here helping. Between us, we got it all done.”
“You’re right.”
“Just because I called doesn’t mean I’m in a hurry to see you in here. I know you usually get up about this time, and I didn’t want you finding out about Lindsey from anyone else.”
“Thank you for that.”
“You’re welcome. The docs say she’s going to be sedated most of the day. They don’t want to run the risk of her fighting to get out of bed and tearing open everything they had to do to save her. When you get rested, and when Lindsey gets rested, then we can see about you talking to her.”
“All right.”
“So my advice, girlfriend, is just do whatever you had planned to do today. Then come in for your regular schedule. It’s going to be a long day.”
Local Time 0624 Hours
After a quick shower instead of the bath she craved—with a house full of teens, hot water would be at a premium—Megan dressed, prayed for Goose, and went into the kitchen. She’d planned to make breakfast at home this morning, and she didn’t want to change that. With everything else that had gone awry in the world, she needed simple household chores as a touchstone.
“Hey, M
rs. G.” Gangly Brian Wright sat at the kitchen table with a PSP in his hands. He was thirteen and obsessed with video games. A mop of brown hair hung in his eyes.
He was a recent addition to the Gander home, brought in from his parents’ house only a few days ago. His dad was in eastern Europe at the moment, and his mom—one of the best women Megan had known—had disappeared in the rapture.
Brian had lived on his own for weeks. Megan had organized a search for children of military families who lived off-post. The provost marshal’s office had put the search teams together. They had most of the families squared away now, but new ones still came in every now and again.
“Good morning, Brian,” Megan said. “Did you get any sleep?”
“Some.” Brian’s fingers flew across the video game. He was ADHD, and Megan knew he often didn’t sleep well.
“Want to help me with breakfast?” Megan went to the pantry and peered in. Thankfully the military was bankrolling all the homes at this point. Especially the ones that had taken in stray teens whose families had gone missing.
“Girls’ work,” Brian replied scornfully.
“I’ll keep that in mind when it’s time to wash dishes and take out the trash. Even boys can do manual labor like that.”
Brian sighed theatrically. “Man, you’re tough.”
“Yep. Just be glad I don’t make you salute or drop and give me fifty every time you don’t ‘ma’am’ me.”
Brian paused his game and gazed at her. “Are you kidding me?”
“About the salute, the fifty, and the ‘ma’am-ing,’ sure. About having a choice between helping make breakfast or cleaning up after it, no.”
“The most I know about breakfast is pouring it out of a box and adding milk.”
That, Megan lamented, seemed to be the case with most of the kids she’d come in contact with. She took a magnetic Post-it pad from the front of the refrigerator, wrote COOKING LESSONS on it, and put it back.
