by Justin Bell
Rhonda sat down on the grass, leaning back against the truck, deflated. She pressed her face into her hands as Phil lowered himself down, putting a hand on her shoulder.
“Rhonda, what’s wrong, honey?” Phil asked.
“How can we even think about trying to get in there?” she asked. “If they are SuperMax prisoners, who knows what they’re capable of?”
Greer crossed his arms and stood there for a moment, looking out past the iron gate.
“Way I figure it,” he said, “is we don’t have enough supplies to last long, anyway. If we don’t do something drastic, we’re all just fodder for the radioactive wind.” He turned and looked back towards the Frasers and Brad. “We’re not risking our lives if we go in there. We’re risking our lives if we don’t.”
Rhonda looked up at him, then looked over at Phil. Her husband shrugged.
“Man’s got a point,” he said. He stood and helped Rhonda to her feet. “The two of you,” he continued, pointing to Rhonda and Winnie, “should stay here while we go check out these ATVs. If we do run into trouble, we may need backup.”
“We can handle our own, dad,” Winnie said, her brittle voice finding some firmness, like a razor, narrow, but sharp.
“I know you can. I’m not trying to protect you,” Phil replied. “I’m depending on you. If we get caught out there, you guys need to either come get us or get out of here.”
“I don’t like this, Phil,” Rhonda said.
“I know. We’ve got Greer with us, he knows his way around a pistol, right? So do you. We can’t risk losing both of you at once.”
“Dad, I want to go with you,” Winnie said. She didn’t notice the hurt on Rhonda’s face at the words, but Phil did.
“Stay with mom,” her father replied. “We’ll all be back together soon, okay?”
Greer climbed up into the truck bed and was rooting around in the back, searching a bag for something. When he came upright, he had another pistol in his hand to match the one already stuffed in his holster. Leaning up on the edge of the truck, he tossed the pistol to Phil, who caught it as if it were a pair of dirty underwear.
“Let’s move, guys,” Greer said, dropping to the grass. “Max, Brad, lead the way.”
Phil reached over and kissed Winnie on the cheek, then did the same for his wife. “Stay safe. Stay hidden. We’ll be back soon.”
With that, they left, leaving Winnie and Rhonda standing by the truck alone. They stood in silence for a few minutes, not really sure of what to say to each other.
“I’m sorry,” Rhonda said finally, her voice quiet.
Winnie looked at her. “Sorry for what?”
“Sorry we never got closer. Sorry you always felt like second fiddle to Lydia.”
Winnie bit her lip but didn’t reply.
“That is what it is, isn’t it?” Rhonda asked.
Winnie shrugged. “I don’t know. You guys were always into the same things. Saving the environment. Organic food. All that non-profit whatever stuff you’re always doing.”
“Honey,” Rhonda said, “that stuff is important to me, yes, but not as important as my family. Not as important as you.”
“I know that,” Winnie said softly. “I mean, inside I know that. We just never had much else to talk about. Dad liked the same music I did. He loves the Broncos. He gets my sense of humor.”
“And he lets you get away with murder?”
Winnie rolled her eyes. “See, that’s what I’m talking about, mom. I got on honor roll last year. I get my homework done. But still you watch me like a hawk and sit there, just expecting me to fail, just because I’m not quite as smart or good as Lydia.”
“Winnie, that’s not true.”
“Mom, can we not right now? It seems stupid to have this discussion with everything else going on in the world.”
“With everything else going on in the world, we need to know that we belong to each other,” Rhonda replied. “Family bonds have never been more important than they are now.” She cleared her throat with a wet cough. “It may be all we have left.”
Winnie looked at her, their eyes locking, both sets brimming with shining, wet tears.
“Well, well, well, what have we here?”
Winnie spun around, her dark hair bobbing above her wide, frightened eyes. Rhonda’s hand went to her belt instinctively, before she remembered that she never had slipped her pistol in there. She’d meant to, but then she wanted to talk with Winnie…
Walking from the shadows of the tall tree, a man in a gray jumpsuit lifted his pistol.
“Don’t move, ladies. Don’t you dare move. We’re going to have us a little conversation.”
Chapter 2
It seemed impossible that the alarm was going off, performing its duties as if it were just another normal day when Brandon Liu knew that couldn’t be further from the truth. He crawled out of the thick glut of deep sleep, his arms working as if he was swimming through sludge, and he rolled over in bed, fumbling for the snooze button. He found it and thumbed it, keeping his eyes pressed shut, though the faded light of morning was still visible through the thin flesh of his eyelids.
As he lay there, he sprawled out with his left arm, reaching for another body in bed, but the rest of the bed was empty, his hand only patting the folded sheets where his wife had been. The sheets still felt warm, so she had been there but wasn’t now.
“Brandon?” Her voice was low and sweet, a bird-like song which warmed his heart as soon as he heard it. It was one of her most lovely qualities, the gentle serenade of her normal voice as if every word she spoke was the verse of a pleasant choir song.
“Brandon, why did you set your alarm?” she asked. He pried his eyelids open through sheer force of will but clenched them back again when the full brunt of light streamed in through the open shade in their bedroom. He’d forgotten to close it last night when he came to bed.
Well… this morning when he’d come to bed. Like three hours ago, tops.
“I have to go back to work, Chun,” he said quietly, his gruff, gravel grunt the precise opposite of his wife’s voice.
“Back to work? You worked so much yesterday.”
“I know. No choice. Gotta catch the bad guys.”
He lay there on his back, arms outstretched, his chest moving up and down, the rhythm threatening to coax him back into slumber.
“You want tea?” his wife asked. The voice startled Brandon and his eyes fluttered.
“Coffee,” he replied, though he knew she hated it. Unlike Brandon, his wife Chun wasn't born in the United States and continued to struggle with some of its customs. To her it was always tea over coffee, and she could not fathom why anyone would drink that ‘stinky motor oil’ over the much preferred herb refreshment of Jasmine tea.
She didn’t reply but just backed out of the small bedroom and vanished deeper into the house. He could hear her fumbling around with the coffee maker and for a moment considered getting out of bed to go help her, but ultimately decided that he wanted her to try to figure it out herself. He loved her and if he had his preference, he would help her do whatever she wanted to do, but he also knew she had to get acclimated to some of the more familiar American routines, and preparing coffee was one of them.
His head still clogged and swimming, Brandon swung his legs out from under the covers and sat on the edge of the bed, digging the back of his hand into his right eye socket, trying to clear the cobwebs. It felt like he had just laid down a moment ago, and in some ways during some of these late nights, he preferred to get no sleep rather than just a couple of hours, which almost seemed worse.
Their bedroom was small, with the double bed taking up the majority of the floor space. There was room for a pair of small dressers on the far wall, and on one of those dressers was a nineteen inch flat screen television. Reaching over, Liu scooped up the small remote from his nightstand and punched the power button to turn on the television. It blinked to life but flickered and showed only thin lines of static. Scow
ling at the screen, he scrolled up and down through several stations but got the same result with each one, just layers of crackling white distortion and no indication of functional stations.
“TV is broken,” came Chun’s voice from the kitchen in her helpful tone. “It does not work.”
“I see that,” Liu replied. A thought came to him then. Over the past twenty-four hours, he had not told his wife much of what he had dealt with, and he knew she was not one to check her email or surf the internet. She had no job at the moment and had limited contact to the outside world due to her fears of not knowing or feeling comfortable with the culture.
He wondered just how much she knew about what had happened.
“Chun?” he called into the kitchen, pushing himself to his feet. He wore a gray pair of thin, cotton sweatpants and a dark blue t-shirt, his bare feet padding along the hard wood floor out of the bedroom and into the hallway. She appeared at the end of the hall, smiling sweetly in greeting.
“Yes, Brandon?”
“What did you do yesterday?” he asked, walking the length of the hallway and touching her shoulder. “Did you go out at all? Check your email?”
“I checked email, yes,” she replied. “But I did not go out. Stayed inside. Stayed safe.”
Brandon smiled thinly. “So you heard? About what happened?”
She nodded uncertainly. “Yes.” She chewed off the end of the word as soon as she’d said it, as if sudden realization was dawning upon her. “That is why,” she said quietly. “That is why you work so much yesterday?”
She was struggling with her English as usual, and he laid a hand on her arm in comfort, as if to indicate that they could speak their native language if she wanted.
“No,” she said, anticipating his words. “English. We speak English only. I need to be part of this place.”
Brandon nodded and removed his hand. “Yes, that’s why I had to work so much yesterday.”
She pressed a hand to her opened mouth, her eyes widening. “My goodness, Brandon. These are bad days. Will you stay safe?”
Liu gave a warm, comfortable smile, pressing both hands to her shoulders and folding her into an embrace. “Yes, Chun, I am safe, but yes, I will be working quite a bit more these days, okay? I am doing very important work.”
“Of course,” she replied, nodding in deferment. “Whatever you decide is best.”
“No, no, no,” Brandon said. “It’s not my decision, it’s our decision, okay? We are partners. Marriage is a partnership, right? Remember what we talked about?”
“Of course,” she replied, smiling. “I remember. I love you, Brandon.”
He hugged her tighter, closing his eyes and taking in her smell. “I love you, Chun. I love you so much.”
Pulling away, he looked at her and saw the gleaming wetness of tears in her eyes. He wiped them with his thumbs. “I’ll be okay. Trust me, all right?”
She nodded.
“Did you call your mother yesterday?” Brandon asked. “Maybe she can help? How is Lu Tang? Have you seen her recently?”
“I will call my mother today. I will be fine, Brandon.”
He hugged her again and gave her a light kiss. The United States was not her world, but she was giving it her best effort. She’d been an exchange student at Boston College when they’d met, he in his first year as a Customs agent and her about to graduate. They’d met at a bar of all places, and he had no intention of going there to find a girl.
It just kind of happened.
He’d seen her as soon as he’d entered, gathered in a group of her Chinese friends, talking and blushing and dancing, trying as hard as they could to fit in, but even though they stood apart, they at least stood apart together. They’d fallen in love and her friends had all gone back to China. Though she’d agreed to stay behind to be with him and marry him, he often wondered if she regretted the decision. She would never admit to that, of course, but even if she didn’t regret it herself, he often regretted it for her. Now she was here with no family and fewer friends, alone and ostracized in a world she did not understand, and on the days when he was gone for eighteen hours in a twenty-four-hour day, he knew she was suffering.
Brandon walked back into the bedroom, crossing the floor and angling towards the small master bathroom. Turning on the shower, he thought for a moment about the possibility of both of them going back to China but immediately shut it out of his head. He was American. That’s where he belonged and where he wanted to be. Chun would learn to adjust.
If the world was still standing by then.
Reality punched him in the face as the memories of the past twenty-four hours sunk back in. He had so easily shifted into that normal mindset, locked here in his small apartment, unimpacted and unaware of the real-world issues going on around him. For now he could shave and shower in comfort and scoff and say it was California’s problem, but that wouldn’t last forever.
He wasn’t sure that would last a week. California had a larger economy than 95% of industrial nations of the world and its destruction would not be something the rest of the country could just recover from. Already he’d heard rumors of traffic congestion throughout Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois and almost every other state in the Midwest as frantic and panicked citizens attempted hectic migrations away from the perceived and real dangers of widespread radiation. It would only be a matter of time before the chain reaction of those moving east would cascade forward, bringing the rest of the nation into the same whirlwind of chaos and crippled infrastructure that the west side of the country was dealing with now.
It would probably happen sooner than he thought.
Liu stepped out of his pajamas and pulled aside the shower curtain, stepping in underneath the hot water, drawing a deep and appreciative breath, not taking even a minute to consider that it might be one of the last hot showers he ever took.
***
“Oh, thank goodness,” said Rhonda, lifting her hands in a mock sign of defenselessness. “We were lost in here. I don’t even know how we got here.”
“Oh is that right?” the man asked, not moving his pistol. It was a semi-automatic Glock, the precise kind of weapon that someone might steal from a dead prison guard. “You just accidentally ended up all the way down this dirt road, with your truck buried in the trees over there?”
The man was clean shaven, at least from the ears up, with a cascading mane of dark hair covering his chin. An angry, yellow-toothed snarl split a path through the unkempt wilds of his facial hair. His gray jumpsuit was long sleeved but rolled up to the elbows, revealing a few scattered tattoos stitched across his left arm. A massive, club-fingered hand wrapped around the contoured grip of the Glock. He was large all the way around the midsection with tree trunk legs and massive, boot shackled feet. Rhonda was pretty sure both her and Winnie could fit inside his massive frame—so massive, that even the large pistol looked like a toy in his grasp.
“Yeah, I can’t figure it out either,” Rhonda said, shaking her head as if to remark on her own woman-like stupidity.
“So tell me ladies,” the main said, crossing his arms, the pistol hanging from pinched fingers at his left elbow. “Where exactly did you think you were going?”
“There were just so many cars on the interstate,” Winnie continued from her mother, keeping her voice high and innocent as if she was just some little girl who couldn’t find her way home, “we just felt like we had to get off the road.”
“So why here?” he growled. His fingers flexed on the handle of the pistol in a way that made Rhonda’s stomach churn.
She blinked, searching for the right response. “My son goes to school here,” she finally replied. “We don’t know where he is. He’s…disappeared.” Her voice cracked as she spoke and for a brief moment, she had impressed herself with her acting skills.
“Have you seen them?” she asked. “Have you seen my son? Or any of the students here?”
The man’s arm snapped around quicker than she could follow, th
e butt of the pistol in his hand striking her jaw and snapping her head around. She gasped, stumbling back and clutching at her face. Winnie scrambled as her mom fell, falling forward onto the grass, catching herself with her hands and knees.
“Don’t pull that with me,” the man snapped, bringing his pistol around and aiming it towards the fallen woman. "There ain’t no boys here. It’s spring break, the place is freaking empty ’cept for us. You’re acting so smart, but you ain’t fooling me.” He lowered his gun, his finger twitching on the trigger.
Winnie acted instinctively. Down on the grass, she lunged forward and swung her fist up in a tight arc, slamming it hard into the man’s groin. Breath blew from his lungs and he took a clumsy step forward, the pistol drifting down and to the right. Rhonda leaped at him, striking at his arm, and knocked the weapon away.
“You dumb—” the man started to shout, but Winnie punched him again, this time in the side of the knee, and he dropped down to a kneel. In one fluid motion, Rhonda scooped the pistol up off the grass and swung it forward like a hammer, crashing the butt into the forehead of the bald-headed goon, splitting the skin there and causing his eyes to roll in the back of his head.
He slumped over sideways and lay still.
“Nice work, Win! You are a warrior!” Rhonda whispered. “Now help me drag him into the trees.”
They both grabbed him by the knees and pulled him across the grass and dumped him belly-first into the tall grass underneath the overgrown trees behind the truck.
“I don’t like it here,” Winnie whispered.
“You and me both, sweetheart,” Rhonda replied. “What say we go catch up with the others? Maybe they need some help?”
Winnie nodded as Rhonda slipped her appropriated pistol into her belt at the small of her back. Winnie made it to the gate first, jumping and looping her fingers around the top rail, then swinging herself over without hesitation. Rhonda clamored up a bit less gracefully, the bullet wound in her leg yelling as she did so. Her daughter helped her get down the other side and land relatively gently, then they clung to the concrete and brick wall and made their way towards the maintenance garage.
