by A. R. Shaw
Lucy swallowed and smiled once she blotted the tears away. “It all happened so fast. At first the city council coordinated burials of the dead in Pavilion Park, near where I lived. Then, a few weeks later, there were just too many, and my father told me to keep inside and to lock the doors. To pretend we weren’t home or that all of us were dead. I never got sick. I never came down with the virus; I just watched as my mother and brothers passed. My dad and I buried them all in the backyard. Then my father came down with it, and I sat with him when he died. I was alone then; winter came, and I buried my father. It was cold and the ground was hard; it took me two days to do it. I survived by rationing what food I could get from the neighbors’ empty houses and whatever canned food was left at the grocery stores. He wanted me to kill myself,” she said, breaking into more tears. “He didn’t want me to be alone, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t . . .” she looked to them for approval.
Dalton leaned forward, but again Clarisse pulled him back. “I’m okay,” Lucy said. She wiped away more tears and took a deep breath.
“I did what he said; I stayed inside and pretended that there was no one home. At first, there were sounds like raiders searching homes, and I was terrified someone would break in and discover me, and then there were no sounds at all. You could always hear the highway from our home late at night when you went to sleep. I grew up with that sound as a young girl. But now it was silent. Too quiet; I couldn’t sleep. There were no cars going anywhere, no neighbors shouting or kids playing basketball on the road out front. Nothing.
I had enough food. My dad had made sure I would, but I just couldn’t stand it anymore. I waited for it to get dark, and at first I walked down to the end of our road. I went and checked the mail, thinking that maybe someone might still deliver it and . . . I don’t know why I did it.” She looked confused, shaking her head and questioning her own logic.
“I kept doing it each evening, checking the empty mailbox and walking to the end of the street just to see . . . something . . . anything or anyone. Then winter came again, and the snow kept me inside because I didn’t want to have my footprints showing; my dad had warned me about that. So, I played my piano during the day quietly, worked out in the afternoon, and read a lot. I kept myself on a schedule to keep from going crazy. Our power was out, but the gas fireplace still worked, so I stayed warm enough.
“Finally the snow melted and no more came. I was out of books to read and thought if I could only break into the library, I might be able to keep from going insane. It was the farthest I’d ventured from home since my father passed away. Only about half a mile. When I got there, I saw that someone had already torn it to shreds.” She shook her head, trying to fathom the unfathomable. “I don’t know who would do that. It scared me. So I ran, and then a dog chased me; I only barely made it back into my house and shut the door. Then more dogs came, and they growled at me. I felt trapped, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to get out again. By this time I was down to a few weeks of food left. I’d planned to go to the nearby grocery store to see if I could find anything there that might be left over, but after finding the library in bad shape, I didn’t think the grocery stores would be any better and the dogs might get me.”
She took a deep breath. “Then one day, I thought I was dreaming because I was asleep early one morning and I heard the rumble of vehicles on the highway again. Later I heard shooting and I thought that maybe the military had come to help. Maybe other survivors I didn’t know about were with them, and I was afraid I might be left behind. So I got up and took a baseball bat with me in case I needed it for the feral dogs, and I ran into town.
“A dog came after me, and I was trying to fight it off when I heard gunfire, and the dog dropped dead. I turned around and . . . it wasn’t the military. They didn’t look like any of us. They wore cloths over their face like the terrorists I’ve seen on TV. It was them.”
“Did they speak English?” Dalton asked her.
“Um, one of them did . . . kind of. The one that shot the dog grabbed me by my hair and pushed me to the ground. I tried to run, but I couldn’t. He spoke some other language and yelled for someone else. He pointed his gun at me, so I stayed right where I was. Then this other guy came, and he was even meaner. He jerked me up and screamed at me in another language. He made me kneel down in front of him. Then he demanded in English to know if I could say one word in Arabic. I don’t know any Arabic. He kept screaming at me and I shook my head no. He said again that if I knew one word in Arabic, I would live; if not, I would die. So, I shut my eyes and started crying. I didn’t want to see him shoot me. I just hoped it would be over soon.”
“Lucy, what kind of weapons were they carrying?” Sam’s soft voice broke the awful tension of remembering again.
She sniffed and wiped her face. “Um, they were rifles. I don’t know what they’re called. They would pull the trigger and it would fire several bullets at a time. They were black. They also had knives, and one even had a whip. Some of them would point the rifles in the sky and fire them over and over while screaming, like it was some kind of celebration,” she said, as though trying to make sense of it all.
Sam nodded in understanding. Then Clarisse said, “So the second man had you and asked you to speak in Arabic, then what happened?”
“Then he pulled me to my feet and tied my hands behind my back and other men clawed at me and pulled my hair as he dragged me through a crowd. Then I saw at least twenty people standing with black hoods on and they were leashed with ropes to an army truck. I couldn’t believe what was happening. Some of them were crying, and then I realized they were only girls; I could tell by their voices. One of them tried to sit on the ground, and one of the other men beat her with a stick over and over until she stood up. The guy who had me was waiting for someone else. He stood there talking to someone. I couldn’t understand what he was staying. I said to him, ‘Please let me go.’ And he pushed me to the ground and kicked me, then pulled me back up. Finally, another man came and I think he was the boss. He took out a knife. It was curved . . . about twelve inches long . . . and he held it to my neck. He asked me again if I knew even one word in Arabic, but I didn’t. Then . . .” she looked up at them.
“It’s okay, Lucy. Just say it,” Clarisse encouraged her. “There is nothing these men haven’t seen the brutality of. It’s okay.”
“He asked me if I was a—a virgin.” She cried at the humiliation. “By then, I knew who they were. I said I wasn’t. I knew then that he would kill me, and the only thing I could think as the time slowed was that I’d rather be shot than have my throat slit. Is that—selfish?”
“No, Lucy, that’s human,” Dutch said.
Tears streamed down Lucy’s cheeks and she nodded her head, as if the riddle to that dilemma had passed. It was okay to fear death, in any way it might be delivered.
“How many men do you think there were, Lucy?” Dalton asked.
She shook her head. “I don’t know. From what I could see at that time, there were at least twenty trucks all lined up going east toward Idaho. There were several parked on the main street, but mostly I could see several more on the highway from the main street. I want to say I saw at least three hundred men, but there could have been many more than that. I just don’t know, because after that he pulled me up to him like he was deciding something. He grabbed my hair and then shoved me back at the second guy and said something in Arabic. That guy pulled a black robe over me and then put a black hood over my head. He then tied me up with the other girls. We were there for another hour. I tried to see through my hood, but the guard would beat us if we moved. We didn’t dare talk to one another. The others cried; many sounded even younger than me.” She shook her head in sorrow.
“Then they were shouting, and all of a sudden, truck engines started, and the one I was tied to began to move. We were pulled and made to walk behind it. Every now and then I got a glimpse of where we were going. We went back to the highway and, in the right lane, trucks went muc
h slower with prisoners tied to the back, walking, while in the other lane army trucks went much faster, flying by us. Some of the girls would push toward the outer lane and someone with a whip would cut us across the legs to stay to the right.”
“Did you ever get to speak to any of the other prisoners?” Dalton asked.
“No,” she said.
“Did you hear their voices at all? Did they sound American, or did you detect any other accent?”
“No, there was nothing but the wailing of young girls. I swear they were no more than fifteen,” Lucy said, shaking her head.
“Okay, how long ago was this? Do you remember?” Sam asked.
“Two to three weeks ago,” she said.
“This might sound like a strange question,” Sam interjected, “but did the robe and hood smell like? Did it have an odor?”
“It smelled like sweat and iron. It was damp and dirty.”
“So, other than them questioning you, you didn’t hear any English?” Dalton asked.
“No, not then.”
“Okay, Lucy, keep going. You’re almost there,” Clarisse said, and Dalton suddenly didn’t want to hear anymore. He wanted her to stop there because he could guess what happened next. He’d seen the aftermath, what these animals had done, but he needed to find out how she got away. That was the mystery to him.
After another deep breath, Lucy continued. “So we stopped, near Post Falls, Idaho. I kept tripping and almost fell over. I was so thankful when we stopped. It was night, and some of the girls started weeping even more, like they knew what was next. I didn’t, but I was really scared. I heard someone come for one of the girls, she fought whoever was trying to take her, and then he beat her. She finally screamed, ‘Kill me!’ Then there was a gunshot. Those were the only words of English I heard spoken by the others: Kill me.
“I huddled in my spot. I didn’t look, I didn’t know what would happen. Then someone pulled off my hood and then pulled it back on, as if checking to see which one I was. He untied me from the rope line and I caught a glance of a hotel with rooms from the outside. I remembered seeing this place, years ago, when we’d pass by it on the highway. That’s how I knew we were near Post Falls. He shoved me through a door and then into the bathroom of the room and locked me in there. He said something in Arabic that I didn’t understand.
“I took off the hood. I washed my hands. I braided my hair and looked around for a weapon, anything I could fight back with. I drank a lot of water from the faucet. There was no window to escape from. Then, I heard someone at the door. I’d looped a shower curtain hook into my hair, hoping to use it to fight with if I could. But I didn’t get that chance. The door opened and the man who liked my hair shoved me into the main room.” She looked at Clarisse, and her voice could no longer form the words.
“Did he tell you his name, Lucy?” Dutch asked her, hoping to speed her past the worst part.
She shook her head, because she couldn’t speak with the lump in her throat.
“Was he their leader?” Sam asked.
“I don’t know. I think he might have been, since the others seemed to look to him for answers.”
Dalton took in a breath. “Lucy, did he rape you?”
“No,” she answered, her eyes wide with tears streaming down her cheeks. “I shot him before he could”
It wasn’t what Dalton expected to hear. She’d somehow gotten away. He drew a hand down his face and sighed in relief. “Thank God, Lucy. You’re a fighter. Good girl! How did you get away?” Dalton asked.
“I don’t really know; it happened so fast. He was trying to hurt me, and I fought him and saw his gun on the nightstand. I grabbed it and took a chance. There were gunshots in the distance, like before, and singing. People chanting crazy things . . . my hands shook. I was so scared. I couldn’t stop. I thought I’d mess it up, but it went off. I killed him. I shot him in the chest and killed him. There was blood everywhere. He fell on me and I pulled myself out from under him. There was more gunfire outside. I threw the burka and hood back on, opened the door and . . . I don’t know. I was so scared. I ran. I barely remember what happened between the time I left and when I woke up the next morning at Dutch’s place.”
“Did you have shoes on?” Sam asked.
“I never took my tennis shoes off; they were still on.”
“What did you do with the gun, Lucy?” Dalton asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t remember.”
“You didn’t bring it with you?” Sam asked.
“No. I must have dropped it.”
“How’d you get past the others without them seeing you?” Sam asked.
“I don’t know. I opened the door, crouched down, and kept to the railing. There was a bonfire in the parking lot. With all the yelling and shouting, they weren’t watching. I got lucky, I guess. I don’t know.”
“So, that’s when you ran into Dutch?” Dalton asked.
“Yes, afterward, when I was running through the woods; I ran behind the hotel complex and just kept going. I barely remember—I kept seeing his bloody face in my mind—I ran into someone and I thought they’d caught me, and that was it. Except he pulled me farther away, and that was the direction I wanted to go, anyway, so I didn’t fight him.”
“Dutch, this sound about right?” Dalton asked.
“Yeah. I pulled the hood off her and saw she was a local in the wrong getup. She was covered in blood, man. I guessed what had taken place. She’s right. I heard them carrying on. Couldn’t believe this was on my own soil. Every now and then, you heard them scream, ‘Bismillah al-rahman al-rahim’—in the name of God, the most gracious, the most merciful—and shoot off like the demon misfits they are. Like I said before, this is a mop-up exercise. We are the last infidels. The last unbelievers.”
Dalton noticed how Clarisse visibly shook. He touched her back, trying to calm her. She let him. They were all afraid. Hell, he was scared shitless himself, but he’d kill every last one of them given the chance.
Lucy looked at Dutch and asked quietly, “You knew?”
He filled his lungs with air. “Yes. I’ve seen it before. I’m sure a few of us have. This is their M.O. They have no regard for women. They’re nothing more than animals. You passed out shortly after I got you. It wasn’t a stretch and I figured, if you needed to, you’d tell me in your own time when you were ready. It didn’t matter. I got you away from there the next day. If I’d babied you, you wouldn’t have been able to function, Lucy.”
“I understand. Thank you for taking care of me, Dutch.”
“No problem, kid.”
“Okay, anyone else have questions?” Clarisse asked, but no one volunteered another.
“Thank you, Lucy,” Dalton said. “You’ve helped us more than you know.”
Chapter 23 The Trip
McCann heard the engine before it even traversed their long driveway. They were all attuned to the minutest of sounds; even a deer entering the cabin’s clearing in moonlight, pulling at the dewy grass, registered in their subconscious, or the first busy bees of spring flying like overburdened dump trucks into the glass windowpanes. It was amazing to him, the sounds of nature that he’d never paid attention to before.
He’d thought about waking the others to say good-bye, but he didn’t want his departure to be a big deal. Not as he was going off into danger.
He padded into the living room with his gear held aloft. He stopped at the door and glanced at Macy’s bunk. He nodded his head at Sheriff as if telling the dog to be on watch over her now.
“Leaving without saying good-bye?” Graham said in the darkness of the living room, scaring the living daylights out of McCann. Graham had waited for him there, he realized.
“I don’t want a long, sappy farewell. I’ll be back in a few days,” McCann said.
Graham nodded hid understanding. While McCann put on his boots, Graham couldn’t help but give another warning. “You may see things, McCann, that will burn into your mind. Inhuman images you can’
t rid yourself of. I want you to know life is worth living in any possible form. Don’t ever give it up.”
“I don’t plan on getting myself captured, Graham. I’ll be back in a few days.” The headlights of the Jeep flashed twice into the window, signaling McCann to hurry up.
“I’ve got to go,” he said.
“Take care, McCann.” Graham embraced the young man and slapped him on the back before opening the door for him to join the others.
As McCann walked toward the headlights, he had the bitter sense that guilt overtook Graham because he couldn’t make the trip himself. If something were to happen to him, Graham would be the man that needed to go on, not him. The fault would weigh on Graham’s soul, and for that reason alone McCann would make sure he came back in one piece.
He turned back after loading his pack into the back and waved. With the lights shining past his form and blotting out all of his features, Graham could only saw his shadow outlined, but he waved back.
McCann slid into his seat next to Sam. Dalton, in the driver’s seat, said, “Ready?” McCann nodded, and they backed out of the driveway and down the long, cold road. No one said a thing for miles. He stared out the window at a dark landscape of hope.
I will come back to them. I will return, he kept telling himself. I have to. They can’t do it without me. He continued to tell himself this as they rumbled on for miles over the gravelly, unkempt roads.
“You know, we ought to use some of this debris to make several blockades over roadways where they can’t easily get around,” Sam said.
