“So what do you want to do about this?” he asks folding up the map and stuffing it in my bag.
“Tomorrow we will check it out. If we see an opening we will go in, but mostly I just want to check it out. Maybe she is there, or at least someone will know where she is. I don't get my hopes up too much these days. ”
I have to admit that my enthusiasm for looking for Sara has diminished. There are too many dead ends. Too many wasted trips. Too many close calls. Still, looking for her is all I have left. If there's the smallest chance, I still will take it. However, I am beginning to realize that I can't do this forever.
And more than likely, she is already dead.
“Are you sure you wanna do this?” he asks moving closer to me and placing his head beside mine on the knapsack.
“You already know the answer Walter,” I say returning my eyes to the stars. He laughs.
“I know; thought I would ask.”
Chapter 3: Carter
I walk to the faded green tent beside a brick house. Even the setting sun isn't able to bring down the temperature outside, but the tents provide some salvation in the night air. Two men sit around outside with rifles across their laps. They are stripping their guns and cleaning them on a white towel carefully laid out in front of them. Stripping a gun is probably something they never imagined they would have to do years ago. They both look tired. We all are tired these days. I give them a slight nod and proceed inside. Around an old wooden picnic table are a few men who I guess are also my friends. The closest one looks up to me as I come through the tent flap. The propane lantern illuminates his face as he leans over the table with his arms supporting his upper body. He is tall and lanky with short curly brown hair. His eyes were a blue that could from go from gentle to ice in moments. Ryan has to be the most level-headed person I have ever met, and he is nearly five years younger than me. He doesn't look like much, but he is the man I call boss. Ryan is a natural leader. Everyone around here held him with the highest regards.
And several years ago he saved my life.
“Carter, thanks for finally making it. We have some new information that we need to act on soon.”
“Sure Ryan,” I respond leaning over the table as well and looking at the various documents spread out over it. A few maps and some open folders line the surface of the graying wooden table. Ryan's radio sits on top as a paper weight. A slight burst of wind causes the edges of the paper to rustle against the tabletop.
Ryan is the man in charge. He is the one who rescued me four years ago from a camp in the south. After being taken by the men in helicopters, I was assigned to work at a mine - nonetheless in chains. We spent sixteen hours a day in old mines gathering coal - one of the easiest fossil fuels to still be gathered after the plague. I nearly had given up hope after several months of sweat and blood, but I will never forget the night when Ryan and a few of his men kicked down the doors to the mine and set me free. I am one of the few who joined up with him and continued the fight against the self-titled “New Americans.”
These New Americans, these men who enslaved me, are led by some guy named Cole Matthews. He crowned himself as some sort of president who is determined to get America back to how it “used to be.” We know better. After the plague, those in the military took it upon themselves to try and rebuild America. The nervous ambition of fresh soldiers under nineteen was harnessed by the few older officers who were immune to the plague. This conglomerate set out to rebuild the country without an experienced leader – essentially a military dictatorship. It didn't take long for them to mobilize and create a base of operations on the east coast around Paris Island. However, their leadership was too concerned with weapons and did not prepare for the first winter after the plague. That first winter in New England, as even I remember from the cabin, was especially brutal. After their headquarters nearly collapsed from cold and famine, they moved their base of operations to the middle of the state - where farming had already been started by survivor groups. They took over these farms, mostly by force, and used them to supply a new capital they simply called “Washington.”
They are real original when it came to naming things. They pretend to be what America once stood for, but they are a whole different kind of nationalist monsters. They justified acquiring those farms since it would help their leadership and military survive and grow. Soon, they desperately needed a labor force to support the military.
After the plague, the UN began transporting children into Canada for safe quarantine and relocation. New America deemed that this was unnecessary and began to forcibly remove the UN centers throughout the country. Those who wanted to leave were “unpatriotic” or something along those lines. Soon after, Matthews and his array of appointed generals saw these former UN centers as potential resources to fill their worker shortage in the Northeast. They made fake fronts of these UN centers to gather laborers. Who better to work hard and be easily controlled? Children.
Five years ago, we were fooled by one of these fronts. It was not the UN we communicated with - it was the New Americans. How were we to know any better?
After we called in, they were to pick us up and turn us into shackled laborers. According to their protocol, when the helicopters land everyone was to be treated like a hostile to deter any complications. If any of the survivors they found were unhelpful to their laborer needs, they were cast aside. They had zero tolerance for babies and infants and would leave them along with the injured. According to them, it was for the “greater good.” Once, we found evidence that they executed them. They still manage to kidnap survivors today, but most are taken from settlements like our own. Again, we stumbled upon the aftermath of one of those raids. It was awful.
After my rescue, I heard stories about the New Americans that kept me awake for nights. They made the guys at the Sanctuary look like the Catholic boys they pretended to be.
New America is now our enemy, and that's why we are meeting. They have wronged us too many times.
“Here,” Ryan announces, shoving a finger into the map on the wooden surface. He makes sure he has each of our attentions and continues to point to a place on the map. It is roughly fifty miles away in the middle of Amish country in the north. Rumor has it that the Amish children did reasonably well after the plague, so naturally the New Americans capitalized on their success. Ryan continues, “One of our scouting cars stumbled upon another one of their farms in the northwest. It seems they took a few more Amish or Mennonite farms and are sending these crops and cattle directly to Washington. They are using a large number of forced laborers to move the land and harvest. The scout reported that they are working them to death up there. They call it the Mill.”
He stops and looks around at all of us. We have liberated a few of these types of places before. It is always dangerous. The New Americans were better equipped than us, but usually we managed to maintain the element of surprise. It seems like a small advantage, but we became good at exploiting it.
“So,” Ryan continues, “we plan to forcibly take over the Mill and set the workers free. Not only could it possibly increase our numbers here, but it will be devastating to their supply line.They will have trouble maintaining order in Washington when people start getting even hungrier.”
Rumor has it that the New American's are barely able to feed everyone at the capital. As they grow, their army, their food shortages, and their supplies are quickly dwindling. Once we all could depend on canned food, but at this point almost all of it has been used or has expired. Washington does not have the food infrastructure to sustain everyone. If we remove the Mill from the equation, they are going to feel the pressure. Pressure is good. We always hoped that our little intrusions would cause his growing empire to collapse on itself.
“How heavily guarded is it?” David asks. He steps from along the back of the tent to the table with his fists shoved into his pockets. He is the second in charge. His hair is cut short and his eyes are a deep brown that is nearly black. He spent at leas
t an hour a day at our make-shift “gym.” He very well could have been the strongest of us all, judging by the size of his arms. I kept myself in good shape, but I would never want to cross him. His sense of humor is usually crude, but harmless. David was a police officer in a nearby city, and like me, managed to be one of the very few immune to the virus. We estimate one out of every 200,000 adults were immune. Not many. There is probably less than 2,000 people my age or older in the whole country. Like Ryan, we are lucky to have David, too.
Ryan seems to hesitate before he responds.
“To be honest,” he continues, “Very. They know this is important, and they have several dozen men simply on patrol. The scout counted forty-two, but it could be even higher. He also counted nearly one seventy-five forced workers.”
Ryan is hesitant to use the word slave, but that is what they were. Skin color has nothing to do with it anymore. I decide to jump into the conversation.
“Are we going to try and then develop the land as well? Lord knows we could use more food around here.” It is true. We managed to create a food supply from a few acres of land, but portions and variety were slim.
“As of now,” Ryan answers. “No. We can't keep it safe if Washington would decide to send its core army to it. We wouldn't have a chance. Our mission is to free the forced laborers, and seize all the supplies we can for the resistance.”
The resistance is our rag-tag group of survivors, and wasn't a match for the standing army that is usually camped in Washington. We number nearly two hundred, but we are nothing compared to the New Americans. Most of us don't even fight. We do our best to maintain what America really was before the plague changed everything. We survive and sometimes attempt to undermine the New Americans whenever the opportunity presents itself. Can we actually beat them? Probably not until the rest of the world decides to do something. For whatever reason, every other country has been silent. All we know is - don't try to cross the border.
The west coast has been silent too. Rumors are abound that it was invaded, cartels took over, or nukes went off. No one really seemed to know. In the past years, I haven't met a soul who had been farther than Ohio. The New Americans seem to avoid this area, too. They are concerned with the east coast. The original 13 colonies.
We are one of the New American's only speed bumps. The resistance began when Ryan helped an entire neighborhood of children survive the first winter after the plague. Soon, they all appointed him as some sort of leader and he took the responsibility seriously. A few years later, the New Americans rolled through and took everything from them, and even executed a few that tried to resist. As they drove off in their Jeeps and Hummers, Ryan swore that they would not be what this country became. His neighborhood relocated and began to grow and grow. He managed to create a thriving community that maintained civility and humanity. They dubbed themselves the Resistance due to their occasional attempts to prohibit New America's expansion. They tried their best to interfere with the plans of the New Americans. The day they saved me from the mine was one of the most liberating moments of my entire life, and their largest mission to date. A lot of people died, and they went low key again for a long time.
“Dave,” Ryan says, “I want a complete inventory of our firepower and a headcount on all men who are willing to come with us.” No one was forced to fight, but most who could chose to anyway. Most had a reason. Ryan points to a few other men in the tent and tells them to make sure the vehicles are gassed and ready to go. Eventually, he turns to me.
“Carter, I really need you with me on this. I'm not expecting this to be pretty, but it's worth the risk. I trust you out there with me as we go in, and if anyone gets hurt out there you are the most capable to save them.”
After Ryan learned of my medical skills, he made me in charge of all medical operations in the Resistance. No one else then had much knowledge aside from basic first aid. In the past few years, I had set bones, removed appendices, and even delivered a baby. I trained a staff, but none of them had the same knowledge and experience as me. It's hard to duplicate an M.D. program.
“Maybe,” Ryan seems to be lost in thought for a moment, “just maybe, they will learn that they can't keep treating these people like cattle.”
My memories race again to over five years ago. The black helicopters. The girls. Jocelyn. In this long moment, the flap of the tent opens, and one of my best medical assistants walks in. Her beauty still catches me off guard.
“Sorry if I...” she begins apologetically.
“We were just finished.” Ryan interrupts with a quick smile and a nod. Most of the other men have already left. “He is all yours.”
Ryan walks out, and she is already against my chest and her lips meet mine. It had been two days since I saw her last, but it felt like weeks. She went with a few of the others on a scavenging mission. She was with several men I trust, and I knew she would be safe.
Besides, she could take care of herself.
“Did you miss me?” she says while interlocking her fingers behind my neck.
“Every second.” Our lips meet again. I take her by the hand, and we head through the small streets back to our house in the small town. The entire Resistance resided in a neighborhood around a school. Many of us are able to have our own houses. I am lucky enough share mine with someone. We walk up the steps of the house and into our room. The air's hot, but it will cool down as the night goes on.
I shut the door and look again into her brown eyes.
“I really missed you Paige.”
Chapter 4: Walter
I keep it together the best I can, but sometimes, I'm afraid I will snap again. I've manage to suppress the yearnings and the voices, but they still bubble up sometimes. Right after the plague, I was barely able to keep myself under control. There was so much chaos. So much death. It all seemed to feed the part of my brain that had been trying to tear itself to the surface in the years before.
Now, it is mostly under control. I have her to thank.
Caitlyn is my rock in all of this by helping me keep my sanity; although I don't think she knows how much I need her. Withdrawal from the years of drugs my parents fed me was impossible to deal with after the plague, and then when the men in helicopters came I truly broke.
The child.
The execution.
It was too much. It took a week alone in the woods to bring myself around to what I considered “sanity.” I then returned and buried Caleb and Juliet's baby in the woods under a growing elm. I finally felt remorse as I dug their graves with my bare hands. I had wronged them all in our journey to the UN Station and should have tried to help them as those men took them away. It wasn't their fault. They didn't deserve that...
Yes they did; they should have been smart like you.
No.
I shake my head a bit and focus on the moment - on her. Caitlyn and I spent the whole morning investigating the new outpost that I had found. It seems penetrable if we wait for the precise moment. Not many people tried to get into these places. The building is an old fast food joint. The roof is a dark brown and a faded yellow and red paint job ran along the walls. Over many of the windows are pieces of plywood. There are plenty of guards, but we count only four guards in the past hour who actually walk around the building's rear. Several fool around on the trucks parked in the front. They may be dressed like soldiers, but few actually acted the part. I imagine Cait will take out a few in the rear with her arrows and that should give us a brief window to get inside and investigate. In and out is always the best protocol. Too bad there isn't a few more for her to put arrows through. Oh well.
The compassion I found in her did not extend to these men who I blamed for nearly everything.
“Walt, come on focus,” Cait whispers to me. We are both crouched behind a car in the parking lot adjacent to the outpost. The cracks in the asphalt gave way to giant weeds as tall as us. This greenery provides a little cover as we make our way towards the new outpost. The tall windows around the r
estaurant provide a pretty good view of the valley and some other main roads in the area. If it wasn't for the weeds that had grown unchecked for five years, we never could get so close without them seeing us. Thank you, Mother Nature. At most of the outposts they were smart enough to burn it all down. This must have been new or they were just plain stupid. Most of these men are the same age as me, so they could not be too well trained. I turn to Cait.
“Okay, so if we go around to the kitchen door in the back by the drive-thru, I think we could sneak in. Like the last five hundred places we have searched, I doubt your sister is there, but maybe they will know where they took her. Maybe we can take another one of them hostage.” I feel the corner of my mouth point upward.
I enjoy a little enhanced interrogation.
My insides unexpectedly twist. Maybe it is because of my violent thought; maybe it is because I know how dangerous these excursions are. Despite all the miss-firings in my brain, I know how crazy finding anything about her sister is. Sara was taken over five years ago. What are the chances they even have a record? Cait still thinks she can find her, but I am pretty convinced that Sara is either dead or has moved on and is far away. However, I'm not even crazy enough to say that to Caitlyn. I may be bigger, but she wouldn't hesitate to cut off my head.
Humanity Gone (Book 2): Facade of Order Page 2
