Redaction: The Meltdown Part II

by Andrews, Linda

  Manny tensed. What could give the old man nightmares? “Wh-what is it?”

  “Teenagers.” He shuddered and squeezed his eyes closed. “Scariest thing on God’s green Earth.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Look at the sunset.” Papa Rose set his forearms on the steering wheel and stared through the windshield of the Toyota Prius. Bright pink sky burst through the black clouds and tinted the raindrops clinging to the glass.

  In the passenger seat, Olivia snuggled deeper in the silver emergency blanket. The lightweight fabric rustled and dark lashes spiked against her tan skin. “I don’t care.”

  His chest pinched. Poor kid. Falcon had to drag her kicking and screaming away from her mother’s corpse and shove her inside the car. Papa Rose had her buckled and on the move before she could escape. “Now, don’t say that.”

  “It’s pink!” Toby’s high pitched voice drifted from the backseat. “I yike pink.”

  He smiled. There wasn’t much the preschooler didn’t like. Pins and needles pricked his chest. No, he wouldn’t let the boy in. He strangled the steering wheel. As soon as Brainiac staved off the meltdown for four days, they’d leave to join the soldiers while he and Falcon waited their turn to die.

  That was the deal.

  He glared at the red tail lights creeping through the intersection ahead. Not that the squid knew of the plans, but Falcon did. So why had the former Green Beret left him alone in the car with the kidlets instead of Sailor B? The Spec Ops soldier had best not be going soft on him.

  Just because they hadn’t found any survivors to take the children off their hands, didn’t mean he was going to be stuck with them.

  “Why?” Jillie slurped her drink.

  Clearing the intersection, Papa Rose glanced in the rearview mirror. “Why what?”

  “Why should she care about a stupid sunset?” Wisps of blond hair drifted around Jillie’s oval face. A bruise dotted her left cheek and temple. The red slash running through it marked where the bullet had grazed her temple.

  A chill snaked down his spine and he shifted on the cushion. The girl was damn lucky to be alive. Maybe it was a good thing they hadn’t crossed paths with any survivors—not if they were like the animals that slaughtered those people in the convenience store.

  Her gaze skittered away from his but she kicked the back of his seat. “It’s just a stupid sunset.”

  Everything was stupid since they’d left the gas station. Four hours of pessimism crammed the compact interior. “People came from all over the world to see an Arizona sunset. We’re famous for it.”

  “That’s dumb.” She fiddled with the straw, sliding it in and out of her tan drink pouch.

  He sighed. Favorite adjective number two: dumb. Why did he keep trying to engage the girls in conversation? Because of Henry Dobbins. The old coot had harassed him into dealing with his Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from his tours in Afghanistan. Too bad he hadn’t been able to make any inroads into the guilt. He was certain the psychologist would have loved to treat the man who’d brought the Redaction to Phoenix.

  The man who was responsible for killing over two million Arizonans.

  Hell, the wily ol’ devil might even have convinced him to forgive himself.

  Not going to happen now.

  His course was set. Looking after these three body, mind and soul was just a temporary setback not a course change. Not that they particularly liked his efforts. Fortunately for them, he was just as stubborn as Wheelchair Henry.

  “You don’t like pink, Jillie?”

  She shrugged.

  “You were wearing a pink shirt…earlier.” He focused on the black ribbon stretching out beyond his headlights. He didn’t know if she’d been wearing the clothes when her family had been massacred. Given the amount of blood staining it, he thought it most likely. “I kinda thought it was your favorite color.”

  It had been his daughter’s favorite. Don’t go there. It’s not the same. This is about the kid’s mental health. Nothing else. He couldn’t let it be about anything else.

  She sucked on her trembling bottom lip for a moment and blinked rapidly. “Not anymore.”

  “Don’t let those b—” he swallowed the swear word, “buttheads take that away from you. You like pink, you go on liking it. Then you win, not them.”

  “Whatever.” She puffed on the glass, fogging it. With a tapered finger, she drew a gun.

  Frustration shredded his insides. Dammit, he had to break through her shock. Get her back to the teasing girl who’d been showering in the rain using Brainiac’s precious soap.

  Maybe the grief was too new.

  Maybe he didn’t know what the hell he was doing.

  He probably shouldn’t have taken over caring for Toby. Little Jillie may have needed to be needed. Once they stopped, he’d put that burden back on her. And then he’d coerce Olivia into taking care of Jillie. Given how close the two were in age that should prove interesting. “I think it’s important to find three beautiful things everyday.”

  “Why?” Toby slipped down in his seat until the belt cut across his chest.

  Damn. He should have looked for a booster seat. At least, it would have made it difficult for the little eel to escape. “Jillie.” When she looked up at him, he jerked his head in Toby’s direction.

  She leaned over the little boy and tugged on his arm until he sat up properly. “Silly head.” She mussed his curly hair. “The belt is supposed to go across your tummy not boobies.”

  “Boobies.” He giggled and buried his face in his teddy bear. “I don’t gots boobies. I’s a boy.”

  “Everyone has boobies. Boy’s boobies are just flat, that’s all.” Jillie rolled her eyes, ten going on thirty.

  Papa Rose held his breath. His wife did that. So did their daughters. He exhaled slowly. But it didn’t mean anything. It was just something in the X chromosomes.

  “Boys don’t have boobies.” Olivia set one hand on the seat and peered into the back. “They have nibbles that are bad so they don’t grow into boobies.”

  He coughed out a laugh. Olivia would talk about boobies and nibbles but nothing else? Perhaps they should have skipped the sunset and talked about lighting his farts on fire as a private in the Army.

  “Ohh.” Toby nodded, as if that weirdness was the answer to world peace. “When are we gonna be there?”

  Clearing his throat, Papa Rose touched his earpiece making sure the line was open. No point of him hoarding all the fun of an old fashioned family road trip. He quickly locked down the warmth infusing him. Not that this was his family, but hazing passed the time, especially when someone else was the hazee. “What’s our ETA, B?”

  “Jesus Christ, Papa.” Brainiac hissed. “You asked…” fabric rustled, “four and a half minutes ago.”

  “So that makes it how long again?” He winked at Jillie in the mirror.

  “I gots ta pee, Papa.” Toby’s chubby face scrunched up and his hand cupped his private parts.

  “Four and a half minutes less than last time.” Brainiac bit off the ends of his words.

  Looks like someone was losing their temper. B would have to work on that. The kids couldn’t have him yelling at them when he drove them to safety. “Toby has to pee.”

  Falcon’s deep throated chuckle filled his ear. “Of course, he does.”

  “Can’t he hold it?” Brainiac chuffed. “We’re not too far away. Ten minutes tops.”

  Papa Rose buzzed down the window and stuck his head out. The cool air smelled of wet earth. Lightning and thunder rumbled in the east valley and dissolved the Superstition Mountains. Outside the cone of his headlamps, dusk turned the buildings into rectangles. If they were that close, shouldn’t he see the power plant? Then again, he’d been starting at the tanker’s mud flaps for the last four hours. It almost made him homesick for the three hours they’d spent pumping the fuel into the tanker.

  “Can you hold it, Toby?”

  “I gots to go real bad, Papa.” His voice
rose and his shoulders hunched.

  His bladder gave a sympathy twinge and he almost crossed his legs. Poor tyke. “He can’t hold it.”

  For a moment, the brake lights blazed lighter on the truck. The moment passed and they quickly returned to normal demon glow.

  “We’re not stopping, Papa. No telling what’s out here.” Falcon’s order came through clearly. “And we’re sitting on a fucking bomb.”

  “He’s just a kid,” Brainiac shot back. “It won’t take but a minute for him to whip it out and piss.”

  “Tick-tock. Mission critical,” Falcon snapped. “Papa, you’ve been this route. Have the kid pee in a bottle or cup. We’ll dump it when we arrive.”

  Asshole. “Roger that.” He turned down the volume of his earpiece. “Jillie, I need you to find an empty MRE bag.”

  She cocked her head to the left. “Aren’t they in the trunk?”

  “Empty ones.” They’d packed the trunk with Meals-Ready-to-Eat at the refugee staging area they’d found. It had been deserted, the stuff untouched, even by the rats. That just wasn’t natural. “Did you save your lunch bags like I asked?”

  “Yep.” She disappeared from the rearview mirror. When she reappeared, she held the brown plastic bag. More bags, plastic utensils, a bottle and a wadded up napkin spilled over the top.

  “I gots ta go really, really bad.” Toby wailed.

  “It’s okay, Toby.” Jillie stroked his arm. “When are we going to pull over?”

  “We’re not.” Papa forced his grip to loosen on the wheel. “Take the bottle out of the bag, uncap it and let him pee in it.”

  Her face scrunched up but Olivia spoke. “Eww! Gross.”

  “It’s necessary.” And it was only number one. The girls would probably try to climb out the window if he told them how to go number two. His daughters had threatened to call Child Protective Services if he ever made them poop in a can.

  “Papa!!!” Tears glistened on Toby’s cheeks.

  “It’s okay, Toby. We’re going to take care of it. Jillie!”

  “Fine.” Tossing her blond hair over her shoulder, she yanked out the bottle. A fork, ball of cellophane and a drink pouch rained down on the carpet. “But I am so not holding it while he goes!”

  “He can hold it.” Whether she referred to the bottle or Toby’s penis, he didn’t ask. The point was moot. “Undo your seat belt Toby and stand up.”

  “Buts you said not to takes it off.”

  “It’s okay. Just this once. For an emergency.” That should cover ninety-nine percent of the situations they would encounter. It may have been years since his children were that young, but he still remembered the twists their logic could take. He’d had the gray hair to prove it until he shaved his head.

  Toby slithered under the engaged seatbelt and stood up, pinching the fly of his oversized pants.

  “Oh, I can’t look!” Drawing her legs up, Olivia covered her face then set her hands on her knees. Dreadlocks slipped over her cheeks.

  “Here.” Jillie shoved the bottle into his hands then turned toward the window.

  “I’s not thirsty, I gots ta pee.” Toby accepted the bottle then held it to his mouth and threw back his head, catching a drop of water on his tongue

  “No, Toby.” The car shook as it veered onto the shoulder. He quickly steered back into his lane. “I want you to pee into the bottle. Can you do that? Can you do that for Papa Rose?”

  The preschooler held the opening to his eye then shrugged. “‘Kay.”

  “Good boy.” He nodded in encouragement. Anytime now.

  Setting the bottle on the seat, Toby shivered while raking the oversized teeshirt above his tummy. He stuck his tongue between his lips and jerked on the rope holding his pants up. It didn’t move. His brow furrowed and he tugged again. Nothing.

  Damn, he’d done too good of a job dressing the kid. “Jillie can you help him pull down his pants?”

  Olivia giggled.

  With a deep sigh, Jillie stabbed the release button. Her seatbelt retracted with a thump of metal against plastic. Rolling off the seat, she crouched on the floor, grabbed the fabric near Toby’s hips and yanked.

  The pants puddled near his knees and the boy giggled.

  Christ Jesus. Papa Rose pressed his thighs together. Was she trying to unman the lad? “Pee into the bottle, Toby.”

  “‘Kay.” The preschooler swept it off the seat and pressed the opening against the length.

  He lifted a little out of his seat. Oh, shit, they were about to have their very own golden arch. “No. No! Line up the holes.”

  Olivia’s shoulders shook.

  “Here.” Jillie plucked the bottle from his hands, inverted it and slid the plastic over Toby’s penis. With a jerk of her head, she pushed both down like a light switch.

  “Easy!” He banged his knee against the dashboard trying to cross his legs. “That thing is attached.” And sensitive. Good Lord, what if it got stuck inside the bottle? Falcon and Brainiac would never let him live it down. “You could break it off.”

  “Nuh-uh.” Jillie’s eyes narrowed.

  Toby’s mouth opened as he released. Yellow streamed in the bottle and the cab filled with the warm, pungent odor of fresh urine.

  “Honest.” He held up three fingers.

  Olivia peeked at him through locks of hair. “Really?”

  God, maybe he was scarring them for life. Then again, telling his daughters that a man might break off inside of them could have kept the boys at bay. He bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. “Absolutely. I wouldn’t lie about something like that. It would break the guy code.”

  Jillie thrust out her jaw. “Don’t you mean the soldier’s code?”

  She was a suspicious little thing. Her daddy must have raised her right. “This is one strictly for us boys. After all, some of our best soldiers are girls.”

  Women. Ah, fuck political correctness. The world was ending.

  Toby wiggled and jumped while pulling up his pants.

  Wrinkling her nose, she held up the half-full bottle. “What do you want me to do with this?”

  Setting his finger on the controls, he rolled down her window. “Chuck it out.”

  Olivia’s head jerked up. Her dreadlocks swung back and forth, skimming her shoulders. “That’s bad for the environment.”

  The environment was going to be royally fucked in a couple of days when the power plant blew up. But they didn’t know that. They didn’t need to know that. It was just one more bogeyman to chase from their nightmares. “Okay. Cap it, put it back in the bag and we’ll toss it when we get to Palo Verde.”

  “Are the soldiers there?” Olivia asked.

  None that were alive. At least, none had answered Mavis Spanner’s or the military’s calls. “We were on a mission when we found you.”

  “I found you,” Olivia corrected.

  “Exactly. So we have to complete the mission and then we’re all going to join the soldiers.” Or what’s left of them. Thousands had died on their first and last night at camp. Maybe there wouldn’t be any left in three days.

  “Heads up, Papa,” Falcon barked in his ear. “We got lights in the distance.”

  Lights? People. His heart thudded painfully in his chest. People could take away the kidlets. Or… Hadn’t B said the meltdown might be a flash of light, not a mushroom cloud? His mouth dried. “Is it…”

  “Hot damn!” Brainiac shouted. “The power plant still has electricity.”

  He sunk into his seat. Thank God! They hadn’t arrived too late. “Toby, back in your seat. Jillie buckle up. Olivia, feet on the floor.”

  Olivia’s bare feet hit the carpet with a thud and she leaned forward in the bucket seat. “I don’t see it.”

  “There!” Jillie tapped the window. “Is that it? The place with the lights?”

  “Let me see.” Instead of returning to his seat, Toby squeezed in behind the chair and pressed his face against the window.

  “Toby! Get back in your
seat.” What could the kid be thinking? He was traveling at over sixty miles per hour. Didn’t he know he could get killed if they hit something.

  “I wants ta see.” The preschooler didn’t budge. “Oooh, pretty.”

  “Now, you’ve seen get back in your seat.” His damp palms slipped on the wheel. The boy still hadn’t moved. “Jillie, help your brother back into his seat.”

  Her attention snapped to him and their eyes locked in the rearview.

  “Now, young lady.”

  An odd look flashed on her face. There and gone before he could decipher its meaning. “Come on, Toby.”

  “I yike the lights.” Toby waited patiently while Jillie undid the seatbelt then climbed up, raising his hands above his head until she secured him.

  “I wanna see,” Olivia whispered.

  “You will.” He checked the mirror.

  Jillie flounced into her seat and shoved the belt into the latch. “Happy now?”

  “Yes.” Night leaned against the windows and the children wiggled closer to the interior light. “Let’s get a good look at where we’re going.”

  He stomped on the accelerator and swerved into the oncoming lane. Three domed reactors rose like bone-white tombstones from the blackened desert. Lights pockmarked the concrete and brick buildings clawing at the reactors. He gulped. “It’s huge.”

  Certainly a hell of a lot bigger than a nuclear sub.

  “You got this covered, right B?” Say yes.

  “Sure, Papa. No sweat.”

  He scraped his hand down his face and swung behind the tanker. No sweat, huh? Then why did the squid’s voice shake?

  Olivia craned her neck. “Can we stay the night?”

  Hell no! Didn’t she see the danger? But she didn’t, no one had until so many people died that Mother Nature had no choice but to hammer the final nail in humanity’s coffin. “We’re on a dangerous mission, so I’m going to need all of you to stay close and do as you’re told. No questions. No arguing. Got it?”

  Olivia nodded. “So we can stay?”

  “For the night and maybe most of tomorrow.” Then they’d get the hell outta Tonopah and hightail it to the soldiers and safety. “You understand the rules, Jillie?”