by Cooper, DJ
Shrugging he said, “I’m not sure why, but luckily for her, her memory was fragmented and incomplete, but also that she is one stubborn lady. It gave us time to get ourselves organized. I was assigned to Rita while she was recovering, and couldn’t take any more suffering in the camp. I’d had enough when they started hurting her too. Almost everyone in my unit didn’t agree with anything going on in the camps. All but two of the officers in my unit were part of the coup.”
They sat quietly listening to the story as Rich continued, “We put the men that came from the government and the two officers in a shipping container used for the detention of uncooperative refugees, and then released everyone in the camp. Some were just too sick to move, I felt bad, but there was just nothing we could do for them. Most of the military personnel just went to find their families. There were a few that stayed with the sick, but the representatives would soon be missed and someone would come in search of them. They moved them to another location where we met up with them again and liberated another camp. Only this one was for the infected.”
Dickie sat and waved Rich to do the same and said, “Exactly what do you mean by infected?”
Rich said, “The camp was one where they kept those infected with Ebola, but also brought people to expose them. It was like a damn death camp.”
Jeremy sat with a guarded look asking, “When you say liberate, were you in the camp? Were either of you exposed?”
“No, neither of us came in contact with anyone from the camp and anyone assisting wore NBC suits. Once we got here they tested us anyway and we were cleared.”
Jeremy asked, “NBC?”
Dickie replied, “They are protective suits against nuclear, biological and chemical exposure.”
“Ahhhh,” Jeremy said, asking Rich how he came to be with Rita.
“Rita was still somewhat lost and I have no family. I’d grown close to her, even to love, so I went with her to help her find her son. We grew close over the weeks because they wanted me to gain her confidence, but I was never doing it for them. When I saw her stumble into camp that day, covered in scratches, wet, with tattered clothes. I saw an opportunity to save us all. They wanted me to pretend that the camp was not what it really was. She was kept in an area outside the main camp made to look like a simple refugee camp. I was only allowed to show her certain areas and never to let her see any of the infirmed. It was growing more apparent they would never let her leave…ever. Much of her memory is restored, now and she explained some things on our journey. I will say that she never told them anything. She must really care about all of you. It gave me confidence that this was a group that could be trusted, and where we needed to be.”
Jeremy and Dickie looked at each other confused, there is more to Rita than they ever imagined.
*****
DYSTOPIA: THE DARK DAYS
COMING SOON
2018
