As Darkness Falls

by David Lucin

  Townsend took slow, casual steps to draw out their short walk to the roadblock. “What was it like, sir? In West Ukraine. If you don’t mind me asking. I understand if you’d rather not talk about it.”

  He held up a hand. “Not at all, Lieutenant. You’ve probably read about most of it in the history books already: we were hung out to dry. NATO didn’t fully commit to the mission for fear of provoking Russia and its allies—China, specifically—and there was no strategic or operational plan for how to deal with the invasion, no coordination between national forces. Everything was done piecemeal and with a light touch. In parts of the country with large Russian-speaking populations, the locals hated us. To them, we were the invaders, not the East Ukrainians. It’s hard to stay motivated to help those people when all they want is to see you leave.”

  “I can understand that. It was the same in New River. At first, we were helping the refugees. By the end, they saw us as the enemy, and they weren’t wrong.” Her eyes flitted to Liam’s leg, then away.

  “Lviv,” he said. “It happened in Lviv.”

  She shot a glance over her shoulder, at Dhaliwal and Baker.

  “Don’t worry about them. They’ve heard the story a hundred times. I have no problem sharing it with you, either.”

  “I’d like that, sir. Everyone in the unit knows you served and were wounded, but there’s a lot of speculation and rumor floating around about what exactly happened. It would be nice to clear the air.”

  They were almost at the roadblock, so he slowed his pace some more. Dhaliwal and Baker followed his lead. They were busy chatting about the decline of movie theaters in the forties and fifties. From what Liam could tell, Baker lamented their near extinction, while Dhaliwal saw it as inevitable. Liam silently sided with Dhaliwal while saying to Townsend, “My battalion was ordered into Lviv, which was the last major West Ukrainian city in NATO hands. By this point, everyone knew it would fall. It was just a matter of time. Lviv’s mostly Ukrainian-speaking, and the people there were Eurocentric. When enemy forces started moving west, a lot of residents fled toward the Polish border. Eventually, the decision was made to evacuate anyone who wanted to leave, and our job was to hold the city until everyone was out.

  “The East Ukrainians tried overrunning it with infantry, but we held them off. We might’ve been outnumbered, but man for man, a NATO rifleman was worth ten times as much as their East Ukrainian counterpart. So they brought up their guns and started shelling. They kept it up for days. On the ninth, Charlie Company’s headquarters got hit while I was visiting the front.” He lifted his left leg. “I was one of the lucky ones.”

  She dipped her head. “I’m sorry, sir.”

  “Don’t be. I’m not. When we sign up, we know the risks, and I can’t name a man or woman in my unit who looks back and thinks we lost that day. Thousands of civilians got out because we stood our ground and did our jobs. Like you did in New River.”

  Townsend began to respond, but her radio blared with a man’s voice: “Vasquez for Lieutenant Townsend.”

  Two of Townsend’s fire teams were on lookout duty along the interstate. Were the refugees finally coming?

  Liam caught himself licking his lips again. If he kept this up, they’d be dry and cracked by the end of the week.

  She removed the radio from her tactical vest. “Townsend here. Go ahead.”

  “Ma’am, lookouts have spotted a group of about two hundred moving up I-17. Currently ten klicks from the roadblock. At their current pace, I’m guessing they’ll be there in three, four hours.”

  Liam whirled on Dhaliwal, who shook his head and said, “Fair play, Kip. I might be a lot of things, but a sore loser isn’t one of them. I’ll go get my grunts ready.” He nodded respectfully at Townsend. “Ma’am.”

  * * *

  “Well?” Liam asked. “See them?”

  With Baker, he stood in a trailer filled with jugs of water for the roadblock troops. The elevated position gave them a better view over the cars, fencing, and barbed wire forming the barricade.

  “They’re coming up the northbound lanes,” Baker said. “Just rounding the bend at the rest stop now.”

  Baker handed the binoculars to Liam, who had a look for himself. About a kilometer to the south, at Sunset Point proper, a wall of refugees approached. Their faces were dirty, their clothes torn and ragged. Many wore masks.

  Anxiety prickled the back of Liam’s neck. Lowering the binoculars, he said to Baker, “Tell your people to stay a few steps away from the barricade. I want three meters minimum between us and those refugees. We need to assume they’re all carrying New River flu.” He made a note to have Ed or one of the other drivers pick up a shipment of masks from Flagstaff. Really, he should have thought of this earlier, but he was bound to forget something.

  “Roger that.”

  Baker joined his platoon at the roadblock while Liam relayed updates to Townsend and Dhaliwal. He then had Nielsen bring him a megaphone from the operations tent. Turning away this first wave of refugees should be his responsibility. Unlike in May, when he met the group from Las Vegas on I-40, there would be no bartering, no agreement. They would have to leave, and if not . . .

  Liam didn’t want to think about that. Hopefully two platoons of Militia and two LCDs—one each in the north- and southbound lanes—would convince these refugees not to try pushing through the line. Desperation, though, could drive people to act irrationally, especially when they had nothing to lose.

  Thirty minutes later, the refugees had come to within two hundred meters of the position, and now Liam could see them clearly without the binoculars. Smell them, too, thanks to the light northerly breeze. The combination of body odor, smoke, and feces turned his stomach.

  The Militia troops held their ground ten or fifteen paces behind the barricade. Several fidgeted, chewing fingernails or tapping their feet. Baker took the time to exchange a few words with all thirty-six in his platoon as Dhaliwal’s voice carried over from the southbound lanes. Liam could also hear Jenn rallying her squad.

  After a while, Baker returned to Liam’s side. “How are they holding up?” Liam asked.

  “They’re fine. Jansen’s pumping everyone up.”

  “I can hear her. I’m impressed.”

  “Nobody ever accused her of being quiet,” Baker joked.

  “No, no they did not.”

  The refugees marched forward with purpose, as if the roadblock didn’t exist. When they’d come to within about a hundred meters—optimal range for an AR—Liam lifted the megaphone to his mouth. Speaking into it was one of the hardest things he’d ever had to do. “This road has been closed by order of the United States National Guard.” Somewhat of a bluff, but the authority of that institution might help encourage these people to turn around and leave. “You will not be permitted to pass under any circumstances.”

  A few of the refugees slowed. Some stopped, but most trudged onward.

  “I repeat,” he tried again. “This road has been closed by order of the United States National Guard, and you will not be permitted to pass this checkpoint.”

  One refugee—a woman in her thirties, maybe, though it was hard to tell—pulled ahead of the others. She wore a men’s jacket with a hood, and her hair, knotted and tangled, fell around her shoulders. Dirt and grime covered her face, and Liam wondered when she had last bathed. As she approached the roadblock, limping on her left foot, she held out her hands, probably to show that she had no weapons, then lowered the bandana from her mouth and nose and called out, “Please, you have to let us through. We have nowhere else to go.” She waved a hand toward the crowd behind her. “It’s only us. We hardly have any food or water. We heard Prescott is taking in refugees.”

  Another of the refugees, a man, said, “We’ve got kids with us.” Liam searched for the speaker but couldn’t find him. He did notice several children. At the front of the group, a young girl who reminded him of Debbie coughed and wiped her nose with the sleeve of her sweatshirt. The sight brought
on a torrent of guilt and shame. He did his best to ignore those feelings, but they lingered nonetheless, pestering him like persistent indigestion. “You’re just gonna send us back out there?”

  “We’ll work,” the woman continued. “All of us. We aren’t asking for a handout. We want to help, right, guys?”

  Sounds of agreement rumbled through the horde.

  Liam wanted nothing more than to open the barricade and let these people through. Surely, enough residents in Flagstaff or Prescott would be willing to reduce their rations by a small amount to save a few hundred lives. Liam would be the first in line to do so, and he’d bet most of the Militia would line up right behind him. But what would he do when the next group came? And then the next and the next. Eventually, those small sacrifices would bleed Flagstaff’s food reserves dry.

  So he brought the megaphone to his mouth, but before he could speak, the jugs in the trailer sparked an idea. “Baker, give the refugees water, then tell them to turn around and leave.”

  “You sure?” Baker asked skeptically. “If we start giving some out to every refugee who comes here, we’ll have to do resupply runs once or twice a day.”

  “That’s fine. Water’s the one resource Flagstaff and Prescott have in abundance.” Liam held out a four-liter jug. “We can’t take these people in, but we can at least give them a fighting chance out there.”

  Baker turned toward the roadblock, where Jenn watched him closely. As though they had communicated telepathically, she ran to Quinn Novak, who gathered her three grunts and led them to the trailer.

  “We’re on it.” Baker took the jug from Liam and tucked it under his arm. “I think you just made a lot of my people very happy.”

  9

  Jenn grumbled to herself and adjusted her cloth mask. Whenever she spoke or otherwise moved her jaw, it gradually slipped down her face until it fell below her nose.

  To minimize the chances of anyone catching New River flu, Liam had ordered all the troopers at the barricade to remain masked up as long as refugees were within fifty meters. Unfortunately, a steady stream had been approaching for forty-eight straight hours. The majority received their water and left without issue. A few cried or pleaded or begged, tearing a hole in Jenn’s heart. Only a handful got angry or turned violent, like last night, when the National Guard shot a trio of men who tried climbing the wall of cars. Two died, and the third would be sent away after medics treated his wounds.

  Her mask slipped, exposing her nose. She swore under her breath and put it back in place.

  “These are annoying, aren’t they?” Quinn asked, her voice muffled by her own mask. Hers was a red plaid, like it had once been part of a men’s shirt, while Jenn’s was a plain navy blue. The hospital in Flagstaff had run out of disposable paper masks months ago but had an excess inventory of these homemade ones. They worked well enough, or so Jenn hoped, but they did little to make the Militia appear fierce and intimidating. “Wearing one for eight hours a day is giving me zits.”

  “Me too. I’ve got a fat one coming in right below my bottom lip.”

  Quinn’s eyes crinkled like she was smiling, but Jenn couldn’t tell for sure through her mask.

  “What do you think their endgame is?” Quinn peered down the interstate. While most refugees went south after stopping at the barricade, about three hundred had camped out at the rest stop, a number that grew every day.

  “I have no idea. It’s not like we’ve given them any food, just water.” Although Jenn was happy to give the refugees water in return for leaving, the increase in demand meant that rations for the Militia had been halved. She wasn’t dehydrated, but she blamed the refugees for the inconvenience, even though it wasn’t their fault. “Maybe they think because we gave them water we’ll eventually cave and let them through.”

  Quinn answered with a noncommittal shrug. She’d jumped at the chance to help these people, but Jenn suspected she now had reservations. As refugees poured in—the unofficial count topped four thousand last night—a few always stayed behind at the rest stop. At some point, the Militia would have to remove them, lest they become too numerous, but how? Jenn feared they might only respond to threats, namely the use of tear gas, several canisters of which the police had generously donated to the cause. She recalled the sharp scent of pepper during the standoff with CFF supporters outside McKay Village.

  Behind a red Hyundai sedan near the grassy median, Freddie and his fire team passed paper cups full of water to a small group of refugees. Two accepted them gratefully, bowing their heads and saying thank you before drinking. A third, an older man with gray hair and what looked like the sleeve of a shirt tied around his mouth and nose, asked why he couldn’t come through, to which Freddie replied with the same line Jenn had used dozens of times already: “This road to Prescott and Flagstaff has been closed by order of the U.S. National Guard.”

  The man broke into a tirade, hands waving to accentuate his points. Jenn couldn’t make out what he was saying through his mask, but he sounded angry. No, frustrated. Understandably so. The troops at the roadblock, Jenn included, had learned to give the least amount of information possible; more than the bare minimum only encouraged the refugees to stay and ask questions.

  After throwing his cup of water to the ground, where it joined several others flattened by shoes and boots, he spun around and stormed away.

  As though nothing had happened, Freddie turned to Wyatt and said, “The second one’s full of plot holes. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great movie, but it doesn’t stand up to the original.”

  Wyatt, his mask plaid like Quinn’s, asked, “Okay, but what about the third one? There’s no plot holes from what I can tell.”

  Jenn sauntered over and joined in. “What’re we talking about, boys? Old movies? Again.” Wyatt, she’d learned, also loved classic movies. The depression and the war had caused an explosion of nostalgia, a yearning for better, more peaceful and prosperous times, but Jenn hadn’t jumped on that bandwagon. Apparently she was in the minority.

  “Wyatt thinks Back to the Future II is the best of the trilogy, and he’s wrong.”

  “It’s an opinion, man.” Wyatt dug through tousled hair to scratch his scalp. “You can’t be wrong about an opinion.”

  “Back to the Future?” Jenn asked. “Is that the one where the guy goes back to the 1950s and tries to sleep with his mom?”

  Freddie sighed and massaged his forehead. “He didn’t try to sleep with her.”

  “Okay, but she tried to sleep with him, didn’t she? Not gonna lie, that’s pretty weird.”

  “You haven’t seen it. Or I assume you haven’t.” He told Wyatt, “She hasn’t even seen Star Wars.”

  “Wow.” Wyatt sounded equal parts impressed and insulted. “You’d hope that’d be a qualification for becoming a squad leader. I’m not sure I want to take orders from someone who lived under a rock.”

  “Funny guy,” Jenn said. “Whenever you guys are ready to talk about sports, you let me know.”

  Freddie angled his head toward Wyatt. “His old man was in the NFL before it folded.”

  “What?” Jenn’s mouth hung open so far her mask slipped off her nose. “Did I hear that right?”

  “Yup,” Wyatt said. “Ben Berglund, tight end for the Houston Texans. He only played for a few years. Then he wrecked his ACL, but he still teaches high school.”

  Jenn noted his use of the present tense. Freddie must have, too, because he shifted awkwardly on his feet. Wyatt, unlike Jenn, Quinn, or Yannick, came from a town the size of Flagstaff, not a major city, so his family might have survived the bombs. She couldn’t imagine living with the not-knowing for so long; a week had been hard enough. Had Wyatt ever toyed with the idea of making the journey home?

  “But yeah,” he added, “he’s pretty much Huntsville royalty.”

  More present tense. “Well, I’ll leave you boys to your discussion. Enjoy your nerd-out session.”

  They continued arguing behind her—something about a guy nam
ed Biff or Griff and a flying car—as she returned to Quinn, who scratched an eyebrow and asked, “Are those idiots talking about movies again?”

  “I’m not sure they ever stop.” Jenn leaned in closer and said quietly so Freddie wouldn’t hear, “I’m glad Freddie’s not being such a downer and getting to know his troops better.”

  “Sounds like your talk with him worked, after all.”

  “I guess so.” Maybe later, after her shift, she would try asking him again about why he volunteered. Hopefully he would give her an honest answer now that he’d had a few days to adjust to the mission and his role as a team leader.

  The mic clipped to her jacket crackled. “Dylan for Jansen.”

  She pressed the talk button, saying, “Jenn here. Go ahead.”

  “Come on over to the operations tent for a minute, will you?”

  She glanced at the cluster of tents on the median. “Sure. What’s up?”

  “Sergeant Murphy’s got a job for you.”

  Quinn, who’d been listening on her own radio—thanks to the National Guard, there were now enough for all fire team leaders to wear one while on duty—twisted her mouth to the side. “He’s not gonna tell us to clean the outhouses, is he?”

  “I don’t think so. We haven’t screwed up, as far as I know.”

  “As far as you know. These Guard guys are a whole different level of anal. I wouldn’t be surprised if Murphy’s choked because someone tied their shoes the wrong way or forgot to make their bed this morning.”

  Jenn wished that were a joke, but Lieutenant Townsend had, allegedly, disciplined one of her grunts for sloppily rolling up the sleeves on his fatigues. “I’ll go find out and let you know.”

  She gave Freddie a lazy two-fingered salute, removed her mask, and trudged toward the operations tent. What did Dylan have planned for her? A scouting mission into Black Canyon City or New River, maybe? Or escort duty for a shipment of supplies from Flagstaff? Most anything but cleaning outhouses would be fine with her.

  At the tent, a National Guard soldier with a thick unibrow and a square jaw pushed open the flap and let her inside. Sergeant Murphy, Dylan, and Lieutenant Townsend stood at one end of the long fold-out table in the center of the space. Dylan, in his hooded sweatshirt and sweat-stained Arizona Cardinals cap, looked oddly out of place next to Murphy and Townsend, both of whom wore relatively clean uniforms. The sight of Townsend, in particular, with her neatly rolled-up sleeves and tight bun, made Jenn feel like a slob. Hastily, she pulled out her ponytail and retied it.