by M. L. Cook
Glancing once at Megan, she made her way to the front of the room.
Placing a hand on the small of her back, he nodded and gave a gentle push.
Miss Shasta turned, without a word, and started toward the office.
Throwing her hands up, Aubree followed, “What’s this about?”
The secretary stopped so suddenly, Aubree stumbled to keep from running into her. “Oh, I’m sorry. It’s April, right?”
“Aubree,” she offered.
“Yes, of course.” Fake smile, “Well Audrie, I’m afraid I really can’t say. Mr. Wilcox can explain everything when you get there.” She put a hand on Aubree’s arm, tilted her head, and frowned sympathetically. Which only caused more confusion.
Alarm raced through her, “Did something happen to Brooke?”
Without a glance backward, the secretary resumed her trek. One hand came up to swipe her eye, “Sorry. I can’t say anything.”
Fear inched up her spine. Nothing got to Miss Shasta. The woman was cute and perky, but without a single kind bone in her body. Aubree knew it had to be bad to get a reaction like that. Stepping into the office, Aubree stopped before the door had a chance to close.
“What’s the General doing here?” She looked around, then noticed that not only was nobody offering an answer, but they also refused to make eye contact.
Miss Shasta stopped in front of the principle’s door, “Go on in, honey.”
Honey. Sweet and sympathetic. It was worse than she thought. It had to be.
Stepping into the room, a hand pushed her forward, while the door whooshed shut behind her. Her gaze went from her grandfather, to the principal, to the counselor standing behind him. “What’s going on?” Taking a step back, she bumped into the closed door.
“Miss Carter…Aubree,” Mr. Wilcox cleared his throat. “Please, have a seat.”
Looking around, she noticed there were no empty seats for her to take. Then the absolute last thing she ever would have expected happened. Her grandfather gave her his chair. Wiping a hand down his face, he stepped over to the window and stared outside.
Dropping into the warm seat, she stared straight ahead, seeing but not seeing. Mr. Wilcox’s hazy words filtered through. Everything around her suddenly became surreal. Feeling like her head was going to explode. Suddenly lightheaded, she had the overwhelming feeling that her head was about to roll off. Bringing her hands up she grasped it tightly in an effort to hold it in place. Yet at the same time, it felt like stone, rigid, more like it wasn’t even a part of her body. Then she began shaking, teeth chattering, she was freezing. Yet at the same time she was overcome with the feeling that her body was about to explode in flames.
A hand gripped her shoulder, bringing her back to her senses. The General’s mouth brushed against her ear, with the sweet scent of caramels which he kept in his pocket. She could hear the clack of his lowers meeting his uppers, “Honey, we need to go.”
Looking up at the man she’d always feared, she could see the sadness in his eyes. For the first time she could see how old he was. Fingers curled and crooked with age gripped the brim of the hat he was never without. His normally stoic expression was gone. Here was a man who wouldn’t, or couldn’t hide his pain.
With his hand resting on her back, she walked out of the principal’s office to find her things stacked in a chair by the door. Stopping beside the blue bag, she blinked, staring down at it. How did it get there? She was certain she’d left it in her locker this morning. An old hand came around and pulled it away. Looking up, she cocked her head, “Grandpa?”
Nodding, he opened the door, “I know honey. We need to go.”
They rode in silence to the hospital, leaving the car for the valet. Striding out of the cold January air, they stepped into a warm blast coming from above the doors. Led across the floor, she didn’t see the people who were buying flowers at the gift shop. Nor did she notice the proud new parents carrying a tiny bundle out to the car. She didn’t hear the softly playing music, or the occasional announcements coming from hidden speakers.
Stepping into the silver box, she stared at blinking lights, numbers counting up, before halting on the number three. As the doors swished open, several people pushed past her to enter the elevator. Phones on their ears, one man with an unlit cigarette in one hand, and a small white lighter in the other. Nobody noticed her. They all had their own little things going on in their own little worlds.
Again, the General’s hand pushed against the small of her back. Stopping only to softly speak to a nurse behind a plexiglass barrier, he again urged her forward. Down a curving hallway, they turned left at the end. Aubree stared up at the numbers as they passed each room. Staring into the lives of strangers, she saw a middle-aged man flipping through channels. A light flashed from a dome above another room where a large balding man was holding his stomach, moaning. The numbers counted up, 304, 305, 306. Stopping before the last room, she couldn’t move. Dim lights shined through a light blue curtain. Inside a machine beeped, along with the soft whoosh of forced oxygen.
“Come on, Aubree.” The General’s face hovered inches from her own, “You want to see your dad, don’t you?”
Fighting against her instincts to run, with a hand that urged her forward, she was pushed through the curtain. There on the bed in front of her, tubes and wires snaking from beneath blankets was the one person she’d always believed to be invulnerable.
Stopping beside the bed, she picked up the limp hand that had always lovingly embraced her. Through tears, she begged for him to be alright. “I’m sorry, Daddy. I’m so, so sorry. Please don’t die. I need you. Please. Please don’t leave me.”
She stayed by his bed until they forced her to leave. Sitting in the waiting room, she huddled inside the warmed blankets they brought her. Words from her visit to the principal’s office tumbled through her thoughts, stuck on repeat, invoking visions she didn’t want to see.
They’d left early in the morning, before first light. On their way to Michigan, they’d driven into a blizzard. Whiteout conditions, slick roads, it came out of nowhere. Other drivers reported seeing her parent’s black sedan rushing toward the tangled mess of other cars who’d also found the black ice. Her father had managed to miss all the other cars, choosing instead to steer toward the shoulder. They said the car spun around several times before slamming head-on into a pine tree. The impact was hard enough to cause the tree to snap, falling on top of the passenger side, killing her mother instantly. It was hours before emergency vehicles were able to cut her father out of the car.
Chapter Three
The days blended together. Aubree and the General spent all their time at the hospital. Leaving only long enough to eat a quick sandwich before going back. Each night they would stop by the nursing home to see her grandmother. Each night her grandfather would have to explain that she was Aubree, and not Darlene. Then the painful retelling of the accident that took her beloved daughter-in-law and left her son fighting for his life.
They’d been there four days when they got word that Brooke was on her way. Clear across the country, her plane was due to land at eleven that morning. Refusing to leave her father’s side, Aubree made her grandfather go alone. After spending so much time together, instead of getting closer, they argued constantly.
That morning, before he left, the doctors came in to talk to them. Her dad was going downhill rapidly. They were trying to keep him alive long enough for Brooke to say her goodbyes, but there were no promises. The nurses came and went. Machines beeped and thumped, with an occasional alarm going off. Aubree had been there since six that morning, refusing to leave his side. Beside her chair was a small stack of foam cups, which the nurses dropped off from time to time filled with thick bitter coffee.
Standing from her chair, she brushed a hand across her father’s face, “I love you, Daddy.” Walking into the adjacent restroom, she pulled out a clean white washcloth. Fingers under the tap, waiting for the water to warm, memories of the ma
ny trips to Michigan flitted through her mind. Snowball fights, her father and Brooke teaming up against her. Her mother standing in the window laughing, before calling them in to enjoy a warm fire and a cup of hot cocoa. Sitting in the dark, beside a tree that should have been thrown out years ago, she opened birthday presents decorated in Christmas paper.
Absently wringing the cloth, she returned to do her morning ritual of washing her father’s face. Bruises had started to fade, cuts were scabbed and healing. She lifted the oxygen mask off long enough to wipe his crusted, dry lips. After cleaning him up, she dropped a kiss on his forehead, then turned to resume her seat. Ear-piercing alarms sounded before she could sit down. The familiar soft beeping that had never ceased to reassure her, instead made a single long tone. The curtain was shoved away, while nurses rushed into the room. Forced into the hallway, she stood alone. Nurses rushed by while wheeling machines into his room. Minutes stretched on. Leaning against the wall, she struggled to stay upright. Then just as quickly as it began, the commotion that surrounded her father ceased. Sullen faces shuffled out, the machines pushed aside and forgotten. The curtain was pulled around, as an older nurse stopped long enough to pump a quick squirt of sanitizer on her hand, then looked at Aubree. Her gaze centered on the simple act, she marveled at such a mundane thing, then how trivial it was all of a sudden. Reminding her that even though her own world stopped the moment she stepped into Mr. Wilcox’s office, everything else continued.
“Honey? Where’s your grandfather?”
***
She was sitting in the waiting room, two warming blankets had been brought to her. The offers for food and drink were ignored. Staring out the window, she watched as the snow accumulated on the roof outside. It’d started snowing before they left the hospital the night before. Already the weatherman said they had three to five inches in Anderson, predicting another two or three before the night was up.
Out of the corner of her eye, she watched a nurse stop the General. A second later a wheelchair was pushed beneath him, while a group of nurses huddled.
Brooke didn’t give the man a backwards glance as she stepped into the waiting room, “Bree? Honey, are you alright?”
Every feeling she’d denied, every hurt, all the anger, burst out in that moment. “Where were you, Brooke? What was so important that you couldn’t even come to say goodbye to our father? It’s been four days. Four days! You couldn’t have gotten here sooner?”
Brooke opened her arms. Without hesitation, Aubree sprung from the chair, throwing herself into the arms of the only person who could comprehend the hole that had been left behind such a short time ago.
***
Days melted together, as plans were made for, not two funerals, but three. The stern and stoic General didn’t survive the death of his only child. Aubree was never more grateful for her sister’s appearance, as she was now. Although, she didn’t make it easy for Brooke. Strong resentment over her not being there when Aubree needed her wouldn’t go away in such a short time.
Military honors, along with the twenty-one-gun salute, took a back burner to the haunting sound of taps echoing through the packed mausoleum. Aubree and Brooke sat huddled in the cold vault while a stranger expounded the many virtues of the men unfamiliar to the sisters. Men who were not the men she’d grown up with, but strangers. They expounded on the virtues of the heroes in their day, who were still strangers to them. Brooke had a few memories of their father before his retirement from the army. But Aubree had none. She’d not known the man they were talking about. For her, he’d just always been her dad. The man who exercised compulsively, who doted on their mother, while volunteering to help disabled vets.
After the man in a dark green dress uniform stepped away from the podium, a very small woman stepped forward.
Looking from her to Brooke, both sister shrugged. Who was this woman, and why did she feel the need to speak at the funeral of three supposed strangers?
Clearing her throat, a voice which was much too big for such a small woman, echoed through the chill air. “My name is Rosalee Baker, retired Staff Sergeant Rosalee Baker. I had the honor of working with both Steve and,” She smiled, “Steve senior. Both were men of honor.” She looked down at the sisters, “I know you probably don’t remember me, Brooke, but you used to come over to my house when you were no higher than…” she held a hand up to her knee, “Well, maybe a little bigger than that. We had the grandest times. And you, Aubree! I remember the day you were born. Your mom was so sure you were going to be a boy.” She shook her head, “Not your dad, though. He knew,” she smiled and nodded. “Yes ma’am, he did. Why, he even told me he didn’t need a son. He said to me, Rosie…that’s what he called me. Rosie, you watch. With my black hair, and Darlene’s white-blonde locks, we’re gonna get us a red-head.” She winked, “And he did, didn’t he? Nothing that man loved more than your red hair, unless of course it was your curls.”
Her speech went on long after Aubree stopped listening. At least now she knew that her dad didn’t resent never getting a son. Well, he didn’t need a son, he had Brooke. She was his shadow, had been since Aubree’s earliest memories. She pushed herself to become just like him, right up to and including, joining the army.
When Brooke announced she wouldn’t be going back, Aubree was shocked. The army was her life, just like it’d been for their dad. Now she had to carry the weight of not only being responsible for their parents death, but her sisters failed dreams as well.
“Hey, where you going?” She felt Brooke’s hand on her arm.
“I’m going for a walk. I’ll meet you at home.” She didn’t bother to look up.
“Everybody’s leaving. They’re coming over—”
Aubree glared up at her sister, “I said. I’m going for a walk. I couldn’t give two shits about who’s coming over.” Shaking off her sister’s arm, she shoved her hands into her pockets and kept walking.
Ready to make her way to the street, she paused beside a young mother and her two children. The daughter was really giving her mother a hard time about zipping up her jacket.
“I don’t need your help. I can do it myself.” The little girl, not more than four or five, turned her back on her mother and continued to fiddle with the zipper.
A young boy, which must have been her older brother, stepped in front of her, “You’re not a bad girl just because you sometimes need help. You shouldn’t get mad at momma for helping you. Sometimes people need to help, more than the help is needed.”
Pushing past the trio, she tucked her head against the cold wind, and headed for home.
Chapter Four
Present Day
Feeling a shove against her shoulder, Aubree turned her angry glare at tall, green, and ugly. There was no way she was going without a fight. Looking around at the cowering faces of the dozen women the beasts had managed to acquire, she raised a fist into the air.
“Stupid mother-fucking, dick-sucking lizards,” Shouting an insult over her shoulder, she marched forward, fist pumping the air.
Turning around, she bellowed while walking backwards, “I don’t know where you think you’re taking us, but we will not go peacefully!”
All around, horror filled gazes stared back at her. There was no way she was going to allow herself to be taken as sheep to slaughter, all she needed was to get the others involved.
“Everybody, together—”
***
One minute Aubree was attempting to get the others to participate in a riot, the next she felt the world swaying beneath her. Judging by the bone digging into her gut, she decided she must be lying over someone’s shoulder. Careful not to give herself away, she listened to the sounds around her. Echoing footsteps told her that she was no longer outside, but perhaps in a large, mostly empty room.
When the aliens first came, she noticed the group of frightened women that they’d already captured. None of them looked tough enough to get out of this mess, so she knew it was up to her to free them. The women and
girls were all between the ages of thirteen through forty. Any who fell outside of those perimeters were killed on the spot. It didn’t matter to the aliens, elderly or newborn baby, they were killed on sight. Refusing to dwell on lives lost, she knew it was time to act. It was up to her to save those she could, while preventing others from suffering the same fate.
She could hear muted conversation, so she knew she wasn’t alone. Then she heard a protested shout, “That one is but a cub!”
Cub? What did they mean by cub? Were they locking her inside a zoo? Was this some sort of bizarre sport? Like, let’s watch the human get torn apart by polar bears. Okay, polar bears might be pushing it, but what exactly did it mean?
Then she heard the dreaded answer. “It’s large enough to slake my thirst. I will have it until it can give no more. Perhaps I shall even share it with my fellow warriors. I’ve seen the vids they broadcast, I know what these females can do, and I’m most anxious to try one out.”
Feeling herself being lifted away, she was forced to relax or they would figure out she was awake. If she didn’t continue her ruse, she might not have enough time to plan her next move.
A moment later, a large hand cradled the back of her head as she was laid on the cold hard floor. Footsteps led away with a laugh and the fading comment, “Mustn’t damage the goods before I have a chance to try it out.”
It was exactly like she thought. That’s okay, let him think what he wanted. It would certainly be the last thing he would think about.
Aubree continued to lay on the floor, listening. Something she’d discovered early in life. If people thought you were asleep, you could learn a lot. Like how Brooke used to sneak her boyfriends in at night.
Brooke. Where was she? Was she alright, or was she one of the victims of the aliens? Mentally shaking her head, she refused to go there. Brooke was strong, a survivor.
