by AJ Powers
Naomi’s foot moved to the gas pedal and pressed down. Hard. The tachometer jumped as the truck downshifted and the three-point-five-liter twin turbo roared toward the checkpoint up ahead.
She passed another sign but couldn’t read it. Not that it mattered; she was committed now.
The world around Naomi darkened as her vision focused on the fast-approaching checkpoint. There were multiple military vehicles parked behind Jersey barriers that spanned the highway. Soldiers in desert camouflage were spreading out across the road as a Humvee moved in to block the narrow passageway between the barriers—her only way through.
She looked over at Malcom. His skin was a ghostly white and his breathing was shallow, if at all. Her eyes then moved to the rearview mirror, where she could just barely see her brother’s face. “I love you, TJ.”
“I love you, Sissy,” the boy said, his voice filled with angst. He didn’t understand the gravity of the situation but fed off his sister’s conquered demeanor.
Naomi gasped when she looked back out at the road. Chunks of asphalt and small plumes of smoke exploded in front of her as dozens of rifle muzzles sparkled like fireflies in the twilight of the evening. Reflexively, she mashed down on the brakes, killing all of her momentum.
It was over.
Resigned to her fate, Naomi shifted into park and watched helplessly as a group of soldiers moved in, their guns all trained on the truck. All trained on her.
Steeling herself for the imminent assault, she swallowed her fear and prepared to do whatever was necessary to keep TJ and Malcom safe. But as the soldiers rushed the truck, Naomi’s body trembled as she broke down and wept. She rubbed at her eyes and took one last look to make sure she actually saw what she thought she did.
The American flag was prominently displayed on the soldier’s arm—the same arm supporting the rifle aimed at her head.
“Get out! Get out of the fucking car, right now!” the soldier yelled.
Naomi nodded quickly, holding her hands up high enough to show the soldier she wasn’t a threat. Holding his M4 in his right hand, the soldier unlatched the door with his left and pulled it open. He grabbed Naomi and dragged her to the ground, pressing his knee into her spine.
“Please! Help my friend!” Naomi screamed as the soldier removed her pistol from its holster.
The soldier responded by pressing harder into her back.
“Out of the car!” soldiers on the other side of the truck yelled to the unresponsive passenger.
“He’s hurt! Please help him!” Naomi screamed.
“For fuck’s sake, Spivak, she’s just a kid!” a woman said, pushing the man off Naomi.
“I don’t give a shit if she’s a toddler, Sergeant. She came this close to running us over,” he said, holding his index finger and thumb close together.
“Please!” Naomi cried. “I don’t care if you arrest me. Just… just please help my friend.”
The woman looked inside, seeing the bloodied mess that Malcom had become. She jumped back and raised her rifle, pointing it at Malcom. “Shit! Is he bit?” she asked. “Is he bit!?” she yelled, not giving Naomi a chance to respond.
“No. They shot him!”
“Who shot him?”
“The soldiers at the last checkpoint. Please, help him!”
“Spivak, go get Boggs.”
The man hesitated.
“Right fucking now, Corporal,” the woman growled.
Spivak huffed before turning and running back toward the checkpoint, calling for the medic.
“My brother… he’s... he’s in the back. Please, he’s only three. Just don’t hurt him.”
The woman’s voice softened. “Hurt him? Sweetie, why do you think we’re going to hurt him?” the woman said, sounding more like a mother than a hardened soldier. She helped Naomi to her feet. “I’m Staff Sergeant Caitlyn Wyatt. But you can just call me Caitlyn,” she smiled reassuringly. “What’s your name?”
Naomi’s eyes were glued to the truck as two soldiers carefully opened the door, cutting Malcom’s seatbelt with a knife as they prepared for the medic’s arrival. “Naomi,” she finally replied, exhaustion permeating her voice.
“Nice to meet you, Naomi. Sorry about all this, but… Well, as much as I hate to admit it, Spivak is right. We take any and all threats to our men seriously, and when you didn’t stop, we had to assume the worst.”
Naomi remained silent, watching as Spivak returned with the medic.
“No bites?” Boggs asked.
“She said he was shot,” Caitlyn replied.
Boggs pressed his fingers on Malcom’s neck. “Got a pulse, but it’s weak. Spivak, call the ambulance over,” he said with urgency as he worked to remove the makeshift field dressing Naomi concocted back in Van Horn.
The M997A3—a Humvee crossed over with a camper—drove over from the checkpoint, stopping just in front of the F-150. The driver jumped out and opened the back before running over to assist Boggs.
“What’ch’ya got?” the driver asked.
“GSW to the abdomen; through and through. Pulse is weak and, as you can see, a shit-ton of blood loss.”
Naomi stared in relieved horror as the Army medics tried to save Malcom’s life. She had done everything she could. Now it was up to God whether or not Malcom would survive.
“Hey,” Caitlyn said, putting her hand on Naomi’s shoulder and gently turning her away from the grisly scene. “My guys are the best. Your friend… he’ll be okay.”
Naomi nodded, her eyes glistening in the setting Texas sun. “Yeah…”
“It looks like you’ve been through a lot today. Why don’t we get your brother and head to the base? You guys can stay with me for the night, and then we’ll figure out the next steps in the morning. Sound good?” Naomi nodded and followed Caitlyn over to the back door of the F-150. “Well, hey there, handsome,” Caitlyn said as she opened the door, revealing a petrified TJ shaking in his seat. “I’m going to take you and your sister to an Army base to sleep tonight. Doesn’t that sound cool?”
TJ looked at Naomi first, who nodded, before looking back at Caitlyn. He hesitantly agreed, allowing for Caitlyn to unbuckle him from his booster seat. The boy hopped down to the floor and leapt into Naomi’s arms, squeezing her neck like a python. As Naomi followed Caitlyn back toward the checkpoint, she glanced over at Malcom as three men carefully pulled him out of the truck and onto a stretcher.
“Bye bye, Mr. Malcom.” TJ waved, sorrow filling his voice.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
37 – Fort Bliss, El Paso, Texas – July 4th
Alone inside the darkened room, Naomi lay on her cot, smothered in deafening silence—a bizarre condition for the normally boisterous dormitory. She rolled onto her side, praying she would find a few minutes of sleep, but it refused to come. Except for the night she crashed hard in Caitlyn’s room, Naomi hadn’t slept much since arriving at Fort Bliss. The halls were constantly filled with commotion, even in the middle of the night, and there was a putrid odor that mercilessly burned her sinuses. It was unbearably hot, and the walls actually glistened with humidity. It was, by far, the worst living conditions she’d ever experienced, which was a tall order considering some of the dumps they stayed in during their journey.
But even more than the third-world-like accommodations the FEMA camp had to offer, Naomi feared for her safety. Despite being placed with a sweet middle-aged woman named Rosario, Naomi felt like she was on her own. It was up to her to protect TJ and herself in such a threatening environment, a task that became exponentially more difficult when the powers-that-be refused to allow an orphaned fifteen-year-old girl to carry a gun. Evidently, the “brass,” as Caitlyn called them, believed the chances of her getting into trouble with a pistol were higher than the chances that one of the thousands of perverts roaming the camp would rape her. Naomi had a few choice words for the officers when she received the news, but figuring Caitlyn wasn’t going to risk her ass to relay the message, she simply turned around and
locked herself in her room, only leaving when it was absolutely necessary.
Even though she had nothing but time to think about it, Naomi wasn’t able to fully digest everything that happened to her since the end of March. The pain she’d endured… the loss she’d suffered. She went through more than she thought any one person was capable of handling, and yet, she made it to the other side. Thanks to Malcom.
She missed him.
The grief and guilt Naomi bore when her mother died was nothing short of crushing, but even amidst her darkest moments, the flicker of comfort she’d get from the stranger by her side kept her going. Instead of shirking off his promise to Tessa, abandoning her children in their greatest time of need, Malcom had looked after them as if they were his own blood, willing to do whatever it took to keep them safe. Even if it meant giving up his own life.
Naomi’s mind shook off the ominous images of Malcom being carried off on a stretcher. Instead, she focused on her little brother’s future, as well as her own. She fully expected the camp to be bad, but reality was far uglier than anything her imagination could have produced. At first, she accepted the piss-poor conditions in exchange for being safe from the infected. Living in a hellhole was better than not living at all. But just two days ago, a man three units down from her room had turned overnight and viciously attacked his roommate before being shot by a passing soldier. Then the soldier quickly turned his rifle on the roommate, his screams for reprieve permanently seared into Naomi’s memory.
If that had happened during the day while the man was out of his room, or perhaps if Rosario had been the one to contract the disease, Naomi and TJ could have just as easily suffered the same fate as the roommate. Naomi realized that the FEMA camp could no more promise her and TJ safety from infected as they could from pedophiles. Evil, in all its forms, lurked everywhere. There was no wall high enough or razor wire sharp enough to stop it.
Naomi suspected their time at the camp would be short-lived. But if they left, where would they go? It wasn’t as if the world outside the walls was any less dangerous, but at least she would be free. She would be able to hide when she could and fight back—with a gun—when hiding wasn’t an option. And, most of all, she wouldn’t feel like a piece of steak sitting on the counter as a pack of filthy dogs paced back and forth, waiting for their opportunity. In the two weeks she’d lived inside the camp, she witnessed several attempted rapes, a handful of assaults, and heard ten times as many stories of the same crimes.
Naomi was prepared to take her chances with the infected.
Sighing with frustration, Naomi tossed and turned as she tried to silence her overactive mind. Resigned to the fact that she wasn’t going to catch a nap before TJ and Rosario returned with rations from the commissary, Naomi climbed out of her cot and flipped the switch on the wall. The single CFL bulb in the room hummed to life as it washed away the darkness, bathing the depressing-looking room in a thin film of light.
Reaching under her cot, Naomi pulled out a spiral notebook along with a worn-down pencil before she leaned back against the wall. Resting her heels on the metal frame of the cot, she continued to document her life’s journey since the outbreak began, wondering if it would, someday, be studied by historians as they pieced together mankind’s near extinction. Of course, that assumed mankind would actually avoid extinction.
She just finished jotting down her first sentence when she heard the exhilaration in TJ’s thunderous footsteps.
Must’ve been some candy today, Naomi thought.
“Sissy!” TJ yelled as he pushed the door open. “Guess what!?” The boy could hardly contain himself as he froze in the doorway.
“What?” Naomi asked, feigning enthusiasm.
“I said guess! Guess, Sissy!”
“I don’t know. Did you get a candy bar?”
In response, TJ energetically shook his head and stepped into the room. Naomi was struck with a wave of excitement that far surpassed her brother’s. Her eyes widened, and she squealed loudly as she pushed herself off the cot, sending her notebook and pencil across the eight-by-ten room. “Malcom!” she cried as she smashed into him, wrapping her arms around him.
“Easy there, kiddo,” Malcom said as a sharp pain rippled across his stomach from Naomi’s voracious embrace.
Naomi wept joyfully into his chest as TJ hugged both of their legs.
“I thought they weren’t going to release you for at least another week.” Naomi said, pulling away from Malcom’s tear-soaked shirt.
He shrugged. “Well, once they found out I didn’t have insurance, they kicked me to the curb,” he joked.
Naomi giggled and went back in for another hug, slightly gentler this time. She smiled warmly, truly feeling safe for the first time since arriving at the camp.
“Listen,” Malcom said, breaking away from the hug. “I told the administration people that I was your guardian, so they approved you both to come live with me. But I could only get a small tent outside. So, if you want to stay in here—”
“Hell no!” Naomi interrupted, shaking her head vigorously. She looked him in the eye and cracked a smile. “You’re not getting off that easy, bub. You’re stuck with us whether we’re in the presidential suite or a box under a bridge.”
“Yeah!” TJ harrumphed for emphasis.
Malcom laughed. He looked down at the boy, then back over at Naomi. “Well, what are you waiting for then? Go pack your stuff.”
Also by AJ Powers
AJ is a professional game developer working on the biggest franchises in the world--Halo, Call of Duty, Borderlands, DOOM, and System Shock to name a few.
However, when he's not hip-deep in polygons and PBR materials, he switches gears into a writing monster fueled by caffeine and ideas that won't stop pestering him until they are down on paper.
His first full-length novel, As the Ash Fell, released in May of 2015 and has become a best seller in both the US and the UK.
He resides in Ohio with his beautiful wife, Lia, and their three incredible children. They also have a dog that really needs some braces.
Keep up to date with the latest by signing up for AJ's mailing list at http://www.ajpowers.com/newsletter/
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