by Schow, Ryan
Barde covered Jin with his weapon, but the violence hit Longwei all wrong. He started to sweat, so badly he needed to wipe his eyes twice. There was no way he could watch the rest of it. When the pulping sounds stopped, Jin confiscated the dead man’s rifle then dragged him into a nearby ditch.
“Couldn’t you have just shot him?” Longwei asked, his face cold outside but burning hot beneath the skin. He felt like he was going to puke, seeing the meatloaf Jin made of the man’s features.
“Why would he waste the bullet?” Ning asked.
By this time, Barde was looking at him funny. Fortunately Jin was breathing too heavily to notice Longwei’s barely restrained meltdown.
“And you!” Longwei hissed at Barde. “Were you really trying to cut off that guy’s head in the middle of a war zone?”
“I wanted to see if I could do what the girl did,” he said, eyes on the ridge the SAA soldier had come down.
“Felicity!” he barked. “Her name is Felicity.”
“Someone’s in love,” Ning teased, his eyes contemptuous, full of judgement.
“It’s not like that,” Longwei said, embarrassed by his outburst.
When nothing more happened, the four of them changed positions, went for a better look at the SAA troops. What they found took their collective breath. The SAA was a mammoth, snaking line of vehicles that stretched as far as the eye could see.
The trucks clogged all of Interstate 5, the South American Army sending their soldiers into each building before they wiped it off the face of the earth. Fortunately they weren’t bringing anyone out of the building and they weren’t dumping ammo in a shoot out.
“I think they got out,” Jin said of the Five Falls residents.
“Or they’re already dead,” Barde argued. “I don’t want to think like that, but we have to prepare ourselves for that possibility.”
With nothing safe to do but watch the SAA rip through the town, destroying it inch by inch, Longwei’s anxiety attack both gained a foothold in him and had him twitching.
“What’s wrong with you?” Ning asked, looking at him. “Anxiety attack? Because this isn’t the time for that.”
“We need to get to the bug out location,” Longwei said, ignoring the jab. “We need to see if they’re safe.”
“We’re not getting on the other side of that convoy anytime soon,” Barde muttered.
Night fell before the SAA finally cut a pathway around the second trench. When they were clear, however, the trucks moved slowly through the night, the sound of engines at first offensive, but then hypnotic. By the time the last of the vehicles cleared the scene, the four of them were fast asleep in the woods, half a click out from the Jeep.
The next morning, Longwei and his men found them—the Five Falls survivors. They were down on the interstate amidst the smoking ruin of a battle that took too much from the town. Half the local fighters had been killed, including Noah, Connor and Otto, according to the people Longwei spoke to. This news was overwhelming and grave. People were transporting the dead bodies to the tow truck, which had a long, flatbed trailer attached to a ball hitch. There were a dozen men and women stacked on the flatbed already. The sight of them leveled Longwei. Was Felicity among the dead? He had to know.
Moving down the line, eyes roving through the carnage, he finally found Felicity. His jack rabbit heart fell still at the sight of her. She made it! That anxious something in him, that pestering unease that had burrowed in like a tick, finally released and he found he could breathe again. The truly unusual thing was that he and Felicity barely knew each other. But the sadness and the tremendous violence that he’d watched her mete out on the men who took everything from her leveled him with an onslaught of emotions he couldn’t interpret, organize or even understand. It was as if he’d been standing too close to her when her innocence was destroyed, so close that the ruined parts of her landed on him and, for some strange reason, he understood her better for it. What an odd and unsettling connection to share with someone you didn’t know. But it was also deeply comforting to know that in the midst of so much loss, this young woman had survived the worst of it and then some. Perhaps her survival was emblematic of their survival. Would America and her allies chart a similar course? Would they emerge from this horror? And if so, would they do so ravaged but alive, avenged and victorious? If he lived long enough, perhaps time and circumstance would tell. Until then, all he could do was pray, and hope.
Seeing her picking through the rubble of ruined SAA vehicles and the dead, he didn’t imagine Felicity would share the same emotions, or even understand what he was feeling. It wasn’t love, as was suggested. But what was it? Even he didn’t know. He was almost mad at himself for not understanding it. And he was even more upset at himself for not being able to shake it. Right then she looked up at him. She saw him, but she glanced away, like he was anyone else, or no one at all. In truth, he’d be surprised if she remembered his name, let alone felt some sort of connection with him for what she had survived.
“You’ve been out of it,” Ning said, looking up at him. He followed Longwei’s gaze, found her and said, “Ah, now I get it. For a Hispanic, she’s pretty.”
“It’s not like that,” Longwei said low, almost under his breath.
“I know,” Ning said. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
Where the Chicoms were cruel and hateful toward their women, Longwei was the opposite. He never understood their hostility, but he understood protecting those who couldn’t protect themselves. Perhaps that was why his protective nature had kicked in. Behind him, someone tapped him on the shoulder and said, “Can you help us?” It was one of the kids. He looked like he was fourteen or fifteen years old, his face blackened by smoke, his hands dirty. He’d been carrying bodies from the roadside. Friends of theirs? Family? Enemy soldiers?
“Sure, you bet,” he said. To Ning and the guys he said, “Let’s give these folks a hand.”
They spent the morning collecting bodies, and though the task was brutal and unending, there was no way for him to throw himself into it, to autopilot his way through the day, for he seemed to be incapable of protecting himself from the emotions of others. That wasn’t even taking into account the scores of dead. Each loss was a devastation he couldn’t seem to shake. The more bodies he moved, the more he found himself feeling raw, so moved by the death he could no longer stall his tears, tears he somehow managed to shed in private, ten feet away from two dead men he didn’t know.
For a very long moment, Longwei looked around and all he saw was hell, and worlds of suffering. His brain turned inside out, the rush of emotion crashing over him like a breaking wave. How was he supposed to survive this? Could he even go back to work at this point? And how was he supposed to find any peace beyond this day, this week, this year? For the first time in his life, Longwei looked around and was scared of everything.
“Are you okay?” Felicity asked from behind him.
He turned, saw her, and wiped his eyes. Embarrassed, he smiled and said, “Yes, thank you.”
“You were in Roseburg, right?” she asked. “Longwei Zhou?”
“You remember,” he said, heartened.
“I wanted to thank you for saving my life,” she said, offering him a hand. He took it and she pulled him to his feet.
“I’m just glad you’re okay,” he replied, unable to think of anything else to say. “I’ve been worried.”
She looked away, and her eyes began to water. He stood up, but all he could do was look at her. As the tears dripped down her face, she stood there.
“Come here,” he said, and she turned into him.
He hugged her, and the moment lasted longer than he thought. He did not want anymore of her pain infecting him, but she needed someplace to put her grief, so in that moment, he would be there for her again, even if it cost him everything.
Chapter Three
Quan and his crew slowly made their way to Portland. Steve Daily was driving. The white boy. The All-American w
ho joined the Chicom defectors because he hated what had happened to his country and needed to rail against the communists. He’d become Quan’s most trusted ally. Now he was the driver. And he was good. Quan wouldn’t have the patience Steve had for navigating through the destruction the Chicom army waged along the highways and byways. In some places, it looked like they’d taken a wrecking ball to the place.
Night fell on them too soon. No one said anything as they pushed on. The rattling of the Chicom transport provided its own metallic lullaby. Quan’s satellite phone beeped startling him. He picked it up.
“Who is this?” Quan asked.
“Who’s this?” the familiar voice asked in return.
“President Hu,” he said with a creeping grin. He’d been waiting for this call since they got in the transport.
“I was phoning in for takeout,” Tong Lim said, relief in his own voice. “Did I get the wrong number?”
“Not at all,” Quan said, completing the identification and safety sequence they always used when making such dangerous calls.
“Tons of updates for you, brother,” Tong said.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, finally,” his friend and contact at Yale said. “The EU Army finally clashed with the African Union in Philadelphia. People there said they’ve never seen a more ferocious conflict. The EU Army emerged victorious but nearly crippled.”
“And?” Quan asked excited.
He felt Steve glance his way, as if the kid knew the importance of the call and wanted to know firsthand what was happening.
“The Americans waited until the EUA rallied their ranks and prepared to move out before hitting them with a full scale attack,” Tong said, as excited to tell Quan as Quan was excited to hear it. “The word on high is that it was ugly.”
Quan felt himself sit up, the smile on his face widening with each morsel of good news.
“This is encouraging,” Quan said.
“Immensely,” Tong said. “The patriots wiped out what was left of both the EU ranks and the retreating, depleted AA ranks. They cut through them like they were nothing, Quan.”
“So does that mean the patriots have taken the East Coast back?” Quan asked, his eyes now meeting Steve’s.
“It’s a mop up, of course,” Tong answered. “Lots of survivors dug in here and there. But the best part of this is, the patriots were finally able to reach the generals overseas.”
“Really,” Quan said, surprised.
“You know how big of a problem that’s been. Needless to say, the US military began wrapping things up in the Middle East and is now working at a fever pitch to get back home.”
“That’s fantastic news,” Quan said.
“Like I said, though,” Tong replied, sounding less enthusiastic, “there are problems. Well, more like…complications.”
“Did they even know what was happening here?” Quan asked. “Because I find it impossible to think the military would so willfully stay in the dark for years.”
“This is what I meant by complications,” Tong said. “The Chicoms infiltrated and compromised the highest ranks of the US military, as preposterous and difficult as that is to believe.”
“It’s not that hard when you consider the President all but bankrupted the military in 2027, leaving us completely vulnerable to the Chicoms, and any other army looking to carve off a chunk of America for themselves. Or that before that, the Chicoms infiltrated the government, big pharma, big tech, the media, Hollywood.”
“Communications from the states were systematically cut, and power was handed to the compromised generals. This is why chain of command overseas was able to conceal the horrors going on over here, or the subsequent occupation. They were complicit in the cover up, a cover up and a coup that started thirty or forty years ago.”
“They lied to the true generals,” Quan said, deflated.
“Yes,” Tong replied.
Quan sat back, looked out the side window, the scope of this thing nearly unfathomable. He sighed deep. The darkness ahead was practically impenetrable.
“You still there?” Tong asked.
“Yeah,” Quan said. “I’m just processing the betrayal. It seems impossible if you think about what this kind of infiltration must have taken in terms of planning and patience.”
“A handful of the highest ranking generals are Chicom plants,” Tong said, lowering his voice almost to a whisper. “That’s a forty year plan, brother. But we found them. All the traitors embedded in the US military, we found them.”
“Thank God,” he said.
“We got word to the right people and they’re now staging a coup of their own. If everything goes according to plan, the Chicom plants will be executed on sight in the morning and our military can get back home.”
“What about the SAA?” Quan asked.
“Half of them split when they broke through the southern border wall,” Tong continued. “As you know, half the army moved to overtake California.”
“And the other half?”
“They ran through New Mexico and attacked Texas. Hu betrayed President Guerrero when he leveled California. You know that, right?”
“I didn’t know there was a betrayal,” Quan said. “I just thought he got pissed and blew everyone up. You know Hu. He’s a heartless monster.”
“That’s being generous,” Tong mumbled.
“So we don’t have to worry about them coming here anymore?” Quan asked.
“I don’t think so,” Tong replied. “Satellite images of California show a wasteland. If anything survived after the bombing runs, they’ll be lucky to even find something to eat.”
“What about Texas?”
“A massive war effort has been underway to protect them from the SAA,” Tong said. “But embedded factions of La Raza joined forces with the SAA to take back Texas and now things are looking precarious. They didn’t even see the attack coming.”
“How is that possible?” Quan asked, dumbfounded.
“Well, they did. I mean, obviously they anticipated something. But they didn’t expect La Raza to rise as quickly and as ferociously as they did. They’ve been entrenched in Texas forever.”
“Do you think the SAA will win?” he asked.
“I’m not sure,” Tong replied. “The Texans have their footing now, but who knows how they’ll fare in the long run?”
“Have you heard from anyone with boots on the ground?”
“One of our Texas contacts has compared their fighting spirit to that of their ancestors, the same ones who fought at the Alamo.”
“That’s a straight war though,” Quan said understanding. “Their forces versus the SAA and La Raza forces.”
“That’s right,” Tong said.
“No way to pit two armies against each other and clean up the middle.” Quan glanced back over Steve, who was now both eyes on the road and navigating through yet another cluster of EMP abandoned cars.
“Where are you now?” Tong asked.
“Heading for Portland, but it’s slow going,” Quan said. “We should be there soon, barring any problems or setbacks.”
“Portland is a nightmare,” Tong said without much emotion. “You’re not in a Jeep are you?”
“No, but we’re in a Chicom transport.”
“Find another means of transportation, if you can,” Tong Lim said. “The Chicoms bullied their way through the city, even though they were trying to leave the metropolis untouched for future purposes. The Americans gave them hell though.”
“And?”
“They didn’t exactly halve the Chicom forces, but the patriots didn’t suffer defeat either. Which means if they see you, they’ll probably try to kill you.”
Quan nodded his head, thanked his friend, then hung up the phone and kept his eyes peeled. When they approached the outskirts of downtown Portland, a bullet tore through the truck’s windshield, causing Steve to swerve and stomp on the gas.
“Hold on to your butts!” Steve shouted to the troops in
back.
Quan ducked down, tucking himself against a thick strip of metal sitting just behind the door. A few more shots were fired, one that put another hole in the windshield. By some miracle, however, they managed to clear the hot zone and make their way into Portland proper.
Looking over at Steve, who was now wide awake, Quan said, “How are you doing?”
“Peachy,” Steve replied.
The night was so thick it seemed even the headlights had a hard time penetrating the darkness. When they cleared the two-round ambush, Steve rolled down the window, let the cool air flood in. He was sweating.
“It’s like a cemetery out there,” Steve said.
Everything was so quiet it felt like being in a pressure cooker where the pressure made you want to run or scream. In the back of the transport, the men and Lienna held their rifles, vigilant. They were moving at less than five miles per hour, driving on the soft shoulders to get around the vehicles, a couple of the guys getting out from time to time to move some of the larger obstacles off the road.
Only the sounds of the engine noise and the tires creeping over dirty asphalt beat back the silence. Quan looked over, sensed Steve’s stress. He was scared. Quan didn’t blame him. If he was the American, the first thing he’d do was bury the accelerator and rocket their way out of there. Fortunately, Steve tempered himself. Quan trusted him to know when to smash the gas and when to ride the brakes, much more so than he trusted himself.
The city around them had that barren, dead feel about it. As they closed in on the downtown area, shadowy, monolithic skeletons rose high against a black sky making his skin crawl.
“I don’t like this,” Steve quietly said to Quan.
“Do we need a plan B?”
“Yeah,” he said, looking at the gauges. “We need gas, too.”
“What are you thinking?” Quan asked.
