American Apocalypse (28 page)

“Sure.”

“Go ask the young lady over there”—he indicated the lone machine gunner—“if she wants a place to stay tonight.”

“Damn, Max, I thought that was a short guy with a fat ass.”

“Well, don’t tell her that, at least not while she is sitting up there.”

I shrugged and walked over to where she could see me. “Hello. Ma’am?”

She was alive. She moved her head a fraction of an inch to look at me better. Her face below the sunglasses was expressionless. “You want to come with us? Maybe get something to eat and a place to sleep?”

I waited for what seemed like a small eternity before she decided to reply: “What’s for dinner? And you better not tell me it is MREs.”

“Actually, I am not sure. Maybe soup. If it isn’t soup, then it won’t be much better than MREs.”

“Ha! Spoken by someone who hasn’t been living on them. Anything is better than MREs. Well, get your ass up here and help me pull this weapon. It can be part of my dowry.”

She knew what she was doing. I didn’t. “Okay grab it from underneath and lift,” she said. I did. This was one heavy piece of metal. “Okay, you got it?” I nodded. “Then toss it over the side.” It was more like
lean over a bit and let it go
. She dropped back down into the vehicle and began tossing out ammo boxes. The sound they made as they hit the ground told me they weren’t going to be light either. “Check up front.” I started looking around. I didn’t find anything worthwhile except a couple of empty plastic water bottles. We used them as canteens. “What did you plan on doing with this stuff?” she asked.

“We are stacking it under the pine tree on the other side of the building.”

“Okay, let’s go! They aren’t going to leave us alone forever.” She took the barrel and I took the other end. Max had sent someone up to the motel to bring down our two functioning vehicles. We loaded them with everything that was under the pine tree and sent them back with Ninja riding in the only empty passenger seat.

We stood there—Max, me, and the army gunner—looking at each other. Max asked her, “You have a full name Corporal Singer?” He had read her name tag.

She took off her sunglasses and helmet. She just let the helmet drop to the ground while she shook out her hair. She had green eyes and dark brown hair, longer than
I expected. She was, I guessed, in her midtwenties. She stuck out her hand. “Singer. Jane Singer.”

“I am Max and this is Gardener. We can walk and talk.”

“Max, you seen Carol?”

“Last I saw of her she was inside the shelter. I’ll go check on her. You go ahead and walk Miss Singer up.” Max didn’t look at me directly. He just left.

I nodded my head and thought to myself,
I should have known
. I caught her looking at me quizzically. She didn’t say anything, though. I started walking and she fell in beside me.

“So, why did you do it?”

“Because they were assholes. Because this isn’t some little mud-brick village in some freaking raggedy-ass country. This is America. Because I didn’t sign on to kill kids.” She shrugged. “It’s also that time of month.”

I laughed. After a minute she did too.

“So where we going? The motel?”

I stopped dead.

“How do you know about the motel?”

“Because in the army they brief you about stuff like that. What? You think we have spies?”

“What would you think?” I replied.

“We do. They just aren’t human.”

Oh, crap
. The realization of what she meant flooded through me. “You think one was overhead?”

She laughed.

It was a dry laugh, more of a snort actually. “There is always at least one overhead around here, plus satellite coverage.” She was talking about surveillance drones.

“So what are the odds we were seen?”

It was dusk. I could feel the chill in the air deepening. It wouldn’t be long before the first hard frost. She thought about my question as we walked. We had almost reached the motel, which gave us a view of the suburbs and city around us.

“Look out there,” she said.

I had been, but I was interested in what she saw. There were more than the normal amount of fires burning. There were also a lot more helicopters in the air. Smallarms fire was audible, so much so that I wasn’t hearing it. Far off in the distance I thought I saw tracers being used.

“I can tell you what the army is seeing: large-scale civil insurrection. Possible terrorist groups engaged in attacking the homeland. From what I was hearing on the radio before everyone freaked out, this wasn’t the only distribution center they were having problems at. After all, how freaking stupid was the idea of taking guns from people. I swear that everyone in the army with the rank of colonel or above has their head up their ass.”

“So I guess that means they won’t be back with anymore free MREs?”

Again the snorted laugh. “Oh, they will be back . . . yes, indeed.”

We didn’t talk after that. I took her to the break room and gave her some soup. Ninja’s girlfriend was sitting there watching television. I asked if there was anything on about what had happened earlier. She shook her head. Somehow I doubted if she had even checked. I asked if she had seen Night. She hadn’t seen her either.

“So what are you doing, then?”

She looked taken aback. “Why, I am watching television.”

I went over and turned it off. “Now you’re not. So why don’t you get off your ass and do something other than using up oxygen. I suggest you go down into the basement and find something to do. If you can’t find anything, then you can clean off the body armor we brought in today.”

She looked as if she really wanted to say something. She even made it as far as opening her mouth before she decided not to. She did slam the door on the way out. I shook my head. I also caught the faint smile that appeared—and then just as quickly disappeared—on Jane’s face.

“Look, I’m sorry, but I am going to have to leave you here for now. I need to go find some people. Either I will be back or I will send someone to help you get settled in.”

“Not a problem. I come from the land of hurry up and wait.”

I felt uneasy about leaving her alone but I didn’t want her tagging along with me. I checked our room, the basement, and the lobby—no Max or Night. I went out front and checked the hill where I knew Max liked to sit sometimes and smoke the cigarette that he denied ever smoking.

He was there.

I eased in next to him and sat there silent. We both sat and watched the fires burn. Off in the distance a building exploded in a fireball.

“Propane?” I asked.

“Maybe. Or it could have been a Predator strike. As crazy as this shit is getting, it wouldn’t surprise me.”

I told Max about Jane’s belief that there were drones watching us now, and probably had been for a while.

“Yeah, I figured as much. My hope was that we would be too small and so obviously nonthreatening that we would never show up as the subject of anyone’s briefing.”

“I guess that changed today? No, don’t bother replying; I know it changed today. So, how badly are we screwed, Max?” He didn’t say anything. The roar of military jets flying overhead blocked all the other night sounds for a minute or so.

“Between me and you?”

I nodded.

“I can’t make you not tell Night, but I wouldn’t if I were you. She will know soon enough anyway. Let her be as close to happy as she can be for another day or so.”

“We’re going to die?”

“More than likely. I am surprised we aren’t already dead. It must be because we are American citizens on U.S. soil that they haven’t taken action. That won’t last long. They just need to go a little higher up the chain of command for approval, and then figure out an operation plan that will give them plausible deniability.”

I said, “As if anyone will ever know or care.” I wasn’t even bitter. I understood. There was a moment of silence and then I asked Max, “So what are we going to do?”

“Right now I am going to sit out here and think about it for a bit. I’ll let you know.”

I was walking back to the house when I heard them: two helicopters headed our way. No lights. I saw them only because of the black holes they created in the backdrop of city lights. Black holes that became illuminated as the pilot of the one on my right released the missiles. My world disappeared in flames and then darkness.

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