Wasting Away (28 page)

The
door was opened wide. Sunlight poured through and it blinded me.

I
heard a voice calling out to me.

I
can’t remember my name …

Epilogue

Mary
threw open the door and let the light flood the inside of the warehouse. There
were men firing at the dead across the compound. Bodies collapsed, thick blood
marked the grass in the pools beneath them.

She
waved her hands in the air and one of the men spotted her. He held up his hand
and the others stopped shooting.

She
couldn’t believe how quiet it was when they lowered their rifles.

Several
trucks were parked along the outer gate to the base as men came across the
field toward her.

“She’s
alive,” one of the men said, holding his hand in the air.

From
one of the outbuildings, another man came into view. He wore a thick moustache
and a few days worth of stubble across the rest of his face. “Are there any
others?” he asked.

Mary
shook her head. “No,” she replied, diverting her gaze.

“You’re
all alone here?”

Mary
nodded her head.

Mary
sat at a table, a glass of water at her side, clear and crisp. She looked at
the man and ran her finger along the edge of the glass, remembering.

“It’s
not just his story,” she said. “I told it from his point of view because I
loved who he was. That’s just how I want to remember him.”

“So
you’ve been alone here ever since?” Mitch asked.

Mary
nodded her head and lowered her gaze to her hands, folded in her lap. “I
replayed what he said so many times that I’ve memorized it. I remember every
word. He thought he was a coward, he thought that he wasn’t good enough, but he
was really someone that I’ve come to admire.”

“He
sounded like a good man,” Mitch replied.

She
managed a knowing grin. “He was so much more than that. I loved him. He was my
friend. And in the end, he was everything that heroes aspire to be.”

“Mitch,”
Ed said from the doorway, getting the man’s attention.

“You’ll
have to excuse me for a minute.” Mitch smiled at Mary and stood, pushing the
chair back with a dry scrape.

She
nodded and placed her hand on top of the table, gazing off at the far side of
the room.

“We
haven’t found anyone that fits the description that she gave us. The warehouse
was empty,” Ed whispered, glancing over Mitch’s shoulder at the woman.

“Okay,”
he said with a quick nod. “How about the dead, have you cleared the base?”

“Yeah,
most of them are down. We still have to go through the north end, but it should
be clear by nightfall,” he replied. “So what about the man she described?”

“Keep
looking.”

“You
got it,” Ed replied, turning toward the door. “Is she going to be okay?”

Mitch
looked back through the room at the woman sitting at the table. Her hair was an
early morning mess of tangles, outlining her face in wisps of frizz. She
knotted her hands on the tabletop and stared across the room. “She’ll be fine,”
he replied. “She’s been through a lot.”