Exiled Omnibus (27 page)

***

The van’s tires spun wildly in the mud, sending a spray of brown and black flying behind it. Even though the wheels’ movement was rapid, Terry’s progress was slow. He let off the gas and slammed his fist onto the dash, causing an already large crack in the plastic to widen.

The thick Mississippi mud was proving to be too much for his two-wheel-drive van. It wasn’t built for this type of terrain. Terry stepped back out onto the mudded road and saw that his rear right tire was half sunk in the brown muck.

Terry grabbed the axe from the back of the van and proceeded to chop down branches. He chose ones that were sturdy but not too thick for the van’s tires to climb over. He figured three pieces of wood could do the job. He levered one end of each branch down between the mud and the tire. He used the back of the axe head to hammer each branch deep enough for the tire to gain traction on it.

The rough wooden handle of the axle glided through Terry’s hands with ease, but on the last blow, a splinter caught the palm of his hand, and he winced. The sharp edge of the thin piece of wood jutted out from his flesh. He pinched the end between his fingers and pulled, sliding the splinter out. A small trickle of blood followed, and Terry wiped his palm on the side of his jeans.

With the wood firmly in place, Terry jumped back in the driver’s seat. He slowly put his foot on the gas. The van’s tires slipped and crunched against the sticks underneath. Slowly, the van dug itself out of the muddy rut. Terry pulled over to the side of the road, where the ground was more compacted.

The front windshield was splintered and cracked from the bullets. The damage made it nearly impossible to see anything. Terry leaned back and brought the heel of his boot up to the windshield and smashed it against the already shattered glass. The glass bulged outward from the force of the impact. He crushed his heel against the windshield again, creating another balloon of broken glass.

Glass shards fell to the dash, and Terry reached for the axe. He stepped out of the van and swung the axe violently into the windshield, then pulled the axe backward with one strong yank. The force cut an opening large enough for the rest of the windshield to easily give way.

Terry repeated the violent blows until there was nothing left. The front of the van was completely open and exposed. He tossed the axe through the open space, and it crashed into the back of the van. He brushed the shards of glass off the driver’s seat and from the top of the dash.

He booted up his small laptop at the makeshift desk and waited for the screen to load. He glanced down at his fingers, stained with small bits of red from the cut along his palm and the tiny cuts the pieces of glass had inflicted.

Terry typed in his password, staining some of the keys with his blood. He opened a program, and a large map of the globe appeared in a three-dimensional graphic. There was a small search box in the top left corner with enough space for a seven-digit number. After the number was entered, the three-dimensional globe on the screen rotated and zoomed in on the United States. It buffered, then zoomed in on the Southeast, buffered again, and then revealed a small red dot traveling along the border of Alabama just outside Mobile.

***

Dave tossed the bloody needle and remaining thread into a biohazard bag and sealed it. The stiches in Eric’s shoulder stretched five across. It’d been a while since he’d sewn anything, or anyone, up, but he didn’t think Eric would mind the scar when he woke, as long as he was alive.

“What the hell did you get yourself into?” Dave asked.

It may have been the first time in his life that Eric didn’t have a smart-ass comment, which Dave discovered that he missed. That was also a first. Dave checked the IV bag, which was halfway through its drip, then took a seat at the foot of the bed. He knew the family that had brought Eric here was in the living room. He had heard the familiar sounds of cartoons from the television as he stitched Eric up. He just wasn’t sure how to approach them.

Dave grabbed the medical bag and stopped in the hallway bathroom before entering the living room. He figured it best to wash the blood off his hands since the little girl was with them. He figured she’d seen enough blood for one day.

When Dave walked out into the living room, Emily was on her stomach right in front of the television, and John was fast asleep on the couch.

“Where’s your mom?” Dave asked.

Emily didn’t say anything. She simply pointed to her left. Dave could see Brooke outside through his front window. She was walking around her car like she was looking for something. Dave turned back to Emily, unfamiliar with the needs of a child.

“Um, are you hungry or anything?” Dave asked.

Emily shook her head.

“All right then. I’m gonna go talk to your mom.”

Brooke stopped her inspection when Dave walked out. She rushed over to him.

“He’s all right for now. Just resting. We’ll have to keep an eye on him, but he should be fine in a day or two,” Dave said.

“Thank you,” Brooke said.

“So I don’t really know how to say this without sounding like an ass, but… Who are you?”

“Brooke. Those are my kids inside. Eric was a friend of my husband in the military.”

“What branch?”

“Marines.”

“Well, then. Oo-rah. I’m Dave.”

The two shook hands, and Dave walked over to the cruiser, examining the bullet holes that decorated the sides and back windshield. “Looks like you guys have been through it.”

“It’s been a long week,” Brooke said.

“Well, since it’s going to be a while before Captain America wakes up, why don’t we have some dinner. Judging by the condition of your vehicle, I’d say you could use a hot meal.”

“Thanks.”

“I’ll open the garage, and you can pull your car in. I have some nosy neighbors.”

Dave pushed a barbeque grill from the middle of the garage to the side to make room. Brooke inched the cruiser forward, barely clearing the garage’s roof. Once it was fully inside, Dave shut the garage door and turned off the light.

“I hope you don’t mind chicken,” Dave said.

“That’s perfectly fine. Thank you,” Brooke said.

***

Dinner was quick. Eric even woke up halfway through but still wasn’t strong enough to join them. John and Emily didn’t say much. Once it was over, Emily stumbled back over to the floor in front of the television, and John lay on the couch.

“I guess you’ve been on the road for a while,” Dave said, taking the plates from the table.

“Yeah,” Brooke answered.

Brooke pulled her hair back and gathered it in a ponytail. She had thought the warm meal would energize her, but all it did was make her want to pass out. Her entire body felt like it was made of lead. She watched Dave wash off some of the plates and got up to help.

“No, you don’t have to do that,” Dave said.

“It’s fine. Really.”

Dave washed while Brooke dried. After the dishes, she helped wipe down the table and counters. She tossed the dirty rag into the sink and heard the distinctive crack of a beer opening. Frosty vapor escaped the brown bottle as Dave extended it to Brooke.

“Haven’t had one of these in a while,” Brooke said, taking a sip.

“I figured you could use one.”

The golden liquid washed down the back of Brooke’s throat, cooling the perpetual dryness that seemed to be stuck there no matter how much water she drank. The two of them sat at the kitchen table in silence. With each sip of beer, she could feel herself wake up a little bit. Her kids, however, ended up passing out right where they lay.

“I’ve got another bedroom they could sleep in,” Dave said.

Brooke carried Emily, and Dave scooped John off the couch. The second spare bedroom was at the opposite end from where Eric was resting. It was slightly smaller, and the two kids barely fit on the twin mattress, but it was better than the floor. Brooke closed the door behind her, and they walked back into the kitchen to finish their beers.

One by one, the empty bottles multiplied on the kitchen table. An hour later, thirteen long-neck soldiers joined their brothers, and both Dave and Brooke were rosy cheeked and trying to quiet their laughter.

“Wait. Wait. I’ve been wondering this since I met him. How the hell did he get that nickname?” Brooke asked, swaying back and forth slightly in her chair.

“Scratch?”

“Yeah.”

“It was right before we deployed for our first tour in Iraq. He must have been nineteen at the oldest. If you think he’s a smartass now, you wouldn’t believe what came out of his mouth at that age.”

“I can imagine.”

“Skinny as a toothpick with the energy of a cracked-up six-year-old. Anyway, the unit went out on the town. We drank, fought, drank, and then drank some more. I think you get the gist. Well, toward the end of the night, Eric sees this girl at the bar we were at. It was almost closing time, and the last-call bell had just rung. He could barely stand, let alone walk over to her, but he was determined to go home with somebody. So after some heartfelt chants from us egging him on, he eventually made it over to her and then disappeared out the back door with the woman pulling him by his shirt collar.”

“So why the nickname? He didn’t scratch or strike out.”

Dave’s body started shaking as soundless laughs escaped him. His face was all scrunched up and red, and just the sight of him caused Brooke to break out in a giggle fit. Dave attempted to tell the rest of the story through deep breaths between laughs.

“She was… a hooker… and he got crabs.”

Brooke wobbled and almost fell out of her chair. Her hand slapped against the kitchen table to help stabilize her.

“He scratched himself for weeks before he finally went to the medical unit. He didn’t know what it was,” Dave said, wheezing from laughter.

Tears formed in their eyes. Brooke’s cheeks started to feel sore from laughing so hard. She rubbed them to try and get the stiffness out. Her fingertips brushed the round edge of the bottle and missed, triggering another laughing fit from both of them.

“I can’t… grab it,” Brooke said, clutching her stomach.

It took a few minutes before the two of them settled down. Brooke could feel the heavy calmness wash over her after regaining her composure. Her nose was stuffy, and she had to keep wiping away the water still leaking from the corners of her eyes. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d laughed so hard.

Brooke tried to think back to when she felt happy. Not just good or content but having the genuine feeling of pure joy. She searched through her beer-soaked mind for memories that would have granted her such a release, but the only things she could find were the fright-filled moments of the past week: the president’s announcement, the desert marauders, the Mexican gangs, the police, the violence, the bullets, the blood, the vibrations from the explosions.

The brief moment of escape that the empty beer bottles had granted was merely that: brief. Once the ambrosia wore off, it was back to reality and the dangers that came with it. Brooke could feel the light expression of laughter on her face be replaced by the heavy burden of consequence.

“That’s all it is, isn’t it,” Brooke said.

“All what is?” Dave asked.

“Consequences. Life is about consequences. The choices we make, good or bad, right or wrong, there’s always a consequence on the other side of it. And that’s what this is. A consequence.”

The rim of the bottle found Brooke’s lips one more time as she took another sip. The choices of previous generations had led to the consequences that her family and millions of other families were now forced to bear. It all just seemed to be an endless cycle of debt owed to the next generation. And now both Emily and John were charged with the consequences of her debt.

“I should have gotten out sooner,” Brooke said.

Dave set his bottle down. Brooke could see the lines and creases of his face lose their joyful curves. His face now looked like Brooke’s felt: sad.

“You did what you could,” Dave said, reaching out and taking her hand. “Your family’s alive because of you. Eric’s alive because of you. You’re alive. And as long it stays that way, there’s always a chance to make it to the other side. I promise you that.”

“Thank you.”

Brooke wanted to believe him. She wanted to believe that there was still hope for things to change for the better. But it seemed that every time she was close, every time she thought there was a light at the end of the tunnel, it was stamped out by acts of violent hate.

When Jason was alive, he had told her stories of some of the men that were under his command and what they’d seen while on duty. The horrors of war were hard to forget. A lot of them never really came home. He had told her that a man can only compartmentalize so much before he forgets which box he’s supposed to be in, which box is real.

Brooke could feel her mind struggling to do the same thing, trying to compartmentalize everything.
Home, family, water, survival, death, murder, blood, life, death, life, death.
All of it circled round and round. She felt dizzy. She held her head in both arms, trying to stop the room from spinning.

“Oh, God,” Brooke said.

“Well, I think we’ve both had enough,” Dave said, finishing his beer.

Dave helped her up from her chair and guided her to the couch. Brooke felt herself fall backward onto a cushion and then the cool feeling of cotton being pulled over her body as she gripped the sheet and closed her eyes.