Kristen Simmons - Breaking Point

Or if he were in this truck right now.

Some broke the pressure by talking about the safe house. A few of them had been there, and nearly everyone had sent family that direction.

“If every other person’s mama lives there,” asked someone from the other side of the compartment. “How big is this place?”

“Big,” said someone.

“Real big,” said another.

“It’s a town, man. They’ve taken over a whole town.”

At first I struggled, trying to place something like the Wayland Inn or the tunnels in the context of a beachfront property. But then my mind relaxed, and I saw houses on stilts, like I’d seen in pictures long ago. Homes filled with people, bustling with life. A soup kitchen line, like at home, where rations were given out. Yellow sand and the ocean, deep and everlasting.

Marco and Polo had suspected it wasn’t just refugees that inhabited the safe house, but the mysterious Three as well. Would their presence make us safer? Or put us in more danger? Finally the vehicle jostled to a stop, and we all braced for what might wait outside.

Trees. That was what I saw first. Tall and leafy, overgrown with ivy and spindly webs that reflected the face of the moon. The air seeped into my pores, so much fresher than the suffocating interior of the truck. My whole body lifted. We were going to be safe at last.

I listened as hard as I could, but couldn’t hear the waves. Some of the people from Chicago had talked about that—hearing the ocean, smelling the salt. But I couldn’t.

I couldn’t hear soldiers either. We were far away from the road, far away from any bases or patrol cars. Miles and miles from the FBR.

We were free.

Truck helped me down, carting me from the tailgate like I weighed no more than a small child. Up close I could see that his eyes were sunken with fatigue, and his huge muscular neck was the same width as his jaw.

“Where’s the ocean?” I asked, frowning.

“Six miles east,” he said, his face falling into shadow. “Usually there’s a scout here to lead us into camp. I tried to radio ahead to them we were coming, but the lines are down.”

I frowned, and he play-punched my arm. “No worries,” he said. “They probably just ran out of batteries. I know the way in.”

The injured were carried, or loaded on stretchers made from blankets. Though Rebecca had tried to walk unassisted, the soft, mossy soil was too uneven for her dragging feet, and she reluctantly agreed to let Sean carry her piggyback.

Truck led us on a narrow path through the darkness. With my good arm, I carried a bucket of medical supplies that had been salvaged from the tunnels, and Chase hauled a flat of ammunition. Despite the added weight, the weariness lifted off my shoulders and my body hummed with excitement.

We stopped at a stream to rest the injured and refill our canteens. My worries about Tucker, about Harper, about the rat who’d sold out the Chicago resistance, drifted downstream with the current. I let the cool water wash over my hands and my sore wrist and my face, and breathed in deeply.

When I opened my eyes, I found Chase watching me. His face was momentarily void of the worry he’d been carrying since the hospital, his eyes clear of the horror we’d seen there. Now a small smile lifted his mouth, and he settled back on his heels. It took me a full beat to realize that he looked relieved.

I don’t know what it was, the fresh air, or the freedom of movement after hours in a cattle car. Maybe it was that we finally knew Rebecca was safe and that we were so close to security, or just the way he looked at me, with all the secrets stripped away. Whatever it was tipped something inside, and I splashed him, soaking the front of his shirt and his shins. His mouth fell open in shock.

Then, just like when we were kids, I ran.

I raced away from the group, darting around trees and over bushes, hearing his footsteps hot on my heels. His hand grasped at my waist once, but I evaded him with a stifled scream and ran on. We were in a Red Zone, off the road, close to the safe house—we would not be less in danger than we were right now.

He caught me before the lights from the stream had disappeared. His strong arms closed around my waist and hoisted me up and I kicked through the air and giggled. He smiled into my neck, and I smiled, too, because this, this was joy. This, at last, was the leap beyond escape, beyond the shaking threshold of survival.

“Come on,” Chase said, taking my hand. “We’re close. I can hear the water.” We’d come back for the supplies we’d left at the creek.

I listened, but I couldn’t hear what he had yet. Still, I raced after him, faster and faster in the direction of the coast.

The smell hit us first. Pungent wood smoke, oil and dust. Something metallic, too, overriding the salt in the air. I heard it then, the sound of the ocean. The waves. But everything within me had clamped down, and excitement could not penetrate the foreboding sense of danger.

The trees cleared, and the grass grew long, almost to my shoulders. We shoved through, cresting a sand dune.

My heart tripped in my chest.

“No,” Chase said weakly.

There before us were the remains of a town. Houses were burned to the ground; some still smoking. Black and charred like the night. Brick and concrete had been blown away, decimated, like the buildings in Chicago. Piles of fresh rubble, yet untouched by moss and weeds, blocked out whole city streets. The hood of a car rested on the ground near us, warped and bent by the explosion that had catapulted it thirty feet away from its overturned body. Beyond it all lapped the silver ocean, constant and deep, unable to voice the horrors that had taken place here.

My knees weakened, and I pitched forward, succumbing to the weight of our hope as it crashed down upon us.

The safe house had been destroyed.

THEashes clung to my boots, to the legs of my pants. To my arms and my hair, to the sweat of my neck. To the empty cavity in my chest, where joy and hope had both been carved away.

Fifty warm bodies within fifty yards of one another ; that was what Sprewell had said. There had been more than fifty people at the safe house, all gathered close for their mutual protection. Heat-seeking missiles had leveled them. LDEDs. That was the only explanation; soldiers on foot would have needed an evacuation route, and there was simply too much demolition to be anything but bombs.

When we’d mobilized enough strength to return to the group, I’d told Jack and Truck this, and Sean and Tucker, intent to see the damage for themselves, had been brought in to corroborate what we’d learned in the rehab hospital. Those still with their wits about them were immediately tasked with rounding up the group for a roll call. With chaos erupting and fear running rampant, this was no easy task, but after a while they fell in line.

There were forty-seven of us in all, counting Rebecca, the Knoxville contingency, and Tubman. Not fifty, but close enough.

Chase was the one to suggest we split up to survey the damage. Rebecca and the others injured in the tunnels were assisted back into the cover of the woods by Sean, the medic, and three other soldiers. There was a wildlife station in the marshes, a dingy shack filled with mosquitoes and stagnant pond water, but it had a roof, and could hold ten bodies laid out on the concrete floor.

Truck and Tubman, our drivers, formed another team.

“Someone’s got to warn the other branches,” said Truck. “Quick. So they don’t send anyone else out this way.” It was something I imagined Three would have done, but if they still existed, they would leave no directions for the carriers here.