John O'Brien - Sanctuary

The experiences we’ve had over the past week or so have changed them. They are confident and fully aware of the situation we find ourselves in. A little over a week ago, they were attending school and now have flown half way across the world, meeting with countless night runners. In that time, Robert has learned to fly a 130, has done so with a high degree of skill, and has been involved in several skirmishes and intense firefights. Bri has been an integral part of flying the 130, learning the systems and able to do the flight engineer job in her sleep. She has also seen several encounters. Those experiences have put an added confidence and wisdom in their eyes.

“Hi, Jack,” Jessica says turning her dark brown eyes towards me with a little uncertainty in her voice. It’s been a while since we have seen each other. We were once close but time and the separation saw a change to that. She must be about twenty now , I think seeing her stand by the kitchen entry.

“Hi, Jessica. Nice to see you again,” I say with a touch of self-consciousness as well.

“I only found a few bottles of water left at the gas station,” Jessica says turning to Kelly and Brian, depositing the bottles on the kitchen counter.

“Wait, what!?” Lynn exclaims. “Are you telling me you let her go out and into a building by herself?”

“We’ve been in there before so it’s okay,” Brian responds.

“You do understand what’s going on and what we’re dealing with right!?” Lynn counters.

“Yes,” Brian answers.

Lynn hangs her head and shakes it from side to side before looking up at me. “Tell me why we came down here again?” She asks. That’s my Lynn, blunt and to the point.

“Let’s just focus and get ready for tonight, although that wasn’t the greatest of ideas,” I add looking at Kelly. “We need to talk about tonight’s plan.”

“What do we need to do?” Kelly asks.

“First of all, we need to barricade the front door and put something up to block the kitchen window,” I say thinking that those are the two most prevalent entrances at ground level. I’m not too keen on blocking our only routes out but I don’t really see much of an alternative.

“What about using the couch for the door?” Bri asks.

I look over at the larger of the two couches in the living room thinking it may indeed fit in the entrance foyer against the door and opposing wall. “Good idea, Bri. Why don’t you, Robert, and Brian see if you can wedge it in place?”

As they begin moving the couch, I look around the rest of the place for something to block the kitchen window that overlooks the entrance to the front door. It’s not the easiest solution finding something to put over the sink that will hold but I eventually settle on a small bookcase in one of the bedrooms. Pulling the books and knickknacks off the shelves, Lynn and I lift the bookcase up against the window with the back to the outside. We also grab the smaller couch and wedge it between the shelves and the kitchen counter, pulling and pushing to make sure it is pressed firmly against the shelves, wedging it firmly in place. Robert, Bri, and Brian manage to fit the couch against the front door.

We all gather in the now couch-less living room. An orange glow peeks around the closed blinds announcing that the day is rapidly drawing to a close. I notice a not-so-faint aroma rising from my clothes. Yeah, the confined space we’ll be in tonight should be interesting in that regard and I wish I had brought a change.

“You know that bathroom isn’t very defensible,” Lynn says.

“I know. What do you think about using the back bedroom if something goes down tonight? ” I ask.

“I think that’s probably our best bet,” she answers.

“Let’s go take a look then.”

As a group, we move to the back bedroom down a narrow hallway filled with framed family pictures on the walls. The bedroom is mostly filled with a bed and dresser. To the left and backside of the apartment, long, white, slat-like blinds hang vertically over a sliding glass door leading to a small patio. The patio itself stands a good ten feet off another paved driveway and parking places. To the right, a good-sized walk-in closet opens off the room with a larger bathroom just past it. The frosted window in the bathroom leading outside is too small for anyone or anything to gain entrance.

The walk-in closet is filled with clothing in every available space with shoe boxes and shoes lining the floor underneath. “Kelly, can you clean off the closet floor?” I ask.

Kelly and Jessica remove the shoes and boxes, stuffing them under the bed and on the floor by the dresser. While they are doing that, Robert, Lynn, Bri, and I don our NVG’s and test our radios, making sure they are off to conserve the batteries. The nice thing about these units is the battery packs are rechargeable, however, there isn’t any electrical power here and I didn’t bring the chargers with us. Our actions throughout the day have drained them to an extent. The orange glow that was peeking around the living room blinds now changes to a deepening blue-gray around the bedroom blinds.

“What now?” Robert asks as we pile into the interior bathroom.

“Now we wait the night out,” I answer. “If something happens, we’ll move quickly into the bedroom with everyone in the closet. I’ll cover the hallway.”

“I’ll be with you,” Lynn says.

“I’d rather you be with everyone else and cover my back watching over the back patio door. It’s an enclosed space and I don’t want to have to second-guess what I’m shooting at.” I wish we had the IFF tabs we could attach to our uniforms. A thought for later.

“Okay, Jack,” she replies.

“What about me?” Robert asks.

“The same. Keep my backside clear and protect the others,” I answer.

The bathroom is indeed crowded with the seven of us in there. I take a seat on the counter by the sink with Robert next to me. Lynn squats by the hallway door and Bri sits herself on the bathtub rim. Brian sits on the floor under the towel rack with Kelly by the other door leading to the far bedroom and Jessica sitting on the toilet seat. We light the candles and place towels under the door.

“What’s with the towels?” Kelly asks.

“So the light doesn’t leak out,” I answer.

“Well, I for one don’t want to wait the night out in here,” Brian says.

“We don’t have much choice,” I respond.

“We’ve stayed out in the living room and bedrooms every night and have been just fine,” he retorts.

“Look, Brian, we have to become a deep, dark hole in the fabric of space and time. You have no idea what these night runners are capable of,” I state in a whisper. “And keep your voice down.”

“What!? Just because you come in wearing SWAT gear and trying to look badass doesn’t mean that you know everything and have all of the answers,” he says still keeping his normal tone. “Weren’t you just a pilot anyway?”

“There are very few people in this room who know exactly what I did and that’s irrelevant anyway. All of us here have had a bit of experience with the night runners so we do know a bit. I don’t think you fully grasp what we are dealing with,” I whisper. “There are what, like over 2 million people in the Portland area? Or were?”

“Something like that I’d guess,” he says keeping his voice at normal volumes.

“Shhhh. Keep your voice down dammit,” I whisper sharply. “Just so you understand, there is something like thirty percent of the population that turned into night runners. That means there are about seven hundred thousand of them around this area. Seven hundred thousand, Brian! That’s a fuck of a lot!”

As if to emphasize my point, a very faint, distant, yet distinct shriek of a night runner, or perhaps a few of them, penetrate the inner walls and reach our ears.