Nathan Yocum - The Zona

“Yes, I have. Do not feel shame in what you say. Please go on.”

The days at Church Camp stretched to weeks. The fugees were separated into groups for living and training. Leonard was placed in Lead Group Two, which consisted of seven boys aged thirteen to seventeen. In charge of their group was a grizzled veteran everyone called Jones. The boys were from refugee camps all over the Zona, all with similar stories of hunger, plague, and abandonment.

Each morning Jones ran them through calisthenics. The boys were made to run around their dorm tent until the dust kicked up a slow cyclone; then they did stretches, push-ups, and sit-ups. Afterward they were given rations of broth and made to do the exercises over again. Those who did not complete the regimen were given no broth and were held out from the afternoon feed line. The fugee boys worked tirelessly to be fed. They were given two meals a day in addition to morning broth. The food made them feel like royalty. No one missed more than a meal during those first weeks.

Group Leader Jones showed them how to use their assigned weapons; how to field strip and clean. He pulled Leonard from the exercise regimen and showed him the trigger, the sight, the safety, and how to quickly reload. At night, Jones read to the boys from the Bible. He made hand gestures in the light of an oil lamp and the boys imagined they saw angels and spirits in the shadows. Jones told them stories of the old world and its evils. He took them to the crucifixion of the boy who had accidentally discharged his firearm. They watched the boy scream as the sun burned his face and blood dripped from his impaled wrists, to be swallowed in the desert dust. The lesson was not lost on them.

Leonard and the fugees grew stronger. They grew to love the guards who fed and commanded them, especially Jones. Once a week they stood in front of a stage with all the other fugee boys and guards to watch the red robed preacher testify. The guards referred to this as Group Meeting and the message was always the same; they were lucky, they should be dead or in Heaven, but God had both rejected them and saved them. The world had been destroyed by the storms and plagues, which had been brought by sin. Always the red preacher pontificated on the sins of man. Now was their time. They were the inheritors. The world was theirs to claim and the old mistakes could be righted. Redemption was at hand.

The routine went on unchanged for two months. Leonard was comforted by the structure of the day, in always knowing what was expected. During the Leonard’s ninth Group Meeting, the red preacher gave a new message.

“Thou art the survivors,” he said. “Thou art blessed in the Lord’s eyes if thy purpose is redemption and redemption is at hand. Children, the old world was a place of sin. The old world was a place of placation and disregard for right, for holy, for good.”

The red preacher thrust his right hand into the air for all to see. A black crucifix was freshly tattooed across his palm. It sweated blood.

“Children, thou will be saved and in claiming thy salvation thou will strike against the heart of the old world’s sin. Thou will be vessels of the Lord. Thou will be the flaming sword of Gabriel come to life in a swift fist that strikes the heart of the old world and all of its sin. Just north of us, children, just over the horizon lies the capital of sin, the city of sin, the gathering place for all that is sick and unholy, Las Vegas! Those old enough, those of us who were men before the Storms know without convincing. Las Vegas is the city of sin on purpose, the capital of whores, criminals, blasphemers, homosexuals, and race traitors!”

Leonard looked to the guards and fugees. They all watched silently, consuming the red preacher’s every word, held by the magic of his zealotry.

“Who wants to show God we’re grateful to be alive?”

One of the guards broke the silence.

“I!” Said the guard.

Then the others joined in. Slowly at first, but building upon faceless mob confidence. The voices of hundreds came together as a roar, the roar of animals.

“Who wants to earn this world? Who wants to claim this world!?”

The red preacher was no longer looking to the crowd. His face was lifted up and screaming to the heavens. The guards and fugees roared on.

“Who wants to tear sin asunder!? Who wants to tell the Almighty that we understand!? Goddamn it, we understand!”

The red preacher leaped across the stage waving his hands and shouting. The crowd had taken to chanting in rhythm.

“Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.”

The red preacher waved his hands at the floor, signaling for silence. The chanting died down.

“I’m going to Las Vegas.” The red preacher said in a whisper, just loud enough for the crowd to hear.

“I’m going to Las Vegas to purge its sin. I’ll welcome company, but if I have none, I’ll go alone.”

Leonard looked to see fugees shaking their heads, some mouthing “no.”

“I’ll go by myself, and I’ll pull each building down, stone by stone, if I must. And I’ll kill each sinner with my hands, if I must. I will strangle the life of every sin-born man, woman and child, alone, if I must.”

The red preacher looked into the eyes of the crowd.

“But I’d rather have thee with me.”

His gaze swept back across.

“Every one of you with me stands for another building razed. Every one of you with me stands for another sinner’s blood let loose on the earth.”

The red preacher’s face broke into a joyous smile.

“I will see thee there, just like I will see thee in Heaven with our Father beaming down on us and saying we’ve made him proud!”

The crowd erupted again in shouts and promises. Fugees fell to their knees and wept. They promised undying allegiance to the red preacher, to the provider of food and purpose, to this leader.

The training changed after that. Sticks and clubs were added to the routine. The fugees practiced fighting from inside the beds of pick-ups like tournament jousters. They were taken into the Bullhead ruins and taught to destroy buildings; showed what walls were foundational and what walls were secondary and what kind of power could render stone and steel. They made explosives out of pipes and powder mixtures. The red preacher continued his weekly sermons, but now he spoke of Las Vegas exclusively.

During Leonard’s third month in camp, the order came. Las Vegas was to be destroyed and guard units from the Eastern California and Utah territories were going to assist. The fugees were ecstatic. Food and training gave them a new strength and they were eager to prove their mettle.

Exercising gave way to planning. Group Leader Jones was selected as one of the frontline drivers in an elaborate ceremony. He named Leonard and six other boys as his riders. The team was assigned a twelve-passenger truck with the roof cut off. In a separate ceremony, they named the vehicle Michael and from then on only referred to it by that name. It was now considered one of their teammates.

Jones walked with his head held high. Guards who had not been assigned as drivers congratulated him publicly and held in secret jealousy and scorn.

Leonard too felt pride in his selection to vehicle duty, in his designation as a rider. He took to cleaning his gun twice a day. He even shined and polished his bullets. He took to assisting Jones in the training of new fugees.

The red preacher announced the plan in a private meeting for drivers and riders. Arizona would strike Vegas from the south, ignoring the suburban structures and focusing on the inhabitants and palaces occupying the region designated as South Strip, the Eastern Californians would strike from the west and focus on the region designated as North Strip, Utah Guard claimed responsibility for the destruction of the area designated as Downtown, which they would attack from the east. No armies would attack from the north so a path of retreat could remain clear.