Jacqueline Druga - Fallout

It was a beautiful sunny day, the best kind for a broadcast.

Fen grabbed another photographer taking him toward the distribution center set up as a market. She then instructed the news woman that the market would be a great backdrop, especially with the coffee shop right next door to it.

A little boy, no older than eight darted by, bumping into Fen. She stopped him.

He wore the brightest blue and green stiped shirt, his brown hair was messy, and his dimpled smile was adorable as he peered up to her.

“I brought the soldiers cakes,” he said. “Our thank you for saving us.”

Fen smiled at him. “Go on,” she said. “They will like it.”

She wanted to get the boy on video but he was too dirty. Perhaps she would find him, clean him, and then get him on camera. She reflected as she watched him carry the basket to the soldiers. He reminded her of her brother.

Her biological brother.

Always moving fast.

Fen wasn’t born into a privileged life. In fact, she was very poor. They lived in a farming village outside of Hong Kong. Her parents violated the one child law and the woman who lived next to them said Fen was hers. She was unable to have a child.

She was five years younger than her brother. They lived in a small house, with flimsy walls and only one big room.

She was about four years old when an earthquake struck her village and the mudslide that followed wiped everything out. Her and her brother survived only because they were out playing. Immediately she was an orphan, but instead of going to an orphanage, she and her brother lived on the streets. They slept in an old train car, ate by stealing food from the market, and made money by running errands and shining shoes.

They were so young, but she could have lived that way forever. Her brother took care of her. Until the day he was hit by a car right in front of her.

She screamed and cried. He wasn’t killed, but they found out they were orphans and had no parents. A newspaper had a picture of her crying and a wealthy family adopted her.

She never saw her brother again.

Fen had been searching her entire life for him, but he was nowhere to be found. She wouldn’t give up.

The sight of the boy in the green and blue shirt brought back fond memories of her brother. She watched him run off after leaving the treats for the soldiers.

She wanted to follow him, but the news reporter began and she wanted to listen to make sure everything was relayed properly. He would be easy to find. He tucked himself against the corner pharmacy store watching the broadcast.

Fen waved. He waved back.

“The people here welcome the humanitarian efforts,” the reporter said. “As you can see…” She pointed behind her. “There is not the brutality that is being reported. There is happiness, gratefulness. The people of Mitton cheer the soldiers and the children play with them. They finally are receiving proper med—”

BOOM.

The loud explosion rocked the ground and a blast of heat caused a fast, high pressure wave of air that lifted Fen from her feet and threw her in the air and a distance of ten feet. She landed hard on the concrete, face down, knees first and catching herself with her hands, breaking the fall enough that she didn’t smack her head off the ground.

There was a pressure filled pain in her ears and they rang so loudly she couldn’t hear.

A split second after she landed, she felt droplets, hitting against her hands like rain. Only it wasn’t rain, it was blood and debris.

She sat up and everything spun. Her eyes rolled back causing vertigo to strike temporarily.

Was she hurt? She didn’t know. It was hard to assess. She tried to focus, but things shifted out of control, rolling from her vision as if she were drunk. Her hands moved on the ground, feeling her way around and her fingers hit something.

Looking down she saw it was an arm with a hand attached, a hand still holding a microphone.

All around her were body parts. Arms, legs, heads. It was a bloodbath. Parts of the store were strewn across the street, mixed with food items.

People screamed, but they were drowned out by the constant ringing in her ears.

It gave it a very surreal, dream like feel.

Fen tried to get her bearings, get it together. Giving it one more attempt to stand, she peered up and when she did, she saw the little boy still across the road. Again, he smiled at her and then he ran off.

Fen wanted to scream out in frustration, how could she be that stupid? How did she not see the explosion coming? She bent her legs, got her footing, attempted to stand, but a pain shot through her hip and she buckled back down.

You’re weak. You’re weak , she told herself. Get up. Be strong .

After one more attempt, she succeeded. More than anything she wanted to chase down the boy, but she couldn’t. She’d have to order someone else to do it. Fen had to get it together, get her balance and take care of the situation at hand. A deadly situation she didn’t see coming because she never expected it to happen.

An error she wouldn’t make again.

The military phone was placed right where Troy had said it would be. In the feminine protection disposal box in the third stall of the old McDonald’s. Cal wondered how in the world he would explain not only what he was doing in an old McDonald’s, let alone the women’s room. Sure enough, like everyone else, Cal was given light janitorial duty in the mess hall. Which was… McDonald’s. He was to do that, stay busy until they found him more of a permanent job.

Because he wasn’t American he had a different status there.

They didn’t search him like they did others. He was able to conceal that phone in the waist of his pants.

He rested after he had arrived at Caldwell, and they gave him some sort of medication that actually made him feel much more energized.

Almost everyone had a job. A lot of the detainees were working at the Walmart cleaning shelves, packing items, and accounting for them. Cal had a bunk in a tent set up in the Walmart parking lot. But only those fully trusted or who weren’t American weren’t under lock and key after work hours.

There were two living areas.

For refugees, who were more like detainees, hundreds of tents, campers, and box houses were set up in a large fenced-in area within a fenced-in area that extended over the highway toward the prison. Once the detainees were allotted evening exercise in the free area yard they were placed in lockdown in their tents.

The Nobel Correction facility was the other living area, for those who were labeled prisoners of war. Those people didn’t have jobs nor were they inside the actual prison. They slept like animals, outside, on blankets. The night before there was rain and the hundred or so of them huddled against the building to stay dry.

He hadn’t the chance to speak to anyone yet, but Cal observed the routines as best as he could.

Refugees were treated more humane. As they filed out of their tents in the morning, they were given a protein bar, water and released to work. During the guard change in the afternoon, they were lined up, given a meager meal, and placed in the free area to eat and walk around. After an hour they returned to work until sun down. Same routine, a meager meal, and yard time. Only they were allowed to use the portable showers set up against the fence. The lines were so long many didn’t get the chance to wash.

For the prisoners, it was different.

They were fed once a day and done trough style. The water in one, a slop in another. It was degrading.

Cal was fortunate. He and eight others ate in the mess hall after the soldiers were finished with their meals. He had fresh coffee as well.