Jacqueline Druga - Fallout

Her lips quivered. “Our work is done. The others, they left, I just… I don’t know if I can live with what happened.”

“What happened?” Joe grabbed her shoulders.

“They killed them, Joe.” She looked around. “They killed all the sick. We were told not to come in for our shift yesterday. Then Sergeant Edmunds found me. They gassed them. They gassed every sick camp from here to San Jose. It happened last night.”

“Jesus.”

“I covered them. That was the least I could do.”

“What happened with the soldiers?”

“It wasn’t part of the plan, you know.”

“What? The dead soldiers.”

“No, the dead neighbors. Our friends, the sick, they weren’t supposed to be killed. We didn’t cause this. It was ordered from the top. Our plan was already in motion. It worked, too. We came in and took those who didn’t die from it, we picked them off. Shot them…” She turned her head and looked elsewhere. “Stabbed them. All of the soldiers. All of them dead.”

“Mary Lou, that’s thousands.”

“We only had to pick off a dozen or so. They were easy. They were panicking. Running, Screaming.” She spoke dazed.

Joe gave her a jolt. “What happened to the other soldiers? How did you kill that many?”

Still, Mary Lou looked elsewhere, staring around. “Poison. Ricin. Saturday afternoon they were fed it, they were dead before sun up.”

“How did you poison so many?”

Slowly, Mary Lou went from looking away to looking at Joe. Her eyes connected. “Saturday, they served the tomatoes to everyone.”

Joe’s hands fell from her. “My tomatoes.”

Mary Lou didn’t answer.

“How many of my tomatoes are poisoned?”

“They were never going to our people, only to the soldiers and their leaders.”

“How many?” Joe asked.

“The workers have been poisoning them since day one.”

“Oh my God.” Joe stepped back.

“You need to go, Joe.”

“What are you going to do?”

Mary Lou smiled. “I’m gonna go be with Greg.”

“No, come with me.”

“I can’t. I don’t have the travel permit and someone here has to look like the guilty party. I’m fine with that. But go. Go before news gets out that this happened.”

He knew she had a point and with daylight in full force, Joe had to go. He nodded, gave her a look of gratitude, stepped back and then hurried out. He was barely through the gym doors and outside when he heard the lone gunshot.

He paused for a second, closed his eyes, then continued on.

Joe didn’t look back as he pulled from the school, drove through town or through the road block. He’d figure out later what to do with those tomatoes in the back of his truck, obviously, they were tainted. The highway was empty, he didn’t see a single car or military vehicle. He supposed eventually he would.

He kept going, never once looking in his rearview mirror, never once dwelling on what happened back home. He couldn’t. Joe had to focus forward, move ahead and find his nephew, Toby.

Toby was all he had left in the godforsaken world.

That was his mission, his cause. Joe would get there, he’d find him, even if it was the last thing he ever did.

There was a moment after Joe left, when Mary Lou briefly gave a second thought to what she was about to do. She had led a good life. She thought about God and how He would view her actions. When she told Joe she didn’t know if she could live with what had happened, she wasn’t referring to the slaughter of the soldiers, that she could live with. It was the loss of everyone she knew, the loss of her freedom, her homeland. A part of her, in a sense, felt responsible for the sick people who had been gassed, her karma. They had already poisoned the soldiers; the ricin was working its way through their systems when they gassed the sick camps.

Mary Lou had never felt so much rage as she did when she received Sergeant Edmunds’ call. She raced into town and joined the others in ‘picking off’ those soldiers who were not poisoned. The first enemy soldier Mary Lou saw was scared, she saw it in his eyes, and then she saw the red of rage as she lunged for him. He wasn’t ready but she was. She repeatedly stabbed him mercilessly. She did it for her friends, her neighbors who were defenseless when they died.

Just like that soldier Mary Lou killed. He was one of three that she personally murdered.

She could live with that if she had to, but she didn’t want to.

The war was far from over, but her part was done. She was ready to see her husband. Continuing what she was doing when Joe walked in, Mary Lou whispered a short prayer asking for forgiveness, put the gun to her head, and fired.

It was dark, hot, and the air was humid. General Liu had been stripped of his uniform shirt, jacket, and awards, left only in a T-shirt and pants. No shoes. He was placed in a basement room of a hotel. No windows, no light, only a few glow sticks.

No one came to talk to him, he was given no water or food.

He thought of his life. The service he had given his country, his daughters who were grown and in school, studying to be doctors.

The bright spot to it all was that he would see his loving wife who left him and the earth far too soon. He hoped that when word reached his daughters that they wouldn’t be affected by the shame he caused them. He prayed that they knew him well enough to know their father didn’t betray his country, he was doing what was right for the world.

His final moments on earth weren’t filled with regrets, but loving memories of those he held dear.

When the door opened he knew it was morning… it was time.

They secured his hands behind his back before they took him from the room. His eyes had time to adjust as they led him down a lit hall to an even brighter hotel lobby.

He was taken out a back door through the kitchen to a small secluded courtyard.

The sun beat down hard and the heat was extreme. They walked him to the center of the area. Fen waited before a line of five soldiers. One of which was Sergeant Huang.

General Liu looked at them all before being placed in position.

Fen dismissed her agents, then walked to General Liu. She spoke to him in a low voice, almost taunting. “You can only say so much before you are silenced for good. Now you stand before executioners of your peers.”

“Only someone with a blackened heart would do such a thing to loyal men.”

She laughed. “Loyal. They jumped at this chance. They know of your behavior as of late. How you want to help the Americans.”

“We are here for the country, that includes the people. If we are to live among them one day, we cannot do so if the sins of our actions forever taint their perception of us.”

“You failed to draw a line,” Fen said. “Quite a shame you will not see the victory of your country.”

General Liu shifted his eyes to her. “Neither will you.”

“Any last requests, General?”

“Tell my daughters I love them.”

“Very well.”

“I suppose you will enjoy watching this,” General Liu said.

“I will not be watching. I don’t want the perception that this is personal.”

“But it is.”

She merely raised her eyebrows, then stepped back. “Would you like a blindfold, a covering?”

“No. I will go with my eyes open and standing tall.”

“Very well.” She walked away. “Sergeant Huang, once I am gone, you may do so. But do so quickly.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

General Liu tried not to look at her but caught her in his peripheral vision as she walked from the secluded area.

“Ready,” Sergeant Huang called out.

Hands behind his back, General Liu stood straight.