Kody Boye - Sunrise

“On three. One… two…”

He threw the door open and raised his gun, half-expecting something to lunge out at him. However, when nothing did, he sighed and lowered his weapon, stepping into the room to examine the fine plush carpet and the neatly-redone paneling on the walls.

“They really did some work on it,” Erik said, brushing past the gap between Jamie and the wall. “It doesn’t even look like a holding cell.”

“Is that what this was?”

“I imagine so. Why else would it be so small?”

Convenient living?

The thought made Jamie chuckle. At about thirty feet wide and fifty feet long, the room, though small, held the common necessities that anyone would need—a bed, a bookshelf, storage space on the far wall in the form of a pull-away closet. What looked to be a bathroom opened up at the side, but Jamie doubted they would be using that. “No running water,” he said.

“What?” Erik asked.

“Nothing. Let’s keep going. The Sergeant’ll chew our asses if we don’t secure the first floor.”

They spent the next half-hour clearing the first floor. Having searched a total of twelve rooms, each equipped like the last, they returned to the lobby to find the sergeant conversing with the civilians, all of whom appeared to be shaken up. The boy, who couldn’t have been any older than sixteen, stood in the corner of the room, watching the events of the outside world with wide eyes.

“Kid,” the sergeant said, raising his already-loud voice. “Something bothering you?”

“N-No sir. I’m F-fine,” the boy managed.

“Good,” Jamie said. Then to the Sergeant, “The first floor’s clear, Sergeant Armstrong, sir.”

“Good. Kirn, Wills, I want the two of you to run through the second floor.”

“Aww,” Kirn groaned. “Come on!”

“Don’t be a pussy, deputy. Just do it.”

“I’ll do it,” Kirn grumbled, pushing past Jamie with a rough bump of the shoulder. Jamie caught the tail-end of stupid old motherfucker as the man passed, but didn’t say anything. For such well-thought-of police officers, they seemed less willing to do the sergeant’s bidding than even his own men did.

Guess that’s what you get when you mix two different branches together.

Shaking his head, Jamie seated himself on the leather couch dividing the lobby in two and set his rifle at his side. He lit a cigarette, took a short breath, then offered it to Erik, who took it with a simple shrug of thanks. “Sir,” Jamie said, looking up at the sergeant. “How many floors are we clearing?”

“As many as we can,” the sergeant said, crossing his arms over his chest. “I’d imagine any civilians that were here might have blocked off a stairway or two.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Rash thinking. If you can’t get out, they can’t get in, right?”

“I guess,” Jamie shrugged. In that moment of perpetual thought, he glanced at the civilians, both sad for their discomfort, but glad for their safety. The man he’d come to know as Dustin Bowers stood conversing with his friend, Michael Young, who appeared to be in much better shape than his older companion. He’d caught word that Dustin had lost his wife, but couldn’t be sure, as he hadn’t heard from the source. If that were indeed true, his heart hurt for the man, burned like the intensity of a thousand suns exploding inside a destructive solar system. He couldn’t imagine how Dustin must have felt right now.

You can’t imagine much of anything, his conscience whispered. Because you don’t have anybody to—

“Third floor’s blocked off!” Kirn called down.

“With what?” the sergeant hollered.

“Junk! Chairs mostly, but there’s some junk tangled in some of it.”

“Does it smell!”

“What!”

“I said does it smell?”

“No, sir!”

“Then leave it be. There’s no point in removing it if it’s not doing any harm.” The sergeant turned and looked at the five men in his midst. Then, as an afterthought, he called, “How many rooms are up there?”

“Fifteen, including a dining room, kitchen and lobby.”

“Good,” Armstrong smirked. “That’s more than enough room for all of us.”

They spent the remainder of the day repairing and adding minor adjustments to the first floor. Covering some of the windows with black electrical tape, creating a headquarters in the lobby by rigging up a radio from one of the army jeeps, preparing rooms to turn them into storage closets—the afternoon quickly faded away, and with it all sense of worry. By the time night fell, Jamie collapsed into bed, exhausted from the day’s work. “Long day,” he laughed, glancing up at Erik.

“No kidding,” the younger man said, stripping his shirt off his head. “Still freaks me out though.”

“What?”

“The bars on the windows.”

Jamie looked up. Until that moment, he hadn’t paid them any mind; but now that Erik mentioned it, he couldn’t help but stare. Each of the five bars vertically aligned across the window served testament to the imprisonment they all suffered by being within the apartment building. “Yeah,” Jamie said, tearing his eyes away from the troubling scene. “It does.”

“Does what?”

“Freak me out.”

“At least we know we’re safe,” Erik laughed, settling down on one of the beds. “Right?”

Jamie sighed. “I guess.”

“You guess?”

“Today was just rough, that’s all. We lost six people, two of them ours.”

“You can’t beat yourself up for it though. You tried. We all did.”

“I know. It just…” Jamie sighed. “Sucks.”

“Of course it does. It’s always sucked. It probably always will.”

Hopefully not, Jamie thought, rolling over to stare at the wall. Hopefully it’ll all let up.

Maybe they’d get some kind of miracle.

A man could hope.

They rose at six in the morning and continued about their regular chores. Erik, known within his unit as both the medic and head communications specialist, headed downstairs to man the radio, while Jamie was charged with finding the civilians something to do. Though he didn’t like the idea of immediately tasking them with work so soon after their brush with the dead, he couldn’t disobey orders, regardless of how much he wanted to.

“So,” he asked, pacing from one side of the group to the other. “What can you all do?”

“Do?” Dustin asked. His eyes still appeared miserable and as bloodshot as ever.

“Yeah,” Jamie said. “Do…as in, what are you good at?”

“I used to be a mechanic,” Dustin said.

“And I filed papers,” Michael said. When Jamie raised an eyebrow, Michael smiled, then said, “I used to work as a secretary…after I lost my accounting job.”

“What about you?” Jamie asked, turning to the young, fire-haired teen. “Desmond, was it?”

“Yes sir,” Desmond said, turning his eyes up. Jamie smiled at the shock in the emerald eyes that greeted him. “I can cook.”

“Cook?”

“I used to fry eggs and grill hamburgers at a Mexican restaurant.”

“Can you cook beans? Soup? Vegetables?”

“All you have to do is follow directions. The vegetables are nothing new. I’ve cooked them before. I can make stir fry if I have to.”

“Then you’ve got the job,” Jamie smiled, clapping the boy’s shoulder. “So, let me get this straight—Dustin, you’re the new mechanic; Desmond, you’re the new cook; and Michael…”

Michael offered a slight smile when Jamie trailed off. “I’ll do whatever anyone tells me to do.”

“I guess that’s it, then, gentlemen. You’re dismissed until someone tells you otherwise.”