Richard out of the way, Al looked to Gary, who just shrugged.

  “You heard the man, Mayor. He’s been through hell, he’s probably saved all of our lives and he lost his only son.

  “The way I see it, he deserves this. And even if he doesn’t, I’m not gonna be the one to cross him.”

  -26-

  Nobody got much sleep that night at Eden South.

  Everyone was exhausted, but every inch of the place still smelled of the pesticide.

  Everyone’s eyes still burned and several of the residents broke out in a rash… even people who didn’t come in direct contact with the poison.

  They’d all inhaled it, however. There was simply no getting around it.

  As tired as they were, restful sleep was pretty much impossible.

  They were in just enough pain to keep them from getting comfortable enough to sleep.

  The only pain medication they had was ibuprofen, and few were willing to take it.

  The first two people who took ibuprofen developed a deep red rash and word quickly spread the two were connected; that the active ingredient in the ibuprofen interacted with the synthetic pyrethroids to cause the rash.

  It may well have been just a coincidence. Perhaps the first two people to take ibuprofen would have developed the rash anyway.

  But nobody wanted to take any chances. The rash was both painful and itchy, and the rest of the residents figured they were suffering enough already without adding a new problem to the mix.

  To add to all that, anytime anyone closed their eyes to try to rest they saw the carnage they’d witnessed all over again.

  Richard’s ears were still ringing, as were Tony’s and Paul’s.

  Nobody had thought to issue or carry ear plugs, because up until that point they hadn’t had to fire their weapons at the facility.

  It just never occurred they might need them.

  But need them they did. Three gunshots going off almost simultaneously in a small room created a deafening roar.

  Tony, several hours after the fact, still couldn’t hear anything less than a full-throated shout right next to his ear.

  He was terrified the incident was going to leave him permanently deaf.

  Since no one could sleep everyone stayed up and tried to find something to do.

  Both televisions were on, on opposite ends of the day room. Both were playing different movies on DVD, but few people were following the action.

  Each of the tables was full.

  Some played board games or cards.

  Some played dominoes or chess.

  But nobody was having fun.

  Those who had no interest in watching television or playing a game huddled in small groups in some of the cells-turned cubicles.

  The ones Mayor Al insisted on calling “apartments” even though everyone else knew better.

  They gossiped. They told lame jokes to try to ease the tension.

  And they watched Richard.

  Richard had spent almost an hour in Junior’s cell.

  Most of the time he didn’t say anything. He just sat in front of his son with his head in his hands and cried.

  At one point he hugged him and kissed his face. Then, noticing the body had gotten cold in the fifteen hours since he’d been shot down, he started a frantic search for blankets.

  Ruth knew his efforts to make Junior warm again were futile but didn’t try to tell him. She knew unadulterated grief sometimes manifested itself in very peculiar ways.

  After he’d piled five blankets upon his son’s body he asked Ruth, in all seriousness, “Do you think he’s warm enough now?”

  She held him close and responded, “Yes, honey. I think he’s warm enough now. Thank you for doing that for him.”

  He’d left her at that point, going back to the exit door into the exercise yard and relieving Gary.

  “You gonna be okay?” Gary asked him.

  “I’ll be better as soon as those animals finish dying.”

  Richard wasn’t normally an unreasonably vindictive man.

  But then again, he’d never lost his only son before.

  An hour later he walked out the door into the frigid night air carrying a flashlight.

  The men were gone.

  It was easy to find them, though. They hadn’t gone far, dragging themselves an inch at a time in a desperate attempt to find a warmer place.

  They’d moved about fifty feet or so, which in itself was a monumental task given the way they were hogtied.

  Their eyes were almost completely frozen shut by this time. So much so that when Richard shined the light directly into their eyes they could see the light but couldn’t make out where it was coming from.

  Martin was shivering violently, but was otherwise unresponsive.

  Kelly was still able to speak, and thought help had finally arrived.

  “Please… help… us.”

  “Shut up, animal. Hurry up and die so you can rot in hell.”

  With that Richard walked back into the building and took his place on a chair in front of the door.

  Several people around the block were watching him. He wasn’t the happy-go-lucky ever-positive Richard they knew.

  He’d turned into a monster.

  Mayor Al approached him in the wee hours of the morning.

  Many of the residents had been able to doze off and on, though their sleep was anything but restful.

  Everyone was tired, cranky and hurting. They wanted the lingering stench of the spray to go away so things could get back to normal.

  Richard had sent a crew back outside to resume guard duty and to man the gate shack again, but forbid them from going into the yard to help Martin and Kelly.

  “But they’re our prisoners,” one man said. “We have to treat them humanely, or we’re no better than they are.”

  “They’re not prisoners,” Richard countered. “They are condemned men. They’re serving out their punishments.”

  -27-

  At just after dawn a new batch of sentries and guards went out to replace the first set.

  Dawn, of course, was a relative term since the sky was covered with a thick brown haze.

  On many days, like this one, storm clouds were overhead. The only way to tell whether it was day or night was to look at the clock.

  Richard asked one of the returning guards, “How’s the weather out there?”

  “Colder than shit and dark as hell. But at least the air is fresh.”

  Mayor Al hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep and was as testy and irritable as everyone else.

  He saw Richard talking to the guard, though, and thought it might be a good time to address him.

  As the guard walked away Richard approached him.

  “Richard, for God’s sake, let me go out and check on those men. They’re probably already dead, but if we can save them we should. It’s the Christian thing to do.”

  Richard was unmoved.

  “Don’t try me on this, Al.

  “That’s not your son lying in that bunk over there with gaping holes on both sides of his body.

  “That’s the same body I once held in the palms of my hands on the day he was born. I made him a promise that day. I told him I would protect him and care for him so he grew up to be a fine man someday.”

  He looked Al directly in the eyes, tears streaming down his face.

  “You’re not supposed to bury your children, Al… that’s not the way it’s supposed to work.

  “They’re supposed to bury you.”

  “Richard…”

  “Stop it, Al. Stop it before I do or say something to you I’ll never be able to take back.

  “Those men are not Christians. They thought nothing of breaking into our home and shooting my son in the back.

  “They deserve no compassion. No humanity. All they deserve to do is die.”

  Again, he repeated his first statement: “”Don’t try me on this, Al.”

  “Can I at least go outside to see if they’re dead, so you can finish your vigil and get some rest?”

  Richard paused, as though considering the request.

  Al beefed it up a bit by adding, “Ruth is in there alone. She needs you more than they do.

  “I promise I won’t try to save them or help them.”

  It took another thirty seconds before Richard finally nodded his head.

  He was spent.

  He had no more argument in him.

  Al grabbed a parka from the control center’s coat rack and threw it around him, then walked out into the cold.

  Many of the people still gathered in the day room were watching the two men already.

  Those who weren’t were alerted by the door opening and gave Richard their full attention.

  In the yard, Mayor Al followed the path in the snow made by the prisoners as they inched their way blindly looking for shelter.

  They never found it.

  Al found them huddled together beneath a parked trailer, dead from exposure and quickly freezing solid.

  No one heard their last words or their final pleas.

  Only God heard their final prayers if they said any.

  Al made no effort to cover them or move them, or to pray over their bodies.

  They were beyond help.

  Perhaps they were beyond help long before they died.

  He made his way back into the building and placed a hand on Richard’s shoulder.

  “They’re dead. Go be with your wife.”

  Richard nodded but didn’t move.

  “Al, give me a minute, would you?”

  “Sure.”

  Al started to walk away and held up the palm of his hand to stop two women who were approaching Richard with a hot bowl of soup.

  “Now’s not the time,” he told them. “He won’t eat it anyway.”

  Richard Sears was many things.

  He’d been a loyal friend.

  A good husband.

  A better than average handyman.

  Until just a few hours before he’d been a good father. One of the best, to hear Richard Junior tell it.

  On this day he was able to add another thing to his life’s resume.

  For on this day he became a murderer.

  Oh, he didn’t feel bad about it.

  He felt justified. For the men outside were part of a group who’d hurt him in a way no parent should ever be hurt.

  His wife too. And his wife was one of those people who’d never hurt anyone in her life.

  His wife was one of those people who’d go through the trouble of wrangling a housefly and shoo it out the door, just so she didn’t have to kill it.

  That was back before the seven year freeze, of course.

  When one still saw houseflies.

  As far as he knew houseflies had been rendered extinct during the first freeze.

  If they were still around, he certainly hadn’t seen any.

  In Richard’s mind everything that didn’t have a real purpose in life eventually came to the end of their road.

  Houseflies had no real purpose. Nobody liked ‘em. They spread disease and germs and everyone he knew other than Ruth killed them the first chance they had.

  They, in Richard’s mind, were absolutely worthless.

  Those men turning into human popsicles in the exercise yard were kinda like that, Richard reasoned.

  They were a waste of oxygen. They took up space on earth better occupied by decent people.

  People who didn’t go around robbing and killing others.

  In Richard’s mind they wouldn’t be missed.

  In Richard’s mind he might have to answer someday, to the Almighty, for what he’d done.

  That was okay. He’d admit what he’d done and accept the punishment due him like a man.

  That was later. This was now.

  He was okay with it. His conscience was clear.

  He went to see Ruth. They had to plan a memorial service for their son.

  -28-

  Hannah went to the one-room medical clinic in Bay 10.

  Sami’s blood pressure was running a bit high. Now, that wasn’t necessarily unusual for a woman who was in the throes of labor, or for one who’d recently given birth.

  But Debbie chose to err on the side of caution and to keep her for a couple of days so she could be closely monitored.

  Truth was, Sami didn’t feel much like moving anyway.

  A mother’s first baby introduces her to a lot of new things. The joy of holding a life she made and carried for nine months. The joy of feeding that baby and knowing there is no closer bond than a mother and her child.

  And the memory of the worst pain she’s ever felt in her life.

  Labor not only knocks a birthing mother to her knees and kicks her in the chin, it also takes away every bit of energy she has.

  And the exhaustion lasts for days. It doesn’t instantly go away when the pains of childbirth stop.

  That’s why new mothers all over the world smile sweetly when their doctors come into their hospital rooms and say, “Okay, the birth is over. I want you to get up and start moving around so we can send you home tomorrow.”

  They smile sweetly until the doctor walks toward the door.

  Then they flip him off while his back is turned.

  Sami wanted to do just two things.

  She wanted to hold her baby and to feed and talk to her.

  And when the baby was sleeping she wanted to sleep too.

  Hannah opened the door as quietly as she could; not an easy feat considering it needed to be oiled and squeaked loudly.

  Both mother and baby slept through it though.

  Keeping them company were Sarah and Debbie. Sarah because she felt Sami needed the emotional support of a good friend, and Debbie because she was keeping a close eye on the new mother’s blood pressure and oxygen levels.

  Hannah motioned Sarah outside so they could talk.

  “How’s she doing?”

  “Oh, you know. Bitchy as hell, mean as can be and hateful to everyone she sees. The usual.”

  “Well, I’m glad she’s back to normal.”

  “What’s up?”

  “Do you remember a guy named Jason? Jason Tomlin?”

  “The name rings a bell. Why?”

  “He used to work at the UT McDonald Observatory in west Texas before Saris 7.”

  “Well, that explains why I don’t know him. I never went there. I heard of it though. One of the premier facilities for finding and labeling new stars and moving bodies.”

  “Moving bodies… that sounds so creepy when you say it.”

  “Heavenly bodies, dumbass. I haven’t moved any human bodies since I finished that whole mass murderer thingy in my twenties.”

  “You scare me sometimes, you know that?”

  “That’s my intent, sweetie. Now, why are you asking about this Jason… guy?”

  “Tomlin. I met him at a couple of conferences and training sessions. Once at Cape Canaveral and the other at a military base in Florida. There may have been others.

  “I was wondering if you were there too and might have remembered him.”

  “Honey, every time I went to one of those conferences I spent most of my time getting drunk and partying. That was before I met Bryan, remember? I was single and free and still young. Before Saris 7 made old women out of all of us.”

  “Okay. Just wondering, that’s all.”

  “Why are you asking? Does this Jason dude have a heavenly body? Should we invite him here so we can track every move he makes?”

  “Sarah you’re a shameless hussy, you know that?”

  “Oh, I know. But why do say it like it’s a bad thing?”

  Hannah ignored her and pondered, more to herself than to Sarah, “I wonder why his friend needs my help?”

  “What friend?”

  “Somebody named David. At Joint Base Lackland in San Antonio. He went through Jason to get a message to me. He said my doctors need my help. That they’re in some kind of legal trouble.”

  “Your doctors? From the helicopter crash?”

  “Yes. Doctors Medley and Wilcox. He said they’re being court martialed. And that I’m the only one who might be able to save them from a firing squad.”

  “A firing squad? Honey, don’t you have to be guilty of murder to be executed? How could two doctors be charged with murder?”

  “You have to remember, Sarah, that this is the military we’re talking about. They have their own legal system and their own rules.

  “I’m sure you’re right. That only certain crimes like murder can be assessed the death penalty.

  “But the military is very strict when it comes to certain things. Maybe they have other things that are considered capital offenses.”

  “I was dating a sailor in San Diego once. We walked out of the enlisted club and he forgot to salute an ensign in the parking lot.

  “The ensign lost his frickin’ mind. Said he was gonna bust the poor guy and have him swabbing decks every day until they booted him out. Maybe that’s a capital offense in the military.”

  “Uh… yeah. I kinda doubt it.

  “I sure wish Frank was here. He’d know for sure.”

  -29-

  Mark walked down the mine’s main corridor at that very moment, son Markie in tow. Markie was carrying the spanking new .22 rifle he got for his birthday.

  They were headed toward the back of the mine for Markie’s shooting lesson and took a detour to say hello to the women.

  Mark kissed Hannah and said hello to Sarah.

  Markie said, “Hi Mommy. Hi Aunt Sarah.”

  His dad got right to the point.

  “Did that guy call you yet?”

  “No. He’s calling back at three.”

  “Well, you know how I feel about the whole thing. No good can come of you communicating with other preppers outside the camp.”

  “Honey, I agree with you. But I need to find out if what he’s saying is legitimate. I mean, Jason is real. He wasn’t pretending to be somebody he wasn’t. And he had no way of knowing the names of my doctors unless he was talking to someone at Joint Base Lackland. So I have to think there’s at least some legitimacy in what he’s saying.

  “I just can’t imagine why they’re in trouble and being court martialed.

 

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