Redaction: Extinction Level Event (Part I) (3 page)

God must be a woman to pick and choose so illogically who stayed and who was called home.

His right hand silently played the rest of the song while his left hung from the guitar’s ribs. Why leave him behind? Gutierrez had a wife and baby daughter. Martin had two orphaned sons. Washington had his bride.

He had the service.

And soon even that would be gone.

Sweat beaded on his lip. Four months of civilian life. One hundred and six days out of the Army, and he’d signed up with the National Guard. He loved those weekends and looked forward to the two-week duty. But it wasn’t enough time in uniform. Not nearly enough to fill the white noise of freedom or the stretch of meaningless down time.

If it hadn’t been for the Redaction...

He licked his lips, tasted the fear above the salt. Soon, they’d muster him out again.

Too soon.

Removing the pick from the strap, David switched to a Jim Croce song. He rocked to the rhythm, but his heart thudded to a different beat. The thick, full notes weighted with the emptiness of his future. He’d take up fishing in the summer and hunting in the winter.

And the other two seasons?

He strummed harder.

Six cots away, Michelson snorted in his sleep and rolled over. His hand covered his eyes, blocking out the twilight.

David forced himself to ease up, to tease the notes from the string, instead of bullying them out. Maybe he’d travel the country. Visit every national park, every scenic wonder, and every large ball of twine in every territory, federal district and state.

That might fill up a few years, but then what was he supposed to do?

Forty-five was too fucking young to retire.

And he refused to become a mercenary. A real man needed a mission not money.

Light flooded the vestibule at the end of the sixty-four foot long tent. Moments later, the plywood door hit the shock-cord. The impact rippled along canvas.

“ShitFuckDamn!”

Private Robertson must be having a good day to use only three swear words.

Smiling, David continued into the song’s last refrain. At the Redaction’s peak, the North Carolina private had gotten up to twelve by his count. Gutierrez had argued that Robertson’s record was seven because he’d repeated many words in Spanish.

Robertson hadn’t sworn the day they’d shipped Gutierrez’s body back to Sierra Vista.

“Yo, Big D!” Private Robertson strutted into the barracks. His military gait interrupted by the cocky hitch he adopted when off-duty.

David stopped the song before the last chord finished resonating though the guitar. Well shit! If Robertson was calling him Big D, he might be in for a seven-swear word night. “That’s Sergeant Major Dawson to you, Private.”

“Yes, Sir. Big D, Sir!” Robertson snapped to attention and saluted like he was performing for a five-star general before flashing his palm. The camouflage t-shirt of his Active Combat Uniform stretched tight across his muscled chest and rode up the bulging biceps.

David checked the urge to laugh. That would only encourage the private’s bad behavior. Not that he needed much. If the kid wasn’t such a top-notch soldier, his mouth would have gotten him busted down to swamp gas the day he enlisted, almost had on the day he came under David’s command.

“You retarded, Private? Must be to keep calling me, sir. I work for a living.” Hugging the guitar to his chest, David glanced at the black-haired, blue-eyed devil who had kept up the group’s morale while on grave duty. “Let me make this simple. My first name’s Sergeant, last name’s Major. Got that, you ass?”

Robertson winked. “That’s me, Big D. I’m an ass man. Big asses, little asses.” He cupped his big hands in front of his body and thrust his hips forward suggestively. “I’d tap practically any ass, so long as it’s not a real ass. Not into none of that bestiality shit.”

David cleared his throat. Yep, the kid took any word as encouragement. “Is there a point somewhere in your ramblings?”

“Not a point exactly, Big D. But my sword is long and thick.” He stopped pumping his hips, threw back his head and ran his hands up his chest. “Makes the ladies scream, ‘enough, oh God, enough.’“ Even white teeth flashed and dimples dented both of his cheeks. “It’s why you all should call me G instead of—”

“Rubberman?” David pinched the bridge of his nose before the throbbing flooded his head. “The man who bounces from subject to subject?”

Robertson snorted and crossed his muscular arms over his chest. His ACU’s stretched taut. “Yeah, well, you’re the dog who chases the chicks with double-D’s and above.”

“I’m Big D, for Top Dog.” David shook his head, knowing he should let the comment pass. He liked breasts—small ones as well as large. What straight man didn’t? “I’m in charge of Jack-wagons like you.”

“I’m feeling the love from you, Big D.” Robertson swiped at his dry eyes. “Lots of love. Course it’s a tough love; must be why you’re called S-and-M.”

Old joke. David rolled his shoulders. “Why don’t you take those magazines in your foot locker to the latrine and leave me in peace for an hour?”

Robertson grinned. “I’ll take that as an order.” He strutted down the aisle between the remaining cots. “And speaking of orders...”

David picked randomly at the chords. No point rushing the private. Off-duty, the man lived on his own clock. One where seconds were minutes, and minutes were hours.

“Colonel Lynch wants to see you in his office ASAP.”

David’s fingers stopped. The Commanding Officer wanted to see him? He wasn’t due on morgue duty until oh-five-hundred tomorrow, didn’t have any family and hadn’t broken any rules for days. He carefully lowered the guitar into the red velvet-lined case on the insulated tent floor.

“Don’t you want to know what it’s about?” Robertson hitched-stepped the five feet to the end of David’s cot.

Hell no. A meeting with the CO was never a good thing. David checked the shine on his boots and stuffed his arms into the sleeves of his ACU jacket. Hat? Hat? He’d had it a minute ago. He scanned the area around his bed looking for it. Had one of his men hidden it?

“I’ll find out in a minute.”

“Yeah, but don’t you want to know now?” Robertson bounced on the balls of his feet, a cocky smirk on his lips. “So you can prepare for the big news on the walk over.”

Well, hell, if it made Robertson happy, it had to be bad.

Hooking his cot with the toe of his boot, David lifted it up a foot. How the hell had his hat gotten on the floor? Dropping the cot, he knelt down and snatched the thing up. “What do you know?”

“Talk is our Title Ten will be extended.” Robertson ran his fingers through his black crew-cut. “Once we’re done dumping our buzzard bait, our unit’s being deployed to the Korean DMZ in a show of force against the Young Dear Leader.”

David hoped so. He desperately needed a fight.

Especially, one he had a chance in hell of winning.

Chapter Three

“Do you think there’ll be a war?” Tugging the purple scrunchie from her hair, Sunnie Wilson slipped out of her sneakers and wiggled her toes under the heat vent of her aunt’s Honda Civic. When would things get back to normal?

Real normal.

Not this shattered looking-glass world that had become reality.

Her aunt’s fingers drummed on the steering wheel. “It’s highly unlikely.”

Like she’d believed that answer the first seven times she’d heard it. But Aunt Mavis being Aunt Mavis wouldn’t say anything else until she thought things through.

And she was definitely thinking.

The air practically hummed with it. Even the silvery wisps of hair at her aunt’s temples fluttered in agitation—like an insect banging on a war drum.

War. Sunnie sucked up a mouthful of Dr. Pepper. Sugar bubbled across her tongue, washing away the bitterness. Like there wasn’t enough dead. After returning her drink to the cup holder, she snapped the scrunchie against her wrist. The sting was sharp against the soft tissue, but she didn’t flinch. Physical pain meant life.

Life was precious.

What was left of her generation would remember that lesson.

Always.

But would there be anyone left if there was a war?

Sunnie stared at her aunt—designer loafers, beige polo shirt under a navy pea coat, brown Dockers and tan socks. Mom had said Mavis was a genius—a government genius with a high security clearance.

A year ago, Sunnie would have believed Santa existed before she bought that line about her middle-aged aunt. But Mavis had warned Mom to stock up on supplies and to take a semester off from teaching a month before the first confirmed Redaction. Mom hadn’t listened.

Now she was dead.

Sunnie snapped the hairband.

And so were her step-sibs, Joshua and Cheyenne.

Snap. Snap. A raspberry patch blossomed on her white skin.

And her stepdad, Michael.

The scrunchie rubbed against her wrist as she stretched it. Snap. The sting was sharper this time. Yet it barely registered on her emotional Richter scale. As for those who’d graduated with her last summer...

Classmates.com read like a morgue roll.

Would it have changed if she’d stayed home to go to college? Could she have saved someone? She stretched the scrunchie. Elastic cut into her forearm. Could she have saved anyone? She’d recovered; why couldn’t they?

Aunt Mavis wrapped her fingers around Sunnie’s. The calloused skin comforted even as she eased the hair band back into place. “North Korea wouldn’t launch ground forces. Although they still outnumber us soldier for soldier, their military technology comes from either Russia, or is corroded from the use of salt water in China’s manufacturing plants. We’d kick their butts with our military at fifty percent.”

Untangling her fingers, Sunnie rubbed at the patch of dry skin around her thumb. One day, she’d get up the nerve to ask Aunt Mavis what she’d actually done for the government during the Redaction. But not today. Today, it was enough that her aunt knew things.

Although, it wasn’t always comforting.

She pinched her pursed lips. “Do you mean half our soldiers are dead?”

“Soldiers? No.” Aunt Mavis’s auburn hair brushed her shoulders. For a moment the car filled with the click-click of the blinker as they coasted toward the freeway exit. “They’re at sixty-five percent, about the same as the Coast Guard and Air Force. The National Guard took the hardest hit as they drew MA duty.”

MA duty. Mortuary Affairs. Refers. The body snatchers who collected families of dead for cataloging and burial, storing them like sides of beef in refrigerated trucks and trailers. Military fatigues had become the new funeral black.

Half a dozen cars crept along the six-lane thoroughfare. Sunnie checked the clock. Six P.M. The height of rush hour. She leaned against the seat as the Civic merged with traffic. Gas rationing didn’t explain the lack of cars.

Martial law might. That still was in force. Anyone left on the street could be eliminated with extreme prejudice. At least they had twenty minutes until it went into effect. Plenty of time to drive the two miles home.

Sunnie’s attention drifted out the passenger window. Black clouds crowded the horizon and gusts of wind shook the thigh-high weeds sprouting from the cracked asphalt. Her ghostly reflection drifted through the derelict strip mall—the only life in the abandoned buildings. A ray of sunlight glinted off the sharp fangs of shattered storefront glass. Dark smears on pocked white stucco testified that not all looters had made off with their booty.

Looters. Soldiers. She replayed her aunt’s words. One service group hadn’t been mentioned. With the Guard occupied, another branch had maintained the infrastructure. The Halls of Montezuma might have been an easier assignment than Main Street U.S.A for Aunt Mavis’s beloved Marines.

“And the Marines?”

In the beginning, people had protested about the armed soldiers who prevented them and their neighbors from getting their groceries en masse, breaking-up peaceful protests with water cannons and rubber bullets, and, later, strafing mobs of looters. But when the Redaction had spread, the pacifists wanted more shooting and less restraint. Still it would be a while before a spit shine could polish the Corps’ tarnished brass.

“They’re at fifty percent.” She smiled. “But I’d take fifty Marines over seventy-two soldiers and seventy-two fly-boys any day.”

“Oorah!” Sunnie repeated her uncle’s favorite saying. Her aunt’s bias was well known. After all her husband, Jack and their son, Joseph had been jarheads.

“Exactly.” Aunt Mavis chuckled.

Sunnie winced. How long until laughter seemed appropriate again? A shudder rippled through her, and she adjusted the vent. Outside, urban decay pressed against the windows. Soot streaked a burned out Sonic Drive-in. The red car awnings hung like shredded banners from their supports. Prophetic messages of doom clung to the side of the pharmacy in blood-colored graffiti. Concrete barricades surrounded an empty gas station.

This new world sucked.

Sunnie splayed her fingers on the glass. “Do you think the city will ever recover?”

The Civic slowed as they approached the intersection. Dead traffic lights bobbed over the tank lodged in the center of the four-way. Two Marines sat on the turret, SAWs in their laps. The silly looking guns spat so many bullets they could literally cut a man in half within seconds. One used his weapon to wave them through the empty intersection.

Raising a hand in acknowledgement, Aunt Mavis turned left onto the street leading to their neighborhood. A large, white banner flapped from the eaves of a chain grocery store, announcing the grand reopening tomorrow. What good would stocked shelves do? Few had been able to work in the last months. Most didn’t have any money, relying solely on the aid packages from the Guard.

Aunt Mavis’s attention flitted to the burned-out strip mall on the corner opposite the grocery store. “Some of the buildings were abandoned before the Rattling Death hit. The work went to China, India or elsewhere and wasn’t coming back.”

Aunt Mavis chewed on her bottom lip and white dotted her knuckles.