CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Linda eyed the new arrivals, a young woman with her son, and prayed silently they wouldn’t bunk near her. She touched her stomach. All she needed to lose what wits she had left was another reminder of how she’d lost two children. Worse, that she may give birth to a hideously deformed radiation monster. She abhorred motherhood of all forms at this point, and this doting mother was more than she could stand. She watched as the nurses and doctors examined the pair, smiling and laughing at times and carrying on an educated conversation about every check they ran.

  Wonderful, she thought. She’s also a nurse and has already found both a place and a purpose in this prison.

  Linda hated the woman.

  Much to her disgust, the staff soon led the woman and child toward her tent. She eyed the two empty cots beside her and groaned audibly, but not loud enough they’d hear. As they neared, she realized the woman was even more beautiful than she had thought from a distance. A toothy smile from the intruder made her hate the woman even more—she had every single one intact. Linda absently felt the space in her gums where two had recently fallen out.

  “Hello!” the woman said cheerily. “I’m Cathy and this is Josh.” She reached a hand out to shake, but Linda only frowned at it.

  “You know why we’re here, right?”

  “Yes,” Cathy replied, “I was informed.”

  “So you’re okay to breed a new generation of warmongering? Or maybe you’re desperate for a new daddy for your brat.”

  “My son and I do perfectly well alone, have done so for a while, and I’ve no intention of marrying or breeding for anybody unless I choose to love again!” Cathy leaned in close, too close for Linda’s liking, and whispered with a pleasant tone. “Our living arrangement is temporary, hopefully as short as my son’s and my time here, so I’d rather we be friends. Otherwise, I’ll warn you I’ve lost all tolerance for bullshit, banter, or bitches. Do not hate on me simply because I have a child and am capable of more.” She leaned back with a smile and waited for a response.

  The words had a deeper effect than they should have, filling Linda with every emotion she’d put off since Yellowstone. Tears filled her eyes, but she controlled the sobs. “I...” she began, unsure how to proceed, but finally the words came. “I’m sorry. I lost my family just before the bombs,” she explained. “My children, they...” She choked on what came next, unspoken for so long since the fight with Bryan—the night they wrecked in Nebraska.

  Me, she admitted to herself. I killed him, surely, or drove him away.

  “They’re gone,” she said simply, glazing past the horrendous way each had died, “but I’m not alone. I came here with a... a friend.” Then she placed a hand on her belly and smiled up toward Cathy. “Please forgive me, but I’m terrified my baby won’t make it. Or worse,” she added, “will be affected by the radiation.”

  Cathy’s eyes grew wide with excitement and the tension between them vaporized. “You’re expecting? How far along?”

  “I’m not sure. At least eight weeks... that’s the last time my husband and I were together.”

  “Well then, can we begin again? I’m Cathy.” She reached out her hand and smiled warmly. “My friends call me Cat.”

  “I’m Linda.” She took her hand and squeezed, the first physical contact she’d had with anyone in over a month.

  “Well, Linda, I’m glad we’ll be roommates for a while, because I’ve been studying to become a labor and delivery nurse. I’ll do everything I can to keep you and your baby healthy. Just now, the doctor said he’ll be taking me on as another assistant after we’re cleared.”

  Though more tears found their way down her cheeks, Linda smiled for the first time since Yellowstone.

  “Tell me about your friend,” Cathy begged, setting their bags in the corner. “Where is she?”

  “A he, actually. He’s a truck driver who picked me up in Omaha and brought me to Evansville.”

  “Is that where we are? Evansville? So... Indiana?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “I don’t know,” Linda replied, “dead maybe. We were attacked by street gangs and he fought them off. He’s pretty badass, really, a good friend to have on your side. He was a Marine. Max fought them off while I got away, but the Regiment was waiting around the corner and I ran into them. They took him a different direction when we arrived, so I’ve no idea what they’ll do with him.” She frowned. “In fact, he probably is dead already. Apparently, he killed a few of them.”

  “I’ll pray he isn’t,” Cathy promised. After a pause, she added, “But I know one thing, I don’t trust the Colonel and we’re getting out of here eventually.”

  Linda laughed, another first in recent weeks. “Good luck with that, it’s damn near impossible. But if you can find a way to a better place than this, I want to go with you.” Then, with all seriousness, she added, “But we’ll need Max’s help, if he’s alive.”

*****

  Max had no room to move and barely any air to breathe. Thankfully, his captors had been diligent enough to periodically open the box and allow him respite. But, in case the sensory deprivation of being kept in a coffin wasn’t bad enough, they only allowed his breaks in the white room. That was worse than the box itself.

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  He was already badly weakened. Half-starved and denied protein, his belly constantly craved nourishment. As the lid opened, he allowed his captors to lift him up, dropping him over the side. He landed with a thud, muscles quivering with atrophy and fatigue at the same time. With a gasp he filled his lungs to right his brain. He blinked against the light flooding in from the tall windows overhead. In this room everything spoke of brightness, the sheets, the bunk, the floor. Even his diet was white, only rice. A white bowl of it awaited him on a small table, complete with a white plastic spoon.

  Max yearned for something, anything to remind his senses of color, but even the guards wore white scrubs or lab coats when they attended. They refused to speak, never made noise—not even a knock on the lid to let him know they’d arrived. They were like ghosts in his presence.

  Max had just reached the bowl of rice and taken a bite when the door opened and the Colonel stepped in with two guards. Whenever the Colonel arrived it was, no matter how much Max hated their conversation, a treat for his ears as well as his psyche. After days, weeks maybe, without sound, the soft and soothing voice from the man broke the spell of silence and gave the Marine a sense of humanity between periods of torture.

  When the Colonel spoke, he did so with a soothing voice as if half singing a lullaby to a restless child. “I will not ask how you are feeling, Sergeant Rankin, because I already know. I designed this room and these methods myself.”

  “I know of them,” Max replied. “I’m prepared.”

  “Yes, it’s obvious you have training for special forces. But even so, S.E.R.E. school only prepares the mind but not the constitution of the soldier. Any other I’ve met would have broken by now, but you’ve endured. What drives you, Sergeant? Why haven’t you given up?”

  Max ignored the question; it was the kind to probe the mind and cause a subject to slip with personal details. Every conversation is a game of chess, he reminded himself. “So you’re a colonel?” he asked instead of answering.

  “I am. And you were a gunnery sergeant.”

  “Am. Once a Marine always a Marine.” With a tired wink, Max added, “Oorah, and all that shit, right?”

  “I wouldn’t know. I was never a Marine.”

  “Army then? Oh, God forbid you aren’t Air Force. I’d have to puke up my rice. You zoomies are excellent pencil pushers, but know nothing about war besides getting back in time for pay-for-view.”

  Max watched the man intently for a reaction and found none. There was something oddly peculiar in his grace and control. In whatever service he achieved his rank, he certainly wouldn’t offer up personal details about himself. The chess match, as usual, played on.

  “You killed several of my men, but left Sergeant Walters to live. Why? Your life was made harder by leaving a witness who knows both your face and your background, and you don’t strike me as the sloppy sort.”

  Max played along, but decided a truthful answer here wouldn’t hurt. “I didn’t want to kill those boys. The first was an accident. The edge of the shelf hit him wrong when I tried to disarm him. I didn’t appreciate his gun in my face when we had no reason to quarrel.”

  “Stealing food from the Regiment was a crime and he was the authority. By killing him, you are as guilty as killing a policeman.”

  “If that’s true,” Max said coolly, “then it would’ve been a capital crime, and I’d be dead already. No, you’re keeping me alive for another reason.”

  “Fair enough. I’m assuming the others came to his aid after hearing the ruckus, but that doesn’t explain Sergeant Walters. Why did you cuff him and leave him to identify you?”

  Max shrugged. “I’m not a killer.”

  “The trail of blood you left begs to differ. You killed many more than just men of the Regiment and quite efficiently as Walters reported. You killed several of the gang members here in the city. Shayde has a strange respect for you and says you should be an ally instead of a foe.”

  “Let me and the woman I was brought in with go. We’ve no interest in joining your Regiment.”

  “No. That won’t do. You may have killed your own kind, Sergeant Rankin, but that does not buy your freedom. Either way, I cannot allow you to keep your white slave.”

  My own kind? White slave?

Max felt the blood within his veins begin to boil near to the surface. He felt the bowl of rice begin to shake in his hands and gripped it tighter.

  Because I’m black and killed black men?

  He yearned to bathe the Colonel with the rice and have a go at the guards. But in this weakened state, it would only have served to earn another beating.

  He’s baiting me, Max thought, urging self-control. This was, after all, a chess match not easily won, but never with violence. His wits had to prevail no matter the direction he was taken.

  In a voice as calm and soothing as the Colonel’s, he asked, “Is that what I found myself in the middle of? A race war. If so, why not lynch your black prisoner in the square as an example?”

  “Because the Nature Boys would celebrate your death and thank us. No, I see them and the gangs as the real problem. Each will probably kill each other or themselves with their looted drugs and guns eventually. My men take everything of value when we forage—food, water, antibiotics, and other medicinal needs, but we leave the gangs plenty of the most addictive pills and tinctures to find. They’ll kill themselves off soon or weaken themselves enough so my men can finish the job.”

  “So that’s what this is? A white supremacist colony?”

  “Not in the least, Sergeant. We have many minorities within our protection, but everyone we take in is vetted. They must be able to contribute something to our society once replanted. Take you, for instance. Your only crime was killing my soldiers. If you could atone for that, we could find suitable placement for your intellect and training within the Regiment.”

  Max scoffed. “My intellect... Because I’m smarter than the street monkeys I killed?”

  “Don’t say things like that, Sergeant Rankin,” the Colonel said solemnly, “that kind of talk is racist.”

  Check. Max had allowed himself to slip at last. He tasted the anger in his mouth and swallowed it hard. Instead of lashing out, he moved to castle his king and reset the imaginary board. It was time to give something up to his captor.

  “Linda isn’t and never was my captive. I found her injured on the side of the road during the missile attacks. Her husband died that night, and I gave her food and treated her wounds. Then drove her in the direction she wanted to go. But she is her own woman and can stay with you if she wants.”

  “But only if she wants, and you know she doesn’t.”

  “You’re good,” Max admitted. “I’m guessing you were a psychologist in whatever branch you served. I bet you had a practice around here before the attack, and formed up this Regiment in order to play soldier on the side. You probably didn’t serve a single day, and Colonel may even be an honorary title.”

  “Oh, I served, Gunnery Sergeant Rankin.”

  Then a thought struck Max and caused him to laugh from the belly, a loud and shocking sound of lunacy that caused the Colonel to flinch and the guards to tense. “I figured it out. You’re National Guard! You wanted the uniform and title, but couldn’t or wouldn’t be able to take the full-time commitment!” He laughed again. “You’re a part-time soldier!”

  The guard’s struck him square in the temple, sending him reeling and spitting blood against the wall. He smiled at that, too. Finally, the room had some color. The next blows caused him to cease seeing white altogether, as he passed out from weakened exhaustion.