Dead Zone (24 page)
Authors: Robison Wells
KREZI WAS SURE SHE WAS
going to die. The bedroom had collapsed, and the hallway was a cave. She had spent the last three days lying on a couch, smothered in blankets, too sick to eat and too tired to try to escape. The ceiling in the living room bowed in, like an ominous bubble ready to pop and shower down debris from the roof.
First she thought she would die from the bombing. Then she thought she would die from hypothermia—she’d spent nearly that whole first day in that bathtub, cringing to avoid the cold water spewing from the tap. Now she knew she was going to die of starvation, or of complications from her broken ribs. She couldn’t go anywhere. Couldn’t escape to find help.
On the second day she had taken some debris and started a fire in the fireplace, lighting it with her hands. But now, the third day in, even that seemed too hard. She would fight off the cold with her blanket, and that would have to do.
She reached out a hand and slowly blasted a piece of wood in the fireplace. It had mostly burned, but there was still a fresh corner of a two-by-four. It burst into flame, briefly igniting the charcoal beside it, before it mellowed into a slow smolder.
It was so little wood and so far away that she could barely feel its heat. For a moment she began to push herself up to get more wood, but the pain in her chest exploded and she fell back into the couch. She pulled the blankets over her face and screamed.
And then she heard it.
She yanked the blanket down, cocking her head toward the broken and collapsed front wall.
Voices.
She tried to make out what they were saying, but they were muffled, whispering. She didn’t care. American, Russian, it would be someone who would take her away and give her morphine and make the hurting stop.
“Help!” she called. “Help me!”
There was noise outside, close.
“Help!”
Suddenly the door flew toward her, and men poured into the room. Krezi tried to raise her hands but pain stopped her from fully extending.
Guns were in her face, but she recognized the uniforms, recognized the muzzles of the rifles.
“I’m American,” she said, tears streaming down her face. “I’m American.”
Someone yanked away the blankets from her, revealing her ACU pants and olive T-shirt.
“I’m a lambda,” Krezi said. “I’m hurt bad.”
The guns were still on her, but someone reached to her neck and pulled at the chain to expose her dog tags.
“Lambda Lucretia Torreon,” she said. “Please help me.”
“Where are you hurt?” the man said, dropping her dog tags back.
“Broken ribs, broken sternum,” she said. “I think. I was shot in the chest and my vest took the bullets. I escaped.”
Two of the men exchanged a look, and then one of them stepped to the door and called for a medic.
“You’re very lucky,” the man said soberly. “Just down the road we ran into two lambdas who killed each other.”
JACK HEARD THE AMERICAN INFANTRY
first, and Aubrey had to wait in the basement while Jack, Josi, and Rich all ran upstairs to greet their rescuers. As Aubrey sat alone, she stared at the bottom of the pool table and wondered what would happen now.
Combat was over for her—she knew that. The shoulder injury was going to put her out of commission for months. Granted, she wasn’t certain that the war would be over before then, but if this bombing raid was any indication, then things had turned around.
There were sounds on the stairs, and then the jabber of five voices all talking at once.
Jack appeared, grinning from ear to ear. “The cavalry has arrived.”
“The infantry,” a man said, and knelt down. He wore a medic’s badge. “I hear you’re gunning for a Purple Heart.”
“Two,” Josi said. “She got shrapnel in her leg six days ago.”
“That was already stitched up,” Aubrey said.
“Well,” the medic said, pulling down the flap of shirt and inspecting the bandage. “We can’t guarantee anything, but you have earned yourself a nasty scar.”
“No more strapless gowns,” she said with a tired smile.
“I wouldn’t say that,” the medic said, pulling a new package of gauze from his pack. “This is a badge of honor. I don’t know exactly what happened, but these guys tell me you saved everybody’s asses.”
“Is that what happened?” she asked. “All the bombing?”
“They’re heading for the hills,” the medic said. “They still have Seattle and Alaska, but we’ll get you fixed up and you can kick them out of there, too.”
The medic redressed her wound, and then another man brought down a stretcher and laid it next to the pool table. Gingerly, they shifted her onto it and maneuvered it up the stairs and out of the house.
Aubrey’s eyes widened as she saw the devastation. “I didn’t know it was so bad, Jack,” she breathed.
“This is one of the good streets,” the medic said. “There’s not much left of Ellensburg. I expect we’ll find Cle Elum is worse.”
They placed her in an army ambulance that had been waiting on the lawn, and another medic started her on an IV. Aubrey couldn’t help but notice that the man in the stretcher across from her was Russian.
“We’ll see you back at base,” Jack said from the end of the ambulance.
“I’ll be waiting.”
JACK STOOD ON THE CORNER
of State and Main, in front of Mount Pleasant’s Memorial Hall. It was January, and a gentle snow was falling as he watched the workmen smooth the newly poured concrete. Aubrey held his hand, her fingers warm against his.
The governor had poured the first shovelful of cement. The mayor had poured the next, and the principal of North Sanpete High had poured another. Jack and Aubrey had shaken a hundred hands—probably many more than that—and the interviews seemed endless. The reporters all asked the same questions, most of them dumb. Aubrey had smiled her way through them, her confidence overwhelming.
They were both in their dress uniforms. Both had their Northwestern War medal and their lambda medal. Aubrey had the purple bar of the Purple Heart, a small oak-leaf pin in the center to denote both of her awards. And, of course, she wore her Medal of Honor. It had been given to her two weeks before at a ceremony at the White House. She, Jack, Josi, and Rich all attended, and while Jack and the others got Distinguished Service awards, the Medal of Honor was reserved for her.
As it should be,
Jack thought.
She’d had two surgeries on her shoulder and was scheduled for another. It likely would never be the same, and she’d always get pinged at the metal detector at the airport, but a few plates and pins in her clavicle were a lot better than the alternatives. Several of the muscles had come close to being severed, but none of them were. And the scapula only received minor damage from bullet fragments.
Krezi wasn’t invited to the White House, though no one made a big deal about it. Jack had heard that she spent several weeks in the hospital and then got sent home to her family in Las Vegas—honorably discharged and swept under the rug.
The media had found out about Tabitha, and they made a stink about it, and about the rebellion. There was no getting around it. Tabitha’s betrayal was part of the story that led to the Green Berets getting posthumous Distinguished Service medals. Jack didn’t like it, didn’t like the way she’d been treated. She was just a kid, just like any one of them, and she’d made a bad choice. Any one of them could have. Jack had come close.
The war wasn’t over, technically. There were still Russian troops dug in to northern Alaska—the citizens as far south as Fairbanks still weren’t allowed to return to their homes. But everyone agreed that this was a seasonal problem. Once the seas freed up from the ice and the skies calmed from their storms, the Russians would probably turn tail and run.
“It doesn’t even look like me,” Aubrey said, squeezing Jack’s hand and staring at the bronze monument.
“Sure it does,” he said. “Kind of.”
The statue had been done by one of the premier artists in the state, and would stand in front of Memorial Hall, next to the memorial honoring those who fought in World War I. Aubrey was the subject, but the monument was for all those in the state who fought in the war. There was going to be an identical one, with the names of all the lambdas, everywhere, placed at the capitol building.
“You could come with me, you know,” she said.
He smiled. They’d been over this a dozen times. A hundred times. “No. I’ll see you more often this way. Besides, I have work to do.”
Jack had become a figurehead for the rebuilding efforts in Utah—a kind of spokesman. But he was determined to finish school and go to college—with a full-ride scholarship. Eventually he would settle back into his old life.
Aubrey put her arms around his shoulders. Most of the reporters were gone, but the few who remained started to take pictures. Jack ignored them.
“If I came with you, this wouldn’t be allowed,” he said, smiling and brushing her lips with his.
“Since when have I followed the rules?”
He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her toward him. “You won the Medal of Honor. I think they’re going to pay attention. Besides, I bet people are a little more strict at West Point.”
“People are taking our picture right now,” she said, and kissed him. “They’re paying attention. I don’t care.”
And then her hands moved from his shoulders to his head, and she pulled him in for a kiss, deep and lingering. He loved this girl, and though he couldn’t bear to think of being away from her, he knew she needed to go. They’d be together again soon.
He cupped her face in his hands, wishing her hair wasn’t pinned up so he could run his fingers through it. He loved the very touch of her, the feel of her skin under his fingers. Her breath hot against his face. The scent of her perfume—she still wore the Flowerbomb, a constant reminder of all they’d been through together.
“We never got to go to a dance,” Jack said.
“We will. We have all the time in the world.”
And they kissed.
THIS BOOK WOULD NOT EXIST
without my dad, Robert Wells, who filled my childhood with superheroes and military trivia. So much of this book and the earlier book
Blackout
is based on places he took us on family trips, from the Coronado Naval Base in San Diego, to the Bremerton Naval Base near Seattle. He made his passions my passions.
Many thanks to my fact checkers. The military descriptions were checked by my dad and double-checked by Sergeant First Class Ethan Skarstedt of BSC 1/19th SFG(A). However, if there are errors in the details of vehicles, weapons, tactics, or strategies, I take full responsibility.
I’d also like to thank my Russian translators: Marion Jensen, Aaron Larson, and Nathan Wright.
And, as always, many thanks to my alpha and beta readers: Patty Wells, Krista Jensen, Jenny Moore, Annette Lyon, Sarah Eden, J. Scott Savage, Heather Moore, LuAnn Staheli, and Michele Holmes.
And, of course, my wife, Erin. The most supportive, longsuffering, inspiring, best person I know. My entire writing career would be nonexistent without her.
Many thanks to Erica Sussman, my editor at Harper, and to her amazing team: Stephanie Stein, Christina Colangelo, and Alison Lisnow. And a thousand thanks to Erin Fitzsimmons for the amazingly beautiful covers in this series.
