SAFE (18 page)

Weeks
after establishing the town, Urma couldn’t stop talking about finding the
place. She wanted to know if it really existed and she wanted to find a place
away from all the death. She talked Jan into leaving the safety of the town and
they walked east until they came to the edge of this part of Oregon. They
searched the coast until they came across a military boat boarding a large
group of military men and women—soldiers. The boat was anchored around a large
piece of wood hammered into the ground. A man walked off the boat, his clothes
nice and pristine. Urma ran up to him and asked if she could join the soldiers.
He informed her that anyone was allowed to enlist as long as they were okay
with knowing they could never come back. And his name was West.

Urma
begged Jan to join her, but Jan didn’t have a good feeling and refused.

When
Urma boarded, that was the last time Jan ever saw her. And years later, the small
town Jan helped create was overtaken by raiders. Including this house we were
currently in—the house where she and her husband lived.

“Can
you show us where you saw the boat?” I asked.

Jan
felt her legs and told us she was in no condition. She was old and barely able
to walk down the street without gasping for breath, only good at
faking
a strong person when the occasion called for it. “Hold on a sec,” she said.

Jan
walked back over to the locked safe, opened it, and grabbed something small.
When she came back, a compass sat in the palm of her hand.

“If
you walk east until you hit the coastline, then you’ll hit the same spot Urma
and I did. If you pass an old warehouse with graffiti, you’re headed in the
right direction.” She finished giving us directions and handed the compass to
me.

This
was our first real hope of finding Madeline and I couldn’t wait to get back on
the road. I gave Jan a huge hug, showing her my gratitude for being kind.

“Honey,
it was such a long time ago. You probably won’t find anything,” she added.

It
didn’t matter. It was worth a shot. We accepted her kind offer of the compass and
hospitality. She gave us a few loafs of bread as we gathered our bags and left.

We
walked forever, headed east, and only stopped when it was absolutely necessary.
After three days, we finally reached the old warehouse Jan described. A large
wing connected two rusty buildings, and across the wing the words
Z-O-M-B-I-E-L-A-N-D had been sprayed, painted big and bold. The look of the
buildings sent shudders down my body. Voices came from inside—hooting and
hollering. We decided to walk further into the woods for fear that someone
might see us.

After
four more days of hiking, we reached the coast. Once we arrived, there was no
sign of a boat. However, we had all the time in the world and decided to make
camp. That evening, we walked the edge of the coast and stumbled upon a large
piece of wood hammered into the ground, stuck so far down into the sandy dirt
that shrubs had grown all over, encasing the wood. It had been there for a long
while and we knew we were in the right area. After that night, we survived
weeks off various animals James and I took turns hunting.

Present
Day:

This morning, James and I sat eating breakfast
around a fire. The weather began getting rather cold. The seasons were changing
and winter was coming. We huddled close to one another inside our scavenged jackets
and tattered hats pulled over our ears. Out of nowhere, a large vessel with the
words
U-S
painted on the side, slid firmly onto the ground half a mile
down the coast, directly where the hammered wood was. James threw dirt over the
fire, grabbed our bags, and we made a mad dash for the ship. The front of the
boat weighted heavily on the ground, and a large door lowered—a gate allowing
access into an ancient castle. People began walking off and they didn’t appear
to be soldiers. In fact, they weren’t wearing uniforms. Instead, they were
nicely dressed with long, thick coats and furry hats.

A
young man walked passed and I stopped him. Asked if he knew a Colonel West. To
my surprise, he nodded. However, he said we weren’t welcomed and ordered us to
turn around. Instead, I lied and explained we had important information
pertaining to him, then we showed him the bag of weapons we were willing to
trade for passage.

Upon
viewing the bag, the man quietly looked around the group of people walking
about and told us to follow him. He walked over to a girl bent over, picking up
a clipboard off the ground. She turned around. I walked forward and introduced
myself to the girl that looked just like me. Madeline. She looked up at me. “Yes,
Stacy?” she asked the young man. She had no idea who I was. Her hair down. Mine
had been put up warm into my hat and my jacket collar was pulled around my
neck. She didn’t take any extra notice of me as I did her. I looked at the
pocket above her left breast, and the words
WEST
were sewn onto a grey
patch. She cleared her throat and held the clipboard against her chest.

The
young man, Stacy, leaned over and whispered into her ear. She looked down at
our bags.

“I’m
Colonel West. How can I help you?” she said.

I
quickly became confused, unsure of whether she was really Colonel West or if
she was merely wearing his jacket. Either way, she was of some importance. But
was that good or bad? What would she do if she found out who James and I really
were? These entire months here, nearly a year, I’d been searching for her and
never contemplated the idea of her not being a prisoner held against her will.
The last thing I ever thought I’d find is her sustaining a high ranking of some
kind. She wasn’t a prisoner at all.

My
mind began spinning in all different directions as she lowered the clipboard
from her chest. She checked off a couple of boxes and looked back at us.

“Well?”
she asked.

“Um…we
were wondering of where you, your boat was headed… If you were staying or going?
We’ve been in Oregon for a while now. There’s nothing here and we’ve had no way
of leaving. We’d like to come aboard if that’s possible?” The words left my
mouth as if they were the truth. But the truth was fighting against the edge of
my lips as they tumbled out smoothly. All I really wanted was to shout I was
her sister and how I’d been looking for her for so long, literally fighting for
my life in the process. She didn’t know my home was disintegrated in the blast
and our parents died.
You’re the only family I have left!
I screamed
inside, but my tongue wouldn’t move, wouldn’t say any other words than the
half-lie I just told. Above all, I stuck with the safer option. Not telling her
who we were, but simply that we needed passage.

Colonel
West, Madeline, began explaining their plan of sailing around the next few
months, inspecting plausible lands—places for a future settlement. She came
from a place named Stickmore where her father, Colonel West, had been in charge.
The word ‘father’ was a knife to my soul—he was anything but. The real question
was if she knew who her real family was. It didn’t seem like it.

I
told her my name was Penny and motioned towards her patch with the name West
embroidered. She said the patch was her fathers’, a remembrance for her of what
not to become. Colonel West Senior had died months ago. She described his death
as being a power struggle between him and the rest of the people who lived
there. He was involved in an enormous scheme where tests had been conducted for
a matter of years. The research had gotten out of hand when the Colonel before
him was in power. When her father took over, it became even worse. The soldiers
on Stickmore didn’t agree with how operations had been running. But before they
were able to relieve West Senior of his duties, he committed the ultimate
betrayal and destroyed the island. His death was a result of his actions.
Quickly after, Colonel Reedus was selected to take his place, and just recently
sent her and the rest of the team on the ship—to scout.

The
first thought running through my head was relief. Apparently, everyone thought
West was a bad man. However, that didn’t mean it was safe for James and I to
live on Stickmore or whatever she called it. It also didn’t seem like she was
in a position to leave either, being in charge of everyone on the boat and all.
And maybe she wouldn’t want to leave. In fact, she seemed pretty comfortable
with her nice clothes, leader of a group, with a large ship at her fingertips.
And on top of that, she was raised by Colonel West and mentioned nothing about
her real parents, now dead. She had no clue. 

“Would
you excuse me for a minute?” I asked and gave James a look to come with me.

The
two of us walked yards away, out of hearing range.

“What
do you think?” I asked him.

James
rubbed his forehead and peeked over my shoulder at the ship, then at Madeline.
His eyes scanned the area at the fifty individuals walking about, stretching
their legs and writing down assessments of the land. Some took soil samples and
others gathered water in little vials. A man and woman ran their fingers
through vegetation nearby, and jotted down information on their clipboards.

“Well?”
I asked again.

“What
do you want me to say? I think we should take refuge on a ship of people who
were in one way or another involved with what happened to our families… to Lucan?
They seem like upstanding citizens… who are scouting land to do the exact same
thing to other innocent people as what was done to us. And no telling what
they’ll do to me if they recognize any of my markings. What am I supposed to say,
Penny? This is a terrible idea.” James’ voice was shaking and he made his point
clear. The last thing he wanted was to board the ship and he didn’t owe me anything.
He already saved my life countless number of times and all my trust in him had
been overwhelmingly restored. His opinion mattered to me more than anyone else’s.
And I knew mine did to him too.

“I
know what you’re saying, James. But I wasn’t lying back there when I told
Madeline there’s nothing here in this place. Oregon. Because there isn’t. We’ve
been all over this Land, and we’ve never come across another boat. A way out of
here. This might be our only chance.” Concern wrote itself in between every
squinted line on his forehead. Then he rubbed his lips and pushed his palm
against his mouth.

“This
has to be your decision,” I whispered.

After
all, he was the only one with physical evidence of where we came from. But we
both agreed we weren’t sure if Madeline or any of the rest had ever actually
seen anybody from our Land. This meant they might not recognize his markings at
all.

After
more thinking, James said he’d go along with my plan as long as I promised to
disembark at the first Land the ship docked.

James
and I walked back to Madeline and asked if she’d allow us to come along until
they reached the next place. Fortunately, she agreed without hesitation and
said it’d be a different story if there were more of us asking. But since we
were the only two, they had the room.

I
wasn’t giving up on her knowing who I was. Now that I knew she was alive and
unharmed, and had an approximation of where she lived, I made a promise to
myself to explain to her who I was. Not now. But soon—when I found her again.

Madeline

The boy
and the young girl walked onto my boat, not something I normally allowed.
Strangers. Boarding with free passage. However, I knew they were the perfect
reason for docking into the next port. A Land with resources that could be of
major gain to us. I won’t be stubborn like my father, Colonel West Senior, or
as weak.

Growing up, he was strong and
conducted himself in a way where everyone naturally gravitated towards his
command. But over the years, my mom, Urma, messed with his head. He just wasn’t
the same headstrong individual he had been previously, and when she passed
away, he went crazy, exclaiming that all the research needed to halt and the
perimeter taken down.

An entire century of work
stopped. And for what, because he ordered it so?

That was the last straw. He knew
it. Nobody wanted to follow his orders anymore. In fact, we obtained enough
vials to start a second trial. The day he died, he looked at me through the
bulletproof glass. All of us were on the opposite side, locked out. He uttered
a few words and then typed in the coordinates, launching a missile directly up
in the sky with the target being our own Land, Stickmore. At the last second, a
soldier bypassed the security lock and we rushed into the room. My father aimed
the gun at his head and then took his life. A coward’s way out.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t recall
the missile, the only thing we could do was rewrite its destination to the
other Land. The Land where all of our work had been piloted, where all our
subjects lived. If we chose any other destination, we’d risk alerting every
government, causing too many questions.

Our work was lost, everyone died
in the blast. An ill-fated loss, just as we were about to start the process of
invading other Lands, gaining the upper hand, using our soldiers. The Land we
were docking next was of particular importance to us—the largest territory left
on the earth.

My current notion was to use the
girl and boy. Penny and James. When we docked, we’d explain the situation of
how they came to be with us and that they needed citizenship, allowing my
people and I an inside look into the Land temporarily.

THE END
for now