THE ONLY THING WORSE than not knowing what’s going to happen is having nothing to do to occupy your time. The guards haven’t explained the purpose of this camp besides slinging around “the Harvest Project” —the name of the agricultural resurgence we’re supposed to take part in, as if we have a choice. But word has it, we’re going to be shipped somewhere and grow crops to feed this famine-riddled “Land of Plenty,” and if we do as we’re told, the family members the ARC separated us from will be allocated a portion of what we produce. This questionable promise is the reason no refugees have recently tried to escape —along with the trigger-happy guards.
Walking through the serving line, the same as we do twice daily, I glance across the glorified chicken run, set up in the old showgrounds, and watch my uncle talking to a guard. Unlike the other guards, who wear the same dingy gray sweatshirt and sweatpants combos as we do, this female guard is wearing all black. Her eyes sweep across the grounds, and while I’m watching, I see my uncle point me out. She nods and jots something on her clipboard.
“What’s wrong?”
I glance behind me in line and see that Angel’s standing stock-still while balancing her tin plate. The space appears oversize considering the portion of rice and beans, which I used to dole out and is now, ironically, being doled out to me in half the portion.
I muster a smile despite my sore tooth. “Nothing.” I hope I’m right. There’s no telling what my uncle would do if he thought I could help him climb the ranks.
That night, the same female guard is waiting for me outside the bathhouse. It is nothing more than a log room with a gravity-fed shower head that sprouts from the base of a massive galvanized tank supported by a steel frame. Angel looks between the woman and me, whose hair is in a bun, pulling her hatchet-sharp features tight. The girl pulls the hood of her sweatshirt over her dripping hair and nervously twines the strings around her fingers, chewing on the plastic ends.
“It’s okay,” I tell her. “Head back to camp. I’ll be there in a minute.”
I watch Angel walk away, completely dwarfed by the sweatshirt and pants that are purportedly one-size-fits-all. The woman says nothing. I convey my subservience by glancing down at my bare feet that are dirtier than before I showered, since the mud surrounding the bathhouse never fully dries. The new guards don’t let us wear shoes, just like my uncle didn’t let anybody wear shoes when people first started camping at the fairgrounds, which makes me realize the rule was —more than likely —not created by Uncle Mike, only reinforced.
Tired of waiting for orders, I look up at the woman. She is watching me with clinical detachment. Her own skin is still smooth, her lips not chapped from exposure. No one would call her beautiful, but she’s arresting in a way that forces you to look twice. And one thing’s clear: whatever life she’s lived since the EMP has been a whole lot easier than mine.
“We are seeking information about the Mt. Hebron Mennonite Community,” she says, her voice pitched low so it reaches only my ears. “Your uncle said that you lived with them at one time.”
I ask, “Why do you need to know about them?”
“Someone on the Agricultural Resurgence Commission’s board suggested the Mennonite community when we were discussing the most sustainable ways to grow crops.”
The woman’s explanation seems harmless, but I don’t fully believe it. Wouldn’t an agricultural committee be composed of those who already possess such knowledge?
“I only lived with the Mennonites for a few weeks,” I say. “Then their property was invaded by a gang and almost burnt to the ground.”
“Where did they go after that?”
I breathe, focusing on keeping my expression neutral. “I’m . . . not sure.”
Her head tips in a curt nod. “And you’ve not been in contact since?”
I do not trust myself to speak, and so I only shake my head.
The woman’s face shifts into an indiscernible expression. “Thank you —Sal, isn’t it? —for your time. I’ll let them know what you’ve told me.”
As she pivots on her heel and walks off, I can’t help wondering who “them” actually is.
Moses
Josh leans back against one of the concrete beams and folds his arms before conveying —in his terse, no-frills manner —the information about the ARC and the work camps in Liberty and Glacier National Park. “Right now,” Josh concludes, “we’re not even going to think about the camp in Glacier, but Liberty’s camp’s too close for comfort. I’m afraid if we don’t do anything about it, that threat might very well end up here.”
For a while, the parking garage beneath Concourse A is silent but for the sound of a bird making a nest in one of the fluorescent lights. And then our newest —and easily most opinionated —recruit, Charlie, addresses the gathering. “I really don’t see why either camp’s our problem.” He folds his arms. “I say let the threat come and then fight.”
Frustrated, Leora looks away, toward the morning light stretching across the threshold of the garage. I step forward and look at Josh. “What kind of militia are we,” I begin, “if we’re only concerned about our own protection and aren’t willing to risk our lives and fight for others?”
Charlie says, “I’m willing to fight for something I believe in, but this is a lost cause.”
“Families separated.” Leora spreads her hands. “Children abandoned. Who says —” she looks from Nehemiah to Dean —“that your own family members aren’t in there too?”
Luke comes to stand beside his daughter. “I’m with her,” he says.
Seth comes to stand on her other side. “I am too.”
I am standing near the exit sign, but Leora still catches my eye and nods her thanks when I step forward too. Looking at her, situated between her father and brother, I can’t help thinking how strange it is that a mission to reunite families is also being used to reunite the Ebersoles.
Leora’s bare legs are resting next to the blank-faced computer. She is wearing a pair of my running shorts and one of the T-shirts I’ve had for years. I am wearing one of Josh’s shirts and a pair of his pants, and Luke and Seth are wearing stuff scrounged from some of the other guys, so seeing her in my clothes shouldn’t affect me. But it does. For the past two nights, we’ve met up here after everyone else has gone to bed, and it affects me just the same.
Leora flexes her toes, and I shift my gaze back to the arena of stars performing outside the traffic control center: a safer view. “When do you think we’ll go?” she asks.
“We’ve got to come up with some kind of game plan first.”
She breathes in her tea, steeped with chamomile she found growing in wild yellow clumps next to the tarmac. “We can’t just go in there and get them.”
“No, I know,” I say. “We can’t.”
A long pause. “What if I go in?”
I try to gauge if she’s serious, but her profile is hidden by her hair. “If an entire militia, small as we are,” I say, “can’t overtake a camp, I don’t think you can do it single-handedly.”
“Then I could pack explosives, or poison.”
I slowly release my breath.
“Stop it, Moses. I can’t think of another way.”
“I could go instead.”
“They’d be more suspicious of a man. I’d tell them I was hungry and there to work for food.”
My tone is calm, though I feel like I’m talking her down from a cliff. “And what are you planning to do if they actually let you in?”
“I don’t know. Sal and I couldn’t free the families by ourselves. But maybe —” setting her mug on the desk, she pulls her legs in and cradles them —“we could figure it out.”
“Sorry, Leora.” I shake my head. “But ‘maybe’ won’t cut it. Not in a situation like this.”
“There has to be something we can do!”
“We’re not doing anything until we come up with a workable plan. It’s not worth the risk otherwise.”
“You sound like Charlie. That it’s not ‘our problem.’”
“And you sound like you’ve turned your back.”
“On what?” She turns in the swivel chair.
“Everything you were raised to believe.”
She levels her gaze. “I’d gladly lay my life down for someone I love. That, I still believe. But when it comes to protecting the lives of those I love, I am willing to fight. So in that, yes, I suppose I have.”
I reach out and brush back that curtaining half of her long, dark hair. “Hey, I’m on your side here. I believe the same as you. I just don’t want you to lose your faith in the process of . . . surviving.”
She stands from the chair, the wheels rolling across the plastic square covering the floor. “I’m not giving up my faith,” she says. “I’ve just decided sometimes it’s easier to do things myself.”
“Easier than what?” I ask. “Asking God to do them for you?”
Leora pivots away from me, arms cinched across her chest. “If he can see all of this —” she gestures to the darkness outside the tower —“why doesn’t he do anything to change it?”
I stand and point to the row of computers. “We’re not machines, Leora, with programs telling us what to do. God gave us a free will. It’s as simple as what happened in the parking garage today. Men stepped forward. Others stayed back. We are given the ability to choose. To take wrong or right paths. To love or to hate.” I stop, lowering my voice. “Each and every day.”
Leora is quiet, staring out at the night. She faces me with a half smile, tears spilling from her eyes, and steps away from the chair over to where I’m standing. She presses her forehead against my chest, and I feel her sob shudder through me. My body aches with the need to wrap her in my arms, but I force myself to respect her space, and her hard-won independence, so I don’t move —or breathe —until I feel her arms come up around me. She leans forward and whispers in my ear, “I choose love.” She then touches her salted mouth to mine, sealing her declaration with a kiss.
Leora
High noon and the militia is once again gathered in the parking garage beneath Concourse A, cleaning their guns on a rudimentary sawhorse covered with a sheet of tin, no doubt culled from somewhere in the rubble above. The shade provides a respite from the sun, blazing across the terminal and through the windows of the traffic control center, creating a greenhouse effect that sends condensation streaming down the glass, puttying the window ledges with mold.
Moses is among these men, and sees me as I approach, but then he drops his eyes back to his gun, darkening the barrel with an oil-soaked cloth. He and I have barely talked since I kissed him in the tower three days ago. I am not sure if he’s avoiding me, or merely required to work every guard shift that comes available: meaning that he spends his time either pacing back and forth in front of the gate —as if his racing thoughts will catch up to him if he sits still —or sleeping off his exhaustion. I understand he is afraid and cannot discuss the details of our relationship without evoking more fear, and yet our relationship is not what I am here to discuss.
“Moses,” I say, “I need to speak with you.”
Some of the militants catcall and make tactless remarks. If the apocalypse can’t make them grow up, there’s not a whole lot that can.
“Knock it off, guys,” Moses says and sets down his gun.
He strides over to me, and we walk out of the parking garage without talking. The concourse’s mosaic of broken glass catches the light, causing me to squint against the glare.
“I need to return to the community,” I say. “Judith Zimmerman is watching Anna, and I told her I’d come back in a few days.”
He looks to the side and breathes shallowly through his mouth —a habit whenever he’s agitated. “Are you also going back to him?”
“Don’t be like that,” I say.
“Like what?”
I sigh, exasperated. “You know I never cared for Jabil like I cared for you.”
He doesn’t turn toward me, just asks, “Is that past or present tense?”
“What?”
Moses looks over, blue eyes gleaming. “Do you care for me now . . . or only back then?”
I force my mouth to form the syllable holding the power to change everything. “Now.”
His hands shoot out. “Then stay!”
“I can’t just abandon my sister!” Our voices rebound against the tomb of debris.
“The entire community loves Anna, Leora. She would never be abandoned.”
I close my eyes as tears threaten to form. How can I choose between saving other people’s families and saving my own? And yet, isn’t this what brave men and women throughout history faced when they opened their homes —or basements or attics —to the ones being oppressed? Heroism requires sacrifice, even if that means sacrificing my family, along with the man I love. I step closer, holding the warm fold of his arms. “How bad is it going to be, Moses?”
He won’t meet my eyes as he says, “Your father and brother are going to hole up at Motel 6 with Josh while I go into the camp by myself. Hopefully I’ll have enough time to learn the guards’ schedules, ferret out the weakest slot, and notify Josh, your dad, and Seth to attack accordingly. Once they overthrow those guards, I will direct the refugees to the gates, so —in the chaos —they won’t think the ARC is being overthrown by a group as volatile as their captors.”
I say, “I would go along too, if Anna didn’t need me.”
He clenches my fingers. “It’d kill me if something happened. Do you realize that?” He holds them tighter. “Do you?”
“We could die every day,” I murmur. “But I at least want to know I’ve made a difference while I’ve lived.”
“You are making a difference,” he says. “You’re making a difference just by staying alive.” He releases me to cup my face so that his calluses abrade my skin. “I love you,” he says. “More than anything. I want to marry you. Build a life with you. I know we should wait for a better time, or until this world makes more sense. But none of this is going to change, Leora, and I can’t stand the thought of going inside that camp without first knowing you as my wife.”
I look up at him —this maddening, beautiful man full of perplexity and truth —and know, more than I’ve ever known, what path I am supposed to take, what path I’ve always been supposed to take. “I will,” I say, conviction vibrating through the conduit of words. “I’ll marry you. I would marry you, and be your wife, Moses Hughes, even if we have only this day.”