Chapter 10
Jake left the empty bowl with a stack of others waiting to be cleaned and went back outside to look for Molly's Wall. From the description she'd given him, and having seen similar set-ups on the evening news after other tragic events, he thought he knew what he was in for. Nothing had prepared him for the sheer size of the real thing, and he couldn't believe he'd failed to notice it earlier.
It covered up the entire south wall of the mess building: at least forty feet long by roughly five feet high―as high as a man could reach and still be sure his message could be read—and every inch was plastered with pictures and notes. Jake heart dropped as he took in the sheer number of notices, each piece of paper representing a desperate appeal for news from loved ones: fathers, sisters, uncles, wives...
He held out for half an hour, reading note after note, until he grew too nauseated. Though he'd manage to look at only a fraction of the material, he could no longer stomach the peeks he'd gotten into people's lives: into their anguish and their heartache. The bombs, the cities destroyed and the number of possible dead had all been an abstract concept to him up until then, a story to be horrified over while concentrating his energies on his and Anna's own survival. This wall of despair brought the stark reality home. There were holiday snapshots, driver's license pictures, even wedding photos. The images pictured the young and the old, from every ethnic group imaginable. The notes accompanying them were scrawled in an equally wide variety of scripts, printed on all kinds of paper: notepad pages, napkins, old-fashioned printer sheets. And none of what he read rang a bell with Jake.
He should pry further information out of Anna before he tried to read the rest of the notes. Even if someone had put up a notice about her parents, chances were he'd miss it entirely because he wouldn't know enough to recognize it. And Anna should put up her own message, too, as Molly had suggested.
Still too shaken by the Wall to face dealing with Anna or her grief right then, Jake walked over to the registration building. FEMA might have news, or the Red Cross. Though Henry had made a valid point—the authorities wouldn't forward gossip and hearsay—it was worth a try, anyway. At the very least, it was better than doing nothing.
The room was packed with people crowding around the beleaguered FEMA personnel: clamoring they wanted to talk to the guy in charge; asking for money; calling for better food or a private tent. One man was even demanding FEMA let him use the phone so he could call his lawyer and have them sued. Jake took one look at the throng and backed out quickly. There was nothing to be gained from the harried staff.
Pausing outside the door and trying to figure out what his next move should be, he spied the female clerk who'd registered them. Julie-Anne, he recalled. She was standing near the corner of the building, one leg bent at the knee and her foot braced against the wall, smoke curling up from a cigarette clamped between her fingers. She'd been friendly, hadn't she?
Jake walked over to her. As his shadow fell across her, she squinted up at him. She didn't give him a chance to open his mouth. "I'm sorry, I can't help you." Jake huffed a wry laugh; she must be used to people accosting her during her smoke breaks. "You're gonna have to―."
"I know," he interrupted. "You signed us in last night."
She tilted her head and gave him a closer look. "The newly-weds from San Diego?" She took a drag from her cigarette, blowing out a stream of blue smoke. "How's your wife doing?" She flicked the ash from the tip of her cigarette. "I'm sorry you two had to get the news about what happened to your home the way you did. If I'd known you didn't know..." She left the rest unspoken.
"It's alright. You couldn't know." They were both silent for a minute. Inside the office, a woman started screaming insults at the top of her voice; one of the National Guardsmen on watch at the gate came over to check it out.
Julie-Anne's attention remained focused on the door after the guard had gone inside. Her features showed a mix of frustration and concern. "They all want something we don't just have," she muttered. Jake didn't think she was speaking to him.
He hesitated. "Sorry." He gave her a rueful half-shrug in apology. "I'm looking for information regarding my wife's parents." He absently noted that the word came easier to his lips with every repetition.
"Of course you are." Julie-Anne's face twisted into a grimace that contained a large dollop of resignation. Inside the office, the guardsman must've calmed everyone down, as the angry voices had fallen silent. Julie-Anne pushed away from the wall. "What are their names?"
"Gomez?" Jake mentally kicked himself for not having asked Anna for her parents' first names before leaving for the camp office. "They'd be an elderly couple from Houston."
Julie-Anne snorted a wry laugh. "Is that all you have? It's not exactly an uncommon name."
Jake sighed. He could ask Anna, but Julie-Anne might not be so forthcoming next time. "No, sorry."
She dropped her cigarette butt and crushed it out with her heel. "Have you seen the board near the mess?"
"I did." Jake scratched his neck. "It's―."
"Distressing?" she suggested softly. "It is." Her shoulders slumped. "So many... And there's only so much we can do..." She gazed out across the bustling camp that hunkered under the slate-gray sky.
One of her colleagues came over to present her with a file folder. "Can you take a look at this?"
Julie-Anne accepted the file wordlessly. She offered Jake an apologetic smile as she brushed past him. "I'm sorry, I gotta get back to work." At the door she turned around. "Let me know if you have any further information, okay?"
"Will do." Jake was grateful for her willingness to help, knowing it'd be like trying to locate the proverbial needle in a haystack―after a tornado had blown said haystack apart.
The deep rumble of motor engines distracted him from the challenge of locating Anna's parents. A row of trucks had come rolling up the road and stopped at the camp's gate. Armed men filled the cab of the first one. More Ravenwood troops. Jake pressed his lips together, not particularly pleased to see them. Better get used to it, he told himself; Ravenwood was clearly helping FEMA to run the camp. The good news was, as long as they were busy trucking in food, they wouldn't be hunting for him or Anna. And if San Diego had been among the cities that had been attacked, the guys back there would also have more important things to think about—assuming they'd even survived.
The driver of the first truck handed a clipboard to the guard at the gate, who glanced briefly at it, stepped back and waved the trucks through. People had begun appearing from deeper inside the camp, drawn by the grumble of engines, Jake guessed. They surged closer as the first truck slowly trundled through the gate, followed by the rest.
"Get back! Get back!" The National Guards pushed people aside, trying to clear a path. "Let them through."
"What's all this?" Jake asked a man who was also watching the melee.
"Food convoy." The guy gestured at the crowds. "They come in every other day, but it's never enough. We got too many people." He shifted his focus back to Jake. "There's bound to be trouble some day." Without waiting for a response from Jake, he threw himself into the throng. Observing the crowd pushing up behind the trucks as the convoy stopped near the kitchens, with the guardsmen barely holding them back, Jake was afraid he was probably right.
o0o
Finding himself out of further ideas for how to help Anna, Jake reluctantly returned to the tent. There, he made numerous attempts over the day to draw her out of her depression, none of them successful. Molly had given her the secret cure for morning sickness, and it had proved effective enough that she'd reluctantly nibbled on a bread roll as Jake tried to share his dinner ration. But she'd merely listened silently to his proposal she put up a memo to ask for news about her parents, refusing to either take action or outright refuse.
"You should go see one of the doctors tomorrow," he suggested later in the evening, settling on the thin mattress beside her. "Especially if you're feeling sick."
The big floodlights hadn't been extinguished yet, making it easy for him to see her without the aid of the flashlight. She rolled a shoulder noncommittally, and turned her back on him.
"Anna―." Exasperated, he swallowed the rest of his argument and flopped onto his back beside her. Perhaps now wasn't the best time to have this conversation, anyway. Soft snoring was drifting through from the other side of the dividing curtain: the Ginsbergers had turned in early and he didn't want to risk waking them up.
He turned his thoughts back to Anna. She'd changed so much from the strong, resilient woman he'd come to know that he hardly recognized her any more. For all she'd been terrified when Freddy died, she'd refused to give in to despair, even after the bomb that took out Dallas or during the hard trek south or when they'd been chased by that road gang. His mouth curved into a smile at the memory of her coolly aiming the flare gun and firing it to create maximum damage. But losing her family had been the final straw.
Maybe she'd feel better in the morning... He huffed silently. Yeah, fat chance. What she'd been through would take more than a good night's sleep and a doctor's visit to fix. He scratched absently at the stubble on his chin: he also knew from bitter experience that dwelling on your grief—wallowing in your misery—didn't do much to help either.
Outside, the camp had grown much quieter. With a soft pop, the last of the lights went out. Abruptly, the tent was thrown into complete darkness. Jake blinked, unable for a minute to see the hand he held up in front of his face. Slowly, his sight adjusted, so that if he tilted his head, he could make out the rounded shape of Anna's shoulder under the blanket against the lighter canvas. From the other side of the tent, Henry's snoring still punctuated the silence. And Jake wasn't any closer to sleep than when he'd crawled up onto the cot.
He rolled onto his side so he could curl his body around Anna. She was asleep now, her chest rising and falling slowly, and he was grateful for that. Perhaps sleep would allow her to forget for a few hours and give her a little peace.
Slipping one palm under his cheek to cradle his head, he considered his own options. He sure as hell couldn't go on to Jericho with Anna like this, much as he wanted to. He wished he could get a message to his parents, though. His dad might still hate him, but his mom would be sick with worry, like those people who'd put up their photos and messages on the wall.
He huffed again. It was as if fate had conspired to keep him from getting to Jericho every step of the way: fulfill his promise to Freddy by getting Anna on the bus from Albuquerque; travel with her until he was sure she got to her family safely; then the attack on Dallas had happened, followed by the long hike, and learning what had happened to Houston. Finally, they'd gotten scooped up in Brenham and brought here. He'd hoped she'd be safe at the camp and that he'd only have to stick around for a few days until she was settled. But now...? He couldn't abandon her.
The arm he was using as a pillow had grown numb, so he rolled onto his back and shook his hand to reduce the tingling as the blood flow was restored. Getting Anna to see a doctor wasn't enough, he realized. He'd discovered during the day that the medical staff assigned to Camp Austin also included psychologists and grief counselors. He should convince her to talk to one of them, if she wouldn't talk to him.
o0o
Jake was enough of a realist not to expect Anna's grief to pass overnight. But it was disheartening to discover the following morning, when he woke from a fitful night of not enough sleep, that nothing had changed: Anna persisted in refusing to get up.
Not knowing what else to do, he again brought his bowl of porridge back to the tent to share with her―the oatmeal giving the impression it was even more watered-down than the day before―and she again ignored him.
At his wits' end, he pleaded with her, "C'mon Anna, please. I know it's horrible, but you need to eat." Setting the bowl down carefully near the foot of the cot, he rubbed the back of his neck. He felt like he was beginning to resemble a broken record. "And after, we'll go see a doctor and make sure everything's okay."
"Why?" Anna rolled over and peered up at him. Her eyes were dull and filled with misery. "What's the point?"
While he was glad he'd finally got some kind of response out of her, Jake boggled at her answer. "What's the point?" he repeated incredulously. She couldn't be serious, could she? They'd done everything they could to allow her to eat as healthily as possible these last weeks. "You have to take care of yourself."
"Everyone I know is dead, Jake. Freddy, my parents, my sisters. Who gives a damn what I do?"
"I do." Jake offered her a hand to help her sit up.
Anna barked out a harsh laugh. "You?" She ignored his hand. "You just feel guilty about Freddy. If it wasn't for you, he'd still be alive."
Her words took his breath away, as if a fist had slammed into his chest. "You blame me for Freddy?" he asked softly. For a moment, he was back in his apartment, feeling the hot, sticky blood on his hands, seeing Freddy blowing out his final breath while he watched helplessly. Had there been anything he could've done to prevent it? He swallowed. "Freddy got involved with Ravenwood on his own. I warned him not to." But Freddy had never been good at listening to Jake, had he?
Anna sat up, flinging off the covers. "And if you'd helped him, if you'd gone with him, like I asked you to―."
A small voice in the back of his mind warned Jake it was her heartache doing the talking, but he didn't listen to it. "You'd be dead, too," he interrupted her harshly. If he and Freddy had taken the job with Ravenwood as planned, Anna would've been in San Diego, at the bar, when the bombs went off. His stomach turned over.
"That would've been better."
Jake reeled from the naked pain in her voice. "Is that what you want?" he asked, his brief flare of anger already gone. "To die too? What about the baby?"
Anna flinched visibly at the reminder. Her eyes filled with fresh tears. "I want it to stop," she whispered. "It hurts so bad..."
The last of Jake's irritation vanished. "Yeah. I get it." He didn't, not really. He couldn't. His family was safe in Jericho, no doubt with Dad holding the town together and Sheriff Dawes keeping the peace. "I'm sorry."
Gathering her knees to her chest, she wrapped her arms around them tightly, and sobbed into the crook of her elbow. Jake sat next to her on the cot, resting a hand lightly on her back to signal he was there, and let her cry.
At last her crying died down to just the occasional racking sob and she lifted her head. Now that she was quiet, Jake could catch the sound of Molly and Henry talking on the other side of the curtain, their voices too low for him to make out what they were saying. Hearing them was a shock; he'd completely forgotten they were there.
"Jake?"
Molly twitched the curtain aside and held out a steaming mug. From her cautious expression as she looked at Jake, he could tell she'd heard the argument with Anna.
"I couldn't help but eavesdrop," she confirmed, her tone apologetic. "I brought tea." She gave them a slight smile. "Tea makes everything better."
Anna hiccuped a soggy laugh. To Jake's relief, she accepted the mug when he took it from Molly and passed it on to her. She curled her fingers around it, warming them, although it wasn't really cold in the tent now. From the quality of the light, Jake reckoned the sun must be out and heating up the air.
"Thank you." Anna muttered the words over the edge of the mug as she blew air across the tea, cooling it enough to drink.
"You're welcome, dear." Molly stepped further into their part of the tent. "Your young man told me about what happened. I am so sorry." Anna blinked rapidly. "But he's right: you have to eat, and you should go see a doctor. You need to stay strong and healthy for your baby."
Anna lifted her gaze to meet Molly's, her eyes red and puffy. Jake braced himself, expecting her to withdraw into her shell and tell them all to leave her alone. But she didn't; instead, she nodded shakily. Molly's features softened with an encouraging smile.
"Don't despair yet, sweetie. We'll pray for you, me and Henry, that God has spared your family. And unless and until there's official confirmation, we'll believe He has, okay?"
Anna's bottom lip trembled. "Yes," she whispered. Jake swallowed the lump that blocked his own throat, barely daring to breathe.
Jake ate his oatmeal while Anna finished up the tea. He took the mug back to the other side of the tent to return it to Molly. "Thank you, for this and―." He gestured awkwardly. She acknowledged his unspoken thanks for the comfort she'd offered Anna with a pat on his hand. "How did you...?" He dipped his head at the empty mug.
Molly's eyes crinkled mischievously and she planted a finger on her lips. "Shh. We brought our camping stove. But don't tell anyone. We're not supposed to have them in the tents. Fire hazard, they say." She shrugged lightly. "The cylinder's nearly empty, anyway."
Jake chuckled. "Your secret is safe with me."
Molly snorted. "Now, go get your wife seen by a doctor."
"Yes ma'am." He ducked back through the curtain to see Anna had climbed off the cot and was tying up her boots. He watched her a moment, immensely grateful to Molly and her tea. Anna's grief hadn't lessened―her pale features and red eyes were visible proof of her pain―but at least she was up and willing to try. She finished tying her laces and straightened. Not quite looking at him, she muttered, "I'm sorry, I'm an idiot."
"No, you're not." He stepped closer and hugged her. "You're the bravest woman I know."
o0o
They were still serving breakfast—just: all that was left were dregs of oatmeal scraped from the bottom of the pot—when Jake and Anna reached the mess hall. Jake couldn't help shooting the cook a triumphant glare as the man scooped the porridge into Anna's bowl, but he either didn't recognize Jake or didn't care.
Anna managed to finish most of her serving, though she struggled visibly to swallow the viscous goo. Jake didn't press the point once she said she couldn't eat another spoonful and pushed the bowl away. Their next stop was the medical facility. It wasn't far; the camp's builders had put all the communal structures―administration building, mess hall, washrooms―close together, either to make it easier for everyone to find them or easier for FEMA to supply them.
Its location turned out to be pretty much the only advantage the Camp Austin med center boasted. It had to be one of the dreariest hospitals Jake had ever walked into, and he'd seen some sad places in his time. Glancing around at the dull green vinyl floor and the cheap plastic chairs, he was reminded unpleasantly of the field hospitals in Iraq. The place even smelled the same: a mixture of blood and antiseptic and other unpleasant substances. It brought back memories Jake would have rather stayed buried. As he planted his butt in a chair beside Anna, he caught himself touching his hip. The jagged scar hidden beneath his jeans, a physical reminder of his time in Iraq, itched with phantom pain. Freddy had saved his life that day, when Jake had thought he was going to die―and now here he was, while Freddy was dead...
He snuck a glance sideways at Anna. Did she really believe it was his fault Freddy had been killed? Deep down, Jake wouldn't disagree if she did. He should never have let Freddy out of his sight. Not after Freddy had agreed to work for Ravenwood. And especially not after Hicks had shown up at Jake's apartment and threatened to rat them out as informants if Jake didn't do as he wanted. Jake had only agreed to Hicks's scheme to buy time to figure out what to do. And Ravenwood must've somehow gotten wind they were gonna make a run for it and tracked down Freddy.
And then Freddy had died on Jake's floor...
Jake swallowed hard at the memory. Forcing it away, he tried instead to make conversation with Anna, not very successfully: she gave him single-syllable answers when she answered at all. The whole time, she sat stiffly in her chair, her gaze fixed unseeingly on the far wall. Survivor's guilt, they'd called it in Iraq, referring to those soldiers who'd lost their entire squad to an IED or in an ambush but had themselves survived through some weird trick of fate.
Making another attempt to draw her out, he touched her lightly on the arm. "Can I get you anything? Water?"
Blinking, she slowly focused on him. "Before. I didn't really mean―." She gestured at her stomach.
"Hush," he interrupted her, smiling. "I know, okay?" He squeezed her knee and she rewarded him with a brittle smile of her own. It lightened his heart to see it.
They still didn't talk much after that, but the silence between them was easier as the minutes ticked slowly by and they went on waiting to be seen. The med center was evidently too small for the sheer number of refugees in the camp and it was well past noon by the time a nurse stepped into the waiting area and called out, "Anna Gomez Green".
Jake started awake from the slumber he'd sunken into, for an instant forgetting they were trying to keep up the pretense of being married. He followed after Anna as she got to her feet and told the nurse, "That's me."
The nurse, an older woman with a no-nonsense attitude, pulled the thin cotton screen curtain that screened them closed around them as they joined her in the treatment cubicle. "Mr and Mrs Green. What can I do for you?"
Jake shot Anna a glance. She didn't respond—maybe she didn't even know where to start—so he told the nurse, "She's pregnant. We've been walking for weeks, and I'm worried―."
"Did you come from Houston?" The nurse frowned as she asked the question, making a note on her clipboard.
"Um, no." The nurse looked up and Jake explained, "We were in northern Texas when the attacks happened. I don't think we were exposed to any radiation." At least, God, he hoped not. "But Anna's not been feeling well, and―."
"Alright." Again, the nurse didn't let him finish. "How far along are you?" The last was directed at Anna.
"Two months, I think...?" Anna mulled it over. "No, almost three now."
"I see. Hop on up," the nurse gestured to the bed, "and we'll give you a look-over." She waited until Anna was comfortable on the bed and then put a blood pressure cuff around her bicep. Jake watched as she puffed it up and slowly let it deflate. She nodded with satisfaction and made another note, before counting Anna's heart rate. More nodding, more notes, more questions fired in Anna's direction.
"Everything okay?" Jake asked, when the nurse—now adding more scribbles on her chart, punctuated by the occasional "mmm-hmm"—didn't seem inclined to offer any information of her own.
"Far as I can tell, your wife's doing fine, Mr Green." She gave him an disapproving look. For having interrupted her, Jake assumed, but he didn't care. She made a final mark on the chart. "I'll get the ultrasound machine, and the technician." Not giving them a chance to reply, she disappeared through the curtain, her footfalls clumping away across the linoleum floor.
Jake met Anna's gaze, and she gave him the tiniest of shrugs. Jake grinned back. The nurse needed to work on her bedside manner and the exam had been on the cursory side, but the news she'd given them was welcome, and for that he was grateful.
His gratitude morphed into irritation as the minutes ticked by and the promised ultrasound machine didn't show. He admonished himself to be patient: he knew the clinic was understaffed and overwhelmed. But forty-five minutes later, by his own count, he was ready to leave Anna and go find out what was taking them so long.
As if someone could sense he was nearing the end of his patience, the exact second he was about to open his mouth to tell Anna his intentions, the curtain was ripped aside and a new nurse came in. She was wheeling a small cart with some equipment on it: the ultrasound machine, Jake assumed. She was at least two decades younger than the nurse who had first seen Anna, and decidedly more cheerful.
"Hey there," she greeted them with a bright smile, pushing the cart into position near the bed. "I hear you two are expecting."
Though he was unwilling to take credit for something he had no part of, Jake didn't correct her.
"Let's check everything's coming along as it should be." She ushered Jake aside so she could take his place beside the bed, leaving him to hover near the foot. Voices drifted through the curtain from outside, but Jake tuned them out while he watched the nurse preparing Anna for the procedure. Now he had a chance to look at her properly, she looked barely old enough to have graduated high school, but she appeared to know what she was doing. And unlike her older co-worker, she was explaining what she was doing with every step.
However, as she finally reached over to switch on the machine, Jake took a step forward. "Shouldn't we wait for the doctor?"
She peered at him over her shoulder, regarding him with the kind of wary expression that asked, Are you gonna be trouble? "Mr...?"
"Green," Jake supplied.
"Mr. Green, as you may have noticed, we're short on staff."
"But―."
"Jake, it's alright," Anna broke in. Giving in, Jake fanned out his hands for the nurse to show he hadn't meant to give offense.
She straightened, looking from Jake to Anna and back to Jake again. "First baby?" As they confirmed that it was, the wary expression faded a touch, sympathy replacing it. "Don't worry, this is perfectly safe, for mother and child. And I may not be a doctor, but I am qualified to operate the ultrasound. If I suspect there's anything―anything―not as it should be, I'll get the doctor. Okay?"
"I'm concerned, is all," Jake offered as an olive branch of his own. He couldn't expect the same level of care in the camp's medical facility as he would've gotten in a big city hospital―or even in Jericho. He should be grateful they had access to medical care at all.
The nurse smiled more warmly, accepting the apology. "I fully understand, Mr Green. I'm sure everything'll turn out fine." She activated the ultrasound machine, and placed the probe on Anna's belly.
A minute later, she said, "See there," and pointed at a tiny blob on the small screen. "That's the baby."
Fascinated, Jake leaned forward for a better view, putting his fists on the mattress on either side of Anna's knees. To him, the image consisted of random splotches of black and white and gray, so he took his cue from the nurse's relaxed manner as she moved the probe around over Anna's stomach, squinting at the screen fixedly as she did so.
"Ah." The nurse let out a small sound of triumph. "See that there? That's the baby's heart beat."
All Jake could make out was a small dot that fluttered at a rapid pace, but as he glanced over at Anna, he couldn't hold back a smile. She was staring at the small screen, wonder on her face and her eyes sparkling with more enthusiasm than he'd seen in days. "Can―Can you tell if it's a boy or a girl?" she asked.
"That's trickier." The nurse knitted her brow, concentrating on the images for a minute or two more. At last she sighed and switched off the machine. "You'll have to wait until you're further along for that. And even then, it's not always a sure bet." She collected a handful of tissues and wiped off the remnants of jelly she'd squirted on Anna's belly. "I'd say everything's going well so far, with you and the baby, so," she grinned, "in six months' time, you'll find out for certain."
Anna tugged her shirt down and struggled to sit up straighter, more emotions than Jake could decipher flitting across her face. He could make a decent guess, though. Fear, uncertainty and doubt, for sure. Six months was a long time, and considering the changes they'd lived through in the past weeks, a lot could happen. Anna had to be scared to death at the prospect of having a child in the current circumstances.
He smiled at her encouragingly, the promise he'd be there on the tip of his tongue. He swallowed it down at the last moment, his smile going sour. It wouldn't be fair to tell her that. Not fair to himself to extend his promise to Freddy that far, and thus not fair to her. He didn't want to make promises he couldn't keep. But the resigned set of her shoulders made him wish he could've made that promise.
"We'll see about getting you some vitamin supplements," the nurse went on blithely, "'cause the food here―. Well." She rolled her eyes. "And you should come in for regular check-ups. But I'm sure you'll continue to be fine."
From the look on Anna's face, Jake could tell she was far less certain about it than the nurse.
o0o
Four presidents? Jake blinked in disbelief as he read the headlines pasted onto the camp bulletin board, jostling for space with official FEMA bulletins talking about office hours or counseling options or requesting volunteers to help out with various camp jobs. It had become a daily habit for him to check for the latest news, gathered from the trickle of fresh arrivals or picked up from the guards and staff. He never knew if what got posted was proven fact or hearsay, but it was hardly ever positive. And four men claiming to be the President of the United States was definitely bad. If they couldn't figure out the rightful successor, who the heck was in charge? The country had fallen into deeper chaos than he'd ever dreamed possible.
And if the rumors flying around the camp were to be believed, there'd soon be a fifth contender staking a claim: Texas's own Governor Todd was widely believed to be throwing his own hat into the ring any day now. "Todd'll show them damned upstarts, lemme tell ya," Jake overhead one man telling his wife in a heavy Texan accent. She'd lowered her head dully, two young children clinging to her legs, their eyes as empty as hers as they sucked their thumbs. It was obvious to Jake she couldn't care less who the president was, as long as he took care of her and her family.
As far as Jake knew, Todd hadn't given any indication he was going to join the fray. And to be honest, with both Dallas and Houston, two of the state's major cities, gone, and hundreds of thousands displaced and living in camps like this one, the governor likely had his hands full with his own state, and wasn't gonna bother with the rest of the country.
"Hard to believe, ain't it?" A woman next to Jake jerked a thumb at the list of other cities that had been confirmed hit. So far, the toll had risen to fifteen.
"It is." Jake shuddered in the evening chill as he scanned the list. Chicago, Detroit, Atlanta... Cities with millions of people each.
Not wanting to dwell on how many lives had been lost, Jake applied himself to reading the rest of the bulletins, trying to separate truth from fiction. He relished the single piece of good news among all the bad, his eyes drifting involuntarily back to the lines of text several times, as if he was afraid he'd misread them. But the news remained unchanged: New York had miraculously escaped, the authorities having intercepted the bomb meant for Manhattan at the very last minute. Jake desperately wanted it to be true, although it was also said the terrorist they'd arrested had been pretending to be an FBI agent.
So far, though, nobody had a clue who was behind the attacks: North Korea was being blamed, along with Iran... Some people said it had been China; others were arguing it was Al-Qaeda. As for the explosion that caused the EMP, nobody had yet figured out what to make of that. Meanwhile, the United Nations seemed paralyzed; most member states had called their personnel home and the US ambassador no longer seemed sure who he was representing in the Security Council. Jake couldn't blame the guy. Not with four men calling themselves 'President'.
At last, he stepped away from the board. He didn't give a damn about the politics, or who'd plotted the attacks. He had more immediate matters to deal with. Like Anna. To his relief, she'd carried on going with him to the mess hall at meal times. Otherwise, though, she still stayed mostly in the tent, napping on the cot―not that there was much else to do―and it didn't take a star psychiatrist to see how badly she was hurting.
He wished he knew how to help her. He'd talked to one of the Red Cross counselors at the clinic, a sad-faced older man with hair sprouting from his ears. He'd told Jake there wasn't much to be done, other than for Jake to listen and let her talk. "It sounds cliche, but it's also true: time heals," the counselor had said. "Best thing you can do is be there for her when she needs a sympathetic ear or a shoulder to cry on." Jake had left the clinic feeling more helpless than when he'd gone in.
He walked over from the news board to the Wall. He no longer had to peer over the heads of others to check the notices; as the days passed, the number of readers had slowed to a handful. It was even worse today: it had rained earlier in the afternoon, a slow, fat drizzle that had left the Wall a miserable mess of soggy paper and running ink. Jake scanned the soaked notes, wanting to verify Anna's hadn't been blown away or become unreadable. He spotted it quickly, a bit worse for wear but exactly where he'd tacked it four days ago. Anna Gomez is seeking her parents, Jesus and Maria Gomez from Settegast Park, Houston...
The chances her parents had survived the bomb were slim, but writing the note had been one of the very few practical things he could do. He hadn't wanted to give up on it without even trying, so he'd pressed her for the details.
"Jake, don't bother." She'd uttered a tearful hiccup. "My parents lived right east of downtown."
He heard what she wasn't saying: if they hadn't died in the initial blast, the prevailing wind would've blown the fall-out right over them. He'd refused to admit defeat: it was possible her parents hadn't been home at the time of the explosion, so he'd urged her to, "Humor me, okay?"
She'd shrugged again, but at least told him enough about her family that he could put together a short message. "I was born in Houston. Did Freddy tell you?" Pencil poised over the piece of paper Julie-Anne had given him, Jake lifted his head, startled. Anna wasn't looking at him; she was picking at the blanket as she spoke. "We moved to San Diego when I was little. My dad worked for the Navy. After he retired, Mom and Dad moved back to Houston, to take care of my grandparents. Me and my sisters, we stayed in San Diego."
It was the first time she spoke of her sisters since they'd learned the truth about San Diego, and Jake hardly dared breathe.
"Paula was a jewelry designer. Sophie, my youngest sister, was in college. Gonna be the first college graduate in the family. My dad was so proud of her. We all were." Anna's voice had grown more and more subdued while she spoke, until Jake had to strain to make out the whispered words. She glanced up finally, tears glimmering in her eyes. "I don't want to talk about them any more."
Jake had dipped his head in understanding, the lump in his throat preventing him from saying anything. He'd finished writing the memo with the details she'd provided and gone to thumbtack it onto the Wall.
Having confirmed Anna's plea was still legible, he considered grabbing a shower. It was early in the evening and there should be warm water left. He'd quickly discovered that the later it got, the colder the water got. Unfortunately, everyone else had figured that out as well; with the evening meal over, people were scurrying to and fro. And Jake wasn't in the mood to stand in yet another line.
He snorted. Seemed that was all he did these days: wait in line for breakfast; queue up for water rations; shuffle in a slow-moving file to dinner...
Yawning, he scratched his neck. No, best he wait an hour. The water would be cold, but he'd enjoy the solitude of the empty washrooms, a temporary oasis of quiet in the constant hubbub of the jam-packed camp.
With nothing else to do until then, he peered back up at the Wall. The floodlights provided plenty of light for him to read the damp notices now dusk had fallen. He had no idea what he was hoping to discover―news of Anna's family was high on his list―but he'd resolved to spend time at the Wall every day until he'd seen every scrap of paper tacked up there.
He continued scanning the notes and pictures until the despair that oozed from the Wall soured the thin cabbage soup they'd served for dinner in his stomach. A small number of people were still out and about, but the numbers had thinned. With no entertainment―no TV, no restaurants, no theaters―everyone went to bed early. It should be quiet at the showers by the time he'd swung by the tent and grabbed a towel.
In their tent, Molly had used the last of the propane in her camping stove to brew a final cup of tea to share with Anna. They'd pushed the dividing curtain aside, so they could each sit on their own cots and still talk. Henry wasn't there; the old man always took a stroll through the camp before turning in. "Clears my mind," he'd told Jake. "Helps me sleep."
Jake smiled at the two women, glad that Anna had found such a good friend in the older woman. It was one of the few pieces of good luck they'd had; they could certainly have done a lot worse for tent mates than Molly and Henry. Over the past days, he'd learned they'd been evacuated from a farm ten miles east of Brenham and that they had no children or grandchildren.
Waving away Molly's apology that she hadn't any tea left to offer him, he flung his towel around his neck, and rummaged around for the small bar of soap they'd been provided with on their second day in camp.
"I'll be right back, okay?"
Anna dipped her head in acknowledgment and blew into the hot tea to cool it.
Jake turned away to leave but Molly stopped him. "Jake. Can you do me a favor?" She winced as she clambered to her feet.
Jake frowned. "You okay?" He'd noted Molly's movement was quite often stiff, especially in the mornings right after she got up.
"Yes, yes, I'm fine." She dismissively waved off his offer of a supporting hand. "Just my old bones acting up. It's the damp from the rain, see."
"So, what's the favor?"
Molly gathered up a pair of mismatched water bottles. "Can you take these in for me?"
"Sure." Jake took the empty bottles from her. The depot to leave empties for recycling wasn't far from the washrooms, and it'd be no bother for him to drop the bottles off.
"Thank you." She patted his arm. "You're a dear."
Jake ducked his head. "No problem." Every other day, trucks rolled in loaded with plastic bottles in all shapes and sizes, from half-liter sports bottles to the heavy containers normally used in office water coolers. Jake had no idea where FEMA was getting the water from, but the transports were the only source of drinking water in the camp, and he dreaded the day the trucks wouldn't come.
o0o