The Butterfly Box_A SASS Anthology Page 2

  “Jema.” Fingers snapped in front of my face. I blinked to see Nave beside me. “Mom just got to the best part.”

  I propped up on my elbow. “Yes, when Dad finds a family to adopt her.”

  “No, where he waits for her after graduation.”

  I rolled my eyes. “And drops to one knee and proposes.”

  Her pillow descended on my head. “Jema, he waited for her for six years.”

  “I know.” Looking up at Mom, I saw the familiar tears forming in her eyes and wrapped my hand around hers. “He’ll be back in a week. We can take a trip to the coast before school starts.”

  She wiped the water drops from her cheeks and leaned over to hug Nave and then me. “Goodnight, girls.” She kissed Nave’s forehead and then mine.

  I lay awake, my leg rocking back and forth, thinking about school, friends, and my dance routine. Hearing Nave’s breathing slow and even out, I pulled out my electronic board. Mom didn’t like me spending too much time looking at screens, but I sneaked it out when she wasn’t around. Too early for me to be tired, I brought up my latest dance recording, studying my form.

  “JEMA.” I HEARD my name and hands gripped my shoulders, jostling my torso. “Jema, wake up.”

  “Dad? Why are you home?” I rubbed my eyes, seeing Mom lift Nave’s sleeping form from the bed. “Is she okay?”

  “Yes, she’s just sleeping. We have to go. Pack five pair of clothes and basic toiletries for you and your sister.”

  “Dad, why are you home? What’s happened?”

  “The flu is back.”

  “So! Mom is immune. We probably are too.”

  “That is why we have to leave, now!”

  I GLANCED AT the game clock and then to Bridget on the sidelines in her cheerleading skirt. Placing my hand on the turf, I called out to Mitch.

  “Down, three, two, one, hike.”

  Mitch chucked me the ball, and I stepped back, faked left, and then poured all my strength into my forward motion. Digging my feet into the grass for traction, I ran down the field, dodging defenders.

  The crowd began to chant my name. “Troy, Troy, Troy.”

  Hands gripped my shoulders, and I tried to roll away from the tackle. “Troy, Troy, wake up.”

  My eyes flew open to see Dad beside me. “What are you doing home?”

  “Stuff developing. Get dressed, we need to talk.”

  The screen on my phone read one forty, and I pulled on a shirt and followed Dad to the kitchen. Mom sat in her usual seat, her hands folded on the table.

  “Sit down.” Dad motioned to an empty chair.

  Lowering myself into the seat, I noticed Mom dressed in cargo pants and a thermal shirt. The corner of her lips turned up for a second, but her eyes, puffy and red, cut to Dad. My heart rate quickened further, and I turned my attention to him.

  “What’s up?”

  Dad looked down at the table top and then from Mom to me. “You know about the viruses that hit a few years before you were born.”

  “Course, the AAL. We studied it in school.”

  He rubbed the stubble on his chin.

  “Hey, I’m almost eighteen. Whatever it is, I can handle it.”

  Pushing back, he slid his hands down his thighs. “Military people get special consideration for our service.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We’re exempt from certain requirements.”

  “Like the IM breeders? Like they don’t get enough privileges in their perfect houses with their perfect cars and perfect clothes. What do they have to sacrifice?”

  His eyes narrowed. “More than you realize. Let’s not be derogatory.”

  I straightened my shoulders and shot him my best relaxed smile. “Come on, everyone calls them that. Let’s just get on with this so I can get back to sleep. I have football practice tomorrow.”

  “Okay, I’ll just give it to you straight. A flu, they’re calling it AALC, has started to spread.”

  “AALC? C like Caucasians?”

  “Yes. You and your mother are going south with a group until it’s safe to return.”

  “What do you mean? I have football. School starts in two weeks. If I miss practice, they won’t let me start in the games.”

  Mom put her hand on my forearm. “This is going to be for longer than a couple of weeks.”

  “What? This is crazy! I’m not going anywhere. You were immune before, right? I should be too. We won’t get sick. I have to play all four years, or I won’t get a scholarship. I don’t want to be military like you.”

  Dad’s blue eyes cut to the ceiling. “Football isn’t everything. You need to do as you’re told.”

  Mom reached for Dad’s hand. “He has a right to know.”

  Glancing from Mom to Dad, I steeled my jaw and looked at Dad. “Know what?”

  Mom took my hand. “You’re our son, but we had our eggs infused to ensure you would be immune. You’re not registered, and we don’t want to risk something happening to you.”

  I twisted my hand from her grip and pushed away from the table. “You mean I’m designed like them? I knew it. You don’t get a brown-eyed kid from two blue-eyed parents. Why didn’t you tell me before? I’m not a baby. Is any of me real?”

  Mom’s eyes pleaded. “It’s not quite like that. The only change is the immunity.”

  Dad placed his palms on the table. “We don’t have time to discuss whether we were right or wrong to withhold this information. Right now, you need to pack essentials, clothes, and survival gear and be ready to go in a half hour.”

  “I don’t get it. You just said military were exempt.”

  “Things change when there’s a real threat. We don’t know what will be required.”

  “So I’ll be asked to give some blood. What’s the big deal?”

  “You think all they do is give blood? You think they get all of those perks for a little plasma?”

  My shoulders slumped, and I righted them again. “Yeah.”

  “Well, that’s not the case. They have bone marrow harvested every quarter. The procedure is not painless. The researchers will take more if they need it.”

  “But won’t you get in trouble if we leave?”

  “I’ll say your mom took you. I already have an alibi for my location tonight. But we need to get you out of here. Now.”

  I stood. “My summer has been bad enough already. Bridget leaving, and now this? What if I refuse? Run away? Go live with a friend? I’ll be eighteen in two months. You can’t force me to do anything after that.”

  Dad crossed the room to me. “Bridget moving was the best thing that could’ve happened to you. You didn’t need to be distracted this year. And as for your plan to run away, I’d have you court marshalled before you could reach the sidewalk.”

  I stretched my neck so we were eye to eye. “You wouldn’t.”

  “To protect my son and wife, I would. I need you to go and help keep your mother and the rest of the group safe. Most of them will be women with small children. I can only spare two soldiers for the trip.”

  “So now I’m a babysitter?”

  He stepped back and put a hand on each of my shoulders. “Troy, you need to fall in line here.”

  I swiped his hands from my chest, spun and took long strides out of the room. Jogging up the stairs, I felt anger well up in my chest. How could they keep something so important from me? Deep down I knew. They could never produce a picture of Great Aunt Ida with the brown eyes. I hadn’t wanted to know. Why should I trust them? Leave my team, my friends, my school? To babysit a bunch of women and children? But what if Dad were right? What if they took me for some research study?

  Packing my duffle, I thought about my options. There was nowhere to hide on the base. If I ran away, I’d have to go to a big city. We didn’t have much family, so I’d be homeless. Dad’s way was probably my best option.

  My door creaked open, and I turned towards the sound.

  “Need any help?” Dad knelt beside me. “I brought
you these.” He opened a bag with two pistols and a knife. “Keep them on you. Take care of your mother.”

  “Are you going to be—”

  He stood. “Don’t worry about me. They need me to protect the borders, now more than ever. I need you to be strong. You are up to the challenge. I know you can do this. Do you have everything?”

  I looked around my room. “I guess.”

  In the kitchen, Mom stuffed dehydrated meals into a backpack. She handed me a canteen and a package of meals. “This should be enough to get us to the camp.”

  I looked at the six plastic cases in my hands. Two days, I calculated. But Mom would double what she thought we’d need. That meant one day of travel. “Camp?”

  “The group leaving tonight is heading for a camp in Nevada.”

  “Nevada? That desert? We’ll never survive.”

  “This is what we’ve prepared for. There’s an underground cave community there. It’s fourteen hours from Port Orford to the location.” He looked at his watch. We have fifteen minutes to meet them. “Let’s move.”

  We took Mom’s car because the engine made little noise. Dad rarely drove, except on vacations and our survivalist trips, and it felt weird to sit beside him. I had been naïve to think they were just for fun, something cool to do. With the headlights off, for a minute it seemed as if I may still be dreaming. I rapped my hands on my thighs to make sure I was awake. Dad stopped at a warehouse on the southern part of the base and got out, telling us to stay put. Mom hadn’t spoken since the kitchen, and I wondered if she was scared.

  “What will happen if we get caught?”

  “I don’t know. Your father believes this is the best option. I guess he’s had it arranged for a couple of years. I never knew about it till tonight.”

  “Will there be any other kids my age?”

  “I don’t know. Infusion wasn’t perfected in the beginning. We lost two babies before you.”

  “I had a brother or sister?”

  “Two girls, both lost before the second trimester.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Dad came back to the car. “Okay, this is it.” He opened the door for Mom.

  I heaved my bag over my shoulder and followed them inside. A huge military truck filled the space. Women and children were piling into the trailer. Dad walked towards a uniformed man, and we followed.

  “Lieutenant Walker, my family.” Dad motioned to us.

  Lieutenant Walker straightened his spine and nodded. “Admiral Masterson.”

  “Troy’s almost eighteen and well trained. My wife, Lacey, is too.”

  “Good. We can use all the trained people we can get.”

  “You driving?”

  “Me and the other lieutenant will rotate.”

  “Troy can help if you need him. He has firearms and knows how to use them.”

  “Good. Thank you.” He smiled at me, and I squared my shoulders to look as tall as I could. I had reached six two earlier that month. Still, with large broad shoulders and big arms, the guy before me probably had two inches on me.

  Dad turned to face Mom and me. “This is it. Be safe.” He hugged Mom and then stepped in front of me, hand out. When I slid my hand into his, he pulled me into his chest. “I’m proud of you.”

  “Thank you.”

  He squeezed my shoulder and hugged Mom again. Tears pooled in her eyes, and she wiped them away.

  Lieutenant Walker held up a metal box. “We need all electronics.”

  “What? Will we get them back?”

  “Can’t take a chance of them being traced or found via satellite. I don’t know what the rules are at the camp.”

  I retrieved my phone from my pocket and dropped it on top of the other devices, and Mom followed suit. Dad helped Mom into the truck and tossed her backpack to her. I pulled myself up, and he handed my bag up to me.

  “Take care of your mom.”

  “I will.”

  “I know. You’re a good man.”

  Dad never called me a man before. Unsure of how to respond, I slapped my leg. “Okay, bye.” It’d been only forty-five minutes since we were sitting in the kitchen and I learned about the infusion. We were boarding a truck to travel into no man’s land. It had to be a dream.

  The engine growled to life, and I sat on the bench beside Mom. Dad saluted and I saluted back, grateful that I listened to him and joined Junior Cadets and attended the survivalist camps. Between those two activities, football, and baseball, I’d had little down time, but it seemed worth it with an impending viral outbreak.

  Mom put her hand on my thigh as the vehicle lurched forward. I noticed tears pouring down her cheeks and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. We rode out into the dark through the warehouse’s garage doors. I scanned the faces beyond Mom. Glazed and wide, the women’s eyes were trained on the floor. Their arms held children, none of them more than ten. It was going to be a long fourteen hours. Not that I didn’t like kids, but we’d hosted football and baseball camps, and I knew how they could be. At least most of the young ones might sleep during the night. I ended my survey with the family in front of me.

  A woman held a sleeping girl in her lap. I guessed she wasn’t more than six, maybe eight. The girl beside them wore a tan desert camouflage jacket with the name Walker on the pocket. She sat hunched over, hands to knees, making it hard to tell how old she was. I wondered if they were Lieutenant Walker’s family. Looking to the floor, I realized her toes were inches from mine. Shifting my feet closer to my body, I studied her long legs and snuck a glance at her face. With wide set, dark eyes and long dark hair, I’d have called her pretty, in a simple sort of way. She seemed familiar, like I’d seen her around the base. Maybe if she wore normal clothes I would’ve recognized her.

  When she sat upright, she towered over her mother. Sweeping my eyes back to the floor, I noticed the girl’s hand held a rifle beside her leg. I was surprised to see the weapon, and my eyes shot to her face. Her jaw was set, and her stare met mine. I patted my jacket over where my pistol lay holstered to my chest. We are the defenders. As the idea popped into my head, I chuckled to myself. Her eyes narrowed. Maybe she was angry. I smiled. How was I supposed to convey that I knew I was dreaming? There wasn’t a tall wanna-be militia hero girl with a rifle sitting across from me. It had to be a dream. I wished I could wake up to Mom yelling at me to hurry so I wouldn’t be late for football practice.

  I rested my head back on the metal container wall. My next thought was that we were cargo. For the following fourteen hours, we were dead weight. I considered trying to sleep, but we had to get off the base. Then it was an hour to the border. The base checkpoint and the border crossing would be the biggest hurdles. I planned on being alert for those events.

  We made a few stops and turns. It was unnerving not to know where we were. With each sudden movement, I pushed my feet to the metal floor to stabilize my body. I kept checking my watch, and within twenty minutes, the trucked slowed and I heard voices. We had to be at the base gate. The container muffled outside sounds, but within a few seconds the engine revved. As the speed of the truck evened out, I relaxed my stance.

  Across from me, the girl abandoned her grip on the rifle and rested her elbows on her knees. I wondered if she knew the plan for getting across the border and to the camp. I had no idea how transports were policed and if the government was already on high alert, looking for people to flee. Dad would be one of the first to hear about any situations, so I guessed the story hadn’t leaked yet. Besides, I always left my phone on at night so I’d get emergency messages. There was nothing on my screen before I’d shut it off. Would the government tell people or would they hide it to prevent panic? It wouldn’t be something they could keep secret for long. Who was getting sick? How would they stop it? I remembered pictures from my textbook of people wearing breathing masks. It had taken two years to contain the AAL outbreak twenty years ago. I hoped technology advanced so history wouldn’t be repeated.

  Mom’s hand slid down my
arm to my hand, and her head rested on my shoulder. She squeezed my palm. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

  “I know, Mom. I’m not scared.” It was mostly true until she had made the comment. Parents only said stuff like that when they thought there was something to be worried about.

  I released her hand and slid off the bench to the floor. “You should try to sleep.” I leaned against the metal door. “I’m going to stay awake till the border crossing.”

  “Make sure you sleep. We’re going to need our strength.”

  After a few minutes, the girl opposite me pried her sleeping sister from her mom’s arms and laid her on the bench. Placing the rifle on the floor, she sat down, back to metal door, a few feet from me.

  Fourteen hours in this tin can, I thought. At least I had good night vision. Otherwise, the darkness would’ve driven me nuts. I turned over my watch, realizing we’d been traveling forty minutes and there would be about twenty minutes to the edge of the state. I stretched my neck, shook out my arms, and jiggled my legs to stay sharp.

  Motion beside me caught my eye. The girl picked up the rifle and shifted towards me, keeping the gun at her side.

  “I’m Jema.”

  “Walker. The Lieutenant’s kid, right?” I pointed at her jacket.

  “Right.” She nodded and rolled her eyes to the ceiling.

  “Troy Masterson,” I said without looking at her.

  “I know who you are.”

  “Oh.” Cutting my eyes to her, I tried to remember where I might have seen her. “You know the plan?”

  A beeping sound came from her jacket, and she pulled a two-way radio from the top pocket.

  “Status check,” a voice said.

  “All good back here,” she said into the device.

  “Good, twenty minutes to the border.”

  “Okay.”

  Replacing the unit in her pocket, she checked her watch. She leaned in and spoke in a soft whisper. “Only the border crossing and destination.”