Megan said, “No! No! Say breaker! Breaker!”
“Breaker! Breaker!” I said into the mic.
A man responded, “Heeeeeeeeeey. What’s your location? You can ride my rig any day, pretty lady.”
“What channel is that?” Megan squinted at the tiny digital number on the CB. “That’s the truck driver’s channel. Doubt you’ll get any help there.”
I pressed the mic and said, “We need help. Is there any information about a safe place women can take refuge?”
There was a long pause before he said, “I want your pussy on my face.”
“Fuck you.”
When I released the button he was mid-sentence. “—stop myself from accelerating all over you.”
Megan said, “He can’t hear you. Sounds like he’s randomly saying things into the mic.”
I switched to the next channel before he said anything else and called mayday.
“It’s probably pointless,” Eunice said. “Everyone has cell phones these days. I don’t think anyone has used that thing as long as we’ve had the bus. I’m actually surprised it works.”
Megan said, “When the end of the world happens you have to exhaust all options.”
Eunice was right though. My hopes died a little more each time I switched the channel and didn’t receive a response. I’d grown up watching movies with macho men driving fast cars and radioing their friends and cops calling in license plate numbers and kids fucking with truck drivers and even though it was in a time before me it seemed like there had to be a handful of people out there who couldn’t let go.
And then I got a response.
A female said, “This is Lieutenant Hernandez. What’s your location? Over.”
All three of us let out screams of surprise. I immediately began crying and waved the mic at Megan.
Megan said, “I need both hands to steer!”
With shaky hands I pressed the button. My voice was strangled by my tears. “We’re on a highway. In a bus. Captain Megan Naff is navigating. Where should we go?”
“Captain Naff? Over.”
“Yes! She’s driving and told me to call.”
“Can she hear this transmission? Over.”
“Yes.”
“We’ve managed to establish a refugee camp within the base. Not without a lot of casualties. We have troops out on rescue missions. Do you need assistance? Over.”
I turned to Megan. I stood, grabbed the pole by the driver’s seat to steady myself, and placed the mic in front of her face and pushed the button.
Megan said, “This is Naff. We’re currently about five miles from the base on the highway. At the moment I’m able to navigate. I will leave the line open and if we need assistance we’ll call. Over.”
I let go of the mic button.
“Affirmative. Over.”
I didn’t replace the mic. I asked Megan, “What about the girl at the radio station?”
“We can send out someone once we make it there.”
“But Callie wanted us to.” I began crying again. “Please. I had to leave her lying there.” A high-pitched hysteria took hold of my voice and I cringed at how I sounded like a pathetic teenager begging her mother for some pointless thing. “Please let me do this one thing Callie wanted. It’s the only thing I can do for her now. She wanted us to help that girl.”
She glanced up at me, not wanting to take her eyes off the road for long. “They may have already rescued her if they’re going out on recovery missions.”
I lifted the mic and pressed the button. “Lieutenant Hernandez, are you there?”
“This is Lieutenant Hernandez. Over.”
“Have you sent anyone to WZUL? The radio station. There’s a girl there—”
Eunice said, “Melissa Hayward.”
I said, “Melissa Hayward. She’s broadcasting a message on a loop that’s not the President’s speech. The station is close to the base.”
There was a pause. “Yes. She’s been a great deal of help. She managed to create a radio frequency that acts as a repellant for the area, including the base. We’re not sure how long it will hold though or if it’ll be discovered and dismantled but you’ll notice a lack of the affected as you near the gates. Over.”
“Thank you,” I said.
I replaced the radio mic and collapsed into the seat across from Eunice. She crossed the aisle to sit next to me. She wrapped her arm around me and hugged me in a maternal gesture. I buried my face in her shoulder and let myself bawl like a child.
Chapter 13
Megan had to take a small detour after taking the exit ramp for the base because of a pile up of cars and no way to maneuver around it on the city streets. The Lieutenant was right. The closer we got to the base the fewer men we spotted. Unfortunately we didn’t happen across any surviving women in the process. Or maybe it was fortunate.
A large fire burned in an open field outside the fence of the base. Within the fence there were hundreds if not thousands of women and children standing and sitting around large green tents. Large trucks surrounded the fire, people milling about within their perimeter. It took me a moment to realize what was happening when two people picked up a large sagging item and swung it into the fire. They were burning corpses.
I made a strangled sound at the realization.
Eunice said, “Don’t look at it.”
I redirected my gaze to the armed security check point as we approached. Two women in fatigues emerged, holding their rifles in a defensive gesture. Megan stopped the bus and shut it off. She dislodged the broom holding the door shut, stowed it behind the driver’s seat, and opened the damaged and protesting door. Eunice and I stayed seated while she exited the bus to talk to the others.
One woman tilted the gun’s barrel toward the ground and broke from the other as Megan headed toward them. With the gun aimed downward she made her way along the driver’s side of the bus while Megan spoke to the other officer.
After the officer got to the back of the bus she shouted, “We got a live one!”
Eunice and I both turned in the seat to see the woman pointing her gun at the underside of the bus through the window of the back door. Footfalls could be heard as Megan and the other officer arrived by her side. Eunice and I rose from the seat and made our way down the aisle to see what was happening.
Megan exclaimed, “Jesus Christ! He hung on the whole way! Shoot him!” Megan looked up at us and waved for us to get back.
The officer standing beside her spoke and was barely discernable inside the bus. “It won’t do any good. You have to hit them in the testicles.”
The discovering officer flipped her rifle and used the butt of her gun to hit something under the bus several times. A man’s growl and incoherent yell sounded from under our feet. The three women crowded around and grunted and pulled the obese man who’d raped me from under the bus. His fingers were bloody and destroyed and I imagined the target of the rifle whipping. I wasn’t sure if the terror and panic of seeing my offender again was worse than the horror of what was revealed once the man was pulled clear. It was evident he’d clung to the bumper as we’d pulled away and he’d been dragged the entire way here. His legs were now missing and his buttocks were mere hamburger from being dragged against the asphalt. He left a blood-streaked snail trail as they pulled him along the road. Somehow his penis and balls were still intact and he sported an erection. He made nonsensical sounds as he struggled to flop around and tried desperately to paw at the women.
“Oh god oh god oh god!” I screeched.
I began to hyperventilate and cry and backed away from the door. Eunice turned toward me and tried to calm me. I was breathing so heavily and quickly I became dizzy and lost my footing. Seeing the bus’s floor rushing up toward me was the last thing I remembered.