Down below, she could see her entire platoon. They had obviously sprinted after the runaway vehicle. John was climbing over the trampled barbed wire fence, leading the lecturer and vehicle’s driver along a path of churned brown earth that rose up the soggy green hillside. They were coming to Stephie’s rescue.
“Will you let us out, please?” came a reasonable request through the narrow passageway behind Stephie’s seat.
“Would everyone please return to your seats and place your tray tables in the upright and locked position?” Stephie said with a broad smile.
She nudged the vehicle forward. Almost immediately the nose dipped. Shouts rose from her reluctant cargo. A hand reached out to grab her shoulder, offending her greatly. She nudged the vehicle a few feet forward, and they were off to the races.
Although she gave the vehicle no power, the engine whine and speed readout both rose as they went over the edge and began to race down the hill. Ten miles per hour. Twenty. Thirty. Forty. She kept the vehicle straight with tiny adjustments to the levers. John stood upright waving his arms over his head before he and the others scrambled out of the vehicle’s path. Thankfully, the vehicle’s speed maxed out at forty-five, and the rest of their platoon — standing on the shoulder of the road directly ahead — dashed to either side.
The fence was a blur. The vehicle’s undercarriage thudded against the shoulder of the interstate, and Stephie’s head and neck were buckled. They landed with a bang on the interstate’s pavement and Stephie pulled both levers to the rear. The vehicle slipped to the left and right, and there rose a terrible grinding sound from the treads as the bulkheads shuddered violently.
Stephie released the levers, and they came to a stop.
It was so quiet from the troop compartment that Stephie at first worried that she’d somehow killed them all. She turned to look over her shoulder just as someone found the button to open one of the double doors. The cherries poured out through the opening and onto broken highway pavement left in the wake of the metal treads. Like rats from a sinking ship, they clawed their way out and formed yet another pile on the ground outside.
The rest of the platoon gathered around, doubled over at the waist and laughed with wild and total abandon.
Stephie heard a dull thumping on the hatch above. When she turned back to face forward, the middle of her wide viewing screen was covered by a camouflaged trouser knee and wet poncho. She didn’t have to see more to be told who it was. “Oh, boy,” she mumbled before pushing the up arrow above her right shoulder.
The hatch squeaked and opened with a hiss. Rain poured into her eyes. Gray sky profiled the sight of John Burns, whose jaw jutted out in anger hotter than she’d never seen before. The driver squeezed by him, cursing and stabbing at the button to turn the engine off.
“Jesus Christ!” was all he said to Stephie, shaking his head and looking at her as if she were insane.
Stephie got out without looking John in the eye. The lecturer and the driver knelt beside the front fender inspecting the tiny scratches and bits of tangled barbed wire that protruded from the previously mint condition vehicle. Cheers and raucous applause rose from the vast majority of her platoon that hadn’t been along for the ride. Stephie nodded and acknowledged the praise, avoiding John’s burning gaze as she climbed down.
The shaken troops from the rear had now risen, but some stood grabbing their knees as if queasy from seasickness. The vehicle’s engine emitted rapid popping sounds.
The lecturer got in Stephie’s face, wearing a look of disbelief. “It handles pretty good,” she said, “but there were some complaints about spilled drinks by the passengers.”
The majority of those gathered there — her audience and new fan club — roared with laughter. A smiling Stephie dared look at John. That was all it took. That was all he wanted. He turned and departed immediately without saying a word.
She’d fucked up, she knew it. She’d disappointed him, and therefore she’d disappointed herself. There was a buzz from her troops that was infecting even the victims of her little thrill ride, who stood unsteadily on their feet but with smiles spreading on their faces.
“Who’s next?” Stephie asked in a monotone.
Her squad leaders instantly stepped forward to volunteer, but the lecturer — the vehicle commander — said, “No! No more! That’s it!”
A groan rose from all quarters, and the complaints began. Stephie quieted them all with a shout. “All right! Knock it off!” Her troops again looked at her with wary, puppy-dog eyes. They sensed that her mood had returned to normal. “Grenade throwing practice! Let’s head to the range! Everybody throws dummy grenades — fifty throws — then one live grenade at the end! Let’s go! Move out!” They all turned and began to trudge through the rain. “On the double!” a pissed-off Stephie commanded, taking her rifle back and passing her troops. The thudding boots and small splashes followed her down the highway. She looked for John, but couldn’t find where he’d gone.
Jimmy and Amanda Lipscomb hung out in the storm cellar with Hart, who had grown comfortable in the ten-by-twelve room dug out of the side of a dirt slope. After over two weeks of immobilizing, elevating, and icing his ankle, it was finally beginning to heal. It obviously wasn’t fractured, but the sprain had been bad. His trek of many miles after injuring it must have done the most damage.
“Did you kill a lot of ’em?” the boy asked.
“Jimmy!” his sister snapped. “Dad said not to ask him any questions.”
“Listen to your dad,” Hart said. “He’s trying to protect your family.”
“Yeah, well,” Jimmy replied dismissively, “there’s talk at school about resistance.”
“Shut your mouth!” Amanda chastised. “Don’t say that word again! Ever!”
“Amanda’s right,” Hart advised. “It’s too dangerous to join any resistance groups. They’re probably just a Chinese setup to lure people into a trap.”
“But I could join you!” Jimmy blurted out. “Word is that you guys stashed guns and ammo in the hills. You had to! Stuff’s gettin’ blown up every night! The Chinese are real jumpy. They go around town in tanks, or on foot but scared-like, with the last guy in line walkin’, you know, backwards. I wanna help!”
“You want to kill the Chinese who invaded America?” Hart asked. Amanda let the question stand and waited for her younger brother’s response. “Could you kill those soldiers?”
Jimmy shrugged in confusion at the obvious answer. “O’ course! I’d kill every last one of ’em if I could! I hate ’em. I don’t even get what you’re askin’.”
It all seemed so straightforward to the boy, and maybe at his age it was.
“Then wait till you do understand,” Hart advised. “Wait till you meet some Chinese soldiers who treat you nice. Do you a favor. Act like regular guys. Wait a couple of years till you’re not quite so sure about whether it’s right to kill them for just doing their job. Then you decide what’s right and wrong, not before.”
“Jimmy! Amanda!” came their father’s distant shout.
The well-behaved boy rose immediately, but he hesitated on the steps leading out. “So wait two years?” Jimmy asked urgently. “Till I’m sixteen?”
“Something like that,” Hart answered.
Jimmy grinned, nodded, and bolted outside. Amanda followed, but stopped at the door and said, “I’m sixteen.”
Hart said nothing in reply.