Liberation

“Did you find it?”

I shifted some more rubble aside. “Not yet, Sally,” I said to her. “I’m sure it’s here somewhere.”

“It’s important.”

“Yeah, I get it. It’s important. So, maybe you should help me out here?”

The rubble sat where our house used to be. It was the house I shared with Sally and her mother. Now, like all the other cookie-cutter abodes on our block, it was in ruins. It had been in ruins since The Day. It had been years since we’d been back – too many memories. Sally insisted that we come back to find it. I had no idea why it was so damned important to the girl – it was a simple locket.

“Can’t,” she said as she hugged the AR, “I’m keeping watch, remember?”

“Yeah, yeah. Convenient way to get out of manual labor.”

“Well, one of us has to keep an eye out for Rovers.”

It should have been me. I was the big, strong one. I had combat experience – much as I wanted to forget I did. She relied on me. She was mine to take care of – I’d promised her mother before she died. The kid shouldn’t have been standing around with a rifle, but that was the world she inherited. That was the world we gave her. Oh well; I didn’t have time to philosophize over society’s inevitable collapse. I was here to find Sally’s locket.

I knew where Sally’s room had been. It was on the second floor, the last room at the end of the hall. It was right across the hall from the bathroom; I noticed a few bent pieces of plumbing sticking up from the wreckage. Now I knew where to excavate. I started digging again when I heard Sally scream.

“Rick!” She cried. “Rick! Come quick!”

I didn’t have a direct line of sight; there was enough of the frame left so that Sally’s position was now concealed from me. That was stupid, I told myself as I raced around the corner of a partial wall. Sally was frozen in place. She was staring down a pack of large, hungry feral dogs – the remains of those canines that survived The Day. They were growling and baring their teeth. Sally was pointing the AR15 at the hungry beasts – that’s what they were now, beasts, no longer someone’s faithful friend, seeking to survive their new world much as we were.

“Sally,” I quietly called, “put the rifle to your shoulder.”

“What?” She asked, her attention more on the threat than on me.

“I said put the rifle to your shoulder. I taught you how to use the sights, right? Focus on the front sight, right?”

Sally hesitated. “Uh, right. Front sight.”

“Sally, do it. Take out the alpha.”

“Which one is the alpha?”

“The one in lead. The black one in the center.”

“He looks just like Ms. Baca’s Doberman.”

“I don’t give a shit if it looks like Santa Claus. Take him out!”

The growling dogs advanced. A couple of them noticed me and started circling. I drew my .45, not making any sudden moves as I raised the pistol and flicked off the safety. Sally was standing there, not moving and not shooting.

“Sally, if you do not kill him, he will kill you—”

From the corner of the eyes, I noticed a flash of movement. One of the dogs was heading straight for me, teeth fully deployed, drool cascading from its maw. I fired my pistol. My shot was almost not fast enough, but it was true, dropping the angry mutt before me. I didn’t wait to see how the other canines took the death of their comrade but mustered my training and experience and started taking them out one by one. I ran my .45 to slide lock and reloaded; by that time, the survivors decided they’d had enough and lit off for easier prey. Sally was still standing, unharmed but shaking, still pointing the rifle in the direction of the departing canines.

“Sally? Sally, are you okay?”

“I… I’m fine… I’m sorry, Rick. I’m sorry. I didn’t shoot. I’m sorry.”

I came over and took the rifle from her hands. “Hey, honey, it’s okay.”

“I couldn’t kill them,” she said, as tears came to her eyes.

“I know, honey. I know. It’s okay.”

“No. No, it’s not okay. I’m the reason we left the compound. I’m the reason we’re here looking for some stupid heart-shaped locket. It’s stupid. I’m stupid!”

I grabbed Sally and held her close. “No, you’re not stupid. You stop saying that, you hear? You are not stupid.”

“We could have been killed.”

“We weren’t. Look, Sally, you couldn’t do it. Maybe you’re just not ready yet, but you need to be ready. There are things out there like wild dogs, Rovers, and God knows what else, that are ready to kill people like us at the drop of a hat. You need to be ready for it, and the fact that you weren’t, well, that’s my fault. I didn’t train you well enough. It’s my fault, not yours. Got it?”

Sally nodded. “Will you train me some more?”

“Yeah. Hell, give me a few weeks and I’ll make you a hardened killer.”

“I don’t want to be a hardened killer.”

“Then, how about a survivor? Does that sound better?”

Sally nodded again. “Okay.”

“Good. Then how about we go back and keep looking for your locket?”

“Yeah, okay.”

I reentered the frame of our old house and headed to where Sally’s room used to be. However, something caught my attention before I could reach my destination. There was a small glint of silver just below some burnt wood flooring. I pulled the wood panel aside to reveal a box with a lock – a heart-shaped lock. Sally’s mother had a thing for heart-shaped objects. I didn’t get it, but it was cute, so I tolerated it. Of course, that was back when those things mattered. The wood box was charred, but I could still see the carving on the lid – Faith. I snorted. Faith was another of those concepts that I tolerated, back when it mattered. I had to satisfy my curiosity. I remembered that box – it was given to Sally’s mother by her grandparents. They were very religious folks, not the judgmental kind but the kind who’d give you the shirts off their backs. They were big into the whole “faith” thing. I’d lost my faith in Iraq, and the events that occurred since – especially The Day – didn’t help me find it again. The heart-shaped clasp wasn’t actually locked, so I was able to open the box. Inside was a Bible. Of course, it was a Bible, I mean, what the hell else could it be? It was an older Bible, with worn leather cover. I was about to toss it aside when I stopped. There was an old photograph sticking out. I opened the Bible; there were several photographs kept inside. I recognized a few of the faces – Sally’s mother, for instance. Some were older. I found an old photo of Sally’s great grandfather in black and white, dressed in his army uniform. I’d heard the old man served in Europe during World War II. There were a couple photos of him from the war. I looked at one. He was in uniform, holding his rifle and standing next to a sign that read Mauthausen. Huh. I knew that name – it was a concentration camp. I looked on the back of the photo. It was dated 3 May 1945. Under the date was one word – Liberation.

“Rick?” Sally said. “Rick, did you find it yet?”

“What? No, Sally, I didn’t.”

“Well, it’s starting to get dark. There might be Rovers about. They always come out at night.”

“Yeah, I know that.”

I dropped the box and the Bible and went back to my primary dig site, the location of Sally’s room. There was so much charred timber there. For a minute I was transported back to Ramadi and the time my chalk was ambushed by some insurgents with RPG’s. We were stuck. We couldn’t return effective fire. I called in aerial support; a few minutes later, the entire block was reduced to rubble by a couple Apaches with hellfire missiles. We came out from behind cover a few seconds later. Some old lady ran up to me screaming and gesturing at the flaming ruins. I had no clue what she was saying, but man, she was mad. Corporal Astin (who we all called “asshole” for various reasons) mentioned that maybe she didn’t like her home getting blown up. I thought I understood. I really didn’t.

I fought back the memories and continued to shift wood and burnt drywall aside. I saw the brass posts of a bed – Sally liked the brass posts since for some reason they reminded her of the gates of a castle. I threw more debris aside when I found the dresser. It was largely intact but blackened, like everything else. The dresser was laying on its face; I pulled it upright (it wasn’t very heavy). I opened the top drawer and saw the keepsake box. The box was undamaged. It had unicorns and rainbows and a lot of pink. I opened the box and there it was, Sally’s heart-shaped locket. It was clean and bright, shining as though it were made of silver (which it could have been, how would I know?). It was larger than I remembered. However, none of that told me why the locket was so damned important to Sally. She’d been begging for us to leave the compound and find it for a long time, and I was finally able to get the guts to do so – or, maybe ‘guts’ isn’t the most appropriate word. There were memories here, memories of a world, of a life, that meant everything to me and now that world, that life, was dead, and I didn’t want to spend my time among the ghosts of what was and what would never be again. I slumped to the floor and sat among the charcoal. I wanted to see what the locket held. I opened it. There, predicably, was a picture of Sally’s mother – my God, she was beautiful. But the locket held something else – a folded piece of paper. Maybe this was a special note just for Sally. I didn’t want to invade her privacy, but I just had to look. I opened the note and read.

What was written there hit me hard. This wasn’t just a note for Sally, it was for me as well. I couldn’t stop the tears from coming. I couldn’t stop the flood of emotions that hit me like a fist of steel. I sat there, holding the locket and the note, weeping like a child.

“Rick!” Sally cried out. “I think I see movement down the block! I think it’s Rovers!”

I dried my eyes and rose. I folded the note and put it back in the locket. “Honey, it’s okay, I found it. Now, you remember what I taught you about the front sight, right?”