Redd Door

There’s no more Google, there isn’t any more Apple, no more social media. Time itself has seemed to have disappeared. Every day appears longer than the next. Suffocating sweltering days and freezing nights. The governments have collapsed, and the world is dying. I don’t know where I was when it happened. Must have been half fried out of my mind. It appeared everything changed with in a blink of an eye. Somehow, me and my brothers survived. Our parents are missing, and we have no place else on earth to go. We’re confined to this survivor’s camp in the middle of nowhere, well, a place everyone once considered being an entrepreneurial spirited and hometown traditions community. Glendale. Surrounded by strangers, we recognized a few familiar faces from the old neighborhood, but we don’t know who they are. Before the world broke, people would argue over nonsense. Now, people argue over a warm blanket for the chilly nights and a cool drink of water for the hot and muggy long days.

Global warming was just the tip of the iceberg. The unpredictable climate change ruined farmers’ crop and livestock. Financial terrorism set in. After the “Bubble Burst” of 2008, most people could never get back what they lost. None of that matters today. Because nothing will ever be the same again. During the takeover, millions of people died, and they injured a few trying to protect one another.

Graham and Brock were the first to witness what happened that day since the brink of World War III. Every country and government was in turmoil. Chaos was the new normal for everyone. As time went on, P.O. W’s got released after nine years of captivity, slavery, and hard labor. Months later, President Delaney withdrew all U.S. military troops from the war and called a truce with the remaining international free world structured political leaders.

Doctor Abramo Walters accepted full responsibility for the pandemic of the irreversible AWAT K-virus. They banned him to never practice medicine again. On September 20, 2035, Guerilla War General Altair Hamid discovered a cure in the Temple of Debod in Madrid. It was to believe that Dr. Walters has struck a deal with a secret government to buy the cure for world dominance. Over time, an organization of resistance stole the cure. Nobody knows who they are or where they came from.

Out in the middle of the Sonoran Desert, a middle-aged woman hunched over two bodies wrapped in sheets. She covered the two dead bodies faces. Off in the distance, an image of a truck drove through the dry desert, toward the woman. Wild spirals of dust clouds followed. They ravaged the surrounding area from the war. Burned out jet fighters and tanks were everywhere. Years of warfare among the civilians and the Awat-tics caused so much bloodshed and famine on a holocaust scale. I expected no one to survive those times. It’s a miracle anyone is alive to say they witnessed the end of human race and the spark of Awat-tics. Human-being race that walks this earth now.

A truck was from an Arizona State Hospital as it cruised through the burned debris and rubble. The truck slowed its speed. Along the way, other dead bodies wrapped in sheets laid side by side, some weren’t. There were no other sounds, but the roaring engine of the truck. Nothing or no one else was out there among the scorching desert. Hundreds of thousands of people died of AWAT-K virus in the area.

Sullivan Brewer was the most skilled Marine of his time. He ruled the Western regions. With his regimes, he seized international commerce shipments at the three mega ports in California. Controlling whatever amount of fuel left, and what little food that was still edible, was his weapon. Keeping his power to rule the west was his purpose for surviving.

The rest of the dying world and country responded. With multiple groups of freedom fighters, they took Brewer and his regimes down. They put some structured order in place to keep another person like Sullivan to have any kind of dictatorship of his kind from re-establishing again.

The truck arrived near the woman, rolling to a stop. The dust tailing clouded everything around. Two men got out dressed in desert military fatigue with Glendale Police Department patches on their sleeves. They wore goggles and scarves around their mouth and neck. The woman did not hear a word from them. They immediately grabbed one body wrapped in sheets and carried it to the back of their truck. The two men did the same for the other bodies.

The woman watched the men as they took each body as they placed them in the back of their truck. She kneeled and prayed over dried blood where one body laid. After loading the last body, the men made sure there weren’t any decomposing bodies that could contaminate the rest of the corps. Which would only cause unwanted attention from the Awat-tics. After the check down, one man noticed the woman praying and signaled his partner to see what she was doing.

“What is she praying to?”

“I don’t know, but I’m sticking around to find out.”

The other one wouldn’t let it go. Leaving this woman out in the middle of this smoldering desert wasn’t okay.

“What choice do we have?”

“Leaving her out here is a choice. Bringing her back with us wouldn’t be. Packard would have done the same thing.”

The more mature man knew his young accomplice was far off from what they were supposed to be doing. Their orders were simple. Extract the corps from the site and get back to base before nightfall.

“Packard gave us strict orders. Search for fuel and food, that’s it. He said nothing about bringing back a casualty of war!”

“Are serious, right now?”

“Yeah. I am. We don’t know who she is or what she is capable of.”

The two men stared at each other in silence. The more mature man stood on the driver’s side of the truck. By depleted look on his face, he had a gut feeling his partner would not let this go. The risk was high. A strange woman in the middle of a desert with dead bodies didn’t set to well with him, or anyone.

The young accomplice continued, trying to plea his case by saying, “The trackers followed her all the way out here. She’s been out here for hours.”

Against his will, the man remained standing on the driver’s side. Either way, it would be a mistake. Leaving the woman to die would be on his conscience. Bring her back to base is against Packard’s orders.

“Okay, but look if she does anything out of the ordinary. I’m smoking the old bitch, you got that?”

“She’s old enough to be someone’s grandmother?”

The two men slowly walked away from their truck. The driver drew his gun and cocked it one time. They approached the woman as she continued to pray. The young accomplice drew near as his partner followed.

“Excuse me, mam?”

The woman continued praying. The young accomplice looked back to his partner. He shrugged his shoulders.

“Mam, would you like to come with us?”

From under a tarp, I crept out and stared at the men. They didn’t have a clue I was there with them. I heard everything they said. Both were on edge. But the woman was harmless. She had been out here for hours, pilfering through the debris, scavenging for anything of good use.

“She’s deaf. She can’t hear a word you’re saying.”

I startled both. They jumped and turned around to me, taking aim. Trembling out of fear.

“Edward, what are you doing out here?”

These two were just flunkies for Packard. Anything he wanted done, they would do it without a question. Anything he said, they believed.

“I followed the trackers, and for those guys to be our eyes and ears, they didn’t know I followed them.”

I grabbed my backpack from under a burned-out jet wing. For a month, I gathered some useful items that I could buy for my brothers. Traveling this far.

“Who is she?” the one holding the gun asked.

The woman finished her prayers when she finally noticed us. “I don’t know who she is, but I’ve been watching vultures buzzing around about four miles west of here, just over the horizon,” I replied, securing my backpack over my shoulders. From the expressions on their faces, fighting off a group of Awat-tics wasn’t something they’re prepared to do. They finally agreed to bring the woman back to base, contingent upon the idea I escorted her.