all god's orphans

Wes drove Brian towards one of the nearby towns where they were supposed to be foraging for supplies. It had been several days since they had seen their compatriots gun down an old woman and nothing they had seen since had convinced them that it had been necessary, much less, legal. Outside the window, walls of pine trees towered above both sides of the road. Every now and then, in a perfectly carved clearing, a gas station would leap out of the woods like in a children’s pop-up book. It took fifteen minutes to get to the main road and in that time, not a single word had been uttered. Wes turned north and drove towards the highway.

“Where are we going?” Brian wanted to know.

“A truck stop nearby.” Wes said. “I need some more supplies.” Brian thought better of asking him to define “supplies.” He didn’t really care. His mind kept drifting back to the conversations he had held with the Army recruiter before all of this mess. That guy seemed so different from the regulars. Of course he’d known that recruiters were known to spin lovely yarns of adventure and whatnot, but that wasn’t it. Was he really in the Army now? It all seemed too quick and easy. No boot camp. No training. No nothing. He didn’t know how seriously to take it. The papers he had signed seemed official enough. They made him take a pledge and say an oath. Blah blah blah so help me God. But it didn’t feel real enough. He didn’t have time to worry about that. He’d already been gone a day and he thought of nothing else but Daniel.

The first thing he’d done was find the medical tent and ask for insulin. His heart squeezed in his chest when they told him they were out. “We should have some, hopefully in about a week or so.” Brian nodded and tried to hold it together. Carla needed him now, too. They had assigned her to laundry duty and she seemed genuinely happy. She sat, surrounded by gregarious old ladies and listened intently as they sung their stories. She didn’t understand most of it, but he could see her smiling along with the others. He just had to keep it together for a few more days.

Wes finally pulled into the truck stop where the patrols had first found him. His van was still parked in the same spot. He stopped in front of the store, but didn’t open the door. Brian waited for him to speak.

“You don’t talk a lot, do you?” Wes finally asked.

“What do you want to talk about?” Brian’s jaw clenched. He wasn’t in the mood for this.

“Aw Hell, I dunno.” Wes confessed. “Most of these guys around here are pretty dumb. I get the feeling that you’re not one of the dumb ones. Please don’t disappoint me.” Wes hopped out of the truck.

“I’ll try.” Mumbled Brian.

“All right, this place is one of my little secrets, okay?” Wes said, opening the doors. Brian followed him in to find the place empty. The shelves were barren and tossed. Fixtures lay on the floor and the coolers had been ransacked.

“I don’t think this place is a secret.” Brian observed. Wes smiled.

“Wait here.” He said, and slipped into the back. Brian took a look around. He had been in stores exactly like this all his life. Carbonated chemicals and unholy fronts against nature masquerading as food…He would kill for some of that delicious abomination right now, he thought.

A strange sound, and a second later, the lights began to flicker into existence. The store was coming back to life. The coolers whirred and pumps switched on. Wes emerged from the back, smiling.

“This is my little paradise.”

“Not bad.” Brian admitted. It was strange what the sight of something close to normal did to his cerebellum. Suddenly it was awash in warm goodness, massaging his spine.

“That’s not the best part.” Wes nodded. “Follow me.” He led Brian back into the trucker’s shower area. “You can have a hot shower.” He beamed.

“Do not fuck with me.” Brian scoffed. Wes held up his hands.

“It is my gift to you.” He put his hand to his chest. “All I ask is that you keep it a secret.”

“Deal.” Brian said and closed the door as Wes headed back into the store to look for some more air fresheners.

After the longest shower of his life, Brian emerged re-born. He found Wes sitting in a booth on the restaurant side of the truck stop. The table was filled with bottles of soda, chips, candy, and every other thing Brian had been craving lately.

“Where did you find all of this stuff?” Brian cooed, sitting down at the mountain of indulgence. “This place looks like it’s been stripped bare.”

“It does look like that.” Agreed Wes with mock enthusiasm. “I wonder if someone did that on purpose to keep it a secret. Just like they switch off the backup generator.” Brian opened a cold energy drink.

“Cheers.” He said as Wes opened a beer. Brian felt bad for giving Wes the silent treatment before. “So how long have you been with this unit?” Wes chuckled.

“Unit?” Beer dribbled down his chin. “You know we rank about as high as Girl Scouts, right?” He admonished. Brian looked confused. “This ain’t the real Army, dude.”

“What are you talking about?” Wes was confirming his own doubts.

“We are the Army’s bratty little sister.” Wes said. “We don’t get any support. No working shit.” Brian finally realized that Wes had been drinking quite a bit before he got to the table. His words were just starting to slur. “They don’t give a fuck what we do, really. This is just busy work, man. While the real guys go off to build the country or whatever.” Brian thought about the tanks at the gates of Ft. Campbell. Those guys didn’t seem like they were getting ready to go out and re-build anything. Or even leave their base. Brian’s unit was just fodder. “We’re just standing around jerking off until they come in one day and tell us we can go back to our old lives.”

“You think that’s going to happen?” Brian snorted. “Look around you, Wes. There’s no going back now.” Wes waved a hand.

“Fuck that.” He said. “This thing will wear off and people will go back to normal. Until then, we just need to enjoy it.”

“Is that your plan?”

“That’s it, my friend.” He smiled a goofy drunk smile. “Life is short. We all faced death. Looked it right in the face! Not just our death, but the end of the human race! You’re right about never going back from that. We need to live!” Brian understood what he was saying. He’d felt it, too. How could you just go back to living a normal life after something like that? The world was supposed to be over. It might even still happen, but they had all faced it, together, already. Some had lost their minds and others had rejoiced. Here, in the aftermath, however, it seemed that most were happy to force normalcy back onto their lives. It was best not to think about too much or it would swallow you whole. “At least my shitty credit history is wiped out.” He smiled. “Maybe one day I’ll be able to buy a house.” Brian couldn’t tell if he was joking or not. Wes lay back down on the vinyl of the booth and covered his eyes. Night was slowly descending outside.

“Get some sleep.” Wes told him. “We’ve got a mission tomorrow.”

Brian followed in the SUV as Wes led him in his van on a roundabout road that brought them near to their base, but from a different direction. Wes hadn’t noticed many patrols going that way. They all tended to head straight into town rather than take crooked back roads. They found an old hiking trailhead with a secluded parking lot and Wes hid the key under the front bumper of his van.

“Now I don’t have to keep going all the way back to the truck stop when I need something out of my van.”

“Why don’t you just take it back to base and tell them that you need it there?” Brian asked.

“And share my stuff with these assholes? No thanks.”

As Brian started up the engine, he thought he heard the shriek of a far off falcon. He scanned the skies for a moment, hoping to see it, to see anything soaring above all this mess, but the trees were far too thick. Disappointed, he shut the door.

By the time they got back, dinner was being served. They were both stuffed with candy and potato chips, so they leaned against their SUV and lit up a smoke.

“I take it you don’t like the people here very much.” Brian said after a while.

“They’re all right.” Wes replied. “Most of them, I mean.”

“How about that guy Buck? He seems all right.” Brian offered.

“Fuckin’ Jubilation T. Cornpone?” Wes snorted. “I dunno. Maybe. I understand about one out of every three words that exits his dumb face. He’s the human equivalent of a chocolate milk mustache.”

“What do you mean?” Brian laughed.

“He talks like a fucking donkey trying to open a pickle jar with its teeth.” At that, Brian doubled over. “Can you really unnerstan that ack-sent? Whay, it’s thickern homemayade marmalayade.” They laughed together until their stomachs hurt. “I’d actually love some homemade marmalade right now.” Wes finally said. “That’s another reason to stay. The food is decent enough, especially since you don’t have to look for it. I’m just…” Wes exhaled a plume of pale blue smoke as he searched for his words. “I dunno. Sometimes I wonder if it wouldn’t be better to just split.”

“Go AWOL?” Brian asked. Wes didn’t appear to know what it meant. “Absent without leave. It’s what it’s called when you just split in the army.”

“I told you, man. This isn’t the real army. Like they would even know.”

“The government knows everything.”

“So you sticking around then?” Wes maneuvered so he could look into Brian’s eyes. He wanted to know if he’d been wrong.

“Who knows.” Brian looked away.

“Then why did you join?”

“I need to get some insulin for my brother. He’s in a house nearby. Not doing too good.”

“Why don’t you bring him here?” Wes sounded genuinely concerned and it touched Brian.

“I don’t think he would survive the trip.” Brian sighed. “I just wish I could text him and see if he’s okay. I keep trying to get out to that house, but I can’t take any chances on getting kicked out or anything. I need to get that insulin first.” Wes nodded.

“So let’s go check on him.” Wes offered brightly.

“What do you mean?”

“The next time we go out for supplies, we’ll go check on him.”

“We can do that?” Brian asked.

“No.” Snorted Wes. “But we’re doing it.”

“Thanks.” Brian warmed a bit. “That would help.”

“Don’t worry about it, man.” Wes said. “If you had brought it up sooner we could have gone today.”

“I didn’t think we were allowed to do that.”

“Who cares?” Shrugged Wes. Suddenly, his face changed expression as he caught sight of two fellow soldiers approaching them from across the motor pool. “Fuck.” He said under his breath. Before Brian could ask, one of the approaching guys started in on Wes.

“You know there’s no smoking on base, right?” Wes didn’t look at him.

“Fuck off, Holt.” He belched. “I’m busy.”

“Yeah.” Holt apparently agreed. “Busy breaking the rules.” Holt was slightly bigger than Wes, but much younger. He looked about twenty-five but acted like he was fourteen. Technically he outranked Wes, but Holt couldn’t fix radios, so that was somewhat immaterial. Wes pretty much did what he wanted. Buck stood next to him, looking like the kid brother who finally got to play with the big boys.

“We’re almost done.” Said Brian. “And no one’s here. We’ll be…” Holt cut him off.

“Save it, FNG.” He snapped. “I don’t care what you have to say. Now put that cigarette out.” Wes slowly raised it to his mouth and inhaled as deeply as he could. The sudden heat and smoke made his throat burn, but he kept going, determined to fuel the cherry all the way down to the filter. Just as he was about to pass out, the ashes fell away and there was nothing left but the filter. Wes smiled and threw it to the ground.

“There.” He blew out a volcano’s worth of smoke. “All better?” Holt was not amused.

“Littering is also not permitted.” Now Wes was getting pissed.

“Look, Holt,” Wes began. “I know you’re enjoying this little power trip, showing off in front of your girlfriend, but let me tell you what’s going to happen. If you piss me off again, I’m not fixing any of your shit. That goes without saying. But I’ll stop fixing everyone’s shit and tell them it’s your fault. Use your fucking head, cock face.” Brian snickered, drawing Holt’s attention. He tried to stare Brian down, but Brian simply smiled.

“I’ll be watching you.” He said to Brian. As they turned to walk back to the mess tent, Wes sang to their backs.

“Every step you take.” He did his best Sting impression. “Every bond you break. Every claim you stake. I’ll be watching you. You never sign up for karaoke night, Holt. Now I’m upset. I would totally let you do that song.” They didn’t stop or turn around.

“Aren’t you worried about getting in trouble?” Brian asked.

“I guess not.” Wes grinned and lit another cigarette.