The screen goes blank.
I remove the headphones and they retract back into the tablet. Lying in my spot, I wonder what this could possibly have to do with me. My head begins to hurt and I grow tired, so I store the tablet between the two hay bales by my head, lie down, and watch through the large hole in the barn’s roof as the sun sets and the stars start to shine. The temperature begins to drop, so I grab both blankets, wrap myself up, and fall asleep.
Chapter 4
My sleeping is restless.
The nightmares tonight contain people without faces falling dead in front of me as I dodge bombs that drop out of the sky. I’m glad it’s not my usual reoccurring nightmare, but it still disturbs me. A bomb falls next to me, but doesn’t detonate. Instead it makes a beeping sound that doesn’t stop. Through the haze of waking up, I realize the beeping noise is coming from outside my dreams, so I open my eyes, seeing only darkness. The beeping sounds again, this time outside the barn. Crawling closer to the opening, I peer out of the corner looking for whatever is making the noise.
The car I encountered the other day is sitting just outside the house. One occupant, a male, is honking the horn of the car while another, a female, is banging frantically on the front door. Scanning the area, I don’t see anyone else on the premises. I dig through the satchel and pull out the night vision goggles. As I slip them on, the darkness turns to daylight. I look far into the distance and see only desert. Terrance must not be back yet, or he is ignoring the pleas of the couple.
“Come on, let’s get out of here,” the driver pleads.
“No, we need help. Someone should be here,” the woman cries.
The man gets out of the car, walks over to the young frightened woman, and drags her back inside. She is shrieking, fighting for her freedom, but eventually succumbs and crumples in the man’s arms, whimpering. He holds her tightly, stroking her hair trying to comfort her. The two get back into the car and head up the road out of the Refuge.
They don’t get far.
I lie there, too terrified to move, as two battered trucks cut-off the car, nearly causing it to crash into a tall cactus. The car backs up, but one of the trucks has anticipated the move and drives behind the vehicle, blocking all means of escape. Two men exit each truck, reaching the car at the same time. One set goes for the driver’s door, the other for the passenger’s. The driver is dragged out of the car and shoved to the ground. He stands up and tries to fight off his assailants while the woman is removed by her hair as she shouts, flailing her arms wildly, hitting one of the offenders in the nose.
“No!” she screams at the top of her lungs.
Her mate hears her, tries to dive over the hood of the car, but is immediately brought down with a kick to the knees. The woman is dragged around the vehicle to where her friend lies writhing on the ground. She tries to go to him, but the two holding her restrain her movements, forcing her to stay standing. The tall bulky man from the other group pulls a weapon from his waistband, aiming it at the driver’s head. I notice it’s a Levin gun, so I remove the goggles and crouch into a ball under the window as the man fires. The girl screams, an agonized sound that rips at my core.
I can only imagine the horror she is seeing. I’m too paralyzed to go to her aid.
I try and block the images from my mind as I hear her continued cries, which slowly fade. I get up and run quickly down the hay loft to the opposite corner and retch, not stopping until I have nothing left in my stomach. I walk back to the window, put the goggles back on, and see that the car and the body have been cleaned up.
Evidence of the incident no longer exists.
I store the goggles back into the satchel, crawl under my blankets, and try to block the world out a little longer, but instead I toss and turn. Sleep doesn’t want to come. The woman’s tormented cries still echo in my ears.
Nothing frightens me, except the idea of being taken. I guess it stems from when I was younger, but I can’t be positive. I hate myself for not going out to help the woman, but at the same time I know that even with my training, with the odds against me like that, I probably couldn’t have saved her or her friend.
Finally giving up on sleep after two hours, I walk down the ladder and close the doors to the barn since they had been left open, go back to the ladder, and begin doing pull-ups.
Feeling my muscles burn tells me I’m still alive.
Even as my biceps start aching after a half hour, I don’t stop. A few splinters find their way into my palm, but I don’t quit, not until my fingers begin to bleed.
I wash only my hands under the showerhead, splinters rising to the surface as my skin heals. I know the sun will be up soon, so I go back up to the loft and change into a pair of shorts, a t-shirt, and my running shoes. I leave through the back door of the barn, beginning a timer in my head: three miles, five minutes. However, not knowing the terrain makes my run harder. I get back to the barn after seven minutes and start the timer again. I continue
