But these kids, D.J. and Hope, they knew that their parents weren't coming back. No one had told them specifically, but Rudy could see it in their eyes. They had waited for the kids' parents for a day to keep up the illusion, knowing that their mother and their father would never appear. They were dead, both of them. How cruel the world was. To have survived this long and then fallen on the same day, what a tragedy.
When asked how old he was, the little boy had held up three fingers and said, "Three," though it sounded more like "free." Hope was five, but she seemed much older than that to Rudy. She was intelligent, smarter than the average five-year-old. He made sure to talk to them both—to smile. They had so many questions.
That first night, they had bawled their eyes out, and he had struggled to calm them down. They didn't want consoling; they wanted their parents. Rudy had distracted them with food, pulled from his own pack. He had been saving a can of peaches, syrupy and sweet. What he had been saving them for he didn't know, but that moment seemed like a fine time to break them out. The kids were skinny, their arms bony in a way that a child's arms shouldn't be.
They saw him pull the can out and open it with the can opener. The lid popped free, and he held the can out to them so they could peer down inside and look at the thick, orange slivers floating within.
"What is it?" D.J. had asked.
"Peaches, dumb-dumb," the girl had said.
"Don't call me that," the boy said. "Mom said you can't call me names because family doesn't call names."
The girl looked embarrassed, her mother's words ringing in her ears.
Rudy held out a fork to them and encouraged them to eat. The girl went first, fishing out a sliver with the fork and taking a bite. Rudy smiled as Hope smiled for the first time. She liked it. Then it was the boy's turn. He fumbled with the fork, but finally speared a slice of peach with the prongs. He held it to his mouth and took a bite, a little uncertain of the fruit. He bit into it, and he smiled as well, chewing with his mouth open.
No one corrected the boy. No one told him about manners and the proper way to eat. Rudy supposed that type of thinking was archaic now. There were no more people in ivory towers, poo-pooing social faux pas. There was no more social media to reinforce the antiquated social norms of America. Hell, there wasn't even an America. The boy chewed loudly and sloppily, and the soldiers around the room didn't say anything. They sat in silence, snoozing or looking on quietly with half-lidded eyes.
Tejada had held a meeting with the soldiers one by one, filling them in on how to handle the kids and their situation. Rudy and Amanda had been called in during the kids' bawling.
"Don't say anything about their parents. They don't need to know. For all they know, their mom is still alive and on her way here. Their dad too."
"Don't you think we should tell them?" Rudy had asked.
"It's not like we're never going to tell them, Rudy," Tejada said. "When we get somewhere safe, and they can mourn properly, then we can tell them. But if we have to take them out on the road, I can't have them sobbing and alerting every damn Annie in a mile radius. Christ, you hear that in there?" he said, referring to the kids' crying in the other room. "We'll be lucky if the Annies aren't stacked three-deep around the fence when we wake up in the morning."
What Tejada said made sense, but Rudy felt terrible for the poor kids. Eventually, tuckered out by their own crying, they had settled into a fitful sleep on Rudy's sleeping bag. He didn't mind. He had taken the opportunity to sleep, as well.
They had waited a day, mostly in silence, the soldiers sharing glances every now and then as if to say, "Shouldn't we get a move on?" But the kids needed this if they were going to be quiet on the road.
No one left the office building, and everyone stayed away from the windows. At night, everyone spared a little bit of their food for the kids, even the usually surly Whiteside gave them some lima beans, saying, "Here. I don't care for these much anyway, but they're good for you."
The boy had made a face as he had eaten the lima beans, but he ate them anyway. His sister did the same without complaint.
In the morning, Tejada stood and made a big show of looking out the window. "We can't stay here anymore. There's too many of them out there. The fence could go at any moment." It was all a show for the kids' sake.
"But what about Mommy and Daddy?" D.J. asked. Hope simply stood there, her eyes big, chewing on the inside of her lip.
"We'll leave them a note. Your momma knows where we're staying. She'll stop by and see the note and follow us to the next spot."
Rudy grabbed some sheets of paper and sat down to write out a note with the children.
"What should we say?" Hope asked Tejada.
"We'll just
