Maya threw the Honda into drive and then hit the gas, following the JLTVs through the front gates. They took the main drive a quarter of a mile as it snaked along the inside of the stone wall, the caravan stopping beneath a covered entrance which resembled the face of an Emergency Room wing at a hospital. Two soldiers stood to the side of the door smoking cigarettes.
The vehicles parked and the other soldiers went inside or joined in for a smoke. All of them except Gerald. He waited for Maya to park and for the three of them to get out of the car. When she walked up to her ex this time, she kept her hands balled into fists at her side instead of swinging through the air at his face.
“Where are they?”
A female soldier had come out of the sliding glass doors and walked over to her with her hands up. “Ma’am, we have to run you through processing before you can do anything.”
Maya narrowed her eyes. “What?”
“We’ve got to follow protocol.”
“Fuck you and your protocol! I want to see my kids!”
The female soldier stepped back, raising her eyebrows as she looked at Gerald.
“It’s fine,” Gerald said to the female soldier. “We’re going to skip procedures with them.”
She shook her head. “Can’t do that. It’s orders, and they come from above your pay grade.”
“I’ll take the fucking heat for it. Now, step aside and let them in.”
The soldier stared at Gerald for another moment, and huffed before she looked at Maya, Cameron, and Luke. But she then stepped to the side and let them walk toward the sliding glass doors.
Maya and Gerald walked side-by-side to the entrance with Cameron and Luke walking behind them.
“You’re welcome.”
“You’ve got to be joking. Shut up before I give you a matching welt on the other side of your face.”
Gerald nodded at the smoking soldiers as they stepped through the doors and into the main lobby. “I saved you over an hour of processing.”
“Just take her to her fucking kids, Gerald,” Cameron said.
Gerald led them past a front desk manned by a soldier who looked as though he’d fought in Vietnam. Maya guessed that the military, if it even existed anymore, had begun to take in veterans or anyone else with weapons knowledge. The war for Earth didn’t require rank, just men and women who weren’t afraid to fight the aliens.
With a wave of his hand, Gerald ordered the opening of a second set of doors which led into the main atrium of the base. Maya felt the air conditioner and saw the flicker of the fluorescent lights overhead, wondering how long they’d be able to power the luxuries of the world as it had existed before.
The atrium sat in the middle of a hub with hallways branching out like the spokes of a wheel. Each hallway had a colored flag above it, which didn’t appear to be part of the base’s protocol, but something they’d added after the space had become a fort and safe haven from the invasion.
Nobody spoke as Gerald led them down the “blue” hallway, where Maya began to notice “normal” people—those in “civies” as Gerald had used to say. She figured this must be the part of the base where people had been living. Even though they had clean faces and fresh clothes, she saw desperation in their faces and distrust in the thin smiles as they passed by. She had to remind herself that many people, like Cameron, hadn’t yet had an interaction. They didn’t really understand how bad things had gotten or even what was happening. This wasn’t a tornado drill or a hurricane warning.
Maya heard their voices before she saw them. Her face lit up and her eyes filled with tears. Gerald opened a door to a recreational room, and there they were. Laura was sitting on a sofa, reading a book, and Aiden was playing ping pong.
Laura looked up from the pages before her and her eyes went wide as she threw the book to the floor. “Mom!”
Maya’s daughter shot off the couch and ran to her. Aiden looked over, his jaw-dropping as the ping pong ball zipped by his chin.
Maya spread her arms and Laura leapt into them. She held her daughter tight as Aiden ran over, joining in the group hug.
“I can’t believe you made it here,” Laura said.
Aiden said, “We didn’t know if you were alive or—”
“I’m here now,” Maya said, cutting her son off before he finished the sentence.
Maya closed her eyes, gripping her children. She didn’t try to hold back the tears of joy that ran down her face. Laura sobbed while Aiden kept muttering about how happy he was that she’d made it. After everything she’d been through and all the destruction she’d seen, Maya had finally made it. Nobody knew what the future would bring, and there were no guarantees that tomorrow would come, but she’d made it to her kids, and hadn’t life always been that unpredictable anyway?
After several moments, she opened her eyes. Her grip loosened on Laura and Aiden, and she froze as she finally noticed the figure standing on the other side of the room, holding a ping pong paddle. She stood up straight and tilted her head, wiping the tears from her face.
“Reno?”
29
At least Gerald had given them some time together. Another soldier had led them from the rec room to a private lounge that at one time had been used only by high-ranking officers. Now, it functioned mostly as an all-purpose room. Anyone could walk in, but it gave them more privacy than some of the other common spaces occupied by other survivors who had made it to Fort Campbell. Maya wasn’t quite sure yet what the situation was or how many people lived inside the base, but that could all wait until she had time with her kids.
The smile never left Maya’s face as she sat and talked to her children, even as she told them about all of the things that had happened to her inside of the dome. She began with the arrival of the aliens, then talked about the situation with the people living in the tunnels, including her close encounter in the warehouse. Maya even briefly described getting out of the dome, saying goodbye to Grandma, and riding there with Cameron. None of it was easy to talk about, and she had to remind herself that they were just kids and didn’t need some of the gorier details. But even through the retelling of the terrible events, she smiled, her children once again sitting beside her on the couch.
“Jesus, Mom,” Laura said. “How did you make it through?”
Her teenager and tween had sat practically on her lap the entire time, and she’d taken hold of each child’s hand. Maya smiled, and shook her head.
“I didn’t have a choice. You’re my babies, and I’ll always do whatever I need to in order to take care of you.”
Laura smiled, but Aiden looked down at the floor, his grin fading.
“What’s wrong, Aiden?”
“Nothing. I’m really happy we’re all together.” Aiden lifted his head and looked at his mother. “All four of us. I just wish grandma was here too.”
Maya swallowed. She hadn’t considered what this meant for them as a family. She’d been so consumed with getting to Laura and Aiden that she hadn’t thought about the fact that they’d been living with their father this entire time after he stole them from their grandmother. And for the first time in a long time, all four of them were now under the same roof.
“Are you mad at Dad for bringing us here? For what he did to Grandma? Why isn’t she here?” Aiden asked.
Maya sighed and rubbed her forehead. “I wanted to bring Grandma, but she refused to leave her home. She said to tell you that she loves you. As far as my feelings about your father, I honestly don’t know how I feel yet. It’s complicated.
“He thought he was doing the right thing.”
“I’d really rather not talk about this.” Maya looked at Laura, who avoided eye contact with her. “Especially not before I’ve had the chance to talk to your father about it.”