The Surge

  Carl scoffed. "Not sure there'll be a next time."

  "Nah, you're right. I've had it with the Bahamas."

  "You and me both."

  The boat docked in the harbor and Juan got out first, then helped Carl and lastly Martha to get up. Martha started to laugh as she felt the solid dock under her feet. The boat with Juan slipped out of the harbor quickly after and disappeared soon back into the darkness. Martha was too excited to even realize that she had forgotten her dress in the bottom of the boat.

  "We're back. We're back. Can you believe it, Carl? We're back on American ground."

  She did a little dance with her feet, her eyes on the wooden dock that squeaked under her weight. When she looked up, she stared directly into the barrel of a gun. On the other end of it was the face of a man, a Chinese man in uniform. Behind him were about fifty faces looking an awful lot like his.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Ridge Manor, Florida

  The Stromberg-Carlson rang at exactly a quarter past midnight, just like it had on all the previous nights Joanna had stayed in Wayne's house. But this time, it was very different. This time, she was in the office when it happened and so were Mayor Stephenson and Josh. No one even dared to breathe when they heard the first ring.

  Wayne looked at all of them, then grabbed the earpiece.

  "Hello?"

  A sigh of relief followed from him. "Hi, sweetie. Yes, I’m good. How are you doing?"

  Joanna stared at Wayne and spotted a tear on his cheek before it was wiped away with the back of his hand. She couldn't believe how wrong she had been about this guy. It was almost terrifying how fast she had labeled him as mad.

  "Yes, yes, aha, yes," he said.

  Joanna wondered how she would have reacted if anything similar had happened to Ellie Mae. She would probably have gone insane or even jumped into the hole, going after her.

  "I see, yes. I see, no, no, we're all okay, most of us," he said and looked around. "Are you in a safe place? Good. I am glad. Now, tell me what's been going on, what has happened?"

  They all sat very still in the office as if they believed they could hear anything that the girl told Wayne. Joanna could hear a small voice inside the pipe, she believed but wasn't sure.

  Wayne nodded, then told her he loved her and hung up. He looked at the others in the room.

  "Well…what?" Mary asked.

  "The Chinese will be searching people's houses and all the buildings and shops downtown. They will be marching a lot around town again."

  "Marching? Am I the only one who finds it odd that they're not driving any cars or trucks?" Josh asked.

  "No," Wayne said. "I’ve been wondering about that too."

  "Not a single airplane or a tank," Josh continued. "I don't get it. If it were an invasion, you'd expect planes at least, right? Or drones or even bombs and explosions? There has been none of that."

  "We don't really know if there have been explosions in other places or bombs in the bigger towns. I mean, Washington has to have taken some hits," Mary said. She fell silent.

  "You think they nuked Washington?" Joanna asked. They had all had the thought, but to say it out loud was a step forward.

  Mary sighed and shrugged. "I mean, they'd have had to, wouldn't they? Otherwise, our own military would have taken them down."

  "Where is our military anyway?" Josh asked. "I mean, we have twenty-one military bases here in Florida alone. Where are our soldiers?"

  Mary sighed and shook her head. "I…I don't know."

  "It's all very odd," Joanna said, then looked at Wayne. "Did she tell you anything else?"

  "Yes."

  Wayne took a deep breath. "This one is for you, Josh. It's bad, I’m afraid. She told me they're going to have a public execution. At noon, they'll shoot Irene in front of City Hall. I am sorry, man. I am truly sorry."

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Ridge Manor, Florida

  She didn't get much sleep. She hadn't expected to, but still, it threw her out of balance when she didn't get hours in at night.

  Mary Stephenson drove to town in her old Toyota pick-up truck, wondering and fearing what the day would bring. She parked in front of City Hall and got out. More soldiers than the day before guarded the door and, as she approached it, they asked for her ID. She showed them her driver's license, and one of them opened the door for her and let her through.

  She was supposed to have a commissioner's meeting this morning, but she had canceled it. She had no idea what she expected or what was expected of her. For the first time in her life, she was grateful she didn't have children. She didn't want them to have to live through this.

  Mrs. Zetterman rushed up to her as she entered the building and approached her office. "Mayor Stephenson."

  "Yes, Tina?"

  Their eyes met and Mary sensed deep fear in her secretary. A group of about eight or nine soldiers kept a close eye on both of them. Tina didn't say anything; she simply looked at Mary with worry. Little droplets of sweat sprang from her forehead.

  "I…I…"

  "Let's take it in my office, shall we?"

  Tina nodded with a whimper. Mary walked on, the soldiers keeping a close eye on her, then walked inside her office. Tina closed the door with a deep sigh. She leaned her back up against it for a few seconds, like she expected them to follow her inside.

  "I can't stand it," she said. "Their eyes are on me all the time, wherever I go. I feel like they're listening in on every conversation."

  "Well, they probably are," Mary said. "But we have to keep going, keep living our lives."

  Mary thought about the night before at Sheriff Wayne's house and a chill rushed through her body. Were they really going to execute Irene Pattison this morning? It seemed so surreal.

  "They're doing something in the meeting room," Tina said. "I don't know what it is, but they brought in this large thing earlier and have set it up in there. A machine of some sort. It was big. It was covered, so I couldn't really see what it was, but there were a lot of loud noises coming from in there for a very long time.

  Tina looked around as if she expected them to suddenly be in the room. Then she leaned forward and whispered loudly, "And they keep coming out of the room. More and more of them. I never see anyone go in there, not since this morning, but hundreds of them have come out."

  Mary scoffed. "Of the meeting room? That can't hold hundreds of people. We had sixty people in there once when we had to vote on that new statue of the pigeon and decided to make it public. But hundreds? You must be mistaken. Maybe you just didn't see them go in."

  Now it was Tina's turn to scoff. "You think I wouldn't notice a hundred soldiers coming into City Hall? I certainly noticed them coming out."

  Mary leaned back in her chair.

  "Huh."

  "I’m telling you, Mary. It's not normal, what's going on around here. It's not normal."

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Ridge Manor, Florida

  The girls were playing in Wayne's living room. It pleased Joanna to see how fast the two cousins had become friends, even though there were a couple of years of age difference between them. It was like they immediately knew they were related and that they had a different bond than with other children.

  A lot like siblings.

  Joanna looked at Josh while sipping her coffee. Wayne had pulled out a generator from the garage and turned it on, so they could do the essentials, like turn on the AC and the lights, cook, and make coffee. Josh wasn't trying to pretend he wasn't uncomfortable being with her like this. He refused to sit down and kept walking around, looking at everything else in the room other than Joanna.

  When he wasn't pulling out Wayne's books and reading their titles out loud, he was observing the paintings, looking at them up close like he was studying the brushstrokes.

  Joanna couldn't blame him. It was quite the situation he was in. Not only was he forced to spend the morning alone with the sister who had once left him, he was also facing his wife b
eing shot in a few hours.

  If it’s true, that is, what the girl told Wayne on the phone.

  Joanna knew Josh didn't handle stress very well, or even just tense situations. Even small conflicts made him uncomfortable. Joanna remembered when they were younger and she was fighting with her mother on a regular basis. Afterward, she would find Josh sitting in a corner in his room, shredding paper into big piles.

  Joanna felt terrible for him.

  Ellie Mae and Marley had found some of Arlene's old dolls and were dressing them up. Joanna watched the girls while sipping more of her coffee. She hadn't slept much, if at all, after the mayor left around two a.m. She felt so tired and heavy in her body. Her head was aching. Jack had been in her dream the few minutes she managed to doze off, and now the memory of him was lingering in her mind, the painful loss welling up in her again.

  She put her cup down and sighed.

  "Listen, Josh. I am sorry, okay? I’m sorry for leaving you back then and not getting in contact with you, but the deal is, Mom told me to never contact any of you again. She told me if I chose to keep the child, then I had to leave and never come back. I would have no family. I was sixteen, Josh. What would you have done?"

  Josh found a napkin on the table and started shredding it. He mumbled under his breath.

  "You could have called."

  "Yes, Josh, I could have. If only you knew how many times I have sat with my phone in my hand, wondering if I dared to dial your number, but as the years passed, suddenly too much time had gone by. I didn't even know where to find you or what number to call. I kept telling myself you didn't want me to call, that you didn't want to talk to me."

  "Well, I didn't," he said.

  "There you go."

  He turned his head and looked at her. "I didn't want to talk to you because you made my life a living hell. Do you have any idea what you did to Mom and Dad? I had to deal with them for years and years afterward because they had no clue how to handle it."

  Joanna sighed. "Well, I am sorry you had to be the one to pick them up, but they had it coming to them. They were the ones who kicked me out. What could I have done, huh? Not have the baby? Not have…her?"

  Joanna pointed at Ellie Mae, who had stopped playing and was looking at her mother with big eyes.

  "Just grown-up talk, sweetie," Joanna said. "Don't worry about it. Go back to playing."

  Josh finished shredding the napkin and looked at Joanna.

  "Josh…I…what choice did I have?"

  He raised a hand and waved it to signal for her to stop. "I can't deal with this right now," he said, then stormed out the door, leaving behind a small pile of shredded paper on the carpet.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Cape Canaveral, Florida

  "What do you think they'll do to us?"

  Martha bit her nails. She had stopped doing that years ago, an accomplishment she was very proud of and never ceased to brag about when she spoke to people. Carl was sitting next to her in the small cell at the police department in Cape Canaveral. They had been there all night, ever since they had been captured at the dock. No one had been in there to talk to them, to explain anything to them, even though Martha had yelled and screamed at them that this was America and that she had the right to a lawyer and a fair trial.

  "We didn't do anything wrong," she said.

  Carl sighed and looked at his fingers. He was still in a lot of pain. Martha could tell he was trying to hide it.

  "They have no right to keep us here," she continued with a light snort. "No right at all. We are not criminals."

  "It's an invasion, Martha, don't you get it? We are the enemy now."

  Martha nodded. She did get it, but it was just so hard to understand. How could they be here? In the Bahamas, she could understand, but here? In the U.S.? "I just don't get it. We have nuclear bombs."

  "Well, so do they," he grumbled.

  Martha scoffed. The soldiers at the harbor had made them walk all the way to the police department at the harbor. It was at least three miles, walking through this empty area where cars were left on the roads, dead bodies were everywhere, and her feet were all bloody and painful now. Her shoes had hurt too much after the first mile, so she had taken them off and now her feet were all blistered and bleeding. Why did they have to walk all the way? Why didn't they just have some truck transport them? She didn't understand. Neither did she understand why there had to be so many of them to escort her and Carl. There had been at least two hundred soldiers surrounding them, pushing them forward. Were they afraid they were some sort of terrorists or something? Spies maybe?

  It was all very odd. And it wasn't just at the harbor that there were a lot of soldiers. They seemed to be everywhere, thousands and thousands of them. It reminded Martha of the time she had a flea infestation at the house. You could kill hundreds of them, but thousands more would be there the next day, living between the planks of the house. It was awful. Just awful.

  "Well, I’m sure it will be over soon," she said. "I mean, this is the United States of America. Surely, we will be liberated soon. We have many allies." She paused. Carl was too quiet. She didn't like that he didn't speak. That was the big difference between the two of them, well one of the differences. Carl went quiet in a difficult situation, whereas Martha couldn't stop talking, especially when nervous or anxious.

  "Don't you think?" she asked after a few seconds.

  "I…I’m not sure."

  Martha bit her lip. "Stupid…Chinese people, where do they come off? …I mean we always knew they were preparing for something, but…this…I mean, come on, what do they want from us?"

  Carl remained silent.

  Martha got up on her throbbing feet. "And when exactly are we going to get something to eat? I’m starving. Isn't it against some international convention to starve prisoners?"

  She sighed deeply and thought about Josh and little Marley. She hadn't wanted to think about them, but she couldn't really keep it at bay anymore. She could only pray that they were safe during all this.

  She sat back down. She reached out her hand in the hope he would take it.

  "I’m scared, Carl," Martha said.

  He nodded, then looked up at her. He looked down at her hand, then took it in his. A warmth spread through her and she held back her tears while Carl said, "Me too. Me too."

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Ridge Manor, Florida

  Josh got into his car and sat behind the wheel. He felt like crying. No, it was more than that. He wanted to yell and scream, but he couldn't. He was too angry, too darn furious at the world, at the entire situation.

  He looked at his watch. There was only one hour till the execution. One hour till it was all over.

  They had debated it for hours the night before after receiving the phone call. Discussed how they were going to save Irene, but they hadn't been able to come up with a plan. Nothing that wouldn't end up getting them all killed, that was.

  Wayne had said he would try and talk to the Chinese in the morning. Hopefully, he could negotiate with them to see if he could stop them from killing her. So would Mary, she had promised. She knew the major general and might be able to talk to her, she said. They had to stop it somehow.

  But they told Josh to stay behind. He was too emotional and would only end up getting himself shot. But, how could he? How could he simply stay here? He was her husband. He should be there for her, protecting her. Now that he hadn't heard from any of them all morning, he started to worry they weren't succeeding. Was that just it? Was he just supposed to sit by while his wife was killed? Brutally murdered at City Hall?

  Why am I such a wimp?

  Josh had always been a wimp and the worst part was that he was aware of it. He was a coward and a quitter. Every time anything got a little hard, he would run away. He never finished his education, never got his degree, he never stayed in a job for more than three years. His marriage to Irene was the longest he had ever done anything in his life and, even that, he had to
admit, he had every now and then considered running away from. When they had a fight, or when things got tough with Marley. Irene never knew he had these thoughts, he never talked to her about them, but they were there, always lurking, always tempting him to simply get in his car and keep driving, never looking back.

  But he didn't do it. Why? Because he didn't want to end up like his sister. He had felt it in his own body and had been the one left behind, the one to mend the broken pieces and hearts afterwards.

  He simply couldn't do it to them and he was still so angry that Joanna had been able to.

  When it came to marriage, Josh stuck it out. He had made a promise to himself. So, even though he couldn't stand it when there was even the slightest conflict at his house, he was still there. He would usually do anything in his power to prevent any conflict from happening between any of them. It was an exhausting job, but he did it to keep the peace in the house, never demanding anything, never asking for anything more than what he knew they could provide. But if it happened anyway, if any of them got into a fight or had just the slightest disagreement, he would go do yard work or go for a drive. Often, he would hide in the garage, pretending to do some work, but at least he was still there. He was still a husband and a father. And of that he was proud.

  He was a husband they could count on.

  "And that ain't changing now," he said and started the car up.

  He backed up in the driveway and swung the car around. He looked at Wayne's house through the windshield. Marley was in there, playing with her cousin. She was going to be fine.

  He knew Joanna would take good care of her if he didn't make it. She owed him that much.

  Chapter Forty-Eight