Into The Night

Trigger warning: mention of violence and murder

Food for thought.

I’ve been running and hiding too long. I’ve become too much like the destroyers.

We used to think of the destroyers as serial killers. We used to think of them as abnormal or evil. That was before the population explosion, was before the government hired them to do for pay what they used to do for fun.

We would set off noisy fireworks, Don and me, and lure the destroyers away from us so we could find a place to hole up. After four or five days, we couldn’t find even sparklers. Don said to me, “Brett, we’ve got to find another way to distract them.”

I attempted a feeble joke, even though there was nothing very funny about life anymore. “I’m not dressing up like a French maid, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“Haven't I seen enough ugliness in these past few weeks?" He grinned at me, and for a moment, he was his same old self. Don burst out, “I’m tired of running! Sheltering in abandoned places. Taking turns keeping watch with a loaded gun ready. Snatching what we need from looted stores and gas stations. What the hell kind of life is that? I’m about ready to give myself up.”

I’ve known Don since grade school. His last name is Letbetter and my last name is Leveque, so we were always put together alphabetically. I was blunt with him. I pointed out, “It could be a long, drawn-out, painful death. Destroyers hurt people for enjoyment."

Don sighed. “It’s been just two weeks since the takeover. It seems like months.” He wiped sweat from a grimy forehead with the back of his hand. We were in the unfinished basement of a house that had been firebombed. Luckily there was a half bath there and the water was still operational. We washed our hands and found some bottled water to drink.

We were always on the lookout for the men in the dark gray vests, the government sanctioned killers who captured whoever they could find. It was ironic that the government had encouraged people to have more children, had paid large sums for each child. But then eventually there were too many hungry people and not enough food. Too much of the government’s money had been squandered on incentives for families of five children or more, incentives for attending church every Sunday and Wednesday, incentives for burning books. Too few farmers to grow crops, not enough truckers to transport goods. So many people had taken advantage of the government’s offer to become reality TV stars. Being rich and famous in the entertainment world was far more glamorous than getting up early and working.

That’s when Suzette Markbridge took control.

Suzette Markbridge was a former governor of Kentucky who’d run as vice president with the senior senator from North Carolina, Roy Wyner. President Wyner had mysteriously died suddenly, attributed to a stomach aneurysm. It was rumored he had been poisoned with succinylcholine.

After Markbridge took over as President, the bombings began. Who would ever have thought that the Commander-in-Chief of the United States would bomb their own country? For no real reason, other than to display power. The bombings finally stopped, leaving many people injured or dead, most buildings in major cities damaged. Criminals who agreed to meet a quota for murder were set free from prison. Released to hunt down humans.

“Before this, the weirdest thing ever happened to me was when Julie and I got divorced,” Don said. “The day our divorce was granted, she dropped dead of a heart attack. Maybe she’s better off. She’d be miserable to see all this suffering.”

“The weirdest thing was when I was staying with you last fall,” I said. “When the Klan sent a letter inviting us to join.”

Don grimaced from disgust at the memory, his blue eyes blazing with fury. “We were the only ones in our neighborhood to receive that mail. I followed up several times with the police, but they never found out who sent it.”

Later on that day, we showered, found different clothes that fit us, and ate some canned ravioli we discovered in a cupboard. I studied my unshaven self in a mirror hanging on the wall, running my fingers through my hair, noticing new gray hairs among the blond. Don was lounging around on a battered sofa, trying to get interested in a National Geographic from the 90’s. I turned and cleared my throat. He looked up.

“You know what we have to do? We have to find a pair of destroyers working together, kill them, and take their vests. If we’re disguised as destroyers, no one will mess with us.”

Don gaped at me. “Brett, how can you even think of doing such a thing? I’ve known you since we were kids. I thought I knew you. I know they’re cruel, but I can’t kill someone in cold blood. All we have to do is sleep during the day with one of us on guard and keep moving around at night.”

“You’re already tired of doing that after just a couple of weeks. It’s self-defense, man. Kill or be killed. Then we can go undercover, steal a car, avoid most of the roadblocks, and leave the country. I’m thinking about going north.”

“It’s warmer in Mexico,” he said after a long moment. “I could go for some tequila.”

“They have Canadian Club up north, it’s just as good.”

Don rolled his eyes.

“When you’re down on your knees with a gun pointing at you, begging for your life, you’ll wish you’d listened to me.”

Don was quiet as I settled down for a nap, but his face was serious and thoughtful.

We made it to Canada. I had an online friend in Port Coquitlam, so we headed there. My friend took us in temporarily. We made homes for ourselves among other citizens seeking refuge from the Markbridge regime. Eventually we were able to bring family members to live with us.

It was harder to get out of the country as ourselves instead of being fake destroyers. But we saw something one night which made us realize that we couldn’t pass ourselves off that way. We found out something about the destroyers that we hadn’t known before.

As we were concealed in a thickly wooded area in southern Missouri, just above the Arkansas border, we came upon a bonfire in a campsite surrounded by trailers. We had been kidding ourselves about being mountain men, but both of us being city boys proved that wrong. We were exhausted, filthy, and famished. We crept closer to the fire and saw two white guys in dark gray vests eating and drinking beer. Their sandwiches were made with Texas toast. More huge slabs of meat were cooking on a gas grill set up nearby. Screaming and sobbing came from three Black and three Latino male prisoners in cages close to the campsite. Those sounds covered any noise we made.

“Great idea, Scoville,” said a man, getting up to turn over the meat.

“Waste not, want not,” Scoville said, standing up and stretching. “It’s the easiest thing to do when rations run low and we’re out in the field.” He licked his lips, looking over his shoulder at the prisoners. “Too bad they’re not fattened up more. But I can’t afford to turn down a free meal.”

I motioned to Don for us to leave. We slid away in the brush and walked for miles. Finally Don said in a low tone, “We haven’t been able to stop people being tortured and slaughtered. We haven’t been able to keep women and children from being raped. We left our extended families behind. I don’t know where they are or even if they’re all right. We’ve come damned close to murdering destroyers so we could escape. We should have killed those two back there.”

I leaned over close to him and whispered, “I saw twenty more men in the trailers around us. We were outnumbered.”

Don nodded. I knew he hadn’t noticed the other men because he was too upset, thinking about all the horrible things the destroyers do to innocent people.

I put my hand on my best friend’s shoulder. Both of us were silently crying. We had learned to do everything silently or at least quietly, because you never knew where a destroyer might be. We were crying because now we knew that in addition to killing the people they caught, the destroyers were also using them for food.