The Things We Bury - Part 2: No Big Apocalypse [Completed]

Chapter 7: Bad As Me (Part 6 of 7)

Barbara was unable to measure speed or distance in the landscape of vast grassy plains and distant snow-capped mountains. The white SUV she was in barreled down a country road without any sense of progress. A toy boat adrift on a great sea. The agents who took her had only told her that they were going to "The Ranch." Licence plates from the rare other car told her they were in Montana.

Maybe it was all the traveling, maybe it was not knowing where they were going or what form of incarceration or death was waiting for her there, but Barbara Gracie was lost in thoughts about the Major.

The last few days with him unwound themselves, tormenting her with the world she had lost when he was taken away from her. Regret was for the weak and cowardly. If you lived your life without fear there should be no regrets cluttering the path behind you. But how could she not have regrets? There were so many missed opportunities in those precious hours before happiness disappeared.

Barbara had spent the whole of that final night—ten completely wasted hours—alone down in the Observation Center, while Carlos worked on the floor above her. What did it matter that those floors were a half mile apart. It would have been one elevator ride and they could have been together—they should have been together. If she had but known the future, Barbara would not have squandered those moments. She would have spent them locked in his embrace.

If she tried very hard, Barbara could almost fool herself into remembering the exact smell of him, that scent born from the merging of his aftershave and pomade. It was a unique musky blend with a sharp burn from eucalyptus and alcohol. The Major didn't go in for any of those delicate, all natural creams and lotions so many men used today and which were almost indistinguishable from those used by women. No, everything in his medicine chest came from the drugstore and was no different than what her father had bought in his day.

But it was fading. Just ls the feeling of the contours of his biceps or the lats along of his back were disappearing from the memory of her fingers. Or the sound of his guttural moans as he pounded his body against hers. It was all vanishing, like a great city slipping beneath the sea. Atlantis crumbling in ruins with only the tops of spires and towers still above the surf to remind her that there once had been something wonderful there.

Her world had ended the day The Music Box was attacked and she never saw it coming. Of course, no one could see the future.

What was awaiting her at the end of this day? An execution or a cell?

Since leaving the military airbase, the roads kept getting more rural. The lanes dwindled from six, to four, to two, and now one. It wasn't even paved and seemed to consist of nothing but compressed dust.

"So are you going to tell me what this place is?" She asked the agent at her side.

He and the driver were the same agents that had picked her up at her house in Phoenix just before noon. The timing was worrisome since she had only just stepped through the door minutes before. But if they had knew she was in New York that morning they didn't let on. They informed her she was being moved. What about her things? They would be sent after her, they said.

It was never a good sign when they didn't let you pack.

"I'm sorry." The agent on the backseat with her was an older man with a graying mustache and short, tight afro. He pretended to be friendly, even gracious, but his hand lingered by his hip never too far from his sidearm. "I'm not at liberty to divulge that."

"Come on. We must be almost there—unless after this, we have to hop on horses and ride to this ranch. What difference would it make to tell me? No one's going to overhear you."