Red Zone Son

Chapter 22

Solomon fell asleep thinking, and he woke up thinking. He couldn’t tell how much time had passed, but the lights were still turned off so it probably wasn’t morning yet. He used the makeshift toilet and ate and drank in the darkness. The more he thought about it, the more certain he became that the African woman would not shelter him if she knew he was as orthodox as they came with regards to sexuality. Tolerance wasn’t a virtue in either zone. On both sides of the river people accepted what they thought was good and rejected what they thought was bad whether it was being gay or being a phobe.

Although it wasn’t quite accurate to say that it was considered bad to be gay in the red zone. The secularists certainly didn’t care. Anyone can have sex with anyone, and anyone can think anything they like, that kind of thing was what they believed. Keep your sermons about sexuality to Sundays, keep your sexual activity to the bedroom, nobody needs to hear about either because nobody cares.

And in all honesty, Solomon wasn’t even sure he cared that much. Well, of course he agreed with Manal that God got to decide when sex should happen and with whom, that was what he meant when he said he was orthodox about sexuality, that was what he meant when he said he was a phobe, but as long as nobody was shoving it in his face, he was pretty indifferent too. Just be gay, if you’re gay. No need to bring him into it. Non-Christians believed non-Christian things. What a surprise. The end.

Then again, maybe the reason he had this stance was because that was what he’d been taught growing up in the red zone? That the real problem was people pushing and preaching, and not what they were pushing and preaching about? He remembered hearing so many times back home about how the issue with the alphabet lobby was how they’d insisted not just on being accepted but on being celebrated. That they’d been the ones to thrust the culture of America further and further left, using colleges and corporations and media to stuff their lifestyles down everyone’s throats until you were choking from it.

Solomon didn’t know how much of that was true, but it was what he’d been told. He did know for sure that there was a whole lot of anger against non-heterosexuals in the red zone. Maybe that was the reason not many of them had stayed. During boot camp there’d been only one gay guy in his entire platoon, hailing from one of the more secular areas of the Westsylvania zone. He hadn’t had a great time. Solomon had felt bad for him, but he also had had enough on his plate trying to make it through on his own.

It’d be stupid to tell her you’re a phobe, he told himself. It’d be so stupid. People in the blue zone think phobes are disgusting, don’t they? Don’t risk giving her the chance to make a more accurate decision about whether or not it’s worth sheltering you. You shouldn’t care that it feels dishonorable, somehow, to hide the truth from her.

But the conviction that Solomon ought to tell her kept burning in his mind. When she visited him again, later that day, with more water and more food and another ice pack, he had to bite his tongue to stop himself. Don’t be stupid, don’t be stupid, if you’re going to come out to her as a phobe, you might as well tell her you’re a red zone soldier, and then you can say goodbye to ever going back home! Back and forth he went the whole day, and even through the night.

It was the next morning when the African woman came back with yet more to meet his needs that he found himself unable to hold it back any longer. He was still cautious, though. The White woman had come halfway down the stairs too, this time, and he waited until she went back up and it was just him and the African woman before he started to speak.

“It’s very different in the red zone,” Solomon said to her as she stood to take his empty water bottles. “In terms of norms. Sexual norms.”

That was as far as he found himself able to go. But once again it was as if she could read his mind. She stood there, studying him, then said, “Lots of phobes there.”

Hesitantly, he nodded. It was as if she could tell he was confessing that he was one to her even though he hadn’t put it in so many words. He found himself feeling embarrassed to meet her gaze. Maybe he was getting impacted by the blue zone again, by their belief that being a phobe was wrong, in the same way he’d been impacted by the blue zone sense that distance from Whiteness was better. He forced himself to lift his eyes, however, and he saw that she had a small, sad smile on her face. “I was raised by phobes,” she said softly. “I know them well. I learned from a young age how to – what’s the saying? – hate the sin, yet love the sinner? I would have never survived my childhood if I hadn’t learned how to do that.”

Solomon understood exactly what she was saying. She was telling him he was wrong. That she did know how to shelter him, give him food and drink, bind up his injury, even though he was committing what was, to her, the sin of being a phobe.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

And suddenly, his mind was made up. Whether what he’d learned in the red zone was true or not, it was this woman’s attitude that he wanted to adopt.

***

That night, Solomon tested his ankle, and found he could put weight on it without it hurting. He was torn between wanting to make sure it was completely healed before he headed out, and feeling that he needed to leave soon before they moved Rithvik and Wilson and everyone else to another spot, if they hadn’t already.

He was also aware that every second he spent there put his hosts at risk. Although Solomon now believed the African woman wouldn’t turn him in, he wasn’t sure the other woman’s nerves would last too much longer with him hiding in her basement. It was better for everyone if he got going. He folded up the blanket, put the pillow on top of it, then stacked everything else he’d been using in a neat pile in front of the pillow. A minute later he was outside the house, carefully closing the bulkhead doors. He was relieved that the house didn’t seem to have any motion detectors or door alarms. The two women must have never retrofitted it with any modern security features.

All Solomon had on him was a water bottle, some snacks, the compression bandage around his ankle, and the same clothes he’d been wearing since he’d gone to the camping cabin with Manal. That was where he wanted to go next, to re-arm himself although he would have to be careful because he was sure someone would be watching it. He didn’t know how to get there since he didn’t know where he was, but he actually preferred it that way. Instead of going back down the hill to the walking trail, Solomon circled around to the front of the house, keeping his gaze fixed on the ground. Once he was on the sidewalk in front he began jogging blindly, taking random streets left, right and forward, until he was lost enough to not know how to get back.

He knew Manal had said that the blue zone antifas weren’t that organized, and that if he got caught interrogation would be the least of his worries, but he couldn’t shake Wilson’s paranoia. The least he could do to say thank you to his hosts was to make it harder to trace his way back to them if he did end up getting caught and questioned.

He kept up his random turns through blue zone suburbia until he stumbled across a creek. It was about fifteen feet across and deep enough to swim in. Deep enough to boat in too, from the upturned canoe pulled up on shore a few feet downriver from him. It was dark, so he took his time making sure nobody was around before reaching for the canoe, turning it over, and sliding it into the water. Whoever had failed to put this canoe up had left the paddles in the grass underneath the vessel; he grabbed one and got into the boat. He didn’t like stealing but he wasn’t sure he had much of a choice. He could tell his ankle still wasn’t at 100% and he wanted to put as much distance as he could between him and the two women who had sheltered him.

Solomon pushed against the current and headed north. Pittsburgh was literally surrounded by rivers so he’d done this a few times with his parents before they’d disappeared. It was a relief not to be on his feet. He thought he might really be in luck because if he remembered correctly there was a waterway that passed by the camping ground that Manal had taken him to. He thought it might be this exact creek he was on. Even so, his shoulders were tense as he paddled. Every rustle in the underbrush, every shadow flitting through the trees crowding the shore had him on edge. He didn’t like it when he had to get out and haul the canoe through shallow spots. The sound of the hull scraping on rocks before dipping back into the water was way too loud.

Maybe thirty minutes passed before Solomon started to see cabins, tents and RVs through the trees on the southern bank. He got his canoe as close as he could to the shore before climbing out, hands on the gunwales. Once he was on solid ground he pulled it up over tree roots and entered the campground.

The paddle Solomon almost kept with him. It was not a weapon he’d been trained on, it was not a weapon at all, but he wanted something in his hands in case he was attacked. When he saw two rocks half-buried in the dirt, however, he put the paddle back into the canoe. He approached the campground office he’d gone to with Manal less than a week ago with a rock in each hand. It was locked. Nobody was here this late at night but he could see through the glass doors that Cabin D4’s key was hanging on the pegboard still.

His pulse quickened as he approached Cabin D4. The commons was empty. There was nobody by the fire pit. Moonlight cast eerie shadows across the landscape, and he gripped the rocks more tightly. He was standing on the front porch in front of the log cabin when he smelled it: something chemical leaking out of the crack underneath the door.

Solomon’s first instinct was to don a gas mask, but he didn’t have one. His next instinct was to back away. But now his senses were screaming at him that he was in a trap, and so instead of scrambling to get away from Cabin D4 he turned to look down the two-step staircase that led up to the front porch in front of the cabin. He was glad he did. He swung his fist at the shadowy figure on the bottom step. The rock connected with a satisfying thud, and a grunt of surprise and pain confirmed his hit. The figure stumbled back, momentarily disoriented.

In the dim light Solomon caught a glimpse of a startled expression on the man’s face, just before he regained his footing and started to recover from the blow. Then he heard the door open behind him. Solomon turned and threw the rock in his hand at a gas-masked figure standing in the doorway. It clipped the man on his shoulder but he barreled toward Solomon. Now his adrenaline was really soaring. He had to end this quickly, though, he wasn’t in good enough shape to take on two attackers at once. He pivoted, pulling his body to the side of the porch as the gas-masked assailant lunged. The man’s gloved hand scraped against the wooden railing where Solomon had been standing an instant before, and he seized the opportunity to launch himself at the man from the side. It kind of worked. His assailant collided with the other man still on the stairs, although neither of them fell down. Taking a last deep breath of non-tainted air, Solomon dove through the open door and then turned around and locked it on them.

As soon as he was inside the cabin he was glad he’d gotten Manal out so quickly. The place had been ransacked since they’d last been there. Knowing he could probably only last in this gas-filled cabin for a minute at most, he didn’t dawdle. Actually, from the pounding on the door, he probably had even less than a minute. He did a quick check to make sure he was alone, then headed to the weapons chest underneath the bed. 4233791. Nobody had found the chest, at least. Solomon pulled on a gas mask and let himself breathe again as he grabbed a black windbreaker and a backpack. Then he took all the small arms and knives he could fit into the backpack. He grabbed the dumbphone, too, but it was dead so he dropped it back into the weapons chest.

His pistol he kept in his hand. The pounding on the door had stopped but that made him more uneasy, not less. His mind was racing as he tried to think of a way out of this. He wanted to shoot them and be done with it but he was sure the sound of a firearm would attract exactly the kind of attention he didn’t need. Besides, they didn’t seem interested in killing him either. Probably they wanted to interrogate him. So was there another way out of this cabin, a way he could avoid them?

Solomon went back to the weapons chest and grabbed a headlight. His house in Pittsburgh had a crawlspace. He’d had an extremely difficult time getting a family of rats out of it the winter after Umma and Dad had disappeared. Maybe… but no, a log cabin like this one wouldn’t have one. But it might instead have a roof hatch…

It took him a moment to find it. His headlight cast wild, jittery beams around the cabin’s interior as he scanned the ceiling. There, in a corner above a stack of firewood! Covered in the same rough-hewn logs that made up the cabin’s walls, the hatch blended seamlessly into its surroundings. Solomon grabbed a chair and dragged it, its legs creaking against the wooden floor in a silence that was starting to creep him out. What were they planning outside? His ankle felt as if it were about to give out. His fingers fumbled with the hatch’s latch, a series of clicks finally giving way to the night sky above. Clenching his jaw, he pulled himself up and through until he was on the roof.

He pulled off his gas mask and headlamp as quietly as he could and stuffed them into the very top of his backpack. He really was in luck tonight. They were on the other side of the cabin, talking in low voices, probably figuring out how to flush him out. The log cabin wasn’t too tall, Solomon could slide off and onto the front porch without hurting himself. He was halfway through the commons when he heard their voices again; he ducked down onto his knees behind the fire pit, praying they wouldn’t see him. Then the voices passed, and he was on his feet again. He moved fast, despite his ankle, and within minutes he was at the canoe and pushing it back off into the water.