Free Vacation by Jeremy C. Shipp Page B

yours. It’s not just a matter of wanting to fly free. You have to.”
    “What should I do?”
    “I don’t know. What I can tell you is that you’re a lot stronger than you think you are.”
    For a while, we’re sitting there, bouncing, hand in hands.
    That is, until one of the priests explodes.
    The first dead body I ever saw was Uncle Timothy lying arms at his sides with makeup on. Death didn’t sneak up on me. I snuck up on it, as slow as and careful as I wanted. And when I did finally make my way to the casket, you held me up, Mom, after my tippy-toes failed me. Everything was so slow and quiet.
    Now, Aubrey yanks me out of the wagon, both of us splattered with blood. Gunshots roar. Priests scramble and flail. Horses buck and grumble. We’re in an open clearing, and men in black fire at us, bits and pieces of them visible among the trees. We duck down behind a wheel, next to the old priest with a skeleton face.
    Our wagon doesn’t move, because our horse is already dead. The other horses drag their burdens around with all their horsepower. I want to free them from their harnesses, but I can’t.
    I look away.
    Beside me, white powder trickles out the bullet holes in a fallen crate, like an hour glass that can never be reset.
    “Fucking Tics,” the priest says. “They will know God’s wrath.”
    As if triggered by the old man’s words, gunfire and battle cries thunder from behind us.
    We spin around, and there’s Weis and his bald soldiers, firing at the men in black.
    “Let’s go,” Aubrey says. She takes my hand, and we head right, away from the men in black and away from Weis.
    We risk being hit from both sides.
    As we make a run for it, I look over and see Weis. He fires his weapon like a pro. I guess Aubrey was wrong.
    There’s a girl standing beside the Sergeant, firing her own weapon. Her face isn’t a face at all. It’s a massive, gnarled burn mark.
    Soon, we’re out of the clearing, back in the thick of trees. The battle sounds fade from our ears. In time, it’s nothing but a memory. But I shouldn’t say that. Nothing and memory don’t belong in the same sentence.
    We stop running only when we both collapse out of exhaustion.
    I notice that I’m holding my nose closed with my fingers. I let go.
    “Who were those people?” I say, my words broken up by heavy breaths. Somehow, I think this information is important. As if it would make me feel better.
    “I don’t know,” she says. “The priest called them Tics, whatever that means.” She struggles to stand again. “We have to keep moving. It’s not safe here.”
    “Is it safe anywhere?”
    “Safer.” She helps me up, and we continue. “I’m sorry I almost got you killed. I thought saving you was the right thing to do. I could go to America and you wouldn’t have to betray your friends in the Garden.”
    “They’re not my friends.”
    “You may not think of yourself as their friend, but they think of you that way. Noh cares about you. You know that.”
    “I don’t know anything,” I say. “But…I do appreciate what you’ve done for me. I’ve never met anyone quite like you before.”
    “Is that a compliment?”
    “Yes.”
    She grins.
    Would it really be so bad marrying this girl?
    I’ve never trusted anyone the way I trust her now. As a couple, I could let her make all the decisions. I could soar through life on her wings.
    No, that wouldn’t be bad at all.
    I take her hand, and she doesn’t move it away, and that’s all the fortune telling I need.
     
    Aubrey steps out onto the beach, and I’m lagging behind, still concealed among the trees. In the water, there’s a long black ship without any sails. The sort Tolkien’s orcs would take out to sea. A line of still tanker trucks moan on a paved zone, hoses trailing from their backsides into the water. I see the back of Aubrey’s hair, and I don’t know this the last time I’ll ever see her.
    This moment, right now.
    After this moment, a group of men and women