Free Mercy (The Last Army Book 1) by John Freeter Page B

waiting in line to be accepted into town. At first they stared silently at me, but their attention was soon diverted elsewhere.
    A dark-skinned young woman with a white veil covering her head screamed at one of the guards as she swatted away the bag of supplies he offered her. The small child by her side—her son, judging by the way she embraced him—stared at the bag as it swung back and forth. Their argument lasted for a few more seconds before they were both escorted away. Maybe it was fear, hunger, or plain old apathy, but no one dared come to their defense.
    “Just what have we gotten ourselves into, Lala?”

Chapter 14
    I stirred the watery chicken soup with my plastic spoon, studying the sparse, cubed vegetables as they circled the insides of the scratched Styrofoam bowl. I could tell the bowl had been used a few times already and wondered if it’d been washed.
    “You should eat that before it gets cold,” Karla said without raising her eyes from her soup.
    A thin trail of steam rose from my bowl. I brought it to my lips and drank half of the soup. The bland broth warmed my insides but did little to cheer me up. Of course, not even a thick slice of Oreo cheesecake could’ve cheered me up. They’d sent the man who’d saved my life out into the wilderness, and all I could do was watch. Except for Karla, all of my classmates were probably dead. My parents were probably…
    Oh, God.
    I took a couple of deep breaths and tried to hold back my tears as I looked at the assorted benches and tables laid out in rows along the gym’s hardwood floor, all of them crammed with refugees. At one end of the gym, a team of cheerful, middle-aged women served food from large aluminum pots. My brow furrowed. They seemed remarkably normal for a bunch of bigots—they were wearing jeans, colorful blouses, and knee-high skirts.
    The buzz of a thousand worried conversations going on around me slowly gave me a headache. An eye-watering stench of perspiration hanging in the air only made it worse. I took a sip of the purple juice we’d been given along with the soup, being careful to avoid the bite marks around the edges of the Styrofoam cup. The taste of sugar and chemicals flooded my mouth. They should’ve just given us water.
    “Try not to look so miserable.” Karla nudged my ribs. “Things could be a lot worse, you know?”
    “Yeah, no kidding.” I glared at her. “I could be an atheist, or a Hindu, or a Muslim; then I’d have to sort through the rubble for my next meal, just like Martin’s probably doing right now.”
    She sighed, unwilling to meet my stare. Word spread pretty quickly among the refugees that only Christians were being accepted into New Jerusalem—of any denomination, as long as they believed in Jesus. Anyone else was shown the door, all in the name of avoiding confusion within the town.
    “I know it’s not fair,” Karla said, “and I’m worried about him too, but these people don’t have to help anyone. They might be a little… weird about it, but they’re trying to do the right thing. As they see it. I mean, come on, they’re feeding all these people”—she pointed around the gym with her spoon—“including you and me, by the way.” She forced on a smile.
    I knew she was right… sort of. Almost a thousand hungry refugees devoured their soup around us, scraping the bottom of the bowls with their spoons. I wondered how many charity meals the townsfolk had prepared already and how many more they would serve us. I emptied my bowl in a couple of gulps. Beggars can’t be choosers, after all.
    “I guess you’ve got a point, Karla. I’m still not drinking this stuff, though.” I pushed my cup away.
    “Is there something wrong with the juice?” a woman behind me asked. I swung my head around and choked up as I recognized her as one of the women serving our meals. She had a smile on her narrow face, but her bright blue eyes seemed to glow as she stared at me, as if she were one of the demons