A New World: Awakening by John O'Brien Page B

to mention that,” I say patting Gonzalez on the shoulder, “but we have to keep ourselves safe and alive.”
    “I understand, sir,” Gonzalez says with a sigh and an increased tightness in her eyes.
    We arrange our gear and grab NVG’s from the Humvee before heading up the concrete steps leading to the front porch.   The overhanging eave shelters us to a degree from the sun.   The clouds, although building, haven’t blocked the sunlight that is creating a furnace.   Standing before the slightly open door, I feel a tickle in my mind.
    I open a touch and the tickle becomes a series of confused images.   Not that the images are confusing but that the source appears confused.   With Henderson and Denton on each side of the door and McCafferty behind her, Gonzalez reaches for the door handle.   Forcing the tickle into the depths of my mind once again, I reach out to Gonzalez’ shoulders.   She turns.
    “There’s at least one night runner inside,” I say feeling bad for what that may mean.   What I don’t tell her is that I think I’ve woken it, or them.
     
    *    *    *    *    *    *
     
    Settling into the passenger seat of the Humvee, Gonzalez feels the apprehension of what they are about to do.   She is very anxious about what she will find but holds a sliver of hope that her parents and sister are still alive.   The nervousness makes her want to turn around and head back.   It might be better if she doesn’t know and she can keep the image that they are okay a reality.   The smells bring back memories of her time growing up in the area along with the feel of the heat and humidity.   It brings the comfort of being home.
    They journey along the remembered fields and vast openness of the area.   The green circles of the watered crops are no longer a part of the landscape but replaced by an endless brown.   The highway she travelled many times in the past rolls by.   Her stomach clinches as the welcome sign and the first houses of Clovis come into view.   She feels like time and the surroundings are passing in an out-of-control fashion.   On one hand, she wants it to slow down so she can assimilate it.   On the other, she wants this to be done one way or the other.   The unknown and what she may find is eating her up.   Their coming into the city and nearing her parents’ house feels like an onrushing freight train and she isn’t able to get out of the way.
    She directs Jack off the main street and onto a connecting road, turning onto her street shortly thereafter.   Looking at the long, sand strewn street that ends near one of the fields surrounding Clovis brings back memories of her childhood days; some good and others bad.   These streets hold a lot of stories , she thinks as they progress slowly along them.   The houses and yards in front of them haven’t changed much.   It still represents an area without much money; rife with gangs and drugs where some try to live out their existence as peacefully as the streets will allow.
    She looks to one the neighbor houses noticing tape across a front window.   She remembers the time when gunfire interrupted the night, as it did at times, and a stray round found its way through that window.   The police and ambulances arrived a short time later, although it always seemed like they took longer responding to her neighborhood.   She gets why now as they wouldn’t want to barrel into her neighborhood without plenty of backup, especially after an exchange of gunfire.
    Exiting the Humvee, her old neighborhood presses in on her yet there is a feeling of elation as well.   If it wasn’t for the life and death reason they are here, she might feel like the returning conqueror.   Gonzalez turns to her parents’ house.   The rundown condition is counter to her father’s determined effort to make the best home possible for her and her sister.   She knows how much her brother running off with the gangs weighed on him and her mother.
    “I