Project Z.A.

Chapter 2

Men and Women are rushing around in their uniforms, grabbing guns and ammo and speaking to one another. Daniel in his office has been trying to call Scarlett; she doesn't answer and everyone of them go to her voicemail message greeting. "Hey this is Scar-" He slams his phone down on the table our of frustration. "Dammit!" He yells; her greeting still playing. "You know what to do. I'll get back to you asap! Bye." The voicemail beeps. Daniel wipes the sleepless anger from his eyes and leaves a message for her.

"Hey Scar, it's dad. Listen honey... I need you to call me back as soon as can. I told you about leaving you phone on silent at night." His voice was shaking with worry. "Call me soon. Love you." He hangs up the phone setting it back own on the table staring at it waiting for it to ring. Of course the one night the girl decides to go to bed and not stay up all hours of the night is the night that the entire world will be changed forever. You could quite literally feel the change in then air; it was thick breathing it in. His heart was beating a hundred miles an hour, terrified that by the time she would wake up to call him back. It would be to late.

***

I wake up to the sound of loud car horns honking outside. I rub the sleep from my eyes and reach for my cell phone. Clicking it open I see that it is five o'clock in the morning; and that I have five missed calls and three voicemails from my father. He never calls this much, let alone leaves me that many voicemails. I open the voice message from two-thirteen. "Hey Scarlett. It's dad- I don't know if you are sleep or if your listening to your music really loud again but- listen there is some crazy stuff happening here kiddo so I may be stuck at the office for a little bit longer then I thought. Sleep good kid." His voice was calm and relaxed and sounded just as tired if not more then when he left the house earlier. He's always worked to hard just to make sure I could go to collage. Although I never could build up the courage to tell him I wasn't going and was thinking about joining the military just has he had. I click on the second voicemail from 3:45am: "Scarlett." He sighs. "Dammit, why do you keep your phone on silent? I need to talk to you asap. Call me!" Now I began to worry; he's never asked to speak to me urgently unless I had done something to upset him. I play the next one from 4am: "Scarlett... We are having to leave the base. I'm not sure where we are going yet I--" I hear another mans voice shouting in the background. "Sir, we need to move now. We gotta get out of here before it's to late!" My heart begins to quicken in my chest listening to my fathers voice and breath shake on the other end of the line. "Scarlett, I--." The line goes dead. "Dad?" I quickly struggled to click onto the next voicemail, my hands shaking uncontrollably. The voicemail was from 4:15am: "Scar-." I can hear my fathers heavy breathing; his through relating wheezes of air.

"I need you to listen to this very carefully. Take notes if you have to." I run to my desk grabbing my personal journal and pen, fumbling to get it open to a blank page, he continues:

"First, do not panic at what I'm about to say. I need you to keep a clear head for me. I need you to go to my room in the closet to the safe-" I froze looking at my phone in shock. The safe? He told me to never open the safe unless something went wrong. Like, really wrong. What in the hell is going on? The voicemail continues : The safe combination is left- 33, right- 35, and left- 62." I quickly grab a pen and paper from my desk to write it all down.

"Open the safe and take every bit of money in there. There should be about four- thousand dollars. There is also a key laying there; grab it. Next, I need you. to pull the footlocker out of the closet use the key to open it. My gear bag is in the closet. I need you to fill it with every weapon in that foot locker. Every gun, knife, and bullet in there. pack a bag with a pair of clothes for yourself and the handgun I gave you for Christmas last year and make sure it's loaded." Fuck, this sounds really bad. I thought, but couldn't get distracted now. All the years and talks of how to be prepared for a disaster to happen when I was a child was coming back in snippets of what I needed to do.