Refuge

The carriage jolted and Carrie came to. They had been hurtling across the desert for 3 hours now, and the refugees had more or less settled from the crying and the shaking.

Everyone in the road train looked dirty, sitting in silent hunches as their thoughts remained in the war-bound city. Nobody had expected such a travesty to hit on what had seemed like such a normal morning, and whoever had remained to fight would surely be dead soon if they weren’t already. 

Not soldiers. Terrorists. Not war. It was massacre.
The anger welled inside Carrie once again, and her bunched lips could not scorn away painful tears. She had to be brave now for the children aboard, but more importantly for herself.

It was dusty and dark in the carriage, and the only light was coming from a gap in the door just wide enough to stick your head through. Jimbo, one of the bigger guys, was standing next to it with a shotgun in his hand. He was looking out with a stern expression on his face. She couldn’t tell if he was looking at something, or deep in thought about his home town. It had plunged into chaos just less than 5 hours ago, and in the bustle of the mayhem he simply couldn’t know if his wife had made it aboard one of the other road trains leaving the city.

Carrie pushed herself up from the corner and made her way to the front, stepping over legs that stuck out from the wall like teeth of a broken comb. At the door, Jimbo was looking at something. A dust cloud in the distance coming perpendicular to the train.
“What is it?” she asked him.
“I’m not sure,” said Jimbo, “but they’re definitely aiming for us.”