Ruins of Mankind - The Marshall

 Chapter Four — The Marshall

Mara slept hard, exhaustion finally dragging her under despite the cold floor and the rope burns on her wrists. The cot beneath her creaked every time she shifted, but compared to concrete, it felt almost luxurious. She drifted between uneasy dreams — orbit, fire, silence — and the steady ache of fear pressing against her ribs.

A soft metallic scrape woke her.

Mara opened her eyes, blinking into the dim, dusty morning light filtering through the police station’s cracked windows. One of the guards — the man who had helped drag her in — stood outside the cell. His boots were quiet, his expression the same carved-stone indifference as before. Without a word, he crouched and slid a battered metal tray through the bars.

A small portion of stew. A chunk of bread. And next to it, unbelievably, a bottle of Coca-Cola.

Mara pushed herself up, still groggy. “Hey,” she rasped, voice dry. “Can you at least tell me where I am? Who you are? What you want?”

He didn’t turn. Didn’t even pause.

Hand on the door frame, he simply muttered, “The Marshall will be in to see you later.”

Then he walked away.

Mara stared after him, frustration simmering in her chest. The Marshall. Whoever that was, they were apparently the one in charge. The thought made her stomach tighten — authority in a world with no laws could mean anything.

But the smell of food cut through her worry. She couldn’t ignore it.

She slid down to the tray, hunger taking over. The stew was warm. Actual warmth. She tasted potatoes, maybe carrots, maybe something like pork. It felt unreal after days of scavenged cans. The bread was dense and stale but edible. She ate everything, fast, almost shamefully.

Then she picked up the Coke.

The bottle was dusty, label faded, but the cap hissed when she twisted it. That sound alone almost made her cry. She lifted it to her lips and drank.

Cold sweetness. Carbonation. A faint burn at the back of her throat.

Her eyes closed, and for a moment she wasn’t in a ruined police station — she was back on Earth as it used to be. Cafeterias. Movie nights. Friends. The life she’d left behind for the mission. The life that no longer existed.

She finished half the bottle before forcing herself to stop, saving the rest.

Mara set it aside and leaned back against the wall, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. Okay, she breathed, think.

She had supplies here — minimal, but something. She had food. A cot. Water. Air that wasn’t choked with ash. And soon, she’d have answers. From the Marshall.

But can I trust anything they say?

She looked at the door, at the bars, at the shadows stretching across the floor.

No.

No, she couldn’t.

Trust was gone from the world. But information? Information was survival.

She waited. Listening to the muffled sounds of people moving through the station — footsteps, murmured voices, the occasional clang of metal or thump of crates. This wasn’t just a raider nest. It sounded organized. Structured.

A community.

Or a prison.

Her pulse quickened at the thought.

As hours passed, she paced the small cell, checked every bar, every hinge, every crack in the stone. She mapped the room with her eyes, over and over, committing every detail to memory. If there was a chance — any chance — to escape later, she’d need everything.

By midday, footsteps approached again. Slow. Heavy. Deliberate.

Mara turned toward the sound, heart thudding.

Someone important was coming.

Someone they called the Marshall.

Chapter Five — The Marshall Arrives

Mara sat on the edge of her cot, elbows on her knees, staring down at her hands. The rope burns were faint now, but the memory of them — the capture, the rough shove into the truck — lingered like smoke at the back of her mind. She flexed her fingers, trying to work out the tension.

Sunlight streamed across the cell floor in a long golden rectangle, warm against her boots.

Then it disappeared.

A shadow fell across the doorway — tall, broad, immovable. Mara looked up, breath catching for just a moment.

Polished black boots. Crisp khaki trousers with a perfect crease. A matching shirt with worn but well-maintained patches. Minnesota State Troopers, unmistakable even through the dust and wear. A leather belt with an old radioset and baton. The heavy side-brimmed patrol hat. And, of course, aviators—the kind she’d seen a hundred times on rural highways.

The absurdity of it nearly broke her.

For just a second, she felt a bubble of laughter rise in her chest. She bit it back before it turned into something hysterical.

A state trooper. In the apocalypse.

She couldn’t help remembering:

—The time she got escorted home after a college party, too drunk to walk straight.

—The speeding ticket on I-94 when she was late for her sister’s baby shower.

—The way the officer then had the exact same posture, the same practiced authority.

Is this really happening? she thought. Of all the things I expected to see down here…

The Marshall — because that’s who he had to be — grabbed a metal chair from just outside her line of sight. The scrape echoed through the cell block as he dragged it forward with slow, deliberate calm. He placed it in front of the bars. Not close, not far. Exactly the distance someone confident in their control would choose.

Then he sat.

He didn’t speak at first. Didn’t even look at her.

He slipped off his sunglasses with a casual, almost ritualistic precision and produced a small cloth from his breast pocket. He began polishing the lenses in slow, circular motions.

Only then did he lift his gaze to her.

His eyes were ice blue — cold, unreadable, the kind that made her stomach tighten. Eyes that had seen things and weren’t impressed by much anymore. Eyes that weighed her, measured her, catalogued her without giving anything away.

Mara felt the hairs on her arms rise.

He’s sizing me up, she realized.

But for what?

Recruitment? Execution? Trade? Something in between?

She swallowed, keeping her face steady, though her pulse kicked up. She’d dealt with commanding officers before — in training, in orbit, during emergencies — but this was different. There was no protocol here, no shared mission. Whatever rules existed now, he had made them.

The Marshall folded his glasses, slipped the cloth back into his pocket, and rested his elbows casually on his knees, hands clasped.

Still, he said nothing.

He just watched her.

Mara broke the silence. “So… you’re the Marshall.”

A faint twitch at the corner of his mouth — not quite a smile. More like acknowledgment.

“You’ve caused a stir,” he said finally, voice low and steady. “An astronaut walking out of the ashlands? Not something we see every day.”

Her stomach clenched again. They know what I am? How?

She tried to keep her tone level. “You going to tell me why I’m locked up?”

The Marshall’s blue eyes didn’t waver. “In time.”

She hated that answer. Hated the calm certainty in his voice, the way he held the silence after as if waiting to see how she reacted. She forced herself to stay still, breath controlled, posture neutral.

He leaned forward slightly.

“First,” he said, “I need to know exactly what you think you’ve come back to.”

Mara stared at him, her mind a storm.

What I’ve come back to?

She thought of the ruins, the ash, the silence, the bodies, the raiders, the lack of human kindness anywhere.

She thought of the Coke bottle still half-full beside her cot.

Finally she answered, voice quiet, steady:

“A world I don’t recognize.”

The Marshall nodded once — slow, deliberate, as though she’d passed the first of many tests.

Chapter Six — A Key and a Choice

The Marshall’s next question struck Mara like a bucket of cold water.

“Is your lander still functional?”

For a moment she thought she’d misheard him. What does that have to do with anything?

But she answered anyway.

“It was a re-entry module only,” she said slowly. “It won’t fly again. But there was still fuel in the cells when I shut it down. Why?”

He didn’t answer. Didn’t even blink. He just nodded once and immediately fired off another question.

“Did the high-gain antenna survive re-entry?”

That pulled a hard frown from her.

“Yes,” she said, baffled. “It was stowed before interface. Look—” She lifted her hands in frustration. “I’m a trained astronaut and an electrical engineer. If you just tell me what you actually want, I might be able to help.”

That finally broke through his guarded shell.

The Marshall — no, the Sheriff, she reminded herself — went very still. Not frozen, but… deciding. She could almost feel the moment something shifted inside him.

He removed his hat and spun it once in his hand, fingers tapping the brim.

“I am Sheriff Waites,” he said quietly. “I was a state trooper before the war.”

He looked older without the hat. More tired. More human.

“I watched your mission take off on TV,” he continued. “I remember that day. Folks packed into the break room at the station to watch. You were all over the news for a week.” He paused. “Then, a few months later… reports came in that they’d lost contact with your module.”

Mara felt a tight ache in her chest. She hadn’t thought about that part in detail — the last broken messages before the blackout, the ground teams losing her beacon, the long silence.

But Sheriff Waites wasn’t finished.

“Our community’s built itself up pretty well. Law, order, food, trade — we’ve managed.” He looked toward the cell block doorway, jaw flexing. “But communication? That we don’t have. EMP fried everything with a circuit for five hundred miles. Your module’s radio gear would be a godsend.”

Mara stared at him.

Then she let out a short, incredulous breath. “You know… you could have just asked. You didn’t have to throw me in jail.”

Waites winced — only slightly, but enough.

“You’re new to this world,” he said. “We had to make sure you weren’t a raider or a scout for one. People get desperate out here.” He stood, placing the hat back on his head. “We don’t take chances.”

He unlocked the cell.

Mara hesitated. Part of her expected a trick, or a catch, or another group of guards waiting outside. But the door swung open, and Waites just gestured calmly.

“C’mon. Let’s get you settled.”

She followed.

The settlement looked different now that she wasn’t being dragged through it. She kept pace beside Sheriff Waites, noting the way people paused whatever they were doing to stare at her. Not hostile, mostly curious — though some had the tight, suspicious look she’d seen among raiders.

She saw mothers tending to children; men repairing old generators; a shopfront with scavenged tools, crates of canned food, mismatched clothing. A pair of teenage boys ran past with a wheelbarrow, laughing.

This is… organized, she thought. More than I expected. They really rebuilt something here.

Her eyes drifted — involuntarily — to the Sheriff’s hip.

A .357 revolver, well-maintained, the leather of the holster darkened from long use.

A real weapon, she thought. Not like the rusted junk the raiders carried.

Waites noticed her glance but said nothing.

They continued until they reached a small brick building with a bite taken out of one corner, as if something massive had collapsed against it years ago.

Waites fished a small brass key from his pocket.

He unlocked the door, swung it open, then turned toward her.

“This is yours now.”

Mara blinked. “What?”

“All your things are inside,” he said. “Your shotgun too. And some clothes so you don’t have to keep walking around in that improvised space suit of yours.”

Mara’s stomach fluttered with relief so sudden it almost hurt.

He held the key out to her.

She didn’t take it immediately. Her eyes moved from the key to his face.

“Why give me a house?”

“Because we want your help,” Waites said plainly. “And because locking up somebody who’s trying to rebuild the world is a poor start.”

He tipped his hat. Not a flourish — just a simple, respectful gesture.

“I’ll meet you tomorrow. Nine a.m. Outside the jail, by the gate.”

Mara accepted the key.

“Sleep well,” he said, then turned and walked away.

She watched him go, listening to the crunch of his boots on gravel fade into the settlement hum.

Only when he was gone did she step inside and close the door behind her.

For the first time since she’d fallen back to Earth, Mara felt something strange.

Something she hadn’t expected.

Hope.