She jerked the door open while he was pounding on it, so suddenly that he stumbled forward and bumped into her. He grabbed her, held her to him.
“Thank God! Are you all right?”
She didn’t answer. Instead she said, “What is it, Jim? I heard people yelling, and those awful sirens . . . The principal said something about an attack—”
“The North Koreans and the Russians are threatening to nuke us,” Huddleston said. “We’ve got to go.”
“But . . . but surely the President will do something . . . This can’t be happening . . .”
“The President is an incompetent asshole! He always has been. You just can’t see it with those blinders you wear!”
“Jim! Everyone has a right to an opinion, but talking like that isn’t productive.”
Huddleston wanted to rage at her, but he caught hold of his surging emotions and put his hands on her shoulders.
“We have to go,” he said again, trying to stay as calm and reasoned as possible because that’s what Beth responded to.
“Go where?”
“The Hercules Project.”
Her eyes got big in a way that even the threat of nuclear annihilation hadn’t been able to accomplish. “You went against what I told you to do?”
“Damn right I did, and now I’m glad. We’ve got a place to go. We can live through this, but you’ve got to come on, now!”
“But I can’t . . .” She turned her head to look at the children huddled against the far wall. “I can’t leave the class.”
“Their parents will get them.” Huddleston couldn’t help himself. He gave her a little shake. “If we stay here, we’ll die!”
For several seconds that seemed like an eternity, she just stared at him. Whether she didn’t understand or just refused to accept what was happening, he didn’t know. Finally, she said, “I’m sure if we just try to talk to them—”
“The Russians and the Koreans?” Huddleston laughed and heard the hysterical edge in the sound. “They don’t care! This is the excuse they’ve been waiting for to blow us off the face of the earth!”
All the children were crying in terror now. Huddleston knew he was scaring them, but he didn’t care. He damn well wanted to scare his wife right now.
“Oh, God!” Beth cried in a broken voice. She threw her arms around his neck. “We’re going to die!”
“Not if we get out of here now,” Huddleston said grimly.
She pulled back a little and asked, “There’s a chance?”
“Yeah. Maybe.”
“Then let’s go!”
She shoved him out the door, followed him from the classroom, and never looked back, even though several of the children were screaming her name.
Chapter 15
Trevor was halfway to Bailey’s school, fighting crazed traffic and looking for shortcuts every foot of the way, when his phone rang through the car’s Bluetooth system. He saw Jill’s name on the dashboard display, although he would have recognized the ringtone he had given her anyway. It felt like his heart was at least halfway up his windpipe and trying to crawl the rest of the way as he thumbed the button on the steering wheel and said, “Jill! Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” her answer came back, stopping his heart from its ascent, at least for the moment. “I have Chris, and he’s okay, too.”
“Oh, thank God, thank God,” Trevor said. He had never been much of a religious person, veering from agnostic to atheist and back again, but right at this moment he believed every word he said. Today, the whole world was a foxhole.
“We’re on our way to the project,” Jill went on. “I heard from Mom and Dad. They’re heading out there, too.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can get Bailey. The traffic is insane!”
“I know. I went through the same thing around the elementary school. Just be careful, okay? People are getting more panicky by the minute, and when people panic, they get desperate.”
“Yeah. It might help if they’d turn off those awful sirens. Surely everybody knows by now what’s going on.”
In point of fact, though, nobody knew what was going on, he realized, and that made things even worse. It was still possible this crisis could blow over. The President would find the right words to say to the Russians and the North Koreans, and things would calm down. It was a shame about Seoul and all the South Koreans who had been killed, of course, but even so, that wasn’t sufficient reason to plunge the entire world into a nuclear holocaust . . .
“Trev.” He shoved those hopeful thoughts away as he realized she was still talking to him. “Trev, you’ve got the Shield in the car, don’t you?”
“Shield? What—Oh, the gun! Yeah, I have it. It’s in that little case under the seat.”
“You should have two loaded magazines with it. I put them in there. Get it out and load it. Release the slide.”
“But then it’ll be ready to shoot.” He remembered that much from the trip to the range.
“That’s right. Keep it handy in case you need it. But don’t act like you’re going to use it unless you’re really ready to use it. You don’t want to start waving it around just to scare people, because they’re liable to get scared and start shooting at you. So be sure of what you’re doing.”
He shook his head, even though she couldn’t see him. “I don’t like this, babe—”
“Nobody does. But you bring me my daughter, whatever it takes. Do you understand?”
Trevor swallowed. “I understand.” He’d been driving while they were talking, gunning the gas, slamming the brakes, trying to take advantage of every opening in the traffic he could find. “I’m getting pretty close to the school now—Oh, crap.”
“What is it?”
“Looks like traffic’s at a standstill up ahead.”
“I encountered the same thing. Go around, Trev. Find a back way. Get as close as you can, stop somewhere it looks like you can still get out, and then go the rest of the way on foot if you have to.”
“All right. I understand. Once I have Bailey, I come straight to the project?”
“That’s right. Don’t stop for anything—or anybody.”
Trevor swallowed again, even harder this time. That was maybe the most difficult part of this whole terrible thing. Knowing that so many people would be left to whatever fate had in store for them. Logically, he knew he couldn’t save anyone except his daughter, but at the same time, that knowledge gnawed at his guts.
“I love you,” he said.
“I love you, too. Get our daughter.”
“On my way,” he said. “I’ll call you when I have her.”
He broke the connection, then yanked the wheel hard to the left and roared along a side street. He didn’t know these roads around the school as well as he should have, considering all the times he and Jill had been here for various activities. He didn’t have the greatest memory for directions and landmarks, though.
Frustration was mounting in him when he spotted the school between two houses. Somehow, he had managed to get close to it. He stopped and stepped out, leaving one foot in the car. All he had to do was cut through a side yard, climb a fence, and he’d be on the school grounds. He reached back into the car, cut off the key, and was about to head for the school when he remembered what Jill had said about the gun.
Trevor looked around. Some people were running in the street in the next block, but there was nobody close to him. He didn’t think he’d need the gun, but still he hesitated. She had told him to load it and keep it with him, and she was usually right . . .
He sat down behind the wheel again, reached under the seat, and found the hard-plastic case that held the 9mm pistol and two magazines.
It didn’t take him long to slide one of the loaded magazines into the gun. He was about to release the slide when he realized he didn’t know how to put the safety on. He didn’t want to carry around a loaded gun that could go off with just a little pressure on the trigger. Better to leave the slide loc
ked back, he decided, than to take a chance on an accidental discharge.
When he stood up again, he started to tuck the pistol in the waistband of his jeans. Texas was an open-carry state, so he wouldn’t be breaking the law by doing that. Or would he? He seemed to remember that open carry was legal only as long as the weapon was properly holstered and secured. He didn’t have a holster, and sticking the gun in his pants didn’t seem very secure. Maybe if he pulled his shirttails out and let them hang over, that would count as concealed carry. He could try to look it up on his phone, he supposed . . .
“Hey! Hey, buddy, I need your car! I gotta get outta here!”
Startled, Trevor swung around and saw a man running toward him. The man’s face was twisted and grotesque, and for a second Trevor had the wild thought that this wasn’t a nuclear war, it was the zombie apocalypse.
But then he realized the guy was just scared out of his wits, and the stranger suddenly looked even more terrified as he stumbled to a halt, threw out his hands toward Trevor, and started backing away. “Don’t shoot, please don’t shoot!” he cried.
Trevor looked down and realized he had the Smith & Wesson in his hand, gripped firmly and pointed in the direction of the man who’d accosted him. Evidently the man hadn’t noticed that the slide was locked back. He turned abruptly and sprinted the other way, obviously figuring it would be easier to steal a car from somebody else.
“Huh,” Trevor said.
He shoved the pistol into his waistband, slammed the car door, and locked it. Then he hurried through the side yard toward the fence that ran along the school property.
Jill would have been up and over that fence in a matter of seconds, he thought as he struggled to climb up, threw his leg over, and make it down the other side without falling and breaking his neck. He let go and jumped the last couple of feet, stumbling as he landed. People were running around the school from the front. Trevor joined them. One man had what looked like a tire tool of some sort. He jammed it into the gap next to a door lock and heaved on it. Two more men rushed to help him. With a grinding squeal, the door came open, and there was a chaotic stampede into the school as people shouted for their children.
Trevor realized belatedly that he had no idea where Bailey would be at this time of day. He stumbled along in the mob thronging the hallway, hoping he would spot her, when instead he caught a glimpse of a girl named . . . Ashley? No, Amber. That was it. She was one of Bailey’s best friends. He lunged and caught hold of her arm.
She screamed and tried to pull away, but he hung on and raised his voice to say, “Amber! Amber, calm down! It’s Mr. Sinclair! I’m Bailey’s dad, remember?”
She ought to remember. She had gone to enough ice cream parlors and pizza places and bowling alleys with them for various parties. She stopped jerking against his grip when she recognized him.
“Mr. Sinclair! Have you seen my mom or dad?”
Trevor didn’t recall what either of Amber’s parents looked like, so he just shook his head. “Where’s Bailey?” he asked. “Do you know where I can find her?”
Amber pointed with her free hand. “I think she was in math class, but she may not be there now.”
If she wasn’t, he was screwed, Trevor thought. He would just have to keep searching for her.
Because there was no way he was going to the Hercules Project without her.
“Go find your folks,” he told Amber as he let go of her and started toward the classroom she had pointed out. It was like swimming against the tide, but he made it eventually.
The door was wide open. Half a dozen kids were still inside, looking scared and lost, but no adult. The teacher must have cut out as soon as he or she got a chance.
“Dad!”
The cry made Trevor’s heart jump. He turned and saw Bailey running toward him from a corner. He opened his arms and she came into them with a flying leap. She hugged him tight, and he returned the embrace, holding her so that her feet were off the floor.
Then she wiggled a little and said, “Dad, what’s that?”
He realized he had her pressed up against the gun. Quickly, he set her down and said, “Don’t worry about that, let’s just go.”
“That’s one of Mom’s semi-automatics. Why do you have a gun? What’s going on? Is it really the end of the world?”
“What? No! Not the end of the world, not at all. But we’ve got to go now. We need to meet up with Mom and your brother.”
“At that place out in the country? The one where we’re supposed to go if anything really bad happens?” They had told the kids a little about the Hercules Project, without going into all the details that might prove to be too disturbing.
“That’s right. We may have to stay there for a while.”
“Then it is the end of the world!”
“Not if your mom and I have anything to say about it, honey,” he told her, wishing that he was really as confident as he was trying to sound. If Jill had been here, she could have said it and meant it.
But then he realized that he did mean it. Whether he was cut out for things like this or not, he was going to get his daughter to safety, one way or another.
Chapter 16
“Thank God,” Susan breathed as she lowered the phone from her ear. “Jill just talked to Trevor again. He has Bailey, and all four of them are headed out here.”
“That’s good,” Larkin said as he turned the SUV’s wheel and veered around a car stopped on the side of the road so that half of it stuck out into his lane. Nobody was around or inside it, as far as he could tell. He had seen a surprising number of stopped, apparently abandoned vehicles. He wasn’t sure why the threat of nuclear war seemed to make cars quit running, but evidently it did.
Maybe there were so many people driving, it was just a matter of averages. He had traveled on this winding country road hundreds of times and never seen it like this, almost bumper-to-bumper heading away from town. At least the cars were moving on, although at a much slower speed than usual. The line of traffic stretched as far ahead and behind him as he could see. People honked from time to time, but it wasn’t the cacophony Larkin might have expected.
“This is like that time we were down at the coast and the hurricane came in,” Susan said. “Everybody just wanted to get away from there as quickly as possible.”
“Yeah. People figure big cities will be the main target in a nuclear attack, so they’re heading for the sticks. Not sure they can get far enough away in the time that we’ve got, though.”
Susan leaned forward slightly in the seat and turned her head to peer out through the passenger window at the sky. “It looks so peaceful,” she said. “Nothing up there but a few fluffy white clouds.” She looked over at Larkin. “But we won’t see anything coming until it’s too late, will we?”
“We probably won’t see anything coming at all,” he said.
“Well, that doesn’t make me feel the least bit better.”
A humorless grin stretched across his face. “Another couple of miles and we’ll be there. Then I’ll feel better.”
“I won’t. Not until Jill and Trevor and the kids are there with us.”
Larkin nodded. She was right about that. As long as their loved ones were out there, unaccounted for, he couldn’t rest easy. And just because Susan had talked to their daughter didn’t mean they would all make it safely to the project.
Another vehicle was stopped on the side of the road ahead, this time a pickup. At least, with everyone trying to get away from the city, there was little if any traffic coming the other way, so there was room for the cars to get around the ones that were stopped.
In this case, though, three men ran out into the road just as Larkin started to go around. They were yelling and waving their arms, and Larkin had no choice except to hit the brakes unless he wanted to run over them.
One of the men hurried around to the driver’s window. All of them were in their thirties, dressed in jeans and work shirts. The pickup had a sign on the door for a
landscaping company, and a zero-turn mower and other pieces of equipment were in the back.
“Thanks for stopping, man,” the one who came to the window said. Larkin had lowered the glass a few inches. “You wouldn’t believe how many times we had to jump out of the way of people who didn’t. We need a ride.”
“Wouldn’t do you any good,” Larkin said. “We’re not going very far.”
“Not going very far?” the man repeated as he stared in disbelief. “You need to get as far away from the Metroplex as you can! They’re gonna nuke the place!”
Larkin wasn’t about to tell this man about the Hercules Project. The fewer people who knew about that, other than the residents, the better. He was starting to wish he’d kept going and made these guys jump out of the way again.
“We don’t know that they’re going to nuke anybody. Anyway, you’ll have to get a ride with somebody else.”
“You got room in there, man. We can see that.” The man’s face twisted angrily. “And we’re gettin’ tired of bein’ ignored. We got a right to live just as much as anybody else.”
“Patrick,” Susan said in a low, worried voice.
Larkin glanced in her direction. Through the glass on her side, he saw that the other two men had taken shovels out of the back of the pickup and assumed vaguely threatening stances. This was just a standard SUV. A few swings with those tools would break the windows out.
Larkin turned his head back toward the man on his side and started to say, “Sorry—” when the man reached his hand in through the gap, fingers clawing at Larkin’s face.
Larkin hit the button that raised the window, pinning the man’s arm. He howled in pain and outrage, the sound blending with the impatient honking that came from the vehicles stopped behind the SUV. Larkin’s foot came down hard on the gas. The SUV leaped forward, and the man whose arm was caught in the window had to run and try to keep up or lose his balance and be dragged. At the same time, his two companions lunged at the SUV and swung the shovels. Larkin’s quick move had caught them unprepared, however. Instead of hitting the windshield or the passenger window, the shovels clanged off the vehicle’s top.
The Doomsday Bunker Page 9