The Julian Year

by Gregory Lamberson

  Walking over to the barrels, she tried to push one over, but it was too heavy. She heard footsteps again. Instead of waiting, she climbed the ladder to the first landing, which was easier with the night vision.

  Is this what it feels like to be one of them?

  The footsteps grew louder, and she climbed to the second landing. This time she waited, her finger twitching on the M16A’s trigger. The MacNeils charged into the corridor, which was so narrow they could only run in pairs. Rachel opened fire, killing some and driving the rest back, then strafed the kerosene barrels, puncturing the metal and spilling streams of fuel onto the floor. A freak leaned around the corner and fired at her, and she drilled a hole between his two red ones.

  Then she turned her full attention on the barrels. All she needed was a single spark.

  A wall of intense yellow flame rose from the ground floor, providing ample illumination and causing her contacts to flare. Rachel slung her M16A over her shoulder and scrambled up the ladder to the third landing. Halfway up, a thunderous roar and heat blasted her back. She rolled across the concrete, the M16A digging into her back. Flames rose thirty feet into the air, and the exploded barrel doused the landing where she had just stood. Rising, she no longer saw the entry point for the possessed soldiers. A second barrel exploded, sending a fireball past her, then a third. She climbed to the fourth landing, and three more barrels of kerosene exploded in sequence.

  Rachel climbed to the fifth landing and lost track of the exploding barrels. Her hands grew slippery with sweat, and smoke rose around her. Nearing the next landing, she glimpsed Betty above her. “Climb faster!”

  Betty looked over her shoulder. “I’m trying!”

  “Try harder!”

  On the seventh landing, Betty and Ashanti sat near the ladder. Ashanti wept and Betty tried to comfort her.

  Ashanti ran into Rachel’s arms. “My hands hurt.”

  Rachel examined the blisters on the girl’s hands. “Good job, Betty. Get up there with the others.”

  Betty climbed the last ladder.

  Rachel swept Ashanti off the landing. “Put your arms around my neck and hold tight, because I can’t hold on to you and climb at the same time.”

  Ashanti followed her instructions.

  “Now wrap your legs around my waist.” Rachel climbed the ladder to their destination, glad she hadn’t removed the contacts. The final landing had a floor plan similar to the ground floor below, except that the corridor they stood in extended as far as she could see.

  Kneeling, Betty held two sobbing girls in her arms. The rest of the kids stood looking at Rachel, their faces reflecting fear. Twenty-four, as she had estimated. Smoke rushed past them and out the storm drain near the low ceiling.

  Sunlight, Rachel thought.

  “Put your gas masks back on. I’m not worried about gas, just this smoke. We’re not going out that storm drain. They know that’s where we were heading.” Rachel pulled on her gas mask, and the others followed her lead. “Hold hands, form a chain, and follow me. No talking and no crying. Barry, I want you in the middle. Betty, bring up the rear.”

  “Can we use our flashlights?” Barry said.

  She considered his question. “Yes.”

  She led them through the darkness. The smoke did not follow them.

  Fifteen minutes later, they reached a dead end: a concrete wall with a round storm drain near the ceiling. Rachel grabbed the bottom of the opening and pulled herself up. A tiny circle of sunlight glowed far away. She lowered herself to the ground and took off her gas mask. “Okay, masks off.”

  Betty and the kids peeled off their masks. Barry shined his flashlight on the drainage opening.

  “That big pipe runs through the ground,” Rachel said. “I see the opening on the other side, a long way away. We’re not going out it today. We have a little bit of food, so we’re going to stay here and camp out today. As long as there’s smoke there’s fire, and as long as there’s fire, no one’s coming up here. Sleep as much as you can. Tonight I’ll take a look and see if it’s safe for us to leave.”

  She knew the kids were thinking the same thing she was: the MacNeils might not climb the ladders from below, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t drop through the storm drain. Hopefully the smoke would keep them out.

  They sat in circles and ate graham crackers and drank juice boxes, then they curled up close to each other on the floor, using backpacks and life kits for pillows. Each kit had rations for three days.

  “If any of you need to go to the bathroom, take a flashlight and walk thirty feet back the way we came from. Use the tissue in your kits, but use as little as possible. Be sure to use your hand soap.”

  “I’ll go with anyone who wants me to,” Betty said.

  Rachel removed her contact lenses and stared at the drainage opening. Listening to the children weeping, she replayed the events of the morning in her mind.

  Almost a hundred and fifty people were killed here. How many were killed in the other sanctuaries? All of them?

  Lying on her back, she held on to Ashanti with one arm and another young one with the other. Before she knew it, other children pinned down her arms and lay on them. Unable to reach her weapons, she felt as though she had been crucified, but she needed to comfort her charges while she could. She didn’t ask Betty how she fared.

  The kerosene inferno continued to burn. The cold air coming in through the drains prevented the concrete bunker from becoming an oven. Rachel inserted the contacts into her eyes.

  “Miss Betty’s in charge,” Rachel said.

  Setting her hands on the bottom of the drain, she jumped up and wiggled through the opening. The aluminum pipe appeared to be three and a half feet in diameter, more than enough room for her to crawl through, but it had been manufactured with corrugated rings that hurt her hands and knees. She had left the M16A behind to make her trip easier, and she had her cyanide tablets in her pocket. If the MacNeils captured her, she would take the pills to ensure she revealed nothing about Betty and the kids.

  The metal grew colder, and Rachel felt wind on her face. As the opening at the far end grew larger, she estimated that the drain ran two hundred yards in length. As she drew close to the opening, she pulled her Glock from its holster and crawled on her belly despite the pain that caused. When she reached the edge, she froze, and her heart quickened at the sight of the world outside, even though the contacts rendered it surreal. The air was cold, and wind blew the grass, but she saw no snow in the deep ditch that fed into the drain.

  She stayed still for ten minutes, watching the nighttime world through bright green night vision. Then, rolling onto her back, she stuck her head out of the drain and aimed her Glock straight up in case a sentry waited there. She saw only the cloudy sky.

  Wiggling out of the drain onto the frozen grass and mud of the ditch, she rolled over again and inched her way up one angled side of the ditch, which was six feet deep. In the distance, on the far side of a fence, a helicopter descended onto a tarmac, beyond which she saw the base.

  Her heart beat faster. We’re out!

  On the base, thick smoke rose from within several circles of fire engines. The freaks were intent on extinguishing the fire.

  Rachel spent another ten minutes scoping out the landscape: every tree, every bush, every mound of earth. Two hundred yards ahead, she saw another drainage pipe the same size. Crouching low, she ran to it and looked inside. Another opening two hundred yards away. She returned to the drain she had emerged from and crawled back inside.

  Rachel taped rolled-up socks to each child’s knees, creating kneepads, then had them wear pajamas beneath their street clothes. They wore their coats, caps, and gloves.

  She gave Betty one of her contacts to wear.

  “Betty will go first this time, then the rest of you. No flashlights. It will be dark, it will be scary, and it will be painful. But we’re getting out of here, and we’re getting away. Once we get out, wait for me. And remember: no talking. Use your
flashlights now to make sure you’ve left nothing behind. I don’t want anyone to know we were here.”

  After they had cleaned up after themselves, Rachel gave Betty a boost to the drainpipe, then she and Barry lifted each child in. Giving one final look behind her, she jumped up and climbed into the drain.

  When Rachel emerged from the drain, she found Betty and the kids waiting for her. They took up a lot more space than she had expected. She climbed one side of the ditch, checked out their surroundings, then slid back down.

  “There’s another drainpipe up ahead. Crouch low to the ground and go to it. We’re going to do the whole thing all over. We’ll keep doing it until we’re safe.”

  Looking behind her, she saw no sign of anyone following them.

  Fifty-seven

  December 24

  Ashanti cried as Rachel emerged from the third drain. Ignoring her, Rachel crawled up the side of the ditch. Smoke continued to rise from the base, which was farther away now. She slid back down and took Ashanti in her arms.

  “I don’t want to do this anymore,” Ashanti said. “My knees hurt.”

  Rachel wiped away the girl’s tears. “I know. But we have to keep moving to stay warm.” As she spoke, vapor escaped from her mouth.

  “I want to go back.”

  “So do I,” said Chuck.

  “There is no going back,” Rachel said.

  She saw the spinning lights of the helicopter in the night sky before she heard it.

  “Everyone, back in!” She pushed Barry in first, then Ashanti, then the others. “Keep going! Make room!”

  The line seemed to take forever to grow smaller.

  “We’re not going to make it in,” Betty said.

  “Don’t look at it.”

  Betty crawled into the drain and pulled Rachel in after her.

  The chopper flew lower as it got closer. No spotlight shone on the ground, and the chopper whirred away.

  Rachel fell out of the drain, followed by Betty, and they helped the kids. “Okay, we’re going into the woods. Stay quiet and keep your flashlights off. Same deal: I go first, Barry takes midpoint, and Miss Betty brings up the rear.”

  Betty reached into her life kit and removed the .22 Rachel had given her.

  Rachel took the gun from her and flipped off the safety. Then she demonstrated how she should hold it. “Use both hands. Keep the gun away from your face, but bend your elbows slightly. Take a breath and squeeze the trigger—don’t pull it—then exhale.” She gave the gun back to her. “Count to thirty, then send the first child after me.”

  She scrambled up the side of the ditch, ran the ten yards to the woods, and vanished into the brush.

  They walked through the woods all night, with Rachel using a compass for guidance. They came across a dirt road and walked parallel to it. A troop transport passed them, and they crouched close to the ground.

  At dawn Rachel spotted a white farmhouse with two vehicles parked out front: a pickup and an SUV. The driveway turned into a dirt road that sliced through the woods. A dog lay outside, chained to a doghouse. Rachel took out her binoculars and focused it on the black Labrador retriever. The dog’s tongue protruded from its mouth.

  “That dog’s dead,” she told Betty. “Who leaves a dead dog in the yard?”

  “People possessed by evil spirits?” Barry said. “Maybe they sacrificed it.”

  She trained the binoculars on a gray barn with missing boards and a tree growing through its damaged roof.

  “Wait here. If any bears need to shit in the woods, now is the time.” She ran to the rear of the barn, closed her eye with no contact, and peered through the space left by a missing board. Then she grabbed the board next to it and gave it a good pull.

  The board came away without protest. Setting it aside, Rachel beckoned to the woods and the kids came running, with Betty bringing up the rear. Motioning them forward, they climbed into the barn. It took a few minutes to get them all in, then Rachel followed.

  The kids took up every square foot of available space in the barn. Dim sunlight shone through the vertical slats between the boards and the hole in the roof. The tree had ruptured the floor between a riding lawn mower and a tractor. Lawn furniture hung from nails on the walls, and Rachel pulled the chairs down and opened them. Then she slid a sheet of plywood so it covered the missing board.

  “It’s still cold, but at least we won’t have to deal with the wind.”

  “How long do we have to stay here?” Sara said.

  “At least until nightfall.”

  Fifty-eight

  The sun set by 5:00 p.m. No one had set foot outside the house all day, and as the darkness intensified, no lights came on inside the house.

  Rachel handed the binoculars to Betty. “I’m going in. Close the plywood after me.”

  “Do you want to leave that big gun with me?” Betty said.

  “Not this time.”

  “Can we turn our flashlights on?” Barry said.

  “Just you and Miss Betty. Keep them aimed at the floor and no sudden moves with them.”

  Sliding the plywood aside, Rachel stuck her head out, looked around, and stepped outside. Betty put the plywood back into place, and Rachel ran around the barn and to the back of the house, where she took the steps to the back porch two at a time, tried the doorknob, then smashed it off with the stock of her M16A.

  Entering the kitchen, she checked each room on the ground floor. Finding nothing unusual and no signs of life, she went upstairs. Opening a door, she gagged. In the master bedroom, two corpses, a man and a woman, lay in bed, the man holding a .45 in one stiff hand. The woman had a bullet hole in her temple, and the man’s brains had dried on the headboard.

  He killed her, then himself.

  Their skin showed the earliest signs of decomposition. Rachel opened each of the three windows in the room two inches, then closed the door. An empty bed occupied a room decorated with high school memorabilia. A framed graduation photo showed a young man with short hair, a swimming star judging by the trophies. A third room served as a library. In the bathroom, she flipped a switch, and the fluorescent light above the sink hummed to life. She turned it off.

  In the living room, Rachel checked the thermostat setting: sixty-five degrees. Even knowing that he intended to kill himself and his wife, the man had conserved heat.

  She opened the refrigerator in the kitchen. The milk had expired, but there was orange juice, cranberry juice, and bottled water. She didn’t trust the cold cuts, but in the freezer she found meat.

  Using a flashlight, Rachel led the kids downstairs into the basement, where she found a coffee table, a sofa, an easy chair, a futon, and a computer on a desk. A hallway led to a washing machine and a dryer. Betty came in last.

  “There are curtains on the windows, but that’s not good enough. We have to block them, so no one will know we’re here, and then we can turn on the lights.”

  “TV,” Ashanti said.

  “Not until the windows are blocked.” She had disconnected the computer just to be safe.

  Sara, Chuck, and Calista jumped up and down on the sofa. The kids filed into the hallway, bathroom, and living room.

  “Barry, there’s a bed upstairs. I want you to help me bring the mattress down while Miss Betty stays here. It won’t be easy, because we have to move down two flights of stairs in the dark. Tomorrow we’re each going to take a bath and wash our clothes.”

  “Thank God,” Betty said.

  “How long are we going to stay here?” Barry said.

  “As long as we can.”

  “There’s no place to sit,” a boy named Tristan said.

  “Sit on the stairs.”

  The children slept side by side and head to toe on the floor, the youngest on the mattress. Betty slept on the sofa with her legs stretched onto the coffee table and Rosie and Calista beside her. Barry and Chuck slept on the mattress on the floor, and Sara and Rosie

  slept on the futon. Ashanti slept on Rachel’s side o
n the easy chair, the M16A leaning against the paneled wall beside them.

  Fifty-nine

  December 24

  As an adult Weizak hadn’t been much of a Christmas person, but this holiday was different.

  “I’m going to make the most of this year.”

  Using Magic Markers, he drew a Christmas tree on one wall and colored it in.

  “At least I won’t have to worry about taking it home.”

  Then he popped It’s a Wonderful Life into the Blu-ray player and wished he had eggnog.

  December 25

  “Merry Christmas,” Rachel said when the kids woke up.

  “Christmas!” Chuck said.

  “Barry, I found some old newspapers and duct tape. I’d like you to block those windows. Be careful.”

  “Okay.”

  “There’s no milk, but there is cereal, and I can make oatmeal. After breakfast, it’s bath time. Then Miss Betty and I are cooking chicken for Christmas dinner.”

  December 25

  Weizak cooked his Christmas dinner on the blue flames of his electric range and stared outside, hoping for snow. When none fell, he watched Rambo: First Blood Part II and turned up his surround sound.

  December 26

  “This food is only going to last another day with all these kids,” Betty said as they prepared an assortment of frozen meats.

  Rachel opened a cupboard. “There’s a lot of canned soup in here. If we mix two cans of water with every can of soup base instead of one and ration it, we can get by another couple of days.”