by Noah Mann
“Yes, ma’am!”
Carter kept moving, Schiavo second in line. Every minute or so she’d glance behind to see Genesee and I, with Martin between us, still on his feet. Still moving. Still fighting.
“I see it!”
Carter’s excited voice drew our attention, and we were suddenly able to see what he was, the half-collapsed building looming before us, not twenty yards away. We sped up, the ash to our thighs in some places, scorching our pants, heating the boots that protected our feet to almost intolerable temperatures. We had to get out of this. And, finally, we were.
We stumbled into the shelter, a good thirty feet of the hangar’s floor clear of anything more than a dusting of ash. Beyond that, the roof had settled to the ground, crushing the Lear Jet that had been abandoned within, likely stripped of anything useful long ago.
“Martin, over here,” Genesee said, pulling an upturned bench clear of some debris. “Sit.”
Martin did, shedding his gear and laying his weapon atop it. Schiavo came to him, stripping the mask from his face, revealing a comparatively clean oval of skin in the midst of black cheeks and a bruised eye.
“This isn’t counting as the honeymoon we postponed,” Schiavo told her husband.
Martin chuckled, his face twisting quickly into a pained scowl. Genesee checked his patient, lifting his shirt to adjust the shifting bandages beneath. Schiavo watched her husband wince as the doctor manipulated his battered body. After a moment she turned away, walking to where I stood near the skewed nose of the wrecked private jet. A few yards from us, Carter stood, at the hangar’s wide opening, its doors pushed aside and locked in that position by the structure’s shifting supports. Schiavo looked to her young recruit for a moment, watching him as he stared out into the blackness.
“There’s nothing here, Fletch,” she said to me, her voice stripped of even the hint of forced confidence. “We came for nothing. Because of me.”
“We came because we had to,” I told her.
She didn’t dispute that, but she didn’t embrace the statement either. The truth, in this situation, didn’t matter. And it didn’t assuage the guilt Schiavo was feeling.
“I’m sorry, Fletch,” she said, looking to me. “I wish—”
“Ma’am,” Carter said, interrupting his commander, his gloved hand raised, finger extended as he pointed out into the ash fall. “I see lights.”
The reaction to his almost sheepish announcement was electric. Schiavo and I rushed to his side. Behind us, Genesee stayed by Martin, whose gaze swelled at the news.
“Where, private?”
Carter answered Schiavo’s question by leaning close so she could look down the length of his outstretched arm, using it as a guide.
“I don’t see anything,” she said.
“The ash was blowing,” Carter said. “It seemed like a wave of it thinned out for a few seconds, and that’s when I saw them. Right out there.”
We kept looking, even Genesee joining us now to scan the dark landscape. But there was nothing out there. Nothing at all.
Until there was.
Twelve
Carter was right. There were lights. Tiny hot specks resolving through the rain of dark, hot ash.
“That’s a vehicle,” Genesee said.
He was right. They were headlights, high off the ground, the transport they shone from clearly large. A truck, maybe. Something beefy enough to venture out into the hell that had spread across the land.
“What do we do, ma’am?”
Schiavo didn’t immediately answer the newest member of her garrison. She wiped the fine skim of black dust from her eyes and coughed, thinking. Weighing options. Choices. Above, what remained of the hangar was groaning continually now, the weight of ash building, the structure supporting the battered roof weakened by the load and years of neglect.
“We can’t stay here,” she said.
Martin appeared at our side, abandoning his place of rest, something in his hand, retrieved from his pack, which lay open on the ground behind us.
“Signal them,” he said, holding the road flare out to me.
“We don’t know who they are,” Genesee said.
“We were told to come here,” Martin said. “Maybe they were, too.”
I looked to Schiavo as she considered the logic. It wasn’t unassailable, but, in the end, that didn’t matter. Not with the hangar, our only shelter, ready to fall.
We were out of options.
“Do it, Fletch,” she told me.
I put my mask back in place and lowered my goggles to cover my eyes. Then I stepped out into the volcanic rain and ignited the flare, lifting it above my head and sweeping it back and forth. The lights dimmed again, as if the vehicle was turning away from us, then grew brighter, and brighter, the twin beams seeming aimed right at me.
“They see you!” Carter shouted from the hangar.
Whoever ‘they’ were, he was right. The vehicle’s occupant, or occupants, had zeroed in on our signal and were coming. Drawing closer with each second until we could make out plainly that it was no truck coming our way.
“It’s a Stryker,” Schiavo said.
A wheeled military fighting vehicle, lightly armored, meant to carry troops into battle. The variant approaching us was topped with a wide, squat turret, slender cannon protruding from it, the weapon pointed directly at me. I stepped backward until I stood with my friends again, not out of any fear, but to put our signal in proximity to the remainder of our group. Whoever was at the controls of the Stryker, I wanted them to see that part of our number were very clearly soldiers.
I lowered the flare as the vehicle stopped just short of the hangar, then tossed it outside, its burning tip smothered in the drift of ash that swallowed it. This could not be a coincidence, I knew. An Army vehicle showing up to a place Schiavo was tasked to be? No, this was a mission in and of itself. A rescue mission not unlike the one Genesee and I had set out on.
A hydraulic whine sounded, and at the back of the vehicle, visible from an angle, I could see a ramp fold down, coming to rest on the pile of ash not cleared by its eight wheels. Two figures emerged, soldiers, their faces obscured by goggles and breathing masks. Each was armed with an M4, but neither held their weapon in any hostile way as they cleared the vehicle and came toward the hangar. Once they’d reached its meager shelter, they raised their goggles and lowered their masks.
“I’m Lieutenant Roger Pell,” the Stryker’s commander said, rendering a salute to Schiavo. “You’re Captain Angela Schiavo?”
She returned the salute and nodded, some great relief dammed within.
“I am,” she said, the dam threatening to burst. “I am, lieutenant.”
Pell gestured to the soldier with him, sergeant’s stripes plain on his surprisingly camouflaged fatigues.
“This is Sgt. Ed Matheson,” Pell said. “My wheel man is Sergeant Tommy Hammer.”
Schiavo offered quick introductions of our group, ending with Genesee, both Pell and Matheson saluting the Navy commander.
“We need to get you out of here,” Pell said, looking over those of us standing with Schiavo. “I wasn’t told there would be anyone with you.”
“This didn’t turn out to be a trip I could complete alone,” Schiavo told the young lieutenant.
“Of course, ma’am,” Pell said. “It’s not a problem. We’ve got room.”
“Where are we going?” Martin asked.
“McChord Air Force Base,” Pell said. “Air Force One had to reposition there when the mountain blew.”
It was exactly as we’d expected. Almost exactly.
“McChord?” Martin asked, both curious and wary. “Just south of Seattle.”
Pell nodded and Martin looked to me. I was thinking the same thing that he was—the Hordes.
“Lieutenant, we’ve had some trouble in the past from groups that came south from Seattle,” I told him.
Trouble...
That was putting it lightly. The Seattle Hordes,
drug crazed survivors who’d resorted to any and all manner of unspeakable acts to both feed their cravings and their need for sustenance, had seemed just memories for a while now. Part of our past. I’d killed a number of them as they charged across the bridge spanning the Coquille River. I didn’t want to face any more.
“Seattle is a ghost town,” Sgt. Matheson said.
“He would know,” Pell assured us. “He was part of a patrol two days ago after everything was repositioned up north. A security check of the city.”
Matheson looked to both Martin and me and shook his head.
“Just bodies,” the sergeant said. “And not many of those.”
The news was both welcome, and horrifically sad. An entire city depopulated. Seattle was not unique in that respect, I knew. Most of the world’s major cities, if not all, would have met a similar fate in the years after the blight. Still, to imagine everyone gone bordered on impossible.
Except...
“Why was a patrol sent into the city?” I asked, seizing on the oddity of such a mission. “That seems a bit far afield from your concerns.”
“When Air Force One was approaching McChord, the pilot thought he saw flashes from Seattle,” Pell explained. “It was a standard patrol to rule out any ground threats while we were in the area.”
“So what made the flashes if the city is empty?” Genesee asked.
Pell shrugged and shook his head.
“Reflections,” he suggested. “An old gas cylinder rupturing after years of rust. Could be anything.”
“Or nothing,” Matheson added. “Just a pilot thinking he saw something when he didn’t.”
“Lieutenant,” Schiavo said.
“Yes, ma’am?”
“I’d really love to keep discussing Seattle, and flashes that might not be flashes, but do you know what I’d really love to do right now?”
Pell smiled and nodded.
“Let’s get you aboard and out of here,” the lieutenant said.
We gathered our gear and walked through the falling ash to the back of the Stryker. After stepping onto its ramp and entering the passenger compartment, the door folded upward and sealed us inside. A quick rush of air filled the space as filters kicked in, allowing us to breathe freely for the first time in days.
“Sgt. Hammer, get us moving,” Pell said as he slipped into the closed turret, the upper half of his body mostly hidden from us.
“Get comfortable,” Matheson said, grinning. “As much as you can in this tin can. We’ve got a good ride ahead of us.”
We found our spots in the cramped interior, a fuel bladder filling much of the center aisle between the seats. The motion of the vehicle was slow and unsteady as the eight wheels negotiated the drifts of ash and obstacle beneath which had been covered. Matheson moved forward to his position just behind the driver, focusing himself on his duties.
We had no duties. Not now, at least. No tasks. For the first time since the eruption, we were not fighting for our lives. All the weight of those struggles lifted instantly from me, and a tiredness like I’d never known rose within. I was not alone in the experience.
Across from me, Martin was already out, his eyes shut, head resting on his wife’s shoulder, her own eyes batting slowly in a futile attempt to stay awake. To my right, Genesee was ramrod straight, except for his head, which was pitched forward, bobbing gently with the motion of the Stryker as he slept. Just beyond him, Carter Laws had tipped fully to his right and lay in a near fetal position on the open seats next to him.
Safe...
I thought that. The relief might be temporary, but it was real, and each of us was embracing it. We were in a place of safety.
But we weren’t done.
Beyond even that reality, though, was the fact that none of us had any idea what ‘done’ meant. I didn’t even try to muse on the possibilities as I let my body relax, and felt my eyes flutter shut, slipping into a dreamless sleep.
Thirteen
I woke two hours later to the sound of wheels turning fast on pavement.
“Where are we?”
I asked the question to no one in particular, but it was Matheson who looked back from his station behind the driver and filled me in.
“We’re on Interstate Five, about forty miles north of Portland,” he said, adding something that I didn’t process immediately. “We’re in the clear.”
“Clear?”
Matheson nodded.
“The weather is our friend,” he said.
That could only mean that the ash cloud was behind us, the wind carrying it mostly east and south.
South...
South was home. If the weather had shifted enough, Bandon could be experiencing some of what had literally crushed the remnants of Portland, leaving the river city smoldering beneath the burning downpour of ash. That was what my mind was considering as we cruised along the interstate, slowing to maneuver around abandoned cars and damaged roadway. Across from me in the cramped passenger area of the wheeled military vehicle, Martin was still dozing, his head on Schiavo’s shoulder, her hand reaching up to caress his bare, swollen cheek.
He was suffering, more than the rest of us. I had burns on my neck and shoulders from exposure to the ash after the second, cataclysmic eruption which must have devastated the mountain and everything between it and Portland. Carter’s left arm had been singed severely, blisters already rising on the skin. Genesee, who’d come through the blast and what had preceded it relatively unscathed, worked on the young soldier’s wound as we headed north, rebandaging it for a second time. Everyone, it seemed, had caught an hour or two of sleep. Hardly enough to restore our physical and mental health, but enough to allow some semblance of normal function to return.
“Fletch...”
Schiavo called to me from across the narrow aisle, both our feet resting on the fuel bladder that was a tactically crazy necessity. One round penetrating the vehicle’s comparatively light armor could set the interior ablaze, the resulting inferno sure to end our lives in a horrible way. But without the spare fuel, the heavy personnel carrier might not have made it to Portland, or back to where it had departed from.
“Yeah?”
“Thank you,” the captain said, shifting her gaze to Genesee. “Both of you. You didn’t have to come.”
Genesee looked up from the fresh bandage he was applying to Carter’s forearm.
“Despite my obvious ambivalence to the uniform, I’ve never refused an order. And I never will.”
Schiavo allowed a smile. She didn’t seem at all surprised by Genesee’s response, nor by the simple explanation he had offered as to why he was here. It was a sense of duty, something she could fully understand, and embrace. Despite his initial reluctance to accept the mission that the SEALs had brought him, due mostly, I believed, to his expectation that he was not cut out for a field assignment, he’d performed admirably, without complaint, under the hellish conditions we’d encountered.
Conditions, I suddenly realized, we would have to return through to reach our home. I turned forward and tapped Matheson on the shoulder.
“How bad is it behind us?”
“It’s not good,” Matheson answered.
“Have a look,” the lieutenant, looking down from the vehicle’s turret, told us.
Schiavo shook off the offer, and Carter was still in the midst of having his burned arm treated, leaving me alone to see what we’d left behind.
“Up there,” Matheson said, pointing to a rectangular hatch above me, a similar one on Schiavo’s side. “Release and rotate the handle, then push up.”
I stood, hunching slightly, and completed the sequence necessary to open the hatch, the slab folding up and toward the side of the vehicle, revealing a brilliant blue sky above. That view, though, lasted just a few seconds, until I stood upright, my body straightening through the opening so I could see in all directions.
Including from where we’d come.
It was as if some hateful being had swept a brush
dipped in burning night across the southern sky, the blackish gash spreading from a point roughly over the coast all the way to the eastern horizon. Every few seconds a flash would appear from the ash cloud, and jagged fingers of lightning would race across its billowing surface.
“You made it through that,” Lieutenant Pell said from his position in the turret, his body from the chest up protruding from its now open hatch.
“Barely,” I reminded him.
Looking back at the hell we’d come through, my thoughts again returned to Bandon. To Elaine. To Hope. What were they going through? Had the hellfire from the second eruption reached them? I could think on that continually. Could worry without any way to satisfy my wondering, one way or another. But doing so would paralyze me. And whatever we’d come through, there was that possibility, however remote, that something ahead would test us with equal ferocity.
I had no idea just how prophetic that thought of mine would be, even when the Stryker slowed suddenly and came to a stop.
“What is it?” Pell asked through his headset.
He heard it more clearly, I was certain, but even where I stood I could make out plainly that Hammer, at the vehicle’s controls, was reporting a problem ahead. I turned and leaned to the side for a better view past the turret, which Pell had now dropped back into, pulling the hatch closed. I could see nothing worrisome ahead, just four lanes of blacktop and a few dozen cars scattered about, most pushed to the shoulder of the highway.
“Button it up!”
Pell’s command echoed in the vehicle, and, before I could react, Sergeant Matheson was beside me, pulling me and the hatch down, sealing the vehicle up.
“What is it, Lieutenant?” Schiavo asked.
The Stryker’s commander dropped down from his perch in the turret and faced the captain.
“We left our other section just up the road,” Pell explained. “About five hundred yards. But they’re not there.”