by Roger Hayden
A great big red tour bus parked at the curb. Its riders bickered with one another in a foreign tongue. Wearing matching tees and caps, they turned their eyes from Harper’s army uniform to her face. They shouted, but she kept moving.
Her shoulders lurched back with a thud. A boy, no older than her son, reared his head back after knocking into her and continued his desperate sprint. Greasy bangs fell before his tired eyes as the sun glinted from cuffs that bound his wrists. Three police officers pursued him on foot, shoving against Harper and the haughty tourist.
Harper turned a corner. More hot bodies crowded the pavement. This time they were corpses being yanked from obliterated cars. Clenching limp wrists, shirtless men lifted a woman’s body from the sunroof. Smoke and gasoline fumes soured the air around Harper as she dodged the line of cadavers meticulously placed on the searing sidewalk.
More noise. More confusion. More fearful people. Washington, DC, was a fluid city hours ago, but now it was clogged, smashed, and filled with frustration. The tall skyscrapers and imposing office buildings bowed in around Harper, constricting her. She wanted out of the concrete cage but pressed in further, down the arid streets and toward the city’s heart. The White House, the Pentagon, or wherever else the attack may be, Harper headed that way. Her son’s school wasn’t far now.
Harper cut down Fifteenth Street to Vermont Avenue, passed St. John’s Episcopal Church, and crossed H Street. In a long barricade, the police fortified themselves outside the White House, which probably still ran on reserve power. They darted between units, performing commands and shouting some of their own. We’re back in the dark ages. On top of the majestic white building, the American flag twisted and tossed in the fall wind, trying to break free from its pole.
The high school entered her view. Along the streets, perplexed businessmen and women with loosened ties pouted outside their powered-down offices. Their complaints regarding Wi-Fi and lost work were drowned in the wind.
Harper finally arrived.
She slowed in front of the redbrick building. Its architecture leapt onto the streets from a bygone era. Three stories tall and expertly well kept, The School Without Walls, or “Walls High School,” as her son called it, had a boxlike appearance and a bell tower with wooden window blinds. A building extension with a modern vibe jutted from its side, boasting tall windowpanes and a slick design. At the “older” building, a set of stairs ascended to two front doors that were red and windowed. The doors to the “modern” entrance were black and glass.
An angry, potbellied man wearing slacks and a Hawaiian shirt slammed his fist against the door. “Excuse me!” His roar sent a vibration down his second chin. “Hello!”
Not far from him and tucked in the awning’s shade, a posh woman with voluminous hair filed her nails with quick, angry strokes.
“I’m hungry,” the button-nosed six-year-old boy next to her complained. Hands lost in his pockets, he kicked a rock down the stairs.
“They have to let us in, right?” A twenty-something-year-old asked. His natty dreadlocks were banded together in a bustle of chestnut ribbons that flowed down the back of his loose Pink Floyd shirt. Locked at the stoner’s elbow was a free-spirited woman wearing a low-cut top and nodding in agreement. “They can’t keep my brother locked away like this. It isn’t Alcatraz.”
Potbelly continued slamming the door. “Hello!”
“Hey, pal,” a roguish man in a pinstriped business suit yelled back at the large man. “Whatever you’re doing isn’t working.”
Looking at her perfect nails, the posh woman spoke. “Thank God I’m not the only one.”
“I’m hungry.”
Fuming, the large man shoved his finger against the businessman’s chest. “Shut your trap.”
Harper let her jog fall into a power walk as she neared the front door. The six strangers quieted, watching her bump up the two concrete steps. “What seems to be the problem?”
“Whole school is in lockdown,” the businessman said, hiking his thumb back to the door. “Say, you’re with the military, right?”
“Army, yes,” Harper replied.
The posh woman turned her sly gaze to Harper. “What’s going on?”
“Yeah, why’s everything, I don’t know… not working?” Dreadlocks asked.
“Are we under attack?” his girlfriend shrieked. “Oh my God, we’re under attack!”
The others went white.
“Can we go now, Mommy?” The boy tugged at his mother’s soft shirt.
“It’s finally happening.” The potbellied man mumbled. “The invasion’s begun…”
Harper intervened. “Everyone--”
“Open the door!” The fat man smashed his hand against the door. “Open the door!”
On the sidewalk, a crowd of people of people swarmed around them. “What’s going on?” one asked.
“There’s been an attack,” the posh woman said, her voice trailing, and she wobbled in place, on the verge of fainting.
“Listen--”
“Solar flares!”
“No, no! EMP, think about it!”
“We’re being hacked! That’s why everything’s failing.”
“It’s the Chinese.”
“Russians, you idiot.”
“Why isn’t the army doing anything?”
“Can’t you see? It is the army.”
“Are they targeting the schools? Oh my God, they’re targeting the children!”
And on and on and on until the endless questions, statements, and accusations became a blur of voices trapping Harper in a vortex of verbal chaos. She was the enemy, some said. She was the ally, fought others. Harper clenched her fist. Sweat heated her body. She drew in air. It felt toxic.
“Everybody! Quiet, please!”
Her voice sliced through the streets and noise. The shouts died down, murmurs soon after. All fearful, bloodshot, desperate eyes were on her. The street went quiet. Harper calmed her breath.
“You’re scared. I get it. For yourself, your children, your jobs. One moment, everything’s fine. The next, cars are crashing, your stock reports are down, no power, no communication, no lights. Complete silence. I would be lying if I told you that I wasn’t terrified, too. I have a son of my own. A career I care about. A country I’d die for. But as a sergeant in the United States Army, I can tell you that we have this under control. Yes, I believe we were attacked--”
A breath-sucking gasp rippled through the crowd.
“But we are still standing. I promise this electronic failure is only temporary. The army, the president, and National Guard have America’s finest fixing this as we speak. What I ask of you--no, what your country asks of you, is to return to your homes, look after your loved ones, and remain calm. We are a strong nation, we are a strong people, and we will overcome this.”
Agreeing nods and exasperated sighs blew throughout the crowd. Formulating small conversations, the strangers not waiting for their children vanished down the street.
“Not bad,” the businessman said, a smile curling up his lips.
“I haven’t felt that nervous since my high-school graduation speech,” Harper replied honestly. “Let’s see about getting our kids.”
Patting down his cherry face with a handkerchief, the larger man stepped aside. “Good luck.”
Harper reached the door and pulled. Locked. Figured as much. She pressed her face and hands against the glass, cupping them to see into the dark room. Her spent breath misted the glass. She bounced from foot to foot in hopes of minimizing the pain of her throbbing calves.
“I’m thinking about leaving,” the businessman said to no one in particular.
“She says it’s going to blow over, man,” Dreads replied.
The businessman spoke lowly. “Let’s be real here. This is the government we’re talking about.”
Movement in the darkness. Harper knocked against the pane. A woman--plump, colorful, with a graying bun of hair and studious glasses--sheepishly approached the
door. She tried communicating with Harper, but the words were muted by glass.
“Open. The. Door,” Harper mouthed to the brunette.
Everyone hushed.
With a sharp squeal, the door cracked. The woman scanned the outdoors nervously. “I can’t let you in,” she said in a low whisper. Her nose crinkled when she noticed the others. “We’re in lockdown until further notice.”
“My son, Eli Murphy, sophomore,” Harper replied. “I’m getting him out of class.”
The bookish woman twiddled her thumbs and averted her eyes. “I-I can’t do that. Apologies.” In a flash, the woman yanked at the door handle. Harper caught the rim. Her fingers separated metal and metal. “Believe me, I understand the students’ safety is paramount, but I need to see my son.”
“Ma’am, release the door.”
Harper thought of Bennett, of her responsibility to her subordinates. The time she’d already spent. Harper inched the door open. The other woman’s strength paled to her own. “I have the right to see my son.” She reminded herself of James. Their phone call. Their fractured relationship.
The little woman’s lip quivered. Beneath her glasses, frustrated tears nestled in her big eyes. “I’ll get the principal.”
Harper released her grasp and thanked her. The door shut. The woman hurried into the darkness.
“Ugh.” Voluminous Hair giggled as the posh woman threw her head back. “It’s never ending.”
The businessman cocked a grin. “Hey, at least she made more progress than fatso.”
“Screw you.” Rage turned the rotund man’s face red.
The suited man chuckled, drew an e-cigarette from his shirt pocket, and tucked it in his slender lips. His brow crinkled when it didn’t work.
“Mrs. Murphy?” A tall, gaunt woman opened the door and slipped outside. Her frizzy brown hair grayed at the ends, and she wore a blue shirt under a black blazer. In the daylight, her jade brooch was as sharp and green as Harper’s eyes. “I’m Principal--”
“Andrews. We met at orientation.” Harper sounded much more crass than she would’ve liked.
The principal sent a cold gaze across the others parked at her school’s front door. “I understand that all of you would like to see your children. However, with the current outage, we’ve been advised by the local PD to initiate a school-wide lockdown. No one comes in or out.”
“Never would’ve guessed.” The posh woman shook her head.
“All students will remain in the building until we are instructed otherwise.”
Harper massaged her temples. Just what I needed. “I’ll be frank with you. The National Guard is probably going to have the whole city in quarantine before nightfall.”
The civilians’ eyes went wide.
Harper planted her feet. “I want my son out. Please.”
After a long moment, Andrews knocked her knuckles on the glass. The bookish woman cracked it open.
“Find Eli Murphy. Be quick about it.”
The plump woman nodded in affirmation and returned to the void.
Andrews turned her gaunt gaze to the others. “One by one, what are your children’s names?”
Only the dude with dreadlocks and his girlfriend thanked Harper. The rest continued complaining after Principle Andrews returned inside. It didn’t take long before the plump woman was waddling hastily out the front door.
Alone.
Her big eyes looked at her toes as she spoke. “Eli hasn’t been seen since homeroom. He’s prone to… excusing himself before the final bell.”
Harper’s stomach dropped. “Where did he go?”
The woman shuffled her feet. “I-I’m not sure. A few students claim that he went to some summer music festival… Others shrugged.”
Harper’s forehead wrinkled. Skipping school, a concert probably brimming with drugs--Harper would have words with her son. “Do you know where this festival might be?”
“The National Mall, I think. Yes.” She remembered. “Closer to the Washington Monument. That’s what I read in The Loafer a few days ago.”
It was a mile-and-a-half run from the high school, if Harper estimated correctly. From her location, she couldn’t make out the historic buildings. She thought of her unit and clenched her jaw. Damn it, Eli. She turned back to the woman. “Thank you. You’ve been a great help.”
A distant bang. A rumble.
The woman looked behind her, slack jawed and pale. Harper twisted back.
Like a cobra rising for a strike, a thick column of black-and-silver smoke billowed into the indigo sky. It cast up from behind the building before them. A sharp pain stabbed Harper’s chest. She could guess its origin.
4
Tears of Our Forefathers
Terror gripped Harper when she heard the noise. Hundreds of cries melted together in a horrid wave of bloody terror and agony. It bounced from the buildings’ walls, over the stopped vehicles, and into any open ear. She found similarities to the unified cry of cicadas, but even that paled in comparison to the wails of the dying that currently blasted from the National Mall. She forced herself to listen, hoping and not hoping to hear her son’s cry for help. A pipe dream amidst the chaos.
Down Virginia Avenue, fear froze the faces and beings of men, women, and children ogling the gray mass wafting up into the late-morning sky. For the first time since the initial EMP blast, the people were still. But not Harper.
She darted down the sidewalk, twisting her torso sideways in order to squeeze between stricken spectators. She passed through the crosswalk, pressing between a disastrously crashed dump truck and Prius. Skipping over broken car plastic and bent metal, Harper tried keeping her mind on running, the simple idea of movement. The smoke expanded in the distance, overtaking grass and a screaming bystander sprinting with a body stained in blood and soot.
Harper prayed silently as she drew closer to the cries from hell and the ever-blooming cloud of smoke. The silver inferno beckoned.
Tourists stepping out of the Art Museum of the Americas gasped and blocked Harper’s path. She bowled through them and weaved between the clusters of cars that clogged Constitution Avenue. The smoky mass continued to spill out from in front of the Washington Monument, eclipsing the building and the blinding sun.
Harper’s boots trampled the crunchy grass. Planting her palm on a black metal post, she vaulted over a fence linked together by a lazy chain. She landed a few dozen yards from the Lincoln Memorial.
The noise intensified. Far down the reflecting pool of water, soot, debris, and bleeding bodies scattered in all directions. Like frenzied ants, men and women burst forth from the mist. They clamored and shoved one another, pushing and falling and thrashing in the extensive rectangular pool. The weak stumbled and swiftly became the victims of a violent stampede. The police charged into the pandemonium riding gallant horses and shouting forceful commands. The people didn’t slow.
While trying to save a bleeding woman, an officer was rammed to the dirt and trampled by a dozen unruly men. Another was pulled from his horse. When the man struggled to mount the stirrups, a second officer fired and sent him tumbling to the dirt. The horse cried and twisted about, trying to find an opening in the ocean of panicked people. Unable to find an escape, the desperate animal drilled through a herd of people. A woman screamed for her child as a stroller was pushed and dragged under unrelenting feet.
Harper did not have time to think. She plunged into the madness. Like a quarterback instigating a Hail Mary, Harper exceeded her physical limits by jumping, bending, and juking through the oncoming mass of bodies. Elbows, knees, and shoulders smacked against her collarbone, arms, and chest, but she continued her onslaught.
The stroller was twisted and bent and was still being kicked by single-minded runners when Harper came into view. She zigzagged around a charging blood-soaked woman and reached her arm low. Like a bird of prey, Harper snatched the child from the stroller. She clenched the infant’s warm body to her own, leaving the spent stroller to be further tr
ampled.
Cries of a hurting child filled her ear, but a screaming man with a red stump for a hand out-sung the baby boy. Harper craned her head through the mass, no longer seeing the wailing mother. People blurred as they swayed around her. Come on. She looked at a police officer helping up his comrade from the stomped grass. Blood spilled down the man’s mouth and nose, saturating the sky-blue uniform with crimson burgundy. She scanned again, turning to the sight of a large man and beautiful woman playing tug-of-war for a purse. The bag ripped, and its contents spilled out: a wallet, feminine-hygiene products, knickknacks.
The baby’s shrieks grew ever stronger, and anxiety smothered Harper. She did a final scan and spotted the mother wandering aimlessly and sobbing amidst the sea of raging people.
“You’ll be with your mother shortly,” she whispered to the child.
Without warning, a large shadow overtook Harper as she prepared to run. Her emerald-green eyes widened with horror as she stared up at the towering horse, neighing and drawn back on its hind legs. No time to run. She sucked air into her lungs and clenched the baby close to her chest. Its warm body pressed against her raging heart. Just as the beast was about to drop, loud popping sounds and multiple splits in its skin forced it to topple on its side. Thumping against the ground and kicking wildly, the majestic creature convulsed, in the throes of death. Harper found it hard not to pity the animal and even harder to not look away. She shifted her attention to the dark-skinned police officer lowering his firearm. He gave Harper a curt nod and returned to the fray.
The gunfire scattered the surrounding people but did a horrid job of lessening the overall chaos. The panicked bystanders became more aggressive in their tactics. They showed no regard for the arriving law enforcement, cursing, disobeying, and beating those who tried to contain them. There were no enemies, no allies, only desperation. Harper dashed to where she last saw the infant’s mother but only saw a yellow lump.
The woman lay facedown. Dirty footprints painted her yellow sundress. Harper hesitated to turn her over, fearful of what she would see. Breathing rapidly, Harper knelt beside her and rolled her body over. Blood glued dirt and grass to the woman’s face. Beyond her caved cheek and missing teeth, Harper could tell she was in her thirties, more youthful and prettier than Harper. Discolored blades of grass stuck to the woman’s semi-parted and busted lips. Her eyes were shut.