He’d undoubtedly said it to impress his friends, but they weren’t in the mood.
“Are we going to die?” Donovan whimpered while he kicked at a board with one of his sporty sneakers.
“We are not—”
A flash of light caught her attention over by the stairwell.
Several beads of the flaming liquid came down the stairs, like Slinkys looking for their owners. The goop must have followed the walking path as it went down-grade into the mine.
“Damn, this is not good,” Tabby thought.
Out loud, she said, “Okay, a minor hiccup.” She stood and looked around for ideas.
“The tanks! Quick. We’ll get you set up with oxygen so you can breathe easy. My dad ensures all these tanks are filled and ready to go. This will be a cinch.”
As soon as the words left her mouth, she wondered if the kids were catching on. The obvious truth was she didn’t know what she was saying most of the time. She’d been wrong about most everything and she was probably wrong about this, too.
“Dad, I need you down here,” she thought.
The smell was nearly a taste by the time Tabby put the regulator in her mouth. She’d made sure to get Audrey, Peter, and Donovan set up before she did her own. There was no need to sling the tanks over their shoulders, because they were going to stay on the dock. She had each kid sit next to their tank and suck oxygen from it.
She admired the racks filled with Dad’s oxygen cannisters. There were days’ worth of air inside those tanks, even for the four of them.
Tabby kept an eye on the stairwell. Liquid fire continued to pour down the steps, but most fell off a slope and went into the water. Steam rose up like a frothing bubble bath, but at least it didn’t get any closer. Thanks to the steep angles, it never would.
Then her eyes started to burn.
CHAPTER 10
Newport News, VA
Kyla’s consciousness floated above her body as she tossed off her laptop bag, hustled up the last steps, and stepped partway onto the metal deck of the hangar. Red smoke was everywhere, but nowhere was it thick enough to hide her entirely, and it did nothing to blunt the constant fireworks of battle going on inside the hangar.
“Save him,” she ordered herself.
Her breathing became tight and labored in those first few paces, like there wasn’t enough air reaching her lungs. The jackhammering of guns overpowered her ears and made it impossible to know who was firing in which direction, but the whip-bang sound of a bullet striking the ground right near her flats made her appreciate she was committed to doing something idiotic.
This was where her extra twenty pounds really worked against her. The twenty-yard dash seemed to take an eternity.
When she got there, she tried to grab the man like she’d seen the female superheroes do on TV: a snatch and grab. Kyla successfully got her hand around one of his arms, but when she pulled, she found out how much the sailor weighed. Instead of dragging the man, she nearly fell on top of him.
“Fuck!” she exploded.
Blood coursed through her ears with the power of Norse gods slamming hammers. The beating served to remind her of her own mortality, but for the moment, it also drowned out the endless cursing of the Marines behind her. Carthager’s bellows were somehow louder than the gunfire.
“I know this is stupid!” she said to herself.
The gunfire was now constant.
“How are we not dead?” she said to the guy on the ground.
The sailor mumbled back, “Mom?”
Kyla didn’t understand the rest of what he said in the roar of battle. Rather than ask him to repeat it, she grabbed the guy’s arm with both hands and pulled with all she had left.
Her extra grip did the trick.
The air got thicker with gunfire, as if a jilted girlfriend was angry at her for trying to steal her lover. Small divots appeared on the metal deck near her feet, where rounds deflected, to emphasize that anger.
Scenes of her life whizzed by, like a video stuck on fast-forward. Kyla saw a few boyfriends. Lots of movies. Working for the Navy. Her one big regret was spending so much of life in front of a terminal and so little of it in the sunshine, or with those boyfriends.
She also saw Ben’s terrified eyes at the edge of the stairwell.
Ten feet to go…
“Out of the way!” she screamed.
Kyla was sure she’d be killed right as she reached the hatch, but she continued through and fell onto the first few steps. The injured sailor came down with her, though Kyla tried to use her body to cushion the already-injured man’s fall. Her thigh took the brunt of that bad idea.
That was going to leave a bruise for the ages.
Ben slid further down the steps, though he stopped about halfway. “Are you fucking insane, K? What were you thinking?”
The murderous gunfire continued a few feet above her head, but now she had the deck of an aircraft carrier between her and those guns, so she finally exhaled the bulk of her terror.
“I don’t know,” she sputtered while gasping for air, “what the hell I was thinking.” Kyla pointed to the man. The sailor groaned in pain with his head still pointed down the steps.
“Shit. Help me get him to the bottom.” She did her best to move the sailor to the base of the steps, but he went down like a slab of beef. Instead of helping slow the disaster, Ben only stood there watching. As a result, each step seemed to torment the fallen man.
“I’m sorry about that,” Kyla lamented when she got him all the way down. She wanted to help the sailor get comfortable, such as in a bed, but his wounds suggested he wasn’t going anywhere besides the floor.
“Imposters,” the man wheezed.
Kyla noted the man was in typical Navy camo, which was a mix of blue and gray blotches. His name tape said Applebaum.
“What do you mean? Who are imposters?” She knelt next to his head, so they could communicate.
“Marines,” he hissed.
Kyla looked to Ben, still standing halfway up the stairwell.
“No, they brought us here—”
Applebaum reached up and grabbed her polo shirt collar, which got her attention back on the bloodied man.
“Marines don’t belong on Navy ships…” The guy’s eyes bulged like he was in a lot of pain.
Kyla looked up to Ben again. “Get some help from our friends!”
Ben didn’t move.
“Go!” she yelled.
Her partner finally went up.
She spoke quietly. “They said they were here as part of a training exercise.”
Kyla noticed a stream of blood spreading on the floor by the man’s hip. Every TV show and movie about stopping the flow of blood played in her brain. She tried to tip the guy over a little, so she could get a look at the wound, but Applebaum blocked her arms.
“Some Marines came after it happened,” he croaked.
She refrained from fighting the man, but she pressed down on his hip, hoping it might help stop the bleeding from underneath. She put her other hand on a smaller wound by the man’s shoulder, hoping to physically hold him together until one of the Marines could come and give him proper first aid.
“Did those fake Marines cause all these people to die?” Kyla motioned to a nearby pile of clothing, presumably where another sailor lost his life in the attack. However, Applebaum wasn’t able to turn his head to see it. His eyes got glassy and distant.
“Hey!” Kyla shouted. “Don’t let go! You have to tell us. Did the Marines cause all these deaths?”
Applebaum’s eyes rolled up into his head, as if experiencing a seizure.
Kyla’s body let go of the tension it had wound up since she’d started her run. A violent tremor ran through her thighs and midsection, like she’d been picked up and shaken like a ragdoll. Then the freight train of revelation came barreling out of the tunnel.
I almost died.
“Holy fucking shit,” she exhaled. “What was I thinking?”
“Yo!” Carthager shouted while jetting down the steep stairwell. “What did he say about fake Marines?”
All of Kyla’s tension returned.
Joint Base Andrews, MD
Ted drove the food truck right up to the terminal exit facing the runway.
“We’ll find someone inside,” he said matter-of-factly as he put the truck in park.
Frank hopped out of the passenger side.
Together, they went through the automatic glass doors and entered the modest-sized terminal. It wasn’t as flashy as a civilian version, but it sported many of the same elements: ticket counters, luggage conveyor belts, and bench seating facing the air strip.
“What the…” Ted was at a loss for words.
He took a few steps inside the long, thin building.
Frank strode up next to him, but they both halted at the military uniform spread out on the ground. A woman’s dress was a few feet away. A child’s pants, shirt, and shoes were strewn out between them.
Beyond that, other pieces of clothing dotted the floor, usually in little groupings.
“What am I looking at?” Frank said with rising fear in his voice.
“I have no idea,” he replied.
Ted took a step around the nearest piles of personal effects and walked a few more yards so he could look left and right inside the terminal.
“Hello!” he shouted. “Is anyone here?”
“These were people, weren’t they?” Frank was nearby, crouching over one of the piles of dropped clothing.
“Hello?” Ted bellowed at maximum volume.
“This one left his wallet—it’s filled with cash and credit cards.” Frank threw the wallet back on the black pants. However, he still had something in his hands, which he brought over to Ted.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“Look for yourself,” Frank advised.
The ID card had the seal for the United States Senate.
“Carl Trillman. Montana.” Ted held the card for a few moments, then threw it down like it was electrified. It was exactly like what his sister had told him. People had simply disappeared.
“Shit, we’ve got to get out of here,” he said while backpedaling.
“And you have to eat your hat,” Frank agreed. “No one is left. Something terrible happened in here.”
They ran through the automatic doors again and hopped in the truck. He’d left the keys inside, so it started up in an instant. However, before he put the truck in gear, he noted the bundle of clothing he’d pushed off the seat. Frank’s feet smashed them on the floorboard.
“They’re all dead,” Ted said dryly.
“No shit,” Frank replied. “I can’t believe I touched something that might have been infected.” After saying it, Frank wiped his hands on his pants.
“I don’t think this could be an infection. Those people in the terminal disappeared while they were standing around doing their normal business. If all it took was one touch, I’d be dead, too.”
“Because you touched the ID card?” Frank asked.
“No. Because I pushed the previous owner of this truck onto the floor.” He pointed to the bundle of clothes under Frank’s feet.
Frank glanced at Ted, then where he pointed, then at the terminal.
“This is bigger than the terminal,” Frank deadpanned.
“Yeah… It is,” he replied distantly.
Ted wanted to believe that Rebecca had had it wrong. That it wasn’t all across America. She’d gotten her information from the notoriously unreliable cable news, after all. However, it looked like they’d gotten something correct. It couldn’t be coincidence the Beltway had no traffic on it. It couldn’t be coincidence Air Force Two was unable to raise any ground location on the East Coast. And it wasn’t coincidence the whole terminal was filled with those…things.
He pulled out his phone and tapped on the number the VP had given him. When he put the speaker to his ear, he realized the call didn’t go through.
“Damn! The network isn’t taking my call. That’s one more thing gone wrong.”
He punched Kyla’s number, wondering if the fault was on the VP’s phone, but he got the same result. After that, he stuffed the device back in his pocket. He gave the truck some gas. “Come on, we have to get back and report this to the vice president using good old-fashioned sneaker net.” That was a term his niece had taught him about walking data from one computer to the next. The technology whiz-kid was high on his mind, though not too high, because he had a ton of problems facing him at that airport.
The windows of the terminal mocked him as he drove away.
The ghosts of the passengers were still in there.
Only they knew what caused it all.
Poor Sisters Convent, Oakville, MO
Sister Rose was having the worst day of her life. After confirming she was the only one left in the convent, she sat at the organ and played sad hymns. Unable to use her voice, she wanted the music to convey her grief and contrition. If she prayed hard enough, perhaps God would come back and get her.
Maybe if there was a priest, she could confess her sins and remove the black marks from her soul.
She stopped playing.
“What if?”
Rose found the community phone numbers and began dialing. Though she’d taken a vow of silence, it wasn’t against the rules to hear other people. If a priest was passed over for Heaven, like her, she would travel to him and write down her sins.
Then all would be right.
It took an hour to go through the numbers for local parishes. When she was at the end, she’d heard dozens of answering machines, but no live people.
On a whim, she dialed her mom. Despite the falling out they’d had about her brother, she still remembered her phone number. If her mother answered, Rose would hang up…
“Then I’ll know,” she thought.
Abbess Mary Francis would not approve of the phone call. Rose knew that, even as she dialed the number. The intelligent leader of the order would know Rose’s motives, even before she herself did.
Sister Rose, are you calling your mom to see if she is as wicked as you?
Rose hung up the phone before it rang once.
As soon as the handset touched the cradle, the ringer exploded with noise.
“Ooh,” she reacted out of instinct.
The house phone was set to maximum volume, because most of the aged nuns were hard of hearing. It was unfortunate she’d been standing next to it when it went off.
The phone rang a second time.
She was afraid to answer it, because of the guilt she carried about her vow of silence. If it was her mother, would she break that vow to let Mom know she was okay?
After the third ring, she picked it up, but did not say hello.
When she put her ear to the handset, a robotic voice was already speaking. “The St. Bartholomew’s Rectory thanks you for your inquiry. This is an automated dial-back to let you know we value your time and a live person will return your call within the next twenty-four hours. Thank you and have a blessed day.”
It was only a computer.
The delay had given her time to consider the weight on her conscience.
“If Mom is still here, it will confirm what a bad person I am. God would never take her but leave me. I can’t be that bad, can I?”
She knew the answer to that as soon as she thought of the question. Her heart was broken at the realization she was actively rooting against her own mother getting saved during the Rapture. Every lesson she’d been taught over the past year had been temporarily forgotten.
Sister Rose ran out the front door and was greeted with unexpected silence.
No cars on the nearby roadway.
No whirring sound coming from the interstate a few streets over.
It was only her and a few sparrows foraging in the grass nearby.
Her faith was in crisis.
“Was I the only one not taken?”
CHAPTER 11
/> Joint Base Andrews, MD
“What’s going on, Ted?” Frank asked quietly as they drove back. “Was this done by a neutron bomb?”
He didn’t have time to speculate. All he wanted to do was get back on the plane and report the truth: this wasn’t a local or regional terrorist attack. It was way bigger. Impossibly bigger.
“Hold on,” he advised.
He sped across the tarmac toward the jumbo jet still parked in the middle of the taxiway. Because this was an unknown situation, the pilot left the engines running, like a rabbit poised to bolt.
“We’re getting out of here and back up into the skies.”
“Hey!” Frank blurted out. “There’s some people!”
A nearby hangar door was partially open. A couple of men stood in the dark gap. They stood out from the stillness of the rest of the airport.
Ted drove onward for a few seconds, determined to get his knowledge back to the boss, but then he relented and turned toward the hangar.
“They have weapons…” Frank said matter-of-factly.
It was a military base with lots of active duty personnel. Guns at the ready weren’t totally unusual, though it was a little odd on the tarmac.
“Our job is recon. Someone has to know what the F happened here. They’re going to tell us.” Ted jabbed his finger ahead.
But they’d only gone fifty yards when the front glass shattered with several bullet holes.
“Fuck!” he screamed.
The men ahead knelt and zeroed in with their rifles.
He veered the truck to the right, putting him back on his original course to the plane.
Bullets pelted the food truck like a hailstorm.
“My god, who were those guys? Did you get a look at them?” He couldn’t identify them because they were in the shadows of the structure. “Frank?”
He looked over to find his partner holding his side. Blood was everywhere, as if a water balloon filled with red had popped on the seat between them. “No!”
“I was really looking forward to watching you chew up your hat,” Frank wheezed.
A bullet shattered his side mirror.
“Hold on, man. We’re there.”
The food truck was too tall to fit underneath the fuselage of the modified 747, but he parked behind the wing and did his best to put it between the ladder and the shooters.
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