Shelter for Now

by Bob Howard

  There were a few stragglers at the back of the dining hall that were being slow to approach, so they used their guns to get rid of them.

  Mike was trying to climb down from the platform on his own, but his right arm was useless. He had also gotten blood on the rungs of the ladder, so he kept losing his grip. The bottom of the ladder stopped two feet from the floor, but that only left about one foot of stage for him to stand on with his back to the orchestra pit.

  Addison ran over to the ladder to try to help him, while everyone else was screaming for them both to wait. Garrett was the closest to them, and he tried to get there in time, but he wasn’t fast enough.

  Addison got herself in position directly at the bottom of the ladder to catch Mike if he slipped, but Mike outweighed her by over one-hundred pounds and was much taller. He tried to reach with his foot for the floor that was two feet below the bottom rung of the ladder, and not finding it, he reached too far and made his left hand lose its grip. It wasn’t a fall. It was more like a backward step, but it was too far.

  Mike’s left hand shot out at the last second and grabbed the bottom rung. Addison’s hands both grabbed the back of Mike’s jacket and dug in. Together the two of them were hanging backward at an angle over the orchestra pit.

  For the second time in one day, Addison’s long hair became a tempting target, and as Mike’s feet slid forward under the ladder, it lowered Addison closer to the pit. A pair of hands reached up from the pile of bodies in the orchestra pit and grabbed her hair.

  It seemed like slow motion, but it was actually very fast. Garrett, Jon, and Sim all started pumping rounds into the infected that was holding onto Addison’s hair, but even as the infected stopped pulling, its hands were so tangled in her hair that its weight kept pulling her backward.

  When Mike’s feet slipped one more inch he lost his grip again, and when he let go, both of them fell backward into the squirming mass of bodies. Their screams were more than Anne could take, and she collapsed against Susan. They were well back from the stage, and the only blessing was that they were too far back to see what was happening to Addison and Mike, or what had to be done.

  There was only a two second, unspoken exchange between Garrett and Jon, and both of them redirected their aim toward their two close friends. The screaming stopped, but so did their suffering.

  They had made it so long and so far without losing a member of their crew, and up until now they had still looked forward to seeing the President safely protected in some remote part of the shelter. Now, they only felt the anger they had kept inside when they were abandoned by him. Even though they had gotten him out of Washington DC safely, they were left to survive on their own, and yet they had never let themselves give in to the resentment most people would have felt.

  All of them were crying. Even the men were wiping at the streams of tears, and they turned away from the orchestra pit in silence. They were only five now, but they had lost their youngest friends. That hurt more because Anne and Garrett in particular felt like parents toward Addison and Mike.

  Garrett and Jon both went to the two women still huddled together on the stage and put their arms around them. Sim felt like the fifth wheel, but the only reason he didn’t join them was because he had something to do first.

  He walked over to the switch that had opened the orchestra pit and flipped the switch in the opposite direction. As the floor extended out from the stage and covered the mass of infected, the great dining hall became quiet. The only sound left was the crying on the stage.

  ******

  There had been the sound of gunshots. Rifles or pistols were fired somewhere in the complex, but the way sound carried, the combined force of Captain Miller’s soldiers and the Mud Island survivors could only keep moving forward. There was no way to tell if the shots came from inside the spiraling corridor they were following or from one of the many levels.

  They had been progressing steadily downward for almost an hour, but they hadn’t come to a single exit through the metal walls.

  Captain Miller held up a fist calling for the entire squad to come to a halt, and everyone took a minute to catch some rest. They stayed on guard, though, waiting for him to let them know why they had stopped. He was talking with a soldier who was in radio contact with the first squad. First squad was still in the process of calling all of the phone numbers throughout the shelter.

  “First squad reports that McCarthy has hacked the password into the main system. She has a map of the facility and has our approximate location,” he told the Chief.

  “Are we on a wild goose chase down this corridor, or are we heading in the right direction?”

  “It appears the answer is both. This is a resupply tunnel that leads to a motor pool under the shelter. The motor pool connects to a series of tunnels under Ohio State University a few miles away.”

  “How does that help us? We need to get into the main complex and find the President.”

  “McCarthy says there’s an elevator that is operated by remote controls. If POTUS gets into the elevator, the remote sends a signal to the elevator to send it to the correct floor. The Secret Service detail communicates with the computer operator.”

  “So the remote control is actually an authenticator,” said the Chief. “It verifies that the Secret Service detail is making a real request instead of someone forcing the President to go somewhere against his will.”

  “Even better,” said the Captain. “It keeps a log of where he went the last time, and POTUS has only been allowed to visit different levels by using the elevator.”

  “Does that mean he’s still alive?”

  Captain Miller shook his head and let out a long breath.

  “It means he was alive when the last entry was made in the log.”

  “When was that?” asked the Chief.

  “A year ago, assuming that the computer logs are accurate.”

  “How far to the garage, Jim?”

  Captain Miller spoke over his headset with McCarthy, and she estimated they could reach the motor pool in ten minutes at a trot. Since there were no exits from the tunnel, it wasn’t likely that they needed to be quiet. The gang that had been at the door into the kitchen must have been from the motor pool. They couldn’t use the elevator without someone operating it from a computer terminal, so they had tried to reach the upper levels at the kitchen.

  The Captain informed the squad that there was no need for stealth, and they were going to be moving fast. The soldiers on point were to extend their lead on the rest of the squad. If they had to stop in a hurry, he didn’t want the squad to rear end them.

  On his command, they began running down the tunnel over a mile underground. It was a brisk workout, but everyone in the group could have done more, even the civilians.

  The tunnel came to an end in a garage that resembled an Army motor pool. There were several armored personnel carriers they recognized as Strykers. Kathy was excited when she saw them because it meant they would have transportation back to the helicopters, and on the way they would be able to hunt down a few thousand of the infected.

  I noticed all of our group and the soldiers were sizing up the wheels. If the tunnels were clear, they could drive back without losing anyone.

  “Where’s the elevator?” asked the Chief.

  “McCarthy says it’s a central shaft straight up through the heart of the shelter, and you aren’t going to believe this, but there are one hundred and twenty levels in this thing.”

  “I would say I don’t believe it except for the fact that I think we just ran down most if not all of them.”

  We found the elevator, and the advanced technology of it was a big surprise. The door could open and close so fast that you almost didn’t see it happen.

  Captain Miller picked six soldiers to stay behind and see if the Strykers were in operational condition. The motor pool had a small dining area in a side room, and it was well stocked with MRE’s. Two of the men stood guard while the other four got a hot m
eal. They promised the Captain working vehicles before he needed them.

  The Mud Island family always appreciated the attitude of the soldiers under the command of Captain Miller. He managed to keep their morale high even though everyone had lost someone close to them. They also liked to be professional in front of us because most of them were there the night we had helped them escape from Fort Jackson. They wanted to show us just how good they really were.

  The rest of us gathered around the elevator and split into two groups. The elevator couldn’t carry all of us at once, so we would have to make two trips.

  We were just about to send up the first group when McCarthy radioed the Captain again. He listened for a minute, then he told her to send the elevator to the floor she had just told him about.

  When he turned to the Chief and Kathy who were standing by the open elevator door, he didn’t know where to start, but he managed to get it said.

  “The computer logs show that the elevator has been used twice today. Both times it went to the same floor. It’s high enough up that it could be where we heard the gunshots. McCarthy will send the elevator to that floor then right back down to here for the second group.”

  Half of us got into the elevator and got down low to the floor. If there was any shooting, we wouldn’t present an easy target. The door whisked shut, and I assumed we were going up even though I couldn’t feel the movement.

  When the door opened, there was the unmistakeable smell of weapons having been discharged recently. Of course there was also the smell of rotten flesh. Nothing moved in our field of vision, and we spread out wherever we could find cover.

  The elevator door closed, and if it left our floor, I couldn’t tell, but there was another sound coming from somewhere on the level. It was the sound of a woman crying.

  Jean was in my group, and I got her attention. I pointed at my ear and gave her a questioning frown. She nodded, and then did the same toward Cassandra and the soldiers who were with us. Everyone listened and then nodded. There was also general agreement that it was coming from an open door only about twenty yards away.

  When the elevator door opened again, I intercepted the Chief and Captain Miller and whispered that we could hear crying, and I pointed in the direction of the door.

  From our angle at the elevator, we could see across a large dining hall, and there was a stage at the end of it. Judging by the amount of debris and red blood, this place had been a battlefield. The color of the blood meant it had been recent. We could see a ladder that went up to a spotlight, and someone had lost a lot of blood on that ladder.

  We pointed at the open door near the end of the stage. Kathy and Jean told the Chief they wanted to be on point. If it was what it sounded like, there would be one or more very frightened women on the other side of that door.

  Captain Miller agreed with the Chief when he pitched the idea to him, so Kathy and Jean moved along the wall as quietly as they could. The rest of the squad moved into cover behind them. If they came back out of that door under fire, they were going to have enough cover to get them through the gates of Hell.

  Kathy laid down on the floor by the open door and peered around the corner. There was a short row of steps just inside the door, so she had to lift her head higher to see inside. There were two women sitting on the floor. They were holding each other and sobbing deeply.

  Kathy whispered something to Jean, and then we were all shocked when she put her rifle on the floor. We felt a little better when she took her Glock from its holster and tucked it into her waistband at the small of her back. As she eased into the open door, Jean stood with her Glock in both hands and aimed at the floor. She would be listening for Kathy to ask for help.

  We couldn’t see Kathy, but Jean peeked around the corner and gave us a signal to hold where we were. She saw Kathy walk calmly up the stairs and approach the two women. They glanced up at her, but they were too shattered by something to even care that there was a stranger walking toward them. After the glance they just went back to holding each other and crying.

  Kathy slowly knelt down beside them and put her arms around them.

  “It’s going to be okay. You’re going to be okay now.”

  Kathy couldn’t imagine what had happened to break these women so much, but she felt them lean into her. Whatever it had been, they had reached their limit, and she hoped that they could be brought back from a sorrow that was a very dark place.

  Jean tucked in her Glock and walked into the room. We immediately moved in to see what was happening, but we stayed back far enough to keep from being seen. Jean had joined the women from the other side as if she and Kathy were shielding them from something.

  After a few minutes, I could see that Kathy and Jean were both talking with the women. They had stopped crying and were answering questions. I was sure they were asking a few of their own, too.

  Kathy motioned in my direction and held up three fingers. Then she pointed off in another direction. It was just enough of a gesture for me to understand there were three more people somewhere, and if they had been doing the shooting we had heard earlier, we had to be careful when we found them.

  I went back to the Chief and Captain Miller and told them what was happening. They talked about it for a minute to decide how we would find them, but it was likely to end with someone getting shot if we managed to surprise three armed people.

  Colleen, Cassandra, Tom, and Hampton got our attention. Tom spoke for the group.

  “Someone just unloaded some heavy firepower on this level. I don’t see a lot of bodies, but I have a feeling that whoever these people are, they have survived just like us. If we surprise them, someone will die on both sides.”

  “We were just saying that,” said the Chief. “Do you have any ideas on how to get this done without anyone getting hurt? How do you reach out to three armed people when they find out they have about eighteen people in their neighborhood that they didn’t expect?”

  Hampton smiled at the Chief and said, “We need the women to help, but they can start by giving us some idea where the other three went and who they are. If we can call out to them, they might not shoot at us.”

  Colleen and Cassandra went to join Kathy and Jean. Seeing two more women would reassure them without overwhelming them. They sat down and talked for a few minutes, and then the two women came out of the door with them.

  Anne and Susan both stopped and stared in disbelief at all the people. It was the largest group of living people they had seen since the day when so many were dying at John Glenn International Airport. None of the guns were pointed at them, and a part of them knew life was just about to get better. It was just too bad that it couldn’t have been an hour or two earlier.

  Kathy brought the women over to meet the Chief and Captain Miller.

  Anne gazed up at the Chief and even though her eyes were red rimmed and sad, she asked, “Are you married? With a man your size around, I would always feel safe.”

  The Chief was usually on the other side of situations like this. He could put you on the spot without any effort, but it was his turn to be at a loss for words.

  Anne smiled and added, “He’s shy too. I like that.”

  Captain Miller came to his rescue and asked if she could tell him about their companions and where they might have gone.

  Anne told him they were the pilot, co-pilot, and navigator for the flight crew of Executive One, and that they had gone to the President’s room.

  ******

  Garrett Carson, Jon King, and Terrance Simmons had been professionals in their line of work. They were well thought of by their families and friends, and frequently recruited by competing airlines. That’s what they had been. Now they were three angry men who wanted the President to tell them to their faces why there hadn’t been room for them in his precious shelter. Even though things had worked out better for them in the long run than they had for the people who were allowed inside, they wanted to hear the man say he was sorry.

  Afte
r they had lost Addison and Mike, they began searching the bodies of the infected for any clues to the whereabouts of the President. They hit the jackpot when they realized the Secret Service details wore special star shaped pins on their jackets. They concentrated their searching on the bodies with the pins, and they found one with a keycard that bore the Presidential seal. The best part was they were already on the right level. They told Anne and Susan to stay where they were and went in search of the Presidential quarters.

  When they found themselves standing in front of the door that would give them access to the most powerful man in the world, they didn’t rush in for two reasons. They didn’t know if there would be agents still alive to protect the President, and they didn’t know what they were going to do if the President didn’t want to cooperate with their request for an apology. The fact of the matter was that they didn’t know if they wanted an apology anymore, or if they wanted him dead.

  “What now?” asked Sim.

  Garrett held the keycard in his hand, but he couldn’t bring himself to use it.

  “We didn’t think this through,” he said.

  Jon asked, “Do you think?”

  Garrett gave him a scowl that didn’t need explanation.

  “What if we just knock?” asked Sim.

  “If you do, I’d step away from the door and wait for the bullets to stop punching holes in it,” said Jon.

  Garrett took a deep breath and let it out loudly.

  “I feel like I’m back in the fourth grade again. I’m on the playground with two morons trying to work up the nerve to tell Sally Wentworth I like her.”

  “Thanks, Boss. I needed a good lecture right now,” said Sim. “I feel all motivated again,”

  Despite the situation, Sim grinned at him.

  “What is it about times like this that makes men say stupid things?” asked Jon.

  “I don’t know,” said Garrett. “It’s just the way men are wired.”

  Without another word, he slid the keycard into the slot, and a green light lit up the card. He gently pulled on the door, and it opened without a sound.