She got to the dam and parked in the parking lot, just as the ground started to shake. It was violent. It wasn’t just a tremor. Lila knew Nick’s prediction was coming true. Ralph yelped and dove under the seat, and Katie started screaming. There was a tremendous noise, and she looked over to see the resort buildings collapsing. And then it hit her. The dam! Would it hold?
Chapter 27
The building came down around them. Ben saw one of the soldiers crushed under a falling beam. The sounds of breaking windows were like gunshots. As he dove away from a section of the ceiling crashing down, he saw Tillman push one of his Secret Service agents out of the way, so that he could stand under the door frame. The agent was instantly buried under a pile of debris.
Ben ran toward one of the broken windows and leapt out just as a major part of the ceiling collapsed. A piece caught his foot and he screamed in pain. But he was out of the building. He crawled toward the open area of the lawn, then laid there, waiting for the quake to finish it’s destruction. The earthquake lasted little more than fifteen seconds, but it felt like minutes.
The city was strangely quiet. If this had happened a year earlier, it would be a cacophony of sirens, alarms, and horns. The silence after the quake was somehow comforting to Ben, as if nature had done its thing, and was now resting. He got up to his knees and looked around, finding that the silence belied the reality—what had been left of Washington was now in shambles. Whole city blocks had been leveled and fires were breaking out everywhere. He could now see the J. Edgar Hoover building from where he knelt, across the sea of collapsed structures. It was still standing.
The Washington Monument was still there, as well. Ben thought it would have been one of the first things to fall. At that moment, he thought of Lila and the dam. She was in no danger if it collapsed, but it would certainly change the landscape, and the lake would be virtually gone. Would she move? How would he ever know?
He turned back to the White House. It no longer existed. The symbol of strength and power in the world was now a pile of rubble. He stood up. His foot was killing him, but he limped over to the former building. He had to know. He crawled over the fallen walls to the approximate location of the Oval Office. The door frame that Tillman had so cowardly sought refuge under was still standing, like a lonely skeleton. President Tillman was lying at the bottom of the doorway, still alive … barely. His right arm and right leg were crushed under tons of debris, and Ben saw a puddle of blood next to the president’s body.
Tillman turned his head and looked at Ben.
“You were coming to assassinate me,” he said weakly.
Ben said nothing.
“I did it with the best of intentions, you know.”
“No you didn’t,” said Ben. “I want you to lie here with the life flowing out of you, and know that you were responsible for the extinction of most of the human race. It was a decision made from greed and ego, not with the best intentions. When your name is mentioned in the future, it will be with disgust and hatred. My family died because of you. I’m separated from my wife and child because of you. I’m going to sit here and watch you fade away into the history books.”
And that’s exactly what I did. He died fifteen minutes later. While he laid there choking on his own blood, I thought about what he had done. For years, so much of our focus in America and elsewhere had been on terrorism. But at what point do you become just as bad as the terrorists? In President Tillman’s case, his fight against terrorism (prompted by his own self interests) ultimately made him the most dangerous of them all.
I was relieved, though. I had killed a lot of people over the last year, but always in self-defense or in defense of another when I had no other choice. I had never assassinated anyone. As much as I wanted him dead, I was glad that I wasn’t the one who ultimately did it. That was a stigma I didn’t want to live with. The irony is that in the end, Tillman was killed by his own creation. Nothing could have been more appropriate.
A Jeep approached from the direction of the mall and pulled up in front of the White House. Colonel Jeffries stepped out, followed by two other officers.
Jeffries looked at the collapsed building and just shook his head in disbelief.
“The president?” he said to Ben.
“Right here,” Ben replied. “He died about five minutes ago. He was killed by the earthquake. You’ll find Stokes under the rubble too.”
Jeffries and his men stood around him and looked down at the president. It was obvious that he was crushed to death, not assassinated. One of the officers looked at Jeffries and said, “It looks like you’re now in charge, Mr. President. We’ll spread the word.”
“We have a lot of work ahead of us,” said Jeffries. He looked at Ben. “As for you, thank you for your willingness to serve. I won’t forget it. Unfortunately, I have to go back on one of my promises. I’m afraid I can’t supply you with a car and driver to take you where you need to go. I apologize, but half of our vehicles were destroyed by the quake, and my scouts have come back to tell me that most of the roads are now impassable to vehicles. But you are certainly free to go.”
“Thank you,” replied Ben, disappointed at yet one more delay. “If you could do me one favor, I’d appreciate it. I’ve hurt my foot. I don’t think it’s broken, but if you have someone who can tape it up, that would help.”
Jeffries and his men helped Ben to the Jeep, and they drove him back to the mall.
I was astounded at the damage the quake had caused. It was a city unprepared for an earthquake. Jeffries wasn’t kidding about the roads. Big gaping holes and long cracks in the pavement forced us to take a route over rubble and alternating between road and sidewalk. The scene at the mall was no better. Craters had appeared that were the size of houses. At the end of the mall where the soldiers had their camp, a couple of hundred had been swallowed up by the earth in an instant.
As they parked, Ben saw Dan and Gordon. He felt a profound sense of relief seeing them unhurt, and he introduced them to the new president. Jeffries called over a medic, who checked out Ben’s foot. It wasn’t broken, but it was badly sprained, and he taped it up, recommending that Ben not walk on it for a while. Ben knew that wasn’t an option. He had to get back to Lila, and walking seemed to be the only way.
He was anxious to get on his way, so he quickly said his goodbyes. He no longer had his rifle or Walther, but he hadn’t yet surrendered his Glock to the White House guards when the quake hit, so he still had that, as well as his knife. The medic rounded up a crutch for him to use until his foot was healed. He wasn’t worried about food and water, figuring he’d be in city and suburbia for quite a while and could pick up the things he needed as he walked. He found a convenience store and located a map, and was dismayed to learn that Lila was more than 500 miles away. Walking with a crutch over a devastated landscape could take him a couple of months. He wanted to cry. Wasn’t anything ever going to be easy?
He had gone only a half a dozen blocks when he hit his first obstacle … a human obstacle.
“Hey hero, you’re looking good.”
Ben turned to find himself confronted by the three who had beaten him in the tent. He thought of them as Moe, Larry, and Curley, of the Three Stooges. They were each holding rifles.
“I see you’re real buddy buddy with our new prez,” said Moe. “Wonder if he’ll miss you when you suddenly disappear.”
I was tired. I desperately missed my wife and a child I had never seen. I was tired of dealing with scum. Tillman was evil. Stokes, if he wasn’t already evil, was fast on his way to becoming it when I killed him. And now these three idiots … again. I just wanted to go home. Lila and I had left the violent world behind and were making a beautiful life for ourselves when I was dragged back into it. I had had enough. These three weren’t even worth my attention, and yet, if I wasn’t careful, I could die at their hands. What a sad and useless ending that would be.
“Guys, you don’t want to do this. We could have killed you that night
, but we didn’t want to. It would have been a waste of human life. You didn’t deserve to die that night, and I don’t deserve to die today.”
“You pleading for your life?” asked Moe.
“No,” answered Ben. “I’m trying to make you see that we don’t have much of a world left. It’s up to us to turn it into something. This is not the way to do it.”
“You embarrassed us out there,” said Larry. “You took our weapons. We could’ve died. We knew that when we finally saw you again, we’d make you pay for that.”
“And we don’t think the beating was enough,” added Curley.
“You’re not killers,” said Ben. “Let it pass and let’s all move on.”
“I don’t think so,” said Curley. He raised the rifle and aimed at Ben.
A shot rang out and Curley let out a cry and fell to the ground. Behind the Three Stooges was a man with a rifle. He pointed it at the others, then gestured toward Curley.
“I don’t think your friend is dead. Take him and get out of here. You have about ten seconds or you’ll join him.”
They moved quickly, picking up their friend and supporting him by his shoulders. Without another word they carried him away. Ben approached the stranger.
“Thank you. I don’t know why you helped me, but I appreciate it.”
“You don’t recognize me, do you?” asked the man.
Ben shook his head. “I’m sorry, but I don’t.”
“My name is Brian. You gave me a chance to walk away once. You told me that if you ever saw me again, you’d kill me. Hopefully, I’ve changed your mind.”
“The four guards and the convertible,” said Ben, slowly remembering the incident on his way to find Lila the first time.
“I didn’t want to be with those guys,” said Brian. “I just got caught up in something that I couldn’t get out of. That experience changed my life. I was actually able to do some good for people after that. I’m not the same person. I kinda hoped I would see you and be able to thank you—before you shot me, that is.” He smiled and stuck out his hand. Ben shook it.
“Thank you,” Ben said again.
“I saw you on the mall when you first arrived. I saw what these guys did to you, but then you disappeared. When you showed back up, I wanted to approach you, but you were already on your way. Then I saw them follow you, so I decided to tag along and see what they were planning.”
“Well I appreciate that. I’m heading back home. You want to join me?”
“No thanks. I’ve got to get back to the city. There’s a lot of work to do.”
“Well, Lila and I live on Fontana Lake, in North Carolina. You’re welcome there anytime. And I promise not to shoot you.” It was his turn to smile.
We parted ways. It was a short incident, but a meaningful one for me. It showed me that sometimes the good things we do can come back to us. Maybe that sounds trite, but the fact is, something I put into motion many months ago—my decision to let him go—suddenly saved my life today. I never totally understood why I let him go that day. It just seemed like the right thing to do. I had to stop and think about that. Why do we make certain decisions? Is there something, somewhere that is guiding us? Because it’s weird how one thing seems to lead to another. And every one of our experiences made Lila and me grow in some way. So is it part of some great cosmic plan? I don’t know. I still don’t know to this day, but I’m certainly putting more thought into it, and more and more I’ve begun to see how all of our experiences really do seem to be connected.
The cities were depressing. Much of what hadn’t burned in the original disaster had burned in the quake. What hadn’t burned was leveled. But he found occasional stores still standing and slowly collected the items he needed for the journey back to Fontana Lake, but it no longer generated the excitement it had when he foraged with Lila. Now it was just tedious.
Caught up in his tedium a week later, Ben almost missed it. He was on a back road, trying to avoid quake damage. If he hadn’t heard the whimpering coming from some bushes, he would have walked right past. He parted the bushes to find a young black girl sitting on the ground crying. When she saw him, she backed away in fear.
“It’s okay,” said Ben. “I’m not going to hurt you. Honest.”
She calmed down a little, but still shrunk away from him.
“Do you have parents, or anyone to take care of you?”
“My daddy,” she said in a small voice.
“Where is he?”
“The men have him.”
“What men?”
“The mean men.”
“Can you show me where they are?”
She shook her head no, but then pointed through the bushes toward a house.
“Are they in that house?” asked Ben.
“Behind,” said the girl.
“Okay, you stay here.” Ben headed to the house she had pointed at, and quietly circled around to the back. He was met with a sight that—even after everything he had seen over the past year—sickened him. Standing atop a rickety wooden ladder was a black man with a noose around his neck and his hands tied behind his back. Gathered around the ladder were three white men. They were shaking the ladder and taunting the black man.
“Don’t fall now,” shouted one. “We don’t want to hear that neck snap.”
“Not sure about this ladder,” said another. “Looks pretty old.” He shook it extra hard.
Ben looked at the man on the ladder. There was fear, of course. Who wouldn’t be afraid? But there was a dignity about him, as if he had been dealing with this sort of thing his whole life, and refused to give them the satisfaction they were looking for.
Ben lifted his Glock out of its holster and cocked it. The unmistakable sound of the slide being pushed back stopped the men cold.
“Back away from the ladder or I swear I will shoot you down where you stand.”
Slowly, they moved away from the ladder and turned to face Ben.
“This ain’t none of your business,” said one of them, warily eyeing the gun.
“Yeah, we caught this nigger living in this house. It’s not his house.”
It occurred to Ben that with all of the horror he had seen since that day so long ago, none of it had been racially motivated. He had seen people spurred on by power, by anger, by need, by sex, and by desperation, but never by race.
“You guys are living in the wrong world,” said Ben. “Look around you. Do you see anything that belongs to anyone? We don’t own anything anymore. The only way we can survive is by cooperation. As far as we know, there’s almost no one left on this planet. Why do you want to reduce that number even further? There’s no place for this shit anymore. You make me sick. Now cut him down.”
“Make us.”
“You notice who’s holding the weapon?”
“You won’t use it.”
And right then it hit Ben that these three would never change. Even if they let the man down, they would go after him again, and maybe this time they would hurt his daughter. And if not this man, then who else? This was a different world, and these three would never be a part of it. They would keep dragging people back into the old world, and all the ugliness that was a part of that world. No, he didn’t have the patience for that.
He took two steps closer, aimed his weapon at the first man, and shot him in the head. He turned the weapon on the second man and repeated the action. The third man was so stunned by Ben’s actions, he couldn’t even move. Ben shot him.
There, now I knew what it felt like to assassinate someone. They weren’t a direct threat to me, and I could have freed the man on the ladder without killing them. But I chose not to. There was no remorse. None whatsoever. I did it without feeling a thing. And I was okay about it.
He climbed the ladder and cut the rope binding the man’s hands. The man removed the noose and climbed down. He held out his hand and Ben shook it. The man’s daughter had come out of her hiding place at the sound of the shots, and ran over and hugged her fathe
r.
“You just reduced our meager population by three,” said the man, with a slight smile. Ben figured him for a college professor.
“No. They were just taking up space.” And then he told them about the efforts in Washington. “It’s a good man leading the rebuilding, and he could use other good men. It’s not easy walking, but it’s a place you might want to consider.”
The man thanked him for the information and after shaking hands again, Ben continued on his way.
He walked and pushed himself to walk more. Over time, his foot healed and he was able to pile on the mileage everyday. However, the earthquake had totally rearranged the land, sometimes creating fissures many miles long. Ben never knew which way to go along the fissure. Which way would be the shortest? Some days he walked thirty miles, but only gained five, because of the cracks in the earth. It was hard going. In some places, a crack had formed, then closed, pushing the earth fifty or a hundred feet in the air. This formation would continue for as far as he could see, so his only option was to go over it. It was frustrating to make such little progress. But he pushed on, his perseverance never faltering.
Then one day, Ben walked into Waynesville and a flood of memories poured in. He was close now. He was hoping the truck was still there. He arrived at the hardware store. The truck was gone! Ben felt deflated. He hoped that it was Lila who took it, although he doubted that she would have made the trip with a young child. Ben was doing his best to envision Lila with a child, hoping that nothing bad had happened during the birth.
Eden Rising (Eden Rising Trilogy Book 1) Page 24