“Do you think it’s the whole meteorite thing? Maybe you sense that it’s really coming.”
“No. It’s more personal than that. I feel that bad news is on the horizon for you and me.”
He’d taken her in his arms and soothed her.
“Don’t worry, baby. I’m too ornery to let anything happen to me. And there’s no way I’m going to let anything happen to you.”
That was it. Those were the last words he’d ever say to her. At that particular moment in time she’d gotten up to go make coffee. He’d gotten up and stepped into the shower.
While Frank was in the shower Eva realized her watch had stopped. She’d forgotten to wind it.
The others were waiting in the lobby to leave on an RV run.
She left a note on the kitchen table.
It said, “Gotta run. TTYL”
But she wouldn’t talk to him later. She’d never talk to him again.
On the way back to the mine, the RV Debbie drove was buffeted by a strong wind.
Eva’s tiny and crumpled body rocked gently.
There was no radio traffic. Nothing between the drivers, who were all lost in their own thoughts.
No call to the Security Control Center to announce that they were twenty minutes out. Such calls had become standard procedure in recent months anytime anyone left the compound for any reason. It wasn’t a matter of courtesy, necessarily. It was more a matter of necessity. For the arrival of a friendly vehicle into the secure compound required specific actions.
Someone had to be dispatched to the gate to open it and let the vehicle in.
Whoever managed the security desk had to review the monitors as the vehicle approached.
To make sure it wasn’t being followed.
To make sure there were no extra passengers; anyone who might have forced their way on board at gunpoint.
To make sure no one was lurking just outside the gate area, to bolt into the compound when the gate was opened.
The standard twenty minute warning wasn’t given, but it wasn’t because everyone simply forgot.
Everyone had exactly the same thought process. That Frank, even though he was now off duty, might still be at the security desk.
He often hung around long after he was relieved because he felt at home there.
And no one in the group wanted to hear Frank’s voice at this particular time.
-27-
This was David’s operation. He’d been the one who wanted to gather additional RVs. It was David who said they needed to prepare for an influx of new people if Cupid 23 really did strike the earth. And that they’d need places to sleep.
Yes, all the drivers had been volunteers, including Eva. They’d all wanted to help out.
But it was David’s idea. He was the planner. He was the one in charge of the mission.
He was the one who technically should have called in to tell the security desk they were nearing the compound.
But he just couldn’t.
He wasn’t shirking his responsibility. Not necessarily.
He would be the one who’d tell Frank. It was his duty to.
But it was something that shouldn’t… couldn’t be done over the radio.
It wasn’t until they pulled up outside the mine’s huge overhead door that David finally keyed the microphone on his radio.
And Hannah already knew he was there before he spoke his first words.
She was surprised as his words came over the base station.
But then again, it wasn’t the first time someone had forgotten to give advance notice of their arrival, as unusual as it was.
“David to the control desk, we’re ready to come inside.”
“So I see.”
If Hannah was a bit peeved at the break in procedure, she didn’t let on.
“Standing by.”
“David, it’s going to take a minute for somebody to get there. We weren’t aware you were so close.”
“Roger.”
Rusty had brought in his last load for the day twenty minutes before and had dropped the trailer in the bowels of Bay 22. He was getting ready to move his tractor nearer the doorway and turning her off for the night.
“Hannah, this is Rusty. I’ll be at the door in a couple of minutes. I’ll let them in.”
“Ten Four. Let me know when you’re in position.”
Frank, at that moment, was peacefully sleeping and softly snoring on his La-Z-Boy.
David has no way of knowing that, though, and was silently praying he didn’t come on the radio to ask how the mission went.
Or even worse, call out to Eva to welcome her home.
Rusty finally called back in to report he was in position in front of the massive door.
Hannah has been staring intently at the monitors to make sure there was no activity in the woods outside the mine’s entrance, and responded, “Go ahead, Rusty. Let them in.”
She never even noticed there were only four RVs instead of five.
As was the process on previous RV recovery missions, David pulled his pickup to the outer edge of the clearing and let the RV drivers enter the mine first. He followed up the rear, after Debbie.
Rusty waved at each driver as they drove past him, noticing their glum faces but oddly not wondering why they were so.
As David cleared the entrance he lowered the door and went about his business.
On previous RV runs the drivers had gone directly to the designated RV bays and had painstakingly parked their units in place.
This time nobody felt up to it.
Instead, they merely pulled the vehicles into the main corridor of the mine and stopped them, then turned off the engines.
One by one they stepped out of the vehicles and hopped to the floor of the mine.
All except Debbie, who paused to unwrap Eva’s body enough to brush the hair out of her friend’s face. As though that would make her somehow presentable to her husband. As though it would make it all better.
Debbie said a prayer over her and stepped away.
As she stepped out of the coach she felt faint. It wasn’t like her. She normally had nerves of steel, for she’d pretty much seen it all in her paramedic days.
Then she realized she’d been holding her breath and depriving her brain of oxygen.
Yes, she had nerves of steel. Yes, she’d seen it all. But this was different. This was someone she’d known and loved. Someone she’d laughed with just three hours before. Someone she’d made plans with to bake cookies upon their return to the compound.
Someone she’d miss dearly.
Luckily Rusty didn’t wait. He’d felt a sudden urge to relieve himself, so he hurried through the tunnel to the big house without waiting for them.
Sullen and silent to a man, the group walked away from the RVs, headed for the tunnel themselves.
Then Debbie stopped short.
It just didn’t seem right, to leave Eva there in the mine by herself.
Against all reason, Debbie felt she needed to be by her side. To provide her some company, even though she knew Eva would never be aware of her presence.
“You all go ahead. I’ll wait here with her. She shouldn’t be alone.”
Nobody argued. The rest of them trudged to the tunnel and walked silently back to the big house.
The tunnel’s entrance in the big house was in the basement, hidden by a huge false electrical panel in the basement’s electrical room.
Hidden so the secret passage wouldn’t be found if the place was ever overrun by marauders.
One by one the team stepped into the electrical room, then into the basement’s long corridor and up the stairs.
The stairs led them to the first floor hallway, just outside the control desk with its array of monitors.
That’s where they fully expected to encounter Frank, and to have to give him the worst news of his life.
But Frank wasn’t here. He was nowhere in sight.
Hannah was, and she was immediately al
armed.
She knew.
-28-
Hannah did something she’d never done before. She left her station and walked to the group, even as her eyes welled with tears.
It wasn’t just that Eva wasn’t among them, yet there was no sense of urgency as there would have been had she been injured and in need of help.
It wasn’t that David hadn’t thought to change his shirt, and it was covered in blood.
It wasn’t even that the group, as a whole, looked as though they’d lost their best friend.
It was the absence of laughter. Of joy.
In normal times, Eva would have burst through the door first, giggling at some inane joke she’d just told. Or poking fun at one of the others for being slow and struggling to keep up.
Or singing one of her silly ditties.
Eva was a woman who was full of life. As Frank sometimes described her, “A walking, talking ball of sunshine.”
But the sun would shine no more.
The only question, in Hannah’s mind, was whether they’d lost Debbie as well.
She approached David first, and asked him simply, “Who?”
“Eva. In a horrible accident.”
Hannah caught her breath. Although she’d already known, it still hurt to hear the words.
“And Debbie?”
“Debbie’s okay, but stayed with her so she wouldn’t be alone.”
“But you brought her back?”
“Yes. They’re in the mine.”
Sami suddenly looked up and said, “Oh my God.”
Hannah looked at Sami, who had her eyes fixed on the other side of the building’s lobby. Where the residents sometimes went to chat or to watch television.
Or to crawl onto a favorite recliner for a nap.
Hannah wheeled around to see Frank, walking up behind her, a dazed look on his face.
He looked quite literally like a lost puppy.
He knew too.
-29-
Nobody blamed David for nobody knew what happened.
For all they knew, Eva’s gas pedal could have stuck. Something could have broken in her steering column. Her front right tire could have blown.
For all they knew, Eva could have reached for the brake pedal to slow down and accidentally punched the accelerator instead.
No one blamed David, except for David himself.
Even as he suffered mightily, Frank was there to comfort his friend.
“Accidents happen, David. They just do. Eva would have told you exactly the same thing. You know that.”
“I know, Frank. But I should have foreseen… I shouldn’t have told them to follow so closely. I should have given them more space. So they had more time to react if something went wrong.”
“You kept them tight just as I’d have done. Just as any of us would have done. The biggest threat you all faced wasn’t a mechanical malfunction on a steep grade. It was defense against marauders. You kept the vehicles tight to keep someone from pulling up alongside you out of the blue, and inserting themselves in your convoy. We discussed that a dozen times.
“Listen to me, David. It wasn’t your fault. Stop blaming yourself.”
It was ironic, in a way, that the one man in the compound who was hurting the most was trying so hard to console his good friend.
Frank was trying to put on his bravest face, although his world had just collapsed.
It was just the way he was. Classic Frank Woodard. The tough cop. The hardened soul.
The man who’d seen it all, and who was no longer affected by anything.
Of course, he suffered mightily. But he suffered in silence. When no one was around, in the solitude of his room.
That was when Frank Woodard allowed himself to cry. When sitting alone on his couch, clutching the nightgown Eva had worn the night before that fateful trip.
That was when the big tough cop finally allowed his tears to flow.
When no one could see them, save God and Eva.
Eva wasn’t the first they’d buried. When they had the compound built, they’d even allowed for a small burial plot in the far corner of the compound. It was where several of them sometimes went to meditate. It was where Sarah would have placed the wildflowers she’d picked on that day two months before if she hadn’t been struck from behind and kidnapped.
It was where Sami still went to visit her father, and Mark and Bryan their mother.
The funeral was somber, as they’d all been.
Frank, unwilling to tarnish his tough guy persona, did the eulogy. It was only proper, for after all he knew her best.
He told things of Eva no one had known, for she was modest by nature. How she was once a Peace Corps volunteer who’d aided starving children in war-torn Bosnia.
How she’d spent ten of her early years as a missionary, spreading the word of God in several countries on the African continent.
How she’d once received a citation for her work overseas by none other than Ronald Reagan.
And how she’d taken the time to point out and to straighten the president’s crooked tie.
Frank spoke of his great love for the woman. Called her the one and only woman in his life.
There wasn’t a dry eye in attendance. Even the children, who all called her “Nana Eva”, were quiet and respectful.
Hannah followed Frank, but broke down after just a few sentences.
“We’ve all lost a large part of our lives,” she said. “This place will never be the same again.”
-30-
Until Eva’s death the group had done a good job of keeping the news about Cupid 23 from little Markie.
On the morning after Eva’s funeral, though, he’d offered her a plaintive question.
“Mom is it true it’s happening again?”
“Is what happening again?”
“Is the world going to get cold again?”
Hannah had been walking with him through the orchard. It had become her favorite place to relax of late, the peace and serenity of a stand of fruit trees seemingly insulated from the chaos of everyday life.
She’d been expecting the question, and was a bit surprised it had taken so long.
She plucked a ripe plum for each of them, and sat down in the shade of the tree.
He sat down beside her and continued.
“I heard Rusty talking to Miss Debbie. He was saying some mean things about Mr. David. Saying we could survive another freeze without more RVs. That Mr. David was stupid for going out and getting more RVs when we could just use the ones we already had. And that it was just a matter of time before there was an accident and more people could have been killed.”
“Markie, honey, accidents sometimes happen. Even when we try hard to avoid them, they do. It wasn’t David’s fault.”
“But… it’s true? It’s gonna get cold again? We have to go into the mine again?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not. We’re getting the mine ready just in case it does.”
“But I don’t want it to.”
“I know honey. None of us want it to. But it’s important we be ready, just in case it does.”
“Will it be like last time? Will it last all that time?”
“No. I don’t think so. I think if it happens it won’t be for as long this time.”
“Mom, I don’t want to go in there. I’m afraid to.”
“What do you mean, little sailor?”
“I mean I don’t want to. I didn’t like the mine before. It was kind of creepy. I used to be afraid that monsters were going to come out of the dark places and kill all of us. I used to wake up at night thinking about that.”
Hannah held him close. She remembered the nightmares. She remembered him getting out of his own bed and crawling into bed with Hannah and Mark two or three times a week, sometimes close to tears.
Sometimes trembling.
He’d never opened up to her about it before. He’d kept it a closely guarded secret.
“Oh, honey. There are
no monsters in the mine. There never have been.”
“I know. I guess I knew back then too. It’s just that, late at night, my mind convinced me that they’re there. No matter how hard I tried to believe they weren’t. And I’m afraid the same thing will happen again. Only this time I’ll have to deal with it myself. On account of I’m too big now to be climbing into bed with you and Daddy any more.”
Hannah didn’t know whether to be afraid for him, or to be proud of her son.
Little Markie wasn’t so little any more. He’d been born in the mine nine years before. Life within its dirty white walls was the only life he knew until the breakout a couple of years before.
Before the breakout, Markie had never experienced sunshine and fishing trips. He’d never missed singing birds and shooting stars because he’d never actually seen them.
But now he’d seen those and a thousand other things. His life was so much richer than it had been when they’d been trapped in the mine after Saris 7.
Now, after having lived on the outside, he’d miss it all terribly.
Hannah knew she couldn’t treat him like a little kid anymore. She’d been trying in recent months to stop calling him “Little” Markie. The adjective no longer seemed to apply to him. He was turning into a fine young man. With his father’s good looks and his mother’s sense of reason.
She knew he was growing up, and was trying hard to treat him accordingly.
This was a delicate situation.
“Honey, no one wants to have to live in the mine again. We won’t unless we absolutely have to. I’ll promise you that.
“But there’s a chance we might have to. We’re making preparations just in case. So that if the world does get cold again, Mommy and Daddy can protect you. Because if it does happen, we may have no choice.”
“But we stayed here the last two winters without having to go into the mine. And it got real cold. It even snowed several times. If we can stay in the big house during the winters, why can’t we stay here while we’re waiting for the world to get warmer again?”
“Honey, we might be able to. It would depend on how cold it gets. And how long we expected it to last. Is that the only reason you don’t want to go back into the mine? Because you’re afraid that monsters will come out of the dark places?”
A New Start: Final Dawn: Book 9 (Volume 9) Page 10