by Noah Mann
Next to him, Westin brought up his binoculars and focused in on the aircraft as it returned to a path over land to the south, turning north again, to repeat its previous track, it seemed.
“What does this guy want?” Dave wondered aloud.
As it turned out, it wasn’t what the pilot wanted—it was what he wanted us to see.
“His lights are on,” Westin said, taking his eyes from the binoculars for a moment to look to his captain. “And he’s flashing them.”
Schiavo nodded and Westin refocused through the binoculars to verify what most of us were already thinking—Morse.
“Further instructions,” Martin said, parroting part of the message the Rushmore had left us with.
The aircraft continued to speed toward us, its landing lights pulsing, their brilliance still enough to cut through the growing light from the dawn breaking to our left.
“Specialist...”
Schiavo’s prompting did not draw Westin from his deciphering. He remained zeroed in on the approaching aircraft as he relayed what he was seeing.
“They’re repeating the same message over and over,” the young soldier said. “Send delegation to PDX ASAP.”
“PDX is Portland International Airport,” Elaine said.
“That may not even exist anymore,” Martin said.
There was no doubt that the city had been devastated. On our trip north along the coast, we’d seen the mouth of the Columbia River engulfed in flames from a tanker that had run aground. Sixty miles upriver, there was no doubt that Portland had suffered fires just as bad.
But runways wouldn’t burn. The airport might still be usable. It was possible, maybe even likely, that the aircraft had scouted their intended landing point prior to heading south toward our location.
“A delegation,” Martin said. “That sounds...official.”
“Right,” Dave agreed. “But a delegation to meet who?”
A moment later, it became unnecessary to offer an answer to my neighbor. The aircraft shifted its course to the west, cruising out over the Pacific, its track parallel to the coast, just a few hundred yards from the beach. The rising sun, just peeking over the dead woods to the east, spread a clear, warming light across the landscape, shining bright upon the plane’s blue and white fuselage.
“Is that...”
Westin asked the truncated question, though he knew the answer. We all did. Everyone could see with the naked eye what had just flown over Bandon.
“That’s Air Force One,” I said.
The majestic plane, once a symbol of American power and influence, soared north, gaining altitude. We watched it, speechless, until it climbed into a wall of clouds somewhere over Coos Bay, and was gone.
Schiavo hadn’t said a word since the plane made its low pass. A very purposeful pass with no other reason than to make its identity obvious to all who would be looking.
Forty Five
“Martin is going with me,” Schiavo said.
We stood on the sidewalk in front of the Town Hall. When the captain had asked me to stay after the brief meeting of the Defense Council, where she’d outlined her plans to take a three person team to Portland, I’d suggested that Elaine take our pickup home to relieve Grace and Krista, who’d been gracious enough to watch Hope while also wrangling Brandon. My wife did not protest, though both she and I knew what was going to transpire once Schiavo and I were alone.
“It seems I keep asking you the same thing,” she said. “Just under different circumstances. I wouldn’t if there was a better alternative, but...I’d like you to go with us.”
She could have made the same request at the meeting, though I knew why she did not. There was no doubt that Martin would be going with her. Even if she wanted him to remain in Bandon, he would ignore such a desire. If she was setting out across potential dangerous territory, unexplored since the blight, he was going to be at her side. The converse of that was why Schiavo hadn’t broached the makeup of her team inside. Already she’d had me go to Remote to help get the settlement up and running, a mission which Elaine had joined after a flourish of tension between us. Here, though, there was no chance that my wife could accompany me on a trek so far from Bandon with our infant daughter in tow. I would not allow that even if it were possible.
“I could really use you, Fletch,” she said. “You’ve been out there, in places that have been decimated. You’ve gone to hell and found your way back. I need that. None of my guys have that skillset.”
I’d crossed the wastelands with Neil and Elaine, then travelled north to Alaska. Schiavo and her unit had only been with us on that latter journey, most of which was completed on the water. This would be different, and she knew that. Towns and cities battered by the collapse of civilization were likely to be passable only with difficulty. And that assumed they were emptied out.
But, as we’d learned by the appearance of a community in Camas Valley, not to mention the smaller clans of hiders scattered about the countryside, life had found a way to persevere. Unlike the passive whales broaching off the coast, any humans we encountered would be equally as likely to see us as threats, or as opportunities. I’d been faced with those very people between here and Cheyenne. My knowledge and experience in dealing with such encounters, or avoiding them altogether, would be invaluable to Schiavo.
But my ultimate responsibility wasn’t to her. Or to the rendezvous in Portland with whoever was aboard Air Force One. My focus was here. On my family. They needed me, and I had to be there for them.
“I can’t,” I told her.
She didn’t react for a moment. There was every chance she’d anticipated this answer from me. The request still had to be made, I understood, but I sensed she similarly could not question my response.
“Of course,” she said.
“At some point, someone else has to step up,” I said, the words feeling selfish as I spoke them. “That sounds terrible, like no one’s done anything, but...”
“You’ve done a lot, Fletch,” Schiavo said, not challenging my assertion, or belittling my inadequate words. “You’ve done enough.”
Enough...
I wondered, in this world, if such a concept could last for very long. There was no stopping. No retiring. Everyone had a role, even if it was self-defined. Some, like Schiavo, like Martin, like mayor and doctor Everett Allen, were called upon to do what needed to be done.
Then, there were people like me. Men and women who’d stumbled into some level of respect because we fought to survive, and fought so others could. I’d done what had to be done, just as Elaine had, and Grace. And Neil.
Now, though, the sense that what I’d done, what we’d done, had reached some limit was a known belief on my part. I could do more, but at what cost, to me and to my family? This was a world of heroics without heroes, because simply living to see the most recent sunrise was an act of utter heroism. Anyone who’d glimpsed the warm colors of the new day had overcome all that man and nature had thrown at them to do so. I was not special. I was just stubborn, like every person who hadn’t given up when all around them turned grey and died.
“I’m sorry,” I told her, but she shook her head, smiling.
“You shouldn’t be,” she said. “I’ll find a third person and we’ll make it.”
“Of course you will.”
Captain Angela Schiavo said no more. She simply returned to the Town Hall, most certainly to begin searching for the person who would take the place she’d hoped I would fill.
For a brief instant as I realized that, I felt a pang of regret. Not that I would be here, with Elaine and Hope, but because someone else would fill a spot that I would have almost naturally inhabited. That, though, was my choice. I was at peace with it.
For now.
Forty Six
The Humvee was loaded with supplies and the small trailer it pulled held still more, enough to sustain the three who would travel to Portland for two weeks, if necessary. I would not be among them.
“Ever
y day at two we’ll attempt direct radio contact,” Schiavo said.
We...
She’d chosen her third person, though I knew for a fact he’d volunteered when he learned there was a place open on the expedition. Carter Laws had turned eighteen while beginning his training to become a soldier in the United States Army, completing an abbreviated course of study designed and implemented by Sergeant Lorenzen. That the young man was originally from Portland made clear that there was a more personal reason for his offer to join Schiavo and Martin on their trek.
His mother.
She’d disappeared while scavenging food in the city during the initial chaos following the blight, leading him to set off in search of safety on his own. He’d found it in Bandon. And, now, so had another.
Dorothy Quinn. She, too, had survived, both with others and on her own. And, in Carter’s mind, if she could make it, then his mother might have as well.
This was not a mission to find and rescue her. He knew and accepted that. This journey was, apparently, requested by the nation’s surviving leadership. Carter, though, had in the back of his mind that there might be some small chance that, when reaching the city on the Columbia River, his mother might be there, alive and waiting.
It wasn’t a longshot. It was a near impossibility. But the newly minted private, wearing a spare uniform that had to be tailored down to his diminutive frame from what had been brought in by the Rushmore on her first visit, had hope that she could still be alive. Blind hope, maybe, but I knew firsthand how real and powerful that insistence to hang on could be.
“You listen to the captain,” Sergeant Lorenzen told Carter as he slid behind the wheel of the Humvee. “She’s the smartest officer I’ve ever known. The toughest, too.”
Schiavo gave her sergeant a look of appreciation and came around the front of the vehicle to face him. He came to attention and saluted her. She returned the show of respect, then offered her hand.
“Don’t burn the place down, Paul,” she said as he shook her hand.
“Not a chance, ma’am.”
Schiavo took the seat next to Private Carter Laws. Martin hesitated just a moment, looking to me. I stood with Elaine and our daughter, Grace with us, her very active youngest at home being watched, or corralled, by his big sister.
“If we’re not back in a week, will you do me a favor?”
“Of course, Martin,” I said.
“Micah’s birthday,” he said, making himself smile. “Can you stop by the cemetery and tell him happy birthday for me?”
“We’ll all go,” Elaine said.
“All of us,” Grace agreed.
The man thanked us with a look that meant more than words. Beyond him, in the passenger seat, Schiavo watched the exchange, keeping her emotions in check with some effort.
“Get back safe,” I said.
“That’s the plan,” Martin assured me.
He climbed into the seat behind Carter, reaching forward to put a hand briefly on his wife’s shoulder before closing the door.
“Get us moving, private,” Schiavo said.
Carter gave us a brief wave and pulled away. A few dozen people had gathered for the departure, each wishing those departing swift and trouble free travels.
“Fletch...”
It was Lorenzen. He spoke my name without ever taking his eyes off the Humvee as it cruised away from us.
“Yeah?”
“How long?” he asked. “There and back? You know what it’s like out there. So how long?”
The sergeant was giving me the same credit Schiavo had when asking me to be part of the expedition, believing that my time crossing the wastelands to Cheyenne gave me unique insight. It might, but that was a while ago now. What the trio departing might face could be easier by an order of magnitude. Or worse.
I had to give him something, though. He was concerned, though he would likely brand what he was feeling just a compelling curiosity.
“Four, five days there,” I said. “A day to do their business, if that’s reasonable.”
“And the same back?”
“Right,” I told Lorenzen.
“So eleven days,” he said.
“That should be enough,” I agreed.
He thought for a moment, as if performing some calculation that had nothing to do with math, but with reality. The reality of the world in which we lived.
“So if they’re not back in two weeks?” he asked.
“I don’t know, Paul.”
“They’ll be back,” Elaine told him.
Lorenzen looked to her, wanting to believe that, but I could tell there was some serious doubt working on the man.
“I hope so,” Lorenzen said. “I just...”
“What?” I asked him.
“I don’t have a great feeling about this,” he said. “I told the captain I should go with her, not Carter. But she wouldn’t have it.”
“She needs a leader here,” I reminded him.
He nodded grimly.
“That’s exactly how she put it,” Lorenzen said. “Except the way she said it, it seemed like...like maybe she saw it as a permanent sort of thing.”
I looked down the street and saw the Humvee following the sweep of the road, disappearing from sight. Eleven days, I’d suggested. By then we should see our friends again. By then we should know what the rendezvous in Portland had been about.
Eleven days...
A lot could happen in that span of time. Good and bad.
Or disastrous.
Forty Seven
Two days after the mission to Portland departed, at thirty two minutes past five in the morning, the earth shook with a ferocity none of us had ever experienced.
“Get the baby!”
Elaine shouted to me as I rounded the end of our bed, the sound of items crashing to the floor throughout the house ringing in the night. I bounced off the swaying doorframe and crossed the hallway, our daughter wailing in her room, the violent movement jolting her from a blissful sleep. I grabbed the edge of the crib and tried to steady it as my wife followed me in, falling over the changing table as it toppled.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” she said, scrambling to her feet and taking our daughter from her crib.
“We’ve gotta get out of here,” I said, a large crack spreading across the plastered ceiling.
A sharp jolt amidst the rolling threw Elaine against the wall. She wrapped our daughter in a tight hug to protect her as I reached out and pulled the both of them close.
“Front door!”
I yelled the direction and guided my wife and daughter into the hallway. Leftover artwork from the home’s previous owner fell from simple mountings and crashed to the hardwood floor, spreading glass. In the living room there would be more of the same, if the sounds of destruction were any indication. Lamps had fallen. Bulbs were shattered. Vases with actual living flowers had been jostled from their places on tables and the mantle to break into hundreds of jagged ceramic shards.
“Stay here!”
Elaine planted herself between the narrow hallway walls as the building rocked and leapt around us. I made my way back into our bedroom, grabbing the bedposts to steady myself before dropping to the floor to retrieve what we should have grabbed in the first place—our shoes. I groped around in the near darkness, the closet door flying open as the contents of shelves within spilled and virtually exploded out into the room.
“Eric!”
If I had to, I would run across broken glass with my wife and daughter in my arms, but I was hoping not to have to.
“Got them!”
I found my low boots first, and Elaine’s tennis shoes a few seconds later, bolting back into the hallway as the window in our bedroom shattered from the frame racking.
“Give me your feet,” I told Elaine, jamming more than slipping her shoes onto them.
“This is too long,” she said to me, the shaking going on and on.
“I know.”
I shoved my feet into my boots and helped Elaine up, keeping a wide stance for balance as we walked down the hallway. For an instant the awful nightmare I’d had flashed in my head, with Olin blocking our way from leaving our burning house. This was not that, though it was terrifying all by itself.
“Look out!”
An armoire to the left of the door to the kitchen shifted and tipped, upper half breaking free of the ornate lower, glass inset in the doors cracking into dozens of glinting shards. I shoved the fallen piece of furniture aside and reached back for Elaine, taking hold of her sweatshirt, its shoulder bunched in my hand as I steadied her against the continued shaking.
“Eric!”
I turned just as her warning reached me, but not in time to avoid the door of the coat closet from slapping my side as it swung violently on its hinges. The impact was sharp and quick, knocking the breath from me momentarily. But I powered through the pain, pinning the door against the jamb with my body as I pulled my wife and daughter through the debris littering the space and to the exit.
Dozens of neighbors were already in their yards, some in the street, an old lamppost down the block toppled, blocking half of the avenue.
“Fletch!”
It was Dave Arndt. He had his shotgun across his back and a go bag in hand, his response far more dialed in than my own. He had no family to immediately worry about, though, his bachelor situation conducive to getting out and gearing up with haste.
But he hadn’t emerged unscathed. The thin trickle of blood from a small cut above his eye made that apparent.
“Dave, are you okay?”
He dragged a sleeve across the wound and nodded.
“Stupid mirror flew off the wall,” he said. “It’s nothing. Elaine, how’s the baby?”
“She alive,” my wife said, almost choking on the mix of emotion and adrenalin.
The swaying beneath our feet eased, the earth stilling.
“I’m going to check on Mrs. Traeger,” Dave said, then spun and jogged off toward our elderly neighbor’s house.
He only made it ten steps before the siren sounded, wailing from atop speakers positioned on poles in the downtown area.