The woman didn’t even look at the picture. “We get a lot of people coming in here all the time so I couldn’t tell you.”
Paul sighed. “Is there anyone here who might be able to help us?”
“Sorry, this line is for food packages. Next”
“Look, can I maybe just see your records? Perhaps they might have registered to get a handout a few days ago.”
“Our distribution logs are sent over to the government, we don’t keep ‘em here.”
Paul was beginning to lose his patience. “Can I talk to your supervisor, please?”
The woman pointed to the far side of the lobby. “Go look over there. Next.”
Paul seethed as he tried to put the photograph in front of the woman’s face, but she backed away and looked at the soldiers. “You didn’t even look at the picture,” he said.
A guardsman walked over to them. He was in full battle gear and cradling an M16A2 assault rifle. “Move along, sir.”
Paul snorted as he took Troy’s hand and walked to the side of the hall. All along the massive right wall of the lobby were thousands of pictures of men, women and children on billboards. A large sign was titled MISSING. Kim gasped as she realized just how many people had disappeared in the past few months. Tens of thousands of smiling faces stared back at them. Paul glanced at some of the pictures and then drew back, he knew at least a dozen people e on that wall. Troy just stared at one picture of a boy his age who was cuddling a puppy. There were telephone numbers and addresses written alongside many of the photos with urgent pleas for contacting the ones who inquired about them.
“I wouldn’t be puttin’ yo pictures on that wall cuz it’s a dead man’s wall,” a nearby voice said.
They all turned and noticed a middle-aged black man mopping the floor a few yards away from them. His rusty pail had some melting ice water and his black wool coat was torn in a few places. The man glanced at them briefly before dunking the mop back in the pail and resuming his task.
Paul moved closer to the man. “I’m sorry, but what do you mean it’s a dead man’s wall?”
The man shrugged and didn’t look at him while he continued his mopping. “All’s I can say is, that nobody ever found the people that are on that wall, so it’s bad luck to put anythin’ on it.”
Paul nodded. He wasn’t the superstitious type. “I see. Have you worked here for long?”
“Only after this here apocalypse started. They gimme me some free food packets in exchange for keepin’ the place tidy and all.”
Paul moved closer and showed the picture to him. “Maybe you might have seen these two people. They’re good friends of mine. They went out looking for food about six days ago and haven’t come back,” he said before pointing to Kim and Troy. “That’s their kids and they are really worried about them.”
The man glanced at the picture briefly before continuing his cleaning. “I might’ve seen ‘em.”
“When? About six days ago?”
The man nodded. “Yeah, it could have been them. I was cleaning the tables and they walked over and gave me a few cans of food from the box they took when they signed up. Mighty nice of ‘em.”
“Then what happened?”
The man shrugged. “I saw another man walk up to them just before they about to leave. I saw all three of ‘em talk and they all left together.”
Paul adjusted his glasses. “This other man, what did he look like?”
“He was a white man, like them and you, only older.”
“Can you describe him a bit more?”
The man shook his head. “Y’all look the same to me. From the way they were talking, it seemed like they knew each other. That’s about all I know.”
So it must have been somebody they knew, he thought. Paul thanked him and walked over to Troy and Kim. “He says he might have seen your parents, they were here but they talked to another man they knew and then they all left. What kind of work did your parents do?”
“My dad was a software engineer. He had a small office with his partner in Somerville, but that’s been closed since this end of the world thing started,” Kim said. “My mom’s an accountant and she worked near the airport, but she stopped going to her office when the lights went out a few months back.”
“What about your mom and dad’s friends, do they live nearby?”
“Dad’s partner Blain always used to come over to our house before everything went belly up, but he went missing along with his family over a month ago. My mom brought her boss over for dinner once, he seemed like a boring guy, I think his name was John or something, but I don’t think my dad knew him very well,” Kim said.
“Okay, what about your relatives?”
Kim looked down. “My dad was an only child, and gramps and granny were in one of the planes that went down in the first few days. My mom’s mom was still alive and living with our uncle Gus and his family near Rochester. They said they would try to come over to us, but we haven’t heard anything about them for like a month.”
“Sorry to hear about your grandparents,” Paul said softly. “Do you know where your dad’s office is?”
“Yeah, he took me there to visit a few times, why?”
“Let’s go take a look.”
The bridges were still intact so the drive took less than ten minutes. Paul noticed that gas tank on his car was already half empty and made a silent curse for not thinking about getting some fuel from New York before coming back up to Boston. The office building where Kim’s father worked at was a small suite on the second floor and the whole place looked deserted. The only other clue that Paul found when he rummaged the inside of the place was Blain’s home address near Tufts Park.
By the time they had arrived in the sidewalk facing Blain’s house, Troy had fallen asleep in the back seat. Paul instructed Kim to remain with her brother as he got out of the car and walked over to the front door before knocking. It was then he noticed that the door was slightly open.
Paul knocked on the wooden part of the door before peering in. “Hello, anybody home?”
The whole living room area was in shambles. Overturned shelves and broken furniture greeted him as he slowly stepped inside. A rotten, pungent smell was coming from upstairs. As Paul slowly walked up the stairs, he noticed there were bloodstains on the wooden steps. When he got to the top of the staircase, he saw two bodies lying in the corridor. From their clothes, it seemed like they were a man and a woman, both had been eviscerated and much of their flesh had been gouged out. They must have been dead for weeks. He drew back down the stairs and began to retch. The bodies were heavyset and didn’t resemble Kim’s parents at all. When Paul noticed Blain’s photographs in the living room, he concluded it was probably him along with his wife up there- they had the same hair color and facial features.
After spending a few more minutes composing himself and wiping off the vomit from his mouth, Paul walked back out into the street and got back in his car.
Kim gave him a quizzical look. “Did you find anything?”
Paul shook his head. “No, nothing, the house was deserted.”
Since they were already on the other side of the city, Paul decided to drive southwards and make his way through Cambridge as he once more passed by the now closed Harvard University. He sighed when he remembered that this was the most prestigious place of learning until the whole god crisis began. Now we would have to start from scratch again once this is all over, he thought as he steered the car past Harvard square and onto the bridge until they were once again past the Charles River and heading back to Brookline.
Just as they had gone past Beacon Street and were close to the main village square, Kim immediately turned her head and started pointing at a row of abandoned cars along the other side of the street. “Look! Over there! That’s dad’s car!”
Paul instinctively applied the brakes. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure! That’s the car!”
Paul maneuvered the Volvo until it was parallel
to the maroon colored BMW parked beside a row of other cars. Before he could say anything, Kim opened the front seat door and leapt out. “Kim, wait!” he said to no avail.
Kim somehow got BMW’s car door opened and looked inside as Paul placed his own car on park and got out. By the time he walked over to the BMW, he saw Kim just sitting the front seat looking dejected. “It wasn’t even locked. They left the keys inside,” she said while pointing to the car key still sticking in the ignition lock.
Paul walked over to the driver’s side of the BMW and opened the door before sitting down. As he started to look around for clues, Kim stood up and started to walk back to his Volvo. It was clear she was devastated and there was not much he could do to comfort her, except maybe give the kid some time to herself. Paul shifted his head from side to side as he got up and then bent over and used his hands to feel the flooring to see if there was anything in the car’s interior that might yield any information as to where they might have gone to. The glove compartment was empty so Paul made one last glance before seeing something shiny embedded in the leather folds of the driver’s chair. As he squeezed his fingers into the upholstery, he felt something thin and solid and pulled it out. Paul examined the object. It was a Red Sox pendant that somehow got stuck in the driver’s seat.
When he got back into the driver’s side of the Volvo, he noticed Kim was crying a little while Troy continued his snoring at the back seat. Paul turned to look at her. “It’s okay,” he said. “There must be a reason why they just parked the car and left it. Don’t worry, we’ll keep looking, okay?”
Kim wiped away the tears with some tissue paper from the glove box. “I watched this cop show on TV last year. They said that if someone just left the key inside like that, they did it voluntarily. Maybe they just decided to leave us behind on purpose.”
Paul shook his head. “Come on, why would they do that? That’s not what a parent would ever do to their children, especially in a time like this. There’s a reason as to what happened and we’ll find it out soon enough. I’ve got some cocoa powder at home and I’ll make some hot chocolate for all of us.”
“Is it too much to ask if we could all sleep in the same room together tonight? I don’t want to be alone,” she said softly.
“No problem,” Paul said as he shifted the automatic transmission back to drive as the Volvo started to move again. “By the way, I found a Red Sox pendant in the driver’s seat, it must have been your dad’s,” he said as he pulled it out of his pocket and showed it to Kim.
Kim shook her head and refused to take it. “That can’t be my dad’s. He hates the Sox. He hates baseball period. He prefers to just watch football and the Patriots.”
Paul frowned as he drove the car back to his house. Was there a killer or an abductor on the loose?
7. White Tops Down
Colorado
John Smalley, the White House Chief of Staff, was with the president in the small briefing room inside Peterson Air Force Base when suddenly, the whole place shook as if a small earthquake had hit and the lights in the ceiling started to flicker. Several senior officers stood up in shock and began to look around in apparent confusion. The two Secret Service agents in the room instantly drew their weapons and stood by the door before one of them started talking in his radio headset.
Admiral Charles Zimmerman sat back down on his chair. The commanding officer of NORTHCOM began to sweat. “What in the hell was that?”
“Take it easy, Charlie,” the president said. “I’m sure the staff will let us know what happened.”
Within less than a minute after the room had shook, everyone jumped at the sounds of multiple explosions that sounded uncomfortably close. The door leading from the outside instantly opened and two more Secret Service agents ran inside, one of them was Andrew Mullins, the team leader.
The president looked up at them. “What’s happened?”
“Mr. President, we have to move now,” Agent Mullins said as everyone immediately stood up and started grabbing their papers and briefcases. “There was a possible thermonuclear explosion inside the Cheyenne Mountain Complex, and reports of explosions within the perimeter of this base.”
With that, the president was immediately ushered away by the Secret Service team as Admiral Zimmerman and John Smalley followed. They started to run as fast as they could. The team soon led them towards the empty parking lot, where the helicopters of Marine One were sitting.
John Smalley was starting to lose his breath as he kept running. His asthma was beginning to flare up again. “Any word on the Defense Secretary? He was in Cheyenne Mountain.”
Agent Mullins didn’t break his stride and his voice was calm. “No, sir.”
Admiral Zimmerman was the oldest, but he still kept in regular shape and so the sprint wasn’t too taxing for him, but he started to breathe heavily. “Why not take Marine One? I say we forget the motorcade convoy.”
As they started to run across the nearly empty parking lot, a few more explosions could be seen just south of them as numerous detonations clouds ripped through the base. The Secret Service team pushed the president to the ground and surrounded him as they looked around. The Marine contingent near the helicopters began to run towards them with weapons on the ready. Admiral Zimmerman noticed that there were numerous wrecked and burning cars at the nearby highway to the north of them. He realized the helicopters were indeed the best alternative.
With two squads of Marines now surrounding them like a group of human shields, the Secret Service team got the president back on his feet. They continued moving until they got to the sides of the two Sikorsky VH-3D Sea King helicopters. Each chopper was specially modified to ferry the president and his staff whenever he needed it and with the best protection possible. With its olive drab colored sides and white-painted upper fuselage, the helicopters were nicknamed “white tops” by the Marines who flew them. Each Sea King had a crew of three, with two pilots in the cockpit and a crew chief who normally had the ceremonial duty of opening and closing the chopper doors while wearing a Marine dress uniform. But this time, everyone was in battle fatigues as there was no longer any pretense for show.
As the crew chief hustled them in quickly, the president sat down beside John Smalley and began to buckle his seat belt. Andrew Mullins along with his three man Secret service team followed them inside. Admiral Zimmerman was the last person to be brought into the cabin before the crew chief went inside and closed the door behind him. Both Sea Kings already had their rotors running, and within less than a minute, they were airborne and headed east. There would be a rendezvous with an alternate motorcade that would return the president back to Virginia. Two CH-47 Chinooks carrying the Marine platoon assigned to guard them were also sitting beside the Sea Kings and were now starting to lift off as well. Although the threat against aerial attack by the thunderbirds was very possible, the military had learned through a painful process of trial and error that these mythical monsters would usually appear only when aircraft would fly above two thousand feet; so therefore it was still practical to use helicopters for low level airborne transport.
The president shook his head. He was still in shock. “They nuked Cheyenne Mountain? Who are they?”
Smalley looked out of the small porthole along the sides of the helicopter. The Marine pilots began to rapidly jink the aircraft in order to perform basic evasion maneuvering just a few hundred feet off the ground. “We don’t know at this point. Could be the Texan separatists or maybe some other group that wants to secede would be my best guess, Mr. President.”
“It must have been an inside job,” Admiral Zimmerman said as he griped the armrest on his own seat. “Our security was airtight.”
One of the Marine pilots called out to them from the open cockpit door. “Everybody hang on, we have unauthenticated aircraft in the area.”
As Smalley looked out of the small porthole once more he gasped. No more than a few miles away were two other helicopters and they were closing in on the a
erial convoy. As the intruders closed in on them, he noticed that they were two Boeing AH-64 Apache gunships. “Hey, those are supposed to be two of our own,” he said.
Admiral Zimmerman was in the opposite side of the fuselage so he couldn’t see them from his side. “What are they?”
“Two Apaches,” Smalley said as he kept peering outside. “Closing in fast.”
As soon as they got to within a mile, the Apaches immediately engaged the two Chinooks that were at the rear of the group. Although the Chinooks were much larger twin-rotor helicopters, they were configured as transports and did not have any defensive weapons mounted on them. Like two predatory sharks attacking a pair of hapless whales, the lead Apache maneuvered in behind them and opened fire with its 30mm M230 chain gun. The burst of automatic fire instantly destroyed one Chinook’s rear rotor and sent it crashing down into the barren plains of Eastern Colorado. The downed Chinook exploded into a large fireball upon impact. The second Chinook attempted to evade the gunships but its pilot overcompensated, tilting the large transport helicopter too quickly as it attempted to make a quick turn. The second Chinook crashed sideways as its twin rotors were sheared off by contact with the ground, its lozenge-shaped fuselage crumpled into a heap as it rolled onto the earth in a cloud of dust.
The sacrifice of the two Chinooks enabled both Sea Kings to gain some distance from their attackers. The Sea Kings accelerated to full speed, as they began their shell game by veering back and forth with each other in order to confuse the enemy as to which helicopter actually contained the president. The Marine pilots instantly concluded that the renegade Apaches were looking to abduct the president rather than kill him because of the strict use of their chain guns. They could see that the attack helicopters carried rockets and Hellfire missiles in their wing pods. Despite the Sea Kings flying at full throttle, the Apache gunships slowly began to close the gap in order to try to get within less than a mile for their chain gun’s optimum range.
Canticum Tenebris (Wrath of the Old Gods Book 2) Page 8