by JK Franks
He moved around to the side of the house. The garage door was a dented mess with one panel missing entirely. Glancing to the back of the yard he saw Elvis’s paddock shrouded in late afternoon shadows. A dark mass lay inside. His heart sank even further; his hand began to tremble. He handed JD the shotgun while he contorted himself to get through the hole in the white garage door. It would be too high for JD to get through without help. The gun came pushing through the opening along with a flashlight. “Thanks, JD, I’ll let you in the front door,” he whispered.
How could he feel like such a stranger in his own home? Everything seemed almost familiar, yet also completely alien. It looked like there had not been one part of the house that had not been ransacked. Tools lay scattered in the garage. A pile of what appeared to be shit was in one corner. His wife’s car, another new Ford from his lot, was in its normal place. The large Viking, stainless-steel freezer was open; no food remained inside. The door that led into his kitchen was missing, and he could see the kitchen was in even worse shape. Should I call out? He heard no sounds, but maybe Barb and Trey were hiding.
Trey could never hide, he couldn’t stay quiet that long. His mind wouldn’t be able to comprehend the danger until it was too late. No, whoever did this could still be here. Steve needed to stay silent. Hopefully, his family had gotten away to someplace safe. He moved through room after room as silently as possible. Anything of value in the house was gone, in fact, it looked like the worst moving job in the world had happened here. Broken dishes, torn magazines, smaller stuff he had no idea what it had been littered the floor. He made his way to the front door only to see it had not been locked but instead, nailed closed. The hammer and a box of nails were sitting on the adjacent floor against the wall.
He could see JD’s face in the tiny window inset in the door. He shook his head and shrugged, not wanting to speak. He motioned for him to try the back door. The boy’s head nodded, and he disappeared. Steve resumed his hunt. Each of their bedrooms had been on the first floor. Upstairs were guest bedrooms, an office and a crafting room Barb had insisted upon but never used. He moved first into Trey's room whispering his son’s name. “Trey. Son, are you here? Trey, it’s Dad.” Nothing. He tried several more times as he looked behind the upturned bed and in the empty closet. “S-P-3 . . . where are you?”
With nowhere else to look, he moved to his and Barbara’s room. Food wrappers and empty soup cans littered the floor. A scattering of his wife’s clothes spilled out of the closet like they were trying to escape it. Expensive containers of makeup and lipstick were smashed along with pictures and mirrors. “Barb,” he called as he went through the massive room toward the darkened bathroom. What little remained of his seemed to be broken, shredded, or . . . well, used as toilet paper from what he could see. Shining the light around he realized the toilet was overturned and spilling out a vile mass. The glass shower doors were broken as well.
A thought occurred to him, and back in the bedroom, he shone the light into his wife’s closet. Her main travel bag was gone as was one of the wheeled suitcases. He heard a sound from another room, then JD’s voice.
“Steve, you should probably see this.”
He eased out of his room and went toward the sound of the boy. He saw him standing near the rear door looking at the wall of his dining room.
“Backdoor was missing altogether. Hey, man, I believe you are on someone’s shitlist.”
He was shocked at the boy’s language, but looking at the wall he understood. “Fuck you, Stevie” was smeared onto the wall, and it did look like it had been written in actual shit. She was the only person that ever called him Stevie. She had given up on him and fled. His fears about her had been correct. When he was no longer there to provide the life she needed, she’d left.
“Any sign of your son?”
Tears were welling in Steve’s eyes as he shook his head. “Nothing downstairs, about to head up.” They searched the upper floor with the same result. The house was empty, although it looked like people had stayed here. What appeared to be remnants of a small campfire had been made on the tile floor of his office. The ceiling was stained with smoke. The guest toilet was full to overflowing. In fact, the entire house smelled noxious.
Steven Porter had never felt so isolated, so completely out of his element. Where would his family have gone? Well . . . fuck that—he didn’t give a damn about her. She had abandoned them both. Where was Trey? He rested his head against the window in his office. The view of the backyard was just as bad as the scene out front. Nothing had escaped the intruder’s attention. What they couldn’t take or use, they had destroyed. Eyeing the dog pen again, he decided to go take care of one thing at least.
Steve grabbed a shovel that was lying near some uprooted shrubs, and JD followed dragging a dirty comforter that Steve motioned for him to grab. As they neared the fenced pen, Steve saw the dark head of the dog rise briefly and look his way. He gasped. Dropping the shovel, he broke into a run. At the gate, he was stopped by a chain and padlock. It was one of his, but they never locked Elvis’s gate. A simple latch was all that was needed to keep the sweet dog inside. He could see Elvis clearly now about halfway down the concrete pad. The dog was in bad shape, but how? How could he still even be alive?
“I don’t have the key. We never locked this.”
JD looked at him confused. The pitiful looking dog needed help. “Just tear the fencing loose.”
“I would, but it’s…very well made, bolted to the top, and both the post and the wire is embedded at the bottom in the cement.” A thought occurred to him: I saw some cutting pliers on the floor of the garage. “Be right back, keep talking to him.” He took off running back to the house.
JD moved down closer to the whimpering dog. “Hey boy, good puppy. Going to get you . . . ” His words stopped as he could now see into the doghouse down on the far end of the pen. “Oh God.”
52
JD threw the comforter over the top bar of the pen and began climbing the chain link fence. He dropped into the pen and pulled the dirty blanket over. He patted the dog, feeling bony ribs beneath the dark fur. “Good boy, Elvis, good boy. Back in a few.” He raced down the twenty feet dreading what he had to do. Curled inside the doghouse was the unmistakable shape of a human body. As he got closer he could smell the rot and make out more of the form. It was a young man or an older boy. He knew who it had to be. “Oh Jesus. . .” he couldn’t let his friend find him like this. Over the last few weeks, he had grown accustomed to seeing the dead and the decaying bodies, but rarely this close.
As he reached in, he closed his eyes and pulled the boy’s body toward him and into the blanket. His fingers slipping into the rotted flesh and he felt bone. How did the dog not eat his body? he morbidly wondered. Sounds from the yard let him know Steve was returning. He worked fast to move the stiff body as gently as he could from the dog house. “Steve—stay back!” he yelled.
Distantly he heard the panicked, “Why, what . . . ?”
The sound of wire being snipped and Steve making pained sounds were becoming too much. Finally, he wrestled the frail body fully into the comforter and wrapped the withered remains completely in the death shroud.
Steve leaned through the half-cut slit in the fence and looked at JD and the bundle he held. He couldn’t ask the question that he knew he had to. He knew his son was indeed dead. JD was holding Trey's body. He dropped to his knees beside the dog and wept. His body was wracked with the sobbing pain that only a grieving parent would ever know. All of his effort to get home had been in vain. He had been too late. He hadn’t prepared for a disaster. He had married badly, again. He had failed his son. The guilt and the shame mixed with the pain to complete the triad of misery. Glancing at the bundle JD was still holding became too much for him to bear, and he closed his eyes to the pain. Elvis’s wet tongue weakly licked at the arm of his owner’s shaking body.
JD knelt with the dog and watched as Steve carried his son’s body into the shallow hole.
It had taken an hour for the man to make it the few yards to verify it was indeed Trey. JD had spent that time digging a hole on the backside of the property near a playset and a large oak tree. He hoped it would have been a spot Trey would have liked. He liked it, so . . . maybe, he thought. Truthfully, he was out of his league here. He knew nothing of loss like this, not really. The man had just lost his child and been betrayed by his wife. Heck, he felt like she was probably the one who locked the kid in with the dog, but who really knew? What he did know was that this wasn’t a time to talk. Let his friend find some peace if that was possible.
Elvis had drunk so much water he had thrown up. JD had found several sources inside the house including the back tank of the nasty toilet. The dog seemed to be much better. He had also found the remnants of a bag of dog food in the back of the garage. He had brought several handfuls out to where the dog now lay in the yard. Elvis nudged some of the food toward JD in a gesture he couldn’t fully grasp. “It’s yours, boy. You eat it.” The dog’s watery brown eyes seemed to thank him, and he lowered his head and hungrily devoured the pile of dry nuggets.
JD walked over and joined Steve at the grave. Looking down at the wrapped bundle, it seemed too small to be human. The tears still flowed down Steve’s face, and JD hurt for the man. He had never known his father but wondered if he would have cared for him like that. He placed his hand on his friend’s back like he had seen Gerald do a few times. He could feel Steve shaking and wondered if he should leave him to his grief. His hand stayed, and in time Steve turned and embraced him in a fierce hug. JD, too, began to cry.
They sat on the floor with their backs against the wall and ate energy bars and warm sports drinks. Steve kept staring at the words on the wall. JD hadn’t asked, but had come to the conclusion that it had been written by his wife. Steve had been unable to fill in the grave, so JD had done that while Steve walked back to the house carrying the dog. He had found Steve there afterward clutching the broken frame with the photo from the front yard. The cracked glass making his son’s face unrecognizable. He looked up where his friend was staring.
“You going to look for her?”
JD’s words seemed to break the spell that hung in the foul air. Neither had spoken much all afternoon. “No.” Steve thought he was angry with her, should be furious in fact, but the word held no emotion. He was now completely numb. In his mind, she had abandoned his son, her stepson, to die. She may have killed him herself, for all he knew, her actions certainly contributed to his end. Now he was shutting down that part of himself. No revenge, no hate, no love and as far as she was concerned, no loss.
“I’m sorry, Steve.”
He nodded. “Sorry, I dragged you all the way down here.”
“Steve, I have a question. Where is everybody?”
It was a good question, but unfortunately, he had no idea. “Don’t know, some are probably hiding, many probably traveled to one of the camps or somewhere else they thought might be safer. Obviously, many . . . just didn’t make it.” My own son hadn’t made it. He looked again at the broken photo. The rush of pain and tears each time that thought screamed up at him was making him sick. So much of his life had been spent caring for his child’s extraordinary needs. While losing him was awful, the fact that on some level he felt a kind of . . . relief, made him hate himself even more. He wasn’t sure he could survive the grief, nor was he sure he wanted to. Trey wouldn’t have survived in this new world, he knew that, but the reality still consumed him.
“So, what’s next?” JD asked as he stroked the dog’s matted fur.
“We leave.” Steve had nothing left holding him here. He knew this life was gone. He could physically move on and hopefully, in time, he would be able to emotionally. “We go to Gerald’s house on the cove and try and wait the mess out. Just you and I.”
“And Elvis,” the boy said with a grin.
“Of course, Elvis.”
53
Mount Weather Annex – Bluemont, VA
“President Chambers?”
Madelyn still could not get accustomed to the title. Perhaps if I were at the White House looking out at the Rose Garden instead of the concrete walls of the bunker, she mused. “Yes, come in.” Her newly christened chief of staff walked in with the daily security brief. She loathed the damn thing—what an absolutely dreadful way to start every day. She had borrowed a page from another president’s playbook to deal with it. Taking it from him before laying it down on the conference table behind her: “I’ll read it later, give me the highlights, Ed.”
His eyes showed disapproval, but the former Wall Street banker dutifully began recounting the newsworthy items listing each succinctly and in some predetermined order of priority. “The outbreak of the SA1297 has now spread to sixty-two percent of Europe. The impact on the Middle East is estimated at eighty-six percent. Cases have also been confirmed in Asia, Africa and several Eastern European countries. No news out of Russia or China at this time.
“Mexico has signaled that they are closing their borders. Canada may be about to do the same, but as you know, there is no functioning national government there, so any effective decisions will be on a provincial basis.”
“Ed, the highlights, please. I can read the mundane later for myself.” He looked thoroughly chastened, in her opinion, for a man who was used to being the one giving the orders, not taking them.
“Sorry, Madam President.” He flipped several sheets in a file folder and began again. “The joint forces are still questioning your legitimacy to hold the executive office. FEMA officials have delivered the certification, but as instructed, we had to remove the two most vocal members. General Ayers and Admiral Mitchell have been replaced.
We still have no contact with several of the carrier strike groups and have to assume they have gone rogue. The Seventh Fleet Command is still intact, but we have monitored much of the Atlantic Fleet relocating toward the Gulf along with several amphibious ready groups.”
“I get it, Ed. We have lost control of half of our military. What sort of threat do those assets pose?”
“Madam President, they all have first strike nuclear capabilities.”
“But I have the codes. They can’t launch without me, right?”
The man began shaking his head, not liking where this was heading. “Ma’am, the ‘Gold Codes’ you have are not the launch codes, they are the codes to authorize a launch. Any actual launch would come from one of the designated command sites such as the Cheyenne Mountain facility. Even your codes would require a secondary confirmation under the two-man rule.”
“So, I couldn’t just order the missiles to . . . I don’t know, self-destruct in the ships?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Well, what fucking good are they? Can we change that? Let’s do that at once. I need full authority to launch.”
He knew the woman was more rational than this—she was becoming unhinged. Whatever was driving her might take her right over the edge. While he already knew the answer was no, he agreed simply to buy more time. He also decided not to mention the final bullet point on the briefing that NORAD and the entire facility at Cheyenne Mountain had gone silent, severing all communication with the new commander- in- chief.
“Ed, war is coming. You need to make sure we will win.”
He closed his book, tucked it back under his arm and stared at her briefly before hurrying from the room.
Madelyn looked at the closed door, then at the morning's playbook on the desk. Gently, she read again the sealed memo her security agent had given her before the morning meeting. “Ms. Levy was dealing with a personal matter and would be unavailable. Deal with the issues per her prior instructions.” What the fuck did that mean? She got a distinct feeling that something was going terribly wrong. The Council’s plan had a flaw, and she thought she might know what it was . . . or more precisely, “who” it was.
54
JD ran on ahead, Elvis nipping at the boy’s heels. A rare smile briefly crossed Steve�
�s face. The pastures and fields running down to the isolated lake were exactly as Gerald described in his notes. They had followed the directions Gerald had made the boy memorize. Getting out of Albany four days earlier had proven to be even more challenging than getting in. The first people they saw after leaving his old neighborhood had been a dozen men, several wearing prisoner uniforms. A few of whom were obviously armed.
Something substantial had changed in Steve back in his old house in Fox Run, he knew that. The car dealer part of him was dead. He’d crossed a line there was no coming back from. The gang had stepped out into the road blocking their path. They seemed focused on the boy. Before leaving his old house that last morning, he had placed an Indian headband on Trey’s grave. Goodbye, my good boy, my little Cherokee. The folded picture of the two of them being the only item he took from the wrecked house. His life now was what was in front of him. As he had leveled the shotgun on the leader, the alpha dog, it was without remorse.
The straps of his Army pack dug into Steve’s shoulders. It now included most of JD’s supplies as well as his own. JD had carried Elvis in his for most of the trip from Albany. The dog was recovering from his long nightmare. How he’d survived so long in that pen was nothing short of a miracle. Steve had promised the mutt that he would never be caged again. Watching him chasing JD down the small hill was a tiny victory for all of them.
He wondered what Gerald had whispered in the boy’s ear just before he died. JD never mentioned it, and he would never ask. While his relationship with the boy was not the same as Gerald had, it was a tight bond, nonetheless. He wanted to love the boy as his own, but that hole in his heart was filled with something dark right now. . . Maybe in time. For now, he would simply treat him as an equal, a partner. In time, that could grow.