“Did you forget something?” Toril asked.
“No.” Soren closed the door and locked it. He followed them up the stairs to the living room. A picture window ran the length of one wall. Below spread the city. He liked the view. Most days it relaxed him. But today it filled him with unease. Or maybe it was the smoke and the sirens.
“I’m happy you came home early. The news makes it sound bad out there.”
“It is.”
Soren put his arm around Toril and she rested her cheek on his chest. For all of a minute they stood there, alone and complete and safe. Then, faint but unmistakable, came the sound of a scream, and Soren shook himself and straightened. “There’s something you need to know.”
“You look so serious. What can it be?”
Soren told her everything. How he had seen an ad in the back of Popular Mechanics. Someone needed skilled craftsmen. The pay was a one-time lump sum. A large sum. The specific job wasn’t mentioned. Dollar signs floating in his head, Soren answered the ad. To his surprise, he was sent a psychological exam, as well as an application form. He filled them out and sent them in. To his greater surprise, about ten weeks later he was notified by certified mail that he had been selected.
Soren met in Philadelphia with a woman named Becca Levy. She apologized for the secrecy, then dropped the bombshell that she worked for Kurt Carpenter, the famous filmmaker, and that Carpenter had constructed a survivalist compound in the wilds of northern Minnesota and was looking to invite people to live there, should the unthinkable become real.
“Not just anybody,” Becca Levy had said. “Only special people who fit special needs. People like you, Mr. Anderson.”
Soren had asked the question uppermost on his mind. “When will we be paid the money promised in the ad?”
Levy had produced a checkbook. “I’m authorized to disburse funds once you’ve signed our standard contract.”
Now, standing at the picture window with his wife, Soren gazed down at the driveway. “That’s how I was able to afford the truck.”
“And you never told me?”
The hurt in her tone cut Soren deeply. “I never thought anything would come of it. I honestly never really expected there would be another world war.”
“So what now?”
Before Soren could answer, Freya called out from the far corner where she and Magni were watching TV.
“Mom! Dad! You need to come see this.”
Soren clasped Toril’s hand and went over. Both children were on their bellies on the wood floor. On the flat screen a visibly shaken announcer had paused to collect himself.
“What is it?” Soren asked.
“He just said—” Freya began, but stopped when the newsman started to speak.
“I repeat. This just in. There have been three nuclear attacks on the West Coast. San Diego, San Francisco, and Portland have been hit. The footage you are about to see is from San Diego. We warn our viewers this will be deeply disturbing to watch.”
The scene displayed San Diego as captured on video from somewhere east of the city. The bright sun, the blue of the bay speckled with boats, the gleaming skyscrapers, the streets and flow of traffic were all normal and peaceful. The person who had taken the video was talking, but the voice had been muted. Suddenly the scene erupted in a spectacular flash of light. With stunning swiftness, a mushroom cloud formed, rising in the sky. The boats, the buildings, the cars, the people, all were obliterated in a span of heartbeats.
Soren felt Toril’s nails dig into his flesh. His mouth went dry, and he had to try several times to swallow. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. But it had happened, really happened.
The newscaster came back on. He was as pale as paper.
“No word yet on fatalities. Communications along much of the West Coast and as far east as Utah have been disrupted. As yet we don’t know if these were missiles or bombs or possibly backpack nukes planted by terrorists.”
The man paused.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we have just received word that the president is about to announce a declaration of war. We expect to switch to our Washington bureau in a few minutes for the announcement. In the meantime, people are urged to stay in their homes and to stay calm. Contrary to rumors, there are no reports of enemy troops on U.S. soil. Stay tuned to this channel for breaking developments as they occur.”
Soren had heard enough. “I want all of you to pack what ever you want to take. We’re leaving in ten minutes.”
“Leaving?” Freya said in surprise.
“Where are we going?” Magni asked.
“I’ll tell you all about it on the way. Right now it’s important you do exactly as I say and go pack.” Soren struggled to keep his voice calm. How did he explain to a twelve-year-old and an eight-year-old that Armageddon had been let loose, and their world would never be the same?
“My mother?” Toril said.
Soren nodded. “We’ll pick her up on the way.” He shooed the kids off to their rooms, then went to the stairs and down to his workshop. It occurred to him that he needed a weapon. He didn’t own a firearm. Toril disliked guns and wouldn’t allow one in the house.
Soren didn’t mind. He wasn’t into guns, anyway. As a believer in the Ancient Way, he had long been fascinated by the weapons of the gods. In particular, he was intrigued by the weapon of his favorite, the god he most admired, the god he worshipped as truly and really as his neighbors worshipped Jesus or the Moslems worshipped Mohammed or the Buddhists revered Gautama.
On a wall of the workshop hung a sword, a shield, a dagger, and a mace. All were reproductions of actual Norse weaponry.
But it was the weapon in a position of honor at the center of the wall that Soren took down and held in his big hands. It was a replica of Mjolnir, the hammer wielded by Thor, the God of Thunder. Soren smiled as he held it up to the light.
“Crusher,” he said fondly.
The short handle was made of lignum vitae, one of the hardest woods known to man, and wrapped in leather strips. The head had been forged of high carbon, heat-treated steel, cast in a mold. It was an exact copy of a Mjolnir on display at the Swedish Museum of National Antiquities.
Soren swung it a few times, his muscles rippling. It was as heavy as a sledgehammer and required great strength to wield. Toril had bought it for him as a gift years ago. Knowing how much it had cost, he had been in shock for days afterward. He kept telling her she shouldn’t have, but the truth was, he had been delighted beyond measure.
Soren glanced at the other weapons. The sword was too long and heavy for Toril. The dagger, though, might be of use. He took it down and hastened upstairs to the living room. The others were in the bedrooms, getting ready. He paused in front of the TV.
“. . .asking all citizens to remain calm. The United States military is on full alert. The National Guard has been mobilized. Police forces and sheriff departments are coordinating with state and federal officials to ensure our streets are safe. Stay in your homes. Stay off the phone unless in an emergency.”
Toril was throwing clothes into an open suitcase on the bed when Soren walked in. She ran a hand through her hair and said in mild exasperation, “I need more time. I can’t seem to think straight. You said this place is in Minnesota, right? Should I go into storage and get some of our winter clothes?”
“It’s the middle of the summer,” Soren teased, and then saw her eyes. Setting Mjolnir on the bed, he took her in his arms. She pressed her forehead to his chest and trembled.
“I’m sorry. I’m scared, Soren. I’m worried about Mother, and I’m worried about us.” Toril looked up, her eyes brimming with tears. “Most of all I’m worried about Freya and Magni. They’re our children, Soren. They shouldn’t have to go through this.”
“No one should,” Soren said. He held her close, her body warm against his, his heart filled near to bursting.
Magni dashed into the bedroom, yelling, “Dad! Mom! Come quick! There are people outside. People all over.”
Soren grabbed Mjolnir. His long legs brought him to the picture window ahead of the others. Freya was there, horror on her face. He looked down, and his skin crawled.
Trudale had been breached. Defying all reason, the mob had broken through the gate and was running amok through the development. Residents were being attacked, car windshields smashed, windows hit with bottles and rocks. Down the block several men threw their shoulders against a door and it buckled. As they disappeared inside, a woman screamed.
Toril’s hand found Soren’s arm. “What do we do? What happens when they reach our house?”
Even as she spoke, half a dozen human wolves came bounding up Wyndemere Circle.
Aerial Roulette
Arizona Airspace
To Dr. Diana Trevor, the seconds it took to disengage the autopi lot were eternities of dread. The plane bearing down on her was an older Beechcraft. She couldn’t imagine why the other pi lot didn’t realize their peril. She went to dive out of danger when the other plane sheered off, passing uncomfortably close to her wing. She tried to call it on the radio. Angry, she watched it dwindle in the distance until it was a speck in the sky.
Diana returned to the routine of her flight. She had a long way to go. Her flight plan called for stops at small private airfields where she was less likely to run into the problems she foresaw for the larger public fields once panic set in. She’d worked it out in meticulous detail and was confident she would reach Minnesota, barring the unforeseen.
The reports on the airwaves painted a disturbing image. The attack on the task force had shattered any complacency people felt about the onset of the conflict in the Middle East. For more than a century there had been minor wars and terrorist attacks and political upheavals; this time it was all or nothing, the war to end all others.
On Diana flew.
Eventually Arizona was behind her. She made it across Colorado. Each stop was routine. She stayed well away from large cities like Colorado Springs and Denver.
The news reports grew more and more alarming. Panic was spreading. People were beginning to realize that things they took for granted wouldn’t necessarily be available. Simple things, such as where their next meal was coming from. The illusion of security was being shattered.
Diana had long wondered why so many of her fellow citizens took so much for granted. They assumed that filling their bellies would always be easy, that the corner grocery would always be open and their favorite fast-food outlets or restaurants would always have food for the buying. They assumed they could always get fuel for their vehicles. They assumed the police would always be a phone call away, ready to serve and protect. Now they were learning the depths of their delusions.
Civilization was a house of cards. Knock away one card and the entire house came undone, collapsing in on itself of its own pretensions. That was her opinion, anyway, and it was a view Kurt Carpenter shared.
Diana made it to Nebraska. Flying over the state stirred memories of her childhood. She had been born and raised in Elkhorn, outside Omaha. Her childhood had been apple pie and Sunday school. Her parents had been surprised when she announced that she intended to enlist in the navy after high school. They didn’t understand her desire to see something of the world.
Her hitch had opened her eyes. She had served onboard a destroyer that called at various Pacific ports. Some— Australia, for instance—were a lot like home. Others— Southeast Asia—showed her how wretched human existence could be. She saw people living in abject misery. People so malnourished, they were literally skin and bone. She saw children swim in water contaminated by human feces. She saw bodies left to rot.
Diana had realized a great truth. Life owed no one a living. Life owed no one their next meal, or a roof over their head, or even the clothes on their back. Life owed them nothing but life. The rest was up to them to procure any way they could.
So-called basic human rights were not part of the natural order. A person wasn’t born with the inherent right to free speech. A man-made document made that possible. The “right” was as flimsy as the paper it was written on.
After her navy stint, Diana had used the GI Bill to attend college. She had majored in psychology because the human mind fascinated her. Not so much how it worked as the delusions it fostered. Its capacity to deceive itself was boundless.
Diana had become interested in how the mind and its beliefs affected personality. That had led her to her research on dominance, which, in turn, led Kurt Carpenter to her. And here she was, on her way to his compound, hoping to ride out the end of the world in one of the few places on earth designed to do just that.
Diana smiled, thinking of how nice it would be to see Kurt again. She reached for her thermos.
And her plane died.
The Boena bucked as if hit by a gust of wind. The electronics blipped out and the props stopped spinning. Far to the west, a strange luminosity lit the sky. There was no sound other than the shear of wind as the Boena dipped and began to lose altitude.
Diana fought down a spike of fear. She knew what to do in a situation like this. She still had control, limited control, but there was every chance she could bring the plane in for a safe landing. She was over western Nebraska, somewhere in the vicinity of North Platte. The country below was mostly farmland. Nebraska had never suffered from a lack of flat ground, so she should be able to find a spot to set down.
Flying a plane without power was a lot like driving a car without power. It took concentration and strength and iron nerves.
Diana banked slightly and peered out of the cockpit. She needed a field or a road or highway. Patchwork squares of farmland grew in size. A green patch became corn and a yellow patch became oats. A ribbon of brown was a dusty country road.
She decided to try for the road. A straight stretch looked long enough. There were no cars or trucks. Provided she didn’t hit a rut or pothole, she should be able to bring in her bird.
Her angle of descent was just right. She aligned the plane with the middle of the road and braced for the bump of her wheels setting down. She was so intent on the road that she didn’t pay much attention to the fences on each side.
She landed perfectly. She was moving fast, but she had plenty of space. Already she was thinking of what she would do when she got out. Too late, she saw a dip that ran the width of the road. The nose dropped, there was a shriek of mangled metal, the plane bounced, and then it slowed and went into a spin.
Diana had fleeting glimpses of sky and field and road. The Boena hit the fence and she heard metallic twangs that reminded her of guitar strings being plucked. A pole loomed, and she shrank into her seat and covered her head with her arms. The impact jarred her. Her tail rose and she thought the plane would flip over, but it crashed back down.
Then all was still.
Diana lowered her arms. The plane was in a ditch. The broken pole lay over a partly crumpled wing. Strands of wire were tangled everywhere. But she was alive. She unstrapped herself and climbed out, then stood on the wing and sniffed. She didn’t smell fuel.
The blue sky mocked her. She turned in a circle. All she saw was farmland. Not a building anywhere. To the north were low hills.
Diana tried the radio, but it wouldn’t work. Nothing would. EMP effect, was her guess. She got her backpack and her bottle of water and out of habit reached for her laptop. Without power it was a piece of junk. She wouldn’t lose anything essential, though; it was all backed up on disc, and the discs were in her pack.
The ground felt spongy after so much flying. Diana hopped up and down a few times, then headed north along the road. She didn’t look back. Her past was behind her in more ways than one.
She hadn’t gone far when movement in a belt of trees between fields alerted her to wildlife. She expected deer, but instead saw two coyotes staring back at her.
Usually, coyotes weren’t dangerous. But Diana shrugged out of her backpack. At the top was the last item she had packed: mace. She hefted it, thinking it was too b
ad it had been in her backpack when Harold Pierce had come at her. She would have loved to spray him smack in the eyes.
Diana looked up. The coyotes were gone. She stuck the mace in her front pocket, slid her shoulders into her backpack, and set off down the road, seeking a sign of habitation. It was a gorgeous sunny day. The temperature was pushing ninety-five but she didn’t mind the heat. She never had. It was cold that got to her.
She admired the fine blue of the sky and the puffy white of the clouds, and reflected on the irony that on the other side of the world, at that very moment, the sky was choked with radioactive dust.
Diana wondered how far the EMP effect reached. She wondered, too, with rising concern, how she was going to get from Nebraska to Minnesota before the deadline.
Kurt Carpenter had a timetable. Those he selected had exactly one hundred hours from the moment the first nukes detonated on U.S. soil to reach the compound. And that was the best-case scenario. As Carpenter had put it to her, “I can’t jeopardize the welfare of the majority for the sake of a few. Our only hope of weathering the worst of it is to hunker in our bunkers and stay there until the radiation levels drop.”
A hundred hours was a lot of time. Diana could make it to Minnesota by car, provided she could get her hands on one. But they looked to be scarce in this particular part of the heartland.
Diana had hiked for about ten minutes when the growl of an engine reached her. She questioned how that could be with the EMP effect. Then she remembered. The pulse fried electronic systems in use. Those not being used—a car that wasn’t running, for instance—weren’t affected.
She moved to the side of the road and waited.
The source of the growl came over a low rise ahead of her. It was a pickup, an antique popular in her great-grandfather’s day, spewing as much smoke as noise. Clunking and rattling, it bore down on her at a turtle crawl. Then gears ground and the pickup leaped toward her like an old tiger eager to sink its fangs into fresh prey.
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