by Tom Abrahams
The acidic ache in her gut she’d felt that day in the grocery store returned as she sat in the JSC’s building forty-four. Her husband had survived a fall from space but might not have survived an airplane crash.
Nikki snapped her fingers in front of Jackie’s face. “Jackie!”
The astronaut’s wife snapped from her trance and sat forward in her chair. There was no use dwelling on what might have happened to her husband. She could wallow in self-pity, or she could control what was within her power.
She forced a smile. “I’m fine,” she said. “Clayton is fine. Like you said, there was no body at the crash site. So he had to walk away, right?”
Perry, Irma, and Bowman exchanged glances before looking down at their feet. None of them wanted to say what they were thinking collectively.
“What?” said Nikki. “Tell us what you’re not telling us. We’ve spent the last ten minutes listening to irrelevant crap like GLONASS and SIBRS. The least—”
“It’s SBIRS,” Perry corrected.
“What?” snapped Nikki. She’d adopted a fighting stance. Her arms were flexed, her hands tightened into fists. She stood with one foot behind the other as if to prep for a nasty axe kick with her rear leg.
Bowman, perhaps sensing her aggression, responded for Perry. “He was saying it’s SBIRS. The satellite. It’s not SIBRS. That’s all.”
“Whatever it is doesn’t matter to me. You guys are more than happy to geek out on us with your Battlestar Galactica nonsense, but when it comes to telling Jackie something she really needs to know, you’re hesitant.”
“We don’t think he walked away,” Bowman volunteered. “We didn’t say that.”
“Then what did he do?” asked Jackie.
“There’s some additional data we’ve been tracking,” said Perry. “It fits with why there’s no sign of your husband at the crash site.”
Nikki threw up her hands. “Sheesh! No wonder people think you faked the moon landing. You hem and haw and—”
Jackie reached out and put her hand on Nikki’s side. “It’s okay,” she said softly. “I appreciate your advocacy. But let them talk. They’ll get around to telling me whatever it is they can’t seem to articulate. Right?”
Nikki’s shoulders dropped; the tension in her muscles relaxed. She nodded at Jackie and glared at the others.
“We believe there is a government bunker not far from where your husband landed—”
“Crashed,” corrected Jackie.
“Crashed,” Bowman acknowledged. “We know from satellite data we’ve collected over the years that there are emergency bunkers at various spots around the country.”
“Other countries have them too,” added Perry. “They started with the Cold War.”
“One of them is in Denver,” Bowman said, “under the airport.”
Jackie looked to Irma for confirmation.
“Yes,” said Irma. “Underground.”
“If that’s the case,” said Jackie, “then why can’t you communicate with them? They’re a government facility; you’re a government facility. You should be able to check with them and find out where my husband is.”
“We wish it were that simple,” said Irma. “The problem is that bunker isn’t supposed to exist.”
“They left us out of the loop,” said Bowman. “That is to say, we don’t have a way to get in touch with them. They’ve closed themselves off, as have other bunkers in West Virginia, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and California.”
“Wait,” Nikki interrupted. “This makes absolutely no sense.”
Perry folded his arms across his chest. “What doesn’t make sense?”
“This whole grand conspiracy thing,” said Nikki. “That stuff is all make-believe. I was an MMA fighter. I know make-believe when I see it.”
“But you just said you understand why people think we faked the moon landing,” said Perry. “I mean—”
Nikki rolled her eyes. “Really? That was hyperbole.”
Jackie stood. She walked from the group to the corner. She drew her hands to her face, covering her mouth and nose.
“So,” she said, her voice muffled behind her hands, “you call me in here to tell me my husband is alive but missing and that he’s probably stuck underground in a secret bunker shut off from the outside world?”
“We thought you should know,” said Bowman. “We know it’s not much.”
“But it’s something,” Irma piped up.
Jackie paced in the corner, her hands on top of her head as she walked. “It’s something,” she said. “You’re right about that.”
Nikki planted her hands on her hips. “What’s the bunker for? Who’s in the bunker?”
“We don’t know exactly,” said Perry. “We’re not cleared at that level.”
Bowman nodded. “We’re guessing if you know the answers to those questions, you’re probably in the bunker.”
“Still doesn’t make sense,” said Nikki. “Our government’s been gridlocked for years and you’re telling me they’re smart enough to populate some vast network of secret bunkers with the rich and powerful?”
“That’s what we’re saying,” said Irma. “We think most of the people at headquarters in DC are hiding in one. Nobody here or at KSC can get ahold of anyone there. What’s left of our secure communication is getting no response.”
Jackie walked back to the group. She ignored the pit in her stomach, the overwhelming sense of dread that threatened to suffocate her. “All right,” she said, drawing the attention of the others in the room. “This confirms three things for me.”
“What?” asked Nikki.
“First of all,” she said, “it tells me that no help is coming and things are only going to get worse. If those in power are hiding underground, they know more than we do.”
Nikki agreed. “What’s the second thing?”
“Maybe I’m delusional,” she said. “I just can’t accept that I’ll never see my husband again. But when you told me he’s being held underground in a place his family can’t go, it makes me believe he’s more determined than ever to find his way back to us. That’s how I’d react. If I had a breath left in my lungs, I’d be fighting against someone keeping me from my family and doing everything I could to outsmart them. I don’t know how he’ll do it, but I honestly believe in my heart he’ll come back.”
Perry raised his finger. “Statistically—”
Nikki stepped toward Perry. “Statistically you should be quiet. You guys have said enough.”
“What’s the third thing?” Bowman asked.
“The third thing is that I know we can’t stay here. Not forever. This powerless, messed-up world is our new normal. We’ve got to adjust. Staying here doesn’t allow us to adjust.”
Irma shook her head. “Don’t be so rash, Jackie. It’s safe here. You said it yourself. It’s going to get worse out there.”
“I’m not being rash,” said Jackie. “I’m being realistic.”
CHAPTER 11
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29, 2020, 10:20 AM CST
COUPLAND, TEXAS
The bodies were gone when Rick and Kenny snuck back onto Gus’s property. There was a dark, irregular stain on the dirt outside the main house. Another larger blotch colored the ground between the greenhouse and the front porch.
Rick tried to distract his son, but Kenny saw both drying pools of blood. He knelt down at the one by the house, reaching toward it with his trembling fingers.
He looked up at Rick, his eyes swollen with tears. His voice cracked. “This was Mom,” he said. “This is where she…died?”
Rick squatted beside his son, placing his hand on the boy’s back. In so many ways Kenny had matured. But as the fourteen-year-old mourned his mother, Rick saw the child in him. A boy always needed his mother.
“C’mon,” Rick said. “We need to get to where they took everybody. We need to rescue them.”
“Why don’t we just leave, Dad?” he asked. “Why don’t we go back to Houston? We co
uld go to Mom’s house and stay there. We’d be safe there.”
Rick sighed and helped his son to his feet. “You’re right. We could do that. We could run. But I’ve done a lot of running, son. You know that. You know I’ve made bad, selfish choices.”
“You have,” Kenny said, “but you’re all I have now. It’s just us. We can’t go save people we barely know. It’s stupid. I can’t lose you too.”
Rick winced at Kenny’s words, his son’s acknowledgment of his shortcomings. He couldn’t blame him for owning his feelings and, surprisingly, the boy hadn’t yet blamed Rick for his mother’s violent death.
“You’re not going to lose me,” said Rick. “I’ll tell you what. After we save Mr. Mumphrey, Candace, and the Bucks, we’ll stick to ourselves. We’ll pick a spot and stay put. We’ll ride this thing out together. You and me.”
Kenny wiped his nose with his shirt sleeve, dragging a web of snot. Rick pulled his own sleeve over his palm and wiped his son’s face. Kenny looked down at the dark stain and sucked in a ragged breath.
“All right,” he said. “We go save them and then we come back here, Dad. That way we’re close to Mom too.”
Rick wasn’t sure coming back here was the right idea. Then again, there weren’t too many good ideas to which Rick had ever attached himself. His life was a series of questionable choices. Why not make another one for the sake of his son’s cooperation and sanity?
“All right,” he said. “Deal. Now let’s get out of here.”
They crossed to the yard toward the greenhouse. Rick had parked his Jeep at the front of the property. As he approached it, his heart sank.
“Motherfu—” he said through clenched teeth.
“What?” Kenny asked. “What’s wrong?”
Both the front and back tires on the passenger’s side were flat. Rick jogged to the side of the Jeep, hoping his eyes were playing tricks on him. They weren’t.
Both of them were ripped from gunfire. The Jeep was useless.
“Can’t you change the tires?” asked Kenny.
“I’ve only got one spare,” said Rick. “I could fix one but not both.”
“What do we do?”
Rick motioned toward the back of the property. “We go find out what Gus was keeping in the garage. He said he had plenty of transportation in there. Let’s hope it’s true.”
Rick led Kenny to the garage and they hoisted the large bay door, revealing a pair of older model cars, an aged pickup truck, and a pair of ATVs in the deep, climate-controlled space. They were hit with a strong chemical odor.
Kenny scrunched his nose. “It smells like gasoline in here.”
Rick knelt on the floor. Underneath two of the cars were pools of evaporating gasoline. He stood up and walked over to the sides of the vehicles, which were parked in tandem. Both of them were decorated with several bullet holes. He looked over his shoulder at the exterior wall of the garage and saw a half-dozen tight circles of light where the rounds had penetrated the building.
“Yeah,” he said. “These two are no good. Guess that leaves us with the pickup and the ATVs.”
“I can drive an ATV,” said Kenny. “Let’s take those.”
Rick shook his head. “Assuming we rescue all four people, we need space for them. The ATVs wouldn’t hold more than two riders each.”
Kenny frowned. He walked over to the smaller of the two ATVs and gripped one side of the handlebars.
Rick moved across the garage to the pickup truck. It was a sun-faded gray with hints of rust along its wheel wells and the edges of the tailgate. The bed was covered in a thick black plastic liner. Lying on the liner was a pair of long four-by-twelve pieces of wood. He looked back over his shoulder at Kenny playing with the ATV.
“Hey,” he said, “I have an idea. Let’s take both.”
Kenny’s eyes widened with excitement.
It couldn’t hurt to have two travel options if one failed, Rick figured. He still had no real idea how they’d approach the FEMA camp.
After checking to make sure the old truck would start, he pulled open the tailgate, and he and Kenny dragged the ends of the boards to the ground, creating a ramp for the ATV. They crossed the garage to the four-wheeler.
Rick checked the printed starting instructions on the vehicle’s fuel tank, which was positioned between the front seat and the handlebars. He hopped into the driver’s seat, bouncing on the responsive shocks, and turned the key to start the machine.
“We need to make sure it works,” he said to Kenny and pushed the start button.
The engine cranked and revved. The ATV purred, ready to go. Rick gave his son a thumbs-up, waved at him to back up, and accelerated toward the back of the pickup. He stopped at the edge of the wood planks and turned off the ATV, hopped off the vehicle, and adjusted the steering wheel.
Five strenuous minutes later, they’d managed to get the ATV into the bed of the truck. Rick picked up the boards and slid them next to the four-wheeler.
Kenny searched the garage and found a bag full of bungee cords, which they used to strap down the ATV. They climbed into the cab of the truck.
“This truck is old,” Kenny remarked. “There’s no seatbelt.”
“Yeah,” said Rick. “It’s a manual. And it stinks too, doesn’t it?”
The truck smelled like mothballs and dust, as if someone had stored his grandmother’s clothes in the cab.
“It is what it is, son,” he said. “Let’s work with what we’ve got.”
“Are you taking a gun?” asked Kenny.
Rick released the emergency brake, pressed the clutch, and shifted the truck into reverse. He extended his right arm on the back of the seat behind Kenny’s head and looked out the rear window. He pressed the gas and accelerated from the garage and onto the driveway.
“No,” he said. “The less reason we give anyone to use their weapons, the better.”
Rick shifted into first gear and drove away from the property. He looked over at Kenny leaning on the door with his elbow. The boy was staring out the window at the passing landscape.
They drove the mileage between Gus’s ranch and the FEMA camp, the T. Don Hutto Residential Center. It took twice as long as it had when Rick had gone the night before. He was driving slowly, cautiously. When he guessed they were a quarter mile from the entrance, he slipped the truck into neutral and drifted to a stop off the edge of the road at a cluster of yaupon. They were across the street from a church and the Taylor Police Department. It was as good a spot as any.
He shut off the ignition and took the keys. “Let’s go.”
The two climbed from the truck, locked the doors, and Rick took the keys from the ATV. He pulled open the tailgate. He drew the wood planks to the ground, positioning the tops of them underneath the ATV’s tires and then climbed into the bed. He hopped onto the four-wheeler and started it. He carefully backed the vehicle down the boards and to the ground. He shifted into a low gear and told his son to hop on the back.
“We may need this thing more than I thought,” he commented.
With Kenny’s arms around his waist, he drove a couple of blocks to West MLK Junior Boulevard and made a wide left turn. The fifty-horsepower engine roared and echoed across the empty street, reverberating against the single-story buildings that lined either side of the narrow two-lane street.
The noise was too much of a risk. Rick took his hand off the accelerator, braked to a stop, and turned off the ignition.
Kenny let go of his father’s waist. “Why’d you stop?”
“Too noisy,” Rick said. “C’mon, help me push this thing off the road.”
Kenny climbed off the machine and helped his dad guide the ATV into the dirt lot of an old cotton processing place called the Williamson County Gin. The gin was a collection of tin-roofed buildings that looked like something straight out of the early twentieth century.
“What’s a gin?” asked Kenny. “Is it like vodka? Do they make alcohol here?”
Rick grinned. “N
ot this kind of gin,” he said, stuffing the keys into his pocket. “This is a place where they took cotton and separated the fiber from the seeds. Before the gin they had to do it by hand.”
“Oh,” said Kenny, sounding disappointed.
Rick motioned for his son to follow up along the edge of the street as they worked their way west toward the prison camp. If he had his bearings straight, they’d take the street until it ended; then they’d have a choice to cut north and west along the streets or venture into the grassy fields that surrounded the camp and its high fencing. Kenny jogged to keep up with his father’s quick pace and longer legs.
Rick looked over at Kenny. The boy was the spitting image of his mother: deep, penetrating eyes, thick hair with a hint of a wave, and a dimple-framed smile. It was surreal to him that Karen was dead. He couldn’t grasp the emptiness her sudden, shocking death would carve in their son. He slowed a beat and nudged Kenny’s shoulder with his.
“Remind me to tell you about Eli Whitney when we have more time,” he said. “He changed the world.”
“Eli who?”
“Whitney,” said Rick. “He invented the cotton gin.”
Kenny looked up at his dad. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll ask you when we’re not trying to break into a prison camp to rescue four strangers.”
He also had his mother’s sarcastic wit.
Rick patted his son on the back and they neared the end of the street. Low-hanging power and telephone lines drooped from house to house on either side. Both were useless. The houses were modest, but the yards were, for the most part, manicured. The driveways featured older cars and trucks. Some of the houses were surrounded by waist-high chain-link fences. It looked like a normal small-town Texas neighborhood. But when Rick paid closer attention, he noticed that wasn’t exactly the case.
Trash cans at the curb were mostly on their sides, refuse spilling into the street. It appeared as though animals, or humans, had rifled through the cans. Most of the cars in the driveways had shattered windows. Some of them had their trunks open.
The homes’ windows in most cases were open or broken. There was clothing strewn across several yards. The sweet and sour scent of rotting food filled the air. As they approached the last house, Kenny stopped and looked over his shoulder.