Empty Cities

by E. E. Isherwood

  “Come in,” he said without breaking contact with the field glasses. He watched what looked like another aircraft carrier about a mile away. She’d seen it too, while on the helicopter flight back. “That’s the USS Iwo Jima. They disobeyed orders to be here, and I’m not sure if I want to give them a medal or send their captain to my brig. Their air assets pounded some militant targets in New Jersey and New York. They helped you too, as I understand it.”

  Kyla was confused about what it all meant, and she snuck a look at Meechum, but she was faced toward the captain at full attention.

  “At ease, Marine,” he said when he turned around. “I’ve heard good things about you two. Like how you got into the city despite being hounded by enemy Predators. Then you fought off terrorists until our helo could swoop you back up. That was damned fine work going into the city when you didn’t have to, but I have to ask: were you trying to get yourselves killed?”

  “No, sir,” the combat Marine replied without hesitation. “You sent us out there to find survivors. I, uh, we wanted to give those people a chance to come out for a rescue. Unfortunately, we didn’t see anyone left alive, so it was all for nothing. Well, except for at the very end. We did find two people…”

  The captain strode closer. “I’m listening.”

  Meechum gestured to Kyla. “My partner can tell you that part.”

  Van Nuys turned his attention to her. She heard Uncle Ted warning her about operational security, but that was for people other than the captain of her ship. He needed to know everything.

  “Sir, I’m pretty sure I saw Vice President Williams while we were in New York City. She was with my uncle, Ted MacInnis. They were in Central Park the same time the two of us were waiting for the helicopter, but we didn’t know it until we were already in the air.”

  “And you couldn’t go back for them?” he asked, looking at Meechum.

  The Marine spoke up. “The arrival of the Harriers made it dangerous to return to the ground. Just as we departed, the support planes ripped the bad guys some new ones, sir.”

  Van Nuys tapped the binoculars and seemed to think about what he’d been told. Behind him, far out over the water, planes took off and landed like helicopters on the other ship. It looked like the same compact aircraft as she’d seen at the park.

  Finally, he appeared to arrive at a conclusion. “This leaves us in a tight spot, ladies. The captain of the Iwo said there were no survivors in the entire presidential chain of command. General Worthington is the ranking member of the armed forces. He claims to be in charge of the remaining overseas forces of the United States military and he wants us out of here.”

  “We can’t leave them behind!” Kyla insisted.

  Van Nuys went on without any acknowledgement of her outburst. “Are you positive you saw the vice president? Maybe your dad was with a woman who looked like her?”

  Kyla stood firm. “My uncle was the backup pilot on Air Force Two. I might not have recognized her in any other context, but if my uncle was still alive and fighting, I’m sure he wouldn’t abandon someone as important as her.”

  The captain set the binoculars aside. “Lance Corporal Meechum, can you confirm what she saw?”

  “No, sir. I was communicating with the pilot to ensure we got out of there. However, after spending the better part of the day with Ms. Justice, I believe what she says. She’s a straight shooter, sir.”

  “That’s what I like to hear for my crew. I’ll have to think about what we need to do to find them. We struck a blow against whatever force has taken over the city, but it was all from the Iwo Jima. My boat is still floating blind and without defenses. That’s got to be my priority now.”

  Kyla replied, “Sir, won’t there be other ships coming to the rescue? We have to keep hitting them. Whoever they are.”

  Van Nuys sighed. “The Iwo’s captain gave me some more bad news. General Worthington has ordered every overseas American unit to stay where it is. He doesn’t want to risk losing more people by sending them to the mainland, where they might be subject to a second attack.”

  “Sounds smart,” she thought, until remembering it could doom her uncle.

  “Unfortunately, it means we’re on our own for a little while longer. The Iwo Jima disobeyed the order and came anyway—that’s why I said I might have to send their captain to the brig.” He paused. “Which I’m not going to do, by the way. But two ships running at less than half strength aren’t able to project much power. I sent the Seahawk out on reconnaissance today, and now I know what I needed to know. America is being taken over.”

  Kyla suspected as much.

  “You don’t seem surprised,” the captain remarked.

  She shook her head. “My uncle called me when this first happened. At the outset, I thought it was aliens or something similarly out of this world, but someone was on your ship, trying to take it over. When I saw more of those bad guys out in New York City, I knew they had to be working together. There are strange people landing at the airport over in Newark. That’s what started our whole diversion into New York City. Sir, I would never tell you how to do your job, but if the vice president is alive, it means she’s now the president. You have to save her.”

  “And your uncle,” he said dryly.

  “If possible,” she allowed.

  He shared a look with Meechum, then fixed his eyes on her.

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  San Francisco, CA

  Dwight picked at the turkey sandwiches on the table and grabbed one of the bottled waters to be polite, but then he tried to walk over to the same door where he’d come inside the warehouse. Before he could get there, Jacob came out of nowhere.

  “Dwight! I hope you found the food satisfactory?”

  “We did,” he replied. “I mean, I did.” Poppy wasn’t visible to anyone but him, so he didn’t want to give her away.

  “Well, it’s almost time. The cycles are parked on the far side of the warehouse, but we’re all waiting for the announcement. It should be any minute now.”

  “Great,” he lied. “I’m going to step outside and water the lawn, if you catch my drift?”

  “Eww, gross. No need for that, my friend. We have running water. I’m sure you’re sick of using those buckets for the two-week ride over here, huh? Go, enjoy modern plumbing. It’s all we’re going to have from here on out.”

  Poppy screamed in his ear for him to leave, but he couldn’t with Jacob watching him as he was. If he went into the bathroom, perhaps another opportunity would present itself.

  Jacob walked with him for a short way, but then the other people in the building became excited. It reminded him of how normal people acted when they found out a San Francisco sports team did something incredible, like win the big game. Everyone, no matter what else they were doing, suddenly broke out in cheers. That usually was good for him, as they donated readily to his cause. When the teams lost, donations went way down.

  “It’s starting!” Jacob cried out with excitement. He looked at Dwight. “The bathroom is over there. Meet me by the radio when you get out. Hurry, though, because this is it! He’s going to talk to us, finally!”

  Dwight experienced a sense of being lost the second the man walked away. He was pleased as could be to have a new ensemble to wear around the city, and the free food was already appreciated, but these weirdos reminded him of cult members rather than normals. It made him wonder if they knew what was going on outside. Where did everyone go?

  “Just my luck. The world of normal people disappears, and I’m left with the nutjobs.”

  Poppy reminded him of his own mental health issues.

  “I’m not crazy like them,” he reassured his bird.

  He didn’t go to the bathroom. Instead, he got as close to the small crowd as he dared, while doing his best to avoid Jacob. The radio played a popular song for half a minute, then everyone got pin-drop silent as it ended.

  “Greetings, fellow human beings.” A deep, calm, male voice reso
nated from the speakers inside the warehouse. “I was once known as Dr. Jayden Phillips—a college professor, Nobel-prize-winning physicist, multi-million selling self-help author, industrialist, and, my personal favorite, Time magazine’s person of the year. You, my friends, know me as your leader and spiritual guide through this existence we call life, but today and ever forward I will be called David. The David of Biblical times—the young boy who slayed Goliath with his sling and stone. Our present-era Goliath was America—the country most responsible for Earth’s current ecological disasters. My sling was modern science. My stone was the atom, and even smaller particles of creation. For you, I have wiped the decadent Americans from our world, so we may restore this land to its rightful place as the Garden of Eden.”

  He paused dramatically, and many of the people in the building seemed to lean forward to see what he would say next.

  “I have done the heavy lifting. Now, you must carry the torch across this once-great land. Dip it into the fires of righteousness and set alight all that remains of the people who lived in this land. Then, once you have destroyed every first-world mansion, snuffed out every smoke-belching power plant, and felled every heaven-blocking office tower, this land will be yours to rebuild.”

  Dwight heard the words, but sensed the man was a bullshit artist. He lived on the streets and knew the type well. Hell, he was a bit of a bullshitter himself, though he only did it to make money, not drive people to genocide.

  Strangely, no one else seemed to share his misgivings. They all hugged and cheered at hearing the words of their leader.

  The man went on after another long pause. “To those Americans living in foreign lands, take heed of my words. I say to your hosts: You have one week to kick them out. Throw them to the curb. Be forever free of their imperialist shackles. If you do not, David will throw his next stone at your nation, just as he did to this one.”

  Poppy whispered in his ear.

  “Yes, it looks that way,” Dwight replied. “These people killed all our friends.” As a vagrant living on the streets, he had few friends, but he did have some. The leader of Jacob’s people had up and killed them.

  “My fellow humans. America is now free for the taking. Make sure what rises from the ashes is nothing like what you burn to the ground, or it too shall be consumed by fire.”

  Dwight backpedaled toward the door.

  The guy on the radio said Americans were gone. That answered his question about why everyone’s clothes were still lying all over the streets. These bastards had killed them.

  “Poppy, you can stay if you want. I’m outta here.”

  He slipped out the door and ran down an alley but was turned around after being inside the huge complex. Instead of returning to the street that would take him to the shoreline shipping container, he came around a corner into a busy parking lot. Dozens of motorcycles were lined up in long rows, with attendants wiping down seats and checking oil levels.

  One of the helpers, a woman, waved Dwight over to her.

  “You’re the first one! We heard Mr. Phillips out here. So exciting.” The young woman used a red rag to sweep a bike seat, then motioned for him to hop on. “This one is ready to go. I’ve got the flamethrower tuned like a champ. Just be sure to return to the mothership when you need to reload.”

  Poppy flew right above his head, screaming at him.

  “This isn’t aliens,” he whispered to her.

  The woman heard him. “I’m sorry? What did you say? Aliens?”

  He tried to think on his feet, what wasn’t something he was very good at. “I have a bet with my, hmm, friend, that the Americans think this all was done by aliens. Now we’re going to take this—” He patted the apparatus lashed behind his seat. “—and they’ll see you, I mean, we’re just people.”

  “Mr. Phillips says it doesn’t matter. There’s no one left who can stop us, anyway. That’s why he went on the radio. We did it, man! We’ve taken back all the stolen lands.”

  He laughed a bit too loud, like he was an evil genius like everyone else around him. “So, when you said mothership, you meant—”

  “The fuel truck.” She pointed to a semi-truck hauling a long cylinder trailer. “Each motorcycle team travels with one mothership. Your team leader has explained all this, right?” She leaned on one hip, daring him to say otherwise.

  “Of course. I like to be thorough.” Talk about a lie, he thought. He’d never been thorough about anything in his life. That was why he ended up on the street in the first place. He couldn’t hold a job. Couldn’t stay clean. Never took care of himself.

  But he was familiar with motorcycles.

  Dwight started the engine. “I’m going to take it around the block!”

  The woman gave him an appraising look, then flashed a thumbs-up.

  He almost dropped the beast before he got out of first gear, but he steadied himself and drove off the parking lot.

  He had no idea where to go to find help. Who would he warn that the fires were coming for what was left of the country? If the jackass on the radio was being honest, it wasn’t just San Francisco. It was the whole country. Everyone was dead.

  Somewhere above, Poppy chased him as he rode through the empty city.

  Amarillo, TX

  Brent sat with Trish inside the guard booth. After the shootout, he and his five remaining men came back to the prison, but not after some things changed in their relationship.

  First, they’d raided the trailers next to Trish’s to find clothing that wasn’t prison orange, as well as food and other valuables. Second, they were loaded down with every weapon they could find, including the handguns Curtis’s people had found.

  Brent had no chance of disarming them again, nor did he want to. The guys could have easily killed him and done whatever they wanted with Trish, but they’d stayed on his side. He figured there was no use denying they were all equals. To reflect that, he made it clear they didn’t have to follow him back to the prison complex, as long as they let him and Trish be on their way.

  The men followed him back anyway, and quietly went into their cells without incident. He and Trish went into the guard booth to have a little privacy while he tended to her bruises.

  “Thanks for coming to get me,” she said for the tenth time. “Those guys were absolutely the last people in the world I expected to turn up my street. I was lucky the landline still worked so I could call you. And I was double-lucky you were able to rush to my assistance like I was a helpless woman in need.”

  “It was my fault it all happened. I can’t tell you how happy I am you suffered nothing worse than a few bruises. I might have shot myself if I’d gotten you killed.”

  “Curtis turned out to be a real dick,” she replied dryly.

  He thought of Paul accidentally killing Curtis in the kitchen. It was such a senseless accident.

  “Well, put all that out of your mind. Just sit in here for a few minutes. Here, I’ll put on the radio. The music is shit, because there is only one station left, but at least it’s something.”

  He clicked on the portable radio, expecting to hear the hip-hop station, but some guy was talking. “Holy shit! This might be news! Hey, fellas! Come on over and listen.”

  The men ran out of their cells.

  Brent’s smile rubbed off immediately. It wasn’t news. It sounded more like an evil villain announcing his plans to the world. As the five ex-prisoners arrived, they soon frowned too.

  They listened for a while, until the man sounded like he was wrapping things up.

  “My fellow humans. America is now free for the taking. Make sure what rises from the ashes is nothing like what you burn to the ground, or it too shall be consumed by fire.”

  The station cut into another song, leaving them all in a state of shock.

  “What does it mean, Brent?” Trish finally asked.

  He looked around the room, suddenly feeling a lot better about having five men armed to the teeth guarding the prison. This whole time, he’d been
thinking they were alone in this part of Texas, and maybe an area a lot larger than that. If the guy on the radio was to be believed, all of America was an empty, burning shell, just like Amarillo.

  “It means we know who wiped out everyone in America.”

  His long-dormant military senses kicked in.

  “Kevin, I want you to spend the night up near the front doors. I’ll show you how to lock and unlock them. One of you other guys should spend the night up on the roof. Everyone needs to have radios. If you don’t have plenty of spare shotgun shells, go to the armory and resupply. Tomorrow, I’ll take a team to the local Walmart and get all the guns and ammo we can carry.”

  “You think other prisoners will come back?” she asked.

  It had been his main concern while driving back to the prison, but the man on the radio alerted him to the real threat. An attack had been made on his homeland, and the leader of that effort had just bragged about it to the world.

  “Maybe, but they aren’t who I’m worried about.” He pointed to the radio, then looked out at the men. “Whoever this guy is, he thinks America is his. Now, I don’t know about you all, but I didn’t spend four years risking my biscuits in the rice paddies of Vietnam just so some techno-douchebag can come in and take over. He might never make it to Amarillo, US of A, but if he does, we’re going to fuck him up.”

  He stood up. “People, welcome to the rebel cause.”

  CHAPTER 29

  Queens, NY

  Ted and Emily’s day ended almost the same way it began: inside a stranger’s home.

  “Of all the places you could have chosen, you picked the one that smells like mothballs and Bengay. I think the owner was both a neat freak and extremely old.” Emily patted next to her on the floral-pattern couch. It sat facing a wall with a flat-panel television. The set was on, but it only showed multicolored bars indicating a lost signal.

  “Hey, don’t knock the old-man crème. I need some myself. My legs are Jell-O right now.” He’d made the decision to keep going on foot, at least until they were a few miles outside the main part of the city. They’d had to duck into cover numerous times as they crossed through Queens and headed east toward the less developed part of Long Island. Planes streaked back and forth across the sky, including those damned Predator search drones. He couldn’t take a chance they’d be spotted in a car in the confusing maze of streets.