The New World

by Toby Neighbors

  Chapter 31

  Daniel had no idea what time he had actually fallen asleep, but the sun was not very high when he awoke. He moved quickly out to the balcony, but there was still no sign of his pilot. He hurried downstairs and out onto the street. There was no movement, no sounds, no sign of life anywhere. He jogged down toward the bags of food and grabbed a bag of beef jerky. He normally didn’t eat the prepackaged, cured meat, but he was starving for something besides candy and the meat, though hard to chew, was a delightful change. He cautiously entered the tall offices where he had left his companion. There was no sound of the beast that had chased them the night before, but the trail of carnage it had left was easy to find.

  When Daniel arrived at the stairwell he was nervous. The metal doorjamb had been completely torn down. There was drywall and bits of twisted metal everywhere. Daniel looked up the stairs and saw that the metal handrails were bent and twisted, but still no sign of the creature. He moved up the stairs, watching for any signs of the beast, but there was nothing. At the fourth floor landing, the door was once again torn down. Daniel’s heart sank, the beast must have followed their scent. He wondered how much of the pilot he would find, merely bits and pieces, or a half-mutilated corpse?

  The hallway, which Daniel could see thanks to the sunlight streaming in the office windows, was smashed and torn. He followed the trail down toward the emergency exit, but before he got there, the beast had turned down another corridor. Daniel continued to track the carnage and found himself in another stairwell, this one was damaged in both directions. He must have kept running, Daniel thought, first upstairs and then back down. Daniel started down the stairs; the third floor doorway was broken down, but he continued to follow the twisted metal railing. At the second floor landing the doorway was also torn down, but the stairs that continued down to the ground floor were intact. Daniel entered the second floor and had to keep himself from yelling for his friend. If the beast was still there, he did not want to wake it.

  He followed the trail of destruction down one hallway and finally into another. At last he came to a metal door, one with a digital keypad. The door was dented, but stood firm. The drywall around the door was torn, but beneath the finished wall was concrete. It must have been an emergency shelter or something. Daniel tried the handle, which, oddly enough, seemed untouched, but the door was locked. He jiggled it, but nothing happened. If his pilot was in this room he would be safe, but he might not be able to get out. Daniel had no real hope of getting in unless he could shoot through the lock. The trail of destruction he had been following continued, but Daniel felt he had to make sure his friend wasn’t in the room.

  He started to call the man’s name but realized he couldn’t remember it. It was odd, Daniel thought, he knew the man’s name, of course; it was Bill or Charlie or…actually, he wasn’t sure what the man’s name was. He realized that for three days he had thought of his pilot simply as the pilot, and not as a person. He felt guilty, but pushed the feelings aside. He couldn’t change the past and the pilot had not been much on small talk. He’d had no real need to call the man by name, but he would remedy that, if the pilot had survived.

  He felt a little foolish as he knocked on the door and called out softly, “Hey man, you in there?”

  He heard nothing, so he knocked a little louder and tried again, “Hey man, anybody in there?”

  Silence again and Daniel sighed. He decided if he found nothing following the beast’s trail then he would come back and try again, but just as he was about to walk away, he heard a shuffling movement. It wasn’t from inside the room, though; it was from just around the corner. He raised his rifle, but the thought crossed his mind that the sound he heard might be the pilot. He was still pretty jumpy, so he decided to keep his index finger extended, rather than on the trigger, just in case. He didn’t want to shoot his pilot by accident.

  There was another sound, then, almost faster than Daniel could register what was happening, the creature scrambled around the corner and lunged at him. Daniel’s finger took a moment to find the trigger, but just before the beast reached him, as it was opening its jaws to devour him, he fired. The report of the rifle was lost in the sound of the beast’s snarl, but the bullets tore through their target in a gory display of greenish slime and bursting flesh. Bits of shaggy hide flew through the air. The long alien teeth shattered in the hail of bullets. Both eyes exploded as the beast’s head flew up and back. The bullets cut gaping holes in the creature’s neck and body. Daniel was scrambling back and still firing even as the beast fell, its momentum carrying it forward even thought the impact of the bullets had thrown its head back. Bullets ricocheted off the concrete walls to Daniel’s left and punched holes in the wall to his right. Finally, the terror stopped as the creature fell dead at his feet.

  “Aaaaahhhh!” Daniel screamed, his heart pounding in his chest like a jackhammer. He fell to his knees and gasped for breath.

  “Mr. President,” came a timid voice after a few moments of silence had passed. “Mr. President, is that you? Are you okay?”

  Daniel stood, he wanted to laugh and he wanted to cry. He wondered briefly what would have happened if he had walked around that corner, where the creature was lying in wait. He didn’t want to think about that, right now he just wanted to get home.

  “Yeah, it’s me,” Daniel said. “You can come out now, the creature’s dead.”

  “Are you sure?” came the voice of his pilot through the metal door.

  “Yes, absolutely sure.”

  The metal door opened slowly, squeaking on its hinges. The pilot looked scared and extremely tired. His eyes were wide as he looked at the creature, whose tail and hind legs were twitching.

  “It’s moving,” the pilot said in a shaky voice.

  “That’s just the reflexes, trust me,” Daniel assured him. “Let’s get out of here.”

  He helped the pilot over the creature’s body, which had fallen in front of the metal door. If the door had opened out into the hallway, they might never have gotten him out. They returned to the hotel, where Daniel reloaded the rifle and took a shower. The pilot, starving and exhausted, ate two cans of cold soup then fell asleep on one of the beds. Around noon, Daniel woke the man and told him they needed to leave. The pilot showered, changed into fresh clothes, and ate some dehydrated fruit and crackers. Then they took off, hoping to make it back to Washington before nightfall.

  They missed the capital on their first attempt and followed the coast north until they found the Potomac River. They followed the river into Washington and arrived shortly before dark. The pilot set the helicopter down on the lawn of the White House, and Daniel grabbed his bag and shook the man’s hand before bounding out. He started to ask the pilot his name, but he was too embarrassed to not know it after all they had been through.

  He climbed out and onto the lawn with a sense of relief. He had seen to his parents, discovered that there was at least good evidence that aliens were involved in the world wide plague, survived multiple attacks by alien creatures, and returned to Washington. In that sense, his trip had been a success. He could not say that he was refreshed and ready for the challenges of leadership again, but he had new information, new problems to tackle. So while he may not have been rested, he was not about to waste any time preparing his people for what lay ahead.

  Scott met him as he walked into the West Wing from the Rose Garden.

  “You’re back,” he said, smiling broadly. “How was your vacation?”

  “Eye opening and dangerous,” Daniel said. “Convene the council, immediately.”

  Scott stood staring, his mouth hanging open. He didn’t move and Daniel looked at him impatiently. “I’m fine, Scott, and no, it wasn’t the pilot, he did a superb job. But believe it or not, I saw aliens land in Kansas and we were attacked by alien creatures and so it wasn’t like going to Disney World. Would you please convene the council?”

  “I’m sorry,” Scott said, his voice sounded hollow and weak. “I’l
l get them right now, sir.”

  Daniel walked into his secretary’s office, but she wasn’t there. He went into the Cabinet Room and turned on the audio visual equipment. It wasn’t long before people began arriving, and Daniel hurried back to the Oval Office. He wanted to tell his story once, and he didn’t want people making small talk about his vacation like he had gone to the beach for a week. Scott found him a short time later and told him everyone was assembled in the Cabinet Room.

  Daniel walked briskly into the room. He was wearing a warm-up suit and athletic shoes. His hair stood out in odd directions from the headset he had worn all afternoon and there were dark circles under his eyes from lack of sleep. But while he might have looked less than presidential, his demeanor was all business.

  “People,” he began, “the questions we’ve all been asking for months now are answered. The spheres were indeed extraterrestrial. I have footage that was filmed over the Great Plains in western Kansas.”

  He lifted a remote and hit the play button. The image appeared on a large white screen that was on the far wall from Daniel. It showed the rust colored animals he had seen being herded from the spaceship. He told them the story, and the council hung on every word. He also explained about the shaggy, wolfish creatures that had attacked them. When he finished, the council members sat silently, unsure what to say or do. Daniel waited, he knew it would only take one question, then the dam would burst and everyone would have questions long into the night.

  Finally, Jason spoke up, “What do you suggest we do?”

  “First thing we have to do is set a watch against these creatures,” Daniel began. “They are vicious and powerfully strong. They move mostly at night and we need to let people know about them.”

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” the maintenance rep asked. “I mean, it could start a panic.”

  “No, it won’t,” Daniel said firmly. “We are living in a world that is not the same as before. We are survivors and we can handle what is coming, if we stick together. We are not about to start hiding things from people. The second thing we need to do is get the word out about what has really happened to everyone.”

  “Do you think that is why the bodies aren’t decaying?” asked the clean-up rep. “Maybe they put some kind of preserving agent in their poison gas so that their dogs or whatever those things are would have something to eat.”

  “More likely the creatures are a natural part of their homeworld’s ecosystem,” said the representative from the research team. “They are introducing key species just the way the explorers did when they came to America from Europe.”

  “Listen,” said Daniel, taking control of the meeting again. “What those creatures are, and what they’ll do, is really secondary to what we need to do. There are other communities around us that need the information as much as we do. So the third step is to get the word out. We need to send out representatives to share this information and encourage groups to band together.”

  “We’ve got communications going,” said the maintenance rep. “We managed to get long range broadcasting going and we’ve been sending out a recorded info message on all major channels.”

  “What does the message say?” Daniel asked.

  “It is basically the story of New Washington,” said Scott. “We thought we needed to let people know what we’re trying to do and encourage them to join us.”

  “And we’ve been getting some strange feedback,” said the maintenance rep. “We tried filtering it out, but it kept changing signals. We thought it was probably just a military thing functioning automatically.”

  “Do you think it’s the aliens?” asked one of the other council members.

  “Let’s not jump to conclusions,” Daniel said. He turned to the research team representative and said, “There’s no reason to keep sending your team to the Pentagon. Focus your efforts on this signal until we have something more tangible to work on.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said.

  “Now, I know there is a lot to be done,” Daniel said. “But before we run off to tell everyone we know, let’s make sure we are all on the same page. First, we still have jobs to do. Nothing stops, people don’t stop working, this is not the end of the world. We have been attacked, yes, no one could deny that. We don’t know for certain that the attack was malicious.”

  People started to object, but Daniel spoke more loudly, “They could have been trying to kill potentially harmful viruses or some other thing. So don’t get carried away. It is obvious that they have plans for Earth, but let’s not encourage mad speculation. We have a plan, it may not be much, but we do have a plan and we will work the plan. Encourage your people to focus on the plan and we’ll help everyone to adjust. Now, I know that everyone is naturally curious and a little scared. Let’s remember that no contact has yet been made with the aliens and therefore we have no reason to believe that they intend harm.”

  “You mean besides the thousands of dead bodies all over the world,” said the clean-up rep.

  “We still don’t know that was their intention,” Daniel argued.

  “Come on,” said the big man in charge of clearing streets and disposing of the bodies around the city. “Think about it, people. How did we treat the natives living here when we arrived? We pushed them off their land and killed them. We assigned them to the poorest regions and took all the best land for ourselves. I mean, history is full of this same story, the stronger people wipe out the weaker ones and make slaves of the survivors.”

  “That has been true of our history,” said the research team rep. “But we are talking about a highly advanced civilization. We are rising above such behavior in our modern world, perhaps they have already put such practices behind them.”

  “I say the bodies I find everyday are evidence enough that they haven’t.”

  “Let’s not argue, people,” Daniel said. “We’re all tired, all taken off guard by this news. But we can deal with it. Let’s meet again in the morning with people from the media group so that we can outline what information needs to be shared with the community.

  “And people, please be discrete in what you share tonight and with whom you share it. Rumors are going to be flying soon; I would rather we didn’t encourage them.”

  The council nodded and murmured as they gathered their things and left. Scott and Jason came up to Daniel and spoke quietly.

  “Can we meet with you in the residence wing?” they asked.

  “Sure,” Daniel said.

  They hurried away, and Daniel made his way to the small kitchen in his residence. He found fresh baked bread and a plate in the refrigerator that had his name on it with the date. It was from the kitchen staff, they had prepared it when they heard he was back and left it for him. It was baked chicken, and Daniel wondered briefly how long it would take to run out of the frozen foods he loved eating. But there was no time for that now, he carried the plate of cold chicken into the living room and sat down. Soon Jason arrived with Dakota and then Scott with Amy. Daniel told them his story again and even showed the girls the video. They talked late into the night about the possibilities of what it could mean, but there were no answers, only speculation and more questions.

  Later, after the couples had gone back to their rooms, Daniel lay in his bed, wishing he weren’t alone. He wondered if he should look for someone to replace Lana, but just the thought of it made tears well up in his eyes. He could never replace her, he thought to himself. She wasn’t a puppy who had gotten lost and could be replaced with another. She was attached to his soul and he needed her.

  Suddenly he was being shaken awake. It was a person he didn’t know, and he recoiled from the strange person in his bedroom. He must have fallen asleep in his clothes, on top of the covers, because he was scrambling away from the person without being encumbered by the sheets.

  “Mr. President,” the man was saying. “You have to come to the communications center right now, sir. We’re getting a signal.”

  “A signal?”
Daniel’s thoughts were still fuzzy and confused from sleep.

  “Yes, sir. They want to speak with you, sir.”

  “Who?” Daniel asked, still trying to shake sleep’s hold on his faculties.

  “The aliens. It’s the aliens, Mr. President.”

  Chapter 32

  Daniel managed to get to his feet. His mind was reeling and he felt as if he were dreaming. He had trouble keeping his eyes open, and the room seemed to be tilting and sliding around him. He took hold of the footboard of his large bed to steady himself.

  “Wake up Jason and Scott,” Daniel said. “Have them meet me here immediately.”

  The man gave a peppy, “Yes, sir!” then hurried off. Daniel staggered into his bathroom and splashed water on his face and neck. He felt grimy, and so tired he almost wanted to cry. He took a towel and dried himself off and walked back into the bedroom. Jason looked fresh and ready, Scott looked more like Daniel felt, red eyed and weary.