Storm

FIFTEEN

We couldn’t leave Mr. Hartman lying in that bed.

After I broke the news to the others, it took some convincing and discussion, but we eventually decided to bring him to the hospital morgue. Olivia didn’t want any part of the process, no big surprise. Neither did Kent, but I shamed him into it. Jon found a gurney, and we transferred the already stiffening body onto it. I had to give Jon credit. He took the lead, and why not? He was the only one of us who had experience transporting dead bodies.

It was an eerie procession to the morgue as we moved behind the light of our headlamps. Olivia eventually joined us, but only to hold one of the camp lanterns. She always came through when I least expected her to.

We found the morgue and were all relieved to see that there were no bodies lying on any of the tables. After several weeks and no air conditioning, that would have been gruesome.

“We should put him in there,” I said, pointing to the wall of stainless steel refrigerator doors, where the morgue visitors were kept.

“Why?” Kent asked. “There’s no power.”

“To give him a little dignity,” I said. “We can’t just leave him out here in the open.”

“Hate to break this to you,” Kent said. “He doesn’t care.”

“But I do!” I shouted at him.

“Whoa, easy,” he said, holding up his hands. “You’ll wake the dead.”

“Not funny,” Tori admonished.

“Yeah, it is, a little,” Kent said with a snicker.

“Look,” I said, trying to control my emotions. “I know it won’t make any difference to the guy if we leave him in the open or put him in the drawer or bring him to a cemetery and bury him in a giant mausoleum. Nobody will know or care either way, but there are some things you have to do because they’re right. Every time we take something from a store or drive that Explorer or siphon gas or take food, it makes me feel like we’re letting a little bit of civilization slip away.”

“So you want to pay for what we take?” Kent said, scoffing. “No, I’m saying that I’m afraid we’re going to forget who we are. Canned food is going to run out. Gas is going to go dry. We may have trouble finding clean water or a warm place to sleep. How are we going to handle that? If we treat Mr. Hartman like he doesn’t matter, what’s next? Do we start fighting over who gets the biggest piece of fruit? Or ignore somebody who’s hurt? Or not give water to a dying man? It scares me to think that we may be headed toward a world run by jungle rules. Survival of the fittest.”

Nobody argued. They kept their eyes on the ground.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “But I don’t want to go there.”

I hoped their silence meant they were all imagining what it might be like if the rules of civilization were thrown out. At least Kent didn’t crack any more bad jokes.

Tori walked to the wall of freezers, hesitated before choosing one, then reached up and pulled open a door.

I held my breath, fearing that the cooler might already be occupied.

It wasn’t.

Tori pulled out the long drawer, and without another word we all worked together to move Mr. Hartman. Even Olivia. We lifted him up to find he was ridiculously light. After gently placing him in the drawer, feet first, Jon slid him inside and closed the door. It locked shut with a loud click that sounded very final.

“Do we say anything?” Jon asked.

We shared looks. What could be said? We didn’t even know the guy.

I faced the others and said, “Let’s just say we hope he’s in a better place and we’re glad that he’s not suffering anymore. And we thank him for trying to help us out. I guess it says something about somebody when the last thing they do in life is to offer help to complete strangers.”

I didn’t mention the rings. I’m not sure why. I guess I was afraid that Kent would somehow cheapen it by saying how dumb it was for me to have taken them.

“Amen,” Olivia said.

She was crying.

We stood there for a few seconds, offering a moment of silence.

“That’s it,” Kent declared. “I’m outta here.”

It was a disrespectful way to end the moment, but I wanted to get out of there too. We all hurried out of the morgue, up the stairs, and went directly to the outside doors of the emergency room in search of morning light.

I blew through the doors first, stepped into the warmth of the sun, and took a deep breath of fresh air. I needed it. Badly.

It was now full-on autumn. The sky was a brilliant blue, and the trees had become a dazzling rainbow of reds, yellows, and oranges. It was my favorite time of year. It made me think of Halloween and Patriots games and Thanksgiving dinner… and school. Would I ever set foot in a school classroom again?

“So what’s the verdict?” Tori asked, all business. “Are we going to Nevada or what?”

“I say yes,” Kent chimed in quickly. “If there’s a chance we can punch back at these bastards, I say we take it.”

“Do you really believe there’s an army of survivors out there that can stand up to SYLO?” I asked. “Or the Air Force? Or both?”

“I have no idea,” Kent replied quickly. “But I hope there is. There are two sides to this war, and I don’t want to be on either one of them. Who else can we trust but people like us? At some point, one of those armies is going to win and take over, and I don’t want to be at their mercy. We’ve gotta build some power of our own, and that radio broadcast offers the only hope of doing that.”

“Amen,” Tori said. “I couldn’t have said it better. What about you, Jon?”

Jon was reluctant to answer, but we all stood there staring at him, so he had no choice.

“I’m sorry, Tori,” he began. “I know I wanted to go before, but I’m not so sure we can trust that broadcast. Not after what happened at Faneuil Hall. It sounds too similar, like we’re being lured in. Even if it’s legit, I don’t see how a bunch of civilians can fight those armies. Either of them. Like it or not, we’re going to be at the mercy of the winning side… unless we die fighting them. Now we’ve got another option. I say we go to Kentucky and see if there really is a safe haven. That’s my vote. Kentucky.”

Tori skipped Olivia and looked at me.

“What do you say, Tucker?”

“What about me?” Olivia asked. “Don’t I get a say?”

“We already know what you want to do,” Tori replied. “Florida, right?”

Whoa. Had Olivia told Tori about trying to convince me to go to Florida? Had she painted the idyllic picture of lolling in the warm sand and sleeping under palm trees the way she had with me? I mentally kicked myself for thinking that way. This isn’t about you, Tucker. Get over yourself.

“Yes, Florida,” Olivia said with confidence. “I agree with Jon. We aren’t soldiers. We can’t fight these armies. Winter is coming on fast. I say we go to Florida, where it’s warm and safe, and wait until it’s over… but I’m not going by myself.”

“Got it,” Tori declared. “You all know where I stand. Two say we go to Nevada, one says we go to Kentucky, and one says we go to Disney World. It comes down to you, Tucker.”

Once again, the group was looking to me to make a decision. No matter what I said I’d have two people angry at me.

“I agree with all of you,” I responded.

“That’s not a vote,” Kent said quickly.

“Just listen. I’m not so sure about this rebel survivor thing. Maybe it’s real, maybe not. Like Kent said, I hope it’s true. At least it means we’d have a chance at fighting back and taking control of our own futures.”

“Thank you!” Kent exclaimed.

“Good,” Tori declared. “We go to Nevada.”

“Through Kentucky,” I added quickly.

“What?” Tori snapped.

“You’re kidding me,” Kent complained. “Why?”

“To learn,” I said. “If what Mr. Hartman said was true, there are people there who knew this was coming. We might be able to learn something we can bring with us to Nevada. That kind of information could make us valuable to the survivors gathering there… assuming they exist.”

Tori stared me square in the eye. I was afraid she was going to tee off on me for not supporting her again.

I shrugged and said, “Why not? It’s on the way.”

She actually gave me a small smile and said, “That’s pretty smart.”

“I have my moments,” I said, totally relieved.

Olivia said, “What if we find this safe place in Kentucky and some of us want to stay?”

“Then stay,” I replied. “I hope we stick together, but we’ve all gotta do what we’ve gotta do.”

I looked to each person in turn, waiting for their response.

The first one to react was Kent. He walked past me, headed for the emergency room door.

“Everybody get your stuff,” he said. “We’re outta here.”

“I still want to go to Florida,” Olivia said with a pout.

It was as simple as that. Minutes later we were back on the road and headed south.

We used the atlas to plot a route that would take us south through Connecticut, past New York City, and into northern New Jersey. The route then headed west: We would drive the length of Pennsylvania and on into Ohio. Once through Ohio, we’d head south again and into Kentucky. Our goal was to get to the airport in Louisville, just as Mr. Hartman suggested.

From there it was anybody’s guess as to what we would do.

We planned the route to skirt major cities, figuring that if there was any military activity it would more likely be in populated areas. Or areas that used to be populated.

We drove very close by the town where I had lived before moving to Pemberwick Island: Greenwich, Connecticut. Part of me wanted to swing by my old house to get one last look, but I knew it would be more painful than heartwarming. I had great memories of living there. I didn’t want them spoiled by facing the reality that the kids I had gone to Glenville School with were probably all dead.

We took turns driving. I had zero experience driving on the interstate, but it wasn’t like I had to deal with traffic. The challenge was to stay alert and avoid the occasional empty car in the middle of the road.

With each passing mile, we saw more confirmation of the extent of the attack. I had been holding out hope that at some point we would find a town that hadn’t been hit and that would mark the outer edge of the Air Force’s deadly reach. It never happened. Allentown, Harrisburg, Zanesville. We passed dozens of towns, large and small. Each one was as desolate and empty as the last.

We stopped several times to siphon gas, usually picking larger SUVs and the occasional Hummer for their monstrous gas tanks. It wasn’t worth stopping for smaller cars or hybrids. We made a game out of it to keep things interesting. If you picked a car with more than ten gallons, you could skip your next turn at siphoning. It was dumb, but it helped pass the time. It wasn’t like we could listen to the radio, and nobody was in the mood to sing camp songs.

Halfway through Pennsylvania we stopped in a small town called Washington to find food. There was a Shop ’n Save grocery store that had everything. We split up and agreed to meet back at the car in twenty minutes.

I went for the produce section. Big mistake. The fruits and vegetables had long since gone bad. The sweet smell of rotting fruit made me gag. I skipped the breads, figuring they’d be stale. I went nowhere near the meat section, or the frozen food.

What it came down to, and where we all ended up, was the cereal aisle. We chowed down on our favorites. Mine was Toasted Chex. I also went through a bunch of cereal bars. After that I swung by the snack section and cracked open a can of mixed nuts. I figured they might be somewhat healthy. I then washed it all down with some warm Gatorade. It wasn’t exactly a delicious, balanced meal, but it filled me up.

With every package I opened, I took note of something that usually meant nothing to me: expiration dates. It wasn’t that I was worried about the food having gone bad, it was more about the grim reality that in spite of what seemed like an endless food supply, it wasn’t going to last forever. The expiration date was a reminder that life, and our survival challenges, would only get more difficult.

Before leaving, I went to the pharmacy, grabbed a toothbrush and toothpaste, and brushed my teeth. I kept the toothbrush and the Speed Stick deodorant that I used for a couple of quick swabs under the arms. On the way out, I picked up a few small bags of nuts for the road.

Kent was waiting at the front door, deep into a bag of Oreos.

“I hope you ate something better than that,” I said.

“Yeah,” he replied. “I polished off a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos. That’s got corn in it, right?”

I didn’t feel like getting into a discussion on the importance of eating healthy, so I just smiled and nodded.

Tori arrived with a small basket loaded with vitamins.

“I forgot to get vitamins in Springfield,” she said. “We’ve gotta be good about taking them every day.”

“What are you?” Kent asked. “My mother?”

“Do what you want,” she said. “But don’t blame me if you start feeling like crap because you’re eating only sugar and salt.”

She stuck a bottle of multivitamins in his jacket and headed for the car.

Kent said, “I think she’s got a thing for me. Should I go after that?”

All I could do was laugh and walk away, but the question bothered me. Was he right? Did Tori have a thing for Kent? She was really upset with him when he tried to kiss her at Faneuil Hall, but things had changed since then. She definitely didn’t want anything to do with me anymore, not after the shower incident. But I wanted her to trust me again. Did Kent’s question bother me because I didn’t want drama added to an already difficult situation?

Or was I jealous?

We piled back into the Explorer and drove for another few hours. By five o’clock the sun was sinking low.

“It’ll be dark soon,” I announced. “We should find a place to sleep.”

None of us wanted to be out and about at night. We hadn’t seen a single black plane since Boston, but the threat was always there. It wasn’t worth taking the chance. Besides, we’d been driving for twelve hours straight.

We found another hospital outside of Columbus, Ohio. After holing up twice in hospitals, we knew the routine. We found a big, modern medical center called Mount Carmel East that was close to the interstate. Without saying a word, we parked in front of the emergency entrance, trudged inside with our bags, and made ourselves at home.

Jon went straight for the radio.

Olivia made Kent search the place to make sure there weren’t any patients who might scare her.

Tori went for the kitchen to find dinner.

It was a practiced routine, and one I feared we’d be repeating again and again. The only person who did something a little different was me. I sat down with the atlas to plan our route to Kentucky and to look for anything that might give us a hint as to where a safe haven might be.

I took out the folded map of the state and spread it out on a counter, looking for… I didn’t know what. It wasn’t like there was going to be a big signing saying: “Safe Haven.”

“It’s not about revenge for me,” Tori said as she put a plate piled high with corn and tuna fish in front of me.

I hadn’t questioned her, but she obviously wanted me to know where her head was.

“It isn’t?” I asked. “You sure sound like you want somebody to pay for your father’s death.”

She sat down with her own plate of food, and we ate.

“I do,” she said. “But that’s not why I want to go to Nevada.”

“You mean you don’t want to fight for all that’s right and noble and retake the country?” I said this with a smile, hoping she realized I was overstating things.

She smiled back.

I was happy that we were being civil.

“That would be good too,” she said. “But I’m not crazy. The chance that a bunch of ordinary people can stand up to either of those armies is, well…”

She didn’t have to finish the sentence.

“So then why do you want to go there so badly?” I asked.

Tori sighed. “Because I don’t know what else to do. I can’t just sit around and wait for someone to tell us where the world is headed.”

“I wouldn’t worry about finding things to do. We’ll be pretty busy just trying to stay alive.”

“That’s not enough,” she argued with passion. “We didn’t ask for this. We had no say. Nobody voted on whether SYLO should be allowed to lead us to Armageddon or if the Air Force needed to fight them to save the world. If we just shrug and say, ‘Oh well, let’s make the best of it,’ then we’re allowing ourselves to remain victims. We didn’t have a say before. Now we do.”

We let that sit there for a while as we ate. I was happy that Tori was opening up to me. It wasn’t something she did very often. Or ever. Maybe we were becoming friends again.

She said, “I’m telling you this because I want you to know that even if we find some incredible Eden in Kentucky, I’m not staying. I won’t blame you if you decided to, and I’d be shocked if Jon and Olivia didn’t. Kent says he wants to fight, but he’s selfish. If we find a place that’s sweet enough, he’ll stay. But I won’t.”

“I’ll be honest with you, Tori,” I said. “I don’t know what I’ll do. I hear what you’re saying. I don’t like being a victim. But I don’t want to be stupid either.”

“That’s why I won’t blame you if you stay.”

“I’ll tell you something else,” I said. “It’s good to want to fight for control of our lives. I’m all for that. But that’s not where my head is.”

“I get it. You’d want to stay in Kentucky,” she said, obviously disappointed.

“No, I want something else.”

“What else is there?”

I hesitated a moment before answering. I didn’t want to use the words lightly.

“You may not want revenge,” I said. “But I do.”

Tori’s face dropped. She hadn’t expected that.

“I’m angry,” I said. “My best friend was murdered, my life was taken from me, and my parents are part of the problem. Oh, and a few billion people were wiped out. Let’s not forget that.”

“So you want to join the survivors and fight?” she asked.

“Not necessarily. You’ve seen what we’re up against. I’m not suicidal.”

“So then what do you want?” she asked, confused.

“I don’t know yet. I’m going to keep my options open.”

Tori nodded thoughtfully. “I get it, but like you said, we don’t want to be stupid. Acting out of anger could be a mistake.”

“I’ll try to remember that.”

“One step at a time, right?” she said with a smile.

“That’s my new motto.”

“Do me one favor?” she asked.

“What?”

“Before you do anything, tell me?”

“Sure.”

She gave me a quick smile and left me alone.

I wondered if she realized that I had just lied to her.

After eating I went looking for Jon. He disappeared soon after we arrived, and I wanted to know if he got the radio working. I went right to the office of the emergency room, figuring that if there were a radio, it would be near there. Sure enough, there was a closed door behind the reception desk, much like the other hospitals where we stayed. Better still, I heard Jon’s voice coming from inside.

My hopes jumped. Not only had he found a working radio, he was talking to somebody! He’d made contact. Was he talking to the survivors? I went right for the door and yanked it open…

…but the room was dark. Jon sat at a desk that held a radio, but the screens were blank. No power lights were lit. For a second I thought that I had somehow messed things up by opening the door, but that didn’t make sense.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“I couldn’t power it up,” Jon said. His voice cracked, and he appeared nervous. “Must be the batteries. I’ve tried everything, but it’s no good. I… I’m sorry. I did my best.”

He was shaken by the fact that he had failed. Jon had a pretty high opinion of himself. Guys like that didn’t like to be proven fallible.

“It’s okay, not your fault,” I assured him. “Wait, who were you talking to?”

“You heard me?” he said, sounding embarrassed.

“Yeah, I thought you had made contact with someone.”

“No, I was just talking to myself. I do that when I get frustrated. I have these debates with myself. You know, I take both sides of an issue and hope that one side can shake some ideas loose from the other. Most times I don’t even realize that I’m doing it. I know, stupid.”

“No, it isn’t.”

Yes, it was.

“Well, it didn’t work this time,” he said, sounding defeated. “I’m stumped. Sorry, Tucker, I let you down again.”

“No, you didn’t. If it weren’t for you, we never would have heard the broadcast in the first place. Go get something to eat. We’ll try another radio somewhere else.”

He jumped up quickly and hurried past me out of the room as if it bothered him to be near the scene of his failure. Jon was an odd guy. He was totally arrogant yet at the same time lacked self-confidence. I don’t know why I tried to make him feel better about failing with the radio. That meant less to me than the fact he had ratted us out to the enemy back at Faneuil Hall. I was glad to have him with us, but at the same time I didn’t feel as though I could rely on him if things got hairy.

I didn’t really mind that he couldn’t get the radio working either. I didn’t want to hear that broadcast again. It would just spin the wheels in my head even faster. I had the distinct feeling that tomorrow would be a long day. It was more important to get some sleep, so I closed the door on the useless radio room and found a bed to sack out on.

We all woke early because the emergency room had windows that let in the morning sun. We ate the rest of the canned food that Tori had found, washed up, and headed for the Explorer. It was a brisk morning. I could see my breath. Winter was on the way.

Olivia slid up to me as we walked to the car and whispered, “I’ll bet it’s about eighty-five degrees in the Florida Keys right now.”

I ignored her.

Kent took the wheel, and I rode shotgun since I had mapped out our route to the Louisville Airport. The drive was uneventful. Our gas tank was full, and so were our bellies. There was nothing to do but drive and stare at the empty cars along the way.

We passed south of Cincinnati and crossed a bridge that spanned the Ohio River. When we hit the far side, we were in Kentucky and about a hundred miles from the Louisville airport.

“So here we are,” Kent said. “What are we supposed to be looking for?”

I wished I had a good answer to that.

“Let’s get to the airport,” I said. “Mr. Hartman said that’s where he would have flown to meet his son. Hopefully the place is close to there.”

“I think we’re wasting our time,” Kent said. “But whatever.”

Driving through Kentucky wasn’t any different than driving through Connecticut or Pennsylvania. I don’t know what I expected to see. There wasn’t going to be some big neon sign reading: “Safe Haven—Next Exit.” An hour and a half later, we arrived at the Louisville International Airport, not knowing any more than when we had entered the state.

Kent pulled to the side of the interstate, turned off the engine, and looked at me expectantly.

“Well, Rook,” he said. “We can’t search the entire state. So come up with something or we’re on our way to Nevada.”

I opened the atlas and gazed at the page that had the full color map of Kentucky… for the five hundredth time. I felt the heat of everybody’s eyes on me.

“There’s a lot of forested land,” I said. “A big camp could have been built most anywhere.”

“‘Most anywhere’ doesn’t cut it,” Kent pointed out. “It’s a big state.”

“Whatever this place is, it has to be fairly close to this airport, or else Mr. Hartman would have flown into another airport.”

“Where’s the next closest big airport?” Jon asked.

I referred to the large-scale Midwest map.

“Looks like we’re more or less centered between Saint Louis, Cincinnati, and Nashville. Cincinnati’s the closest, maybe a hundred miles north of here. The others look to be a couple of hundred miles away to the east and the south.”

Tori said, “So we’re looking for a needle in a haystack the size of the Bermuda Triangle.”

Our quest to find Mr. Hartman’s safe haven was suddenly looking bleak.

“There’s another possibility,” Kent offered.

“What’s that?” I asked hopefully. I was willing to listen to anything at that point.

“The old fart could have been hallucinating.”

“Kent!” Olivia scolded. “The man is dead!”

“Yeah, and we’re stuck here picking our noses because he sent us on a wild goose chase. I say we get the hell out of here and—”

“Wait!” Jon exclaimed. “I hear something.”

If there was one thing we were getting used to, it was the eerie silence of a world that was no longer functioning. The only sound we had heard for a few days was the chirping of birds and the Explorer’s engine.

“I hear it,” Tori said. “I’ve heard that sound before.”

We didn’t have to wait long to know what it was. They came up on us fast… and they were loud. Four gray jet fighters screamed by overhead. They were so low that we could see the numbers under their wings. The sound was deafening. They disappeared as quickly as they appeared, thankfully, and the ear-shattering noise lessened.

“Their gear was down,” Jon said. “They’re landing.”

“Maybe they’re looking for the safe place too,” Kent said sarcastically.

That gave me an idea. I opened the big foldout map of Kentucky and grabbed the compass from my hoodie.

“They’re headed southwest,” I announced. “Tori, you’re the navigator here. Can you figure out the exact path they’re on?”

Tori leaned over the seat, grabbed the map, and spread it out on her lap.

“Get me a pencil,” she ordered.

I dug into the glove compartment and came out with a dull number two.

Tori looked around to get her bearings, placed the compass on the map, and twisted the bezel.

“They were headed roughly two hundred forty degrees,” she declared.

She drew a straight line, using the edge of the compass’s base. She used our position as the center and extended the line to the southwest and the northeast.

“That’s where they came from, and that’s where they’re headed,” she said and handed the map back to me.

The map had a lot of detail. It actually looked like a photo taken from a satellite. I followed the line southwest through what looked like a populated area that gave way to densely forested land. I kept following the line, looking for anything that might give us a clue as to where those planes might be going…

…and saw it.

I held my breath and took a closer look, making sure I wasn’t mistaken.

“This is the exact heading they were on?” I asked.

“Unless they made a sudden turn before landing,” Tori pointed out.

“What?” Kent asked.

“The line goes right over a military base with a very big airfield,” I announced. “I’ll bet anything that’s our spot.”

“How can you be so sure?” Jon asked.

I held up the map and pointed to the base.

“We’re looking for a safe place, right? This is probably one of the safest, most secure places in the country.”

“Seriously?” Olivia asked. “What is it?”

“One of the biggest bank vaults in the world,” I replied. “Fort Knox.”