12|21|12 (6 page)

Bowen pushed Cameron aside. “Loeb, have you gotten any messages, any at all, from anyone?”

“Think, man. Whoever took everyone else away must have a mental capacity that is light years ahead of us. What if he’s been communicating with us and we just don’t understand?”

“I don’t hear anybody talking but you, and I’m getting pretty sick of it.”

“Would you just listen to me for a minute? Why did you come with us, Bowen? You’ve wanted to dump me from the first day we met, yet you came with two total strangers to Camp David even though you didn’t want to, and you came here with the four of us even though you said it was a bad idea. Why did you do it? Why? Think, man. Something or someone brought the five of us together. You said it yourself — we have nothing in common. You didn’t see my messages. You didn’t check the Internet. Yet somehow you found me.”

“We should at least check it out,” Cameron said.

Bowen moved nose to nose with Loeb. “I was looking for Carmen, not you.”

“Don’t be stupid. You knew she was gone. Everyone else was. And despite what Michael said about God leading him to us, he found us by what seemed to be pure luck.”

Bowen glanced over at Michael who just shrugged: “He’s right, I was just trying to get a signal for my cell.”

“And we just happened to see Ferret crossing the road in the woods? Six billion people vanish from the planet and we just happened to come across one of the five survivors in the middle of nowhere? What are the odds of that?”

Ferret spit on the metal floor through his crooked yellow teeth. “I was freezing my ass off.”

“How could all of that have been luck? And what made me choose Camp David in the first place? A hunch, an educated guess that there was a top-secret tunnel with a train connecting it to the White House?”

“So?”

“So, Cameron was there. Think, Bowen. He was sending us to get Cameron before we came to Washington.”

“What you’re saying is that we’re the aliens’ escort service, and they send us telepathic waves or something to go pick people up. Right? Loeb, I’ve heard just about enough of your intellectual crap. You want to go weirdo hunting? Fine. Go ahead. And anyone else who’s crazy enough to go with Dr. Nutjob here, be my guest. I’m heading back to Camp David and once I lock that door, I damn sure won’t be taking any callers.”

They followed Bowen back to the Cathedral and down into the tunnel. The train was gone.

“I think your little space buddy is trying to tell us something, Doc,” Ferret said.

“It’s seventy miles to Camp David,” Loeb said. “It’s less than three to the White House. That’s where I’m going, if anyone wants to join me.”

The five kept to the walkway running alongside the tracks. Yellow numbers painted on the walls every tenth of a mile were counting down to zero. The world was traveling in the wrong direction and had been since 12:21:12 p.m. on 12|21|12. For Loeb, it was spinning out of control.

“Only a mile to go, Dr. Loeb,” Cameron said. “You can make it.”

“I don’t feel well.”

“There’s an infirmary there. They’ll have something to settle your stomach.”

“I hope so. I feel terrible.”

“You don’t think it’s because of the planet shifting, do you?”

“I don’t see how. We’re already traveling through space at millions of miles an hour. A few thousand more in different direction shouldn’t make any difference.”

Michael leaned against the wall, soaked in sweat. “I’m not doing so well either. I think the meds are wearing off.”

Bowen peered down the tunnel: “Let’s go. We ain’t got all day.”

Loeb took Cameron’s offer of a shoulder. “Yes, it wouldn’t do to be fashionably late for the end of the world, would it?”

For Loeb, the last mile passed like the final march of a prisoner to the firing squad: inevitability carried him forward, and fear held him back. When the yellow numbers reached zero, they were underneath the White House, where their train was parked at the platform. They entered the maze of whitewashed hallways, passing directories listing briefing rooms, situation rooms, and numbered conference rooms, finally seeing “Monitoring Center” listed among them. They found the infirmary on their way there. They were outside the monitoring center’s locked steel doors when a deep-throated rumble passed through the complex like a distant thunderstorm.

“The access card isn’t working,” said Loeb. “I don’t understand. I rekeyed it for full clearance back at Camp David.”

“Try it again,” Cameron suggested. “Maybe it’s a glitch.”

“Lick the little brown strip, Doc,” Ferret said. “That’s what they do in the FoodMart when the cards don’t swipe.”

“I didn’t realize they had card readers on dumpsters, Ferret.”

A vibration like the bass turned up too loud rattled the corridor.

Bowen drew his gun. “What the hell was that?”

Something stirred inside the room, and time stopped for the five men. The doors slid apart, releasing the scent of cinnamon, oranges, and cloves into the hall. Into the doorway stepped a woman. She had long black hair and dark olive skin, unnaturally elongated features, and six fingers on one hand. In the other she was holding a device no larger than a cell phone pointed directly at them.

A single shot rang out. The smell of gunpowder filled the corridor, and a dark red stain spread across the woman’s chest. The device clattered to the floor, and she collapsed.

Loeb knelt down beside her. “Bowen, what have you done?”

“She was going to shoot. You saw it. It was self-defense.”

The woman opened her dark eyes and grasped at Loeb’s arm.

“Don’t,” he said. “Try to stay still.”

Ferret picked up what the woman had dropped. “This ain’t no ray gun, but it’s got a big hole in it where dumb ass here shot it.”

“It looked like a gun. I swear.” Bowen grabbed the device. The symbols on its keypad meant nothing to him. “It looks like some kind of TV remote.”

Cameron knelt down beside them. “We’re the ones from Camp David.”

She smiled at him and whispered two words.

“What did she say?” asked Bowen.

“It sounded like ‘Camp David,’” Cameron said.

“Camp David,” she repeated and nodded.

“I’m Cameron. Who are you?”

She smiled and whispered, “Maya…” Pain spread across her face, and she closed her eyes.

“Did she say ‘Mayan?’” Michael looked upward. “Thank God. We’re saved.”

The rumbling began again, and the corridor seemed to roll sideways. Hairline cracks snaked across the walls, and chunks of plaster came crashing to the floor.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” Loeb said.

“What about her?” asked Cameron.

“Leave her,” Bowen said. “We’ll never make it if we have to carry her.”

“We can’t just leave her here. She’ll die. I’ll be right back.” Cameron ran off down the hall.

“Who gives a damn about her?” Bowen said. “I say we leave her, get on the train, and get back to Camp David. That was the plan, right?”

A ruptured steam pipe hissed somewhere above a hole in the ceiling.

“It was never the plan to kill innocent people, Bowen.”

“Where I come from, she ain’t people, Loeb. Just look at her.”

“I don’t care. I am not a murderer.”

Cameron came back with a stretcher, and they lifted her onto it. The complex was coming apart, the corridors collapsing behind them in clouds of broken concrete and drywall as they retraced their steps back to the train. The tunnel there had caved in, and the train was crushed beneath tons of rock and cement.

Bowen found no way around it. “What the hell do we do now?’

“Looks like it’s time to bend over and kiss your ass goodbye,” Ferret laughed.

“We passed some fire stairs in that last hallway,” said Cameron.

The door to the fire stairs gave way with some coaxing from Bowen’s foot. The metal steps inside the fire tower were intact, but the block walls were covered with a spider web of stress fractures. Another tremor shook the facility, and the door behind them buckled and crumpled beneath the weight of the concrete. They climbed hundreds of feet to a door at the top and ran into the open from the small block enclosure hidden in some tall bushes on the South Lawn of the White House. A fiery yellow sun glowed high in the sky behind thick rolling clouds, and wind whipped across the open space, lashing at them mercilessly. Devastation was everywhere: massive old trees lay toppled and thrown about like twigs, the east wing of the White House had caved in and smoke was rising from a crater next to it, fires were burning throughout the city. The earth shook again, and the White House groaned as it shifted on its foundation.

Cameron steadied the stretcher. “What’s happening, Dr. Loeb?”

“I don’t know. This whole area is unstable. We can’t stay here.”

The woman on the stretcher grabbed his arm. “Camp David,” she said.

Loeb showed her the device that had fallen from her hand. “What is this?”

She took it and pressed a few buttons. Nothing happened. She held it out to him and nodded: “Camp David.”

A helicopter sat on a pad across the lawn.

“That’s our ticket out of here,” Bowen said. “Let’s go.”

“Can you fly that thing?” asked Michael.

“You bet your ass I can.”

They made their way through the debris to the helicopter. The sky darkened in disapproval, and the air temperature turned subarctic. The earth rolled in waves underneath their feet, and Loeb’s world spun wildly.

“We’ve got one problem,” Bowen said. “That helicopter won’t carry all of us. It’s a four-seater. We’ve got too much weight. Unless one of you can fly this thing, you four have to pick which one stays behind. I vote her. She’s not going to make it anyway.”

“Maya…” she whispered. “Camp David.”

“We can’t leave her,” Loeb said. “It’s our fault she’s like this, and she’s the only one who can save us. Don’t you see? She’s trying to tell us something about Camp David.”

“Like what?”

“Maybe her ship is there, or maybe she has another one of those handhelds. It could be the transporter device. Maybe there are others like her there.”

“And maybe you’re full of crap. What about the rest of you? What do you say?”

“What good is saving ourselves if we lose our souls?” Michael said. “I’ll stay.”

Cameron shook his head. “No. I’m not going unless we all go. There has to be a way. Isn’t there anything else we can get rid of, like the seats or something like that?”

A fierce wind rocked the helicopter as Bowen cast off the last of the lines. “There’s no excess cargo, and we don’t have time to unbolt the seats. If we’re going to make a run for it, we’ve got to go now.”

“You can’t run from this, Mr. Bowen,” Cameron said. “We need to do the right thing here.”

The woman squeezed Cameron’s hand and closed her eyes.

His voice cracked: “As humans, that’s all we’ve got.”

They lifted the stretcher onto the helicopter.

Michael shook his head: “I’m dying. Don’t you see? It makes perfect sense for me to stay. At least the rest of you have hope.”

“This is absurd,” Loeb said. “Only one of us has to stay behind, and it should be me.”

“The captain going down with his ship? No, I can’t let you do that,” said Cameron. “It’s all or none.”

“If you three want to die here, suit yourselves.” Bowen started up the helicopter and shouted: “Ferret, you coming?”

A light came on in the Oval Office, and a window over the South Lawn opened. It was Ferret. He waved to them.

“Ferret!” Loeb shouted.

“Look at me, I’m the president of the world!”

“Get down here!”

“No sir, I ain’t going in no helicopter and I ain’t going in no spaceship. I’ll die right here on good old Mother Earth, thank you very much, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“Looks like you’ve got yourselves a hero,” Bowen said. “You others coming or not?”

The temperature was dropping fast and the city crumbling around them as they took off for Camp David, flying low over the trees in Rock Creek Park.

December 21, 2012. 12:15 p.m. Loeb watched an angry storm building to the north as the helicopter flew low over the trees in Rock Creek Park. He didn’t like flying and he particularly didn’t like flying in helicopters. They made him sick to his stomach for hours afterwards, but he had missed his flight, and it was the only way to get to the conference in time. The world below was a dreary lifeless gray, and the imprint of man had receded behind a thickening drape of snow. The craft thumped over a ridge of high pressure.

“Looks like we’re in for some weather,” the pilot said over his shoulder.

“Mr. Bowen, how soon will we be in Philadelphia?”

“We have to make a stop near Hagerstown, Doc. A couple hours, I’d say.”

The scent of cinnamon, oranges, and cloves filled the cabin. It made Loeb sick to his stomach.

“Can’t you do anything about that smell?”

“Ask them. I’m just the pilot, Doc.”

Seated next to Loeb was a young clean-cut man in his early twenties. Loeb figured him for a college student or a recent grad. “I’ll be getting off there,” the man said. “I’m spending Christmas at Camp David. Cameron’s the name.” He extended his hand. “I’m one of the president’s speechwriters. You’re Dr. Philip Loeb, aren’t you?”

Loeb accepted the handshake. “Yes, is it that obvious?”

“I recognized you from that photo of you with your arm around that three-headed alien.”

“Presidential speechwriter — you seem a bit young for that kind of work.”

“And that coming from a man who got his first Ph.D. at eighteen?”

“Touché.”

“Are you speaking at the conference in Philadelphia, Dr. Loeb?”

“Yes, and if you’ll excuse me, I really do need to prepare.” Loeb reopened the folder in his lap containing his notes and slides, and went back to reading through his lecture.

Another passenger, bundled up in a black overcoat, adjusted himself in his seat. Cameron turned his attention that way: “Are you all right?”

The man opened his eyes. “I’ll be fine, just a little queasy. It’s the chemo. I just got out of a treatment.”

“Are you going all the way to Philadelphia, too?”

“Yes.” He shifted again, and the flap of his coat fell back, exposing his collar.

“Priest?”

“Minister… in my better days. I’m Michael. I’d shake your hand, but I was told I should avoid close personal contact until the effects of the drugs wear off, susceptibility to germs and all that.”

There was one other passenger in the four-seater, a black-haired woman with dark olive complexion and thin angular features. She was curled up in her seat watching the others with curiosity. Cameron waved to her and she smiled.

“How about you?” he asked. “What’s your story?”

She nodded.

“You’re wasting your time. She doesn’t speak a word of English,” Bowen shouted over the engines. “She’s getting off with you, Mr. Cameron. They told me she’s one of the new cooks at Camp David.”

“Oh, okay. That’s cool,” Cameron smiled at her again: “I’m Cameron,” he gestured. “And you’re?”

“Maya,” she grinned, pointing to herself. “Camp David,” she nodded.

“You have six fingers on one hand. That’s different,” Cameron said.

Loeb looked up: “The condition is called polydactyly. It’s not all that uncommon.”

“So, where are you from, Maya?”

She nodded again, “Maya… Camp David…”

The news came on the nine inch TV mounted on the bulkhead above them. “Did any of you happen to catch the president’s speech last night?” Cameron asked.

The sky lost definition as the clouds wrapped tighter around them and up and down became the same. The wind stalked them on all sides as the helicopter bucked against a wall of snow.

Loeb grabbed his stomach. “Jesus, Bowen, can’t you keep this thing steady?” At exactly 12:21:12 p.m. the slide with his equations on it rippled like a pebble in a pond.

Something exploded against the helicopter. Sparks showered the window, and the craft shook and slammed Cameron against the wall. The lights flickered, then came back on.

Michael sat up straight. “Did you see that?”

Bowen called over his shoulder. “Is everyone okay back there?”

The helicopter lurched and bucked again, tossing into the air anything not tied down. A single shot rang out. The smell of gunpowder filled the cabin.

Loeb picked up a smoking pistol lying on the floor among his notes and papers. “You carry a loaded weapon on a helicopter?”

“Oh, my God!” Michael pointed to Maya. She was holding what looked like a TV remote in her hand pointed directly at them. A dark red stain spread across her coat.

The craft shuddered and spun, and losing forward momentum, it plunged out of the clouds.

Bowen closed his eyes and listened to the helicopter blades chopping the air above. He saw everything: the gleam of the sun on the craft as it dropped below the clouds, its shadow moving across the bright snow-covered hills, the faces of the passengers in the windows looking down at the pristine forest. He saw it all.