Iron Mike (6 page)

Kasoniak

Col. Kasoniak sighed, rubbing his eyes in exhaustion as he watched the night sky from General Fowler’s window. He had not yet taken his position behind the commanding officer’s desk, instead using the long conference table as his work station. At this point, it was probably moot. He didn’t hold much hope of finding any officer senior to him alive and well, not after the reports of Major General Fowler and Garrison Commander Ryson’s deaths.

Colonel Mark Dunnegan, the provost marshal, was alive and already heavily engaged. Colonel Miller was alive, but apparently in bad shape, and he was junior to Kasoniak. He was a good man with combat experience and a sharp, tactical mind. Kasoniak needed him. He hoped the few remaining surgeons at Ireland Army Hospital could keep that sharp, tactical mind alive – even if the man had lost both of his legs when the munitions supply on the training range exploded. He didn't have to walk to plan battle strategies.

Apparently, a pimple-faced recruit just coming in to IET saved the colonel's life. The kid actually used his head, taking his own belt and the belt of a fallen trainee to make tourniquets for the colonel’s legs, then driving a jeep onto the field, and getting the unconscious man to what remained of Ireland. Kasoniak had no idea what happened then, but commending that young recruit was definitely on his to-do list. It was buried under a legion of more pressing items, but he wouldn't forget. He hoped.

The situation was so much worse than he ever imagined it could be. In the eight hours since his retirement ceremony went to hell, Kasoniak learned, as he expected, the hostiles hadn’t just hit Fort Knox. The attacks were practically simultaneous nationwide, and the major offensive weapon was unlike anything the U.S. military had ever encountered. The sonic booms seemed ancillary; whatever technology they used emitted some kind of personnel-targeting EMP which meant instant death for an overwhelming majority of humans and, apparently, land mammals. There was no rhyme or reason to who lived or died; entire battalions of healthy soldiers dropped like stones, while eight percent of the geriatric patients in a Louisville nursing home facility survived. So far, there were no reports of marine life impact, but entire herds of cattle were decimated.

The statements passed down from Walter Reed were grim, and there had been no updates for more than three hours, which was a concern in itself. The cause of death in each human they had autopsied thus far had been instant, massive brain hemorrhage. Most of the victims died immediately; a few unlucky ones lived two to three minutes, most likely in exquisite pain. The death tolls were staggering, the numbers almost impossible to comprehend, and reports were still being compiled to update those preliminary figures. The weapon hadn’t killed hundreds of thousands of Americans … but hundreds of
millions
.

The earlier estimates said the weapon was effective on 80% of the population, human and mammal, but that percentage climbed steadily throughout the day. As of the last report, shortly after 2030, the numbers were somewhere between 90 and 96%. Kasoniak’s most recent update from his staff put the Fort Knox fatality or missing, presumed dead, rate at 98.2%. Those numbers would continue to climb if secondary attacks were suffered and if anarchy and attrition were allowed to take their toll. It was the extinction of the United States of America. They were fucked.

Kasoniak had no hard data on what was happening outside U.S. borders, but he strongly suspected other nations were dealing with much the same situation. He did know with certainty that no nation on Earth, not China, not North Korea, not even the Soviet Fucking Union, could have implemented even a single strike on such an all-encompassing scale as had occurred this afternoon. Col. Kasoniak was not inclined to share this news with the troops, and he interrupted the radio chatter from Fort Campbell the moment the question was raised. It was demoralizing enough to have to bury their friends and comrades; it would be worse if the soldiers knew there was no viable plan of retribution. The invasion was something not of this Earth, and it was far beyond their current capability to counter.

The Pentagon was in chaos. The anti-personnel pulsar weapon killed thousands, but the Pentagon building itself had also been a target of direct air attack. The building – excepting the subbasements and bunkers – was pulverized. As for the rest of D.C., the President, Speaker of the House, and 90% of the members of Congress were dead or unaccounted for, according to military radio reports. The VP was in critical condition, apparently in a hospital in Georgetown. The President
pro tempore
, while experienced enough as a senator and well-read on the abstract theories of war, had no fucking military experience at all. He was forming committees and deferring to advisors rather than making decisions.

To add the sugar to the strawberries and cream, the most recent reports also indicated the satellites forming the world’s communication infrastructure were crashing into the atmosphere, one by one. Cell phones and computers would not be coming back any time soon. Military communications would continue on shortwave and, locally, by handheld radio.
For as long as there is a military,
Kasoniak thought cynically.

He grimaced, rubbing his face tiredly as he stood at the head of the large conference table. Documents and maps were spread out along the sixteen foot surface, and the large whiteboard behind him was filled with his scrawled notes.

For now, Kasoniak did what he could do, if only for Fort Knox. The post was on lock-down. Military Police were stationed with instructions to keep the base secure and orders to use deadly force as needed. The fires closest to the hub of the base were extinguished and tents set up for those who had been displaced. Armaments and vehicles were secured. The wounded were triaged and being treated, both at what was left of Ireland and in the field. Burial and identification crews were formed, and bulldozers worked into the night. Food and water supplies were being protected, and guards were posted at all vital stations. He had drafted preliminary plans to deal with any incoming survivors once they could open the post to civilians. For now, it was enough – as if there were any choice.

He took a jeep tour of the base that afternoon before the sun went down. The buildings remaining standing were the exceptions that proved the rule. The entire post looked like ground zero, for miles around – a city laid to ruin. Kasoniak sighed, trying to think of whatever else needed to be done.

“Come,” he said in response to a brisk knock at the door. He looked up when the lieutenant entered, braced to attention, and saluted.

“Good evening, Colonel,” the young woman said.

Kasoniak returned the salute and nodded her in. “What have you got for me, Simmons?” He took a seat at the head of the table, nodding for her to come forward.

Simmons approached the table and held out three stacks of documents, about thirty pages each. About half were computer printed, the rest written in her neat hand. “Personnel lists, Sir.” She handed him the five pages of summary detail. Kasoniak looked up at her pale face and took the documents. He studied them for a long moment while she waited at attention. The numbers were demoralizing, even for an initial report.

“Ninety eight hundred,” Kasoniak said, his voice stunned. “That’s – Christ. Lieutenant, this says confirmed dead. How were these deaths confirmed?”

“It was on the spreadsheet, sir, but I didn’t print that column for the prelim report before the program locked up.” She straightened and continued. “Each set of dog tags or photo I.D. was checked by a member of my platoon, Colonel – the missing column has the service number of the soldier who verified the tags. We … haven’t even started on the housing areas or the exchange mall, sir.”

Kasoniak turned to the next stack of pages in the report – unidentifiable dead, non-walking wounded, or missing in action. Another nine hundred personnel there. The final report held the only information that was really useful – personnel present, accounted for, and healthy. There were fewer than three hundred names on the handwritten list.

“Jesus F. Christ,” Kasoniak murmured.

“Yes, sir,” Lieutenant Simmons agreed solemnly. “About forty of those are non-military personnel, Colonel. Civil Service employees, civilian visitors, etc. They’re the ones with asterisks.”

Kasoniak nodded, stood, and stepped over to General Fowler’s credenza. The lights dimmed for several long seconds, and then resumed. It was the first brownout. He would be surprised if power lasted through the night before the standbys kicked in. He pulled out two shot glasses and opened the good scotch, filling each. He handed one to Lieutenant Simmons. “To the end of the fucking world,” he toasted. She raised her shot glass in response, and they both drank.

January 3.

Mike

The first thing Mike noticed when he woke up was he was cold. Not just, “it’s winter, dude, and you kicked your covers off” cold, but deep down into his bones cold. He stuck his head up from the blankets, noticing his breath frost even as he looked toward the alarm clock on the nightstand in his old bedroom. The LCD display was dead … which meant the power was off, which meant the heat wasn’t working.

And
that
meant he needed to get out of bed and go start the generator.

Mike groaned and dropped his head back onto the pillow. “Give me a break,” he grumbled, to no one in particular. The house still smelled like fried chicken, pork chops, country fried steak, and who knew what else. Gran and Jenn had cooked past midnight, preparing every meat item in Gran’s house and carefully storing the lot of it in Tupperware. Mike knew Gran’s cooking was amazing, but even he didn’t see what she intended to do with that much food. Was she planning to bribe the entire Army with a home-cooked, southern meal?

Mike scrambled out of bed quickly, throwing his jeans on over the boxers he’d slept in as quickly as he could, hopping from foot to foot on the icy hardwood floor as he struggled into a clean sweatshirt. He got a clean pair of socks from the dresser and grinned when he saw his old harness boots in the closet. His sneakers were still soaking wet from the night before and he’d been dreading putting them back on his feet.

The sun was up, but barely. Mike moved through the house quietly, not wanting to wake Jenn or Gran. Jenn was whiny and cranky when she didn’t get enough sleep, and Gran deserved the rest after everything she’d been through. He stepped into the kitchen and opened the fridge. The light didn’t come on, of course, but a huge container of fried chicken was front and center. With a quick glance behind him, Mike peeled up a corner of the container and snatched a leg, carefully pushing the plastic lid back down. He ate the leg quickly, tossing the evidence in the trash can and his paper towel on top of that. Then he headed outside to start the generator, glad Poppa had shown him how to do it.

When the task was done, he came back in through the mud room to the still-silent house. Mike was surprised the noise he’d made – including the curse word Gran would box his ears for – didn't awaken Jenn or his grandmother. He moved into the living room and turned on the television, wondering if there were any updates. The frantic, repetitive news casts from the day before were gone, replaced by static. Everything was gone – even the local channel broadcast by Minister Ragland, that crazy, fanatical red-faced preacher from Mt. Washington, who could be counted on at any time of the day or night to be screaming into the camera about damnation, the end of days, and how all the sinners would burn in the fires of hell. It seemed like Minister Ragland hadn’t escaped the apocalypse either, no matter how many extra brownie points he racked up for spreading the “good” word.

Mike tried Poppa’s radio next. It wasn’t a short wave, but it was older than dirt. It still had the thermionic tubes that could receive transmissions from thousands of miles away, depending on weather conditions. Mike had loved to play with the huge, boxy antique when he’d been Jenn’s age. He and Poppa had carefully slow-tuned the dial, frequently getting signals from as far away as England and Germany. The younger Mike enjoyed listening to the BBC, knowing it was the exact same transmission that was being broadcast in London and was, therefore, strangely exotic and exciting.

He spent a good half hour trying to get a signal while he waited for the house to warm up. It was a waste of effort, and by the time he gave up, it was already eight in the morning. Gran never slept past six; on the other hand, she
had
been up half the night cooking.

Mike walked down the hall to Gran’s bedroom, and tapped lightly on her door. “Gran?” he asked softly. “It’s morning.” Mike waited a moment, tapping again, harder this time. “Gran?”

A surge of fear rose in his throat, and the third time, he banged loudly on her door with the flat of his hand. His voice was no longer quiet. “Gran! Answer me, please.”

Jenn came out of her bedroom from the other end of the hallway, looking sleepy and tousled. “What’s wro –“

“Go back in your room,” Mike snapped. Jenn drew in her breath sharply, and Mike turned to her quickly, his temper gone. “I’m sorry, Jenni,” he said, forcing a smile to his face. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you. I need to go check on Gran, okay? Why don’t you go back in and play Barbies?”

Jennifer’s eyes got huge as the implications of Mike’s request penetrated. With only a nod, she turned and went back into her bedroom, closing the door behind her. Her stereo turned on immediately, the Jonas Brothers CD loud enough to drown out any sounds Mike would make.

Mike’s hand shook when he reached for the doorknob and twisted it. It opened easily, and that surprised him. He saw Gran beneath her comforter and breathed a sigh of relief. She must just be exhausted from their late night.

He thought about stepping back into the hallway and closing the door softly so she could get more rest, but something kept Mike staring for a moment longer. Something was … different. He wasn’t sure what it was, but there was something “off” about the way his grandmother was sleeping.

She wasn’t breathing. Her chest wasn’t rising and falling with the peaceful regularity of deep sleep.

Mike’s knees buckled for a moment and he grabbed the door frame. He took a moment to steel himself, stepped inside the bedroom, and closed the door behind him, just in case Jennifer changed her mind and wandered back down the hall. He moved over to the bed, his eyes taking in his gran’s small form, the wheelchair beside her bed, the half-empty glass of water on her bedside table, and the open – and empty – bottle of medication beside it. He saw the folded piece of stationery, the fine linen paper with the delicate rose pattern that Gran kept for years, using only on the most special occasion.

On the outside of the note, the word “Ryan” was written and scratched out with one line. Beside it, was the word “Mike.”

For a moment, he considered tearing the piece of stationery to shreds without even looking at it. He was furious. He had counted on Gran, and she betrayed him and Jenn in the most cowardly way possible!

Mike took in several deep breaths, filling his lungs with air as though he’d just finished a swim meet. He picked the letter up and sat gingerly on the side of Gran’s bed to read.

Dear Mike –

You’re the man of the family now, though it’s sooner than it should have been.

Before you and your sister leave, make sure to open the barn and Miss Nelliebelle’s paddock, and the pasture gates. Also, be sure to open the fence to the chicken yard. Take all of the cooked food with you, and all of your camping gear and weapons. Poppa has some jugs of gasoline in the garage – take them, too, just in case. Don’t forget the items of your grandfather’s we discussed last night. I hope tonight finds both of you safe at Fort Knox.

I love you both. Boy, take care of your sister.

Gran

Mike read the letter over twice more, crumpled it in his hand, and then dropped it into the small trash can. She hadn’t apologized, hadn’t tried to explain. Grudgingly, Mike respected that. She merely issued the orders in writing that Mike would have argued about in person.

He sighed heavily. He loved Gran, second only to his father, but he was still pissed she made this decision without even warning him. He felt the instant flood of guilt. What the hell kind of thinking was that? You don’t love your family in order, he told himself harshly, and it was her decision to make, even though it was dead wrong. He wondered for a moment if it really was the wrong decision.

Mike shut down that train of thought and brought his mind back to the situation at hand. They would leave. Gran and the shooters from the night before made it clear they wouldn’t be safe at the farmhouse for long. But Mike was still torn over whether to head for Fort Knox or one of the shelters FEMA was supposed to be setting up. The television had gone dead before any shelter locations were revealed, but they would almost certainly use local schools or churches. There would be people there, and some kind of order of law. That would probably be safer than approaching the armed guards outside of Fort Knox, who were bound to be a bit trigger-happy.

Mike frowned. Gran seemed so certain, though.

He sighed, looking at her silent face, trying to bury his anger. He would decide later. For now, he would get her cleaned up and wrap her in her quilt. Then he would call Jenn and ask her if she wanted to help him bury Gran in the snow next to Poppa. He wasn’t sure it was a good idea, but he wanted his sister to have the choice about how she said goodbye.

It took longer than he thought to wash the visible parts of his grandmother’s body, and longer still to work up the nerve to take off her nightgown and replace it with her favorite church dress. The blue fabric of the dress accented her eyes and the skirt almost covered Gran’s atrophied legs. She’d received regular compliments whenever she’d worn it, and while she always scoffed and said she didn’t go to church to be looked at, the compliments pleased her. She wore the dress often. Somehow, it looked different with her lying so still. Gran couldn’t have weighed ninety pounds, but it was hard to manipulate her stiff limbs. Unlike Poppa, rigor mortis had set in already.

Finally, close to 10:00, Mike knocked on Jenn’s door. Justin Bieber stopped crooning, and Jennifer opened the door, looking at him. Her eyes and nose were red, but she had stopped crying a while ago.

“May I come in?” Mike asked, his voice uncertain and formal. Jenn nodded and pulled the door wider, stepping aside. Mike was careful not to step on any of the Barbie dolls – when had she gotten so many? – as he moved over to the side of her twin bed and sat. Jennifer stood in front of him, watching him solemnly. For a second, he wished she would throw a tantrum; that Jenn was familiar to him. The sister in front of him was too … old. She’d been shocked by tragedy, perhaps one time too many, for her childhood to survive intact.

“When Gran didn’t answer her door this morning, I went into her room,” Mike said, his voice quiet and gentle as he watched his little sister’s face. “I’m sorry, Jenni. Gran died last night.”

Jennifer nodded solemnly. She had figured it out already. If Gran were all right, she would have made pancakes long before now. “How did she die?”

Mike looked at his sister steadily, holding her eyes as he lied to her. “I’m not sure, sweetheart. I think she maybe had a heart attack in her sleep.”

Jenn ignored the “sweetheart.” That was a dad thing to say, not a Mike thing. “So, it wasn’t those ships – the aliens?”

Mike blinked at Jenn’s question. He’d been thinking terrorist attack more than aliens, but something about Jenn’s idea just … sounded right. He shook his head. “No, she wasn’t attacked by anything. She wasn’t in pain.”

Jenn nodded, and Mike swallowed, the lump in his throat feeling like a tennis ball. “I’m going to wrap her in her quilt and take her to the rose trellis,” he told his sister. “Do you want to see her? To say goodbye? You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

His sister looked at him, her nine-year-old eyes seeming older than time itself. “Is she in heaven now?”

Mike hesitated, biting off his immediate, comforting reply. Jenn had been through some hard times in the past two days, and he was fairly certain they weren’t going to get easy any time soon. “I don’t know, Jenn,” he said softly. “I really don’t.”

Then his nine-year-old sister put her skinny arms around his neck and hugged him, leaning her head against his chest and patting his back reassuringly. “It’s gonna be all right, Mike,” she said quietly. “I promise.”

The tears that anger kept from his eyes the entire time he cleaned and dressed his grandmother burned for release. Mike blinked them away. This was no longer a world in which he could cry. He was the man of the family now.