Redemption (20 page)

Richard had two advantages going for him.  He was one of the few people that could point out Beck Castle on a map and he was proficient at land navigation, a skill that would be a valuable asset in the world Richard had created.  He drove as fast as the pavement would allow and when the time came, he barreled the Humvee over the shoulder and onto the grass.  Richard checked the odometer and marked the mileage.  He leaned forward and noted the position of the rising sun.  The Humvee sharply veered to the left on its new course.  Beck Castle was at best thirty minutes away if the terrain was forgiving.

Please let there be time.

Richard had never been one to allow worry to doubt to persuade his actions.  It was one thing to make predictions and plan accordingly, but focusing solely on just one of those predictions and letting raw emotion consume reason was something Richard did not allow to happen.  The only fact that Richard knew was that without Hal, Beck Castle would soon be a tomb.  What he did not know was whether or not he could rescue any of the survivors, foremost being his children.  Until he knew otherwise, they were alive and needed his help.

Richard drove the Humvee to the top of a hill and slammed on the brakes.  He jumped out of the vehicle and climbed on the roof, scanning the horizon. 
Shit, where is it? 
Richard was looking for three distinct hilltops, the largest of which was his destination.  From that hilltop he would be able to easily see the remaining landmarks that would take him to the Castle.  Richard felt precious seconds slipping away and screamed at the top of his lungs.  Ten seconds later, he was back in the Humvee racing to his destination.

Thirty-five minutes later, Richard spotted the patch of woods that concealed Howard’s garden.  He slammed on the brakes and came within inches of crashing into a tree.  The desperate father sprinted through the wood and out of the corner of his eye saw the graves of Howard and his wife.  Richard cleared the woods to find his worst fears had been realized.  Everything was peaceful and undisturbed.  No frightened people wandering about, no tire tracks, only a cool breeze swaying the grass back and forth.

Richard had built a career around finding impossible solutions to insurmountable problems.  Even in the face of certain failure, Richard could adapt and salvage some small degree of success.  As long as Richard didn’t surrender, every problem had some shred of a chance of being solved.  He imagined the thousands of people hundreds of feet below him desperately fighting for their lives.  Richard tried to recall the people down there that had the necessary technical knowledge to combat the problem and then realized that no technology existed in the bunker without Hal.  The entire bunker was completely automated from the life support systems all the way down to the lights and doors. 

Howard had told Richard some years ago that if the ground above Beck Castle was a nuclear wasteland, the people down below could live out the rest of their lives in peace.  Howard had never envisioned that scenario playing out without Hal.

Hal is gone.  They’re all dead.  Even if they’re alive, they’ll never see the sun again.

The sole function of the Castle was to keep the residents secure from what was on the surface and the structure would carry out that function perfectly.  Without Hal, the poor souls trapped below would live out the rest of their short lives and die, afraid and in the dark.  Richard tried to imagine how long they would live.  A month?  A year?  A day?  Did some catastrophic failure occur without Hal and they were already dead?

Richard stood frozen in place and could not find any motivation to move.  He was the savior of mankind, a revelation that no one on the face of the earth beside himself would ever know.  He would never be able to explain what he had done without also having to answer for the horrible sacrifice.  How many people had already died because of him?  How many more would die in the years to come?

Richard had buried the thought of his children for he knew that accepting their deaths would mean his own.  Denial was the only reason the gun on his hip had not found its way to his mouth.  He had no way of knowing if they were alive or dead so denial came easy.  Delusion filled his fracturing mind.  The impenetrable fortress could be breached.  He only needed a shovel!  He could dig them out, it made perfect sense.  He could dig a hole a few hundred feet deep with a shovel, of course he could, couldn’t be that hard.

Richard laughed hysterically as he ran back through the woods to his Humvee.  What was he freaking out about?  What was the big deal?  All he needed to do was dig a hole!  Yes!  Yes!  Richard found the shovel and laughed even harder when he found a pickaxe.  A pickaxe!  This can be done in no time! 

Richard scrambled through the woods and out into the clearing.  His eyes darted around searching for the right spot.  His hysterical laughter quickly transformed into sobs when he realized he had no clue where to start digging.  He gasped out in shock when he saw his daughter waving to him and pointing to the dirt.

“Chrissy!  Where’s your brother?  Are you okay?”  Richard ran to his daughter and instead of embracing him, she frantically pointed to the dirt.  Richard swung the pickaxe over his head and slammed it into the dirt.  “Is this the right spot?”  Richard turned around to find his daughter had vanished.  “Chrissy?  Come back!  Where are you?”  Richard panted heavily and cried out angry sobs while every inch of his body trembled violently.  He brought the pickaxe up and drove it back down to the earth.  “It’s okay, Chrissy, Daddy’s coming.  Go find your brother and tell him I’m coming.”

Richard swung the pickaxe over and over again for hours, sobbing like a child the entire time.  When he had dug a hole up to his waist, the pickaxe slipped from his hands.  When he picked it back up, he noticed both his hands were covered in blood.  Richard quickly wiped the blood on his pant legs, grabbed the shovel instead, and kept digging.  After a few minutes, the shovel clinked and bounced away.  Mistaking the obstacle for the bunker still hundreds of feet below and not for the rock it truly was, Richard laughed as he pawed at the rock, certain he would find a lever of some sort.  The blood from his hands mixed with the dirt and helped pry the rock from its home.  He moved the rock to the side and plunged both hands down in the hole where the rock had been, searching for a lever that was not there.

Not discouraged in any way, Richard stood up to retrieve the pickaxe to continue digging when he saw a solitary man in Howard’s garden.  “Hey!  You!  Come here!  Give me a hand!  I need your help!”  The man did not move an inch so Richard climbed out of the hole and started walking to him.  “Please!  You’ve gotta help me!”  As Richard got closer, the man turned his back.  Richard stumbled to his knees, exhausted from the hours of digging.  “Help me,” whispered Richard.  The man did not turn around.  Richard crawled the rest of the way, leaving bloody handprints in the dirt as he went.  Despite the commotion, the man never turned around to face Richard.

Richard collapsed a few yards from the man and cried, “Why won’t you help me?”

“I am helping you, Richard.  It’s time for you to let go.”  The man still would not turn around.

Richard panted and moaned in pain.  “Why?  I have a pickaxe and a shovel.  We can work together—”

“Richard, please.  You need to calm down.  It’s over.  You need to leave this place and never come back.”

“Who are you?  How do you know my name?”  Richard gave into exhaustion and rolled over onto his back, panting and wiping sweat with the back of his hand.

The man turned around, he was wearing his trademark bathrobe and brushed the long, gray hair from his face.  “Don’t be afraid, Richard.  I’m here to help you.”

Richard rolled over onto his elbow and stared back at the man in horror.  He blinked his eyes, shook his head a few times and said, “Howard?”

“In the flesh … well, sort of.”

“How?  You can’t be here.  You’re dead.”

“I’m here because you need me to be.”  Howard smiled warmly and looked into Richard’s eyes.  “You brought me here, I think you need to ask yourself why.”

Richard had never known Howard to be this polite.  “I’m losing my mind.”

Howard smirked and titled his head.  “Not quite there yet, but … yeah, you could say that.”

“Maybe I’m dead and this is heaven.”

Howard smiled again and looked upon Richard with kindness.  “You don’t really believe that, do you?  If this is heaven, I’m not sure what all the fuss is about.”

“I don’t know what’s going on anymore.  I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.  I don’t know how I’m going to save them!”  Richard curled up in the fetal position and wept.

“You poor, poor man.  The first thing you need to do is stop torturing yourself.  You have to come back to reality and face the truth.”

“Reality?  I’m hallucinating a dead guy, not sure I have a grip on reality just yet.”

“You’re closer than you think, my friend.  All you need to do is say it.”

Richard looked up at Howard through tear filled eyes.  “Say what?”

“You know, Richard.  You know.”

A calm came over Richard.  He finally felt clarity.  “I can’t save any of them.  They’re never getting out of there.”

“There you go.  That’s it.  In time you’ll understand that you made the right choice.  You gave mankind a fighting chance to survive.  Without your brave sacrifice, we would have destroyed ourselves.  The human race would have faded away into nothing.  Civilization will have to start over and in order for that to happen, the world needs men like you and Max.”

“I can’t.”

“Of course you can.”

“I destroyed everything you built.  Hal is gone!  I killed your son!  How can you be so calm about this?”

“I’m calm because you need me to be, Richard.”

“I still don’t know why you’re here.  You’re not really helping me.”

Howard sat down on the ground next to Richard.  “Well, I guess I should get to the point then, huh?”

“Please do.”

“The way I see it, Richard, you have two choices.  You can either put that gun in your mouth, which is probably what you’re leaning towards.  Or, you can leave here with a purpose, something to live for.”

Richard took his gun out of the holster, looked at it, and turned to Howard.  “I’m listening.”

“Did you really think I would ever allow Hal to die?”

“He’s gone, Howard.  If he had any chance of surviving this nightmare, he would have found a way.  He would have told me.”

“Hal doesn’t know everything.  You know where he is, Hal even told you, just think about it, Richard.”

“This is just fucking great!  I am losing my mind!”  Richard mustered the strength to stand and walked to the edge of the garden.  Richard screamed out in fury.  “I just fucked the entire planet and killed millions!  I killed Hal!  He’s gone!”

Richard turned around to demand an explanation from Howard to find his hallucination replaced by a very real Maxwell Harris.

“You did this?”  Max looked at Richard in horror.  Max had never felt such betrayal in his life.  When his first wife betrayed their marriage vows, Max thought he would never feel a deeper, more intimate betrayal in his life.  Now his best friend stood before him having murdered his son, his president, and his entire way of life.  Max pulled his gun from the holster and aimed it straight at Richard’s head.  “You crazy bastard!  What the hell did you do?!”

Richard ducked and raised his hands.  “Max!  You have to listen to me!”

“You’re lying!  Hal ain’t dead!  The Chinese attacked us!  We just have to get down there somehow and fix him and everything will be fine.”

“Max, if you believe that, then put the gun down.”

Max’s lip quivered.  “What did you do?”

“There wasn’t time, I had to.”

Max fired his gun.  Richard fell next to Howard’s tombstone clutching his arm.  Max stepped forward and screamed, “What did you do!  Who the fuck do you think you are!”

Richard looked into the tormented eyes of his friend.  “Max, I didn’t want to do it!  I had no choice!”

Max shook with rage.  “There’s always a choice you arrogant fuck!  You are NOT the president!  You had no right to do any of this!  Do you have any idea how many people you killed?”  Max avoided saying the most painful for fear he would turn the gun on himself.  “You murdered the president!  You killed Howard’s son and you have the nerve to come to his grave!  How dare you!”

Richard closed his eyes and waited for Max to end it all.  “I had to do it.  It was the only way.  I need you to understand, please.  Just let me explain.”

Max fired the gun again.  “Shut up!  Shut up!  Shut up!”

Richard touched his shoulder and winced in pain.  He whispered, “I’m sorry.  You’re not the only one that lost a child.  You have to understand I had no other choice.”

Max collapsed to the ground like a fallen tree next to Richard.  He thought of his son and felt madness wash over him.  The gun that had fired two rounds into Richard was now in his mouth.  With his good arm, Richard snatched the gun away from Max and tossed it into the woods.  “Howard told me that men like us will be needed in the world to come.”

Max climbed on top of Richard and drove his knee into the fresh bullet wound on Richard’s shoulder.  Richard howled in pain.  “You’re completely insane!  You know Howard’s dead!  His fucking tombstone is right there!”  Max pulled on Richard’s ear and turned his head so he could see it.  “Look at it!  Look!  Why don’t you dig up his fucking bones and piss on them, you crazy fuck!”  Max screamed like an animal and pummeled Richard’s face.  The beating promptly stopped when Max heard several cracks and felt stabbing pain in his back.  The pain was so intense he couldn’t even utter a sound.  With his mouth wide open and his eyes the size of saucers, Max froze in place.  Richard knew what was happening and instead of taking retribution, he carefully helped Max to the ground.

“Take it easy, brother.  It’s okay.”  Richard heard the sound of approaching vehicles and stood up.  “I’m sorry, Max.  You may never understand any of this.  I know you don’t believe me, but I promise you I’m going to make all of this right.  I’m going to fix this.”  Richard wasn’t sure if Max could even hear him, his friend’s face was a twisted contortion of pain and horror.  “I know you’ll never forgive me, but for what it’s worth, I am sorry.”