Storm (17 page)

“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.”

“It’s not really a bank vault,” Jon answered. “It’s a structure that was built to hold the gold reserves of the United States government.”

“So they’ve got piles of gold coins lying around like some kind of pirate’s lair?” Kent asked.
“Not coins, bars,” Jon said. “Tons of them. Literally. The government has used the vault to secure other valuable items as well, like the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. They were stored there during World War II.”
“How do you know so much about it?” Kent asked with skepticism.
Jon shrugged, “History is a passion of mine.”
“You are so odd,” Kent said.
“I don’t know that much about the place,” I said. “But look at the map. It’s a big freakin’ vault in the middle of an army base near a small town.”
Everyone took turns looking at the detailed map.
“The vault itself is a whole building. If I were looking to keep things safe, that would definitely be on my list.”
“We’re looking for a place that’s a safe haven for people,” Tori said. “Not gold.”
“I know,” I said. “But there’s plenty of other valuable stuff in the world. The Air Force attack didn’t just happen. Even the president of the United States knew it was coming. He’s the one who ordered SYLO to set up on Pemberwick Island. If he knew war was coming, don’t you think he’d do exactly what Jon just described? Wouldn’t he want some things to be protected? Like the Declaration of Independence? Or the Constitution? Or the Mona Lisa, for all I know? He could be protecting stuff from the Air Force.”
“Or from whomever is controlling the Air Force,” Tori pointed out.
“Exactly,” I said. “This might be the safest place in the country right now.”
“Then let’s go!” Jon declared.
Kent and Tori stared at me, waiting for an answer. Again, I was the one who had to make the call.
“What have we got to lose?” I said with a shrug. “Let’s go check it out.”
I scoped the map and gave Kent directions on how to get there. It looked about thirty miles southwest of the airport on local roads. We followed the course and had traveled for no more than ten minutes when we began to see proof that we were on the right track. It started out as smoke on the horizon. Several fires were burning, spewing huge, black plumes into the air.
“At least there’s some life here,” Tori said.
“Look,” Olivia said, pointing to the side of the road. “Here we go again.”
There was a big ditch surrounded by a scattering of rocks. It looked like the deep craters we had seen outside of Portland.
“Those are missile craters,” Tori said. “There was a battle here.”
“Yeah, and not long ago,” Jon added. “The fires are still burning.”
None of the fires were near the road, so we couldn’t tell what was in flames. We were traveling through a wooded area, and our views were blocked by dense stretches of trees.
“I don’t want to see another burning corpse,” Olivia said soberly.
We soon approached a scattering of structures that seemed to be the outer edges of the army base. Even more fires were burning, and we finally saw why as we drove around a bend in the road and—
“Look out!” I yelled.
Kent swerved and barely missed hitting a wreck that was sitting in the center of the road.
It was a black, ray-shaped Air Force plane.
Kent braked hard and stopped a few yards from it. This plane was in much worse shape than the one we had inspected in Portland. Its outer shell was torn open, probably by the missile that dropped it.
“It’s unmanned,” I declared.
“How can you tell that?” Tori asked.
“No cockpit. Where would a pilot sit?”
The plane’s roof had been peeled off as if a can opener had worked it over.
“Looks more like the inside of a computer than an aircraft,” I said. “It’s loaded with circuit boards.”
Tori said, “So they’re definitely being controlled from somewhere else.”
I got out of the car to get a closer look. This time the others joined me right away. The first thing I looked for, and saw, was the Air Force logo on the damaged wing.
“Building these must have been some top secret project,” Kent said. “I mean, it looks like a flying MacBook.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Except for that.”
I pointed to a short, silver canister that was fixed inside the wing area.
“Is that the weapon?” Tori asked.
“I think so,” I replied. “Man, talk about top secret development. When did the Air Force go all Star Wars?”
“They’ve been pretty good at keeping secrets,” Tori said. “This is just another one.”
“Guys?” Jon called. His voice was shaking. “You’re gonna want to see this.”
We joined him on the far side of the plane and looked out onto an expanse of empty farmland.
“I think we’re in the right place,” he said, his voice cracking.
Spread before us were the remains of dozens of downed black aircraft. Some were relatively intact; others were nothing more than mangled pieces of metal. None were functional. A few had hit buildings on the other side of the road, which is what started the fires. The entire stretch of buildings had been torched. There was nothing left but a half mile of charred, skeletal remains . . . and huge blast craters.
“Looks like some of them blew up when they hit,” Tori said. “There’s no wreckage whatsoever.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “I guess if they get hit just right, the fuel—or whatever it is that powers these things—goes boom. It’s like what happened in Portland when you rammed that plane. There was nothing left of it.”
“This isn’t exactly my idea of a safe haven,” Olivia said, stunned.
“We’re not there yet,” I reminded them. “These planes could have been attacking the base.”
Tori said, “Let’s go see who won.”
We got back into the Explorer, and Kent drove on, rolling slowly past many more wrecks and smoldering craters. Once past the stretch of burning buildings, we found ourselves driving through the woods again.
“I see more wrecks in there,” Jon said, pointing.
“You know what I
don’t
see?” I said. “Navy fighters. The only planes on the ground are the black Air Force planes.”
“Looks like the Air Force got their butts kicked,” Tori said. “It’s a lot different than what happened out on the ocean when—”
“Whoa, wait,” Kent exclaimed. “What the hell is this?”
We rolled past another wreck and came upon a row of abandoned buildings that looked big enough to be airplane hangars. Beyond them was . . . nothing.
“Get closer,” I said.
The road went directly between two of the buildings . . . and ended. There was nothing to see beyond it but . . . nothing.
Kent pulled the Explorer up next to one of the structures and killed the engine. We got out of the car and walked forward, moving cautiously past the buildings, tuned for any movement that could mean trouble. Directly ahead of us the road ended at a wide dirt track that spread to the right and left as far as we could see. The road looked to have been cleanly cut off. I took a step off the asphalt onto soft, brown dirt.
An empty expanse stretched ahead of us for roughly two hundred yards. On the far side, there was a swirling white wall that could have been the leading edge of a fog bank or a thick wall of smoke. It was so dense there was no way to see through it.
“Smoke moves, right?” Kent asked, saying exactly what we were all thinking. “How can that just sit there?”
I ran back to the Explorer and grabbed the road map. I unfolded it as I rejoined the others and searched until I found the exact spot where we were standing.
“Tell me this dirt track is on the map,” Olivia said.
“No,” I said with certainty. “The end of the runway is maybe a half mile ahead of us. According to this map, the only thing between here and there are trees and roads. There’s no wide dirt track. This is new. Or at least it’s new since this map was made.”
Tori said, “It’s like something came through and cleared everything out. Buildings, trees, rocks, roads . . . everything.”
Olivia said, “Maybe the Air Force didn’t lose after all.”
On the map, Fort Knox was more than just an army base. It was a town. It was supposed to be directly in front of us, but there was nothing out there but a massive white wall. Was this the result of an air bombardment that wiped the whole place out?
“It doesn’t make sense,” I said. “Why would the Air Force use bombs here and nowhere else? If they wanted to wipe out the base, they could have come at night and used their light weapons.”
“I don’t think we’ve got the whole picture,” Tori agreed. “Let’s drive a little.”
We went back to the car and loaded in.
“I don’t want to go toward that smoke,” Olivia said. “It could be, like, poisonous or something.”
“Let’s drive along the edge of the dirt,” I suggested. “Maybe the smoke will thin out and we can see something.”
Kent drove forward and off the end of the road onto the dirt. He made a right turn, and we rolled along on the soft surface. To our right were a few more hangar-like buildings. When we passed the last one, we saw nothing but trees and more crashed black planes. To our left was the fog bank, or whatever it was, on the far side of the dirt track. We traveled parallel to the white wall, unable to see anything beyond it.
“Stop,” Tori suddenly ordered.
Kent slammed on the brakes.
“What?” he asked quickly.
“Ahead to the right. Something’s coming.”
I looked forward to see movement through the trees about a hundred yards ahead.
“Trucks!” Jon announced.
“Let’s get out of here!” Olivia cried.
“No, don’t move!” I countered. “If we move, they’ll see us. Right now we’re just another abandoned car.”
We crouched low and kept an eye on what turned out to be a convoy of green military trucks making its way toward the barren patch of dirt.
“Army trucks,” Kent said. “Lots of ’em.”
I was so used to living in desolation, seeing something as common as a line of trucks now felt like we were witnessing an alien invasion. My heart raced. Who were these people? Where were they coming from, and where were they going?
I couldn’t make out much detail until the first truck cleared the trees in front of us and rolled onto the stretch of dirt.
“There’s a road up there,” Kent said. “It cuts across the dirt.”
“Oh my god,” Tori said. “Look!”
Painted on the door of the first truck, and the second, and all those that followed was a large white logo that looked like a rising sun. There was no mistaking what it represented.
“SYLO,” Kent said in a soft whisper.
The trucks rumbled slowly along the road that crossed the dirt track headed toward . . . what? A white wall of fog? They were definitely military transport trucks, but there was no way to know what they were carrying. People? Weapons? The Ruby?
“Attention!” came an amplified voice. “Stay clear of the convoy.”
The hair went up on the back of my neck. I looked at Tori.
Was I hearing right?
She looked as shocked as I felt.
“No way,” Kent said, equally stunned.
“Who is that?” Olivia cried. “Where is he? Is he talking to us?”
I went into brain lock. I couldn’t accept what was happening or begin to try to understand it.
“Where did that come from?” Jon asked, near panic.
His answer came quickly. A flying plane that didn’t look large enough to carry a pilot appeared in the sky beyond the convoy. It skimmed the treetops, headed our way.
“Repeat. Do not approach the convoy,” the amplified voice warned.
“What do I do?” Kent asked, looking very much like a deer caught in the headlights.
I couldn’t think. I was useless.
“Don’t move,” Tori demanded. “That thing could be armed.”
“So we just sit and wait to be wasted?” Kent whined.
“If that thing wants to waste us,” Tori said, “driving away now won’t stop it.”
The drone plane had a bulbous nose, stubby wings, and twin propellers. Fixed beneath the wings were machine guns.
It was headed straight for us.
“It’s got us,” Kent whined. “We’re going to die right here.”
“Don’t move!” Tori demanded. “Or we’re definitely dead.”
The drone cleared the trees and swooped down into the airspace over the dirt track. Its nose was lined up directly with our grill.
“This is your last warning,” the voice boomed. “Do not approach the convoy.”
“We’re not!” Kent screamed.
The drone was nearly on us. Tori leaned forward and grabbed my shoulder. At any second it was going to fire its machine guns.
“I can’t believe it,” Olivia said with resignation. “We’ve come so far.”
The drone fired. The clatter of its guns was deafening. I tensed up—but it wasn’t necessary. The drone wasn’t targeting us. It continued firing as it passed overhead. We all spun to see the real target.
A black Air Force plane was hovering a few hundred yards behind us.
It had been flying in total silence, like a silent snake stalking its prey. We hadn’t even heard the music of its engines. The plane was no more than three feet off of the ground. Seeing it was a shock that made my stomach fall. Was it headed for the convoy? Or had it been after us?
Either way, its journey was over. The heavy machine gun fire from the drone craft ripped into the black skin of the plane, tearing it apart. The plane must have been crippled quickly, because there was no attempt to fire back.
Olivia covered her ears, and the rest of us followed. It was that loud.
The drone hovered over the doomed black plane, relentlessly pulverizing it with a steady stream of bullets. The black plane shuddered, as if trying its best to stay in the air. Its last gasp of life was to dip one wing to the dirt, then bank as if trying to get away. The drone would have none of that. The attack continued until the black plane dropped to the ground and crashed, kicking up a cloud of brown dirt.
That didn’t stop the drone. It continued to fire, shredding the plane. The black predator was long dead, but the drone continued pounding it with a vengeance. As it hovered in place, it drifted into a turn to reveal a SYLO logo on its belly.
Tori said, “If it hits the fuel tank it’ll—”
Boom!
The black plane exploded into a massive fireball, just like the plane back in Portland that Kent and Olivia rammed.
“Get down!” I screamed.
We ducked down for whatever protection the seats could provide. The burning cloud of debris spread quickly, and the orange flames licked past us. I winced, hoping that our own fuel tank wouldn’t ignite. Though we were inside the Explorer I could feel the wave of heat surge by above us.
It was over as quickly as it began.
I cautiously peeked back over the seat to see the drone circling over its kill, or at least over the crater where the plane had been. Satisfied that its prey had been obliterated, it lifted into the air.
I held my breath, fearing that it would come for us next, but the drone flew skyward and took off after the convoy. The last of the trucks had rolled onto the road that crossed the dirt track as the first in line reached the fog bank and was swallowed up by the smoke. The rest of the convoy followed, each truck disappearing in turn as it entered the mysterious, swirling curtain.