Then Came War (12 page)

Foster broke the glass on the doors and made his way inside.

It would work out just fine.

By 6:30 in the morning, having them all hold onto a rope, Foster was able to move them fairly quickly inside the building.

The small cafeteria had a case of the mini boxes of cornflakes and he passed them out to everyone.

There was bottle of water for each as well.

“What does it look like in here?” Judith asked.

“Like an old gym with tables,” Foster replied. “It’ll be fine.” He gave Judith her box of cereal; she was the last one.

“Jimmy, honey, you can’t keep doing this. You’re just a child. May I make a suggestion?” Judith said.

“Please do.”

“Leave,” she simply suggested.

“What do you mean?”

“We’ll be fine. How long would it take for you to go on foot out of the city to get help? Eight hours? Go. That is the best option.”

“I was thinking of that but I felt guilty about leaving you guys. Not everyone is like you.”

“We’ll be fine.” Judith grabbed for his hand. “Going to the bathroom is tricky, but we’ll manage.”

“I am probably going to have to …” Foster paused when he saw Abby’s hand reaching into the case of cereal. He stopped her. “Don’t.” he told her.

“Don’t what?” Judith asked.

“Not you, Judith. I was talking to Abby,” Foster said “She’s taking the cereal.”

“Oh, honey, she’s just hungry. Let her have some.”

“She’s well enough and fine to find her own food.”

“Don’t be like that, Jimmy.” Judith spoke softly. “Please.”

He didn’t say anything, but tossed a look to Abby that said he was allowing her to have the box of cereal under protest.

Abby took it and started to open it.

Foster stood. “You aren’t even going to say thank you?”

“Thank you. I don’t understand why it was such a hassle to let me have a box,” Abby said.

“Because it belongs to them, Abby. They can’t get their own food.”

“Yeah, well, you heard Judith,” Abby said sarcastically. “They can’t even go to the bathroom.”

“That was wrong.”

“It’s the truth,” Abby snapped. “Face reality Foster, you can’t help them. If you would have just told them to wait and gone on to get help you would have been back by now. But no, you’re a martyr.”

“Why didn’t you go and get help?”

Abby shrugged.

“Why are you here?” Foster asked. “Obviously this isn’t your cup of tea and you’re annoyed with these people.”

Again, Abby shrugged.

Foster tossed out his hand disgustedly. “I don’t need you to answer. You’re too lazy to go anywhere and I think you’re too scared to be on your own.”

“I’ve been alone for the past several months.”

“Yeah, well this is a little bit different,” Foster snapped “You’re not the only one mourning now. The whole world is mourning.”

Abby started to blurt out a sarcastic “fuck you’ but only the first portion of it emerged before her heard turned suddenly.

In fact, everyone started making noises and calling out in excitement over the sounds of planes.

“The rescue team is here,” Abby said.

Judith called out, “Foster, is that a rescue?”

“I’ll go check.” He held up his hand even though no one could see him. “Stay here.”

The blind started moving about, feeling their way. Their voices meshed with the excitement of the possibility of help finally arriving.

Abby was already outside when Foster emerged.

“We need to get back in or get out now,” Abby said calmly.

“Why?” And then Foster looked up. “Oh my God.”

There was such an abundance of planes. They formed their own masking cloud in the sky as they seemingly hovered overhead. But it wasn’t the planes that caused the concern in Abby or panic in Foster.

It was the fact that it was literary raining parachutes. Thousands upon thousands of parachuted soldiers floated in the sky, making their way down.

“It’s not a rescue,” Abby said to Foster. “It’s an invasion.”

***

Brendan knew more than he realized. He hated the fact that it was every man for himself but it was the way it had to be done.

He wasn’t so dumb as to not realize the hole in the train wreckage wasn’t placed there for a reason. They made their escape, coughing and choking over the smoke and gagging over the carnage of bodies.

People who depended on Brendan to send help were taken care of in a different way.

Once passed the wreckage, they followed the light but not for long.

The tunnel grew lighter and the brightness wasn’t from the sun.

It was lights and spotlights being brought in.

Art first he wondered if indeed it really was a rescue party that had made a fatal error and accidently killed the survivors. But he soon realized the error in his thinking when he saw military trucks pulling in. Tables were being set up and armed soldiers were walking about.

He had seen enough History Channel to know some sort of headquarters was being initiated underground in New York, tucked safely away and out of sight from any aerial attacks.

He knew they weren’t Americans and he didn’t know the language or recognize the uniforms. Brendan wasn’t sticking around long enough to find out. Before being spotted he took off running back the way he had come.

The others didn’t follow right away.

Brendan heard gunshots.

He kept going and didn’t look back.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Was the beach house still intact? It didn’t smell like it was and from his view under the bed Ben saw a lot of dust and smoke.

“You okay?” he asked Lana.

“Yeah. You?”

“Yeah.” Ben lifted his head, banging it on the bed. “I don’t hear anything.”

“Me either. You think it’s safe?”

“I don’t know.”

“Ben. What are we going to do?

“If I were to theorize, I’d say this house is one of the safest places to be right now. But ...we can’t stay here.”

“Who was it?”

Ben shook his head. “Stay here. Okay?”

Lana nodded.

Ben scooted out backward from under the bed. When he saw the bedroom, he whispered, “Oh God.”

The room was riddled with bullet holes. How they had escaped being hit, he didn’t know. He crawled to the window and peered out.

He didn’t see anything or hear anything.

“Come on out.”

Like Bill, Lana inched her way out. She gasped, covering her mouth at she saw the bedroom.

“I don’t even want to know what the rest of the house looks like.” Ben stepped over debris.

“Why would they shoot at us? We were two people sitting on a deck.”

“I don’t know. Maybe they were just being assholes at that second. Who knows? Maybe they couldn’t see us.” Ben took Lana’s hand and they made their way from the bedroom.

“I remember a fight we had.” Lana stayed close to Ben as they headed toward the living room. “We discussed America getting invaded. Remember?”

“I slept on the couch for two nights over that one,” Ben said and exhaled when he stood in the living room and look around.

“I said, no way could America ever get invaded.”

“And I said that most of our troops were overseas and … a world war had never been fought on our soil and we were long overdue.”

“I thought that was the hidden c\Conservative Republican in you talking.”

Ben shook his head. “I said it more to piss you off.”

They stood in the middle of the living room. The sun peeked with ease through the huge hole in the ceiling.

Ben cleared plaster from the couch. “Sit down.”

“I’m okay, really. I’m not hurt, just shaken.”

“Are you sure?”

Lana nodded.

“Good. Because I need to pack some backpacks. We need to get some items and head on out.”

“Where? How?”

“Well, we shouldn’t take the car. We’re gonna have to walk. Stay between houses, stay out of sight and be very quiet,” Ben said. “The planes were headed inland, so we head north and stay north for a while.”

“On foot?”

“Are you up for it?”

Lana exhaled. “I don’t have a choice, do I?”

“None at all,” Ben said and turned to start getting things in gear.

Lana reached out to him. “Ben, we’re going to make it, aren’t we?”

Ben swallowed. His jaw twitched as he sought the right words to say.

“You don’t think so.”

Ben shrugged. “I don’t know. But I do know this. We’re together, Lana. And for that I am so grateful.”

Lana pouted, her lips tightened and her face tensed up as she held in her tears. With glossed over eyes she grabbed on to Ben and embraced him. “Me, too. Trust me. Me, too.”

***

Every noise, every motor sound, every plane had disappeared and quiet had returned.

Harry figured it was safe to emerge from under the work bench.

“Can I talk now?” Tyler asked.

“Yeah, I think it’s safe.”

“What happened, Harry? What was all that?”

Harry led Tyler to the stairs and encouraged him to sit.

It had reached a point where all his years of living and all the experience he had would come into play.

Harry could make reasonable deductions and be correct on his guess as to what happened.

And while they had waited under that workbench, Harry had thought about it all.

But he had to explain to Tyler what he believed was happening before he moved forward with his plan.

After listening to the sparse reports from the Utah man, Harry pieced together in his mind a worst case scenario.

“What grade are you in?” Harry asked Tyler.

“Third.”

“My God, are you young. Have you learned about any wars yet?”

Tyler nodded. “Revolutionary. The Civil War.”

“What about World Wars?”

“Not much.”

Harry cringed. How could he explain? Tyler seemed like a bright boy; it wasn’t going to be too difficult. “Okay. When a country wants to take over another country, there are a couple of phases to do so. Are you with me?”

Tyler nodded.

“First, they know they eventually have to send in ground troops. But in order for the ground troops to be as safe as possible, the invading country has to clean house. Are you with me?”

Tyler nodded. The he shook his head.

“Okay. When the United States went to Iraq, before they sent our soldiers on the ground, they sent fire from the sky, bombed cities and military installations. They did this to shake things up, to remove the threat and make it safer for our soldiers. Following me?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Good. So, the way I figure, there is a country or countries that want to come after us. They want to invade us. We ain’t had that happen since the war of 1812. The civil war doesn’t count because we were fighting against each other. But we haven’t had another country fight on our soil since 1812.”

“Except for now.”

“Exactly,” Harry said. “It think, like I said, countries wanted to take us over, but we’re the good old US of A. We don’t go down that easily. In order to do so, they hit us with some bombs, some chemicals and made us run in confusion, like chickens with their heads cut off. Following me?”

“So they hit us with bombs. We get confused and then they think hitting us with bombs makes their soldiers safe.”

“Exactly, only they’re going for the scattered effect. They cause some destruction and send us scattering. While we’re trying to make heads or tails out of what happened, they come in. That’s what I think we just heard. All those planes were bringing soldiers in.”

“To where?” Tyler asked.

“I suppose they set up a front line somewhere. But they’re gonna need more than soldiers. They’ll need equipment. That’s stuff they will have to bring in on boats.”

“We’re close to the ocean.”

“Yes,” Harry said. “Yes, we are. And because of that, we have to get moving. Now, I’m thinking that for a spell, it’s safe. The planes went somewhere and aren’t worrying too much about us. But those tanks and whatever, they’re gonna have to drive to the front lines. And chances are they’ll come right through here.”

“This is like a movie, Harry.”

“I know. So let’s go upstairs and get out belongings. We’ll go as far as we can in the car. Take the back roads and then play it by ear. Okay?”

Tyler nodded.

“I’ll do the best I can to get you out of this situation. But to be honest, Tyler, I don’t know how far all this goes. It could end in New York or it could go farther.”

“We’ll get out of it, Harry. I’m sure you’ll get us out of it.”

Harry felt pretty good about the vote of confidence he received from the young man. He took him by the hand and they went upstairs.

Even though Harry had the car already packed to go he wanted to get a few more things. He wanted to gather items he knew they would need to stay warm, to eat and to be protected, just in case they had to abandon their vehicle.

They didn’t waste much time in the house; they were out in just a few minutes.

Harry was a little timid when he started the car, looking about to see if the engine noise had drawn any attention. Then he pulled from the driveway and headed from Windsor ,planning to go directly north.

Harry knew he had two goals— stay focused and stay alive.

***

Was he insane? In fact, Abby yelled that question at Foster when he ran back to the building. “Foster? Are you crazy? Come on!” She waved him to come on as she backed up.

“I can’t leave them. I have to move them somewhere safe, maybe to the back of the building.”

Abby looked up. More parachutes were falling, but there were many that had already landed. Some were in the distance, but a lot were close. Too close. They landed on roof tops and in the streets. Men were everywhere and all of them were armed. “Foster. We have to run. Now.”

“Then run.” Foster tuned and went into the senior citizen center.

Abby did.

She looked over her shoulder to the five or six soldiers that had landed a block or so down from them and took off running.

She slipped through two buildings and then darted to the next street over. Carefully she peeked around the corner, but pulled back when she saw more soldiers.