Avalon: The Retreat (18 page)

Dan, stunned into speechlessness, clicked the radio off.

Everyone in the large room was quiet except for a few who were crying or blowing their noses. Claudia moaned and shook from the convulsions of her crying. They all had friends or family down there, loved ones who were probably dead by now. It was a moment of clarity, and the realization of what was happening came crashing down on them.

They were sheltered here at Avalon, and they hadn’t been forced to accept what was really happening down below their mountain; but on this night, it impacted each of them and they all felt it deeply and thoroughly to the bone. What they had known in the rest of the world was gone forever.

This was their world now!

Most of them had an idea all along that this was what it was going to be like, but the reality of it all was difficult to accept. They were being forced to recognize the certainty of it all now.

Mike came in with Caroline. They had been standing at the entry to the big room, listening, and he recognized what they were feeling and what they feared. He felt it too. Stopping, he said in a booming voice,

“What’s the matter with you people?” he paused as they looked up. “Did you think while you were bringing all those items up here and preparing all these years that it was some kind of game? Did you think it would last a week, maybe a month? This is as serious as it gets, people, and it isn’t a game. You struggled, saved, and stockpiled. You did without so that you could live. This is our home now, and make no mistake… they will come up this mountain and do the same thing to us if we let our guard down, if we become complacent the way America did for years. Look what it cost them… what it cost us… what it cost our country.”

His voice rose in volume and the oil lamps fitted to the big wagon wheels above their heads rattled.

“This is our home, and I’ll be damned if they’re gonna come up here and do the same thing to me, to us, to our little town! I’ll die first defending it! God Bless Avalon!”

He raised a clenched fist over his head and yelled the SEAL battle cry, “Hooorahhhhh! Hooorahhhhh! Hooorahhhhh!”

Later that night, the Australian Cattle Dog, Pretty Girl, had puppies. Mike got drunk and Caroline washed his back again.

Well… sorta’.

Eric Bell stood shoulder-to-shoulder with his brother Chris as the minister said his offering about their mom, who was an orphan and the last of their family, except for the two of them. “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust…” he droned on in an effort to give some means of solace to the two brothers and a few of their Mother’s friends who stood there in the slight drizzle. Their dad had passed a decade ago, so they were alone in the world now.

They had no cousins or other family to speak of, and the only other people here were a few co-workers who came out of obligation or perhaps because it was an excuse to miss work.

Neither of the brothers were yet married or had children and both were military, choosing to follow the career path of their late father who was lost at sea when his jet flamed out over the Atlantic and crashed into the choppy waters that marked the beginning of a hurricane.

They were alone now.

Eric, the younger at age twenty-one, was a Force Recon Marine. He recently finished his SERE training and was attached to Twenty-Nine Palms in California. The Navy’s Survival, Escape, Resistance and Evasion course was brutal, and he was glad it was behind him. Now he was looking forward to getting on to his new detachment and getting to know his squad personnel.

As a unit, most of them had become very close. He was a Sergeant, and before SERE, he had attended a series of other courses, each one more deadly than the one before, beginning with sniper school. He had broken more than a few of the records there and had ranked out as one of the top five in the Marine Corps and top ten throughout the Department of Defense. His future as a respected and highly trained Marine was assured. He only had the opportunity to deploy on several surgical strikes thus far, but as a Marine, he knew long term deployments were inevitable.

It sure was great to see his brother again, even under these circumstances.

More than a year passed since their last get together and he missed Chris. Although they were separated by two years in age, they grew up together as best buds. Today was a happy and yet sad day for both of them. Mom was dead; the cancer she had stubbornly fought finally won. He suppressed the overwhelming urge to cry. It was tearing at his insides, but he wouldn’t allow it to spill forth. He fought it hard, but his Adam’s apple seemed to have a mind of its own as it moved involuntarily.

He regretted not having the time nor the opportunity to see her one more time, especially since the cancer struck. But the simple fact was that the military seized every minute of his time; it was just part of the job.

The rain continued as the coffin was lowered into the grave. Not really knowing what to do, he reached down to throw some dirt on it like he had often seen others do. But he only grabbed a handful of mud and immediately regretted it. Chris put an arm around his brother’s shoulder and squeezed him.

Chris was a Lieutenant Junior Grade and the Ordinance Officer aboard the USS CALIFORNIA, an OHIO Class Nuclear Submarine. Technically, he was the Assistant Weapons Officer, but his job was to keep in good order and account for the entire ordinance in his sub’s arsenal. He would be returning to his sub after the funeral was over because they were scheduled to deploy for a cruise in another week.

Thinking about the death of his mother, he felt relieved that she no longer suffered from the disease that had ravaged her body. It was amazing how quickly she degraded from normal and healthy to the empty shell of a woman that lay in that coffin; four months was all it had taken. He watched the lowering casket and felt his younger brother’s shoulders against his arm. He could sense that Eric was taking it extremely hard, especially since he hadn’t been able to be by her side.

This was a gloomy affair made worse by the constant rain. He knew he’d feel better once the service was over, especially since Mom could now rest in peace. Her worries were over, and she most certainly was having a wonderful reunion with Dad right about now. That brought a momentary smile to his lips because she had missed him terribly and said so many times. She would often hold Chris in front of her, look into his eyes, and tell him he could have been his father’s twin. She loved her husband, and he loved her too.

There were about a dozen people at the funeral and when the graveside service was over, they all walked toward their waiting cars. There would be a reception at Mom’s house so everyone could gather and talk and reminisce over food and drinks.

The brothers rode in silence during the short ride home.

In the modest living room, they all helped themselves to the food and refreshments. Eric went to the bathroom and washed the cemetery mud from his hands and when he came out, his brother offered him a sandwich. There was the usual small talk about things Margaret had done at such and such a time. The gathering lasted a couple of hours and then, one by one or two by two, they all left.

Eric and Chris were alone at last.

“It just won’t be the same without her, Chris,” Eric said in a soft voice. He was looking at his brother and, as hard as he tried not to let it happen, a tear slipped past his defenses followed by another until he was a little boy again. He put his head against his brother’s chest and Chris was there to comfort and protect him. His shoulders shook with the grief he was holding back and unknown to Eric, Chris was shedding a few of his own.

It took some time for both of them to let their grief subside. Chris finally asked Eric, “What are your plans, little brother?”

“Nothing much.” Eric composed himself enough to answer. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief and blew his nose. “I’ll just go back to the unit and continue doing what I’ve been trained to do. I haven’t made any plans… how ‘bout you?”

“We’re getting ready to deploy for six months on patrol,” Chris was glad to be talking about something normal for a change. “I suppose that’s all I have in terms of the future for right now.”

“I’ve missed you.” Eric said it with the strange sense of feeling that people get when they feel like a little kid again, not a six foot two Marine Sergeant Sniper from Force Recon. “Your letters have been good for the ego. I’ve wanted to thank you, but I don’t recall saying it before now.”

“You’re my little brother and I swear to you we will always stay in touch no matter what happens.” Chris said it with a determination that caused Eric to turn and look him in the eye and study him, knowing they were words of truth. “I will always be there for you, Shrimp,” which was the nickname Chris had used when Eric was younger. He stopped using it when he was ten, saving it only for times of close discussion or to make a sincere point.

Days later, both brothers returned to their duty stations with plans to get together when Chris returned from deployment and Eric, hopefully, had Christmas stand-down.

They both knew it might be a long time before they saw each other again, and they wrapped their arms around each other for a moment and said good-bye.

“You be careful, little brother!” Chris yelled as Eric was getting into a taxi cab.

“See you later, alligator.” Eric yelled over his shoulder, just before shutting the door.

“After while, crocodile,” he said it softly to the back of the cab as it pulled away from the curb.

Soon they were both gone and, in a very short time, World War Three began when China launched nuclear tipped missiles at the West Coast. Reports surfaced that one of those had struck the Marine base at Twenty-Nine Palms, the training location his brother, Eric, was at. The base, like every city during the attack, was caught unaware and obliterated.

LTjg Chris Bell was at sea, on patrol, but the message traffic was clear; Twenty-Nine Palms no longer existed.

The SONAR speaker was on, providing a myriad of background noises, including the sound of whales in the distance. Using Target Motion Analysis, or TMA, they had ruled out potential contact as an enemy submarine and were slowly coming DIW, or dead in the water.

Word had already spread throughout the entire crew and emotions ran high in Combat Information Center. Here the Captain could get a clear picture of everything he needed to know before executing his orders to launch their entire inventory of twenty-four Trident ballistic missiles.

The Executive Officer hovered over charts spread out on the table, intently studying a portion of one. Satisfied with his verification of the Navigator’s report, he looked up from the chart to his Commanding Officer.

“Captain, we are in position.”

The Captain said, “Very well. Stand by.”

Twenty hours earlier, the Captain, an Annapolis graduate and career Naval Officer, had the miserable job of announcing to his crew that their homeland had been rained on with Chinese nuclear missiles and most of their families and loved ones living on the West Coast were assumed dead. He was lost for a few hours after hearing the news and contemplated what that meant to him as an individual and a man with a family that had been erased from the world of the living in an instant.

He discovered the news by answering his stateroom door when the messenger from Radio delivered the flash traffic in a red folder. All that he loved more than life itself was gone, and he was powerless to do anything about it… until now.

The Captain looked up from the chart that was spread out on the other table and walked the short distance separating him from his Executive Officer, who pointed a finger on the chart. The Captain nodded his head in acknowledgment, reached up and grasped a microphone that was hanging above his head, and pulled it to his mouth as he spoke into 1MC, the ship-wide speaker system.