Dead Zone (23 page)

SIXTY-ONE

AUBREY KEYED IN THE PROPER
buttons on the radio, in the order that Rich indicated.

“FOB, this is Lambda Private Parsons.”

“Private Parsons, this is the FOB. We think we’ve got a way you can verify your identity. We’ve got Lambda Private Matt Ganza here.”

Aubrey covered the receiver on the headset and told Jack. The three of them used to be close friends. Jack nodded—he could hear both sides of the conversation.

“Copy that,” Aubrey said. “Go ahead.”

“If you are speaking of your own free will,” the radio officer said, “then answer the following question truthfully. If you’re compromised, do not.”

“Copy that.”

“Give us the name of the boy that you went to the homecoming dance with.”

Aubrey closed her eyes. The events of that night came flooding back to her. That was when this had all started—when the military had come to the Gunderson Barn and rounded everyone up for quarantine. Aubrey’s date had been the star linebacker on the football team, and, as it turned out, a lambda. The army had killed him after he panicked and attacked them.

“Nate Butler,” Aubrey said. “His name was Nate Butler. He’s dead.”

“Copy Nate Butler,” the radioman said. “Can you confirm for us the information that you delivered earlier?”

“The lambda that was causing the electronic interference has been killed,” Aubrey said. “It’s now clear to attack.”

“You’re certain?”

“Roger that,” she said, and there was a hitch in her voice. “I did it myself.”

“Okay. You said you’re in a Russian tank?”

“A T-eighty,” Aubrey said.

“You’re going to want to get out of that. Find somewhere safe. Get underground if you can.”

“Roger,” she said. “How much time?”

“This is a party line, Private Parsons. Get underground.”

“Roger.”

“And Parsons,” the radioman said. “Good work.”

“Thank you, sir.”

She used her good hand to pull off the headset, and then looked around the tank at the dimly lit faces. “We’ve got to get out of here. I think they’re going to start bombing, or maybe another armored assault. Either way, we don’t want to look like a target.”

Above her, Jack opened the hatch and looked outside.

“All’s quiet on the western front,” he said, and he began to climb out of the tank. Josi helped Aubrey stand, and Jack reached down to help pull her up. She grimaced, especially when she had to narrow her shoulders to squeeze through the hatch, and yelped as Jack took her by the arm and helped her down off of the big metal machine.

Josi followed her out, carrying her Kevlar vest. Aubrey’s heart fell, but she knew that one gunshot was enough. She stretched her arms the best she could so Jack and Josi could strap it into place. The weight on her shoulder was tremendous and nauseating.

“Let’s find a place with a basement,” she said to Jack. “Fast.”

As much as she wanted to be out of that vest, she didn’t want to be close to the tank if a missile was coming in to hit it. They crossed the street, Jack leading the way, and moved in the shadows of tall trees until they reached an alley. It was lined with the back fences of a dozen houses, and Jack moved from one to the next before stopping at the fifth and gesturing.

“Basement window,” he said as she reached him.

“Let’s do it.”

They entered the small backyard and crossed the grass to the door.

“Anyone know how to pick locks?” Aubrey asked, looking at Rich.

“A lock is mechanical. Anyone have a bobby pin?”

Both Aubrey and Josi reached up to their hair.

It didn’t take Rich more than a minute to open the door, and they slipped inside. The house was old, and smelled of rotten food—there were dishes on the counter that had obviously been left in a hurry when the homeowners evacuated. Jack was moving ahead of them. A moment later, he called out.

“Here’s the door.”

He held it open as Rich, Josi, and Aubrey all made their way downstairs. As Aubrey walked by, he grabbed her good hand and she interlaced her fingers with his.

The basement was broad and open, with three beat-up couches and a pool table. Jack helped Aubrey to one of the couches, but when he tried to leave she didn’t let him go. She clutched on to his hand tight, and made him sit next to her.

“Think of it as an order from your commanding officer,” she said with a smile.

“I think that could constitute harassment.”

“Are you going to report me?”

Josi plopped down on the next couch over. “You guys know I can’t forget anything, right? So no more lovey-dovey stuff, okay?”

Aubrey laughed, and let go of Jack’s hand long enough to toss a pillow at Josi.

Rich lay down on the third couch, unstrapping his helmet and pulling it off.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Aubrey said.

“What?”

“Taking off your helmet. I’ll bet you we’re hiding under the pool table before long.”

Rich sighed and pulled it back on, though he left the straps undone. “War is really uncomfortable.”

Jack put one foot up on the edge of the pool table. “So what do we do now? Are we just waiting out the Russians?”

Josi answered. “The Russian military isn’t a match for the American military if they’re in a head-to-head battle. The only reason they’ve been winning is because of the lambda.”

“Airpower,” Rich said with a nod. “It’s all about airpower.”

“Haven’t we been running out of planes?” Jack asked.

“Not by my count,” Josi said. “So far I’ve seen twenty-eight aircraft destroyed.”

“That sounds like a lot,” Jack said.

“It’s a lot for the Russians. You saw their airfield. It had six fighters left. And they only have one aircraft carrier. Granted, they probably have a lot more spread out over the whole battlefront—and I bet there’s a ton guarding Snowqualmie Pass—but the Americans have hundreds of fighters. Almost a thousand F-sixteens. Four hundred F-fifteens. Three hundred A-tens. I bet you anything that they just haven’t been fighting because they’ve been afraid of the bubble.”

Aubrey interjected, “And I bet you anything they are going to pour down hell on the Russians now that the air is clear.”

“And we’re sitting right in the middle of it,” Jack said.

She squeezed his hand. “That’s why we have a pool table to hide under.”

He looked at her in the darkness—one of those probing looks. “How did you get so optimistic?”

“I got shot,” she said. “And it hurts like crazy. But I survived, didn’t I? A little lost blood, and a torn shirt, and a couple broken bones. But I survived. I don’t plan to die now.”

SIXTY-TWO

KREZI WOKE TO THE SOUND
of thunder, and had to try hard to remember where she was. She felt like she was sleeping with a huge weight on her chest, and when she moved pain exploded from her sternum, radiating out in all directions.

She could use more ibuprofen, but she’d left the bottle in the bathroom, and she didn’t feel like getting up.

It was morning outside, and it looked sunny enough—too sunny for a thunderstorm.

As the fog of sleep cleared from her mind, she had to remind herself: this isn’t thunder; this is war.

She groaned, and forced herself to swing one leg over the edge of the bed. She needed medicine. She needed to be asleep again.

There was a crash and the house rattled. And then another. The windows shook in their frames.

She needed to get somewhere safe.

Krezi slipped out of bed and onto her feet. She swore as she stood, and her bones all seemed to rearrange themselves in her chest. She had to stop for a moment, clutching the bedframe, trying to regain her balance.

There were more crashes outside, but farther away.

Krezi took an unsteady step away from the bed, leaned on the wall, and then staggered across the rug toward the bathroom. She felt like a zombie, like she was already dead. With every step new jolts of pain stabbed her torso. She tried to go as fast as she could without moving anything—her arms or her shoulders or her waist.

The ibuprofen bottle had fallen into the sink, and she pulled it out, trying to twist the cap off while tears burst from her eyes. The pressure from squeezing the bottle was too much for her to take.

And then the world seemed to explode. The small bathroom window blew in, followed by a burst of flame. The mirror split down the center and shattered, and water started spraying from a faucet. Krezi flew into the wall, lost all her breath, and the ibuprofen fell from her hand, spilling little red pills across the floor.

There was another crash, and she tumbled into the shower curtain, trying to grab on to hold herself up but falling into the tub.

She let out a shriek of horrific pain that was drowned out by another explosion. She heard glass break, heard wood creak and split. The bathtub faucet began to trickle and then to pour cold water.

Another boom sounded and plaster fell from the ceiling. The porcelain tub cracked and the water began to leak onto the bathroom floor.

Krezi hugged the torn shower curtain to her chest and sobbed as the bombs continued to fall, one after another after another.

SIXTY-THREE

JACK, AUBREY, JOSI, AND RICH
spent three days in the basement. The first day was sheer terror. When the bombing started, Jack, Josi, and Rich slid the backs of the couches up against the sides of the pool table, calling it the safest pillow fort ever. Rich even thought to turn off the gas line and so, as the bombs began to crash around them, he had run outside with a wrench, found the gas, and switched it off. Josi had kissed him, turning his dark cheeks rosy.

The bombing was unbelievable, and Jack had to wrap a blanket around his head to block out the noise. Josi couldn’t handle it either, storing up every incredible sound until she left the safety of the pool table and threw up. When she came back, she still looked green, but she was able to handle it better.

The house didn’t take a direct hit, but something landed nearby, and everything shifted. From their view in the basement they couldn’t see any structural damage except that the Sheetrock ceiling was cracked in a half dozen long, jagged lines. No one dared go upstairs to investigate further.

The bombing continued until dark. Jack had been able to smell fires all day, but it wasn’t until night that he saw the orange glow flickering out through the small basement windows. He had crawled out of the fort, peeked around at the world above them, and seen that the entire block across the street was either flattened or burning, or both. The pavement was plowed up in a crater.

He got back under the table.

The next morning more explosions rattled the house. Nothing as big as the day before—though he couldn’t be sure, Jack thought these sounded more like rockets than bombs. And nothing came too close to the house—these seemed to be focused attacks. Even so, they all stayed under cover all day, leaving the table only to use the toilet, which, amazingly, still worked. Kind of.

Aubrey seemed to be getting worse, and even though Jack was feeding her amoxicillin that he’d found in the basement bathroom, he was worried about infection. She was going to need surgery—they all knew that—but there had to be something more they could do for her.

She kept bleeding—that was one problem. They’d gone through all the bandages in her first-aid pouch and had moved on to Jack’s.

On the third morning, after a long, sleepless night, Aubrey looked up into Jack’s eyes and spoke.

“Do you know what today is?”

He shook his head.

“Thursday,” Josi said.

“I thought you didn’t forget things,” Aubrey said with a small, pained laugh.

“Oh,” Josi said. “Oh yeah. It’s Thanksgiving.”

“Seriously?” Rich asked.

“Yep,” Aubrey said.

Jack stretched as much as he could in the tiny space, and poked his head out of the fort. Everything was quiet.

“If it’s Thanksgiving,” he said, “then I’m going to find us something to eat. We need a feast.”

“Is the house safe?” Aubrey asked.

“We’ll find out,” he said. He pulled the straps of his Kevlar vest tight and adjusted his helmet.

“Be careful,” Aubrey said.

Rich climbed out of the fort after him. “I’ll come with you.”

Rich picked up his rifle off the couch, and Jack drew his pistol. They cautiously made their way to the stairs and then slowly began the climb up and out of the basement.

Already Jack could see that things were wrong. The basement door led out into a hallway, and pictures had crashed down from the wall, the glass shattering out of the frames. More importantly, the ceiling was sagging, which made Jack nervous. Still, he couldn’t hear any creaking. The house was motionless, for now.

“If I say run,” Jack told Rich, “you run. Don’t wait.”

“Run where?”

“Downstairs or outside. Whichever is closer.”

As they got to the top of the stairs, the damage was more apparent. The wall that the pictures had been on was leaning toward them, about ten degrees off of vertical. The Sheetrock was buckled and broken, revealing the two-by-fours and wiring underneath.

Jack held his Beretta as he moved through the hall. He should have been able to easily hear breathing or heartbeats, but he still was nervous and his own pulse sounded like a bass drum. At the end of the hall was the kitchen. All of the windows were blown in, glass sprayed across every surface. The French doors that led out onto a small back deck were off their hinges, and cold air slipped through the gaps. Turning to look at the cabinets, Jack could see that the walls were also leaning ominously toward him. Most of the dishes had fallen to the floor and shattered.

Rich slung his rifle over his shoulder at the sight of food. He picked up a box of Ritz crackers and a package of Oreos. He looked ecstatic, like he had found a roast turkey. Jack forced open a tall cupboard full of cans—as he got the door open, the contents all came tumbling out, making a tremendous clatter on the glass-covered floor.

“See if you can find a can opener,” Jack said, as he began sorting through the food. For two days, none of them had eaten more than the PowerBars they carried with them in their gear. “Canned chicken,” Jack said. “That’s like turkey, isn’t it?”

“I’ve never had canned chicken,” Rich said as he rooted through messy drawers of utensils.

“It’s like canned tuna. Better with mayo. We could make chicken salad. Speaking of . . .” Jack reached to the back of the cabinet and found two unopened jars of mayonnaise. He checked the expiration dates. They were both still good. “We’re going to eat like kings. Or pilgrims.”

A few minutes later Jack had two plastic bowls filled with food—chicken and mayo, strawberry jam, black olives, baby corn, and a half dozen other cans. Together with the crackers and cookies, they’d be a perfect Thanksgiving feast. He handed the bowls to Rich, who took them downstairs, and then Jack left the kitchen to explore the rest of the house.

The front door was blown out completely, and Jack very cautiously—and very slowly—crept outside.

It was light, though overcast and chilly. The opposite side of the block was destroyed—houses knocked to the ground and most of them burned. Smoke rose from a few, and there were small fires still smoldering among the piles of rubble. Jack listened for other soldiers, but didn’t hear so much as a footstep or an engine. It was like the town was dead.

He stepped into the front yard, standing amid the chunks of asphalt that had been flung onto the lawn by the craters in the street, and he turned around to look at their house.

It looked as if it had been pushed a few inches off its foundation, and was tilting backward and to the left. But as much as it was leaning, Jack felt confident that it wouldn’t collapse. Nothing was creaking; nothing was moving. It was only a one-story, too, which made him think that even if the roof did collapse, the basement would be safe.

He went back inside and down to their fort. One of the couches had been pushed away to create a little more room for their feast. Josi must have sent Rich upstairs again, because there were a few more dishes—she was mixing up the chicken salad in a bowl, and Rich was arranging olives, baby corn, pickles, and sweet peppers onto a plate. Aubrey was propped up on a couch cushion, her lips tinged with black from eating an Oreo. They all agreed they hadn’t had a Thanksgiving dinner that good ever.