Torn (48 page)

Out from under his coat, Darius swung his shot gun and aimed it at Gus. “We came to take our daughter.”

Gus raised his hands and before the
other soldier
could react, Bret had her weapon on him.

Darius gave a nudge. “Let’s go get her.”

The rain and thunder was muffled slightly the second they stepped through the door. Darius’ assessment was slightly off.
Six
people
lined the hallway, Andi first. They had a single bag at their feet. Where were the other two? The
Captain
?

Darius shifted his eyes.

“
Mommy
!” Andi
cried out
and raced to Bret.

“Keep your aim, Bret,” Darius ordered.

“Dr. Cobb,” Gus tried to be reasonable. “Come on. Put the gun down.”

“I’m not hurting anyone, Gus. Just taking the girl. You people can go back to what you were doing.”

Gus, shotgun near
ly
against him,
tilted
his
head Darius’ way and whispered. “
You
know I ain’t gonna stop you, Dr. Cobb.”

Darius replied in a whisper. “And you know I’m not going to
shoot you
.”

Gus nodded.

Another
motion
of his head and Darius said to Bret, “Back it up, Bret, slow
ly,
and take Andi to the car.”

From a side office door, the
First
Sgt. e
merged.
He
paused a split second then pulled his revolver. “Hold it!”

Darius kept his aim on Gus. “John, I just want our kid. That’s all. Bret, keep going.”

“Dr. Cobb, I can’t let you
do that.”

“You don’t have anything to lose. Just let her go with us.”

“Again, I can’t let you take her.”

What? What was he looking
at?
Darius wondered. Then he heard Bret
and Andi scream
.

Darius couldn’t turn around.
He
couldn’t take a chance on his weapon being confiscated.

Gus whispered. “They got her.”

Darius clenched his jaws. The missing soldier. That’s where he was. Behind them.

John stepped closer
,
aiming. “I’ll shoot you. Put down the weapon, say goodbye to
your
daughter
and just go. Go to safety.”

“I can’t do that, John.”
Darius
said. A blast of thunder
and
the rain fell
harder
, making it louder in the hallway. “Let me take her. I can’t let you put her on the chopper. Did
you
see it out
there?
It’s getting worse by the minute.”

“Put down the weapon now!” John ordered.

“The big one’s here,” Darius stayed firm. “Where are you going, John? Huh?
You load these people on the bird. Where are you and your men going?
To the
survivor city
?
”

He heard a
whispering
‘no’, from Gus. And Darius chuckled. “You mean you and y
our men have to find a place to.
…”

“Put down your fuckin
’
weapon
,
Darius!”
John
blasted
.

“No!”
Darius
held firm.

“I know you love this girl. I know her mother loves this
girl
. But for
G
od
’s
sake
,” John pleaded. “This is her survival. She’s being taken to a safe place! She will live. She will survive this!
Your love for her should make you let her go. Isn’t
that what you want
?
For her to live!
”

“Yes, that’
s what we want, t
hat’s why we’re taking her!”

“
And
do what!” John
spoke
loud
ly
to be heard over the pouring rain
and
moved in
to
ward
Darius
. “
D
ie in this storm!
The government has a survival city. A place for her to go. Grow old. Live! A safe haven! Do you have a better plan?”

With a connection of eye contact to John, Darius cocked a cro
o
ked smile.

“Where exactly is this place?” John asked, leaning between the
front seats.

Darius lifted his eyes from the rain
-
so
a
ked windshield to John. “Not far, just on the
outskirts
of downtown.
Which is good
.
Water’s rising. I can feel it.”

Gus was positioned in the turret of the Humvee. Not just because he wanted that demented
experience
of the mega-
storm, but also it was helping Darius with
navigation
. The skies were dark and the amount of water
unbelievable
.

Darius lifted the radio. “Gus, you sure
you
don’t want to come in.”

“Na
h
, I’m good. Over.”

Another shift of his eyes to John. John smiled with a shake of his head and sat back.

The
H
umvee was hot and crowded. John, Gus, and another soldier named Peter joined Darius. The fourth solder said he had to find his family.

Six people were to board the chopper for the
G
E
P
. Only three of them did. The other three, like the
soldiers
, opted for the bunker
. . . .

John’s eyes locked on Darius in the after seconds of being informed
about
the
Bunker
, Texas. Not that Darius said much. Just that,
“Hey
, we’ve been
prepping
for nearly six months. We’ve put over
eight million
into our survival. We got a
safe
holding place here
in Pittsburgh, and a final surv
iv
al
city
in Texas.”

For some reason that information pushed a release button and Andi ran into Bret’s arms.

“Wait a second,” a woman named Lucy spoke up. “
Darius Cobb. You spoke
at
the
conference. You wanted to blow up the world.”

Darius cringed.

Harris, a businessman who still looked the part, spoke up. ‘Hell, if he has a place
,
I want to go there instead of that chopper.”

“I’m
gonna
assume by the look on your face
,
John,” Darius said
,
“
w
e’re
taking
her.”

“Go.” John nodded. “Go. Be safe.”

“Take her to the Humvee,” Darius told Bret.

‘Thank you, John,” Bret whimpered out.

Darius shouldered his weapon. “Now who else is coming.”

It was quiet in the Humvee
except
for
the pounding rain, and Darius reflected on the
rescue
moment. They went there for Andi. There were
supposed
to be only the three. Now they had nine additional. The bunker was ready for that, equipped for that, and while the
H
umvee was
crowded
, it was worth it.

Admittedly, Darius was relieved that people had joined them. Not that he couldn’t handle the storm and take care of Bret and Andi, but an old saying
,
‘safety in numbers
,
’ held true in the situation they faced. Darius had the numbers.

Hands were needed for hunkering down at the bunker and for the eventual trip with the second
H
umvee going south. Now he had five additional men for that. It would work and be better.

The storm was just the beginning.
Just the literal tip of the
long series of icebergs ahead.

Even though the Bunker was safely l
ocated away from the three rivers
, there was still about two feet of
water
when they arrived.

The hindrance of the storm
slowed
the
ir
journey
,
and by the time they crossed the bridge
, the
downtown area of Pittsburgh had already flooded. The rivers had risen, as Darius estimated, nine feet.

The initial
scary portion of
the freak lightning had passed
,
and the blackened skies turned dark gray, affording some
visibility
.

The brightest spot of the day was the continuous saying of
the
word ‘Dude’ from Gus.

Dude, when they arrived
.

Dude, when he saw the outside
of
the building was just a cover for what was built.

Dude
,
when they drove the
H
umvees up to the fourth floor via the interior ramps, around the stockpiles of firewood and generators.

Dude, when Darius told them
that,
once the snow started to
build
,
they
’d
e
r
ect a ramp
and
drive up to the next level, until they could drive up no further.

John explained to his men their duties. And they worked with Darius to learn.

The others were situated on the home floor, second to top level. Bret
assigned
sleeping
areas and informed them of ‘the plan’ while Darius took John to the floor below.

The lab.

The generator powered up, but they’d have to conserve that. John assigned Gus to the furnace. Fire it up.

The
B
unker was already getting warm.

But no
t
for long.

“
Temperature’s
dropping,” John informed. “We’re at 12 degrees now.”

“Expect it to get colder, real
ly
cold,”
Darius
said. “It was sixty last night.”

Pete peered out the only open section of window on that floor. “Looks like the water stopped rising,” he said.
“Looks like the water’s freezing.”

“It is.”
Darius clicked on the keyboard and turned the monitor to John. “This is where we are.”

“Storms still to the east and north of us. It looks like we’re only on
the outskirts
.”

Darius
nodded. “Yeah, so can you imagine when it rolls
in?
”

John whistled. ‘I don’t want to.
Bad?”

“Yep. Once it starts, then we switch into hunker down mode.”

“It’s quiet out there now. Calm before the real storm.”

Darius only nodded with a
facial
expression that stated, ‘you aren’t kidding.”

“Hey, guys,” Pete called out. “Sarge.  We might want to hit that hunker
phase
.” He pointed to the window. “Here comes the snow.”

The tiny window on the community floor was the only peek outside that Andi had. She watched out the window so much, that man named Harrison kept telling her she was
going
to get
snow blindness
.

She guessed he had a point. After
all,
every time
she turned
away
everything looked
green. So she put on sunglasses, even though there was no sun.

It was still snowing, and she watched the tracks from the
H
umvees fast disappear behind the falling snow
,
s
now that was still accumulating after four days.

He
r
question
of whether o
r
not you’d sink if you walked on the snow was answered when the
H
umvees moved up one more level.

Darius told her that he didn’t foresee the snow reaching much higher, maybe another fifteen feet.

Fifteen
feet.

Andi laughed when she heard that. The grown
-
ups
were
talking about how
lucky
they were that the snow hadn’t hit a hundred feet yet. But it was close. Darius s
t
ated he thought it would
surpass
a hundred and fifty.

But did any of them realize how much was
buried
beneath the snow they already had.

Telephone poles were buried. Any building that wasn’t more than seven stories wasn’t seen. The only tracks in the snow were those made by Darius. And th
ose
fast disappeared.

The world looked wide, white, and flat. The snow made everything even.

It wasn’t even playing snow. Darius told her that it was layered. Ice, snow, ice, snow. Hard like an ice skating rink and the temperature hadn’t risen above minus
thirty
.
There went
that old science theory that it could get too cold to snow.

As
she traced circles
i
n the window condensation, Andi imagined the feel of being off from school. Like a snow day. It was quiet and boring. She
couldn’t
take another movie or book.

She’d rather sit at the window and watch the world
vanish
beneath the layers of
snow
and ice.

Martin
tried
to contain his composure and not laugh when he heard one of the monitoring soldier
s
’
comment that the dome city looked like a big snow titty.

The
comment
wasn’t intended for his
ears
and the young solider apologized. Martin shook his head but
didn’t
let on that he found it amusing.

In
fact,
he had to agree.

The dome was completely covered in ice. Snow covered all around the circumference and everything but the top was white. The top,
Martin
supposed was warm enough to melt the snow, giving the appearance of a nipple.

The first two days were hell and
that
alone should have melted the ice.

If, indeed
,
emotion
could generate the energy to do so.

People
panicked, cried, scream
ed
, fought. The minor children
brought
without parents were
distraught
. Thank
God,
they had counselors, but there weren’t enough.

The
re
weren’t
enough arms to hug the children. Well, there were but there weren’t enough adults who cared to hug the children.

To Martin that was a crime. They were
the entire
surviving race.

As the storm blew in, outsiders formed a riot and tr
ied
to break in.

How they found the
GEP,
he didn’t know.

But
since
the snow started to fall, things outside
quieted
.

People
. . . f
roze to death.

After the initial panic, people calmed, but
they
didn’t adjust. They weren’t accepting the new living arrangements
, t
he new laws.

899,788 people were supposed to occupy the GEP
,
a
good
number of them due to arrive on
Operation Move day. Close to 27,000 never arrived.

They either ran or crashed in the storm.

It wasn’t bad for percentages.

But that was still 27,000 people who weren’t there.

The satellite images showed no sign of the storm letting
up, not
for a few days.

Martin guessed that once the snow stopped falling and the sun peeked through a little bit, those things would calm down and the residents would soon begin to adjust and live.

O
f
that,
Martin hoped. He truly hoped.

“Nothing yet,” was the common response Colin often gave. Every time someone saw him, they’d ask. “Have
you contacted
Darius?”

“Not yet.”

Even Colin was
surprised
he hadn’t made contact yet. Then again, the storm was still strong and lingering where Darius resided.

The best he could do was keep tr
y
ing to get
through
, keep trying to get a signal, and
stay
busy.

For the first two days he did inventory and devised
,
with a
mathematician
,
rations.

He played video games with Casper and Luke
,
l
istened to Perry play guitar, and never sat quietly for too long.

When he
did,
he worried. Even though he had every faith th
at Darius not only rescued Andi
but
had
secured their safety in the
B
unker, there was
still
a chance.

And Colin didn’t want to consider that, so he kept his
mind
busy any way that he could.