Miracles

by Thomas A. Watson

  Reaching back, Wendy held out her hand and Shawn grabbed it with his left hand, carrying the ‘key’ with his right. Taking a deep breath, Wendy moved ahead and cringed when her foot came down on the carpet. She could hear and also feel the crunch of thousands of insect bodies under her foot.

  Moving down the hall in a normal walk, Wendy refused to look down at her legs. She glanced over at the stack of bodies lining each side of the hallway and saw the shiny white of a skull where the ants had already eaten away the flesh.

  Keeping her eyes forward, Wendy fought the urge to run. Afraid if she fell, the suit might tear or pull the taped seams apart. Hearing Shawn gasp behind her and squeeze her hand hard, “Don’t look down at your legs,” she snapped.

  “Our blue boots are black!” Shawn cried out.

  “We’re safe, just don’t move fast and pull the tape off,” Wendy told him, and felt Shawn’s grip relax.

  Rounding the corner Wendy wanted to scream, seeing the bodies stacked on each side of the hallway were taller now and the carpet of ants thicker. “That’s the pharmacy,” she pointed to a door on the right side of the hall next to a window with a teller drawer.

  “Careful with the wedge because the tongs can rip our suits,” Wendy told Shawn when she stopped at the door.

  Moving up, Shawn put the wedge in the small crack and hit the switch. The sharp whine filled the hall and Shawn watched the arms spread apart, making the crack a little wider. Flipping the switch, Shawn closed the arms and shoved the wedge in further. Before he flipped the switch, Shawn realized he could actually hear the ants moving around them. With his mind registering the fact there were so many ants he could hear them moving, he fought to keep his breathing steady. “I want Raid,” he stuttered, flipping the switch.

  Wendy watched the arms spread apart just above the handle. “There hasn’t been enough Raid ever made to do anything to this many ants.”

  When the arms stopped moving, Shawn flipped the switch to close them again. “This is bullshit. I’ve watched Arthur do this a hundred times, and he never had this much trouble,” Shawn panted, moving the wedge to the bottom of the gap and closer to the handle.

  “Shawn, this door was designed against this,” Wendy told him, swearing she felt ants in her suit just crawling all over her skin. “They would be stinging if they were inside,” she told herself while Shawn flipped the switch to open the jaws again.

  The arms opened up an inch and a loud crack and ‘ting’ sounded out when the door popped open lazily. Flipping the switch to close the jaws, Shawn eased in and let out a groan to see ants inside the pharmacy. Granted, it wasn’t a carpet, but tens of thousands of ants were everywhere he looked.

  Wendy followed him in, taking the two duffel bags off her shoulder. Hearing Shawn gasp, she turned to see two bodies on the floor and another in a chair covered with ants. “That’s why they’re in here,” she mumbled, handing one of the duffel bags to Shawn.

  Moving over to the dispensing unit, “Shawn, put the wedge here to open these drawers,” she told him. “I’m going to see what’s on the shelves.”

  “Okay,” Shawn shivered, shoving the wedge in.

  Moving along the rows of shelves, Wendy was surprised to see as much medicine as she did. Opening the duffel bag, she started filling it. “Anyone trying to get drugs here would die without protection,” she nodded with certainty.

  “I got them all open,” Shawn called out when her duffel bag was half full.

  Walking back over to Shawn, Wendy’s steps faltered. Shawn’s legs were black, and ants nearly covered his upper body. When an ant crawled over her eye lens, Wendy jumped and hurried over. Holding the bag open, she glanced at the bottles in the drawers and started tossing them in.

  When the first bag was full, she handed it to Shawn and started filling the next one. Moving to the next drawer, Wendy gave a sigh to see several gallon-size bottles of Adderall in different strengths. Taking all of them, Wendy grabbed the other ADD medications. When the drawer was empty, she started tossing in handfuls of vials.

  “Can we get out of here, please?” Shawn begged in a quivering voice, and Wendy turned to see him scraping ants off his lenses so he could see.

  “Done,” Wendy said, putting her arms through the shoulder straps of the duffel bag. Walking back out into the hallway, Wendy shook her head. “I know he didn’t give me flashlights with dying batteries.”

  “No, the ants are covering the flashlights,” Shawn said behind her, and Wendy almost took off in a sprint. “Just use your finger to scrape them off. That’s why I wanted to leave. I’m scared to scrape the flashlight too hard and pull on the tape holding the hood down.”

  Reaching back, Wendy grabbed Shawn’s arm and started walking at a brisk pace. When they passed the mound the rat was buried under, Wendy sighed to see the end of the living carpet. “I fucking love that moat now,” she sang out, stepping off the carpet. Giving a sigh of relief that her footsteps weren’t crunching, Wendy grabbed the door and headed into the stairwell.

  When the two stepped outside, everyone except Arthur gasped in shock to see their blue suits were a solid black from the chest down. Grabbing the bug sprayer, Arthur moved outside the line of poison. Before they’d stopped, Arthur was spraying them down.

  Andrea watched in horror as Arthur sprayed them down, and it looked like he was painting them blue when he sprayed the ants off. “Everyone, load up,” Andrea snapped, and everyone ran to their vehicle.

  After he sprayed them down, Arthur tossed the sprayer on the trailer and moved over to Shawn, ripping the tape off the hood. “Andrea, start on Wendy,” Arthur grunted, yanking the tape off.

  Looking at the mound of ants at Wendy’s feet, Andrea rushed over and started yanking the tape off. “Toss everything in the metal chest on my trailer,” Arthur told Andrea, tossing Shawn’s breathing system and mask in. “I’ll do it, Shawn,” Arthur said when Shawn tried to yank the tape off the cuff of his gloves.

  Taking the two duffel bags, Arthur tossed them into the chest and then pulled Shawn’s gloves off. “I didn’t forget the ‘master key’,” Shawn declared proudly in a quivering voice while Arthur ripped the tape off over his zipper.

  “I would’ve made another one if you had,” Arthur assured him.

  When his suit was off, Shawn bounced away while shaking his entire body. “That was some fucked in the ass shit!” he shouted, shaking his body like he was having a convulsion and then ran his fingers through his hair before shaking them violently to see if any ants fell out of his hair. Soon, Wendy was bouncing around with Shawn, feeling ants crawling on her skin.

  Tossing the suits in, Arthur ripped open some packages and tossed them in the chest before closing the lid and locking it down. Flipping a switch, he gave a grin at hearing a small motor running. “Screw poison, I’ll take away your oxygen,” he told the metal chest proudly.

  “We’re leaving!” Wendy announced, running for the MRAP.

  Arthur turned to see Andrea and Shawn sprinting to their vehicles. Shutting the back hatch, Arthur saw Donald and Daisy weren’t in the cargo area. They had climbed over into the backseat. “Smart dogs,” he mumbled, running for his door.

  Chapter Four

  Underground Sanctuary

  Now June, long after the attack on the government compound, found Sarah leaning back in an office chair and staring at the banks of monitors on the wall. They had discovered the control area for the abandoned complex where they’d run from the attack. There’d been a Secret Service emblem on the door and it had taken a fireman’s axe mounted on the wall to get the door open. They’d used the axe to pry it open. The forty security monitors were the old tube monitors, state-of-the-art for the eighties when this part of the complex had been deemed unnecessary.

  The tunnels, where the subway was to be, had still been used to store equipment. The tunnel that’d led to Camp David held storage rooms marked Secret Service, and there had been lines of vehicles parked in the tunnel. They had found three
older presidential limos and one of the current ones, along with all the support vehicles. When they had neared the end of the tunnel near Camp David everyone had frozen, seeing three brand-new presidential helicopters.

  On that trip, they hadn’t explored all the locked areas that dotted the tunnel. Instead, they’d headed down the other tunnel that led to the Pentagon and had found military vehicles lining one side of the tunnel. Like the Camp David tunnel, there had been locked rooms on each side of the tunnel.

  “What’s got your attention?” Sutton asked, walking in the security room.

  “Still no movement outside or in the complex,” Sarah answered when Sutton sat down at a computer terminal behind her.

  “Nobody’s alive in there,” Sutton said with certainty, turning on the terminal.

  Hearing the whine of the tube in the monitor, Sarah turned around and chuckled. “I saw one of those in a computer museum in Texas.”

  “This was what I started on,” Sutton grinned. “The room next to us, with all those storage banks and reels of ribbon tape, was the norm. Now, you can buy a single desktop that has more storage space and processing power than that entire room.”

  The original Windows logo popped up on the screen and Sarah shook her head, reading ‘version 1.03’. “Man, computers have come a long way.”

  “You should’ve seen my first cellphone,” Sutton chuckled. “They called them bricks for a reason.”

  “Please,” Skannish huffed, walking in. “I had one of the first wide-use pagers, a Pagerboy 2, and I could’ve beaten an elephant to death with it.”

  Spinning around in the chair, Sarah watched Skannish sit down beside Sutton. “You’re moving better,” she grinned.

  “Feel better,” he chuckled. “I’ve never used a gym in my life,” he confessed.

  They had found a gym the second day in the complex, and Sarah had started using it on the spot. The next morning, the others had come in and even Skannish had climbed on one of the treadmills. Sarah was certain it would take a tow truck to move one of those ancient treadmills. That first day, Skannish could only walk ten minutes but this morning, he had done fifty. Then he’d moved around the equipment, working out different muscle groups.

  A few weeks after the attack, the group had watched any left alive in the complex leave. That was when the others in the team had loaded up in a Secret Service suburban and left heading for Atlanta, leaving Sutton, Sarah, and Skannish. There were two blast doors that opened along each tunnel. The problem was, nobody knew the code to get back inside. Someone had to be sitting at a guard room inside each door to see the camera mounted over the door to let them back in, or they would have to go in the main complex in one of the breach points.

  The attackers didn’t go after the doors. They had gone after the concrete that surrounded the door. Since the attack had destroyed the ventilation system for the main complex, nobody had any desire to go back with all the dead bodies.

  “Any more messages from the others?” Skannish asked while Sutton tapped the keyboard.

  “Still loading,” Sutton answered.

  Giving a huff, “You realize someone wrote a program, just so these antique computers could talk to the main complex,” Sarah told them, grabbing her bottle of water.

  “Compared to what they spent on this complex, the tunnels, and stuff stored in them, that would be a drop in the bucket,” Sutton replied. “I’ve seen waste, but this is a bit much. And this is only one abandoned site.”

  “What are we doing after target practice?” Skannish asked, turning on another terminal.

  Before the others had left, they’d opened up several of the doors in the tunnel heading toward Camp David. One of the rooms had held racks of weapons and all of them had been state-of-the-art. Everyone in the group had settled on P90s. Not that they knew what it was until they’d read the manual. They’d just known it was light and compact.

  Being scientists, the group had moved into the main restaurant to read the manuals and manipulate the weapons for an entire day, figuring out how the things worked. Sutton had been the first to shoot the next morning after exercising, and everyone had grabbed their ringing ears from the loud boom. After reading the manuals, they knew a suppressor could be attached and the entire group had headed back down the tunnel. After searching two more storage areas, they’d finally found a room that was labeled ‘Weapon Accessory Storage’, and it had been packed.

  Looking through the manual, they’d found the part number for each accessory that could go on the P90. Another day was spent on figuring out how to attach and what each accessory did. They all put lasers, lights, red dot scopes, and slings on the weapons. The next morning when Sutton had fired a shot with the suppressor on, everyone had been very happy with the results. It wasn’t silent like the movies, but it didn’t hurt the ears so much.

  Setting up a shooting range in the subway departure station, they had sighted the weapons in and shot for the entire day. After the others in the team had left them, Sarah, Sutton, and Skannish had decided to keep practicing.

  “That was the first time I’ve ever shot a gun,” Sarah admitted.

  “I used to hunt when I was a kid. Up until six years ago, I used to go pheasant hunting every year,” Sutton said, tapping the keyboard and a printer at the end of the room came to life.

  “The only way we are going to be able to contact anyone is to go to the main security room and lift the communication blackout,” Sutton told them. They had found out they could receive reports, and this room had been cleared to receive presidential and top military reports.

  Shaking her head, “We don’t have the codes,” Sarah reminded him.

  “My boy, are you certain you want to let the world know we’re here?” Skannish asked. “The others agreed to say they just escaped and don’t know what happened to us. Remember, our GS-11 rank puts us in as senior executives. We are supposed to make every effort to reconnect physically with the functioning government.”

  “They left us!” Sarah cried out. “Of everyone in the complex, this team was the most important group here!”

  Holding a hand up, “Sarah, I’m just pointing out the facts. I agree with you. Yes, the president is important, but he sacrificed all those troops. After he flew out, he could’ve ordered the troops to escape and evacuate as much of the staff as possible, but you saw the order, ‘Hold complex at all costs’,” Skannish told her, lowering his hand.

  “I don’t want to contact them,” Sutton said, reading the screen. “I want to contact Atlanta and see if they’ve started production. Look,” he paused, pointing at the screen. “They are talking about forced labor camps in the spring.”

  Rolling across the floor in her chair to the end of the room, Sarah grabbed a stack of folded printer paper. “Three days ago, they broadcast out for all military units to find transport back to the US and head to Denver,” Sarah said, flipping through the papers. “Here,” she smiled, rolling back over. “This report says the standing military is eleven thousand, six hundred and nineteen.”

  “That’s almost a ninety-six percent reduction,” Sutton told them. “I’m sure not all died because the last meeting we went to, they were reporting high levels of desertion. The problem is the flu is still moving through the ranks. Some units were isolated but by moving back, they aren’t now.”

  “How many people are in the bunker in Denver?” Skannish asked.

  Shrugging, “Never got the numbers, but it was built to hold nine thousand in the main complex and six thousand troops in the outer complex,” Sutton answered, finally looking away from the screen.

  “So, we’re just going to live underground?” Sarah asked, putting the stack of paper on the desk.

  Swiveling in his chair to face Sarah, “We listen to the shortwave every night, and you’ve heard of the violence out there,” Sutton told her. “It makes no sense, but society has digressed to caveman levels.”

  “My boy,” Skannish sighed, and Sutton spun around to face him. “You h
ad reports from those meetings I read that said food was in short supply. The average house only had three days’ worth, and local stores could only supply their area with another three days without shipments to restock. The violence makes perfect sense.”

  “We put a man on the moon and sent probes to other planets!” Sutton shouted, jumping up. “We’ve improved medicine and extended the human life by decades, and the race just reverts to cavemen when something happens?!”

  “Exactly,” Skannish nodded. “You’ve been to enough hot zones to see it for yourself.”

  “But this is America, not some third-world puke bucket,” Sutton snapped.

  “Sorry, my boy, you’re wrong. Our race still has a long way to grow up,” Skannish pointed out.

  “Do either of you have any family you need to check on?” Sarah asked.

  “No, my dear,” Skannish sighed. “My wife passed years ago. The last I heard from my daughter, she was heading to Phoenix to check on my two grandsons and their families. They were all sick and I tried to tell her to stay in Memphis, but she and her husband wouldn’t listen.”

  Giving a shrug, “My sister’s social media page said she was on a cruise. I checked and half the passengers were dead in the last report the captain sent out, and they were still three days from Miami,” Sutton reported somberly. “I can’t remember the last time we talked on the phone, to be honest. What about you, Sarah?”

  Shaking her head, Sarah wiped tears from her eyes. “I know for certain, everyone but my oldest brother is gone. He was an assistant to the Governor of Massachusetts, and nobody’s heard from them.”

  Rolling his chair around Sutton, Skannish patted her shoulder. “I’m sorry, my dear,” Skannish consoled. “We were doing our best.”

  “I know,” Sarah sighed, lifting her chin up. “I just don’t want to stay underground. But I refuse to start forced labor camps for the general population, or even be a part of that. I’m scared if we stay here, we’ll eventually have to deal with troops, if for no other reason than all the crap stored in the tunnels. I’m certain there aren’t that many presidential vehicles around.”