THE END - Book I - Of THE EVENT SERIES

by Marshall Huffman

  “What the hell was that for?” he demanded.

  “Two reasons. You’re a piece of shit and secondly, I don’t like your looks.”

  “Big deal, I could care less about what you think.”

  “I have a feeling you will and soon.”

  “Yeah, right. You’re a soldier, you got rules. You can’t do anything to me,” he said letting a smile spread across his face.

  “Now didn’t I hear someone say that the military didn’t exist or have jurisdiction. Something along those lines as I recall?”

  “Bullshit. You’re still the military. You have to obey orders.”

  He was less sure of himself this time and he had to work at holding his grin in place.

  “Don’t you get tired of being wrong so often?” Miller said, pointing his gun at the man’s knee and pulling the trigger.

  The explosion was deafening in the small room. The man screamed and fell out of the chair, clutching his leg. A pool of blood began to spread out from under him.

  “See what I mean?” Miller said, squatting down to talk to him.

  “You son of a bitch. You shot me. You can’t do that,” he yelled at Miller.

  He stood up and pointed the gun at his other knee and pulled the trigger a second time. Blood splattered back on him and the man screamed again.

  “See what I mean about being wrong all the time? Want to try again?”

  “Oh God. Help me. You’re crazy. Oh my God,” he said, writhing in pain.

  “Where are the rest of the men in your group?” Miller asked.

  “What others? This is all of us.” Miller stood, and pointed the gun at the man's elbow.

  “You want to rethink that?”

  “Please. Oh God, don’t shoot me again. Oh God.”

  “The others?”

  “In a place called Morgantown.”

  “Where is that?”

  “West Virginia.”

  “Where are they exactly?”

  “Just outside the airport.”

  “How many?” Miller asked.

  The man hesitated and Miller raised the gun.

  “About sixty or so. No more than that.”

  “Weapons?”

  “Usual stuff. Rifles, a few mortars, a couple of jeep mounted .50 cal’s they rigged up. Nothing like what you used on us. Please, get me a doctor. The pain is killing me,” he pleaded.

  “How many airplanes?”

  “Just two. You blew one of them up. The other is at the airport. Please, get me some help. I could bleed to death,” the man said, gritting his teeth in agony.

  Miller ignored his plea, “Are they all pretty much in one place or spread out?”

  “One place the last time I was there.”

  “Are you expecting them to send others?”

  “Hell no. This was our operation. When you go out you’re on your own.”

  “You know,” Miller said, “I’m going to check this out with one of the others. If it doesn’t match...well, let’s just say I think your tennis days will be over.”

  “Look, I’m telling you the truth. I swear.”

  “We’ll see,” Miller said and walked out of the room as the man was screaming for medical attention.

  “You want me to go work on him?” one of the Medics asked.

  “Keep him alive if you can but nothing for pain until I get back. Got it?”

  “Yes sir.”

  Captain Miller repeated the process in another room with a man that went by the name of JD. No first name, no last name. Just JD. While not as big or mean looking as the other man he was considerably tougher.

  Miller had him revived twice before he finally confirmed the story. The Captain was aiming his gun at the man’s crotch before he finally gave in. When Miller came out of the room he allowed the Medic to treat the two men and give them something for pain.

  ****

  The prisoners were loaded in one plane along with armed guards and the women were placed in a separate plane. Captain Miller and his men went to work drawing up an attack plan. They found a West Virginia road map in one of the cars and while it wasn’t much, it was better than nothing.

  “We need to come in from three directions, just like we did here. If we had more men I would just cut off all their exits but we don’t. We will leave the north open and place the snipers so that when they try to run, they will have to cross this open field. We can take them down from this area here,” he said, drawing a circle on the map, “We will come in from here, here and here.”

  He drew an X in three different locations.

  “Now the bad news is, we can’t just simply fly into the airport and disembark. They would cut us down before we made it off the tarmac. That means we need to land away from them and then hike in. It has to be far enough that they don’t spot or hear our planes.”

  “Captain, are you thinking about this little burg here?” Sargent Lewis said pointing to Benedum, West Virginia.

  “Afraid so. I don’t see any other option right now.”

  “That’s a hell of a hike,” the Sargent said, shaking his head.

  “Yeah but I–79 runs along in that direction. We will just have to take the time to get some vehicles to haul us.”

  “That will take a while.”

  “I doubt they are going anyplace soon. At least according to our two guests.”

  “Jesus, if those were your guests, remind me not to accept an invitation to your house,” the sergeant replied.

  ****

  It was three days later when they were finally in position. Most of the time had been spent getting transportation ready and working their way around the rusting cars along the Interstate. The attack was set for 06:30 hours. Mortars and rocket launchers would be used first and then the three teams would converge on the buildings where the greatest number of the opposition was located.

  They would attack from all three sides at once and kill as many as they could before they had a chance to get organized. The sun crept slowly over the top of the mountains and the mist and fog started to evaporate once again. Part of the daily cycle in this part of the world.

  At 06:30 sharp the first mortars left their tubes followed immediately by the missiles slicing their way to the buildings. A few seconds later, secondary explosions could be heard as ammunition inside the buildings began to cook off.

  Men staggered out, dazed, wounded and bewildered by what had just happened. More mortars rained down on them, sending them scattering.

  Miller watched as every once in a while a man would go down from an invisible force. It was the snipers taking out those that looked the most fit. Two men broke for a Jeep with a machine gun mounted on it but they never reached it. Snipers took them out before then could even climb in the vehicle.

  Men began to lay down their weapons and hold their hands over their heads. The uproar dwindled down to nothing as the few remaining men dropped their weapons.

  “Keep alert,” Miller said and started with his men towards the airstrip.

  When they broke out of the tree line the other teams began to advance as well. The snipers stayed put, covering their advance.

  In a matter of minutes it was all over. They counted forty-seven dead, eighteen wounded, and three had come out of it with nothing more than a few scratches and cuts.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Colorado Springs, CO.

  Recessed lights in the ceiling cast a warm glow over the rich mahogany table. Six men and three women sat at the table. Each place had been supplied with a pad of paper, a pen and a glass of water sitting on a coaster. It was the first time Randy had been asked to attend one of the Colonel’s council meetings. It was nothing like the town hall meetings he had taken part in earlier.

  “Jim, give me a status report on utilities,” the Colonel said as a way of starting the meeting.

  “We have an ample supply of water for sixty thousand people for six months in a worst case scenario. Obviously that can change if the ice caps stop melting at
the current rate. Power is also abundant at this time. I don’t anticipate any shortages in either of those. As I mentioned last time, my biggest concern is AV gas. We still have enough on hand for now but each week as they add more and more planes, the supply dwindles. The addition of the three jets we now have operating causes another concern. They burn through jet fuel at a pretty good clip, even the older models. At some point we are going to have to start the process of bringing fuel from Denver down here,” he said.

  “What about the waste treatment plant?” Webber asked.

  “We have the aerator pumps back on line so the odor should be gone in the next day or two.”

  “Any comments?” Webber said, looking around the table.

  “Can’t we just get some petroleum trucks to haul back the jet fuel?” the man sitting next to Randy asked.

  “Definitely. The problem is that we only have two older trucks that are running. The mechanics are working overtime to get others running but it is taking longer than anticipated,” Jim replied.

  “Then light a fire under them,” the man commented.

  “Not my area for lighting fires,” Jim retorted.

  “We can address that later,” Webber said.

  One thing he would not allow was petty bickering and squabbling. Not in his meetings.

  Webber went around the table and each person had a report prepared. Everything from vehicle status to trash removal was covered. In effect it was like many town council meetings that had taken place thousands of times before ‘The Event’ as it was being referred to now.

  “Most of you know Randy Boling. I have asked him to become a member of the council because of his area of responsibility. Randy, for those of you who don’t know, is heading up the ‘SRCP’ program. He is working with the teams from 51 and Los Alamos to reestablish our satellite connections if at all possible. Randy, why don’t you bring us up to speed?” Webber said.

  “Dr. Sullivan and a team of nine are in San Agustin, New Mexico. That’s just fifty or so miles west of Socorro. Anyway, they are at the VLA, or very large array for those not familiar with the term. They have been there for the past three weeks working on narrowing the beam width of the various antennas to try to sweep the objects in NEO, or near earth orbit. Once they can get that part working, they can then try to upload data to see if they can get any of the satellites back on line,” Randy said.

  “How is it going?” Webber asked.

  “Slowly. The team is working well enough together now but it takes so long to move the array and they have very limited power. They can only move one at a time so a lot of time is wasted. If we could get more power, it would help speed up the process.”

  “Did you ask anyone about this?”

  “Well...”

  “Yes sir. He asked me,” Jim said, speaking up. All eyes turned to look at him.

  “And?” Webber asked.

  “We simply do not have the manpower to send a crew off to New Mexico. We have been working on not only the sewer problems but the electrical grid as well. As more and more machine shops have opened up it has put a strain on the grid. We thought it better to be ahead of the curve and rework it before it failed.”

  “I see. I can’t fault your logic on that. Here and now is the critical element. How long before you think you can shake more resources loose?”

  “Two or three weeks barring any unforeseen problems.”

  “Good. Get together with Randy and work out the details,” Webber said. “Now, last item. Robert, legal matters.”

  Robert was a tall, thin man who looked like he had been asleep most of the meeting but instead he had been watching everyone intently through half closed eyes.

  “We are holding the prisoners from the Kentucky National Army, as they call themselves in the USAF stadium. They are obviously sucking up a lot of manpower since that place wasn’t designed to keep people incarcerated. We have tried twenty of them and only one has been acquitted. The rest have been found guilty of a plethora of crimes. Rape, murder, and on and on. We still have eighteen more to go plus three local cases that are separate from that group. We expect to have tried all of them by the end of next week.”

  “What have the sentences been so far?”

  “Twelve will be executed by firing squad. The rest will be released in Mexico to fend for themselves.”

  “Why not just execute all of them?” Webber asked.

  “They were not instrumental in any serious crimes. Four were nothing more than cooks. Three were medical personnel and the others were truck drivers. Basically, nocombatants.”

  “But they could join up with another group that we don’t even know about, right?”

  “I suppose, but that is very unlikely,” Robert said, holding his ground.

  “I would like to think on that some,” Webber replied.

  “Sir. I’m in charge of legal. You appointed me to this position. I had your assurances that all legal matters would be my call. I feel this is certainly with in my scope of authority,” he said.

  Webber looked at him, pulling on his lower lip, for several moments.

  Finally he said, “You’re right. Your call. Now, does anyone else have something to bring up?”

  No one replied so Webber stood and the rest followed his lead.

  ****

  Randy was just climbing into his car when Rachel yelled at him from across the street.

  “Hey, Rach,” he said, waving as he got back out of the car.

  “What brings you to this neck of the woods,” she said smiling as she hopped up on the sidewalk facing him.

  “Meeting.”

  “Oooh, you're one of the muck-e-mucks now.”

  “Just giving a report on my project,” he said laughing.

  “How is it going?”

  “Okay, I guess. I don’t really have a time frame so I guess we are on target.”

  “So, what are you up to now?” she asked.

  “Nothing really. I’m flying out to New Mexico tomorrow to check-in with Dr. Sullivan, but nothing especially important at the moment. Why? You got something in mind?”

  “How about an old fashioned picnic?”

  “Hey, that sounds really great. It’s a beautiful day and if you have the time I would love to do just that.”

  “Pick me up at my place in about an hour and I’ll have everything ready.”

  “You got it. Hey, and thanks Rach, I think this is a wonderful idea.”

  “No problem. See you in an hour.”

  Randy stood and watched as she walked away. She was really looking great. She turned, as if reading his mind and gave him a little wave before turning the corner. He hadn’t really even thought about women much since the event took place. Something always needed to be done. Now he was in an almost normal routine and he was starting to have those feelings again.

  His fiancée had obviously perished along with billions of others and yet he hadn’t really thought about it to any great extent. A picnic, what a great idea.

  ****

  Rachel found Dr. Horton and told him that after rounds, she would be taking the rest of the day off. She checked in on her two new mothers to make sure they were resting comfortably and that the babies were doing well. Eleven new children had been born in Colorado Springs. A large board with the tabulations was in the front lobby.

  Eleven born and three deceased. This did not include those executed by the military. In fact, only a handful even knew about this detail. Even Rachel didn’t know and Randy had never mentioned it to her.

  After she was finished she hurried back to her place and packed a lunch of bread, cheese that had been frozen and thawed, shrimp, also from being frozen, and cocktail sauce. She grabbed a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc from the refrigerator and a corkscrew from the drawer. A blanket and cold packs to keep the shrimp cold and she was ready.

  She checked her hair, unbuttoned another button on her dress and looked in the mirror. She had come a long way from the pudgy girl she had been just a fe
w months ago. She re-buttoned the top button. No use getting too excited. After all, it was just a picnic. She hurried to the door when Randy knocked.

  “Ready to go?” he asked.

  “All set,” she said, picking up the wicker basket she was using for the food.

  “You brought wine,” he said, laughing.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “I brought some too,” he replied.

  “Great minds…”

  “Must be. I know a really great place not too far from here. I’ve flown over it a few times.”

  “I’ll leave that totally up to you. Just take me away from everything for a while,” she said.

  Randy listened to her stories about the hospital as they drove along. She told him all about Dr. Joshua Horton and how skilled he was. Randy listened in silence, not exactly sure how he was feeling. The man was obviously very, very good at what he did but he wondered if there was more to it. Rachel stopped talking and looked over at Randy.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. Why? I’m just listening,” he said defensively.

  “Come on. I know you better than that. Something is bothering you. Give.”

  “Nothing, really. I was just trying to get a mental picture of Dr. Holdon.”

  “Horton,” she corrected.

  “Whatever,” he said.

  “Okay, let’s have it. Are you upset because I have been babbling about him almost the whole way?”

  “No,” he said, trying to sound convincing.

  “That’s it. You’re starting to dislike this guy because I keep talking about him.”

  “Rachel, that’s crazy. I’ve never even met the man, how could I be jealous?”

  “Jealous? I never said jealous. You’re the one bringing that up,” she said.

  “I am not jealous. I was just trying to get a picture in my head of what he looks like and that’s all.”

  “Right.”

  “Stop it. That’s all.”

  “He is sixty-one,” she said.

  Randy looked over at her. She sat stone faced, looking out the windshield.

  “You’re rotten, you know that don’t you?” he said finally. She burst out laughing and so did he.