by Mike Kraus
The appearance of two men in front of her was not entirely unexpected, but Dianne had to fight the instinct to slow down or turn away to avoid hitting them. Years of driving experience had taught her to avoid running over pedestrians in the middle of the road, but considering that the pair in front of her were raising their weapons at her, she managed to overcome her initial urges and press down on the accelerator instead. One of the men barely managed to jump out of the way, the right-hand side mirror striking him in the back as he escaped. The other wasn’t so lucky, and Dianne winced as she heard a muffled scream from beneath the truck as the man was toppled over, his limbs crushed beneath the steel frame and rubber tires.
Gunfire ignited from behind her and Dianne ducked down low as a few rounds struck the back of the truck, though none of them passed through the back window. The other men who had been running toward the parking garage upon hearing her truck were firing at her from several positions around the street and buildings nearby as they tried to stop her from escaping. Like on the hill of the LTAC facility, though, as Dianne got farther away the shots waned, but just when she thought she might be getting into the clear, the sound of engines slowly began to filter through the noise of her truck.
“Not again!” Dianne glanced in the rearview mirror to see a pair of vehicles following behind, trailing the path she had originally carved through the city and was now using to escape. As the pair of vehicles drew closer the gunfire resumed, and though most shots went wild, a few landed home and rattled the vehicle.
“Stop shooting my truck, assholes!” Dianne shouted in frustration as she swerved around a pile of rubble in the street, the back of the truck giving a sharp thwang as it bounced off a chunk of a burned out car sitting nearby. She searched the streets frantically, trying to remember which way would take her out of the city when she spotted the next turn up ahead on her left. Another glance in the rearview mirror confirmed that the pair of vehicles were indeed getting closer, but the gunfire had stopped, and she figured it was because they were running low on ammo. The lack of attacks from the men gave her a sudden idea, though, and she took her foot off of the accelerator, letting the heavy vehicle slow itself down without touching the brakes.
Though the distances to the turn ahead and back to the vehicles behind her were hard to judge, Dianne let the truck continue to coast right up until she got close enough to the turn that she was nervous about whether or not she’d be able to make it. At that point the pair of vehicles behind were close enough that she could see the whites of the eyes of the lead driver. The car in front was only inches away from her bumper and it sounded like they were getting ready to ram the truck.
“Buckle up, buttercup.” Dianne held fast to the steering wheel and jammed her foot down on the accelerator. The truck took half a second to respond, but when it did it leapt forward. She spun the wheel at the same time, taking the left-hand turn at speed and causing the tires of the truck to squeal as the frame once again groaned in protest. While Dianne had been anticipating such a turn and had prepared by buckling her seatbelt and bracing herself, the drivers of the cars behind her had almost no warning of the maneuver.
If Dianne hadn’t been so focused on not crashing the truck that she could have taken a second to look behind her, she likely would have laughed at the expressions worn by the men in the two vehicles. As Dianne’s truck left the road and made a turn onto a cross-street, the lead driver was focused on trying to ram the truck and force it off the road. With that no longer an option and his prey suddenly pulling away, he accelerated more and then, upon seeing the truck turn, tried to turn as well. Without careful attention to his driving, though, the man quickly oversteered and slammed into a pair of charred vehicles at the corner, causing his car to spin around wildly and nearly flip.
Meanwhile, the second car—seeing that the truck and the lead pursuer were accelerating—did the same thing, and when both vehicles started to turn, the driver realized that he was not going to make the curve at speed. He slammed on the brakes, causing the poorly maintained vehicle to vibrate madly and begin to fishtail before it, too, spun out of control and t-boned the first vehicle. A single airbag in the second vehicle—on the passenger’s side—deployed at impact, though since none of the men in the vehicles were strapped in to their seats, it mattered little. Bone crunched and blood sprayed as the cars finally came to a halt with a sickening crunch, followed by screams of pain and frustration from the men inside them.
As Dianne increased her speed down the road, she chanced a quick look in the mirror and breathed a heavy sigh of relief. There were more men and vehicles that would be chasing after her soon enough, but even a few minutes of lead time would be enough for her to lose them… or so she hoped.
Chapter 12
Washington, D.C.
“You two suck.”
Rick and Dr. Evans smiled as they walked up to Jane, who was sitting on a folded blanket on the ground in front of the shop. Her legs were both covered in bandages and a pair of crutches lay next to her, a gift courtesy of Jackson.
“How are you doing, Jane?” Rick sat down next to her, wincing slightly as he looked at her bandaged legs.
“My legs are still attached and I’ve got a bottle of pain pills to go with these antibiotics.” She held up a couple of plastic medicine bottles and shook them, the contents rattling loudly in the street. “So it’s not all bad.”
“Can you walk?” Dr. Evans crouched in front of her.
“Hurts like the dickens, but yeah, I can keep up with you two.” She glanced down at the crutches sitting next to her. “Don’t judge me for these, either. I can walk without them, but Jackson yelled at me when I tried so I have to keep them for show.”
“Just… do what he says, okay?” Rick put his hand on her shoulder, then gave her a hug. “It’s good to see you’re okay, though. We were worried about you.”
Jane nodded and smiled at him and Dr. Evans. “Yeah, well, you two still suck for getting me stuck like that.” The three sat in silence for a moment before she spoke again. “So these guys really are cops, huh?”
“Remnants of the Capitol Police force, yeah,” Rick replied. “They’re trying to get to Mount Weather to rescue a bunch of people who are trapped in a bunker there.”
“Mount Weather?” Jane raised her eyebrows. “Isn’t that…”
“Yep.”
“Wow. Good thing you chose being thrown in jail for a week instead, huh?”
“In retrospect, yeah.”
“Did you ask them about the NSA site?”
Dr. Evans nodded. “We spoke briefly. They don’t have any information for us, but they’re going to give us a vehicle, a few weapons and some extra food and water to help us out.”
“What about the Russian plane? Did they see it?”
“It was a Russian plane?” Recker replied as he walked up to them sitting on the sidewalk, concern written on his face. “What the hell would Russians be doing here?”
“That’s what we were wondering. We saw it go down on the western edge of the city when we were driving in, but that’s it. Did you happen to see any parachutes?”
Recker shook his head. “All we saw was the aircraft going down. The storm was bad enough that there wasn’t much else to see. All the more reason for you all to be exceptionally cautious while you’re going about your business. I wish I could send some people with you, but we have to get moving and I need everyone with me on this rescue operation.”
Rick stood up and held up his hands. “No need, Captain. We appreciate what you’ve done for us; we’ll be fine out there.”
“I certainly hope so. If the eggheads you described at Mount Weather can’t figure this out, then it seems like it’s all on you three.”
“No pressure, eh?” Rick chuckled and shook Recker’s hand. “Thanks again, Captain. Stay safe out there, okay?”
“You too.” Recker turned away, stopped, and turned back. “One more thing, Rick.”
“Yes?”
&nb
sp; “We’ve been pulling survivors out of the city off and on since this mess started. We were hounded at the start by some members of MS-13.”
“The gang?”
“The very same. They had a strong presence in D.C. and they’re still around. We… eliminated enough of them that they left us alone, but they’re still very much present here. You need to watch your backs. If a situation seems sketchy, get out. You do not want to mess with these types of scumbags, especially when they don’t have anything holding them back anymore.”
Rick nodded in appreciation as he looked at Dr. Evans and Jane. “Thank you for the information. We’ll watch our backs.”
“Make sure you do.” With that, Recker turned and walked towards his men, waving his hand in the air and shouting at them to get ready to go.
***
As the bulldozers started up and the group of Capitol Police began moving out, Rick, Dr. Evans and Jane stood next to the squad car and gave them a final wave. Jane opened the back door and sat down inside the vehicle, sighing in relief as she folded up her crutches and put them on the seat next to her. Rick got into the driver’s seat while Dr. Evans sat next to him in the front.
“Everyone ready to go?” Rick asked as he started the engine. With only murmurs of affirmation as replies, he put the car into gear and headed toward the bridge ahead, continuing on the path they had been on only a short time before. The road ahead was clear thanks to the work of the officers and their bulldozers, and Rick had no trouble navigating along the path.
As they crossed the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge, Rick spoke to Dr. Evans. “The State Department’s just over the bridge, right?”
“The area their main buildings are located in, yes. I’ll guide you to the general location, then we’ll have to walk around and explore a bit to try and find the exact place.”
“Sounds good,” Rick said, turning back to focus on his driving. Once they were across the bridge they were faced with a spaghetti nest of roads going in all different directions. Some of the roads—like the one they were on—were clear, while others were covered in remnants of all types of vehicles and debris from collapsed buildings.
From their elevated position coming off of the bridge, Rick could see that many of the large, older government buildings were still intact, though their brick facades were covered in soot and ash. The age and importance of the larger buildings had meant that they had actually suffered the least amount of damage during the event, though they had not survived unscathed.
Parking near many of the structures was forbidden, and lots or garages some distance away were used by a few employees while many used public transportation. This limited the number of exploding vehicles near the buildings and reduced how many were turned into piles of rubble. Many of them also featured outdated gas and electrical systems that Damocles couldn’t access simply because they weren’t modernized and connected to the web. With no way to reach inside the older buildings and cause leaks and fires, they stood intact, separated by wide streets, sidewalks and medians from buildings burning nearby.
While many buildings survived unscathed, not all were so lucky. From a distance, the trio could see that the Harry S. Truman building had suffered massive amounts of damage, as had several of the buildings to the east. The National Academy of Sciences just to the south, however, looked as though it had suffered only minor damage from the intense heat of the Truman building’s fires, but was otherwise untouched. Trails of smoke drifted up to the north and east in different places, and the pattern of blackened and intact sections of buildings was patchwork and random.
“There,” Dr. Evans pointed to a nondescript tan-colored building in the shape of an “H” just ahead of them as Rick followed the curve of the elevated road off of the bridge back down to ground level. “Navy Hill, where the Old Naval Observatory is. That’s where we want to go.”
“You mean the buildings right in front of us?” Rick slowed down the car, looking for a way to get into the complex.
“Yes, but we’d have to go all the way around to the main entrance if we went in by car, and those streets might still be blocked off. We could park somewhere around here and use the car to boost over the wall.”
Rick looked in the rearview mirror at Jane. “You gonna be up for some walking and climbing?”
“Oh yeah, sounds like a blast,” she said, nodding with some small amount of sarcasm. “Or I could just stay with the car while you two go see if it’s the right place first.”
Rick closed his eyes for a moment, contemplating their options before pressing down on the accelerator again. “Doc, tell me where to go to get around to the main entrance. I don’t want to split up or risk hurting her legs any more than they are.”
Dr. Evans nodded and pointed ahead. “Just keep following this road around until you get to an intersection. I’ll tell you where to go from there.”
Chapter 13
Outside Ellisville, VA
Late afternoon in the winter, when the snow was melting from a particularly warm day, was a pleasant sight in southern Virginia. The trees, mostly stripped of their leaves, rose up from the earth with spindly arms to touch the sky, scraping against the clouds. Fields of grass whose snow had not been protected by shadow lay bare beneath the sun above, a cool breeze rushing over their stalks as they sat in dormancy, awaiting the arrival of spring.
It took just over two hours for Dianne to make her way back home. Not willing to take the main road and surrounding service roads and fields she had used to get into Blacksburg for fear of being caught by her pursuers, she went the long way instead. At the first opportunity she went off-road, taking care not to gun the engine too hard and leave deep tracks in the soft grass and soil. Once she was a few miles away from the city she turned east, making for the general location of a back road that she had frequented some number of years back when she had carted Mark back and forth for piano lessons. Upon hitting the narrow two-lane road she continued east, heading for the general direction of Ellisville, hoping that if her pursuers had gone that way they would already have left the area.
Dianne checked her watch as she neared Ellisville. While it hadn’t felt like ten hours since leaving the house before dawn’s first light appeared, the clock didn’t lie. With a hard deadline of twelve hours given to her by Tina, Dianne was both relieved that she would be home early and terrified that Jason might have taken a turn for the worse. Risking life and limb only to arrive home and find that she was too late wouldn’t be just difficult—it would be devastating for everyone.
As she approached Ellisville proper, Dianne slowed the truck to a halt and shut off the engine, then opened her door and stood up to poke her head up and out. She stayed there for nearly a full minute, listening intently for any sign that the vehicles from Blacksburg might be in the area. The dense tree cover over much of the area surrounding Ellisville would mask any that were only a moderate distance away, but any in town that were still running would be more than audible. With naught but the sound of wind, rustling trees and the ticking of her truck’s engine to be heard she sat back down, closed the door and started the engine. “All right, everyone,” she said to herself. “I’m coming home.”
***
The road through Ellisville from the south was more congested than the one heading out to the west towards Blacksburg, forcing Dianne to divert to side streets and alleys more often than not in her attempt to make her way through to the northern side. Most of the southern portion of the small town consisted of residential neighborhoods, and many of the houses had either completely burned to the ground or looked as though someone with a blowtorch had blackened and charred large chunks of the buildings.
When Dianne finally reached the main portion of Ellisville, she felt a sense of familiarity and relief wash over her. There, just a short distance away, stood the grocery store and the town square with the high school and football field a bit farther out. Despite having gotten virtually no sleep over the last few days, she felt a renewed sense o
f vigor and purpose as she made the final turn onto the road that would lead out to her house. What awaited her there, she didn’t know, but she had given the mission her all, nearly sacrificed everything and had still come out on top. That, if nothing else, was at least worth celebrating.
As asphalt turned to gravel and dirt and the road went from smooth to bumpy and rough, Dianne found herself increasing the speed of the truck. Every foot closer she drew to home served to increase her desire to get there even faster. As she made the final turn onto her driveway and approached the closed gate, Dianne felt a lump in her throat. Finally, after what felt like weeks of being away, she was back home.
After getting past the gate and the barriers in the road, she pulled up in front of the house and sat for a moment, staring at it through eyes blurred with fought-back tears. Mark was the first to bound through the front door as it opened, racing across the porch and drive to the truck and wrapping his arms around his mother in a bear hug as she stepped out of the truck.
“Mom! You made it! We were so worried about you, you were taking so long.” He looked down at her arm and recoiled a few paces in shock. “Are you hurt?!”
Dianne pulled him back in for another hug and shook her head. “I can’t believe I made it back. It’s so good to see you. And no, I’m fine, kiddo. It’s not my blood.”
“Not your… oh.” Mark nodded with understanding.
“Dianne? Dianne!” Tina came bounding out of the house next, her thin and wiry body charging across the driveway in a power walk. “What happened to your arm?”
“I’m fine,” Dianne replied with a smile. “Not my blood.”
“Holy… all right, nevermind.” Tina shook her head. “We can talk about it later. Did you find it? Did you find what we needed?”
