Minus America

by E. E. Isherwood

  “Leave me,” Frank complained. “I can’t climb a freaking ladder.”

  Bullets smacked off the tail of the plane. The fuselage of Air Force Two was built to withstand a nuclear blast, so the bullets were no threat at all. He’d soon enjoy that protection, if he could get them inside.

  Ted still wasn’t sure what to do. The action hero would grab the injured man and heft him up the ladder, but the practical hero would do what was necessary to inform the vice president about a rapidly changing situation.

  He looked across the tarmac. The hangar door was now open wider, and a truck was visible in the gap. “Can you get out?”

  “Go, dammit. This isn’t a game.” Frank spit up blood, which went right onto his pants.

  “If you can get out, I’ll get help to get you up inside the plane. We can do this, buddy.”

  Frank took his hand off his side and showed the bloody palm. “I can feel myself going, Teddy. If you don’t get your ass on that plane right this minute, I’m going to call your supervisor and have you written up. You don’t want a citation in your permanent file, do you? You’ll never make it to the big seat…”

  Both men chuckled at the empty threat.

  “Fuck, Frank. I’m sorry.” He took out the revolver and set it on Frank’s lap.

  “She’s going to be pissed you lost this,” Frank whispered.

  “No, she’ll be happy to know it went out with a good man.”

  “Fuck off,” Frank said with his eyes half-closed. “I’ll try to make it more painful for the other guys.”

  “Good luck,” Ted replied.

  He pushed the door open and jumped out.

  A van came out of the hangar a few hundred yards away. The men on the ground continued to send 1500-foot-per-second love notes.

  He scrambled around the fender of the truck and struggled up the ladder. It exposed his belly and family jewels to the shooters, but there was no other option.

  Three steps later, he was protected by the armored shell of the VP’s plane.

  “Get us out of here!” he shouted to the first person he saw. “There are shooters incoming!”

  “We know,” an Air Force steward said in a businesslike voice. “The VP said to wait for you, or we’d have already left.”

  The ladder came up automatically, and the hatch slid closed.

  “Did the Secret Service guys come in?” he asked.

  The man shook his head.

  He lost his footing as the pilot goosed the engines.

  That was his cue to go find a place to buckle in.

  Air Force Two’s engines screamed as the pilot got them up to a brisk pace. For a few seconds, he thought the pilot was going to do something crazy like take off directly from the taxiway, but the reverse thrusters kicked on—sending him off balance in the other direction.

  He danced through the empty passenger compartment, seeking Emily or her staff. The pilot guided the jumbo into a sharp left turn, making him crash into one of the seats.

  A few seconds later, the pilot turned left again as part of a U-turn. Ted figured out they were back on the main runway.

  “Good driving, buddy,” he said to no one.

  He got back to his feet, intending to go forward some more, but he decided to play it safe for a few moments. Not only did he need to catch his breath from running, driving, and avoiding bullets, but the forward thrust was about to knock him into the tail if he wasn’t bolted down.

  He hopped into a port-side seat and latched the buckle right as the pilot kicked the big dog in the nuts.

  All four engines opened up, giving the huge aircraft the thrust it needed to make a speedy getaway.

  Ted watched through his window because they were going to pass the same hangar where the shooters had been. On cue, they appeared in trucks on the taxiway.

  “Who the hell are you guys?” he wondered.

  A half-dozen pickup trucks and Humvees sped on an intercept course, but the plane was only seconds from getting off the ground.

  One of the trucks skidded to a stop.

  Even from a hundred yards away, Ted recognized the military anti-aircraft system carried by the big man as he stood up in the cargo hold of the Toyota.

  The plane rumbled by the opposing force as the guy manhandled his shoulder-fired system, but they weren’t in the air by the time a plume of smoke exploded behind the weapon.

  He instinctively got away from the window.

  “As if that will save me,” he said sarcastically.

  Bonne Terre, MO

  “Oh my god!” Tabby cried out. “It’s poisonous!”

  The burning liquid continued to slosh into the water of the lake, keeping it safely away from them, but the chemical reaction created a gas that was apparently spreading fast. Sitting there sucking clean air from the tanks wasn’t an option.

  “What do we do?” Audrey said with surprise.

  Tabby’s knees shook from how weak and ineffective she felt. It wasn’t because of the smell, or now the burning eyes, but it was the fact these kids depended on her to make the right decision. There was no longer even a slim margin of error.

  “Here, take this.” She picked up one of the oxygen tanks, along with the harness and regulator, and handed it to Audrey.

  “What am I going to do with this?” she whined.

  “Hold it!” Tabby ordered.

  She picked two more bottles off the rack, then handed them to Peter and Donovan.

  “We’re not going in the water, are we?” Donovan seemed close to whizzing his pants.

  “Just follow me!” She grabbed her own bottle and equipment then ran for the pontoon boat. “Put your stuff in here.”

  The boat was second nature to her because it was part of the tour. Earlier today, she had to make two trips around the short course, so the whole field trip could see the mine from the water.

  As the three kids came aboard, she hopped off. The air was dense with the chemical, and she coughed several times on her way.

  “Where are you going?” Peter asked with surprise.

  “It burns!” Donovan howled.

  Tabby grabbed some of the community weight belts sitting at the edge of the dock. They were heavy nylon belts lined with removable pieces of lead. They were sometimes necessary to counteract the buoyancy of divers in the lake. Dad kept a bucket of them right next to the water, so divers could reach in and take them.

  The three teenagers stood at the edge of the boat, as if she was going to leave them there.

  “Sit down and shut up!” she screamed.

  Tabby threw off the dock line, pushed the boat away from the wooden platform, then hopped in and went to the captain’s wheel in the back.

  “We’re going into the mine,” she said with determination.

  Donovan sobbed openly in the first row of bench seats. Audrey and Peter sat a row back from him, but also sat next to each other. They held hands.

  She started the motor, which turned over immediately. That was Dad keeping up on the maintenance. He never let things break down, even in the harsh underground environment.

  “Here we go,” she said between a pair of coughs.

  None of the tourist lights were on, so piloting the boat into the mine was a lot like driving into a pool filled with ink. At night. The boat had one emergency spotlight, which she’d turned on, but it was only the bare minimum needed to navigate toward the back of the mine.

  She continued to hack up phlegm, which she spat into the lake. The kids coughed from time to time, but not as much as her. That was reassuring, because despite being upset with their behavior, she didn’t want to see them come to harm.

  She drove for fifteen minutes before turning off the motor.

  They drifted for a few seconds, and she took in the familiar surroundings.

  The miners in the 1800s didn’t have the advanced technology of modern excavators, so they had to leave stone columns every fifty feet or so. They appeared like giant stalactites hanging down from the ceiling a
nd disappearing into the water. SCUBA divers would go underwater and see them exactly the opposite: as stalagmites rising from the floor to the ceiling.

  “Are you okay?” Peter finally asked her when she stopped coughing.

  “Yes, I think I took in too much of that poison air, but I feel better now.”

  Audrey shifted on the vinyl seat. “Thanks for taking care of us. I would have never thought of going out here on a boat.”

  “Me, either.” Donovan sniffled.

  Peter harrumphed. “I would have thought of it, if it were just the three of us.”

  Tabby shuddered to think of the three kids down here by themselves, but being with her wasn’t that comforting, either. Her psyche went back to the terrible thought of being responsible for them. Was this what parents felt like when they were alone with their kids? There was no one available for her to dump them off.

  “Yikes,” she thought. She doubted any of them would have thought of the boat, much less the secondary protection of the oxygen tanks. They probably would have never left the elevator…

  She inhaled deeply. The wet air didn’t smell like that chemical, which she took as a win.

  “We’ll sit here for a—”

  The smell came back.

  “Holy shit!” she said as inner monologue. When it got a little thicker, she expected her eyes to burn again, so they couldn’t risk staying.

  In a calm fashion, she explained they had to keep moving.

  “Guys, this lake goes for several miles in that direction.” She pointed into the void. Her dad had saved her again, because he’d come back into this area and painted the rock pillars with small symbols. Visitors seldom noticed them, but they were the routes boat drivers could take through the chambers.

  White was the short route.

  Blue was the medium one.

  Red was the mac-daddy route around the entire perimeter of the mine. It was seldom used because once you’ve seen a few pillars, you’ve seen the entire mine from the boat. Everything looked the same.

  However, now the red route was the one she’d selected, if only because it had the best potential for giving them enough space between them and the chemical.

  It would also take them to a hidden feature she hoped they wouldn’t get to see.

  The locomotive.

  CHAPTER 12

  Newport News, VA

  Carthager towered above Kyla and the dead sailor. “Maybe you didn’t hear me. I asked what he said about fake Marines? Your friend here pulled me out of a firefight to see this.” Heat radiated from the barrel of the sergeant’s rifle.

  Ben was on the steps again.

  Kyla stood and pointed down. “The only thing he said was that the Marines are imposters.”

  “What the fuck does that mean?” Carthager said in a thunderous voice. “I don’t have time for twenty-fucking-questions.”

  The action up top had never stopped.

  Kyla took a breath, so she didn’t sound as jittery as she felt. “He wasn’t talking about you. He meant the guys who shot him.” It was a blatant lie, but the sailor wasn’t specific about which Marines were the bad guys, so she wasn’t going to point fingers at the guy with the gun.

  “That would explain a lot,” Carthager replied, like he’d been given the solution to a puzzle. “They’re using M16A4 pieces, dress like us, and seem to be almost as aggressive. However, I’d agree with this squid. Those shooters aren’t real Marines. If they were, you’d have been dead when you did that stupid rescue.”

  He knuckled Kyla on the shoulder, sending her back a step or two, but it wasn’t done out of violence. “Nice job, though. We’ve been running around fighting these guys, trying to figure out how they got inside the ship so fast after the initial attack.”

  “You mean all these piles of clothes.” This time when she pointed to the nearby empty uniform, the Marine’s eyes tracked to it.

  “Yep, Meech thinks it was an alien attack. Cleared out the carrier of our friends, then they send in cloned humans to take it over.”

  Kyla wasn’t ready to believe it was aliens. It was more likely something one human did to another. A virus or bacteria were the most likely culprits.

  In the moment, it really didn’t matter.

  The Marine leader pulled a pistol off his belt and handed it to Kyla. “You’ve earned this Beretta, ma’am. Don’t fucking make me regret giving this to you.”

  “I’ve never fired a gun.” It was embarrassing to admit, but she didn’t come from a family of gun owners.

  “No sweat, lady. They make these idiot-proof so even knuckle-draggers in the Army can use them. It’s cocked and locked. All you need to do is press this funny-looking twisty-part.” He held the gun to show the trigger.

  “I can do that,” Kyla admitted.

  Carthager stuck two fingers between his lips and whistled so loud Kyla almost hopped up off the ground.

  “Meech! Pokampo! Alfalfa! Down here!”

  Ten seconds later, three Marines crashed down the ladder-like stairs, pushing Ben aside like a screen door.

  “We’re going around the backs of those pricks. Our resident heroine talked to this dead man. Said we’re fighting imitation Marines. I say we show ‘em how the real deal can call up the hatred.”

  “Oorah,” they said in unison.

  Carthager looked at Kyla, then pointed up the steps. “Get back to your spot up there. Keep your pretty head down and keep track of what’s going on topside, but also don’t let anyone sneak up behind our friendlies, got it?”

  She didn’t reply.

  “Ma’am, you got this. I wouldn’t trust this to anyone else. Look at your friend, here. Think he should have the gun?”

  Ben sat on a middle step, still looking like he was in shellshock from the gunfight.

  “No,” Kyla said with a dry swallow. She wondered how she got tangled up with Marines and guns. As Ben was probably thinking at that moment, typing code for the Navy was supposed to be a steady paycheck with zero risk.

  The sergeant said one last thing before jogging away. “And for god’s sake, don’t try to be the hero again. You’re making us look bad.”

  Meechum smiled at her, leading her to think she was going to say something nice, but she strode away without opening her mouth.

  Kyla took that as a minor victory.

  For the next few minutes, the gunfire continued up in the hangar. Kyla snuck up to the top few steps and looked out on the bad guys behind the boxes like she’d done before. There were no injured men struggling to reach her, which was a bonus, but she was scared to death someone was going to come up behind her, so she spent most of her time watching the hallway below.

  “We should find the railing and jump off this floating nightmare,” Ben whispered. His face was covered in sweat, making Kyla realize how soaked-through her shirt had become. The maroon color had almost become black under her pits and below her bra line.

  “I’m hanging with these guys,” Kyla replied, sure she was making the right decision. Having the big black gun in her hand was a big confidence booster. Trust had been placed in her, and she didn’t want to surrender it.

  She peeked up top, again noting the many piles of uniforms and boots spread across the hanger deck.

  Whatever happened to those sailors, the bastards behind the boxes were a part of it.

  Air Force Two

  Ted fell forward as the missile exploded. He didn’t have enough time to secure his belt, so he rammed into the seatback and tray table ahead of him, but then he slammed back into his own chair.

  The jumbo plane lurched sideways, as if caught in a raging crosswind, but the pilot kept it mostly pointed forward.

  The engines were already maxed out, but they seemed to gobble up twice as much jet fuel as they tried to get the airframe into the sky.

  The g-force of takeoff held him in his seat.

  “Did we make it?” he wondered.

  Ted looked over his shoulder, expecting a gaping hole in the fuselage, b
ut all appeared normal. He spun to see out the window, but he had to lean forward to see behind and below.

  The trucks had all skidded to a stop. A few men managed to get out and fire rifles; he observed the tiny flashes. But the man with the shoulder-fired rocket stood there, like he knew he’d missed the target of a lifetime.

  “Fuck you,” Ted deadpanned.

  He sunk into the chair as his tension drained out of his bones. There wasn’t a chance to relax because several people stormed into the seating area, including the veep.

  “Ted! Are you okay?” She strode over and sat across the aisle from him. “Where’s your partner?”

  “Dead. Those—” He wasn’t sure if they were soldiers, mercenaries, or civilians playing dress-up. “Those assholes shot him dead. We almost made it. If I wouldn’t have turned…”

  He was going to replay those last few minutes for the rest of his life.

  She reached over and gently touched his arm. “I’m so sorry. Really, I am. But I have to ask what you found out there. What the hell are we dealing with? Why can’t we communicate with anyone?”

  “I honestly don’t know,” he said, voice cracking. His throat was a desert from all his exertion. “Phones don’t work. Tried calling. Frank and I went into the main terminal and found evidence of hundreds of people inside…”

  “People? What did they say?”

  He turned to her. “They were gone, ma’am. The only thing left was piles of clothing. Hundreds of piles of clothing. Men, women, little kids. All…disintegrated. Vanished? I don’t know how to describe it.”

  Emily pulled away. “Were we attacked?”

  General Charleston inserted himself into the conversation. “Impossible. There aren’t any weapons that could kill a whole terminal in one shot while leaving only the clothes.”

  Ted steeled himself for the rest of the bad news. “General, it wasn’t only the terminal. The Beltway isn’t moving. There are no cars on Highway 4. There isn’t a single living person within view of the airport.”

  “Uh-huh,” the military man replied skeptically. “Then who were those assholes you were talking about?”