Shelter for Now

by Bob Howard

  The pilot radioed the passenger Boeing 737 and informed them that the ILS was working at John Glenn International, so they were going to land. They said they would wait for them on the ground if Rickenbacker wasn’t a good choice for them, and they would be escorted to safety along with the presidential party.

  The plane lowered its landing gear and raised its nose about five degrees as the pilot adjusted to match the glide slope. Just as he was about to touch the wheels to the runway, the copilot began yelling into his microphone to abort. There were people on the runway. The glare of the runway lights was bright because of the surrounding darkness, so the pilots didn’t see them until the last second.

  The plane was already low, and they got a glimpse of the people in the glare of their landing lights. It made their skin crawl from a mixture of surprise at the close call and the bodily injuries they could see. Many of them resembled victims that had already walked away from an explosion. Missing limbs and wounds that had organs exposed were easy to spot even though the plane accelerated and began climbing again.

  The pilot and copilot had pale faces and wide eyes. Behind them the navigator gripped the armrests of his chair almost to the point of breaking through the leather. Neither one had to ask the other if he had seen the people or their injuries. They both knew they hadn’t imagined any of it.

  As the plane raced by just over the heads of the people on the runway, the jet wash from the big engines blew them from their feet as if they were made of paper. Many of them were unable to get up again because their legs were mangled by the blast at the knees and ankles, but they still crawled.

  The flight crew didn’t know they had nearly landed Air Force One on the heads of a horde of the infected. They had seen the infected at Andrews Air Force Base and in Pittsburgh at a distance, but they had been far enough away that they had not yet experienced the feeling of fear that people on the ground had been through. From their perspective they had been injured people, and they didn’t know they were already dead.

  In the comfort of the private quarters in the tail of Air Force One, President Freeman was swearing at the top of his lungs. He had chosen to stand just as the plane was landing, and the sudden upward tilt and thrust had tossed him over a table into the laps of Secret Service agents who had followed the advice of a flight attendant who had asked the President to stay in his seat as they landed. Being the President, he didn’t believe the laws of physics applied to him.

  The agents did their best to be sure the President wasn’t hurt by the fall, but they could do nothing to prevent injury to his pride. His considerably large ego made him want to lash out at someone, so he shouted for all to hear that those idiots flying the plane would be grounded, and that the closest they would ever come to flying again would be at an amusement park ride.

  The plane banked to the east and did a tight turn to line up on the shorter runway. It was about two thousand feet shorter than the first runway, but the pilot and copilot felt like it was long enough. They needed seven thousand five hundred feet, and it was eight thousand feet long. It was shorter than they liked, but it was enough.

  They established a glide path on the second runway and descended for a second time. Since the runway was shorter, the pilot brought the plane down sooner than he had on the first runway. His lights and the runway lights illuminated the area ahead enough for him to see what appeared to be shadows on the runway, but this time he didn’t abort the approach. His wheels touched the asphalt, and he began applying the brakes.

  “If there’s someone on the runway, they can move,” he said out loud.

  In the next few seconds, he learned there were definitely people on the runway, and they didn’t move. The plane almost seemed to hop from one moment to the next. First there would be a bump on the right side, and then there would be one on the left.

  In the back of the plane the President’s wife and two teenaged daughters were all screaming. They couldn’t see the infected that were being crushed under the landing gear, but they felt the bumps and jolts.

  Finally, they could feel the plane coming to a stop, and the pilot turned to the left and headed for a large patch of concrete that could be used for a landing pad. If they had any luck at all, besides being able to successfully put the plane on the ground, they would be able to contact a military unit in the area with helicopter support.

  They had tried since leaving Washington to raise the cargo plane that had left before them carrying the President’s limousine. They didn’t know if it would be waiting for them on the ground or if it had crashed along the way. It appeared more and more like getting a convoy into downtown Columbus was going to be difficult.

  There was a loud pounding on the cockpit door, and the copilot went to see who it was. When he saw through the small eyepiece that it was the President, he didn’t hesitate to open the door.

  President Freeman burst into the cockpit and let loose a barrage of insults and obscenities. The crew was stunned, especially in light of what they had to do just to put the plane on the ground. Among other things, he threatened their continued ability to get jobs as pilots.

  When he stormed out of the cockpit, the pilot, copilot, and navigator didn’t speak. For a group of professionals who took great pride in flying Air Force One, there was no greater insult than to have the President show such behavior toward them. As combat veterans and professionals, they went back to work trying to find a way to get him from Air Force One to his destination.

  Outside the massive airplane runway lights switched off one at a time. The crew saw the lights going dark, and the darkness was advancing toward them. The lights on the plane were all that they had in only a few minutes as the darkness closed in behind them. The entire runway was black, and the timing could not have been worse as a radio call came in from the former Executive One.

  “Air Force One, be advised we are almost on approach. Please confirm that you are off the runway.”

  They knew the Boeing 737 would have them on radar, but in the darkness they wouldn’t be able to tell if they were out of the way. They also would not have guessed Air Force One had landed on the shorter runway. They would assume the President’s plane had used the longer runway because they were a bigger plane.

  “Executive One, we are on the short runway and have near zero visibility. The longer runway is occupied. We’re moving off the runway onto a taxiway but do not have the identification of that taxiway. Green taxiway lights went out with the runway lights. We will locate an apron and be out of your way before you reach our location. You are clear to land.”

  Even though the 737 was no longer carrying the President and not really entitled to be called Executive One, the crew of Air Force One knew how they felt and kept their spirits up by addressing them that way.

  Air Force One made a slow and careful turn onto the taxiway and straight into a horde of infected dead that had been drawn to the noise and lights of the plane. The pilot continued forward, and the plane rocked slightly as the wheels rolled over them.

  “What are we going to do once we get stopped?” asked the copilot. “It’s not like we can open the door and get out.”

  “We’re safe inside the plane, so my guess is that we should sit tight until sunrise. The military should be able to get to us then.”

  The pilot knew his voice didn’t convey much confidence, but worrying about getting out of the plane wasn’t high on his list of things he wanted to do in the dark.

  There was bright light on their port side, and they all gathered around the window. The 737 was coming in for a landing. It was a good thing they didn’t try the longer runway, but in the glare of the big headlights they could see dozens of shadows moving on the asphalt.

  “Executive One, be advised that the people on the runway are not alive. Do not pull up. Landing is your only option.”

  The crew of Executive One couldn’t believe they were going to land on top of so many people. They committed to the landing earlier than usual because the runw
ay was shorter, so their wheels were firmly on the ground when they reached the mindless horde of infected.

  Warning lights illuminated almost immediately as the infected were scooped into the engines. On both sides of the plane, fire shot from the engine nacelles, triggering the automatic fire suppression systems. Smoke trailed behind them, but they would be safe as long as they stayed on the runway. Despite the fact that it at least gave the appearance they were killing people, the pilot kept steering in a straight line.

  When they came to a stop, they could see Air Force One on a taxiway, and the big 747 was surrounded by the infected. It had the appearance of the tarmac at an airshow with hundreds of tourists trying to get a closer view of the plane, but in this case, they were trying to get closer to the living people inside.

  The pilot of Executive One turned onto the taxiway and put its lights directly onto the President’s plane. The noise from his engines and the bright lights were enough to draw the crowd toward them, but there was still no way to stop the siege of either plane. The infected seemed to be everywhere.

  “Air Force One, I recommend that we both power down and go dark. If we do, they may move away by morning. Do you have ground support inbound?”

  “Negative to the support. I agree with going quiet. I don’t know what they will do if we don’t make any noise, but it’s worth a try.”

  Both cabin crews shut down their engines and started switching off the lights. In the darkness of Air Force One the pilot informed the passengers of the situation and asked everyone to remain as quiet as possible. It was unlikely that the infected would be able to hear casual talking or other sounds inside the planes, but the slightest amount of light from inside may be enough to keep them at the planes longer.

  The passengers and crews settled in for a long, sleepless night.

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE RAILROAD BUSINESS at Union Station was growing faster than the city of Columbus, Ohio could handle, and there was an inevitable result. By the end of 1873 there had been dozens of collisions between locomotives and horse drawn wagons. In most cases the wagons would get their wheels stuck in ruts between the rails. Sometimes it was just a stubborn team of horses that became frightened by the vibrations in the tracks and refused to move another step. Whatever the reason, people, horses, and mules were dying on the railroad tracks. Even pedestrians were occasionally the victims of progress. To the casual observer the cause was simple. There were too many tracks next to each other.

  The station was already providing services for forty-two passenger trains every day, and according to the owners of the railroad companies, they planned to nearly triple that amount over the next twenty years. Many of the passengers were just passing through on their way to the frontier, but some stayed, and Columbus grew along with the railroads.

  Only a decade before, the leading cause of death for people from Ohio was the Civil War. When it ended in 1865, Columbus found itself at the crossroads of the eastern trade centers and the expanding west. Commerce was going to make Columbus important, and the City Council wanted to decrease the possibility of trains hitting pedestrians and wagons on North High Street.

  At a special meeting on February 16, 1874, the Council passed an ordinance that would allow for the construction of a six hundred foot long tunnel under the North High Street railroad tracks.

  It was an expensive endeavor, and the money was expected to come from the sale of municipal bonds, but they could not sell enough of them to raise the capitol to build the tunnel.

  The brick kilns in Nelsonville, Ohio manufactured and delivered all of the bricks required to build the tunnel, but the city of Columbus defaulted on its payment. The owners of the Nelsonville Brick Plant angrily loaded their bricks back onto trains for shipment south. They told the City Council there would be no further deliveries to Columbus until payment for this shipment was settled. After all, they owed one hundred and twenty men their salaries for the time spent making enough bricks for such a long tunnel.

  The Council tried asking the railroads to build the tunnel, but the owners of the railroads had problems of their own. They had overestimated their own worth, and their investors were demanding repayment for the loans they had taken out to lay thirty-three thousand miles of tracks after the Civil War ended. They told the civic leaders of Columbus it was not their problem.

  To make matters worse, inflation caused a depression that became known as the Panic of 1873. Worldwide depression followed, and Columbus, Ohio found itself desperately searching for a way to finance the tunnel or at least pay for the services they had already contracted. Word spreads fast when a city defaults on payments, and their credit was in jeopardy.

  Their salvation came from an unlikely source. The federal government was investing heavily in Civil War restoration projects and had shown no interest in helping Columbus with its little problem. If money was going to go anywhere, it was going to go to cities in the south that had been burned to the ground.

  When the City Council was approached by a man who claimed to be from the government in Washington, and who was prepared to pay for the tunnel, they were skeptical. However, they couldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, and they needed the money bad enough to agree to some unusual terms.

  The man said he worked directly for the Office of the President, and that President Ulysses S. Grant had authorized him to take over the construction of the tunnel. In return, the City of Columbus would not monitor the construction in any way. Laborers were to be sent from other cities, and the operation would be under the direct supervision of the military. They also needed ten times the amount of bricks than what the city had previously ordered. The owners of the Nelsonville Brick Plant were ecstatic to have such a big order while the rest of the country was entering a depression.

  The City Council called a special meeting to discuss the offer from the federal government. Some of the members were suspicious about what the city would need to do in return for such a windfall, but even they had to admit they were so desperate for help financing the project that their concerns were not going to stop them from accepting the offer. It was a unanimous vote in favor of letting the federal government build the tunnel.

  By the end of the week work crews were arriving along with supplies. North High Street was closed to all wagon and pedestrian traffic at the railroad crossing, and a fence made of canvas was erected around both excavation sites. Security protected the privacy of the construction from start to finish. As loads of bricks were delivered, the work crews received them outside of the area even though the delivery drivers hoped to see what was going on inside. When they asked why so much brick was needed, they never got an answer.

  Even more suspicious was the fact that the crews worked in shifts around the clock every day of the week, and when they weren’t working they were sequestered in a private encampment built near the construction site.

  After only a few weeks the laborers loaded their equipment onto freight trains and left, but the canvas enclosure remained in place. An entirely new crew of workers arrived along with covered wagons and crates. They disappeared behind the canvas and never came back out through the same side where they entered. Six hundred feet away they would eventually emerge from the opposite entrance. No one paid much attention to how many wagons of supplies were carried into the tunnel because of the distance between the two entrances, nor did anyone question what was in the crates.

  Two months after the canvas barriers were put up, they were removed. The man who said the President had sent him to Columbus hardly took the time to say goodbye. He simply told the City Council the tunnel was ready for traffic, and he left. The Nelsonville Brick Plant most likely survived the depression because of the large brick order, and Columbus had their tunnel without any debt to pay off.

  With much fanfare and celebration the mayor held a ribbon cutting ceremony and then rode on the first wagon to officially use the tunnel. Behind him was a long line of dignitaries in wagons waiting to follow him throu
gh, and one by one they descended below ground.

  Even the mayor was surprised by what he saw. The entrance was much larger than he had expected, and the surface of the road was wide enough for two wagons to pass each other going in opposite directions without difficulty. Oil lamps burned at regular intervals, and although visibility was limited, they could see far enough into the distance to allow the wagons to move at a reasonable speed without running into the pedestrians who chose not to use the raised foot path along the right side of the tunnel.

  When he emerged into the daylight on the opposite side, he was satisfied with the accomplishment. Despite a questionable beginning, the tunnel was open, and there would be no more collisions between trains and wagons.

  ******

  Maybank described his shelter to the survivalist group and was met with plenty of skepticism. Most of the members felt like a survival shelter on an oil platform was the equivalent of painting yourself into a corner.

  “You won’t be able to leave,” said Jerry. His shelter was being built under Fort Sumter, and it was an ambitious undertaking. It was one of the biggest shelters being built for the survivalists using taxpayers’ money.

  “Why do I need to be able to leave the shelter?” asked Maybank. “If we have to use our shelters, we won’t want to leave them.”

  Jerry started to say something else, but he was interrupted by the leader of their group.

  “You aren’t supposed to leave your shelter. Once the end comes, you’re supposed to get inside and stay there,” said a man with long hair.

  Titus Rush wasn’t an imposing figure, but he was well respected by both his peers and by the government. When he spoke, he didn’t have to ask for everyone to give him their attention.

  “I’m not saying I’d put a shelter on an oil rig, but no matter where you put it, whether it’s on an oil rig, under a Civil War fort, or inside an island, the idea is to stay inside where it’s safe.”