by Nate Castle
From the cockpit, Hank turned on what looked like a CB radio and turned to to channel 23A.
“How far does that signal reach?” Sal said.
“It’s hard to know but probably within a 500 mile radius,” Hank said.
“Which is probably a good thing, because if they are listening in DC, we don’t want them to get wind that we aren’t following the President’s instructions and have them start looking for us,” Sal said.
“You have some pretty good common sense you know that,” Hank said. “Let’s see if there are any planes in the area.”
Hank picked up the receiver which looked like a walkie talkie, the kind that security guards and police officers have attached to their uniform.
“This is the Chick Magnet, flying at 27,000 feet. Do any other aircrafts copy? Over.” Hank said.
There was no response at first, so five minutes later, Hank tried again.
“This is the Chick Magnet, we are running low on fuel, does anyone copy? Over.”
“Are you telling me we are going to run out of gas?” Sal said.
“No, but if it sounds like we are in distress, there is a better chance that another aircraft will respond,” Hank said.
“Chick Magnet, this is The Odessa. What’s your location?” another pilot said through the radio.
“Yeah, Odessa, for security purposes I don’t want to disclose our coordinates. We need to establish trust first. Over,” Hank said.
“Fair enough Chick Magnet. Well I’m currently flying at 42.33 degrees N, 83.04 degrees W. Destination is Guatemala. Over,” the pilot of the Odessa said.
“Why Guatemala? Over,” Hank said.
“This whole mess is an inside job. I’ve had a plane trailing me a few miles back since I took off. It must be a government plane trying to stop me from leaving. I’m hoping that I can make it to international airspace and then it will have to turn around for fuel purposes. It’s showing up on my radar as a fairly small plane. It’s an odd shape though, like no government plane I’ve seen before. Over,” the pilot said.
“I hear you Odessa. We are also heading off the grid. Let me know if you run into any issues will ya? Over,” Hank said.
“10-4 Chick Magnet, good luck, over and out,” the pilot said.
“He’s just outside of Detroit,” Hank said to Sal.
“It’s good to know there are others out there who think the attack was an inside job. He’s a good ally to have,” Sal said.
They flew for the next thirty minutes in silence. Logan and Garrett had decided to get some rest, they reclined their chairs back and were out cold. Hank heard some static on the radio an turned up the volume.
“Chick Magnet, this is Odessa, the plane following me is now dangerously close, approximately 100 yards back, 1000 feet above me. I’m going to keep the mic on so if anything bad happens, you can hear it on your end. Over.”
“Odessa, thanks for the heads up. I wish you the best of luck. Over,” Hank said.
He then pressed a red button on a black box overhead which began recording video and audio from what would occur next. A screeching sound came through the radio speaker, it sounded like a mix between scratching a chalkboard with fingernails and a train in the process of derailing from the tracks. Hank in his thirty-plus years of flying hadn’t ever heard a sound similar.
“This is not good,” Hank said to Sal.
“It’s over for me Chick Mag—-“ the pilot’s sentence wasn’t finished before another alarming sound occurred.
Pop-pop, boom-boom-boom, byyyyahhh! was the next sound that came out of the radio speaker.
“It appears the Odessa is no longer with us,” Hank said, “and that scares the living shit out of me because it didn’t seem to be due to pilot error, and I’ve never heard noises of that nature before.”
9 SECOND WIND
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THE FIRST SEARCH PARTY OF 100 people deployed from the White House had made their way to Virginia. Their plan was to search Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, and Maryland before heading back to the DC to drop off the survivors they found and restock on supplies. They drove in a single file formation with twenty humvees in all, with small trailers attached to the back. Their mission was simple: drive the streets and look for signs of life. Don’t spend too much time in one place, and if survivors are found, make sure they obey orders and hop in the humvees to be transported back to DC. Once a humvee and its trailer were at full capacity, they could leave the rest of the group and head back to the White House. If a large number of survivors were found at one time, the search party could then radio Carter, to come pick them up via plane.
After being on the road for two days the search party had already rounded up thirty survivors, who gladly hopped in the humvees, assuming they were safe. It was about noon on the third day, they were now in Charlotte, when the first explosion occurred.
BANG!
The first humvee of the caravan struck a landmine, which also had detrimental effects on the second humvee. The third humvee was able to hit the brakes in time to avoid getting hit by shrapnel from the explosion. There were ten casualties in the incident. The appointed leader of the search party got on the radio to call the President.
~~~
President Taylor, over the last eight hours, had taken a liking to Sierra, the high school science teacher who was a member of the Dream Team. He had invited her to his private bar the night before and they got to know each other in a mostly sexual manner. When General Kaplan, pounded on the door of the President’s private quarters, Sierra was still naked and she hustled to put her clothes on and hide in the bathroom.
“I don’t want him thinking that I’m getting distracted and losing my focus on saving this country, so it’s best if you hide,” is what the President whispered to Sierra, following the knock on the door from Kaplan.
President Taylor put on a bathrobe and opened the door for General Kaplan.
“Sir, sorry to disturb you, but we have a major problem. Two of the humvees have been blown up by what is described as a landmine. Ten are dead,” General Kaplan said.
“Son of a bitch,” the President said, “Give me a minute.”
He shut the door to his personal quarters and found some proper clothes to change into from the walk-in closet.
“Last night was a treat, it took my mind off of all this havoc,” the President said to Sierra, who had exited the bathroom after General Kaplan left.
“To be continued later?” Sierra said.
“Definitely,” the President said. “After I leave this room, you wait two or three minutes before you do, I don’t want Kaplan seeing you in here.”
“Understood,” Sierra said as she walked up to the President and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek.
The President walked out of the room a few moments later and met General Kaplan who was waiting for him in the hall.
“Follow me General we’re going to get to the bottom of this,” President Taylor said.
He was now walking at a swift pace into the oval office. Once inside, he motioned to General Kaplan to shut the door behind him. President Taylor sat down at his desk, opened one of the drawers and pulled out a device that looked like a walkie talkie from the 1980’s. The device was the size of a briefcase and had a receiver attached to it that resembled a phone and and contained keys next to the receiver: one key for each letter of the alphabet, and one key for each number zero through nine.
“What frequency did we sync the search party to?” President Taylor said.
“AL320,” General Kaplan replied.
President Taylor typed AL320 into the unit and then pressed a green button to connect. A beeping sound followed, which indicated that the device was working and waiting for the signal to be picked up on the other end of the line. About fifteen seconds later, the device made a series of three beeps, meaning that the line was now active and the search party would be able to hear the President.
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p; “President Taylor speaking. I am aware of the incident that just occurred on your end. I now instruct you to safely vacate the humvees and take cover in the nearest building. Do not under any circumstances continue driving on the road. After you’ve taken cover you will wait for my instructions,” the President said and released the talk button to allow the person on the receiving end of the line to respond.
“Roger that. Over and and out,” someone responded from the search party.
President Taylor powered off the device and motioned for General Kaplan to follow him.The two men walked into the Presidential library which could be directly accessed from the Oval office. President Taylor opened a door to the left of a floor to ceiling bookshelf. It was a closet that contained janitorial supplies. He reached for the far wall and pulled the handle of a broom towards him. This motion triggered a desired reaction and the back wall of the closet started rotating to the right. It was a fake wall, that led to a secret hallway. President Taylor found a square sensor on the door that had just been uncovered and placed his right thumb on it. The sensor lit up and after a few seconds of verifying that it was indeed the President’s fingerprint, there was a click and the door popped open.
They had to climb down a twenty-five rung ladder to enter the passageway. They were now in a tunnel beneath the White House.
“Where are we going?” General Kaplan said.
“To check on our surplus landmine supply to see if it has been tampered with,” President Taylor replied.
Three left turns and a right turn later, they found a metal ladder and started to climb down. Soon after they were on the ground floor of what appeared to be a dry cleaner’s business.
“Is this the right place?”General Kaplan said.
“Yes, we disguised this building as a dry cleaners to confuse those who might be looking for our weapons armory. They wouldn’t think to look here,” President Taylor said.
Similar to the room in the Presidential library, this room also had a janitorial closet, where a fake wall led to the actual door to another secret room. This time though, in addition to the fingerprint scan, the President also had to do a retina scan and type in a 10-digit code before the door unlocked. There were three doors that would need to be opened in this fashion, all with different codes, before they could enter the armory. They made it through the first door no problem; it was the second door that caused alarmed the President.
“It’s been tampered with,” he said.
The sensor box was mangled with the wiring exposed.
“These sensor boxes are impossible to break with physical force, I’ve never seen anything like this,” he said.
General Kaplan, using his military instincts, pulled a pistol from his ankle holster and handed it to President Taylor. He then took the pistol from the holster on his hip, ready to go in case the intruders were still on the premises. General Kaplan pulled open the second door, which was already unlocked. The third door awaited ten feet ahead.
“Wait!” the President yelled at Kaplan, who was now ahead of him and was about to step in what looked like a puddle. “Back up!”
Kaplan backed up and they both kneeled down to examine the puddle. It was green in color and small bubbles were rising to the surface. General Kaplan grabbed a broom from the fake janitorial closet wall and put it in the puddle.The thistles of the broom immediately melted and all that was left of the broom was the shaft. The puddle then turned purple. The President and General Kaplan had the look of two kids in high school chemistry class that had just successfully mixed two chemicals together causing a color change.
“It’s a good thing you didn’t step in that puddle, General, based on what we just saw happen with the broom,” President Taylor said.
General Kaplan shook his head in disbelief.
“I think I’ve just confirmed my worst fear—we are being attacked by aliens,” General Kaplan said.
They agreed that the puddle wasn’t any substance that naturally occurred or could be created on Earth.
“Let’s keep moving,” the President said as he was careful to step over the puddle towards the next door.
No code was required at the next door either, as the sensor box was breached too.They entered the armory, taking note of two more alien-esque puddles on their way in. The armory looked like a Costco. Aisles of 20 foot tall shelves decorated the room. The President knew exactly where to look though. About thirty yards down one aisle to the right, he located a section with shelves labeled ‘Ground explosives’. The spot where a few thousand crates of landmines were normally located, was now completely empty.
“This can’t get any worse. The aliens took roughly 500,000 landmines from us and placed them on all of our roads as far as we know. Now they have us trapped because we can’t travel by land,” the President said.
“I overhead a blackbox recording of a guy flying a plane yesterday near Detroit, it was a very startling incident because he got intercepted by another plane, but it didn’t seem that he got shot down or crashed. All of a sudden he was just gone,” General Kaplan said.
“So what you’re saying is that our airspace is no longer safe from aliens either?” President Taylor said.
“That’s correct,” General Kaplan said.
“I guess our only option is to prepare for a war. We need some intel into these aliens to find out what their weaknesses are if we want to have a fighting chance at survival,” the President said.
“C’mon let’s go,” Kaplan said.
As they were walking out, President Taylor picked up what looked like a test tube from one of the shelves, however it wasn’t made of glass, it looked more like graphite or titanium.
Using the test tube, he carefully scooped some of the green puddle into the tube and closed the lid. Luckily, the test tube did not melt.
“I’m going to bring some of this back with us, maybe there’s a way we can run some tests on it,” President Taylor said.
10 IN DUE TIME
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“HOW LONG DID WE SLEEP for?” Shelby said as she sat up and got out of her sleeping bag.They were still in the Bass Pro Shops store.
“About six hours if that clock on the wall is accurate,” Noel said.
Shelby removed the charger from the wall that had been charging the batteries on the metal detector.
“It’s all set, let’s get out of here. This store kind of creeps me out, it’s so big, yet so quiet,” Shelby said.
They walked out to the truck. Once again they had forgotten all about the dog, Milo, but it appeared that Milo hadn’t minded the free time to take a nap himself.
“Attention, this is President Taylor. We have concluded that the roads are no longer safe to travel on due to landmines. Please take shelter indoors and await for further instructions.”
The message blared from a loudspeaker positioned on the traffic light post across the street.
“Forget that, we have to get to DC, I don’t feel safe with just the two of us traveling alone,” Noel said.
“We figured out a solution to the landmine problem so if that is the only hurdle we have to overcome, I think we’ll be just fine,” Shelby said.
They started up the truck and begin heading east once again.Their plan appeared to be flawless, Shelby put the truck in ‘Low’, so that it would move at a slow and steady pace without her having to use the gas pedal. Noel sat on the hood with the metal detector pointed straight ahead. It would start beeping when they got in range of landmine. Noel would point the detector straight up in the air to signal to Shelby that they were getting close to one. Shelby would then turn the truck into the other lane and bypass the landmine. So far, they hadn’t come across a scenario where there were two landmines in the same spot, one in each lane of road. So their plan thus far had worked. They were driving an average speed of 5 to 10 miles per hour, which wasn’t ideal, but at least they were making progress.Milo, from the bed of the truck started barking at something. Shelby and Noel couldn’t und
erstand why at first, but then it became pretty clear.
About 100 yards ahead, there was the silhouette of three figures. Definitely not human. Shelby slammed the breaks of the truck and yelled at Noel to hop in. No longer worried about landmines at this point, Shelby put the truck in drive and pinned the accelerator. 15 yards ahead she took a hard right, taking the Ridgecrest Blvd exit. They made it to a shopping mall parking lot before they stopped the truck.
“Were those aliens, or am I seeing things?” Noel yelled as tears had already begun dripping down her face.
“I would say everything is going to be okay, but I don’t want to lie to you,” Shelby said.
“Well I’m not gonna go down without a fight, we at least need to die trying. Maybe they aren’t even after us?” Noel said.
“We have to get out of plain sight,” Shelby said.
They hopped out of the truck and unlatched the tailgate to let Milo out; this time they hadn’t forgotten about him. The closest store to where they parked the truck was a Macy’s, so they hustled in there and up an escalator that was not in service. Above the entrance on the second floor, there were windows that looked out on the parking lot. They went to the windows and began scanning the perimeter. Before long, the three figures they had seen on the highway appeared at the perimeter of the parking lot.
Two of them were eight feet tall, the third was half their size. They wore no clothing. The two tall ones had green scales that could be compared to that of a rhino. They had three legs, with the leg in middle colored brown. The shorter of the three creatures had the same features, but the colors were opposite: brown scales, with a green third leg. Their facial features made them look very unattractive. They had two eyes, a nose without the long bone to support it that humans had, and two vertical slits where a human mouth would be. The slits didn’t open up into one hole, they appeared to be two separate holes. Their heads were round, but instead of hair, they had grey spikes of different shapes and sizes covering their heads.
