The Last Stand (Book 3) (The Repentant Demon Trilogy)

by Samantha Johns

  By the end of Mass, the littlest children were asleep and unable to ride their bicycles home. Uma begged to let them sleep overnight on the couches in her living room. She covered them with quilts from the cupboard, then took their stockings from the fireplace mantle and placed them beside their make-shift beds so they would see them as soon as they awakened. Brady promised to watch them ride home first thing in the morning to open presents under their own trees.

  As the group dispersed on the McFarland porch to mount their bikes and head home, their handlebar baskets laden with gifts on the way up the hillside path. When they reached the turn into their lake community, they saw that they had acquired a vast number of new neighbors during the party. More than a dozen moving vans were parked at the pre-fabricated homes nearest their encampment, and families were busily unloading furniture and boxes. These were the families of the servicemen which worked inside the mountain facility.

  As the Edwards and Decker families were settling in for the night, Cal received an urgent phone call from Agent Foley. An urgent need for his skills had arisen. The chatter was incessantly coming from multiple sources in varied languages. Twenty-five nuclear plants had been hit in quick succession beginning at midnight as Christmas Eve parties were being enjoyed by American families all over the east coast. The power was out over half the nation. Cal could only imagine the shock and horror for all those families thrown into utter panic on the holiest of nights.

  When Cal arrived at the computer room he went to his station and put on his headphones, but his eyes could not stop watching the giant-screened monitor on the front wall of the room. Everyone else seemed to be looking at the same thing, though their fingers kept moving on their keyboards. He gazed up at a ten foot display of the United States of America where nearly half the country showed blackouts. Twenty-five circles were lit, indicating the nuclear sites that had been lit. When he stood, he was able to see the twenty-five monitors among the cubicles surrounding him that displayed live-action video of armed combat occurring at each of the plant sites. Several burst into bright white in fast succession. Their corresponding circles on the large wall monitor began to flash with bright red lights. These were ones that had resulted in hydrogen bomb explosions. The red began to display concentric circles in shades of orange indicating the miles of utter destruction followed by yellow areas representing degrees of damage.

  Cal began translating one audio file at a time labeling each by the location of the transmission source. Dozens of audio files cheered jubilant victory messages, but they were mixed with orders from military leaders, and all would need to be reviewed before sense could be made from the mess. Cal was working at top speed, but even he could not keep up with the numbers of files that kept pouring in. He began sorting more common languages to other computer stations. His work load lessened as some of the feeds went dead. The ones at plants that had been destroyed, that had become vast blackened holes in the ground.

  New York City was gone, as were New Hampshire, Connecticut, Maryland, and New Jersey. The east quickly became a vast void with no sign of activity. Where people alive there still? It was possible if they had been hiding safely away in basements. But they had not been. They were celebrating at family gatherings or snuggled in their beds awaiting Christmas morning or staying up late to put the finishing touches on some special surprise. Cal silently fumed at the thought that they had not been warned, and he could not understand why they hadn't been.

  Was our government there amid the emptiness, functioning from some underground safe location? Did the president, his cabinet members, and the Congress know these details, too? Were they watching a similar screen in horror? Were they in communication with headquarters here? These things he did not know. He had always performed his work with speed and precision unhampered by emotion. But now that was difficult to do, imagining the dead and suffering humans represented by the colored circles on his monitor.

  Then he saw the light as it began flashing for Las Vegas, and this alarmed him, as it was less than six-hundred-fifty miles away. He heard sirens as their community was being warned to evacuate for protection against radioactive fallout. Vehicles were dispatched to meet with the lake residents and bring them to living quarters inside the mountain. The children would not awake to gifts under their trees. They would find themselves on cots in a large dormitory with two thousand roommates. The Edwards, Deckers, and McFarlands as well as the Callahans would be among them.

  The three children sleeping at the McFarland lodge were awakened by the sirens and were helped outside to the jeep. Brady called their parents and agreed to meet them at the facility. Abigail drove the government van to pick up the families from the RV compound as they only had bikes and Cal had taken her car. They were illegally seated without enough seat belts, but no one even cared. The McFarland's had considered staying in their own basement, even offering to try to accommodate the whole group, but they realistically only had room for four—not fourteen. By now they became one large family and being separated during this crisis was not an option given any thought. They took their dogs along and were prepared to demand they be permitted to stay with them. If necessary, all of them were willing to face incarceration rather than be parted from their fur-bearing family members.

  They were directed to the dormitory floor by armed guards, which opened onto a sea of beds neatly made and completely unoccupied. Abigail viewed it for what it appeared to be—a prison—but one that would save them all from the horror of death by radiation poisoning.

  Abigail walked through the corridors created by the rows of beds. Making her way to the far wall, she moved around the perimeter until she found a large double-doorway. It was bolted shut, but she could see from the window panel that inside awaited a large cafeteria with ample tables and an entire wall-length of stainless steel serving bays. This place had been planned for years, she thought, long before the most recent threat. It might have been a facility left over from the cold war.

  Across the expanse of beds on the opposite wall another set of closed double-doors was being explored by a group of excited children tip-toeing to see inside the glass. She heard them shrieking with delight about the television and game tables they saw inside. Is it possible that the government thought of everything? Even the anxiety of cooped-up children? The elevator to her right opened and a familiar face appeared.

  “I just learned you'd been brought here,” said Agent Foley. “This is ridiculous, even if they were following orders. I can't understand someone bringing you here, knowing who your husband is. Come with me, Abby. You can be with Cal as long as you don't interfere with his work. And the little fluffy thing can come, too,” he said, noticing she clutched the dog firmly against her chest. “If anyone complains, say I personally gave permission.”

  He reached to give Angel that familiar ear-rub which had caused her to love him so quickly. Abigail decided that he must not be so bad if the dog thought so highly of him.

  “All the secrets are out now,” he said as they stepped inside and the doors closed. “The entire world knows what has happened.”

  He took her up to the computer room floor and directed her to where she found Cal in his cubicle. He twisted in his desk chair and opened his arm for an embrace but was intently listening through headphones to something alarming. He typed a message quickly then sent it to authorities, flagging it as urgent. Finally, he whipped off his headgear and turned to face Abigail.

  “I know why we've been spared,” he said, “why most of this region has been spared. They want the natural gas and oil here. They plan to set up their new nation right here on top of us.”

  The all clear chirping noise sounded, and though that normally would have signaled relief in Abigail's ears, she still heard Cal's words clearly inside her head. Right here on top of us.

  It was good to know that the kids would soon be back in their homes and having Christmas. They would open their gifts, eat their candies, and enjoy what was left of the day, unless another
alarm was to sound.

  “Does that mean everyone can go home?” asked Abigail, trying not to interfere, only asking when Cal seemed to be at a stopping point.

  “The winds shifted,” he said. “After the strike on Las Vegas, the radiation was headed right for us. Then without explanation, they turned back towards California. I guess we know what happened, right Abby?”

  “God is protecting us,” she said matter-of-factly, “but what about the people in California? What about those people?”

  “They were already gone anyway,” said Cal, sadly. “The Diablo Two and the San Onofre sites cover almost all of southern California—all of Orange county. San Francisco, Oceanside, San Clamente, Luis Obispo—they suffered hydrogen bomb explosions hours ago. The Richland, Washington and Portland, Oregon plants managed to overcome their attackers. The terrorists are all dead though. The ones that weren't shot in the scuffle swallowed cyanide capsules and committed suicide before they could be interrogated. If those two attacks had gone as planned, we would have been surrounded by desolate destruction. Look at the map,” he said, pointing to the big screen.

  She gazed upon a tranquil yellow blob shaped like a beach ball that two puppies had stretched into opposite directions. The pregnant middle was their location in Wyoming with Montana above and Colorado below. Bits of the northwest and southeast formed the only safe areas left in the United States.

  “This is so frustrating, Abby,” he said, exasperated. “I know I'm needed to translate, but I wish there were two of me. I want to be in on the strategy.”

  “What strategy?” she asked, confused.

  “That's just my point,” he exclaimed. “Is there one? I need to talk to whoever is running things. Hopefully it's not the jerk president that refused to ground the planes on Christmas day, that didn’t warn the population of the imminent danger. There are things we need to be doing.

  “See all that darkened area on the map? All the parts of this country which have been attacked? Well there are pockets of life all throughout that area where people are huddled together in darkness wondering what's happening. We need to communicate with those people, get supplies to them. A whole army is out there to help us fight, if we don't just ignore them to death. They'll eventually die, all of them, just for lack of information. They need to be told where to go, what to eat or not eat, what procedures they should take to make safe shelters. You know what I think, Abby?”

  She waited for the answer.

  “I think the government has just written them off. How can they do that? Not only are these people, and people who deserve to live, they are soldiers able to fight. Look at Kansas and Missouri, most of Iowa and Arkansas. They dodged the bullet. I think for a reason that only God knows. And since the government just waited, did nothing, and let it happen, they're not even part of our infrastructure. We can't communicate with them.”

  “Cal, maybe you should call Agent Foley. Tell him what you're telling me. I don't think he's the Master Commander or anything like that, but he's at least one wrung up on the totem pole.”

  “He just strikes me as someone that goes by the book,” Cal replied, “follows orders, and doesn't much listen to ideas from peons like myself. I'm here to do a job, and I'm sure that's what he wants me to keep doing. For Christ's sake,” he said, never having sworn before now, “people we talked to at the Loop, students you had in your class, the Greenfields, their little girl and their dog Lexy, all of these people are going to die.”

  “Cal, I've got it!” she exclaimed with excitement. “Like with a prayer circle, we just call them.”

  “Call them?” he asked, “you mean like on the phone?”

  “When they delivered these military phones to us, they said we could call anywhere in the world,” Abigail said quickly, convicted of her idea. “I have the Greenfields in my cell phone contacts. I could call and tell them to head this way. Or I could tell them a place to go that might be nearer for them. Surely the military bases have survived and have supplies in store. Mike probably has lots of contacts in his phone, too. Then those people could call other people, who will call even more… like a daisy chain.”

  “You need to get back to the others,” he said. “Hold on while I check something in the computer.”

  After a few minutes, Cal had located the list of military facilities where emergency food and equipment were stored throughout the east. He printed the list.

  “Take this with you,” he said like he was talking to a fellow soldier, “show it to Mike, and get everybody involved in making calls. They are probably headed out of here by now.”

  “You know,” she said with a warning tone, “when Agent Foley finds out we're doing this, he's going to be upset.”

  “Screw him. What's he going to do, fire me?” laughed Cal, sarcastically.

  “There is a prison here at the facility,” she reminded him. “He could lock us up. Or all of us except you, since he needs you.”

  “I'm thinking that if the plan works,” he said solemnly, “if we save lives, it will be worth facing the consequences, and I won't let him arrest you, Abby, if I have to shoot him myself. Count on that.”

  Cal stood to kiss Abigail passionately again before she left. Although he felt confident that they would win in the end, it was only because of the words of an angel, not for any encouragement from his situation. He saw nothing but fear and uncertainty in all the faces surrounding him.

  “I want to look into the system to see if I can learn what is going on in the rest of the country and the rest of the world,” said Cal. “I don't know when I'll be joining you at the cabin.”

  Abigail was permitted to leave, although Agent Foley seemed to question that she didn't want to stay with Cal. He had thought the two of them inseparable. He had actually bent the rules a bit by allowing her to be with him.

  She drove her car at top speed to the McFarland's, realizing she was leaving Cal stranded. The rest of the family had taken the government van which had brought them there, assuming she would stay behind with Cal. He would need to call, and she would drive back and get him, she thought. Traveling over the roads, she now saw that the fencing had been erected around the whole facility. It was good that they no longer needed to fear wild animal attacks. But the miles and miles of chain link made it seem eerily more like a prison. They were trapped inside the compound now, almost as if the enemy had put them there, and in a certain sense they had.

  From the comfort of her cabin, which had become home, Abigail called Mike Edwards and explained the plan. He decided to meet there with Jerry and Nathan so that the rest of the family could continue Christmas festivities. The men arrived carrying all their old cell phones, as well as a box of chargers so they could access all the family's address books. Abigail managed to get into her old Washington University email account on the Internet and decided to randomly call as many as she could from the list.

  Uma and Brady joined the group but decided that they could be more helpful by fixing food and entertaining children. They would bring the rest of the family to the lodge then divert the children to Cal and Abigail’s cabin for movies and treats. That way, the women could add their efforts to the team of callers.

  Brady gave them his phone which contained only a few personal numbers, but hundreds of stored business contacts from Pinedale as well as all the people who had stayed at the cabin for vacations.

  He sat staring out the cabin window as the kids occupied themselves watching a funny Christmas movie across the room. When he came to this place five years ago, he had broken all ties with the people in Saint Louis, or anywhere else for that matter. This had been his dream come true. Something in his heart of hearts that even he himself had hardly dared to imagine, such a paradise in the mountains. Now it had turned into a nightmare almost overnight.

  “You okay, Brady?” asked Abigail, noticing his demeanor.

  “No, I'm not, but neither is anyone else, I guess,” he answered glumly, speaking to Abigail who had come back from her post
at the lodge briefly to make sure the kids had been set up comfortably. “Have you looked at this place? It'll never be the same again. That peaceful lake full of trout now looks like it's sitting beside a subdivision. All this fencing makes the whole place look like a concentration camp, which I'm not so sure it isn't. And roads everywhere. Where am I gonna go to now?” he said stifling a sniffle. “Where am I gonna end up next, now that this place has been taken from me? I think I'd rather just die here now rather than go on in this world.”

  “Brady, you bite your tongue,” said Abigail, with a sharp tone. “Who knows if any of us are ever going anywhere again? I don't know where I'll be either, but it will be with Cal by my side. Don't you think Uma feels the same way about you? Wherever you are, Brady, it'll be with people who love you. We all at least have that much.”