We pulled into the parking lot, drawing curious stares from bystanders. Danny drove up to the large trash can before the drive-up speaker. It was an alien with his mouth opened wide to greedily accept each patron’s trash. A silly, lolling tongue and crossed eyes gave it a comical appearance.
Danny grabbed the black box and stuffed it down the alien’s throat before driving away. I half expected him to pull up to the window and order dinner. The prospect didn’t sound half-bad, considering our culinary choices at camp. We didn’t press our luck. Once we were safely away from the restaurant, Danny asked me to take the wheel again. I did as he shed the coat and tossed it in the floorboard.
An hour later, we pulled up to the mess hall at camp. The limousine did not traverse the old dirt road as smoothly as the SUVs. The knots on the top of my head were evidence of that. The SUVs were parked nearby and the Impals already escorted to the safety of the mine. Barbara and Abbs ran out to greet us joined by Taylor and Charlotte. Sam Andrews was nowhere in sight. Did he take the president away somewhere, torturing him with iron bars and chains … knowing he had an hour or two before Danny got back? I didn’t dwell on the question long because I was soon wrapped in the warm embrace of my family.
“Thank God you’re back!” Barbara exclaimed. “We heard what happened.”
Even in the purple luminescent glow of the night, I could see Danny’s face turn three shades of red. It was his place to come back and inform everyone, not for Andrews to come back and start a panic.
“Where is he?” Danny growled.
Everyone seemed confused except for Taylor and me. Taylor jerked his head toward the mine. Without a word, Danny turned and hurried in that direction. My stomach knotted when I saw him pull out one of his pistols and inspect the chamber before passing into the total darkness of the woods.
“What’s wrong?” Barbara asked.
“Nothing,” I said and ushered them back inside the mess hall.
There are few words I have uttered in my life that made me feel more ridiculous. Nothing? What we endured was far from nothing. Nevertheless, it was the only answer I could manage right now. To Barbara’s credit, she did not question further.
Abbs answered my question before I could ask.
“Steff is asleep. We couldn’t wake her. I guess she had a long day,” she said with a smirk.
I received a pleasant surprise when we got to the mess hall. There was a slight improvement in our menu choices. Instead of Vienna sausages, I was treated to a can of name brand tuna, not the cheap watery value brands. I also enjoyed a side of Ritz crackers and a canned soda to wash it all down. The soda was warm, but it still tasted wonderful. To top it all off, I relished a Twinkie for dessert.
I remembered the greasy goodness of an Out of this World Saucer Burger and an ice-cold Take Me to Your Liter sized soft drink. Oh well, those luxuries were just pipe dreams for a person on the run with no cash. They would have to wait until this phenomenon has passed. Deep down, I feared it would probably be a long time, if ever.
We retired for the night with the promise from the cook of a hot shower before breakfast. He rigged up a makeshift privacy fence using scrap lumber from some of the surrounding cabins. A metal bucket hung on a rope and pulley would serve as the showerhead. I appreciated his ingenuity and I was sure my own olfactory system would appreciate it as well. I was starting to smell my own ripeness and after tonight’s activities, I felt beyond filthy.
We would need a good shower after Danny and I buried the bodies of the two men in the back of the car. We debated on the way back what type of funeral it should be. We both agreed the president deserved a funeral with full military honors, especially since he was a veteran. The problem is, the traditional twenty-one rifle salute would have to be eliminated. A single gun firing in the valley would attract attention, let alone seven of them firing three times. We couldn’t risk it.
The next morning, at sunrise, we located a secluded thicket on the far side of the lake. It was a beautiful location surrounded by towering pines and a peppering of dogwoods. Danny and I each dug a grave then gathered rock from the shoreline around the lake. There was enough width between the trees for us to drive the limo around to the thicket. We removed each body from the car and, with great care and respect, placed them in a grave and then covered them with a blanket. After filling the graves in and stacking them with rocks, we pushed the limo into the lake.
At first, I didn’t think it was going to sink when it stopped a few yards out, with water just up to the windows. After a couple of minutes it began to slide forward and then turned nose down as it eased beneath the black water. I pictured the sheer cliff of the rock quarry as the car slid into the silence, coming to rest more than a hundred feet below the surface in its own cold, dark, and watery grave. A shiver ran up my spine as I turned away from the ring of bubbles left by the sinking car.
Danny and I went back to the mess hall and took turns showering. It wasn’t the Ramada Inn, but I definitely felt better afterwards. We went inside and helped the cook start breakfast. Barbara and the girls showed up as we were frying up a side of bacon. The cook drove one of the SUV’s last night to an all-night grocery and restocked some nonperishables. He also brought us a treat of bacon, eggs and donuts for breakfast.
The girls finished their showers as we cracked the first eggs in the iron skillet on the propane cook stove. It dawned on me that we would soon need more propane since we were now using a propane tank to heat water for the shower. Danny said we were moving eventually. I did not know when.
Soon the whole camp arrived and those not partaking of our fabulous breakfast were showering. After a while, it occurred to me that everyone was here except for Andrews and Burt. I planned to go and see Burt after breakfast. I was sure he was taking it easy this morning, especially since Sally was here and seemed in a chipper mood. She fixed Burt a plate and left after she finished breakfast.
“I’ll be up shortly,” I said. “Before the service …”
Danny hadn’t said anything about last night when he went after Andrews and I didn’t ask. I hoped he didn’t have to shoot him. Almost in answer to my question, Andrews showed up in the doorway wearing a scowl on his bruised and scraped face. I was sure the man sitting across the table from me did it.
“Crazy prick,” I heard Danny mutter under his breath.
If looks were lasers, Danny would now be a pile of ashes. The hatred on Andrews’s face was palpable. He walked through the mess hall and out to the shower. I didn’t see him again until the funeral.
“What the hell did you get yourself into last night?” Burt asked, sitting up in bed and hoisting his legs over the side. He let out an involuntary cry of pain as he shifted his shoulder the wrong way.
“I’ve been wondering the same thing all night,” I said. “I woke up this morning thinking I had a very bizarre dream until Danny came by and …”
“Roped you into shovel duty?” Burt asked. His question was a bit crass even though it was accurate. Burt sometimes possessed a knack for blunt speech.
I shrugged and then wrinkled my nose. “You’re getting a shower before the service, right?” I asked.
“What shower?” Burt asked, incredulous. “Are we checking in to Motel 6?”
He reached for his plate beside his cot and took the final bite of a donut now saturated in cold egg yolk. Sally strode over from the window she just finished cleaning and took his plate.
“Why don’t we go get one together?” she said, stroking his hair.
Burt grinned and slapped her on the rear. “You’ll have to excuse me,” he said. “Duty calls.”
I didn’t know whether to laugh or to grimace. That mental image was going to take me a while to lose. The shower was very close to the mess hall. For the sake of myself and all the other residents of our camp, I hoped they reserved their amorous intentions for the privacy of their cabin.
At noon, we gathered in the thicket to pay our respects to Kingston and our fallen Com
mander in Chief. The whole camp was there, including Andrews, although he kept his distance from the rest of us. When it came time for the honor guard, seven men stepped forward. They were a mixture of military and civilian, one of which being Taylor. They stood together in straight line next to the graves. Instead of firing rounds, they held their rifles skywards with their left hand and saluted with their right. They stood in place for exactly twenty-one seconds.
There are several theories and stories about the origins of the twenty-one rifle salute. Given the current circumstances on the planet, one particular story came to mind. I heard one time as a child that the three volleys fired at a funeral are not a salute. Instead, they are a funeral custom. It started a long time ago when they believed the shots would scare evil spirits away from the grave. Come to think of it, I believe I heard it from my father.
The irony was not lost on me because we could now see spirits and I have not encountered any I deemed to be evil. A childish idea followed my childhood memory. “What if we still couldn’t see evil spirits, but they were there all the same, like the Impals before the storm?”
“Preposterous,” I answered the voice in my head, turning my attention back to the service as Danny said a few last words.
In the distance, on the other side of the lake, I caught a faint glimpse of something shimmering among the trees. I first thought it was a reflection from the surface of the black, placid water until I saw it move. I screwed up my eyes to see what it was then, all at once, recognition dawned on me. It was the president.
A knotted dull ache started in my gut. I was embarrassed. He wasn’t supposed to see this; he shouldn’t see this. I could only imagine the disquieting feeling of watching one’s own funeral. My own embarrassment was soon replaced by aggravation when I realized what a risk he was taking. Impals were not supposed to be outside of the mine without batteries.
I stepped back a little from the group, staring directly at him. He didn’t notice me at first; his gaze was fixed on the two mounds of soil and rocks in the center of the thicket. After a few moments, he turned his head toward me. I was too far away to see his expression; however his posture suggested he felt guilty. He fidgeted for a few seconds then turned and strode away through the woods. My heart jumped into my throat when I saw he was not heading in the direction of the mine. I hoped the service would be over very soon.
CHAPTER 13
PRESIDENTIAL INTRODUCTIONS
“I think ‘Hail to the Chief’ has a nice ring to it.”
~John F. Kennedy
As soon as the service ended and everyone dispersed, I pulled Danny aside and told him what I saw.
“For God’s sake, maybe Andrews did knock him senseless with that iron bar last night,” Danny spat.
“Andrews attacked the president?” I asked. I already suspected it.
“Like a damned piñata,” Danny muttered as we turned to walk in the direction where I last saw the president. “I had to kick his ass to get him to stop.”
“Where did he do it?” I asked, hoping none of my family saw or heard Andrews’s brutality.
“Inside the two barriers at the entrance to the mine,” Danny said, holding his hands a couple of feet apart.
I remembered the tarps that Burt took me through on my first night in camp. It was so completely dark in the area between the tarps; I had no real concept of the size of the space. There were about five paces between them, which is not much room to conduct a flogging.
“Jesus,” I said. “Did any of the Impals inside know what was going on?”
“I don’t know how they couldn’t,” Danny said. “I could hear the commotion when I was still a good distance away.”
“They were probably too frightened to intervene,” I said.
“Yeah, I guess they thought your daddy showed up with his storm troopers,” Danny quipped.
The remark cut, even though every word of it was true and Danny immediately regretted it.
“Sorry,” he muttered, “It’s been one hell of a last twenty-four hours.”
“Tell me about it,” I said.
We walked in silence for a while. When we reached the place the president stood, we headed north. Did he run away? The question troubled me. If he did, we must find him immediately, for his sake and ours.
We walked about ten minutes when we spotted the president sitting on a large rock in the middle of a patch of ferns. Danny and I froze in place when we got a little closer. The president’s head rested in his hands and appeared to be weeping.
A bizarre image suddenly popped into my head. I recalled a scene from the novel I did my sixth-grade book report on, Tom Sawyer. Tom and Huck’s raft had been run over by a steamboat in the Mississippi River and they were presumed dead. The town mourned their loss all the while Tom and Huck were camping on an island in the river. The boys happened to stumble into town on the day of their funeral, oblivious to the fact they were proclaimed dead. They wandered into the back of the church and began to weep for the two boys being eulogized. They didn’t realize they were crying for themselves. Was that what the President was doing … mourning himself at his own funeral? I found that hard to believe. Nevertheless, there he was, luminescent tears disappearing into the rock like shimmering ethereal rain.
The president glanced up and saw us watching. He composed himself and got to his feet.
“Lovely service, gentlemen. Although I never pictured myself being put to rest in a mining camp next to a rock quarry. That has to be a first for presidents,” he said with an uneasy laugh.
“You shouldn’t have come, Mr. President,” Danny said with respect. “I warned you it would be unsettling.”
He blinked as if not comprehending. “Oh … this?” he said pointing to his eyes. “I must admit, it was an odd experience.” He paused as if searching for the right words. “No, I was mourning my family. I don’t know if they are okay or if I will ever see them again.”
His voice quivered as he finished. The emotional vibration to his Impal voice reminded me of a Theremin instrument from one of those old science-fiction movies. I think it was the most pitiful noise I have ever heard.
“It’s all my fault … this whole damn thing is my fault. If I hadn’t been so weak, so vulnerable …” his voice trailed off as more silvery tears streamed down his face.
My heart went out to him. Not because this was uncharacteristic behavior for the leader of the free world, but because I knew it was genuine. He gained a reputation for wearing his heart on his sleeve during the campaign. He shed tears during one of the debates as he professed his love for his country and the brave men and women who serve it. His critics called it a stunt. I didn’t believe that. I think it is the mark of a man who cares. Most Americans agreed with me. He took a sizable lead in the polls after that debate and ran away with the election.
“It’s not your fault, Mr. President,” I said. “It’s my father’s. He fooled us … he fooled us all.”
The president got up and strode over to me. He put his hand on my shoulder; the cold of his touch was unsettling, yet appreciated.
“You’re a good man, major,” he said. “I do not hold your father’s actions against you. In some strange way he believes he is doing the right thing.”
“So did Hitler,” I said. Like an involuntary belch, it was out of my mouth before I knew it.
He considered me through narrowed eyes for several moments. Soon, a wry smile creased his shimmering face. “No, Hitler didn’t have an honorable son,” he said and then turned back in the direction of the mine.
“Okay, colonel … I’m going back to time-out now,” he proclaimed as we started to walk with him. The president turned to Danny with a smirk on his face. “And do me a favor please. Don’t get me those cheapo batteries anymore, they make me itch,” he said as he pretended to scratch his arms. “Get me some Duracells or Energizers or something!” he snapped.
Danny took his request very seriously and promised to requisition a case for him at once.
I, on the other hand, never heard of an Impal getting an itch from generic batteries. I suspected this was the president’s attempt at humor. He confirmed this a few moments later when he turned and winked at me. Danny continued to yammer on how every Impal would get only name brand batteries from here on. I liked this man and was sorry to see him in this state, especially being separated from his family. I made a silent vow to do whatever I could to reunite him with his family or at the very least find out how they are doing.
I knew deep down my options were limited. We were secluded and his family is monitored day and night. The biggest problem was the president would be leaving the country with the other Impals. It would happen in the near future and that gave me no time.
When we reached the mine, Danny and I entered under the tarp with the president. I noticed his unease as we walked across the barrier between the tarps. This was understandable since he had just gotten the crap beaten out of him in here last night.
When we entered the mine, my breath escaped me again. The surreal atmosphere of the low lantern light and the ethereal shimmer of the Impals astounded me. I spotted Chief Powhatan and President Abraham Lincoln sitting side by side in a couple of folding chairs. The two men seemed to be having an intense conversation. The chief spotted me and raised his right hand in greeting. I returned the gesture as Lincoln got up and walked over to us.
“Are you all right, Mr. President?” Lincoln asked, addressing the president.
“Fine, fine … I have never felt better,” the president said. “Thanks again for coming to my rescue last night.”
I raised an eyebrow at Danny. I was under the impression that he had come to the President’s defense.
“Well … I finished him off,” Danny said.
“That you did, sir! That you did!” Lincoln said with jubilation. “I only hit him a few times with one of those squench buckets,” he said, suppressing a laugh.
The Myriad Resistance Page 11
