by James Hunt
“We all did what we had to do, Ben. There’s not a person out there that doesn’t have dirty hands.”
Ben knew Mitch had a point. Everyone was without power for too long. People will stay calm for only so long before they riot. The dependency on technology became abundantly clear when none of it worked.
History books would record this time period as one of the worst in American History. The stories would surpass the Great Depression, both World Wars, 9/11, all of it. It was as if the entire nation lost its sanity with the rest of the world watching, and now we were waking up from the nightmare, looking around at the damage and trying to sweep it under the rug.
That’s why Ben wanted the proof so bad. He had to pull one truth out of all the lies being peddled to everyone. There had to be one beam of light out there.
“I killed someone,” Ben said.
Mitch stopped chewing and set his drink down.
“Ben, you don’t have to—”
“It was in the middle of the day, about three months in. I was on guard at the food bank in DC. You should have seen the lines of people waiting. It stretched for miles. You couldn’t even see the end. We moved on to the emergency reserves at that point. You could see the hunger on everyone’s faces. The food bank was handing out the bare minimum. The tension running through the crowd was thick, and there was this guy, a dad with his family, and they were close to the front of the line. His little girl was crying, and she just wouldn’t stop. He walked up to me, saying that his daughter hadn’t eaten in three days. He begged me to let him cut in line, just to grab food for her. He was even willing to give up his rations just to feed her, but we had protocol. No one could skip, no exceptions. Then other people started pleading, arguing why they should be able to eat first. The guards were outnumbered a thousand to one. If they rushed the gates, then it would have been over. I pulled my gun and told him to get back in line, but he just wouldn’t stop. He kept screaming for me to let him through, and the crowd around him was getting restless. I couldn’t let the chaos break out. I couldn’t let one person destroy what little we had left. I warned him one more time to get back in line and he made a move on me so I pulled the trigger. One shot through the head. The rest of the crowd backed down after that. I can still hear two things from that day when I close my eyes to fall asleep. I can hear the sound of my gun going off, and the screams from his wife, cursing me as she wept over her husband’s corpse.”
Ben took another sip of beer then clutched the drink in both hands as he closed his eyes, letting out a breath that was soft and slow.
“The supplies from Europe arrived the next day,” Ben said.
“You followed your orders, Ben. There was no way of knowing what would happen if you hadn’t pulled the trigger. You knew what you had to do. It was a hard choice, but one that had to be made.”
“Yeah… orders.”
***
Even though Dr. Wyatt volunteered to come to the investigator’s unit, Ben and Mitch housed him in an apartment building onsite. He was impressed with the size of the facility they were able to use. It looked like an old university that swapped housing bright young minds for suspected criminals.
Dr. Wyatt unpacked his suitcase and placed what spare clothes he had into the small dresser at the foot of the bed. There was a TV on top of it, which he didn’t use. He found himself not using any piece of electronics out of habit. He managed to make it as far as he did without it and realized just how much of a time waste it was to spend your free hours glued to a television numbing your mind.
His room was on the eighth floor of the building and he had a decent view of the surrounding area. There were cars moving on the roads, traffic lights changing from red to green, and he could hear the hum of the electrical transformer from the power lines just outside his window.
It was such a different sight than the one he experienced just a few months ago. The frozen cities had been thawed and were now beginning to teem with life again.
Dr. Wyatt sat on the edge of the bed and ran his fingers along the fabric of the comforter. The sheets on the bed were clean, the floor in the room was vacuumed, and the A/C was blasting through the vents.
All of this was brought back for mankind, the same mankind that ignored him, shunned him, and tried to bury him. He started to think that him being there was a bad idea. Even if he had a chance to speak with Mike there was no guarantee that he’d be able to help him, and even if he was able to help him, there was no promise that Mike would accept it.
Every time he thought about it a sour feeling hit the pit of his stomach and spread throughout his body. He reached for his bag and pulled out the bottle of pills he kept with him to ease the stress.
He washed the pill down with a cup of water he filled from the sink and lay down to let the medicine take effect.
***
Ben called Dr. Wyatt first thing in the morning and told him to come to his office immediately. He didn’t tell him why though.
Ben was still hung over from the day before. Mitch just kept feeding him drinks and before he knew it he was hunched over in the toilet puking his guts out. Ben took a taxi home and when he woke up in the morning his head felt as if it was on an anvil being pounded by a sledgehammer.
When he saw Mitch come in the office looking as fresh as a newborn calf he shrugged his shoulders in disbelief.
“How the hell are you not dying right now?” Ben asked.
“My liver’s used to that sort of punishment.”
Mitch offered him a little hair of the dog which Ben emphatically declined. He couldn’t even look at alcohol without wanting to vomit.
One of the office assistants came in a little later to let Ben know that Dr. Wyatt was there. He met Wyatt in the interrogation room alone.
“I appreciate you coming in on such short notice,” Ben said.
“Well, the armed guards you sent to collect me were quite convincing.”
Ben could feel the strain of trying to focus on the conversation at hand. He rubbed his eyes.
“Long night?” Dr. Wyatt asked.
“You could say that.”
“We all have ways of coping, Agent Sullivan.”
“Is that why your pupils are dilated?”
“What can I help you with?”
“When you came in you said you wanted to help Mr. Grant, correct?”
“That’s correct.”
“And it’s something you’re still interested in pursuing?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“As I told you before he—”
“Suffered a great deal, yes, I know that, Dr. Wyatt. But how did he suffer? I know he had a family. Do you know where they are?”
“You need to let me speak to him.”
Ben let out a sigh. He was exhausted. He was running out of time, and patience. Whatever Dr. Wyatt believed he could do to help Mike involved speaking with him.
“He doesn’t want to be saved,” Ben said. “I’ve tried reaching him, but it’s just no use. He believes he’s guilty. The evidence we have suggests that he is, and my superiors are breathing down my neck to close this case.”
“Besides your drinking have you turned to anything to help you cope with the things you did during the blackout, Agent Sullivan?”
“Yes.”
“And what was it?”
“My family.”
“It’s nice to have something to help pull you out of the darkness. Myself, I didn’t have any family, so as you can see from my ‘dilated pupils’ I’ve coped in other ways.”
“Dr. Wyatt I don—”
“Do you know how Mike Grant coped after what happened in Cincinnati?”
“No.”
“Well, I do. And if you don’t let me speak with him a good man is going to die.”
Ben didn’t know what else he could do. He researched every possible lead, checked every scenario, but he still couldn’t shake the feeling that through all of those procedures something was wrong.
Maybe it was time to try something a little unconventional.
“All right, Dr. Wyatt. I’ll bring him in,” Ben said.
Cincinnati (Day 25)
Mike kept Kalen close the entire morning. He was next to her when they were grabbing their gear, loading their ammo, and boarding the trucks to take them to the rallying point where they would try and take the bridge from the rebels.
He tried making a case for her to stay in the city, but it fell to pieces when she spoke up demanding that she be a part of the raid. Once Blake heard that the discussion was over.
The brief was simple. The rebels were running low on supplies and ammo. They were outnumbered and this campaign was to be the last push to get them back over the river and take control of the bridge, allowing the rest of Bram’s men to connect with his other units in Lexington.
Blake and the rest of his men outnumbered the rebels two to one, so the tactic would be to drive a wedge between the rebels. Divide and conquer.
The rebels hadn’t used any heavy artillery for the past week, so it was believed they’d run out. Everything would be handled on the ground, with man-to-man combat. Mike, Sam, and Kalen were a part of Unit One and charged with taking out the left flank.
When the truck came to a stop Mike’s heart was pounding out of his chest. His hands felt like bricks holding the rifle. He tried massaging them earlier in the morning, but it didn’t really help.
Blake gathered everyone around him once the trucks were emptied. Mike watched them turn around and head back to the city, toward safety. All he wanted to do at that moment was throw his daughter in the back of one of those trucks.
“All right, everyone, listen up!” Blake said. “We’ll be joining up with the rest of the troops at the front line. We have them on their heels, so this is it. You all know what needs to be done. Let’s move out!”
There were only thirty of them, but from Blake’s description that was more than enough to overrun the enemy. They broke off into five groups of six. Mike’s group consisted of himself, Sam, Kalen, and Blake. Two other guys rounded out the group, Steve and Jimmy. Both were hunters before the blackout, and both were excellent marksmen. Mike’s group could’ve done a lot worse.
Gunshots rang out the closer they moved to the river. Mike could smell the mixture of water, gunpowder, and dust swirling in the air. The scent grew stronger as the sounds of guns and screams increased.
Up ahead Mike could see the forces already there, advancing on the bridge. The rallying point for the unit was a small office building just behind the front lines. Blake led the group inside and they had a front row seat for the bloodshed.
“Listen up! We push whoever we can to the west. No hesitation,” Blake said.
Mike clicked the safety off the rifle. He looked to Kalen, who was still staring out the empty window frame where the glass was shattered. He pulled Sam close and whispered in his ear.
“Don’t let her out of your sight,” Mike said.
Sam nodded and moved over to Kalen’s right side. When Blake finally signaled they were heading out, Mike gave Kalen one last glance and took a deep breath.
The firing was sporadic and Mike could hear the shouts of men on both sides. He kept Kalen in his field of vision the entire time, while scanning for anything that would harm her.
Blake was leading them toward a small cluster of soldiers on the outside edge of the bridge. He was the first to open fire, followed by Jimmy and Steve.
The rebels immediately returned fire and Mike shoved Kalen down behind a car for cover.
“Dad!” Kalen said.
“Stay down!” Mike screamed.
Mike rested his rifle on top of the trunk and squeezed the trigger, firing off some rounds into the rebels, then ducked back down as they returned fire.
Kalen crawled to the front of the car by the engine. She rested her rifle on top of the hood and opened fire.
“Kalen!” Mike yelled.
Mike jumped up, but was pinned down by more rebel fire. Kalen took off running and he crawled to the front of the car to see where she was heading. He saw her up against another abandoned car, parallel to Blake, who was waving everyone forward.
The rebels were slowly realizing they were being flanked, and he could see them retreating not to the west but across the bridge. There was a lull in gunfire and Mike sprinted toward his daughter.
His shoulder slammed into the car door as he caught his breath. Kalen continued the assault on the rebels. He yanked her down.
“What are you doing?” Mike asked.
“Our mission.”
She yanked his hand off her and moved back into a firing position. Mike watched her with a blended sense of admiration and fear. The swell of pride came from watching his daughter so focused, thriving in a moment of chaos where most would crumble. The stroke of fear came from the knowledge that getting to that point of focus came at a cost of her old self, one that she wasn’t going to get back.
“They’re retreating across the bridge! Move forward!” Blake yelled.
The gunfire coming from their team was relentless now. The rebels were sprinting as fast as they could across the bridge. The other units were converging at the bridge’s entrance, picking off as many of the rebels as they could.
“We need to move across and secure the other side before they regroup!” Blake said.
“Anybody that goes across that bridge is a sitting duck. It’s too exposed,” Sam replied.
Mike looked around. There were three abandoned cars close to the bridge’s entrance. One of them had the tires blown out, but the other two were good.
“We can throw those cars in neutral and roll them across,” Mike said.
“That’s our cover,” Blake replied. “Let’s move!”
They opened all of the car doors and rolled them forward across the bridge, shielding them from the gunfire raining down on them.
Another unit followed their lead and began pushing their own car across the bridge. Both Mike and Blake were on the front doors. Sam was behind Mike and Kalen was behind Blake on the rear doors, while Jimmy and Steve were pushing from the bumper.
As they crept their way across the bridge Mike noticed the gunfire had let up. He looked up and saw that most of the rebels had disappeared. In fact, he couldn’t see any of them. Mike scanned the shoreline and the end of the bridge, but there was nothing.
“They’re gone,” Mike said.
“Keep pushing forward,” Blake ordered.
Something was wrong. After all of the fighting and protection of the bridge, why would they give it up so easily? From everything that Mike had learned about the bridge, it was a pivotal, strategic point.
They were past the halfway point and the bridge started its downward slope. The car started picking up speed. Mike jumped in the driver’s seat and tapped the brakes so they wouldn’t end up crashing into anything on their way down.
Then, just to his left Mike could see a tarp on the sidewalk. The end was flapping open from the breeze. He looked over to his right and saw another tarp directly parallel to the one on the left.
Mike slammed the brake pedal hard. The open doors flopped forward a bit and everyone slammed into them.
“They’re gonna blow the bridge!” Mike yelled.
Everyone’s heads went up. Mike slammed the car’s shifter into park and tried rolling out of the driver’s seat, but someone grabbed his arm, stopping him.
Mike looked over and Blake had his fingers digging into his skin. He tried to break free, but Blake had a really good hold on him.
“We push forward,” Blake said.
“The tarps!” Mike said.
“We can’t lose this bridge,” Blake yelled, running to the tarp.
Kalen followed him and Mike sprinted after her. Blake lifted the tarp off and revealed enough plastic explosive to blow the bridge sky high.
“Jesus,” Blake whispered.
“We need to get off the bridge now!” Mike yelled.
“If we
lose this bridge it’ll set us back months and it’ll give the rebels time to regroup. We can’t let that happen,” Blake said.
“Toss it over the side!” Jimmy yelled.
“No, if it goes off under water it could damage the bridge’s pillars,” Blake answered.
Blake pulled his radio to his mouth.
“We need an ordnance expert on the bridge. Now,” Blake said.
A few minutes later a man came jogging up toward them. He was an older gentleman, probably late fifties, and had thick-rimmed glasses. He wasn’t dressed in the normal military fatigues like Blake had on, so Mike figured he must have been a recruit like himself. He introduced himself as Brian.
