Fire

by Alan Rodgers

  Not that there was a way to avoid it; the last of the planes was in the air. There wasn’t anybody in the world who could and would call them home.

  If Bonner saw the technician’s dis-ease, he made no sign of it. None Ron could see.

  All through the explanation (planes rushing thunderous into the sky) the Vice President stood staring dumbly at Herman Bonner. Eyes kind of glazed, expression slack. Watching him, Ron almost thought that there might be something wrong with the man’s brain.

  Then the fireworks started. In the distance, at first. Roaring explosions and fiery clouds so bright that for half a moment Ron thought that the nuclear Apocalypse had begun at the edge of their horizon. Was that one of Bonner’s planes? Yes. It had to be. Then that first fireball faded, and he knew that it wasn’t any atom bomb going off. No atom bomb would burn that briefly. The explosion was the kerosene in the plane’s fuel tanks, set afire by God only knew what —

  All at once there were dozens of anti-aircraft rockets at the edge of the sky and planes were bursting into balls of heat and light all that filled the whole horizon.

  And Herman Bonner screamed.

  Ron almost started screaming himself, for fear that one of the exploding planes would ignite the nuclear missile that it carried.

  None of them did.

  Not a single one.

  Then it was still beyond the far edge of the runway, and almost pretty, the way the warm summer dusk flickered with the light of kerosene burning in the distance.

  Until Herman Bonner stopped screaming, and spoke. Shouted, actually.

  “General Thompsen! General Bruce Thompsen!”

  There wasn’t any need to shout, of course. The general was right at Bonner’s elbow.

  “Here, Herman.”

  Bonner didn’t say anything. He looked too choked on frustration and rage to speak.

  “The Army, Herman. Whole divisions of it camped just over the hill. We knew this could happen.”

  Bonner tensed; for a moment Ron thought he was going to hit the man. But he didn’t. Instead his eyes got cold and hard. “Then we need to get more missiles, don’t we, General? And to get more missiles we need to move to another base. And to get there, we must first obliterate those who hem us in.” He gestured off toward the hills where the rockets had exploded. “Take your army — take every man we have here — and destroy them.”

  “Yes sir.” Thompsen said.

  And then he glanced at Ron and Luke and George Stein.

  “Tim and I will see to them. You have guns for us?”

  “Of course.” And the General. Nodded to an aide, who ran off on the errand.

  That was when Ron realized that he was hearing the drone of a plane overhead. Had one of them gotten away? And if it had, what was it doing here, instead of heading off for points unknown? He glanced up, to get a look at it —

  It was a serious mistake. Bonner and Thompsen both had their eyes on him just then; by looking up he drew their attention to the plane.

  Bonner hissed. “Is it ours?”

  Thompsen hesitated a moment, looking at it carefully. “No.”

  “Then shoot it down.”

  ³ ³ ³

  IN TRANSIT BY AIR OVER EASTERN COLORADO

  “I reckon that it isn’t,” Bill said. She looked at him kind of puzzled-like, which was understandable when you considered that the two of them had been there staring at each other for at least five minutes, and in all that time neither of them had said a word. “I mean, love isn’t the kind of thing you ought to lie to yourself about. Not even when you don’t understand it.”

  She nodded. “Ah. Yes.”

  After that they were both quiet again for a long time. And this time it was she who broke the silence. “What should we do?”

  Bill stole a glance at the boy, who was watching the both of them with the kind of wrapped-up intensity most people reserve for campfires and lava lamps. “I don’t know. Relax. See what happens. Seems to me we shouldn’t push anything too hard.”

  She nodded again, looking a little impressed. A little reverent, even, which made Bill real uncomfortable. How could a woman like that, some kind of a superwoman, look at Bill like he was one of the three wise kings? Mind, now, Bill wasn’t ashamed of what he was. Just the opposite, point of fact. He had his pride. He knew what he was, and wasn’t. And if there was anything Bill wasn’t, wise was it.

  She was still looking at him like he was something he wasn’t when the navigator came out of the cockpit.

  “Heard some noise from back here a little while ago,” he said. “Any trouble with the drop?”

  Bill shook his head. Felt the whole world sway with the throbbing deep behind his nose. “Nah.”

  Was that the sound of thunder in the distance?

  The navigator looked kind of skeptically at Bill and the blood still seeping out of his nose. Shrugged. “If you say so. We ought to be landing pretty soon. Pilot’s got to find a highway or something to put this thing down — can’t land at Eidner, under the circumstances. You heard the base was in the hands of a bunch of fundamentalist survival nuts? Well, it is. Landing’s going to be someplace that ain’t a runway, and it isn’t likely to be smooth. I suggest all three of you get back into your seats and get your seat belts on, if you don’t want to end up with any more broken bones.”

  Bill didn’t especially appreciate the man’s tone, but he got into his seat anyway. Buckled his belt too. Which was a good thing, since something went boom right about the time the navigator closed the cockpit door. And the plane went into a dive again.

  And this time there was nothing to stop their fall.

  Because the missile that hit them — a missile fired by order of Herman Bonner, down at Lake-of-Fire née Eidner Air Force Base — the missile that hit them took out one of the plane’s engines, and left the other all but useless.

  As they dropped Bill stared through his window, watching the molten Lake of Fire hurtling up to greet them.

  ³ ³ ³

  AT THE EDGE OF THE LAKE OF FIRE

  Leigh had almost begun to lose heart again when the fireworks started. First there were airplanes in the near distance, bursting into shimmery clouds of fire as the missiles struck them; then the final plane, out of sync with the rest because it had come from another direction. Hit by another, smaller rocket.

  Hurtling down through the air like an eagle with a torn wing.

  Where it hurtled toward was Leigh herself.

  After that it didn’t matter much whether Leigh had the heart for the mission that the President had set her to. She was too busy being scared out of her mind, running away from the rent-a-car because she couldn’t get it started quickly enough and it looked to be the exact target of the falling plane.

  The way it turned out she was all wrong. Leigh misjudged the trajectory of the plane about as thoroughly as was humanly possible. It wasn’t falling toward her car. It was falling into the field, about a hundred yards away from her car.

  And the direction in which Leigh had decided to run was precisely the direction in which the plane was falling. As she ran, her path and the plane’s converged.

  It seemed to Leigh as she ran for her life across that field that the plane was chasing her, hunting her; trying to crush the life from her body with the weight and momentum of its coming impact. The truth was, of course, that she was chasing it. The only luck she had to save her from her confusion was the fact that she wasn’t able to run one whit faster than she did. If she had been, surely she would have made it to the spot where the falling plane hit ground. Even as it was she managed to get herself too close; when the plane dug itself into the dirt she wasn’t more than half a dozen yards from the tip of its near wing. If it had hit as hard as she expected it to, Leigh would have been shredded by bursting wreckage and earth exploding under the impact.

  The plan
e didn’t fall like a stone, and its landing did surprisingly little damage. Either by the grace of God or through some device of the pilot, the plane met ground at a low, gentle grade, and instead of bursting like a bomb it dug a furrow into the soil like a plow sent down from heaven. Not to say it landed harmless like a feather: dirt went flying everywhere, so much of it that it knocked Leigh to the ground and covered her in three inches of soil and stone. Force broke against the plane, too; crushing the cockpit, reducing the three men inside to pulp and plasm. Further back, the fuselage cracked, tore, accordioned. By the time the plane finally came to a stop, hanging over the edge of the Lake of Fire, there were great rifts in the plane’s hull, wide as doors.

  Leigh sat up, shook away the dirt that covered her. Brushed as much of it as she could from her face. Her eyes especially. Her hands.

  And looked at the fallen plane, poised as it was on a precipice over the Lake.

  Is this why he sent me here? To save whoever I could from that plane?

  There was no way to know. And what did it matter whether there was a plan behind it or not? It wasn’t as though Leigh could ignore it all. If there were people in that plane who were still alive, she had to do what she could for them. There wasn’t any way she could live with herself if she didn’t.

  ³ ³ ³

  LAKE-OF-FIRE

  A white heat of panic overtook Luke as he watched the army of irregulars roll out the gates of the base. He didn’t understand that panic, and because he didn’t understand it it scared him even more than it would have otherwise. There shouldn’t have been any need for panic, after all. The story was over, wasn’t it? The cavalry, out over the hill, had shot down the evil flying drones as they set out to destroy the world. There was still a horde of bad guys, here — the irregulars — but whatever threat they posed, it wasn’t as immediate or ultimate as nuclear destruction.

  Herman Bonner was smiling.

  All by itself, that was a reason for panic: Herman Bonner wasn’t a man for smiling. And when he did smile, it was the smile of a cat toying with its prey.

  Was there something he knew — something that Luke hadn’t yet noticed? Was he that confident of his army?

  Bonner turned, spoke to the technician. “I’ve waited a hundred years, Tim,” he said. “And I’ve planned very carefully. Do they really think they can stop me? How can they think this?” He laughed. The technician went white as a sheet. “They can give me pause, Tim. They truly can. But no man nor woman can stop me. I am inevitable.”

  When the technician spoke, there was a stutter in his voice. “Of course you are, Dr. Bonner.”

  “Thank you, Tim. That’s very kind of you. Direct these . . . people into the plane that we still have. The President and I will join you momently.”

  “Plane, Dr. Bonner? I don’t understand. That plane can’t get off the ground with its wings such a mess. Nothing we can do with it but taxi around on the ground.”

  “Exactly, Tim. Direct them onto the plane. I will join you.”

  And Bonner put his arm around the Vice President, and he turned, and he walked away.

  The technician gestured with his gun. “Go ahead,” he said. He was looking at Luke. “You heard him. Get in the plane over there.” The man was covered with his own sweat; he sounded more afraid than threatening. Afraid for his life, Luke thought.

  Well, I can understand that.

  Which didn’t make Luke one bit more eager to get on that plane, or find whatever it was that Herman Bonner had planned for them at its destination.

  He went where he was told anyway, because the man had a gun and he looked frightened enough to use it.

  Ron and George Stein did the same.

  It was as only a moment after he went into the cabin that Luke had his revelation. Which was maybe a little too strong a word for it, since it was kind of obvious.

  Even if he has a gun, there are three of us. And only one of him, until Bonner gets here.

  Now, he thought. We should jump him while we can.

  And he looked over at Ron, and saw the same idea rising up behind his eyes.

  Then, before he could whisper to his friend, something came over Luke. Something strange, and wonderful, and frightening: that strange certainty that had guided him half-way across the continent.

  No, it told him. Not here, not now. It isn’t time.

  And then it disappeared.

  And because he had pure, blind faith, Luke Munsen looked into his friend’s eyes. And ever so slightly, he shook his head.

  ³ ³ ³

  AT THE LAKE OF FIRE

  The metal skin of the broken plane was burning hot to Leigh Doyle’s touch; she found that out by bracing her hand on the fuselage as she climbed in through a fissure in the jet’s hull. She felt the skin of her fingers begin to scorch, and yanked her hand away, almost immediately — but not soon enough to save her palm a wicked burn.

  Maybe that was just as well; the pain distracted her for that long moment as she entered the plane. Because she was distracted she didn’t notice the blood in the forward end of the plane. Blood so thick, so much of it that it covered the walls like wet red paint. When she saw it she might have mistaken it for paint — but couldn’t, much as she wanted to make that mistake. Because of the gore straining out through the crushed, jammed door to the cockpit. There was no mistaking that for paint.

  Leigh Doyle screamed.

  She didn’t even realize she was screaming, not at first. She was too frightened to hear it; too unsettled by the sight of so much blood to feel the rawness it made of her throat.

  The scream spent itself before she heard it.

  After a while Leigh forced her eyes away from the sight, turned, looked toward the back of the plane, trying to find people she could help. And saw four who looked as though they might be alive: a boy, a woman, and two men. All of them dazed and bruised and bleeding.

  A hospital. I’ve got to get them to a hospital.

  Where was the nearest hospital? Leigh couldn’t remember seeing one on her trip from Denver. Not that she’d been looking for one. She closed her eyes, tried to remember the map that the car-rental company had given her. The nearest good-sized town was . . . Kanorado. Yes, that was it. Kan~orado. The town just over the Colorado border, down on I-70. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to find it from here, especially after the way she’d got lost on the way in. Well, she’d have to find it anyway. There wasn’t time for getting lost, or for worrying about it.

  She went to the boy. Unbuckled his seat belt. Hesitated. Should she really be moving him? She wasn’t an ambulance technician. She could end up hurting him, just by picking him up. Looked at him more carefully. He was unconscious, just as the others were. Bleeding from a deep gash just above his right eye. Big bruises all over his face. Swelling at his waist where the seat belt had dug into him during the crash. He didn’t look like he had any bones broken. That was the biggest danger, she thought. If he had broken bones, they could grind against each other as she carried him back to her car. Which could do him a lot of harm, especially if the broken bones were in his spine.

  Maybe she ought to go to St. Francis. Call an ambulance.

  Maybe, heck. She shouldn’t be here, shouldn’t be trying to care for these people.

  No, damn it. If there were ambulances in the area, wouldn’t they be here already? Or be on their way, at least? Shouldn’t she hear their sirens in the distance? Of course she should. The rescue people were in the same state of chaos as the rest of the country. If there were ambulances in this part of Kansas, they were busy. It could be hours before they got there. And by then it would be too late for these people.

  Damn it. Screwed if I do, screwed if I don’t.

  And she lifted the boy into her arms, and carried him gentle as she could out to her car.

  ³ ³ ³

  APPROACHING THE EDGE OF THE LAKE OF
FIRE

  Bonner and the Vice President had only left them waiting for a couple of minutes.

  Time enough, Luke thought, for them to have overpowered the technician. Sealed off the plane. Started their escape. For a while now, Luke had been wishing that they’d taken their chance while they’d had it. Wishing even harder since they’d crested that last rise, and the Lake of Fire had come into view, consuming the horizon all at once.

  Out the other window, now, Luke could see the battle starting as the army of irregulars attacked the troops camped in the hills overlooking the base. For a moment he imagined that the battle was the battle of Armageddon, outside the gates of Jerusalem. The battle that meant they’d arrived at the end of the world. Hard as he tried to push that idea away from him, hard as he tried to deny it, it stayed with him. Weighed on him.

  And the blood pressed against his temples, and he gritted his teeth. Something was coming, and Luke knew it. Something so crucial that it could well mean the end of the world. And Luke would be right there, right at the very heart of the events. And so would all of them who were here on this plane.

  The plane lurched — had its landing wheels caught in a rut? — it wouldn’t surprise him; certainly the ride so far had been smoother than it had any right to be — and as he caught his balance Luke got a new view out the plane’s window. And he saw the wrecked plane up ahead at the edge of the Lake of Fire. Off to the left, maybe a quarter of a mile from the spot they were headed toward. A car in the distance beyond it.