Owen seemed just as confused, at least for a moment, then continued smiling the fake smile and resting his hands in his pockets. “Now, Harvard, that’s just not true! You’re one of our founding fathers round these parts. Wouldn’t be right to send you off to the promised land while you were still asleep! But no politics? You really are naive, aren’t you?”
Harvard saw the shark’s grin beneath the fake smile and the glint in the mayor’s eyes. He recognized them from somewhere. He’d seen the like hundreds of times before, but he couldn’t place where. A memory surfaced in the ocean of his mind, then rolled over and dove again before he could catch it. The visual of the memory was striking, though. A big, round room with seating for hundreds of people, and he was standing before them. A flag was at his back, and cameras were in front of him, a speech on the teleprompter—
“Mr. Mayor!”
The shout from the young runner broke whatever spell Harvard had been under, and he nearly wept with the frustration of it. His memory was so fragmented, so elusive, and to see something so clearly, only to be pulled away… He swore under his breath and thrust a fist into his thigh. Would he never be rid of this?
The young boy who’d run up panted as he hung on to the fence beside the mayor, taking deep breaths as he tried to get his wind back. “There’s… there’s…”
“There’s what, boy?” Owen asked, his calm, jovial manner forgotten.
“Soldiers, sir! Mr. Falk said to come tell you.”
The two older men glanced at each other. Soldiers were almost never a good thing in southwestern Pennsylvania. Not now, anyway.
“Shall we table the discussion, Mr. Harvard?” Owen asked. “I’d better see to this.”
“Best idea you’ve had yet, Owen.”
“Until later, then,” the mayor said. “Now, boy…” He turned to the runner and hauled him up by an arm. “Where were these soldiers? Let’s move!” He thrust the boy a few steps ahead of him and rushed down the street in the direction of the town square and his office.
Harvard turned back to the house and yelled, “Marjorie! Come on out here! We’re going to the town hall!”
There was a clatter, and Marjorie emerged from the house, shaking dust from her hair. “What? You can’t go anywhere—”
“Never mind that. Soldiers are here, and I need someone to push me.”
Marjorie stopped midsentence and nodded. “That’d be Darnell,” she said. “And I’ll go with you. You’ll need me, I know it. Darnell, get out here!”
“I don’t…” Harvard sighed and acquiesced, knowing that even if he fought, he’d lose anyway. “Fine. But let’s hurry.” He turned the wheelchair to face down the street, the same path the mayor had taken. “I have a feeling we don’t wanna miss this.”
The map spread wide across the hood of the Humvee, held down by a couple canteens and some handy rocks. Graves went over it with some of his men and the smarmy politician that the people had elected as their mayor. He’d met more loathsome people than Owen, but it had been a long time. Graves was eager to get out of this town, and not just because of the occasional presence of Bunker Five’s soldiers on patrol.
“We’d certainly be willing to put you up, Commander, and you and your men are welcome to whatever we have to spare.” Owen smiled that fake smile again. “Within reason, of course.”
Graves sighed and wished for the thousandth time that he wasn’t so jaded as to know exactly how this conversation was going to go. Of course they were willing to host him and his men, with the understanding that they’d need certain considerations in return. A militant crazy guy in the woods, maybe, or maybe a reluctant townsperson who happened to get on this asshole’s shit list.
It was always the same thing in the end: the mayor wanted the guys with the big guns to keep his little fiefdom intact. This guy was worse than most, even if he did seem to run a pretty tight ship. The buildings looked to be in good shape, and the people more well fed than most that he’d met on his way up here. Given the reaction from the townsfolk, though, Mayor Macintosh got results in all the wrong ways.
“I appreciate that, Mr. Mayor, but you don’t need to worry about it,” Graves said as he turned in the other man’s direction. “We’ve got our own… Holy shit.”
He trailed off, his polite words forgotten as he noticed an older black man in a wheelchair rolling up to the crowd that had gathered. With him were a blind woman with white, milky eyes, as old as the man, and a tall, middle-aged man he guessed to be the woman’s son. But the woman and her son made no difference to him at the moment.
“Holy shit,” he said again. He couldn’t believe what was happening. Granted, it had been more than twenty years since he’d last seen the man—since anyone had seen him.
“Excuse me, Admiral?” the mayor said. “We were discussing—”
“Shut up, you asshat,” Graves said. He pushed past him, and the others clustered around the vehicle, wading through them like a fisherman heading for his favorite spot in the stream—in this case, straight for the old man.
Graves stopped a respectful distance away from the trio. He looked closer at the old man in the wheelchair, certain that he must be mistaken. From a distance, he’d been almost sure, but now, on closer inspection, he wasn’t. The man’s face was scarred and battered. The weight of years pressed down heavy on someone who’d been injured quite some time ago.
“They used to say take a picture, it’ll last longer, son,” the man said with a grunt.
Graves blushed and realized he’d been staring. “Sorry, sir. It’s just that you look… Well, sir, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you were…”
“Spit it out, boy! Say what you came to say.”
Graves glanced up at the young man standing behind the wheelchair. The blind woman had a hand on that man’s arm, obviously used to being guided by him. She wore a frown, and her free hand fidgeted with her homespun skirt. She kept looking back and forth between the admiral and the old man, and Graves couldn’t help but wonder why.
“It’s just… You look like someone I used to know, sir. Someone a lot of people used to know, in fact. Most of the world, actually.”
The woman sighed and shook her head, then chuckled and looked at Graves. “I guess it had to end sooner or later. If you think you know who he is, you’re probably right, and you’re not seeing things. It really is him.”
Graves snapped straight, then came to attention and saluted with all the military precision he’d ever learned and a snap of his wrist and elbow. “It’s an honor, sir,” he said, his voice cracking. He felt a tug at his heartstrings and wasn’t surprised. It had been a long damn time.
The old man looked around, then back to Graves. “You mean me, son?”
“Yes, sir. Of course, sir.”
“You can stop with all that foolishness, son. No need to call me sir. I ain’t special or nothing.”
Graves glanced at the woman next to the man in the wheelchair. “Uh, sir…”
Marjorie spoke. “Now, now, Harvard. Tell me about this young man. He sounds important, and he’s smart enough to have already guessed a big secret.”
“Well, he’s a sailor, I think. Least he’s got the duds for one. And he’s saluting me for some reason.” Harvard turned to Graves. “Put your fool hand down, boy. What secret?”
“Yes, sir,” Graves said after a moment of hesitation and took up a parade rest. “Sir, if I may…”
Marjorie smiled as she looked at Harvard, who wore a puzzled frown, but spoke to Graves. “What’s your name, young man?”
“Uh, Graves, ma’am. Admiral Jeremiah Graves.”
“Ah, an admiral, eh? How old are you?”
Graves stared at her for a moment, thrown off by the odd question. But this was a day for oddities. “Closing in on the big five-oh, ma’am. Not so young anymore. Is he really…”
She smiled again. “That makes sense, then. You were old enough back then to have remembered him. You’ll have to forgive Ennis here, Admiral.�
�� She patted Harvard’s hand.
He turned to her, eyes wide.
“You see,” Marjorie continued. “He has no idea who he is. He doesn’t even remember his name.”
“My name is Ennis?” Harvard said, then repeated it to himself. “My name is Ennis.”
“He… He doesn’t know who he is?” Graves asked. “Where has he been? How has he… We all thought he was dead. The whole country! Marnes has gone crazy—”
Marjorie shushed him back into silence. “We can get to all that. You’re just going to upset him.”
Harvard looked at them both, angry. “You’re not going to upset me, Marjorie? I’m already upset. You’ve known my name for how long? Since when? Were you ever going to tell me? Is that the secret?”
Graves started to speak, but Ennis cut him off. “And you! You who look at me like I’m Christ come back to Earth. Who the hell am I that you look at me that way? Who am I?” He launched himself out of the wheelchair with a surge of adrenaline and grabbed Graves by the front of his ACUs. His large hands curled the material and almost jerked the bigger man off his feet.
“Sir, I—” Graves started to respond, but Ennis cut him off.
“Spit it out already, Admiral!” Ennis felt himself weaken and grabbed at Graves to keep himself upright.
Graves realized what had happened and helped the man back to his chair before returning to parade rest.
“Sir, you’re Ennis Norman, sir.” Graves felt the world drop out from under his feet at the insane situation. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his men making their way through the crowd. His XO, Jackson O’Reilly, started to get between Graves and the others, but Graves held up a hand. O’Reilly stopped in his tracks.
“Sir,” Graves continued. “You… You’re the president of the United States, sir.”
He said it low, not sure the words were even real, not sure this wasn’t all somehow a dream. “You are Ennis Norman, the forty-fifth president of these United States. Or at least you were on Z-Day.”
Ennis Norman, the man called Harvard, was frozen, his dark brown eyes locked on those of the younger man. “No,” he whispered. “No, that can’t be. Someone would’ve recognized me by now. Someone would’ve told.”
Marjorie shook her head. “Most of the town is either too young to know who you were or I guess never recognized you through the scars. Darnell says you look mighty different now than you did back then, dear. Oh, there was talk now and again behind your back, but nothin’ ever came of it, and I never bothered to tell you ‘cause it was just stupid rumors. Even when Darnell and I found out the truth, we figured you were safer here than out there somewhere, especially since you couldn’t remember nothin’.”
Marjorie leaned down and put a hand on his cheek. “We kept it a secret to protect you, Ennis.”
Graves leaned close and whispered in the president’s ear, “Sir, it’s probably best to discuss this elsewhere. For security reasons.”
Marjorie, whose hearing wasn’t at all bad, nodded and tugged at the president’s sleeve. “Come along, Ennis. We can talk in the mayor’s office.”
In a daze, Ennis let go of Graves and allowed himself to be wheeled up the ramp of the town hall.
O’Reilly took that moment to interrupt his CO’s reverie. “Sir, what is—”
“Not now, Jack,” Graves answered. He noticed the greasy fat man he’d already begun to loathe moving through the reluctant crowd. He raised his chin in that direction. “Take care of Mr. Mayor, and see that we’re not disturbed. For any reason.”
O’Reilly caught the look in his admiral’s eyes and nodded. “Yes, sir. I take it we’re going to bed down here for the night?”
Graves started to follow the others into the town hall. “Yeah. Get us set up. Figure it out.”
“Roger that, sir.”
Graves glanced back as he approached the building’s doors. He noted that O’Reilly was giving orders for camp setup and arranging a perimeter. He ordered two men Graves’s way for a door guard, and Graves nodded to himself. “Good man there,” he muttered and stepped inside.
Inside, the town hall was just like many of the other decrepit pre-Z-Day structures Graves had been in, if a bit better taken care of. The scent of dust came to him, along with an unfamiliar pungent odor, a cleaning solution of some kind. He made his way down a shadowed hallway. It was a small structure with only a few rooms, and it didn’t take him long to find the mayor’s office. The man’s ostentatiousness extended here, of course. Ribbons and handmade plaques proclaiming his greatness adorned the walls between gaudy paintings.
He shook his head, still annoyed about having to deal with the man. The room was clean and well-lit by the sun shining through the many windows. In fact, it looked unused, which was surprising, given the slovenly nature of its occupant.
Ennis and Marjorie sat on a leatherette couch, no doubt scavenged from a nearby house. The wheelchair was off to one side. Marjorie murmured to the president and patted his hand from time to time. Ennis looked over as the admiral entered.
“So, Admiral, I’m the president?”
Graves stood at parade rest once more. “Yes, sir. At least as far as I’m concerned, sir.”
“What does… No, never mind. We’ll go over that later.” Ennis pointed at Marjorie. “She tells me that she’d always thought I was in Bunker Five, trying to get everything back the way it was. She had no idea who I was until her son happened to mention it, because I happened to remember my name and then forgot again. I’ve had some… medical issues of late. She’s only known for less than a year. I always knew I was scarred pretty bad, but to be unrecognizable to everyone?” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter anyway, not now. My question is, why am I not in Bunker Five with my wife and children?”
Ennis’s eyes widened, and he spun toward Marjorie. “I have a wife and children! I remember them, at least a little. It’s hazy, but it’s coming back.” He put his hands to the sides of his head and moaned in frustration. “Why can’t I remember?” He fell back against the couch cushions, and Marjorie took his hand once more.
“Sir, I… May I sit, sir?” Graves asked and motioned to a chair. “This may be a long conversation, and I’m not the spry young man I once was.”
Ennis snorted. “Sure, take a load off. Least I can do for you.”
“Thank you, sir,” Graves said as he sat. He couldn’t hold back a slight sigh of comfort as he did. “Apologies, sir. The aches aren’t so bad today. I think the exercise is doing me good. Getting me out of that damned office in Norfolk.”
Ennis just looked at him but didn’t respond. Marjorie, for her part, was staying out of it, content to hold the president’s hand while she listened.
“Right, so we don’t know exactly what happened. That’s the bad news. I only know as much as I do because my skipper at the time was a little loose lipped on my sub, the USS Texas. When everything went to shit, he went a little off the rails.” Graves remembered for a moment everything that had happened all those years ago, thousands of miles away, down in the dark and the cold and the wet.
He shook his head to clear it and continued. “Anyway, the reports we received indicated that your chopper had crashed on the way to Bunker Five in Pennsylvania. The wreckage was pretty bad, sir, and there were no survivors. Everyone thought you were dead.”
“But you weren’t, at least not completely,” Marjorie said. “You somehow managed to crawl out of that busted-up chopper and get yourself found by me and Darnell. I patched you up as best I could, and here we are. The coma, though… I honestly don’t know. You were running a high fever when Darnell brought you in that day, and you had a big ol’ bump on that noggin of yours. Maybe you hit your head, and when you came to, you started to remember. Maybe your body just shut itself down to recover. We’ll probably never know exactly why the coma happened.”
“Do you remember anything, sir?” Graves asked.
Ennis shook his head and looked out the window. “Not much. I get flashes s
ometimes, but it’s dark. I’ve been trying to remember, and thinking back to those days, but most of the time, nothing comes to me…” He stared out of the window and struggled to recreate his past.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“Pardon me, ma’am,” Graves said. “You patched him up? How did you… That is, you’re…”
“Blind? You can say it, Admiral. I wasn’t always without my sight. Twenty-five years ago, when I found this man wounded and bleeding on the side of the road, I could see enough to do what needed doing. Me and my boy got him back to my house, and I did what I could. I was an RN back then, so I knew what I needed to know to keep him alive. Darnell helped.” She paused and sighed. “Wasn’t till later that I lost my vision completely. It’s called macular degeneration.”
Graves nodded. “My grandmother had that. I’m familiar with it. My condolences.”
She shrugged. “It is what it is. Life plays merry hob with us sometimes, and we can either roll with it or let it knock us out. I’m much more of a roller.” She grinned, and Graves couldn’t help but respond in kind.
“I’m glad you’re both so cozy with each other,” Ennis grumbled with a slight grin. “But if we could get back to me for a second…”
Graves nodded, sitting up straight. “Yes, sir.”
“You said I was the president ‘as far as I’m concerned.’ What did you mean?”
“Well, sir, Vice President Marnes took over as acting president when you didn’t arrive in the Bunker and made it permanent later. Part of the ongoing ‘state of emergency.’ He’s been ‘in office’ ever since.”
“I could almost hear those air quotes, son,” Ennis said with a chuckle. “You mean to say he’s been the president for more than twenty years?”
“I’m afraid so, sir. That’s not on him, though. At least not completely. Hasn’t really been any way to hold elections.”
The Dying of the Light (Book 3): Beginning Page 20
