The Final Day

by William R. Forstchen

  Now it was usually silence except for the whispering of wind in the trees, the delightful sound of summer thunderstorms coming down off the mountains, and what had always been his favorite, the winter sound of wind cracking the ice out of trees, the hissing and tinkling of snow swirling down, and the scent of wood fires carried on the breeze. As they walked along the row of hangars, he could catch a glimpse back to the airport’s cinderblock clubhouse. Smoke was wafting up from the chimney, a bit of a crowd gathered outside, weapons shouldered, his people pumping Bob’s for information, and Bob’s troops undoubtedly doing the same.

  His orders had been that if such a situation developed to be friendly but reveal nothing about their numbers under arms, praise the food situation as well supplied—though the reality was that it would be tough going by spring—and convey confidence that all was well. The precious supply of moonshine that Forrest had brought along was to be applied liberally to any of Bob’s people who were willing to try a swig, but except for Danny and Forrest, who seemed to have a prodigious capacity for holding their liquor, the others were to refrain.

  He assumed nearly the same orders had been given by Bob to his personnel.

  “Things seem okay over there,” John announced, nodding back toward the clubhouse.

  “I understand you have created a highly capable fighting force.”

  “Old tradition of militia. Remember a favorite movie of ours, Drums Along the Mohawk. We had to defend ourselves or go under.”

  “John, there are a lot of places like yours, actually. Not around the cities—they all became death traps. The enclaves of those who had tried to prepare beforehand, some survived a year or more, and then the barbarians just finally overran them. You most likely know that every major city of a quarter million or more east of the Mississippi is gone—a twisted, burned-out, perverted wasteland. They just were not sustainable without modern technology. That and all social order broke down within a matter of days.

  “But once you got farther out, some of the smaller cities like Asheville somehow hung on. Those in the south had a better chance during the first winter, but even in the north, remote rural areas banded together. A fair part of West Virginia rallied around an eccentric old congressman a hundred miles west of here in Tennessee; there’s an area nearly as big as what your community claims to be the State of Carolina. They’re reviving the old name of the State of Franklin. More than a few, especially in mountain areas where folks rebuilt long-abandoned hydro dams, even have power again. So you are not just the only pocket of survival.”

  “So why does Bluemont want us suppressed?”

  “I saw my mission as assimilating back in.”

  “Ever hear of the Borg? Jennifer was fond of the old reruns of that show. And, Bob, it looked like you had one hell of a fight going around Roanoke when I was up there a few weeks ago. Obviously, whoever was there was not happy about being assimilated.”

  “It hasn’t been easy. I heard about that Posse group you took care of. There’s a lot like that still out there. Most have pulled back into what is left of the cities, gleaning whatever can still be looted and raiding out into nearby countryside. That’s why nearly every major urban center is dead ground. As for Roanoke, that was what we were fighting to put down. A number of decent folks were hidden in there and glad to see our return, but there were holdouts who we had to finish off. Did you know a group of maybe a thousand or more are still dug in at Winston-Salem? Chances are they’ve been eyeballing you for some time.”

  That did catch John by surprise. Of course they would be fools not to assume that Charlotte, Winston-Salem, and major urban area were hotbeds of groups like the Posse, who had taken to settling in to one spot and systematically stripping out anything that could provide another meal until absolutely nothing was left and then striking out again. It was a good bit of intelligence. With the small city of Hickory coming into the State of Carolina, he’d have to look at beefing up their security.

  “Thanks for that info.”

  “It is the upside of why I took on this assignment. The ANR was a total failure. I saw my mission as reaching out to communities like yours. In more than a few, I had to separate the wheat from the chaff, and it got tough. But most survivors want to be pulled back into the fold. Bring stability and law and order back. That is the upside of my job, tough as it is. Network them together. I heard you’ve got electricity strung up. Sooner or later, after you get some electricity flowing again, you might start digging around in closets, basements, and realize that computers that had been tossed aside and not online the day we were hit just might still be functional.”

  That caught John off guard. Had someone leaked that info, and if so, how had it reached Bob so quickly? Surely it had to be a guess or an observation of what had happened somewhere else. But as he looked at Bob, he was all but certain that it was a warning that someone within his own community was at the least talking too openly, or perhaps far worse, was a spy for Bluemont, maybe slipped in by Fredericks.

  “Interesting guess, Bob.”

  “Just an observation, that’s all.”

  “Sir, we’ve drifted from the question I asked earlier.”

  “And that is…?”

  “Do you trust Bluemont? Are they truly the legitimate government of the United States as defined by the Constitution?”

  There was no reply.

  “Do you?”

  Bob remained silent, finally breaking the moment by shading his eyes to look at the snow-covered mountains to the north. “Beautiful spot you have here. Linda wanted us to retire to Florida and after following me from pillar to post for near on forty years—how could I say no to her? But this is where I wanted to come. I even remember visiting this airport once. Thought about after retiring, getting my pilot’s license again, buying a plane like the one in the hangar we were just in. A nice club here to join.”

  “Sir, dare I press that you are dodging me?” John said softly.

  “Yes, John, I am.” The old general sighed and slapped his hands together several times to get the circulation going. “I’d better head back.”

  “So that’s it?”

  “Kind of.”

  “It’s good to know you’re alive, sir.”

  “And you too. I have a strong sense of faith, John. Your reason for coming here so many years ago was motivated by a tragedy, the illness and impending death of your wife and a place to raise your girls after she was gone. But as I look at it now, I feel you were led here by God for a higher purpose.”

  “You helped to lead me here, sir.”

  “Be that as it may. I’d like to think there is a purpose to all of this and a purpose for the position I know you must take.”

  “If it means we will wind up as enemies, it is one I can barely grasp after everything you, I, and our country have been through.”

  “You’ve given me food for thought. The trip was worth it.” Bob reached out, taking off his glove to grasp John’s hand. “As used to be said back during the Civil War, if a day comes when you and I must face each other across a field of conflict, each of us doing what we believe our duty compels us to do, know that I will do what I must do as my sense of duty and honor compels me to act.” He sighed, his voice going thick. “And it will be the worst day of my life.”

  “For me as well, sir.”

  The handshake turned into an embrace. Looking over Bob’s shoulder, John could see that the gathering outside the clubhouse stood silent, looking their way. John finally let go of the embrace, stepped back, came to attention, and saluted. Bob stiffened and returned the salute.

  “God be with you, John.”

  “And with you, sir.”

  Bob started to turn away, hesitated, and then turned to face John again. “A word of warning: watch your back. Please watch your back every single minute until we meet again.”

  * * *

  John stood silent, parka hood back, hand up to shield his face from the stinging blast kicked up by the rotors as the B
lack Hawk lifted off. Fortunately, he could explain the tears clouding his vision as a reaction to the bitter cold.

  “I think we’d better get the hell out of here!” Danny shouted as the chopper lifted heavenward. “I managed to get one of those guys a bit toasted; some of what he had to say doesn’t sound good. They’ve got four Apaches just on the other side of Linville. They can rip the shit out of us in five minutes.”

  John nodded. “Order everyone to disperse, no vehicles. Just scatter out for an hour and see what happens. If we don’t get hit by then, we rendezvous and head back to Black Mountain. But it won’t happen now, today; I’m certain of that.”

  “Why?”

  “I trust him.”

  “A general working for Bluemont?”

  “No, because I trust him as a friend. He came here to warn us.”

  “Of what?”

  “That a war is coming.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  This is the BBC News. It is 3:00 Greenwich War Time.

  As stated in prior broadcasts, all our correspondents have been ordered to leave their posts within the territories still controlled by the United States immediately. We can report that our correspondent who was briefly stationed in Bluemont was, this day, placed under arrest and is in detainment with the charge that he had disseminated false information harmful to the goal of completing the reunification of the United States east of the Mississippi River. We have no information at this time as to his safety or whereabouts.

  It has been reported by other sources that the government’s efforts to regain control of territory along an east-west axis, Norfolk to Richmond and Roanoke, Virginia, has been completed with minimal loss to either side and that former local governments in the latter two areas have greeted the return of central authority. This same source that we are now relying upon added that the next step shall be establishment of a new zone of unification and security along an axis from Charleston, South Carolina, west to Atlanta and shall include urban areas amongst which are Raleigh, Charlotte, and Asheville, North Carolina. It is claimed that significant progress has already been made in those areas, though there are reports of significant resistance as well. It shall be recalled that in the spring, the central government faced a major setback in the Asheville area with the report that an entire battalion of ANR troops had been annihilated with no prisoners taken, though contacts in that region deny the reports of the refusal to take prisoners.

  On other fronts, China has again issued a stern warning to Bluemont that it must regain secured control of any and all weapons of mass destruction or that China, in order to defend the security of the regions it has extended humanitarian aid to, will be forced to take, and I quote, “rapid and stern action.”

  * * *

  It was the first time John had actually been to Ernie’s house, located out on the edge of town above Ridgecrest. John could see that the well-concealed so-called Franklin Clan had built their mountain retreat with an eye toward security, though before the Day, to an untrained eye as it came into view, it would just appear to be yet another upscale mountain home built for its remarkable view of the Mount Mitchell range.

  John was getting extremely weary of bouncing around in old open-air all-terrain vehicles, but today the journey was in Maury’s World War II–era jeep. It was open air, but given the history of the vehicle, it was a pleasure to experience a ride without racing to some confrontation—or, as happened in the spring, dodging the choppers that Fredericks used against the town. Nevertheless, it would eat up a couple of more gallons of their ever-diminishing gas supply. Just the day before, he had learned that the fuel within one of their remaining storage tanks had gone bad in the extremely cold weather for lack of the proper preservative. It meant that come spring planting, the few remaining functional tractors would have to burn some sort of recycled oil. He did have hopes that a team of old hobbyists living in Morganton were making progress in actually getting a couple of steam-powered machines up and running.

  They turned onto Ernie’s steep driveway, Maury shifting into low four-gear drive, and ascended the short road with ease even though it was snow-covered. Ernie’s house was solidly built, most of it poured concrete, and John noted what looked like small bunkers flanking the driveway, covered by snow for now but that regardless provided clear fields of fire. The bunkers were assets that had saved Ernie’s home when the Posse had attempted to flank the town’s defenses two years ago and found themselves confronting a well-fortified position.

  They pulled up to the front of the house, Ernie opening a garage door and beckoning for them to pull in and get out of the lightly falling snow.

  As they climbed out of the jeep, John looked around with envy. Ernie had a full workshop in the basement garage, and not just the workshop of a casual handyman. There was arc-welding equipment, tool-and-die-making equipment, and a hoist for pulling an engine block out of a vehicle, and lining one wall were boxes of unopened rations.

  Ernie noticed John looking around and smiled. “Were you a Boy Scout?” he asked.

  “Yes, made Eagle.”

  “Well, Boy Scout, remember, ‘Be prepared.’ My family and I took it seriously. If everyone had, we wouldn’t be in this damn mess now.”

  Ernie led the way upstairs to a spacious two-story-high living room, a cheery fire roaring in the fireplace, radiating warmth. Ernie’s wife, Linda, was in the kitchen in the vast open room, looking up, smiling, and coming around the counter—carrying two cups of coffee, no less.

  John sighed. “Why is it everyone seems to have a stockpile of coffee stashed away except me?”

  “Again, Boy Scouts: ‘Be prepared.’”

  John tried not to bristle. Ernie could be so darn annoying at times rubbing in these types of things, but on the other hand, whether the final incident with Fredericks had been a setup by Ernie or not, he had dropped the guy, and now he just might be on the verge of unlocking some deadly serious questions as a follow-up performance.

  The rest of Ernie’s extended family came out from the far side of the house to meet them—his sons, grandchildren, and daughter and her reclusive author husband, the daughter offering to help John and Maury shuck off their parkas, scarves, and gloves.

  Ernie produced a bottle of fine brandy from under the kitchen sink and offered to put something extra into their coffee, and though tempted, John declined. This was not a social visit; the business was dead serious, and he wanted a clear mind to evaluate why Ernie had so urgently requested his visiting the “Franklin Enclave,” as everyone now called it, a visit that few had been permitted to experience.

  “Let’s head upstairs,” Linda announced without further ado and social small talk with the rest of the family. Linda had rarely attended community meetings, and John thought her to be somewhat standoffish, until Makala, after meeting her, told John she suspected Linda had Asperger’s. Unlike most, John knew what it meant, and for him it carried no negative stereotypes. An “Aspie,” John knew, might not be up to par on most social skills, especially the ability to wander a crowd, meet and greet, and engage in small talk hour after hour. They tended to be mono-focused at times to the point of absolute obsession. It might be something society might think inane—the history of pinball machines and how to repair them or nineteenth-century railroads and the hauling capability of every engine ever made back then. In fact, if he could find people with that knowledge, he would have embraced them and put them to work to actually make such a machine to use on the abandoned Norfolk and Southern rails.

  For Linda, it was software design, and in a long-ago world she had been one of the first programmers for the guidance systems for Saturn V rockets. She was a lone woman in a sea of techno-geek males of the early 1960s, writing guidance software for computers that had yet to even be made, so intense was the space race back then to get it done within President Kennedy’s timeline. He had learned that Linda’s task was to write the software for the third stage of the Saturn V rocket, several years before it was even built and fl
own, for what was called TLI—trans-lunar injection. It was software that at a very precise moment would fire off the third-stage rocket to propel the Apollo spacecraft out of earth orbit and send it soaring toward the moon at nearly twenty-five thousand miles per hour.

  The challenge: she was aiming at an imaginary place in space where the moon would be three days later in its orbit around the earth so that the Apollo spacecraft would skim past the edge of the moon at a precise angle just sixty miles above the lunar surface. It was compared to aiming a pistol shot at a piece of paper set edgewise at fifty yards. Miss by even a fraction and the command module would crash into the lunar surface; too far out and lunar gravity would not sufficiently grab the spacecraft and it would just go winging off into deep space with no hope of return.

  She did all of that before she was twenty-three.

  Reaching the second-floor landing, John paused for a moment to soak in the view of Mount Mitchell, hidden briefly by a snow shower and then standing out again, cloaked in deep snow. The heat from the fireplace radiated up from the living room below, and John took off his sweater and enjoyed the warm, comfortable feel.

  “Good morning, sir.”

  Several of John’s old students were sitting at a long table where half a dozen computer screens were set up, several of them old Apple II screens, the others a mix from a first-generation Macintosh with its terrible blue nine-inch cube screen and two PCs, one in full, vivid color. As always, John felt a touch of embarrassment with his inability to remember names, though he recognized the young faces who at one time had sat in his one hundred–and two hundred–level history classes but could usually be found across the hall from his classroom in the room set up as a lab for the college’s cybersecurity program.