Fireworks

by James A. Moore

  "Yeah, well you can mark my words. Those two better be on their best behavior if they want to get through this mess. I don't think the assholes outside are too picky about who they shoot, if you catch my meaning."

  "Yeah." Laurie's face grew stormy as she looked out the window at one of the armored men. "I heard about you and that trucker. I'm really sorry, Frank. I know you didn't want that to happen."

  "Hell, Laurie. I don't think anyone ever wants that sort of thing to happen." He shrugged, then grabbed the sweaty diet cola glass near his meal and sucked half the liquid from the container into his mouth. He didn't want to talk about dead drunks and the idea of speaking about the current state of Collier was getting tiresome. "Any chance you can get me a refill, sweetheart?"

  Laurie smiled, turned and walked away. She knew him well enough to understand that he didn't want company. A few minutes later, she dropped a new glass of soda on his table, deftly sweeping the other glass up and onto a tray in the same motion. She then delivered the promised sundaes and refreshments to the Summers' boy and his little friend.

  Frank ate in silence for a few minutes, watching Laurie with the two kids and wondering what having children was like. Laurie had never had any, but she almost treated every customer like a child. Maybe that was her way of dealing with the void in her heart where true love was supposed to be. Frank had known what he thought was true love; then Kathy told him she wasn't happy, and that she had to move on. Maybe Laurie's way was the best: treat them nice and be their friend, but drop 'em when they start acting up.

  When Frank was finished with his meal, he went over to where Marty Wander and Mike Summers sat eating enough ice cream for five. He gestured Marty over and sat down next to the boy. Both of them smelled of summer heat and mown grass. Frank loved the smell of summer, surely the best cologne nature ever made. The two were nervous around Frank, but that was what he expected. He was friendly enough with them when he saw them on the street, but he always made it clear that he was watching them. A little fear went a long way to making sure the two of them kept their noses clean.

  After a few strained seconds of silence, Frank spoke up, doing his best to sound friendly. "How you two boys doin'?"

  The two mumbled something along the lines of "Fine, thank you," and stared at their deserts.

  "Mike? You have a place to stay while your folks are out of town?"

  "Yessir. I'm staying over at the Wanders' place, least until my folks come back."

  "Well, that's mighty nice of your folks, Marty. Mighty nice indeed."

  "Heck, Officer Frank. I think Dad just did it so he could have two of us to keep the lawn neat." Marty's smile was infectious, and Frank couldn't help returning a grin. Even Mike managed one.

  "Well, I want you two to keep yourselves outta trouble." Frank raised his hand before either of them could protest. "Don't go gettin' defensive on me. I know you two don't mean any harm with your pranks, but I don't like the way them fellas out there are treating the people of Collier. I'm afraid they might get a little trigger happy if they heard a cherry bomb going off behind them, and I know they don't like anyone who's breaking their concentration. Just stay clear of 'em, okay?"

  It took the two boys about fifteen seconds to agree. Neither could quite look him in the eye when they did. Frank hoped they'd keep to their word, but doubted it just the same. He thanked Laurie for a wonderful meal, paying her for the eats despite her protests that it was on the house, and leaving her a nice tip besides. The food was worth the cost, and her cheeriness was absolutely priceless.

  After a few minutes of contemplation, he decided to find Colonel Anderson and give him the details on the meeting himself. Despite the lack of distinctive clothing, Frank found locating the man relatively easy. All he had to do was ask any of the guards where Anderson was, and they told him. Most seemed a little taken aback that he knew their commander's name, but after the initial surprise they were actually very efficient about getting him the information he needed. He learned quite a bit by just watching the guards in action. When one of them touched a small button on the underbelly of his mask's artificial elephant's trunk, Frank learned that they had radio communications, despite the fact that all of the radios in town were on the fritz. He learned that the guards were ready to roast alive in their uniforms-not surprising, since the temperature was in the high nineties and the humidity around the same level-and he learned that their deodorants were not living up to the advertised promises. Both of the soldiers stank to high hell.

  That knowledge made Frank feel better. They were human under all of that gear, and they had to deal with the heat just like he did. The difference was, they had to deal with the heat while wearing enough rubber and armor to make a battalion's worth of firefighter's helmets.

  He asked every guard he passed if they knew that a heat wave was coming, just to see if they'd groan out loud. None of them did, but a few of them weren't standing quite as tall when he saw them again. It was a petty, childish gesture but it made him feel good.

  The search for Anderson was short and sweet once he found the right area of town to look in. He was the one everyone else bowed and scraped to. He stood up when Frank entered the area near the lake where he had set up his command post. No one stopped him from entering the giant green tent, though a dozen armed men stood around the perimeter of the place. "How can I help you, Captain Osborn?"

  "Well, you could all pack up and get the hell out of town, but I don't expect that's an option from where you are."

  "No, I'm afraid it isn't."

  "I just thought I'd let you know that everything is set up for the meeting tonight."

  "That's much appreciated, Captain."

  "So why don't you prove that, and tell me why the town doctors can't get in to see their patients."

  "Because they don't have the experience and training necessary to deal with the sorts of burns that we're dealing with."

  "Well, they did go to medical school." There was more than a little edge in his voice and he almost wished he could have toned it down. Fortunately, the Colonel seemed to take it in stride.

  "Did they specialize in radiation burns and high risk trauma cases?"

  "Nope. They just did that general practitioner thing. Oh, 'cept that John Morrisey went back to school in his spare time to study forensics. He's hell on wheels with a scalpel and a body bag."

  "That's always good to know. Listen, Captain, I don't want us getting off on the wrong foot. Despite the need to… well, to take control of your town, I am not a power monger. I just need to ensure that there are no leaks on this one. This is a very dangerous situation. We don't know what that thing is, or what it is capable of doing. Just as importantly, we don't know for certain just how deep the burns go on the victims, or even if any of them will survive. If the damage they've suffered was caused by heavy radiation, we want to give them the best possible chance for survival."

  Frank hated that the man sounded so damn reasonable. Logic and a good dose of placation was taking the wind out of his sails. "Well, Colonel, I still don't see the harm in letting the local doctors look in on their patients. A lot of those folks have never been far away from here, and they've never seen doctors aside from John Morrisey and Walt Johnson." Frank shruggejd, looking around for a moment and gathering his thoughts. "We're talkin' about doctors who still make house calls, here. We're not talkin' about doctors who leave every detail about a patient in a paper file, either. How are you gonna tell if one of them burn victims has a seizure caused by an allergy to a medicine or by epilepsy? I know for a fact that Doc Morrisey never bothers putting things like that on files, 'cause he already knows the information. He don't need to sweat it, none of the locals do. This is a very small town and a very tight community."

  Judging by the man's posture-which was really all Frank had to go by-the Colonel was still capable of listening to reason. He seemed more attentive behind the mask and breathing apparatus.

  Frank moved in for the proverbial kill, ad
ding a last bit of ammo to his argument. "Besides, Colonel, you aren't gonna win a lot of support from the locals once they hear that you've quarantined their family and friends. Having Morrisey and Johnson on your side to answer questions is a far better idea i than having them blab that they aren't even allowed to see who's doing well and who's fading away."

  "All right, Captain Osborn. I'll do what I can to get the good doctors reinvited to the party, as it were. But I can't make any promises."

  Frank was about to respond when he heard a massive electrical hum, followed almost immediately by the sound of running water. "What the hell is that?"

  "That's the pumps we've placed into the lake, Captain."

  Frank looked through the mosquito netting, out towards Lake Oldman. Several large hoses ran into the water, and were apparently draining the lake. The massive rubber tubes shuddered and twitched, despite the ropes anchoring them in place. Somehow, he'd managed to overlook them before they started moving. He liked his recently discovered ability to ignore even the blatantly obvious less every second.

  "Why in the name of God would you want to drain the lake?"

  "Because we can't examine the… the target if we can't reach it. We can't reach the target with all of that water in the way. Beside, the water needs to be purified and examined to ensure that there are no health risks to the people of Collier."

  "You can say it, you know."

  "Say what, Captain?"

  "Spaceship, UFO, alien vessel, satellite from beyond the stars…" He shrugged. "Ain't anyone in this town dumb enough to think that ship is manmade. If the Russians had anything that big and that powerful, we'd have lost the cold war a long time before the Communist Bloc fell apart. Hell, Colonel, just the size alone would have lost it for us. That's one hell of an intimidation factor."

  The Colonel was silent for a long moment, and even through the dark glass lenses that hid them, Frank could feel the man's eyes on him.

  Frank spoke again, just to break the silence. "You do understand that the lake is the primary source of water for the entire county, not just the town of Collier, don't you?"

  "Yes. We've already made arrangements to draw water from the neighboring counties for the next few days, possibly longer." There was something different in the man's voice, some missing quality that had been there before. Frank could not place exactly what that property was, but he wished it would come back. The man sounded even more alien than before.

  "Colonel? What are the chances of this whole thing just blowing over and all of us going back to life like we had it before that thing crashed?"

  After a pause that stretched longer than Frank liked, the man responded. "That depends on the cooperation of the citizens in Collier."

  "Give me a ballpark estimate."

  "I can't do that just yet, Captain. I wish I could."

  "Call me Frank."

  The Colonel was silent for a few heartbeats before answering. "Frank it is. Call me Mark."

  "That I will, Mark. Mind if I take a look-see at the lake?"

  "Go right ahead. Just be careful; the water is well past the boiling point."

  "You know it."

  Frank left the tent, doing his best to ignore the weak feeling in his knees. He walked to the edge of the lake, noticing with a sense of disorientation that the fused glass and human remains were all gone. A long strip of soil and red clay rested where the sand had been this time yesterday.

  Lake Oldman was a very deep drink, well over sixty feet deep under normal circumstances. So Frank was taken aback when he saw the level had dropped by easily ten feet already. The surface of the lake was buried under debris ranging from parts of a dozen shattered boats to the bloated corpses of countless fish. The smell of the cooked fish was enough to make him nauseous, and the frothing waters with their heavy cloud of steam did nothing to make him feel better.

  Somewhere down there, old Bobby Carlson was boiling away, cooking in the intense heat. He didn't want to be around when they found his remains. Gathering up his nerve, Frank looked out to the ship in the lake. It shouldn't have existed. It should never have come down in Collier. But just to prove him wrong, the damned thing sat gleaming in the water, releasing waves of heat. How could something so big ever get into the air in the first place? It's twice the size of any plane I've ever seen, and I've seen a lot of planes. The surface of the thing looked almost oily from this distance. It carried reflected colors as surely as a puddle of water at a gas station does, like little swirling rainbows on a stagnant pool. He couldn't understand how something so hot could look wet.

  Frank continued to look at the lake that had always brought him peace. All the while he grew more and more unnerved. The 'copters had no serial numbers. The same was true of all the vehicles the group had brought with them. The uniforms on the soldiers' bodies bore no markings of any sort. Even the firepower they carried had no serial numbers that he could see. So why in the name of God…

  My name is Colonel Mark Anderson…

  … had the man given his name? Either it was a fake name or…

  Call me Mark…

  … they-or maybe just Frank-were in one hell of a lot of trouble. The only possible reason that a group as seriously paranoid about being recognized as the armored men in black would even consider giving out names had to be the certainty that no one would report those names to anyone else.

  Ain't no way he actually thinks a town this size can keep a secret. Noway in hell. I don't think I like this. I think this is a damn big mess waiting to happen.

  Frank stood after a while. He looked at the tent behind him and took one last look at the lake below. The pumps and the boiling water continued to take their toll. At a guess, the water level had dropped another few inches while he watched. Feeling less like a man relaxing then when he had started, Frank walked away. Behind him, he could feel the presence of the ship as surely as he could feel the sun on his burns from the night before.

  The meeting was only hours away. It was time to get some rest in before he had to play mediator.

  2

  Frank talked calmly with his men about just what was going to happen and exactly how he expected everything to go down. They listened intently, acknowledging that he was in his "No time for nonsense" mode. When he was like that, even Ricky Boggs knew better than to give him any sass. There were going to be some very angry people at the meeting, and whether or not any of them agreed with the anger of their friends and families, they had no choice but to remain calm. Each officer took a position at an exit point for the Fowler Elementary School gymnasium, where the meeting was to take place. All save for Frank, who would be on the stage itself. Frank had no intention of speaking, and certainly did not intend to add his endorsement to whatever the Feds had to say about the situation. But he had every reason to believe that his being there would help diffuse at least some of the tension brewing in the town.

  Frank cautioned all of them to avoid having any sort of violent conflict unless there were simply no other options. He also made clear that under no circumstances were they to leave the doors manned only by the men in black. He opted not to answer when Buck Landers asked him why.

  Frank really didn't want to think about it himself. He would much rather have avoided the idea creeping into his mind, the idea that-God above, we're all gonna be in an enclosed place. What's to stop them from just opening up with those guns of theirs and mowing us down like wheat?-the armored soldiers would consider declaring open season on Collier's citizens. Speaking from a strictly mercenary perspective, the meeting was a perfect chance to remove most of the threats to their little matter of "National Security."

  In the same situation, he'd seriously consider doing the exact same thing. Hell, for all he knew the military boys were wearing those suits because they'd already dropped a powerful virus in the air, or added it to the water supply they were rerouting from somewhere else. While he was on the subject of betrayals, what guarantee did he have that Colonel Anderson was telling the truth
when he claimed the radiation from the thing in the lake was at a harmless level? All he had was the man's word, and he just didn't feel safe taking what the leader of a secret military force in the United States had to say as gospel. Nossiree, he didn't like the idea at all. All he knew for certain was that he'd be checking his toilet before he flushed. First sign of blood in his urine or stool, and he was going to blow Anderson's head right off his damn shoulders and consider the consequences later. That sentiment went double for sudden massive hair loss, or severely bleeding gums.

  Just to be safe, he made a mental note to search out his father's old mail-order Geiger counter and see if the stupid thing had a hope in hell of ever working. The more his mind worked at the chances of the people in Collier living through the next few days, the more paranoid he grew. He'd started chewing his nails again, for the first time in over seven years. Every time he looked at one of the soldiers-which was basically every time he left an enclosed space-all he could think about was whether or not the person inside the armored uniform had ever killed before. He was willing to bet that most of them had.

  Not much after 7:00, the first of the townspeople began coming into the auditorium. Almost immediately, they reached for their brows, wiping the sweat away. Despite having the air conditioners running since just after five, the air was still sweltering. Twenty days of sealed doors and closed windows had done nothing to keep the school safe from the blistering heat. Frank had pretty much acclimated to the temperature, but he still had to pull his kerchief every few minutes to mop away another layer of perspiration. Thinking about the soldiers who would soon enter the room, he was almost tempted to turn off the air altogether. Maybe they'd all get lucky and the bastards would roast alive in the heavy garments.

  "Whattaya think them boys are gonna want to discuss, Frank?" The voice was from the past, and not one he honestly expected to hear. He turned his head sharply and was rewarded by a sudden burning pain, caused by his over-tense muscles protesting, and by the smug face of Peter Donovan. Peter was six feet, one hundred and eighty-four pounds of lean, hard redneck. His short red hair was clean, and framed a hard face with an easy smile. The smile never reached his eyes. Peter's black T-shirt was adorned with a rebel flag carried by an elderly Confederate soldier with a savage scowl on his face. In a word balloon, the soldier cried out 'Hell, no! I'll never forget!' Between that and the swastika tattooed on Donovan's arm, it was easy to tell the man still preferred the company of whites to that of anyone else.