Empty Cities

by E. E. Isherwood

  “Please, don’t go. We should all stick together.” That was good tour guide protocol. “Stay in the car, please.”

  He’d managed to get one foot out the door, but he didn’t hop all the way out. He looked ahead to the activity a hundred yards away, and she noticed her tummy roll back into a knot, as it had done down in the mine. Something wasn’t right about this.

  She had to try to move things along. “I’ll tell you what. I’m going to reverse this car back to the parking lot, then we can walk over to this hill and watch them for a while. If we see other survivors show up, we’ll know we can safely enter, right? It will give us a chance to approach on our terms.”

  The sight of so many drones made her think of scientists lining up their equipment to survey damage after a disaster. If there’d been a huge gas leak or other calamity, it made sense they’d send in drones to make sure everything was all right before they’d send in people.

  Donovan closed his door. “We’ve got all day. Sure. Why not.”

  She put the car in reverse and backed away as fast as she dared.

  The two tractors arrived under the Arch. She imagined them seeing her and sending over one of those drones to investigate what she was doing. Why was she here? How did she survive? Going even further into the world of panic, she imagined they might even kill them. Those horse-like machines didn’t look friendly at all.

  She’d nearly backed them all the way to the empty church parking lot.

  “I think we’re safe,” she said. It took all her energy to keep from smashing the pedal to get away. It was good she kept a hold of that, however, because she probably would have crashed into the trees lining the walkway.

  They were almost back at the lot when she saw movement in her rearview mirror.

  “Uh oh,” she gasped.

  “What is—” Peter didn’t finish.

  A truck hit them from behind.

  CHAPTER 8

  Poor Sisters Convent, Oakville, MO

  Sister Rose checked the kitchen of the house, hoping to find food for the black lab, but the container of kibble only had five or six crumbs. The owners had let their supply dwindle to nothing. Now it was her problem.

  “I guess people disappeared on dog-food restocking day.”

  As soon as the black lab did her business, Sister Rose encouraged her to go inside again, but all she wanted to do was play with Deogee. The pair rolled around on the front lawn, growling and barking, making her worry they were going to kill each other. However, each time it looked like blood was about to spurt out from a neck, the dogs got up and started it all again.

  She finally took a seat on the front porch, content to watch the dogs play. It gave her a chance to think about what had been going through her head since she’d let the lab outside.

  “What am I going to do with you?”

  She wanted to get the dog back inside her house. That would restore things to the status quo, and it would give her time to think and pray on it.

  While she contemplated the fate of one dog, she realized other dogs were further up the block. The faint echo of barking resonated from that direction, probably because they heard the playful barks of the two in front of her. How many of those were hungry? How many owners would have left food for their pets?

  Rose figured she could buy food in bulk at the pet store, then bring all the dogs into one big yard to feed them. She could get the communal van, leave an IOU at the store register, then load the bags and bring them back. As she worked through the logistics, it seemed insane.

  “God, is this my burden to carry? I now have to care for every dog I find?” Her terms of acceptance into the convent never said anything about animals. She’d fallen into taking care of Deogee, and she wouldn’t turn a blind eye to this lab, but she believed her calling was to take care of people, not animals.

  Rose looked down the residential street toward the main road. Tabby and the young children were now somewhere out there.

  “I shouldn’t have let them out of my sight.”

  Was it another failure of hers? Was God telling her to go with them, but she’d refused to listen? She exhaled in frustration. Nothing made a bit of sense anymore.

  Deogee surprised her with a lick on her cheek.

  “Oh, are you done playing?” The lab sprawled out on the grass, panting like a little engine. “You wore the other one out completely.”

  Her gray-furred wolf-dog sat next to her, as if to silently answer her question.

  She humanized the dog by talking for her. “Yeah, mom, she couldn’t keep up with me. Can we find some more friends?”

  She laughed at imagining her speak, but the word “mom” surprised her. It was a word she’d given up when she’d put on the nun’s habit. It hadn’t even crossed her mind the entire time she’d been among the other sisters, because she’d found the life for her. Total devotion to God. However, just saying the word, and being responsible for the gray wolf-dog, made her see life a bit differently.

  Rose still wasn’t sure what it meant, but as she continued to think about it, a buzzing sound came from somewhere over the houses. Deogee got excited when it grew louder, probably because Rose did as well.

  “We might finally have some help,” she suggested.

  The sound was hard to pin down, but it was definitely not natural. She likened it to a small airplane propeller.

  “Here, puppy. Come here.” She patted her knees at the front door to get the black lab to come in the house again.

  Rose popped inside the elegant front living room. A patch of dried yellow stained the carpet, suggesting the canine did her business on the floor while unsupervised. Her owner had been there yesterday; the familiar tangle of clothing was on the floor. It looked like the dog had been nosing through them…

  “Inside!” she ordered, hopeful she could figure out a command it would recognize.

  Deogee paced back and forth, as if trying to interpret her words.

  She stepped further inside. “Come!”

  Deogee came right in, but the black lab was still lying on her side in the grass.

  The wolf watched her intently for a few moments, then ran outside again. Its long claws ticked off the hardwood floor of the McMansion-style home.

  “Come!” she repeated.

  Deogee got the other hound to its feet and led her through the doorway.

  “Good pups!” she cheered. Her dog was smart.

  She closed the door as soon as they were in, but then cracked it open again. The whiny engine sound seemed to come from down the street, nearer to her convent. Perhaps someone was looking over the place to confirm there was no one left alive.

  If she’d been down there …

  She glanced over to the dogs; they were roughhousing again. This time, they did it on the family room’s wooden floors. They got tangled in more clothing, kicked over a plant stand, and jumped on and off the fancy couch.

  “What do I do?”

  Harrisburg, PA

  It was hard to know the name of the last radio station on the air because neither of them was familiar with radio in Harrisburg’s listening area. It was made worse because the music channel never gave out its call sign. It never ran a commercial or other break.

  “Just like when we heard it in the Jeep. It looks like it is right at 100.0 megahertz on the FM band, though I don’t know how the FCC let them license that. All civilian radio stations are supposed to end in odd numbers. 99.9 and 100.1 were probably taken over by this superstation. In DC, they call it Super One Hundred, or something like that. No idea what they call it here.”

  “I should probably know about them,” she suggested, “but I think they started up before I came to office.”

  “Don’t worry about it, let’s just find them. I suppose we could look in the phone book for Harrisburg and track down the station that way. Then we could go pay them a visit.”

  “I’ll look for the book,” she replied.

  Ted scanned other stations for about ten mi
nutes while she searched. He didn’t have a frequency guide in front of him, but he did know some shortwave aviation frequency bands. That let him listen in to air traffic flying over Iceland and Great Britain, but he couldn’t hear anything over the Atlantic closer to America, which should have been bustling with traffic for planes coming back to the mainland. “I’m at a loss,” he admitted.

  Emily heard him from across the room. “About what?”

  “I can hear traffic out there, but it’s all far away. I thought for sure we’d hear some flights coming across today.”

  He scanned more frequencies until a voice came through loud and clear.

  “Holy shit,” he said to himself.

  “What’s that?”

  “This is an old Navy HF high command frequency. I didn’t think it was used anymore, but they’re broadcasting.”

  “A what and a what?” she chuckled, moving back over to him.

  “Listen,” he advised.

  ‘…repeating: By order of General Preston Worthington, Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, and acting leader of all armed forces and civilians of the United States. All United States military units in Europe have been placed on hold until damage assessment from terrorist attack are complete. All US Naval vessels, aircraft, and personnel are to avoid continental US airspace at this time. Threat of second attack deemed likely. Repeating…’

  “Ted?” Emily said with worry steeped in her voice.

  “That explains why there is no air traffic over the ocean,” he remarked. If there were no US military units coming to their rescue, it changed this whole game plan, especially regarding the nuclear briefcase. Maybe it would be worth finding the JFK. It was the only friendly unit he could be sure was still nearby. That was how they could get a message up the chain of command.

  “Ted!” Emily shouted.

  “Yes?” he said, giving her his full attention.

  “There’s something coming across the bridge.” She pointed out the window, across the airfield and toward the bridge where he’d parked his Jeep.

  He ran over to get a better view. They were a couple of miles down the river from the bridge, but the large military wrecker was easy to see as it shoved cars aside with its giant blade.

  “My Jeep!” he said with despair as he realized it was part of that clearance project.

  She tapped his arm. “What do we do?”

  He looked back and forth between the arriving convoy and the radio. It was too large to take with them, and there wasn’t enough time to trawl through the long list of frequencies where he might learn more information about the worldwide situation. Could he get a call out to someone? Should he?

  “We can’t stay here,” he said matter-of-factly. “We can’t worry about the radio station, either. Help might not be coming like we thought.”

  “We should go, then. Right?”

  He looked at the airfield. A couple of large C-130s sat on a remote part of the tarmac. Those were laden with antennas as part of the mission of the 193d squadron. But there was also another, smaller, plane on the field.

  “Ted? We should be leaving…”

  “I know. I’m thinking of doing something risky.” The safe play was to run off through the giant parking lot. They could find an abandoned car and blend back into the countryside. The problem with that plan was that there was nowhere to go out there. He wanted to get further to the east—closer to friendly forces who would eventually get the clearance to come in from England—before the enemy secured the area in and around DC. If they were already here in Harrisburg, they were spreading out faster than he’d given them credit. He pointed where he wanted her to go.

  “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  Amarillo, TX

  Brent had barely made it twelve hours before he was faced with a life-or-death choice. Trish’s emergency call reminded him of his journey yesterday to the nearby towns. There wasn’t just no one there, but there was no law there either. Trish and the other guards had gone out into an apocalyptic version of America where police officers wouldn’t respond to any 911 calls.

  Her cry for help fell squarely on his shoulders, unless he could come up with a miracle.

  He’d called everyone he could, yesterday, but he figured he might have better luck today. After all, he’d come back to work. Brent scrambled for the phone book and leafed through to the number for the Amarillo PD.

  “Pick the fuck up,” he ordered through the phone.

  It rang for twenty seconds before he slammed the handset down. He might have had better luck with some of the small jurisdictions around Amarillo, but even if they picked up, they wouldn’t be likely to drive all the way up to the prison, then go even further to reach Trish’s trailer park.

  The six prisoners had congregated outside the open door of the security booth. For the twentieth time, he acknowledged how easy it would be for them to bum rush him in the small chamber, take his gun, and then…

  He shook his head to clear his brain. There was no time for second-guessing.

  “What’s up, boss?” Paul asked from the doorway.

  Brent chewed on his bottom lip, worried that he’d regret what he was going to do next.

  “Come with me, guys,” he said, jetting out of the booth.

  The six men followed him up the steps and down the main level concourse. He’d closed the bars for the hallway to the administrative offices, but now he opened them.

  He spoke again once he got into the warden’s wing. “Yesterday, I went home, not sure what I was going to do without my friends. You get to be my age and friends are hard to come by. They die off at an alarming rate, and I’m talking about even before this disaster struck.”

  Brent pulled out a glob of keys and found the one he needed.

  “Anyway, I came back because I realized at least one of my friends was still alive. She was sweet, sassy, and tough as nuts when the shit hit the fan.”

  “Aw, thanks, boss,” one of the men at the back joked.

  “No, you dumbass,” Paul replied. “He’s talking about Ms. Trish.” He turned to Brent. “You have the hots for her?”

  Brent laughed. Maybe if he’d had a billion dollars, she’d find him attractive for his money, but he was about forty years older than her. In this part of Texas, that made him like a grandfather to her. And, if he was honest with himself, he thought of her more like a daughter than someone he had the hots for.

  “No, I didn’t,” he said dryly. “But some of the prisoners I let go last night must have an interest in her.”

  He went into the nondescript office next to the warden’s. The lights were off, and there were no windows, so he had to flick on the switch. He continued to a second door on the back wall.

  “Who?” one of the men behind him asked.

  “I don’t know. Maybe I should have asked her, but it didn’t matter to me. I made a mistake not telling Trish and the other guards I was opening the cells. She shouldn’t have to suffer for it.”

  He hurriedly unlocked the next door but stepped in front of it before opening it. “You guys are small-time criminals. I never did hold that against you, and I tried to be neighborly in our day-to-day so you wouldn’t become worse men for having been here. I always thought of minimum security as a second chance for guys like you. But once I open this door, your second chance is going to directly impact me and my young friend. I hope you’ll take this trust and give it back to me by doing one small favor.”

  “What do you want, boss?” Paul the hippy-haired man asked with great interest.

  Brent swung open the door to reveal the armory.

  “I want you to help me rescue Trish.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Harrisburg, PA

  “Ted, you know I trust you, but are you sure about this?” Emily followed him outside the Air National Guard offices, but he stopped at some tall shrubs at the edge of the tarmac.

  “I think so.” He caught his breath for a second and steeled himself for the next part. “Yes. If we can get
to that plane, we can head east faster than any other mode of transportation.”

  “But won’t they see us?”

  He shook his head and pointed to the bridge upstream. “That’s why we’re waiting for them to get across. You and I went right for the railroad tracks, which got us here in the most direct route. They’ll have to take surface streets, which should keep the bulk of the airport between us and them.” He ran his fingers through his hair while thinking of every possibility he could. “I don’t know. It’s a risk, but maybe they won’t see us take off.”

  Emily cinched the shirt tied around her waist, like she was ready to do as he asked. Together, they watched the big plow clear the rest of the bridge, then drive over the near side, which was free of cars. Five or six Humvees followed behind.

  The second they all made it across the bridge and went behind the tree canopy, he tapped her on the shoulder, then pointed to the plane. “Run!”

  He was covered in sweat by the time he reached the little Cessna 172. It had come to a stop out in the middle of the taxiway and he took a chance that meant the pilot was either heading in or out when the attack happened. After wiping the sweat from his eyes, he peered inside.

  “Yes!” he huffed. “They’re in there.” Ted thought about how that sounded. “Well, what I mean is we have a chance now.”

  Emily patted him on the shoulder. “It’s all right. I know what you meant. The clothes are just clothes now. Not people.”

  He opened the door. Two sets of outfits were on the front seats, including two large pairs of headphones with attached mics. More importantly, the key was already in the ignition.

  “I’m sorry,” he said as he pulled the clothes out and threw them on the ground. “Get in,” he said to her. He shoved their equipment in the back compartment.

  While she ran around the front, he hopped in and got settled. He could skip almost all the pre-flight checks because the plane was already working, or it wouldn’t have been where it was. He set the fuel mixture and throttle where he wanted them, then waited for Emily to climb in.

  “This is like being in your Jeep,” she commented as she put on her seat belt.