The New World

by Toby Neighbors

  She stood staring back at him, surprised but not repulsed. He took her in his arms and kissed her. She was tense for a moment, her lips firm, her arms rigid. Then suddenly she was kissing him back, her arms squeezing him close, her lips soft and warm against his. He felt his emotions and passions spinning inside of him like a game show wheel. He turned his mind off and just enjoyed the moment. They kissed and then they both stepped apart, looking at each other. He was blushing and smiling stupidly, she was smiling as tears fell down her cheeks.

  “I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-”

  She shook her head and closed her eyes. “No,” she said softly, “I'm sorry. I'm just so scared.”

  She stepped close and he held her, his arms wrapped as far around her slim frame as possible. He wondered at how the world could change so quickly, and at how what seemed like the most important things wouldn't be recorded in history books. The books would tell of how civilization fell, of how the survivors survived. But they wouldn't tell the story of how his heart suddenly felt that it was anchored for the first time in his life; that the awkwardness and embarrassment he had struggled with for as long as he could remember had suddenly evaporated with one kiss.

  Then the girl was back, her canvas bag full of clothes, her eyes full of fear and wonder. They left the department store. The ride back to the White House was slow, and Daniel used the time to introduce himself. He told the young girl that he had grown up in Arkansas and gone to law school and come to Washington, D.C., to be a speechwriter. He told her that he and Lana were living in the White House and that they hoped to find other survivors.

  When they arrived back at the White House, they all went inside. They let the girl have the West Bedroom, and she quickly locked herself inside.

  “I'm going to take a shower and try on these clothes,” Lana said.

  “Alright, I'm going downstairs to look around.”

  “But, what if I need you? What if something happens?”

  “Nothing is going to happen,” he reassured her, “but you're right, we need to be able to get a hold of one another. You lock your door until I get back and I'll find us some walkie-talkies or something so that we can communicate from anywhere.”

  She didn’t look all that confident in his plan, but she agreed and locked herself inside the Queen’s Bedroom. Daniel sighed as he walked down the hall toward the staircase. He wondered why everyone seemed so afraid of each other. He would have thought that with so many people dead, the survivors would huddle together for safety, but both Lana and the new girl, who hadn’t so much as spoken a word since they left the department store, seemed terrified of other people.

  He hoped that now that everyone was at least partially settled, he would have time to search out the lower level of the White House. He was amazed at how things still took so much longer than he anticipated. It aggravated him that he was still so behind in his plans to find the communications equipment. Then again, time was almost irrelevant now; he really shouldn’t worry about such things, but he couldn’t help it. He stopped in the downstairs kitchen and got another of the bottled sodas and headed for the Secret Service office in the West Wing. It took some searching, but he soon found a rack of small, black walkie-talkies, all fully charged. He finished his Coke and then headed back upstairs with the radios. There were eight in the recharging rack; he had unplugged the rack and carried the whole thing back upstairs with him. This way they would have back up walkie-talkies charged and ready at all times.

  Once he got back upstairs, he decided the dining room would be the central meeting place on the residence floor. There was no real need to watch television anymore, so eating would probably be the main diversion. He set the radios on a small buffet table and plugged the rack in. He was getting really hungry as the afternoon wore on, but he decided to speak to Lana and give her a radio before finding something to eat. He knocked on her door.

  “Who’s there?” came a small voice from inside.

  “It’s me, Daniel. I’ve got a radio for you.”

  The door opened and the woman that stood there was shockingly beautiful. She wore a simple, green summer dress. She had make-up on, just enough to enhance her features, making her skin seem to glow. The hollowness of her checks and the frightened look in her eyes was gone. Her high cheek bones and full lips were extraordinary. Daniel was speechless; he just stood there looking at her, his mouth open, one hand supporting himself on the doorframe.

  “Well, say something,” Lana said. “How do I look?”

  “Outstanding.”

  “Well thank you, Mr. Brickman, I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  Daniel was about to say more when he heard a slight cough behind him. He turned and found the young girl, she had cleaned up, too. She now wore clothes that fit her a little better than before, having chosen an outfit for comfort and utility rather than for show. She looked a little embarrassed at having interrupted them, but she spoke.

  “Is it alright if I look around? I’ve never been in the White House before.”

  “Sure,” Daniel said. He held out a radio. “Take this and I’ll call you if I need you back before you’re finished. This is Lana’s room, mine is across the hall. If you need anything, just use the radio, okay?”

  She nodded and then turned away. Daniel turned back to Lana. “I’ll bet you’re hungry,” he said.

  “Starved,” she said. “Let’s find something to eat.”

  They went to the smaller kitchen that was for the first family and snooped around. There was plenty of good sandwich stuff, and Lana made them a couple. As they sat and ate, Daniel shared with her what he had read in the president’s journal about the bunkers downstairs.

  “Do you think there might really be people alive downstairs?” she asked.

  “It’s possible, I suppose. I’m ready to find out. You want to go with me?”

  She nodded and they headed out. The young girl was standing in the hallway. She seemed to be in a trance, and Daniel’s heart nearly stopped. He thought for a moment she was going to go crazy or something, then she turned to him and spoke.

  “I never knew there was such incredible artwork in the White House.”

  Daniel didn’t really know what to say. He had seen the pictures on the walls, but he hadn’t really looked at them. He had taken the required course on art history in college but didn’t remember much of anything.

  “This is ‘Young Mother and Two Children’ by Mary Cassatt, from the turn of the twentieth century,” the young girl said, pointing at one of the paintings. “And this,” she turned across the hall and pointed at another painting, “this is ‘Bear Lake, New Mexico’ by Georgia O’Keeffe, painted in 1930. They are quite a contrast, aren’t they?”

  Daniel seemed to recall the name O’Keeffe, but it didn’t mean anything to him. The pictures contrasted in that one seemed an innocent picture of a young family, while the other portrayed a dark and forbidding landscape.

  “You know a lot about art?” Lana asked.

  “Yeah, I guess so,” said the girl. “I was planning to go to the American Academy of Art in Chicago this fall, but…” She trailed off, her voice sad and full of regret, like the lone horn playing ‘Taps’ at a funeral.

  “Well, we just had a sandwich,” Daniel said, afraid the girl was going to have an emotional breakdown. “Are you hungry?”

  She shook her head, and tears began to stream down her face.

  “Well make yourself at home. Lana and I are going down—” He wasn’t able to finish his sentence. Lana had given him a look of extreme distaste, then put her arms around the girl. She led her into the dining room and Daniel followed. He was surprised at how frustrated he was, but he couldn’t help it. There were things that needed to be done, and he couldn’t resist a sense of urgency to get downstairs and explore the underground rooms. Unfortunately that would just have to wait until he heard this girl’s story.

  Chapter 8

  “I was at the park when the spaceships came,” the girl sa
id. “It was senior day at school and a bunch of us skipped classes and were hanging out at the Ellipse. My parents called me when they heard what was going on, but I couldn’t go home. We just stood there for hours watching the ball hang in the sky. The park just kept filling up with people. I was terrified, but I couldn’t make myself leave. My friends were all talking about aliens and how nothing would ever be the same. When the spaceship took off into the sky, most of the people around us panicked. Everyone was running and screaming, I ran, too, but you couldn’t really do much more than move with the crowds, there were just too many people. I even stepped on a few that had fallen down as we were trying to get away.”

  She cried some more. Daniel was leaning on the table while Lana stroked the girl’s back.

  When she finally got control of her emotions, she continued, “When I got home my parents were freaking out. My dad didn’t want to let me in. He said I was contaminated, but my mom screamed at him until he let me in. No one could sleep that night. We all stayed up watching the news. The next day my little brother and my mom where having trouble getting around. My dad was totally off his rocker and insisted on going to work. He never came home, I don’t know what happened to him.”

  Daniel and Lana looked at each other as a feeling of sympathy passed between them. The girl didn’t notice, she seemed focused on a spot on the table. Daniel could almost see the replay of events, like a movie screen behind her eyes.

  “I stayed home that day and took care of my mom and brother. That night, kinda late, my brother died. He just drifted away, his eyes closed, his breathing just stopped. We had never really been close, but I felt so bad. He was only ten and now he’s dead. It was my fault, I knew it was. And I knew my mom would be next. She had been strong through the day, but when Daddy didn’t come home, she sort of crumpled under the strain. The next day she didn’t even ask about Jordan, and I didn’t have the heart to tell her. I kept expecting to get sick or something. I hadn’t eaten and I wasn’t really sleeping. I felt horrible, but not sick. That afternoon my mom died and I didn’t know what to do. I was going to kill myself, but I couldn’t do it. So I raided the liquor cabinet and drank until I puked. I finally passed out on the sofa and when I woke up, I thought I was dying, but it was only a hangover. I spent that day in bed and when the next day dawned, I woke up thinking it must have been a horrible dream. I felt good, so I showered and went down to breakfast, but it wasn’t a dream. I couldn’t stand it in the house anymore, and I didn’t know what to do with my mom and brother. I tried calling 911, but there was no answer. So I left.

  “I had to walk and I wasn’t sure where to go. I ended up at the mall. The doors were broken down and the stores inside were looted, some of them burned. I decided to head for downtown and spent almost all day walking. I was really hungry and took some stuff from a grocery store. That evening I was at the park and couldn’t find any place to stay. I tried a few of the hotels downtown, but all the rooms were on electronic key cards and I couldn’t figure out how to set them, so I slept on a couch in the lobby. The next day I saw a man walking down the street. I yelled to him, and he turned and started walking toward me. When he was close enough, I could hear him ranting about the end of the world and the Bible. I got really scared and ran away. The next day I went out and got some clean clothes, but I had no place to clean up. When I heard you guys driving around in the Hummer, I decided to follow you.”

  Daniel and Lana looked at each other again and Lana spoke up, “You poor thing, I’m so sorry.”

  “You’re safe now,” Daniel added. “We still don’t know what has happened, but we’re going to find the other survivors.”

  She looked up at him, there was hope in her teary eyes.

  “Do you think my dad is still alive somewhere?”

  Lana took a deep breath. “It’s possible, but please don’t get your hopes up. A lot of terrible things have happened, and we are all hurting. You can stay with us as long as you want, okay?”

  The girl nodded, her nose running a little.

  “By the way, what’s your name?” Daniel asked.

  “Dakota, Dakota Oliver.”

  “Alright, Dakota,” Daniel said, “It’s time we got some work done around here.”

  They all went downstairs and he showed them the security room.

  “Eventually, we’ll need someone in here monitoring things all the time,” Daniel said, “But let’s see what else is down here first.”

  They walked down the hall and found another door. The sign on the door said, “Communications.” They went inside and found rows of stations, all with high tech equipment.

  “This is what I was hoping to find,” Daniel said. “If there are other survivors, we should be able to contact them.”

  “If we can figure out how to work these stations,” Lana said.

  “There are probably training manuals somewhere,” Daniel said. “We’ll look for them later; let’s see what else is down here.”

  They moved back into the hallway and came to another door, this one marked “War Room.” Inside they found a large table with a glass top. There was a computer generated map of the world over a black background on the table’s surface. Along the walls were more computer stations and, above those, large screens. The screens and computers showed moving images from around the world.

  “Those must be satellite feeds,” said Dakota.

  “Wow,” said Lana. “They’re incredibly detailed.”

  Dakota sat at one of the computer stations whose screen image matched the larger screen above. She moved a toggle and the image changed to infrared and back again. She pulled a silver joystick and the image zoomed down even closer. The image was of a city and she zoomed it down to street level. There were several tall buildings in the picture which blocked some of the view, but they could still see cars that were blocking the road, some of them burned out. There was glass and debris everywhere along the street, but no movement.

  “Are you sure that’s a live shot?” Daniel said. “It looks more like a still photograph.”

  “That could be just because there’s no one moving around down there. But you could be right. I think I’ll hang out in here for a while and see what I can figure out. We might have better luck finding survivors from aerial satellites than from monitoring the communications channels.”

  “Alright, use the radio if you need anything, we’re moving on,” Daniel said.

  Dakota nodded without looking away from her monitor. Daniel and Lana moved further down the hall and found inclement weather rooms. There was a large sitting room with a television and a weather radar monitor. There was a small kitchen, a bathroom, and several bedrooms.

  At the end of the hall they found an elevator with a numeric, digital keypad. There was no signage to indicate what the elevator was for, and it was the only one Daniel had found in the White House with a security device attached. He pushed one of the buttons. It lit up on the display as the first in seven red boxes.

  “I guess the bunker you read about is below us and this elevator is the only way up or down,” Lana said.

  “I’ll bet you’re right. There’s no sense in trying to break the code, is there? Let’s round up some manuals and see if we can learn how to work some of this equipment.”

  The manuals were stored in closets and were thicker than unabridged dictionaries. Daniel spent most of his time in the communications room. There were video conference stations and satellite phone consoles. Some of the computers were monitoring communications around the globe, but it was obvious to Daniel that it would take some time to decipher between the automated television and radio signals and those made by survivors. He would have to learn to limit his searches to the United States, as well. It wouldn’t do much good to locate survivors on another continent, at least not until they had made some progress locally.

  Before long, Lana made her way back up to the kitchen to prepare supper, and Daniel decided he wanted to see if the president’s journal could give him an
y insight into that elevator at the end of the hallway. He checked on Dakota, who seemed to be a whiz at running the satellite feeds. She had spotted movement from wind and from automated signage in the city, even some defining landmarks indicating that she was looking at Nashville, Tennessee. He told her he was heading back upstairs to check on something and to call if she needed him.

  When he got back to the master bedroom on the second floor of the main building, he retrieved the president’s journal and then found a comfortable chair. He flipped to the beginning and read the first entry.

  November 5, 00:12 hours

  My wife gave me this journal tonight, to record my time as the President of the United States. We just found out that I won the election a few hours ago and, after a rousing speech to my multitude of incredible supporters, I have finally retired to our hotel suite bathroom. It seems like the only place I can go to be alone. Anyway, I’ll try to describe how I feel about this night. For months now I have been campaigning non-stop. It was like building a skyscraper from popsicle sticks. Now as I look down at what I’ve done, at the promises I’ve made and the claims of being able to make real changes to our country, I can’t help but feel a little panic at the thought of trying to hold my creation together.

  Tomorrow we have interviews all day and I will try my best to be magnanimous, but it will be hard to say nice things about my opponent. I feel that he is a lying, conniving politician of the worst sort, the kind of two-faced, self centered hypocrite that gives politicians a bad name. Still, I can’t help but envy him a little; he can now fade into obscurity, without the weight of making his own outlandish promises come true. Well, enough of that kind of thinking. I’ll be the president in couple of months, and before that is Christmas. It looks to be the best one ever. What do you get the man who has already made all his dreams come true? It doesn’t matter, he’s already so happy he won’t care if he gets nothing at all.