Chapter 24: Pandora's Box, Part II
"There?"
"Where?"
Jim pointed just to the right of where they were headed. Just above the ruddy clouds, it was possible to make out the jagged tip of...
"Mount Rainer," Boers confirmed. "That's where they said they would be."
The floor pitched beneath him as the pilot made a slight course adjustment.
"Need any help?"
Jim broke his concentration on the controls in front of him just for a moment, so that he could look across the room at Commander Boers. Even through his aviators, Boers could tell what Jim was going to say.
"You know I've been doing this long enough to know this bird inside and out. Just strap yourself in and get ready for a quick descent."
Conrad considered joining the others, but changed his mind and sat down, strapping himself into the co-pilot's seat. I want to see what it's like up here. It's been a while.
"Well I'm here if you - "
Jim raised a hand, flipping a thin metal switch.
"Base Romeo-Tree-To, this is is November-Fower-Fife-Yankee-Zulu, requesting landing procedure."
A thin voice filled the cabin, along with a barrage of static.
"Yankee-Zulu, this is Romeo. Request for landing granted. Please proceed to broadcasted coordinates. Romeo out."
The channel cut off.
"Not very friendly today," Jim observed.
"I don't think they're friendly, ever." Boers said. "This is the president we're talking about."
As they plunged into the clouds, Boers felt the kick of the engine, followed swiftly by the gut-dropping pushback of turbulence as they slipped underneath them.
"A lot of currents getting kicked up here," Jim said. "I miss mission control's weather reports. The bird does fairly well with its' own sensors, but it's not the same."
No, you're right. Nothing is the same.
A minute or so, and the rocking calmed as they cleared the cloud cover. Boers craned his neck to survey the scene below. Nestled in the crags of the mountain was a blinking asphalt circle.
"No runway on a mountain, huh," Boers observed.
"Nope. gonna have to do a stall and quick pull up," Jim replied.
Jim's hands flew across the dashboard. He flipped open a second communications channel - this one for the crew members in the back.
"Hope you guys are holding up ok. We're gonna feel one more big push as I aim for the landing pad. Brace yourselves."
Boers hooked his right hand into a nearby grab bar in the roof.
With a pull on the control column, Jim cut down the engines and tilted the nose up on the jet plane. Whereas Boers gut had dropped moments ago, it began to rise into her throat. His head pushed back into his chair. There was a small bump as the aircraft settled onto the tarmac. Jim cut the engine completely, and it whined down to a halt.
"Don't forget the parking brake," Boers quipped. Jim flashed him a small smile.
"Now the real fun starts."
"Mommy, I have to go to the bathroom."
The woman in the driver's seat turned her head halfway, hoop earrings swinging with the the movement.
"Shelly, this isn't a good place to stop. Can you wait ten minutes."
"Mhm." The girl squirmed about in her seat, but acquiesced.
"Thanks, hon. I know it's hard. We're almost there."
Shelly looked out the window, staring at nothing. She was a gangly kid, with curly brown hair tucked into a ponytail with the help of a bright blue scrunchie. She wore a jean jacket, a black skirt, and pink tights with a slightly scuffed pair of rainbow high tops. She was also nearly buried among a pile of rucksacks, garbage bags, and other things they had packed in too short a time.
Her mother had also put in a messy ponytail, to keep her hair out of her eyes, but her curls were looser, and her skin lighter. Nella Boers gripped the steering wheel of the minivan with chapped hands. It was oppressively hot and stuffy in the car. Nella glanced longingly at the crate of water bottles in the front seat. She pulled her eyes back to the road with considerable effort.
Too soon. We have to ration.
There was a portable filter in the back, buried somewhere in everything she managed to shove in the car before the riots reached their remote pocket of suburbia. But there was no water, not here. There was a rest stop coming up soon. Nella was surprised there was anybody else on the road at this time of day. 4:36 AM, the car clock read. Squinting at the yellow stripe of highway ahead of her, she clicked up the highbeams another notch. Under normal circumstances the action would reward her with angry car horns, but the lights were off on this highway. So everyone was doing the best they can to get by.
They were the lucky ones. Nella couldn't sleep through the night anymore these days. Too hot, and she kept waking up in sweats from the nightmares. Violence, bombing, shootings, all over the news. Angry people, with nowhere to direct their anger. Well, they thought there was a good place to direct it, mostly against people in positions of power, and people who looked or thought differently than them. Mosques burned, politicians were assassinated. There were mass exoduses, people scrabbling over themselves heading north, to be shot down at the Canadian border. Nobody was laughing at their military now - that changed when the cost of water surpassed the cost of oil.
It was her husband's association with the military that was keeping them on the road. Gas credits, mileage permits...they went a long way.
4:52 AM. Nella pulled right onto the off-ramp. A sign flashed an eerie green above them - Highway 92. She pulled off at the nearest side road, killing the high beams and reducing their speed. The road soon ended in a gravel parking lot shrouded in tall grasses. She turned off the car engine. Rummaging around on the front seat, she grabbed a roll of toilet paper and a high-powered flashlight..
"Let's go, sweetie."
They stepped out of the car into the early morning air. Mercifully, it only had the tang of stagnant water. Nella had grown far too used to the acrid aroma of oil and the ozone smell of air-scrubbers that hit her every morning she walked through the parking lot to her office. It was good to know that there were still some healthy green spaces out there despite the quick rise in temperature and resultant drought in this part of the states.
"Mom..." Shelly was tugging at the side of her jeans.
"Go on!" Nella insisted.
"I want you to come."
"Honey, what about the car?"
But Shelly was squirming again, in a mixture of fear and discomfort.
"Okay, okay. I'm sure it will be fine." The radio said it would be safe here. Maybe she could relax, for just a moment.
They waded into the grass. A lone owl hooted in the night, and crickets chirped insistently. No frogs. Nella felt a pang of sadness rip through her chest. She had tried to save them. Fifteen years ago, she had published a paper on the diminishing habitats and frequency of all frog populations in California. That had been back in her postgraduate days, when she still thought she could change the world. On the weekends, she would drag an indifferent Conrad into the creeks behind their college, picking up garbage with her other activist friends. Where are they now? She couldn't bring herself to care. She wanted her husband back.
"Don't look, mom."
Nella turned off the flashlight and looked away. Behind them, the odd set of lights was visible moving along the highway. It would have been peaceful, if her heart wasn't thumping like a jackhammer. Her fingers touched the hilt of the pistol in its' holster on her waist. She hoped the past few weeks of practice were enough. It has been a while since Conrad had taken them to the firing range.
She heard Shelly fiddling with her clothes, and then, a second sound coming from the opposite direction.
"Mom, wha-"
"Shhh," Nella hissed. "Stay here, and stay low, don't move."
In the darkness, Nella could see Shelly trembling, but doing as she was told.
Nella stalked forward, back along the way they had come. Her heart pounded even harder. She saw the flash of a light up the hill, where the car was. Then, a scratching sound. She drew the pistol, and moved closer.
A grizzled man with dirty, shoulder-length hair, bare-chested and in jean shorts and running shoes, was trying each door handle. He yanked hard on the passenger side door, cursed, and kicked the door hard enough to dent it. He started stumbling around the clearing, picking up rocks and inspecting them. He was getting closer to her. Nella took a deep breath, raised the gun, and looked down this stranger through the sight.
The pistol flashed in front of her, recoiled with a sharp pop. The man stumbled back, tripped, and fell onto his back. Nella moved through the grasses. The bullet had hit - but where.
"What the fuck - arrrgh..."
She said nothing. She was nothing but a shadow. She moved with the night. Thump, thump, thump.
The grizzled man clutched his chest. That could be a bad wound, Nella though. Or it might not be enough. She had to act now. Stepping up into the clearing, she aimed and fired again.
-POP-
She could hear her daughter sobbing, somewhere behind her down the hill. The man was still moving, with the part of his brain that wasn't hanging out the side of his head. He was mumbling something garbled. There was so much blood.
-POP-
The last one finally made him stop.
"Shelly!" Nella yelled. "Come here!" She holstered her weapon and fumbled for the keys in her pocket. The adrenaline was starting to kick in. Her hands shook as she tried to unlock the car. Was that shouting in the distance?
The girl burst out from the grass. The toilet paper was trailing behind her, the roll still in her hand.
"Get in the car!"
"Over there!" Another man's voice, calling out in the distance.
Shelly slammed the door on the passenger side. Nella leaped in, slamming her own door, and shoved the key into the ignition.
"Baby, get your head down from the window."
The engine roared into life. Through the ringing in her ears, she heard a familiar crack.
"Fuck!" she shouted. Flooring the accelerator, she turned the car around and back up the gravel path. "Fuck, fuck, fuck..."
A figure passed by, caught in the running lights, and then another.
-POP-
The passenger door window exploded. Shelly choked out terrified tears. Nella yelped. Spinning the steering wheel, the minivan screeched as they turned the corner and leapt back onto the highway.
"Mom, what were those men doing?" It was difficult to hear Shelly through the roar of the open window. "Did you shoot someone?"
"Once we get to the base," Nella shouted over the wind, "We'll be safe. We'll be safe," she whispered to herself, inaudible through her daughter's tears.