A Long Road Back: Final Dawn: Book 8 (24 page)

     He sat at her bedside, her tiny hand in his. He looked into her eyes and ran his fingers through her chestnut hair.

     “You’re missing the point, honey. Yes, I could go back to help. But what if the world went dark while I was there? What if I couldn’t get to you to pick you up and take you back with me? What if you were stuck here, all alone?”

     “I wouldn’t be alone, Mark. There are hundreds of people working in this hospital. Good people. People who’d find a way to survive. And don’t forget, we’re on a military base where there hundreds more. Hundreds more of America’s finest. I wouldn’t be alone.”

     “Baby, I’m not even sure America exists anymore. I mean, when’s the last time you heard of the federal government doing anything? The last official thing they did was to betray the American people by trying to keep Saris 7 a secret. And then lying and saying they had everything under control. That they’d found a way to destroy Saris 7 before it hit the earth. They lied, and sacrificed millions of Americans while they were preparing to take their own families into hiding. That’s the kind of government we had. And if we still have a government out there, it probably hasn’t changed much. If I go up there to help and the skies suddenly go dark again, I don’t want to rush down here to get you and find out they’ve sealed the gates and locked down the base. I don’t want to come down here to find out they’ve taken you hostage.”

     “Honey, they wouldn’t do that. You saw Colonel Montgomery and his growing operation. They were raising thousands of head of cattle and pigs and chickens and God knows what else. They were growing tons of food in their greenhouses to feed the survivors in San Antonio and Bexar County. Whatever you say about the old government, the one before Saris 7 hit, these are the people who represent the new government. And they’re doing a lot of good.”

     Mark paused for a moment, as though something heavy was weighing on his mind.

     Then he chose his words carefully.

     “Honey, the night before last I had a dream. I didn’t tell you about it before because it scared the hell out of me. I woke up at three a.m. and couldn’t get back to sleep. And the more I thought about my dream the more it made sense.”

     “What? What dream, Mark? What are you talking about?”

     “Honey, I dreamed that Cupid 23 hit the earth, just as you said it would. And that when it did, the world was in chaos once again. The skies grew dark again and the temperatures started to plummet. Wherever rain happened to be falling at the time turned immediately into snow. The ground started to be covered over again.

     “In my dream, the people who ran the so-called government abandoned their growing and breeding operations and went into huge bunkers with their families and friends and political cronies. And it became obvious to all that they weren’t growing food and raising meat for the survivors in San Antonio. They were growing it for themselves. They were stockpiling it in their bunkers so they could survive the second freeze while most of the regular people perished. Just like the first time.”

     “Mark, you’re talking nonsense. You’ve seen the people here at the hospital. They are as professional as any medical people anywhere in the world. They save lives each and every day. They saved Joel’s life. They saved mine, for Christ’s sake. If the military and the government were evil and plotting against the regular people, they would have just let us die.”

     “No, honey. That’s not what I said. I think we pegged Colonel Montgomery wrong. Remember when he first showed up at the compound? He demanded all of our livestock, every bit of it, and said if we resisted he’d take it by force. He’d have killed every one of us to get that livestock. Remember?”

     Hannah swallowed hard.

     “Yes.”

     “The only reason they never stormed the compound is because we had him by the balls and he knew it. We told them that if they tried to attack us we’d kill every last head of beef, every last chicken, every last pig, before they could get to them. And he relented, because he had no choice and because he figured that half of everything was better than nothing. And maybe because he didn’t want to explain to his cronies in Washington how all of our livestock got killed before he was able to confiscate it.”

     “Honey, what are you saying?”

 
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     “Hannah, just hear me out. We thought we were wrong about Colonel Montgomery. That we had misjudged him. We took him at his word that he was only harsh because that was the language people spoke and understood in the new hard world. We took him at his word when he apologized for being so heavy handed, and we let him become our friend. We invited him into the compound as our guest and we fed him and his fellow officers.

     “But here’s the deal. When we first saw him, I think we saw the real him. The evil him. The one who put on a show and pretended to be our friend while he tried to figure out how to get the rest of our livestock. That was why he was so friendly to us. That was why he took time from his busy schedule to give us tours of his growing facility at the old Kelly Air Force Base.

     “Honey, I think he was playing us for fools all along. He was trying to show us the good he was doing for all the survivors so we’d relent and give up more of our animals. Or, maybe we was just trying to get a foothold within the compound. So he could ask us to host a large group of his men. As a gesture of good will, or something. And then when we opened the compound’s gates for his ten or twenty or thirty men, they’d all of a sudden produce weapons and take the compound by force. Then steal the rest of the animals and leave us with nothing.”

     He said the last sentence slowly and deliberately.

     “And kill anyone who resisted.”

     Hannah suddenly had a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.

     But she wasn’t like Mark. Mark tended to look for the darkness within a person’s soul. To analyze them and dissect them and pick them apart, trying to figure out whether they had any ulterior motives for doing the things they did.

     Hannah was a kinder soul, who tended to look for the good in people, no matter what they appeared to be on the outside.

     “Mark, that’s a good theory. A little wild, but well thought out. But you can’t convict somebody on suspicions. And it’s not right to assume that someone is up to no good without proof. It’s not fair.”

     “That’s just it, honey. I have proof. I just never realized it until just recently. Do you remember on the tour, when Colonel Montgomery said that the produce they grew and the seeds that they harvested were being distributed by the U.S. Army to all the survivors in San Antonio?”

     “Yeah. So?”

     “So I was talking to Frank and Eva Woodard yesterday. They were in San Antonio during the freeze. And when the thaw came they visited the local stores and home improvement centers to get seeds. They said they were worried that the seeds wouldn’t be any good after so many years and that some weren’t. But others grew. And they planted gardens and grew fruits and vegetables. And then they shared those seeds with others. Who in turn shared them with somebody else.”

     “Again. So?”

     “So… Frank and Eva had friends all over the city. They visited each other quite often to socialize, or to share seeds, or to share other experiences with each other. They said that not once, in all the times they went around the city to visit their friends, did anyone mention the Army helping them out in any way. Not with seeds, not with meat, not with anything.”

     That gave Hannah pause. She didn’t know what to say.

     So Mark continued.

     “But there’s more. Do you remember when Brad and I visited Colonel Montgomery’s growing operation, and then flew out by helicopter?”

     “Yes.”

     “Remember I told you that way off in the distance we saw a huge tract of land? It was full of bulldozers and front end loaders and a long line of dump trucks. We asked Colonel Montgomery what was being built there. Do you remember what he said to us?”

     “Yes. You said he got all huffy, like he was pissed that you asked the question. Then he smiled and said that was where they got the bedding soil for their greenhouses. He said they dug deep into the earth to get the highest grade soil. He said the deeper the soil, the better the quality.”

     “Did that explanation make sense to you?”

     “Sure. It sounded logical. Why wouldn’t I accept it?”

     “Because we saw a long line of cement mixers lined up outside the area, like they were ready to go in when their time came. I remember thinking ‘Wow, that’s a lot of concrete mixers,’ and I counted them just out of curiosity. Do you remember me telling you about that?”

     “Yes. But I don’t remember how many of them there were.”

     “There were twenty one. Brad said they looked like beetles lined up on a tree branch.”

     “Yes. I remember him saying that. But why does that matter?”

     “I almost asked the colonel why they needed so much concrete if all they were doing was digging dirt from the ground for their greenhouses. But I let it pass because he was being so testy. Then I forgot about it because I figured it didn’t really matter.

     “But now, everything makes sense. They weren’t digging up dirt for their greenhouses, honey. They were building a bunker. An underground bunker they could use for themselves and their families, and maybe the people running the show in Washington. And they weren’t growing food and raising meat for the people of San Antonio. They were raising it for themselves, to hoard and to store in their new bunker.

     “All this time they’ve been preparing for Cupid 23. And just like before, they don’t give a damn about the rest of the world. They’re planning to hide in the shelter down here, where the people in Washington can’t take revenge on them like they did last time. They can survive the freeze while most of the rest of the country won’t. And they’ll do it from the safety of a military base.”

     Hannah was stunned. Mark was never one to think logically. He usually jumped to conclusions first and then had to go back and apologize later.

     But she remembered Mark and Brad describing the look on Colonel Montgomery’s face when they’d asked about the digging. They said he looked like a kid who got caught with his hand in a cookie jar.

     And she too had wondered about the long line of cement trucks waiting to go into an area where they were just supposed to be digging up dirt. It never dawned on her at the time to pursue it. But perhaps this time Mark was right. Perhaps this time he’d added two and two together and actually came up with four.

     Still, she was desperate to believe it wasn’t so.

     “But… how would they know about Cupid 23 without NASA?”

     “Baby, I don’t think NASA went out of business. That wouldn’t make any sense. The people at NASA all knew Saris 7 was coming before anybody else. They had more time to prepare. If anyone was going to survive, it was going to be them. For all of them to get wiped out and ten percent of the dumb shmucks to survive… that’s just not logical. I think what really happened is NASA was ordered to stand down before they could warn people about Cupid 23 and make people start watching their government closely. Either that or NASA has gone top secret and that janitor you talked to was fake.”

     “But Mark, look around you. These are good people. Medical professionals. They save people’s lives every day of the week. They wouldn’t be part of any project that would sacrifice most of the population to save a few.”

     “Honey, I don’t think all of them are in on it. I think the people in this hospital will be sacrificed like all the others. Like you and me and everybody else. That’s why we have to get you and Sarah out of here and back to the compound as quickly as possible.”

     “Go. You go, Mark. You go back to the compound. Help them prepare and if you’re right you’ll still be there to help little Markie if Cupid hits before I come back.”

     “No, honey. You and I are a team. We’ll be a team to the end. You need to convince the doctors that you’re ready to go home. I’ll take you home and put you to bed there until you’re strong.”

     “But what about Sarah? What about Bryan?”

     “I talked to Bryan a little bit ago. I told him about my suspicions. I should have told him right after we saw those cement trucks.”

     “What did he say?”

     “Two words: ‘holy shit.’”

     “Mark, they can’t go back as easily as we can.”

     “I know. Her doctor told him last night that the swelling is going down in her brain. Removing the skull piece has helped. They’ll be able to reattach the skull in a couple of days and then to bring her out of her coma. They said she could be home within a week.”

     “And what if Cupid 23 were to hit before that week is up?”

     “Then they’d be stuck here trying to survive with the rest of the hospital’s personnel. And I’d be fighting my way down here to try to get them.”