Then Came War Read online

Foster really didn’t have a plan other than to get everyone on the bus. He wanted to get them sheltered inside and then find a hospital. Not that he knew if there would be anyone at the hospital, but he could try. If that didn’t pan out, he’d try something else.

  After taking his time and driving super cautiously, Foster arrived on the street, parking the bus close enough, but at a safe distance where he wouldn’t hit anyone.

  He expected Abby would be gone when he returned. He was surprised to see her still there.

  Of course Abby sat alone. He didn’t understand. If she didn’t want to help or be there, why was she?

  Maybe it all an act and eventually Abby would turn.

  Those were Foster’s thoughts.

  But at that moment he couldn’t worry about Abby; he had to worry about how he was going to get all forty people on that bus.

  His answer to himself was a simple one.

  One at a time, that was how to do it.

  And Foster started right away with that task.

  ***

  Lana and Ben had an early supper of Campbell’s Chicken noodle soup. They ate it on the deck of the summer house. By early evening Lana was exhausted. She had consumed half of a bottle of wine and declared herself semi intoxicated.

  Ben on the other hand sipped bourbon. He wanted to keep his wits about him and come up with a plan.

  First and foremost they needed to know more of what was going on.

  He and Lana decided that in the morning they’d go out and search for a radio or something. Maybe even a generator to charge the phone and get on the internet.

  But for the evening, they were tired and sad and didn’t feel much like doing anything.

  The shock of the two days had finally worn off and aided by her ‘drunk’ Lana cried. She cried a lot.

  Ben wanted to cry, but stayed strong for his wife. He’d hold her hand, listen to her talk about her mother and sister, and then add his own memories of his mother.

  They wondered about the virus or flu that had ravaged their families and friends.

  Were they hit with the virus at the same time as the bombs hit New York?

  They deducted it had to be some sort of large scale biological weapon. Perhaps it had been a warhead with capabilities of dispersing a germ over a wide area.

  It hadn’t been released earlier than the New York attacks because Lana and Ben weren’t ill.

  Neither were the others who survived the train wreck.

  Perhaps it was the emotion of the past couple days, but Ben really wanted to bring up the fact that one week earlier they were fighting over who was going to get the flat screen television. Now they focused on more important things and the divorce seemed trivial.

  He didn’t bring it up at all. But he did, however, keep looking at Lana, a woman he knew most of his life, and a woman he still loved very much.

  He was glad he was with her.

  There wasn’t another person he’d rather be with.

  As they settled for the evening, Ben and Lana talked about the survivors who remained in the tunnel and the man named Brendan who went after them.

  They wondered how they reacted when they emerged.

  Ben and Lana knew how they must have felt.

  The sun was starting to set and the temperature dropped as a breeze blew in from the ocean.

  It was going to be a clear night.

  Ben gathered up blankets and pillows, as many as he could find, from the house.

  He got a genuine smile and laugh when he found them.

  They were stored neatly in space age, plastic suction bags. He remembered when his mother heard about those bags. Calling him and saying, “Bennie, I can store five blankets without using any room.”

  “Yeah, yeah, mom, I’m sure they work like that.”

  And they did.

  The blankets and pillows were air tight and sealed in colorful bags and stacked neatly in the hall closet.

  Ben was impressed at how many items his mother had gotten into such a small space.

  It was going to be a chilly night and neither he nor Lana wanted to stay in the house.

  They had another long day ahead of them.

  For the night, though, Ben pulled the Chaise lounge chairs close. He made them comfortable with pillows and they spent the evening out on the deck, emotionally and physically exhausted.

  ***

  The hospital wasn’t even worth the harrowing trip. Foster was getting the knack of driving the bus, but it still wasn’t easy and he hit at least three cars.

  But no one was at the hospital. Not a soul alive there. It did look as though people had been there. It was getting late and Foster decided it was better to wait until morning to look for help.

  He just didn’t know what to do. He really didn’t. He was over his head and most of the injured just whimpered.

  Judith said her eyes hurt, but she couldn’t speak for anyone else. She didn’t whimper; she was strong and Foster really wanted to speak to her. But she already had enough on her plate without listening to his woes.

  They’d all sleep in the bus; it would be cold, but there wasn’t really much Foster could do about it.

  He did his best to feed them and give them water. He moved nonstop and truth be known, Foster was tired. He just wanted to sleep.

  Abby had found a bottle of booze in one of the houses and had taken to sipping that.

  Foster didn’t want to deal with her. She wasn’t helping and didn’t say much.

  She was almost a hindrance, at least mentally for Foster, she was.

  Maybe she was tired like he was and maybe it was all just finally getting to her.

  Foster sat in the driver’s seat of the bus. He could see her sitting outside, just sitting there. He couldn’t worry about her.

  He turned his body some, getting as comfortable as he could and tried to sleep.

  The next day, he believed, things would be different for everyone.

  ***

  While Harry had a comfortable home and bed, he wasn’t venturing far from the door, the basement or Tyler. He made the boy a bed on the sofa and caught few winks in the chair. It wasn’t like he was doing anything new since Harry often fell asleep in that chair.

  He had packed his bag with clothes and pictures and was ready to leave first thing in the morning.

  The present for Leo, still semi wrapped, was placed in the car with his and Tyler’s belongings. They needed only to wake, wash up, eat a little and they would be on their way.

  Harry figured with minimal traffic they’d be in Ohio by the next evening.

  He hoped though, they would run into someone with answers.

  After what he referred to as a strong nap in the chair, Harry did what he had been doing all night. He turned on the radio and waited for the Utah man to give a report.

  Nothing was new, and the man in Utah was frustrated by lack of news coming from anywhere.

  According to the Utah radio guy, a good part of America was in the dark, and people were told to stay inside.

  The attacks weren’t over yet.

  Harry figured whoever was doing it was hell bent on knocking the United States out of commission before invasion. They hit New York and probably Washington DC. Harry could only guess.

  He prayed that he’d get more answers in the morning.

  He planned on going north for a spell and then heading east, completely avoiding New York City or anywhere close to it. He needed to be cautious; he had a child with him. Harry was worried and he didn’t want Tyler to know that. In fact, Harry was worried as he sat in his own home that night. Something about everything, just didn’t sit right. For that reason, Harry dug out his old pistol that he stored in a lock box on top of his closet.

  It had been years since he touched it and Harry wasn’t even sure if it still fired.

  But something about having it near made him feel a bit more secure. Harry needed to feel that to get through the night and prepare for the next day.

  CHAPTE
R THIRTEEN

  Lana turned slightly on the chaise lounge and the pain in her back made her cringe and wake. She was cold, very cold. She lifted the covers as she turned to lie on her back. A blip of the sun made her blink. It was very bright and Lana sat up. “Ben, I think …”

  One breath seeped from her body, hard and heavy as she gazed to the horizon.

  “Ben.” She reached over blindly for him. “Ben.”

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “What’s happening?”

  Ben sat up and rubbed his eyes.

  On the horizon were ships. Five or six air craft carriers seemed to be moving closer.

  There across the morning sky it looked like something from the Alfred Hitchcock movie, The Birds. Only they were planes.

  More planes than Lana and Ben could count flew from behind the ships across the sky and toward the shore.

  “Are they ours?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. Probably.” And then just as Ben had delivered his response, a plane broke formation and within seconds, opened fire. Bullets hit the earth in a straight line from the beach toward the house.

  Lana screamed.

  Ben grabbed hold of her and pulled her from the chair to the deck. “Get inside. Go!” he ordered.

  The crawled quickly as the bullets ripped through the deck.

  The glass of the patio door shattered and Lana covered her head. She heard and felt the bullets as they ripped into the carpeting. “Ben!”

  The sound of firing trailed off and then … Another plane, another set of bullets.

  Ben grabbed Lana. “Bedroom!” he yanked her as hard as he could, pulling her to her feet.

  She stumbled, tripping as she raced in a low crawl toward the back bedroom.

  More bullets ripped through the windows.

  “Get down. Now!” Ben told her and them both dropped to the floor of the back bedroom. It was a bedroom not facing the ocean, the blinds were still drawn tight, and Ben knew there was no way they could see them.

  They couldn’t leave the house or go anywhere. Their only hope was to get some cover and even that was limited.

  It was a tight squeeze, but Ben dragged Lana under the bed. He only hoped that the mattress and box spring would provide them some sort of protection.

  He doubted it would, but it was their only chance.

  Under that bed, they heard the massive number of planes flying overhead. More joined in, raining down bullets on their defenseless house.

  Heads covered, shaking, confused and tightly squeezed in, Ben and Lana waited and prayed.

  ***

  Harry was a smart man and was grateful he still had his quick thinking about him. He was also grateful that morning that he had gotten up pretty early.

  Not that he had slept all that much, he didn’t. But he went down to the basement again, found the old camping stuff, pulled out the Coleman Stove and a tin percolator. He was going to have a cup of coffee, his first one in days.

  The water in the pipes still ran, but he had a backup for washing the pot, the water heater.

  He cleaned the pot and brewed some coffee.

  Tyler was still sleeping and Harry kept the curtains closed in the living room, so the boy could rest. He’d need it. He’d had an emotional couple of days and more was ahead for him.

  He’d wake him in a little bit, Harry thought. Heck, the sun had just come up.

  Sitting and sipping his coffee he enjoyed the paper he didn’t get a chance to read before he left for the train. He searched for answers as to why the United States and England would have been attacked and by whom.

  Salt Lake City guy said he’d be back on the air when he had an update, that government officials were asking him to refrain from delivering too much information and for the sake of his country he would oblige.

  But what about those who were clueless, like Harry?

  He rummaged through the news, trying to find some kind of warning, some reason that it happened. There were several little things, but Harry had a feeling in order to find out the ‘real’ reason, he’d have to go way back in the news. An attack on such a large scale took time, money, and planning.

  Earlier, while the coffee brewed, he tried the phones. They were dead and the radio played nothing, which to Harry was much better than the hijacked station playing old anti-war seventies songs.

  The anti-war songs—they were a piece of the puzzle, Harry knew they had to be. The anti war songs.

  Maybe it was a message to the American people that they should have minded their own business on several occasions.

  Harry couldn’t understand that mentality of ‘minding our own business.’ Not when he served in a war and so do his son.

  He decided it a useless needle in a hay stack search, so Harry opted for the comics. Maybe something there would make him laugh.

  It was then he heard it.

  A soft rumbling mixed with a buzzing.

  Harry stood slowly and looked out the kitchen window.

  He didn’t see anything, but the sound grew louder.

  Thinking the upstairs would give him a better view, Harry hurried up to his bedroom.

  He didn’t know why he opted not to go outside; maybe he just didn’t feel like putting on his shoes. But it was a good thing he didn’t go.

  The moment he peeked through the curtains of the bedroom window, Harry was glad he hadn’t gone outside.

  Planes plastered the sky—an eerie resemblance to the photos he had seen of Pearl Harbor.

  He didn’t have to question if they were American planes; he didn’t need to see them to know they were not.

  The multitudes of planes were coming from the east and that told Harry they weren’t his country’s planes.

  He shut the curtain quickly and backed out of the bedroom, steering clear of any windows.

  He was a little frightened, not for himself as much as for Tyler.

  By the time he reached the living room, the sounds of the planes’ motors were thunderously loud.

  There was no ignoring them.

  “Harry?” Tyler called out.

  “Shh.” Harry put a finger to his mouth. He didn’t want to make a sound. Not a peep. Just on the chance whoever had arrived hadn’t just come by air.

  He grabbed Tyler’s hand and led him to the basement. “We’re going down here,” Harry whispered.

  “What is that noise?”

  “Planes.”

  “A rescue?” Tyler perked with excitement.

  “I highly doubt that.”

  Harry told him to go down first. Harry then followed him down and shut and secured the basement door.

  In the basement they went to Harry’s work bench, an old wooden table top that Harry could never part with despite the number of times his wife asked him to.

  He and Tyler inched under that bench. They waited there protected underground just on the outside chance there was another air strike.

  Harry would keep them there until it was quiet and he felt the coast was clear.

  He couldn’t take a chance.

  ***

  There was a senior citizen’s recreation center in town that at one time had been an old school.

  It was only a few blocks from the community medical center and Foster drove the bus there at the crack of dawn.

  It was the best place he could think of to get everyone inside and comfortable while he devised a plan.

  He had to get the injured people help and toting them all around was no longer an option.

  A sign was posted on the wall of the center stating that it didn’t open until ten, which was good. The first attacks had occurred early.

  Foster broke the glass on the doors and made his way inside.

  It would work out just fine.

  By 6:30 in the morning, having them all hold onto a rope, Foster was able to move them fairly quickly inside the building.

  The small cafeteria had a case of the mini boxes of cornflakes and he passed them out to everyone.
r />   There was bottle of water for each as well.

  “What does it look like in here?” Judith asked.

  “Like an old gym with tables,” Foster replied. “It’ll be fine.” He gave Judith her box of cereal; she was the last one.

  “Jimmy, honey, you can’t keep doing this. You’re just a child. May I make a suggestion?” Judith said.

  “Please do.”

  “Leave,” she simply suggested.

  “What do you mean?”

  “We’ll be fine. How long would it take for you to go on foot out of the city to get help? Eight hours? Go. That is the best option.”

  “I was thinking of that but I felt guilty about leaving you guys. Not everyone is like you.”

  “We’ll be fine.” Judith grabbed for his hand. “Going to the bathroom is tricky, but we’ll manage.”

  “I am probably going to have to …” Foster paused when he saw Abby’s hand reaching into the case of cereal. He stopped her. “Don’t.” he told her.

  “Don’t what?” Judith asked.

  “Not you, Judith. I was talking to Abby,” Foster said “She’s taking the cereal.”

  “Oh, honey, she’s just hungry. Let her have some.”

  “She’s well enough and fine to find her own food.”

  “Don’t be like that, Jimmy.” Judith spoke softly. “Please.”

  He didn’t say anything, but tossed a look to Abby that said he was allowing her to have the box of cereal under protest.

  Abby took it and started to open it.

  Foster stood. “You aren’t even going to say thank you?”

  “Thank you. I don’t understand why it was such a hassle to let me have a box,” Abby said.

  “Because it belongs to them, Abby. They can’t get their own food.”

  “Yeah, well, you heard Judith,” Abby said sarcastically. “They can’t even go to the bathroom.”

  “That was wrong.”

  “It’s the truth,” Abby snapped. “Face reality Foster, you can’t help them. If you would have just told them to wait and gone on to get help you would have been back by now. But no, you’re a martyr.”

  “Why didn’t you go and get help?”