D. MacHale - Storm

I’m suddenly starving.”

“Me too,” Kent said, then called out, “Wait up, Chadwick.”

“Chadwick?” Luna asked with confusion.

“Don’t ask,” I said. “He makes up offensive names for everybody.”

“Go,” Tori ordered. “I’m fine.”

I didn’t want to leave her with a stranger, but I had the feeling that we were going to have to start doing a lot of things we wouldn’t normally do. Olivia and I caught up, and we followed the little guy to the far side of the building.

“Why are you all still alive?” Jon asked with no hint of tact.

“We made it because as soon as I saw trouble, I hid in the basement with Dr. Kayamori. It saved our lives. The only people who survived were deep underground when the attack happened.”

“How did you know to do that?” I asked.

“Because I’m smart,” Jon replied. “What’s your story?”

“We were on Pemberwick Island,” Kent replied curtly. “Now we’re not. End of story.”

He didn’t have the energy to relive all the details of what we had been through, and I didn’t blame him.

Jon stopped short and turned back to face us. The beam from his headlight burned into our eyes.

“Get that outta my face!” Kent complained.

“You were on Pemberwick?” Jon asked in awe.

“There’s no virus, if that’s what you’re worried about,” I assured him.

“I’m not,” Jon said. “I never thought there was. It made no sense. How did you get away?”

“Speedboat,” was my simple answer.

Jon nodded thoughtfully. “That explains a lot.”

“What do you mean?” Kent asked.

Jon turned abruptly and continued to walk.

“About your friend being shot,” he answered quickly. “That was a hell of a battle out there on the water.”

His reaction to our being from Pemberwick was an odd one, mostly because he didn’t press us for more information. You’d think he would have been a little more interested but Jon was definitely more about Jon than anybody else. He brought us to the cafeteria without another word and led us into the big, institutional kitchen.

“There are fruit and vegetables in the walk-in cooler. Open and close the door quickly. We’re trying to keep the cold in for as long as possible.”

He tossed me a flashlight, and Kent and Tori followed me into

the big cooler. Inside we gathered tomatoes, carrots, lettuce, bananas, and a half dozen apples. All were still fresh, but there was no telling how long that would last. We also grabbed a loaf of bread that didn’t look as though any mold had grown on it. Yet. We brought it all outside, spread it on a counter, and made sandwiches. “Is it okay for us to take this much?” I asked Jon. “How many survivors are in the hospital?”

“Including me and Dr. Kayamori?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“Two.”

“You know you’re kind of annoying, right?” Kent said. “That’s it?” Olivia asked with surprise. “There are only two survivors in the whole hospital?”

“Why is that a shock?” Jon asked. “People weren’t injured in the attack, they were obliterated. Dr. Kayamori wanted to stay here in case people showed up and… surprise. Here you are.”

“And why are you staying here?” Kent asked.

“Why not?” Jon said with a shrug. “There’s nowhere else to go.”

That was a conversation killer.

We finished making a load of tomato and lettuce sandwiches and stacked them in a bus tray along with the apples and overripe bananas. I grabbed a few bottles of water from next to the silent cash register, and we all headed back to the ER.

When we arrived, the doctor was finishing the tape job on Tori’s new, clean bandage.

“She was incredibly lucky,” Luna said.

“I was just lucky,” Tori said. “If I was incredibly lucky, the sniper would have missed completely.”

“The entrance and exit wounds are clean. Seems as though the bullet passed through without bouncing around inside. If it had, you’d probably be dead. As it is, you’ll be feeling some pain while the muscle heals.”

She looked to us and added, “I packed the wound with cotton to allow it to heal from the inside. It’ll have to be changed every day or so for a while. I gave her a tetanus shot and some antibiotic tablets. Multiple vitamins too. There isn’t anything more I would do even if the hospital were fully functional.”

She touched Tori on the shoulder and said, “It will be painful for a few weeks, but you should be feeling better soon after that.”

“Thanks, Dr. Kayamori,” Tori said.

“Luna, and you are very welcome. I’m just happy I was here to help. It’s odd to be the only doctor in a war zone and not have any patients.”

We all sat at the nurses’ station and chowed on the sandwiches. I would have preferred a big old hamburger, but you can’t cook a burger without gas or electricity… or meat. Luna placed her battery-powered lantern on the counter, and we sat huddled together in its light, enjoying the simple meal.

“Do you have any idea what happened?” I asked Luna. “Not a clue. It was about as normal a day as you could imagine. The only interesting news going on was about Pemberwick Island. But after a few weeks even that was no longer big news.”

“Unless you were there,” Kent groused.

Luna continued, “I was working alone in my office when we heard the first screams. Then the power went out. Jon came running in and ordered me to go to the basement with him. I was too confused to do anything but follow.”

“Why her?” Kent asked Jon. “Was she the best doctor here or just the hottest?”

“Jeez, Kent,” Tori scolded.

Kent shrugged. “Just trying to get the picture.”

Jon replied, “I’d like to say that I was thinking clearly enough to make those kinds of judgment calls, but the truth is that I had just delivered a load of paper products to the nurses’ station next to her office. Dr. Kayamori was the first doctor I saw when the attack began.”

“And she’s hot,” Kent added.

Jon looked embarrassed, and Luna bailed him out. “It was my good fortune he was there, because he saved my life. We stayed in the basement for a few hours before deciding that whatever had happened was over. It took us quite some time to make our way back up in the dark, and when we finally surfaced, the hospital was empty. Jon and I left to seek help, but, well, you know what we found. We came back and have stayed here ever since.”

“It’s like they swept the city with that laser weapon,” I said. “It even got to people who were indoors.”

“Unless they were deep below ground,” Jon corrected. “We’ve met other survivors too. We think that weapon only works at night, but a few planes have been around during the day using other weapons. We’ve heard explosions. It’s like they’re trying to finish the job. We don’t see them much anymore, though. Maybe they think they got us all.”

“The idea that so many people died in such a short time is hard to comprehend,” Luna said. “Who could be behind such an evil act?”

“That’s what I’d like to know,” I said quickly.

We gave Luna and Jon a brief overview of what we had been through on Pemberwick: the Ruby, the bogus quarantine, the SYLO troops from the U.S. Navy that were holding us prisoner, and the discovery that the black attack planes had the logo of the U.S. Air Force.

“No way!” Jon blurted out. He had been fidgeting during the entire story, dying to add his own opinions. He held himself back until I said that Portland had been attacked by the U.S. Air Force. That pushed him over the edge.

“That’s just crazy. Why would the Navy be fighting the Air Force?”