Ray Gorham: 77 Days in September

At the end of a short hallway past the car rental counters, Ed and Kyle found the medical room bursting with people in a worse state of panic than they had seen at the gate area. Kyle recognized a handful of passengers from their airplane, but the most seriously injured hadn’t made it there yet, and most of those in the room seemed to suffer more from the stress of witnessing the crashes than from any actual physical injury.

“Do you want to find a chair?”

Ed surveyed the room from the doorway and watched the four overwhelmed medical personnel working frantically to help the crush of patients. “This is insane,” he said, shaking his head. “I feel half dead, but if I stay here, I think I might get all the way there. Let’s go find a seat somewhere else where we can rest a minute and figure something out.”

The found seats in the luggage claim area and Ed dabbed sweat off his face with his shirtsleeve, leaving a dark patch on his forearm to go along with the growing circles of sweat under his armpits. “Is this real or some kind of a nightmare?” he asked as another police officer ran by.

Kyle shook his head. “It’s beyond anything I’ve ever seen. It’s unexplainable. I don’t know if the airport was hit by some cosmic force, or a terrorist strike, or who-knows-what. If someone told me UFOs caused this, I’d be hard pressed to argue.”

They sat in silence, lost in their thoughts and watching the pandemonium. Ed spoke after a long period of silence. “I don’t think we’ll be flying out of here today, even if we want to. I don’t think anyone is. This is completely different from anything I’ve ever seen or heard of. With all those crashed airplanes, there should be hundreds of emergency vehicles from all over the city out there, but I didn’t see a single one. There should have been enough help for us, even with the other planes down. I bet we’d still be waiting out by that airplane if we hadn’t come in on our own. Something is wrong at a level I can’t fathom.”

Kyle nodded. “I’ve been thinking the same thing. I think everyone is. You can see it in their faces; there’s a fear and helplessness that I’ve never seen. Of course, how are you supposed to act when you’ve seen an airplane fall from the sky?”

“It’s not just one plane wreck, Kyle. It’s multiple wrecks. It’s no emergency assistance to our flight, and no response for those other planes. It’s no power in the terminal. It’s total confusion with the airport employees. You saw them. They had no idea what they should be doing. Some of the smart ones are faking it, but most of them look like they want to cry. And the passengers…they’re freaked out bad. There’s a deeper fear there than just the power being out, more than a plane crash. Have you noticed that no one is using their cell phone? We tried mine, but it’s dead. They’re all dead. In a situation like this, everyone would be on their phone. It’s like…I know this doesn’t make any sense, but it’s like we’ve been attacked.” Ed paused a moment before continuing. “You remember 9/11?”

Kyle nodded. “Who doesn’t? I’ll always remember it. I was listening on my car radio 2,000 miles away from New York when it happened, but I’ll always remember it.”

“It feels like that, but ten times worse. Remember how unreal everything felt that day? How you couldn’t believe it was happening, even as you watched it on TV? This feels the same way. I don’t know why, but it does.”

Seated across from them, a young mother tried to console a crying baby while her husband tried to cheerfully read a book to a child of two or three. Kyle’s eyes wandered the area as he digested what Ed had said about 9/11. Then he remembered some training he’d gone through years before. A cold chill ran down his back, and he physically shuddered. “I think I might know what’s happened,” he said, swallowing hard and staring down at the tile floor. “But I hope like hell I’m wrong.”

George Bush International Airport, Houston, Texas 18:15 EST

“So you’re saying that a nuclear bomb might have caused this?” Ed asked, his expression and tone failing to conceal his disbelief.

Kyle nodded as his mind continued to race, trying to remember the details.

“Why don’t I see a huge mushroom cloud, or buildings being sucked over? Shouldn’t we all have been burnt up in the explosion?”

“Ed, you didn’t hear what I said. The bomb, assuming that’s what caused this, wasn’t detonated at ground level. If it had been, I’m sure it would have destroyed the city. The deal is this: if a nuclear bomb is detonated in space, the resulting electrical storm, or discharge, or whatever you want to call it, will wipe out everything electrical below it. Depending on how high the blast was, it could have impacted just the Houston area, or all of Texas, or even the entire country.”

Ed sank back into his chair, struggling to grasp the information. “How sure are you about this?”

“I’m sure about the effect of a bomb, but I’m not sure at all that this is what’s going on. I did some training with my company a few years ago. At the end of the sessions they were talking about worse case scenarios, and the nuke in space was the ultimate. It fries everything. It’s like lightning hitting every power pole in the country at the same time, but worse. The discussion was more of a curiosity than anything, but it was frightening, almost unbelievable. The big thing I remember is that it’s ’end of world as we know it‘ bad. I hope there’s some other explanation, and I’m open to it, but I can’t think of one.”

Ed looked at Kyle, trying to find something in Kyle’s expression that said “just kidding,” but it wasn’t there. “I want to get out of here,” he said, his voice pinched and dry. “I feel like crap, I’m not going to get on another airplane today, and I don’t think the FAA or CIA or CNN or whoever the hell it is that investigates plane crashes is going to be showing up any time soon to interview me.”

“You should get your head looked at,” Kyle said as he reassessed Ed’s wound. “You were out for awhile, and that cut was bleeding pretty badly. It probably needs some stitches.”

Ed looked at Kyle and laughed out loud. “You just told me that a nuclear bomb in space might have sent us back to the stone-age, and you’re worried about a cut on my head? I think I’ll be fine.”

“Just the concerned citizen coming out. It’s probably not a bad idea for you to get home. Probably safer than hanging around here.”

“What are you going to do, Kyle?” Ed asked.

“I hadn’t really thought about that. I was planning on being home tonight.”

“Do you have someplace to go?”

“No. I checked out of my hotel and turned in the car. Guess I’ll sleep here tonight and see if I can get some better information if things settle down. Who knows, maybe everything will be back to normal in the morning.” There was no conviction in his voice.

“Kyle, you can come and stay at my house. You saved my life. I’ll never be able to repay you, but at least that would be something. Besides, I probably shouldn’t be driving alone with a head injury.”

Kyle took another look around the airport, taking in the panic and chaos, and slowly nodded his head. “I’d like that. I don’t feel like staying around here any longer than I have to…this place could get dangerous.”

“If things are better tomorrow, I’ll bring you back down. If not, well, we’ll figure things out then.”

“It’s a deal,” said Kyle as he shook Ed’s hand then helped him up. “I really appreciate this.”

Deer Creek, Montana 19:30 EST

Jennifer walked the fifty yards across her vacant horse pasture to the next-door neighbors’ house, swatting mosquitoes as she walked and trying unsuccessfully to recall the first names of the older couple who lived there. She still hadn’t gotten to know the Andersons very well. It had been just over five months since she and Kyle had moved in, and most of their spare time had been spent making their new house a home, but the few times she had visited with the Andersons, they had seemed quite nice. Usually when Jennifer went for her morning walks, Mrs. Anderson was outside tending her yard, the flourishing garden and flowerbeds testifying to the attention they received. The two women would wave and exchange greetings or chat for a minute, but between Jennifer’s job and a busy summer their relationship hadn’t progressed much beyond that.