Ray Gorham: 77 Days in September

With the captain’s announcement that their plane was cleared for takeoff, the flight attendants rushed to get trays put up and seats returned to their upright positions before strapping themselves in.

Kyle folded down the top corner of the page in his book, set it in his lap, and glanced out the window. The plane had taxied down the runway and was now in line for takeoff. Kyle could see another plane ahead of them and three stacked up to land.

“I guess we’re going to miss our free tickets,” Ed commented.

Kyle looked at him, puzzled. “What free tickets?”

“I was starting to hope we’d get stuck a little longer. If you have to wait too long, sometimes the airlines will give you a couple of free tickets so you don’t hate them too much. Happened to my daughter last time she visited. Now, we just get put behind, and the airline doesn’t do anything, barely even an apology.”

Ed spoke with a grin, so Kyle guessed he wasn’t too serious, but the thought of free tickets intrigued him. His anniversary was coming up, and surprising Jennifer with something more than their traditional dinner out would have been nice.

“What are you reading?” asked Ed, changing the subject.

“It’s a mystery. I bought it at the airport on the way down and am trying to finish it before I get home. There’s never seems to be enough time for reading at home, and I’d like to see how it ends.”

“Is it any good?”

Kyle thought for a second. “So far so good, but you can never be sure until it wraps up. If I finish before we touch down, I’ll give you a full review.”

Deer Creek, Montana 16:06 EST

Jennifer Tait struggled into the house from the garage, her arms loaded with a week’s worth of groceries. The day’s mail was shoved into one of the bags, and a corner of an envelope had torn a gaping hole in the side, threatening to dump an assortment of canned goods onto the kitchen floor. As the door swung closed, she heard a wail from the small figure struggling along behind her.

“You okay, Spencer?” Jennifer called out.

He didn’t answer.

She could hear him fighting with the door, so hurried and swung the bags in her arms onto the table. A can of tomato soup, hanging part way out of the hole opened by the envelope, caught the corner of the table and extended the gash, dumping the contents onto the linoleum floor. Jennifer muttered under her breath. It had been a bad day, and this was just one more item to add to the list of things that had gone wrong. Kyle had been gone for two weeks, and she was looking forward to finally having him home again. She loved their kids, but being a single mother wasn’t what she had signed up for.

As she bent to pick up the cans scattering across the kitchen floor, she heard Spencer’s voice from out in the garage.

“Mom!” he called.

“What is it, Spencer?” she replied, gathering the cans.

“I need some help,” he called back.

“I’ll be right there. Just give me a minute.”

“No, Mom! Not just a minute. I need help now,” he said, irritation evident in his voice.

Jennifer giggled at his demand, marveling to herself how quickly he was growing up and reflecting on the joys of being able to watch her kids as they matured. Spencer was her baby, but he wasn’t so much a baby anymore. He had been attending kindergarten for three weeks now, and she already missed having him home with her on those days she didn’t work.

“Alright, I’m coming,” she answered as she grabbed a can of mushrooms that had come to stop against the leg of a chair.

Setting the can on the table, Jennifer went to the door and pushed it open for Spencer, who was still struggling to get in. He smiled as she carefully opened the door wide enough for him to enter.

“That’s a pretty big box,” she said, tussling his hair. “You sure you have it alright?”

“I’m fine,” he answered, a look of determination riveted on his face.

“Thanks so much for being such a good helper, big guy. You sure are growing up.”

“I’m not big guy. I’m Spencer,” came the terse reply.

“Yes, you are. You’re my Spencer, aren’t you?” Jennifer kissed her son on the forehead as he marched by.

Spencer grinned and reached up with his free arm to give her a hug, dropping the box of Corn Flakes on the floor as he did so. “Oops, sorry Mom,” he said. “I’ll get it.”

Jennifer straightened back up and heard the beep of the answering machine in the bedroom, making a mental note to check the messages once the groceries were put away. “Can’t have the ice cream melting while I listen to some salesman,” she told herself.

She grabbed the remaining bags of groceries from the car and slammed the trunk shut. Noticing that Spencer hadn’t shut his car door tight, Jennifer fixed that, waved to the neighbor who was outside working in her garden, and went back inside the house.

She was putting away the cereal when Spencer stomped into the kitchen from the play room. “Mom, the TV just turned off!” he whined.

“Just give me a minute,” she replied. After putting the rest of the cans away, Jennifer took Spencer by the hand and led him down the hall to see what was wrong with the TV.

NORAD Headquarters, Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado 16:07 EST

Alan watched with a cold, technical detachment as the remaining missile’s course tracked across the screen, the speed and elevation numbers on the bottom of the screen registering the details of the rocket’s flight. He was shocked by his lack of emotion, something similar, he assumed, to an Emergency Room doctor forced to treat his own child. You should be a wreck, but the technical side of the brain takes over and you simply do what you’ve been trained to do.

During the seven minutes of the missile’s flight, Alan had already spoken with three of his superiors and knew, by the sound of their voices, they were in a state somewhere between panic and unbelief.

Monitors showed that the missile had been airborne for just under eight minutes, the longest eight minutes of Alan’s life, and its altitude was 306 miles.

When the missiles had first been detected, Alan had hoped that specific cities were targeted because, relatively speaking, that would have been easier to recover from. This, he knew, was going to be much, much worse.

Everyone around him was outwardly calm, and considering that the country to which they had pledged their lives was under attack, it was unnerving in a way. A few spoke on the phone, calmly relating to some unseen person the information displayed on their monitors. Others sat at their desks, watching wide-eyed as the missile tracked over Missouri towards the center of the theoretical bulls-eye. Tears streaked down more than one face.

Alan felt the room spin around him, and he reached for a chair to steady himself. Never in his life had he felt so helpless. For the sixty-six long years of his life, Alan had always known the appropriate response, could think his way out of every situation. This time he couldn’t. The only hope the country had was another failure, a failure like the one that had happened to the missile launched from the Pacific.

Alan held his breath and prayed, too scared to blink in case something happened in that instant. As the missile tracked farther than expected, the possibility that NORAD was the target flashed through Alan’s mind just as the largest screen in the room flashed red, and an additional alarm sounded. Detonation.

For a brief moment the room went totally silent, as if all the air had been sucked out of the building. When the lights flickered, someone cursed, and then the roar of voices began to swell as backup generators kicked on and the room brightened again.