John O'Brien - Reckoning

On the airfield grounds next to the destroyed hangars, a small fenced-in compound sits to the southwest. Several warehouse-type buildings have most of their roofs caved in, as does a large administration building. A number of flatbed tractor-trailers are parked around the outer edges of the complex. There’s obviously a story here that we’ll most likely never learn.

“What do you think?” I ask Gonzalez.

“It looks like all of the buildings have been burned, sir,” she answers.

“Thank you for that deep and insightful answer, Corporal Obvious,” I reply.

I glance to see her grinning underneath her helmet, taking what I said as the joke it was intended to be. We circle the airfield, looking for indications that anyone is around, or anything that might cause us trouble upon landing.

Gonzalez comments, “It could be that someone was clearing the area out, or a fire started on its own. With no one to put it out, it could have just burned everything.”

“I suppose. That’s a lot of distance between some of those buildings,” I state.

“There’s also a lot of fuel down there. It could have ignited and ran. There could have been strong winds,” she replies, shrugging.

“I guess.” Over the intercom, I call to the control center, “Do you have anything on thermal?”

“No, sir. We’re not picking up anything out of the ordinary.”

I bring the Spooky into an orbit over the airfield. After several minutes of watching to ensure that it seems safe, I bring the aircraft in and park, leaving the engines idling for a few minutes before shutting down.

As the propellers wind down to a halt, I open the rear ramp and exit. My pant legs whip from a strong breeze that brings a chill from the mountains miles to the west. This is a far cry from the hammock swinging, umbrella drink sipping, white sand beach watching that I should be doing.

“So, what’s the plan?” Lynn asks, standing next to me.

“Find a vehicle and finish with our business here, fly home, and look at the video. We’ll plan our next action based on what we see. For whatever reason, we’ve been targeted…so they obviously don’t mean to ease up on us. We need to come up with a plan to deal with them, but frankly, I haven’t the foggiest idea what that will entail.”

There’s a farmhouse with a few outlying buildings in the distance, nestled in the “V” created by the intersecting runways. Lynn will take the rest of Red Team out with the exception of Bri. We’ll be staying behind to set the return flight home in the nav computer. Even though one of lessons learned was not sending single teams out, the place where they’ll conduct the fake rescue mission is close and they won’t be out of sight. Locating a pickup and managing to get it started, Lynn and the others set off across the runways, bouncing across fields on their way to the farm house.

After finishing with inputting the coordinates, to kill time waiting for Lynn and the others to return, Bri and I walk to the nearest line of hangars. Charred sheet metal lies in twisted heaps where the buildings collapsed in on themselves. There is a lingering smell of burnt rubber and plastic. Several of the sheets rustle as a flurry of wind gusts blow through. Underneath the debris, there are recognizable aircraft parts that survived the fire: a wheel strut, a tire rim with the rubber melted and burned away, part of a wing lying under a section of sheet metal.

Bri and I silently look over the wreckage, each of us lost in our thoughts. Bri bends down, moves a section of steel to the side, and picks up a charred altimeter. The outer casing is brittle and covered with soot. The hands are bent from the heat they encountered.

Turning it in her hand, she asks, “Dad, why are they doing this? The other group, I mean.”

“I don’t know, Bri. They must think that we’re a threat to them somehow. Given what they planned to do, that’s the only thing I can come up with,” I answer.

“Can’t we just, I don’t know, talk with them somehow?” she asks, still looking at the instrument in her hand.

“I wish it were that easy. If they had come and talked with us in the beginning, perhaps something might have been worked out. However, with what they’ve done, in the beginning… and to us recently… I doubt they would have been interested in any form of compromise. Of course, there is also the question of whether we would, considering what they did… or tried to do. They take what they want without caring much with how they go about it.”

“Do you think we’re going to make it? I mean, survive?”

I look over the burnt remains of the hangars and across the flat landscape with the wind rippling my clothing. In the distance, purplish peaks of the mountain range rise above the horizon. Being far away from home, with all that has occurred, this place seems remote and the view has a very forlorn feeling attached to it. For all intents and purposes, Bri and I are the only ones around. It seems like we are the last two people on earth poking through rubble from the past. I want nothing more than to encircle her with my arms and hold her tight…keep her safe.

“I’d like to think so, if I have anything to say about it anyway.”

“But we’ve lost so many people lately. Nic, Allie, Drescoll, the team today, and maybe Greg… and we aren’t gaining anyone.”

And therein lies the crux of the whole thing. We can’t afford to lose anyone as we can’t replace them. We just don’t have the numbers to lose people and be able to survive. It takes time to replace any we do lose, whether through natural causes or otherwise. If we allow ourselves to be whittled down, we’ll soon run out of people. The last vestiges of humankind will fade away, vanishing from the face of the earth forever.

“We’ll make it somehow, Bri. I don’t know how other than to keep the faith that we will.” I put my arm around her shoulders and hold her close.

Lynn calls in that they are returning. Bri looks over the altimeter once more and then tosses it back onto the pile of rubble. Looking to the southwest toward the fenced-in complex, I pull out my binoculars and zoom in on the buildings. Focusing on the three-story central office building, I note the roof and part of the brick walls have toppled inward. Windows are set into the structure at even intervals on all floors, but very little of the glass remains. Through the openings, I see a mix of light pouring in from the collapsed sections of roof and shadowed darkness. Panning across the side of the building, I glimpse a flash of movement from behind one of the windows.

Startled, I look again, squinting to penetrate the depths. Nothing. Something was there and flashed away in an instant, but not before I caught what looked like someone standing at the window looking in our direction.

“Did you see that?” I ask Bri, moving to where a portion of a hangar corner still stands to gain a measure of cover.

“No…what?” she answers.

“I swear there was someone at the window. The lower one on the left corner facing us.”

“I don’t see anything.” I hand her the binoculars. “I still don’t see anything, at any of the windows. Are you sure you saw something?” she asks, turning from the raised binoculars to look at me.

“I wouldn’t stake my life on it. I might yours, but not mine. But, yeah, I’m pretty sure I saw someone there, and I’m doubly sure I saw movement.”

I turn to see the pickup crossing the east-west runway and call Lynn, asking her to join us by the hangar and filling her in on what I saw. Even though it’s already been an eventful day, I decide to investigate further. I would think that any survivor would show themselves, although perhaps not with the way that the world is now. I don’t want to stick around much longer, but I’m curious now and want to help if someone needs it; we start forward.