John O'Brien - Reckoning

Stepping over the bodies, I hurriedly walk over to Bri and kneel. She’s covered with dust and splotches of night runner blood.

“Are you okay, Bri? Did they get you anywhere?” I ask, concerned that the blood might be hers.

“I’m fine, Dad. I just can’t get up,” she states.

“I love you so much.” I pull her tight against me, hugging her, not ever wanting to let go.

My relief so thoroughly takes hold of me that tears run down my cheek, unbidden. Hearing that first shriek, I thought I had lost my little girl.

“I love you too, Dad.”

Releasing her and looking down the hall at the numerous dead, I realize that ‘little girl’ may not fit her very well. However, she will always be that to me. I open up to see if there are any more night runners about and don’t sense any.

“Jack, are we clear?” Lynn calls from within the room.

“Yeah, we’re good,” I answer.

Lynn and the others enter the hall, staring at the bodies. I hear Henderson give a low whistle as he looks at the scene. I see Gonzalez look from Bri, to the bodies, and then back again, slowly shaking her head.

Recovering from disbelief and shock, the others emerge into the present. Henderson and Denton kneel in the hall, covering its length. Gonzalez, with a final look at Bri, turns and covers the room we entered from. Lynn weaves her way through the bodies toward Bri and me.

I move to the concrete slab pinning Bri’s leg as Lynn kneels beside her, asking if she’s okay. I grab the block and pull. It doesn’t move. Getting a firmer grip, I lift will all of my strength. The slab lifts mere inches.

“Can you pull your leg out?” I ask, straining.

Bri pulls and her leg slides out. Once she’s clear, I let go of the block and it falls back into place, grinding several bricks beneath it. I quickly check her leg to find that nothing feels broken.

Bri rolls from her sideways position and rises. Brushing herself off, she stoops to pick up an empty mag and places it in one of her vest pouches. She then bends to the night runner that was almost on top of her. Rolling it over, she retrieves a knife, its hilt protruding from just under the sternum. With a casual motion, she wipes it on the night runner’s clothing and slips into a sheath at her side. I watch this whole thing, along with Lynn, stunned.

“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” I say.

Finished, Bri rises and we begin making our way through the bodies to the door leading to the room. At the door, Bri looks over the bodies and down the hall, seeming to come out of some state of mind. Her face prior to this seemed devoid of any expression. Looking around, that changes to one of surprise.

“Holy shit! I did this?” she asks, dumbfounded.

“Yes you did, my little warrior princess,” Gonzalez says, turning toward Bri.

We make our way through the short hall and up the stairs. Entering into the daylight filling the building on the first level, we leave this nightmare behind. However, the lesson stays with me. Anything can happen at any time and I almost lost my daughter through carelessness. There was no need to go into a building only to satisfy a curiosity. I feel sick to my stomach thinking what might have been. And I’m still in a state of shock and awe over Bri’s handling of it. It’s just not real and feels as though I read the story in a book.

Careful with our footfalls, we arrive back at the front entrance. Glancing over my shoulder inside the building, I see the difference in the large field of debris. It has shifted, becoming lower and covers the hole we fell through as if it didn’t exist. I look toward the upper levels, hoping to catch a glimpse of whoever, or whatever, is or was in there. I neither see nor hear anything.

Entering the sunshine, the breeze blowing strong, still moaning as it gusts through the building, the tension and extreme emotions I carried through our ordeal, diminish. The lesson stays with me though. I put my arm around Bri once again and pull her close. She looks up and, through the grit still covering her face, and entangled in her hair, she smiles.

“So, what happened in there?” Gonzalez asks, brushing some of the grit from Bri’s hair after I reluctantly release her.

Bri tells about her becoming disoriented during the fall and not really knowing what was going on.

“I don’t really remember much. It just sort of happened. I remember being scared and then, I just sort of reacted without thinking about it, like I was watching someone else doing it,” Bri says.

“And the knife?” Lynn asks.

“Well, I remember running out of ammo. I couldn’t get to my handgun so I pulled out my knife. This one night runner tripped and fell down next to me. It smelled really bad. Anyway, it was struggling to get up. I remember feeling it paw at me so I stabbed it. It screamed in my ear and went limp. I tried to push it away thinking there were other night runners coming, but there was only silence.”

Hearing her story horrifies me and makes me sick to my stomach. I’m so happy that she’s okay, but I can’t shake the terror inside that I was the reason she had to go through that. And my daughter doing that, well, once again, it just seems like someone else is telling the story.

Retracing our steps across the airfield, we arrive back at the ramp. Walking toward the aircraft, passing by the wreckage that was once the mechanic hangar attached to the FBO, I notice something out of place underneath several twisted girders that have fallen. Detouring only slightly, I reach down and pluck a journal-sized notebook that is near a small pile of ash and place it in one of my cargo pockets.

We load up. We’ve been here considerably longer than I wanted, so I’m eager to be off. The sun is starting to cast long shadows, and I’d like to be back at Cabela’s before dark. It’s a lot different landing on a short, narrow dirt strip than having a wide, two mile length of pavement. And doing that at night adds an additional pucker factor. Plus, I’m worried about Robert and Greg. I know he’s capable of making it back but, as I well know, anything can happen at any time.

As I taxi out, while making sure to keep us on the pavement, I also keep an eye on the flat plains surrounding the airfield. While we were on the ground, it would have been easy for a motorized group to race to our position. I’m sure the other group knows what we did to their column, assuming it was theirs, and where we are.

With the gear tucked into the wheel wells and the flaps up, I turn us west. It’s about a three hour flight home and we climb to clear the peaks rising above forested ridgelines. Robert should be close to landing back at the compound or has already done so. It’s comforting to note that there isn’t an emergency locator beacon going off over the radio. That’s an automatic signal generated in the event of an aircraft accident, and the fact that I don’t hear one is a good indication that he made it.

Leveling off, I set the auto pilot. With the amount of adrenaline that coursed through her, Bri is looking a little tired. She has that faraway stare that isn’t focusing on anything in this reality.

“Bri, go lie down. I have this,” I say.

Her eyes refocus on the here and now. “What, Dad?”

“I said go lie down. I can take care of things here.”

Without saying anything, she unplugs from the console and removes her helmet. Small particles of grit fall out of her hair, some landing in her lap while others float gently in the air. She leaves to find a bunk.

Turning back to the flight controls, in my pocket I feel the hard shape of the journal that I picked up. With us chasing the sun west, I pull it out and look at it. The edges are scorched and the cover blackened. There isn’t any name or title that I can identify but that could easily have been burned away. Opening the cover with care, I see that several pages in the front have been charred, some of them completely gone. Leafing through the journal, most of the remaining pages have differing degrees of scorch marks. However, some writing is still visible.