Standing the Final Watch Read online

  Leading to this ramp the Army engineers built a road through the desert, complete with several bridges over shallow arroyos, with a crushed rock bed. His memories pictured the bridges being metal, or metal-reinforced wood, either one of which meant they could still be standing. If they could somehow find that road, and if the bridges had not collapsed, and if they could get to the plateau, it would at least give them a place to defend.

  So many ifs… but in his own quiet way Tompkins had always been a religious man who believed that if you had breath in your body and faith in God, then He could make the impossible possible. Miracles could happen; he had seen them.

  And that woman’s words kept haunting him. Could it be true? Could all the long years of tribulation and hardship have been leading to this day, this moment? God did move in mysterious ways.

  “Paul, Sig, listen,” he said into the walkie-talkie. “We’ve still got a chance. Somewhere around here there’s an old road built during maneuvers a long time ago. The turnoff should be up ahead on the right.”

  “How far ahead, Skip?” Paul said. “They’re sniffing our butts like coyotes hunting rabbits, and we’re not far out of rifle range.”

  “I don’t know how far it is, and I can’t guarantee I can give you a head’s up. Just be ready to turn off suddenly, find the road, and pray the bridges are standing.”

  “Bridges?”

  “Yeah, bridges. Stop talking and pray.”

  Ten minutes later, without warning, something in his brain connected and a flash of memory shot into focus. There, in the distance, a small plateau jutted from the ridgeline on the right.

  “That’s it!” he shouted, pointing. He picked up the W-T. “The road, look for the turnoff, it’s got to be close. Paul, Sig, get ready!”

  As the sun sank lower and the shadows lengthened, Tompkins strained to see anything that looked like a road. The terrain had no significant features aside from arroyos and small ditches; no definitive landmarks.

  Where was it? he kept asking himself. Where?

  “Skip, they’ve opened fire!” Hausser shouted.

  “There!” Tompkins yelled, pointing. “See it, John? Over there! Paul, Sig, we’re turning off. Floor it and pray like hell!”

  One after another the three trucks screeched off the old highway and onto a barely visible track never meant to last more than a week. Bouncing, jostling — items flew around inside the trucks. The terrified children in back screamed.

  “Are they following, Paul?” Tompkins said into the W-T.

  “No, Skip, not yet. They must think we’re about to circle the wagons and fight.”

  “Don’t slow down.”

  The truck slid, slammed into deep holes, and got caught in ruts, almost toppled twice, but somehow Thibodeaux kept it upright and moving forward. He coughed as dust clouded in the cabin. “Skip, I cain’t breathe.”

  Tompkins held the old rag up to Thibodeaux’s mouth, several times hitting his nose when the truck smacked into a hole. The gritty dust was getting into their eyes, too, but he could not do anything about it.

  “There’s a bridge, and it’s still up. Don’t slow down. Gun it, gun it.”

  “It might be all rotted!”

  “It doesn’t matter. If we can’t get across that arroyo we’re all dead anyway.”

  The bridge’s weathered gray wood and rusted metal supports did not give them confidence. They hit it doing forty. The timbers groaned, but the structure held. The other two trucks followed close behind.

  The road straightened and had fewer holes, and the second bridge rattled by under their tires, before their pursuers began coming into the desert after them. After that a long straightaway led to the ramp, giving them a chance to gain momentum for the long climb. The afternoon had darkened toward night and shadows covered their route, making it difficult to see where they were going. Nevertheless, Thibodeaux floored it and the ancient truck hit the ramp and rocketed upward, with the others close behind. All three bounced over the top edge, rocking on their springs.

  “Park at the far end, as far from the ramp as you can.”

  Before the truck had stopped moving, Tompkins was out and running for the others. “Everybody out! Hurry! Paul, take Derek and see if you can hold them off until we can set up a defense! Ladies, gather every rock you can and start building a wall right here — something we can hide behind! There should be some over there by the ridge wall. Monty, John, Sig, help the women. Let’s move!”

  Tompkins grabbed his rifle and trotted back to the ramp. Paul and Derek knelt on the edge, staring through gathering darkness at the more than two dozen vehicles surrounding their plateau. Scores of men dismounted from the trucks.

  “That’s a lot of Sevens, Skip,” Hausser said. “We sure pissed somebody off.”

  “Why ain’t they comin’ up?” Tandy said. “They’re just standing around.”

  Tompkins adjusted his binoculars, focusing to pick out details in the twilight. Despite the dim lighting he could see figures standing and talking, and a few more gathering wood. “They’re not coming today or tonight. They’re going to wait for dawn.”

  “That don’t make sense,” Tandy said.

  “They’re afraid of the dark,” Tompkins said, “remember? None of these guys like fighting at night. Derek, your eyes are better than mine or Paul’s, stay here and keep watch. Holler if something changes. Paul, let’s give them a hand with those rocks.”

  A prairie falcon glided into its nest overlooking the platform.

  In desperate haste they worked until sweat drenched their skin and clothes, even the children, and within half an hour a stone wall seventy-five feet long and two to three feet high stretched across the plateau. Although not much of a defensive position, it would at least turn small arms fire. Tompkins then allowed a short water break. They found two five-gallon cans in one of their stolen trucks, both full, and a third can a little less than half full. The men shared what little food they had, stale corn biscuits and jerked jackrabbit, and everyone ate in exhausted silence. Some of the children fell asleep. As they leaned against the wall chewing the tough strips of meat, the oldest woman found Tompkins and slumped down next to him.

  “Remember me, general? Mama Powell, from Roundup. You stayed with us once, what, ten years back?” She peered at the wall. “Not lookin’ too good, is it, general?”

  Now that he saw her up close, he did remember. “I’m a major, ma’am. No, I’m not gonna lie to you, I’ve been in better spots before. But we’re not dead yet. Me and the boys don’t look like much, I know, but we got a lot of fight left in us.”

  “We appreciate what you tried to do for us, whatever happens next.” She smiled. “You’re a good man, Major. It’s not your fault it didn’t work out.”

  “Thank you, Mama Powell, but don’t give up yet. I just don’t think God is gonna let us die out here like this.”

  She laughed, but it came out as ha! “God,” she said. “Maybe he listens to you, Major, ’cause he sure as hell ain’t been listening to me. Do you have any idea what those… those animals do to young girls? The God I grew up knowing doesn’t let that happen.”

  “Yes, ma’am, I know. I don’t pretend to understand how He goes about things, and I sure can’t see much godly about the last fifty years… I can’t say why I feel this way, I just do. He hasn’t forgotten us.”

  She reached over and stroked his cheek. No woman had touched him in… how many years? Fifty? And while the brush of her fingers held no sexual connotations, even simple kindness had become an alien experience.

  “You’re a dear man, Major. You remind me of my Charles. He always put himself before others. I thank you for what you tried to do for us.”

  With that, she pushed herself to her feet and walked off into the night.

  Chapter 10

  Men will volunteer to die before they will endure the pain of patience.

  Julius Caesar

  June 17th, 2344 hours

  The boredom was crushing. Ho
ward Wilson Dupree felt like someone had strapped an anvil between his shoulder blades.

  Twelve hour shifts. Two and a half days off every seven days for one year, then back to Long Sleep.

  In theory, Dupree monitored communications, except there were no communications, none whatsoever, and had not been for more than fifty years. The workload did not drive him close to madness, but the lack of a workload did. He could not even tinker with computers, or run audits, both his specialties. He spent his time fidgeting and praying for time to pass faster.

  Dupree sat for his entire shift in front of one small workstation, backed up by a communications complex so vast three of its sides and the ceiling were all lost in darkness. Ninety-nine percent of the base’s massive computer power lay silent, with only enough powered up to run essential machinery. His station had three monitors, with six-foot high banks of processors and scanners flanking him, and they spent twenty-four hours per day, seven days a week, scanning every possible frequency, listening for signs that humans still lived somewhere above.

  In the first years there had been television, radio, and even cell phone traffic, but as time passed it all died away, dwindling into sporadic broadcasts, until one day the airwaves went silent, a silence unbroken now for half a century.

  Twelve hours per day.

  Had they survived the extinction of humanity? Did other human beings still walk the Earth, or did they comprise the last people alive? The skeleton crew of the huge base debated those questions with the same fervor people once held for politics or sports, neither of which seemed to matter any more.

  A surprising percentage of the twenty-one currently-conscious crew members for that year thought mankind had, in fact, committed mass suicide. But Dupree found that idea ludicrous. Eight billion people could not all be dead, not even after so much time had passed; some would have survived, somewhere. But if he was right, those survivors avoided using the radio, phone, television, or any other device more sophisticated than two cans tied together with string.

  For Dupree, dwelling on their isolation seemed counter-productive. If mankind as a species no longer existed, then they all might as well wake up and go topside, because the whole purpose for the base would be gone. America could not be resurrected without first having Americans to resurrect it for. To do his job, he needed to believe that it still had a purpose, and so Dupree stood his long watches and played poker against the computer and tried to watch old movies about people and subjects that had long since vanished, but mostly he drank coffee and tried to stay awake until his shift ended. Every few days one of the standby helicopter pilots might wander in to chat, or the Officer of the Watch might drop in during his rounds to shoot the shit, but most of his watches Dupree stood alone.

  Not for much longer, though. One more week and his replacement would wake up, then a week of training him or her, and then a return to the blank bliss of deep sleep. Once a year twenty-one crew members would awaken to watch over operations and maintain the base for when, or if, the receivers ever picked up the activation code. The twenty-one on duty would then renew their own personal wait, knowing in deep sleep aging stopped. Somebody else could do their duty and endure the boredom for a year.

  For two more weeks, however, night and day did not matter. Under the mountain no cycle of dark and light differentiated time and no seasons passed. Circadian rhythms no longer regulated rest patterns and most of the crew depended on drugs to sleep.

  Standing and stretching, Dupree poured yet another cup of coffee and selected an energy bar from the food shelf stuck in the corner near the latrine. Maybe somebody would come by to kill some time. Maybe Captain Randall; Dupree had not seen him for a few days. But nobody did.

  The clock moved past 2359 hours. A new day began, same as the old day, same as every day.

  Chapter 11

  I have not seen the face of Pan, nor mocked the Dryad’s haste,

  But I have trailed a dark-eyed Man across a windy waste.

  I have not died as men may die, nor sin as men have sinned,

  But I have reached a misty sky upon a granite wind.

  Robert E. Howard, from ‘Recompense’

  June 18th, 0015 hours

  Natalie Merchant’s haunting voice echoed through the cavernous hangar deep below the surface as she slipped into the chorus for Because the Night. The music pumped through the powerful P.A. speakers and the bass rattled a system built for voice, not music. Echoes reverberated from the labyrinth of steel girders unseen overhead, but the poor acoustics did not bother the sole man present in the gigantic space. Captain Joe Randall remembered the video of Merchant fronting 10,000 Maniacs, backed by an entire string section, on Youtube in the Old Days, before The Collapse and his Long Sleep. Listening to it reminded him of a time gone and a world lost.

  Oblivion had long since swallowed every video artist and digested them in the bowels of history, as dead as the United States of America. Randall stood in a pool of light, one man in a huge black void, and keenly felt the loneliness of his job. As Merchant’s voiced faded the next song in the queue came to life as Neil Young scratched out the opening lines of My, My, Hey, Hey (Into the Black). Randall started singing along without looking up from his work. He sang more off key than Young, but that did not matter.

  The helicopter crews maintained their own aircraft, but aside from starting the engines periodically they never flew and hadn’t for half a century. Sometimes Randall’s co-pilot, Bunny Carlos, hung around for companionship, and sometimes either the pilot or co-pilot of the other ready chopper worked in their revetment, but not that day. The two Boeing AH-72 Comanche attack helicopters stood as the base’s Ready Response Team, and while the four air crewmen acted as their own ground crews, keeping them combat ready at all times, they did not work regular shifts, which let Randall indulge his passion for loud music. His fellow pilots did not share his taste for classic rock, or maximum volume, and he made fun of them for the music they preferred. Bunny was a jazz fanatic, for cripe’s sake.

  The AH-72 would forever be the final helicopter gunship developed by the United States Army. A direct successor to the AH-64 Apache, the nickname Comanche had been previously used for a cancelled project. Re-used on the AH-72, there had been P.C. controversy about the name and the Army officially changed it to the unpopular but safe Golden Eagle. Unofficially, however, it stayed the Comanche, and only official publications ever referred to it in any other way.

  And like all military aircraft since the first fragile monoplane appeared over the trenches of France in 1914, Randall’s AH-72 had a name. On either side of the fuselage, behind the cockpit doors, the image of a semi-topless blonde with improbably large breasts sat holding a long, phallic-shaped sword in both hands, with her naked legs wrapped around a missile. In bright yellow letters a foot high, the caption read Tank Girl.

  The Apache design reached its zenith with the AH-64G-1a, when the prototype designs for the AH-72 were well advanced. The Comanche was designed to have capabilities the Apache did not. Larger and faster, in fact the largest helicopter gunship ever built, with an anti-personnel ordnance package centered on the new fifty caliber Gatling-style miniguns, each Comanche could carry two pods with 2,000 rounds of ammunition. If they mounted the thirty millimeter gun pods instead, the Comanche could still carry two, with 1,400 rounds each, instead of one pod on the Apache. Up to 96 Dragonfire missiles could be mounted, depending on the gun package selected and whether it transported troops.

  In the bay eight fully armed soldiers could be carried. Various other ordnance packages were available, including air-to-air missiles, side-firing fifty caliber machine guns mounted on stands for manual use, and a variety of specific purpose packages, such as grenade throwers and anti-missile defenses. Substantial power plant upgrades pushed top speed for the Comanche to over two hundred knots.

  Randall cleaned and field stripped the fifty caliber gun pods for the second time that shift, despite the hangar environment being virtually dust free. Powerful
filters purified the air to minimize accumulation of dirt on critical parts. Randall took no chances, however, that when the time came and he squeezed the firing trigger his guns would fail to spew two thousand rounds per minute onto the target. Tomorrow he would work on the thirty millimeters, although he doubted they would find many targets that justified expending the massive cannon rounds. Then he would inspect the Dragonfire missiles, the engine, cockpit panels, fuel stability, rotors, and anything else he could think to check.

  Randall knew they would be called into action soon. He could not explain how he knew it; he just did. He even had the music picked out for his first attack run on the enemy. A lot of the base thought the activation signal would never come in, but Randall felt sure that it would, and soon. In the meantime nothing would keep him from getting his massive killing machine ready.

  If Operation Overtime received the activation signal during Captain Benjamin Franklin Walling’s tour of duty, he would become Officer Commanding until the base CO could wake up and take over. He felt overwhelmed knowing that, if it happened, on his shoulders and his alone would rest sole responsibility for activation of every aspect of the titanic base, from powering up the unused hydroponic farms deep beneath ground level, to ensuring the ready weapons systems could go into action on a moment’s notice.

  More than 700 miles of tunnels, halls, high-speed rail passages, walkways, and footpaths, not to mention the huge hangar decks, crew quarters, Long Sleep caverns, nooks, crannies, and assorted unknown spaces, and everything in them, were all his personal cross to bear. No matter what problems cropped up, if anything went wrong, anywhere, solving the issue depended on him and no one else.