“Mom?” Justin asked.
BT (in fact, everyone save Trip) knew that one-word question was infused with much more meaning. He might as well have said, “Mom, he’s dead, we should get going.”
“He’s alive. I won’t risk anybody’s lives going in, but dammit, we are going to be out here when he comes.”
Justin glanced over to Gary who looked like he wanted to be anywhere but here.
“We’re not going in? Why’d I get a ticket then?” Trip asked, ripping out a handful of lint from his pocket and shaking it around. Pieces of it fluttered to the ground.
Tracy turned, her eyes glistening. She let go of her boys’ hands and headed back to the car. BT grabbed Justin before he could follow.
“She just needs to be alone for a while.”
“BT, we need to get out of here. When those zombies finish…” Justin gulped when he realized exactly what he was saying.
“I know, boy, I know, but your mom needs a minute to say her final peace.”
Justin hugged the big man. “BT, he died for me. He died trying to find a cure for me, how am I ever going to live with that?”
“Proudly. You will live proudly with the fact that your father loved you enough to sacrifice his life to save yours. Something he would do a thousand times if he had to. He has handed you…both of us…a second chance, and it’s what we do with it now that will honor him. You hold your head high. Just remember, there isn’t anything that man would not have done for any one of us. Even Trip for some strange reason.”
“Thank you.” Justin detached himself from BT, wiped his eyes and walked away a few steps to be somewhere more private with his thoughts.
“You okay?” BT was looking at Travis who was staring steely-eyed at the building.
“I’m going to kill them all,” he said before turning away.
A chill ran up BT’s spine. “I believe you.” Something in the tone of his voice convinced him.
“I believe him, too.” Dennis said after he watched Travis walk away. “I’ve seen that same damned look on his father, but it was on the football field. Identical results though.”
BT nodded, the only one that seemed completely unaffected by the current events was Henry. He would alternate between lying down and sitting up. Occasionally he would let out a bark-like sound. Sometimes his tail would wag, at other points, his fur would bristle and his ears would pull back, and always without fail he kept a vigil on that building.
“Not gonna lie, dog, you creep me out a little sometimes. Is Mike the dog-whisperer, or are you the human-whisperer?” BT asked him as he stroked the dog’s massive head and then moved on to scratch the sweet spot on his chest. “I wish I could see what you do.” Henry promptly sneezed all over BT’s forearm in response. “Thank you for that.”
BT would wait as long as it took for Tracy to come to the realization that Mike was gone. He would not be the one that took that from her, unless of course they were in danger, then he’d suffer the consequences if need be. He sat down next to Henry and draped his arm over the dog. His butt had no sooner made contact with the ground than it rumbled.
“Really, dog? You wait until I sit down to do that? Come on, man, I thought we had some sort of deal in place?” BT started scooting away, knowing that the toxic emissions were mere moments from assailing his nostrils.
“Tanks!” Travis shouted.
“I don’t know if I should feel relieved that it’s tanks and not you,” BT said as he started to rise. Dennis stuck a hand out and helped him up.
“Thank you,” BT told him.
“Are they coming to help?” The look in Tracy’s eyes was breaking BT’s heart.
Even if they were, he figured they were too late to change the outcome. A squadron of twelve tanks aligned themselves in a loose arc to the northwest of the facility. Joseph and a few of his officers were sitting atop specially trained horses on top of a small hill overlooking everything. BT noted they were closer to their group than to the tanks. He, and those around him, stepped back as they felt the heavy percussions even from their distant vantage point.
“NO!” Tracy and Trip screamed as they watched rounds impact the building.
“I had front row center.” Trip fell to his knees, his head in his hands.
Tracy jumped into the car. BT was slow to react and might not have made it in before she raced off if not for the fact that she had to go around Trip.
“At least he’s finally good for something,” BT muttered as he just about dove into the passenger’s seat. Tracy didn’t look at him, nor say anything as she barreled down the road. BT struggled for long seconds attempting to shut his door. He’d just pulled it closed as she drove off road, making a straight line for Joseph and his men. BT had one hand on the roof of the car, the other on the door. He was doing his best to not be thrown around like a beach ball. The car was making loud thumps as she seemed to continually bottom it out or hit a protruding rock.
BT thought about warning her in regards to destroying the car, but he knew she wouldn’t care. The horses whinnied and danced about as the car headed straight for them. BT noticed that one of Joseph’s men was aiming a rifle at them. He also saw that Joseph told him to stand down or something along those lines, because the man reluctantly put the weapon down. Then the big man witnessed something he still had a difficult time believing happened and that he’d actually seen it. Tracy had to be doing seventy miles an hour over uneven terrain—the car, more times than not, air bound. She had turned the wheel hard to the right whilst simultaneously slamming on the brakes. BT thought they were in serious danger of overturning a few times if the g-forces he was feeling were any indication.
Without missing a beat, the car still slightly sliding, she slammed it into park, opened the door and stepped out, striding toward Joseph. It was not each individual event that had blown BT’s mind; it was the fluidity in which she had performed those actions. It was smooth and seamless. He, however, was still bouncing around like an epileptic on Red Bull. Tracy was already shouting at Joseph while BT was having a difficult time finding the door handle.
“Stop those tanks from firing!” Tracy shouted. She could be heard clearly even though the explosions in the background were deafening.
“I will not,” Joseph said as he tried to calm his horse.
The animal had not seemed all that disturbed by the tanks, but rather from the waif of a woman that was yelling at its rider. Joseph was pulling on the bridle as the horse danced nervously.
“My husband is in there!”
“Even if your husband was alive, which I do not believe is possible, this is much bigger than he is. If he were even half the man you convinced me that he has become, he’d understand this needs to be done. The Demense Group, along with the zombies we sent in there, must be pummeled out of existence.”
“I know the man,” BT bellowed as he got free from the car, something he hoped Tracy had damaged beyond repair. If he never had to get in a car piloted by her again, that would be too soon. “Yes, he would understand why you were doing what you were doing, but no, he would not appreciate you bombing him. I think it’s safe to say I can guarantee that.”
“It matters little now.” Joseph’s face looked like a cross between pained and consternated that he was being bothered during his biggest victory over the forces that he perceived to be evil.
“My husband is a good man! You cannot end his chance of escaping like this!”
Joseph’s horse whinnied and reared back from an explosion that rivaled all the others combined.
“Cease fire! Cease fire!” Joseph yelled into his radio. Chunks of debris were still raining down when they got their first glimpse of the crater that used to house the Demense Group.
“Ammo supply or fuel, tough to say,” one of Joseph’s men stated before the commander could ask what had caused the massive explosion.
It looked like a meteor impact respite with sloped crater walls ringed by black smoking material.
?
??I’m sorry,” Joseph told Tracy before he turned his horse around and rode away.
Tracy stared at his back for a moment before turning to the wreckage before them. BT walked over and wrapped his arm around her waist. She leaned into him. Neither said a word. Even if Mike had somehow found a safe haven within the tempest, he could not have avoided the destruction of the gigantic detonation.
“We have to go down there.” She looked up at BT and he nodded. Although the chances of finding anything left of her husband…his friend…were beyond imaginably slim.
Joseph sent men to bring a reluctant Tracy and BT back to where the others had set up camp. There was more than one relieved face when they returned.
It was more than twelve hours before the fires abated enough that they could begin to think of going down to the crater. By then, the dark had settled over the area and it would be entirely too dangerous to attempt what, ultimately, was merely a body retrieval. None of them could see any sense in the risk of adding to the travesty, except Trip, who was now convinced they were the first men to step foot on the moon.
“I don’t even remember the launch,” he kept saying around the somber encampment. “You’d think that I would remember.”
“I’d like to launch his ass to the moon,” BT grumbled. “Sorry,” he muttered even lower when he realized Stephanie was looking at him.
“Trip, honey, why don’t we get some sleep? It’s going to be a long day tomorrow.”
“Why is it going to be longer? Are we going to approach the speed of light which will elongate the time/space continuum?” Everyone around the small fire was staring at him, no one said anything so he continued. “Or is it going to be made from taffy?”
“Thought we’d lost Trip for a second,” Gary said. It was the first words he’d spoken in a long while. He’d been looking over at the hole in the ground where his brother’s last known whereabouts had been. “This can’t be it,” he said as Tracy had grabbed his arm.
She desperately wanted to believe him. However, it was difficult to do so when looking at those ruins.
Tracy awoke the following morning with Trip leaning over her, his face not more than a handful of inches away from hers. His eyes were open wide and deeply bloodshot.
“Good morning, Trip.” She hadn’t moved.
“Is it morning already?”
“Umm, Trip, how long have you been like this?”
“Five, six hours maybe.” He was still leaning close.
“You’ve been standing over me like this for five or six hours? What in the world for?” She was trying to sit up, but Trip wouldn’t move.
“Bennie said Ponch is alright.”
“Who is Bennie, Trip?” Tracy didn’t think grasping onto the straw that Trip was showing her was in her best interest, but she couldn’t help it.
“The dude on the jet.”
Tracy finally maneuvered around so she was able to sit all the way up. Trip was still staring where her head had been. “Whoa, how’d you do that?” he asked when he realized she was next to him.
“Oh, dear God, I should just walk away now.” Tracy was shaking her head. “I don’t know of any Bennie on a jet, Trip.”
“Bennie and the Jets? Is he talking about Elton John?” BT had rolled over and was now watching. “Don’t listen to a damned thing he has to say, Tracy.”
“You like Elton John, BT?” Gary asked. “Me too.”
“Just because I know a song doesn’t mean I like it, Gary. Tracy, move away from him!”
Trip was leaning over still, but his head was turned so that he could look at Tracy. “I’m telling you, Bennie said Ponch was fine and so was his friend, Stomach.”
“See. Don’t listen to him, he’s making no sense.” BT was slowly getting up to physically move Trip away.
“Who is Stomach?” Tracy asked, searching Trip’s eyes for some sort of sign that there was sanity hidden somewhere deep in them.
“You know. His friend, Tummy.”
BT had gripped Trip’s shoulders. He was about to lift him off the ground and give him that moon launch Trip had missed.
“Wait, BT.”
“He’s not just a burned-out hippie, Tracy, he’s scorched earth. No matter how much you want to believe, you can’t. He probably doesn’t even know what he’s talking about.”
“Who is his friend, Tummy?” Tracy asked.
“Does he mean Tommy?” Travis asked.
Tracy gasped. “Could he really mean Tommy? Could he have made it?”
“Tracy, I bet he thinks we’re still in the snow-plow.”
“Tour bus,” Trip corrected him.
Tracy was now standing, looking over towards the smoking desolation.
“Whoa, how does she keep doing that?” Trip was now standing. “Yeah. Ponch, Stomach, the Butcher’s son and a Yeti made it out.”
“Oh for the love of…” BT threw his hands up in the air and stormed off.
“Mom?” Travis asked.
“I don’t know, but we’re going to find out.”
Tracy, and the rest, headed for the roadway. They hadn’t gone more than a few hundred yards when they heard the approach of trucks. They stopped when they reached the group.
“Hop on,” Joseph said from the passenger seat of one of those trucks.
Tracy couldn’t decide if she wanted to swear at him or thank him so she did neither as she went to the rear and climbed in, followed shortly by the rest. Nobody said much as the truck was already half filled with Illuminati soldiers; plus, the noise of the large diesel engine made communication difficult anyway. The truck hadn’t even completely stopped when Tracy jumped out.
“Mom, you’re going to hurt yourself that way,” Travis said as he followed.
“She’ll be fine, apparently she practices this a lot,” BT said as he exited.
Tracy ran to the lip of a hole that plunged more than a hundred feet down. Smoke still smoldered in a dozen places along the hundred-yard expanse. A man with a Geiger counter walked around the edge holding his sensor over the lip.
“There was the potential for this to have been caused by some sort of nuclear explosion, and you didn’t bother to tell us?” Dennis was livid.
“The probability was low,” Joseph said evenly.
“Why the test then?”
“Can never be too careful.”
“Yes you can, we could have slept further away.”
“We’ve been monitoring throughout the night. There is no fallout that we can detect.”
“Does that mean there is fallout you can’t detect?” BT asked. “And if my little friend here is concerned, so am I!”
“We’re friends now?” Dennis asked. “And I’m not little.”
“United front,” BT told him.
“Be with your friend’s wife. I think she needs the both of you more than I need to be questioned right now.”
BT and Dennis turned to see Tracy had tears falling from her face. Joseph was ordering his men to make sure none of the zombies had survived. Not that it could even be possible. Twisted steel and chunks of concrete larger than a semi were at the bottom of that pit of despair. Tracy walked around the entire outer lip looking for anything that resembled a place where someone could have escaped. Then she did it again.
“We need to go down there,” she said when she got back from her second go around.
“You’re kidding, right?” Justin asked.
“I mostly certainly am not,” she said indignantly.
“Tracy, the walls are nearly vertical, and there are things you can impale yourself on the entire way down.” BT was trying to talk some sense into her.
Just then, she saw Joseph approaching. “What do you want?” Tracy lashed out. “Haven’t you already done enough?”
“I couldn’t help but hear you talking,” he said, trying to be as polite as possible.
“This is awesome. I didn’t think sound could travel on the moon…without atmosphere, I mean,” Trip declared.
“And
, yet, we can talk,” Travis said sarcastically.
“That’s weird too,” Trip answered.
Stephanie looked embarrassed as she led Trip away to a different area.
“I’d just like to offer my sincerest condolences for your loss. I cannot, however, allow you to go down there. It is entirely too dangerous. I’m sending some men down on ropes in a few minutes. I have told them to let me know if they hear anything.”
BT watched as Tracy’s eyes narrowed and her lips clamped tight. She’d seen Mike do enough boneheaded things to earn that look. Carnage was immediately about to follow. “Justin, Travis, help me with your mom.” The boys hesitated moving in, when they saw the look she was directing at Joseph.
“I don’t want to get involved,” Travis said as he prepared to bolt.
“Get your ass over here, boy!”
Travis was weighing his options on who was scarier; BT or his mom. “Sorry, BT. You and Justin are on your own.” With that, he left to seek out his uncle, who he hoped could shield him from the coming storm.
Three of Joseph’s men got into special safety harnesses that attached to heavy climbing ropes. These were tied off to a trailer hitch on three separate trucks. The men cautiously made their way down the side, slowly crawling among the wreckage.
“What’s taking them so long?” Tracy was pacing around nervously.
“It’s dangerous, Mom,” Justin told her.
She hurrumphed and crossed her arms. “I could have done it faster,” she said as the men touched down on the bottom.
She’d apparently said it loud enough that they heard her as one of them looked up. He didn’t do it, but BT was pretty sure he wanted to flip her the bird or tell her ass to give it a try.
If Tracy thought their descent down was slow, then the pace they were walking across the debris was about to set her over the figurative edge. “I’ve seen sloths riding turtles move faster!”
“Listen, lady, you have no idea how dangerous it is down here. Every time you step, something moves! So…me and my team would appreciate it if you would keep your thoughts to yourself!”
“That will be enough, Wilkins,” Joseph told his man.
“Yes, sir,” he answered, glowering a little longer at Tracy before he turned away.