Though Harry wished Tyler would play with kids his own age, a teenager was a far cry from an old man.
After checking on him the last time, Harry had returned to the fire hall and helped everyone clean up and get things ready for breakfast.
Lana was lingering there, looking as if she were searching for a reason not to leave. Harry felt bad for her. She certainly was torn between the love of her husband and the love of her country.
Harry wasn’t really one for giving advice, but he did tell her, that he himself was a married for a long time and she just needed to find Ben and talk to him.
She nodded, thanked Harry and said she needed to sweep the floors and then she’d deal with it.
Harry guessed she was working it out in her mind.
Tired, Harry just wanted to go grab Tyler and head back to George’s to get some sleep.
He liked walking back when it was dark; there wasn’t any need for that darting in and out. Harry didn’t see the point in the daylight darting. Staying inside, yes, but surely a person would hear a plane long before they were spotted by it.
George challenged his argument against the need for daylight darting with his Satellite theory. He believed that they could be using satellites to watch them..
Harry doubted that.
He collected Tyler and the box and was just getting ready to leave The Tap when it sounded.
It was the alarm by the roof watchers. It wasn’t a buzz or blaring alarm; it was them barking like dogs.
That was their warning signal if planes were coming.
If planes came, they were to go immediately below and get hunkered down.
But then the barking stopped. It stopped quickly as the sounds of planes drew nearer.
The planes were loud and by the noise they made, there were a lot of them.
It was a simple yell of “‘Holy shit! Everyone! Come look!’ that caused Harry to stop heading toward the basement and pause to look around.
People ran to the doors.
Holding, Tyler’s hand, so did Harry.
Ben had just started to doze off. He had a couple drinks, he was tired and his mind was racing. But it wasn’t the odd barking that woke him; it was the sound of planes.
Tons of planes.
It rattled and frightened him. Immediately, Ben’s mind went to the beach house and the experience they had endured there.
Then Ben panicked.
Lana.
He didn’t think of himself or his safety, he thought of Lana.
She wasn’t there in the science room so she had to still be at the fire hall so Ben took off. He had only one thought in mind.
Find his wife.
When he got to the street, he saw everyone just standing peering up at the sky as the planes flew overhead.
Ben didn’t look to the planes, he looked for his wife. He spotted her by the fire hall door where she too was gazing up.
“Lana!” he called to her.
“Ben.” She smiled.
He rushed to her. “What are you doing? What’s everyone doing?” he asked. “Remember the last time. We were nearly killed.”
“This isn’t the same,” she said and then pointed to the sky. “Look.”
“Harry?” In one arm he clutched the box and his hand held Harry’s. “What’s going on?”
“Well I’ll be damned,” Harry said as he peered up at the morning sky. The sun had just caused a break in the darkness, and crossing through the barely lit sky were hundreds upon hundreds of planes, many more than he had seen that day back at his house.
“Are they gonna shoot?” Tyler asked.
“No. At least not at us, Tyler. Unreal,” Harry said with awe. “I was starting to worry, you know. Wonder.”
“Are they our planes?” Tyler asked.
“No, but close enough,” Harry replied. “It’s Her Majesty’s Royal Air Force. My guess, they’re coming from the east. Our guys are coming from the west. And all those guys in the middle…” Harry looked down to Tyler. “They’re in trouble.”
“But, Harry… aren’t we in the middle, too?”
“Yeah,” Harry peered up, watching the waves of planes. He clutched Tyler’s hand a little tighter. “I suppose we are.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
They shared a small room, maybe ten by ten, just off the kitchen, and Foster and Judith made the best of it. He slept on a blanket and old mattress on the floor, and gave Judith the cot.
Judith was constantly cleaning up, claiming that the reason she and Foster avoided that cold that was passed around was because she kept the room germ free.
Liquid sanitizer was plentiful for some reason and Judith took advantage of that.
She was seeing much better, more shapes and sizes and even managed to step over Foster as he lay on the floor on his stomach going through his knapsack. Just the day before, she had stepped on him twice.
He was supposed to be writing in his journal. Judith had him writing to keep up his penmanship and literary skills. She made him read and then write a paragraph. All while she cleaned around him, stepping over him as she did.
“April 25.” Foster lifted the ticket to the train. “I forgot I had this in the front pocket of my book bag.”
“You’re supposed to be working,” she said. “You promised. You can go help the men, but first you study.”
“I know. I was pausing to go through my book bag and found it.”
“Found what?”
“My train ticket,” Foster said. “The date is on there. The day it all happened was April 25.”
“Oh, wow. Angeline just said this morning it was May 10. That’s over two weeks. My poor daughter is probably worried sick.”
“Do you think she thinks you were killed?” Foster asked.
“That’s a hell of thing to say.”
“Do you though?”
“Does she have me written off?” Judith shrugged. “Probably does. I would.” At that second, she hunched down and let out a scream. There was an explosion of some sort. It didn’t sound like it was so much above them, but nearby, near enough and big enough to cause dust to fall.
Foster’s whole body tensed. The gunfire was muffled by the walls of the bunker and only heard when they got close to the garages. It was something they could ignore.
But the random explosions were scary; there was no getting used to them.
There was another one and then they stopped. Judith felt her way to the cot and sat down. “I don’t know that I’ll ever get used to those.”
“Maybe it’s not a bad thing,” Foster said. “Maybe it means things will be over soon.”
“Let’s hope, Jimmy, because I’m running out of things to clean in here.” She tried to joke, making light of the situation. After all, they were stuck below. Because of the war raging above them, no one had left the bunker for days.
Cabin fever was starting to kick in a bit for everyone and Judith exhibited hers in the form of cleaning.
Standing, she grabbed the liquid sanitizer and the rag. She squeezed the sanitizer into the cloth using her thumb to feel and judge the amount. Feeling her way, Judith walked toward the door. Maybe the doorknob needed cleaned again. Just as she did that, two more rapid explosions rang out.
For a moment, Judith didn’t move. She couldn’t.
Every day there were more explosions. Every day they were closer. Judith wanted to believe that was a good thing, but something inside of her was just plain scared to death that it meant things were not going well.
To make matters worse, they were sheltered not only by the walls of the bunker, but from the world as well. There was no news, no radio.
There was no means of knowing who was exploding what.
All the way around, they were in the dark.
“There!” Ben peered through the binoculars and then lowered them and pointed, handing them to Rick as they stood on the roof of a town building.