Shatterbones Read online

  He knows from his work with military and security personnel that the most difficult aspect of an extraction is the person being removed from danger. Too often the target being rescued would delay their movement by asking ridiculous questions or even fighting the rescuers out of shock or an overinflated sense of self-importance. If these men are here to get him, something is terribly wrong, and he isn’t going to waste precious time demanding answers he knows he won’t get until he is in relative safety.

  He keeps his mouth shut as they run down the eight flights of stairs of the Grand Hyatt building and move along at the running pace the men who came to get him established. They push him into an open back door of one of the three black SUVs waiting on the sidewalk in front of the building.

  As the vehicles begin to speed away, the secretary finally asks to be filled in by one of the men peering out the window next to him.

  “What’s going on? Is there just a threat or has there been an attack?”

  “It’s some kind of attack,” the man says without turning to look at Secretary Thomas.

  Before he has time to string another question together, the SUV skids to a halt, throwing the passengers forward.

  “It’s gonna hit!” the driver yells, pointing out the windshield.

  The first SUV continues speeding along the road unaware of the danger approaching them. Spinning wildly, an airliner missing one wing crashes into a skyscraper in front of them and explodes. The debris remnants of the plane and building continue their destructive trajectory crashing through two other buildings and raining wreckage onto the roadway below.

  Smoke from the burning tires of the first vehicle draw out behind it as it successfully breaks before ramming into the rubble.

  “Do we know who’s responsible for this attack yet?” Thomas yells as the SUV speeds backward and turns down a side street to head around the blocked area.

  “No one is responsible,” the man yells back to him, still not taking his eyes away from the window.

  “If you knew terrorists were going to attack Denver, you must know who is doing it!”

  “It’s not terrorism and it’s not just Denver.” Finally turning away from the window, the secretary sees a look on the man’s face he last remembered seeing in Vietnam. This man is wired like he is on the losing side of a firefight. “This is happening everywhere. Not just here in the U.S. but all over the world.”

  The vehicle swerves around some abandoned wrecked cars in the road, and the area of tall buildings gives way to a residential neighborhood. The area of houses is filled with more destruction like what the plane crash had caused. Finally taking closer notice of the world outside, the secretary witnesses bodies scattered along the sidewalks and roadways as well.

  In front of them, a woman carrying a baby runs out of a house and into the street before the front of the two-story dwelling explodes out behind her. The woman didn’t make it far enough and is knocked down by some of the debris from the house. She is alive, but injured and trying to move away from the creature that destroyed her home.

  She is followed by what looks like a movie-set monster nearly as tall as the house it broke through. The behemoth creature is swinging its arms and swatting at a pale white naked woman holding onto its head and scratching at its eyes. Three other naked albino-looking people appear from the sides of the house and begin beating the creature, two use their fists and one is swinging at the monster with what looks like a small tree.

  “What the hell is going on out there?” Secretary Thomas screams in disbelief at the scene unfolding before him.

  The behemoth makes too much progress, and in its feverish defense against the albino nudists, it swings its arm and impacts the woman and child, knocking them several yards away where they land without further movement.

  The pale woman riding the beast screams when she sees the escaping woman fall. She jumps down and rips a stop sign out of the ground, slamming the still-connected concrete base into the side of the behemoth’s head. The concrete ball shatters on impact and causes the behemoth to stumble slightly. The woman turns her sign post weapon, takes the rigid metal pole, and shoves the end through the beast’s skull. It falls to the street in front of the SUV and makes the ground shudder when it hits.

  The pale lady makes an impossible leap to the woman and child that were hit and she picks them up into her arms. The screaming cry she utters over and over send chills down the secretary’s back, and even though his military mind is able to remain neutral to what has transpired before him, the painful cry impacts him each time she yells it through her tears. “Mama!”

  “Mr. Secretary, we have to go.” His body shakes.

  “Mama!”

  “Mr. Secretary, you need to get up.”

  “Mama!”

  “Mr. Secretary.”

  James Thomas opens his eyes to a man in an Air Force uniform.

  “Secretary Thomas, you’re needed in the front room. We have information from President Connelly’s staff.”

  *

  “I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

  “Mr. President, what is our first course of action?”

  “Never in my life did I believe anyone would call me President Thomas and never have I wanted this position. As the Secretary of Defense, I thought I had achieved the greatest calling of my life. I had the honor of protecting and defending our fellow citizens with the greatest military might the world has ever seen. Today, I see that might is useless. The equipment and structure we so desperately relied on is completely ineffective against our current enemy. In fact, I hesitate to use the word enemy at all and feel instead I should use the proper term for these mutants that they deserve.”

  “What is that, sir?”

  “Citizens.”

  Expressions of shock and concern etch themselves on the faces of those gathered around their new leader. This man was the secretary of defense, the leading military man of the nation. What most were expecting was a declaration of how they would fight back and win against the mutants that have destroyed their nation and the world.

  “Sir, I don’t understand. How are we going to win? What are we going to do to fight back?”

  James Thomas is an intimidating man. He stands six feet two inches, has a barrel chest, and arms the size of most men’s legs. His expression when soft can be described only as stern. He rose to his rank not through the usual political kowtowing modern generals have to perform, but through action on the battlefield and leading his men to victory when their base in the Middle East was overrun by superior numbers.

  His popularity and respect as a man that could get the job done led him to his positions of increased rank and his performance kept him there. This man of action, the people’s hope of turning the tide against this new menace wants to call the monsters they are fighting “citizens.”

  “You heard me give the Oath of Office just now, correct?” The pause is greeted by nods from the confused group. “I would like any one of you to explain to me what our Constitution is supposed to protect. What is it designed to defend?

  “Anyone?”

  “The nation.” “The country.” “The land.” are all offered in response.

  “The constitution is there to protect the people. Our people. You may not like what I am going to say, but in my escape from Denver, I experienced these creatures first hand. These mutants were only children yesterday, and from all the reports I have heard, in many ways, they still are children.”

  “But we think they can read minds, sir! They will be able to absorb other people’s experiences…”

  “They can read our minds. Exactly! I would like any of you to tell me how we can successfully fight an opponent that can read our minds. An opponent who so far has shown no weakness to our weapons of war. And more than that, let us say we find a way to kill them and win, what then?
Do we wait the next fifty to sixty years until the remnants of humanity dies out? Do we destroy these mutants and watch the human race go into extinction?

  “And what of this nation? How does our government survive if there are no more children? Who will obey the laws or care about the next day if people understand that there is no hope for a future? I made an oath to protect and defend the U.S. Constitution and implied in that oath is the necessity that there is someone left to govern. Someone must be alive to govern or our way of life is truly at an end.

  “Tonight at seven, I will address the nation the way former President Connelly advised he would. In that address, I will announce our surrender and advise our non-mutated citizens to attempt communicating with the mutant leadership of their area in order to come to some type of agreement that will keep everyone alive.”

  “How can you do this? You lead your men to victory! How can you just give up?”

  “I am not giving up! I kept my men alive against an enemy that wanted us dead. These children do not want us dead. They didn’t seek us out to attack us, they defended their territory when Connelly sent missiles and flamethrowers at them.”

  “But they killed millions of humans yesterday, and today they killed President Connelly.”

  “I know damn well what they’ve done. I also know what I’ve been told by our scientists. They say the attacks by the mutants are an uncontrolled response to their accelerated growth. These mutants, at least the pale white ones, have not continued with a wholesale slaughter of humanity which we all know they are perfectly capable of accomplishing.

  “Yes, somehow they found the president who was several hundred miles away from the attack zone and killed him and that should be a warning to us against further acts of aggression. Tell me, have there been any further attacks by the mutants from the battle zone?”

  “No, sir.”

  “And around the nation, has there been the same level of violence in the last six hours as there was during the initial outbreak? The answer is no. If we go into areas to try and clear them, the mutants will know, and while we may possibly find a way to kill some of them, we cannot win a war against an army that can kill four thousand soldiers with twenty men.

  “What I want to do now is try to end the fighting and save as many American lives as possible. Is that understood?”

  One of the men walks out of the room and slams the door. The others remain and wait for the president to continue.

  “I want as much information as we have on what is happening before I go on air tonight. Check everything and give it to me. I want our satellites scouring the cities and towns for any images they can get. Send up every drone we have available. If the crowds of people gathered are being harmed or killed, we take a different approach, but right now, I am taking the mutant Amanda’s word that they are protecting the people.

  “If they are protecting them, find out what they are being protected from. We didn’t know any of them could fly before attacking D.C. and now we know there are tall giants and troll-looking types as well. There may be other types of mutations out there that we don’t know about and we need to know everything.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Dr. Usachova

  Massachusetts

  The cold artificial wind from the air conditioner kicks on with the timer, causing shivers to wake Dr. Usachova from her hard floor lumbering spot. Every part of her aches from sleeping on the cold tile. Scanning her immediate hiding place under the lab table is useless in the dark room and provides one clue to her safety. Most rooms and especially the labs like the one she is in are run on motion detecting lights to save on electricity, so outside of her barred hiding place, there has been no movement in the room for at least five minutes.

  While comforting to some extent, she knows that there could be someone on the other side of the overturned table in front of her that is just sleeping the way she was or worse, waiting and remaining still. She also has to deal with exposing her own location to others in the building on this floor once she moves from her spot and the lights in the lab flicker to life. There is no way for her to move across the room at any level and not trigger them to come on.

  Searching with her eyes through the crack between the table top above her and the one blocking her access to the room and providing her refuge, she wonders, When did I fall asleep? Her head is aching from the impact against the wall when Dr. Pashmun shoved her under the desk to safety. I don’t have my phone or I could check the time. It could be day or night outside, and she wouldn’t know from this room without a clock. The labs are largely in sub-levels under the building, and while this one is on the main floor, it is still completely shielded from the outside.

  Taking a few deep breaths to build her resolve, she places her hands against the table preparing to shove her way to freedom. Her palms splay flat on the cold stainless steel table top in front of her, and she draws them back without giving the push she desires so greatly to make. Instead, she feels around on the floor and picks up a clipboard and some papers. Slowly, she slides one of the sheets through the opening and waves it back and forth between her fingers until the lights click on.

  For a few seconds, there is only the continued sound of air being pushed through the vents overhead and the dull irritating buzz of the florescent bulbs as they warm to life. Then there is a distant, startling crash followed by the repeated thudding sound of impact against the reinforced window to the room she is in. The paper she released when she pulled her fingers back to safety floats to the ground and Dr. Usachova withdraws, pulling herself as tightly as possible into one corner of her impossibly small prison. Her legs are pulled to her chest, and her face is pressed into her knees while she wishes over and over the Baba Yaga would go away.

  Seconds later but what seems like an eternity, the pounding on the window stops and a new sound echoes through the building. Voices. People are talking. Oh my God! It must be the morning lab workers coming in for their shift. Unable to find the will to move from her protected spot to yell a warning, the doctor squeezes her eyes shut and presses her hands to her ears to shield her mind from enduring more screams that are bound to come.

  Even with her hands planted fiercely and painfully hard against her ears, the echoing scream of Baba Yaga’s latest victim flows through the cracks between her fingers and assaults her eardrums. The screaming is followed by the loud and repeated popping sound of gunfire and the doctor opens her eyes and shoves hard against the table blocking her way, screaming for help the whole time.

  “In here! I’m in here! Please help me!”

  Tears burst from her eyes when she sees heavily armed men in black vests and helmets walk up to the lab window and scan the area. “We’re looking for Dr. Usachova. Have you seen him?” the head soldier asks, not seeming to care if she is all right.

  “I am Dr. Usachova. Doctor Tatyana Usachova.” You would have known that if you understood Russian last names, she thinks to herself, angry that people still assume she is a man when looking for her. “Are you going to get me out of here?”

  “First, you need to prove who you are. As much as we would like to rescue every person or pretty woman we run into, our orders are to rescue Dr. Usachova and anyone that he, or you, needs to complete your work.”

  A quick scan and three steps take the doctor to her overturned leather briefcase bag against the far wall. She hurriedly fumbles through her papers and fishes out her passport, then flattens it up against the glass for him to see. “If I was a man my last name would be Usachov, not Usachova,” she tells him.

  “Got anything to prove you’re a doctor?”

  “Listen, blyad, you are welcome to check this entire building and search each body you find to see if you come up with another person that has my name or you can get me the hell out of this building and somewhere safe that I might do some good.”

  “That doesn’t help, ma’am.”

  “I don’t work here! I only have a visitor pass. Nothing with my title on it…no wai
t.” Reaching into her bag again, she pulls out a book and presses the cover against the glass. “Cosmic Rays and Solar Hibernation: How Solar Particulates Impact the Physical World by Dr. Tatyana Usachova.”

  “We got the doctor, men, let’s get her to the trucks.” He reaches for the door, but there’s no handle only a digital keypad flashing the word locked in red letters. “I don’t know the combination, ma’am, so you’ll have to let yourself out if you can.”

  She steps on a pressure switch that is supposed to open the door for lab personnel when their hands are full and fortunately the door slides open. Had Dr. Pashmun pushed her into one of the lower level labs to keep her safe, the men would have had to shoot or blast their way thru the wall depending on which lab she was in. While the Environmental Quality Lab doesn’t specialize in infectious diseases, it does work with many environmental toxins and handles some water or airborne diseases that the state deals with from time to time. This required them to build reinforced research labs that could lock personnel in or out depending on the emergency or spill.

  The area has been quiet since the men shot the girl that destroyed the front office and forced her to flee. The men still form a protective circle around the doctor as they guide her to the front exit. She gasps as the men step over the body of a young man she spoke with just yesterday. He was a lab assistant and worked closely with Dr. Pashmun. His eyes are wide, and his mouth is stretched open as if his expression froze as he cried out in fear.

  “Doctor, you need to keep moving. There is far worse than this outside, and I can’t have you freeze each time you see a body.”

  The group bunches up at the main doors, peering out the glass to the streets beyond.

  “That mutant we shot will be back and she might bring others. We have to move quickly when the vehicles come back around.”

  “Are they picking up someone else?”

  “No, we have to keep the vehicles on the move or the mutants will converge on them. If we parked and left them out front, those things would have zeroed in on this place knowing we must have come in this building.