Chaos

down and trimming it up.

“Robert, can you keep us here while I head into the back?” I ask. His head swivels over to me with his eyes opening wide and eyebrows raised with the rest of our little group mimicking the look.

“I think so,” he responds back.

“Dad, are you sure this is a good idea?” Bri asks behind me.

“Shut up Bri!” Robert answers instead.

“Easy,” I say.

“Okay, you have the aircraft,” and transfer control to him. I sit there for a bit watching to make sure he does okay. “I’m going into the back and toss this out of the door. Robert, when I say that I’m ready, I want you to tell me when we’re coming to the north end of the lot.”

“Okay, Dad.”

I unbuckle and take my contraption to the rear parachute door unraveling a large part of the toilet paper rolls and bunching them up. “Can you hear me?” I say plugging into the intercom system and attaching the safety line at the left door.

“I hear you,” I hear through the helmet speakers.

I swing the door open and am greeted by the rush and roar of the wind outside, protected from the blast by the shield doors extending out into the slipstream. The ground looms outside and I have an unrestricted view of the roads, buildings, and greenery below. The angle of bank is altering and the nose rising and descending.

“Easy there buckaroo,” I say into the microphone. “Small, easy corrections. Tell me when we are approaching the north end.” The aircraft stabilizes to a degree.

I can see where we are but want a verbal verification of my visual. The lot appears in my frame of reference as we circle again and I see the red car in the middle of the mostly empty lot. “Coming up on the north end,” Robert says.

“Okay,” I respond and toss the wrench, complete with the bunched up toilet paper rolls, out of the door. The slipstream immediately carries the contraption back and out of sight. Peeking my head out of the door into the chilled air, I see the toilet paper unfurl creating a white streamer as the wrench plunges toward earth. I hope it doesn’t land on any building roofs, I think seeing the wrench head toward the north end of the parking lot. Or hit them in the head. That would really suck.

I watch the wrench plummet and strike the roof of one of the few cars in the parking lot at its most northern end. The car roof caves in and glass explodes outward. “Ouch,” I say softly, cringing slightly.

“What!?” Robert’s question comes through the earphones.

“Um, nothing,” I say as I close the doorand make my way back to the cockpit. Buckling in and taking control, I continue our descent to the airfield, arriving on a downwind leg.

“Gear down,” I call at mid-field. The rumble of the gear is both heard and felt in the cockpit. Approaching the turn to base, I call for ten percent flaps. On base leg, I call for fifty percent flaps and continue descending to final. “Full flaps,” I say after rolling out on final and aligning with the centerline, pushing forward on the wheel and trimming to compensate for the increase in lift and drag. Aiming at the threshold, I make small adjustments with the throttle to keep the indicator glued to the final approach airspeed. Coming up to the threshold, I start the nose up and the throttles back until they hit the flight idle detent. I feel the main gear touch rocking the aircraft slightly. Still got it, I think lowering the nose to the runway. I always had a knack for landing the 130. “Flaps fifty percent,” I say applying power once again doing a touch and go. We do a few more landings before I pull the throttle into reverse thrust on the final one, taxi back to the ramp and shut down.

“We need to gather charts and flight plan,” I say. We are standing on the ramp again having left our helmets and gear inside the aircraft. “The base ops building here should have everything we need. Robert, see that truck over there,” I say pointing to a fuel truck parked by the building.

“Yeah.”

“Go get it and pull it up behind the right wing. Your goal is to not hit the aircraft. I’m going into the building to get what we need.”

I pull the M-4 and vest from our gear in the cargo area and walk to the building. Robert walks alongside until he heads over to the fuel truck. A “Welcome to McChord AFB” sign is posted above the double glass doors leading into the building. With the vest secured, I test the doors leading in, finding them both unlocked. Hmmmm, that’s odd, thinking that all of the buildings would have been locked like the hospital. The light from the door shows a hallway extending deeper into the building with doors opening off at various intervals before disappearing into total darkness. A sign above the door to the immediate left indicates that it is the base weather shop.

Perfect, I think stepping into the hallway. With my light on, I edge carefully up to the wooden door remembering my wonderful and fun-filled adventure from the hospital. Looking in through the large, glass panel set into the upper portion, I see an open area with chairs and coffee tables. Across from this resting area is a large counter spanning the length of the room with darkened television monitors hanging from the ceiling. This is obviously where pilots get their weather briefings. A room opens up to the right of the open area with a large table sitting in the middle. The entire room and area are lit fairly well from the light streaming in from the many windows. The door is unlocked and I step inside.

A very musty smell greets my entry. Not quite the same musty smell as at the hospital, this is more from disuse than anything else. The room opening to the right contains various charts and is meant as a flight planning area. Just past this room, between it and the counter, a small hallway heads to the right. Stepping across the room and peering down the hallway, I see that the light doesn’t reach all of the way to the end. A couple of doors open to the right and one to the left. The one to the left apparently the entry into the weather shop and the ones on the right with ‘Men’ and ‘Women’ posted on them. Pretty obvious what they are.

Back into the flight planning area, there are two very large maps of the world on the back wall. The first one is a depiction of the VFR charts covering the various areas of the world and the other has the various IFR charts. I grab a pencil and jot down the ones I will need. Looking over the charts, I also note the approach charts needed. Slots in the walls are filled with individual charts and approach books along annotations denoting which ones lie within. In the past, it always seemed to take a small fork lift to bring them all but that was usually handled by the nav. Most squadrons had everything in large carry cases regionalized. Hopefully they have some here as well, I think, not really wanting to head into more buildings but these charts are crucial. I hear Robert start the fuel truck outside and drive away; the sound diminishing until it vanishes altogether.

With my light on, I creep down the hall. Adrenaline is already making its appearance again. My light shows the hallway ending in a door at the end with no light showing out from underneath. Drawing close to the thin, wooden door and with complete silence around me, I put my ear up against it. I hear a faint panting coming from within along with a now familiar shuffling-like noise. The shuffling sound stops and I flick the M-4 to burst mode. With my ear to the door, the shuffling changes to a sniffing sound.

A loud bang resounds as whatever is inside slams against the door, rocking my head off the door and ringing my ears. Fuck this!!! I think, recoiling backward and bringing my gun to bear. I fire a burst into the door noticing the rounds penetrate completely through. I fire two more bursts making sure the last burst centers on the door latch. I kick the door just beside the knob. The door flies inward before instantly rebounding back shut. I kick again and this time, the door flies all of the way open. My light picks up a creature staggering backward into the room. I fire a burst into the staggering thing propelling it even further backward, launching it off its feet to slam into steel shelves set against the walls. It slumps to the ground, sitting there momentarily before slumping sideways to the ground.

I quickly pan the rest of the room only to see another one launch at me from the back corner. Another quick burst into its chest and this one slides to the ground at my feet. A dark liquid begins gathering on the floor beneath; the flight suit it is wearing is shredded in the back and stained with fresh blood. My light flashes throughout the room but is now only met by cases sitting on the steel shelving around the room and the two bodies crumpled on the floor. Motherfuck this is getting old! I am getting really tired of this and it’s only been one day. Obviously populated areas are not the place to be.

With the smell of spent rounds strong in the air, I eject the magazine and replace it with a fresh one. I step into the room looking at the cases on the shelves. Markings on them indicate various regions. Now, that is a welcome sight, I think grabbing several cases and carrying them outside. I deposit the ones I