Dissension

“Are you ready for this?” I ask Robert as we pile our gear in one of the Humvees.

“You’re kidding, right?! Of course I am. Not to make light of what we are doing, but I get to direct fire for a howitzer, a 40mm auto-cannon, and a gatling gun. I wouldn’t miss it for anything. You know, it’s funny, I expected something much different but it’s not so different than the games we used to play. More complicated, yes, but really not that much different,” he answers.

“As long as you keep in mind what we’re doing and why,” I say.

“Of course. How could I ever forget? Every day reminds me,” he states.

“How are you doing, Bri?” I ask as she walks up toting her gear.

“I could use more of a nap but I’m ready,” she replies.

I seriously don’t think I’ll ever get used to seeing my young daughter, who once tumbled on the mats in her cheerleading outfit, in fatigues and toting an M-4 like it belonged. I once again reach out for a sliver of hope that this won’t always be the case. I hope they won’t have to face this for their entire lives. And, along with that, I hope that their lives are long-lived ones. My hope being that at least they outlive me. No parent should outlive their child. I feel the hole in my heart thinking once more of Nic. Her death seems both so long ago and just yesterday. A sad feeling washes over me. I just want to sit on the pavement and lose myself for a moment. My sweet, sweet girl… gone… forever.

“Dad, are you okay?” Bri asks.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Let’s load up and head north,” I respond, shaking loose from memories.

The drive north is like every other one we’ve taken, driven mostly in silence as we become lost in our own thoughts and contemplate the night ahead. I keep an eye on the overcast watching for any signs of it lowering. The fog can roll in quickly this close to so much water but with the breeze, we should be okay. Driving through the base that once looked and felt like a ghost town, the melancholic feeling that accompanied such trips is absent. It is replaced by an almost feeling of normalcy. I don’t know if this is a good sign or bad. It is, however, a suggestion that we are adapting mentally to our situation. Now if we can keep PTSD at bay.

Rolling up to the aircraft, we quickly stow our gear and take our stations. Not too many words are exchanged as we all know what we have to do. Going through the pre-flight checks, I hope the aircraft will remain intact and not develop any mechanical issues. We’ve put a few hours on it and lack for any maintenance and it’s a long way to go to get another one. Although we don’t have a long time left for our ability to fly anyway, I don’t want to take the time to fetch another one. The Spooky is the ideal weapon for this environment.

We start up without any problems and all systems check out. We taxi to the runway and lift off into the darkening sky. Although the ceiling is high enough for us to shoot an approach and pop out at a reasonable height to find the runway, we will have to venture into the clouds for our runs. This won’t hamper our operations in any way though. I’ll just head north on occasion and shoot an approach to verify we still have an adequate ceiling height.

I hear Robert running through the systems checks and I set the repeater scope up front to mimic the IR scope. The ground shows up with differing degrees of grays and blacks. Anything white will indicate something quite warm and most likely indicate the small, moving forms of night runners afoot under us. So far, I don’t see anything moving but the sun hasn’t yet set below the western rim. It’s just the heavy drone of the four engines and the white of the clouds outside streaming by the windows. We have darkened the cockpit so I can only observe the white wisps close by. I have to admit I am happy to be in the cockpit again; the day’s events lost for the moment. I set a course for the first of the buildings we chose earlier. We might as well get an early start on our evening’s work.

Robert sets our first target and I begin an orbit. He clears the 105mm howitzer to fire. I glance at the repeater scope and watch the targeted building disappear in a flash of light. Smoke and debris rocket up and outward from the impact. Craig X’s the target off the map as Robert sets up the next one. The sky outside turns a darker shade of gray and then goes black as night folds upon us. Our evening has begun in earnest.

We begin to circle over another strip mall a couple of miles to the southeast of Cabelas when our repeater screen shows white on the edges. It zooms out and is filled by small white objects filling the streets and scattering in all directions. There are hordes of them, to the point that I can’t even begin to guess how many. One moment there was nothing and then enough to turn the screen almost a solid white to the side. I’m taken aback by the vast numbers.

“Robert?” I say over the intercom.

“I see ‘em. Engaging,” he responds.

I bank and head toward the center of the mass spreading out in all directions. The count on the screen has way passed the hundreds mark and more into the many thousands. I knew the math of how many night runners must be in the area from the CDC statistics and the previous population, but seeing a horde like this fills me with a very deep dread. A hypothetical number in your head and seeing the actual visual representation are two very different things. Looking at the screen zoom in as we head toward the scattering night runners, I wonder how we managed to stay alive this long. We’ve never encountered packs in these numbers anywhere. I’m guessing they must have gathered together recently and am thankful we didn’t venture in a lair of this size. If we managed to get deep inside a building housing this many night runners, it would be over before it started.

Could our leveling the place have caused them to bunch together like this or is there some other reason? Is this one of the instances where we have triggered an adaptation on their part? These thoughts run through my head as the white mass becomes individual forms and smaller packs as they run farther into the night.

“Are we recording this?” I ask Robert.

“Yeah, Dad, I have the recorders on,” he answers.

“Good. Frank is going to want to see this,” I say.

Robert sets up on a large pack as we drift over their position. He marks them and I start to orbit. Tracers stream downward into their midst. Their running forms, white on the screen, elongate as they fall to the street. Streaks from ricochets peel off into the night and impact the surrounding buildings. Only a couple make it through the devastation and disappear into a side structure. Robert swiftly locates and marks another target. This is definitely what you would call a target rich environment.

The next pack selected is even larger than the last one and more spread out. Seeing that, Robert opts for the 40mm auto-cannon. I feel the solid thuds of the rounds departing. Flashes appear on the ground in the midst of the fleeing figures and walks through them leaving torn bodies in the wake. The once almost solid white screen clears seemingly in an instant as if a switch were thrown. I cast out for any signal but only receive fuzzy images. I’m guessing it must be the distance although I’ve been able to ‘see’ night runners from greater distances at times. I just don’t get this and wish I knew more about how to use it. I wonder if that is even possible. It seems to be a hit or miss type of thing. Is it me or do the night runners experience this as well? I think watching the white figures on the screen disperse and vanish.

“Did you mark the buildings they vanished into?” I ask Robert as I level the aircraft out.

“I marked a few but it seems they went into whatever buildings were the closest,” he answers.

“Okay, let’s target all of the buildings in the area making sure we keep away from any of the structures Frank marked,” I say.

“Way ahead of you,” Robert says as he call out and targets one of the building nearby.

We begin systematically taking on the surrounding structures with the 105mm. One by one, buildings are turned into rubble. In several instances, we observe night runners emerge from the structures once the first shells hit. We quickly set up the gatling gun and take them down when we can. In some instances, night runners exit the adjacent buildings we are shelling or even ones farther away. They don’t stay in the open long enough for us to engage them directly but we mark the buildings. I would like to hit their lair but it was impossible to see which one they emerged from.

Over time, I notice a certain trend, and that is that we are pushing them farther to the southeast and away from our compound; our sanctuary that I feel we are only holding onto by our fingernails. Seeing this many night runners, thousands upon thousands of them, strengthens this feeling that we are barely holding on. However, we continue pushing them out. The more area we can clear, the better I feel about our chances.

We continue to hammer away at the structures in the area where the night runners vanished. They aren’t the buildings we designated for the night but the emergence of the night runners changed any plans we had. A small thought creeps into my tired mind wondering what adaptations the night runners will possible make of this