The Final Day (After, #3)(105)

“Laura!”

He turned to look up Main Street. A woman who appeared to be in her late thirties or early forties, well dressed in a clean white blouse and jeans, figure healthy and definitely not starving, was running toward them.

“Mommy!”

Laura broke free from Grace’s protective embrace, leaped down the steps of the Quonset porch, and ran toward the woman, who slowed, grabbed the frightened girl by the shoulders, and pushed Laura protectively behind her. She looked toward Grace, who had been following behind Laura.

“Back off and leave my child alone,” the woman snapped, and then she half-turned to look at Laura. “Are you all right? Did they hurt you?”

Laura was sobbing too hard to answer.

The woman turned back to face Grace.

“She’s all right. No, we didn’t harm her, ma’am.”

“Who the hell are you?”

“My name is Grace Freeman.”

“Listen, damn you, you keep your hands off my child. You’re armed; you are dangerous. You stop where you are and get the hell out of here now!”

Grace looked over at John, obviously confused. John stepped toward the woman. “Miss Freeman is with me,” he announced. “She is no threat to your child.”

She glared at John with an icy, dismissive gaze. “And who the hell are you?”

Her sanctimonious, superior tone was to John like sandpaper grating on an open wound, reminiscent of so many like her going back to childhood, the rich kids who lived up in Short Hills, the wealthy community that adjoined where he lived for several years in a working-class neighborhood. Their parents were the power brokers of firms in New York while his father was putting his ass on the line in the skies over Vietnam. The wives and daughters of haughty generals, unlike men like Bob Scales who truly came from the salt of the earth himself. To college professors one had to bow to in order to have any hope of getting a passing grade with their all-so-superior attitude, cramming their political views down his throat. She was of that ilk, and that attitude would not have survived a week if she had been trapped in the world up on the surface.

He took a deep breath and tried to control his own rage. “I am Colonel John Matherson, State of Carolina, and this young lady is a lieutenant under my command and will be treated with respect.”

“I don’t give a damn where you’re from. I’m ordering you to clear out now and stay away from my children, or you will face charges, Mr. Mather.”

“That is Colonel John Matherson,” Forrest retorted.

“Do you even know who I am?” she shouted.

John tried to extend his hands in a calming gesture, but she overreacted, as if he were drawing a weapon.

“Security! I need security here now!” she screamed.

John looked past her. Wherever Bob had gone with most of his command, he was long lost to view. A crowd was beginning to mill about out along Main Street. All of them looked to be civilians. Well-clothed, well-fed civilians, from mothers holding infants to several elderly, one of them in a motorized wheelchair.

Some were looking their way, and as if this woman was indeed some sort of leader, they started to head in their direction to witness the confrontation.

John looked back at the nameplate on the barrack’s door.

“Your husband is…”

“Yes!” There was a definite superior gaze as if with that question being asked she could now play her trump card and he would wilt away. “He was a senator and is now acting secretary of state.”

“At Bluemont?” He said the two words slowly.

“Yes, you idiot, at Bluemont.”

“If I were him and married to you,” Forrest growled sotto voce, “I’d stay there.”

“How dare you!” she cried.

“I dare because I have a right to dare,” Forrest replied.

“And you were evacuated here hours before our country was taken down by an EMP?” John snapped, voice filled with bitterness.

“I don’t have to answer that question,” she replied, but there was a slight loss of confidence in her voice. She turned away from John, looking back over her shoulder. “Someone get security here now and throw these bastards out!”

“We killed most of them,” Forrest replied. “If you’d care to, go up outside, take a look at their bodies. And then take a look at the entire damn world out there while you were hidden away down here.”

He was about to say more, but John could see that Laura was behind her mother, terrified, clutching Buster and sobbing uncontrollably.

It took all he could do next to try to control his voice. “Ma’am, I suggest that someone take your daughter to what she said is a shelter area, but you stay here. I have a few questions I’d like to ask you.”

“I want security now!” she screamed. “They’re assaulting me!”

The crowd was drawing closer. John looked past her. They numbered in the hundreds while Bob had brought less than a hundred with him when they stormed this place. More than a quarter were dead, wounded, or still deployed outside in a defensive perimeter protecting their precious airlift assets or dealing with the prisoners and wounded. He realized he should have stayed with Bob, who had forged ahead to find the communications center. All who was with him at this moment were the three guards that had been detailed to hold the entry to the tunnel and those left of what could be called his command—Grace, Reverend Black, who was gazing about, obviously in shock, Kevin Malady, Maury, and Forrest.