Ok, I was going to make this thing a four part story but I think in order to get the full effect you need to read it in one sitting... that’s what Edgar Allen Poe said is a key component to a good short story, and since he is the master of the short story, I'll go off of his word. Here it is in its entirety M.I.A… enjoy.
It had been almost three months since he had seen his sister. “I wonder who the baby will look like, Ash or Larry?” His thoughts danced around the idea of being an uncle as he laid stretched out, all six foot one hundred and eighty-five pounds of him, across the last row of seats in the 737 he was riding in. He was on a red eye from Las Vegas to Salt Lake City at the arrival of his sister Ashley’s first baby; a little brown haired, green eyed boy named Crew.
As Jason lay across the seats, his mind drifted from his sister to the briefing he had with the FBI’s Counter Terrorism Unit, Las Vegas branch, earlier in the day. The agent stated they had received reliable information that a few cities in the United States, including Las Vegas, were said to be targets of a forthcoming terrorist attack. The agent didn’t have any information on when the attack was going to be carried out, but he did mention talk of a possible hybrid atom bomb being developed in the UK. The bomb is said to have no toxic after effects-the toxins are converted into energy before the detonation- thus making the bomb two times as powerful. On his way out of the briefing Jason overheard a conversation between two senior agents. One of them was saying to the other, “this bomb represents the most dangerous threat out there, if it’s real. Can you imagine it? You could move right in and take over an area after totally destroying it with no worries about toxins.”
For eight years Jason has been assigned to the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (LVMPD) Homeland Security team. Now thirty-two, he remembers and cherishes the memories he has of being a regular patrol officer, working a beat on Fremont Street. No work to take home. No thoughts of local sleeper cells. Just go to work, complete your shift and go home.
The landing was not the best he had ever been through, though it certainly wasn’t the worst. The air was cold as he stepped through the doors leading to the passenger pickup and as he exhaled his first breath into the night air he could see it rise like smoke from a burning building.
“How was the flight?” Cindy asked him as he stepped into the car.
“Good enough” Jason replied as he sank into the passenger seat. “The landing was a little rough, but other than that it was ok. There was hardly anyone on the plane so I took the back seats and stretched out.”
Cindy looked over at Jason with an awkward smile, “Brice and The Bear were terrors the entire way up. We had to stop six times to eat and change diapers. If you think I’m ever letting you fly leaving me to drive up alone, you are out of your mind.”
Jason tried to hide a silly grin as his wife elaborated on the trials of driving up to Salt Lake City alone with their two kids; Brice a ten month old boy and Nevaeh a.k.a The Bear a three year old girl. “Well I’m here now” Jason said proudly, “and the drive home will be better with daddy in the car.”
From the day his children were born, Jason’s outlook on life changed. He realized there were a lot of things he wanted to do, but now could not. He desperately wanted to be a musician, and while he had the talent to be a one man band, the time and opportunity had been stolen away from him; he blamed the kids for his lack of career options.
He never intended to be a cop. In fact, before he became one, he hated police with a passion. He hated the better than you attitude so many cops exude. He hated the fact that even if you didn’t do anything wrong, a cop could stop you on the street and harass you. Well, that’s what he thought they did, but after his many years on the department he decided it was not the cops that were bad, it was everyone else; the cops were just trying to find the bad guys and bring about some type of justice.
As Jason entered the maternity ward of the hospital he could hear the familiar laugh of his sister Ashley; in fact, anyone within a half a mile could hear her laugh. She didn’t just laugh; she would wind up, taking in extraordinary amounts of air, and then belt out a sound that could only be described as something of a human fog horn. Jason had a nice visit with his mom, dad, two sisters and their husbands and even held the newest thief of dreams to enter the family; Crew Nicholas Odom.
“It’s getting late” Jason announced to all in the room, particularly his wife Cindy. “Let’s get out of here, I’m exhausted.” Good nights were exchanged and Jason toted along his little family to their car and headed for the Hamilton Inn.
Sleep came quickly to Jason. While he could not remember dreaming, he knew by the renewed energy he had in the morning, he had spent a good portion of the night in R.E.M sleep. Unknown to him; that was to be the last good night’s sleep he would get for a while.
He awoke early, about six forty-five and headed for the Inn’s modest gym. It was not a great gym but it had the basics, some dumbbells, a bench-press machine and a few free weights to do curls with. In one corner of the room, mounted to the wall was a flat screen TV, about forty inches. Jason usually liked to listen to his IPod when he worked out, but had left it at home in Vegas and decided to settle for a little CNN or Fox news; whichever he came to first.
As he began to sweat and feel the burning in his muscles, he unconsciously banished the news broadcast into the background to serve as ambient noise.
Halfway through a bench-press set an oddly familiar sound broke through Jason’s lifting induced trance. He set the bench bar back and grabbed the white hand towel from his pocket, wiping the sweet from his face as he turned toward the TV. The noise he heard was the short piece of music that plays just before the announcement of breaking news. On the screen appeared the familiar blue backdrop sheet with the White House emblem hanging on it, and the dark wood podium with four or five microphones attached. “Breaking news from the White House? The hell’s going on?”
He barely broached the thought in his mind before a man entered the picture and stepped up to the podium. The man pulled out a pair of gold framed reading glasses from the inside pocket of his black suit and put them on. He had salt and pepper hair, more on the pepper side, with deep lines in his face announcing to all that he had been through not a few trials in his life. As the man began to speak the words “Secretary of Defense” appeared at the bottom of the screen and Jason turned up the volume.
Jason sat stunned; he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. With each sentence from the man, Jason’s mouth dropped a little more and his mind pushed all thoughts out his ears. Jumping up, Jason tore out of the room, and as he ran down the hall the flower patterned walls seemed to blur into lines. In his haste Jason forgot his room key and found himself pounding on the door.
“Cindy answer the door, you’re never going to believe this. Something terrible has happened. Cindy open the…”
The door swung open with Cindy standing in her night gown glaring at him. “What’s so important that you had to wake me up at,” glancing at the alarm clock, “seven ten? And why don’t you have your room key?”
“No time for questions” he barked back grabbing the TV remote and turning to the news broadcast he’d been watching.
The man was now gone and pictures from what must have been helicopters were being shown on the screen. A male voice was giving commentary in the back ground. “It is unsure what caused the destruction, and communication into both Las Vegas and Chicago seems to be down. Reports are coming in that the damage in Las Vegas is around ninety-five percent, and eighty percent in Chicago.”
As pictures flashed on the screen, Cindy felt her legs turn from bone and muscle into jelly; thankfully the edge of the bed caught her as she fell. With a trembling hand lightly covering her wide open mouth, she began to cry. The commentary started again. “The death toll is estimated in the hundreds of thousands for both cities right now. Authorities are urging all who have loved ones in Las Vegas or Chicago areas to not call in, as the few lines of communication being found are needed for emergency personnel.”
“What happened?” Cindy whimpered to Jason.
“I don’t know” he replied. But of course that was a lie. Quickly Jason’s thoughts were dragged back to the FBI briefing he had the previous day. His thoughts were disrupted when he heard the buzz of his cell phone, vibrating on the dresser. He looked at the screen and it read “emergency connection.” His heart sank, his knees gave out and he also found himself saved by the edge of the bed.
“Hello?” he asked. The voice on the other line was unfamiliar.
“Officer, I have Sergeant Opey on the line I will connect him.”
“Jason?” The familiar voice of his sergeant sounded strong and gave Jason the strength to stand.
“Yeah man I’m here. What’s going on?”
Cindy could only hear her husband’s responses but she knew by the tone in his voice things were not good. After Jason hung up the phone Cindy didn’t even have to ask, with a single look she knew; he was leaving.
“Why you, you are three hundred miles away. It is going to take you at least five hours to get there, and that’s without traffic.”
“Cindy, you don’t understand. I am the only guy on my squad my sergeant could get a hold of. The other guys could be dead for all we know. It is my duty as a cop to go back. I have to go. You and the rest of the family will stay here at Ashley’s house until things get better, and then I will come back and get you and the kids.”
Cindy looked at him with tears in her eyes and said, “But every one you care about is here. I can’t stand the thought of loosing you.”
“I’m coming back to get you, Ok? I love you” The words seemed almost reckless as they rolled off his lips.
Cindy nodded in duressed approval, and with that began to weep.
The ride back to Las Vegas was quiet and lonesome. As Jason raced down the freeway he couldn’t help thinking of what Cindy had said to him, “every one you care about is here.” The words cycled over and over in his mind as the Utah ever green trees gave way to the Joshua trees that freckled the Utah/ Nevada border.
After what seemed an eternity Jason pulled slowly over the pass into the valley, but all the meetings, training and trial exercises he’d been through could never have prepared him for what he saw.
By now the sun had almost completed its decent behind Mount Charleston which set the twilight sky ablaze. Clouds loomed over the valley in hues of red, orange with fleeting bits of white still visible in the very farthest expanses to the north. The city, or what was left of it, was almost a mirrored image of the heavens burning high above. The outskirts of the valley looked like a sea of brick, wood and concrete with the occasional pillar of wood or brick breaking the surf. Jason could barely see the famous Las Vegas strip through all the smoke and fire that plagued the inner areas of the valley.
Jason’s first order of business was to meet up with his sergeant. Looking at his phone Jason saw he had very poor reception but figured it was worth the effort to call.
“Hello?” The voice sounded vaguely familiar,
“Tim?” Jason asked inquisitively.
“It’s me Jay, where are ya? You make it to Vegas yet?”
Jason’s nerves seemed to be settling a bit at the familiar sound of his sergeant’s scratchy voice.
“Yeah man I’m in Vegas. I think I’m by the Craig and I-15 overpass, out by where your house used to be.” Of course this was just a guess as all remnants of the area seemed to melt together in large piles of debris.
“Ok Jay look I was able to get a hold of Corey and Ian but that’s it, we are all staging at the Cheyenne and I-15 on ramp. Well what’s left of it.”
The journey to meet the others took a little over half an hour to go about three miles due to the vast amounts of debris that riddled the streets, but he finally located his colleagues.
Ian, a short, well built white man gave Jason a stiff handshake followed by a quick pat on the back and said “man it’s good to see you Jay.”
“Good to see you too Ian; what the hell happened here? It looks like a bomb went off.”
“Yeah that’s what we think happened.” Once again the familiar scratchy voice of his sergeant brought a little hope into an otherwise dreadful moment.
“Searg, you think a bomb did this?”
The raised eyebrows and slight frown of his sergeant’s face gave the answer; though he didn’t say anything. Jason knew what his sergeant was thinking and could hear him saying, “The hell could do such damage genius? I’d like to hear your idea if you have the balls to suggest one.”
Jason knew there was no need to fight with the Searg, he was a good man but could be a real prick, especially if you tried telling him he was wrong.
As the guys were talking amongst themselves, Sergeant Opey walked up and stood in the middle of the group. “Ok guys, listen up. I just got a call from Lieutenant Perry; there are about four hundred of us meeting downtown next to where City Hall used to be. We’re going to stage there, then divide up into four units and start searching for survivors. We’ve got two trucks, so leave the cars here and we’ll come back to get’m in a few days.”
Jason was a little hesitant to leave his car unattended even though he knew the probability for theft or vandalism was low. All the same, the thought entered his mind, “what if some asshole comes and tries to take my ride. In times of crisis people these days loose all sense of right and wrong; if they had any before.”
As a result of Jason’s years of service as a Police Officer he became very cenacle. He had the impression that most people-if not all people- were inherently bad and only had a few fleeting moments of righteousness in any given day. He never did anything to change his way of thinking, but in the very farthest, most secluded corners of his soul, Jason’s outlook on people bothered him greatly.
As the men climbed into the trucks and began the trek into town Jason looked back at his car wondering what would happen in the days to come.
Arriving around the center of town, the men could see that the destruction was worse than any of them could have expected. Every casino that once stood as a monument to human ingenuity was now a pile of broken glass, wood and twisted metal. In the center of the town was a large crater about three hundred feet across and a hundred feet deep at the lowest point. There was nothing left of the colossal buildings that once stood in the spot. This was obviously the epicenter of whatever had caused the destruction.
The briefing was quick and precise. There would be four teams consisting of one hundred men each. With each team being assigned to either the A sleeping/eating roster or the B roster; one roster slept and ate while the other searched. The objective was to search out and render aid to all those found alive. Those found dead were to be identified, if possible, and the locations of their bodies were to be recorded. This specific directive proved especially hard to accomplish, as many times during the search one would find parts of people not attached to a body; an arm here, a leg and a foot there, it was a complete mess.
Jason and Ian were partnered up in their team and were assigned to the B roster; the grave yard shift. There were as many search strategies as there were people searching. One team would take sticks and hit the debris listening to see if there was any response from below. Others decided they would pick a spot and just start to move debris in hopes of finding someone. They usually did, only it was parts of people they found. Jason and Ian decided to adopt a logical approach to their searching.
Jason looked at Ian with an irritated look, “The news was just breaking the story at about 6:50 a.m. Utah time which is 5:50 a.m. here, so a lot of people in this area would have been in their homes, let’s look around the debris that resembles a demolished house.” Ian agreed this was the best course of action, so they set out on their search.
The hours passed like minutes and before they knew it they had searched for eight hours locating numerous parts of people and rescuing five; two of which were on the verge of death, suffering from severe burns and open, bleeding head wounds. With each living person they rescued, Jason and Ian found a renewed energy and worked that much harder to locate the next survivor.
The sun cresting over Sunrise Mountain signaled the end of the grave shift and the beginning of shift for A roster. Sleep had come easy to the men who worked B roster, but not to Jason. As he lay on one of the cots the guys from A roster had concocted- mostly ply board stacked on a few bricks with tattered shirts and bits of cloth acting as pillows- Jason could not get the images of little bodiless legs and arms out of his mind.
“What a horrible way to die. Some of those limbs couldn’t have been from children older than two. And some of those guys we pulled out of the debris, what complete waists of skin. I know I’ve arrested two maybe three of them for violent crap. But then, why would they die? God knows only the innocent end up dying when things like this happens. Hey Ian you listening, I’m talkin’ to you; hey Ian?” Getting no response, Jason figured Ian had gone to sleep, so he rolled over, and with thoughts of his family in his mind, succumbed to exhaustion.
No one, not even Jason would know that Ian was awake, in fact, he was wide awake. He had one specific image plaguing his mind. The image was that of a little boy’s head he had discovered about two feet from the body. The boy had scraggily black hair and small, but full, lips. His body a few feet away was still dressed in spider man pajamas, with the spider man hood attached to the neck of the suit. One of his little black hands still clutched a half empty bottle of what must have been milk or formula. When Ian found the head it was face up with the eyes open; the boy was staring right at him. The image played over and over in his mind, and Ian wept silently as his heart broke into a million pieces at the thought of the terror this little boy experienced just before he died. Ian wept silently until exhaustion stole away all pain and sorrow, with sleep inviting a welcomed respite from the reality of the day’s events.
The next two days brought more of the same, finding people and pieces of people in piles of debris. At night, Jason mostly complained internally about the heat he was forced to sleep in and the dirt bags he was rescuing. Occasionally he would take a few minutes to call his wife and kids to let them know he was ok.
A few of the survivors gave helpful insights into what happened. One man said he heard a small plane flying over city hall just before he heard a loud blast and then went blank. Jason recognized him as a man he had arrested a few weeks back for armed robbery. “He must be out on parole” Jason had told Ian as the man walked past them.
The third day started out badly for A roster. A family of ten was found dead underneath the remnants of a single wides’ tin roof; the youngest maybe two, the oldest well into their teens. By the time Jason and the Guys from B roster took over searching, thirty survivors had been located.
Jason looked around and noticed that a few of the survivors had joined in the search efforts. And as the night progressed, he noticed that a good portion of B roster was made up of survivors. Some bandaged and searching with one arm splinted, while others had head dressings and crutches to work around; but all wounded were working with the same fervor as those who were whole. Even Jason’s “waists of skin” survivors were working side by side trying to rescue others.
After his shift, Jayson took a walk by himself. The images he had witnessed during his shift were bothering him greatly. Only these were not images of death and carnage, but rather images of compassion and bravery on the part of the survivors. He recalled scenes of hardened criminals, working alongside the very cops that arrested them. He’d taken particular notice that a few of them did not take as many breaks as the others, they just pushed on with their search.
Jason remembered the amazement he felt when a man he knew to be a robber showed great compassion toward a survivor he’d located. Taking the man into his arms, the felon carried the survivor over the rough terrain to the nurses for treatment of the many cuts and burns that scourged his broken body. Then the man went right back to the spot he located the survivor and continued searching. “What's going on here?” Jason had wondered to himself. “Regular citizens do that type of thing, not hardened criminals. They don’t care about anyone but themselves.”
The sun rose on another B shift, and survivors were being located less and less frequently, while more and more of the located survivors were taking a place on the debris piles, aiding in the search for others. Jason and the others worked hard all through the night. Jason took a break to call his wife and let her know he loved her and hoped that he would be coming back to them soon. After loving words were exchanged Jason hung up the phone.
The sun was just starting to crest over the top of Sunrise Mountain as it had many times before, sending the night sky running from its title wave of light; but this time it was different. Jason surveyed the destruction that lay all around him, the hundreds of men and women working side by side, criminal and cop alike, and all of the sudden he realized something. He realized by our very nature as humans, we can overcome all differences, put aside all prejudice and come together for the greater good of our specious. While he stood there atop a pile of debris that was once a home, Jason realized the world in which he once lived was gone, and the person he once was, had changed. And for the first time in a while Jason smiled as he quickly fell asleep on his ply wood bed.
I hope you enjoyed the story.
CiAo!
