“Get down. Now!” Ben told her and them both dropped to the floor of the back bedroom. It was a bedroom not facing the ocean, the blinds were still drawn tight, and Ben knew there was no way they could see them.
They couldn’t leave the house or go anywhere. Their only hope was to get some cover and even that was limited.
It was a tight squeeze, but Ben dragged Lana under the bed. He only hoped that the mattress and box spring would provide them some sort of protection.
He doubted it would, but it was their only chance.
Under that bed, they heard the massive number of planes flying overhead. More joined in, raining down bullets on their defenseless house.
Heads covered, shaking, confused and tightly squeezed in, Ben and Lana waited and prayed.
Harry was a smart man and was grateful he still had his quick thinking about him. He was also grateful that morning that he had gotten up pretty early.
Not that he had slept all that much, he didn’t. But he went down to the basement again, found the old camping stuff, pulled out the Coleman Stove and a tin percolator. He was going to have a cup of coffee, his first one in days.
The water in the pipes still ran, but he had a backup for washing the pot, the water heater.
He cleaned the pot and brewed some coffee.
Tyler was still sleeping and Harry kept the curtains closed in the living room, so the boy could rest. He’d need it. He’d had an emotional couple of days and more was ahead for him.
He’d wake him in a little bit, Harry thought. Heck, the sun had just come up.
Sitting and sipping his coffee he enjoyed the paper he didn’t get a chance to read before he left for the train. He searched for answers as to why the United States and England would have been attacked and by whom.
Salt Lake City guy said he’d be back on the air when he had an update, that government officials were asking him to refrain from delivering too much information and for the sake of his country he would oblige.
But what about those who were clueless, like Harry?
He rummaged through the news, trying to find some kind of warning, some reason that it happened. There were several little things, but Harry had a feeling in order to find out the ‘real’ reason, he’d have to go way back in the news. An attack on such a large scale took time, money, and planning.
Earlier, while the coffee brewed, he tried the phones. They were dead and the radio played nothing, which to Harry was much better than the hijacked station playing old anti-war seventies songs.
The anti-war songs—they were a piece of the puzzle, Harry knew they had to be. The anti war songs.
Maybe it was a message to the American people that they should have minded their own business on several occasions.
Harry couldn’t understand that mentality of ‘minding our own business.’ Not when he served in a war and so do his son.
He decided it a useless needle in a hay stack search, so Harry opted for the comics. Maybe something there would make him laugh.
It was then he heard it.
A soft rumbling mixed with a buzzing.
Harry stood slowly and looked out the kitchen window.
He didn’t see anything, but the sound grew louder.
Thinking the upstairs would give him a better view, Harry hurried up to his bedroom.
He didn’t know why he opted not to go outside; maybe he just didn’t feel like putting on his shoes. But it was a good thing he didn’t go.
The moment he peeked through the curtains of the bedroom window, Harry was glad he hadn’t gone outside.
Planes plastered the sky—an eerie resemblance to the photos he had seen of Pearl Harbor.
He didn’t have to question if they were American planes; he didn’t need to see them to know they were not.
The multitudes of planes were coming from the east and that told Harry they weren’t his country’s planes.
He shut the curtain quickly and backed out of the bedroom, steering clear of any windows.
He was a little frightened, not for himself as much as for Tyler.
By the time he reached the living room, the sounds of the planes’ motors were thunderously loud.
There was no ignoring them.
“Harry?” Tyler called out.
“Shh.” Harry put a finger to his mouth. He didn’t want to make a sound. Not a peep. Just on the chance whoever had arrived hadn’t just come by air.
He grabbed Tyler’s hand and led him to the basement. “We’re going down here,” Harry whispered.
“What is that noise?”
“Planes.”
“A rescue?” Tyler perked with excitement.
“I highly doubt that.”
Harry told him to go down first. Harry then followed him down and shut and secured the basement door.
In the basement they went to Harry’s work bench, an old wooden table top that Harry could never part with despite the number of times his wife asked him to.
He and Tyler inched under that bench. They waited there protected underground just on the outside chance there was another air strike.
Harry would keep them there until it was quiet and he felt the coast was clear.
He couldn’t take a chance.
There was a senior citizen’s recreation center in town that at one time had been an old school.
