Free Return From the Inferno by Mack Maloney Page B

Thirteen
At the bridge
    The Wabash River was flowing easily in the midafternoon summer sun.
    Fitzgerald looked up from his position on the near bank to see two of his young students dive into the small pool of calm water close to the shade of the bridge.
    "Look out for them now!" he called out to the two oldest students, both of whom were eleven years old. They were his lieutenants in supervising this rare outing for his schoolkids. "We don't want them to be swept away."
    Although there was little actual danger of that, the two older kids waded into the shallow water of the natural pool and stationed themselves between the younger kids and the deeper Wabash. His mother hen instinct thus sated, Fitz lay back down on his blanket and took another sip of wine.
    He'd been planning this outing for two weeks, knowing it would be a cure for restlessness among his twenty little charges. He'd told the NS officer in charge of reeducation within Bummer Four that the purpose of the field trip was to collect samples of "wild vegetables," with which to start a garden in back of the schoolhouse. Someday, he told the officer, the garden might provide vegetables for each kid, an attempt at resource-saving efficiency that nearly brought a tear to the fascist officer's eye.
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    That fact that Fitzgerald didn't even know if there was such a thing as wild vegetables had no bearing. The NS officer not only approved the trip, he allowed Fitz the use of an old beat-up military truck to transport the twenty young students.
    So now here they were, jumping and splashing in the cool Wabash just like kids had done for generations.
    Fitz didn't want them to see him imbibing so he had skillfully disguised his wine bottle to look like a simple water container. He took another long slug and then closed his eyes. The woman down the road who sold him his homemade wine had done an especially good job this time. Though she could have strained it better, its alcohol content was about double her normal wares, something Fitz was too polite to complain about.
    In the midst of the gathering wine buzz, he searched for a tidbit of relaxation somewhere in the back of his mind. But there was none to be found.
    Even on this perfect summer day, with his extended family of youngsters enjoying themselves immensely and another two wine bottles back in his hut, Fitz could not find one iota of peace. Instead, his thoughts were filled with the unexplainable incidents of the past few days. The two people in the river.
    The wounded sputnik from Gary. The man hanged on the cross.
    How could these things possibly be happening to him? Could there be only one answer?
    Could he be going mad?
    They heard them before they saw them.
    It was just a low, dull tone at first; somewhere, way off in the distance, behind the trees, back toward Bummer Four.
    But the noise steadily grew, expanding into the mechanical timbres. Soon it was so loud, it was competing with the trickling of the Wabash and the rush of the wind through the nearby trees.
    The kids heard it all at once, and right away they were concerned. Fitz stood up, and from his perch atop the riverbank, circled around in all directions, trying to see anything that
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    might be associated with the growing noise.
    "Look!" someone yelled. "Up there!"
    The twenty kids and Fitz all looked toward the southeast to see the sky filled with menacing black dots. As they watched, the dots began growing bigger, and the noise got louder. By this time, the kids were running out of the water, their concern growing by the second. Now, running up the bank, they huddled around Fitz, shivering slightly in the sudden cool breeze, wondering what was happening.
    Fitz watched with increasing trepidation as the aerial dots turned into helicopters. At least ten of them, all heading their way. The screech of their engines was now loud enough that the youngest of the young kids were crying.
    Fitz tried to gather them all closer to him, praying -literally