THE ARK

Day 5

Megan Tanner half ran from the gray Chevy pickup in the driveway to the front door of her one hundred and twelve-year-old farm house. She had been delayed working at the bank, and now she was extremely tight on time.

She should have known that she was asking for trouble when she had allowed the Richardsons to schedule an appointment for that late in the day. She had assumed they would just fill out the loan application, and then they would be on their way. If that had been the case, she would have been out of the bank and on her way home on time.

Unfortunately, Mr. Richardson had more questions and concerns about the loan than Megan ever would have imagined. He wanted to go over every possible blemish on his credit and find out from Megan exactly how each could affect the chances of them securing the loan.

Repeatedly Megan had told him not to be concerned at this point and just to wait for the application to be processed and then they would deal with the specific issues if there was even a need to.

However, try as she may, by the time the Richardsons finally left she was almost twenty minutes late getting out of work.

Her admittedly inappropriate driving had helped her make up about four minutes on the way home but she was still way behind schedule.

She had to get dinner ready and on the table by the time her husband came in from the barn. He was out there supervising as the staff got the herd into the barn and got the new milking system going. There had been some problems with this new system the night before. Because of this some of the cows were late getting milked. He decided to personally watch over the process for the next few days.

Dinner was already going to be a fast-paced event tonight since it was Tuesday. Their daughter Lauren had a softball game each Tuesday evening at 6:00 pm and that always meant things were extremely hurried at suppertime.

As she burst through the front door she was greeted by the noticeable smell of tomato sauce cooking.

Mildly short of breath, she moved through the family room, where her son Ray was sitting in front of the Xbox, playing a video game. All Megan caught sight of on the screen as she walked through the room, was a burst of simulated machine gun fire tear into the chest of a large animated creature with a massive head and many eyes. Ray did not even seem to notice her as she walked past.

She entered the kitchen and saw Lauren placing the uncooked pasta into the boiling water.

“Hi mom. I figured that since it looked you were going to be late I’d get supper started so I wouldn’t miss the start of the game. I hope that’s ok.”

“I’m sorry that I’m late honey. Thanks for getting this started, it’s a big help. If you can watch it for me for just another minute, I’ll take over and you can get dressed for the game.”

“Sure mom.”

Megan went to the bedroom and quickly changed into a pair of jeans and a flannel shirt before returning to relieve Lauren in the kitchen.

As Megan was finishing the cooking, Jake Tanner stepped through the back door and immediately removed his mud-covered work boots.

“That smells great Hon,” Jake commented

“Good, but Lauren did most of it before I even got home.”

“Really, when did she start cooking?” Jake asked.

“Not sure, she’s never had any interest in anything that couldn’t be heated in the microwave, but this came out quite well,” Megan said.

Within a few minutes, they were all seated at the table working on eating dinner.

Megan had to remind Ray to hurry several times, but they all rapidly finished eating and they completed their preparations to head to the game.

Lauren was standing by the front door anxiously waiting for the others when she noticed a van traveling very rapidly up their long driveway.

“Mom, Dad, there is a van flying up the drive,” She called out.

Megan asked. “Jake, are you expecting anyone?”

“No, not that I remember.”

Megan got to the front window just in time to see two uniformed soldiers climb from an unmarked fifteen-passenger van. They both were armed with a pistol that was holstered on their waist.

“Jake, get over here now!” Megan called.

Jake arrived just as the soldiers were reaching the front door, the bell rang once and before any of the Tanners could get to the door the soldiers were letting themselves in.

“Mr. and Mrs. Tanner, I’ve been ordered to inform you that we have a Code Anvil,” The tall man in the lead said.

Young Ray Tanner had no idea what a Code Anvil was, but when his parents faces instantly turned pale he suspected that this was somehow related to a conversation that his parents had with his sister and him almost two years before.

“Is this a test?” Jake finally said after a long moment of hesitation.

“No sir, I’ve been told to inform you that this isn’t a drill but is the real thing.”

“What’s the problem?”

“Ma’am I don’t know. In fact, I don’t even know what a Code Anvil is. I just know that my orders are to transport you and your family to the designated location and to remind you that you have only ten minutes and then we’ll take you out of here ready or not.” The soldier’s tone was not threatening just factual.

Megan was the first one to react. “Kids, follow me know!” She said and ran to the office that was set up in a back room.

They obediently followed and saw their mother removing a folder from the file cabinet that mostly held paperwork related to the farm.

Lauren saw the word Anvil in large black letters on the file folder.

As their mother opened the folder the Tanner teens could both see their mother’s hands shaking as she started sorting through its contents.

The folder had about twenty different items in it and Megan quickly pulled out four laminated eight and a half by eleven sheets of paper and handed one to her husband who had come into the room behind the kids. Jake immediately sprinted from the room with the form.

“Kids, don’t argue just follow directions. I’ll explain what I can when I have time. I don’t know if you remember these forms, but about two years ago we went over them and discussed what to do with them. We should’ve looked at them again but we didn’t. Each of you needs to go to your room, and under your beds are those two special suitcases that I told you never to remove. Take them out and fill them from the list. Don’t ask questions. Let me know as soon as you’re done.”

The teens were confused but knew enough to obey.

As they quickly headed to their bedrooms they saw their father in their parent’s bedroom, he was quickly filling two suitcases that were identical to the two that were under each of their beds. While doing this he was also trying to talk on the telephone. They missed most of the conversation but did hear him say. “I know, and I don’t have any details yet, but a family emergency has come up. You’ll be in charge of the farm while I’m away…”

His voice faded out as they reached their rooms and rapidly began working through the checklists that they had last seen two years before and barely remembered.

As Lauren was in the bathroom grabbing her toothbrush and other personal items, she heard her mother say, “This was never actually supposed to happen.” Lauren was not sure if her mom was talking to herself, or to her dad or to one of the soldiers.

As the bags were filled, the soldiers loaded them into the van and in a very brief time, they were on the way.

The last thing Lauren saw her father do as they left was to carry a full fifty-pound bag of dog food onto the porch, slice it open with a pocket knife and dump the whole thing next to Sammy’s dog bed. As he stepped off the porch, he propped the door open so the dog would be able to come and go.

This made no sense to her since it would usually take the little Boxer a month and a half to eat that much food.

The van left the Tanner’s home and started for the highway. “Mom, what’s going on?” Ray finally asked.

In the dim light, he could see his mother crying.

His dad finally spoke up. “Kids about two years ago the government built a series of underground shelters to be used in case there was ever an attack against our country. We never learned how we ended up being selected, but we were asked if we would be interested in being guaranteed a space in one of these shelters if there were ever a need. It was clearly explained that there would probably never be a reason for us to go to one, but just in case, we had a plan in place to get us there.”

Lauren asked. “Where is this shelter?”

“We don’t know. I assume we’ll be finding out soon,” Jake responded.

“And we don’t know what the emergency is that’s causing us to have to go to the shelter? Ray inquired.

“That’s right.”

“Daddy, I’m scared,” Lauren admitted

“Me too honey.”

“Excuse me, folks,” The soldier in the passenger seat said. “We have another family to pick up on our way. When we get there we need you to all remain in the van.”

In less than fifteen minutes the van was back on the highway, with the Tanners and Steve and Wendy Barnett now also on board. The Barnetts seemed to be in a state of shock and had brought minimal luggage. Neither spoke during the trip.

The journey finally ended at an old hanger at an Air National Guard base.

They were all herded into the hanger where there were pizzas and beverages. Each of them was given a yellow armband and instructed to keep it on.

There were cots spread out in the rear of the hanger, and there were some people sleeping. Most of the other people were walking around and talking, everyone other than the military personnel had on an armband and there were at least four colors visible.

As they looked for a place to set their stuff there was a sudden blasting noise from the PA system. “Blue group your aircraft is still on schedule for arrival at 1930 hours. Red group your aircraft has been delayed until 2045 hours and for those of you in the yellow group who are just arriving be prepared to leave with all your belongings at 2100 hours. Remember, your aircraft will be met by buses that will take you to final destinations.

Please remember that the personnel on duty here have no additional information to provide. Thank you.”

The message was repeated with minor changes about every twenty minutes.

During their stay, vans continued to arrive and drop off frightened and confused passengers. At least one other time Megan saw the same two soldiers that had dropped her family off, return with other people.

There were two times when a large military transport plane arrived and several hundred people boarded.

Megan wandered around listening to what others were saying, hoping to learn something about their current situation. Unfortunately, it soon became clear that no one knew any more than she did. However, every one of them had a different guess as to the source of the emergency.

Many people she saw were crying. All were frightened and confused. Repeatedly she heard people comment on how they never actually thought that this might happen.

Three hours later, their aircraft arrived and when they left the hanger they left behind several hundred people, all members of the brown or green groups that had started showing up after she and her family had first arrived.