Desolation

Bill had almost reached Max’s house when he felt the ladder shift. Holding still, suspended above Max’s side yard, he checked baby Ana, who was securely bundled to his chest. Looking back to his burning home, he could see the problem: the ladder had slipped forward. Now the legs of the ladder rested on less than one inch of real estate. Slowly he turned forward to Miguel, who was trying to hold the ladder steady and not panic for his daughter. They were so close he could hear Miguel’s breathing grow more rapid. “You need to push to me while you hold the ladder,” he whispered as calmly as he could manage. Not wanting to spend any more time perched over this abyss, he bustled the few more inches to the ledge. “We… cough-cough… made it.” Black smoke was everywhere around them now. Maria reached for Ana as Bill released the clips on the harness. Miguel and Bill both exhaled at once, momentarily relieved.

“Miguel, when I say now, we need to pull that way,” Bill pointed to the opposite end of the roof, “with everything we’ve got. Again, don’t let go.”

Bill stretched over the void, firmly grabbing a rung, not at all sure if the ladder was simply too heavy to attempt this. No time to contemplate, “Now,” he yelled and they both yanked and ran away from the ledge, the ladder scraping loudly as it held onto the parapet edge. The weight and friction slowed them and pulled them to a stop. They only got a third of it on their side of the parapet before the weight tipped downward against them. Bill threw his right leg over and curled his foot under one of the rungs, putting all his weight into their counter balance. Miguel threw an arm around his rung and held tight. He was on his toes, and then off; the other side of their teeter totter had the leverage and the weight advantage. Miguel was being pulled up into the air as the ladder’s weight threatened to take them over. Lisa leaped and wrapped her arms around him, her extra weight and propulsion pulling him, Bill, and the ladder down. All three of them rolled onto the ladder to ensure it wasn’t moving, trying to catch their breath, made more difficult by the smoky environment.

“Damn.” Bill coughed up the curse, then glanced at his wife, who never failed to surprise and impress. But this was no time to dwell on her virtues.

They dragged the ladder the rest of the way. Miguel and Lisa plopped down, nearly spent. Bill gained a second wind, grabbed his rifle, and swung it against Max’s skylight. Thump. His gun and his bones rattled back, angered by the abuse. Thump. Again. Thump-crackle. He felt the plastic give. Once more, he swung like a homerun hitter. Thump-CRASH. Shards of plastic cascaded to the floor of Max’s kitchen.

Miguel, anticipating this, had already adjusted the ladder to about fifteen feet and together they carefully lowered it into the kitchen. Bill held it steady while the others lowered themselves into the relative safety of Max’s kitchen. In the excitement, he forgot to ask—and no one remembered—to steady the ladder’s base, which started slipping just a bit. Bill had made it a third of the way down before the ladder started to shake.

35. Panic

Laramie, Wyoming

The cacophony of cannon and gunfire was deafening to their ears and devastating to their defenses. The enemy’s tank blasted holes through the eastern wall, the .50 caliber machine gun shredded the northern wall, and the two civil war cannons punched through the southern wall. Gunmen trained automatic fire on anyone visible first on the wall’s scaffolding, before all abandoned their posts, and then on the rooftops, taking out Fort Laramie’s sharpshooters. It was a well-executed attack by a superior force.

Frank Patton’s first and only shot from the belfry hit its intended target, the operator of the .50 cal, silencing it for a minute until a new operator replaced him. In that minute several automatic weapons held him and Jeff under cover. Then the .50 cal, awake and angry for revenge, reaped its wrath on the belfry, sending its massive rounds into and through the belfry’s wood structure. It took Frank all of one round passing under his arm before he realized they would be dead soon. He and Jeff threw themselves through the opening, falling into emptiness of the small chamber below the belfry’s trap door. They then raced down the long ladder, hoping to escape before being hit.

When the eastern gate fell after only a few tank shells were expended, the invaders started their procession down Grand Avenue. One of Fort Laramie’s snipers took out one of the marchers, but before he was able to get off another shot, their gunmen pinned him down. That gave the tank’s gun operator the time to dial in the coordinates. Boom. Just like that, the corner of a building that had survived one hundred years collapsed into a pile of bricks and blood. They marched on.