Atlantic Island: The Event

by Fredric Shernoff

distance between them. Bill was always so nervous when he met a girl he liked. Theo couldn’t help but smile.

  The girls were staying at Jamie’s mom’s place not far from the Sea Son’s Motel. Somewhere in the conversation it was decided that they would all go back to the motel to hang out and see where the night went.

  Theo sat in the back of Jamie’s Mazda with Kylee. Mark sat up front in the passenger seat. Ryan drove the Accord, with Bill and Michelle in the backseat. Bill kept the same small gap between him and Michelle.

  Kylee leaned over and whispered in his ear. “Let’s go for a walk when we get back.” Theo looked at her as she brushed back that errant piece of hair. A walk sounded like a very good idea.

  When the cars were parked, Theo and Kylee walked up on the boards leaving the others to their own fun. “So,” Theo said, “tell me something interesting about you.”

  Kylee shrugged. “I don’t know; I’m not really all that interesting.”

  Theo took her hand. “I can’t imagine that. Well, what are you planning to do this summer?”

  “I have a job at the pharmacy a couple minutes from my house. I do gift-wrapping and help people find greeting cards. See? You’ve found a really interesting girl.”

  Theo smiled. “I happen to think it’s fascinating. I mean, I’ve always wanted to know how to tie one of those fancy curly bows.”

  “Oh it’s very simple, you take scissors and…” Kylee raised an eyebrow. “Are you making fun of me?”

  “Maybe…a little?”

  Kylee grinned. “Okay, I’ll remember that.” She walked over to the railing and pulled herself up on top of the metal bar. “So what do you do, funny man?”

  Theo looked toward the water. “I don’t really do much right now, I mean, I hang with the guys and I’m obviously thinking about college. I just haven’t figured out exactly what I want to do.” He turned back to Kylee. His eyes wandered over her body and focused on her lean legs in short jean shorts, perched on the railing. He returned his gaze to her face. Making eye contact with Kylee was a challenge he hadn’t expected.

  “You’ll get there,” Kylee said. “Just enjoy the summer.”

  “Oh I am,” Theo said. “It’s off to a great start.”

  Theo stepped in front of Kylee and she nudged him playfully with her foot. He wrapped his arms around her and lifted her off the bar. With a grin she shoved him backwards and ran for the stairs leading to the beach. “Come on!” she called.

  Theo, captivated, shed his sandals and followed Kylee on to the sand. He chased her down to the water where she splashed in the edge of the tide. Kylee’s silhouette in the moonlight beckoned to him. He reached out and pulled her around. This time she didn’t push him away.

  2

  Theo felt Kylee’s lips against his. His arms were secure around her waist and she wrapped hers around his neck. He was so lost in the experience, so overwhelmed by the force of nature that was this new girl, that he didn’t hear the low rumbling on the horizon.

  A louder series of booms in the distance made Kylee pull away. “What was that?”

  “I have no idea,” Theo said, pulling her back toward him. “Maybe a plane breaking the sound barrier or something. I think there’s an airport near...” A massive, echoing bang interrupted him.

  The sky lit up with a series of flashes emanating both from miles behind the condos along the boardwalk and far out over the ocean. The rumbling continued and began to intensify. Theo’s ears were ringing. “Okay, not a plane!”

  Kylee was holding her head. “What? I can’t hear anything!”

  Well, thought Theo, the noise took her hearing too, so at least I’m not having a stroke or something.

  The ground began to shake, vibrating like a massive motor. The sand shifted around Theo’s feet as he stumbled toward Kylee who was struggling to stay upright. The ocean began to churn and the waves rolled higher up the shore. Theo looked at the frothy surf reflecting the flashes of light in the sky. He took Kylee by the shoulder and pointed to the boardwalk. Run.

  They took off together, bobbing and staggering through the agitated sands. Small explosions and booms intermingled with pulses of light as they ran, and through it all, that roar of an ancient machine suddenly and angrily awakened. They made it onto the boardwalk, which seemed to be holding strong against the shaking ground.

  Kylee leaned with her hands on her knees as she caught her breath. Theo was fascinated by how calm she was continuing to be in what was, clearly, a pretty messed up situation. He spun around to face her and the beach and gestured with arms wide. “What the hell is going on?” he asked.

  Kylee read his lips and began to answer when her eyes suddenly widened. “Look out!” She dove toward him and tackled him onto the boards. Composing himself on the shaking wooden structure and not ignorant of the light but firm weight on top of him, Theo looked to the left. Where he had been standing a second earlier a deck chair was on its side, bent out of shape. The chair and the boards around it were covered with a crumbled concrete. Looking up, Theo saw the missing piece of the third floor balcony.

  His mind fought to process what he was experiencing. Somehow, this earthquake, or whatever it was, had torqued and bent the motel enough to crack the concrete, surely in many places. The fact that the chair had tumbled through the opening and fallen forward seemed to imply that the land was tilting toward the ocean, yet the waves were coming closer with increasing ferocity.

  Theo looked into Kylee’s eyes and mouthed “thank you.” She nodded and rolled off him. The two of them sat side-by-side, afraid to stand as the shaking increased. Theo had been able to hear, or maybe it was feel, the bass of the rumbling, but now he could hear the rumbling more clearly, and other sounds. Sirens in the distance mingled with an electrical crackling.

  “It’s an earthquake, right?” Kylee asked. She was surveying the scene with an impressive calm but her eyes conveyed concern.

  “I don’t know; I’ve never been in one before. It seems like there’s a lot more happening.”

  “Yeah, I noticed.” She pointed down the boardwalk to where the casinos and the Pier Mall flickered and sputtered in the distance. “Whatever’s happening is going to blow the power out soon.” As if she had magically decreed it, the lights went out one by one.

  “Great. What we needed was some darkness. At least we’ve got the weird lights in the sky.”

  Theo stood up and offered Kylee his hand. “We need to get off the boards. We have to find the others.”

  “Yeah, you’re right. Let’s go.”

  Holding on to each other, Theo and Kylee left the boardwalk and wandered down the side street to Atlantic Avenue. The main street was a disaster. Cars were abandoned in the middle of the road, though some had rammed into buildings and poles along the sides of the street. Fire hydrants spouted water into the air. “Oh my God,” Kylee said. “Look at the people.”

  There were people lying unconscious or worse in the street and on the sidewalks. Others, clearly alive, clung to the ground in fear. Still others wandered aimlessly, stumbling against the roll of the earth. A middle aged Hispanic man, his eyes wide saucers of panic, approached them. He muttered, “No, no, no…” over and over. He was bleeding from a cut on his shoulder and his tanktop was stained red. As he passed Theo and Kylee, he tripped and fell. The man scrambled to his feet and ran on, continuing his refrain. “No, no, no…”

  Theo put his arm around Kylee. He still hadn’t quite processed everything that had happened, certainly not the part where he was almost killed and had been saved by this amazing girl he had just met hours earlier.

  “So what do you think? Is this Hell?” the voice behind them was shaken but still definitely Bill. Theo turned around and was relieved to see that his friend appeared to be unharmed.

  “I don’t know,” said Theo. “It’s something bad, that’s for sure.” Just then something occurred to him. “I left my cell phone in the car! Maybe we can call somebody and find out what’s g
oing on.”

  “Oh crap,” said Kylee, “I left mine on the beach. It’s underwater by now.”

  “Wouldn’t help anyway,” said Bill, holding up his phone. “There is absolutely no service. Not even one bar. Even the GPS signal is all wonky. Last time I tried it said I’m in the middle of Springville, Utah.”

  “I’d take Utah right about now,” said Theo.

  “Well, ok, so what other option do we have?” asked Kylee. She gestured to the wreckage all over the street. “We can’t drive anywhere while the ground is shaking. Besides, there are too many people all over the place.”

  Bill hunched down as another small, concussive blast sounded “Ryan had this idea that he could get a signal from on the roof. He tried the motel and got nothing. He and Michelle are trying the building next door. It’s much higher.”

  Theo nodded. Leave it to Ryan to come up with some tech idea that might actually work. “And Mark and Jamie?”

  “Won’t leave the motel. Mark thinks the world is coming to an end. It’s that crap we saw on television earlier.”

  Theo shrugged. “Look around you man, can you honestly say he’s wrong?”

  The rumbling intensified again. “Get down guys,” Bill said, “I think another shockwave is coming.”

  The three of them hit the ground and covered their ears. Theo closed his eyes but could still see the light of the biggest flash yet blooming in the darkness of his eyelids. A second later the boom