The Yellowstone Event (Book 3): A Nation Gone Crazy

by Maloney, Darrell

  Chapter 9

  While all hell was breaking loose in the United States, Gwen and Melvyn Lupson were enjoying a more relaxed life, hidden in a buried bunker north of Windsor, Ontario.

  Living ten feet underground provides one with a buffer which filters out most of the world’s noise.

  And since their friend Joe Manson had neither a working television or radio, they hadn’t a clue what was going on in the outside world.

  Actually he did have a television, but no cable system. It was hooked up to a DVD player to play his collection of three hundred movies upon demand.

  But mostly it just gathered dust.

  Joe also had an impressive collection of books he’d hoarded over several years. The classics were all there, as were more modern stuff. Science fiction, mostly, although he also enjoyed Zane Grey westerns and good mysteries as well.

  As it happened, Gwen and Melvyn were voracious readers and as such, it was easy for them to lose themselves in good books and forget (at least temporarily) the whole Yellowstone thing.

  It was a full seven days after Joe sent out a ham radio request to a friend in Little Rock to check on Tony and Hannah that Gwen asked him to follow up on it.

  “Certainly. I’ve been wondering myself whether he was able to make contact and make sure she’s okay.”

  He went to his radio room and sat down in front of his ham radio.

  With Gwen standing behind him he turned on the unit, saying “It’ll take a minute to warm up. It’s not as young as it used to be.”

  “Sadly, none of us are.”

  He picked up the microphone and said, “Rick from Southern Cal, this is Joe from Idaho. You listening in today?”

  He got nothing. He used a dial to fine tune the frequency selector and tried again.

  “Rick from Southern Cal, this is Joe from Idaho. You listening in today?”

  Again, silence.

  Joe looked over his shoulder at Gwen and said, "I wouldn’t worry too much. Sometimes I have to try him two or three times before I catch him with his radio on. He only has it on when he’s running his generator, and he only does that when he’s refreezing his food or watching his television.”

  “You said he lives off the grid. What does that mean, exactly?”

  “It means basically that he’s left civilization and lives by himself out in the middle of nowhere.

  “Actually, he’s not a true off-the-gridder, because I understand he goes into town once or twice a month to buy gas and supplies.

  “A true off-the-gridder never goes into town. He lives off his hunting and fishing and farming skills and avoids civilization all together.

  “I’ve heard tell of some who live in the back woods of the Rockies and the Ozarks who haven’t seen another human being in years.”

  “That must be very hard.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I think it takes a special kind of person. One who’s more rugged and independent than most folks. But for some people it suits them, I guess.

  “If you think about it, Mother Nature and her beasts… the birds, the rabbits, the squirrels… they’re better than humans because they’ll never stab you in the back or do you wrong.”

  “I suppose. Would you try him again later?”

  “I’ll try him every few hours until I get ahold of him.”

  “Thank you, Joe.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  He reached up to turn the power off but was stopped by a voice which came through the speaker.

  “Who’s out there looking for Rick from Southern Cal?”

  He wasted no time in getting back on.

  “That would be me. Joe from Idaho.”

  “Look, you don’t know me from Adam. But you should know that Rick is dead.”

  “What? How did he die?”

  “He was found face down in a stream a few miles north of here. Coroner said it was a heart attack.

  “Nearest I can figure is he was checking his traps and had the heart attack, then fell into the stream. I hope he died quickly and in no pain.

  “Funny, I thought he was in pretty good health. But I guess we can never tell when our time is up.”

  “Can I ask how you know him?”

  “I’m his brother. I’ve been coming up to his cabin every week or two for years just to check up on him. As far as I know I’m the only one he ever showed the cabin to.

  “This time I came up here to clean it out. We’re all evacuating down south and I wanted to get some family photos he had.”

  “Evacuating?”

  “Yeah. Maybe you haven’t heard the news. Are you as out of touch as Rick was?”

  “If by out of touch you mean am I up on the news, the answer is no. I have no television or radio where I’m at.”

  “Look, I don’t know where you live and don’t want to know. But if you live anywhere near Yellowstone National Park, you might want to think about bugging out to somewhere else.”

  Joe looked at Gwen.

  Both of them had the same look on their faces. Half surprise, half concern.

  Joe asked, “I’m nowhere near Yellowstone. But why? What’s going on?”

  “They’ve discovered a great big volcano beneath Yellowstone. And they’re saying it’s going to blow and destroy everything for hundreds of miles around it.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. That’s all they’ve been talking about for days. Every hour, every TV station.”

  “Thanks for the information. And I’m sorry for your loss. Rick was one of the good guys.”

  “Thank you. Good luck to you sir.”

  “And to you. Signing off.”

  Chapter 10

  The revelation that Yellowstone was now public knowledge put Gwen and Melvyn into a bit of a pickle.

  Logic would dictate the United States government was no longer out to find Gwen and to silence her, for the cat was already out of the bag and she was no longer a threat to them.

  But then again, the United States government had never been accused of being logical.

  “What if we go back to the States and they arrest us?” Gwen asked. “What if they murder us just to keep us from telling people we know about the other people who’ve disappeared over the years?”

  “I don’t know how we can not go back,” Melvyn said. “I mean, we’ve still got family and friends in the evacuation zones. We owe it to them to go back and make sure they get out of there safely.”

  “But if it’s all over the news they’re already aware of it. They’re capable of moving on their own. They’re likely more worried about our own well-being.”

  “How do we figure out, then, whether they’re out looking for us? As gracious as Joe has been I don’t want to stay here forever. I want to be out there where we can make sure our family and friends are safe.

  “But we should look at the possibility they’re still looking for us. I don’t want to just assume we’re off the hook and walk right into a government trap.”

  Joe listened patiently before offering an obvious solution.

  “Why not call your friend Hannah? If she’s at home and they’re not going after her, then they’re likely not after you either.”

  Gwen smiled. Then just as quickly as the smile appeared it vanished again, replaced by a look of terror.

  “What if your friend Rick didn’t really die of a heart attack? What if he found Hannah and warned her to hide and the government killed him to punish him?

  “They’ve got drugs that would simulate a heart attack, don’t they?”

  “Yes, I’m afraid they do.”

  Melvyn said, “Why don’t we go into Windsor? We’ll call her house just to see who answers. But we’ll use a public phone, not your cell phone.”

  “Why not my cell phone?”

  “Because if they’re still looking for us using your cell phone will alert them to where we are.

  “A random call from an anonymous pay phone wouldn’t be linked to us. It could be a wrong number. Or a ca
ll from an old friend. Or a telemarketer.”

  It sounded like a viable plan.

  “Joe, would you mind taking us into Windsor?”

  “No, not at all. I’ve got to get supplies anyway.

  “But let me get my supplies first. We’ll wait until the last thing to make your phone call. That way if they recognize your voice and put a tracer on the call we can get the hell out of town before they alert Windsor Police to pick you up.

  “And it’s kind of late in the day to make the drive. Any problem if we leave first thing in the morning?”

  “First thing in the morning it is.”

  Jeff and Tony were on the outskirts of St. Louis, close enough to see the landing lights of airliners on final approach at St. Louis Lambert International Airport.

  They knew they were getting close.

  They’d had some time to talk, and Tony was a bit calmer now.

  He’d shared with Jeff everything that happened, from start to finish.

  And he needed to share something else with his friend too.

  He just couldn’t find the words or the strength.

  But it needed to be said.

  “Jeff, can I tell you something, and get your assurance you won’t tell Hannah?”

  “Sure. What is it?”

  “When Bud and I shared a cell I leaned on him pretty heavily.

  “I was scared to death, and didn’t have a clue what to expect. He kind of walked me through it, you know? Told me how to resist them and told me the various ways they’d try to make me talk and such.

  “It made dealing with them a lot easier.”

  Jeff could tell something big was coming. And that Tony was having a rough time of it.

  Luckily he knew how to be patient and to coax the words out of him.

  “I’m with you so far, buddy. Take your time.”

  “One of the things he stressed to me was to expect the worst, but to hope for the best.”

  “Meaning?”

  “He said every time they came for me to expect to die. To expect them to go too far beating me or torturing me. Or to expect them to just give up on me telling them anything and put a bullet in my head.

  “He said as ugly as that prospect was, it would help me get through the torture.

  “Because then if I survived the day without having a heart attack or getting my brains splattered all over the wall, I’d feel like I’d won.

  “It would be a small victory. And he said those small victories would help me win the battle of wills against them.”

  “Okay. But I get the distinct impression that’s not what you really want to tell me.”

  “It isn’t…”

  He took a deep breath and continued.

  “Bud also wouldn’t let me talk of Hannah in the present tense. He made me talk of her as though she was already dead.

  “He said he knew it was painful, but I had to do that. Because it would help me stay sane if I found out they’d killed her. That I’d already have prepared myself for the possibility.”

  “Okay. That makes sense.”

  “But wait. There’s more.

  “He made me do the same thing with the baby. To assume the baby was dead, just in case he was stillborn or they couldn’t save him because he was born premature.

  “Hannah said she never saw him. That they told her about him but never showed up with him. And that all she has was their word he was even still alive.”

  “Tony, what are you saying?”

  “God help me for saying this, Jeff. But I think Samson is dead. I think that’s the reason they didn’t show up with him like they were supposed to. Because he didn’t make it.”

  Chapter 11

  The pair arrived at the hotel half an hour later and Hannah poured herself into Tony’s arms.

  She thought she’d cried every tear from her body, but they came again in fresh waves once she saw what they’d done to her husband.

  They cried together.

  Tony, not exactly known for being an emotional guy, knew his friend Jeff was in the room and watching. But he cried unashamedly anyway.

  And truth was Jeff’s eyes were more than a little bit moist too.

  The two of them, Hannah and Tony, sat on the edge of the bed together, and she laid out the whole thing to them. This time she was much more detailed than she’d been on that short and hysterical phone call she’d had with Tony.

  She told them about everything.

  The plywood box. The unflavored Ramen noodles. The rotting, stinking pile of afterbirth she shared her cell with.

  Jeff wondered aloud whether the afterbirth was left there intentionally as a means of torturing her.

  “It would have been easy to clean that up when they took the baby. I think they left it there to make you crack.”

  “But you didn’t crack,” Tony said. “By God, you showed them you were tougher than they were.”

  He held her close.

  Then came the million dollar question.

  “What do you think we should do next?”

  Hannah surprised him, as she frequently did.

  “I’ve already done it.”

  “What do you mean, baby?”

  “While I waited for you I turned on the TV. The ‘Yellowstone Event,’ as they’re calling it, is all they’re talking about. On every channel.

  “They showed video from all over the country. On every college campus in America they’re protesting. Same with Washington and in every state capitol in the country.

  “A lot of the posters they’re carrying have my picture on them. The posters say I’m one of the missing, and they’re demanding my return from the government.

  “I don’t know where they got my photo…”

  “From Geo-Dynametric’s website,” Tony offered.

  She melted just a bit.

  “Oh, Tony… I didn’t know you ever saw that photo.”

  He could have pointed out it was Bud who’d seen the photo on her company’s website. That he’d never seen it himself.

  He could have pointed out that Bud predicted the student protestors would find it and would picket for her release.

  But he wisely kept his mouth shut.

  Jeff asked the question for him.

  “Hannah… you said you’ve already done something. What have you done, exactly?”

  “I went and talked to the manager of the hotel while I was waiting for you guys.

  “I explained the situation to him. And I asked if I could borrow the hotel conference room for an hour or two.

  “He thought it was a great idea. He said the room normally rents for two hundred dollars an hour, but we could use it for free.”

  Tony was puzzled, and she wasn’t really making much sense.

  “Conference room? Use it for what?”

  “For a press conference. He thought it was a great idea, and he helped me call all the radio and television stations. And every newspaper he thought could get here in time.”

  “When is it?”

  She instinctively looked at her wrist for the time, then sheepishly remembered she no longer had a watch. It was just another of the things she’d lost during her ordeal and would likely never see again.

  The clock on the night table said 7:57.

  “It’s scheduled for nine p.m. An hour from now.”

  Tony held her close and rocked her tenderly back and forth.

  He was many things. He was impressed by her strength and her ability to think clearly when her whole world was crashing down upon her.

  He was impressed with her decision to go public.

  It wouldn’t be easy on her. He knew that. Facing those cameras and telling her story would likely be one of the hardest things she’d ever done.

  But she’d do it.

  Hannah liked to call Tony her “knight in shining armor.”

  Every time he did something special for her she went on an on about him being her hero.

  But they both knew the truth.

&nb
sp; That Hannah was the strongest of the two.

  He told her a couple of months before, when they were getting ready to go to Yellowstone to do their survey, that she was his knight. Not the other way around.

  “You’re much tougher than I’ll ever be,” he told her. “And you have more brains than I’ll ever have. That’s why it doesn’t bother me to admit that you’re the boss of us.

  “Just please… don’t tell my friends I said that.”

  It was a bit awkward and clumsy at the time, but later she realized how hard it must have been for him to admit that.

  And she’d gone back to him and kissed him on the cheek.

  “What’s that for?”

  “That’s for the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

  Hannah was many things besides tough as nails. She was as logical as a Vulcan science officer. She was brilliant. She was meticulous in everything she did.

  And she was fastidious about her looks.

  She never went out in public until her makeup was absolutely flawless.

  Now Hannah was a beautiful woman even without makeup. Tony knew that and told her that often, even as she argued against it.

  But he also knew how self-conscious she was going out in public before she reached perfection.

  “Honey, I have time to run up to that drug store down the street to get you some makeup, if you’ll make me a quick list.”

  “No,” she said. “I want the world to see what they’ve done to me. Bruises and puffy eyes and all.”

  Chapter 12

  Late the following morning Gwen, Melvyn and Joe puttered into Windsor, Ontario in Joe’s pickup truck.

  “I thought I’d drop you at the Windsor Carlson,” Joe said.

  “What’s the Windsor Carlson?”

  “It’s a luxury hotel. One of the nicest in the world, if you read their reviews, although I’ve never stayed there.

  “It’s downtown, smack in the tourist district. And it’s accessible from all four sides. If you see something suspicious or someone you think might be watching you, it’ll be easy for you to slip out and lose yourself in the crowds of tourists.”

  “Wow, Joe. You’ve really put a lot of thought into this, haven’t you?”