Humanity's Edge- The Complete Trilogy

by Paul B. Kohler

  Alayna frowned. “For what? Punished for what?” she asked, shaking her head in confusion.

  In that moment, Darcy’s father entered the room, holding a bouquet of flowers. His eyes locked onto his daughter for a long moment. He held the flowers like a sword, then tapped them against his pectoral. He looked empty, defeated.

  “Mack,” Alayna said, standing from the plastic chair. She shook his hand. “Wanted to come down from the station to check on Darcy’s condition.”

  Mack nodded curtly. “I appreciate that. We both do. She’s—she’s not feeling so good.”

  “I suppose I wouldn’t be, either,” Alayna affirmed. She kept steady eye contact with Mack, noting the discoloration in his cheeks. A bit of sweat ebbed on his forehead. He was shaking as well. If Alayna didn’t know any better, she’d think they both had that damn flu bug. But surely it was just panic, altering their state of mind and body.

  Mack dropped the bouquet of flowers into a glass vase and grasped his daughter’s hand, eyeing Alayna once more from the other side of the bed. “It’s strange, growing older. Knowing your entire happiness depends on the well-being of another. Of course, with your mother being the way she was, and your father being gone all those years—” he paused. Alayna felt slapped. “It must have been difficult for you, raising yourself like that.”

  Alayna took several deep, staggering breaths. She blinked several times before righting herself, giving him a brief smile. She knew he didn’t mean it. News of her mother’s alcoholism and father’s abandonment had surely spread through the town like wildfire. Just because she’d put many years between her and those events didn’t mean people didn’t link her to them still. They were a part of her. And she was a part of the town.

  “Anyway,” Alayna said, attempting to change the subject, “they said she’ll be okay?”

  Mack nodded. Another bead of sweat dripped down his face. “We’ll have to find someplace else to go when they release her,” he told her. “The farmhouse was completely destroyed. The fire took both buildings. I managed to escape, but just barely.”

  Alayna jotted this information down on a pad, making the note: “Shivering. Both have flu—shock, or just panic?” beside it. “That must have been horrible for you,” she said, her voice light. “Sheriff Dobbs has gone out to the farm now. He’ll have answers to us soon. And in the meantime, you and Darcy should relax as best you can. Confusing times can make us ill in more ways than one.” She passed her eyes over the father and daughter, feeling suddenly anxious.

  After several minutes, Alayna excused herself and walked outside to the bright, near-autumn sunlight. She thought of Darcy, whose life had taken a dramatic turn in the previous several hours. When Alayna had been a teenager, cooking her own meals, shopping for groceries, trying to coax her mother to work in the days before she was officially fired, she hadn’t felt that life could be bright, that hope would ever meet her somewhere down the line. She’d felt only darkness.

  She trudged back toward her deputy vehicle, hoping she’d hear from Clay soon. She needed the kind of hope he brought to an investigation. She needed his insight.

  Chapter 6

  Clay Dobbs saw the smoke from only a half mile away as he sped down the country road. He frowned, feeling suddenly choked. They hadn’t had such a dramatic death in the town in several years. Sure, there was the occasional car accident, the rare suicide. But this—a fire that overtook the very farm that most restaurants and grocers in town relied upon for dairy and meat—was something different. It felt intimate. Was it arson?

  He parked far from the now-smoldering fire and marched toward it, his hands upon his hips. As he passed the field, he saw a fleck of fabric and heard footfalls before finding two farmhands before him. They peered toward him with frightened eyes. Their hands were restless.

  “Sheriff, you’re here!” one of them called. “We hoped someone would come out. The fire crew showed up and left, claiming the farm was a lost cause. Something about no water source near. We’ve only been here for an hour, and Mack is nowhere to be found, and this . . . disaster—”

  Clay raised his hands, stretching his fingers high. “I’m here now. I’ll check it out. Mack’s at the hospital with Darcy.” He eyed them curiously, noting that both were sweating profusely. The one who hadn’t spoken was dabbing his forehead with a rag, mopping up sweat. They were also shivering, their teeth clattering. “Are you boys nervous about something, or are you coming down with that damn bug making its way around town?” he asked.

  The pair made brief eye contact. “Maybe we should just go home,” one stammered. “We’ll get ahold of Mack and see what’s up.” He eyed the wreckage, the dark smoke. “I don’t really want to go over there again. It seems . . . wrong somehow.” Silence stretched long in the air.

  As the farmhands crept back toward their trucks, Clay edged forward, his hand upon his gun. The farmhouse, a once glorious representation from the nineteenth century, was burned almost totally to the ground, leaving only a slight skeleton of the downstairs and a lonely stone chimney. The barn was completely obliterated, although Clay marched past red shards of barn wood as he grew closer. This made him feel that perhaps the barn had exploded, sending these wooden flecks so far from the source. But who would blow up a barn, so far out in the field?

  Once he was close enough, he felt the heat. It was impenetrable, blasting against his cheeks and his forehead. He swiped his own rag from his pocket and blocked it over his cheeks and mouth, blinking wildly. He felt his eyebrows could singe off, that his eyes could melt into pools.

  The barn was a dark, simmering mass of rubble, constantly eating at the remaining pieces of wood. Clay found a slight path through the devastation, thankful for his high-top boots, and stepped carefully around the glowing embers.

  In the center of the once-barn structure, a crater had pushed deep into the earth. Clay edged toward it, feeling that this, perhaps, supported the bomb theory even more. As he drew closer, he felt he could hardly breathe. His lungs felt singed with the heat of the black smoke.

  The moment he reached the crater, he tilted his head and peered into the darkness. The crater held a massive, glowing black rock that reflected the high sun, even through the smoke. It was clear that the rock was the cause of the fire … and all the surrounding destruction. And as Clay assessed it, his mouth open, confusion palpitating through him, his mind arrived at one very serious conclusion: a meteorite.

  After several moments of gazing at the alien form, Clay backed away and spun from the black smoke, coughing. He leaned heavily, his hands upon his knees, choking and waiting for oxygen to come. Around him, the fields were empty. The sky was far too blue. Something was off. He felt far too alone.

  Sheriff Dobbs returned to his cruiser, his mind stirring with the image of the meteorite, and pondered his options. Should he phone it in to the local university for study? Should he call the coroner and explain that he was unable to find a single sign of Caleb’s body? Should he first call his deputy and marvel at the terrible nature of the earth and outer space, and at how nothing could have prevented this? Nothing at all?

  He turned the ignition and began to drive back, still feeling the heat upon his cheeks. He sniffed, imagining the massive meteorite bearing down upon him—making it the very last thing he saw on earth. He knew this had been the reality for Caleb. Fear had given way to nothingness.

  But once closer to town, Clay began to relax. He surveyed the passing cars and town inhabitants, carrying on with their days as if nothing was out of place. It was just another day in the life of Carterville.

  He stopped at the only drive-thru restaurant in town and bought a small fry, reminding himself that he hadn’t yet eaten, and that the salt—albeit unhealthy—would boost his blood flow. And besides, he wouldn’t have to tell Valerie. Although surely she would smell it on him. That woman was sharp as a tack.

  He drove easily into his normal spot at the station, leaned his head back, and shoveled ketchup-covered frie
s into his mouth, one after another. In this world of chance, he figured he might as well eat the whole damn thing.

  Chapter 7

  Clay stuffed the fast food bag into the side compartment as he crept from his cruiser. As he did so, Alayna pulled in beside him, giving him a quick wave and smile.

  She met him at the front door, sighed intensely, and eyed him. “You look like you’ve just spent three days out in the sun,” she said.

  Clay’s eyebrows went high. He touched his cheek, feeling its heat. “Well, that’s because I discovered much more than just a fire out at the Crawfords’,” he said. He leaned closer to her, his eyes dancing. “A meteorite.”

  “What the hell?” she blurted. “Like, from outer space? Aliens and all that?”

  Clay shook his head. He stomped his boot against the step, knocking farmhouse debris onto the concrete. “I mean, I wouldn’t go that far. But meteorites do exist, scientifically speaking. And sometimes they fall to earth—apparently choosing random lives to ruin at the same time.”

  “Wow. That’s a bad day when a meteorite chooses you,” Alayna said, a bit flustered. She swallowed sharply. “I saw Darcy. And her father.”

  “Is she doing all right?” Clay asked. With the scene from the farmhouse fresh in his mind, he couldn’t imagine how she could be. Everything had been scorched black. Any hay bales that had protected her had crisped out hours before.

  “They said they’re going to monitor her for a while yet, but they think she’ll be okay,” Alayna said, shrugging. “But she doesn’t seem all right, mentally. She said what happened, and how Caleb was killed instantly. And Mack. First he lost his wife a few years ago, and now this? I think he might need a psych evaluation before this is over.”

  “I’m sure the docs will come to that same conclusion,” Clay said uneasily. He gripped the station door, opening it for Alayna. They entered, smelling burnt coffee and stale donuts. The cliché was assuring.

  As they moved through the entry, they noted that one of their deputies, Kyle, was releasing Trudy Benson from jail. Trudy was leaning heavily against the desk, watching with flirtatious eyes as Kyle signed her release form. She was sloppy, her blonde hair frizzy and wayward from sleeping in the jail cell once more. Black mascara streaked down her cheeks, giving her a clownish look. And the moment she saw Clay and Alayna, she all but squealed with happiness. As she traipsed toward them, Clay noted that she was sweating. She looked erratic, but that wasn’t uncommon.

  “Clay. Alayna,” she said, her smile stretching wide. “I want to apologize, again, for . . . landing myself back in here.” She shot her thumb toward the jail cell. “Another faceless night, one more terrible mistake. I didn’t mean to. I—I never do.”

  Clay felt assured, if only for a moment, at the normality of this event. He stepped up to Kyle and read the report. It was quite typical. “Trudy was blackout, disorderly, and kissing people at the bar without their agreement. She was kicked out of two bars before being picked up near the station and taken into custody.”

  “You brought her in, Kyle?” Clay asked.

  “And she tried to kiss me, too,” Kyle affirmed, shaking his head. “What a goddamn mess.”

  Trudy giggled uncertainly, eyeing the three officers. “So. Is it okay if I leave, or—” She turned toward the door. The smell of her was horrid, a mix of body odor and whisky. Clay saw Alayna turn up her nose. He knew this was probably a memory for her. Her mother had been a terrible drunk before her death.

  “Trudy, Trudy. We’ve been over this,” Clay said. “You can’t just run around, drunkenly kissing whoever you run across.” He tilted his head, giving his voice a fatherly tone. “It’s an invasion of privacy, and it could be termed sexual harassment.”

  “I know . . .” Trudy said, trailing off. She dropped her head and pouted her red lips like a child.

  “Trudy, this is your seventh time here in just the last three years,” Clay continued. “Seven times! It’s like you’ve lost any semblance of self-control. Maybe you’re sexually harassing us?” Clay said. “But we don’t want you here anymore. You need to restrain yourself. Stop living this way. Let’s not make this a habit . . . again.”

  Trudy batted her eyelashes. Clay knew she was the town temptress, generally getting her way when she used her body, her smile, her eyes—with the promise of pleasing men. As far as he knew, she hardly paid for any of her drinks. In exchange, she was flirtatious, happy to see anyone and everyone who entered the bars, and usually only went home to her slight studio apartment within town limits when the bars closed. She filled the role nicely. And yet he couldn’t help but feel sorry for her. Trudy had been an intelligent girl in school. She’d been engaged, even, before breaking it off and heading to the big city for about a year. When she’d returned, she’d found her ex-boyfriend had married someone else. And that she’d latched on to the party lifestyle that she couldn’t abandon. And people like Kyle, a sheriff’s deputy, had to clean up her messes.

  Trudy nodded in agreement. Then she shuffled toward the door, waving at them with fluttering fingers, and began her traditional route home. She didn’t drive anywhere. She was drunk far too often to keep a driver’s license.

  Kyle rolled his eyes and sighed evenly. “She was up all night talking to me in there,” he said, gesturing to the jail cell. “I didn’t think she’d ever shut up. Does that woman get any sleep?”

  “You know she keeps different hours than the rest of us,” Clay said, slapping his hand upon his deputy’s back. “Thank you for your work. You’re keeping this place safe. Or at least a little less chaotic.”

  Clay and Alayna continued their path through the front office, where they separated. Alayna headed toward the vending machine and then to her office to fill out paperwork, and Clay retreated to his own office. It was only just after noon, and already the day had been incredibly, even terribly, eventful.

  Chapter 8

  Back in his office, Clay rested his feet on the edge of the desk, tapping his pen upon the surface. He cradled the phone between his cheek and shoulder, dialing the unfamiliar number and noting that despite having only eaten French fries that day, his stomach felt bloated with nerves.

  As he’d spoken to Alayna about the meteorite, he’d realized that he needed to alert the nearest, larger city of Helen for assistance. Without much scientific knowledge, and with an overactive imagination, he reasoned that meteorites might allow for contamination or lend themselves to viruses or microorganisms, and ultimately impact the ecosystem of the surrounding lands. In reality, he was just a small-town constable, with small-town habits and small-town opinions. He just needed a little, tiny bit of backup from the neighboring county.

  The receptionist at the Helen police station picked up on the second ring. Her words were curt, stern, almost reminiscent of Lois, the Carterville mayor. “Hello, Helen police.”

  “Yes, hi,” Clay began, lifting himself into a straight posture. His feet fell from the desk with a thunk. “My name is Clay Dobbs, and I’m sheriff over in Carterville. I was wondering if I might speak to your chief about a particular situation we have over here. We might need—”

  “Please hold,” the woman said, and silence fell on the other end of the line.

  Clay waited in great anticipation, feeling unsure if calling out to another city was the right thing to do without first running it by Lois. In his years as sheriff of Carterville, he hadn’t required much assistance. He’d prided himself on being the leader, on walking his people through every great tragedy, and on keeping the wretched kisses of one town floozy from passive or married men.

  But meteorites? He Googled them quickly on his desktop, waiting as the other end buzzed with silence. Articles from NASA, Time magazine, and various science-based sites flooded his screen, asking terrible, wretched questions like, “Is Earth facing a threat of an asteroid collision?” and “Giant asteroid headed our way, but NASA says no worries.” No worries? Beyond that he read that, as life possibly existed outside of Earth, met
eorites could contain viruses and bacteria from other planets—ones that the people of Earth weren’t accustomed to. Ones that could destroy them all.

  Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the woman on the other line called out his name. “Sheriff Clay? Clay Dobbs?” she said curtly.

  “Yes. I’m still here,” Clay said. He hoped his voice didn’t shake through the receiver.

  “I’ve spoken with the chief. He says that help has already been dispatched to your area.”

  Clay shifted his weight, his eyes still upon the screen before him. “I’m sorry. Help has already been dispatched? Just since I made this phone call? And he doesn’t want to speak with me?” He felt the tension in his voice.

  “No, sir. In fact, help was dispatched about an hour ago. They should arrive with you shortly. Unfortunately, the chief’s in a meeting right now, but I can have him call you when he’s available.”

  Clay’s mind buzzed. Something was incredibly off. How could Helen have known about the meteorite? And if they didn’t know about it, what were they sending help for? Besides the fire, nothing else had occurred to justify such a quick, if not premature, response. Nothing that he recalled, anyway. And Clay’s mind was generally sharp. He swept his fingers over the wrinkles in his forehead, finally answering the woman on the other line. “Sure. Have him call back when he can. Tell him thank you, I guess.”

  Clay hung up the phone and stretched his arms over his head before striding toward the window. His eyes danced over the horizon. The sky was far too calm, almost irritatingly so. Helen was on their way.

  After a thought struck him, he ran to Alayna’s office, and was breathless when he reached her. She was hovered over her paperwork, a pen in her hand. She smiled as he burst in.