“I’m coming out,” Raymond said and started wiggling back into the cavern.
When he finally got out he was covered in dirt and clay. His face was caked and James could see where the sweat had run down his face. It was obvious that he had been at it for some time.
“How long was I out?”
“Don’t know. A couple of hours I guess. The wine kind of did you in,” Raymond replied.
“How much further do you think it is?”
“Maybe five or six more feet and we should get to the door. How we are going to get that open I haven’t figured out yet.”
“What a mess. I wonder why they haven’t tried to dig us out yet.”
“I don’t have a clue but I damn sure intend to find out. If they forgot about us I am going to be really pissed.”
“Amen to that. Mind if I dig for a while? I’m freezing my ass off,” Lawton said.
“By all means, please be my guest,” Raymond said, handing the small shovel to him. James crawled down the small tunnel.
“Damn. Not much room to work in,” he said.
“Feel free to make it bigger if you want,” Raymond said, sitting down on the dirt floor and using a bottle of wine on the back of his neck to cool down.
“Not complaining, just making small talk.”
“Talk less and dig more,” Raymond muttered.
****
Lawton worked steadily for the next hour before he yelled out, “I hit something solid. It must be the door.”
“Great. Any chance of breaking through it?”
“It’s damned solid. I can pound on it and maybe someone will hear it and come get us out.”
“It’s worth a try,” Raymond replied.
Lawton banged on the door with the end of the shovel for several minutes but nothing happened.
“What the hell are they doing?” he said exasperated.
“Mourning our death I suppose,” Raymond replied.
“They will be mourning something when I get out of here,” Lawton replied.
“Come on out. Let me see what I can do.”
Lawton wiggled back out of the tunnel and Raymond crawled into it toward the door. He sat and tried to picture the door in his mind. Finally he started digging up and slightly to the left. He dug for several minutes, and then reached up. Almost. He could just feel the bottom of the door handle plate. He dug the hole slightly larger so he could reach up further.
After several attempts he finally felt the door handle. He turned the latch and the door fell open. He was grateful that it opened out or else they would have had to dig a huge hole. A dim light filled the shaft.
“You got it,” Lawton yelled as the light filtered down the shaft.
“Let’s get out of here,” Raymond yelled and scrambled out into the open courtyard.
Lawton scrambled out a few seconds later. Raymond was just standing there, staring into space.
“Man I’m glad to be…….What the hell?”
The neat rows of grapes that had covered the hills were gone. The stakes and vines were standing but nothing else. The buildings were intact but all vegetation was wiped out.
“What…happened?” Lawton said.
“I sure the hell don’t know. Look at the sky,” he said, pointing up.
“You ever see anything like that before?” Lawton asked after a few seconds.
“Never.”
“What in the world went on while we were trapped inside?”
“Listen,” Raymond said, holding his hand up.
Both men stopped talking and listened.
“This is weird,” Lawton finally said, breaking the silence.
“No birds, machinery, or anything. I don’t get it.”
“Let’s go to my office and see what the hell is going on,” Lawson suggested.
Both men walked quickly across the courtyard and almost ran up the stairs to James’s office. No one was in the building as far as they could tell. It was totally silent in the building as well.
“Where is Alice?” Lawson said.
“Maybe she went home?”
“At four O’clock?”
Raymond just shrugged. Lawton flipped on the light switch but nothing happened.
“Must have popped the breakers,” Raymond suggested.
“Do you know where they are? My computer isn’t working.”
Raymond picked up the phone, “Phone either.”
“What is going on here? That isn’t on a breaker.”
“No, but maybe the earthquake did more damage that we thought. Maybe it was widespread and it damaged the town and who knows what else,” Raymond suggested.
“No one is here, that’s for damn sure. Let’s get in my car and go see what’s going on,” Lawton suggested.
“We can’t do anything here,” Raymond agreed. They started to head back downstairs when Lawton stopped at Alice’s desk to try her phone.
“What the hell is that?” he said, pointing to a slimly glob on the chair and floor?”
“Looks like a big goober,” Raymond replied.
Lawton just gave him a glance then reached out and touched it.
“Son of a bitch,” he yelled and pulled his hand back. “God damn it. My finger is on fire,” he yelled, rubbing it on the desk blotter.
Smoke whiffed off the end of his finger and where he had touched the blotter. He blew on his finger but it hurt like hell.
“Water,” he finally yelled.
Raymond reached over and stuck Lawton’s finger in a cup of coffee sitting on the credenza behind Alice’s desk.
“Son of a bitch. That was acid or some damn thing,” Lawton said.
“I don’t see how. If it was acid it should have burned a hole in the seat,” Raymond pointed out.
“You stick your finger in there and tell me that isn’t acid,” Lawton said, flicking his fingers.
“I’m just saying that it must be something else. Any acid that did that to your finger would have certainly burned a hole in the fabric of the chair.”
“I don’t know what the hell it is but it sure did a number on my finger,” he said holding it up for Raymond to see.
A large black spot was visible on the tip of his finger. Raymond just shook his head.
“You still want to go to town?”
“Hell yes. I want to find out what is going on around here,” Lawton said determinedly.
They went downstairs and got into James’s BMW. Lawton inserted and turned the key but nothing happened.
“Now what?” he said, trying the key several more times.
“Open the hood,” Raymond suggested.
“What good will that do?”
“I’ll take a look. Maybe it’s something simple,” he suggested.
“On a BMW? Nothing is simple on one of these,” Lawton lamented as he released the hood.
Raymond got out and opened up the hood and looked inside. Several components appeared to be melted. It was very strange. Finally he closed the hood and opened Lawson’s door.
“We won’t be going anyplace in this car. Something fried a bunch of parts.”
“Fried? What does that mean?”
“Something melted some parts. I don’t know all the stuff in a fancy car like that but I do know what a melted part looks like.”
“Would someone please tell me what the hell is happening around here?” Lawton said in exasperation.
“I hate to point this out but there is just you and me here and I don’t know any more than you do,” Raymond replied.
Lawton gave him a frown before finally laughing.
“Yeah, that was kind of dumb,” he finally admitted. “So now what? It’s a long walk into town.”
“Let me check something out,” Raymond said and headed to one of the sheds.
A few minutes later Lawton heard an engine start and their old tractor came out of the building.
“This thing works but my BMW doesn’t?” he said scratching his head.
“I noticed i
t was a bunch of parts that I didn’t recognize that were melted. The battery and coil seemed fine. It was all the computer chip stuff that was fried. This old tractor doesn’t have any of that new-fangled crap on it. Sometimes simpler is better,” Raymond replied.
“Apparently,” Lawton agreed and climbed on the back hitch of the tractor and sat down on the fender.
“Hang on. I doubt this will feel like your fancy car,” Raymond said, putting the tractor in gear.
“To town McDuff,” Lawton said, pointing in the wrong direction.
****
They started off toward town on the two lane back road that the vineyard was located on. A few hundred yards later they came upon a car off the side of the road. Raymond stopped the tractor.
“What now?” Lawton said, climbing down.
“Why would anyone just leave a car half on the road and half in the ditch?” Raymond said, rubbing his chin.
They walked over to the car and opened the door.
“Look at that. For God’s sake don’t touch it,” Lawton said, looking at the blob of jelly like slime on the driver’s seat.
“Man, I just don’t get it. What is that stuff?”
“I hate to say it but I think that was the driver.”
“Are you nuts?”
“Look,” he said pointing to a wedding band, a watch and a set of keys in the pile of slime.”
“So?”
“Whatever happened, I think that’s all that remains of them,” Raymond said.
Lawton just stared at him for a few seconds and then back at the driver’s seat.
Finally he said, “Then that stuff at my office was Alice?”
“I hate to say it but I think so. Think about it. Why did no one come to help us? I saw another patch of slime in the barn but didn’t think anything about it really. I just figured someone spilled something and was too lazy to clean it up.”
“Do you realize what you are saying? I mean…”
“I think we need to get into town right away and see what happened,” Raymond replied.
They chugged down the highway, dodging cars but not stopping this time. They saw a couple of wrecks but no one appeared to be in the cars so they kept on going. When they finally got into town the sight was much the same. Piles of slime, cars wrecked and up on sidewalks. It was totally deserted.
“Oh my God. I think you are right. Something turned all these people into…whatever that stuff is. What in the world could have done this?” Lawton said, more to himself than Raymond.
Raymond didn’t answer; he just looked around in amazement. He stopped the tractor in front of the courthouse and climbed off. He walked up the sidewalk, sidestepping several piles of what must have been the people at one time.
Inside he found the same kind of scene. No one alive and slime remained where people had once stood and talked. He checked both floors just to be sure but found nothing. Finally he went back outside. Lawton was nowhere to be seen.
“Lawton,” he finally yelled out. It was strange to hear his voice in the total stillness.
“Lawton,” he yelled again but no answer.
Finally he started to walk around the courthouse, yelling in each direction.
“Over here,” he finally heard.
Lawton was waving at him from a small restaurant across the street.
He crossed over and went inside. Lawton was munching on a bag of chips and huge dill pickle.
“I’m starved,” he said at last, drinking from a plastic Coke bottle.
“Are you sure it’s safe to eat?” Raymond asked.
Lawton stopped chewing and looked at the pickle.
He shrugged and took a big bite, “Too late now. Besides, we will die if we don’t eat so what the hell?”
“I guess that’s true enough,” Raymond said, reaching into the jar of pickles.
“Indeed. Feast or famine,” Lawton replied, digging out another pickle.
After they ate, they walked around the town just checking out the stores.
“Man, it must have happened fast. The cash drawer is still opened on this register,” Raymond said.
“What happened? A nuclear attack?” Lawton mused.
“Nah. We would have seen a lot more damage to the buildings and stuff.”
“What about a dirty bomb? You know, the kind that just kills and leaves stuff intact?”
“I don’t think so. That kills by radiation. It doesn’t just happen in an instant. People get sick and die.”
“Yeah, but we were trapped in the cave for several hours. Maybe it only takes a few hours.”
“That doesn’t explain the cars, the open registers and other weird stuff. No, whatever it was, we haven’t heard about the type of weapon that did this. It has to be something that someone developed without anyone knowing about it,” Raymond said.
“So how was it delivered? I mean we have a defense system that would detect a rocket or some damn thing like that,” Lawton replied.
“Maybe it was just done locally. A small fallout area. I think we need to go further from here to see what really happened.”
“On that tractor?”
“No. I was thinking. If we could find an older car, something before all the microchips that are in cars today, maybe we could get one to start.”
“Then let’s start looking,” Lawton said.
They didn’t have to look long. Sitting at the curb, less than a block away was a 1966 Ford Mustang. It looked like someone had spent a considerable amount of time and money restoring it. There was no slime inside.
“How are we going to get it to run?”
“Hotwire it.”
“Do you know how?”
“Not really. It looks so easy on TV. I think you need to somehow get the hotwire from the battery to cause the starter to engage.”
“How do you do that?”
“Beats the hell out of me. I guess I’ll just have to do it by trial and error until we get it. It isn’t like we have a hot date that we are going to be late for,” Raymond said, feeling up under the dash.
He spent the next half hour trying to find the right combination.
“Damn it. I don’t know how they do this shit. I’ve tried everything and nothing so far.”
“You want me to give it a shot?”
“Sure, I can’t seem to get it.”
They exchanged places and Lawton tried for the next fifteen minutes. The results were the same.
“This is stupid. Maybe the battery is dead.”
“I doubt it. Open the hood, I want to check something.”
Raymond could only laugh as he looked inside the engine compartment.
“What?”
“A new crate engine is in this thing.”
“So?”
“Modern electronics,” Raymond said, closing the hood none to gently.
“So it won’t start?”
“Not the way it is now. I should have checked that earlier. The car is too nice to have an old engine in it. We are back to the drawing board.”
“Let’s start looking,” Lawton said.
They found an old 1958 Buick a few blocks further. The first thing Raymond did was check to make sure the engine was an older one. Fifteen minutes later he found the right combination of wires to make the car start.
“I guess we will have to change the name of the movie to ‘Gone in Fifteen Minutes”, Lawton joked.
“More like thirty,” Raymond replied.
“So, where to?”
“Stevensville?”
“As good a place as any to start,” Lawton agreed. They drove along, each lost in his own thoughts. Finally Lawton said, “You’re not married are you?”
“Nope.”
“Me either. Just never seemed to find the time. Since I started college I have been so focused on making money and now…”
“Life’s a bitch at times. I was married once for just two years. No kids thank God.”
“Didn’t work out?”
“I
guess not for her. She took off with some other guy and we got divorced.”
“Sorry.”
“That’s life,” was all Raymond said, closing out the subject.
“I almost got married once. I really liked this girl but I always put her off. Finally she got tired of it and hooked up with someone else. Guess it worked out for the best. Last I heard she was married and had three kids. I doubt I could have every given her that kind of life. I like kids alright, as long as they are someone else's. I don’t think I would make a very good father in today’s world.”
“What world?” Raymond said.
They remained silent the rest of the way to Stevensville.
It took them almost forty minutes to get to the edge of the town. They knew at once that it was going to be exactly the same. Cars were off the road or just sitting all the way along the drive. It was no better in the town. It was practically a repeat of what they had seen before.
“So much for that,” Lawton said.
“Want to keep going?”
“How much gas do we have?”
“Little over half a tank.”
“Will that get us to Vallejo?”
“Just barely. We can’t make San Francisco but Vallejo is doable I think,” Raymond said.
“Then let’s go for it. If it’s like this all the way we will know that it is a lot more widespread,” Lawton said.
“The question then becomes, how widespread?” Raymond replied.
“Actually, I don’t want to even go there just now.”
“To Vallejo?”
“No, I mean I don’t want to think about that possibility at this point.”
“We may have to face it though,” Raymond said, starting the old Buick.
CHAPTER NINE
Lost World Cavern
It had taken all of Willie Baker’s will power to remain calm. At one time during the waiting they had all heard a scream and then nothing.
“What was that?” someone asked.
Willie didn’t want to tell them. It was probably the guy that had gone off on his own. It would be so easy to fall into one of the crevices along the path, especially in the darkness.
“Why haven’t they come?” a voice asked.
“And why aren’t the lights on?” another asked.
Willie had no real answer. Maybe the earthquake had been even more severe than they had imagined. After waiting in the cold and damp cavern for almost two hours he decided that something had to be done.
THE END - Book I - Of THE EVENT SERIES Page 9