by Clayborn, JJ
SKIN DEEP
J. J. Clayborn
Copyright 2015, Johnathan J. Clayborn
Cover Design: Clayborn Press, LLC
Cover Image Credit: Pete Linforth, Copyright Pete Linforth 2016
Published by Clayborn Press, Phoenix, AZ
The following work is Copyright 2015, Johnathan J. Clayborn. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written consent from the Publisher. For information please contact Clayborn Press: [email protected]
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Printed in the United States of America.
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This Edition published in September, 2017 by Clayborn Press, LLC
Printed under authorization, all rights reserved.
Special thanks to:
Greg Bullock
Warren Miller
Toni Riebi
Jessica Wolfson
Your insight and thoughtful feedback was most helpful.
Monday, November 3rd
Chad Dickhaut sat in his chair staring blankly at the screens in front of him. For the hundredth time tonight, he wished that something would happen. He’d spent eight years in school earning a Doctorate Degree in astrophysics. Now he spent much of his time sitting here idly while the computer collected data.
The California Institute of Technology at the Palomar Observatory paid him a decent salary, but the work was mind-numbing and monotonous. He half-heartedly stared at the screens again, absentmindedly looking for any changes in the data. There are never any changes in the data, he thought. Why should today be any different?
Chad pushed his chair slightly away from the desk and kicked off with his feet, spinning himself in circles a few times. He didn’t remember when he had adopted this habit of breaking up the tedium of the day, but it proved effective in short bursts.
The Palomar Observatory was part of the Near-Earth Asteroid Tracking program, developed by NASA, to catalogue and monitor all of the asteroids that might pose a threat to Earth in the foreseeable future.
The computers attached to the telescopes did the vast majority of the painstaking work; Chad’s role was to oversee the results and ensure that equipment operated properly. The prospect of a scientific discovery was exciting to Chad. It would mean the chance to be published in the scientific literature and be taken seriously as a researcher. He would finally feel like he had validation of his work. It would also mean that he found something previously unknown to whole collective of human intelligence. That thought, finding something new, excited him and kept him in this field. Nights like tonight, however, tried his patience and made him doubt his career choice.
Something beeped loudly. Chad slammed his feet flat on the floor and abruptly stopped himself from spinning. He pulled the chair back to the desk, scanning the data incessantly.
“Just another false alarm,” he muttered to himself dejectedly.
Some of the members of Chad’s team were lifelong astronomers. They were imbued with a love for all the boring minutiae that comes with scientific research. Chad was decidedly not one of them. He dreamed of fame and notoriety. He wanted to be like Carl Sagan, Bill Nye, or Neil DeGrasse Tyson; a household name. He kicked off the desk and pushed his chair back out into the room, spinning it around again.
“Tonight is not the night I get famous,” he said to himself.
Minutes turned into hours, and Chad tried everything he could think of to drown out the incessant ticking of the clock on the wall.
Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.
He tormented himself with philosophical questions of pragmatism. He asked them directly to the clock, fully knowing the clock wouldn’t answer. “Why the hell do we even have an analog clock anyway? The atomic clocks are far more accurate.”
He wanted to listen to his MP3 player for a while, but the battery died hours ago. He tried reading and doing crossword puzzles, but the ticking of the clock was too distracting. Chad learned long ago that taking a nap was a futile endeavor while the clock counted the seconds out loud with the incessant tick, tick, tick, tick. Whatever they made the room out of seemed to amplify the ticking. The only other noise was the gentle hum of the computers, which made the ticking especially obvious.
After hours of staving off insanity, Chad could take no more. He wheeled his chair over to the wall, and precariously balanced himself on the seat as he removed the clock from the wall. In a few short seconds, he removed the batteries and the ticking ceased. Chad breathed a sigh of relief as silence filled the room. He carefully balanced himself and began to replace the now-silent clock on the wall when loud sirens suddenly blared. The abrupt noise startled chad, sending him careening off of his tumultuous perch onto the unforgiving floor below. He laid there dazed for a moment, wondering if they had put on alarm on the clock. Realization came abruptly what the sirens meant.
“An asteroid alarm!” Chad shouted, scrambling to his feet. His heart pounded and he could feel butterflies in the pit of his stomach. He had been hoping for a discovery and now one was literally falling into his backyard. That excitement quickly dissipated when he remembered what the alarm was for; the alarm that he heard was the proximity alarm. It meant that he had found an asteroid that was close - very close. In fact, it meant that this asteroid was probably on its way to earth. His mind filled with terror as he imagined what would happen when the asteroid hit. He pictured entire forests being uprooted by a blast wave. He pictured a mushroom cloud of dust being thrown into the air as the giant rock leveled a city. He imagined an extinction level event. He shook these images from his head.
With trembling hands he called up the data about the asteroid. It was small, thankfully – not a planet-killer. The computer marked out its path on the display. Its trajectory showed that it came from the outer edges of the solar system on a highly elliptical orbit. It was a miracle that the observatory even picked it up at all. Only through fortuitous chance was the telescope pointed directly at the flight path of the asteroid.
Chad’s fingers flew over the computer keyboard and he analyzed the data. There was no avoiding it this time; the asteroid was definitely going to hit Earth. The computer plotted the trajectory of the asteroid in greater detail. The asteroid passed just outside the moon’s orbit. At its current speed, 20,000 kilometers per second, it would impact in about 20 seconds. The instruments spit back data faster than Chad could analyze it. Chad felt a wave of anxiety wash over him as he became frustrated with his ability to keep up with the computer. This asteroid was dense, moving fast, and careening towards Earth on an uneven, wobbly trajectory.
As the computer collected more data the path of the asteroid grew on the screen. It started out as a small red line on either side of asteroid. With each passing second the line grew longer on both sides of the asteroid. One side showed where it was going, the other end estimated where it had been. The line indicating where it was going stretched out towards Earth, like a boxer telegraphing the punch.
“C’mon, hit in the ocean, hit in the ocean,” Chad said to the asteroid, as if the rock could actually hea
r him. He subconsciously leaned closer to the screen to watch the path of the rock better.
At first, his hopes seemed to come true, the Earth-end of the line was in the Atlantic Ocean southeast of Charleston.
“Yes,” Chad yelled, jumping up from the chair with his fist in the air. “Thank you!”
As the asteroid fell closer to the Earth, the line moved west.
Chad stopped and stared at the screen; fear gripped him. “No, no, no. Stay over water, dammit!”
The impact point inched ever closer to the eastern seaboard. Before long it was travelling over the land.
“Okay, fine!” Chad shouted. “At least land someplace unpopulated then,” Chad pleaded with the rock.
First, the impact point passed through Charleston, and then it passed through Atlanta before moving on. Each time the projected impact site neared a major city Chad felt sick to his stomach, but this feeling was quickly replaced with relief each time it moved away.
The line continued northwest. It began to creep close to Memphis and Chad felt another wave of anxiety wash over him. But, the line slowed and stopped in a forested area to the southeast of Memphis.
“A forest works…” Chad glanced at the timer. “10 seconds to impact…” He thought that this was simultaneously the longest and shortest 10 seconds of his life. He watched the display frantically. Panicked thoughts raced through his head and spilled out of his mouth unfiltered as he paced the floor. “Should I warn someone? Who should I warn? Would there even be time to warn them? Is anyone else seeing this? Is this really happening?”
He glanced around the room trying desperately to decide what to do. Chad glanced back at the monitor, but it was too late. He looked up just in time to see the counter reach zero. The screen updated to indicate impact. For a few minutes he continued pacing back and forth across the floor. Chad rubbed his hands through his hair and across his face in big circles. He stopped and stared at the screen absentmindedly. Chad pulled up the chair and plopped himself down as he picked up the phone and dialed a number.
The phone rang a few times on the other end before the line connected. “Hello, can I…. stupid recording.” Chad listened to the prompts and pushed the appropriate buttons, but that only left him more frustrated.
The phone’s recorded greeting played over the speaker. “You have reached NASA’s Office of Space Sciences. Our offices are currently closed. If you know your party’s extension you may dial it at any time. To hear….”
Chad thought a moment about leaving a message, but what would he say? He didn’t even know for sure what actually happened, other than he suspected an asteroid apparently crashed in a forest in Mississippi. He needed more data. Chad hung up the phone. He thought for a minute and then picked up the phone once more.
“Hello?” a groggy voice answered the other end of the line.
Confusion crept into Chad’s mind as he looked at the number again. “I’m sorry; I thought I reached the United States Forest Rangers, Law Enforcement and Investigations, Special Investigations Unit.”
“You did… it’s also 3:12 A.M. and I was asleep,” the voice explained.
“Sorry, it’s just rather urgent,” Chad explained.
“At 3 A.M? Shit had better be falling from the sky,” the Forest Ranger replied.
Chad replied with complete seriousness. “Actually, that’s exactly why I’m calling.”
A momentary pause lingered on the phone. Chad could swear he heard a lamp click on. “Let’s start again... I’m Ranger Edgar Tarbell of the US Forest Service. And you are?”
“I’m Chad Dickhaut, an astronomer at the Palomar Observatory in California. We’re attached to NASA’s NEAT.”
“NASA’s what?”
“Oh. The Near-Earth Asteroid Tracking program,” Chad clarified.
“Okay, why are you calling me?” Ranger Edgar Tarbell asked, irritated.
Doubt crept into Chad’s mind. “Your number was listed as the contact number on the Forest Service website.” He said it, but it sounded more like a question.
The Ranger sighed. “Right. Let me rephrase; why are you calling Memphis?”
“Oh!” Chad excitedly recounted the events of the meteorite impact to Tarbell who seemed to grow more and more interested in what he had to say with each passing moment.
“And this rock hit down near here? You’re sure of it?” Tarbell asked.
Chad nodded to himself. “According to the computer, yes. There’s a possibility that some of it burned up in the atmosphere. I couldn’t tell exactly how big it was to start with, but the trajectory puts the probable impact site down in your area.”
“I see,” Edgar said. “Where, exactly?”
Chad consulted the computer. “The Holly Springs National Forest.”
“Hmmm. That’s technically across state lines in Mississippi, but it’s only about 60 miles southeast of here. I can be there in about an hour and a half. Send me over the coordinates of the impact site and I’ll go have a look.”
* * *
Edgar’s wife, Olivia, mumbled something incoherent about the light being on. He kissed her forehead and told her to go back to sleep, turning off the bedside lamp. Stumbling through the dark, he made his way to the bathroom and turned on the light. It gave him just enough light to see by as he dressed himself. When he finished, he turned off the light and went downstairs. Edgar grabbed a quick bite to eat while he reviewed the data that Chad sent him.
The projected area of the meteorite impact was rather large. The computer had narrowed it down to an area of about 40 square miles, right near the north edge of the forest.
Edgar studied the map with interest. This will take some time to search. I’d better get going, he thought, glancing at his watch. He briefly thought about leaving his wife a note, but he usually left before she did as a matter of course so he decided against it. It’s probably nothing anyway, there’s no point in alarming her.
It was about 4 A.M. by the time Edgar set out from his house. He felt the chill of the cold winter air snap at his skin as he drove. His first stop was to the office to log the communication with Chad as an official report and gather some equipment that would help him with his search. Within about an hour he was on the road with all of his gear, some snacks, and a full tank of gas.
He travelled down Interstate 78 towards the forest listening to the radio, singing along to pass the time. The grey winter morning hadn’t yet come and that didn’t make Edgar feel any better about the trip. He circumvented the town of Holly Springs to the north by taking some back roads until he reconnected with State Route 4, which took him into the forest. The smell of the pines assaulted his nose as Edgar drove. Eventually, he hit Reaves Road and then turned to the south, listening to the tires crunch satisfyingly along the dirt. At the end of the road he followed a small dirt trail down the hill and pulled his Durango up along the shore of Little Snow Lake. He was at a small hunting cabin that belonged to the Forest Service.
He was glad for a heavy coat as he unloaded the car. It was early November, and it was about 50 degrees Fahrenheit outside. Edgar swore it was colder beside the lake. His breath formed steam vapors around him as he worked.
At just past 6:30, and the sun began cresting over the hills, slowly bathing the forest in light. Edgar was thankful that he wouldn’t have to search in the dark. After gathering everything inside the cabin Edgar packed essential gear into a backpack. He put in a change of clothes, a first aid kit, some snacks, some matches, a hatchet, and a poncho. He always carried a pocket knife with him. He grabbed a rifle from the wall of the cabin and made sure to get a box of ammo from the safe. He also got the long-range radio and clipped it to his belt. Edgar never expected to run into trouble when he went out into the woods, but always planned for the worst and hoped for the best.
Once outside Edgar checked the map again and sighed. It was a large area and he would have to check it all on foot. For a moment it felt enormously overwhelming. The sun set around 5 P.M., so he had about 9
hours of daylight left to search. He decided to hike to the peaks and use those as lookout points to see if he could observe anything. By 9 A.M. he was on a peak overlooking Wagner Lake, lamenting the fact that he didn’t have a fishing pole with him.
“There’s probably no stupid rock anyway. It’s probably just a wild goose chase,” he mumbled to himself.
Edgar set out down the hill, hiking across to the south. Edgar always enjoyed being the woods, but today he wished that he had more time to spend watching the wildlife. He sighed, trudging up the next hill.
By 2 P.M. Edgar stood atop the next peak. He made a slow look around at the surrounding forest. He saw nothing out of the ordinary. Edgar sat on a large rock and continued scanning the trees. He had made good time getting here and covered about four miles over some pretty rough terrain. But he was famished and took a quick break for a bit to eat.
Edgar stood and plotted his next peak on the map. He made one last slow sweep of the woods. But this time he saw something – a small bit of smoke coming out from behind a peak to the west. The smoke wasn’t dark or thick; in fact it was rather wispy, like smoke tendrils flowing from the end of a cigarette. He almost missed it again. Edgar decided that it was worth a closer look. He quickly set out heading west, mostly following the road.
The smoke was farther than he thought; it seemed to be always just a little farther away. When Edgar finally arrived at the valley floor, he knew immediately that this was the impact. About a hundred yards ahead of him was a crater, with a hole about twenty feet in diameter. Edgar pulled out a GPS tool and marked his location on the map. He cautiously walked over to the hole and was surprised to discover that it was very deep. The hole was easily sixty five feet to the bottom. The depth of the impact site puzzled him for a moment, but Edgar realized that the meteorite struck an underground cave system; that’s why the hole was so deep. He pulled out a flashlight and aimed the beam into the hole, but it fell hopelessly short of reaching the bottom.