by Rob Heinze
Then Bay Isle began to disintegrate into the widening column of cycling, mind-numbing light.
###
Ms. Redman watched the light engulfing the island on which her son had been killed; it was on the news, before the crew’s cameras malfunctioned under the intense light. That island had killed who Colin was, long before The Swarm. He had seen the allure of money, right there on that lot on the waterfront, and it had killed him. He should have stayed home, where he belonged.
But she knew that he had come home, just like Bay Isle was going home. She sat and cried.
###
Reagan saw the light coming, despite his angle. He was still tied to the bed leg. The Chief’s bleeding body was his only company as he gave witness to the Second Coming.
In a fit of lunatic intensity, he managed to wrestle the bed into a caddy-corner position, so that at least he could glance out the window and watch it occur. The room grew strange with unholy light. Reagan watched the window in wonderment.
She did it! Kelly had done! Holy Mary, Mother of God!
The light came closer now, soundless, without vibration—somehow more startling and terrifying in its quietness. He could hear only the rending, tearing and crashing sounds of the structures to which the light grew closer and touched.
It was outside his window, the motion of it beyond analogy.
Quentin thought: Oh, wow…
It was here.
“Lo,” he whispered, trying to provoke some biblical words to mark the event…but could say no more.
The light expanded over his house, and he went up.
###
Most people made it off the island alive. When the light first shown in the sky, people recalled the events of The Swarm, dropped what they were doing, and said to hell with it. They got in their cars and drove towards the bridges, planning as Dawn and Paul Thompson had planned: to simply drive through the barricade. The inverse disappearance of the island occurred slowly, meticulously, as if whatever force had created it wanted to be sure it didn’t miss anything. That was lucky for the good folks of Bay Isle. There were momentary traffic jams on both bridges, from the traffic lights on the opposite sides. An emergency call was made to the local traffic authority, who disengaged the traffic lights and put road blocks up to prevent any travelers from entering the bridges. After that the traffic moved seamlessly off the island. The expanding column of light missed nothing on Bay Isle, except the bridges, the Bay Isle sides of which stopped above only blue water, which had flowed back over the open space where the island had been. A few boats had been pulled into this whirlpool and their occupants never seen again, but for the most part the human lives lost on Bay Isle were minimal, just as they had been in The Swarm, and when the light column had expanded to its apex, Calvin and Helena Wrigley, Dawn and Paul Thompson, Derrick Clinton and Lynn Rice (with their families) stopped on the highway and watched as the light column rose from the ground until it touched the sky and vanished like the life draining from a status bar on a video game. When it was over, they had no idea that the entire island was gone. They simply got in their cars and drove north, heading towards freedom and safety.
A frothy stew of sea water was all that foretold of the mystery that had taken Bay Isle from Earth. Astronomers and scientist would report a large number of new lights in the sky, what they were mistakenly calling Gamma Ray Bursts, appearing in staggering numbers. Because of the complexity of dimensions, it took a while for it to be understood that somehow these light beams were linking together, like a great big tree, across galaxies and the entire universe as if to pull into one place, one core: and then the lights were gone from the sky but one single glowing orb, billions of light years away, shone for a while until finally settling to darkness and falling off the scope of NASA telescopes.
Epilogue
Approximately thirty-six weeks after the event known as The Swarm, Dawn Thompson awoke to feel the dampness on her legs. She sat up in bed, frantically feeling along the sheets to confirm that sensation. Paul was sleeping next to her, but she was barely aware: all of her senses were focused on the wetness. She searched, patting, and—
Wet, it was wet.
“Paul!”
Her hands on his back, nudging. He mumbled, rolled over, and then sat up like a child realizing it is Christmas morning.
“I think my water broke,” she said.
“Really? Are you sure?”
“I don’t know. It…feels wet.”
“Check it in the bathroom,” he suggested.
She did that, moving in a bow-legged fashion to the bathroom. There she sat on the toilet and confirmed that she was leaking something. There were no cramps, which means she wasn’t in labor. She called the doctor, who told them to go to the hospital. On the way there they were quiet, ruminating, but when they looked at each other, nervous, anxious smiles came onto their faces. They couldn’t believe it was happening.
Dawn’s struggle with her pregnancy was not over. It took her 26 grueling hours of labor, most of which was spent on bed rest as their baby refused to leave the safety and comfort of her womb. Could they blame it? A C-section had seemed certain, and at one point, Dawn had begun to demand a C-section, just get it out, please, get it out! Then, amazingly, Dawn rapidly began to dilate and Paul saw the head of his child, no emotion yet just exhaustion, and Dawn’s struggles continued as they so often did: she pushed for a staggering two hours without the numbing effects of the epidural (which had worn off), until the blood vessels broke in her eyes and the nurses extricated what looked like a small bear from her. Paul caught a glimpse of their son, a whopping 8 pounds, 11 ounces, and the tears were immediate.
Rex Paul Thompson was the first of the eleven babies born within the two weeks after Bay Isle went into space.
They were all perfectly healthy (with one case of Jaundice that required UV treatment), perfectly safe, and their cries perfectly pitched to keep their parents up all night.
Paul knew that when Rex was older, he would take him on a boat over the spot where their home had once been and tell him about it...
The End
About the Author
Rob Heinze is the author of more than sixteen novels, all self-published. Most of these books gathered dust somewhere in the electric bowels of his computer, until the author discovered Kindle, iBookstore and NOOK. He promptly released his projects to mark the start of 2012. Rob is 30, the father of two, and lives in Hunterdon County, NJ. He owns an environmental consulting business, which he works at full-time and writes whenever possible. He wishes to become a full-time writer, as so many stories ideas are calling to be answered. While working at “his other job”, he cannot answer them.
You can find out more about him by visiting his website www.sketchesfromacelestialsea.com, or following him on Twitter (@WriterRob) or on Facebook under Sketches from a Celestial Sea or The Swarm pages.
Table of Contents
The Swarm
Author’s Note
Fiction by Rob Heinze
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Epilogue
About the Author