Charles looked irritated, standing in the hall, waving to get Parker’s attention. He had moved around the people there, it was like walking through a maze. Parker knew him well enough to know that at some point Charles gave up on making it through the people and opted for waving.
Parker made his way to Charles.
“What’s going on?”
“Do you have some time for an update?”
“Absolutely.”
Placing his hand on Parker’s back, he guided him down the hall to a more private area and into a small office.
In the office was a table, and it reminded Parker of the interrogation rooms of television police shows. He sat at the table when Charles shut the door.
“I know how you dislike the long technical versions,” Charles said. “I’ll give you what I have and let you get back to your Florence Nightingallery.”
“Interesting term.”
“Made it up myself. Alright …” Charles dropped a folder on the table, sat, and then opened the folder. “We brought in six hundred and forty-three people, four dogs, two cats, two horses, a chicken and a cow.”
“A cow?”
“A cow.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. Anyhow … we are crunching numbers and assessing what we can do. We hope to have everyone given some sort of living arrangements by tomorrow night.”
“That’s good.”
“There are certain areas we cannot have civilians, we need that as work space. We sent out the trucks to salvage what they could from local warehouses. We have equipment here to care for four hundred people for one year. Bear in mind, two thirds of those four hundred are military personnel, many of which will be part of survivor sweeps when the proverbial dust settles.”
“So, we’re one and a half times what we have supplies for?” Parker asked.
“We’re hopeful our salvaging will bring more. Without it, we’re looking at four months tops with supplies. That is not going to be ideal. We won’t have a long term survival plan finished by then.”
“We should have a working idea, though, right?”
Charles nodded. “We’re working on it now. But there is nothing we can do until we make it through the global catastrophes. Until we can see what is still standing, what is the least unscathed, it’s all guess work.”
“We have people on this. Experts. What are they saying? How long until we know something?”
“Could be weeks.”
“Weeks?” Parker exclaimed in shock. “I thought it was forty-eight hours of impacts.”
“That’s without volcanic activity and further waves. Realistically, Yellowstone isn’t going to go boom and that’s it. She’ll more than likely continuously erupt for weeks. Less if we’re lucky.”
“We don’t know if it is going to erupt for sure,” Parker said. “I mean, people have been saying that for decades.”
“Um … yes, but this series of natural disasters and events is unprecedented in any recorded history. As Gary told us, it’s a chain of events we’re not going to be able to stop. We have to wait.”
“Gary?” Parker asked.
“The geologist, astrophysicist NASA guy we brought.”
“Him. Yes. King of analogies. And Yellowstone is one of those events?”
“Along with other volcanoes and calderas. Yellowstone is not the only one. Long Valley Caldera in California is nearly as big and is close to the Nevada border. We know that Long Valley is going to erupt and it is imminent. We may not have satellite contact, but we have eyes on the ground there.”
“How?”
“A man named Lowell on Mammoth Mountain, which is right near the Long Valley Caldera. We made radio contact. He said the ground has continuously been shaking, steam and ash have been pouring into the sky and the ground is swelling.”
“Why is he there? Should he be evacuated?”
“He won’t go. He is handicapped. In a wheel chair and he said, and I quote, ‘I’m old. I have lived here my entire life and if this thing is gonna blow, then damn it I am watching it’. He said he will keep us updated until ... well, he can’t.”
Parker whistled. “God bless him. What about our evacuees on the West Coast?”
“We evacuated sixty percent of those who needed transportation.”
“Sixty percent? That’s it.”
“It’s better than the overall predictions. We did the best we could. We haven’t received any word on how much damage, or how far the devastation from wave went. We’re still trying to establish links to our satellites. But we had sixty percent of the people moved. To where, we don’t know. We’re going to keep going and refuel until we can’t.”
“Is that an overall prediction?”
Charles nodded. “If this plays out the way it is predicted. The triggered faults, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis from the eruptions, along with the debris up in the air is going to cause rain and flooding. We won’t even talk about what is going to come down with the rain. Add that to the already devastated areas from the impacts … we’re talking a seventy-percent loss of life in the US.”
“Oh my God.” Parker ran his hand down his face. “How can you say that so calmly and matter of fact?”
“Hysterics won’t change a thing.”
“So in a nutshell, Mother Nature is cleaning house.”
“Unfortunately,” Charles said with a nod. “And she’s not playing around.”
<><><><>
San Bernardino Airport
Guy remembered when CJ was nine and he took him to an air show. He thought about that day with his son because the San Bernardino Airport reminded him of that show on a larger scale.
Airplanes took off one after another with very few time in between. Down the runway, into the air, then the next would line up. It was a continuous flow of planes.
The buses, tractor trailers and other vehicles were lined up for the pumps and fueling trucks. It was advised that no one leave the buses or their vehicles, once fueled they rolled out.
The city had been ordered to evacuate.
Guy didn’t understand why. They weren’t near the water or the wave. From the looks of things the town suffered minimal damage from quakes.
Then again, Guy hadn’t heard the news or a radio.
No one really knew anything. Just that they had to keep moving.
Guy couldn’t or rather, he wouldn’t.
It was a source of great debate for him. He had Carter to protect and he had a son of his own out there.
After hearing rumors that the east has suffered devastation, Guy was left to wonder … where exactly was he going? Where were they all going and why? Guy hadn’t processed it. He was too focused on saving Carter and staying alive. They lived right outside of D.C., and if Joel, the radio guy was correct, D.C. was gone. At least it was what Joel was able to piece together.
It seemed ridiculous to head home, when home was probably gone. Aside from that, there was no home without CJ. So Guy took Carter by the hand, left the bus and walked across the large airfield under the menacing overcast skies to the terminal.
He told his son he would meet him at the airport. There wasn’t any reason to believe CJ wasn’t showing up. He just hadn’t yet.
When Guy arrived at the terminal it was empty and scary. Like something out of a Stephen King novel. Not a soul in the airport, papers scattered about on the floor, luggage and carryon’s had just been abandoned. There was a security cart parked inside the front doors. No driver, just the flashing light.
There were no airport sounds, no music, nothing.
Guy stood inside the open sliding glass doorways of the departure terminal, there was no power and the door was stuck open. He stood not far from the ticket counter, staring out. When CJ arrived he would come that way, so he would see him.
Carter was finally energized, and his resiliency seemed to chuck his near-death experience to the curb, as he explored the area behind Guy.
“Not too far. Stay where I can hear you,”
Guy told him.
“Can we look around?”
“Once your father gets here,” Guy said. “Then we’ll figure out the next step.”
When Guy left the bus, they were four or five from the end of the line. He supposed they were all gone by now.
Focused on watching the road, Guy perked up when he saw a car approach. He smiled, watching the car pull into the garage across the road, parking inside, under cover.
“What the heck?” Guy asked out loud. “Now why would he park?”
“Is my dad here?” Carter ran toward him.
Just as he was about to tell him that CJ had arrived, he saw the man step from the car.
Ruben.
Guy stepped outside. “Ruben?” he hollered. “What are you doing? Why aren’t you on the bus?”
Ruben carried a back pack and jotted his way to Guy. “I got us a car. Just in case. I figured it would be safe under there.”
“What are you doing? Why are you here?”
“You didn’t even wait for me.”
“I told you I was staying and waiting on CJ.”
“And you really expected me to keep going on the bus? Guy, come on,” Ruben said. “They don’t even know where they’re going.”
“Neither do we.”
“At least I know you, right? Hey, we started this journey together, we’ll finish it together.”
“Thank you.” Guy shook his hand. “I appreciate it.”
Ruben stepped inside. “Wow, this is weird. It’s empty. The whole city is a ghost town.”
“It’s also scary,” Guy said. “We don’t know why the area was evacuated.”
“I spoke to a man who helped me with the car. He told me he was from the area and it was just a precaution, the area was fragile and prone to further quakes.”
“Swell.”
“Some are headed to the mountains,” Ruben said. “Most are just headed east.”
Guy stepped closer to Ruben and whispered. “But you heard what Joel said.”
“I did. East is bad, West is bad. Maybe somewhere in the middle is fine.”
Guy looked over his shoulder to check on Carter. “At least he’s oblivious.”
“That’s a good thing and so is this place.” Ruben looked around. “It’s not damaged at all. We have shelter. We may be fine. I haven’t felt a tremor in a while.”
“I don’t trust anything anymore. Everything keeps going to hell in a handbag on a dime.” Guy walked nearer the door and sighed out heavily. “We left hours ago to head sixty miles. Hours. We saw CJ when we were leaving. Where is he?”
“Guy, we sat in traffic for an hour. We’re part of an exodus. He’s behind us. He probably had to find a vehicle. Maybe he even searched for another way. He’s with Mindy. She’s knows the area. He’ll be here.” Ruben gave a pat to Guy’s back. “I’m positive. He’s fine.”
Guy only nodded. He appreciated Ruben’s optimism, but he himself had a hard time feeling it. And he supposed he wouldn’t feel better until he saw his son.
Where was he?
<><><><>
CJ wasn’t the only one who had the bright idea to take a car from a dealership. Mindy felt bad for him. His already bruised body took a beating as he fought for the access to keys. She lost a section of her hair when some woman grabbed her. She could feel the hair rip from the roots. She ended up grabbing a chair and acting like a lion tamer in some sort of protective stance from the masses.
Keys were grabbed and she saw the one drop to the floor and slide across. No one else saw it and Mindy hurriedly stepped on it.
When the last of the keys were gone, and a riot broke out, smashing windows that weren’t destroyed in the quake. Mindy let CJ know she had keys. She didn’t want to tip her hand before that.
They ended up with a set with no identification tag. Only a lock and unlock remote that CJ kept pressing, hoping that he’d get close enough to hear a ‘blip-blip’.
Finally, they heard the sound and rushed toward it, finding a ten year old four door sedan.
They hurriedly got inside and took off. They didn’t make it far, when they saw an elderly couple, frantically waving for them to stop.
CJ passed them, then decency hit him. He stopped, backed up and allowed for Rose and Marty to get inside. A few seconds later, people rushed them and they couldn’t take the chance of stopping again.
There was traffic, but not as much as would have been expected from an area with ten million people.
That was when it hit Mindy how many people were killed.
She didn’t want to say anything, but she had seen less traffic than at rush hour.
Even with minimal traffic, it seemed they weren’t making any progress, that was when she suggested another route. They veered off the main road just as sirens began to blare.
“Keep East. Keep east. Don’t stop,” she urged.
“You said the waves move about twenty miles an hour, right?” CJ asked.
“Once they make landfall, yes,” Mindy answered, then looked behind her.
“Anything there?” CJ asked.
“No. We can stay ahead of it. I’ll tell you where to go. Keep driving.”
CJ followed her directions. Mindy was fearful that any hold up, any detour would cause them to succumb to the wave.
But they stayed ahead of it, as far as they could see, even making it to a secondary main road that seemed like clear sailing. Once he saw a sign that indicated San Bernardino was thirty-two miles, Mindy felt relieved. They beat it.
They were home free.
Rose and Marty were a couple in their late seventies. Thankful for the ride and upset. They lived in an apartment downtown. Marty was a retired architect and talked about how the buildings would withstand the pressure of the water.
“We just don’t know how high the wave is,” he said. “If we could have stayed ahead of it and gotten to a top floor, we would have made it. I’m sure. Problem was, there’s no power. Rose and I couldn’t make it up that far.”
“Thank you,” Rose reached up and patted CJ on the shoulder. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” CJ replied. “We don’t know where we’re going after.”
“After?” Rose asked.
“My father and son were on a bus headed to San Bernardino airport. He is meeting us there. I don’t know where we’ll go after.”
“East,” Rose said. “They said on the radio to go east.”
Mindy turned around in her seat. “You had a radio?”
“Up until this morning. It was emergency broadcasting. Then we lost power.”
Mindy made eye contact with CJ, then she reached for the radio. It didn’t even dawn on her to turn it on. She did.
A robotic sounding voice was in the middle of stating areas that were under mandatory evacuation and for people to go east. No direction, no location or indication how far they were to travel. It didn’t say ‘why’, the only specific information given was the counties under a tsunami warning.
That, to her made sense, but when they started mentioning counties farther east, Mindy suspected something else was up.
Another meteor perhaps?
“Rose, was this what you heard?” Mindy asked. “Or did you hear something else?” she turned her head to look at the couple in the back seat.
The couple cuddled together, like two teenagers. Mindy smiled a little and then she saw something. She tilted her head and squinted her eyes.
The traffic behind them was moving weird, it looked like three lanes on a two lane road. And if she wasn’t mistaken, she swore she saw a shopping cart rolling down the highway.
Then she realized what was causing the strange optical illusion.
“Oh my God, CJ, floor it.”
“What?” CJ asked.
“Floor it.”
CJ looked to the rear view mirror and slammed the gas hard. The engine revved and the car jolted forward.
Despite how hard she tried to see the water, she couldn’t. But Mindy knew
it was there and was the culprit.
“It’s not deep,” Marty said. “We must be close to where it will finish. It has to break soon.”
“Drive,” urged Rose.
Mindy turned in her seat and watched as it moved closer.
It wasn’t the height of the water that was threatening, it was everything that water brought with it. Cars, pieces of buildings, roofs, all rolled their way. Like an avalanche gathering strength as it moved forward. The scariest was the tractor trailer … coming closer … closer.
“How’s it look? CJ asked.
“Drive. Just drive,” said Mindy. “Faster.”
She could see the headlights, then as the truck slanted sideways she saw the panicked driver inside.
“It won’t go faster!” CJ yelled.
Mindy realized at that moment, as the car swerved slightly, they were hydroplaning. CJ grabbed the wheel to control the vehicle.
The water flowed under the truck first … then SLAM.
There was not only no escaping the water, there was no escaping the truck.
The force of the eighteen wheeler lifted the car then flipped it front end forward and it crashed down on something.
Mindy didn’t know what.
The impact set off a sequence of ‘pops’ and the airbags inflated. One smacked her in the face and the side panel shoved her sideways.
The rolling car was out of control, but they heard continuous bangs. It truck ricocheted off whatever was in the water, they saw nothing but a series of flashing visions. Bits and pieces of CJ jolting, his hands lifting from the wheel and items which flew around the car. At some point a window broke and the glass floated around the car in what looked like slow motion.
Finally, the car stopped rolling and spinning, glided a few feet upside down than came to an abrupt halt.
Mindy had only a moment to shake off the confusion, then water started poured in. She took a deep breath and braced herself.
Her hands shook and struggled with the usually easy task of undoing the seat belt, as her head submerged instantly. She braced herself to drop when she finally released the seat belt. She slipped downward and as she maneuvered her legs she saw CJ, he was submerged and struggling, and in the back seat, Marty kicked against the back door while holding a motionless Rose.
Faulted Page 10