Faulted

by Jacqueline Druga

  It was the largest exodus in history, how were they to fit in such minimal places?

  Guy believed there was one of two reasons for that. Either there wasn’t that many people left to exodus or there weren’t that many places left to go.

  In any event, they couldn’t wait.

  They had to hit the road soon before they wouldn’t be able to leave at all.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Selma, Alabama

  The arm sleeve edges of the thick, knit, red cardigan sweater were tattered and torn and it wasn’t from age or use. She had found the sweater, poking out of the rubble when the clothes on her back were soaking wet. Cold, tired and sad, she grabbed hold of it, and hadn’t taken it off in three days.

  Of course, she hadn’t stopped moving for three days either. For three days she coasted by on pure luck and emotion, not skill.

  There was no reason she should have been alive, but she was. The day it started her mind was preoccupied. She teetered between making idle conversation before the presentation and checking her phone. She sipped coffee from a fine china cup, staring at her phone, finding privacy against the back wall, on the top floor meeting room of a fifteen story building in Washington, D.C...

  Her husband was there as well, she worked for his firm. He was by the windows, subtly trying to get her attention.

  She would signal to him with a raised index finger. He smiled, but she knew he was frustrated.

  That was where she was when the object soared from the sky. Its connection with the atmosphere creating such a sonic boom, the ground vibrated and every window shattered.

  Everyone was shocked when it happened and panic ensured on that floor when the sky on the eastern horizon seemed to light up with fire.

  Was it a bomb? No one knew.

  A hundred people in that room, some bloodied from glass, raced toward the only exit, a single set of heavy oak double doors.

  The more people raced to get out, the farther from the doors she was pushed.

  “You have to go,” her husband told her. “Get downstairs.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’ll be there. Go.”

  But she didn’t want to. There were far too many people rushing forward. She feared being trampled and deliberately waited behind.

  People shoved and pushed when an orderly exit would have moved much faster. It was in the middle of the chaos, when someone shouted, ‘Jesus, there’s nowhere to run.”

  Her curiosity caused her to look for the voice, and she saw a man, his name she didn’t know, staring out the window.

  “Oh my God,” her husband gasped out.

  Then she saw it. It moved toward them. A wall of water, crushing everything in its path, taking out buildings as it crashed her way. It was loud and roaring.

  She hurriedly backed up, but quickly realized, like the man shouted, there was nowhere to run. For years she hadn’t believed in God, but that moment, she subscribed to the aphorism ‘there are no atheists in foxholes’ and dropped to her knees, praying the end would be painless.

  The arriving wave was the backdrop behind her husband as he reached out his hand to her. She merely called out his name, “James.” When the wave arrived.

  She was so stifled with fear, she didn’t breathe, and was already holding her breath when the water pushed through the broken windows.

  The last thing she saw was something in the water hit into James. It hit him with such a force, a red cloud of blood erupted around him as his lifeless body ‘whooshed’ by her.

  She was moved by the water, but it forced her against a wall and one of those heavy oak doors, pinned her there.

  She was trapped.

  There was no way to swim or move. The water engulfed her. She held her breath as long as she could, feeling the water fill her ears and the pressure of the door as it hit against her chest. She looked around for a way to escape, but there was none. She was in a water world.

  Just as she was unable to hold her breath any longer, was ready to let go and give into what was always described as a peaceful death, the pressure of the water against the door ceased. Within moments, the water level lowered. Not much but at least to her chest and she gasped out for air, then coughed. Arching her head back, she saw the sky. The roof of the building had been completely removed.

  Still semi pinned, she pushed the door away from her. It wasn’t on its hinges. It slammed down to the water then flipped up violently. She jumped out of the way in a nick of time.

  But the current was still strong, it started to carry her away. Panicked, she grabbed on to whatever she could and that was the oak door that floated freely.

  Grasping to the edges of it, she looked around, the entire wall where the windows were, was gone. All she saw was water.

  “Anyone!” she yelled out. “Anyone else alive?”

  No one answered.

  It took all of her strength to lift her body up onto the flat surface of that door. And like Rose from the Titanic, she used the door as her own floatation device.

  As the water slightly and slowly receded it drew her out and she saw the remains of the city.

  The dome of the Capital was like an island, emerging from the water with little damage, while the Washington Monument looked like skeletal remains of a building.

  She floated for a long time, laying flat on that door. She through of her husband and tried to register how he was gone. She thought of how she didn’t want to die. More than anything, she thought about her son. Did he know what happened in Washington, Did he fear his mother was dead? She needed to talk to him, tell him she was fine. It was out there in the water, she saw she was one of many people who miraculously survived that wave and now floated on anything they could find.

  It wasn’t until the sky began to darken that a boat rescued her. She was cold and shivering. There were others on board the motor boat, no one spoke. She watched as they moved farther from D.C.. How far had the waters come in?

  Far enough that she was still on the water come nightfall when she was transferred to another boat. This one bigger, like a ferry, It was jammed with people. They had a canteen with weak coffee. But it was hot. She shivered uncontrollably, listening to people talking, trying to figure out what had happened.

  On that ferry she learned it was as close to the end of the world as it could get.

  The wave, the meteor, wasn’t just exclusive to Washington, it was the entire country, the world. Even worse for her, she heard that the entire western seaboard, not only was hit, but devastated by a series of earthquakes. Tsunamis were imminent.

  It was after daylight that the ferry made it to dry land. She expected guidance, help, maybe even a government aid station, but nothing was there.

  Only rubble. She didn’t even know where she was.

  No one said anything. No one pointed her in the right direction. There were no answers. They were told to disembark, the ferry pulled away and she along with other were left in destruction.

  That’s when she spotted the red sweater. It was the one and only thing that kept her warm. Happy that she was on dry land, and believing she saw the last of water, she began a journey on foot and moved like a nomad in a large group of people. She was fortunate when a dump truck pulled up and randomly gave five people a ride. She was one of them.

  When that dump truck reached its destination, fate handed her another ride with a family going southwest, returning from a beach vacation.

  Cramped in a fetal position she rode in the hatch portion of their SUV. Their home was flattened by an earthquake when they arrived. She slept for a few hours in the back of their vehicle before leaving on foot. Still not knowing where she was.

  Her hopes of never seeing flooded land again were washed away, when wet pavement turned into a thin layer of water. She trudged on. Her body was tired, achy, her stomach cramped with hunger pains and she realized her last drink of anything was twenty four hours earlier on that ferry.

  There was no dry land. Not as far as the ey
e could see. She was surrounded by water. It went from her ankles to her knees and by the time it reached her thighs, she had to stop.

  She spotted a car poking out of the water and made her way to that, climbing on top of the roof, to get out of the water. Sitting there, she brought her knees to her chest, cradling her arms around her legs. The feeling of desperation and isolation was overwhelming.

  But fate would be on her side again. It wasn’t long after she heard the sound of a motor. As it grew louder, she saw in the distance a small boat.

  She stood up, waving her arms and shouting. She thought for sure the boat didn’t see her, but he changed direction and headed her way.

  Exasperated and exhausted she sobbed out in gratefulness when the older man in the boat pulled up to her. He cut the motor on the boat as he pulled up to the car.

  “Get in,” he said with a deep southern accent. “You okay?”

  “Yes. Yes, thank you. Thank you so much.”

  He held out this hand to her, aiding her inside. “Watch your step. There’s a blanket back there. You look cold.”

  “I am. Thank you.” She stepped into the small motorized fishing boat. A blanket was tossed on a cooler and she grabbed it. “Oh my God, thank you so much. Are you a rescue boat?”

  “No, ma’am, I am just a guy trying to find a way out of this water. You don’t sound like you’re from around here,” he said.

  “I’m not. I just took ride after ride. I don’t even know where here is.”

  “Selma,” he said.

  “Alabama?” she asked. “At least I’m in the right direction.”

  “Where were you headed?”

  “West,” she replied.

  “So am I. Gonna start the motor again, don’t know how long gas will last. We may drift a spell.”

  “That’s fine. I’m grateful.”

  “Well, I’m Tom.” He nodded.

  She smiled. “Kylie,” she said. “My name is Kylie.”

  “Nice to meet you. What’s out west?”

  “My son. He’s six. He is with his father. I don’t know how, but I have to find him. I have to find my son.”

  “I hope you do,” Tom said, then he started the motor on the boat.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  “It’s gonna get worse before it gets better,” the driver, an air force Sergeant, told Charles right after they left Cheyenne.

  He was right.

  They moved at a good pace at first, then it began to slow down as the thick heavy ash coated the roads.

  Charles was reminded of his youth in New England. The treacherous roads blanketed in snow. Moving slowly so as not to slide. Only with the snow, they didn’t have to pull over every hour or so.

  Sergeant Lawson was informed. He had been part of a rescue and recovery aid group years earlier for a volcanic eruption in Iceland. He learned a few tricks. One of which was the leaf blower. Before the exhaust, engine and filtering system could become irreversibly clogged. He pulled over, cracked that gas powered blower and cleared out the ash before moving on.

  But the farther they traveled the ash was worse. Charles could only imagine how bad it was where they had just left.

  He knew they only had an hour or so left before they had to stop for the night. There was no way they’d see in the complete dark with the falling ash. He didn’t even want to think about the morning, and hoped they weren’t buried while waiting for a little bit of daylight.

  He had dosed off just a short span when he felt the truck stop. He thought it was another ‘blow and clear’ moment, but realized it wasn’t, when he heard the voices outside the truck. He couldn’t make out what they were saying. They were muffled and sounded as if they were shouting.

  Charles slipped into his rain coat, placed on his face mask, secured his boots, and after lifting his hood, stepped from the truck.

  He couldn’t tell from looking out the window, but as soon as he stepped out he saw they were in a small town.

  The ash came to his mid-calf, and the buildings of the town were barely seen through the falling ash. In fact, everything was barely seen. He spotted Lawson and another soldier standing a few feet ahead of the truck. When he walked to them, he saw why they had stopped.

  The entire road was blocked with cars. They were lined up, some had the doors open.

  “Sergeant?” Charles called him.

  Lawson shouted over the wind and thunder noise. “This is the route that would take us to I-10. Appears some sort of exodus was happening here. Higgins went up about two blocks. It’s cars and trucks as far as we can see.”

  “What do we do?” Charles asked.

  “We’ll have to back track, sir,” Lawson said. “It’ll add another two hours to our journey and the alternate route will bring us in just east of Phoenix. It’s an hour of backtracking.”

  “An hour of backtracking?” Charles asked. “Should we just stop here for the night?”

  Lawson shook his head. “No, sir, I believe we need to be on our route to stop.”

  Charles nodded. “I see cars, I see a town. Where are the people? Were they evacuated from here?”

  “No, sir, they’re here.” Lawson took a step and swiped his hand over the driver’s side window of a car.

  The single cleared area exposed a man in the driver’s seat. His head back, mouth open.

  “What …?” Charles, startled moved to his right.

  “Watch your step.”

  Charles stopped and looked down.

  He felt horrified when he saw and instinctively wanted to run. At first, he didn’t notice, but as soon as he was made aware he saw them around the cars, on the ground, ash covered mounds that could only be the bodies of those of the town.

  “My God, what happened here? How?” Charles asked.

  “Something held up the exit route,” Lawson said. “Traffic came to a halt, the ash fell. They suffocated.”

  “All of them?”

  “As far as we can see. And it wasn’t fast, it was slow, judging by the looks of them.”

  “How did this happen to all of them?”

  “I’m not a scientist, but I know, if an area is dense like this, and the cloud dense, it creates like seal, almost like a carbon monoxide effect.”

  “An air inversion?”

  “Exactly.”

  “And we’re in the middle of it?” Charles asked.

  “Pretty much so, yeah.”

  “I’ll meet you back there.” Without saying any more, Charles back tracked quickly to the truck.

  <><><><>

  The radio call was like chatting with an old friend. It lacked the protocol of ‘Roger that’ and ‘Over’, but Charles was more than a colleague to Parker, he was an old friend.

  Charles described the scene to him that they came across in that small town. Immediately, Parker’s knowledge of lesser known history popped in his mind. Being from Pennsylvania, Parker was well aware of the story of the Donora Smog. A small town in southern Pennsylvania, where the pollution for the steel mills was so bad, it trapped a noxious fog close to the ground, killing dozens of people and sickening seven thousand.

  When he heard Charles encountered similar, he thought of Donora.

  “No one is out here,” Charles told him. “No one. We haven’t seen a vehicle or a person walking.”

  “Where are they?”

  “I don’t know. They either got a jump or they’re digging in. It’s destitute out here.”

  “Are you staying safe?”

  “To be honest, I’m a little worried about what I saw in that small town. It hit them, it could hit us.”

  “It’s also possible,” Parker said. “That ash cut off oxygen and trapped the Carbon monoxide from the running cars. You said there were a lot.”

  “There were.”

  “Where are you now?”

  “I haven’t a clue. We stopped for the night. We had to. It’s so damned black we could drive off a cliff and not see it coming with the headlights reflecting off the ash.”
>
  “Sounds scary.”

  “It is,” Charles said. “What about you? How are things there?”

  “Good. We’re staying ahead of it.” Parker told him, but that wasn’t really the truth. He brushed over any questions about Cheyenne, focusing more on Charles’ pilgrimage. He didn’t want his friend to worry, and there was good cause.

  The ash was so heavy, it already started blocking the vents. Despite the extensive ventilation system in the mountain, the ash was making its way through, and with limited power, there was no way to keep it out.

  It was valiant effort, but Parker knew it was a matter of days before he and the hundreds remaining would have to reply on the tainted outside air by making camp close to the tunnel entrances.

  After a few more minutes of talk, Parker bid goodnight and a safe trip to Charles. He asked him to check in and keep him posted even though he feared prospect of a better world beyond the ash and destruction was slim.

  <><><><>

  It had to be the thirtieth time CJ listened to the recorded announcement. A part of him hoping that at some point it would change. The non-emotional, robotic voice just made everything sound so final.

  They had stopped for the night, unable to move forward in the dark. It wasn’t an easy journey, and tarps from the toy company served as ash filters. Not very well. CJ could feel and hear the occasional sputter of the engine.

  He didn’t drive. He rode in the back of the big truck with Carter and Mindy. Others took turns riding shotgun in the two vehicles. Ruben drove the truck and his father was the driver of the tanker. That was until they stopped, then Guy joined the others in the back of the truck to get some rest.

  CJ didn’t want to leave the tanker, even if it meant sleeping in there. A tanker with gas was a valuable asset. Even though they hadn’t seen another vehicle, he didn’t want to take a chance of it getting stolen. That was of course, if anyone could see it.

  When he switched spots with his father, CJ couldn’t see his hand in front of his face. Mindy wanted to join him and keep him company, she huddled close to him using his as her guide. The flashlight did very little to illuminate anything. It did, however, give some light to the cab of the fuel truck, so CJ and Mindy weren’t in complete darkness.