When Greg finally opened his eyes and looked around the room, he saw Susan sitting nearby. “Why are you still here? You could have gone back to work after they rolled me into surgery.”
“I know, but I wanted to make sure you came through the surgery okay. Besides, I’ve got an ulterior motivate — to make sure you can fix the problem you created.”
“Great, thanks for that little reminder. You didn’t stay cause you care about me?”
“Oh, I care, but not how you might think.”
“Ah, I got it. I think.”
“The doctor says you should be able to go home tomorrow; however, you’re not supposed to strain or lift anything heavy. And you’re to rest. That won’t be easy with all those flights of stairs you’ll have to walk up.”
“You mean they haven’t fixed the elevator yet?”
“Nope, they said it could be sometime next week.”
“Great, so I’ll have to stay here till then?”
“No, I set you up with a nice hotel room near the company, and I brought the things I thought you would want and need to the room. If you need anything else, just let me know and I can get it for you.”
“You went into my apartment?”
“Yes, I did, but only to get what you’d need.”
“Fine, I guess. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Also, I want you to take a few days to recover before coming into the office at all. We can work on the problem you created then. I’m still looking for someone to hack into the USB drive, anyway. Maybe I’ll have that done by the time you get back.”
“Okay. Again, thanks. Maybe I’ll remember what it was I changed and we’ll be able to change it back.”
“To say that would be nice, is an understatement.”
“I’ve been thinking, though. If Paulette tried to come back so quickly and it didn’t work, then maybe she isn’t even at the site where the time pod landed anymore. What happens if we fix it and she isn’t there?”
“That shouldn’t be a problem. She developed a device she wears on her wrist that lets her know if the time pod is being tampered with and whether or not it’s functioning.”
“Doesn’t that require satellite communications? What if there aren’t any in the future? What then?”
“Let’s hope that there are still satellites up there; otherwise, she is stuck for sure.”
“All right, I’ll try to be more upbeat.”
A nurse came in and told Greg his room was ready and that she’d be taking him to it. “Talk to you later, Susan,” he said as the nurse pushed his bed out the door.
After he got settled into his new room, he lay there drifting in and out of sleep. During one of his naps, he had a nightmare about Paulette. He saw her trapped in a horrible future where she couldn’t get back, and she was screaming at him for causing it to happen. He tried to explain that he wanted her to love him, but she didn’t want to hear it. She continued to yell at him about her situation and how she could die there and it would be all his fault. He jolted awake in a sweat and wondered to himself how true the dream was. Was she blaming him for the failure, and was she really stuck in some horrible future? Taking some deep breaths he tried to calm down. It was just a dream, he told himself. It’s probably just my guilty conscious causing me to have a nightmare, he concluded as he fell asleep again and slept peacefully till the morning.
He awoke to the sun streaming in through the blinds. He ordered scrambled eggs and pancakes for breakfast and tried to eat while it was still hot. Once he finished eating breakfast, he lay there thinking about how he could undo what he had done. Shortly after breakfast, the doctor came in to give him instructions for his care after he went home. The doctor asked if he had any questions and Greg shook his head no. An hour later, Susan came by to pick him up and take him to his hotel room. She helped him pack his things and then walked alongside the nurse, who was wheeling him down to her car. The nurse helped him get into the car, and then Susan closed the door and went to her side and got in. She drove to the hotel in silence. When they got there, she helped Greg into the lobby and over to the elevator. Greg began to sweat profusely. Genuinely concerned and a little frightened, Susan asked him what was wrong.
“Just having flashbacks of being stuck in one of these things all day, just a few days ago.”
“Ah, yes, some residual PTSD. Don’t blame you, but this one should be fine.”
“Thanks for the encouragement.” The doors slid open, they stepped into the elevator, and pushed the button for the third floor. A few moments later, the elevator stopped, the doors slid open, and they stepped out and headed down the hallway to Room 310. Susan helped Greg in the door and then helped him get settled in. “I’ll see you in a few days at work. Like I said, if you need anything just call me.”
“Okay, I’ll do that. Thanks again for your help.”
“No problem.”
Greg sat in the chair next to the windows and grabbed the remote to the TV. He wanted to watch some TV to help him forget about everything that had happened the last couple of days.
Chapter 23
Future, Day 4
Paulette sat up and looked around. Disoriented at first, she tried to remember where she was. It was light out when she went to sleep, and now it was dark. She had slept too long and ended up skipping dinner. It was hard to tell what time it was in the dark, so she scuffled around in her backpack and retrieved her flashlight. Shining it over her watch, she saw it was only 2:00 a.m. Dang, she thought. I still have several hours before sunrise. Since she was completely exhausted, she assumed she had probably awakened because of a bad dream, so she hunkered back down and tried to go back to sleep till dawn.
Feeling as if she had barely closed her eyes, Paulette woke up with the early morning sun peeking in through the branches she had set up as her shelter. Groaning, she rolled over and sat up. Running her hands through her hair, she sat there thinking about what she should do that day. Considering the amount of energy she used up the day before retrieving water, she made her current site a base of operations and explored nearby. She had run across a “Squak Mountain State Park” sign. Of course, it didn’t look like a park anymore; but she was hoping if she could get up to the top of Squak Mountain, maybe her direction of travel would be more visible and she could find out if more water blocked it. Now that she had developed a plan, she needed to get busy. She quickly got out of the sleeping bag, scooted over to where her boots were, and put them on. Then, she pulled her breakfast out of the backpack, started a fire, and boiled some water. It was a chilly morning, so she decided a cup of cider would be in order too.
An hour later, she had finished eating breakfast and cleaning up. She put the fire out, retrieved her bag, and hefted it onto her shoulders. She placed her pistol in its holster and slung the rifle over her right shoulder. Looking around the campsite, she decided things looked good and began hiking up the mountain. It was slow-going, with all the undergrowth and downed trees, but turned out to only be a gradual climb. Halfway up the climb, she heard a noise that stopped her dead in her tracks. This was not a normal noise heard in the woods, like from animals and birds. She knelt and waited to see if she could hear it again. A few moments later, she heard the same rustling noise. She continued to wait, trying to determine the direction the noise was coming from. Eventually, she knew that the noise was headed toward her. She hunkered down, trying to make herself invisible. A moment later, two individuals came into view. Each one had a rifle slung over his shoulder. This pair looked much different than the group she had spied on a few days ago. Taking a big chance, she stood up and began slowly walking in their direction. As she got closer, she could make out two men, one with wild red hair and the other with very short brown hair. They were facing away from her, but then, suddenly, the one with red hair turned and spotted her.
“Hey, you. What are you doing here?” The red-headed one yelled.
“Hi, I’m lost and was wondering if you had any information on where I a
m and if you could tell me what the heck happened here?”
The other man who looked to be in his thirties, with brown hair shaved close to his head and brown eyes, stared at her like she was a ghost, then said, “Hey, lady, it’s not exactly safe to be wandering around in the woods. And what do you mean what happened? Everyone knows what happened.”
“Well, I don’t, and I’d like to find out?”
“First off, I don’t know you, and where have you been this whole time to not know what happened?”
“Sorry, I should have introduced myself. My name is Paulette Brown, and I’m not from around here.”
“Well, Paulette that seems obvious. You would have had to been off the planet to not know what went on.”
“Yes, I guess you could say I’ve been off the planet. My vehicle crashed, and I’ve been trying to get back home.”
The man extended his hand and shook Paulette’s hand. “Well then, my name is Thomas Hallslee, and I can tell you all about what happened. Not sure I can help you get home, but I could try.”
“Nice to meet you, Thomas. Do you live around here?”
“My group lives on the other side of Tiger Mountain, which is the next mountain to the east of here.”
“I see. Can I visit your group so we can talk about what happened to this place?”
“Sure, I guess. We are a small group. Few survived the apocalypse, and those who did tried to keep things small and to work with Mother Nature instead of against her. We are afraid that if we overpopulate or cause harm again that the earth will chew us up and spit us out, like it did with others so many years ago. However, before we can head to our small village, we need to find food. We are one of four two-man groups out hunting, and we stay out for a week looking for food. If we find it early on, we head back; if not, we stay till the end of the week before heading back.”
“So, how long have you been looking?”
“We’ve been out here for two days, so far.”
“I’ve got a campsite just a few hours from here. I guess we can go back to my site, talk, rest, and then all three of us can head out looking for game tomorrow. Does that sound okay?”
“Yeah, I guess. Figure if you were going to rob or kill us, you could have done it when you had the drop on us.”
“That is true. And, hopefully, I don’t have to worry about you two either, do I?”
“Naw, we aren’t that kind of hunters, although there are groups that do that. Disgusting if you ask me.”
“All right then, I guess we head back down to my campsite.”
“Sounds good; lead the way.”
They all hiked back down toward Paulette’s campsite. Paulette started the conversation early and again asked for details about the destruction that happened. “So, Thomas, what’s your friend’s name?”
“His name is Bo Grant.”
“Nice to meet you, Bo.”
“Likewise.” Bo was tall and muscular, with wild red hair. “So, can one of you give me a few more details of what happened here and when it happened?”
“Thomas can explain it better than I can,” Bo quickly replied.
Thomas looked over at Paulette, took a deep breath in and began to explain what happened.
“According to our ancestors, and keep in mind this is all handed down by word-of-mouth and stories, it all took place around a hundred and eighty years ago. Where should I start? I guess the best way is to explain what we all think might have caused it. My ancestors told us it all began a long time ago with the human race overpopulating the earth and using up her resources. As they became more dependent on finding more resources to fuel their world, they did things like fracking, drilling, strip-mining, fishing up the oceans and rivers — just trying everything they could to feed and house trillions of people. There were even rumors of global warming, but they could never prove that theory. Regardless, the earth became overpopulated, and it was becoming harder and harder to provide for all the people. On top of all that, the younger generation preferred doing other things besides farming and fishing, so the percentage of people who produced food diminished, causing more countries to fall into periods of starvation. Earthquakes, volcanoes, fires, typhoons, hurricanes, and other natural disasters kept getting worse each year. With each disaster, more people would die. They said scientists worked tirelessly trying to find a solution for those left on earth, but never could quite grasp what to do.”
“Wait a minute, people left on earth?”
“Yes, somewhere around two hundred years ago, the human race finally made it to Mars. Supposedly, when the earth destroyed itself, those left on the space station may have taken the last supply ship run to Mars. No one knows if they survived or not, since there were no more supply runs. Anyway, people continued to ignore the signs and kept using and abusing the earth, and one day, according to the story, all hell broke loose. Apparently, it came close to happening all at once. The west coast experienced large-scale earthquakes. Many people died, but they continued to live there anyway, until Day Zero. That’s what we call it. When Day Zero came, everything happened at once, massive earthquakes that spawned extremely high tsunamis. This happened worldwide simultaneously, so they say. Yellowstone blew up, and the ring of fire erupted all at once. Some say the entire planet was shifting under their feet. The entire West Coast, from the San Andreas Fault, all the way to Vancouver, Canada, and maybe even further, fell into the ocean. Tsunamis hit the remaining areas. Either way, the new coastline had moved quite a ways inland. When Yellowstone blew her top, the shock wave was so massive that the story is that it pulverized most of the Rocky Mountains. Those mountains took the brunt of it; otherwise, my ancestors wouldn’t have survived. They survived by making it to the other side of the cascades and into some caves before the wave hit and went over the mountain range. Supposedly, a large earthquake split the Midwest section of the former United States in two, making the Gulf of Mexico border what was formerly Canada. The East Coast sank, and the ocean covered most of the cities. Part of the South, which is now North, is also under water from what they told us. The scientists who survived, which weren’t many, determined that the poles had shifted, or flipped, so North became South, and South became North. Many who survived the devastation soon died due to not being prepared for a disaster. Even those who were highly prepared, died in their expensive bunkers when the Midwest split in two. However, those who prepared ahead of time and weren’t in the bunkers survived. They had the skills to live off the land and learned to respect and fear it. For those of us on the West Coast, we’ve gone back to the way the Indians lived, treating the earth as scared. The initial and subsequent death tolls were massive. Before all forms of communications ceased to exist, the human population was down to about one to two percent of the original numbers. We don’t know what those numbers were after disease and other hazards killed more people. Also, we’ve no clue how large the population is today. One last rumor stated that at least one former city made a comeback and may have the technology that could help, but again it’s a rumor. Plus, no one knows for sure what kind of technology they have, if they even exist.”
The story stunned Paulette, and she couldn’t believe within seventy years from her present, the world would turn into a hell. She thought it was bad now; she couldn’t possibly imagine what it would be like to live, or die, in it.
“Wow! To think things went the way of the dinosaurs for the human race is hard to contemplate, yet here I am standing in its aftermath. Did anyone ever say if there was a way to stop all of this from happening?”
Bo spoke up “Yeah, the human race could have stopped or slowed it down hundreds of years ago; but from what our ancestors told us, no one wanted to listen. In the former United States, it was all about politics, greed, and money. No one wanted to believe the earthquakes happening in places that never had them before was because of fracking, or that polluting the air and water would cause problems later on. The weather got worse. Heck, everything did, but people just kept living the
ir lives with not a care in the world, until the world chewed them up and spit them out. And who knows if everyone learned their lesson or not. I know we did. But maybe others have forgotten and, at some point, will put the human race at risk again.”
“Dang, if no one will listen, then there may be nothing anyone can do to stop this from happening,” Paulette replied.
Thomas broke in, “Hey wait a minute, you used present tense, as if, you could go back and change what happened, which we all know is impossible.”
“Um, well maybe I was just thinking hypothetically, and it came out wrong.” She hoped they’d believe her, because she knew if she told them the truth, they would think she was crazy and wouldn’t continue to help her. Thankfully, she could distract them when she realized they were almost to the campsite. “Hey, we are almost to my campsite, and it’s getting late. Why don’t we settle in, get something to drink, and eat dinner? Then we can rest and be ready to head out hunting in the morning.”
Thomas grunted. “Sure, that sounds good.”
A few minutes later, they arrived at her simple campsite and settled in for dinner and some much-needed rest. She hoped that they could find a deer or two in the next day, so they could head to her new-found friends’ village.
Chapter 24
Present, Day 5
“Morning, Greg, how are you feeling today?”
“Much better.”
“Would you like me to come get you and bring you in to work?”
“Naw, that’s okay. I’ll take an Uber. Have you had any luck finding someone to crack the password yet?”
“Yeah, I think so. I found this young kid who is a whiz at cracking passwords. His name is Isaac Boward, and he should be in later this afternoon to give it a shot.”
“Cool, I’d love to see how long he takes to crack her password. Then maybe we’ll be on our way to fixing this mess I caused. I sure hope she’s all right.”
Beginnings (Book 1): Future Apocalypse Page 14