RUNAWAY MOON

by Howard Brian Edgar

  As they pass through the cloud cover, they quickly realize the trail has been cut in half. The bottom half has disappeared. Their rock pile markers from the previous day are long vanished, inundated by seawater. The Pacific Ocean has risen relentlessly up Monument Peak overnight. They stop finally and stand fifty yards above the new, severely altered shoreline holding hands, staring in utter disbelief.

  “All I can say is I’m sorry, Jules. This is far worse than I expected.”

  “Nothing to be sorry about, Dad. You had no way of predicting this and we’re damned lucky we’ve lasted this long.”

  “First time I ever heard you say ‘damned’ anything.”

  “First time for everything, right Dad?”

  “Nine months we survived, Jules. Long enough to give birth.”

  They both take a few steps backward, not wanting to become so hypnotized by the advancing ocean that they get too close to the edge.

  “I could have given you the grandchild you always wanted.”

  “I never said a word about grandchildren.”

  “You didn’t have to. It was written all over your face every time you and Mom had guests over with a baby or small children. Admit it. You would have loved a grandson or a granddaughter more than anything.”

  “Time to head back…” Sam’s words catch in his throat as the ground directly beneath them suddenly rumbles to life and falls away. Still holding hands, Sam and Julia plummet straight down into a sinkhole, a fifteen-foot chasm. Their legs buckle just enough to absorb most of the shock as they land in a pile of thick mud and debris at the bottom. They search desperately for a way out as the sinkhole slowly fills with acid seawater. They try to claw their way up the nearest sidewall, searching for solid handholds, grasping futilely at a fast-moving landslide of dirt, rocks, logs from their rafts and finally, seawater.

  With no way out, knowing that their fate is sealed, Sam turns to his daughter somberly. “One thing you should know before we go, Jules. You have never disappointed me and I’m proud to have you as my daughter. I love you, baby.”

  “I love you, too, Daddy.”

  Chapter 21

  “I can’t believe they’re not back yet,” says Deuce. Judging by all the hand-ringing and furrowed brows around him, he’s not the only one who is worried about Sam and Julia. Deuce doesn’t need a timepiece to know that it has been several hours since they disappeared over the plateau ridge.

  It is well into Day when Rachel and Ankur decide that they cannot wait any longer. They venture out to the trail entrance and peer down the slope, hoping to see Sam and Julia breathlessly nearing the top or sitting on a rock munching dandelions, enjoying a little father-daughter chitchat. What they see instead is a vast sea of sickly green covering the bottom half of the trail, the lower half of the mountain. There is no sign of Sam and Julia.

  “Maybe they went off-trail to a different part of the mountain,” says Ankur, even knowing how unlikely it is for Sam and Julia to venture off the beaten path.

  Rachel cannot help but fear the worst. Sam and Julia are her only family, closer than she ever felt with her birth family. She breaks down sobbing at the thought of never seeing them again.

  Ankur slips his arm around her, hugs her, trying to comfort her. She leans her head against his shoulder, weeping.

  “How could this happen?”

  “I seriously doubt the sea level is rising fast enough to overtake two hikers, even one with Sam’s arthritic legs,” says Ankur. “Something else must have happened.”

  That’s when Ankur is struck by the sudden horrific realization that a landslide or sinkhole might have claimed them, a clear indication that the acid ocean may be altering the very structure of Monument Peak. “Damn! We have to warn everyone. Ready the rafts,” he snaps. He runs back to the spruce, dragging Rachel behind him.

  The others are standing under the tree watching them, anxiously awaiting the news. Even Deuce is up on his feet now.

  “Did you see them?” Alex is the first to speak.

  “They’re not coming back,” says Ankur, grimly shaking his head, his voice filled with pain and sadness at the apparent loss of his friend and mentor.

  “How do you know they’re not coming back?” asks Hannibal.

  “We really don’t have time for this now.”

  “The damn ocean got them,” says Deuce. “Just like it almost got Samson and just like it’s going to get all of us.”

  Ankur’s expression confirms Deuce’s worst fear. The sea level is rising again, only much faster this time. Maybe fast enough to catch and swallow Sam and Julia like a humongous blue whale gulping krill, Deuce thinks. Fast enough to throw the remaining survivors into a state of complete dread.

  “How much time do we have left?” Alex sees the color drain from Deuce’s face.

  “Maybe a day, if we’re lucky,” says Ankur. “Considering how this is going so far, I wouldn’t count on us being lucky.”

  Before the shock of Sam and Julia Hayden’s loss has a chance to fully sink in, they begin frantically gathering supplies and loading their rafts for what could be their final voyage.

  Ever.

  Hannibal and Satin finish their raft first and station themselves at the top of the trail, staring down at the Pacific Ocean, which has obliterated California’s coastline, moving more than two hundred miles farther inland, far enough to create a new coastline and oceanfront property along the Nevada border.

  “It’s just like filling a giant fucking bathtub,” says Satin. She watches helplessly as the sea level slowly obliterates each tiny landmark of dirt, brush and rock along the trail, climbing upward inch by relentless inch.

  By Dusk, the Pacific has climbed well past seven thousand feet, two thousand feet higher than yesterday. Four new rafts are lined up in a tight semicircle just outside the spruce tree’s perimeter, just beyond the bed of dried spruce needles, facing the rim of the plateau.

  The others cannibalize their shelters, gathering the leafy branches they need to fashion makeshift paddles to replace those they abandoned on their original rafts. Deuce forces himself away from Samson and finds Rachel, who is utterly broken down over losing Sam and Julia.

  “I miss them, too,” stammers Deuce, who cannot bring himself to say Sam or Julia’s names aloud. “He was one of the greatest astrophysicists in the world. He was my last teacher and my friend.”

  “We don’t even have time for a proper funeral ceremony. Besides, I couldn’t do their eulogies justice right now if you paid me a trillion dollars.” Rachel’s face is streaked with tears.

  “If I paid you a trillion dollars, you’d have nothing to spend it on.” Deuce pats her gently on the shoulder, trying to cheer her up, the last remnants of his courage liquefying into a tidal wave of confused emotions. If the ocean killed Sam and Julia that easily, how will the rest of them save themselves?

  “I’ve been thinking,” says Ankur. “Maybe it wasn’t the ocean after all. Maybe it was a landslide or sinkhole that got them. I’ve done some calculations. Water’s rising about eighty feet per hour. Sam and Julia could have crawled backward up the mountain faster than that.” He expects Deuce to take comfort in the possibility that the ocean is not rising fast enough to swallow fleeing humans.

  “How is a sinkhole possible on a freaking mountain?” Deuce feels no comfort.

  “Sinkholes and landslides are common with mountain earthquakes. Monument Peak is not, as you might imagine, one big solid rock. It’s porous in spots like Swiss cheese. Now along comes this massive earthquake and a huge body of highly acidic saltwater to eat its way through those pores and poof, you have a sinkhole.”

  Deuce immediately looks down, realizes that he might not be standing on terra firma, curses under his breath. He backs up, scurries back to the relative safety of the tree with Alex and Jessa and hugs them both tightly.

  “In case I haven’t mentioned it lately, I really hate the ocean.”

  “I know it sucks, but we have to hold it together no matte
r what, Deuce.” Alex breaks the hug, goes right back to finishing the last row of twine on his second paddle. He sets it on the raft next to the other one. They’re about six feet long, each with a broad triangular fan of leafy branches fastened on one end, notched handgrips on the other.

  “What are we supposed to do now?” Deuce’s voice cracks.

  “The only thing we can do is wait,” says Alex, knowing there is no escape, no recourse and no other way out. Knowing that he and his family are among the last twelve known human survivors, and that all they have left is this little parcel of dry land on top of a rapidly disappearing mountain.

  Deuce’s sense of helplessness turns quickly to anger. He marches to the tree and begins scratching purposefully at the bark with his fingers like a big cat sharpening his claws, preparing for a fight.

  “What are you doing, man?” Eric and Donnie appear at his side, drawn by the sight of Deuce scraping frantically at the bark like some wild animal.

  “Geez, stop that or you’ll tear your fingers off,” warns Donnie.

  “I can’t stop it. I can’t save us. I can’t stop it.” Deuce drones over and again out of sheer frustration.

  “Hey, Einstein, snap out of it!” Eric grabs Deuce by the shoulders, shakes him hard with zero effect. Donnie grabs Deuce from the other side.

  “This tree’s not going to make it if you keep clawing at it.” Donnie forcibly pulls Deuce’s bloodied hands away from the bark.

  “Look, you made yourself bleed. For what?”

  “None of this is your fault. No one expects you to save us. We’re in God’s hands now, Deuce.” Eric has resigned himself to his faith, his last resort.

  “Sam and Julia were in God’s hands, too. Look where it got them,” snaps Deuce.

  Hannibal and Satin cross the plateau to the trail entrance for another look at the ocean, which continues swelling menacingly, relentlessly upward. Even in near total darkness, they can see from the reflection of stars on the ocean’s surface below that Monument Peak is now more than ninety percent submerged.

  “Why the fuck is this happening? I really can’t take this shit anymore, Hannibal. Oh, and by the way, I think I might be pregnant.” She turns abruptly before he can respond, runs back toward their raft with him on her heels.

  “Hey! You’re kidding, right?”

  “It’s been forty days since my last period. I’m twenty-eight like clockwork.”

  “Maybe it’s the stress of moving, running from one disaster to another and so many people dying temporarily broke your clock.” The last thing Hannibal wants on his mind right now is the possibility of fatherhood. What kind of future would a baby have on what’s left of this shithole planet? What future do any of them have? He convinces himself that a pregnancy will never go full term, anyway, so why worry about it. What’s important now is keeping himself and Satin alive for as long as possible, even if means just one more day.

  After crossing Lake Tahoe, abandoning their raft and traveling on foot well into Nevada, the seven members of the Guerrero family follow US 80 until they reach the Rye Patch State Recreation Area not far from Star Peak. Following less than two miles behind them, Marcus stops to take a few long pulls on his water bottle, shifts his backpack for better balance then continues his trek. He’s been following the Guerreros’ occasional dust clouds and footsteps for many miles, hoping to catch up, hoping to end his loneliness.

  Matias and Diego have tried to start every abandoned vehicle they’ve come across without success. They huddle with Mateo while the Guerrero women lead the way to the next abandoned car, a gold 2029 Lexus parked at the edge of a small lake. They stop to rest and replenish their water supplies.

  Matias and Diego approach the car. They are practically on top of it when they realize there are two bodies inside, a man and a woman, remarkably intact.

  “For a second I think they are still alive,” whispers Diego.

  “I once read that it takes ten years for a body to decompose to a skeleton. These two are only nine months gone.” Matias peers through the driver’s side window at the dashboard. There’s an electronic push-button starter. Useless technology.

  “It’s no use,” says Diego. “We just have to keep going on foot.”

  “I miss my friend Deuce,” says Matias.

  “We should have listened to him and stayed with them.” Diego spits out his words with disgust. “We’d be ten thousand feet up, safe with food and water.”

  “How much longer we have to hike?” Mateo whines.

  They are four hundred miles from Yellowstone National Park when the ground beneath them begins shaking and lurching violently. They have no idea that they are standing directly over a minor fault, just as they had no idea about the massive collision in space nine months ago that started a chain reaction on Earth, a series of cataclysmic events leading up to this moment. The Guerrero families huddle together holding one another tightly, praying for the quake to end. Less than two miles behind them, Marcus drops to the ground and covers his head.

  At that moment, four hundred miles to the Northeast, Yellowstone’s enormous magma chamber ruptures and the long-dormant super-volcano erupts with the force of a trillion nuclear warheads. It sets off another chain reaction, a string of smaller eruptions scattered across Idaho and northern Nevada. Without the usual prevailing winds to drive atmospheric volcanic ejecta toward the East, molten rock spews out in every direction. At two hundred mph, the first salvo of projectiles from Yellowstone and the smaller eruptions, lava bombs and rocks as big as boulders, begins raining down on the Guerrero family and Marcus just two hours after they hear the first of several thunderous explosions.

  All that the Guerreros can do now is hold onto one another tightly and wait for the end to come. Even Marcus knows that it’s too late to catch up with them now. Still, he stubbornly prays that he won’t die alone.

  The roar of the Yellowstone eruption carries all the way to Monument Peak just as another earthquake begins shaking the mountain beneath the survivors.

  “The water’s rising fast! Get to your rafts!” Hannibal’s loud warning sends the others into another round of frenzied activity, moving what few provisions they have left onto their rafts.

  “If you haven’t finished your oars, bring the raw materials, too,” yells Alex. “If you’re lucky, you’ll have time to finish while we’re afloat!”

  “Are we ‘afloating’ soon, Meg?” Mia is too young and innocent to fully comprehend their desperate circumstances.

  “I’m really, really, really scared, Meg,” says Lily.

  Meg herds the girls onto their raft where Ankur awaits with their supplies.

  “Just hold me as tight as you can.” Meg shivers as the whole mountain shakes again beneath them. They huddle together with Ankur and wait.

  Eric and Donnie casually strap their backpacks on and step aboard the final raft, the raft Sam, Julia and Rachel would have shared. There is no sadness or panic in them like the others. For them, it’s just another thrilling adventure.

  “This is a first,” says Donnie. “We’re going up with the ship.”

  Eric swats at him playfully. “I love how you can still make jokes in a shit storm.”

  “Just trying to keep it light.”

  Driven by a rush of pure adrenaline and the sheer terror of being swallowed by the monstrous flood from his worst nightmares, Deuce lifts Samson and carries him from the spruce tree to their raft where Alex and Jessa are arranging their supplies.

  “Shame we have to leave the vegetables behind,” says Alex.

  Jessa reaches into her backpack and flashes him the zip-locked plastic baggie. Like Noah, she has salvaged two each of kale, spinach, green beans and weed.

  She frowns. “Sorry, no potatoes. Too big.”

  “Hey, you got the important stuff.”

  Deuce doesn’t care. As he plops next to Samson, he’s too busy wondering whether Ankur is right about the mineral ringwoodite overheating and releasing its stored water into the Paci
fic Ocean. Or maybe the Pacific plate has cracked, according to the late Sam Hayden’s theory, and displaced trillions of gallons of water? And what if Earth has been toppled from its axis by the loss of the moon?

  Then there are the more immediate questions. How will he and his family survive the coming flood? How long will their flimsy rafts stay afloat on an ocean filled with corrosive acid? Finally, why are little lava rocks suddenly raining down from the sky?

  The Jacks family ducks and covers, pulling their backpacks over their heads as they lie face down on the raft, listening to the random clicks and ticks as lava pebbles hardened and cooled by their long journey hit the ground around them.

  The questions are adding up so quickly that Deuce cannot keep up with them any longer. He closes his eyes tightly trying to clear his mind. He recalls his most vivid, cherished memories of life before The Crash, realizing what a safe, charmed, innocent life he had led back in Dana Point. Skateboarding at the marina, stargazing with Alex on cloudless nights. Playing computer games with his friends from school until midnight on weekends.

  Then after The Crash, there was finding Samson, living in the bomb shelter and meeting the Guerrero family with the only functioning motor vehicle on the West Coast. Deuce replays the best moments from their trip to Lake Tahoe, meeting Professor Hayden, their final attempt to rebuild a society in Emerald Bay after killing the Jakes and their desperate flight by raft to Monument Peak, to the very spot where Deuce now lies with his eyes clamped shut. He can still see their faces: Sam, Julia, Marcus and the Guerrero family, all gone. None of it makes any difference now.

  Deuce is convinced they are all going to die very soon, the last twelve humans, the last canine and the last standing tree.

  “I’m scared, Meg!” cries Mia two rafts over.

  “I’m scared, too.” Meg and Ankur hold Mia and Lily tightly.

  “Keep saying your prayers,” says Meg.

  “You hear that, Hannibal? Say your prayers.”

  “Yeah, I’ll get right on it.”

  While Satin and Hannibal lie close together in the middle of their raft, wrapped in each other’s arms like lovers oblivious to the rest of the world, Rachel paces along the perimeter of the plateau staring at the ocean just below, comforted only by the overwhelming feeling that she might soon end her grieving and reunite with Julia and Sam in the afterlife.