by Dan Dillard
EPILOGUE
Of the citizens and tourists in the town of Smithville, over four thousand people were killed or are still missing. That included Travis, Sheila, Thomas and Shrimp, Kirsten, Bill by God Shockley, Top Kepler and many others who died prior to the earth opening up. Millions of animals and billions of insects—essentially anything that couldn’t fly fast enough for the few miles that were required to survive—were dead. Of the people who were in town that weekend, only the forty-six people who were on that ferry escaped with their lives. Some other residents of Smithville lived. They had been on vacation or out of town on business. Leah Sacks was in Raleigh comforting her son when the news hit. Deep down, she was relieved to have gotten away with murder.
The headlines on the front page of the New York Times the morning after read AND THE EARTH SWALLOWED THEM UP. The article called it an earthquake with devastating results and the president declared it a disaster area.
There were aerial photographs of what the destruction left behind. It looked like some giant sea monster had taken a bite out of the coast. Everything within a three mile radius of the Gates house was gone, filled with sand and water. Plumes of steam rose from the smooth ground. From the perspective of an ignorant observer, it could’ve been some deserted beachfront, untouched by progress. Visitors from another planet would’ve found it beautiful.
The earthquake story spread through the news and for most people, it was good enough.