METEOR STORM

by David Capps

After dinner, we made our final journey from the cabin to the cave. All of the other people in John’s local group were already there. All in all, we had over three hundred people in the cave. As midnight passed I began to get anxious again. I sat in my personal enclosure and calmed my mind. I wanted to go to the rock outcropping and watch the beginning of the meteor storm, but the anxiety I was experiencing told me there might be a problem if I went. After considerable thought, I decided I would go anyway.

  At twelve-forty, I met with Tia and Ed for the twenty minute walk to the rock outcropping. Each of us had a flashlight and a bottle of water. Ed carried a satchel slung over his shoulder.

  “What are you bringing?” I asked.

  He reached into the satchel and brought out several light green sticks.

  “Glow sticks,” he said, “to light our way back to the cave. Wouldn’t want to get lost, would we?”

  Tia and I smiled. “No,” I said, “we wouldn’t want to get lost.”

  John walked over to the door. “You sure you want to go?” he asked.

  “Yep,” I replied, “I need to see this.”

  “Okay,” he said, “I’ll be waiting here by the door for you.”

  “Thanks,” I replied. “See you in a little over an hour.”

  We worked our way through the thicket down to the small path that led to the rock outcropping. Ed pulled out two glow sticks, broke and shook them. The green glow was brighter than I expected it to be.

  “How long do they last?” I asked.

  “Three to four hours,” Ed replied. “Plenty of time for our mission.”

  “Mission, huh?” I said.

  “Seems like it is to you,” Ed replied. “That’s enough for us.”

  I looked over at Tia. She smiled. Ed dropped the two glow sticks in the path by the large tree so we knew where the end of the path was. As we walked, Ed took more glow sticks out of the satchel, broke and shook them and dropped them on the path, spread out enough where we could see the next glow stick from the one in our current position.

  We climbed up onto the rock outcropping and settled in to wait for the meteors. We didn’t have to wait long. The sky was clear, as usual for this time of year. On the horizon, small streaks of light began moving down and disappearing behind the curvature of the earth. As the meteors moved closer, we began to see more of them. The edge of the meteor storm was thin, with the meteors appearing higher in the sky. As the storm progressed the meteors became more abundant, filling the lower part of the sky with more and more streaks until the very lowest point of the sky turned a solid red color. The closer the meteor storm got, the higher the solid red portion of the sky moved up. It now looked like a solid wall of fire falling from the sky.

  Ed checked his watch. “Time to go,” he said.

  We climbed down the rock and headed back to the cave, the glow sticks guiding our way. We were about five minutes from the cave when Tia stopped.

  “What’s that?” she asked, shining her flashlight further down the path.

  It was hard to make out exactly. Small yellow dots were spread out across the path ahead of us. I put my hand in front of Tia’s flashlight. The yellow dots disappeared. Both Ed and I adjusted our flashlights from wide angle to spot focus and pointed them down the path.

  “Animal eyes,” Ed said.

  We moved slowly forward to get a better view of what was ahead of us on the path.

  “Guys?” Tia said. “Are they?”

  “Wolves,” Ed replied.

  “I thought wolves were more like German Shepherds,” Tia said, “you know, sixty to seventy five pounds. These are…”

  “Yeah,” Ed replied, “a lot larger.”

  The wolves were at least waist high and were clearly one fifty to two hundred pounds each.

  “We should have brought a gun,” I said.

  “I did,” Ed replied, “but I don’t think it’s going to do us much good.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “I’ve read about these. I just never expected to actually see one,” Ed replied.

  “If we just shoot the gun, won’t they run away?” I asked.

  “Not these,” Ed said. “I’ve got seven shots in the gun and seven in another clip. That’s fourteen shots. I count more than twenty pairs of eyes.”

  “How many of these wolves do you think it would take to get us?” Tia asked.

  “One,” Ed replied.

  The wolves started moving closer to us. We could see them licking their chops.

  “Oh man,” Ed said, “it just occurred to me. John’s been sedating the deer and Elk and moving them into the cave. These guys probably haven’t had anything to eat in the last week.”

  “And we’re what… dinner?” Tia shrieked.

  I swung my flashlight around and looked at the trees.

  “Shit,” I said. “There’s nothing we can climb. All of the trees are at least twenty feet up before you get any branches.”

  We heard noises moving on both sides of us.

  “They’re flanking us,” Ed said.

  “We should run,” Tia said.

  “No!” Ed shouted. “These are predators. When you run, you act like prey. That triggers an attack.”

  “And just standing here doesn’t?” Tia shouted in return.

  “Calm down,” I said, “I’ve got to think.”

  The wolves were closing in. We could see them more clearly now.

  “These are like Frankenwolves,” Tia said. “How did they get so big?”

  “They’re not natural to the area,” Ed said. “They’re a hybrid between Canadian Gray wolves and Alaskan Timber wolves.”

  “And they what? Walked here?” Tia asked.

  “They were planted here for biodiversity,” Ed explained.

  “By…?” Tia asked.

  Ed looked over at her.

  “No. Don’t tell me,” Tia replied. “A government program? You have got to be kidding me.”

  “Sorry,” Ed said.

  The wolves walked closer to us. They formed a circle around us about twenty feet away. Ed drew his gun and pulled the slide back and released it, loading a round into the chamber.

  “I’ll get as many as I can,” Ed said. “But…”

  They were all still licking their chops.

  I heard a whoosh and the snapping of several tree branches as a meteorite hit the ground to the left of us with a loud thud. Immediately fire broke out where the meteorite hit. The wolves looked over at the fire and then back at us. They didn’t move. I heard another whoosh and more branches breaking, followed by another heavy thud to the right of us. A second fire started. The wolves looked at the second fire and then back to us. Again, they didn’t move.

  A third meteorite crashed through the trees and hit the ground behind us, starting another fire. The entire pack of wolves bolted into the forest and was gone in a matter of seconds.

  “Now we run!” Ed shouted.

  We raced up the path toward the cave with our flashlight beams swinging wildly in front of us and meteorites crashing to the ground all around us. A golf ball sized meteorite glanced off a tree and careened diagonally in front of us. The glow sticks were getting harder to see because of the increasing amount of red light from the fires behind us. We reached the large tree that John showed us and scrambled through the thicket.

  John was standing in the doorway to the cave waving us in. “What happened?” John asked. “I expected you much earlier.”

  Once we were inside, John closed the rock door. All three of us were out of breath.

  “Wolves,” Tia managed to say.

  “What?” John said in a loud tone. “I’ve never seen any wolves around here.”

  “Well,” Tia said, “they’re here now.”

  “I thought Carl had this new sense of intuition going for us,” John said.

  “Yeah, Carl,” Ed added.

  Tia looked at me. “So what the hell happened? Why didn’t it work?”

  “Well,” I said sheep
ishly, “it did work. I just wanted to see the meteor storm. Besides, it didn’t seem like that big of a deal.”

  “Carl!” Tia complained.

  “Tell you what, buddy,” Ed said, poking his finger into my chest, “from now on you tell us about everything, no matter if you think it’s no big deal, so we can decide for ourselves.”

  Tia was fuming. “Everything,” she stated emphatically.

  “Okay, okay,” I said, “I’ll let you know about everything.”

  “Good,” John said, “now that we have that settled.”

  “Almost getting eaten by a pack of Frankenwolves and it’s no big deal,” Ed said as he walked away shaking his head.

  “Ya gotta share, Carl,” Tia stated as she also walked away.

  John looked around. “Well,” he said, “that went well.”

  I headed for my personal enclosure without saying a word.

  * * *

  Our personal enclosures were insulated wood boxes with a door. Mine was located next to Tia’s. The enclosure measured eight feet high, eight feet wide and ten feet long. A closet was constructed at the back of the enclosure with shelves along one wall to store our personal things. A thin mattress served as a bed. It rolled up to allow more room for the day’s activities. John had provided a light switch for the LED lighting system and a single outlet for personal electrical items. It was sparse at best, but it would have to do. A chair would have been nice, but that seemed like a luxury at this point. Each room had an LCD clock on the shelf. When the lights were off it would have been pitch black, if not for the backlit display on the clock. It allowed us to move around and still see something.

  I was exhausted. It had been a long and trying day. I changed into my pajamas and covered up with the two blankets that came with the room. The Futon wasn’t that soft, but it was better than nothing. I had been mostly free of the nightmares that plagued me in prison, but tonight they returned with a vengeance.

  I awoke to the sound of someone pounding on my door. I was shaking as I stumbled to the door.

  “Carl, it’s Tia. Open the door!” She continued pounding until I opened the door.

  “What?” I asked.

  She looked me over quickly with an alarmed expression on her face. “You were screaming,” she said.

  I looked down at the floor. “I had a nightmare, that’s all,” I replied.

  “That’s all?” she said. “You sounded terrified.”

  “It’s okay,” I replied, “I…”

  “No,” she said firmly. “It’s not okay. I’m here to protect you.”

  “I don’t need—“

  “Yes, you do,” she replied. “You need me. I’m here for you. I talked with Nancy and she said you shouldn’t be alone right now, especially with the nightmares.”

  “Tia, I…”

  “Carl, stop and look at you. You’re still trembling. You’re sweating and your hair and pajamas are soaked. I’m taking care of you.”

  The cold air from the cave was soaking through my pajamas. I felt like I was freezing. Tia quickly went inside her personal enclosure and came out carrying her pillow and blankets.

  “Inside,” she said. I moved back into my enclosure. She came in and closed the door. I couldn’t stop shaking. Tears began flooding my eyes and I heard a wailing sound come out of my mouth. I couldn’t stop. Tia quickly took my pajamas off and put clean ones on me. She wrapped me in the blankets and helped me lie down on the bed. She sat against the side wall and cradled me in her arms with her blankets wrapped around both of us. I wept harder than I could remember, until I finally fell asleep.

  * * *

  I awoke feeling as if I had been beat up. Everything hurt. I looked up. Tia was still sitting up; sound asleep with her mouth hanging open. She looked cute that way, but I doubt she would have agreed. I didn’t want to wake her, but even the small movements I made were enough to do the job. She opened her eyes and looked at me.

  “You okay?” she asked quietly.

  “Yeah, I’m just really sore for some reason.”

  “I’m not surprised,” she said. “You’ve been through a severe trauma and it’s got to come out.”

  “Yeah, but after all of this time, I thought…”

  “You weren’t ready to process it until now.”

  “So why now?”

  “Maybe it’s safe to deal with it now. You’re away from the system that did this to you; you’re out from under their control.”

  It made a certain amount of sense. “Look, I…”

  “Don’t apologize,” she said, “Nancy told me healing from this kind of trauma is a long and painful process. The only way is through it. I understand. You can’t offend me, you aren’t imposing on me. We’re doing this together. I’m here for you, no matter what it takes – I’m here.”

  I started crying again. My hands were shaking. I held on to her.

  “It’s alright, I’m here.”

  * * *

  I woke up, surprised to learn that I had fallen back to sleep.

  “Feeling a little better?” she asked.

  “Yeah, I think so.” I looked at the clock; it was almost nine in the morning.

  “We should get up and get our showers and some breakfast.”

  John had provided each of us with terry bath robes and slippers. Tia opened the door to my room and went next door to get her robe. Several people were rushing down the aisle in the cave. I saw Ed and called out to him.

  “Hey, what’s going on?”

  “The forest fire outside,” he said. “The doors to the cave are overheating. We’re afraid they may fail.”

  “They don’t have a heat sink?” I asked.

  “A what?”

  “Something to draw the heat away from the critical parts. Every computer processor has a heat sink on it to draw the heat out and keep it functioning.”

  “That’s not going to work,” Ed replied. “You can’t do that to an entire door.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “Why not what?” Tia asked as she came out of her room.

  “The cave doors are overheating and are likely to fail,” I explained. “They need a heat sink.”

  “Of course they do,” Tia replied. “Let’s go see what we can do.”

  When we arrived at the main door, people were running back and forth carrying buckets of water and throwing them on the door.

  Ed introduced us. “Tia and Carl, this is Randy. He’s head of maintenance.”

  “The concrete fiber mix is starting to break down from the heat,” Randy said. “We’re trying to keep the door bathed in water, but between the heat and the water the door is disintegrating. If the door fails we lose all of our oxygen to the fire, the cave will fill with smoke and we all die.”

  “How much Aluminum do you have?” Tia asked.

  “Aluminum?” Randy said. “Uhhh… we have some sheet metal, some angle stock and some liquid Aluminum.

  “Liquid Aluminum?” I asked.

  “Yeah, paste like stuff,” Randy said. “You spread it into cracks and it hardens. You can drill into it just like regular metal. We use it to anchor all of the personal space enclosures to the rock walls of the cave.”

  Tia and I looked at each other. “Get it,” we both said at the same time. “Bring all of the Aluminum you have to this door, and tools; saws and drills,” I said.

  “I’ll go check the other door,” Tia said. “I’ll be right back.”

  I looked closely at the structure of the door. The steel frame held the concrete fiber mixture in place. The spacing looked good for what we needed.

  “Okay,” I said, “cut the angle pieces here, here and here. Cut the sheet metal one foot wide, same length as the angle pieces. What have you got for screws?”

  “Self-tapping sheet metal. Will these do?” Randy asked.

  “You bet,” I replied. “Attach the sheet metal to the angle pieces with the screws like this, here, here and here.”

  “Got it,” Randy said as
his people went to work.

  When the first piece was ready I showed him where it fit on the door.

  “Okay, spread the liquid Aluminum on the concrete part of the door where this fits, and set the angle piece into the liquid Aluminum,” I said. “You’re going to have to move fast. With this heat the Aluminum is going to set up very quickly.”

  Randy set the first angle piece into the liquid Aluminum with the sheet metal sticking out into the cave.

  “Ouch!” Randy shouted. “Damn, that didn’t take long to get hot.”

  “That’s the point,” I said. “The Aluminum paste delivers the heat to the angle and then on to the sheet metal which radiates the heat into the air. You can spray the sheets down with water if you need to move more heat out of the door.”

  “I got it,” Randy said, “and the next piece goes right here?”

  “Exactly,” I replied, “all the way across the door. Same spacing.”

  Randy’s people formed a quick assembly line cutting the angle pieces, attaching the sheet metal and mounting them on the door with the liquid Aluminum.

  Tia returned. “The other door isn’t as bad as this one,” she said. “Probably the thicket outside is burning really hot right now.”

  We heard a loud thud. Some small rocks fell from the ceiling.

  “Large meteorite hit the mountain,” Randy said. “Third one since this all started. I just pray that one that size doesn’t hit the door.”

  I grimaced at the thought.

  “This looks like it’s working. Thanks guys, uh… I mean lady.”

  Tia grinned. “Guys is fine.”

  “We’re almost done here. We’ll get the other door right away.”

  Tia and I strolled back to the showers. “I enjoy solving problems like that,” Tia said.

  “Yeah, me too,” I replied, “I just wish the problems on the inside were as easy to fix.”

  “It’s a matter of scale,” Tia replied. “How long did it take to put a man on the moon, or a lander on Mars?”

  I stopped and looked at her.

  “Fixing you inside is a lot less complicated than those were. It’s not going to take as long as you might think.”

  “I hope not.”

  She reached her arm around me and squeezed me close to her. It felt good.