by Kraus, Mike
Dianne waved off the pair of “aw, man’s” that came next and pointed out the door and at the field beyond. As the boys traipsed off, she watched them for a moment before glancing at Josie. “You’re not off the hook, missy. Come on, let’s get to your work.”
Dianne had been a vocal proponent of homeschooling ever since she was a child, and Rick had gone along with her desire while offering a few suggestions and conditions of his own. In addition to the education they received at home, each of the children spent a few hours every other day with after-school programs, learning to do everything from cooking and basic engine repair to computer maintenance and programming. While Rick wasn’t able to participate in their education as much a he wanted due to his job, ensuring that they had a well-rounded childhood and solid foundation were of paramount importance to both him and Dianne.
As the morning turned into the afternoon and all three children took a break for lunch, Dianne began packing their things into the family car to take them into town. One of the perks of being married to someone reasonably far up the food chain at a car manufacturer was getting a new car to test drive every few months. Dianne was particularly happy with the van that was parked in their driveway, especially since it had some of the latest self-driving and collision avoidance features baked in.
“Kids! Let’s go or we’re going to be late!” Dianne walked out to the car, listening to her children slowly follow after her as they talked to each other about a book they had been reading for the past few nights. When Dianne arrived at the van she opened the door, tossed their backpacks into the front passenger’s seat and leaned in to turn on the ignition before heading to the back seat to strap Josie in.
As Dianne buckled Josie’s booster seat straps, the soft tones of some local soft rock station abruptly cut off, followed by the sound of the van’s engine sputtering a few times before it too, died. A second later the van’s horn began to sound and the radio kicked back on at full volume as it cycled through the local radio stations at an increasing rate of speed.
“What the—Mark? Jacob? Did one of you boys mess with the van? Your dad is not going to be happy!” Dianne shouted over the sound of the car as she unbuckled Josie, trying to shield her daughter’s ears with her arms.
“It wasn’t me, mom!”
“Me either!”
Dianne pulled Josie out of the car and yelled. “You three back in the house!”
Dianne waited until the kids were back behind the car before climbing into the driver’s seat. She twisted the dial for the radio volume but nothing happened. She inserted the van’s key and turned it, but nothing happened there either. She got back out of the car and headed back toward the house, covering her ears with her hands. “What’s going on with that stupid thing?”
Once she was back inside, Dianne grabbed her cellphone off the counter and tapped in her unlock code. She scrolled through her contact list until she reached the name for the engineer who Rick had told her to call if anything ever broke down on one of the test cars. Wincing at the sound of the still-shrieking vehicle, Dianne shooed her children into the next room before closing the door and sitting down in a nearby chair.
After holding the phone to her ear for several seconds, Dianne pulled it away and glanced at the screen. The call status, instead of reading out as a count of how long the call had been ongoing, merely said “Dialing.”
“What?” Dianne hung up and dialed again. She watched the screen of the phone, but nothing changed, even after several more seconds. She sighed and hung up the phone, set it down on the kitchen table and then turned to her children.
“Stay in here. I’m going to go disconnect the battery, then we’ll take the old truck into town, okay?”
Jacob, Mark and Josie all nodded and Dianne headed back toward the front door of the house. As she swung the door open, a light breeze picked up, sending the smell of freshly cut grass dancing along. Accompanying it, however, was a foul stench that took Dianne a few seconds to recognize.
“Gasoline?” Dianne mumbled to herself as she turned to look at the car out in the driveway. As she looked at the vehicle, wondering why she was suddenly smelling gasoline, the radio shut off, the horn stopped blowing and the electrical system shorted out. Sparks flew from the bottom of the van, igniting the gasoline vapors with a faint whoosh that was quickly followed by an ear-shattering explosion. The van shuddered under the force of the explosion and burst into flames that quickly began to consume it both on the inside and out.
Dianne fell back against the front door of the house, partially from the force of the blast and partially from the shock of watching a vehicle that her children had been climbing in a few minutes earlier explode before her eyes.
“Mom?” Mark’s voice came from inside the house. The thirteen-year-old pulled open the front door and all three children gasped as they saw the wreckage of the van in the front driveway. Flames licked out from the vehicle and black smoke filled the air, rising high above the trees. A tire popped from the heat, sending pieces of rubber exploding outward, and Dianne turned and pushed Mark back through the door and into the house. She followed behind him and slammed the door shut before turning to look at the carnage out front.
“Mom, what’s going on?”
Dianne could only shake her head and whisper in response.
“I don’t know, Mark. I don’t know.”
Chapter 2
Los Angeles, CA
Even after the explosions around him had slowed to a stop, Rick stayed still in his hiding spot for nearly half an hour. In the distance he could hear screams, car alarms and the sound of chaos as the city began to tear itself apart. The whine of distant engines followed by tremendous explosions indicated that more planes had been downed, and the smell of smoke had increased to a level where it was getting difficult for him to breathe without wheezing.
When Rick finally released the death grip he had on his luggage, opened his eyes and started to sit up, he coughed and grabbed at his eyes as both they and his throat began to sting. He looked up into the sky that had been blue and cloudless only a short time ago. It was filled with acrid black smoke that billowed from innumerable fires and blotted out the sun.
“What the hell happened?” Rick slowly stood to his feet, pulled out a handkerchief from his back pocket and pressed it over his nose and mouth. In the distance the devastation took on an eerily unreal quality, looking like something out of a Saturday morning science fiction film instead of reality. Up close, however, the carnage became all too real.
Twisted and blackened bodies were frozen next to cars along the streets and parking lots surrounding where he was, as fires continued to burn from the engine and passenger compartments of the cars themselves. Most of those who had been far enough from their vehicles to survive the blasts were severely injured, and Rick could see small groups of them huddled on sidewalks or beneath the overhangs of small buildings, tending to their wounds.
He turned back and looked at what was left of the airport complex, scarcely able to believe his eyes. Two of the terminals were in flames from the plane that had slammed into the side of the building. Several parked planes were overturned and in pieces, scattered about by the force of the explosion. There were no signs of emergency vehicles in the area, though Rick doubted if anyone in the terminals or aircraft could have survived.
The main building was on fire as well, and several smaller fires had started from the overturned fuel trucks on the tarmac, and were slowly spreading as more fuel continued to leak from storage containers, aircraft and vehicles. He could just make out people running to and fro in front of the main entrance of the airport, and several of them wore firefighter and emergency services uniforms.
Rick walked slowly out from the grassy area he was in, hopping over the slow-burning flames that flickered along the green grass toward the center. The heat from the wrecks of the cars was nearly overwhelming, and every few seconds the wind changed, blowing a fresh wave of smoke and soot into his face. Rick
covered his face with his arm and tried to pull his suit jacket closed to shield his torso from the heat. He walked through the maze of wreckage quickly, having to divert his route several times to get past some of the still-burning vehicles.
With no idea of what to do or where to go, Rick looked for the highest ground around, noticing that a small road leading away from the airport turned into an overpass that looked to be the highest point in the area. He headed for the road at a quick pace, keeping a tight hold of his luggage as he went. It wasn’t until he broke into a jog and felt his phone in the breast pocket of his jacket bouncing against his chest that his eyes went wide and he stopped to pull it out.
His phone turned on with the touch of a button, though the signal was displaying as far weaker than he would have imagined for where he was located. He frowned, then hit the contacts button before touching the image in the first “Favorites” slot.
“Come on… pick up…” Rick held the phone against his ear, hearing the telltale clicking sounds that indicated that something was happening in the background. It took almost a full minute for him to hear a single ring, which cut short as a message began playing.
We’re sorry, this call cannot be completed as dialed. Please try texting your intended recipient instead.
Rick pulled the phone away and scrunched his face in confusion. “Please try texting your intended recipient?” He repeated the phrase to himself, wondering if he had somehow misheard. “I’ve never heard that message before. Still, though, good idea.”
Rick brought up his text messaging app and punched in a quick message to his wife.
U ok? I dont know whats going on. Stay inside and away from the car. K?
He was just about to hit the “send” button when he noticed that the phone was rapidly growing warm on the backside. He turned it over and saw, to his horror, that the back case was warped outward like there was a balloon beneath it that was being blown up. Realizing what was happening, Rick didn’t hesitate to throw the phone as far as he possibly could, sending it through the air to skitter along the asphalt road before it, too, exploded into flames.
A battery becoming compromised, expanding and then exploding was not a common occurrence, but it had happened before, especially with certain models of phones and batteries that didn’t go through stringent quality checks. For it to happen in conjunction with everything else that was going on, though, seemed more than just a coincidence in Rick’s mind. He stared at the small phone as flames slowly melted the plastic, reducing it to nothing more than a pile of blackened metal and plastic sludge on the road. Giving the mound of what used to be his phone a wide berth, Rick continued to trudge along the road as it rose steadily and turned into the overpass. When he finally reached the peak, he stopped and turned to look at the city to the east.
“Nope. Definitely not a coincidence.” Rick stared, mouth agape, at the destruction before him. At least two other planes had fallen into the city, one striking a skyscraper which was teetering on the edge of falling over. The smoke that filled the sky was fed from fires that were on every street and in most of the buildings he saw. The magnitude of the destruction was overwhelming and Rick turned around and collapsed onto the ground as his mind reeled.
He realized in the back of his mind that he was in shock, and most likely had been since he had started walking away from the airport. As the adrenaline began to wear off, though, he could feel his entire body begin to shake as his thoughts raced, unhindered and uncontrollable. Whatever was going on was not, he determined, a dream, nor was it some sort of freak accident. Cars didn’t shut off and start leaking gasoline. Ordinary phones didn’t have their batteries short circuit and explode. Planes didn’t just fall from the sky.
Rick put his head back against the concrete side of the overpass and closed his eyes, feeling himself sinking into a black pit of unconsciousness. He welcomed it and the relief that he hoped it would bring.
Chapter 3
The Waters’ Homestead
Ellisville, VA
“This place looks like crap!”
“Language, Jacob!”
“Sorry, mom.”
“Well it is kind of crappy.”
“Mark! That’s enough from you, too!” Dianne brushed a few strands of hair from her face and took a deep breath as she surveyed the kitchen. Water was everywhere, spreading slowly out over the hardwood floors and soaking into the large rug under the dining room table. Grey smoke and the smell of burning electronics filled the air while a large piece of the edge of the table itself still smoked from the remnants of Dianne’s cellphone. She had left it on the table when she went outside, and a few seconds after she came back in to try to make another call, it had burst into flames in front of her. A few baking pans full of water from the sink later and the fire had been put out, though the dining room was a complete wreck as a result.
“Mom? Can I come down now?”
“Not yet, sweetie!” Dianne called up the stairs to her daughter, then turned to her sons. “Mark, I need you to go make sure the animals are okay. The car was pretty loud and they might have been spooked. Give them some extra food to calm them down, all right?”
“Sure thing, mom.”
Dianne patted her eldest son on the back as he walked out the back door. She turned to Jacob, who was sitting on the stairs looking into the kitchen. “I need you to go play with your sister upstairs, okay?”
“But I want—”
“Kiddo. I need your help right now, okay?” Dianne was doing her best to keep the stress out of her voice, but she could feel herself reaching her limit and needed a few minutes alone to figure out what to do.
“Fine…” Jacob’s shoulders slouched as he went up the stairs and Dianne sighed at his attitude before turning back to survey the kitchen.
“Right. So. The car exploded. My phone exploded. Just a perfectly normal day here.” Dianne stepped gingerly through the water in the kitchen and picked up the landline telephone hanging on the wall. Rick had insisted on having one installed ‘just in case there’s an emergency’ a fact that Dianne was grateful for. She held the phone to her ear and heard a dial tone, then excitedly dialed the number for Rick’s cellphone. Her excitement quickly waned as she heard an error message declaring that ‘the number you’ve dialed is currently unavailable.’
“Damn!” Dianne slammed the phone against the receiver and leaned her arm on the wall, putting her head against it and closing her eyes. “Why did you have to go out of town on business on this week of all weeks, Rick? Why?”
Dianne quickly dialed another number for their neighbors down the road but got the same message. She dialed another and another and each time the message was the same. ‘The number you’ve dialed is currently unavailable.’
Dianne stood in the kitchen, leaning up against the wall for several more minutes before slowing standing back up and taking in a deep breath. “Right. First things first, clean out the kitchen. Then get the truck out, make sure it still runs. Then we’ll head into town and see what’s going on there.” Dianne nodded to herself and sighed at the mess before her. With a tentative plan in hand she was feeling slightly better about the situation at hand, but there was still a nagging feeling in the back of her head that whatever had happened with the car and the phone was a part of something far, far greater.
Twenty minutes later—and with the help of all three children, a pile of old towels and a mop—the kitchen floor was finally looking better. The water was cleared up relatively quickly after which Dianne ran the mop over everything and took the rug outside to get hosed down by Mark and Jacob and left to dry in the sun. Using a pair of rubber gloves and a few layers of plastic bags, Dianne scraped the remnants of her phone off of the table and dumped it and the bags into a metal trash can at the edge of the driveway. The burned table would have to be dealt with more thoroughly later on, but she scrubbed it for long enough to feel comfortable sitting down at it again. The smoke in the house was the last to be dealt with, after she came
back inside and the smell hit her nostrils again. She shooed the three children out onto the back porch before opening several windows both downstairs and upstairs to let everything air out.
With the house in order, Dianne walked out the front door to look at the car again. It was still smoldering in the front driveway, but the fire had long since been put out thanks to the overzealous use of a pair of garden hoses. She hated leaving the burned-out hulk sitting in the driveway, but with no way to move it without getting their tractor out, she decided to leave it for another time.
“All right, kids! Let’s go see if the truck’ll start up!” Dianne walked around the side of the house and shouted at her children on the back porch. They ran after her as she headed down toward the lake, near where one of their barns was located. The tractor was kept in the barn closest to the house while their old truck was kept in the far barn, along with various tools, old clothes, toys and other odds and ends that had been sitting around in the house.
Dianne glanced at the animals as she went along, noting that Mark had taken care of them just as requested. Their pair of horses had been fed and their trough that they shared with the goats had been filled. The chickens, contained in their fenced-in area, were busy pecking at corn that he had thrown out on the ground for them while the trio of cows munched steadily on a freshly tossed bale of hay.
“Nice work, kiddo.” Dianne wrapped her arm around her son and gave him a smile. “Now let’s see if this old truck still works.”
Dianne had the children stand back from the barn entrance just in case what had happened to their newer car had also affected the truck. Fortunately, though, that was not the case. The bright blue 1972 Ford was a thing of beauty. With ample room in the back plus a crew cab, the truck had more than enough room for their entire family. A gift from Dianne’s parents when they first got married, the truck had seen a great deal of use and abuse on the farm before being mostly retired a year back. Rick had the truck detailed and repainted before putting it up in the barn and driving it once a week into work to keep everything running smoothly.