Footprints of Thunder

by James F. David

  Luis found himself looking carefully at usable, intact things in the street. When he realized what he was doing he felt shame, but he began to understand how looters felt. If he took the items at his feet, he told himself, he’d be doing the city a favor by cleaning the streets. If he gave into that logic, soon he’d begin to think about items sitting in stores with broken windows, how someone was just going to steal them anyway.

  As Luis walked, the streets slowly filled with people, the crowd picking through the debris, looking for overlooked items of value. A few children mixed in, finding treasures in what others discarded. There was no hostility in the crowd, only resignation and dismay. Owners of some shops were looking over what was left of their stock. One old Vietnamese man was tossing what was left of his candy store into the street. A small crowd gathered, scrambling for the few fixtures and sweets.

  A burning car served as a marker to Luis: On its far side the devastation reached a new level. Every block contained at least one overturned car. Here the stores weren’t merely looted, they were gutted by angry or desperate people, not “shoppers.” Luis felt the tension increase palpably. On the first corner beyond the burning car, two ruined buildings sat smoldering. He couldn’t remember what had been there before.

  Now the people looked sullen and withdrawn. Luis wondered if they were the ones who had destroyed the neighborhood, or the survivors. Then he noticed something else— across the street were two Latino young men wearing colors.

  Luis recognized the green jackets of the Diablos, and he paused at a car, checking out the street for others in the gang. Except for their colors, the two leaning on a car smoking were no different from dozens of other young around. Still, passersby gave them a wide berth, and then ignored them.

  Luis knew he should do the same; his promise to Melinda to come back safely made him extra cautious. He watched the Diablos a few more minutes and then he started out again keeping to the sides of the street, eyes peeled for green jackets or other gang colors. As he walked, he tried to remember where the turf borders had been. He was getting close to his building now, and he was sure this was Zombie territory. Zombies were a white gang and sworn enemies of the Diablos. Luis turned to look behind him, still checking his bearings, when he spotted three green jackets. He moved on more quickly now, trying not to look scared. Two of them were the same Diablos he passed earlier.

  Luis’s heart started pounding. He realized his mistake—in a crowd of the poor, he looked prosperous. Luis started walking again, casually at first, but then gradually picking up the pace. It was possible the gang members were simply going the same way as Luis and not following him. He walked a block and then cut across the street to the other side, pausing to pretend to look in a car with smashed windows, but noticing the Diablos on the other side of the street watching him. Luis started off again, wishing Steve had come with him. The Diablos might have passed on two men together.

  After half a block, he looked over his shoulder. By now, he and the Diablos knew what was going on. Now they were behind him, and Luis started to jog. He was only about a mile from his building. If he could make it there, he might be safe behind the locked doors. He pumped up to a running speed he knew he could maintain for a while, but when he reached the next block, the Diablos were in pursuit. Already the people in the streets were seeking cover. The hunt was on and the rest of the herd was scattering.

  Luis pushed himself to full speed. He didn’t bother to look behind him. He was going to run until he couldn’t run anymore. He was heading up the next block when he was tackled, landing hard on the sidewalk. He began kicking and flailing at his assailant but soon there were three gang members, their fists pounding him. Luis fought back until something hard as steel slammed into his skull and he was lost in the blackness of unconsciousness.

  27. Flowers From The Sky

  If you were able to hold a teaspoonful of matter from a block hole, it would weigh as much as the entire earth. Near such dense matter the laws governing time and space are radically different from those we use to describe our universe.

  —Dr. Lewis Connors

  Heading east at 20,000 feet

  PostQuilt: Monday, 6:30 A.M. PST

  While Terry’s body was in a military jet traveling at 600 mph toward Washington, D.C., his mind was in a different place entirely. He was worried about John. The rumor about Portland being missing was impossible to believe but also impossible to forget. A city can’t be missing, Terry told himself over and over. There must have been an avalanche, or an earthquake, or something, he reasoned. Maybe Mount Saint Helens had erupted again and the roads were blocked by ash. No, a city couldn’t just be missing, but then there shouldn’t be a mountain in the middle of I-5 either. If something had happened to Portland, John might need Terry’s help. Knowing that made his decision difficult.

  He and Ellen had fought over the course of action. Ellen wanted them to try to get to Portland, to find their son. But influenced by Bill’s authority, Terry had finally accepted that he would be of more use in Washington than in Oregon.

  “This kid knows something, Terry,” Bill had argued. “He’s barely hanging on to reality, and we need to know what he knows.”

  “Our son needs us too, Bill,” Ellen retorted.

  “You can’t even get to Portland. The road’s blocked. There is a traffic jam twelve miles long.”

  “We could try the coast highway or a back road, or maybe fly,” Ellen said hopefully.

  “I think Ellen’s right, Bill,” Terry said tentatively. “I’ve got a boy in Portland. I need to know if he’s all right.”

  Bill was a hard person to disagree with. He didn’t use verbal gymnastics. He just spoke with logic and certainty and Terry’s own doubts convinced him Bill was right.

  “I say the best way to help your boy is to find out what has happened. Help me take this kid to Washington and I’ll help you find your boy. We can fly that kid out to Washington and fly back by the time you could find a way to Portland. It’s only going to get worse. People will panic soon. Are you ready to deal with looters and people scared beyond reason?”

  Terry was weakening and it showed on his face, but Ellen was even more resolved,

  “We’ve got to help our son, Terry, don’t let him—”

  “What about your daughter?” Bill countered. “What’s her name?”

  “Carolyn,” Angie cut in.

  “Yeah, Carolyn,” Bill continued. “She’s in the Washington, D.C., area, isn’t she? What about her?”

  “I don’t know, Bill,” Terry stammered.

  “I can get us a helicopter.”

  That did it. Terry wasn’t even sure he could find another way into Portland. Ellen, however, was outraged. She stopped talking to him entirely, and when he left she didn’t say goodbye.

  Bill used his military ID and three phone calls to get Kenny Randall released in his custody. The same procedure got them a Piper Cub at the Medford Airport and a military 707 at Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho. Now Terry found himself baby-sitting a sleeping Kenny as he reconsidered his decision.

  Kenny stirred, momentarily distracting Terry. Kenny’s eyes moved rapidly back and forth under the lids. Kenny was dreaming, and that meant he’d be awake soon. Terry wondered whether Kenny’s dream could be more fantastic than the events of the last two days.

  Bill had been up front talking with the pilots and returned with a grim look.

  “It’s worse than I thought. The pilots are picking up reports from all over the country … strange reports- Huge sheets of ice, deserts appearing out of nowhere, floods. There’s also another missing city report. New York.”

  Terry’s heart twisted in his chest. One missing city report seemed fantastic; two somehow seemed credible.

  “Any response yet?” Bill gestured toward Kenny.

  “No. But he’s coming out of it. He’s dreaming. You have to be in a light stage of sleep to dream. Once he wakes up he’ll be lucid for a few minutes. But the more thinking
he does, the more anxiety he will feel. He’ll handle that anxiety by shutting out the outside world. We better know what we want to ask right when he wakes. We may get only one chance.”

  “Let him sleep. We’re almost to Washington, and I have a doctor standing by to meet us.”

  Bill and Terry spent the next twenty minutes writing down questions. They decided on a strategy to build Kenny’s ego, confirming he was right and then manipulating his paranoid tendencies to get the information they needed.

  “Where am I?”

  The sound of Kenny’s voice rang like a slap across the face. He was looking around the cabin. He seemed generally confused, but not psychotic.

  Immediately, Bill employed their plan.

  “I’m Bill Conrad and this is Terry Roberts. And you’re on your way to Washington, D.C. The President wants to meet you and shake your hand.”

  Kenny now looked confused and pleased, but disbelieving.

  “That’s right, Kenny. You warned people. You did your best to save people. How did you manage to figure it out like that?”

  Suddenly Kenny lunged at the window, trying to see the ground below. Then he unbuckled his seat belt and ran from window to window, finally settling in a seat toward the rear of the plane, his nose pressed against the window. Terry sat beside him and Bill leaned over from the seat in front. Suddenly Kenny’s head snapped around to look at Terry.

  “My sister?”

  “She’s fine. She’ll be waiting for you when you return to Oregon.”

  Kenny looked relieved, and then an emotion Terry couldn’t identify reshaped his expression. After a minute, Terry pressed ahead with his questioning.

  “How did you figure it out, Kenny? You must be a genius.” Terry tried to say it with conviction.

  Kenny pushed his nose against the window again and began to talk.

  “I’m not a genius, I just notice things other people don’t. Like the corn.”

  “The corn?” Terry probed.

  “Yeah, the corn. Me, Jack, and Robbie went hunting and on the way it started to rain corn. Just poured out of the sky.”

  Kenny paused and twisted his head, like he had spotted something on the ground behind the plane. Terry was worried about the next question, but Kenny needed to start talking again soon.

  “You were the only one who noticed it?”

  “You think I’m crazy, don’t you!” Kenny’s voice was filled with venom. “Of course the other guys noticed it. You think it could rain corn and not be noticed? You’re the crazy man, not me.”

  “What did you mean when you said you notice things other people don’t?”

  “Jack and Robbie thought it was strange, but I knew it was more than that. I knew it meant something.”

  “A sign?”

  “What do you take me for? Some kind of New Age guru? I just knew that corn doesn’t fall from the sky for no reason.”

  Terry realized he had the wrong point of view. He assumed Kenny would have a mystical interpretation, like most people who prophesied the end of the world. Terry started over. “It must have been more than the corn. You must have had more clues than that.”

  “Oh sure. I used to read these books when I was a kid. You know, books about strange things, UFO sightings, dinosaurs in Africa, stuff like that. There were even stories about stuff falling out of the sky. Mostly ice, but some animals, frogs, fish, even seeds. It was fun to read about this stuff but I never thought it was true. I always just figured a tornado, or an airplane, or something dropped this stuff. After the corn fell on me I began thinking about these things differently. I started checking. These things really did happen. But I couldn’t put it together. Not by myself. Not until I met Dr. Piltcher. He and Dr. Coombs knew there was something to it … and the others. It was Dr. Coombs that found the Zorastrus manuscript. He knew it was coming, he just didn’t know when … not exactly when.”

  Kenny paused, lost in thought. His face was still facing the window but Terry could see his reflection and his eyes were unfocused and glassy.

  “You finally figured out why it was happening, didn’t you? You and the others.”

  “Not for a long time. We just kept researching all the strange incidents we could find. The regular papers don’t report most of this stuff anymore. Used to, though. I found stuff going back over a hundred years, but Dr. Piltcher and Dr. Coombs showed me it had been going on longer than that. Zorastrus knew something was coming and predicted it, but we still couldn’t make the model work. Then it came together … started to come … Phat and me … it was the flowers that did it.”

  Kenny’s voice faded out after he said “flowers.”

  “The flowers …” Terry probed gently.

  “Flowers—just fell from the sky—” Kenny’s tongue began running back and forth over his lips. The seat belt sign came on before Terry could ask another question, but it didn’t matter. Kenny was gone. His eyes were fixed and glassy. They maneuvered him away from the window and then lifted his arms to buckle him in. Like a wax model, they remained suspended until Terry put them down onto the armrests.

  They were still there when the EMTs came to load him onto a stretcher and wheel him off the plane.

  Bill and Terry climbed into a waiting van. When Bill finally spoke, he was clearly disappointed.

  “I was hoping for more.”

  “He caught us by surprise. We weren’t quite ready. Still, he gave us something. You ever heard of a Dr. Piltcher or Dr. Coombs?”

  “No,” Bill said. “Who was that other one? Phat? I’ll put some people on it. If they were like Kenny they might be holed up in a cave somewhere, maybe with their relatives. I’ll have someone research that name. The prophet. What was his name?”

  “Zorastrus.”

  “Yeah, ever hear of him? Me neither. What was it he said about things falling from the sky? Flowers and corn from the sky? You think Portland and New York were buried by something from the sky? That’s not what the reports say. They say gone, and gone is a lot different from buried.”

  “No, but I remember something about flowers falling from the sky.in one of those books of his … no, one of those articles. He said the flowers were the clue.”

  The bags of articles from Kenny’s room were in the back of the van, and Bill and Terry opened them, searching for the file folder. They found it in the bundle they’d made from the bedspread.

  Terry read the article aloud, but nothing in the article gave them a clue to what had happened. A mother and her five-year-old daughter were sitting in a park in Hiroshima, Japan, when it began to rain flowers—the flowers were wildflowers, with grasses, mostly white flowers, but some of other colors too. Although the shower lasted less than a minute it was enough to nearly bury the little girl. No one could explain where the flowers came from. When Terry finished, he felt the same tickle he felt before in Kenny’s room.

  Bill shook his head. “I get nothing, Terry. How about you? Read it again.”

  The van kept starting and stopping in traffic. Reading in a car always made Terry sick to his stomach, but now he felt particularly ill. He ignored the creeping nausea; still, the second reading added nothing; the tickle was still there.

  “Bill, let’s try brainstorming. We’ll take turns saying whatever comes to mind. Don’t try to judge your ideas. Let any idea our. I’ll start. Flowers from the sky.”

  “You mean like word association? Tulips?”

  “Anything. Park, people, picnic.”

  “Mother, daughter, family, apple pie … make that sushi.”

  “Japan, Hiroshima …”

  “World War II, Nagasaki.”

  The tickle turned to an itch and then into an idea.

  “The bomb? You think the bomb did this?”

  “That’s the first thing I thought of, Terry, but fission bombs don’t drop flowers on people. These bombs fry people, not decorate them. If there is a connection then maybe there’s an article about something falling on Nagasaki. I wonder—where did that com fall
on Kenny?”

  They split up the articles looking for something from Nagasaki but found nothing. They then looked for articles from cities near the now closed Nevada nuclear test site, but to no avail. They were still searching the books when the van stopped.

  Terry helped bring Kenny’s things into a brick town house indistinguishable from many other such D.C. structures. There was no sign on the front of the building, and no guards stood in the lobby, but Bill had to use an elevator key to get to the floor he wanted. There the doors slid open to two armed airmen who questioned them thoroughly. Bill was given a badge, but Terry had to have his photo ID made on the spot.

  Bill knew his way around and led Terry to a conference room. He had the guards spill the bags onto the oversize table and then began sifting through the contents. He found the computer disks, and the hard drive, then led Terry down the hall through another security check and into a room filled with computer terminals and work stations. One station was occupied by a pretty black woman who didn’t look much older than Terry’s daughter, Carolyn. She smiled when Bill headed directly for her. She wasn’t wearing a uniform but Bill called her Lieutenant Gillespie.

  “I thought you were on vacation, sir.”

  “I was, but something brought me back.”

  “It wouldn’t be a few missing cities, three air bases, an aircraft carrier group, not to mention the loss of the ELF system?”

  Terry had a sudden urge to run to the nearest airport and catch a flight home. One missing city had become two, and now a “few.” Bill must have been equally shocked but merely said calmly, “I need an analysis of these as soon as possible.” As always, he was the consummate professional.