Beneath the surface, Poe is strong. Stronger than she believes and probably stronger than me. I’m not sure what would have happened to me had I found Claire’s remains. I might have just let the flames take me, turn me to ashes with the rest of them. But Poe...she vacuumed her parents. Is saving them to give them proper send offs. That kind of internal fortitude is what you need to survive the end of the world. What do I have? The ability to think problems out, and as Poe knows, to get plastered.
After leaving Phil’s house, two hours and twenty minutes after entering, I found my grill burned out and holding a crusty steak husk. I’m lucky the house didn’t burn down. Not that I care about the house. I haven’t felt truly at home anywhere since I was a kid. But I was glad to have my clothing, travel supplies and personal items. After packing for a one way trip, and filling a box with personal items, mostly related to Claire, I donned the Red Sox cap and struck out for Home Depot. I took as many five gallon gas tanks as I could, filled them at a nearby gas station and stacked them in the back of the SUV. The vehicle might be a gas guzzler, but it’s also rugged enough to handle a lot of weather, off-road travel if necessary, and it can hold a lot of gas in the back. I might have to ditch it for another vehicle later on, but for now it’s home.
Feeling the weight of the darkness around me, I try the radio. There probably isn’t much to listen to in this part of the world on a normal night, but tonight there’s nothing. Whatever stations that continued broadcasting playlists are either out of range or just off the air, which seems likely.
I hum, but still have Bon Jovi stuck in my head, so I resort to tapping out a beat on the steering wheel. I make a mental note to find CDs. There aren’t many stores in this part of the world, and I’m definitely not opening a dust-filled vehicle to find music. But I’m an hour outside Albuquerque, New Mexico. I’m sure the roads will be more congested in the city, maybe even impassible, but if I’m lucky, there might be a Walmart near an exit.
But can I do that? Can I walk through an empty, dust-filled and possibly dark mega-store just to find traveling music?
No, I decide, but then I think about what else I might be able to find, making a mental checklist.
Food. Canned goods. Some perishables if the power is still on.
A propane cooking set for campers.
Plastic utensils. Every meal will be a picnic.
Guns.
I flinch at the thought. What would I need a gun for? Some long dormant hunter-gatherer whispers from the depths of my mind. You’re going to have to learn how to hunt. Canned food isn’t going to last forever. This is long term. This is reality. I’m going to have to hunt for food. That means killing, bleeding out, skinning and hacking up animals. I’ll need a rifle, ammunition, a sharp knife and a fair amount of resilience. I used to think that searching for dark matter, perhaps the most elusive substance in the universe, took fortitude, but the idea of surviving without modern technology and infrastructure horrifies me. My life before was easy. Externally, it still is. I’m driving across the country. But that will be impossible soon enough. Images of slaughtering animals fills my mind again.
My stomach sours. If I can reach Poe, maybe we can head south to warmer climates and be vegetarians?
A surge of caffeine kicks in, and my bladder fills like a water balloon held to a faucet. “Geez,” I say, noticing that my own voice sounds strange. I haven’t heard a human being talk, myself included, since I left the HAM radio behind. With the urge to pee nearly overwhelming me, I pull to the side of the road, illuminating a stack of railroad ties, the only landmark for miles in either direction. A large white banner hangs from the ties, reading, “Railroad ties! Cheap!” and then a phone number. Why would anyone think to sell, and/or buy railroad ties in the middle of the New Mexican desert?
Leaving the SUV running and the high beams blazing, I hustle to the side of the road, undoing my belt. As the pants loosen, I round the railroad ties to the back, instantly feeling stupid for hiding myself. I could have opened the door and pissed on the road. No one would have seen me. No one would have cared. But what’s done is done, and I’m not about to step back into the open just to prove I’m not ridiculous. And who’s around to call me ridiculous? Who’s going to see me hiding from no one?
No one. That’s who.
The sound of my pee striking the hard-packed desert surface is loud. “The sound of relief,” I say to myself, thinking of a commercial tagline. What was it for? Rolaids? Alka Seltzer. “Plop, plop. Fizz, fizz.”
With a quasi-punch drunk smile on my face, I look up at the stars. The night sky is a vivid and powerful picture. My mouth slowly opens. As an astrophysicist, I’ve sought out the lightless places in the world, in search of views like this. Most people live and die without ever seeing a natural night sky. It’s breathtaking, and I stand there, pants loose and business out, staring at the sky, for a full minute, no longer peeing.
Satellites crisscross the sky, pin points of mobile light, sometimes getting lost in the brightness of the stars that are light years in the background. I watch them while my subconscious mind puts my pants back together. I’m probably standing in a puddle of my own urine, but I don’t care. The view above is so captivating. The human race might be dead...but out there...out there is life. Countless and strange. I’ve known it since I was a kid, long before Earth-like planets were discovered and the Drake equation calculated the possibility of life beyond our small pinpoint of existence. I reach my hand up toward the sky, extending my index finger, seeing only a silhouette against the Milky Way, I trace out the equation: N = R* fp X ne X fl X—
My night sky calculation is cut short by the appearance of another satellite. It’s moving faster than the others, in a way that is familiar. I’ve seen something like it before...something...when I was grilling the steak! But had I really seen that? Or was it the booze? I’m not drunk now, so I watch the distant bright light trace a path across the sky, a white Etch A Sketch fleck with no trailing line. Unlike the other satellites, I have no trouble keeping track of this one. And then, just like before, it stops. The jarring cessation should have torn it to pieces, but it just hangs there, motionless.
“What the hell are you?” I ask the sky, taking a step forward like it will help close the distance.
I’m so entranced by the stationary satellite that I don’t hear the approaching car until it’s nearly passed me, which is surprising given how loud it is. The vehicle’s engine roars, and the speaker system pumps Metallica’s Enter Sandman through the open windows and into the otherwise silent desert night. I run toward the side of the railroad ties, waving my arms and shouting, but the car zooms past on the far side without slowing, the Doppler Effect hum of its tires on the pavement quickly fading.
18
AUGUST
I run into the road, frantic. My arms wave with the fervency of a chick’s first flight. “Hey! Hey!”
The driver hasn’t seen me. I’m probably visible, a black splotch surrounded by the bright light of my SUV’s high beams, but the driver has no reason to look back. There’s no one else on the road and my SUV is just another empty, still running vehicle. If anything, the high beams will prevent him from looking back, unless... I hurry back to the SUV, intent on flashing my lights. In the dark night, that should get my fellow survivor’s attention. If not, I’ll drive like a maniac, catch up and get his attention.
And then, somehow, I do.
The car’s red brake lights cut through the dark. The vehicle slows, pulling over to the shoulder. I’m not the only one still obeying the rules.
I hold my breath as the driver’s side door opens and a young man climbs out. He’s lit by the small interior bulb, but I can see enough. He’s slender, maybe early twenties. Has a sharp look about him. Intelligent, but physical. A good person to survive the end of the world with.
“Hey!” I yell again, but the guy hasn’t turned off the music...and he’s not looking my way.
He’s looking up.
I follow his turned up head to the blazing sky. At first I see nothing but the endless universe. Then I see an aberration.
The satellite.
It’s doubled in size. Closer.
Which tells me something I should have already deduced: it’s not a satellite.
I stand still, just one hundred yards from another survivor, and watch the light in the sky. It’s motionless now, but must have moved. Or grown. Which seems even more unlikely. But it’s stationary again, and I need this guy to know he’s not alone.
I hurry behind my still open door, reach inside and flick my high beams on and off. It takes a moment, but the man cranes his head in my direction, his eyes following a moment later. Confusion adds wrinkles to his youthful face. The light in the sky combined with the flickering lights must seem otherworldly. He still can’t see me. I’m lost behind the brightness of the SUV’s illumination. I shut the front lights off, allowing the interior dome light to illuminate me.
I wave to him, a ridiculous smile on my face that I think probably mirrors his own. He dives into the car, and the blaring music falls silent. He reemerges a moment later, ready to shout something, but doesn’t. Instead, his eyes are tugged skyward again.
The ‘satellite’ is growing, its brightness nearly illuminating the ground now. Before I can ponder what it could be, it disappears. The stranger and I turn to each other at the same time, both befuddled. He raises his arms in a slow-motion shrug.
Whatever the light is, we can talk about it in person instead of long distance gestures. I slide behind the steering wheel, ready to speed across the distance and greet my new friend. Before I can put the headlights back on, or shift into Drive, the road ahead explodes with light.
From above.
I squint away from the bright light until my eyes adjust. Then I look out and see the impossible. The bright light from high up in the sky now hovers just fifty feet above the young man, illuminating him and his Ford Mustang in a cone of white illumination.
Looking at the light stings my eyes and provides no clue as to what I’m seeing. If there is something physical projecting the light, it’s hidden by the brightness.
The young survivor holds a hand over his eyes, and gazes up.
My stomach churns. The hairs on my arm defy gravity.
This isn’t right.
This is...
Puzzle pieces snap together. The human race turned to dust. Almost everyone, everywhere, while animals and plants were spared. It’s an extinction so odd and species-specific that the only real way to describe it is otherworldly.
Alien.
Damn it.
I slam the SUV into drive and crush the gas pedal to the floor. I’m pressed back into the driver’s seat, while my still open door slams shut. The first twenty-five yards flash past, my charge punctuated by the squeal of tires.
And then, nothing.
The SUV sputters, the engine silent. Lights flicker and die. The vehicle falls still and mute. I see the same thing happen to the Mustang, its rear lights fading. The young man doesn’t seem to notice. He’s locked on target, unable to look away from the light. Is he entranced? I’ve never believed the UFO abduction reports, but this seems like a classic example.
And then it isn’t.
The man isn’t pulled up into the sky, riding on a beam of light. He simply stares up, mesmerized by the...whatever it is, above him, oblivious to the shape moving behind him. It’s a vague visual distortion, like heat rising from the road, but condensed into a moving form, indistinct, but solid. Present. And real. And the way it’s sliding up behind the man leaves little doubt about its intentions.
“No!” I shout, shoving open the SUV door and running on foot. I’m out of shape. My legs burn by the fifth stride. My lungs follow shortly after. But I don’t slow. I can’t. I have a duty to this man, this other survivor, one of the last people on Earth. If the shimmering figure moving through the light plans to harm the man, I can’t let it.
“Look out!” I try to shout the words, but they come out at half volume, constricted by breathless lungs. The man either doesn’t hear me, or is too distracted by the light above him, which is as silent as it is luminous. I attempt a second shout, but I’m too out of breath and still have twenty-five yards to cover.
The thing slides up behind him, this man that could be my friend and traveling companion. While Poe represents a future hope, this man is present and providing immediate hope. If only he could make me brave enough to do more than shout. I find myself shuffling instead of running, slowing my pace and shrinking my stride. Violence outrages me, but not enough to propel me into it. The best I can do is shout from a safe distance.
As I open my mouth to cry out again, my hope is blotted out, as something unseen punctures the man’s back and comes out his chest covered in red. It’s a thin spike. My first thought is that it’s a spear tip, but then I notice the joints, bending and probing before being drawn back.
As the man falls to the pavement beside the Mustang, a new emotion bolsters my charge: rage. It drowns my fear and makes me feel like someone else. Someone stronger.
A high-pitched scream, a battle cry tinged with terror, rises from the depths of my body and announces my berserker attack. My mother’s father was a large Nordic man and somewhere inside me, some ancient Viking DNA asserts itself. For a moment.
The wavering energy spins in my direction. I see a shape. A hunched body, cloaked in warbling light. I see the neck, and head, turning toward me, resolving out of the bright light. And then, like an explosion of darkness, I see it—really see it—for the first time.
Its long, black face, craggy, angular and sinister, while horrible, is nothing compared to the eyes, swirling with oil. They’re almost lifeless, blank, uncaring and yet leveled right at me. I see the horrible visage for just a flash, but the face is etched into my visual memory like the filament of a too-long-stared-at light bulb. The snapshot hits me like a bowling ball to the gut and stumbles my charge, churning my insides.
But even this ugly thing can’t stop physics, and this object in motion, which is my body, stays in motion until it collides with an opposing force—the shimmering form. With disastrous results.
19
AUGUST
It’s hard to describe what happens next. The jolt of impact, and the pain it brings, is poignant, but only vaguely familiar as something previously experienced during my childhood. I feel what I think are limbs. And a body. Fabric of some kind. And then the pavement below, which ceases our downward momentum and erases the skin from one of my elbows. The stinging scent of ammonia assaults my nose. Wincing from the wound and the ammonia stench, my panicked mind shrieks, you’re on top of it! Move! Get away!
Before I can act, I find myself floating, as though weightless. And then not. My stomach lurches as gravity takes hold and tugs me back toward the bright blue earth, which isn’t earth at all. It’s the Mustang. The realization that I’ve been flung off the strange being is knocked from my mind, scattered, along with my senses, by a collision with the car’s hood. The flat metal surface buckles, transferring some of the impact’s energy out through the hood, but most of the punishment vibrates through my body. It’s repeated a moment later when momentum keeps me moving, rolling off the side of the car and falling into the desert soil on the far side.
Sucking dusty air into my desperate lungs, I turn my head to the side, looking under the car. To the left I see the man, a puddle of blood, bright red in the intense light, surrounding his body. But his chest continues to rise and fall. He’s alive, but for how long?
Shimmering movement to the right snaps my eyes toward the visual aberration I tackled. It’s recovered from the attack and is sliding toward the man, each step dragging some unseen fabric over the pavement. Shhh, shhh, shhh.
A sob of fright hiccups from my mouth. I look around for someplace to run. To hide. An overwhelming instinct telling me that flight is the only option fills me with guilt. I would abandon this man if I could. But a small
fragment of my mind considers finding a weapon of some kind. Maybe there’s something in the car. But there isn’t time for that. Or to hide. The creature...or whatever, is just feet from the young man’s defenseless form.
My fingers scrape against something smooth and hard. There’s a softball-sized stone partially buried in the dry roadside. I scrape my fingernails around the hard edges, bending my nails back and chipping away hard-packed dirt that hasn’t seen moisture in a long time. The rock lifts free, its weight increased tenfold by the nerves shaking my limbs.
Do it, I tell myself. What good will I be to Poe if I die here, too? What good will I be if I can’t bring myself to defend a human life?
I’m sure the way I spring up from the far side of the car looks comical, like some kind of human whack-a-mole. My voice cracks as I shout, but it’s still surprisingly commanding. “Hey!”
The thing reels around toward me, its wooden face snapping into clarity for just a moment as our eyes meet. The dead eyes horrify me, but also give me something to aim at. I throw the stone with all the force I can muster, wrenching my elbow in the process, and send the rock sailing over the car. The thing turns away, its face winking out, concealed within the shimmer once more. But the hurled stone must find its mark...or something equally solid, because the primitive weapon bounces off an unseen surface and elicits a shriek that sounds more angry than pain-fueled.
I hit it, I think, surprised.
Whatever force repulsed me has limits. Maybe it needs to recharge, or maybe it needs to be triggered manually? Perhaps both. Either way, I definitely caught it off guard. It was just a glancing blow, but the result is satisfactory. There’s a strange shuffling, a barely audible hum and then I can no longer see the shimmering distortion that marks the being’s presence. The light from above flickers three times, each flash accompanied by a deep, resounding whump I can feel in my chest. Then the light, and the UFO—God, I hate that term—are gone. I search the sky for some sign of its retreat, but if it’s up there, I can’t see it. I search the night sky for missing stars, which would indicate an object blocking out part of the sky, but the night is clear. And quiet. Until the mustang and my SUV both roar back to life. I shout, jumping from the sudden noise, and then hurry around the car, limping with each step.
The Distance Page 12