Pressure (Book 1): Fall

by Thomson, Jeff

  And now they were hearing the sound of escaping steam from the vicinity of Mammoth Hot Springs. The volcano was going to blow. There was nothing they or anyone could do to stop it. They weren’t going anywhere.

  I don’t want to die, she thought, but didn’t say. What good would it do?

  She’d tried again to contact her parents, but all the phone lines were jammed with media calls from all over the world - the vultures circling to peck at every available scrap of information - and it showed every sign that they would continue doing it right up until the very end. Cell reception in the park had failed, the cell towers being knocked flat, thanks to all the earthquakes, and even if she had been able to get an open line, the news was reporting that communications with the West Coast were only partially restored - and even then, it was For Official Use Only. A peon grad student who wanted to talk to her mother didn’t qualify.

  And besides, what could she tell her parents? Hi, Mom and Dad. Guess what? I’m going to die in a horrible explosion! After what they’d been through - were going through - hearing their only daughter say goodbye would be the ultimate act of cruelty.

  “Nothing to be done about it,” Rick said. “So we might as well enjoy the show.”

  “Yep,” Dr. Morgenstern said, draining his cup. “Anybody want more coffee?”

  5

  Medford, Oregon

  Gregg Conelly, the officer who’d checked him in the night before (was it only last night?), handed Bobby a styrofoam cup of seriously overcooked black mud. It tasted like burnt goat piss, but he needed the caffeine, so he choked it down.

  The melee had been over by the time he arrived. Three assholes had apparently decided it would be a good idea to rob a liquor store, just as two squad cars were rolling by. When they’d exited the store, seventy-two dollars and a bottle of Canadian Mist richer, they found two shotguns pointed at them and a third squad car arriving. Being assholes, they opened fire. Now one lay dead in the street and the other two were being packed into a pair of waiting ambulances.

  “Third armed robbery call tonight,” Conelly said.

  “And it’s only seven-thirty,” Bobby replied. “Feels like I’m back in LA.”

  “How’s the three-ring God circus?”

  “Blah-blah-blah Repent, blah-blah-blah God’s Wrath. Same as this morning,” Bobby said. “But they added a new twist.”

  “Oh?”

  “Now they’re asking people to arm themselves and become part of God’s Army.”

  “Fuck me sideways,” Conelly swore.

  Bobby laughed sourly. “Welcome to Medford, Officer Drummond,” he said. “Come for the crab cakes, stay for the apocalypse.”

  6

  Carvers, Nevada

  Jake’s emotions felt as if they’d been tossed into a blender at high speed and left running for about an hour. He’d just shot a man - had just blown the guy’s head literally to pieces, thank you very much. Seeing his mother’s face drain of color at the sight reminded him of that fact and caused the blood lust demon to raise its head and look around with a demented glee. At the same time, there was Dani, safe and sound - or, at least, as safe and sound as a battered woman who’d just been abducted, raped, and left with no pants could be.

  And he was actually happy to see her.

  Since that horrible night in the Iraqi desert, he’d been swimming in a perpetual state of numbness, feeling nothing - least of all, happiness. He wasn’t depressed, per say, didn’t exhibit any of the usual symptoms, like chronic fatigue, listlessness, suicidal thoughts, or any of that shit. But happy...? No.

  He knew this to be a defense mechanism. His brain, after all the years, and therapy, and alcohol, couldn’t quite come to grips with what happened. It couldn’t make up its mind on what to feel, and so it felt next-to nothing. It kept him sane, but left him feeling empty.

  Except for Dani.

  He knew he loved his mother, knew he would kill or die for her, knew he would do anything for her. And he held a degree of affection for a few of his friends: Charlie, for example, and the same for his Uncle Ian and his cousin Frank. He knew it, but didn’t feel it.

  Dani, on the other hand, as if to be the exception that proved the rule, made him feel actually happy when he was with her. It had seemed an oddity, at first. He’d passed it off as a combination of chemistry and lust, but that had been pure rationalization.

  He’d been with other professionals before. He’d never had much use for social morality, preferring his own, rather than some arbitrary social construct. And seeking professional help for certain of his physical needs had seemed a better alternative to the dating scene, given his general lack of emotion.

  Women wanted guys who could show emotion - or, at least, that’s what they said they wanted - what all the magazines and talk shows and soap operas swore was the absolute deal breaker in any romantic relationship. He’d started dating when he was fifteen. He was now thirty-nine. And he still hadn’t figured women out. But women always at least talked about emotion, and he essentially had none, so it remained a rather one-sided conversation.

  Until he met Dani.

  The chemistry had been there, right from the start. She’d been easy to talk to, real easy on the eyes, great in bed, and had actually shared his guilty pleasure of slasher movies. Their arrangement eliminated the need for the feelings conversation, and so took emotion out of the equation.

  Maybe that’s why it happened. There had been no pressure, no expectation, no arbitrary rules they had to live by. They could simply enjoy each other. He didn’t have to think about the emotional side of things, and so it had bypassed his post-trauma brain and gone straight to his heart, where it quietly waited for him to pull his head out of his ass and come to the realization that maybe - just maybe - it would be okay to feel something for this woman.

  Now there she was, standing in front of him. And she wasn’t wearing pants.

  He took her by the arm and turned her toward the motor home. “Let’s find you something to wear.”

  She followed for one single step and then stopped dead. He turned to look at her, and she vigorously shook her head. No way. Not going in there, she seemed to say.

  He instantly understood, nodded his head, and released her arm, mentally slapping himself for being so stupid. Of course she doesn’t want to go in there, dumb ass. What were you thinking?

  The answer, of course, was that he hadn’t been thinking. He’d been reacting, going with the flow of adrenaline still coursing through his veins.

  He moved to the motor home and peered into the still-open side door. He saw the dismantled table right away, and then noticed the two wide-open drawers at the kitchenette. That must be where she found the knife, he thought, cataloguing the information. He stepped up and inside.

  Just as he saw the jeans tossed onto the couch opposite the table, he heard the unmistakable sound of someone whimpering. It came from the back, where he discovered a bedroom. On the bed lay the bound and gagged wreck of another woman.

  7

  Medford, Oregon

  The woman knelt in front of Thomas Jericho and eagerly took him into her mouth. She seemed to relish the opportunity, doing it with a mixture of awe and piety he might have once found a bit odd. But that was before The Mission.

  Now it seemed right. Now it seemed proper. Now it seemed his just due as the Beacon of God.

  Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, sayeth the Lord. Amen.

  He could feel the power, feel the change within him. He had often heard the expression state of grace, and had thought he understood it, but he’d been wrong - so wrong, so clueless as to the shear magnitude, the power, the glory. Now he understood. Now he knew.

  The Lord God had stretched out His finger, like the painting in the Cystine Chapel, and pointed right at Thomas Jericho. He had been Chosen, put on the Righteous Path to scourge the sinners from the Earth.

  This thought gave him momentary pause. Wasn’t sex the Original Sin? Wasn’t he sinning, right now
? Wasn’t the harlot sucking his cock a sinner he should be scourging?

  Yes, to the first question. Yes, to the third. But the second? Couldn’t be. How could he be sinning? He was the Beacon. He was the representative of God on Earth. He was God’s Instrument. He had been set on the Path to rid the world of sinners, by the Lord God, Himself, Amen. And what’s the best way to rid the world of sinners?

  One at a time.

  His orgasm blossomed and grew. He felt a glowing exultation as he spewed his seed into the harlot’s waiting mouth. He looked down at her and she looked up at him, expectant, her sinner’s eyes burning with the fires of lust.

  She would be the first to die.

  8

  Carvers, Nevada

  Jake grabbed the jeans off the couch and jumped out of the motor home. Handing them to Dani, he looked at his mother and said: “Grab your kit. You have a patient inside. Looks like she’s in bad shape.”

  Mary blinked and hesitated - but just for a moment. Without a word, she shoved herself off the ground and ran to the SUV.

  Molly started barking, reminding them that she had survived the gunfight. She leaped out as Mary yanked open the rear door, and trotted up to Jake, her tail wagging. It stopped wagging as she briefly sniffed at the thing that used to be Freddy Perdue, then started again, hesitantly, as she made her way toward Dani, who now, finally, wore pants.

  The two women looked at each other, then at Jake. “Her name is Molly Noodle,” he said, but his voice carried a distracted tone, and rightly so.

  The adrenaline had been just started wearing off, the dull ache sending out its stingers into the back of his skull. But then he found the other woman, saw her battered face, saw her bruised and naked body, and the hormone jetted right back into his system, making his heart pound and his temples throb.

  He looked at Dani experimentally scratching Molly behind one furry ear. Her face looked pretty bad, as well. Both eyes were black and swollen, as was the left side of both her lips. A crust of blood lay beneath her nose, as if she had tried to wipe it away but hadn’t done too good of a job.

  He glanced down at the Rat Fuck Asshole, wishing he could bring the fucker back to life and kill him all over again. And again. And again. The blood lust swelled inside him.

  Then a thought sent a chill straight through him: What happened inside the store?

  “Stay here,” he told Dani. “I’m going to check the store.”

  What he found was a bloodbath. The guy behind the counter, who couldn’t have been more than about twenty-two, and a middle-aged man in slacks and a dress shirt (presumably the owner of the sedan) were both shot dead. The only way to read the scene (which Jake felt he could do after watching hours and hours of forensic cop shows on TV) was that Mary had walked in at the worst possible moment, shortly after Freddy killed the two men and was in the process of cleaning out the cash register.

  The place was a bloody mess. Even if Jake hadn’t thought Perdue was a prick for breaking his mother’s ribs way back when, and even if he hadn’t held a gun to her head, and even if he hadn’t kidnaped and raped Dani, the son of a bitch deserved everything he got. He felt zero qualms about shooting him.

  Just as he had felt not a single qualm about killing the eighteen men that night in the Iraqi desert. That aspect of it didn’t bother him in the slightest, and never had. But what he felt that night, and what he felt however many minutes ago, when he turned Perdue’s head into a bloody pile of goo - that bothered him. Some part of him, some deep and dark and inhuman piece of his soul, enjoyed it.

  Just how fucked up am I? He wondered

  He glanced outside. Dani stood there. Molly leaned against her, as if sensing the woman needed her comfort. Mary was nowhere in sight, and so presumably busy inside the motor home.

  How can I love them? How can I taint them with whatever the fuck is inside of me?

  He had no answers.

  9

  Maxi Mart

  Winnemucca, Nevada

  Charlie needed a plan. But in spite of his experience as a SAR Planner, he wasn’t, in general, very good at it. He had been a good Planner, but that was different.

  With a SAR case, the planning was fairly simple, because there were only so many options - all of them depending on where the people needing to be rescued were, how bad their situation actually was, and how complicated the rescue would be.

  If it was fairly uncomplicated, and close in shore, you sent the small boat. If it was a bit more complicated, or urgent, or offshore, you sent the helicopter. If it was even more complicated, one of the Cutters would assist and coordinate with the helicopter. And if the case were really ugly: Launch the World; send everything.

  The rest was just details that varied from case to case, and those details would be dealt with by the people on scene. He always had absolute confidence in their ability to do so, precisely because of the kind of people they were.

  Charlie believed there were essentially two kinds of people: those who do, and those who don’t. The split had to do with a sense of urgency, in general, and a clearheaded willingness to act, in specific. Some people, like the men and women he’d worked with - like Jake - had it. Some didn’t. The latter were, in his opinion, sadly in the majority.

  Those who do were the ones Charlie knew he could rely on when the shit hit the proverbial fan. Those who don’t? Not so much.

  It wasn’t that those who don’t were bad people, per se, but when things got ugly, as they were now, as they would seriously become, if Yellowstone blew, those who don’t were the kind of people who would freeze in a crisis, stop to debate the issue, or simply fall apart. Those who do, on the other hand, would stiffen their backs, assess the situation, then pitch in to solve the problem - whatever that problem might be.

  He could recognize those who do by the way they seemed to move with a purpose. At a shopping center, like the Maxi Mart he was strolling through, for example, those who do would drive into the parking lot, find a space, park, get out and head in. They’d go straight to the shopping carts, grab one, and set a beeline for whatever they needed. Charlie did this as he contemplated his own intellectual insight.

  Those who do would locate the necessary items with minimal searching (as he did, quickly grabbing toothpaste, soap, shampoo, aspirin and ibuprofen - for the aches and pains of his high-mileage body - and dropping them into his cart), and then they’d check out and exit, keeping to whichever side of the parking aisle their vehicle happened to be. Once their items had been loaded, they’d place the cart in the nearest return corral, hop in their car and leave. Thus, Those Who Do.

  He paused in his ruminations, and looked at the items he’d just dropped into the cart: toothpaste, soap, shampoo, pain reliever. All necessary items. All things you have on hand as a matter of course.

  But what if Yellowstone blows?

  If it does, the whole shooting match will go kerflooey. Not just the volcano, itself. Volcanoes weren’t exactly rare. They blew all the time, and toothpaste, soap, shampoo, etc., remained within easy reach of the average American shopper.

  Yellowstone was another kettle of explosive fish.

  Infrastructure will disappear within a matter of days. The air will be choked with ash, filters will be clogged, engines will not run, trucks will not travel up and down the nation’s highways, delivering goods throughout the land. There will be no toothpaste, no soap, no shampoo, no pain reliever.

  Good dear God, he thought. There will be no coffee!

  He backtracked to the health and sundries section and dumped several of each item into his cart, then headed in search of the coffee aisle. As he went, he continued his thoughts that had been so rudely interrupted by potential disaster.

  Where was he...? Oh yes!

  The ubiquitous and far more numerous those who don’t, on the other hand, would move with the self-centered aimlessness of the utterly oblivious. Their cars would enter the parking lot with all the speed of a two-toed tree sloth on downers, leaving a logjam of irr
itated motorists in their wake as they turned into the parking aisle with glacial slowness. Several minutes later, after they’d finally parked, they’d meander down the exact center of the roadway as if on a Sunday stroll, completely ignoring the line of cars forming behind them.

  Upon reaching the shopping carts inside, they’d stop to consult their list, rummage through their purse, or let their thumbs fly upon their cell-phones as they updated their Twitter page to announce to the world at large that they had arrived at their retail destination; all the while standing directly in the path of those poor unfortunates behind them, who then must wait to obtain a cart.

  The rest of their self-centered world sufficiently informed, they’d set about their shopping with all the purposeful intensity of someone with no clear destination in mind, making certain to remain in the middle of the aisle so no one else could get by without creating an avalanche of items falling from the surrounding shelves - exactly, for example, like the female wildebeest in shocking pink tights (barely containing her gargantuan hips) who strolled blissfully unaware in front of Charlie in the coffee aisle. He wondered, briefly, how much a wildebeest hunting permit might cost, then dismissed the idea as just too silly.

  He made it to the coffee, dropped several cans of grind and bags of whole bean into his cart, then turned to go, thought better of it, and dropped several more on top of the first ones. One could never have too much coffee. He dropped in several jars of instant, for good measure.

  Those who don’t-s’ Grand Adventure completed (some hours later), they’d proceed to the checkout, waiting until every last thing had been scanned before digging through their billfold for the necessary method of payment, which always seemed to be whatever would take the longest to complete their purchase, as tired and frustrated shoppers behind them waited on shifting and sore feet for the stupid fuck to get finished.

  Returning to their car - again meandering through the exact center of the roadway - they’d open all their doors so those unlucky enough to have parked on either side of them couldn’t access their vehicles while those who don’t took their sweet-assed time loading. And then, finally, they would depart, having left their cart in such a way as to be sure the next person couldn’t pull into that spot without either removing the damned thing or smashing it into some other car.