“No!” Warren responded. “We have to find out what made that sound.”
“Why? That’s just crazy, Lew!”
“We have to find out what made that sound or we die right here.”
“What are you talking about?”
“If we don’t figure it out then we may not be able to complete our mission out of sheer dread. And if we don’t complete our mission, we die, all of us.”
“Okay. How do we do this without becoming a target?” Wattenbarger asked.
“First, we stop clowning around,” Warren said, shooting a condemning glance at Wattenbarger. “Then we walk directly toward where we heard the sound to see if we can find out what made it.”
“What if it doesn’t want to be found?”
“Simple. Then it attacks us, kills us, eats us or it just escapes.”
“One out of four ain’t bad.”
At that moment, the sound repeated itself exactly as it had before – a loud pop followed by a snap. But Warren was looking directly ahead and saw a bright, white flash from inside the tree line just before the sound reached them. Wattenbarger saw it, too.
“He’s shooting at us, Lew, keep your head down!”
But Warren unexpectedly stood up and crossed his arms, staring ahead into the darkness.
“Lew, get down! Are you crazy?”
“Wait,” he responded confidently.
Wattenbarger slowly stood beside him, staring into the darkness. In four minutes, the sound repeated itself, but this time there were four consecutive flashes and four loud popping sounds.
Wattenbarger instinctively ducked down again. “He’s out to kill us, Warren; let’s get the hell outta here while we can! You think – you think he’s got us pinned down?”
Warren just laughed. “No, I think we solved our mystery.”
“What?”
“It’s just another transformer with a stored charge arcing in the wind. It got dumped right at the tree line.”
“How can you know that? How can you be so sure?”
“The color of the flash, of course. And the secondary sparks that I can just barely make out from here. Gun’s don’t do that. Stand up and see this for yourself.”
“Wait,” Wattenbarger said, still crouching. “Disconnected transformers don’t carry a huge load. There may only be a few sparks in them at best.”
Warren then quickly crouched beside him, the smirk wiped off his face. “How do you know this?”
“Just guessin’. I never worked for the power company, but a friend who did told me about the stored charges.”
Warren sighed deeply, then stood up again. “I’m walkin’ right over there and takin’ a look. Are you coming with me?”
Wattenbarger stared back for a long moment, then responded, “Of course. I guess there’s no better way to meet the end than to get your heart and lungs blown out all over the ground.”
“My sentiments exactly,” Warren replied dryly, stepping away from the wreckage and walking slowly to the tree line.
The duo walked cautiously, in total silence. Warren could definitely hear his own heart beating and would have bet his last retirement check that he also heard Wattenbarger’s as well. Then, just a scant fifteen feet before the ash melted away into the blackened tree line, a brilliant flash of light and loud pop split the blackness. At that instant, both men dropped to their hands and knees in the ashen sludge.
By this time, they were close enough to see that Warren had been right all along. Sitting before them was a massive power transformer caught in the fork of a huge oak with a dozen insulated spikes sticking out of its head like a paralyzed hydra. As its lines dangled in the wind, one occasionally touched another causing the flashes and pops.
Warren breathed a deep sigh of relief.
“Aren’t you even a little disappointed?” Wattenbarger asked, rising up off his knees and scraping the sticky gray-black ash from his hands.
“About what?” Warren answered rising beside him, unable to hide his annoyance at both the question and the black gunk clinging to his fingers. “Disappointed about not getting shot?
“No. That it wasn’t actually someone else…”
Then Warren understood. “Yeah, I see what you mean.” On the planet that used to be crowded, the idea that everyone and everything was dead hung over the few left alive like a dark cloud. Even another living human in a foul mood shooting at them was slightly better than no humans at all.
“Let’s press on,” Warren said with a sigh, looking at the dial of his watch. “And no more messing around.”
Wattenbarger said nothing, apparently no longer in a lighter frame of mind.
Both men stood for a moment and peered deeply into the dark undergrowth that sloped down and away before them on the back side of Concharty. Under that canopy of tangled branches, the light from the moon would not help them. Ahead lay more than three miles of dark, twisted terra incognito, dead and sterile down to the last microscopic cell except for the maniacal, gun-toting ghouls they had fashioned there in their minds.
“Let’s mark our trail,” Warren said.
“Is that such a good idea?”
“Think about it. We’ll need it if we have to get back in a hurry. It leads to the ash field where our tracks might as well be lighted by neon strips. The risk is far greater of getting lost or havin’ to blaze a whole new trail each trip, for which we don’t have the time.”
In just twenty minutes, they had reached the bottom of the steeply dropping slope before them. Their travel was eased by the occasional patch of moonlight through openings in the trees. At the bottom of the slope lay a gushing stream. Wattenbarger stopped to fill his canteen and wash his hands.
“Across the bank there, we change mountains,” Warren said.
“Welcome to Leonard Mountain !” Wattenbarger said with a grin, screwing the lid back onto his canteen and sliding it into his belt.
Walking down stream about 50 feet, they found an easy crossing and leapt to the opposite bank. Before them it rose sharply, defining the ascending slope of Leonard Mountain .
Leonard Mountain was the geologically conjoined twin of Concharty. Indeed, it was of the same formation that had risen above the great shallow inland sea of past eons. The ancient ocean slowly diminished with the gentle rising of the mid-continental plates and moved south toward the deeper Gulf of Mexico. It left the great protruding formation as a single island in the midst of a shallow sea. A flat landscape eventually emerged at its base as the surrounding waters totally disappeared, leaving a solitary jutting spire of sandstone and lime rock rising well over two thousand feet above the surrounding dry bed left by the receding waters. In a single blink of geologic time, the great glaciers of the Quaternary period flowed down the North American continent and covered the ancient dry seabed, forcing their way around the great rock formation. The massive and powerful rivers of ice cut the sides of the formation and, as before, the immense mound became an island again, but this time it was embedded in a frozen glacier hardened from its base to its crevasse covered surface.
The slow but violent power of the glacier was irresistible even to the mountains as it sculpted the towering rock edifice’s sharply rising stone bluffs in its icy maw. The rain and weathering of countless millennia scoured and rounded its soft sandstone peaks until they lost much of their elevation. As the great ice sheets gradually disappeared, a persistent and equally powerful erosion continued to cut deeply into the formation changing its face and softening its visage until it etched out two distinct but permanently fused mounds above the grassy prairie. The Creek Indians at first named the entire formation Concharty. But later, after the tiny hamlet that hacked out its meager presence on its northern flank, they named the other lump Leonard Mountain.
Above the rise to their left, and out of sight from them, was the massive earthen dam that formed the Bixby reservoir. A bedroom community of Tulsa , Bixby had relied on the substantial watershed to provide fresh water for its nearly 20,000 citizens. Warren led th
em up the sharply sloping bank just to the north of the dam, hoping to remain out of sight but in an area that would provide for the quickest straight line access to the observatory.
They encountered their first truly tangled undergrowth on the ascending flank of Leonard Mountain . Tenacious vines of wild grape held them back as they had to stop and hack a path through them. Though quite dead and semi-brittle, they still held the men at bay and slowed them until they broke free just short of the summit. They stood on a flat outcropping free of trees in the now bright moonlight.
“Time check,” Warren asked.
“We have an hour and fifteen minutes till we have to turn back.”
Warren wiped the sweat from his face with his blackened hands as he panted with exhaustion. His arms trembled from the effort of swinging the broad machete they carried for just such encounters.
“You look like hell, Lew,” Wattenbarger noted with a white, toothy smile.
“I bet we sleep like babies when we get back,” he responded.
“I’m gonna put my money on actually making it to the observatory tonight,” Wattenbarger said hopefully.
Warren pulled the GPS from his pocket and took a fix. “You may just be right, my friend. Let’s go that way,” he said, pointing ahead and to his left.
As they rose above the summit, they stood on Leonard Mountain ’s flat top in a broad, formerly grassy plain. They could feel the dead prairie grass crunch under their feet as they walked at a brisk pace.
“There it is!” Warren exclaimed, “The observatory.” He pointed to a tall antenna spire jutting above the trees about a quarter mile ahead, clearly visible as the moonlight shone off its metallic surface.
“According to my map, that tower is the Observatory’s Seismic Telemetry Receiving Tower ,” Wattenbarger said, squinting at his dimly lit handheld computer.
The two men picked up their pace. Not in their wildest dreams had they considered making it all the way on the very first night out. With forty five minutes remaining until they would have to turn back, they strolled up the moonlit road to the gate of the Oklahoma Geophysical Observatory on Leonard Mountain .
At the front of the gate lay a huge pile of timber and branches, apparently stacked to block the road. It stretched from one side of the road to the other so that climbing over its middle was the only way to reach the gate. The pile included huge tree trunks laid atop smaller branches. But with a few swings of the machete, they carved a path right over the top of the tangle and cautiously crawled over its snarled top to the gate side of the mound.
“Why do you think they did this?” Wattenbarger asked, wiping the beads of sweat off his brow engendered from swinging the broad blade and hacking repeatedly at the pile.
Warren responded by shaking his head slowly as he climbed over. They stopped at the chained gate and looked at the pair of unblinking security cameras staring them in the face.
“You think they’ll call the sheriff if we slip on over that gate?” Warren asked sarcastically.
“Only one way to find out,” Wattenbarger said, dropping his back pack and pushing it under the gate. He then scaled the 14 foot long cattle gate with a single step and dropped over onto the other side. “You know, a good warm prison meal and a long, hot shower might just hit the spot right now,” he said.
Warren scaled the gate just behind him and began a brisk walk to the main building at the observatory. It was a one story, decrepit looking building with an equally feeble looking water tower sticking out above it to its side. A rusty propane tank sat just outside. On its flat roof jutted a wind vane and meteorology tower. They walked up to the main door and stood without speaking for a long moment, staring at the handle.
“Well, shall we?” Wattenbarger finally asked, reaching up to turn its knob.
Warren just nodded.
The handle was locked.
“Stand back,” Wattenbarger said, pulling his .45 caliber handgun from his belt.
“Whoa, Tex ! Put your shootin’ iron away,” Warren said as he bent down and picked up a stray concrete block sitting on the small stoop where they stood. “Save your ammo. We may need it if your Indian ghost shows up in a foul mood.”
Warren raised the block and expertly knocked the door handle off in a single stroke. He then kicked the door open with his foot.
They both stood and started into the darkness.
“You first,” Warren said.
“Why me, dude?”
“Cause you still have your gun in your hand.”
“Good point,” Wattenbarger said, looking down at his .45 which he clutched with a white knuckled grip. He then walked confidently into the building, holding his flashlight in front of him.
Inside, the main building was of typical cubical, block construction – both unimaginative and barren, archetypal of bureaucratic, institutional origin. The first office to their right sat with its main door wide open. They turned and flashed their beams inside. The office was neat and clean. A computer sat atop an orderly desk festooned with photos of family and pets. Whoever left this office had left it in no rush.
They turned back to the hallway to the next office, number 105; its door was also wide open. What they saw here they would never forget.
Sitting upright in a chair facing a blank television screen was a man. His back was turned to the doorway so there was no way of ascertaining whether he was alive or dead. From behind he appeared normal, although he was not moving. His hair was black and neatly trimmed; he wore a dark blue t-shirt under a long sleeved yellow shirt with a stiff, high collar.
“Don’t move, stranger,” Wattenbarger said in a crisp voice. “I have a gun and I’ll shoot you if you move.”
Warren sighed, then walked directly over to the man and spun him around to face them. He was obviously quite dead. His face and skin were colored a strange blue; his slate gray eyes were open and staring ahead through long, black eyelashes. His straight black hair fell in a neat row across his forehead. His lips traced a line across his face, slightly open, revealing a perfect row of white teeth behind them. The fingers of his hands were folded around one another and lay lightly in his lap. He sported a day or two’s growth of facial hair and he appeared to be in his early twenties. Except for his ghastly color, he could have been alive and well.
“He’s perfectly preserved!” Wattenbarger whispered.
“Yeah, and so are the rest of the planet’s almost seven billion corpses,” Warren remarked as it occurred to him that this was the first body they had actually seen since the onset of the storms.
“No kidding,” Wattenbarger said with unhidden fascination.
“Yep, just like the animals we’ve seen, flesh can’t decay when there’re no living microorganisms. They can only dry out by various processes of desiccation. And if the humidity remains high, they can’t even do that! Until these storms stop, we’re livin’ on a planet just chock full of these mummies that’ll never actually go away.”
“Look at his skin; it looks so perfect, so real.”
“It is real and it is perfect, except for the small fact that it’s dead,” Warren stated impatiently. “But don’t touch it.”
“Why not? He’s sterile, ain’t he?” Wattenbarger said as he was reaching out to touch the man’s face.
Warren paused as Wattenbarger’s hand stopped inches short. “Because it’s creepy,” he finally explained.
Wattenbarger’s fingers closed the distance and he touched the blue flesh of the dead man sitting before them.
“It’s still soft. Weird.”
“Will you cut that out!”
“What do you think he was doing here?” Wattenbarger said, his eyes glued to the dead man’s, his fingers still stroking his cheek.
“I don’t know,” Warren responded with irritation. “Maybe he had a fight with his wife. Maybe he just loves his job. Maybe he was just dyin’ to finish his projects.”
“Yuck, yuck, yuck…,” Wattenbarger replied.
“Knock off t
he necrophilia and let’s get a move on,” Warren spat.
“Wait,” Wattenbarger said. He moved his hand behind the man, tilted him forward and slipped his wallet out of his pocket. The he leaned him gently back into his seat.
“I don’t think those credit cards are going to do us much good,” Warren said. “What the hell are you doing, Dale?”
“I have to know his name.”
“Why? Why for heaven’s sake?”
“It was Jared. He was from Stillwater .”
“Ah, an OSU Cowboy; died with his boots on,” Warren said loquaciously. “Touching. Inspiring. Ride ‘em Pokes. Now let’s get on with our job.”
“Rest in peace, Jared,” Wattenbarger said solemnly, touching the man’s eyes closed with his fingers.
“Fine. ‘Requescat in Pace,’ Warren repeated in perfect Latin as he crossed himself. “Okay, now can we get goin’?” he asked, turning to leave the office. “Come on, Dale, you’re gonna have a full time job if you hold that little ceremony with every corpse we happen to run into.”
As they both stared back into Jared’s blue, expressionless face, they were horrified to see the dead man’s clear, gray eyes slowly re-open and stare lifelessly back at them in death.
“Good Lord, man! I’m outta here like right now, with or without you!” Warren said, backing quickly out and into the hallway.
“Jared, dude, you’re one freaky cadaver,” Wattenbarger said with a full-body shiver, quickly following Warren .
They found no more bodies in the main building, but they also looked for any food that might be there. In the break room they found a shelf with a few cans of soup and tuna which they loaded up into their packs.
“Okay, on to the main part of the observatory,” Warren said. “We need to find the bore holes and fast. We only have 20 minutes remaining.”
They located the Underground Seismometer Vault down a long flight of stairs in the same building. They entered and began to photograph every corner of the huge, underground room and all its equipment with a small digital camera. Then they moved on to the Magnetic Variation Building and repeated the process. From there they moved to the Magnetic Absolute Building , then virtually sprinted to the Seismic Telemetry Receiving Tower they had spotted on the way in. By the time they had finished the course, they were eight minutes behind schedule but the camera was loaded with everything they would need to design their system based on the equipment in place.
Quantum Storms - Aaron Seven Page 56