Impact (Book 1): Inbound

by Isherwood, E. E.

  He wouldn’t have people chasing after him if he were a liar. Misha seemed intent on taking Asher away, and they obviously both worked for TKM, so he must have done something important for them. As such, she had no reason not to trust him. She held the phone to her ear and formulated a response.

  “Dad, it’s coming down tonight, at eight or nine your time. I’m not for sure on the exact moment. I trust my source with my life.” She figured that was true. The young geologist had an honest face.

  Asher quietly added, “Tell them to get into a mine shaft or a tunnel. Hell, even a basement would be better than being outside. Just hide, because you can’t do much else to prepare.”

  She came to the end of the street and had to slow. There weren’t as many cars on the back section of the block, so she steered to the left, away from the crowds at the visitor’s center. Ahead, a small single-story brick building was home to the small ranger-led police force. She didn’t want her parents to worry about her, so she wanted to end the call before she got there.

  “I have to let you go. Make sure you and Mom get underground. Do you understand? Find shelter fast!”

  “I will,” Dad replied. “Do you want to talk to your mom before you go?”

  Grace seriously thought about it, but the blocky justice center was up ahead. She needed to get inside before anyone else got hurt. Misha seemed like the type of guy who didn’t give up easily, and she knew enough from watching movies never to delay a second when help was so close. Dad would never forgive her if she let her guard down like that. “Tell her I love her. I’ve really got to go. I’m driving, actually.”

  “You know what I say about driving and phoning,” he replied with a bit of laughter.

  “Just don’t do it. Bye, Dad. Love you.”

  “Bye, Grace. Your mom and I love you, too.”

  She pulled the truck in front of the building as the line went dead.

  Kentucky

  Ezra hung up the phone and glanced over to Susan, who wore a chiseled mask of apprehension on her face. In retrospect, he regretted asking Grace if she wanted to talk to her mother, though he was surprised she’d said no.

  “She didn’t want to talk to me?” Susan asked dryly. His wife had been listening next to Ezra’s ear as he chatted with Grace, but she didn’t speak up during the call.

  “You heard what Grace said. She needed to go; she’s driving. She said to send you her love.” Grace and her mother had been at odds since she moved to Wyoming, and their recent calls were strained, at best. Susan was a saint, at least in Ezra’s eyes, yet she did have one blind spot about being overprotective of Grace. Losing her daughter to a job in the wilderness was one factor in the stormy return of Susan’s panic attacks, and some of their calls got heated with name-calling; things Susan later regretted in private, though she was too stubborn to tell her daughter. All that seemed like another lifetime to Ezra.

  “Well, thank the good Lord she’s okay,” Susan said, visibly relaxing.

  He wanted to shift tracks as fast as possible, so he held up the piece of paper with notes on it. “We’ve got to give this to Babs. I want to finish what I said I’d do, then leave her to it. We’ll hunker down in here and see what happens out there.”

  “Are we going to warn people?” Susan pointed to the phone. “Grace said everyone needed to find shelter for what’s coming. The neighborhood and county roads are filled with people lost, bewildered, or fleeing the destruction.”

  She was right, except he didn’t know what to do about it for those on the outside. The thing he knew with certainty was how to take care of Susan. They’d use Roger’s basement when the time came to stay alive during the next impact. Once the debris fell to Earth—assuming they survived—he’d make good on his promise to travel to Wyoming and reunite with Grace. The good news was he no longer had to worry about a moving truck.

  He came up with a plan. “Grace said we have until tonight. Let’s use our time to tell the neighbors about what’s coming. If Babs keeps her nose out of it, we can probably convince some of them to prepare. We’ll see what’s possible for the people on the road as we get closer to nightfall. Sound like a plan?” Ezra smiled like he was posing for a portrait.

  “Don’t think I don’t see what you did. When will you learn you can’t pull one over on me?” She put her hands on her hips to show her displeasure, which was a posture Grace had also perfected.

  He wasn’t sure what she was talking about. “I didn’t clap this time.”

  “No, you’re afraid for me. I’m not upset she didn’t want to talk, you know. She’ll talk to me when she’s ready. Nothing I said back then was wrong. She needed to know I didn’t approve of her moving so far from our protection.”

  Ezra pursed his lips. The core reason they’d moved to the countryside was also the genesis of her panic attacks: a violent incident twenty years ago. The robbery inside the convenience store took place in broad daylight on a quiet corner of a good part of town. A masked man pointed a gun at Susan, then he trained it on her infant daughter in the stroller. He thanked God every day the man didn’t fire the weapon, but from that point forward Susan struggled to Grace out of her sight. The random act of violence resonated in their family relationships even two decades later.

  “I know,” he allowed. Taking sides was a dicey proposition, but at that moment he needed to make sure he didn’t dismiss her feelings without reason. “Can we shelve that for now? We have other bridges to burn right now.”

  She laughed. “Sure. Let’s find Babs. I could use someone to yell at.” Susan winked, reassuring Ezra she wasn’t holding it against him.

  They used a house key to go out through the front door, so they could lock it. Since the lid had been blown off Paducah, he couldn’t trust that refugees wouldn’t be snooping around for food, water, and valuables. It’s why he wanted to get armed men out in the streets.

  They held hands as they patrolled the middle of Happy Cove street. The hazy skies and black smudge of clouds to the north made it less than pleasant, albeit bearable with his wife at his side. Regrettably, even the minimal acceptable level of goodness was sullied when Babs came out of a house ahead of them. She waved wildly like he would miss her pink pants and white blouse.

  “There you are, Ezra. Finally. I was getting worried you’d given up on your task, since I didn’t see you walking around. It’s good to see you didn’t; things are running smoothly up at the top of the hill, as I predicted, so I want to see what you’ve got so far.”

  That won’t last, he wanted to say.

  Instead, he was polite. “I’m done, actually. I’ve got your notes. There’s a few—”

  “Stop, please. I need you to add a line for whether the house is totally abandoned. If it is, like your old house, the subdivision is going to formally take over the property for the duration of this crisis.”

  “My house?” he said with surprise.

  She nodded with a smug smile. “Of course. You sold your house, right? After midnight tonight it will have a new owner, and I think we can safely predict they won’t be coming this evening. Possibly ever. The trustees will hold the property until such time as a proper legal claim can be established.”

  He didn’t think any of it was legal, but for a petty person like her, and with no opposition from homeowners or the other trustees, she would do whatever she wanted.

  She bullied on in the conversation. “I’d like to see how Ethel is doing, when you get the chance. I know you said she was hurt. Do you have an update on her condition? Please have a report ready for me when you complete your inventory of the homes.”

  “I’ll go check on her,” he replied, upset, but not surprised she’d roped him into doing one more thing for her.

  Chapter 12

  Yellowstone

  Grace’s appreciation for the rules had burned away on the drive down from the alpine hut. To keep her streak of lawbreaking going, she drove the truck onto the sidewalk and parked it about six feet from the front door to t
he justice center.

  “You can’t park here,” Asher complained.

  “And you shouldn’t smoke.” She giggled for a moment before seeing he was really worried. “It’s just that we’re talking about guidelines we don’t follow.”

  “I get it,” he said with a little more humor.

  “What’s that joke? I’m not parking it; I’m abandoning it.” She ran inside the swinging glass doors without looking back, content he was okay. Every second counted and nothing was more important than getting the attention of a building full of armed rangers.

  “We need help!” she yelled.

  Asher came in after her, comically skidding to a stop on a loose floor mat. “Is this the right place?”

  Despite the rustic stone exterior, the inside looked like a tiny slice of cubicle hell from any office building in modern America. A long wooden counter ran about thirty feet across the front part of the space; four cubicles were set up behind it. A few messy desks ringed the outer wall like outcasts from the party in the middle. It looked like there could have been eight or ten officers with workstations, but all the chairs were empty.

  While they stood there in awe, a woman came out of a wooden door at the back of the room. She was dressed like a civilian, not a ranger. “Hello? You need help?”

  “Are you the police?” Grace asked, hoping she was an undercover officer. Narcotics division, perhaps. She wasn’t overly familiar with the law-enforcement org chart, but she assumed it had all the same departments as a larger force. Rangers like her mainly focused on the code enforcement aspect of the law, such as permits and trespassing. Other rangers carried guns and made arrests; they dealt with violent tourists when necessary. So, by the same logic, someone had to be undercover and working to prevent drug crimes.

  “Not really. I’m the dispatcher.” The middle-aged woman used both hands to gather her salt-and-pepper hair behind her head, then she slipped a rubber band around it. “I was taking a quick bathroom break. I’ve been at this since last night.”

  Grace motioned to the rest of the room. “If you’re so busy, where are the officers? We need help. There’s someone chasing us. With guns.”

  The woman sized up her uniform, then did the same for Asher. “Well, everyone is out in the field right now. We’ve called in every officer we have, but lots of them didn’t pick up their phones. Not that I blame them, after what happened.”

  Asher spoke up; somehow, he’d already pulled out a cigarette and had it lit. “You mean with the blast over Paducah.”

  “Yep. The whole country is in a panic. It’s spread here, too, though most of these tourists aren’t letting a crisis in Illinois ruin their vacation in Wyoming.”

  “It hit Paducah,” Grace replied. “That’s in Kentucky.”

  “Sure. I know. The blast devastated southern Illinois, too. It’s worse there, from what I hear. Thank God it didn’t happen over a big city.”

  Grace ignored the slight against her hometown. Paducah was a huge city for her, relative to the backwater cove where she grew up. However, thinking of home wasn’t relevant to stopping her pursuer. “Is there an officer nearby? We seriously need some help against a guy who wants to kill this gentleman.” She twitched her head toward Asher.

  “Let me look.” She walked toward her desk, which was the nearest one behind the tall front counter. “I’m Tessa, by the way. I know most of the law enforcement rangers, but you interpretive rangers multiply like flies over the summer. I’ll never learn all the names—what’s yours?”

  Grace glanced uneasily at Asher before replying. “I’m Grace Anderson. I’m, uh, new here.”

  “Ah, that explains it.” Tessa shuffled through some papers, then clicked her mouse to get the screen to come up. Grace was ten feet away but could see over the woman’s shoulder. As soon as a map drew on the monitor, Tessa pointed to it. “Yeah, no. There’s no one around.” She tapped the screen repeatedly. “Everyone is deep inside the park doing their thing; I’ve got no one even close to Mammoth Hot Springs.”

  “Dang it,” she breathed to herself. There had to be a way to protect Asher. Grace looked around the room, wondering what was in the back. They were at a police station, even if it was run by park rangers. There should have been a holding cell or two, and there was almost certainly a room filled with guns.

  “I don’t suppose I could get a service pistol?” She’d said it without her practiced air of authority. To her ears, she sounded like she was asking her dad if she could use the car to drive to the big city; a favor her mom would never allow.

  “Can I see your ID?” Tess replied.

  Grace’s stomach wrapped itself like a twist-tie. She knew what Tessa was going to say once she saw her government ID card. She cast an awkward glance to Asher, then looked back to Tessa. “Do you mind if we talk back there?” Grace pointed to the back of the room.

  Tessa made no secret of rolling her eyes. She got out of her swivel chair like Grace had asked her to skin a mule deer, an activity Grace knew from experience was a disgusting chore. She let her come around the counter and together they walked to the back of the room. By the time she’d put a safe distance between Asher and herself, she pulled her ID badge out of her pocket and handed it to the other woman.

  “A trainee?” Tessa said in a mercifully quiet voice. “Who’s your supervisor?”

  “Ranger Randy McTavish.”

  “I’m afraid you’d have to get approval from him before I could give you a weapon. We have a strict policy in place to prevent just anyone from carrying guns out in the park. This isn’t the Wild West, you know.” Her tone suggested there was no middle ground to be had.

  “Fine,” Grace replied, wondering how she was going to explain the rejection to Asher.

  Kentucky

  Ezra spent the better part of the afternoon going house to house and talking with neighbors on his second pass. Few believed another meteorite was coming; they trusted Brenda, who’d told them all was safe. He figured out the whole story after asking residents why they believed Babs. It turned out two old-timer guys in the subdivision had shortwave radios; they said the interference was still terrible due to the clouds and ash, but the government bulletins said the disaster was over. When Ezra came along with Grace’s warning, he threatened their status quo. No one was willing to take the third-hand word of a geologist seven states away.

  The mistrust made him willfully negligent when making his list. He included basic information about whether a home was burned, damaged, or untouched. In an act of defiance, he didn’t list a single one as vacant, even his own. Privately, he noted at least seven houses burned to the ground or didn’t have anyone who answered the door. Even if his neighbors didn’t appreciate what he was doing for them, he listed their homes as occupied so Babs wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.

  When he finished his rounds, he purposefully avoided the house where Babs was holed up. Instead, he returned to Roger’s, and found Susan sitting on the wraparound front porch. He clapped as he approached, leading her to clap once in response as part of their ritual greeting and longtime game.

  “What did you find out there?” she asked as he plopped into the chair swing next to her.

  “I’ll tell you what I didn’t find: a lot of people happy to see me snooping around. At first, I told our neighbors I only wanted to talk to them to see if they were all right, but they always seemed suspicious once I mentioned the meteorite coming down tonight. Eventually, I figured out Babs had already gone around to most people’s houses and explained everything was hunky-dory out there. And you aren’t going to believe this, I’m sure, but she mentioned I was no longer a member of the subdivision, so they needed to be wary of me.”

  Susan drew in a deep breath, then let it out. “That woman needs help. I don’t think she has any idea what she’s doing, so she’s reverting to the same gossipy nonsense she’s always done.”

  If Grace’s abrupt departure was the trigger that set off some of Susan’s more recent panic a
ttacks, Brenda Bower was the catalyst for anger in his own life. And that was saying a lot; hardly anything got Ezra riled up. He’d dealt with idiots in the postal service for twenty years, and they were his fellow workers, not the patrons. But once Babs became the head of the subdivision, it was like she’d found satisfaction in lording over men like Ezra. At first he laughed it off. It only took one letter from a lawyer to convince him she had a little authority behind her.

  From that point forward, it was game on for Ezra. He’d done everything he could to make life as difficult as possible for the trustees. He’d let his grass get to five-and-a-half inches before cutting it; the limit was six. After she’d ordered him to repaint his dock slats from light gray to light tan, as per the rules, he took a whole summer to finish the paint job. And he was always at the subdivision meetings to argue with her about minutiae, to give her grief and prove the power was mainly in her head. Though he’d never admit it to Susan, moving to Wyoming had as much to do with escaping the Happy Cove rule book as it did with seeing Grace.

  “I need you to stick around in this house, Suze. If I go out, you have to stay here. Sit out on the porch and have your AR nearby. Babs was nosing around about Ethel, and we can’t keep her hidden for much longer. We should cover her up, like we did Roger. Once she knows we’re squatting here, I bet my last bullet she gives us grief about it.”

  Susan reached over and put her hand on his thigh. “I don’t want to fight with our neighbors. We’ve built up a lot of friendships here. You don’t think they’d really push us out, do you?”

  “Not all of them, no, but Babs has people riled up. It seems like no one in the subdivision believes me, no matter how long I’ve known them. If we want to help those people up on the roadway, she’s going to make it as difficult as possible. It wouldn’t surprise me if she’s gone up there and told them to watch out for me.”