Mega Cataclysm: The Last Survivors Chronicles

by Scott Todd

  I opened my eyes to barely see a hand about to strike me again. It was almost dark. Instinctively I reached up and grabbed it.

  Jan was leaning over me in a panic, tears streaming down her face. She collapsed on top of me nearly suffocating me with a hug when she saw my eyes finally open, crying and sobbing loudly.

  "Don't you ever die on me again," she sobbed. "I almost shot myself when I couldn't wake you. I thought you were in a coma and going to die. But I decided to give it one last try."

  Oh no, not life again. Please no. It's just too damn hard anymore, I thought. But wait... What about the...?

  I heard it in the far distance below us. It was still raging, sending a low deep rumble throughout what now sounded like a valley. Then I felt that I was soaking wet, and felt pain in both my back and right forearm. Raising my arm, I noticed it was bandaged.

  "We still have the supplies," Jan said quietly, slowly composing herself, and sniveling. "That torrent missed us by about thirty feet, leaving a path of destruction below. But it soaked us good."

  I raised my head and turned to look down the hill. What I saw was shocking. Many smaller trees were gone after about fifty feet or so. But after that, I could see that the full force of the water left nearly nothing, all the way down as far as my sight would go.

  I felt a bandage on my back too as I quickly got up, finally regaining my full senses. I grabbed Jan by the shoulders wide-eyed for a second, and then raced down the hill and stopped as soon as the full, shocking scene came into view. I was floored.

  For below us, the water had receded thousands of feet already, leaving near bare, naked hills. It really was now a valley. But it had literally erased just about everything.

  All I could see was the remains of only the mightiest of brave trees, tilted badly to the southwest. And those were few. Very few. The rest looked like barren rock.

  I ran right back up to Jan, and was glad to have regained some strength. But before I could even speak, I thought of the sub. Oh no. She read my thoughts.

  "I know," she said, looking down at the ground. "Doesn't look good." I looked down to see her still holding the Glock in a trembling hand.

  Then I remembered the rifles, and the boat, and the supplies. Miraculously, it was all still right there.

  "Holy shit!" was all I could say, as thoughts came racing into my brain so fast I couldn't process them all, leaving one giant mess. I had to sit down and regroup, I was such a jumbled heap.

  But soon I calmed down, and I felt the darkness begin to close in on us. That quickly became a concern. Those bears might be back. Jan just sat there at my side, waiting patiently.

  "There's two flashlights in there, and several packages of spare batteries," she said. "And a lot more stuff, but I still haven't been through it all." She got up and retrieved us two cans of stew with a can opener, and a bottle of water.

  "We better eat," she said. "We need the strength."

  We gulped the stew down. It was ok, but would have been much better if it was heated. After the quick meal and some water, I started feeling better fast. But damn my arm hurt.

  "I had to sow your arm up while you were out. I figured that would be the best time, if you lived... Those are some nasty, deep gashes," she said. "But I cleaned and disinfected them, so I think if you're careful they should heal. Gary really did set us up good with a very capable first aid kit... The kind you might see in a war. And he wasn't greedy with the morphine, either. If you want, I can..."

  "No, better not. Not yet," I said. "I'll deal with the pain. Morphine is going to nearly incapacitate me, and we've got to get out of here. There's bears around."

  "Then what about these," she said. "These are some stiff pills that aren't quite so strong. Two of them should help. It's Tylenol with codeine."

  "Ok," I said, and washed them down with water.

  "That lingering smell of the ocean is still pretty strong, and I am wondering if we might possibly use that to our advantage," I said. "We might actually do better to stay there, or even go lower down on the hill. The animals were probably so terrified from that raging torrent and tremors, that they are likely still at the top of the hill much further up- and would be too frightened to come down anywhere near that smell... Maybe even for days. "

  "That's a good point," Jan said. "Maybe. But I wouldn't count on that if I were you. Extreme hunger might make them do desperate things."

  "Yeah I hear you," I replied. I got up and got the rifle Jan had dropped. Checking it, I thought sure enough... No bullet in the chamber. I corrected that, but needed to test it after that soaking.

  "Test fire shot coming... Might want to cover your ears," I said. I put it in single mode and aimed down the hill at a distant, crippled tree. BANG.

  "Yup, ok. I am switching it back to auto," I said. "Bears and lions, you just stay up there, ok? Deal? Deal. Cause otherwise you'll be Swiss cheese."

  I dug the other one out of the pile and similarly tested it, then I put it in auto mode as well. I handed it to Jan. "Remember... Finger off the trigger, unless you see a tigger," I said.

  "Real cute," she said sarcastically and sighed. "Look. What are we going to do about tonight?" She tested a flashlight and shined it just shy of my eyes.

  "I am thinking maybe we should stay here, or go lower, but I am really thinking of those radios. We've got to try and reach them," I said. I grabbed her flashlight and dug them out. After inspecting them, and verifying that they were set to the same channel, I said "We'd better test these to see if they even work first. They've even got earpieces." I fitted them and handed one set to Jan. "That knob there turns them on," I said.

  I put in my earpiece, and she put in hers. "Stay here and let me get about twenty feet away," I said, turning it on. She turned hers on too.

  "Checking, testing, one two three," I said, pressing the button.

  "Yup, loud and clear," came her voice over my set in my ear.

  "Roger that," I replied. She just looked at me with her hand on her hip and rolled her eyes at me.

  "Well?" I replied back. "Ok enough... Let's turn them off now. I just realized... There's no point in trying to contact them now, cause they're probably out of range."

  Walking back up to her, I pointed out that they had belt clips too. But she was clearly distraught, and worried. So was I, but for some reason I wasn't letting our dire situation get to me as bad at that moment. Maybe it was the food and sleep, but I had a lot of energy, despite my injuries. Even the pain pills were helping.

  "Well glad YOU'RE feeling so peppy," Jan said, a little irritated. "I've been up for almost three hours thinking you were going to die, and sowing you up while the world was ending all over again in my ears right down the hill from me. It wasn't fun. At all. Especially alone."

  "Hey listen," I said, putting a hand on her cheek and lifting her sad face up. "I really appreciate that. I really do. Thanks."

  She broke into tears, dropped her rifle and grabbed me, hugging me desperately with her head in my chest. "I just felt so damned alone," she said. "It was horrible. I am sooo exhausted. And I can't stop thinking about the others. GOD I hope they're ok."

  "I know... Me too. But if Ben were here, he'd probably tell us to get our situation under control and worry about them later," I replied.

  She finally quieted down and thought about it. "Yeah... You're probably right... Ok... Well... I've got to sleep. There's one big sleeping bag and a blanket in the pile I think. And I'm getting cold," she said.

  "Ok, I'll get them," I said. I went to the pile and dug them out, and turned around with the flashlight.

  "Hurry," she said, standing there naked and shivering. "Those clothes need to dry." I hesitated only an instant.

  I wrapped her up in the blanket, and set down the sleeping bag on the ground directly above a tree. "Just in case there's a tremor... So you don't roll down the hill," I said.

  "Very funny," she dryly remarked as she took off the blanket and hurriedly climbed in to the bag.

&
nbsp; "I'm serious," I said.

  "Ahh, much better," she said, snuggling in to the sleeping bag. Then I noticed there was something strange about that sleeping bag. It had a weird feel to it, like it was made from some kind of material I had not seen or felt before. I wrapped the blanket around me and sat down at her feet with my back up against the tree. It really was getting cold. Pretty darn cold.

  "You better hope there isn't a tremor," she said, looking down and seeing her feet between my legs and just inches from causing me considerable pain. The flashlight illuminated the danger briefly.

  "Very funny," I remarked back after I realized what she meant... But by the time I had replied she was out like a light.

  So there I was, in near pitch black, hovering over sleeping beauty there, trying to grip the cold steel of the rifle, and trying to stay warm. And there were bears and mountain lions running around. Nice. Just... Great. I sighed hopelessly.

  I started thinking about the others, but realized I better not let myself get too distracted. I had a job to do. A very serious one: Keep us alive. I wondered if they trained soldiers not to let their minds wander in situations like this. One lapse of awareness could cost them their lives, and maybe the lives of their sleeping team, too. I never had any military training, so I didn't know. But it made sense to me, regardless.

  I became hyper aware of every last little noise, and with each one I jumped. Many caused me to raise the flashlight and look- and with the rifle barrel following the beam. This was going to be a long, cold night. I checked my watch. 9:30 pm. And just about ten more hours till dawn.

  Then I got the idea to start a fire. But to get any drier wood, I was going to have to go up the hill- cause everything around us was soaked.

  UP the hill in the dark? Uh oh. That's not good. Let's see- Pro's: Warm snuggly fire. Cons: Leave Jan alone sleeping- she'd be easy prey. And she might even wake up finding herself alone again and probably kill me. I could also get attacked and killed up the hill. If the bears and lions didn't get me, Jan would.

  Shit. Ok, drop that idea. I settled further into the blanket best I could, and just dealt with the cold. I felt the sleeping bag again. Strange. Then I wondered why a sub carrying nuclear missiles would be equipped with a sleeping bag like that. Gary did say there had been special modifications made to one of the torpedo tubes for missions. Hmm. Special missions... Special Forces? Maybe that was a "special" sleeping bag, too...

  I started wondering what the range really was on those radios, and how if they managed to survive in the sub, it was probably at least two miles away down the hill. Maybe a lot more. Surely a military-grade radio could reach two miles though, I thought.

  As bad as I wanted to try to contact them, I wanted to wait until the roar had subsided. If they were still alive, they'd likely be needing every last brain cell in concentration to keep that sub at just the right spot in the wake of the mountain- all the way down until the water stabilized. Any distraction from a nagging radio might be disastrous.

  I listened again to the dull, low roar still present in the distance, but it was so far away I didn't have any idea how far it really was. I remembered how deceiving distances were at that high an elevation. But it was still so loud it echoed in the valley. I wondered how Jan could possibly even sleep through it.

  The wind picked up quite a bit, and that made things worse. I was having a hard time making out noises in the woods over the noise from both the wind and the distant, low frequency rumble of the water receding. All I could do was to keep turning a flashlight on, and shining it around our perimeter every few minutes. And that was using up precious battery energy. But what was really horrifying was the thought of one of those times, lighting up that big, hungry bear again- already upon us.

  I shivered. I clung to the hope that my assessment would prove to be correct- and that the animals were as mortally terrified as we were of all that salt water. At least long enough to get us through the night? Please? Pretty please?

  I maintained my nervous flashlight routine as the night wore on, and started thinking about what to do tomorrow. I figured we should probably try to make it back to Camp Alice, where we could somehow set up shop in that little building. But what if that building and the whole camp were gone because of the surge? Oh no. Then it would have to be back to the cars. I figured that at least the cars were probably ok, being up so high near the summit.

  In time we could probably build some kind of crude shelter with debris from the buildings caught up in the landslides. But where would we put it? From all indications, the mountain had been divided by the dominant animals- the west side by lions, and the east side by bears. I wondered if the parking lot itself had become no man's land, somewhere right near the middle.

  And the thought further occurred to me that with much less territory after the swell and water cleansing, destroying everything below- what was already a concentrated zoo of animals was now likely just a big, closed pen. The competition for land and food would become even fiercer, making the whole top of that mountain about as dangerous a place anyone could ever go.

  Mountain lions would likely take even more to the treetops in self preservation. Bears would rule the ground. Any deer left would surely be eaten quickly, with much less forest to hide in.

  So I reasoned at that point the best option might be to head down the hill before the animals overcame their fear and discovered that the water was gone- and was likely not coming back. It was either that or go lion and bear hunting, with extreme prejudice.

  I wanted to examine that pile more to see how much ammo Gary had sent with us. I made a move towards it with a flashlight, but quickly reconsidered when the cold enveloped me. My moist clothes and hair accentuated the point, nearly freezing me. I quickly darted back under my blanket. Nope. That would have to wait.

  I thought about how warm it would probably be in that sleeping bag next to Jan's naked body. The bag was big, and could probably fit us both in there. I had to fight that temptation viscously- perhaps even worse than I fought from the bear. No. No, no, NO! I had to maintain watch. Stop it!

  3:30 am. Jan had been asleep for over six hours, and I was starting to lose it, consumed by tiredness. But suddenly I heard her stir. Shining the flashlight on her, she peeped out from her little domain yawning and just said "Why didn't you get the jacket? It's in the pile. Sorry, I forgot to tell you before I went to sleep. I was sooo tired."

  "I can't really move it's so cold," I retorted. "And I'm still damp. That wind is killing me."

  "Well, we could take that boat and turn it on its side and lean it up against a couple trees," she said, like it was sort of obvious.

  I beat myself up over it, for not thinking of it sooner- although even if I had, I was still too cold to have attempted it myself. With her help though, the temporary freezing might be worth it.

  "Good idea," I said, and started to get up. But she briefly opened the bag while I had the light on shining down, and reminded me she was butt naked. She just as quickly shut it back.

  "Oh. Yeah. Your clothes..." I mumbled. I quickly got them, and handed them to her. They did feel cool, but were a lot drier.

  A minute later she emerged dressed, grabbed the flashlight, and handed me a jacket from the pile, putting another one on herself. Everything in that pile was bundled up, and it was tough to tell what was what. There had still not been a chance for us to go through it.

  Ten minutes later we had the boat leaning up against a suitable pair of trees, positioned so that it made a great windbreaker. She took the blanket and sleeping bag, opened them fully, and draped them over the ends.

  "There," she said. "Come on." She grabbed her rifle and scurried inside the resulting space. I quickly followed. It was cramped, but with a little positioning, we were each able to have a tree to lean against as we faced each other. She put her legs over mine. The wind was off us and I was a lot warmer with the jacket.

  "Thanks... That was good thinking," I said, finally turning off the flashlig
ht. The back between the trees facing down the hill was still open, but I could live with it. It was way better.

  I was really tired, but I relayed to her the thoughts I had about our situation, and the likely concentration of animals above us.

  "Well we might just have to go bear and lion hunting with extreme prejudice, as you say then," she answered. "Cause if we don't, they are going to eat all the deer. And if we are going to survive longer term, deer are going to be crucial. In fact we really ought to be hunting and eating anything we can right now from the environment, and save the canned goods for as long as possible. We don't know if we even have the others or the sub. And what are we going to find down there after all that water destroyed it?" she said, pointing down the hill.

  "Probably nothing edible," I replied, nearly falling asleep. My last hopes were quickly dwindling. "I really wish Ben had given us his high powered rifle."