by Annie Bellet
The Moon was gone. The Far Side Array was on the Moon.
“Mom,” Lucy said, not even realizing she’d spoken aloud until Jack put his arm around her.
“She probably got off the Moon. I mean, they have shuttles for that, right?” Jack said quietly.
“I don’t know. It’s only a few of them up on that station and they get stuck there for months at a time. Why didn’t anyone see this coming?” Lucy shoved Jack away. “Why? How did this happen and nobody knows?” She was aware she was yelling and she didn’t give two fucks.
“Uh,” the attendant said, “Some black guy in a suit came on earlier and was talking about the angle of the sun and some shit. Apparently nobody saw it coming. Probably the government is lying to us. They always are.”
Heidi spread her hands in a placating gesture that just annoyed Lucy more. “Please, Luce, we gotta get back home. I gotta call my mom, and call Dana. Let’s just go.”
Mom. Lucy pressed her lips together and breathed in through her nose. The store smelled like lemon cleaning fluid and stale beer, but it grounded her. She couldn’t get a hold of Mom even if she’d made it off the Moon. But Dad would know what was going on—he’d know what to do. And if meteors were going to strike Earth, Montana might be as safe a place as any.
Besides, Dad was like literally the only family she had left on this planet.
“No, we don’t want to be anywhere near the coasts if meteors are striking all over the planet,” she said, looking at Jack. “We’re going to my home. We’re going to Montana.”
On the TV, the news cut out and the high whining tone of the emergency broadcast station pierced the tense air in the store.
• • • •
Jack had agreed immediately, but Heidi was still sulking in the back seat as they left the serene park behind and entered a chaos of traffic. By the time they hit I-80 West toward San Jose, cars clogged the road heading into the city. It was a Sunday in August; the traffic shouldn’t have been so bad. Lucy’s cell phone still hunted for a signal. She dug out the folding map of the United States from the Jeep’s glove box. It was shiny and new, never used. Who needed a paper map when you had GPS on your phone?
She guessed Jack being a Boy Scout and Army brat was good for something. He took that always be prepared thing seriously.
“Last chance to get out and find a bus station or something,” Lucy said, leaning back over the seat and looking at Heidi.
“No,” Heidi said. She looked out the window at the clogged freeway. “I’ll go with you. I doubt they’re letting flights out, and I’d rather be with friends than alone.”
Which was good, Lucy thought. Because she’d never have really let Heidi go into the city by herself.
They cut around San Jose and headed down 580 toward Stockton, deciding to avoid I-5 North. The radio flip-flopped between static and emergency broadcasts telling people to stay in their homes. It was dark by the time they got near Stockton.
A gas station in Colfax was still open. Jack bought another gas can, filling it and adding it to the two he already kept in the back of Jeep. He topped those off, too.
“Smart thing, kids,” the old woman behind the counter said to them as they paid in cash. “Last can I have to sell. People been buying out all day going down this road toward Reno. We’re gonna be out of gas come tomorrow if the trucks don’t make it. Heard there are some fires up that way, so take care.”
“You heard anything else?” Lucy asked, motioning to the TV. It was muted, just the bands of the Emergency Broadcast System twitching on the screen.
“Nothing useful,” the woman said. She smiled and shrugged her thin shoulders. “Keep calm and carry on.”
Her cackle followed them out of the station and all the way back to their car.
• • • •
The one and only time Lucy had made this drive was a year before, when she and her dad drove out to set her up at school. They’d stopped halfway through the seventeen-hour drive at a little bed and breakfast. He’d played basketball with the kids of the couple who ran the place while Lucy stood on the porch and answered awkward questions. Mom had been in training for the Moon mission, but try getting people to believe that no really, your mom was totally going to the Moon.
She’d shut off the radio over an hour before. Reno had seemed normal, almost calm. Lights still on, traffic thin. That might have been the tell that something was wrong with the world, Lucy guessed. Even on a Sunday night, traffic should have been jumping with people going out or coming home from the various entertainments Nevada’s cities had to offer. They’d grabbed snacks at another gas station but no one had felt like trying to find a restaurant or having much of a conversation.
Now though, Jack was crashed out in the passenger seat, and Heidi had shoved camping gear down so she could sprawl on the back seat. The only noises were the sounds of the tires shushing along the road. The Jeep’s headlights picked up a haze in the air and the sky was dark overhead, pierced occasionally with little flashes, like far-off lightning strikes.
Lucy had a feeling it wasn’t lightning. She didn’t want to think about the meteors. Thinking about it led to thinking about the Moon. About Mom.
She’s probably in a damn bunker somewhere in Florida or Texas or something, Lucy told herself. She blinked away angry tears and tightened her hands on the steering wheel. She regretted the pizza stick she’d eaten as her belly flipped again. No thinking about Mom. Think about Dad. About getting home. Hours now—just a few more hours. If Jack had been awake, she would have made him check the map, check the mile markers. Five or six more hours, she guessed, before they hit US-93 and headed north for Montana. Then another six or seven hours. So maybe twelve, thirteen total.
She almost hit the first deer, but slammed on the brakes in time. Another leapt into the roadway. Then another.
“Jesus fuck,” Jack said, jerking awake as the sudden stop slammed him into his seatbelt.
“Look,” Lucy said. “What are they doing?”
There was a huge cracking noise overhead, and the road seemed to roll up beneath them. Out of the brush at the sides of the highway, hundreds of deer sprang forward, flooding into the road and then across and down the other side. They were clearly fleeing something.
“What is that?” Heidi asked, her voice heavy with sleep and fear.
The huge herd of deer had cleared. Beyond, out in a darkness lit now with an odd, almost nuclear glow, a cloud rushed at them, looking like a giant white wave.
“No idea,” Lucy said. She stomped on the gas. “Seatbelts!”
The Jeep was no sports car, but she was pretty sure she went from zero to eighty in record time. Dust and chunks of turf, pebbles, and demolished brush slammed into the windows and scraped along the sides of the vehicle. The right tire hit the drunk bumps on the side of the road and Lucy aimed straight, keeping the ridges beneath them so she could feel her way down the road. Pale flashes of the white lines on the road through the smoke helped keep her on track.
The air cleared after a few miles, and she found herself praying under her breath as the headlights lit upon dark asphalt. She pulled the Jeep back left, into the road proper.
“You’re lucky you didn’t blow the tires,” Jack said. His voice sounded more awed than reproachful.
“Driving by Braille,” Lucy said, shooting him a quick smile. A pain hit her heart. That saying was something her mother always said, usually to excuse the way she often wandered on the road a little, her brain lost in some scientific minutia.
“Did we just survive a meteor strike?” Heidi asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“We good on gas?”
Lucy checked the gauge. “Yeah. I can keep driving. Though now I gotta pee.”
“That’s all of us, after that,” Heidi said.
No one slept again that night, though Lucy guessed Jack could have. He was the only one of them used to this. She finally asked him as they neared Elko around dawn.
“This is like war, kinda, huh? Are you going to be okay?”
They didn’t talk about his service. Jack had joined up after his parents were killed in a car accident when he was seventeen. He’d told her he was a helo pilot, and the one time she’d asked him if he’d shot anyone, he just shook his head. Lucy was glad about that. She might have been raised in Montana where being able to walk meant you were old enough to learn to use a gun, but she didn’t like the idea of them, and her politics leaned further left than even her extremely progressive parents’.
“This is nothing like the war,” Jack said. The look on his face closed that line of conversation, and Lucy kept driving.
Elko was silent, the houses shuttered and nothing open. They drove another hour, the gas light flickering on, and debated using one of the tanks. Jack voted they should wait and see if one of the little stops between Elko and Wells had anything.
Before Wells, where they would turn north onto US-93, they found an open gas station and everyone got out to stretch and check their phones.
“Those won’t work,” the attendant said. He was a middle-aged man, on the small side, barely taller than Lucy, with a big round belly and white beard any mall Santa Claus would’ve been proud of. He’d come out of his little booth to chat, seemingly glad to see live people on the road. “Got a brother with the Sheriff’s office. Said that all stable frequencies for the radio and phones are being routed for emergency personnel only.”
“So how the hell do you call 911?” Heidi asked.
“Times like these?” He motioned up to the clouded-over sky where small flashes still glinted every now and again in the diffuse morning sun. “You don’t.”
Lucy shook her head. The roads had been clear so far, other than some plant debris and dirt. They were moving, however, toward heavily forested areas. Remembering the pictures of the Tunguska Impact, she climbed back into the Jeep to study the map again.
A big truck roared into the station as Jack was finishing with the pump. Three big white men, mid-twenties to thirties, jumped out, whooping. Two of them were carrying machetes.
Lucy froze as the one without a knife grabbed Heidi and swung her around, pulling her tight against his body.
“You just back off, old man. We’re commandeering this station. It’s the end of the fucking world, don’t you know?” The oldest-looking one, a man with a reddish beard and blue overalls, waved his machete at the attendant.
“That isn’t a good idea,” Jack said. His voice was all steel, his hands at his sides, but Lucy knew the look of readiness when she saw it. He was going to get himself killed, the big damn soldier.
She let the map drop slowly to the seat and followed it down. No one was looking at her; their eyes were on Jack and the attendant. With her right hand, she felt under the driver’s seat until she found Jack’s gun case. Still bent low, she slid the Glock from the case, checked the magazine and made sure a round was already chambered. Her heart raced miles ahead of her fear, but she shoved away all the anxiety, the shake in her fingers.
Instead she reached for her dad’s voice. “Never point a gun at something you aren’t willing to shoot,” he had told her. “Never point a gun at a man unless you want him dead. If you aren’t willing to make him dead, you might as well put the gun in his hand and tell him to pull the trigger.”
She didn’t want to kill anyone. But the way that man was groping her sobbing friend, the way Jack looked ready to try to take on three big men with no weapons, well. There were no police to call. No one to stop this. Just her.
Lucy slid out of the Jeep and came around the side, raising the gun and pointing it at the man in overalls. He’d talked, so she was pretty sure he was the boss.
“Let her go, and get the fuck out of here,” she said. Her voice was low and mean and only shook a little. Channel Dirty Harry, she told herself. Dad made me watch all those old movies, might as well get some use out of it.
“Ooh, look Jerry.” One of the other men, the one not holding Heidi, laughed. “The spic cunt there wants us to leave.”
“You going to shoot, girl?” Overalls asked. He sneered, but his eyes were shadowed by what she hoped was fear.
“She ain’t gonna shoot,” the other guy said. “Those Mexican bitches can’t . . .”
Whatever he would have said was cut off by the loud report of the gun and a scream. Lucy swung the gun smoothly back to Overalls as the other guy fell to the ground, dropping his machete and holding his bleeding crotch.
“I’m Puerto Rican, you ignorant fuck,” she said.
Whatever Overalls saw in her face then, he didn’t like. He dropped his machete and hissed at the man holding Heidi to let her go as he raised his hands and backed toward their truck.
The attendant bolted for his hut and came out with a shotgun. “Get out of here and don’t come back or I’ll put more holes in you!” he yelled after them.
They grabbed up their bleeding friend and drove their truck out of there faster than they’d arrived.
“Oh my god. You shot him. You really shot him!” Heidi was freaking out.
“Give me the gun,” Jack said softly. He gently took it from her numb fingers.
“I’m okay,” Lucy said. Her teeth chattered. Shock. Maybe this was shock. She wasn’t sure. She’d really shot him.
“How much for the gas,” Jack said. He flicked the safety on and kept the gun low at his side.
“No charge. Just get where you are going and keep these ladies safe, eh?” The man smiled a gap-toothed smile. “Shit raining from the skies does terrible things to people. And you, little lady, you did right. Don’t you fear no retribution. Those bastards are cowards. They’ll look for other targets that don’t shoot back.”
“Then I wish I’d killed them,” Lucy muttered. She wasn’t sure if she meant it or not.
Jack drove. Heidi sat in back, staring out the window, not talking. Lucy glanced over her shoulder at her friend a few times, but Heidi wouldn’t meet her eyes, even in the reflection of the window.
They turned north onto US-93 and it was clear meteors had hit near here. Branches were down in the road and they were forced to slow. They passed a couple cars heading south, but the drivers only waved and didn’t stop to share news.
“What’s that haze?” Lucy said finally, breaking the silence that had descended since the gas station.
“Forest fire, I think. It’s pretty far off though.”
“I’m sorry, Jack,” she said softly. “I didn’t know what else to do.”
“Sorry? For what? You saved us back there. I was going to try to get them with prayer and my bare hands.”
“I shot a man.”
“I know. It isn’t easy. But you winged his nuts. Not like he’s dead.”
“I was aiming for his chest,” Lucy said.
Jack looked sideways at her and a small smile played at his lips. “No you weren’t,” he said.
“No,” Lucy said. A weird giddiness rose in her, threatening to turn into a hysterical giggle. “I wasn’t.”
“You asked if this was like war? Back there, it kind of was.” He sighed and ran his hand through his hair. She loved that gesture. She’d been so mad at him about something—she was always mad about something—but right then she wanted to kiss him, to curl up in his arms and pretend the world was just fine.
“You’ve shot people.” It wasn’t a question, not anymore.
He dodged answering it anyway. “Times like these, you figure out who you are. Deep inside. Some people can’t do what has to be done. Some can.”
“Fuck you,” Heidi said from the back seat.
“That guy was huge, Heidi. There wasn’t anything you could have done. No more than Luce here could’ve stopped them if they’d grabbed her. She found a tool and she used it. We survived. That’s how it works.”
Heidi’s eyes were bright with tears and her hands fisted in her t-shirt. “Not how I want my life to work,” she whispered.
“We’ll find you a way to Chica
go, Heidi,” Lucy said. “Once we’re home.”
“Sure,” Heidi said and went back to staring out the window.
They had to get out twice to clear larger branches, and once, nearly half a tree from the road. No more weird cracks of light lit the sky, but the sun was obscured in the haze and the dust and smoke were so heavy that they had to breathe through their shirts.
Heidi took over so Lucy could rest. She still refused to say more than a syllable or three.
Lucy must’ve dozed off, though she felt for a while as the rough road chunked and thunked away beneath the Jeep that she’d never sleep again. Not until she knew Dad was safe. Not until she knew for sure about the Moon. About Mom.
The cessation of road noise woke her.
“Where are we?” she asked Jack. Heidi wasn’t in the driver’s seat.
“Outside Darby. We’re on a side-road. Some guys were heading out to try to clear a rockslide or something on the highway, so they told us to detour down this Old Darby Road. Heidi had to pee.” He motioned out the window with a grin.
“You stopped and talked to people and I didn’t wake up?” Lucy rubbed her eyes and caught a whiff of her morning breath. She sat up and reached for a water bottle.
“A regular sleeping beauty,” Jack said, pushing some of her hair from her face. “Speaking of that, you’re Puerto Rican?”
“Half,” she said, making a face. “My parents named me Lucita, but I hate it.” It seemed so trivial now. All through middle school and high school, she’d just wanted to be one of the pale, pretty blondes. She’d bleached her hair, worn contacts, put on foundation that was two shades too light for her complexion. Gone by Lucy instead of Lucita. Lucy Goodwin had tried so hard to leave everything of her mother and her mother’s history behind. Her language. Her culture. Her religion. Her science.
And now all I want to do is get home and tell her how sorry I am and promise we’ll never argue again. Ever.
“Wait,” she said as Jack started to get out of the car. “Darby? That means we’re like an hour or so from home.” She threw open the door and came around to his side, pulling him down for a kiss as he climbed out and wrapped her in his arms.