by John Freitas
Carter held up his hands. “You need help.”
Sean stopped short and dropped to his knees. Holden tried again to reach him, but Tabby pulled him back. She yelled. “Just leave us alone.”
“Trust me.” Sean held up his hands. “I did not race across the state to ruin your vacation. There are waves passing through the Earth from a star collapse. The next one is big – very big. It will crush things on the other side of the world and anything not tied down or inside will be blasted off the ground either out into space or to fall back like being dropped from a plane.”
Carter shook his head. “Nothing you are saying is making sense, Sean.”
“We are friends, Carter. Please, trust me this time. That’s what the quakes were and why things were lifting and floating during each quake.”
Carter looked at Tabby and back at Sean. “Lifting? Floating?”
“It’s true,” Holden said. “I saw it too. I didn’t say anything because I was afraid no one would believe me. Please, believe my dad, Uncle Carter.”
“I saw it in the last fire,” Sean said. “I didn’t think anyone would believe me either.”
“This is insane.” Tabitha whispered.
Jenny held up her hands. “It’s all true. My father is a scientist. They were on TV around globe warning everyone in the Western Hemisphere to get inside. We are almost out of time. Do it to save the kids, Carter. That is what you and Sean do. Please.”
“Okay,” Carter said. “But there is nowhere to go. There is no building for miles. You know that.”
“What about under the dock?” Holden asked.
Sean stared for a moment, but shook his head. “The water may come up from the lake. We could drown.”
Carter cursed and then said, “Sorry. We have rope.” He dug three lengths of coiled rope from his pack. “We could tie off to trees.”
Rope. That’s one of the supplies I should have gotten before leaving the house, Sean thought.
Sean looked at the scrawny trees near the lake. “Too small.”
Jenny pointed up the slope. “There are larger ones up there.”
Sean gritted his teeth. “Maybe. The roots may still not hold, but we don’t have much choice.”
“The rocks,” Holden said.
“Good idea, buddy,” Sean said and smiled. “But they may not be heavy enough either.”
“No,” Holden said, “Up in those trees is a big outcropping. We could go there.”
Sean and Carter met eyes. Sean said, “A cave maybe. Brilliant, Holden. Carter, bring the rope too just in case.”
Carter grabbed up the rope and Grant. Sean scooped up Holden and they all ran up the hill.
“Hurry,” Jenny said, “we’re almost out of time.”
They reached the trees and weaved through until they saw the rocks standing tall out of the dirt.
“No cave,” Carter said.
Sean put down Holden and grabbed one of the ropes. “We’ll tie off here. Kids first.”
They backed Holden and Grant up to the rock.
“I’m scared,” Grant said.
“Me too. Hurry.” Tabby shook her fists. Carter ran around the back of the outcropping and came back. They tied off around the boy’s mid sections.
“Too tight,” Grant said.
“Sorry, buddy.” Carter unraveled the second rope and ran around.
“Okay,” Sean said. “Ladies.”
He positioned Tabby and Jenny next to and between the boys. Carter and Sean tied them off.
“Hold on to them for good measure,” Sean said. Jenny held Holden’s hand and Tabitha held Grant.
Carter unraveled the last rope. “You better be right about this or you’ll have a lot of explaining to do, brother.”
Sean opened his mouth to answer, but he saw pine straw floating up from the ground like backward rain. It was almost beautiful in its terrifyingly surreal way. He thought about the falling grass on the playground. The dance has started. We’re too late.
Holden whispered. “Dad. The ground.”
“I see it.” Sean closed his fists in the loops of rope holding his family to the rock. “Carter, we’re out of time. Get over here and hold on.”
Carter took the end of the rope and ran around the back of the rock. “No, we can make it.”
Sean reached his free hand out toward him. “Carter, no, come back now.”
Tabitha screamed. “Carter? Sean, help him, please.”
All the limbs in the trees rose up as if reaching for the heavens. Flecks of dirt and sand blasted Sean’s eyes from the ground along with the backward rain of the pine straw. As Sean blinked, he saw a gray smear of water rising and twisting up above the lake spiraling into the sky. A couple boards from the dock flew up loose into view and then some of the uprooted, smaller trees. A boat shot up through the gray water spire. From the distance, Sean couldn’t even tell if it was from the same lake.
His feet picked up off the ground and lifted up into the air behind him. He clinched his fist tighter on the loops and felt his fingers, elbow, and shoulder strain with the upward force. This was more than floating. Sean felt he was being pulled toward the sky by some evil force.
Tabby screamed. “Carter.”
Sean saw the loose end of the rope rise past him. He was surprised it wasn’t already gone. He made a desperate grab and caught it as the rest of coils whipped out toward the sky. Sean realized he had been standing on it and holding it down until now.
The rope pulled taut and strained both of Sean’s arms until he cried out in pain.
Jenny was looking upward at the flying debris in the sky. Her hair stood straight up. She breathed. “Oh, no, Carter.”
Sean looked up and saw Carter dangling from the end of the rope holding on with both hands a hundred or more feet in the air.
“Carter, climb down here.” Sean yelled.
“I can’t,” Carter said. “It’s too strong. I can barely hold on.”
Sean saw both their cars twist into the sky in the distance behind Carter’s feet – Carter’s car and Jenny’s jeep. There was going to be trouble when gravity returned to normal. Sean realized he had to get Carter down before normal gravity returned and killed him.
The ground shook and two massive trees tore loose. They flew straight up with their entire root systems. One twisted as it left the ground and just barely missed clipping Carter in the air.
The ground split around other trees as they strained to pull loose.
Carter shouted. “I’m going to let go before I pull us both off, Sean. I’m sorry … about everything.”
“No,” Sean said. “Don’t let go. Trust me.”
“Help him,” Tabby said.
Sean rolled his arm around, hooking the rope around his elbow. It wretched his shoulder joint, but he gritted his teeth and rolled his arm again. With each motion, he coiled the rope around his arm pulling Carter down foot by excruciating foot.
“Keep going,” Jenny said.
“Great job, Dad!” Holden cheered.
“Hold on, Carter.” Tabitha called.
The mass of coil pulled at Sean’s weary arm as Carter came within a couple feet of the ground. Sean gave one hard pull and yanked Carter down. He grabbed Carter’s wrist, but had no strength left to pull him farther. The rope uncoiled from his arm and snaked up into the sky.
Carter climbed down Sean’s body and grabbed the loops of rope himself with one hand. He held around Sean’s shoulder with the other. “I owe you one, buddy.”
“That was true before the Earth turned upside down,” Sean said.
Weight returned and the men dropped to their knees next to the others. Carter and Sean heaved for breath.
“Thank God that’s over,” Carter said.
Grant said, “Hey, Dad, Carter says he’s going to marry Mommy.”
“We can talk about that later,” Carter said.
One of the cars slammed into the ground a few feet off to their right. Glass shattered and landed all around t
hem. Sean thought, must not have floated up as high as the rest of the debris.
A tree slammed onto the rock above them and shattered raining bark down on them.
Then, dirt, water, and pine straw rained down hard and painfully on and around them. It kept piling up.
Grant cried out. “It hurts,
Crater and Sean stood and covered the women and boys with their bodies as best they could. The fallout piled up around their knees and kept rising. The water turned it to mud and made it all heavy. Something large landed with a crash behind them, but Sean couldn’t see what it was.
We’re going to be buried alive after surviving all of this, he thought.
23
Michael Strove and Roman Nikitin – Russia
Michael opened his eyes and drew in a long, painful breath full of dust. He rose up dizzy with every bone in his body aching. The station was flattened and they would be dead had they gotten inside.
Roman wasn’t moving. Michael shook him and Roman opened his eyes. Michael helped him back up to kneeling.
Roman said, “I don’t suppose we can hope that was the last one, can we?”
“Who knows?”
Roman looked back at the flattened forest in the night. “Those tanks won’t be bothering us anymore.”
Michael looked back. The tanks in the downed forest and the jeeps on the road were a folded mess. He heard people screaming in pain.
“We need to help them,” Michael said.
Roman groaned. “Because that is what Brother Carter would do.”
“I think so, yes.”
“They might shoot you for your trouble, you know.”
“You didn’t,” Michael said.
“I didn’t have my gun, but I see your point, Captain Michael.” Roman nodded and tottered to his feet. Michael helped him. Roman continued. “The prisons are probably flattened.”
Michael led Roman down the hill toward the tanks and the crying voices. He said, “Good point. I’m sure with all this going on, the world has bigger concerns than old, Cold War rivalries.”
Roman said, “Yes, maybe, man. Or they might have you rebuild the prison yourself.”
“Let’s hope for peace and trust.” Michael said.
24
Sean, Carter, and family – Black Fork, Arkansas
Carter used his knife to cut the ropes. Sean dug with his hands. Together they pulled out Tabitha, Jenny, Holden, and Grant. The boys coughed and spit. Grant cried, but everyone was whole.
They climbed up onto the rock and looked out across the land. Most of the trees were uprooted or tilting. The lake was half full of water and debris floated over its surface in a dirty sludge. Smoke from what must have been distant fires rose black into the sky.
Holden pointed. “Dad, Uncle Carter, are you going to put those out?”
“Someone needs to,” Sean said.
“Can we ride the truck?” Grant asked and coughed shaking dust and twigs out of his hair.
“Maybe after your dad and I clean up a little, Buddy.” Carter jumped down and walked across the debris field. He swept straw and dirt away from the back of the car on its side until he could read the plate. Carter groaned. “I almost had it paid off too. No chance you are parked close by, is there, Sean?”
Sean shrugged. “I saw Jenny’s jeep go up in the air with yours. I’m not sure where it landed.”
“Maybe we should keep an eye on the sky,” Holden said.
Sean rubbed his hand over Holden’s head. Dust sprinkled out of it and Holden sneezed. Sean knelt down and hugged both boys. Jenny put her arm around Sean’s shoulder. Tabitha jumped down and fell into Carter’s arms. No one said anything for a while.
“What now?” Jenny asked.
Carter said, “We need to hike out. Find people.”
“You think anyone else survived?” Tabitha asked.
“People made it,” Sean said. “A lot of them need help, but that’s what we do, right?”
Holden took his father’s hand. “All of us. That’s what we all do.”
Carter looked at the sun and then pointed. “This is east and the direction of home. Let’s see what we can find.”
They all walked out of the wilderness together.
***
About the author:
John Freitas is an author of speculative fiction that lives in Southeast Texas. He has a background in electronics and computer science.
Other works:
The Quantum Brain
Oh Hell No!
The Quantum Brain Maximum Speed
On the web scifibookseries.com