Earthquake Games

by Bonnie Ramthun

  Joe forgot the pizza as he scanned the first of the Web sites that contained information on fault lines in the Mississippi Valley. The first site he’d chosen was the University of Missouri’s library system. There, a master’s thesis from a geology student was available. The title of the thesis unhinged Joe’s jaw and brought his hands limply into his lap. Eileen rolled over and read over his shoulder.

  “A Nation Split in Two; Ramifications of a New Madrid Fault Line Earthquake,” Eileen read aloud. She scanned the first few paragraphs.

  “Early in the morning on December 16, 1811, the residents of New Madrid, Missouri, were awakened by a sound like distant thunder. The thunder intensified, accompanied by a strange smell, like sulfur. Then the ground began to shake. The ground heaved wildly, floors cracked and broke apart, cabins fell into piles of lumber. Mixed with the sound of rumbling were sharp explosions and a loud whistling and hissing sound. For the sailors on the Mississippi River, the earthquake was even more deadly. Ancient trees shot from the bottom of the river and exploded from the surface. Whirlpools appeared and raced upriver, swallowing small and large craft alike. Banks along the river began to crumble and fall into the water. The very course of the mighty Mississippi River was changed.

  The New Madrid earthquake had begun. For a series of months, the Mississippi Valley was shaken by earthquakes that would measure today somewhere around 8.4 on the Richter scale. The tremors were felt in twenty-seven states, from Colorado to Virginia. Few people lost their lives because the Mississippi Valley was sparsely populated in 1811. Fewer than four thousand people lived in the whole region.

  In the beginning of the twenty-first century, we see a heavy population in the most fertile stretch of land in the world. From the industrial centers of Chicago, Illinois, and Gary, Indiana, to the port city of New Orleans, people live and work in blissful unawareness of the potential for cataclysm underneath their feet.”

  Eileen turned horror-filled eyes to Joe. He found that his hands were clenching hers too tightly and he forced himself to loosen them. He remembered what it was like, seeing Ralph Morrison bellowing in his Jockey shorts, feeling the earth writhe and crawl underneath him like a huge slug. Colorado’s was a baby earthquake, just a minute or so in duration, and Joe didn’t think he’d ever forget what it had felt like.

  “How big is this earthquake?” Eileen said, voicing his thoughts.

  “Let’s see,” he said, and they rolled together back to the laptop Frankenputer. He hit the replay button on his simulation and they watched the deadly squiggles appear along the Mississippi River.“Oh, my god,” Eileen said faintly.

  “Eight oh,” Joe said, leaning back in his chair. “Is that possible?”

  “When?” Eileen asked. Joe leaned forward again with a jerk, peering to read the numbers off the digital window.

  “Three days,” he said numbly.

  “No, this isn’t right,” Eileen said suddenly. “This has to be a mistake.”

  “What do you mean?” Joe asked. He couldn’t get his mind around the idea that an earthquake could—was going to—strike in three days that would leave millions of people dead. It just couldn’t be.

  “No, not that it shouldn’t happen,” Eileen said. “But it wouldn’t happen. If the government knew this, there would be massive National Guard call-ups. A few days are plenty of time to evacuate the towns around the Mississippi River. Hurricanes strike in less than a couple of days, and they evacuate everybody. No government agency—oh, shit.”

  “Oh, shit, what?” Joe said. Eileen was frozen, her eyes wide and empty. She was obviously rummaging for a memory and had turned herself inward. She blinked and her eyes focused. It was an eerie thing to watch. Joe had seen it several times. She reminded him of a robot when she did that. Eileen could abandon her body and go searching through her skull, as though her body were nothing more than a brain-support system and she’d left the controls for a few minutes.

  “I got it,” she said. “The guy, Jacob Mitchell. He’s Leetsdale’s boss, and he’s the FEMA director for the whole Rocky Mountain Region. FEMA mobilizes the National Guard in an emergency.”

  “No, that would be the state governors,” Joe said. “The National Guard is called out by the governor, not by the FEMA weenies. Besides, this earthquake isn’t the Rockies. This earthquake is in the Midwest. Wouldn’t that be a different FEMA?”

  “Oh, that’s right,” Eileen said, frowning. “And he only gets to take over the National Guard if there is an emergency. But he can’t do anything before. So—well, now I’m not sure what to think. Are we sure this earthquake will happen?”

  “Hey, no, we’re not,” Joe said. “Let’s check on the rest of the earthquakes that should have happened. If any of them didn’t happen, we can hope.”

  By the time the pizza arrived, they’d found two that were duds. Charlotte and Odetta were beautiful girls with enormous breasts, as Joe recalled, but they both contained earthquakes that hadn’t happened.

  “Oh, thank you,” Eileen breathed when Odetta refused to put out. Joe answered the door and paid the deliveryman and danced back to the study with the pizza box held high in the air. He spun around and around, doing a Snoopy dance of joy.

  “Beer, my woman?” he asked.

  “Just don’t call me ‘baby,’” Eileen growled.

  “Hey bay-bee, beer me and be quick about it. I won’t grant you the pleasures of my body later if you don’t hop to,” Joe grinned. Eileen narrowed her eyes at him and smiled dangerously, then fetched two beers and a pile of napkins as Joe piled cushions on the floor next to the coffee table and dug out the television remote. There was no need for utensils or plates. They dug in, and the food was glorious and the beer was fine and foamy and just right. And later, when she held his shoulders in the act of love and ground her face into his neck and muffled her cries against his skin, and when he shuddered and surrendered everything to her as he came, he knew that there was no more he wanted than this, ever.

  Then it was late, and she was picking up her clothes by moonlight, and he lay in bed and pretended to be asleep and felt the icepick of loneliness and fear digging into his guts and his heart. Why wouldn’t she stay? Why was she going? After the door clicked closed behind her, he turned over and dug his face into her pillow and the bed was too large and cold. Cold.

  15

  Westside, Colorado Springs, Colorado

  Eileen, wide awake, turned off her lights and cruised in darkness the last few blocks to her house. Despite what had happened the last time she cruised without lights, despite Teddy Shaw and everything he seemed to have brought down upon her, she still enjoyed the silence and the motion. It was very late, two thirty, and she tried to soothe herself with darkness. Why had she left Joe? What was so wrong about spending the night with him, many nights, a lifetime?

  Her small apartment building had no parking lot, so she pulled into an empty spot on the street two blocks from home. The night air was warm and fresh, and the stars filled the sky in the slice she could see between the trees that lined the street. She got out and stretched and tried to fake a yawn, keyed up as tight as a wire, trying to think of nothing at all and succeeding only in remembering Teddy Shaw. Damn. This night, like that one, was clear and beautiful and full of danger. There was a movement in the darkness.

  A man was walking toward her from her apartment building. He had a friendly stride and was not hurrying and had his hands bent at the elbows like he had them in his pockets, but he didn’t have them in his pockets. Eileen wasted no time peering at the man’s chest to see if he had a gun held flat to his chest, because she knew he did. She hurled her body into a rolling fall over the grassy lawn to her right and drew her pistol as she fell. He was settling into a full-armed firing position, quick as a snake, as she came up into her own firing position and it was luck, really, that she shot first. First, and only, because he was less than twenty feet away, and that was better than any dusty Western shoot-out at high noon. He flew backward just like Teddy
Shaw, and because she was using the heavier caliber Sig Sauer instead of her Ladysmith, she didn’t have time to take a second shot before he fell backward on the sidewalk. He bounced once and lay still.

  Eileen got to her feet, pistol held straight and steady, her mouth and throat filled with acid and dismay. She’d just killed another guy? She was going to have to see Gerri Matthews for years. Pete O’Brien was going to roast her like a Thanksgiving turkey. Captain Harben was going to be so angry—

  A pair of headlights flipped on like eyes coming open in the night. A car engine roared and tires squealed. Eileen took one eye blink to decide that she didn’t want to try to take on a car with an unknown number of occupants and guns. Her neighborhood contained a mixture of town houses and small apartment buildings. Lights were already clicking on in windows. The Sig Sauer was no Ladysmith; the sound of her shot was loud enough to wake people from their sleep. She clicked the safety on her pistol as she ran for the nearest fence. She reached the fence in five strides and scrambled up and over like a cat chased by a dog. Once over the fence, she ran straight for the back fence and scaled that one, too, taking out a pottery urn filled with flowers as she went and setting off a fusillade of barking dogs within the house. Two turns and she was behind the building and running along the carports, listening to a fading scream of engine and tires. The dogs barked for a few moments more, then settled down.

  Eileen realized she had no breath left. She was panting and trembling and hot. A tiny early morning breeze touched her cheeks and her sweat-soaked hair. It took almost more courage than she had to make the final turn back on to the street where her car was parked. Gun still in hand, ready for the car or another hurrying figure, she stood silently and listened. Nothing. The dogs had quieted and the night was silent. There were lights in several windows, and far in the distance Eileen could hear sirens. As soon as the police arrived, the awakened neighbors would venture out in bathrobes and slippers, but for now the street was silent and deserted.

  She walked carefully down the block, hugging the fence line and trying to avoid shrubs and more pottery. It would be just her luck to be shot by a homeowner right before she finally reached her Jeep and was safe. There was something missing. Eileen stood still and tried to calm her racing heart. What was it? She stood next to a bush that was heavy with late summer blossoms. The air was thick with the scent of roses.

  Then she had it. The body was gone. The man she’d shot. He was gone. She slithered as quickly as she could to the spot where she’d shot him, looking for the pool of blood that had to be there. There was no blood. The sidewalk was clear. Eileen stood with her mouth open, staring at the ground. This wasn’t possible. She pulled the clip from her gun and felt the cartridge weight. She’d shot a round. There was no way she’d imagined this. She’d hit that man in his chest and had seen him bounce backwards onto the sidewalk. But there was nothing there.

  She turned and walked back to her Jeep. Her skin started to crawl with goose bumps as she fumbled out her cell phone and called in. Whatever she’d shot, it wasn’t human. It was a dark man-shape, and it walked like a man, but it hadn’t been a man. She waited for the patrol to come to make the night less hugely empty and menacing, to give her company, and she started to shake.

  Briargate Subdivision, Colorado Springs, Colorado

  Joe awoke when the door opened, and knew it was Eileen even before she called his name. The blinds that covered his bedroom window glowed with the approach of dawn.

  “Come to bed,” he said. He turned over and opened the comforter after she’d hurriedly stripped off her clothing. She put her knee on the mattress, and he asked no questions as she swarmed in next to him. She was naked, and her skin was cold, and she smelled funny. Like she’d been lighting off firecrackers. She shivered against him for a few minutes. He was already mostly asleep, happy that she was there, but knowing without asking that this wasn’t what he wanted and needed. She was there for some other reason than love. Whatever. She was with him.

  Alamosa, Colorado

  Marcia spotted Alan Baxter as he left the Daylight Donuts shop, his arms full of fragrant donuts. She was waiting in the line that snaked out the door. The Rabble was here, and they were hungry. It was six o’clock and the morning sun had just sprung over the mountains to the east. A huge mountain stood like a sentinel at the end of the Sangre de Cristo Mountain Range, its snowy peak catching the sun rays—Blanca Peak, one of Colorado’s famous fourteeners and a tough one to summit. Marcia was looking at the staggering view and observing the line of Rabble at the same time. Alan Baxter saw her at the same time she saw him.

  “H’lo, Miss Fowler,” he said, stopping.

  “Good morning,” Marcia said, smiling too widely in return and cursing herself internally. He was damn good-looking, but she was far beyond reacting to a good-looking face. “Picking up some donuts for your friends?”

  “Yeah, you too?” Alan asked, shifting the boxes to one arm so he could dig out a set of car keys with the other. Marcia got a good waft of chocolate and hoped there would still be some chocolate donuts left when she got to the counter.

  “Me, too,” Marcia said, which was not precisely true. There was going to be a very quiet MUFON meeting at the Alamosa County Library this morning. Robert Carter had reserved a room yesterday and the morning’s breakfast selections were going to include donuts, coffee, and Marcia Fowler. She was incredibly nervous about the meeting. Some of these people had dedicated their lives and fortunes to the paranormal, and she had no illusions about the grilling she was going to receive. She hoped the gift of donuts would help. That, and MUFON members were generally very nice people. Tough, but not mean.

  “This is amazing, isn’t it?” Alan said quietly. He didn’t cut his eyes toward the slow-moving line and didn’t have to. The Daylight Donuts sat on the highway that ran through Alamosa and the street was lined with vans festooned with colorful logos and radar dishes. There was even an enormous RV parked along the street with a forest of dishes and antennas growing from the top like weird hair. Kim’s Place, the diner where Marcia had breakfast and saw Daniel Grantham, had a line out the door nearly as long as the one at the Daylight Donuts.

  There were people in the streets, even this early, people with avid looks on their faces, searching looks. People who were attracted to trouble like moths to a light. Some of those people were paid for what they did; television reporters and camera crews and print journalists. Quite a few of those types were waiting patiently in the lines at Kim’s Place or for morning donuts. Marcia had already abandoned the idea of trying for a latte.

  “Can we get together later today?” she asked him quietly, breathing a sigh of relief when he stepped sideways so she could keep her place in line. “There’s some things I think you need to know.”

  “Not today,” Alan said, his brow furrowing. “I’m going up to Colorado Springs to work on something up there. Maybe tonight? Tomorrow morning?”

  “You’re working on something?” Marcia asked, and could feel a flush climbing in her cheeks. She wanted to leap forward and grab him by his nicely pressed shirt lapels. He knew something, he did!

  “Maybe,” Alan said quietly, and took another step sideways with her. Now his own face looked flushed, across the nose and cheeks. “And you?”

  Marcia nodded, and then she couldn’t help it—she cast her eyes left and right. She was terrible at this spy business. Alan stepped forward immediately and bent his head down next to hers, as though he might give her a kiss. She caught a clear whiff of Dial soap and some light shampoo and ruthlessly stomped on her interior girl.

  “Looks like human, not alien,” she whispered, barely moving her lips. “Daniel Grantham thinks he might find his victims out in the dunes. They lost two hikers there five years ago, young women, never found.”

  Alan stepped back and nodded with interest, as though she’d told him nothing more important than the cheapest place to gas up his automobile. There was so much Marcia wanted to tell him, but sh
e couldn’t say anything here. For all she knew the murderer was the broad back of the man in front of her, stolidly waiting his chance at the chocolate donuts.

  “We’ll get together tonight,” Alan said casually, but his eyes were blazing and intent. “Do you have a phone number where I can reach you?”

  “Sure,” Marcia said brightly, and dug her address book out of her purse. She quickly copied Daniel’s number to a blank page at the back. She ripped the page out and felt her face grow terribly hot and flushed. She couldn’t help it. It looked like a pickup.

  Alan suddenly grinned at her, understanding. He dropped a broad wink at her and tucked her phone number into his back pocket with a satisfied little gesture that telegraphed to anyone watching that he was putting a “hot score” right into his pocket. Marcia giggled a little and put her hand up to her mouth, and she wasn’t acting. She was a terrible actor. She couldn’t help the giggle any more than she could help smelling the fresh scent of his skin. She couldn’t help her wrinkles and her gray hair and the funny saggy places at her knees and elbows, and she couldn’t help that what lived within her aging body was eternally dancing and light and young.

  She remembered Krista Lewis the same time he did, she saw. His face drooped and he nodded and turned away without another word. She watched him go, and shuffled forward another pace in line, and tried to stiffen herself against a wave of loss and despair. Krista Lewis never had a chance to feel like this, a young thing somehow caught in an old body. After a while, Marcia convinced herself that Krista was the one to be pitied.

  Special Investigations Bureau, Colorado Springs, Colorado

  “You’re not crazy,” Rosen said economically as Eileen approached her desk. He was working on a report, and the remains of a lunch salad sat next to his terminal. The office roared with afternoon business. She sat in her chair and uncapped her latte. Her watch said twelve thirty. She’d slept through the morning with Joe, who had happily lazed in bed next to her. When she woke she found he’d sneaked a book into bed and was reading it quietly. It was titled Earthquake, and the cover screamed in lurid tones of red and orange. Joe’s library of books was amazing. He picked up hardbacks at garage sales and used bookstores and piled them into bookshelves he’d built everywhere in his house. His choices were random and sometimes based on nothing more than the size of the book, or the color of the cover, or the good condition of the dust cover.