by James Kiehle
“Jesus,” Russell said aloud. “Holy—”
An instant later, a sharp crack split the air and hurt his ears. A fast-moving, deep rumble rolled past and through him, so strongly that it jarred his bones. As the roar reached its full intensity, the ground shook.
Russ watched the air waver as a mirage from the mountains to the rolling hills to the east. A fast wind abruptly kicked up; its hot, sharp breath blew by him and down the valley, carrying bits of the Earth to someplace new. Russ was knocked over, either by the boom, the hard wind, or simple sheer panic.
His van bounced up and down like a low-rider, the alarm screaming in his stead as Russ lay on the gravel, gasping for air. The sound stopped and the vehicle rested.
The world was silent.
•
On the Oahu Queen now steaming away from Honolulu, Judy and Iris joined nearly everyone else on the aft-port side to say goodbye to the island. Far off, still on the pier, were those left behind, most of them crying, some pleading, many on their knees, all of them frightened.
The ship backed away, then wheeled around while Judy, Iris and others moved to new positions to keep their view. The dock eventually became small, the skyline flat, as they powered back towards the mainland. The view in any direction was ocean.
They stood against the railing, watching the land recede and the sun begin to set. Judy realized that in an odd way it was the first time she had actually felt in any way relaxed since the vacation began.
“What are you thinking about, Mom?”
“I was just thinking that we made it, Iris,” she said. “We’re off the island. We’re on our way home. Would that be homeizing?”
“I’ve decided I need to be more serious,” Iris said. “I’m going to stop languagizing. It’s stupid.”
“I thought it was cute,” Judy said and tousled her daughter’s already wind-blown hair.
“I thought you said it was annoying?”
Judy kissed her daughter’s head. “Yeah, well, that, too.”
A slight wind came up and some hairs caught in Iris’s mouth. “There’s a lot of water to cross, mother; we could still drown,” she said, returning to pre-vacation form—doom and gloom with a side of pout.
Judy held her shoulder and started walking them inside.
“Look on the bright side, honey,” Judy said.
“You and your bright sides,” Iris said. “What?”
“At least we won’t crash into a mountain.”
•
Russ staggered back to his feet and over to his door but the van was locked. He pressed the remote button to unlock it, but nothing happened. Although still disoriented and shaking, Russ realized that the bomb’s electromagnetic pulse must have interfered with his electrical system. He manually unlocked the door, popped the hood, lifted the battery cables and reattached them, then climbed back into the cab and tried the engine. To his surprise, it kicked over.
His body still shook uncontrollably, he could barely govern his trembling hands, but managed to switch on a battery-operated radio and heard only a symphony of static. Russell moved the dial around, trying vainly to pick up other stations and finally got a very weak signal from Spokane.
A scratchy male newscaster’s voice broke as he read the news.
“—missiles with nuclear warheads have—”
Suddenly that signal was gone, too, replaced by silence. Russ placed his head in his hands and leaned against the steering wheel, holding back tears.
Other cars had stopped, their engines off. Some people had stumbled outside and watched the huge clouds reach skyward on the horizon but Russell had a far greater fear than fallout.
Floods from waters built up behind the Ice Shelf could break free.
Then: Shit, shit, shit.
24. The High Window
The scientists were as high as they could get.
Mt. Cochiti, home to Ben Cage’s observatory, rose 8,279 feet above sea level and the five of them had climbed to its apex. In one direction, Santa Fe; the other, Albuquerque. If not precisely centered between them, it was close.
Ben passed the joint. They all smoked.
Even seriously serious Davis Cass, who was in his sixties, puffed away. Cass had been at the observatory since it opened for business in 1972, back when pot was about as strong as oregano.
This stuff came from Thailand.
“Good ganga,” Pinkie coughed. “Totally toasted.”
“Time to put on the goggles,” Dutch Sparks said, feeling for his set perched on top of his head. “Get a fresh perspective.”
“Ten-four, good buddy,” Pinkie agreed. “Turn on the Nukes of Hazard.”
Ben thought those two were having an affair. Pinkie and Dutch were the most unlikely meteoricists—listening to The Birthday Massacre and Rammstein at levels to kill birds, talking with too much off-the-cuff patter and generally posing as eternally hip, ahead of the curve by light years dilettantes—yeah, they were hiding the salami together.
Theirs was neither the speech nor behavior of many in Ben’s wing of the sciences, but those guys probably wished they were Pinkie and Dutch. They might even get dates if they made some changes; preen and wear pink.
“Sight line’s clear. My eyeballs are trained to Santa Fe. Let’s rock it,” Dutch said.
As they slipped on the tinted masks, Edwin Dark said, “Not that it matters. We’ll all be dead in a few minutes. These lenses won’t protect our sight.”
“Thank you, Dr. Happy Face,” Pinkie said.
Davis Cass said, “We might not die; we might just get really really really really hot.” He began to chuckle. No one had ever heard Cass actually laugh, though someone said he smiled in 1992.
“Countdown to oblivion,” Pinkie said, expelling the smoke. “I’m feelin’ it. We’re goin’ down, motherfuckers. Face first and blasted.”
“Aren’t you at all concerned?” Edwin asked incredulously.
“About what?”
“About that, in very little time, we’ll be super microwaved overcooked pieces of meat and bone and melted stuff, probably baked at twenty million degrees kelvin.”
“Oh, not more than sixteen million tops,” Ben said. “Sixteen-point-two-six-nine-four-eight would probably be the outside. We’re cool.”
Pinkie laughed out smoke.
“From here? It’s sixty miles to Santa Fe, maybe forty-two and change to Albie. Where is Los Alamos?”
“In New Mexico,” Davis said seriously, pointing, “Over yonder.”
“What a dope,” Pinkie said. “We’re in New Mexico.”
Ben said, “We have glasses. We’ll survive. We may get a nasty flashburn though.”
“Post Toasties,” Dutch added.
Pinkie laughed with her hands on her ribs, rolling on the dirt, while Dutch kind of burped a laugh with smoke pouring out like an old train. He seemed even higher than Pinkie was but with Ben and Edwin Dark, you could never tell.
“Ray-di-a-tion? Jingle any bells?” Dark, said, disgusted. “Feel the wind. It’s coming from the east, southeast. We are not going to make it.”
Dutch put a hard hand on his shoulder.
“Dude, I think it’ll be a hell of a show,” he said. Sparks looked like a stoner/surfer, but his cosmic impact measurements had been spot on, so neither Ben nor Edwin had a problem with him, professionally.
“Go out with a big bang,” Cass offered. “Like in the beginning. Let there be light.”
“Called that one, Tonto,” Pinkie said, fist bumping. “Called that close.”
Ben was quiet a moment, then said, “Did you know Tonto means ‘idiot’ in Spanish?”
Pinkie stared at him. “No shit? You speak Spic?” she asked, cracking Dutch and Davis up.
“Si, un poco,” Ben nodded, oblivious.
“So what does ‘Kimosabe’ mean?” Pinkie asked, laying her head on Ben’s shoulder.
“Faithful friend.”
Pinkie said, “Learn something new every day. I thought it meant stu
pid white motherfucker.”
Some laughed until tears rolled.
•
The woman’s eyes opened. She blinked. Nothing was familiar.
Sprawled on the floor, she tried to figure out where she was. Her view was skewed, the wall at an angle. She sat up and found that her head hurt like hell. She looked around. Below her a white tile floor with bad grout. There was a partial ceiling above her, though most of it yawned open like a big wind storm had ripped part of it away, leaving a view of clouds. There were stalls in front of her and sinks on the wall behind, parts of them anyway. The place, whatever it was, looked destroyed.
Public rest room?
She struggled to her knees and then to her feet, using the sink as a stabilizer. Her head felt like Indians were conducting a war dance inside her brain. And then she wondered: Is that the right term? Indians? Don’t they go by something else these days? Savages? No, that wasn’t it. Natives?
She had no idea.
Woozy, she turned on the water and some trickled out before it stopped. She sort of washed her face, then somehow found the paper towel dispenser on the floor and dried off. She looked in the mirror, surprised by her own reflection.
She had no idea who she was seeing.
A stranger, an impostor.
She was blonde, pretty hair. Nice haircut, too. Were there roots? No. Just shadows.
She inspected her face. Pleasant looking, she decided, but no movie star. Slightly round shape, but with pretty brown eyes and all her teeth. In fact, if nothing else, she had a great smile. She tested it. Nice.
That was something, anyway.
A fabulous smile.
Then her body. Hmmm, a little baby fat but otherwise pretty decent, semi-toned. Flat belly. Those hips could use some work though. Legs were fairly long, though she was not particularly tall. Five-six maybe?
So now she had a face and a body, but did she have a mind?
She couldn’t remember a damn thing.
The blonde thought: Who the hell am I?
•
The scientists stared at the electric glow of the city far away, otherwise bathed in darkness.
“What do you figure? Two minutes?” Edwin asked.
“Less,” Pinkie said. “Any time now.”
“Taking bets?” Dutch asked. Everyone looked at him. “For reals.”
Pinkie smirked, reached for her purse, “I believe I have one hundred and eighty dollars to my name. I’ll risk it all on ninety seconds.”
“I’m in for two minutes,” Dark said, counted out money and tossed it between them. “I’ve worked it all out.”
“I’m not betting,” Cass said. “I’m behind on my mortgage.”
“Oh, yeah, like that matters now,” Pinkie laughed. “Go for it.”
“I’m down for one minute,” Dutch bid. “Starting at my mark, after Cage declares his time.”
Ben raised his goggles and let them rest on his forehead.
“Twelve minutes,” Cage said, and all of them mocked him.
“You’re a moron,” Pinkie laughed. Her eyes were opaque and dreamy. “Your science is whack.”
“You do not understand mathematics,” Edwin Dark told Ben. “Launch plus distance equals ka-bloo-ie. Put on your glasses.”
“Listen to the man,” Cass chimed in. “Safety first.”
Ben was annoyed but tried to hide it. How dare they question his calculation, even if it was bullshit. “I will at eleven minutes. A full sixty seconds behind the glass; that should save my eyeballs.”
“Awww, don’t be a sour pussy.” Pinkie, relentless, liked stirring the hive. “Big, strong African-American manly man like you just wants to collect from us uppity Caucasians, right? The prospect of winning a bet against a cute little white girl excites you, yes yes yes? Tell you what, Puffybear, if you win, if we survive, you can start that watermelon farm you always wanted. Am I hitting the mark, professor time clock? Put on the fucking glasses.”
Cage found he was attracted to Pinkie Moreland— funny when she was high, mean as a puma. Ben loved moxie and smart-ass comments by girls. Humiliation by this pixie at the end of days was a hysterical bonus.
“The mountain we are standing on? Cochiti? It means “watermelon’ in Spanish,” Cage informed them, lying, testing, having fun. He was well aware that Sandia was Spanish for ‘watermelon’. Cochiti was the name of a town in Kentucky; no one knew the origin of the name.
“Might have been Indian,” Cass, highest of all, added. “Might have been—something else. I don’t know. What am I talking about?”
Pinkie Moreland gave him a wry smile. “I sit corrected, apologizing up one side, down the other. Mea culpa. Mea culpa.”
Ben said, “Start your countdown.”
•
An hour out of Honolulu, Chinese missiles struck the island.
On the Oahu Queen, Judy heard explosions. Though they were too far away to actually see anything but a sharp light, she heard the radio.
“…reports have confirmed that the Pentagon has tracked fifty-eight launches from mainland China and two from North Korea. For more we go to —”
Iris’s body began to vibrate like she was suffering from hypothermia. Judy wrapped her in whatever was handy and held her tightly, their heads buried against their shoulders, holding back the rawest of emotions.
“In other news, scientists are concerned that the meteor blast in Canada will cause the Ice Shelf to collapse…”
Roger Lind found the girls in a corner of the main deck, huddled up on a bench. He made his way to them through the swarm, knelt on one knee and beamed a Crest commercial. “You guys okay? Get you anything?”
“No, we’re good,” Judy smiled, demure and flirty, this not seen by a petulant Iris, who curled closer to her mom’s shoulder either like a shy three-year-old or a suspicious teen.
Roger said, “Okay, I have to check in on my brother, Arnold’s family. See you guys for dinner? We’re serving seafood,” and touched Judy’s knee an instant too long—she removed his hand, but she wanted to hold it.
“Maybe so,” Judy said, and watched Roger disappear into the crowd and down a corridor.
Outside, a sharp flash filled the sky with colorless light; only their tucked positions kept them from ending up blinded, as others were. The panicked sounds from people in the room were chilling, relentless. Afraid to look up, Iris mumbled something but her words were drowned out by the ear-deafening sound of an atomic blast wave that rocked the ship with its force, battering them almost senseless. As soon as it passed, another bright light, then another, until the flashes were too numerous to count, followed not long after by an accumulated blast wave that rocked them from side to side and almost tipped the ship over. On the ship’s return to upright, waves cascaded over the deck and into the cabins, washing some people overboard, sending everything flying.
Hugging tightly, Iris and Judy were knocked off the couch, falling or flying all the way to the far wall—they slammed into it, only to be tossed the opposite way on the righting of the ship. Waves crashed in. Sopping wet, with big bruises sure to develop body-wide and mar their normally silky-skin shells, they were not—thank Christ—among the injured.
Judy called out, “Is anyone here a doctor? Or a nurse? We need some help. Is there a vet here?”
Her words had little effect. Amid the moans and screams and cries, everyone was absolutely in a daze or injured or in shock. No one talked until a man from another room called out.
“I’m a doctor, I’ll be there in a moment.”
Judy turned to the crowd and asked, “Has anyone ever watched Grey’s Anatomy or House?” and was amazed when people tentatively raised their hands. “Okay, we’ll form a triage. Know what that is? Figure out who needs the most help. You—sort the injured by type. You—find clean blankets and towels and any first aid stuff. I don’t know if any more bombs are going to go off, so don’t look out the windows.”
No one moved, so she yelled “STAT” and off they went.<
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•
It could be argued that late Pleistocene-era glacial meltdown of Lake Missoula 15,000 years ago, the so-called Missoula Flood, was dwarfed by the current Ice Shelf catastrophe in Canada. This monster exceeded all expectations, though no one actually knew about it. Witnesses near to the event were killed instantly. The meteor had melted half the ice, turned it into steam or water and the front end of the ice wall had cracked.
Still, the collapse of the Ice Shelf would have impressed any of the scientists, newsmen, volunteers and workers at the base camp below the wall had they not been drowned or crushed when it collapsed.
Once the waters began to trickle through the weakened middle, the sheer weight of the freezing water behind the Shelf was unleashed and nothing could stop the holding wall from crumbling, emancipating the backed up waters from far to the north, sending it barreling through British Columbia, into Washington state, still moving. The volume (more than the rivers of the western hemisphere combined—twice) and flow speed (eighty-five miles per hour) were unheard of, and the devastation the flood caused was unparalleled.
It literally changed the world.
It formed the New Sea.
25. Saving Grace
At the White House just before the attack—mad house. Professional people became just everyday people, but also over-sized, frightened children.
The president, his family, and most of the senior and cabinet-level leaders had been ushered away from ground-level-slash-zero and were descending ten floors in a hospital-style Otis Gen2 coated-steel, flat-belt elevator large enough to hold mideast peace talks that would take them far below the surface to a secret underground train; from there shuttled to a bunker miles away. This fail-safe had been quietly built in the early 1980s under Reagan, updated under Obama, and was considered a super-hardened nuclear shelter from stem to stern, White House to the bunker.
“We’ll all be safe soon,” the president assured them. “We’ll get out of this alive.”
Above them, a wave of horrifying explosions; the elevator rattled and creaked and shook as if in an earthquake. The metal parts screamed angry protests.