by Dean M. Cole
Sandy nodded. "More like tens of millions." Remembering the San Francisco teddybear, she shivered. "It's bad, Bobby, really bad."
"Hell, Sandy, I've been a cop for thirty years. Thought I'd seen everything, but I've never seen anything like this shit."
"Yeah, I still don't understand what happened to everybody. The way it left the empty piles of clothes is almost worse than finding a body."
Bobby shook his head. "No, hun. It's not the empty clothes I'm talking about." He pointed up the street, beyond the line of police cars. "Once you see that crap, you'll wish empty clothes were all you'd seen."
"What?" Sandy said. Her heart pounded with renewed fear. Her parent's home lay less than a mile in the direction he was pointing. "What is it? Are my parents okay?"
"Your parents?" He looked confused for a moment, then comprehension filled his eyes. "Oh, they should be fine. We've had a few reports of broken windows, even some structural damage. Shit, one wacko claimed a giant rock fell from the sky. I wouldn't worry too much, though." Shifting his arms, he pointed east and west. "They're not along the line."
It was Sandy's turn to be confused. "Line?"
"You don't know?"
She shook her head. "I'm supposed to find out how far the weapon reached." Sandy pointed at a pink and white jogging outfit sprawled ahead of a pair of pink trimmed white sneakers. "But, so far it hasn't even tapered off."
Bobby shook his head. "It doesn't."
"It doesn't what?"
"Taper off."
"What do you mean?"
He shook his head again. "It's best you see for yourself." Gesturing for Sandy to follow, he turned toward the line of police cars. Passing between the two closest at a fast pace, he continued talking. "It took us a while to figure out what happened. Hell, I still don't understand it or what exactly it was. At first, we thought the aliens had nuked us." He pointed at the Starbucks they were approaching. "But, there's no amount of radiation that could do this."
Studying the scene, Sandy saw nothing unusual—at least under the revised definition the day's events lent the word. Like misplaced dirty laundry, a man's suit, draped half in the doorway, laid in a drying latte puddle. Lying where the vaporized hand had dropped it, an empty paper cup rolled back and forth in the morning breeze.
Being careful not to step on the articles, Bobby opened the coffee shop's front door and waved for Sandy to enter.
She stepped over the black suit. "I agree. It can't be radiation, not the kind nukes put out, anyway." Looking at the suit's yellow tie, she pointed down. "But, this is the same thing I've seen since—" Sandy stopped mid-sentence as the rank stench of raw death assaulted her senses. "Oh my god!" It was a smell she hadn't encountered since a particularly bad day in Afghanistan. Holding a hand over her nose and mouth, she retched involuntarily.
Wide-eyed, Sandy looked around the shop's interior. A local artist's flowery offerings hung on one wall. An easel near the door held a small blackboard. A rainbow of chalks spelled out the day's specials.
In colors forming a sickening parody of those adorning the chalkboard, intestines and various other spilled organs traced lines across the floor where they'd run from the middle of a line of bisected bodies. It appeared the weapon had maintained full strength up to its periphery. Unfortunately, the line to wait for service paralleled the weapon effect's outer circumference.
A mix of suits, both athletic and business, formed a fifteen-foot line from east to west. Still partially filled with half-vaporized remains, they laid in uneven mounds. No longer contained by abdominal walls, the innards of many victims had spilled across the coffee shop's floor.
Lying on the tiles behind an empty dress-suit, the front half of a head was all that remained of one customer. Like a swimmer emerging from the depths, a woman's agony contorted face sat in a crimson halo of blood. Her glazed-over dead eyes glared at the ceiling. The lady apparently kept her dark brown hair pulled back in a ponytail. However, missing its back half, every strand ended at exactly the same point. No longer held tight to the skull, the blood tipped hair blossomed like an inverted flower, ringing the face in a mane-like mushroom cap.
Sandy looked at Bobby. "This continues east and west?"
"As far as we've checked, anybody that was clear of the line lived." He pointed to her side and shook his head. "On or inside it … not so much."
Chewing on her lower lip, Sandy nodded. Silently, she scanned the scene. Relief granted by the knowledge that her parent's home lay outside the line brought its own guilt. Wondering if this was what Jake had found in Maryland, she multiplied Pi times the two hundred mile diameter of the weapon's effective range. A quick estimate told her its boundary cut a three hundred mile arc of carnage across the state. Crossing the beach just south of where Carmel Valley met the ocean, she envisioned the curving line running a hundred miles inland before bending back to rejoin the coast the same distance north of San Francisco, probably around Anchor Bay.
A detail she'd missed earlier drew Sandy out of her thoughts. Conspicuous against the ubiquitous arterial blood streaks littering the scene, one trail led from a gap in the customer queue and out the adjacent exit. Sandy pointed at it. "It looks like there's a missing body."
Grimacing, Bobby pointed through the side door. "That was Hank Stewart. Told me, he'd been grabbing a sandwich out of the cooler when it hit. It's a sad day when you count a man lucky for only losing a left hand and part of his ass."
"Where is he?"
"He's headed to the hospital. Farther down the line, we found a couple of people with similar injuries. I packed all three of them into an ambulance. We were going to send them into Monterey, but couldn't raise anybody on the phone. I was worried they'd been hit too. Guess we know for sure now. Anyway, they went south to the ER over in Templeton."
"How many more did you find like this?"
"Not many. Most people were either on one side or the other. Several couples were separated … permanently." He shook his head. "I don't mind telling you, if I never see this morning's heartache again, it'll be too soon."
Sandy considered the long arcing trail of carnage. "I hope they can get in."
"Huh? Who?"
"Hank and the others." She pointed east and then curved her hand north. "This continues on for at least three hundred miles. You might as well write-off all the hospitals in there. So, that means every hospital within driving distance of the line is probably being overrun."
Bobby looked dejected. "Oh shit."
Sandy stepped to the portly older man and hugged him. "Hey, you did the right thing. Hell, it was the only thing you could do, and you probably sent them in the right direction sooner than most."
As he opened his mouth to reply a new voice crackled to life. Mid-sentence, an anchorman's live image chased away the static test pattern displayed by the cafe's sole television. "…much of that area was devastated by an apparent low altitude nuclear engagement."
Sandy and Bobby exchanged nervous glances.
The talking head continued. "Not much information has come from the area since the explosion. However, this video just came in. Reportedly, it came from the Chesapeake Bay area. As you know, we've received several reports of a large section of the ship rising from the bay. We cannot confirm the authenticity of this video, but it does match the descriptions we've received." As he spoke, a grainy video replaced the anchorman. Apparently filmed with a camera phone, the image shook unsteadily. In the foreground, tree-covered hills sloped toward a distant body of water that Sandy guessed was Chesapeake Bay. Churning sea fog obscured the bay's far bank. As if whipped by a hurricane, the waters closer to the near shore churned with mad intensity.
The scene reminded Sandy of the damage wrought by the massive waves that rushed inland after Japan's tragic 2011 earthquake. She stared in shocked horror at the near shoreline. It looked like a massive tsunami had stripped the land. From the water's edge to a line a few hundred feet up the hills, a colorless band of exposed soil stretched the f
ull width of the image. The foreground's lush green hills contrasted sharply against the long gray pile of splintered trees, unidentifiable debris, and chunks of buildings marking the farthest uphill reaches of the tsunami's devastation.
New movement over the far side of the bay drew her attention from the hillside's devastation. The churning fog obscuring those waters bulged upward and darkened. The activity ebbed for a moment. Then a solid black mass broke the fog's surface. Initially, it looked like a basalt rock formation was growing from the bay's floor. The ebony mass slid inexorably from the fog. It soon became obvious that most, if not all of it, had been below the surface. Its height above the cloudbank far exceeded the fog's thickness and still more slid into view.
Sandy's suspicions proved correct when the nostril slits came into view. A massive shattered alien face broke the fog's surface. White wisps clung to the slowly rising scaled face. Tendrils of vapor streamed from the slits and its reptilian eyes. Oriented toward the camera, the charred and back-tilted head appeared to glare down on the observer, its horrible human trophy still clamped firmly in its jaw.
Rising slowly, the massive alien visage clawed its way into the sky. Its swept back horn-like ears dragged streamers of fog into the clear blue atmosphere. Then, under tremendous acceleration, the ship exploded skyward. While it wasn't the physics-defying instantaneous velocity change described by Jake, it was shocking nonetheless. In seconds, a conical supersonic shockwave haloed the face's advancing front as brute power shoved the non-aerodynamic chiseled asteroid through the speed of sound. The resultant sonic blast knocked the observer onto his back, blue sky filling the picture. The trees in the image's periphery rocked violently. Many surrendered to the shockwave, falling away. The top of a downslope tree flashed into the image, slamming down only a few feet to the observer's right. The video blurred and then cut out.
Slack-jawed, Bobby turned to her. "What the hell was that?"
"One of the alien ships that attacked us today. Well … part of one anyway."
He pointed at the TV. "That thing was huge!"
Sandy nodded. "And, that was the smallest part of it."
"Holy shit…" Bobby said under his breath.
Sandy touched the shocked man's arm. "Uncle Bobby, I need to get going."
Dragging his eyes from the frozen image of the sculpted alien head, he turned back to Sandy and hugged her. "Thanks, hun." Stepping back, he nodded toward the north. "Based on what you've seen between here and Monterey, I'm going to send my boys back to their families." Then, he placed both hands on her shoulders and gave her a meaningful look. "You found what you told your general you were looking for. Now, go do what you really came here to do. Make sure your parents are okay."
Sandy opened her mouth to protest her innocence. She had another viable reason to visit her parents. She also thought about warning him about the looters, but they'd been pretty far northeast of here. Considering the day's events, his men needed to be with their families more than they needed to guard the dead-zone. She closed her mouth and smiled. "Thanks, Uncle Bobby."
***
As Sandy guided the Hummer around Ford Street's last corner, she glimpsed her parent's small neighborhood. Something massive obscured the view of their end of the block.
"Oh, no…" she gasped.
The size of a four-story office building, a smoking boulder sat across the road. Most homes still stood on the left side of the street, although two appeared to have been crushed under a wall of heavy earth. On Sandy's right, several houses along the west side of the road had disappeared under the rock and displaced earth. Like a tsunami frozen in mid-break, the heaved soil formed a steep embankment around the asteroid. In front of her, the road curled up the face of the wave. The right half of the pavement had folded back on itself, leaving a large slab of road laying upside down at the wave's base. Like a finger pointing skyward, the left side of the street jutted ten feet into the open air above the crater's rim.
The mounded soil and smoking asteroid blocked the line of sight to her parent's home. Sandy sincerely hoped the width of the mountainous rock exceeded its depth. Otherwise, there wouldn't be anything left of them or their house. She didn't want to think what horror awaited discovery if the destruction extended as far behind the crater rim as it did from her left to right.
Sandy slowed the Hummer as it neared the area where the road curved up the leading edge of heaved earth like a ski jump. The horrific scene uncle Bobby had shown her had been deeply disturbing, but it had also cracked opened the door of hope. Now, the giant boulder towering over her slammed it shut.
As it approached the near side of the crater, the Hummer started up the ramped pavement. Sandy stopped the vehicle and killed its engine. To her left and right, a few people with minor injuries milled about in shock. Otherwise, the street was eerily silent.
In the homes still standing, every window appeared to have been blown out. On the rim's right edge, a disconnected chunk of roof-gable lay on its side. Sandy recognized the metal rooster-shaped weather vane jutting sideways from its peak. Since childhood, she had used it to judge the wind direction. Visible from her backyard, the rooster-clad gable had been on the back of their next-door neighbor's house. The home belonged to her parent's best friends, Jim and Betty Sanderlin.
There was no way around the mound. Earth, homes, and disassociated chunks of both blocked her on each side of the street. She stepped from the vehicle. Again, the surreal silence of the scene struck Sandy. Not for the first time, she felt as if she'd stepped into a nightmare.
A startled jolt ran through her entire body as a frail feminine voice came from immediately behind her. "Sandy?"
She spun around. "Momma!" Throwing her arms around the slight woman, Sandy hugged her trembling mother tightly. "Oh, thank god you're all right! I've been so worried about you and Daddy."
The shuddering increased at the mention of Sandy's father. The reaction stoked the fires of dread. Pulling back, Sandy placed both hands on her mother's shoulders. She stared into her mom's blue eyes. Like the walking wounded, she too had numerous cuts and abrasions. From her left temple to her jawline, a long, shallow cut ran across her left cheek. As if she'd been hung upside down, a trickle of dried blood ran upward from each auditory canal, ending in small crusty puddles at the top of her ears. Careful to avoid the injured area, Sandy ran her fingers through the silver highlights of her mom's blond mane. The similarity of facial features and hair always made Sandy feel as if she were staring into a time-shifted reflection. "What happened, Momma?"
"I don't know, honey." A confused look filled her face. "The last thing I remember is being in my truck."
"Your truck? Where? Was Daddy with you?"
"No, he never wakes that early. I was heading to my yoga class."
"I don't understand," Sandy said as she searched the road. "Where's your truck? How did you get back here?"
"I never made it off the street. I remember pulling out of the driveway and starting up the road." She paused, rubbing her head. "I heard a huge rushing sound…" Her voice trailed-off, a confused look clouding her face.
"Then what happened?" Sandy prompted.
She shook her head. "I don't remember anything after that whooshing sound."
"How did you end up here?" Sandy looked around again. "Where's your car?"
"It's over there." She pointed at the home to the right of the Hummer. "Behind Susan McClatchy's house. I woke up a few minutes ago hanging upside down. I was still buckled in, but the Suburban was on its roof. It took me a couple of minutes to climb out." Her voice rose an octave as she spread her arms apart. "All the windows were blown out, just … gone!"
There was a car-sized chunk of roof-ridge missing from the McClatchy's home. Seeing where Sandy was looking, her Mom pointed at the hole. "I must've hit that. When I was climbing out, there were shingles and splintered chunks of wood all over the place." She ran a finger along the cut on her left cheek. "I think some of it scratched me."
Sa
ndy hugged her. "Thank god you're okay, Momma." Pulling her to her side, Sandy wrapped her right arm around the shorter woman and turned her southward. "Now, we have to find Daddy."
"Yes, dear. Let's go," she said with a resolute nod. She started walking, then stopped and pointed at the giant boulder. "Hun, what is that thing? Where did it come from." She paused and turned to Sandy, fresh confusion twisting her features. "And, how did you get here so fast?"
Sandy realized her mother didn't know about the aliens, San Francisco, or all the people who'd vanished.
Picking her way through the carnage, Sandy told her about the strange alien ship and how parts of its asteroidal hull had broken off as it moved toward San Francisco.
"Oh, my word! Aliens?" her mother asked. She scanned Sandy's face, apparently looking for a sign that she was joking.
Sandy nodded.
After a moment's consideration, she too nodded and started walking again. Climbing up the mounded earth, her mother looked at the broken houses on each side. A fresh tear streaked through the dust covering her face. "Do you think they've hurt anybody else?"
Sandy couldn't bear to deepen her worries. Helping her over a piece of debris that jutted from the heaped earth, she held her mother tightly and lied. "I don't know, Mommy."
They stepped over a still smoking rock that appeared to have broken off the larger section. Her mother cast a nervous glance at the huge boulder ahead. "I thought an asteroid this big was supposed to make a much bigger crater." She looked at Sandy. "Remember when we visited that big old hole in Arizona?"
"Yes, Mom. That was Meteor Crater."
She nodded. "Yep, that was it. Remember how the guide told us that the whole thing had come from a rock no bigger than half a football field." She pointed at the asteroid. "This thing is at least that size." Spreading her hands, she asked, "Where's the big hole?"
Reaching the top of the mound, Sandy paused and looked down into the crater. It was indeed very shallow. However, the asteroid still blocked the view of her parent's property. Frustrated, she scanned the tortured earthworks for a safe way around the giant boulder. After a few seconds, Sandy spotted a path.