“Mac, you buckled in?”
The Golden Retriever barked because he heard his name. Mac was outside his crate but connected to the secured red leash, so he was as buckled as could be. There was no way the pup could escape out the doors, therefore Buck had one less thing to worry over.
“I hope I’ve thought of everything. Could use a nice meal again, though.” His lunchtime hamburger and fries had all but worn off over the last few hours of driving and running around. If things had worked out differently, he could have re-stocked his food supplies while at Walmart. As it was, he had a few bottles of water in the mini-fridge, but nothing beyond ketchup packets for food.
He could have stopped at any of the fast food joints along the southbound route through the bustling town, but it would have been a pain to find street parking and walk his sorry butt inside to order. Plus, he wasn’t going to be an idiot and let the storm catch up to him.
Big Mac hopped into the passenger seat and sat tall like he was a full member of the crew. Buck reached over and stroked him on the neck.
“Don’t worry. Storm is gone, see? We’re safe.”
The weather system filled his side mirrors, but it was only because the clouds swallowed the entire horizon. It was huge, but still north of the city.
The wide four-lane roadway took him along miles of small retail shops, fast food eateries, and payday loan stores. It looked a lot like any street in a similar-sized town elsewhere in America. However, as he neared the central part of the city, the buildings got a little wider and taller.
The people also started to act strangely.
The first sign was when a silver flash sped by at death-defying speed in the center turn lane. Initially he thought it was the drugged-out guy in the wrecked SUV, but it was instead some other crazy person in an urban assault vehicle, which was his name for minivans. He last saw it skidding with smoke pouring from its tires as it made a hard left turn at an intersection.
He stopped at the same light, impressed at the driving skill of whoever was behind the wheel. The minivan was gone, but as he looked to the left, he watched several people throw suitcases and other supplies into their cars.
“Hey, this is just like the movies,” he said to his friend. “They are getting out of Dodge before the storm hits.”
Buck drove on, winding his way through town along the route given to him by Freddy. He veered away from downtown, which was fine with him because it would have the most congestion. A few minutes later, he came to a street name he recognized.
“Yosemite! This will probably take us right to the park, don’t you think?” He’d set the destination for his route at Mono Lake, which was on the other side of the Sierras, near the Nevada border. Once there, he’d be able to travel north and get back onto Interstate 80. The most prominent landmark on the route was Yosemite National Park, so the street name hinted he was getting close, though the park was eighty miles away and in the mountains.
While waiting for the light to turn left on Yosemite and head east, Buck noticed a man on the street corner. He looked like any homeless bum holding a cardboard sign, but this one caught his eye.
“The Earth is an appel in the mouth of the Devil.”
Buck couldn’t resist saying something, but not to point out his bad spelling. He rolled down his window and shouted to the man, “Hey, buddy, what does that even mean?”
The homeless guy could have come from Central Casting. California was famous for panhandlers, especially the times he’d been through San Francisco, and this guy was typical. Long, dirty hair. Unshaven. Filthy canvas pants that looked like a car had driven over them a million times.
“Look around you, friend. Evil has found us.”
He assumed the guy was talking about the approaching clouds, which now blotted out the sun. “It’s just a storm. I’ve been in it. Bad. But survivable.” Buck figured a stout home would protect these residents much better than his tip over-prone land-sail ever could.
The light changed to green.
“Not the storm. I’m talking about the black light now bathing our planet. You saw it this morning. I know you did!” The bum held the sign over his head. “It’s the light of evil!”
Buck maneuvered through the intersection. “The light was blue, you dumbass,” he mumbled to himself.
“Ending!” the guy yelled as Buck drove away. He rolled up his window, feeling a little silly for how compelled he felt to get away from the preacher of doom and gloom.
“We’re fine,” he said to Mac. The dog sat where he was, oblivious to the words he’d spoken. His tongue lolled out the side of his mouth, and he was his usual happy self.
Buck instantly felt better.
“Yeah, you’re right,” he said to Mac, “the guy was nuts. Honestly, it seems like that’s the only type of people in California today. We need to get over the mountain range and get the hell out of this state.”
Buck got the big rig up to speed as the houses, shops, and restaurants finally turned into more orchards and fields.
In thirty minutes, he checked his side mirrors to confirm if the storm had devoured Modesto. He cracked up thinking of that homeless preacher getting soaked and scared to death by the lightning and wind, but he also thought of the woman with her infant he met inside Walmart. Were they okay?
The immense storm was everywhere behind him, and still built up in the north, but he’d made the right call by driving east. The mountains were ahead, and he’d slipped around the leading edge of the storm before it arrived at the western approaches to the rugged range.
“All I have to do is drive, and we’ll be over the hump in no time.”
Mac let out a loud sigh and did a few laps on his seat before laying down.
Yeah, I don’t think it will be that easy, either.
Twenty-Three
Wollemi National Park, New South Wales, Australia
Destiny made herself as small as possible while riding between the giant men, Christian and Stephen. It was unnatural for her to shrink when faced with adversity, but in this case, it was completely justified. The smaller she made herself, the less the big, sweaty hulks would brush up against her.
They’d driven for an hour along the bank of the creek. The dirt track had recently been constructed in the national park so tourists and researchers would have better access to the interior, but they paid little heed to drivability. When she and her team arrived with their 4x4 trucks, they had to use four-low several times to clear rocky sections. Now, going back down, the overloaded Holden seemed ill-equipped for the task.
“How did you guys make it up this road?” she asked.
Stephen, the driver, laughed. “We were empty coming up. Christian said this looked like a great place to get some firewood, so we drove up to have a gander. He was right. We struck pay-dirt.”
“I hope you didn’t cut down a Wollemi pine,” she mused. “They thought they went extinct thirty million years ago, but then someone found them here in the park.” A lot like her finding the Tasmanian tiger.
“Does it look like a Christmas tree?” Stephen asked sheepishly.
As a naturalist invested in preserving nature, she hated the notion of them cutting down any of the trees inside the park, but she couldn’t hold it over them while at their mercy.
“No. In fact, the Wollemi pine isn’t a pine at all. It’s—”
Christian interrupted. “We cut what we cut from deadfall, so it was dry and ready for burning. No one will know the difference.”
“Phew,” she breathed in relief. “I would hate for you to take something important.”
“What if we need it to stay alive?” Christian replied. “Could we take it then?”
She rose to the challenge. “And what would you need inside the wilderness that would keep you alive? I’m curious.”
The driver swerved around a rock in the middle of the road before he answered. “Could we cut down one of them fancy pines if it would keep us alive in a cold winter? Like if we were goi
ng to Antarctica or something.”
It already was winter in Australia, and it wasn’t very cold, so his example only worked if he went somewhere colder.
She thought about it as they continued down the rocky road. “Okay. If it was between saving my life or cutting down the last Wollemi pine—killing an entire species, forever—I’d think about it pretty seriously.”
“Rubbish, if you ask me. Your life, for a tree? Hmf. Would you cut off some branches, if it saved your life?”
“I see what you’re doing. This is an ethics test.” It took her back a few years, but she’d studied similar questions at university.
“Not sure what you mean. Out here, you depend on the land to feed you, warm you, and bathe you.”
Doesn’t look like nature bathes you too often, she thought with some amusement.
Christian went on. “We take what we want because that’s how we live.”
His tone had a trace of condescension she didn’t understand. Was it because she came across as a city dweller to the backwoods men?
“I grew up on a farm,” she replied. “I know what it’s like to live off the land.” It was an exaggeration, because while her parents did own a farm, it wasn’t where she and her sister had lived.
Christian shifted in his seat, which bumped her. “So, what’s a pretty Sheila like you doing way out in the woods by yourself?”
“I told you. I was with my mates, then they left me.”
The big man glanced over to her. “We thought you were a prostitute.”
She folded her arms over her still-soaked chest. The breath caught in her throat as she considered if she’d walked right into a nightmare after all. “I-I’m not. I’m a naturalist with the Sydney Harbor Foundation. We were doing research.” Her voice was uncertain. “I’ll be expected back.”
Stephen laughed. “Relax. We may look like we’ve got a few kangaroos loose in the top paddock, but we’re all right. We’d give Jack the Ripper a ride out of that fire, but we’d rough him up when we got back to town, ya know?”
Destiny spoke cautiously. “So, you don’t want to sleep with me?”
The driver roared. “No way. We’re both happily married!”
Christian laughed, too, and for a minute, she thought there was a joke she was missing. Two guys, driving in the forest together. A load of firewood to keep warm.
“Are you married to each other?” she probed tentatively.
Stephen’s head whipped in her direction, then he exploded with more laughter. “Can you imagine!”
The truck slammed down on a rock that felt like it was right under her feet, but they barely noticed.
The men laughed for several minutes.
She was compelled to find another topic of conversation when the laughing died down. “So, I guess it’s a good thing you have this old beater truck, huh? These rocks are brutal on your undercarriage.”
“Mine, too,” Christian added as he shifted in his seat. His long legs barely fit into the space below the dashboard.
“Hold up,” Stephen replied. “I only just bought this Holden Commodore this year. It doesn’t look that rough, does it?”
She didn’t know if the man was serious. It smelled like death inside, they used the floorboards to hold their empty beer cans, and the shocks were probably crushed by the overburdened cargo bed. She was pretty sure they’d left some parts on the road back where they’d scraped rocks. She didn’t know what model year it was, but it looked like something rode hard every day since the eighties or nineties.
“No, not at all,” she answered.
“Good,” the man said in a way that suggested he took it personally.
Stephen seemed to focus hard on driving for a short time, and everyone sat in silence. Destiny tried to think of something to say to counteract the bad mood she’d given the driver, but she was soon distracted with something else.
The acrid smell of the forest fire came in through the air vents.
The driver stopped the Commodore and slammed his hands on the wheel. “Don’t that beat fuck-all? The tree is on fire.”
Hardly any trees were aflame up ahead, save the tall one closest to the road. It was almost a roadway signpost. An advisory as to what was ahead.
“We found the fire again,” she declared. “My team said it was spreading like mad.”
“It’s cool. We’re almost to the pavement. We can push through.” Stephen put it in gear by hitting the shifter against her leg, then gave it some gas.
“Wait! No!”
The daredevil driver headed straight for the burn zone.
Coulterville, CA
Buck sat at the intersection of the little town as he decided whether he could trust Freddy the GPS. The monster storm was mostly behind him, but the tops of the high clouds made it seem much closer. The GPS wanted him to drive north for ten miles in order to catch highway 120, which would take him to Tioga Pass and over the mountains. But there was a shortcut to 120 if he took a turn in Coulterville.
“Should we flip for this one, or just do it, eh, Mac?”
He looked over at the dog, sound asleep on the comfy front seat.
His instinct told him to take the shortcut, so that was what he did.
The drive through town was brief. It wasn’t even big enough to be a one-stoplight affair. It took him two minutes to pass the last home, and then it went back to the natural landscape of golden grasses and short, stubby trees. The road no longer sported a shoulder. It was barely wide enough for his tires to ride the lines on both sides of his lane.
Time to call, he thought.
He’d put his phone into the cradle attached to his dashboard, which let him touch the screen without having to hold it in his hand. He wasn’t one to text and drive, but it did make it easier to call his son while keeping most of his focus on the two-lane blacktop out his front window. The road had no guardrails as it flowed through steep ravines, so he needed all his attention out there.
To his surprise, the call went through, but Garth’s number rang for almost a minute. Right when he was going to hang up, the system clicked like someone picked up on the other end, then his son’s answering machine message played.
Finally, a beep.
“Hey, Garth.” He didn’t know where to start. It was almost an afterthought to call his son. He hadn’t planned anything. “I, uh, was delayed. I just left Modesto, California. I’m about an hour to the east, and I’m going over the mountains into Nevada to get home sooner.”
He felt nervous for some reason. There was so much he needed to say.
“Look. Just call me back the instant you get this, okay? I’m sorry I haven’t called earlier, make sure you and I are good. No bullshitting around. I need you to call me. If you don’t, I’m going to come at you with the belt.” He laughed to iron out some of the anxiety from his voice. “So please call.”
Buck stared at the phone for a long time while considering whether to add more to his message, but then he reached out and quickly hung up.
Call me, son. Then we can talk.
Search for Nuclear, Astrophysical, and Kronometric Extremes (SNAKE). Red Mesa, Colorado
Faith ran to Donald’s door the second he called.
“Come in,” the man said from inside.
She pushed through and was shocked at how old her friend suddenly appeared. He’d put on ten years since they’d been together an hour earlier.
“You look terrible,” she blurted.
Dr. Perkins waved like it was a minor inconvenience. “Don’t worry about me. I’ve made a discovery.”
They sat together on a two-person sofa and looked over a number of papers he’d spread on the tiny coffee table.
“Thank you for leaving that list of events, Faith. It really helped me put this in perspective.” He pointed to a piece of white printer paper that had hand-drawn lines and data like he’d tried to re-create a computer spreadsheet.
“It looks detailed,” she said to be helpful.
“Inde
ed. I entered each news item as a data point. Here is the column for the name, here is for the location, and this third column is for the time.”
He had all of the things from Benny’s list, plus some others.
“What are these? I’ve never seen them.” She pointed to the bottom half of his list. It mentioned a minor quake in San Francisco, a major forest fire in New South Wales, Australia, and the disappearance of several of the statues on Easter Island.
“I was lying here watching television, Faith. Each time the news would pan to a news item today, I entered it into my fancy guide. Now we have thirty data points to do our analysis.”
Sure enough, the list was neatly numbered down the left side from one to thirty. He probably stopped it there because he’d run out of space on the front of the sheet.
“As I said, I’ve already made a discovery.” He put his hand on his chest like he had heartburn.
She leaned over to help, but he waved her off. “I’m all right. I need to show this to you, but then I have to lie down again. Fair?”
“You can lie down right now, Donald. I can come back.” She wanted nothing more than to solve the mystery of what shut down the Izanagi experiment, but she wasn’t willing to risk her friend’s health.
“No.” He stomped. “Listen.” He pointed forcefully to his spreadsheet.
“I’m sorry,” she replied softly.
“Please. I need to show this to you.” He pointed to the first item. “This is a story about the Denver power grid failing. It happened almost the same time we went down. The next one is an odd story out of metro Chicago.”
He moved his thin finger to point 24 down his list.
“A troop of Boy Scouts arrived at their forest campground in the early afternoon today and found the flaming wreckage of Skylab. Pieces of it must have stayed in orbit until today.”
Dr. Perkins slid up to number 12 and 13.
“These two have been all over the news. The New York City plane crash and the subway collapse.”
“Haven’t there been lots of planes that fell out of the sky?” she asked.
End Days Series Box Set [Books 1-4] Page 19