“Yes, but this was unique because it fell in the middle of a city and, to make this more confusing, it was so torn up, we still don’t know what airline it came from. Every plane in America has been accounted for.”
She nodded. “How is that possible? How many flights crashed, yet all are accounted for?” she asked, but the look on his face suggested he didn’t want to speculate. “So, what is your big discovery?”
He sat back on the sofa. His wiry frame was almost absorbed by the cushions. “If you drew a line through all four, you’d see they almost align perfectly from west to east. I meant to sketch a globe and enter all these points to see if there is an overall pattern, but I didn’t have time.”
She studied his coloring and body language. “Donald, I’m up to my hips in this nightmare. Bob has been asking me to make a statement to the press, but I’ve been putting it off. I want to keep putting it off for as long as I can, honestly. You could help me do that if you were feeling better.”
Donald chuckled while holding his head back with eyes closed. “Oh, Faith, how I would love to get in there and get my hands dirty, like the old days, but the trip into Castle Rock took everything out of me. It’s almost like—”
“What?” she asked with concern.
“No, that’s impossible. I’m winded is all. What time are you talking to the press?”
She had told Benny to expect something tomorrow morning for an official press statement, but the reporter seemed convinced she would have something to say in the evening.
“I think Bob is going to force me to talk tonight.”
Donald opened his eyes. “How can he make you talk, Faith? You give that man entirely too much credit. You schedule the press conferences, after all.”
She stood up to go. “Yeah, but he could still talk to them on the sly. Oh, hell, I should get it over with and say something to Benny and get him out of here. But, Donald, I think you have something here. Do you mind if I take your papers while you get some rest? I’ll plot a few more points on your map.”
“Have it all,” he said with a dismissive wave. “It will do me no good while my eyelids are closed.”
She picked up all his research. “Thanks for this.”
“I’d do the same for a friend,” he said with his old charm.
“Har, har. Get some rest. I’ll see you soon,” she said.
Twenty-Four
Manhattan, New York
Garth and Sam hurried to Park Avenue, thinking it would be easier to catch a cab there rather than on the narrow side street. As they walked up to the intersection, a man in a black suit turned the corner and almost ran into them.
“Sorry,” Garth said instinctively. He stepped aside, but the man was followed closely by a mechanical animal that bumped into him. It was bigger than a dog but smaller than a horse.
The black and yellow machine stopped when it made contact with Garth’s arm and let out three small chirps.
The noise made the man turn around. “Stand aside, boy.”
“Sure,” he said apologetically.
The man in the suit spun on his heels and walked away. The angular dog-horse continued its locomotion behind its master. A metal arm was folded and tucked in on the top of the long body. The robot’s four-legged gait was hypnotic as it walked away.
“What the hell was that?” Garth asked Sam.
Sam looked back but was unimpressed. “This city has a million companies. There must be one that makes robots. Hey, we got one!” He waved the cab all the way up to the curb.
The driver was about his dad’s age, with gray in his short beard. He wore glasses and a blue newsboy’s hat. Only after they climbed in and shut the door did they notice the guy’s cigar wedged into a dashboard ashtray.
The driver didn’t wait for them to state their destination, he put on the gas and rejoined traffic on the busy street.
“We’re going to Staten Island,” Sam said without urgency.
“You’ll never make it,” the driver replied immediately. “None of us will.”
Sam replied. “Just take Lincoln over to 95 and head south. Simple.”
The driver accelerated south on Park like he was driving the heist’s getaway car.
“Hey now!” Garth said through the partition.
“We want to get there alive, friend,” Sam added.
“My name is Jeff, but today, I’m going by Dawson. Today, of all days, I want to be someone else.”
Park Avenue was unusual in New York City because it cut through the bottom of a skyscraper. The three lanes of southbound traffic condensed to one lane and entered the tunnel cut through the building. The cabbie bullied other drivers and merged in front of them.
“I picked up you boys because you look like fighters.” He turned around and peered intently at them. “You are fighters, aren’t you?”
Sam nodded. “We are, sir.”
“Good,” Dawson said as he drove them through the tunnel.
They came out of the darkness next to Grand Central Station on a raised viaduct. They followed it for a short while and then turned left to the front of the historic structure. The narrow roadway went down a ramp in front of the building and then Park Avenue resumed to the south.
Garth absently noted it was where they shot battle scenes in The Avengers movie.
Sam leaned forward. “Sir, you need to turn right up here so we can get to the Lincoln Tunnel, okay?”
The driver bounced up and down like the road was ten times bumpier than it was. Garth had a sinking feeling in his stomach, like there was something wrong with the man’s brain.
Dawson turned around to speak to them. He kept his left hand on the wheel, but fully faced them in the back seat. “That tunnel is dangerous. I saw the end of all things. The end. Boom. Poof. You know?”
Garth braced himself as the car sped along the parkway and toward a red light. Traffic around them was light at the moment, but vehicles crossed ahead on the intersecting street.
Oh, shit, Garth thought.
“Turn around and drive!” he yelled.
The cab barreled through the intersection and somehow avoided smacking into the sides of the other cars. Horns went crazy as they sped away.
Much too late, the cab driver turned back around and put both hands on the wheel.
Garth leaned over to Sam. “You can really pick ‘em. He’s nuts.”
Sam took it in stride. “Every cabbie in New York has something wrong with them. We’ll be fine. Trust me.” Sam spoke to the driver like they were old friends. “Hey, Dawson, where you from?”
Unlike many cabbies, Dawson was obviously born and raised in America. He had no accent that would have pegged him as being from anywhere besides the city.
The driver picked up his stogie and took a hard pull, holding it in his lungs as they ran another red light. This time, a cab coming from the roadway to their right almost struck their side. Garth saw it happen like it was slo-mo. A young woman passenger was flung forward against the passenger’s seat in the other cab.
“Dude!” Sam shouted. “You have to at least do check-stops at each light. This is crazy.”
“We have to get out of the city,” Dawson said by way of a reply.
“No kidding,” Sam answered. “That’s what the Lincoln Tunnel is for.”
“No, no tunnels. Those are the places where the monsters can hide. We have to stay above the water.”
Sam leaned over to him. “You may have a point on this guy. He’s crazier than the usual cab driver.”
It wasn’t possible to pick your own cabbie when flagging them down, but Garth understood his joke.
“Bigfoot. UFOs. Loch Ness Monster. They’re all real. All of them. I’ve seen them all today.”
“Hey, where was Nessy?” Sam said to provoke the guy.
Garth poked him in the side. “Don’t do that. Not him. We have to get out.”
Dawson blew his smoke through the open plexiglass partition window, which made both of them cough. “Y
ou boys sit tight and hang on. When I tell you to get out and fight, you get out, okay?”
They both nodded. Garth was already planning to get out and run for his life the second they stopped. He was positive Sam had the same idea.
“And don’t worry about Nessie. I saw her in Central Park. That’s why we’re going this way.” He pointed down the slot canyon formed by the tall buildings on each side of Park Avenue.
“Hey, Garth,” Sam said in a loud, sarcastic voice. “Don’t worry about Nessie. She’s back that way.” He pointed out the rear window.
Dawson turned halfway around and used one hand to point to Sam. “He knows.”
Garth slowly shook his head in disbelief.
Of all the cabs in New York City.
Near Yosemite National Park, California
At first, Buck found the drive into the Sierras a nice change of pace from the crowded highways and wild weather back in the Central Valley, but it became unsettling once he caught on that no cars were coming down the road from the other direction.
“Must be a lonely hundred miles,” he said to his sleeping companion. As the miles ticked by, and he went deeper into the foothills, he began to think of rousing Big Mac.
Let him sleep a little longer.
Freddy the GPS said it was an even hundred miles from the start of his trip through the mountains until he came out at Mono Lake on the other side. He’d gone about fifteen when a sign caught his attention.
“Now entering Buck Meadows.” He sat up in his seat, excited to see the town that shared his name.
He passed a sleepy campground and a rustic motel nestled into the pines. A few cars and pickups were parked at each place, which he found reassuring, but a minute later, he was back in empty forest. Buck Meadows was even smaller than Coulterville.
“Damn. I guess these are what passes for towns up this way.”
Fortunately, the road was well-maintained and rated for 55 miles per hour, so it was easy driving. He used the opportunity to listen to the news.
The AM station from Fresno came in loud and clear.
“It has been a wild day in aviation, and no one seems willing to guess on the cause. We are joined by Dwight Allie of the Civil Air Patrol of Fresno Composite Squadron 112.”
“Thank you for having me, Dean.”
“You’re welcome. I’ll be blunt, Mr. Allie. What the heck is going on out there?”
“It would be fair to say no one really knows. All air traffic has been shut down over North America, pending investigation into the loss of twelve aircraft in various parts of the country. Was it a maintenance malfunction? A terrorist attack? We simply don’t know.”
The host spoke matter-of-factly. “It was caused by what people are calling the Blue Wave.”
Mr. Allie seemed reluctant. “Maybe. No one really knows what it was, but thank god it wasn’t a serious electromagnetic pulse, or we might have lost more planes, many more.”
“And how many aircraft were lost overseas?” the host inquired.
“My intel is incomplete. At least another twelve are confirmed, but some nations aren’t reporting anything at all. It leaves a few gaps. I can tell you I’ve spoken with aviation enthusiasts in Thailand and heard the lost Malaysian plane, MH370, landed in Bangkok at the Suvarnabhumi Airport. It is the one bright spot in a day of losses.”
Buck stopped listening after the word losses. Something big was going on, and it was everywhere. That blue light started his own weird day, and the radio was talking about strange events all over the globe as a result.
Riots in Modesto. Storms in Sacramento. Plane crash in New York City.
“It’s all part of the same thing,” he said quietly. “And, Buck, you couldn’t have seen the big picture right away, but you could have at least avoided the riot in Walmart.”
He’d spent too much time in the store and got very little for his effort. Sure, the leash might save Mac’s life, and keep him from having to chase the dog, but if this really was the start of the end of the world as they knew it, he could keep his pup safer by stuffing him in the crate for the next 3000 miles.
Buck glanced over at his friend and immediately knew he couldn’t be quite that cruel, so he cut them both some slack.
“Okay, at least I got something useful at Walmart.” He tapped the wheel. “And I couldn’t have predicted the riot, either. It was perfectly calm when I walked in.”
For the next few miles, he replayed the events. Could he have figured out the red-shirted running guy was up to no good? Was that the precise starting point of the riot? Could he objectively point to the exact moment when he should have run out of there? The lesson was clear.
Don’t go into a Walmart. Ever.
It was advice that made some sense to him.
Garth.
He hit the keypad on the phone to try Garth again.
After many rings, it made the odd click and went to his voicemail like before.
“Hey, son. I don’t want to worry you, but there are some unusual things going on here in California. I’m taking a detour over the mountains by Yosemite National Park because of a freak storm. Whatever you do, don’t go around people.” He paused, knowing how it would sound to a boy in a city of millions. “What I mean is, don’t go into places like Walmart or Macy’s or Bloomies. I just came out of a Walmart full of people fist-fighting and shooting guns.”
He wondered if he should tell Garth anything more about his ideas for survival. Board the windows of the house. Get out the guns. Stock up on water. But he decided to leave it at that because he wanted his boy to focus on the most important item.
“Call me as soon as you get this,” he said in a soothing voice. “Let’s plan this right, okay?”
Buck’s heart thumped against his ribcage because of what he’d admitted. The Walmart debacle was the final tipoff. Society teetered on the edge because of the strange flash of blue light in everyone’s faces. Once the assholes of the world figured it out, the criminals and opportunists would take to the streets.
The drugged-out guy in the silver SUV was the tip of that spear. Despite the encounter, Buck was thankful he now had a small axe.
Ahead, the two-lane road pointed deep into endless forest. He was doing fifty on a curvy strip of mountain road when he needed to be doing eighty on a smooth ribbon of interstate.
It felt a lot like going backward.
For the next ten miles, he drove aggressively and at the limits of safety because he wanted to get up and over Tioga Pass as soon as possible. However, when he came around a curve, he was forced to lay on the brakes. The sleeping Mac slid off his seat and went to the floor. The trailer tandem howled under the stresses and for a few oh-shit seconds, he thought he was going to crush the rear vehicle in the line ahead. By the time he stopped, the green car was almost hidden from view because it was below his hood.
“You gonna make it?” he asked his dog in his friendly voice, so he didn’t show any anxiety.
The retriever came out from under the dash and lazily stood with his paws on the side windowsill. He wasn’t hurt or shaken up; he only wanted to see what they’d hit.
He laughed. “Good pup.”
A line of about ten cars waited at a roadblock up ahead.
Every driver’s door hung ajar, like the occupants had opened them and jumped into the empty lane of traffic going in the opposite direction.
The screeching of tires didn’t bring anyone running to see what happened.
It was a first.
Something ain’t right here.
Twenty-Five
Wollemi National Park, New South Wales, Australia
Destiny couldn’t afford to be polite any longer, because her life was back on the line. Heat from the burning tree came through the open windows, adding to her urgency. “You really are from Woop Woop. Everyone here knows you don’t drive into a fire. Turn around, dammit.”
“Don’t spit the dummy, little lady. I drive through ‘em all the time. It doesn’t get ho
t as long as you keep moving.” He glanced over to her. “I liked you better standing outside the car. First you insult my ute, then you have a go at me for driving it the wrong way.”
She rolled her eyes.
“Look. I’m sorry, okay? I’ve had a pretty shit day, and I thought you two were my saviors. I was going to get you a fucking medal, in fact. But listen, we’re going to die if we drive any farther into this fire. It must be huge.”
They made it beyond the burning tree without incident, but the woodlands on the far side of the creek burned wildly, supporting her claim that it was time to turn around.
Stephen looked out the back window and drew his own conclusions. “See, we made it just fine.”
The truck hit another rock, and the three of them bounced six inches off the seat like it was choreographed. When they came back down, the springs of the bench complained with squeaks and metallic groans. She felt like a tiny Pomeranian trapped between two Great Danes.
“We’re close,” the driver said in an agreeable tone.
They drove along the edge of the fire for another five minutes. Destiny prayed it would become clear they were driving into danger, but neither of the men seemed to get it. Christian coughed from a patch of smoke, which she assumed would wake him up to the threat.
“Now, do you see—” she started to say.
Christian reached in front of her and turned on the tape deck.
As soon as she heard the harmonica, she knew the song.
“Is this some kind of a joke?” she shouted.
“How do you mean?” Stephen replied with a chuckle. “I like this song.”
“It’s called Suicide Blonde. You really don’t see it?” She reached for a lock of her hair, which was blonde. Playing the song by INXS couldn’t be a coincidence. It was a message. They didn’t want to listen to her anymore.
“It’s not about you,” the driver continued as he picked at his beard. “It’s the first song on the album. Just enjoy it.”
They motored down the rocky path while the song blasted from the speakers. She kept watch and hoped the men were correct, though she knew they weren’t.
End Days Series Box Set [Books 1-4] Page 20