It came together in her mind. First, she’d organize her data and provide a bulletproof digital presentation rather than her current scratchpad scribbles. Then, she’d go to the press conference and announce the big news to everyone else on the planet.
Her rationale was simple: if she told the world, it would help everyone stay calm and not get rattled by the unusual occurrences. The scientists of the world could work cooperatively to find a solution to fix it…
But people had died, and it was her fault, or had they died for some other reason? She pushed that thought away.
Faith was bursting to tell someone right that moment, so she decided to send a text to her sister. It couldn’t hurt to warn her.
Sis, be on the lookout for weird events.
Yosemite National Park, CA
As a professional driver, Buck had little time to stop and sight-see during his deliveries, but over the years, he’d seen a lot of scenic destinations. His notebook was filled with hundreds of places he intended to visit later with Garth. The Grand Canyon. Badlands. Every beach in Florida.
Despite the roadblock and missing people, Yosemite was on his list for a future trip. Until then, he only had one mission. He wasn’t going to stop until he made it home to his son.
“Maybe we’ll come back as a family,” he said to his dog.
Miles later, he almost went back on that resolution.
“Hey, pup. Check that out.” He pointed to get Mac’s attention. “That’s Half Dome. Most famous rock in Yosemite.”
The rock was as big as a mountain, but severed in half, like a baseball cut down the middle. From the lookout point, the dome was in profile, so the front appeared as a thousand-foot sheer wall, while the back side appeared rounded. The magnificent structure was five miles away but dominated the valley before him.
Buck figured there should have been busloads of tourists at the oversized parking lot next to the road, but there was only one vehicle there.
He shook his head. “Is the park closed for maintenance? Where’d all the tourists go?”
An ancient black Ford Model T sat by itself in the lot. The car looked like it had been refurbished and shined up. A man and woman, both dressed in black formal wear, stood next to their ride as they admired Half Dome.
Thank god. At least there’s someone here.
He imagined they were getting married, as a viable explanation. Maybe waiting for the preacher to show up. What better place to tie the knot than before such a backdrop? He didn’t stop the truck to ask what they were really doing.
“Good luck, people,” he said, feeling better that he wasn’t alone anymore. “I’ve got miles to make up.”
Buck didn’t look back for the next thirty miles. He hit nearly ten thousand feet going over Tioga Pass and then rode the Jakes down the other side. There were plenty of opportunities to leave more messages for Garth. The boy still didn’t answer his phone, but it did help pass the time. As he approached the end of the road, the trees got smaller, the environment became desolate and rocky, and finally, the Sierra Nevada Mountains were behind him.
It was dinnertime when he finally saw the mirage-like surface of Mono Lake. Surrounded by squat hills and devoid of tree cover, it looked like sleeping giants napping at a swimming hole. More importantly, it was the gateway to Nevada.
“That was fun,” he said tiredly to Mac.
The golden looked up at him from the front seat, but instantly put his head back down in a can’t-be-bothered way.
“Fine, don’t break out the champagne, but I’m glad to be back in civilization. That was a hundred miles of ghosts if you ask me.”
Big Mac blinked without any concern for Buck’s ramblings.
He read the beat-down welcome sign. “Mono Lake. Population 22. This is a two-gear town, don’t you think?” He laughed at his joke. The place was so small, it only took until second gear to get through it.
A few single-wide trailer homes made for bleak accommodations. They looked like they came in on the wind because they were randomly spaced in weedy plots and covered with varying layers of brown dust. A half-lit Subway logo announced the town’s sole dining establishment, and a neon sign for ‘motel and gas’ was the other big draw.
“Oh yeah! Jackpot!” Buck used his steering wheel to straighten himself on his seat. “Look at the price of gas! Under two bucks.”
Feeling it necessary to spread the joy, he reached into his secret stash of jerky treats above the windshield and handed one to Mac, who promptly scarfed it down.
The tension of the day evaporated with a pop when he realized how much money he would save. Fueling in Modesto cost him over four dollars a gallon. His wallet would barely notice him topping off the Peterbilt in the great metropolis of Mono Lake.
“We’re staying here tonight.”
Brooklyn Park Pier 5, New York
Dawson growled as he drove the boys across the three soccer fields.
“Don’t kill us, dude!” Sam yelled.
They were on the last field when Dawson crushed the brakes.
“We’ll never make it!” Garth exclaimed.
When they approached the far edge of the last field, the mad driver jammed the wheel and the cab spun sideways on the field’s surface. The boys crashed into the front seat again. Garth waited for the freefall, but the car came to a stop while it was still upright and on four wheels.
His head rang from being tossed around, and his heart beat faster than it was ever designed to handle, but he kept his wits.
“Get out!” he screamed to Sam.
Each boy fell out his own door. Garth was on the passenger side, so when the door opened, he almost tumbled over the edge of the pier and into the fish-stench water.
“Shitballs!”
He hopped to his feet, brushed off the bits of turf from his knees, and ran behind the car to meet Sam. Garth’s legs wobbled, and he tripped on the shredded turf as he came around back, but he caught himself on the bumper. The hard-braking cab driver had managed to tear up the turf in one long furrow and bunches of it were wedged underneath the vehicle like an old rug.
Soccer players and concerned parents ran for the exit, leaving Garth and Sam alone with the cab driver.
Dawson spoke from the front seat as if they were all in on the plan. “There it is! I had to get us close before stopping the car or it would have had time to run. Get ready to attack!”
Sam crawled behind the trunk.
“Are you all right?” Garth asked.
“No. I think I just shit my pants.”
Garth snickered. “You did not.”
“It’s not funny, dude. I think I really did.”
“We’ve got to get out of here,” Garth replied without salting his friend’s hurt pride any further. “This guy has lost it.”
Dawson popped the trunk from inside and walked around to the back. He chewed on his nasty cigar as he reached into the dark space. Garth had it in his mind to run away until the man pulled out a revolver.
“I stole this cab and got these weapons together to stop this invasion. Now you’ll see. This is how you kill a fucking Tyrannosaurus Rex.”
“Hold on a sec,” Sam whined.
Garth put up his hands. “We’re cool.”
Dawson carelessly flopped the gun around for a moment, giving Garth more of a scare, but then the gunslinger aimed it at the nearby construction crane.
The black crane was affixed to a floating barge parked against the pier. The metal machine was probably seventy-five feet and bent near the top, so it formed a shallow, sideways V. If Garth squinted and didn’t think about it—and was crazy—he might imagine it was a dinosaur standing tall.
When the gun went off, Garth put his hands over his ears, but the concussion still rattled his brain. The acrid smell of each blast blew right in his face as if to mock his helplessness.
The insane cab driver cranked out six shots in quick succession, each one aimed at the big crane. Garth expected little explosions for ricochets
like you see in the movies, but his dad often reminded him that real life wasn’t like Hollywood, especially when it came to guns. He figured Dawson missed completely, and the bullets went across the bay to the tall buildings in the financial district.
Dawson dry-fired a few times. “Fuck! Empty!”
He cocked his arm back and threw the gun in a high arc. It soared for a couple of seconds and crashed through the window of the operator’s compartment at the base of the crane’s arm.
“No fucking way,” Sam said with awe.
Dawson pulled out his cigar and cheered. “Score one for the good guys!” He leaned inside his trunk, puffing hard on the stogey. “Now we go hand-to-hand, boys. I’ve got hammers, shovels, and a guitar. Grab something to fight with. Let’s go!”
The boys watched as Dawson tossed off his glasses, picked up a hammer, and charged the barge. He jumped off the pier and across the five-foot gap between the boat and its mooring. The guy rolled once on the deck like a superhero, ignored when his newsboy hat flipped off, then got up and charged the crane as he promised.
Garth and Sam looked at the odd weapons in the trunk, then at each other.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Sam asked.
“If you say anything besides getting in this cab and driving away, I’m going to leave you here with this fruitcake.” He slammed the trunk lid.
“You read my mind,” his buddy replied.
Garth ran to the open door and climbed into the driver’s seat. Dawson had left the keys inside.
“Hey!” the cabbie yelled. “Where are you guys?”
Garth spoke, but there was no way for Dawson to hear him over the revving engine. “You stole the cab, so we’re stealing it back.”
“Just go,” Sam advised.
“Nothing can stop us now,” Garth said excitedly. “We’re going home.”
Twenty-Eight
Wollemi National Park, New South Wales, Australia
Destiny expected the two outback men to see they were boxed in by the fire and immediately get to work thinking of a way to escape it, so when they backed the truck down the road and hopped out, she followed with grim determination. Finally, they were doing what needed to be done to survive.
They went right to the loaded bed and tossed out some of the firewood, giving her confidence they had a plan, but when Stephen pulled out a pillow-sized silver bag of wine and saluted her with it, she became confused.
“What are you doing?” she wondered aloud. Smoke swirled around her and over the creek, like a stage prop from a film. The smell of the fire wafted in, too, as if it needed to remind her of the danger. Whatever the guys had in mind for the approaching menace, their plan should not have included alcohol.
The driver patted his prize. “We’re gonna tackle this goon bag and be done with it.”
“You-you’re joking?” she stammered. Destiny looked at the men, the bag of wine, and then turned to the hill behind her. It was still clear of fire…
I don’t owe them anything, she thought.
She looked at the remaining safe stretch of road and the flowing creek alongside it, working out how much time was left before the fire consumed everything.
“You are welcome to join us,” Christian said wistfully. “You were a good sport sitting in that dog box with us.”
“Yeah, you’re a legend, miss,” Stephen added as he opened the wine and took a swig from the spigot.
“Sure,” she said as if they were distractions to her thought process. She couldn’t believe two grown men were behaving this way, but she also didn’t understand why she wasn’t already running to safety.
“I’m going that way.” She pointed up the steep hill. “We can all make it, I’m sure.” It wasn’t any worse than the escarpment she’d climbed earlier in the day. If they took it slow, she figured anyone could make it to the top.
Both men looked up the ridge and stroked their beards like that was a requirement for thought, but then they turned back to the liquor.
Christian took the bag. “I don’t want to drink and walk. Might spill me drink.” He faced Stephen before taking a long swig. “Let’s get blind, mate. Cheers.” He saluted his brother with the bag.
She glanced longingly up the hill once more, but then walked around the truck to stand by the bag of wine. “Damn you guys. My head hurts like hell. I think only one of my lungs is working. And you two are piss farting around, instead of trying to live. But fuck all, I can’t just walk away and leave you here. I left my mates last night, and that led to disaster. I’m not leaving you as well.”
“We do appreciate it, but look at us,” Christian replied. “We never missed a meal in our lives. We’d make it ten yards onto that hill and pass out dead. That’s why I was so keen to drive through this fire. It’s the only way we’d have made it.”
She became agitated. “You’ve got to try to hike it.”
Christian handed the bag to Stephen.
Destiny looked for a way out. The truck couldn’t go through the fire on the road, and it wasn’t stout enough to go in the creek, and nothing on earth could drive up the remaining safe hillside.
The creek.
“I’m not leaving you guys,” she said to reassure herself, “but I think I know how to get us all out of here. You’ve got to follow me right this second.”
She trotted over to the creek and waded in until it was up to her hips. The cold water felt refreshing and comforting in the face of so much fire.
The two men watched her but didn’t move.
“Come into the water,” she said slowly to get them to understand. It was like coaxing a wounded animal.
The fire crackled in the trees on the far shore. The heat from the blaze beat on her back like the sun at the height of summer. There was no margin of error.
She waved frantically to get them to come in, but still, they didn’t move.
“We can’t swim,” Stephen finally admitted.
“I’m standing,” she deadpanned. “It doesn’t get deeper than this. We’re going to get soaked as protection from the flames and then we’ll float down this creek until we clear the fire.”
All of them turned toward the fallen tree a hundred meters downstream. Most of the branches on the blocked road were aflame, but some were above the water. They would have to duck under the hotspots as they went.
To show them her plan, she dipped into the water and paddled with the current.
“Like this! Come on, what have you got to lose?”
Stephen took a few tentative steps. “Can we bring our wine?”
“Bring whatever you want,” she muttered. “Yes!” she said louder.
The two giants walked with surprising haste to the edge of the rocky creek and then waded in. They dropped in behind her and got as low as possible. Soon, the guys motored forward in their own clumsy ways.
“Stick with me, boys. We’re going to make it out of here. I promise.”
Pole Line Motel and Gas Station, Mono Lake, CA
Buck sat inside his cab running the numbers on the miles he’d driven. He used that as a guide for how many gallons of diesel the Peterbilt had burned. Strictly speaking, it wasn’t necessary, because he was going to top off the tank, but he liked to record every bit of data when he was hauling freight.
It also made him feel normal again.
“Two hundred and sixty divided by six miles per gallon? You got the answer, dog?” Buck glared at Big Mac like he expected a reply from his favorite student. “No? I’ll tell you.” He did some quick division. “Forty-three gallons, but we’ll add another twenty to cover all the idling and speeding we did.”
The big blocky numbers under the motel/gas sign said the price was $1.40 per gallon for diesel. He didn’t need to write it down. “Even with all the extra we need, that’s still less than a hundred bucks for sixty gallons of gas here. In California!”
It was a big payoff after a day of mayhem.
Mac sat inside and pawed at the driver’s side wind
ow as Buck went through his fueling routine. He pulled out his Comdata credit card but halted in surprise to see that the pump didn’t have a credit card reader.
“The readers must not have made it all the way out to bumfuck, California,” he mumbled.
He wasn’t going to complain, however, since he was saving a bucket of coins compared to buying it in the big city.
“Be back in a moment!” he shouted up to Mac.
There were only two pumps at the mom and pop station, the other unoccupied. A young man and woman smoked cigarettes while they leaned on a blue car parked at the little motel. Their bad habits assured him he was no longer alone.
Buck shuffled into the building to pay the cashier for his gas but found only one register for both the motel and the service station. One side of the room displayed a few sundries for motorists such as oil, snow scrapers, and soda pop, while the motel side had landscape oil paintings and little tourist knickknacks. A big window at the back of the room framed Mono Lake.
He went to the cooler of drinks, ever on the search for his Dr. Schnee. There were fifty cans of energy drinks, but no soda. He assumed truckers must have been the main clientele of the store.
An older gentleman in a sweaty white T-shirt and blue jeans stood behind the counter. “Paying for gas?”
Buck made his way to the register.
“Yes, sir. Give me a hundred on pump one.” Buck handed him a hundred-dollar bill. He always carried a few with him in his wallet but kept five more in his hidey-hole inside the sleeper. If he was ever pulled over and searched, he didn’t know how he would explain that the only things he kept hidden in there were two guns, lots of ammo, and hundred-dollar bills.
The motel manager took the bill and held it up to the light. “Looks kinda funny. I’ve never seen one like this before.”
Buck thought nothing of it. “Yeah, the government likes to play with our money. Is there a problem?”
The man took a few more seconds to examine the bill, then stuck it under his drawer. “Nope. You’re good on pump one.”
A minute later, he had the nozzle in the tank. Mac looked down on him from the driver’s seat.
End Days Series Box Set [Books 1-4] Page 23