“Watch the gap here,” she said after jumping from the underside of a bus to the metal plating of a lone airplane wing. “The surface isn’t slippery, though.”
The white wing was from one of the larger planes, the kind with two engines hanging from each wing. The one below her had been stripped of the giant turbines, however. Nothing was left but the mounts. It was fine with her since there was nothing blocking her ascent for a good ten meters.
“Come on!” she insisted. “We’re almost there.”
“I’m trying,” Zandre grumbled, then huffed.
Only Tim and the second crewmen kept up with her as she made it to the next object in the trash heap, which turned out to be the metal front wall of an office building.
“Stay in the middle!” she cried as if it were a game.
The building could have been from downtown Sydney or from Tokyo. There were no markings on it. Every window had been blown out, leaving only thin glass edges in each rectangular hole. Trash from the larger pile bulged out of the lower windows. Parts of the wrecked building were draped up the side of the pile almost to the top.
She had her path.
“Eureka,” she said a few minutes later as she reached the summit.
Tim and the other guy arrived seconds after she did. She’d learned his name was Bert from listening to Tim, though she assumed that wasn’t his real name but one he used because it was easier for English-speakers to say.
“Wow,” Tim blurted.
“What is it?” Barlow asked as he climbed near the top of the building.
She didn’t answer for a few seconds as she took it all in. The steep pile of trash at the beach didn’t drop off on the other side as she’d expected. Instead, the pile slowly descended over the course of what looked like several kilometers into the interior of the continent. It had once been a jungle-like area since similar trees dotted the landscape miles away. However, between her and the intact forest, the rolling wall of trash had done wonders at stripping greenery from all the trees for as far as she could see up and down the beachfront woodlands.
Far on the horizon, beyond the destruction caused by the trash and the jungle, six or seven volcanoes churned out dark smoke plumes that reached the highest parts of the atmosphere. They also had many streams of orange lava on their front faces, as if presenting multiple defenses to hold off the encroaching trash of the modern era.
“It’s bad,” she relayed.
Zandre stayed with the captain. It made her wonder if she should have gone slower and stayed with Barlow as well. Was Zandre trying to get some advantage? She readily admitted her friend knew far more about how the world worked than she did, but it was only after seeing what was over the top that she thought it might become necessary to sweet-talk the captain.
Going inland was not a pretty option, so his boat was the only safe way to travel.
She turned seaward.
Panic gripped her stomach at the sight of the Majestic racing away from them.
“Captain, where’s the fucking boat going?”
Nine
Above Alpha Site
“Good morning again,” Lydia said almost the moment he opened his eyes.
He stretched and looked around as he woke up to the sweet smell of burning wood. Most of his fellow travelers were sitting up and chatting with each other. Few had a fire going like Lydia.
“How did you get it started?” he asked.
“I always carry a striker in my pocket,” she deadpanned.
“Really? You’ve had it this whole time?”
She blinked in disbelief. “You don’t carry one?”
“No.”
Lydia the pioneer pulled out a small U-shaped piece of steel that wrapped around her fingers like brass knuckles. Then she brought out a sharp little rock. In two seconds, she’d struck them together and created a spark.
“Wow, you’re resourceful,” he said, impressed.
“Well, most of the time we had matches to light our fires, but sometimes we ran out, so we had to make do. Pa taught me to start fires with whatever I had at hand. I even saw one boy start a fire with just a stick. I much preferred the matches.” She chuckled as if recalling a fond memory.
“You are awesome!” he gushed. “Fire anytime we want it? That’s huge.”
“It would be better with food,” a middle-aged man interjected.
He was one of the time nomads, an unshaven guy with rough leather chaps, a rustic long-sleeved blue shirt, and greasy black hair. If he had to pick a page in his history textbook at his now nonexistent high school, he probably came from somewhere near the American Revolution.
“No kidding,” he answered.
“I’m Samuel,” the man said without extending a hand. He continued to lounge on the ground with his back against a tree trunk. The guy chewed on a pine needle, though it didn’t seem as if he was enjoying it since he had a deep scowl on his face.
“Garth. This is Lydia.”
“Nice to meet you both,” Samuel replied.
“Yeah, you too. Do you know what they’re going to do with us?”
“Nope,” he replied. “I’m not even sure what I’m doing here. I was working in the foundry when everything went blue. I woke up in a field before I got picked up by a nice family in one of those horseless boxes on wheels.”
“A car?” he asked.
“That’s what they called it, yes. It brought me to this place among all these people. I’m still not sure what to make of it, you know? It feels…wrong.”
His story was similar to the others. Blue light. Waking up. Being lucky enough to hitch a ride with the travelers who’d brought them to Colorado. How many other time nomads had ended up dying with everyone else as a result of not understanding where to go to be safe?
“I’m a great rider of the tacks-see,” Lydia bragged to the man.
“She is a very good passenger,” Garth said with pride. “Especially for someone from 1849.”
“Well, bust my ribs. That’s the same year I’m from,” he started before hesitating. “What I mean is, they tell me this isn’t 1849, so I have to take their word for it.”
“It isn’t,” Garth assured him.
“Ah, well, that’s it then. I’m dead.”
“No way,” Garth insisted. “We’re all very much alive. We’ve been drawn into a type of science experiment.” It was the most basic way of explaining what happened.
“What did you do before this happened?” he asked, hoping to distract the guy.
“I made ammo at the Phoenix Shot Tower in Baltimore.”
“That sounds fun,” he replied. “My dad would probably love you. He’s got lots of guns.”
He corrected himself in his head. Dad used to have a lot of guns, but not so many anymore.
Garth tried to imagine where the other guns had gone. Was that part of Staten Island still intact like the area around SNAKE? It didn’t seem likely, but it wasn’t impossible. There were pieces of civilization outside the fence, such as the two-lane highway, so maybe there was more out there. Maybe some of his old friends had survived, along with Dad’s guns.
“Well, we make the best, let me tell you. Any musket owned by federal troops is pushing our ball ammo. Your dad should check us out sometime.” He spat out the pine needle as if he were disappointed to remember there was nowhere to check out.
Garth looked around for guards. To his surprise, they were organizing some people on the other side of the group. Behind him, only a tired-looking sentry kept watch. Phil was nowhere to be seen, but he trusted he was out there.
He scooted closer to Lydia but spoke loud enough for Samuel to hear. “You guys should know I snuck out last night, and I think I know where they’re taking us.”
“Where?” Lydia asked with concern.
At that moment, some of the nomads were pulled from the group and made to walk with the concentration of guards who’d been on the far side.
Garth stood up. “Where are you taking them?”
No one could hear him from where he was.
“Hey!” he screamed. “Where are you taking them?”
The guards ignored him.
A small group of five or six people was escorted down a dirt path. It wouldn’t have caught his notice the day before since they’d been separated and mixed up a time or two. However, today, the direction they were walking made all the difference.
“What’s the big deal, friend?” Samuel asked.
He sighed, “Because they’re walking those people into trouble.”
They were headed in the direction of the nearby parking lot. He didn’t think they’d been brought into the woods to learn how to drive those big rigs.
Their entire reason for being there had to do with the blue light.
That was where those people were headed.
Road to Colorado Springs
“Do you want me to get out?” Connie asked.
Buck couldn’t tell if she was serious. He’d parked Lorraine at the edge of a patch of pavement that currently had six inches to a foot of ocean water over it. The dip was only about fifty yards long, and he could see the striped yellow line down the middle the entire way.
“I don’t think that will be necessary. Besides, you scared the bejeezus out of me back in Utah when you slipped into that hole. This time, you might get washed out forever.” He directed her attention to his left.
Waves from the sea broke over the broad and flat landscape on the left side of the road, but those waves were barely bigger than a child’s splashes by the time they reached the highway. The beachfront had faded over the few miles they’d driven; the water had come up over a Colorado pasture and lapped at the raised roadway. It went a hundred yards to their right in another field, but it stopped at a wooded incline that marked the beginning of the foothills.
“Aw, where’s your sense of adventure?” she pressed.
He knew she was yanking his chain.
“Maybe we’ll make Big Mac lead us across.” He chuckled.
Upon hearing his name, the pup got off his resting spot in the back of the cabin and soon stood between him and the beautiful woman in the passenger seat. Buck rubbed Mac’s head with calm assurance. “I’m only kidding. No one is getting out this time. I don’t trust that water.”
A barbed wire fence ran alongside the left shoulder, the lower of the three strands at the waterline, and there was no sign of fast current around the posts. It gave him confidence the water depth and flow weren’t too dangerous, though he still didn’t trust it. There was no telling what beasts were in an ocean that had appeared out of nowhere. He’d sooner go back than send someone he cared about out there to scout.
He picked up the CB. “Eve, Monsignor, you there? I’m going to push on. I can still see all the lines, so we’re good to go.”
“Roll on,” Eve replied. She tooted the horns on the top deck of her silver Peterbilt.
Monsignor, in the number three slot, added his agreement.
The Humvee, which sat the lowest and ran the most risk in water crossings, was silent. Buck took that as consent.
“Here we go,” he said to Connie.
Buck never made it out of the low gears as he drove into the water and crept along the submerged stretch of two-lane. He popped open his door to look down at the pavement. As long as he could see the lines, he was confident all would be well.
Shorebirds squawked in the distance, reinforcing that he was driving near oceanfront property rather than next to what had once been a quaint piece of farmland in the Mile-High State.
He glanced out over the water. From his position, he could imagine he was on a boat looking out over an endless expanse of ocean. Oddly, it buoyed his spirits to know he was safely on land rather than having anything to do with a ship out there. That would suck hard.
“We’re good,” he said to bolster confidence in his operation. “We’re making it.”
“Buck, look!” Connie gasped while pointing across his chest.
They approached an intersecting length of barbed wire fencing that ran for about a hundred yards to their left before beginning a gradual descent into the water. A little before the water got really deep, an animal struggled at the fence as if stuck on it.
“Shit, it’s a cow,” he said.
The all-black cow was on her feet but obviously working hard to escape the wires. Buck could imagine she was in a lot of pain, though she was far enough away that he couldn’t hear her crying over his diesel engine.
“You see that?” Eve said over the CB. “Something is pulling on it.”
“Really?” Buck replied.
As he watched the cow, which was now almost straight out from him, he saw a subtle difference in its position. Like Eve said, the giant animal was being pulled by something on the far side of it.
He picked up the microphone. “Can you see what it is?”
“Negative,” Eve came back.
“It looks like a long arm,” Monsignor added. “I can’t really see it, but there is definitely something attached to that poor cow.”
Buck sucked in some air, then slammed the door. “I’ve seen enough.”
“Me too,” Connie said as she fell back in her seat.
For a split second, he considered getting out his 9mm Beretta to put the poor thing down. Aside from the difficult shot it would have presented with him in his truck, the moving animal, and the distance, he didn’t want to risk his people by using up his small supply of ammo. It pained him to boil things down to the bone, but they were his main priority now. He might need a bullet to save Connie or Garth.
“We’ve got to get out of this water.” He hit another gear and gave his rig more gas. The twin stacks belched exhaust and the cab gently shook with the revving motor as he raced for dry land. “I’ve been in some sketchy waterways down in south Florida, but I’ve never seen anything that made me think I was in danger while driving my rig.”
“But we don’t even know what it was,” Connie said in a quiet voice.
“I’m not sure I want to know,” he continued. “It’s probably a hundred-foot crocodile, or whatever lived on the beach back a million years ago.”
In moments, they were clear of the obstacle. His back tires dropped water all over the dry roadway as he went up the grade. The road rose over another hill, and he was relieved beyond words to see the path of the highway hugged the high ground rather than turned back toward the ocean.
Ahead, he saw another familiar sight which made him stop the truck once he was sure all the vehicles were out of the water.
He sat and looked ahead for half a minute.
“Please tell me we don’t have to turn around,” Connie said with deep concern.
“Nope.” Buck pointed through his bullet-holed windshield. “We caught a break. See that lone mountain up ahead?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s Pike’s Peak. Truckers can see it from up and down Interstate 25 as well as far out on Interstate 70. You can almost see it from Kansas, in fact.”
“Well, that’s great, right?”
“It’s actually better than great.” He smiled at her. “It means a familiar piece of territory around Colorado Springs is still there. Seeing that mountain instead of more ocean has pretty much ensured we’ll find the city we’re looking for.”
Mac bounced excitedly between him and Connie, sensing the positive change in their moods and always seeking the lovings that came from happy humans. Buck was more than willing to dole them out, which added to the dog’s good mood.
“Everything okay up there?” Eve asked on the CB.
He picked it up. “You bet. That’s Pike’s Peak. I’m hopeful this means there’s more of the old world than this one road. We might even be lucky enough to find the whole city of Colorado Springs. Wouldn’t that be awesome?”
Eve said something, but he’d stopped listening. All his attention was out the window. He’d made the mistake of looking back to where the struggling cow was last seen.
/> It and the last fifty feet of fence were gone.
Ten
Alpha Site Front Gate
Faith hammered the electric golf cart as fast as it would go back up the winding road toward SNAKE. Missy rode beside her, hanging onto the clipboard they’d been using to keep notes on people they’d found in the refugee camp. While Buck and his crew had been prepping to leave in the overnight hours, she’d been relentlessly interviewing the survivors, hoping to prove to Strauss that they had skills that would be necessary if they had any chance to survive over the long haul.
“When we get back, let’s get in touch with the science staff. If we can get the clearance to visit him in the medical bay, I’m sure Doctor Perkins will have some ideas on how we can best use the manpower out there. He’s so old, he probably survived the Great Depression by being clever. That’s what we need right now.”
She also wanted to make sure her old friend and mentor was still alive. He’d been having heart issues since the experiments started going wrong and his pacemaker had been beamed out of his body. She needed to start thinking about her people again as well as those she’d been tasked with helping on the outside.
“Is he really that old?” Missy asked.
“I have no idea,” she admitted. “I love the guy, but he’s always seemed much older than he really was, even when I first met him years ago. I think us scientists just age worse than normal people.”
“Not all of you,” Missy said to be nice.
“Thanks.”
Without realizing it, they passed small groups of soldiers working in the trees on each side of the road. After looking over her shoulder, she saw that they were clearing brush and stacking wood as if building something.
“They sure are busy—” she said before slamming on the brakes.
“Whoa!” Missy blurted.
They’d come around a bend in the road and suddenly faced a pair of tanks at the entry to the SNAKE parking lot. Several soldiers stood guard between them. One had his hand up, signaling her to stop, which she did about a hundred feet short of the roadblock.
End of Days | Book 5 | Beyond Alpha Page 8