by Bobby Akart
Chapman chuckled. “No, they’re Americans. If they don’t want to talk, they don’t answer the phone.”
Isabella gave him a quick kiss on the lips and hustled across the loft to her closet. She pulled out two Louis Vuitton duffle bags and threw them on her bed. Then she went back and began to pull out some clothes. “Does it get cold in Indiana?”
“Wait. What? Are you coming too?”
“Oui, silly man. I am not staying here alone. My parents are safe, and Paris is no place to be when the power goes out.”
“We don’t know—” Chapman began to assuage her concerns, but she cut him off.
Isabella dropped an armload of jeans and sweaters on her bed and stared at him with her hands on her hips. “Do you not want me to come to America with you?”
“Well, of course—”
“Would you rather I stay here with the Yellow Vests while they burn down the city?”
For nearly twelve years, France, and Paris in particular, had experienced social unrest from those within the country who protested former President Emmanuel Macron’s presidency. Over time, the protests turned to violence, and now the numbers of the Yellow Vest protestors had grown considerably.
“No, no. I don’t want you to be put at risk.”
“I do not need your protection, Chapman,” she said stubbornly. “We are equals. I can shoot a gun as well as you. Even better.”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Because you will need help to defend your farm. If the electrical grid is hit by the storm, people will go hungry. They will come to farmers to take their food. I saw this in a movie many years ago.”
“A movie? Isabella, really, I don’t think it will be like that.”
“Yes, it will, Chapman. I learned to shoot. I can help you.”
Chapman smiled and reached out to take her hand. “You know what, my family will love you as much as I do.”
Suddenly, she welled up in tears. Her lower lip pouted somewhat and she closed her eyes.
He was confused and struggled to make her feel better. “I’m sorry. Did I upset you? Of course I want you to come with me. I never want to be apart from you again.”
“Do you love me, Chapman Boone? Already? You have only known me for two days. How can this be?”
Chapman smiled, exposing those twin dimples, and shrugged. “I guess when you know, you just know. I knew when I saw you go toe-to-toe with that snotty professor guy.”
“Toe-to-toe?” Isabella was confused.
“It means you were strong and not afraid to argue your position. I was very proud of you, and that’s when I knew.”
She blushed and then warmed to his touch. “That’s not when you knew, Monsieur Boone. It was when I brought you home after drinks.”
He laughed again. “Not true. It was long before that, but I will say that, um, that helped seal the deal.”
She slugged him. “We have no deal until you introduce me to your family, as your girlfriend, and not a professor you met while in Paris.”
“Okay, let’s shake on it,” said Chapman as he extended his hand. He was still grinning.
“In France, we kiss cheeks, like this.” She kissed both sides of his face and then planted one on his lips for good measure.
“I love France,” muttered Chapman.
She patted him on the chest. “Good. We are leaving your beloved France now. Charles de Gaulle Airport is the largest with the most flights to the West. We will go there and find the best airline to take us to Indiana.”
Chapman laughed. “Well, we’ll get as close as we can. I don’t think any flights go directly to Indiana or Kentucky, but maybe Cincinnati or even Chicago.”
“Chicago? Where your sister is at the zoo?”
“Yes.”
“Let us fly to Chicago and see your sister at the zoo. I would love to see the animals.”
Chapman stared out the windows of her loft as a flock of seagulls flew by. What are they doing a hundred and fifty miles inland?
“I’m not sure visiting the zoo would be a good idea right now,” he quipped.
Chapter 57
Riverfront Farms
Southeast Indiana
“Squire!” Sarah ran out their front door, bounded down off the porch steps, and raced onto their gravel driveway, screaming his name. “Squire! Where are you?”
She was frantic as she spun in a complete circle, searching for her husband. His truck was parked where they’d left it the night before. The garage doors were rolled open. The four-wheelers and the old red Chevy were in their usual places.
Then she heard the unmistakable roar of a shotgun blast. The report reverberated off the barn and their home. It was close, yet she couldn’t determine which direction it came from. She called out his name again. This time out of concern for his safety.
“Squire!”
“Behind the barn!”
Her chest heaving from the weight of stress upon it, she ran toward the barn and arrived just as Squire jogged through the rear entrance.
“Honey, here!” he shouted. Squire set the shotgun down on a hay bale and ran to join his distraught wife. “I had to kill a rattler. What’s wrong?”
She was gripping his cell phone so hard the whites of her knuckles were showing. “It’s Chapman. He called for us. You have to listen.”
“Is he in trouble?” asked Squire as the two met outside the barn’s front entrance.
“Just listen. I think we all are.”
“What?”
“Here,” she said, thrusting the cell phone at him. He used his thumb to navigate to the message and then listened to it through the speaker. Squire and Sarah exchanged concerned glances as Chapman’s voicemail began.
“Mom, Dad, I’m in Paris but headed for the airport. Listen, something happened, um, is happening. I don’t have time to tell you all the details, but it’s called a pole shift, and it may be part of something much bigger.
“Basically, the north pole changes places with the south pole. It’s been shifting for decades, but it’s suddenly sped up. What that means is that the planet’s magnetic field is weakening and will get much weaker faster. We’ve been trying to warn people, but they won’t listen.
“Please, I know this sounds like a lot of scientific mumbo jumbo, but the weakened field makes us vulnerable to the sun’s radiation. There is a sun storm, known as a geostorm, and it is coming toward Earth. It will hit sometime in the next twelve hours.”
Squire looked at the phone display to check the time, and then he noticed when Chapman called. It had been an hour.
“When the geostorm hits, we could suffer power outages. Listen to me. I’m talking about a widespread collapse of the power grid that could last for many months. This pole shift is probably responsible for the droughts at the farm and some things I’ve experienced in Seattle and …” His voice trailed off.
“Please, this is so important. I don’t know how this will affect the planet and us. But you have the opportunity to get ready. You have to prepare for the worst and hope for the best. What does the worst look like? Imagine a world with no power. No electricity. Please get ready. I’m gonna try Levi, Carly, and Kristi. I’ll call you again as soon as I arrive in the States. I love you both. We’ll see you soon.” Chapman disconnected the call.
Squire held the phone and studied the display for a moment. He ran his thumb along the edge of the phone and twice ran it over the play button as if he wanted to listen to it again.
“Squire? Whadya make of this? I’ve never heard Chapman this excitable, even when he was chasing tornados.”
Squire didn’t respond. He scratched his two-day growth of beard and removed his John Deere cap to wipe the sweat off his brow. The wrinkles on his face ran deep from years of working in the sun, and worry.
Sarah interrupted his thoughts. “Dear? Never. Chapman is the calm and collected one, remember?”
Squire sighed and shoved the phone into the pocket of his overalls. “I
know. He sounded almost, well, panicked. Did this all suddenly come about? I don’t fully understand what a pole shift is, but you’d think it would take a long time. The world doesn’t just turn upside down overnight.”
Sarah grabbed both of her husband’s hands and smiled. “I don’t think the planet turns upside down. It sounds like the outer layers, you know, the atmosphere or whatever moves. Squire, I don’t know what all that means, but I know our son. He’s sincerely worried about this.”
Squire chuckled. “Yeah, Chapman was convinced the Mayans were right back in 2012, too. Do you remember that? His eyes were glued to the History Channel, Discovery, National Geographic, all of them. He’d watch the reruns over and over again, convincing himself the apocalypse was coming.”
“Please, Squire. It could’ve been worse. He could’ve been watching MTV.”
He shrugged. “True, but still. He was certain the world was gonna come to an end on 12-21-2012, and it didn’t.”
Sarah shook her head in disbelief. She didn’t want to get angry with her husband for doubting their son’s dire phone call because that would be counterproductive. “Listen, he’s obviously not alone in coming up with this theory. He said we in his voicemail twice. And whoever this other person is, they’re coming home with him. It must be serious.”
Squire wandered away and put his hands on his hips as he stared at the barn. He turned his attention back to Sarah. “Let’s just say he’s right, or even partly right, and we lose power for a few days or even weeks. The Boone family lived without power back in the 1700s just fine. We can do it again.”
“Squire Boone! You’re not gonna compare our family’s life to back in the glory days of the Boones and the Chapmans. We need to protect our kids and those two precious grandchildren that Levi and Carly blessed us with.”
Squire grinned. “Okay, okay, Mrs. Boone. You win. So whadya suggest?”
“Well, first off, we need to call Carly and figure out a way to get in touch with Levi. He needs to come home now. I’ll reach out to Kristi and tell her the same.”
“She’s not gonna leave the zoo because of some wild-eyed theory of her brother.”
“Squire, you leave Kristi to me.”
Squire’s shoulders drooped and his face relaxed. Sarah knew her husband. He always wilted under the pressure of his wife.
“What do you want me to do?”
She smiled as she took his hands once again and wrapped them around her back. She hugged him and whispered into his ear, “I love you, Mr. Boone. You are the boss of this family, but sometimes, you gotta trust a woman’s intuition.” She leaned back to study his face.
“When I said I do all those years ago, I meant it. I’ll do whatever you think’s best, Sarah.”
“You’re a good man, Squire. Now, we’re gonna be the ant, not the grasshopper.”
“Huh?”
“You know, the fable of the ant and the grasshopper.”
“Nope, sorry.”
“It goes like this. During the summer, the grasshopper spends his days hopping around and singing while the ant constantly works to store food for the winter. When wintertime arrives, the grasshopper finds itself dying of hunger and begs the ant for food. The ant turns him away and tells the grasshopper to keep dancing and singing.”
“You just made that up!” said Squire with a laugh.
“No, it’s been around longer than the Boones and Chapmans. Squire, our son said in the voicemail that nobody would listen to him. We’re listening and we’re gonna get ready.”
“Okay.”
“The point is, I’d rather be prepared and alive than oblivious and dead.”
Chapter 58
Brookfield Zoo
Chicago, Illinois
An animal’s instinct, its innate behavior, was the result of millions of years of evolution and adaptation to a constantly changing environment. As the ecosystem in which they lived was modified, some species adjusted, and others didn’t.
Kristi bore witness to the evolution of animals within the microcosm of the Brookfield Zoo. Only, the change happened in a blink of an eye in the total scheme of things. The transformation of animals from the hunted to hunters was more than remarkable. It was without precedent.
They’d been called by zoo security to assist them at the Big Cats exhibit in the northeast part of the zoo. Brookfield was home to the world’s most beautiful, yet endangered big cats, including the African lion, the striped Amur tiger, and the exquisite snow leopard.
She and Tommy walked across the zoo, past Tropic World and around Roosevelt Fountain. Tommy brought her up to speed on some additional research he’d done on Chapman’s pole shift theory.
“If some of the theories on the relationship between the brain, both animal and human, and the pole shift are true, then we might be looking at an uprising that could only be portrayed in a movie.
“It’s not just the animals we’ve had personal contact with. Around the world, I’ve read about locusts, grasshoppers, bats, birds …” His voice trailed off. “Seriously, Kristi, I’ve never seen so many weird animal stories in the news, yet nobody seems to see a connection.”
Kristi weighed in. “Animals have magnetoreception, which allows them to sense the Earth’s magnetic field for navigation. I get that. But what is causing them to become hostile?”
“In a word—confusion. Humans are no different. When our lives are on the steady-Eddie, you know, routines are uninterrupted by natural disasters or other humans inserting themselves in our daily activities, most of us remain calm. But if we get thrown off our game, even something ordinary like another driver cutting us off on the interstate or a neighbor playing his music too late at night, we get annoyed. Now, most of us can control those feelings of being annoyed and not act upon them. Some might just bitch to a friend, or even post how aggravated they are on Twitter. Others, however, rage. They ram their car into the rear of the offending driver. They bang on the apartment wall. Sometimes, if they really have a screw loose, they grab a gun and begin shooting at the perceived source of their anger.
“Animals are no different. Their brains have become confused by the pole shift and the changing magnetic fields. Chimps, like Knight, get angry and act out by throwing things, including their own poop. Hippos, like those in Orlando, might stampede. The crocs just do what crocs do—feed.
“It’s unpredictable and random.”
“Chaos,” added Kristi as they passed the pavilions and made their way up the Big Cats walkway.
She gestured for Tommy to slow as they approached the enclosure. Normally, the African lions would be lounging on the rocks, mere feet away from where they were standing, separated by a large moat that acted as a boundary. Today, the rocks and the water feature between them were empty.
“Where are the animals?” asked Tommy. “The call said to meet the security team at the front of the exhibit. One of the zookeepers for this area reported a splash in the moat, and they were concerned one of the capuchin monkeys had returned, only to get trapped with the cats.”
They continued walking toward the Clouded Leopard Rain Forest, thinking the security guard had misidentified his location. As they made their way along the path, they came across two four-wheelers parked near the tigers’ habitat. Kristi’s phone rang, startling her. She reached into her lab coat, saw that it was Chapman, and sent it to voicemail.
“Something’s not right,” she muttered as she walked closer to the habitat’s guardrail. The entire area was devoid of activity. She checked her watch. The zoo wasn’t scheduled to open for two more hours, and it was during this time that the zookeepers assigned to each exhibit would be feeding the animals.
“Did you hear that?” asked Tommy.
“Yeah, thrashing in the water, right?” asked Kristi.
“Come on!” Tommy ran ahead along the walkway and turned up a hill toward the leopard habitat. The splashing sound grew louder as they approached, and when they arrived at the top of the incline, they abruptly stopped
.
“Lions hate water,” mumbled Kristi. “What are they doing in there?”
Lions were notorious for not being good swimmers. Their muscular torsos aren’t built for it. In the jungle, if there was a particularly rainy period, they’d cross a stream or a river to avoid rising water. Chasing prey was unheard of. The King of the Jungle always had meal options on terra firma.
Tommy hopped the railing and walked through the tall grasses and limestone to get a better look.
“Are you nuts?” asked Kristi.
“They can’t get up the side of the moat. I have to see what they’re after.”
Kristi shook her head, stifled her paranoia, and joined him. She moved quickly to catch up, her head on a swivel, just in case.
“Oh my god,” she gasped as she saw two lions and a tiger tearing apart a man’s body in the muddy waters of the habitat. They paddled around, latched onto a piece of the mangled torso, and swam back to their side of the enclosure. Another lion descended from the rocks above and hauled the hunk of human meat back up the steep sandstone embankment.
The big cats were social animals. Their pride structure, especially when it involved hunting as a group in the wild, was often studied and well documented. It was easily the best-known social organization in the jungle.
Ordinarily, the female lions did the hunting, and the males waited for their portions to be delivered. And rarely, if ever, did different species of big cats hunt together. Today, what they observed was just one more in a string of extraordinary events within the animal kingdom.
It was the male lions who were hunting, in water, alongside a tiger. And it was the lioness who came down off her perch to drag the prey back up the hill.
Setting aside the fact that it was a zoo employee who had been killed, the interaction between these big cats could make for a documentary of its own.
“Tommy, we’ve got to get help!” Kristi turned and began making her way back to the walkway. The two maintenance carts were a hundred yards away. If they didn’t have a radio, she’d take them to find somebody who did.
