“Of course it is honey. Can’t find our way down to the bottom without some light.”
Alissa took the flashlight from Jack. She turned it on and started shining it around the area. In a back corner something shiny caught her eye. “What’s that?”
Jack squinted toward the direction of the beam and smiled. “That is a luggage cart, and you—” he picked up Alissa and hugged her for emphasis, “— are my hero for finding it.” He gently set her down before trotting over to retrieve the luggage cart.
Alissa’s mood improved completely. She looked toward Karen, beaming, and exclaimed “I helped!”
“You sure did honey. Now we don’t have to carry all this stuff.”
Jack came back with the luggage cart and started arranging all of their bags on its base. After a few moments their supplies were secured on the cart and they were ready to resume their trek.
Alissa tugged on her mother’s sleeve. “Can I ride on that too? My feet hurt.”
Karen looked at the luggage cart and shook her head. “I don’t think it’s very safe for you on there ‘Lissa.”
“But my feet hurt.”
Jack smiled down at Alissa. “How ‘bout a piggy back ride?”
“Yes!” And then she looked at her mother who raised her eyebrows slightly at her daughter. “I mean, yes please!”
Jack stooped down to let Alissa climb aboard. She scrambled up his back and got into position.
“Ready back there?” he asked.
“Ready!”
“Ok then, light the way.” Alissa pointed the flashlight forward and the three continued their parking lot adventure.
Miles away Skyler and Everett were taking stock of the supplies on the shelves of the bunker’s storage room.
Skyler picked up a strange pair of goggles and held them up for her grandfather to see. Their lenses were a milky gold color and there were a few small buttons on the side of one of the temples. “What’s up with these?”
“Ah, those are night vision goggles and they are very cool.” He walked over to her and took the goggles from her. “You press this here on the side,” he pressed one of the buttons and the milky gold color vanished and the goggles became crystal clear. He then placed the goggles carefully over her eyes. “And then once you have them on your head, you can use this other button here to focus them.”
Everett turned off the lantern that illuminated the room, leaving it nearly pitch black.
She immediately could see everything in the room as if it was being lit with a bright green light.
“Wow these are amazing. Mind if I put these in my pack? I don’t think we should be without them.”
“Go right ahead, darlin’.”
She carefully took the goggles off and found a safe place for them in one of the padded compartments of her rucksack.
“Ok, any other cool things I should know about?” she asked.
“Well, that container of dehydrated beans and rice over there has a shelf life of twenty-five years.”
“Not really what I had in mind, but yeah, I guess that’s kind of coo—” she was interrupted by a blaring alert siren coming from outside the room.
In the kitchen, the old Bakelite radio speaker was impressively loud. Skyler turned down the volume and then gathered with her grandfather on the couch as they waited for what would come next. Less than a minute later Jesse Jones’ voice replaced the emergency siren.
“Folks this is it. Our last best hope to save humanity. My sources are telling me that the nuclear missiles are launching as we speak. Each of these missiles will travel at 15,000 miles per hour and hopefully will reach their target as intended sometime in the next ninety minutes.”
Skyler looked toward her grandfather, his body tense and his expression grim. This was it. “This is it,” she said it out loud. “Beginning of the end, or ...?”
He grabbed her hand in his.
“It’s the beginning of somethin’, darlin’.”
Jesse Jones continued.
“Wherever you are, get below ground now. If you were not able to get to a bunker, an airport or a military base, please head to a basement.”
Everett headed toward the steel desk and the bunker’s computer station.
As he remotely adjusted the angles on the surveillance cameras outside Skyler watched the results on the 4 way split monitor. It was astonishing.
Throngs of missiles filled the screens, rocketing toward the sky and out of view leaving only trails of smoke and condensation in their wake.
Skyler was shocked by their numbers. “God, so many.”
Everett nodded. “After all the failed attempts, I’m surprised there are any missiles left at all.”
“I hope some of them find their target this time.”
“Me too, darlin’.”
Skyler wondered to herself, What happens to the ones that don’t?
Once most of the missiles were out of sight, Everett swung one of the cameras around to see what was happening on the street.
The monitor showed their neighborhood, which had been in complete chaos just a few hours ago, was a lot less congested now.
Abandoned vehicles were parked everywhere, their doors and back hatches left open, personal affects strewn on the ground everywhere. Some poor misguided soul was caught on the camera rooting through left behind belongings, grabbing what he thought might be valuable.
There were still people out on the street, standing in their yards and looking up toward the sky, watching the last of the missiles leave the atmosphere.
Skyler could not understand why they weren’t taking shelter.
“Why are they just standing there? What are they waiting for?”
Everett continued looking at the monitor as he answered his granddaughter.
“I suppose they aren’t waiting for anything. Seems like they’re happy to stay put.”
“Happy to stay put? Don’t they know? Should we do something?”
Everett turned toward Skyler. Her “hero” instinct had kicked in as it had many times in her young life. He reached out and put his hand on hers.
“Darlin’, people need to live their lives the way they see fit. They’ve had plenty of warnin’ just like the rest of us.”
“But — No. That’s just stupid. They need to get inside.”
“It may seem unwise to you, but maybe they are people of faith and are ready what for what they think their God has in store for them next.”
Skyler sighed out of frustration and defeat.
Everett smiled at her. “My angel, always wantin’ to save the world.”
He left the main area and headed to the supply room. He returned with 2 large Pelican cases and motioned toward the computer.
“Let’s pack this up while we can. Hopefully we’ll be able to use it on the other side of this thing.”
They quickly broke down the computer, its monitors, cables, hard drive and stored them safely in their cases. As they rolled them back into the supply room Everett thought out loud.
“I do wonder what all those other poor folks are thinking right now, though.”
“Which poor folks are those?” Skyler asked.
“Not everyone knows about ‘XF11. Tribal people in the deserts, the rain forests, or in the jungles of Papua New Guinea, remote locations everywhere. They don’t know it’s coming, and they don’t know how we’re tryin’ to stop it.”
Skyler was stunned at the thought. “There are people out there living out just another day, looking up and seeing — this.” She gestured upward. “I’ve never even considered —”
Skyler was interrupted by another loud blare of the emergency signal coming from the old radio.
Jesse’s voice was more urgent than ever as he began to deliver his last messages.
“At this point, the missiles have left our stratosphere and are heading for their rendezvous with ‘XF11.”
Everett and Skyler took their places on the couch as Jesse continued his broadcast.
“Wherever you are, get below ground now. If you were not able to get to a bunker, an airport or a military base, please head to a basement. Get as many walls and floors between you and the outside world as possible.”
While Jesse continued to speak Skyler could not help but think of those people who had no idea what was happening in the modern world. She knew that there was a good chance that everyone would die and that the planet may cease to exist, but at least she knew. Tribal people, nomadic people. They had no idea. And even if someone had gone to warn them, would they truly have understood the concept?
Her thoughts were interrupted by her grandfather.
“Darlin’, here.” He motioned to the seat cushions and shoved his hands into the crevices on either side of him. From up between the cushions he pulled out two belts, one with a latch and one with a buckle.
“Seat belts?” Skyler was impressed. He really had thought of everything.
“It’s goin’ to get bumpy.”
“Come here Buddy, up here boy.” Skyler patted the middle cushion of the davenport. She and Everett strapped him in the best they could. Skyler was a bit worried for the dog.
“I think we’re going to have to really hold on to him.”
“Sounds like a plan to me. If we’re alright, he’ll be alright.”
Skyler checked and re-checked the belts on the dog. Buddy seemed content to be strapped to the couch in between Skyler and her grandfather, just waiting for the next fun thing they’d all do together. She reached down and kissed him on his forehead.
“Good boy, Buddy.” The dog thumped his tail a few times in response.
Skyler sat back and continued listening to Jesse on the radio.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, we here at the show have done our best over the past five years to help prepare the public for what this asteroid may mean for humanity.
“When the early attempts failed we knew we may come to this moment in history and we warned everyone who would listen.
“And now the time has come for us to shut down the signal ... for now. We’re going to hunker down here, as I hope you are doing with your friends and loved ones and try to ride this thing out. As soon as we are able, we will attempt to get back on the air, to restart the signal, and once again do our best to help the people of this great nation.”
Skyler could hear Jesse getting choked up as he delivered the last words of what may be his final broadcast.
“People ... please ... Make peace with your God, and pray that He or She will have mercy on all of our souls. This is Jesse Jones, with my good friend Bryce Campbell and the entire staff of the show, signing off.”
FIVE
Meanwhile in outer space.
While people around the world who could prepare for what was about to happen waited for the inevitable and prayed to their Gods of choice for the best outcome possible — most of the nuclear missiles actually missed their target and careened past the asteroid, into the darkness, on their way to places unknown. For now.
A few, however, managed to find their way. And because of them, the asteroid exploded into millions of pieces of varying sizes.
Some of those pieces were so small they never made it through the Earth’s atmosphere, however the majority were very large and continued barreling toward the planet at 280,000 mph.
Unseen by the human eye, but eventually verified by the surviving scientists tasked to study such things, a rather large community of alien pathogens was alive and well on the asteroid. Other than becoming airborne, being hit by nuclear missiles had an interesting effect on those pathogens.
Once abruptly detached from their home on the asteroid’s surface, they moved like billions of swirling streams through the air all over the Earth.
One swirling stream in particular had traveled through the atmosphere, into the skies above the East Coast, then to Long Island, to Great Neck and finally down the fresh air intake pipe that lead to Everett and Skyler’s bunker.
Skyler was strapped in and sitting on the couch with her grandfather and Buddy as the pathogen stream twirled and whirled its way into their bunker.
Other than a slight cough at the moment the pathogen found its way into her lungs, its existence remained unnoticed to the bunkers’ occupants. For reasons unknown at the time, it avoided her grandfather entirely and then dissipated into nothingness.
Skyler subconsciously put her hand to her throat as she coughed, not knowing why out of nowhere it felt so scratchy. But before she could give the sensation any more thought, the ground around them began to violently quake, shudder and roll.
“Hold on angel! Here we go!” Everett shouted, but Skyler could barely hear him.
The end of the world was loud. She hadn’t expected it to be this loud. Even 100 feet below the surface the noises were deafening. She wasn’t sure what was worse, the sound or the shaking. She couldn’t help but think that these earthquakes seemed unsurvivable. Furniture drilled into cement with seat belts installed would be a great idea for one major earthquake that may last for two minutes, max. But that’s not what happened there.
Sustained shaking of magnitudes she did not think existed had freed one end of the couch, excuse her, the davenport, from it’s steel strap. Her grandfather’s end was thrashing and undulating. As well built as it was, the base of it couldn’t handle that much stress, and it broke in half, throwing her grandfather’s half across the bunker with him still strapped in it. She held on to Buddy and watched on helplessly as Everett got tossed around the room.
“Grampa!”
He wasn’t in a position to answer her, and most likely couldn’t even hear her over the deafening sounds of the arrival of ‘XF11. She saw him wave his arms and was able to manage a brief thumbs up.
Outside the bunker and around the world widespread fires, tidal waves, shock waves and earthquakes followed in the immediate wake of the asteroid’s impact — flattening large areas all around the globe.
A tidal wave leveled most of the airport. Two-hundred ton planes were tossed around by the elements as if they were made of paper.
And while the ocean had managed to batter its way beyond the storm gates through various cracks and crevices in the structure itself, the bottom tier had less than a foot to deal with.
To Jack, the earthquakes seemed to be a much larger issue than the water. Every new tremor brought more cement falling from the ceiling around them. The structure was buckling.
He sat in complete darkness with his arms around Karen in a bear hug. Sandwiched between them was Alissa. And although he could hear nothing other than the ocean churning, the wind roaring and the earth moving, he knew they were all screaming.
SIX
Skyler was unsure of the timeline, hours? a day? but eventually the noise died down and the earthquakes came less frequently. They were able to unstrap themselves from their respective davenport halves and begin the business of cleaning up the debris around the bunker. A small leak in the ceiling of the bunker caught Skyler’s attention.
“Rain?”
“I don’t think so. Let’s see if we can take a look outside.”
Everett stopped his clean-up efforts and walked to the supply room. Most of the supplies were scattered all over the floor. He scoured the room and found the Pelican cases intact.
“Give me a hand with these Darlin’?”
Skyler crossed the room and grabbed one of the cases and rolled it toward the desk.
In just a few minutes the computer was set up, anchored to the desk and connected to the generator.
With a click of his mouse and a few key strokes the monitor display showed that 3 out of the 4 cameras were offline.
A few more clicks and the remaining working camera took up the full screen.
Before they could take a look, another earthquake interrupted them. Skyler and Everett each grabbed on to something nearby to steady themselves as the ground rumbled and shook around them. Buddy whined as he slid across the floor. The intensity of the quakes had weakene
d, but they still had the ability to toss anything that wasn’t bolted or strapped down around the bunker.
When the earthquake subsided Everett got back to looking at the computer screen.
“Here we are. Take a look.”
Through its lens they could see that the bullet proof encasing that housed the camera was cracked although the camera itself was miraculously unscathed.
The world revealed on the monitor was mostly a palette of various shades of gray. It took Skyler a few seconds of intense staring before she realized just what she was looking at.
She remembered seeing the cameras mounted high above the bunker as they entered the shed just a few days ago. The Great Neck landscape had changed considerably since then. Well, not changed, disappeared really. There were white caps as far as the eye could see. The ocean had taken over the neighborhood and seemed to be just inches below the camera. Remnants of roofs and chimneys of some of the area’s two story homes could be seen coming up through the water in a few places — but it was clear that most of the houses were just gone. In the distance fires could be seen burning furiously under the water.
Closer to the camera crumpled cars and unidentifiable debris were caught up in the raging current and traveled by the camera’s lens at great speeds.
“My god, Grampa.”
Everett shook his head. “I don’t know what I was expectin’, but this surely wasn’t it.”
As they continued to watch the devastation on the monitor, a body-less head slammed into the camera’s view, its hair briefly entangled on the camera’s casing, its lifeless and cloudy eyes stared straight into the lens. Skyler yelled out in shock.
“What the fu—!”
Another incoming earthquake interrupted her.
That same earthquake hit the lowest level of the airport’s underground parking lot hard. The walls, ceiling and support posts heaved as even more structural fissures developed. Large chunks of cement rained down around Jack, Karen and Alissa.
Immediately after it subsided a loud and long CRAAAACKing sound got their attention. And almost immediately after that a thundering rumble could be heard in the distance.
Plagued (Book 1): The Girl Who Chased The Shadows Page 4
