“Oh my God. Look at that.” Her eyes fill with tears as Lily and Mia run inside and look around at their new home. After a couple of minutes, they exit grinning as if they have just seen Santa Claus.
“It’s way cool,” says Mia.
“Great work, grownups,” says Lily, folding her arms, admiring their work.
Meg is overcome with gratitude. “Thank you! Thank you all.” She goes inside with the girls right behind her.
Julia and Satin stand together on the beach in awkward silence. Though she has felt varying degrees of discomfort around Satin since their first meeting, Julia is beginning to warm to her and breaks the silence.
“Thanks for not swearing around the children.”
“Thanks for noticing.” Satin hasn’t missed Julia’s tightly pursed lips and disapproving looks when she’s around. The tension between them has been palpable.
“I’m sorry if I judged you unfairly.”
“You shouldn’t judge people at all,” says Satin, rubbing her itchy healing arm.
“I get it from my mother, bless her heart. Dad’s more tolerant.”
“Well, I’m much more than a pretty face with a potty mouth. I care about people and I hope we can be friends, even if life is really fucked up right now.” Satin hugs her.
Julia eyes Satin’s broken arm. “I just might have something for the itch.”
That night, the survivors celebrate their first Thanksgiving around the campfire, much the same way as America’s early settlers celebrated their first Thanksgiving. Seven adults and two children who believe they might be the last nine people on Earth give thanks for Lake Tahoe and for each other.
They feast on fire-roasted lake trout and catfish, gooseberries, chinquapin and sugar pine nuts and wash it all down with dandelion tea made in the only pot. Gooseberries, with their exotic blend of kiwi, mango, guava and lime flavors, are becoming harder and harder to find as conditions deteriorate.
After the campfire burns out, they all sleep with full bellies on beds of grass, leaves and pine needles, using old sheets and scraps of material they have collected during their individual migrations.
Dana Point, November 28
Samson doesn’t growl or bark. Alex is only half asleep when he hears someone approaching. He opens his eyes fully and peers into the darkness. The only light comes from the stars overhead and a faint glow all along the horizon. It is a rare night with zero cloud cover. Without light pollution coming from civilization, the night sky reveals a million stars.
On nights like this, Alex usually watches the sky for hours on end, counts the shooting stars and feels completely awed by the sheer immensity of the Milky Way and the magnitude of the visible Universe, but not tonight. Someone is coming.
“Alex? You awake? It’s me, Matias.”
Alex stands, moves toward his voice. “Is everything okay?”
“I brought you some Thanksgiving goodies.” Matias hands Alex a red cardboard box about the size of a toaster. He’s also brought a bottle of tequila, which he sets on the ground between them.
“Geez, I completely forgot.” For the first time in his life, Alex has forgotten about Thanksgiving. Alex never forgets stuff like that. Just the opposite, Deuce and Jessa never remember, except for their own birthdays, unless Alex reminds them. Sure, Thanksgiving always falls on a Thursday in November, but who really cares anymore? It’s a miracle they still have days to count at all.
“Check this out, amigo.” Matias opens the box top and fishes out a perfect Slim Jim in its trademark skintight wrapper. “I found two cases, one for us, one for your family.”
Alex squints at the Slim Jim, then at Matias, and they both smile. The Slim Jims are more than a tasty treat. They are a silly reminder of their former lives. They have never enjoyed Slim Jims so much without taking a single bite.
“Anyway, I couldn’t sleep. I thought we could hang out for a while?” Matias uncorks the tequila.
“Really wish I could, but I can’t tonight.” Alex pauses and deadpans, “I have to get up early for work.”
The absurdity of putting their lives on hold just so they can go to work sets them both howling like deranged coyotes. They have absolutely no reason to get up for anything and they don’t care. Matias stops laughing just long enough to swig tequila and pass the bottle to Alex. Then he turns serious.
“So what really happened that night? Your boy told Mateo that two moons crashed? It was so cloudy in Baja. We couldn’t see anything.”
“The government told us it was a rogue dwarf planet that escaped detection until it was practically on top of us. They told us it had a small chance of hitting the moon, and not to worry, even when they knew a collision was almost certain. Instead of preparing us, they blew us just enough sunshine to avoid rioting and looting. They let hundreds of millions of people die.”
“Did you see this rogue planet? How big was it?”
Alex gulps tequila, “Bigger than Texas.”
Matias’s jaw drops. “Sounds like some crazy fireworks.”
“Tell me about it.”
Though Matias speaks English quite well, he is unfamiliar with the idiom, so he interprets Alex’s comment literally. “You know more about it. Better for you to tell me.”
Alex laughs. The laughter comes easily when he and Matias are together. They have the same warped sense of humor. They also share a childlike sense of wonder and curiosity about life – Alex with outer space and the possibility of life among the stars, Matias with inner space and the variety of life in deep underwater caves. They both like tequila, too.
Great friendships have been built on considerably less.
They slouch together side by side on the recumbent bikes near the last vestiges of the Jacks family home, passing the bottle and talking throughout the night like old friends. Fueled by tequila, they’re still talking and laughing at daybreak.
“Good thing we don’t have to get up early for work, huh?”
“No more jobs and no more taxes.” Matias slurs.
“No more bills.” Alex takes another swig and passes the bottle back to Matias.
“No more Bobs,” says Matias, grinning.
“I mean bills to pay,” slurs Alex.
Matias, half drunk, continues on with his list of imaginary deceased names, “No more Bills, Helenas, Rosies or Juanitas.”
Alex, equally drunk, adds to the list, “And no more Georges, Miltons, Marvins, Bernies or Ralphs.”
For all that Alex and Matias know, the only names left on the human roll call belong to them and their families. For all they know, everyone else in Southern California and perhaps the rest of the world is dead. All those billions of names have gone extinct.
With daybreak, Alex notices an alarming new development in their environment. Overnight, while Alex and Matias put away an entire bottle of tequila, the ocean level crept up several more feet. Pacific Coast Highway is now underwater. There are gentle waves lapping at the edge of what was Alex’s property line only yesterday.
Multiple alarms sound off in Alex’s head. He quickly sobers up enough to realize that the rapidly rising sea might soon overrun them, flood the bomb shelter and ruin what’s left of the Jacks family supplies. He jumps off the bike, shoves Matias firmly to awaken him.
“Matias! Come, Matias. The ocean’s rising! We need to move inland, now!”
Still groggy from being passed out, Matias wobbles to his feet as Alex rousts Jessa and Deuce and makes enough commotion to get Samson running excitedly back and forth and barking. The dog runs straight to the property line, sniffs and woofs at this new alien stranger, the Pacific Ocean, invading their space.
“We’re going to need the van to move our stuff,” says Alex. He flings open the door to the bomb shelter, exposes it to Matias for the first time and begins removing the remaining supplies.
“Wow, impressive. I’ll get the van,” says Matias and takes off as fast as his hungover legs will carry him toward the market.
Alex, Jessa and
Deuce quickly empty everything from the bomb shelter. They pile their supplies neatly near the driveway and turn the trikes around to face the road in preparation for their escape. Alex has no idea how much time they have left. He has no idea how much more the sea level will rise or how fast. He only knows that it’s a matter of time before the ocean swallows the rest of his property and inundates the shelter. He knows that the shelter is not waterproof and definitely not designed for underwater survival, and there is still nearly a month’s worth of food and water at risk if they don’t remove everything immediately. They have no choice but to evacuate.
Matias returns less than a half hour later with the empty van. He’s surprised by the generous stash of supplies the Jacks family has placed in the driveway and even more surprised that it has all been hidden underground in a bomb shelter since The Crash.
Matias peers down into the shelter and whistles. “I didn’t think anyone made these anymore.”
Alex is hastily loading water bottles into the van.
“Yeah, it came with the house. Only bomb shelter in Dana Point. We stocked enough food and water in there to last about six months. This is our last few weeks’ worth,” says Alex as they frantically load everything into the van.
The sea level is still rising slowly but steadily as Jessa sets the last item, the case of Slim Jims, into the van. Deuce notices it and snags himself a Slim Jim from the box excitedly.
“Hey, where did these come from?” Deuce holds it up, licking his lips.
“It’s a gift from Matias.” Alex grabs one, too.
“Gracias,” Deuce grins at Matias and snaps off his first bite.
“Finish it on the way,” commands Alex. “Let’s take the bikes and go!”
Matias climbs into the van and drives off with their supplies. Alex, Jessa and Deuce mount the recumbent bikes and pedal after him, Samson running alongside them.
Deuce nervously watches Matias leave with all their supplies. He doesn’t yet trust Matias they way Alex does. He hopes it won’t be the last time they see their food and water, which is now entirely in the possession of someone they’ve known for all of five weeks, someone they cannot catch. Deuce hates leaving the security of their bomb shelter so far ahead of schedule like this, but they have no other choice. Most of all, Deuce, who has suffered with a horrendous case of water phobia his whole life, hates the idea of drowning in the Pacific Ocean.
As they head for the market to rejoin the Guerrero families, Deuce tries not to think about the rising ocean and looks forward to seeing his friend, Mateo, again. It’s been two weeks since they last played together. As he pedals toward the market, Deuce cannot help wondering just how much higher the sea level will rise and just how far inland they will have to run to stay above water.
Emerald Bay, November 30
The Emerald Bay survivors enjoyed their communal Thanksgiving campfire so much that they decided to make it a nightly event. They organize everything from collecting firewood to fishing, gathering pine nuts from the fallen trees and picking dandelions from the hillside. Being smallest and closest to the ground, Lily and Mia naturally choose dandelion duty for themselves.
“Dad used to kill these,” says Lily as she plucks a particularly robust yellow flower and pops in into her mouth. “Guess he didn’t know we could eat them.”
“Too bad for him,” says Mia coldly.
It’s the first time either one of them has mentioned their parents in weeks. Meg hovers nearby listening to their chatter, keeping them in her sights while she gathers clover and pine nuts to feed nine people. Julia and Sam go off fishing near the mouth of the bay.
Under the guise of helping Rachel finish her shelter, Ankur practically enslaves himself to her, playing gofer, bringing her mounds of mud and as many rocks as he can carry, then ogling her like a love-sick puppy while she does most of the hard labor of finishing her shelter. He has a thing for attractive, confident, physically fit older women and starts crushing on her the moment they meet. She’s thirty, attractive, petite, smart and tough all at the same time, a combination Ankur finds irresistible. She even pronounces his name correctly.
An-KER. It’s music to his ears.
“You’re the first person I’ve ever met who didn’t say Anchor.”
“You introduced yourself as An-KER. Why would I say it any differently?”
“Well, I’m impressed. You’d be amazed how many people get it wrong even after I say it right.”
“You’d be amazed at how many people don’t listen,” says Rachel.
“Well, I’m glad you do.” Ankur blushes right through his dark complexion.
Rachel stands back to admire the finished shelter. “How does it look?”
Ankur is not looking at the shelter when he answers, “Breathtaking.”
Satin and Hannibal spend the better part of the day wandering around the lake. Each day since they arrived, they have ventured a little farther from Emerald Bay, always leaving just enough time to return before darkness. They have picked through dozens of demolished million-dollar lakeside homes and recovered all manner of helpful necessities, including silverware, hand tools, blankets, two pots and bar soap.
“Be great to find a shave kit and some barber shears,” says Hannibal, running his fingers through his mane of dark, wavy grey-streaked hair, which perfectly complements his grey-streaked beard. Stone Age living has cost him more than his trademark skinhead. He’s also lost his spare tire and thirty pounds of fat.
“I like you much better with hair.” Satin runs her fingers sensuously over his head and through his beard. “You’re my handsome, muscular caveman who doesn’t scare the children anymore.”
Lily and Mia have grown particularly fond of Hannibal. They call him ‘Han,’ which he likes because it reminds him of Han Solo from Star Wars. The girls are always pulling on his sleeves or pant legs to get his attention.
“Are we gonna die, Han?” Mia tugs at him.
“Everyone has to die someday. That’s why we should enjoy each day we have.”
“We have no moon. Doesn’t the Earth need a moon to survive?” asks Lily.
Standing nearby, Sam Hayden overhears Lily’s question.
“I can answer that,” Sam volunteers.
“Listen to him, girls,” says Hannibal. “He’s a famous astronomy guy. He knows all about space stuff.”
“Earth doesn’t really need the moon,” says Sam. The ocean tides will shrink and the weather will change over time, but Earth can survive.”
“Good to know,” says Lily.
“See,” says Hannibal, “nothing to worry about.”
Having a noted astrophysicist among them is extremely fortunate for the survivors. Without him, they couldn’t possibly understand the cataclysmic events of The Crash or its aftermath.
“Think of the Universe as a giant pinball game where objects slam into each other and explode with unimaginable fury. The force sends entire planets careening off at very high speed in new directions. A few years ago, we tracked a rogue planet several million times larger than the object that hit our moon,” explains Professor Hayden. “I suspect Diablo was a rogue dwarf planet from the same system that sent those eleven asteroids past us just days before The Crash. Debris from the impact was drawn into Earth’s gravity. Most probably hit the South Atlantic Ocean, where it caused tsunamis as tall as the Empire State Building. I was talking to a ham radio operator on a South African beach just before the first wave hit. He estimated it was eight or nine hundred feet high just before it inundated the South African coast.”
Lily turns to Meg and whispers “Professor Sam uses big words.”
“He’s a very smart man, Lily. I saw him on TV once.”
“I miss TV,” whispers Mia.
“So do I,” says Meg.
“I miss Sponge Bob,” says Mia.
“I miss the Science Channel,” says Meg.
“Will we ever have TV again, Meg?” Lily asks.
“I doubt it.”
; That night after campfire, Hannibal and Satin stroll hand-in-hand along the lake’s edge just like every other night since settling in Emerald Bay. The receding moon is now a mere fraction of its former self. The subject of so many classic love songs, stories and superstitions is now nothing more than a battered, broken derelict fading rapidly into the blackness of space.
Without moonlight, Hannibal and Satin have a breathtaking view of the sky. Without the moon or any of the usual light pollution from civilization, the night sky is illuminated instead by millions of stars.
“Freaking amazing,” says Hannibal. “It’s ridiculously beautiful here.”
“Why us? Why are we still here?”
“Only two possibilities: either we were chosen, or it was dumb luck. For now, I’m going with dumb luck.”
“Never in a million years did I think I’d live to see this. Hell, I thought we were done back at the motel. Now it’s been three months, already. Look at us. We’re doing better than I thought, except for my fucked-up arm.”
“I can’t stop thinking about eight hundred-foot tsunamis,” says Hannibal. “I’d have a heart attack just seeing one of them. Since I was a little kid, big waves always scared the shit out of me. Maybe I drowned in a past life.”
“Maybe you did. Does that mean you won’t go skinny dipping with me?” Satin strips off her clothes and wades knee-deep into the lake. There is just enough starlight to see her beautiful curves silhouetted against the stars. Hannibal cannot resist her nakedness, strips off his own clothes and joins her.
Satin turns to him and runs her hands slowly and painstakingly over his muscular, well-defined shoulders. Like an artist sketching his outline, she traces her fingertips down the length of his arms, then across his chest, finally lingering on his fat-free stomach, his newly defined Stone Age abs.
“Wow, look at you with the extreme body makeover. Look who’s not sitting in his truck eating donuts and getting fat anymore.” Satin hugs him tightly then gently pulls him into deeper water.
He stops her when they are waist deep. “Let’s not wake the fishes.”
RUNAWAY MOON Page 12
