RUNAWAY MOON

by Howard Brian Edgar

  “From what?” Meg appears behind Matias and Alex.

  “Meg, Hannibal didn’t want to say anything around Mia and Lily, but he and Satin found four male survivors up north, a father and three grown sons. They’re hunters living alone in these mountains; armed, dangerous men who have taken a particular interest in Satin. Hannibal has reason to believe these men might try to harm her or our other females, since they don’t have a female of their own. Anyway, everyone’s on the edge. You picked a good time to bring the girls down here, except we were supposed to escort you,” says Ankur sheepishly.

  “Maybe we shouldn’t go back,” says Meg.

  “How much do you know about these men?” Alex presses the newcomers.

  “Only what Hannibal and Satin told us. The father is Jake. Believe it or not, he named all three sons Jake, too,” says Eric rolling his eyes.

  “Probably makes it easier to call them for dinner,” says Donnie.

  “You mentioned that they’re armed?”

  “They have at least one assault rifle and a hunting bow. Who knows what else? Four primitive men alone in these woods with no women to, uh, provide for them,” says Ankur suggestively.

  “What about the boys’ mother?” asks Matias.

  “Hannibal said there were no signs of any females. He said the four Jakes ogled Satin like they hadn’t seen a woman in years.”

  Alex looks to Meg. “Why don’t you and your girls stay here with us for a few days? We’ve got the room. You can stay out of harm’s way.”

  “You’re too kind,” says Meg. “I do feel safer here. You three can go back and tell the others we found more survivors and we’re staying here a few days.”

  “So how many of you are there?” asks Ankur.

  “Six adults, four kids and a German shepherd,” says Alex just as Jessa shows up. She’s overheard the last part of their conversation.

  “You, Lily and Mia, you’ll be okay here, Meg. Deuce doesn’t mind sleeping with us on the top bunk, it’s king-sized.”

  “You are both too kind,” says Meg. “Thank you, thank you very much.”

  “Listen, Meg, the way I see it, we’ve all been given a second chance at survival,” says Alex. “It’s all we have left and no one’s going to take it away.”

  The next day, Meg gets a surprise visit from Julia Hayden. She finds Meg sitting on a large pine tree stump surrounded by the children. She’s teaching Deuce, Mateo, Sofia, Mia, Lily and Mia about Lake Tahoe’s edibles, holding up samples and demonstrating.

  “This is everybody’s favorite weed, the dandelion. Most people don’t know it’s completely edible. You can eat the flower, the stem, the whole thing, and it’s very good for you.” She separates the roots and pops the yellow flower and stem in her mouth then watches their jaws drop as she chews it up and swallows. She spots Julia standing nearby. “This is my friend, Julia.”

  The slightest smile creases Julia’s lips. Meg is in her element, teaching children the science of survival. By the time Meg finishes the lesson, she has demonstrated and eaten dandelions, pine nuts, a fistful of cloverleaves and a cricket, the last of which sets the girls to squealing in disgust.

  Blonde Mia and Lily say, “Yuck.”

  Dark Mia says, “Ew.”

  Alex joins them, stops cold when he spots Julia, instantly recognizing her as the only daughter of Dr. Sam Hayden, renowned astrophysicist and professor from Caltech. Having followed and read her father’s writings, and having seen Julia in enough pictures, standing at her father’s side or just in the background, it’s as if he already knows her. He greets her with a hug, like a long-lost relative.

  “Doctor Hayden’s daughter, Julia. Is he...?”

  “Dad is alive. We left Palo Alto and moved to our cabin up here right before The Crash. Fortunately, we were both underground in our storage room when it happened.”

  “Well, I’m Alex Jacks, a huge fan of your dad’s work.” Alex shakes her hand. “How much does he know about what happened to the rest of the world after The Crash?”

  “During the first several weeks, he made a few shortwave radio contacts in Europe, South Africa and New Zealand. Things weren’t good. There were some survivors across the Atlantic, but no power or working machines. Anyway, he’s been unable to reach anyone for over a month now.”

  “A bad sign” says Alex. “What about the United States?”

  “The shockwaves and earthquakes probably killed hundreds of millions in North America. Thanks to a large-magnitude quake that leveled Washington DC, the United States of America no longer has a government. There were also reports of multiple asteroid strikes in the Atlantic Ocean. Dad’s last contact was a man in coastal South Africa who witnessed an eight-hundred-foot tsunami rushing toward his beachfront location. It was the last Dad heard from him. Florida, parts of the Carolinas, New Jersey, Delaware and New York City are likely under water, too.”

  Alex shakes his head. “It’s worse than I thought.”

  Emerald Bay North

  It’s after Dark and everyone is at the campfire except Julia, Meg and her girls.

  “The good news,” says Hannibal, “is that we are all still alive. Nobody’s sick or dying, and we’re gathered here next to one of the greatest natural resources on the planet with plenty of freshwater to drink and fish to eat. Nobody’s telling us how to live our lives, and that includes the four Neanderthals up north.”

  “Good speech, you should run for mayor,” snipes Marcus.

  “We don’t need a mayor. We need a real democracy where every vote counts and the majority rules. We don’t need government for that. We’ve been given a second chance, Marcus. Let’s not screw it up like we did before.”

  “What are you talking about? We had a democracy,” argues Marcus.

  “No, we had a plutocracy, an aristocracy. The wealthy had all the power. Democracy is supposed to mean that the people rule. It doesn’t mean only the rich people rule. All we had before was the illusion of democracy.”

  “You sound awfully smart-ass for a truck driver.”

  Satin jumps to Hannibal’s defense. “You think truck drivers are dumb, they can’t read? Before The Crash, Hannibal read everything he could get his hands on. So what about blackjack dealers, Marcus? How smart are you?”

  “I just think we need some form of government,” insists Marcus.

  “Well, government never did shit for me. It was all about big business, special interests, military spending and greed,” says Satin.

  “Oh, come on,” says Marcus. “Our government did lots of good for us, too.”

  “Really?” Satin gets right up in his face. “Did they fix the fucking roads or make our water safe to drink or support our failing education system? Did they do anything to improve your personal quality of life?”

  “Easy girl,” Hannibal abruptly pulls her away, afraid she might bitch-slap the stupidity right out of Marcus.

  “What about unemployment, food stamps, Social Security? Those programs directly helped average Americans.”

  No longer content to watch from the sidelines, Rachel jumps in. “Right. Programs you paid for but you could barely live on. They took away jobs and paid workers less so the rich could get richer. While they got richer, the rest of us got poorer. We were their obedient slaves, Marcus, smart enough to do their work and dumb enough to accept their pitiful compensation.”

  “Rachel’s right,” says Sam Hayden. “We really don’t need formal government. There are twelve of us. I’m sure ten adults can make decisions based on fairness and everyone’s best interests.”

  “What about law? Don’t we need some kind of law?”

  “How about the law of nature? Live and let live. Treat people the way you want them to treat you. Help those who are less fortunate. Can we just make it that simple, Marcus?”

  Marcus is momentarily speechless while the others murmur in agreement with Rachel and Sam. Marcus looks to Eric and Donnie for help, but they turn away in silence.

  “Sounds lik
e it’s me against nine liberal progressive socialists.”

  Ankur, who has been listening quietly until now, speaks up. “You want laws? Here is your first law, Marcus. Labels are illegal. We are not labels. You are not a label. Labels divide us and we need unity, not divisiveness, to survive.”

  “No labels, no laws, no politics, no money. Works for me,” Rachel says.

  “No government, either,” says Sam. “Remember, I was there when the old government decided not to warn the nation about The Crash even though they knew about it several hours before it happened. They could have warned us and possibly saved tens of millions of lives ... but they did nothing.”

  “They were supposed to be working for us,” adds Hannibal.

  “They got what they deserved,” says Ankur.

  Marcus has heard enough. He jumps up, almost loses his balance and storms off by himself. Rachel watches him, disappointed, shaking her head.

  “It’s okay,” says Sam. “I was once a proud American, too. He’ll get over it. He doesn’t have another choice.”

  Emerald Bay South

  Meg and the girls have gathered at the Jacks family shelter. While Meg tucks the girls in for the night, Julia talks to Alex down by the lake.

  “I think my Dad’s biggest concern now is sea level rise.”

  “I’m not surprised. When we were down in Dana Point, the Pacific rose several feet overnight. And what about the earthquakes?”

  “Earthquakes occurred worldwide and lasted for hours. Dad thinks they were all magnitude eight or higher. Washington, DC recorded an 8.5 just before they lost power and all their instruments. That’s when Dad lost contact with POTUS and NASA... It was months ago.”

  “The destruction is unimaginable,” says Alex.

  “Anyway, I’d better be getting back now. I can’t wait to tell Dad about you and your son and your interest in his work. I’ll tell everyone that Meg and the girls are safe down here with you.”

  “You sure about traveling alone in the dark?”

  “No worries. I’ll be fine.”

  “Be careful, Julia!” Alex calls after her.

  Jessa exits the shelter, joins Alex. Together they watch Julia pick her way north along the lake’s edge as she heads home.

  “That is Sam Hayden’s daughter. Sam happens to be one of the world’s leading astrophysicists and he’s here, Jess, right across the bay, a stroke of luck.”

  “Can he help us survive?”

  “Maybe he knows more about what happened than any of us.”

  Despite his excitement over Professor Hayden’s survival, Alex considers the very real possibility that most of life on Earth has vanished and that the rest of them could also perish if meteorological and geological conditions change.

  They return to the shelter and find Meg sleeping alone on the bottom bunk. Deuce sits cross-legged with Lily and Mia at his side on the top bunk.

  “We couldn’t sleep,” announces Mia.

  “Meg conked out, so we asked Deuce for a bedtime story,” says Lily.

  “Do you mind?” Deuce turns to the girls and continues under his parents’ watchful eyes.

  “Three billion years ago during the Permian period, super-volcano eruptions turned the sky all red-hot and boiled all the oceans. The heat vaporized the rock and sent it up into the air where it rained back down like thousands of tiny meteorites. Then came the earthquakes strong enough to …”

  “This is your bedtime story for two little girls?” asks Alex.

  “… Crack the Earth’s crust.” Deuce continues, grimacing.

  “Really, Deuce, can’t you talk about something more pleasant?” asks Jessa.

  “It’s okay, Jessa,” says Lily, “I eat this stuff up. Mia has no idea what he’s talking about. She just thinks he’s cute.”

  Deuce grins and continues while Mia gazes at him dreamily. “Uh, the fossil record from the period revealed that this third mass extinction wiped out ninety-five percent of all life on Earth.” He stops for a moment and contemplates the ninety-five percent mass extinction.

  “So this really is the sixth mass extinction, Deuce?” Lily tests him.

  “Yup.”

  Chapter 10

  Emerald Bay North

  The community campfire ends and everyone except Hannibal turns in for the night. Hannibal takes up his reconnaissance position on the hill high above the beach. From this vantage point hidden among the rocks and fallen trees, he has a 360-degree field of view. If anyone approaches from any direction, including the ridge above him, he will see or hear them coming.

  Since The Crash, there are no sounds in the night anymore. No night birds calling or crickets chirping. No rodents scurrying across the carpet of dead pine needles and no reptiles slithering almost silently through the brush. The quick little snaps of crackling twigs would give them away if they were still alive. Instead, there is only dead silence.

  Satin was right when she said, “It’s so quiet here you could hear an ant fart.”

  Hannibal remembers her words as he listens to the rhythmic sounds of his own breathing and the steady thump of his own heart. He lets his eyes adjust to the deep gray darkness and the heavy cloud cover, both constant companions since The Crash.

  Two days have passed without incident since their first meeting with the four Jakes. Though tension in the compound has eased, Hannibal is still on high alert. After all, he was there. He saw the way they looked at her. Now he’d gladly bet everything he once owned that they had not seen the last of the Jakes. It is only a matter of time. He doesn’t know when or how, but he knows in his gut that they will come for her. He chalks it up to his New Yorker’s survival instincts.

  Along with his limited vocabulary, Jake only knows four given names in the world. He knew three of those names at age six, when he watched his mom and dad burn to death in their tiny log cabin in the deep woods. Since then, he’s known Mom, Dad, Jake and Ella. Ella was the boys’ mother, now deceased. That left him with one choice, using their birth order to tell the three young Jakes apart.

  His sons had not stopped chattering about Satin, despite Jake’s warnings.

  “That woman is evil, like your Mama. She’ll give us nothing but trouble and we’ll have to do her just like we did your Mama.”

  “I’ll do her,” sneers Jake One. Two and Three stare blankly, lost in their dark primeval teenage desires.

  “Me, too,” says Jake Two.

  “She’s much prettier than Mama,” says Jake Three.

  One and Two nod emphatically.

  “We should have just taken her right there,” says Jake One. “Her man didn’t look like much to fret about.”

  The four of them stand at the mouth of their cave while Jake paces back and forth like a Stone Age warlord. Jake One, Two and Three watch and wait for his signal, poised like highly trained attack dogs. He raised them as hunters so they are ready to hunt.

  “If we’re doing this, we’re doing it right. They said there are more survivors. We need to know how many and how much firepower. We need to get eyes on them and see what they’ve got before we make our move.”

  Jake might as well be talking to three six-foot piles of raging testosterone and glazed eyeballs. As they scan the hilly terrain beyond the cave mouth, ready for the hunt, the young Jakes have only one kind of prey on their minds.

  “Tonight, you boys need to go to bed. Handle your pressure. Tomorrow night, Jake Three will track them, see what we’re up against. After that, we can plan a visit with your new Mama.”

  Hannibal spends the quiet hours listening, watching and wondering if his gut feelings about the four Jakes might be wrong. Are these men really a threat or just a strange family of antisocial backwoods hillbilly rednecks who look more dangerous, more menacing than they really are? Has surviving The Crash made Hannibal and Satin paranoid about the possibility of new dangers lurking around every boulder or copse of fallen pines? No, his gut has never been wrong. He is still haunted by Jake One’s last words, “We just
gonna let her walk away?”

  The rest of the night is peaceful and uneventful except for Satin’s dream. She dreams about a huge white stallion cantering toward her, splashing through the shallows along the edge of the lake. As it nears her, it slows to a walk and stops just inches from her face. She gazes into the horse’s big brown eyes, hypnotized. Her head suddenly feels all tingly and light as if it will float away from her body any second. She is temporarily paralyzed. Then, just as swiftly as it arrived, the horse releases her from its spell, turns away and gallops back up along the rocky beach where it explodes into a fine mist.

  December 8

  Satin relates her dream to Hannibal the next morning. “What do you think it means?”

  Hannibal considers it, shakes his head. “Maybe the white horse stands for the purity... or the cocaine you wish you had.”

  “Be serious, Hannibal, I don’t miss cocaine and I never had a dream like that in my life. It’s really freaking me out.”

  “What do you think it means?”

  “Ever hear of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse?”

  “Of course, the Bible story,” says Hannibal.

  “It’s from the Book of Revelations. The first horse was a white stallion. It was an omen for the coming conquest.”

  “After all we’ve been through, you still believe in old biblical stories?”

  “I don’t know what to believe any more.” Satin is visibly shaken.

  “Well, I believe the Bible is nothing more than a collection of stories written by many different guys two thousand years ago. Besides, the apocalypse has already happened, the real horses are all dead. You dreamed about a beautiful white horse. Maybe that’s all it was.”

  “Still, maybe it was an omen,” says Satin.

  If what Ankur told Alex is true, the hunters in the North represent a clear and present danger to all the survivors, not just the women. As Alex sees it, Jessa, Isabella, Mariana, even the young girls could eventually become targets. With only himself, Matias, Diego and a couple of unarmed teenage boys standing between them, what chance did they have?