Any Day Now

by Darrell Maloney

“That’s just it, honey. He has it all wrong.”

  For another full day this went on, Wayne spending hours in his den poring over printed data or hunched over his computer.

  Only occasionally did he take a few minutes away, and only when Julie came close to threatening him.

  Each time he returned as soon as her back was turned.

  Finally, toward the end of the second day he called the administrative section of the University of Missouri at Springfield and asked, “Is the Mason Media Center available at ten a.m. tomorrow for a news conference?”

  Told it was, he asked to have it reserved in his name.

  He also asked the admin section to announce a news conference wherein the distinguished Professor Wayne Hamlin would make a speech regarding the Yellowstone Event.

  They’d make sure all of the network affiliates would be invited, as would all the print media which could get there in time. Domestic and foreign press alike.

  It was what the world had been clamoring for since Wayne went public with the news Yellowstone was going to blow.

  Wayne was considered the preeminent authority on all things Yellowstone, which wasn’t quite fair because every other geologist of note had access to the same data and most had already formed their own opinions.

  Rightly or wrongly, though, Wayne was the one everyone wanted to hear from and his opinion was likely to carry much more weight than anyone else’s.

  Chapter 30

  “Good morning,” Wayne began. “Thank you all for coming. I apologize for the short notice.”

  This was different than the mob of reporters who assailed him in his driveway a week before.

  These reporters were, for the time being anyway, seated in nice neat rows, recorders and notebooks in hand, paying rapt attention to the man at the podium in front of them.

  “I’ll start by telling you what the President has not shared with you: a brief but very powerful description of what the world is in for when Yellowstone erupts.

  “And here’s a spoiler for those of you who thought that getting people out of the danger zones was going to fix the problem.

  “This thing is gonna be big, and it’s gonna be ugly.

  “And it’s going to affect all of us. Every single one of us. Not just the ones in the evacuation zones.

  “The President has been misleading you. I don’t know if it’s intentional. I’d like to think it isn’t, but with the government’s track record of cover-ups and kidnappings and murders it wouldn’t be surprising.

  “I hope he’s been less than forthcoming because his government scientists are a bunch of cowardly yes-men who are trying to paint a rosy picture for him.

  “I am neither paid by the government, nor a yes-man. I’m not beholden to tell the President or anyone else what they want to hear.

  “I am here of my own accord with only my conscience to answer to. And my conscience would be troubled indeed if I wasn’t straight with you.

  “The world is in trouble. Big trouble.

  “I’ve reviewed all the data that Geo-Dynametric’s people gathered, as well as comparable data points collected during similar collection efforts since 1955.

  “Comparing such data allows us not only to verify that an eruption is imminent.

  “It also allows us to see that the rate of expansion in the magma pool is increasing dramatically. It’s getting ready to blow, and much sooner than the President is ready or willing to admit.

  “In the days immediately preceding eruption the eruption area will bubble. The ground will actually swell, like a tick getting ready to pop.

  “New fissures will open up, spraying steam and hot dry air hundreds of feet into the air.

  “The ground will start to crack.

  “Heat from the cracks and the fissures will start forest fires. Millions of acres will start to burn uncontrollably.

  “Massive earthquakes will knock down all structures within a hundred miles.

  “Plumes of gray ash will travel upward for miles and will make airplane travel impossible for most of the North American continent. Prevailing winds will carry the ash around the world and disrupt international flights as well.

  “When the volcano blows it will be four hundred times more powerful than the eruption at Mount St. Helens.

  “To put it in different terms, it will be more powerful than every atomic bomb ever exploded, every nuclear weapon ever tested, and every bomb exploded in every war ever fought, combined.

  “It will leave a hole in the earth three times as big as the grand canyon.

  “The pool of magma is forty two miles wide and sixty one miles long. It is eight miles deep.

  “And eighty percent of that magma will flow upward and out of the earth.

  “Many of you who were alive when Mount St. Helens blew remember the thick layer of gray ash which covered the earth in the area surrounding the volcano.

  “It killed anything and everything for hundreds of square miles.

  “Picture that times a thousand.

  “Everything within the inner and outer evacuation zones will be covered by up to four feet of ash.

  “Depending on the amount of precipitation and the prevailing winds the rest of the United States and the southern third of Canada will be covered by two inches to two feet of ash.

  “America will lose forty percent of its agricultural land for a minimum of twenty years. Eighty percent of its woodlands.

  “Sixty percent of its lakes and rivers will be poisoned for generations, because the ash will be toxic to marine life.

  “A worldwide famine will ensue which will last for years.

  “Casualty rates in the United States will exceed twenty percent the first twelve months. By the end of five years almost half of Americans will die.

  “Here’s the worst of it… there’s absolutely nothing we can do to prevent it, nothing to delay it and very little we can do to minimize its impact.

  “The President maintains the eruption will occur no sooner than several months from now.

  “I’m here to tell you he’s wrong.

  “Geology and volcanology are my life’s work. It’s what I do. And I’m here to tell you his calculations are incorrect. He’s either intentionally misleading you, or he’s being misled himself by government scientists who are terrified of inciting panic.

  “In my view panic is inevitable. It’s as inevitable a part of this as is death and destruction.

  “In my view the sooner we are honest with you the more lives we can save.

  “I’ve been reviewing the data just to make sure my calculations are correct.

  “And they are.

  “By my calculations we’re out of time for talking. We don’t have the two years the President has been hoping for.

  “We don’t have the several months he’s saying we have as a minimum.

  “According to my calculations the eruption is imminent. And it could happen any day now.”

  Chapter 31

  Rocki and Darrell were headed south on Interstate 15, away from the Yellowstone area.

  They felt bad for canceling their planned interview with Julianna. She sounded like a sweet kid and a wonderful woman.

  They had children her age and hated to think she might be in danger. They could only imagine how they’d feel if it were their own children digging through the woods around the park, looking for people who for all intents and purposes didn’t want to be found.

  Most of the people they encountered were hesitant to leave anyway.

  “I feel she’s wasting her time, putting herself at risk unnecessarily,” Darrell said. “I hope they can wrap it up pretty soon and get the heck out of there.”

  Rocki agreed.

  “I understand she’s dedicated to her job. I understand one of the reasons she became a ranger was to help save lives. But I’ve got a dreadful feeling she might not make it out.”

  Tooling around the country in a recreational vehicle isn’t for everyone.

  For
the adventurous type who isn’t encumbered by a need for trappings and luxury items it can be an ideal life.

  These two were modern day hobos. Highway nomads who seldom knew from one day to the next exactly where they’d next lay their heads.

  And they loved it that way.

  But there were some drawbacks to the lifestyle.

  One of them was that it was very easy to lose track of life in the outside world.

  Oh, they had the internet.

  They could stream the news or television shows, if they cared to watch such things.

  But they generally didn’t.

  They generally logged onto the internet every two or three days and caught up on the Yahoo headlines.

  When they stopped every few nights at a motel along the way they typically watched the local newscast.

  But it wasn’t to stay abreast of the news, as much as it was to see whether they had any local color about their citizens seeing UFOs or ghosts.

  They’d gotten many leads for interviews by doing so.

  Lately, in light of the Yellowstone Event, they tried to catch the national news too.

  But normally their days were spent talking of anything and everything, Darrell at the wheel of the land yacht and Rocki in the passenger seat.

  It was an arrangement they’d agreed to early on, for Darrell loved to drive and Rocki didn’t.

  And because Rocki could type sixty words a minute with both hands.

  Darrell could type fifteen words a minute with three fingers.

  The arrangement not only gave the pair a chance to share their views about anything and everything. It also allowed Rocki to type their books as they went.

  She’d typically use her notes to write up an interview and then read it back to Darrell.

  He in turn would suggest changes to it. Not a lot, for Rocki was an excellent writer, and the very nature of the task at hand, transferring interviews from tape to paper, meant the writing part was essentially done.

  But they collaborated on the lead in, the description of the scene, and the summary.

  By working three to four hours a day, they were able to keep up with all their books.

  Writing as they went, as it were.

  When they got ready to publish one, they merely holed up in a motel for an extra day and went through the entire process on-line.

  The ready product was emailed to the publisher who took it from there.

  Since they were out of touch, they had no idea that for the second time in little more than a month Dr. Wayne Hamlin was the most talked-about man on the face of the earth.

  He’d given the world a hard dose of reality. One which wasn’t sugar-coated or used for political gain.

  One which people needed to hear.

  No one wanted to believe it.

  Scientists all over the world were scrambling, trying to disprove his calculations and findings.

  Thus far no one had been able to.

  The entire planet was in despair.

  If Darrell and Rocki had heard what Wayne Hamlin had to say, that the volcano could blow at any time, they might have done things differently.

  They might have apologized to Penny, and told her they were sorry she wasn’t feeling well.

  But that they had a mission to go on. A critically important one.

  They might have made a beeline to Yellowstone, to the area due south of the park confines.

  They might have grabbed Julianna by the arm and made her listen to what they had to say.

  That her grandmother and her great uncle had gone to great lengths, and great peril, to warn her and to save her life.

  That while her mission was certainly admirable, she had no duty to place her life at risk to warn people who just wanted to be left alone.

  People who more than likely wouldn’t heed her warnings even if she did find and warn them.

  People who moved into the wilderness with every intention of dying there someday. Who’d given up on civilization and lost all desire to go back there.

  They might have gone on their own mission. To convince a young woman they’d talked to but never met to abandon her task and to join them.

  And then to get as far away from Yellowstone as possible.

  But they never saw Wayne Hamlin’s anguished face on the television. Never heard the torment in his voice.

  They still believed it was likely a couple of years before the volcano blew, just as the President said it was.

  Their biggest concern at the moment wasn’t the volcano. And it wasn’t Julianna.

  Their biggest concern was Penny.

  Chapter 32

  When Darrell was in the United States Air Force, what seemed like a lifetime before, he was stationed at a base in Victorville, California.

  He used to deploy on what the Air Force called TDY, or temporary duty, to another base just north of Las Vegas, Nevada.

  Twenty two times in two and a half years.

  He spent almost as much time in Vegas as he did at his home base.

  He fell in love with Sin City. Not necessarily the gambling, though he’d certainly done his share of that.

  No, he was enamored with the glitz, the glamour, the twenty four hour night life.

  He always said the best part of Vegas wasn’t the gambling, for the odds would always favor the house and they’d always win in the end.

  The old saying that it’s not the winners who pay for all that electricity, it’s the losers was absolutely true.

  It was also true that the only sure way to avoid becoming a loser was to not bet.

  No, the best part of going to Vegas were the shows and the buffets. They had the best and most talented performers in the world in every genre.

  Even better than New York City, he contended.

  And the buffets were affordable and some rivaled the food at four star restaurants.

  At a fraction of the price.

  Darrell always said he found a way to get over on Vegas, and nobody believed him until he explained.

  “Get a roll of nickels and play the nickel slots.

  “One nickel at a time, so they last you for hours.

  “Only play until a cocktail waitress comes along and brings you a free drink.

  “Then take the free drink and sit in one of the off-floor lounges.

  “The ones with the B-singers who’ve stepped down to the lounges because they can no longer draw in the big crowds they once did. They’re no longer headliners, but they’re still darned good.

  “Or the up and comers. The new talent that’s playing the lounges hoping against hope that some night the right person is in the audience. The one person who’s gonna recognize they’re the next big thing and sign them up for their own show.

  “Those people work damn hard. They’re on their game every single song, every single night. Because they know the one time they get lazy, the one time they don’t try their best to dazzle the crowd, is that one time they’re gonna miss their one big chance.

  “The lounge acts and the free drinks are the best way to spend an evening in Vegas. And you can do it on a two dollar roll of nickels.”

  Actually, Darrell never told anybody the rest of the story. How he had a soft spot for the hard working cocktail waitresses who basically worked for tips.

  How he went back to them before he headed back to his hotel each night and gave them a tip for all the drinks they hustled to get for him.

  Still, although he was generous with the tips, it was way cheaper than losing his money at the tables.

  And a lot more gratifying, too.

  Rocki had never been to Vegas and had always wanted to go.

  A month before she’d come up with an idea for a sixth book project: a travel guide.

  Las Vegas on a Budget

  Such travel guides had been published before.

  But not by Rocki and Darrell.

  Most were written by writers who made a deal with this hotel or that hotel.

  This casino or tha
t casino.

  In exchange for free room and free game play they’d feature said hotels and casinos prominently in their books.

  Even steer their readers in that direction.

  In short, most such books were a sham.

  Rocki and Darrell wouldn’t do their readers such a disservice.

  They’d do it right.

  They wouldn’t need or accept free or reduced rate hotel rooms.

  They wouldn’t need them.

  They’d stay in the Winnie.

  They didn’t need and wouldn’t accept free slot or table play.

  They wouldn’t even tell the casinos they were doing research.

  They’d play at twenty different casinos. See who really had the loosest slots. All of them claimed to, but only one could be telling the truth.

  They’d query the gamblers, the hotel guests, the buffet patrons.

  They estimated it would take six weeks, but by the time they left Vegas they’d have enough research material to write the book.

  Possibly the first, and of course the best, book of its kind that was totally unbiased.

  And the best part… they’d have a lot of fun doing it.

  As they headed south from Salt Lake City they made a point to pull over every hundred miles or so.

  They’d spend some time with Penny at each of their stops.

  Coax her outside to walk in the grass.

  Feed her a bit of ice cream.

  Give her a dose of nausea medicine if she was due.

  And most of all give her lots of love and attention.

  They were finding that every hundred miles farther away from Yellowstone they traveled she was a little bit better.

  When they drove past the famous “Welcome to Las Vegas” sign they were almost eight hundred long miles from Yellowstone.

  By the time they rolled down Las Vegas Boulevard she was the Penny of old.

  She was back to normal.

  And she seemed to be as excited to be in Sin City as they were.

  Chapter 33

  It was while they were in Las Vegas Darrell decided to visit an old friend.