Exodus

by Paul Antony Jones

“Where are you going?” he asked as she and Thor turned and began to head back toward the path that led down into the woods.

  “I won’t be long,” she called back over her shoulder. She heard the door slam shut.

  She had left her backpack, bike, and, most importantly, her satellite phone at the house on the opposite side of the ridge when she had left yesterday morning.

  Emily followed the path back down the hill toward the Jefferson house, Thor trotting beside her. She had learned the home owners’ name from Simon. Mr. and Mrs. Jefferson had, apparently, left the day of the red rain, heading off to be with their parents in DC. They were probably dead now.

  The trail dropped down, then leveled out as she headed back past the pond. The ducks she had seen earlier were back, but Thor seemed uninterested in harassing them this time, preferring instead to stay close to her.

  At least one of those sacks they had seen growing on the tree had disgorged its contents. She thought back to the similar tree she had seen in the forest outside Valhalla and the slowly rotating shadow she had seen hidden within the orb’s pink-liquid-filled interior. Whatever had been inside, it was now out and roaming the area. The knowledge that she might not be alone had turned the surrounding woods and deep shadows from a pleasant distraction to a potential ambush, and she found herself jogging along the path, the shotgun off her shoulder and held tightly in both hands.

  If she had brought the phone with her, she would not have risked coming back to the house and would have abandoned her supplies, but it was her only means of contact with Jacob and his team, and she would be damned if she was going to leave it behind.

  The muffled electronic call of the sat-phone greeted Emily like a long-lost friend as she pushed open the door to the Jeffersons’ home and stepped inside.

  She raced upstairs and jogged into the living room. Pulling the case holding the phone from the backpack, she quickly opened it, pulled out the phone, and flipped up the antenna, simultaneously hitting the Talk button.

  “Hello,” she said, breathless. “Jacob?”

  “Emily. Thank God. I’ve been trying for hours to get in touch with you. Are you okay?” Jacob’s concern was obvious, but Emily had no idea why he would be worried in the first place.

  “Yes. Of course. Why?” she finally answered.

  “Listen, I have some news that I need—”

  Emily cut him off. “I have better news, so I get to go first. I found more survivors.”

  Emily heard Jacob’s sharp intake of breath. “What? Where? How many?”

  “They’re a family, a father, son, so damn cute, and a daughter. I found them yesterday.”

  “That’s astonishing. Amazing,” Jacob stuttered. “Wait? Are they immune to the effects of the red rain, too?”

  Emily realized that she hadn’t actually given any thought to the possibility that Simon and his little family might not be immune to the red rain. She had simply made the assumption that they were, for whatever reason, resistant like her. They’d had zero exposure to the event thanks to the quirky weather system of their little valley. But what if they were not immune? What if once they stepped outside of the hill’s border the virus—or whatever the rain actually was—was still active, and what if it killed them?

  No! She was convinced that once the original red rain had turned to dust, its ability to infect human life had become negated, but there was no way to find out if her theory was correct without risking the lives of Simon and the kids.

  “I don’t know,” she answered Jacob eventually. “Maybe they are immune, but I think they were probably just lucky.” She took a couple of minutes to explain what Simon had told her about the valley’s microclimate and how it had shielded them from the red rain. “There are even ducks here, too,” she blurted out excitedly, resisting the urge to add a comic quack to emphasize the point.

  “Fascinating. Just fascinating. This makes my news even more important.” She heard Jacob’s voice grow fainter as if he was holding the phone at arm’s length. “I’m going to send you some images that you need to look at,” he continued, raising his voice to ensure he was heard while he apparently fiddled with some controls on his sat-phone. “You’ll need to share them with your new friends as quickly as possible. You’ll need to convince them to get out of there.”

  The sat-phone gave a beep, and Emily glanced at the little LCD screen; it read, “Downloading Files…1 of 4.”

  Emily waited for all of the files to download. The resolution on the screen was not optimal for viewing the kind of detail she was looking at, but as she scanned through each of the images while Jacob explained what she was looking at, she felt a growing discomfort in the pit of her stomach.

  “You can see what you’re facing, Emily. It’s imperative that you get yourself and the family out of there as soon as possible. If you don’t there’s no way—”

  Emily stopped him midsentence. “I need to get back to the other house. You’ll need to explain this to Simon, or I don’t think there’s any way he’s going to believe me. He’s already skeptical of what I’ve told him. Without proof from you, he’ll think I’m out of my mind. Can you give me half an hour to get to them and then I’ll call you back?”

  “Make it fast, Em.,” Jacob said. “I’ll be waiting by the phone.” Emily heard the click of Jacob hanging up and immediately began to collect the remainder of her belongings. She shoved them into the backpack and swung it over her shoulder and called for Thor to come with her.

  Making her way through the house to the garage, she found her bike on the side of the house and walked it around to the back path. Once she was down the steps and back on the dirt trail, she began pedaling toward the house on the opposite side of the valley.

  She barely felt any of the bumps of the rough trail as she and Thor raced back to Simon and the kids. The implications of what Jacob had shown her flooded her mind with questions, and it was all she could do to keep her pounding heart from exploding out of her chest.

  “What exactly is going on?” Simon asked as he followed Emily into her room.

  “Do you have a computer? One that’s charged,” she asked.

  “What? Why do you need a computer?”

  Emily dropped the backpack onto the bed and turned to face Simon. “Please, Simon,” she said. “Do you have a computer?”

  Simon stared at her for a moment, then disappeared. When he came back, he was carrying a laptop computer under one arm. Emily pulled the sat-phone from the backpack, pulled the computer from under Simon’s arm, and walked into the living room.

  “Jesus, Emily. Are you going to tell me what the hell is going on?”

  “I don’t know what’s going on,” she replied as she set the equipment down on the coffee table and attached a USB cable from the laptop to the phone. She pressed the On button of both machines and, once a connection had been established, hit Redial on the phone. “But I think I know someone who might be able to explain it to both of us.”

  She pressed the Speakerphone button and listened to the ringing phone. It chirruped a couple of times before Jacob answered. “Emily. Are your new friends there?”

  “It’s just me and Simon,” she answered, keeping her voice as low as possible in case the kids overheard her. “I didn’t think this was something we should discuss with the children around.” Emily glanced up from the phone at Simon, and she realized by the surprised look on his face that he hadn’t believed a word she had told him when she had tried to explain about Jacob and his crew of scientists. “Simon, meet Jacob. Jacob…Simon.” The two men exchanged greetings before Jacob took control of the conversation again.

  “I don’t know how much Emily has explained to you about what we think is actually going on here, Simon, but I have someone else that I want to introduce to the both of you who I think will be able to clear up any doubts you might have about the threat you are all facing. Hold on a second while I bring them in…” There was a sharp beep followed by a short burst of electronic tones. A few seco
nds later, a woman’s voice filled the room.

  “Hello all, can you hear me okay?” There was a slight static buzz behind the transmission, as though the stranger was speaking from a great distance. The woman’s voice was accented, certainly not American. British maybe?

  “We hear you,” said Emily and Jacob almost simultaneously.

  Jacob’s voice broke in to the conversation. “Everyone, this is Fiona Mulligan. She’s the commander of the International Space Station.”

  “My God,” said Simon, his voice a stunned whisper.

  Huddled around the computer screen, Emily could see exactly what Simon saw: a panoramic view of what looked like Venezuela, Colombia, and Mexico. Of course, she could only assume it was the uppermost part of South America because the majority of the image she was looking at was obscured by a red haze. The only way she could be sure of what she was seeing was because she could still make out the rough outline of the Gulf of Mexico on the right side of the image. The east coast town of Veracruz was just vaguely visible, but everything else was covered by the same cloud.

  “Are you looking at the first image?” Commander Mulligan’s voice crackled over the speaker.

  “Yes,” replied Emily.

  “Jump to the second image, if you would.” Again Commander Mulligan caught a gasp of astonishment from the two civilians; this time it was followed by an expletive from Simon and a quick apology.

  “That image was taken twenty-four hours later. It’s the same location as the first image. I’m sure you can see now why I thought it was so important for Jacob to let you see these pictures as quickly as possible.”

  The image on the screen could have been anywhere for all Emily and Simon knew. It was impossible to tell because there was nothing but a swirling mass of red that looked like some kind of crazy kid’s finger painting or Rorschach image. No land or sea was visible at all.

  “This cannot be happening…” Simon whispered.

  “I assure you it is, Mr. Keller,” came Fiona’s voice from the phone. “And I am sorry to tell you that the news does not get any better. Please skip ahead to image three, if you would.” The third image was of a clearly distinguishable US East Coast. Small spots of red were splattered over the image like drops of blood. Emily could see the largest spot was hanging over New York. “That was taken two days ago,” continued Fiona. “You can see the phenomenon is less pronounced than you just saw over South America, possibly because, as Jacob has already postulated, whatever we are seeing here is retarded by colder climates. But if you would be so kind as to move to the fourth image.”

  Fiona waited a second before continuing.

  “You will see that although the progression is slower on the US mainland, there appears to be a much larger storm, if that is the right word, rapidly approaching from the east. The picture you are looking at now was taken six hours ago.”

  Emily sucked in her breath as she looked at the aerial photograph on the screen. It was mind-blowing. While the outline of the coast was still clearly visible, what had been spots of red in the previous image had now grown to three or four times their size. She could just make out tendrils of red extending out from each spot; each one seemed to be reaching in the direction of the nearest red splotch of its neighbor. Here and there she could see some of the tendrils had already made connections, and the originating red stains seemed to be uniformly larger than the ones that had not yet connected.

  But that paled into insignificance next to the huge red storm that occupied most of the right side of the screen, a swirling mass of red hues with thick branches extending out in front of it, as though searching blindly for the land mass that lay just a few hundred miles ahead of it.

  “What we believe you are seeing is a huge body of this substance you called ‘red dust’ that we first saw amassing in Europe. It broke off from the main body of the red storm over that continent and began heading in your direction several days ago. You may already have experienced some preliminary effects from its approach. If this was a normal meteorological event, I would be recommending you simply hunker down and try to ride it out, but given the information I have received courtesy of Jacob and Emily, my only advice to you is to reiterate what Jacob has already advised you: run as fast and as far north as you possibly can.”

  “Daddy, what’s that?”

  The sound of Rhiannon’s voice shattered the shocked stillness that had settled over both Simon and Emily. Simon’s hand flashed out and slammed the screen of the laptop shut. “It’s nothing, sweetheart,” he said as he turned to face his two children, who had somehow managed to sneak into the house unheard. “Just some photos that Emily took that she wanted me to see.”

  “It’s pretty,” said Benjamin, standing next to his big sister, a coloring book in one hand and a green pencil in the other.

  While the implication of what the kids had just seen had passed by Benjamin, Rhiannon didn’t look convinced by Simon’s explanation.

  “Who were you talking to?” she asked, nodding at the sat-phone next to the computer, as Benjamin, apparently already bored by the conversation, took a chair next to Simon and began coloring the remainder of his picture.

  Before Emily or Simon could reply, Fiona’s voice filled the kitchen. “Hello, children. My name is Fiona, and I am a friend of Emily’s and your father.” The ISS commander’s strong British accent instantly grabbed the children’s attention. “I was just telling your daddy how nice it would be if you and your brother might like to come see me and my friends. Would you like that?”

  Rhiannon’s response was to simply raise her eyes to the ceiling, spin on her heels, and head out of the kitchen toward her bedroom. “Whatever!” she called back over her shoulder. Ben continued to concentrate on filling in his coloring book, biting his bottom lip as he carefully worked the color between the lines.

  Simon watched his daughter disappear, then took his son’s hands in his own. “Why don’t you go and take Thor to the kitchen and give him some cookies?” he asked. The little boy’s face instantly brightened as he turned toward Emily, his eyes fixed on the carpet.

  “Can I?” he asked.

  Emily tried not to let the surprise she felt creep into her voice. Benjamin had barely acknowledged her existence since she had stumbled across his family. She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

  The little boy turned to the dog: “For. Want a cookie?” Emily smiled at the sheer sweetness of it. The malamute didn’t seem to have any problem understanding the boy, though. He rolled to his feet and trotted after Benjamin, and they both disappeared into the kitchen.

  “We have some other problems to contend with,” said Emily when the boy was out of earshot. She explained what they had seen happening over the hill, quickly filling in the commander on her experience in the Valhalla forest and what the empty sack might mean for their safety.

  “This is a very interesting development,” said the commander after a pause. “And you have no idea what this egg sack contained?”

  “No, all I know is that when I encountered the first one, I was almost overwhelmed with fear. Just take my word for it, whatever is on the loose out here isn’t thinking happy thoughts.”

  There was a burst of static, then Jacob’s voice cut through it. “…all that you have told us, I’d advise you leave as quickly as possible. While I can’t speak with any certainty about the storm, given your previous experiences and observations, and the unprecedented size of the storms, I can only assume that this is the next phase in the geoengineering of the planet. In short: you don’t want to still be there when that thing makes landfall.”

  Emily stared at Simon. She could almost hear the cogs in his brain whirring as he tried to process this avalanche of information.

  “Okay,” he replied, finally. “We leave now.” The tenseness Emily had seen in him seemed to drain from his muscles in resignation, all resistance finally leaving him.

  “If there’s nothing more? I think Simon and I need to get cracking. There’s no
t much of the day left and the sooner we’re out of here the better.”

  “Good,” replied Fiona. “Don’t waste time. You have no more than twelve hours in our estimation before that storm makes landfall and starts heading inland in your direction. You’ll want to be out of there well before then to stay ahead of it.”

  Jacob added, reinforcing the commander, “Whatever you two are going to do, you need to do it quickly, guys.”

  “We will,” Emily said, then added, “And, commander, thank you.”

  Emily glanced across at Simon as she hung up the sat-phone. His face was ashen, and she wondered how she would be handling the same news if she had been in his position.

  Simon looked up and met her stare. After a few moments he gave a single solemn nod of understanding.

  “Let’s get started.”

  As soon as they were off the sat-phone, Emily followed Simon into the living room. Simon called Rhiannon and Ben in and told them they would be leaving within the next hour or so.

  “Is For still coming?” said Ben.

  “Yes, he’s still going to be coming with us,” said Simon, smiling at his little boy.

  “We’re leaving now?” Rhiannon asked. She had a look of incredulity on her face that telegraphed she was going to have a hard time believing anything she was told unless it was the absolute truth.

  Simon looked at Emily for support, but she just smiled back at him. The ball was completely in his court, and he had to tell the children what he chose to tell them.

  “There’s a very big storm coming,” Simon said. “So, we have to leave sooner than I thought.”

  “Why?”

  “Because, if we stay, we might be hurt…or worse. Do you understand what I’m saying, Rhiannon?” said Simon, glancing at her brother.

  Rhiannon took a moment to analyze what had been said. “I suppose,” she said finally.

  “Okay, well I need you and your brother to stay out of Emily’s way for a while. She’s going to pack some clothes for you both for the trip.”