by Scott Todd
She caught my brief stare and slammed her shirt shut. "Oh you BASTARD!" she said with disgust, looking away again out the window.
"Yeah, well welcome to the world of society-imposed embarrassment. It's hard to control natural urges, even when you're running for your life," I thought to myself.
"Can you turn on the radio, please?" I said in a frantic voice. "Push the volume button. It's all I can do to keep it on the road, cause the road is moving." She just looked at me meanly and then looked away again.
"I DID say PLEASE!" I reminded her. She grudgingly reached out and hit the button, and the Emergency Broadcast System alert was on, but there were no messages- just the alert- going on and on. She looked puzzled.
"Hit the preset buttons and change stations," I said, but to no avail. She started to melt down and cry. "DO IT!" I screamed. "Or would you prefer I drove us off the road? The road is MOVING, and I can't take my hands off the wheel!"
Startled out of her fog with my scream, she went through all the FM station presets. But that's all we heard on every one of them. "Oh, that's just GREAT, that is," I said louder. "Hit the AM/FM button and try some more presets! HURRY!" But again we got the same thing.
I was getting more frantic. Hearing the EBS like that was giving me further confirmation that something bad HAD happened. It was by no means conclusive, but it didn't look good. And now she was starting to worry, looking up at me with fearful eyes. But I could tell that fear was not so much of me anymore.
Chapter 2: Out From the Shaking
"Now there's a car and some people stopped in the middle of the road, and they are flagging us down. They better move out of the damn road, cause I am NOT stopping, no matter WHAT!" I said nervously, but determined.
As the word "But" started to exit her lips, I cut it hard and swerved around them, only to see middle fingers raised high in the air in my rear view mirror.
"Sorry, but they're probably as good as dead, and so are we if don't get up that mountain," I said- just slightly more calmly, defending my action. I was on a mission with blinders on. But at least we had made it to the Parkway. And with so little time left before those S-waves slammed us, I was violently trying to decide where the best place was to pull over.
We were surrounded by big trees along the sides of the Parkway. The kind that can fall and crush you dead during huge earthquakes. But there were also some paved overlooks ahead- more open areas where we'd be away from trees. Most overlooks there were called overlooks for a reason: They hung over the edge of the mountain.
"Great, so choose your death," I thought- "killed by a tree, or die falling off the side of a cliff." Either way, it wasn't going to be pretty. Maybe I should just DRIVE off the cliff, and end this madness... Or just shoot myself. I was losing it.
But the first overlook signs appeared quickly, and as luck would have it, it was not one of the ones overhanging a cliff. It was more away from the edge. "THIS is the spot to stop," I thought, as I pulled into the empty parking lot.
"Why are you stopping HERE?" she asked, looking at me like I was about to do something to her.
But there was no time to answer. What we had witnessed before became quickly forgotten as this time, the earth shook with such violence that the side of the car hit her head and knocked her out cold.
I was able to hang on to the steering wheel, but I was getting beaten up very badly by the car door. Some trees cracked and many fell with tremendous roars and thuds as they hit the ground. But they were just far enough away that we were spared being splattered, while the violence continued for what seemed like forever.
The shaking finally subsided, after an incredible ten minutes or more, which was completely abnormal. Even the biggest earthquakes wouldn't cause that. I knew then that most definitely had to be the biggest earthquake ever. My mind raced on.
Oh NO! The ROAD! Would it be still be intact enough to drive on? We were still miles away from the top. And now my left shoulder was really killing me. Then I looked over at her.
She was slumped over on the seat. I reached out and pushed back her up, but she was still unconscious and completely limp. I felt her wrist, making sure she still had a pulse. She did.
I was about to look away, but more buttons on her shirt had come loose with the violent shaking, exposing her bare breasts. I didn't want to look, but you just cannot help but notice something like that. You just can't. I tried briefly to cover her up, but her shirt was all entangled.
So I gave up with the shirt and got out to look at the damage. It was bad, but still passable in a four wheel drive. No more driving fast now though, as some trees were down and there were cracks in the road- as expected.
We just had to keep going no matter what- or die. It was just that simple. If what I suspected had happened was true, the water could be coming. And taking everyone with it. Except MAYBE those on the highest ground.
At least I had planned it, figuring that I stood as good a chance as anyone if I could reach the highest mountain in the Appalachians. And it was no coincidence that I chose to live within an hour's drive from it. A silly notion, that wasn't so "silly" now.
I put the gun on the seat, and fired up the car again. I continued up the road at a slow pace. My mind swirled with morbid thoughts: Just how bad was this? Was there going to be anyone left? What about the animals? And on and on.
Trying the radio again, the EBS signal had disappeared altogether- and I just got static. What about backup power? Why aren't those stations on backup power??? My mind raced for answers, as the road started climbing steeper upward.
And then "Owww- My HEAD!!" said a voice, startling me from my whirling mental fixations. She had woken up, holding her head, and was in obvious pain. Realizing her shirt was undone and she was exposed, she quickly readjusted, shutting her shirt. She looked at me with a deadly, accusatory stare. "Oh you bassssstard!" she hissed.
"I didn't TOUCH you. Don't even try it," I countered, looking back at her with a mad glare of my own. "The quake shook your shirt loose after the car door knocked you out. I even tried to..."
"You damn liar!" she screamed back. "Don't you DARE touch me," she threatened. "And what did you hear on the radio?" she demanded. "Tell me or I'll shoot you, so help me GOD!" I looked down to see my 38 now pointed at me. She had quietly grabbed the gun off the seat as she woke up.
"Yeah. That's right. Just go ahead and shoot me! Probably doesn't matter anyway! There's a good chance that water IS coming now," I barked back in a provocative tone, and kept right on driving.
"You better start explaining. Right NOW," she said as she rose the gun to my head. "There was a damn earthquake! So what! Turn this car around NOW," she demanded.
But no sooner had she said that, the car was lurched violently from side to side again from more tremors, causing her to drop the gun. I slammed on the brakes, and we almost went over the side. She was thrust into the dashboard, once again loosening her shirt in the violence, and exposing herself. I didn't hesitate and grabbed the gun back off the floorboard, before she could recover. But this time I put it away in my pants, figuring if she didn't get it by now, then I would have to kick her out.
"See?" I said, looking away. "I told you. It WASN'T ME!!! YOU need a new shirt. Or how about you try wearing a bra the next time the world ends, ok?"
She huffed for a second and then buttoned back up her shirt. Boy was she pissed. And her head was hurting bad. But trying to stay focused, I got the car back on the road.
"Look, I don't have time for this and neither do you," I remarked gravely, mad at the distraction. "There's a lot of bad things that could have happened, and obviously SOMETHING has," I said pointing to the radio with the low level static still on. "Give me all of fifteen minutes and maybe you'll see I'm not so crazy."
She just glared at me, but had no reply. She sighed and just looked back out the window. It seemed to be sinking in. I thought more about just kicking her out of the car, but I couldn't. She would be crucial to any kind of existence if
we managed to live through what I suspected could be coming.
"Well I'm calling my brother," she said with a sharp tone, getting her cell phone out of her purse. I could tell she was testing me.
"Sure," I replied, "Go right ahead and try. I'd be thrilled to death if you got a hold of anyone at all."
She hesitated a minute, thinking it through. I think it dawned on her that there would be no way I'd let her call anyone if I intended to hurt her.
With a sigh, she clicked a button or two. Then looking up, she said "Oh no...I have no signal. Huh... It's probably just that we're too far out to get signal here. I've been up here before," she said confidently, like she had solved the problem.
"Well the power might have gone out from the quake. Maybe it's both...I don't know," I concluded- and for the first time feeling like we were having a conversation.
But then headlights appeared, coming down the mountain. They were moving slowly- avoiding cracks in the road and stones that had fallen from the side. Their flashers were on, and they started honking the horn and slowing way down to a near stop when they saw us.
Sure I could take the time to slow down and risk death if the water came. I knew what could be at stake, and I was taking no chances. I sped up slightly, and avoided another fallen tree. I put my arm out the window and motioned for them to follow. I thought I saw them stop in my rear view mirror- but we quickly rounded a curve out of sight, so I couldn't be sure.
Then in retrospect I thought maybe that wasn't such a good idea. They were already ON the mountain. Maybe I should have taken the time to... NO! We HAD to get much higher up before we could even THINK about stopping for anyone or anything. The mission- keep the blinders on, and we might still survive if the worst came.
Chapter 3: The Sound From Hell
"There's a bottle of pain killers in the glove box," I said pointing at it. "But go easy. It may be all we've got for a very long time."
"You SHOULD have stopped for them," she said as she reached for the pills. "We just don't get earthquakes around here. Not like THIS! They are probably just as confused as you are."
"Yeah? Well if I thought it was just a quake- even a bigger quake on the New Madrid fault- you think I would be headed up to the top of this mountain with a total stranger I had to kidnap?" I countered. She looked confused.
"The WHAT fault?" she said. "I don't know what you're talking about."
Reality set in quickly. I could just not go there with her. It was WAY too much to explain, WAY too complicated, and we'd probably be dead before I finished anyway.
"I'd like two of those pills, if you would. My shoulder got pretty messed up back there," I said, partly to sidetrack the conversation, but mostly because I really needed them. I just hoped it wasn't broken, and that she didn't get a concussion.
The bumps and uneven pavement weren't helping my shoulder any, and I doubted the pills would either. But she handed them over, and it felt like we were finally getting somewhere. At least she wasn't glaring at me like a cold, wet cat from hell anymore.
She took several pills, and regained her composure. But there was still uneasiness in both our voices.
"So what is it you saw that's got you so upset?" she said with a deeper interest. "I mean I can understand the big quake and all, but kidnapping me? Why'd you have to kidnap me? And why did you say it could be the end of civilization?"
"I don't know what I saw and I am only guessing," I said, as a resurgent vision of clipping meters brought reality and urgency back to the forefront of my overloaded mind. "But I believe that either there was an asteroid that hit us, or some kind of huge tectonic plate movement that happened. And right now we are getting to a very high place because I believe we will be hit by GIGANTIC waves if either is true."
She just stared at me wide-eyed, in disbelief. Then she silently stared back out the window.
"But I was only watching the Pacific, so I have no clue how this affected the Atlantic," I continued. "This could have actually originated in the Atlantic for all I know... But I wasn't about to stick around to find out. I saw all the meters go off nearly at once, many of them thousands of miles apart from each other. That may not mean much to you. But after thinking about it and checking on some things, I ended up bolting out the door. I had already been doing some packing because of all the huge quakes," I finished saying. I pointed to the stacks of boxes and tools in the back.
"What are you talking about?" she said, again looking confused. "I don't understand. But I've never heard all the stations go out like this before- THAT'S crazy! Ocean water? All the way up here? Sorry, but I can't believe that."
The car was still hard to control from the tremors. We were swerving all over. She WAS listening intently though, and to me that meant progress.
"So you ever heard of a quake lasting this long?" I said. "I mean look at the road! Feel the car moving! I mean that is just abnormal after all this time. It should have already stopped. So whatever happened, it was massive."
Again she looked at me, considering, but still stayed quiet.
So I continued: "Chances are that if we meet up with anyone else way up here who managed to make it in time, they'll be someone who also watched these things... Or.... Just a lucky tourist. And those last people we passed- they weren't quake watchers like me, cause they'd be going up if they knew- not down the mountain.
"Believe it or not, I kidnapped you just in case we are the only ones left," I announced with a matter-of-factness. "Are you...?" I started to ask, but realized that would totally set her off. So I just dropped it and hoped.
The look on her face was a mixture of confusion and more disbelief. "I don't believe you. I mean do you know how loony that sounds?" she exclaimed. But I knew from the way she said it that she just didn't WANT to believe me. And neither did I.
We were climbing more steeply, and now getting closer to the top. The shaking was getting weaker. "I think the park entrance is right up there," she gestured.
The damage in the park appeared heavier, and I had to slow way down to avoid objects and road blocks. "The quake probably hit harder up here," I suggested, as daylight began to recede to darkness. And not a single light was visible in the park- the power was clearly out. I wasn't about to explain to her how I knew that, but I had been to that park before, too.
A brief memory resurfaced of fooling around with a girlfriend late at night in this same car, over in a dark corner of the very lot we were now pulling into. Damn, those were the days. I savored the memory... I figured I better, because it may be one of the last few memories I had before dying.
But that thought went away as quickly as it came. And as we entered the parking lot, she reminded me that we had to hike to get to the top- where the observation deck was.
On a normal day, that was true. But today was not a normal day, and I had a four wheel drive. "Yeah well today we are driving up there," I said with a steadfast determination. "We are not leaving this car down here with everything in it that will save our lives if..."
"Wait, what's that sound?" she interrupted. "Listen. You hear that?" She rolled down her window.
It was swelling ominously in the distance. Somehow you could tell that it was at a very great distance. But it was like no other sound. It was too big. It was too low. It reverberated in the sky. It was shaking the ground. And it was growing.
"Is that another earthquake?" she feared out loud. "Please no. Oh my God," she cried as it increased.
"We've got to get up there, and I mean FAST!!" I yelled, and floored it up the last steep hill. We almost made it to the top, but there were just too many trees down, so we had to stop about a hundred yards short.
Chapter 4: Fear to Primal Necessity
"Ok, I am almost starting to believe you now," she conceded hesitantly. "What direction is that noise coming from? I've never heard anything like THAT in my life! I mean that earthquake was the closest thing..."
"Yeah well neither have I. That's got to be the scariest sound the world
has ever produced," I concluded, trying vainly to disguise my terror. There are just some sounds that strike instant primal fear in man. Like the sound of a lion roar close to you. This was worse. Far worse.
We got out of the car, and started looking around nervously, while the awful sound kept getting louder and closer. The place was deserted, except for one other car in the parking lot below which I happened to notice on the way up. But that would not be uncommon in the evening on a weeknight. The damage from the tremors was evident- big cracks in the pavement, partial landslides in places, and several trees that were down.
"I'm not sure which direction it's coming from, because it sounds like it's all around us," I said, pretty confused. "But I know this much: If that IS the ocean and it's coming from the west, it had to travel some 2,500 miles to make it this far. But if it's from the south or east, then not nearly that much."
