The Event

by Nathan Hystad

  She fidgeted with the ring on her necklace. “That was me. I was close in Washington and took a boat there. Lots of those available where I was. It was only a matter of hours and I was there. I knew I would have to go there and had gone to that bank a couple times in the past two years. Bob gave me the letter to not open until the day they came. Of course I was angry at him for dying, and for telling me that insane story about aliens. I didn’t know what to think when I read it, telling me about a security box. Why wouldn’t I go and look at it? I stood there two years ago in that very bank and stared at that box for an hour. But for some reason, I didn’t open it.”

  “How about Vanessa?” I asked.

  “I guess she never got one there. Hers was in a local bank. Interesting how her story is always different than ours.” She looked at me, and I guessed she was trying to gauge my reaction.

  I really had no idea if that made a lick of difference to our situation, but I was going to watch Vanessa a little more closely than the other two.

  “Let’s go get some food and get out of here. We have a long trip ahead of us.” My stomach growled when I smelled the bacon and eggs wafting from down the hall. Carey had already forgotten about me as he ran out of sight.

  Soon we were packed up and full from the wonderful meal. It felt great to have something like breakfast to share with other people; another seemingly small event that gave me motivation to keep going. Vanessa and Mary were in a four-door Jeep, and Ray and I kept our truck. The drive to Florida was over a thousand miles, so we had some ground to make up, especially since light was at a premium. We had no idea if the ships would find us at night, but we turned the CB off and they gave us a walkie-talkie so we could communicate with them as we drove.

  “We’ll take the lead for the start. If you see anything, let us know and we’ll stop and pretend to be just another abandoned vehicle,” Mary said as she bent over to pet Carey. “See you in a bit, pup.”

  Mary was used to taking charge, it appeared. I always figured a soldier was better at taking directions, but she seemed to be good at it. I knew I was in no position to take charge here. Her training was ideal for what we had to do.

  “Sounds good. We’ll be in touch.” I smiled at them as Ray said the words.

  In minutes, we were heading down the road, Washington just a blip in the rear-view mirror.

  _______

  We started the drive around seven thirty that morning, and after a stopping for a bathroom break at around nine thirty, we had made some decent distance. A thousand miles on roads with non-moving traffic could take a long time. We decided to just try side roads for most of the trip, and so far, it was working really well. We cruised along some paved and some gravel roads on the way towards Richmond, Virginia. We stopped for a quick break as we neared the city, and by noon, we were fifty miles south of it, heading towards North Carolina.

  Everything seemed to be going well, but we were really far from our goal; Peru seemed like an impossible distance. Ray was quiet this morning, and I drove while he manned the walkie-talkie.

  “You okay, Ray?” I asked, worried about him.

  “Yeah, I’m okay. Just letting it all sink in. Trying to wrap my head around what it all means.”

  I felt like he was going to ask the question I was scared to know the answer to.

  “If any of this is true, were Kate and Janine some sort of...” He paused and looked at me. “Aliens? I know it sounds crazy, but maybe it’s true.”

  After everything I’d gone through with my wife – the secrets, and Janine’s cousin Bob being Mary’s dead husband too, Kate being at my wedding...it was all too much to not be something strangely unbelievable.

  “I don’t know. I really don’t. How could they be aliens? How would aliens look like us? Is that why they died? Maybe they couldn’t survive here. There are so many questions I’m not sure we’ll get answers to. Will it change how I feel about my wife, or you about Kate? I think it will, but I honestly do feel like what I had was real in every way. It had to be.” Just remember that I’m sorry. Never forget this moment. Words from three years ago that I’d blocked out flowed into my head that moment, and tears formed in my eyes as I recalled the desperate look she’d given me. “She knew I was going to find out about her, and she apologized on her deathbed. I forgot the words until now.” Warm tears now flowed down my face, but I didn’t sob about it. I let them fall, and from here I would harden myself. She had to do what she did, for some reason, but I knew without a doubt that she had loved me.

  “I think you’re right. But how messed up is it that we had alien women? Not even Kirk married one of them,” Ray joked.

  I stayed silent for a moment, then burst out laughing. “We’re going to be friends for a long time. I love making jokes at the wrong time! That’s straight out of my playbook.”

  The talkie cracked. “Hey, boys. There’s a gas station just ahead. Let’s take a breather. Over.”

  “Roger that. We’re right behind you,” Ray replied.

  We followed them down the gravel road and turned left toward the highway. The Jeep slammed on its brakes and pulled up beside a car sitting there. We did the same and cut the engine when they did.

  “There’s a bogey in the sky coming this way from the west.”

  The ship was coming in fast. Just when I thought it might pass over us, I saw the beam coming from it. The beam was red, not green, this time. My heart was racing as it came closer; its red light was cutting the ground up in chunks. Huge pieces of earth flew in its wake, cars exploded, and when it passed over the gas station, I had to cover my ears when the tanks blew. A mushroom cloud shot into the sky; the gray ship kept moving, red beam shredding the ground as it moved. Carey was barking as Ray and I sat watching the devastation with our mouths open.

  “How are we ever going to stop them?” Ray whispered.

  “I have no idea.” My heart was hammering in my chest, and I could feel the drip of sweat run down my back as I stared into the sky. As if to accent the danger we just missed out on, a large piece of metal fell right beside the truck, sticking into the road, fire burning around it.

  “We better wait a moment longer in case there’s any more airborne flaming death waiting to fall on us,” I said. In a few moments, we got out of the truck, and Carey ran over to the Jeep and barked at Vanessa in the driver’s seat. I was sure he just wanted to see if they were okay, but she seemed hesitant to get out of the vehicle. He moved over and forgot what he was doing when Mary walked over to us, because she was obviously more interesting than the car door. We watched the line of fire spreading across the horizon for miles.

  “Do you think they know we’re here? Why else would they have done this?” Ray asked.

  “It could be they were demonstrating their power in case we saw what they’d done. They probably think we’re somewhere around this distance. Maybe they’re cutting a line down this side of the country to stop us from passing?” Mary answered. “I heard the generals arguing about whether these ships had weapons or not. They thought that they didn’t, that the reason they didn’t retaliate against Russia when they threw missiles at them was because they couldn’t. Boy, were they wrong. They just cut open the ground like a can opener, with a beam of frickin’ red light.”

  “I say we head up there, check how big this gash is, and see whether we can get through it or not,” I said, everyone nodding in agreement. We moved back to the cars, but Mary reached out and grabbed my arm while Ray and Vanessa headed back to their respective vehicles.

  “Something feels off here to me, Dean. Why bother with this tactic? With this power, couldn’t they just fly down there and blow the device up?” Her military mind was probably whirling at their strategy.

  “Maybe they don’t know what it is. Maybe they don’t know where it is. I just know that I can’t see how they’ve transported all of Earth’s population and are carrying them safely in space right now. Why would they just not destroy humanity? Maybe we’re already too late.” I s
aid the words and felt horrible, thinking of my mother, and my sister in California, whom I rarely saw.

  “You could be right, but we still have to try. That’s all we have left. Let’s head over there and see what we’re up against. One thing at a time, I suppose.” She smiled and walked back to the Jeep, where Vanessa was sitting and watching our exchange.

  “What was that all about?” Ray asked as I got into the truck.

  “Nothing. She just has some concerns about the aliens’ motivation on Earth. Things we have no answers for.”

  I drove down the street and up a quarter mile to the remains of an exploded gas station. Sections of the building were scattered so far I would have thought it impossible for them to fly that distance. A sign sat on the ground, half on fire. It read “Eat Here, Get Gas,” which under normal circumstances would have made me laugh. With my breath gone, I had a hard time. The earth split open in front of us for what looked like a hundred yards or so. Just split down for another fifty yards. Whatever that laser thing was, it was built for destruction.

  The four of us got out and surveyed the damage, all of us too afraid to talk. I looked east and west, and it went as far as the eye could see.

  “What if they’ve done this every few miles down? We’ll never be able to get there.” Vanessa broke the silence as she stood there, shoulders visibly slumped forward.

  “What about heading around it? We may eventually be able to get past the starting point. Or we head for the coast now and get a boat there,” Ray suggested.

  “I have a feeling it’ll be a long way to the end, and for all we know, they blew up the coastline’s boats. I don’t know what the answer is.” Mary crouched and rested her arms on her knees. “Dean, what do you think?”

  I wasn’t sure what to think, but if they wanted my opinion… “I say we have four options. One, we go west and see if the ship maybe started close by so we can get around. Option two, we head east and try to get a boat now. It’ll add a lot of time, especially since we were looking to get a sailboat; because as Mary pointed out, there will be a lot of sailboats between Miami and Cuba, so we won’t look out of place. Option three, we cross this chasm, come up the other side, and get into a new vehicle and keep driving south, sticking to the original plan.”

  Ray was nodding along and he asked, “What’s option four, then?”

  I licked my lips, unsure if I wanted to say it aloud. “Option four, we turn around and give up.”

  ELEVEN

  I waited for someone to speak, not sure if I wanted to hear what they thought of that option. I wanted to keep on, to keep going and try to turn the damned device off. I just hoped they did too.

  Mary was the one to say something. “I say we cross over here. There are plenty of cars on the street just over there. It’s the most known route, and I think that gives us our best odds under the circumstances. Are you with me?”

  We all chorused our agreement and grabbed things we’d need. “Only things we need from here on out. If we need something else, we can pick it up on the way. Food, water, flashlights, radios, maps,” Mary called out in her take-charge way.

  We set to it, and soon we had stripped the cars of anything we would need for the next leg of the journey. It was about one thirty as we started our descent into the pit. The first few feet were concrete, but it turned to dirt very quickly. Lucky for us, the beam seemed to have wreaked havoc on the ground and it was an uneven cut, especially by the gas station, where the tanks added to the destruction. It gave us some steps on the way down.

  Carey was able to make the run down easily, and he sniffed around the rift’s floor. Vanessa had the hardest time, claiming chronic lung problems, and by the time we were near the bottom, she was coughing hard. I was sweating in the cool air, more of a result of hauling three full bags with me than anything else. My rifle hung across my shoulders and I figured we would have made quite the sight. If me from four days ago had seen me now, I probably would hardly have recognized myself. A more-than-five o’clock shadow, dirt on my face, and a gun strapped to my body. Desperate times and all that other stuff, I guessed.

  I looked down the hole in the ground, and it was an odd feeling to be so deep into the Earth. I quickly got a sense of claustrophobia and felt like the walls were coming closer, even though they were a hundred paces or so apart.

  “I hope we find another generator. I miss coffee,” Ray said, patting my back as he headed toward the other side.

  “I hear you. I honestly don’t know how we’re functioning right now. I mean, no caffeine for at least five hours! That’s unheard of,” Mary said with only a hint of sarcasm. Vanessa appeared to be recovering, and Carey ran up to me and jumped his front paws onto my thighs. I scratched him on the head and picked up the two packs I’d let down. We moved through the terrain to the looming far side, where we found out the surface was much less carved out for us to walk up.

  “What do you think? Should we head down a bit to see if there’s a better spot for footholds?” I asked.

  “We can make it halfway up this way, and then there’s a steep section where I think I can climb. Then I can tie a rope to a car’s axle up there and toss it down,” Vanessa said.

  “Uhm, are you sure you can do that?” We all looked at her a little incredulously. It wasn’t that she was old at fifty, and she looked like she was in decent shape, but that cough-fest was enough to make me doubt her climbing skills at that moment.

  “I was a rock climber for a few years, recreationally anyway. Nothing big, but definitely stuff harder than this. I can still do it. You have your skills, I have mine.” And that was that. She headed up by herself, the flat spot almost halfway up the fifty-yard wall, and from there, she startled us all by reaching up and grabbing a small rock. Slowly, she ascended the fairly flat surface. In ten anxious minutes, she was up top and we could hear her coughing when she was done.

  “You’re amazing, ‘Nessa! Are you okay?” Mary called up to her.

  “I’m okay. Give me a moment and I’ll get the rope down to you guys,” she called back.

  Five minutes later, we were at the halfway mark and grabbing hold of the rope.

  “Can we all make this?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure. Maybe ten years ago,” Ray said, and ran his hand over his slightly overweight stomach.

  “How about I head up first, then Mary, and we can pull you up if you need the help?” I offered.

  “At this point, I have no shame in help from a friend. Sounds like a plan. How about Carey?” Ray asked.

  The dog looked up at us as if we were crazy, and he was on the strangest walk of his life.

  “I can use my jacket like a sling and he can come with me,” Mary said. I knew she was tough, but this was going to be quite the sight.

  I slung the lightest pack over my shoulders and took the rope. It had been a long time since I’d had to climb a rope, the last time probably being in a bad white t-shirt and school shorts in the gymnasium, while Mr. Pat yelled at us and called us girls. As I started up the wall, I could almost hear him insulting my manhood. I weighed a little more now than my tenth-grade self and felt the burn as I climbed with a combination of my arms and pushing up with my legs. A couple of painful minutes later, I was on the top being helped forward by Vanessa. I’d feel the soreness later.

  I passed the rope back down and then watched as Mary climbed up quickly with a shaking cocker wrapped up in a jacket like a baby swaddled to her belly. It was quite the sight. She hardly looked to be breaking a sweat as she climbed up, much faster than I had. Once Mary was up, Carey squeezed out of the cloth trap and rolled around on the ground, as if he could wipe the fear off his hair by covering it in dirt. The only thing left to do was get the rest of the supplies up, and then Ray. We tossed the rope back to him and he started to tie the bags to it.

  “You guys sure you can lift me up there?” he called from below.

  “Sure, how heavy can you be, Ray? Two-thirty?” Mary called back.

  “Yeah,
pretty damn close. Okay, the bags should be good to go.”

  We all grabbed the rope and moved hand over hand, pulling the gear up slowly but firmly. It would have been much easier if we’d had some sort of a pulley, but the rope looked like it was holding up nicely. Leave it to Mary to have brought a rope. It was sure nice to have her along. I watched her arms tense as she stood in front of me, pulling with fluid motions and ease, like she did this type of thing on a daily basis. Vanessa brought up the rear and she smiled slightly when I gazed back at her. Her coughing fit seemed to be a thing of the distant past, and soon the gear was over the edge and accounted for.

  “Okay, Ray. We’re going to toss the rope back down. I’ve tied it in a loop at the bottom. Jump into it like it’s a hula hoop and sit your butt on the bottom of the circle. We’ll pull you up, no problem.” Mary sounded so sure of herself, I didn’t think we would have a problem.

  “Good to go,” he called.

  We started to lift, and it wasn’t much worse than all the gear we had moved. We only had to lift him around thirty yards, so I figured a couple minutes. The pulls were getting a little heavier, and I heard Mary mutter something under her breath. Carey barked a few times and wagged his tail. Then I saw what had Mary reacting like that. The rope was coming to our hands frayed.

  “Mary, are we good still?” I asked.

  “Should be. I grabbed this rope from a hardware store, because I forgot the good stuff at the base. Damn it. I should have known it would be cheap. Probably made for tying up a gate or something, not pulling a grown man up a cliff front,” she said through her teeth.

  It was becoming more frayed with each pull, and I was getting worried. Ray hadn’t seemed to have noticed yet, and we kept pulling, trusting it would hold.

  We stopped when Mary did. The rope snapped slightly, and we were forced forward by the pressure change.

  “What the hell was that?” Ray yelled up, alarm in his voice.