Jubilee Year: A Science Fiction Thriller (Erelong Book 1)

by Gerard O'Neill

  He imagined the farmer entertained important guests at the table. Discussing who knows what; probably fence lines and feeding strategies, the fastest farm bicycles, the best irrigation system.

  In the corner of the room, Darren noticed a cabinet that jutted from the wall in an odd way, as if it had been hit by something big moving past it. He took a closer look and saw the cabinet was not damaged or built poorly, but it was sitting very slightly out from the wall. He gripped both sides and pulled, and to his surprise, it swung smoothly away. As it did, a light switched on to illuminate a hidden room.

  He stared at the three rifles mounted in the rack on the wall. For a while he did not realize what he was looking at, such was his surprise. He reached for the largest weapon. It felt too heavy in his hands and he placed it back in its bracket. He turned his attention to the drawers below. The top one had been opened and just like the cabinet, had not been closed properly. Someone must have been in a hurry to leave.

  There were ammunition cartons in the drawer. A lot of them. All were neatly ordered according to the caliber. He hesitated and put his head around the corner to check that he really was alone. Satisfied that he was, he opened the second drawer, then he stood back and whistled.

  When he picked up the weapon he felt a tingle go through him as if the thing was alive. It was a work of art. He could see that straight away. And—it felt good in the palm of his hand, heavier than he expected, but then he’d never held a handgun before.

  It smelled faintly of oil, and there was an acrid quality to it that told him the gun had been fired at least once before. He turned it over and found the release. The magazine fell with a clatter to the bare floorboards at his feet. He quickly picked it up, taking another look around the corner before he set it on the shelf.

  He found the carton with the correct caliber and inserted the rounds one by one until he had filled the magazine. Everything dropped into place very smoothly. Even the sound of the mechanism was marvelous. Nice.

  He turned and aimed the weapon at an imaginary target. The gun felt good in his hand, and he imagined if there was a mirror on the wall that he would see it looked damn good in his hand as well! He tucked the gun snugly into the small of his back and twisted one way, then the other. Satisfied the weapon would stay in his jeans, he pulled his shirt over the bump and closed the drawer.

  There was a sense of solidness that came with the sure knowledge he was armed. He was finally a man able to make things happen. It was the first time he could remember feeling that way. He made a resolution there and then. From now on he was going to take whatever it was he desired. Life was to be lived, and you only get one chance to do that. He smiled at the thought.

  The cabinet swung smoothly back into place. He pressed the sides to make sure the thing was closed, not wanting any of the others to know about it. There was no advantage in that.

  His mind raced with so many possibilities it made him a little lightheaded. As he walked back to the kitchen to find something to eat he whistled an old tune that he used to enjoy before the chaos, and he realized he was truly happy.

  Storm found Darren leaning against the sink attempting to open a can of beans with a bent and rusty opener.

  “So—where are we sleeping tonight?” Darren asked.

  “Take your pick. There are plenty of beds. Four bedrooms in the house. So that’s beds total, including two doubles. Then there are the bunks in the farmhands’ cottage.”

  “We could flip coins,” Darren suggested.

  They heard big diesel engine roar outside as Taylor backed the Bushmaster up the drive.

  “I guess,” Storm replied. “But I don’t think there’s any need. I bet they’ll collapse on the beds as soon as they get in the door. You won’t get a chance to flip a coin.”

  “I was thinking,” Darren said. “You and Penny were an item before all this started, weren’t you?”

  There was an intensity on Darren’s face that made Storm uneasy about the feller all over again. Darren’s eyes had the fixed under-a-furrowed-brow kind of look a gamer begins to walk around with after being engrossed in too many all night battles. It could be the look an actor on stage about to recite a soliloquy from Macbeth, but whatever it just did not look right on Darren.

  “Yeah?” Storm replied. “So—what about it?”

  “Are you two still together?”

  Storm laughed drily. “Why are you asking?”

  “Well—because if you’re not. I would sure as hell be interested.”

  Storm took a breath. “You’ve seen her, right? She’s a mess! This is not the time.”

  He opened the door.

  Darren finished stuck the spoon into the can he had finally opened and sat down at the table.

  “Yeah, I—I know. But I’ve been thinking—she’s hot. And you and I have gotten to know each. I thought I’d be polite and ask you first—beforehand.”

  “Before what?”

  “Dude, she is hot! You know what I mean.”

  Storm stared at the smirk on Darren’s face and realized he was not joking.

  “You fuckwit!” Storm snapped.

  He took a step outside, then stepped back in the kitchen.

  “What the hell’s wrong with you, anyway?”

  “Just asking,” Darren replied, and he closed his mouth on a spoonful of beans.

  Storm almost collided with Michael as he walked with Penny down the path to the house.

  Penny rested her head on her father’s chest, his arm around her shoulders.

  Storm reached out a hand to touch her arm and was surprised to see her pull away from him.

  At the door, she broke from her father and stared back for a few seconds.

  He saw that her face was blank, and it was both beautiful and alien. He might as well have just caught the attention of a total stranger.

  Darren was watching too, through the open kitchen door. When he saw Storm had noticed, he shrugged and returned his attention to the tin of beans.

  Behind the farmhouse and over the fields, the highway vanished into the dusty glowing reddish-brown horizon. Storm could still make out the moving black dot. He stood on the path, following the progress of the Bushmaster until it disappeared into the haze.

  The living room was too much comfort all at once. Not one of them had energy left to speak. They did not even have the kind of thoughts required that words be spoken.

  Penny was curled up on the sofa. Michael sat quietly beside her, his hand on her head. Stella was barely able to focus on her surroundings, and yet she could not close her eyes even though she was sitting in a large and soft velvet-covered chair. Summer sat on the floor with her head resting against her mother’s leg.

  Matthew helped Aunty onto one of the large soft chairs and placed a cushion under her head. When she waved him away, he pulled a chair out from under the table and sat down.

  Storm had slumped across the tabletop, using a forearm as a pillow, and not moved for a long while, but he floated in a state somewhere between consciousness and sleep.

  “You find anything useful in the shed?” Matthew asked his friend.

  “There’s a truck. It’s a Ford Ute,” Storm mumbled without lifting his head. “Too bad I couldn’t find the keys in the cab.”

  “Try these,” Matthew said. He took a key from his pocket and slid it across the tabletop. It stopped before Storm’s nose.

  “I found it on a hook behind the kitchen door.”

  “Congratulations,” Storm replied, not moving to pick it up.

  Matthew pulled a chair out from under the table and sat down. He rubbed his arms. His muscles were aching something wicked from the long hour of shifting rock.

  “We can go into town and pick up whatever we need,” he said.

  “Good idea,” Storm mumbled into his shirt sleeve. “Let’s talk about it tomorrow.”

  Nothing But Memories

  Matthew balanced himself on the sill of the passenger door with one hand resting on the roof of
the cab.

  “We’re good to go!” he shouted through the open window.

  “Are you sure about this?” Storm asked Matthew.

  Darren who sat next to Storm was feeling less certain. He and Storm had not spoken since they left the farm that morning, and he was about to break the silence. The condition of the bridge was terrible. The decision to take the short route over the bridge was just not smart.

  Matthew peered at the worried faces inside. “It’s solid,” he said.

  Storm stared at the bizarre S-bend in the bridge deck. He could see a glint off the metal supports showing clear through the broken asphalt. The damned cracks were huge, he thought, and he tightened his grip on the steering wheel.

  “What choice do we have?” Matthew asked him.

  Storm nodded his head slowly. “None at all,” he agreed.

  “Creep us over nice and steady and we’ll be fine. I’ll let you know when I think the bridge is going to collapse.”

  Storm stared at Matthew and saw that he was grinning back at him.

  “Smartass,” he replied to Matthew. “There’s not enough water down there to soften the fall.”

  “How about we try to cross the river without driving over the bridge,” Darren said.

  It was the second time that morning he had made the suggestion. He knew no one was listening, but he thought he should say it one more time anyway. If they just used their eyes, they’d see the mess of mud and stones below could support the truck with little trouble. It was far safer than crossing the bridge. The worst that could happen was the truck getting stuck. Better than falling from a great height.

  “If we had enough diesel in the tank, we might find a place to cross,” Matthew conceded.

  “But we haven’t got the fuel to do that,” Storm reminded them.

  He steeled himself for the inevitable crossing.

  “Hey, Darren. You should walk behind,” Matthew advised.

  “Just in case, you mean?” Darren muttered.

  He glanced up at Matthew with a look of scorn.

  “You can walk in front if you want,” Storm said with undisguised sarcasm.

  “Okay, so let me out, dude,” Darren said to Matthew.

  Matthew jumped to the ground. It was not difficult to miss the tension between Storm and Darren, but he had no idea what was going on. He told himself it was better that way. Better to let whatever had happened between them blow over.

  “Ready?” Storm called out.

  Matthew leaped back on the sill and rapped the cab roof to give the go-ahead.

  Storm shifted through the gears and inched the truck forward.

  The structure creaked and groaned. By the time they had reached the middle, Storm could hear splashes as debris fell into the river below, but the bridge held together.

  Once they made it town side they pulled into the first petrol station. The idea was to get the pumps working, and as Darren cheerfully noted, no one would begrudge them their actions. After all, exceptional circumstances call for emergency measures. The quip brought a smile to Storm’s face. He let go the hostility and felt better for having done so.

  They used a wheel brace to shatter the door of the kiosk, but it was to no avail. There was no electricity. So they thought about how they might manually work the pump. Nothing they tried worked and after a lot of wasted effort, there was nothing to do but stand together on the stained concrete beside the useless bowser, and crunch potato chips and chug energy drinks they stole from the vending machines in the kiosk.

  “There’ll be plenty of interstate trucks parked outside the motels, the other end of town,” Darren told them. “We can siphon fuel from the tanks.”

  All the sugar in his bloodstream had given him such a rush he was actually feeling better about everything. Ideas were flowing again. He was on top of things.

  “We oughta take whatever jerry cans we can find before we leave,” he continued, keenly aware the other two were paying him some attention at last.

  “Good idea,” Matthew said. “And we oughta look for a generator while we’re here.”

  “I saw one in the workshop,” Darren told him. “We should find more before we leave town, though.”

  “We only need two,” Storm said.

  “Well, you never can tell when you might need a third,” Darren said punctuating his statement with a loud burp. “We need one as a functioning backup and another just for parts. They don’t run forever.”

  “I want to go to the airport,” Storm declared.

  “Say again?” Matthew stared at him in surprise.

  “I want to visit the airport,” Storm repeated flatly.

  “Why are we going there?” Matthew asked.

  “I want to check out the plane they keep in the hangar,” Storm answered. “There’s a lot more to see when you are above the ground.”

  “A plane needs fuel,” Matthew grumbled, but he could already see there was no way he could change Storm’s mind.

  “We better do it quick then,” Darren told them. “We have a long list of supplies to hunt down, and we got to do it before others get to them.”

  From where they sat in the truck, the hangar looked to be intact. The only visible damage was a shattered window high on a corrugated iron wall. They got out and walked over to the building for a closer look.

  Storm was buoyed by the fact the hangar looked to be intact but he was disappointed when he saw the doors were locked by a heavy padlock and chain.

  Darren was greatly cheered by the outcome. “That’s it! Let’s head back to town.”

  Matthew tapped Storm on the shoulder and pointed to the Ute. “It’s only a guess—but I would say we have a nine-thousand-five-hundred-pound winch on the front of the truck.”

  “Awl, yeah!” Storm exclaimed. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

  “Because you have me here to do that for you,” Matthew said grinning at Storm.

  Darren fell despondent he had overlooked the truck had a winch. He eyed the door and the sides of the building.

  “The chain is strong,” he said. “That padlock isn’t though.”

  He turned around for them to affirm his keen observation and saw that Storm and Matthew were already standing by the truck. He watched as the two of them feed out the steel cable and placed the chain inside the heavy metal hook.

  It all worked as Matthew said it would. The cable snapped tight and the padlock flew apart with a loud metallic crack.

  “Woo-hoo!” Matthew hooted.

  He pulled the large metal doors open, then took a hasty step backward, waving his hand in front of his face.

  “Whew, that’s nasty!”

  The moment he entered the hangar, a sharply acrid stench bit into Storm’s nostrils and throat, and started his eyes watering.

  “There are generators at the back,” Storm said, coughing into his shirtsleeve.

  Light streamed through two large holes in the ceiling, illuminating the remains of a large tank lying on its side. Thick yellow residue had sprayed up the wall and over the concrete. On the side of the exploded drum could be read the stenciled warning: Weed Killer!

  Storm pulled the other door wide open. He waited for the haze of dust, smoke, and fumes to subside before he walked up to the single-engine plane. He didn’t need to examine the old Cessna Cardinal up close. He could see at a glance the aircraft needed the kind of attention it would now never receive.

  The three shafts of daylight falling through the three holes in the iron roof above, told him all he needed to know. He gazed at the craters in the concrete beneath the wing and strolled around the machine, letting the tips of his fingers glide over the shiny painted surface. What a pity! The craft would have been serviceable but for one massively damaged wing. It would never fly again.

  Matthew hollered from the rear of the long building that he had found a generator. He called out that the thing was too big to move, and anyway, the fumes were overwhelming him.

  Storm ran his hands over the ed
ge of a propeller blade as he watched Darren rummage through the equipment stacked along one wall.

  Darren had lifted the corner of a long blue tarpaulin covering a row of bulky objects. He let out a whistle of appreciation and bent down for a closer inspection. He glanced over his shoulder at Storm.

  “What do you know about these?”

  “Parasails,” Storm replied.

  “You ought to check them out!” Darren said.

  He grabbed a corner and pulled the cover across the concrete floor to reveal the shiny machines.

  “These are full rigs. Engines and props and sails. Shit! We have the lot.”

  He looked back at Storm and saw that he was sitting inside the cockpit unable to resist one last time behind the controls.

  “Hey, Storm! These aren’t parasails. These are paramotors!”

  After seeing the wrecked Cessna, all Storm wanted to do was to head back into town, load up the truck with whatever supplies they could find, and get back to the farm. He jammed his hands into his jean pockets and walked over to see what Darren had discovered.

  “They flew them in the hills but kept them here,” Storm said. “There was a doctor from the hospital and the new dentist, but I never got to know any of them. Ask Penny—ah—she might have…”

  “I will,” Darren replied and straightened up to look Storm in the eye. “You know what? We got to take all of them back with us.”

  “All of them?” Storm asked in surprise. “Where do we put the supplies we need from the supermarket?”

  “We’ve got to make room,” Darren told him.

  “Can you even fly a paramotor?” Storm asked.

  “It’s fairly basic,” Darren replied as he cast an eye over the rigs.

  Storm snorted. “Bullshit!”

  “Seriously!” Darren said, squaring up to Storm. “Even if you found a plane that flew—you still need a safe place to land. That could be a problem what with all the damage caused by the quakes and meteoroids. But with these, you can take off and land anywhere! You don’t need a flat airstrip. These things are awesome, dude!”