It was quiet, except for the static sound cutting in and out with an occasional voice or blip of a word poking through.
An older woman immediately stood up from the table. She wore an apron and long dress with a black shirt and name tag, I was certain she was a server there.
“Are you folks okay?” she asked, rushing over. “Do the kids need anything?”
I saw her name tag. “We’re fine, Liza, thank you. We’re waiting for someone.”
Skip spoke up, “That’s Martin Garrison’s family. Your motorhome is done, by the way. Credit card machine is down, so unless you have cash, you might have to wait.”
I curled my lip, was he seriously wanting paid for repairs. Then I remembered he didn’t know the world was ending.
“Oh, stop that,” Liza flung out her hand. “Have a seat, are you waiting for Martin?”
I nodded. “We are. He took his housekeeper to check on her family.”
Skip mumbled but was barely heard. “That’s not gonna turn out good.”
Quickly, Lane looked at him. “What does that mean? She’s twenty miles out. Did the three funnels traveled that far?”
Skip shook his head. “They’re saying a pair of them traveled most of the way. The three you’re talking about came through here.”
“Who?” Lane asked. “Who is saying?”
Liza pointed to the man with the radio. “Whoever is doing the talking. Whoever we pick up. We’re trying to get more information. When we do, we lose it.”
“They are saying there was at least nine fronts,” Skip said. “Nine hit this area. Some with one funnel, some with multiples. But nine different …” he paused when the ground vibrated. A building vibration which started soft and built until the glasses on the table began to clank and rattle. “Make that ten.”
“Bryce,” Liza faced the cook. “Go check the back. I’ll see if I can see it coming from the front.” She raced to the window, and Skip stood up to join her.
Lane grabbed my hand. “Ma’am do you have a storm cellar we can get the kids into?”
“We do,” she answered, looking away from the window to us.
“No need,” Skip added. “It’s not hitting us, and if it changes direction, we have time to get below. Aw, man,” he looked back out the window. “Will you look at the size of it.”
I don’t know why, but I immediately raced for the door.
Lane’s hand grabbed for me and I slipped away as he called out my name.
I needed to see, not only how big it was, but if Skip was right and it wasn’t coming near us.
How did he even know?
I raced outside and a blast of wind, hot and grainy, smacked me in the face with a hard sting. After blinking my eyes a few times to clear the dust, I brought my hands over my brow to shield my eyes.
It was the strangest feeling; the world’s biggest blow dryer was blasting me.
“Jana!” Lane called my name loudly. “Get back inside!”
“It’s fine! Look at it!”
It seemed to be one big CGI funnel, there was no way it was real. But it was. The massive gray monster was in the distance roaring west. It was threatening and frightening just to see it. The velocity and vision of it took my breath away. Even I knew it was far enough away we were safe. It made no motions towards us; it was on a determined path.
I was in awe of it, stuck where I was watching it tear up the earth as it powered full throttle forward. Trees and gravel tossed violently upward as it moved onward. It was on a mission, and while I was grateful we weren’t part of it, I worried. It came from the east; the same direction Martin was headed.
SEVEN – REPRIEVE
It was such a simple thing, but I was always amazed watching Lane eat an apple. He took huge bites with confidence, he never slurped. Me, I always cut the apple into slices or bit with my canines, never my front teeth. I think it went back to when I was seven and it was how I lost my front tooth.
Lane sat at the little Formica table in the RV, my big binder before him. For a second, he wasn’t a middle-aged man wearing cheaters, ones resting on the bridge of his nose. I saw the guy who studied so hard to pass the bar exams. The way he stared at the three inch, hard binder, slowly flipping pages, pausing to bite his apple.
Of course, I didn’t know Lane when he was in college. I met him right after he passed the bar. I met him through Martin.
My sister, Elise had been married to Martin’s son, Bobby, for about six months. I was still living with my mom in Albuquerque, working in fast food to put myself through community college. We had been visiting Martin.
Lane was six years older than me, but my God, was he handsome and dashing. Like something you’d see on a country album cover. He answered an ad Martin placed for a ranch hand. I had no idea whatsoever he was from Vermont until he finally spoke.
There was no Texas in him at all.
He interviewed over the phone, Martin knew where Lane lived and his ambitions. Because Martin was that kind of guy, he hired him. Plus, his reasoning was most rich kids knew horses.
Lane was the horse whisperer, I swore.
Well, the rest was history and now I still stare in awe of him.
I was so happy the affair I thought he was having was a horse named Sally Ann and not some cheap prostitute prettier than me.
I would have forgiven him, though, I would have made him suffer, but forgiven him in the long run. I loved him that much, and I was not, at least for the last year, the best wife. The Jupiter project took my focus every chance I had.
In that automotive garage, I went from looking at my watch, checking on the kids while they played cards outside the RV, to going in to see how Lane was progressing. He seemed so obsessed with my book, determined to look through every page.
“Hey, hon,” I said. “It’s been almost an hour. I’m worried about Martin.”
Lane glanced up. “Look at it another way. It’s only been an hour.”
“The huge funnel came from over that way.”
“I know. He’s fine, Jana. I really believe that.” He flipped a page. “This is really impressive.” He began to fold out the sheet of paper.
“My map. Well, one of them.”
“You drew this?”
I nodded. “It’s the …” I slid in next to him at the table. “It’s the pattern the storms will take. Based on what Julius put up, you can see his original image here.” I turned the page. “He says they are gonna keep coming in waves, picking up steam over bodies of water, like the Gulf.”
“For how long?” Lane asked.
“See that’s where the apocalypse comes in. The storms are going to be bad enough, but once these anomalies start, Julius really believes those with the Jupiter project …”
Lane finished my sentence. “Are going to try to correct it.”
“Yep.” I nodded. ‘If they don’t, we’ll have a lot of pieces to pick up. If they do try and it doesn’t work, there will be nothing left to pick up. Just those who remain kind of stranded where they are. It’s really complicated. I have a whole section dedicated to that very scenario at the end.”
“I like your separator tabs.” His finger tapped a green one. “I still don’t believe it’s the end of the world, Jana. But ten storm fronts, that’s a lot in one area. This Jupiter project sounds so made up.”
“I know. But it’s not. It can’t be.”
Lane closed the binder. “How did you end up getting involved with this?”
“I actually friend requested Julius by accident. It was one of those ‘people you may know’ things, and I saw the mutual acquaintances and clicked, I realized after I clicked, I wasn’t accepting a request, I was making one.”
“You remember that?”
“I remember that because he immediately sent me a message asking if he knew me. And I said it was by accident, but we had mutual friends. That sort of thing. Anyhow that was a while ago, like three years. Some post popped up about space junk.”
“Space junk?” L
ane asked.
“Actually, space debris. Lane, seriously, that’s real and that’s scary. You would not believe how much is floating above us. One thing led to another. It was a natural progression because I found things, he said really interesting stuff.”
“I remember when you joined the group. You told me about it.”
I nodded. “It was weird because he had been consulted for the Jupiter project and it scared him.”
“There’s a lot of stuff here, Jana, but do you think this guy is for real? His name? I mean, the deep dark, secret section of NASA? What if he’s just like some guy in a basement, a weather aficionado who happened to figure this out.”
“That’s a long time to be predicting weather,” I replied. “No one can predict a year in advance, and he’s been saying this was going to happen after they launched. Not so soon. I wish the phones weren’t down or the internet.”
“Hello!” a woman’s voice called from outside the RV.
I slid from the table and walked to the open door. “Hello.”
Liza from the diner had come in the garage, she stood by the door of the office looking in. “Thought you were in here.”
“What’s up?” I asked. “Did Martin get back?”
“Not yet,” she replied. “Hey, we have the generator running. We’re gonna cook up some stuff from the fridge. Thought maybe the kids would be hungry, and we’re gonna hook up an antenna box for the TV, hope to pick something up. Just wanted to let you know.”
“Thank you. That’s very nice.”
She gave a nod in a ‘no problem’ way and turned.
I backed stepped into the RV. “You heard?”
“I heard.” Lane stood from the table. “Let’s take the kids over. I’m sure they’re hungry. Maybe they’ll get something on the television.”
“You really think so?” I asked. “I mean we are in the middle of nowhere.”
“Who knows? If the so called Jupiter project can screw up the weather by messing with the atmosphere, maybe it can screw it up enough to bounce some signals.”
I stifled a laugh, not wanting to come across as ridiculing his suggestion. It was hard to tell at the moment if Lane was being serious or facetious.
At the very least, news or not, getting something to eat would be a way to pass the time while waiting on Martin.
A hint of coffee smell seeped through the aroma of hamburger and bacon scent filling the diner. I suppose they didn’t need a generator for the grill, the coffee maker was a different story.
They didn’t run the air conditioning though, it was too much of a pull, and it was getting warm and stuffy.
When we returned the windows were open, but there wasn’t a breeze.
There were a dozen people inside the cafe, including Liza and Skip.
They sat at a table, looking as lost as I felt.
A man stood on a chair, holding a box with a wire flowing to the television. He was fiddling with the set which was perched in the corner near the end of the counter.
When we were teenagers, my father decided we wouldn’t need cable and could get by with an antenna.
Elise used to call it squiggle vision.
It was the first time since the storms struck, I had thought of Elise. I didn’t think she was in any danger, but I wondered if she worried about her children.
The television was a small flat screen so there was no banging on it like my father did to get a picture, I watched the word ‘scan’ on the bottom of the screen as the television went through various shades of static.
“You kids want some ice cream first?” Liz asked. “Although Cook is frying up some French fries.”
Carlie wasn’t a big sweets person. “I’ll wait for the fries.”
“I’ll have ice cream,” Reese said. “I love ice cream.”
“Milk shake or sundae?” Liz asked.
“Oh, Milk shake please, thank you,” Reese replied. “Chocolate.”
“I got something.” Television man said. He stayed standing on the chair, waiting, in case he had to fiddle with the antenna box again.
Everyone went on pause, drew quiet and tried to watch and listen to the man on television.
Obviously, it was a newscaster. The reception caused breaks in his voice and static rushed the screen in between the jumpy video.
“West of here,” he said. “Again, we are urging all Phoenix residents to stay inside with means to get below.”
“Phoenix?” someone asked. “We’re picking up Phoenix?”
That comment caused me to immediately look at Lane and think of the comment he had made about the Jupiter project.
A few people hushed him.
“Unfortunately.” The newscaster said. “The windstorm that hit Avondale and Friendship Park are just the tip of the iceberg. We have Stan Liam with the Ace-Forecast. Stan, what do we have?”
“Nothing like I’ve ever seen.” Stan stood before a map of the US, a deep purple cloud covered the western portion of the United States. This looks like four, yes, I said four category five hurricanes, at least category five, forming off the coast of California. But Bill, I’ll tell you these look larger. They are huge. The West Coast has already been hit, and this is just going to be the icing on the cake.”
“Do we know why this is happening?” Bill the newscaster asked.
“No. It came out of nowhere,” Stan replied. “And it will move east. We are far from out of it. In fact, I’d say this front will be on us tonight.”
The newscaster and weatherman had an exchange of words, but my attention went back to my husband and to the kids.
All I kept thinking was they conversed on the television as if people had to just weather the storm and everything would be alright.
I knew differently. This would be relentless and ongoing.
I stared at Lane who didn’t take his eyes off of the television until the ‘ding-ding’ of the diner doorbell caused me and everyone else to turn and look.
A man staggered in. He held a cloth to his face, and the cloth was bloodied. He immediately stopped and pulled out a chair.
My eyes went to the window, a tractor trailer was parked out front. I had been so engrossed in the television, I never heard it pull up.
Liza rushed over to him. “Oh, you poor thing. Can I get you something?”
“I just need water,” he said. “Please.”
“Were you caught out there?” Liza asked.
Before the man could answer, the bell dinged again, and a woman walked in. She was middle-aged, a little older than Lane. Or so it appeared, she could have just been weather worn. She wore an old eighties band tee-shirt, baseball cap and pair of jeans.
“Yeah,” the injured man replied. “Thankfully she found me.”
“It was luck,” the woman said. “I watched his truck get thrown. That big son of a bitch had the sucking power of a five dollar …” she paused; her eyes went to the kids. “Person of ill repute. I don’t know how it missed me. But it did. It pulled me, it took everything I had to gun it.” She sat at the table with the man.
I stepped forward. “By big son of a bitch, do you mean the funnel that rolled by here an hour ago or another?”
“Hour ago?” she asked. “Sounds about right. Hit us at the state line. You’re the first sign of anything we’ve seen since. Anything standing.”
“Nah,” Skip spoke up. “That can’t be right. Had to be a different one. The border? No funnel I’ve seen travels fifty miles.”
“Maybe it was another one,” she replied. “Chatter on the radio is there’s a lot. A lot of funnels.”
Lane spoke up as he walked toward me, asking her. “Have you been on Forty this whole time?”
The trucker woman nodded. “We have. We had to go off road a few times. Lots a stuff on the highway.”
“So, if you came from the state line.” Lane said. “Going on Forty you went through Wilderado. You passed it.”
I knew what he was getting to. Martin and Rosie were headed to Wild
erado.
The trucker woman nodded. “I did. We passed them all.”
The injured man lowered his bloody cloth. “Nothing.”
“What ... what do you mean nothing?” Lane asked.
“Nothing,” Trucker woman said. “Adrian, Vega, Wilderado … everything’s … gone. There’s nothing left.”
.
EIGHT – EMPTY HANDED
It was time to go.
Time to find out where Martin was and if he was alright. At least we had to try.
According to Alice the trucker woman, with the exceptions of a few spots, the road to Wilderado was passable. If she did it in an eighteen wheeler, I could do it in my classic motor home.
But we needed to get it first.
That proved difficult.
Skip sat at a table, his head in a steady sway back and forth. “Six-hundred, thirty dollars and fourteen cents.”
“For real?” Lane asked.
“Yes, that was a tricky job, plus, your wife …” he pointed at me. “Said she’d pay anything and it’s six hundred thirty dollars and fourteen cents.”
“We need the motor home. We need to go.”
“I get it. I do,” Skip said. “And it’s all yours when you pay six hundred, thirty dollars and—”
“Fourteen cents, yes,” Lane cut him off. “I know.”
“I take cash.”
“I don’t have six hundred dollars in cash,” Lane said.
“And fourteen cents.”
Lane kind of growled. “And you can’t take a credit card?”
“Nope.” He shook his head. “Machine works on electric and even with power you need to be online.”
“Well …” Lane grunted in frustration. He lifted his baseball cap, swiped his hand over his head and replaced it. “Your shop is like something from the eighties. Don’t you have one of those swipe carbon things for times like this?”
“No. And when’s the last time you seen a card with raised numbers?” Skip lifted his eyebrow.
“Look, here’s the deal. We want and need our RV.”
“And you can have it,” Skip replied. “For …”
Lane held up his hand halting him. “Say the amount one more time and I am gonna lunge over the table and deck you.”
Winds of Ares: An Apocalypse Thriller Page 5
