Damnation

by Ken Barrett

  “What the feck are ya doin’, ya oaf!” She squirmed in his arms.

  “Everybody, get up the hill and into the vestibule!” He tossed the woman over his shoulder as if she were a child then turned and grabbed the dark-haired man. With the woman over one shoulder and the man on the other, he turned to the rest of the apple pickers that stood wide-eyed in shock. “Don’t you feel the wind? It’s getting warmer fast. Follow me inside!”

  People finally abandoned their picking and hurried up the hill behind him. “You’re stronger than you look,” the dark-haired man stated as Liam eased him to the ground just outside the vestibule door.

  “Yeah, sure. I work out a lot,” he replied. “Is this everybody?”

  “No.” The blonde woman’s cheeks were flushed, and she nervously fixed her clothing. “Alice, Kelly, and Patrick are fishin’ down by the creek.”

  “How far away is the creek?” he asked.

  “Dunno exactly,” she answered. “Maybe another twenty or thirty meters past the orchard.”

  “I’ll go,” Tiger said.

  “No, stay here and get these folks through the inside door.” He nodded quickly to the boy. “Getting them safe inside is just as important as getting them up here. I can’t do both, so I need your help.”

  “The creek’s down there.” The blonde woman pointed. “Betwixt them two stands of pine trees.”

  Liam nodded a quick thanks, then charged down the hill. He dashed through the apple orchard then jumped down a steep embankment and landed knee-deep in a slow-moving stream.

  “Hello!” His voice echoed, but he heard no reply. “Can anyone hear me!” He trotted upstream along the edge of the creek, uncertain if he was moving toward or away from those he was trying to save. “Hello!” he called again.

  “Yeah?” A middle-aged man with receding red hair was sitting on the creek bank holding a rod and reel. “Shush, you’ll scare the fish.”

  “The solar flare has started,” he responded urgently. “Everyone has to come with me.”

  “Are you sure?” the man asked as he slowly stood up.

  Liam gritted his teeth. “Fuck yes I’m sure! Come with me or you’re gonna die!”

  “Well, since you put it that way, ok.” The man tossed his fishing pole aside. “Kelly, Alice! Come on, we gotta go right now!”

  Liam was sick of arguing with stubborn people, so it was a relief when a sturdy blonde woman and a teenaged girl with long red hair came splashing through the deep water toward him.

  Together they all struggled through the stream then stumbled over the rounded stones at the edge of the creek. The young girl twisted her ankle and fell. Liam quickly picked her up and tossed her over his shoulder then hurried on. “Oh!” she exclaimed. “Thank you!”

  “No sweat,” he replied as he jogged along the edge of the stream. “I’m getting a lot of practice carrying people today.”

  Tiger was waiting at the top of the creek bank with his hand extended. “Grab on and let’s go! We have to hurry; it’s looking pretty scary to the east.”

  Liam eased the girl to the ground. “Tiger, take care of… what’s your name?” He asked the young girl.

  “I’m Alice,” she said.

  “Oh,” the young man stammered as he took her hand. “I’m ah…” the boy’s cheeks flushed. “I’m Tommy.”

  “I like ‘Tiger’ better.” Alice smiled. “Come on, I’ll race you up the hill.”

  *****

  Patrick was already breathing hard and wheezing when they reached the orchard. His partner was pulling his arm to encourage him up the hill, but the older man stopped to lean over and place his hands on his knees. He looked up as Liam arrived. “Did you get the rest of ‘em?” he asked between ragged breaths

  “Yeah. There were nine people picking apples, they should already be safe inside the shelter by now,” Liam replied, gazing at the eastern horizon. The light was painfully bright, and his ocular sensors adjusted accordingly. The wind speed and air temperature were rapidly rising. Smoke swirled around the eastern mountains; the forests on the far side were on fire. “We need to go, right now!”

  “Nine?” Patrick said as Liam urged him up the hill. “There was more of us further downslope.”

  Fire abruptly roared across the sky as the sun edged above the dark granite mountains. The howling wind seemed to suck the air from his lungs. The force of the sudden gust knocked Patrick and the blonde woman off their feet, and Liam picked them both up and ran.

  Rose charged out from the open vestibule door and pulled Tiger and Alice to safety. Liam and those he carried were the last to arrive.

  “What about the rest of my family?” Patrick asked frantically.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t know they were there, and it’s too late now,” Liam said quietly. He stood in the open doorway, hoping to see the others running up the hill, but no one was coming.

  But wait, someone was still out there. It was the ghostly blond woman again. “Karen?” he whispered. Fire roared down from the skies. Trees shattered, exploding under the sudden intense heat. A moose brayed in terror as it ran through the flames. “If you can hear me, run!” Liam shouted, but no one was there to hear. Everything outside was burning, they couldn’t save anyone else.

  “My brother Shane, his wife Barbara, and their little ones, they’re gone and burnt to ashes,” Patrick cried softly.

  “We didn’t know they were out there,” Liam responded. “It was just too late to save them.”

  “I ken it,” the older man said. “You did all you could.”

  The wind howled past him, shrieking upward from deep inside the shelter. “Close the door!” Rose screamed as she rushed to help him pull it shut. The massive hatch slammed into place a moment later and together they spun the locking wheel that drove latches into notches in the steel frame.

  The raging inferno shook the door and intense heat swiftly radiated into the vestibule. The metal hatch groaned and popped as it expanded and twisted under the onslaught. He released the wheel then glanced down at his sizzling hands; the skin was burned away revealing the pale-yellow support structure beneath. As he watched, his skin mended, growing inward to meet seamlessly at the palm. Within seconds, no trace of his injury remained.

  The bright steel door darkened then glowed red, and searing heat pushed everyone deeper into the vestibule. “We need to get further inside and close the inner door,” Rose advised, then began to urge the others toward the far side of the chamber.

  A sharp jolt rolled like a wave through the room, tossing all of them into the air. Liam and Rose landed on their feet while the others fell painfully. The rock walls around them groaned and cracked under the constant shaking and twisting pressure of the earthquake. With a deafening crack, a fissure suddenly stretched across the ceiling, then widened, and stones showered the floor.

  Another shock forced even Liam and Rose to their knees as the violence of the tremor rapidly increased. Huge jagged rocks fell from the ceiling and slammed into the ground around them, and the lights abruptly went out.

  Chapter 2: Magic

  Within the sudden darkness, huge sections of granite slammed thunderously into the floor around them. Panic reigned, but their screams were consumed by the fury of the earthquake.

  “Rose!” Liam reached out and found her hand seeking his.

  “Everyone, stay down, and take cover!” his sister screamed through the cacophony, then sought shelter beside a fallen boulder.

  Shrieks of terror could barely be heard over the crash of jagged rocks that continued to tumble from the ceiling. Would they be buried? Was the entire vestibule about to collapse? “Stay down and don’t move!” Liam doubted that anyone had heard him shout.

  After a seeming eternity, the earthquake eased and finally stopped. Groans of pain gradually replaced the explosive roar of falling stones. He saw that the outer steel door was still glowing dull red; the radiant heat baked his skin. “We need to get further inside and close the inner door.”
/>   “Is anyone hurt?” Rose asked.

  “Where’s Alice?” Tiger sat in the darkness holding his left arm tight to his chest. “Alice? Where are you?”

  Within the silence that followed, Liam heard a muffled reply and realized that the young girl could be buried. “Where was she when the earthquake hit?”

  “She was with her mother,” Patrick responded. “Kelly! Are you still with us my love?”

  “Barely,” Kelly answered. “I can feel Alice’s leg; she’s stuck under a big rock.” The sounds of Kelly’s movements echoed through the darkness. “Darling girl, can you hear me?”

  A faint reply of “Yes,” was all she could manage.

  Liam located Kelly by the sound of her voice. She was about four meters away, sitting with her back against the vestibule wall. He jumped up and scaled a line of sharp-edged boulders between them. Alice was pinned between two large rocks; his enhanced vision indicated that she was still breathing but under stress. “I see her,” he said. “Give me a sec and I’ll get her out. Kelly, can you grab her legs and pull when I lift the rock off her?”

  “That thing’s gotta be the size of a tractor, you won’t budge it,” Kelly responded.

  “Shut up, and get ready to pull for all you’re worth when I tell you to.”

  “Well, yes sir.”

  The jagged boulder provided plenty of handholds, so Liam turned his back to it then squatted down and gripped the edges. “Ok, on three, pull your daughter as far out as you can. Ready?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “One, two, three!” With a quick grunt, he pressed hard with his legs, and the rock lifted grudgingly.

  Kelly quickly slid Alice to safety then held her close. “Are you ok dear one?”

  “Yes Mama, I’m fine. It was hard to breathe in there, and my side is kinda sore.”

  Rose slid in beside the mother and gently touched the girl’s ribs. “Does this hurt?”

  “A little,” Alice replied.

  “You’re very brave,” Rose said. “I think you might have some bruised ribs, they’ll be sore for a few days, but after that, you’ll be fine.”

  “Patrick, Tiger, are you both ok?” Liam asked.

  “It was a near thing, but yeah, I’m good,” Patrick responded.

  The floor abruptly rumbled and shook under them again, and the outer door groaned and popped as it distorted under the stress of the continuing tremors. “Will the hatch hold?” Tiger asked.

  “Yeah, I’m sure it will,” Liam lied. “But I’ll feel better once we’re inside with the inner door closed behind us.”

  The vestibule shuddered again, and the fallen boulders around them shifted slightly as a tumble of smaller stones and gravel rained from the ceiling. The sensation was softer somehow; it felt as if the entire mountain was swaying in the wind.

  “You’re right Big Brother, we need to move on,” Rose said. “Even if the door holds, the ceiling may not.”

  “How can we find our way through the dark?” Kelly asked. “I can’t even see my hands waving before my own face.”

  “It’s dark as deepest night in here; the power must’ve gone out,” Patrick said. “But I’m further in, over by the inner door, so everyone should follow my voice.”

  “Alright then, sing us a song my dear,” Kelly said.

  The grizzled older man had an excellent voice that echoed sweetly from the stone walls, cracked ceiling, and over the boulder-strewn floor.

  “I’ll take Kelly and Alice, and Rose can guide Tiger,” Liam suggested.

  “But it’s dark as pitch,” Kelly complained. “We’ll not find our way through all these rocks.”

  “My brother and I used to play hide-and-seek at night when we were kids,” Rose lied. “We’re pretty good at this kind of stuff.”

  “I remember that,” Liam said, contributing to his sister’s deception. In truth, they could see the room perfectly well. He often had trouble imagining the disability of being human; to be almost blind and practically deaf seemed a terrible impairment, and yet somehow, they managed.

  He listened to Patrick’s lilting song while carrying Alice with one arm and guiding Kelly around and over the rocks with the other. At last, they all stood together just inside the still open inner vestibule door. “We’ll have to clear away some of these rocks before we can get the hatch shut,” Liam said.

  “How do you know that if you can’t see anything?” Sweat coated Tiger’s face, and he clasped his arm gingerly to his chest.

  Liam clearly saw the rubble that would prevent the massive steel door from closing. “I can’t see anything,” he lied again, hoping to allay suspicions that he and his sister were different than the rest of them. “I tripped over some stones when we came through.”

  “Liam and I will get the hatch closed,” Rose said. “The rest of you, try to find the ramps; they should be about ten meters away. Remember, there are two ways down, one on the left and the other to the right. We’ll catch up with you guys once we’re finished here.”

  They watched the family cautiously move away through the absolute darkness. Liam smiled when he saw that Tiger was guiding Alice forward with his uninjured arm around her waist. Young love was always a pleasure to witness; the future of their species depended upon it.

  “Quit grinning and help me get this thing closed,” Rose whispered.

  They rapidly swept away the rocks and detritus from the floor and pushed the massive door closed. The power was out, which made the electric motors useless, so it was a good thing that he and Rose were there to get the job done. The echo of the hatch slamming shut reverberated through the large room, and they spun the locking wheel to secure it in place.

  “We’d better get them to the lower levels,” Rose said.

  Liam turned and saw that the family had wandered beyond the ramp entrances and were closing in on the far wall. “Let’s hope the lights are on down below, otherwise we’ll have a long hard walk ahead of us.”

  *****

  Liam led the way and the family followed, each holding on to the one ahead of them, and Rose brought up the rear. Gravel and small stones continued to drip from cracks in the ceiling as they slipped by a series of boulders. As they arrived on level two, he saw bodies woven into the rubble, but they were already cooling and showed no signs of life, so he said nothing to the others.

  When they began the descent to level three, he detected a flickering glimmer emanating from somewhere far below. The faint light swam up the ramps and brightened slightly as they descended. The others remarked that they could finally make out the faces of those around them, and walking was easier once everyone could see their feet.

  Alice’s breathing was becoming increasingly ragged, and once off the ramp she slowly collapsed. Tiger cried out in pain as he eased her descent. Rose quickly moved in to examine Alice and check Tiger’s arm. She surmised that Alice’s sore ribs were making it difficult for her to breathe, and also verified that Tiger’s forearm was broken. The teenager had managed to support Alice through the dark and along the rubble-strewn ramps while suffering the agony of a fractured ulna. The kid’s fortitude was impressive.

  The young people needed to rest, and while his sister attended to them, Liam wandered away. Levels two and three were set aside for storage and contained mostly replacement machine parts, but they also held containers of fruit that had been harvested outside. He brought back as many apples as he could carry. Hopefully, a short rest and sustenance would revive everyone. To say the least, it had been a traumatic morning. No one would be coming to help them though, so they would have to endure their hardships and find the way to safety on their own.

  Rose had used Patrick’s shirt to make a sling for Tiger’s arm, which seemed to ease some of his pain. Alice sat beside the young man with her head resting on the shoulder of his uninjured arm. Everyone ate the fruit Liam provided, as worried whispers passed between them.

  “What happened to the first group we brought in?” Liam asked.

  “I go
t them to the ramps and on their way, before the earthquake hit,” Tiger replied. “Maybe they’ll send someone to help us.”

  “I don’t think we should count on that.” Liam hoped that Denise was safe along with the rest of the population on the lower levels. The damage appeared to have been most severe near the surface, so maybe his girlfriend was fine; but what if she wasn’t? The lower floors could have collapsed onto one another, like an accordion when it was squeezed.

  Dread tightened within his chest. He tried running a structural analysis of their shelter but didn’t have enough data on the outside forces to complete the process. He worried about his partner and felt the urge to abandon those under his care and dash down the ramps to find her.

  The shelter abruptly shuddered again, adding to his fears. The walls, floors, and ceilings popped and groaned as a mixture of rocks and dust fell around them.

  How long would the solar flare continue? The estimation from the observatory in Flatiron City was that it would last only a few hours, but since he didn’t know exactly when the eruption started, it was impossible to guess when it would end.

  No one in the scientific community could predict the length or severity of the coronal mass ejection, because even with centuries of study and advancements in technology, the interior of the sun remained a mystery. Some had thought it would only disrupt electronic devices and weather patterns, but other, more pessimistic observers had thought that the eruption would be so intense that it would ignite the atmosphere and leave the planet barren of life. Obviously, something along the middle of the scale had occurred, as was usual.

  The earthquake finally ebbed and the shelter regained its silence, but he doubted it would stay that way for long. What lied ahead? Had the lower levels collapsed? Were they the only survivors?

  Patrick suddenly interrupted his dark reverie. “We oughta get movin’, don’t you think?” The older man stepped forward and extended his arms to help his daughter to her feet.