“Oh, my God!” Cindy groaned and covered her face.
It was one of the families we’d met on the truck. Phil, his wife and their young daughter, all dead. From what I could tell they’d been burned by whatever gas had caused the explosion. Their charred bodies were frozen in time, huddled together, trying to protect their child.
I felt a pain at the pit of my stomach, a wrenching knot that made me pause and double over. Gagging, I turned and vomited into the dirt. I wasn’t prepared for this…this, this wasn’t right.
I wiped my mouth then stood up. I didn’t even know them, I’d talked with Phil for maybe half an hour, but his death seemed personal to me. He’d died right there, holding his wife and daughter, trying to shield them from the inevitable. I didn’t know him, but he didn’t deserve that.
In that moment, it was the first time I really considered my own mortality. We were just fragile bodies, trying to avoid an inescapable destiny. We were doomed to a life of peril and none of us were safe. Phil’s fate could’ve been my own and in that we were all connected, counting arbitrary digits until we met our own demise. I hoped there was something more.
I shivered and smashed my face into the palms of my hands. It was hard to keep a level head with so much death around. I tried to focus on the people I needed to find, but bodies were everywhere.
“I hope it was quick,” Cindy mumbled as she glanced back at their morbid statue.
I didn’t think it mattered. One second of pain could feel like a lifetime and in the end, they were gone, but maybe they were lucky that way. At least that’s what I told myself, that they’d escaped the worst and we were the unlucky ones.
I hugged Cindy then pulled her away. “Come on. Let’s keep going.”
As we walked, we passed more and more bodies. Even Captain Estevez had lost his life. It was sad that he’d died trying to save so many others. I wondered if he had family or would anyone even know he was gone. Would his body turn to dust and be swept away in the winds or be swallowed by the earth along with everything else?
His corpse was almost unrecognizable. His name patch and rank were the only way I could identify him. Dirt and rubble covered his scorched face, smoke still rising off of his body. Another person that I’d passed in my journey that was with us no more.
“I can’t believe this,” Cindy said over and over. “It’s a nightmare.”
I tried to comfort her, but the best thing we could do was keep moving. There were fissures spread across the ground. Steam rose from each one as the soil continued to crack and the warped earth shuttered like it was cold. It was a bad idea being anywhere near there, we needed to hurry.
The bed of the truck was covered with a green tarp that hung over steel framing. That was the only thing that kept the overturned vehicle from totally collapsing. There was hope that if someone was still inside, they might be alive.
“Hello?” I shouted as I got closer.
I dropped to my hands and knees and crawled toward the opening. With trembling hands, I pulled back the tarp and stuck my head inside. It was dark, but I could make out several bodies spaced out toward the cabin.
“Stay here,” I turned and called to Cindy.
I took a deep breath then crawled inside. The ground was still warm to the touch and the smell of sulfur lingered in the air.
“Brent? Jake?” I called.
As I reached the first body I turned them over and frowned. It was an older man that had lived in Georgia his entire life. His neck was twisted and his face permanently etched in a painful grin.
“Max?” someone called to my right.
“Jake!” I replied as I turned and caught a glimpse of his face.
“My leg is stuck. I…I can’t get out.”
“I’m coming.”
With a sense of hope, I scurried toward him. He was stuck near the side of the truck. One of the metal frames landed on his leg and pinned it to the ground. It didn’t look painful, the soft dirt had gave way and created a little pocket, but I wasn’t sure how I’d get him out.
“Where’s Brent?” I asked as I tried to pull his leg free.
He screamed and pushed me away. “No! Not like that. I think it’s broken.”
“So, what the hell do you want me to do?”
“Get me out of this fucking truck!”
I groaned and looked around. For a moment, I seriously considered just leaving his ass in there. My fear of him dying had made me forget how impossible he’d been lately.
“I’ll be back,” I said.
“What? Where are you going?”
“Hang tight.”
I crawled back out of the truck. Cindy was standing there with her arms wrapped across her chest. She looked jumpy and still had tears in her eyes.
“I found Jake…no sign of Brent yet.”
Cindy nodded and I rushed off back toward Estevez’s body. I stopped over it and looked down, deciding if freeing Jake was worth what I was about to do.
I’d seen it with him earlier, one of those hand shovel tools that turned into a dozen other things. Swallowing, I bent down and started rifling through his fatigues. Luckily enough, I quickly found it in one of his pants pockets.
“Yes!” I elated then rushed back to the truck.
“Where the hell did you go?” Jake groaned as I crawled inside.
I started to reply, but paused when I heard another voice. “I wouldn’t have blamed you if you left him.”
It was Brent. He was sitting next to Jake and as far as I could tell, he was in pretty good shape.
“Where the hell did you come from?” I asked him.
“I was taking a nap. I’m ready to hit the road again now.”
I frowned at him then looked at the few remaining bodies. Some people dealt with tragedy in different ways. Brent had chosen to pretend it wasn’t happening.
“Help me with him,” I told him as I slid closer to Jake.
“What’s with the knife?” Jake asked with a sudden seriousness in his voice.
I gave him an exhausted look then twisted it around pushing the other metal pieces together to form a spade. Sighing, I started digging around his foot. The dirt was stubborn, but inch by inch I was able to move him a little more until he was free.
“Good idea,” Jake said as he crawled from under the frame.
I smirked then scampered back outside. “Look who else I found,” I called to Cindy.
Brent came after me followed by Jake. They stood up and brushed the dirt from their pants then looked around.
“Holy shit!” Jake exclaimed.
“Yeah…wanna tell me again how you plan to stay here?”
“Sorry about that,” Brent grumbled.
Ignoring them, I started my own search of the area. I didn’t have a chance earlier and Estevez never did tell us what they had going on in Cartersville. We barely had time to park before everything went to hell.
We’d stopped inside of a fenced off area. It was probably some kind of community soccer field in the past, but now all of the grass was dead and it was covered in gravel. It was a rural area and as far as I could see there were no buildings or houses.
It looked like they’d just started to set up a FEMA camp. Luckily, they hadn’t done much and there weren’t too many people in there yet. Now the place looked like ground zero, but it could’ve been worse.
“Help! We need help over here!” a woman suddenly shouted.
I looked up and found her waving her hands from across the field. She was running toward us from an overturned trailer, one of the only ones that had been set up.
“Help!” she called again. “He’s on fire!”
CHAPTER 11
SCORCHED EARTH
I’d come to the conclusion that the world was dying and it was trying everything imaginable to take us with it. It’s final death throes were violent, punishing, and cruel. It was tumbling from a cliff and grabbing everyone in its arms as it fell.
Her name was Mary, an Atlanta native, born
and raised. Estevez himself had brought her and her husband Greg to the camp. They’d survived thirty years of marriage and the initial quake in Atlanta. They’d even survived the explosion that had just claimed so many lives. So, it was nothing more than fate’s cruelty that Greg perished from an electrical fire caused by his daily cup of coffee.
“That’s heartbreaking,” Cindy said in a low voice.
We were standing around outside while one of the officers found Mary a place to lay down. To my surprise, several people had survived and some of the camp was still operational. There was still some hope left.
Mary was in shock and hell I couldn’t blame her. We’d made it to the trailer in time to smother the flames minutes before Greg died. I couldn’t imagine the pain he was in, but he managed to croak something that sounded like “I love you,” right before he succumbed to his injuries.
Maybe what he said hadn’t sounded anything like that. Maybe I was trying to create a silver lining where only rips and tears existed, but we all needed hope.
“We need to get moving,” I said and rubbed Cindy’s shoulders.
There were a few vehicles that were still operational, but another convoy was on its way to the camp. Seismologist had been monitoring ground activity and warned that the camp needed to be evacuated a mere twenty minutes before the explosion. They were now moving the survivors even further north.
“It’s gassed up and ready to go,” the officer named Hurly said as he handed me a set of keys.
I’d managed to talk him into giving me a Ford Escape so that I could drive to Calhoun. We weren’t able to contact anyone there, but I was able to pitch my case convincingly enough. And having my work ID on me didn’t seem to hurt.
I took the keys and nodded towards the small, gray SUV. I felt a bit hesitant, venturing back out into the unknown, but it seemed like no place was safe. The road, the city, a FEMA camp…when death came for you, in the end it didn’t matter where you were.
“I take it you have some pretty important stuff to get to in Calhoun,” Hurly stopped me on the way to the car. “Just be careful out there, it’s getting bad and not just the earthquakes.”
I nodded and shook his hand one more time. “Thanks a lot.”
“Why are you so dead set on going here?” Brent asked. “Do you even have a plan?”
“If you’re gonna start up again, you can just stay. That’s fine, but I’m not wasting anymore time,” I replied.
“Dude, calm down, we’re coming with you,” Jake jumped in.
“Oh…now you are? I thought you were leading the charge on the mutiny.”
Jake didn’t reply. He bit his bottom lip then looked back at Brent. Brent lowered his head and sighed.
“Let’s just go. It’ll be getting dark soon,” Brent said.
I didn’t push the issue any further. We all got into the car and after thanking the officer again, we drove off. Leaving the camp behind was a relief. As we drove north the destruction vanished behind us and it almost felt normal again.
The road opened up and it was like nothing had ever happened. No toppled buildings, no ripped apart highways, no signs that anything bad had ever occurred. The world was as it was and for some reason, normality seemed wrong.
“Maybe they were wrong,” Cindy said as she stared out of the window. “Maybe it’s not everywhere.”
I glanced at her and smiled. It was hard to imagine them being wrong. The National Guard had a network that spanned the country. If they said the world was falling apart then it was. I just needed to get to Calhoun while the team was still there.
Brent and Jake didn’t talk much during the ride. That was probably best, considering I was still pissed at them for wanting to stay back. Tragedy really let you know who your friends were and I was shocked that these guys were so willing to cut and run.
It didn’t take as long as I thought it would to get to Calhoun, but it wasn’t what I expected. Homeland Security was located inside of the Georgia Emergency Management Agency, which was an unassuming, brown, one story building. It was surrounded by a thin chain-link fence that opened to a wide paved driveway.
I slowed down as we pulled up and put the car in park. The gate was wide open and there were no cars parked in the motor pool.
“Something is wrong,” I mumbled.
“Yeah…nobody’s home,” Jake groaned. “What a waste of time.”
“You could’ve stayed, asshole.” I grabbed the handle and opened the door. Leaning my head out, I listened for any sounds of life, but it was eerily quiet outside. “I’ll be right back,” I said to Cindy.
“Hold on,” she said and grabbed my wrist. “What is going on? Why are we here? And I want the truth this time.”
I’d avoided the question long enough. She deserved to hear the whole story and there was no telling when I’d have another chance to tell her.
“For the last two years, I’ve been working in a top secret facility here,” I said with as much confidence as her piercing stare would allow.
“What about the Service Center?” she snapped.
“I work there too and I’m there at least once a week.” I paused then let out a groan. “Remember back when I was doing my dissertation?”
“Yeah.”
“You remember what is was about and how stressed I was right?”
“Yeah, you were freaking out. But what does that have to do with this?”
I struggled how to explain any of it without getting too far into details. I wanted her to believe me, I needed her to believe me.
“My dissertation started it all. I mean, the entire concept was about it. In three years, I said the Earth’s core would reach a tipping point, but it’s happening now. I worked here, helping to plan a shelter for the survivors in Wyoming.”
“The survivors?”
“Cindy, this is going to wipe out the world’s population. Other countries are doing the same thing.”
My words hung in the air. There was nothing but silence and confusion inside of that car. Cindy’s eyes teared up and Brent and Jake couldn’t pull their jaws from the floor. I figured I might as well finish with all of the bad news.
“I was hoping to catch the team here and get us to the shelter in Wyoming, but it looks like they’ve already left. That’s it, that’s the whole truth.”
Cindy glared at me then swallowed. I shrugged then turned back toward the door and pulled it closed. She jumped at the sound and shivered.
“You okay?”
She nodded slightly. I could tell she was having a hard time processing what I’d told her. That was the thing though, be careful what you wished for. I had years to soak in the news, she had minutes. But she wanted to know it all and now she did.
Sighing, I put the car in drive and slowly rolled forward. I drove through the gate and stopped out front of the building. It looked deserted, but I tried to think positive. Maybe that was just the way they wanted it to look.
“You guys coming, or you staying in the car?” I looked back and asked as I opened my door.
“I’m…I’m coming with you,” Cindy stuttered.
Brent and Jake nodded and followed after me. In silence, we headed up the walkway and found the front doors propped open with rocks.
“Is this normal?” Brent asked with a shaky voice.
“No…no it’s not.”
I quickly ducked inside and started to poke around. My heart was thumping like a jackhammer and my stomach twisted and turned. I was too late.
The main lobby was completely empty. Short cubicle walls and small desks were systematically dispersed through the room like dominoes, but there was no one behind them. Papers were tossed around and filing cabinets left open, like someone had left in a hurry or the place had been ransacked. There was only one other place anyone could be.
With Cindy close behind me, I walked down the empty hall toward the project room in the back. As we moved further from the glass doors the light faded and we were cast into shadows.
&nbs
p; “Wait for me,” Cindy called out as she reached for my hand.
I slowed for a moment then turned down another hall and headed toward the main boardroom. The doors were closed and a flickering light from the cracks gave me hope that someone might still be there.
With a deep breath, I pushed the door open and stepped inside. There was a wide, polished oak table in the middle of the room. It was empty except for an ancient projector that sat in the center of the table. It was pointed at the wall, spinning wildly with an empty reel. The click-clack of the aging motor echoed in the lonely room and inside of my head.
We were too late. I felt my heart drop and I collapsed into one of the chairs in defeat. I knew it was a long shot, but if we’d made it we could’ve flown with them. Now we’d have to face whatever the planet threw at us.
Cindy took a seat next to me and grabbed my hand. She smiled faintly, trying to hold back tears. I smiled back then stared up at the ceiling.
“What now?” Jake asked from the door.
“Now…now we drive to Wyoming.”
CHAPTER 12
THE JOURNEY OF 1000 MILES
I walked into my office and started collecting things that I thought we would need. The map on the wall was the first thing that stuck out. I pulled out the pins and rolled it up.
“I didn’t know you still had this,” Cindy said from behind me.
I turned and found her holding the picture on my desk. She had a smile on her face, but somehow managed to look remorseful.
“It’s my favorite picture. It made the days here bearable.”
She set the picture down then looked at me. “Is that it, out in the hall?”
I nodded.
“That…that’s how much time you thought we had?”
“It was never that simple. It was the amount of time I thought we had to do something about it. I could’ve never guessed when it would all occur. I just knew we were reaching a critical point. Once we hit it there would be no coming back.”
“I…I know it couldn’t have been easy. Knowing what you did and still keeping it together. Thanks for always being there for me, even if I wasn’t always there for you.”
Deconstruction- The Complete series Box Set Page 23
