“I crashed,” he said, suddenly remembering more.
“Don’t worry about that. You’re safe now. Buck is working on getting us somewhere where we can all be safe for good.”
“The cops said they were going to Denver.” He blurted it out as if it were important to impart the information.
Buck half-turned to him. “Thanks, son. That’s where we’re heading.”
Garth replied with a thumbs-up.
“Tell him about his new friend,” Buck said to Connie.
“Right. So, this is…” Connie whispered. “Big Mac.” She rubbed the Golden’s back and spoke a little louder. “He loves to bark when he hears his name. I didn’t want him to wake up your girlfriend.”
“Oh, she’s not my—”
“It’s fine. I only meant she’s a friend.”
He thought he saw the woman wink at him, but he wasn’t all the way with it, so he didn’t comment on it.
“I love Golden Retrievers,” he said quietly.
“Your dad got him for you. He explained how he picked up this pup when he left New York, and they’ve been traveling together for the past week. They were inseparable when he rescued me, so you might have to fight him for possession.”
“Hey, now,” Buck complained.
“My dad rescued you?”
She nodded. “I’ll tell you all about it sometime. For now, get your rest, okay?”
It felt nice to have a motherly figure more or less tuck him in. It had been years since his own mother had done that. The sensation of safety led him deeper into the grasp of sleepiness. The rocking action of the truck in motion also helped.
“I’m glad I got to meet you, Garth.” She got super-quiet again and spoke like she was from the South. “I knew you’d be a hero just like your daddy.”
The flattery wasn’t a requirement to fall asleep, but it added to the pile of things dragging him into Dreamland.
I’m never getting out of bed again.
He rolled away from Connie and Big Mac, intent on going right back to sleep. However, when he opened his eyes one last time, he saw the biggest grasshopper of his life crawling up the back wall of the sleeper.
“Bug!” he whisper-yelled.
All at once, he remembered seeing about a million locusts all over the side and top of his dad’s truck as he got inside. Black streaks ran sideways on the door, as if the wind had blown the juicy insides toward the rear.
Connie chuckled. “You get used to them.”
Twenty
Search for Nuclear, Astrophysical, and Kronometric Extremes (SNAKE). Red Mesa, Colorado
Faith had to pull rank on the woman who’d spotted her using a phone. It was a scientist she didn’t recognize, which meant she was part of General Smith’s contingent.
“I’m Dr. Sinclair, nice to meet you. Please, this phone call is a matter of worldwide importance, all right? I need you to walk away and pretend you didn’t see this phone. If the guards see, they’ll take it away.”
“Can I use it later?”
Faith experienced a pang of guilt in advance of the lie she needed to tell. “Yes, when this is all over, you can use this phone as much as you want. The guards won’t stop you, most likely.”
“I’ll be back,” the woman casually replied.
Faith’s heartbeat had been out of control since the woman almost gave her away. She scanned the edges of the room to see if any of the guards had noticed the interaction, but they were all busy talking to each other.
“Phew!” she let out.
“You getting anywhere?” Benny asked.
She re-dialed CERN. “Yes. I should be done momentarily.”
Dr. Johnson picked up again. “This is CERN. Is this Dr. Sinclair?”
She hunched over in her seat as if she were extremely interested in her shoes. It allowed her to maintain a low-key conversation without raising her voice above the background noise of everyone else in the auditorium.
“Doctor Johnson, this is very important. You have to evacuate. They said they were going to send the military to get you out, but I guess they never arrived.”
“They were here, yes. A group of American soldiers came into the facility earlier today, but Dr. Eli wouldn’t say where they went. He left early, saying he had the mother of all headaches.”
“They were there to evacuate you,” she said in a calm, cool, and composed voice.
He chuckled. “If I called you in the middle of the night and said you had to abandon your facility, do you think you would do it? Oh, and if I also said you needed to evacuate Denver, do you think you could convince anyone to believe you? I’ll save you the trouble: no, you wouldn’t. You’re welcome.”
“Doctor, this isn’t a joke.” There was no way to prove she was telling the truth. “However, I see your point.”
“Good,” he replied.
“Listen, aren’t you seeing any odd things going on there? Planes dropping from the sky? Disappearing landmarks? Weird weather?”
He laughed pleasantly. “We haven’t had a good rain in a month. We could do with some odd weather, I’ll tell you that right now. As for weirdness, the only thing even remotely out of the ordinary was those military men showing up, then going missing, but they were with the Army, you know? They can do whatever they want without telling anyone about it. I’m sure they’re out in the mountains somewhere having a good laugh at Dr. Eli’s expense.”
Faith schemed in her mind as she tried to think who she could call so they, in turn, would call CERN and confirm her story. General Smith had never told her who ran the show in Europe, so there were no ins there. The NORAD guards were no longer around so she couldn’t ask them, either. There were no other options.
“Look, Dr. Sinclair, I know your voice from some videos you did during the construction of SNAKE, so I know you are who you say you are. You don’t have the authority to shut down CERN, and this may surprise you to know, but I don’t either. It has to go through the twenty-two-member council. If you give me a little more to go on, I might be able to present the idea to them as soon as they reconvene next month. Assuming that won’t be too late?”
She didn’t have a firm timetable, but the Dr. Johnson here at SNAKE had made it seem like the destruction was going to happen sooner rather than later.
“That’s it!” Faith said a little too loud.
“What is?” the man on the phone replied.
“Doctor, I’ll call you back. I’m going to talk to someone who’s going to take care of you, okay?”
“This is one of the strangest phone calls I’ve ever had, but I’m working all night so I won’t be going anywhere. I’d love to hear from someone who can confirm your fanciful plea.”
“Talk soon.” She hung up on him.
She was going to give the phone back to Benny because she wanted him to make the call to his boss before she risked losing the phone, but she had another person to call first.
Without shifting positions, she silently dialed the next number.
Off the coast of Australia
After striking the giant marine animal, the Majestic took about fifteen minutes to lower its scientific equipment into the water to see if they could find it again. However, no one wanted to delay for too long, and they were soon going full speed again.
Zandre leaned against the railing while he smoked a cigar in the afternoon sunshine. “You almost discovered another new species, Dez. I think this change, whatever you call it, is going to rewrite the animal kingdom in ways we can’t anticipate. You play your cards right, and you’ll make millions, mate.”
“Me? Why me?” She was a naturalist, which was not exactly a high-paying field.
He flicked his cigar before glancing at her. “Imagine a zoo filled with all these wonderful new animals. Humanity is hungry for something different—a new experience. These extinct creatures could deliver that for decades to come.”
“You sound like that bloke in Jurassic Park.”
“Spared no expense,”
he said, mimicking the rich character who had set up the doomed park in the movie. “But seriously, I have the land, and you have the talent.”
“Oi. This is about money?” Zandre had gone off to kill a Duck of Doom so he could collect a huge bounty. Sure, it was to pay off his property, but it was still a bit selfish to her way of thinking.
“No, this is about survival. We need to understand the animals dropping into our new ecosystem. I’ve lived my life as a hunter and guide in the bush, but I’d be happy to track and hunt animals so you could tranq them. Bring them back to our land. Understand what makes them tick.”
She had to admit, it sounded better than what he did now.
The phone rang in her pocket.
“Holy shit! It’s Faith!” She answered immediately.
“Hello? Dez? It’s me.” Her sister’s voice sounded like it was coming from the other end of a long tunnel.
“I hear you!” she replied. “It’s good to hear your voice.”
“I can’t talk for long,” Faith spoke in an even tone, like she was calling from a library. “Where are you? Can you get to America?”
“I’m trying,” she answered. “I’m on a boat heading there at this very minute. I convinced the Sydney Harbor Foundation they needed to go there, like you said.”
“That’s great,” Faith replied with more emotion. “Where are you now?”
She looked around. Mainland ‘Straya was out of view, but they were still at the start of their journey.
“Zandre, do you know how long it will take us to get to America?”
“The captain said it’s going to take three weeks, assuming we don’t run over any other monsters.” He laughed and took another drag on his cigar.
“Crap, sis. It’s going to take three weeks.”
Far down the tunnel, Faith gasped.
“Will we make it in time?” Destiny asked her sister.
After a long pause, Faith replied. “I have no idea. Just keep coming, okay? Don’t stop for anything, you hear me?”
“Yes, ma’am,” she assured her. “I’ll tell the captain to give me his best speed the whole way.”
“Dez, I’m scared. The Army is going to nuke the collider in Europe, and people are going to die there. We don’t know what it’s going to do, but they say it will return things to normal here—just here, inside the ring.”
That caught her by surprise. “So, I guess we’re going to live with these strange animals all over the place. Zandre and I were talking about starting a zoo together. We’re going to fill it with totally new species.”
“You do that, sis, but only when you get back. I need you to promise you won’t stop trying to get here, no matter what.” Her voice echoed in a weird way, as if someone was messing with the sound tube between them.
“Three weeks will go by before you know it.”
Faith was silent for a few moments, then spoke at a barely audible volume. “Dez, I love you. I’m sorry this is happening, and I’m sorry for how this might turn out. I’ll do my best to keep this place open for you.”
“Nothing can stop me, Faith. You know that. I love you, and I’ll see you soon.”
“Bye for now,” Faith replied.
“For now,” Destiny told her before hanging up.
Hays, KS
The nighttime sky glowed orange ahead, and the smell of smoke was pungent. He’d been driving for the past several hours while the others slept soundly in the back. Even Big Mac was out cold.
Connie was curled up in one of his sweatshirts in the passenger seat.
No need to wake them.
The city of Hays was on fire, there was no question of that. The flames rose a hundred feet into the air to the south of the highway. Homes and businesses along the interstate still smoldered, as if the fire had burned them earlier in the night. A fifty-foot-tall water tower was the only thing not scorched.
People stood along the left side of the highway, and he immediately recognized what they were doing, because he’d seen the Iraqis behave in a similar way when insurgents had wasted their villages.
They needed help.
I’m sorry.
The refugees hailed him like he was a giant taxi, but he dared not stop. If he did, he risked being swamped or worse by the desperate townsfolk. Once he let one person on board, hundreds of others would demand the same.
He engaged the Jake brakes to bleed off some of the dangerous speed he’d been carrying, but he still passed them at more than sixty miles an hour.
To his shock, the heat of the fire came through the glass on his left side even though the worst flames were hundreds of yards away. He couldn’t imagine how the people were able to stand it.
He and his two trailing trucks stayed in the right lane, which gave them the most breathing room between the fire and them, but as he continued through the small town, people also appeared on the right side of the highway.
A crowd of hundreds had gathered right off the shoulder.
“Damn,” he whispered.
A quarter of a mile later, the crowd was even thicker, as if the whole town had evacuated to the interstate. He had to slow down some more because a few children hung out close to the concrete roadway.
The CB chirped. The volume was as low as he could make it so it wouldn’t wake up his family. When he answered, Monsignor was on the line.
“Buck, I’m sweeping leaves here in the back, but you should know some assholes are passing me with their lights off. Watch out.”
“Roger,” he replied as quietly as he could.
The fire produced enough light to see the highway without needing headlights, but he’d never turn them off while on the job. He watched his side mirror until the dark shapes came up in the lane next to him. As Monsignor warned, these jackasses had all their lights off.
“What are you guys doing?”
Six orange and white sedans rolled passed him in a tight formation, with not a single light on between them. The stenciled lettering on the sides announced they were police from Jackson, Mississippi.
They didn’t slow or stop for the people of Hays, instead keeping their speed well above the legal limit of seventy-five miles per hour, almost as if they wanted to sneak by. The town was only a few miles wide, so they didn’t have far to go.
When he drove out of the city limits and got away from the fire, he wasn’t surprised to see the police cars turn their headlights back on. They turned on the gumball machines for good measure, then put the hammer down and raced out of view.
Why are you out here in Kansas, Mississippi?
Were the Hays police and fire department off in another state, too?
He felt bad leaving all those people, but he couldn’t save a whole town on his own. There was only one thing on his mind, and it involved rescuing who he could.
He spoke softly into the CB mic. “We don’t stop until Colorado.”
Twenty-One
Limon, CO
“Are those two still sleeping?” Connie asked Buck.
“Yep. He did good getting to me, but he spent it all.”
“It’s eight in the morning?”
He tapped the digital clock on his radio. “No, it’s actually seven. We crossed back over into Mountain Time.”
“You must go crazy crossing time zones over and over.”
Buck chuckled, which was a sure sign of fatigue. He was far beyond the Federal Motor Carrier regulations for the number of consecutive hours he was allowed to drive. He had been over the limit by the time he’d made it to the truck stop in Missouri, then he’d added on another overnight shift.
It made him loopy.
“I need you to look at the atlas. Get me the shortest route to Red Mesa, Colorado.”
She pulled out the book and went to the index. While she did that, she continued to chat quietly with him. “I had the worst dreams last night, and they weren’t even about Phil. I imagined I was in a gigantic fire with no hope of ever getting cool.”
He thought of Ha
ys, which was three hours behind them. Connie was supposed to be asleep, but he couldn’t recall if she saw any of it.
“We all have bad dreams out here,” he declared. Buck planned to prove that wrong when he finally hit the rack because he was certain he’d dream of having Garth safe with him again.
The thought of sleep made him sleepy, so he squeezed the steering wheel and really opened his eyes to let more light into his brain.
“Ah, here we go. I found it.” Connie pointed to the page and traced roads with a long fingernail.
“Where do we go?”
“There’s a turn-off up ahead. We go through the town of Kiowa, then we’ll be at Sedalia. It takes us right to Red Mesa.”
“Is it that road?”
Up ahead, an exit ramp went up to a bridge over the interstate. A lonely two-lane blacktop road went left into the grassy, rolling hills in the distance. Much like Nebraska and Wyoming, there were almost no trees from horizon to horizon.
But there were people up on the bridge.
A police car had tipped and rolled onto its roof off to the side of the exit ramp.
“Shit,” he added. “The sign says this is the way to Kiowa. Are there any alternatives?”
“Not unless you want to go up into Denver, then turn south. I bet we’d hit a lot of traffic in the city.”
He pulled out his lucky coin. “Here, flip this. Heads, we get off here. Tails, we go through Denver and avoid these folks.”
“Really?” she deadpanned. “You’re leaving this to chance?”
“Just flip it, please.”
She did as she asked, then read off the result. “Heads.”
He looked at the people, the bridge, and the highway ahead. Connie glared at him sideways like he’d lost his mind.
“We exit here,” he said with certainty.
He had never put too much stock in chance, so the coin was more for show. He did like it when he and the coin agreed, however.
Connie snatched up the CB mic. “I’ll let those guys know where we’re going.”
Begin Again: A Post-Apocalyptic Adventure (End Days Book 4) Page 15
