Closer Than Earth

by LD Marr

  Closer Than Earth

  A short apocalyptic romance

  By LD Marr

  Copyright © 2019 Trisha McNary

  Published by Trisha McNary

  All Rights Reserved

  This version also contains the prologue to

  Have Teeth, Will Bite, a cozy vampire mystery

  By LD Marr

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Have Teeth, Will Bite

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  In the near future…

  Why am I driving down this awful road again? I asked myself.

  My tiny Smart car wound through the corkscrew curves of the Ortega Highway, also known as Blood Alley. On my way to waste more time with my boyfriend Joey. Or “friend” as he preferred to call our relationship. Friends with benefits.

  The drive was long, and it gave me lots of time to mull things over for the thousandth time.

  It’s not just about sex for me. I care about him. I might even love him, I told myself, even though I hated that he slept with other women and lied about it. And we fought about it constantly.

  “I know you’re sleeping around, and I can’t be involved with someone who does that,” I’d said so many times.

  “How do you know?” he always answered. “Do you have any proof?”

  And I’d say, “I don’t have proof, but I just know. It’s a feeling. I just know this kind of thing. You can tell when you’re sleeping with someone, and they’re not loyal, right?”

  “No, Claire. You can’t tell that. No one can. You’re just crazy. You have jealousy issues. But that’s OK. I’m not having sex with anyone else, and we don’t have to break up,” he’d say.

  Then he’d hug me and start kissing me. And we wouldn’t break up--yet. I’d sleep with him again, but the feeling of wrongness never left me. I knew he was sleeping around. I just knew it! But for some reason, I didn’t do what I knew was best for me. Maybe the real problem was that I didn’t respect myself enough, I thought now.

  As time went on, and I kept seeing Joey, I’d started to get headaches. Bad migraines. I got medicine for them, but they got worse, and I had to take more and more of the pills to dull the pain. Something had to break sooner or later, I knew. I just hoped it wouldn’t be me.

  I drove past a mountain curve, and an area of burnt-out forest came into view. Black dead tree stumps dotted blackened hills. It matched my mood and stretched for miles.

  After years of being in this awful relationship, that’s exactly how I feel inside, I realized. Why have I done this to myself?

  But I thought I knew why. Joey was the kind of guy women couldn’t resist, and he knew it. I pictured his tanned face in my mind. Big brown eyes and full lips that were always smiling. A hunky body from almost daily workouts. Glasses that made him look more intelligent than he was.

  Not that he wasn’t smart. But he wasn’t the super-genius I’d thought he was when we first met. Appearances could be deceiving. Joey was my ideal man on the outside, but something was missing on the inside. The ability to be faithful to one person.

  I sighed.

  But everyone’s like that these days, my thoughts continued. It’s either put up with that or be alone, right?

  Another choice would be to sleep around with some other guys myself, but I didn’t have any desire to do that.

  “One guy is enough for me,” I’d often told Joey.

  But one woman wasn’t enough for him.

  And now, here I was making this unsafe drive just because he’d asked me to. It wasn’t just the dangerous road conditions. Unrest was stirring up in the unstable political climate of our time. People were out in the streets actually shooting each other. Not that drive-by shootings had never happened in southern California before. But now, shootings were in the news every day. Daily shootings in stores, robberies, and home break-ins were all the new normal.

  The government warned people to stay inside except when it was necessary to go out to school, work, and the grocery store. And I’d felt relatively safe in my gated apartment community in Santa Ana. Less safe on the short but time-consuming ten-mile drive on the I-5 freeway to my job. But it was almost insane to take a long trip through an unpopulated area like this.

  Especially when I know I should break up with this guy! What’s wrong with me? I asked myself.

  Anxiety clenched my chest tight as I approached yet another hilly curve on the shrubby desert road. Nothing could be seen around the other side of the curve, which was just one reason for the many fatal accidents that had earned the road its name.

  Why the heck did I say “yes” to him again? I asked myself one more time.

  I thought back to our phone call a few hours ago.

  “Claire, please come see me tonight. I miss you so much! I need you Claire. I really need you!” Joey had pleaded.

  “But it’s dangerous on the roads now Joey. You know that,” I’d argued. “I miss you too, but why can’t you come here if you miss me so much?”

  “Oh Claire, you know it’s easier for you to come to my place. Your job is near the Ortega Highway, but my job is thirty miles south in Temecula. I already have to make a long, dangerous drive every day, but you don’t. You said you cared about me, but maybe you don’t really.”

  Guilt. Then I’d agreed. But now, I wished I hadn’t. I felt like an idiot. Even though I was almost there, and nothing bad had happened to me. Yet.

  I guess the shooters don’t want to waste their time out on this road when only one car drives by every four hours, I thought.

  The road was getting curvier and angling downward, meaning I only had about five miles to go, unless someone was waiting on this final stretch.

  In addition to the fear of ambush, I experienced more of the usual mixed feelings that always grew stronger when I got close to Joey’s place. Now my muddled mind tried to give him the benefit of the doubt.

  I think Joey really loves me, but he just needs time to become serious, right? I asked myself.

  It was confusing because he sometimes acted like he wanted to get serious, got my hopes up, and then said something to crush them. Like a few months ago when he said he wanted to have a baby with me.

  “I forgot to take my pill yesterday, Joey,” I’d said. “So we can’t have sex this time.”

  “Why not, Claire?” he’d answered. “I don’t mind if you get pregnant. We’d have a beautiful child together.”

  Wow! I’d thought. He really does care after all. He must have changed his mind about marriage.

  “But we’re not married,” I’d said. “And you said you can’t marry me because I don’t make enough money. So why would you want to have a child with me?”

  “Right. That’s true, Claire,” Joey had said. “I can’t marry you because I make so much more money than you. You’d end up being a financial burden on me when we retire. But we can still have a child.”

  “What!” I’d exclaimed. “If I’m so poor, how do you expect me to take on the financial burden of a child as well as supporting myself, not to mention caring for a child. I don’t see how I could handle all that on my own.”

  “Oh, I could do that,” said Joey. “I’d just take the baby and raise it.”

  We didn’t end up having sex that night. Or on many others.

  Thinking about Joey’s confusing behavior distracted me from worrying about being shot on the highway, and before I knew it, my little Smart car had made it to the bottom of the steep hill. Finally.

  There were just a few miles more to go around the lake that Lake Elsinore w
as named after to Joey’s place. The street was eerily quiet. No people out. Windows barred.

  A car passed me. Fast. An anxious face stared out, lit up by my car’s lights in that quick moment. Then another anxious face. Getting where they had to go. Now I started to get scared.

  If the people who live around here are this terrified, I should be worried too, right? I asked myself.

  “What am I doing here? I am so stupid!” I cursed myself out loud. “If I get back home alive, this is the last time I see Joey. This relationship…friendship…is over!”

  I’d made that promise before, but this time, I knew that I meant it. And having made that decision, I felt a little better as I pulled up in Joey’s driveway. I didn’t see his car, but his garage door was closed, and I assumed it was in there. His expensive sports car was precious to him--more precious than me, as he’d often made abundantly clear. There was no way he’d leave it out on the street in harm’s way.

  Joey’s front door was closed too, and the light on the porch was off. That was unusual. He almost always had the light on for me on the nights when I visited.

  Looking down the street, I saw that all the lights were off on all the other two- and three-story homes too. All matching, pretentious, and new McMansions-—I’d always hated them. The symbol of Joey’s superior wealth. The reason we couldn’t get married. He said. I hated his house, but now it represented safety, and I just wanted to get inside.

  I got out of my air-conditioned car. The force of Lake Elsinore’s 90 degree heat, even at nine at night, hit me like a hammer.

  I hate Lake Elsinore, I thought, as I had so many times. Darn hot, sweaty place!

  I walked up to Joey’s door in the darkness, and it made me nervous all over again. It was dark behind the door’s small colored-glass windows.

  That’s weird, I thought. He’s usually in there watching TV with all the lights on. And he never goes to sleep this early. I just talked to him a few hours ago, and he knows I’m coming. Could he have gone out to the store or something?

  I rang the bell and waited.

  “Hurry! Hurry!” I said to Joey mentally, glancing up and down the still-empty street.

  But the door didn’t open. No answer. Nothing. My nervous feeling grew stronger, unbearable. I knew I was about to have a panic attack.

  I can’t wait out here! I told myself.

  My anxiety spiked. I pounded a loud fist on the door. Waited a minute. Then one of the two big double doors opened.

  “Finally!” I said out loud.

  A strange man stood in the doorway. Tall and thin, about Joey’s age. I couldn’t see his face clearly in the darkness, but I didn’t recognize him as any friend of Joey’s that I’d ever met.

  “Is Joey here?” I asked. My voice sounded small and frightened.

  The man looked out at me but didn’t answer. Then he lifted a shotgun I hadn’t seen him holding, hidden by the darkness. He pointed the gun straight at me.

  At that moment, I was more terrified than I’d ever been in my entire life. But at the same time, a strange calmness seemed to take over.

  He’s not going to shoot me, I told myself. I know he’s not.

  “OK. I’m out of here,” I said.

  I hoped he’d take that for an answer. I backed away slowly, turned, and walked at a normal pace to my car. The short ten-step walk seemed like an eternity. Expecting the sound of a gunshot, or the feeling of being shot, whatever that felt like.

  Would I be dead without feeling anything? I wondered.

  But I got to my car still alive without hearing or feeling anything. I turned and saw that the man was gone, and the door to Joey’s house was closed. I got in my car and drove away. Fast.

  Chapter 2

  I need to call the police! I thought. And I have to make the call before I get back on the Ortega, where there’s no phone reception.

  At the next stoplight, I pulled my cellphone out of my purse and pressed 911. The stoplight turned green, and I had to drive forward. I kept on eye on the road while I pressed the phone’s speaker button and waited. The phone beeped at me. Then 911’s voice mail picked up.

  “You have reached the emergency number for the Riverside County police department,” said a recorded female voice. “Please state your emergency and phone number, and someone will get back to you as soon as possible.”

  Voice mail! I thought. But this is supposed to be a twenty-four-hour emergency number.

  I spoke into my phone and explained what had just happened. I gave the police Joey’s address and my phone number. Then I pressed the off button.

  That didn’t sound good, I thought. Isn’t anyone working at the police station right now? That’s very disturbing. But there’s nothing else I can do except get out of here.

  My little car had almost reached the turn onto the Ortega Highway when I heard something even more disturbing. A sound like popcorn popping in the distance came through my closed windows. A lot of popcorn popping.

  What’s that? I wondered. It sounds familiar though. I think I’ve heard that sound on TV and in movies.

  “Gunfire!” I said out loud.

  I took the turn and began driving along the road that led to the steep mountain highway. I usually took it slow because my Smart car couldn’t handle the climb well with the air-conditioning on. And the curves were sharp with a sheer drop to the sides. This time, I turned off the air and pushed my car to go as fast as it could up through the hair-pin turns.

  As I got higher up the mountain, the popping sounds grew fainter below me, but then I heard some new, louder sounds.

  “Boom! Boom!”

  “Is that bombs!” I exclaimed.

  I drove around one of the turns on the edge of the mountain that gave a view of the city below. I slowed and took my eyes off the road to look down. Bright explosions lit up spots here and there in the otherwise complete darkness.

  It is bombs! I thought just as the ground shook beneath my car.

  Then I remembered that the Ortega Highway was prone to avalanches. Each year, large chunks of it fell off, sometimes on passing cars.

  In spite of my well-justified fearful thoughts, that strange calmness I’d felt when I’d faced the man with the gun took over again, and it directed my actions.

  I must be in shock, I decided. That’s what’s keeping me from screaming at the top of my lungs.

  Instead of speeding up, I slowed my driving down to a safer speed for the curvy road. Now I was almost at the peak of the mountain.

  Through my unnatural calm, I looked around. The Ortega Highway seemed somehow different to me. I knew this road well from driving it so many times, but the road was starting to look straighter than I remembered. And it had more green than usual.

  And how can I even see all this green when it’s so late at night? I wondered.

  Now I found myself in full daylight on a completely straight road that headed toward the edge of the cliff.

  How is this possible? There’s no road like this up here, I thought in complete calmness.

  I kept on driving. And when the road went off the edge of the mountain, I stayed on it and still kept driving. Instead of immediately crashing to Earth, my car kept moving forward, but I wasn’t thinking about that.

  I know there’s no road here that goes this way, I thought.

  I looked down at the road beneath my car. And I saw that there was no road under my car! But the car kept going. My fuzzy brain registered that, and I was kind of scared, but I was nowhere near as terrified as I should have been.

  Then I looked up and saw a land mass straight ahead of me. I seemed to be floating in the air. Trees, hills, and land. And my car was heading toward it.

  But there’s no road under me. Will I die now? I wondered.

  I found myself talking to my car.

  “You’ll make it, car. I know you can make it,” I said with a voice that seemed to come more from that strange calmness inside me than from myself.

  The Smart car kept goi
ng and made it onto the land mass. It landed without any bumps or thumps on a paved road that began right at the edge of what looked like an island floating in space. I slowed the car to parking lot speed and drove about a half mile down a tree-lined road. The road turned, and an enormous colonial house came into view.

  Cars from various time periods were parked in front of the house: a modern Viper, a forties-style gangster car, and a model T Ford. A horse-drawn buggy was there as well. Enormous horses grazed on long grass in a field nearby.

  I parked on the marble-paved half-circle driveway in front of the house. Then I looked up to the top of a dozen steps. A broad wooden porch stretched along both sides of an enormous open doorway.

  Some people came out of the door. They were unnaturally tall and dressed in strange clothes. Light one-piece garments that were all white, sleeveless, and above the knees.

  Like old-fashioned bloomers or bathing suits, I thought.

  The two men and one woman walked up to my car, and I got out. I expected to be gripped by the usual Lake Elsinore oven-like blast of heat, but that didn’t happen. The temperature although warm, was quite pleasant. Balmy. And even though it was late night in Lake Elsinore, this place was in full daylight.

  This is all so strange! I thought.

  The people from the house reached my car, and I looked up at them. I was tall for a woman, almost six feet, but the three people standing in front of me were all at least six inches taller. Giants!

  They shared similar height, but their coloring wasn’t similar. The woman was darkest, with black hair and dark brown skin. One man had olive skin and brown hair, and the other was quite pale.

  The tall woman gestured and introduced herself and the others to me.

  “I’m Ereen, and these are Muurg and Wan,” it sounded like she said, anyway. As she spoke, her voice echoed strangely inside my head.

  “I’m Claire. It’s nice to meet you,” I answered as politely as I could under the circumstances.

  The three of them smiled down at me. Then they all started talking at once.

  “Claire! You made it! Welcome. Come in. Come in,” they all make motions waving me toward the door of the house.