by Logan Keys
“Could be,” Bob said, his gaze worried.
Bob cleared the area, checking every nook and cranny once more to make sure Seagerman wasn’t waiting to pop out and kill them both. Michelle got the patch of gauze to stick to her wound, and then she tied some rags tightly around her shoulder, slipping them under her pit and then knotting them tightly in a circle. “I think it’s stopped bleeding, mostly.”
“I’m fine,” she assured Bob, and she was. With it bound, Michelle already felt better. Other than anxiety and exhaustion, she felt the same as always.
The ice was crackling outside at an alarming rate. The noise had increased while they’d been distracted as if it was forming like they’d seen across the bridge. Moving and shifting, changing too quickly to be normal.
Michelle approached the door. Her gun was in the hand of her still good arm, the other felt like lifting a thousand pounds when she moved that shoulder. She tried not to picture the bullet grinding around inside of her arm, but it was difficult not to imagine it being in there, causing damage. She needed a doctor to take it out, but the odds of that were about as good as them waking up on a resort and this all being a dream. Moving was painful, and it took her breath away. So maybe she wasn’t as “okay” as the front she’d put on for to Bob.
She got to the door and peered outside. “Uh. Bob.” When he didn’t answer she let the fear fill her voice. “Bob!”
He rushed to her side, and she motioned towards the wall of white. “Look!”
It was like a wave of ice. Giant spikes of it formed on everything rising up, clinging to the buildings. “It must be from the harbor,” she said and the gulped. Giant sheets of ice fell from the sky in flakes, only the size of a car. But the ice wave was defiantly frozen water that had piled up and was moving in their direction. Some of the flakes from above were shattering like glass when they landed on the ground, vehicles, and buildings.
One landed on their car and broke across it, cracking the windshield and denting the hood.
“Reese!” Michelle shouted. She raced for the car, slipping across the ice.
She got to the back door and she flung it open.
The temperature was dropping. They’d freeze this time without fire. “Let’s bring her in,” Bob said.
Michelle paused, gazing at the blue face of the woman who was staring back. “She’s…frozen nearly. But alive.”
The cold was so painful it struck her in the middle and then just brushed across her wound, making her hiss in pain and grip her arm.
“I got it,” Bob said reaching inside and grabbing Reese up into his arms.
Michelle glanced around, sure that Seagerman had remained and was watching.
They got back inside with Reese but once they did, they found the heaters snuffed out with ice filling up from the outside through the pipes.
It was working its way in through the vents and just like before, when she’d watched it come from the chimney, Michelle saw it now filling up the inside of the bowling alley and coating the surfaces quickly. Small crystals formed on everything they’d touched.
Michelle went back to the door and threw it open. The giant ice wave was crashing down the street. Layer upon layer of those ice sheets had piled up at least two stories and it was being pushed forward inch by inch.
“It will bury us,” she said to no one, too quiet to be heard by Bob. They couldn’t escape it this time. It would bury them in the cold too much for too long. “We’ll freeze to death!”
“Inside we might be okay,” Bob told her but she turned to him with a crazed expression of fear.
“No. Bob. This is different. Look at it!”
Bob stared at her and they both seemed to be thinking the same thing. “We waited too long,” he said and she nodded.
They’d stayed in the city past the time limit to make it out.
“What do we do?” Bob asked, and she was struck by the idea that Bob had no ideas. It was like finding out your parents were humans and could make mistakes.
Bob was not superman, and he couldn’t figure out how to save them.
Michelle closed her eyes. Then she snapped them open. “The subway!”
“What?’
She grabbed his coat and shook him. “The subway! We get under ground and we wait it out. Last time it warmed right after, right? Let’s go! Get her and let’s go!”
Bob took a deep breath, and then he marched over to where Reese was laying. She was awake but silent, a distant, fixed gaze on her face.
They grabbed Reese again but carrying her in this mad dash was impossible. Finally, Michelle slapped the woman hard enough to rouse her. “You have to stay on your feet. You have to stand on your own, you hear me? Otherwise we all die!’
Reese seemed to focus momentarily. She did stand, sort of, and put her arms over both Michelle and Bob who ran, half carrying her, but at least she tried to hold her weight above the ground.
They rushed outside, each gasping from the painful cold that was like acid in the lungs. Immediately Michelle developed a rattling cough and her voice was weak. “This way.”
They went as fast as they could in their three-legged potato-sack race position, in the opposite way of the ice wave.
Michelle turned them down the nearest stairs to the platform and it took time to work their way down because it was also slick with ice.
“If we can get far enough down the tunnels…”
“Right,” Bob said.
One at a time, they climbed over the turnstiles. When they got to the tunnel, there was a train sitting there, empty, and full of shadows. Items were strewn about where people had been there before, but they saw nor heard a soul now. The power was completely dead, dousing the area in total darkness.
"We should have brought flashlights," Michelle said.
Reese mumbled something.
"What?" Michelle asked.
"She said she has a lighter in her pocket.”
"You smoke?" Michelle asked then shook her head. She dug around in Reese's pocket until she found the lighter and fought with her frozen hands to get it to light.
They all stared at the tunnels with hesitation. “Like we have a choice?” Michelle said and then Bob hopped down near the rail.
“No power, no danger,” he said, as if to himself. “Pass me her, and then you come down.”
They began to walk with only the tiny lighter lighting their way. Their footsteps echoed, and their coughs and jackets rubbing were the only other sound.
After what felt like hours, Michelle made them stop, hushed them. "Do you hear that?"
Bob nodded. “Someone’s coming,” he whispered, as if he’d known.
Michelle kept her voice a raspy whisper as well. “Seagerman?”
Reese turned to look at Michelle with surprise. With the lighter light flickering on her features, she looked less half-dead, and more her bossy normal self.
“Why would he follow us? What could he possibly want now?” Reese asked.
Michelle shushed her. “Keep your voice down. And he probably is hiding from the ice the same as we are.”
“Come on,” Bob said. “Let’s keep moving.”
After a time, the footsteps behind ceased as they kept on going.
“How far down should we go?” Michelle asked.
She could sense Bob’s shrug. “I dunno. This was your idea, remember?”
Michell rolled her eyes but smiled. "True. We haven’t frozen yet either. So, it was a good one.”
They kept on until they thought they’d drop from exhaustion, and just as Michelle was about to say to stop right there on the rail, the next platform appeared. It was a service platform without entry. Insulated by endless brick walls and no exit. Only a fire extinguisher and a work bench. When they climbed up and onto the platform they found a trashcan with paper in it and a sleeping bag. Someone had been there before, but they were long gone now.
“I’m gonna light this,” Bob said, seeming happy to have something to do.
&n
bsp; Michelle got close to the trash can. “Yes please,” she said, stamping her feet, which she could barely feel.
She glanced at Reese who was already sitting down, hugging her knees. “You use the sleeping bag,” Michelle said quietly. “You need it most.”
Reese didn’t even thank Michelle as she stuffed herself into the bag and rolled herself into a ball near the fire.
Her eyes were focused on Michelle for a moment and then they narrowed. “You’re bleeding.”
Michelle glanced down and saw a patch of red had made it through her layers and even her coat. “Yeah. You can thank your guys for that.”
Reese frowned deeply then rolled away. She seemed lulled into a fitful sleep after a short while.
Michelle and Bob huddled around the small fire. "Do you think that was Seagerman before? Will he see this?" Michelle asked
Bob nodded and glanced at the darkness with a wary gaze.
Chapter 7
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
“Where is Rex?”
Bentley asked in the early morning and Colton froze.
Had he seen the dog since last night’s storm?
“He must have…” Rufus and Colton exchanged a frightened look.
“I let him out last night,” Colton said, heart sinking. “Into the storm. He’s so self sufficient I didn’t ever think he’d run off.”
The children panicked, as did Colton and Rufus. Rex was like a part of their family now. They spent an entire precious hour searching, when they needed to be on their way.
They found nothing. No trace.
Finally Colton pressed them to move on. “He will sniff us out. Trust me. He knows how to find us.”
No one was happy about it. Colton felt tremendous guilt over how he let the dog out…into a storm. Without thinking.
Colton and Rufus and the children made their way back to the crash site of the plane. It was not far from where they'd stayed overnight, hiding from the storm. Now, they had to pass by it again, only, since they were on foot this time, they could simply walk around it. Besides, they didn't want to be on that side road again anyway since those people could be waiting for them to steal the kids again.
Benton held onto Colton's hand. He was terrified still, and Lily held Benton's. When they approached the plane, it was eerily quiet and like a giant grave instead of a road. Colton tried not to look too closely at the debris, because when he did, he pictured a piece of a rib cage here and a foot bone or skull in another spot. At least, he hoped he was imagining it. Mostly, he kept the kids busy looking elsewhere, and no one stared at any one spot for overlong.
They picked their way through quickly but on the other side, Colton and Rufus were met with a strange sight. "What in the world?" Rufus asked.
"I'm not even sure what's going on,” Colton said.
The road right after the airplane had cars on either side, wrecked or pulled over. The highway looked fine, the roads were still in service, so it wasn't that.
"A tornado maybe?" Rufus asked.
"No. Nothing looks ripped up." Other than the plane, everything on the road or near it was normal. The cars should have had no problem driving if they turned back from the crash site.
Rufus shrugged and as they got clots he covered his nose. "Wow, do you smell that? something died on this road. That’s for sure.”
Colton's heartbeat picked up beats as he caught a whiff of what Rufus was smelling. "Or a lot of somethings."
He lifted Lily up and told her. "Put your face into my shoulder, sweetheart. Benton, don't look inside any of the cars."
"What? Why?" the boy whined clinging to his hand for dear life.
"Just keep walking, guys."
They did but it was clear that the smell was going to be unbearable until they got clear of that area. The deceased that had pulled over, lay dead inside their vehicles, blue faces in each seemed to be staring right at Colton. He risked a glance and found their expression painful. Almost as if they begged him personally to help, to do something. Most seemed to have died in complete anguish.
Rufus scuffed his shoe on the ground. "Look at this."
Spidery webs of black snaked long and thick across the ground. The veins cut through the street in every direction. Something about them was familiar, yet foreign at the same time. Nothing rang a bell as far as what they could be, but it was almost just within reach when he tried hard to think about.
They kept on walking and in the back of Colton's mind, he felt he knew what the cause was, but the truth simply wasn't getting through to his cloudy thoughts of fear. What if he was taking the kids right into a dangerous place? What if they were walking right into somewhere where they'd die a painful death just like these poor people had?
What choice did they have, though? Going back without food or a car would mean death by the cold or starvation.
Colton tried to keep the kids moving so they’d see as little gore as possible.
When they got to the small town after a mile of pile ups and cars pulled over, some on their sides from crashing (they had not seen a soul yet alive), Benton pointed with one hand, the other moving up to cover his nose. "Look!"
It was the SUV. The stolen one. Right on the cusp of downtown, it sat crashed, slammed into a telephone pole. "Wait here,” Colton said and he left the kids with Rufus to check the vehicle out.
"It's them," he said, glancing away after a brief inspection. “All dead. Just like the others.”
Bloated and blue, like the ones on the highway. These were the only ones he didn’t feel sorry for.
Colton backed away afraid to even touch the car. Somehow, it all seemed related.
Rufus joined him, leaving the kids far enough away not to see. "And more of those marks," Rufus added, motioning to the ground that was marked with the long black lines.
Colton was busy looking for life in the town. The smell there was just as bad, and he found himself hesitant to check inside any of the businesses.
“Look,” Rufus said quietly and Colton noticed a woman laying half in and out of the post office.
“What happened to all of them?” Colton was started to panic. “Could it be a virus?”
He pushed a hand through his hair. He’d doomed them all by bringing them here. “It’s a ghost town,” he said, fear making his voice high.
Buildings in the distance burned with fires. "What on earth could it be?" Rufus followed the lines to the telephone pole.
The pole was burned right through. “Fire from the crash?” Colton asked, glad to be distracted momentarily.
His brain was coming up with possibilities so quickly, but his mind rejected them based on the fact that nothing made sense anymore. It seemed nearly impossible.
"Let’s find a store,” Rufus said. “If it’s a virus, we are already here and we seem fine. These people had to have died immediately if they were still driving when they died.”
"I’m hungry," Lily complained, tugging on Colton’s hand.
He nodded, though the smell was stifling his appetite. “Okay, if I remember correctly, there is a store just one block south and maybe two or three west.”
They started through Plainview and like all of the rest, the place was quiet. They found a few more people on the sidewalks, or streets, blue and bloated and dead. Colton made the kids look at him as they passed by.
They found a general store and Colton told Rufus, “Let me go inside and check first before you bring them in.”
He pulled out the gun and gave it to Rufus. At first the man tried to give it back, but the kids were the most important ones in need of protection so Colton pushed it back to him and turned and went inside.
**
Inside the store was even worse than outside. The stench made his empty stomach roil up into his throat and he coughed and swatted at the flies.
People were all over the place, probably picking at the stores meager leftovers after it had obviously been looted closer to when things fell apart.
Colton step
ped over them carefully. He saw the black lines here and there, but he was distracted by the boxes he found in back with a few canned goods inside. Despite the smell, the sight of food kicked his appetite into overdrive. With the loot, he returned back outside. They didn't even bother to find a spot, they all sat right there on the curb and took turns slurping cold soup from the cans.
"You find anyone inside?" Rufus said, and Colton shook his head. "Same thing? Blue and those black lines?"
"Yes. Zig-zagging lines of..."
"What?" Rufus asked when Colton paused.
"I think I..." Colton got to his feet and he walked over to transformer that was charred. "That's it!" He pointed at it still smoking. "Remember last night there were those wicked lightning strikes? What if it was some sort of electrical current that hit he town all at once? The plane before. This could be like an area where it's collecting some strange charge. All of this weather...it's got to have messed with the magnetic fields maybe? I dunno, my brother was saying something about the poles, you know? Add lighting and boom the whole town gets zapped all at once?"
Rufus stood and walked over. "That makes not a lick of sense. But then neither does anything else that’s been happening Could be you are right. Could be, Colton. Should we leave?"
"Well, if I’m right, maybe it fried all the batteries in the cars? How will we get out of here then? Let’s check"
They searched the first block then the next and the next. Everything with a battery was dead. Everything that could be plugged in. Same. Dead.
"How far out do you think it goes?" Rufus asked.
Colton only shook his head as they kept searching, hoping just one vehicle would start.
Luckily, by night fall, they found a place to stay that was empty and more food and water. But were wary of the fact that they were in the “zone” as they had started to call it, whatever that meant.
"What if the storm comes back?" Rufus asked, watching the windows with concern. “If it zaps through here once more?”
Colton sighed. He was exhausted. "I'm not sure. It seems like it might have depleted itself. Maybe it has to build over time? We can leave at first light. Let's hope it doesn’t happen again in the meantime."
