Meteor (14 page)

Their adventure was over before it had truly begun. Troy, Caleb, and Brandon were outmanned. A fourth man and a small but strong-looking woman had joined the welcome party. They weren’t visibly armed but it was likely they had weapons on their person somewhere.

“How many people live here? There are at least four cabins on this land. Are they all full?” Troy asked as they made their way back down the road towards the truck.

At first, no one answered and Troy was certain they hadn’t heard him, as loudly as the wind was howling now, he thought it was possible. Layered over the fierce wail of the wind came then, as Troy waited for an answer he believed he would never get, a much deeper growl.

Completely unrecognizable to anyone in the welcome party, the sound continued to grow closer and louder as the seconds passed. The trees lining the road began to tremble, shaking loose brown, gnarled leaves along with the few acorns or other nuts hardy enough to have survived the acid rain and toxic air.

The group was now close enough to the truck to hear the metallic ping the nuts made as they bounced off the hood. Everyone squinted against the lashing of the debris now swirling in the cold airstream blowing all around them. The tires of the truck skidded sideways as they watched in disbelief.

They began to feel the tremors beneath their feet. To Troy, who had grown up in the Midwest and often run alongside trains as a teenager, usually trying to impress a girl, it felt like a thirty ton train rumbling down the tracks. Only now the tracks were directly below his feet and he was directly in the path of the oncoming locomotive.

One percussive crash knocked everyone on their backsides. The welcome party lay sprawled beside their weapons, unable to point them at Troy and his group any longer as they bounced on the shaky ground. In unspoken agreement, Brandon, Troy and Caleb took off at a crawl over the undulating ground, never looking back at the residents of the hunting club.

As he fumbled the truck keys out of his pocket, Troy heard the appointed leader yell. “Yes, there are four cabins and they’re all full. If I see any of your faces around here again, I’ll shoot without asking any more questions.” Troy and the others believed him.

“At least they didn’t have an incinerator,” Caleb said solemnly.

Brandon was the first to laugh and it became infectious. Soon the cab of the truck was filled with maniacal laughter as the men released all the pent up fear and tension of the past hour. They laughed until tears rolled down their faces and their cheeks ached. They laughed as the road disappeared behind them and the bunker came into sight ahead.

They laughed until they noticed the two charred corpses lying in front of the bunker only a few feet from the flames pouring out of the open door.

Caleb was the first to tumble from the truck before it even stopped moving. He loosed a strangled cry as he sped across the blackened grass to the flaming door, searching for a way in. Brandon, seated in the middle truck seat, sat stunned for a moment as he watched Caleb tear out toward the conflagration.

“Here,” Troy cried after he slammed the truck’s gearshift into park. He fumbled with the latch on the truck’s toolbox, desperately hoping for a fire extinguisher. Luck smiled on him and he pulled out a full sized fire extinguisher in bright red.

Caleb met him halfway and took the thing, pulling the pin even as he turned his back to the truck and rushed toward the blasted door once again. He disappeared in a white fog of flame dousing spray. Troy could hear his coughs through the gloom. He put an arm around Brandon’s shoulder and together they approached the scene of horror. Fear for his wife and daughter sat like a boulder in Troy’s stomach.

Silent tears streaked down Brandon’s face, exhaustion written there too deeply to believe he was only sixteen. This couldn’t be happening. They had only been gone for an hour, maybe two. Something bad had obviously happened in their absence and Troy cursed the skies. He cursed God, he cursed the meteor that had ruined the world.

Troy squatted beside one of the burnt bodies, searching for signs that he recognized. He gingerly lifted one of the hands in his, examining the fingers for a familiar wedding band. Shreds of grey-black skin like charcoal rained down from between his fingers and he had to swallow hard to keep from vomiting. He saw no wedding ring.

On closer inspection the body appeared to be male. A quick glance at the other body confirmed the same. Two males, charbroiled to a crisp. Relief flooded Troy’s body and turned his limbs to water. He sank down to the ground on his knees, squeezing Brandon’s shoulder as he did. He looked to his right and truly noticed the boy for the first time since this drama began to unfold.

“It’s not Mom… or Cordelia.” Brandon’s eyes were as big as planets and he began to sob in earnest, all the fear draining out of him.

“Then… where… are… they?” he asked between hiccupping sobs.

Just then, Caleb emerged from the smoking, melted door frame in a panic.

“They’re not inside. I looked everywhere. The fire hadn’t spread too far, just barely into the kitchen. This happened only a few minutes before we drove up. They can’t be far.”

Visions of vicious kidnappers, people desperate enough to do anything to another human being filled Troy’s head. He rose to his feet and looked in the direction of their house. Neglected as it was, it was the most obvious choice for shelter and safety from wandering thugs.

Picking up his gun once more, Troy took off at a sprint towards the house. He had to high step through the overgrown grass and weeds. A light rain had begun to fall as his steps thudded up the back porch stairs. Brandon was only a few steps behind him. Caleb was still sniffing around the bunker, putting out small grass fires with the extinguisher.

The back door of their home was still securely locked. The place looked untouched since they left months ago. Acid rain and biting winds had stripped most of the trees in the yard; their skeleton branches would look more at home in a cemetery than in a suburban backyard. Brandon shuddered visibly.

“You okay?” Troy asked as he jiggled the lock on the kitchen door. He flipped up the badly worn rubber door mat and was shocked to find that an extra house key was still in its place beneath. The acid rain had thoroughly rusted the key but it slid straight into the lock on the first try. He pushed the door open gently with his shoulder, gun raised like in a crime drama ready to shoot.

“Hello?” he called out to the quiet musty house. As soon as he spoke he heard a shriek come from upstairs. It sounded female so he chanced another shout.

“It’s Troy and Brandon. Are you here, Mary? Cordelia?” his voice carried throughout the house and he heard an actual gasp come from wherever the girls were hidden.

“Troy? Really?”

It was Mary’s voice. Troy couldn’t recall ever being happier in his life, not even on their wedding day or the days of their children’s births. A barrage of footsteps brought three disheveled, smoke-stained, and teary-eyed women into the kitchen. But they were alive. They were blessedly alive and did not appear to be physically hurt.

Hannah and Cordelia clung to each other, standing directly behind Mary until they saw Troy’s concerned face. Cordelia burst from Hannah’s grasp and threw herself into her father’s arms. Mary followed with a look on her face that said Troy was her biggest hero.

Hannah only had to stand awkwardly for less than a minute as the group hug went on beside her. Brandon stepped through the kitchen door and put his arms around her shoulders in what would forever be the sweetest hug of Hannah’s life.

“Are you girls okay?” Troy asked.

“Yes, we’re all fine, just very shaken up. These two men were battering the door with a 2x4 and we didn’t know what else to do. We yelled and warned them a bunch of times, Troy. I didn’t want to burn them…” Mary’s voice cracked as she relived the terror of setting another person on fire. Troy held her as she cried and then encouraged her to tell the rest of what happened.

“Well, they just wouldn’t stop. They came hammering and hammering so as they stepped back to run again I let out a little burst of flames, you know on the lowest setting like you showed me. I guess it just made them mad because they didn’t stop. I could see their faces get angrier and that made me angry so when they came running again, I turned the incinerator up and let them have it again. That time the man in front’s shirt and hat caught fire but he just threw them off and picked up the post for another run.” Her words came out in a pained rush as she stroked her hair compulsively throughout the retelling.

She went on, “I don’t know what happened then. I did something wrong. The incinerator malfunctioned or something. After the second burst of fire I could tell something wasn’t right. It got really hot in the foyer and I could see the edges of the building around the door start to turn red hot. We didn’t have a choice except to open the door and walk out. I was so scared, Troy. The men weren’t dead when we ran by. They were screaming and trying to stop, drop, and roll, I guess.” A tiny laugh escaped her lips. “It’s not funny, I know but I feel a little crazy right now.”

Troy took her again fully into an embrace and said, “You did the right thing. We knew we were about to be forced from the bunker. It’s okay, honey. It’s okay.” He repeated this mantra many times before she stopped crying.

As her tears subsided, Caleb walked onto the porch and looked inside.

“Is this our new home sweet home?”

It was funny how quickly he had become a part of the family that had grown since the meteor struck. Looking at Caleb and Hannah made Troy feel ashamed for not offering help to anyone in the early days.

He thought of Steve and Ken but quickly put him out of his mind. He didn’t want to be reminded of his wife’s affair or the fact that he had let a friend die. He told himself that he had done what was necessary and to let it go.

Troy still held onto the fact that no one knew just how awful it was going to be. He walked through his house which now felt like an abandoned mausoleum to the front door, swiping his finger through the inch of dust on the surfaces of bookshelves and countertops. He stepped out onto the front porch into the thin cold light and surveyed his old street.

A few neighbors were outdoors. It might have been only wishful thinking but Troy thought the sky looked clearer than it had just that morning. Of course, that morning seemed a million years ago by this time. Time had lost all meaning between the terrorists at the hunting club and the terror of thinking his family dead or missing. Troy looked down at his watch and was surprised to find it was only three in the afternoon. It felt like he had run two marathons and it should be midnight. For lack of a better idea, he sat down on the front porch steps. Mary came to sit beside him.

“I’m so glad you’re back. Safe.”

“Me too. We almost weren’t.”

Mary opened her eyes wide in question and waited for Troy to explain. “The hunting club is a no-go. There are some jerks already living there. They ran us off at gunpoint. Well, they tried to but then the earthquake hit…”

“Earthquake?” Mary said. “There was an earthquake?”

“Yea, you guys didn’t feel it in the bunker?” Mary shook her head and gave a small shrug. “No, not at all.”

Troy allowed himself a second of pride in the solid construction of the bunker. So sturdy they didn’t even feel an earthquake, he thought to himself. But then he remembered the melted façade and that the bunker was now essentially useless and let his ego fall back to earth.

“So anyway, you were saying. Some jerks chased you guys off the hunting lands.”

Troy recounted the whole story from beginning to end even though there wasn’t much to tell. The guys at the hunting lodge hadn’t been particularly dangerous; they were just trying to hold onto what they had. Troy actually respected them for that. It was nothing less than what he would’ve done in the same situation. Nothing less than what he had in fact done even when faced with the loss of a good friend right before his eyes.

He turned to Caleb and asked about the condition of the bunker. What he wanted to do was tune into whatever news may still be coming in about the earthquakes and the status of everything.

“Well, if you don’t mind the smell of burnt metal and smoke then, yea, I think we can spend a few minutes inside watching the news.”

Hannah and Cordelia had been quiet throughout this exchange. Both girls looked shell-shocked and pale. They had certainly not recovered from the ordeal with the incinerator. “Dad?” Cordelia said. “Do we have to go back in there? I really don’t want to.” Her voice was steady as she spoke but her lip trembled on the last word.

“Me either,” Hannah said.

“I think we should all stay together,” Mary added.

Troy nodded in agreement. “Yes,” he said. “Until we can secure this house better we all have to stay together. Come on, let’s just go listen to one news report and get an update on our situation. We still have to be prepared for anything.”

***

Back at the bunker, all was quiet. The men considered the bodies lying on the grass and decided to do the decent thing. They gave them the burial they had been unable to give the people who had previously found death on their lawn.

Enjoying a newfound freedom that they hadn’t felt in months, Caleb, Troy, and Brandon located two tarps in the storage shed behind the family home and wrapped the blackened bodies in them, taking care not to touch the blistered and peeling skin in the process. They laid the tarps over the bodies before rolling them into makeshift bodybags.

With such limited manpower and resources, they were only able to dig cursory pits but they piled the largest stones they could find on top of the shallow graves. Troy thought this would deter wolves and coyotes from digging them right back up. Certainly the animals were starving too, as so much wildlife had perished in the acid rain. Just as food supplies for humans continued to vanish the same was true for the creatures in the forest. Troy said a brief, silent prayer that they wouldn’t see these dead men again as he dragged the last boulder into place on top of the loose dirt.

All the walking about outside had renewed everyone’s spirits, despite the horrifying events that had brought them to this point. Once the evidence of the horror was safely buried in the woods, the girls visibly brightened and Hannah and Cordelia began grilling Brandon about the events at the hunting club, listening closely to the exciting details. Troy didn’t know what to make of Brandon’s embellishments of an already exhilarating experience but he let it slide for the moment.

After the unintended liberation from the bunker, no one really wanted to return to that stuffy space deep in the hillside. Troy promised they would only stay long enough to listen to whatever news was coming from whatever sources were still stumbling along.

The generator for the bunker seemed to still be in working order even though the hillside surrounding the shelter had deep, crooked cracks into which the generator had tilted, still humming it’s electrical tune.

Thinking ahead, Troy had constructed a weather-tight metal box for the generator and made sure it was both accessible from inside the bunker as well as theft-proof outside. But, thinking of his family’s comfort, he had made sure to decrease the noise they would have to suffer inside as much as he could. As such, he had placed the generator nearly ten feet from the bunker, only barely aboveground.

That crawlspace and locked box were now both visible completely above ground, and stood canted to one side, badly twisted. Troy estimated that the furrows in the earth were easily five feet deep. He knew he would have to rescue the generator from where it lay before someone stole it.

Back at the house, he had given a light switch an experimental flick and nothing had happened. It was amazing the world had kept power stations up and running as long as it had. More troublesome was the fact that when he had lifted the faucet handle at the house, nothing had happened then either. There had been no comforting flow of clean water into the sink. No water was a much bigger problem than no electricity. They would worry about that soon though. Now they filed into the bunker to learn their fate.