We woke up the next morning to a heavy drizzle.
Doug and Gary were already awake. They were over by the split peering down into the gap. They were soaked.
Up on the top of the other side of the split, we heard helicopter engines starting up followed by the chopping of rotor blades. Within a few minutes, a helicopter rose to a hover then slowly moved over the edge.
It was coming down for us.
“Yes!” Doug hollered. “We’re going to cross!”
The helicopter landed neatly on the crooked ground around
us. The side door was opened.
Doug and Gary, being closer, ran to the doors first. They hopped in. They stood up inside the helicopter, waiting for us to get there. When we did, they pulled us in. We all sat down on the deck of the chopper.
The helicopter started going up. The drizzle sprayed around us in the heavy wind from the rotor wash. Some of the drizzle came into the copter causing me to close my eyes. The water felt fresh on my face.
When I opened my eyes, Mindy, Gary and Doug were gone.
I looked around, panicked.
The pilot turned
in their seat to look at me. It was a woman wearing a fur-lined captain’s cap. Some of the woman’s hair was missing – or, had it been
ripped out
? The woman looked familiar to me. Suddenly, I realized it was Tara. Half of her face had been eaten away by earthworms. She smiled at me. Her mouth was full of dirty slugs. One of them fell from between her teeth and others fell out the side of her ripped cheek. She gargled at me “We’re going up, Dan! Up! Up! Up with the slut!!”
Then I noticed the co-pilot. It was Donna. She was staring at me. It looked like she had a bullet hole in the center of her forehead. One of her eyes was full of blood, the other was missing. She nodded to me as she blinked steadily with her one eye.
I turned. I needed to get out of here!
Mel was standing next to the side door. Her head was cocked at an odd angle.
She was naked, fingering herself. “I miss you,” she smiled showing her rotten teeth. She stared at me with her gouged out eyes.
Then Rachel was next to me, naked, a long dildo was strapped around her waist. She was swinging her hips back and forth making the dildo spin around in front of her. Her neck was sliced. I could see her collarbone sticking out of her neck. She giggled, “
Do the helicopter...do the helicopter, Dan. Fuck me in the helicopter, Dan…”
…helicopter…
…
the helicopter, Dan! It’s coming…
“Dan, wake up, the helicopter is coming down!” Mindy was shaking me to wake me up.
Just a dream
…I thought.
Holy shit!
Standing up I shook my head.
It was drizzling. Mindy’s hair was soaked, matted to her head. Gary and Doug stood side by side, looking at me, water dripping from their clothes.
“I’m ok,” I said. “Bad dream. Let’s go.”
We watched the helicopter come down. It landed with a bump on the twisted ground. The side door opened. The guy who claimed to be a geologist held the door open. He waved for us to come over.
All four of us got to the helicopter together. The geologist reached for Mindy first. She took his hand. He yanked her in and then helped the rest of us up. When we were all sitting down, he gave the pilot a thumbs up, slammed the side rolling door shut, and we took off up along the side of the split.
“Hello again,” he hollered at Mindy and I. “I’m glad you came back!”
I nodded my thanks to him.
The drizzle turned into a heavier rain. I watched out the front windows as the rain was thrown around by the rotor’s spinning. The pilot had the windshield wipers going at high speed.
Fucking Rachel,
I screamed to myself. I hadn’t thought of her in a long time.
Why would she suddenly come back to me? And Tara too? And fucking Mel! Jesus!
The helicopter stopped ascending. We then flew to the southeast.
We landed in the center of a small town’s business district. It was a large open square area surrounded by small shops. An American flag hanging on a flag pole whipped in the winds of the rotor blades.
The geologist said “I’m sure you’re going to like it better on this side of the split” as he opened the door.
Right outside, not more than fifteen feet away, a line of soldiers in chamo weather gear stood in the rain. They all had rifles pointing at us. Rain dripped from the rifle barrels.
Behind them, a larger man stood. He wore an officer’s hat. I didn’t recognize him. He had a rain slicker on.
“We got them sir. We are allowing them to cross. They will land in Alvarado.”
“Excellent. We have been after these two for too long. I’m going to give you a commendation for this, Sharon. Job well done.”
Master Sergeant Dean Sharon nodded. It was about damn time someone noticed his work. He’d been busting his ass down here in Texas for too long without any pats on the back.
“Thank you, sir,” he said.
“Keep them held until I get there.”
“Yes sir, I will. We’ll hold them in a temporary brig until we can move them back to Garland.”
“Fine.
Have a room set up for me too. I’ll be tired after the flight in from Omaha.”
Sharon snapped, “Yes sir, we’ll get it taken care of.”
It was a small, deserted town. Small empty businesses lined the center of the town. At one time I imagined that a gazebo might have sat in the center of the square. Now our helicopter sat on the cement pad. Rain was pouring down.
The geologist helped Mindy out. I followed. Doug and Gary stayed inside.
“Morris, take these two to the city hall,”
the officer behind the line of soldiers said as he nodded to Mindy and I.
The geologist nodded toward a small building on the northwest side of the city center. We hurriedly ran towa
rd that direction in the rain.
The officer then commanded “Private First Class Owens and Private Hollis – we know you’re in there. Come on out!”
The empty door of the helicopter stood open but neither of them came out.
“Warn them,” the officer said.
One of the soldiers in the line fired a warning shot over the top of the helicopter blades.
Still they didn’t come out.
By that time, Mindy, Morris and I were at the entrance of a small one-story building. A sign outside told us that this was the
Alvarado City Hall
. Morris opened the door for us as we went in.
There was a long large stand-up receptionist’s desk as we went in. The ele
ctricity was on in here, too. Behind the desk, a woman sat at a typewriter typing something very quickly. Morris looked at her with a strange sideways smile as we passed her. He led us down a hallway.
We passed a few closed doors. Behind one I thought I heard someone sending a Morse code message.
He led us into a small room. He flipped on the light. In here there was simply a small table with three chairs. One chair was opposite the other two. More folded chairs leaned against the wall. The room had no windows. The walls were made of wood paneling.
“Someone will be in here in a few minutes,” Morris said. “They’ll answer your questions.”
“Can we go?” I asked quickly.
He motioned for us to sit down. “Just relax.”
Mindy asked “What will you do with those other two men – the ones in the helicopter?”
“Hang them,” Morris said casually.
“They went AWOL during the undead war.” He left, locking the door behind him.
As soon as Morris left the room, I turned to Mindy. I told her that we shouldn’t tell these people who we
really were. I didn’t want to take any chances telling them that we were the ones who had escaped from Moses Lake.
This was obviously a military base of some kind - probably a mobile one, I didn’t know - but if Washburn was still after us like he had been back in Concordia, then we really shouldn’t let these people know who we were.
Mindy agreed.
Ten minutes later, the officer from outside came in. He took off his cover, walked over to Mindy and I, stuck his hand out and said “I am Master Sergeant Dean Sharon.”
I stood up. Shaking his hand I said “I’m Mike Thomas. This is my wife Lynn.”
“Nice to meet you folks.
Did you know Private First Class Owens and Private Hollis?”
I looked at him with a cocked head. I was acting like I didn’t know what he was talking about. I didn’t wan
t to let on that we knew them.
“
Who
?” I asked.
“The two soldiers who came up the rift with you in the helicopter...”
I shook my head. “Oh, no. They got in just as the helicopter took off. We never even spoke to them.”
“I see,” he said. “May I ask where you two are from?”
“Santa Fe,” I said.
“Nice country there,” he said. “My wife and I used to vacation there.”
“Yes it is nice there,” Mindy said.
“What did you do there?” he asked me.
“I was a self-employed carpenter.”
“And you?” he asked Mindy.
“A waitress at
Denny’s.”
“And you two are married?” he asked.
“We were living together,” I said. “We wanted to get married but then this happened.”
“Where are you heading?”
“Do you really need to know our information?” I asked. “We just wanted to cross here because someone told us that the other side was sinking.”
“And who told you this?” Sharon asked.
“It was something we heard.”
“Where did you hear it?”
“On the road.”
Sharon cleared his throat. “Actually, Mr. Thomas, that information is top secret. Only military personnel know about it.”
“We didn’t hear it from anyone in the military,” Mindy interrupted. “A little girl told us.”
“A little girl…” he said, flustered, his
voice lowering.
“Yes, in Oklahoma.”
He sighed, pulled the single chair out from under the table and sat down. Mindy and I sat down as well on the other two chairs across from him. He said “I guess there isn’t any reason to keep it all top secret anymore,” he grunted a laugh then shrugged. “Who do we need to keep it secret from?” He was talking more to himself than to us now. “Most of the world’s population has been wiped out…who would benefit from knowing that the earth is splitting into three large pieces? Would someone want to declare a war and try to take over one of the pieces that aren’t going to fall away into space?”
Mindy and I were holding hands, looking at him, not saying a word.
He looked at us. “Yes, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas, the earth has split into three pieces. Morris, the man who brought you in here, is actually a scientist…well; a geologist. He and another man have discovered this. Morris says that we are stable – on this section of the earth,” he said as he held his hand out flat, palm down. “The area north and west of here is sinking. It’s a
whole
chunk of the earth, sinking and falling away. The Atlantic chunk has moved almost entirely out of the earth’s orbit. Morris says that there is no chance that it will re-enter so we don’t need to worry about a collision.”
“When you say ‘chunks,’ what do you mean?” Mindy asked.
He held his hands up, making a circle. “Picture the earth like you were looking at it from space. You see the circle?”
“Yes,” Mindy nodded.
“Picture it like a pie. Now picture it breaking into 3 large pieces. This is what is happening to the earth.”
“How did this happen” I asked.
“Believe it or not, it was a series of low yield nuclear blasts. The blasts sent a shudder so strong through the earth that, initially, it caused the earth to lose its axis. The earth actually shook – throughout the
whole
earth. When it happened, large cracks formed. The cracks went through the entire earth thus causing the splits.”
Mindy’s hand was gripping mine tight
er. She asked “Where did these nukes come from?”
“One of our bases in Washington
state.”
“Was it a mistake?
Did they go off by accident?” I asked
“No, the commanding officer ordered each launch separately.”
“Why?” Mindy and I asked both in unison.
Sharon stood up. “They were launched in an effort to contain a virus. You can ask the commanding officer more about it when he gets here. I’m sure he’ll have questions for you as well.”
“You mean he survived the nukes?” I asked.
“Yes. He transferred himself to Omaha after the fourth launch. He took charge of the base there. When he heard that our two AWOL friends were on the helicopter that you two came up with, he demanded that we hold
them until he arrives. He should arrive within the hour.”