Authors: James F. David
Conyers let the herd catch her, keeping between escaping humans and the fire burning ever closer. It was a narrow strip now, and Conyers could see ahead that the fire was already up the hill. The leader would see it soon and turn again. Conyers drew up close to the leader, shooting it twice in the rump. The Stripy jumped, bucked, and then reflexively turned away from Conyers, toward the burning side of the meadow. Conyers turned away, pulling up, letting Torino rest, and the herd pass. When the leader realized his mistake, he tried to turn again, but the mass of confused animals pressed forward. The leader stumbled just short of the burning edge and was trampled, striped animals falling, squealing, and tumbling into the fire.
It was horrific sight, and Conyers turned away, looking to see how the evacuation was going. Just as she did, a fireball struck at the edge of the forest, the blast shredding trees and sending slivers of wood in all directions. The flash-bang startled Torino, and he reared. Conyers hung on, leaning into the horse, but then a wall of hot air struck. Torino stumbled and fell on his right side. Conyers yanked her right leg up and rolled off to keep it from getting crushed. Now flaming chunks of wood rained, and Conyers covered her face, brushing furiously at material. She heard Torino’s pained squealing, then the horse struggling to get up. When she felt it was safe, Conyers uncovered her face and brushed matter from her filthy uniform. Torino had trotted a few yards away, and stood, head low, no energy or spirit left. Conyers’s once beautiful mount was filthy, covered in ash, mud, and now blood that dribbled down his left shoulder.
Smoke obscured the gap in the hills that was their only way home, so there was no way to know if the passage was still there, or how big it was. Hurting from head to toe, Conyers tried to get to her feet, only to collapse. Her ruined knee could not support her. Shifting her weight, she got up on her good leg and then hopped toward Torino. Three hops and she tripped, dropping face-first into a patch of ferns and big white flowers. Waiting for the pain in her knee to subside, she spit out flower petals and rolled over, moving her left leg with both hands. Turning backwards, she used her arms to scoot up the hill toward Torino.
Torino stood, head down, breathing like an asthmatic. Conyers reached the exhausted horse, studying the gash in his shoulder. It was bad, but not fatal. Conyers could not mount Torino anyway, so there was no question of riding the injured animal. Using a stirrup, Conyers pulled herself up on her good leg, and then high enough to grab the saddle horn. Hanging on the side of her mount, Conyers said, “Time to go home, boy.” Then clicked her tongue to get the horse moving. It took three tries, but finally Torino took a step. Managing a slow walk, the shell-shocked horse moved through a landscape of shattered trees and small fires, dragging Conyers along with him.
Remembering the shrinking exit, Conyers clucked her tongue again, encouraging Torino to move faster.
“Hurry, Torino,” Conyers said. “Please hurry, like your life depends on it.”
55
Demolition
Just as Jesus sacrificed Himself for us, I would sacrifice myself for any of you. And each of you should be prepared to sacrifice yourself for the good of the Community.
—Reverend
Present Time
Orlando, Florida
Tapping along the freshly painted wall, Jacob was a Realtor again—he knew about these things. The wall was sheetrock over wood studs set sixteen inches apart. Because it was an interior wall, there would be no insulation. There were two outlets along the wall, and no plumbing. Pushing through people to the opening in the door, he yelled out to Crazy.
“Break through the wall, Crazy. Walk over five paces, and break through the wall.”
“Bust it down?” Crazy yelled over the din.
“Chop through it!” Jacob shouted back. “Make another hole.”
“All right,” Crazy said.
A few seconds later, Jacob heard furious hacking on the wall about where he intended—past the last electrical outlet, and far from the door. Smoke filled the room now, people choking, coughing, children crying, rubbing their eyes. Kicking at the wall opposite where Crazy worked, Jacob found the particleboard harder to break up than he expected. He cracked it on his first kick, but it took five hard kicks to make a hole. He was enlarging it when Crazy’s machete broke through, nearly cutting into Jacob’s shoulder. Jacob backed up as far as he could in the crowded room. Crazy was frenetic, if not systematic, and holes appeared here and there.
“Take a break, Crazy!” Jacob shouted.
The hacking stopped, and Jacob and other men kicked, punched, and ripped away particleboard. Crazy worked the other side like the maniac he was. Soon, there was enough wall removed to allow people to squeeze between studs. Jacob kept working, with Crazy on the other side, helping clear another opening between studs. Now people flowed steadily out of the room, the logjam broken. Grandma Reilly shuffled by, too exhausted to notice Jacob. Surprised at the toughness of the old woman, Jacob thought Leah would be glad that her sewing teacher had made it. Watching families move from the room, Jacob felt some relief. Then he realized the flow through the back wall had slowed, helping account for the clearing of the room. Pressing on the back wall, Jacob measured the opening, realizing it was half the size of what it had been. Estimating the size, and thinking of Torino, Jacob thought he might never see that horse again. Then Jacob realized the flow of people from the other side had stopped. In the confusion, Jacob had no idea of how many people had come through, or how many had been in their group. What he did know was that neither Ranger Wynooski nor Officer Conyers had escaped yet.
“Crazy?” Jacob called across the fast-emptying room. “I’m going to the other side.”
Without waiting for an answer, Jacob passed back through the shrinking opening.
56
Inferno
About sacrifice and the offering of sacrifices, sacrificial animals think quite differently from those who look on: but they have never been allowed to have their say.
—Friedrich Nietzsche
Sixty-five Million Years Ago
Unknown Place
It was like stepping into an oven, Jacob throwing up his arms to deflect some of the heat. There was a crater from a bolide strike just inside the tree line. It had pulverized trees, sending flaming shrapnel in all directions. Two men and a pregnant woman were down—it was Nicole Schwimmer, her husband Mitch, and his younger brother Paul. Nicole wept as she pulled burning splinters from the backs of Mitch and Paul. Wynooski was flat on her back, unconscious, and Weller was sitting up, bleeding from a head wound, his clothing smoking. Washburne was unconscious, his legs on fire, while Sergeant Kwan beat at the flames with one hand, the other arm limp, pierced clear through by a narrow sliver. Torino and Conyers were nowhere to be seen.
Jacob hurried to Nicole’s side, quickly pulling the rest of the big splinters from Mitch and Paul. Mitch came to as he did, but was groggy, mumbling something that made no sense.
“Can you walk, Nicole?” Jacob asked.
“Yes,” she said sobbing. “Help Mitch.”
Helping Nicole to her feet, Jacob then pulled Mitch up. With his pregnant wife guiding her husband, Jacob sent them through the passage, Mitch about as steady as a drunk. Next, he took Paul by the armpits and dragged him toward the opening. Even as emaciated as the rest of the Community, he was a heavy man, and Jacob struggled to move him.
“Let me do that,” Crazy said, appearing from the passage and pushing Jacob aside.
Much stronger than Jacob, Crazy dragged the still-unconscious Paul through the opening. With the Schwimmers safe, Jacob went to Wynooksi, who was sitting up now, pressing her palm to a gash on her cheek. Blood soaked through her shirt over her left breast, slowly spreading. Jacob helped her up and toward the exit.
“I’m not fat,” Wynooski said.
“No, just big boned,” Jacob said.
Jacob handed her off to Crazy when he appeared, and then hurried to Sergeant Kwan, helping strip the smoldering trousers off Washburne’s blistered legs. Then it was time to take him through.
“Can you help carry him?” Jacob asked, looking at the sergeant’s pierced arm.
“This arm’s still good,” Kwan said.
Together they dragged Washburne to the exit, where Crazy took him, Sergeant Kwan following. That left Lieutenant Weller, who was up and walking. Taking him by the arm, Jacob got him to the exit.
“Where’s Officer Conyers?” Jacob asked.
“She headed off a stampede,” Weller said cryptically.
Jacob let Weller enter the passage on his own, realizing the opening was barely above his head and had shriveled deep into what was now nothing more than a crevice. Longing to be with his family, but concerned for the officer, Jacob lingered, walking to where the meadow began, searching through the smoke for the officer. Conyers’s horse appeared a minute later, stumbling through the smoke, the officer hanging on to the saddle, being dragged along. Looking back at the opening, and then at Conyers and her horse, Jacob hesitated, calculating.
“Sorry, Leah,” Jacob said, and ran for the officer, jumping small fires and chunks of logs.
Falling debris started scattered fires, so some of the fires served as backfires, leaving blackened ground. Jacob used these areas, winding around fires to reach the officer and her mount.
“Let go of the saddle,” Jacob said. “I’ll carry you.”
“I won’t go without Torino,” Conyers said.
“It’s too late,” Jacob said. “The passage is too small.”
“Not without Torino,” Conyers repeated.
“Then go,” Jacob said, lifting Conyers by the waist and letting her swing her leg over the saddle.
Conyers gasped when she hit the saddle, reaching for her left leg and squeezing it just above the knee. Examining the leg, Jacob found a dirty, tattered pant leg with small scratches, but no major blood loss.
“Go, go, go!” Jacob shouted, slapping Torino on the rump.
Torino jumped, and then managed a trot. Jacob ran too, the horse easily outdistancing him. Dodging fires, Jacob zigzagged through terrain resembling a battlefield. Torino and Conyers reached the opening, riding into the cleft. Jacob got to it a couple of minutes later to find Conyers sitting on Torino, staring at the opening.
“It’s too late,” Conyers said, looking at the opening.
The opening had shrunk to the dead end of the small ravine, now stretched between one wall and a pile of rocks that had fallen from the other wall.
“The opening’s too small for Torino,” Conyers said.
“But we can get through,” Jacob said, reaching up and helping Conyers down, letting her lean on him.
Another bolide struck on the far side of the hill, the sky lit bright as day, and then fading to a dull orange, the thunder of the explosion rolling over the hill and echoing off distant features.
“You can’t save him,” Jacob said, putting an arm around Conyers’s waist and lifting, carrying her to the opening.
“Stop it,” Conyers said, wriggling loose and pushing away.
Jacob released her, and she collapsed, grabbing her bad knee.
“He saved our lives,” Conyers said. “How can we leave him?”
“Because we’ll die too, if we stay,” Jacob said. “Look, that opening is about gone, and I’ve got a family on the other side. I promised them I would get them a house and take them to Dairy Queen. I’m going to keep that promise. Are you coming or not?”
Conyers looked at Torino, and then back to Jacob. “Help me get to him,” Conyers said.
Jacob helped her up on her good leg, and then to the horse, where she hugged his neck, crying. Wheezing with each breath, his head hanging, Torino seemed not to notice the hug, but when Jacob started to help Conyers toward the opening, Torino nuzzled Conyers’s side. Conyers turned, stroking Torino’s muzzle, then let go reluctantly, letting Jacob help her walk away from the horse. She was crying hard when he started to help her get down to crawl through the opening. As they bent, Crazy came through, machete in hand.
“Who’s next?” Crazy said.
“We’re the last,” Jacob said.
“Why is the police girl crying?” Crazy asked.
“She has to leave her horse,” Jacob said. “Now, help me pull her through.”
“Leave the horsie?” Crazy asked, frowning deeply.
“The opening’s too small,” Jacob said, frustrated with Crazy’s interference.
“Make the opening bigger!” Crazy said.
Crazy was a man of few words, and this was one of the longest conversations Jacob had ever had with him.
“We don’t know how,” Jacob said.
“Do you know how to make it bigger?” Conyers asked, hopeful.
“Sure,” Crazy said, turning to look at the opening. “See, it sticks to the wall here and the rocks here?”
Crazy traced the edges of the opening with his machete. On the left, the opening clung to a vertical rock face about three feet high and then recessed a few feet before becoming a vertical wall towering above them. On the right, the opening conformed to the irregular curves of a pile of rocks that had fallen from somewhere high above.
“Move the rocks,” Crazy said.
Jacob understood. Without the pile of rocks, the opening might stretch to the vertical rock wall, which rose twenty feet before recessing somewhere out of sight.
“But it’s shrinking fast,” Jacob said.
“Please try,” Conyers said.
“All right,” Crazy said. “For the horsie.”
Before Jacob could argue, Crazy was at the rock pile, using the machete to pry rocks loose, and then throwing them down the ravine. Parking Conyers and Torino on the far side, Jacob helped Crazy as best he could, staying clear of the manic machete work.
“Dig here,” Jacob said, studying Crazy’s random excavations.
Directing Crazy’s digging, they undermined the top boulder, and then Jacob and Crazy climbed up and behind it, wedging themselves between another rock behind the boulder. Placing their feet side by side on the boulder, they pushed with all their might. The boulder slid, and then tumbled off the pile, rolling down the ravine a few yards. The passage instantly reshaped, now running over the top of the lower boulders, and then stretching up the rock wall to about six feet.