Gaia Dreams (Gaiaverse Book 1) (59 page)

"Now why should I...oh! Oh no, no, no, no, no, I'm
not having the dreams! That's impossible! That's...that's...."

Rachel stood there, dumbfounded as John shook
his head at her. "You know, sis, you can be a dope sometimes," he said to her. "All
this talk about dreams since you got here and you never realized that your
dreams were
the
dreams?" He started to laugh.

"Hey! I didn't dream about the flood, did I? I
didn't dream about the earthquake. How was I supposed to know...and maybe you're
wrong! Maybe my dreams aren't like Sam's or anybody's!" she said hotly.

"Rachel, it's good if you're having the dreams,
it's helpful. Don't get all bent out of shape."

They walked into Max's room. He was sitting
quietly on the floor holding Ruby, who was still shaking.

"Is she going to be okay?" he asked Black.

"Sure she will, just give her some time to wake
up all the way. She's scared, that's all," Black replied.

"Everybody, let's go into the den and see if we
can sort this one out," John said. As he walked toward the den, he heard the
cell phone ringing. It was going to be another long night.

Power People Home, Table Rock Lake

"Oh, my god, oh, my god," Lisanne heard herself
saying as she sat up in bed. Merlin was crouched next her, shaking. Gathering
him up in her arms, she stumbled from the room, turning on lights as she went.

"Andy? Andy, wake up," she called out
approaching his bedroom door. Only to see it yanked open as he barreled through
it looking like he was being chased.

"Holy crap!" he said, coming to halt at seeing
Lisanne. "You too?"

"Yes, yes--an absolutely awful dream this time,"
she said, clutching Merlin tightly to her chest. She watched as Andy's
breathing slowed down, and realized suddenly she had started to feel calm as
soon as she saw him. The significance of that fact left her standing there
staring at him. He made her feel calm, safe--how was that possible? He wasn't
anything like the men she usually went after. He wasn't like anyone she'd ever
met. He couldn't possibly be right for her, such a straight-laced, uptight kind
of guy, why he--

"Lisanne? Lisanne, are you okay," she heard him
saying, puzzlement and concern in his voice.

"Um, yeah, yeah, I'm okay, fine, sure, no
problem," she babbled, blushing as she heard herself. Blushing as she became
very aware she was now staring at his bare chest, and blushing more at the fact
she was blushing. She never blushed.

Andy reached out and put an arm around her,
walking toward the living room. "Come on, let's grab the phone and call the
Samuels' house. I'm sure they're up too."

He watched her nod and thought,
Now if I can
just manage to talk, instead of grabbing her and kissing her...God, black silk is
amazing on her...is she blushing?

The Samuels' House

"Okay, I think we've got everyone in on the
conference call and you are all on the speakerphone now as well," John
announced. He settled back in his chair and looked around the room at the now
wide-awake group in his den. A rather grim and sad-looking group, he thought.

"Now, everyone dreamed of the volcano, is that
right?" he asked. Nods all around the room, except for Samantha, he realized.
She looked startled for a second there. What the hell did that mean?

Mrs. Philpott's voice over the speaker sounded
tired as she said, "Yes, a volcano--in the west somewhere, I think."

"It was Mount Rainier," Lisanne said
confidently. "I'm quite sure of that."

"Wait--that can't be right," Andy said
interrupting her. "I know it was Mount Baker."

Mark Shapiro interjected, "Well, they are both
out in the Northwest, part of the Cascade mountain range, right?"

Gracie said, "At least we will be safe here...but
one volcano or two volcanoes out there...either way a lot of people will be
killed."

John glanced at Sam, who was sitting in her
mother's lap now, cookies untouched on a plate by her side. She's too young for
all this, he thought, too young and it's too much to ask, then he took a deep
breath and said, "Samantha, is this right? Will it be two volcanoes?"

Sam looked up at him and said, "The volcanoes?
Oh, yeah, Daddy, there's at least two. Lots of fire and mud and flying rocks,
and lots and lots of dead people. People running and not knowing where to
go--that stuff that runs down the mountainside--lava, that's it. The animals are
already leaving, but the people, the people aren't. They don't think it's gonna
happen."

Jessica hugged her daughter and said fiercely
into the silence, "I'm not sure we really need Samantha to do this. I mean most
of you had the dream in some form, right? Can't you put the pieces together
without her? She doesn't need to re-live volcano dreams."

Various voices of assent could be heard as John
gazed at his wife's face and then said resolutely, "Yes, it is necessary
because Samantha didn't dream of the volcanoes, did you, sweetheart?"

"What?" Rachel blurted out, turning to stare at
Sam.

"But why were you so upset, Sam?" Black asked.

The voices of the others stilled as they waited.
Samantha sat up straighter and looked at Black standing so tall and serious by
the door, at Rachel and with her sleep-mussed curls and the gun Sam knew was
under her shirt, at Max, who she knew felt bewildered and confused sitting on
the floor holding Ruby in his lap, at her mother with those worried eyes, and
finally at her father waiting patiently...and the others all around town, on
their phones connected here to this room...connected to her in an entirely
different way.

She sighed and said, "I dreamed of what comes
after the volcanoes. I dreamed of a crazy man named the President, who is gonna
do a very bad thing. I dreamed of a big, big, big bomb. I dreamed of a huge
wave...the hugest wave. I dreamed of big, big cities falling into the sea,
crashing down as the wave hits them. I dreamed that the Statue of Liberty falls
over. I dreamed of people, people, people, so many people washed away like
floating dolls, smashed up people, people who can't breathe, people who can't
escape. It's called the Eastern Seaboard. Perceval helped me know that. And it's
gonna be gone if nobody stops that big bomb."

"Oh, my fucking god," Lisanne said into the
horrified silence.

Hotel in Boston, Massachusetts

"Zack, Zack, wake up!" Maria said as she tried
to shake Zack awake. She'd been sound asleep until he thrashed around in his
sleep. She'd rolled off the bed to avoid his flailing arms.

Suddenly his eyes popped open. Maria noticed
irrelevantly how they looked silver and gleaming in the moonlight falling
through an opening in the curtains. "Can you hear me?" she asked.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm awake," he said shakily. "God!
That one was bad."

Maria brought him a glass of water from the
bathroom. "Here, drink this."

"I need something stronger than water," he
observed, but he gulped the water greedily.

Maria went around the room turning on lights.
Running his hands through his tangled hair, Zack watched her, thankful she was
there. And he was not unappreciative of the skimpy, cream-colored nightie she
wore, he thought, bemused. If you're going to have a god-awful nightmare, Maria
was something good to wake up to.

"Now, tell me," Maria said, climbing back onto
the bed to sit across from him.

"Washington D.C., New York, Boston, for god's
sake! They're finished. Maybe."

"Maybe?" Maria asked. Then, she looked at him
with something beyond sadness in her eyes, "All of them?"

"Yeah, maybe," Zack replied. "That's the weird
part."

"Oh?
That's
the weird part? This whole
thing is damned weird, Zack," Maria retorted.

He laughed weakly and said, "It's unbelievable,
yet it is happening. And now this...this insanity in the latest dream...I can't
believe it. But if it's true...."

Maria said slowly, "Maybe we can warn people, or--"

"It's the 'or' I'm thinking about. This isn't
like the others. This could perhaps be stopped--but how?" he muttered quietly. "I
don't know how we could do it." He looked up to see her watching him with a
look of concern, but also one of love in her deep, dark eyes.
I could drown in
those eyes,
he thought.
Lose myself in those depths.

She watched something change in his expression,
saw fear replaced by passion.

He said quietly, "Can you just come here and
kiss me? You and I, right now, we are the only non-weird thing happening in the
world. So how about you let me make love to you, and then we'll figure out if
there's a chance in hell of us stopping this nightmare. I need you right now,
rather desperately, love."

Without a word she crawled up the bed to him and
stared into his eyes for a moment before gently kissing his lips. Feeling his
arms wrap around her body and hands running slowly down her back, she thought,
however it all ended, if they all died tomorrow, they had each other in this
moment.
For right now,
she thought, pressing her body against his as the kiss
became more intense,
for now, we are all that matters.

Salmon Creek, Idaho

"You know, maybe if there had only been the one
volcano blowing its top, maybe so many folks wouldn't have died. But like
Gladys says these days, you just don't know about Mother Nature--altho' maybe
some know more than others these days. Anyway, some geo-something guy came
through here and said the whole damn mountain range must have let loose, those
earthquakes and stuff triggering other events. Nobody will ever know. There was
a video I saw, a camera that caught the first part of the first eruption, guess
the files got saved to some guy's computer. And there weren't no warning, that's
the thing. No billows of steam and smoke ahead of time...just all of a sudden,
it was like one whole side of that mountain collapsed in on itself and starting
sliding down. Then the picture is so filled with smoke and ash and stuff you
can't really see anything after that. But there was a couple survivors we met
here not long ago. They probably won't ever be right in the head, not after
what they went through.

"Guess the thing we all learned, what those poor folks
learned, is you just can't live that close to a volcano. That maybe the
mountains were here first and will be here after we're gone. And you sure as
hell better not build any cities in the path of those whatchamacallits...debris
flow thingies. Not a good idea a'tall. Guess we can't just act like we got
control over all of it, over nature. Leastwise, we sure as hell can't control
any damn volcanoes. Nope, not by a long shot."

Washington State

Barney and Faith were just waking up in their
tent in the Glacier Park camping area. Their "honeymoon hotel," they called it.
For two forest rangers who shared a passion for the outdoors as well as a
passion for each other, their marriage in a valley below the day before had
been a beautiful event. And the honeymoon, of course, would involve camping.
But with a nice roomy tent and every amenity they'd always wanted.

Faith heard Barney moving around, pulling out
cooking gear, and heard a loud clatter as the pans crashed from his hands. She
heard him say, "I'll love you always!" in a kind of shout. Then she burned up
along with him in an instant as the superheated air in the pyroclastic flow
washed over them.

Evan Saunders looked through the binoculars and
didn't notice how hard the plastic pressed against his eye sockets. He couldn't
move, couldn't run, could only watch as a huge river of what looked like mud
came speeding toward his house. His final thoughts were tinged with surprise
while he wondered how something that looked like wet concrete could move so
damn fast. Then the debris-filled flow devoured his house, sucking him under in
a heartbeat.

Seattle's mayor woke to the jolting of
earthquakes. Grabbing his phone and finding it non-functional, he began
swearing and yelling over the roaring noise around him. "I thought the
damn-fool idiots said it was a fucking volcano, not earthquakes!" Any slim hope
of organizing a successful evacuation from the terrified city died with the
mayor as the fancy chandelier above his head crashed down.

Roger Stewart had lived in Tacoma his whole
life. He loved the view of the mountains from his deck. After yoga and then
some herbal tea, he stood out there admiring the view each morning, which gave
him a great start to his day at the health-food store. Today was going to be
different. First, the earthquakes didn't seem to want to stop, bouncing him
around on the redwood deck. Then, in a moment's peace, he looked up to see
billowing smoke where the mountains should be--ash he thought, horrified--reaching
so high into the sky, it shouldn't be possible. Glancing toward the east, he
saw far in the distance what looked like explosions. He remembered there was a
housing development there. There had been. Now he was watching houses explode
into flames as the growing cloud of hot volcanic gases consumed everything in
its path. And just what was its path, he wondered. Stumbling into his house to
grab his shoes and his car keys, he headed for the Volvo outside. At least for
now he was still alive--a situation which could easily change in a second, he
thought grimly. Trying hard to recall the maps from the evacuation seminar he'd
attended years ago, he turned the sturdy car west, the only direction open to
him, and wished irrelevantly that he had some glazed donuts. If he was going to
die anyway, he damn well deserved at least one glazed donut before heading on
to the next stage of life.

"Experts from the Montserrat volcano of
Soufriere Hills in the Caribbean today said they believe it's possible a new
type of pyroclastic flow could have occurred in Washington State this morning
as the volcanoes erupted. Pyroclastic flows are usually made up of a basal flow
which is filled with debris like rocks and boulders and runs along the ground
at speeds reaching 200 miles per hour, while a top layer filled with ash rides
above it in what is called a surge. However, in this new type of flow, the ash
drops down out of the surge and forms a new flow. Since it's made up of very
fine particles of ash, it moves even faster and spreads farther, moving like a
river. Because the rocks and gas inside a pyroclastic flow can reach
temperatures as high as 1200 degrees, anything in their path would be consumed.
At this time, the government says it has no way of knowing how many thousands
may have died, or what the property damage could be. It's safe to assume,
however, there has been massive loss of life in the Northwest United States
today. This is Maria Santiago, reporting to you from Boston."