One Blink From Oblivion
Read One Blink From Oblivion Online
Authors: Mark Curtis Bullock
ONE
BLINK FROM
OBLIVION
MARK CURTIS BULLOCK
One Blink from Oblivion © 2014
by Mark Curtis Bullock
All Rights Reserved.
Cover art by Brandon Rodriguez & Mark Curtis Bullock
This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental.
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.
I dedicate this book to my parents, Wayne & Julia and to my wife Veronica. Without your love, support, understanding and encouragement this would still be nothing more than an idea in my head.
All of the words, through all of time, could not express my love for you.
For information contact the author at [email protected]
At the Center of Archaeology located on the campus of California State University Northridge, Dr. Zor El Rey peers through a microscope at a specimen that has baffled her for the better part of a week. Her conclusion that these incredibly old and somehow dormant specimens, on some level, resemble the structure of viral DNA prompted her to send an email requesting that someone from the CDC come down and take a look. She had received a response almost immediately from someone calling his or herself Dr. Al. He or she would fly in from northern California tonight and be here bright and early in the morning.
Upon first inspection, this specimen seemed lifeless and thus inert, but as Zor’s examination progressed over the subsequent days her opinion had shifted. The sample contained attributes that she had seen only in the seeds of the Date Palm that can lie dormant for as much as two-thousand years. But, what truly made the discovery odd is from where the samples were extracted.
Three weeks ago to the day, a lone hiker was on a day trip through Devil Canyon in Chatsworth, when an unexpected shower prompted him to take cover in a small cave (one of many that the area is known for). The short but unusually strong downpour washed through the mouth of the cave and down into deeper darker recesses too tight for the hiker to explore. As the temporary stream trenched its way through the gritty dirt of the cave floor, it began to uncover the outline of a human ribcage. Eventually enough of the body was freed from the soil that it left little doubt to the hiker that he had stumbled upon an unmarked grave or dumpsite. He took a few photos with his cell phone and as soon as the rain let up, he hiked to an area with cell reception and called the local authorities. Once Law enforcement had the site secure the coroner is brought in and makes the determination that the corpse in the ground is in fact a centuries-old mummified burn victim. The unmarked grave was declared an archaeological find and the team from CSUN was brought in to control the excavation. Once the digging began in earnest, the cave was found to contain twelve individual bodies (or at least parts of them). Some were fully intact and others had been separated from their heads, which were found nearby. Two of the victims’ heads were missing all together. All were burned to the point of mummification. Most were curled into the fetal position indicating that they had more than likely been burned alive. The victims that were absent heads were found lying in a sprawled position, which gave evidence to the coroner’s determination that they had been burned post mortem or after death. The fact that these bodies were unceremoniously buried under earth rather than on a raised funeral pyre -as was the custom of the native Chumash tribe- made the site even more curious.
Once transported to the Center of Archaeology at CSUN a more in-depth analysis of bone structure determined that ten of the victims were of Native-American heritage. The remaining two were of European descent, most likely Spanish in origin. Those two –whether coincidentally or intentional- were the ones who’s heads had not been recovered. Every mummy contained signs of trauma to various parts of the body (mostly clustered about the head and chest area). Both blunt and sharp force trauma had occurred in most cases.
This is the extent of the information that was released to the press up to present. It had been big news nationwide for about a week until a missing nine-year-old by the name of Trisha was discovered wandering the woods of Maine in a Red Sox jersey after apparently surviving a bear encounter and several days without food. She had gone missing after leaving a trail to relieve herself and subsequently getting lost. Presumed dead by most, her discovery was considered a miracle and her story continued to rule the airwaves.
The subsequent lack of eyes on the archaeology department proved a blessing. Under usual circumstances, a department such as theirs would thrive on such fanfare, and milk it to the nth degree since most of their funding is based on grants from interested –and deep pocketed- philanthropists. But, the circumstances surrounding this discovery were anything but the usual. Around the lab, the small collection of professors, aids, research assistants and a few select post grad students had taken to referring to the bodies as the Devil’s Dozen. The most obvious explanation for the moniker was the location of the cave (Devil Canyon) where they were found, but their odd appearance also lent it meaning.
All of the Native bodies possessed unusually long and thick fingernails for a people who used mortars and pestles to grind acorns. They also hunted, fished and farmed. A hard life of toiling in fields would seem to make the growth of such long and healthy nails quite difficult, not to mention that all of their nails should have burned along with their hair. More disturbing were the mouths full of manually sharpened teeth in three of the Native’s heads. They had apparently ground most of their front teeth into razor sharp biting instruments. To what end, the group had yet to determine, but several had suggested that perhaps they had discovered a ruling class in what was considered a traditionally chiefdom society. Stranger still was the fact that the two Spaniards contained an unusually dense muscle mass and bone structure. This would have made them virtual tanks in the world of men. The natives also possessed these characteristics -though to a lesser degree.
Where the study of the Devil’s Dozen truly became remarkable was when the first tissue samples were taken and placed for viewing under a simple microscope. Dr. Zor El Rey (a PhD in both archaeology and microbiology) knew in one look that the biology of the Devil’s Dozen were unlike anything previously recorded. It was even possible that what they had discovered was in fact a divergent species that had been eradicated in an act of genocide. There were many holes in her theory, not the least of which was her inability to explain how both Native Americans and European settlers could be similarly divergent.
However, her theory shifted dramatically when she discovered the presence of the mystery cells that appeared to belong to the family of viruses known as Filoviridae, but with some marked and drastic differences. The virus –if that is in fact what it is determined to be- is far more complex than even the Ebola virus, which belongs to the same family. The ultimate questions are; could this be what caused the mutations in the Devil’s Dozen, and could the virus in its current state pose a threat to those exposed to it. Her thoughts on both leaned toward the negative but a consultation with the CDC could further put her at ease. In the meantime, all samples and subjects were being housed together in a nitrogen-cooled refrigeration unit per her request.
Bleary-eyed and yawning, Zor places the last of the microscope slides inside a protective case and deposits them inside the sub-zero arctic coolness of the refrigeration unit. After locking the cell door, she extinguishes the lights of the vacant laboratory and locks the outer door. A cold chill worms its way down her spine as the bolt slides into place, and a sense of foreboding creeps into her conscience. No doubt, she is shaken by her discovery, but there is something else, something in the back of her mind that won’t quite jell into a fully realized forewarning. After a pause, she reopens the lab and approaches the control board for the refrigeration unit. After another moment of consideration, she adjusts the temperature dial downward another forty degrees. Upon returning in the morning she would have to wait at least an hour after adjusting the temperature of the refrigerator in the upward direction but it was more prudent to be over-abundantly safe now than sorry later.
Max rolls onto his right side pulling the sheet and comforter with him. A moment later, he hears a gentle moan from Brooke and realizes he has left her uncovered and out in the cold. He rolls back toward her and tucks her back in being careful not to wake her. He closes his eyes and finishes off with a soft kiss to her forehead, but he’s alarmed to find the texture of her skin sandpapery, like the tongue of a cat. He opens his eyes to find himself face to face with a fury black cat that smiles back at him with too wide of a grin. He asks the cat politely what he did with Brooke but it only replies with an odd throaty growl.
“Brrrrrrr,” says the cat and its grin widens still. “Brrrrrrrrrrrrrr!”
“Huh?” replies Max in confusion to the cat’s nonsensically gibberish answer.
“Brrrrrrrrrr!”
Somewhere in Max’s subconscious, he begins to formulate an idea -the idea that none of this is real. That must be it. He’s dreaming, that would explain the cat, and Brooke lying next to him in the bed for that matter. ‘Too bad it had to end’ he has time for that final thought and a final word from the cat.
“Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!”
Max opens one bleary eye. He peers at the digital clock shining its excessively bright green digits from its perch atop his dresser and across the room. The clock had been so positioned to battle Max’s tendency to roll over and slap the oversized snooze button that covered its top. The move had become so natural; pivot hips, roll torso, reach across body and
swak!
Max never even needed to crack an eye or interrupt a good dream to execute it. That move had been the cause for many tardy arrivals and the reason for his grandmother to always complain that he was on c.p.t. – a largely forgotten and derogatory term from her youth that was an acronym for ‘colored people time’. The implication being that people of color are always late, or more precisely, had their own measure of time that just happened to run a bit behind everyone else’s. The term was widely used in its heyday but was now restricted –conversely- to urban environments and exclusive country clubs for the morbidly rich.
“Four o’clock!”
The clock screams at Max with its neon numbers. Their brightness is just beginning to ebb as Max’s only open eye makes the necessary adjustment to the light. Max was always a sound sleeper and wasn’t accustomed to rising before the sun. He tries to clear his mental cobwebs and ascertain what had stirred him at such an ungodly hour.
Brrr-rrr-rrr!
It was that sound, a kind of rolling rumble. Sort of like the sound, an old diesel train makes when it’s coming down the tracks bearing down on you at full boar. But it is more than just a sound. It seems as though he can feel a slight vibration, as if someone had just kicked his bedpost and sent a shockwave through his box spring and into his mattress. That is the sensation, and then there is that sound. The two are inexorably linked.
The sound is escalating. Even in his dreary pseudo conscious state he can sense that the vibration is keeping pace, intensifying in lock step with the rumbling. His second eye opens more rapidly than the first one had and makes its adjustment a bit faster with the assistance of a little adrenaline that is now beginning to leak into Max’s nervous-system; adrenaline and an odd feeling of deja vu. Max’s heart begins to quicken in recognition of what his –barely-conscious mind is still struggling to put together. Just as the synapses in his brain begin to fire with a startling revelation, Max’s room starts to shake as though an angry god had stomped his foot down on the valley and sent a shockwave rippling through the streets unlike anything felt before.
Max lives on the bottom level of a three-story house. It’s a view-home in the hills of Chatsworth California that is firmly planted on a hillside composed of granite at its core. The front half of Max’s private level was partially constructed below the sloping ground and near to the granite slab. This proximity accounted for the earthquake’s-sounding siren that had awakened Max before the real shaking had commenced. The quake’s vibrations reverberated up through the earth and spoke through the granite giving fair warning to all in its path that the proverbial shit was not only about to hit the fan but also leave it twisted in its wake.
The shaking quickly picks up steam and in an instant is at full tilt. In Max's room the quake jumps, jolts and jars him in such a violent manner that even the idea of escape is unattainable. In his mind –suddenly filled with fear, panic and chaos– he has a brief moment of clarity and the irony of his situation becomes evident. His bed -that had always been a place of peace and tranquility that cradled him with its downy pillows, cozy blankets and forgiving softness- is a beast come to life, turned violent captor and possibly an eventual coffin by the time the shaking stops. That is
if
it ever stops. And right now, it shows no signs of slowing.
Various items are tossed hither and yond in Max’s room, and he narrowly misses being brained by a marble-bottomed football trophy that flies from its perch beside his clock with fantastic force as the earth’s momentum suddenly and angrily changes directions underneath it.
Max had been here before. His experience with the Northridge earthquake several years earlier had left a stain on his nervous system, hence that feeling of deja vu when this quake first began.
The Northridge quake was a nightmare of its own. Emotional scars formed a patchwork on Max’s psyche, inflicted by morbid sites of death and destruction that his –then adolescent – mind was unable to reconcile. At the time, he and his grandmother were living in an apartment building that collapsed and took precious lives. He often wondered why he had been spared. The top two floors of the complex had collapsed in on the bottom floor. The similarities between that situation and the one that Max now finds himself in, do not escape him. He was on the bottom floor then too. It had never dawned on him that lightening does in fact -on occasion- strike twice in the same place, especially if you’re a walking breathing lightning rod. Now here he lies, in what was formerly his bed -soon to be coffin- praying that divine intervention might again spare his life.
Max struggles against a familiar feeling of hopelessness that begins to bubble in his stomach and he tries to gain leverage to get to his feet. Luck lends him a hand and the quake jolts him in the direction of the nearest bedpost. He takes full advantage and grabs hold of it with one large hand anchored to a well-defined forearm. Pivoting on his rear, he uses his newfound leverage to swing his legs out over a floor that feels a chasm away. Before he can touch down on the tan speckled shaggy carpet, his digital clock – that had been feverishly dancing back and forth on its mantle – hurls itself sidelong at him. At the same time, the house jumps to the left seemingly in a futile attempt to flee the tempest beneath it. Max – now in full fight or flight mode – raises his free arm in a swift reflex motion and successfully defends his right temple from the flying clocks blow.
During all of the chaos, Max is keenly aware that though this quake is similar in many ways to the Northridge quake something now was quietly but unmistakably different. This one seems to come up from depths here to ‘for untold. It feels as though it permeates from the bowels of the earth itself, bringing with it the malevolence and depravity of Hell’s fire.
The thought leaves him as quickly as it comes and dissipates with a cold chill. Max has no time to ponder this. His very life is at stake and he does not intend to give up easily. He plants first his left -then right- foot on an uneven floor. Pulling with his left arm, he hoists himself onto –what feels like- the decks of a clipper ship lost at sea in the grip of a category five hurricane. The earth jerks and rumbles under his feet as it fights to rip his balance from him, but Max is determined, and fit, and fights harder to keep it. He places his left palm against the cool smoothly textured drywall of a living wall that jitters and bumps beneath his grasp. His right hand finds purchase on a lunging bed that seems angered by his escape and anxious to pull him back into its folds. He staggers like a fawn on new legs towards his door. Moonlight from the blinds above his bed is throwing slats of light across the door like an exit sign over an escape hatch.
“Shit!” he exhales as the floor bucks and his knees buckle.
He looses his -already shaky– footing completely and is slammed hard against the wall. The drywall gives in only enough to leave a crescent shaped dent from his shoulder before reflecting him back into the side of the bed. Somehow, the usually soft side of the mattress is remarkably unforgiving. Max is like a skydiver hitting the water at terminal velocity.
‘How could something so soft feel so hard’ he only has a moment for the thought as his breath is knocked out of him and he rebounds into the air again. This time he ends up sprawled in the floor in the narrow alley between the bed and wall. The damage he sustains by his collision with the wall will not be lasting. Max played half back for his college football team and knows how to take a hit.
He decides it will be best to hold out in his current position throughout the duration of the quake. At least the bed provides some cover from the -usually mundane- knickknacks that had now become deadly projectiles. The shaking had already lasted for what seemed like an eternity with no end in sight, though in actuality it had been less than a minute since that first ominous resonance. Max reaches out for one sturdy leg of his headboard and holds on like a bull rider.
Moments later the quake begins –mercifully- to rewind and retreat back into the depths. As if it senses that Max is now out of reach of its deadly tentacles it retracts into its lair; presumably to spring again at a later time on a less gamely victim. And just like that –faster than it had come-, the shaking has subsided and the room lies still. The sole exception is a framed Jerry Rice jersey that swings like a pendulum from a screw that had nearly been ripped from a stud. The quake is over and once again, Max will live to tell about it.
A loud, ‘
BOOM!’
rocks the entire house like the shockwave of an atom bomb and Max can hear the windows rattle in their frames. He holds on for a recommencement of the shaking that never comes.
Without taking a moment to assess the damage in his room Max quickly stands and wedges his feet into a pair of nearby sneakers forcing the backs of the shoes down under his heels until they resemble slippers more than Nikes. Max has always been cool under pressure and even though he’s rattled, he has the presence of mind to don the shoes and protect his feet from the broken glass that is sure to be littering the upper floors of his home.
Without hesitation Max throws, open the -previously unreachable- door and turns to the stairwell on his right. This particular set of stairs would only get Max as far as the second floor. He takes the first eight steps in two bounds hoisting his self with the help of the banisters affixed to the narrow walls on either side of him. He touches down gracefully on the landing and at once is glad he’d thought to put on the shoes as he hears the crunch of shattered glass under foot. The glass was from a window high on the landing but at ground level outside.
Without hesitation, he spins and takes the remaining steps while calling out–with a level of desperation that startles him- “Big Mama!”