The Survivor Chronicles: Book 1, The Upheaval (37 page)

“Where?” John demanded.

“Anywhere but here.”

“The stadium?”

Carl’s gaze drifted back toward the muddled sky. “I don’t know, just get us somewhere John. We’ve already been shot at in this town; I think it’s best if we get out of here as soon as we can.”

John nodded as he hurried around the hood of the truck. Rochelle was already opening the passenger side door when he stopped her. “You know, you wouldn’t be such a bad little sister if I ever had one.”

She turned back to him and grinned as she tossed her hair back. “Please. If I had an older brother he would be way cooler than you.”

A short burst of laughter escaped him as she hopped into the truck. Yeah, she was a keeper; he might even let her out of the middle of the truck later. Might.

She was already studying the map when he slid in beside her. Carl’s finger trailed over the map as he tried to decipher the roadways. “We can try and go this way. It will get us to Route One at least, and then to the stadium if we decide to go. If we run into a problem we can go this way.” Carl leaned back over them, placed the gun in the glove box and took out a pen. He made a few marks on the map and released it to Rochelle.

Rochelle pulled the map into the middle and dropped it in between them as Carl resumed driving. John followed Carl’s markings but the route was anything but familiar to him. It didn’t matter anyway; they didn’t make it far before their path came to an abrupt end, blocked by a giant crater in the earth. Carl stopped the truck and placed it in park as they sat and stared across the enormous cavern sprawling before them. It wasn’t nearly as big as the one that had claimed his father, but there was something ominous about the glow that filtered up from inside. A glow that hadn’t been present from the crater in Bridgewater.

“Do we even want to look?” Rochelle inquired.

“No.”

Even as John said the word, he and Carl were simultaneously opening their doors. John’s heart hammered as he crept closer. He was half convinced it was going to collapse beneath him, but even so he found himself irresistibly drawn forward, unable to stop his feet from dropping one in front of the other as they inched forward. He could see broken buildings lining some of the upper shelves of rock. Most of them were burned, broken skeletons of their former selves but a couple still held their brick façade.

He was sweating profusely, and half convinced his skin was starting to blister before they even made it to the edge. Dirt and rocks kicked out under his feet. They clattered against the side as they tumbled into the hole. He took a step back as Carl pressed his arm into Rochelle’s chest and pushed her back. Sparks of fire and ash danced before them, the faint pop of bubbling air sounded in his ears as he stood on his tip toes and leaned outward to peer down.

From the corner of his eye he caught Carl doing the same thing as they both stared into the pit. “It’s Hell,” Rochelle whispered.

John tried to deny her words, tried to tell her that it couldn’t possibly be Hell but the words stuck in his throat. What else could it be? If the heat blasting from it was any indication then it couldn’t be anything other than where the devil resided. Sweat beaded across his brow, he leaned back as a wave of heat blasted him in the face. For a split second he thought his skin had melted off as his hands flew to his cheeks. Though it was hot, his skin seemed to be firmly intact beneath the crushing grip of his palms. He didn’t feel any blisters, and yep, his eyebrows were thankfully still there.

“Is that lava?” Rochelle demanded.

“It can’t possibly be,” Carl muttered. “This is the freaking northeast!”

“Well, you said it couldn’t possibly have been a tremor earlier either, and look at how that turned out for us,” John reminded him.

Carl shot him a dark look. “Yeah well okay but at least we know the New Madrid could affect us, but this…” Carl broke off as he waved his hands helplessly toward the gorge.

“There’s magma beneath the earth. No one knows for sure how much, but it is there. The quakes may have ripped something open; they may have caused some shift in the earth that has opened it up and allowed lava to flow forth.” Rochelle shook her head as she glanced back toward the glowing canyon. “There’s also the New England Seamount chain.”

“The what?” John demanded.

“The New England Seamount chain. It’s off the coast of Massachusetts in the Atlantic Ocean and consists of extinct volcanoes. It formed some of the mountains in New Hampshire and Canada. It is possible that perhaps the volcanoes are more active than anyone knew. It’s pretty far off shore but it might still affect us. It’s still crazy though.”

“I’m glad we found Mr. Wizard,” John told her as he glanced back toward the awful crater.

“I like Geology, it’s interesting. Though, I found it much more interesting when it wasn’t trying to kill us.”

“I have to agree. It might not even be lava but since none of us is going any closer to find out for sure, let’s just accept the fact that we’re not going to get to the stadium this way,” Carl told them.

John wasn’t going to argue with that fact. He practically shoved Rochelle back into the truck in his rush to escape the frightening substance simmering within that immense hole. Was Rochelle right, had something been torn open? Had the plates shifted so much that the interior of the earth was rising up to the surface? Had something within the earth actually ruptured?

He thought back to when this had all started, to the feeling that had encompassed him during that first big quake, and the shattering he seemed to have felt deep within his soul. Had that shattering been the actual rending of the earth? He shuddered, suddenly cold even though the temperature gauge on the truck was reading one hundred and two degrees.

What a mess, what a hideous, hideous mess. Even as he thought it five flares shot simultaneously into the air. They may have had to reroute, but they were still heading toward the stadium.

CHAPTER 26

Mary Ellen

Foxboro, Mass.

Mary Ellen jolted upright and nearly toppled out of the bed as loud screams pierced the air. She blinked in confusion as she strived to shake the sleep still clinging to her. She hadn’t meant to fall asleep, hadn’t meant to let her guard down, but apparently she wasn’t alone as Al gazed around the room in confusion from the other bed.

More screams ripped through the air. An icy chill crept down her spine as an empty pit opened in her stomach. The unreasonable urge to cry seized hold of her as her heart heaved a mighty da thump. Never in a million years would she have guessed that falling asleep would be her downfall, but that’s exactly what it seemed to have been.

She launched to her feet as a shrill scream echoed eerily throughout the hall and room. “Al…”

He was beside her faster than she had thought possible as he gazed warily at the door. She was unwilling to open it, to go out there and see what was going on. A loud crash whipped her head around as a rapid barrage of gunshots pierced the air and a volley of flares shot into the sky.

Mary Ellen raced toward the window. She didn’t like the idea of looking but she couldn’t stop herself. Her hands pressed against the glass as she gazed out at the chaos that the stadium had become. She watched in horror as people flocked like geese away from the hotel. They didn’t stop, didn’t hesitate as they shoved and trampled each other in their desperate attempt to escape whatever was coming at them.

She strained to see what it was they were fleeing from but she couldn’t see anything past the hotel.

“We have to go.” Al grabbed hold of her arm and pulled her toward the door.

She nearly fell as she tripped over her own feet in her rush to get to the door. A group of people ran by as Al opened the door. Mary Ellen’s jaw dropped as the group threw the door of the stairwell open on a massive crush of people pushing and shoving at each other. She took a step back from the insanity even as the group forced their way into the chaos.

Whatever it was that everyone was fleeing from, it had to be bad if it was driving them into what appeared to be almost certain death as shouts of pain and anarchy erupted from the stairwell. Mary Ellen turned in the opposite direction and raced toward the other stairwell. She opened the door to find that it was just as packed and hectic as the other one.

Death, she could feel its cold hand sliding over her skin as its breath seemed to lick against the nape of her neck.

Dying trapped like a sardine in a stairwell was not the way she was going to go though. She slammed the door closed and spun on her heel as she helplessly looked around the hallway.

“There might be another one.” Al’s face was paler than normal, the lines more visible around his clamped mouth.

Mary Ellen followed him through the convoluted hallways until they came to another door at the far back of the building. She was reaching for the handle when the door burst open. She jumped back, stifling a small squeak as four wide eyed people plunged into the hall. Behind them she could see another crush of people trying to make it to the lobby.

“There’s no way out through there,” the young man in the lead abruptly informed her.

Mary Ellen glanced behind him again as the door shut on the screams. “What’s going on?” she demanded but they were already running down the hall. “Wait!”

Al grabbed hold of her arm and rapidly propelled her after the small group. “The other stairways are clogged even worse!” Al yelled after them.

“We know.” The brown haired boy at the back of the group informed them.

They ran down the hall toward the room that Mary Ellen and Al had been in. The man at the front of the group threw the door open on a room close to the stairwell. The four of them split up as the man with sun bleached hair ran into a room across the hall while the other three entered the first room. The young girl, and the brunette guy, started stripping the bed as the other one lifted the desk chair and heaved it at the window.

Mary Ellen gaped as the chair crashed into the window with a loud bang and bounced uselessly back off. He lifted the chair again, this time keeping hold of it as he spun around and smashed it off the glass. A loud curse escaped him; the chair tumbled from his grasp as the glass splintered but held firm.

Al hurried to gather the stripped sheets and began rapidly tying the ends of them into a knot. The man lifted the chair and smashed it off the glass again. Spider-web fractures spiraled out from the impact area and spread rapidly across the thick glass to the corners of the window. He lifted the chair again, stepped back and once more heaved it forward.

Relief filled her as glass shattered outward. The chair flew out behind it, and for one disconcerting second it seemed to hang in the air before plummeting out of sight. “Sheets!” he commanded.

“Almost there,” Al informed him as he jerked a knot taut and tugged fiercely at the line.

The boy that had gone into the other room reappeared with an armload of sheets. Mary Ellen leapt forward to help untangle the pile he dropped it in a heap upon the floor. A loud crash jerked Mary Ellen’s head around as a scream spiraled through the air. “What was that?”

The girl’s eyes were haunted as they met hers. “People are jumping,” she whispered.

Her stomach rolled as bile surged up her throat. Mary Ellen turned her attention back to the window as a loud thwack and more screams echoed throughout. “What is out there?” she demanded.

“Lava, or we think its lava. Whatever it is it isn’t good and it’s coming this way.” The brown haired boy said as he knelt at their side and helped to knot the sheets.

“Are you serious?” Mary Ellen demanded.

“As a heart attack.”