The Fearing: Book One - Fire & Rain by John F. D. Taff

Author:John F. D. Taff [Taff, John F. D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grey Matter Press
Published: 2019-07-09T05:00:00+00:00

— 6 —

Easing on Down the Road.

Border Town Birds.

Grocery Shopping.

Back toward town there was little left but rubble, disturbingly wide fissures in the ground, flames and thick, choking clouds of smoke. He saw no people as he searched the surroundings. Granted there hadn't been many people out just a few minutes ago, but there was no one now, no bodies on the ground.

Where had they all gone?

All he could see was ruin and the wall of water growing on the horizon. It rose high enough into the air to inspire a deadly awe.

Rich turned out onto the highway, stepped on the gas. Soon they were careening down a bewildering series of roads, switchbacks and residential streets. All in an effort to avoid the smoking chasms in the earth, the piles of burning cars, rubble from collapsed buildings.

Most of the smoke and rubble cleared, leaving a flat expanse with mountains far off on the horizon. Rich looked into the side mirror and saw the wall of water still arcing toward them, like a huge wave in a surfer movie, the leading edge gulping at the horizon.

As he steered around debris, he fiddled with his TomTom, jabbed at the touchscreen a few times, but it did nothing. He pulled out his cell phone. No bars.

He remembered the fleeting radio announcement earlier about something occurring in New York. Terrorists? That was the easy answer in these post-9/11 days. But was it? Now this, an earthquake. He checked the rearview mirror again. Whatever it was, it must have been the mother of all earthquakes because that looked to be a helluva lot of water coming this way. Rich remembered all of those old saws about California sliding off into the ocean.

A terrorist attack in New York. An earthquake in California.

A helluva day for America.

* * *

Marcia had one overriding concern. Hunger. She went to the back of the cabin to where four large coolers were stored. She grabbed a bottle of soda, thought about it, then took two. She also took two wrapped sandwiches from another cooler, and two bags of chips she saw peeking from the top of a large brown paper grocery sack. Carrying this up to the front of the bus, she sat across from Rich.

"Here, thought you might need to eat something," she said, unwrapping a ham-and-cheese sandwich and passing it to him.

"Thanks," he said, taking it from her.

"Rich, right?" She opened his bag of chips and a bottle of Coke, placing them on the dashboard before him. He nodded, took a drink.

"Yeah." He ate methodically, not tasting anything, just jamming it in to fuel the need for energy brought on by the earlier onrush of adrenaline.

"So what's the plan?" she asked.

"Plan? If you have one that'd make one of us."

"What about calling someone, finding out what's going on?"

"Tried. No signal," he said, continuing to work on the food.

"Well, out here in the desert…" Marcia sat back, tore open her sandwich. Salami. It figured. "Why isn’t anyone else on the roads?" she asked.

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