Cannibal Reign (15 page)

Twenty-Six

M
arty and Susan were in the basement making love, wrapped in one another’s arms at the moment of impact, but they felt a sudden tremor in the concrete floor, vibrating as if an eighteen-wheeler had been dropped in the street right in front of the house from twenty stories.

“Sweet Jesus!” Susan said, sitting up.

“We’re still here,” Marty said. “Holy shit, we’re still here!” He scooted across the mattress to turn on the television, but there was only static, and a few seconds later the power went out.

“That’s it, Marty. We’re dead in the water.”

The wind began to pick up outside the house, and soon it sounded as though a storm had blown in. When they heard a cannonade of massive thunderclaps, they quickly dressed and went upstairs to see a raging dust storm outside the kitchen window. In the living room, they peeked through the curtains, and the houses across the street were completely obscured, the wind now howling like a freight train. They watched in fascination as the dust continued to blow past the house, all sorts of debris soaring by.

“We’d better be careful of the windows,” he warned.

“How long will it blow like that?”

He laughed. “I’ve got no idea,” he said, lifting his arms and letting them fall. “Think of it, Sue. This is what killed the dinosaurs!”

“I am thinking of it, Marty. It’s why I’m ready to shit a brick!”

He put his arms around her. “Don’t worry, I am too.”

A softball-sized meteor struck the roof and shattered the clay tiles.

“What was that?” He looked back outside and saw stone-sized meteors striking down all across the neighborhood. “Oh, shit! The ejecta’s coming down. Let’s get back to the basement.”

After half an hour the worst of the meteor shower seemed to have passed and the winds at last began to abate, but the dust in the air took hours to settle, and by then the sun had begun to vanish behind the veil of smoke and dust in the upper atmosphere. They went back upstairs and watched as the neighborhood was slowly revealed, everything coated in fine brown dust.

“I don’t suppose there’s any point in going outside,” she said.

“We’d only leave footprints to show that we’re in here.”

“So what now?”

He stood looking at her. “This is it, honey. I’m sorry.”

“Damn.” She sat on the couch and peered through a gap in the curtains. “I thought I was ready for this, but I’m not.”

He sat down and took her hand. “How could anybody be?”

“Look at you. You’re calm as a cucumber.”

“I’m only being calm for you. Inside I’m shitting bricks too, believe me.”

She touched his face and tears formed in her eyes. “I don’t really deserve you.”

He shook his head. “Not true. That’s my decision.”

“But . . .” She sat looking at her hand in his. “You deserve to be with someone who loved you . . . who loved you before this.”

“Hey, if you love me now even a little bit, I’m a happy guy.”

“I do,” she said with a smile. Then she took his hand in both of hers. “I want to tell you something, and then I don’t want to talk about it ever again. Okay?”

He nodded.

“It’s up to you,” she told him. “It’s up to when we . . . when we quit.”

“Susan, it’s too soon to be—”

“Shush! Sometime between now and when the food runs out—
before
it runs out, Marty, because I don’t want to see it coming—I want you to take care of it. That means from this moment on, whenever you decide is fine. I just don’t want to know when it’s coming. I know that’s a lot to ask because I know how much you love me, but I’m asking you to promise me.”

His eyes started to water. “Susan, I can’t promise that, not like that. There may—”

“You have to!” she insisted. “Because all I want to do from here on is eat, sleep, and make love. That’s it. And I won’t be able to enjoy our time together unless I know you’re going to take care of it when the time comes. Promise me, Marty. Please. If you love me like you say you do, promise me.”

“Okay,” he said reluctantly, knowing that it would be an extremely difficult promise for him to keep, and that he might well end up reneging when the time came.

“Thank you,” she said, and she kissed him. “You don’t know how much better that makes me feel.”

He was tempted to say that he knew exactly how much better it made her feel because he now felt that much worse . . . but it was his responsibility to take care of her, and her peace of mind was every bit as important to him as her physical safety. “So what do you want to do?”

“Let’s watch outside for a little while and then go finish making love.”

“I wonder how long before anyone else will come out.”

“They’re probably all thinking like we are,” she said. “Party time is definitely over.”

“Hey, speak of the devil,” he said, pointing.

A few young men were coming out of the house across the street and getting into a van. They were toting shotguns and carrying packs over their shoulders.

“Do you know them?”

“It’s the Gilberts,” he said. “They’re cousins. Normally pretty nice guys, but it’s a different world now.”

“Where do you think they’re going?”

He shrugged. “I’m curious as hell, but I’m not going to ask.”

“I wish we could. Normally I’m pretty withdrawn, but right now I really feel like being around people.”

“How about a shot of tequila instead?”

She smiled then. “That’s what I like about you.” She got up from the couch and began to unbutton the shirt he had given her. “You’re always thinking.”

Twenty-Seven

U
lrich sat at the console in Launch Control with Erin in his lap, counting down the time to impact. Taylor and Dr. West sat beside them in the light of an electric lamp. They had shut down all the generators and disconnected all of the main batteries against the possibility of damage to the silo, wanting to mitigate any chance of fire.

“T-minus sixty seconds,” Ulrich said into the intercom.

Erin hid her face in his neck and he rubbed her back. “We’ll be okay, baby.”

“I’m fucking terrified,” she whispered. “I’m so glad we never had kids, Wayne.”

“Shhh,” he said softly.

In the common chamber, Forrest stood against the wall with his hands clasped in front of him, smiling calmly in the lamplight as the women sat in the center of the room holding their children. Melissa sat against the wall near Forrest, with Laddie between them, and Veronica sat across the room with her back against Michael’s chest. Forrest was mindful not to make eye contact with her.

He did notice that Andie was looking in his direction more than any of the others, so he gave her a wink that brought a smile to her otherwise frightened visage.

Lynette was sitting with her husband, Price, on the floor beside Michelle, as he had asked her to.

Kane was sitting behind Tonya, who sat holding Steven in her lap; it was the first time Forrest had noticed them showing any affection. Vasquez and Danzig sat beside them with their wives and children.

Forrest’s original plan had been to let the children sleep through the impact, but the mothers vetoed that idea unanimously, wanting their children in their arms at the moment everyone they knew and loved was blasted out of existence.

“I’ve made a mistake,” Karen said in a sudden panic. “I should be with my sister where I belong.” She pulled her daughter close and began to weep.

Veronica felt Michael tense up, and felt that her suspicions were confirmed.

Forrest continued to smile calmly, very pleased with how they were all doing so far, Karen’s little outburst having been the least of what he was prepared to deal with.

“Okay, kids,” he said happily. “Everyone get ready to hold your noses like we practiced earlier.”

All of the children and their mothers held their noses.

“Now, when I say, everyone pinch your nose and blow gently until your ears pop.”

Dr. West had suggested this as a precaution against a sudden increase in air pressure within the silo—which no one expected, but then again no one had ever experienced a six teraton explosion before.

“T-minus thirty seconds,” Ulrich said.

All of the mothers told their children how much they loved them.

“T-minus ten . . . nine . . . eight . . . seven . . . six . . . five . . . four . . .”

“Everyone blow,” Forrest said gently.

“Two . . . one . . . impact.”

A few seconds later the earth shuddered deep within and all around them, groaning as if stricken a mortal wound. There was no change in air pressure, and no sense that the silo was being squeezed or in danger of implosion.

Almost everyone held their breath, waiting.

“Sounds like it hit pretty far away,” Kane said, looking up at the ceiling.

Forrest winked at him and held up his
one second
finger. Then, as if on cue, the entire complex shook violently as the shock wave passed through the earth’s crust. Forrest pressed hard against the wall, bracing his feet against the floor as the room jiggled back, forth, and up and down on its shock absorbers. The women and the children screamed in terror, all of them covering their heads, but nothing fell and no cracks appeared in the walls, the entire installation having been purposefully built to absorb this very kind of shock wave. Within a few seconds the earth stopped shaking and everything grew silent.

“Well, they apparently knew what they were doing when they built this place,” Forrest said.

“Is it over?” Joann asked, lifting her head.

Lynette and Michelle were crying in one another’s arms, and a few of the children were crying as well, but everyone else was reasonably well composed, considering the circumstances.

“Expect aftershocks,” Forrest replied, “but I think we’ve felt the worst of it.”

He looked down to see Melissa looking up at him, her arm around Laddie’s shoulders. The dog seemed more curious than disquieted. “You okay?”

“No crater,” she said with a smile.

“That should be about a thousand miles north of here.” He tweaked her nose and went about checking to make sure everyone else was all right, asking if anyone felt like they were going to be sick. When everyone said they were okay, he asked one of the men to go below and reconnect the batteries. Then he stepped into Launch Control.

“What do you think, Wayne?”

Erin stood and took Taylor by the hand. “We’ll go sit with the others now.”

The women kissed their husbands and left the room.

“We should be feeling an earthquake any time,” Ulrich said.

Ten minutes later they felt their first real tremor, but it was nothing compared with the shock wave.

“Switch on the cameras,” Forrest said. “See if we’re blind.”

Ulrich turned on the monitor and they were all surprised to see that the house wasn’t yet in flames. When he switched to the outside feeds, however, it was an altogether different scene. The grasslands all around the house were burning.

“Good thing we mowed back all that grass,” Ulrich said. “We may get to keep the house.”

“Is it raining fire?” West asked.

“Sure as hell is,” Forrest said. “The asteroid blasted millions of tons of rock into the outer atmosphere.”

“Then we’ll be lucky to keep the house,” Ulrich said, drumming his fingers.

“The house was always a bonus,” Forrest said. “So were the cameras.”

Taylor came back into the room and said to her husband, “Honey, Lynette’s hyperventilating. Price and Michael have taken her to Medical.”

West looked at Forrest and smiled. “And so it begins.”

Forrest patted him on the shoulder as he passed. “Take good care of her, Doc. She’s the life of the party.”

“Shame on you, Jack Forrest,” Taylor said.

Forrest followed them out on his way to check the missile silos for damage. He went to the end of blast tunnel number one and slowly cracked the blast door, shining a flashlight into the chasm before stepping in. When he turned on the lights, everything seemed to be in order, but he walked every level to make sure, seeing that a few boxes of food had fallen over but nothing more. As he was about to leave the silo, the door opened and Veronica stepped onto the deck, pushing the door closed behind her but not sealing it.

“Is something wrong?” he asked.

She stepped into him and began to kiss him. Forrest allowed himself to be backed up against a stack of boxes and sank his fingers into her hair, opening his mouth to let their tongues intertwine as they sucked hungrily at one another. He turned her around and pressed her up against the boxes, giving her one last long kiss and backing away.

“Okay!” he said, breathing deep and straightening his shirt. “Now that we’ve both gotten that out of our systems . . .”

“You didn’t look at me once the entire time!”

“What did you want me to do, shout, ‘Baby, I love you?’ ”

She looked at him and put her hands on her hips. “What are we going to do?”

“What are you talking about?”

“About us?”

“What us?”

“Jack, you’re not funny.”

“Hey, you know what?” he said. “The fucking world hasn’t even been dead half an hour. Let’s see if we can get through the first twenty-four before we start acting like we’ve lost our goddamn minds.”

“I need to know if you want me.”

“We’re not having this conversation right now.”

“Why not?”

“Because my wife was just killed by a fucking meteor! How’s that for starters?”

“Oh, Christ,” she said quietly. “I’m sorry, Jack. You’re right. I didn’t even . . .” She covered her mouth. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“Aw, shit.” He jacked one leg back against the wall and fired up a cigarette. “This mission already isn’t going according to plan.”

“I disagree,” she said quietly. “But you’re right. We should wait and talk about this later. I’m sorry I’ve made you angry.”

“You haven’t made me angry, Veronica. I’m hopped up on Benzedrine.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“We all are, in case there’s an emergency.” He took a long drag from the cigarette. “And what do you mean you disagree? You can’t tell me we just acted normally.”

“This is by no means a normal social dynamic. The world just ended. I think we’re entitled to let our inhibitions drop for a minute.”

“You are, but I’m not,” he replied. “What’s Michael going to think about you being gone?”

“Honestly? He’s probably talking to Karen.”

“Oh, okay. So that’s what sent you chasing after—”

“I didn’t chase you anyplace, Jack! You chased me, remember?”

Forrest took another drag and smiled. “Yes, I do.”

“So what happens if I choose wrong?” she wanted to know. “Suppose Michael decides he loves Karen a few weeks from now—which will be my fault, admittedly. Andie is hot on your butt! I could end up alone in this brave new world of ours.”

“Take the time to figure out what
you
want,” he said. “Either way, you’re not going to end up alone. I promise.”

“You promise?”

“I don’t break promises and I don’t repeat them.”

“I’m gonna hold you to it,” she said, pointing a finger at him before opening the door and slipping back out.

Forrest found an excuse to spend another couple of minutes in the missile silo, then went back to Launch Control, where he found Ulrich smirking in front of the console, watching the grass fires above.

“What the fuck are you smirking at?”

“She didn’t seal either door,” Ulrich replied. “That tunnel’s like a megaphone.”

“I’ll have to remember that,” Forrest said, checking one of the many charts on the wall behind Ulrich to see if the toilet paper count matched the one he’d just taken. “We should probably go ahead and rig some sort of a bidet. Or at least have a plan drawn up for one. There’s no way all these women and children are going to conserve enough toilet paper.”

Ulrich laughed quietly to himself.

“What’s so fuckin’ funny, snickers?”

Ulrich chuckled again, saying in an overly manly voice, “ ‘I don’t break my promises, little lady, and I don’t repeat them either.’ ” Then he broke himself up laughing, slapping his hand on the counter. “Fucking priceless!”

Forrest stood looking at the back of Wayne’s head, chewing his cheek. “Break yourself up, don’t you, Stumpy?”

Ulrich continued to laugh. “Oh, man, wait till Erin hears that one.”

Forrest put his finger in his mouth and got it good and wet before sticking into Ulrich’s ear.

“You motherfucker!” Ulrich said, grabbing the side of his head and springing from the chair, wiping fruitlessly at the offended ear. “You fuckin’ cocksucker!”

“Kinda felt like a monkey’s dick, didn’t it?”

Ulrich used the tail of his shirt to dry the inside of his ear, chuckling some more. “I’m still telling Erin.”

“She’d better keep her mouth shut about it too,” Forrest warned, “or I’ll stick my finger someplace else.”

Ulrich stood tucking his shirt back in, assuming a more serious expression. “You know how goddamn sorry I am about Monica, right?”

Forrest nodded. “She’s not hurting anymore, Wayne. And who knows? Maybe they’re really together again.”

“What a party we’ll all have one day, huh? All of us back together?”

“That would be quite a party,” Forrest agreed, heading for the other door. “I’m going down to check number two silo. Try not to stir up any more shit while I’m gone.”

“Hey, Jack?”

Forrest paused.

“I promise, man.”

“Fuck you.”

L
ater, Forrest returned to Launch Control to find Kane and Ulrich listening to the shortwave radio. “Getting anything?”

“Plenty,” Kane said. “You should hear some of this.”

Andie came into the room and Ulrich quickly switched off the set. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” she said, masking her curiosity about what was being said on the radio. “Some of us are gathering in the cafeteria for a prayer session. Would you guys like to join us?”

The men shook their heads.

“Are you sure, Jack? You’re the leader. It might be nice if you said a few words.”

“I’m not exactly God’s best representative,” Forrest said with a wink. “Besides, I’ll be saying plenty in the days and months to come.”

“Well, it’s never too soon to—”

“Thank you again for the offer,” Ulrich said, stepping forward to put his hand on the door. “Be sure to put in a good word for us, will you?”

“Um . . . yeah,” she said, backing out of the doorway. “Sure.”

“Thank you.” He smiled and closed the door, signaling for Kane to switch the radio back on.

“ . . . but it looks like the Dakotas are gone! The sky is black and there’s shit raining down on everything! The entire neighborhood is catching on fire! This is the end of the fucking world . . . God’s wrath, man . . . Armageddon!”

“Loon,” Forrest remarked, casually lighting a cigarette.

“Should I go get Linus and Oscar?” Kane asked.

Forrest shook his head. “You can fill them in later. I’ve already told them where I want them and why. Keep the dial moving. We can skip the hyperbole.”

Kane turned the dial . . .

“ . . . since it’s out all over the city, I should say probably not. First CNN went off the air and then the power went out all across town. Nobody knows what’s going on. And don’t even bother calling 911. There’s a lot of smoke outside too. It’s blowing in from the west.”

“That’s from the flash fire,”
another replied.
“No telling how far that will spread.”

“No sign here in Maine,”
said another.
“Still a bright sunny day. We still got TV too. The news is showing fires all over Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland . . . Canada too. People are still rioting in New York City, and the army has pulled out. Wait . . . they’re showing shots of the sky now. Looks like it’s on fire!”