Torn (13 page)

She couldn’t help it. She stared at each picture, growing
more frightened
by the moment. Gasping, whimpering.

“What the hell is he sending you?” Jesse snatched the pictures from her hand. “Something is not right with this guy.”

“Jesse, please.”

“No, Bret, please. What is this? It’s morbid.”

“It’s reality.” She peered up with sad eyes. “This is where he went. This is happening there.”

“What? What happened?”

She shook her head,
and then with a trembling hand
grabbed the envelope and opened the other letter.

It wasn’t the plague at all.

His letter read: 
“
Bret: I hope that you opted
to open
this letter first
;
if curiosity
got the best of
you, I apologize. These pictures are deathly vulgar, but they speak a truth. I hope the envelope arrived intact. When I received the call about this situation in Africa, I was able to investigate because it deals with my field of specialty. Never did I expect the magnitude I witnessed. Obviously, the situation had decayed in the mere two days it took me to reach the town. Right now, as I compose this—well protected from what took the lives of those in the photos—another fifty have passed on. They are dropping like flies on a daily basis. On those lines, so are the birds, monkeys, and any other air-breathing creature. By the time you receive this letter, I am certai
n I will be preparing to return home, l
eaving a dead area, and witness to over five hundred lost lives. I give thanks to God that this area is remote. What killed these people wasn’t an illness of nature, but nature itself. Radiation poisoning….
”

Darius went on to say how it wasn’t an explosion. In laymen’s terms he told o
f how the radiation had made it
s way through a vulnerability brought on by a current magnetic reversal our world was experiencing. It hit instantly, the radiation of fifty Hiroshima bombs detonating without the explosion.

An isolated area.

He also explained why he sent her the envelope. Sh
e had no scientific background
or association with a university. Just on the chance the Africa incident was meant to be
kept a
secret, her mail was the safest and stood the least chance of being scrutinized.

He included sheets of data
that he
’d
collected. He requested she make copies of everything, secure a set, and distribute the rest
to Colin, Chuck and Virginia s
o everyone could review and contemplate
them
. Bret was to find out if the story had leaked at all to the public. Darius called it their evidence, and ended his letter with a line that would forever stay with her.

If it happened he
re…
it could happen anywhere. This is scary, Bret. I believe we are in trouble.

Bret’s mind wasn’t on the family picnic at all. Her actions,
her
lack of speaking gave it away. That and the fact that she snapped out, “Kiss my ass, Jesse.” As they walked into the backyard of her sister’s home and walked
in
separate
directions, s
he kept
true to her word to John
and yelled out,
“but I love you.”

Jesse gave her a
n odd
look, thought she was
being her usual sarcastic self
and kept walking away.

How many times did she hear,
“A
re you
okay? Y
ou aren’t talking.
”
How many times did she want to reply
,
“No, I’m n
ot. I think the world is ending
.
”?
Her family thought her crazy enough; she didn’t need to
add
fuel
to
their fire.

That envelope didn’t leave her side. Luke commented she looked ridiculous wearing the backpack, but all the copies were in there. Though Jesse wouldn’t let her drop off copies to Colin, she was able to convince him to go to the copy store en route to the picnic.

Why was Jesse so angry? She wondered.

“It’s Memorial
D
ay, Bret!” he shouted in the car. “Not fuckin’ death day. Drop it!”

End of that discussion. She vowed that unless it had something to do with work, kids
, or keep her promise to John,
she wasn’t speaking to Jesse.

He was so bitter about it all. Bret had her theory. Jesse was angry because he was frightened. Life was finally going his way, and there she was w
ith some influential scientists
stating
that the world
neared extinction.

Bret rambled. She rattled with enthusiasm, between ‘quit hitting your sister,’ and
‘
I can’t wait until the meeting’. What started out as a simple conversation where she was trying to impress Jesse w
ith her budding scientific mind turned into a heated
moment that could have e
xploded
far worse than any volcanic eruption
.

“Cosmic radiation,” she explained to him.

“What’s that?”

“It’s when the rays of the sun make it through the protective layer of our atmosphere.”

“Like the hole in the ozone layer.”

“Sort of. But the cosmic radiation rays found a weak spot. Darius says there are lots of them now. The sun is what’s causing this.”

“Causing what?”

“What’s happening to the earth
.
Virginia is convinced it’s the sun. Solar flares.”

“Dude,” Luke poked his head between the fron
t seats. “I saw this show once
about a solar flare. It zapped out earth. Burned it completely. But that was right before the sun went nova.”

Bret whistled. “If the sun goes nova we’re all in deep shit. But we wouldn’t know about it.”

“So
all tho
se people in Africa,” Luke asked,
“
w
ere killed by radiation?”

“Yep.” she answered. “Darius says it will happen again. Anywhere
,
any time.”

“What else?” Luke asked.

“The bugs, this is the beginning.”

“To?” he questioned further.

“He has a theory. Many. The data collected now will confirm one of those theories. I don’t even want to start thinkin
g about them
until they know for sure which way we’re headed,” she said. “Once they figure that out, we’ll be able to know what’s coming up.”

“Are you gonna talk about this at your meeting?” Luke asked.

“Yes.”

Jesse mumbled. “Doomsday meeting.”

Bret shrugged. “Possibly.”

“Can I go?” Luke asked. “Can I sit in?”

“I don’t see why not,” she replied. “I’d prefer not to take the girls. Casper
, Andi, you don’t mind, do you?
I can fill you in, though.”

Casper responded. “Um, I don’t think I want to know what’s going to happen, Mom.”

“Me either.” Andi added.

“Suit yourself,” Bret said. “Me and Luke will be there. It’ll be fun.”

Jesse’s foot
h
it the break.

“Is s
omething wrong?” Bret asked him.

“Fun?” he said. “F
un?” his voice raised more. “This
end
-
of
-
the
-
world talking is fun?”

“Well, I.
…”

“Listen to you. Do you hear yourself?”

“It’s those pictures,” she defended. “They got me excited.
”

Wrong
choice of words
.

“Excited?!” he shouted.

She hunch
ed. “In a bad way. Bad way. Geez
. Are you sure we can’t go to Colin’s
?
He doesn’t live far from.
…”

“No!” Jesse yelled.

Bret closed off
her
ear. “Yell, why don’t you
?
” she muttered.

Luke snickered.

“No, Bret,” he ranted. “Cosmic radiation. Solar flare
-
ups.”

“Flares.”

“Whatever. You’re scaring the kids. Stop
it
.”

Bret snickered. “The kids could care less. They aren’t scared.
I think I’m scaring you. Today.
…” That was all she spoke. Jesse
shouted
out the line that brought forth
total
silence
in the car
.

“Today is Memorial Day. Take a break. Drop it.”

She did.

“You remember Chuck, don’t you?” Colin asked Virginia when she met them in the parking lot of the weather station.

“Of course
I do.” She smile
d
politely, shook Chuck’s hand, an
d led them into the plain gray
concrete building.

A simple check
-
in with a normal security guard
came first
, then off to an elevator that took them down three stories.

“Why the basement?” Colin asked. “Seems kid of weird for a weather station to be underground.”

“It was a bunker at one time.” Virginia answered. “Of course we could have it upstairs, but we would
n’t be able to track in
coming missiles as well. What better place to be.”

After a brief look
at
Chuck, Colin shrugged.

Virginia opened the door. “Here we are.”

“Nice
set up.” Chuck commented.

The large
room had two men working. Computers were set up
at various workstations. T
hey viewed maps on large
-
screen monitors. At lea
st ten monitors lined a counter
while the printing of data continuously filled the air like background music.

Virginia explained, “The images continu
al
ly switch. Every ten seconds.”  Sh
e pointed to one monitor. “Like.
…” The image switched. “Now.”

“What if you want to see one?”

“Just pull it up.” She replied.

Chuck’s finger swirle
d around the screen. “The multi
col
ors, a
re those weather patterns?
”

“Actually, right now, on these four screens.” Virginia said. “Stew here is
monitoring polarity. Like here.
…” She pointed. “This red are
a
is switching.”

“Looks like a cyclone.” Chuck said.

“It’ll be gone in a second.”

Virginia was right. The red circle was gone,
and she said
, “It’s
M
other
E
arth reacting to the sun. Change in magnetic fields
are
normal.”

Stew, the tech, spoke up. “This isn’t.”

Virginia rushed
past
three monitors. “What do you have?” she asked.

“Northern Canada.” Stew replied. “Check it out.”

“Whoa.” Virginia commented.

“Whoa.” Colin repeated sarcastically then turned to Chuck “Whoa would be her scientific reaction to this very large red circle that takes up half of Canada.”

“Now what would be happening there because of this
?
” Chuck asked.

“Good question,” Virginia answered. “Stew
,
anything?”

Stew shook his head. “We have a sub up in that area. Nothing coming in.”

“Got something now.” Bill, the other technician
,
spoke. He ripped
off
a piece of pape
r. “They sent a watch.” He type
d
in the coordinates.

“Bring it up over here.” Virginia requested.

Stew did. “O
kay
, our area.”

Colin observed. “Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania. I’m not up on this, but I see nothing.”

Virginia appeared puzzled “Strange. Bill? Anything else
?
That’s a large area.”