SOTOFO

Notes from the Edge 03-12-2024

Happy Friday.

I am doing the after birthday regretting prayer, ie I ate too much, drank too much and I’m still really old and there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it. And the beer didn’t soften the fact that Father Time took another bite out of me.

Doing my blog today and loving the fact that it stopped raining earlier when the weather forecast came in and they are calling for snow tomorrow. Wow. It is crazy this year. Let it snow. I have plants to go out, but I have not transplanted them, and some of them are not even up yet because of how crazy the weather has been.

Marijuana is legal here in my state. I can’t stand it, never could, when I tried it as a kid it always made me sick, so I stuck to the Colt 45 and the Boones’ Farm Apple Wine or Strawberry Hill. Yes, as a kid. I grew up in the Sixties and Seventies. Love and Peace and Rock and Roll, which you may not be aware used to be sexual description at one time, not a music description. No wonder our parents hated it.

In any case drinking by eleven or so and running the streets by thirteen. Fourteen nearly killed me, literally and also found me living on the streets at a very young age for the next two years. Sixteen saw me in the Navy.

In any case, so, I grow marijuana for someone I love who uses it to deal with pain, life, be able to eat even sometimes. If you thought, it was all hype that Marijuana helped with pain and made it possible for some folks in pain nearly all of the time to live a better life, I can tell you it is true. It works. I would love to post it here but for some crazy reason it isn’t allowed. I am thinking of doing it on my own site but of course that would most likely get me labeled adult only and kill most of my traffic. All that for something that actually works. Go figure.

So, instead I’ll leave you with another installment of my America the Dead series of books. Episode 3 below, enjoy, Dell…

AMERICA the DEAD: BOOK ONE

Based on the series by W. G. Sweet

Episode 3

PUBLISHED BY

Writerz.net Publishing

AMERICA the DEAD: BOOK ONE

Writers: W.W. Watson, Geo Dell, W.G. Sweet, G.D. Smitty

This book, in this blog format, is licensed for your
personal enjoyment only. If you would like to share this book with another
person, please point them to this blog entry. Thank you for respecting the hard
work of this author.

This is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, places or
incidents depicted are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to
actual living person’s places, situations or events is purely coincidental.

This material is NOT edited for content! This
material is licensed to DIYGK.com and is used with permission.

This novel is Copyright © 2019 W. G. Sweet. No part
of this book may be reproduced by any means, electronic, print, scanner or any
other means and, or distributed without the authors permission.

Permission is granted to use short sections of text in
reviews or critiques in standard or electronic print.

AMERICA the DEAD: EPISODE THREE

March 2^nd

New York: Watertown

Joel and Haley

Morning

Joel Morrison awoke to the sounds of birds whistling
in the early morning pre-dawn. Birds, he thought, usually the sounds from the
mills drowned them out.

He had made it home around 6:00 PM the previous
evening. He was working the midnight to eight shift and had stopped into the
Rusty Nail after work to have a few drinks with some other guys from the paper
mill.

He had wanted to leave before the bar began to fill
up. The Rusty Nail had gotten more than a bit rowdy as of late. Two years
before, one of Joel’s good friends, Moon Calloway, had been killed in the bar.
That had seemed to turn the tide. After that point the bar had become much
worse, a proving ground of sorts for the young GI’s from the base. Joel often
wondered why he even bothered to hang around there at all. Last night it had
seemed as though the rowdy element was showing up even earlier than it usually
did, when Johnny Barnes had offered the ride Joel had accepted.

The house on Linden Street wasn’t much, but it was
paid for, and Joel knew a lot of guys at the mill who either rented or were
damn close to losing their homes to the bank. Times were tough in the old
U-S-of-A, and at least he had the place free and clear.

He had practically fallen into bed once he had gotten
home. He hadn’t realized how tired he was.

He’d been working all the short shifts he could get,
along with his normal evening shifts, saving the money after he’d paid off the
house, and today would be the start of his first real vacation in over twelve
years.

Joel had grown up in the small city of Watertown and had never left. It suited him, he liked to think. Where else could you see the
seasons change so vividly or take a quiet stroll through the woods anytime you
felt, he often wondered. The Adirondacks were close by. The southern tier,
where he hoped to be in just a few hours, he reminded himself, stretched away
for miles. Forever wild lands, Lake Ontario, wetlands. And if he wanted the
big city, it was just seventy miles away down route eighty-one.

This is going to be one great vacation, he thought, as
he got out of bed. Despite the damn birds.

The vacation he had planned was a three-week camp out
in the State Forest Preserve that started only twenty miles to the east. The
preserve was nestled up to the military reservation and stretched from there
all the way into Central New York. Joel had no idea exactly where he would
camp. He had decided to just hike until he found a spot that suited him.

As he headed for the bathroom, he noticed that the
clock on the dresser was off. Not blinking, but off, and he could vaguely
recall dreaming of waking during the night to some loud noise.

It had seemed at first, when he had awakened within
the dream, as though the entire house had been shaking. He had passed from that
dream into another, but the noise and the shaking had seemed to accompany him
into that dream as well. It had to have been the strangest dream he could ever
recall having.

At first, he had been in his bedroom; the walls shaking
around him, and the next thing he knew he had been standing on a stone pathway
that overlooked a wide and deep valley that stretched away for miles before it
hooked to the right and disappeared. Its forward path blocked by even higher
mountains, with others lifting even higher behind that. He turned to follow the
ridge lines back to where he was and the scene had shifted to the bedroom once
more. He had found himself sitting up in bed, breathing hard, frightened, the
room silent, wondering if this was just more of the dream or an actual waking.
As he began trying to figure it out, waiting for his head to clear, he had
found himself sitting on a bar stool in the Rusty Nail, Moon Calloway beside
him holding down the other stool.

He tried speaking to Moon, but he either couldn’t hear
him, or he pretended not to. In his dream he had still known Moon was dead, so
it made sense to him that he could not speak to him. He turned to Mort to order
a beer and Moon had suddenly spoken.

“It was right here, Joel… Right here. Bad place to
die… Used sawdust on the floor… Soaks up the beer… The blood…. You
know….”

He tried to turn as soon as he heard the voice, but by
the time he turned the scene had shifted again. Instantly the bar was gone, and
he found himself standing at the edge of what he took to be a lake at first.
The water stretched away as far as he could see. There was a tang of salt on
the air; red earth crumbled away as the waves came in, taking more land with
it. He could remember the salt smell
from a trip to Florida as a kid with his grandparents. The smell of the sea.

“This is the place,” Moon said from beside him.

He turned expecting Moon to be gone, but he was
standing a few feet away staring out over the water. He turned and looked at
Joel. “You see it?” Moon asked.

“Yeah,” Joel managed. The word was barely audible,
lost in the sounds of the sea as it worked to take the red dirt away. “Where,”
Joel asked. “Where is it? What place is it?” He turned when Moon didn’t answer,
but Moon was gone. He blinked and he was back in his bedroom, in bed in his own
house on Linden Street, talking to a priest that was sitting on the edge of the
bed. He remembered telling the priest that he just wanted to go back to sleep.
That had apparently satisfied the priest, as he had shaken his head and seemed
to float away.

Joel shook his head, recalling the dream as he entered
the bathroom. He picked up his toothbrush from the small plastic cup that held
it, squinted into the mirror, and turned on the cold-water tap.

Nothing happened. No rattle of the old pipes in the
wall. Nothing.

“What the hell,” Joel said aloud, “frigging water out
too?” He dropped the brush back into the cup and headed into the kitchen to
start the coffee.

“Shit,” he said as he entered the kitchen and
remembered the power was off, and that there was no water with which to make
the coffee. “Now what?” He walked back into the bedroom and tugged on the pair
of jeans and shirt he had worn the day before; he walked through the house to
the front door, shoving his feet into his sneakers as he went, and opened it to
retrieve the paper that he knew would be there. The ends of the untied laces
clicked and bounced against the old hardwood floors as he walked. At least he
could read the paper, maybe even find out what the hell was going on.

The sun was just beginning to climb into the sky as
the door swung open. He bent down.

“No damn paper either?” he muttered as he stood back
up and began to search the lawn.

His eyes rose from the lawn and fell on the Hubert
house across the Street.

Something seemed oddly out of place, and he puzzled
over it for a few seconds before his mind told him what it was. The entire
house was leaning to one side. That wasn’t all though, the street in between
dipped and rose in places, and the lawn over there had large patches of brown
dirt. The snow that had been everywhere the night before was nearly gone. His
eyes had skipped over it, lending an illusion of straight lines until he had
looked closely. His eyes rose to the Hubert house once more and he realized
what else was wrong, the lot looked too big: He could see more of the Hubert
house because the houses on either side were gone. No trace. Jumbled dirt and
clumps of grass filled those lots. A leaning Oak that had been in front of the
Schuyler house for two hundred years: Uprooted and on the verge of toppling
onto the fresh soil.

As he left his doorway and started across the street
to get a better look, his eyes took in the devastation that had changed most of
the street overnight.

Broken cobbles from the old streets poked through the
pavement in places, and the broken pipes below street level bought him the
sound of running water somewhere deep below. The reality of it hit him and he
stopped and turned to look back at his own house. His mouth fell open wide as
he stared. The entire house was leaning from foundation to roof, the gutters
had detached and snaked down to meet the ground. Almost seeming as though they
were holding the house upright. Small sparrows where pecking through the debris
that had fallen from the gutters and singing in the warming morning air.
Joel’s mouth snapped shut as he stumbled back into the street and sat down
hard.

“What the hell is this?” he asked aloud to the street.

“What the hell is going on?”

Joel believed in the tangible. If it could be touched
it must be real, and so believing, he reached down to feel one of the cracks
beside him in the road. The road tipped, tilted, had separated, and the other
surface had dropped lower. His fingers came away with small chunks of asphalt.

“Feels real,” he declared aloud, as he stared at the
road. He pulled at it and a small piece of the asphalt he held snapped off into
his hand. He bought it up to his face to examine it closely; threw it back to
the ground and got up from the street.

He looked slowly off in both directions down the
length of Linden Street. As far as he could see in either direction the roads
or houses were similar. In fact, he thought, the street doesn’t even look like
a street anymore. It was still a street because he thought of it as a street.
His street. There was now more gravel, dirt and broken asphalt chunks than there
was actual street. And in several places, it was gone completely. No sign. Wide
spots that were wholly devastated.

Joel closed his eyes and then reopened them. It was
all still there. Nothing had changed. He stood and stared for a few minutes
longer before he started to walk off down the street in the direction of the
downtown area, three blocks to the south.

He looked over the houses he passed. Most were partly,
and some were completely destroyed. He felt as though he were in a bad dream.
He knew he wasn’t though, as he had closed his eyes to blink away the sights
several times to no avail. He had also pinched his left cheek until his eye had
begun to water. No good. It was still there. He had done acid once, but only
once, back in the seventies, and he had heard about flashbacks, and this could
maybe be one, and he had been drinking pretty damn heavily yesterday, and…

He spotted a young woman sitting on the curb three
houses down and walked up to her. She tilted her tear streaked and puffy face
up to him as he approached.

“Is this a dream?” he asked when he stopped.

“No, it’s no dream,” she replied as she slowly shook
her head.

“Where have you been since last night? Didn’t you hear
the noise? Didn’t you feel it?”

Joel recalled the noise that had awakened him during
the night. The noise he had thought was only an extension of the strange dream.

“Well, I thought it was a dream, you know, but I did
hear a storm, or something, but I didn’t think it was a big deal… you know,
they can get loud sometimes, but… What happened?”

“Yellowstone blew up,” she said simply. “Didn’t you
see the TV?”

Joel shook his head.

“Well,” the young woman continued, “anyhow that’s what
happened. They cut in to the TV last night; I was watching… you know, and
they cut in and said that the Yellowstone caldera was going to fracture because
of how close the meteor came. I came outside to see, and, well there was
nothing to see at first, and then the ground started shaking, so I ran to get
back inside. But the whole bottom floor of the building was gone.” She
shrugged.

The young woman broke into fresh tears and buried her
face back into her hands.

Joel sat down beside her and put his arm around her in
an attempt to comfort her.

“Is your husband here?”

“Not married,” she said, “There was a guy… A few
years back. He’s stationed somewhere in the Middle East,” she finished, as she
looked at Joel.

“Sorry,” Joel said, “how long have you been out here?”

“I called this cop that had given me his card… He
said the police would come so I came back out to wait, but they never showed
up, so I just sat here. I didn’t know where else to go or what to do! I’ve been
here ever since, just watching the street crack.”

Joel looked around at the street.

“It happened all at once?”

“I don’t know,” she replied, also staring at the
street. “One second it was still whole, the next it wasn’t. But it’s still
going on. Every little while a crack will just appear and then another section
will tilt or drop a little. Sometimes there’s no noise, other times it’s this horrible
groaning sound… Like it’s alive or something.”

“Is your power on?” Joel asked changing the subject.

“No,” she replied, “went off right after the ground
started shaking.”

“Mine’s off too,” Joel replied.

“The power lines fell while I was out here, arcing all
over the place. Scared the shit out of me too, and then they just quit… Went
dead,” she said.

“Listen… I’m going to walk downtown… see if the
police department is open or see maybe if everyone is there somewhere. You’re
the only person I’ve seen so far… do you want to come with me?”

“Sure,” she said, as she stood and brushed at her
jeans, “no use sticking around here I guess, is there?”

“I don’t think so,” Joel said. “I think… you know
that everyone else is probably downtown. Getting organized or something,” his
eyes betrayed the worry he felt. He hoped that everyone was downtown as he had said, but he wasn’t convinced himself. We
have to find someone though, he thought, don’t we?

He stood up and they both walked off down the street
toward downtown Watertown.

“Joel,“ he told her. Talking to you for an hour and
didn’t even know your name.”

She laughed, halfhearted, but it instantly lifted the
mood. “More like fifteen minutes if that… Haley.” She told him.

They exchanged small talk as they walked, and it seemed
to help quell the fear they both felt.

They wondered about the rising temperature as they
walked.

“I wonder if it’s some sort of fallout from the
earthquakes. Can it be radiation, Joel?” Haley questioned.

“Maybe. I flunked science, so I really don’t know. I
don’t think so though. I mean, if it was, wouldn’t we be sick? I think ash is a
possibility, maybe if they triggered volcanoes? Makes me wish I had paid
attention in science class, or physics, history, one of those.” Joel said.

She laughed again, this time a little more fully.
“No,” she replied. “I don’t think so either… I mean the earth shook… like
an earthquake. I didn’t know we could get an earthquake up here.”

“Oh yeah… Lived here all of my life. It’s more than
possible, happens all the time… You from here?”

“No… Syracuse, before that Texas.”

“Ah, the big city… Well up here we don’t have a hell
of a lot to do so they teach us about fault lines, earthquakes. We have a huge
fault line that bisects this entire region and continues on south to the Gulf.”

“All the way to the Gulf?” Haley asked. She patted his
arm. “Big city my ass,” She laughed. “You should see Houston you want to see
big city, buster.”

Joel laughed and nodded. “Seen Houston once… I mean,
a long time ago. And then only the Greyhound station downtown.”

She stopped. “Get out, really?”

“Really.” Joel told her. “Very bad place too,” he
seemed apologetic.

“Yeah.” her eyes had suddenly gone sad. “Very.” She
started her feet moving again. She had come close to telling him just how well
she knew that area of Houston and had nearly bitten her tongue to stop the
words. Emotional situations… You never knew the things that would just jump
right out of your mouth, she thought. Leaving you all kinds of vulnerable too.

They talked back and forth as they continued down
the street. When they reached Fourth Street they turned and walked the short
block to Main, turned left this time, and headed into the downtown area.

March 2^nd

Joel and Haley

They both stopped short as they topped the small hill
at the crest of Main Street and stared down at the downtown area on the other
side of the river.

It appeared to be more of a war zone than a city. The
buildings that were still standing leaned crazily to the left or right, and
only the tallest seemed to have been, as yet, untouched. Haley wondered aloud
at that.

“The taller ones are not that old. Built with federal
monies. Earthquake proof…. To an extent: When I was a kid the tallest
building was the Baptist church tower.” He pointed to a gray stone spire that
reached into the air.

There was a small crowd of people milling around in
the center of what had been the Public Square.

“It looks bad to me” Joel said softly. He pointed.
“City police building?” He met her eyes with his own. “Gone… There should be
thousands of people down there…”

Haley shook her head. “Ought to go down.” She looked
up to see what he thought about it.

Tiny people walked aimlessly around the square or
stood, seemingly transfixed, by the huge gray spire of rock that capped the State Street end of the square. The sight of the people broke the spell. Joel
nodded once and they began the walk down the hill.

They stopped and looked over the bridge that crossed
the Black River. It seemed fine, almost untouched. It was so strange a sight
that Joel laughed.

“What?” Haley asked.

“Doesn’t it seem strange to you? Everything destroyed
and the bridge sitting here untouched?” He looked from side to side before he
stepped out on the steel decking and began to walk. As they neared the other
side, they could see that there was a crack that ran from side to side and the
road dropped down more than a foot. They leapt easily down.

“That makes me feel better. It just seemed too weird
that it had no damage at all.”

Haley nodded and they continued to walk into the
downtown area.

The walked up a small rise that had once been the bank
of the river just a few hundred years ago, before the dams, mills, and
reservoir projects had changed the water flow, Joel thought. The Public Square spread
out before them.

“At least there are other people,” Haley said aloud.
“Last night when I was sitting there all alone, I was wondering whether there
were.” She breathed a sigh of relief which was echoed by Joel.

When they reached the first people at the bottom of
the hill, they could tell that many of them were in shock. An older woman
wandered by completely naked. Blood ran down one calf from an ugly looking
wound, and she was covered with dirt and grime. When Joel attempted to talk to
her, she tried to hit him with a baseball bat she had been holding at her side.

“Leave me alone, you bastard,” she screamed into his
face. And then she had run off towards one of the still standing buildings.

Joel was shaken by the experience and jumped when
Haley touched his arm.

“…think,” he caught as he turned around to face her.

“Wha-What?”

“I was saying, I don’t think she knew what she was
doing,” Haley repeated. “Hey? Are you okay?”

“Fine,” he answered, in a small voice.

He was still a little shook up when an older man began
to approach them, and he found himself wishing he would turn and head in the
other direction. He didn’t even recognize him until he was nearly upon them.

“Glenn,” he asked, “is that you?”

Joel had worked for Glenn driving truck at the gravel
pit two summers before, when things had slowed down at the mill. Glenn Dove
owned the gravel pit, and most considered him a hard guy to work for.

Joel had liked him though. He seemed to be honest;
always paid on time, and he always bought Joel a beer when he ran into him. He
was forever trying to talk Joel into leaving the mill and going to work for
him full-time. Today he seemed old and tired. Joel supposed he didn’t look much
better.

“How are you, Joel,” Glenn asked, “some vacation,
huh?”

Joel had run into Glenn just the week before down at
the Rusty Nail, and had told him he’d be leaving, but he hadn’t given the
vacation a second thought since he’d gotten out of bed this morning.

It seemed odd to think of it now. Wonder what the rest
of the world woke up to this morning? He thought. It had only been a short time
since he had awakened this morning, but it felt like years had gone by.

“I guess my vacation got canceled,” he said, trying a
grin on his face. “Hell looks like a lot of vacations got canceled,” he
continued, as the grin slipped from his face. “Did you see any of this happen,
Glenn?”

“No,” he replied solemnly. “I was out at the pit, and
I didn’t come into town until this morning. But I saw plenty out there, thank
you just the same.”

“As bad as this?” Joel asked, waving his hands at the
damage that surrounded them.

Glenn paused and looked around at the destruction.

“Pretty damn bad,” Glenn said, as he shook his head in
agreement. “I was moving the trucks down to the loading area, down the bottom
there, and the ground started to shake, and the shaking threw me right out of
the cab. I jumped down and got the hell out of that pit in a quick hurry, let
me tell you. Good damn thing I did too, as about ten minutes after I did the
bottom just cracked open and she started to fill. Spent the night in the woods
and when I walked out this morning the water was up the top of the pit. Never
seen nothing like it.” He paused and looked around the small-town square. “So, I
came down here, but I’ve been over to city hall, nobody’s there. The police
department, you know,” he gestured helplessly with his hands.

“Gone,” Joel agreed.

“Seen you coming across here and figured to see what
you might know,” Glenn finished, nodding.

Joel shook his head. “You can ask Haley,” he said
pointing to the young woman beside him, “she saw it on the television last
night.”

Glenn looked expectantly towards her.

“Well… not like I know it all, but I was watching
the TV last night, and they said…”

Joel turned to stare out at the people who stood
nearby in small groups, as Haley spoke to Glenn.

“Shit don’t that figure,” Glenn exclaimed, when she
finished, “So another politician lied to us. All last week they said that
meteor would be no problem. Yesterday morning there was some yak attributed to
the web about Yellowstone being closed down and already in a bad way and they
denied that too,” He swore under his breath. “Figures. Seen any sign of the
Guard around, or the Army?”

“We just got down here ourselves,” Joel answered, “but
I expect they’ll be here soon, don’t you?”

“That’s right!” Haley exclaimed, “They should be
coming, shouldn’t they? I mean, we’re alive, hell of a lot of people are alive,
they’ve got to come, right?”

“Maybe,” Glenn said slowly, looking from one to the
other, “but it seems as though they should have been here already, doesn’t it?
I mean, if they were coming, it ain’t that far to the base… Eight miles? I
mean, well, hell, it ain’t a long way for them to come.”

Joel nodded his head. “Well, if they aren’t here by
noon… Anybody got a watch?”

Haley nodded and held up one hand so he could see the
slim silver dial on her wrist, 9:32 he noted.

“Well, if they ain’t here by noon, I vote we go look
for them.”

“Sounds good to me,” Glenn said, as Haley nodded her
head in agreement.

They spent the morning wandering between the few
remaining buildings and talking to the small groups of people that had formed
around the huge church spire in the middle of what was left of the city’s
downtown.

Haley found several other people with similar tales of
the destruction they had witnessed the through the night. A few had slightly
different takes on what had happened. One woman was convinced the end times had
come and spent most of an hour trying to convince Haley to repent of her sins
and join her. She had been polite and firm as she told her thanks, but no
thanks. She had also stuck closer to Joel after that. Joel was disheveled. He
probably hadn’t realized he’d forgotten to even comb his hair when he had
walked out of his house this morning and witnessed all the destruction. His
eyes were a little wild looking. People tended to shy away from him when they
saw him.

She sat at the bus stop bench overlooking the square
and wondered what had happened to some of the people. Joel sat quietly beside
her, lost in his own thoughts.

One woman had stopped by the bench and tried to
convince them that flying saucers were to blame, and she actually had several
people convinced of it. They formed a small protective group around their
leader. Haley supposed that with the way things were this morning, that it
wasn’t as far-fetched as it may have been just yesterday. She listened
cautiously, courteously, and they both breathed a sigh of relief when she
became distracted by a small after shock and then moved on, her group hovering
protectively.

“Jesus please us,” Joel said.

“Amen,” Haley agreed.

They had discovered earlier that though none of their
cell phones worked some phone lines were still working. Well, sort of, Haley
amended as she thought about it now. You could call out, but all you got was
static or a busy signal. There was a bank of old style pay phones in the Arcade
Mall. Joel had tried for over twenty minutes, calling every emergency number in
the telephone book. He had finally given up about ten minutes ago and had
ambled back over to sit beside her on the bench.

“You still want to go out to the base?” he asked now.

“No.” she replied, as she released a deep sigh. “I
really don’t see a reason for it… I mean, if they were there, and everything
was up and running, they would be here by now. So, I just don’t see a reason for
it. We were fooling ourselves to think that they would come. Let’s face it,
they’re probably at least in as bad shape as we are.”

Joel, who had been feeling the same, nodded agreement.

“So, what do we do then?”

“I don’t know, Joel. I don’t know what we can do.”

The conversation ended, and they once again sat
staring out over the square, neither knowing what to say.

Glenn wandered back over from a small group of people
he had been talking with and sat down next to them.

“What did you find out?” Joel asked.

“Well,” Glenn began, “mainly a lot of strange stuff.
For instance, you know Lilly Roberts over there?” he pointed at a tall woman,
standing with the group he had just left.

Joel and Haley both nodded.

“I know of her,” Joel said, “she ran that little diner
out on River Road, didn’t she?”

“Yes,” Haley confirmed, “I worked out there last
summer, part-time.”

“Well,” Glenn continued, “she said she was at home
with her husband and, well… You guys know him?”

They both nodded their heads to indicate that they
did, and Haley said, “Kind of hard not to know him, or at least to know of
him.”

Earl Roberts, Lilly’s husband, had established his own
church three years before. The local paper had published numerous stories about
him, and the church itself. He had obtained his license through a mail order
ministry, and the church was based on the book of revelations; specifically on
the principal that the planet Earth was in the last years. Jesus was on his way
back, and not the easy-going Jesus of the New Testament, a darker, angry Jesus.

“He’s the guy who had the church out in Fort Drum,
right?” Joel asked.

“The same wacko,” Glenn said. “Well, anyway, they were
at home last night, having an argument about that church of his; she says they
were awful close to divorcing over it. So, they’re arguing and she’s telling him
how she doesn’t feel as she knows him anymore, and bang the first quake hits…
She says there were three, at least three,” Glenn said and paused.

“Maybe five,” Haley said… “At least I felt five.”

Glenn nodded. “Better number. That’s what I felt, but
I didn’t correct her. … So, he just turns away from her and stares at the front
door for a few moments and then leaves. She’s chasing him down the street, but
he’s making for the river fast… Snapped.”

“There’s plenty more here that have slipped over the
edge,” Haley said.

Glenn nodded. “Well, he did just that. Slipped over
the edge. Walked right to the river and starts talking like there’s somebody
there. She said at first, she thought maybe he had just gone clean over the
edge, you know? A second later he just jumped in. Nothing she could do the
water was high, churning. Bad … She never saw him come back up again.”

“Sometimes Happens,” Joel said as Haley nodded her
head.

“I’ve heard of that too,” she said.

“Well, there’s a couple of others who swear the same
sort of thing happened to people they knew. A few others are talking about end
times.” Glenn paused and looked out over the lake wringing his hands restlessly
in his lap.

“I don’t know,” Glenn continued. “I guess it makes
about as much sense to them as anything else.”

“You mean they think it is the end times? That it was
real?” Haley asked.

Glenn shook his head. “I ain’t saying I believe it at
all,” he replied. “I’m simply telling you we’re going to have to be really
goddamn careful who we deal with.” He arched his eyebrows. “Strange winds
blowing.”

“Seen it while we sat here. I can’t believe something
like this can throw someone that far off. But we’ve heard a few similar things
this morning.” Joel said.

“And that was strange stuff while we weren’t seeking
it out… Just sitting here minding our own business.” Haley added.

“Well,” Glenn began, “let’s say that this is the
beginning of the end of the world. I ain’t saying it is, but for the sake of
argument let’s say it is.”

“All right,” Haley replied, “let’s say it is.”

“Well, so let’s say it’s the end of the world. What
does that really mean?”

“I can’t say I follow you.” Joel replied calmly. “I
think it’s self-explanatory, right?”

“That’s about how I feel about it too,” Haley said
when Joel had finished speaking.

“You went too deep,” Glenn said, as she finished
speaking. He laughed lightly. “I meant, what is the end of the Earth? It’s
obviously not the end of the Earth right now or we wouldn’t be here. What it
really means to these people, I think.” He raised his hands to gesture at the
people milling around everywhere. “Is the end of their way of life. They can’t
call a cab. Take the train into New York and see a play, fly to the Bahamas for
vacation. That is their end. They can’t see anything past that, and so when
that ceases to exist it is the end of everything for them. They snap… Jump in
the river… Sit down in the road and wait for God… Or Moses, or Muhammad to
show up. The mother ship… I don’t know.” He sighed, leaned forward, cupped
his face in his hands and looked out at the devastation. He straightened up,
rubbed at the small of his back with both hands. “It’s too soon in my life to
be the end of anything. I need some more time. And, anyway, when something ends
something else begins.”

Joel was surprised into laughter. “The Mother Ship?”

“Hey, I talked to that lady earlier… She’s pretty
much doing just that,” Haley said.

“I don’t know what I believe myself. It’s a question
that I never felt a need to answer. I mean, I’ve had a few Bible-thumpers come
knocking on my door from time to time. I ain’t mean about it, I just listen
politely is all, and when they ask me if I want to be saved, or get to their
point, I just pass. I just always figured to each his own, you know? I mean
they ain’t hurting me,” Glenn continued, “and if they want to go around
knocking on doors, hell, let ’em do it.”

“I just don’t answer the door anymore,” Haley said.

“Me either,” Joel added, and continued. “I kind of got
into the habit of looking through the peephole lately anyway, on account of the
crime being what it is, and if it’s a Jehovah, or some other Bible people, I
just don’t answer the door.”

They all three shook their heads in agreement.

“I’ve done that too,” Glenn said and then went back to
his original argument. “But suppose it is their end? Then what?”

“Well,” Joel started, “I suppose that you could have a
lot of people just waiting for God… Or maybe even the mother ship. Right?”

Haley just sat quietly, listening to the conversation,
as it went back and forth.

“So, you would, but,” Glenn continued, “what if there
really is a God and a Devil? How does that change things? What if the people
that believed in God were taken up?”

“I’ve thought of that,” Joel said, “I guess probably
it was the first thing that jumped into my head this morning. It seems pretty
far-fetched to me. I mean… Would God have a need to be this dramatic? And
doesn’t God just do things and then, I don’t know, after ten thousand years or
so the people fall in line and things are okay again?”

“Yes… God is not known to be really easy on his
believers.,” Glenn agreed.

Joel continued. “Take Joanne Hamilton over there for
instance,” he said as he waved his hand at a group of people. “I worked with
her husband down at the mill, and he’s one of the meanest bastards I ever knew.
Everybody knows he used to beat the shit out of her, and there was that
business a few years back where he got himself caught with a young girl out on
Jefferson Road, parked to the side there where the kids hang out. That kind of
blows their theory, doesn’t it? I mean if there was ever a meaner son-of-a-bitch
I don’t know him, and I can’t see what good side there could be to him, do
you?”

Glenn seemed to think a second before he shook his
head. “I don’t see anything good about him either,” he stated flatly. “I knew
him myself, and I couldn’t stand him, but hear me out a second, Joel.”

Joel nodded his head, and Haley leaned closer to Glenn
to listen.

“I think those people are dead as dead. Swallowed up
by the Earth, drowned in the rivers. They’re gone and that’s that. But what
about these others? All I’m saying is, it doesn’t matter to us whether we don’t
think that’s what happened, it only matters that they think that’s what
happened.”

“Then I guess they try to bring us into their
psychosis,” Joel said. He looked around at the crowd.

“But that doesn’t make it so,” Haley said.

Glenn Laughed wryly. “I wasn’t looking for truth,” he
said softly, “I’m just trying to make sure I live… Both of you too. We have
got to be careful with some of these. I have been in war, seen how easy it is
for people to turn into primitives just like that.” He snapped his fingers. “I
say, we need to think about leaving here. It’s only going to get worse.”

Joel turned from looking over the crowd and nodded.
“Makes sense. You have a long way of getting to the point, Glenn, but
logical… Thought out.”

“I spent a whole six months in college before I had to
leave to help my mother run the gravel pit after my dad died,” Glenn continued.
“This makes me wish I’d spent a little longer. Maybe I’d know more about it.
Whatever it is though, it’s natural. Something that just happens. I don’t want
to get tangled up in someone’s ideal.” He paused and then began to speak once
again, changing the subject slightly.

“The other thing that’s been bothering me is something
we can all agree on.”

“What’s that,” Joel asked.

Haley answered the question for him.

“I think I know,” she said, “it’s the Earthquakes. I
mean if we really were hit by that meteor, shouldn’t we all be dead by now?
What I mean is, when I was outside last night, I didn’t see any fall out, but I
did feel the earth shaking, it felt like an earthquake too, a big one, but that
couldn’t have been the Yellowstone one, that’s, what, a few thousand miles away
anyway, we wouldn’t have felt it like that, would we? And still have
aftershocks?”

She stopped and drew a deep breath inward and then
continued.

“The television said that the meteor was sighted
inbound, and I could have sworn that, for just a few seconds, there seemed to
be a huge glow from the west in the sky. I remember thinking it was where it
landed, but when I looked again it was gone. If it was though, why are we still
alive?”

“That wasn’t my exact concern,” Glenn said, “but it
runs along the same lines. I felt the shaking too, and it felt more like a
heavy thud the first couple of times I felt it, something close… Not far
away.”

“…I’ll tell you what though, I was talking to Jasper
Morrison, he fishes Lake Ontario for a living, you know, and he was just
docking when it started. He had a pretty good view from there, out across the
lake, I mean, and he said he could clearly see a white streak running across
the western edge of the sky. He said he was expecting to see a mushroom cloud
or something, but the sky glowed for a split-second or two, then the glow just
disappeared. But a man’s line of sight is only about 3 miles or so, after that
the curve of the Earth drops off. So, you are looking at something fairly close,
or further away but high up in the air.”

“He also felt the ground shaking after the hit,” Glenn
continued. “But that’s not hard to explain. You may not know this, but there is
a fault line that runs all across the Great Lakes basin. Ontario included. The
fault line runs all the way across the continent to the gulf coast. Could be
that the impact did trigger some sort of earthquake. My point though, is that
if that meteor did hit in the west, close enough for Jasper to see, we should
be dead.”

“Joel was telling me about the fault,” Haley said.

“What else did he say?” Joel asked.

Haley nodded her head slightly as if to voice the
question herself.

“Well, like I said, he had just brought the boat into
the dock and tied it off. That ain’t a little boat, I’ve seen it,
forty-five-footer, and the water where he ties it off is damn deep too. Well,”
he continued. “He tied it off, and he’s standing there, and the waves are
starting to really build so he hot foots it off the dock. Just as he gets off
the whole damn thing just sinks. It took his boat and a couple others with it
too. That ain’t the end though. As he’s standing there, this is the weird part,
the lake just drops about five feet, real fast. He knows that lake, and it
could be, if that fault line opened up, it could have dropped. If so, I’ll bet
we have one hell of a new river running from here down to the Gulf a Mexico, or
at least one hell of a lot of damage.”

“Jesus,” Joel whistled softly.

“I don’t know… Food for thought though,” Glenn
concluded and leaned back into the bench.

Joel recalled the dream of the night before and
quickly related it to Haley and Glenn. When he finished, Glenn turned to Haley.

“Did you see anything? Maybe dream about anything?”

“No,” she replied, “nothing at all, except for what I
told you. But I was up all night after it happened.”

“I haven’t had any myself,” Glenn said quietly, “Of
course; I was awake all night too in the woods.”

All three sat back into the bench and stared out over
the square, lost in thought.

“So, what does it all mean?” Joel asked to no one in
particular, as he continued to stare at the lake.

“I wish the hell I knew,” Haley said, as she turned
her gaze away from the Square and back to the two men on the bench beside her.

Besides a few guys from the mill that he would have
an occasional drink with, or maybe shoot a game of pool with, Joel was a loner,
and he had never married. It was not something he had chosen to be, it was just
the way the world was. You really couldn’t trust people, he thought, you could
never really know what they were like. It was a thing that had bothered him for
as long as he could remember.

He had known men who seemed to be perfect fathers and
husbands, but when they were at the bar, and the kids were home with the wife,
they were completely different. It was something he had always hated, and
something he had constantly fought with whenever he had noticed the same sort
of inconsistencies in himself. It was a battle though that he had always won and would continue to fight. It was one of the main things that had decided him
against religion when he was a kid, that and his father.

His father had been a strict Catholic and had fought
with Joel’s mother to get her to agree to let him take Joel to attend the local
Catholic Church. Joel had hated it. His father, who was normally drunken, or at
least drinking, would sit calmly through mass with all his other drinking
buddies every Sunday, then when he got home it was, “Bring me a fucking cold
one, woman.”

He had actually been glad when his father had died, he
had never said it aloud, but he had been. He had only wished he had died a lot
sooner so that his mother could have had more than the one year she had lived
past him, to enjoy life. He pulled his mind reluctantly back to the
conversation, when he heard Glenn speak his name.

“Sorry,” he said. “I was just thinking.”

“That’s okay,” Glenn smiled, “we all are.”

Glenn continued. “What I think is that the world has
changed… That simple. We just need to get on with this different life. I know
that’s over simplistic, but it beats staying around here waiting for the mother
ship to show up. What I was wondering is what you’re going to do. Hell, what
all of us are going to do now?” He paused as most of the silent crowd that had
gravitated to them turned their eyes towards him.

“Maybe it’s time to sacrifice an animal… Pray,” an
older woman in the crowd said.

Glenn continued when no one else answered. “I don’t
think, or maybe I’m just not convinced,” he offered the woman who had just been
speaking a small smile, and then continued, “That praying, or a sacrifice, will
do us much good. Maybe what we should be doing is trying to figure out what we should be doing. Catch my drift?
We can’t just stay here and wait for someone to come, it ain’t going to happen,
and I think we can all agree on that.” He looked around at the faces that
surrounded him and stopped at Joel’s.

Joel nodded.

“Did any of you notice the temperature?” Glenn asked.

Several people looked expectantly to one corner of the
Public Square, where the Watertown Trust Bank had sat with its digital clock,
which alternately flashed the time and temperature. They turned quickly back
when they realized it was no longer there.

Many of them had noticed the difference in temperature
though. Northern New York, even in the summer months, rarely reached the high
seventies, low eighties, on the hottest days. The surrounding air was much
hotter and humid.

They looked back at Glenn.

“Haley and I noticed it this morning,” Joel said.

“I picked this up when I went in Samson’s Five and
Dime earlier,” Glenn said, holding up a small plastic thermometer. The red line
on the thermometer hovered just short of one hundred degrees.

As he looked at the thermometer, Joel recalled how
warm it had seemed this morning. When he had first opened the front door, he had
felt it, but then forgotten it as he had gazed out into the street. As he
looked around now, he noticed that several people in the small crowd were
sweating profusely. In fact, he realized, he was sweating a great deal himself.

“Anyway, my point is this,” Glenn said as he began to
speak again, “there may be something to that earthquake theory some of you have
been kicking around. It could be that the fault line may have been triggered,”
Glenn was saying. “If it was, we really ought to be thinking about finding a
safer place to be. I remember reading about that fault line, and it seems to me
the book I read, said that if the fault were somehow triggered, it could, and
probably would, crack the entire Great Lakes Basin. That means that Ontario,
along with all the other lakes in the chain, probably would drop. At least a
small amount at first, but after they recover from the initial drop, they’re
probably going to rise… They’re probably going to rise, a lot. I don’t know
what most of you know about this city, but I’ll tell you what I know. Got it
from the same book,” he paused. “…It’s built on pretty low ground. Now…
that river,” he said indicating the bridge that spanned the Black River on the
opposite side of the Public Square, “has surely been rising.”

With that the discussion went back to where they
should go, and what they should do once they got there.

“You’re right,” Joel said at last, “We do need to make
some decisions,” he paused for a moment and then continued. “When was the last
time anyone here ate? I know that sounds a little stupid at a time like this,
but if we’re going anywhere, we should also think about food, and in this heat
dehydration could become a factor as well, couldn’t it, Glenn?” he finished,
looking toward him.

“I should have thought of that myself,” Glenn said,
“how many of us are there?”

Haley quickly counted heads and replied.
“Twenty-seven, Glenn.”

Glenn nodded his head. “Okay… Let’s do this. We do
have to eat, so let’s head up Maple Street to Jacobs Superette, get something to eat, and finish this discussion
there.”

Everyone agreed, and the small group left the
public square and walked the three blocks to Jacob’s Superette in a light rain that had begun to fall.

Jacob’s Superette

Joel, Haley, Glenn and several others were standing by
the rear doors that led to the stockroom in Jacob’s Superette.

They had been discussing where they should go. A few
others from the small group, were there with them.

Joel looked around at them as the conversation
went back and forth. They seemed solid enough. Terry Jacobs who had worked for
Glenn, Amber Johnson who was married to a GI from the base who was now
stationed overseas, and Scott Vincent, a carpenter working on one of the many
housing developments in the area. There were others but many of those others
that had followed them to Jacobs Superette did not really seem to be doing
anything other than following. The ones that had gathered at the back of the
store seemed to be on the same page, leaving Watertown.

Ed Weston and Dave Jackson had joined the small group
earlier. Ed had worked for Glenn at the gravel pit for over ten years. He was
tall with dirty-blonde hair and a slim muscular build, and Joel liked him. He’d
grown up right here in Watertown on Fig Street, down by Jackson’s Lumber. A
piss poor family, but Ed himself was a damn good man. He seemed a little
rattled today, but weren’t they all? He was a hard worker and would be an asset
to the group if he chose to come along.

Glenn and Haley both knew Dave. He owned one of
the local lumber mills: A small family mill. He had also driven truck for Glenn
once or twice when things were slow. Joel had never met him, but he had seen
him around: Watertown was a small city. Neither of the men had voiced their opinions but had been standing quietly as the other three had talked. Dave was
younger than Ed, but just as tall, and his dark black hair was tied in a small
ponytail that hung down his back.

The conversation at the market never really got
going. The crowd that followed had spread out into the store, taking what they
wanted to eat and then split up into smaller groups, discussing their own
plans. A few had congregated near the beer coolers. That discussion was
sometimes heated, and more than once Joel had caught some nasty looks directed
at them from that crowd.

“I guess not everyone is on the same page,” Joel
said now.

“It was a good idea,” Glenn said. “You can’t make
people see a good idea. Look at cigarettes. People knew for years what they
were doing to them, and they still smoked. Some of these people haven’t hit the
wall yet. They still believe the system will save them.”

“Yeah, except there is no system,” Scott said.

Glenn nodded.

“Listen,” Joel started. He paused until they were
all looking at him, not sure if he really wanted to proceed. “Might sound
stupid,” he said after a few moments of silence.

“I don’t think anything would sound stupid right
now… We’re trying to figure this out,” Haley said.

Joel frowned. “Okay.” He frowned deeply, and then
nodded decisively. “So, it’s this. I was
leaving this morning for the Southern Tier. I’m thinking, the truck is all
packed, what are we,” he paused and counted heads, “Eight? I have enough food
packed to keep us all fed for a few days… We could head out to the Tug Hill
Plateau. Close by. We could pick up some stuff here to take with us too…” He
paused again, but no one spoke. “I say let’s get another truck or two and get
away from the city for a few days. Maybe the Tug Hill Plateau wouldn’t be a bad
place to be right now. Let things calm down, especially the hot heads.” He
paused, his face grim. “We can come back in a few days… Maybe the Guard will
be here by then, maybe not, but it would give us a few days to think this out,
if it… Well, if it really is as bad as it seems to be…” He looked from face
to face as he stopped speaking.

“Smart,” Scott said.

“Probably for the best,” Glenn agreed. He had all
been listening to the nearby conversations, some loud and argumentative, and
the beer cooler was emptying quickly: That certainly wasn’t going to help the
problem.

“Yeah… These guys seem bent on getting drunk
and figuring it all out,” Amber said.

“I’ve seen that sort of thinking before,” Haley
agreed. “I vote go.”

“I’m on that,” Scott agreed.

Dave Jackson and Ed Weston agreed.

“I make that all eight?” Joel asked.

“Only, let’s get some trucks and get what we need
here before we go. This place is going to get picked over fast,” Haley said.

“Who do you want to go with you?” Joel asked.

“I’m open,” Haley replied.

“I’ll go,” Amber said.

“Me too,” Scott added.

“That’s enough… I guess we’ll get stuff ready
here… Wait on you,” Joel said. He held Haley’s eyes until she nodded. A
second later she and the others left and the rest of them began to put together
some bags of supplies.