Mike was lying in his bed when his stomach began to churn. “Partied way too hard.” He opened his red, irritated eyes; he couldn’t focus on anything as the whole world seemed to be moving.
“Up, everyone up!” BT was shouting. BT had opened the bedroom door, picked Tracy up out of her bed, and was heading outside. “Come on, Mike, earthquake!”
“So, not my stomach?” he asked as he kept one hand against the wall to steady himself as best he could. When he got outside, the shaking was somehow worse. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
Trip was the only one not looking like he was inside a paint shaker as he matched the vibrations of the earth perfectly, lighting a bone as he did so.
“The ground!” someone shouted; it could have been Porjie.
By this time, Mike was on all fours doing his best to weather the storm both externally and internally. He swung his head up to see what just yesterday had been a beautiful snow-covered peak now shaking off its winter coat like a wet dog will pond water.
“That a fucking avalanche?” he asked. “Earthquakes and avalanches? I’m not so keen on camping right now.” He was looking across the bay at a mountain aptly named Devil’s Desk, which was opening up all its drawers and letting everything nasty fall out.
“It’ll be all right,” BT told him.
“The bay is receding!” Porjie warned.
Mike had seen enough disaster videos on YouTube to know they needed to either drive as fast and as far as they could or find some high ground where they could at least escape the inevitable flood waters. At the moment, he couldn’t even imagine getting to BT’s vehicle, much less being able to drive it away. The SUV was rocking violently back and forth and looked very much in danger of toppling over. Mike got onto his knees to watch the sheet of snow and ice rip down the side of the mountain. When it slammed into the water, it formed an enormous wave. He was finally able to stand as Tracy made her way to him. They clasped hands; all they could do was stare as the white wall raced down the valley and across the water.
“The moment I saw you, I loved you with all my heart,” he told her.
She squeezed his hand tighter. They were both thinking about their children. Though they were older (their youngest, at seventeen, wasn’t quite an adult), they were all going to be orphans now.
“It’s not going to hit us!” Porjie shouted out in glee. “It’s not going to make it!”
Mike didn’t know what they could see that he didn’t, but he was going to hold on to that unsubstantiated conclusion with all his might. Thunderous screeching and roaring sounds came from behind and to the side of them; Mike could only figure it was dinosaurs clawing their way up through the enormous fissures opening, uncovering their hidden world beneath the earth's mantle. It made about as much sense as the rest of what was going on.
Five minutes, but seemingly two hours later, the worst of the shaking had stopped. The destructive wall of water had landed on another shore. Nothing remained of the few boats unfortunate enough to have been trapped out there. The earthquake and the subsequent murderous avalanche had missed them, but the air was thick with smoke and ash from numerous devastating fires.
“Never seen anything like that. Air's pretty thick,” BT mumbled, fixing his shirt up over his mouth and nose.
“Yeah, we got other problems,” Mike said, looking to where he’d heard the awful sounds only moments before. Route 1, the road they’d taken in—and the only road—was gone for as far as the eye could see.
“What the fuck?” BT said as he spun. “Everything around us is completely destroyed. Downtown Homer looks like it’s gone, washed away. How? How did we make it?”
“Ancient Indian burial ground?” Mike asked in all seriousness.
“Is everyone all right?” Linda asked. Of the entire group, she looked as if she’d just stepped out of the salon.
There were nods all around, a couple of bumped heads and skinned knees, but most of those could have happened the previous evening.
“Look!” Diaz was pointing to the bay; the water was turning a blood-red color.
“Not quite like the snow from back home,” Mike said as he looked up at the black precipitation.
“We should go inside,” BT said.
“Should we get out of here?” Max asked his group.
Trish took it from there. “Okay, guys, let’s pack up and get going.”
From the window, Mike watched the college kids pack up their gear and don their backpacks. “What are they doing? BT, it looks like those kids are walking out.”
BT was up and out the door. “Max, Trish," he called out. “Are you guys hiking out of here?”
“It’s how we came in,” Max offered.
“The highway is gone, and the nearest town, Anchor Point, might be as well. There’s nowhere to go. The earthquake saw to that. Right now, the best thing we can do is stick together.”
Trish looked over at him defiantly. “We came in overland, we’ll go out that way.”
Mike came out and walked over to the group. “A tsunami just hit, and we had some serious seismic activity; there’s no telling what’s happened to the landscape.”
“We’re obviously going to skirt problems.” Trish looked surly. Mike didn’t understand; they’d all seemed so amiable the night before. Maybe the liquor had pried away the hardened shell she wore, and the events of the day had re-adhered it. Stress tended to bring out the worst in people.
“Are you sure you don’t want to wait it out in one of the cabins?” Linda offered. “I’m sure Trip won’t mind.”
“And do what, wait for the government to come and help?” Trish spread her hands. “Look around, man, this place is about as remote as you can get. It’ll be weeks, probably months before any rescue attempt can be launched. Look at how bad they fucked up Katrina.”
Mike initially thought that the hurricane had been on a much grander scale than this disaster, but as he looked over the area, he wasn’t quite so sure of that. Dozens, maybe hundreds of fires raged off in the distance indicating the nearer towns had suffered insurmountable damage, and aftershocks were still shaking the ground and creating new rifts within the crust. Yeah, they were good and right fucked.
“I’m not sitting here eating snack food from a vending machine until they come and get us, which will probably be," she looked at her bare wrist, "oh yeah. Never.” She motioned for the group to follow. Max and Porjie waved, the rest just followed in Trish’s footsteps.
“Just wait five minutes, we’ll get some information from the radio,” BT offered.
“Sounds like a good idea.” Max breathed a sigh of relief. Sitting tight and getting more facts in this particular instance was the smart move.
Trish’s jaw clenched and unclenched, she did not like having her plans interrupted or the authority she imposed upon the small group questioned. “Fine," she blurted out, sounding petulant.
Mike was with Tracy, surveying the general area. As a weekend survivalist, he was taking stock of the supplies available to them, food, shelter, water, weapons, and besides shelter, they were lacking in all the necessities.
“I always thought it would be zombies,” Mike told his wife in regard to the clearly apocalyptic state they found themselves in.
“I think I’d rather have zombies,” Tracy replied as they gazed out at the landscape now in shambles.
“You think we could appease the gods if we sacrificed BT?”
“Are you going to be the one to sneak up and club him on the head?”
“I was hoping he’d do so voluntarily. Maybe we should ask him.” As they walked back to the SUV, Mike thought it was a trick of the dreary day casting light into the vehicle, but BT looked as pale as the ash swirling around them. When his friend got out of the car, his eyes were wet, and tears cut channels through the soot on his face.
“Hon?” Linda asked, going over to his side.
“It…it was the big one," he stuttered. “Millions dead, more missing. San Francisco is all gone with half the West Coast; Los Angeles is a burning pile of rubble. 8.4 magnitude, aftershocks are still going. Most of the Aleutians are underwater.” He had to lean against the car to keep himself propped up.
“Fuck,” Mike said softly. The news was horrible, entirely too surreal; he wasn’t even sure he could process it fully. When he took that information in and localized it to their problems, it magnified the lack of supplies they had. Water was going to be their biggest issue. The bay had flooded a large area around them, and any body of fresh water it had come into contact with was contaminated and toxic.
“Let’s go!” Trish barked.
“Did you not hear me?” BT asked.
“All that does is confirm that we need to leave. If I thought waiting on the government to come to our rescue before was going to take forever, this means they’re really never going to show. All of their resources will be diverted to California. When do you think they’re going to show up at a Homer KOA?”
“She might have a point,” Mike said.
She looked over at him as if to say, No shit, and I don’t need a man to confirm it.
“Where are you going?” Mike asked.
“Happy Valley or further up to Ninilchik. If it suffered the same fate as what looked like happened to Anchor Point...” was all she offered.
“Could you be a little more specific to someone who isn’t from around here?” he asked.
“I could.” She turned and walked away.
Max shrugged his shoulder. “It’s a little over fourteen miles away, northwest of here. Seriously though, the terrain is pretty rugged.” He was not-so-subtly implying he did not think anyone else but them could make it out. “We’ll send help if there’s any to send.” He gave an apologetic grin and a wave.
Porjie pulled the drawstrings of the hoodie tighter, hiding even more of their face. The rest followed Trish quietly, not saying anything as they left.
“Good riddance. Less mouths to feed,” Mrs. Bennilli startled Mike, having come up on him without him noticing.
“Does anyone have cell service?” Mike had his phone in his upraised hand, the universal gesture for lack of signal, as if the added few feet would somehow miraculously find a sweet cell spot.
“Nothing," came the consensus from those gathered nearby.
“How the hell are we going to let the kids know we’re all right?” Mike asked.
Tracy leaned into Mike, as much for reassurance for him as for her.
“Where are Paul and Errin?” she asked after a while.
“They went hiking earlier this morning. I saw them while I was doing my yoga,” Stephanie said. She was still wearing her leopard print leotard.
Trip had stepped out of his RV in off-white, full-body long johns. He scratched his scrotum and stretched. “Whoa, are we having another party? It seems a little early, but I’m not judging.” He went back into the RV, grabbed his bowl, and came back out. “Anyone want a hit?” he asked after taking one himself. “Looks like someone already did.” He was swatting at the large flakes of ash drifting down.
“Do you know where they went?” BT asked Stephanie. “Did they log it in at the front desk?”
“Would they think to do that?” Mike asked. “I didn’t get the impression they understood how remote this place is. Just because there’s a town nearby doesn’t mean you can’t get turned around.”
“They could have got stuck on the other side of the divide.” Tracy pointed to the huge, newly formed waterway. Everyone was thinking it though none voiced the thought, that it was just as likely that their battered and broken bodies were floating in the flotsam.
“If they made it to the other side, then they’re in better shape than we are,” Mike said.
“Meaning?” BT asked.
“That if help isn’t coming and we need to hunker down for a bit, we’re going to need fresh water.”
“There’s water in the office,” Stephanie said. “A supply closet full, to be exact. It’s a big moneymaker for the campground during the summer.”
“If we have to, couldn’t we hike out like the kids just did?” Tracy asked.
“Probably should anyway. Who knows how long it could take anyone to get here,” Mike told her. “This is a disaster, and we’re stuck out in the boonies, cut off from civilization just like the start of most horror novels. But that doesn’t necessarily mean there are no houses out there, resources we could use, and I’m sure there’s more further out in the area.”
“What about just driving to the town they talked about?” BT asked.
Stephanie shook her head. “Wouldn’t make it. There’s no trail, and it’s full of ravines. Far too steep for anything we have here.”
“Should have brought my helicopter,” Trip said.
“Too much ash, dear,” Stephanie told him.
Linda said, “I think it might be for the best if we stay indoors for a bit, stay out of the worst of this, and then make a hike to the next town.” There were no dissenting votes.
“Should we see how the person in the last RV is?” Tracy asked. They all turned to the RV. That no one had come out the previous evening was strange but not alarming. People came to Alaska to get away from people, so not wanting to join a party wasn’t unheard of. But after what had happened so far today, it seemed only natural that the person or persons in there would want to seek out solace and comfort from a group, whether they knew them or not. They should have at least popped their heads out to see what in the world had happened.
“Trip, do you know?” Mike asked.
“Was here before I started.” He shrugged. “I was told they were long-term customers and had paid in advance.”
“Male, female, family?” BT asked.
“Two men, one woman. I suppose," Stephanie said, "according to the names. Stacy, Tim, and Charles.”
“Stacy could go either way, but odds are yeah,” Mike said. “I’ll go knock.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“Why?” Mike asked.
“We’ve had massive earthquake, flooding and are almost surrounded by wild fires, that no one came out is suspicious. Aren’t you concerned?” BT asked.
“I wasn’t until you said something,” Mike told him. He opened the screen and struck the aluminum door solidly three times. “Hey in there. My name is Mike Talbot. Just wanted to make sure everyone is okay in there!”
“He’s not law enforcement!” Trip shouted. “Right? I mean, I never asked.”
“I’m not. He is, though.” Mike pointed to BT.
“No way, man. I have an ounce of shrooms, fifteen grams of weed, seven Xanax, twelve Mollys, six or seven ludes, and maybe some peyote, but my coffee tasted funny this morning and colors are really vivid plus I keep hallucinating that the mountain is volcanoing, so there’s a good chance I ate that. Is he going to bust me?”
“You’re out of his jurisdiction, I’m sure you’ll be fine,” Mike told him.
“Well, in that case.” Trip pulled out a handful of pills and rifled through them before settling on a couple that he dry swallowed.
Mike shook his head. “No answer. Should I check and see if it’s unlocked?”
“Yeah, we have to know if anyone is injured,” BT said.
Mike turned the handle; it didn’t yield. “Now what?”
“Knock on it again,” BT told him.
“Yeah, because there’s no way they didn’t hear my knocking in this behemoth mansion, or maybe they’re super old, and it’s just taking that long to get to the door.”
BT shouldered Mike and banged on the door, hard enough that it was rattling in its frame. Mike turned away quickly.
“Fuck, did you catch a whiff of that?”
“I did.” BT reached for a weapon he wasn’t carrying. “Something’s dead in there.”
“Or someone,” Mike said. “And by the stink, it’s been that way for a while.”
BT was getting ready to shoulder the door open.
“That’s a crime scene, and you’re not in the right state.”
“They might need help,” BT countered with.
“Come on, man, who’s ever in there is long past needing help.”
“So just leave them there then?” BT asked.
“What’s the alternative? Can’t bury it. When we get out of here, we tell the cops where the person...err...people is.”
“I know you’re right; fundamentally, I know you’re right.”
“Going in anyway then?”
“Have to.”
Mike backed up to avoid the majority of the stench that was bound to come pouring out. He’d been on a rescue mission once in Afghanistan. An American Naval officer had been abducted and was being held for ransom high up in the mountains. Negotiations had broken down or had been a stalling tactic from the beginning. By the time Mike’s unit stormed the remote village in a bid to save the man, there was no one there except the beaten, tortured, and dead body of the ensign. Mike still had nightmares about coming upon that body, and in a weird twist of fate, the smell somehow accompanied it. He had no desire to freshen the memory.
BT broke the door in and yelled out again; there was no response.
“Do you think ghosts scream?” Trip asked. “I mean, they’re always moaning. If they’re in pain, it makes sense that there’d be some occasional screaming.”
“Ah, sure,” Mike said, taking a glance at Trip but focusing on the door in case his friend needed help.
BT came out a moment later. He looked about as good as he had when he’d found out that California and Alaska, as States, were precariously hanging on.
“Murder,” BT said.
“You sure?” Mike asked.
“Well, unless someone fell on a knife a dozen times, tried to decapitate themselves, and then for the grand finale stuck it in their eyeball, yeah, I’m gonna go out on a limb and stick with my initial assessment.”
“Just the one body?” Mike asked.
BT nodded. “I checked out the rest of the RV.”
“Safe to say that the other two who checked in would be prime suspects, considering no one bothered to report the crime,” Mike said. “How long?”
“Three or four days.”
“I caught a whiff; that smelled like a lot longer.”
“He was disemboweled, along with the eyeball gouging and attempted head removal.”
“Perfect. Now we have a murderer or murderers in the vicinity, and particularly violent ones.”
“Statistically, the average person walks past thirty-six murderers in their lifetime,” Trip stated.
“And that helps us how?” Mike asked.
“Just saying, at any given time, you could be amid a murderer.”
“Yeah, but it’s different when you aren’t actively thinking about it.”
“Why? They’re still there whether you think they are or not. Just like unicorns.”
“Trip, could you go and find out when this was parked?”
“Yep.” Trip didn’t move.
“I was talking about now,” BT told him.
Trip sighed heavily and walked towards the office.
“Now what?” Mike asked.
“I wish I’d brought a weapon.”
“About that.” Mike looked away.
“What about that, Mike?”
“I may have brought a couple.”
“A couple of what?” BT was getting angry. “If you say firearms, we’re going to have a problem, because transporting firearms over state lines without reciprocity laws is illegal, and I can guarantee you that happened. Then we boarded a ship that looks for contraband. Do you have any concept of how fucking dangerous that was? Why would you do that? What would possess you to bring a gun on vacation?”
“Are you looking around right now?”
“You couldn’t have possibly known this was going to happen!”
“No shit, man, but I decided to stay prepared. You know the old idiom, better to be packing a giant gun for absolutely no reason than to need something to shoot someone in the face with and not have it.”
“I don’t think it goes like that.”
“You want one or not?”
BT sighed. “Did you bring the chrome .357?”
“That and my .380 Beretta.”
“I want the .357.”
Mike was back in under a minute. “Got you a shoulder holster too. Probably going to have to adjust it.”
“Should I get my gun too?” Trip asked when he came back.
“You have a gun?” Mike asked.
“I’m a concealed carry instructor.” Before Mike could call him on it, Trip produced his laminated instructor card.
“Ya know, even with all this other shit going on right now, that’s competing for the strangest.” Mike handed it back.
Trip left and came back a few minutes later. He was walking stiff-legged, the outline of a rifle barrel showed in his pants, and a buttstock was clearly defined on his shirt. “Concealed carry,” Trip said triumphantly.
“The RV,” BT said.
“What about it?” Trip was adjusting the very uncomfortable looking firearm. “Right, right,” he said when he saw BT looking at him. “Been here a week. They paid for two weeks in advance.”
“The other two have to be long gone, right?” Mike asked hopefully. The natural disasters were bad enough; having killers lurking nearby exasperated the problems they faced.
“About that, if they have an 'uh-oh' moment they’re going to come back,” Trip said, pulling out three sheets of copier paper.
“Shit,” Mike said as he looked at the crystal clear copies made of their drivers' licenses. “How stupid do you have to be to give your id, then commit a murder?”
“Here’s a fact for you, Mike, most criminals are idiots, that’s why they resort to crime,” BT said as he took the paper from Trip. “Well, our victim was Charles, which means Tim and Stacy are our suspects. And Stacy is indeed a female.” He showed the pictures to Mike.
“Damn, he’s a big bastard! 6’7”, two hundred and seventy pounds. You think this Stacy woman is complicit or another victim?” Mike asked.
“Hard to say. If she’s in trouble, this Tim character has a few days lead, and we’re not in much of a position to help. But if he figured out he left vital evidence behind, he might come back to clean it up.”
“Yeah, but he can’t get here, right?” Mike asked as they all looked to the area where Trish and her group had gone.
“They could be heading right into the buzzsaw,” BT said. “We need to warn them.”
“I’m not usually the voice of reason, you of all people should know that, but there are still most likely houses around us unaffected by all of this. If this Tim guy isn’t halfway across the state by now, there’s a chance he could be holed up nearby. We leave to catch up to Trish, we could be leaving people unprotected.” As if to accentuate his point, the ground trembled with a heavy-handed aftershock. A large swath of land precariously perched to their right slid down into a newly formed abyss, along with a few cabins that Mike hoped contained their threat. “They might be better off out there.”
“You can stop trying to sell the point; I agree with you. Whatever we do, we’re going to have to leave soon. If the ground keeps giving way like it is, this whole place could go, or we get flooded. We’ll stick to the original plan. For now, we’ll leave when the ash subsides, or if we’re forced.”
The atmosphere within the cabin was tense. BT had explained what he’d seen in the RV and that they needed to be careful. No one was to go out alone. Mike wanted to add that, after looking at the crazy-eyed picture of Tim, any group under four should be banned. Fires and the resultant explosions, plus the crack of more triggered avalanches off in the distance, were the only things to break up the ensuing silence. It was getting dark preternaturally early due to the sky being clogged with ash, and the earth still shook with some regularity. Each time, Mike would jump up from his chair and get ready for the evacuation.
“Should we set up guard duty?” he asked once the cabin walls stopped moving.
“I don’t want to fuel paranoia, but that might not be a bad idea. With the electricity out, this place is going to be as dark as prehistoric times.” BT was looking through the window up at the darkening sky. “We won’t be able to see anything out there. The best thing will be to stay away from the windows and listen for anything out of the ordinary.”
“Yeah, that shouldn’t be too terrifying,” Mike responded morosely. “You want the first half or the second?”
“I’d like to get a few hours of sleep before the reality of what I witnessed today has a chance to set in and haunt my dreams.”
“I’d imagine it would take thoughts that long to work their way through that enormous body of yours. Do they get trapped in the muscles? Like, if I was to punch you in the arm, would it dislodge a stuck one so all of a sudden you would remember your sweet Aunt Mabel’s cornbread?”
“She did have the best cornbread.”
“Yeah, she did. I knew we were going to be friends that day I came to your barbecue and there was a plate of that.”
“And I thought we weren’t when I had to stop you from walking off with the whole batch.”
“You blame me?”
“Not at all.” BT smiled. “Okay, I’m going to get some shuteye. If you start falling asleep, come and get me, okay?”
Mike stretched and yawned. “You got it.”
“Comforting.”
“Want me to stay with you?” Tracy asked.
“Naw, try and get some sleep. We’re all going to need some rest, especially if we’re going to try and hike out of here.”
“Do you think it’s going to come to that?”
“I honestly don’t know. We’re pretty far off the beaten path. I hate to say isolated, but with that road out…. As much as I want to leave, I’m not thrilled with the prospect of hoofing it through the Alaskan wilderness. I’d like to think some emergency services will come, but it’s never good to completely rely on others to save your ass. I’ve learned that lesson. The government and all that implies is going to have a hell of a time righting this ship, and coming to look for small groups in remote places is going to be far down their list of priorities. Where the hell am I going with this?”
Tracy kissed Mike’s forehead and went back to their room.