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Friday Dusk–Rattlesnake Canyon
The large gravel area, on the south side of the bridge, is crowded with cars and trucks. The latest car to arrive speeds through the congested area weaving through cars and drives to the middle of the bridge, sending people scrambling, before skidding to a stop.
A young man in his early twenties tumbles out of the car. “It’s true. This bridge goes nowhere, man,” yells the chubby, blond, white boy who holds a can of beer. He takes a deep swig as he staggers a few steps.
His friend lifts himself out of the passenger seat. A tall, thin-faced, beady-eyed young man with a scraggly, black beard exhales a huge cloud of smoke that wafts in the light wind. He puts the vaporizer to his lips inhaling deeply. He exhales and a thick fog veils his head.
“I told you. It’s a bridge to nowhere. Now, where’s the god-damned cave?” He asks his question slowly, clouded by the fog. The smoke drifts over the bridge as his beady eyes survey the area. “Where the fuck did all these people come from? This is a goddamn secret cave.”
The chubby white boy laughs. “Don’t look secret to me, Simon.”
Beady-Eyes points at a young woman standing on the bridge watching the young men. “Why you here? Who told you?” he asks sharply.
The chubby white boy drunkenly counts people with his fingers. “Lot a people here.” Losing count, he pauses looking at his fingers. “Lot a people man,” he says as he falls back against the front fender of the auto.
The woman doesn’t answer Beady-Eyes. She steps back looking to the people she came with. Beady-Eyes walks to a teenage boy who sits on the cement curb of the bridge looking at his shoes. He bends down to face the teenager. “Who told you? How’d you know to come here?”
The boy slowly raises his head with a dull look. “Same as everyone. Some old guy said he knew about a secret cave. People followed him. We followed them.”
“Shit, shit, shit,” screams Beady-Eyes as he stamps his foot repeatedly.
The boy watches Beady-Eyes and his angry dance. “Who told you?” asks the boy, squinting questioningly.
Beady-Eyes stops his rant. “Not telling you.”
The chubby white boy finishes his beer and throws the can at the boy on the curb. “It’s a secret. Supposed to be.”
Gloria and Louis are at the end of the trail on the far side of the bridge. “We tried your way. We didn’t find the cave. The storms are starting. We need to find cover,” Louis says.
Louis looks under the bridge to see if it offers protection. He can see people sitting under the bridge. The south side has a steep rocky path leading to a narrow cement ledge under the bridge. Below the ledge is a sheer cliff. The north side slopes gently down to the river. It doesn’t offer much protection, but it’s better than being in the open. Louis curses. “People have already taken the best spots to hide.”
Fireballs appear high above.
Gloria watches the vapor trails, gazing at the beauty of the puffy clouds. Louis grabs Gloria’s hand and pulls her onto the bridge. She protests with a small shriek but is too tired to fight.
Beady-Eyes spots two people walking toward him from the far side of the bridge. The woman looks familiar.
The chubby boy turns to see what beady-eyed Simon is looking at. “More people!” he exclaims.
Simon saunters to the bedraggled couple staring at the woman.
“Hey! Where are you going?” asks the chubby guy.
Gloria is walking too slowly. Louis yanks her hand, pulling her forward. She is about to yell at him when she spots a thin young man walking toward them. She has a flash of recognition and is energized. “Simon! You’re here? Simon!” Gloria calls out. She breaks her hand free from Louis and rushes toward Simon.
Simon runs to Gloria. She holds out her hands as they greet. She takes his hands in hers and then hugs him. “Simon, it’s so good to see you,” Gloria says sweetly.
Louis breaks up the reunion. “Who’s this?” he asks suspiciously.
“Louis. You know Simon. He’s Audrey’s boy. Audrey, my best friend,” Gloria explains.
Louis gives a grunt of recognition. “I can’t keep track of all your friends.” His suspicions eased; he focuses on finding a safe place to hide from the storm.
“Simon, where’s your mother? Is she in the car?” asks Gloria.
Simon’s face twitches. “She won’t leave the house. I told her she’s gonna die, but she won’t leave. You know her, damn stubborn. She told me to come here. Just Jeffery and me,” Simon turns his head toward his friend, who is working on another beer. “She told me about the secret cave, but it doesn’t look secret. All these people here.”
Gloria scans the far side of the bridge with a surprised look, realizing there shouldn’t be other people at the bridge.
“We tried to find it. There’s no cave. If you want to make it through the night, you’d better find someplace else. Come on Gloria. Move it,” Louis says with a scowl.
Beady-eyed Simon sharpens his glare. “My mom and Aunt Selina talk for hours every day. She told her everything about this place. There’s a hidden gate covered in brush. Behind it, there’s a wooden door and an altar.” Simon looks to the far side of the bridge and the trail winding around a rocky outcropping. “It’s just over there around that ridge,” Simon says.
Jeffery staggers to the group. “Hey! We going to that cave or what? Some people are heading back down the canyon looking for a better spot.”
A group of meteors fly low across the sky. The angle of descent hints they will explode at low altitude.
Simon introduces Jeffery to Gloria and repeats what his mother told him about the cave. Louis isn’t listening. He watches the space rocks then looks across the bridge. Two cars are leaving.
A group of people gather by the old shipping container. He sees a man facing the container and motioning for the others to back up. He holds a gun. He fires. A young woman standing near the container collapses holding her abdomen. The bullet must have broken the lock and ricocheted, hitting the woman. The container door opens. People push to get inside the rusted metal box. Children jump off the X-37 and run to the safety of the container. They pull the door shut, leaving several adults and kids outside. A woman pounds on the metal door crying for admittance. No one helps the wounded woman lying on the ground.
Opportunities to find cover are quickly evaporating. Louis grabs Gloria dragging her across the bridge. “I’m not standing here talking about that damned cave. Find it tomorrow. We need protection now!”
A meteor flying across the western skies breaks up. The mass bursts into a cloud of fragments, rocketing to Earth at over eight miles per second. Two large fragments slam into the rocky mountainside a half mile down Rattlesnake Canyon. The explosion throws rocks and dirt across the canyon. The force of the blast flips the cars driving down the canyon road.
Gloria pulls away. “No! Simon knows how to find it. Selina is my friend. She wouldn’t lie to me or Audrey,” Gloria walks to Simon and Jeffery.
Louis shakes his finger furiously. “Your friends! It’s always about your damned friends. I’m trying to save us.”
It takes twenty-six seconds for the air blast from the impact in the canyon to reach the bridge. The air rumbles and vibrates up the canyon wall with the sound of a heavy truck using a Jake brake. The forty-mile-per-hour hot wind buffets people on the bridge. Jeffery staggers, almost getting blown over.
“We’ve got to get to the cave. Let’s go!” Simon yells, steadying Jeffery as they move across the bridge.
Louis moves too. He has his eye on the X-37. Gloria stands alone, momentarily unsure which direction to go. She looks to Louis, then to Simon.
Louis senses her hesitation. “You never believed in me. You never loved me. Not really. You love spending the money I make. You love the trips, the things. You love your friends. Never me,” Louis yells in a sorrowful tone. He flings his arms in the air as a symbolic release and turns away.
Gloria shakes her fist. “You were never there. You were always working. You left me locked in that big house alone. All I have is my friends.”
Louis ignores his wife. He has a goal. “Go with your friends. Find your cave. I’ll find protection,” Louis says to himself, heading for the X-37. “The space shuttle has tile shields. It’s the best protection from the storm,” Louis tells himself as he moves across the bridge.
Gloria runs to Simon and Jeffery. “Aunt Selina will let us in. We’ll get to the gate. They’ll save us,” says Simon.
Gloria turns to look for Louis. He’s running across the bridge. She wipes a false tear from her cheek. Simon, Jeffery, and Gloria run to the end of the bridge and traverse the trail along the steep rocky cliff.
Louis reaches the end of the bridge and walks confidently past cars with people hiding in them. “Good luck with that, suckers,” he says to himself, knowing cars will offer no protection. The thought enters his mind that he should tell them they will die. “There’s no time to help stupid people.” The woman who banged on the container door sits on the ground sobbing. A few feet away, the young woman who was shot lies on the ground in a sticky pool of blood. Louis moves to the X-37.
He runs his hand over the tiled exterior. Tiles that will save him. He sees scars of previous impacts. It works! He drops to his knees looking up under the edge of the spacecraft. Carlos crawls under and stands, then checks the doors of the truck hidden beneath the spacecraft, but they are locked. He puts his hand on the driver’s side window, feeling the cool glass. Then he ducks back under the shell and dashes to the edge of the parking area, where he finds a big rock.
He runs back, ducks under the shell, and pounds the rock against the window. There isn’t much room, so it’s hard to get enough velocity or force to do much damage. He pounds and pounds until the window cracks. He pounds again. The glass does not shatter.
There is a layer of laminated plastic inside the window. He uses his fingers to pull broken pieces of glass away. He pounds and pulls at the pieces of glass. His fingers bleed. Slowly, he breaks through the plastic barrier, pushing through pieces of glass on the other side. He sticks his hand through a tight hole stretching the plastic to the width of his forearm. His fingers move along the door panel stretching the broken window, seeking the lock button. He pushes the button and the doors of the truck unlock. He pulls his arm out carefully, opens the door, and climbs into the driver’s seat.
Simon leads the way along the trail followed closely by Gloria. Jeffery stumbles and tosses an empty beer can down the rocky cliff.
Simon rounds the outcropping and approaches the narrow alcove. He calls back to his friend. “Hurry Jeffery. The gate should be over here in these bushes. Help me look!”
Gloria looks at the bushes and small trees in the recess tucked behind the rocky outcropping. “Louis and I walked past this spot.”
Simon pushes through the bushes in the fading light searching for the gate. He fumbles through foliage along the rock face at the rear of the thicket when his fingers meet the weathered galvanized wire mesh of a chain-link fence.
“I’ve found it. I found the gate!” he cries out excitedly, shaking the wire fence vigorously.
Gloria crosses her chest, whispering a prayer. Jeffery runs up the slope of the alcove, pushing past the bushes to join Simon at the gate. “It’s locked. Help me. Maybe we can pull it down,” Simon says. Jeffery and Simon push and pull the gate.
Uncle Rob, the kids, the grandmas, and the men sit at the long dining tables. Courtney, Isabella, and Margot place large bowls and platters of food on the tables. Selina stands in front of the windows watching the scene play out on the bridge.
Rob looks at the anxious faces around the table. “I don’t say my prayers often, so I might not do this right. I just want to say that I’m very thankful to have all of you here. I wish we could help everyone. I’m sorry, that’s not possible. I pray for the souls of those outside. I never expected people to find their way here; not like this. I pray the storms will pass quickly, so our young people can live full and fruitful lives. I pray we live together in harmony helping and supporting one another through this terrible time. Thanks to the ladies for preparing this food. Amen.”
The men, women and children pass platters and bowls of food filling their plates. Selina turns to the table angrily waving her arms. “Eat. Enjoy. People will die out there. What about them? What about my friends?”
The windows show Gloria and two young men walking up the trail toward the cave entrance. “Gloria. She came back. Where’s Louis?” The display cycles to the next camera. Selina waits anxiously. Everyone eats quickly during the calm moment.
“Selina, come and eat. Don’t watch. It’s upsetting you,” Eddie says to his wife.
Selina doesn’t answer. Instead, she stands in front of the windows with her hands on her hips. The camera cycles to a view over the mine’s entrance. It is getting dark. The camera switches to the infrared mode. The image becomes bright gray. A young man is pushing and pulling the fenced gate.
Selina gasps. “It’s Simon. Audrey’s boy. She must have told him.” Selina smiles proudly as she waits for the cameras to cycle again. “Simon, you helped Gloria.”
Selina looks at Eddie. “They made it. They’re at the gate. Nobody is with them. It’s dark. No one will see if we let them in,” Selina pleads. Eddie stares blankly back. “Don’t just sit there! We can save them. Open the gate. We have to do something!”
The camera cycles. Simon and another young man are pulling on the gate trying to force it open. Gloria stands behind them.
Edgar pushes his plate forward, stands and steps away from the table. “I’ll cut my portion in half. I’ll sleep on the floor. I’ll do whatever we need. We can make room for a few more.”
“Sit down, Edgar. We already decided. Think of our children,” Inez shouts.
“I am thinking of our children. We must set the example and show them what’s right. What kind of world will they build after the storms destroy this one? We must open our hearts. It’s not about Selina or her friends. It’s about being human.”
Selina’s sister, Margot stands pulling her husband George with her. “Edgar is right. I don’t like Selina’s friends. Sorry, sweetie.” Margot smiles innocently at her sister. “But it’s not about this friend or that. We’re human. We must sacrifice to help others. It’s what we must do.”
Courtney stands abruptly. “I agree. I know we talked about this, but we can’t leave those people out there. I know we can’t save everyone, but I won’t leave them out there to die.” Courtney clasps her hands in front of her almost shaking.
Rob moves to his desk, checks his screens, and then turns to the group looking at each one slowly. “The hideaway is not a democracy. You must not expect a committee or popular vote to make every decision. There will be terrible and difficult times ahead. I will make tough decisions without a vote. However, in this case, I will ask for a show of hands. Everyone’s vote counts, even you kids. Your decision affects everyone’s life in the hideaway. So, let’s vote. Raise a hand if you agree to open the gate and allow these three people to join us.”
Many hands shoot up. Isabella and Rodrigo are the last to raise their hands after seeing the decision will be unanimous with their votes.
Rob nods to Eddie. “All right. We’ll make it work, somehow. Eddie, let’s get the blast door open and welcome our new occupants.” Rob presses icons on his screen and Eddie makes his way down the tunnel to the blast door.
The land jolts and shakes from great earthquakes. The rising moon is blood red. Hundreds of asteroids penetrate the atmosphere each minute, causing mountains to shake and tumble. The sky becomes a dark billowy blanket. Humans scramble like cockroaches into every hole, sewer, and culvert. Many people wander in despair, waiting for heaven to fall upon them.
Louis laughs. He uses the light beam on his band to scan the dark interior of the Suburban hidden under the X-37. Incredibly, he has the space to himself. He pounds the steering wheel and laughs. He thinks of Gloria and his pounding slows. He feels the pain of a tear forming but shakes it off.
“Bitch. If she’d listened, she would be safe here with me. She chose her friends. Her friends, always her friends. If only she believed in me—” A door opens at the rear of the truck banging against the shell of the spacecraft. Louis shines his light at the sound. A young boy stands in the cargo area. Behind him, a young girl climbs into the truck.
The boy hides his eyes from the light. Louis moves the beam. The interior of the truck is dimly lit by reflected light.
“Hi,” says the boy to the man behind the light.
“Is that your sister?” Louis asks.
The boy turns to look. “Yeah,” the boy replies flatly.
“Just you two? Is anybody else coming? Not much room in here, ya know.”
The truck shakes from the force of nearby impacts. The boy steadies himself shaking his head sideways.
“There’s two ladies out there. I think they’re dead. People are hiding in cars,” the little girl says in a soft voice.
“Where’re your parents?”
“I saw them, and our sisters run into that container,” says the boy.
“We were playing,” the girl adds.
“The door closed, so we hid under the UFO until we heard you open the door,” the boy explains.
“Close that door,” Louis says sharply pointing to the rear door. The truck rocks from an air blast. The sound of hundreds of small rocky impacts accompanies the hot wind. The sound is like hundreds of metal ball bearings dropping into a tin bucket. Louis holds on to the truck seat anxiously listening to the impacts, then chuckles. “Hear that? Ha-ha. This UFO just saved our lives. Get comfortable. It’s gonna be a rough night.”
Louis and the kids cannot see outside. They can’t see blown-out car windows. They can’t see autos perforated with vicious holes. They can’t see the few survivors scurrying from hiding places and staggering in the darkness. They can’t see hundreds of holes puncturing the sides and top of the old container. They can’t see blood swelling out from under the container door. A door that does not open.
Simon and Jeffery push and pull the cyclone fence as hard as they can. The builders carved the face of the granite mountainside to fit two metal posts buried deep in cement on each side to hold the fence in place. The gate is eight feet wide and ten feet high covering the entrance to the cave. “The gate is so close to the mountainside, there’s less than an inch of clearance on the sides,” observes Jeffery.
“It’s too strong. We won’t shake this gate loose,” Simon says, with his fingers wrapped through the cyclone wire. He shakes the gate again in frustration. “Argh! The damn thing won’t budge. Goddamnit.”
Jeffery examines the chain-link fence. “I would have brought wire cutters if you told me we’d need to break in.”
“I’m supposed to think of everything. I got us here. How did I know they’d lock us out?” Simon reaches in his pocket for his vape, puts it to his lips and draws deeply.
The ground shakes violently. Small rocks and dirt cascade down the steep mountain face. Gloria pulls herself close to the fence. “My friend Selina is in there. I’m sure of it.” She looks up to the darkness of the mountain crying out, “Selina! Selina! We’re here. Let us in.”
Simon exhales and a cloud of smoke shrouds Jeffery. “Nothing like an asteroid storm to ruin a guy’s buzz.” Jeffery waves the smoke away. “Simon, I’ll climb to the top and pull the fencing. Maybe I can stretch it and make a gap big enough for your skinny ass to slip through. Once you’re in, find the doorbell or whatever and get whoever’s inside to let us in.”
Jeffery climbs the fence using the holes in the wire mesh as footholds. “I’ll boost you up,” Simon says as he pushes Jeffery’s butt with both hands. Jeffery reaches the top and starts yanking and tugging, trying to bend the wire mesh.
“Use your weight Jeffery,” Simon advises.
“What the fuck you think I’m doing?” Jeffery replies huffing and pulling.
Gloria watches with anticipation as thunder echoes in the sky and meteor impacts roar. The air is dusty. Gloria coughs on the dry air. “I wish I had my silk scarf to cover my face. It’s Hermes’s.”
Jeffery pulls at the top of the cyclone fence, bending the weaved galvanized wire out of shape. “It’s working. I made a gap. I think you can get through,” Jeffery says to Simon. “Climb up next to me.”
Simon climbs the ten-foot-high fence hanging at the top next to his friend. “Help me yank on this,” Jeffery says, and they pull the fencing together a few times, making the gap larger.
“I don’t know,” says Simon.
“You can make it. I’ll tuck my head low. Climb over my shoulders to get at an angle and squirm through.”
Rodrigo runs down the tunnel to help Eddie with the blast door. Eddie turns the wheel to release the bolts. They Eddie push the heavy door. Rob stops the camera rotation. The window image stays locked on the scene at the exterior gate. Selina watches with excitement. Jeffery and Simon are on the fence, pulling the wire mesh.
“They’re trying to pull the fence down, Uncle Rob,” Ethan calls out.
“I don’t think that will work. Don’t worry. Eddie and Rodrigo will get to them in a minute,” Rob says calmly.
Simon gets as high as he can, straddling his bulky friend. “OK. Hang on tight. Here I go,” Simon says as he dives headfirst with his arms extended, hoping to glide through the slender gap. His head and shoulders make it through, but he gets stuck at his waist. Simon hangs jackknifed over the gate.
“I’m stuck. Get higher. Help me raise my legs,” Simon says gasping for breath.
Jeffery’s fingers are racked with pain from gripping the wire fencing. He wills himself to hold on. He climbs higher, pressing his shoulders up to help Simon slip through the gap in the fence.
“You almost have it! You’re almost in!” shouts Gloria.
A meteor explodes high over the canyon, sending millions of bits of molten fragments into the canyon walls and riverbed below. Not one square inch of the canyon is spared from the jabbing invaders. A volley of hot spherules thrusts through Gloria’s flesh and zips through Jeffery and Simon continuing through the wooden door. The statue of Mother Mary, in the altar, shatters. Several of the rocky bits strike the thick metal blast door.
Rodrigo and Eddie hear the plink, plink, plink of the impacts, and pull the door closed. Women and children scream in the main gallery. The blast door closes with a loud metallic thunk. Eddie turns the wheel setting the bolts. Rodrigo and Eddie rush to the main gallery. Everyone is crying.
They stand viewing the windows. Jeffery’s body falls heavily to the ground landing on Gloria. Simon’s body hangs upside down before limply slipping through the hole falling headfirst to the rocky ground inside the gate. Three bodies lay at the gate displayed in the eerie green-gray light of the night vision camera.
Selina drops to the floor crying. Rob slumps to his desk chair in shock. He presses an icon to start the camera sequence. Allyssa can’t take the horror of the scene outside or the overwhelming grief inside. She runs past the galley down the mine shaft to the lower level.
It’s strangely quiet inside the old Suburban. The constant thunderous rumblings fall silent. Louis flashes his beam at the children. They stare forward mouths open listening for something to hear.
“That last one was a big one. Tonight’s storm is worse than last night and it’s still early. Enjoy the silence while it lasts. There’s more to come for sure. At least we’re safe in here,” Louis tells the children. “You kids picked the right place to hide. Tiles cover the exterior of this space shuttle to protect it from space rocks. Those tiles will save us.”
The tiles on the X-37B are called Whipple shields, invented by Fred Whipple. They are hypervelocity impact shields designed to protect spacecraft from collisions with micrometeoroids. When a shield is hit by space debris, the impacting rock is completely disintegrated on impact, leaving a deep dent in the layered shield. The tiles are not designed to take repetitive impacts. Each impact causes damage to the tiles. The shock of an impact stresses adjacent tiles, loosening them and causing cracks. The shields were not designed protect the shuttle from larger fast-moving meteorites.
A loud snap shocks the air, breaking the silence. Seconds later, the spacecraft-mounted Suburban dips to one side, resisting an air blast. The air blast passes and the craft steadies. Louis takes a breath. The sound of distant rumbling rolls up the canyon.
“You’re the man who said there’s a secret cave. I heard you talking. I told my dad. That’s why we followed you,” the young boy says. His sister nods agreement.
Louis nods slightly. “Oh?”
“Why aren’t you in the cave?” asks the young girl.
“Cuz, you told too many people. It isn’t a secret anymore,” the boy scolds his sister.
“I did not! You did!”
“The cave is so secret. I couldn’t find it. My wife and her friends are searching for it,” Louis explains to quiet the siblings.
A meteor violently explodes above the San Gabriel Mountains less than a mile downstream from the Bridge to Nowhere. The explosion propels large fragments at speeds of seven miles per second.
“I’m glad you let us in here. It’s kinda like a cave,” the young girl says.
“Yeah. It’s like a fort,” says the boy.
Hard rain drums as meteor fragments pummel the bridge, autos, the container, and the X-37. “Hang on, kids,” Louis shouts over the commotion.
A meteorite three inches in diameter hits a cracked tile and penetrates the X-37. The meteorite passes through the Suburban smashing into the granite bedrock under the truck.
The force shock created by the meteorite passing through the Suburban is instantly followed by the reactive force from the impact with the bedrock. The tremendous energy splits the X-37 in half, killing its occupants.
Ten seconds later, a tremendous air blast rips up the canyon at six hundred miles per hour flipping autos in the parking area and flinging them to the river one hundred feet below. The two halves of the X-37 are tossed high against the mountainside and tumble back to the ground. The hundred-year-old bridge is rocked by the air blast.
The south end of the bridge falls to the cement ledge, crushing the people who found refuge there. One of the bridge supports is severed. The bridge shakes and twists. Simon’s auto crashes through the cement guard rail smashing on the rocks below. The bridge holds. It leans to one side, sags in the middle, and the south side rests on the ledge six feet lower than the road, but the tough old bridge stands.
Rob watches the impact rip his trusty old X-37 in half. His knees buckle when he sees autos being flung over the cliff and the sturdy old bridge lose its footing. Rob turns the windows off.
