02: A Long Day's Wait

Alice was congratulating herself on getting her father involved with someone and David and Ellen were busy flirting, when the distant sound of the radio caught their attention. David quieted them so they could listen.

“This just in, there appears to be a massive meteor shower sweeping across the country. It supposedly started West of here,” the announcer reported, signaling he was near Washington, “and it’s been sweeping steadily westward. It’s inflicted serious damage and has limited cellphone and landline services. So far, we don’t have much information, but all airline flights for the entire country have been grounded. No reports if this is affecting any countries other than the U.S., but it doesn’t seem to be a localized phenomenon.”

“Well, at least someone noticed us,” David observed.

“Yeah, but if it’s sweeping westward and affecting a large area, that implies no one will come looking for us,” Ellen commented.

David nodded, glancing into the distance. “No, I think we’re on our own. And we don’t dare move until it stops. This can’t last for long. It’s already been going on for a long time. It’s got to stop before long. Until then, no one will venture outdoors, and once the meteors stop, it’ll take several hours before anyone makes it this way looking for survivors.”

Ellen’s eyes darted between the road and David. “I can’t stay out here by myself until someone comes along to help.” Her voice rang shriller, and her eyes took on a pleading look. Alice didn’t say anything, glancing at her father, trying to propel him to do the right thing for a change.

“Don’t worry. Assuming my car still works when this is over, I’ll either give you a lift home or I’ll at least take you to see my ‘monstrosity’. Either way, you won’t be stuck here.”

“Oh, thank you, David,” she enthused, as she leaned over and gave him a quick kiss thank you. The kiss continued as they both closed their eyes, locked in their embrace. Ellen opened her eyes, noticing Alice watching them. Alice was trying to avoid staring, but she had a big shit-eating grin on her face, so Ellen felt safe with what had happened. However, she and David broke apart. ‘Just don’t say anything to your mother, ‘ she thought. ‘Chances are she won’t react well to your father making out with a strange woman if she’s as much of a bitch as she sounds like’.

When David noticed Alice watching, he blushed and started making apologies. Seeing his unease, Alice tried to distract them. “Is there any problem with her staying with us? Chances are, your place is better protected than her house would be, but do you have enough supplies for three people for a few days. At least until things get settled again.” As Alice was grilling her father, Ellen was grasping David’s hand, the one hidden from Alice. David seemed fine with that.

David turned to Ellen, trying to keep the discussion moving, wanting to avoid an uncomfortable situation. But he also saw it as the best therapy for each of them. “So what do you do?”

“Oh, I’m a writer. I do business writing, mostly for small businesses where I write their ad copy and review their website content, making it more accessible. How about you, what do you do?”

Alice bit her lip. This was her father’s weak point. He was comfortable with what he did, but knew Linda left him over his not working at a 9 to 5 job. If he expressed discomfort over it, or if Ellen was anything like Alice’s mother, then the slowly evolving relationship might falter.

David smiled. “Oh, I don’t work. I retired with a fairly hefty retirement fund and some income from a few patents. However, I’ve spent much of that building my little retreat. I won’t need to work anytime soon, but I don’t live high on the hog, either.”

Ellen considered that. “I guess that explains why your ex-wife didn’t like you spending all your money on your little house project. Actually that casts you both in a better light. She simply had a different world view than you, and when you went after your dream you both found you could no longer live together. The way I see it, neither of you was really to blame for the breakup.”

“Why thank you,” David replied. “I was a little afraid you’d take her position. If that was the case, we’d have a difficult time idling the rest of the meteor shower sharing this little hollow.”

“So she really left you because you didn’t have a job?” Ellen asked.

“Yeah,” Alice replied. “It was a mess. She said Dad had no ambition. That’s concerning a man who hand-built a huge house in the country that’s almost totally self-supporting.”

David shrugged, not wanting to cast aspersions but wanting to explain what happened. “She was a bit obsessed. She liked what my career bought her. Not so much the toys, although that was a part of it, but she was focused on the social scene. Since I dropped out to spend time on my own, she felt like I’d abandoned her just as she was starting to get ahead socially.”

“I can see that. It’s sad, but it’s also perfectly understandable,” Ellen said. “It’s just a matter of your interests growing apart. But the really sad part is that she tried to poison Alice against you. That, I don’t think is justifiable.”

“What about you? Could you stand going out with someone with no ambition?” David asked, fishing for compliments, or at least an opening.

“Well, I’m not going to commit myself after only a few hours lying together in a field,” Ellen teased. “Maybe after we fall asleep together in a little while, but I’m willing to see how things develop.”

David nodded. “That’s all I can ask.”

They continued to talk, slowly getting to know one another. They’d occasionally stop and listen to the news, but it didn’t provide much new information. The news media seemed to be slow in getting and processing the story, which was understandable if communications were down and air travel was grounded. Alice grew bored and took out her cell phone, listening to tunes. She tried playing some games, but had to stop to preserve the battery, thinking she may need it later if they got somewhere she could use it.

As they lay there, Alice suddenly leaned up and pointed to the road. “Look, there’s someone down there!”

David and Ellen turned and looked. There was a car which had stopped near them. It was still a distance off, not near their cars, but they could still see it clearly, even though they hadn’t noticed it before. However, it seemed to have stopped much as Ellen’s car had. They couldn’t see why from this distance, but they could see the passengers moving inside. The people were frantic.

The door of the SUV opened and a man exited the driver’s seat with difficulty. His wife/girlfriend got out of the other side and rushed to him. The man knelt and held his side. Even from this distance the three lying in the field could see the dark patch spreading across his shirt. Apparently they hadn’t stopped because of a mechanical problem, but because the man was injured from flying shrapnel.

The woman helped him to his feet, and they appeared to talk, trying to decide what to do. However, they were doing it like they were home in their own safe little house. They didn’t seem to have learned how dangerous it was to be standing outside in a heavy meteor shower like this.

“David, we have to warn them,” Ellen said, turning and putting her hand on his. “They don’t know how much danger they are in standing out in the open like that.”

“Yeah, Daddy, they’re in trouble. We need to go down and bring them up here.”

David gritted his teeth. He felt like a heel, but he had to be strong. Not only for himself, he wasn’t afraid to risk his own safety for someone else, but he needed to watch out over the two girls as well.

“They’re too far away,” David quietly advised them. “If we stood and waved and shouted, we’d put ourselves in danger and they’d never hear us. They’re across the field and on the far side of the highway, not to mention a ways down the road, plus your radio is still blaring. They couldn’t hear any warning, and they’d only see us if they wandered to our side of the highway and looked right at us.”

“But couldn’t we—” Alice started to argue.

“NO,” David insisted in a steely tone that hid his own anguish. “You’re not about to try running through this storm to warn them. It’s too dangerous and too far to expose your—” His short rant was interrupted. They’d remained watching the couple as they’d discussed contacting them, but the man keeled over and crumpled, leaving a bloodstained girlfriend standing there looking bewildered. David guessed the man had taken a second piece of shrapnel to his head, which caused it to blow apart. Not an unexpected event considering the force of the things they’d seen flying. It’s easy to imagine a small rock traveling at the speed of a gunshot connecting with someone’s skull. It’d be like a race car traveling extremely fast meeting a solid stationary telephone pole, something David and Alice had watched on the internet once. The car, a specially designed vehicle with a jet engine racing through the salt flats at a phenomenal speed, was undamaged, but the force of the impact caused the telephone pole to disintegrate, blown into a thousand small pieces. Of course, it was probably a specially designed vehicle, as a typical car wouldn’t likely respond like that, but the concept of the damage a fast-moving item can do still stood.

Ellen and Alice grasped David’s arm and held on tight as they watched the scene continue to unfold. The woman looked around, and then dropped to her knees. She didn’t know what to do and tried to lift him up, ending up simply cradling his head against her chest. They assumed she was crying because she remained like that, still exposed on the open road, for quite a while.

Finally she seemed to awaken from her shocked state. David could only guess she’d had a near encounter with yet another piece of shrapnel. She got to her feet, leaving her companion lying there, and looked back and forth, trying to decide what to do. She started for the car, but then hesitated. It seemed obvious to the watchers that her car was damaged when her boyfriend was injured. She glanced at David and Ellen’s cars, but seemed to decide against trying for them, then striding off in the other direction, walking away from the trio watching from the field she’d never glanced at.

They each watched her walking away, expecting to see her crumple at any moment, but she continued to march, fully erect the entire way, until she disappeared from sight. Something made easier by the fact she’d been so far away to begin with. She’d hesitated a moment when her knee seemed to give out from under her, but she kept walking in quiet determination. However, she hadn’t seemed to have learned anything, as she continued walking along the open road, standing upright the entire way.

The three watchers glanced at each other after she disappeared, each trying to figure out what the others thought of the encounter.

Alice shivered. “Shit, I knew it was dangerous out there, but I’m definitely keeping my head down now. I think I’ll have less problems peeing on myself after watching that.”

David resisted the impulse to chastise his daughter for her language. Watching someone die in front of you is fairly traumatic, and a little adult language seemed called for.

“Still, they travelled all this way without injury,” Ellen commented, not sure what her point was. Despite her objection, she didn’t think she’d risk standing any time either. Seeing the man dying was certainly dramatic. She pulled David closer as she shook in fear. David was strong and seemed to always know what to do, surely he’d protect her.

Alice felt similarly. She pressed up against her father, seeking comfort and solace. She could see that her father and Ellen were drawing closer after experiencing this, which she wanted to encourage. But she needed a little of his time before she could leave them on their own. Thus the three lay holding each other, both girls gravitating to David, seeking comfort from him while he was primarily worried for them, realizing the chance of their being rescued was remote at the moment.

None of them talked about it beyond that. The image remained with each of them, but they needed time to process what they’d seen. They were each aware that the same thing was happening across the country, and the only reason they’d only seen the single death was that they were so isolated. If they’d been closer to the city they’d have witnessed multiple deaths, each just as gruesome.

As David and Ellen grew more comfortable, they shifted around. Ellen lay in David’s arms as he cuddled her while Alice lay facing them. Her father and Ellen were getting along well, and Ellen’s giggles carried over the open fields. The fact they were cuddling bode well for their future, and Alice congratulated herself. They were still talking when yet another newscast from the radio caught their attention. The announcers acknowledged the storm, but had no definitive information about it until now.

“This just in, the meteor storm has swept across the Midwest, igniting a series of wildfires. The dry timber this time of year is highly susceptible to the intense heat of the meteorites showering down upon them. There are reports of widespread damage and most states—at least those we’ve heard from—have declared states of emergency. With the communication networks down, we’ve been unable to verify these reports. Police are warning people to remain safe and be patient, since their officers aren’t able to venture out in the current conditions. Meanwhile, the meteor storm continues to sweep west at a rapid rate, and should hit the West Coast in a short time. We’re advising everyone to remain indoors, sheltered in a basement or braced against an interior doorframe.

“The scientific community, at least those we’ve been able to reach, are unable to provide answers concerning these event. There were no warnings, and the only notice was after they were already crashing to the ground. Some suggest it’s simply ‘random space junk’, but no one knows where they originated or why they’d appear now. Most scientific observatories have shut down to protect their sensitive equipment, so further information is unlikely.”