Rock Fall
Copyright© 2015 by Gina Marie Wylie
Chapter 8: Rock Fall
Saturday everyone was up early. Most people gathered with neighbors to watch, while twenty or so gathered in the big house’s main room, where a big screen TV hung from the wall. The TV had been turned on by nine, and most people sat silently watching the various talking heads.
Chris couldn’t tell what the mood of the group was. It was somber, for sure. There was no laughing or kidding around. The mood of the TV anchors was optimistic; Chris was pretty sure that most of the smiles and good cheer were decidedly forced.
Since the day after Thanksgiving the government had admitted that they were stockpiling a lot of supplies in various places and giving instructions about where shelters had been built for those on the west coast.
People had been evacuated from the South Pacific islands, although a good many people had refused to go. Aircraft flew empty to Hawaii and the other Pacific islands and came back full.
But, here and now, pretty much everything that could be done had been done and there was only waiting. About an hour before the impact a picture of the object was shown, even though the Rock had been very distant, about the distance of the moon. “Potato-shaped,” Mike said aloud.
“Lightly cratered, so unlikely from our neighborhood,” Amy declared.
An Air Force general was explaining why they hadn’t tried to nuke it. “It’s coming at a bad angle, from the south. Further, we have no way to track something coming as fast as this is. We agreed with the Russians and Chinese we wouldn’t shoot at it — there is virtually no chance of a hit.”
“Surely you could use proximity fuse?” one of the anchors asked.
The general laughed. “As fast as a proximity fuse works, the Rock will be past it before it can even sense it. The Rock will be moving close to fifty miles a second when it gets close. Yes, we wish we could blow the sucker up, but there is too much chance of a mistake.”
Sydney opined, “Yeah, it is coming fast, over the South Pole. Most ICBMs would be out of fuel there.”
They waited with bated breath for the last few seconds, the network having a countdown clock. There was a live view from a weather satellite, and at the indicated second there was an orange streak, then the screen turned white and the picture flicked back to the studio.
“It’s down,” the anchor said, with a shaky voice. “Video cameras don’t have the sensitivity range of the human eye.”
Amy snorted. “If you’d have seen the impact, you’d be blind now. That was as bright as a nuclear detonation.”
The screen flicked to another camera, which rather contradicted the young woman. It was a camera on a beach on Easter Island, and showed a white glow that steadily brightened until you could clearly see that the white-hot glow was above the horizon.
The camera jerked and tilted a bit, cutting off a lot of the light. You could see a fountain of sparks flying upward, and even as they realized what they were seeing, the rain of debris unrolled like a carpet until that camera failed as well.
There was another camera in orbit pointed at the event now, which could see a little. There was a milky white wave rushing across the ocean very fast, and a talking head spoke in awed tones, “That’s the shock wave in the atmosphere. It’s pushing all the moisture in the atmosphere ahead of it, and when the overpressure is past, the little moisture that got through condenses instantly to clouds...”
The new camera cut off as well and the studio anchor said, “NASA says that no satellites in low orbit will survive the event. The ISS crew was brought back last week. NASA and NOAA have gotten a new weather satellite ready, but they won’t be able to orbit it for some time because of the debris in orbit.”
Chris reached for the remote and turned the TV off. “About now they are going to start reporting on the damage done. In about twenty minutes I’ll turn it back on to see when the debris is going to come down here. Mike, you and Joanna need to hotfoot it back to Pine Valley before you get cut off here.”
Chris stood and stretched. His four friends clustered around him, hugging him tightly.
Sydney spoke for all of them. “In my secret heart of hearts, I thought it would miss us. Yet when I saw that evil cloud rise up — I despaired. God has abandoned us.”
Chris leaned down and kissed her hair. “In all the stories of biblical catastrophes, God chose people to spare. Noah with his ark, Lot at Sodom, Moses to escape from slavery. I’m pretty sure all of those guys were humble folk, nothing to write home about — but who stepped up to the plate and did what had to be done so that their people would survive.
“It’s hard to imagine we are those sorts of persons but I bet that the survivors of earlier trials didn’t think they were special either. All we can do is our best — that and inspire those around us to do their best.”
Bishop Flake and a few members of the stake came inside then. “Mr. Gutterman, please, when you have a moment, we should speak to those gathered here.”
“Now is fine,” Chris said and he went outside.
There was a sizable crowd gathered, quieter than Chris could have imagine several hundred people could be.
“I wish I had a louder voice,” Chris said.
Dwayne spoke up. “We can hear you just fine!”
Chris grimaced. “Well, God or the Magic 8 Ball of fate has given us three lemons. The Rock is down, and while it will take a while for all the effects to manifest themselves — make no doubt about it — they will.
“There will be tidal waves and earthquakes, and there will be secondary meteor strikes. Depending on how much debris there is it may warm some here today. Probably not as hot as the summer.”
People laughed at that.
“Please, my friends. A conservative number is that one person in seven who was living this morning will be dead by tomorrow. I wasn’t a religious person, but no one rational can contemplate a billion deaths with a shrug. Please, bow your heads in silence for a minute and pray for their souls.”
It had been forty minutes since Rock Fall, less than a minute into the silent prayer when Chris saw he had two shadows. He was startled, but spoke quickly, “Don’t look up! You’ll be blinded!”
There were muffled cries of fear, and Chris spoke softly. “Keith!”
A few seconds later came the sound of twin explosions, then a few seconds more and a louder one from Pine Valley.
Chris dialed Mike on his cell phone and the other promptly picked up. “It looked like there was a secondary impact in town, Mike.”
Mike evidently couldn’t hear him. “I imagine you want to know what’s up! Nothing! A bit of starstuff fell in Pine Valley. My ears are ringing and I can’t hear you. I had my phone on vibrate and felt that.
“It was biblical, Chris! Downright biblical! The Rock came down and someone looked outside to see if there were any of the fireworks predicted. He saw Mayor Jimmy park in front of the jail and rush inside. That guy called his buddies, and they called their buddies. Jimmy and the sheriff were met just outside town, down by the river. Chris, they hung them both.
“All of a sudden there was a bright light in the sky and everyone covered their eyes. Booger hit the jail! Now there is a ten-foot hole in the roof, but the walls blew out and dropped what was left of the roof straight down. I was close to an RPG in the Mog; this wasn’t that bad. A half hour and I can hear. Take care, my friend!”
Chris looked around and took a deep breath. “Everyone in Pine Valley appears to be okay — except the mayor and the sheriff. The mayor let the sheriff go. People saw them ... there is no easy way to say this. They lynched them both.
“Then a piece of the Rock hit the jail, and aside from the jail, there doesn’t appear to be any injuries or damage.”
“And the closer explosion?” someone asked.
“I’ll go check it out in a bit,” Chris told him. Chris waved at the sky where meteors continued to glow even in the daytime. “For the time being, I want to stick close to my family.”
Since that was what everyone else wanted, that sufficed.
Later, Mike called Chris back. “The ringing in my ears is a nuisance now. I don’t know how to explain what happened Chris. Even Judge Kaufman was there. He said that the mayor was aiding in a jailbreak of known criminal, that was a felony, and that people were authorized to use deadly force to prevent felonies. Get this, Chris. Every woman in town was on the rope for the sheriff.”
Mike cleared his throat. “There is something else. Part of it you’ll like and part you won’t. The judge called for an election of a new mayor and a new sheriff. He nominated me for sheriff, but he nominated Bishop Flake for mayor.”
“The bishop has moved up the mountain, and I don’t think he would be willing to move back. I’m sure his wives wouldn’t hear of it — he had a mild stroke a week ago,” Chris said evenly.
“Yeah. Check with him to be sure. Chris, the judge called out the nominations and then said ‘Move the nominations be closed, do I hear a second?’ A whole bunch of people seconded it and the judge asked for those in favor and that was that.”
“I’ll check. Mike, can you get with Judge Kaufman and ask him if we can have a conference call in a bit?”
“Sure — everyone’s back inside, watching the news. It’s like you said, Chris. Ghastly.”
“I’ll get back to you, Mike.”
Chris met Amy at the door to the family room, where the big screen TV was. There were about thirty people crowded into the room. “I sent Sydney to bed; Chris, she is badly shaken by the devastation. Yeah, it’s more lack of news than news but she couldn’t watch any more. A half dozen others haven’t been able to watch,” Amy told Chris.
“We need to send someone to check the road. I’m surprised we got a meteor strike so fast.”
Amy nodded. “Some of the heavier chunks were sent on relatively flat trajectories, perhaps entirely inside the atmosphere. You said it was nickel-iron. Those chunks would have longer lives.
“Donovan Flake went down the road — he reports a strike on the bridge. Get this: the bridge was hit twice. At the base of one of the piers and once on the surface, near the town-end of the bridge. He reports that the middle span is down, but the crater only was about six feet across. He reports that there were fragments of the meteorite laying on the ground and he brought some back. He said that they were painfully hot even still. He had to pick them up with a crescent wrench.”
Chris whistled. “God does move in strange ways, his miracles to perform.”
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