Unearthed

Chapter 8

Not only was clinic gone, but the entire northwest corner of town had dissolved into mud, absorbed back into the earth from which it came. What lay beyond the hood of the Rover was a vast black field of empty space, a gorge with no bottom to be seen.

“It’s getting worse,” Rebecca said. She felt entirely defeated. If Joe was still breathing in the backseat, she couldn’t hear him over the soft sound of Stacy’s gentle weeping. That fact alone let her know that he probably wasn’t.

She put the Rover in reverse and slowly backed away from that vacant space, not daring to let herself think about the lives that must have been lost in the last twenty-four hours.

“My baby,” Stacy sobbed. “Oh, God, my poor baby.”

Rebecca’s heart broke for the young woman as she turned the Rover back in the direction they’d come from. She was about to ask if Stacy had been married to Joe when she felt the back left side of the Rover sink. Both she and Stacy screamed in terror as the land behind the vehicle began to collapse.

Grimacing, Rebecca stomped on the gas pedal, thanking the powers that be for front-wheel-drive and the Rover lurched forward, the back wheel bumping back up onto solid ground.

Stacy spun around to look out the rear window. “Fuck!” she shouted. “Drive! Drive drive, drive!”

Behind them, the new gorge was growing, ingesting the ground and everything on it with an insatiable appetite. Despite driving as fast as she could, the earth was disintegrating no more than a car length after they passed over it.

“SHIIIIIITTTTT!” Rebecca yelled, gripping the steering wheel with all her might. She was dimly aware of the pandemonium happening behind her, the girl screaming, the dog barking, the earth crumpling into nothingness, but she kept her eyes straight ahead, pushing the Rover on, leaning forward towards the dashboard as if it would make them move faster.

They hadn’t gotten far when another crevasse opened up in front of them, smaller than the one behind, but still wide enough to take them down into oblivion.

Rebecca jerked the wheel to the right, going off-road, over a median strip, across a patch of lawn and into a small apartment complex parking lot. Swerving around the building, narrowly avoiding parked cars, they exited the other side onto long abandoned train tracks, the Rover’s engine roaring its protest.

Keeping to the tracks, Rebecca didn’t dare slow down. Parallel to the tracks, the ground was vanishing on one side while the edge of the forest lay on the other.

“We’re so fucking screwed,” Stacy said, sounding almost calm now. “So fucking screwed.”

From the right, where the forest was, came the sound that Rebecca had come to know so well: falling trees. Faraway, but certainly not far enough.

“Come on!” Rebecca snarled savagely as she saw an opening on the left where there was still a section of ground wide enough to let them pass. The Rover veered that way, its occupants bouncing violently within it, but otherwise silent now.

As soon as she’d made the move, Rebecca saw that it had been a mistake and hit the brakes, causing the Rover to fishtail and throwing both Stacy and the dog forward. They each let out yelps of pain and fear and then the vehicle was still.

Nothing lay in front of them.

Nothing lay behind or to either side.

The Rover sat on an island of earth, perhaps 84 feet wide and 100 feet in length.

Rebecca had no idea what was holding up this scrap of land, but she was grateful for it, knowing it was not likely to last more than a few minutes at most.

Stacy said nothing, but she didn’t cry either. She simply sat looking out the passenger side window, her eyes full of wonder and resignation.

Thinking about Glen, Rebecca sighed and turned to look at her dog. “Come here, Lou,” she said and patted her lap. The dog obliged, hopping over the center console to sit on top of his mistress, panting, wearing much the same expression as Stacy wore.

Burying her face in his fur, Rebecca sniffed and murmured, “You’re a good boy, Lou. A good boy.” She could feel the dog’s heart beating strong and steady in his chest and this gave her comfort. “We’ll see Daddy soon.”

When she lifted her face again, the eastern horizon was blushing the palest shade of gray she’d ever seen and the creatures were buzzing back forth in all directions. Dozens of them, all going about their own mysterious business.

This is their world now, she thought.

She hoped somewhere the earth still belonged to people, but in her heart of hearts she suspected that even if it did, it wouldn’t be for much longer.

Watching the enormous digger bees, she absently scratched her dog’s neck and listened to the hum of a distant chopper flying somewhere over head. The sound gave her a slight twinge of hope, but she knew better. She supposed Stacy knew better as well. She prayed for the young woman’s sake that she did.

The ground lasted a good deal longer than Rebecca had thought it would. There was time to watch the sunrise and listen to more helicopters come and go, but they never came close enough to warrant getting out and trying to signal them.

The day dawned in much the same way the previous one had: gray and gloomy and with a profound sense of loneliness that broke hearts and inspired poets. After a while, it began to rain, but they were all used to that now. It had rained for so long before this whole mess it seemed only fitting that it would end the same way. This was the Pacific Northwest after all and for Rebecca’s money, there was no place more beautiful.

The patter of rain soothed her almost as much as the weight of her dog did and she wondered vaguely if it would lull her to sleep.

And then, it did.

Gina Ranalli is the author of many books, including House of Fallen Trees, Praise the Dead and Mother Puncher. Visit her online at www.ginaranalli.com.

FIRST DIGITAL EDITION

Unearthed © 2011 by Gina Ranalli

Cover Artwork © 2011 by Daniele Serra

All Rights Reserved.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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