Mega Cataclysm: The Last Survivors Chronicles Page 5

  Ben was holding his daughter, as if trying to protect her in one last ditch effort. She had gone into shock, and his stare was fixed straight ahead, as he silently and mindlessly stroked her hair. His eyes betrayed his thoughts almost, as his mind struggled to comprehend. The moon had broken through the clouds, and was giving us as much light as it could.

  Jan put one hand over mine, as it gripped ever tighter the gun. She was making sure that it didn't get loose, once the dirty deed had been done. I wondered why Ben didn't have his, as all sorts of thoughts ran through what was left of my brain. But the sound of the water got so loud and terrifying this time, I couldn't even think any longer.

  I could now make out the sound of trees cracking and giving way, through the mighty roar of the ocean as it breached all of earth's last defenses down below us. It was so much louder, and closer than before. I could tell the water was approaching the top, and so could Jan- as she squeezed me with every ounce of strength the woman could muster, shaking in renewed fear.

  "JUST KILL US ALREADY!," she screamed. "I can't take this anymore!" And I felt a wetness permeate my pants from a pool on the ground. She had urinated from fear, but hell I couldn't blame her. If I had to go, I probably would of too.

  With one final roar, the mountain shook vigorously from the apocalyptic onslaught of ocean. I raised the gun to my head, believing I had better do it. But Jan's hand over mine on the gun resisted me. It was a measured resistance, as if to say "Not yet."

  She was nearly suffocating me death in a full frontal hug, and I was probably doing the same to her. But at least we would die together, for whatever that was worth. I wondered if the universe cared. It probably didn't. Just another parasitic few ants about to get squished under the great hunter's boot.

  The noise was incredible, and the shaking furious. I swear that mountain moved. It sure felt like it. I was going into shock. Ben had turned his flashlight on again, and now in our final moments I caught one last glimpse of him sitting there, holding Terry from behind in his lap leaning up against him, facing away from him.

  He was squeezing her so tightly that her tremendous breasts had broken through the buttons on her shirt, and were protruding- visible by flashlight and moonlight together. Ben was looking upwards, as if wanting to see the wave consume them.

  "And so we die too," I thought to myself, through a morbid haze. I closed my eyes, tensing up and preparing to take the death bullet. I was ready to fire, but Jan still held me back, pulling my hand and the gun towards her. I would have to kill her first, and she was making that silently clear.

  So I let her hand guide the gun towards her temple. When she felt the barrel in place, she tried to squeeze my trigger finger, but I hesitated one last brief instant as the wave slammed into the mountain with incredible force.

  My hand was knocked away from her head by the tremendous shaking just before the gun fired. She was not phased and didn't even flinch from the bang, because it was miniscule compared to the roar. I moved my hand back, grabbing her head and started to fire again, struggling to maintain with the ground shaking us furiously around.

  I could not complete the second trigger pull because I couldn't get her temple and the gun to line up with all the shaking. I was determined not just to wound her. It had to be deadly and kill her, even if it meant wounding myself in the process- as her head was tucked too tight to my chest. I knew the pain wouldn't last long right after that because I could shoot again quickly.

  Then suddenly in these throes of death, I had a sense that the leading edge of the mega wave had passed below us. It seemed very close, but continued heading away from us, as the roar and the shaking started subsiding a bit. The mountain was barely holding up to the onslaught, but stabilized somewhat under the continuing pressure from the racing water below. Just as this happened I finally got the gun in the right spot on her temple ready to fire, and I had just about pulled the trigger. But I began to reacquire my sanity quickly when I regained stability from the shaking easing off, and held off one split second again. Her hand quickly grabbed mine again to end it.

  "WAIT!!!" Ben screamed in both our ears, as he pushed the gun away from her head just before it fired. "STOP!!! STOP!!!" he shouted and wrestled the gun from our hands. We both went rather limp on each other and were disappointed to have to deal with any more of this. Death was surely better.

  "THE WAVE DIDN'T REACH US," he screamed. "IT DIDN'T REACH US."

  Emerging from terror just enough to think for a second, my brain barely registered his communication. I was dragged back into reality, regaining my thoughts. Jan started to come back, lifting her head up in a daze to spot the offending voice, and the one who had so deprived her of her final choice.

  "Wha... What?" she mumbled. "I just... I just want to... Pleeee... Please..."

  "NO WAIT!" Ben screamed. "We're all still alive. The wave... It missed us. It was close, but it missed us."

  Shaken from the death daze, Jan finally looked at me, and was just barely understanding Ben's words. Even in the dim of the moonlight, there was no mistaking the tears in all of our eyes as we realized there might be a fighting chance.

  A thousand emotions suddenly surfaced as I hugged Jan again, almost embarrassed at my own fear. But there was immediate forgiveness in her eyes as she slowly exited her state of shock and came to.

  Elated at not being dead, I gave her a hard, celebratory kiss on her lips, and I probably stayed there a bit longer than needed. It wasn't necessarily a sexual type of kiss- although there might have been just enough of that there to confuse. After all, she WAS very attractive- that I could not argue even with myself. But this, this was a kiss for life- and her lips completely yielded, with her body going limp in my arms. There was just no fight in her left to contest it.

  I quickly disengaged when I realized what I was doing, but the damage was done. Or at least so I thought. "Sorry... So sorry about that... I just... I was just happy to...." I started to say and looked into her startled eyes.

  She started to pull away from me, but then she hesitated, looked at me again, and hugged me affectionately once more before disengaging with a curious, faint smile.

  "It's... It's ok... Just forget it," she said, exhausted. "Looks like we all made it," she commented as she looked around at Ben and then Terry. Terry was still sitting on the ground, and pretty well frozen. Ben shined the light in her face.

  "You ok, sweetheart?" he asked her, going back over to hold her.

  "No, I'm not," she replied faintly, and that's all anyone said for a while.

  The air was filled much more potently this time with that oceanic smell. I could tell that water had to be extremely close, but then I remembered how distances were so deceiving up that high. There was no mistaking that the water was definitely closer. I could hear it roaring and tumbling restlessly below us, causing the mountain to still shake somewhat. But the shaking was slowly subsiding.

  "Sounds like it just missed us," interrupted Ben, somewhat hopefully- as Jan further awoke from her tearful daze, and Terry started to regain her composure. But there was an obvious problem. Ben was just as startled to look down and see his daughter's incredible breasts as I was. Terry quickly pushed them back in, turning every color of red I think I have ever seen- and I couldn't even see that well from lack of light.

  Jan didn't see any of that.

  "Yes, just barely," I answered Ben, trying to play off my silent kiss exchange with Jan. But it was a feeble attempt, and one look at her confirmed that she saw right through it. The silent reply in her eyes, however, also betrayed her attempts to hide her newfound curiosity towards me after that confusing kiss.

  But now was no time for head games, or emotional games for that matter. We were in deep trouble, and the reality of the circumstances set in again and all but completely wiped out whatever reasons for living ANYONE had.

  Chapter 11: Sleeping Bag Surprise

  "It sounds... It sounds like the water is closer, don't you think?" said Terry, in a ca
lmer, but still distraught voice.

  "Yeah, no doubt about it," Ben agreed, with some tremble of his own in his voice. "It's probably just hundreds of feet below us now. And I have no idea what's coming next. But I think I'm sure now that it wasn't an asteroid strike, because by now we would have felt the heat and shock wave. I think it must have been some sort of huge tectonic plate movement. There was a guy back in the 1950's who talked about this kind of thing, but even crazy old Marty didn't believe in those theories."

  Desperate for any explanation, I quickly remembered reading something about that myself. And then the name came back screaming into my head.

  "Hapgood?" I said inquisitively, but still shaken. I could barely even think.

  "YES! That's him," Ben retorted, more assertively as he regained his composure somewhat. "Charles Hapgood- that's right. He had theories about earth crustal displacement, but he was considered a whacko by a lot of scientists. We just didn't believe that could possibly happen, because all the tectonic plates were effectively landlocked, and the geological evidence for any such thing was pretty sketchy." But by his tone I could tell he was still unconvinced. It was like there was still something else he was contemplating.

  "Well I agree it was sketchy," I said, "But there was some evidence of the possibility. There were sea fossils recovered near the top of Mount Everest, for example."

  He started to say something, but went back into silence again, with those silent wheels turning. Then all of a sudden he stared blankly in disbelief at the ground, frozen with his eyes wide open like he realized something. Something else.

  "Excuse me, but what good is any of this doing us now?" Jan said, injecting a more practical approach. She was getting annoyed. "We're stuck on top of a mountain with the ocean all around us. And for all we know, the rest of the world is dead."

  "Yeah," concurred Terry. "I don't see any point in trying to figure it out now. We're screwed. And all of my friends... All of my..." She couldn't finish, and retreated back into misery and tears.

  Their words had a tremendous impact, silencing all of us. But my mind kept turning, and I was dying to know what in the hell Ben was thinking.

  It had to be approaching around 9 pm or later I figured. And then I noticed that the pills had some effect, as my bodily pains had subsided, until I tried to move.

  "Maybe we should try to get some sleep," Jan finally said, completely exhausted, and going over to Terry to try and help comfort her. I looked around for their car, but couldn't see it. It was just too dark, despite the faint moonlight.

  "Maybe you're right," said Ben apologetically, and getting up to help Terry over to their car. It turned out to be not too far away down the hill- and not too badly damaged like mine had been. It had also been stopped by a smaller tree, right at the tree line.

  And I was also exhausted. The events of the day had taken their toll, and the thought of sleep overwhelmed me too. But where? And with what? And what if there were other bears lurking in the woods, and driven higher up towards us by the rushing of the water? Someone should really stay up and keep watch.

  As Ben and Jan reemerged up the hill towards me, Ben had clearly been thinking along the same lines. "I got up pretty late today, and could probably last another few hours awake," he said with the rifle in hand.

  "That'd be fine by me," I said in a sigh of relief. "Let me get back down to the car and see if I can round up that tent and sleeping bag." I motioned for him to lend me his flashlight. "I can relieve you after a while. Just let me rest a bit."

  After a half an hour of somewhat painful work, I now found myself in my tent, which Jan and I had setup near the top of the hill, while Ben sat perched with his rifle at the ruins of the deck. But there was only one sleeping bag, and as I motioned for her to get in it, I started laying out the blanket on the other side of the tent.

  "You don't have to do that," she said quietly, opening the bag completely. "Why don't you bring that blanket. It will be warmer in here." My hesitation quickly gave way to necessity. She was right. And I was too tired to contest. Like I wanted to contest. Ha. As I climbed in, I tried a last ditch effort to give her every bit of room I could- but by the time I was falling asleep, we had already found each other's warmth once again in a natural embrace.

  I accidently touched one of her breasts in our attempts to find a suitable sleeping position, and quickly moved my hand. "Don't worry about it," she whispered, as she drifted off to sleep quickly. We ended up with her facing away from me, and snuggled at full length. I dared not think another damn thing, and willed myself to darkness.

  Chapter 12: Help Me

  Awoken by a firm tap on the shoulder, I found myself staring at Ben, who was standing over me, shining his flashlight in my eyes. "I've about had it. Would you mind?" he said, gesturing for me to take his rifle. I felt a bit better, and still a bit groggy, I took the gun. "Yeah, no problem," I said, trying to wake myself from the slumber.

  "I'm going back to the car. Come with me and I'll give you the flashlight too," he said, waiting outside the tent. We went down to his car, where he promptly climbed in and disappeared. They were lucky- their car ended up right side up, and not too badly damaged from what I could see.

  It suddenly dawned on me that I still had a wristwatch on. It was about 4 am, as I took my perch on the hill at the deck remains. I figured Ben must have been near dead by then, and thanked him profusely to myself for letting me sleep.

  I could still hear the water, but it had calmed down some. Then I was startled all of a sudden when I was touched. "I'll keep you some company," said Jan, awakened by the commotion, with the blanket in hand. "If you don't mind, that is."

  "Oh no, I don't mind at all. Please," I said, gesturing for her to sit down.

  "It's cold," she said, snuggling up to my body, and wrapping the blanket around us. Like I was going to complain. No, I was not complaining. No way. I suddenly realized just how good she felt in my arms, and a long silence ensued, interrupted only by the breeze and the occasional sound of the waves below us. For the moment it seemed like the rest just didn't matter.

  "If we live through..." she started quietly to say, but was interrupted and silenced by a stirring in the forest, slightly below us. I heard it too, and quickly came to full alert- rifle ready. Then I felt her hand move lower and lower down my stomach, but too quickly. I realized in that moment of question and distraction that she was reaching for the gun- which I had tucked in my pants.

  "I might need this, and you have the rifle," she whispered, but with a certain daring tone that distracted me still further. With all my might I shifted my thoughts towards the forest, and pointed the flashlight in the offending direction down the hill at the tree line. I thought I saw something moving, but the flashlight was near giving out, and I wasn't sure. That was until we heard it. "Help," cried a faint voice. "Help me."

  We ran down the hill through the trees towards the voice, and came upon a blonde-haired woman, laying sprawled in the pine needles, and clearly injured- with a bruise on her head, and a big gash in her leg. She had lost a lot of blood, as clearly evidenced by the pool of it in a dark stain on the ground. Jan immediately tore off her shirt, and proceeded to wrap her leg above the wound in a tourniquet, as the woman moaned in pain.

  "Help me get her up," Jan said urgently, contesting my stare. I hesitated just briefly, startled again at the sight of Jan's bare naked breasts in the dim moonlight. I was reminded of how being a man sucked sometimes, and at the worst moments. But I sucked up my embarrassment, and we got the woman up the hill to the tent. Jan covered her up in the sleeping bag, and then with the blanket. She then grabbed my jacket, and put it on quickly- but she did it facing me, and with an inquisitive look at the flashlight I had pointed at her.

  "What's the damn matter with you- have you never seen breasts before?" she hammered the point home, with a quick opening and closing of the jacket again. I couldn't even speak. She had thoroughly destroyed whatever sense of decency I had left. I can't ever
remember moving a flashlight so quickly away.

  "Sorry," I lamented, in total shame. "You have any water anywhere?" Jan asked. "She probably really needs it," looking down at the woman.

  "Yeah yeah, down in the car," I replied, eternally thankful for the rapid exit of the subject. "I'll get it- hang on." I cursed at myself all the way down the hill and back up again for the insane rubbish society had instilled in me, returning with a jug of water. The sight of a woman's breasts was really a natural thing- it was just society that placed all this unnecessary drama around it, causing men to freak out. It just wasn't right. At all.

  With a sigh I made a motion towards the woman to give her some water, but Jan curiously snatched the jug from my hands, and proceeded to do it herself. Before my thoughts could drift to contemplate her action, the woman quickly came to, mumbling something about a bear. "The bear, the bear, it attacked us," she said frantically. And as she related what had happened she quickly broke down, recalling the grizzly scene. "We were in the woods down there, about to... to... and... and....it just attacked us. It...it...ate..." But again she passed out.