They looked left to the Sherman tank and men coming from the east and right to the cannons and men coming from the west. Melanie noticed something else: water. Everywhere, on all sides of them, water was flooding much of Grand Avenue.
“Frank, the water. Where is it coming from?”
Tex beat Frank to the punch. “Yep, it’s the way we first set up all the wat’r tanks on the buil’n’s. Their valves and openin’s point toward the street for easy access.” He paused and looked around.
Frank finished the explanation. “It looks like every unreinforced building with a water tank on top collapsed. That’s what you’re seeing.”
“But, it’s dry here, where we are, and flooded everywhere else,” Melanie continued.
“Yep, that water tower in front of us, because it’s bigger, is on a steel reinforced building.” Tex pointed, as if she needed the help to see it.
Frank erupted. “Melanie, what the hell does that have to do with anything? We are about to be kill—“
“Frank, any chance that lucky grenade on that Batman-belt works?” She looked between him and the water tower.
“Yes, but what the hell does that… Holy shit, you’re a damned genius.” He pulled out the grenade he had been saving for a special purpose. This was perfect. He shouted to everyone around them, “All right everyone, fall back north on 3rd Street! On the double!”
Frank and Tex exchanged a look. “I got this one, Tex.” They both nodded in agreement.
He looked at Melanie, “You too, missy.”
“I’m not going to let you do this—“
“Bullshit. Your husband needs you. Stop wasting time we don’t have.”
“You know what to d—”
“Of course, I’ll flip the switch. I know what’ll happen and I’m at peace with it. Please, just go!”
She kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you… for everything.” And with that, she sprinted after Tex.
Frank watched everyone run up 3rd Street, with Melanie and Tex directing them further.
He pulled the pin, let the spoon flip off arming the fuse, ran two steps forward and then heaved it, aiming for the bottom of the water tank on top of the roof, thirty-five feet above and across the street. One-thousand-one.
It clinked off of the very bottom corner of the tank, landing on the roof, coming to rest a foot away. Perfect throw, he thought. One-thousand-two. Turning back, he ran to the vacant lot with the capacitor banks. While he ran, he called out, “one-thousand-three, one-thousand-four, one-”
The explosion was perfectly placed, tearing a large lateral gash that exploded up and then outward with the water. A tidal wave hit the street down both sides of Grand and 3rd. The blast of water crashed against Frank, knocking him on his back, and pushed him away from the capacitor bank. Like a fish from an upended aquarium, he flopped around in the raging current, struggling to right himself back up, before finally being able to trudge back through the deluge, which was already subsiding. He reached the capacitor bank, and flipped down the lever by each capacitor, until he had his hand on the final outermost lever, and waited for the right moment.
The foot-long lever, connected to the front-most capacitor, was part of a very simple mechanism. Pushing it downward exposed the charged cable coming out of the capacitor bank. At its lowest position, it became physically connected to the cable that ran the four or five feet to the panels and rails that had been so well arranged until the earthquake. Now, the new lake of water connected the circuit of metal panels, and throwing that switch would electrocute everything standing on or in the soup. The Exterminator, as Melanie dubbed it, really was a masterpiece of engineering by both her and Dr. Carrington. As the Doc explained it to him, the induced currents from the CMEs hitting the long stretches of railroad tracks running through town were picked up by the single rail that ran into town to the capacitor bank, built under Dr. Carrington’s guidance. Each individual capacitor could be discharged separately by its own lever, or all six capacitors could be discharged in a series—six times the punch—controlled by the last one.
With both hands now on the final lever, Frank stood in the lake of water, looking east to west and back again, waiting until both sets of men were where he wanted them. He didn’t have to wait long.
Sylas arrived slightly ahead of the tank and his column of men. As he turned the corner and saw Frank, he set his lips in a thin smile. “Before I obliterate the rest of your town, tell me where your sheriff is.”
“Who do you think you are?” demanded Frank with all the scorn and disrespect he could muster.
“Who am I? I own you. Who are you? And consider your answer, because what you say will determine how I kill you, either painfully or quickly. Your choice.”
Frank smiled; he turned slightly to confirm the other column’s position. “Actually, it is I who own you. Your time is done here.” Frank leaned down and flipped the switch.
Blue, green, and white sparks danced along the water and metal on the streets, electrocuting everyone in their path. The invaders danced in their places, their arms, legs, and bodies gyrating erratically. Sylas barely moved, frozen like a statue, his face carved in shock. His eyes exploded outward and he dropped like a felled tree into the steamy soup. Frank smiled at these images, which were instantaneous to others but a long movie to him. He was filled with more joy than he could remember and with gratitude for a good death, and peace.
46.
Mushroom Clouds
As the two mushroom clouds continued to churn and surge into the troposphere, spreading as they came in contact with the jet stream, the sun inexorably slid down the firmament and crashed on the horizon’s western crest. The abnormal orange and black smoke, ruddy from the setting sun and mixing with a new zephyr of green auroras rolling in from the northwest, brewed an explosion of foreboding colors which bathed the heavens.
Recently, humans had turned their heads away from the skies, focused instead on day-to-day survival, finding no utility in the archaic enjoyment of auroras or stargazing. But this airborne pageantry pulled all eyes upward, first with fascination, then with fear, and finally with panic as realization caught up with awe.
Wilber looked up from his despair at the raging sky without much regard; his torment here on earth was much greater. In his arms lay his destroyed family, his wife unable to let go of their son’s broken body.
Doc Reynolds was the first to join them, followed not much later by the Simpsons. Their heads and shoulders slumped in recognition of the clouds of anguish surrounding the Wrights.
Doc stopped before their huddled forms amid the tangled wreckage of the tower and turbine blades. He regarded them as a father would. Their utter sadness struck him to his core. What he saw, even through his smudgy lenses, was the most heart-rending image he had ever witnessed: Wilber was completely covered in a film of blackness, blood, and dirt; the area around his eyes was streaky white where tears had flushed away the muck that covered him. He was painted in gloom. In his arms he cradled his wife, who cradled their son, who wore a death mask of gray and purple, his limbs pointed in odd directions.
Wilber broke the silent sorrow they all wore like chains. “Doc,” he said in a detached voice, “I think John was hit, up on top of the pig pen. Check on him, would you?” He then said to the Simpsons, “Maybe you two could see if Steve is alive too.” Giving the instructions seemed to fill Wilber with purpose of thought, and it gave him a lift to the edge of the pit he shared with his wife.