“You could be right, but we still have to try. That’s all we have left. Let’s head over there and see what we’re up against. One thing at a time, I suppose.” She smiled and walked back to the Jeep, where Vanessa was sitting and watching our exchange.
“What was that all about?” Ray asked as I got into the truck.
“Nothing. She just has some concerns about the aliens’ motivation on Earth. Things we have no answers for.”
I drove down the street and up a quarter mile to the remains of an exploded gas station. Sections of the building were scattered so far I would have thought it impossible for them to fly that distance. A sign sat on the ground, half on fire. It read “Eat Here, Get Gas,” which under normal circumstances would have made me laugh. With my breath gone, I had a hard time. The earth split open in front of us for what looked like a hundred yards or so. Just split down for another fifty yards. Whatever that laser thing was, it was built for destruction.
The four of us got out and surveyed the damage, all of us too afraid to talk. I looked east and west, and it went as far as the eye could see.
“What if they’ve done this every few miles down? We’ll never be able to get there.” Vanessa broke the silence as she stood there, shoulders visibly slumped forward.
“What about heading around it? We may eventually be able to get past the starting point. Or we head for the coast now and get a boat there,” Ray suggested.
“I have a feeling it’ll be a long way to the end, and for all we know, they blew up the coastline’s boats. I don’t know what the answer is.” Mary crouched and rested her arms on her knees. “Dean, what do you think?”
I wasn’t sure what to think, but if they wanted my opinion… “I say we have four options. One, we go west and see if the ship maybe started close by so we can get around. Option two, we head east and try to get a boat now. It’ll add a lot of time, especially since we were looking to get a sailboat; because as Mary pointed out, there will be a lot of sailboats between Miami and Cuba, so we won’t look out of place. Option three, we cross this chasm, come up the other side, and get into a new vehicle and keep driving south, sticking to the original plan.”
Ray was nodding along and he asked, “What’s option four, then?”
I licked my lips, unsure if I wanted to say it aloud. “Option four, we turn around and give up.”
ELEVEN
I waited for someone to speak, not sure if I wanted to hear what they thought of that option. I wanted to keep on, to keep going and try to turn the damned device off. I just hoped they did too.
Mary was the one to say something. “I say we cross over here. There are plenty of cars on the street just over there. It’s the most known route, and I think that gives us our best odds under the circumstances. Are you with me?”
We all chorused our agreement and grabbed things we’d need. “Only things we need from here on out. If we need something else, we can pick it up on the way. Food, water, flashlights, radios, maps,” Mary called out in her take-charge way.
We set to it, and soon we had stripped the cars of anything we would need for the next leg of the journey. It was about one thirty as we started our descent into the pit. The first few feet were concrete, but it turned to dirt very quickly. Lucky for us, the beam seemed to have wreaked havoc on the ground and it was an uneven cut, especially by the gas station, where the tanks added to the destruction. It gave us some steps on the way down.
Carey was able to make the run down easily, and he sniffed around the rift’s floor. Vanessa had the hardest time, claiming chronic lung problems, and by the time we were near the bottom, she was coughing hard. I was sweating in the cool air, more of a result of hauling three full bags with me than anything else. My rifle hung across my shoulders and I figured we would have made quite the sight. If me from four days ago had seen me now, I probably would hardly have recognized myself. A more-than-five o’clock shadow, dirt on my face, and a gun strapped to my body. Desperate times and all that other stuff, I guessed.
I looked down the hole in the ground, and it was an odd feeling to be so deep into the Earth. I quickly got a sense of claustrophobia and felt like the walls were coming closer, even though they were a hundred paces or so apart.
“I hope we find another generator. I miss coffee,” Ray said, patting my back as he headed toward the other side.
“I hear you. I honestly don’t know how we’re functioning right now. I mean, no caffeine for at least five hours! That’s unheard of,” Mary said with only a hint of sarcasm. Vanessa appeared to be recovering, and Carey ran up to me and jumped his front paws onto my thighs. I scratched him on the head and picked up the two packs I’d let down. We moved through the terrain to the looming far side, where we found out the surface was much less carved out for us to walk up.
“What do you think? Should we head down a bit to see if there’s a better spot for footholds?” I asked.
“We can make it halfway up this way, and then there’s a steep section where I think I can climb. Then I can tie a rope to a car’s axle up there and toss it down,” Vanessa said.
“Uhm, are you sure you can do that?” We all looked at her a little incredulously. It wasn’t that she was old at fifty, and she looked like she was in decent shape, but that cough-fest was enough to make me doubt her climbing skills at that moment.
“I was a rock climber for a few years, recreationally anyway. Nothing big, but definitely stuff harder than this. I can still do it. You have your skills, I have mine.” And that was that. She headed up by herself, the flat spot almost halfway up the fifty-yard wall, and from there, she startled us all by reaching up and grabbing a small rock. Slowly, she ascended the fairly flat surface. In ten anxious minutes, she was up top and we could hear her coughing when she was done.
“You’re amazing, ‘Nessa! Are you okay?” Mary called up to her.
“I’m okay. Give me a moment and I’ll get the rope down to you guys,” she called back.
Five minutes later, we were at the halfway mark and grabbing hold of the rope.
“Can we all make this?” I asked.
“I’m not sure. Maybe ten years ago,” Ray said, and ran his hand over his slightly overweight stomach.
“How about I head up first, then Mary, and we can pull you up if you need the help?” I offered.
“At this point, I have no shame in help from a friend. Sounds like a plan. How about Carey?” Ray asked.
The dog looked up at us as if we were crazy, and he was on the strangest walk of his life.
“I can use my jacket like a sling and he can come with me,” Mary said. I knew she was tough, but this was going to be quite the sight.
I slung the lightest pack over my shoulders and took the rope. It had been a long time since I’d had to climb a rope, the last time probably being in a bad white t-shirt and school shorts in the gymnasium, while Mr. Pat yelled at us and called us girls. As I started up the wall, I could almost hear him insulting my manhood. I weighed a little more now than my tenth-grade self and felt the burn as I climbed with a combination of my arms and pushing up with my legs. A couple of painful minutes later, I was on the top being helped forward by Vanessa. I’d feel the soreness later.
I passed the rope back down and then watched as Mary climbed up quickly with a shaking cocker wrapped up in a jacket like a baby swaddled to her belly. It was quite the sight. She hardly looked to be breaking a sweat as she climbed up, much faster than I had. Once Mary was up, Carey squeezed out of the cloth trap and rolled around on the ground, as if he could wipe the fear off his hair by covering it in dirt. The only thing left to do was get the rest of the supplies up, and then Ray. We tossed the rope back to him and he started to tie the bags to it.