Jessica checked and discovered that the helicopter hadn’t been called. She called her own chopper and took off into the waning light.
It was after the sun had already set that Jessica landed on Poinsett Island and made contact with the handful of people waiting there. They’d been cut off because their radio antenna had pitched into the river. It was then that Jessica discovered that part of Poinsett Island had slid into the river, that Larry Hallock was missing, and that a barge filled with murderously hot nuclear waste was drifting, untended, down the Mississippi.
The Mississippi Delta is filled with magnetic anomalies. Known as “plutons,” these objects are believed to be extrusions of magnetic ore created by volcanic activity during the distant geological past. These structures are enormously dense, and they straggle along the middle Mississippi like pebbles being washed along a ditch. Their immense weight creates stress on the surrounding subsoil—and since the Delta’s geology consists of little more than layers of muck, there is very little save inertia to prevent a pluton from doing exactly what it wants to do.
Plutons have been associated with earthquake activity, particularly in places where no fault lines have ever been detected. A large pluton discovered off Cape Ann, Massachusetts, has been blamed for the earthquakes that struck Boston in 1727 and 1755, quakes that inspired a famous sermon by the revivalist Reverend Thomas Prince, “The Works of God and Tokens of His Just Displeasure,” in which Prince demonstrated that the quakes were caused by the Lord’s opposition to the sinful behavior of Boston’s backsliding Puritans. Another pluton beneath Charleston, South Carolina, has been held responsible for the giant earthquake that shook the southeastern United States in 1886.
The first June earthquake, J1, began at 5:54 p.m., Central Daylight Time, when a pluton, sitting atop gooey Delta sub-soil beneath Jonesboro, Arkansas—subsoil destabilized by the series of quakes—dropped six meters through slumping ground. The shocks caused by the passage of the pluton set off a familiar chain reaction as stored tectonic force was discharged throughout the various New Madrid fault structures.
J1 registered at 8.3 on the Richter scale, one-sixth the strength of M1 and a third the power of M6, but still equivalent to the great San Francisco earthquake of 1906. Its destruction was mitigated only by the fact that so much of the affected area had already been destroyed. Anything that was likely to fall down had already fallen down, and much of the population had been evacuated. Those remaining in the area were wise to the ways of earthquakes. Deaths were later reckoned to be in the 100-plus range. Jonesboro, already hard hit by M1 and M6, was shattered. Memphis—by this point a near-desert of broken stone, torn roadways, refugee camps, and collapsed homes—received another pounding. More land slid, more fountains geysered skyward, more damaged buildings collapsed. Precarious infrastructure repairs, to power and sewer lines, to bridges and railroad tracks, were wiped out. Efforts by the Coast Guard and the Corps of Engineers to mark a safe navigation channel in the Mississippi and other major rivers were brought to nothing as the topography of the river changed once again. But relief workers were already in place. Supplies and funds had already been allocated. In spite of the quake’s great size, remarkably little disruption took place, if only because everything had been disrupted long since.
Most of the survivors considered themselves lucky.
The earth shuddered, trembled, hummed. Children screamed. The long evening shadows were darkened by dust and debris.
One Mississippi, two Mississippi… Nick, without a watch, counted the seconds slowly to himself. This was bound to disrupt the whole parish, Nick thought. Which would make things easier for him. The more emergencies the sheriff had to deal with at once, the better.
The world ceased its moaning after three minutes. Nick could hear the S-waves receding toward the south, the freight train moving away. Nick looked up, saw others cautiously lifting their heads. Children screamed as their parents tried to comfort them. Nick carefully raised himself to his feet.
“Everyone into a car!” he said. “Let’s get ready to move out!” He made sure that Cudjo was in the lead car. He kissed Arlette and Manon. He hugged Jason and rubbed the red casing of the telescope for luck, then made sure they were all three on a truck rolling south.
When the last of the Home Guard, the women, and the children were gone into the growing darkness, Nick waved the shotgun over his head and shouted for the Warriors to get on the road. Bringing the war to the sheriff, Nick thought. To the capital of the enemy’s kingdom. Micah Knox lay half-submerged in the ditch. His heart pounded louder than the shots that still rang out over the fields. His men were being killed. Run down and killed by niggers. It was like every nightmare he’d ever had. He should help his friends, he knew.
But he didn’t help. He didn’t even move.
It was the snake that saved his life. As he and the others approached the gate, Knox saw a snake whipping through the grass just ahead of his boots, and his heart lurched and his steps faltered, and the others swept on through the gate while he pointed at the snake and stammered at them to be careful. He’d been ten paces behind when the bombs went off, and suddenly the air was filled with shrieking, screaming bits of sharp metal. He felt it tug at his clothing and flesh.
And then he saw the niggers coming, a howling black wave with weapons held high, and Knox let his shotgun fall and took to his heels. He ran back through the gate, through the parking lot, and across the road. He flung himself into the half-flooded bar ditch on the far side of the highway and wormed his way along it, sloshing through the warm water without daring to lift his head above the level of the ditch. He stayed there. He stayed in the ditch, his nose barely above water, while cars raced past his hiding place and shots rang out. The shots died away. Cars ran back and forth. People shouted and cheered. Knox didn’t move. There were cuts on his hands, tears in his clothing. From the mines. He ignored them. The earthquake came and Knox didn’t move. He didn’t move until the earthquake was over, until dozens of cars drove past, until he heard other cars drive off in the other direction, toward Shelburne City. And even then he didn’t move. He stayed in the ditch, alone with his heartbeat and his terror and his breath. He didn’t move until he heard birdsong in the trees, until he heard wind fluttering the grass on the shoulder of the highway. Until he heard nothing made by the hand of man.
He raised his head carefully, put his eyes at the level of the road, and looked for three seconds. Then he ducked down, crawled twenty feet along the ditch, then looked again.
The fields on either side of the road were empty. The camp sat abandoned. The setting sun reflected in shimmering rose color on the fence. A few cars sat forlorn in the parking lot, or stretched along the road. Vultures circled overhead, uncertain whether or not to land.
Knox rose cautiously, then ran in a crouch to the nearest car. Then to the next. The only cars that remained near the camp were those that wouldn’t start, or those whose owners were dead. And the car that Knox had come in. The Escort belonged to David Paxton, and Knox had been driving it for several days. The back window had been caved in by gunshots or by the mines’ terrifying ammunition. No one had driven it away, because Knox had the keys.
Knox ran to the car, opened the door, scrabbled in the back for his duffel. He opened the duffel and brought out his overnight kit with his drugs. He opened the big aspirin bottle and shook out the contents. His hands trembled. He moistened a finger, and dabbed out the last of the crystal meth from the baggie. He rubbed the crystal on his gums, then shook out a pair of black mollies and dry-swallowed them. It was only then that he noticed flies settling onto a corpse fifteen feet away. Jedthus, he saw, mutilated horribly.