Extinction Level Event (2 page)

Even though he knew that all of his cattle
were vaccinated, inadvertently one of them and was a mutant and
when the disease showed up, it immediately picked up the scent and
struck with full force against that one cow. He lost the cow, had
the entire farm quarantined for a period of over six months, and
had to pay a hefty fine for “keeping unvaccinated” cattle on the
farm against the U.S. Department of Agriculture regulations. He was
pissed, upset, frustrated, and embarrassed by that episode and
fervently hoped that nothing similar would ever happen again. The
best he could do was get every cow a second vaccination and
vaccinate every new one that he bought, just to be sure. New calves
would be vaccinated multiple times soon after birth. He makes sure
that none stray too far from the ranch, and put up extra tall and
sturdy fences all around his cattle lands to make sure that all the
cattle stay close together. Yet, four years henceforth, Greg Miles
still does not know where the virus originated from or whether it
will strike again. He also doesn’t know if one of his cows is
carrying a carrier form of the virus, which could be a threat to
new calves or newcomers to the farm; in addition to still being
deadly to humans. All of these problems leave him worrying in bed
during many nights, unable to get more than a few hours of sleep.
However, for the moment, he simply uses his free time to relax on
the farm, go boating on occasion, and hope for the best.

2 Days Later

At 6:30am the alarm emits a ringing, piercing
screech that would jolt a man like Mr. Freeze out of bed. Today,
Michelle and Mike get up, rubbing their eyes groggily, as they
contemplate another work day.
But it’s Friday, so a weekend is
right around the corner. And anyways, my job is occasionally
fun.
Michelle gets up, picks up some underwear and socks from
her closet and heads to the shower. After showering, dressing,
eating breakfast, doing her hair, and putting a touch of make-up on
Michelle deems herself ready to head to work by 8:12 am. She hears
Mike getting out of the shower as she walks into the master bedroom
to fetch the car keys. The kids and their grandmother are still
sleeping upstairs. Michelle puts the keys in her purse, throws a
glance at her watch, and heads for the door. She opens the door to
the garage, gets in her car, and pulls it out of the driveway.
Getting out of the car she walks over to close the garage.
When
are we going to fix that remote?
Closing the garage by hand,
she starts to head back to the car when she notices the phenomenon
on the ground.
What the-?

Worms! The ground around the house is
crawling with worms. Wriggling, writhing, creepy-crawly worms all
over the driveway, all over the yard! “What the hell??”, wonders
Michelle out loud
. Is this normal? They are everywhere! Oh my
God, should I tell Mike? We didn’t have rain today or yesterday,
did we? No!
Heading back into the house, she runs into Mike,
putting his pants on over his boxers. “Mike!”. Mike, a six
foot-tall man of 40-odd years with almost no beer belly, turns
around with a mildly surprised look on his face, “Hey Babe, what’s
up? Didn’t forget the car keys again, did you?”. “Honey, I just got
out with the car, and there are all these worms outside? Whats
going on? Did you do something?”. “No.”, replies Mike, now
genuinely surprised. “What worms?” “Worms, Mike, worms. They’re all
over our front yard, crawling around like we just had a
thunderstorm!”. “Weird. Lemme see”. Mike pulls on a button-up
shirt, and heads for the door with Michelle behind him. He slips on
a pair of flip-flops and steps outside.

“Jeez. You’re right. Look at ‘em!” exclaims
Mike once out the door, “This really is weird. What's happening? Is
the ground like too moist or something?? How much did those kids
water the plants?” “I really don't know honey”, replies Michelle,
“we’ll have to ask them about it”. “It doesn’t really matter. Just
leave them for the time being, they’ll go back in after a while.”
“Are you sure,” Michelle asks worriedly. “Yeah definitely, babe.
Just look at ‘em. By the time we’re back from work this evening
they’ll be back in the ground and nothing to worry about. You’ll
see.”. “Ok, fine”. “Lemme finish up breakfast, and get going you.
Hey, you should too,” chuckles Mike, and with a mischievous wave he
gets back into the house and closes the door behind him. Michelle
turns around and gets into her car. Revving up the engine, she
turns around and gets onto the road.
They’ll be gone by the time
I get back,
says Michelle to herself. Not giving too much more
thought to the matter, Michelle heads for her firm office and
doesn’t look back. Little does she know that this miniscule little
incident could be the beginning of a much greater problem.

Miles Farm

A day in the Corps is like a day on the
farm. Every meal a banquet, every paycheck a fortune. I love the
Corps!.
Aliens
happens to be one of Greg’s favorite
movies, and that line by the character Sergeant Apone often keeps
him working throughout the day on his farm. Getting out of bed, he
puts on some flip-flops. Walking out of the farmhouse, he goes over
to the chicken range and, after a minute of looking around, finds
himself two eggs.
Ahh, breakfast!
He brings the two eggs
into the house, breaking them and throwing the contents into a
frying pan. Simultaneously he throws two pieces of toast into the
toaster and opens the fridge door. Taking out coffee, he puts the
coffee in the coffee-pot to start heating it up. After about five
minutes, his breakfast is complete and he puts everything onto a
tray and plops it down onto the small wooden table in the middle of
the kitchen. A routine for many people around the globe, breakfast
for Greg Miles starts at generally 6:15am, earlier than many of his
fellow human beings. After a hearty breakfast of eggs, cheese on
toast, tomatoes and coffee Greg feels ready to get to work.
Utilizing his “new” dishwasher, he throws his silverware into the
machine and heads out of the farmhouse.

Along the path to the cow-house, where the
self-milking machines are located, Greg notices some worms on the
ground. Kneeling down to check them out, he steps on a bunch and
then realizes that there are hundreds of them out of the earth.
What the ----? It didn’t rain recently, what the hell is
this?
Miles leans down and scoops a handful of dirt up with his
right arm.
Definitely didn’t rain, the earth isn’t wet enough.
Why are they all coming out of the ground? Its like seawater is
coming in and driving them out.
Greg gets up and continues to
walk the remaining hundred meters to the cow-house. He sees the
same phenomenon all along the path. Earthworms are burrowing out of
the ground in the thousands, wriggling slowly and meticulously on
top of the earth. Making a mental note to check back on the sudden
rise of the worms, Greg walks into the cow-house to check the milk
containers and carry to milk to the silo where he keeps it all.
Some milk will be sent to another location to be frozen and put in
cartons, the rest will be processed to become yogurt and various
sorts of cheeses. After taking care of the new milk, Greg walks
over again to the chickens to give them their feed.
All in a
days work. Wow, even more worms. . . .

9 hours later. . .

Michelle Williams returns home from work
tired and hungry.
To hell with work on the garden today.
Straight to dinner.
Realizing that Mike’s car is already parked
in the garage, she pulls into her driveway and parks next to the
front door, in the only available parking spot since one of the
houses’ two garage is full of tools. Turning off the car, she grabs
her purse and a file folder next to it and gets out of the car. In
the dark, she doesn’t see much on the ground, and walks into her
house quickly. The kids are watching a television show, which
they’re only allowed to do since its Friday night and their
favorite shows run throughout Friday afternoon. Grandmother is
sitting in a chair sewing a sweater. Michelle heads into the
kitchen, sees a pot of soup cooked probably a few hours ago, and a
box of chicken nuggets in the fridge. Deciding that that would be
enough for dinner, she eats, changes, and goes to bed.

The next morning, Mike unusually goes out the
door even earlier than Michelle. Just when she thinks he’s headed
off to work already, he returns inside with an odd look on his
face, as if he had just eater a very bitter lemon. “About those
worms. . . they’re still all out there”, he states grimly. “What do
you mean, still out there? I thought you said they wouldn’t be
there today,” asks Michelle not liking the news, . “well, they are,
and . . . its really odd. . . they’re just. . . all, like.
Dead.”.

“Dead?” Shocked into silence, Michelle simply
sits stone-cold, contemplating the thought over and over again.
“Dead?”. “Yeah, all of them. It's like a graveyard. All those worms
coming out yesterday or the day before, they’re all just lying out
there dead. It’s a mess.” Mike just slumps into a sofa with the
same odd sour look upon his face, and grimaces. “We’re gonna have
to clean up, and it’s a big mess. I don’t want dead worms all over
our yard”. Michelle simply sits in silence, going over the strange
turn of events over the last two days. Mike just sits looking like
a man stunned, multiple unknown thoughts flicking across his
face.

“Alright. We’ve got a lot of worms, but
that’s not a problem. Lets get ready, and do this together. You get
the brooms, I’ll get the trash bin and a spade. We clean it up in
about two hours, and case closed. We don’t have to talk about this
again”, says Mike. Michelle replies kindly, “ok. But how did they
die like that? We should think about that before simply sweeping
them away and forgetting about it. What happens if it happens
again?”

“I don’t know,” Mike slowly murmurs, twisting
his fingers around in a way he usually does when thinking. Several
seconds pass. “But we don’t have to worry about that”. Let’s just
clean it up. If there’s a problem tomorrow, we ask someone”. “Fine,
I guess. So let’s do this?” replies Michelle. The couple gets off
the chairs that they were sitting on and move with a renewed sense
of purpose.

The next hour and a half are spent sweeping
the patio, the backyard, and the front yard of worms. Tired, worn
out from both work and the strange ordeal, the two decide that it
is enough work for one day. Most of the area around the house seems
to be cleared of worms. The couple looks at each other, each with a
broom in one hand and a spade in the other. “You think we should go
in now? I can hardly see anything anymore”. “Yeah, me too. I’m so
tired, and I think we’re done here.” “Lets go to bed”.

The next morning, when Michelle steps out of
the house for some fresh air, she notices that there are no worms
lying on the ground.
Well, thank God. Looks like that dilemma
finally ended.
Michelle smiled, and knew that whatever
happened, it wouldn’t repeat itself again. Still smiling, she went
back into the house after picking up her mail.

Miles Farm

Gregory Miles couldn’t believe his eyes.
All these critters- dead!
How? And why?
Greg paces
around his farmhouse, thinking of what to do. Every worm in the
vicinity of the farmhouse seems to have decided to leave the safety
of the earth, crawl out on top, curl up and die. He couldn’t
explain it at all. He had never seen anything like this.

Gregory Miles decides to wait for an hour
until two of his ranch hands, Jeffrey and Miguel, show up.
Then
we can work together and clean this friggin’ mess up. What the hell
is this? Some kind of mass extinction?
Miles walks along the
path between his farmhouse and the cows’ field. All along the dirt
path he sees dead worm carcasses littering the path, as well as
throughout the shrubbery along the path. He keeps going over what
could have caused such devastation on his fairly small, supposedly
secure farm.
Now I know I didn’t water the plants too much. The
grounds’ not soggy at all. And I sure as hell didn’t friggin’ salt
the ground. That would be suicide.
“Shit”, mutters Miles to
himself. It is the only answer he can come up with.

An hour later, Jeffrey and Miguel show up in
their pick-up truck. “Hey boys, look here. We’ve got a major
problem today- no regular chores. I need you both to help me clean
all this land of some mad, bad worms that died out today. Got it?
Get brooms, shovels, and we’ll sweep ‘em and dig ‘em in”, orders
Greg to the two. The two, both young adults working for extra cash,
look slightly puzzled. “worms, sir?”, inquires Jeffrey politely.
“Yes, dammit worms! You’ll see ‘em as you walk around, eh? Just get
those brooms and stuff and let’s meet by the farmhouse”. “Sure
thing Mr. Miles!", reply the two men simultaneously, and run off to
fetch the required tools.

Cleaning up the fields is hard work,
especially so since Miles doesn’t know how wide the affected area
from the worm die-out is. Nervously these thoughts course through
his mind as he works alongside Jeffrey and Miguel.
This could be
a bigger problem than I thought. Maybe I should call someone, like
the cops. They’ll know someone who’ll know someone who knows what
to do. I can’t do shit ‘bout this.
With that resolution in
mind, after five straight hours of work in the fields, along with
large hats on their heads to shield them from the intense sunlight,
Greg drops his tools and tells his ranch hands to do the same. They
go over to get some drinks and take a break. Greg goes into his
house to dial the phone. There are important calls to be made.