Moonfall (37 page)
Authors: Jack McDevitt
Maybe she needed kids. Maybe this was how it was supposed to be until kids came along.
She was sure of one thing: The talk about tidal waves, and watching people try to get out of town, had all made her think about her own mortality. She wasn’t really afraid of death itself. Death was too remote, something that happened to other people. But she knew that the clock was running, that none of the dreams that had brightened her teenage years had come true. Working on idiot manuscripts by other people was less than fulfilling. And she knew no one, not one person, who would be grief-stricken if she died. Her folks, maybe, but they didn’t count. Larry would be sad, no doubt. He’d come to the funeral, sniffle at all the right moments, bounce back, and move on.
Marv.
If something were to happen to her, she wondered whether he wouldn’t miss her more than her husband would.
There was a commotion inside, and the news was quickly
passed to the people on the terrace.
They were recommending evacuation of New York
.
She looked out at the Natural History Museum, its congeries of dull brick buildings spread across several blocks.
Below, along 77th, people were blowing their horns.
TRANSGLOBAL SPECIAL REPORT
. 11:36
P.M.
“This is Bruce Kendrick in our Syracuse studios. We have more information now on the events at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where Angela Shepard is standing by. Angela, what’s the situation?”
“Bruce, early estimates are that hundreds died here when at least seven objects struck the ground in and around Carlisle at a little after eleven o’clock this evening. One demolished the center of town, which is now, as you can see, little more than a smoking crater. The town itself has been destroyed. An estimated three thousand victims are being evacuated to area hospitals.
“The Red Cross is setting up an emergency shelter, and the number that’s running across the bottom of the screen can be used to get information about relatives. The military responded within minutes and is out in force.
“We’re panning the area for you now, and you can see there are fires everywhere. The devastation is unlike anything you’d expect to see in peacetime. Everything’s down, power’s out, water’s out. When we got here, people were wandering the streets, trying to help where they could. One man told us that the meteors just kept coming. Every couple of minutes, he said, another one would fall out of the sky.
“We have a video of one of them. Or we will have in just a moment. It was shot from a passing car in the northern part of town. Okay, there it is. You can see it coming in over the telephone lines. He loses it for a moment here. But there it is again. It looks as if it’s approaching at about a forty-five-degree angle. This appears to be the one that hit the center of Carlisle, Bruce.”
“Angela, let me break in for a moment. We’ve just been informed that the president will address the nation in twenty minutes,
at eleven-forty-five. This has to be the shortest notice for a presidential address in U.S. history.
“We’ve also received reports that waves have struck Caracas and Trinidad. Everything so far has been in the Western Hemisphere. I assume that’s because this is the part of the Earth that’s turned toward the Moon tonight.
“We’ll be staying at the Transglobal news desk throughout the night with this developing story. We hope you’ll stay with us. Now, while we’re waiting for the president’s statement, we’re going to switch to Charleston, South Carolina, where Peter Barton is standing by….”
4.
Coast Guard Activities, Governors Island, New York.
11:44
P.M.
Captain Lionel Phillips looked up from his desk. The duty officer had burst into his office with a single sheet of paper. “Tidal wave, sir,” she said. “Coming this way.”
He snatched the paper.
YY 140442Z
FROM: USCGC
DILIGENT
.
TO: BREAKWATER.
SUBJECT: TIDAL WAVE ALERT.
WAVE ENCOUNTERED 41.3°N LAT. 72.8°W LONG. 140440Z X
APPROX FORTY FEET HIGH, SPEED 200 KNOTS RPT 200 X
COURSE TWO-NINE-ZERO.
He looked at it, felt his stomach go cold, and pushed the button. The klaxon began to wail. Everybody out. He’d not believed for a minute any of this sky-is-falling bullcrap, and consequently he’d encouraged his wife to ignore the threat. She was at this moment sitting with their five-year-old grandson in a pleasant Tudor home on Hylan Boulevard off Hugenot
Park on nearby Staten Island. Roughly ten feet above sea level.
The wave was four, maybe five, minutes away.
But thank God he’d been directed to assume the worst
here
and make preparations. “Janet,” he said to the officer, “have we sent the general alert?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Let’s go.” He got out of his chair, headed for the door, and grabbed his jacket on the way past the clothes tree. “Everybody out,” he said unnecessarily to the four others scrambling to shut down the center. “Go to mobile.”
He fished his cell phone out of his pocket, punched his home key, and listened to it ring. His own voice clicked on: “
You’ve reached Captain Phillips’s residence. Speak if you wish
.” And the beep.
“Myra,” he told it, “for God’s sake get out. Wave coming.”
Then he was half walking, half running, locking doors as regulations required, listening to the thwip-thwip-thwip of rotors. His people were all out now, scattering across the tarmac and climbing into the chopper. Except Janet, who was drifting behind, keeping pace with him. Damned women. “Go,” he told her. She climbed aboard and he followed and the chopper lifted off.
Phillips looked east over the lights of Brooklyn toward the harbor entrance. Everything seemed normal. They activated
Bluebell
, the Coast Guard Command Center Aloft. One of the radio operators signaled for his attention. “Captain,” he said, “we’ve got reports from a couple of merchantmen, too. They’re saying more like
sixty
feet.”
God help us
. He directed the pilot to move south. At the same time, he tried to call home again. Still no luck.
It was on the radio now, all stations warning people to get to high ground.
Phillips was trying not to give in to panic. “Janet,” he said, “get me Collins.” The FEMA regional director.
Collins already knew, of course. “Doing everything we can,” he said. The FEMA director had been another skeptic. “Maybe we’ll get lucky,” he added. That sounded ominous.
They talked for a minute, and then Phillips tried again to call Myra. This time she answered.
“Whoa, Phil,” she said, “slow down.”
He was gazing across the bay from about a thousand feet. Lights were moving down there. Two miles ahead, at the Narrows, he could see the Verrazano Bridge.
“Myra, there’s a wave coming. Big one. Get out of there. Get on the interstate and head west.”
“How big?”
“
Big
.”
“How much time do I have?”
“None—”
The phone went dead. He tried to call her back, but got a recorded message from the telephone company telling him the line was under repair.
Janet stared at him and said nothing.
He was trying to get the operator to check the line when the lights on the bridge blinked off.
SPECIAL BROADCAST FROM THE WHITE HOUSE
. 11:45
P.M.
“My Fellow Americans,
“As you are aware, several tidal waves have struck the East Coast of the United States. The collision earlier this evening between the Moon and Comet Tomiko has filled the sky with debris. Pieces of the disintegrating Moon have been falling on land and into the ocean. Waves caused by these objects have struck several of our cities. New Haven, New Orleans, Charleston, have all been hit very hard. Even inland cities have been struck. So far most of the damage has been in the Western Hemisphere, because our side of the globe is presently turned toward the Moon.
“We have reason to believe the worst is over. And the news is not
all bad. The West Coast, so far, has been spared. The nation’s heartland is almost untouched.
“Tonight we will do what Americans have always done in times of crisis: We will draw together, and we will survive. We will work through this, we will maintain our faith in God, and we will still be here when the Sun comes up.”
Later, Henry regretted that last line. Al had resisted it, but the president thought it had power and would become memorable. A line often quoted, and perhaps appealed to in future emergencies.
In fact, he realized too late it sounded unduly pessimistic.
Manhattan. 11:49
P.M.
The sea wave that hit the New York area wasn’t at all the type that a lifetime of catastrophe films would have led the party-goers on Louise’s rooftop to expect. There was no unfurling of the water, no crest, no foam. Every river and bay in the area simply rose and spilled into Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, Staten Island, and the Jersey shore. Standing toward the rear of the crowd gathered around the TV, which flashed pictures shot from helicopters, Marilyn watched the high seas surge forward over wharfs and ferries and riverside roads.
She was sipping her umpteenth daiquiri (a drink she favored because she could put them away all night without visible effect) when it occurred to her that maybe they
were
hitting her hard. The water was coming
here
. And 77th Street was still jammed.
She edged away from the crowd, went back out onto the terrace, and looked down at the traffic. They were bumper to bumper, not moving, a city electrical repair truck, a tanker, a beer truck, a city bus, a police car, a couple of taxis. The doors were popping open and the drivers were climbing out and peo
ple were pouring out of the bus and starting to run. But they really had no place to go.
Where was Larry?
Talking to one of the managers. She hurried past him, went out the door and took the elevator down to the ground floor.
She stepped out into a narrow lobby and hurried to the front of the building. Now she could hear screams and shouts outside. And the roar of a helicopter.
She reached the entryway. The inner and outer doors were about eight feet apart and designed for security. But the lock on the inner door would catch once she let it close. She’d be locked out. She looked around for a chair to brace it open, but didn’t see one. Back near the elevator, a small table supported a lamp. She put the lamp on the floor, and used the table to guarantee her retreat. Then she opened the front door and looked out into the street.
People were running, walking, hobbling away from the river toward the park. A few sat in their vehicles looking bewildered. She stood on the top step, suddenly aware of a rumble. The ground shook and it felt like an approaching subway.
A middle-aged couple in evening clothes were hurrying past. The man looked up and saw her. “Run!” he cried.
The roar was coming from the west, over toward Broadway. And getting louder. People began to scramble out of the bus. Someone fell, but nobody stopped to help. A taxi, trying to get clear of the stopped vehicles, leaped the curb, ran down a young woman, and plowed into a hydrant. Water spouted into the air, gleaming beneath a streetlight.
At the same moment, a black flood turned the corner, roared over trucks and cars, swept away the Breyers Ice Cream signs on the third floor of the Carmody Building. The streetlight went out. Air horns exploded.
“This way!” Marilyn called. “Up here!” But her voice was lost in the general chaos.
People streamed past, screaming. Someone was trying to climb atop a bread truck. Marilyn went halfway down the steps, tried to seize a woman’s arm to catch her attention, but was pushed aside.
Now
someone finally noticed the escape route she was offering: a boy, about ten, with his mother in tow. She thought they’d been on the bus, but she wasn’t sure. They were threading their way through the stopped traffic and were still fifteen yards away when he looked up and saw Marilyn holding the door. The woman was terrified. They both called out to her and began to run.
Marilyn measured the distance and knew it would be very close. Their faces filled with fear. The woman tripped and went down, and to Marilyn’s horror the boy stopped and ran back. He glanced over his shoulder at her, and she watched, knowing there was no chance. If she waited, the flood would take her, too. The moment congealed, froze before her eyes, the river rising and pouring over the trucks, swallowing everything, and the woman trying to push the boy in her direction. The child was sobbing, tugging at her, and Marilyn pulled the door shut as the water surged past.
The building trembled with the blow. Windows elsewhere in the house exploded and a torrent poured in. More gouted from an electrical fixture. She screamed her frustration and kicked the table away from the inner door, letting it close behind her, and splashed back down to the elevator lobby, the water already ankle deep. She pushed the button and sobbed and waited a long time for the elevator to come. When it did she lunged into it and the lights went out and she was plunged into absolute darkness. The doors started to close and her survival instincts took hold. She blocked the doors, held them open, and squeezed back out into the lobby. When she was
clear, she let go, and they shut with a wet clack, but the elevator didn’t move.
She stumbled through the dark, trying to remember where the stairs were. The building creaked and seemed to sink. The floor had gotten slippery and the torrent knocked her down.
She struggled to her feet, half swimming. The water swirled around her thighs. Something, a wooden lamp, floated past. She tried to feel her way along the wall. But the wall went on and on and did not open into the staircase. Had it been on the other side? Or was it at the other end of the corridor, near the front door? She couldn’t remember, couldn’t even be sure where the front of the building was anymore.