Chapter Fifty-Seven
THE ANNIHILATION BOMB
1
The execution of Tavish McTavish went completely unreported by all the mainstream media. It was as if it never happened. There was no mention of it in any television, radio or Internet news. It was as if they believed that if something didn’t exist in their media, it didn’t exist, therefore it didn’t exist. They had come to this belief over a century of news manipulation, firstly through the print media, and finally through the electronic media. In the end they reached a point where they believed their own lies. If they decided that something wasn’t news, it just wasn’t news, so it didn’t exist. It wasn’t part of reality. So, if it happened and people actually saw it happen, if the media ignored it, it didn’t happen. And if the media modified it, that was what really happened. Two classic examples of such flimflams were the Kennedy assassination and the Moon landings. And the lobotomised masses of planet Earth swallowed them, hook, line, sinker, rod and boat. From the point of view of an alien race, they were crying for extinction.
As it turned out, thousands of people recorded Tavish’s murder. The video clips of the event flooded the Internet. As much as the people behind the scenes of sites like YouTube attempted to delete the clips, citing breaches of copyright as reasons for their actions, they just couldn’t hold back the flood.
Following the clips of the murder came a wave of videos of Tavish’s speech and his announcement of the impending collision between the comet and Earth. These were downloaded by millions of people. YouTube’s Cometwatcher, who had been right all along, was finally vindicated by Tavish’s courageous revelation. While this social-media tidal wave of truth was sweeping around the planet just beneath the surface, domestic television sets all over the country remained completely calm and innocuous. All the live programming just disappeared off the screen. It was replaced by repeats of favourite old shows, like Seinfeld and Friends.
In the end, two truths began to dawn upon the sleeping population of the Earth. One was the truth about Travers’ Comet and the other was the truth about the deceitful mainstream media.
Different people reacted in different ways. One of the most common reactions was that the person just didn’t show up for work. It began as a trickle, just here and there, but the trickle soon turned into a torrent as the full implications of the impending disaster became clearer. Strand by strand, the fabric of civilised society began to unravel. 2
Trixie came home from shopping, all flustered.
‘Our local gas station is closed, Snake. The owner never showed up. He musta put the sign in the window last night that said; Closed due to comet. Gone to Mexico. I had to get gas at the station you don’t like.’
‘It looks like it’s startin, Trix.’
‘Yeah, Snake, an the supermarket was fresh outa bread an milk, an heaps of other stuff. The checkout chick told me that the delivery truck never showed up this mornin.’
‘I wouldn’t be surprised if the driver ain’t takin his family down to Mexico as well, Trix.’
‘The world is startin to go nuts, Snake. What’ll we do?’
‘We’ll stick to our plan, that’s what we’re gonna do, cupcakes. Cowboy’ll be here any minute. He’ll help us load the last of our stuff and we’ll be outa here. Organise your most precious things, but remember, in the end we might only get to keep what we can carry on our backs.’
‘I’m startin to feel scared, Snake.’
‘Feelin scared is OK, Trix. Just remember this one thing, I’ll never leave your side, not for a minute, cause I loves ya like me own mother.’ ‘Thanks, Snake, I loves ya too.’ They kissed and hugged.
Not long after, Cowboy and Lauren rolled up in the Panamera. The plan was that they would follow Snake and Trixie in the truck, all the way to the new house at Pinecrest Lake where they would meet up with the rest of the crew. Ace would fly the chopper out to Pinecrest a few days later.
‘Say good-bye to the house, Trix. I got me doubts that we’ll ever see it again. It’s been nice, eh?’
‘Real nice, Snake,’ whimpered Trixie between her sobs.
‘We can’t look back,’ said Snake. ‘We gotta fixate our minds on the future cause pretty soon there won’t be no past to look back to.’
Snake was the only one who wasn’t feeling mild shock at that moment. He felt that he couldn’t allow himself that luxury because his crew depended on him for their very survival and he needed to keep a clear head and a firm focus on the path ahead. 3
They rolled out of Vegas before sunrise on Tuesday, September 5, 2023. Snake drove the truck, Trixie rode shotgun while Cowboy and Lauren followed in the Panamera. They took Route 15 through the Mojave Desert and stopped in Barstow for breakfast and a top up of fuel. From there they took the Barstow-Bakersfield Highway to Bakersfield. They communicated with each other through their cells, which were connected, hands free, to their vehicular sound systems.
‘What is it with all the military convoys, Snake?’ Cowboy asked.
‘Yeah, an they’re all headin east. I’ve never seen so many army trucks headin in the same direction before.’
They stopped for lunch on the outskirts of Fresno. They sat down next to a man, his wife and their two young kids. They struck up a conversation as they ate their lunch.
‘Where you headed?’ asked the man.
‘San Fran,’ replied Snake.
‘I wouldn’t be goin up there,’ the man whispered.
‘Is that right? Why not?’
‘Didn’t you see that NASA guy get shot on TV the other night?’
‘Yeah, as a matter of fact I did.’ Snake looked around at his companions then back at the man. ‘We all saw it.’
‘Did you get what he was sayin before he got shot?’
‘You wanna run it past me again?’
‘Wyomin, man, the comet is comin down in Wyomin with the power of 16 trillion nukular bombs. The government is lyin to every man jack … man. It’s every man for himself, man.’
‘Where you headed?’ Snake asked.
‘As far south as possible, man. First we’re goin to Mexico, but we’re gonna try to make it all the way down to Panama if we can. We gotta get as far away from Wyomin as possible.’
Snake noticed the worried look on the man’s wife’s and kids’ faces. He could see that they weren’t sure whether they were worried more about the comet or the sanity of their husband and father. Snake looked around the restaurant and focused on the eyes of individuals sitting around the tables. He recognised two kinds of eyes, regular and crazy. Regular was what he saw any average day at any diner. Crazy eyes were survivalist’s eyes. They were acutely aware of their surroundings and blazing with light. The man, his family, Snake and his compadres, all had crazy eyes, as did a couple of other groups in the restaurant. He sensed a phoney calm about the place, the kind of calm one could cut with a knife. The crazy-eyed people in the establishment looked like they knew something. They were keeping a low profile, though, and weren’t about to ‘stampede the herd’. Nobody was trying to attract any attention. The only thing that gave them away were their crazy eyes.
They arrived at Jonesy’s house in Berkley late in the afternoon. Jonesy had his Winnebago all packed and loaded. They planned to leave for Pinecrest Lake first thing in the morning.
That night they all sat around the lounge room and watched Jonesy’s videos of the aliens, over and over again. They were particularly interested in the part where the lady alien gave Jonesy his instructions.
‘Nine years today, be bound to your family on Pike’s Peak, east of San Francisco.’
‘Do you think she meant right on top of Pike’s Peak, Jonesy, or roundabouts Pike’s Peak?’
‘How am I supposed to know, Snake? I always figured right on top.’
‘Cause if it’s right on top, I ain’t sure if we can get all our supplies up there. We’ll only be able to take our backpacks up to the summit. That’s gonna limit our survivability. That’s if we survive, an it all depends on Ludwig bein right about the time shift thing. We should wait for everybody to show up before we make any final decisions, although the final call is always yours, Jonesy.’
‘Thanks, Snake. I had been wonderin meself if it was necessary to climb right up to the summit. There ain’t much room up there. How long before everybody shows up?’
‘We should all be at the Pinecrest house by tomorrow night. That’ll give us plenty of time to get organised.’
4
It was Wednesday night, September 6, 2023. Everyone had arrived at the Pinecrest house. There was Tommy Jones, his wife, Lori, and their four teenage daughters, Carla, Clara, Catherine and Connie. There was Snake and Trixie, Dirk and Inga, Clint and Lauren, Ludwig and Ivana, Ace and Johanna, and finally, Melvin.
After settling into the house and having dinner, they all sat in a circle around the central common room. Even though Jonesy was the key to their survival, as far as they understood things, everyone was quite happy to let Snake be the leader of the group. His strength of character and obvious affection for the group gave everyone enough confidence to fend off the huge fear heaping up just outside their collective consciousness. Snake began to speak.
‘We have seventeen days to make the right decisions. We can do almost anythin we like cause we’re rollin in dough. So, it’s all a matter of thinkin it out right, makin a plan, an followin up on that plan. The first thing we oughta discuss is whether we need to climb up to Pike’s Peak, or whether we can stay here. I’ve watched the video of the alien with Jonesy at least a hundred times. She definitely says to be on Pike’s Peak, no doubts. But to do that leaves us with a downside, like we can only take our backpacks up there, not much more. I’ve been doin plenty of thinkin about it an I reckon that we are Jonesy’s guests here, an that as a consequence we don’t get to have any say about where we’re gonna be. So, I think it should be Jonesy’s call.’
Everyone looked at Jonesy. He looked down for a moment and played with his shoelace, then he looked up at everyone and calmly announced,
‘She told me to be on Pike’s Peak an that’s where I reckon I oughta be.’
‘OK,’ said Snake, ‘that’s the decision an that’s what we’ll go with. I gotta say that I tend to agree with Jonesy. No point in riskin that the time shift mightn’t work cause we were in the wrong place. What do you reckon about that, Ludwig?’ Ludwig was startled to attention.
‘Er, what? Who me? Er … I er, tend to agree that it’s Jonesy’s call, but I doubt that it matters where we are. The time shift will probably happen anyway. As far as I understand it, if you shift in time you don’t necessarily shift in space. That means that you pop up sometime in the future in the same place you left the past. I suspect that there might be somebody at Pike’s Peak to meet us when we pop up in the future. That is probably the main reason to be there.’
Everyone broke out into a cacophony of conversation. The idea that there might be someone there to greet them excited them very much. Snake spoke up above the group. ‘That may very well happen, but we gotta plan for it not happenin. How far into the future do you reckon we might be goin, Ludwig?’
‘That’s hard to say, Snake. I guess it all depends on how much damage the comet does to the planet. It could be a hundred years or it could be a thousand years, it’s anyone’s guess. The way I see it is that it doesn’t matter when we pop up because the Earth will be the same whether it’s a hundred or a thousand years.’
‘The same, Ludwig?’ asked DeRongo.
‘Yes, pristine wilderness. Like paradise without any supermarkets. Like America was before even the Indians got here. Nothing but nature. This, if our time shift theory is right, is our destiny, and it’s just over two weeks away.’
‘How will we live without Walmart?’ asked Trixie sounding very concerned. Snake replied,
‘One breath at a time, cupcakes, one breath at a time.’ He continued. ‘We’ve got a truckload of supplies outside. We’ve got freeze-dried meals, water bottles, lighters, matches, butane stoves, hiking packs, tents, sleeping mats, first aid kits, vitamins, antibiotics, binoculars, compasses, you name it. I don’t even know everythin we’ve got. We should be able to survive with what we can carry on our backs for about two weeks. We’ve also got guns, traps an fishin gear for huntin an fishin; an we’ve got enough ammo to defend the Alamo. The way I figure it, we’ll need to hike down the mountain to the coast followin a stream. That’ll give us water an maybe fish. When we get to the ocean, we’ll find a place to settle, somewheres with some shelter an plenty of natural food like shellfish an crabs. We’ll either start farmin, I got plenty of seeds, or we might decide to keep movin, like hunters and gatherers. There are no guarantees in this venture, an in the end we’re all gonna die anyhows, but we’re givin ourselves a shot at somethin here, an I say let’s make the most of it an treat it like an adventure.’
‘That’s all very good, Snake, but shouldn’t we wait on Pike’s Peak for a few days for somebody to show up first?’
‘Jonesy brings up a good point, Snake, otherwise what’s the point in even goin up there? Maybe we should wait there until somebody shows up.’
‘What I reckon,’ said Ace, ‘is that we better start trainin. Most of us are pretty outa shape. I think we should go hiking every day between now and the 23rd.’
‘I’ll hike to Pike’s Peak tomorrow,’ said Cowboy. ‘Who’s with me?’
Everyone agreed. Lori asked,
‘By the way, did everyone remember the toilet paper?’
5
They spoke late into the night. Ludwig was the first to entertain a darker facet of the whole comet phenomenon.
‘You know, I’ve read plenty of sci-fi in my time. I think you could safely say that it is my favourite genre. There are many novels that deal with alien invasions. The old saying that truth is stranger than fiction might apply to the situation we, and our planet, find ourselves in at present. I have been asking myself lately whether the aliens could deflect that comet? I think they could do it with one arm tied behind their backs. So why don’t they do it, eh? Does anyone want to hazard a guess?’
‘Are you suggesting some kind of alien conspiracy, Ludwig?’ DeRongo asked.
‘Well, yes and no. Maybe the comet is a natural phenomenon. Maybe they had nothing to do with it. Maybe they just found out about it. Maybe they’re like us, just more advanced, and our planet is perfect for them. Maybe our planet is just like theirs, except it’s full of crazy people that are extremely prone to violence. Maybe the only thing standing in the way of their colonisation of Earth is us, and maybe the comet conveniently takes care of that problem for them. Why should they stop it? It makes no sense.’
‘So, they use the comet like a mega weapon,’ suggested DeRongo, ‘like an annihilation bomb.’
‘That’s right, Dirk, like an annihilation bomb. And when everything settles back down to pristine wilderness, they move in unchallenged. It’s perfect.’
‘They seem like nice people to me,’ said Jonesy. ‘They seem similar to us.’
‘They certainly seem perfectly adapted to our planet,’ replied Ludwig. ‘I’ve never seen them wearing space suits. They wore those body-hugging outfits but I suspect that they were some kind of levitation suits. They breathe our air no problem. I don’t know where they come from, but the place can’t be much different to Earth because they seem quite at home here.’
‘They can’t be all that bad cause they tipped me off about the date.’
‘They did more than that, Jonesy; they set you up to survive. They chose you.’
‘It sounds like we better get used to the idea of interactin with these dudes from space. It sounds like they might be movin into the neighbourhood.’
‘That may very well be, Cowboy, but with them comes some pretty fancy technology,’ said Ace, ‘like interplanetary spaceships, antigravity and time travel.’
‘Plenty more than that, I suspect,’ said Ludwig. ‘Free energy … I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve got free energy, and we can’t even imagine what we could do with that.’
They talked late into the night until they were too exhausted to talk any more. As everyone retired for the night, Snake, Ace and Jonesy stepped outside and gazed into the star-studded void.
‘We’ll need to make a list of things we’ll wanna take up to the Peak in the chopper. We can take extra supplies that we can leave up there when we leave. We can take a couple of the big tents an extra butane an food. Everythin can go up in the chopper.’
‘While they’re hikin up there tomorrow, we oughta scout the place out from the air,’ suggested Ace. ‘We’ve gotta find out if there’s any place we can land the chopper up there. If not, we’ll have to transport everythin up there in a sling, which ain’t no problem.’
They gazed west into the infinite blackness. They could just make out the comet above the horizon. They became tired of talking as imaginings of the final day raced through their minds. Jonesy passed a joint to Ace and Snake took a few last puffs on his cigar before they finally settled in for the night.
…….