Chapter 5 - Contact
John had survived the earthquake by the skin of his teeth. Parts of the cave roof had given way and most of the rock missed, some him by inches. He was nursing a bad, bleeding scrape on his left shoulder and still limped two days after he had left the cave. His left leg was black, blue, green and a few other colors from a slab of stone that didn't miss.
He spent the time while he was healing playing his mother's violin and experimenting with the crystals. He was well on his way to gaining a small understanding of them. Several things he had tried worked very well, including a way to contain and control the heat crystals without losing an arm.
John found silver soldier when he was looting the remains of the hardware store, so he silvered the inside of a copper pipe and also soldered a cap on one end. With a small garnet inside, the silver coating reflected the heat even better than before. He sliced a round spoke from the back of a chair and placed the pipe in the hollowed out center. With a copper wire coming out the cut and the wood wired back together, he had a wooden rod that protected his hand from the heat.
The light crystal was even easier. He picked up a metal flashlight from the hardware store and replaced everything inside with one large crystal wrapped in leather, ran a copper wire around the crystal up through the switch, screwed the lens back on and he had a flashlight of about a million candle power, with no heat.
Today he was sitting in an Adirondack chair, sipping on a glass of tea and wondering if there were any other survivors and what they were doing. Had the government not noticed a new feature in northern Florida? Or was FEMA busy with other matters, further north? If so, how bad was it? Or worse, was there any government left, any FEMA, National Guard, state rescue, anything?
He couldn't get any answers here, so he needed to get off this rock and the crystals seemed to be his best bet. This was why he was looking at the patterns inside one of the crystals that were not doing anything. It was pretty, purple with tiny iridescent inclusions, but had no use that he could figure out. John sat it back on the table next to him. He took his glove off to keep it dry and was reaching for his tea, when the crystal started rolling until it touched a fire crystal, a large garnet. Without thinking John reach for it and as he touched the purple crystal a beam of intense energy shot out of the opposite side of the fire crystal, slicing through the wall in front of him, not stopping until the two crystals were moved apart. He looked at the rolling crystal, now calling it a booster and, after putting one glove back on, picked up several more that were like it.
He took several of the known pieces, very small ones and put them on the table. Very gingerly, John touched the end of the booster to each in turn. The light got brighter, but not much else and the thruster took off so fast he could swear he heard a sonic boom. The flier, even the smallest one about three inches long, could now lift him clear of the ground. He thought about putting two of the boosters in line with one of the others, but was a little worried about what might happen.
John picked up a second booster in his other hand and thought about it for a minute and decide to try it, but with precautions. He put both boosters in one hand, needing a boost up from the chair with his injured leg still hurting. When the two boosters touched, John was frozen in place by what he saw. There were people, everywhere. He turned around and saw that most of them were to the west and north and that almost all of them looked like they were transparent. There were a few that were solid, but he couldn't figure out why. John's hand opened, the crystals fell to the ground and he fell back in his chair.
He could see people, some of them clearly and he could see the general area they were in, but the people around them where ghosts. What caused some to look solid in every group, at least one in each? He remembered that the man he had seen clearly was the only one with a gun. Did that mean something or did he just miss the other weapons? He had to get off this rock and with that in mind; he promised himself that he would remember to wear both gloves before touching anything again. His little accidental discovery could have killed him easily.
John decided to go ahead and try putting two boosters in line with a heat crystal and see what would happen. Thinking ahead finally, he sat a bucket of water close by and put on his heaviest coat and gloves, just in case. He set up a copper tube in a vise with a heat crystal inside and sat two boosters on top of the tube. It heated up so fast he barely had time to react before the tube, the vise and part of the table vaporized. The explosion caught him and molten steel splashed across the body of his coat and arm. He had thrown his arm up to cover his face and only a few drops got past his coat and sleeve.
Unfortunately, a large glob of liquid metal landed on the back of his leather glove and burned through to his hand. His skin bubbled and John dunked his hand into the bucket of water he had close by. The burns were deep and he had to peel the glove and solidified metal off with a lot of teeth gritting and a few bad words. He would be days healing, if not weeks.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid! I can't believe I did that. Lucky I'm not dead. No more taking chances.”
John held his hand in the bucket of water, waiting for the throbbing to slow down. Between his shoulder, leg and now the burns and scrapes from getting tossed by the explosion, he was going to be laid up for a few days longer.
His head felt strange as he lay down that night and he wondered if it was because of the burns or the crystals, the ones that let him see things. Even when he finally fell asleep, it was an uneasy rest and he had dreams he couldn't quite remember the next day. It was five days before he was able to do more than fix himself food and clean his burns. The rest of the time he tried to sleep and drink as much water as he could. At least it was his left hand and not his right.
There were no airplanes on the plateau or he would have just modified one of them, but there was a very large pontoon boat and the remains of quite a few scooters and motorcycles. The fellow at the gas station, Chuck, had been rebuilding the boat for months, stripping it down to the hulls and frame before starting to rebuild it into a fishing platform. John had watched him from the front yard of the home, when the residents would be allowed to sit out in good weather.
The pontoon boat however, would be very useful. He could put several of the larger crystals he called floaters in the pontoons and set up a joy stick to control the direction with the thrusters. With those in place, he would be able to move the boat around easily. Seat belts, a windscreen across the bow, a few supplies and he could be ready to go and it shouldn't take more than a day or two.
He was glad that Chuck had finished the controls and the small pilot house. There was a wooden bench mounted in front of the pilot house and the other seats were metal for easy cleaning. John figured that he would have put removable cushions on the seats for comfort, later. The motors and gas tanks were still inside the garage next to the boat, so John didn't have to take them off.
He did find two large equipment cases that he decided to attach to the deck to put his supplies in for the flight. These were metal footlockers, about four feet long and two and a half feet wide and deep. Installing them was easy, waterproofing was not. He settled on oiled canvas and straps to hold it over the trunks.
In order to get more and larger crystals from the cavern more easily, John modified one of the larger motor scooters and one of the motorcycles that were in the Quonset hut. Stripping them of motors, transmission and wheels, John attaches straps and chains to the body and wielded legs onto the frame to land. With metal tubes along the sides containing flight crystals, thrust crystals in a metal tube where the front wheel had been, leather covered wiring and some practice, John could fly faster than he could run while still carrying fairly heavy loads. With the scooter, he could fly down the small tunnel to the crystal chamber and back with a few of the larger crystals, then use the motorcycle to transport many larger ones to the surface. He didn't like the frame on the first motorcycle when he was finished with it. He was new to wielding and it wasn't very pretty nor did he think it wo
uld hold a load right. He took a second motorcycle and tried again with much better results. It worked better for carrying the loads, so he parked the first in one of the motel rooms and used the second bike. Satisfied with his efforts he then reworked the scooter the same way.
Ideas were running through his head constantly, faster than he could write them down and the strange feeling kept coming back. When he turned in it was another difficult night, the concerns he had about the trip he was taking tomorrow adding to the mental disturbance. He remembered his dreams the next morning and quickly wrote them down. They were about the crystals, about combinations and about locations. Some of the crystals he had seen were not found in his cave but he saw where they were.
The next morning John nervously strapped himself into the seat and put his hands on the controls of the pontoon boat. He made contact with the float crystals through the wiring he had run and was rewarded with the boat leaving the ground. Hovering at about ten feet, a light breeze started blowing the craft toward the edge of the plateau and John touched the thrust controls to keep the boat in place. He practiced with the controls for about an hour, then landed and shut everything down. It wasn't perfect, but it worked. He would need to change things later, as he now needed three hands to touch all the controls. Fortunately, he didn't have to keep in contact all the time. One touch, one mental command could keep the controls and the crystals active for about half an hour. He would think about it during the flight and fix a few things when he came up with an idea of how to move the controls closer together with his limited materials.
He took the two boosters and held them in his hand, closing his eyes. The closest person he could see was a little northwest of him, about a hundred miles from his location. He tried to get a better view of the place but it was trees and water and that really didn't narrow it down much. He could see one clear figure, that of a teenage girl and the ghostly people around her were talking to each other. One little girl was talking to her directly and John could see her mouth moving. Chris, Christine, Christy, something like that and she was talking about lunch maybe. Then the girl, Christine, turned and looked straight into his eyes.
Startled, John dropped the crystals and had to unstrap the seat belt to get them. He took them again but this time focused on his dreams and was rewarded with the sight of a small string of hills with the ocean close by.
Marking the direction and the approximate distance in his notebook, he put the crystals back into his pocket and got back into the seat. The place he saw in his dream was closer. If what he was seeing was true and not some delusion, he would find out faster this way.
Strapping in John lifted off and headed west, moving out over the edge of the plateau slowly, to see if the change in the distance to the ground would affect the altitude of the ship. When the airship just continued on in level flight, John accelerated until the wind was uncomfortable, about fifty mph and was glad he had installed the wind screen across the bow. He would need to put the door on the pilot house in the future or find a pair of goggles but he wanted to get going today.
The former pontoon boat was not very aerodynamic, something he would have to change when he got the right materials and he knew he could go a lot faster if he had the right vehicle. However, even with this he would be there in a couple of hours. He thought about loading the scooter on the boat, but that would mean going back. He wasn't ready to start over so he continued on course.
The ground under him changed to swamp, then to open water, but John could see the coastline to the north only a short distance away. He knew he was headed for the crystal deposits he had seen so he kept going as straight as he could. He would touch the crystals in his pocket from time to time and make corrections to his course as needed.
John wondered if he was wise, literally following a dream, but he knew no other way to find out if they were true or just dreams. When he saw the sandy hills ahead, covered with tufts of grass and with the waves splashing across the sand less than a hundred yards away, John knew he was on to something.
He landed on the top of the hill closest to where he saw the cave entrance and walked right to it. Flashlight in hand he walked through the cave until he started splashing through water, turned right and walked into another crystal chamber. There, he gathered up over a dozen different types of crystals, making enough trips to fill one of the foot lockers and two canvas bags before he finally left to continue on to the closest group of people.
When he reached the area he had seen, he found that he was not as lucky as he had been with the shore cave. The place had hundreds of islands like he had seen and he had no way of telling how close he was. He would search for a day and use the crystals to try and narrow the search area but unless he saw smoke or movement, he wasn't sure he would be able to find anyone. He would sketch out the area on his notebook and start marking off the islands one by one.
By the time the sun was setting, he had made a good start and had eliminated almost twenty islands large enough to hold a group of survivors for more than a few days.
He landed on an island and cooked some supper. While he ate, he went through the crystals he had picked up at the shore and his promise of no more chances forgotten, decided to try a few, just to see what they would do.
The first one he picked was different from the rest. He had held it out from the rest, because he had only found one of them, instead of the hundreds of similar crystals he had been finding. It did nothing in his hand, just laid there and looked pretty. Disappointed, John started to set it back on the folding table but, instead, reached out to pick up a booster. As soon as he touched it, the booster and the new crystal began to vibrate violently, sending out a pulse of energy and John collapsed.
They spent the next week running from the eruption and the destruction it caused. The volcano was quiet after the second day, but the fires and the earthquakes continued and by the end of the second week they were out of everything and Dogg started searching crushed buildings. When he came back to the group, he pulled Mary aside and talked to her for a few minutes. When they were done, they called the kids together and told them the plan.
Elizabeth balked at the notion of having the little kids crawling around inside buildings that were falling down, no matter how bad the need. Sarki volunteered to impress her hero and Dogg hugged her. She was thrilled and gave Elizabeth another view of her tongue.
Dogg grinned at Elizabeth and picked one of the six year olds, Mike as the first mole, with Sarki as the backup. He took both kids, Mary and headed back to the crumpled store.
When they got there Mike wasn't too happy about crawling into the dark, but Sarki convinced him that it would be alright and she went in with him, carrying a candle in a tin can for light. The roof was low and bits and pieces were hanging here and there, but a short distance in it opened up and there were cans of food everywhere.
Sarki and Mike filled the small bags they had carried into the hole and brought them back to Dogg and Mary. Mike stayed in the store, while Sarki crawled part way out and handed the bags out to Mary. Dogg dumped the smaller bags and threw them back to Mary, who passed them back to Sarki. Then Sarki and Mike refilled them and repeated the process.
On the last trip out, they had to get new candles. Sarki's can lid was stuck, so Mike went back in ahead of her. Dogg had told them to clean out the back of the store, where the canned drinks were in the cooler. Mike headed there with both bags. Mary finally got the candle replaced in Sarki's lantern and was lighting it when the roof blew off the building. Flame shot out of every crack and a long tongue of flame shot out of the hole Mike had gone into, barely missing Dogg, who scrambled out of the way, beating at the flames on his bag of food.
Mary had been leaning back against the wall while she worked on Sarki's lantern and the explosion threw her and the wall she was leaning against across the dirt and rubble of the parking lot.
When Sarki came too, Dogg was loading supplies into his bag. Mary was lying on her back, coughing up blood
and with a stain spreading across her chest. The building was burning, black acrid smoke making everyone cough.
Desperate, Sarki called out to Dogg for help and he jumped, as though he had forgotten they existed.
“Still alive?” Bending over Mary, he pulled her blouse open and looked at the metal pipe sticking out of her chest a few inches below her breast. A few splinters of bone protruded alongside the pipe and the blood had bubbles, showing that the lung was punctured. “That's messed up. Looks like the end of the road for you.” He smiled and put his hand on her cheek. “Not that you were that good anyway. Way too old for me.”
Mary looked at him in horror, knowing he was just going to leave her there in the dirt and take the kids to gather food for him. If they all died, he wouldn't care, if they were of no more use, if they were hurt, so what. It was her fault. Dogg picked up the bag and taking Sarki by the arm, walked away, heading back to the shelter where the other kids waited.
Elizabeth had a very bad feeling about all of this and when the four had left, she got her six remaining kids, packed what they could carry and left. She had a place picked out and she had been stocking it for a week with supplies, just in case she needed a bolt hole. By the time she got there, got the kids situated and covered her tracks, the store had exploded. Elizabeth went toward the smoke, worried for Sarki and Mike. When she got there, no one was in sight, except Mary, still alive and bleeding.
“Where are Mike and Sarki?”
Mary opened her eyes and looked at Elizabeth. In a weak voice she told her what had happened, that Dogg had taken Sarki and that she should run. She coughed heavily, spitting up dark blood, then she died. Elizabeth went after Sarki, needing to know she was safe.
She saw the dress first; the one Sarki was wearing when she left that morning. It was ripped, buttons missing and there was blood on the collar. Sarki's body was around the corner, left in a pile of trash. Elizabeth covered her friend with the dress and put as much debris over her as she could find, the tears running silently down her face. When she was done she went back to the bolt hole, covering her tracks and planning how to escape from the volcano and from Dogg.