The Persistence of Memory: America Under Attack

Part Twelve

I followed Jimmy and Virginia to the top of the rise where the highway peaked and continued downhill on the other side. The descent on that side wasn't as steep, and had fared much better in the quake. Behind us, a gas station exploded, spewing black smoke and angry red flames. The smoke curled up for a short distance before dispersing in the steady wind, but as I turned to watch the wind abruptly reversed direction.

A person stood up from the grassy embankment near the gas station and waved a red ball cap to get my attention. I knew that hat. It was mine. I knew the girl, too.

"Susan!" I called, waving with my good arm. I wasn't the type of guy to cry over emotional stuff, but I couldn't help shedding a few tears as she ran to catch up with us.

"I thought you were gone," she gasped, throwing her arms around me. I grunted from the pain in my shoulder, but I returned her embrace with one arm.

"I thought you were gone, too," I said. "How did you..."

I was cut off by another rumble in ground and a second explosion at the gas station.

"How about we catch up later," Jimmy said. "We should get off of this highway while we still can."

Susan and I followed Jimmy and Virginia and the fleeing birds inland, leaving the ruins of Interstate 26 behind. The wind continued its steady assault, but gradually weakened as we walked. By the time we reached Jimmy's travel trailer at the RV camp, the gale force gusts had become a gentle but steady breeze.

Susan explained that when I fell with the collapsing bridge, she couldn't see me anymore. She called for me, but had to run when the ground started shifting beneath her. She ran to the gas station, which in retrospect was not the brightest idea, but she grabbed a folding map and a couple of bags of beef jerky before realizing the danger she was in. She ran into the field sat down to wait out the quakes, and then she saw me after the explosion.

We spent the day at the small RV camp to rest and recover from our ordeal. Jimmy cooked hotdogs on a charcoal grill and we filled every container we could find with water from a public tap.

The RV Park was home to seven others besides Jimmy and Virginia, and we all sat around a fire pit trading theories about what was happening. Ideas centered around the Others, which is what the news anchors had been calling the aliens. One the campers, a barrel-chested painter named Danny, was convinced that the US government was behind all of it, even the spaceship.

It was Danny who woke us up in dark hours before dawn.

I opened my eyes as lightening flashed in the distance, silhouetting his large frame a few feet from where I slept. Susan and I had made beds from lawn chair cushions and slept in the shelter of a retractable awning on Jimmy's RV.

"Easy, Thomas. It's me, Danny," he said.

His attempt to put me at ease failed miserably. I reached into my backpack for the handgun, but he put his meaty hand over mine and spoke again.

"Thomas, it's Danny. Shhh... Take 'er easy. I ain't robbin' you, Buddy. I'm just trying to wake you up. Something's wrong. Something's happened you need to see."

Thunder rumbled as he spoke, an ominous soundtrack to his words. Adrenaline fueled my rapid awakening, and I figured Danny could have killed or robbed me with little trouble if that had been his goal, so I stopped struggling and nodded at him.

"Okay," I said. "Gimme a sec."

Danny walked around the corner of the RV and lit a cigarette.

"Susan?" I said slightly above a whisper.

"I'm awake," she said. She sat up and pulled her blanket back. "I'm worried about you, Thomas. You are too young to snore like that."

"I don't snore," I said standing up and shouldering my backpack. I decided that having a sidearm was pretty useless if I couldn't get to it when I needed it, and buckled on my gun belt and holster. It was almost too big for me, but I could wear it on the smallest setting.

"I know you don't snore. But I don't know how you could sleep through Jimmy's snoring. They probably heard him up in the spaceship."

As my eyes adjusted, I saw her slip her handgun back into its holster, and slip it into place over her shoulder.

Danny stepped around the corner. "Y'all ready? It ain't that far, but we'll want to get back 'fore the rain hits. I know the trail pretty well, but I got a solar powered flashlight, you know, just in case we need it."

We did need it. However well Danny knew the trail, it didn't keep Susan and me from tripping over tree roots or dips or rises in the ground. Danny tripped several times, too. To make it a little bit harder to follow him, the rain started to fall in fat, heavy drops, soaking us to the skin.

The idea that Danny might have been leading us to an ambush had crossed my mind, so I carried my gun and listened for anything out of the ordinary. After a ten minute hike punctuated by a biblical lightning storm, Danny stopped.

"Watch your step through here. I mean it, Buddy. Be careful." He aimed his flashlight through the trees, and after a few steps the world disappeared from view. Only the rain and lightning proved we were still there.

We stopped about twenty yards from the edge of the cliff. Danny would go no farther.

"What's this? I didn't know there were cliffs like this around here."

"There ain't," Danny said. "Weren't, I mean. Just wait."

Another flash in the sky revealed the most horrifying thing I had ever seen. The heavy rain had been masking the sound of water flowing below. Not just flowing, but crashing in waves like the ocean on the beach.

"What... How can this be?" I asked, unwilling to believe my senses.

"I can smell it," Susan said. "The salt. This isn't a flood, it's... It's the ocean."

The raging storm gave us plenty of intermittent illumination. The waters of the Atlantic Ocean rose and fell as far as I could see. It was a horror too great to grasp. Millions of lives had been lost in the past few hours. Eighty miles of land between Charleston and the spot where I stood had been utterly erased from existence.

Susan sat in the mud and stared dumbly at the beautiful devastation before us. I fell to me knees and vomited. My home was gone. My friends. Everything that I knew and loved. The Battery in Charleston. The Angel Oak. The marsh where I had spent so much time fishing and boating. All gone. I turned to Susan, but neither of us had words to express what we were feeling.