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“What the—Mark? Jacob? Did one of you boys mess with the van? Your dad is not going to be happy!” Dianne shouted over the sound of the car as she unbuckled Josie, trying to shield her daughter’s ears with her arms.
“It wasn’t me, mom!”
“Me either!”
Dianne pulled Josie out of the car and yelled. “You three back in the house!”
Dianne waited until the kids were back behind the car before climbing into the driver’s seat. She twisted the dial for the radio volume but nothing happened. She inserted the van’s key and turned it, but nothing happened there either. She got back out of the car and headed back toward the house, covering her ears with her hands. “What’s going on with that stupid thing?”
Once she was back inside, Dianne grabbed her cellphone off the counter and tapped in her unlock code. She scrolled through her contact list until she reached the name for the engineer who Rick had told her to call if anything ever broke down on one of the test cars. Wincing at the sound of the still-shrieking vehicle, Dianne shooed her children into the next room before closing the door and sitting down in a nearby chair.
After holding the phone to her ear for several seconds, Dianne pulled it away and glanced at the screen. The call status, instead of reading out as a count of how long the call had been ongoing, merely said “Dialing.”
“What?” Dianne hung up and dialed again. She watched the screen of the phone, but nothing changed, even after several more seconds. She sighed and hung up the phone, set it down on the kitchen table and then turned to her children.
“Stay in here. I’m going to go disconnect the battery, then we’ll take the old truck into town, okay?”
Jacob, Mark and Josie all nodded and Dianne headed back toward the front door of the house. As she swung the door open, a light breeze picked up, sending the smell of freshly cut grass dancing along. Accompanying it, however, was a foul stench that took Dianne a few seconds to recognize.
“Gasoline?” Dianne mumbled to herself as she turned to look at the car out in the driveway. As she looked at the vehicle, wondering why she was suddenly smelling gasoline, the radio shut off, the horn stopped blowing and the electrical system shorted out. Sparks flew from the bottom of the van, igniting the gasoline vapors with a faint whoosh that was quickly followed by an ear-shattering explosion. The van shuddered under the force of the explosion and burst into flames that quickly began to consume it both on the inside and out.
Dianne fell back against the front door of the house, partially from the force of the blast and partially from the shock of watching a vehicle that her children had been climbing in a few minutes earlier explode before her eyes.
“Mom?” Mark’s voice came from inside the house. The thirteen-year-old pulled open the front door and all three children gasped as they saw the wreckage of the van in the front driveway. Flames licked out from the vehicle and black smoke filled the air, rising high above the trees. A tire popped from the heat, sending pieces of rubber exploding outward, and Dianne turned and pushed Mark back through the door and into the house. She followed behind him and slammed the door shut before turning to look at the carnage out front.
“Mom, what’s going on?”
Dianne could only shake her head and whisper in response.
“I don’t know, Mark. I don’t know.”
Chapter 2
Los Angeles, CA
Even after the explosions around him had slowed to a stop, Rick stayed still in his hiding spot for nearly half an hour. In the distance he could hear screams, car alarms and the sound of chaos as the city began to tear itself apart. The whine of distant engines followed by tremendous explosions indicated that more planes had been downed, and the smell of smoke had increased to a level where it was getting difficult for him to breathe without wheezing.
When Rick finally released the death grip he had on his luggage, opened his eyes and started to sit up, he coughed and grabbed at his eyes as both they and his throat began to sting. He looked up into the sky that had been blue and cloudless only a short time ago. It was filled with acrid black smoke that billowed from innumerable fires and blotted out the sun.
“What the hell happened?” Rick slowly stood to his feet, pulled out a handkerchief from his back pocket and pressed it over his nose and mouth. In the distance the devastation took on an eerily unreal quality, looking like something out of a Saturday morning science fiction film instead of reality. Up close, however, the carnage became all too real.
Twisted and blackened bodies were frozen next to cars along the streets and parking lots surrounding where he was, as fires continued to burn from the engine and passenger compartments of the cars themselves. Most of those who had been far enough from their vehicles to survive the blasts were severely injured, and Rick could see small groups of them huddled on sidewalks or beneath the overhangs of small buildings, tending to their wounds.
He turned back and looked at what was left of the airport complex, scarcely able to believe his eyes. Two of the terminals were in flames from the plane that had slammed into the side of the building. Several parked planes were overturned and in pieces, scattered about by the force of the explosion. There were no signs of emergency vehicles in the area, though Rick doubted if anyone in the terminals or aircraft could have survived.
The main building was on fire as well, and several smaller fires had started from the overturned fuel trucks on the tarmac, and were slowly spreading as more fuel continued to leak from storage containers, aircraft and vehicles. He could just make out people running to and fro in front of the main entrance of the airport, and several of them wore firefighter and emergency services uniforms.
Rick walked slowly out from the grassy area he was in, hopping over the slow-burning flames that flickered along the green grass toward the center. The heat from the wrecks of the cars was nearly overwhelming, and every few seconds the wind changed, blowing a fresh wave of smoke and soot into his face. Rick
covered his face with his arm and tried to pull his suit jacket closed to shield his torso from the heat. He walked through the maze of wreckage quickly, having to divert his route several times to get past some of the still-burning vehicles.
With no idea of what to do or where to go, Rick looked for the highest ground around, noticing that a small road leading away from the airport turned into an overpass that looked to be the highest point in the area. He headed for the road at a quick pace, keeping a tight hold of his luggage as he went. It wasn’t until he broke into a jog and felt his phone in the breast pocket of his jacket bouncing against his chest that his eyes went wide and he stopped to pull it out.
His phone turned on with the touch of a button, though the signal was displaying as far weaker than he would have imagined for where he was located. He frowned, then hit the contacts button before touching the image in the first “Favorites” slot.
“Come on… pick up…” Rick held the phone against his ear, hearing the telltale clicking sounds that indicated that something was happening in the background. It took almost a full minute for him to hear a single ring, which cut short as a message began playing.
We’re sorry, this call cannot be completed as dialed. Please try texting your intended recipient instead.
