Cataclysmic Evolution - 2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

“Calm down, please, calm down.” Mr. Hodge attempted to restore some calm in the darkness. When the girls didn’t stop shrieking he shouted, “Girls!”

That shut them up, though a few whimpers didn’t stop.

“Thank you.” There was a low murmur. “Okay, Mr. Brasher has a small light. We’re going to turn it on and get the emergency lights out of the storage box. No one else is to move until further instruction.”

The tour guide’s tiny light lit the room like a strobe. It bounced off the hundreds of hanging crystals and reflected around the room. Being in the cave must be like standing inside a giant gemstone, all angles and light beams bouncing off the tiny spikes sticking out of the walls and ceiling.

“Wow.” Barron couldn’t help the comment. He could just imagine how this must have appeared to an early American armed only with torchlight. It was probably even more beautiful with the twining orange and yellow flames. Having the lights go out was pretty damn freaky, but no one else had probably seen the cave like they were in a long, long time.

Mr. Hodge walked through the students, who were crowded together in tight clumps. The storage locker was just to the left of Barron’s group so they were second to receive their light. The teacher handed it to Thavin. “Here, son. Don’t point this up at the ceiling or directly at the crystal sheets, if you can avoid it. Don’t need to go blinding everyone.”

“O-okay.” Thavin flicked on the light. Barron could see the faces of his friends. They stayed in a tight clump, not holding on to each other anymore, but leaning close together. Soon the room lit up, even brighter than when they’d first come in. Barron tried to keep his eyes down; not everyone was following Mr. Hodge’s directions.

There were more hurried whispers between their tour guide and teacher. Some of the students murmured to each other, and some of the girls were still crying. Barron just wanted to leave. He didn’t know why the lights had gone out, and he didn’t care. Maybe this would finally be the end of their school’s ridiculous routine of making students visit the caves.

“Okay, class, attention please.” Mr. Hodge waited for everyone to fall silent. “Mr. Brasher is going to lead us back out of the caves. This will take a while if the lights have gone out through the entire system. Unfortunately, my reader is no longer working either. That means extra precautions. If someone gets lost we might not be able to find you.” Someone gasped, and one girl wailed. Her friends quickly hushed her, hugging her from both sides.

“Don’t panic!” Mr. Hodge said. “To ensure everyone gets out safely, we’re going to link ourselves in a chain.”

“So we’re all going to h-hold hands?” William asked. “Can we s-sing folk songs too?” His voice was shaky, but he was making jokes. A few guys chuckled.

“No, smartass, I want everyone to use one hand to hold on to the person in front’s shoulder. We’ll stop every ten minutes to take roll call. Anyone loses their grip, or feels the person behind them stop touching their shoulder, they’re to call out. If you get separated, for any reason, do not move an inch. I will come back for you, even without the reader. Does everyone understand?”

The chorus of yeses was loud compared to the quiet. The silence felt even more oppressive afterward. Mr. Hodge organized everyone into order, sending the guide down the hall a short ways until they could all manage to line up single file. The signal to walk forward or stop was a squeeze on the shoulder.

Ages came and went as they all shuffled out of the deep cave, toward the entrance. Barron had no idea how Mr. Hodge was telling the time, but at regular intervals the squeeze came to stop and the teacher would call out the names of everyone in the senior class ’til they all responded. Barron was sweating through his thin T-shirt by the time they got back to the gate.

They’d stopped nearly twenty times.

The lights in the larger cavern weren’t on, either. The formations and sculptures nature had formed out of the rock over the eons were invisible outside the tiny spheres of their lights. “From here forward there are branches and a lot of open caverns. It is imperative everyone stay together. I know you’re probably tired, hungry, and thirsty. Just be patient, and we’ll get out of here soon.”

The train of students stopped three times after that for people who tripped or lost their grip. At least their system was working, even if it was a slow-assed system. They hadn’t lost anyone, and they were halfway to the mouth of the cave.

By the time they neared the mouth, Barron’s feet hurt, and his hand and arm muscles had cramped. There was sweat dripping down his sides, even in the cool of the caves. “I gotta take a piss,” Creed said in Barron’s ear.

“Tough. Hold it. We’re old enough not to piss ourselves anymore, remember?”

“Ass.” Creed squeezed him. Barron fought the urge to shrug him off.

“We’ll be out soon, and you can use the bathroom in the gift shop. Just stop whining.” Stiff upper lip and all that. Barron was never sure what that really meant, but like straighten up and fly right, it was another dictum that often echoed through his mind in his father’s voice.

Be a man.

Don’t whine.

Don’t cry.

Toe the line, and live up to the expectations placed on you, or else.

College really couldn’t come soon enough.

“Shouldn’t we hear someone by now?” Barron heard someone ahead of him ask.

The only one who knew where they really were was the guide. “I’m sure the cave mouth was evacuated and everyone grouped in a central location until whatever caused the electrical malfunction can be repaired. Don’t worry. One more cavern, and we’ll be out.” Their tour guide spoke in an overly-hearty voice not nearly as confident as he seemed to think it was.

The mouth of the cave let enough light into the central cavern that the teens could let go of one another. Barron shrugged his shoulders and shook out his hands. The muscles tingled with small, fiery pins as they relaxed.

When the first scream broke the silence, it surprised even him. Barron jerked, his heart racing, and spun to find out what was wrong. Soon, more screams echoed off the high stone ceiling, rebounding and buffeting them until nothing else could be heard.

Mr. Hodge shook the girls, even striking a few on their cheeks. “Stop it!” he bellowed. ‘It’ repeated, fainter and fainter, echoing over the cries, but the normally mild-mannered teacher’s shout broke the group hysteria.

“Girls, turn around or close your eyes.”

Barron couldn’t see what had set them off. It was probably some small scaly or furry creature. There was a fetid stench in the air. Maybe it had dragged in something dead or something.

He edged toward the area where Mr. Hodge and the guide argued in hushed voices. Others were moving away, making it easier to get close.

Bodies lay near the mouth of the cave. The reek of shit filled the air when a small breeze swirled the dust near the stairs leading out. There were at least ten, their bodies contorted and collapsed on the steps and to the sides, like they fell off the small slope up to the parking lot.

“Holy fuck,” Barron whispered. He gagged, covering his mouth and nose with one hand. What the hell happened? The breakfast shake he’d had before he left home threatened to come back up, and he was glad they’d missed lunch. From the sounds behind him, others weren’t able to hold onto the contents of their stomachs. The sick odor of bile set off even more people. The cries and demands to have someone tell them what happened barely filtered through his shock.

“Everyone, I need your attention.” Barron turned his head slowly from the dead men and women, the first he’d ever seen, to Mr. Hodge. “Students!” he snapped. “I know this is horrific.” He swallowed hard. “I don’t know what happened, and I can’t explain it. We need to move back, away from the bodies, while Mr. Brasher checks in with the park management and finds out what’s going on.”

“I want to go home,” Abbe whimpered. She clung to her twin sister who had tears streaming down her face.

“We’ll get back to the school and notify all your parents as soon as we can. Right now my scanner’s still not working and neither is Mr. Brasher’s communication device. I need everyone to stay together, in a group, for just a little bit longer.” He started to usher the students toward the dim shadows at the back of the big cavern, near the grouping of rocks many younger kids used to climb on and sit.

Barron sank down to the floor when they stopped. The bodies were out of sight, but not out of mind. He could still see their pale faces. It hadn’t been a peaceful death, whatever had happened. Their eyes and mouths had been locked open, a rictus of pain and death stamped over their face. One man’s arm had stuck up in the air, the fingers curled. Barron’s stomach churned at the memory.

He swallowed convulsively to stop from gagging until the urge passed.

“What does that?” He wiped his hands over his mouth, unsure of the answer and not really wanting to know. He didn’t say it, but Barron wanted to go home too. His friends huddled around him, close enough to touch, but not really touching. None of them replied.

Ages seemed to pass before they heard footsteps hurrying toward them. The tour guide’s light beam played over the group. Barron shielded his eyes from the spotlight, but wasn’t fast enough. Afterburner images, little round circles, floated in front of him.

“Damn.” He rubbed his eyes.

Mr. Hodge’s mouth dropped open when the other man began gesticulating wildly. He shook his head. Mr. Brasher took a step back. He shook his head.

“—can go out and see for yourself if you don’t believe me.”

What? What could he go see? What in the hell was going on?

Barron watched. He was used to listening to what wasn’t said, knowing how to judge a mood by the details. When his dad came in with rigid shoulders, taking deep breaths, Barron knew it was time to disappear.

But the tour guide wasn’t angry.

He was scared. Really scared.

“What the hell happened?” William asked.

Thavin pointed a shaking finger at the area just out of sight where the bodies had fallen. “I saw one of those guys on our way in. H-He had kids with him.”

Creed’s usual smile was gone. He shook his head. “My guess would be an attack. Like a bomb. Something knocked out everything electrical. The lights are off and so are the fans.” He pointed at the air duct fans which weren’t quietly forcing fresh air into the caves. “We should get satellite service here, but my com is dead too. I mean, it’s on, but it’s not connecting to anything.”

Barron’s dad had his communicator, the consequence of not getting the grade he was expected to achieve on his trig test. The CD was locked in his desk drawer. “Maybe it was something chemical.”

Some girl overheard them. “A chemical bomb?” she shrieked. “Mr. Hodge, Mr. Hodge!” She jumped up and ran to their teacher. “What’s going on? Are we going to die?”

“Trielle, calm down.” Mr. Hodge put his hands on her shoulders. “You need to slow your breathing down before you hyperventilate.”

She wasn’t listening, and other people were catching her hysteria. Frankly, Barron was surprised it hadn’t happened sooner. Half the guys were crying too!

“Listen to me, everyone. We can’t help these people. Mr. Brasher is coming with us, and we’re going to go back to the school. You’re all going to line up and get on the bus. I want everyone back in the exact same seats they sat in on the way here. Make sure your seat mate is here. This is not the time to fuck around, people.

“On the bus. Now.”

Everyone stood up and began to shuffle to the cave entrance. Some of the girls let out sobs as they edged around the fallen bodies, but they kept moving. After so many hours in the dark, the sunlight was intense. Barron’s eyes watered. He shaded them with one hand.

There were a few cars on the road, stopped at random spots, but he didn’t want to see inside them. What kind of bomb could do this, could kill so many people so quickly? There were kids outside on the small play structure near the picnic tables.

After that, Barron tried his best not to see anything.

He was afraid to breathe or touch anything, but they had no choice. Barron hadn’t prayed in years, but as he made his way down the aisle of the bus to the back seat, he sent a fervent prayer to whatever entity might be listening to protect them all.

With no electricity, the bus was on full manual. Mr. Hodge forced the doors shut and sat in the folded seat in front of the controls. Never, in all the years Barron had been in school, had anyone actually had to drive the bus. They’d had drills, of course, but he never expected it to actually happen.

Could Mr. Hodge even drive something as big as this? He clenched the back of the seat in front of him and wished for a seat belt as the teacher actually pushed a button to turn the bus on using the back-up independent power system.

It didn’t work. Mr. Hodge smacked his hand on the panel. “Damn it!”

What the fuck else was going to go wrong? They lived an hour, by vehicle, away from the park. It’d take forever to walk. What if whatever had actually happened were to happen again? Apparently anyone in the open had been a sitting duck.

“No, wait. Blue button, three times, prime the system to switch to gas manual, then the green button.” The eerie silence on the bus magnified Mr. Hodge’s tense mutters. He followed his own directions, and the bus finally rumbled to life.

Now they had to make it back. Some people talked once Mr. Hodge managed to get them out of the parking lot and onto the highway, their hushed whispers barely audible over the incredibly loud engine. They couldn’t go very fast, even on the highway. Cars were all over, like they’d died just as surely as the people Barron occasionally caught glimpses of.

He tried to face forward and not look. By the time they approached Mission Flats, the sun was nearing the horizon. Barron should’ve been starving, but his stomach was twisted in knots. The town was just as bad as everywhere else.

There were a few people outside the police station. Mr. Hodge stopped the bus. “Everyone stay in your seats. I know you’re all anxious to get home and find your families, but I can’t let you off this bus until we know more. I’m going to go inside. Mr. Brasher is going to stay with you. Sit tight, and don’t panic.”

Mr. Hodge quickly jumped out of the bus and then shut the doors from the outside. He trotted over to the young couple standing outside the station. Everyone watched, but the windows wouldn’t go down, and they couldn’t tell what they were saying.

They gestured toward the station. Mr. Hodge looked back at them. He held up one hand and then folded all but one finger down. He disappeared inside the police station then.

“Do you think our parents will be at school?” William asked. He huddled in his seat, with his arms wrapped around his chest like he was cold, even though the air on the bus was stifling in the early evening warmth.

“Could be. They survived.” Thavin tilted his head toward the shaking people standing beside their car.

After a few minutes, Mr. Hodge finally reemerged from the station. An officer was with him.

“That’s Harvey.” William stood up, pounding on the window. “Harvey!” His older brother had been given a name even more unfortunate than William’s. His brother looked up. A look of relief lightened the suddenly aged features.

Harvey jumped up the steps. William stumbled as fast as he could down the center aisle of the bus. They crashed together, arms wrapped tight around each other. Harvey pushed William back, peered into his face, and then pulled him close again.

Not a word was said as everyone watched. Barron wondered where his dad and mom were. Everyone else was probably thinking the same thing. Mr. Hodge stood silently at the front of the bus, his mouth a grim white line.

“Thank God you’re okay.”

“Harvey.” William was shaking almost uncontrollably. “What happened?”

Harvey hadn’t been a cop long enough to see much, and it showed in the fear Barron could hear in his voice. “We don’t know. Not yet. A lot of people died all over, though. Everyone outside was affected almost immediately, and a lot of other people…” Harvey looked up, scanning the bus. Shocked silence met his words.

Not even the girls were screaming. The tears he could see streaming down the faces of so many of his classmates fell silently, as if any response would mean what Harvey said was real and actually happening.

Barron wished William’s brother would stop talking. He wanted to clap his hands over his ears and not listen, but he was just as numb as everyone else. It was too much to deal with for anyone, even him.

Of course he wasn’t done. Harvey swallowed hard, then went on in a thick voice. “I’m sorry, but I don’t have all the answers. The most we can figure is there was some sort of attack. The machinery in the basement went crazy at the station, then everything went dead. I was stuck in the evidence locker for over two hours. By the time someone came into the station looking for help and found me, people were already sick. Some were dying or already dead.

“The planetary satellite system seems to be down. Most electrical devices are shot. So far, less than twenty adults and a handful of little kids have been found. Those who are healthy and capable are going around the town, door to door, to find survivors. We have to help each other or more people could die.”

Harvey took a deep breath. “I know you’re high school kids. I know you’re scared too, but… I need some volunteers.”