Variance - Book 2: The Others, Issue #4

Castle Rock Lake, Adams County, Wisconsin

Day 40 of The Rise   

   At first it did not seem real.  

   The sound was so jarring the four felt a simultaneous wave of discombobulating terror.  There was a screeching whirr that tore across the river bed, shaking the river’s steady current.  

   Hannah covered her ears and gritted her teeth.  She cocked her head and looked up at the darkened sky.  There were hundreds of sparkling stars, but no source of the sound.  She looked down at Stevie who was lying in the bottom of the boat.  His ears were uncovered but he, too, was searching for the violent sound.  Hannah’s eyes flicked over to her father and Harry.  The expressions on their faces were identically docile, as if they hadn’t heard the foreign noise.  But they did hear it.  They threw their heads back, inspecting the dark sky with the same degree of calculation. 

   “What is that?” Harry shouted as the sound exploded around them.

   And then they saw it.

   Hannah’s eyes bulged, the whites shimmering against the glowing moon.  Above them, no more than two hundred feet up, they watched as the outline of a jetliner streaked across the sky.  The tail of the plane passed over them as the aircraft’s nose dipped down.  Hannah saw a fire on the hull of the plane, black smoke pluming out in a cataclysmic cloud.  The boat rocked as the plane’s engines sucked up the air around them and waves rippled across the dark water nearly capsizing their boat.  The plane’s left wing tilted left and struck the top of the lake, the achy metal twisting in the unforgiving water.  The tail slid back and forth in one succinct motion and then the front end of the plane appeared to topple forward.  For a moment, the plane looked like it would roll over onto its side like a sick Labrador, but it only skipped across the water in three successions.  Fire erupted from the tail and metal exploded out one of the sides.  The left engine, engulfed in flames, exploded into a billowing fireball.  The engine whistled a furious tune as it disappeared into the star-filled sky before its smoldering mess landed on the shoreline a hundred yards away.  Gasoline peppered the water and ignited into a manic ring of fire.  The battered plane gave one last cough of concession as it was sucked into the abyss of an angry maelstrom of death, waiting for Castle Rock Lake to swallow it up.  The plane settled, then the noise settled, and then the screams came.

    “Christ!” Hannah heard her father say as the ringing in her ears dissipated.  “Harry, turn this thing round.”

   “Stop!” Stevie shouted.

   “You nuts, boy?” Bill shouted, alarmed.

   “We can’t help those people,” Stevie said pulling himself up off the boat’s floor.

   “Like hell we can’t!” Bill said.

   “If we go back for them, then we’ll all die.”

   “That’s ridiculous!  Come on, Harry, turn ‘er around.”

   Harry went to turn the rudder, but stopped when he heard Stevie cock the .22.  He looked up to find him pointing the gun at Bill.

   “What in the hell you doin’, son?” Bill asked, not an ounce of fear in his voice.  

   “We’re not helping them.  The only reason we’re alive is because we never went back and we sure as hell ain’t starting now!”

   “That ain’t no Variants!  That’s a plane!  And people are gonna die unless we go an’ help ‘em!”  Bill was angry now, his voice no longer calm or fatherly. 

   “How do you know there ain’t Variants!” Stevie cried.

   “Put the gun down!” Hannah screamed.

   “Stay outta this!”

   “Don’t you talk to her like that,” Bill told him, his voice thundering around them.  

   Bubbles began popping all around the sinking plane as if it was being sucked down.

   “Keep going Harry,” Stevie said, his eyes never leaving Bill.

   “Don’t listen to him,” Bill said.

   “Do it!”

   “No!”

   “If you help them, I will shoot you Bill.”

   Hannah could see Harry’s mind spinning, crippled by the peril that stood before him.  His hand was shaking on the rudder, but his eyes were steady and focused. 

   “Move over,” Bill said to Harry.

   Harry did as he was told and Bill pulled back on the throttle.  The boat leaned back as the motor roared.  The engine’s sound was so loud it nearly drowned out the gunshot that followed.  

   Nearly…

   Blood spattered across Harry’s face and neck in a quick burst.  Bill’s body slumped back against the motor.  The small red dot on his chest expanded into a splotch of dark maroon.  Bill’s eyes locked on Stevie’s with a look of mixed horror and disbelief before rolling back in his head.  His eyelids fell and then Bill Phillips became still.  The death had happened so fast Harry had not been able to move.     But Hannah was quick to rush Stevie.

   If she hadn’t screamed, she may have gotten him, but her rage was too flagrant to go unnoticed.  Stevie swung the rifle around and the end of the barrel caught Hannah’s right cheek.  Pain surged up her face stinging her eye.  She fell back striking her head against one of the oars.  The world spun and hazed all at once.

   Stevie spun back around as Harry was getting to his feet and cocked the gun in one brilliant motion.  “Uh, uh, uh…” he muttered.  “Take a seat, Phillips, and get us out of here.”

   Harry stared at him, incensed. 

   “I did what I had to do,” was all Stevie said.

   Harry could still feel the warmth from his father’s body next to him and he stifled the urge to cry.  On the floor of the boat he could hear Hannah’s soft whimpers, but they were suddenly drowned out by another throaty rumble from the dying plane.

   “Shut up!” Stevie shouted at her.  “Now, get us outta here or else I’ll shoot yer sister, too.”

   Harry pulled back on the throttle, but only barely, spurring the boat to life again.  Stevie climbed over the middle seat, the gun pinned on Harry.  He reached down with one hand and grabbed hold of Bill’s plaid shirt, now soaked in gruesome layer of sticky blood.

   “Don’t touch him!” Hannah screamed.

   “You wanna join him?” Stevie asked.

   This silenced Hannah.

   Harry watched as Stevie pulled up Bill from his collar and dumped him over the side.  There was a shuddering gulp as the water sucked Bill Phillips down and then there was nothing.  Harry turned back and watched the ripples of the water settle as the boat traveled away.

   “…You hear me, Phillips?” Harry heard Stevie yelling.

   “Wha’?”

   “I said move!  That plane explodes we’ll all be ripped to shreds!”

   Harry thought he nodded, but it didn’t matter.  He felt himself pull back on the throttle and the boat sped away.  The screams echoing from the plane churned Harry’s gut and he thought for a moment that he would vomit.  But he didn’t.  Stevie was sitting in front of him now, the .22 clutched in his hands.  He wondered if it possible to let go of the throttle and tackle him before Stevie had a chance to react.  He just had to be quick.  All he had to do was get the upper hand.  That’s all there was to it.  He would knock him out and go back for his father.  He would dive into the dark and pull him from the watery grave.  He would get him back in the boat and find a way to save him.  He would go back for the others on the plane and pull them to safety.  He would save them all…

   But the boat roared along, pitter-pattering on the waves, leaving the plane entombed in its spectacular ring of fire.

   Hannah would whimper until morning, not knowing that it was the Globemaster C-17 carrying Captain Blake, Lara Holliday, and Enrique Valenzuela that was being devoured by the depths of Castle Rock Lake.