Dead Earth: The Green Dawn

Dead Earth: The Green Dawn

Mark Justice and David T. Wilbanks

Published by Permuted Press at
Smashwords.

Copyright 2010 Mark Justice and David T.
Wilbanks

www.PermutedPress.com

The sky wasn’t supposed to be green.

Jubal Slate may have been a small town guy
but he wasn’t a dumb hick. He was educated, for God’s sake—two
years at New Mexico State University up in Las Cruces. Of course,
his field of study was law enforcement, not science, but he had
watched enough New Mexico sunrises in his twenty-two years to know
that their breathtaking displays of colors never included green
before, unless maybe a bad storm was imminent.

He stood next to his cruiser at the edge of
Serenity by the empty boot plant and stared at the sky with growing
apprehension.

The sunrise wasn’t completely green. The
color didn’t even dominate. Jubal saw the familiar red and orange,
even purple, the way the sun had risen—and set—his entire life. But
there was a plentiful helping of green there, too, and that’s what
was worrying him.

That, along with whatever had happened two
weeks ago in Las Vegas.

The worry had wormed its way into his dreams
and forced him out of bed far earlier than he would have liked.
Images of a tall figure, dressed in crimson, haunted him upon
waking, but now the dream’s events had faded from his memory like
the morning fog seared away by the sun. With the sheriff down,
Jubal had more than enough on his plate. Sleepless nights wouldn’t
help him deal with the work. But Jubal had never been one to wallow
in self-pity. Once he was sure sleep had eluded him for the night,
he had showered, dressed and gone to work.

He had left the house as quietly as he could,
hoping that he hadn’t woken his mother. It wasn’t likely. She had
been down with something for a couple of days, just like Damon, and
had been sleeping heavily.

It was a little disorienting having the two
authority figures in his life out of commission at the same time.
Though Jubal would be married soon and, hopefully, have a family of
his own, he felt strangely adrift, as though the world was changing
and he was being carried along like an insect buffeted by a strong
wind, helpless, without choice.

All he knew for sure was that something nasty
had happened in the Nevada desert and no one—the feds, the white
house, the military—was talking about it. There was lots of
speculation on the news and in town, but that’s all it was:
speculation.

He shook his head and chuckled.

Silly, dark thoughts. His mom had always
accused him of having too much imagination. “And I sure don’t know
where you get it from, Jubal Slate,” she’d say, “because it doesn’t
come from either side of
this
family.”

Jubal climbed back into the cruiser and
started the old combustion engine.

He longed for one of the sleek new models
with the large solar-powered motors. The city cops had them in
Santa Fe and they were very popular on the TV cops shows. But not
in Serenity. The county commission had twice turned down Sheriff
Ortega’s request for upgrades, deeming them unnecessary
expenditures. Jubal could see their point. Maybe it wasn’t
necessary in a flyspeck on the map like Serenity.

But it sure would be cool.

Jubal chuckled again, his voice sounding loud
in the emptiness of early morning. He took a sip from his coffee
and turned the cruiser around. He had a pile of work waiting for
him at the office and he aimed to put a dent in it before
lunchtime.

How could a sheriff’s department in a county
where nothing happened produce so much goddamned paperwork?

That’s what Jubal wanted to know as he stood
up from the old chair with the broken leg and tried to ease the
knot of pain from his back.

Of course, if his mother or the sheriff were
here, they would remind him that Serenity wasn’t always so
uneventful. He didn’t need the reminder. If he wanted to recall how
things in a small town could go horribly wrong very quickly he just
had to walk over to the cemetery behind the Baptist church and
stare at his father’s headstone.

He frowned at the forms scattered across the
desk: payroll, delinquent property tax records (since the primary
duty of the sheriff’s office was still to collect the county’s
taxes—a job Jubal loathed with a passion), subpoenas to serve, a
passel of documents from the state requesting verification of officer
training and continuing education requirements.

Jubal swept the last of these into the
trash.

Screw the state. If they wanted to send
someone down here to check on him, he’d welcome the company. Denny
and Rafe, the other two deputies, both called in sick today, as did
Nora, the office’s dispatcher-cum-receptionist.

On top of everything else, the air
conditioning in the old concrete building had gone out overnight.
Jubal pulled his sweat-drenched shirt away from his back and
decided to head to lunch.

He locked the office and stepped outside,
where it seemed ten degrees cooler than inside the office.

It was nearly 11 o’clock. He could get a bite
to eat at Conchita’s, then take lunch to his mother and Damon.

Later, if the day were still as quiet as it
had begun, he would slip over to the Rite-Aid and flirt with the
cute pharmacist. He was pretty sure she’d flirt back.

He drove to Conchita’s, mostly so he could
feel the air conditioning against his face. He would also need the
cruiser for his lunch deliveries.

Conchita’s Grill was half full. It was
usually packed during the morning and early afternoon. In addition
to being the only restaurant in the city limits proper, it was
Serenity’s best source of news and gossip. Since the credit card
collection center closed down four years ago most of the town’s
residents had little more to do than hang out downtown or stay home
and drink. Jubal knew all the people in the restaurant and he
imagined they did both. When the lunch crowd thinned out, he could
picture the aging population of Serenity heading back to their
modest homes and trailers, turning on the AC and the TV and opening
a bottle.

Several of the patrons greeted him by name.
He took a seat at the counter.

“What’ll it be, Jube?” Patty Felder ran the
diner. Jubal figured there must have been an actual Conchita long
ago, but for as long as he could remember the place had belonged to
Patty.

She was a large woman with short steel-gray
hair and a body like a block of wood. She wore her regular uniform
of jeans and a man’s white t-shirt. Her right sleeve was rolled up
to display a faded tattoo of Elvis Presley’s face.

“What’s the special?”

“It’s Wednesday, boy. What do I always have
on Wednesday?”

“Lobster and Roasted Red Pepper Salad?”

Someone once told Jubal that Patty had a
laugh that sounded like a chainsaw stuck in a redwood. He decided
that was an understatement. She bellowed out that painful noise,
then slapped Jubal’s arm. “You always crack me up, Jube. You always
have.” She wiped a dish cloth across her eyes. “So you want the
roast beef and mashed potatoes?”

“Yeah. And two to go.”

“Your ma?”

“And the sheriff.”

Patty nodded. She pushed through the swinging
door to the kitchen area.

Jubal felt comfortable here. When his dad was
sheriff, Jubal’s mother would sometimes allow him to ride his bike
downtown to the station. Then he and his dad would walk to the
diner and sit at the counter. Little Jubal would beam with pride as
everyone came up to his father to greet the big man and thank him
for some small service he’d performed.

At his father’s funeral, no one had cried
longer or louder than Patty.

She was back in a minute with his plate. It
smelled wonderful and his stomach growled in response. It may have
been the only restaurant downtown, but the food was always good and
Patty never gouged you on the price.

“I’ll keep the other two dinners warm until
you’re ready to go,” she said.

“Thanks. Hey, where is everybody?”

Patty shrugged. “The flu or whatever it is.
Half the town’s got it.”

He nodded as he used his fork to cut a chunk
off the roast beef and the toast beneath it. He dragged it through
the mashed potatoes and gravy before putting it in his mouth. He
enjoyed the experience for a moment before he noticed Patty
staring.

“What?” he mumbled.

“Have you heard anything about...you know?”
Patty nodded her head in the approximate direction of Nevada.

Jubal shook his head. There was nothing he
could do about Nevada, even though it worried him. For now, his
boss, mother and half the town falling ill was his top priority.
Besides, the Vegas incident was probably some sort of military
mishap, even though the President himself put the blame on
terrorists, but then he always did. If the powers-that-be wanted to
keep it quiet, there was nothing little ol’ deputy Jubal Slate
could do about it. The government, even the county government—his
employers—always liked to keep their little secrets.

“I heard you can’t call anywhere up there,” a
voice said from down counter.

It was Pops Perez who had spoken, the oldest
citizen of Serenity, who always had time to share his opinion with
whomever would listen. Today, he wore his fancy straw hat just as
he had every day for as long as Jubal could remember. He never
removed it: not to eat, not for anything—not that anyone in the
diner would care; the town had grown used to his eccentricities.
Nothing ever changed with Pops, and that went for his carefully
groomed white moustache too; he was a dapper little man and a town
fixture who everyone loved and watched out for, just as he had
watched out for them when they were children.

Jubal recalled Pops handing out quarters to
the kids when Jubal was a boy. Whenever he’d see the old man, he’d
run up to him, knowing a shiny quarter would be his reward for a
friendly chat. Not that he minded chatting with him; he was a funny
guy who knew a lot of jokes, tricks and stories.

Jubal wondered what the old man handed out to
the kids these days. Five-dollar bills?

“You mean to the military?” Patty said.

“No, not only the military. I’m talking
anywhere
in Nevada,” Pops said, lighting one of his thin
brown cigars. Hardly anyone smoked these days, but that didn’t stop
Pops Perez from lighting up. He was the only person Patty would
allow to smoke in her diner.

Jubal had a college buddy who lived up near
Vegas, in Pahrump. He made a mental note to call him later. Pops’s
statement could be accurate or it could be another of his wild
stories. Like the time he’d said a UFO landed in his back yard and
he’d spent the whole night teaching the skinny little aliens how to
play poker; it seems that aliens love betting games. So sayeth Pops
Perez.

“I don’t know no one up that way anyhow,”
Patty said, wiping down the counter. “Maybe whatever happened up
there—some explosion or something—knocked the phones out of
commission.”

Pops picked up his cup of coffee, and a
saucer he used as an ashtray, and moved closer to Patty and Jubal.
He sat on the stool two down from the deputy.

“Did you see the sky this morning?” the old
man said.

“What’s the matter with the sky?” Patty said,
her eyes widening.

“It was the wrong color.”

Patty looked toward the front window, that
funny look still on her face. Jubal knew she could only see the dry
cleaner and hardware stores across the street from her vantage
point. And even if she could see the sky, the green had faded...for
now. Jubal hoped he’d never see it again.

“Now don’t get Patty all riled up. That could
be pollution making the sky green,” Jubal said through a mouthful
of mashed potatoes.

The smile on Pops’s face told Jubal the old
man knew he was full of shit.

“Pollution? When was the last time you saw
the sky green, my boy?”

Jubal chewed his potatoes for a while, as if
taking time to contemplate the question. “Never, but there’s always
a first time...”

“‘Never’ is correct. We are out in the middle
of nowhere here. In all my years living in Serenity, I have never
seen a green sky. But today at dawn? Today was very different,
si
?”

Jubal shrugged.

Patty had moved her bulk from behind the
counter and was at the front window now, looking at the sky with
her mouth open. A couple of the diner’s patrons did the same. They
swiveled their heads back and forth, looking for green.

“See what you did, Pops?”

The old man smiled at Jubal, but the smile
did not reach above his cheekbones. The deputy could not bear the
emotion caught in Pops’s dark, brown eyes. He looked away. Jubal
had never seen fear in Pops’s eyes before, but a trace of it was
there now.