Gaia Dreams (Gaiaverse Book 1) (66 page)

Mrs. Philpott shook Alex's hand off her arm
angrily. "I'm not decrepit yet, Alexandra. I can walk and stand just fine by
myself. And what's about to happen is the end of the East Coast. The wave."

Alex's eyes got wide and she said, "Oh! Oh...it's
really going to happen? Yes, I can see by your face and I had a short dream
last night...but...oh, no."

Jessica reached Sam's side just as the little
girl stood stock-still and let out a scream. Everyone in the backyard froze in
place and heard the child's voice crying and wailing over and over, "No! No,
no, no, please no--" after which she collapsed into her mother's arms and
passed out.

Power Station, Table Rock Lake Dam

"Oh, my god, oh, my god, oh, my god," Lisanne
whispered again and again. Merlin mewled softly while she clung to him as if
her life depended on it. Sergeant Wachowski took one look at her and shoved her
into a chair. Her face was completely drained of blood, completely white.

"Come on, now, girl, put your head down between
your knees. You look like you're gonna pass out on me--" and then he stopped
talking as he got a sense, a vague nebulous feeling, washing over him, of
unease--then a stronger feeling of horror.

Sitting abruptly in his own chair, he said, "What
the hell? What the fucking hell is this?"

Tears pouring down her face, Lisanne managed to
look at him briefly and said, "Tsunami."

On board private jet heading West

Zack reached for Maria's hands and squeezed them
tightly just as she began to feel...uneasy. This feeling, she thought...what is
this? As she watched Zack's face go grim, and then look as if he was in pain,
she felt the sensation change to a feeling of...terror.

Nearby, Cleo was meowing loudly, over and over
on Phoebe's lap, as Phoebe cried. Alan Beakman moved to sit next to Phoebe
saying, "You too? Oh, man, this is horrible." He leaned over and took one of
Phoebe's hands in his. "Hang on to me, Phoebes...this can't last forever. I hope."

Mayor Dubois had stood up at the front of the
plane at the first twinges of something wrong. Something was very wrong, she
felt. But what? Where? She saw Maria and Zack--both were in tears. Phoebe was
crying, which was nothing new, really, but Alan, her unshakable assistant,
looked scared to death next to her.

And Margaret...as the mayor's gaze fell on
Margaret, she was stunned. All these feelings floating in the air, and Margaret...Margaret
was sitting calmly, peeling an orange.

Dusty sank down into her seat again, feeling
waves of fear flow over her. What is happening to me, she thought, somewhat
panicked now. What the hell is this?

From the back of the plane, she heard Zack's
voice cracking as he said, "The tsunami--it's happening."

Dusty muttered, "Oh, damn it all to hell," as
she watched Margaret across the aisle continue peeling her orange. She thought
she just might not ever be able to eat an orange after this...this...nightmare.

Salmon Creek, Idaho

"Oh, we didn't have TV out here by the time the
President made his famous speech. But I've seen videos of it. Yep, declared war
on the planet Earth, he did. Which maybe would have been okay, if he'd said
that and then all those government types would have seen he was whacko. But
see, he'd already given the orders and the bomb was already in place. So there
just weren't no way left to stop him. And then, some people who saw the speech--well,
they thought he was nuts, you know? And didn't believe he'd done anything at
all. So even after when Miss Maria got on the air and told them all it was
true, that they needed to run away--well now, they didn't believe her. Guess
only those who were gettin' the dreams knew enough to leave. And like we all
know now, not everybody was gettin' the same kinds of dreams...so lots of 'em
just stayed right where they were, sitting ducks when that big ole wave came
crashing in on them. It was a shame, really, that nobody could do anything to
stop it."

Eastern Seaboard

Ships out at sea were probably the luckiest
ones. The wave was barely perceptible when it reached them. But as it raced in
toward shore, the height grew and grew. In places along the coast, the water
appeared to suddenly drain away, leaving the sandy ocean floor uncovered for a
minute or two. And the first wave was only the beginning. It was the smaller
one, about thirty feet high. The two waves following it were much, much higher.

Andrea and Charlie were in their canoe on the
Hudson River. They had laughed at the warning on TV earlier about a tsunami. It
was nutty, but then lately, the whole world seemed like it was going insane.
What was one more news reporter? Andrea remembered the news report as she
looked up to see an impossibility before her--a solid wall of water. In the few
seconds she had left to think, she wondered how a wave so huge could be in a
river. Weren't tsunamis supposed to be in oceans? Charlie dove overboard and
tried to swim to land. He was pummeled into the river bottom by the weight of
water.

Professor James Wright was packing up his
Toyota, deciding this morning that he'd err on the side of caution. He'd
dismissed his classes at Boston University realizing finally that if the TV
report was right, he needed to move to higher ground. He'd debated it within
himself over and over, never one to rush into anything...but it was better to be
safe than sorry. He was just wrapping up the print-out of his first novel--the
one that had taken ten years to write, the one he'd sweat blood over. As he
lovingly set it inside his suitcase, he heard a roaring, crashing sound. He ran
to the window and saw something. What the hell was that? What was he looking
at? The last coherent thought in his head was, "Oh, shit!" as pieces of
buildings crashed through his window, debris carried by the giant wave crushing
him.

Monty lived in the penthouse of his apartment
building. He owned the apartment; hell, he owned the building, something which
gave him quite a sense of satisfaction. He spent hours each day on the balcony,
working from his laptop. He heard the noise first, noticed because it was a
different noise than the normal sound of cars and trucks on the streets far
below. As he peered out over the balcony railing, his stomach clenched in a
spasm of sheer terror. There was...a flood...a flood? In downtown Manhattan?
No, surely not...because...that was too much water. That water was very high.
And moving very fast. And it was filled with....mannequins? No, wait, not
mannequins. Those were...bodies. Lots of bodies...and cars and trucks and
houses and streetlights and signs and bodies and bodies and bodies.

President Jeb Coulter grunted with satisfaction
as he hung up the phone. There, he'd done it, taken care of the problem. He'd
just received the final report from his task force letting him know the bomb
had indeed gone off as planned. And nothing had destroyed the city. Ha! Those
idiots who said he was crazy, well, let's just see what they said when--

The Secret Service burst into the room running,
but even they couldn't outrun the force of nature that pursued them. The Oval
Office was swept away in a heartbeat, the President was killed instantly, and
the wave continued on unabated as it crashed through streets through lowlying
areas in seconds, smashing buildings, homes, monuments, creating smaller, yet
still deadly tidal waves in the surrounding rivers and streams.

In the space of several minutes, the government
of the United States ceased to exist.

The Samuels' House

Andy's connection to Waldo and to the feelings
they were all experiencing to various degrees nearly froze him in place in the
Samuels' backyard. But he held onto one thought--was Lisanne okay? He knew her
connection to Merlin was even stronger than his to Waldo, which meant she could
be in lots more trouble than he was having. Tossing down the long-handled
spatula, he raced through the crowd of shaking, crying people, Waldo on his
heels. He had to get to Lisanne.

Jessica sat on the grass holding Samantha in her
lap, slowly rocking her back and forth. John kneeled down next to her, reaching
a hand out to brush blonde wisps of hair from the child's sweaty face. Jessica's
voice shook as she said, "I think she's going into shock. Sweaty one minute,
then chilled and shaking. Get Mark, will you? I don't know if we should even
move her."

As John stood to find the doctor, Alex rushed up
with Mark in tow. "It's more important he treat her than anyone else here," Alex
announced defensively. Then she realized that everyone gathered around agreed
with her, judging from all the nodding heads.

"Here, stand back, all of you," Mark commanded.
He took her pulse and watched Sam's face. She had a tortured look--not like someone
who was completely out. More like someone dreaming. Hmm. Perhaps she was, in a
way. Or in some kind of self-induced trance. Or induced by something else.

"Can you help her, Mark?" Jessica asked
fearfully. "Is she going to be all right?"

"I think we need to move her indoors, into her
own bed. And yes, I think she'll be just fine," he announced in a louder voice.
"Those of you who are feeling steadier, help anyone around you who feels shaky
or faint. For some of you, this...thing...we just went through is already
passing. It looks like it will take longer for others of you." As he finished
speaking, he recognized that his own insides still felt pretty shook up, but
the old medical training was coming through for him, thank god. He glanced at
Alex standing next to him and saw that she was pale and that her eyes were
wider than usual, but she was as calm as he was--which, okay, wasn't saying a
lot, but she was doing better than some folks here.

She turned to him and put a hand on his arm. "Don't
worry, I'll get things organized out here. You just go be with Sam and her
parents."

He smiled gratefully at her and took off behind
John, who was carrying Sam into the house.

Salmon Creek, Idaho

"It was pretty much the end of it all--almost the
end. The last really big thing. Sure, the San Francisco quake came after it,
but let's face it--the numbers of folks who died there weren't nothin' compared
to New York City, Washington D.C., Boston, and, oh, just all those towns in
between. They say it was the worst from the Mid-Atlantic part of the East Coast
right up to Maine and into Canada. It was just a monster of a disaster. There
wasn't no way to recover from it. Too much had already happened. Maybe if the
rest of the world had been doing okay--only it wasn't. Not with typhoons and
monsoons and earthquakes and volcanoes and well, you know, all the usual. All
the usual natural disasters, only they all happened at once, everywhere, over
like a month's time or so. Nobody was in any shape, no country was, to help out
anyone else. Everybody took so long to realize what was happening. How bad it
was. And then it was too late. Of course, some places didn't get hit by
disasters. Some got into trouble when the food ran out in grocery stores and no
more showed up. And some survived some big events only to die of diseases or
injuries later. Then, naturally, you also had the people that just went crazy,
or the people who were always gonna do the bad thing, the wrong thing, the
hateful things they'd hidden deep in their hearts, hopin' to do them if they
ever had half a chance. And sure as I'm sittin' here, that kind did, by god,
get their chance. Lots of cruel people out there."

Power People Home, Table Rock Lake

Andy had arrived at the Power Station and
gathered Lisanne up in his arms without a word, just nodding to Sergeant
Wachowski and heading out to his car. As she sobbed against his chest, he had
realized, understood for the first time and faced finally--that he loved her. And
he'd suddenly known how silly he'd been to wait to tell her that. If today
showed them anything, if the past weeks had taught them anything about life, it
was that life was unexpected. You never knew how long you had here, what sharp
bend in the road would lead you off in a direction you never expected. And he
knew now that whatever the road up ahead had in store for him, he wanted
Lisanne always by his side.

"Shh, baby, it'll be okay," he said quietly. "I'm
not sure how, but it will be okay, Lisanne."

As they arrived at back at the house high above
the lake, she leaned against him as he led the way into her room. "Here, lie
down now, let me get you some water or something," he said.

"No! No, don't leave--not yet," Lisanne cried
out. Then she seemed to hear what she'd said, embarrassment coloring her face
at sounding so needy. A face still filled with fear, but not quite as
intensely.

Andy sat down on the bed next to her and took
her hand. "Lisanne, I'm not leaving--not ever. I love you, and I'll be here with
you always...if you'll let me."

He watched her face anxiously, that pale face
with the perfect skin, the large lavender eyes, all the mascara washed away by
the tears. Really such a very dear, sweet face. He saw the fear leaving her,
saw it replaced by surprise, then by--did those slowly curving red lips, that
soft smile, did that mean--?

Yes, he decided, as she threw her arms around
his neck and kissed him tentatively and then more deeply. That look was one of
happiness, of love. His arms tightened around her as he forgot everything but
her, felt nothing but his feelings for her.

They never noticed Merlin and Waldo leaving the
room.

The Samuels' House

"Sam, Samantha, come on honey, come back,"
Jessica said, wiping a cool cloth over her daughter's face. She watched as Sam
tossed and turned, seemingly in the grip of something nobody could stop.

"It's not working, Mark," John said, frustrated
and worried now.

"Yes, I can see that, and I don't know what we
should do," Mark replied. The concern in his voice was stronger than the fear.
But the fear was there as well. Everyone else seemed to be recovering from
whatever had overtaken them all. Sam, however, was still in it. And he realized
how much they had all come to depend on her. This little girl who knew so much.