Free Earth's Survivors Apocalypse by Unknown Page B

and houses were similar. In fact, he thought, the street doesn't even look like a street anymore. It was still a street because he thought of it as a street. His street. There was now more gravel, dirt and broken asphalt chunks than there was actual street. And in several places it was gone completely. No sign. Wide spots that were wholly devastated.
    Mike closed his eyes and then reopened them. It was all still there. Nothing had changed. He stood and stared for a few minutes longer before he started to walk off down the street in the direction of the downtown area, three blocks to the south.
    He looked over the houses he passed. Most were partly, and some were completely destroyed. He felt as though he were in a bad dream. He knew he wasn't though, as he had closed his eyes to blink away the sights several times to no avail. He had also pinched his left cheek until his eye had begun to water. No good. It was still there. He had done acid once, but only once, back in the seventies, and he had heard about flashbacks, and this could maybe be one, and he had been drinking pretty damn heavily yesterday, and...
    He spotted a young woman sitting on the curb three houses down and walked up to her. She tilted her tear streaked and puffy face up to him as he approached.
    “Is this a dream?” he asked when he stopped.
    “No, it's no dream,” she replied as she slowly shook her head.
    “Where have you been since last night? Didn't you hear the noise? Didn't you feel it?”
    Mike recalled the noise that had awakened him during the night. The noise he had thought was only an extension of the strange dream.
    “Well, I thought it was a dream, you know, but I did hear a storm, or something, but I didn't think it was a big deal... you know, they can get loud sometimes, but... What happened?”
    “Yellowstone blew up,” she said simply. “Didn't you see the TV?”
    Mike shook his head.
    “Well,” the young woman continued, “anyhow that's what happened. They cut in to the TV last night; I was watching... you know, and they cut in and said that the Yellowstone caldera was going to fracture because of how close the meteor came. I came outside to see, and, well there was nothing to see at first, and then the ground started shaking, so I ran to get back inside. But the whole bottom floor of the building was gone.” She shrugged.
    The young woman broke into fresh tears, and buried her face back into her hands.
    Mike sat down beside her and put his arm around her in an attempt to comfort her.
    “Is your husband here?”
    “Not married,” she said, “There was a guy... A few years back. He's stationed somewhere in the Middle East,” she finished, as she looked at Mike.
    “Sorry,” Mike said, “how long have you been out here?”
    “I called this cop that had given me his card... He said the police would come so I came back out to wait, but they never showed up, so I just sat here. I didn't know where else to go or what to do! I've been here ever since, just watching the street crack.”
    Mike looked around at the street.
    “It happened all at once?”
    “I don't know,” she replied, also staring at the street. “One second it was still whole, the next it wasn't. But it's still going on. Every little while a crack will just appear and then another section will tilt or drop a little. Sometimes there's no noise, other times it's this horrible groaning sound... Like it's alive or something.”
    “Is your power on?” Mike asked changing the subject.
    “No,” she replied, “went off right after the ground started shaking.”
    “Mine's off too,” Mike replied.
    “The power lines fell while I was out here, arcing all over the place. Scared the shit out of me too, and then they just quit... Went dead,” She said.
    “Listen... I'm going to walk downtown... see if the police department is open, or see maybe if everyone is there somewhere. You're the only person I've seen so far... do you want to come with me?”
    “Sure,”