The Earth Shakes

Copyright © 2020 by Fallton Havenstonne

All rights reserved.

The Earth Shakes

By Fallton Havenstonne

Marisol and her husband, Harrison, were on the second week of their road trip. They started in Jacksonville, Florida, and were heading northwest. They stayed for two days in each state they visited—sightseeing and exploring National Parks. Their final destination was Montana, which was where Marisol’s sister lived. They were driving through Wyoming and were hoping to make it to Montana by tomorrow morning. Harrison said he’d pull an all-nighter, driving through the wee hours of the morning until they arrived.

About three hours ago, Harrison and Marisol had lunch at a diner right after they left the motel. The waitress told them of a shortcut that was off the grid. It was about 50 miles south from the state line of Montana. Route 310 would save them a couple of hours, the waitress said, compared to taking I-90. After the two talked it over, they decided to take Route 310 so that they wouldn’t have to stay overnight at another motel.

But there was one problem. 

Harrison had held off on getting gas. The waitress told them that there was a gas station on Route 310, but when they arrived there, the station was closed. And from the look of the place, it was probably defunct.

From the diner, Harrison had driven over one hundred miles on a half tank of fuel. Now the needle on the fuel gauge was down to a quarter. He thought about turning around to get on I-90, but it was too late. Better to keep moving forward, he thought.

As dusk turned into night, Harrison turned on the high-beams, illuminating the dim road. There were no street lamps or buildings on Route 310 aside from the gas station they had already passed. It was a road that went on for miles without any signs or road markers. At some point, the road blended in with the field. Marisol was asleep when this happened. Harrison drove nervously, darting his eyes left and right in search of the road. Even with the high-beams on, he could barely see where he was going. He felt like he had strayed off the road somewhere and was driving through an open field.

Once the warning light came on, Harrison’s heart leapt up to his throat. He grunted, hitting the steering wheel in panic. After twenty more miles, the engine sputtered, and the SUV rolled for a bit before coming to a complete stop. Harrison gazed out at the shadowy mountains in the distance. He looked up through the sunroof and saw countless stars in the sky that made him feel like an insect compared to the universe. 

At that point, Marisol woke up. She shifted in her seat, rubbing her bleary eyes. “Are we at Cora’s house?” she said with a yawn.

“No,” Harrison said, scratching his short black hair in frustration.

She looked around at the vast stretch of darkness that surrounded them. “Where are we? Why did you stop?”

“We’re out of gas,” he said dejectedly.

“What?”

“We have to stay here tonight.”

Her face turned red, and she clenched her teeth. “See. I told you to get gas earlier. Back at the motel.”

“I know,” he said regretfully. 

Marisol scanned the area around them. Flies and mosquitoes whirled in front of the headlights. The rear and sides of the SUV were pitch black. She drew out her cellphone and tried calling her auto insurance for a tow truck, but couldn’t get a signal. Harrison tried to call his auto insurance too, but to no avail.

“Great. How are we going to get help?” Marisol said irately.

“We’ll get help in the morning,” Harrison said.

“From whom?” 

“We’re not too far from Montana,” Harrison said. “We’ll go on foot when the sun comes up.”

“How far did you drive on Route 310?” 

He glanced at the odometer. “Sixty . . . seventy miles . . . give or take.”

“Didn’t the waitress say it was fifty miles to Montana?”

He sighed, “Yes.”

“So what happened? Did you miss a sign or something?” 

“No. I didn’t miss a sign, but  . . .” He shook his head. “Let’s get some rest, hon. We’ll figure things out tomorrow.”

“Fine,” she said sourly.

Harrison turned off the headlights, and the road went completely dark. It was hot inside the SUV with the windows up, so Marisol opened the sunroof to let the heat out. She didn’t want all the bugs to come inside if they left the windows down.

“Goodnight,” Harrison said, tilting the chair back. 

“Night.”

Just as they were falling asleep, they heard a low rumbling sound. The SUV shook slightly before the rumbling stopped.

“Did you feel that?” Marisol asked.

“Yes.”

“Know what it was?” 

They lay still, listening—waiting for the next tremor.

Silence.

“It’s probably nothing,” Harrison said.

***

Marisol and Harrison were sore when they woke up the next morning. They felt cramped and achy, and had been startled throughout the night from the sporadic quakes, not to mention the hot and humid weather. They would’ve liked to keep the windows down, but there were bugs everywhere. Even with the sunroof open, a few bugs had gotten inside, leaving swollen bug bites on their legs and arms.

The temperature was eighty-five degrees that morning. They used some medicine to relieve the itchy bug bites. They tried again to call for help, but they couldn’t get a signal. Their cellphones were low on power anyway.

They agreed to go on foot to find help, so they packed some food and drinks into their backpacks. Harrison carried a tent bag over his backpack, and grabbed the compass from the glove compartment, positioning it north to Montana.

Harrison and Marisol hiked for miles across the open plain. Fields of grass were spread out in all directions. The bugs swarmed them relentlessly, biting them once more. Harrison smacked a mosquito on his neck, squishing it flat. Blood was all over his palm, and he wiped it off against his cargo shorts. They sprayed bug repellent all over their bodies, then continued forward. 

After two hours, they took a break underneath a tree where they drank some water. With the scorching heat, they were drenched in sweat, and struggled to ration their water.  On the upside, they were glad for the new hiking shoes that they had bought in Colorado, as well as the sun hats. They knew that without them, the hike would be unbearable.  

“Are you sure we’re headed in the right direction?” Marisol asked.

“Yes. We just have to keeping heading north. We should intersect the road at some point.”

“Are you sure about that?”

He was about to answer when the ground shook. Rocks rattled between their feet, and the grass rustled like the sound of raked leaves. Harrison and Marisol clutched onto each other for balance. After a few seconds, the ground stopped shaking.

“What was that?” Marisol said.

“An earthquake, I think.”

“I didn’t know they had earthquakes out here.”

“I didn’t either.”

They noticed cracks in the ground that had sprawled out like spiderwebs. Alarmed, they picked up their pace as they traversed the open field. With the heat exhausting them, they started drinking more water. Between both of them, they had six bottles. By sundown, there were two left. The couple rested under the shade of a large tree. Harrison set up the tent near it. By nine o’clock, both of them had fallen asleep. 

The next morning, they were just as sore as when they woke up in the SUV. Since they didn’t have sleeping bags, they felt like they had slept on a bed of rocks. Achy and weary, they packed up the tent, then headed north across the open country. The temperature reached one hundred degrees that day, and by four o’clock, they drank their last drop of water. 

Fatigued, the couple took a break in the middle of the field, keeling over from exhaustion. Salt covered their skins from the dried sweat. They knew that they wouldn’t make it more than a couple of days without water.

Suddenly, the ground shook violently as if the tectonic plates had shifted. The earth cracked, splitting into fragments. Scalding heat gushed up between the cracks. Lava oozed out from the fissures, pooling onto the grass and dirt. The couple ran and leapt over the lava as it spread across the plain. Trees toppled over, catching on fire from the lava. 

After a moment, the ground stopped shaking. The fissures had spread as far as they can see. Pools of lava scattered across the landscape, billowing smoke into the air. They walked on, maneuvering around the jagged cracks in the ground and lava. 

After a couple of miles, they finally saw the sign for Route 310. The road was windy, snaking its way through the landscape.

“Finally. We made it,” Marisol said with a sigh of relief.

“I told you we were headed in the right direction.”

“How did you get lost on Route 310 anyway?”

“I think I missed a turn. Maybe that’s why the gas station was closed. It’s only open during the daytime—not in the evening.”

“I’m so thirsty,” Marisol said, feeling her chapped lips. “How much farther do we have to walk until we reach Montana?”

“I don’t know. A few more miles, maybe. Let’s keep going before the sun goes down.”

They hiked for another two miles when Marisol heard something that sounded like a whistle. 

“Do you hear that?” Marisol said.

“Hear what?”

“It sounds like a plane or a—” 

A bright burst of light flashed in the horizon. A mushroom cloud plumed up into the clouds as if there had been a nuclear explosion. A thunderous blare echoed across the field. A gale of wind blew at them, knocking them off their feet. Clouds of dust hung in the air, smothering their bodies and eyes.

The couple dusted themselves off and saw a caravan of vehicles driving down Route 310. A truck driver pulled over and rowed down his window. 

“Are you guys all right?” the man asked.

“Not really,” Harrison said, coughing.

“Need a lift?”

“Yes.”

“Get in.”

After Harrison and Marisol got inside the truck, the driver noticed how disheveled they were from the blast, not to mention the dust and dirt that covered their clothes and faces. 

“Are you two hurt?”

“No,” they both said. 

“Do you have any water?” Marisol asked.

“Yup. Got some right here.”

The man reached inside a box that was on the floor of the passenger seat. He gave them two bottles of water, which were warm from being left inside the truck. Regardless, the couple drank the bottles thirstily. Half the water was gone within seconds.

“What happened to you all?” the man asked.

“We’ve been lost for days,” Harrison said. 

“Strayed off Route 310?”

“Yeah.”

The man nodded. “Don’t ever drive on it when it’s dark.”

“Wish she had told us that.”

“Who?”

“It’s a long story,” Harrison said, and then drank more water until the bottle was empty.

“Do you know what’s going on?” Marisol asked.

“It’s the aliens,” the man said.

“The aliens?” she said in disbelief.

“Yes. They made their way down south, and now they’re here in Bighorn Mountains. They’ve been drilling ever since they got here.”

“Why are they drilling?” 

“To heat up the earth’s core—causing earthquakes and all of that.”

Another explosion erupted. Blinding light flashed across the landscape, followed by a thunderous boom. 

“The military’s been hitting them with everything they’ve got,” the man remarked.

“Them?” Marisol repeated.

The ground shook so hard that the truck bounced up and down. The road began to splinter into fragments, rocks jutting up everywhere. Lava spewed out from the cracks, coursing like a river down the road. 

The man pulled the truck over, and all three of them craned their necks at the flaming object. About a mile away, a ten-story robot stood up with its eight legs. It had the body of a spider, engulfed in flames as smoke issued up from its metallic shell. Its eye burned red like fire, and dozens of tentacles slithered out from its back. Each step the machine took rocked the earth. In the opposite direction, fighter planes soared across the sky, deploying missiles at it. The missiles detonated against the robot’s exterior without making so much as a dent.

“Let’s get out of here!” Marisol cried.

The man put the gear in drive and barreled down the road, weaving around the lava laden road. Harris and Marisol saw the tentacles breaking the wings off of the planes as the pilots ejected themselves out from the cockpits.

“Where did this thing come from?” Harris asked.

“The government thought the mothership was an asteroid before it got here. The mothership landed in the north pole, and then these robots came out from the ship, making its way down to Canada, North Dakota . . . you name it. They took over Helena last night, which was where I came from.”

Explosions erupted all around them as the fighter jets plummeted to the earth. The man dodged the debris, swerving left and right to avoid the metallic parts.

“How many of these robots are there?” Marisol asked. 

“Hundreds. The military have even nuked the bastards, but the robots haven’t been fazed one bit.”

***

“Wake up, hon. We’re here now.”

Marisol opened her eyes and saw the sun on the edge of the horizon. The light was pale and soft. The SUV was parked in the driveway of her sister’s house.

“We’re here?” she said, surprised.

“Yes,” Harrison said. “You slept through the whole night. Did you sleep well?”

“Um. I guess so,” she said tiredly. “I had a dream that we ran out of gas and—”

“It wasn’t a dream. We did run out of gas, but I had the fuel container in the trunk. Had five gallons in it, which I filled up in Colorado Springs. Think it was the park ranger who told us to get one since we were on a road trip.”

“Yeah,” she said, slowly remembering. “I thought we got lost?”

“We did get lost—out in the middle of nowhere. We were asleep when the tremors happened. But after you went back to sleep, I filled up the gas tank with the container. Found my way back onto Route 310, too. It was a miracle, hon. I didn’t want to wake you until we got here.”

“Oh,” she said, baffled by all of this.

He looked at her curiously. “Is everything all right? You look like you’ve seen a ghost or something.”

“I dreamt that we were hiking across Wyoming—dying of thirst—dodging earthquakes and giant . . . never mind.”

“Hmm. Must’ve been the deviled eggs we had at the diner,” he chuckled. “It was the spiciest deviled eggs I’ve ever had. It was like eating a spoonful of wasabi.”

“Yeah,” she said with a grin. 

Marisol looked at her sister’s one-story house. It sat on a couple acres of land, had a beautiful garden, and was surrounded by large trees. They got out of the SUV and stretched, releasing the tension in their stiff muscles. Then they grabbed their suitcases from the trunk and went to greet Cora at her house.

That evening, they were watching TV when Cora flipped the channel to the news. It was broadcasting a live recording of a massive asteroid that was hurling toward the north pole. The anchor mentioned that it should’ve passed Earth days ago, but it had somehow changed its trajectory. 

Flames engulfed the asteroid as it nose-dived into Earth’s atmosphere. Marisol saw the flailing tentacles and the multitude of insect-like legs of the massive mothership, which was the size of a city.

“It can’t be,” Marisol gasped. 

“What’s wrong?” Cora said.

“We can’t stay here,” Marisol replied in a panic-stricken tone. “It’s not an asteroid. It’s an alien ship.”

“An alien ship?” Cora said incredulously.

“Yes. There are robots inside it that will drill into the ground—heat up the earth’s core.”

“Look,” Harrison said, pointing at the TV screen.

The mothership crashed into a glacier, shattering it into thousands of pieces. Water gushed up into the air, splashing everywhere for hundreds of yards. The mothership sank into the icy water, completely submerged. Slowly, it buoyed to the surface, its tentacles undulating to keep it afloat. 

“They’re here now,” Marisol said in fear. “We have to get out of here.”

“What do they want?” Harris asked.

“They’ve come to destroy our world.”

On the TV screen, helicopters swirled around the mothership as dozens of pod doors opened. Spider-like machines crawled out from them, and dove into the ocean, moving across the water like sharks.