CAZine

By Jeremy Essen

Chapter One

Oaknest, Montana

15 miles south of West Yellowstone National Park, Near Hebgen Lake

July 5, 2045     7:45 a.m

“ Johnny wake up… Johnny… Johnny… get up or Emily’s gonna skin ya alive!”

Johnny Stone groaned as he rolled onto his right side to face P.E.T.E. –Personal- Electronic-Task- Eliminator-sitting on the small table next to the hovering bed.

“ What P.E.T.E.?”

“ Your gonna be late for work in three…two…one…zero! Ha! Emily’s gonna chew your butt for bein’ late!” replied the baseball-sized metallic-blue orb.

Johnny swore as he scrambled out of bed and ran to his closet. He hit button on the wall to open the small door. Johnny quickly pulled out his Ranger uniform, which consisted of jeans, a white t-shirt, and work boots. He stumbled and fell while trying to get both legs into one leg hole of the jeans. Johnny finally managed to get into his uniform after quite a struggle. P.E.T.E’s wild metallic laughter filled the small apartment. Johnny glared at the orb as it rolled to his feet; He picked up the still chuckling orb and lifted it so that he and P.E.T.E were face-to…uh-metal. P.E.T.E stared at Johnny with its glowing eye slits. Johnny raised an eyebrow and waited patiently for the robot to apologize. A heavy silence began to fill the room. P.E.T.E shuttered and then said, “ Ah, come on boss. I was only havin’ myself some laughs.”

“ Yeah, whatever, Niner. Come on, let’s go.” Johnny watched as P.E.T.E began to compress itself into the size of large marble while still lying on Johnny’s palm. Johnny had given P.E.T.E that nickname because of the robot’s minor obsession with the San Francisco 49ers. He quickly put P.E.T.E into his left pocket and headed for the door. Johnny grabbed his car keys and descended the long staircase leading to the parking garage.

Driving his brand-new 2045 Chevy Silverado, Johnny approached the dirt road leading to the Ranger Station in the heart of Yellowstone. He glanced at the holoclock radiating from the dashboard and immediately began to swear. The holoclock read 8:14 a.m and counting. Johnny was now exactly fourteen minutes late for work. Emily Thompson, his very strict boss, was going to kill him and then feed his carcass to the wolves (if there were any left). He pressed the truck forward as quietly as possible but the crunching of rocks underneath the tires made it impossible to approach quietly. Johnny parked the truck next to Emily’s jeep. The door of the Ranger station was partly open as Johnny approached it. He stopped and listened just as he reached the door only to be blasted by Emily Thompson’s thick nasal voice.                                                                                     “ I don’t care how you find ‘em…No…Bill listen to me…I said FIND, not screw around…I don’t care if you have to rip every tree out of the ground, just find them before the whole kripplin’ park is completely empty!” Johnny heard the shattering of a cell phone against a wall. He winced as more glass and metal smashed against the wall. The door opened completely as it sensed his body heat and saw his boss sitting in one of the roller chairs in the small office with her head in her hands. Emily Thompson was not a large woman, but her massive sense of authority more than made up for her lack of size. She had large steel blue eyes that commanded anyone’s attention even if you hadn’t looked her directly in the eye. Johnny tried to slip into the back room before Emily could notice him.

“ Hold it, Stone,” Emily said without looking up.  Johnny swore under his breath and froze.

“ You’re late.”

“Yeah about that, Em…I’m sorry.”

“He wouldn’t get up!” cried P.E.T.E from the depths of Johnny’s pocket.

“ Shut up, P.E.T.E!”

“What? I tried to wake ya up but you were sleepin’ like the dead!”

P.E.T.E’s metallic southern drawl was starting to become annoying.

“P.E.T.E, shut up.” She looked up and glared at Johnny. Her voice was filled with icy anger.

“How many times have I told you not to be late for work? Huh? HOW MANY TIMES!”

Johnny cringed and then whispered “ Five or six.”

Emily’s face went from being a placid mask to contorted with fury.

“ Five or six is too WAY many!!!”

Johnny was speechless. He had never seen his boss this angry before.

P.E.T.E crawled out of Johnny’s pocket using his small squid-like tentacles.

When P.E.T.E reached the tile floor, the tentacles retracted into the marble-sized orb. P.E.T.E quickly decompressed back to his normal size.

“ Man, Em, I ain’t never seen you this ticked before.”

“ Again, P.E.T.E, shut up.” Emily stood up and walked towards Johnny.

Her glare deepened.

“What’s wrong?” said Johnny quickly trying to change the subject.

Emily sighed deeply and looked out the large window at the front of the station.

When she finally spoke almost a minute had passed.

“ You remember a couple of weeks ago when the sensors we had installed all around the park started to pick up unusual migrations of animals.”

“Yeah.” said Johnny, thinking back. The government had also encouraged the Rangers to install seismographs to detect earthquakes. Those had also been registering unusual seismic activity. Last week a 4.9 struck near Hebgen Lake causing some of the mountain to collapse.

“Hey. Stone ya paying attention?”

“What? Yeah. Yeah. What were you saying?”

“ I was saying that thirty-two of the forty species of animals have disappeared from West Yellowstone.”

“What!” He had expected some of the animals to leave because of quakes but not that many.

“Yeah, unbelievable huh.”

“Are ya sure? Came P.E.T.E’s muffled voice from Johnny’s pocket. P.E.T.E must have crawled back into his pocket while he had spaced out.

“ Yes, P.E.T.E, I’m sure.” Emily sighed deeply again. “ What the hell is going on?”

Johnny turned his gaze away from the window and looked at Emily. “ I don’t know Em, but-”

Johnny felt the vibrations in his feet before everything began to fly. The window exploded inward, sending shards of vicious-looking glass flying toward Emily. “ Emily, move!” Johnny screamed. Emily must have heard him for she moved just in time to avoid being riddled shards of glass. Johnny watched as the computer standing on the small desk soared across the room and smashed into the wall. CRRRAACK! Looking up he saw large cracks blossoming along the ceiling. CRRAAACK! He rolled as the ceiling crashed down upon him, trying his best to cover himself before it could completely swallow him.  Four tons of heavy plaster crashed down upon Johnny, pinning him to the tile floor. He watched as the last remaining light disappeared.

Darkness.