HELL ON EARTH

DAYS 1 - 2

DAY 1

Jonny shushed Plank as they stealthily broke off from the others. It was difficult, as he was always the life of every party and he couldn't ever have a moment to himself or Plank. Well, Jonny couldn't take all the credit. Say what you will, but Plank had a knack for chit-chat. "It's right through here, Plank!" he half-whispered, trying and failing to hide his excitement.

He looked back at all the other kids of the cul-de-sac, who were gathered around in Kevin's front yard around the bonfire. All the kids except the Eds, of course. They were off doing gosh knows what. But Jonny wasn't thinking about them, he was focusing on keeping his gleeful laughter quiet as he hopped over the fence, ran across the lane, jumped the other fence, and paused at the Park N' Flush. It almost took the excitement out of him. Almost.

He dove in like a fighter jet, his arms out to either side, his knees bent to keep him low to the ground, crop dusting, as the fighter pilots say. He kept low to the ground, ducking between trailer after trailer, picking up pace and wasting expensive jet fuel in the process as he hurried past the Kankers' place, even outside of which he could still hear the girls' evil laughter. He made it past them safely, whoo! That was a close one.

He heard a flimsy trailer door crack open like a beer can and a deep, manly voice called out to him, but Jonny just ignored him and Plank flipped the old drunk doofus the bird, and the two best friends were hidden in the twilight woods.

Jonny led Plank a satisfactory distance into the woods before they stood and shook off their stage whispers. "That was close, Plank!" he said to his buddy. "It's just this way." He pressed through heavy brush, and soon enough, they were there.

Jonny had brought a small flashlight from his dad's things, but he didn't need it. The pit had its own glow. "Take a look at this!" He held Plank out to look down into the gaping maw. Jonny could feel heat on his fingers, and he pulled Plank away before he caught fire. "Sorry, buddy."

Jonny cocked his head to look down the nearly perfectly round hole in the brush. There weren't any plants around it anymore. It was just singed earth. Three feet away, there was some grass that nursed a small flame. Jonny gasped and ran over to it and kicked his foot onto it, smothering it to death before it could spread and take out the whole forest. "We don't need a forest fire, do we, Plank?" He turned and looked at the hole again. Heat curled up from the hole and contorted the woods behind it like a road in the summer. "Pretty neat, huh? I found it exploring last night." He paused, listened to his friend. "I don't know where you were right then. Maybe asleep. But pretty neat, huh? I thought it was."

Day 2

Double Dee was still fuming from last night. Eddy was such a...ugh, a, a, a know-it-all, sometimes. Always acting like he knew everything. Ridiculous. He was so angry, he had neglected to get out of bed at the right time, four thirty on the dot, and was tossing and turning, all aflutter in anger with Eddy's pompous nature. It was hot, hotter than usual, although Double Dee just thought it was because he was hot under the collar about Eddy. He was sweating under the sheets, and threw them off in a hissy fit.

One might mistake Double Dee's violent flailing for the continuation of his hissy fit, but it was just the earthquake shaking him and his bed and the room and the whole world.

His bed was hopping off the ground as if possessed by the devil, pictures were falling off walls, sticky notes floated to the ground like butterflies, ignorant of the violence around them, Jim fell over and broke one of his arms, jars fell off his desk and clattered to the floor.

Double Dee was screaming in terror and clenching to the bed for dear life, his fingers tearing through the sheets and mattress and gripping the wooden bed frame itself. The whole world was roaring, vibrating. He thought his ears would explode from the noise. He heard an explosion off somewhere, far off, he heard car alarms, he heard the whole town and neighborhood around him bouncing in the frying pan that was the tectonic plate on which they lived.

Double Dee was too panicked at the time, but would later realize how peculiar it was, such an earthquake to hit them. They weren't even near a fault line. Not even close.

It lasted forever, it felt, to Double Dee, and in earthquake terms, yes, it did last an eternity. Seven minutes, the world shook.

Halfway through that time, Double Dee's mind became bored at the monotony of it and his mind stopped shaking, and while everything jumped and jittered around him, Double Dee was purely calm. He was calm enough to follow the sound of pants unzipping, a loud high pitched crack alongside it, and he turned to watch the wall across from the bed split open from one side to the other. The whole house might fall down on him.

Double Dee decided he'd rather die fighting to survive than complacent in his bed, so he hopped up out of bed and struggled to stand in the massive vibrations. He was out into the hallway when the ground shook so hard it sent Double Dee up, his head crashing through the ceiling and nearly taking his hat off, and then flat down like a pancake. He felt hot syrup pour down his forehead and into his eyes, and he thought How messy, messy, messy. It took him longer than it would usually have to realize it was blood. He touches his hand to his head and it came away thick with blood.

Double Dee struggled again to stand, succeeded, ignored the wall crack all along above the doorway to his parents' room up into the plaster of the ceiling and across to the front of the house. Double Dee, against every sense of reason he'd before known, was terribly afraid he and his house underneath him was about to tumble into the Earth, down into Hell itself.

Double Dee threw his weak body down the hallway, balancing himself on one wall or the other, one time planting his hand all the way through the wallpaper and tearing the back of it open on a loose nail or staple or snapped piece of wood or something, and then worsening the wound pulling it out again. He made it to the stairs and nearly fell through the bannister, threw himself down them as the bannister gave way and fell to the ground.

Double Dee was finally on the ground floor, and he clambered over to the front door and shouldered into it, dislocating his shoulder, he figured, and then remembering the door knob, turning it, remembering the lock, unlocking both the normal lock and the deadbolt, then opening the door and tumbling out on the doorstep and crawling down the yard until he reached the street, rolling over and laying out flat on his back, waiting to see his house cave in and crumble, implode on itself in a ball of fire and electrical blasts. The windows had all blown out, the front of the house was indeed cracked in several places.

Next door, Double Dee watched the neighbors' Mishubishi tear out the garage door and peel out down the driveway, whip backwards down the cul-de-sac, nearly taking a dazed Nazz out for the count, and then speeding for town, coming right at Double Dee. Double Dee processed the approaching car like a sloth, but upon realizing what a collision with the vehicle meant, quickly crawled up to his feet and flailed away, out further into the street, and he felt the vibrating air of the car, hit him in the back as it sped past. He didn't watch it, but he figured the Marcoreaus were already long gone, ready to take out any other fallen neighbor who got in their way. Double Dee could hear above all else Rolf in his house cursing the devils that were causing this in strange tongues and strangers turns of phrase, and he heard the animals out back squealing in abject terror, and then he heard only his only eardrums beating with his heart, beating with the alarms of cars all around the neighborhood. Double Dee heard the sudden, blaring silence of the world around him as the earthquake suddenly stopped.

Nazz fell over in the street and Kevin came tearing out of his front door like the Marcorearus had come tearing out of their garage, Kevin with a baseball bat, and he stood out in the street, dressed in nothing but his pajama bottoms, ready to beat the everloving shit out of any earthquake came back his way. He turned his head, surveying the street, saw Double Dee. "Oh, Double Dee, dude!" He came running to aid Double Dee, who was trying to stand up but couldn't since the world had shaken too many directions into him.

Kevin spun his head around as he came running for Double Dee, and saw Nazz on the street. "Oh, Nazz, dude!" And he changed trajectories and ran for her instead.

Double Dee watched him go and struggled to blink blood out of his eyes. He watched Kevin see Nazz get up, unscathed, and then stop and look between the two fallen comrades to decide who to tend to, and choose Double Dee.

Double Dee wasn't really watching Kevin. He was just breaking in this new, frenzied hyper awareness that he suddenly felt. He heard everything and felt it all in the strange vibrations still running through him. He saw Eddy emerge from his house, clutching his head with sleepy eyes. He saw Ed burst from his front door clutching a terrified sister swinging around and shouting, "Do it again, do it again, I want another ride!" Sarah was screaming for him to calm down.

Kevin was putting his hands all over Double Dee and was feeling him all up and Double Dee was thinking about how he was going to maintain his perfect attendance now. He wondered if school would be cancelled today. He figured it would, but he didn't want to take any chances. He was putting together an itinerary for what to do between now and when school started. He knew he'd have to go to the hospital to have his head tended to by professionals. He'd have to call his parents and report the damage. He'd have to get back home and get dressed. Find his homework from the wreckage in his house and find his backpack and try to put things back together in whatever extra time there was.

Nazz was next to him now, and Eddy was approaching him with an odd expression on his face: worry, like their argument yesterday hadn't even happened. Double Dee felt a warmth in his heart and he smiled at Eddy, which only seemed to make the fear on Eddy's face worsen, and he thought about how even though Eddy was a childish, impatient, impotent jerk, he was still a good friend deep down, still a good person deep down. "I love you, Eddy," said Double Dee, vaguely aware he was slurring. "You're a good friend, you know that? I'm sorry about last night."

"Zip it, sockhead, you're gonna give me a warm feeling inside," Eddy said, but distractedly, trying to put on a face of normalcy. He really was a good friend. Trying to console the injured. Then Double Dee didn't really remember anything else for a while.

When he came to, he was lying in a strange place. Nazz's back was in his face, and she was sitting, and he was looking at the edge of her pink panties sticking up out the back of her sweat pants. He looked around and saw the backs of others. The back of Eddy's head, which had a welt, aw, poor Eddy; the back of Ed's head and the calmed front of Sarah's, who had been crying but whose eyes were now closed. He saw Kevin, who was standing next to Eddy, and either they or the TV was talking.

Double Dee was sitting on a couch. Nazz's couch. Nazz's living room, he was in. He was in Nazz's house. The TV was talking. So were Kevin and Eddy, in hushed tones.

Double Dee laid there for a while, watching everything. He heard from the TV that there was a disaster, a terrible disaster (he figured the earthquake). There was mass panic at the moment. Looting, he heard. Hospitals were full-up, or hard to get to, or gone. Which would explain why he was on the couch in Nazz's house's living room, watching Nazz's house's living room's TV. Well, listening to it. He gathered that the earthquake had been big. Like, really, really big.

Then he heard a muffled scream, high pitched, and Sarah bolted up off of Edd's shoulder and ran away, shouting, "Jimmy!"

Kevin, Ed, Nazz, and Rolf followed her. Double Dee decided now would be a good time to sit up. He did. Eddy stood before the TV, playing with the remote in his hands. Double Dee could see the TV. He was no longer dazed. He sat up, then stood up, then felt really dizzy and stopped standing up. Eddy turned and saw Double Dee, now sitting on the couch with his head back, his eyes wide with the image of the massive holes torn across the western seaboard. Double Dee was thinking about the apocalypse when Eddy screamed, "Double Dee!"

"What's going on, Eddy? Don't spare me the gory details, I can take it!" Double Dee had covered his eyes with his arm, and was now screaming and sending spikes into his brain. Double Dee felt a pair of cold, clammy hands pick at his arm and pull it away from his face.

"Double Dee?" asked Eddy, lost like a child.

"What's happened? How many are dead?"

"I - I - I dunno! Lots, probably." He flopped down next to Double Dee, staring at the ceiling. "I never been in Nazz's house before, not for this long."

"Is everybody alright here?" Double Dee cocked his head to look at Eddy, but he couldn't, because his head had sunk too deep into the faux gray leather couch. He could see Eddy's hair sticking up, however, could see Eddy run his hand over it.

"You and Jimmy got it pretty bad. Jimmy got it worst. He is Jimmy, afterall. Always hoggin' attention."

"Why isn't he at the hospital? Why aren't I at the hospital? Has civilization already broken down so as to crumble public health organizations? Are we now factions in the crumbling wastelands?"

"Pipe down, sockhead. The hospital's still open, it's just everybody's hurt and tryin' 'a' get to it. It's too crowded. Kevin and Rolf and Nazz didn't want to make Jimmy suffer that long, so they're tryin' to treat him here until the doctor can arrive."

"Jimmy's general practitioner? Or paramedics?"

"They tried ta call Jimmy's doctor. Didn't nobody pick up though. 911's got a busy signal. I thought 911 didn't get busy signals."

"Did you call my parents? Are they okay?"

"Phones don't work. My mom went to work already. My dad was off on business, like your folks. Kevin's dad, too. We don't know where Jimmy's parents are. Nazz and Jonny's mom and dad went to town for help this morning, they ain't back yet. Rolf's parents are here. Ed's parents, too. But Ed's mom hurt her leg during the earthquake. She's sick at his house. And you know Ed's dad. He ain't even here when he's here. So it's just Mr. and Mrs. Rolf. And then it's just us and the creeps at the trailer park. Just like our parents not to be here when it counts, eh, Double Dee?"

"So you weren't able to speak with them?"

"No, but not for a lack 'a' tryin' I'm tellin' ya." Eddy began to mumble as neared the end of the sentence. "But, here, sockhead, they're probably okay. In their hotel, or whatever, and hey, they're in California, if anywhere's a good place to be during an earthquake, it's in one 'a' those buildings, they're built to withstand earthquakes, you know."

"Not that big. And if what we felt is just coming from the earthquakes out there...that's the worst place to be. That's ground zero, Eddy."

"Double Dee, that ain't the only place the earthquakes happened. The TV's sayin', it's so weird, that it was one big earthquake, or a couple hundred all at once, all around the world. The whole world's all busted up, Double Dee."

Double Dee stared at the ceiling. There was a jig-jagging crack running across it. "Oh."

Double Dee heard a noise and it took him longer than Eddy to realize where it came from and what it was. Eddy was already looking at the door before Double Dee turned around to look, to see the knob jiggling then the door opening quietly, and a large, bald head peeking in and darting large, mad eyes around the room, finally finding Eddy and Double Dee. It was Jonny. Slowly, Plank's head also crested through the doorway. "Hey, guys."

"Hey, Jonny," grumbled Eddy.

"Where're the others at?"

"They're upstairs with Jimmy. He was hollerin' a minute ago."

"Oh. Are you busy?" Jonny did not move from his position, his head halfway through the door with his nose pressed against the side of it, Plank looking in just below. They looked like an insane asylum Scooby and Shaggy. Double Dee didn't know which one would be which.

"No. Not really."

Jonny paused. His head turned and he spoke to Plank. "I know it, buddy. But they gotta know! It could be important."

"What in the world is it, Jonny?" Double Dee chimed in.

"Can you guys just come here? Follow us, and we'll show you?"

Double Dee and Eddy shared a look. Eddy sneered, "We guess."

"Okay… Come on then." And Jonny was gone.

"I don't know about this, Double Dee. Looks like the earthquake finally cracked his hard head."

"Eddy, do you really think Jonny would lead us astray? What is it you think he's going to do with us? Kill us and throw us in the creek? Come now, Eddy. You should be ashamed of yourself."

"You should watch TV, Double Dee. A lot of people should be ashamed of themselves."

They followed Jonny out to the street, Double Dee squinting into the harsh, searing sunlight, and they crossed the barren asphalt and walked up the sidewalk and turned out of the cul-de-sac. Double Dee became light headed, could feel his temples thumping at his brain, and gripped Eddy's shoulder for solidarity. Eddy put an arm around him. Jonny kept looking back at them to make sure that they were following, or that they weren't doing something he needed to know about. He stopped as they were cutting across the playground and looked at Eddy, holding Plank close like he was a prized family heirloom, with Plank's face covering his mouth. "I heard what you guys were saying." And then he turned back around and kept going. Double Dee looked at Eddy. Eddy grinned guiltily and they followed.

They cut through the woods and came out at the construction site. Jonny walked among the timber, among Plank's brethren, while Eddy and Double Dee kept their distance. Double Dee noticed first that Jonny couldn't thrown he and Eddy into the creek. The creek was dry.

Jonny, Eddy, and Double Dee stood on the creekbank, and stared into the empty bed. Dead fish lay strewn along the drying soil. "What the hell happened to the water!" shouted Eddy in frustration, not in query.

Nonetheless, Jonny answered, "You'll see." He walked down into the creek, across its bed, and the two Eds followed. Eddy looked uncomfortable walking on the bed, seemed to be afraid this was somehow a trap. Double Dee was fighting off thoughts of how unsanitary it was crossing the creek bed. It was still wet in places and it might get his shoes dirty.

Jonny led them to the trailer park. Eddy stopped, staring at the Kankers' trailer. "Uh-uh. I ain't goin' through there."

"Fine," Jonny groaned, and he took them the long way around, along the dry creek, and he led them into the woods.

Even Double Dee was getting worried about Jonny's intentions, as they walked and walked through the woods, but then they arrived. Eddy and Double Dee stood slack-jawed.

There was a long fissure through the forest floor. A long, gaping slit that glowed a bright, pulsating red inside. Double Dee stepped toward it, careful not to get so close as to stand on unsteady ground that could give way and send him down deep into the Earth. Eddy grabbed for him but didn't get too close. Jonny stood back, arguing quietly with Plank. The closer Double Dee got, the hotter it felt.

Double Dee cocked his head and looked down into the fissure. He felt an incredible amount of sweltering heat rising through him, like standing in front of the bonfire at Kevin's last night, standing too close and feeling your skin boil.

The fissure was deep, so deep; Double Dee could only see the red-hot molten glow down below. The falling, sloping sides of the ground descending into an infinite blaze. Jonny's voice cut into Double Dee's nerves, coming joltingly from right beside him. "Do you hear it?" Jonny cocked his head to listen. Reluctantly, Double Dee did the same. And he heard it. Scraping. Scraping, the noise echoing endlessly through the cavernous fissure. And something like heavy, labored breathing. Hot breath. "It sounds like somethin's clawin' it's way up, don't it?" inquired Jonny, staring at Double Dee, who acknowledged Jonny's gaze but did not reciprocate.

"Screw this!" grumbled Eddy, who let out a 'hmmph!' and turned curtly and stalked off.

"I better go too," squeaked Double Dee, who did feel terribly, terribly lightheaded. He was tired, weak, weaker than usual, and shaky. His eyes kept closing on him. He thought he might faint at any moment. He was cold, but figured he was sweating despite. There was a ringing in his ears. He felt this all meant something, but his mind wasn't working well enough to figure it out.

He was following the two boys out of the woods, felt the sweat dripping off his nose and felt the heaviness pulling on the backs of his eyes, weighing down his throbbing brain. The sunlight was beating like his heart, was too bright. Double Dee was trying to walk out of the woods, but he was so tired, he couldn't move his feet off the ground. He just shuffled through the fallen pine needles. He wished more than anything at that moment that one of the boys ahead of him would see him in his state and try to carry him back. Double Dee knew that he wasn't going to make it back to Nazz's house.

And he didn't. He didn't remember falling, but remembered lying there. He remembered Jonny and Eddy running to his aid, Jonny losing the madness in his eyes like Eddy lost his anger, and he felt content enough to sleep.