Hale squinted at the phone. “What do I press?”
Mercury showed him and then jogged the few yards back to the little group. She stepped between Stella and Jenny and put her arms around their waists. “Squish together!” she said.
“Are y’all ready?” asked their principal.
“Yep,” Mercury said. “Say summer break!”
“Summer break!”they shouted.
“Hang on,” said Hale. “Don’t move yet. I’ll take a few more just to be sure I got a good one.” He stood and tapped the phone several more times while the group grinned at him. When he appeared satisfied, he went to Mercury and gave back her phone, his gaze focused over her shoulder. “It is an amazing view. I’m glad we stopped.”
“It’s always good to appreciate the beauty of our God’s creation,” said Karen Gay.
Mercury considered reminding Mrs. Gay, for the zillionth time, that not everyone was a member of Church on the Move, nor an evangelical Christian—nor, for that matter, a Christian at all. But she chose not to waste her breath. As a Pagan living in the Bible Belt, Mercury was more than aware that people like Karen Gay believed anyone who didn’t worship like they did was not just going to hell in a handbasket, but was also a bad person. And that Pagans in particular weren’t just going to hell, but were Satan’s minions—or some such nonsense. Sadly, experience had taught her that no amount of logic would change a mind that was closed. Instead of wasting her breath on Mrs. Gay’s narrow mind, Mercury turned back to the view, but her attention was pulled to the parking lot by the crunch of gravel as a faded blue Chevy pickup pulled off the highway and parked. Two men climbed out, stretched, and headed for the tree line.
“Looks like they have to see a man about a horse too,” said Coach Davis.
“That truck!” Stella said. “I swear it looks exactly like the old pickup my dad taught me to drive on.” She laughed softly. “It had a stick shift on the floor, and whenever I put it into third gear, I had to keep my hand on it because if I didn’t, the damn thing would fall off the column and plop on the floorboard.”
“That’s crazy,” Mercury said.
“Absolutely.” Stella grinned and her voice turned nostalgic. “But I can drive anything with a stick shift.”
“Is there anything still drivable with a stick? I mean, except for an eighteen-wheeler or whatever.” Jenny squinted at the truck like it was an exotic insect.
“Barely,” Coach Davis spoke up. “What’s the year on that old Chevy, 1960-something?”
“Dad’s was a 1959, and that one looks pretty similar,” said Stella.
“Wow, they don’t make ’em like—” Coach Davis began, but his words were interrupted by a bizarre humming that filled the air around them.
“What the—” Richard Hale spoke over the vibrating sound. He’d returned to his bench, but stood and stared, slack-jawed, out at the view.
The little group stared too, while the humming intensified. Mercury cringed—whatever it was seemed to reverberate through her body. The hair on her forearms lifted and pain knifed through her head. Beside her, Stella put her hands over her ears and staggered against Mercury.
“Look!” Coach Davis pointed up at the western sky.
Mercury saw something that appeared to be a contrail, like an airplane would leave in its wake, far above the area Davis had said was the city of Portland. It was heading straight down in an arrow-like trajectory.
“And there!” Amelia pointed southwest to a similar contrail.
“Oh my God, they’re everywhere!” Jenny cried.
Mercury’s gaze scanned the sky as she turned in a stationary circle. Jenny was right. In the distance all around them tails of cloudy white shot down from the sky, so many that she couldn’t count them all. The humming intensified as a huge mass of birds that had been perched in the trees surrounding them took wing in unison—each screeching horrible, soul-shaking cries that echoed eerily around the clearing. From the tree line the two men dashed out to stand a few yards from them as everyone studied the sky.
Stella grabbed Mercury’s hand as the contrail over Portland disappeared into the city. She leaned into her best friend and spoke for her ears alone. “I think this is bad. Really bad. We need to get out of here.”
Mercury opened her mouth to respond just as the first blast hit Portland. It created an enormous rising burst of fire that was almost perfectly round, like a gigantic crystal ball filled with flame.
“There too! In Salem!” Coach Davis shouted as another fire circle lifted from the southwest. From all around them, the outlook allowed a front-row seat to watch brilliant balls of fire explode everywhere, with such force they seemed to eclipse the sun.
Then a wall of sound echoed from the many balls of flame, followed immediately by bizarre flashes of green that jetted from the center of each fireball. Mercury was looking directly at the Portland ball when the explosion of sound met the green geyser—it changed shape, expanded, and became a wall of emerald that catapulted out, out, out. Like an impossibly swift tsunami of color, the glow rushed from the core of fire to cover the city and the surrounding land, and raced toward them.
Mercury stared at the green tide and was filled with the strangest feeling of panic mixed with fascination. There was something about the green—something that evoked the Wizard of Oz and concealed mysteries—something as intriguing as it was terrifying.
“Get the fuck down!” Stella screamed and pulled Mercury to the grassy ground with her. Jenny and Amelia did the same, but she could see that Coach Davis, Mr. Hale, and Mrs. Gay were frozen as they stared at the advancing wall of roiling green.
The emerald cloud hit them with sonic boom intensity. Had Mercury not already dropped to the ground, she would have been knocked off her feet. She clung to Stella with one hand and covered her head with the other as sound, debris, and a wave of green mist engulfed them. Around them thick pines snapped, filling the air with the sounds of gunshots. She could hear someone screaming, though she couldn’t even see Stella through the soupy jade air.
Mercury panted with fear and shock—and inhaled the moist shamrock-colored air. It felt like breathing in the forest: the scent of growing things filled her nose with the sharp tang of cut grass, the rich, loamy aroma of tilled earth, and the unique sweetness of wildflowers. Her battered body was overwhelmed with an agonizing pinprick sensation, like she’d sat on her foot too long and it was tingling awake, only this sensation was a flood of pain that broke against her skin from the inside. It felt like hot razorblades filled her blood, her lungs, her skin with agony.
Mercury knew she screamed and screamed, but the blast of sound that was the harbinger of the green wave still reverberated around her, drowning everything but the internal thunder of her heartbeat echoing in her ears. She and Stella pressed themselves against the earth as their bodies writhed in pain. Mercury felt Jenny shaking beside her as the young teacher sobbed in terror.
Mercury tried to turn her head, to reach out for Jenny, but the earth suddenly mirrored Mercury’s tremors. The ground beneath her cheek shuddered and shook. Forest debris rained shards of bark and pine against her body while another emerald tsunami pummeled them from Salem in the southwest.
Mercury tried to hold her breath, but it was impossible. She gasped with pain and panic, and the green surrounded her and filled her completely. Something struck the side of her head and her face, already wet with tears, became warm with blood.
Then the world went from green to black and she knew no more.