Paul Jones - Extinction Point - The End

Thomas continued as if he hadn’t heard the fun that his wife just poked at him. “Next thing I know my leg is freezing cold and soaking wet from the damn hose; that snapped me out of my dumbness and I just grabbed her.”

“You about broke my back you hugged me so hard you big brute you,” said Jessica throwing a playful punch at her husband’s arm.

“Jessica kept asking me what was wrong, over and over. I couldn’t speak a damn word — mouth kept moving but no sound came out. She was saying that she didn’t remember how she got home. That she might have had a blackout and all I could do was hug her and cry my eyes out like some big old baby.”

Jim’s father-in-law’s voice became sober; “But James, I knew that any second I was going to wake up, that I’d find out this was just a dream. But it’s not James, it’s a miracle .” Thomas’s jaw quivered, on the verge of tears again. “A miracle .”

Jessica took over: “The last thing that I remember before finding myself back at the house was taking the car to do some shopping. It was raining and I stopped at an intersection about to turn into the lot of the Albertson’s out in the village. There was a bang and I remember being jerked against my seatbelt and this… screaming sound. Next thing I know I’m standing in the kitchen peeling carrots and I don’t have a clue how I got there.”

Jim could still remember the Sheriff’s account of the accident that killed Jessica Shane; the driver of an SUV lost control as he approached the lights where Jessica had pulled to a stop. The SUV aquaplaned on the rain drenched surface right into the back of her Toyota with so much force that he slammed Jessica’s smaller car into the center of the intersection. She was hit drivers-side on by an eighteen-wheeler doing fifty plus — at least ten miles over the legal limit the Sheriff had explained — she didn’t stand a chance.

Died instantly , the Sheriff had assured them.

Jim went with Thomas to identify her body. He volunteered to make the identification himself at the morgue but Thomas said that he had to do it, otherwise he would spend the rest of his life never really knowing if it was her or not. The Deputy had already warned Jim that it might be best for him to make the identification rather than the deceased’s husband and he tried his best to persuade Thomas but the older man was having none of it.

He’d escorted his father-in-law to the viewing gallery and the attendant pulled back the sheet covering the corpse on the gurney. Thomas broke down, collapsing into Jim’s arms at the sight of his wife’s decimated body.

Now here she was. Remade. Looking just as she had years before she had died. It truly did seem to be a miracle.

Jim was still too stunned to comment.

Thomas had walked her into the living room, sat her down, poured them both a drink and insisted she finish hers before he sat down himself to explain what had happened. He explained to her about the accident; how she had been gone for so many years and how, every day he had prayed it would be his last. That he would be able to join her, so the pain that her absence left could end — because he loved her, he loved her more than he could ever possibly say.

“I told her that something wonderful had happened. That God had brought her back to me,” said Thomas.

“I don’t know if it’s a miracle or something else,” Jim replied finally finding his voice. “There’s so much death and destruction out there, that I have to believe that this is probably man-made rather than divine intervention.”

“Of course it’s a miracle. James, don’t you understand? Don’t you realize what this means?” said Thomas, a broad smile rising on his face.

Jim shook his head. “What are you getting at?”

Jessica reached out and took his hand: “Jim, if I’m alive then what about all the others who died between now and 2042?”

“What about Lark?” said Thomas.

The realization hit him like a hammer blow to the chest. “Dear God, almighty,” he whispered. “I’ve got to try and find her. What if she’s out there? What if she’s alone?” Jim was instantly on his feet. The panic that overcame him was total and choking. He was going to fail his kid again. She was out there somewhere in the night and he could do nothing to help her.

Jessica was with him in a second. Her arms enfolded him pulling him to her. “It’s okay — Lark’s okay,” she said, the words spoken with such sincerity and certainty that he found himself believing them too. This event was too big, too huge for it not to hold some kind of cosmic meaning. To be just a random act of an uncaring universe beggared belief. The universe could not be so cruel — could it?

“I have to find her,” he said.

“We know, and we are going to help in any way we can but the best thing you can do right now — the only thing you can do — is wait here,” said Jessica, holding him tightly. Her voice was adamant and strong, a lifeline for him to grasp and hold onto, to ease him back to the shore of sanity away from which he was inexorably drifting.

“But what if she’s out there alone? What if she’s running around those streets lost… or worse,” his voice a panicked bleat.

Thomas joined in, laying a reassuring hand on his back: “James, you know she’s with her mother. It’s Saturday, where would they be? You checked the house; you know she wasn’t there. Was her car in the garage?”

Jim thought back to the garage. “No it was empty.”

“Then you know that Simone was not home when this happened. Would she leave Lark on her own in the house? Would she?”

“No.”

“Lark is with her mother and you know that she will do her best to keep her safe. Don’t you?”

“Yes,” was the best answer he could muster.

“What we need to do is stay calm,” Thomas said. “Stay calm and just wait for her to come to us.”

Jim just looked at him. “But what if—” he started to say.

“No ‘what ifs’. They are going to be just fine.”

Jim did not think that his father-in-law sounded convinced.

It felt good to be clean again. Jim hadn’t realized how disgustingly filthy and smelly he was until he’d caught sight of himself in the mirror of the Shane’s entertainment unit. His face looked like it was painted with camouflage, blotches of black and gray, with streaks of white where sweat had dripped. His clothes stank worse than he did and he felt a pang of shame at having spent the last hour in the company of his ex-wife’s parents in such a state of dishevelment. But when he stepped out of the shower, he found a pair of Thomas’s jeans and a fresh tee shirt neatly laid out for him on the guestroom bed. His own clothes had disappeared but he could make out the faint rumble of the washing machine from elsewhere in the house.

Everything feels so normal , he thought.

Catching sight of his rejuvenated body in the mirror hanging on the back of the bedroom door, he reminded himself of just how abnormal his world had actually become. Gone were the wrinkles and gray hair. Back was the muscle tone and, he noticed approvingly, his hairline.

Slipping into the slightly oversized clothes, Jim made his way downstairs.

“Has anybody tried the TV?” Jim asked as he walked back into the living room.

Surprisingly, they had not.

“You know,” said Thomas, “We hadn’t even thought about trying it. The day has been so… earth-shattering.”

The first few channels they surfed were nothing more than movie channels, reruns of old sitcoms, wildlife documentaries, a pre-recorded infomercial for cutlery, and one that just played cartoons.