Rise of the Beast (25 page)

C
HAPTER
10

A terrible melancholia had fallen over the drill crew at well number 14. Will Reinhart had been a good foreman and a good friend. Everyone felt the loss. It reminded them all of where they were. This wasn’t the lazy plains of Oklahoma, though it sometimes reminded them of it. This was the powder keg of the world. The lack of violence in the area this past year had lulled most of them into a false sense of security.

It wasn’t just Will who had been taken from them. Actually, four of their number had lost their lives in the suicide bombing. The other three were assigned to wells 12 and 17, further up the valley. They were all there to enjoy a good meal and good company.

Most of the well 14 crew didn’t know the other three men personally, but they mourned their loss nonetheless. Their deaths were pointless, lives lost over a conflict that had been going on for over a thousand years. There were no winners in this war, only losers. The Kurds would retaliate, of course. They always did. They’d take the fight back to the Shiites. They’d set off a human bomb in a crowded marketplace or fire a rocket into a bus. They’d try to beat today’s death toll. And the war would go on. And, of course, innocent people would be killed. That was the name of the game, wasn’t it? But it wouldn’t bring any of today’s victims back. The irony to the crew of well 14 was that this wasn’t even their fight. Will Reinhart and the others had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

It was just past nine in the evening when the first of a string of bizarre events happened. All power to the well abruptly went dead, leaving the new drill bit hanging there above the well casing, and leaving the crew in the dark. It took only a few minutes to locate the problem. The entire breaker panel had blown simultaneously. The flip of six switches brought them back on line. Nevertheless, it gave the entire crew the willies.

Fifteen minutes later, with the drill just over 200 feet down the casing, the main gearbox froze up. Again work stopped. The engineer had hardly put a wrench to the access port of the box when it seemed to fix itself. Once more work resumed, only to be halted by another power failure three minutes later. But this time the breakers looked to be fried. It was when they went searching for a set of replacements that steam began to emanate from the well casing. It was the straw that broke the camel’s back. The crew backed away from and then ran from the rig even as the quantities of steam increased.

A sound emanated from the well, like the crackling of electricity, even as a growing blue glow from deep within the casing appeared. Then all Hell broke loose, literally. In a tremendous explosion, over 300 feet of pipe, weighing many tons, shot skyward. It rained debris as much as 50 yards away, injuring three of the crew, one seriously.

Then came the cloud of glowing gas and the terrible noise. It was like a hundred sirens all going off at once. The clouds climbed hundreds of feet into the dark, cloudy sky before appearing to dissipate. Later, some observers would swear to seeing what looked like individual forms in the glowing clouds. The term
demons
was widely circulated in describing what they had seen, as were the words
ghosts
and
evil spirits
. They had witnessed something truly supernatural, and it didn’t look good.

At the end of an hour, the fury of the event was spent. What remained of the well was a mass of twisted and contorted metal. It was like nothing any of them had ever seen.

That was the end for well number 14. It was capped and the area was fenced off. The books were closed on this disastrous chapter in the company’s history. The company had lost enough money on the haunted well. It was time to cut its losses. A 24-hour-a-day security detail stood guard over the well so as to report on any events that might affect the surrounding wells.

In the months that followed, a silence fell over well 14. There were no reports of voices from the depths of the Earth, no talk of glowing mists or any of
the other manifestations that had haunted the well for so long. Whatever force had plagued the well had apparently been released during that one terrible night.

It was Cal Wayneright, the flight engineer they’d gotten to know on their trip to and from Kurdistan, who broke the news of Will’s death to Chris and Serena a few days later. The news had come in the form of an email and later a telephone call. The news was not unexpected, of course, but it caused Chris and Serena a great deal of distress nonetheless. No less distressful was the word of the seemingly supernatural pyrotechnical display that had engulfed well number 14 the night following Will’s death. The company had done its best to keep the events of that night under wraps. However, news of the event was spreading rapidly. It would probably be just a matter of time before the story was picked up by the tabloids or, even worse, by the legitimate media.

Chris and Serena knew only too well what sort of entities had just entered the world. The only question was, how many? Would they significantly enhance Satan’s ability to control the goings on within this world? They would soon know.

For now, they would stay the course, continuing their evangelistic and book-signing ministry. They would tell the world that the last days had come without disclosing any of the specifics. They would preach boldly the word of repentance and salvation to any who would listen.

All the while, they monitored the media, watching as Lusan’s power and influence grew. At meeting after meeting, the word of miraculous healings became the hallmark of his ministry. The numbers of his followers swelled during that long hot summer, even as the number of people attending their services waned.

In the shadow of the onrushing comet, interest in things spiritual had reached a fever pitch. And the pathogen at the heart of that fever was Lusan.

The scientists and members of the press filed into the large lecture hall at NASA’s Johnson Space Center outside of Houston, Texas. There was a real buzz
in the air; there had been all summer. Comet Florence had now been tracked for nearly a year and a half. Its orbit was continually being refined as ever more positions were plotted. For the past three months, the Earth’s orbit had placed the comet too close to the sun in the sky to be observed by Earthly observers. Now it was far enough from the sun’s glare to be observed by space telescopes in orbit of Earth.

It had now been observed by the aging Hubble Space Telescope. NASA had actually overridden several safety protocols in order to point the telescope so close to the solar disk, but the risk had paid off. They now had in their possession images that would answer the question as to whether the Earth was still in imminent peril. On this October morning the world would know what, up until now, only a few scientists and high officials knew.

Four experts sat on the stage before the assembling crowd. One of them was Dr. Sam Florence, the comet’s discoverer. Today was the day of truth. Were we still on the crosshairs of Comet Florence, or were we to be spared by an act of complex gravitational interactions?

This briefing was being carried by every major network around the world. Soon the world would know the answer to the most pressing question of the millennium.

The hall lights went down as Dr. Henry Brown, the new director of NASA’s planetary exploration division, took center stage. He took a moment to introduce the members of the panel. He spoke of their contributions to the program. All the while, the tension in the room grew. Dr. Brown paused for just six or seven seconds. He would keep the crowd in suspense no longer. His growing smile was encouraging.

“Ladies and gentlemen, it is the unanimous opinion of this committee that we have dodged the apocalyptic bullet. Our best estimates give us a closest approach to Earth of Comet Florence of 183,000 kilometers, 111,000 miles, with a statistical margin of error of approximately 36,000 kilometers, 22,000 miles. That’s places it about halfway to the moon at closest approach. In short, the odds of impact with the Earth as it currently stands, are one in 40 million.”

The swell of relief that swept through the room was something to behold. It quickly broke into wild applause. People cried and hugged each other. Human civilization would go on. Dr. Brown went on to display a set of PowerPoint slides of the comet’s path and how that path was derived, but to most of those
present, this was of only secondary concern.

“We’ll have ringside seats to one of the most incredible spectacles in human history. Now, there are still some concerns,” cautioned Brown, “very serious concerns. Yes, Earth itself is safe; however, we are going to pass through the comet’s outer coma, its tenuous atmosphere. How serious a problem this is depends largely on how dusty the comet’s coma turns out to be. Certainly, it will produce a meteor storm the likes of which no one has ever seen. But it is highly unlikely that any of these meteors will reach the ground. Most will range from the size of specks of dust to grains of sand. It will be a spectacular display from horizon to horizon lasting several nights, but it will pose no hazard to those of us on the ground. The problem is that these particles might sandblast many of our satellites in Earth orbit. We could be looking at losses in the billions of dollars if Comet Florence is a particularly dusty comet, like Halley. Then again, it might be a comet like Temple 2, with very little dust, producing little or no damage to our network of satellites. We just don’t know yet. But satellites can be replaced; our Earth can’t. It might be noted that, as a precaution, the space station will be evacuated during that period of time. In addition, all commercial, government, and military space flight will be suspended for the time we are in the coma. We’re just playing it safe, that’s all.”

“Does this mean that the comet intercept mission will be abandoned?” asked the MSNBC correspondent.

“In part,” replied Dr. Brown. “The two deflection missions carrying large nuclear devices will be canceled. There is no need for them, and at this point, the risks outweigh the gains. They were by far the most expensive aspects of the project. However, a smaller vehicle, that shall be launched next year, will loop around Jupiter and use its gravity assist to swing it around and follow the comet on its path through the inner solar system. It will provide us with valuable information about the comet’s structure. It will also warn us in advance if anything unforeseen happens.”