The Yellowstone Event: Book 1: Fire in the Sky Read online

  FIRE IN THE SKY

  The Yellowstone Event

  Book 1

  By Darrell Maloney

  This is a work of fiction. All persons depicted in this book are fictional characters. Any resemblance to any real person, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Copyright 2017 by Darrell Maloney

  This book is dedicated to:

  Roxanna Holliman Jared

  My one, my only, my everything.

  Here are some fun facts about the

  Yellowstone Calderon:

  - It’s a real thing. It really does exist

  - It’s a super volcano simmering just beneath the surface of Yellowstone National Park

  - It has erupted in the past, and will erupt again

  - Scientists believe that when it erupts again it will destroy 20 percent of the United States

  - You do NOT want to be in that 20 percent

  Bearing all that in mind, enjoy the book…

  Chapter 1

  May 11, 2001. Little Rock, Arkansas.

  “Come on! What do you have to lose?” she cried gleefully as she dragged Tony by his arm through the carnival midway.

  “Um… how about ten bucks?”

  “I’ll give you a kiss.”

  “I’d rather keep the ten bucks.”

  “Excuse me, mister?”

  He stopped and held her, then laughed.

  “I’ll tell you what. You give me just one good reason why I should throw away good money on a fortune teller. If you can give me just one good reason, I’ll give in to your silly demands. But it’ll still cost you a kiss.”

  “And what if I don’t have a good reason? What if I’m just a silly girl who wants to find out once and for all whether you’ve been telling me the truth about marrying me someday?”

  “Oh, so that’s what this is all about? You’re gonna make me pay ten of my hard-earned dollars just to hear some old gypsy fortune teller say what I’ve been telling you all along? That hurts. It really does.”

  “What hurts?”

  “It hurts that you don’t trust me. That you’d believe some crazy old fortune teller but you won’t believe me.”

  “The fortune teller has nothing to gain by lying to me.”

  “And I do?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “Maybe? Just what the heck does that mean, maybe?”

  “It just means that you’ve been trying very hard to get to third base with me lately. And you wouldn’t be the first guy who promised marriage to get the honeymoon first. That’s all.”

  Tony smiled.

  “Third base? Heck, baby. I don’t want third base. I want a home run.”

  The smile left her face, replaced by something akin to a little girl’s pout.

  “You’re not helping your case any.”

  He brushed the long brown hair from her face and kissed her on the tip of the nose. Then square on the lips.

  “What if she’s a fraud? Most of them are, you know. They just say whatever pops into their minds. They can no more tell the future than you or I can.”

  “I’ll be able to tell if she’s a fraud. If she is, I’ll let you off the hook. But if she’s genuine, I’ll know that too.”

  “Oh, so now you’re an expert on gypsy frauds?”

  Her smile returned and she coyly replied, “Maybe.”

  “Oh, geez,” he said as he stomped toward the purple tent. “The things I do to make you happy…”

  “I know, honey. That’s why I love you so very much.”

  Chapter 2

  She wasn’t quite what he expected, when she sat them at the table. For one thing, she looked… normal. She wasn’t the hideous witch he’d expected to find. She didn’t have hair growing from weird warts on her nose and huge silver hoop earrings. There weren’t bats flying around her head and the smell of cheap incense permeating everything in the tent.

  She looked as normal as Tony and Hannah.

  That sealed it in Tony’s mind. That proved she was a fraud. She didn’t even know enough to dress the part of a cartoonish gypsy. She didn’t even put in that much effort. How much effort would she put into reading Hannah’s emotions and verifying that yes, this guy sitting next to her was truly her one and only?

  Now Tony could tell his own future. In about five minutes or so Hannah was going to go storming out of the tent and straight to the car. She’d insist that he take her home immediately. And once there she’d let herself out, slam the car door, and stomp her way up the steps to her house.

  He’d be left in the car, his head still spinning, with absolutely no chance of getting lucky on this particular night.

  “Good evening, Hannah. Good evening, Anthony. I’ve been wondering when you two were coming to call.”

  Hannah didn’t catch it. She was too mesmerized by the woman’s eyes. They were pools of blackness, devoid of emotion.

  But Tony caught it. He’d always been good at that. At noticing subtle things others missed.

  “How… how did you know our names?”

  It was more a demand than a question.

  “Oh, I know more about you than that, young man. Madame Cervelli knows everything about you. Your past, your present, your future. I know what’s in your heart and what evil lies hidden in your soul. I know the good in you. The bad. The secrets you keep. Now then, young man, the only question is, which things should I tell to Hannah and which ones do I keep to myself?”

  His head told him she was bluffing, that she knew nothing about him. That maybe someone who knew them saw them coming and tipped her off to their names. Or that there was some other reasonable explanation.

  His heart, it wasn’t so sure.

  “Relax, Anthony. You need not worry, for I know what’s in your heart. This girl loves you. She wants to know if you love her as well. She wants to know if you’ll marry her someday. It is a reasonable request. And I will share with her your true intentions.”

  Hannah’s jaw dropped. Literally.

  “But how…”

  The gypsy placed a finger to her lips. Now was not the time for Hannah to speak. For she was about to receive the answer she’d been looking for.

  Tony was on the hot seat. He overlooked the fact she’d called him Anthony. Nobody, but nobody, called him Anthony. He hated the name. He thought it made him sound like an accountant, slaving away in a cubicle with his calculator and his black-rimmed glasses.

  Forget all that. How in heck did she know why they went in there?

  Tony looked at Hannah. Hannah looked back at him. Both of them suspected the other of sneaking in to talk to the woman beforehand.

  And each of them could tell by the surprise on the other’s face that they hadn’t.

  The gypsy turned her attention to Hannah.

  “You are a beautiful girl, Hannah. You are desired by many boys. During your life you will be desired by many men. But at this place, at this time, your heart and your soul belong to only one man.

  “You’re here to find out if he feels the same way. You want to know if he will select you to be his bride. You want to know if he will father your children.

  “The answer is yes. Yes to both questions. He will ask you to marry him, and he will be a good father to your children. He will be faithful and devoted to you. He will never stray.

  “But…”

  They had been gazing into each other’s eyes. Hannah smiled as soon as she heard the gypsy’s words. As hokey and improbable as it was, she had the confirmation she’d been looking for.

  The “but…” stopped them short.

  They immediately turned their attention back to the woman as she continued. />
  “But first, you must survive the great calamity. It will not be easy. You will be at great risk. Your loved ones and all of your friends will be in danger. Many of them will not make it.

  “To earn your life together, to earn your children, you must survive the great calamity. You must help others to survive as well. Only then, as you walk away from the greatest death and destruction this country has ever seen, will you finally deserve the right to become one. To grow old together. To be together for eternity.”

  Hannah could find no words.

  Tony’s head was swimming, trying to make sense of it all. But his tongue was still working.

  “Great calamity? What great calamity? What in hell are you talking about?”

  Hannah put her hand on his arm to calm him. She saw no reason for him to get ugly. No reason to curse at the woman.

  But Tony wasn’t angry.

  Tony was confused.

  “Beneath the great park they call Yellowstone lies death and destruction. It is well hidden and mostly unknown. But it is there. And you… both of you… will have the unique opportunity and duty to save the lives of many.

  “But… you must not marry until after the calamity is done. To do so will cause you distractions. You will be with child. You will lose your path, and your role in what fate hath wrought.”

  Hannah stammered, “What? What hath fate wrought?”

  “The destruction of the United States of America.”

  Chapter 3

  Now Tony was starting to get angry.

  “What in the hell are you talking about, you crazy old woman? What are you saying?”

  The woman took the attack in stride, as though she fully expected it. She continued to meet his gaze and merely smiled at him.

  Hannah took control, as she frequently did when Tony lost his cool.

  “I think we’d better go,” she said as she stood and pushed her chair back. Her hand was still on Tony’s arm, and she fairly pulled him out of his own seat.

  She turned back to the gypsy and said, “Thank you, ma’am.”

  The woman merely nodded, and continued to smile.

  Hannah rushed Tony, who was now speechless, out of the tent and back onto the carnival midway.

  They were fifty feet away when Hannah noticed the ten dollar bill still clutched in Tony’s hand.

  “Wait. We forgot to pay her.”

  “Too bad.”

  But Hannah was nothing if not honest. Bad karma came to those who took advantage of others.

  She dragged him back to the tent and swept aside the flap.

  The old gypsy was nowhere to be found.

  Hannah was a big believer in karma. It drove Tony nuts sometimes, when she admonished him about it.

  Just a few days before she chewed him out for tossing a gum wrapper on the sidewalk as they walked past a church.

  “Tony, you’ve got to go back and clean that up,” she said. “You can’t have bad karma following you around. It can create havoc in your life. It can cause harm to you or to someone close to you.”

  “Oh, bull. You don’t really believe that stuff, do you?”

  She did, and he did.

  Pick up the gum wrapper, that is.

  So Tony wasn’t really surprised when Hannah insisted on finding the old gypsy. She had to pay her the money they owed her, she said, to keep the bad karma away from them.

  But the tent they were in just minutes before looked dramatically different now. The table they’d sat at was gone. In its place was a stack of plywood, perhaps fifty sheets, on which were painted pieces of a carnival midway attraction. A four by eight foot stack of jigsaw puzzle pieces which fit together to advertise a freak show.

  The top piece depicted a painting of a rather bizarre creature called “Leopard Boy,” and was adorned with the portrayal of a small boy covered with leopard like spots.

  For a brief moment Tony wondered whether the boy got that way from some type of skin disorder, or was made up to look that way.

  Then Hannah brought him back to the task at hand.

  “Tony, where on earth could she have gone?”

  A rather burly man entered the tent and demanded, “What are you kids doing in here?”

  Hannah tried to answer, but before she could get a word out he continued, “You’re not supposed to be in here. Get out of here.”

  “But… we’re just looking for the fortune teller.”

  The man adopted a softer tone, and suddenly didn’t look quite as menacing.

  “You mean Madame Cervelli? She died. About a week ago. We have no other fortune tellers.”

  It seemed the man suddenly remembered that the outside of the tent was emblazoned with the words “Fortune Teller.” These kids weren’t interlopers or vandals. They were merely trying to get their fortunes read.

  “She’s dead? But… she was here just a few minutes ago. She told us our future. We forgot to pay her…”

  “You must be mistaken, miss. She collapsed in her chair a week ago when she was doing a reading. There was nothing we could do to save her. We tried, but…”

  He never finished.

  Someone outside the tent called out, “Waldo! Has anyone seen Waldo?”

  He said, “I must go. You need to leave. No fortunes tonight, I’m sorry.”

  Waldo disappeared even faster than he’d come in, and Tony and Hannah walked out behind him.

  Confused and perhaps just a bit troubled by what had just transpired.

  “But Tony… how could that be? We didn’t dream her up. She was right here. Maybe we’re in the wrong tent.”

  “No, baby. This is the same tent. It’s the only tent around here. There’s no other tents on this side of the midway. And there’s no other tents that have “fortune teller” painted on them anywhere at the carnival. We’d have noticed it if there were.”

  “Then what happened to her?”

  “I don’t know, honey. But I know it would have taken some time to stack all those pieces of plywood in there. And all the decorations are gone.”

  “Are you saying we imagined her? That she was never there?”

  “No… maybe. I don’t know, honey. You heard what he said. She died.”

  “Are you saying we saw her ghost?”

  “Oh hell, honey. You know ghosts don’t exist. Don’t be silly.”

  “Then how do you explain it, Tony? We saw the same thing. We saw the same thing that wasn’t really there. Either we saw her ghost or we hallucinated the very same thing at the very same time. How on earth can you explain that?”

  “I… I can’t.”

  They were in a daze, both of them. Both of their minds trying to explain things, to make sense of it all.

  There was a long pause, then Hannah said, “We need to pay her, Tony. It’s bad karma not to. This isn’t our money.”

  “Oh hell, Hannah. Stop it with the bad karma stuff, will you? You heard him. She’s dead. How in hell are we gonna pay her if she’s dead?”

  He took the ten dollar bill and put it in the hand of a small boy looking longingly at one of the carnival games.

  The boy looked at the bill and his face lit up.

  “Wow! Thanks, mister!”

  Tony smiled. It was the first time in his life he’d ever been called mister.

  It broke the tension just a bit.

  He took Hannah’s hand and said, “There. We couldn’t pay the woman so we did the next best thing. We made a little boy smile. Will you settle for that?”

  It was the best concession he could make.

  And it was a nice gesture. She couldn’t argue that. Under any other circumstances he’d have just stuffed the bill back into his pocket and considered the matter closed. But on this night, after what she’d just experienced, Hannah was in a bad place. She’d needed him to step up.

  And he did.

  “I guess. Thank you, honey. That was very sweet of you.”

  But it didn’t answer any of their questions.

  They clim
bed into Tony’s old pickup truck and drove home, trying their best to explain away the occurrence.

  By the time he walked her to her door, though, they’d come up with no answers, no explanations.

  Tony kissed her goodnight and offered a suggestion.

  “Look,” he said. “If we dwell on this it’ll drive us both nuts. I think we need to put it out of our minds. Like those people who see a UFO or Bigfoot or something. They can’t tell anybody because people will think they’re crazy. And if they dwell on it, they really become crazy.

  “I think we just need to stop talking about it. Just chalk it up as one of those weird things that are just unexplainable, and forget about it.”

  “But…”

  “No butts. Forget it ever happened. And just never talk of it again. Agreed?”

  “Okay. You’re right. Consider it forgotten.”

  Chapter 4

  The trouble with something like that, though, is it’s pretty hard to forget. Hannah was convinced they’d seen a ghost. A ghost who, for whatever reason, had chosen them to tell of a pending disaster. A disaster which would happen at some point in their lives.

  She wasn’t sure why she and Tony were chosen, out of the thousands who attended that carnival as it traveled to cities all over the southern United States.

  She struggled with that in the years after that fateful night, and it affected her greatly. She read every book she could get her hands on about ghosts, then the occult. And when she was done she still didn’t have her answers.

  What she did have was a deep-seated wish she could go back to that night and ask Madame Cervelli more questions. Why them, for one. And what, specifically, was the danger they were supposed to warn the world of?

  And speaking of the world, what on earth could possibly cause the destruction of the United States of America?

  As for Tony, he was more able to put it out of his mind and move on to other things. Never completely, though. It was always there, in the far reaches of his consciousness, festering like a sore. Every once in a while it would invade his thoughts, usually in the form of a dream.