The Yellowstone Conundrum by John Randall Read Free Book Online Page A

feet; the reinforced steel column bending inexorably to the laws of nature as the whip was applied . SNAP! But the circular alien ship didn’t crash and burn; instead it fell and flopped like a bad yo-yo trick, then started a whack-a-thon as it moved back and forth.  The original core of the tower was bent all to hell, with the elevator shaft running up to 250 feet, then horizontal for thirty, then back down for over 100 feet. 
      For an instant Ray thought he’d OD’d on Seroquel. 
      People in the main cabin were still screaming although they were scrambling to their feet. The hearty few from the top deck quickly padded down the cast iron steps to the covered second floor. Shrieks and cries could be heard from below on the first deck.
      How would you like to be in your automobile about now?
      Then there was silence with the exception of the Wenatchee’s engines; that and the change of direction.  Thirty feet above them Captain Duvall and his engineers struggled to change the Wenatchee’s course. The engines whined differently. 
      Ray looked to the windows on the port side. The thin white line was now a ribbon of white. They were about to be clobbered by a tsunami. The noise level in the cabin went from shouts to shrieks. There was no place to run, no place to hide. Nevertheless, the Wenatchee grunted its way to the southeast so as to not have the broadside exposure when the tsunami passed. Captain Duvall struggled to keep the boat on line.
      The wave had already destroyed the coastline along Bainbridge Island and done the same to the old, trendy neighborhoods of Highland Park and North Seattle across the short side of the Puget Sound. 
      Klaxons blaring, Captain Duvall had done well, maneuvering the Wenatchee to be hit arrears. 
      When the tsunami hit the Wenatchee , the huge boat dipped forward then was picked up on the surge like a surfer.  While viewed as graceful perhaps from an aerial view, inside the ferry people felt like they were in a blender.  The fore section of the boat tipped nearly 30 degrees, throwing everything and everyone who wasn’t hugging onto something made of steel across the large lounge like rag dolls in a dryer, Ray included.  
      Down below on the car deck all of the bikes were swept overboard along with anyone who had decided to stay with his bike. Behind the bikes were four lanes of packed vehicles in two staggered heights. Water gushed into the open forward section, sloshing its way a third of the way to the opposite side. Then, like an E-ride at Disneyland, the Wenatchee snapped upwards just has hard, as the wave passed underneath. Several cars at the tail end of the ferry popped into the air and were dislodged into the Puget Sound.
      The passenger lounge areas on decks 1 and 2 were in complete chaos; one hundred twenty-eight people already killed by blunt force contact with something made of steel.  Ray had managed to wrap his arms around the post of three-seat snack table, the seats of which whipped this way and that as the boat managed to survive the tsunami’s first wave.
      In a tsunami you’re always safer at sea.
      Yeah, right ; except when the wave is carrying you to downtown Seattle at 15 knots instead of 4.
      From the captain’s chair Joseph Duvall saw the advancing harbor approaching at warp speed.  There was no way he was going to be able to control the huge craft’s speed or location.
      As it approached land the wave grew in size, doubling its height to nearly 20 feet, because the mass of water was reaching shallow draft. Ray peeked forward. There was dust and smoke in the distance, the unlit city behind dark as midnight. The earthquake had demolished the state route 99, the Alaskan Viaduct, a USA top ten most driven highway which connected West Seattle with downtown Seattle. The old road, scheduled for demolition and removal when the city’s visionary replacement and Harbor Renewal project was completed, had been destroyed ahead of