The Dying Time (Book 1): Impact Page 15

  “I think we better get inside,” Harry said. Wes and Sheila started for the tornado shelter immediately. Harry was as close to an expert on the weirdness following impact as they could hope for, but anyone raised in Tornado Alley could feel one coming.

  Harry picked up his six-year-old son and ran for the underground storm cellar. Wes already had the doors open.

  The cattle and pigs in the barn were mooing and oinking and rustling about nervously.

  Suddenly sheets of lightning crackled across the sky and all hell broke loose. Bolts lanced to the ground, one so close it hit the clothesline pole as Harry dashed by, tingling his skin. Saint Elmo’s fire rolled across the peak of the farm house and leapt to an apple tree in the orchard, blasting it apart.

  “Wheee!” Robby squealed, unafraid in his daddy’s arms.

  Harry jumped inside and Wes slammed the doors. Harry put his son down and leaned over gasping.

  “That was fun, daddy,” Robby yelled over the jarring thunder. “Can we do it again?”

  Wes chuckled and Harry joined in. With a perfectly straight face, Sheila answered her son. “Maybe later.”

  *

  All that day and the next they waited inside the shelter while lightning crackled and the wind howled. Occasionally, a sound like a thousand jet engines would surge past and the earth would tremble. Twisters making their presence felt. Once, a hail of stones and mud hammered against the wooden storm doors, threatening to bust them open.

  Since it was underground, dark and cool in the summer, Wes used the storm shelter as a root cellar. After he heard the President’s speech he stocked his with bottles of water as well as canned food. Compared to other survivors they had it cozy.

  On the third day the air stilled and they poked their heads out. The sky was still dark, the air still murky. No rain had accompanied the storms. To their relief the house still stood, though it needed a roof, and the well was intact, so as soon as they replaced some damaged wiring they’d have running water. The barn now leaned a bit to one side but it could be braced, and the main door was missing along with most of the livestock.

  One lightning-struck cow lay in the barnyard looking like a furry pork-rind: bloated, skin charred and split in places. Sheila helped Harry butcher it, saving meat, fat and a few bones, stowing away sinews and entrails they might find useful later.

  “Is this how it’s going to be, Harry?” Sheila used dirt and ash to scrub the worst mess off her skin before rinsing her hands with precious water.

  “No,” Harry said, unwilling to lie. “This is only the beginning.”

  Chapter 18: The Dying Time

  New York City

  Otha Gladson clasped Dikeme to him with his good arm and stared in horror as the waters receded. Busses, trucks, cars, buildings and bodies--God, the logjam of bodies--whirled and eddied as the maelstrom withdrew.

  “Apocalypse,” whispered Di and gripped him tighter. Memory stabbed her with thoughts of her homeland, her mother and father. What would happen to them?

  “God never closes one door but what he opens two,” Glad murmured.

  “What?” Di glanced at him, surprised.

  “Something my mother always says,” he explained, turning away from the chaos and drawing her back toward the stairs.

  Di nodded, understanding him better now. “You come from a family of optimists.” She wanted to keep talking, keep her mind distracted. She’d forgotten how much she didn’t like heights until the building swayed.

  He shook his head. “No. I come from a Nation of optimists.”

  They sat down and braced their backs against the wall as another quake shook the building.

  “It must be quite difficult to keep the faith at a time like this.”

  “If you don't believe things will turn out for the best--that you can improve your life and build a better world for the future--then what's the point?” He waived his good arm toward the safety railing. “Might as well be down there with them.”

  “I suppose,” she shuddered.

  “Here,” he handed her a beer and popped the top off one for himself. “A toast!” He looked deep into her liquid brown eyes and realized he did have at least one thing to be thankful for. “To us! And to better days ahead.”

  She clinked her can against his, masking her doubts, and as they tipped their cans to drink the building lurched and splattered them with beer. Spluttering she giggled briefly and stopped shocked at herself. But then they both began laughing insanely.

  Laugh, or go mad.

  When they regained control of themselves, wiping tears from their faces, he took a sip of his beer and said, “Well! We might as well start planning how we're going to get out of this mess.”

  She smiled and said, “Okay.” Though she simply couldn't fathom how he could exhibit hope when millions were dying and dead.

  He couldn't do anything else.

  Already his mind was churning. They could get food for weeks from the vending machines in the building. Water might be a problem but he’d figure something out. There would be other survivors, some helpful, some possibly violent. Add a gun to the list and matches, lots of matches. They'd have to boil the water, heat food, and with winter only a few months away, stay warm.

  But a cloudy blanket was growing as ejecta from Havoc’s impact and scores of volcanic eruptions, smoke from burning cities, forests, and grasslands combined to smother the earth from sunlight.

  Winter was coming sooner than expected.

  *

  California Desert near Twenty-Nine Palms

  The earth continued to shake. The Big One, as Californians referred to the expected monster quake along the San Angelas Fault had come and gone, mangling cities from LA to San Francisco. Fires so hot steel beams sagged and collapsed raged unchecked.

  Joey the Giant, hair singed off from his last close call with wildfire, raised his tent flap and checked the smoke pouring into the sky to the North. The younger of his twins tended a campfire between two other tents.

  “How about it, John?” Joseph pointed to the smoke.

  “Winds didn't shift last night, so I think we'll be okay today. Don't much like the way the sky's darkening though.” A smoggy haze had reduced the sun to a dull orange ball. “You think that old man was telling the truth?”

  The man they'd stolen the tents from had told them a wild story about a meteor hitting Earth.

  “Yeah. Matches what Benny said. Just look around. You see any firefighters? Any cops? Hell! This is the chance we've been waiting for.” He couldn't, mustn't forget how God had touched him in the desert.

  John simply looked at his father, careful not to let the slightest criticism show. Was his old man nuts? They’d barely escaped a rain of fire balls the same day as the big quake, and just yesterday, while running from a wildfire they damn near drowned in a flash flood. They were doing good just to be alive. This disaster was the end of everything!

  Anthony emerged from one tent, Jamal and Carswell from the other. They seated themselves around the fire, poured some coffee and listened as Joey laid it out for them.

  “Nature abhors a vacuum and right now there’s no centralized authority, no structure for survivors to turn too. We need to get down into town and start getting things organized. Find a base to operate from. Open our gun vaults. Start recruiting. Start taking over.” Joey's eyes shone with fervor. He spread his enormous arms. “People want to be led. Hell, they need to be led. They need someone to tell them everything’s okay, even if it isn’t. Look around. It can all be ours!”

  He lowered his arms and fixed each of them with his powerful gaze. “And if we do it right, they'll thank us for it.”

  Denver

  Cherry Hill County Club

  Viper’s people were on the thin edge of control. He’d kept them from panicking during the fire squall that swept through Denver and the worst of the quakes. Their stashes of food and other necessities had held them together during those first horrible days, but now what could he do?
They were drunk with power, killing, raping and looting at will. Angry, frightened, destructive children loosed on a giant toy store. He’d managed to stop the wholesale slaughter, explaining the need for, and value of, slaves.

  Didn’t they understand? God had given them a chance to start new, to rebuild a civilization in their own image, a black civilization. And there was Darnel Wooley, one of his best men; wasting time and the energy of slaves by making them clear undamaged sections of road so he could drive a stolen Cadillac a few blocks. Viper just shook his head. His people were bringing him diamonds and gold. Baubles! Ignoring more valuable canned food.

  How could they not get that this was a battle for survival, as well as control of those precious few unburned areas of Denver. Violent aftershocks continued to rock the area and unchecked fires burned out of control. Hell, the sky was turning black from all the smoke.

  He saw Shark waving for his attention. Fresh blood dripped from a graze in Shark’s arm as he raised one fist in a salute.

  “What?” Viper asked.

  “We got the Country Club. It wasn’t touched.” Shark pointed to several new slaves being herded into the compound. “Had to kick some honky butt on the way back though. Dudes in camos with machine guns!”

  “Army?” Fear tightened Viper’s gut. They hadn’t run into anyone organized in more than a week.

  “Nah. Pot bellies an’ gray beards mostly. Whatcha call’em. Survival nuts. Couldn’t hit shit.”

  “They hit you,” Viper smirked.

  Shark shook his head in disgust. “Nah, that idiot Marcus winged me shootin’ at’em.” Marcus Robitaille was a recent recruit whose education as a lawyer drew Viper to the man and sparked jealousy in Shark.

  “How’d he do, other than wasting lead on you?”

  Shark grunted and shrugged, and Viper, understanding the man’s resentment, took it as high praise.

  “Good,” Viper nodded. “After we move into the Club you have a reward coming. Now let’s get them moving.”

  Shark beamed as he helped Viper form the column.

  *

  Downtown Denver

  Chad Bailey dug through the rubble until his hands bled. He paused long enough to wrap them in rags, then grabbed a metal table leg and started prying large chunks up for others to clear away. He and his coworkers were graveyard shift communications engineers and computer programmers for MCI.

  He’d been down in the break room munching cookies and listening to soft rock on his radio when the emergency broadcast system cut in with a warning that the Eastern United States was about to be hit by an asteroid.

  Instantly he called Josh Adams, his closest friend among his coworkers, and everyone else into the room to listen in. His first thought was that this would play hell with the phone system. Millions of calls were switched through the East Coast.

  “Thank God this is happening at one in the morning,” he mumbled. Several people nearby nodded agreement. It would give them a few hours to get the system rerouted before call volume went through the roof.

  “Jesus, listen to this! What are they trying to do? Scare hell out of people?”

  Josh said, “It’s working.”

  “It’s crap!” Chad snapped. “It’s an asteroid. It’ll burn up in the atmosphere.”

  But Josh was an engineer too. “I think that depends on how big it is.”

  Chad stopped ranting and listened closely to the radio. Josh could be right. They’d all heard the President but until now he’d assumed this would be a localized disaster, like a tornado or something.

  He hadn’t had a clue.

  When the shockwave hit Denver their modern, glass and steel building disintegrated. If they’d been upstairs they would have all died instantly. They clapped hands over their ears and screamed.

  The first quake jarred them to their senses as their building’s steel beams and concrete columns shattered and caved in on them. The basement ceiling held in their area, saving them again, but the power went out, plunging them into darkness.

  Hours later, after they’d screamed themselves hoarse through the chaos, and the light of day reached them through gaps in the broken building, they began digging themselves out. The silence up above, when they expected sirens and voices, told them no help was coming.

  For days they lived on vending machine candy and sodas. Chad emerged as their leader, getting them to fashion tools from tables and chairs, making them dig in shifts. Holding them together in the face of terror.

  He pried at a block of concrete and it fell away, leaving him stunned as weak daylight poured in and filled his soul with hope.

  “Breakthrough!” He yelled.

  An hour later they crawled from the ruin, their joy short-lived as they stared at the wreckage of their world.

  *

  The Freeholds

  Michael coughed and clenched a dampened rag to his mouth, then used the rag to wipe his goggles before putting his dust mask back on. He set the choke on the chain saw and pulled the starter rope until it roared to life. As the saw bit into a fifty-foot fir and wood chips flew, he mumbled an apology. It went against his grain to fell and waste a living tree, especially now that the shockwave and earthquakes had toppled so many, but looking back along the ridge at others cutting the fire line and at the wall of flames whipping toward them up the valley--there was no other way.

  Pike National Forest was ablaze and the Freeholders had been fighting an increasingly desperate delaying action for the past three days. The skies were black with thick, choking smoke and if it wasn't for the flickering orange light of the advancing fire they wouldn't be able to see to fight it. He notched the tree in the direction of fall and felled it with a final clean cut. Behind him men, women and children worked with mattocks, shovels and rakes to clean the earth of fuel for fire, making a line the flames couldn't cross.

  This was the last ridge between the fire and the homesteads. If they couldn't stop it here they would have to abandon what was left of their homes and flee.

  He stepped up to a ponderosa pine, notched it and began the felling cut. Wood chips flew. His left thumb pumped the manual chain oiler. Halfway there. He looked down into the felling zone to make sure no one had wondered into danger.

  The ground leaped, throwing him off his feet. The tree pinched the bar of his chainsaw as the land lurched and dropped. The tree snapped off falling back out of control.

  “Timber!” Michael screamed.

  Randy McKinley, who had been working just below Michael before the quake threw him down, just had time to roll clear.

  The land slipped. Evergreens whipped back and forth like palms in a hurricane, cracking, breaking in two, toppling like dominos. Dust and ash rose, blinding the firefighters. The earth tossed about like a restless child, groaning and rumbling, on and on.

  And then it cracked like a cosmic pistol shot. Michael winced and clapped his hands over his ears. He was bucked into the air and his stomach heaved, weightless, like an express elevator had dropped out from under him. Then the breath was jarred from his body as the land slammed against him. He lay there, heart hammering, lungs screaming for air, wondering what the hell had happened now. How much more of this insanity could his people take? How much more could he take?

  Already there had been suicides and people driven mad by the darkness and a constantly shaking earth that broke minds as well as power lines, trees, and bridges.

  The land trembled and stilled as Michael regained his breath. The air cleared slightly as wind rushed toward the forest fire. Michael struggled to his knees.

  “You all right?” Randy crawled over the fallen tree and flopped down beside him. He smelled like charred wood. Everything smelled like charred wood.

  Michael nodded and pulled himself to his feet, offering Randy a hand up. A waterfall roar grabbed his attention.

  “Jesus!” Michael pointed, mouth hanging open. Their fire line was in shambles, but at the foot of the ridge, between them and the flames a gap had appeared in the ea
rth. A chasm one hundred feet wide and perhaps thirty feet deep, running completely across the valley and into the hills on either side.

  Even as they watched, water from some subterranean source fountained up into the void.

  “My God,” Randy said. “The birth of a river.”

  “Or a long, narrow lake,” Michael amended. “After it fills we'll see if it flows. The important thing is, if that doesn't stop the fire nothing will.”

  He picked up his chainsaw. “Bar's bent,” he said. “But the motor's still good.”

  “You can pick up a new bar at The How-To Store in Woodland Park,” Randy spoke before he thought, naming the closest hardware store.

  “Maybe,” Michael agreed. But privately he wondered if the town of Woodland Park still existed. Where were the Forest Service firefighters? Where were the Sheriff's Deputies who patrolled the road running through the Freeholds? Why wasn't there anything on TV or radio but static? Why weren’t the phones working? What the hell has happened to the rest of the world?

  *

  The ISS

  “It appears our leaders were wrong, Milla” Pavel Yurimentov said. Below them the Middle East, Eastern Europe and most of Russia were obscured by heavy black clouds streaked with orange. It reminded Pavel of a lava flow he’d seen on the National Geographic channel. Onboard sensors registered six hundred degrees along the tops of the clouds. Below them, anything alive was broiling.

  “How so?” Ludmilla replied. Her hands trembled as she gently blotted tears from her eyes. Without gravity they built up until she couldn’t see; small mercy. As careful as she was some of them escaped and floated about the cabin.

  Pavel captured most of them with a cotton ball. It wouldn’t do to get them on the camera lens. He secured the cotton ball in a ziplock bag and looked through the viewfinder to be certain the camera continued to record the greatest tragedy in human history.