The Dying Time (Book 1): Impact Page 22

  She did what she had decided to do if it came down to this. Pushing her pistol into her pocket she snugged the mink about her and stepped into the open, startling them.

  Instantly, their weapons trained on her. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Clarissa restrain Will.

  In her best Kathryn Hepburn voice she said, “Excuse me please. Are you part of Joseph’s army?”

  The men glanced sideways at each other. What the hell? The one built like a fireplug answered. “If you mean King Joseph Scarlatti, then yeah. What’s it--”

  “Good!” She cut him off. “Take me to him immediately.” She began walking toward him, stepping daintily around broken brick and wood.

  Fireplug, flushed at her imperial tone. Not even a good-looking bitch could order him around like that. Her violet eyes flicked a switch in his memory but the light was too dim to illuminate anything.

  “Who the fuck, d’you think you are?” he yelled. Maybe he’d knock off a quick piece before handing her over to the local slave master. Poke some of that arrogance out of her.

  “Lola MaDonna,” she announced. “Joseph’s fiancee.”

  Fireplug’s jaw dropped open so far it almost bounced off the ground. The second she mentioned her name he remembered her face, those striking violet eyes, her large breasts. God! He’d seen “Revenge of a Mafia Wife.” The King’s fiancee? And he’d been talking shit!

  “Well?” she demanded. “Are you just going to stand there?”

  Fireplug pushed pumpkin-head’s gun aside. Maybe the King would reward him for finding her instead of skinning him for insulting her.

  “No ma’am,” he said. “Right away ma’am.”

  Lola controlled the knot in her stomach and walked away from the alley without a backward glance. The last thing on Earth she wanted was to see that giant freak again, but if Will and his family got away it would be worth it.

  *

  Edwards

  “We can't stop him,” General Mabry said. “He's just too damn strong!” As if to punctuate his remark a bullet spanged off the entryway and ricocheted down the hall.

  Carl Borzowski, his thinning hair now white, deep lines cratering his face seemed to pull inside himself a little more.

  “Did the Garcias make it out?” His whisper was weak--a man giving up all hope.

  “I think so,” Roland Mabry said. The Garcias had tried to sneak through the lines the night before.

  “Can we get out?” Carl wasn't really interested. The Sunflower control facility was going to fall into the hands of a self-styled King and that meant he’d failed again. He was tired, so damn tired. Ready to give up.

  “You can,” Mabry answered.

  Carl shook his head violently. He thrust a package toward the General, backup disks with the Sunflower control codes. At least they'd succeeded in that. The Garcias had the only other remaining copy.

  “I can't take that, Sir.” General Mabry hadn't called him anything but Carl for months. “My job is to stay here with my men and defend this facility.” He might be outnumbered and outgunned but he would take a few more of those bastards with him.

  Carl knew what his job was. Preserve those disks. Rebuild Edwards or another launch and control center. Destroy the asteroid before it killed what was left of humanity. Impossible! He was only one man, a man duty-bound to live, who would otherwise welcome death like an overdue vacation.

  “Roland, have we told Scarlatti the truth about the asteroid and Sunflower?”

  “He doesn’t believe us, Carl. He's convinced it’s a weapon, and he means to have it. As far as he's concerned, it's the key to world domination.”

  Carl's shoulders slumped, then he twitched as another round whipped past. His failure was complete, and this time the world would die. He opened the blast-proof safe and was surprised to find inside the twin to the package he held.

  “The Garcia's said they couldn't risk taking them out. If Scarlatti gets them...” Mabry finished with a shrug.

  “I know,” Carl said. He debated placing his package inside next to the other, then shook his head and slipped the disks in a button-down pocket of his overcoat. If Scarlatti got the Sunflower and used it as a weapon he could burn it up before Havoc’s twin came around and mankind would die. It was a no-win situation.

  “Are the charges planted?”

  Mabry nodded. They would destroy the building to save Sunflower.

  *

  Ariel's scream pierced Raoul's heart. “Stop it! We've told you the truth. Why can't you believe the truth?” Raoul's lips were so split and puffy from beatings he had trouble forming the words. His left eye was swollen shut and he was a mass of bruises.

  “Because you haven't told me all you know,” Joseph Scarlatti replied. “You haven't told me how to gain control of Sunflower.”

  “We don't know,” Raoul lied. “We're just technicians, trying to get out before we got killed.”

  “Is that so, Captain Carswell?” Joey turned to the former sergeant.

  “No, your majesty,” Carswell answered. “As I told you last night when we caught them, that is Dr. Raoul Garcia and his wife Ariel. They're the ones who developed the laser.”

  “So you lied to me,” Joey said to Raoul. “I see you still don't understand what happens when you lie.”

  He signaled Jamal and Anthony, who stood beside the table on which Ariel lay naked and bound. Metal clips were attached to her nipples and other more sensitive areas. Wire led from the clips to a hand-cranked generator from an antique phone.

  Anthony cranked the handle and Ariel flopped spastically, her scream so high it was almost inaudible, so intense it triggered goosebumps in those who heard it.

  “We don't know!” Raoul shouted. “Yes, we developed it, but the Government wouldn't trust us with the operating codes. Would you?” No matter what, he couldn’t give the codes he'd memorized to this madman.

  Joseph Scarlatti, King of Southern California, and destined to be King of the World, hesitated, almost believing the logic if not the words. This time when they applied the juice to Ariel she bit off her own tongue and bled to death before they could stop the hemorrhage.

  He pointed to Sara. “Her next,” he said.

  The flap to the tent was drawn back and John ducked inside out of the rain.

  “Father? They're up to something. Want to look?”

  Joseph and Colonel Carswell stepped outside with John and scanned the battle with binoculars. Through the downpour Joseph saw men retreating from the launch control facility as his army entered it.

  Joey frowned. The retreat was in good order, not panic-stricken. John was right. Something was wrong. He studied the enemy fleeing from the building. Blood blossomed from the head of a tall, thin man with wispy white hair who was surrounded by a group of enemy soldiers. He spun and dropped.

  “Borzowski,” Carswell whispered. Then more urgently, “We want him alive. Contact the advance party. We want Borzowski ali--”

  BLAM!

  The control center exploded and the shock wave reached out, slapping Joseph and everyone with him to the ground. The tent containing the Garcia’s and Anthony was flattened. When Joey regained his senses and searched the shredded tent Sara and Raoul Garcia were gone.

  “Find them,” he raged, so distracted by mounting the search he didn't think to look through the smoldering rubble for a safe.

  Miles away General Roland Mabry led the remainder of his troops through a burned out mini-mall. He unconsciously patted the coat pocked containing the disks he’d taken off Carl Borzowski’s body.

  It’s up to me, now, he thought. I have to rebuild a satellite control facility and find the Garcia’s. I have to gain control of Sunflower II and stop that damned rock.

  A shot rang out and one of his men folded and fell while the rest dove for cover. Sniper!

  “First squad! Fire and maneuver. Take that SOB out!”

  Mabry rested his back against the stucco wall of a former Family Dollar store and rethought his prioritie
s. Before he could gain the resources he needed to control a satellite he’d have to do something about that traitorous freak who was calling himself a King.

  *

  The ISS

  “Pavel, is that the tip of South America?” Mia Torno pointed to the first land mass they’d seen since the cloud cover began to thin.

  “You are asking me? You are the cartographer,” Pavel Yurimentov replied.

  “Pavel, do not be a wise ass,” Ludmilla Gargarin said as she floated over to the porthole. “It could be, Mia, but I think we need to see more land before we can be certain.”

  Mia sighed. “Our orbital map shows us over the eastern Pacific so it could be South America, but if the tectonic plates slipped as much as what we saw before The Shroud blocked our view, well...”

  “Wherever it is, it has a large volcano. Check out the ash trail,” Ceilia Olafsdotter, Vulcanologist, called from her own porthole.

  Pavel had pulled away from the porthole and was checking out Ceilia. Surreptitiously watching the Icelandic goddess was one of his favorite pastimes. Aquamarine eyes, platinum hair, and that body...he shifted his gaze back out the porthole before Ludmilla noticed he was getting aroused.

  He thinks he’s subtle, staring at the other women, Ludmilla thought, and shook her head. Their marriage was more political than romantic, but some good feelings, not love yet, had come from it. Now, if he just wasn’t such an alley cat, she thought, though part of her realized that with only seven men to go around for eighteen women being an alley cat was a necessary part of their psychological profile.

  As she watched the ash trail downwind from the volcano until it blended with The Shroud, Ludmilla whispered, “It must be hell down there.”

  Pavel laid a hand on his wife’s shoulder and gave a gentle squeeze, but said nothing. Their sophisticated radars couldn’t penetrate The Shroud, which literally crackled with electricity. Monstrous lightning bolts and writhing red and green auroras dotted The Shroud everywhere. Nightside displays were ferocious and privately he agreed with Ludmilla’s assessment. It was hell down there. He wondered if they would ever be able to land.

  Maybe Kent was right. They’d established a temporary base on the moon and were rotating crews between Luna City and the ISS so everyone could spend time in a gravity field. The Aurora space planes of the Americans were truly amazing. Hydrogen fueled, they could land and reach escape velocity from the Lunar surface. By splitting hydrogen from the water ice they’d found at the Luna City site they could be refueled and flown--so long as they didn’t run out of spare parts.

  He turned to Ludmilla, now five months pregnant, and saw she’d put her iPod earbuds back in. From the slightly sad smile on her face he guessed she was listening to Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain. The music went almost eerily well with observing The Shroud. He’d sooner listen to a Scottish dirge. The view was depressing enough without the mood music. He risked another appreciative glance at Ceilia before returning to his duties--thankful once again that all the women on Project Genesis had been chosen for beauty as well as brains and courage.

  *

  Luna City

  “So the nursery is going well?” Christine Jorgenson asked. She was also five months along and the race to have the first baby born on the moon was neck and neck with Ludmilla. The old America/Russia space race with a new twist.

  “Oh, it is going very well,” Dr Sari Vindushanti said in her sing song Indian accent. “Very well indeed. Mr. Oberman is almost finished with the wiring and Olivia has been helping Mr. Wang with the plumbing.”

  She was a small, dark woman with the largest and possibly most beautiful brown eyes Christine had ever seen. Very pretty and very popular with the men on the crew. Christine, a tall, blonde, Minnesota Swede, felt like a cow around her. Still, she wondered... “Sari, why don’t you ever call Heinz or Kenny or any of the men by their first names?” She always did so with the women.

  Sari lowered her eyes and said, “It helps to maintain an atmosphere of formality. The men...they can get embarrassed during physicals.”

  Christine grinned, imagining.

  The Doctor cleared her throat and continued, “And speaking of physicals, you’re physical condition is very good.” She paused, flipping through electronic pages of her iPad. “Except for your calcium levels. You must drink more milk.”

  Ah, yes, the calcium issue. “How about I eat more spinach and more of that soybean stuff we tell ourselves is meat,” Christine replied. She was sure the powdered milk was good for her but, yuck! And worst of all she knew there was good tasting powdered milk on Earth, Real Milk from the American Prepper’s Network to name just one, NASA apparently hadn’t heard of them.

  “That will do,” Sari said. “But use the tanning bed more. The vitamin D will help you absorb calcium.”

  “So how bad is our bone loss getting, Sari?”

  The doctor looked away and whispered, “If we are forced to remain up here for another two years I do not think we will survive if we return to Earth.”

  *

  “She actually said we wouldn’t survive?” Suzy Yakamoto said, staring at the ISS radio with raised eyebrows.

  “Yes,” Christine Jorgenson said, static from Luna City making the word sound like Yezh. “So, Suzy, we need to get busy expanding the farm caverns.” As their chief Mining Engineer, Suzy Yakamoto, was the logical choice to lead the excavation teams.

  “Chris, you’ll need to talk to Nya about the grow light requirements in the different farms,” Alice Anderson chimed in, referring to Nyambura Kenyatta, their agronomist.

  “I already have, Alice,” Chris said. Honestly, didn’t that woman think she had a brain? “Heinz and Muhammad took the rover and a trailer out to the pods to fetch more solar panels. Aeriella and Elena went along to help and to see if we’d overlooked any medical supplies.” Between them Heinz Oberman, their electrical engineer and Muhammad Rahotep, their solar engineer could rig up enough electrical power to run the expanded farms.

  “Okay, Chris. I’ll send Clark and Suzy down on the next bus,” Alice said with a slight smile. Neither Henri Dupree or Mary Adams appreciated it when anyone called their Auroras a bus. She signed off before she could say anything about the wisdom of allowing Aeriella Goldstein and Muhammad Rahotep out into vacuum together. Neither being in space nor the apocalypse had done much to dim the Arab/Israeli conflict.

  Chapter 24: Plague

  Hardy Matthews wheezed and hacked up a bloody gob. His wife Thelma and his children had already died on the trail. He shook his head slowly. “We survived it all,” he whispered. Quakes and fires and choking air. Looters. Violent, killing storms. Winter so cold your breath cracked. And now this!

  He started to chuckle at the irony but broke into a shattering cough and fell to his knees. He couldn’t stop coughing, couldn’t breathe. We almost made it, he thought, then toppled into the snow. Light flakes drifted down and settled on his rapidly cooling body, freezing on his lifeless eyes, covering the scabrous sores on his face and hands.

  *

  “Hey! I’m hooked on something.” Josh’s sled was full of firewood. Even so, it slid along nicely until it snagged and jerked him to a halt.

  “I’ll get it,” Michael Whitebear said, easing to a stop beside him.

  Thirty more men and women used the excuse to take a break. Firewood detail was no one’s favorite, but everyone liked to keep warm. Most just wished there were more snowmobiles available. Dragging the sleds was grunt work.

  “No, that’s all right,” Josh was already out of his harness and moving back to the sled. What’s that? Looks like a pack flap. He shoved the sled back a bit and brushed away some snow. It was a pack, and…

  “Holy shit!” He jumped back.

  “What?” Michael asked, peeling off his harness and heading for Josh. Several others did the same.

  Josh threw up his hands. “I’m sorry,” he yelled. “False alarm! It’s just another body.”

  Michael and a crowd of other
s gathered around. Josh’s face reddened. He brushed a hand across his forehead.

  “Just startled me, that’s all,” he explained. But secretly he wondered if he’d ever get used to it. Denver, Colorado Springs, farmhouses, everywhere he went there were bodies lurking.

  “We’d better get it on a sled,” Michael said, suppressing a shudder. So much death. They were hauling bodies back and burning them if they couldn’t be cremated on the spot. Doctor Fariq had suggested the practice when the weather started warming and the sky started clearing. Soon the snow would turn to rain and all the bodies of those who died during the long winter would begin to decay.

  Josh Adams and Jack Quist, grabbed the man’s arms and Michael and Randy McKinley his legs. It wasn’t until they had hoisted the body onto a sled that Jack noticed something odd about the man’s face and bent to check it out.

  “Christ!” Jack backed away, rubbing his gloves on his pants. “He’s covered with sores!”

  “Build a fire,” Michael ordered. “We’ll burn him here.”

  They burned Hardy Matthews body along with the wood he’d lain on in the sled. Jack Quist even threw his gloves into the flames, then they doused each other with a 20% bleach solution. Unfortunately, the virus was airborne and dropping the body onto the wood blew some into the air.

  They had all seen death in many forms, but the corpse of Hardy Matthews left them shaken. What could do that to a man?

  Michael reported the incident to Doctor Fariq as soon as he got back to the Freeholds but it was too late. Death from Fort Dix had arrived.

  Six days later Jack Quist was dead. His family joined him soon after.

  Josh Adams, the gentle man who liked doing people’s hair, shot himself when the first lesions appeared.

  Within two weeks Doctor Fariq was swamped by more than seven hundred cases. He was an obstetrician. In desperation, he suggested the community start looking for help.