Dr. Sorenson also famously stated, “We’ll just have to get used to harsher winters and more hurricanes and tornados. But mankind will adjust, just as it always has.”
Dr. Sorenson maintained that, although some might die from stronger hurricanes and tornados, no one would die as a direct result of climate change itself.
So followed many years of climate change occasionally making headlines, but largely being placed in the back of one’s mind.
Meanwhile, the ice packs started to shrink.
The thaw in Antarctica wasn’t a problem to the global community.
And least not in ways that would be noticeable.
The polar bears and sea lions in the area had to change their migration and mating habits, and some had to relocate to colder locales.
But none of that affected Juan Sebastian in Spain or John Smith in Pittsburgh so it wasn’t given much thought.
The real problem was in the Arctic.
Specifically in northern Greenland and Siberia. And at various other places just south of the Arctic Circle.
Ice there was melting at more or less the same rate as the Antarctic, but there was a difference.
A difference a few scientists and geologists had always warned might be a problem, but which was largely ignored.
With the thaw, more and more of the permafrost was seeing sunlight for the first time in hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of years.
For the first time in recorded history spores and allergens once thought to be extinct were being exposed to the open air.
But not just any spores and allergens.
Some were super spores and allergens, having gone dormant before man’s very existence.
Spores and allergens which man had never been exposed to before.
Never grown accustomed to.
Never formed a resistance to.
Spores and allergens which were deadly to man.
As more and more attention was focused on rising sea levels and longer hurricane seasons, the real threat was largely ignored.
The ice pack slowly receded, exposing more and more greenery beneath it.
The greenery felt the warmth of the sun for the first time in forever, it seemed.
It slowly dried out, and occasional wind gusts carried it away.
Some of it made its way into the winds which periodically whipped across the ice pack and was driven south from the Arctic, north from the Antarctic.
In northern Alaska, not far from the Arctic Circle, an Inuit tribe pondered the odd ailment of a man named Amaruk.
“Amaruk,” in his native language, translated to “Grey Wolf,” and his parents named him aptly.
For he was strong and capable.
An expert fisherman. An even better hunter.
A man who, in his thirty-seven years, had always been among the strongest in the tribe.
That spring, though, as several others had, he’d fallen ill to a mysterious respiratory ailment.
He was the first to contract what at first appeared to be pneumonia.
He was also the first to die from it.
From the time he showed the first symptoms: a runny nose and a tickle in his throat, until the time he drew his last breath, was a mere eight days.
During those eight days several others in the tribe contracted the same symptoms.
Their village was so isolated it didn’t even have a name.
They had no medicine men. No healers. No religious leaders.
They were just a bunch of extended family members from four different families who lived life alone way out in the middle of nowhere and liked it that way.
Amka, Amaruk’s wife, died a week after he did; daughter Anjij the next day.
As the mysterious ailment took them one at a time and knocked their faces into the icy dirt, they saw the need to seek outside help.
The nearest village with a healer was a two day walk.
One of the strongest who hadn’t been stricken was Ontuk.
He set out, but made it only halfway before he went into respiratory arrest.
He collapsed and died and wouldn’t be found for weeks.
Ontuk was the unnamed village’s last hope.
As they waited for someone to return with medicine and answers they fell ill one by one.
Then they succumbed one by one.
It wasn’t just Alaska.
Indigenous people just inside the green zone were falling ill with a sickness which closely resembled pneumonia, but which was resistant to traditional forms of antibiotics.
Local medicine men were stumped.
They weren’t educated men. They were men with no formal medical training.
They knew their world was thawing and their people were getting sick, but never connected the two.
No one raised an alarm.
They’d had rough winters before.
Cases of severe flu and pneumonia.
They trudged on as they always had before.
Then their people started dying.
The pandemic was about to begin.
PANDEMIC, Book 1
The Thaw
will be available at Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble Booksellers in October, 2018.
Have you checked out Darrell Maloney’s new series,
The Yellowstone Event?
Here are some fun facts about the Yellowstone Caldera:
- 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
Tony and Hannah are just a couple of high school kids who happen across a woman who will change their lives forever. She’s a carnival fortune teller who warns them of a great calamity soon to befall the United States of America.
The old woman tells them it will be up to them to tell the world of the impending danger.
And to save the lives of millions.
It would be easy to dismiss her warnings as fantasy, except for the fact that she vanishes before their very eyes.
And so begins a long journey for Tony and Hannah. A journey which involves a great mystery, intrigue and danger. Not to mention threats by a government which should be trying to help them, but instead is trying desperately to keep its secrets hidden.
*************************
Please enjoy this preview of
Darrell Maloney’s new series
The Yellowstone Event, Book 1:
FIRE IN THE SKY
The Yellowstone Event series is available now at Amazon.com and at Barnes and Noble Booksellers.
*************************
“Come on! What do you have to lose?” she cried gleefully as she dragged Tony by his arm through the 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 ga
in 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.”
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 out 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 of a demand than a question.
“Oh, I know more about you than that, young man. Stella knows everything about you. Your past, your present, your future. I know what’s in your heart and what evil lurks 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 Buddy Holly 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 in 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 chance to become one.”
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 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.”
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.”
“Screw her.”
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.
The Yellowstone E
vent, Book 1:
FIRE IN THE SKY
Is available now on Amazon.com and at Barnes and Noble Booksellers.
It Can't Be Her Page 17