He had trouble making out their features apart from the fact that they looked too big around the shoulders to be women. Then, one of them started walking in the direction of the house, and the other stared after him with his arm out, resigned his posture, and followed.
Jack pursed up his lips and looked down at his rifle. He looked back up and saw them approaching, and he snatched it up and pushed a round into the chamber then slammed the bolt home. He watched them enter the yard and took a step back from the window into shadow. What the hell is this? He slid his finger down near the trigger guard but left the safety on and waited as the men approached—one of them tall, the other shorter and stockier, both with dirty blond hair. They walked forward at a brisk pace, eyes scanning the house.
Inside Jack gripped his rifle tightly, hands creaking on the gun’s finish, but his eyes stayed pinned on the men. He watched, biting his upper lip, as they mounted the porch and the tall one opened the screen door and knocked.
“Hello, is anybody home?” The taller man said as he rapped on the door.
Jack froze, and his eyes darted from side to side. He crouched to the side of the window where he could still see through the curtain and remain hidden. His pulse quickened as he stared at the men, and he raised the rifle’s butt to his shoulder, switched off the safety, and held it ready to fire. He could easily take a shot through the window which would scatter them, but if he missed, he could end up trying to cover both exits along with the windows. Alternatively, he could simply track the barrel over a few feet and hit one of them coming through the door. The door opened toward Jack, so it would hide him for an extra moment if the men entered the house.
The knocking grew louder as the tall man’s voice grew hoarse. “Hello is anybody home? We need some help. We’ve got a flat tire. Can we use your phone?”
Jack stayed crouched and shook his head. What do you take me for? Flat tire? Phone? They didn’t plan this out very well. Who doesn’t have a cell phone these days? And they didn’t even look around in their truck for a spare tire or anything. No way, I’m not openin’ that door for nothin’!
The door knob jiggled as the tall man tried it, and then he took a step back and slammed the sole of his foot into the door. Jack flinched as the frame cracked, and the door bounced off the wall’s bumper back toward the man. He stopped it by simply stepping in and letting it thud his shoulder.
Jack closed his left eye and stared down the sight. This is it! I knew all these outsiders meant trouble. Damn parasites!
The men’s shadows pierced the room and crept across the floor to the wall where they paused. Jack saw the shadows of their heads moving back and forth, made clown-like due to the sun’s low angle, as they whispered to each other. His heart dropped into his stomach, and he looked with a start to his right to see if his shadow was on the wall too, but realized he had gotten out of the window’s light. Keep it together. He realigned his eye with the sight and moved his finger down to the trigger. As his finger eased over it he slowed his breathing and squeezed ever so slightly, not enough to fire, but to hold it in the ready.
The shorter man’s voice was tight and high pitched. “See anything?”
The man’s accent immediately got Jack’s attention. Up north perhaps, definitely out of state.
The tall man stood still as his eyes waved over the room. “Looks empty.” He pulled a gun from a recess in his jacket. “Stay alert.”
Jack heard a sliding sound he could not mistake, a pistol being drawn. In the shadows he saw a protrusion from the taller man’s hand as he held it up by his head. Jack tightened up and kept his eye on the sight. Then he heard a click from a revolver as the hammer cocked. He aimed just to the right of the door at the level of the tall man’s head. The man stepped in and Jack saw his gun first as it passed the door. He decided right at that moment that he had to shoot first, no talking. A pistol inside the close confines of a house vastly favored the other man. He waited as the man’s arm came into view, then the shoulder, and finally the nose and chin. Jack guessed at the exact moment he would see the eye and squeezed the trigger.
The tall man had just passed the door’s edge enough to see the rest of the room, and for a fraction of a second he thought he glimpsed a shape in the corner when there was a flash. Then a bullet ripped into the side of his neck, near the jaw, and he collapsed into a pile on the floor.
Jack’s rifle was intended for deer: human mass only toyed with its capabilities. Before the man hit the ground most of his neck’s contents ejected from a large exit wound and followed the bullet fragments into the partition that separated the foyer from the dining room with a sickening splat. Jack heard the heavy thud as the pistol hit the floor out of view. The stocky man gasped, and Jack quickly slid the bolt back to eject the empty cartridge and simultaneously pull the next one from the clip. He slammed the bolt back in, rested his cheek on the stock, and peered down the barrel with a grace that he thought he would not exhibit at such a time, almost calm.
“Holy Shit!” The stocky man cried out. He did not bother checking his friend for vitals, because his neck looked like a funnel.
Jack heard a slight scrape as the man picked up the pistol and braced for a shootout. Instead the man sprinted across the yard back to the truck. Jack ran to the door yelling, “And stay out!”
The man might have heard it as he threw the door open, turned the ignition, and floored the gas. The tires burned on the asphalt and smoke billowed into the air as the truck tore off out of view.
Jack watched the truck disappear breathing as if he had just sprinted a mile. He stood still awhile staring at the trees where he last saw the truck, and then he reached inside his front pocket and touched his cell phone while he considered what to say to the police. I had the right to do it. The guy trespassed with a gun, and I clearly acted in self-defense. The thought was momentarily comforting, because he had heard about cases of burglary and assault where the criminal got beat up, sued, and won. He knew that the tall man might have fired first given the chance, and the tables could have been turned.
Jack’s eyes looked wide and unseeing as he replayed the events in his head. He looked back at the lifeless body, missing most half the neck. Then he stepped out onto the porch and retched over the railing. His eyes filled with tears that blurred his vision as cold and hot flashes simultaneously flushed through his skin. Beads of sweat swelled up and rolled down his face, his hands shook, and his knees wanted to give out. He staggered back in and caught a glimpse of himself in the hall-stand mirror. His ashen skin reminded him of a trauma victim’s. The sweat pouring down his forehead made his hair look like he had just come in from the rain. It had all happened in a few moments but felt like a day.
The man’s blood flowed out and pooled around the door, taking up most of the entrance. Jack dialed the police, but an automatic message said he had to wait for two hours. Two hours? He had never known the Scupper police to get very busy. He decided not to move the body while he kept calling, but the message never changed.
Sometime later, with the sun setting low in the western sky, Jack listened on speaker phone to the automatic message reminding him to stay on and wait two hours, and he disengaged the line with a sharp click of the button. He looked over at the body still in the doorway and closed his eyes slowly. He walked over and pulled it onto the porch first, close to the scene just in case the police arrived. He looked at the blood and pressed his hand to his mouth as he looked away, so he fetched some rags and a bucket of water. I can’t believe it. It’s not like I haven’t been around enough blood before. It wasn’t human though. He took a bottle of floor cleaner and dumped half of it right onto the blood and poured water directly on it. He scoured the floor until his arms felt like they were made of lead, and he rested them and scoured some more. By the time the floor looked satisfactory to him, he was covered in sweat and blood stains.
He tried calling the police one more time to no avail. Damn! What is it with cops? Finally, he decided to stop calling
and concluded that they just missed their window to reach this one in a timely fashion. He placed the body onto a tarp and rolled it up like a carpet, then dragged it into the back yard out of view. After that he pulled an old grill out of his shed and tossed his clothes into it, doused them in butane, and tossed in a match.
When he had finished all of that he showered, scrubbing himself obsessively, and decided he definitely needed a beer. He walked out of the bathroom still wearing his towel and threw the refrigerator door open, popped the top on a can and gulped loudly, paused for a second, and drank some more. He finished it in no time and grabbed another. Before he knew it he had killed some of the pain and memory by getting a bit drunk. Jack had always enjoyed drinking, but never the drunken feeling, and certainly not the next morning. He just loved the taste and the road to suffering. He flipped on the TV and sat down to watch the news. It said that in twenty-four hours the asteroid should impact. He felt a giant lump rise in his throat and could think of nothing to do except drink more and keep watching.
He had not done much to prepare for the asteroid. He did not believe the rumors about tsunamis or high winds traveling halfway around the world. He had seen people boarding up their houses with plywood and shook his head. Not me, they’re all full of shit, the scientists on TV, the migrants, all of ‘em! I’m just gonna sit right here.
Chapter Six
Impact Day arrived. Earlier in the week people had scurried around everywhere stuffing food, building supplies, and survival equipment in their cars. On the day of the event not many ventured outside. The occasional police cruiser rolled through neighborhoods and some cars pulled out of driveways only to return home within minutes of leaving. People could have gotten away with setting up picnic tables in the middle of the street in some areas if anybody had wanted to go outside. If they had known what awaited them in less than a day’s time, a lot of people would have done many things differently.
Ron stayed inside that day too. He feverishly rammed rods and brushes through gun barrels and oiled them. He also did a final inventory of all the supplies he had to get through the next month. After all, he had been preparing for years. It’d be pretty stupid to overlook something at the last minute.
Waking up that morning he realized that he did not really know what might happen, that, in that regard, he was really as helpless as everyone else. He chuckled to himself. Wouldn’t I feel stupid? All this preparin’ and what if nothin’ happens? Nothin’. God I’d feel like a fool. Well nobody’d ever know ‘cept me and Cassius.
“Cassius you won’t judge me if all this all ends up being a bunch of hype will ya’?” Cassius replied with a groan, and he patted him on the head. D-day minus one and I’m talking to the dog like he’s a person. What about in a month if we’re still locked down in Defcon-1? As he considered his situation, he reassembled his rifle without really looking and slammed the bolt home. Outside he noticed that the lawn gleamed brightly in the sun with no long shadows stretched across it. He glanced over at his clock and saw it change to noon.
Twelve hours, only twelve hours to go. God! What am I gonna do? He wiped his hands off on his pants and beads of sweat glistened on his forehead. Ron shook his hands in the air and took a few deep breaths. Why is this happening to me? I’ve prepared as much as a person can, far more than most. If anybody has little to fear, it’s me. He had nearly panicked before when trying to think of every possible contingency and had learned to accept, over time, that with great preparedness came great paranoia. This panic wave rushed over him stronger than any that preceded it and forced his thoughts back into the darkness. What if it’s not enough?
Many people had approached the weather problem with what Ron called ‘half-ass-manship,’his word. He had noticed widespread ignorance of certain conditions that were predicted to occur. For instance, he had not seen any effective precautions taken to counteract the dust and smoke clouds that would probably block out the sun’s rays and drive the temperature down, way down. He had prepared better than most, but did at least expect to see people sealing their homes with plastic and duct tape at the very least. He did not know a foolproof way to deal with the projected pollution problem, but he had an airtight bunker. He could quite positively say that everyone whose house wasn't sealed did not have an underground bunker.
He walked into his room and pulled a new winter coat out of a bag, along with matching pants, thermal underwear, several pairs of wool socks with built in synthetic liners, heavy hiking boots that claimed to be waterproof, and a gas mask. He stood in front of his mirror and tried it all on. “I look like a winter hiker who wandered into a biohazard. Well, the guns’ll fix that. The boots sure are comfortable though.” He pulled the mask off and took a deep breath. “God, is this actually happening? An asteroid might kill us all? What’s Gore-Tex and a gas mask really going to do?” He slumped onto the bed with his head down.
At first it had surprised Ron that he had trouble finding much information on living in a post-cataclysmic world after something like an asteroid strike, but once he thought about it, he realized that it made a lot more sense for people to describe what would probably happen, not how to survive it. Consequently, an asteroid really did not change anything from his original decision years before to prepare Defcon-1 as a general safeguard against an emergency. In another scenario his bunker would have been of the same value as a foil against calamities ranging from nuclear holocaust to a rogue state where the government had been overthrown.
Since the announcement on the news Ron had learned that people would be a lot more wary of objects from outer space if they knew the facts. While perusing websites he had learned that hundreds of impacts occur per year without altering the course of most people’s lives. Such as an event in 1972 when an asteroid, estimated at a thousand tons, skipped off Earth’s atmosphere in much the same way that a flat stone bounces over water. It happened over the Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. While Air Force satellites picked it up and some tourists photographed it, most people carried on as if nothing had happened. However, if it had approached at a ninety-degree angle it would have impacted Canada with a blast force comparable to that of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. This asteroid, estimated at approximately one and a half miles wide, sure meant to undo that oversight. Hell was coming, and darkness followed in its wake.
Ron snapped the barrel of his grenade launcher back into place so forcefully that Cassius’ head shot up. Enough of this! The guns are clean. The house is ready. I’m ready. Everything’s ready, time to wait. He put everything down in his bunker and settled in to watch the last day unfold on TV and Social Media.
✹✹✹
Ron tuned in as an anchor explained, “We're following the situation as best we can, but it's touch and go. Due to the dangers of having somebody on the ground, we have no live reports from ground zero. However, people have uploaded what's going on through Social Media, so we've put together a collage that we feel best captures this terrible tragedy. It appears many of these videos come from South Korean uploads, but I'm told they range from Russia to China to South Korea to Japan. Some images are disturbing. Viewer discretion is advised.”
The ground raced by the camera lens as the beating of feet skidded to a halt. Men screamed and women wailed as the camera bounced around the images of tall buildings that lined a wide, city street. Riot police behind a wall of clear shields braced against an angry mob throwing rocks and wielding baseball bats. Fire bombs exploded around the police’s feet and helped push them back farther. The camera panned over to someone screaming into a phone and looking up to the top of a building right over the police. As the camera panned to the top of the building the person holding it screamed at the sight. There was a glimpse of a flaming car close to the roof’s edge and then the cameraman started yelling and sprinted toward the police. Just as he got close enough for one of the police to look over at him the car crashed on top of them and exploded. The flames also engulfed the edge of the mob and the camera’s image
crashed to the ground and went black.
The image cut to a large port where another mob stormed the gates that led to a cruise ship as the moorings were being thrown off. Some security guards got run over by the crowd and disappeared under feet. The mob stormed the gangplanks and more people fell into the water than could manage to run onto the boat. Some people were thrown overboard, and the boat’s engines started. As it began pulling away people trapped on the gangplanks slid into the water and some never surfaced.
The image cut again to a city street, and a display window smashed to pieces as a new car came bursting out of it and slammed onto the street with a spray of sparks and peeled away.
Another cut showed a helicopter listing around a building with several people hanging from the skids before it drifted into a skyscraper. The main rotor cut into the glass panels that made up the building’s exterior and ended up in pieces in a flurry of sparks and smoke, shaking all the people off the outside, and the helicopter crumpled against the building and dropped to the street below. The cameraman still had not stopped screaming as it burst into flames.
People filmed themselves crying into their cell phones, sprinting in mobs down the middle of the street, calmly describing what they felt in their final hours, and fighting off all manner of thugs ranging from looters to rapists. Riots erupted into full scale disasters where prefabricated mega-apartment complexes, malls, and government buildings burned to the ground. Blood flowed in the streets as people were shot, bludgeoned, and trampled under vehicles and feet alike. The nations burned.
The people were alone, and they knew it. The elites, the corporate and political demagogues, had all fled alongside vital, military personnel with a list of excuses enveloped by the word “evacuation.”
The videos faded out, and the anchor appeared watching on her laptop and looked up with a long face. “Clearly a great struggle, and a terrible tragedy. When the asteroid strikes, it's predicted that northwest South Korea, the area of Seoul, will contain most of the asteroid’s primary blast radius, but shockwaves, earthquakes, and heavy winds will follow and affect a much larger area. It's also likely to trigger massive, volcanic eruptions that will add to the already unfathomable amount of debris in the air, blocking out the sun for a period of time. The reports keep coming in.” She looked at her laptop. “It appears in China almost everyone evacuated all of the eastern cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and everything in between causing an unparalleled migration that is flooding west, the same in Russia. Overnight governments have lost all influence and control, impotent in the people’s eyes. It says people are fleeing into mountains and any places that seem secure, just away from coasts, I imagine.”
The Inroad Chronicles (Book 1): Legion Seed Page 6