Each time a bug disappeared, he looked to his humans with a puzzled look on his face, as though he were asking them, “Where did it go?”
The group also shared a more tender moment.
Sara had never seen fireflies before either, and was fascinated by them. Jordan caught one for her, and the rest of the group watched from a distance as the young couple, with the setting sun behind them, peered with awe at the tiny creature cupped within his hands.
Joyce commented, “Those two are falling so much in love. I’m glad she was able to come along.”
Zachary thought once again of Amy, the love of his own life, and thought it was patently unfair that she was missing from the group. Everyone else had someone. Even his Mom had Tom Haskins, the neighbor who lived not far from the compound. And Duke would soon have Duchess.
Zachary suddenly felt like the odd man out. He’d be moody in the coming hours, and no one would know why. They’d all just chalk it up to fatigue and the long journey. But in the night, as he looked up at the stars, he’d see Amy’s face, and sob silently to himself.
-51-
The second half of their journey went without incident. When they were five miles from their destination, Scott did some computations in his head. He wanted to arrive at the compound in the darkness. But to do that, they’d have to move at a faster pace. So for the last hour they doubled their speed.
It wasn’t much of a concession, but it was welcomed by all. It was like a prize for a job well done. And for the first time since the journey began, they could feel a very welcome breeze wash gently across their faces.
As they neared the turnoff for the compound, Scott, still in the lead vehicle, once again slowed to a crawl.
A hundred yards later, when they reached the end of the compound’s drive, he stopped completely and got off the Gator.
The others watched from a distance as Scott crawled around on hands and knees on the dirt road. They had no clue what he was doing, but trusted him enough to know there was an explanation for his odd behavior.
And indeed there was. On his way down the mountain, Scott had strung a light brown thread across the driveway, tied to rocks on each side. The thread was the same color as the roadway, about four inches above it, and was virtually invisible.
It was a makeshift alarm system. Anyone driving or walking into the compound in their absence would have broken the thread, and would have made entering a lot more difficult.
But Scott was relieved to discover that the thread was still intact. No one had gone beyond this point.
He was also happy to hear Duchess, barking menacingly to whoever or whatever she heard lurking in the darkness. If anyone had come this far, it was likely that Duchess would have scared them away.
She was a great dog, as was Duke. Scott looked forward to greeting their first litter of puppies.
He climbed back onto his Gator and led the group into the front yard of the fortified house. Then he stepped off one more time to unlock the gate of the high steel fence which surrounded the compound.
Immediately upon opening the gate, he was tackled by Duchess, who slobbered all over his face and wagged her tail madly, as though he’d been gone for a thousand years.
Duke came bounding over, first to protect his master from this threat, then to watch as he realized Scott was in no danger. Duchess noticed Duke almost immediately. She walked over to him and they performed the sniffing ritual that would mark the beginning of their very short courtship.
It so happened that Duchess was in heat. She and Duke would spend the next couple of days getting to know each other intimately.
The weary travelers parked their Gators in the yard and lumbered off of them, even more exhausted than they’d been the previous morning.
The house was darkened, having suffered the same fate as the rest of the world.
But no one really cared. They knew that in the days ahead, there was much to be done to give the house power again, and to get everything sorted out and situated for their permanent occupation. But for now, they just wanted to rest.
After a few hours of sleep, Scott would go into the darkened basement and remove a 10,000 watt generator from the wood and metal crate that had protected it from the solar storms. He’d vent it to the outside and crank it up.
While Scott was doing that, the rest of the group would crack open the wooden storage building, lined with metal, that held new televisions, DVD players, microwaves, and a dozen other appliances to replace the ones fried by the storms. And by the end of the second day at the compound, they would be living almost normal lives again.
But that would all come later. Right now, after their long journey, it was time to sleep.
The group headed into the house as the sun first started peeking over the horizon, shedding light on their new home. After two long nights of wearing the heavy night goggles, they were sick of them and threw them aside. Duke picked up one of them and took off like a bolt. He had plans to chew his new toy to pieces.
Duchess was right behind him, wanting to share his find. At first he was selfish and growled at her, to tell her it was his and his alone. Then he decided to share because, well, that’s what boyfriends do with their girlfriends.
Scott, at first tempted to chase the dogs to get the goggles back, had second thoughts. He was too tired to run. And besides, he couldn’t imagine the circumstances coming to pass where they’d need the goggles again. So he let them be.
Linda went through the house and opened all the curtains and blinds to let the sunshine in.
Then she read Jordan and Sara the riot act.
“Don’t think you’re being picked on, because you’re not. But I know what it’s like to be a teenager, with all of those hormones going on and weird things happening to your bodies. Even though you’re not guilty of anything, you’re still going to be treated like you are. It’s nothing personal. It just is what it is.
“So, Sara, you and I are going to share the back bedroom for the time being. It’s a big room, with its own bathroom, and two beds. I hope you don’t mind. If it helps, I don’t snore like your boyfriend does.”
Sara went to Linda and held her.
“I don’t mind at all. I’d love to be your roomie.”
Then she looked at Jordan and asked, “You snore?”
Jordan turned red, and Linda could tell from Sara’s reaction that she really hadn’t known.
And she took some comfort in that.
They ate what was left of their travel food for breakfast. And by ten a.m., every one of them was sound asleep.
Except for Duke and Duchess, out in the yard. They were finding other things to do.
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I sincerely hope you enjoyed reading Countdown to the Apocalypse. It was a fun book to write.
The sequel, called After the Dust Settled, will be out in the summer of 2014. It will tell the story of life in the compound and the group’s efforts to reach out to others. It will also answer the question on everybody’s mind: Does Zachary get a girl of his own?
Please enjoy the following excerpt from The Cleansing, now available on Amazon.com and from Barnes and Noble Booksellers…
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Ron Bennett was a scumbag. Not in his own eyes, of course. He thought quite highly of himself. As a former President of the United States, he was well known, and people paid him lip service and told him how great he was everywhere he went. But they did that to every former President, simply because, well, how often does the average person ever get a chance to meet one?
So he was fawned over and made to feel special. But nearly everyone really despised him. He hadn’t been much of a President, after all. He barely squeaked into office after his predecessor finished a very successful second term and couldn’t run again. Bennett, on the other hand, tanked the economy and got the United States into a war with a former soviet bloc country for the worst of reasons. He didn’t like the dictator who ran it.
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So Bennett did what Presidents sometimes do. He misused his power and had his people develop falsified evidence, false testimony, that this nation was developing weapons capable of destroying Israel and the United States. It was all bullshit. But it’s ridiculously easy to deceive a public who doesn’t have access to the truth.
It’s easy for a crooked politician, whose party controls both houses of congress, to mold the truth into whatever he wants it to be.
So Bennett did that. He sent American troops into a country that had no plans to attack either Israel or the United States. And had they wanted to, they didn’t have the means to. What they did have, though, was a strong army which was fiercely loyal to its leader. Loyal enough to die for him. And they did, in vast numbers.
The problem was, they took a lot of Americans along with them. Over 3,000 of them. America’s finest. Our sons and daughters. Dead on frozen battlefields half a world away. For nothing. Because Bennett didn’t like the man who ran that country.
It wasn’t the first time, of course, an American President had started a war for his own ideological reasons. Or to meet his own personal agenda.
It wasn’t until Bennett was defeated by a landslide after his first term that rumors started to circulate. And it wasn’t until the new President stopped the war and withdrew the American troops from the decimated country that inspectors discovered the extent of the fraud perpetrated on the American people.
UN inspectors discovered no weapons of mass destruction. No nuclear capability. No chemical weapons. No biological weapons. Just millions of rifles, rocket launchers and land mines. Defensive weapons. The kinds of weapons that could be used to ward off a rich, powerful country like the United States for a certain period of time. But not to be a threat to anyone.
And later, Bennett’s real motives became known. American Times Magazine did an extensive investigation that took two years to complete. They discovered that the whole slew of them- Bennett, his relatives, his friends, friends of friends, all had invested heavily in the defense industry in the months leading up his taking office. Each one of them made tens of millions. So did the friends and families of the Vice President, the Chief of Staff and the Secretary of Defense. But the investments were so well hidden, so well sheltered in blind trusts and overseas reinvestments, that a final accounting was never completed.
And there was nothing illegal about it. That’s what outraged Americans most of all. The blood money this group took in exchange for 3,000 American lives broke no rules.
So even though individually they fawned over him, Americans as a group grew to hate this man.
Bennett didn’t let that stop him, of course. He did what disgraced politicians always do. He went to ground, stayed on the family ranch for a couple of years, and laid low. He waited for the dust to settle, for the smoke to clear. For people to forget.
Then he very slowly, very carefully, began to reintroduce himself to the public. He became a client of the best public relations firm in the country. They were famous for making the despicable appear tolerable. And they knew their stuff.
They started out by scheduling his appearances at the speaking engagements of other, more popular players. Long-term congressmen who enjoyed approval ratings of over seventy percent in their districts. Senators who were considered up and comers in their political party. Philanthropists who were famous for funding children’s hospitals, or shelters for the homeless.
And at some point during each of these events, the cameras would record his presence in the group. Because, after all, he was a former President. And with his permanent detail of four secret service agents, he tended to stick out in a crowd.
And when asked for a comment or interview from a local television station or print reporter, he’d be careful to take the high road.
“Oh, this isn’t about me,” he’d say. “I’m just here to celebrate the opening of this wonderful new hospital for children’s cancer patients.”
The goal, of course, was to ease him back into the public spotlight. To make him palatable again. To encourage Americans to forget his transgressions, and bury the past. To let bygones be bygones.
If, a little at a time, he could be seen less and less as a heartless seller of American lives, and more as a misunderstood good guy, then he’d be able to reintegrate into society. Begin sitting on boards of big corporations again. Start rolling in even more and more millions to add to his already vast fortune.
And so it was that he came to be sitting in the audience at Mike Allen’s anniversary dinner to celebrate his fortieth year in the United States Senate. He didn’t sit at the head table, of course, although they’d offered it to him. He had a table toward the back of the banquet hall, where he could enter without much fanfare and make an early exit if the crowd appeared to be openly hostile toward him.
And it was while sitting at this table, while Allen was in the middle of expressing his gratitude for the people who put on the event, that Ron Bennett’s heart exploded. Without warning.
He was dead instantly, of course. As his head fell into his bowl of soup, a secret service agent was on him immediately. Shielding him from further gunshots. A second agent helped him to the floor, where he’d be a harder target. A call went out on a hidden microphone, and the two remaining agents at the exits went on alert, scanning the rafters for threats. Then the crowd.
The first agent had the former President on the floor now, assessing his condition. He quickly determined that the President was dead. He had no respiration or pulse. His face was covered with chicken bisque soup, his eyes wide open.
The agent knew he was dead even before his head slumped. Otherwise his reflexes would have closed his eyes as his head fell forward.
He also quickly realized that Bennett was not felled with a bullet. There was simply no visible wound. He keyed his collar mike and turned his head to the left.
“It looks like natural causes and he’s signal 60. Get an ambulance here quickly. No lights, no siren.”
The cleansing had begun.
Countdown to Armageddon Page 20