by Darrel Bird
Eternities Embers
By Darrel Bird
Copy©right 2013 by Darrel Bird
No one had really expected to happen what did happen. People were complaining about the state of affairs, and people felt something was coming. The preppers prepped, and life went on. Stocks were still selling like hot cakes on the New York stock exchange. Things were tight, and the job market was poor, but it was still manageable…that is until the proverbial crap hit the fan, and sprayed hell over high water.
What did happen was that Iran finally got it’s nuke rocket, and chugged one at Israel, thinking that would finish the pesky Jews, once and for all, but with God protecting her borders, it just never worked out like the president of Iran dreamed of day and night, his hate eating away at him like rot on a dead pig. Israel fired one back, and devastated Tehran leaving nothing but a memory of all the presidents’ men, including the president…not even a greasy spot on the wall, because there weren’t any walls left.
The bomb Iran fired at Israel fell miles short of Israel’s borders, and took care of Israel’s closest enemies, and the wind took the fallout to the Middle East like snow on a high mountain.
This wouldn’t have been too bad except North Korea, being suspicious as they were, chunked their brand-new nuke at the U.S., but due to their bad guidance systems, the bomb hit right on the Chinese border. China then chunked one at Russia, and Russia, in turn chunked a couple at the U.S., succeeding in landing one on the Canadian border.
The Americans, and Canadians couldn’t figure which country they were aiming at so they both decided to let it go, since it brought no damage to other than a bunch of innocent trees, and rocks, and since the wind carried the fallout back to Moscow anyway.
The U. S. Sub captains chunked theirs at North Korea, and the middle East. The fallout from the nukes wasn’t the worst thing resulting from all this; the oil stopped flowing in any direction. Most people bent over to kiss their ass good-bye, and when they did they looked between their legs, and saw starvation coming, straightened up, and headed for the grocery stores, their Hummers, and four by fours pedal to the metal. The next day you couldn’t buy a stamp to lick the glue off.
The giant turbines kept whirring for a while, but the power grid was inexplicably tied to the Internet, and the lights flickered a few times, and went out.
In Rockets red glare
Austin Childers was not a man to lean toward panicking or hoarding where he lived along the banks of the Cowlitz River. He was a 73-year-old veteran of the Vietnam War, living on social security. He could have used a hand out from the government, but he had gone through the war unscathed, and was healthy as the proverbial horse. He had gone to the doctor a couple of times with his lower back, the doctors…expecting him to be half dead, tried their best to find something wrong with him, so they could sell him some pills. He got mad, told them all to go to hell, climbed on his Harley, went home and never went back.
He was sitting on the front porch cleaning his bolt-action rifle when Arnold Begs came walking up to the house. Begs lived three hundred yards down the road with his wife and fourteen-year-old son. He didn’t like Arnold much, ever since he had seen him beating his son out in the yard as he passed Arnolds house, but he tried to get along with everybody, even the Arnold Begs of the world.
“Hey Childers, you have anything to eat?” Arnold asked as he walked up to the edge of the porch.
“I don’t have anything to spare Begs; I have to feed my wife, daughter, and grand daughter.”
Austin could see the hump the pistol made under Begs coat, and he eased a bullet into the bolt action 308 rifle, and then eased the bolt shut as the conversation he knew was coming did come.
“I don’t have anything down there, and you gotta share with me!” Begs declared in his whiny voice.
“I can spare a half-pound of beans, but that’s all Begs, why don’t you hunt something or fish?”
“I can’t hunt with my game leg; it hurts.” The whining grated on Austin’s nerves like fingernails over a blackboard.