But nobody took the time to kill bugs anymore.
There were far more important things to worry about these days.
Aisle 8 still sported twenty of the bug bombs, lined up in nice neat rows of five.
Dave hadn’t been sure how many he might need, so he’d opened up his backpack and swept them all into it.
Now, sitting next to the ventilation pipe, he activated ten of them, one by one, and dropped them into the top of the pipe. Then he replaced the plastic bag cover.
He moved to the other pipe and did the same thing with the other ten.
Dave wasn’t sure, exactly, how many he’d need to do the trick.
He remembered that only one was powerful enough to kill everything in his two story garage and the attic crawlspace above it.
Twenty should be enough.
But as an added insurance policy he had something else up his sleeve.
American-made dynamite.
Powerful, dependable and lots of fun as long as it’s in the right hands.
Most modern dynamite uses blasting caps and is detonated electronically and remotely.
It’s just safer that way.
Not this dynamite.
This dynamite had good old fashioned burnable fuse.
He made his way along the bulldozer’s tracks to the pillbox and crouched down next to it.
This part was rather risky, for if a bad guy stuck his head into one of the firing ports it was even odds on who shot who first.
Dave held his breath and hoped his luck held while he took out the four sticks of dynamite he brought and twisted the fuses together.
He took out the lighter in his pocket and struck it three times.
Nothing.
He mumbled, “Don’t you even think about it.”
As though the lighter heard him, the next strike did the trick.
A brilliant yellow flame emerged from the top of the lighter.
Dave lit the fuse and dropped the bundle through the firing port and into the pillbox.
Then he ran like a bolt of lightning, hitting the dirt beside Sarah and Karen.
If circumstances were different in the bunker the dynamite wouldn’t have worked.
If Parker or one of his men, huddled together in the front of the bunker had been able to see, they’d have seen the dynamite drop into the pillbox through the ventilation hole which connected the two.
But Parker and his men couldn’t see their hands in front of their faces.
Their eyes were filled with tears.
And some of them were passing out from the toxic fumes.
They never saw the dynamite because they were too busy dying.
Just to add insult to injury, the dynamite exploded in a mighty roar.
So mighty that Lindsey immediately started bawling at her Aunt Karen’s farm.
The power of the blast was unmistakable and came from the exact direction of the bunker.
The implications were equally unmistakable and Lind was sure she’d just lost her mother.
Sure, she was furious with her mom, but that didn’t mean she didn’t love her.
The blast tore apart the reinforced concrete of the pillbox.
Chunks of concrete rained down near and far.
Dave made a monumental effort to cover Sarah’s and Karen’s bodies with his own, and succeeded for the most part.
Karen escaped injury completely.
Sarah suffered a nasty bruise on the back of her calf, but was otherwise okay.
The bulk of the structure didn’t fly away, though. It collapsed inside itself.
A blast wave traveled down the corridor of the bunker at nearly the speed of sound, picking one man up and throwing him against a wall twenty feet away.
He was one of the lucky ones. His neck was snapped like a twig and he died instantly.
Another man was crushed by debris.
The others were rendered deaf by the sound of the blast.
They were already blinded by the tear gas and were having trouble catching a breath.
The air they were able to suck into their lungs was deadly poison.
Parker, the man who ruled the roost just a few hours before and thought he’d thought of everything, was no better off than the others.
He fell in his bunk room when the blast knocked him off his feet, and knew his end was near.
He curled up into a ball in the corner of the room, a pathetic little man, and drew short breaths until he finally passed out and died.
The second battle of Ely was over.
Dave won them both.
He was two and oh.
He told the women to stay down long enough to trek back up the Caterpillar’s path.
There he verified that the debris from the pillbox covered the entry into the bunker.
Whoever was left in there wasn’t coming out.
If they weren’t already dead they soon would be.
He stumbled back to Sarah and Karen, unsure why he was bleeding from the back of his head.
In the chaos he wasn’t even sure how or when he was wounded. But it was a minor flesh wound.
In the grand scheme of things it was nothing.
“Come on,” he told them. “Let’s find the little ones and make our way back to the farm.”
Chapter 58
As they trekked through the woods, calling to the children, Karen whispered to her sister.
“Don’t say anything to him about Parker. I’ll make sure Lindsey and Kara get the word, and we’ll just pretend none of that foolishness ever happened.”
“No.”
“No? What do you mean, ‘no’?”
Sarah left her side and went to Dave.
Karen couldn’t hear what was said, but that was okay.
It wasn’t her conversation to have.
Sarah took his hand and said, “Honey, I pray to God we can get through this, and I pray to God you’ll someday find a way to forgive me.
“But I’ve got a confession to make…”
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Thank you for reading
ALONE, Part 10: Return to Ely
Please enjoy this preview of
ALONE, Part 11: Texas Bound
It wasn’t the best of accommodations, but it was adequate.
It would allow them to live out the rest of their lives in relative safety, and reasonable comfort.
And they deserved that much. They were good horses and faithful and trusted friends.
Most of all, they’d served their purpose for Sal and the others. They’d gotten them where they needed to go, with nary a complaint or revolt.
They deserved the chance to retire and to relax.
Dave finished stringing the wire and threw the last bag of dried apple treats over his shoulder.
He carried the heavy bag to the center of the clearing, amazed at how it dragged him down. He was getting older and wasn’t in the tip top shape he maintained when he was in the Marines.
That was understandable, for he hadn’t had the time to exercise in recent months.
Going to the gym had taken a back seat to surviving from day to day.
Of course, that would change in the weeks and months ahead.
After walking more than a thousand miles they’d all be stronger and likely leaner.
In the center of the clearing he used his survival knife to cut open the bag of dried apples.
He slung them near and far, in every direction.
Shiloh and Cody would find them, one at a time, while grazing.
It would likely take them months to find them all, but that was okay.
They weren’t going anywhere.
He suspected that finding the treats would be special moments for the big animals. Something which would brighten their days.
And if horses could feel happiness, something which would make them happy.
The soft earth, in time, would allow Shiloh’s injuries to heal. He’d run again, albeit for short distances.
And they’d both enjoy their freedom, such as it was.
Dave thought of saying a final goodbye, but decided it was unnecessary.
They were on the other side of the clearing a full hundred yards away, Shiloh standing in the middle of the creek, Cody drinking from it.
He couldn’t say for sure, but they looked content.
No need for a human barging in and spoiling the moment.
He left them there and walked away, made his way back to Karen’s farm.
He was greeted by Beth, who was the first to see him approaching and ran out to meet him.
“Are you sure they’re going to be safe, Daddy?”
“Nothing is certain anymore, Peanut. But there are few predators in these woods anymore.
“They shouldn’t be attacked by anything. And hopefully man won’t stumble across them. They’ll have plenty of food and water and shelter from the sun. Hopefully they’ll live out the time they have left grazing and keeping each other company.
“I think they’ll be all right.”
He assessed the others, milling about beneath the huge oak tree in the center of the farmhouse yard.
They were the motliest of motley crews.
An odd mix of young and old, able-bodied and slightly crippled.
As Dave and Beth grew closer Sal waved him over.
Dave instinctively suspected the old man was going to apologize for the ten thousandth time.
He was right.
“You should leave me behind,” Sal started. “I’ll be a burden to you. I don’t want Beth’s last memories of me to be something you all had to drag along with you.”
“We’ve been over this before, Sal,” Dave countered. “You’re not a burden. You’re one of us. You’re a part of our family. And you’re not being left behind.”
He turned the wheelchair so Sal was facing the others.
“Everybody ready?”
He looked from face to face.
They were a mixture of excitement and dread.
Each of them was deep in their own thoughts.
“Okay, let’s get this show on the road. No pun intended.”
They struck out, Dave taking point, pushing Sal before him.
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ALONE, Part 11: Texas Bound
will be available worldwide on Amazon.com and at Barnes and Noble Booksellers in September, 2018
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Those of you who’ve been reading Darrell Maloney’s novels may have noticed they’re all rooted in reality.
He doesn’t do zombies because zombies defy logic. Bodies decompose. Muscles deteriorate. Dead people cannot move.
However, electromagnetic pulses bombarding the earth HAS happened before and WILL happen again.
Meteorites impacting with earth HAS happened before and WILL happen again.
The super volcano beneath Yellowstone National Park HAS erupted before and WILL erupt again.
Scientists around the world aren’t quite sure what will happen in the years ahead as it pertains to climate change.
Heck, they can’t even agree on what’s causing it.
Whether it’s caused by a normal cyclic thawing of the earth or by burning fossil fuels, it’s definitely happening.
And the one thing the scientists CAN agree on is that as the polar caps thaw, the people of earth will be exposed to spores and pollens mankind hasn’t seen in thousands of years.
This, in PANDEMIC, is a story that could really happen.
In our lifetimes.
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Please enjoy this preview of Darrell Maloney’s upcoming new series,
PANDEMIC
Scientists knew it was coming for decades.
At least they claimed to.
And perhaps some of them did.
Most of them, though, were as surprised as everyone else when the ice packs started to melt.
Thus began the great debate on what was causing it.
Those with a certain political leaning claimed it was greenhouse gases, the exhaust from machines and smokestacks, which was causing global temperatures to rise.
Others, with different political agendas, scoffed and said it was a natural occurrence of the earth, going through its normal heating and cooling cycles.
An American vice-president used a poorly thought out choice of words and the term “global warming” was born.
The term made him a laughing stock with nay-sayers when winter temperatures dropped to all-time records all over the globe.
A Nobel Prize winning geologist named Martin Sorenson noted that if he’d used the term “global climate change” instead of “global warming” he’d have been taken more seriously and not set a program to combat the problem back many years.
In any event, and regardless of who was right and who was wrong, the earth was indeed changing.
The rising of ocean waters, which all reputable scientists agreed would be a major problem, would happen gradually.
There was plenty of time for seaside communities to build sea walls or elevate homes close to the water.
The climate itself would also change slowly, allowing human beings a chance to adjust.
In short, there was no real need to panic.
Everybody agreed that clean air was important, and the world community continued to work to that end. But the “sky is falling” attitude some had was largely unfounded.
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 north 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.
In northern Alaska, a couple hundred miles north of the Arctic Circle, an Inuit tribe lived the
way their ancestors lived for centuries.
Each year the spring thaw came. The snow melted, the earth grew green with life.
The villagers immediately started preparing… for the next winter.
It was the way of the Inuit, for the season of the thaw was short-lived and labor intensive.
And if they failed to gather enough provisions to get them through the following winter they’d have to leave their home and scavenge from other villages farther south.
Villages which had done a better job of preparing.
This tiny village didn’t even have a name, but its members were a proud people. The elders remembered a time several years before when the green season was far too short, the winter came much too early.
And the winter was particularly brutal that year.
They’d run out of seal and muktuk completely. The caribou was down to just a few pounds. They were in danger of starving to death and there was no sign the thaw was coming anytime soon.
They’d had to dispatch two strong men to another village twenty kilometers away. It was a treacherous journey in near whiteout conditions. But they were able to return with two hundred pounds of whale. Enough to sustain them until the ice finally melted.
It was a humbling and humiliating experience, and one which the elders didn’t want to repeat.
And so it was they drove their people hard to collect the berries. To cast their nets and capture as many hundreds of fish as they could.
To take not seven caribou, but eight or nine if they could find them.
It was a lot of work and they had a limited amount of time to complete it before the first freeze.
But this was life in northern Alaska.
And pride in one’s abilities to survive… and the blow to their collective pride when forced to beg for food from others… was strong.
They’d do whatever it took, work as many hours as it took, to prevent that humiliation from happening again.
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