Debbie laughed and took a bow and said “I’ll be here all week…”
David addressed the crowd.
“You’ve probably heard this all before, but poor dental health can lead to other health issues. I have a full dental clinic, and even have the ability to take dental x-rays with a portable x-ray machine. I encourage each of you to get with me and schedule a cleaning and checkup, so that we can take care of whatever your dental needs may be.”
“Can you replace my dentures if they break or wear out?”
“Yes indeed I can, and if you want to come and see me, I’ll make a mold and make you another pair so that you have a spare.”
“Anything else for me? No? Okay, I’ll give you back to Mark.”
Mark came back to the front to add a few things.
“You’ll notice that we’re very big on conservation. The reason we use paper products for dishes is to save dishwater. The reason we recycle our shower water is to preserve more water for drinking. The reason we’re conserving our food by limiting our calorie intake is to stretch our food as long as possible.
“The reason we do this is because there are three essentials we need to survive until breakout. Water and food are the first two. The third is diesel fuel. We’re pretty confident that we have enough diesel to power our lights and heat our RVs and cook our food. But just to be safe, we’re conserving where possible.
“The main way we’re doing this in by turning off all the lights to the common areas at 10 p.m. The RV areas will continue to be lighted all night long, and each of your RVs will have power 24 hours a day. But all other bays will go black at 10 p.m. and will stay that way until 6 a.m.
“We hope that this will be a temporary measure. We will monitor our fuel use closely, and if it becomes apparent at some point that we won’t run low, then we’ll look at changing this policy.
“Speaking of diesel, you’ll hear one of our diesel generators kick in occasionally to recharge our batteries. This might happen at any time, night or day, and it may run from five minutes to half an hour.
“When the generator kicks in, it can be quite noisy. It will sound like a large truck gunning its engine. In fact, that’s essentially what it is. The same Kenworth truck engine that you see carrying a heavy load up a steep mountain road is the generator that will provide our electrical needs. We apologize in advance for the noise the generator will make. But it’s a necessary evil.
“The water crew will have a list of who lives in each RV, and will ration fifty gallons of water per week per person. The way it will work is like this. Your RV has a 100 gallon water tank. If there are two people living in that RV, the water crew will fill it up once a week. If there are three people living there, they’ll come back a second time later in the week and add another fifty gallons.
“They’ll also keep your gray water tank drained of used water.
“Fifty gallons of water a week isn’t a lot, but it will provide a daily shower if you do it right.
“What we recommend is that you take a military-style shower. The military, when they deploy to a desert environment, doesn’t have a lot of spare water for niceties such as showers. So they’ve developed a technique for getting a shower with a minimal amount of water.
“What we recommend is that you turn the water on for about twenty seconds or so, just to get your hair and body wet. Then turn it off.
“Then take as long as you like soaping up your body and applying shampoo to your hair. Once you’re covered from head to toe in suds, turn the water back on. Rinse your hair and body completely, then turn the water off again.
“The four of us- Hannah and I and Bryan and Sarah, have been experimenting with this method for the last few weeks. By using this method, you can shower every day and still use less than fifty gallons a week.
“The showers in your RVs are equipped with two features that will help in this process. First of all, there is an internal water heater inside the wall of your shower that will heat the water on demand. You won’t have to run water and waste it while you’re waiting for it to warm up. It will be warm almost instantly.
“Secondly, the showers have a ‘low water’ warning bell that will start ringing when you’re down to your last five gallons. If you’re covered with soap and shampoo and you hear that bell ringing, then you’d better hurry. Or you’ll be walking around with shampoo head all day.”
Sarah spoke up.
“You ladies will also notice when you shop at our Walmart that we didn’t stock any conditioner. That would be just an extra rinse you would have to make that would waste more water. Instead, we made sure that we only stocked shampoo with conditioner added to it.”
Mark went on.
“Okay, you’ve heard me rattle enough for one day. I’ll shut up, but I want to add two more things first. Please, please, don’t pee in the shower. The process for processing gray water at our treatment plant is not the same process as processing sewage. Please pee only in the lavatories.
“Also, please don’t ever pour a leftover drink onto the ground or throw it away. Water is more precious than gold. Even a half-finished cup of coffee or bottle of water. If you’ll bring those to the kitchen, you’ll find a large water tank you can pour them into. We’ll take it to the water treatment plant, purify it, and add it to your shower water supply.
“Okay, any questions? Good. Thank you for your patience.”
-48-
On the outside of the mine, the world was in chaos. Tens of thousands of people across the country were committing suicide each day. Some were taking their entire families with them. And the same thing was happening all over the world.
Coroners were no longer doing autopsies. They had no time. And many of their employees had simply stopped coming to work.
They merely collected the bodies, said a few words over them, and then buried them in mass graves.
The President had declared Martial law. The United States military abandoned their overseas bases and came home with their families, leaving their pets and most of their belongings behind. They were needed back home to help keep order.
The official government position, of course, was that it was just a temporary measure. The Chinese rocket with the nuclear warhead would save them all. So the Pentagon told military families to leave their pets in kennels or with local national friends, and that their belongings would be safe with local caretakers hired for the job. After Saris 7 was blasted from the sky, they could return to their homes.
But the claims were greeted with great skepticism. And each planeload of people the U.S. Air Force shuttled back to the states was filled with surly, disgusted people.
And as soon as the last plane left each of the overseas bases, the local nationals flooded in to loot what they could and scavenge for food.
Back home, the National Guard was activated and put on high alert. In the larger cities, they were armed with machine guns and assigned to local police precincts to help keep order. Local cops, less well armed, fought to keep the crowds at bay during daylight hours. The military struggled to combat widespread looting in the hours of darkness.
Shootouts, especially in the cities, were occurring more and more frequently. One reason was that people had simply given up. They were determined to loot whatever they needed to survive. And if they were caught and had to commit suicide by cop? Well, it was still better than starving to death.
The company that created the suicide kit couldn’t make them fast enough. Other companies began to make and distribute their own versions.
And bootleg versions were hitting the streets as well. A sick bastard in Pittsburgh was filling syringes with liquified rat poison and passing them out to the homeless and the desperate for a few bucks. He promised them a quick and painless death. He didn’t stick around long enough to watch then writhe in agony for hours before slowly succumbing.
Drug dealers were doing a bang-up business as many of their regular customers were overdosing on purpose. Better to go out on
an incredible high, they reasoned.
Johns were seeking out prostitutes in great numbers for more or less the same reason. They wanted to have as much fun in their last hours as possible, before pulling that trigger or jumping off that bridge.
Police, at each of the overpasses in some of the big cities, used traffic cones to block off one lane of traffic on the streets below. They didn’t advertise it as such, but it was a convenient “jumping lane.” And people on the bridges above were using the lane in increasing numbers. So much so that the coroners’ workers who came by periodically to collect the bodies had to keep a constant watch overhead. They were afraid they’d get crushed by the next one.
The coroners had run out of zipper bags several days before. They were simply stacking the dead like cordwood in the back of their vans, unloading them at the city landfill, and going back for more.
It was impossible to get liquor, beer and wine. All of it had already been either purchased by day or looted by night. All the shelves were empty now. Breweries stopped making beer. Every time they sent out a truck it was hijacked, and their drivers were sometimes killed. So they all shut down and sent everybody home.
The President was on the television daily. Trying his best to calm the public. To convince them that they had it handled. That everyone would be okay.
He told them over and over again not to panic. That the rocket was ready to launch. That they were merely waiting until the optimal time to launch it, on the afternoon of January 14th. The day before Saris 7 was due to collide with earth in a wheat field in rural China.
Most people who watched the President’s speeches each day kept their eyes glued on his face. Hanging their hopes on his every word, clinging to their belief that he could save them in this desperate hour.
But a few who looked past him noticed some very subtle things. The dark blue wall behind him seemed a shade different than the same wall a day before. Perhaps their television just needed to be adjusted.
But wait a minute. The American flag behind the President had some very subtle folds in them. Like the flag had recently come out of a box. Were those wrinkles there the day before?
And the truck on top of the flag. The little gold ball. Wasn’t the one at the news conference a couple of days ago just a little bit larger?
That’s when the most astute of the President’s listeners finally gave up hope. When they realized that the President was no longer in the White House press room. That he had moved to another location. That he was now in his hidden bunker, standing in a room that was constructed to be identical to the White House press room. To fool the American public into believing his claims that he wasn’t worried. That he was in this with them.
No, now the President was safe. And he couldn’t be reached by the angry mobs. And he needn’t worry about Saris 7. Because he and his family were safely tucked away. They would be warm when the world turned cold. They’d have plenty of food to drink and plenty of water to drink. And they would survive.
The President quoted Roosevelt to try to convince the American people that all was not lost.
“Let us not give up hope. All we have to fear is fear itself. I implore you, do not do the rash things that others are doing. Do not panic. Help your neighbors, help your friends. Bring no harm to their doorsteps.
“We are in this together. And together, we will persevere.”
-49-
Back inside the mine, the large television in Bay 8 stayed tuned in to CNN. The adults hovered around it non-stop, hoping and praying for a miracle. Most had secretly given up hope, of course. But they had trouble admitting it to themselves, and certainly wouldn’t admit it to the others.
So they, like everyone else around them, put on brave faces and played the game of make believe.
The parents comforted their children. “Everything will be okay.” They told them. “Yes, of course. All of your little friends from school will be okay. They all have safe places to go too.”
And even as they lied to the littlest victims of Saris 7, they tried their best not to think of their own friends and neighbors, their own family members, who were stuck on the outside.
And they all- even the ones who’d never found God- prayed. A lot.
-50-
JAN 10, 2016 5 DAYS UNTIL IMPACT
Perhaps it was his personal desire to do good. Perhaps he was just sadistic and wanted to provide a type of false hope. Or maybe he honestly believed in what he was saying.
Or maybe he just wanted to have his fifteen minutes of fame before he died.
Whatever Denny Hale’s motives were, it didn’t really matter much.
When he walked into a major news hub in Atlanta and said he was a government scientist, they didn’t scoff. Didn’t ask for credentials or proof. They were desperate for a new angle, after broadcasting the same tired interviews with the same talking heads for days.
And when Hale said he might have a solution that could save hundred of thousands of people, he was ushered into Studio 4 and immediately put on the air. No makeup, no prep. Live in 3..2..1.
Hale then captivated the world when he claimed that the belt of warmth that surrounds the earth’s girth- the equator- was the place to go to survive the catastrophe.
He explained that the reason the equator was the warmest place on earth was because it was the closest spot on earth to the sun. And it was that extra warmth, he claimed, that would allow humans to survive the collision and weather the ensuing storm of a long, cold winter.
Hale maintained that yes, of course it would be cold there too. But with the help of huge sheets of glass to focus the dim sunlight which made it through the dust canopy, that certain species of plants could grow and prosper underneath the glass. Enough to feed hundreds of thousands of people.
At any other time, of course, the world would have scoffed at Dr. Hale. Called him a crackpot. Laughed him out of town.
But these weren’t normal times. People were desperate, and they were grasping at straws. No matter how flimsy those straws were.
No one thought to wonder where the thousands and thousands of panes of glass would come from. Or who would erect them in the five short days before Saris 7 hit. Or who would determine which plants to plant or where the plants would come from.
No. No one thought to ask the basic, common sense questions that needed to be asked to poke holes in Dr. Hale’s plan. They finally had the ray of hope they’d needed. And all it took was a twenty minute interview with this man on national television to start a stampede of 350,000 Americans south, toward the Mexican border, where they planned to make their way to Central America and to survival.
It only took Mexico half a day to have enough of this foolishness and declare their borders closed.
The cars just inside the International Border on the United States side couldn’t turn around because a long line of cars was behind them. They pleaded with the Mexican authorities to reopen the border gates and let them in, so they could turn around and return to the United States.
Mexican authorities weren’t having it. They saw the miles-long traffic jam on the American side as a very effective way of keeping Americans out of their country.
But just to be sure, they backed two army trucks up to the border gates. Each one had a machine gun, pointed at the Americans clamoring to be let in. This same scenario played out at all thirty seven border crossings from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean.
That didn’t stop people from coming, of course. Cars, trucks, and RVs from all over the country made a beeline to the border. Thousands came from Canada too.
No one could really blame them, of course. In the same manner an atheist turns to God on his deathbed, these people were grasping at any hope of salvation they could. And even when they were told of the traffic jams, they went south anyway. They were convinced that Mexico would do the right thing, the humanitarian thing, and reopen the borders. After all, they reasoned, they had no plans to stay in Mexico. They were just passing through on t
heir way to Central America.
But Mexican authorities had put a lot more thought into it. They reasoned that the small countries of Guatemala and Belize would close their own borders with Mexico. And Americans would be trapped in their country. Hundreds of thousands of them. Maybe a million or more. And there wasn’t even enough food and fuel to take care of their own citizens.
No, the humanitarian thing to do was to seal the borders and deny them entry. So that’s exactly what they did.
Traffic on the American side, on every single highway going into Mexico, became backed up for a hundred miles or more. Desperate people either never heard the news reports telling them to turn back, or they heard the reports and failed to heed them because they had no other options.
Once they joined the traffic jam, of course, they were trapped by other cars that quickly showed up behind them.
In the mine, Hannah joined several of the guests in the lounge area in Bay 8. Their eyes were glued to the large screen television, on CNN, watching the drama unfold. The traffic jam was growing longer and longer by the hour.
The CNN News crew reported on a desperate situation. They said that traffic on Interstate 10, heading into El Paso, Texas and the border city of Juarez, Mexico, was backed up for over two hundred miles now.
And it was hopeless. Mexico was adamant that they wouldn’t be reopening the borders. Those stuck in the gridlock had been running their cars to help stay warm. Most of the cars were out of gas now, and couldn’t be moved even if the borders were open.
Cars were crossing over to the eastbound lanes driving the wrong way in a desperate attempt to get to the border, causing a second, sixty-mile long jam on that side.
And it wasn’t just the gas that was running dry. Short-sighted people were trying to get to Central America with scant provisions. With typical American arrogance, or perhaps naïveté, they just assumed there would be truck stops and restaurants every step of the way. But the few businesses that were still open weren’t getting resupplied. And their pantries and shelves were empty.
Final Dawn: Escape From Armageddon Page 17