by Alan Seeger
“We had planned to stop in Barstow and find a train or a flight to Los Angeles,” Nigel said.
“Hell, I’m headed to L.A. mahself,” the trucker laughed. “and it’s only a coupla hours. Depending on just where in Los Angeles you need to get to, I should be able to get you purty close. Train’ll take you a good five hours. Plus, ridin’ with me is free.” He stuck out his hand. “Name’s Jake. Jake Benson.”
Nigel shook his hand. “Very glad to meet you, Jake. I’m Nigel,” he gestured to indicate the others. “This is Janelle, and Geoff; Terry, and Sarah.”
Benson looked at each of them in turn. He cracked a crooked smile. “Y’all ain’t from around here, are ya.” It wasn’t a question.
“It’s a long story,” said Janelle.
“Well, ain’t none of my business,” said Benson, “but I’m glad to lend a hand. As long as you ain’t on the run from the law.” He paused for a moment. “You ain’t… right?”
“No, it’s nothing like that,” Nigel replied.
“Well, come on, then. Hop in.”
In five minutes they were headed for Los Angeles.
CHAPTER 37
2020
The next morning, having stayed up late partying with select members of the local female populace, Brad, Stefan, Ben and Thunder attempted to sleep in. Not being a headlining band, they were sharing a pair of hotel rooms, Brad and Thunder in one room and Stefan and Ben in the other. Wade, on the other hand, was rooming with their road manager, Brent Stanford, and their two roadies, Ron Cochran and Chuck O’Dell, shared yet another room.
Brent was knocking on their doors at 7:30 AM, even though he knew there was no possible hope of getting the boys up and moving for at least another hour. Luckily, their checkout time wasn’t until high noon.
At 7:50, he made the circuit again, this time opening the doors with his keycard, sticking his head inside and saying loudly, “Rise and shine, gentlemen! Time to get moving!”
Finally, at 8:15, he made the announcement again, this time adding, “You need to be up and getting dressed in fifteen minutes or I’m sending Ron and Chuck in after you.” The band knew that the two roadies had been instructed to use whatever means were necessary to get them up and moving, including but not limited to pouring bottles of chilled water over them as they slept, carrying them out to the hotel lobby or parking lot in whatever state of déshabillé they happened to be in, or as a last resort, placing a portable stereo in the room with a mix CD containing music by pop music abominations ranging from Justin Bieber to Ke$ha to One Direction, cranked to a window-rattling volume. That generally had the guys surrendering and begging that they shut off “that crap.”
The threat of being bombarded with boy band and disco got the other four musicians up and into the process of showering and getting dressed.
At ten minutes before 9 AM, Brad, Thunder and Ben were downstairs enjoying the complimentary breakfast bar. Brad had a plate with a cinnamon roll, some scrambled eggs and a bowl of Cap’n Crunch cereal along with a big glass of orange juice. He had settled down at a table in front of the big TV that the hotel provided in the breakfast area. The Bold and the Beautiful was about to come on, but the three of them were the only ones present so he went to the TV and began flipping through the channels.
“The sign says not to change the channel,” Ben said.
“Nobody else is here,” said Brad, “and that soap opera shit will melt your brain.” He previewed the next few channels: QVC. Sid the Science Kid. Merv Griffin’s Crosswords. Judge Mathis. “Gotta watch Judge Mathis, definitely. I’m an excellent drivah,” he said.
“Your Rain Man is the worst,” said Thunder.
“Fuck you, definitely, definitely.”
“You definitely wanna fuck me?” Thunder chortled.
Brad fell silent and made a face. “Shut up.”
“It’s okay, man. You’re really not my type.”
Suddenly the lights and television all blinked off. After just a couple of seconds, the lights came back on. The TV remained off, however, so Brad thumbed the power button and it came back on with nothing but a test pattern. He tried flipping through the channels, but they all displayed the familiar stripes and blocks pattern.
“Huh,” said Ben. “I wonder what happened?”
“Power station problem, maybe?” said Thunder.
“Could be,” said Brad. He glanced at the clock hanging on the wall. The power blink appeared to have occurred at precisely 9:02 AM.
CHAPTER 38
2020
It was only minutes after high noon in Washington, DC.
The city was burning.
Six brilliant meteor-like objects had descended from the sky above just at noon, and before the people of the city knew what was happening, the weapons began to detonate. Four were airbursts, which took place roughly 3,000 feet above the ground. The other two weapons detonated at ground level, one less than a block from the White House and the other roughly three blocks north of the Capitol Building.
Washington was a city in chaos. No one had much information on who might have survived. President Williams? The First Lady? The Vice President? No one knew. There had been little warning as the Dragon’s Teeth descended from orbit.
CHAPTER 39
2020
NUCLEAR ATTACK ON AMERICA
At 1600 hours GMT/UTC on Thursday, October 29, multiple sites in the United States, as well as in most of the world, were attacked using nuclear warheads by unknown agents. Due to the unparalleled chaos which has resulted from this attack, news reports are sketchy and incomplete, but initial reports indicate widespread destruction in the following cities: [those marked with an asterisk * are locations that appear to have been hit with multiple warheads]
NORTH AMERICA
UNITED STATES including but not limited to:
Atlanta*, Austin, Baltimore-Richmond-Washington,DC*, Baton Rouge-New Orleans, Birmingham-Montgomery, Boston*, Chicago*, Dallas-Ft. Worth*, Denver, Houston, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Little Rock, Los Angeles*, Memphis, Miami, Minneapolis-St. Paul*, New York City*, Oklahoma City, Omaha-Lincoln, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Rapid City, Salt Lake City, San Francisco*, Seattle, St. Louis.
CANADA
Brampton, Ontario; Calgary, Alberta; Edmonton, Alberta; Halifax, Nova Scotia; Hamilton, Ontario; London, Ontario; Mont-Laurier, Quebec; Montreal, Quebec*; Ottawa, Ontario*; Prince George, BC; Québec City, Quebec*; Saint John, New Brunswick; St. John's, Newfoundland; Surrey, BC; Thunder Bay, Ontario; Toronto, Ontario*; Whitehorse, Yukon; Vancouver, BC*; Winnipeg, Manitoba.
MEXICO
Acapulco, Cancún, Chihuahua, Ciudad Acuña, Nuevo León, Ciudad Juárez, Ciudad Victoria, Colima, Cuernavaca, Durango, Guadalajara, Guadalupe (Nuevo León), Guadalupe (Zacatecas), Juárez (Chihuahua), La Paz, Matamoros, Mazatlán, Mexicali, Mexico City*, Monterrey, Nezahualcóyotl, Puebla, Puerto Vallarta, Reynosa, Saltillo, San Luis Potosí, Tijuana, Tlalnepantla, Toluca, Veracruz (Veracruz), Zapopan.
Multiple other targets have been hit in SOUTH AMERICA, EUROPE, AFRICA, WESTERN ASIA and AUSTRALIA, resulting in uncounted casualties. Reports indicate little or no damage in the Far East. Multiple investigations are under way.
CHAPTER 40
2020
It was a Thursday morning, and as such, Cynthia Short Bull was getting ready to take the short drive into Rapid City from her home near Ellsworth Air Force Base in western South Dakota in order to do the week’s shopping for groceries and other necessities. She considered herself lucky that her husband, Kyle, was stationed at Ellsworth, just over two hours from their families in Pine Ridge, near the southern border of the state.
He was gone much of the time, on deployment to Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean as part of his duties as a member of the 28th Operations Group of the United States Air Force, and as of today, he’d been gone for two and a half weeks.
She’d managed to get the kids — their seven-year-old daughter Wicapi (“Star”) and eleven-year-old son Tatanka (“Buff
alo”) — up and off to school on time, a task at which she generally had mixed results. Now she had made herself presentable and had walked outside to get into the car.
Something drew her attention , and Cynthia looked up, noticing that there was a brilliant dot of light traveling across the sky, seeming to approach the base from the west.
Just as she had decided to go ahead and get into her car, there was a flash of light and before Cynthia knew what had happened to her, most of her flesh had been vaporized and carried away on a white-hot blast of wind. Her skeletal remains stood in the tiny yard for a moment and then fell, leaving the outline of what, moments before, had been Cynthia’s shadow etched on the side of her car.
It was two minutes after 11 AM.
CHAPTER 41
2020
The world was ablaze, it seemed. Virtually every nation on every continent had been seared by nuclear fire; all but the Asian alliance of nations and their allies. It had happened without warning, and the devastation was so widespread that no retaliation had taken place; for one thing, no one yet knew where any possible retaliation was due.
Aboard the International Space Station, some 270 miles above the Earth, the six-member expedition crew watched in horror as they recorded hundreds, perhaps thousands, of nuclear detonations which carpeted the surface of the Earth. The only parts of the globe that seemed untouched were the regions from Korea down through Japan and China, reaching down through Southeast Asia, then west through the Indian subcontinent and up through the Muslim nations of Southwest Asia.
North America and Europe were aglow like neighboring houses decorated for Christmas. South America, Africa and Australia were spotted with cities aflame. Moscow appeared to have been obliterated, and the same was true of virtually all of the major Western cities: London, Paris, Rome, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles. Washington, DC was nonexistent, a black smudge on the eastern seaboard.
Commander Richard Ray tried in vain to contact ground control. It appeared that the main ISS control centers in Houston, Texas; Cape Canaveral, Florida; Korolyov, Russia and Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany were all offline; whether communications had simply been disrupted by the blasts, which the crew knew would have generated huge electromagnetic pulses, or the facilities had actually been damaged or destroyed was unclear. What they
did know was that they were in orbit 270 miles up, and as far as they were concerned the six of them might as well be the last surviving humans.
They knew that was not the case, because there were large portions of southern and eastern Asia that appeared to be untouched. Who, then, was responsible for the holocaust they were witnessing?
Ray thought he knew. It was no coincidence that it was the West that had been ravaged. He was in the observation area of the ISS, the module known as the Cupola, looking down on the planet as it seemed to slowly spin beneath them, when Flight Engineer Pavel Antonov joined him. Both men were quiet for a time. They were over western Russia, and what was left of Moscow was glowing beneath them as night fell there. It appeared that the city had been hit with at least five, perhaps as many as seven warheads.
“I’m sorry, Pavel,” said Ray.
“You did not do this,” said Antonov. “Nor your military. I have seen United States. Washington is in same shape as Moscow, maybe worse. Is not Americans’ doing.”
“I know,” Ray replied. “But I’m sorry just the same. Did you still have family there?”
“Mother, father, both dead years ago. My babushka — my grandmother — was still in Moscow. She was one hundred two years old.”
“Again, I’m sorry.”
“She had good long life. My only hope was it was quick for her.”
“I understand,” said Ray.
“You? You have family, back home?” asked Antonov.
Ray paused, thinking of his wife, of their three children; two girls and a boy.
“Yes. My family is in League City, just outside of Houston.” He paused, tears welling in his eyes. “It… it doesn’t look good.”
Antonov clasped him on the shoulder. “And we are stuck in tin can, not able to help. Is bullshit,” he said.
Ray looked at him and nodded sadly. “It is that, my friend. Bullshit.”
CHAPTER 42
2020
At 57, Rob McClure had been a lobster boat captain for more than twenty-five years. One of nearly six thousand licensed lobster harvesters in the state of Maine, he and his sternman, Joseph Ross, left Holyoke Wharf in South Portland every morning shortly after 5 AM to drop lobster traps along the Maine coast.
Today was no different, as McClure’s 36-foot fishing boat, the Lorelei, fished for Homarus americanus, better known as the American lobster, in the waters of Casco Bay.
As McClure guided the Lorelei between the various spots where his color coded buoys — green, white and red — bobbed in the waves, Ross prepared the bait which would lure the juicy crustaceans into the traps. He cut redfish and porgies into sizeable chunks and slid them onto large metal skewers called bait needles that helped him thread the bait onto a cord inside the traps themselves.
As they encountered each buoy, McClure attached the stringer for that set of traps to a hydraulic winch on board the Lorelei and hauled the traps up out of the water. There were eight rectangular, cagelike lobster pots attached to each stringer. As they hauled the traps aboard, Ross opened the hatches of each one and he and McClure sifted through the contents, measuring the lobsters to make sure they met size requirements. In Maine, a lobster had to measure at least 3¼ inches, measured from the rear of the eye socket to the beginning of the tail, and no more than five inches, in order to be a “keeper.” If a lobster was too small, it was released to grow larger. If it was too large, it was released to reproduce and hopefully strengthen the overall crop. Fish, crabs, and other types of sea creatures that wandered into the traps got thrown back into the water as well, as did females carrying eggs.
As each trap was emptied, Ross replaced the bait and stacked the trap at the stern of the boat. When all eight traps had been rebaited, McClure lowered the stringer into the water and the traps splashed back into the deep one by one, where they sank to the ocean floor. They would stay there overnight, and the entire process would be repeated tomorrow.
Something happened at midday, however, that changed their plans for the foreseeable future.
They had dropped anchor near Cliff Island, near the middle of Casco Bay, to eat their lunches. November would come howling in soon, and the weather was showing it. Despite the fact that lobster fishing generally continued until early December, this late October day was packing some strong, gusty winds that were making it a generally miserable day for both men. However, the fishing had been good so far; McClure estimated that in the six hours since they pulled in their first stringer, they had probably brought in about 400 pounds of lobsters. Hopefully we’ll continue to have good luck this afternoon, he thought.
He had just pulled out the lobster roll and bottle of Moxie that his wife had brown-bagged for him when something like the flash of a camera drew his attention to the southwest.
There, in the direction of Portland, a white fireball like the light of the Sun flared on the horizon. McClure’s heart seemed to stop for a moment.
“Rob —” said Ross.
“I know,” said McClure.
More flashes occurred, one by one, up and down the coast. Each one slowly seemed to turn inside out, resolving into a roiling black, orange, and yellow fireball, until there seemed to be a fence of fire up and down the Maine coast.
Moments later, they felt a blistering heat wave strike them, one powerful enough that both men cried out in pain.
McClure, who had looked directly at the fireballs, could see only a purplish afterimage floating before his eyes and had to feel around for the microphone on the VHF two-way, He asked Ross for his help in setting the channel selector to 16, designated for emergency communication. “This is Captain Rob McClure aboard the Lorelei, calling Holyoke
Wharf. Come in, Holyoke.” There was only static. “Y’lo? Anybody there?”
Faintly, he heard voices intermingled with electronic sounds that made him think of a science fiction movie. He thought he heard the word “Mayday,” and then nothing but a hiss overlaid with static.
Fifteen seconds later, the storm broke.
They were hit by a blast of hot, dry wind like a sirocco. It was like being smacked in the face by a superheated tornado. On top of the searing heat of the explosions themselves, it was like sandpaper on injured skin.
Within fifteen to twenty minutes, both men began showing signs of having been badly burned. Much of their exposed skin was blistering and peeling already.
It looked like the entire Maine coast was burning. There was still no response from anyone on the radio, and they were much too far from land to get a cell signal. Finally McClure turned to Ross and said, “The cities on the coast are gone, man. They’re fuckin gone. Where should we go?”
They discussed the situation as they attempted to dress their burns. Both men agreed that going south to Boston or beyond would be a wasted effort, as those cities were just as likely to have been attacked.
Finally, McClure did the only thing he knew to do; he set a course northeast to the small town of Boothbay Harbor. It was about thirteen miles over rough seas, which took them well over an hour. By the time they docked at Boothbay Lobster Wharf, they were both blistered to the point that blood was oozing from their raw, reddened skin. The people at the wharf loaded them into a vehicle and rushed them to St. Andrews Hospital, where they were treated for burns and possible radiation exposure.
When they arrived at the hospital, they tried using a landline to call their homes, since it seemed that all cell service in the area had been disrupted, but they got only the message that the calls “could not be completed as dialed.”