“All this time they’ve been preparing for Cupid 23. And just like before, they don’t give a damn about the rest of the world. They’re planning to hide in the shelter down here, where the people in Washington can’t take revenge on them like they did last time. They can survive the freeze while most of the rest of the country won’t. And they’ll do it from the safety of a military base.”
Hannah was stunned. Mark was never one to think logically. He usually jumped to conclusions first and then had to go back and apologize later.
But she remembered Mark and Brad describing the look on Colonel Montgomery’s face when they’d asked about the digging. They said he looked like a kid who got caught with his hand in a cookie jar.
And she too had wondered about the long line of cement trucks waiting to go into an area where they were just supposed to be digging up dirt. It never dawned on her at the time to pursue it. But perhaps this time Mark was right. Perhaps this time he’d added two and two together and actually came up with four.
Still, she was desperate to believe it wasn’t so.
“But… how would they know about Cupid 23 without NASA?”
“Baby, I don’t think NASA went out of business. That wouldn’t make any sense. The people at NASA all knew Saris 7 was coming before anybody else. They had more time to prepare. If anyone was going to survive, it was going to be them. For all of them to get wiped out and ten percent of the dumb shmucks to survive… that’s just not logical. I think what really happened is NASA was ordered to stand down before they could warn people about Cupid 23 and make people start watching their government closely. Either that or NASA has gone top secret and that janitor you talked to was fake.”
“But Mark, look around you. These are good people. Medical professionals. They save people’s lives every day of the week. They wouldn’t be part of any project that would sacrifice most of the population to save a few.”
“Honey, I don’t think all of them are in on it. I think the people in this hospital will be sacrificed like all the others. Like you and me and everybody else. That’s why we have to get you and Sarah out of here and back to the compound as quickly as possible.”
“Go. You go, Mark. You go back to the compound. Help them prepare and if you’re right you’ll still be there to help little Markie if Cupid hits before I come back.”
“No, honey. You and I are a team. We’ll be a team to the end. You need to convince the doctors that you’re ready to go home. I’ll take you home and put you to bed there until you’re strong.”
“But what about Sarah? What about Bryan?”
“I talked to Bryan a little bit ago. I told him about my suspicions. I should have told him right after we saw those cement trucks.”
“What did he say?”
“Two words: ‘holy shit.’”
“Mark, they can’t go back as easily as we can.”
“I know. Her doctor told him last night that the swelling is going down in her brain. Removing the skull piece has helped. They’ll be able to reattach the skull in a couple of days and then to bring her out of her coma. They said she could be home within a week.”
“And what if Cupid 23 were to hit before that week is up?”
“Then they’d be stuck here trying to survive with the rest of the hospital’s personnel. And I’d be fighting my way down here to try to get them.”
“Mark, what about the hospital people? I’ve come to regard some of them as friends now. They’re good people. We can’t just let them perish.”
“We can’t take them into the mine with us. There are way too many of them. We’ll tell them. They probably won’t believe us. But we’ll tell them anyway. We’ll leave it up to them whether or not to prepare. You said yourself that you weren’t sure when Cupid 23 will strike. Hopefully they’ll still have plenty of time to stock some shelters.”
“Mark, I’m scared.”
“So am I, honey. So am I.”
Thank you for reading
A LONG ROAD BACK
Please enjoy this preview of the next installment in the series,
Final Dawn Book 9:
STARTING OVER
David was a dentist by trade. He, like most men, knew the basics of maintaining a car. He knew how to change a battery. He knew how to check the oil, and could even change it himself if there wasn’t a Quick Change around.
He knew how to check his fluid levels, and where to add fluids when the levels were low.
But David had never been a backyard mechanic. And even if he had been he’d have been ten years out of practice. For it had been close to ten years since Saris 7 had collided with the earth, and practically nobody worked on cars these days.
It was for that reason that David perhaps could have been forgiven for not thinking to check on a very important item.
They’d made three previous trips from the mine to the recreational vehicle sales lot on the outskirts of San Antonio. Three times they’d brought back five small RVs from the lot to be placed into the mine to house residents and give them each a comfortable place to sleep at night.
And on all three previous trips there had been no complications. No problems. No mechanical failures.
There had been no reason to believe that this time would be any different.
He duly checked the fluid levels on all five RVs before they left the lot. Walked around the vehicles and kicked the tires. Made sure they had enough fuel.
And he knew damn well there was plenty of brake fluid in the reservoirs.
But because he wasn’t a mechanic by trade, it never dawned on him he should crawl beneath the vehicles. To see whether the brake lines themselves were rotten and cracking.
The RV that Eva drove had been a trade-in. It was five years older than the others, and had been driven on the lot just a few days before Saris 7 hit the earth.
That’s why it was still on the front of the lot, in the same area as the new line of coaches.
Oh, it was ultra-clean, having been meticulously detailed that same morning. And it was very low mileage, having spent most of its time parked behind the owner’s garage. It would have made someone a fine motor home and a great place to ride out another freeze.
But the sad fact was it was older than the other RVs being picked up from San Antonio on this particular day.
The tragic fact was, despite its good looks it was not road worthy.
David was in the pickup, as was the procedure in every one of the previous trips. Behind him were five RVs, in tight formation, just as before. He was running interference, watching for bandits or other hazards. Around every bend he looked in his side mirrors and counted the vehicles behind him. Just to make sure no one had fallen out. And to make sure no hostile vehicles might be coming up behind them.
Eva and her RV were bringing up the rear on this last and fateful trip. There was a good hundred feet of space between her and Debbie, in the RV directly in front of her.
After they crested a steep hill a few miles south and east of Kerrville, Eva tapped her brakes. They were on a steep downgrade now, and she was picking up speed.
The area around Kerrville was mountainous. It wasn’t the first time she’d had to tap her brakes to control her speed.
But this time nothing happened.
It was the brake line David hadn’t thought to check. The one that was five years older than those on the other RVs. The one that the dealer would have swapped out before it was placed back up for sale again, but never had the chance.
The one that was brittle and cracked.
It couldn’t take the pressure of the heated brake fluid and gave way, spewing the fluid all over the highway beneath Eva’s RV.
Because she was bringing up the rear, there was no one behind her to warn her there was an odd pink mist coming from beneath her vehicle.
Or bright red fluid all over the highway behind her.
The downgrade veered to the left, and as David was routinely checking his driver’s side mirror he saw Eva’s
RV speed up and close the gap between her vehicle and Debbie’s.
He saw as it disappeared from view, then immediately looked to the other mirror. But because of the curve of the road all he could see were the mountains.
Debbie, her eyes on the road, never saw Eva coming up close behind her.
Poor Eva, in her last moments, had a critical choice to make.
She could have hit Debbie hard from behind, very possibly killing her good friend in the process.
Or she could veer off the road.
Out of the corner of her eye Debbie saw something flash in her side mirror.
It took a moment to figure out what it was.
And by the time she did there was nothing she could do.
Eva’s RV sped past her on the right, down a thirty degree embankment, and then rolled. Five, six, seven times.
Recreational vehicles aren’t built like cars. There are none of the stabilizing bars or heavy steel frames to help keep them intact during a high impact crash.
And when they roll, they disintegrate into a thousand pieces.
Poor Eva Woodard never had a chance.
Debbie screeched to a halt.
David saw her and did the same. The other drivers followed suit.
All of them got out of their vehicles and ran to the spot where Eva had left the roadway, and then down to the smoking wreckage below.
All of them knew what they’d find. There was no way anyone could survive such a tragic event.
But none of them, not even the most pessimistic among them, could have foreseen the even greater tragedy that was about to unfold.
Final Dawn Book 9:
STARTING OVER
will be available on Amazon.com and through Barnes and Noble Booksellers in July, 2016.
If you enjoyed
A LONG ROAD BACK,
you might also enjoy
ALONE Book 1:
Facing Armageddon
Dave and Sarah Anna Speer had been preparing for Armageddon for years. They thought they’d covered all the bases, and had planned for everything.
It never occurred to them that the single thing they had no control over was the timing.
Sarah was on an airplane with her young daughters when solar storms bombarded the earth with electromagnetic pulses. Everything powered by electricity or batteries was instantly shorted out and would never work again.
Dave was suddenly alone.
He was also unsure whether his family was dead or alive. He assumed that the airplane stopped working and plunged from the sky. But it was scheduled to land in Kansas City at almost the exact time everything stopped working.
Had they landed in time? Was it possible they survived?
This is the story of a man facing Armageddon alone. It chronicles the things he does to survive in a newly vicious world.
It also includes Dave’s desperate and poignant diary entries to his wife. Just in case she did survive, and somehow makes it back to him to find he didn’t make it himself.
From the author of last year’s best sellers “Final Dawn” and “Countdown to Armageddon” comes a new tale of one man’s journey through hell… alone.
Chapter 1:
Dave couldn’t get the tune out of his head. He’d heard it all morning long, off and on, playing quietly in the back of his skull. And it was driving him crazy.
Oh, it wasn’t unpleasant. It was a happy little ditty. At least it sounded that way. It sounded more like sunshine and smiles, rather than rainclouds and foreboding.
Finally, he’d had enough.
“Okay, let’s play a game,” he announced while looking in the rearview mirror at Lindsey and Beth.
“I’ll hum you a tune, and the first one to guess the tune gets a candy bar when we get to the airport.”
Sarah looked at him from the passenger seat. With that look.
“Excuse me, mister? You’re going to get the girls all hyped up on sugar just before I take them on a four hour plane ride?”
“Not both of them, honey. Just the one who guesses the name of the song.”
“Uh… no. If that song is still bugging you, just hum it. If any one of us guesses it, you can buy each of us a cinnabon.”
The girls laughed. Beth gave Lindsey a high five. Lindsey said, “All right! Go, Mom!”
Dave coughed. At first he had no words.
Then he found some, and stated the obvious.
“Why is it okay to get all three of you hyped up on sugar but not okay to do it to just one of you?”
“Because you know I have a thing for cinnabons. And I’m the mom. So that makes me the boss.”
Lindsey broke out in uncontrollable laughter from the back seat, and Beth said, “Ooooohhh, Dad, you just got owned.”
“I don’t know if it’s worth it. I mean, those things aren’t cheap, you know.”
“Oh, we know, don’t we girls?”
Two heads nodded up and down behind her.
“But, Dave, they are soooo worth the price. And I’ll give you a bite. And think how sweet I’ll taste when you kiss me goodbye.”
Beth made a gagging sound.
“Besides, if you want us to help you with that song, you have to pay the piper. It’s only fair. And if you don’t, it’ll continue to drive you crazy for days. Maybe even the whole week we’re gone. And we’d feel so bad for you if that happened.”
“Yeah, you’re just oozing with sympathy for my plight.”
Sarah smiled and blew him a kiss. She was even more gorgeous now than the day they’d met thirteen years before. It suddenly dawned on him that he was an incredibly lucky man, to have such a beautiful wife and family. And that the price of three cinnabons wasn’t that great, in the grand scheme of things.
In other words, he played right into Sarah’s hands. She knew he would, as soon as she let the kiss fly.
“Okay, here goes.”
Dave started humming the tune that had played in his mind a thousand times since the previous evening.
It took the three of them no more than ten notes. They’d have been “Name That Tune” champions in another era.
All three of them blurted out, almost simultaneously, “It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.”
Then Dave felt incredibly stupid.
“Of course. How could I have not known that? The old Mr. Rogers theme song. Sheesh! Now I really feel dumb.”
Sarah said, “Did you know that Fred Rogers was a Green Beret in Vietnam, and wore his red sweater to hide all of his tattoos?”
Dave scoffed.
“Where did you hear that?”
“On the internet. Why?”
“That story’s been going around for years. It was debunked a long time ago. Mr. Rogers was a fine man, but he was never a Green Beret.”
“Oh, yeah? Where did you hear that?”
“On the internet.”
It was too much for Lindsey.
“Gee whiz, would you two stop believing what you read on the internet? Nearly all of it is garbage.”
She turned to her little sister.
“Do we have to teach these old people everything?”
Beth said nothing but nodded her head decisively. She was in firm agreement.
Dave was a man of his word, and after the family checked in at the ticket kiosk and Sarah and the girls got their boarding passes, they made a beeline to Cinnabon.
“Daddy, are you going to walk us to the gate?”
“No, honey, I can’t go through security without a boarding pass, so I’ll walk you as far as I can and then you can give me a great big hug and a kiss.”
“I wish you could come with us.”
“I know, sugar. I wish I could too. But with two of the guys being sick at work, they just can’t let me take vacation right now. Uncle Tommy will understand, and we can go fishing another time. And you’ll be so busy helping Aunt Susan get everything ready for the wedding, you won’t even have time to miss me.”
“Bet I will!”
/> Sarah looked at him longingly. They were going to be apart for their twelfth anniversary. It would be the first one they’d missed.
It was as if he could read her mind.
“We’ll do something special when you get back, I promise. We’ll get a sitter and go spend the weekend at the lake. Just the two of us.”
“I’d like that.”
He walked the three special ladies in his life to the TSA checkpoint and got his hugs and kisses.
He held Sarah close and told her he loved her.
Little Beth rolled her eyes and said, “No mush, you two.”
Dave paid her no mind. He looked Sarah in the eyes and said, “It’ll seem like forever before I see you again.”
Neither of them had a clue how true those words would be.
ALONE, Book 1:
Facing Armageddon
is available now on Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble Booksellers, selected Hastings book stores, and at other fine booksellers.
If you enjoyed
A LONG ROAD BACK,
you might also enjoy
RED Book 1:
The Adventure Begins
The one evil that Debbie could not conquer was the vile cancer that was slowly consuming her mother's body.
Rita was in her last weeks when Debbie knelt at her bedside.
"Daddy taught me how to fight. I kicked a boy's ass."
Rita was aghast.
"Oh, my goodness! That's not the proper way for a young girl to behave. Please tell your father to come and see me immediately."
Debbie fetched her father, disappointed but not surprised that her mother didn't approve.
"Butch, you're teaching our daughter to beat up boys? What kind of life will she live if boys are afraid to court her for fear of saying or doing something wrong and being beaten for it?"
"I'm not teaching her to beat up boys. I'm teaching her first to be a peacekeeper. To try to reason with the unreasonable. To apply logic to the illogical. To try to talk her way out of a difficult situation.
A Long Road Back: Final Dawn: Book 8 Page 18