THE DYING TIME: IMPACT

RAYMOND DEAN WHITE

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2014 Raymond Dean White

ISBN 978-0-9909841-0-8

Cover Art credit: Jennifer at http://www.acapellawebdesign.com

Editing Credits: Duane Lindsay and Jane White

Music Lyrics Credit: James Ronald Hunter

Dedication

For my wonderful wife, Jane, without whose unflagging support this story would be an unrealized dream. If I had two hearts to give, I’d give them both to her.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only and may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient or encourage them to go to their favorite online retailer and purchase their own. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy.

Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1 The Bad News

Chapter 2 Scientists, Artists, Preppers and Mobsters

Chapter 3 Zoo Keepers and Saints

Chapter 4 The Prophet

Chapter 5 The Mugging

Chapter 6: The Reporter

Chapter 7: Joey’s Date

Chapter 8: The Convoy

Chapter 9: The National Defense Authorization Act

Chapter 10: The Prototype

Chapter 11: Last Chance

Chapter 12: The Dugway Tea Party

Chapter 13: Hobson’s Choice

Chapter 14: The Last Day

Chapter 15: Impact

Chapter 16: Immediate Effects

Chapter 17: The King of California

Chapter 18: The Dying Time

Chapter 19: Slaves and Race Wars

Chapter 20: When It Rains It Pours

Chapter 21: Impact Winter

Chapter 22: Starvation

Chapter 23: Scavenging

Chapter 24: Plague

Chapter 25: Semper Persistence

Chapter 26: Rainy Day Blues

Chapter 27: Refugees and Invasion

Chapter 28: Spring

Chapter 29: Surveying

Chapter 30: Battle for Empire

Chapter 31: Forward March

Chapter 32: Buying Time

Chapter 33: Preparing for War

Chapter 34: The Skirmish at Ute Pass

Chapter 35: The Fight at Woodland Park

Chapter 36: Changes in Latitude

Chapter 37: Sniper Duel

Chapter 38: The Battle of Bluebird Hill

Chapter 39: Aftermath

Chapter 40: Epilogue--Two Months After The War

Greetings from the Author

Other Books by Raymond Dean White

After The Dying Time Preview

Cast of Characters

Appendix One: Businesses & Products Named in The Dying Time: Impact

Appendix One: Part 2: Other Extremely Helpful Sites and Products

Chapter 1: The Bad News

Washington, D.C.

Everyone will be dead in two months.

Carl Borzowski, Science Advisor to the President of the United States, sat at his government issue, brown metal desk, head in his hands and tried desperately to think of some way to save humanity. A tall, slender, good-looking man with thinning blonde hair, devoted to mathematics, physics and Jack Daniels whiskey since the split with his fiancée Monica, he knuckled his eyes and sighed--a long, deep, weight-of-the-world gust that left him drained. Somewhere in the back of his mind he realized it had only been twenty minutes since he’d learned the world was going to die. He wished he could toss back a shot right now but he never brought whiskey to work.

“Riiiing!”

Carl stared at the retro-style phone on his desk like it had leprosy. Beads of sweat formed on his upper lip. He knew he had to pick up, but what if it was Harry calling again, probably confirming the worst.

“Riiiiing!” The tone was intrusive, strident, annoying, jarring and, above all, demanding. His hand trembled slightly as he reached for the receiver.

“Borzowski,” he announced. At least the tremor hadn’t reached his voice. Yet.

“It’s Harry Garrison, Carl. I’m sorry, but it’s going to hit. And it’s bigger than we thought.”

“Extinction Level Event?” Carl asked. Please, no.

“The asteroid is almost twelve miles wide, Carl,” Harry explained gently. “Extinction Level is putting it mildly.”

“Jesus!” Borzowski whispered.

“I need to see the President, Carl. ASAP.”

Carl stared at the pewter gray carpet, then at the oak-framed photograph of him with the President. His heart galloped like a Kentucky Derby thoroughbred. He wiped the sweat off his palms on his pant legs. He wondered if this was how combat troops felt when bullets started flying, because he wanted to find a hole. Instead, he took a deep breath to steady himself and said, “Of course. I’ll set it up. How soon can you get here?”

*

The White House

Donna Markwright, personal secretary to the President of the United States answered the phone on the first ring.

“Markwright.” She was all business; the kind of woman who wore severely tailored business suits and her hair pulled back in a tight bun. The President depended on her and she took that very seriously.

“Donna?”

She winced, the too-familiar greeting grated on her nerves like an off-key soprano. Some people had no sense of decorum.

“Yes, Doctor Borzowski,” she replied with what grace she could muster.

“I need to talk to the President.”

The President? Her eyebrows arched. Borzowski usually referred to him as The Man. She hated it when people called the President, The Man. It made him sound like a cop.

“Dr. Borzowski, the President is still at breakfast. And from there he's going straight into a crisis meeting with--”

“Me,” Carl interrupted. “Listen, Donna, there is nothing, you hear me, nothing more important than this. Put me through, right now.”

For the first time, she heard the strain in his voice and wondered if he was drinking again. His voice did sound a bit shaky.

“Carl,” she said, softening a bit for her niece Monica’s sake, “If you’ve been drinking--”

“I wish.”

Two words--so raw and anguished they hit her like a slap in the face. It was her job to run interference, but all her years of experience told her this was BIG.

“Hold one,” she said and keyed the intercom. “Mister President?”

Hammond Powell lowered his fork into his scrambled eggs and flicked the intercom switch.

“Yes, Miss Markwright?”

Her lips twitched in a fleeting smile. The President always treated her with respect, though in her heart of hearts she would love for him to call her Donna.

“Doctor Borzowski on line one, Sir. He says it’s urgent.”

The President sighed. Everything was always urgent. “Put him through.”

He picked up the phone and said, “Carl, what's up?”

Blood drained from his face as he listened.

As soon as Carl was off-line the President toggled the intercom. “Miss Markwright?”

“Yes, Sir?”

“Get Farley up here. I want the Security Council, the SecDef, the Joint Chiefs, and Eli Cohen from NASA here in one hour: no excuses. I want Salazar from FEMA and Winthrop from Homeland. Tell them all to come in through the tunnel in the Executive Office Building. I don’t want to stir up a fuss with the press. And notify my Secret Service detail that Carl will have a Dr. Harold Garrison with him, so get Garrison on the ‘approved’ list now. And hold any call that isn’t from Carl.”

He disconnected and leaned back to think, absently pushing his breakfast away. Eggs were cold anyhow.

Thirty-seconds later White House operators were frantically dialing, texting and dispatching runners.

*

The Situation Room

The President, flanked by Farley Moffat, his Chief of Staff, and Morgan Hamilton his National Security Advisor, walked swiftly into the room and took his seat at the head of a long, dark walnut table. Arrayed down both sides were the Secretary of Defense, the Joints Chiefs and the rest of the National Security Council and Eli Cohen from NASA. At the opposite end from the President sat Carl Borzowski and Harry Garrison.

The silence was deafening.

The President cleared his throat and said, “Carl, why don’t you bring us all up to speed.”

Carl Borzowski ran a hand through his thinning blonde hair and rose to his feet. “Gentlemen,” he began. “I’d like you to think back to 1994 and the concerns raised by the scientific community when Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 slammed into Jupiter. You might even remember several “impact” movies that were made shortly afterwards.”

Men shifted in their chairs and exchanged uneasy glances as they realized the direction this was heading.

Carl continued. “For a while we beefed up Star Wars spending, seeking a solution in case we discovered an object headed for Earth.” He looked away from them. “We failed to find that solution, but Dr. Garrison’s Spacewatch Program has found an asteroid that will hit Earth in about two months.”

Frightened eyes spotlighted Harry Garrison.

“Are you sure it will hit?” Eli Cohens’ words overrode others who had all tried to speak at once.

The bleakness in Carl’s eyes answered him.

“How big will this…ugh, event be?” Farley Moffat asked.

“Remember the Extinction Level Impact Studies?” Carl replied.

Farley nodded. “The E.L.I.’s,” he said.

Eli Cohen covered his face with his hands. He understood.

“Mid-range, is the best we can hope for,” Carl answered.

Juan Salazar, from FEMA, grunted.

General Roland Mabry, Secretary of the Air Force, caught Carl’s eye. “Want to refresh my memory?”

Carl gestured to Harry Garrison, who cleared his throat and said, “The Earth itself will survive…lower orders…possibly a few vertebrates.”

“Jesus!” Farley Moffat cursed. “Isn’t there something--”

“This is ridiculous,” Morgan Hamilton interrupted, glaring at Harry Garrison like he wanted to kill the messenger. “You honestly expect us to believe some…some rock is going to kill us all. Pure Hollywood.”

Dr. Harold Garrison, a small, dark man who, second only to his family, loved Chicago Cubs baseball and old Marvel comic books, climbed slowly to his feet. The concern in his deep brown eyes and the grave expression on his face silenced the bickering in the room. “That ‘rock’, Mr. Hamilton, is a mountain twelve miles wide moving at forty-three-thousand miles per hour. It’s a cosmic bullet and we’re the bull’s-eye.”

“Dr. Garrison?”

“Yes, Mr. President?” Harry welcomed any escape from the irrational denial of the National Security Advisor.

“If I remember correctly, an asteroid like the one you are talking about would cause a nuclear explosion like an atom bomb?”

“No, Sir. Not exactly. But any object that big, and that fast, is going to lose a lot of mass when it hits.”

“Lose mass?”

“The force of the impact will convert a significant percentage of the asteroid's mass directly to energy, E = mc2, a non-radioactive nuclear explosion of several hundred million, possibly billions, of megatons.”

Stunned silence greeted that statement. Eyes widened among the Joint Chiefs.

“That’s right, gentlemen, an explosion so vast it will make setting off all the world’s nukes in one place at the same time look like popping a pimple!”

The President asked, “What about fallout?”

“Unless we nuke it beforehand the fallout won’t be radioactive, and I stress the word ‘radioactive’ because there will be fallout of a different, and extremely deadly sort.”

“And what might that be?”

“May I?” Garrison asked, keeping his eyes on the President, while pointing to a large globe he had brought in for the meeting.

“Please do.”

Some murmurs from members of the NSC drew a sharp glance from the President. Instant silence.

Harry strode over to the globe. As he spoke his fingers traced the outlines of continents, beginning with North America. “Almost 80% of the world's population lives in coastal areas. An Impact such as this will literally shake the world, triggering massive, catastrophic, earthquakes, seaquakes and landslides on a scale previously unknown. And quakes cause tidal waves, tsunamis, proportional in size to the strength of the earthquake. But worse will be the wave generated by the strike itself. Theoretically there is no limit to the size of such a tsunami. Imagine a wave fifteen hundred feet tall, stretching from horizon to horizon, smashing into New York City at 200 miles per hour. Boston, New York, Baltimore, Washington, every city all the way to Miami will be gone in an instant. The wave will inundate Florida and could breach the Appalachians and flood into the Ohio River Valley.

“Now multiply that by every coastal city in the world. Fifty to eighty percent of the world's population would die within 24 hours. Most of the survivors will be left homeless, shell-shocked, injured, wandering or scrambling amidst the ruins in search of friends and family. Tens, and if we’re lucky, hundreds of millions of survivors will need food, water, shelter, and medical attention. And where will it come from?”

His audience stared at him like deer-in-the-headlights.

He took a sip of water and pointed to the West Coast of North America. “As anyone in California can tell you, earthquakes are quite capable of destroying highways and buildings. But these quakes will trigger volcanic eruptions, wreck dams, releasing horrifying flash floods, collapse bridges, cause landslides and avalanches, snap power and phone lines, rupture gas mains. Fires will ignite and rage unchecked, because water lines are broken and useless.

“No firemen, no policemen, no way to call for help. No power, no food, no water, no shelter and no way in or out...and that, gentlemen, will be just the beginning.”

The President and others in the room sat forward, leaning toward him, listening hard.

“At the point of impact a mushroom cloud will form. Billions of tons of superheated pulverized rock, dirt, plants and animals will be ejected into the upper atmosphere where some of it will combine with smoke from burning cities and forests. The rest will fall back to Earth. It will rain magma, gentlemen, burning those cities and forests, flash-drying plants to the point of ignition...broiling people and animals. The debris that reaches the stratosphere will form a cloud, eventually blanketing the Earth, shutting off the sun.

“Temperatures will drop as darkness falls, water will freeze, plants will die. The cold and dark could last for months, or even years, we just don’t know. It is possible every living thing on our planet above the level of amoebas could perish.

“If we don’t destroy or divert this rock--” he swept the globe off the table, smashing it on the floor.

Alexander Winthrop from Homeland Security was the first to find his voice. “Won’t any place be safe?”

Harry Garrison shrugged. “Maybe interior mountain areas, a few caves, deep mines or prepared shelters like Mount Weather, but it is extremely unlikely any human being will survive for more than a month or two after impact.”

When the meeting broke up, two hours later, every resource the government had was being mobilized to avert the disaster.

*

But all over America a small percentage of the population, dismissed as crazies by the press and often by their own relatives, had been preparing to survive what they believed was the coming societal collapse. Known as Preppers, many had gone back to the land and built small self-sufficient homesteads, complete with solar, wind, mini-hydro or other alternative sources of power. They grew heirloom vegetables so they could save seed and preserved their food by freezing, canning, dehydrating or pickling it. They kept chickens and other fowl for eggs and protein, raised rabbits and hogs for meat and goats and cattle for milk and cheese.

Others, trapped in cities and unable to have large gardens and livestock, developed container gardens for fresh food. All, whether urban or rural, stocked up on canned, freeze-dried or dehydrated food and barrels of water, communications equipment, medical supplies, guns and ammunition and other useful items. All of them had prepped for the disasters they thought most likely to occur. Some of them thought they were ready for anything.

They were wrong.

Chapter 2: Scientists, Artists, Preppers and Mobsters

The Secretary of Defense, Peter Capelli chaired the meeting with the Joint Chiefs in the secure conference room on the E Ring. “Why don’t you get us started Roland?” he said.

General Roland Mabry, only the second black man to be Chairman of the Joint Chiefs said, “Mister Secretary, the Air Force will stick as many planes and personnel as we can in secure bunkers. Our missile silos will be powered down by August 19th. We’ll ground all flights on the 20th. As much as I’d like to have eyes in the sky we can’t send people up if they won’t have a place to land.”

He pointed at the Mercator projection that showed the worldwide distribution of US troops and ships and asked, “What the hell can we do to save the fleet, Don?”

Admiral Donald Muzarki, Chief of Naval Operations, said, “As much as I hate to admit it, Rolly, I don’t know if we can.” He held up his hand to forestall objections. “With tsunami’s expected in every port city in the world we can’t hide there and if what our geophysicists say is true we could get rogue waves several hundred feet tall even in the middle of the ocean.

“Other than submarines we don’t have ships that can withstand that. Still, riding it out in deep water is our only hope. I could do better if those geeks at NASA could tell me exactly where this thing will hit but saying it’ll smack us somewhere in the Northern Hemisphere isn’t much help.” He shoved a pile of reports aside so hard they toppled off the table.

He bent to pick them up then shrugged it off and said, “My recommendation is to pull out of the Mediterranean entirely and disperse our fleets all over the Southern Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans. That way some of our ships might survive. Our only other alternative is to park the fleets in their home ports and send our sailors home, which might, at least, save some of our personnel. Since our subs have the best chance at survival we need to get them resupplied, and redeployed pronto.” He dipped his head toward Admiral Grierson, and added, “The Coast Guard agrees with our assessment.”

“What about our troops?” Pete Capelli asked the other two Generals present.

Army Chief of Staff, General Arlin Senecot glanced at Marine Corps General Frank Rabson and got a reluctant nod. “We’re recommending the President bring’em home, Sir. Put as many as we can in secure shelters and deploy the rest in the interior where they have the best chance at survival. Our psychologists think as many as 60% would desert to be with their families so we have to move their families to safety also. Besides we’ll need those boys to help with the evacuation of civilians from the coast and to restore order after things go to hell.”

Peter Capelli ran his hand over his bald pate and said, “I never thought I’d see the day when the mightiest nation on earth would be reduced to riding it out. Do we have a plan for the absolute worst case scenario?”

“If by worst case you mean all human life on Earth is wiped out, we do, Sir,” Roland Mabry said. “Space Command calls it Project Genesis.”

*

California

Doctor Raoul Garcia was hard at work in a lab jammed with state-of-the-art electronics--his left hand bandaged and aching from his most recent stumble over the tangled mass of wires and electrical cords that transformed the floor into a dangerous maze. A small, intense man of pure Castilian decent, whose family had settled California generations before the Gold Rush, Raoul betrayed his aristocratic bearing by routinely tripping or slipping and wounding himself. Emergency medical was on speed dial.

His wife often accused him of being a cliché--an absent-minded professor--and there was too much truth in her words to make him comfortable. His mind was simply too focused on more important things to pay attention to where he was going--focused on things like the object on the workbench he was leaning over.

A long, rectangular, metal and glass box was fastened to the bench. Raoul brushed a strand of thinning white hair away from his eyes as he made a series of adjustments to the dials on the control panel of the box. With brows knit and lips pursed he slipped the neck of a large glass tube into an aperture in the box and secured it, then attached a hose to a nozzle in the tube. He twisted a valve and with a slight hissing noise the tube began to fill with a cloudy mist. Next, he placed a disk of shiny titanium steel in line with the tube, and behind that a chunk of hardened concrete.

“Raoul?”

His eyes lit at the sound of his wife’s voice.

“Ariel,” he said. “We're ready for test firing. I was just about to call down for you.”

“I thought we wouldn't be ready until tomorrow?”

“This is tomorrow, brainy lady. After that last seventy-hour stint, you slept straight through.”

She glanced at her watch. “I thought I'd only slept a couple of hours.”

“Fourteen,” he corrected gently. With no windows in the lab building, not even in the wing that housed their living quarters, there was no sunshine or starlight to clue them to the passage of days.

“Then the General--”

“Is on his way, along with the Secretary,” he completed.

She patted her graying hair. “Then I'd better make myself presentable.”

“Not until after you've pushed this button,” he said, indicating a bright red button on the control panel. She glanced at him, eyebrows raised.

“We deserve a private show,” he shrugged. The test firing would be the culmination of four years work by the two scientists. “Besides, there'll be plenty of time for it to recharge before the VIP's arrive.”

Her hazel eyes sparkled and her lips widened in an impish grin as she stepped forward, taking the pair of darkly tinted safety goggles he offered her and putting them on. She nodded at him, unable to speak, and he placed his arms around her somewhat stout waist, giving her a gentle hug. She pushed the button.

Instantly a megawatt flashbulb blinded them, popped, sizzled, and dimmed. The ozone stench increased dramatically. “Team Garcia,” as they called themselves, whipped off the dark glasses, blinked away afterimages, and examined the targets. A quarter-inch diameter hole sliced cleanly through the two-inch thick titanium steel plate, and the concrete block, and, Raoul leaned close and sighted through the holes, through the wall of the lab.

“Oops,” he said, his bright eyes seeking Ariel. “I guess you know what this means.”

“Prototype?”

“Full scale prototype,” he answered, self-assured.

Ariel sighted along the aim point, through the holes in the plate, block and wall. “Maybe we should turn down the gain next time.”

He nodded agreement.

They were more right than they knew.

Outside the lab, in line with the tiny hole in the wall, was another that went through a parked Humvee. Beyond that, a piece of concertina wire that surrounded the ultra-top secret lab was nicked. In the flat, California desert, more than a thousand yards from the laser, a saguaro cactus sported a smoking hole in one of its upright arms. And in the foothills, twenty miles away, ants were already investigating a small tunnel that bored five feet into the granite before ending abruptly.

Sergeant Carswell, whose overweight body launched three feet in the air at the sound of the shot, was now examining the hole in his Humvee, less than three inches from where he'd been leaning against it. He'd heard rumors about an ultra powerful laser. Rumors abounded on a top-secret base like this. But wow! He wondered what Joey the Giant would think.

*

Los Angeles

“AAIIIIEEEEE!” The man's shriek was absorbed by the sound-proofed walls.

Joseph Scarlatti, aka Joey the Giant, seven feet four inches tall, 360 pounds of rock solid muscle, smiled as the man's arm came out of its socket with a wet, sucking pop. A little extra effort, nothing for one of Joey's freakish strength, and the tendons parted, the arm came free of his victim's body. Crimson sprayed, splashing Joey and pissing him off.

The man's eyes bulged out. His mouth was open and the cords of his neck stood out stark, but he had no breath left to scream. Instead, all that came out was a kind of squeaky whine. He was still conscious and though slipping into shock, Joey could see he was full of horrified knowing. He liked that.

“Cauterize it,” Joey barked.

John Scarlatti, youngest of Joey's twenty-four year old twin sons, stepped forward and bent to the task. In his enormous hand was the same type of electrical cauterizing device used by surgeons. John and his twin, Anthony, were almost as large as their father, but they weren’t as brutally strong.

Joey caught his victim's eye. “By the time the others in your organization collect enough pieces of you to bury, they'll know better than to trespass on my turf again, don't you agree?”

“Please,” the man gasped. “Please!”

Joey chuckled. This asshole just didn’t get it. His cold blue eyes gleaming, he took hold of the man's other arm. This time, mercifully, the man passed out, frustrating Joey by spoiling his fun.

Later, after a shower, after the man's parts had been distributed to his associates homes, in clear plastic bags thrown onto their lawns from speeding automobiles, Joey sat down to relax and put the day's events in perspective.

“Fucking moron,” he muttered to no one in particular. He turned a page in Virgil's Aenid, his thoughts not on the text. How could the idiot have figured to muscle in on Joseph Scarlatti? Joey was keenly aware that he thought of himself in the third person; always as Joseph, not Joey--though he was careful to keep the fact that he had thoughts of any kind from his own boss, who believed that because he and his sons were huge, they were stupid. It was best to allow them to think so, especially now that he'd added a profitable gunrunning venture to his territory. Not sharing profits was a cardinal sin, and Joey, a minor mobster with major ambitions, was a survivor first and foremost.

His stomach growled, so he laid Virgil’s Aenid on a table next to Voltaire's Candide. Joey, a voracious, if secretive, reader of classical literature was currently working his way through the V's.

He stood and stretched something he could only do in this oversized room or outside and headed for the dining room to see what his current woman, Tanya, had fixed for supper. Maybe after he ate he'd go to a movie, see “Revenge of a Mafia Wife” again. That Lola MaDonna could jump start a corpse. It sometimes bothered him that his taste in films wasn't up to his literary standards.

The phone rang and he heard Tanya answer. A second later she sang out, “Joooey! It's for yoooou.” The lilt in her voice irritated him, but then lately everything about her irritated him. He’d have to replace her soon.

He picked up, waited until he heard the click of her getting off the line, and grunted, “Yeah.”

“You know who this is, Mister Scarlatti?”

“Yeah,” Joey said. He knew Sergeant Carswell’s voice and was glad the man was smart enough to be careful over the phone.

“I got something you need to know about. Can we meet?”

Joey paused. Carswell’s contacts in the armaments trade were proving valuable and Joey always had his eyes open for opportunities. “Okay,” he said. “Macaroni Grill at 8:33.” He hung up.

He and Carswell shared a list of restaurants. Carswell would now check his list and count up three restaurants from Macaroni Grill and know the meet was at Camachos. He also knew the meet would happen at 5:30, not 8:33. The FBI was always a concern with the BATF running a close second. But if what he’d heard was true the NSA was spying on everybody’s calls so a guy trying to get ahead just couldn’t be too careful.

*

Santa Monica

The sun was just poking over the San Gabriel Mountains and streamers of light filtered into the L.A. basin through the dirty, yellow morning smog. Another hazy, smelly day in the City of Angels.

Jamal Rashid, Joey's most trusted henchman, scanned his surroundings with deep seated suspicion as he closed his car door and picked up the Arabic newspaper lying on his cracked concrete stoop outside his apartment. For once no one had stolen it. Plastic trash bags and other litter decorated the neighborhood like a landfill, snagging on wilted bushes and piling up against rusty chain link fences. He glared at the debris, the crumbling brick buildings with sagging, leaky gutters and faded, peeling trim paint, at the mostly colored neighbors who dared look back at him. Most didn’t, warned off by his hostile, hatchet face. More than a bit paranoid, he even thought stray dogs peed on his car tires deliberately.

So tall and lean he put most people in mind of a child's stick-figure drawing, he fumbled briefly with the keys to his apartment door before getting it open. He glanced swiftly over his shoulder before entering, certain someone who meant him ill was watching. They always were. He knew this--felt it deep inside--though he could never quite catch them.

Inside, he slumped onto a bar stool at his kitchen counter and poured himself a cup of thick, sweet, middle-eastern tea, from his Mr. Coffee machine. Praise be to Allah for timers. He brushed his well-oiled, long, stringy, black hair back behind his ears and cupped his hands around his mug of tea, fixing his beady black eyes on the rising steam, inhaling a little peace along with the honeyed scent of his drink, relieved his task was done.

Sure, the guy's parts had been in plastic bags, and sure, he hadn't had any problems ditching the stolen delivery car at LAX, but...well, Jamal was a worrier, and besides, handling the bags made his skin crawl. Maybe next time he would try to talk Joey into using Fed Ex. He was also concerned about what Joey's boss, Benny the Bug, would think about the way Joey “negotiated” with the competition.

*

Beverly Hills

“Fuckin' Joey,” Benny Bonificio muttered when he heard the latest. “Probably the dummy's idea of subtle.”

Still, he had to admit the tactic was an effective way to teach rivals respect. And speaking of respect, it was about time Joey got a lesson. For unknown to Joey, his boss Benny had already learned about his gunrunning sideline and was planning to take “corrective action.”

In his youth Benny Bonificio had earned the nickname The Bug by dispatching his enemies in a spectacularly gruesome manner. Rumor had it he staked his victims out in the desert, sliced them just enough to get them bleeding freely, and watched while the ants ate them alive, a process that took days. He had actually only done this once, many years ago; but he had forced a couple of his subordinates to witness the scene. Thereafter, people shuddered when they heard Benny had taken someone into the desert; shuddered, and took pains to stay on his good side.

*

Hollywood

Lola MaDonna, aka Irene Walker, sat patiently while the makeup man, Will Benton, applied the finishing touches. Her exquisite beauty was most fortunate, since her talent as an actress was only average. She was intelligent enough to recognize both truths and honest enough to accept them, along with the fact that her latest film, “Revenge of a Mafia Wife Part Two” promised to be even more forgettable than Part One. But at least it was work, and female leading roles were hard to come by, even in B movies.

“All done, Lola,” Will said, and stepped back to admire his work. One half of Lola's face was goddess flawless while the other half bore a jagged “scar” from forehead to jaw.

“Oh, I almost forgot.” He handed her a note. “Your sister called.”

“Thanks, Will,” Lola/Irene said as she headed for the shoot. She thought Will was a sweet man, never grabby like so many Hollywood types, or gay like the rest. Of course, he was happily married. She sighed. All the good ones were taken.

The note brought a smile to her face. Jill wanted her to come to the Colorado Freeholds for a visit. Maybe she'd do that. It was beautiful there, and she could use a rest.

*

Kansas

“I don't suppose this could be a false alarm?” Sheila Garrison asked into the phone.

“Not a chance,” her husband replied.

“So what's the latest?”

Dr. Harold Garrison, fresh from his latest meeting with the President said, “We’re pretty sure it will hit somewhere between Europe and the eastern US. The destruction will be…” his voice faded to silence.

“God, that sounds awful.”

“It will be sweetheart...it will be.”

“Oh,” she said in a very small voice.

“Are you calling from your dad's place?”

“Yes, Robby and I got in early this morning.” Her father lived on a farm in southeastern Kansas, away from potentially chaotic major cities, away from large fault lines, and far away from the coast. Her mother had died years ago. They could have had a spot in the caves but Sheila was so intensely claustrophobic she couldn’t even abide being in the mountains, much less a cave, so Harry had opted for the next best place.

“When are you coming out?” she asked.

He hesitated briefly. “As soon as I can.”

She heard the pause and guessed at the reason. “Don't let the President keep you there too long.” She knew he was working to pinpoint geological safe areas, so the President could make plans for the Nation to survive the emergency. But from what Harold was saying, she suspected no plans could possibly comprehend the reality of the coming disaster.

“So, do you know when it will happen?”

“August 21st. Happy birthday.”

Oh God! “Harry? Please come soon. I don't know what I'd do without you.”

“I'll try,” he said, and she knew he would, but she also knew he had a job to do.

*

New York

The music swept through Carnegie Hall, lifting the crowd and carrying them along in its magic.

“But you can sure get hungry workin' minimum wage,

With the house, and the car, and congressional raise,

It's so hard, to earn, a dime, when you need, a buck”

Listeners smiled as the lyrics speared Congress, ignited memories, and set their hearts free. As the last notes faded the crowd greeted the silence with a stunned silence of their own, then burst into wild cheers and applause.

Up on stage, Jim Cantrell, wearing a black silk shirt, dark blue jeans and a red bandanna headband to keep the drenching sweat out of his eyes, stood for a moment with his arms outstretched. He shifted his left hand on the neck of his Gibson J-45, trying to escape the cramp he always got playing bar chords on the bridge. He loved the acoustic guitar but damn! That F# was killing him. Next performance he’d use the Martin.

He paused a moment longer, basking in adulation, then blew his fans a kiss. He stooped to pick up a few of the flowers that were raining down on the stage. The smile on his face gave no indication of the relief he felt now that the performance was over, or the joy with which he looked forward to getting back home to Colorado and his wife, Jill.

Behind him Jacques and Denise Lachelle, and the other members of the Troubled Land Band were waving to the crowd. It had been a long, hard road-trip, and they too were anticipating a rest.

On his way back to his dressing room Jim grabbed a cold beer from a stagehand and sucked it down. The rest of the band would soon crowd into that room to review their exit strategy.

Promoting their hit CD was exhausting work, but after nearly two decades of struggling in dark, smoky bars, overnight success had found them. Their music was a unique blend of rock, country, and R&B, that put many in mind of the Eagles, or, since some of their numbers were orchestrated, the Moody Blues. Wildly successful, they garnered fans from all age groups.

The downside was having to run the gauntlet of fans from their dressing rooms to the limo. This time Jim got to the car with only a torn shirt pocket. He made a mental note not to wear shirts with pockets.

“You got off lucky,” Denise said. Her blouse was ripped, and some maniac had managed to clip a lock of her lustrous, black hair. The scissors had scared her to death before her husband, Jacques, kicked the man in the stomach and security guards wrestled the idiot to the ground.

“True, Cheri,” Jacques said, as he gently touched the shortened strand of hair. He pinned Jim with a stare, his dark brown eyes flashing.

“Dat be too close, mon,” he said, the stress bringing out his Caribbean accent.

“Next tour, we'll use a helicopter to get to and from the airport,” Jim said. He reached for the cellular phone, inset over the bar. “Meantime, I'll have Lenny beef up security at JFK and for our arrival at Denver International.”

They nodded agreement.

Jacques and Denise were inseparable as wine and song, her with delicate, almost dainty features and coffee colored skin, heavy on the cream, complimented by large doe eyes with long, thick lashes. He was average height, though lean, with slightly darker, rougher skin from past acne. He had tightly coiled black hair, a sunny disposition backed by a dazzling smile, moved with a kick-boxer’s agility and played piano with zeal.

Like Jim, Jacques and Denise Lachelle, preferred to spend most of their off time in the mountains of Colorado.

The limousine pulled up next to their private jet, a Gulfstream Twin. They boarded swiftly, and without incident. Ten minutes later they were homeward bound.

*

The White House Situation Room

“What do you mean nothing can prevent it?” The President was in emergency session with his Cabinet, the National Security Council and the Joint Chiefs, and he didn't like the answers he was getting. “We’re going to get creamed in less than sixty days unless we can.”

“Sir,” Eli Cohen from NASA darted into the room waving a sheet of paper which he laid in front of the President. “I think we can stop it.”

“How?” the President asked. Finally, something he could do something about.

“We have a new laser and if we can get it up into space quickly enough maybe we can burn the thing up before it hits our atmosphere.”

“Then do it.”

“Certainly Mr. President, but sir?”

“What now, Eli?”

Eli Cohen looked at Farley Moffat who cleared his throat and stepped into the breach.

“It's the Sunflower.”

The Sunflower? The reference escaped the President for a moment then he remembered the briefing, a fusion/solar-powered laser housed in a satellite, incredibly powerful, but, “Isn't that still in development?”

“It's all but ready for deployment, Mr. President. And as Eli and Carl already know, Hubble has found a crack in the asteroid.”

“Excuse me, Mr. President,” said Arthur McCrae, Secretary of State. “Launching that weapon is a violation of the SALT treaty. The Russians will scream bloody murder and the Chinese will be none to happy either.”

“Art.” The President's tone was calm, almost sad. His friend just didn't get it. “After the asteroid hits, there won’t be a Russia, or a United States, or maybe a single human being left on this planet. So I'll be more than happy to put up with their tantrums.”

He turned back to Moffat. “How soon can we launch, Farley?”

“As soon as the solar array is installed. Probably five days, less if the design engineer comes around.”

“What's his problem?”

“He owns the patent on the Sunflower solar array. That's where GTI got the name for the project, and he refuses to authorize final installation until he sees the design plans for the satellite. “Farley's eyes slid away, clueing the President that there was more to the story. Probably something he didn't want to know.

“I see,” said the President, and took a guess. “And does this engineer know he's working on a space-based weapons system?”

“Uh...no, sir. He thinks his array is powering a revolutionary communications satellite.”

President Powell rubbed his temples and sat back in his chair. Why was so much of government based on deceit? This wasn't why he got into politics. He sighed, resigned once again to a life of half-truths and evasions. “Maybe a call from me will help. Next.”

“Mr. President?” Alexander Winthrop from Homeland Security said. “The cave sites in Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee, Texas and New Mexico can be stocked to hold, at most, 200,000 people in the time we have to prepare. I’m sorry sir, we just can’t fit any more in and give them a reasonable chance to survive.”

President Hammond Powell's shoulders slumped for just a moment before he straightened his back, raised his head and looked around the table at the men and women gathered there. His team. People he'd known all his political life. He could feel their eyes on him. “You are all telling me how little we can do. I need to know what else we can do. Don’t we have any other options?”

Carl Borzowski nodded to Eli Cohen and said. “NASA has accelerated shipments to the International Space Station. Project Genesis, Sir. If we can finish it in time the human race can survive by riding out the event in space and re-colonizing Earth later.”

Seeing the scowl on the President’s face, Eli broke in. “It’s a worst-case scenario, Sir.”

Carl took over. “We’re exploring all options, from manned missions to undersea survival shelters as well as more caves.”

“It seems like we should be able to do more than hide in a hole,” the President said. There was so much he couldn’t do but there was at least one more thing he could take care of. He triggered his intercom and said, “Miss Markwright? I need to talk to an engineer. Doctor Cohen will give you his name.”

*

Colorado Mountains

The Freeholds

Michael Whitebear rolled his tiny ultralight back into an upright position as he swept over Farnum Peak. He grinned widely, reveling in his lack of fear. His short, dark brown hair and neatly trimmed beard ruffled in the breeze flowing through the open cockpit. Warm brown eyes, flecked with green and gold highlights, glowed as he soared down the valley of The Freeholds.

Sunlight glinted off solar collectors and photovoltaic arrays as he flew over the earth-bermed homes lining the hillsides. The reflection reminded him of the pink blush on his own skin, pale for being almost half Blackfoot, legacy of a white mother and farther back, of a French trapper.

Horses, cattle, goats and sheep grazed in meadows. Golden grain rippled in the breeze and the community garden was in full production. Children waved from giant inner tubes, floating down the Tarryall River that snaked along the valley floor. Michael smiled and waggled the small plane's wings in greeting.

A flash of light caught his eye and he saw a cameraman from the TV crew filming him. Since it was a National Geographic crew doing a documentary on the Freeholder’s homesteading lifestyle he resisted the temptation to buzz them. Last year they'd aired a special on those crazy Preppers in the Freeholds and they were back for an update. For two weeks now the TV people had been poking about, shooting new footage of the solar systems, the methane and hydrogen fuel cell generators, the low flow hydroelectric plant that powered the Freeholder's community center, the shelves stocked with canned, dehydrated and freeze-dried foods, asking questions about the “live with the land as well as on it” philosophy practiced in the Freeholds. The program would air in a couple of months but filming was wrapping up and he would be glad to see the National Geographic crew gone.

Leona Perry, principal of the Freehold’s charter school, wasn’t happy about having to suspend firearms safety training for the children during filming. Most of the world didn’t agree that the best way to protect children from firearm accidents was to teach them gun safety and respect when they were young enough for such lessons to make a lasting impression. But there was nothing to be gained by stirring up controversy.

Michael's stomach rose into his throat as the ultralight fell into a small air pocket--an instant of weightlessness in the sapphire blue sky, a heart-thumping reminder of mortality--until the plane leveled out and his inner ear adjusted.

He'd gone up in the Pegasus to help a neighboring rancher locate some strays in the vast Pike National Forest surrounding the valley. Since he could turn the engine off and soar on thermals, like a hawk, the silent plane wouldn't spook the cattle. A smile flitted across his face. Or so he'd thought. Turned out exactly the opposite. Engine noise was a man-sound that cattle were used to, whereas the silent ultralight must have resembled a giant eagle looking for a fat calf. He'd quickly turned the engine back on to settle the spooked cattle down, then used the plane's radio to vector the rancher toward the missing steers.

Now the fun was over and he had to get back to work. Pity. He really loved flying, in spite of his secret fear of heights, the one fear he couldn’t conquer, regardless how hard he tried. But the air was getting too bumpy for a lightweight plane like the Pegasus.

He reduced the throttle setting and glided down toward the landing strip. Tall, emerald green grass dotted with sunshine yellow coneflowers and lavender lupine whispered against his landing gear and then brushed green stains along the undercarriage as he sat the plane down and rolled to a stop. He needed to mow the strip when he had time.

“Hey, Aaron,” he called to the small, wiry man walking to meet him.

Aaron Goldstein waved and said, “Ellen called down when she saw you clear Farnum Peak. She says GTI called about the solar satellite plans and wants you to get back with them soonest.”

Yeah, it was definitely time to get back to work.

“Oh, and the Cantrell's are due back today,” Aaron added.

A smile split Michael's face. “Great!”

He helped Aaron roll the Pegasus into the hangar, then jumped onto his Harley Sportster and spun gravel from the rear tire as he roared up the hill.

“Hello, sweetie,” Michael said as he swept his wife Ellen into his arms and gave her a kiss. “Did you miss me?” He'd been gone for three whole hours.

Her long blonde hair tangled in one of his shirt buttons as she pushed herself away. She freed it with a practiced flip, her hazel eyes sparkling. “Terribly,” she said, pressing the back of one hand against her forehead in a mock swoon. “Much more of this neglect and I'll file for divorce.”

His business line rang and their infant son Steven woke from his nap with a wail. “You can have custody,” she kidded, starting up the stairs to quiet the baby.

Michael watched her hips sway delightfully as she climbed the stairs, then started for the phone. Life was good. He had a beautiful and talented wife, a great job, a gorgeous home in the heart of the Colorado Rockies--Steven's scream split his ears--and a loud son.

All smiles, he picked up the receiver on the fourth ring. “Freeholds Engineering.”

“Mister Whitebear?”

“Yes?”

“Please hold for the President of the United States.”

Right. Like he was born yesterday. Steven screamed again and Michael hung up. Nice try, Jim, he thought, rolling his eyes. The Cantrell’s weren't even back yet and already the practical jokes were starting.

The phone rang again and he was tempted to let it go, but it could be a paying customer. This time he picked up on the third ring.

“Mister Whitebear. I am Donna Markwright, Special Executive Assistant to the President of the United States, who I can assure you will be on the line shortly. Now, will you please hold?”

Jesus, maybe this wasn't joke. That woman didn’t sound like she had a sense of humor. Hell, she sounded like she wouldn't buy one if it was on sale at Macy’s. He decided to play along. “All right,” he said, uncertainly, “But if this is a prank--”

“Mister Whitebear!” Her outrage convinced him. “I can give you my number at the White House if you--”

“Okay, okay,” he interrupted. “I'll hold.” Not even Jim would go to such lengths.

“Thank you,” she said, with enough ice in her voice to make a good-sized margarita. White House muzak filled his ears for less than twenty seconds.

“Mr. Whitebear?” That voice was unmistakable.

“Yes, Mr. President?” Michael could hardly believe this.

“I have a favor to ask of you,” Hammond Powell said.

Michael did all the listening.

Chapter 3: Zoo Keepers and Saints

The President placed the handset back on the phone and turned to Farley Moffat. “Get it done.”

He was speaking to Carl Borzowski before Moffat was out the door. “Carl, I want a booster on a launch pad the day after tomorrow. Eli will arrange it.” He nodded toward the NASA director.

Borzowski stood to go, then hesitated and said, “Mr. President? Shouldn't we notify the American people?”

Royce Bannister, Director of the FBI, spoke up. “Sir, I strongly suggest we hold off. Such an announcement could result in massive panic. Thousands of people could be hurt.”

Peter Capelli, Secretary of Defense, joined the fray. “And the markets would collapse, banks fail. We can't let that happen.”

Borzowski wasn't about to let that pass. “And millions of Americans live on the coast, Royce, Peter. Tidal waves. Think about it.”

Hammond Powell didn't need any more inside squabbling. “I'll take it under advisement, Carl, but for now let's concentrate on stopping this thing.” If his administration averted this disaster he would be a shoo-in for reelection, and if it didn't, he would be associated with the disaster and his own Party would dump him. But if he sounded a premature warning and people panicked...well, headline, “Chicken Little Powell Says Sky Is Falling.”

As Carl Borzowski strode down the corridor, past the Marine guards, he wondered if he should call Monica. They hadn't parted on the best of terms, but she was a damn good reporter, and the American people had a right to know.

*

The Freeholds

Michael Whitebear sat at his computer scanning the plans GTI had faxed to him less than thirty minutes after the President called. The plans were definitely for a communications satellite, but they were run-of-the-mill, not the revolutionary new concept that utilized his Sunflower array. Something smelled, but he'd given the go ahead to install Sunflower solely on the President's assurance that it was vital to national security. How the hell could he say no to that?

Ellen walked up behind him and kissed the back of his neck. “Time out,” she said.

“I really should finish this,” he protested, but it was a weak protest and she knew it.

“Jim Cantrell and the Lachelles just pulled in,” she teased.

That did it. He hadn't seen his friend Jim for months. “Won't he head straight for Jill?” Jim's wife had left the road trip almost five months ago when she discovered she was pregnant.

“Sure, but I've invited the two of them over for a late dinner.”

“Miracle worker.” Michael kissed her gently. “Wait ‘til I tell Jim the President...nah.” Jim, being a superstar musician, wouldn't be impressed by a call from

the President. Then he had it. “Wait until I show him the Pegasus!” His eyes lit up like a kid at Christmas, and Ellen couldn't help but laugh.

Michael and Jim had been best friends since they were ten years old, and anytime they got together the two were irrepressible. The next few weeks would see more than a fair share of mischief and fun, or so she thought.

*

The Zoo

Randy Kellogg was a feeder. Actually, his job title at the Denver Zoo was animal dietary specialist, but as far as he was concerned that was just fancy bullshit for “feeder.” The important thing to Randy was his love for the animals. Others might think him a tad slow but his animals never judged. “His” animals was the way he mostly thought of them. He enjoyed weighing out the precise portions of meat for each cat, and occasionally, if Jack Fargo was off, the bears.

Feeding the bears was a special treat for Randy because of Sheila, the female grizzly who had given birth to triplets last spring. The cubs had official names, but to Randy they would always be Huey, Louie, and Dewey. Like their namesakes, they were equal parts restless curiosity and playful mischief.

Randy checked the schedule when he punched in, but he didn't have too. He had it memorized. He knew Jack was off today. Still, Randy checked the schedule every day. It was part of his routine.

Next he carefully read the menu to see which animals were being medicated, and if there had been any changes in their dosages. He saw that Hobbes, his favorite tiger, was to go to the dentist tomorrow and so was allowed only water tonight.

He heard low growls build to full fledged roars, as he pushed the wheeled cart full of food into the access area between cages.

“Calm down,” he told them. “I'm coming.”

“ROOOAAAARRR!”

Hobbes wasn't happy, and like any self-respecting Tiger with a toothache he was letting the world know.

*

Provo, Utah

Bob Young, newly elected Mayor of Provo, was not doing Mayor work. Instead he was down in his basement, up on a step-stool, helping his wife Betty inventory their preps, which is what many Preppers, called their stockpiled food, water, equipment, and supplies. Bob was medium height with a middle-age spread and wore his brown hair in a flat-top cut that had been out of style since roughly the decade he was born. He didn’t care. He got elected by virtue of strong integrity, decent morals, a sterling reputation, the Republican party and being a “Young, as in Brigham,” in Utah.

His wife, Betty, six years younger, was a woman of sharp features, sharper insights and pointed humor which she softened with bright smiles. She wore her auburn hair “big” and claimed it matched her belly since she was pregnant with their third child.

“What’s up there?” She asked.

“I’ve got six cases of Thrive freeze dried sweet corn from Shelf Reliance and three cases each of Saratoga Farms peas and green beans from The Ready Store,” he called down to her. Each case held six number ten sized cans or around two hundred sixty individual servings.

“Two cases of Augason Farms broccoli and a case and a half of Provident Pantry onions.” He saw some more off to the side and leaned over to get a better look.

“Hey,” he added. “Here’s another two cases of canned chicken. I thought we agreed the heavy stuff would go on the lower shelves.”

Ignoring his complaint, something she was really good at, Betty asked, “What brand is the canned chicken?”

“Hold on a second...looks like it’s from Best Prices Storable Foods.” And just to make his point that he wouldn’t be ignored, he added, “I’m bringing it down where we can put it with the other meats.” He grabbed both cases and stepped down, his foot glancing off the second step, unbalancing him and spilling him to the floor, narrowly missing Betty with a case of chicken.

She, “eeked” and dodged through an open door into the utility room.

“You okay?” She asked, poking her head back out into their basement.

“I think so.” He sat up rubbing his sore elbow, banged sometime during the falling process, and considered the differences between men and women. If their positions had been reversed, his instinct would have been to catch her. Hers was to avoid potential harm to their unborn child by getting quickly out of the way. This reinforced his secret opinion that women were the brighter of the two sexes.

She helped him gather up the cans from the one case that had broken open when it hit the floor, and set the three dented cans aside for immediate use. They slid the remainders into a slot on the floor under a shelf labeled “Chicken,” and got back to work. To them, part of being prepared was actually using their food and supplies, rotating them, as it were, so the stock remained fresh. That wasn’t important with the freeze dried foods, many of which had shelf lives of twenty-five years, but staples like flour, baking powder, cornstarch or yeast tended to expire after a few years sitting on a shelf.

“Honey,” Bob said. “Would you jot a note for me to add some Stabil to the gasoline for the generator.”

“Already done,” she replied.

Yep, women are smarter, Bob thought. He really hoped she’d reconsider and help him teach the Beginning Preps course he’d volunteered to do, but she was already teaching a gardening and canning class so he wouldn’t hold his breath.

Bob didn’t prep solely because of his religion. To him it was cheap insurance against what he increasingly believed was the coming bad times ahead. He was genuinely concerned about the direction the country was headed. He didn’t think out of control government spending was healthy for the economy and was concerned it could lead to either hyperinflation or deflation. He worried that the war on terror was producing the perfect breeding ground for a police state here at home and was genuinely concerned about the NSA’s ability and apparent desire to spy on everyone.

He grunted when his sore elbow gave a twinge as he shifted a five gallon bucket of wheat berries from Honeyville Grains over next to another bucket of oats. He loved the flavor of fresh baked, whole wheat bread, made from fresh ground flour. And that reminded him.

“Betty, did the GrainMaker arrive yet?” She’d ordered a hand cranked grain mill as a backup to her Wondermill electric.

“It should be here by Friday,” she said. “Meanwhile, let’s put some ointment on that elbow of yours and have lunch. Bob’s stomach rumbled agreement, but before he could ask what she was fixing, Betty looked askance at him and said, “I was thinking Olive Garden.”

*

LA

Joey ducked through the doorway and strode out of the theater, opening the crowd like Moses parting the Red Sea. At seven-feet-four inches he towered over tall men. His golden blond hair, ice blue eyes and bulging muscles put most in mind of Thor, the Viking thunder god. Women might have considered him good looking if only his eyes weren’t so close set; and his nose, splattered all over his face, made him look like a thug. Truth in advertising.

Still, it wasn’t just his size that made others flinch away. The aura he projected made those nearby feel unclean.

Freak, others thought. Judging the book by its cover. And freak he was, but not for that reason alone.

As he moved to his car a small girl, trying to get out of his way, tripped and fell. Instantly Joey went to one knee, his massive hands lifting her to her feet, what he considered to be a warm smile on his face.

She screamed and ran.

He rose to his feet looking almost wistful. Such reactions had hurt when he was young. Now, though he usually hid it deep inside, he enjoyed inspiring terror. Witnesses nearby remembered how they’d felt sorry for Frankenstein.

One old woman mumbled, “She didn’t mean anything by it.”

Joey, who hated pity, flashed his eyes at her and said, “Yes, she did.”

He climbed into his jet black Dodge Ram Mega Cab pickup and sped off. He liked the truck. It was one of the few vehicles with adequate leg room and headroom for a man his size. Most of his other cars had been convertibles.

His thoughts drifted back to the movie.

“I like a big man,” Lola had cooed on screen. God, how those violet eyes of hers melted his heart. Maybe she meant it? Maybe he should do something to get to know her.

Chapter 4: The Prophet

Denver

Shark Cassidy and his partner in crime, Skull, leafed rapidly through their latest vic's wallet. The victim, a middle-aged white man who should have known better than to walk this section of Colfax at this time of night, lay crumpled in the alley, a trickle of blood running across his forehead. He hadn't offered any resistance, but then he didn't need to. Shark and Skull enjoyed kicking shit out of whitey: a perk of the work.

“Cheap-assed Mo-Fo,” Shark threw the wallet down. “Kep' ones in his 'fold, make it look fat.”

“Musta caught him after he done wit’ de ho,” Skull shrugged. East Colfax was Denver's red-light district.

Shark held up the take. Thirty-two dollars, a Mastercard, a gas card and a driver's license. The license could be altered and sold, the credit cards hocked to others who would max them out in mere hours. Still, it was a shitty take. Viper wouldn't be pleased and that scared Shark, made him mad. He gave the victim's head a final, vicious kick, as he and Skull left the scene. The night was young.

The unconscious man's breathing slowed and stopped. The light in Jason McFarland, husband and father, a sales clerk who, just once, wanted to taste the forbidden delights of East Colfax, grew dimmer with each passing second. There was still time to save his life, but even if Shark and Skull knew he was dying they wouldn't have cared.

*

Sandusky, Ohio

Retired Gunnery Sergeant Emil Smolensky looked like he’d been carved out of a rather large block of granite, well, except for the prosthetic leg. That was steel. He didn’t consider himself a Prepper, or survivalist. He was simply a man whose son-in-law was serving a life sentence for murder in the Colorado State Penitentiary at Canyon City and whose daughter and granddaughter wouldn’t go hungry if he could help it. To that end he was moving to Pueblo, Colorado, to be near them.

He’d been packing and shipping them boxes of MRE’s, freeze dried foods and other light weight supplies for months. Now about all he had left to put in his Army Surplus M35A3 truck were his weapons, gunsmith gear, reloading supplies and bug out bag. He unlatched a side panel on the left side of the armored box bed of the truck and neatly stored eight of his five gallon fuel cans inside. The other eight would go on the right hand side.

By nightfall he had the rig loaded, including a spare prosthesis.

He wolfed down a ham sandwich, grabbed his cell phone and dialed.

“Hello?”

“Darla?” His nine year-old granddaughter had answered, her voice vibrating with energy and enthusiasm. That was Darla, so full of life her curly blonde hair bounced even when she was standing still.

“Grandpa?” Then, before he could say anything. “Mom, it’s grandpa!”

They talked about school and a garter snake she’d seen eating a grasshopper in their garden that day until her mom took the phone.

“Hi, dad,” his daughter Heather said.

“Sounds like you had a busy day.”

Heather laughed and said, “She took a video of it and posted it on YouTube. She even got her friend Michaella involved.”

“Yeah, she said she emailed me the link, but I’ve been loading the truck all day and haven’t checked email yet.” He swatted at a house mosquito and missed.

“You know you can check it from your phone,” Heather said.

“I haven’t exactly figured out how yet,” he admitted. “Darla can teach me when I get there.”

“When are you pulling out?”

“First thing tomorrow morning. I should be there in three or four days.”

*

Southwestern Missouri

Jonathan and Mabel Hicks stood in the walnut grove and stared at the pitch black opening in the side of the mountain. Weathered faces, gray of hair and somewhat stooped from years--this was not what the elderly couple had in mind for retirement.

“You really think this is necessary?” Mabel asked for the umpteenth time. “I mean, I’ve seen those military convoy’s and aunt Zelda can’t hardly talk about anything but the strange goings on at all those commercial caves, but really?

“If I didn’t think so we wouldn’t be doing it,” Jonathan answered.

Mabel flipped the switch on her headlamp, bent and lifted the handles of her wheelbarrow, piled high with Mountain House Freeze Dried food and Eneloop rechargeable batteries. “Then I guess we best get back to it,” she said and started walking toward the cave.

Jonathan smiled as he clicked on his miner’s headlamp, hoisted the handles of the much larger garden cart, and started after her. His Mabel didn’t convince easy but once she bought in get out of her way.

“Leastways we don’t have to worry about water,” he said. There was a spring fed pond in the cave that had never gone dry and while he and Mabel were in their golden years it was still his job to protect her. He didn’t hold much truck with government men, but if they were prepping hidey holes and not telling the public, well...he’d do the same.

Denver

Temple of the Dark Lord

Leroy Parsons, AKA Mustapha ben Muhammad, AKA Viper, checked the growing pile of booty, and addressed his congregation with the ease of a practiced persuader. He stood behind the raised altar in the center of the pentagram. Black candles flickered around him.

“The Dark Lord has been good to us tonight brothers and sisters.” He spread his arms, flaring the red and black cape he wore during services. Viper had left a Baptist Seminary school when he converted to a radical Black Muslim sect, but even that hadn't been enough for him, so he had taken the Black in Black Muslim and given it a whole new meaning.

“Though some of our brethren have been less than zealous,” the look he threw at Shark and Skull made beads of sweat pop out on their foreheads, “overall, the evening was a success!”

He stepped up to the shrine and drew a gleaming blade.

“Let us give to our lord.”

The crowd inhaled collectively.

The goat tethered to altar tossed its head and tried to pull away, but the knife was too swift, slicing cleanly through its jugular. Two acolytes hoisted the animal above the granite slab, securing its hind legs to a meat hook suspended from the ceiling, so that the goat's body hung head down over the altar as blood gushed from its throat and pooled in a depression in the center of the stone.

Viper dipped a cup into the blood and raised it to his lips. “Let us partake of the sacrament.”

The congregation sighed.

He drank and passed the cup to those in the front row, his favored ones. His helpers dipped other cups in the blood and handed them around. When all had shared, Viper again took up the knife, slicing the goat's abdomen, spilling its guts onto the slab. He put down the knife and ran his hands through the steaming entrails. His eyelids fluttered and his eyes rolled back, exposing the whites. He shook with the force of possession and when he spoke his voice was deep and resonant and harsh.

“I see the death of the white man’s world! The rise of our power!” He raised handfuls of intestines into the air. “In the chaos brought by the Dark One we shall reign supreme and our justice shall rule! All who follow me shall be rewarded beyond their dreams.” He lowered his arms and stepped back.

“The Dark One has rewarded my faith with the gift of prophecy.” He pointed at his flock.

“Do you follow?”

“Yes!” They swayed.

“Do you trust?”

“Yes!” They cried.

“Do you believe?”

“YES!” They roared.

“We know that Satan, our Dark Lord, our Black God, has been viscously maligned by white religions solely because he is black. We know that Satan is the true, good and just God, whose position has been usurped by a false and evil White God.

“For these sins, our Dark Lord has decreed the coming death. I have seen the world shake and waters reclaiming the land.” He strode back and forth, arms waiving. “Seen the fires and gales, the darkening sky and the coming cold.” He stopped and pierced them with his intense black eyes. “I have seen the fall of the white racists who have oppressed us so long, brothers and sisters, seen the demise of their cancerous injustice.”

“As you see, so it be,” chanted his followers.

He started pacing again, too full of energy to stand still, and the heads of his people tracked him back and forth like a slow motion tennis match. “I have seen us take our righteous revenge, seen the birth of Black justice, seen slave auctions where the slaves were white and their masters black.”

An excited murmur ran through the crowd. “As you see, so it be.”

He stopped again and his voice fell from ringing tones to an intimate whisper, forcing his followers to lean forward to hear. “But brothers and sisters, the way will be hard and we are few.”

They nodded.

“We must grow in numbers and in power. We must unite the gangs and forge new alliances. We must bring all our deluded brethren into the fold.”

He walked around the altar and into the crowd and they gathered close, eyes gleaming, hungry for the touch of his bloody hands, eager to do his bidding. Other than private praises and greetings he was silent until he had touched those worthy of the honor, weaving his spell about them all. He even flicked Shark on the nose and tugged Skull's ear, at once elevating them with his attention and reminding them to do better.

He withdrew into the pentangle, turned his back to them, threw his arms up and his head back. A small, soft spotlight illuminated the face of the Dark One, drifting in the air above them all. Once more Viper's voice filled the room.

“Go! Bring new recruits, money, guns, and food. Bring bottled water, warm clothes and two-way radios. Bring jewelry, batteries for flashlights, liquor and cigarettes. Bring anything useful for consumption or trade during the coming collapse; for the Dark One says the white world dies soon. Go!”

Like cockroaches scattering before the light they fled.

After they were gone Viper dismissed his attendants and retired to his inner sanctum to compose his thoughts. He paced restlessly through his well-appointed apartment, eyes and mind turned inward, not noticing the dark, heavy Mediterranean furniture, or the African statues on the tables, or the masks and tapestries on the walls.

Usually he had a good idea what he would reveal when in the grip of God, but not this time. Memories of the apocalyptic vision swept though him, forcing him, trembling, to a stool by the wet bar. He uncapped the first bottle his shaking hands found and drank straight from it, not caring what it was. The liquor scorched a path to his stomach and spread a bright glow through him, steadying his nerves.

Normally he was content in the knowledge that, like Caesar, Alexander, and Napoleon, the true God spoke to him and through him, revealing His divine will along with the future. But he had much more planning to do if he was to get his people through the disaster ahead.

He put the bottle back, and headed for his office, stopping briefly in the kitchen to grab a Coors from the fridge.

Seated at his desk, pad and pen in hand he laid out his plans, first for survival, then, as opportunity occurred, for taking over Denver, then the Front Range, and eventually the world. Leroy was old school, not trusting such sensitive information to his PC or Android. The way whitey’s NSA peeked over everyone’s shoulder gave him the creeps.

Hours later, rough draft complete, he sat rubbing his temples, trying to massage away the headache building there. Time to stop, for now. He needed some music and a long, hot shower. He pushed the FM button on his Bose, selected an R&B station, popped two Excedrin and turned up the volume as he headed into the bathroom. Music from the Troubled Land Band floated through the air.

So you can take your paper promises,

and all your worldly treasures,

But you cannot buy,

Peace of mind,

Or escape,

From the headstone garden.…

A faint smile played across his lips as he lathered and rinsed. Ofay got that right, he thought. Ain't no escape from the headstone garden.

Leroy had labored hard in pursuit of the Three G's of power: guts, guns and gold. He had never lacked the former, and his hoard of the latter two was growing every day. His smile widened as he toweled off. In His own way, God had been preparing him for this event his whole life.

He slipped on a silver gray, velour robe and walked out of the bathroom. As he passed an oval mirror that hung at the end of the hallway his reflection caught his attention. Not bad, he thought. Women found his smooth, almost hairless, black skin and chiseled features pleasing. He grinned at himself, practicing a warm smile that melted panties, then froze... His eyes glazed over and a single bead of drool trickled down his chin. A voice grew in his mind, crowding out all other thoughts, filling him with a sense of presence and power. “You must hurry,” it said. “The time grows near.”

Chapter 5: The Mugging

Denver

Shark Cassidy and his partner, Skull, both sported poorly done jail house tattoos of spider webs, daggers and other creepy crap, mean streaks, foul tempers and a morbid fear of their boss Viper. Where they differed was Shark had a full head of dreadlocked hair and a relatively straight nose, whereas Skull, as his name implied, bore a shaved head and a squashed nose that looked like it had repeatedly encountered a ball bat.

Being professional muggers they surveyed the night-owls moving along Larimer Street, looking for prey. Shark snorted as a woman scurried by, head down, oblivious. She might as well wear a neon sign that said, “Victim!”

He was tempted to take her, even though she looked like poor pickings. It was getting late and the after-dinner crowds had thinned out. But just then Skull nudged him and pointed to a foursome laughing their way along the street.

Normally, the two muggers picked on singles or couples, but these two couples were whitebread, never any trouble. In fact, the tall guy looked vaguely familiar, like maybe Shark had seen him on the tube. And the women, especially the blonde, were foxes, which added to the fun. He motioned Skull to follow them when they turned east up 17th, and he loped on down to 18th so he could circle around and cut them off. It was going to be a good night.

The foursome had just finished dinner at Croc’s, where the girls split a Crocobrownie sundae, and were chatting as they walked back to the Brown Palace, catching up with each other's lives.

“Glad to be home?” Michael Whitebear asked his lifelong friend.

“You better believe it, Paleface.” Jim Cantrell answered. Since the fifth grade, when they first met, Jim had kidded Michael about being a white Indian. “Besides, what with the tour, the recording contract, and those stupid talk-show spots, I haven't had time to do any song writing, let alone see my honey.” He gave his wife Jill a hug. “And in her delicate condition, I want to be here to keep her from getting too paunchy.”

“Paunchy!” Jill gave him a playful shove. She was six months pregnant and only “showed” to those who knew how slender the former model kept herself.

“And if you think women are delicate,” Ellen Whitebear chimed in, “you try having a baby.”

Jim beat a hasty retreat. No man ever won that argument. He changed the subject. “So, man, how does it feel to have the President calling to ask favors?” Ellen had told him and Jill about The Call at dinner. She was unable to resist the temptation to let Jim know he wasn't the only VIP at the table.

“Weird, but good, you know?” Michael shrugged.

Ellen slid her arm around his waist and gave him a squeeze. “Always modest,” she said with a bright smile.

Jill Cantrell, who knew all too well that lack of privacy was the price of fame, turned to Ellen with eyebrows raised. “You sure you're ready to be married to a celebrity?”

“Hey, for better or worse...” Ellen's voice faded along with her smile as she saw the black man step around the corner and bring out a gun.

The first part of the mugger's ambush went as planned. They achieved surprise. Guns flashing, Shark and Skull shoved the four into a trash-choked alley.

“Look, you can have the money. Just don't hurt us, okay?” Jim said, holding out his wallet.

Shark snatched the billfold and slammed his 9mm Beretta against Jim's head, knocking him to the ground. Anything Shark hated it was a whiney whitey.

“You think this ‘bout money, honky? You wrong. This ‘bout power.” He waved the gun in their faces. “I got this, I got the power. This let me take yo money an’ anything else I want.” He stroked Ellen's cheek with the gun barrel. “Right, Sweetcakes?”

Michael tensed, but froze as Skull jammed a pistol into his side. Yellow flames danced dangerously in his normally warm, brown eyes.

“Oh, my! Cat-eyes don't like it when I touch his woman.” Shark smiled like a Pirhana and tapped Michael on the bridge of the nose with his Beretta. “Cat-eyes, you don't want to die, get down on yo knees an’ beg me to fuck Sweetcakes here.” Shark's groin stirred, as much from the jolt he got humiliating and hurting his victims as from the rape to come.

Shark's free hand raised Ellen's skirt and groped her while he aimed the Beretta between Michael's eyes.

But “Sweetcakes,” seeing her man's eyes flash gold and fearing more for him than herself, punched Shark hard in the throat and threw herself on his gun-arm, biting his hand as her weight pulled him off balance and they fell.

Michael spun, forearm knocking Skull's pistol aside, and drove a vicious blow up under the man's sternum.

“Urk!” Skull gasped and stumbled back a step. Michael plucked the man's Glock from nerveless fingers and smashed it into Skull's temple dropping the man like a sack of cement, then whipped around and took one swift step, planting his black wingtip on Shark's bruised throat, bending over, shoving the Glock into the choking man's mouth.

Shark's pupils dilated and he froze. Ellen scrambled to her feet, Shark’s Beretta in her hand.

One glance into Michael's cat-yellow eyes and Shark's heart almost stopped. Pure death stared at him. How the hell had this happened? Well-dressed white dudes weren't supposed to be bad.

“You okay, sweety?” Michael's deathlike whisper told Ellen how far gone he was, and she knew she had to get him back quickly.

“Honey? Please don't. I'm all right.”

Michael trembled with the effort of not pulling the trigger while Sharks eyes grew wider and wider and his lips purpled. Finally, Michael jerked the pistol out of Shark's mouth, breaking an incisor. He stepped back, removing his foot from Shark’s throat, letting the man breathe.

“Thanks, Honey,” Ellen said, then, very deliberately, took two steps forward and stomped Shark's unprotected crotch.

He blurted a strangled squeal and blacked out.

“That was for pawing me, you son-of-a-bitch.” Ellen shook as she leaned into Michael's two-arm hug and whispered, “Man-of-mine? Remember when you wanted to teach me how to use a gun and I wouldn't let you?”

Michael nodded, stroking her hair gently.

“I'm ready now.”

Jill was helping Jim to his feet, stunned expressions on both their faces. Blood oozed down the side of Jim's head, almost covering his ear, dripping onto his Armani silk jacket. He steadied himself and looked at the unconscious muggers. A sickly grin appeared on his face.

“I see you haven't lost your touch,” he said. He and Michael had been on the same fire team in the war.

“If you two’ll call the cops, Ellen and I will wait here for them,” Michael said.

Jill thought fast. “Do we have to?”

Jim caught on immediately. “Let'em go. No real harm done except to them.” Michael started to object, but Jim cut him off. “This headache is nothing compared to what we'll go through if the press gets wind of this.”

Ellen shook her head. “If we let them go, they'll be mugging someone else tomorrow night.”

“She's right, Jim,” Michael added.

“C'mon, man,” Jim pleaded. “What are we going to charge them with? What can we prove?” He pointed to his head. “Simple assault? Assault with a deadly weapon? Way the system works, they'll be out mugging by tomorrow night anyhow.”

“You know Jim and I haven't had much time together the past several months,” Jill said. “If the press gets wind of this there'll be TV crews shoving cameras in our faces for weeks. It'll be worse than that time Jim met my sister Irene for lunch and the tabloids published photos of his ‘scandalous affair.’ Please?”

Ellen was weakening. “I can see the headline now, Michael. Troubled Land Band Leader Mugs Muggers.” She gave her man a sad look. “And the way gangster blacks play the victim game anymore, we'll be lucky if it's not us up on charges.”

Michael knew when he was licked. With a disgusted shrug he retrieved Jim's wallet, and frisked Shark and Skull, coming up with a pair of switchblades, a .25 auto, and a set of brass knuckles.

“You really want to turn this scum loose?” He gave it one last try.

“I know it doesn't set well, man, but you haven't been hounded like we have,” Jim explained.

“All I know, is we're making a mistake,” Michael snapped. “Society’s in one hell of a fix when guilty men aren't prosecuted because their victims will be harassed. Now, come on. We have to get you to a doctor.”

Shark lay still, groin throbbing, feigning unconsciousness and seething with hatred, as the four walked away. Troubled Land Band? Jim Cantrell! Shit! That's why the dude looked familiar. But what Shark wanted was cat-eye's name. That honky had payback comin'. He sucked his hand, where Ellen bit him. The blonde bitch too. Then a way to profit occurred to him. If Cantrell didn't want publicity, maybe he'd pay to avoid it?

And after the payoff, Shark decided, he'd sell the story to The Star. No, he backed up a step, remembering his place, first, he'd tell Viper.

*

Provo

Betty Young pulled her first loaf of bread out of her SOS Sport Solar Oven and placed it on a rack on their screened in back porch to cool. She was using the solar oven because her kitchen was so hot from pressure canning all morning.

She looked at the piles of zucchini and Blue Lake green beans and sighed. She still had at least thirty quarts to put up and, not for the first time, wished she’d sprung for the All American 941 model which held nineteen quarts at a time instead of the 921 she’d got that only held seven.

But, she wasn’t a weightlifter so how would she hoist that 941 when it was full?

Normally her neighbor, Fern Cummins, and her daughter, Cheryl, helped with her canning--as she did when they were at it, but today Fern was laid up with bad cramps and Cheryl was baby sitting for another family.

Betty wiped her hands on a white chef’s apron and got back to work, deciding that, after she finished this batch she was going to get one of those Masterbuilt propane turkey cookers and do all her canning outdoors.

*

Hollywood

Lola MaDonna stepped into her dressing room and flopped into a chair in front of the mirror. Fourteen hours of shooting for the sixth, or was it the seventh straight day. Her legs were sore, her back ached, her neck popped every time she turned her head and her eyes! God! With bags like that she didn’t need luggage.

She unbuttoned her blouse and heaved a sigh of relief as she unsnapped her bra. Instantly her backache eased now that the fastener wasn’t pressing against her spine.

She tossed it in a hamper. Bra! More like a harness. Still, she knew she shouldn’t complain. Her oversized breasts had led to her first break in film. And…she hated to admit it, they, along with her violet eyes, and fiery red hair were the main source of her continued appeal. Whatever pays the bills.

She grabbed her creams and removed any makeup Will had missed then applied her street face. She had just re-buttoned her blouse and grabbed her car keys when she noticed the flowers.

Two-dozen bright red, long-stem roses set in a gold-trimmed Lenox China vase. Her smile changed from tired to interested. She liked Lenox. The card was embossed silk. It read like a haiku:

Talent

Beauty

Winged Mating of Eagles

It was signed simply: Joseph Scarlatti. No phone number. No “from a secret admirer.” No hint that she should be able to place a face to the name. Intriguing, but she received anonymous gifts from men all the time. Still, the touch of class had lifted her spirits.

The next evening saw another two-dozen roses in another Lenox China vase, and a card of embossed gold leaf. The card read, “Mr. Joseph Scarlatti requests the pleasure of your company over dinner at a time and place suiting your convenience.” This time there was a phone number.

She smiled, picturing him tall, dark, handsome and romantic. An Italian Prince or Count, certainly a gentleman. She reached for the phone, deciding on the spur of the moment to grant Joseph Scarlatti’s request.

She was right about him being tall.

Chapter 6: The Reporter

Washington, DC

“No comment,” Farley Moffat said and hung up.

Monica Helms, Washington correspondent for the American Broadcasting Network, stared at the disconnected phone in her hand and knew something was up. Late night White House meetings, a flurry of activity at the Pentagon, mysterious convoys, the President canceling photo ops--it all added up to a story, if she could find out what was going on.

She hung up the phone and studied her carefully lacquered nails--hot pink to match her formfitting business suit. Fair skin, long, jet-black hair, a deceptively angelic face, green eyes, and a figure-eight shape completed a package that mesmerized any man who wasn't blind or gay.

Monica had used her appearance to advantage her first few years in Washington, but by now everyone knew that a piercing sharp brain lurked behind that dazzling exterior. “The prettiest shark in the sea,” one disgruntled Senator labeled her.

Opening her iPhone address book, she began paging through her list of contacts. Somebody had to know what was happening.

She stopped at the listing for Donna Markwright, shook her head slightly as if realizing this would go nowhere, and placed the call.

After three rings she heard, “Monica darling! How is my favorite niece? Is Lucy doing well?

Donna and her sister Lucy were named for Donna Reed and Lucille Ball. Lucy had broken her leg three weeks ago and had her good and bad days.

“Mom is fine, Aunt Donna. I was wondering if you could tell me what’s--”

“Monica,” Donna interrupted. “You know I won’t leak anything the President doesn’t want leaked.”

“So does he want anything leaked?” Monica asked.

“It was lovely hearing from you dear.”

Monica’s lips twitched in a small smile. Just what she’d expected. Maybe she should call Carl. No! She wasn't going to open that old wound. Maybe she should haul out a camera crew and practice a little ambush journalism.

Her iPhone rang.

“Helms,” she answered, always the professional.

“Say pretty lady. Why don't you and me paint the town red tonight.”

Speak of the Devil. She looked around to see if anyone was close enough to overhear, but no one was in earshot. “Carl?” Her heart skipped a beat.

“The one and only. Are you free tonight?”

She read between the lines. He wouldn't call her unless it was important, and his light tone suggested he didn't trust her phone line.

“Since when was I ever free?”

He laughed and said, “Dinner then. Same time, same place.”

Five minutes later, back at the White House, Farley Moffat told the President that, “We might have a problem.”

*

Club 7, 10 p.m.

Carl gasped when he saw her.

Candlelight danced in Monica's jade green eyes and the tip of her tongue slid sensuously along Carl’s lips as she greeted him with a kiss. Her soft white dress, cut well above the knee, flowed over her body, hugging every delightful curve and contrasted perfectly with her indigo black hair. Diamonds he had given her sparkled from her ears.

She was giving him the full treatment. This, mister, is what you’ve been missing.

His heart clogged his throat, while lower down another part of him reacted strongly. He swallowed hard, hugged her to him and whispered into her ear.

“Act normally. We’ll talk when we dance.”

“Well hello, Mister Romance,” she answered, as they pulled apart. Her smile turned brittle.

He held her chair and said, “When you hear what I have to say, you'll understand.”

She looked into his hazel eyes and saw a collage of emotions, sorrow, concern, a touch of fear, and, her heart skipped a beat, something warm. Her smile brightened. Whatever happened tonight, it would be open and honest, and those were ground rules she could live with.

Surreptitious cameras wielded by the surveillance team Farley had assigned to her that very afternoon recorded their every move. The music was too loud for them to get audio.

On the dance floor, Carl warned her that what he was about to say wasn't for publication...yet. Still later, on the tousled sheets of a bed at the Watergate he told her the rest.

“An asteroid? Operation Genesis?” Monica couldn't believe it. “Extinction, chaos and terror?”

“The very same,” Carl said with a satisfied sigh.

“God!” She kissed his cheek. “Somebody up there must be really steamed at us.”

“You won’t get any argument from me...but at least we have a chance to stop it.”

“How long are the odds?” she asked.

“Good enough for us to bet our lives on them,” he replied.

She shuddered as violent images erupted in her imagination, and snuggled into Carl's arms for comfort.

They talked through the night, Carl sharing the apocalyptic nightmares that had been brewing inside him since Harry Garrison’s phone call, Monica holding him, stroking his head, asking reporter questions, while deep down inside she couldn’t quite believe what he was telling her.

The next morning, over coffee, she asked, “So what are we doing about it?”

“Everything we can,” he replied.

“I don’t know if that’s good enough, Carl. People have to be warned, especially those on the coasts.”

“I agree,” he said. “But it’s too soon for that. If we made the announcement now the resulting panic could sabotage our attempts to prevent this disaster. It would devastate the country, the world. We need time to prepare shelters in the caves of Tennessee, Missouri, New Mexico and Arkansas; time to find safe zones for everyone else where we can build and stock refugee camps.”

“But, Carl,” she began.

“Monica, thousands, maybe tens of thousands, could die before their time if we warn them too soon. Also, and please think about this, we have no place for them to go. If everyone flees the coasts to the interior before we’re ready for them it will lessen the chance of survival of those already inland. And that’s a slim enough chance already.”

“The biggest story in history and I can’t tell it.” She gave him a tender smile. “Ironic, isn’t it?”

He caressed her cheek and looked deep into her eyes. “We’ll make it through this thing.”

She closed her eyes so he wouldn’t see her doubt.

*

The Amana Colonies, Iowa

Getting the mail wasn’t usually this traumatic, but the paper in Eric Metz’s hand certainly changed that.

Eric agreed with his religion’s dogma that the Lord would provide--if you worked hard. And he’d done so his entire life. His farm had no electric power, in that respect being like most of his fellow Amish neighbors, but he’d gone along with the tractor hypocrisy and purchased one.

What farmer in his right mind wouldn’t when a field that used to take a week to plow now took a day. Even so, to get right with the Lord, he stripped off the tires and ran it on its steel rims.

He’d inherited the farm from his father, who’d got it from his and so on back to the founding in 1855. But if things kept going the way they were, it wouldn’t be his farm much longer. And for the life of him he couldn’t figure out why. He hadn’t done anything wrong.

Thanks to crop rotation and growing grow green cover crops the soil was as deep and rich as it had ever been. He planted only heirloom seed crops that, like the land, had been handed down from generation to generation. So how could he be sued for patent infringement? How could it be his fault that the wind blew genetically modified corn pollen into his fields. If anything, he was the injured party, because his corn crop was no longer pure.

But here he was, facing eviction after being sued by Big Ag Crops, because they allowed their patented genetically modified organism to get loose and, in effect, trespass on his land and contaminate his heirloom corn. He’d vaguely heard of such suits before and considered them utter nonsense, but the paper in his hand wasn’t nonsense. It was an immediate and dire threat to all he held dear.

He took off his straw hat revealing his farmer’s tan and wiped his brow, mystified. He thought briefly about the rationale of the court’s ruling and was appalled at where his thoughts led him. Why, if Corporations could win such claims, it was not just conceivable but inevitable that all of the world’s food crops would eventually be owned and controlled by them. And those who control the food supply control the population.

He would have to pray, seek guidance from the elders--and hire the absolute best appellate attorney the Amana Corporation could afford. This not only wasn’t right, it was evil!

Chapter 7: Joey’s Date

Los Angeles

“You mean the hole just appeared?” Joey Scarlatti shook his head. “No sound? No vibration?” His sons John and Anthony shared a glance--John’s vaguely puzzled, Anthony’s excited.

“That's what I been tellin' ya,” Sergeant Carswell said. “One second I'm leaning against my Humvee. The next second there's a hole clean through the tire, frame, transmission, and out the other side. Missed me by less than an inch.”

Joey the Giant considered the possibilities. Neutron beam? Unlikely, the technology wasn't there yet. Mass driver? Possible, but the projectile would have made a noise. It had to be a laser, and what a laser! He wanted it.

“Any plans to ship it?”

“Well, they don't exactly advertise that kind of package,” Carswell said.

“I know that, Carswell. That's what I have you for.”

“I'll keep my eyes open. What about the other stuff?” A large shipment of M16's, LAWS rockets, grenades, and other small arms was going out in three days.

“The route the same as you said?”

Carswell nodded.

“Okay, then.” Joey said, as far as he was concerned the meeting was over. He looked down at Carswell. “You still here?”

Carswell left.

Joey spread a map and pointed to an isolated bridge. “You’ll hit them here.”

Anthony and John both stared at him.

Finally, John asked, “You aren’t coming?”

“No,” Joey sounded smug. “I have a date.”

*

Situation Room

“This is the problem,” Carl Borzowski said, pointing to a small part of a detailed diagram. “The gyroscopic stabilizer for the aiming platform has to be replaced.”

Farley Moffat challenged him immediately. “What's wrong with one that's already in Sunflower?”

“I believe the technical term is 'fried',” Carl said. He'd had just about enough of Farley Moffat. To forestall the inevitable follow-up question, he added, “The Garcias had a spare and they're testing it now. If it checks out, they'll send it to Cape Canaveral as part of an arms shipment bound for Fort Benning.”

“Why not ship it by air?” Farley asked.

“And if the plane should crash? Carl replied.

Farley nodded and said, “Okay, got it. Shipment by ground with an armed escort is more secure.”

“How long?” It was the first time the President had spoken at this meeting.

“The shipment leaves tonight, Mister President. It will arrive at Cape Canaveral Friday morning, several days before we need it.”

“Good!” Hammond Powell breathed a sigh of relief. “Now, I want you both on the phone. Find me a backup stabilizer and get it to Cape Canaveral. Nothing must go wrong with this launch.” By God he would stop this asteroid.

Farley was out the door swiftly, but catching a gesture from the President, Carl remained behind.

“Yes, Sir?” He asked.

“Anything you need to get off your chest, Carl?”

Carl thought briefly about Monica and said, “Well, Sir, you could tell Farley to call off his dogs.”

Hammond Powell smiled. “Spotted them, did you?”

“No, Sir. I just assumed they were there. The bad news is Monica spotted them.”

“Yes, well…” the President cleared his throat. “I’ll have a talk with Farley. You say hello to Monica for me. But Carl, no leaks. We just got started on the camps in the Smokies and the Black Hills and we don’t need any complications.”

*

Hollywood

Joseph Scarlatti fidgeted in his new tuxedo. His eyes swept the room, double-checking everything. The candlelit table covered with a plush white linen tablecloth, set with Gold-ware and gold trimmed china was a work of art. Even the linen napkins were folded origami-style into swans. A golden serving bell sat next to the china centerpiece.

She’d left the choice of restaurants up to him. She was late.

In the corner of the room, where she’d see it when she came in, sat a dark mahogany table adorned with dozens of bright red roses in a spray of baby’s breath.

God! If she didn’t show he’d never survive the humiliation.

Royal blue velvet draperies trimmed in gold framed the entrance. A nice touch, he thought. Two walls of the private dining room were hung with tasteful prints. One, if he wasn’t mistaken, was a Matisse. The other wall consisted of an enormous bay window overlooking the Pacific. In front of the window a mahogany love seat beckoned. Its upholstery matched the two chairs at the table and the draperies.

Soft violin music wafted through the room.

Everything is perfect, he thought. Maybe it was too perfect. Maybe it was too cliché. He was an idiot to do this to himself, to lay himself open like this. He hoped she wouldn’t show.

His heart skipped as the drapes parted and the host showed her in. Her eyes caught the roses first, as intended, and a smile lit her face.

“Miss Lola MaDonna,” the host said. “I have the honor to introduce Mister Joseph Scarlatti.” The man bowed out.

Joey rose to his feet so fast he almost knocked over his chair, and stepped forward to offer his arm. His eyes drank in her obsidian hair, voluptuous figure, frightened eyes. He froze.

He’d die if she bolted.

Lola’s violet eyes widened as Joey stood up…and up. An involuntary trickle of fear prickled her skin and her breath caught when he stepped toward her. The man was a giant! Lola, only five-foot-three, came roughly up to his navel. She fought the urge to scream and run.

Suddenly aware she was staring most rudely, Lola blushed, then recovered her self-control and stepped toward the giant, offering her tiny hand.

“Please forgive me, Mr. Scarlatti.” Her voice was husky with embarrassment. “You didn’t fit my childish preconceptions. With your Italian name and all I expected you to be small and dark. Instead you’re so…,” she craned her neck up to look him in the eye, “so…blonde.”

Joey took her dainty hand in his and laughed, loving her beauty, her courage, her lie. His mirth rolled over the room like a freight train dousing her blush and catching her up in it.

“Forgive me, Miss MaDonna,” he said when he caught his breath. “I really should have warned you I was so…blonde.” The smile in her eyes set wings to his heart.

He led her to the table and held her chair, then took his own.

Lola’s heart was still hammering, but the actress in her had come to the fore. How could this be the man who wrote haiku? Who sent sensitive, lovely gifts? His words gave the impression of culture and knowledge. And he was polite to a fault, striving with a bass drum rumble to sound gentle. But each time they touched something inside her cringed.

What repelled her so? He was being so nice. His eyes, she decided--something lurked just under the surface of those icy blue eyes.

Though only three hours ticked off the clock, each minute tested her anew. She didn’t want to hurt his feelings, feared, in fact, to hurt them. It upset her all the more that she couldn’t name one good reason to fear him. Finally, she pled an early shoot the next morning to escape, refusing the offer of a ride, knowing the enclosed confines of a car would trap her next to him and shatter her frayed nerves.

Joseph, perfect gentleman to the end, saw her to her cab and held the door. As she got in he leaned close, saw her go rigid, and said, “I’ll call you.”

He tried to close the car door gently, to control the seething inside him, but when he shut it he twisted the handle off.

“Bitch,” he hissed as the cab drove off. For Joey’s life had also made him an actor--playing dumb for Benny the Bug. So Joey felt the slight tremors when he touched her, saw her eyes flinch when he leaned close and had switched in an instant from the delights of love to the delights of torture. He had hoped to draw the evening out, to punish her for being like the rest.

She had humiliated him in the worst way possible, by pitying the freak.

All evening the desire built in him to wring her head off her body, but he satisfied himself with tasting her fear. The place was too public. Too many people knew.

But God help her if she crossed his path again.

Chapter 8: The Convoy

Northern Arizona

Jamal Rashid’s eyes narrowed as they followed the line of trucks winding along the highway, headed for the trap.

“Jerry to Papa. Sammy left the door unlocked again,” Jamal radioed.

“Papa here,” John Scarlatti said. “Well, don’t just tell me about it; lock the door.”

Jamal shoved the detonator home and watched as the carefully spaced blasts tore rock loose from the mountainside and sent it smashing onto the road below. He keyed the mike. “It's locked.”

“Good. Sammy, I don’t suppose you left the back door unlocked too?”

Ten miles in front of the convoy “Sammy” sat in the front seat of an Arizona highway patrol car, parked across both lanes with its lights flashing, while his partner turned traffic around, explaining to irate motorists that a slide had blocked the road.

“Sammy here, Papa. I locked them both. Jerry’s lying.”

“Now boys, just don’t let it happen again.” They were using GMRS radios and wanted the conversation to sound like a family squabble in case the Army was monitoring the frequencies.

John looked over at Anthony and gave a thumbs up. Tony put down the field glasses, through which he'd just sighted the convoy's lead truck and said, “Welcome to my parlor.”

*

Private Otha (Glad) Gladson drove a rig better than any man in the motor pool's transport division. He repaired and maintained “his” truck, doing his job with pride and with attention to detail so he wouldn't have to depend on others less conscientious. His reward lay in the smooth feel of the steering, the way his rig's gears snicked cleanly into place when he shifted, and the instant response from accelerator and brakes.

The big black man spoke softly, his words pronounced in an upper-middle-class, mid-west accent. White men, meeting him in person for the first time after talking to him over the phone would often blurt out, “I didn't know you were black.” Otha would shrug and go on about his business. Some white folks were just naturally ignorant so he made allowances. And some, like Corporal Blevins, the man sitting beside him in the cab, were spiteful rednecks. Glad wondered why Blevins had chosen to ride in his truck. The man normally avoided “niggers” unless handing out shit details.

Gladson and Blevins were the third truck in the four truck convoy as it wound its way up Arizona's Mogollon Plateau on Route 60. Otha enjoyed these back road trips for the challenge to his driving skills and hated them for the wear and tear they put on his rig. He supposed taking such routes was some sort of idiotic security measure, and shook his head, thinking they would be more secure on an interstate with lots of people around. Of course, nobody had put Private Otha Gladson in charge yet.

He dropped a couple of gears as he steered around a tight curve and followed the lead trucks out onto a narrow two-lane bridge. He felt Blevins tense up beside him and wondered if the Corporal was afraid of heights.

Then the cab of the lead truck exploded and everything happened at once. The lead truck's forty-foot trailer slewed sideways, almost blocking the bridge, as its air hoses ruptured and its brakes locked up. The second truck plowed into it and jackknifed. Glad smoked all eighteen wheels skidding to a panic stop. Gun-bearing men erupted from cover and raced out onto the bridge, some using fire extinguishers on the lead truck's burning cab, others shooting into the second truck. Two of the men were huge enough to stand out.

Hijack! The thought rang in his brain as Otha reached for his M16. Cold steel prodded his neck, and suddenly it was clear to him why Blevins chose to ride in his truck.

“Ah don't think so,” Blevins said in a shaky voice. “Jist sit yo black ass still an' put both hands on the wheel.”

Shots sounded behind him and Otha realized the convoy was surrounded.

“They'll kill us, Blevins! This is a hijack!”

Blevins sneered, “Don't you think ah know that, you dumb nigger.”

“You think they'll leave any witnesses?” Otha asked, certain he wouldn't be left alive.

For a brief instant doubt flickered in Blevin's close-set eyes and the pressure of the gun barrel on Glad's neck eased. It was all the opening he'd get. Otha slapped the pistol away from his neck and stiff-fingered Blevins in the eyes. The Corporal screamed. Something burned across the back of Otha's head and his ears rang from the roar of the .45 in the enclosed cab as he twisted the pistol from Blevin's hand so hard he dislocated the man's trigger finger.

Slugs stitched a line through the windshield and Glad ducked, dropping the pistol and grabbing his M16.

Blevins screamed, “Don't shoot!”

Glad kicked open the truck door catching one attacker in the face, knocking the man down. He only had one very slim chance at survival and he didn't hesitate, jumping from the cab, shooting a hijacker whose weapon swung toward him, and diving over the bridge railing toward the waters far below as bullets cut the air behind him.

*

“You're a real disappointment, Blevins,” John Scarlatti's hard tones held no mercy. Smoldering wreckage and dead soldiers surrounded him. He had the Corporal pinned against a trailer, one massive hand gripping Blevin's throat. His men were almost finished hooking new cabs to the trailers.

“He has to be dead,” Blevins squeaked. “No one could survive that fall.”

John slacked his grip slightly. “What do you think, Tony?” Anthony was taking a quick inventory while the trucks were readied.

“I think we should test the Corporal's hypothesis, baby brother,” Anthony Scarlatti said.

For once, John agreed with his “older” twin, tossing the screaming Corporal off the bridge.

“John! Tony!” One of their men yelled from the back of Glad's truck.

“What the hell is this?” John asked, staring down at the Styrofoam encased object that looked out of place among the boxes of M16's, grenades, and LAWS rockets that made up the bulk of the load.

“Think it’s that laser Carswell was bragging about?”

“We’ll ask him,” Tony said, not liking the situation one bit. Something about that thing bothered him. “Let's get out of here.”

*

In the canyon below, and more than a mile downstream, Otha Gladson clung to a boulder in the middle of the river as the water raged around him. He couldn’t see out his left eye because it was swollen shut. He took off his belt and fashioned a sling for his left arm. He could tell by the large lump it was broken and it hurt like the devil. But he’d survived a high dive he figured would get him in Guiness.

“Told you so,” he muttered to Blevin's corpse as it shot past him and on down the rapids. He edged up onto the rock and sat, wondering how the hell he was going to get to shore. He was still there the next day when the rescue chopper spotted him.

*

Situation Room

President Powell paced the room, radiating energy like a thoroughbred on race day. The others present, powerful men all, edged back each time he approached.

FBI Director Royce Bannister opened his mouth and the President spun to face him, finger pointing, eyes hard.

“Don’t! I’ve heard all the damn excuses I’m going to hear. Now get that stabilizer back. And listen good. I don’t care what you have to do. We’re talking the survival of the human race here. Nothing else matters. Am I making myself clear?”

Nervous nods followed his gaze around the room.

“Are there any more of these stabilizers available?”

“Yes, Sir, Mr. President,” Farley Moffat said. It was time to cool things down. “There are other stabilizers; just none that fit the Sunflower configuration. Martin Marietta’s adapting one to our needs now.”

Hammond Powell’s eyes nailed Farley to the wall. “Then we can still launch in time to vaporize this rock?”

“It'll be tight, Mr. President, but yes, we think so.”

“We can’t afford ‘think so,’ Farley. Make it happen.”

President Powell turned to Carl Borzowski. “Carl?”

“It’s our only shot now, Mr. President,” he responded. “They’re working around the clock. Priority Ultra.”

The President nodded. Priority Ultra was the nation’s utmost priority designation. Everything attached to Sunflower was now Ultra, including finding the bastards who hijacked the shipment and killed those soldiers.

He looked at the men in the room. They’re doing everything possible, he reminded himself. So why did he feel like it wasn’t enough? Probably because the stakes were so high. He realized he and most everyone he knew would very likely die if the asteroid hit--and they would be in Mount Weather, one of the most shockproof, heavily secured places in existence, stocked with every necessity and convenience known to man. He was the most powerful man on Earth and even he couldn’t buy more time.

“Next,” he said, tucking those thoughts away and taking up the burden again.

“The cave sites are mostly stocked, Mr. President,” Morgan Hamilton said. “We’ve decided on a lottery system for selection once the ‘must save’ personnel list is filled. Kind of like in the movie, Deep Impact.”

“Weighted toward women and people with farm backgrounds?”

“As well as scientists, yes, sir.”

The President turned to the FEMA Director and asked, “What about the seed and sperm banks?”

Juan Salazar said, “All systems are go. The Seed bank in Fort Collins has been reinforced and a special unit has been assigned to defend it from looters. The animal bank now contains DNA from every known species of mammal, amphibian, reptile, fish and bird, as well as countless insects. There are similar depositories in Petaluma, Toronto, and Svalbard, Norway.”

“Eli?”

“The Russians and Chinese just launched Seed and Animal bank modules up to the ISS for Project Genesis, but Sir, if we don’t destroy or divert the asteroid it’s looking like it will hit just off the East Coast of...” Eli Cohen consulted his notes to be certain, “...the Carolinas.”

“Damn,” the President said. His hometown was Charleston. “What about those we can’t get into the shelters?”

“People in caves or storm shelters, even in windowless rooms should be survive the initial impact so long as they’re outside the blast area. Those trapped above ground won’t be so fortunate.”

President Powell thought about frogs and turtles and other ancient species burying themselves in the mud and decided he now knew the genesis of that behavior. Maybe the Hopi had it right and their ancestors had come up out of caves.

He shrugged, flipped his old fashioned spiral paged notebook open and asked, “What about the nukes?”

Farley glanced at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission chairman, who nodded, and replied, “As of midnight last night all 136 reactors regulated by the NRC in this country have been shut down and fail-safed. Even if the cores are breached the rods have been cooled down to the point where any radioactive materials released will be low grade.

“So far as we can determine every other country with nuclear reactors have followed suit. Those aboard naval vessels are small enough that environmental damage will be slight and we’re hoping they survive anyhow.

Dropping all the nuclear power plants offline has created blackouts in several areas and we’re catching flak for that.”

He caught the President’s eyes flashing at him, cleared his throat, and got back on point.

“All our nuclear weapons have also been fail-safed. MIRV’s in our missile silos have been removed and stored as safely as possible. The same goes for bombs and tactical weapons.”

President Powell sighed. It wasn’t enough, but he supposed it was the best they could do.

*

Los Angeles

“Jesus H. Christ!” Joey threw down the newspaper. The headline screamed, “Giants Massacre Convoy!”

“I've never seen so much goddammed heat. Cops are everywhere, shaking down anyone who ever spit on the sidewalk. Feds are buzzing around like somebody kicked a hornet’s nest. Carswell says the military intelligence types are grilling everyone on the base. Benny the Bug is looking for us.” And worst of all, a witness had seen his sons leading the ‘convoy massacre.’ He and the twins had been in hiding since the news broke.

“There weren't supposed to be any damn witnesses.” He’d taught them better than that.

The twins looked at anything but him. Nothing they could say to that.

“Now the cat’s not just out of the bag, it’s yowling to the whole damned world it belongs to ME!”

“Think this heat is over that stabilizer thing we took?” John asked.

“Of course it is, you idiot,” Tony sniped. “Carswell said it's part of some top secret military satellite.”

John bristled. “Killing eight soldiers was going to piss the Feds off anyhow, Tony.”

“Yeah, well, you were in charge, John,” Tony sneered. “And if you’d killed all eight the heat wouldn’t be focused on us!”

“How the hell could I know that bastard survived the fall?” John asked, glaring daggers at his twin.

“That's enough,” Joey yelled. “We don't have time to fight among ourselves. We have to figure out how we’re getting out of this mess. Meanwhile, have Jamal deal part of the load to our contact in Denver. When those punks get picked up with hot pieces from the shipment it’ll take some of the pressure off us, maybe even discredit that witness.”

He put his head down in his hands to think. That stabilizer had to be worth millions. A peace offering for Benny? No, he'd hang on to it for a while.

*

Beverly Hills

“Where the hell are they?” Benny the Bug stormed around the plushly decorated room. His lieutenants looked at the Persian carpet, the Gaugin and Picasso’s on the walls, the ceiling. “It isn't enough those oversized oafs were holding out on me with their piss-ant gunrunning operation. Oh, no. They have to go and declare war on the fucking U.S. GOVERNMENT!” He took a deep breath. “And everybody connected knows they’re part of MY organization. Do you have any idea the shit that’s bringing down on me, and what it costs? Well, do you?”

Not one of his men would meet his glare.

“Millions.” He took a deep breath. “Now, I want’em found. Capisce?”

He emphasized the last word by pounding his fist on the walnut dining table. He stared at them while they shifted uncomfortably.

Ice crept into his voice. “And when you find’em, bring’em to me alive.”

They scattered faster than teenagers caught stealing.

Benny ran a hand across his forehead. The fucking Government, he thought, amazed. Even that dumb bastard Joey should know the Government wasn’t an enemy. Springsteel Tool and Die, one of Benny’s most profitable legit businesses, made a bundle selling substandard six dollar bolts to the Pentagon and other agencies.

*

The Freeholds

Michael hit the “place your order” button on Amazon.com and checked LED light bulbs, inline fuse box, Midland two way radios, and Patrick Sweeney’s “Gunsmithing the AR-15” off his shopping list. He read an article on the Preparedness.Pro website about Tattler reusable canning lids, posted a link on how to build a portable solar generator on the American Prepper’s Network and then clicked onto the next website.

Ellen poked her head into Michael’s office and asked, “What are you doing, honey?”

“Ordering spare diodes for the micro-inverters,” Michael said. He clicked the “view cart” link on the Grainger’s website and dug out his credit card before hitting “pay now.”

“What’s wrong with the old ones?”

“Nothing, right now, but if we got hit with a large solar storm or EMP they’d burn out and our solar panels would just sit there generating electricity that couldn’t go anywhere or do us any good. Remember the ‘Prepper motto,’ Two is one and one is none.”

Ellen thought about that for a couple of seconds and asked, “But won’t the new ones get ruined too?”

Michael smiled at her and said, “No, because I’ll store them in the Faraday Cage.”

Ellen’s eyebrows rose. “And what is that and when did we get one?”

Michael rose and walked around his desk and said, “Come on, I’ll show you,” and led her down the hall and through the kitchen and out into the garage.

“There,” he said, pointing at an old metal cabinet.

“That’s a Faraday Cage?”

“Well, not yet.” He opened it up revealing a hand-cranked and solar powered emergency radio, two pairs of Motorola walkie talkies, dozens of rechargeable lithium ion batteries in assorted sizes and their chargers, several flashlights, boxes of CFR and LED light bulbs, and a few power tools. All of it sat on pieces of bubble wrap or cardboard or even bags of Styrofoam peanuts to keep them from touching the insulated metal sides. He’d replaced the metal shelving with non-conducting wood. “But, when I finish filling it and seal the seams with aluminum duct tape, it will be.”

Ellen said, “Uh-huh,” shook her head and went back into the house. Honestly, when he got this way, spending sometimes thousands of dollars to prepare for unlikely events, she just didn’t know what to think. She could see dehydrating or canning food from their garden, and loved the fresh eggs and meat from their chickens and rabbits, as well as the milk from their Jersey. She liked how the flour and corn meal they ground in their Wondermill Junior grain mill was far superior to any from the store; but where did it end? It wasn’t like they didn’t have money. And Woodland Park was only a forty minute drive.

Still, she knew better than to argue with him about it. This was his protective instinct on steroids. She smiled, and that wasn’t all bad. And who knew. If TEOTWAWKI (The End of The World As We Know It) came knocking at least her family and her community would be better off than most.

Besides, she’d learned to trust his instincts, recalling that it wasn’t that long ago she didn’t want to learn to use a gun.

As she entered the living room a CNN news alert caught her attention.

“...and the death toll from this terrorist attack on the military convoy in Arizona is still unknown. Sources close to the investigation say they do not think the ambush was the work of Mexican drug cartels, but they aren’t ruling anything out at this time.”

“Michael!” She yelled. “You’d better come in and hear this.”

Chapter 9: The National Defense Authorization Act

“Raoul,” Ariel called out as she entered the house. “Guess who I’ve got with me.” She stopped as she saw him shushing her with one hand while holding the phone to his ear with the other.

“God, Harry. It’s that bad?” The grave look on his face told Ariel it was very bad. “Ariel and I will get to work on it right now. I'll call you tomorrow with the results.”

He hung up and turned to face her, his eyes lighting up when he saw the short, curly brown hair, warm gray eyes and big bright smile of their granddaughter as she came through the doorway.

“Sara!” He opened his arms for a hug. They had raised her from the age of six after their son and his wife died in a car wreck.

“So, how are things at Stanford?” Raoul asked, proud of her status as a surgeon and instructor at Stanford Medical School.

“Pretty good Grandpa, but I think I’ve come at a bad time.”

“Nonsense,” Ariel exclaimed. “There’s never a bad time for you to visit, especially now.”

“Your Grandma's right,” Raoul said. “We were going to call and invite you over for the holidays.”

“Then what was that on the phone?” Sara asked.

Raoul sighed. “It concerns something we want to tell you about.”

“Raoul!”

“Relax Ariel. I'm not going to tell her anything classified, just something the whole world’s going to know about in less than two weeks.”

Sara wore a puzzled expression, but Ariel couldn’t restrain herself. “Something happened to the launch,” she said and the dread in her voice touched them both.

Raoul shook his head. “The launch was flawless, but the stabilizer isn't so stable.”

“Then we can’t aim Sun--.” Ariel bit off the word with a glance at Sara.

Sara said, “Look, you two obviously have something important to attend to, so I'll just get my bags and put them in my old room while you hash this out.” She started down the hall to her room. “When you want me, I’ll be in my room reading.” She tossed a smile back over her shoulder. “This is the only place I can catch up on my medical journals.”

“We can't aim Sunflower,” Raoul confirmed. “That was Harry Garrison and Carl Borzowski on the phone. Something about six-dollar bolts and for want of a nail. He wants us to put our heads together and see if we can software our way around his hardware problem.”

Ariel nodded and said, “Call General Mabry and tell him we need the Cray. Then call the lab and let them know we want a direct feed from Sunflower. We don't want to depend on what anyone says is wrong. We want to see what's wrong for ourselves.” She headed into the kitchen. “I'll get us packed and tell Sara we'll be gone for a few days. We can tell her about the rock when we get back.”

*

A Warehouse in Denver

Jamal Rashid opened the briefcase and did a quick count. It was all there. He nodded to the black men standing in the shadows, picked up a pry bar and opened one of the wooden cases in the back of the truck.

Shark Cassidy slid out of the shadows, jumped up into the truck bed and looked down into the case. Like rain on a nighttime road the M16’s glistened with a fresh coat of oil.

“I pick the nex’ one,” he stated.

Jamal shrugged. Shark pointed one out that had a couple of others stacked on it and his helpers uncovered it. Jamal handed Shark the pry bar, but the results were the same, gleaming weapons and boxes of ammunition. Shark’s pulse quickened. Now this was power.

“We unload now,” Shark said.

“Suit yourself,” Jamal replied, handing Shark a set of keys. “But the truck’s part of the deal.”

Five minutes later Jamal dialed 911 from a nearby pay-phone. Joey’s instructions were to leave nothing to chance. The heat had to focus on Denver. Three minutes after that, cops were surrounding the warehouse.

*

“Man, you did good.” Tears of joy leaked down Viper’s face as he cradled the new M16 in his palms. Crates of them were stacked in the U-Store-It shed, along with enough ammunition to bury every honky in Colorado.

Shark Cassidy beamed at the approval of his leader. “Then you ain’t mad about Skull gettin’ popped?” Skull and the others had been trapped inside the warehouse during the firefight with the police. Shark had only escaped because he drove the truck out, with most of the weapons still packed inside, just before cops arrived.

“No, my brother.” Viper said, and continued in his best preacher mode. “The price he paid was well worth it, for you have put into our hands the means by which to deliver our message to the whites. I praise you, Shark Cassidy, and our martyred brothers. The Dark Lord will reward you.”

*

Beverly Hills

“Joey.” Benny Bonificio's piggish eyes gleamed. “So good to see you and your boys.” The Scarlatti’s lay handcuffed, waist and ankle-chained on Benny’s Persian rug. John and Tony were gagged.

“Mister Bonificio,” Joey said calmly. “There’s been a mistake.” He and his sons were dead men unless his red herring worked.

“Oh, there’s been a mistake all right, Joey. The kind I only let people make once.”

“No, Mister Bonificio. I mean we didn’t do this thing. Surely you heard some niggers in Denver pulled the job?”

Benny waived a newspaper in Joey’s face, the one where newly promoted Corporal Otha Gladson described his attackers. “How many pairs of seven-foot tall

white niggers do you know, Joey?”

“C’mon Mister Bonificio. The witness is a nigger too. He was prob’ly in on the job and just made that giant stuff up ‘cos it sounded good. When me an’ the boys saw those lies in the paper we got scared and hid. The Scarlatti’s always been loyal, Boss. You know that. Why you think I sent a message to you? I need your help to get outta this mess.”

Benny paced the room. He hated to admit it, but Joey sounded like he was telling the truth. That part where the nigger said he jumped off a hundred-foot bridge to escape had to be pure bullshit. And Joey the Giant had backed him several times. And the oaf was too damn stupid to even conceive a job like this, much less pull it off. And the papers did say the search was focusing on the Denver area, some black, Satanist whack jobs.

“But what about your little gunrunning operation, Joey? You been holding out on me.”

Joey looked ashamed and his voice was soft, almost pleading as he spoke. “Only ‘til I growed it big enough to be something to be proud of. Then I was gonna tell you. Tony there, he kept the books and we brung’em to show you we was straight.”

All Benny had ever seen of Joey told him the man had as much muscle between his ears as in his biceps. Simple, loyal, Joey the Giant. Christ! What a mess. He turned to his nearest lieutenant. “Put them in the store room ‘til I’ve had a chance to think.”

When they were gone he motioned another of his men over and said, “Round up some of Joey's boys, and search his place again. I need to find out if he's got any other secrets.”

*

The Oval Office

“Yes, Mr. Prime Minister, it is terrible, but thank you for your support.” Hammond Powell hung up.

“Terrible?” Farley Moffat said with raised eyebrows.

“Never underestimate the British sense of understatement,” the President said. “My grandfather once told me he heard a British sailor describe a force five gale as, ‘a bit of a blow.’”

Farley managed a polite chuckle.

“Anyhow,” the President continued, “that takes care of Canada and the Brits. Our neighbors to the North have offered refugee camp sites in Alberta and Saskatchewan--provided we build and supply them, of course.” He looked at a list of countries that included all the nuclear powers plus Mexico, Australia, Japan, Israel, South Africa, and several South American nations.

“Mexico next?”

“No, Enrique is in town and I want you to set up a meeting tonight. Unfortunately it’s time to call the Russians.”

“They still celebrating being off the target list?” Farley asked.

“They’re insufferable. I’m beginning to think they hope it will hit,” Hammond Powell said. “They seem to think their civil defense preparations will get them through in much better shape than us.

Farley did a double take, then nodded. “I can see why they’d think that. Their civil defense planning far exceeded ours during the Cold War.”

He glanced at his ever-present notebook and said, “You know the story is going to leak now”

“Rumors will fly for a few days and then I’ll address the U.N.”

Farley sighed. “Yes, then all hell will break loose.”

*

Foley, Alabama

Sometimes Bill Dean wondered what the world was coming to, but more often than not he figured it was on a direct path to Hell. This latest thing with a military convoy being attacked right here in the United States really got to him though. Shit like that only happened in third world countries.

He shook his head at the thought, but he had a business to run and it was time to open up, so no use dwelling on crap he couldn’t help. Still, he’d say a prayer for that fine young Corporal who’d escaped the ambush.

The door of Dean’s Feed and Seed and Whatever You Need squeaked when he opened it so he grabbed a can of 3-in-1 oil and applied it to the hinges. He’d just stepped back behind the counter when the door opened and the bell chimed and Eileen Massey walked in. Eileen always looked like she was ready to explode but he figured that was because of her blazing red hair and perpetual sunburn.

“Hey, Bill,” she said, stifling a sneeze.

“Eileen,” he said, nodding his head to accent the greeting. “What can I do for you?”

“Looking for some Erythromycin for my fish,” she said.

He pointed toward the back of the store where he kept aquarium supplies and said, “Aisle 14, next to the fish food. Look for Fish Flex Forte. That’s 500 mg so be careful of the dose.”

Bill knew Eileen didn’t own any fish, but he also knew that she and several price-savvy locals used fish, horse or large dog antibiotics when they got sick. The drugs were the exact same type as for people because fish, and horses especially, had delicate constitutions that required pure people-grade antibiotics. They just had to adjust the dose for their body weight. Long story short, what could cost seventy-five dollars at the pharmacy ran less than twenty at his store.

Folks like Eileen, who lived on a fixed income, could be very ingenious at stretching dollars.

A loud sneeze echoed from the fish aisle and Bill shouted, “Bless you!”

*

The Freeholds

Leona Perry faced the classroom full of eight-year-olds and asked, “What do we know about handling guns?”

“Assume all guns are loaded,” the children said, in mass. “Never touch a gun without an adult around. Never point a gun at anything you don’t want to shoot. Keep you finger off the trigger until you’re ready to shoot.”

“Okay,” she said. “Now remember all that when we go to the range.”

The children, especially the boys, fidgeted in their seats and sneaked quick, smiling glances at each other. Firearms Safety and Instruction was their favorite part of the school day, well...next to recess.

*

Fort Benning, Georgia

Colonel Adam Young, steely eyes, iron-gray crew cut hair, steel in his backbone too, clenched his teeth and knitted his brows as he examined his orders. His nose twitched.

Noting his scowl, General Arnold Allison, commander of the 3rd Brigade--3rd Infantry Division said, “Do you have a problem, soldier?”

Colonel Young opened his mouth, thought better of it and said, “No Sir. I will execute my orders, Sir. Though I never expected to see such orders issued in the United States of America...Sir.” He was a short man, who stood tall on matters of principle.

“Careful, Colonel, insubordination wouldn’t look good in your record.”

“I understand, General. That’s why, upon completion of my orders, I will be resigning my commission.”

The General drew back, eyes wide open. “For confiscating supplies from hoarders?”

“They aren’t hoarders, Sir. They are American citizens practicing their religion, which I thought was guaranteed by the First Amendment.”

“This is a National Security issue, Colonel. Under the National Defense Authorization Act keeping more than seven days worth of food is hoarding. But I’m not going to stand here debating with you, Colonel. You have your orders...unless you’d prefer to resign your commission immediately.”

“No, Sir. I’ll complete my mission. I’m one of them, Sir. They know me and they’ll listen to me. I’m afraid if you sent anyone else to seize their goods you’d have an insurrection on your hands.”

Chapter 10: The Prototype

Jamal Rashid watched with regret as the men left Joey Scarlatti's warehouse. His beady black eyes and scarecrow-thin form twitched in nervous anticipation as he sunk low in the seat to keep from being seen. He'd arrived too late to remove the stabilizer and since Jamal recognized Benny the Bug's men, he had no doubt Joey was in big trouble. He decided to follow them, knowing his nondescript beige Chevy Cavalier would be hard to spot. Maybe they would lead him to Joey.

He wasn’t sure why he was so loyal to the big man. As he tailed the black Ford Explorer he decided it came down to respect. He’d seen through Joey’s dumb thug act almost at once and took the chance of letting him know it. Ever unpredictable, Joey reacted by rewarding him with promotions, money, and respect. No one in Joey’s organization made sand nigger, camel jockey or rag head cracks about him. It wasn’t much, but for a kid raised in a Palestinian refugee camp it was enough.

*

Beverly Hills

“What the hell is it?” Benny Bonificio asked, looking at the Styrofoam encased gyroscopic stabilizer.

“I think it's the thing that's got the Feds so fired up, Boss,” Alonzo Bonetti said, adding with pride, “My boy Nicolo found it in a hidden room in Joey's warehouse.”

Nicolo Bonetti, tall and handsome, with wavy dark hair, black eyes and a body builder's physique, looked almost embarrassed to receive such praise in front of Benny.

“Boss, the government's offering a million dollar reward,” Alonzo continued.

“It goes to you and your boy,” Benny said, taking pleasure in their surprised expressions. “Hell, it'll be worth a million to get the damn Feds off my back.” The heat was costing his organization more than a million a day.

“Call Richie Carrerra at the Feebs and tell him you got a present for him. Keep my name out of it. Matter of fact, tell him you bought it off those niggers in Denver. Tell him it cost you two million and ask if they’ll reimburse. That way we each score a mil and the Feds are still happy.” Benny said, never one to miss an opportunity.

And in a few days, after this has blown over, he’d take Joey and his boys for a ride in the desert.

Less than one minute after Alonzo called, Richie Carrerra, the FBI agent was on the phone to the Director, Royce Bannister.

*

“You’re sure the room isn’t bugged?” Joseph asked. The storage room was an old walk-in freezer that Benny used for unsavory purposes, judging by the blood stains on the concrete floor. It wasn’t cold inside because the freezer was empty and the thermostat was set to room temperature.

“No pinhole cameras,” Anthony said.

“And no hidden mikes,” John said, then asked, “So you think we’re good?”

Joey smirked. “Yeah, he bought it all the way, the dumb Guinea. He’s just letting us cool our heels to teach us a lesson. His boys will be along any time now to let us out.”

“Man, I thought we were dead,” John said.

“Have a little faith, boy,” Joey said. “We’ve had Benny fooled for years so he’s much more likely to believe the reports were wrong than that poor, stupid, Joey the Giant’s been pulling the wool over his eyes. Simple psychology. In fact, I’ll bet he’s...”

John and Anthony looked at each other and carefully refrained from rolling their eyes. When the old man got like this it was better to nod and play along. Healthier too.

“Still,” Joey said, finishing up, “Better safe than sorry.” He cupped his hands to his ears and pointed to the doorway. It wasn’t as well insulated as the rest of the room.

John leaned the side of his head against the door, but Anthony dropped to the floor and pressed his ear to the concrete.

*

Ten minutes later Anthony waved his arm and whispered, “Footsteps.” Then his eyes widened and he said, “Shit! Rifle bolts being racked.”

Joey motioned his sons to either side of the door, saving the middle for himself. He held up three fingers.

Two fingers.

At the count of one they heard the latch snap open and the giants charged.

They slammed into the doors, bursting them open--and froze. Instead of slamming the doors into unsuspecting men they faced a semi-circle of armed thugs who were ready for them. Sergeant Carswell lay moaning on the floor, holding a nose broken by the door.

“Mr. Bonificio would like a word,” Alonzo Bonetti said, placing a gun to John’s head.

How did they know about Carswell? Joey saw Nicolo lurking in the back of the mob and understood. The boy had been secretly working for him since he was twelve. At least they didn’t have Jamal yet, but that was a brief flicker of hope. Nothing Jamal could do to save them.

Joey shook his head. If they went along, Benny would kill them slowly. Better a quick death in combat.

Alonzo cocked his pistol and Joey met John’s eyes--and swiftly looked away.

Then Benny stepped forward, placed a .45 caliber Colt against Anthony’s temple and said, “Decide.”

John saw his father’s shoulders slump and bitterness gnawed at him like a worm in an apple. His father was willing to let him die, but not precious Anthony. It was too much.

He exploded into action, batting Alonzo’s gun hand away from his head, snatching the pistol from Alonzo’s nerveless fingers and firing into the crowd, then whirling into them like a gigantic, maniacal dervish.

Anthony went down, Benny beating on his head with his pistols.

But Joey was in his element. Berserker crazy, roaring like a bear, he crushed two men’s heads together so hard they popped like light bulbs--threw one of them into a cluster of mobsters who were regrouping--and used the other like a flail. He whipped the man’s body around with superhuman strength, beating his opponents to the floor or knocking them aside like tenpins. Bones cracked and popped like Rice Krispies on steroids.

Then Benny aimed and fired.

The slug glanced off Joey’s thick skull and he toppled into John, knocking him to the floor. They were swarmed under while Benny screamed, “Alive! I want them alive!”

*

Team Garcia's Lab

“What do you mean, it wobbles?” Carl Borzowski asked.

“Carl,” Raoul said, his voice low and sad, face ashen, “the intensity of the beam at the point of impact is largely a function of distance, surface area, and duration.” Carl nodded, of course. “The Sunflower's wobble is rapid enough to effect duration and surface area. Instead of concentrating all the power on one tiny point and holding it there, the beam will be diffused over a larger area for a shorter time.”

Ariel spoke up, the bags under her eyes matching Raoul's. “Since there's no atmospheric diffraction, the laser will cause a series of small explosions instead of the single big one we need. It may carve the asteroid up some, but it won't cause complete destruction.

“We thought we could shift the point of aim fast enough to compensate for the oscillation and result in a steady state, but the targeting mechanism is an inherent part of the defective gyroscopic stabilizer. There are no independent gyros to aim Sunflower.”

Carl slumped in his chair, head in hands, his voice a strangled whisper. “Then it will hit.”

“Not necessarily,” Harry Garrison said as he entered the room waving a fax. To their hope-filled faces he said, “The FBI has been approached by the people who have the missing stabilizer.” His eyes targeted Raoul and Ariel. “If you two can finish the second Sunflower and if we can get the stabilizer back fast enough, we can mount the assembly on a military booster and get it into orbit. We have three days.”

Raoul's eyes locked on Ariel's. “The prototype!” Both shouted at once.

Harry asked, “What prototype?” But his question bounced off their backs as they ran from the room.

*

Pueblo Colorado

“Dad, it’s so good to see you.” Heather wrapped her father in a big hug. “Come on in,” she said, stepping back from the doorway. “You look great, by the way. I’m guessing you could still run a company of recruits ragged.”

Emil Smolensky grinned at his daughter, picked up his duffle bag, slung it over his still solid shoulder and stepped inside. He might be up there in years and have aan artificial leg but he hadn’t gone soft.

“Where’s Darla?” he asked as he scanned the room. He took in the old beige couch and chairs set he and Lorraine had given Heather as a wedding gift. Photos of Darla as an infant, a toddler, riding a bicycle, then a horse decorated one pale blue wall. The speckled beige Berber carpet had fresh vacuum cleaner marks in it. Cream colored drapes framed a picture window that looked out across a juniper hedge and a patchy lawn to the street.

“She went tubing with her best friend’s family,” Heather said. Glancing at her wristwatch she added, “She should be back before dinner and that will give us a chance to talk. But first let’s get you settled in.”

Emil followed her down a hallway to a modest bedroom and deposited his duffle. The rest of his stuff could wait. He studied his daughter and was concerned at what he saw. Heather had always been thin but now her bones showed plain on her arms and her skin looked like it had been stretched over her face. Her pink and green flower patterned dress hung loose on her gaunt frame and her auburn hair that used to shine, thick and glossy, was now limp and stringy. Her large brown eyes looked tired.

“So when do you start chemo?”

“Early next week,” she said. “But we didn’t catch it in time, dad. Breast cancer took mom and it’s going to take me.”

He stiffened at her words and wanted to scream, “Don’t say that,” but he’d seen how the disease wasted his Lorraine and knew his daughter was telling the truth.

“Don’t worry about anything, pumpkin,” he said, softly. “I’m here and I’ll take good care of Darla and everything else.”

He opened his arms and she stepped into them, sobbing softly.

*

The White House

Eli Cohen, from NASA, passed a hand over his balding head and said, “The Russians just launched from Baikonur, Mr. President. Of course, we’ll continue to launch supply rockets as long as feasible but when the Russians dock, the crew of the ISS will be provisioned for the duration.”

Hammond Powell looked at the small wrinkled man who reminded him of a white raisin, and said, “We don’t know how long the duration will be, Eli. Never mind. What about our shuttles?”

“All parked at the ISS. Right now there are seventeen women and four men on board. They represent all races and twenty-one nations and they have the best seats in the house.”

The President shook his head and gazed out the large glass doors to the White House lawn below. Two inches of rain made everything look clean and new. To think it’s come to this.

“The Auroras?” he asked.

“We’re holding the space planes in reserve until we get both Sunflower’s up in orbit.”

“Good thinking.”

“That’s why we get the big bucks, sir,” Eli said with a wry smile.

*

The International Space Station

The Russian floated from the Soyuz into the ISS. She grabbed a bulkhead and stopped, looking over the greeting party.

“Colonel Ludmilla Gagarin,” she said. She was small and attractive, as were most of the men and women aboard, with curly brown hair, gray eyes and a pert nose.

“Welcome aboard, I’m Commander Kent,” said a carrot-topped man with a British accent. “I’m a great fan of your great-grandfather.”

Ludmilla smiled, revealing slightly crooked teeth, and said, “I have heard of your famous namesake too, Mister Superman.”

Commander Clark Kent blushed as red as his hair. “Blame my parents. Should have been indicted for child abuse. You’d think I’d have gotten used to it by now--but enough of that. Introductions are in order. I’d like you to meet Mission Specialists Christine Jorgensen and Mia Torno, Lei-Ying Chin, and Suzy Yakamoto, USA, Italy, China and Japan respectively.”

“Delighted,” Ludmilla said.

“Everyone else is busy right now, I’m afraid,” Commander Kent said. “We’re getting ready for the high altitude boost.”

Another Russian drifted in and Ludmilla said, “Allow me to introduce my husband, Colonel General Pavel Andreivich Yurimentov.”

A sudden silence descended.

*

The White House

Donna Markwright fingered the intercom and said, “Eli Cohen on line one, Mr. President.”

“Thank you, Miss Markwright.”

He picked up, said, “Hello, Eli,” and listened with growing surprise.

“They did what?”

He listened while Eli Cohen repeated himself then hung up.

“Jesus Christ. The world’s about to end and the double-damned Russians are still playing political chess.”

“What happened?” Farley Moffat asked.

“The Russians violated the ISS crew staffing agreement by sending up a married couple and by promoting their cosmonaut to Colonel General so he outranks our mission commander.”

Farley tried to hold it in but he smiled.

“You find this amusing?”

“Well...yes sir. I guess it seems a bit high school.”

“You know, Farley, I think you’ve been working too hard because you haven’t thought this through. Having a married couple on board disturbs the group dynamic our psychologists carefully set up. Those people are going to be stuck up there together for months, maybe years, possibly for the rest of their lives. They may be the only hope we have for preserving the human race. They were screened as closely as humanly possible in the time we had and those shit heel Russians just put a joker in the deck and we have no idea how he’ll get along with the others. Then they promoted him to set up a potential division in the command structure. Isn’t that a scream?”

“No sir, Mr. President,” Farley admitted. “Sorry, sir. But you realize we can fix the command problem by promoting Captain Anderson to five star General. Then, even if they promote their guy to Field Marshall he won’t outrank her.”

“Okay, I’ll follow along for now, but why Alice Anderson? Why not, Captain Dupree? He’s senior if I recall.”

“Yes Sir, he is. But Anderson is senior among the females and when the Aurora space plane crews join up there will be nineteen women and seven men on board. Politically, I’d say putting a woman in command would be wise.”

Now the President grinned. “I knew I kept you around for a reason.” Changing subjects he added, “What about their supplies?”

“The Russians, French and Chinese are shooting supply modules up into lunar orbit as fast as they can build boosters.” Farley grimaced. “It galls me to depend on them. We should never have shut down our own Space Shuttles.”

“Well, Sir,” Farley drawled, “I guess it’s a good thing we got them up and running again.”

*

The ISS

“Prepare for boost,” Captain Henri Dupree said.

Alice Anderson, who’d just received news of her promotion, keyed her mike and asked, “Is everything and everyone strapped down?”

One by one the crew acknowledged all systems go, all lights green. She nodded to the pilot.

“Boosting,” Captain Dupree said, a slight sheen of sweat beading on his blue-black face. The retrorockets fired and the ISS began her climb from her standard 240 mile high orbit to a higher, safer 2000 mile path.

“I wish we didn’t have to do this,” Commander Kent said. “It strains some very delicate systems.”

“Whining won’t help,” Christine Jorgensen said. “If the asteroid hits, it will eject debris into low orbit and knock us out. Guess I don’t have to remind you we are in low orbit.”

“I recognize the necessity, Christine,” Clark Kent said, sounding very British. “I was merely regretting it.”

“Now, children,” Ludmilla Gargarin said. “Mommy doesn’t like it when you fight.”

That brought chuckles from the rest of the crew.

“Look on the bright side,” Alice Anderson said, pulling her free floating brunette hair into a pony tail and confining it with a red scrunchie. “The best seats in the house just got better.” And it’s true, she thought. From higher up we can see more. But deep down inside she realized they were also that much farther from home.

*

USS Seawolf

The USS Seawolf slid out of her berth in Bremerton, Washington and through the Juan de Fuca Straight into the vast waters of the Pacific. Her mission was unique in her history. For, in addition to carrying her normal complement of 117 crew and 15 officers, she held 50 civilian women. Berthing arrangements were uncomfortable at best, but with her reactor refueled and her stores fully provisioned the Seawolf could remain submerged for a minimum of six months. She was but one of thirty such subs called to service to preserve humanity.

Others were being recommissioned daily, but only Seawolf and her two sister ships were going to Aqua Nova, which its inhabitants usually called Deep City.

Chapter 11: Last Chance

Farley Moffat's grin almost split his face in two. Bringing good news to the President for a change was a distinct pleasure. Leaning across the President's desk in the Oval Office, he finished his story. “So, this FBI flunky meets a small time mobster and makes the swap. The hood leaves two million dollars richer, and we have the stabilizer back. Best money we ever spent.”

“How soon can it be at the launch site?” Hammond Powell wasn't ready to relax and smile just yet.

“It's already there, and it looks none the worse for--” He was interrupted by Donna Markwright on the intercom.

“Mr. President? General Mabry on line one.”

“Roland?” The President said as he picked up. “I hope this is good news.” Being responsible for saving the world was aging him.

“It is, Sir,” the General replied. “The booster is ready. We can have it on the pad and on line six hours after Sunflower Two arrives.”

“Fine. Have you heard from the Garcias?”

“No, Sir; but Mr. Borzowski would know more about that.”

“Thank you, Roland. Keep me informed.” As the President hung up he turned back to his Chief of Staff. “Farley, before we wrap this up, there's a couple of things I want to tell you. First of all, you've done a damn fine job on this. If you hadn't followed your instincts and put the word out to everyone on both sides of the law, we would never have recovered the stabilizer in time. Second, if we destroy that asteroid, I want to know the name of this mobster as well as how the hell he came to have the device. Heads are going to roll all over the place, Farley, and I intend to reserve a special place in Hell for the SOB who murdered those soldiers and stole that stabilizer.”

As Farley left the room the President keyed the intercom. “Miss Markwright? Get me Carl Borzowski.” He sat back, knowing he'd done all he could and wanting, needing, to do more. That damn rock was getting closer every second. If the bird didn't fly in two days it would be too late.

*

“They'll be done tomorrow, Mr. President,” Carl said with more assurance than he felt. The Garcias had told him they built the prototype to launch specifications. All they had to do was double check the unit and ready it for shipment.

The world had one last chance.

*

Provo

Bob Young ground his teeth and glared as FEMA and Homeland officials inventoried the stores at the Provo LDS warehouse, then loaded them onto pallets, shrink wrapped them and added insult to injury by using the LDS forklift to load the pallets into trucks.

“I can’t believe the Feds can simply show up and requisition everything in sight,” he said to his brother Adam.

“You ever read the National Defense Authorization Act?” Adam asked. “They can do whatever they please.”

“No, I haven’t read it. Neither did those idiots in Congress who passed it. But this isn’t right. It can’t be legal.”

“Your attorneys checked their warrants?” Adam asked.

“Yes!” Bob snapped. “I’m not arguing about the warrants. I’m disputing the legality of the whole stinking enterprise.”

“Hey little brother, I’m not your enemy,” Adam said, holding up his hands to ward off further abuse.

“Well, excuse me if it’s a bit hard to tell right now since it’s your men helping them loot the place.”

Colonel Adam Young took a breath. “So, better if I refuse direct orders and get court-martialed?”

Bob’s shoulders slumped. “No...I didn’t mean...no. I just hate standing here helpless while my own government steals from my church. I mean, once it’s gone, what will we do in an emergency?”

“You know where all these trucks are going from all over Utah?” Adam asked, then answered his own question. “To warehouses at the Dugway Proving Grounds, where it’s being guarded by my men before going to some huge FEMA relocation camp they’re setting up in Montana.”

“So?” Bob was still angry and when ticked off he didn’t think straight.

“So, just because they took it, doesn’t mean they can keep it. You ever hear of the Boston Tea Party?”

Chapter 12: The Dugway Tea Party

Corporal Otha Gladson was enjoying some R & R, his arm in a cast and his Bronze Star out of sight in the pants pocket of his civvies. He stared out over the rooftops, his mind on the first three days he’d spent at home on the family farm in Illinois before the attention showered on him as a result of his newfound celebrity status smothered him into flight.

He wasn’t any blasted celebrity. The boys in his squad were dead and he was just plain lucky. He’d always wanted to see New York City and he figured after surviving that fall he owed himself the chance.

Now, standing on the observation deck of the Empire State Building, looking out over the skyscrapers toward the Upper Bay, he was glad he had come, even if he did feel sort of touristy and out of place.

The elevator door opened and among the group of fresh arrivals was a totally stunning black woman. She was tall. God, was she tall. And almost painfully slender. But the way she walked set his pulse pounding. Her bright yellow and orange print dress would have looked garish on someone less majestic. It was loosely draped and flowed with her every motion as she moved to the railing, head held high, like a Queen, ignoring the admiring stares she drew.

He caught her in profile, long, narrow head, thin, arched eyebrows over huge brown eyes, finely chiseled nose, and full lips surrounding a mouth slightly too wide for her face. She was striking.

Nefertiri, he thought, and wasn't aware he'd spoken aloud until she favored him with an amused glance. His ears heated with blush and he tried to tear his eyes away, but they were welded to her form.

Finally, she could ignore him no longer, turning to him and speaking in a low, husky voice, and a thoroughly charming upper-class British accent. “Sir, are we by chance acquainted? You look somewhat familiar.”

His picture had been in the papers and on television, and for once he was thankful. “My name is Otha Gladson,” he said. “And I am--” he was going to say, “honored to meet you,” but she interrupted him.

“The soldier who survived the massacre by leaping off a bridge into raging whitewater.” She beamed a smile that made his day. “I knew I had seen you somewhere. What a pleasure to meet a warrior of such courage.” She offered him her hand and he brushed it with his lips, surprising himself with gallantry.

“And you are?” He asked, looking up at her; though at six feet four he didn’t have to raise his eyes too far.

“Dikeme M’buto, from Zululand,” she replied.

They passed the rest of the afternoon and most of the evening talking, teasing the attraction between them into full-blown chemistry. He learned she was studying ballet and modern dance at Julliard, and she learned that in addition to being an ace diesel mechanic and driver, he was studying trigonometry to become a surveyor. Before he dropped her at her apartment they made plans to meet again at ‘their’ place.

*

Temple of the Dark Lord

Sergeant Nick Dobbs and his partner Officer Wilson (Will) Robbins, Denver Police, rolled to a stop in front of the old wood framed building. A solitary streetlight revealed fresh paint, heavy shutters, and a video surveillance camera. The siding was curiously devoid of graffiti considering the neighborhood, though perhaps that was due to the camera or the crimson-splashed banner hanging over the door which identified this particular place as the ‘Temple of the Dark Lord,’ for any who cared. Then again, Nick thought, it could be the pair of mean-looking guards book-ending the entry.

A well-lit, glass-cased bulletin board out by the street declared the topic of this evening’s sermon to be, “God is Black.”

Dobbs was white and Robbins black, a salt and pepper team recently assigned to liaison duty with the FBI and ATF. Intense pressure was coming down from on high to crack the ‘Convoy Massacre’ case, and just a few days before a bunch of black perps who came off second best in a gunfight with Denver's finest were found to be using guns from the ‘Massacre’ shipment.

Those same perps were known to be followers of one Leroy Parsons, AKA Mustapha Muhammad, the pastor of this church. Probable cause for an arrest warrant for Parsons and a search warrant for the church, and, in Nick’s opinion, lots of backup. But since members of both a religious and racial minority were involved Denver’s politicos preferred a low-key approach. No lights, no sirens, no overwhelming police presence, just Dobbs and Robbins.

“Yippie-ki-yay, partner,” Nick drawled as he climbed out of the car and adjusted his holster. “Let's round’em up.”

“You know, Nick, if you’d cut out that cowboy shit we wouldn’t get stuck with--”

“Me?” Nick cut in. “You’re the one the brass thinks is a heretic--listening to conservative talk shows. Where is your sense of political correctness, partner?”

“Hiding along with your common sense. We both need our heads examined,” Robbins replied.

The two started up the walk, still arguing in their good-natured way, seemingly oblivious while their eyes scanned for snipers or other trouble. One of the men on guard knocked on the door of the church and said something to a person inside. The knock, Nick noticed, was one long, two short, one long.

Nick flashed his badge at the nearest guard and asked, “Leroy Parsons?”

“No one by that honky name here,” the man spat.

“Oookay,” Nick said with more patience than he felt. “Let’s try this again. Mustapha Muhammad?”

“No one by that name either,” the man sneered.

“How about you?” Nick asked the other guard, who just shrugged.

“See man,” Will Robbins said. “I told you, you was approaching this situation all wrong. You can’t expect these men to just cooperate with The Man, you got to reason with them.”

He turned to face the guards. “Now, gentlemen, we are looking for Mr. Mustapha Muhammad.” He started for the door.

“It be Mustapha bin Muhammad, Oreo,” the talkative guard said, putting a hand on Will’s chest and shoving him back.

“The ‘bin’ mean ‘son of,’” the other guard explained.

“There,” Will said to Nick in a told-you-so voice. “You see? Things are getting better already. We now know both our bookends can talk, and one of them was raised to be polite.”

In a lightning move Will drew his nightstick and cracked the pushy guard between the eyes, knocking the man flat. Then he shoved the stick across the ‘polite’ guard’s throat, pinning the man against the wall. Nick smiled as he reached for his cuffs.

“That other asshole assaulted me and interfered while I was attempting to perform my sworn duty.” Will said, indicating the fallen man, who Nick had just handcuffed. “In addition he was rude and abusive and pissed me off.”

Will’s nightstick was pressed so hard against the guard’s neck that the man was standing on tip toes to avoid choking. Will’s eyes bored in like a linebacker stuffing the run on fourth and one. “Now, you aren’t as stupid as he was, so tell me where I can find this Mustapha bin Bitch we’re looking for.” The man’s gaze flicked to the door and darted away.

“That’s better,” Will said, spinning the man around and cuffing him.

Nick stepped up to the door and knocked, one long, two short, one long, then showed his badge to the angry eyeball and narrow sliver of face that showed when the door cracked open.

“Police,” he said. “Open up. We have a warrant to search these premises.”

The door opened and Nick and Will found themselves looking down the barrels of a dozen M16’s. Instantly the two cops were surrounded, disarmed and escorted inside.

“Welcome to the Temple of the Dark Lord,” a powerful voice resonated from up front by the altar.

“Mustapha bin Muhammad,” Nick said. “You are under arrest for possession of stolen--” Nick fell as Shark clubbed him with a gunstock. There were sounds of a struggle and then gunfire as Nick plunged into a deep, black tunnel.

Across the street in a narrow, dark alley, a wino spoke urgently into his bottle. “Shots fired, shots fired! Officers need assistance.”

Two minutes later SWAT teams surrounded the church and a hostage negotiator had been called in. The standoff had begun. Will’s body was tossed out the front door as proof Mustapha wasn’t bluffing when he said he’d kill the ‘other pig’ if the cops tried anything.

*

The Freeholds

“Now I want you to take a firm grip and line the orange part of the front sight up in the middle of the vee, then set your target right on top of that. That’s called a sight picture,” Michael said, adjusting his ear protectors. A .357 was loud! “Now when you have a good sight picture, let out half your breath and gently squeeze the trigger. It should surprise you when the pistol goes off.”

Bang! Dirt puffed up above the pop can. “I’m sorry, Michael, this just doesn’t feel right,” Ellen complained.

Anger flared but he kept it hidden. Hell, it wasn’t her fault. This was the way he’d been taught to aim and shoot, the only way he knew how to teach it. Maybe he could get her to take an NRA course. They had some excellent instructors.

Bang! Dirt jumped beside the can. She shook her head in frustration, emptied the cylinder, saving the casings for Michael to reload, and started thumbing in six more shells.

Michael scanned the terrain with an outdoorsman’s gaze. The sky was clear, a deep, rich cobalt blue, and the sun felt warm even though the outside thermometer read fifty degrees Fahrenheit. Aspen leaves were now a deep gold amid the blue green spruce and orange-trunked Ponderosa pines. Everything was right and something was wrong.

This was the hundredth time today she’d said it didn’t feel right. She’d been even wilder with the .38. He’d hoped the heavier .357 would settle her aim down, but she was still missing.

Wait a minute. Maybe she wasn’t the only one who was missing something. She’d been telling him all day it didn’t feel right, and he kept forcing her to do it his way.

Duh! Stupidity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

She was aiming the gun when he laid a hand on her arm and pulled the pistol down.

“Sweetheart? You keep saying it doesn’t feel right. Can you tell me why?”

Ellen shrugged. “It just doesn’t feel like it should be this hard.”

“In other words it shouldn’t be as hard as I’m making it.”

“No,” she said quickly. “It isn’t you, but…um, yeah.”

“Then forget everything I’ve said except for the safety stuff. I want you to just relax and go with your gut instinct. Okay?”

She nodded.

“Just take your time, take a few breaths, and let me know when you feel ready.”

She stood in front of him, facing the cans for a few moments and said, “I’m ready.”

“You’re sure?”

“Uh huh.”

“Ellen?”

“Yes, honey?”

“Shoot the can.”

Bang! The can jumped three feet and snagged in the branches of a gooseberry bush.

“Yes!” she yelled with a big grin.

BangBangBangBangBang! Five cans jumped or spun.

Michael smiled at his wife. Her elbow was bent. She was shooting from the hip. While she reloaded he set up two fresh cans and told her to “walk’em around.”

As pistol shots echoed down the valley the cans danced across the hillside, hiding among the stalks of wild geranium, raspberry and cinquefoil. She didn’t do anything he understood to be aiming, just pointed and shot and hit every time.

With every reload her shooting improved until she wasn’t just hitting the cans, she was nailing the ‘e’ in Pepsi and the ‘o’ in Coke. He couldn’t believe his eyes. She was drawing a crowd, as people stopped to gawk.

She was a natural--an instinctive shot. He chuckled softly. He’d been trying to teach her how to shoot but all he’d been teaching her was how to miss.

Finally, he couldn’t hold back anymore.

“Ellen? How do you do that?”

She stopped and thought about it. “I look at what I’m shooting.” She smiled like a little girl, her hazel eyes gleaming with delight. “And that’s where the bullet goes.”

He burst out laughing and said, “It surely does, Sweetheart. It surely does,” while thinking, and God help the next SOB who messes with you.

*

Dugway Proving Grounds

The last truck full of stolen goods had arrived four hours earlier, marking the official completion of Colonel Adam Young’s mission. What he did now was strictly “off orders.” He laid his letter of resignation on the army green metal desk and walked out to meet his assembled troops. They were his men and he wouldn’t see any of them hurt.

“Ten hut!” he heard his exec call and the sound of three hundred pairs of boots stamping to attention met his ears.

“Men,” he began. “This will be my last act as your commanding officer. For reasons of conscience, I am resigning my commission effective as of 23:59 hours tonight.”

A murmur swept through the men, silenced by sharp looks from their NCO’s.

“Let me assure you I didn’t make this decision easily; for it has been my honor to serve with such fine soldiers.” He swallowed hard and looked away. This was more difficult than he’d thought.

“My final orders as your commander are for you to mount up and head back to Fort Benning. Golf company will remain here to guard the chemical depot--and only the chemical depot. My XO, Major Jennings, will assume command.”

He paused and looked out over them, seeing a few knowing nods from senior sergeants and at least one Captain. The Lieutenants, as always, looked lost.

“That will be all. Major Jennings, dismiss the men.”

By twenty-one hundred that evening he stood alone at the main gate. Stars played hide and seek among drifting clouds. A pack of coyotes celebrated a kill in the distance. At twenty-one thirty his brother Bob rolled through the gate with more than five hundred volunteers. Long before midnight all trace of them and the goods they came to reclaim were gone, no longer to be stored in centralized church warehouses, but to be dispersed among the Stakes and Membership.

In years to follow, the Dugway Tea Party would assume mythic proportions in LDS lore.

Chapter 13: Hobson’s Choice

Edwards Air Force Base Launch Facility

Carl Borzowski and Harry Garrison felt their way through the fog from the parking lot to mission control. The dense blanket had rolled in early in the morning, a freak of nature inversion that trapped cool damp air in the warm desert valley. A frontal system scheduled to blow through in mid-afternoon had failed to materialize. The launch was on hold.

“God, this is awful,” Harry complained. “Much worse than I expected.”

“I don’t know about you,” Carl said, “but I can see just as well with my eyes closed.”

The border between sidewalk and grass, felt rather than seen, was the only thing that kept them on target until a ghostly light cut through the fog shining over the entrance.

Once inside an aide led them to General Mabry in the command center.

“Roland,” Carl nodded. “What have we got?”

“Winds aloft are forty-five knots,” Roland Mabry snorted. “Hell, anything over twenty could upset the equilibrium of the launch vehicle.” He gave Carl a puzzled glance. “I thought you were bringing the Garcias.”

“They felt they’d be more useful back at the lab computing firing solutions for Sunflower One and Two.”

“Launch status?” Harry questioned.

“T minus two minutes and holding,” the General answered.

Harry and Carl both looked at their watches.

Carl said, “We going to miss the launch window?”

“I hope not. I’d hate to scrub until tomorrow,” Mabry said. “But if something doesn’t give in thirty-seven minutes we will.”

The white phone on General Mabry’s desk began blinking as it rang. It was a direct line to the President.

“He’s been calling every ten minutes,” Mabry said as he lifted the receiver. “Yes, Mr. President?” The General listened for a minute then said, “Yes, sir. He’s right here,” and handed the phone to Borzowski.

“Carl?”

“Yes, Mr. President?”

“Put the phone on speaker so everyone can hear.”

Carl pushed the button and instantly the President could hear that hollow, talking-in-a-tunnel speakerphone sound.

“You’re my man on site, Carl,” Hammond Powell said slowly. “You know the conditions better than I do, so I’m giving you the authority to make the call.”

When Truman said, “The buck stops here,” he wasn't talking about modern presidential politics.

“I understand Mr. President.” Carl mentally cursed Bell for inventing the telephone.

Minutes crawled by with agonizing, freeze-frame slowness. Carl’s thoughts, traveling at light speed, marveled at the relativistic effect stress had on time, stretching it out to infinity. An airman called out the speed of winds aloft every thirty-seconds.

With twenty minutes to go the fog began to lift and Carl’s hopes rose with it.

Eight minutes. “Winds aloft Thirty-seven knots.” The announcement brought a subdued cheer from all present.

The Garcias barged in, explaining that their calculations were complete, and they needed to talk to Carl now! He held up one hand, forestalling them until he heard the next wind reading.

Seven minutes. “Winds aloft thirty-six knots and dropping.”

“What?” he snapped at them, the strain telling.

Raoul got straight to the point. “We think we can cut the asteroid in half with Sunflower One,” he announced, and his voice held a slight tremor.

“How? No, never mind. What does that have to do with this launch?” In the background he heard, “Thirty-four knots and dropping.”

“If we are successful, half of it will miss us and half will hit,” Raoul said. “An asteroid twelve miles in diameter, it’s current size, will certainly extinguish all life on Earth. But an impactor six miles wide should leave survivors, people who can rebuild civilization. The problem is they won't have time, Carl, because unless cutting it in half changes its orbit by more than we calculate the second half will impact in another twenty years and finish them off.”

“So what you're saying is--”

Four minutes. “Winds aloft twenty-nine knots and dropping.”

“We can't risk launching Sunflower Two in these high wind conditions, Carl. We're going to need it in twenty years to save humanity.”

“You'll have Sunflower One,” Carl said.

“No, we won't. We'll burn it out carving the rock in two.”

“But if we can get Sunflower Two up there now we can prevent the disaster entirely,” Carl argued.

“No, we can't,” Ariel stepped in. “If we had been able to launch this morning as planned we could have positioned both One and Two perfectly, lining up our shots on different parts of Havoc, and vaporizing almost four-fifths of its mass. But now Two won't be in position to fire until almost five hours too late.”

Three minutes. “Twenty-seven knots and holding.”

Raoul took over. “The dust and debris kicked up by the explosions Sunflower One will generate on Havoc will obscure the asteroid, diffusing the beam from Sunflower Two and rendering it partially ineffective.”

“So hold your fire until Two is in position,” General Mabry said.

Carl Borzowski and Harry Garrison joined the Garcias in shaking their heads no. Carl and Harry spoke at the same time.

“Basic trigonometry,” Harry said.

“Angle of separation,” Carl said.

Together it sounded something like, “Bangle of trigoration.”

Harry snatched a pen from his pocket protector and grabbed a sheet of paper, sketching rapidly. “If we don't carve the asteroid in half here at point A,” he tapped the paper for emphasis. “Both halves will hit point B. That's Earth.”

Two minutes. “Winds aloft twenty-seven knots and holding.”

Carl Borzowski faced the guillotine of decision. There were two minutes left in the countdown procedure for the booster as well as in the launch window. “Hold the launch,” he said, gray-faced.

“Belay that order!” General Mabry yelled. “Resume countdown on my authority.”

“STOP!” Carl out-bellowed the General. “You all heard the President say this was my call to make. Well, I didn't want the damn call, but I'm making it. We'll hold the launch until winds aloft fall within safety margins.”

He turned to the General and laid a hand on the man's shoulder. “Roland, weren't you listening? Even if we launch now we cannot stop this thing. The best we can do is minimize the consequences.”

“Minimize the consequences!” Roland Mabry stormed. “Are you insane? You're talking about millions, maybe billions of dead, the collapse of civilization, a return to the stone age--”

“That's better than extinction!” Carl interrupted. “Roland! The death of all humanity is a virtual certainty unless we take this chance.”

General Mabry's shoulders slumped.

Carl turned to the technicians, knowing he was making the only rational decision. He heard himself say, “We hold the launch.” While inside his mind a voice screamed, “Butcher!”

“It’s not all bad, Carl,” Harry said. “If we can get Two up soon enough we can at least whittle Havoc down some before it hits.”

The name finally registered and Carl shook his head. “You’re calling it Havoc?”

“It’s what the Garcias and I have been calling it,” Harry admitted.

Carl shrugged. “Appropriate,” he said.

Fifty-two minutes later Raoul and Ariel Garcia were hunkered over the computer control screen selecting items from the menu with Carl Borzowski, Harry Garrison, and General Mabry clustered behind them. A radar picture of Havoc filled most of the screen and Raoul moused the cursor carefully over the picture and clicked twice, fixing the aim point directly over a fissure. Their computer was slaved to Sunflower's, and what they were seeing was what Sunflower's radar showed them.

Almost immediately the crosshairs began to drift, oscillating in a small circle.

“Damn it!” Raoul pushed back from the screen. “I'm sorry, Carl. That's the best we can do.” Ariel began massaging his temples.

“How long until we fire?” Carl's voice crackled with tension like a high voltage power line.

“Optimum firing solution in three minutes on my mark,” Harry said. “Three, two, one, mark.”

Ariel entered the Countdown command on Harry's mark and began calling out the final items on the checklist. “Array?”

“Green light,” Raoul answered.

“Targeting Radar?”

“Green.”

“Target Sequencer?” If they succeeded in cutting Havoc in two before Sunflower burned out, the aim point would automatically shift to the half that would impact to incinerate as much of it as possible.

“Green.”

“Weapon charge?”

“Green.” A light sheen of sweat covered Raoul's forehead.

“Stabilizer?”

“Yellow.” The best they could do. At least Ariel and he had been able to software it out of red.

“Autolock?” The aiming mechanism.

“Yellow.” It couldn't go to green because the erratic stabilizer wouldn't allow it to lock the crosshairs.

“Continuous fire?” Even her voice was trembling now.

“Green.”

“Manual override?” A last ditch, video arcade style firing mechanism.

“Armed and ready.”

“Whew.” She puffed her cheeks out explosively. “Harry?”

“One minute and...fourteen seconds to go,” he said.

*

The laser beam speared across thousands of miles, delivering megatons of energy deep into the flaw that creased Havoc. Like a cutting torch the drifting beam ate its way into Havoc's heart, vaporizing an ever-widening hole. The asteroid's rotation caused the beam to track along the fault line.

Tons of magma and dust exploded into space as the plasma-hot beam met space-cold rock, turning the well-defined radar picture Sunflower was transmitting to Earth into a hazy cloud.

In the control center tension had set like concrete. Jaws and fists were clenched, eyes glued to monitors, sweat dripped unheeded from nose tips and chins.

“Is it working?” Carl hissed. In the dead silence of the room his whisper startled everyone.

“I don't know,” Harry shrugged. “Ariel said if Sunflower could maintain continuous fire for thirty-four minutes we have a chance.”

The nerve-wracking vigil continued, punctuated by occasional gasps as the watchers released unconsciously held breaths. Suddenly, the monitors popped and went black.

“What happened?” Carl shouted, but in his heart he knew. He looked at the countdown clock and his last hope withered like a flower in a drought.

In the skies overhead a new star flared and died as Sunflower One overloaded and exploded.

“It's gone,” Raoul whispered. He stole a glance at the countdown clock. Thirty-two minutes and twenty-seven seconds. Sunflower had exceeded its continuous fire design parameter by almost nine minutes, one minute and three-seconds short of the time he and Ariel believed was needed to crack Havoc. Had it been enough? Just before the screens blacked out he thought he saw the message, “Target Sequencer Engaged” flash by.

Everyone was still speculating thirty minutes later when the phone rang and the President announced that radio telescopes in Australia confirmed Havoc had split into two pieces. Relief flooded the control room, but cheers and tears were stifled when rapid orbital calculations revealed that even though Havoc's Twin would miss Earth by the width of a silk thread, Havoc itself would hit along with a few small chunks they had carved off.

Carl Borzowski looked around the room at the mixed emotions playing over everyone's faces and said, “We've still got a job to do.”

One hour and twenty minutes later Sunflower Two lifted off the pad and climbed into orbit through clearing skies and calm conditions. But by the time it achieved stable orbit Havoc was occluded by Earth. They’d have to wait for more than eight hours before taking another shot.

*

Ten minutes after Sunflower reached orbit a massive solar flare ionized the Earth’s upper atmosphere and disrupted communications.

At NORAD no one panicked and sought to launch missiles; they’d been through this before.

At the Kennedy Space Center, Eli Cohen wanted to tear his hair out so he thanked God he didn’t have any.

Aboard the ISS, newly promoted Five Star General Alice Anderson cursed as she reset popped circuit breakers. She was just thankful the SOHO satellite had given them enough warning to get all her people inside so they wouldn’t fry.

Around the world, people everywhere looked at snowy TV’s and wondered what the hell happened.

*

The White House

Hammond Powell tried to relax in the Roosevelt room while a technician applied pancake for TV. He wore a loose white cable-knit sweater and comfortable tan slacks--no suit and tie.

Today he needed to look relaxed, to convey dignified, calm acceptance. A homey fire burned in the fireplace to add psychological warmth to the scene.

He was about to tell almost everyone in the world they were going to die but he couldn’t appear worried. He snorted, recalling one of his advisors had even recommended botox.

“Are you plastering a house?” he asked the makeup artist.

“No, sir,” she said, and continued brushing and touching up.

“Trying to make me look foolish?”

“No, sir!” she said, stepping back to check her efforts.

“Then why is this taking so long? It never took this much time before.”

“This speech is important isn’t it, Mr. President?”

“Possibly the most important I’ll ever give.”

“Then I want to be sure you look your absolute best, sir.” She leaned back in with an eyebrow pencil.

The girl was just doing her job and he’d been difficult. “I apologize Miss--”

“Potucek, sir. Jana Potucek.”

“I apologize, Miss Potucek. Nerves, I guess.”

“Then it must be true, the rumors I mean.”

“Rumors?”

“About an asteroid or some other big catastrophe.” She stepped back and said, “There.”

He stood and saw Farley hurrying toward him. “You should listen to my speech Miss Potucek.”

*

“Fellow citizens of the world. I speak to you tonight, not as the President of the United States, but as a human being with a very big problem--a problem I need your help with. As a result of that I’m going to do something you aren’t used to seeing or hearing from a politician. I’m going to tell you the unvarnished truth as I know it and I’m warning you now that it’s a grim truth. You won’t like hearing it anymore than I like having to lay it out for you.

“A short time ago my staff and I learned that a large asteroid is on a collision course with the Earth. The impact will be...catastrophic.”

Tears glistened in his eyes and he paused a moment to collect himself. Viewers noticed for the first time how he’d aged in mere days.

“I’m not going to go into details. Suffice it to say earthquakes of enormous magnitude will occur and for those of you living along the coastlines, tsunamis larger than any we have seen are a certainty.

“The world as we know it, and I stress, as we know it, will cease to exist but that doesn’t mean we will. The human race is strong, courageous and ingenious, and I’m telling you humanity will survive!

“To that end every nation on Earth is preparing survival shelters and refugee camps in locations we believe will be the most stable. Caves and modern mines, well-stocked with food, water and medical supplies will be the safest places to be. Interior mountain ranges or highlands at least 200 miles from the ocean are a close second.

“Now I know that foremost in your minds is the question, “What can I do to keep my family safe?” and there are four simple things you can do.

“First, remain calm. Giving in to panic or a knee-jerk reaction to flee the coasts will only result in needless suffering and death. We have a plan to evacuate the coasts in an orderly fashion and will do so beginning the day after tomorrow. We have plenty of time provided we keep our heads.

“Second, think and plan carefully. Consider where you live. Is it in a known earthquake zone? What do you have in your own house that can help your family survive? What local resources could help your community?

“Third, go to work tomorrow. Because as of right now we all need each other more than ever before. We must use the time we have wisely and that means we all need to continue to do our jobs. Every one of us must look into our hearts and understand that we owe a duty to our neighbors and our community as well as to our families and friends.

“Fourth, I know you will all have plenty of questions, especially if you think this through. We have established a website to give you as many answers as we can. www.WhatCanIDo.gov is full of invaluable knowledge about what we think will happen and when and how to survive. So fourth is visit the website, as well as the numerous Prepper websites, and gather all the information you can before you start asking your local officials. We have also set up a phone bank at 1-800-GET HELP for those of you without internet access.

“This is a lot of reality to absorb and you all have a great deal to think about but you need to know what steps your government is taking to help you so please keep listening.

“Here in the United States I am declaring a nationwide state of emergency, mobilizing the National Guard and instituting Martial Law. We will not tolerate looting or social disorder of any kind.

“As I mentioned earlier we have set up survival havens and refugee centers in safe zones. Unfortunately, we don’t have enough room in the havens for everyone so we held a lottery for all Americans under the age of fifty-five. Approximately twenty minutes after I finish speaking email messages and telephone calls will begin going out to those who have been selected. Those calls will continue for the next three days so you might want to stay off the phone.

“If you do not receive such a call or email and you live in an earthquake zone or within two hundred miles of the coast you should plan to relocate to one of the FEMA camps we have established. Most of you who live in the interior, especially those of you in small towns, or on farms and ranches are probably best off remaining at home. I realize this isn’t an ideal solution but it is the best we can do in the allotted time.

“Finally, you might want to pray. May God keep and bless you all.”

Almost two hours passed before the President learned his message had only reached about one quarter of the American public.

The solar storm stacked the deck against humanity.

*

The Freeholds

Ellen clicked the remote and turned the TV off. She didn’t really care what the talking heads had to say about the President’s speech. “Can you believe that?” she asked.

Michael swiveled sideways on the couch to face her and said, “I think we have to.”

Jill Cantrell, seated in a rocking chair, rocking their son Steven, said, “It doesn’t sound real.”

Jim Cantrell leaned forward from Michael’s Lazy Boy, propped his elbows on his knees and said, “I hear you, but it sounds pretty real to me.”

Jill nodded. “I guess what I meant to say is it’s hard to fathom.”

Ellen cocked her head and said, “We have some serious planning to do if this thing’s going to hit in a couple of days. We should inventory our supplies and see if we’re short on anything.”

“Toilet paper,” Jill and Jim said together. The looked at each other and grinned.

“Baby things,” Jill said, looking down at Steven and thinking of her own swelling belly.

“Books,” Michael said, and when they all looked at him, he added, “If the President’s right, we’re looking at TEOTWAWKI, so we’ll need--”

“TEOTWhati?” Jim interrupted with raised eyebrows.

“The End Of The World As We Know It,” Michael explained. “My point being, the internet will be down so we’ll need books, and I mean good quality books that will last, not cheap paperbacks. Knowledge is the most important commodity we have. Everyone will be going after food and guns.” He stopped and turned to Ellen. “Make a note we need more gunpowder and lead for reloading. So I think we should focus on books.”

“Ebooks too,” Ellen said. “We can download them to thumb drives or external hard drives and store them in the Faraday cage with our computers.”

“You focus on books, amigos,” Jim said. “Jill and I are heading for Denver tomorrow to pick up baby things…” he paused, brows knitted for an instant, “...and extra guitar strings.”

“You aren’t taking this seriously,” Michael said.

Jim flipped Michael the bird, and said, “Actually, I am. I’m a musician so I’ll need guitar strings, man.”

Ellen had been scribbling furiously while they talked. Now she spoke up before the two boys ended up arguing. “Antibiotics--we can get them from pet stores and feed stores without a prescription. Just about anything for fish, horses or large dogs will work for people. Disinfectants and any other medical supplies, and vinegar. All the vinegar you can lay your hands on. Same for bleach, but only the unscented kind. We can use that to purify water if wells fail.”

Steven woke from his nap, tugged on Jill’s dark hair, squirmed a bit and settled with a satisfied smile. An unmistakable odor filled the room.

“God!” Jim said pinching his nose. “That’s worse than dog farts.”

Ellen snatched Steven from Jill and headed for the bathroom. “Cloth diapers,” she said over her shoulder as she kicked the door closed.

Chapter 14: The Last Day

“Ham, you have to evacuate. It's your duty.” Farley Moffat only called the President, Ham, when he was certain they were alone and the recorders were off.

Hammond Powell ignored him, asking, “Any word from my family?”

“They entered Mount Weather five minutes ago, along with those Cabinet members and Congressional leaders who qualified.”

Hammond Powell had issued an executive order that the age limit applied to Americans at large also applied to their leadership. No one older than fifty-five had entered Mount Weather--much to the consternation of most of Congress. To assure some degree of continuity should the United States survive as a nation, Hammond had requested members over the age of fifty-five to resign after selecting younger replacements. He’d made the same request of the Supreme Court Justices. To the great surprise of many Americans the entire Court and most Congressmen put country before self and acceded to his request. Still, his insistence that everyone over fifty-five take their chances had earned him the sobriquet “Double Nickel” Powell.

Time was running out and Farley knew he had to keep trying. “You should be with them. The People will need you to lead them back from this.”

“Armed Forces alert status?” Hammond Powell was possibly the last politician alive who believed a Captain should go down with his ship. Besides he was fifty-six. Thank God his wife was two years younger.

“Defcon 2, but the Russians are well aware it has nothing to do with them.” Okay, Hammond, Farley thought, have it your way. Presidents usually did.

“Civil authorities?”

“All the Governors and Mayors we could reach have been notified our best estimate for the strike is about 3:15 tomorrow morning--that’s Eastern Daylight time. White House operators are still calling. The Emergency Broadcast System is online and the FCC has all TV and radio stations broadcasting survival instructions. FEMA says the shelters are full and locked down. They've also opened our old fallout shelters to the public and started sounding the air raid klaxons. The Martial Law declaration helped a lot, Ham, and--”

“How about the evacuation, Farley?” The President broke in.

Farley hesitated and looked away.

“That's what I thought,” the President said.

“Some folks just wouldn’t leave, sir,” Farley said. “Many refuse to believe it will happen. We did what we could.”

“I suppose that will be our epitaph, Farley.”

“Mr. President?” It was Donna Markwright on the intercom.

“Yes, Donna?” Donna Markwright could die happy. The President had finally called her, Donna.

“Doctor Borzowski is here.”

“Send him in. And Donna, you can still catch the last helicopter.”

“I’m almost sixty, Sir, but I wouldn’t go without you.” She signed off with tears in her eyes. Her refusal to head for safety brought a lump to the President's throat.

Carl Borzowski walked into the Oval office like a man approaching death row.

“You left California before I could stop you, Carl. I need you to head back immediately and take charge of Sunflower Two. Nothing must happen to that control facility. I've directed General Mabry to place his troops at your disposal to protect the site.” He misread Carl's shocked expression. “You're the only man for the job, Carl. Can I count on you?”

Now Carl understood that his punishment for failing to find a way to stop this catastrophe would be to die apart from Monica. He'd really counted on being with her at the end, but there was no fight left in him, and the President was right. Sunflower Two was the only thing that could prevent the complete extinction of the human race. His duty was to guard it.

“Of course, Sir,” he said. “I'll catch a military flight from Andrews.” He hoped he would have time to call Monica.

*

Provo

“So, what do you think?” Bob Young asked, scuffing his boots on the ground and leaning on his hoe. Betty, wearing a pink maternity dress and white and yellow flower print apron, was picking beans from the corn patch. The corn silks were browning nicely and each six foot stalk held two ears of Reid’s Yellow Dent, an heirloom variety good for grinding into cornmeal. Bush Blue Lake Pole green beans wound up the stalks and held clusters of heavy pods. Yellow crookneck squash spread out between the rows of corn and beans and completed their “three sisters” planting.

“I think you should stop propping up that hoe and go grab some tomatoes,” she said. “The Amish Paste are ready and I’d like to put up some more sauce.”

He crossed his eyes at her and she feigned surprise and said, “Oh, you mean about Adam. If what the President said is true, and for once I don’t think he was lying, then Adam should be okay.” She popped another handful of long crisp beans into her apron’s deep pocket. An aromatic mixture of garden soil and growing things tickled her nose.

“Okay? With the Army, FEMA, Homeland and the FBI looking for him?” A bead of sweat dripped from his nose and he pulled out a red bandanna and wiped his face.

Betty shooed a black Araucana chicken from under foot. Allowing the birds to free range in the garden after the plants matured enough helped keep the squash bug and corn beetle populations under control while reducing feed costs. And the fresh eggs were a huge plus.

“What I meant was if that Havoc thingy hits tonight the government will have better things to do than look for him. He’ll be able to stop looking over his shoulder every time he goes outside.”

Bob snorted and said, “If that Havoc thingy as you call it hits, we’ll all have more important things to worry about.”

“Which is why I said he’d be okay,” she said, wiping her brow and getting the last word.

*

Mojave Desert

Orange flooded the sky as the sun dropped below the mountains. Shadow fingers grew, stretching out until they covered the men on the valley floor.

“So, Joey, you don’t look too happy.” Benny the Bug leaned over Joey’s staked out body and inflicted another small cut with a straight razor. “There, better now?”

Joey said nothing. His sons lay staked on either side of him and Benny had even brought Sergeant Carswell. Sometimes silence was the best policy. Their naked flesh was bright red, shriveled and chapped, lips cracked, brains sun-fevered. This after only one afternoon.

“Such a stoic.” Benny spit on Joey's face. “Maybe I should read you your rights? What d’you think, Alonzo?” A grit-filled breeze gusted past, stirring dry rabbit brush.

“Sure thing, Mr. Bonificio,” Alonzo Bonetti agreed. He just wished Benny would get it over with so they could get out of this stinking desert. His boy Nicolo was looking green.

“You have the right to bleed freely,” Benny recited. “Anything you scream will cause me great joy. You have the right to an executioner. Since you cannot afford one, I am appointing several at no cost to you.”

Benny unscrewed a jar of honey and dribbled a trail across the men to several nearby anthills.

“You understand these rights?”

Benny kicked Joey’s side. “I said, do you understand these rights?”

Enough! Joey licked his cracked lips with a parched tongue and whispered, “I understand, Buggie.”

“What did you call me?” Benny hissed.

“I called you what everybody calls you behind your back, you dumb guinea. You think they call you Benny the Bug because you kill your enemies this way? They call you Buggie Benny because you’re too stupid to keep your own guys from cheating you. Everybody does it.”

He saw doubt flickering behind Benny’s purple-faced rage.

“Why don't you ask Nicolo over there, how he knew exactly where to look to find my hidden room? He’s been working for me since he was twelve.”

Benny spun in time to catch the shocked blanch on Nicolo’s face. Alonzo tensed.

“He’s lyin’ Mr. Bonificio,” Nicolo protested. “He’s makin’ it all up.”

Joey was not making it up, but Benny suddenly smiled and said, “I know, Nicolo. He’s just trying to get me mad enough to kill him quick. It won’t work.”

From just over the ridge, in the shadow of a Joshua tree, Jamal watched and waited.

*

Southeastern Kansas

Harry Garrison stepped out of the Cessna 180 as it rolled to a stop on the freshly mowed grass landing strip and embraced his wife.

Sheila sensed the desperation in his hug and returned it, then pulled back. Lines of exhaustion and defeat, chiseled deep in his face, told her he'd lost the race against history's harshest deadline.

“When will it hit?” Her pecan-brown eyes were clear and calm and unafraid.

“Sometime tonight. As best we can figure a little after three.” A church bell tolled in the small town west of the landing strip. With their arms around each other they walked away from the plane to her father's pickup.

“Dad’s been stocking up,” she added. “So we should be okay.”

Harry hugged her to him and cried...unable to answer any other way, for no man in history ever wanted to be wrong more than Harry Garrison.

*

Colorado

On yet another in a succession of gray and stormy days following the President’s announcement Jim and Jill Cantrell countered the gloomy weather by spreading smiles and cash with equal abandon everywhere they went in Denver. From the bellman at the Brown Palace to a waitress at Tivoli Square, they wanted everyone to share their happiness. And what the hell, Jim thought, it's only money.

If there was one thing becoming wealthy had taught him it was the value of money lay solely in the freedom it purchased. And the toys. He couldn’t forget the toys. Already he'd shipped a tiny two-seat gyrocopter to the Freeholds, not to upstage Michael's Pegasus, but so they'd both have different toys to fly. He’d also shipped acoustic guitars and a couple of antique Fender amps that used tubes instead of transistors.

Jill tugged him over to a window, momentarily jerking him out from under the umbrella and getting him wet. “Look,” she beamed, glowing with excitement. Inside was a crib, Birdseye maple by the look of it, beautifully detailed and carved, and polished until it gleamed like hope. Ten minutes later, the transaction complete, delivery instructions meticulously noted by the sales clerk, the Cantrell’s were on their way back to the Presidential Suite for their own private end of the world as we know it party (which neither actually believed was coming).

There, over a candlelit, surf and turf dinner, crystal-chimed toasts and soft-eyed looks, they built a desire that carried them to the bedroom. Later, they lay in bed finishing off a bottle of Great Western Extra Dry Champagne from the Finger Lakes district of New York. Jill was indulging herself for the first time in months and, she swore, for the last time during her pregnancy.

They'd left explicit instructions that they were not to be disturbed under any circumstances short of a bomb threat, so both were startled when the phone rang. Jill slopped champagne over the rim of her Waterford crystal onto her bare breast as she leaned over to answer the phone.

“Hello,” she said, then hissed, “Quit that,” and giggled at Jim, who was licking off the spill.

“Queet wat, cheri?”

“Not you, Jacques--Jim!” She squealed and shoved him away. “It's for you.”

He took the receiver and snapped the cord across her slightly distended belly, earning himself a warning look. “You're timing sucks, Piano-man.”

“So do yours, Mon. You suppose' to meet Denise an' me at de Rose tonight, nes pas?”

“Shit man,” Jim apologized. “I completely forgot.” He had promised the owner of the Grizzly Rose, a man who had done the band numerous favors before they were discovered, that he would try out a few new tunes for the Friday-nighter's. Jim loved to preview new music in front of country western crowds. “Tell, Andy I'll be there ASAP. And tell him I'm sorry I spaced this out and I'll make it up by doing an extra set, okay?”

He hopped out of bed and started grabbing his clothes, asking Jill hopefully, “You coming?”

“No, sweet. It's been a long day and I need to rest for two.” She knew he missed seeing her in the audience, performing for her, but she was too tired for crowds.

“I'll be back early,” he said as he headed out the door.

She smiled and looked at her watch, 10 p.m. Early, by her man's standards, would mean closing the bar at two and shooting the bull with Andy for another couple hours. In fact, if he wasn't back when she got up she'd be mildly concerned, but not upset.

Jim liked to drink and party, not that he was a drunk, or out of control, though he had been drinking heavier than usual lately; but when he got wound up, parties took on a life of their own. And he, of course, lost all track of time.

She chuckled to herself as she settled down in the covers, hoping he would try out his newest song, “I'm Late.” It fit him better than his faded old jeans.

She needn't have worried. Thirty minutes later Jim was up on stage at the Rose with the Lachelle’s, belting it out a-cappella.

I'm late,

Gotta head'em on out,

Cause I got me a date,

with a high class gal that I'm wild about.

I'm late,

fallin' behind,

Kickin' myself 'cos I got spaced out

and wasted my time.

If she'll wait a minute,

with some luck she'll wait for ten

I'm hopin' she'll wait thirty

'cos I'll get there…

about then…

The crowd roared, and Jim knew he had another hit single to build a country-flavored CD around. Like Jill knew he would, Jim started drinking and having a good time. Consequently, it was after one before he headed back to the Brown Palace. Dimly he recalled that he and Jill were supposed to be back at the Freeholds by now, but it was a two-hour drive and he was tired. They could always go in the morning.

*

At the Freeholds, mother nature was throwing a party of her own. Lightning flashed in sheets, dancing eerily among the peaks like Saint Elmo's fire. Thunder rattled windows and hammered eardrums. Torrents of rain spilled from the sky, running off already saturated ground, swelling too-full creeks beyond their banks. Power lines from the hydroelectric plant were down and the phones were out. With the phones went their Internet connections, and cable TV, and in the mountains phone lines or satellite dishes were the only options. Both satellite and radio reception was ruined by the storm. Since the sun had been hidden behind dense rain clouds for the past four days, most homes in the Freeholds were running off battery backup power from their solar photovoltaic systems or propane fueled generators.

Michael Whitebear adjusted the tuner and winced at a blast of static before shutting the radio off. He couldn't even raise 85 KOA, the 50,000 watt Denver station that called itself “The Blowtorch of the Rockies.” The last Michael had heard, a flash flood warning had been issued for Park County and some Satanist cult was under siege in Denver. The lamp at his desk flickered and died and then, after a brief dark moment, came back on as the gasoline powered generator fired up automatically.

Always have a backup for your backup, he thought, as he stepped into the hall and checked the gauges on his home power system. The gasoline generator would run low on fuel within six hours. Of course he had about fifty gallons in storage he’d only intended the gas for short term use. He counted on the propane generator for longer term emergencies since propane didn’t deteriorate like gasoline did. It was housed in a storage shed a few feet from his garage and he wondered how long the emergency fuel stores would last. He’d refilled their thousand gallon tank the previous week.

Maybe he should start thawing and cooking the meat in the freezer. No, not yet.

Their old four wheel drive Ford pickup, a ’67 F250 he’d purchased and restored because pre-1974 vehicles didn’t have computer chips that could be fried by an EMP, pulled up in the driveway and the garage door opener whirred into action. A few minutes later, Ellen stepped into the laundry room that separated their garage from the kitchen and hung up a dripping poncho.

“How’s the meeting?” he asked. The Freeholders were holding an emergency session at the community center.

“It’s going well.” She shook her head and her long blonde hair danced in the lamplight. “Any luck?”

“Just static,” he replied, turning the radio down. “What about Aaron Goldstein’s shortwave?”

“Antenna took a lightning strike so it's out of commission. But Randy and Mariko are organizing a flash flood watch and I volunteered us.” She pecked him on the cheek as she entered the living room from the kitchen.

“Good. What shift?”

“I'm on 9-10 and you're on 11-12.” They couldn't serve on the same shift because one of them had to watch their two-year old son--which was also why they both hadn’t been at the meeting house. “Not bad,” he nodded in appreciation. “I expected something around 3:00 or 4:00.”

“We were the first volunteers, so we got first choice,” she explained. “Getting hungry?”

“There's chicken fried rice and honey-garlic green beans in the micro.” It was his turn to cook and he liked oriental food. “Jim and Jill back yet?”

Ellen shook her head, no, grabbed a bite and left to start her shift. Michael fussed with the radio and worried. They’d heard just this afternoon that the asteroid (he still couldn’t believe they were calling it Havoc) would hit sometime tonight--and all he could do was wait.

He went out into the garage and re-checked their stores of freeze dried and dehydrated food, the emergency cache he called it. For his entire adult life he'd never felt comfortable unless he had a cache of nonperishable food, including staples such as flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar, honey, rice, beans, canned goods (especially canned meats), beef jerky, some bottled water, a dozen full propane tanks, fifty gallons of gasoline in five gallon cans, a few guns and several boxes of ammo and reloading items. Even though he lived up in the mountains where water tended to be pure he’d invested in several different water filtration devices, an AquaRain 400, a Big Berkey, a Sawyer whole house system and several Katadyn and LifeStraw backpacker-type microfilters. No sense coming down with Giardia or some other bug because of carelessness. He’d stocked emergency medical supplies, including a battlefield surgery kit. He even had an emergency toilet and a year’s supply of Charmin.

Friends used to kid him about being a closet survivalist, but that never deterred him, and now everyone in the Freeholds had a survival stash. Just looking at his soothed his nerves.

He hoped the Cantrell’s would get back before all hell broke loose.

*

DC

“Helms,” Monica answered her hands-free phone while steering around a double parked limo.

“It’s me,” Carl said.

Something about his tone puzzled her so she decided to play it light. “Hey, Don Quixote, tilted at any good windmills lately?”

“More than you know, baby.”

There it was again. That I-have-the-weight-of-the-world-on-my-shoulders tone. “You okay?” she asked, easing her Lexus into the right lane.

After a long pause she heard, “Not sure if I’ll ever be okay again.”

Before she could respond he continued. “I can’t join you at the station like we planned. I have to go to California tonight.”

“I thought all flights were grounded,” she said, her heart sinking.

“Orders from the President,” he said. “Military hop out of Andrews. I don’t suppose you’d consider ditching work and bugging out to sunny California with me, would you?”

Her merge onto the 495 was wobbly enough to start horns blaring. Hard to see though eyes full of tears. “Carl,” she blinked to clear her vision. “I can’t, honey. Not everyone heeded the President’s warning. There are still thousands of people in the DC area who need to know what’s happening tonight.”

“I need you,” he whispered. Then again, stronger, “I need you,” he cried.

She almost sideswiped a taxi and pulled over onto the shoulder. “I need you too, Carl. I love you and I want to be with you, especially tonight, but I...”

This time the pause lasted even longer. She heard an intercom calling his name through her phone.

“I understand, darling,” he said finally. “I love you more than life, but duty calls.”

Chapter 15: Impact

Cape Hatteras, North Carolina: 3:17 am

From the near absolute zero cold of outer space Havoc began its death plunge. Whittled down by Sunflower to slightly less than six miles diameter, burning along at 43,000 mph, it zipped through the last 100 miles of Earth's atmosphere in eight seconds, vaporized the waters of Albemarle Sound and continued unchecked through this thin crustal zone until it slammed into the Mohorovic Discontinuity (that impenetrable boundary between the Earth's crust and mantle also known as the Moho.) There Havoc atomized in the most devastating explosion mankind would ever witness. For the briefest of instants a miles-wide hole appeared from the middle of the Earth to the top of the sky.

The Moho rang like a tuning fork in harmonic response to the billion megaton impact. Seismic waves propagated in all directions, some dampening as normal, others amplified harmonically as middle-Earth quivered like a bowl of pudding. Seismometers spiked wildly, their needles bouncing back and forth like pin-balls.

A billion megatons exploded outward from the depths of the quivering Moho blasting a crater eighty five miles in diameter and spewing billions of tons of superheated rock twelve hundred miles into space. In the blink of an eye the Earth grew a tail, as a mushroom cloud visible from Mars formed and spread, black as the Devil's eye.

From Siberia to Patagonia, Mexico to Australia, dogs howled, monkeys screeched and lions roared, as if the Earth itself was screaming from a mortal wound. On the plains of the Serengeti herds of zebra and wildebeest milled or stampeded. Elephants lifted their trunks to test the air, fanned their ears, and bellowed. Elsewhere, frogs and turtles, with genes ancient enough to recall the last impact, grew quiet and began burying themselves in the mud. Spiders hurried to strengthen webs, and ants reinforced the walls of their nurseries.

In the oceans, fish normally found in schools dispersed at high speed, octopi sought holes, clams hid in their shells and humpbacked whales began a mournful song.

Air parted by Havoc's passage slammed back together like the hands of Titans, generating a sonic wave so intense it shattered living flesh for hundreds of miles around. People and their pets exploded like marshmallows in a microwave. Flocks of birds rained from the sky.

A blast of air so powerful it shredded storm systems and disrupted normal weather patterns circled the globe. In Europe people clapped hands over their ears and eyed each other fearfully as glass splintered into shards. In Asia, bustling populations stopped cold for a heartbeat then resumed moving with a renewed sense of urgency. The Appalachian Mountains bore the brunt of the shock wave from the blast. The East slopes were denuded of forests, towns and cities, while deflecting much of the energy back up into space where it tore gaping holes in the growing cloud of magma, saving several areas around the globe from the devastation to follow.

Fire-hot magma shot into the stratosphere and, like an oven on broil, flash-dried cities, forests and grasslands all over the world, before falling to the ground like showers of lit matches. Smoke from countless burnings roiled up into the atmosphere, adding to the dust and debris of impact.

The waters of the Atlantic rushed back into the caldron that had been Albemarle Sound, flashing into steam as it met magma welling forth to heal the monstrous wound. The hellish heat added to the low pressure area formed by the blast and a storm larger and more violent than any man had seen began to form.

Tectonic plates, those turtle-slow bearers of continents and oceans, slipped like race cars on an oil slick. Seismic waves born in the depths and harmonically amplified rippled parts of the surface like a flag in a breeze, dropping bridges and buildings, annihilating roads, and breaching gas mains which ignited, adding to the infernos raging everywhere.

Oceans sloshed like water in a washbowl sending mountainous tsunamis racing back and forth across the seas of the world slamming into coastlines, smashing their way far inland. From Holland to Bangladesh, low-lying nations were swallowed by the hungry waters.

In Antarctica, the Ross Ice shelf cracked and slid into the sea. Pacific atolls dropped beneath the waves. Hong Kong and Singapore were swept away. Athens, Amsterdam, Rio, Naples, London, Sydney, Tokyo--gone, along with every coastal city in the world. So complete was the devastation that when one-third of the island of Hawaii split off and plunged into the ocean raising a thousand foot tsunami that slammed into Australia only those aboard the ISS noticed.

In the United States, most of Florida vanished along with much of the Gulf Coast. At the northern tip of the Gulf of California a crack appeared and widened, running east and north to the Great Basin of Nevada and Utah. The Pacific rushed in as Death Valley, Las Vegas, and much of western Utah dropped beneath the waves. Kingman, Arizona and Nephi, Utah became beachfront towns.

From Vermont to Illinois a new mountain chain thrust skyward building steadily as its volcanoes spewed toxins and lava with abandon. The Great Lakes drained like a flushing toilet and that fresh water tsunami caught the residents of Chicago very much by surprise. In the days and months to come Eastern Texas, Oklahoma, and much of Kansas would sink beneath the waves. Parts of relatively sheltered Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, much of Los Angeles, Houston, New York, Boston surrendered to the raging seas.

No nation, no city, no society or people escaped the apocalyptic violence. Nations dissolved and civilization vanished along with its roads, bridges, dams, and power lines. In the entire world only six prepared shelters remained intact and those had all been designed to withstand a direct nuclear blast. The FEMA camps in the interior of the continent were incinerated by fire balls raining from the sky.

Aboard the ISS the members of the Genesis Project watched in horror as the world tore itself apart. They remained glued to their view screens, unable to tear themselves away until a smoky pall formed over Earth, a funeral shroud for civilization, as skies darkened like a fadeout at the end of a movie.

Still, amid the chaos, shell-shocked individuals and families struggled to survive.

Chapter 16: Immediate Effects

Washington DC

A slightly disheveled Monica Helms looked into the camera and said, “Once again, the asteroid has struck Albemarle Sound off North Carolina. Anyone who can hear this broadcast should evacuate coastal or low lying areas and head for high ground. Earthquakes and tidal waves are expected, and our best estimates indicate they will be severe...I repeat, severe.”

An assistant ran on camera, handed her fresh copy, and darted off. The Teleprompter was broken, smashed in the last quake.

“Angela Tremont reports another squall line of fireballs approaching from the South. Take cover immediately.”

Monica grimaced, aware she had just told people to flee and take cover simultaneously. She swallowed and began again. “After the fire squall passes head for high ground. Several fires are already burning out of control and from the sound of things more are on the way. Do not stop to fight them. Get to high ground.

“Those of you on high ground should either remain in your homes, or turn out and help your local fire departments control the blazes in your areas.

“We've already had a magnitude 8.4 quake in the DC area and the Woodrow Wilson Memorial Bridge, that's I-95 and 495, is closed. All other area bridges are holding, though reports are that freeways are jammed. We now take you live to Barry Saberhagen at Ronald Reagan National Airport.”

Monica Helms paused for a sip of water. She'd been broadcasting continuously for more than four hours and her voice was failing. She picked another piece of glass from her left arm and dabbed at the blood with a tissue. Too close to a window when a shock wave hit, but she'd been lucky. One of her cameramen was killed.

Another aftershock rocked the studio and the lights flickered. After the jolting they'd received earlier she was amazed the emergency generators were still working.

The picture cut to a wind-whipped Barry Saberhagen, standing on a runway with the Potomac in the background. “Monica, the winds are vicious out here. Airlines have suspended operations for the duration of the emergency. All flights were canceled yesterday and customers stranded at the airports are not happy. We've heard reports th--”

The camera swung wildly as the cameraman danced to keep his balance when the earth jumped. The picture steadied on a growing crack in the runway. Barry's off camera voice was saying, “Get that on tape...the river, man, the river.”

The camera showed water flowing swiftly from the Potomac into Chesapeake Bay until only a mud flat remained. Fish trapped in puddles flapped crazily. Somewhere in the back of his mind the cameraman recalled that the land on which the District was built had originally been a swampy coastal plain, and that the draining of tidal basins often occurred before a tidal wave. He realized it was too late for himself, or anyone left in DC to evacuate; but with the detachment of his breed he continued to record.

Barry Saberhagen whispered, “Oh, My God.”

Monica's eyes widened as she saw the horizon bulge on the monitor. Rippling and swelling the tsunami grew to monstrous proportions, thirty, fifty, then one hundred stories high, as it raced up the river channel like an express train from hell. The monitor went black.

She turned to the camera, smiling, calm and elegant, like Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady. “This is Monica Helms for the American Broadcasting Network saying goodbye, and good luck.”

She unclipped her microphone and walked to the broken window. To the south a line of volcanic fire rained toward her, backlit by an eerie glow along the entire southern horizon. She turned to the east and watched the flames in the city go out as the wall of water came for her. With her last thoughts she prayed Carl would be safe in California.

*

“Mr. President?”

Farley's voice jerked Hammond Powell's mind back from scenes of ruin he had witnessed moments before as Air Force One took off for points west--the Capitol Dome cracked like an egg, the Monument toppled onto the mall, the White House in flames.

He had failed to preserve the nation, to protect his people. His ancient eyes sought those of his closest advisor and friend. “Yes, Farley?”

Their seats jumped and the seat belts pinched them as the pilot desperately fought the howling winds.

Farley laid a hand on the President's arm. “You did everything possible. We just didn't have the technology to prevent this.”

“No, Farley.” The President shook his head. “We just didn't make it a priority soon enough. Scientists warned us this could happen years ago and we didn't listen.” He shrugged. “I suppose we thought God would protect us.”

“Mr. President?” Donna Markwright spoke up from the seat on the other side of him. “I was with you when you chaired that committee as a senator, and you did listen. You overcame your colleagues objections and got Spacewatch funded. Without that project we wouldn’t have had any warning at all.”

Hammond Powell took her hand in his, delighted at her sudden smile. “Thank you, Donna, and you too, Farley. I know you're both trying to help, but no President has ever faced such a disaster and failed. We did too little, too late. It's all up to Carl, now; but I haven't--”

Air Force One was hit by a fireball the size of a bus and punched out of the sky, extinguishing the thoughts of all aboard.

*

New York

Three Hours Before Impact

Corporal Otha Gladson listened to the phone ringing. Be there, please be there. He hung up after the fortieth ring. How could he find her? His eyes were drawn back to the television set. The broadcast of Monica Helms was being run on all stations now. The streets of the city were filled with panicked people who had changed their minds about staying and were trying to get off the Island. Where would she be?

A thought came to him and he laughed. Why not? He snagged a six pack of beer on his way out the door. He checked his watch. 11:57 p.m. He looked at the Empire State Building. If he walked and the crowds weren't too vicious, he'd make it.

It was 1:37 a.m. when the elevator doors opened onto the main observation deck on the 86th floor and he saw her standing near the railing, poised as if a fashion photographer had placed her there.

“I hoped you would come,” Dikeme said, and beckoned.

She wore a creamy white loose sleeved shift that flowed over her body like water and ended above her knees. Otha’s breath caught at the sight of her and his pulse quickened.

She waved her arm and said, “Look at this.” Below in the streets ant people were rioting while on a rooftop another group was having an end of the world party, dancing and toasting each other.

“I tried to call,” he explained, his voice suddenly hoarse, but she shushed him with a finger over his lips.

“So did I. Your phone was busy, then I couldn’t get a signal. It doesn't matter now. We're both here, together, as it should be.”

He smiled and handed her a beer. “The lady on television says the waves will come from the Southeast.”

“So?” She shrugged. “The world is ending tonight.”

“We should have left during the evacuation,” he said. He would have but he couldn’t find her and couldn’t leave without her.

“Why?” She pointed to the chaos in the streets. “People are behaving like animals. You want to live in a world like that?”

“If I’m with you, yes.”

She looked at him, standing tall and strong, his arm still in a sling.

“You're serious,” she said raising her finely sculpted eyebrows.

“Damn right! Somebody needs to think past this disaster. See the other side. Things'll be nasty for a while, but the world will be full of opportunities.”

“You have a plan?”

“Not past being here with you. I just think that if we keep our heads cool and our feet fast we'll do all right.”

“You're an optimist,” she said, doe-eyed, full of wonder. Then she grinned. “In Zululand we say an optimist is someone who simply doesn't know enough.”

He looked out over the city. “I learned a lesson a month ago on a bridge in Arizona.” He turned back to her and lowered his eyes. “I learned I want to live badly enough to take any chance at life. And I just can't believe God spared me then just to kill me off now.”

“But the world will be...” she spread her arms at a loss for words.

“Yeah,” he admitted. “It’ll probably be worse than we can imagine, but we'll be together.”

She shook her head slowly, but granted him one of her amazing smiles. Eyes closed, their lips met in a tender, lingering kiss. A blinding flash lit the horizon to the South.

The Earth moaned, a bone deep sub-aural, nerve jangling sound that no one living had heard before. Then the building heaved.

Otha's memories of the next few moments were never clear. He grabbed Di and fell to the floor as the earth bucked and rippled, blowing out glass in every building in the city, sending razor sharp shards slicing through the crowds below.

He clung to her as the Empire State Building swayed and shuddered. The ground convulsed and they rolled against a wall, under shelter. More glass rained down from the upper area. Skyscrapers twisted and bent like willow trees and some toppled like tenpins, but the grand old lady stood. Air screeched through the gaps in her windowless shell. Clouds clashed together, spinning and tearing apart like demons unleashed from hell. An unholy shriek of wind split the air, mingling with distant human screams and explosions.

Dikeme and Otha dragged themselves to their feet, clutching at each other and the handrails, and surveyed the damage in stunned silence. Smoke from countless fires spiraled upward, twisting through skeletal ruins. Broken gas mains, Otha thought.

A fireball streaked out of the heavens and smashed into the car-packed street below igniting dozens of people and vehicles that hadn’t been crushed by falling debris. And suddenly the sky was full of them; blobs of fire, some small as a fist, others house-sized, flashing downward, splattering against the sides of buildings, advancing across the broken city like a rain squall.

Otha pushed Di back into the shelter of the elevator as the fireballs arrived. Red-orange droplets of molten lava plopped onto the concrete observation deck, splattering the glass shards already there, flaming brightly and filling the stifling air with a sulfurous stench as they darkened and dulled.

The fire squall passed. Unable to resist the pull of disaster, Glad and Di stepped back out onto the deck carefully avoiding the still-hot chunks of magma. Screams, wailing wind, roaring flames, an inferno of hellish sound overwhelmed them. The rooftop partygoers were dead, crimson-splashed corpses shredded by glass knives, blackened crisps, roasted by the magma. That building seemed to sigh as its west wall gave way and the whole structure twisted in slow motion and toppled over into its neighbors. A cloud of dust billowed up, ignited where it brushed searing magma and mushroomed into the sky.

Dikeme clenched her eyes shut, unwilling to see more. Glad’s hand closed over hers and hot tears leaked from her eyes. Otha Gladson couldn’t close his eyes, couldn’t look away. Something deep within him forced him to witness all the destruction, as if duty bound to record it in his mind and on his soul. He knew someday he would set this down in writing.

Eventually the sounds subsided and a strange quiet descended, like the calm at the eye of a hurricane.

Something else was odd.

Hudson and East Bays were empty. Otha pointed this out to Di, and then they felt it, deep in their bones, an almost unheard rumbling that quickly grew to a roar a thousand freight trains strong. The skyline rippled and swelled and they watched in astonished horror as the tsunami rose from the Atlantic and rushed toward Long Island. Larger and larger, until it loomed fifty stories high. The closer it came the faster it seemed to move and the more gigantic it appeared until it filled their vision.

Like a primeval fury the wave swallowed the city, raging, tearing structures loose from foundations and sending them careening about gouging concrete, slapping some buildings flat and disintegrating others. The grand lady trembled and groaned as the wave crashed against her. She'd already stood against amazing forces and Otha wondered if this would be the final straw. She shook, moaned as cracks split her sides, swayed alarmingly…and held.

*

Fort Dix, New Jersey

As the ground shuddered and bucked, Ethan Hamilton struggled to close Pandora’s box. He was deep down in level 4 of the Army’s Biological Warfare Facility--a facility that by Presidential order should have been closed for more than a week. But there he was, struggling to free himself from a rather heavy lab bench that had fallen on him, pinning him to the floor in the containment lab.

Containment. What a joke. Cracks ran through the walls. Test tubes were smashed, their occupants free, and several of his colleagues were already dead.

Ethan was also dead and he knew it. His sterile suit was torn in several places and in this environment one small tear was all it took to assure his fate. He didn’t know which bug would kill him first; he just knew he didn’t have much time, but before he went he had to reach the self-destruct switch. He heaved himself from under the bench. His experiments must not escape.

Feverishly, he tore at the housing of the destruct mechanism, battering it off with a broken lab phone. With shaking hands he set the timer to zero. A phlemgy cough wracked his body and almost dropped him to his knees. God no! Not that one! He pressed the switch on the detonator; thankful the explosives would kill him before the virus. With his last thought he wondered if his father, Morgan Hamilton, the President’s National Security Advisor, would ever learn how he died.

The powerful blast incinerated almost every bug that had escaped, but some were propelled up the elevator shaft and out into the atmosphere where most were blown out to sea toward Europe. Others were sucked down south into a monstrous, heart-bursting, low-pressure area forming over the three thousand foot deep crater that once was Albemarle Sound--a hurricane larger than anyone had ever seen, with winds exceeding 350 mph. And when Hypercane Havoc broke loose, it ripped through the Southeastern states, crossed the Gulf and slammed into Mexico, then veered down Central America before continuing into the Pacific and on to Asia. It brought more than a hideous 500-mile wide swath of total devastation. It spread a gift of death from Fort Dix.

*

Denver

Temple of the Dark Lord

Mustapha ben Muhammad, known to the police as Leroy Parsons, and to his followers as Viper, stood with arms outstretched sacrificial knife in one hand, head up, eyes rolled so only the whites showed. Before him, bound to the altar, lay the police officer, Sergeant Nick Dobbs, who had come to arrest him. His congregation was armed with M16's, grenades and LAWS rockets.

Like Viper, they stood, because their pews were piled against doors in barricades, a line of defense against the police surrounding the building.

Viper shuddered in the grips of a light seizure; spittle trickled down from one corner of his mouth. The fit passed like a bat fluttering by a street lamp, and he began to speak.

“The last time The Dark Lord destroyed the world was in the time of Noah and the Great Flood. The Book of Revelations tells us the next time Our Lord destroys the world he will use Fire. But we have listened to The Dark One these past months and we are prepared.” He began pacing back and forth and his flock's eyes followed him like love-starved puppies.

“The Great One hears us, brothers and sisters. He listens to our pleas for justice. He has revealed to me that He will no longer allow the white man to grind us down. No longer will our women work as whores to satisfy the white man's lust. No longer will our children poison their bodies and souls with the white man's drugs, selling their lives for a few grams, their futures for a few dollars.” He stopped behind the altar.

“No, brothers and sisters. Never again. For even as we meet the Dark Lord raises his arms and prepares to smite our oppressors.” Viper raised his arms over his head, both fists clenched around the hilt of the blade of sacrament.

“Even as we pray our Black God strikes!” He plunged the knife into Nick Dobbs’s throat and slashed, unleashing a torrent of blood. But as his helpers came forward to hoist the man onto the hook that previously held goats, the shock wave hit, triggering petite mal in Viper, and panic in his flock.

The voice in Viper's head drowned out the cries of his people, the roar of falling buildings and thrashing earth. “NOW,” it screamed. “The time is NOW!”

*

Jim Cantrell had just swung his new Midnight Black Mercedes 350 SL over to the right lane of I-25 and slowed to take the 38th street exit when, what would ever after be known simply as “The Sound” hit. It was like nothing he'd ever heard or felt before, knifing through him, jarring his body and jangling his nerves. He didn't know it then, but “The Sound” was the shock wave, closely followed by the mother of all sonic booms, generated by Havoc when it entered, and zipped through the Earth's atmosphere at seventeen miles per second, too fast for friction to have any noticeable effect.

His car was picked up and tumbled off the road like a child's toy in a tornado. Trees blew down while roofs kited skyward and houses collapsed. A few seconds of intense chaos that took an eternity passed with the blast of air.

Jim climbed unsteadily from behind the wheel of his new Mercedes, which was lying upside down. He was dazed and trembling, utterly confused. He looked across the railroad yards and South Platte River toward Coors Field and the skyscrapers of Denver, a front row seat from which he watched the death of the downtown area. Broken panes of glass exploded from the tall buildings to the streets below. The deadly rain minced the few people out and about at that hour.

Entire buildings quivered and disintegrated in harmonic response. Like an operatic soprano, whose voice can shatter glass, “The Sound” shattered lives. Close to the point of impact, at distances up to four hundred miles away, depending on sheltering terrain, people and animal bones and organs were literally pulverized by the sheer magnitude of the vibration. Puddles of organic material belonging to human beings ran like liquid Jell-O over the pavement, mixing bloodily with the remains of their mates, children and pets. Farther away, living beings were cooked by what amounted to a sonic microwave, their eyeballs gelling like boiled eggs, their skin rupturing as steaming body fluids burst through. Almost every survivor within a thousand miles of the impact was deafened permanently.

Jim was slammed to the ground as the earth rippled in an enormous wave. Buildings swayed to and fro like stalks of wheat in a breeze, then toppled into each other like dominos, smashing to the ground in jumbled piles of concrete, glass, and metal, stained here and there with smears of bloody flesh.

The Brown Palace and Jill died together.

Bridges jerked, snapped and collapsed. Huge crevasses, great gaping wounds, appeared in the convulsing earth. Roads heaved apart, buckling and folding. Gas lines ruptured, sparked and ignited like giant flame-throwers. Water mains broke and geysered. Power lines whipped about like spastic snakes.

Through tear-blind eyes Jim tried to make his way downtown; tried to reach Jill. He was thrown from his feet countless times by the violently shuddering earth.

Heat from the fires scorched his hair, singed his eyebrows and lashes. Dust from fallen buildings and shaking earth choked him. It didn't matter to his overloaded mind. Nothing mattered but finding Jill. But try as he might, he couldn't even find the Brown Palace. Which mountain of broken brick and concrete was the hotel? Which crimson stained piece of debris was Jill? Nothing recognizable was left of the buildings or people of downtown Denver.

*

Through the chaos of crumbling buildings and screeching animals Randy Kellogg moved with calm deliberation, humming a tuneless jingle, opening one cage after another. Some animals, like his bears, Huey, Louie and Dewey, cowered, too frightened to move, and Randy figured that’s okay. They’ll come out when they want to. Others, like Hobbes, bolted as soon as the door was opened and disappeared into the night.

He released elephants, antelopes, eagles and every other caged animal he could get to until a large pine tree toppled onto him and ended his efforts.

*

The Freeholds

Michael Whitebear lurched toward the sound of his two-year-old son's terrified screams through darkness and dust so impenetrable that his flashlight was worse than useless.

“It's like driving with your brights on in a fog,” he yelled to Ellen.

“So turn it off,” she replied, hoping he wouldn't. The light didn't help them to see but it gave them a point of reference, a bit of comfort, in a world gone mad. Ellen was beside him, tied to him with a bed sheet so they couldn't become separated.

Their home kept jerking and shuddering, throwing them off balance into walls and furniture. They crawled and tumbled and rolled ever closer. He’d thought an underground home was supposed to ride the ups and downs with an earthquake, but this felt like his house had been placed inside a blender.

Steven's room was right down the hall from theirs, just a few short steps, if steps were possible. The tortured wails of concrete cracking, glass shattering, and wood splintering mingled with the boy’s cries of terror.

And then Michael's leading hand encountered nothingness where the floor of their hallway should have been.

“Damn!” He thrust the flashlight into the void but could see nothing.

Frantically, Ellen snatched a painting that had tumbled to the floor and chucked it out in front of them across the gap. Both sighed with relief when it thunked into solid flooring just beyond their reaching arms.

Michael untied himself from the sheet and handed Ellen the flashlight. “Get out of the house,” he said. “I'll get Steven and join you outside.”

Her small hand grasped his with surprising strength. “I'll wait here,” she said, and her tone brooked no argument. She waved the flash. “The light will give you something to aim for after you have our son.”

Michael braced himself against one wall and leapt blindly forward. Stumbling when he hit, he slammed off balance through the drywall of their hall closet. Extracting himself, yelling to Ellen that he was okay, he rolled into their son's room.

Steven’s wails led Michael to the boy, who was terrified and bleeding from a cut on his forehead, but appeared otherwise unhurt.

Making his way back into the hall Michael followed the sound of Ellen's voice back to the gap in the floor. He could dimly see the beam of the flash beyond. Cradling Steven in his arms he jumped, but the ground shook again while the two were in midair. One wall jerked into him, slapping him across into the other wall from which he rebounded like a Ping-Pong ball, toppling onto the floor. He just managed to twist enough to absorb the blows on his back and head instead of crushing his son.

He lay there, stunned, but Steven started screaming again and Ellen followed the sound of his terror to them. Her hand grasped Michael's ankle, and then she was huddling over them taking the boy in her arms, crying with relief even as she asked Michael if he was all right.

They were choking on dust now, speech too difficult.

They tied themselves together again and felt their way along the hall and out onto the rain-soaked deck adjoining the master bedroom. Once outside visibility improved from impenetrable to merely murky. They were halfway down the stairs when a seventy-foot spruce crashed into the house collapsing the stairway and plunging Michael into unconsciousness.

Ellen dragged him and Steven away from the shaking house. Trembling with the effort she refused to give in to panic. She sat still, in the partial shelter of another downed tree, comforting her son, checking Michael for injuries, gathering her thoughts, and beginning to plan for the future. They would need food, clean water, shelter and medical supplies--undoubtedly more than they had stockpiled. They needed to restore communications with the outside world, to figure out how to get the wounded to a hospital, restore basic sanitation. They needed construction supplies to rebuild--but first they just needed to survive.

She peered through the rain. Some homesteads were on fire and she hoped others would call out the volunteer fire department. At least the rain would contain those blazes, but there would be wounded trapped inside many of those homes and someone had to get them out. She pulled her iPhone from the pocket of her housecoat--she couldn’t recall putting it in there--and found it had no signal. Not unusual here in the mountains and especially not with the solar storm that hit a few days ago.

She froze as the ground heaved and cracked. Her son bellowed and suddenly this asteroid strike she’d only half believed in was all too real. She brushed visions of Stephen King’s “The Stand” from her mind, but something told her things were going to get a lot worse before they got better.

Chapter 17: The King of California

Joey Scarlatti lived in the center of a flame, burning even in the cold of the Mohave Desert night. Pain was all. His flesh blistered, cracked and peeled. His blood flowed from hundreds of small cuts and the ants had found each one, their tiny pincers slicing him to pieces they could carry home. Benny had spared his eyes and his manhood, saying he was saving the best for last.

Oddly enough his mind seemed clear. Instead of being confused and tortured by the pain Joseph understood he was being tested. Each wave of searing fire lifted him closer and closer to God, until the Deity drew aside a veil, revealing Joey's destiny.

Joseph saw himself riding at the van of an army that rolled over a changed earth, uniting people, restoring civilization, building a world spanning empire. He saw his sons--Anthony directing an air strike, John commanding tanks and infantry. Sergeant Carswell wore a General's star and waved a saber. Jamal Rashid guarded Joseph's back. And young Nicolo Bonetti, all grown up, directed intelligence agents.

He opened his eyes to the star-filled glory of desert darkness, and saw Benny standing over him.

“Good,” Benny sneered. “You're still with me. You were outta your head a minute ago, raving about kingdoms and other crap. I was afraid you were kickin' off. Happens that way you know. A guy goes from calm, to nuts, then,” Benny snapped his fingers, “just like that--gone.”

Benny leaned over and slapped Joey's face.

“I'd be real disappointed if you was givin' up already,” Benny said. “Big, strong guy like you would last a week if I could wait around that long.” Benny slipped a 9mm out of his pocket and cocked it. “Too bad I gotta hurry, but Alonzo just heard something about a rock gonna hit the earth and mess everything up, so I guess we'll have to cut this short.”

He aimed the gun at Carswell's head. “Least I can do is kill your flunky and kids first.” Joey smiled calmly, his pain receding as he awaited his destiny. Benny saw the smile and erupted. “The hell you grinnin' about you stupid fuckin' goon?” Benny swung the pistol back and pointed it at Joey's nose.

Joseph Scarlatti's Adam’s apple bobbed convulsively as he struggled to speak with a parched throat. Finally, a hoarse whisper emerged. “I'm grinning because I've seen my fate, Benny. I know what lies ahead for me and my boys. So if you're going to kill us now, it must mean you're about to die.”

Out in the darkness seventy yards away Jamal swore silently as the batteries on his night scope failed and he lost the sight picture of Benny in the crosshairs. But before he could decide whether or not to fire blind a brilliant light flared in the East illuminating the entire scene. Swiftly, Jamal centered his sights and pulled the trigger.

“What the fuck?” Benny looked up, startled by the flash. A small hole appeared in his forehead and his body spasmed as it toppled over onto Joey. The rifle shot echoed along the hills, but to Joey it was muffled by Benny's fat gut.

Someone grasped Joey's wrists and sawed his bonds in two. Someone else pulled Benny's body off him and rolled it to the side. Jamal pressed the butt of a pistol into Joey's numbed hand, and swung back to cover Alonzo and Nicolo with the rifle, forcing them to free the others and submit to being bound.

The Earth trembled as Joey staggered to his feet and an unearthly glow lit the eastern sky. Joey welcomed both as signs he was reborn.

John had a gun in his hands, pointed at Nicolo Bonetti. “You fucking snitch,” he growled.

“No John,” Joey rasped. He took a swig from the bottle Jamal handed him and reveled as his strength flowed back with the water. He explained his vision of the future and ended with a simple, “He'll be useful.”

“But he...he...” John was outraged. “How can we ever trust him?”

Joey took Alonzo's .38 and ejected all the shells but one. He freed one of Nicolo's hands and showed the boy the single bullet before saying, “There are two of you.” He pointed to the boy's father, lying bound and gagged. “One can live. Your choice.”

Nicolo's eyes watered as he looked at his father, understanding now that the price of one betrayal was ever greater betrayals. His hand wavered. “I...I can't.”

Alonzo caught his eyes and nodded, wanting his son to live. He managed to smile around the gag as the gun swung toward him.

When it was over, Joey cut Nicolo’s bonds and pulled the boy to his feet, but his words were for the others. “We have to get out of here fast. Find shelter, food, water. This thing’s just beginning.”

*

San Gabriel Mountains

Lola MaDonna stood over the headless corpse, an evil smile on her ravaged face. The bloody knife in her hand dripped onto the lifeless body. “I suppose I should feel something, Ronnie,” she said, staring down at the dead man, “but I don’t. I can’t even hate you anymore.” Her shudders, her twitches, gave the lie to her words. “You took me from my boring middle-class life and made me part of your glamorous world. At least it was glamorous to a schoolgirl. I loved you, dammit!”

Her shoulders shook and a single tear rolled down her scarred cheek. “Even when I found out you were connected I loved you. But my heart wasn’t enough for you. You wanted my soul!”

With a vicious kick she sent the severed head rolling, dried leaves and twigs sticking to its dead eyes.

“Ow!” Lola grabbed her foot. “What the hell did you fill that thing with? Cement?”

“Cut!” The director yelled.

“God!” Lola cried. “I think I broke my toe.”

Will Benton appeared by her side, giving her a shoulder to lean on while she hobbled to a chair. She hated night shoots and wilderness shoots. So what was she doing? A night shoot in the wilderness. At least it was the “Martini” shot. She moaned, her foot throbbing. It damn well better be the last shot of the day anyhow.

Her director ran up saying, “It’s okay, babe. The shot’s good right up to when you grabbed your foot. How is it anyway? And where’s the damn doctor? Doesn’t anybody listen to me? Shit! I need a phone. Somebody get me a phone!” He stormed off still ranting.

Will had her shoe off and was rubbing her foot. Maybe it wasn’t broken. “Thanks, Will.”

He smiled up at her. “No sweat, Lola.” Will was the only one on the crew other than the director who she let call her Lola. She shook her head. She’d have to change her stage name if she ever hoped for a more serious part. At least the shoot was almost wrapped. Between meeting that giant freak and dealing with this inhuman shoot schedule, and sub par script, her sister’s invitation to the Freeholds in Colorado was sounding better and better.

A bright flash lit the eastern sky. She blinked, seeing colors and a large sunspot in front of her eyes. “What was that?”

Everyone on the crew turned to look, spellbound at the weird yellowish glow from the East. Her vision began to clear.

She grabbed Will’s arm so tight he winced. “Did you see that?”

Before Will could answer a fist of air punched them to the ground and a squall of sound like God’s fingernails on a cosmic chalkboard clawed at their nerves, quivering their bones, making even her teeth hurt, toppling large trees into the set.

“What was that?” Her heart raced as her brain flooded her body with adrenaline, prepping her for fight or flight.

She struggled out from under Will Benton and saw the blood trickling out of his ears. He was groggy, stunned. She bent to help him up and the earth jerked and whipped like it was doing aerobics. She fell on top of Will and held on for dear life as the land tried to buck her off.

Across the canyon the mountainside slipped and slid into the valley demolishing her trailer and the entire movie set encampment. Stagehands, extras, anyone not on the set disappeared under the roiling cloud of dirt, rocks and trees.

A fog of dust closed off the view, shutting visibility down to three feet. Trees continued to snap and fall. Boulders tumbled to new resting places. Screams split the night but were lost among the grinding boulders, the splintering pop of trees breaking and the roaring chaos of the earth.

Lola MaDonna, formerly Irene Walker from Bismarck, North Dakota, screamed until the dust parched her throat and she could only wheeze and sob helplessly.

*

The Launch Facility

Carl Borzowski stood like a statue in the middle of a blizzard of activity. TV monitors showed scenes of appalling destruction. Fax machines and emails churned out reports filled with death and despair. Monica was dead, he felt it the same way he felt that somehow he had killed her. Loneliness howled through him like a moonstruck wolf.

Satellite feeds charted new continental outlines, spotted new volcanoes, and noted the lights going out as power grids snapped. But the usefulness of satellites was fading as the black cloud slowly enveloping the Earth obscured their views.

Another quake jolted the building and Carl reeled into a computer desk, grabbing the edge to keep upright. The monitor flickered, but the generator fed emergency power supply stayed on.

As much as he wanted to quit, to flee, to simply grieve, the scientist in Carl forced him to observe, and the sense of duty he’d sacrificed everything for kept him at his post. His mind continued cataloging events and predicting consequences. Right now temperatures were rising, with most weather stations reporting temps in excess of 130 degrees, and with a few reading more than 400--almost like sections of the Earth had been placed in a broiler. Soon the light would dim as the smoke from the wildfires and ash from volcanoes joined the debris in the atmosphere. Temperatures would drop.

Impact Winter, thought Carl. Harry said this would happen.

*

Kansas

The old man stood next to his grandson, daughter and son-in-law amid the ashes of an eighty-acre wheat field. A light breeze stirred a cloud of ash and dust around them. “Don’t think we’ll get a crop in this year,” Wes Haviland said. He took his John Deer cap off with a big-veined hand revealing his farmer’s tan and wiped his sleeve across his forehead.

“We did good to save the house and barn,” Harry Garrison sighed, wiping a cotton work glove across his ash-grimed face.

“Don’t forget the garden,” Sheila Garrison said. “That may be the most important thing we rescued.” She and her father had driven the tractors, plowing a firebreak, while Harry and Robby wet everything down with garden hoses. She thanked God the antique Honda generator Wes had kept stored in the barn still worked, giving them the advantage of emergency electrical power. She looked back over her shoulder at the smoldering outbuildings and ruined equipment.

“Wish we could have saved the fuel tank,” she added.

“Just have to ration electricity from now on,” Wes said. No extra gasoline meant no fuel for the generator. He broke out coughing and Sheila quickly poured him a glass of water. The air was so thick with ash and dust it tasted charred.

“Wow!” Robby exclaimed, pointing. “Did you see that?”

Harry and the other adults scanned the evil-looking sky in the direction the boy indicated. Dense dark clouds hid the sun but a flash of light rippled across the sky. A few seconds later thunder rumbled. A greenish glow lit the clouds and the air got eerily still, almost electric.

“I think we better get inside,” Harry said. Wes and Sheila started for the tornado shelter immediately. Harry was as close to an expert on the weirdness following impact as they could hope for, but anyone raised in Tornado Alley could feel one coming.

Harry picked up his six-year-old son and ran for the underground storm cellar. Wes already had the doors open.

The cattle and pigs in the barn were mooing and oinking and rustling about nervously.

Suddenly sheets of lightning crackled across the sky and all hell broke loose. Bolts lanced to the ground, one so close it hit the clothesline pole as Harry dashed by, tingling his skin. Saint Elmo’s fire rolled across the peak of the farm house and leapt to an apple tree in the orchard, blasting it apart.

“Wheee!” Robby squealed, unafraid in his daddy’s arms.

Harry jumped inside and Wes slammed the doors. Harry put his son down and leaned over gasping.

“That was fun, daddy,” Robby yelled over the jarring thunder. “Can we do it again?”

Wes chuckled and Harry joined in. With a perfectly straight face, Sheila answered her son. “Maybe later.”

*

All that day and the next they waited inside the shelter while lightning crackled and the wind howled. Occasionally, a sound like a thousand jet engines would surge past and the earth would tremble. Twisters making their presence felt. Once, a hail of stones and mud hammered against the wooden storm doors, threatening to bust them open.

Since it was underground, dark and cool in the summer, Wes used the storm shelter as a root cellar. After he heard the President’s speech he stocked his with bottles of water as well as canned food. Compared to other survivors they had it cozy.

On the third day the air stilled and they poked their heads out. The sky was still dark, the air still murky. No rain had accompanied the storms. To their relief the house still stood, though it needed a roof, and the well was intact, so as soon as they replaced some damaged wiring they’d have running water. The barn now leaned a bit to one side but it could be braced, and the main door was missing along with most of the livestock.

One lightning-struck cow lay in the barnyard looking like a furry pork-rind: bloated, skin charred and split in places. Sheila helped Harry butcher it, saving meat, fat and a few bones, stowing away sinews and entrails they might find useful later.

“Is this how it’s going to be, Harry?” Sheila used dirt and ash to scrub the worst mess off her skin before rinsing her hands with precious water.

“No,” Harry said, unwilling to lie. “This is only the beginning.”

Chapter 18: The Dying Time

New York City

Otha Gladson clasped Dikeme to him with his good arm and stared in horror as the waters receded. Busses, trucks, cars, buildings and bodies--God, the logjam of bodies--whirled and eddied as the maelstrom withdrew.

“Apocalypse,” whispered Di and gripped him tighter. Memory stabbed her with thoughts of her homeland, her mother and father. What would happen to them?

“God never closes one door but what he opens two,” Glad murmured.

“What?” Di glanced at him, surprised.

“Something my mother always says,” he explained, turning away from the chaos and drawing her back toward the stairs.

Di nodded, understanding him better now. “You come from a family of optimists.” She wanted to keep talking, keep her mind distracted. She’d forgotten how much she didn’t like heights until the building swayed.

He shook his head. “No. I come from a Nation of optimists.”

They sat down and braced their backs against the wall as another quake shook the building.

“It must be quite difficult to keep the faith at a time like this.”

“If you don't believe things will turn out for the best--that you can improve your life and build a better world for the future--then what's the point?” He waived his good arm toward the safety railing. “Might as well be down there with them.”

“I suppose,” she shuddered.

“Here,” he handed her a beer and popped the top off one for himself. “A toast!” He looked deep into her liquid brown eyes and realized he did have at least one thing to be thankful for. “To us! And to better days ahead.”

She clinked her can against his, masking her doubts, and as they tipped their cans to drink the building lurched and splattered them with beer. Spluttering she giggled briefly and stopped shocked at herself. But then they both began laughing insanely.

Laugh, or go mad.

When they regained control of themselves, wiping tears from their faces, he took a sip of his beer and said, “Well! We might as well start planning how we're going to get out of this mess.”

She smiled and said, “Okay.” Though she simply couldn't fathom how he could exhibit hope when millions were dying and dead.

He couldn't do anything else.

Already his mind was churning. They could get food for weeks from the vending machines in the building. Water might be a problem but he’d figure something out. There would be other survivors, some helpful, some possibly violent. Add a gun to the list and matches, lots of matches. They'd have to boil the water, heat food, and with winter only a few months away, stay warm.

But a cloudy blanket was growing as ejecta from Havoc’s impact and scores of volcanic eruptions, smoke from burning cities, forests, and grasslands combined to smother the earth from sunlight.

Winter was coming sooner than expected.

*

California Desert near Twenty-Nine Palms

The earth continued to shake. The Big One, as Californians referred to the expected monster quake along the San Andreas Fault had come and gone, mangling cities from LA to San Francisco. Fires so hot steel beams sagged and collapsed raged unchecked.

Joey the Giant, hair singed off from his last close call with wildfire, raised his tent flap and checked the smoke pouring into the sky to the North. The younger of his twins tended a campfire between two other tents.

“How about it, John?” Joseph pointed to the smoke.

“Winds didn't shift last night, so I think we'll be okay today. Don't much like the way the sky's darkening though.” A smoggy haze had reduced the sun to a dull orange ball. “You think that old man was telling the truth?”

The man they'd stolen the tents from had told them a wild story about a meteor hitting Earth.

“Yeah. Matches what Benny said. Just look around. You see any firefighters? Any cops? Hell! This is the chance we've been waiting for.” He couldn't, mustn't forget how God had touched him in the desert.

John simply looked at his father, careful not to let the slightest criticism show. Was his old man nuts? They’d barely escaped a rain of fire balls the same day as the big quake, and just yesterday, while running from a wildfire they damn near drowned in a flash flood. They were doing good just to be alive. This disaster was the end of everything!

Anthony emerged from one tent, Jamal and Carswell from the other. They seated themselves around the fire, poured some coffee and listened as Joey laid it out for them.

“Nature abhors a vacuum and right now there’s no centralized authority, no structure for survivors to turn too. We need to get down into town and start getting things organized. Find a base to operate from. Open our gun vaults. Start recruiting. Start taking over.” Joey's eyes shone with fervor. He spread his enormous arms. “People want to be led. Hell, they need to be led. They need someone to tell them everything’s okay, even if it isn’t. Look around. It can all be ours!”

He lowered his arms and fixed each of them with his powerful gaze. “And if we do it right, they'll thank us for it.”

Denver

Cherry Hill County Club

Viper’s people were on the thin edge of control. He’d kept them from panicking during the fire squall that swept through Denver and the worst of the quakes. Their stashes of food and other necessities had held them together during those first horrible days, but now what could he do? They were drunk with power, killing, raping and looting at will. Angry, frightened, destructive children loosed on a giant toy store. He’d managed to stop the wholesale slaughter, explaining the need for, and value of, slaves.

Didn’t they understand? God had given them a chance to start new, to rebuild a civilization in their own image, a black civilization. And there was Darnel Wooley, one of his best men; wasting time and the energy of slaves by making them clear undamaged sections of road so he could drive a stolen Cadillac a few blocks. Viper just shook his head. His people were bringing him diamonds and gold. Baubles! Ignoring more valuable canned food.

How could they not get that this was a battle for survival, as well as control of those precious few unburned areas of Denver. Violent aftershocks continued to rock the area and unchecked fires burned out of control. Hell, the sky was turning black from all the smoke.

He saw Shark waving for his attention. Fresh blood dripped from a graze in Shark’s arm as he raised one fist in a salute.

“What?” Viper asked.

“We got the Country Club. It wasn’t touched.” Shark pointed to several new slaves being herded into the compound. “Had to kick some honky butt on the way back though. Dudes in camos with machine guns!”

“Army?” Fear tightened Viper’s gut. They hadn’t run into anyone organized in more than a week.

“Nah. Pot bellies an’ gray beards mostly. Whatcha call’em. Survival nuts. Couldn’t hit shit.”

“They hit you,” Viper smirked.

Shark shook his head in disgust. “Nah, that idiot Marcus winged me shootin’ at’em.” Marcus Robitaille was a recent recruit whose education as a lawyer drew Viper to the man and sparked jealousy in Shark.

“How’d he do, other than wasting lead on you?”

Shark grunted and shrugged, and Viper, understanding the man’s resentment, took it as high praise.

“Good,” Viper nodded. “After we move into the Club you have a reward coming. Now let’s get them moving.”

Shark beamed as he helped Viper form the column.

*

Downtown Denver

Chad Bailey dug through the rubble until his hands bled. He paused long enough to wrap them in rags, then grabbed a metal table leg and started prying large chunks up for others to clear away. He and his coworkers were graveyard shift communications engineers and computer programmers for MCI.

He’d been down in the break room munching cookies and listening to soft rock on his radio when the emergency broadcast system cut in with a warning that the Eastern United States was about to be hit by an asteroid.

Instantly he called Josh Adams, his closest friend among his coworkers, and everyone else into the room to listen in. His first thought was that this would play hell with the phone system. Millions of calls were switched through the East Coast.

“Thank God this is happening at one in the morning,” he mumbled. Several people nearby nodded agreement. It would give them a few hours to get the system rerouted before call volume went through the roof.

“Jesus, listen to this! What are they trying to do? Scare hell out of people?”

Josh said, “It’s working.”

“It’s crap!” Chad snapped. “It’s an asteroid. It’ll burn up in the atmosphere.”

But Josh was an engineer too. “I think that depends on how big it is.”

Chad stopped ranting and listened closely to the radio. Josh could be right. They’d all heard the President but until now he’d assumed this would be a localized disaster, like a tornado or something.

He hadn’t had a clue.

When the shockwave hit Denver their modern, glass and steel building disintegrated. If they’d been upstairs they would have all died instantly. They clapped hands over their ears and screamed.

The first quake jarred them to their senses as their building’s steel beams and concrete columns shattered and caved in on them. The basement ceiling held in their area, saving them again, but the power went out, plunging them into darkness.

Hours later, after they’d screamed themselves hoarse through the chaos, and the light of day reached them through gaps in the broken building, they began digging themselves out. The silence up above, when they expected sirens and voices, told them no help was coming.

For days they lived on vending machine candy and sodas. Chad emerged as their leader, getting them to fashion tools from tables and chairs, making them dig in shifts. Holding them together in the face of terror.

He pried at a block of concrete and it fell away, leaving him stunned as weak daylight poured in and filled his soul with hope.

“Breakthrough!” He yelled.

An hour later they crawled from the ruin, their joy short-lived as they stared at the wreckage of their world.

*

The Freeholds

Michael coughed and clenched a dampened rag to his mouth, then used the rag to wipe his goggles before putting his dust mask back on. He set the choke on the chain saw and pulled the starter rope until it roared to life. As the saw bit into a fifty-foot fir and wood chips flew, he mumbled an apology. It went against his grain to fell and waste a living tree, especially now that the shockwave and earthquakes had toppled so many, but looking back along the ridge at others cutting the fire line and at the wall of flames whipping toward them up the valley--there was no other way.

Pike National Forest was ablaze and the Freeholders had been fighting an increasingly desperate delaying action for the past three days. The skies were black with thick, choking smoke and if it wasn't for the flickering orange light of the advancing fire they wouldn't be able to see to fight it. He notched the tree in the direction of fall and felled it with a final clean cut. Behind him men, women and children worked with mattocks, shovels and rakes to clean the earth of fuel for fire, making a line the flames couldn't cross.

This was the last ridge between the fire and the homesteads. If they couldn't stop it here they would have to abandon what was left of their homes and flee.

He stepped up to a ponderosa pine, notched it and began the felling cut. Wood chips flew. His left thumb pumped the manual chain oiler. Halfway there. He looked down into the felling zone to make sure no one had wondered into danger.

The ground leaped, throwing him off his feet. The tree pinched the bar of his chainsaw as the land lurched and dropped. The tree snapped off falling back out of control.

“Timber!” Michael screamed.

Randy McKinley, who had been working just below Michael before the quake threw him down, just had time to roll clear.

The land slipped. Evergreens whipped back and forth like palms in a hurricane, cracking, breaking in two, toppling like dominos. Dust and ash rose, blinding the firefighters. The earth tossed about like a restless child, groaning and rumbling, on and on.

And then it cracked like a cosmic pistol shot. Michael winced and clapped his hands over his ears. He was bucked into the air and his stomach heaved, weightless, like an express elevator had dropped out from under him. Then the breath was jarred from his body as the land slammed against him. He lay there, heart hammering, lungs screaming for air, wondering what the hell had happened now. How much more of this insanity could his people take? How much more could he take?

Already there had been suicides and people driven mad by the darkness and a constantly shaking earth that broke minds as well as power lines, trees, and bridges.

The land trembled and stilled as Michael regained his breath. The air cleared slightly as wind rushed toward the forest fire. Michael struggled to his knees.

“You all right?” Randy crawled over the fallen tree and flopped down beside him. He smelled like charred wood. Everything smelled like charred wood.

Michael nodded and pulled himself to his feet, offering Randy a hand up. A waterfall roar grabbed his attention.

“Jesus!” Michael pointed, mouth hanging open. Their fire line was in shambles, but at the foot of the ridge, between them and the flames a gap had appeared in the earth. A chasm one hundred feet wide and perhaps thirty feet deep, running completely across the valley and into the hills on either side.

Even as they watched, water from some subterranean source fountained up into the void.

“My God,” Randy said. “The birth of a river.”

“Or a long, narrow lake,” Michael amended. “After it fills we'll see if it flows. The important thing is, if that doesn't stop the fire nothing will.”

He picked up his chainsaw. “Bar's bent,” he said. “But the motor's still good.”

“You can pick up a new bar at The How-To Store in Woodland Park,” Randy spoke before he thought, naming the closest hardware store.

“Maybe,” Michael agreed. But privately he wondered if the town of Woodland Park still existed. Where were the Forest Service firefighters? Where were the Sheriff's Deputies who patrolled the road running through the Freeholds? Why wasn't there anything on TV or radio but static? Why weren’t the phones working? What the hell has happened to the rest of the world?

*

The ISS

“It appears our leaders were wrong, Milla” Pavel Yurimentov said. Below them the Middle East, Eastern Europe and most of Russia were obscured by heavy black clouds streaked with orange. It reminded Pavel of a lava flow he’d seen on the National Geographic channel. Onboard sensors registered six hundred degrees along the tops of the clouds. Below them, anything alive was broiling.

“How so?” Ludmilla replied. Her hands trembled as she gently blotted tears from her eyes. Without gravity they built up until she couldn’t see; small mercy. As careful as she was some of them escaped and floated about the cabin.

Pavel captured most of them with a cotton ball. It wouldn’t do to get them on the camera lens. He secured the cotton ball in a ziplock bag and looked through the viewfinder to be certain the camera continued to record the greatest tragedy in human history.

“They said the United States would suffer worse damage than Russia, but our sensors tell a different story. Parts of the US are still clear and the debris clouds there are much cooler. If God existed, I’d curse him.”

“Pavel!”

“I don’t care!” He cried out. “Mother Russia is gone.” And then more weakly, “She is gone.”

Though their marriage was one of political convenience, the raw pain in his voice touched her. She reached out and placed her palm on his chest over his heart and said, “No, Pavel. Russia lives here.”

*

Mia Torno, their Italian cartographer and geophysicist, kept her dark brunette hair in a single large braid, wound around and pinned up with a pair of knitting needles to keep it from interfering with her work. She’d never expected to have to remap the entire world though so she’d drafted Suzy Yakamoto, another geophysicist, and Elena Maria Montoya, a lunar geologist to help.

“Elena, could you double check this for me?” Mia asked.

Elena opened her tablet, tapped email and started scanning the document

Europe and the Mideast

The Netherlands, Belgium, the lowlands of France, Germany, Denmark and Poland appear to be under water, reclaimed by the Atlantic and the Baltic. We saw tsunamis devastate every coastal city and port town in Europe and the US and can safely assume the same has occurred worldwide.

In Norway, Sweden, Finland, Bavaria, the French and Italian Alps, we have observed a scattering of lights, indicating a few small mountain villages have apparently survived relatively intact.

In Italy the Po Valley has been flooded by the Adriatic and in Spain the plains around Madrid are a quagmire. The United Kingdom has suffered the worst tsunamis, and horrible quakes have sundered the island nation into four pieces. The waters of the Atlantic have breached the barrier cliffs near Galway and flooded the interior of Ireland, leaving the appearance of a vast atoll.

In Central Europe the Balkan nations, the Ukraine and European Russia were all but incinerated by a series of massive fire squalls of burning magma from the Havoc Strike. Dresden-style firestorms were observed in almost all of the major cities. Greece, Bulgaria, Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran and Pakistan suffered much the same fate in addition to especially violent earthquakes and volcanoes. The Saudi peninsula has endured the irony of massive tsunamis from the Indian Ocean on top of the quakes and fire balls. Those parts of Israel, Jordan and Egypt that didn’t burn in this oven of nature’s making have been inundated by the Mediterranean. If we were all devout Christians, we’d be looking to the Book of Revelations, and believing God had kept his promise and destroyed the world with fire.

Iceland seems to have fared best. Though savaged by volcanic eruptions, fierce tsunamis, slipping glaciers and brutal floods the lights of several cities are still functioning indicating above normal survival rates. Ceilia Olafsdotter, who hails from there, says Iceland has always been a land of extremes and its people are used to nature’s treachery.

Asia, Australia, Africa, Central and South America

Bangladesh has vanished under the waters of the Bay of Bengal. The Indus and Ganges valleys resemble immense churning lakes. New Delhi, Lahore and Katmandu burned while Mumbai and Karachi drowned. Mt. Fuji exploded and has buried roughly half of Honshu under ash and magma. The lowlands of China, Southeast Asia, the Philippines and Indonesia suffered the same fate as the Netherlands and Bangladesh.

The Hypercane we dubbed Havoc has veered across the Pacific destroying the Pacific Fleet and the remains of Korea before dying in central China. Two way radio contact with the surface is apparently impossible, but snippets of broadcasts we’ve picked up claim staggering death tolls and everywhere the storm struck reports of some unknown, deadly plague were not far behind. The logical conclusion is that this storm is somehow spreading the contagion. There are virtually no signs of life in all of China, Korea and Southeast Asia.

According to the last transmission from Adelaine, Australia lost almost its entire coastal population in spite of well-organized evacuations to camps in the interior. Only in deep mines or towns like Coober Pedy, where opal miners and everyone else live underground, could Aussies escape the broiling heat. The tsunami that destroyed Sydney smashed up against the Blue Mountains. As with the rest of the world the majority of apparent survivors live in the mountains. The Great Divide Range and the West slope of the Australian Alps show scattered lights.

New Zealand has been devastated. The only signs of life appear on the South Island in the Southern Alps above Dunedin and Timaru.

We haven’t been able to get good sightings in sub-Saharan Africa because of ash and smoke. What little we’ve seen indicates the continent has split in two as The Great Rift Valley has widened and the Indian Ocean has poured in.

We believe Mexico, like the rest of Central America and the Caribbean lost most of its population to tidal waves, but volcanoes such as Popocatepetl, which destroyed Mexico City have contributed to the destruction. We also think the plagues from Hypercane Havoc are playing a huge role in finishing the job. According to a few HAM radio broadcasts refugees from these stricken nations fled to the United States spreading the epidemic there. Those who tried to flee to South America found themselves trapped, as the nation of Panama has been ripped asunder by the now combined waters of the Atlantic and Pacific.

In South America the Andes broke the backs of the Pacific tsunamis that destroyed the coasts of Ecuador, Columbia, Peru and Chile, while the Atlantic laid waste to the most populated areas of Venezuela, Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina. Landlocked Bolivia and Paraguay, though shaken by quakes and landslides, appear to have fared best with electric power still displayed in many towns and cities.

“Madre mia,” Elena said, crossing herself like a good Catholic. “It’s one thing to look out and see bits and pieces of the destruction, but it’s somehow horrible to read it in this report. It somehow makes it more real.”

“Can you think of anything I’ve left out?” Mia asked.

Elena shook her head. “No, I...yes. Wait a minute. What about the oceans, you know, the missing atolls and those ships we saw?

“I guess I could put them in,” Mia said. “But we couldn’t tell if they were derelicts or not.

“I think we should include everything we see,” Elena said. “You never know what will be important. And the way The Shroud is thickening it won’t be long before we can’t see anything.”

*

In the entire world no single nation, city, or village escaped untouched. And as darkness covered the globe, as universal cold descended, crops failed, starvation reigned. Even those individuals fortunate enough to have survived drowning, incineration, or being crushed or buried alive had to find new depths of strength within themselves. Food sources previously thought untouchable were tapped, for only those with iron wills and tough constitutions would live to see the sun come out and plants bloom again.

Chapter 19: Slaves and Race Wars

Denver Country Club

“I'll take those two,” Viper said, pointing out a bedraggled blonde and an only slightly less grimy brunette. The women stared hopelessly as they were led off to the side. They would clean up good, excellent breasts. “After you pick, auction the rest,” he told Shark.

Shark walked slowly along the line of naked women. Subtle as his namesake he stopped and shoved his finger up inside a mulatto he thought might appeal to him. She stiffened and her black eyes flared with hatred. Most of those tied together in the line had been raped and beaten so many times their spirits were broken, but not this one.

He grabbed her hair, cut her out of line, and jerked her forward, off-balance. She fell to her hands and knees. He shoved her face down into the grass, pulled down his pants and thrust into her from behind, taking her in plain view of his cheering brethren. As the semen tide rose within him he exulted, slamming into her harder and harder until rewarded by a gasp of pain and the sight of tears squeezing from her tightly shut eyelids. God how he loved humiliating a bitch, any bitch.

Denise Lachelle ground her teeth together and pretended she was elsewhere while she waited for it to be over.

She heard an anguished cry, swiftly stifled, from the group of male prisoners being held off to the side. Jacques! She tried again to pull away but the hand that held her hair was too strong. Her sobs matched Shark's grunting as he finished.

Down among the men being held captive, Jim Cantrell eased his hand from Jacques Lachelle's mouth. “You going to get yourself killed? Or bide your time,” he whispered.

Jacques trembled, eyes wild, but nodded, and Jim let him go. Jacques took a deep breath and shuddered, bringing himself under control as a cold rage swallowed him whole. “Someday soon I kill dat mon.”

“Only if you get to him first,” Jim swore.

After a two day search, the Lachelle's found Jim wandering downtown Denver--a grief stricken hermit in a concrete desert. They had fed him and sheltered him for days until he regained his grip on reality. Then, after scavenging some candy and water from a burned out gas station, they started walking up highway 285 toward the Freeholds.

Wrecked and abandoned vehicles littered the road, blocking it as thoroughly as the fallen Sheridan Street overpass. Many cars had exploded when fire balls or wildfires torched their gas tanks. The three of them struggled past, eyes averted from burnt wreckage filled with charcoal corpses wearing rictus screams. Eau de flesh and gasoline. A vision from a Stephen King nightmare, which only got worse when they were captured by Viper's men and marched back into town.

Jim would never forget those first days after being captured. The sky was scary, growing murkier every day; but Viper was frightful, proclaiming that God was turning the whole world black to celebrate the rise of his chosen and the downfall of all who resisted Viper's will.

Those police who remained on the job instead of fleeing to their families didn't have a chance. With roads ruined they couldn't patrol and they were trained to protect people's rights, not repel organized fanatics.

Viper's army grew like a cancer as he swept through Denver murdering, enslaving, raping, and always, always, gathering food, guns, and recruits. Most of Denver had burned, or been ruined by the quakes, so those areas that still had intact houses or grocery stores were hotly contested. In firefights with Hispanic gangs and White Militia groups Viper prevailed, for he struck before others could even begin to recover and get organized.

One memory was branded into Jim Cantrell's mind, driving home the lesson Viper wanted all to learn: Viper walking through a crowd of seated prisoners, escorted by armed bodyguards, stopping beside an old black man, one of numerous blacks who, like the Lachelles, refused to be recruited.

“Why do you refuse to join me old man?”

White-haired head turned and sad brown eyes met Viper's gaze. “Because what you are doing is wrong,” the old man replied.

“I am never wrong,” Viper hissed, pulling his pistol from its holster.

“Please,” the man said; fear flickering over his face, “You can't do this. It's against the law.”

Viper sneered, “Let me tell you a little secret about the law, old man. When there's no one left to enforce it, it ceases to exist.”

He placed his pistol against the man's head and pulled the trigger--a casual gesture, like flipping ash off a cigarette, then turned to the crowd.

“My word is law. My will is all. And your survival, your very survival depends on pleasing me.”

Viper was only partially right, Jim thought, shivering as he scanned the ever-darkening sky. Nature still has plenty to say about whether or not we survive.

*

Azusa, California

Joseph Scarlatti flinched back behind a brick wall as a bullet from a hunting rifle thwocked into it. He waved his enormous arm in an encircling motion, pulled aside his dust mask and called to his men. “Get in position. No fires! We want the food and water intact!”

He shouldn't have to remind them, but some of his soldiers were overzealous and others were plain damned stupid.

The food and supplies in this Costco would last them for weeks if they could take it intact. And with his automatic weapons against pistols and rifles they should have no trouble.

A whistle split the air, telling Joseph that Anthony and his men were in place on the roof. The roar of motors let him know John was ready to go. They were signaling with whistles because none of the radios he’d tried worked worth a damn and because the murky, dust and smoke-filled air made whistles more effective than flares or flags. It was so dark he could barely see the store and so cold he could see his breath. He never thought he’d miss cell phones so much but with all the towers down...oh, well, sure would make battlefield comms easier.

He risked a peek around the corner and nodded to Jamal, who blew three sharp blasts.

John skidded around the corner in an armored pickup like a madman left over from the Road Warriors movie set. Metal plate protected the radiator, tires, driver and gunners in the rear. A battering ram made from a reinforced trailer hitch bristled with spikes like a cowcatcher from hell. Machine guns raked the barricade at the front of the store, forcing the defenders heads down. Without missing a gear John gunned the truck forward. Three other identical vehicles followed in formation, slamming into the barricade.

At this, Anthony and his men went to work, blowing four holes in the roof, dropping down and attacking from the rear. The gunmen in possession of the store, finding themselves outnumbered, outgunned, outflanked and out fought, quickly surrendered.

Joseph zipped up his coat against the cold wind and strode forward swiftly to prevent a massacre. At this point in his grand plan of conquest he was more interested in recruits and slaves than dead bodies. Besides, he glanced at the ominous sky, knowing it was midday even though it was dark as night, if the food gave out before the skies cleared and weather got back to normal, live bodies would be useful.

Joey was on the roll of his life, charging toward his destiny like a teenager racing a train. Time was of the essence. Every day his army grew along with the territory he controlled. Soon, others in what little remained of suburban LA would get the same idea and start organizing existing gangs into armies. But before anyone could mount a serious challenge Joey planned to have the region's entire food supply sewed up, for food would give him power even guns couldn't wrest.

Civil and military authority had collapsed in the first two weeks as earthquakes, tidal waves, fires and floods devastated the infrastructure. The Governor tried to declare martial law, but with all communications down most National Guard companies failed to respond. A few U.S. military commands remained intact, hunkered down, and awaited orders that would never come; but most units disintegrated as officers and enlisted personnel left to care for their own families.

Thick, choking air, lack of light, water, and food panicked millions who had remained steadfast during jolting quakes and blazing wild fires. Most who fled during those first couple of weeks died quickly--suffocated, crushed, incinerated or drowned. Many who stayed suffered the same fate, but tens of thousands still clung to life, and those people desperately sought some semblance of order, of a return to civilization.

Joseph Scarlatti now saw himself as their savior; saw himself as their King.

*

Edwards Launch Facility

“I don't like the looks of this,” Raoul said from the roof of the launch control building. Ariel and Sara squeezed their eyelids shut and wiped tears away to clear their vision. A line of smoke and flames stretched across the western horizon. The air reeked, stinging eyes and nasal passages, sulfurous from a nearby volcanic eruption. A small aftershock tickled the soles of their shoes.

Sara gripped Ariel's arm as they swayed. “It's going to get worse?”

“That's what Harry told Carl,” Ariel said. “Impact Winter. I hate to admit it but the theory is sound. If enough dust, smoke and debris remain in the atmosphere it will raise the Earth's albedo and reflect more heat from the sun back into space, lowering surface temperatures. Crops will fail; snow will build up, further raising the albedo. I suppose it could trigger a new Ice Age.”

“Would it last that long?” Sara had decided to learn everything she could about what was happening to her world.

“Who knows?” Raoul answered. “Depends on how much ejecta and smoke make it into the stratosphere I expect. Weather doesn’t normally reach up there so it will take quite a while to settle out. Volcanic gases won’t help either. Certainly months. Possibly years.”

“I have some thoughts on that subject,” Carl Borzowski said as he joined them. “Been doing some calculations and if I'm right it'll be bad but not fatal.”

“I thought you were trying to get the generators back on line,” Ariel said. Restoring power to the launch facility before the batteries in the computers expired was a number one priority. There had been no time to finish the backup before the disaster knocked out power.

“I turned that over to General Mabry. The man's going nuts having to sit here and wait this out. He's built for action, not stasis, and this gives him something to do.” Carl eyed the horizon warily. “Anyhow, I figure that along with all the debris mucking up the air there's also several billion tons of additional water vapor in circulation. Albemarle Sound and a few hundred cubic miles of the Atlantic Ocean, remember?”

A smile twitched at the corners of Raoul's mouth. He thought he saw where Carl was heading. A gust tugged at Carl's thin blonde hair and he absentmindedly swept it back in place...a losing battle.

Ariel stepped in. “But won't that increase the Earth's reflectivity even more, and accelerate the temperature decline here at the surface?”

“In the short term, yes.” Carl agreed. “Earth's albedo will rise and surface temperatures will fall even faster than Harry's staff predicted. But there are three main mechanisms for cleansing the atmosphere.” He ticked them off on his fingers.

“One: gravity will settle out the biggest particles of ash and dust in at most a few weeks. Two: wind, which is admittedly more an agent of dispersal than cleansing. And three--”

“Precipitation!” Raoul and Ariel leapt in at the same time.

“Exactly! The heat from all the magma initially dried the atmosphere and increased the air’s ability to hold moisture. I'd bet there hasn't been any rain anywhere in the world since the day after Havoc hit. I also think all that heat will be an engine for building storms much larger than we’re used to, hypercanes, think hurricanes on steroids, that top out well into what we’d normally consider the stratosphere. But with that dark cloud covering the earth temperatures will drop fast, and with an excess of both water vapor and nuclei to form droplets we're going to get a lot of rain.”

Sara, staring at the flames, said, “It can't come fast enough for me.” The fires seemed closer now.

But Raoul’s brow was deeply furrowed in thought and Ariel mirrored his expression.

“It's a two-edged sword, Sara,” Raoul explained. “The rain will put out the fires, but...well, you've been running the numbers, Carl. What exactly do you mean by a lot of rain.”

Carl, staring at the smoke billowing into the sky said, “Remember Noah?”

Chapter 20: When it Rains it Pours

The Freeholds

He was cold and soaked, drenched so thoroughly his boots squelched with each slippery step. Michael Whitebear wiped the rain from his brow and rued again the loss of his hat.

Mixed blessing this rain, extinguishing forest fires so numerous he’d thought the whole world was burning. And since the downpour started the air had cleared a bit and the sky had lightened some. But now it had been raining for two solid weeks. Cold, hard, relentless rains flooding the valley, causing mud slides.

When would the nightmare end?

First came the earthquakes and fires--weeks of jolting, never knowing when the earth would betray and rend; weeks of burnings, so numerous their dull orange glow flickering off the blackened sky gave light enough to see during midnight days. Then the temperature rose until it was actually hot in January, but it had been cooling back down for weeks. Now, he flinched at a nearby blast of thunder. Sheets of lightning, exploded across the sky like strings of firecrackers and this deluge...he was afraid to think what might come next.

The sky was marginally lighter but the rain was so heavy it reduced visibility to nil. He stumbled over a downed aspen and slid downhill until his backpack caught on a spruce limb and stopped him. He pulled his pack loose then tore himself free of a wild rose bush that snagged him and checked the load. Some of the precious firewood he had gathered from inside thick spruce boughs where the rain hadn't penetrated was damp, but still burnable.

He climbed wearily to his feet and trudged across the side hill toward home. This is what we're reduced too, he thought, cursing as his foot tangled in a spreading juniper. Burning wood to heat small, cramped spaces. Cooking canned food scavenged from the houses of the dead. Vultures! He shook his head and smiled, tightlipped. Self pity was wearing thin too. Others, less prepared, less self-reliant had to have it far worse. At least most Freeholders had been able to salvage some of their stored food.

He heard the chugging of the generator and soon after could see a light bulb burning from the ruins of his home. It wouldn't be long before he and Ellen were forced to hunt up more gasoline for the generator, since their propane backup was crushed by a fallen Ponderosa. And they had less than two days food left. He sighed. Most of their long term food supplies had been destroyed by the quakes and forest fires, so after dropping off the firewood and grabbing a cup of coffee, he'd round up Randy McKinley and some other neighbors and organize a scavenger hunt.

Something cold stung his cheek and as he wiped it away more flakes caught his eye. Snow! Well, snow in January wasn’t unusual for the Rockies. Maybe things were getting back to normal. But something about this snow set his gut churning. He started toward his house with renewed urgency.

*

Kansas

“I'm cold, Daddy.” Robby Garrison was seven years old now, having celebrated his birthday just days ago, too young to understand the changes taking place in his world, but old enough to learn to adapt.

“You know what to do,” Harry responded.

“I'll get it,” Sheila mumbled from beneath the quilts.

“No,” Harry said. “Let Robby.”

The boy slid from the covers, gasping as his feet contacted the chilly floor. He put on slippers and a robe, and crossed the room to the airtight wood stove, opening it and stirring the ashes with a poker. Dull orange greeted him along with feeble heat bringing a big grin to his face.

“She held,” he reported with pride, for he had built the night fire the evening before and the goal was to have embers such as these still alive to start the morning fire.

He crumpled old newspaper and blew on a coal until it caught, then added kindling and larger wood creating a merry blaze.

As the crackling of the new fire reached Harry a proud smile creased his face. His son's first fire had held. With the world like it was, that was an important rite of passage.

Things were bad on the farm, what with the darkness and growing cold and hellacious storms that terrified them all; but so far they were surviving. They'd had no contact with the outside world since The Dying Time began and he could only imagine how horrible life was elsewhere. Grim enough here.

Day was almost as black as night. The difference was in daytime he could see his hand in front of his face. The air was thick with dust and acrid sulfurous smoke, telling him there was at least one volcano within sniffing distance of the farm.

And on his last scavenging trip to town the old Ford pickup died, its air filter hopelessly clogged, its carburetor choked with the gunk that passed for air in this new world. That same trip he'd seen his first dog pack. They'd eyed him warily, slinking away with the furtiveness of dogs that know they've done something bad and don't want to be blamed; but they left him alone. He was certain they'd been feeding on corpses, and was relieved they weren't yet bold enough to attack.

“Ugh!” Harry grunted as Robby jumped back into to bed to wait for the room to warm up. Sheila moved playfully against him, knowing he could do nothing with Robby in the room.

Thirty minutes later Harry was dressed for the outside. Dressed in layers, that is, with a white tee shirt, now faded gray, long-sleeved, red and white flannel shirt, light tan cotton jacket, heavy denim jacket, hunter orange stocking cap and long muffler, wrapped around his head and over his nose to filter the air. Ski goggles, thick leather gloves, long underwear bottoms, loose green wool pants, two pairs of socks and L. L. Bean Caribou boots with rubber soles and leather uppers completed his outfit.

Even though his wristwatch showed 8 a.m. he couldn't see as far as the chicken coop, much less the barn. Sheila's father, Wes had solved that problem by tying rope “leads” between the out buildings and the house, just like his parents had done during the dust bowl days of the Great Depression.

Harry took a lead in hand and groped his way through the murk to the hen house. Since they were running out of chicken feed and couldn't let the flock free range, he carried a burlap bag to stuff a hen or two in. Harry and Wes had agreed to thin out the flock to stretch the feed supply so the family had been eating chicken almost every day for the past two weeks. If he didn't come up with more chicken feed, they'd have to eat all the chickens and that would mean the last of the eggs. He sighed. He'd really miss eggs for breakfast.

One of the reasons he'd risked a trip to town was to visit the feed store and the granary, but the rats got there first, swarming everywhere: a terrifying brown carpet with teeth. Fear of rabies had kept him and Wes from trying for the grain.

Nearing the hen house he saw the dim glow of the battery powered drop light he and Wes had strung to mimic daylight to keep the birds laying. Once in the hen house he ruffled feathers gathering eggs and grabbed two hens that hadn't laid for several days. Produce or else. Pioneer economics.

His next stop was the barn where Wes had already finished milking the last two surviving Holsteins. The concrete floor of the milk barn was cold, which could be lived with, and filthy, which was unhealthy. Normally, the floor was sprayed down with hot water and disinfected after each milking. But the water pump that fed both the barn and the house ran off a gasoline-powered generator, and both gasoline and motors were too precious to waste. Harry couldn't begin to guess when civilization would recover enough to produce more of either.

Wes was dumping milk into the feed trough for the hogs. The spry old man spied Harry and waved him over. “Looky here,” he said, pointing proudly.

Harry leaned over and looked down into the stalls they had converted to indoor hog pens. Six piglets squirmed into their mother’s teats, wiggling like they were trying to burrow back into her.

“Well, I’ll be,” Harry said, reaching down toward a little one.

“Don’t!” Wes smacked Harry’s hand away just as the sow lunged at it, a fiery gleam in her eye.

“Good way to lose a hand,” the old farmer warned. “Those teeth ain’t just for show. Sow with a litter is nothin’ to mess with.”

“I’ll say,” Harry agreed. He studied the piglets envisioning bacon and pork chops. “We going to be able to keep them alive?”

Wes studied on that for a while. “Depends on how long this cold lasts. Hay’ll keep the cows goin’. We got six or seven more months worth now that the herd’s down to two. So long as the cows give milk we can feed the hogs and ourselves.” He paused and shook his head. “Wish’t those damn rats hadn’t got the grain. Be good for the cows and the pigs.”

He turned to Harry and looked him in the eye. “How long’ll the cold last?”

Harry tugged at his growing beard. “No way to tell from here. If those volcanoes that blew quieted back down that’s one thing. If they’re still pouring ash into the upper atmosphere, well, we might have to hunt up some more hay.”

Wes nodded. He grabbed a bucket of milk for the house and started for the door, but before he could get there it flew open and Robby bolted inside.

“Dad! Grandpa! It’s snowing!” Harry put his arm around his son and stared at the blizzard whipping by outside. The scientist in him was fascinated by the changes he observed in the world around him, but the husband and father in him was appalled. For the first time in hundreds of years a father couldn't look forward to handing his son a better world than he, himself, lived in. Harry was honest enough to realize that even if Carl and General Mabry and the Garcias got it together in time to destroy the asteroid coming at them life would probably get harder for the next several generations. He wondered how others were dealing with the changes. He sighed, new days, new ways.

*

Utah

“Bob?” The man peering in the door spoke from deep shadows.

Bob Young, Mayor of Provo, held a candle up toward his visitor. “Ed? That you? When did you get back?”

Edward Cummins stepped inside and closed the door. He pulled off his snow-covered coat and hat and laid them over a chair. “Just now.” He placed a sheaf of paper on Bob's desk and the Mayor noticed the man's hands trembled slightly.

“Have a seat, Ed,” Bob Young waved toward a chair. “How bad is it?”

Tears welled in Ed's eyes and for the first time Bob saw how hollow they looked. “It's worse than we ever imagined,” Ed choked out. “The Tabernacle is gone. It's just gone! That big fault tore Salt Lake City in two and drowned most of it.” His voice dropped to a whisper and he looked down at the floor. “It's all gone. And Bob? That fault slip is huge. I couldn’t see all the way to the bottom because of the snow but I could hear…” He stopped, embarrassed. It was hard to admit what he thought he’d heard.

“Hear what?” Bob asked, staring at him expectantly.

“Um…well, surf.”

There! It was out.

Bob Young was stunned. As a rule the Mormons around Provo had faired better than gentiles because their religion bade them keep a year's supply of food and necessities on hand. And the Dugway Tea Party had assured they kept what they’d saved. So a far larger percentage of the population was prepared to survive without the trappings of civilization than elsewhere. But if Utah was now the West coast he’d have to rethink his strategy of waiting for help from outside.

The reality hit him hard. I should talk to that geologist from the University, he thought. What was her name? Hope, or Charity, or something like that. She had a theory the asteroid strike had caused tectonic plates to shift that suddenly seemed worth listening to. He reached for the phone before remembering it was dead and he hadn’t had a cell phone signal in months.

He stood up and showed Ed Cummins out the door with a final request. “Would you please find Adam and tell him I need to see him?”

Colonel Adam Young had tried to get Bob to organize a small militia last week but fighting fires, finding clean water and distributing civil defense rations seemed more important. Now Bob wasn't so sure.

Most cities and towns had less than a week's supply of food on hand and with food running short men were turning desperate. Fear of the ever-darkening sky was on the rise, and it was getting colder and snowier every day. Winter was weird this year. And if that wasn’t enough, there were isolated reports of violence and looting. Bob had glimpsed a grim, dog-eat-dog future and he was determined it would not begin in Provo. He was hanging on to fragments of law and order by a thread.

He leaned forward, running one hand absently over the dark mahogany surface of his desk. My God, he thought, we’re really on our own.

*

Denver

“We don’t get out of here soon, we’ll be too weak!” Jim Cantrell hissed. He tugged the corner of the canvas tarp around his shoulder and tried to get comfortable. Slaves weren’t allowed much, minimal clothing, drafty, unheated shelters.

“I know mon,” Jacques teeth chattered. Male slaves weren’t allowed warm clothing because then they could conceal weapons. They weren’t allowed fires to heat their shelters both because fire could be used as a weapon, and because their suffering amused their guards. All they could do was huddle together out of the worst of the snow and wind.

“But I won’ go witout Denise.”

Men and women were held separately. Freeing her meant getting themselves loose, evading the guards, and breaking her out of a guarded enclosure.

“I think we have to get ourselves loose first, Jacques.”

“Den you go alone,” Jacques snapped.

“Listen, man,” Jim pleaded. “We need guns, not these.” He gestured with a shank he’d made from broken window glass. “We need warm clothes and someplace decent to hole up after we escape. Someplace warm where we can regain our strength and plan how to get to the Freeholds. Denise will need all that and more, man. She may need a doctor.”

Jacques’ wild-eyed silence told Jim he wasn’t convinced.

“You can’t get any help for her here and you know it.”

“Mebbe so, mon, but she know we here.” Denise and Jacques contrived to get a glimpse of one another almost every day. “Wat she tink if we go?”

“She’s your wife, Jacques,” Jim said. “And you know her better than I do. But I think she’ll know we won’t abandon her. I think she’ll know we’ll be back.”

Jacques nodded unwillingly.

“Tomorrow, when we’re out foraging I’ll slip away,” Jim paused and met Jacques’ gaze. Male slaves were always escaping from foraging parties. Most were recaptured and killed. It was very risky, but food for male slaves had been almost nonexistent for a week now. “If you come with me we’ll get her out faster than if I go alone; but either way I’m going.”

Jacques read the determination in Jim’s eyes and the set of his jaw. No arguing with that.

“Okay, mon, tomorrow.”

*

Denise hadn’t seen her man or Jim Cantrell in three days now. Where were they? She hadn’t heard about any executions or escapes. God, she hoped they’d escaped from these vermin. The only other thing she could think of was maybe Shark had somehow recognized Jim Cantrell and turned him over to Viper.

“Hey babe.” One of the dining hall guards fondled her breast as she slid past with a tray of meat. She shuddered inside but controlled any visible reaction. That was another mystery. After more than two weeks of virtual starvation all of a sudden there was fresh pork. The smell was delicious. Some foragers must have found a pig farm. She laid her tray on the table and left for another. One thing was certain. If Jacques had escaped she had to stay alert, for he’d come for her. More than that, she realized. She must try to get out on her own, for if he attempted to rescue her he’d probably be killed.

Back in the dining hall, Viper finished the invocation with a final remark. “As did our forefathers in Africa, we too gain strength from our enemy dead.”

Several of his newer followers looked uneasily at the “pork” in front of them. Did he mean? Viper’s army had won a battle just yesterday, defeating some families in Englewood who had banded together to defend their homes. Sensing their hesitation, Viper seized the initiative, slicing a bite-sized piece and holding it aloft on a fork.

“Our Dark Lord has granted this blessing as part of his plan for returning us to our rightful heritage.” He sucked the meat off the fork and chewed as his eyes blazed over the crowd.

Suddenly everyone was hungry.

*

Glendale, California

“But, dad, I….”

“Father!” Joseph Scarlatti roared at his son, John. “You will always call me, father.” To emphasize his point he grabbed John by the neck with one enormous hand and pinned him against the wall. “I grow tired of your disrespect.”

John flushed angrily, and at that small sign of rebellion Joseph’s hand squeezed.

John’s eyes bulged. His feet dangled in mid air. At seven foot tall, three hundred forty pounds, his size and strength occasionally led him to forget how much larger and stronger his father was, and what a hair trigger his temper could have. This was, after all, the man who had pulled the arms off John and Anthony’s mother as easily as another could pull wings off flies.

Joseph’s ice blue eyes blazed at his son. “You lack manners, John, social graces. You should take lessons from your brother. He not only looks like a Prince, he acts like one.”

John’s face was purpling, his vision dimming, but raw fear kept him from striking out at his father. The last time he’d tried to defend himself the beating he’d received had left him bed-bound, pissing blood for a week. And his father had added insult to injury by chopping the legs off John’s favorite toy. The girl lived and John found himself strangely excited by her deformity. Still he’d tired of her after a month and sold her to an exotic sex farm.

“You can be a real waste of air, son,” Joseph eased his grip, allowing John to breathe. “You argue constantly, and while I value your opinion on military matters, you are never again to dispute with me in public! You are a Prince, but I am your King!”

He lowered his son until John’s feet touched the floor. “Understand?”

John nodded, rubbing his sore throat, keeping his eyes averted so the anger, shame and humiliation coursing through him wouldn’t show.

“Good,” Joseph allowed. “Now, as I was saying before you challenged my orders in front of my generals….” Joseph droned on.

John swallowed painfully. His ears burned. His father had literally yanked him out of the meeting to this private audience, leaving precious Anthony to continue the briefing. God, his brother would be even more insufferable after this.

“Are you listening?” Joseph’s icy eyes were glowing again.

“Yes, father,” John’s voice was rusty and his heart jumped. The old bastard was too perceptive. To head off another humiliation, John continued. “My men and I are to search Edwards, Vandenburg and the Jet Propulsion Lab for the Sunflower. Jamal Rashid and Nicolo Bonetti will take a small force up to Lawrence Livermore. Anthony and Carswell’s troops will check out Van Nuys, the U.S Naval Weapons station by Seal Beach, then swing east to March Air Force Base.”

Joseph nodded. “Next time pay attention without your eyes glazed over; and get your teeth fixed. Your breath smells like tooth rot. A prince’s breath shouldn’t offend.” He waived his arm in dismissal. When John didn’t leave, Joey said, “Well?”

“Now that we’re alone, father, am I permitted to ask questions?”

Joey decided to let the kid save face. The boy would never be an intellectual giant, but he shared Joseph’s talent for military planning as well as a few perversions. “Yes.”

“Why are we spending (he’d almost slipped and said wasting) time checking out areas near the waterfront? Everything within ten miles of the ocean was destroyed by tsunamis. If Sunflower was near the coast it’s gone. The inland bases are our best shot.”

Joseph decided this was worth an explanation more informative than his usual, “Because I said so.”

“We’re being thorough, John. Some buildings are still standing in those areas and one of them may reveal the location of Sunflower Control. And while there are a finite number of military space-launch facilities there are hundreds of places they could control the weapon from. We have to find the control center. We get that weapon, son, we get the world!”

He pointed to a large map of Southern California and added, “Besides, our scouts report that Camp Pendleton survived largely intact, probably because San Clemente Island absorbed the worst of the tidal waves, and those Marines won’t sit on their asses forever. We need that laser before they come for us.”

*

Edwards Air Force Base Launch Facility

“Carl, we’ve got another problem.” General Roland Mabry’s face was solemn.

“What is it, Roland?” What was one more problem on top of so many?

“The fires are closing in. We have to get out.”

Carl shook his head. “We can’t leave, Roland. Our equipment, the computers….”

Soldiers were filing inside, looking purposeful.

“We’ll take the gear with us in trucks. We can reinstall it later. You finished the backup last night, didn’t you?”

“Yes, but….”

The General grabbed Carl’s arm. “Come with me.” He half-dragged the protesting scientist up to the roof. “See for yourself.”

Raoul and Ariel Garcia were up there with Sara. All of them were staring at a solid wall of flames. Buildings and homes on the outskirts of the base and brush-choked canyons blazed furiously.

Carl stood dumbstruck. He hadn’t been up here for days, focusing on his calculations. Trying to determine how rapidly the skies would clear once the rains began.

He turned 360 degrees. The only way not blocked by fire was a small gap to the Northeast. The troops had cut down every tree and shrub within a quarter mile of the facility. All superfluous structures had been flattened and hauled off. A three hundred yard wide ring of dirt surrounded the facility like a moat. A firebreak, Carl realized. The only things left inside that could burn were the main buildings, the vehicles, and the people. Even the grass had been plowed under. Humvees and six-wheel-drive army transports were backing up the loading docks and main entrance.

“You don’t think the firebreak will stop the flames, Roland?”

But it was Raoul who answered. “Carl, the heat from this firestorm will suck up all the air in this area and suffocate us even if the flames don’t jump to the buildings.”

Carl was nodding, the scientist in him coming to the fore. Yes, the heat could even melt the metal structures. He looked the General in the eye and said, “Get us out of here, Roland. We’ll come back after the fires pass.”

*

Edwards Launch Facility--Two days later

John Scarlatti and his men rolled their motorcycles to a stop and were immediately enveloped in a cloud of hot ash.

“Jesus,” John coughed as the ash settled and the view cleared. “This place is toast.” The buildings were seared. The gantry leaned drunkenly, half melted.

“They made a real effort to save it though,” Richard Marsh, John’s right-hand man said. “See where they cleared a firebreak. That took a lot of work. Must be something important there.”

“So take a look,” John ordered. But privately he was betting they wouldn’t find anything. Hell, we don’t need a space-based laser weapon. We need more men in our army, undamaged tanks, intact munitions depots, a fucking airport with planes that fly, enough food and fuel to get through the winter. He sniffed at the murky air. Some decent damned air to breathe. That’s what we need.

Suddenly his sense of smell caught up with his thoughts and he sniffed the air again. What’s that? Something he hadn’t smelled since his boyhood in Michigan. A snowflake settled on his nose.

Snow? In Southern California?

Chapter 21: Impact Winter

The Freeholds

Michael squinted down the valley into the blowing snow. Sometimes it thinned enough for him to see smoke plumes rising from drifted over homesteads. Other times it blew so hard he had to wipe his goggles to see the next tree.

He leaned into the wind as he trudged forward, swinging his feet wide with each step so his Bear Paw snowshoes wouldn’t tangle. The lines of his sled harness bit into his shoulders. His mustache and beard were coated with hoarfrost from his steaming breath.

The sled he pulled was the hood off his ’67 F250, turned upside down and stabilized with two sheet metal runners. It clanked as gas cans jostled against each other. He crested the last hill north of his house and stopped.

Randy McKinley drew up along side, puffing and wiping his ski goggles. “Thank God,” Randy wheezed. “I wasn’t looking forward to another night in the open.”

Michael just nodded. The gale they endured the past four days reminded him of a hurricane he’d been through during a brief stint as a shipboard marine. But who’d ever heard of a hurricane in Colorado, much less in winter? Didn’t they need heat to form?

Randy eased out of his harness. “I need to adjust my load.”

Michael looked back as he slid out of his harness. Randy’s sled was leaning precariously to one side. “I’ll give you a hand.”

Randy grabbed a pair of heavy gas cans and shifted them to the middle of the sled. “How much longer can we keep this up?”

Michael shoved smaller cans and boxes of food toward the uphill side of the sled, settling it back level. “As long as we have to.”

“We were almost to Fairplay, Michael.”

“Look, Randy, I know we’ve drained every gas tank and scavenged every unburned farmhouse between the Freeholds and Fairplay. Hell, we’ve gone as far as Florissant the other way.”

“I’m just saying we’re running out of options as fast as fuel.”

Michael nodded as he helped lash down the load. Without sunshine their solar panels weren’t producing. Their wind generators had been flattened by quakes and storms. The Tarryall River had frozen solid, ending their hydro-power, and in this cold, their methane digesters couldn’t keep up with demand. He’d been pushing for a large scale scavenging expedition into Denver or Colorado Springs. With enough people he could bring back adequate food and gasoline to last months. Besides he wanted to find our what happened to Jim and Jill Cantrell.

“I’m with you, Randy, but going to Colorado Springs or Denver in this weather? And there are probably survivors there. What’ll they think when we show up and start helping ourselves? Remember that old lady who shot at us?”

Randy grinned, the smile easing the hollows under his eyes. “Yeah, and I remember the hot chocolate and biscuits she made us when you gave her that box of canned food, too.” He shook his head. Tough old bird, going it alone on her ranch, miles from town; but kind enough after she figured out we weren’t out to steal from her. But Michael had a point. How would the locals react?

“Any idea how long it’ll take Aaron and Terrell to get the snowmobiles working again?”

Michael shrugged into his harness. “Already been too long.” He leaned into the load and started trudging down the hill. The snow was so wet the sleds simply bogged down any time they tried to slide them downhill, so they had to pull them both ways, up and down.

Two weeks, he thought, hoping that was right. He’d told Ellen it shouldn’t take longer than that; but with the constant snow and darkness it was hard to count days. He tugged forward feeling the lines cut into his shoulders again. Two weeks seemed like a long time to get forty-five miles to Fairplay and back.

They shuffled past the Goldstein place, and Michael noticed the drifts were so high now that stairways and ramps cut into the snow led twenty feet up to the surface. Hot stovepipes formed huge funnels, like ant-lion traps in the snow covering the homesteads. Firewood was getting scarce simply because most of it was buried too deep to get to. Like the farm and ranch houses out in South Park he and Randy had dug down into, finding them only because a chimney or part of a second story still stuck up out of the snow.

Out there in the open, with nothing between them and the continental divide, the wind swept parts of the valley floor clean, while in other places drifts one hundred feet high and miles long moved like dunes. The sky was too dark to see the fourteen thousand feet high peaks that lined the western skyline, and the sun was at best a blueish ice ball, rarely glimpsed. Navigation was by dead reckoning, following vaguely familiar terrain, much of which had changed during the quakes, all of which was coated with ice and snow. He couldn’t even use his compass because of all the iron ore in the local mountains.

Michael shook his head. In the entire time he and Randy had spent scavenging he hadn’t seen a single animal track of any kind. How could the four-footed survive something like this without help? He thought of the bales of willow tips he and his neighbors scattered in sheltered areas of the valley and of the small herds of deer, elk and bighorn sheep who gathered there each day. Some folks put out hay, but while elk managed okay on it, many deer, whose normal winter feed was aspen and willows, lacked the enzymes to digest hay and starved to death with full stomachs. The few horses and cows they’d managed to keep alive could never consume all the hay baled up in South Park the summer before the disaster. It was a miracle the hay hadn’t burned.

And what about birds? Not even the brave chickadee sang in this storm. He paused in his thoughts, trying to remember the last time he’d seen a bird. Months! God, he hoped this disaster hadn’t wiped out the birds. The world would be a poor place without the warners of the woods, whose silences and cries of alarm alerted prey to predators, whose song and cheerful colors lightened hearts.

He sighed and pulled harder. Just because he hadn’t seen them didn’t mean they weren’t there.

He and Randy eased up at the Community Center where people looked at them like they were ghosts.

Mariko McKinley swooshed down the road on cross-country skis, spraying snow as she slid to a stop. She just had time to unclip her bindings before Randy swept her into his arms.

Ellen burst from the store, blonde hair flying and wrapped Michael in a huge hug. Her shoulders shook with sobs.

Michael stroked her head and held her tight, mumbling, “It’s okay, sweetheart. It’s okay.”

Ellen pulled back and looked up into his eyes. Hers were still streaming tears. “We thought…” she couldn’t finish. “You were gone so long.”

Something in the way she said that made him ask, “How long?”

“Almost a month now, Michael. Aaron and Terrell got the snowmobiles running last week. They’ve been out searching for you every day since then.”

Michael just nodded and pulled her to him again, astounded at how much time he’d lost. No wonder she’d been worried. Next time he’d take a calendar and mark off the days.

*

Denver

The crosshairs centered on Shark’s head and Jacques’ finger tensed on the trigger.

“If you kill him now, we’ll fail,” Jim Cantrell whispered softly so neither his voice nor steaming breath would give him away to those below.

“But Mon, he be…” Jacques’ voice died with a strangled gasp.

Below their rooftop perch, in the courtyard of the hotel Shark was stripping Denise Lachelle while the rest of his patrol urged him on.

“He’s distracted,” Jim’s voice was as cold as the snow he lay in. “Kill the guards, they’re armed. You take the two on the left.”

Jacques nodded and took a deep, tremulous breath to steady himself. He eased his sight picture over to one of the guards. The falling snow was light enough not to interfere with aiming. He had to make these shots count. He had to! Out of the corner of his eye he saw Jim bring his rifle to bear.

Denise had run for freedom on her own and she’d almost made it. In the weeks since Jacques escaped she’d schemed, wheedling her way into the position of trustee among the female slaves. Allowed at long last to accompany a security patrol as their “comfort girl.” She knew Jacques was out there waiting for a chance to help her. And she’d resolved to give him at least a fighting chance. But then Shark reached for her and she’d snapped, raking her fingernails across his face, running for her life. If it had just snowed a little harder and covered her tracks…

Now she stood with her back against a dead tree while Shark sliced buttons from her blouse to the leers and cheers of his companions. Her jacket already lay in tatters on the snow. Her skin prickled, shrinking from his blade as he cut the elastic band and her pants slid down around her ankles. Her only consolation was that they’d end it now. The penalty for attempted escape was death.

He grabbed her and pushed her down roughly, kicking her pants away and spreading her thighs with his knife. He bent over, tugging at his own pants and as he pulled them down her eyes went not to his member, but to the two rifles she saw sticking over the edge of the roof.

“Smilin’ won’ save yo ass, bitch,” Shark snarled as he stabbed his knife into the tree.

Then the shooting began and when he straightened up, surprised, she kicked him in the balls and scrambled away.

Jacques swung his rifle back to Shark in time to see him jerk his knife from the tree and lunge at Denise. He pulled the trigger and was rewarded with a bloodcurdling scream. Shark writhed on his back, legs splayed, privates missing, arterial blood jetting into the sky.

Jim’s rifle spoke and the last enemy died diving for cover. He looked over at Jacques, but his friend was already running for the stairwell, and Denise.

*

“You hear that?” Josh’s head snapped toward the sound of distant shots. They echoed strangely in the stillness.

Chad Bailey nodded and continued rubbing his hands together for warmth. He and Josh and the rest of the group sat around a small fire, carefully built to be smokeless, in the detached garage of the house they were staying in. The only house they’d found that was relatively undamaged.

“Think they were after one of ours?” Josh was still concerned about the shots.

Chad shook his head. Who knew?

Of the thirty-two men and women who crawled out of the wreckage of the MCI building after the Impact only twelve stayed together. The rest left to see about their husbands or wives, sons, daughters, or parents--or died running from those black bastards who shot at anything that moved. It hadn’t taken long to learn to avoid them.

There were thousands of survivors combing the wreckage of their world, searching for missing loved ones, or just looking for food and shelter, but in Denver, only the furtive still ran loose.

The dozen left in Chad’s group were singles with no local family, no close attachments; the kind who gravitated toward the graveyard shift. Most of them had been his friends at work. Now they all looked to him to keep them alive. It wasn’t fair!

“Think they’ll come this way?” Josh wouldn’t leave it alone.

“No, Josh. I’m psychic. They won’t come here and they weren’t shooting at any of our colleagues. Okay?”

Josh’s face crumpled.

Bloody hell! He hadn’t meant to explode. It just happened. Liverpool dockside upbringing leaping to the fore again.

“Sorry,” they both said at the same time. Both grinned and shook their heads, like mirror images.

“I believe we need to foray at night,” Chad offered. “And we need to find guns as well as food.” He’d never fired a gun in his life but he’d be damned if he’d be shot at without returning in kind.

*

Edwards

“God, it’s good to be back,” Carl said. He swung his arms around and rubbed his hands together for warmth.

General Roland Mabry agreed. Compared to what they had seen fleeing the fires and enduring the snow, this burned out shell of a building was paradise. “Okay men, let’s get to work. We need the holes patched, the wiring repaired, and the generators reinstalled. After that I want the computers hooked up.”

Soon, the place looked like a beehive stirred up by a bear. Raoul and Ariel supervised installation of the most sensitive equipment. Sara, having long since taken over as the units doctor, treated injuries ranging from burns and broken bones to frostbite.

Two weeks after they started, the building was a haven of warmth and security in a cold, dangerous world--a world where the sharp, ugly edges of a broken and ruined civilization hid under a soft white blanket of fresh snow.

*

Beverly Hills

“Father?”

King Joseph Scarlatti closed “Power Plant Systems” and set it down. His tastes in reading material still ran to the classics but practicality prevailed. “Come in,” he said.

“I’ve found it!” Anthony announced with glittering eyes.

Joey bolted to his feet. “Where?”

“You’re going to love this, Father dear.” He paused just for an instant, enjoying his triumph over his twin brother John. “Edwards.”

A puzzled expression crossed Joey’s face. “I thought that was one of the first places we checked?”

“It was one of the places John checked, Father.” Anthony didn’t add anything more. He didn’t have to. Joseph was aware of the competition between his sons and encouraged it. The fact that John had fouled up on something this important was the icing on Anthony’s cake.

“Very good, Tony,” Joseph said with a broad smile. He bestowed compliments less often than he spared his enemies, so Tony basked in the moment before adding, “There’s more.”

“Go on.”

“The launch facility is guarded by at least a battalion of regular army troops and they’re well armed and dug in.”

“Shit!” Joseph swore. He’d been looking for the Sunflower control facility ever since Carswell told him about it, but of the likely candidates the Jet Propulsion Lab was gone, destroyed by an earthquake and a tsunami. Lawrence Livermore had burned to a cinder. And every military base from Coronado to Vandenburg, except Pendleton, now lay in abandoned ruins.

Anthony showed Joseph some Polaroids taken by their scouts. He was right. This had to be the place. Nothing else he could think of could possibly be important enough to keep a battalion of troops together through times like these. And even if this wasn’t Sunflower, it was obviously something important, something he needed to control.

“Get John, Jamal and Carswell in here immediately. We need to plan our attack.”

As Anthony showed himself out Joey paced the room like a caged tiger. Twenty-thousand men in his army and it was likely that not one of them knew computers well enough to control a space-based weapon. Damn! Have to be careful how we take it. With that laser he could rule the Earth.

He looked again at a photograph of the launch control building. This had to be the place. It had to be.

He pulled aside a curtain and stared out at the blowing snow. Not even this miserable damned weather would keep him from taking that place.

*

Lola MaDonna shivered in the shelter of a small abandoned house. The cold prompted her to draw her mink coat tighter around her. She wanted a fire, but she was afraid. She’d lived in fear, mind-numbing fear, ever since the night shoot.

Gangs of hoodlums and thugs roamed the city. Everyone but her was armed and more than ready to shoot on sight. What had happened to people? Had they no decency? They’re starving and empty bellies trump decency, she answered herself.

She hadn’t eaten in two days, not since Will Benton and his wife, Clarissa left to hunt food. Maybe they had found some and decided to ditch her, decided not to share. No! What was wrong with her? Their daughter, Patricia, or Trish as she preferred to be called, was around somewhere. She’d promised to look after Trish. Have to find her.

Lola pushed herself up and started for the door but before she got there it banged open, nearly stopping her heart, and Trish ran in. The girl’s eyes were bright as she closed the door, then edged over to the broken window and peeked out the blinds.

“It’s okay,” she announced. “I lost them.”

“Lost who?” Lola was almost afraid to ask.

“The soldiers, or gang-bangers, whoever,” she shrugged.

“And why were they chasing you?”

“Are you kidding? Miss MaDonna you need to get a grip. There’s people eatin’ people out there. Yesterday I saw a guy shot and gutted less than a mile from here. The one’s killed him didn’t even wait to build a fire!”

“You mean the thugs chasing you would have eaten you if they caught you?”

“Well, not right at first. I’m young and pretty, you know? Besides,” Trish opened her coat and drew out a two-pound bag of rice. “I found this in their camp.”

Lola paled. “Girl, your father would kill me if anything happened to you. He left you in my care.”

Trish laughed. “Yeah, right. What could you do, Miss MaDonna?” The girl’s tone set Lola back. “I mean, bein’ honest, you haven’t done much to help the last few months. And for the record, they left you in my care.”

Lola gasped as the spear of honesty pierced her shell. It was true she suddenly realized. She had allowed herself to be looked after, to be waited on. God! Suddenly she wanted to crawl under something. Being helpless wasn’t like her. Self-disgust fueled a sudden flame within her. All right. Maybe she wasn’t tough. The world was a new and horrible place. But she was an actress, so dammit she could act tough. She knew from experience if she did it long enough the role would grow on her. Fake it “til you make it.

She gathered up kindling and old newspapers and built a small flame in the fireplace. The wood was dry and smokeless. A pot from the kitchen and some snow to melt would make a good start.

Trish gaped at her. “What are you doing? You start a fire and they’ll come check it out.”

“That’s rice isn’t it?”

Trish nodded.

“You planning to eat it raw?”

The girl grinned. She opened the door and slid outside, calling back over her shoulder. “I’ll keep watch just in case. Call me when it’s done.”

As the water boiled she thought about the steps she should take to get control of her life. One of the first things she decided was she needed a gun. The city was too deadly to be without one. People eating each other! She shuddered.

Outside, Trish found a deep doorway with a clear view up and down the street.

But other eyes were watching. Hunter’s eyes.

*

The months dragged on and the snow kept falling. All over America and all over the world people and animals froze to death. Deep within their dens hibernating mammals from bears to woodchucks sensed the difference in this winter and slowed their metabolisms accordingly. Among bears, pregnant females spontaneously aborted. Even so, few survived the long winter.

Cold gripped the world in an icy fist, and for the first time in recorded history it was winter in both the northern and southern hemispheres simultaneously, though the extremes were greater in the North. Fierce storms raged on land and sea. Tornadoes, spawned over warmer waters intruded onto the land. Hypercanes made landfall and plowed to the centers of continents. Misery became a lifestyle in even the richest nations.

Food supplies failed and there were no crops to replace them. Communities starved. The search for food became more and more desperate until finally many were eating their dead. A few developed a taste for it. A very few developed an addiction.

*

Beverly Hills

Anthony gulped at the screams coming from his father’s suite and stopped shy of the door. John sneered at his brother’s weakness, but also decided not to intrude upon his father’s private pleasures. The King’s short fuse was even shorter at times like this.

Jamal Rashid and Nicolo Bonetti had stopped far short of the twins. It was their report that had triggered the excitement, suddenly put on hold.

The childlike shrieks were weakening. Nicolo turned green. He glanced sideways at Jamal but the scarecrow’s face remained impassive.

The men and their troops had mapped several settlements on their way to Lawrence Livermore and back, settlements full of prospective slaves, food, and goods. There was a treasure trove waiting to be plucked. But there were also strong enemies appearing.

A National Guard unit, well equipped and well trained had attacked them. The Hispanic and Black gangs were growing restless. Plans for handling these problems had to be drawn up and refined.

Jamal reviewed the other details he needed to bring to Joseph’s attention. The slave gangs clearing and rebuilding roads were growing weaker by the day. Soon those who died wouldn’t have enough meat on their bones to feed their guards and overseers. Slaves were so desperate for food many were rebelling, forcing their guards to shoot them down. Two skilled workers, in charge of restoring a coal fired PG&E power plant had been killed in one such outbreak.

All things considered, the situation was damn grim and getting worse.

*

Trish awoke with a start. There it was again. A very soft scratching at the back door. Where was Lola? The ex-movie star lay belly down, a .38 pointed at the kitchen door. Trish crawled toward the door and got her own gun out.

Slowly the deadbolt turned.

Trish’s heart slammed into her ribs so loud she was afraid it would wake the neighborhood.

The knob rotated and the door eased open. Her father’s face appeared and she whispered urgently, “Lola, don’t shoot!”

Will Benton slid into the room.

“Are you trying to scare us to death?” Lola’s tone suggested peeved.

“Where’s mom?” Trish asked at the same time.

Will raised a finger against his lips. Silence. He pulled both their heads close and whispered very softly. “Your mother’s fine. There are armed men taking up positions all around this house. They know you’re here. We have to get out right now.”

Two minutes later they were drifting through the darkness. Lola wondered at how Will and Clarissa always got them out of trouble. How could she ever repay them?

*

The ISS

“Commander?” Alice Anderson waived him over. “Look at this. I think the cloud cover is thinning.”

Clark Kent looked out the port at the blinding white ball that was Earth and at what was possibly a small patch of open ocean. “I think you’re right, Ma’am.” A toothy smile spread across his face and he added, “We should tell the others.” After more than a year observing nothing but clouds and monstrous storms a glimpse of the surface would boost morale.

They had other problems to consider as well. While their supplies of food and water would last for several more months, thanks to the greenhouse and farm modules, they weren’t infinite. They’d already discussed and discarded several alternate plans for long-term survival. Most desperately desired a return to Earth, while a few, himself chief among them, wanted to develop a permanent lunar colony.

Alice, noting the small frown on Clark’s face said, “You’re wondering if clearing skies means we Earthers will press even harder for going home?”

His lips twitched at hearing her refer to those who insisted Earth was the only rational choice as Earthers. “No,” he replied. “I think if the skies clear it will show you how hopeless the situation is down there. I mean, the last signal we got was from Adelaide about that hideous plague and that was--”

“Fourteen months ago,” Alice finished for him. “You think no one down there made it?”

He shrugged. “Most likely there are survivors, but I doubt any of the technology we need to save them from that asteroid still exists.”

“Which is why you Loonies want to go to the moon?” she asked. “You think the supplies the Russians and everybody put in orbit there will be enough to establish a permanent colony?”

He nodded. “It doesn’t make sense to put all our eggs in one basket again,” he said. “Once we’re there we can excavate farm caverns, get the robotic factories set up and start producing the food and solar panels we need to support a growing population. Besides, we need gravity. Maintaining muscle tone on exercise equipment doesn’t cut it in the long run. What was it Doctor Vindushanti said about the rate our bones were thinning?”

“Yeah, yeah. Snap like matchsticks in Earth’s gravity if we stay up here much longer. But--”

“And we’re agreed we can’t go back until the skies clear and we know what we’d be heading into? And we don’t have a clue how long that will take?” He knew he was pushing it now, but he needed to convince her the moon was their best option.

Tears glistened in her eyes as she nodded and pointed at the small blue patch on the Earth and said, “But it’s home.”

Chapter 22: Starvation

The Freeholds

Ellen looked away from the table where the rest of the council was seated. Her eyes reluctantly drawn to the remains of the community larder. The pile was too small, way too small.

They couldn’t cut rations again. Everyone in the Freeholds was already on a starvation diet.

A blast of wind shook the building. She pulled her coat closer about her and shivered. It was cold in the barn. The single small wood stove kept things from freezing: just.

A horse stamped and snorted from its stall. The pregnant mare, Ellen thought. If we don’t find more food soon we’ll have to eat the horses. Then when spring comes and the snow melts we’ll be stuck scavenging on foot. We need the horses.

She turned back to them, noting their eyes too were on the larder.

“Glad you could all make it,” she began. She looked at Mariko, who seemed delicate, even in an oversized down coat and asked, “What about the greenhouses?”

Mariko McKinley brushed her long, jet-black hair back behind her ear and said, “We’re getting lettuce, radish and Japanese turnip crop rotations every three to four weeks. Snow peas, kale and broccoli about every two months. Cauliflower and cabbage are about ready, but we lost the potato beds to the cold. Our limitation is the amount of space we can keep planted, lighted and heated. With more room we could have fresh crops every week.”

Ellen sighed silently. Virtually the same report she’d heard last week and the week before. The problem with growing fresh vegetables in greenhouses was that they just weren’t big enough to produce food for thousands of people. Better than nothing, enough to ward off scurvy, not enough to fill bellies.

“We’re doing a lot better on sprout production now that every home has a sprout rack,” Mariko continued. “But we’re running short on seeds. Also, we only have three weeks worth of fuel left for the generators, so we have to address that problem soon. And we need more firewood for the burners.”

The difficulty with greenhouse food production in this land of dark and snow was that grow lights needed electricity and the temperature inside the buildings had to be maintained at no less than fifty degrees for cold weather crops which meant gasoline and firewood, and both were getting harder and harder to find under the ever-deepening blanket of snow.

The biggest problem was lack of protein. Their aquaponics system had failed months ago because they couldn’t keep the water warm enough for the tilapia--and the trout in the other tanks simply never bred. They’d finished off the rabbits several months ago.

“What about the chickens, Jack?”

Jack Quist had a ranch at the North end of the valley. It had been about a month ago that he’d hauled in the last of the frozen steer carcasses he could find. His knowledge of livestock, large and small, made him and his wife Anna naturals for looking after the flock. “Don’t know if it’s the stress, lack of feed or sunlight but, even with the light bulbs extending their daylight, they’ve quit laying. We can cull them some but…” he shrugged.

“Yeah, I know, Jack. There’s no guarantee we can ever get more.”

Leona Perry, too used to school house discipline, raised her hand.

“Yes, Leona?”

“Wayne Anderson brought in a case of peanut butter he found in Breckenridge. It’s not much, but at least it’s protein.” She ducked her head. “I kept a jar for the kids.”

Ellen thanked her and moved to the next subject. “Any word on the methane digesters?” With thousands of people in the valley and virtually everyone’s septic system wrecked by the quakes the human waste disposal problem had soon become a priority.

The solution came in two parts. Part one was compost piles large enough to generate warmth through bacterial decomposition. Several maintained internal temperatures of more than one hundred degrees. Water pipes plumbed through them carried off some of that heat for the greenhouses.

Part two was to contain the compost pile inside a tank and let it digest itself anerobically. When organic material decays in the absence of oxygen it produces methane gas, which, in turn, can be burned like natural gas to heat homes or greenhouses. The small digester the Freeholds community had online before The Dying Time had been destroyed during the first big quake. Three larger replacements had since been constructed and sunk into the middle of the other compost piles for insulation and warmth.

Terrell Johnson, the resident mechanical genius, and his wife Shirley, a potter/artisan, were in charge of that project. Terrell and Shirley were also the only blacks on the council.

They looked at each other before Terrell spoke, and Ellen got the idea this wouldn’t be good news.

“We’ve had some problems maintaining combustion,” Terrell said with a touch of anger. “We’ve got to get the word out. Vegetable scraps and human waste only! No grease or paper! They don’t break down, they just clog everything up.” His temper cooled as he spilled his frustration onto the table.

“So what’s the solution?” Ellen knew that Terrell and Shirley wouldn’t bring up the problem unless they had a solution.

Shirley’s chocolate brown eyes held a glimmer of amusement when she announced, “From now on each family’s waste gets delivered in marked containers. Anyone caught violating the disposal rules gets the pleasure of cleaning the clogs out of the digester.”

Chuckles ran around the table, and Ellen gave a thankful glance to Shirley. In such grim times light moments were treasured.

“Seconds?” Ellen asked.

Aaron Goldstein raised his hand.

“Ayes?”

It was unanimous.

“I guess it’s time to face the issue we’ve been avoiding,” Ellen said.

“Immigration?” Dr. Taraq Fariq joked, causing smiles and chuckles to break out again. No new arrivals had entered the valley in the past thirteen months. He and his family had been one of the last to flee Denver before the snows choked the passes and valleys.

“No,” Ellen smiled at the man. “Though I’m certain we’ll have to deal with that again when the weather warms.”

The smile left her face. “No, I was thinking about rationing. We have to cut the rations again.” Everyone in the Freeholds had donated all their food into a common larder, sharing it with everyone else, so none would starve. But no one had expected winter to last this long. Those supplies had been eaten, replaced by what could be scavenged.

“We can’t do that,” Dr. Fariq was adamant. “Every time we cut rations more people die.”

“I know, Doctor, but you’ve seen the larder.” Ellen’s voice was anguished. “We have maybe two weeks at current rations. If we don’t stretch what we have we’ll all be dead in less than two months.”

“I might have a way around that,” Michael said quietly, finally chiming in.

Her eyes found his. “Scavenging parties?”

“Fifty teams are out on snowmobiles. Twenty are heading over Boreas Pass to Breckenridge. Twenty more trying for Buena Vista. The rest are scouring Woodland Park again. But that’s just a stopgap.”

“Any chance of making Colorado Springs?” That was their real hope.

Michael turned to Aaron Goldstein. “Aaron?”

The wiry Jew stroked his black beard and cocked his head toward the keening wind outside. “I flew down again just before this storm hit,” he said.

Terrell Johnson had designed a new air breather system for the ultralight so it wouldn’t stall in ashy air. A variation of the one he used to get the snowmobiles running. Since then Michael’s Pegasus had proven a godsend for scouting snowmobile-scavenger trails.

“Ute Pass is an avalanche zone like I’ve never seen. Chipita Park and Green Mountain Falls are completely buried. The sound of my motor triggered three slides as I flew by.”

He shrugged. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think snowmobiles would make it through.”

“We could blast the slide paths,” Michael offered.

Ellen’s face showed instant alarm. She knew who would do the blasting and how dangerous it would be. She couldn’t allow herself to react emotionally, but a practical question occurred to her. “With what?”

Michael answered quickly, showing he’d given it considerable thought. “Randy and I have made a few black powder pipe bombs from our reloading supplies. Wayne Anderson found some dynamite at the mine, last time he was in Fairplay. And after the Oklahoma City bombing I looked up how to make explosives out of fertilizer and diesel fuel. We can do it.”

“I hate to risk more lives,” Ellen said. They had lost forty-seven scavengers to the elements during this endless winter, and she couldn’t forget how her husband had almost been one of them.

“We’re all at risk,” Michael countered. “I don’t see we have much choice.”

Ellen nodded reluctantly. “Seconds?”

Several hands went up.

“Ayes?”

Again it was unanimous.

A gust of wind rattled the barn doors. No one had ever seen sustained storms of such intensity. She hoped the scavengers had all found shelter.

“Okay,” Michael said. “Weather permitting, Aaron and I’ll fly the Pegasus and the gyrocopter into Woodland Park tomorrow and start blowing the slide zones. Ellen, you better get folks to scrounge up every snowmobile they have and head’em for the Springs. We’ll need more sleds too. It’ll take’em all day to reach Woodland Park, and by then we should have the pass stabilized.”

Everyone around the table nodded agreement, but without energy. Long months of dark skies and endless struggle had worn them down. Depression stalked the Freeholds like a puma after deer. Almost everyone at the table was already infected, secretly wondering if the effort was worth it. The laughter of moments ago was forgotten. They all knew a grueling, dangerous task lay ahead, another step on survival’s treadmill and it was hard to take that step when all you have to look forward to is another--and another.

Sensing the problem, Ellen yelled, “Hey!” wearing a mischievous grin. “Be glad it’s winter so we can use the river as a road. Otherwise we’d have to build one.”

Rueful smiles blossomed and once more the sound of laughter rang out, and this time a seed of hope took root.

*

New York

Otha broke the padlock with his crow bar and pried the outer door open. “In here, hon,” he threw over his shoulder as he slipped inside.

Dikeme glided through the doorway with her accustomed grace, brushing snow off her coat. The full length, sable fur she wore was made for someone shorter than her, but then so was all the other clothing she’d found.

Glad snapped the inner lock, cracked that door open, and poked his head in for a peek. Dull gray light filtering in through Plexiglas skylights revealed boxes of canned and dry goods stacked from floor to ceiling in aisles without number that disappeared into the darkness.

“Wow!” he breathed.

“You have a remarkable talent for understatement,” Di chided, looking past him into the enormous interior. Her British accent was never more pronounced than when she was excited. “I should imagine our food situation has been resolved, mighty hunter.”

“Nothing to it.” Glad’s mouth wore a smile, but his eyes roamed the grocery warehouse for signs of trouble and his nose tested the air.

In spite of her flippant words, Di remained alert as well. This was the third such warehouse they had entered in the past week. The other two…she shuddered involuntarily, remembering tidal waves of rats. A small movement in the darkness caused her to tense, and she pulled her pistol out of reflex.

Otha had his shotgun cocked and ready. The ragamuffin alley cat skittered across the floor between aisles and they both relaxed. Cats were a good sign.

From the rafters a pigeon cooed; reminding Glad he hadn’t seen a bird flying in, well, months.

He settled Di into the building’s office, took a flashlight out of his pack and began to explore. Her job was to convert the office into a temporary home. His was to scout for danger, secure their new home, find food and water, and set up the toilet.

A detailed tour of the block-long building revealed a single opening, that being a torn gable vent on a sheer wall which provided access and egress for the pigeons. There had to be another hole somewhere, but he couldn’t find it. He vowed to look harder later. Rat invasions and wild dog packs had run them out of several good living spaces. With a little luck they could last for years in a place like this, if they weren’t forced out.

All the other doors in the warehouse were the huge overhead roll-up types that wouldn’t budge without a winch. There were no windows, just the skylights, and incredibly none were broken.

Along one aisle he found some Yale padlocks and keys hanging next to heavy-duty hasps. With tools from another section he soon had the two doors he’d forced secured.

He handed Di a set of keys and went outside to drag in the sleds that held their personal belongings. First order of business, now that the building checked out, was to set up the wood burning stove he and Di had fashioned from a fifty gallon barrel. The walls and ceiling of the office weren’t insulated, but he would take care of that later too.

A furniture factory down the block could supply them with firewood. Looked like they’d be melting snow for water again. He hadn’t found a clean source of fresh water in several months so they drank though LifeStraw filters they’d gleaned from a burned out Bass Pro Shops store. He unloaded the toilet and sat it up inside a corner of the office. It consisted of a toilet seat fastened to a small wooden bench and a plastic five-gallon bucket lined with plastic garbage bags. Another five gallon bucket full of wood ash sat beside it. Use the toilet, sprinkle in some ashes and when it starts to smell empty it in a nearby dumpster.

“Glad,” Di called out. “Could you give me a hand with the bed?”

He smiled; she always asked him where he wanted the foam pad and zip-together sleeping bags placed. It was surprisingly comfortable.

“What about there?” She pointed to a spot along an inside wall, not too far from the toilet.

“Perfect,” he announced.

A slight frown creased her lips. “Mocking me, are you?”

“Never,” he denied, holding up his palms. “So long as you’re sharing the bed with me, I really don’t care where you put it.”

Her frown curled into a smile, displaying brilliant white teeth. That smile warmed him better than a stove.

“Well, if that’s the way of it, Sir, you’d best be starting a fire. I am not about to take to bed until it’s warmed up in here.”

He saluted and left for wood.

*

Edwards

“Ever think you’d see this much snow in southern Cal?” Roland Mabry tugged his cap down over his ears and stared at the drifts.

“Seen a lot I never thought I would,” Carl Borzowski answered. Shadows of grief still haunted his eyes.

“I thought we’d get more rain first,” Raoul Garcia added. “But at least it’s settling the worst of the ash.”

That much was true. The sky was lighter and visibility had improved. On good days, he could see as far as a mile.

“We’ll get more rain when it warms up,” Carl said. He hunched his shoulders in his coat and walked back toward the entrance.

“Ah, Carl, you haven’t smiled in more than a year,” Ariel Garcia whispered softly to herself. “If the world is too heavy, share the weight.”

“How are our supplies holding up, General?” Raoul asked. He’d seen company-sized foraging parties coming and going for weeks now.

“The men are good at scavenging,” Roland Mabry said. “We have at least a two month reserve. And when others out there see a well-armed company coming at them they melt away. There’s been no real trouble for weeks.”

“Except for Scarlatti’s men,” Ariel said, giving the General a don’t-BS-me look. She’d helped Sara with the after action casualties.

“They probe our defenses occasionally,” he admitted. “My scouts say he has more than 10,000 men, so he could do a hell of a lot more than probe if he wanted to.”

“That’s what bothers me,” Raoul said.

Roland slapped him on the back and said, “Bothers me too.”

*

Hollywood

“Goddam snow,” King Joseph Scarlatti snarled at the sky, and it spit snow in his face. “Goddam lousy fuckin’ storms.”

His attack plan was prepared, troops gathered. Edwards wasn’t that damn far. How much longer was he going to have to wait?

Not long.

The air was warming as California’s long winter came to an end. Soon the snow turned to rain along the entire west coast. The rest of the country would wait awhile longer for Carl’s deluge to begin.

*

Utah

Bob Young swung down off his horse and approached the men and women gathered around the camp fire. He slapped snow from his pants and jacket and accepted a cup of hot tea. The honey sweetened liquid helped thaw him from the inside. He saw his brother Adam watching him from across the fire and he looked away.

But Adam wasn’t to be deterred. “Did you see enough?”

Bob cradled the hot cup in his palms and watched the steam rise. After a moment of silence he raised his bleak eyes to his brothers and said, “Yes,” knowing the images might haunt him forever. A pile of human bones showing tool marks, a pot of simmering human meat suspended from a tripod over a fire. The freckle-faced, teenaged girl dead in the snow, naked from the waist down, blood between her legs. Yeah, he’d seen enough.

“Bring them here,” Adam said, and almost before the words were out of his mouth a bedraggled man and woman were shoved roughly before him. Their hands were bound.

Bob looked them over. The man was thin, but not as thin as most were these days. He was chewing on a strand of his long, straggly brown beard. The knees were out of his dingy jeans and his tan corduroy jacket was frayed at the cuffs. The woman wore a man’s flannel shirt jacket with a torn pocket. Her jeans were too long and the legs were rolled up. Her greasy blonde hair was mostly covered by a dull red scarf. She had grease on her chin and as he watched, appalled, she brought her bound hands up, wiped her chin with her fingers and stuck them in her mouth.

Bob controlled his gag reflex and asked, “Do you two have anything to say for yourselves?”

The woman looked away, but the man stood up straight and said, “We was hungry and the Lord said it was okay.”

Sure he did, Bob thought. “What about the girl? The Lord say that was okay too?”

The man fidgeted a second and said, “My woman is all dried up, so she can’t...you know. And a man has needs.” He chuckled, remembering. “A man has needs.”

Bob looked at Adam and nodded.

Adam drew his Model 1911 Colt .45 and racked the slide.

“You can’t do this,” the woman blubbered. “We have rights!”

“So did the people you ate,” Adam said, and shot her in the face. He swung the gun to the man and put one in his head.

Later, when they were alone, Bob turned to Adam and said, “They were both stone cold crazy, you know.”

Adam fixed Bob with a direct stare and said, “That is no excuse.”

*

Mount Weather

The shelter built into Mount Weather was designed to withstand a direct hit from a large nuclear weapon. It was but one of ninety-seven similar shelters the US Government constructed since the 1950‘s, most of them concentrated in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina. This network of shelters formed the backbone of the Federal Continuity of Government program and none of them was open to the American public--not even when the President announced they would be part of the National Lottery system. The bureaucrats from FEMA and other agencies and departments simply ignored the survival lottery and assigned living spaces within these underground cities to themselves and their families.

The shelters included amenities such as private apartments, office buildings, water and air purification systems, cafeterias and hospitals. Mount Weather even had it’s own mass transit system and closed circuit television. There was an abundance of stored food, water and medication, and each shelter was protected by a large, well armed security force. The inhabitants snuggled down smug and secure in the knowledge that when the nastiness up on the surface ended, they would emerge and take their rightful places as leaders of the new American government.

It was a good plan, but the builders had seriously miscalculated the violence of Havoc’s impact and with the sole exception of Mount Weather. all the shelters were pancaked by the extreme quakes that accompanied mountain building, or buried under volcanic magma, or drowned when underground rivers erupted within their closed spaces.

So the occupants of Mount Weather endured the apocalypse of The Dying Time in luxurious comfort until a virus small enough to come through multiple layers of single micron air filters made its way inside and attached itself to the warm, moist lining of its hosts lungs. Within two months, Mount Weather was the most expensive tomb ever built.

Chapter 23: Scavenging

Ute Pass, Colorado

Michael labored up the slope, gasping, his breath pluming out, condensing, coating his beard with ice. His throat burned. Cold-cracks split his lips and fingers. Fatigue fogged his brain. He wanted to stop, sleep, just for a little while. He slowed and stopped.

No! He forced his eyes up, away from his snowshoes and along the ridge. The cornice should be close. He shifted his heavy pack, grateful for the pain. It spurred him on. One foot in front of the other. Shusssh, shusssh, his snowshoes brushed across wind-packed snow.

He shaded his eyes, not from glare, but from the freezing wind-driven snow that was slowly killing him. There? A dim shadow in the wind. A few more steps and the rocky cliff loomed clear. This was it. The cliff, seen from far below that morning, that marked the snow ledge he had to blast.

Michael shrugged out of his pack and the sudden lightness almost toppled him. Frozen fingers fumbled with the straps, the pitons and rope, then the bombs, then the matches. He drove three pitons into cracks in the granite and wove a rope web between them. He’d need that safety harness later.

He stumbled along the snow-packed slope, clumsy in thought and deed. Push a pipe bomb down into the snow, trail the flash cord, and tie it to the next one.

His eyes watered and almost froze shut when he wiped them. What was he doing? Oh, yeah. He shoved in the last bomb and attached a fuse. It would burn ten minutes before reaching the flash cord. That should give him time to reach his safety rope and secure himself to the cliff face before the bombs blew.

He struck a match to light the fuse but the wind snuffed it. He swore, wishing he still had his UCO wind and waterproof emergency matches but they were long gone. He put his back to the wind and cupped his hands around the next match, nursing the flame to the fuse. It hissed, sputtered and spit like an angry cat. He stood there, mesmerized for minutes as the fuse burned, wits slowed by the cold in his brain.

Dummy! Get moving! He started, nerves shocked with adrenaline. Run! He dashed across the slope, slipping, falling, rolling, then back up on his feet, legs churning. How long until it blows? The cliff was so far. Arms pumping. How long? Cliff nearer now. Lungs wheezing. Almost there. How--

Whump! BOOM!

He launched himself at the rock face, hands scrabbling for the rope.

Craaaack!

The overhang broke loose and fell onto the slope below, which began to slide. A monstrous roar filled his ears as tens of thousands of tons of snow whooshed down the mountain like a fluffy white express train, ripping trees out by their roots, scrubbing soil down to bare rock. White death. Avalanche. It thundered down the slope, plucking blackened tree stumps like candles from a birthday cake, fanned out along the valley floor and ran up the far side before settling back.

Huge clouds of powdery snow and ash billowed into the air closing off the view.

Far across the valley, out of danger, Ellen and the scavenger teams waited for the snow to settle. This was the last slide area between them and Colorado Springs. They had watched Michael plant the charges and run for the cliff. No one knew if he made it.

Ellen’s eyes were glued to her binoculars. Her heart almost stopped beating. Waiting…waiting. The lump in her throat was the size of a beach ball. She damned the fact they hadn’t been able to blow this slide with bombs from the Pegasus. The tactic worked with some avalanche zones and not with others, and when it didn’t work, Aaron or Michael planted the bombs on foot.

Visibility slowly improved. The cliff-face showed dimly. Was that movement? There! A white spot twisted and spun against the dark gray granite, dangling like a spider on a web. Michael, dusted with snow, not moving.

“Why isn’t he moving?” Randy asked from beside her.

“He’s hurt,” she whispered.

Up on the cliff Michael clung to the rope, fists and eyes clinched. The snow pried at him with ghostly fingers as it poured past, trying to pull him from the lifeline, trying to suck the air from his lungs. The rope was wound around both his arms. He’d managed to clip one strand through a carabineer. The force lessened, disappeared, and still he kept his eyes squeezed shut. Powdery flakes drifted gently against his face and he knew the air was clearing, the minute approaching when he’d have to look.

At times like this he hated himself, despising the cowardly cringing that crawled up his guts and threatened his sanity. Sweat popped out on his forehead. Like lifting a mountain, he forced his eyelids apart, staring fixedly at the cliff-face. He swallowed the lump in his throat, thanking God he was facing the rock wall.

His biceps twitched and he looked down before he could stop himself. Fifty feet or fifty miles, it made no difference. Vertigo!

Eyes squeezed shut, heart pounding, hands gripping so hard his knuckles blanched white. Weightless stomach, inner ear lying. You’re FALLING! His senses screeched like a power saw hitting a nail.

The knowledge had lain inside him since he was a child, rotting his dreams into nightmares. He would die falling. Not in a car wreck, or riddled with disease. Not of bullet wounds, or starvation, burning or drought, nor frozen in a desert of ice--certainly not of old age. He would die falling.

Raised by his Blackfoot grandfather to face and conquer his fears he fought all his life to free himself of its paralyzing grip.

As a boy he climbed so far up trees the tops bent under his weight. He held on swaying in the wind, refusing to go down. It didn’t work, but he got good at pretending to enjoy it.

As a young man he learned rock climbing and rappelling, and always in the company of others he showed no fear, nor the slightest hesitation. On mountaintops he walked to the edge of the precipice, daring fate to strike because he hated his fear more than he loved life. And every time he climbed his secret shame followed. The secret he never shared--not even with Ellen.

As a man, he bought an open cockpit ultralight and flew it often, expecting to do battle with himself. But vertigo never struck when he rode the plane across updrafts or dove between the peaks. It puzzled him. And for a while he almost believed he had outgrown the terror. Then he climbed the ridges to blow the slides and it returned.

His muscles twitched again and he knew beyond doubt if he didn’t move his arms would give out, his grip would fail and he would fall. Raising his head he forced open his eyes.

Whirling clouds, gray fading to white. Lumps of clouds like mashed potatoes--a textured ceiling covering the world. He lowered his gaze slowly, painfully, and found not the edge of the cliff, but the edge of the world, the horizon, a mile away, across the valley. He had spun until his back was to the rock.

Panic squeezed his heart, but Ellen’s face flashed across his mind and he knew she was watching, wondering why he wasn’t moving. The dread didn’t disappear. It would never disappear. He knew that now. But he could face anything before he shamed himself in front of her.

Arms quivering, he leaned back and let the rope slide through his hands, lowering himself and his pack to the ground fifty feet below now that the snow was gone.

Ellen gasped. She could breathe again. Warm tears formed silently and froze on her cheeks. Michael always joked he had nine lives, but the way he was using them up he’d need ninety.

*

Colorado Springs

Ellen stopped her snowmobile, stunned at her first glimpse of Colorado Springs. Aaron and Michael had warned her the West end had been devastated by quakes, fires and flash floods, but none of that was apparent. It was all covered with snow.

“Worse than you expected?” Michael had slept in her sled all the way down Ute Pass. His question let her know he was with her again.

“Yes…no…um, I mean, you told me, but the words just couldn’t convey…” She raised her arms outspread--speechless at the enormity of the disaster.

He laid a gloved hand on her shoulder and hugged her to him.

Her head turned back and forth as she looked out over the town, seeking a familiar landmark. There were the red sandstone formations of Garden of the Gods to the North. Didn’t that church steeple belong to Saint Mary’s Catholic Church at 21st and Colorado? Were those crumbled two story structures part of Old Town? She thanked God the air had cleared so much. Without good visibility this would be impossible. Even so…

“How in God’s name will we find the Safeway? Or Surplus City, or the Walgreen’s pharmacy? We can’t dig up the whole town.” Her voice was soft and wondering.

Michael pulled a phone directory out of the sled and opened it to the map pages. “It’s not as bad as it looks.” He was used to doing this. “If you look close you can still tell where the streets are. See the depressions between the large mounds?” He pointed and Ellen nodded.

“We can pick up Colorado Avenue here in Manitou Springs and follow it into town. By counting off the side streets we can get close. The Safeway was near the corner of 31st and Colorado, and 31st was as wide as Colorado. We’ll know it when we get there. Just takes getting used to.”

She nodded and squeezed his arm. “Didn’t anyone from here make it?”

“Not in this area. Or if they did they pulled out. Aaron and I’ve seen chimney smoke out on the East side, but Fountain creek did a number on this end of town. We’ll be lucky if there’s anything left of that Safeway. It was down in the flood plain.

“I’m thinking we’ll do better at the King Soopers at 19th and Uintah. It’s up on a hill.” He shrugged. “If it didn’t burn.”

Slowly, the procession of snowmobiles wound through the snow-clogged streets. Cars and trucks, burned and abandoned gave them no problems, being buried so completely they wouldn’t become obstacles until the snow melted. But semi’s and building debris and huge drifts formed large obstacles forcing detours.

Their first break came at 27th where Surplus City was largely intact. The roof had caved in, bringing down the West wall, but under the snow and charred ruins of the first floor lay a basement storage area filled with rotting cardboard boxes full of Mountain House and Alpineaire freeze-dried food. Racks of sodden ski parkas, boots, and more clothing lined the walls. More camping gear lay next to lightweight two-man tents and sleeping bags. A set of shelves filled with waterproof matches, match holders, lanterns, Coleman fuel and other assorted goodies stood against the far wall. Boxes of ammunition in assorted calibers were stacked in the corner next to what looked like a gun vault, but Michael didn’t have the combination and forcing it was out of the question.

Under a pile of nylon ponchos was a case of Folger’s Instant coffee. Michael was in heaven.

Twelve sled loads of life giving treasure they pulled from the store and sent back up the pass. They built a fire and camped there overnight, exhausted from the days efforts.

That special click that signifies a weapon being cocked woke Michael. He sat up, eyes taking it all in. A dozen men and women surrounded the campsite. All armed.

“Having a good sleep are we?” The man’s voice was calm, self-assured. It matched his steady, cornflower blue eyes. The accent sounded British or maybe Australian. Michael was no linguist. The man’s long, chestnut brown hair was neatly tied in a ponytail, and his beard was so tidy it looked...trimmed. Highly unusual. The rest of the group was similarly well groomed.

“Saw your fire last night, and since this area’s more or less ours now, we thought we’d pay a visit and see what you are up to.” He looked around at the goods they had piled on a sled, one it had been too late to send up the pass. “Pretty obvious you’re after food and such. Knew right where to look, too.”

His eyes locked on Michael’s. “Locals?”

Michael’s gun was in his sleeping bag, was, in fact, in his hand now, but his instincts weren’t screaming for him to act so he bided his time.

“Not exactly,” Michael admitted. “But we know the town.”

Ellen unzipped her sleeping bag and stood up.

“Easy there,” Ponytail warned, his pistol swiveling toward her.

“You won’t need that,” Ellen said, then totally surprised the man by holding out her hand and announcing, “Ellen Whitebear.” She nodded to Michael, whose eyes were fixed on the man’s gun. “And this is my husband, Michael. Would you like some coffee or hot chocolate?”

Ponytail stared at her outstretched hand for a tense second. These people had his group outnumbered four to one, even if they were at a momentary disadvantage, and that lump in her husband’s sleeping bag had nothing to do with testosterone. In the end though, it was the simple civility of her greeting that won him over.

Slowly, he holstered his pistol, then shook her hand.

“Chad Bailey,” he said. “And if you have coffee I’m very pleased to meet you.” He smiled, revealing slightly crooked front teeth and a mild overbite. “Funny, but I still feel guilty preferring coffee over tea. Not very British, wot?”

Ellen dug a jar of coffee out of a box and handed it to Chad. “Keep it,” she said. “You’ve earned it by teaching us to post a guard even when we think it’s too cold for anyone else to be out and about.”

Fifteen minutes later, over steaming cups of hot black Folger’s, Chad told his tale. To the news-starved Freeholders it was like having the internet restored.

Chad slurped at the hot cup and sighed. “I was a Starbucks junkie,” he said. “Hard to believe instant coffee could taste like heaven.”

Michael, a former news junkie and coffee addict, began to like the man.

“We’re a bunch of communications engineers.” Chad said. “Worked graveyard for MCI in Denver until The Dying Time.”

“Good name for it,” Ellen said with a shudder.

“Isn’t it though.”

“And now here we are in a bloody ice age.” He blew softly on the cup and took another sip.

“If we hadn’t been in the basement break room clustered around the radio, we’d’ve all been killed. Close enough even then. Blasted sound like nothing I’ve ever heard shattered all the glass. Then the quakes hit. Well, I rather expect you’re familiar with all that.” Everyone was nodding.

Ellen probed gently. “You said you were in Denver?”

Chad’s mouth set in a grim line. “Bloody hell going on in Denver. Riots. Wholesale murder. Craziness. Some very well-armed Black Satanic cult wiped out the white and Latino gangs. I guess they got organized first. They’re enslaving people.

“We kept a very low profile. Even then we almost got nicked a time or two. Still, we found enough tucker to stay alive. But when we overheard one of their patrols talking about eating slaves, we got out.”

He held out his cup for a refill. “Been here almost six months now, I’d guess. Got a house a bit north of here we patched up. It’s not much, but you are welcome to stay there while you rummage around.”

“Thank you, Chad,” Ellen accepted for all of them. She looked over this well-kept group again and couldn’t resist any longer.

“Chad, do you mind my asking how you keep yourselves so neat? We bathe regularly in the Freeholds, but my hair’s been a rats nest so long I’m about to cut it off.”

Most of Chad’s group chuckled at that. Chad pointed to a slender young man in his early twenties. The kid had tidy wheat-blonde hair and a small diamond stud in his left ear.

“Josh, over there is a man of many talents. Fortunately for us, one of them is doing hair.”

The young man smiled at hearing his name.

Michael had a question. “Many other locals around?”

“Couple thousand east of I-25,” Chad said, pointing in the general direction. “And a few individuals and family groups near here. Most of them survived the early days in NORAD, under Cheyenne mountain. Seem friendly enough, but we’ve kept to ourselves. You know how it is,” he said with an apologetic shrug. “Everyone greets you with gun in hand. There’s a doctor over there trying to keep a hospital running though.”

Now that’s good to know, Michael thought, but it was time to get moving. “We were going to check out a grocery store on Uintah next, Chad. Know anything about it?”

Chad looked around his group. Heads shaking. “No, we’ve been getting our supplies from a Safeway up on Rockrimmon. Not much left there, though. Most of it burned.”

Ellen spoke up. “Well, you’re welcome to come with us, and share. We’re from the Freeholds, by the way.” Seeing his blank look, she added, “It’s a small community up in the mountains.”

Interest showed in his eyes. “You mean you’ve managed to hold yourselves together?”

Several Freeholders chuckled.

“More or less,” Ellen said. She explained about the Freeholds while the snowmobile engines were warming up.

Three days later, the ruins of both grocery stores and one pharmacy had been emptied and Chad and his people had become Freeholders.

*

Hollywood

Sacrifice

“I’m telling you, we have to stay hid,” Will Benton hissed. He was so gaunt he looked like an extra in a holocaust movie.

“We need to find more food, Will,” Lola said. “If we don’t we’ll die!”

“I know,” Will agreed. “But that Scarlatti bastard has his men everywhere. I don’t know what or who they’re looking for, but if we’re not careful they’ll find us.”

“Scarlatti?” Lola’s pulse hammered. It couldn’t be the same man.

“Joseph Scarlatti,” Will said. “His name is all over down in the ruins. Some people say he’s a devil, others a savior. All I know is he and his men eat people.” He stopped. Lola was looking at him strangely.

Will snapped his fingers. “That’s right! You went out with him, didn’t you?”

He began laughing. It started as a low chuckle and gained strength and volume until he was on the floor. Clarissa and Trish joined in from pure contagion. Even Lola managed an anemic smile.

“This is so rich,” Will gasped. “We’re…” He stopped to grab a breath. “We’re starving,” gasp, “afraid to show ourselves,” wheeze, “and you used to date the King of California.”

He dissolved into tears of laughter.

Three days later the King’s men began a house-to-house, or more appropriately, ruin-to-ruin search in their area and they had to move.

*

Will peeked around the corner and gestured them back. Swiftly they hid behind piles of rubble while a column of men marched past. Two at the end detached themselves from the column and walked into the alley, guns at the ready.

One man’s face looked like it was carved from a pumpkin. The other man was short and stocky, built like a fireplug.

Behind her, Lola saw another column march by the other end of the alley. They were surrounded. Discovery imminent.

She did what she had decided to do if it came down to this. Pushing her pistol into her pocket she snugged the mink about her and stepped into the open, startling them.

Instantly, their weapons trained on her. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Clarissa restrain Will.

In her best Kathryn Hepburn voice she said, “Excuse me please. Are you part of Joseph’s army?”

The men glanced sideways at each other. What the hell? The one built like a fireplug answered. “If you mean King Joseph Scarlatti, then yeah. What’s it--”

“Good!” She cut him off. “Take me to him immediately.” She began walking toward him, stepping daintily around broken brick and wood.

Fireplug, flushed at her imperial tone. Not even a good-looking bitch could order him around like that. Her violet eyes flicked a switch in his memory but the light was too dim to illuminate anything.

“Who the fuck, d’you think you are?” he yelled. Maybe he’d knock off a quick piece before handing her over to the local slave master. Poke some of that arrogance out of her.

“Lola MaDonna,” she announced. “Joseph’s fiancee.”

Fireplug’s jaw dropped open so far it almost bounced off the ground. The second she mentioned her name he remembered her face, those striking violet eyes, her large breasts. God! He’d seen “Revenge of a Mafia Wife.” The King’s fiancee? And he’d been talking shit!

“Well?” she demanded. “Are you just going to stand there?”

Fireplug pushed pumpkin-head’s gun aside. Maybe the King would reward him for finding her instead of skinning him for insulting her.

“No ma’am,” he said. “Right away ma’am.”

Lola controlled the knot in her stomach and walked away from the alley without a backward glance. The last thing on Earth she wanted was to see that giant freak again, but if Will and his family got away it would be worth it.

*

Edwards

“We can't stop him,” General Mabry said. “He's just too damn strong!” As if to punctuate his remark a bullet spanged off the entryway and ricocheted down the hall.

Carl Borzowski, his thinning hair now white, deep lines cratering his face seemed to pull inside himself a little more.

“Did the Garcias make it out?” His whisper was weak--a man giving up all hope.

“I think so,” Roland Mabry said. The Garcias had tried to sneak through the lines the night before.

“Can we get out?” Carl wasn't really interested. The Sunflower control facility was going to fall into the hands of a self-styled King and that meant he’d failed again. He was tired, so damn tired. Ready to give up.

“You can,” Mabry answered.

Carl shook his head violently. He thrust a package toward the General, backup disks with the Sunflower control codes. At least they'd succeeded in that. The Garcias had the only other remaining copy.

“I can't take that, Sir.” General Mabry hadn't called him anything but Carl for months. “My job is to stay here with my men and defend this facility.” He might be outnumbered and outgunned but he would take a few more of those bastards with him.

Carl knew what his job was. Preserve those disks. Rebuild Edwards or another launch and control center. Destroy the asteroid before it killed what was left of humanity. Impossible! He was only one man, a man duty-bound to live, who would otherwise welcome death like an overdue vacation.

“Roland, have we told Scarlatti the truth about the asteroid and Sunflower?”

“He doesn’t believe us, Carl. He's convinced it’s a weapon, and he means to have it. As far as he's concerned, it's the key to world domination.”

Carl's shoulders slumped, then he twitched as another round whipped past. His failure was complete, and this time the world would die. He opened the blast-proof safe and was surprised to find inside the twin to the package he held.

“The Garcias said they couldn't risk taking them out. If Scarlatti gets them...” Mabry finished with a shrug.

“I know,” Carl said. He debated placing his package inside next to the other, then shook his head and slipped the disks in a button-down pocket of his overcoat. If Scarlatti got the Sunflower and used it as a weapon he could burn it up before Havoc’s twin came around and mankind would die. It was a no-win situation.

“Are the charges planted?”

Mabry nodded. They would destroy the building to save Sunflower.

*

Ariel's scream pierced Raoul's heart. “Stop it! We've told you the truth. Why can't you believe the truth?” Raoul's lips were so split and puffy from beatings he had trouble forming the words. His left eye was swollen shut and he was a mass of bruises.

“Because you haven't told me all you know,” Joseph Scarlatti replied. “You haven't told me how to gain control of Sunflower.”

“We don't know,” Raoul lied. “We're just technicians, trying to get out before we got killed.”

“Is that so, Captain Carswell?” Joey turned to the former sergeant.

“No, your majesty,” Carswell answered. “As I told you last night when we caught them, that is Dr. Raoul Garcia and his wife Ariel. They're the ones who developed the laser.”

“So you lied to me,” Joey said to Raoul. “I see you still don't understand what happens when you lie.”

He signaled Jamal and Anthony, who stood beside the table on which Ariel lay naked and bound. Metal clips were attached to her nipples and other more sensitive areas. Wire led from the clips to a hand-cranked generator from an antique phone.

Anthony cranked the handle and Ariel flopped spastically, her scream so high it was almost inaudible, so intense it triggered goosebumps in those who heard it.

“We don't know!” Raoul shouted. “Yes, we developed it, but the Government wouldn't trust us with the operating codes. Would you?” No matter what, he couldn’t give the codes he'd memorized to this madman.

Joseph Scarlatti, King of Southern California, and destined to be King of the World, hesitated, almost believing the logic if not the words. This time when they applied the juice to Ariel she bit off her own tongue and bled to death before they could stop the hemorrhage.

He pointed to Sara. “Her next,” he said.

The flap to the tent was drawn back and John ducked inside out of the rain.

“Father? They're up to something. Want to look?”

Joseph and Colonel Carswell stepped outside with John and scanned the battle with binoculars. Through the downpour Joseph saw men retreating from the launch control facility as his army entered it.

Joey frowned. The retreat was in good order, not panic-stricken. John was right. Something was wrong. He studied the enemy fleeing from the building. Blood blossomed from the head of a tall, thin man with wispy white hair who was surrounded by a group of enemy soldiers. He spun and dropped.

“Borzowski,” Carswell whispered. Then more urgently, “We want him alive. Contact the advance party. We want Borzowski ali--”

BLAM!

The control center exploded and the shock wave reached out, slapping Joseph and everyone with him to the ground. The tent containing the Garcias and Anthony was flattened. When Joey regained his senses and searched the shredded tent Sara and Raoul Garcia were gone.

“Find them,” he raged, so distracted by mounting the search he didn't think to look through the smoldering rubble for a safe.

Miles away General Roland Mabry led the remainder of his troops through a burned out mini-mall. He unconsciously patted the coat pocked containing the disks he’d taken off Carl Borzowski’s body.

It’s up to me, now, he thought. I have to rebuild a satellite control facility and find the Garcias. I have to gain control of Sunflower II and stop that damned rock.

A shot rang out and one of his men folded and fell while the rest dove for cover. Sniper!

“First squad! Fire and maneuver. Take that SOB out!”

Mabry rested his back against the stucco wall of a former Family Dollar store and rethought his priorities. Before he could gain the resources he needed to control a satellite he’d have to do something about that traitorous freak who was calling himself a King.

*

The ISS

“Pavel, is that the tip of South America?” Mia Torno pointed to the first land mass they’d seen since the cloud cover began to thin.

“You are asking me? You are the cartographer,” Pavel Yurimentov replied.

“Pavel, do not be a wise ass,” Ludmilla Gargarin said as she floated over to the porthole. “It could be, Mia, but I think we need to see more land before we can be certain.”

Mia sighed. “Our orbital map shows us over the eastern Pacific so it could be South America, but if the tectonic plates slipped as much as what we saw before The Shroud blocked our view, well...”

“Wherever it is, it has a large volcano. Check out the ash trail,” Ceilia Olafsdotter, Vulcanologist, called from her own porthole.

Pavel had pulled away from the porthole and was checking out Ceilia. Surreptitiously watching the Icelandic goddess was one of his favorite pastimes. Aquamarine eyes, platinum hair, and that body...he shifted his gaze back out the porthole before Ludmilla noticed he was getting aroused.

He thinks he’s subtle, staring at the other women, Ludmilla thought, and shook her head. Their marriage was more political than romantic, but some good feelings, not love yet, had come from it. Now, if he just wasn’t such an alley cat, she thought, though part of her realized that with only seven men to go around for eighteen women being an alley cat was a necessary part of their psychological profile.

As she watched the ash trail downwind from the volcano until it blended with The Shroud, Ludmilla whispered, “It must be hell down there.”

Pavel laid a hand on his wife’s shoulder and gave a gentle squeeze, but said nothing. Their sophisticated radars couldn’t penetrate The Shroud, which literally crackled with electricity. Monstrous lightning bolts and writhing red and green auroras dotted The Shroud everywhere. Nightside displays were ferocious and privately he agreed with Ludmilla’s assessment. It was hell down there. He wondered if they would ever be able to land.

Maybe Kent was right. They’d established a temporary base on the moon and were rotating crews between Luna City and the ISS so everyone could spend time in a gravity field. The Aurora space planes of the Americans were truly amazing. Hydrogen fueled, they could land and reach escape velocity from the Lunar surface. By splitting hydrogen from the water ice they’d found at the Luna City site they could be refueled and flown--so long as they didn’t run out of spare parts.

He turned to Ludmilla, now five months pregnant, and saw she’d put her iPod earbuds back in. From the slightly sad smile on her face he guessed she was listening to Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain. The music went almost eerily well with observing The Shroud. He’d sooner listen to a Scottish dirge. The view was depressing enough without the mood music. He risked another appreciative glance at Ceilia before returning to his duties--thankful once again that all the women on Project Genesis had been chosen for beauty as well as brains and courage.

*

Luna City

“So the nursery is going well?” Christine Jorgenson asked. She was also five months along and the race to have the first baby born on the moon was neck and neck with Ludmilla. The old America/Russia space race with a new twist.

“Oh, it is going very well,” Dr Sari Vindushanti said in her sing song Indian accent. “Very well indeed. Mr. Oberman is almost finished with the wiring and Olivia has been helping Mr. Wang with the plumbing.”

She was a small, dark woman with the largest and possibly most beautiful brown eyes Christine had ever seen. Very pretty and very popular with the men on the crew. Christine, a tall, blonde, Minnesota Swede, felt like a cow around her. Still, she wondered... “Sari, why don’t you ever call Heinz or Kenny or any of the men by their first names?” She always did so with the women.

Sari lowered her eyes and said, “It helps to maintain an atmosphere of formality. The men...they can get embarrassed during physicals.”

Christine grinned, imagining.

The Doctor cleared her throat and continued, “And speaking of physicals, you’re physical condition is very good.” She paused, flipping through electronic pages of her iPad. “Except for your calcium levels. You must drink more milk.”

Ah, yes, the calcium issue. “How about I eat more spinach and more of that soybean stuff we tell ourselves is meat,” Christine replied. She was sure the powdered milk was good for her but, yuck! And worst of all she knew there was good tasting powdered milk on Earth, Real Milk from the American Prepper’s Network to name just one, NASA apparently hadn’t heard of them.

“That will do,” Sari said. “But use the tanning bed more. The vitamin D will help you absorb calcium.”

“So how bad is our bone loss getting, Sari?”

The doctor looked away and whispered, “If we are forced to remain up here for another two years I do not think we will survive if we return to Earth.”

*

“She actually said we wouldn’t survive?” Suzy Yakamoto said, staring at the ISS radio with raised eyebrows.

“Yes,” Christine Jorgenson said, static from Luna City making the word sound like Yezh. “So, Suzy, we need to get busy expanding the farm caverns.” As their chief Mining Engineer, Suzy Yakamoto, was the logical choice to lead the excavation teams.

“Chris, you’ll need to talk to Nya about the grow light requirements in the different farms,” Alice Anderson chimed in, referring to Nyambura Kenyatta, their agronomist.

“I already have, Alice,” Chris said. Honestly, didn’t that woman think she had a brain? “Heinz and Muhammad took the rover and a trailer out to the pods to fetch more solar panels. Aeriella and Elena went along to help and to see if we’d overlooked any medical supplies.” Between them Heinz Oberman, their electrical engineer and Muhammad Rahotep, their solar engineer could rig up enough electrical power to run the expanded farms.

“Okay, Chris. I’ll send Clark and Suzy down on the next bus,” Alice said with a slight smile. Neither Henri Dupree or Mary Adams appreciated it when anyone called their Auroras a bus. She signed off before she could say anything about the wisdom of allowing Aeriella Goldstein and Muhammad Rahotep out into vacuum together. Neither being in space nor the apocalypse had done much to dim the Arab/Israeli conflict.

Chapter 24: Plague

Hardy Matthews wheezed and hacked up a bloody gob. His wife Thelma and his children had already died on the trail. He shook his head slowly. “We survived it all,” he whispered. Quakes and fires and choking air. Looters. Violent, killing storms. Winter so cold your breath cracked. And now this!

He started to chuckle at the irony but broke into a shattering cough and fell to his knees. He couldn’t stop coughing, couldn’t breathe. We almost made it, he thought, then toppled into the snow. Light flakes drifted down and settled on his rapidly cooling body, freezing on his lifeless eyes, covering the scabrous sores on his face and hands.

*

“Hey! I’m hooked on something.” Josh’s sled was full of firewood. Even so, it slid along nicely until it snagged and jerked him to a halt.

“I’ll get it,” Michael Whitebear said, easing to a stop beside him.

Thirty more men and women used the excuse to take a break. Firewood detail was no one’s favorite, but everyone liked to keep warm. Most just wished there were more snowmobiles available. Dragging the sleds was grunt work.

“No, that’s all right,” Josh was already out of his harness and moving back to the sled. What’s that? Looks like a pack flap. He shoved the sled back a bit and brushed away some snow. It was a pack, and…

“Holy shit!” He jumped back.

“What?” Michael asked, peeling off his harness and heading for Josh. Several others did the same.

Josh threw up his hands. “I’m sorry,” he yelled. “False alarm! It’s just another body.”

Michael and a crowd of others gathered around. Josh’s face reddened. He brushed a hand across his forehead.

“Just startled me, that’s all,” he explained. But secretly he wondered if he’d ever get used to it. Denver, Colorado Springs, farmhouses, everywhere he went there were bodies lurking.

“We’d better get it on a sled,” Michael said, suppressing a shudder. So much death. They were hauling bodies back and burning them if they couldn’t be cremated on the spot. Doctor Fariq had suggested the practice when the weather started warming and the sky started clearing. Soon the snow would turn to rain and all the bodies of those who died during the long winter would begin to decay.

Josh Adams and Jack Quist, grabbed the man’s arms and Michael and Randy McKinley his legs. It wasn’t until they had hoisted the body onto a sled that Jack noticed something odd about the man’s face and bent to check it out.

“Christ!” Jack backed away, rubbing his gloves on his pants. “He’s covered with sores!”

“Build a fire,” Michael ordered. “We’ll burn him here.”

They burned Hardy Matthews body along with the wood he’d lain on in the sled. Jack Quist even threw his gloves into the flames, then they doused each other with a 20% bleach solution. Unfortunately, the virus was airborne and dropping the body onto the wood blew some into the air.

They had all seen death in many forms, but the corpse of Hardy Matthews left them shaken. What could do that to a man?

Michael reported the incident to Doctor Fariq as soon as he got back to the Freeholds but it was too late. Death from Fort Dix had arrived.

Six days later Jack Quist was dead. His family joined him soon after.

Josh Adams, the gentle man who liked doing people’s hair, shot himself when the first lesions appeared.

Within two weeks Doctor Fariq was swamped by more than seven hundred cases. He was an obstetrician. In desperation, he suggested the community start looking for help.

*

Michael Whitebear poked his head around the corner of the house and pulled back quickly. Still there, four men and three women in front of the entrance, burning trash and broken furniture in a smoke-blackened fifty-gallon barrel to keep warm. They wore sidearms, but weren’t openly hostile to the other folks he’d seen going in and out of the hospital. Children played broom hockey in the parking lot by the side entrance, their laughter ringing cheer into a depressing reality.

It started snowing again and Michael undid his snowshoes and leaned them against the siding. The bear paw-style snowshoes had many miles on them but still managed to look new against cracked and peeling white paint. The snow was so wind-packed and crusted he hadn’t really needed them since he landed the Pegasus in Memorial Park, but he’d worn them anyhow. They left less of a trail than boots, and even though the few people who’d seen him hadn’t appeared hostile he was wary.

Trust was the first victim of hard times.

He had peeked into several ruined houses between the park and hospital. Many held the mangled or burned, partly decayed, partly mummified corpses of those who died during the Impact. But several held fresher bodies, covered with lesions. He’d marked those houses, knowing they should be burned. He suppressed a shudder. He never got used to a world full of dead. They crept into his dreams and slimed them with horror, but maybe, since the plague had passed through here, those inside the hospital would know how to treat it.

He glanced up at the snow drifting gently down and for the first time in ages was thankful for it. Falling snow softened the broken edges of buildings and kindly covered rusting autos. Snow hadn’t lost its magic to make the world look new.

Michael slipped numbed hands back into gray wool gloves and stepped out. They noticed him immediately, but didn’t get excited. He in turn noticed their coats were as frayed as his own, their hands also in coat pockets and he wondered if they, like himself, gripped pistols in their pockets.

“Haven’t seen you around before.” The voice was matter-of-fact, not threatening. It came from a big man with a face full of red hair. His hunters-orange parka stood in stark contrast to Michael’s mottled woolen clothing.

“Came down from the hills,” Michael answered. “There a doctor inside?” They drew back slightly.

“You sick?” The fear-tinged question came from a thin-necked man with a Barney Fife voice and a scraggly blonde beard. Almost all men wore full beards now.

“No,” Michael assured the man. “Just got some stuff a doctor might want to swap for.”

Red beard spoke again. “See Doc Lewis. He’ll be somewhere on the second floor.”

“Thanks.” Michael nodded to the man and walked through the outer door, wiped his feet carefully on the carpet scrap provided for that purpose, and stepped inside. He stopped, stunned. The place was clean right down to that disinfectant smell that goes with hospitals. The lights were on, and it was almost warm. He hadn’t noticed the absence of built-up snow on the building from outside and the boarded up windows hid the lights. They must have their own generator, he thought.

As he walked down a hallway to the stairwell he saw hospital rooms kept tidy, though many looked lived-in. A few held bed-bound patients, swaddled in blankets. Each room had a small electric space heater. The whole place literally hummed with them.

He peeled off his gloves and threw back his hood. He was almost to the stairs when a stern-faced, gray-haired matron in an RN’s uniform appeared from one of the rooms.

“May I help you?” Her tone implied she’d rather eat worms. She actually sniffed.

Michael had seen her type before. Officious, but petty. He stepped close, invading her space and said, “Take me to Dr. Lewis.”

It was an order, not a request. She stepped back, flustered, and the voice of caution whispered to her before she could bluster. He might be dirty, she thought, but he sounds important. She’d made a career of not offending people who sounded important.

“He wants to see me,” Michael added.

“Oh, I do, do I?”

Michael looked up and saw the white-haired black man in the white doctors coat rounding the landing and heading down the flight of stairs. He was clean-shaven, definitely not the rule in these times. “Mr.?”

“Whitebear,” Michael grinned. “Michael Whitebear, from the Freeholds. You must be Dr. Lewis.” Michael offered his right hand and added, “and you definitely want to see me.”

The Doctor shook Michael’s weather-cracked hand with a firm grip and an answering smile. Anyone who could bluff Nurse Hawkins was worth some time.

“So, what is it I want to see you about?”

“Obstetrics, now. Refuge, later. We have an OBGYN at the Freeholds who has offered to exchange his services for certain vaccines and antibiotics we lack. From what I’ve seen, there isn’t a pharmacy in town you haven’t picked over.”

The doctor nodded agreement.

“As for refuge, there’s a mob up in Denver who are enslaving, killing, or eating anyone who doesn’t see things their way. After they digest Metro Denver, Colorado Springs will probably be next on the menu.”

Doctor Lewis nodded again. He’d heard about Denver. He ran his right hand up his forehead and back through his hair. “You lay your cards right out on the table, don’t you son?”

Michael shrugged. “Being straightforward saves time and minutes could mean lives.”

The Doctor’s gaze sharpened. “You have plague up there?”

“We don’t know what it is, Doctor, just that it’s fast, fatal, and ugly. And don’t worry; the incubation period is 48 hours. I spent four days in isolation to be sure I didn’t have it before I came--”

“Symptoms!” Doc Lewis barked.

“Phlegmy cough, high fever, a rash that turns into skin lesions, then pustules. The victim slips into a coma and dies. Start to finish in four to six days. The young ones go faster.”

The Doctor sighed and shook his head. “It sounds like the stuff that went through here two months ago. You been getting refugees from here?”

Michael just nodded and the Doctor laid a hand on his shoulder and said, “I’m really sorry, son. But nothing we have here will touch it. It acts like some sort of Ebola/pneumonia mixture with a side of anthrax, but I can’t be sure. What I am sure of is it’s spread by air and contact, killed almost half of us before everyone got so scared they stayed by themselves. No one around here even scavenges in houses anymore for fear they’ll contact it off a corpse.”

Michael’s eyes shifted away and instantly the doctor pounced. “You been in any of those houses?”

“Just far enough to see what killed them,” Michael admitted.

“How many people have you contacted?”

“Just you and your nurse and I spoke to those four outside by the barrel.

“Nurse Hawkins!”

She poked her head out of a room, “Yes, Doctor?”

“Kindly inform Mr. Barker and the others gathered around the heater they will be spending the next few days in the isolation ward.

Michael’s alarm showed.

“It’s just precautionary,” Doc Lewis said. “This disease is highly contagious. You should join them too.”

“I can’t do that, Doc. I have to get back to the Freeholds with a treatment.”

It was the Doctor’s turn to look away.

“Surely there’s something?” Desperation tinged Michael’s voice.

“I’m sorry,” the Doctor apologized. “I thought I’d made it clear.”

Michael looked deep into Doc Lewis’s eyes, read the sorrow and concern there, and asked, “Then what do we do?”

The Doctor’s shoulders slumped and his voice sank to a mere whisper. “Isolate yourselves from anyone who comes down with it. Have no, I repeat, no contact with any victim whatsoever.” He saw the horrified look on Michael’s face.

“I know, son. It isn’t easy to abandon them. But if they catch it, they die, or at least everyone here did. Far as I can see that means mortality is virtually 100 percent, so by tending to them you just spread the death around. All you can do is let it run its course and thank God not everyone catches it.”

Michael took a deep breath and lowered his head. This was not the news he’d hoped to take back.

*

“I don’t like it, Ellen, but that’s what he said.” Michael’s report was going about like he’d expected. “Tend the sick and spread the death were his exact words. What do you want me to do? Lie?”

“Of course not,” Ellen snapped. She pushed away from the kitchen table and paced the room.

“Then quit shooting the messenger,” he said.

She never stopped her agitated pacing. “But quarantine! Abandoning sick people to die alone. This could break us, Michael. Through every trial this community held itself together by helping each other. We can’t turn our backs on each other now! It would destroy the Freeholds.”

“Didn’t destroy Colorado Springs,” Michael shot back. Then he shifted tack, playing dirty. “Are you going to be the one to bring this bug home to our son? Am I?”

She stopped pacing, flipped her long blonde hair back over her shoulder and glared at him, storm clouds roiling in her hazel eyes. How could he?

“We’ll end up abandoning the sick anyway, Ellen. It’ll happen as soon as panic sends everyone fleeing to their own homes, afraid to poke their heads out. That’s what happened in the Springs and it’s the only thing that saved them.”

She shook her head. Preserving their morality, their sense of community had gotten them through so far. What if Steven or Michael gets sick? Could she leave them to die alone? Hell, no!

“Doctor Lewis says…” he began.

“Doctor Lewis!” Ellen erupted. “Doctor Lewis said this. Doctor Lewis said that. Who do you think he is, Michael? God?”

A lump the size of Pike’s Peak formed in Michael’s throat. He’d seen the doctor’s pain.

“No, Ellen. He’s just an old country doctor who spent his life saving others, then watched people he’d known for forty years and a wife he’d grown up with sicken, rot and die because he could do nothing to save them.”

His voice quivered as he pleaded with her. “The Freeholds will be a ghost town, Ellen. One hundred percent mortality! The only way we live is by not catching it in the first place! Sometimes doing the wrong thing is doing the right thing.” Tears blurred his vision. He rubbed his eyes. A sob caught in his throat.

“Oh, damn,” he said softly and laid his head on the table.

“Oh, Michael!” She knelt beside him, hugging him to her while his shoulders shook and pain she hadn’t known was in him poured out.

He continued to shake and sob as raw emotion tore at him releasing visions of dead children he saw every day while searching for food, of half-rotted mummies he slept beside while seeking shelter in the ruins of their homes, of nightmares he buried inside, enduring for the sake of his family. And now this.

Guilt ripped at his heart. To deliver the plague among his friends and family. He’d touched the corpse and hadn’t caught the disease, but maybe the bleach he poured over his gloves and clothes hadn’t disinfected them. Maybe he, along with Josh Adams and Jack Quist had been a carrier.

He rocked back and forth, crying until he ran dry, and all the time Ellen held him. “It’ll be okay,” she whispered over and over. “It’ll be okay.” But inside she wondered how if this was the straw that would break The Freeholds back.

*

Pueblo

“Stay in the house, Darla,” Emil Smolensky said.

“But grandpa, I haven’t seen Michaella in weeks.”

“I know, sweetie, but it’s just for a little while longer. I wouldn’t be going out myself if we didn’t need firewood.” He’d managed to keep them alive through the fires and rains and long cold months. This neighborhood had some good folks who’d pooled resources and helped each other.

He shook his head. This latest horror was tearing at his community like a wolf pack on a downed elk. Half the men on the firewood detail hadn’t shown up yesterday for fear of the plague. He folded the buttstock on his M4 carbine, slung it over his shoulder and closed the door behind him.

Enough light filtered through the murky sky today for him to see all the way down to the Arkansas River valley. He could even make out the colors of the graffiti art lining its broken concrete banks.

He tugged a green bandanna up over his nose, like a western movie outlaw, grabbed a two-wheeled hand cart he’d made and hauled it up the street. He glanced over his shoulder to check the house before he went around the corner, where he met two other men with wheelbarrows, axes and bowsaws. The firewood detail was down to three.

*

Back at the house, Darla waited. She tried to read, another chapter of “The Towers of Greed” by Lindsay White, but the problems of people who had running water, food and electricity just couldn’t hold her interest, even if they were fighting terrorists. When she figured she’d waited long enough she slipped on her coat and went looking for her friend.

Michaella and her mother had been dead for days when she found them and Darla fled back home, stumbling along with tear filled eyes.

Five days later, covered with the same open sores her friend Michaella had, she coughed out her life in Emil’s arms.

He built a funeral pyre in the living room and wailed at the emptiness inside as he lit it off. Then he took his disinfected gear and his homebuilt cart, since there was no fuel for his truck, and headed toward Fort Carson.

*

Utah/Deseret

The plague came to Nephi, courtesy of a derelict sailing ship from California that some local fisherman salvaged along with the disease. From there, it spread to Provo and the surrounding areas. As they had in Colorado Springs and other cities the people cared for the ill and died for their efforts until fear enforced a merciless quarantine. The only good thing was that the disease acted so quickly the quarantine period only lasted for six days. The horror was that in a single month the population of Deseret was reduced by nearly two thirds.

*

The Amana Colonies

Eric Metz pulled the maul from the chopping block and took a healthy swing at the chunk of oak. The healthy thwock of metal edge meeting and splitting the dense grained wood echoed across the woodlot. In many ways, he thought, as he set another piece on the block, his life and that of his neighbors hadn’t changed much. They still labored without electricity, still farmed as they always had, still worshipped as they always had.

Yet many things were different. As he wiped sweat from his brow, for even on a cold day splitting oak was hard work, he scanned the tent city for signs of his wife, Hope.

He spotted her red hair peeking from beneath her bonnet as she moved from tent to tent delivering bottles of milk to those who needed them.

The refugees descended upon them even as the fires fell from the sky and burned their crops. They fought those fires side by side with Eric, saving many farms and before the ground even stopped its infernal shaking the Amish, unable and unwilling to drive neighbors away, had taken them in.

It was a mixed blessing, he thought. So many extra mouths to feed had exhausted their robust stores of food and starvation claimed too many. But the outsiders also brought guns and a willingness to use them to defend the Amish from the depredations of predatory gangs. The more practical among Eric’s brethren accepted this as a necessary evil.

He took an absentminded swing and the maul glanced off a knot, missed the chopping block and buried itself in the icy ground less than an inch from his foot. He stepped back, grimacing. He’d been chopping wood all his life and knew better than to do so when not focused. He shook his head and took a deep breath to clear his mind. He felt the pressure building in his chest and broke out into a coughing fit. His eldest son, Obadiah, was bedridden with an ague and claimed several of the newcomers were as well.

He wiped his mouth with a handkerchief and ignored the spots of blood it revealed. Oh well, he shrugged as he reached for the maul. This too would pass.

Within two months the Amana Colonies were populated solely by ghosts.

*

Aqua Nova

Buzz Mackenzie paled as the dome breach alarm howled through Deep City. He snatched his mini-lung and spared a glance at his gauges before hitting his closed circuit intercom and yelling, “Dani, report!”

The lines on his face eased as she answered.

“We’re here, boss,” Dani Jones said. “The crack is in the outermost shell of Aquaponics 3. We should have it sealed and pumped dry before end of shift.”

“No interior damage?” Buzz asked.

“Just some underwear needs changed,” Dani said, and he could hear the smile in her voice.

“Roger that,” he said.

So long as they didn’t get any more shocks like that last seaquake they’d be okay--until the next emergency. But he and his teams were getting pretty good at handling those. No major failures since the early days. He quickly knocked on the wood grain plastic desk. Maybe it wasn’t real wood but he figured it was the gesture that counted.

He figured they had it good compared to what little he’d heard from their support fleet before contact was lost. Their fish farms and kelp beds supplied adequate, if somewhat monotonous food and their interior gardens were beginning to add much needed variety to their diet. Their fuel cells produced enough oxygen and fresh water, but waste disposal, and especially human waste disposal, was a growing problem. They couldn’t just keep dumping it outside the domes.

He’d have to talk to Captain Swain about whether or not it was time to risk the Seawolf on another voyage to one of their pre-deployed resupply bases. Several of the underwater storage depots had been lost during the cataclysm and the last time Seawolf approached California she’d been fired upon by artillery.

Chapter 25: Semper Persistence

The corpse was mummified by the intense cold and dry air, its eyes shrunk to raisins. Parchment-like skin covered with dried sores stretched over the skull. Her long hair was stringy and brittle, like straw too long in the sun. Gripping her withered hand in his her mate lay beside her, similar in appearance except where the rodents had gnawed on his ears and nose. He had died first, then the children, stacked like cordwood on the small bed in the crypt-like room. The ground far too frozen to allow burial and cremation--well she just couldn’t. Together in death as in life. Alone in the cold. Their chimney showed no smoke and that was sufficient to earn fearful glances from the few who passed by the Quist homestead.

The Plague gripped the Freeholds like a terrier grabs a rat, shaking the community to its core. Whole families and sections of the Freeholds died. Once prosperous homesteads were burned with their dead inside. Others lay in ruins, abandoned when the occupants panicked and fled, trading death by disease for freezing and starvation. All seemed lost.

Ellen Whitebear led by doing. She and Michael placed Steven in the temporary care of the McKinley’s in case the worst happened. Then they donned gas masks and homemade isolation suits that they burned after tending the dying. They used buckets of bleach to sterilize salvageable food and useful items from the homesteads of the dead. The two of them held the shattered, dying remnants of a once thriving community together by sheer force of will and brutally hard work.

But the day came at long last when the plague ran its course, the cold loosened its frostbitten hold, the sky lightened from midnight black to a dark somber gray, and the sun peeked down more frequently through breaks in the shroud, warming the snow to rain. The larder was all but bare and several scavenging trips to Colorado Springs were planned. To do it right and make it easier on themselves they now needed a road.

*

“Jesus Christ,” Michael swore as the tip of a limb whipped back into his face, splattering him with snow.

“Welcome to Colorful Colorado,” Ellen laughed back at him, quoting the State’s unofficial motto. “Look different from ground level?”

Michael had scouted their path in his ultralight plane the week before. “The going’s easier at 12,000 feet,” he admitted, moving past her. It was his turn to break trail through the deep white powder.

The two of them along with twenty other volunteers were hacking a path through a wilderness of downed trees and landslides around Firebreak Lake, just downstream of the Freeholds. Their goal was to cut a trail that reunited the upper part of Tarryall Road as it wound through the Freeholds and out to South Park, with the lower part connecting to Highway 24 and Colorado Springs.

Michael and Ellen were blazing the trail while behind them others labored with shovels and chainsaws clearing a path. Eventually Michael hoped he could fire up the little D2 Caterpillar bulldozer and do a proper job of it but at present they didn’t have enough fuel. He sighed as he lopped off a branch, marking the pine for felling. Diesel fuel, another item to add to an ever-growing scavenger list.

As she labored along behind him, blazing trees and shrubs, Ellen’s thoughts ran along similar lines. But she took the long view, not just realizing, but also planning for the day they would run out of salvageable resources. Before that happened she intended to see to it they could manufacture whatever they required. Right now there was undoubtedly an inexhaustible supply of bottled aspirin waiting for them in unburned stores in Colorado Springs. But what about Ampicillin, Cephalexin, Cipro and other antibiotics with limited shelf lives? What about vaccines for TB, measles, and a hundred other diseases? Not even the alternatives they got from pet stores and feed supply houses would last forever. What about gasoline, and paper, and…she slipped on an icy patch. “Lord,” she muttered, catching herself. “We don’t even know how to make Portland cement.”

Well, that’s part of what this expedition is about, she thought. We need how-to books as desperately as food, fuel, medicine and tools. Michael’s library, as good as it was, simply wasn’t adequate. She had organized a civic council as a sort of temporary body of authority to maintain order in the Freeholds. She shied away from the word government--that word seemed too permanent. Along with many others, she wasn’t quite ready to admit that the U.S. government wasn’t going to show up someday and offer to help.

“Breakthrough,” Michael called from up ahead. Within minutes, she stepped out of the forest and joined him on the old road. They were on the crest of a hill and she could see down the valley for two or three miles.

“My God, Michael,” she said as he draped an arm around her shoulder. The roadway was in pieces, chunks of broken asphalt scattered about, whole sections washed away or buried under mudslides. The three bridges she could see were down.

“I tried to warn you,” Michael said quietly. He’d seen it all from the air while flying to Colorado Springs. He knew those sections of road not destroyed entirely were choked with abandoned autos and trucks. The last time Ellen had been this way everything had been buried under a twenty foot deep blanket of snow.

Her sad hazel eyes found him. “You said there was heavy equipment at the county maintenance yard in Lake George?”

“Yeah,” he shrugged. “Aaron and I can fly the gyrocopter there. See if we can get a Cat running, maybe cut a new roadbed between there and here. We’ll have to build fords across the river.” He hesitated, then added. “Probably take several months.” Ellen nodded. She knew he didn’t like the idea. What were his words? “Someday we’ll get visitors up your new road we’ll wish we could keep out.” But even he admitted if they didn’t salvage supplies from the Springs they wouldn’t last another year.

Through the thick gray clouds of this never-ending winter they could tell the sun was setting. Michael slid his arm around Ellen’s back and hugged her to him. “We’ll start tomorrow,” he said softly and was rewarded with her smile.

*

Kansas

Harry dashed rain from his eyes and strained against the tiller, trying to keep the boat pointed into the wind driven whitecaps. Robby huddled beneath sodden woolen blankets on the deck, blue-lipped and miserable. Sheila's father, Wes had died of a heart attack three days before, less than a week after rising waters forced them to abandon the farm.

Spray stung Harry's cracked lips. Salt. He still couldn't believe it. He knew Kansas had been below the ocean several times in the past. He just hadn't expected to see it in his lifetime. What the hell were they going to do now? Out of gasoline for the motor. Wind too vicious to set sail. Almost out of food and nearly out of strength, not to mention hope. Only the sea anchor he’d thrown out and his own desperate struggles with the tiller kept them headed into the waves so they didn’t capsize.

He saw Sheila falter at the bilge pump, her arms hanging like lead weights, palms bleeding from broken blisters. She hung her head for just a second then clenched her jaw and took the tiller so he could man the pump.

Hours merged together. Dark clouds writhed in a charcoal gray sky, whipping buckets of rain at them. If there’s a bright side to this, thought Harry, it’s that the sky is lighter since it started raining. He swallowed a sodden cracker and tried to remember the last time he’d been dry. Two weeks or more.

The day stretched endlessly, wind rising to a shrieking gale, mountainous waves blending with an evil sky.

Hurricane, Harry thought, unable to disengage his scientist's mind. More likely a Hypercane. It has to be. The rains are clearing the skies but so much heat has been pumped into the atmosphere monstrous storms will form for years. The knowledge gave him no comfort.

He glanced at Sheila, back at the pump, and caught her watching him, love and determination in her eyes. Whatever happened, at least they would face it together.

The rogue wave came from nowhere, engulfing their frail boat, sucking them down into black waters. Harry held onto his breath and his son, pinching Robby’s mouth and nose shut. He didn’t know if the boat would ever come back up.

*

New York

“It's time to move,” Otha said.

Di nodded slowly, regretfully. She looked around the smoke-stained room. The building had kept them alive through a truly endless winter. Food from vending machines and the warehouse. Water from rain and melting snow. Warmth from burning broken furniture, the once white walls blackened from smoke. It was home--the only home they had, but he was right. It was time to leave. They couldn't live here now.

She placed the bundle in her arms on the small funeral pyre in the center of their bedroom. Their son hadn't lived a month, dead because there was no doctor, no hospital to help them.

Otha touched a flaming torch to the wood until it caught. He placed an arm around her and they walked outside into the unknown, heads bowed against the steady downpour.

*

California

Lola was beginning to realize she’d never escape from Joseph Scarlatti. He’d welcomed her with open arms, enjoying the verve with which she’d sought him out.

She accompanied him to “State” functions, the King’s eye candy, and everyone but Joseph treated her like his Queen. He seemed to be trying to win her affection but she was now certain he was incapable of loving anyone but himself. She knew he savored her fear of him and fought to hold it in check, something he also seemed to enjoy. But she also feared he might tire of her, so she lived balanced on the razor’s edge between pleasing him and boring him.

Mostly, she fought to accept her fate without surrendering her essence. She’d be his toy as long as he desired her. So, like Scheherazade, she must always be entertaining to survive. And the surprising thing about that, she decided, was that she wanted very much to survive, at least long enough to see him fall, or kill him.

*

The Nation of Deseret (formerly Utah)

Adam Young shoveled wet sand into bags and passed them to others to stack in the truck. His boots squelched and rain poured off his hat brim like a waterfall. The Provo River was out of its banks and threatening the city, its brown swirling waters greedy for what little they’d managed to save from the quakes and fires. Ceaseless rainfall was the current challenge. The Noah Rain, he’d heard it called, and him without an Ark.

“I didn’t know there was this much water in the world.”

The words surprised him and he turned to see his brother Bob drop a shovelful into a bag.

“When did you get here?”

“Just now. We found more sand over by the rail yard and sand bags at the National Guard depot.”

“Good. Looks like we’ll need all we can get.”

“Damned rain.” Bob rarely cursed.

“Hey, little brother. Look on the bright side. At least it’s warm enough to rain.,” Adam said.

“Yeah,” Bob agreed with a quick nod. “Now we can drown instead of freeze.”

*

Luna City

“Waaaah!” The baby squalled as Doctor Sari Vindushanti cleaned him and wrapped him in a soft blanket.

“You have a son. All fingers and toes accounted for,” she said to his exhausted mother.

Pavel Yurimentov stood beside Ludmilla, holding her hand, looking somewhat green and very proud.

“What are you going to call him,” Sari asked, as she lay the baby in Ludmilla’s arms.

“We’re naming him Yuri, after his great-grandfather,” Ludmilla said, glowing as she beheld her child.

“Yuri Gargarin Yurimentov,” Pavel said. He ran two fingers gently over his son’s head. Gray eyes like his mother, sandy hair like me, he thought. “You just made history, Yuri,” he said tenderly. “As your Great-grandfather was the first man in space, you are the first child.” He beamed like a spotlight, then stopped and said. “He is the first isn’t he? Have we heard from the Station?”

“Christine was still in labor, the last I heard,” Sari said.

*

The ISS

“Push!” Aeriella said. The crown of the baby’s head was showing between Christine’s thighs. Droplets of sweat and blood floated about the cabin.

Clark Kent swiped at them with a towel but it was a losing battle--a very messy losing battle. Having a baby in zero gee is a lot of work, he thought, then looked at his wrung out lover laying strapped to the exam table and mentally kicked himself for the thought.

Christine grabbed his free hand and almost crushed it in her grip as she groaned.

“That’s it. Keep pushing,” Aeriella said. The baby’s shoulders were out now and suddenly so was the rest of...her...floating, tied to her mother by her umbilical cord.

“It’s a girl,” Aeriella said. As she checked the baby’s mouth and nose for blockages the little girl started breathing peacefully on her own. Cleaning the child would be fruitless until the entire cabin was wiped down so Aeriella placed her in Christine’s waiting arms and started tying off the umbilical.

Clark flexed his sore hand as he floated over his daughter, taking in her wisps of blonde hair and her bright blue eyes. “Angela,” he said, his voice soft as goose down, “You are beautiful, just like your mother.”

Chapter 26: Rainy Day Blues

California

Lola winced as Joseph Scarlatti slapped her naked rear and Joey grinned. He was done with treating her like a Queen. He still paraded her before his subjects, proud of consorting with a movie star, and had even thought for a while he was in love with her. Fooling himself.

Then, slowly, things had changed. She challenged him in subtle ways, refusing to eat long pig, wearing dresses she liked instead of ones he told her to wear, submitting to his lust rather than joining enthusiastically. Nothing overt, and she certainly never undermined him in public. But inside he knew she didn’t love him, knew, in fact, she couldn’t stand him. She tried, but she wasn’t that good an actress. That was okay with Joey. She didn’t have to love him. She had to obey. He grabbed her tiny waist and pulled her onto his bed. The flicker of fear he read in her eyes aroused him.

*

Western Missouri

Harry and Sheila Garrison huddled under their overturned boat on the muddy shore slowly feeding a small fire. A hard rain drummed on the wooden boat. Robby slid in beside them, returning from a nature call, and pulled some mostly dry branches from beneath his jacket. As he added them to the fire he said, “I found something.”

“What?” Harry asked.

“I should show you,” Robby said, and for the first time his parents noticed the excitement in his voice.

“We’re just starting to dry out, Robby,” Sheila said. They’d been wet for weeks.

Robby shrugged but his sly smile was intriguing, as was the use of subtlety at his young age.

“You think it’s worth getting wet?” Harry asked.

Robby thought that over for a second, smiled, and said, “I think it’s worth you and mom getting wet. I still am.” The mischief in his voice was unmistakable.

“Well, it is a bit cramped under here,” Harry said.

“Okay, let’s go,” Sheila agreed.

Robby dashed ahead, ignoring the rain, climbing the hillside through the charred oak forest. When he reached the summit he hunkered down and gestured for them to hurry.

Harry looked over his shoulder as he trudged up the slope. Their boat was plainly visible less than two hundred yards away. Then caught up to Robby and peeked over the crest.

“A farmhouse!” Sheila gasped.

“I don’t think anyone’s home, mom.” Robby looked up at his dad. “There’s no smoke in the chimney,” he explained.

Harry nodded and placed a hand on Robby’s shoulder. “We’ll watch for a few hours to be certain,” he said. “You did good!”

Amazing! Harry thought. Roof looks to be sound. None of the trees around the house burned. Barn’s still standing. Even the pasture looks untouched. And, is that a garden patch? How in God’s name could this place be standing?

A small stream, swollen to its banks ran through the meadow close to the house. An old John Deer tractor and a Ford pickup sat side by side in an equipment shed.

He heard a hen squawk and a motion caught his eye. A red fox darted from the barn with a dead chicken in its mouth. A large white goose honking loudly gave chase.

“Well, I’ll be,” Harry muttered. Other than fish, those were the first living animals he’d seen since the waters forced them off the farm.

Two hours later they approached the house but saw no sign of movement inside. Harry knocked on the door then pushed it open and stepped inside when there was no answer. The faint smell of corruption stopped him. He stepped back outside before his family could enter.

“Honey, why don’t you and Robby stay outside while I check the house?”

Sheila understood at once. She took Robby in hand and said, “We’ll look over the garden. I think is see something green over there.”

Harry went back inside and started looking for the source of the smell. It didn’t take long. A skeleton dressed in a formal suit sat in a bloodstained lounge chair. A shotgun lay on the floor nearby and on the table next to the chair was a note held in place by a Bible. Harry picked up the note and read.

“My name is Jonathon Hicks and I’m sorry for the mess and the smell.” Harry gave a start and stepped back, then continued reading. “I thought about opening a window but figured anyone coming in here could air the place out. And if I left a window open animals would get in and my Mabel always kept a neat house. So, like I said, I’m sorry for the smell.

“I buried Mabel, my wife of 52 years, two days ago and I won’t live without her. I’m asking whoever is reading this to please lay me out beside her. I’d have done this at her graveside but she wouldn’t approve. I already dug the hole.

“In exchange for burying me I’m deeding you the farm. It’s okay. Our son and his wife were vacationing on Cape Hatteras so they won’t be coming back. Don’t know how much legal papers will mean now that everything’s gone to hell, but a signed deed is in the middle drawer of the hutch in the kitchen along with keys to the house and vehicles.

“I let the livestock loose, couldn’t bring myself to kill them and there’s no one around to leave them too. Left the barn doors open in case they come back. There’s a path behind the barn that leads to a cave we lived in while the winter was on us. Our animals lived there too so you might find them there if not in the barn.

“One last thing if it isn’t too much trouble. Mabel likes roses. If hers ever bloom again you might put some on her grave. We had a good life here and I wish the same for you.”

Harry set down the note and brushed a tear from his cheek. “I’ll be glad to honor your request, Jonathon,” he said. He walked around opening windows before heading outside.

“Sheila! Robby! We’re home!”

*

Monument, Colorado

“How much longer before we head for the Freeholds?” Denise Lachelle asked. She stared past a gap in the plywood covering the broken window at icicles dripping from a spruce bough. Snow was melting as the rain fell, but temperatures at night froze everything and the ice was treacherous.

“Soon, I think,” Jim Cantrell said and Jacques nodded.

They had cleared out of Denver as fast as they could travel after rescuing Denise. Keeping a low profile and heading south toward Colorado Springs. But the weather closed in and pushing on would have been fatal so they sought shelter in the closest town.

“Monument!” Jim snorted, and the others knew what he was thinking. Of all the towns on the front range Monument always had the worst weather. Located almost at the summit of the Palmer divide, a 7,000 foot pass, Monument got clobbered no matter which direction the weather came from. It was the last place Jim would have chosen to sit out the seemingly endless winter but as his friend Michael was always saying, “Beggars can’t be choosers.” And all that crappy weather just might have kept Monument from burning.

They were just lucky they’d found this place before they froze. The former inhabitants had been crushed when a big Ponderosa pine fell across the cab of their SUV. Jim figured they’d been making a run for it since the back of their vehicle was packed with dried beans, rice, flour and canned goods. Dogs had gotten at the bodies and there wasn’t enough left to bury. By the time he and the Lachelles arrived the ground was too frozen anyhow.

The windows were all broken out of the house and it leaned a mite so the doors were jammed shut, but the metal roof was intact and there was a fireplace in the living room that drew combustion air from outside. There was even a large supply of firewood and a chess set.

They boarded up the broken windows to keep the dogs and rats out, though the rats weren’t bad, baked in a Dutch oven with some dehydrated veggies. Roasted, they were tough, stringy and just barely edible. Fortunately there were several cases of spam and tuna in the SUV. Nevertheless they kept themselves on tight rations since they didn’t know how long they had to make the food last. Compared to most others they had it easy, though Jim spent too much time grieving over Jill.

*

“You play like Michael,” Jim said, forking the white bishop and King with a knight. “Check.”

“Wat you mean?” Jacques slipped back into patois while concentrating on how to extricate his King without mate.

“He means you always attack, attack, attack,” Denise said. “You try to keep your opponent off balance with lightning raids and bold forays, but you can’t play defense for shit.”

Jim chuckled and Jacques asked, “How you get so good?” He and Denise had been playing Jim throughout the long winter and while they were getting closer they’d never beaten him yet.

“Self-defense,” Jim said. “Seriously. Michael and I learned to play when we were ten and whether he had white or black he’d hit me with everything he had. His opening game was truly terrifying. A real blitzkrieg. I had to learn defense and a patient game just to survive. And I’m not that good. You’re just that bad.”

Jacques laughed and studied the board carefully.

“Two moves to mate, right?”

“Way I see it,” Jim admitted.

Jacques sighed and toppled his King over, resigning. Jim’s end game was deadly.

Denise looked back out the window and a flash of motion caught her eye. “There’s something out there,” she said and Jacques was at her side in a blink, rifle in hand.

Jim used the barrel of his pistol to push a curtain aside and look out a gap. “Where?” he whispered.

“In the big spruce,” she replied. “I was watching the icicles drip when--there it is! Oh, my God, it’s a bird!”

The Raven floated to the ground, jet black wings spread wide. It landed by the small puddle and took a cautious sip, it’s head flicking this way and that.

“Caw!” it screeched, then bounded into the air.

“A bird,” Denise repeated, her hushed tone indicative of the miracle. If such could survive then surely anything was possible, even getting home to the Freeholds.

Chapter 27: Refugees and Invasion

The Freeholds

“My God,” Ellen Whitebear whispered.

She'd never seen anything like it. They almost filled the valley. She shook her head in disbelief, but the seemingly endless string of refugees didn't disappear.

Others had come to the Freeholds for refuge. Individuals and small groups, one or two families, but this! How could they hope to cope with this! They were already stretched so thin survival was iffy.

No matter. The human tide threatening to engulf the Freeholds would eat up their reserves of food in less than a day.

“What the hell are we going to do?” Michael asked from the hastily erected barricade beside her.

Before she could answer the ominous snick-click of a shotgun being cocked reached her ears.

“None of that, Randy,” she said to Randy McKinley, who lowered the barrel. Everyone manning the barricade was edgy, but the people walking and stumbling toward them looked more pitiful than dangerous.

“They're starving,” Michael said.

And it was true. Everyone was emaciated, especially the children, their clothing in tatters. Only a few weapons were visible in the approaching crowd. Her heart went out to them at the same time she hardened it. As much as she wanted to let them all in, to feed and shelter them, she understood the hard truth. If she and her neighbors even tried to save them all, they would die with the refugees. Too many people. Too few resources. A heartrending story, ancient as time itself. Still, they could help some.

“Triage,” she whispered, a single tear tracing a path down her cheek.

“Maybe we can help them homestead around Buena Vista or Salida?” Michael said.

“Look at the condition they’re in, Michael. They’re too weak. They’d die before their crops came up.” She shook her head, her eyes downcast. “No,” She said, her voice firm. “We’ll save as many as we think can help us and offer to help resettle the rest.”

*

“You can't do this!” The man waved his arms back toward his family. “My children are starving.”

Ellen Whitebear felt like she was dying inside, but she met his desperate look and held it.

“I truly am sorry--”

“Please!” he begged, falling to his knees. “We can't go back to Denver. You don't know what it's like there. The gangs, thugs really...” He shuddered and lowered his voice. “They're eating us!”

“Please get up Mister...” Why did she ask that? She really didn't want to know his name. So far they'd only admitted eight families out of more than one hundred and those rejected were turning sullen.

“Haley,” the man replied shakily. “Don Haley. I was a lawyer. I don't know how to live in these mountains. I thought hunting was a sport for barbarians.” He shrugged helplessly.

“Don,” Michael Whitebear stepped in. “Do you have any other skills? It's a blue-collar world now. We need construction workers, farmers, machinists, craftsmen, butchers--”

“My hobby was hydroponics,” Don Haley interrupted, sensing a ray of hope. “I grew ornamental house plants but I could grow food if I had light and some fertilizer. I mean, I have a green thumb and the principles are the same.”

Ellen looked at the other members of the selection committee. Many heads, a majority, were nodding. If it didn't stop raining soon they'd all have to learn to grow food in water. And the man was obviously honest. Several had tried to lie their way in.

“Welcome to the Freeholds Mr. Haley.” And as the grateful man and his family were allowed past the barricade she turned back to the crowd and said, “Next!”

A large man, gaunt but still strong, set down the handles of a two-wheel cart and stepped forward, erect, head held high. He was alone.

“Emil Smolensky, Master Sergeant, United States Army, retired,” he announced. “I'm a gunsmith. There's powder, primers, casings, and bullet molds.” He gestured to his cart. “And more where that came from.”

“We’ve been waiting for someone like you, Mr. Smolensky,” Ellen said without a glance at the others in the selection committee. Even with a prosthetic leg, Emil Smolensky was obviously Freeholds material.

“By the way,” Emil said as he hoisted his cart and marched past. “Those cannibals down in town know about you. They'll be coming. I don't know how much ammunition you have stockpiled but you'd better make it a priority.”

“He’s right you know,” said a familiar voice.

Ellen gasped and Michael spun back toward the crowd, a smile as big as Pike’s Peak stretching across his face. Jim Cantrell, Jacques and Denise Lachelle stepped from the throng and into joyous hugs.

“You always could make an entrance,” Ellen said, kissing Jim’s cheek.

“Once a performer…” he said with a shrug. “But seriously, Emil was more right than he knows. Viper has four or five thousand to feed and food is low in Denver. He’ll probably head for Colorado Springs first, but that’d just be a detour on his way here.”

“He’s called Viper?” Michael asked.

“And other things less flattering,” Jim replied. “But we’ll cover that later. We all need food and Denise needs a doctor?”

Michael jerked a thumb over his shoulder and said, “See Doctor Fariq in the medical tent and the soup kitchen’s open at the Meeting House.”

“Where’s Jill?” Michael almost asked, but he knew deep down she’d be with Jim if she was alive.

As they started off, Denise called back, “Viper will be here soon!”

Great, Michael thought. As if we don't have enough problems. He turned to Ellen, but she was already talking to the next applicant, concentrating on the immediate problem, refusing to get sidetracked. His thoughts turned to maintaining some semblance of order among the mob of rejects. It wouldn't take much for them to turn violent.

*

The Refugee Camp

“Alexi,” Ramona Federov asked, “what will we do now?”

Alexi Federov glared through the flames of their tiny campfire into the darkness and rain at the mouth of the mine. Beyond that darkness was the Freeholds, the Promised Land that spurned them.

“I must think on that, Ramona.” And when she opened her mouth to say something else his anger flared and he slapped her.

Maybe they should have stayed in Denver. No! They would have all died there. His job with the Fire Department had vanished when government collapsed. Even then his unit fought the blazes for almost a week, expecting help from the outside to arrive any day. But help never came. When the quakes shattered the mains and the water gave out the battle became pointless.

He and his men went home to try to help their own families. In that he’d been lucky. Their house, built in the fifties during the atomic war scares, featured a fallout shelter that the previous owner kept stocked and maintained. It was there they hid while cannibal gangs ransacked the house looking for food, slaves, and fresh meat.

They escaped detection twice before their supplies ran out. Forced from their home out into the cold and dark of this vicious new world Alexi, Ramona and their three children fled west, joining hundreds of other refugees who were slowly learning that no one wanted them, no one would help them. They were just another problem to people who already had more than they could handle.

They were forced at gunpoint to edge past barricades at Golden and Idaho Springs. Georgetown was the last straw. The locals fired at them, shouting to keep moving, herding them with rifle butts and threats off I-70 and on to a narrow ruin of a track that led south over Guanella pass.

They tried to return and the locals shot into them, killing Alexi’s son Pietr among others, turning them back into the mountains. They forged ever upward over the pass through waist deep snow. As they climbed they died. Exposure. Starvation. Avalanche.

Some fashioned snowshoes from evergreen branches and the others soon caught on, allowing them to go a little faster. But now they were too weak. First their thoughts turned toward eating their dead. Then survival drove them to do it, chewing slowly, eyes averted in silent shame.

They crested the pass above timberline and started down the South side. Here the trees were charred stumps, the forest incinerated. Finding firewood became a challenge, then frustrating, finally impossible. Frostbitten fingers fumbled at the simplest tasks. And though they were still dying, they weren’t dying fast enough to feed everyone. Starved eyes began drifting to those who were weakest, weighing the life left in them. Why don’t you die so I can live?

Those among them who had no families to protect them at night disappeared.

Finally, they wandered out into the valley of the North Platte River at the foot of Kenosha pass. The town of Grant, straddling highway 285, greeted them with structures half-burned, but repairable, its only inhabitants wind and ash. In unburned willows by the river they had a steady supply of fuel wood. By melting river ice they had water.

With the strength of the desperate they patched holes in the Grant Hotel and moved in to wait out the winter. Singed tins from the restaurant tasted like manna from heaven. But in the end blind luck kept them alive when Alexi stumbled upon a herd of deer lying broken at the foot of a precipice. God only knew how the mule deer got there--fleeing from a predator or possibly a storm, but the Federov’s and their colleagues in hardship didn’t care. They built a fire and feasted on half-thawed venison.

Throughout the endless winter they held on, growing thinner, dying. When spring arrived only nine people were still alive and none of those were children.

As the weather warmed and endless snow turned to endless rain more refugees drifted through until the tide of homeless rose higher than the river. Hundreds, then thousands fled Denver and among them a few whispered of a magic place. A place where people still lived in heated homes, grew food in greenhouses, raised livestock, and produced hydroelectricity from the river and natural gas from compost piles. A place where you could go to bed with a full belly. A place where you could be safe. A place called the Freeholds. A siren song of hope.

They’d seen it on TV. It must be true.

*

Alexi Federov, whose Russian accent thickened under stress, smashed one fist into his other palm and glowered through unruly locks of black hair, some plastered to his skull from the unrelenting rain. The crowd he faced was growing by the minute. It had been raining so long everyone ignored it.

“They think they can condemn us to die? Who elected them God? We ask only that they stop being selfish and share their bounty with us.”

He spread his arms to the masses and stood tall on his boulder/soapbox. “We came in good faith, asking only for what is rightfully ours, asking only for that which no human being should deny another. Food and shelter. But do they offer food? No. Shelter? No. Instead they say they will help us build homesteads someplace many miles from here. And how many of us will survive that journey? And how many will be alive for the first harvest?”

He pointed to the barricade. “They only want for us to go away and die without bothering them.”

He paused, seeking the mood of the crowd and reading anger.

“WILL WE?” He roared.

“NO!” Cries and head shaking came from those spread before him.

“Instead of helping they greet us with guns and barricades! They humiliate us with interviews. You over there. You are worth saving. The rest of you kindly go away and die.”

The taste was so bitter he spat.

Alexi threw out his hand, index finger pointing, like a master dismissing a slave. “You go die. And you. Oh! You’re a doctor. Well, we have food for you. Come on in. But you. I’m sorry you’re just a fireman and we already have too many firemen. We’re very nice people you see, but we just don’t have enough food for all of you.

“That blonde witch says this mounted on a horse that would feed ten of us for a month!”

The crowd rumbled.

“Will you let them kill your children?”

“No!” the crowd growled.

“Of course not.” Alexi clapped his hands together and silence reigned. “I think they should have been better Christians. Don’t you agree?”

“Yes!”

“And since they were not, I think we will kill them and take what they have, okay?”

“YES!” the crowd roared.

He waved his arms for silence until they settled down.

“But this will not be easy. They are armed and nervous about us. They wonder what we will do.”

He smiled broadly and said, “I have a plan.”

*

Aaron Goldstein didn’t bother to wipe the grease off his palms when he shook hands with Terrel Johnson because Terrel’s were just as dirty. The small, wiry Jew, a former stunt pilot and the large black helicopter pilot/mechanic had just finished overhauling the engine in Jim Cantrell’s gyrocopter. A gasoline powered generator chugged away in the background powering the single overhead light by which they worked.

“Now if it’d just stop raining we could take her up,” Terrel said.

Aaron looked out through the open door of Jim’s garage at the rain, sparkling in the light from the garage, and shrugged. “Might be better if it was a yacht,” he said. The river was so high parts of the valley of the Freeholds looked like a long, narrow lake.

“At least the rain’s eased some since last week,” Terrel grinned, white teeth shining against his blue-black face. “Besides you ain’t sugar.”

“True,” Aaron agreed, squinting into the downpour. “Least you can see through it now.”

“Yeah, I’ve noticed. You think maybe the cloud cover’s thinning?”

“Some,” Aaron agreed. “Say, I heard the refugees pulled out.”

“Yesterday morning,” Terrel said. “I was on barricade duty. Saw it myself.”

“I thought we’d have trouble with them for sure,” Aaron said, still worried.

“Still might, man,” Terrel’s tone made it plain he hoped otherwise. “Just ‘cos they left, don’t mean they gone.”

“You’re a natural born skeptic,” Aaron chuckled, then cocked his head toward a distant popping. “What’s that?”

“Gunfire!” Terrel said through clenched teeth. “I think our friends are back.” He bolted out into the rain screaming, “Spread the alarm!”

*

Michael Whitebear couldn’t hear the gunshots over the roar of the front-end loader. He dumped a bucket-full of sand on top of the levee and backed down the ramp. Weary sandbaggers began filling bags and stacking them. Farther south, down the river, Randy McKinley and Jim Cantrell ran small bulldozers shoring up the levee.

“Michael!” Ellen’s voice cut through the din of the engine and Michael throttled down, opening the door to the cab. She appeared through the rain, her blonde hair and white jacket plastered against her, Steven strapped to her back in a baby pack.

She climbed up onto the machine and poked her head inside the cab. “The refugees are invading! They’ve breached the barricade. There’s gunfire upstream and reports of some homesteads burning.” She thrust his holstered .357 at him, propped his AR-15 against the seat, and dumped several magazines of ammo on the floor.

“I’m rallying folks at the stables,” she added giving him a quick kiss. “We’ll form up there and push north.”

“Grab Randy and Jim,” Michael said, pointing to the bulldozers. “Tell’em to stop here and collect sandbags. You get the cavalry mounted and we’ll provide the armor.” He cupped her face in his hand. “Be careful, sweetheart.”

Her smile warmed him as she pulled back out of the cab and jumped to the ground, slipping in the mud before catching herself and setting off at a run.

He strapped on his pistol, gunned the loader up the ramp and jumped out onto the levee. “Wayne!”

Wayne Anderson, a one-time medic and founding member of the Freeholds sloshed up to him. “What’s up?”

Michael swiftly explained and climbed up into the machine adding, “Toss me some sandbags up here.” He popped open the windows for firing ports and began stacking sandbags inside the cab.

Wayne climbed inside and grabbed Michael’s AR and the boxes of rifle ammo.

“What are you doing?” Michael asked as he dropped a bag in place.

“You need a gunner,” Wayne said, noting Michael’s eyes were turning yellow.

“Only room in here for one,” Michael objected.

“I know,” Wayne agreed. “I’m riding outside. When I climb in, tilt your bucket back.”

Michael took off his faded blue and orange Denver Broncos ball cap and handed it to Wayne. “This’ll keep the rain out of your eyes a sight better than that thing you’re wearing. Wayne’s felt cowboy hat was sodden and shapeless, drooping down over his eyebrows. He pulled it off and put on the ball cap.

“Thanks.” He clapped Michael on the shoulder, hopped out of the cab, ran around to the front of the machine and stepped into the two-yard bucket. The metal-sided bucket would stop bullets better than sandbags, but he threw some of them in too.

Five minutes later, Michael was encased chest high in sandbags. A few 2x4’s and some plywood braced his ‘armor’ in place, allowing Michael just enough room to operate the machine.

“Do the same to the dozers, then grab your guns and head for the stables,” Michael yelled to the sandbaggers as he rolled back down the ramp and headed for battle. He turned on the windshield wipers and cursed the darkness and rain. The gravel road, graded smooth only yesterday was already full of potholes, causing the machine to buck like a bronco. He thought of Wayne and grinned. At least he was halfway dry.

Michael’s running lights cut a swath through the rain and soon he could see flashlights swinging around the stables, illuminating the corral and Ellen, who was standing on a branding chute addressing the crowd. As he pulled to a stop he saw the man he’d been looking for.

Iskos Theodoratus operated heavy equipment for twenty-two years before an accident cost him his left leg and converted him into a machinist. He claimed the artificial leg he crafted for himself was stronger than the one it replaced. Whether that was true or not he could certainly run the front-end loader far better than Michael. It took less than a minute for Michael to persuade Iskos to take over.

Michael’s mare was already saddled. He slapped Wayne’s hat on his head and swung aboard. The mare was small, only thirteen hands, and agile as only a cutting horse can be. She sidestepped as Michael settled into the saddle, his hiking boots slippery in the stirrups. He patted her neck to soothe her nerves and pushed through the crowd.

People were milling around in confusion, big-eyed and jumpy with fear. He could hear Ellen saying something about murdered homesteaders and the invaders only having small arms but the rest was lost in the confusion. Ellen was trying, but she had never had to take command of a panicked crowd.

He inhaled, sucking breath deep into his barrel chest and bellowed, “LISTEN UP!” The effect was immediate. Silence rippled away from him.

When the crowd quieted he continued. “I know things are a little tense right now.” Nervous laughter sparked here and there in the crowd. “But Ellen has information we all need to hear. so I think we should simmer down until she’s done.”

Ellen climbed onto her own horse, a palomino gelding, and stood up in the stirrups so the crowd could hear her better. Michael noticed Steven was no longer on her back and knew she’d stashed him somewhere safe. Her voice was clear and steady and his heart swelled with pride as she spoke.

“We seem to be up against rifles, shotguns and pistols,” she stated. “The people attacking us are desperate and therefore very dangerous. We know they’ve overrun four homesteads already, murdering the occupants. They will kill you and your family if they get the chance! When I’m done speaking I want everyone who has a horse to mount up. You’re the cavalry. Everyone else is infantry. Master Sergeant Emil Smolensky is commanding the infantry and he will address you when the cavalry pulls out.

“Cavalry! Jacques Lachelle will be our bugler. You’ve all heard a bugle sound the charge in old westerns. That’s the only command we’ll need. There can be no retreat. We will form up in columns of two and march down the road until we close with them. At that time we will swing into a single line and charge!

“Watch your mounts closely. The gunfire, even the bugle, will probably panic some of them. You have to maintain control, keep up with the rest of us, shoot straight, and for God’s sake don’t shoot anyone on horseback.” More nervous laughter trickled through the crowd.

“Our infantry will be wearing white armbands so keep your gun-sights off them as well.” Gunshots were closer now, no more than a mile away. Some of the horses snorted and tossed their heads. Ellen pointed down the road. “Our friends and neighbors need our help. Those murders will kill us all if we let them. Are we going to let them?”

“NO!” the Freeholders yelled.

Ellen shouted, “Cavalry! Mount up!”

As Jacques and Denise Lachelle and the other men and women swung onto their mounts Michael pushed through to Ellen.

“I’ll ride point,” he said.

She nodded and said, “Steven’s with Mariko.”

He leaned over and pecked her on the cheek, realizing she was telling him in case anything happened to her.

He kicked his horse ahead. As he fell into the rhythm of the little mare’s gallop he checked his pistol. Three speed loads on his holster and a pocket full of loose ammo. Like a lot of people he’d taken to wearing a sheathe knife on his belt as it was such a handy tool. His was an old Marine-issue Kabar. He wished it was a saber.

He passed Freeholders fleeing the fighting with their children, and others running toward the battle. Men and women who hadn’t been ordered to fight, but who instinctively understood the stakes. He warned everyone to tie something white on their arms so their friends wouldn’t shoot them. Most of the fleeing men passed their children on to others and turned back toward the fight.

He could see burning buildings now, hissing and sputtering in the rain. Distant, shadowy forms crossed in front of the flames. He forced himself to look away, not wanting to destroy his night vision.

The mare slipped on a patch of greasy mud and saved Michael’s life. Gunshots buzzed by like angry hornets, one tugging at his jacket sleeve, another ripping Wayne’s hat from his head. He fired at gun-flashes as he whirled the mare around and goosed her back up the road as fast as she could run.

He leaned over her rain-soaked neck, heart beating wildly as bullets whipped by. She rounded a curve and he spotted Ellen and the rest of the cavalry. He sat up straight, yelling, “Yeehaw!”

He hadn’t felt so alive since the last time he’d been shot at.

He reigned in, pretending not to see the relief in Ellen’s face. “Two hundred yards past the bend,” he reported. “We can’t wait for the equipment.”

She nodded agreement. The earth-moving machines were too slow.

“Line abreast,” she said over her shoulder. “Pass it on.” She, Jacques and Denise pulled out of the column while the line formed. It wasn’t pretty, but then they hadn’t practiced such maneuvers. After a few seconds jostling around the line stabilized. Michael joined Ellen and the Lachelles as they rode to the center.

Ellen looked around her. Michael was on her left, Jacques and Denise on her right. The line of horses seventy strong stretching from where the river hugged the eastern side of the valley to the roadside bluffs on the western side. She couldn’t believe she was doing this. She didn’t know the proper command, but she knew they couldn’t just start at a gallop.

“Just keep pace with me.” The command passed down the line and the line fell apart as horses and riders started at different times. Within a hundred yards the line reformed.

She edged her mount to a trot. Again the line struggled and straightened.

She moved to a lope. They were getting better.

She tried not to sound like John Wayne when she said, “Bugler, sound the charge!”

Trumpet notes split the air and the horses surged forward, hooves thundering even on the muddy ground. Michael’s eyes flared yellow as the cavalry pounded around the curve. And there was the enemy, a thousand strong, perhaps two thousand. They filled the valley.

Ellen’s heart leapt to her throat and a nightmare vision of the Charge of the Light Brigade flashed before her. Seventy men and women on horseback screamed and opened fire. Gunshots zipped by and suddenly she was pointing her .38, shooting, seeing her enemies fall.

These weren’t seasoned troops she was facing. These were starving men and women, angry at being spurned by the Freeholders. And while it was easy to pick off isolated homesteaders, they had never seen a cavalry charge coming at them. No one had faced a cavalry charge since World War One.

It’s a terrifying sight. The ground trembles as the horses charge, kicking up bits of dirt and mud with their razor sharp hooves. Hooves the enemy can almost feel slicing and trampling. And the riders. Moving so fast they are hard to hit. Screaming battle cries and firing and roaring at you like a wave of death--getting closer and CLOSER!

Here and there among the invaders a man or woman with extraordinary courage knelt, took careful aim, and sent a rider spilling from the saddle. But at fifty yards most broke and ran from something totally outside their experience. Ran like hell was chasing them with flaming breath. The front lines first, spinning and jamming against those pushing forward from the rear, creating chaos.

And then the cavalry slammed into them and the screaming began in earnest.

Michael’s mare bucked wildly as she tried to avoid trampling the men under her, and for an instant Michael had his hands full just staying in the saddle. He regained control and kicked her ribs, urging her forward toward Ellen. Michael fired into the faces of men and women who, a lifetime ago had been accountants, lawyers, store clerks, and garbage collectors, salesmen, personnel managers, and baby sitters. He didn’t waste bullets on those who were running. His pistol clicked empty. He holstered it. Already out of speed-loads. No time to fumble in his pocket for more rounds.

A gaunt-faced woman aimed her shotgun at Ellen and Michael lunged his horse into her, snatching the gun from her hands and cracking her head with its stock. He blasted twelve-gauge buckshot at a group of men in front of him and marveled at the path it cleared. The Remington Pump was a superior weapon for close in work. He clenched the reins between his teeth so he would have both hands free, pumped in another round and shredded a man who swung his rifle at Ellen’s mount.

Her palomino whirled from the carnage and Ellen had to grab the saddle horn. Michael emptied the shotgun into the men near her, then grabbed the hot barrel and swung it one-handed, like a polo mallet, breaking a man’s shoulder and collarbone.

Ellen realized her riders were getting separated, slowed and stopped by the mass of men and women surrounding them. She saw a rider dragged from his horse and killed. She had to pull them back together, keep them from stopping. A man snatched at her reins and she blew the top of his head off in a bloody spray.

“Jacques! Sound the charge!”

Jacques and Denise were busy, fighting side by side; but he heard Ellen shout and brought the trumpet to his lips.

The brassy notes speared through the battleground. The remaining cavalry realized the danger and spurred their mounts to a gallop, pressing back together.

The invaders had thrown down their weapons and were dashing back up the valley, panic-stricken.

She raised her right arm and slowed her palomino. The other riders kept pace with her, allowing their terrified foes to flee. The Cavalry rode past a flaming homestead, firming her resolve to push the enemy out of the valley. Any who stopped would be shot.

A motorcycle roared up behind her, Don Haley on Michael’s Harley Sportster. He slid to a stop, yelling, “It’s a feint! The main attack is at the South end. They’re pouring up the valley and there’s thousands of them. They’re only three miles from your place.”

Ellen stopped, stunned. She had committed all her forces to repel this attack without thinking about defending the rest of the Freeholds. Stupid! She cut herself short. No time for this now. She had to think! Think like a military man. Her home was in the middle of the Freeholds. There was a bottleneck in the valley a mile south of her home. If her horsemen could beat the enemy there…

Michael asked, “Where’s our infantry?”

Don Haley answered, “Heading south. Except for two hundred the Sergeant sent after you. Jim Cantrell and the armor are headed south too.”

Ellen broke in. “I want you to dash back to those two hundred and turn all but fifty of them around and then come back here. Go!”

He sped off.

She stood up in her stirrups and surveyed her riders. Maybe fifty left. “Count off ten from the right!” Terrell Johnson was among them. She pointed to him and said, “Terrell, take charge here. I want you to merge with our infantry and chase these bastards out of our valley. Then take up defensive positions and wait.

“The rest of us are heading south. Let’s go!” She kneed her palomino to a gallop and the rest followed in a disorganized mob. She decided if she lived through this she would study military tactics. If the Freeholds had a reputation as a Garden of Eden there would be others striving to pick the apple.

Don Haley blasted around a bend and skidded to a stop. Ellen waved the rest of the riders on and pulled up. She swung one leg over the saddle and dropped to the ground, handing Don her reins.

“Switch with me, Don. I have to get down south fast and see what’s happening.”

She kicked the Harley into gear and peeled out spraying a rooster tail of mud behind her.

*

Sergeant Emil Smolensky sized up the terrain on the run, hoping like hell his leg wouldn’t give out. He’d only been in the Freeholds for a week, but he knew the valley narrowed and widened in several places below the central cluster of homesteads. He had to get his troops dug in at a bottleneck and hold on until the cavalry arrived.

Troops, he thought, amazed at the collection of computer programmers, ranchers, gardeners, musicians and engineers who comprised the bulk of the original Freeholders he’d met. Not a single army or marine officer among them. Just a few former enlisted men like Michael Whitebear, Jim Cantrell and Terrell Johnson who had actually seen combat.

The trust these people placed in him after knowing him so short a time spoke volumes. If he had been an enemy infiltrator he could now do them no end of harm. His weather-beaten face cracked into a small smile. Perhaps the fact he wasn’t out to hurt them meant they were good judges of character.

He was surprised to be put in command of the infantry and surprised again that the mob of starving refugees had enough gumption not only to attack the Freeholds, but also to plan and execute the pincer movement. Never underestimate your enemy.

There! A gap in the trees showed him a good spot for a hasty ambush. Forget hasty, none of these people in their patched jeans, faded sweatshirts and trash-bag rainwear would know how to do it. He’d have to place each man (and woman, he reminded himself).

The reddish rocks came right down to the river forming a steep cliff on the East side of the valley and since the Tarryall was out of its banks the water almost filled the gap, coming all the way up to the road cut on the West side. Spotters with powerful flashlights on top of each ridge could signal him if the enemy attempted to flank his position. He started men dragging downed trees into place for a barricade and digging in across the road and along each ridge. At a guess he had fifteen hundred civilians who had never faced enemy fire. He was uncertain how to control them when the shooting started so he deployed a few hundred as a ready reserve a quarter mile behind his position with orders to turn any fighters around who were running away.

Freeholders were fleeing up the valley, choking the road. He sent the injured and children on, grabbing able-bodied males and females and putting them to work after questioning them about enemy strength (lots of them) and armaments (more bullets than we had).

Thirty homesteads lay south of his line, but most of the people were making it out. They told him eight or ten homes were aflame, though several had fallen without catching fire. Evidently, the enemy was making an effort not to burn them. Want them for themselves, he figured. The best information he got was that the enemy advance had slowed from looting.

Emil raised his Minolta 10x50 binoculars and looked down the valley. He saw them--approaching cautiously. Some waded waist deep in the river pushing logs ahead of them for cover. He allowed himself a moment to admire their ingenuity, then pulled a dozen sticks of dynamite out of his pack and instructed the men on the cliff to throw them at the men in the water. The pressure wave of a near miss would crush any part of their bodies below waterline.

The rattling roar of diesel engines warned him of the arrival of the heavy equipment.

Wayne Anderson vaulted out of the front-end loader bucket and pulled men off the road so Iskos and Jim could improve the barrier.

The enemy saw this and charged across the valley floor, thousands strong.

Emil pulled the equipment back, telling the operators to be ready to lead a counterattack.

Bullets whizzed by and Emil reveled in the opportunity to stop planning (which he regarded as officer work) and start shooting. Dozens of Freeholders lost their nerve, broke and ran as the reality that these people were trying to kill them came home.

Jim Cantrell rolled his bulldozer across their path and turned most of them back to the front.

Ellen flew down the road, slipping on curves, jolting through potholes, until she saw Emil. She tried to stop too quickly and dumped the bike, coating herself with mud in the process.

She came up to the Sergeant spluttering and wiping goo off herself, but her hazel eyes were steady.

“Situation!” Her first word impressed Emil.

“They’ll hit our lines in less than a minute.” A ricochet spanged off a nearby rock.

“Can you hold for half an hour?”

He looked up and down his line of untried troops. No more than half were firing at the attackers. “Ma’am, I don’t know if I can hold for ten minutes.”

She peeked over the earth and log barricade. The enemy was bunching in the valley as they ran forward. She emptied her pistol at them and ducked back down as a near miss lodged a splinter in her cheek.

She broke a small branch and with a few swift strokes outlined Emil’s defensive position. “Cavalry,” she said, pointing her stick behind her sketch.

Emil nodded, as did Jim Cantrell, who’d joined them.

She added two quick lines in the mud and saw the light gleam in his eyes.

“We’ll hold,” he promised.

Jim told Iskos what was up and then climbed aboard his Cat.

Emil helped Ellen pull the Harley upright out of the mud. She wiped the seat, swung on and kicked it to life.

His hand on her arm stopped her before she could leave. “Ma’am,” he said. “You’ll do.” He snapped to attention and saluted.

“Thanks Sarge,” her smile flashed back over her shoulder as she sped off.

“And when I see you hit them I’ll send in the armor,” he added to himself. He stepped up on Jim’s Cat to arrange signals.

*

Ten minutes later Ellen was back astride her palomino and had finished explaining her plan. Minutes after that Michael was scouting the cattle trail that led along the East side of Farnum Peak and dropped into Allenpark.

She dispatched half a dozen horsemen for more shotguns and ammo, Michael having explained how effective they were.

Fifteen more minutes of hard riding and they were in position, having flanked the enemy. Allenpark was a creek fed hanging meadow that followed the South, or enemy held, side of the ridge Emil was defending. The mouth of the meadow plunged down a steep slope and opened onto the valley floor, where the refugees were attacking.

She waved her cavalry into a line abreast and started them forward at a walk. They wove among clumps of budding aspen and pine, skirting swollen beaver ponds, until they topped the rise overlooking the valley. Below them the enemy was storming over the barricades and fighting was hand-to-hand. Emil couldn’t hold any longer. He was too outnumbered.

Ellen wasted no time, simply waved her arm forward and plunged her gelding over the lip of the embankment, holding on for dear life while the horse sledded down on his haunches. Jacques couldn’t sound a charge while his bay slid down since he needed both hands to stay in the saddle; but once he hit the valley floor the trumpet was at his lips and the clear, sweet notes cut through the battle, startling the enemy.

Sergeant Smolensky and his troops heard that trumpet song and fought with renewed vigor.

Once again the ground shook as horse hooves thundered across a meadow. The enemy looked up and paled as a tide of death rolled toward them. No one who wasn’t trained to do so could face such a charge. They panicked and ran. But where were they to go? The cavalry was charging from the West. To the North was the barricade and to the East the river.

A few panicked and simply ran whichever way they were facing. A small number kept their heads and fled south from where they came. But most felt they were trapped with no way out. And these fought desperately as the horses plowed into them driving a furrow deep through their mass.

Ellen swung her pistol from side to side firing into them, reloading, and firing until the gun barrel was hot. Her palomino fell and before she could pull herself free a man clubbed her. Through dazed eyes she saw Michael shove his shotgun barrel against the man’s head and pull the trigger. Then he was on the ground, fighting above her, while Jacques and Denise reined their mounts around and fought their way back toward her.

Michael whirled in a circle, firing the pump action Remington so fast it sounded like a machine gun, shredding the men and women nearby. The shotgun snicked empty and he pulled his .357.

A large man lunged at him. Michael blew a hole in his chest, then kicked him aside and shot another man. A woman screeched and fired at him, the slug burning through his side. He shot her in the face.

Ellen tried to pull herself up and Michael shoved her back down out of harms way.

All around them firing slackened as ammo ran low. Everywhere, men and women were using guns as clubs, kicking and stabbing with hunting knives.

The hammer of Michael’s pistol fell on an empty chamber and he threw it at a man who swung at him with an ax. Michael ducked under the blow and came up inside the man’s reach, braining him with the shotgun.

Ellen struggled to her feet, knocking Michael’s hand away when he tried to push her back down. She fired her last bullet, killing a man who thrust at her with a pitchfork, then wrenched the pitchfork from his failing fingers and stood back to back with Michael while their attackers circled

.

*

Emil Smolensky kicked his attacker in the balls with his metal leg and slashed his throat. Beside him, Don Haley muscled a metal fence post out of the ground and swung it like a cleaver.

The roar of diesels forced them to jump out of the way as Iskos drove the loader over the barricade and plunged into the frightened enemy, Wayne Anderson firing madly from the bucket.

Jim Cantrell and Randy McKinley didn’t even attempt to climb their bulldozers over the mass of mud and logs, just slammed into it full throttle and pushed it back into the attackers, burying many alive. Jim raised the dozer’s blade to deflect gunfire and smashed into a large group of men, crushing them under his treads as he rolled down on them. Randy McKinley did the same and suddenly those enemy fighters who hadn’t fled the cavalry were bolting in terror. Armor was even more terrifying than horses.

*

Three men attacked simultaneously. Ellen impaled one with the pitchfork. Michael cracked another’s ribs with a blow from the shotgun and as the man reeled away, gutted the third with his Kabar. Heart pumping madly he glanced about for the next threat, but the enemy was melting away.

Ellen’s horse lunged to its feet and Michael boosted his wife into the saddle. Jacques Lachelle pulled up leading Michael’s mare and he swung aboard. Denise handed Ellen a handful of ammunition. More of the cavalry arrived. Aaron and Moira Goldstein shared a mount, her horse having been killed.

Ellen’s head pivoted as she took in the scene. Dead and dying lying everywhere in bloody gore. Jim Cantrell on the Cat was grinding people into the muck. The battlefield stench hit her like a fist--cordite, blood and voided bowels. Her ears rang, as much from the screaming as the blow to her head.

Suddenly, she kicked her palomino into a gallop heading south. She had to finish this once and for all. The rest of the horsemen followed across the field and up onto the road, catching the enemy, trampling those who didn’t get out of the way.

They hit a tight cluster of men and women and bored through like a power drill in soft wood, blasting out into the open.

Ellen slid her palomino to a stop and whirled it around facing the enemy. The other horsemen formed up on Ellen, a line of death barring escape. The mob milled to a stop, attempting to change direction, no desire but to get away.

Jim Cantrell and Iskos Theodoratus with the heavy equipment and the remains of the Freeholds infantry arrived and opened up on them from the rear and suddenly Ellen was screaming, “Cease fire!”

The attackers were throwing down their weapons and raising their hands. Bloodied and wounded and weeping they submitted and the sight tore at Ellen’s heart. Tears ran down her cheeks. If this was victory…she couldn’t help but wonder what she would do in their place.

Her heart hardened as she saw Michael leaning in the saddle, one hand pressed against his side to staunch a wound. Bright red blood flowed down the side of his face into his beard from a gash on his forehead. One eye was swollen shut and his upper lip was split. She picked a piece of mud from her hair, licked a bloodied lip and wondered if she looked much better. Her head throbbed.

He caught her looking at him and grinned, letting her know none of his wounds were serious.

She turned to her horsemen, for the first time noting there were less than thirty left. Killing anger flared as she faced back to the enemy.

The infantry pushed among them disarming the invaders, who slumped to the ground in defeat. Emil detailed one hundred men to guard them, then approached Ellen.

“What do we to do with them?”

She swallowed most of her anger, recalling that these weren’t evil people, just starved and desperate wretches who had lost their sense of decency and murdered her friends and neighbors! In that brief fury she wanted to kill them all, personally. Instead she took a deep breath, clenched her fists, and spoke in a clear steady voice.

“Hold them here tonight. Tomorrow we’ll use them as a burial detail. We’ll move the bodies up into Allenpark to avoid fouling the river.” She paused, thinking. “After that,” she shook her head. “I don’t know, Emil; but I want their leaders.”

*

Michael dumped another kettle of hot water in the bathtub.

“Too hot,” Ellen scolded. “Too…aaahhh. Just right.” She slumped down into the water until just her face and breasts showed through the steam.

He grinned as he refilled the kettle and placed it back on the wood stove to heat. Once they finished patching the houses, and restored full heat to the greenhouse, and got the methane digesters back on line, then maybe they could focus on restoring the small-scale hydroelectric plant that had supplied most of the freeholds with electricity. Right now only those few who had gasoline generators or photovoltaic installations had any juice at all, and between the fuel shortage, cloud cover, rain and darkness, they didn’t even have enough to keep the alkaline battery rechargers going to power flashlights. Until then, he and Ellen would heat bath water on the wood stove and be thankful for it.

He slipped into the tub behind her, the hot water making his bullet-burn sting. His legs slid down her velvety flanks and she leaned back against his chest.

“Mmmmmm.” She wiggled against him and he felt himself respond. They had been so busy surviving and getting reorganized it felt like forever since they had made time for each other.

*

Ellen wiped the smile from her face while she smoothed a Neosporin and aloe salve over Michael’s bullet-burn. She hated wearing the sappy smile, but loved the contentment it sprang from. Her legs felt like rubber. Her hands left the area of his wound and kneaded his back. The smile reappeared on her face, matching the one on his.

Suddenly she wondered if their lovemaking had anything to do with the fact they had been fighting for their lives a few hours ago. Post-combat horniness? She rolled a gauze pad over Michael’s wound and taped it in place. Does the nearness of death stimulate reproductive proclivity?

Michael rolled over and pulled her down to him. To hell with it, she thought. Go with the flow.

*

“Burial detail’s done for our folks ma’am,” Emil Smolensky said. He handed her a list consisting of 506 names.

“Anything else before we start burying their dead?” The rain was pouring down harder than ever, glistening as it ran in streams off his camo pattern poncho; but the sky seemed lighter than it had in months. He turned toward the prisoners. Hundreds of them were sitting in the mud, a few standing, using the rain to clean themselves off.

“Ellen?” Jim Cantrell asked.

She stared at the list shaking her head. 506 Freeholders. Friends and neighbors. Some of them were names of people she hadn’t even liked, but they’d all died defending her home.

She’d met with the rations committee earlier. There was not enough food, even with so many gone to feed the prisoners.

“Ellen?” Jim prodded. “I think we need three work parties, like we discussed earlier.”

She raised her head and looked him in the eye. “Yes,” she said, coming back to herself slowly. “Jim, will you take charge of…” she paused--it was even hard to say--”the prisoners who will be butchering their dead?” It was how the people who attacked them had been surviving and it was how they would eat until she was done with them.

“Michael? Would you and Iskos scoop out a hole for the remains and supervise their burial?”

He nodded and left to find Iskos and fire up the Cat.

She turned back to Emil. “Use the rest on sandbagging detail.” Ellen pointed to the river.

“You can’t do this!” The voice floated up from the crowd. A wild-eyed man, his black hair plastered to his scalp pushed his way through the crowd. Alexi’s inner voice told him to shut up but his anger drove him on. “We aren’t slaves.”

“No,” Ellen snapped. “You’re murderers!” She’d just finished the damage reports. The full extent of the disaster last night staggered her.

“It isn’t murder when you do what you must to survive!” Alexi Federov shouted back.

“Only if you won!” her answering shout silenced him. “I’m quite certain that if you had won last night you’d rationalize your actions somehow. But you didn’t win. And as the victors we have every right to call you murderers. More than five hundred of us died last night defending our homes and families from you.”

She still couldn’t comprehend why, so in one last effort to understand, she asked, “Why attack us? We don’t have stores of food. Our ribs show almost as bad as yours. Our children cry themselves to sleep with hunger pangs. We have nothing to--”

“You have everything!” Alexi screamed, waving his arms. “You live in houses. We shiver under tarps. Your children still have strength to cry. Ours lay listless with distended bellies. You ride horses while the grain you feed them or their meat would keep us alive.

“You have something to eat,” Alexi Federov railed at her as he stalked to the very edge of the crowd, stopping only when weapons were leveled at him. His attitude proclaimed surer than words that he was their leader. “We eat our dead!”

“And this is our fault? We worked--”

“You worked!” Alexi yelled, interrupting her. “We worked until we ran out of strength and had to beg for help.”

“You didn’t run out of strength!” She pinned him with a hard stare. “You had strength to attack us, to murder us and burn our homes--homes we rebuilt after the quakes and fires. We siphoned gasoline from abandoned cars to power generators so we could have lights to grow food indoors. We hunted and fished and scavenged food from empty houses. We cut wood and burned it indoors to stay warm. We melted and boiled snow for drinking water and filtered that through old nylons to get out the ash.

“But unlike you, we didn’t give up our homes and go elsewhere to beg for a handout. We remained a community and we helped each other. And if you had done as we, you wouldn’t be here now.”

Alexi stared up at her through his unruly black hair. His voice blasted at her when he spoke. “We did not abandon our homes. We were driven out by gangs who murdered us, who enslaved our neighbors or killed them for food!”

“So that makes it okay for you to become like them?” Ellen couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “That makes it acceptable to kill us and take what you wouldn’t work together to build? You didn’t run out of strength. You ran out of courage. What happened to your morals?”

Few prisoners could meet her gaze, but Alexi Federov’s anguished voice answered her. “I ate them when I ate my children!”

*

“You can't do this! I have rights!” Alexi Federov screamed as Michael Whitebear slipped the noose over his head.

“That's right,” Michael agreed, surprising Alexi into silence. “You have the right to die with dignity if you'll let yourself.”

“No!” Alexi howled, trying to twist away. “I have the right to a trial. I have the right to live.”

Michael was in no mood to argue. He just stepped back and kicked the barstool out from under Alexi Federov. It wasn’t pretty. None of the Freeholders had experience tying a hangman’s knot and the stool wasn’t tall enough to provide sufficient drop so instead of breaking his neck, Alexi strangled at the end of a slowly tightening noose. He kicked and writhed for several minutes before Ellen shot him.

She was shaken. “He's right, you know,” Ellen said, slipping her pistol back in its holster and taking Michael’s hand. “We should have had a trial. Without it we are technically murderers. We need law.”

“Sorry, darling,” Michael disagreed as they walked away. “We need order. He was caught red-handed leading the attack. We're struggling to survive here. We don't have time for lawyers, and judges and appeals. He had as much trial as he deserved--more than he gave our neighbors.”

“And what if he hadn't been caught in the act? What if he was just drifting through like he said and got caught up in the attack? Stranger things have happened.”

“Did you believe that?”

Ellen shook her head wearily. “No, but it seems so abrupt. We didn't even give him a hearing.”

“Jesus, Ellen. We heard what he had to say and we didn't believe him. Isn't that a hearing?”

Randy and Mariko McKinley nodded agreement but Ellen wasn't satisfied and seeing this Mariko chimed in. “He’s right, Ellen. We can’t afford trials. We’re too busy trying to stay alive to bother with anything more than pioneer justice.”

Ellen gave Mariko a sad smile.

“Ellen’s right,” Jim Cantrell said. “In the long run we need a Constitution, a foundation for our new civilization. We need laws and courts and due process and proper procedures. But right now, short run, we did the right thing because we need all our energy to survive.”

“In that vein,” Michael said, “We’re all due back at work.” The river was still rising.

“Sandbagging detail,” Randy moaned. “My arms are already three inches longer from lifting those bags.”

“Trade you,” Michael and Jim spoke together. Digging mass graves was a horror.

“No, thanks,” Randy said quickly. “I guess sandbagging is better than drowning.”

“You could always grow gills,” Ellen offered, accepting the change of subject for now. Her thoughts turned back to the prisoners. Use their labor as war reparations, feed them enough to keep them alive until the danger of flooding passes. Then drive them out--and kill them if they return. Except for the children. So many Freeholders had died that they could take in the refugee’s children. No one on the Council had the heart to turn them away.

Chapter 28: Spring

“Glad, do you have any idea where we are?” Dikeme stood in ankle deep ash amid a forest of charred tree trunks, looking downhill at a gray, sludge-choked river twisting through the hills. Fresh green poked up through the ash, here and there, a promise that the forest wasn’t totally dead.

Otha looked into the antique brass sextant he’d salvaged and sighted on the dull orange ball as it appeared, then disappeared behind the heavy haze.

“Well?”

Glad sighed, and smiled. “North America,” he said. “I think.”

She socked his shoulder then joined him chuckling. Nothing could conquer his sense of humor. Not the horrors they’d witnessed, nor the roving gangs they avoided. Not even, when, forced ever southward by lava flows, they had been unable to reach his family farm in Illinois.

“Probably Southwestern Missouri, but…” he shrugged. They’d been lost before. Compass headings were so wobbly and unreliable he wondered if the asteroid was magnetic. Their rare glimpses of the pole star showed it much lower on the horizon than was reasonable. Near as he could tell Earth’s tectonic plates had shifted so far that Canada, which he was used to thinking of as North of the US lay sort of West and unless he was totally crazy the latitude of the entire continent of North America was much more equatorial than before.

“I understand,” she said.

When they’d crossed the frozen Mississippi River last winter above St. Louis only Otha’s Rand-McNally Road Atlas and a rusted sign that read “Lock and Dam No. 25” let them know where they were.

At least the sun was on its way back after an interminable winter.

Not back yet, he thought, looking again at the orange blob, but the weather was definitely warmer and spring-like new growth showed here and there.

Glad slipped the sextant into a flap pocket and shouldered his pack. “Let’s get on over this hill and find a place to camp.”

Di nodded and followed his lead, slipping a moistened bandanna up over her nose to filter the ash-dust their passage stirred. She hoped they’d be well out of this before the next wind came up.

An hour later they crested the hill and stopped to rest. Otha dug out his binoculars and began scanning the valley below and the hills around them. He sneezed as a dust devil blew by and when he opened his eyes it was there, a glint of water on the horizon.

“Must be a lake, or another big river out there,” he said with another sigh. He hated river crossings. They were so exposed.

“It appears to be quite large,” Di responded in her British tones, lowering her own binoculars. “And unless I am mistaken there is an inhabited farm over there.”

She pointed to a wispy column of smoke rising from a house set in a cleft between hills at least a mile away. “It looks rather isolated. Shall we risk a visit?”

Otha nodded reluctantly to her bright-eyed request. She obviously wanted to check out the farm. They’d been shot at so often since The Dying Time began that they rarely attempted contact with others. But occasionally they would risk it just to talk to someone else for a change.

They spent the rest of the day scouting around the farm, looking for signs that would indicate the inhabitants were hostile and finding none. As always, they would approach at dusk. It was easier to get away in the dark, if things went bad. The only people they saw were a woman and a boy; though they could see two fresh graves in the small cemetery behind the house. One bore a carved wooden marker that read, “Dr. Harold Garrison--He fought to save the world.” The other grave marker said simply, “Jonathon Hicks.”

The woman and boy had spent almost the entire day working in a large, well-tended garden. Rows of pole beans and squash were up but the plants were sickly looking in the pale light and far from ready for picking. The two, obviously mother and son were weeding and harvesting early spring crops: lettuce, spinach, beets, radishes, turnips, snap peas and broccoli. Di tried to remember how long it had been since she and Otha had eaten anything that didn’t come in a can. Movement attracted her eye.

“Is that a nanny goat?” Di pointed to a pen beside the barn.

“Yeah,” Glad answered. “And those are real live chickens and geese free-ranging the yard.” His mouth watered. Neither of them had tasted fresh eggs in the two years since the Impact.

A squealy-grunt came from inside the barn. Pigs.

It took hours for them to figure out that what had them spooked about the farm was its apparent normalcy.

The geese honked in alarm as Otha approached.

“Hello, the house,” Glad called out.

The woman answered, her voice cautious. “Who’s there?”

“Sergeant Otha Gladson, ma’am, with a lady friend. We’re peaceful and more than willing to work for food.”

Sheila Garrison laughed, opened the door and stepped outside. The rifle in her hand was pointed at the ground. “Robby and I were wondering if you two were going to introduce yourselves or just keep skulking around.”

“Just being cautious ma’am,” Otha responded, wondering how they knew.

As if she had read his mind Sheila nodded and answered, “It was the geese, you know. They watched you circle the place all day. Well, don’t just stand there. Come on in.”

Di and Otha stayed for two weeks, during which time they swapped history and news. Sheila told them how her family had survived a hurricane, found this abandoned farm, and how Harry died of pneumonia. They told her about new volcanoes in Illinois and Ohio and about their meeting on the Empire State building. And when the newfound friends left there were tears in their eyes as they said their good-byes.

Otha saw Dikeme looking back over her shoulder as the farm disappeared from view, but said nothing. Both had agreed to leave the safety and peace of the farm to follow his dream of mapping the new world.

*

California

Air Force

Joey the Giant thought for a second he was in heaven as he and his men rolled down route 83 into the Chino Airport. And he was--war bird heaven, for Chino Airport houses the Planes of Fame Museum, hangars full of perfectly restored, flight ready, military aircraft dating from World Wars I and II, the Korean War, and Vietnam. Joey began a whirlwind tour.

In the jet hangar his eyes roamed over F-8 Crusaders, the last jet built for dog fighting, which sat side by side with F-86 Sabres, an F-11 Tiger, and an F-104 Starfighter. There also were Mig-15's, 17's and 19's.

Another hanger housed P-51 Mustangs, a pair of Messerschmitt BF-109's, a Japanese Zero, a couple of P-47 Thunderbolts, and an old P-40 Warhawk, complete with shark-mouth paint job. Gull-wing Corsairs, P-38 Lightnings, the list went on, a treasure house. Joey's eyes watered. God had delivered to him a great gift.

Of course, none of the planes were equipped with weapons. They were the lovingly restored toys of wealthy private-pilot collectors, people who couldn't bear to see them rust away or be melted down for scrap. But installing guns was a mere detail as far as Joey was concerned. Here was his Air Force!

Earthquake and tornado damage was minimal at Chino, though the runways were broken and buckled. He would order slave gangs to repair them immediately.

His main concerns were a support staff of mechanics knowledgeable about these old birds, and pilots skilled enough to fly them. Here again, he had come to the right place. Faded signs above a pair of small hangars proclaimed them the home of Aero Traders and the Military Aircraft Restoration Company. There would be records of employees and pilots there and if any still lived, he would find them.

*

The Freeholds

“Mommy, what’s that?” Steven asked.

Ellen Whitebear laughed when she saw what he was pointing at. “That’s your shadow, honey,” she answered. Imagine, she thought, four years old and he’s never seen his shadow in sunlight.

She basked in the warmth of the sun on her skin. Right now nothing mattered except the sun was out, oh glorious day! Ellen Whitebear whirled her laughing son around in a circle and sat him down.

Farther down the valley she could see roofs being mended, gardens being tended, and school aged children, including many they’d taken in from the refugees who’d attacked them, playing as if they didn’t have a care in the world. A large shadow whipped past and she said, “Wave at daddy,” as Michael flew in the Pegasus, heading out on patrol. They’d not be caught by surprise again.

*

Stanford, California

Sara Garcia picked a weed from between radish seedlings and wiped her brow, smiling at the shadow her arm cast. She had always found gardening relaxing until it became a matter of survival. Placing one hand against the small of her back, she groaned as she straightened up. Now it was just hard work. Still, she surveyed the tender young leaves poking up from the dark soil and inhaled the odor of rich earth, gardening was rewarding and things could be worse. At least the incessant rains had stopped.

Weather was still unpredictable to say the least, with hideous storms blowing in off the Pacific, but the quakes had mostly stopped and the fires were mostly out. Along with the sun! She glanced up at the bright yellow ball, closed her eyes and enjoyed its warmth. A slow smile spread across her face. She couldn’t get over how good it felt to be alive.

“Sara!”

She twisted around at his approach and said, “Hi, Grandpa.”

He was looking better as Spring blossomed. She figured his eyes would always appear sad, knowing he would never see Ariel again, but his sense of purpose had put strength back into his stride.

“Come here,” he beckoned.

She pushed herself up and followed him to a small group of people standing near the summit of the hill.

“This is Will Benton,” Raoul was saying. “And he has some good news for us.”

A balding man with a heavy brown beard and mustache held out his hand. “Pleased to meet you, Ma’am.”

Sara took in his gap-toothed smile and felt the calluses on his palm when they shook hands.

“My wife, Clarissa, and my daughter, Trish,” Will said.

A large blonde woman whose clothes hung off her like she’d lost too much weight too fast, gave her a wan smile. The girl, who looked to be in her mid-teens, had her mom’s blonde hair and deep blue eyes, but hers were alert and intelligent.

“We just escaped from down south,” the girl said in a take no prisoners tone.

Sara tensed. No one in Stanford welcomed anyone from the South. Cannibals!

“It’s okay, Sara,” Raoul said. He turned to Will. “Please continue.”

“The Scarlatti’s have big trouble,” Will announced gleefully. “There’s some really nasty bug thinning his ranks and he’s run into a National Guard outfit almost as big as his ‘Royal’ army.”

Noting Sara’s ashen pallor, Raoul interrupted. “What is it?” But Sara was already questioning Will.

“What symptoms are associated with this bug?” she asked.

She was a doctor and all through the winter there had been outbreaks of Typhoid Fever, Dysentery, and Flu. She’d lost patients to diseases she could no longer conquer with the correct injection. Most antibiotics were well past their shelf life. With so many dead bodies lying around and improper sanitation, with exploding populations of rats and ground squirrels…and now as Will explained the symptoms she paled further. It sounded like a cross between Ebola and maybe Anthrax or Bubonic plague with some flesh eating virus thrown in for good measure. Something like that almost had to be an escaped militarized virus, and she wondered who had been so stupid as to design such a thing.

Even more, she wondered how in the world she was supposed to fight it.

*

Southern California

Pestilence

Joey stepped out of the reeking hospital tent and drew a shaky breath. He wiped sweat from his brow with his sleeve. Hard to believe what he had just seen.

Doctor Jason Merriman pushed through the flap and joined him. Joey turned to the man. “What is it? What can do that to a man?”

It wasn’t like Joey to show it when he was rattled, but this!

“I wish I knew, Your Majesty,” the doctor answered, then continued. “I think it’s more than just one epidemic.”

Joey flinched at the word, but the doctor went on. “Sometimes it looks like bubonic plague, which we could expect with all the rodents around. But then it looks like flesh eating Strep or Ebola. Hundreds of the men have flu-like symptoms. Several dozen have Typhoid because of the unsanitary conditions around here. Twenty are down with Cholera, which is deadly enough in its own right. Three even have Rabies.” He threw up his arms. “My staff is being overwhelmed.”

Joseph Scarlatti, King of California, didn’t like excuses--didn’t accept them from his military advisors, but this was an enemy he didn’t know how to beat.

“Recommendations?”

Jason Merriman looked up into those ice blue eyes and summoned his nerve. “Evacuate.” The Hippocratic oath meant nothing to this particular physician.

“Where to?” Joey wondered aloud. Mexicans, fleeing horrendous conditions in their own country, were pouring across the border joining surviving Americans in stripping Southern California’s carcass. East of the San Gabriels his son John and the bulk of his army were fighting desperately to hold back a well-trained and well-equipped National Guard unit. North was nothing but ruins and desolation for as far as his scouts had ventured. His empire was threatened before it was even established. What the hell had he done to deserve this? Wouldn’t God ever tire of testing him? Stop that, he scolded himself. He just wasn’t looking at this from the right perspective.

Joey paced back and forth for a moment, his right hand stroking his golden beard. “The Plague is worse down toward San Diego, right?”

Merriman nodded.

Joey spun toward Jamal Rashid. “Tell John to break contact. Withdraw north along the coast. We’ll meet at the Paso Robles ruins. Go!”

Joey grabbed Anthony’s arm. “Tell the Crips and Bloods La Raza is coming in from the South. Tell them to hold the line from Riverside to Huntington Beach.” Anthony nodded uncertainly. “Tell them we’ve beaten the Guard to the East and we’ll join them ASAP.”

Now Anthony was obviously puzzled, and Joey’s grip tightened painfully on his arm. “Don’t you get it? The gang bangers will kill themselves off fighting turf wars and the Guard will roll over the survivors--right into the plague. When the dust settles we’ll walk back in and mop up.”

The light dawned in Anthony’s eyes. His father was always telling him to think outside the box. “So all we’ll have to do is keep the Guard from breaking out to the North when they start getting sick.” He looked at his father with new respect. “It’s brilliant.”

Joseph wore a twisted smile as the couriers headed for the gangs. It was even better than Anthony realized. His army would have had to eliminate the rowdier blacks and browns anyhow. He’d only managed to control them this long because he’d grabbed the food first, and because his army was stronger.

Yes sir, every problem presented its own solution. It was all a matter of perspective.

*

“No, I can’t stop now,” the tall man mumbled to his image in the broken mirror. “I can’t ever stop.”

He picked up another faded, water-stained photograph off the mildewed carpet and clasped it against his chest. A pretty woman with black hair and jade green eyes smiled at him from the tattered picture. He knew her from…somewhere. If only he could remember. He carefully placed the photo in a battered blue Samsonite suitcase, the one that held his other almost-memories.

He heard a noise and froze. Gunmen? He always hid from soldiers. He risked a peek out the window but didn’t see any. Good! Gunmen were bad!

“Gunmen hurt me,” he whispered to the mirror, running his right hand along the dent in his skull. It was a mercy that, except for the dent, he saw himself like he was before The Dying Time. Now his clothes were frayed layers of filth-encrusted rags. His skin, once fair, was now dark with years of engrained dirt. His thin hair, now white, if grimy, spilled out from under a crumpled fedora.

He heard the sound again, or thought he did (he could never be too sure anymore), so he hid in the closet among the moth-eaten moldy clothes and abandoned mouse nests. His nose didn’t mind. If it could get used to his smell nothing could bother it.

The daylight coming in under the closet door faded away, and still he didn’t move. Gunmen were clever. Sometimes they waited a long time.

The man’s time sense worked about as well as his memory. Why, only yesterday he’d warned the President--a tomcat screamed triumph as a rat died. It was safe to go out now. Cats didn’t hunt when gunmen were around.

His stomach growled, and he answered its call, leaving the closet, picking up a curtain rod, which he used to drive the black and white cat away from its prey. With practiced ease he skinned and gutted the rat, carefully cleaning his Swiss army knife in the dirt before folding it and returning it to his pocket. He wanted to leave, to get back to--somewhere, somewhere important; but it was dark, and the closet was kind of cozy and his memory-box was there.

“Can’t stop. Can’t stop,” he muttered as he chewed. But he could sleep. Tomorrow he would go back to the headache place, and continue trying to pick up the pieces of his life.

*

In northern New Mexico, Hobbes, scented blood and roared. The puma eating from the freshly killed buck snarled back. Hobbes lunged out of the tall grass and the mountain lion jumped like it had been scalded. Hobbes had notable advantages in strength and size. The lion, possibly quicker, had never seen anything like Hobbes, whose russet orange and black stripes, and great mouth filled with large fangs intimidated the smaller cat into a rapid retreat.

Hobbes sniffed at his meal, marked the ground around the deer with his scent, placed a huge paw on the carcass and with a mighty wrench of his jaws tore off an entire haunch. With the leg in his mouth he strolled off in search of a place to eat and nap, secure in the belief no animal smarter than a magpie would dare disturb his food.

Hobbes had journeyed far since Randy Kellogg released him from the Denver Zoo. He had matured and was seeking a mate, and there were intriguing scents around.

*

The Guard

“Sir,” Captain Horvak said. He waited a moment then reached out and touched the General’s shoulder. “Sir!”

Roland Mabry stirred from an all too brief sleep and wiped a hand across his face.

“What is it, Captain?

“That army of traitors we’ve been keeping tabs on seems to be pulling out of Los Angeles. They’re heading north, Sir, but they’ve left a detachment at Chino.”

“Damn!,” General Mabry exclaimed. “I should have thought of that. We’ve been checking military airbases and finding ruins and I forgot all about the Confederate Air Force at Chino.”

“There’s more, Sir. Lieutenant Perry’s detachment of scouts reported contacting a large force of Marines and recruits from down Pendleton way. Don’t know yet how they weathered The Dying Time, but their commander is eager to meet with you. He’s on his way here now, Sir.”

As General Roland Mabry considered this news a fire kindled in his eyes. Finally, he might be able to hit back at that self-styled King.

“Thank you, Captain. Have my orderly boil me up some of that God-awful brew he calls coffee. Officer’s call in fifteen.”

As the Captain turned away General Mabry touched his arm, halting him.

“And Captain,” the General said. “None of us has ‘weathered’ The Dying Time yet.”

“Yes, Sir,” the Captain said, and ducked out the flap of the command tent.

*

Denver

Michael Whitebear, Jim Cantrell, Chad Baily and Wayne Anderson stepped inside the ruins of the Denver Public Library and paused to survey the mess.

“Man!” Jim said, staring at the chaos.

“What you said,” Wayne agreed.

“Too, right,” Chad’s British accent chimed in. “What wasn’t burnt got properly soaked in the rains.” He sniffed the air and sneezed. “Mildew,” he explained.

“And rats,” Michael added.

“Where?” Jim asked, his voice edgy. He hated rats.

Chad waved his arms around. “Near everywhere, I’d say.”

Jim’s eyes adjusted to the dim light and he saw what Chad meant. Piles of shredded pages--nests, furtive movements and how could he have missed the distinctive musty and highly unpleasant odor of rat urine. “Damn.”

“We didn’t come this far to go back empty-handed,” Michael said, hefting his baseball bat. They all carried ball bats Jim had dubbed “Rat Rockers”.

They had tethered their horses in the woods of Waterton Canyon and entered Denver quietly, following the South Platte River drainage and avoiding Viper’s patrols. Other than weapons and ammo, each man carried a canteen, some jerky, and an empty duffle bag, for books.

“Well,” Jim said. “Ellen thinks we need these books enough to risk this trip so let’s do it. I think we better stay together.” He eyed a large brown rat nervously. “No shooting.” They didn’t want to bring Viper down on them. “Everyone have their lists?”

They all nodded.

“Okay,” he said and started forward. “Remember, anything on military strategy, especially guerrilla warfare takes top priority. Survival guides and How-to’s come next.”

By nightfall, when they headed back, their duffle bags were stuffed with irreplaceable books on everything from “Special Forces Guerrilla Warfare Manual and “The Improvised Munitions Black Book” to “Survival Nurse”, “Ditch Medicine and The Survival Medicine Book by Doctor Bones and Nurse Amy.” They had also learned the library rats avoided people with the kind of wariness that comes from being hunted for food. And if Viper’s army was hunting rats, their food supply must be all but exhausted.

*

The ISS

“My God, would you look at that?” Mia Torno had been glued to a porthole, taking photos, ever since The Shroud began to lift.

Suzy Yakamoto’s brows knitted as she took in the view. “Is that North America?” Commander Kent and General Pavel Yurimentov entered what they’d taken to calling the observation lounge and Clark Kent said, “Did I hear someone say North America?”

“What remains of it,” Mia Torno said, clicking away.

Clark and Pavel looked out, saw nothing familiar, and Clark asked, “What makes you think so?”

“Because I’m pretty sure that chain of mountains running down the center is the Rockies,” Mia said.

“And those mountains farther to the left? I think those might be the Cascades,” Suzy added.

“But there’s an ocean between them,” Clark said.

“Technically, I think that would be a gulf,” Mia said.

“I don’t really care what it’s called, Mia. It means large parts of Arizona, California, Nevada and Utah are under water.”

“Better than lava,” Pavel said. They’d seen what was left of Russia the day before and most of it was blanketed with ash and molten rock.

“Six of one, half dozen of the other,” Clark said. They hadn’t picked up any radio chatter or seen any large groupings of lights night side. Hard to believe anyone could survive such devastation.

“Wow,” Suzy whispered. “I think a big chunk of the Great Plains is under water too.” Through gaps between storm fronts they could see a lot of pale blue water--a greatly expanded Gulf of Mexico.

“How?” Clark asked. “I mean, even if the polar ice caps melted completely sea levels wouldn’t get that high.”

“The land subsided,” Mia said. “It’s the only feasible explanation. Magma pumps out of the mantle and the crust sinks.”

They looked on in silence as their orbit carried them east. The Great Lakes were gone along with most of the Hudson Bay. Of Southern Florida there was no sign.

“Everything is so different,” Clark said.

A klaxon alarm sounded and Alice Anderson’s voice came over the ship’s intercom. “Pressure drop in the nursery. I repeat. Pressure drop in the nursery and Li-Ying isn’t responding.” Li was their pediatrician.

Pavel flew out the hatch with the others close behind. A pressure drop almost always meant they’d been holed by a micro-meteorite and his son was in the nursery.

*

A film of red globules drifted around the nursery and Li-Ying Chin’s eyes were glazed in death. Like a cosmic bullet the micro-meteorite that punctured the ship tore through her carotid artery as well. Part of the bloody mist congregated around two tiny holes on opposite walls, making them easy to find. Suzy and Mia slapped patches over the holes while Clark collected Li’s body and Alexi looked his son over for injuries.

Ludmilla sailed into the room so fast she bounced off the ceiling before regaining control. “Yuri?” she asked frantically.

“He’s fine,” Pavel said, handing their son to her.

“What about Angela?” Ludmilla asked.

“She’s with Christine, nursing,” Clark said. His daughter--the first child born in space, since Yuri was born on the moon--was just over a year old and was almost always with her mother.

*

“I’ll miss Li,” Christine said. She and Clark were off duty, tethered to their berth with Angela securely attached to her left breast and sucking greedily. “She was so good with the children.”

Clark nodded agreement and said, “I’m worried about Kenny Chang. They were close.”

“Kenny was close to Li because they could speak Mandarin,” Christine said. “And because it gave him a good excuse to hang around the nursery. He’s head over heels for Aeriella and she’s always there.”

“Really,” Clark said, then, to change the subject asked, “When is Aurora One due back?” Aurora Two was permanently docked at the ISS, serving as their emergency escape vehicle.

“They’ll dock next watch,” Christine said.

The space plane, under Captain Mary Adams was ferrying supplies to the moon where the bulk of the ISS crew were tunneling to expand Luna City into a permanent moon base. Their years in zero G had caused irreversible bone density loss and everyone aboard now understood the need for a home with gravity. Otherwise they’d never be able to return to Earth. No one was willing to talk about never being able to do so.

A distinct odor permeated their quarters and Christine handed Angela to Clark, held her nose, and said, “Your turn.” Diaper duty in zero G was a truly nasty affair and as for potty training, using the facilities was difficult enough for the adults.

Chapter 29: Surveying

“I don’t believe this,” Otha straightened up from the transit and did some hurried calculations. “According to this, Pike’s Peak is almost two thousand feet lower than it used to be. I mean we’ve seen some dramatic changes--but man!”

Di’s horse snorted and she broke out laughing. “I see I’m not the only skeptic. But seriously, after dodging lava flows in Illinois and sailing across most of Kansas I should imagine you would be used to such surprises by now.” She frowned, wrinkling her brow. “Could we be that far off since New York?”

“Not New York. I took new bearings from sea level in Kansas. Of course, this far away my angle’s probably off. I’ll shoot it again when we get closer.” He slapped himself in the head. “Unless sea level has changed…but of course it has! The heat from those fire falls and volcanoes would have melted at least some of the icepacks at the poles and…”

She smiled at him.

Otha grinned up at her. “Okay, okay…more on this topic later.”

He wrapped the transit in a towel and stuffed it in his mount’s saddlebag. The horse tore another mouthful of reddish-green rye grass from the prairie and sidestepped away as he tried to mount.

“Oh, no you don’t,” Otha said, swinging his leg over and settling into the saddle. He’d been thrown into yucca, Canadian Thistle, and even prickly pear cactus before, and his horsemanship had improved dramatically. The gray stallion bucked twice just to make its point.

”I told you we should have caught another mare,” Di chided. “But you had to have a stallion.” They had trapped a small herd of horses in a steep-walled dry wash more than a month ago, picking four of the best to break as saddle and packhorses.

“I never claimed to have much horse sense,” Glad punned causing her to make a face. “I just know enough to understand that my stallion plus three mares eventually equals a herd of domestic horses.” He pointed toward the looming mountains. “Shall we?”

“How long until we arrive in Colorado Springs?” Di asked.

“Hard to say.” They were both still getting used to judging the distance they could cover on horseback, and Pike’s Peak still looked a long ways off. He glanced up at the sun. Two p.m. “Probably tomorrow.”

*

California

The Headache-place buildings were ruins, everything broken or burned. Different, but familiar. What kept drawing him back? He pawed through the rubble, searching. His fingernails broke as he moved concrete slabs. His fingers cracked and split and still he dug. His head hurt from trying to remember.

The muscles in his back were on fire. Days passed. He stopped only to hunt for food, sleep when too exhausted to continue, or to hide from the sound of motors. And then one day he remembered what he was looking for--HOPE!

“Bad things happened here,” he whispered, removing a skeleton from the hole he was digging. “But hope is near. Hope is near.”

*

Paso Robles

King Joseph Scarlatti clapped his hands together. “I love it when a plan comes together,” he said, quoting from one of his favorite movies. “Tony?”

Heads turned to the map at the front of the room. Anthony Scarlatti picked up a pointer and tapped the map in the Northridge area. “The plague has done most of our work for us,” he said. “There aren’t enough combat effectives left in that Guard unit to pose a serious threat, but they are still organized enough to make it costly if we attack their line. The pointer scratched a path from Northridge through Santa Monica. Besides, Bonetti says the sickness is still there and if we go back in now we’ll never contain the outbreak.”

Heads nodded around the table. The exploding population of rats would probably make containing the plague impossible anyhow, but after the massive losses they’d suffered no one wanted to go where they knew it was still active.

“I know John wants to head east over the San Bernadinos and take over any small communities or towns--consolidate our gains and gather our strength, but I think we should strike North.” The pointer smacked into San Francisco.

“Gentlemen, we have the seeds of Empire in our grasp. It will be ours if we are bold! We cannot give our future subjects time to organize. We already know of growing communities around Stanford and Berkeley, Oakland and Frisco. If we hesitate, there could easily be more than one Empire in California.”

He looked to his father, who nodded approval. King Joseph had almost coached Tony on what to say, but now he was glad he hadn’t. Tony thought like he did and that made him proud.

“We must go north now! We will absorb new troops as we move and train them on the march. If we take San Francisco no one will be able to stand against us. California will be ours--and after that, who knows?”

The door to the conference room opened and John Scarlatti entered the room like a thundercloud. His fatigues were stained with dirt and blood. His left arm was in a sling and worry lines etched his face.

The room stilled as everyone turned to look at him.

“We were attacked and overrun at Chino,” he explained.

Joseph Scarlatti shot his son a worried look.

“We got most of the planes out before they broke through and we were able to destroy the ones we couldn’t fly out,” he added.

“Who did this?” Joseph asked.

“You know that Guard unit we’ve been fighting the past two months? Well, they linked up with some Marines from Camp Pendleton. I don’t know how many. They chewed us up and spit us out so fast I couldn’t get a count. My point is, if we head north now they’ll be nipping at our heels the whole way. We have to end this threat first.”

Joseph rose to his feet and, as usual when that happened, he commanded the attention of all in the room. Decisions such as these made men Kings or relegated them to the scrap heaps of history. His troops were exhausted from months of continuous hard fighting. Plague had hit them hard. Supplies were running low. Even so, his instincts said to attack, but he doubted he could get anyone to move back toward LA and the plague.

“Double the scavenging parties--emphasis on arms and food as usual but what we really need are more bodies so triple the slave draft. We make our stand here,” he said.

*

Stanford

Sara Garcia had been in surgery for more than a day. None of the clocks worked so she had no idea how long. The community militia was taking casualties from armed gangs up north in San Francisco. One operation after another, the wounded kept coming. She was so tired it was hard to keep her eyes open. Some time before, she wasn’t sure exactly when, her hands began to tremble, so she turned the scalpel over to her trainee, a nurse named Alicia Diggs, and stood at the woman’s shoulder guiding her through the procedure.

“Forceps,” Alicia said. She held out her hand and the assisting nurse placed a pair of forceps in her palm without Alicia ever once looking away from her patient. She used the forceps to extract a third piece of shrapnel from the patient’s perforated intestine. The sound it made clanking into a metal tray was grim. Without antibiotics such injuries were most often fatal.

“Sponge,” Alicia ordered. The suction device was down so nurses had to sponge away the blood so she could look for more fragments. Without power there were no X-rays to guide her.

The patient moaned and before Sara could speak up Alicia barked, “More drip!” They were reduced to using ether as an anesthetic.

Sara placed a hand on Alicia’s shoulder and squeezed gently. Nothing like being thrown into deep water to teach you to swim. She was proud of Alicia. The woman was her star pupil. Another few months at this pace and Alicia would be teaching others the basics. She watched carefully as Alicia stitched the hole in the intestine, flushed the wound, waited while it was sponged out, and checked for foreign objects before closing.

Several patients later, Sara could no longer function. She needed sleep and food, and since her house was less than a block from the hospital she decided to go home. Placing her bloodied scrubs in a laundry bag she staggered out.

Sara opened the door and stepped inside the small ranch-style house she shared with Raoul. Instantly an intriguing scent claimed her attention. She inhaled deeply letting the delightful aroma wash away the weariness she wore home from the hospital.

“What smells so good?” she asked.

Raoul’s voice drifted to her from the kitchen. “Nothing much,” he said dryly. “Just chicken teriyaki with herb and butter rice.”

Her mouth watered. “Are you kidding?” she asked, suddenly energized.

Silence from the kitchen.

“Are you kidding?” She asked again quickstepping toward the kitchen.

Raoul stuck his head out around the corner. “Would I kid my favorite granddaughter?”

“With your last breath,” she replied, entering the kitchen. She stopped, stunned. He wasn’t kidding!

Her mouth gaped like a fish before she found her voice. “Where did you get all this?”

The back half of the kitchen was littered with treasure. A twenty-pound propane bottle fed a gas grill, on which, Raoul was basting chicken breasts and thighs with teriyaki sauce. The rest of the chicken cooked in a pot of boiling water on the other end of the grill. The rice simmered in a large frying pan between them. All the windows and doors were open for ventilation.

On the floor were three tins of tuna, a few cans of beans, a pair of flashlights, packages of batteries, a case of Rice-a-Roni herb and butter rice, candles, a box of wood matches, what appeared to be down sleeping bags, a pair of backpacks, a lightweight tent, a bag of flour and, she gasped, a five-pound bag of sugar.

“Am I dreaming?” She turned to Raoul with a smile. “And if I am, don’t you dare wake me until after we eat.”

Raoul grinned back and said, “It’s no dream.”

“But…” she gestured helplessly.

“The Council has the chicken coops running well enough now to cull hens that stop laying.”

Well, that explains the chicken, she thought.

“And the rest are donations from your patients at the hospital. I’ve been saving it up to surprise you.”

She stared at him blankly.

“Hellooo,” he said. “Happy birthday!”

She broke out a smile and gave it to him. “How did you know when I’d be home?”

“Alicia sent a runner about an hour ago to let me know you were out on your feet. By the way, Will Benton gave us the sugar after you removed Trish’s inflamed appendix.”

Sara shook her head sadly. “I’ve asked folks not to do that. We can’t keep all this.”

Raoul turned the chicken on the grill and basted it again. He removed the cover from the frying pan so the rice wouldn’t get soggy, grabbed a wooden spoon, and stirred the chicken boiling in the pot.

“These gifts came from people whose lives you saved Sara,” he said. “They want you to have them.”

“But…” she pointed at the pile. “It’s too much. These things are irreplaceable. No one makes batteries or matches anymore and who knows how long it will be before someone does.”

“You are absolutely correct,” Raoul said. “But, Sara, we live in a barter economy now. Your patients needed to give you something for their own self-respect. We swap goods and skills we have for those we don’t. And your skills save lives. You may be the only Board Certified Thoracic Surgeon in the entire world! No one can put a price on that knowledge.”

“The gardeners, scavengers and fishermen provide the food that keeps us all alive,” she responded. “Our militia defends us from criminals and marauders. The repair crews fix our homes. Are their contributions less important than mine? They certainly aren’t paid as well. I’m giving it back.” She took two plates out of the cabinets and set them on the table.

Raoul snorted. “Fine. Go ahead. Insult them. Show them your wishes are more important than theirs.”

Sara pursed her lips, then sighed as she saw his point. He was right. She reached for the silverware, wondering if she would ever win an argument with her grandfather. We can always donate most of it to the Community Food Bank, she thought.

The aroma of the food caressed her nose and she smiled again. Alicia had once told her she was tougher than cured concrete but right now her will power felt more like melted butter.

*

Eastern Colorado

The shot came out of nowhere. Otha and Di reined their horses in and sat very still. The shot was well-aimed kicking up dust between them. Whoever it was could have killed one of them.

“That’s right! You just sit there!”

Otha saw some tall weeds move and a white-haired man holding a very steady rifle stepped from hiding.

He alone? Otha wondered.

“We can take him if we have too,” Di whispered.

“Don’t get any ideas,” the man said, stepping closer. “There’s others covering you.”

“You ain’t from around here,” the man said, cocking his head. “But you look familiar. Where you from?”

Otha saw the man’s fingers tense on the rifle, as if the answer was important.

“Illinois originally and the Army most recently,” Otha said, friendly. “Dikeme here is from Zululand in Africa.” The man’s eyes widened, but his fingers relaxed. “She was with me in New York City when The Dying Time began.”

The man raised an eyebrow.

“I might look familiar because I was on TV for a while before everything went to hell. Otha Gladson’s the name.”

“Uh huh,” the man nodded, seeming to make up his mind. “Well, if you’ve come all the way from New York you must be hungry. You want to step down from those horses, my place ain’t far. You’d be welcome; mostly because I’m dying to hear some news!” He stepped close and held out his hand as Otha dismounted.

“Name’s Earl Baker,” he said as they shook. “Sorry about the greeting, but there’s some Black folks up around Denver…” He paused and shook his head. “Well, just don’t go near there.”

“We appreciate the warning,” Dikeme said.

As they led the horses after Earl a teenage girl, two small boys and a woman stepped from the weeds and joined them. All were armed and all had been invisible until they showed themselves.

“Can’t be too cautious nowadays,” Earl said. “This is my wife, Bobbi, my daughter Marci and my two sons, Lake and Zeb. My family and I mostly stay up in the mountains around Buena Vista and the Freeholds.”

“Freeholds?” Di asked.

“Yeah,” Earl said. “Group of folks have some homesteads up west of Colorado Springs. Good people.”

Otha and Di nodded, filing the info for later use.

“Anyhow, as I was saying, we mostly stay in the mountains but we come down in the spring to plant a garden and come back in summer for harvest.”

“Don’t the deer eat it all?” Otha asked.

“Deer population’s coming back slow so we don’t eat much venison. Besides the garden’s fenced off good. Prairie dogs, rabbits and birds give us more problems.”

He chuckled. “Be having prairie dog and rabbit stew for dinner.”

“Sir,” Dikeme said. “You are a lifesaver. We haven’t had much fresh meat since we were in Missouri.”

“We do have some smoked fish we could share with you,” Otha added. “Caught plenty crossing Kansas. No albacore or swordfish.” He sighed theatrically. “Will sea bass do?”

“Sea bass?” Earl’s wife exclaimed. “From Kansas?”

Otha exchanged an amused glance with Dikeme. Wait until we tell them about the rest of the Eastern U.S.

*

Near the Freeholds

Ellen Whitebear’s horse snorted and shied away from the trees. A flash of motion caught her eye between the pines, then another. Too quick to ID. She turned her mare away from the woods. What was in there? It almost felt like something was stalking them.

“Mommy?” Her four-year-old son, Steven, rode behind her holding on to her waist while she made a short side trip just over the ridge from camp to entertain her son and maybe find something useful.

“Yes, Honey?”

“Why are the dogs playing with us?”

Her skin crawled at his words, and she kicked her horse into a trot. Steven had never had a pet dog. Dogs had gone wild after The Dying Time, formed packs, scavenged corpses, then turned to live prey.

First they went after livestock. Domestic cattle and sheep, bred for centuries to be docile, lacked the instincts to survive in the new world and were easy pickings. They didn’t last long. Now wild dogs ate anything they could pull down, horses, longhorns, buffalo, llamas and people. They were shot on sight.

The valley was narrowing and she no longer wanted to enter the gorge at the end so she slowed her horse and looked around. A small creek ran down the middle of the valley and where there were streams there were willow shrubs lining them. Dense thickets, all but impenetrable. Motion from there too.

God, how many were in this pack? And how had they survived the long winter? The answer flashed across her mind: frozen corpses.

She headed her horse around, back up the valley and immediately saw them across her path--a line of heads bounding toward her in the grass, now coming from the trees and willows, closing on her like a school of barracudas. Dozens of them.

She pulled her rifle from its scabbard and Steven, having known nothing but perilous times sensed the threat and tightened his grip on her waist. Ellen was an instinctive shooter, sharp and quick, but more important she stayed cool and steady. She pulled the 3030 to her cheek and levered three fast shots.

Three dogs fell, a small gap in their line.

“Hang on tight, Honey,” she yelled as she spurred for the break.

She emptied the rifle, widening the gap. But these dogs had done this before and there was no quit in them. They charged faster.

Ellen’s hat blew off; her long blonde hair streamed behind as she leaned over her mare and yelled encouragement. The horse blasted through the line and flew up the valley, clods of dirt flying off its hooves.

“Wheee!” Steven screamed, his eyes bright with joy.

The Rottweiler that leapt at her mare’s throat seemed to come from nowhere. The horse shied violently and before she could react Ellen was thrown to the ground.

“Mommy!” Terror, this time.

Instantly, Ellen was up, pistol in hand. The Rottweiler’s head exploded with her shot as it lunged for her son. Her horse was racing away head turned to the side to avoid stepping on the reins. She snapped a shot that dropped it. The closest dogs would go for the horse first.

She snatched Steven up with her free arm and dashed for the nearest trees, three large aspen at the edge of the meadow. She didn’t have to look to know the pack was almost on her.

She heaved Steven into the nearest tree and screamed, “Climb!” Ellen whirled to face her attackers, pistol spitting bullets, dogs dropping, pistol clicking empty. She heaved it at them, pulled her camp knife with one hand and picked up a fallen tree branch with her other.

Sweeping the branch back and forth to keep the space in front of her clear, she set her back against the aspen. A large poodle yelped as it tried for her arm and got a nose-full of branch instead. She swiped her knife at a German Shepherd and missed. Two mongrels and a Husky lunged at once.

She bashed one with the branch and felt her knife bite deep into another. Then fangs tore into her calf and side. Agony flared and she fell. More dogs swarmed over her, snapping, and tearing at her. At least they wouldn’t get her son.

Gunshots volleyed into the pack and like magic the dogs disappeared. She raised her head. Men on horseback were chasing dogs among the trees killing them.

Michael slid off his horse, pulled the dead Husky off her and started checking her injuries. She couldn’t speak.

“Get Wayne Anderson,” he bellowed. Wayne had been a medic.

And then Ellen was hugging him, shaking and crying.

“Bravest thing I ever saw,” Michael spoke softly as he held her and stroked her hair.

A noise in the branches above caused Michael to look up. Steven stared down with big eyes.

“Is mommy okay?” His voice quivered.

Michael smiled up at him. “She’s a lot better than that, son. A lot better.”

Confidence restored, the boy slid down out of the tree. He kicked the bloodstained husky, said, “Bad dog,” then snuggled between his mom and dad.

Ellen hugged Steven too fiercely and he wormed out of her grasp, a small boy bright-eyed with an important question.

“Mommy, when I get older will you teach me to shoot like that?”

He was too young to understand either his father’s chuckle or his mother’s tears.

*

Provo, Utah

Adam Young looked out over the gaunt faces of his assembled militia with pride. “No one thought we’d have to last more than four years before we could start growing fresh food again, but we did it. We scavenged and foraged and fought when we had to and now we face other challenges but we’ll overcome them too.”

He saw their shoulders straighten under his praise. They’d given their sweat, tears, blood and occasionally their lives to help fellow Mormons and gentiles survive The Dying Time and now he had to ask them to perform another mission.

He pointed to his brother, Bob, who sat at a table in this former High School Gym, and said, “Bob there has a bunch of envelopes containing scouting assignments for you. I’m asking each one of you to take one, but I’m not ordering anyone to do this. I want volunteers only.

“We need to send out scouting parties, farther than we’ve ever gone before. We need to map our new coastline, to make contact, peaceful if possible, with other survivors, but above all else, we need to know what other forces may be out there.

“As some of you may know, we got visitors a couple of days ago. These folks came to us in a sailboat from California and they were in a real bad way.” He saw a few heads nodding among his troops and was not so much surprised the word had leaked out as by how few seemed to know.

“Anyhow, according to them there’s some cannibal King in California going around enslaving folks, murdering any who won’t submit. They say he’s intent on taking over the rest of America.” His people were looking at each other now, traces of alarm on their faces.

“And to make matters worse there’s a plague over there like the one that went through here and we want nothing to do with it. So this is the worst mission I could ask you to go on. You’ll be facing unknown dangers and God knows it’s hard enough just going to Salt Lake and back. I want you to know I won’t think less of anyone who won’t go--but we need this information badly.”

With that he said nothing more, just walked over to Bob and picked an envelope at random from a large box. His brother had argued with him about this but he’d be damned if he’d ask anyone to do something he wasn’t prepared to do.

Silently his militia did the same thing--to a man.

Chapter 30: Battle for Empire

California

Jamal Rashid counted the campfires in the valley below. Thirty-two at an average of fifteen men per fire. 480, and they mostly looked like Marines. Joey wasn’t going to like this one bit. This force was far enough east of Scarlatti lines to flank them.

“Captain Carswell,” he whispered, as he scratched a note in the moonlight. “Have one of your men get this to Joseph or John. We have to warn them about this situation.”

That isn’t all Joey needs to know, Jamal thought. Earlier that morning he’d glimpsed open water off to the East--a large body of water--and he could swear he’d smelled the sea. Was California an island now?

*

South Platte River

The far off motion caught Michael’s eye. “See that, Jim?”

Jim Cantrell’s gaze followed Michael Whitebear’s fingertip. He shook his head, saying, “Too far off,” then spotted the movement. “You’re right, something’s there. Guess we should check it out.”

They were on horseback, scouting the mountains and valleys all around the Freeholds. Michael was making sure no more dog packs jumped his wife and son.

They nudged their mounts into motion and eased down the hill toward the river. The willows were very thick and tall enough their heads barely showed. Michael pointed left and Jim edged that direction. Michael’s horse forded the river. Now they could prevent whatever it was from escaping.

Walking his horse slowly through the brush, Michael noticed the willow shoots were still red and the leaves hadn’t fully developed. Red-capped house finches sang lustily to attract mates and cheerful chickadees darted from limb to limb. Written on the damp earth between the willows were a myriad of beetle tracks along with skunk, raccoon, deer, mouse, bird and…Michael leaned down to get a better look, either a fox or a small dog. He shook his head in awe at the sheer tenacity of wildlife, unable to comprehend how so many species had survived the two year winter.

A slight breeze was in his face and it carried a strong animal smell his horse didn’t like and he couldn’t place.

The noises from up ahead were like nothing Michael had ever heard. Silently, he slid a 3030 carbine from its scabbard and laid it across his saddle. Such weird sounds. Squealing, like a pig but deeper. Brush crackling and water splashing. His horse snorted and shied. Michael patted its neck to calm it, reined it around so it was pointed the way he wanted to go and froze. Something was getting to it’s feet just ahead. Something big.

A dirty gray mound rose like a mountain into the sky, then another, and another. Enormous ears flapped and a long trunk sprayed water on its neighbor.

Michael’s jaw dropped. Elephants? Taking a bath? He’d seen some strange sights, but elephants?

He slid his rifle back in its scabbard, turned his horse and eased away from them. One of them calmly watched him go.

Back on the other side of the river Jim wore a huge grin. “Man,” he said, as Michael rejoined him. “I almost shit myself! Where do you think they came from?”

Michael shrugged. “Cheyenne Mountain Zoo? Denver Zoo? Who knows? I’m just shocked they survived. Ellen’s not going to believe this.”

Jim shook his head. “Elephants on the South Platte and buffalo in South Park, those large cat tracks you saw down by Alamosa last month--lion or tiger. Wayne and Randy said they saw Zebras on the plains east of the Springs It’s a strange new world we live in my friend.”

“You can say that again.”

Jim’s eyes gleamed. “Elephants on the…”

Michael raised a warning finger. “Don’t.”

The two friends rode off chuckling.

*

California

Muffled explosions disturbed Joey’s sleep and he rolled over, not quite awake. Whump, whump, whump, blam!

His eyes snapped open and he jumped out of bed. He threw on a robe and almost collided with Nicolo Bonetti as he burst from his tent. Flashes of light flickered against the dark horizon, punctuated by the distant thunder of explosions.

“Are they shelling us?” Joey asked.

“I doubt it,” Nicolo replied. “None of our scouts saw any artillery.”

“Then what the hell are they pounding us with?” Joey asked. Then he saw a movement, a darker spot against the dark sky. He snatched a pair of binoculars from Nicolo’s hands and quickly focused.

“Are you shitting me?” He passed the field glasses to Nicolo as John and Anthony ran up.

Nicolo could just make it out, dimly lit by the light of the explosions. Stunned, he lowered the binoculars and turned to Joey.

“We’re being bombed by the fucking Goodyear blimp?”

“I’ll figure out why I didn’t know they had a damned blimp later,” Joseph said, and fixed Nicolo with a look that made him cringe.

Joseph turned to Anthony. “Get some planes up and shoot that fucking blimp down before it blows a hole in our lines.”

“On it,” Anthony said, and darted off.

“I’d better get up to the front and see what’s happening,” John said.

Joseph grabbed his son’s arm and locked gazes. “If they win here our dreams of empire are dust. I’m coming with you.”

*

The most combat-ready aircraft they had were two F-4 Phantom jets and one of the two P-51’s they’d found at Chino. Both jet pilots were former airline pilots who claimed combat experience in F16’s. The P-51 pilot was a former crop duster. Tony hated to use the jets because they burned so much fuel and jet fuel was scarce. Still, they’d make short work of Goodyear-boy.

*

Colonel George Romanov and his Marines finally had something to cheer about. After months of being bottled up in plague-infested LA they were going to get a shot at that crackpot King. The Colonel wanted that bastard’s head. No one, especially not some giant-sized, cannibalistic, pedophile, was going to set up a kingdom in the USA while he had anything to say about it.

First they’d found the Goodyear Blimp and converted it into a bomber. He still couldn’t believe they hadn’t found one single working aircraft at any of the airports or sky parks in the LA basin. He knew from the battle at Chino that this piss-ant King had a few planes.

“Well, that’s okay,” he muttered. “Let’em come. We’ll be waiting with a surprise.”

*

Sergeant Potter cursed as the blimp exploded and two dark shapes roared by overhead. He tore off the protective lens cap and hoisted the 35-pound Man Portable Air Defense System (MANPADS) Stinger to his shoulder. Centering a jet in the target scope he waited until he heard the distinctive “lock on” tone then “super-elevated” and gently squeezed the trigger. The gas cartridge fired, ejecting the missile up and away from him, his super-elevating maneuver ensured it would gain sufficient altitude from the ground before its rocket motor ignited. The rocket motor lit up and the Stinger blasted off after the enemy jet at 1500 mph. The targeted jet was thee miles away and climbing fast when the stinger entered the starboard exhaust and exploded.

“No evasive maneuvers,” mused Sergeant Potter. “Never saw it coming.”

“Think he had his IFF on?” asked Petty Officer Ian Chadwick, who was an aviation electronics technician, and who had disabled the IFF portion of the Stinger’s seeker head.

“Think it would’a mattered?” Sergeant Potter replied.

“Nah,” Ian said with a smile.

Far off to the North a light streaked skyward reaching for the second jet.

“Too high.” Sergeant Potter said. The operational ceiling of the Stinger was only 10,000 feet.

Cannon and tracer fire chewed up the ground near them and veered off following their trench lines. Potter and Chadwick scrambled out of their foxholes and each grabbed another Stinger.

“The hell was that?” Asked Potter, whose night vision was less than perfect. He searched through the target scope but could find nothing.

“Some old prop job,” Chadwick answered. “I got him.”

The Stinger leapt after the P-51 as it banked around for another pass. The pilot saw the missile and tried to avoid. He dove quickly to gain speed then banked sharply to his left and rolled violently. The missile missed but its proximity fuse detonated and sheered off two-thirds of the P-51’s port side wing. The plane corkscrewed into the San Gabriels and exploded.

“Yes!” Sergeant Potter shouted and pumped his fist. He looked over at Ian Chadwick and said, “Not bad for a swabbie.”

“Well, now they know we have air defenses,” Ian said.

“And that’s a good thing,” Potter added. “Make’em think hard before they throw their planes at us again.”

*

Colonel Romanov saw the chaos his bombing caused in Scarlatti’s camp and knew the time had come to hit them with everything he had before they could get reorganized. He ordered the advance and sent a runner for his reserves. No need to hold anyone back. All or nothing.

*

General Mabry’s battalion had been reduced to twenty-three men by the plague. He lost four more fighting Scarlatti’s hoodlums. When he encountered the Marines, he’d offered his services to Colonel Romanov and the Colonel, while recognizing the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs as his commander, understood full well that combat operations must be led by a line officer. He placed Mabry in command of his reserves and led the attack on Scarlatti from the front.

So General Mabry, burdened by the loss of Carl Borzowski, his men, and the control codes for Sunflower, paced the command tent and listened to the sounds of battle while awaiting orders. He heard the blimp explode and the cheers when one of the jets was downed.

He stepped outside the tent for a better view and almost collided with his aide who said, “Runner from Colonel Romanov sir. I’ve assembled the squad leaders.”

“Good,” the General said. He looked at the runner who gave him a nervous thumbs up, then turned to his men.

General Roland Mabry stood tall in front of his troops and said, “We’re all in, men. Let’s get at them.”

Their cheers turned to gasps of horror. Roland spun, his eyes filled with the sight of a burning P-51 just before it exploded into them.

*

Bullets sent chips of concrete into his cheek as Joseph Scarlatti jerked his head back behind the freeway pylon. The marines were charging. The men in his forward lines were running, those in his main line confused and wavering. He saw John behind the main barricade grabbing those attempting to flee and shoving them back to the line.

This is it. This is when I must prove I am a King, risk it all and win or lose.

Ignoring the gunfire, he stepped into the open and strode along the line, firing into the oncoming Marines. “Give it to them, boys,” he screamed, and men who had been cringing found the courage to shoot back.

“Fire the mines and signal Carswell to bring up the trucks,” he yelled to Anthony.

Anthony Scarlatti flipped a switch and squeezed a clacker and eighty Claymores exploded, tearing ragged holes in the line of Marines. He fired a green flare to signal Carswell and joined Nicolo Bonetti manning an M 60.

Meanwhile, his father walked calmly up and down the line, a huge target, untouched, dealing death and inspiration.

*

As Colonel George Romanov lay dying on the battlefield he realized he’d made the classic mistake of underestimating his enemy. The Claymores, those weird armored trucks, they caught him by surprise when victory was in his grasp. And where were his reserves? Why hadn’t Mabry hit their flanks as ordered? He knew how vicious and perverted the Scarlatti’s were and he knew he’d failed. Now there’d be hell to pay.

*

The ISS

Linda Green, hydrologist from Great Britain, tucked a loose strand of her chestnut hair into her hairnet and said, “Bella, come here.”

Isabella Cortez, meteorologist from Spain, glanced over her shoulder and saw Linda beckoning from the viewport. With an expert flip of her wrist she pushed off and sailed across the cabin noting the excitement in Linda’s azure eyes.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Is that one?” Linda asked, pointing at the Earth below.

Isabella peered out the port and saw the large storm below, with it’s clearly defined eye. “Well...definitely a hurricane. Let me check.” She swiveled gracefully to a data panel and scanned the readouts from the weather sats. “Sorry, Linda, it tops out around 16,000 meters, not a Hypercane. With ocean temperatures cooling we may have seen the last of them.”

“But it’s so very large,” Linda protested. The storm covered the South China Sea from Hong Kong to Taiwan.

“Oh, it most certainly is a Category 5 hurricane but it doesn’t top out in the stratosphere like the earlier storms.”

“Bugger!” Linda had wagered her last chocolate bar against Pauolo Guzman-Garcia’s Ray-Bans that there would be a Hypercane on her watch.

Leila Yoruba, their South African Astrophysicist, and Marissa Riley, their Australian Computer Engineer, poked their heads in to see what the commotion was about.

“Linda’s losing her chocolate bar to Pauolo,” Isabella explained.

“Oh,” Leila said softly, the single word conveying sympathy for lost chocolate.

Marissa waggled her eyebrows and said in a husky voice, “Girl, you batt those baby blues at him and offer to eat his chocolate bar and he’ll forget all about yours.”

Laughter followed the two women as they glided back to their work stations.

*

Luna City

“You need to slow down,” Doctor Sari Vindushanti said. “You are working too hard and stress is not good for the baby.”

Elena Maria Montoya, the only Lunar Geologist on the mission, said, “I’m only four months along, Sari. I’ll slow down after this last cavern is finished. Christine says we need to expand the farms and Nya agrees with her.” And when Sari opened her mouth to protest, Elena held up a hand to stop her and said, “Oye! It was you who said our children would never survive returning to Earth, and if our children can’t go then neither will we. So we need larger farms.”

Sari, in spite of her doll like appearance, was no pushover. Still, she waved her hand in a placating gesture and said, “I’m not arguing with you, Elena, but stress retards fetal development. If you want to give birth to a weak, sickly baby…” her voice tailed off as she threw up her arms and shrugged.

“Madre mia,” Eleana muttered under her breath, “You don’t fight fair.” She looked up and said, with a loud sigh, “What do you want me to do?”

“I want you to continue working.” And to Elena’s openmouthed expression, added, “Some work is good for you, but no more double shifts. Split them with Suzy.”

*

“Ach!” Heinz Obermann swore as his wrench slipped off the bolt. His bulky Moonsuit made using hand tools difficult but the sooner they got this solar cell factory module up and running the sooner they’d be able to power lights in the new farm chambers. He paused and looked up at the blue and white marble hanging overhead. It was good the see the Earth as something other than the black and orange ball of lightning it had been for those first two years; and sad to think he might never set foot on it again.

His headset crackled, “Incoming!”

He spun and saw Rani Hamide and Muhammad Rahotep bounding toward the rover so he set off in that direction. Long lunar leaps ate up the distance as his radio headset announced, “Six minutes, people.”

Rani, small, lithe and quick, reached the rover first and as he and Muhammad climbed aboard she punched it, throwing rooster tails of moon dust up behind them as they raced for the safety of Luna City.

Heinz keyed his radio. “Solar flare, Bella?”

“Looks like an X2, Heinz, better hurry,” Isabella said. She’d schooled them about the dangers of X class flares. Even M and C class flares were bad on the unprotected lunar surface.

“If we were going any faster we’d be orbiting,” he said, as the rover flew over a dip and slid to a halt beside the airlock. They made it inside with two minutes to spare.

Chapter 31: Forward March

California

Will Benton watched helplessly as the King’s man tore the gold necklace off his daughter. He wanted to intervene, to fight, but the cold, steel bayonet the thieves partner had pressed against his neck held him in check. Fear and frustration warred with shame and anger, but that was life. The King’s soldiers taking whatever they desired, shoving civilians aside. At least it looked like these two would be satisfied with the throwaway jewelry. He had dozens of the cheap necklaces and insisted his wife and daughter wear them as offerings whenever they went out. Such trinkets could save them considerable abuse.

Like the makeup they wore to give them a diseased appearance. Rape prevention. Even when the soldier snapped the locket off her neck he took care to avoid the open sore on her cheek, a sore carefully applied less than an hour before. Being an ex-makeup artist for Paramount had come in handy ever since the King's troops overran the Stanford settlements.

Will glowered balefully at the two men as they strutted off, satisfied with their small gain. Deception was as needful as breathing under the reign of Joseph Scarlatti. He laid his arm over his daughter's shoulders and gave her a brief hug, taking secret delight in her droopy-lipped, walleyed expression. Trish was always in character when they were in public.

It galled him to just take it and keep taking it, when everything inside cried out to hit back, to stand up like a man, but he and the other civilians were powerless. Disarmed, and lacking an organization dedicated to resisting the King, having learned the hard way the extreme punishment brought on by acts of defiance, Will and those like him suffered in silence.

By such small surrenders are men's souls lost.

Their love of freedom hadn't been extinguished, but they needed a leader, and since no one was volunteering for the job Will decided to get his family out.

*

Denver

If there was any food left in the Metro area, Viper’s army couldn’t find it. Slaves, at first just a supplement to their diet, had become a mainstay. As Impact Winter had stretched on seemingly forever before Spring returned, their fundamental attitude toward human life coarsened. The difference between eating an honorable enemy killed in battle, as the Polynesians and some African tribes used to do, and fattening people for slaughter took its toll, staining their souls. Their jokes about “white or dark meat,” and “eating pussy” became strained.

Of course, good looking women and strong men were spared, having other uses, but now they were running low on slaves, with just a thousand or so left.

They began to worry. Who would they eat after all the slaves were gone? They eyed each other nervously.

To make matters worse they had also become accustomed to letting slaves do all the real work, such as scavenging for food and supplies. Most of what male chauvinist pigs used to call “women’s work,” from cleaning quarters to preparing food and looking after children, became “slave’s work,” beneath the dignity of any true follower of Mustapha. The thinkers in Viper’s army knew this meant not all the slaves would be eaten before their turn came. Rumors began to fly.

Leroy Parsons, who now only allowed a select few to call him Mustapha or Leroy, brooded in the library of his opulent Cherry Hills mansion. He leaned his head on his fists, elbows braced on top of the dark mahogany conference table where he was seated. A twelve-foot tall, arched-top bay window looked out over Denver rooftops, down into the valley of the Platte and up to the foothills and snowcapped Mount Evans. His followers were restless, bored even. He didn’t want to think they were lazy, but they weren’t even trying to build the new and better black civilization of his dreams. The new order he’d been preaching to them about for months now. No! All they were interested in was lording it over their slaves and collecting baubles.

Viper laughed, his eyes scanning the leather bound volumes on teakwood shelves, the stained glass and cut crystal lamps, the bejeweled Pharaoh’s scepter he had taken from the Natural History museum and now used as a symbol of his power. Even this palace is a bauble, he thought. No one was immune to the corruption of power. He remembered it had taken a dozen slaves two weeks to repair the windows in this mansion, clean it out, and manicure the grounds.

Is this why our Dark Lord smote the world?

Viper concluded it was time to move on. He had wanted to check out Colorado Springs, which could provide more slaves and then investigate these Freeholds he’d heard about last year, but the darkness, the cold, and the rain conspired to keep him stuck in Denver. Well, the rains had finally stopped and the sun was out.

He rubbed his hands together, anticipating a report from the scouting party he’d sent out last week. According to the road atlas it was only about a hundred miles to the Freeholds. Even with the bridges out and the roads all broken and blocked they should be back within the next two or three days. While he was waiting, he should start the push toward Colorado Springs.

He hesitated. Every time he decided to head south he felt a sense of wrongness he couldn’t deny. Events even had him rethinking basic policy. At first his all-consuming hatred of the white man had driven him to excess. Enslave or eradicate. But now he’d come to realize the white man’s world was truly gone and they no longer posed a threat.

It was like blinders lifted, opening his vision. Blacks could build a beautiful civilization without the petty hates and injustices of the white civilization God had destroyed. If he could get them off their asses and make them do it. Meanwhile to quench the discontent and get their juices flowing again he had to get them moving, not just because they needed more food, but because if they weren’t growing they were stagnating. “Marcus!”

In the sitting room next door Marcus Robitaille, formerly of Turner and Shields, Attorneys at law, specialists in Affirmative Action EEOC lawsuits, climbed out of a Louis XIV chair and walked to the door. He had been forced into Viper’s organization at gunpoint, but, opportunist to the core, it didn’t take him long to rise near the top and become one of the privileged few who could address Viper as Mustapha, or even (in private) as Leroy.

He even looked a lot like Viper, same medium-muscular build and six-foot height, same finely chiseled, almost feminine features, same attitude toward the white oppressors that didn’t quite know what to do with itself now that they were gone. Viper had commented on more than one occasion that Marcus would make a useful double.

Of course, Marcus had other ideas and this recent softening he’d detected in Leroy could play right into his hands.

“What’s up?” Marcus asked as he entered the library.

“Weapons status, Marcus?” Viper’s question caught him by surprise. Leroy hadn’t been paying that much attention to weaponry lately, being more concerned with getting some farms going. But just because the question came out of nowhere didn’t mean Marcus didn’t have the answer. He opened his briefcase and pulled out a folder.

“Darnell and his patrol hit the Federal Center yesterday. It’s damn near untouched. I mean there are more than a dozen tanks, twenty APC’s, and fourteen Bradleys. The biggest problems are ammunition and fuel. The armory burned during the firestorm and most of the ammo with it. As for diesel fuel, well, these vehicles have always been gas hogs.”

Viper nodded for him to continue.

“I have Darnell, Lifter and Cadillac checking the Conoco refinery in Commerce City and looking for unburned truck stops, but I think we may have to put some slave details to draining fuel tanks in abandoned trucks.”

Viper shifted impatiently and said one word, “Planes.”

Bastard always scratches the open sore, Marcus thought. “Well, DIA, Centennial and Buckley were completely destroyed. We haven’t located an intact plane of any kind and we’ve checked as far north as Loveland Municipal. Maybe Pete Field in Colorado Springs fared better, but we won’t know until we head south.”

That last was as close to a dig as Marcus dared. For reasons known only to him, Viper had delayed moving toward Colorado Springs. Probably those “voices” he claimed to hear.

“Glad to hear you say that,” Mustapha smiled, “because heading south is just what we’re going to do.” He beckoned Marcus over to the large Colorado map spread out over the conference table. He ran his finger down I-25 to Colorado Springs, circling it with a red magic marker.

“Get those slave details draining fuel tanks and filling tankers. Have the road teams start clearing and dozing on I-25.”

Marcus was jotting notes on a legal pad.

“And find out what intel has on the Springs.”

“I’ve already got that last one, Leroy.” Marcus opened his brief case again and extracted another manila folder. “Population guesstimates range from two to ten thousand. No scout reported seeing more than thirty people at a time. No one was overtly hostile. Organization is very loose if there is any, but no organized resistance is expected. Seems to be a functioning hospital in the Center of town. Fountain Creek was in flood stage when the Springs was last scouted so they couldn’t check out Fort Carson, but last time the scouts saw nothing to worry about. One new item of interest is that there seems to be some military activity at the Air Force Academy. Marching drills and that sort of thing. Looks like they have some light artillery too.”

“Then we’ll hit them first,” Viper said.

*

The Freeholds

“Are you crazy?” The way Ellen looked at him, Michael knew the question wasn’t rhetorical. “You want to go to Colorado Springs and Denver when you know Viper is out there with his army?”

“That’s it exactly,” Michael agreed. “We need to know where Viper’s army is and what it’s up to. Specifically, we need to know how long we have to prepare.”

In the past two years Ellen’s stock among Freeholders had risen to the point where she was their de facto leader. Her only real opposition came from Doctor Taraq Fariq, a refugee from Denver who preached pacifism. He told his followers that The Dying Time was a message from God, a chance, perhaps our last one, to turn from violence to a new beginning of brotherhood and goodwill. He enjoyed a growing influence among recent immigrants to the valley, who would soon be a majority.

Taraq’s ideas were seductive, but Michael suspected pacifists wouldn’t live long around people like Viper. To make matters worse, Taraq wanted to go to Denver and talk to Viper to see if conflict could be avoided. “There are so few of us left,” he would say, spreading his palms and shrugging. “We should try.”

Those with first hand experience warned that Viper would talk to Taraq, but would listen to no one.

The point was moot as far as Michael was concerned. He wasn’t taking anyone with him but Jim Cantrell, and they were flying the gyrocopter.

Ellen wasn’t giving up yet. She pointed her finger at him. “What makes you think you can scout him without being caught?”

He raised an eyebrow and she looked away. “Okay,” she admitted. “You’re an expert tracker, good in the woods. But this is in town! And you are the wrong color to blend in. Why not let Terrell Johnson go? At least he’s black, and he’s had army experience.”

“Sweetheart,” Michael paced their kitchen, where he’d foolishly brought up this subject while fixing venison spaghetti. He stopped a second to stir the sauce. “Terrell was a helicopter pilot and mechanic, and while he can undoubtedly fly that gyro better than Jim or I, he wasn’t a grunt. He doesn’t know how to set an ambush or fade away without a trace.”

“But…” she began.

He whirled on her, throwing up his hands, splattering spaghetti sauce in the process. “Why are we having this argument? You know we need this information. Our very survival could depend on it. And I’m the best qualified to get it, and…” he stopped, looked at the spaghetti stain on the floor, on the countertop, on the cabinet. “Damn!”

He caught her eye. “Don’t you see?”

Ellen stepped into his arms and hugged him, her blonde head snuggling under his chin. Her sigh was as heavy as the world. “I know,” she said in a small voice. “I just don’t want you to go.”

That night a flickering orange glow appeared on the eastern horizon. Colorado Springs, or something near it, was burning.

Ellen stepped outside and joined Michael on the redwood deck that overlooked the valley. Silently, she watched the glow with him, her hazel eyes sad. Finally she looked up into his weather-lined face and whispered, “Go.”

The next morning Michael and Jim Cantrell rolled the gyrocopter out of the barn, where it was kept safe from both elements and prying eyes, and took off into a clear blue sky. Bright sunlight glinted off patches of snow in the high peaks, the highest of which were completely snowcapped. Early season gardens dotted the valley floor and as they eased up into the Tarryall Range a herd of now-wild horses bolted at the sound of their engine.

“Wish we could have taken the Pegasus,” Michael yelled.

“Could have, if you’d gotten a two-seater,” Jim responded. In the Pegasus they could turn off the engine and soar silently. If they turned off the motor in the gyrocopter they would soar like a rock.

“Look!” Michael pointed. Bighorn sheep scrambled along a cliff face, their white rumps bobbing and weaving. Deer and elk were also making a comeback from The Dying Time and Michael wondered how many species would recover. He smiled recalling the elephants. Here and there the men spotted cattle and sheep, always in small numbers. They had been bred for centuries to be stupid and docile--bad traits to have in bad times.

Everywhere they looked signs of rebirth encouraged them. Charred pine forests were awash in seedlings--many conifers needed forest fires to re-seed. In the meadows tall green grasses rippled in a light breeze. A vee-shaped ripple gave away a muskrat swimming across a beaver pond.

All of which stood in stark contrast to the quake churned roads, broken bridges, burned-out shells of houses and rusting hulks of autos blocking Highway 24--more as they closed on the Springs. Columns of smoke still wound upward into the sky and hundreds of refugees were fleeing up Ute Pass. Michael spotted the white lab coat of Doctor Lewis and waved as the gyrocopter zipped by overhead. The Freeholds was facing a flood of new refugees and Viper’s army. Michael sighed. Problems love company. They never come alone.

He said, “Things must be pretty bad in the Springs for Doc Lewis to give up his hospital.”

“Gotta be Viper,” Jim said. “I hoped we had more time”.

Another problem occurred to him and Michael nudged Jim. “How do you plan to keep Viper’s troops from hearing us?” The gyrocopter was noisy as a lawnmower.

“I figure Viper came straight down I-25 from Denver, so we’ll veer south around Cheyenne Mountain, then drop low and land at Fort Carson. There’ll probably be some gas there and we’ll have to refuel before the return flight.”

“Good idea,” Michael agreed. “I’ve been wanting to see if any armor or artillery survived.” Michael’s last scavenging expedition to the Springs had once again focused on nonperishable food, antibiotics, tools and how-to books, in that order. He’d had no chance to check out the fort.

“Emil spent some time at the fort before heading for the Freeholds,” Jim said. “According to him there’s not much there worth scavenging.”

“I know,” Michael admitted. “But it’s a big base.”

The few hundred people he’d encountered in the Springs on scavenging missions had been isolated and disorganized, but not hostile. As Michael and Jim rounded the peak echoes of cannon fire reached them from the North. Jim landed, rolling to a stop next to an abandoned jeep and Michael hopped out.

“Sounds like whoever is up there is putting up a good fight,” he said. “Must have got organized since last year. Why don’t you siphon some gas out, fly up there and look around.”

Jim pulled out a siphon hose and said, “Without you sitting second seat I can get high enough they won’t hear me. ‘Course with all that racket going on they might not hear me anyway. You gonna poke around here ‘til I get back?”

“I’ll start here, but I might head on into town.” Michael pulled a flare from his pack. “If I get in trouble and you can help I’ll pop red smoke. Meet me back here tomorrow morning, okay?”

“Gotcha,” Jim said and rolled for takeoff.

Three hours later Michael had determined that every big gun on the base had been spiked or otherwise destroyed before the soldiers deserted for home. That agreed with what Emil had told him. Some of the small arms lockers had been looted or destroyed, but a few appeared secure and he found an overlooked case of grenades. He was about to leave for town when Jim buzzed back overhead and landed.

“You aren’t going to believe this,” Jim yelled as the gyro rolled to a stop. “The fighting is coming from the Air Force Academy! There’s a battalion of cadets holed up on the ridge south of the Chapel and they’re giving Viper fits.”

Jim’s eyes were glittering and Michael caught the fever. He held up the case of grenades and asked, “Think we can help?”

“Some,” Jim answered. “But I gotta tell you, the situation’s grim. Viper must have raided the armory at the Federal Center. He’s got several Bradleys and tanks and a self-propelled howitzer.” Jim looked at the grenades and their rifles. “Nothing we’ve got will touch that.”

“How about the cadets?” Michael climbed in and sat the case of grenades on his lap.

Jim shook his head. “Howitzers, mortars, LAWS, and small arms. The only thing saving them is Viper’s tank and gun crews are lousy shots.”

“No Air power?”

“None for Viper. The Cadets have a couple of trainers sitting on their airstrip but those things aren’t armed.”

“Think they can hang on ‘til we find some wide-mouth jars?”

Jim didn’t get it.

Michael picked up a grenade. “If I pull the pins and drop them from altitude they’ll blow before hitting the ground,” Michael explained. “And if we go low enough to be effective we’ll get our butts shot off. Pull the pin, put the grenade in a jar small enough to hold the spoon down, drop the jar…” he smiled.

“Jar hits the ground and breaks,” Jim continued. “Three-seconds later--BOOM!”

It took them almost an hour to find canning jars in the Commissary and get airborne. Raiders were swarming over the North end of Colorado Springs like locusts in a grain field. They were following Fountain Creek; which, with bridges out and autos and trees blocking broken roads, was the only relatively clear path through town. Where necessary they shoved autos into ravines and their tanks rolled over them, makeshift bridges. The Cadets had been flanked and they didn’t know it.

Just as Michael was wondering if they were ever going to reach the Air Force Academy the main campus appeared below them. The Chapel was in ruins, and the entire cadet area from the field house to Sijan Hall was aflame. But so were several of Viper’s tanks; victims of artillery and mortar fire. Bodies littered the ground. The self-propelled gun, well out of range of the cadet’s artillery, was repositioning, tending crew and ammo carrier behind it.

“Get over the gun,” Michael yelled. “We can’t hurt it, but we can sure as hell discourage the crew.” He began furiously pulling pins and stuffing grenades in jars.

“Careful, man,” Jim said as they came to a hover over the big gun. “Wouldn’t want one of those to get loose in here.” In the skeletal, open framework of the gyrocopter anything Michael dropped would likely fall right through.

Michael handed a jar to Jim, grinned and said, “Bombs away!” The jars seemed to fall forever, the light breeze affecting their path only slightly. Michael and Jim had six more on the way before the first two exploded, wiping out the gun crew. The other grenades blew, killing or wounding some men around the ammunition carrier. Almost immediately a squad of cadets ran from the woods and slapped charges on the gun. Seconds later it exploded, barrel describing a majestic arc before landing on the tender.

The twinkling of gun barrels told Jim and Michael they were being fired upon, but they were too high for small arms to reach.

A hot battle raged around the North end of the airstrip. Michael could see the Cadets defending the two Trainers falling until only a few were left. Viper’s troops advanced toward the aircraft. Suddenly, the planes exploded, the remaining Cadets disappearing in the fireball along with many of Viper’s men.

Michael looked at Jim and shook his head. They’d been too far away to help, but that wasn’t true for the kids who’d blown the gun.

Jim edged the copter over to the largest mass of enemy soldiers he could see and, before they could scatter, Michael rained grenades on them. They stayed overhead, covering the withdrawal of the squad that took out the gun, and making a nuisance of themselves, until they ran low on fuel and dropped the last grenade.

Michael and Jim had hoped to stall Viper’s attack long enough for the cadets to escape; but escape wasn’t the cadet’s plan. They refused to abandon the ridge. As the Freeholders veered off a lone cadet stepped back from his sniper post, snapped to attention and saluted them.

Michael watched over his shoulder until the cadet was out of sight. With a lump in his throat he said, “They won’t last the night.”

“Probably not,” Jim agreed.

“Why aren’t they retreating? Why didn’t they get the hell out when we had Viper’s boys occupied?”

“They must have their reasons,” Jim said.

“God, I hate this! If the Freeholds was ready for Viper’s attack we could send some help for those boys. I mean, we’re going to need men of that caliber when he gets around to us.” Michael stroked his lush brown beard, absentmindedly pulling at a couple of tangles, deep in thought for less than a minute.

“Ah, shit! Set me down here.”

“What?” Jim turned his head and caught Michael’s gaze. Normally, Michael’s eyes were brown with green and yellow highlights, but the green came to the forefront in moments of passion and yellow took over when battle threatened. Jim stared into golden eyes.

Michael pointed to a burned over field, next to Falcon Stadium. “Land this thing. I’ve got to try to persuade those kids to retreat.”

A lifetime of experience had taught Jim when not to argue with his friend. He landed.

Michael stepped away from the gyrocopter and checked his weapons. His M4 was a gift from Emil Smolensky. Each magazine held thirty rounds and he had ten of them in individual pockets in his pack. The Smith and Wesson model 586 .357 on his hip was fully loaded and he had three speed-load holsters on his belt. His hunting knife was a Kabar, the one he had used a lifetime ago in the Marines.

He looked over to Jim and said, “Warn Ellen, we’re out of time. My guess is Viper will be knocking on our door within a week. Grab Emil Smolenski and help Ellen organize a defense. Throw up breastworks at each end of the valley, preferably a series of breastworks. Send out scavenger parties. We’ll need all the guns and ammo they can find. Get some…ah, hell.” Michael stopped. Others would think of these things. “Go on.” Michael waved Jim away.

“I’ll be back tomor…”

“No!” Michael interrupted. “I won’t be here.”

“Well, where will you be?”

Michael’s golden eyes sought Jim’s.

“Buying time,” he said.

He turned and loped across the field, disappearing into the charred, but still green, pine forest surrounding it. The terrain between him and the cadets was rolling hills covered with pine and scrub oak, cut by ravines and interspersed with open meadows full of mullein stalks, yucca spikes and buffalo grass. He startled four mule deer. They dashed off, white tails waving like flags, and he slowed. No sense advertising his presence.

Michael jogged through the trees trying to pace himself. Thanks to the constant hard work and exercise of the past two years his strength and endurance were better than when he was in his twenties, but he wasn’t used to running long distances. Stealth was more his game. A mile later he slowed, then paused and leaned against the rough orange bark of a ponderosa pine, breath coming in gasps.

A month-old bunny munching the fresh green sprigs of grass poking up through the ash watched him fearlessly from less than twenty-feet away. Michael smiled at its innocence, then picked up a singed branch and sailed it toward the tiny ball of fur. The rabbit bolted in terror and Michael’s smile widened as its cottontail bobbed into the distance. That’s right little brother, he thought. Trust no one, for you are small and the woods are full of teeth.

A blue jay screeched sending Michael into a wary crouch, swiveling toward the sound. The bird could be proclaiming its territory, or something could have alarmed it. No suspicious movement. No sound but the breeze rustling pine branches. A flash of blue among the branches and Michael relaxed. The bird had flown.

He eased through the woods now, down a steep gully where muddy ground by a trickling creek showed coyote tracks, up the other side. The trees were denser here; still plenty of room between them but visibility was limited.

Ahead, through the trees he could hear small arms fire. He got his breathing under control. The sun was an orange blob setting through smoky haze. It would be dark in thirty minutes. The smell of burned wood covered everything. He knelt and rubbed ash and dirt over his face, neck and hands. No camo grease. Have to get some of that.

For the first time since he’d left the gyro he had time to think about what he was doing. Was he nuts? Since his first fistfight as a child he’d loved battle (and been horrified by the attraction). Powerful, vibrant emotions overwhelmed him every time he went into a fight, charging him with a fierce, wild joy that made him want to scream Blackfoot war cries and cut out the hearts of his enemies. A five-year Sunday school pin earned during early childhood from a Christian church caused him to fight that impulse vehemently. Fighting is bad. Killing is evil.

A moral code or conscience, while necessary for civilization, is a mixed blessing when defending loved ones or struggling for survival. So Michael had learned a long time ago, while wearing his country’s uniform in a war on the other side of the world, to lock his conscience up when it was time to fight, and grieve about it later. He consoled himself with the knowledge that he killed to save lives, his own and his loved ones, but he still felt guilty about enjoying the fight.

Now, easing silently through the woods, neck on a pivot, eyes always moving, he caught the motion and froze before they saw him. That was the name of the infiltration game. See them first. And Michael had been taught well, first the art of tracking by his grandfather, then the art of survival by enemies distant in time, next-door in memory.

The two black men, one chunky, the other muscular, moved cautiously, stopping less than ten feet from Michael.

“Why we doin’ this?” the chunky man hissed. He didn’t like the feel of this at all.

“Cause Viper said,” the other man grunted.

“But they only two of us, Lifter.”

“You the one had to stop an’ shit, Cadillac,” Lifter answered. “Now shut up and get goin’, and we still catch up to the rest.” The muscle man gestured with his rifle and Cadillac turned to go.

“Ugh.” A grunt that was almost a sigh reached Cadillac’s ears.

“What?” Cadillac turned and froze. Lifter was on the ground dead, a knife sticking out of his back. Standing over him was a cat-eyed man with a brown beard and a very large pistol.

“Do you like breathing?” Michael’s voice was soft, his pistol steady.

Cadillac nodded once and gulped, eyes glued to the enormous pistol barrel.

“Then lay the gun down gently, then your pack, and back up against that pine tree.”

Cadillac did exactly as he was told.

“That’s good. Now, with your right hand only, take off your belt and throw it over here.” While Cadillac complied Michael tugged Lifter’s belt off and retrieved his knife. He stepped beside Cadillac and used the belts to tie the man’s hands behind the tree.

“Now, let’s talk. How many of you in this army?”

“More’n four thousand, man.” Cadillac saw no reason to lie. “You know who you fuckin’ with?”

“I’ll ask the questions,” Michael replied. “How many men in this flanking movement.

Cadillac hesitated. In a flash Michael’s blade was at his throat and those weird yellow eyes were way too close.

“I do not have time to mess with you,” Michael hissed between clenched teeth. “Cooperate and I’ll let you live. You need me to spell out the alternative?”

Cadillac shook his head.

“Then answer my goddamn question.”

“I don’t know.” The touch of the knife widened his eyes and he blurted out, “Hundreds!”

“Go on.”

“They sent us out in groups. Twenty, thirty at a time. But that’s all I know, man. They don’t tell me nothing but do this, do that, y’know?”

Michael nodded. That made sense.

“You hitting the cadets from behind?”

Cadillac nodded. “Soon as the other tanks get here and open up.” Cadillac saw the shock on Michael’s face and thought, how you like that, honky?

“How many tanks?”

“Bunches,” Cadillac gloated. “I mean all those earthquakes and fires and shit, and we walk into the armory at the Federal Center and this stuff’s just sittin’ there, man, untouched.”

Christ! That didn’t leave Michael much time. He slammed the butt of his Kabar into his prisoner’s temple. Cadillac sagged against his restraints. Michael stuffed a gag in the man’s mouth and rifled through the pack Cadillac had dumped, then Lifter’s, removing grenades and other useful items and adding them to his own.

It was full dark now, but the moon was rising, the light adequate. He melted into the trees, running hard for the cadet’s lines.

Fifteen minutes later a rifle shot slapped into a tree beside him and he rolled left yelling, “Falcon!” The Fighting Falcons was the name of the Air Force Academy’s football team.

“Who’s out there?” The voice was nervous, scared.

“One of the guys from the gyrocopter with important news. Let me through.” Five minutes more and he was facing the young man in command.

“Michael Whitebear,” he said, holding out his hand. The man was a couple of inches taller than Michael’s 5’10,” but where Michael carried 180 pounds of muscle; this kid was so thin he didn’t make much of a target.

“Acting Lieutenant Dan Osaka.” His handshake was firm, but there were bags under his almond eyes. “So you were in that little helicopter. Your diversion allowed us to evacuate most of our wounded to the Springs so we owe you a load of thanks.”

So that’s what they were up to while we were bombing, Michael thought. A vision of burning ambulances just south of the Academy flashed through Michael’s mind and he realized he had some bad news for the Lieutenant. But, first things first.

“You have to get out of here, Lieutenant. You’ve already been flanked and you’re almost surrounded. There are more tanks coming and they’ll be here soon. When the tanks open up, you’ll be hit from behind.”

“Ah, Jesus.” The Lieutenant hesitated just for a moment, before deciding to trust this stranger with the warm brown eyes. “Bartell, Vanderwahl!”

A large black man and a slender blonde girl stepped forward and snapped to attention. “Sir,” they chimed in unison.

“We’re pulling out south in ten minutes. We’ll keep to the high ground to discourage their armor. And Bartell…” The black man stiffened further. “Your company has rear guard.”

A smile full of bright white teeth split the cadet’s face. “Thank you, Sir.” Daryl Bartell had no use for looters and killers, whatever their color. He saluted and left.

“Vanderwahl, your company takes scout. Form teams of four and check the batteries in your radios. Pull out now, but stay in contact.” Fallon Vanderwahl saluted and jogged off, her cheeks and eyes glowing with pride at commanding the scouting detail. Scouts usually made first contact with the enemy and the nature of that first contact often determined the outcome of any battle.

Dan Osaka keyed his radio mike. “Company commanders report.” Michael was surprised they had radios that worked. The upper atmosphere was so ionized it simply wrecked radio communications. No one from home had heard a working radio since The Dying Time.

“Red, okay; White, okay;” static crackled and popped. “Green, okay; Orange, okay; Purple, okay.”

“Blue, report,” Lieutenant Osaka ordered, worry lines creasing his forehead. Blue was supposed to be defending the airstrip.

Silence and static.

“Blue, report!”

More silence.

“Shit,” Dan Osaka muttered. “I hope they’re just out of range. These things don’t work very well. Half a mile at best.” Michael nodded.

“All companies,” the Lieutenant spoke clearly into the mike. “Shift to frequency three.” He twisted the frequency knob on his radio and resumed. “We’re moving out. Delta quadrant. At…” He checked his watch. “19:30 hours. Spike your howitzers. We can’t take’em.” That gave them five minutes.

Dan Osaka turned to a freckle-faced redhead, “Dorsey?”

“Sir?”

“Find Blue Company and give’em the news.”

“Yes sir!” The kid left at a run.

“Mr. Whitebear?”

Michael didn’t like being called Mr. Whitebear. Made him sound old. Hell, compared to these kids, he was. Anyhow, now was not the time to argue over details.

“Yes, Lieutenant?”

“You came from the Springs?”

“Just flew over. Enemy tanks and infantry’s already in the North end of town.”

“Damn!” Anger glittered in the Lieutenant’s dark brown eyes. “We sent our wounded to Doc Lewis’s hospital.”

Michael shook his head, knowing it was time to deliver bad news. “The hospital was burning when we flew over. Um, after our diversion, when we headed back toward town, we saw a couple of Humvee ambulances burning too. Not far south of here.” He paused to let that sink in, then offered a suggestion.

“I think you ought to skirt the North end of the Springs and cut west through Garden of the Gods. The terrain is so rough it’ll slow the enemy armor if they follow. It’s good ambush country, and it’s the only way we can beat them to Ute Pass.”

“But--the civilians in town.”

“The only citizens I saw were following Doc Lewis up the pass toward the Freeholds,” Michael said.

Dan Osaka sighed, “At least the Doc made it out.” Then something else sunk in. “You’re from the Freeholds?”

“Yeah. You’ve heard of us?”

“Some of the townies you met last year told us about you. But anyhow, we have to head south, that’s Delta quadrant by the way, to find our wounded. Then we head up the pass.”

“Son,” Michael laid a hand on the Lieutenant’s shoulder. “You have enemy troops and tanks to the South and if we don’t beat them to Ute pass we’ll lose any chance of cutting them off.”

He stared deep into the young Lieutenant’s eyes, his meaning clear, he thought.

Dan Osaka shook his head. “You’re saying we should abandon our wounded? We won’t--”

Michael cut in. “I’m saying if you sent them out in ambulances they’re already dead.” The Humvees could travel across the essentially road less, bridgeless terrain, but if they’d run into tanks….

Lieutenant Osaka nodded slowly and wiped a hand across his face, reluctant to admit the loss. His confidence seemed to crumble. “Uh…I…this is my first battle. My first command. I studied air tactics, but we only have a couple of unarmed trainers and they’re both down for maintenance.”

Michael shook his head. “Your planes are gone,” he said gently.

Dan Osaka looked around him at his men, his women, firing at the enemy troops, and glanced back to Michael, a quiet plea in his eyes.

“They’re all depending on me, Sir.” His voice lowered to a desperate whisper. “And I don’t know what to do.”

Michael gripped the young man’s shoulders firmly and said, “Look at me.”

Lieutenant Osaka met his gaze, noting in passing that the man’s eyes seemed yellowish now, like a mountain lion’s he’d seen in a zoo. Yet confidence flowed back into him from those eyes and the man’s grip on his shoulders as much as from his words.

“Son,” Michael said. “I’m an ex-marine, if there is such a thing, and I’ve seen combat. I’ll help you all I can and offer suggestions when I can. But you’ve led your people through this fight, and from what I can see you’ve done a damn fine job of it. So the first thing you have to remember is you’re the officer in charge and you can never admit to anyone that you don’t know what to do. That can undermine their confidence in you and damage their confidence in themselves. You fake it ‘til you make it. Understand?”

The Lieutenant nodded.

“Okay, now, remember the marine motto and let’s get with it.”

“Semper Fi?” Dan Osaka questioned. Always loyal?

“That’s the official motto. The one that counts is semper persistence. We don’t ever give up.”

Dan Osaka grinned, then looked at his watch. “Time to go.” He raised the radio to his lips and said, “Move out!”

Then he turned back to Michael Whitebear and said, “Thanks.”

“Couple more things to consider Lieutenant,” Michael offered as they started out. “I saw some intact small arms lockers at Fort Carson. I don’t know how your ammo and antitank rounds are holding up but if you can divert Viper’s attention for a while in Colorado Springs, I could lead a squad to check them out or blow them up.

“After that, I think I should catch up to Vanderwahl’s squad so I can scout ambush sites.”

The Lieutenant nodded agreement. “I think we can draw them over toward Garden of the Gods and delay them while you hit Ft. Carson. And since you want to join Vanderwahl’s squad, take half of them with you to the Fort. Where do you suggest we rendezvous?”

Michael thought for a second and said, “Half a mile west of the Cave of the Winds exit on highway 24. Unless I find a better ambush site closer. Think you can hold them until tomorrow afternoon?”

Dan Osaka chuckled, thinking of all the times he’d gone rock climbing on the red sandstone outcroppings in the Garden. “Once we hit that sandstone maze their armor will be worthless. And you’ve taken care of their artillery. So, yes, I think tomorrow afternoon isn’t asking too much.”

“Good,” Michael grinned. “That’ll put the sun in their eyes. I’d better get going. You’ll let Vanderwahl know I’m coming up behind them?”

“Right away,” Lt. Osaka responded, then before Michael could take off he asked, “Mr. Whitebear?”

“Yes?”

“You think we can beat these guys?”

“I don’t know son, but we’re surely going to try.”

*

The Freeholds

“We must try to negotiate,” Dr. Fariq was adamant. “There has been too much death already.”

“Doctor,” Ellen said calmly, with much more patience than she felt. She was concerned that a majority of Freeholders and refugees seemed to favor some sort of appeasement. Even those from the Denver area who had first hand experience with Viper wanted to avoid hostilities. They were afraid. “There is nothing wrong with preparing to defend ourselves. This Viper person has built an army on hatred, racial divisiveness and greed. He murders or enslaves any who oppose him; and he eats people! How can we negotiate with someone like that? What do we say to him? Here are a few children, please leave us alone?”

“I would never suggest such a… a… thing,” a wide-eyed Dr. Fariq spread his arms. “I’m only trying to avoid more bloodshed. Save lives. We have so much here compared to elsewhere.” His gaze roamed over the knotty pine paneling of Ellen’s study and out through the window across the valley spread out below. Homesteads, people tending gardens and livestock. God we even have the hydroelectric plant back on line. Wealth!

“I know, Doctor,” Ellen replied. “And I am trying to preserve what we have; but your supporters are interfering with our preparations. Everyone should be working hard building breastworks, scrounging ammunition and guns, moving vehicles back onto the roads we’ve cleared, scouting--”

“Preparing for war!” Fariq’s hand slammed onto the table, his, “I’m-just-a-poor-peacemaker mask” slipping slightly. He was new to politics, as was Ellen, but he enjoyed popularity among these people he’d never known before and being looked upon as a leader was, well, exciting. He could see the opportunity to establish himself as the leader of these people and he wasn’t going to let this woman stop him.

For the first time, Ellen openly bristled. “My husband and other brave men are out there fighting for their lives to buy us precious time to construct a defense against this monster and you sit here accusing me of preparing for war. Viper has killed or enslaved every survivor between Denver and Colorado Springs. Friends of mine who escaped from him, people I trust, tell me he’s coming here, to take everything we have, kill everyone we love. We cannot negotiate with such a beast.”

Fariq’s eyes narrowed, his lips pressed into a thin hard line. “You call him a monster, a beast; but he is a man. Surely he can be reasoned with. How can we know until we try, and how can we try with that half-savage husband of yours--”

Her openhanded slap smacked against his cheek, watering his eyes and bringing a deep red glow to his dusky face.

Her voice was ice. “I will not tolerate bigotry, Doctor. My husband is half-Blackfoot, not half-savage.”

Fariq’s eyes were on fire but his voice remained steady. “I only meant his actions were savage. He attacked Viper’s men when no one from The Freeholds was threatened.”

“He was trying to save those Air Force Cadets.”

“Ah, yes. Professional military men.” His voice dripped with scorn. “How do we know they didn’t attack Viper first? I insist you contact your husband and tell him to cease hostilities. We must try to negotiate.” He paused, noticing a commotion in the outer office.

Jim Cantrell pushed into the room and threw a handful of Polaroid photos on the desk--heads, fresh, recognizable heads, were impaled on bloodstained poles.

“Negotiate with these, Doctor,” Jim snarled. Turning to Ellen he added, “Viper’s greeting cards.”

“What… what,” Fariq stammered, his olive complexion paling. Disaster!

“The unauthorized party you sent out to negotiate with Viper,” Jim answered.

Ellen gathered up the photos and handed them to Jim, her eyes hard, her voice firm. “Take these to Terrell. His computer is up and running. Have him scan these in and print a hundred copies in newsletter format. Will you write the article?”

Jim nodded.

“Good,” Ellen continued. “I want the inaugural issue of the ‘Freehold’s Voice’ out by nightfall. Everyone must learn what we’re up against.”

Jim cast a contemptuous look at Taraq and left.

“Doctor Fariq?”

He wouldn’t meet her gaze.

“I’m calling a full committee meeting for this evening,” Ellen announced. “I expect you to be there with plans for converting our clinic to a field hospital capable of dealing with battlefield wounds.”

He looked up at her like a dog expecting to be beaten. Why doesn’t she mention the six men and women I sent out to die? One word from her and his political aspirations were in ruins. Yet her face held only sorrow, and he realized she would always be a greater leader than he, for she placed the needs of her people above her own and since he was the only real doctor in the Freeholds they needed him. If Cantrell’s article wasn’t too damning…it occurred to him he still might salvage something from this situation.

He pulled himself together with a visible effort, stood, and walked to the door. “I’ll be there with the plans,” he said. “And the nurses I’ve already trained will make decent medics. We’ll prepare field packs.” As his right hand reached for the brass doorknob he turned to her. “Um…I’m sorry. You were right.” He pulled the door open and left before she could reply.

*

California

“What now, Grandpa?” Sara Garcia asked. They’d fled east around the bay when Stanford fell, escaping Joey’s raiding parties by the skin of their teeth.

“We keep going north,” Raoul replied. “We have to find someplace civilized enough to build a transmitter so we can contact the ISS and get them the control codes for Sunflower. It’s our only hope.”

“How do we know it’s still up there?”

“Because I saw it last night, or at least I think I did. It was moving slower, probably because they went into a higher orbit to escape debris, but I’m sure it was them.”

“And you think the astronauts are still alive?”

He shrugged and said, “We sent up tons of supplies, so if they’ve survived the hazards of living in space...yes, I think there’s a good possibility. In any event it’s our only chance.”

“So we rig a transmitter?”

He nodded and rubbed absently at a lump on his forehead he’d collected from walking into a low tree branch.

He’d been working on that with an electrical engineer and a radio tech at Stanford when Scarlatti’s army invaded. He adjusted his pack straps as he walked and considered their options.

“I think we’ll try Oregon first,” he said.

Chapter 32: Buying Time

Michael drifted through scarred, white aspen trunks and russet willow clumps, following the contour of the creek but staying away from the water where willow thickets became impenetrable. In the damp earth nearer the creek he saw the tracks of cottontail, bobcat, coyote, deer, lizard and mice. No people. Small game trails wound among the aspen, spruce and pine. He paused by an antler-rubbed spruce, eyes probing hard. Something didn’t feel right.

A wild rose bush snagged his jeans and he tugged it free gently making no noise. That was it! Except for the burbling of the creek the normal woodland sounds were missing: no chickadee song, no jays or crows cawing, no squirrels chirring. It was silent as a frozen winter morning. The hair raised on the nape of his neck.

Something was waiting. Something deadly. He froze absolutely still and scanned ahead for anything out of place. Trip wires, snare-triggers, disturbed leaves on the forest floor…

“Ellen said you were good.”

Michael jerked back then looked up into the spruce tree, where the large squirrel nest spoke again.

“Bang, you’re dead.”

“Emil?” Michael asked. Even now, this close, he couldn’t make out the man’s shape.

A low chuckle floated down to him. “You’re too focused on ground level,” Emil Smolensky said in his best gunnery sergeant tones. “Only time you look up is to check out the hillsides. Gotta see the trees in the forest, Michael.”

Michael wondered how in the hell a man with an artificial leg could climb a tree, but he didn’t have time for explanations.

He motioned with his arm and said, “Come on down, Emil. I’ve got a couple hundred air force cadets about five minutes behind me, and a whole bunch of trouble close after them.”

“Scouting ambush sites?” Without waiting for an answer Emil continued. “One of the best is right here. Pass is only about sixty yards wide. Get some light machine guns set up in those rocks,” he pointed to a pink and black striped granite outcrop high up on the South side of the canyon, “and you’ll command the whole pass.”

Michael nodded and said, “They’ve got tanks, Abrams.”

“So?” Emil climbed down and shrugged off his ghilly suit, covered with pinecones and twigs. “In this terrain tanks will have to stick to the road. Means they’ll have to clear the road as they advance. We blow the lead tank, then pick’em off one at a time. You got any AT-4’s?”

“A few, and some LAWs, and mortars some cadets and I grabbed at Fort Carson. And I picked up some dynamite at a demolition contractor’s place in town.” Michael smiled. It could work, and he had an idea of his own to try out.

Two minutes later he literally contacted Fallon Vanderwahl’s point man.

“Jesus!” The point man jumped as Michael’s knife tickled his throat. “What are you doing, Sir?” The boy’s dusky skin was noticeably flushed, his voice squeaked and his eyes blinked rapidly. The man just appeared.

“Saving your life, son,” Michael said, sheathing his knife. “You looked right at me and didn’t see me ‘til I moved. Your eyes saw me, but your mind didn’t. You see with your mind, not your eyes.”

The boy’s flush deepened. “I guess you’re right, Sir. But you like to scared me to death.” He was embarrassed and a touch angry.

“What’s your name, son?”

“Enrico Gutierrez, Sir.”

“Well, Enrico, this kind of experience is the best teacher. You don’t like being humiliated or frightened, no one does. But it’ll be a long while before you forget the touch of that knife.

“Tell you what. Practice makes perfect, and there’s a friend of mine up ahead of you who’s better at this than I am. See if you can spot him.” Michael gave a casual salute and faded back toward the rest of the squad.

Forty minutes later the ambush erupted.

An AT-4 antitank rocket zipped across the canyon and into the lead tank, which swelled like a balloon about to pop before the turret blew off and bounced down the road. Machine guns scythed down the infantry following the tank. A LAWS rocket went wild when the cadet aiming it was shot. The rocket exploded against the red orange cliff on the opposite side of the pass just below a bus-sized boulder. The monstrous rock teetered and fell, slamming into the second tank in line, flattening it like a car smashing a beer can.

At the rear of the column Michael and Fallon dropped from an overhang onto the last Abrams in the column. Michael’s combat knife left a gaping red slash across the tank commander’s throat. He grabbed the man under the shoulders and heaved him out of the tank. Instantly, Fallon leaned down through the open hatch and shot the gunner and loader, her .45 enormously loud in the confined space. Battle odors, voided bowels, cordite and the coppery scent of blood filled the tank. Michael slid inside the turret basket, popped open the door to the driver’s compartment, put two rounds in the man’s chest, and peeled him out of the driver’s seat.

Cadet snipers and machine gunners cleared the enemy from around the captured tank while Michael, Fallon, and Enrico Gutierrez climbed inside, hoisted the dead men out, and trained the cannon on the next tank in line. Fallon slid into the gunner’s seat while Enrico took the loader’s position. Michael, in the commander’s seat, ripped the enemy infantry from behind with fifty caliber rounds from the M2 mounted on the turret. Daryl Bartel took the driver’s place. The radio squealed as panicked tank commanders jammed the net.

Fallon fired and the tank immediately in front of her exploded like a skyrocket on the Fourth of July. The blast and noise as the round fired were stunning, and everyone inside flinched as the breech/recoil system absorbed the recoil by allowing 115 tons of 120 mm gun to slam backwards just inches from them. Michael and Enrico checked their legs and arms carefully each man edging slightly away from the breech. That thing could put a serious hurt on anyone who got in the way.

Fallon screamed, “Sabot!”

Enrico twisted to his right, banged his knee against the switch that opened a blast-proof door to the ready ammunition compartment and hefted out a fresh M829 round. He released the knee switch, which allowed the door to close automatically, slammed the round into the breech with his right arm, pulled it out of the way and yelled, “Up!”

Fallon, who already had another M1A1 targeted with the laser range finder, yelled, “On the way!” and depressed the triggers. Again the blast and recoil shook them. Again an enemy tank exploded.

Eight M1A1’s left. Seven, Michael corrected as an AT-4 took out another. The fifth tank in line had additional antennas, probably the column commander. Its turret was pointed straight at them, the cannon barrel dropping in line.

“Daryl!” Michael yelled.

“I see him,” Daryl answered, twisting the throttle. Their tank lurched forward, hiding behind the burning wreck ahead of them. Kerwhang! The turret rang like a church bell as a round glanced off and exploded against the cliff. The sound stunned all of them motionless but Daryl, who slammed their tank into reverse and backed them toward a curve.

Enrico rammed another round home. “Up!”

Fallon focused on the shot knowing she’d likely only get one chance, distantly aware that two more enemy tanks were tracking her now. The gun recoiled, surprising Michael, who hadn’t heard Fallon’s warning. Just before they cleared the bend their tank jolted sideways, tipped and slammed back to the ground, bursting into flame.

“Out!” Michael screamed, but no one heard him. A quick glance told him Fallon and Enrico were both dead. Fire singed the hair on his forearms and licked at his pants as he threw open the tank commander’s hatch and pulled himself out. Daryl was halfway out of the drivers compartment when a round from a 7.62 coaxial machine gun mounted on another tank tore his heart out.

Flame-licked metal blistered Michael’s hands as he vaulted off his tank and rolled down the embankment, noting in passing the jagged hole and sheets of fire erupting from the enemy commander’s tank.

He dropped between two rocks, startling a pair of enemy soldiers hiding there. Faster than thought his left hand plunged the Kabar through the closest man’s eye, while his right hand triggered the .357, blowing a large hole through the other’s chest. Heart pounding like a bass drum in a marching band, Michael holstered his pistol and picked up a dead enemy’s M16. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Daryl draped down the front of the tank like a rag doll, a red smear running down his chest and across the back of his head. Battle fever gripped him, tingling his senses. He stripped the corpses of clips and began the hunt: a golden-eyed tiger stalking armed prey.

He eeled from tree to tree, rock to rock, finding them. Knife work if they were alone or in pairs. Grenades if they were clustered. He drifted on, leaving mute, bloody warnings to those who followed.

Lieutenant Dan Osaka and Emil Smolensky were both out of antitank rockets and low on machine gun and mortar ammunition. From Dan’s vantage point he could see a never-ending stream of Viper’s men pouring into the pass.

More M1A1’s and Bradleys were coming up from Colorado Springs and the five remaining tanks caught in the ambush were raking the hillsides with cannon and machine gun fire. He pulled out his radio, checked with Emil, then ordered his soldiers to break contact. They’d pull back to the next ambush site.

Flickers of motion on the upper slopes told Michael, Lt. Osaka and Emil were pulling out. He was so far gone into battle lust he almost hated to see it end. Six burning hulks lined Highway 24 and scores of twisted corpses bobbed in Fountain Creek, staining it red. Michael grinned as he crabbed over the ridge so as not to skyline himself. Viper wouldn’t be amused.

He slid down a steep side hill into a narrow ravine and found himself facing a couple of cadets. Part of the rear guard.

“You all right, Sir?” They really looked concerned.

Michael looked down at himself, for the first time noticing all the blood.

He shrugged and stepped past them, saying, “Not mine.”

The two cadets swallowed and looked at each other, eyes big. Who was this guy?

Chapter 33: Preparing for War

Ellen Whitebear struggled over the old topographic map. She wasn’t a real military commander for God’s sake. Well, okay, she was President of The Freeholds and she had led the counterattacks that defeated the refugees. But those were desperate, starving people who were lightly armed. Her brow creased as she chewed on the end of her pencil. Viper’s army was coming at the Freeholds with tanks, artillery and automatic weapons, so the question was how to stop them?

The corrections Michael and Emil had drawn on the topo maps didn’t help much. Remembering how she’d been outflanked during the battle with the refugees, she couldn’t see why, if her forces blocked this canyon, Viper wouldn’t just attack up another one, possibly via Deckers to the North or Canyon City to the South? For that matter, if Viper had several thousand fighters he could outflank the Freeholds by coming up Highway 285 from Denver to Jefferson and cutting back southeast. She decided to have Jim Cantrell or Aaron Goldstein check those possibilities out from the air and dispatched scout squads armed with IED’s to cover those routes, just in case.

A pincer movement like when the refugees attacked but with well equipped troops was her worst nightmare.

She tapped the mangled pencil on the map, noticing how the positions marked for Viper’s army wound up the narrow pass like a snake. If we don’t stop them before they reach Green Mountain Falls, we won’t stop them before they get here, she thought. She stopped tapping. What if we cut off the snake’s head? The idea intrigued her. She’d been planning how to stop an army when maybe she should have been planning how to stop a man.

*

Viper paced back and forth scowling fiercely at a topo map; one Marcus Robitaille had brought him from the remains of the Chinook Bookstore in downtown Colorado Springs.

“Why aren’t we though the pass?” He snapped.

“That pass is narrow.” Marcus said. “It’s choked with rockslides and old cars that stop our tanks cold. It’s easily defended and some of these guys fighting us have military experience. And even the men we have with combat experience haven’t faced any serious opposition--not enough to keep them sharp, anyhow.”

Marcus met Viper’s baleful gaze and held it.

“I could go on,” he added.

“You making excuses or just forgetting your place?” Viper asked.

Marcus shook his head. “I’m telling it like it is. Besides, you need me almost as much as I need you.”

“And why would you think that?” Viper’s eyes were lidded, his voice full of menace. His right hand pulled his hideout gun from its holster.

Marcus ticked off his responses on his fingers.

Index finger. “First, because everyone else is so afraid of you they’d tell you white was black if they thought that’s what you wanted to hear.”

He pointed to his middle finger. “Second, this organization is too big for you to run by yourself and you need someone else with brains and guts to help you.”

Ring finger. “And third, because I’m the only man in your empire with whom you can have an intelligent conversation.”

Viper nodded thoughtfully, slid his hideout gun back into its holster and said, “Just don’t get too comfortable.”

He pointed to the map. “Now, how would you suggest we overcome this problem?”

Marcus was ready for this one. “I’d withdraw,” he said.

Viper raised an eyebrow.

“If we had air power we could blow the defenders off the ridges and push on through the pass, but we don’t. We’re just wasting men and armor trying to force our way up that canyon,” Marcus said. “I doubt the enemy has more than fifty men keeping us bottled up. Our tank’s guns won’t elevate high enough to blast them off the summits. Their machine guns keep us pinned down so we can’t clear the roads. When we try to set up mortars their snipers kill our crews. We must outnumber them a hundred to one, but we won’t if we don’t quit charging machine guns.”

“We pull back and the men will quit believing they’re unstoppable,” Viper argued.

“They’ve already been stopped, Leroy” Marcus replied. “I’m sorry, man but that’s a fact. Besides we’ll call it a strategic withdrawal.” He leaned over the map and circled a spot. “We pull back to here, leave the armor, and climb up the North side of the pass until we hit the old Rampart Range Road.”

Viper’s eyes followed Marcus’s finger along the road.

“We’ll march up the road to Woodland Park, cut back down the pass and hit the defenders from behind. After we wipe them out we can take all the time we need to cut a road and bring our armor up.”

“That’s not bad, Colonel Robitaille,” Viper said, promoting Marcus on the spot. “But we won’t withdraw. We need to keep the enemy’s attention and that means keeping the pressure on. Bring up the reserves and use them for the end run and pull the reserve armor out of the Springs and send them through Garden of the Gods and up Rampart Range Road to join our troops.”

Marcus smiled to himself as he left the command post. That went better than expected. Brandon Silva was in charge of the reserves and Marcus got along well with the man. Like Marcus, Brandon had been an educated professional before the apocalypse. His top sergeant, Ladell Shore was a good man too.

*

Jim Cantrell’s gyrocopter settled to the ground in a cloud of whirling dust. Dan Osaka’s cadets grabbed 230 pounds of ammunition from the box Ellen Whitebear had ordered strapped into the second seat.

Emil Smolensky glanced disgustedly at the ammunition and asked, “How long ‘til you can get back?”

“Forty minutes round trip,” Jim said, damning the logistics of delivering ammo so far from The Freeholds. He shrugged and added, “Aaron Goldstein is on his way in the Pegasus. And Ellen started an ATV convoy with ammunition and reinforcements this way three hours ago. Another two or three hours they’ll be here. Sorry I couldn’t carry more, Emil.”

“You train someone lighter to fly that egg beater and they could carry more ammo,” Emil offered.

“Not a damned thing wrong with your hindsight, Emil,” Jim said. He waved as he accelerated down the dirt road and lifted off.

Emil grinned as he shouldered a box of ammo and headed back down the pass. That Cantrell was okay for a musician. Fifteen minutes later Emil was back in radio range.

Emil pushed the talk button on the GMRS transceiver and asked, “How we doing, Lieutenant?”

Static.

“Come in Lieutenant Osaka.”

“Dan’s been hit, Sergeant Smolensky. This is Dorsey McLeod.”

“What’s happening down there, Dorsey?”

“We’re holding them,” the Cadet said. “Hell, we can stop them if our ammo holds out.”

Emil winced. Dorsey had a lot to learn about radio discipline. Time to repair that blunder.

“No problem there, son. The ammo train just arrived. Say, is Michael around.”

“No, Sir! He’s up at the front with a sniper rifle. Christ! You should see him knock them over. Ain’t no one showed so much as a finger around that big rock by the curve for half-an-hour.”

Emil grinned again as he deciphered Dorsey’s Texas drawl. That Michael Whitebear would do, too. Then a thought came to him as he considered what he had just heard.

“Dorsey?”

“Yes, Sir!”

“You sure the enemy’s still there?” In a steep, narrow canyon like this a flanking move could be deadly.

“They’re there.” Dorsey said. “You can hear’em and see the dust they stir up.”

Emil exhaled a heavy sigh. Damn! He wasn’t used to thinking like an officer, though he’d spent a good part of his career thinking for officers.

A lone shot echoed up the canyon. Michael, or another sniper, Emil thought.

It wouldn’t hurt to move the flankers out farther, and he’d have to ask Jim or Aaron to fly a quick scout next time they dropped by.

He shouldered some ammo and got his munitions detail headed back down the pass. Time to get back to work.

*

Engine off, Aaron Goldstein glided the Pegasus high over the Rampart Range, catching thermals. Noiseless, like an eagle hunting rabbits he soared, scanning the ground below for enemy troops.

He caught a glimpse of movement. There, he thought, off to the side. He nudged the joystick until he was over them. Oh, God! Hundreds of them moving through the trees. At least it’s only infantry.

He rode another thermal gaining altitude. Not far from Garden of the Gods, he thought. Maybe we can intercept them and hold at Camera Point.

A dust cloud on the horizon spurred his curiosity and he headed that way. He heard them before he could see them. Tanks and Bradleys, a dozen or more, laboring along behind a huge group of slaves who were clearing obstacles the machines couldn’t negotiate.

He climbed until he was sure they wouldn’t hear the motor and fired it up. Ellen and the Freeholders were headed for Ute Pass. He had to intercept them and get most of them headed this way. Then he had a thought. Emil Smolensky and the Air Force Academy Cadets were much closer.

He unhooked his Yaesu VX 6R handie talkie from his belt, switched it to GMRS mode and raised Emil. On GMRS it was line of sight only since they didn’t have any repeaters up, but from his altitude line of sight could be twenty miles. Sure beat hell out of yelling.

*

Provo, Utah

Bob Young lit an oil lamp and opened the first of seven envelopes on his desk. He’d been sound asleep on his cot at City Hall when the courier came in. It took him three minutes to rub the sleep from his eyes, splash cold wake-up water on his face and reach his desk. He’d been waiting anxiously for these reports for more than a month.

The first report revealed a heavily defended settlement in Kingman, Arizona. Good people, friendly if wary, seeking trade. They had a functioning hospital. All Colorado River bridges out or submerged. Access to Kingman via zodiac launched just west of Nephi and by following the new coastline to Kingman. Locals who tried to find relatives in Phoenix say it is underwater, probably part of our new and much larger Gulf of California. Saw 3 gray whales and 1 Blue whale along with several pods of dolphins on voyage. Suggest we establish a fishing fleet.

Second report: Flagstaff--burned; Prescott--burned; Sedona--weird. (That brought a slight smile.) Rumors of Apache tribals going back to the land and hostile to whites are true. I got jumped by three men who identified themselves as Apache, told me I was on Apache land and stole my packhorse for trespassing. They almost killed me when I told them I was trying to survey the damages and changes in the land but let me go with a warning not to come back. They told me of slavers coming up from up from Mexico and I have no reason to doubt them.

Third Report: Gallup, New Mexico--severely damaged by fire and flood but holding together. Navaho tribe main power. White “foreigners” unwelcome, but allowed to pass by paying a tax in gold, fuel, food or trade items. Rumors of Ute and Cheyenne tribes east and north not confirmed. Albuquerque--mostly gone due to flooding. Saw some large greenhouses being run by slavers so I stayed clear. Santa Fe--mostly burned, but with a solid core of farmers and Pueblo Indians open to trade.

Fourth report: Central Utah below Park City--mostly drowned under huge new fresh water lake. Eastern Utah--still desert but greening up and still empty. Grand Junction, Colorado, wiped out by floods and fires except for a small survivor settlement high above the Colorado River, near Fruita. Folks wary but like almost everywhere else, desperate for news.

Fifth report: Western and North Central Wyoming--mostly buried under lava flow from Yellowstone Caldera eruption, but event not explosive, rather more like Kilauea with slow, steady, but vast flows. Isolated homestead communities, hostile at first. Cheyenne and Arapahoe tribes likewise, but open to trade. Rumors of Satanic cult ruling Denver from several refugee sources. Likely true.

Sixth report: Montana--Tons of volcanic ash, some from Yellowstone but suspect Hood and Rainier also. Very few people and most of them tend to shoot first.

Seventh report: Idaho and Northern Nevada--Seems like everything up here has been burned or buried under volcanic ash. Saw a few folk around Elko but they waved me off and I didn’t press matters. There’s a good-sized community growing up around the Coeur d’Alene area and another north of the Boise ruins. They’re trying to get potato beds and a few orchards restarted, but the ash is a problem.

No word yet from California, Oregon or Washington or Canada. Likewise Southern New Mexico and West Texas. No word from Adam since he’d sent a rider with the Western Colorado report.

*

Adam Young sat his mount with the ease of one accustomed to long hours in the saddle. His vantage point provided an excellent view of the ruins of Glenwood Springs, the charred timbers of the town and surrounding forest evidence of a hellish inferno. Aluminum cars parts had run like water and, as they cooled, left solid metal rivulets and puddles behind. Windshield glass melted and drooped, forming silicon stalactites on the rusted hulks. Crispy corpses, mostly undisturbed because of the lack of live scavengers, littered the scene. He’d seen it all before but only rarely did fire get hot enough to form streams from metal objects. He raised his field glasses and trained them on the peaks beyond the town.

His Minolta 10x50 binoculars were heavy, unwieldy and you had to have rock steady hands or the image would dance. They were also powerful and had optical coatings that guaranteed clarity, which meant they were perfect for reading the heliograph signals flashed to him by his distant forward scouts.

“I-70 impassable,” the Morse blinks spelled out.

He turned to his signaler and said, “Query: Why?”

“I-70 gone,” came the reply.

That did it. He’d be damned if he’d bushwhack his way across the mountains to reach the East Slope. He could try a different route, swing north and try to pick up I-80, but that would have to wait for another time.

He nodded to his signaler and said, “Send recall.” It was time to go home.

Chapter 34: The Skirmish at Ute Pass

Jim Cantrell had a problem. He could smell the overheated metal of his gyrocopter’s engine. Too hot. Damned air-cooled ultralight motors weren’t meant for continuous operation, especially when the machine was overloaded. He looked at the load of munitions on the seat beside him and shrugged. He knew how desperate Emil and the others must be so he couldn’t jettison the ammo. His only remaining choice was to slow down. Swearing to himself he throttled back. Better late than never.

He thumbed the transmit button on his hand-held radio.

“Emil, you copy?”

No response.

“Emil, come in?”

Static hissed out of the speaker. No Emil. Still not in range. At least he hoped that was the problem. Radios didn’t work for shit anymore. He’d heard Aaron and Randy complaining the only people they could talk to on their HAM sets was each other. Aaron said it was like trying to broadcast during a lighting storm.

The engine sputtered and quit, and when he tried the starter, it wouldn’t crank.

“Shit!” He popped the ballistic chute and rode the tiny copter down into a boggy meadow just east of Woodland Park. He stuffed all the ammunition he could carry into his backpack and legged it toward Emil’s last reported position.

*

Emil Smolensky, former gunnery Sergeant in the U.S. Marine Corps and current Colonel in the Freeholds Militia, crouched behind a gray and black granite boulder and counted his rounds as bullets buzzed by overhead and ricocheted off nearby rocks. Too few. He was down to a Ruger Mini-14 that fired .22’s. Three boxes wouldn’t last another five minutes. He glanced at the boy-soldiers who had come with him and grinned like a wolf.

“More of that ammo they waste, the less they have to tote around, huh?”

Nervous grins and wide eyes answered him.

He raised the Mini-14 above the sheltering granite and fired three rounds without aiming or exposing himself.

“Let’em know we aren’t out,” he explained. “Make’em a little more cautious.”

One of the Cadets near him stood up and squeezed off a three round burst from an M-16. He caught a return round through the forehead and dropped.

Emil’s lips tightened in a thin line. “That’s why I told you to keep your heads down,” Emil said. He picked up the dead boy’s M-16 and asked, “Who’s out?”

A pimply faced Cadet with dark hair raised his hand and Emil handed him the rifle.” Let’em know we’re still here,” Emil said.

Twenty-five Cadets followed his example and fired three round bursts without exposing themselves.

Emil pointed back along what was left of Rampart Range Road. “Now let’s fall back a bit before we’re surrounded. Regroup behind those pink and black striped rocks.” Where the hell was that damned musician and his ammo?

*

Michael Whitebear centered the officer’s forehead in the crosshairs. He let out half a breath and relaxed, squeezing the trigger gently, firing between heartbeats. The rifle roared and a red mist sprung from the officer’s head. The man behind the officer clutched his chest and fell. Before Michael could chamber another round everyone else near the officer had taken cover.

“Two-fers?” Randy McKinley asked, lowering his binoculars. “At 400 yards, you’re lining up two-fers?”

Two nearby Cadets manning an M-60 gave each other a knowing look. The echo of the shot faded down the canyon.

“Dumb luck, Randy,” Michael replied, scanning the hillside with the scope. He paused and put a round into an exposed foot. “Besides,” he said, “dropping two at once gives away our direction. Their snipers will be homing in on us now. Time to move.” They slid down behind the dark red sandstone outcrop.

“Right,” Randy said. “But keep that up and they’ll be too scared to show themselves, much less mount an assault.”

“They aren’t mounting anything, Randy.” Michael said, slinging the rifle over his shoulder and stepping out. “They haven’t even made a halfhearted attempt to get past that choke point in hours. They’re up to something.”

Randy moved with him. “Flanking us?”

“What I’d try,” Michael said.

Randy nodded. “So you think Ellen guessed right?”

Michael stopped and gave Randy a mirthless grin. “One thing I’ve learned being married to her,” he said. “Nobody’s getting rich betting against Ellen.”

“Think Emil can stop them?”

Michael just kept walking. The two cadets brought up the rear.

“Right. Dumb question.” Randy answered himself. Every able-bodied Freeholder was on the way to reinforce Ute Pass and the Rampart Range bypass. If they didn’t arrive soon enough, well, he and every Cadet and Freeholder making a stand at Ute Pass would know soon enough.

*

“All I’m saying is this is the best organized resistance we’ve ever encountered.” Marcus said. “And we’re giving them too much--”

Viper’s reptilian eyes stopped Marcus dead.

“Time?” Viper asked. His tone belayed the anger in his eyes. “They have a sniper at the choke point up Ute Pass who just killed two men with one shot. I’ve lost more than 300 men there and three-quarters of my tanks. My officers up there are reporting that no one will leave cover to advance, and if they would the terrain is too rough for any motorized vehicle larger than a dirt bike.

“My infantry scouts on Rampart Range Road were ambushed and wiped out. These damned Freeholders are dropping trees and triggering rock slides everywhere, so my armored column can only go as fast as the road can be repaired. The end result is my enemy has time to mount a defense. So what should I do, Marcus? What brilliant suggestion can you offer to overcome physics?”

Viper’s sarcasm churned Marcus’s stomach like rancid milk. Still, those dead eyes suggested extreme caution. “I wasn’t suggesting criticism, Sir. I was suggesting we cut our losses and pull back.”

“Are you insane?” Viper asked. “Pulling back is a defeat. A defeat makes us look vulnerable and if we look vulnerable we are.”

“There is a difference between a defeat and a strategic retreat.” Marcus said.

Their command Bradley lurched to a halt almost throwing them from their seats. Marcus swiveled to face the command plot and pointed.

“If we pull back to the Springs we can scout a new way to hit them. Send flanking attacks through Canyon City, Deckers and Jefferson. Hit them from all sides at once.”

“Yes, yes, Marcus, let’s implement a plan that requires six months to enact so we can fight in winter, or better yet next spring.” Viper slammed his hand down onto the map.

“You missed the point, Marcus. Any retreat makes me look fallible.” Viper shook his head. “It seems I’ve taught you nothing. You are still just a lawyer.” He opened the door and stepped out the rear of the Bradley where runners were waiting to deliver his orders. Marcus followed.

“Tell Captain Silva to commit all the reserves to the Rampart Range attack. And have Ranger report to me. Time for us to see if their sniper is better than ours.”

Marcus relayed the orders to runners, who started off.

Viper laid a hand on Marcus’s shoulder. “When we reach the crest the terrain opens up and our armor will crush them,” he said, and now his eyes glowed. This was how it should be, risking all on one throw of the dice, like Caesar crossing the Rubicon or Alexander at Gaugamela. Didn’t his men realize Satan was with them? They could not fail.

*

The slug caught Emil low in his left side and spun him around as another bullet ruined his metal leg. A wounded cadet wearing a bloody bandage around his head looped Emil’s arm over his shoulders and half-carried the Gunny to better cover.

“What’s your name, son?” Emil asked. His eyes weren’t working well.

The boy tore Emil’s shirt open and said, “It’s me Sir, Lieutenant Dan Osaka.” He found a sulfa packet and started to tear it open when Emil’s hand stopped him.

“Save it for someone it can help, Lieutenant. I’m done for. My insides are a mess.” He stiffened as pain shot through him. “Listen up. You’re in charge now and I’m telling you to run, you got that? No, orderly retreat--that requires ammo we don’t have--just plain cut and run like hell.”

“But what about our wounded?”

“Get me and the ones who can’t run up in those rocks,” he said, pointing to the site. “Then give us what ammo you have left. We’ll delay them while you get clear.”

“I can’t do that, sir.”

“You can’t do anything else, son. It’s an order. You understand? You follow orders whether you like’em or not.”

“Yes, sir. But--”

“No buts. This is about living to fight another day.” He laid a hand on Dan Osaka’s forearm, gave it a squeeze, and said, “Now, get going.”

*

Emil Smolensky lay among the rocks with eight wounded, frightened cadets, none of whom wanted to die and all of whom realized they were. Faint sounds from downrange told them the enemy was moving into assault positions. Wide eyes, jerky breaths and too much fidgeting told Emil he needed to say something to calm them down but he’d never been in this position before.

“Well men,” there were no wounded women in this group, “this is where I’m supposed to say something inspiring or sentimental like ‘It’s been an honor to serve with you.’ And it has.”

He wiped a blood stained sleeve across his face collecting the worst of the sweat and said, “This isn’t the Alamo or Thermopylae but we’re in the same situation and whatever happens here, we will not be forgotten. So let’s take as many of these bastards with us as we can and let the fact that we did our duty with pride and courage be our epitaph.”

He got a few nods and clinched jaws in return for his words and one boy gave him a salute which he returned since he was now technically a Colonel.

The upside of all this, he thought, as enemy fire poured at them and he and his boys shot back, was that he’d soon be with Heather and Darla again.

“Aim for the officers,” he yelled as he dropped a man giving orders with a headshot. Several others fell as the line of skirmishers advanced, but they kept coming.

A round punched into his right shoulder and spun him away from his vantage point. He was too weak to reach his rifle so he pulled the pin on his last grenade and rolled onto it.

A few minutes later all the shooting from his boys stopped and he heard enemy boots scraping against the rocks as they clambered over the surrounding boulders and slid down to his position. A black hand grabbed his shoulder and rolled him over, eyes growing big as they saw the spoon flip off the grenade.

“Surprise,” Emil whispered with his last breath.

*

Jim Cantrell knew he was too late when he heard screams instead of gunfire. He’d ran as hard as he could with more than one hundred pounds of munitions on his back but the screams stopped him cold and sent a shiver down his spine. He advanced cautiously to the cover of a blue spruce and peeked though the boughs. A glance revealed a cadet spread-eagled on the ground, with more than a dozen of Viper’s men standing around, laughing. He couldn’t see what they were doing to the blood soaked boy but from his time as Viper’s slave he had a good idea.

He clenched his teeth until his jaws ached. He’d lost so much--Jill and his infant son, Jack Quist and dozens of close friends, his dignity when living as a slave, and now Emil and several other cadets lay dead because he hadn’t arrived in time.

Jim checked the magazine on his M16, then pulled a pin from one grenade and laid his pack on it. He figured after he opened up they’d find his pack and the surprise under it. He stuffed his jacket pockets with ammo and flinched as a screech from the cadet reached an impossibly high note. Show time, he thought, as he lobbed a grenade into their midst.

The boy’s screams stopped with the blast.

*

Lieutenant Dan Osaka looked back over his shoulder as he followed the surviving troops down the forested canyon into the ruins of Woodland Park. He kept looking long after he heard the last of the gunshots echo down the pass and knew Viper’s hounds were after them again.

Strange, he thought, just as he slid down a crumbling granite slope and darted for the trees on the far side of the washed out road. For a second there he was sure he’d heard a couple of explosions...and more gunfire.

*

Ellen Whitebear, mounted on her Palomino, led the Freeholder Militia down Bluebird Hill into Woodland Park and started preparing defensive positions. The base of the long, steep hill, where Highway 24 entered the city limits, was a natural choke point--the last good place to make a stand between the town and the Freeholds.

“Greek,” she yelled to Iskos Theodoratus. “When the Caterpillar gets here I want breastworks there and over there.” She pointed the places out and added, “We need to channel them all into the gap so make sure you close off West Road and South Foley. Get Aaron and Terrell to help.”

“Ellen!”

She turned and saw Mariko McKinley pull her lathered mount to a halt. “Got someone here with a report,” she said, as a tall, thin boy in air force blues slid off from behind her. He had a bloodstained bandage wrapped around his head and more blood on his uniform. “Lieutenant Dan Osaka, meet Ellen Whitebear, President of the Freeholds.”

The boy drew himself to attention, saluted, and held it until Ellen figured out he needed a response.

“At ease, Lieutenant,” she said and raised her brows at Mariko.

“I picked him up on Baldwin Street where it turns into Rampart Range Road,”

Mariko said. “He and a dozen like him are all that’s left of Emil’s delaying action.”

“Emil?” Ellen asked, though she already knew.

“I’m afraid he’s gone ma’am,” the Lieutenant said, adding, “I doubt we have more than half a day before Viper’s forward elements get here...and his armor won’t be far behind.”

Ellen nodded and turned back to Mariko. “We have to warn Randy and Michael they’re about to be flanked. Tell them to pull out and meet us here and...” She paused and took a deep breath. She hadn’t wanted it to come to this. Michael had risked enough already bottling up Ute Pass. But she looked around and saw her people digging foxholes, checking weapons, passing out food, water and ammo, and knew she had no choice. “...and tell Michael I need him to cut the head off the snake.”

*

“Cut the head off the snake?” Michael asked, just to be sure he’d heard correctly.

“That’s what she said.” Mariko gave her husband, Randy, a hug, swung back up into the saddle and started up the pass at a trot.

Michael peered though his sniper scope at the choke point where he’d stopped Viper’s army. It had been thirty minutes since he’d taken a shot and still none of Viper’s troops showed so much as a pinkie.

“I could come with you,” Randy offered.

“No, thanks.” Michael leaned his rifle against the lightning scarred trunk of a ponderosa pine and shook Randy’s hand.

“Then what do you need?” Randy asked.

“Some .308’s for the Remington and a box of .357’s for my magnum.” Michael held out his canteen. “A refill if you can spare it.”

“No radio?”

Michael thought that one over. The Motorola GMRS models the cadets used had been a godsend, but... “No, if I take one Ellen might have second thoughts and try to call me off.”

Jacques and Denise Lachelle appeared from up canyon and Jacques said, “The charges are laid and the cadets are ready to pull out.”

“Get them started,” Randy said. “I’ll bring up the rear.”

Denise stepped forward and thrust a fresh set of ‘tree bark’ cammies toward Michael. “You should take a dip in Fountain creek and change in to these. Otherwise they will smell you coming, mon amie.”

Michael grinned and accepted the clothes. Trust a woman to see the obvious before a man could. “Thank you, Denise.”

“You thank me best with a bullet through that Viper’s head,” Denise said, her eyes flashing. “He is evil.”

A fresh scrubbed Michael sighed as Randy McKinley faded out of sight through the trees. He was in that strange zone he knew he operated best in--by himself, behind enemy lines. He remembered reading Louis L’Amour westerns and agreeing when the writer’s character said the advantage to being on your own was you could shoot anything that moved and be certain it was an enemy. Of course there were disadvantages to going solo. No one to keep watch while you slept. No one to set up a crossfire ambush with. But not having to worry about anyone else getting hurt more than made up for that in his book.

He knew he’d have to start the hunt soon but he wanted to send one more greeting to those down the pass. So he scanned the gap and waited, and tensed as a man appeared. The soldier, obviously shoved from cover, wind-milled his arms violently and lurched back behind the rocks. Michael let him go. A small fish wouldn’t send the right message.

Five minutes passed--then ten, and Michael wondered if he wasn’t pushing his luck. Enemy snipers were surely posted by now, waiting for him to take a shot. He put the thought out of his head. They were either there, and he’d looked for them without finding them, or they weren’t.

A man’s head edged from behind a large boulder on the northern edge of the gap. Michael centered his scope and waited. The man’s eyes moved slowly as he scanned for danger and Michael knew he was an officer. He took a breath, let half out and focused on the image in the scope while his index finger squeezed.

The top of the man’s head blew off and Michael, catching a hint of movement from the corner of his eye, swung his rifle to the upper slopes. There. A slight motion in a Douglas fir. He sent a slug that way and was rewarded by seeing a rifle fall from the tree.

Time to move. He slung his Model 7 Remington over his shoulder and vanished up the slope. It was full dark before Viper’s forces worked up the courage to push into the gap.

*

“Goddamn!” Ranger hissed as he smeared Neosporin on the bullet burn along his right arm. He’d been so careful getting into position. How the hell had he been spotted? He placed gauze pads on the wound and wrapped it, trying to concentrate. But he just couldn’t get that sniper out of his mind. Whoever that son of a bitch was, he was good. Ranger had never seen two rounds fired so fast at such widely separated targets--and both of them hits. If that bullet hadn’t glanced off his rifle stock...well, he was just glad it creased his arm instead of his skull.

He examined his rifle closely. The scope was broken from the fall and the stock was gouged. Other than that, it looked okay. Good.

He’d had a field day earlier on those cadets at the airstrip and he’d just framed this sniper is his scope when--wham!--he’d been hit.

He climbed to his feet and stared up the valley. Two of the remaining tanks and at least a hundred men poured into the gap. In the darkness it was hard to tell how many, but to him it was a flood that would wipe those irritating Freeholders away.

He took a step and the ground rose up and slapped him. Roaring filled his ears and pain flooded his mouth as the ground jolted so hard he bit his tongue. Choking dust filled the air and he couldn’t see through watery eyes, so he lay still.

As the air cleared, the light of a quarter moon revealed broken trees and bloodstained rock. The gap was closed.

Ranger spit blood as he pulled himself up and glared at the enemy hills. He’d get another chance at the bastard. That’s all he wanted.

*

Michael stowed the detonator in his pack, satisfied he’d closed Ute pass, at least for now. He only had a few sticks of dynamite left, but then, how much would it take to kill a snake?

Chapter 35: The Fight at Woodland Park

“What the hell are we doing?” Dikeme whispered. “We should not be here.” She and Otha were hidden in a midden heap of pine needle and cone debris left by generations of squirrels. The firefight they were hiding from was no more than a quarter mile away.

“This is the largest organized group of black people we’ve seen since leaving New York,” Otha said. “I was hoping we could meet with them and find out what’s going on?”

“You didn’t trust the mountain man?”

“Earl? He seemed okay, but I don’t trust anyone but you. And that crapola he spouted about cannibal blacks enslaving everyone was a bit hard to swallow. I mean, how could a gang of blacks have taken over Denver? What happened to all the whites and Hispanics?”

“I would not presume to guess, Otha, but what we have seen so far indicates Earl was being truthful.” Dikeme’s British accent became more pronounced in moments of stress.

“So you think those work gangs we saw clearing obstructions and doing road work were slaves?” Otha had a hard time believing his fellow blacks were slavers. His education hadn’t included the history of the slave trade in Africa.

“Again, I do not know, but they certainly were not well fed and what I saw tells me this lot is divided along racial lines. Everyone who had a gun was black and almost everyone on the work details was white or Hispanic.” She held up her hand, forestalling his objection. “The black population here is clearly in control and judging from the fighting they did not attain that power peacefully.”

“That doesn’t make them the bad guys here...or prove they’re cannibals,” Otha said, more forcefully than he intended.

Dikeme cocked her head at him and said, “You are, of course, correct.” In a tone that said, you are, of course, wrong.

Otha chose wisdom over valor and said nothing. He raised his binoculars and watched the army across the canyon. The fighting faded away over a ridge out of earshot and the men he was spying on began moving the logistics train up the road--distant curses mingled with roaring engines and at least one idiot grinding a clutch.

When the last of the rear guard disappeared among the charred tree trunks and scorched boulders they climbed out of the pine needles and Otha said, “I think we should follow them.”

“I wouldn’t do that.”

They jerked with surprise then spun toward him, their hands reaching for their guns.

“Relax,” the stranger said. He held out empty hands as proof he meant no harm.

Otha eyed him, warily. On the short side, maybe five feet ten, brown hair and beard, the guy looked fit and he’d already shown he was woods wise.

“Who are you?” Otha asked.

“And where do you get off scaring the life out of us like that,” Dikeme added.

“My name is Michael Whitebear and I’m sorry I startled you, but it’s not every day I hear a pile of pine needles whispering. I heard you mention Earl, so I assume you’ve met Earl Baker and his family. And I could tell by what you said you weren’t with Viper’s army, so I decided to say howdy.”

“Dikeme and Otha Gladson,” Dikeme said, getting the introductions out of the way. “You call him Viper?”

Michael shrugged. “What he calls himself.” He craned his neck. Looking up at Otha and Dikeme was like rubber necking at skyscrapers.

“Can you tell us what’s going on?” Otha asked.

“Glad to, but we should get back under cover first.”

“Why?”

“Because Viper checks his back trail,” Michael said.

*

Marcus knocked on the hatch of Viper’s Bradley and fidgeted while waiting for it to open. The command vehicle was parked in the center of the Headquarters group just above Garden of the Gods, where Viper could keep in touch with both columns.

The rear hatch clanged open and Viper asked, “What is it, Marcus?”

“We’ve broken through on Rampart Range and the enemy appears to be massing in Woodland Park.”

“And?” Viper always knew when Marcus was hiding something.

“The bastards buried our tanks under a landslide. Ute pass is closed.” Marcus saw Viper’s eyes glitter dangerously and swallowed hard. Bringing bad news to Viper could be risky and he wasn’t sure he’d been forgiven for suggesting retreat earlier.

But Viper surprised him again, taking a deep breath and letting it out in a loud sigh. “Omelets and eggs, Marcus. We still have a dozen Bradleys and three Abrams and now the terrain is in our favor, so push them hard. When we crush them we will control the entire east slope of Colorado.” He flung his arms wide. “Imagine it, Marcus. There will be no one left to oppose us and a new society will blossom where black justice rules.”

Marcus, who didn’t believe in black justice, or anything else except survival, nodded enthusiastically. The tightrope he walked between sycophant and gadfly gnawed on his nerves like a starving slave on a soup bone.

*

Ellen ducked behind the parapet and slammed a fresh magazine into her Beretta as rounds from the Bradley’s 7.62 mm gun whined off the granite of the Teller County Courthouse. She popped up, sent two slugs into the gunner as the commander ducked down inside the vehicle, and signaled Chad Bailey.

As the crew of the Bradley pulled the dead gunner out the hatch, Chad lofted a Molotov cocktail into the opening. The machine jerked to a halt and the back hatch dropped open as flames and burning men erupted from the interior. The men died in a hail of small arms fire.

Ellen gagged at a whiff of burnt flesh. Another Bradley down, she thought, wondering how many more were still in action. Jim Cantrell had radioed he’d seen at least eight while fighting a delaying action up on Rampart Range. She and her hunter-killer team had accounted for two.

*

Moira Goldstein’s bomb factory was in full swing. Moira, Marcia Haley and Leona Perry shoved detonators into duct taped bundles of dynamite, smeared globs of tile adhesive on them and sealed them in plastic wrap. Other adults and some of the older children poured a gasoline and soap flakes mixture into glass jars and inserted soaked rag fuses to fashion Molotov cocktails.

“I can’t believe we have children making bombs,” Leona said, her brows knit as she concentrated on her task. “This could damage them badly.”

“Not as much as being a slave--or dinner--if Viper wins,” Moira fired back. “It’s a nasty new world we find ourselves in and if history is any teacher, survival will go to the fittest.”

“Oh, I’m not arguing,” Leona protested. “But the teacher in me worries what we’re doing to them.”

“We’re teaching them that actions have consequences,” Moira said. “And who was it who found those old copies of the Anarchist’s Cookbook and The Army’s Improvised Munitions Field Manual?”

Leona laid another sticky bomb on the pile and said, “Guilty.”

“For what it’s worth,” Marcia said, “I think having them help is a good thing.”

Wayne Anderson and Jacques Lachelle ran into the old train depot pushing empty wheelbarrows.

“I see you’ve got another load ready,” Wayne said.

Jacques grabbed a full wheelbarrow and said, “Ellen says pull back to Bluebird Hill. It’s getting too hot in this part of town.” He tossed the words over his shoulder as he trotted out the door with his new load.

“Everybody!” Moira yelled. “We need to load up and head for Bluebird.” As she shoved ingredients into boxes she thought about her sister-in-law, Aeriella, sailing serenely above the chaos, safe in the ISS. At least Aeriella wasn’t forced to fight for her life against cannibals.

*

Luna City

Aeriella flew along the corridor toward the sound of the alarm with Mary Adams and Linette Laverne in close pursuit. All over Luna City everyone would be rushing to respond to the emergency. As she neared an intersection she jumped and spun pointing her feet toward the corner so she could change direction down the side hallway without stopping. Loonies called this move the ricochet and most of them had it down pat. Halfway through the crossover she slammed into Muhammad Rahotep as he rushed through from the right.

They both ping-ponged off the walls and smacked together again, then rolled down the corridor. She came to a stop facing him and saw the naked rage on his face. It was a look too familiar to Israeli Jews who saw it daily in the eyes of their Arab neighbors.

“You Jew bitch!” he said, shoving her as she started to rise.

She bounced off the wall, cracking her head so hard her eyes watered.

He raised a closed fist and Mary Adams yelled, “Muhammad!”

“It was an accident,” Linette added, clearly appalled.

Muhammad lowered his fist, regaining control of himself.

“The alarm,” Aeriella said, and they all took off again, but not before she got another of those looks from Muhammad.

Arabs and Jews, she thought sadly. Would the hatred never end? Her brother Aaron had left Israel for America to escape that violence. At least he ended up in Colorado, far from any ocean. From what she had seen from her sightings that state was largely intact so maybe…. She pinched herself mentally. Maybe it’s best not to think of those on the surface. Better to focus on staying alive up here.

The alarm was just a drill, but not without its benefits, she decided as she entered the infirmary. She’d learned that Muhammad hated her and forewarned was forearmed. Groaning at her own pun she taped a scalpel to her forearm and hid it under her sleeve.

*

Aaron Goldstein soared high over Woodland Park. Too high to discern the details he wanted to see, but every time he flew the Pegasus lower he took rifle fire from Viper’s troops. Still, he’d counted half a dozen burning Bradleys as Viper’s army swarmed like killer bees over the northern and eastern reaches of Woodland Park. He also saw the three Abrams tanks when they arrived and radioed a quick update to Ellen.

*

The ground shook from the nearby blast, the walls shuddered and fine dust drifted into the room. Jim Cantrell sneezed explosively. “Sorry about that,” he said.

“What?” Ellen asked, her ears ringing.

“Never mind.” He peeked out the window using a periscope made of duct tape, mirrors from a compact and cardboard tubing from paper towels. “Are the charges set?”

“Yes,” she replied.

The tank cannon was rotating toward them.

“We gotta move,” Jim said, pushing her out the back door. As they dropped into an open manhole Ellen pushed the button on the detonator. The blast hammered them to their knees and Ellen tasted blood in her mouth.

She poked her head up and radioed Aaron. “Did it work?”

“It’s too dusty,” Aaron replied. “I can’t see a--wait a minute--yeah, there’s debris covering the front of the tank but it won’t pin him for long.”

Jim picked up a sticky bomb and dashed down the tunnel. He veered left at the intersection and ran another hundred feet, stopping under another manhole. He climbed the metal rungs, pushed the manhole cover aside and grinned. He was under the tank, just like he’d planned. He shoved the sticky bomb in between the treads and the gears and lit the fuse. Dropping back into the sewer he ran like hell was on his heels.

He hadn’t quite reached the intersection when the dynamite blew and converted the tank into a badly damaged pillbox--still deadly, but no longer mobile.

He staggered around the corner and saw Ellen giving him a thumbs up.

“Well, that’s great,” he said, “But I doubt it’ll work again. What’s next?”

*

Garrett and Linda Haley, Don and Marcia’s teenagers, came up with the next bright idea for stopping the tanks.

“I don’t like putting them in harms way, either,” Don Haley, said. “But they’ve convinced Marcia and me it’ll work and I think it’s worth a try.”

Ellen studied the two earnest teenagers. So young to have seen so much suffering, but the two remaining tanks had teamed up and were rampaging through town, flattening every position they came across.

“Okay,” she said, hating the fact she had no choice. Children didn’t get much childhood in hard times.

*

The lead tank literally rolled over the barricade of abandoned cars, crushing them while its machine gunner fired at the retreating troops. The main gun roared and the corner of a building some Freeholders were sheltering behind disappeared.

“It’s like using a sledgehammer to swat mosquitoes,” the tank commander said, as they entered the intersection and stopped.

The main gun operator smiled at him as he loaded another H.E.A.T round. “Cept we swattin honkeys,” he said.

The tankers mostly ignored the bullets ricocheting off the body of the tank. When fully buttoned up they were practically invulnerable to small arms fire; and the enemy appeared to be out of the antitank rockets and mortar shells that claimed the other two tanks in their squadron.

The Tank commander rotated the turret slowly, looking for targets. The only problem with having all the hatches closed was limited visibility through their small viewports. Was that a shadow?

*

Aaron Goldstein saw his opportunity and dove on the two tanks. Bullets zipped by, a few punching holes in the light weight aluminum skin of the Pegasus. Steady, he thought and manned himself to keep from flinching as the rounds cracked past.

As he swooped over the tanks he pulled the release cords and two large trash bags fell onto the tanks below.

He laughed like a crazy man as he zigzagged away gaining altitude. Who would have believed he’d attack tanks with water balloons filled with black paint and used motor oil.

*

“What?” The tank commander swore as his viewports went dark. He keyed his radio and asked, “What happened?”

The reply from the other tank was broken and static-filled. “Don’t know. ...see anything...black.”

“Where the fuck’s my infantry support?” the commander yelled into his field phone. But the phone box on the back of the tank had been targeted by snipers and was out of commission. And his infantry was ducking for cover as the Freeholders opened up with M 60’s and captured M 50’s.

*

Linda Hailey peeked out the broken window at the blinded tanks and thumbed the controls. A small radio-controlled truck darted out of the 7-11 parking lot, bouncing over the rubble and made a beeline for the tank. Sparks trailed from the long fuse of the sticky bomb in the truck bed. Linda deftly steered the little truck under the tank and stopped it, while her brother, Garret, mimicked her actions, parking his toy truck under the other tank.

The twin blasts shredded the tracks of the tanks and ignited the motor oil.

“Cool,” Garret said, peeking out at the now blind and burning M 1’s.

Dan Hailey shot Garret a thumbs up and gave Linda a quick hug. “You did great,” he said. “Now let’s get out of here before their infantry pulls itself together.”

*

“But the fighting is here,” Jim argued. He pointed toward the hills. Michael’s still out there and…”

“And we’re dangerously low on ammo,” Ellen Whitebear interrupted. “We stalled them today but tomorrow they’ll roll right over us if we don’t get more.” She tapped his chest with her index finger. “I need to find out what happened to our supply column. They should have been here hours ago.”

He sighed. “Wish I still had the copter.”

“Take a couple of mounts from the outriders stable.”

He nodded once and started to leave.

“Jim?”

He half-turned to face her, one eyebrow raised.

“Be back before dawn tomorrow, Jim. If they don’t hit us tonight, it’ll happen then.”

“They’ve had a long, hard day, Ellen. They won’t attack tonight.”

“From your lips…” she whispered as he loped up Bluebird Hill to the stables.

Chapter 36: Changes in Latitude

“You notice how the stars are different?” Otha asked.

“Hard to miss,” Michael said.

“I miss chocolate,” Dikeme chimed in, completely off point, raising grins from the men. “Seriously, I miss chocolate candy bars, chocolate ice cream, chocolate covered peanuts, chocolate--” she broke off as she caught the small package Michael tossed her; M&M’s chocolate covered peanuts.

“Found a couple of cases in a Surplus store last year,” Michael explained, adding, “We use them as emergency field rations.”

“You, sir, are a Djin. What do I get for my other two wishes?”

Michael chuckled, shaking his head.

She carefully opened a small hole in the M&M’s bag, took a single one out and placed it on her tongue like a sacrament. She followed this a short time later with a heavy sigh.

“Well, you’ve made a friend for life,” Otha said.

“Hopefully two,” Michael said. “The Freeholds could use a couple like you.” They had spent the afternoon slowly trailing Viper’s army, keeping well back of his rear guard, waiting for darkness, getting acquainted. Now that the stars were coming out they resumed their earlier conversation.

“You said you’ve been doing a survey,” Michael said. Otha had told him about Pike’s Peak being lower or sea level being higher.

Otha nodded and said, “More like a wild-assed guess, what with no GPS and no accurate sea level baseline.”

“But you’ve noticed we don’t have as much twilight time.” Michael said. “Reminds me of the tropics. One minute it’s evening and the next it’s dark.”

“That’s because at the equator the Earth is spinning at a bit more than a thousand miles per hour,” Otha said. “While at forty degrees north Earth’s circumference is smaller and it’s only spinning at about seven hundred ninety-five miles per hour.”

“My God,” Michael said, getting it. “That means...” He paused, still struggling to wrap his head around the idea.

“The best I can figure is we’re at about five degrees north latitude,” Otha said.

“So the North American plate...shifted thirty-five degrees?”

“Sort of,” Otha said. “I mean--”

“He thinks the entire mantle slipped,” Dikeme said, returning from chocoholic heaven.

“Basically, yes I do,” Otha said. “So ALL the plates slipped.”

Michael stared up into the night sky and said, “I thought I saw the Large Magellanic Cloud, but I just couldn’t believe it.”

“Believe it, my friend. Every astronomy textbook will have to be rewritten and every navigator has to start from scratch. We’ve experienced severe Changes in Latitude like that old Jimmy Buffet song.”

They sat silently, letting the darkness deepen and their thoughts run until Michael said, “It’s dark enough now. I’ve got to get going.” He rose to his feet and shouldered his pack and rifle. “You head for Woodland Park the way I told you, and be very careful. My wife, Ellen, will have sniper teams and listening posts out; and given the people we’re fighting, you’re the wrong color to sneak up on our lines, so put those red arm bands I gave you on now. If you don’t hit our lines before sunrise find something white to tie around your left arm. Red was today’s color of the day.”

He paused while they tied red strips of cloth around their left arms, then said, “Good luck, you two. Remember the password?”

“Pegasus,” they both said. They looked at each other and smiled and when they looked back he was gone.

*

Luna City

Marissa Reilly peered through the telescope and said, “If I wasn’t seeing this with my own eyes...” The computer engineer from Australia was staring at her homeland. “It’s north of the equator.” Her voice was soft and full of wonder.

“And my country is almost on the equator,” Leila Yoruba, the astrophysicist from South Africa said.

Marissa rolled her deep green eyes. “My point is, everything looks wrong.”

“You’re telling me? Africa split in two at the great rift valley. Mongolia sits at the top of the world. And we’re living on the moon staring down at the Earth like vultures. Everything is completely bonkers.” Tears filled Leila’s doe brown eyes and rolled across her blue-black cheeks. She brushed them away, muttering, “Damned hormones.” She was eight months pregnant and confined to Luna City for the duration of her term.

“Are you okay?” Captain Henri Dupree asked. He’d been waiting his turn at the telescope.

“Of course I am,” Leila snapped. “I’m swollen up like an elephant with udders the size of blimps--”

“I like your blimps,” he said, cheerfully ignoring the dangerous glint in her eyes.

“You...you...man.” She stamped her foot down, launching herself toward the ceiling. One-sixth gee took a lot of getting used to.

“Guilty as charged,” Henri said, as he caught her ankle and tugged her back down. “Now, is there anything else you’d like to blame me for? Or can I take my turn at the scope?”

*

The ISS

General Pavel Yurimentov gasped in climax as Mary Adams trashed beneath him, her motion causing them to spin and tumble in the cargo hold of her Aurora. Most of the women loved weightless sex. His ‘Millas orgasms were so powerful he had to clamp himself to her to avoid being expelled, but this Mary Adams, with her porcelain skin, pale green eyes and dark brown hair was his favorite. She was so flexible she could impale him and spin like a top, causing him to explode like Vesuvius. He stroked her cheek and kissed her pale pink lips as his pulse slowed in aftermath.

*

In the central computer room, Ludmilla nursed her son Yuri and clicked the image of her husband and his latest mistress off her monitor. She scowled at the blank view screen and her inner turmoil caused Yuri to stop sucking and give a distressed cry. She quieted him by stroking his tiny head and returning her nipple to his mouth. Why did she care? Why did she allow Pavel’s straying to hurt her so? It wasn’t like they loved each other. And it wasn’t like he was cheating, not really. He was doing his duty and creating more little Russians. If only he didn’t enjoy it so visibly.

With a small sigh she flicked her monitor back on and switched to a view of Earth, where the South Pole now seemed to be somewhere off western Chile, just below Easter Island. A new ice cap was rapidly forming there even as the glaciers and ice fields of Antarctica, which now lay in the mid-southern latitudes, melted. Her mind betrayed her, turning for an instant to the tender smile on Pavel’s face as he caressed Mary Adams, but she forced her attention back to the Earth below, never dreaming that she wasn’t the only one spying.

In his quarters, Muhammad Rahotep ground his teeth as he closed his laptop. That whore, Zarita Morshidi was at it with Mr. Superman again. He thought he’d made it clear to her that she was to keep herself only for him. How else could he insure a child from her was Arab? That slut Aeriella Goldstein was already pregnant and her baby would be Jewish. She probably didn’t know who the father was. Well, it certainly wasn’t him. He’d never befoul himself with a Jew. Still, the thought of Jews outnumbering Arabs caused him to contemplate extremes.

He’d skillfully hidden his anti-Semitic prejudice from the psychologists in charge of vetting him for Project Genesis, but his avoidance of Aeriella in the closed confines of the ISS and Luna City had come to the attention of more than one of his companions, especially since his outburst during the last drill. He would have to be more cautious, play nice, like a cat with a mouse.

The ISS

Marissa Riley spun from the monitor, grabbed an airsick bag and spewed.

“Morning sickness?” General Alice Anderson asked, handing her an absorbent wipe and a sip of water from a squeeze bottle.

Marissa shook her head and pointed at the screen. Several spy satellites remained in high enough orbit to survive the ejecta storm following the impact and by tapping into them the members of Project Genesis could view in amazing detail any event below not obscured by clouds.

Alice cocked her head, studying the display intently. “Is that a barbecue?”

“Yes,” Marissa whispered. “Look at the bone pile.”

Alice flinched back from the screen so violently she lost her handhold and drifted back across the cabin. “My God,” she said, her eyes huge. “They’re butchering people.”

She triggered her throat mike and said, “Clark, we need you in the ‘eyes’ room.”

“Can it wait? I’m in the middle of…”

“Now,” Alice said, interrupting him with her command voice.

A slight pause, then, “Coming,” Clark Kent replied with a clipped tone.

“Sorry darling,” he said, withdrawing from Zarita Morshidi’s warm embrace and grabbing his clothes. “Duty calls.” Her dark brown hair wafted above her golden brown face like a chocolate halo.

She favored him with a tender, slightly crooked smile that he found absolutely charming and said, “I’m not going anywhere.”

Five minutes later he was peering at the monitor and asking, “Where the hell is this?”

“California,” Alice said.

“Near San Francisco,” Marissa added.

“It looks like a bloody feast!”

Alice laid a hand on his shoulder and said, “Pan to the North. There.” She pointed, stopping him.

He leaned in close, brows furrowed, lips pursed. A girl, no, a small woman, stood beside an enormous man in the middle of a huge crowd. Slowly, she lifted something that glittered and placed it on his head as the multitudes cheered and applauded.

“Bloody hell,” he said, easing back. “It’s a coronation.”

“And the cooks,” Marissa said, swallowing hard, “are preparing a feast for the honored guests.” Tears filled her emerald eyes and she blotted them before they could float free. “They’ve all gone mad down there,” she added, in a voice so soft it was hard to hear.

*

California

Lola Madonna controlled a shudder as she placed the golden crown on Joey’s head. Who could have dreamed it would come to this? A monster anointed King of California at a cannibal feast. Her thoughts were a jumble, uncertain how much more degradation she could stand. She’d held the line against eating people, in spite of Joey tormenting her by insisting it was just meat.

She marched beside him, inwardly smirking at the purple cape he wore. She thought it made him look like a macabre comic book villain, but Joey had made it more than plain that such opinions were best kept to herself. She was his eye candy slave for important functions and as brutal as he was with her in private she was almost grateful to him for not sharing her with his freakish sons. So she played along, feeding his ego and hoping against hope that he’d make a mistake one day. She harbored no thought of escape, for entertaining hopes like that would be too painful. She just wanted a chance to kill him before she died. It was the best and only hope she allowed herself.

*

Joseph Scarlatti savored the moment like a chocoholic entering Ghirardellis. Everything was perfect from the clear, blue skies, to the soft as butter breeze that cooled his brow. Odd how he’d never considered that a crown could be heavy, awkward and somewhat sweaty. Red and white carnations lined his path as he led his loyal subjects to the royal feast.

His spies would watch any who refused to partake of the meat, for those were not to be trusted.

He dismissed such thoughts for this was a celebration and marked more than his coronation. It was also the day his engineers would trip the switch and allow electricity to flow to this part of California. The Indian Valley hydroelectric plant was fully restored and ready to go online. His subjects would worship him for this boon, while his enemies would tremble. He’d promised his followers he’d restore civilization and now they would have proof. Soon his position in California would be unassailable.

*

Medford, Oregon

Sara Garcia limped up to the checkpoint with Raoul hobbling alongside her. She noted the wary eyes of the guards and how their hands tensed on their weapons.

“We’re peaceful,” she announced.

“Everybody says that,” a gruff voiced man wearing a Harley bandanna over his bald head said. “You sick?”

She shook her head. “Just tired and footsore and glad to be out of California.”

The man nodded his understanding and asked, “What part of California?”

“Most recently from Stanford,” Raoul said and at the man’s wide-eyed expression added, “I think your leaders will want to talk to us about the King of California.”

“That may be,” the man acknowledged. “But first you’re going to spend a few days in quarantine.”

“We aren’t plague carriers,” Sara said. “I’m a doctor and--”

“Then you’ll be welcome here,” the bald man said, taking off his bandanna and tying it around his face like a western outlaw. “But everyone goes through quarantine and since I’ve been exposed I’ll be there with you, so come along.” He led them to a nearby house that was landscaped with razor wire, had a brief conference with a guard there and took them inside. The first people they saw were Will and Clarissa Benton.

After exchanging hugs and handshakes, Sara asked, “Where’s Trish?”

Clarissa inclined her head toward the back of the house and said, “She’s in the kitchen. We rotate kitchen, cleaning and laundry duty and today’s her day for cooking.”

Raoul stepped back from them, concerned. “How long have you been here?”

“Four days,” Will answered, pointing to an ace bandage on Clarissa’s right ankle.

“I twisted it stepping over a downed tree,” she said.

“But we get out tomorrow according to Canary over there,” Will added, pointing to a thin man with a heavy, black beard, who was talking to baldy.

“Canary?” Sara asked.

“What we call him,” Clarissa said with a shrug. “He never introduced himself but he was on guard duty when we showed up so he had to come inside with us.”

Raoul and Sara both nodded. They got it. The guards were like the canary’s coal miner’s used to warn them of bad air.

“Seems harsh,” Sara said.

“It’s how we survived,” Baldy said from across the room, adding, “And it’s worked so far.”

Sara gave him a sympathetic smile, unable to argue with that. She used her fingers to brush some of the tangles out of her short, curly brown hair and thought, at least we’ve escaped the King.

*

Luna City

Muhammad Rahotep scowled as Aeriella Goldstein turned from the central hallway into the infirmary. He’d prayed long and hard over his Koran and no clear answer came to him. With a single thrust of his knife he could possibly exterminate the Jewish race for all time, but how would the others react? He didn’t need a crystal ball or even a Koran to know the answer to that one. Probably toss him out the nearest airlock without a suit and exterminate the Arab race as well. So, an accident then, carefully contrived to lay no blame on him.

His thoughts raced even further. If he was quite clever a series of accidents involving the other males could assure the rise of the Caliphate. Rani Hamide and Zarita Morshidi were fellow Muslims, though they were mere women and not of the Wahabi.

*

Aeriella felt Muhammad’s eyes on her as she veered into the infirmary. Unconsciously, her right hand felt the scalpel concealed beneath her left sleeve. Trust, but verify. She knew in her bones he was planning something fatal, but with no evidence she couldn’t go to the others, not even Kenny.

She placed both hands over her womb, knowing it was too soon for movement, but hoping nonetheless. The fate of her unborn child was not going to rest in the hands of an increasingly unstable Arab. She moved with long lunar steps to the medicine locker and prepared a syringe of potassium chloride, then tucked it into her fanny pack. If he forced her hand she could make it look like a heart attack. Her Hippocratic Oath took a distant back seat to the welfare of her child.

*

The ISS

“Holy shit!” Henri Dupree shouted. He spun from the view port and beckoned frantically to Alice Anderson. “Get over here, General. You need to see this.”

She flew across the cabin and he caught her, then they almost bumped heads looking out the porthole window.

“Are those lights?” She asked. They’d seen isolated electric lights before where small groups had generators, but never on a scale like this since the impact.

“Looks like four, no...five small towns and one city,” he said.

“Where are we?”

“Northern California.”

“No...not the same--

“The very same place,” Henri said.

Alice snorted, something no one on the ISS had ever heard her do. Something she hadn’t done since she was a girl on the family ranch in Wyoming. “So, the cannibal King has the lights back on. Well, even Mussolini made the trains run on time.”

*

Colorado

Michael placed the night vision monocular against his right eye and slowly scanned the street ahead. Viper’s sentries stood out bright green against the eerie greenish background the scope revealed. Their campfires, well, a man learned quick not to look at campfires, lanterns or flashlights in a night scope. Farther down, in an open area, he saw five Bradleys arrayed in a line, turrets pointed up toward Bluebird Hill.

He scanned the Bradleys again and grimaced. They all had the same number of antennas. None bore a flag with a viper on it or in any way stood out from any of the others. How the hell was he supposed to find Viper in an encampment that showed no sign of a command center? Was the man even with his troops?

S.A.L.U.T.E. he thought, recalling the recon acronym drill sergeant taught him all those years ago.

Size--still thousands of the bastards.

Activity--encamped for the night.

Location--hell, we know where they are, locating Viper is the problem.

Unit--doesn’t apply.

Time--too damned little left before dawn.

Equipment--small arms and Bradley M2A2 Infantry Fighting Vehicles with those double-damned M242 25 mm auto-cannons and M240C 7.62 mm coaxial machine guns.

There just wasn’t enough time for him to slip dynamite into the tracks of all of them. He knew he could get past the sentries--ghosting past their rear guard had proved no problem--but Viper had teams of patrols checking around and under the Bradleys every fifteen minutes. Stymied.

If he couldn’t get close enough to take out the Bradleys he’d just use the Remington on Viper himself. If he shows himself. He had a good description from Denise and Jacques Lachelle, and Jim had imitated the man’s panther-like walk, so Michael thought he could ID the target if he could ever see the target. Discipline and patience. Those were the main tools of a successful sniper.

So he ran through his acronym again. Size, Activity...wait a minute. Even if Viper was asleep, and that was likely, considering it was about four in the morning, those patrols had to be reporting to someone. All of his patrols and sentries had to report to someone. And just like that he had the pattern. Every patrol stopped briefly beside the Easternmost Bradley. Individuals he now assumed were officers or NCO’s in Viper’s army drifted by and paused, never for long, but always at the same Bradley.

He smiled like a wolf. Now all he had to do was wait, and he could wait like a rock.

*

The large aspen quivered with bullet impacts from an AK-47 popping at them from over the ridge line.

Dikeme poked her head out and snapped a couple of unaimed reply shots, just to keep their heads down while Otha reloaded.

“I do believe our luck has changed,” she said. They’d been on the run for a couple of miles after being jumped by one of Viper’s outlying patrols.

A brief smile flitted across Otha’s face at her totally unperturbed British accent.

“How’s that?” he asked, slamming a fresh thirty round magazine into his AR-15.

“It’s gone from bad to worse, of course,” she said and flinched as a splinter from a near miss struck her cheek.

“Uh-huh, then you probably don’t want to hear that this is my last magazine,” Otha said. He took careful aim through the brushy deadfall he’d taken cover behind and loosed a single round, rewarded by a grunt and the sound of a body falling.

Several AK’s fired, shredding everything near them. A grenade bounced off a tree and exploded harmlessly ten yards away.

“You do keep upsetting them,” Di said. She swung a daypack full of .45 caliber ammunition for their pistols over one arm and added, “I’m ready.”

They’d been trying to reach a large pink granite outcrop that would afford them better cover and a better field of fire.

“Go,” Otha said, as he stood and peppered the ridge above them. Damned stupid getting trapped on the low ground, he thought, as he counted shells, ten, eleven... From the corner of his eye he saw Di leap behind the boulder then spin and begin laying covering fire.

He exploded from cover, racing for her. She was more than his wife, she was his life. He fired the last rounds from his AR-15 and dove behind the rocks. He saw a bullet chip the granite next to her, pulled his Colt, rolled over and emptied it into the three men who’d come up behind him. Must have been flanking us, he thought. He ejected the empty magazine and shoved in a fresh one.

Another grenade sailed in and this one landed close. The explosion stunned them both senseless.

*

Captain Brandon Silva kicked the pistol from the woman’s nerveless hand and barked, “No!” at the men aiming at the fallen man. “We need them alive, remember?” His mission was to capture Freeholders so Viper could discover what other surprises the Freeholders had up their sleeves.

“Tie them up. We’re taking them back to camp.” Besides, they’ll make good slaves. The big man is strong and the woman is...he studied Di’s long, lean form...unique.

*

“I think they’re telling the truth, Captain,” Sergeant Ladell Shore said. He wiped blood from his gloves before peeling them off of his hands. Interrogation sometimes got messy.

“Hard to make up a story like that,” Captain Silva agreed, eyeing the man’s battered face. “Before you started working on him I could have sworn I’d seen him before.”

“Well, if he ain’t lying, his mug was plastered all over TV.”

Captain Silva shook his head in disgust. “Okay then, throw them in with the slaves.”

*

“Your poor face,” Dikeme said, touching a bruise on his cheek.

Otha winced and struggled to sit up.

“Why don’t you just lie back and rest?”

“‘Cos the ground’s as lumpy as my head,” he said. “Besides we need to be ready.”

“Ready for what?” she asked in her precise, clipped tones.

“We ain’t staying no slaves,” he said. “And I got a feeling that Whitebear guy with the sniper rifle is going to start the ball rolling come sunrise.”

He gestured toward the inert bodies lying all around them. “We should pass the word--see if these drones have any spirit left in them.”

*

Luna City

Muhammad Rahotep inserted the final cable into the quick connect box on the inverter. The inverter was hooked to a deep cycle battery bank which in turn was fed by a charge controller and, up on the surface, a large array of solar panels. He stepped back and said, “I’m ready when you are, Rani.”

Christine Jorgensen, resident botanist/farmer, watched as Rani Hamide, whose specialty was industrial engineering, flipped a switch and the overhead LED lights for the latest grow cavern came on. At the same time fans whirled to life and the air began to circulate. An automatic pump would circulate water through the hydroponic and aquaponic beds once they were planted.

If you could call plugging seedlings into plastic receptacles planting, Christine thought. Still she literally applauded, as did Nyambura Kenyatta, the agronomist, Linette Laverne, their waste management engineer, and Aeriella Goldstein, their head surgeon.

Not even Aeriella’s presence spoiled the moment for him. Several of his fellow Loonies had questioned him about his aversion to her so he’d made an effort to be more pleasant. When she eventually met with a fatal accident he wouldn’t want everyone assuming he was at fault, and since she was just beginning to show he had several months to solve the Jewish problem.

Muhammad took a bow, hogging the glory since Heinz and Pauolo were already at work on another cavern with Elena, Olivia, and Suzy. Cavern excavation was never ending. First the living quarters and then the first two farm caverns. After that the industrial complex, the waste recycling dig and now it was back to more farms.

*

Carving warehouse sized rooms out of lunar rock is necessary but it sure has it’s drawbacks, Suzy Yakamoto thought as she wrapped an ace bandage around her right ankle and got ready to don her pressure suit.

“Loose rock?” Olivia de Garza asked, wincing as she rotated her sore shoulder.

Suzy nodded and said, “One of these days I’ll learn to pay attention.”

“Si, si. I saw you take that fall while you were running to save me.” A piece of scale weighing about ten pounds had fallen from the ceiling and the sharp edge of the rock pierced her suit. A torn suit meant an ugly death by depressurization. Small tears were easily mended by slapping on a quick-patch, but this one happened to be behind her left shoulder--a spot impossible to reach while in a pressure suit.

“Okay, I get credit for good intentions, but if you hadn’t pressed the tear against your drill while yelling for help, Pauolo would have arrived too late.”

“Ah, si, Pauolo,” Olivia sighed. “I could love that man if he didn’t love himself so much. And now I owe him my life. It is so romantic.” She rolled her eyes and Suzy started chuckling. Olivia had a gift for being overdramatic without taking it seriously.

*

Doctor Sari Vindushanti stood before the group and announced her findings. “We have now lived in a low gravity environment longer than any other humans since the dawn of the space age. Even at the moon’s one-sixth gee we are losing bone and muscle mass so rapidly that if we are to have any realistic chance of surviving a return to Earth we must do so within the next two years. Preserving that slim chance will mean even more time in the centrifuge--and we’ll have to ramp it up.”

A collective groan greeted that statement.

“I know,” she said. “Not my favorite past-time either, but then all good medicine tastes bad. It’s simple genetics really. We evolved to survive in a one gee environment so we must start spending one hour every day at one-half gee. We’ll have to work up to two-thirds gee and six hours per day before attempting the trip.”

“What about our children?” Ludmilla asked.

“The oldest will be almost five years old before the return. I’m afraid they would not survive, but as I understand it not everyone desires to go home anyhow.”

“That’s because this is our home now,” Clark Kent said, and Christine Jorgensen, sitting beside him holding their daughter, nodded her agreement.

“I agree with Clark,” Pavel Yurimentov said. “Milla and I have no home to go back to and we would not abandon our son in any event. And it no longer makes any sense at all for humanity to have all its eggs in one basket. Especially when the other half of that asteroid comes back around.”

“Not to mention folks down on Earth are still eating each other,” Christine said. “I mean, who wants to go back to that?”

General Alice Anderson stepped up beside Sari and said, “I think we’ve drifted off point. This is not the time or place to decide who is and who isn’t going back to Earth.”

“Respectfully, General, I disagree,” Pavel said, standing to be better heard. “We have ignored this problem long enough. You Earthers have not even regained radio contact with anyone down there. The Sunflower control facility you told us about burned to the ground, and the only large scale sign of restored technology is in the land of the Cannibal King.

“I think all of us are needed right here on the moon. It’s hard enough to make a go of it without losing half our number trying to save a bunch of predatory cannibals.”

“And what of our duty to those who sent us here?” Alice asked. “There are still millions of people on Earth and not all of them are cannibals. Would you abandon them?”

“We are not abandoning them,” Pavel replied. “We are fulfilling our duty to preserve the human race.”

“And part of that duty is to configure the Sunflower array to destroy that asteroid.”

“Fine,” he said. “We can do that without going to Earth.”

“Unfortunately, we can’t,” she countered, “because they didn’t give us the control codes.”

“Well, wasn’t that simply brilliant,” Clark said. “They send us up here to save them and then don’t give us the tools to do it? What pinhead came up with that idea?”

Alice shrugged, acutely and obviously uncomfortable.

“Yes, General, tell us who was foolish enough to give us a weapon with no trigger,” Pavel demanded.

Alice fixed him with a fiery gaze and said, “It was the Russians and the Chinese.”

“Nyet!” he yelled.

“Yes!” she countered. “When they learned we were launching a weapons system into space they threatened to cease supply launches for the ISS unless we fail-safed the system. They didn’t trust anyone here on the ISS to have control over a weapon that could devastate entire cities on Earth so they insisted no one up here have a copy of the codes.

“I don’t think they realized how bad it was going to be down there,” she said softly. “I don’t think they believed every link to us would be destroyed.”

Dead silence hovered over the room like a vulture over carrion, while the spacers absorbed her comments.

When Ludmilla spoke, it startled everyone. “Then they...how you say...made their own bed.”

*

Provo Utah

Betty Young was baking bread and a tuna casserole in her sun ovens because, as she put it, using solar ovens didn’t heat up the house and it was a gorgeous cloud free day with just enough breeze to keep the bugs down. While the food cooked and she pulled weeds in the garden she thought about the community’s plans to build a tidal generating station to increase the electrical output over their small homestead-sized wind generators. It didn’t make much sense to her to put so many resources into a new centralized power grid when nature had just adequately demonstrated the superiority of small decentralized systems. Not a single large scale wind generator on a single wind farm had survived the storms of the apocalypse. Few of the small, individual systems had either but they were much easier to replace. Aside from some wind and debris damage, many solar PV systems had survived, but during the years of winter, when there was only dim light they hadn’t produced much.

No, she decided, that tidal generator didn’t make sense, yet. She was slowly getting used to the idea that Provo was almost oceanfront property. Some fishermen on their rapidly expanding fishing fleet had spotted tuna and a pod of grey whales a few days past. They’d managed to hook and land a few of the tuna, which was why she was making Tuna Casserole. Any seafood was a gourmet treat. She’d run out of canned tuna more than a year ago.

She leaned on her hoe and grinned as she studied her surroundings. Everywhere she looked people were harvesting the last of the summer crops. She’d pulled the last of her Rutgers, fresh eating tomatoes and hung them upside down in the root cellar the day before to finish ripening. Tomorrow she’d get the Golden Bantam Improved sweet corn picked and start canning again. She examined the potato patch and decided they had another two or three weeks.

She waved at Fern and her daughter Cheryl, who were putting up hoop house frames for their winter garden. Up on a bench above town a horse drawn combine was cutting wheat. She still had wheat berries she’d stored five years ago, but no matter how much food you had replacing what you’d used with fresh crops was rewarding.

A screech like a demon getting it’s tail slammed in a door interrupted her thoughts as her guinea fowl sounded the alarm. Sharp-eyed, screeching Guineas were better than a watch dog. She shaded her eyes with one hand and saw Adam trotting up the road on his sorrel mare.

“Bob!” She yelled at the house. “We’ve got company.”

*

Adam pushed back from the table and said, “Betty, that was the best tuna casserole I’ve had in years.”

“It’s the only tuna you’ve had in years,” she said with a smile.

“True enough,” he agreed, “but after the travelling I’ve done I could have eaten a horse, shoes and all. Instead, I got a feast, so I’m thanking you.”

“You’re welcome, Adam...does that mean you’re thankful enough to do dishes?”

Bob turned toward her and Adam’s jaw dropped and she burst out laughing and said, “Gotcha!”

But Adam looked over at Bob, who was nodding his head, and said, “I’ll tell you what. You keep cooking like this and anytime I’m here I’ll gladly do dishes.”

Which is how the two brothers found themselves washing, rinsing and drying at the kitchen sink while Betty dealt with the needs of the children--something she was especially fond of since her miscarriage during the starving times.

“So, basically your reports indicated no significant threats,” Adam said, handing a dish to Bob.

“The ones we got back, yeah,” Bob said. “Still no word from California or the Pacific Northwest.” Bob placed the dry dish on the rack and reached for another.

“That’s a long ways to go, Bob. They may just not have had time to get back.”

“That’s what I keep telling myself,” Bob admitted. “Whoops,” he said, fumbling a glass but catching it before it hit the granite countertop. “And, considering our new coastline, California may not even exist.”

*

The Mountains Above Redding, CA

The man’s scream rose to a sustained ear splitting pitch as Doctor Merriman sawed his hand off. The doctor shuddered and said, “Wow, that really was exquisite...but I think we can do better. Do you want to do the honors, John?”

John Scarlatti, pupils wide, nostrils flared, stepped forward and cauterized the man’s wrist with a trowel full of boiling tar.

This time the scream was so high pitched coyotes in the surrounding hills howled and the hairs on the back of Merriman’s neck stood up, immeasurably increasing his thrill. The doctor gave the man some time to recover his wits, then placed the saw on his other wrist.

“No, please,” the man from Utah gasped. “I’ll tell you everything.”

“Of course you will,” Merriman said, “and you know what will happen if you lie?” He drew the saw back just far enough to break skin and allow bright red blood to ooze from the cut.

“Yes,” Ed Cummins wheezed. He would have been shaking like a leaf in a gale if he hadn’t been so tightly bound to the torturer’s chair. “I won’t lie.”

“Good,” the doctor said. “Now, where are you from?”

*

“So he’s from Deseret?” Joseph Scarlatti asked, looking up from the report, eyebrows raised.

“Yes, your majesty,” Doctor Merriman said. “That’s what the Mormons are calling what’s left of Utah these days.”

“And there are only a few thousand of them?”

“He said there were almost thirty thousand before the plague hit, Sire.”

“Ahh. Well, there aren’t enough of them to bother with just now.” Joseph tapped the map his scouts had put together with a massive paw. “We’ll get around to them eventually but right now Oregon offers better prospects.”

Luna City

Kenny Chang noted the pinched lips on Aeriella’s face and asked, “What’s wrong?” He laid his hand tenderly against her cheek.

She kissed his palm and said, “It’s nothing.”

“Nothing, doesn’t put that look on your face. Is it our baby?”

“God no. She’s doing fine. Kicking like a dancer.” A small smile formed as she placed his hand over her womb so he could feel.

He bent down and planted a kiss on her belly then straightened back up and said, “Muhammad?” The quick furrowing of her brows told him he’d hit pay dirt.

She nodded and said, “Sari and I caught him sneaking around the infirmary yesterday. We don’t know if he took anything but the look on his face when we caught him...he hates me, Kenny. He’s planning something. I can feel it.”

“If he touches you I’ll put him out the airlock.” Kenny Chang might be a chemical engineer by trade and a bit of a geek by inclination but his hands had the calluses of a man well versed in the martial arts

Aeriella stepped into his hug. Her Krav Maga training would certainly help but her swelling body would make any hand to hand combat awkward.

*

Alone in the tool shed, Muhammad stretched the pieces of surgical tubing he’d stolen and smiled. He’d already built the frame from aluminum rods. Now all he had to do was attach the tubing to the rods and the pouch he’d fashioned from nylon webbing and his slingshot would be complete. Add a few ball bearings from industrial supplies for ammunition and he’d have the only long range weapon on the moon.

The next time Aeriella entered a pressure suit environment would be her last.

*

Zarita Morshidi added a tablespoon of dehydrated onion flakes to the bowl of water and set it aside to rehydrate. The garlic, tomato and bell pepper were already soaking She glanced at Rani Hamide and said, “Cooking is so much easier with gravity.”

Rani stirred the boiling macaroni very gently to avoid splashing, and said, “I couldn’t agree more. I thought I’d scream if I had to eat one more meal in a tube at the station.”

Zarita waggled her eyebrows and said in a low husky voice, “That depends on the tube.”

Rani blushed, then laughed and asked, “So how are you and Superman getting along?”

Zarita patted her tummy and said, “I think this meal isn’t the only thing in the oven.”

Rani raised her eyebrows, eyes wide open and said, “You’re pregnant.”

Zarita shrugged and said, “I’m late.”

Suddenly serious, Rani said, “Muhammad will be furious.”

Zarita faced her, hands on her hips and said, “He’s always furious, or hadn’t you noticed?”

Rani nodded uncertainly.

“He treats us like we are property,” Zarita added. “His property. It’s disgusting.”

Rani looked around as if afraid of being overheard. “It’s worse than you think,” she said. “He’s praying five times a day and muttering about jihad.”

Zarita’s jaw dropped. “No.”

Rani gave her a solemn look and said, “I overheard him praying for the rise of the Caliphate and he’s been crafting weapons. I’m afraid he’s going to kill someone.”

Zarita stepped back, shocked. “We have to tell the others.”

“Tell them what?” Rani asked. “All we have are suspicions. I saw him practicing with a slingshot over in the industrial cavern but I don’t know where he keeps it hidden and praise be to Allah, he didn’t see me.”

“I don’t care. If he’s talking about jihad and the Caliphate we have to warn the others. We cannot remain silent. Silence is what allowed the extremists to hijack our faith on Earth. You want that to happen here?”

“Of course not,” Rani put her hand up, warding away evil.

“Then our only option is to warn them.”

*

Oregon

Betrayed! Sara thought as she and Raoul pedaled north on stolen mountain bikes. If not for Trish Benton’s midnight warning they’d have been sitting back in the quarantine cells waiting for Scarlatti’s men to pick them up.

“Fools,” Raoul muttered.

Indeed, Sara thought. If the Medford town council thinks they can buy Joseph Scarlatti off by handing us over they are definitely fools. She just hoped she and her grandfather would be far enough away before daybreak to shake any pursuit.

“I’ll be more careful next time,” Raoul said. He’d approached a professor who used to teach electrical engineering at Southern Oregon University and explained the need for a transmitter that could reach the ISS.

“We’ll both be more careful,” Sara said. She’d been all too eager to tell everyone about Scarlatti’s perversions, his powerful army and about how Stanford’s defenders had been bombed by WWII vintage aircraft and strafed by a jet. She’d probably scared them so bad they hadn’t seen a viable choice.

Raoul had heard about a Prepper community near the ruins of Gold Beach so that was where they were headed, but for how long? Would they spend the rest of their lives trying to stay one step ahead of the King?

Raoul shook his head and his bicycle wobbled. He forced himself to focus. If they spent all their time running they’d never be able to build a transmitter and get the Sunflower control codes to the crew of the ISS.

*

Luna City

Muhammad stowed his slingshot in his tool kit along with a few steel ball bearings. He was inspecting the solar farm for micrometeorite damage today, but he wasn’t the only crew member who’d be out on the surface.

Aeriella was accompanying Linette Laverne, Leila Yoruba and Henri Dupree to the waste management facility and that meant they’d pass close to the solar farm. One ball bearing, tearing through her pressure suit and her death would look like an accident. After all, meteorites struck the moon all the time.

He smiled like a piranha, congratulated himself on being so clever, and prayed to Allah for success.

Two hours later he was in position, waiting.

There! The rover left the main airlock and slowly traversed the terrain toward the array. The trail passed within ten meters of his hiding place--an easy shot. He’d been practicing so the low gee of the moon wouldn’t spoil his aim.

They were close now and they had to be. Inside their pressure suits he couldn’t tell one from the other, but each suit was custom fitted for an astronaut and hers had an Israeli flag patch on the shoulder. He aimed to shoot through the small six inch gap between the panels.

He snugged a bearing into the pocket of his slingshot and drew back, ready to release. Allahu Akbar, he whispered as her Zionist flag appeared. He let fly.

Yes! The tear in her suit caused explosive decompression. Before the others in the rover could even get it turned around to head back inside she was slumped over like a deflated balloon. He’d done it! Allah had blessed him by allowing him the honor of exterminating the Jews. There could be no greater glory, no better--

“Muhammad Rahotep,” his suit radio blared. “Drop your weapon and turn around.”

Startled, he spun so fast he threw himself off balance and fell to one knee. He looked up and found himself facing General Alice Anderson and General Pavel Yurimentov and both held guns pointed at him.

“You are under arrest for the attempted murder of Aeriella Goldstein and her unborn child.

In the heat of the moment he took offense that she assumed he was incompetent. “I attempted nothing. The Jew bitch and the garbage in her womb are dead.”

“Wrong, Muhammad.” He recognized Aeriella’s voice over his radio. “You shot a dummy, you Wahabi moron.”

Exultation drained from him like a flushing toilet. Once again a Jew had tricked an Arab. Heat surged within him, blinding him to reason. He reached into his pouch for another ball bearing and set it in his slingshot’s pouch.

“Drop your weapon!” General Anderson screamed.

As Muhammad raised his slingshot, General Yurimentov pulled the trigger on his Tokarev 9mm and discovered the scientists were right. Pistols work just fine in vacuum.

Muhammad was lucky. Yuri’s bullet took him in his head and he was dead before his lungs were sucked out of his mouth.

Chapter 37: Sniper Duel

Ranger threaded wild geranium branches through his customized ghillie suit, readjusted its fit and settled down to wait. He’d killed dozens of enemy soldiers since the battle began. He didn’t think of them as honkies or buy into Viper’s racist bull. They were simply targets--targets he enjoyed knocking down. He’d learned to like killing in Afghanistan and the itch stayed with him when he came home so he joined up with a mercenary outfit and hired his talents out to private contractors.

In a strange twist of fate he’d been between jobs, relaxing at home near Denver’s City Park when the asteroid hit. The old house like so many built in the 1950’s came with a bomb shelter in the back yard that Ranger kept emergency supplies in and that’s where he rode out the worst of the quakes and fires. When he left the shelter he scouted the metro area and it didn’t take him long to see that Viper had the upper hand. Not one to take up for the underdog, Ranger walked in to Viper’s camp lugging a .50 caliber Barrett M82A1 sniper rifle and volunteered his services. That rifle was destroyed by a grenade during the fight at the Air Force Academy so he was reduced to using a Remington 7mm, the one that cat-quick enemy sniper damaged.

He sighed and shook his head. He missed that Barrett. He’d once executed nine recaptured runaways with a single bullet from that monster rifle by lining them up single file. Though the ninth one required a coup de grace from Darnel Wooley’s machete. Still, sure could use that mutha now. Damned Remington just didn’t have near the range or power.

He placed a dark brown eye against his Starlight scope and scanned the buildings in range for targets of opportunity. The sun would be up in a couple of hours and with the sweat already trickling down his coffee and cream skin it promised to be a scorcher.

The crescent moon was up and through his scope the town looked daylight bright. Distant sparkles and a sound like a string of firecrackers echoed off the ruins. Harassing firefight no doubt, he thought. No sense letting the defenders get any rest.

A man dashed from cover toward a building across the street and Ranger brought him down with a snap shot. A woman with long blonde hair darted from the same building and dragged the wounded man to cover behind a smoldering Bradley before he could cycle the bolt action Remington and line up another shot. Didn’t matter. He had them both trapped.

*

Ellen Whitebear slapped some Betadine and quick clot on Wayne Anderson’s bleeding thigh and asked, “How bad?”

Wayne, a rifleman and medic, squirmed and grunted as he tried to see both the entry and exit wounds. “Through and through. No arteries and no bones,” he gasped. “Gonna hurt like hell, but I’ll be okay if we can get the bleeding stopped.”

Ellen applied some gauze and wrapped duct tape around the leg and both bandages.

Randy McKinley hissed from behind the corner of the nearest building. “Did you spot the sniper?”

“No,” Ellen said and pointed in the direction the shot came from, then asked Wayne, “Can you walk?”

The wounded man shook his head and said, “Too slow. I mean, I could hobble but he’d get me and anyone who tried to help me.” He looked at the twenty foot gap between the Bradley and building and said, “Looks like we’re pinned.”

Ellen saw the blood seeping through the bandage and said, “Randy, we need to get Wayne to Doc Lewis.” She tugged off Wayne’s belt and used it as a tourniquet.

“I’ve got Don and Terrell with me,” Randy said. “We can give covering fire.”

Wayne, who had combat experience, groaned and said, “We don’t know where he is so wasting ammo won’t help.” And we don’t have any to spare, he thought.

“We could get some more men and push a couple of wrecks out there for cover; get you both back here that way,” Terrell Johnson said.

Ellen, looking at the blood seeping from the wound in spite of her best efforts said, “I don’t think we have time.”

“I have an idea,” Don Haley said. “Back in a minute.”

It took more like five, but suddenly Ellen heard, “Coming at you,” from the darkness and a mechanics dolly rattled across the pavement to her. Green nylon climbing rope uncoiled as it sailed across the gap.

“Tie Wayne onto the dolly and we’ll snatch him across before the sniper can react,” Don said.

Ellen did as directed and when the three men jerked on the rope the dolly and Wayne flashed three quarters of the way across the gap, paused a split second then practically leaped into cover behind the building. The sniper’s shot missed wide, sparking off the pavement.

*

“Clever little shits,” Ranger muttered as the man disappeared behind the sandstone wall. Well, he’d been caught off guard but he’d be ready next time. He watched as the mechanic’s dolly skittered across the road to the Bradley. Looked like they were going to try the same trick again.

*

As Chad Bailey, Shirley Johnson and Doc Lewis loaded Wayne onto a stretcher Wayne grabbed Don Haley’s arm and said, “Listen, if he’s shooting that good at night he’s using night vision. Do we have any road flares?”

Don smiled so wide his eyes crinkled. “Yeah, man, we do.”

*

From his vantage point next to a charred Ponderosa Pine, Michael Whitebear could see the rear hatch of the command Bradley and most of Viper’s camp. His night scope monocular lay at his side, ready if he needed it, but even the sliver of a moon provided enough light for his eyes. His Blackfoot grandfather had once told him he could see like an owl, and not to let it go to his head. The memory brought a quick grin to his blackened face. He’d rubbed burned wood on his woodland camos and exposed skin before taking up his current position.

From the corner of his eye he caught a flash and then the sound of a single rifle shot echoed from buildings and hillsides.

Sniper, Michael thought. He split his attention between the area of the flash and the Bradley and a few minutes later was rewarded with another shot. Gotcha, he thought, marking the location in his memory.

In the camp below a few men were stirring and in what he assumed was the mess tent, fires were being kindled. It wouldn’t be long now.

*

“Still think we should have retreated?” Viper asked. The confines of a Bradley weren’t exactly luxurious, but a couple of foam pads and a hot plate for brewing coffee made it a four star resort compared to his men’s accommodations.

Marcus, who preferred tea, spooned some Lipton instant into a cup of hot water and stirred while considering his response. Finally he shrugged and said, “We lost almost 400 men in Ute Pass yesterday.”

Viper gave Marcus a heavy lidded stare and said, “No campaign is ever free of mistakes. You, for instance, should have told me the Air Force cadets had an air force.”

“It was an ultralight gyrocopter,” Marcus protested. “And none of my informants knew about it.”

Viper slammed his hand against the metal side of the Bradley. “None of your informants knew they had antitank rockets either, or enough explosives to mine the pass. When you interrogated those idiots who thought they could negotiate with us you should have learned these things.”

Marcus dropped his eyes and studied the floor to avoid Viper’s gaze. If those fools had known about the explosives or rockets they’d have told him. Still, arguing with Viper was a good way to lose your head.

Viper waved his hand and said, “Muster the troops. We attack at dawn.”

“A frontal assault?” Marcus asked.

“No other is possible,” Viper said. “You, yourself, said the barricades they’ve erected across Highway 24 can’t be breached by our Bradleys and thanks to your faulty intelligence our Abrams and our single decent artillery piece have been lost.”

Marcus hesitated before opening the hatch and Viper said, “Yes?”

“They may be running low on ammo,” Marcus said. “Reports from the front say they aren’t shooting back as much as previously. And if we conserve our remaining Bradleys, use them only against machine gun nests and only with heavy infantry support, we can exhaust their supplies with feints, maybe use the slaves as human shields, then swarm the barricades and finish them today.”

Viper nodded slowly, thinking it through. He pointed an index finger at Marcus and said, “That’s good thinking. Do it.”

He turned back to studying the Woodland Park and vicinity map and Marcus, knowing he was dismissed, lowered the hatch and stepped out into the night.

*

“Is this what you wanted?” Randy McKinley held up a bundle of four road flares duct taped together.

“Perfect,” Don Haley said. “Get ready on the rope.”

*

Ranger smiled as he saw the rope twitch. This time he was ready. His breathing slowed as he relaxed into his shot. The dolly whipped from behind the Bradley and his bullet took it dead center. He’d just realized it was empty when a small sun flared in his scope and destroyed his night vision.

*

Ellen sprinted to safety the instant the flare bundle ignited. “Wayne okay?” she asked.

“He’s with the Doc,” Randy McKinley said. “You?” He was staring at the hole in the mechanic’s dolly.

She brushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear and said, “I’ve been better. Good idea with those flares. Let’s issue some to our roving patrols.” She took a sip from her canteen and asked, “Any word from the ammo train?”

Grim silence greeted her question.

*

Jim Cantrell’s horse snorted and he reined in. Where the hell had all this crap come from?

Broken trees and boulders filled the narrows in the road between Florissant and Divide, spilling from the heights above to the creek below.

The snick-clack of a shotgun being cocked sounds like “Oh, shit” to anyone who spoke gun. He raised his hands and said, “Don’t shoot, dammit.”

“Jim?” the voice floated from the darkness, hesitant, yet familiar, and very feminine.

“Denise?”

“Yeah. Jesus, I almost shot you.” Denise Lachelle slid from behind a boulder and yelled over her shoulder, “It’s okay. It’s Jim Cantrell.”

Jim slid from his horse and gave her a hug. He looked at the landslide and said, “Well, I see what delayed your supply train.”

“It’s worse than it looks,” she said, looking away.

“The ammo?”

“More than half of it is buried under the slide. We’ve been digging for hours, Jim. We lost Janice Elrond and Pete Clovis and half a dozen others.”

“Jacques?” he asked.

She shook her head. “His luck held, but a tree limb broke his left leg.”

“Let’s see how I can help,” he said. He dropped the reins to his packhorse and mount and both horses started nosing for graze.

Thirty minutes later he called a halt to the rescue efforts while the survivors loaded all the ammunition they could onto the remaining horses. Then he and Denise herded the pack train toward Woodland Park while the others resumed digging. Not that they expected to find anyone else alive, but they needed the rest of that ammo.

*

Michael remained calm as the man exited the Bradley. About six foot tall, slender, moved well, but not with the feline grace described by Jim Cantrell. Still, he thought, as other soldiers gathered near the man, who else could it be?

Another shot from the sniper off to his left failed to distract him as he centered the cross hairs on the man’s head and ever so gently squeezed the trigger. His target’s head snapped sharply back and before the stunned group could react Michael dropped another one. He hit a third man low and was targeting a fourth when he remembered the enemy sniper. Fast as the thought hit him he spun and fired at the spot he’d memorized. Rounds were coming at him from the enemy camp but at six hundred yards none came close.

Still, as he pulled back behind the tree a shot from his left sent splinters into his face, narrowly missing his eyes.

He retreated into the blackened stumps behind him, knowing he must now stalk the other sniper who was undoubtedly hunting him.

*

“Damn,” Ranger hissed as he studied the hole in his pant leg. It was just a scratch but how had the man known? One second he was blinking away the sunspot from his right eye, trying to draw a bead and the next a bullet was burning his leg. He’d dropped his rifle and rolled away and the memory brought a flush to his face. It was the same SOB shot his rifle out of his hands earlier. Had to be. They couldn’t have two men who shot like that.

He tugged his Remington into position and sent a round at a slight movement by the burned Ponderosa he’d targeted before. Take that, you bastard.

He flinched back deeper into the sheltering rocks as gunfire from the camp below raked the slopes around his hide. It wouldn’t be safe to move until those fools below stopped blasting away at shadows.

*

From high on the slopes above Woodland Park, Michael studied the chaos in the enemy camp through his scope. He saw another man move like quicksilver from the command Bradley and begin rallying the troops and knew he’d missed his chance at Viper. He judged he had two hours before daylight. If he could finish the other sniper quickly enough maybe he could get another crack at Viper. If he moved further up the slope and to the South to keep himself between the coming sunrise and the enemy sniper he’d gain a tactical advantage, but that was what the man would expect him to do.

He pulled a couple of splinters from his face, wiped the blood with his bandanna and tucked it into his pocket. Never do the expected.

*

Ranger knelt over the bloody bandanna he’d found near the charred Ponderosa and smiled. He’d tagged the man and his chest swelled with pride. The SOB was human after all. He stood, his eyes following the spoor, knowing he had the man. He heard a slight sound and as he turned he saw a slashing hand and a sharp knife. He fell onto his back and watched in horror as a dark mass detached itself from the tree and dropped to the ground beside him.

“Guess no one ever taught you to look up,” Michael said, as he wiped his Kabar on the dead sniper’s clothes. He added the man’s ammunition to his own pack and used the man’s Starlight scope, which was better quality than his, to scan the enemy camp. There was too much turmoil for him to pick out Viper, but he saw a few hundred slaves being herded toward the front lines. With a hollow jolt in his stomach he recognized Otha and Dikeme among them and realized Viper intended to use them as human shields. He had to warn Ellen, somehow come up with a counter, but first...

He went prone, lined up his shots and dropped a half dozen enemy soldiers guarding the slaves, then faded into the darkness before the lone Bradley and the skirmishers that accompanied it could root him out.

*

Down among the slaves Otha Gladson saw the guards falling, grabbed Dikeme, and yelled, “Hit them now! It’s your only chance.” And the desperate, starving slaves, though their hands were bound and though they were tied together, seized their chance and swarmed their guards though dozens died in the attempt. Soon knives taken from dead guards were being passed down the lines so the prisoners could cut themselves free. Some grabbed guns from the downed guards and fired at Viper’s army to keep heads down while the rest fled.

Otha and Dikeme, guns in hand, led several escapees toward the front lines, hoping the Freeholders would be able to tell friend from foe. “Grab something white and tie it around your left arm,” Dikeme screamed. She remembered Michael saying white would be the new color of the day.

*

“Something’s up, Ellen.” Randy McKinley said.

She cocked her head, hearing small arms fire, yelling and screaming from behind enemy lines. Predawn darkness was fading as the light grew and suddenly she saw a mass break through the enemy lines and head for her barricades.

“Look sharp,” she yelled as she cocked her AR-15 and scoped the oncoming crowd. She saw unarmed, skeletal people dressed in tattered rags, stumbling toward her lines. Behind them the Bradleys roared to life and started forward along with the bulk of Viper’s army.

My God, They’re using the slaves as human shields. She hesitated, unable to give the order to fire.

“Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!” she heard and suddenly a panting Michael was there beside her.

“It’s a slave revolt,” he gasped. “Look! Some of them are armed and they’re shooting at Viper’s men. “Open the barricades.”

“But Viper’s army and his Bradleys are right on their tail,” she protested. “If we open the barricades…” She paused for a second and said, “Oh, hell. Let them through.”

She stood on tiptoes and kissed Michael’s cheek. “If we’re going to die, we might as well die doing the right thing,” she said, as some cars were rolled out of the way and the slaves poured through.

“We’re not dead yet,” Michael said giving her a one-armed hug. “Pull everyone back behind the land dam at Bluebird Hill. Lieutenant Osaka and his cadets will help me delay Viper.”

Dan Osaka trotted up and said, “There’s a line of makeshift claymores out there, sir. If these folks haven’t trampled them all.” He waved a hand at the slaves and held out the detonator. “Guess all we can do is try it and see.”

Scattered shots sounded as the last of the slaves dashed through the gap with more than a few of Viper’s men mixed in with them. Those few didn’t last long. Two tried to surrender but the escaped slaves had no mercy for their former masters.

Otha and Dikeme slid through the gap as Osaka’s cadets shoved the cars back in line. Viper’s army was closing fast and the volume of gunfire increased to a ceaseless roar. The 25 mm slugs from the Bradleys chewed though the massed cars like locusts though a corn field and cadets fell screaming.

Michael closed the detonator and explosions shredded Viper’s front ranks and blew the treads off two Bradleys. Mortar rounds began dropping into Viper’s army and the attack faltered. He waved the cadets back and they began a fighting retreat, stopping only to grab wounded comrades.

A crimson glow suffused the high, thin clouds east of the Rampart Range. A suitable color for a battlefield as sunrise became an added enemy for the Freeholders. Highlighting them as they retreated and making it hard to see their enemies who came at them out of the sun.

The redoubt at the base of Bluebird Hill, that massive pile of earth and broken concrete they called the land dam was their last hope.

Chapter 38: The Battle of Bluebird Hill

The men and women stood almost shoulder to shoulder in the trench that lined the summit of the land dam blocking Viper’s path. Their faces wore the battle-grimed, baggy-eyed and bloodshot expressions of those on their last legs. They’d beaten off three full on attacks and countless probes, suffered harassing fire and sniper fire, been raked by 7.62 mm and 25 mm rounds from enemy Bradleys and suffered the occasional lucky hit from Viper’s sole remaining, and thankfully terribly inept, mortar crew. Bodies and parts of bodies littered the slopes below them and the stench of coppery, blood-soaked earth, voided bowels and cordite filled their nostrils.

“We’re running low on ammo again,” Michael said. He laid his hand against Ellen’s cheek and leaned in for a quick kiss.

“Any idea when we’ll get the rest of it?” Ellen asked, in her eyes a silent plea.

“Jim and Denise said they’d try to make it back before dark but we’ll see. Thank God they got here with the first half,” Michael said. “Without it we’d never have beaten off the first blitz. But as to the rest, it’ll get here when it does.”

Ellen nodded and sagged against him. “Sorry,” she said as she pushed herself erect. “So what do we have left.”

He shook his head slowly. “I have two magazines for my AR and a pocketful of rounds for the .357 and I doubt most of the others have that much. Then we’re down to bows, crossbows, machetes, knives and Molotov’s. Terrell and Don snagged some surgical tubing from Doc Lewis and came up with a super slingshot for the Molotov’s. We’re hoping we can bag the Bradleys with them, maybe hit the massed troops before they charge.”

“Let’s hear it for the Molotov’s,” she said. Already a black, smoky pall from expended cocktails hung over the battlefield, stinging eyes and drying mouths.

Suddenly she nudged him and tilted her head toward Otha and Dikeme who stood solemnly between Leona Perry and Mariko McKinley. “Those two look like redwoods standing between stumps.”

“Glad they’re on our side,” Michael said, with a shallow grin. “Kind of sad they walked all the way from New York only to end up in this mess, though.”

“Amen to that,” then, changing the subject and pointing toward the enemy she said, “I think they’re gathering for another push.”

Michael heard the Bradleys fire up and agreed, but he also heard something else--the distant drone of a lawnmower. He looked up and spotted the Pegasus high above moving toward Viper’s lines.

“I think Aaron’s making a bombing run,” he said.

Sparkling objects were tossed from the tiny ultralight.

“What the hell?” Ellen asked, raising a pair of field glasses to get a better look.

“Pipe bombs,” Randy McKinley said, coming up behind them as several bombs burst in mid-air over the assembled troops. “Man, that magnesium tape makes a great timed fuse.”

At their questioning looks he said, “Aaron flew back and intercepted Cantrell’s supply column, grabbed as many bombs as he could and...well, you see the results.”

*

Chaos reigned in the enemy camp as the men broke formation and dove for cover. When it was clear the attack was over several were dispatched to fight fires and care for the wounded.

Viper walked among them, a bandage on his head where a piece of shrapnel had nicked him, helping with the wounded, trying to restore morale. It wasn’t easy. He knew if he turned back now his dream of a black civilization would die, but as he stared up at that damned man-made mountain…

He felt a seizure coming on and managed to say, “God is speaking,” to his assembled men before the voice in his head consumed him.

“Your enemies are low on ammunition,” it bellowed. As usual his followers were stunned by the change in his voice when Satan spoke though him. Always powerful, it now hammered through them like hot steel on an anvil, stiffening their resolve.

“Their will to fight fails them even as ours grows stronger. Their strength leaves them. Their vision grows dim.”

He paced through them now as they reassembled in ranks, touching them, bolstering them with his presence and charisma. He pointed to the top of the barrier and it no longer seemed so large, so intimidating.

“They cower in their trenches, trembling in fear as death comes for them, as we come for them. And they are the only thing standing between us and every dream of power and riches we ever had. They would love to run from us, but I am holding them there so we can finish this.”

He picked up his AR-15, charged it and said, “To prove this I will lead you up that hill, where we will kill them all. We must kill them all. Let me hear you say it.”

“Kill them all,” they said.

“Kill!” he yelled, stomping his foot.

“Kill!” they roared and stomped theirs.

He raised a closed fist and they screamed, “Kill!” and stomped even harder.

Without another word he turned and started for the enemy.

*

Up in the trench line Michael, Ellen and the rest of the Freeholders stiffened as the chant echoed from the surrounding hills. “Kill!” Stomp! “Kill!” Stomp!

Ellen looked up and down the line and saw heads and rifles drooping and knew she must do something to get them back. So she threw off Michael’s restraining hand as she climbed out of the trench and stood where they could all see her, stood where the Bradleys could range her with both their M242 25 mm chain guns and M240C 7.62 mm machine guns.

Her golden hair was dirty and stringy, her hazel eyes bloodshot and she had a smear of gun oil along the side of her delicate nose. Michael’s heart swelled and his eyes watered. She’d never looked more magnificent.

“Well,” she said, pointing at the racket. “I guess we kicked their behinds so hard last time they needed to psych themselves up but good for this effort.” She chuckled and was relieved to see heads coming up with fire in their eyes.

“I say we can kick their butts again!” She thrust her AR into the air and her people cheered. 7.62 mm rounds split the air around her as she dropped back into the trench.

“Missed me!” she yelled in triumph, and was rewarded with laughter up and down the line.

Michael gave her a quick hug and said, “Nicely done, but don’t do that again.”

She winked at him before turning to face the enemy and said, “Now you know how it feels.”

The M242’s opened up chewing into the top of the trench, keeping the defender’s heads down as Viper’s army advanced. Smoke grenades from the Bradley’s launchers provided a smoke screen limiting the defender’s visibility to under two hundred yards.

Michael knew the only sure way to shatter a human wave attack was with massed fire, preferably artillery or machine guns, but they didn’t have either. Maybe, just maybe, they had enough ammunition to shock the charge to a halt if they fired it all at once.

“Hold your fire until they hit the green marker,” he yelled. They had placed range markers along the slope, red at 400 yards, yellow at 300, white at 200 and green at 100. “Then pour everything you have into them. If we can knock enough of them down we can break their momentum.”

Terrell Johnson ran up and said, “I think we can get between two and three hundred yards out of our slingshot.”

“Just kill those Bradleys,” Ellen said. “Start launching as soon as you think they’re in range.” She could hear them clanking up the base of the land dam less than 300 yards away and gave thanks the face of the dam was too steep for them to mount.

*

This wasn’t at all like the previous attacks, Viper thought. During the others they’d had to claw their way up the hill against machine gun and rifle fire, Molotov’s and pipe bomb grenades. This time they weren’t shooting so, as Viper led his men up the slope he angled toward the position the blonde dropped into. From the descriptions he had of the Freeholds leader he guessed that was her and he fully intended to kill her himself. He heard his men shouting, “Kill” with every step and as they climbed higher and still the enemy didn’t fire. His conviction grew. They were out of ammo, or nearly so. He was going to win this battle and all of Colorado would be his.

A Molotov sailed by well over his head and he heard screams from behind where it hit. Another flew past and one of his Bradleys fell silent. He glanced over his shoulder and saw the vehicle burning. Other cocktails whipped by but he and his men were so close now nothing could stop them.

Then all the bullets in the world slammed into them and his front lines disintegrated. But he was untouched so he screamed, “At them!” and charged. A few more rounds thudded into his soldiers but soon those stopped and his men were falling with arrows in them. And then they were at the enemy’s trench, vaulting or weaving between the sharpened stakes and the slaughter began.

*

We should have retreated, Ellen thought as she fired her last round into her opponent. They were in the trench now, gunning down her people.

Michael pushed her out of the way as a man fired at her and with a slash of his Kabar opened the man’s throat.

“Grab that gun and use it,” he said as he whirled into them, Kabar in each hand, enemy blood flying with each cut. In the close confines of the trench his knives and his lightning reflexes worked faster than their guns.

Ellen picked up the AR, dispatched two men who dropped into the trench beside her, then hammered rounds at the men firing down into her people. A violent blow from behind knocked her to the ground and sent the rifle spinning. She saw a black-eyed man with a bandage on his head standing above her grinning and heard Michael scream, “Ellen!” She tried to move but couldn’t even breathe. A terrible pain blossomed in her breast.

“I am Viper,” the man snarled, “and I will drink your blood.” He leveled his rifle at her and cursed as one of Michael’s Kabar’s slammed into it and knocked it from his hands.

He pulled a combat dagger but Michael lunged between him and Ellen and deflected the blow. Knives flashed in the fading light, slashing, slicing, parrying as they dueled. They lunged, leapt back, ducked, twisted away and blocked each other at every turn as they danced their deadly duet back and forth along a ten foot stretch of trench.

Blood flowed freely from shallow cuts and nicks on both men. Michael was cat quick but Viper was slightly faster. He was also younger and fresher. Michael’s sole advantage was greater combat experience, which had led him to tie his black, Harley bandanna around his head as a sweatband before the battle began. It served him well now, absorbing the sweat that ran down his forehead. Viper was forced to retreat twice simply to wipe the sweat from his eyes, and both times Michael pressed him hard.

The sound of combat on either side of them faded as both men focused solely on the other, the only sounds they heard were the clash of their blades and their own labored breathing.

They thrust at each other then froze, as for an instant they stood face to face, each gripping the other’s knife hand. Muscles straining, beads of sweat popping out on their faces, unable to gain leverage in the blood soaked, slippery muck of the trench floor.

Viper stared into Michael’s golden eyes and ignored the tickle of fear in his belly. “You’re good,” he hissed through clenched teeth, “but I’m better, for Satan lives within me.” Power flowed into him and slowly his knife inched closer to Michael’s chest.

“Then you can join him in hell,” Michael gasped as he jerked Viper’s knife hand toward him, tugging Viper off balance and weakening the man’s grip on his right arm. He twisted his arm free and, even as Viper’s blade sliced along his ribs, plunged his Kabar deep into Viper’s guts. He ripped the razor sharp knife upwards through viscera and organs until the tip of the blade nicked Viper’s heart.

*

Farther along the trench, Dan Osaka and Dorsey McLeod fought back to back, armed with weapons taken from their enemies. Dan emptied a magazine and as he swapped it out a bullet ricochetted off the AR into his face and he crumpled. Dorsey stood over his commander firing two Beretta 9 mm’s as fast as he could pull the triggers until bullets riddled him

Otha Gladson stood rock solid, never panicking, even when their position in the trench was overrun. He gutted a man with his machete, snatched the man’s rifle and started firing. But it was Dikeme who cleared a space around them. Butcher knife in one hand and hatchet in the other, her sheer ferocity drove them back. She twisted and dove among them, her movements so fluid, supple and deadly they couldn’t draw a bead on her.

Tiny Mariko McKinley kicked her opponent’s knee cap and stabbed her last arrow in his temple as he tumbled past. She saw her husband Randy fall, shot through, then a blow to her head tumbled her into darkness. Before the soldier who shot her could finish her off Otha crushed his skull with a butt stroke.

*

Jim Cantrell galloped toward the sounds of battle, fearing he was too late when he saw Freeholders running.

“Stop them,” he commanded the men and women with him and they spread out and checked the Freeholder’s panicked flight. At least most still had their guns. He cut the lashings and flung the panniers from the first horse so violently the animal snorted and sidestepped away from him.

He smashed open a container and began passing out ammunition and pipe bombs as others in his supply column did likewise. Once they were rearmed he waved his arm forward and they raced toward the front lines.

*

Chad Bailey was being strangled to death when Dikeme snapped a kick to his opponent’s head that broke the man’s neck.

“Martial arts?” he croaked through his damaged throat.

“Ballet,” she replied, bending to help him up, “and modern dance.”

Otha saw Captain Silva aim a pistol at Dikeme and jumped in front of the gun taking the bullet meant for his wife, but it passed through him and hit her in her chest. Otha saw her stagger against Chad Bailey and fall, saw Jim Cantrell shoot the Captain in the head and suddenly massed fire was pouring into Viper’s army as the counterattack arrived in full force.

Without Viper to lead them the advance halted, then withered under sustained fire. Those not killed outright broke and ran.

Sergeant Ladell Shore tried to rally Viper’s troops but one of his own men shot him down and dashed past, fleeing into the dusk.

*

Otha’s legs weren’t working right but his arms still functioned. He dragged himself to Dikeme, tore open a package of quick clot and pushed it inside her blouse, applying pressure to the wound.

She moaned and roused.

He ran one hand softly across her forehead, brushing her hair away from her eyes, and said, “You’ll be okay. You have to be okay.”

“What about you?” she whispered, her eyes going to the blood running down his shirt.

“Doing good,” he said.

“Liar.” She gave him a tender look.

“It’s bad,” he admitted, and she knew he was fading fast. “But there’s no better way for a man to go than trying to save the woman he loves.” He closed his eyes and slipped silently into death.

“No,” Dikeme whispered, tears flowing freely. “The best way is of old age in bed with his wife after a long, full life.” She closed her own eyes, thinking that at least they’d die together.

*

As the last of his lifeblood flowed out and mixed with the stinking mess his guts created, Viper sent a silent plea to his God. Why did you do this? You promised me victory.

“I am Satan,” his vision sneered. “I lied. Besides, there is one in California who, though his skin is white, is darker than you.”

Chapter 39: Aftermath

Michael dropped beside Ellen and checked her breathing.

“I’m okay,” she groaned and coughed, blood on her lips.

“I disagree,” he said and when she tried to move he pinned her down. “Lie still while I check you over. Medic!”

“The battle,” she protested, squirming. Something was wrong. She couldn’t breathe right.

“We won,” he said. “Lie still, honey. Medic!”

“We did?” She wheezed. “How?”

“Jimbo rode in on his white horse and saved our butts. Now, try to relax. Don’t move.”

She nodded. Breathing hurt like the devil. Every breath was like knives slicing her.

“I may have a broken rib,” she whispered.

“I’m sure you do.” His eyes slid away.

Understanding flowed into her eyes. It was bad. “So, why can’t I breathe?”

“Because you have a bayonet poking through your chest,” Doctor Fariq said, dropping into the trench beside them. “Now please shut up before you do more damage to the lung it pierced.”

Jim Cantrell and Chad Bailey slid in behind him with a stretcher.

Michael stood by helplessly while Fariq told them to strap her to the stretcher but first he slid his hand under her back and felt along her spine.

She gasped and moaned and he said, “Sorry. At least the bayonet isn’t attached to a rifle, so we can move you to the O.R. Bleeding is the most dangerous thing right now. I need you to breathe shallow as you can.”

He wound layers of duct tape around her to stabilize the blade. If he removed it she’d bleed out before he could operate.

He saw the concern in her eyes and said, “Relax, I’ve seen a lot of these injuries recently. Get some Cipro in you and a couple of band-aids and you’ll be good as new.”

He winked at her and asked, “You aren’t allergic to Cipro, are you?”

She slowly shook her head.

Jim and Chad gently moved Ellen onto the stretcher, strapped her down and took off for the hospital tents.

Doctor Fariq looked at Michael and said, “You need to get that looked at,” pointing to Michael’s bleeding chest.

“It’s a flesh wound, Doc,” Michael said.

“So you’re a doctor now,” Fariq replied, opening Michael’s shirt. “That’ll need stitches.” He stuck a couple of quik-clots on the wound and added, “See me later.”

He followed the direction of Michael’s gaze and said, “I’ll take good care of her.” Fariq had proven himself during the battle doctoring or shooting as the situation required but Michael wondered if he still harbored political ambitions.

“I know you will, Doc,” Michael said. “Thank you.”

Doctor Fariq nodded and dashed off after the stretcher. Michael hobbled along behind. Until he knew Ellen’s fate he wouldn’t be much use to anyone.

*

Graves detail, Jim Cantrell thought. Books don’t talk about it and movies never glorified it but there was no doubt it was the nasty, gritty, dark underside of a battle’s aftermath. Someone had to haul the bodies and the pieces to their final resting place. Someone had to search those remains for belongings to pass on to families. Someone had to endure the unbelievable stench, the hovering, biting flies, the sheer horror of having a friend come apart in your hands. Your reward was that once in a great while you found someone alive.

Never one to ask others to do what he wouldn’t, Jim pitched in. He was in his fifth hour when he handed cadet Dorsey McLeod up out of the trench to others and heard the groan. He looked down and saw he was standing on Dan Osaka. He jumped off of the Lieutenant so fast he slipped on the muddy bottom and turned his ankle.

“I’ve got a live one!” he yelled and cradled Dan’s head in his lap while stretcher bearers raced to get to him.

“Stay with me, boy,” he pleaded and didn’t realize he was crying until his tears splashed onto Dan’s face.

He’d lose the eye for sure, Jim thought, and hoped the bullet hadn’t lodged in the young man’s brain.

Chad Bailey found Randy McKinley still breathing and Mariko, whose skull had been dented by a bullet, regained consciousness screaming for Randy as she was being borne to the surgery tent. Doc Lewis had to shave part of her head to clean and repair the wound and when dainty, beautiful Mariko’s hair grew back she had a startling white streak amid her lustrous black mane.

*

As the bayonet was withdrawn and Taraq Fariq clamped a bleeder in Ellen’s chest the thought that her death might benefit him politically crossed his mind. Briefly. For while he might have disagreed with many of her policies, at heart, he was a doctor, not a killer. And she just might have been right. He could admit that now, at least to himself.

He also recalled how she could have destroyed him but had chosen not to. He owed her for that. Besides, how much better would he look if he saved her when all knew of their rivalry.

At least the bayonet hadn’t nicked any major arteries. Still...

“Sponge,” he said, and as his assistant blotted the blood he began stitching.

The greatest danger would be post-op infection, but that was why Allah invented Cipro.

*

Michael flinched as the needle poked through his skin and drew the stitching tight.

“You’re the one who said no anesthetic,” Nurse Hawkins said, as she tied off the last stitch.

For an answer he just stared at the Operating Room curtain. He’d insisted on being treated right outside the room.

“She’s in good hands,” Nurse Hawkins said. “Seriously. Dr. Fariq has developed into a very good surgeon.” She finished bandaging his wound, noted how he wouldn’t meet her eyes and recalled how he’d intimidated her when they first met and now he looked like a kicked dog.

Four hours later Dr. Fariq walked out of the O.R. with a smile on his face and Michael started to live again.

*

Provo

Bob Young surveyed the view from horseback. Snow now capped the higher peaks but down in Provo it was dry. Stubble lined the fields of wheat, oats and barley on the outskirts of town. Haystacks dotted other fields. Nearer to hand a pair of horses stood next to each other in a corral, front to back, muzzles resting on each other’s rumps while tails swished flies away from their heads.

“It was a good harvest,” he said. “Enough for us, for the livestock, and seed for next year.”

Betty’s mare, a pretty brown and white Paint turned it’s head and nipped at Bob’s leg. Betty yelled, “Manners!” and kicked the horse’s cheek, then turned to Bob and said, “You’ve been wiping your sweaty palms on your pants again haven’t you.”

He looked away, guilty.

“Horses love salt, Dear. Best you remember that before one of them gets a chunk of your leg.”

To change the subject, Bob asked, “Did you hear about the beehives?”

Betty nodded, and flipped her ponytail over her shoulder onto her back. She’d given up on big hair when she couldn’t go to the salon. “Davey came home from school full of the news. It’s a good idea.”

“Agreed,” Bob said. “If we produce enough hives we may be able to resume honey production in a couple of years. Adam favors putting a beehive on the Deseret State Flag, just like on the Utah flag.”

“So,” Betty said. “It’s a link to our past and a symbol for our future. Nice.”

They reined their mounts around and started for home and that’s when they saw Adam whipping up the road on a motorcycle.

He braked to a stop beside them and said, “Some fishermen just delivered a box addressed to you. They said a sailboat came up along side them and while they were preparing to repel boarders the Captain of the other boat threw the box aboard and veered off.”

“Well, what’s in it?”

Adam gave him a look. “I haven’t opened it, Bob. It’s addressed to you. Honestly, the first mail we’ve had since The Impact and you think I’m going to snoop?”

“I didn’t mean it like that. It’s probably Ed Cummins’s report.”

They high tailed it back to Bob’s office and opened the box. Inside, packed in salt, was Ed Cummins’s severed head.

Adam grimaced and said, “Well I guess we’ve heard from California.”

*

Two days after the battle, Otha Gladson was buried with the Freehold’s honored dead in a lovely green meadow west of Woodland Park. Michael planted a hand-lettered cross bearing Otha’s name at the head of his grave and looked around. White and blue lupine and red Indian paintbrush and skyrocket dotted the field. When the Aspen lining the meadow finished turning it would be surrounded by a golden halo. Pike’s Peak loomed majestic, filling the southern horizon.

“You won’t be forgotten, my friend. I’m sure you know Dikeme is still hanging in there with us. I’m pretty sure part of the problem is she wants to be with you so I’ll have to think up something to get her interested in living again. She’ll have a home with us as long as she wants one.”

*

Viper’s wounded had been treated to single pistol shots to the head. There was no inclination for mercy toward cannibal slavers and murderers. Viper and his dead were searched for useful items then bulldozed into a mass grave at the base of Bluebird Hill.

So many Freeholders died fighting Viper there was plenty of room for all the slaves who’d escaped from him to homestead in The Freeholds.

*

Dikeme opened her eyes and saw Doc Lewis standing over her with a chart in his hand.

“So, I didn’t die,” she said. Her gaze took in the canvas walled tent, the IV hanging from a coat rack, its tube running into her arm.

“Don’t sound so disappointed,” Doc Lewis said, running a hand across his wiry white hair. “I lost plenty of good folks without adding you to the total.”

His index finger traced a line down her chart then he looked at her and said, “If you’re up to it you have a visitor.”

She thought it over, uncertain. All she really knew was that Otha was gone and she was empty inside. She had no family and, unless she counted these strange Freehholders, no friends. Finally, she nodded. Otha died fighting for their cause. The least she could do was be polite.

Doc Lewis stepped around the hanging bed sheet that separated her bed from the one next door and Michael Whitebear limped up to her bedside. He opened his mouth to say something, closed it and sighed. He laid a hand on her forearm, gave it a gentle squeeze, cleared his throat and said, “I’m sorry.”

Tears filled her eyes and she turned her head away.

“He was my friend and I’ll miss him too.”

Truth, she thought. Though Otha only knew this man for two hectic days, they’d talked like they’d known each other for years.

“It was you who shot the guards and gave us a chance to escape the slavers, wasn’t it?”

He nodded.

“Otha knew you would do something to help us. He knew it.” She looked up at him. “I want to thank you for that.”

Michael inhaled sharply. This was hard. He’d barely known the large black man but they were brothers as surely as he and Jim Cantrell were brothers.

“I have a job for you when you’re ready,” he said, surprising himself as well as her. He really hadn’t meant to broach the subject yet, but too late now.

“What job?”

“Some of them got away.”

She saw the gold highlights brighten in his odd colored eyes.

“When you’re healed up I thought we might go hunting.”

Deep inside her a spark fanned into flame and she found a reason to live. She nodded slowly and said, “I think I’d like that.”

Chapter 40: Epilogue--Two Months After The War

A light dusting of snow covered the mountainside, not quite reaching down to the valley floor. Michael took a deep breath. Pine scented air was finally overpowering the smell of charred wood. Wild turkeys called from a bare-branched willow thicket by the river. Canadian geese sailed along the pond behind the hydroelectric dam.

The two way radio hanging from his belt chirped. He palmed it and said, “Michael here.”

“Michael. Aaron. I’m out on the plains between Peyton and Calhan and thought I’d try to raise you. Those repeaters we put up are working just fine, huh?”

“I’m reading you loud and clear,” Michael said. “This just a radio check?”

“No, man. I thought you’d get a kick out of this herd of antelope I spotted.”

“Pronghorns seem to be coming back nicely.”

“Yeah, but these aren’t pronghorns. They’re some kind of African antelope, I think, about the size of a white tail deer. Pretty sleek looking.”

Little Steven darted out of the house onto the deck with Dikeme in tow. She overheard Aaron and said, “Sounds like Eland. Ask him if they’re tawny with white underbellies.”

“Did you catch that?” Michael asked Aaron.

“Sure did and she described them perfectly.”

“What’s an Eland?” Steven asked.

“Sort of an African deer,” Michael explained.

“What’s Africa?”

Michael laughed and said, “I’ll let your Aunt Di explain that one. She knows more about Africa than anybody else here.”

He keyed the radio and said, “You should get back here before the air gets rough. Michael out.”

“Roger that, Aaron out,” came the reply.

“So this is where everybody’s hiding,” Ellen said as she joined them on the deck.

“Not hiding,” Steven said. “Learning about Africa.”

“Oh, well...that sounds important. You’ll probably want to skip breakfast then.”

“Breakfast?” He asked.

“Pancakes,” she replied with a smile.

He slipped off Di’s lap, said, “Eat now, learn later,” and bolted inside.

As they headed back inside Ellen touched Michael’s shoulder and asked, “How did he get started on that?”

“Aaron spotted a herd of Eland out east.”

Ellen paused by the doorway. “Aaron’s back? I didn’t hear him land...wait a minute, Elands, like the antelope?”

“The African antelope.”

“Ah, got it.”

“And Aaron’s not back,” Michael said, holding up the radio.

She took a deep breath and gave him a glowing smile. “If the radio’s working that far out, pretty soon we’ll be able to talk to Denver or the settlements near Buena Vista.”

“Pretty cool, huh?” Michael said.

“It’s better than cool. If we can blanket the East Slope with repeaters no one will ever catch us by surprise again.”

The End

(But keep reading for a free preview of my upcoming novel After The Dying Time)

Hello readers,

Raymond Dean White here, hoping you’ve enjoyed The Dying Time: Impact because I need to ask you for a very important favor. Since Indie Authors live and die by reviews I’m asking you to please go to your favorite ebook retailer and leave a starred review.

I’d also like to invite you to visit me at my website:

http://www.RaymondDeanWhite

Your comments or critiques are welcome. Your input could help make my next book, or even this one, better, since revisions or updated versions are so easy with ebooks. And while you’re on my website, sign up for my free newsletter.

The main things you need to know about me is that I am an avid reader myself and that I write what I love to read--action-packed, fast-paced, novels into which I try to inject a touch of humor and a bit of useful information about preparing for emergencies.

Another thing you should know is that I honor my readers by trying my best to deliver an entertaining and complete tale in each novel. Even when I’m writing a trilogy or a series I will not leave you hanging because I never want my readers to feel cheated. Far from it. In an ideal world I want for you to look forward to my next novel with the same sense of eager anticipation I have at the release of each of Robert Crais’ books.

The major influences on my writing style comes from the authors I love to read--Louis L’Amour, Stephen King, Frank Herbert, J.R.R Tolkien and Elmore Leonard to name but a few.

For your convenience and information I’ve included a complete Cast of Characters as well as two Appendices laying out useful Prepper websites and items as well as a free preview of my upcoming novel, “After The Dying Time” so keep reading.

Other Books by Raymond Dean White

“Tap Doubt: Your Next Glass of Water Could Kill You” (with co-author Duane Lindsay) Coming soon as an ebook.

Terrorists are poisoning Americas water supplies using an environmental cleanup firm as cover for their activities. Ousted CEO Nick Kuiper hires a beautiful con artist and her legendary grifter father to get his company back. When they tumble to the plot all hell breaks loose.

“American Jihad” (with co-author Duane Lindsay) Coming soon as an ebook.

When the towers fell on 9/11 American Arab Aden Saud lost his parents and was left with a piece of shrapnel in his head that made him unfit for military duty and left him with a burning desire to take the war to the terrorists--one bullet at a time. But can he and the CIA operative assigned to stop him prevent a new attack on American soil?

“How I Got Published: Famous Authors Tell You in Their Own Words” by Ray White and Duane Lindsay. Learn how some of your favorite authors (Clive Cussler, John Lescroart, Christopher Moore, Steven Coonts, David Morrell and many others) got published, and the Ten Rules for how to get traditional publishers to publish your books.

“After The Dying Time” Coming soon as an ebook.

In a post Impact world there are Kings, subjects, slaves and those fighting to remain free.

After the dying time eased its grip on the remnants of humanity, Joseph Scarlatti, a minor mobster with major ambitions, rose to become King of California and eventually the remains of the West Coast. Now he wants the world, but unfortunately for him the path to world domination leads through the door of Michael and Ellen Whitebear’s homestead.

Please continue on to the next pages and check out a free preview of the Sequel to The Dying Time: Impact, titled, appropriately enough, AFTER THE DYING TIME.

AFTER THE DYING TIME: Book Two in The Dying Time Trilogy

(The Battle Against Nature is Over. The Battle Against Man is Just Beginning.)

Raymond Dean White

Chapter 1: Bad Things Come in Threes

The Freeholds, Central Colorado Mountains

July 16, 12 Years A.I. (After Impact)

Michael Whitebear bolted up in bed, heart pounding, head swiveling, eyes darting around the room. What? Stark memories, welcome as a bloated corpse, assaulted him--artillery, gouts of flame, bodies, the stench--

Crack, BOOM!

He flinched as the bedroom windows rattled and torrents of rain hammered against them, then expelled a long, shuddering breath as reality shoved his nightmares back inside. Just a storm, he thought, as thunder echoed overhead.

He raised his right hand to brush away beads of sweat from his forehead and for the first time noticed the pistol. He couldn’t even remember grabbing it. Lips twisting into a self-amused smile he laid the .357 back on the bed stand. Better to have it and not need it...

Slipping back beneath the covers he snuggled up to his wife, Ellen, whose sleep-warmth thawed his chill. Closing his eyes, he took a few deep breaths, and tried to fool himself into believing he could get back to sleep.

He raised an eyelid and focused a gold-tinted, brown eye on the backlit clock that shared the bed stand with the gun, a reading lamp and a glass of water. 4:17 a.m.

Ellen stirred and mumbled, “Everything all right?”

“Yeah,” he lied, as wartime ghosts clawed at his mind like a dog at the back door. No sense upsetting her. What the hell was wrong with him? Jumping at shadows and thunder like a little kid. He hadn’t spooked like this in years.

He counted lightning bolts and listened to peals of thunder as the storm passed over and moved off into the distance, but no matter how hard he tried to relax his mind wouldn’t let go.

Glaciers formed and spread across the continent. Mountain ranges eroded one grain at a time. He glanced at the clock again. 5:22 a.m.

Okay. Enough.

Michael slid out of bed and pulled on a pair of jeans, then opened the patio door and stepped out onto the redwood deck that overlooked the valley of the Freeholds. The rain-damp wood chilled his bare feet. Goosebumps tingled his arms and back. Ink-blot clouds dotted the clearing sky. A horned owl hooted from the depths of the forest, a bleak, lonely sound, until its mate answered from across the valley. Light from a waning crescent moon revealed a glistening mist hovering over the river. He leaned against the railing and waited, feeling the ebb of night.

Pink dawn-glow outlined the peaks of the Tarryall Mountains. A chickadee called from the aspen behind him. Rain-washed air smelled of pine forest, damp earth, and freshly cut hay.

He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, rhythmically, sweeping the cobwebs of fear from his mind. It was just a dream, a bad dream that left a stain on his morning.

BOOM!

Michael hit the deck so hard splinters stabbed him. No dream, that. He lunged to his feet and back through the bedroom door screaming, “Ellen! Hit the alarm! We’re under attack!”

Without breaking stride he vaulted the bed, grabbed his .357, snatched an Uzi from the gun-rack and bolted back out onto the deck. The alarm blared as the door slammed behind him.

He jumped down the deck stairs and into the saddle of his trail bike. A quick kick-start, a twist of the throttle and he was fishtailing out of his driveway, spewing gravel as he headed for the hangar and the tiny plane housed there. Through squinted, wind-whipped eyes, he saw other men and women firing up motorcycles and saddling horses. The Militia was forming with a speed that showed they knew their lives and homes hung on minutes.

*

The Pegasus ultralight, painted like an old P-40, complete with shark’s teeth, screamed through the air as Michael flew for the Haley ranch in the southern Freeholds and the columns of smoke roiling upward through the morning sky. Skimming the treetops he urged the tiny, aerobatic, ultralight plane to greater speed. Six minutes had passed since the first explosion and there had been others. He tried to go faster but the throttle was already wide open. Almost there dammit, almost there.

He peeled over Twin Eagle ridge and snapped up the scene at a glance--flaming houses, scattered bodies, hundreds of men swarming around the burning buildings like ants on a corpse. His breath caught and his knuckles whitened around the joystick. Jesus! So many of them. The Freeholds hadn’t faced such a large attack in years!

A cannon roared and a section of wall erupted, scattering debris in a wide circle. The roof of a homestead collapsed, showering sparks and tongues of orange flame. Don Haley and his wife, Marsha, shoved their little girls out of the burning building. He and Marsha sprawled protectively across their daughters, bodies twitching as bullets slammed into them.

Sour bile rose in Michael’s throat, but he never slowed. If he did he’d have time to think about what he was doing and right now he only had time for one thought. Behind him his wife was marshaling the Militia while their son and the kids they’d adopted were being herded into the heavily fortified Community Center along with hundreds of other frightened children. The invaders in front of him were already regrouping to head that way. If they got through The Narrows before the militia arrived…

He clenched his teeth and dove before he could hesitate. He shoved the Uzi out the open cockpit and pulled the trigger, stitching a line of death through the heart of a group below.

Raiders hugged the ground as the Pegasus streaked by mere inches above them. A wheel brace struck a man in the head and Michael struggled for control, but he never stopped firing. Bodies jerked and twitched as slugs from the Uzi tore into them. Gaping mouths and wide-eyed stares followed the small plane as it rose, banked and--Oh-My-God--headed back at them.

They scattered like quail, dashing madly for the trees, trampling crops in the Haley’s garden, only a few recovering enough to shoot back.

Michael inserted a fresh clip and switched the Uzi to his left hand so he could target the largest group of raiders. With his right hand on the joystick and the Uzi braced against a cockpit strut he poured a burst into a cluster of men silhouetted against the Haley’s burning homestead. Bullets thwocked through his plane. He flinched as one tugged at the cuff of his jeans.

They were getting the hang of this.

He snatched a deep breath, held it, and pulled up into the column of smoke rising from the house. They couldn’t shoot what they couldn’t see. Smoke-blinded eyes stung and watered, and hot ash singed his hair before he broke through into clean air. He blinked twice and wiped his eyes to clear his vision, and there it was: the cannon. The Goddammed cannon.

The sight was a red cape to a bull. Michael’s eyes blazed gold. He screamed defiance and swooped like a hawk onto prey. He started shooting. Seven shots...eight...and the gun clicked empty. He glared at it, threw it behind him, and pulled the .357 from his belt.

An officer with a bushy black mustache and gleaming Captain’s bars killed the first raider who broke and ran. The others around the cannon heeded the warning, stood fast and shot back, some resting their rifles on the howitzer to steady their aim.

Six shots left and no speed loads. Eight soldiers. Damn!.

Michael aimed carefully as he dove on them. Every blade of grass, every muzzle flash, every squint-eyed, clenched-teeth expression stood out in exaggerated detail as he entered their rain of fire. He squeezed the trigger gently. His bullet struck a man in the chest, knocking him back into the cannon. The body slid to the ground leaving a crimson smear on the shiny bright barrel. The .357 bucked a second time and another man fell. Michael fired again and again until the hammer fell on an empty chamber, then tossed the pistol behind his seat with the Uzi.

He jerked back on the stick and veered into the sky. In the distance he saw Freeholders on horses and motorcycles pouring through The Narrows toward the enemy. Banking around, he dove at the raiders again. He was out of bullets but they didn’t know that. All that mattered was to keep them ducking until the Militia could arrive. Zigging and zagging, he whipped the Pegasus across the meadow, flying so low the tall grass whooshed against the plane’s wingtips.

The Captain’s mustached face appeared in front of him and Michael’s landing gear smashed it to a pulp.

Yes!

He was climbing to clear the aspen that lined the meadow when the Pegasus jerked violently, slapped by a giant fly swatter. The grenade blast from the near miss sent a piece of shrapnel burning into Michael’s thigh. The left wing, weakened by bullet holes, folded, its Dacron skin and aluminum tubing collapsing like a crushed kite.

SHIT!

Michael fought the useless controls as the little plane cart-wheeled into the forest.

*

Ellen Whitebear and Jim Cantrell burst through the trees sliding their horses to a halt in the small clearing at the base of an enormous spruce. Their faces were battle-grimed and Ellen’s golden blonde hair was singed. Jim’s left arm was in a sling, the left side of his face puffy with purple bruises. Gunshots popped like firecrackers off in the distance, but the invaders were fleeing and Ellen could finally spare time to look for Michael.

Pieces of airplane formed a trail that led down from the top of the tree to the twisted pile of metal on the ground below. Michael stood, weak and shaken, propping himself up against the wreckage. Blood ran down his head, soaking into his graying beard. He held his left arm tightly against his side as if his ribs were bothering him. His nose was broken, already swollen shut, and his breath whistled slightly through pain-clenched teeth. His deep-set eyes were already bruising into livid shiners. Dark blood trickled down from his nose mingling with brighter blood from a split lip. Assorted cuts on his shoulders and chest seeped, obscuring numerous old scars. More dark red blood welled from his left thigh, soaking his tattered jeans.

Jim Cantrell veered away from Ellen, watching the surrounding forest for signs of the enemy. Gunshots still sounded as the Militia mopped up the invaders.

“Hi, honey,” Michael said with a lopsided grin, as Ellen slid her mount to a halt and vaulted from the saddle.

“Hi, honey?” Ellen’s face reflected the emotional gauntlet she was running--relief, worry, fear, and anger. “Hi, honey?” Her voice rose. “You could have been KILLED! You thoughtless...”

She choked up. Tears welled in her eyes but she forced them back. She was President of the United Freeholds, a woman who had led cavalry charges and faced machine gun and artillery fire. Bullets didn’t frighten her as much as her own husband’s cavalier courage. And when she got scared she got mad.

“Don’t EVER do that again.” Her voice broke as she stepped toward him. “Don’t...ever...”

Michael braced himself against the ruins of the Pegasus as she hugged him. What was he supposed to do? Wait around while that cannon pounded other homesteads? And he was alive, wasn’t he? He glanced up gratefully at the spruce boughs that had cushioned the crash. Women! Hell, he was fine--just a little beat up. He took a step and passed out.

Ellen caught him and eased him gently to the ground, cradling his head on her lap and wiping blood from his forehead. Damn him! He was so careless with his own life when others were at risk. She couldn’t bear the thought that someday his headlong plunges into danger might take him from her. Then what would she do? Didn’t he realize she needed his strength as much as he needed her cool head. Men!

Michael’s lips curved into a slight smile as Ellen dabbed blood from his nose; for his mind was back in the old days, before The Dying Time, when a man living in Colorado didn’t have to kill others to defend his home.

The Freeholds was just a small settlement then, its people devoted to developing a self-sufficient lifestyle and preparing for what they then believed to be the hard times to come. Though most thought they were prepping for an economic collapse or an EMP or some other TEOTWAWKI event, none foresaw the magnitude of the catastrophic asteroid impact that hit Earth.

Their postindustrial homesteads were unique enough to serve as the focus of a National Geographic television documentary on alternative lifestyles. That publicity almost proved to be their undoing, for after the asteroid strike destroyed the foundations of civilization they were invaded by hordes of people who looked upon the Freeholds as their last hope. Their passive solar homes, off-grid power supply, greenhouses and subsistence gardens had gone from being oddities to prizes that tempted good men and vicious outlaws alike to attack them.

They formed a militia and trained and mapped out a defense they believed covered every approach to their valley. They fought against murderers, cannibals and Satanic, racist slavers. Their greatest fear was that someday a really large, well-organized army would overrun them and destroy all they had rebuilt. So far that hadn’t happened; but it was now obvious they could still be surprised, that there could be occasional lapses in their level of alertness, and that--

“Ugh,” Michael grunted and opened his eyes slowly. A blurred image swam into focus. Ellen leaned back from cleaning his head wound--a nasty gash that needed stitches.

“How do you feel?” she asked.

Michael read the concern in her eyes and voice. He felt like a doormat for a herd of elephants. Everything hurt!

“Better...I think.” He shifted, grimacing as pain stabbed him from his cracked ribs.

Ellen helped him sit up and went back to tending his wounds. He saw they were still in the clearing. Jim’s tall, lean form standing guard, pacing the perimeter. Distant gunshots echoed from farther down the valley. Aaron Goldstein buzzed by overhead in the Freeholds gyrocopter, scouting out the enemy.

“How’re we doing?” Michael asked, wincing as Ellen dug a large splinter out of his back.

Jim Cantrell, his lifelong friend stopped pacing and snapped, “They’re whipped.”

Jim’s angry tone hurt Michael. Surely a man he’d known since he was ten would understand. They’d been through this before. But Jim looked like a balloon about to pop.

Michael flinched as Ellen’s fingers probed his damaged ribs. “Spit it out before it poisons you.”

“Okay,” Jim agreed, dark brown eyes flashing. He pointed a finger at Michael and said, “Man, you’re a prize idiot. Staging a one man ambush against a battalion.” Jim shook his head in disbelief. “That kind of stupidity will get you killed and you damn well know it. I don’t suppose you stopped to think what Ellen and the kids would do without you, did you?”

Michael gave his friend a wounded look.

“What?” Jim asked.

But before Michael could respond, Ellen said. “He was thinking about us when he attacked them. And his ambush scattered them into disarray and distracted them, probably saved a lot of Freeholder’s lives.”

Michael sighed and closed his eyes. She understood--usually did, after she calmed down.

“I still think--” Jim began, then broke off and spun toward a sound in the woods, the barrel of his Thompson machine gun rose until it pointed at the sound . Ellen grabbed one of her pistols, slapping the other into Michael’s outstretched palm.

Brush cracked and Dan Osaka, the tall, skinny, former Air Force Academy cadet, who could no longer fly because he’d lost an eye in a long ago battle, propelled a captive into the clearing. The prisoner stumbled over a broken branch and fell.

A smile formed when Dan saw Michael, but his voice was dead serious. “I caught this scumbag hiding near the Haley place. They’re all dead. May take us a day or two to finish mopping up around here. We’ve already got most of these bastards, but we’ve got a real problem.”

Michael and Ellen exchanged a quick, worried glance.

“Tell her what you told me,” Dan said, glowering at the man sprawled on the ground before him.

“P...Private Carmichael, Royal Army,” said the frightened soldier, glancing quickly from face to face.

Ellen’s eyes widened. Royal Army?

Dan read her look perfectly. He shrugged. “That’s what he claims--that he’s a soldier in the army of some King. From what I’ve seen of his buddies they’re all in uniform and well armed, so it could be true.”

Jim’s lips compressed in a thin line.

Ellen’s brow furrowed and a shadow settled on her face. Her greatest fear...

Michael took her free hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. His back popped as he sat up straight. In the depths of his brown eyes a golden flame flickered to life.

Cast of Characters

Washington DC

Carl Borzowski--Science Advisor to the President, a tall, slender, good-looking man with thinning blonde hair, devoted to mathematics, physics and Jack Daniels whiskey since breaking up with his fiancée, Monica Helms. A man who, as it turns out is ultimately responsible for saving the world.

Doctor (PhD) Harold Garrison--Astrophysicist in charge of Spacewatch program, a small, dark man with deep set brown eyes who, next to his family, loves astronomy, Chicago Cubs baseball and old Marvel comic books.

Sheila Garrison--Harry Garrison’s wife

Robby Garrison--Harry and Sheila’s son

Donna Markwright--Executive Secretary to the President, a serious woman with a serious job, who wears severely tailored business suits, her hair in a tight bun and who has a bit of a crush on The President.

Hammond Powell--President

Farley Moffat--Chief of Staff

Morgan Hamilton--National Security Advisor

Juan Salazar--FEMA Director

Eli Cohen--NASA Director

Alexander Winthrop--Homeland Security

General Roland Mabry--Secretary of the Air Force, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, only the second black man to hold the job. Tough, smart and driven to succeed.

Peter Capelli--Secretary of Defense, a balding political appointee who tries his best but who is out of his depth.

Admiral Donald Muzarki--Chief of Naval Operations

Admiral Grierson--Coast Guard

General Arnold Senecot--Army Chief of Staff

General Frank Rabson--Marine Corps Chief of Staff

Arthur McRae--Secretary of State

Royce Bannister--Director FBI

Monica Helms--American Broadcasting Network reporter/newscaster, Fair skin, long, jet-black hair, a deceptively angelic face, green eyes, and a figure-eight shape completed a package that mesmerized any man who wasn't blind or gay. The sexiest shark in the sea and, oh yeah, Carl’s ex-fiancée.

Angela Tremont--onsite reporter, American Broadcasting Network

Barry Saberhagen--Reporter, American Broadcasting Network

Ethan Hamilton--Scientist at Fort Dix, Morgan Hamilton’s son

Jana Potucek--Makeup artist for the President

Californians

Doctor (PhD) Raoul Garcia--Scientist, Genius, Inventor. A small, intense man of pure Castilian decent, whose family had settled California generations before the Gold Rush, Raoul betrayed his aristocratic bearing by routinely tripping or slipping and wounding himself.

Doctor (PhD) Ariel Garcia--Scientist, Raoul’s wife, a tiny, if somewhat stout, brilliant scientist with sparkling, hazel eyes and graying hair.

Sara Garcia--Surgeon, Raoul & Ariel’s granddaughter, Dark brown hair and eyes, not beautiful, but highly intelligent and tougher than cured concrete.

Sergeant Carswell--Crooked Supply Sergeant, overweight

Joseph Scarlatti (Joey the Giant)--Minor mobster with major ambitions, who comes by his sobriquet naturally. 7’4” tall, 360 pounds of solid, freakishly strong muscle. He can rip the arms off a man as easily as another might pull the wings off flies. Joey is also smart enough to hide his intelligence from his bosses.

John Scarlatti--youngest of Joey’s twin sons

Anthony (Tony) Scarlatti--oldest (by minutes) of Joey’s twin sons

Jamal Rashid--Joey’s trusted henchman, hatchet-faced with a prominent nose and jug ears, tall and scarecrow thin, with long, stringy, well-oiled black hair and beady black eyes. The paranoid Jamal is always looking over his shoulder.

Richard Marsh--John Scarlatti’s right hand man

Benny Bonificio (Benny the Bug)--Mobster, Joey’s boss

Lola MaDonna (Irene Walker)--Movie Star, sister to Jill Cantrell, Exquisitely beautiful. Her oversized breasts had led to her first break in film. And…she hated to admit it, they, along with her violet eyes, and fiery red hair were the main source of her continued appeal.

Will Benton--Makeup man, balding with a heavy brown beard and mustache, a gap-toothed smile and rough, callused hands.

Clarissa Benton--Will’s wife, a large blonde woman whose clothes hung on her like she’d lost too much weight too fast.

Patricia (Trish) Benton--Will and Clarissa’s daughter, in her mid-teens she has her mom’s blonde hair. Has alert, intelligent, deep blue eyes.

Alonzo Bonetti--Mobster in Benny the Bug’s family

Nicolo Bonetti--Mobster, Alonzo’s son, 6’4” tall, the epitome of tall, dark and handsome. A man who learned early that the price of betrayal was further betrayals.

Richie Carrerra--Special Agent FBI

Captain Horvak--California National Guard

Lieutenant Perry--US Army Scout

Dr Jason Merriman--Twisted physician in Joey’s army. A fat man in lean times.

Colonel George Romanov--Commander California Marines

Sergeant Potter--Marine

Petty Officer Ian Chadwick--USN Aviation Electronics Technician

The Freeholders (Colorado)

Michael Whitebear--Engineer, Warrior, Husband of Ellen Whitebear. 5’ 10” tall, 165 pounds, brown hair, eyes that change color from brown to green when aroused or gold when in combat. A ghost in the woods with a talent for killing and a conscience that hates it.

Ellen Whitebear--Leader of the Colorado Freeholds, Michael’s wife, very long blonde hair, hazel eyes and clear, pale skin. As strong-willed, intelligent and capable as she is beautiful.

Steven Whitebear--Michael and Ellen’s two-year old son

Jim Cantrell--Musician, Leader of The Troubled Land Band. Tall, lean and courageous. A man whose curse is to often be too late to help and whose gift is to never stop trying.

Jill Cantrell--Jim’s wife, sister of Lola MaDonna

Jacques and Denise Lachelle--Keyboard and Piano (him), Vocals and Rhythm guitar (her), Troubled Land Band, Jacques and Denise, inseparable as wine and song, her with delicate, almost dainty features and coffee colored skin, heavy on the cream, complimented by large doe eyes framed by long, thick lashes. He was average height, though lean, with slightly darker, rougher skin from past acne and tightly coiled black hair. He had a sunny disposition, backed by a dazzling smile, moved with a kick-boxer’s agility and played piano with zeal.

Leona Perry--Principal, Freehold Charter School

Aaron Goldstein--Mechanical engineer, Ultralight pilot, Aeriella’s brother. A featherweight Golden Globe boxer in his youth, former stunt pilot for several Hollywood movie studios.

Moira Goldstein--Teacher, Freehold’s Charter School, Aaron’s wife,

Emil Smolensky--Retired Gunnery Sergeant, Prepper, Smolensky looked like he’d been carved out of a rather large block of granite, well, except for the prosthetic leg. That was steel.

Randy McKinley--Freeholder. One of that rare breed who does everything that needs to be done, no matter how hard, with a sense of humor and without complaint.

Mariko McKinley--Artist, Randy’s wife. A tiny, delicate and beautiful Japanese/American who stands equal to any man with her fierce courage.

Terrell Johnson--Mechanical genius, former helicopter pilot US Army

Shirley Johnson--Potter, Terrell’s wife

Dr Taraq Fariq--Physician, OBGYN turned politician opposing Ellen’s policies, who becomes a good battlefield surgeon.

Wayne Anderson--Medic

Jack Quist--Rancher

Iskos Theodoratus--Machinist & Heavy Equipment Operator

Don Haley--Refugee who becomes a Freeholder

Marcia Haley--Don’s wife

Garrett & Linda Haley--Don and Marcia’s children

Other Colorado Characters

Randy Kellogg--Feeder, Denver Zoo

Hobbes--Very upset Tiger

Huey, Louie & Dewey--Triplet bears at the Denver Zoo

Leroy Parsons (aka Mustapha ben Muhammad, aka Viper)--Self-proclaimed prophet, preacher, gang leader, epileptic. Six feet tall, muscular and fit. Women found his smooth, almost hairless, black skin and chiseled features pleasing. He often practiced a warm smile that melted panties.

Shark Cassidy and Skull-- Two of Viper’s thugs. Both sported poorly done jail house tattoos of spider webs, daggers and other creepy crap, mean streaks, foul tempers and a morbid fear of their boss Viper. Where they differed was Shark had a full head of dreadlocked hair and a relatively straight nose, whereas Skull, as his name implied, bore a shaved head and a squashed nose that looked like it had repeatedly encountered a ball bat.

Marcus Robitaille--Attorney, Viper recruit becomes Viper’s second in command who looks enough like Viper to be his double.

Darnell Wooley--one of Viper’s thugs

Lifter--another of Viper’s thugs

Cadillac--another of Viper’s thugs

Brandon Silva--Captain in command of Viper’s reserves

Ladell Shore--Captain Silva’s top Sergeant

Ranger--Viper’s sniper

Heather--Emil’s Smolensky’s daughter,

Darla--Emil’s granddaughter, so full of life her curly blonde hair bounced even when she was standing still.

Nick Dobbs--Sergeant, Denver Police

Wilson Jennings--Officer, Denver Police

Chad Bailey--Brit working for MCI/computer programmer , cornflower blue eyes and chestnut brown hair, slightly crooked front teeth and a mild overbite.

Josh Adams--another MCI employee, tidy wheat blonde hair, diamond stud left ear.

Doctor Dale Lewis--physician, an old black country doctor with a good heart and white hair.

Nurse Hawkins--Dr Lewis’s nurse

Lieutenant Dan Osaka--Cadet USAF Academy

Daryl Bartell--Cadet USAF

Fallon Vanderwahl--Cadet USAF

Dorsey McLeod--Cadet USAF

Enrico Gutierriez--Cadet USAF

Utah, Mormons

Bob Young--Mayor of Provo Utah. Bob was medium height, with a bit of middle-age spread. He wore his brown hair in a flat-top cut that had been out of style since roughly the decade he was born. He didn’t care. He got elected by virtue of strong integrity, decent morals, a sterling reputation and being a “Young” in Utah.

His wife, Betty, six years younger, was a woman of sharp features, sharper insights and bright smiles, who wore her hair “big” and claimed it matched her belly since she was pregnant with their third child. She teaches courses in gardening, canning and other forms of long term food storage.

Adam Young--Colonel US Army, Steely eyes, iron gray hair (crew cut of course) steel in his backbone too. A small man who stands tall on principle.

Edward Cummins--Scout for Bob Young

Fern & Cheryl Cummins--Neighbors of Bob and Betty Young, Ed’s wife and daughter

The ISS Crew (26 total, 19 women, 7 men)

General Alice Anderson—USA—Project Genesis mission commander, brunette

Commander Clark Kent—Great Britian—Zero G Construction Engineer, carrot reddish hair, pale blue eyes.

Colonel-General Pavel Yurimentov—Russia—Cosmonaut, Husband of Ludmilla

Colonel Ludmilla Gagarin—Pavel’s wife, mother of first baby born on the moon, a boy named Yuri (after her grandfather) A small attractive woman with gray eyes, curly brown hair a pert nose and slightly crooked teeth.

Christine Jorgensen—USA—Botanist (She prefers “farmer”), mother of first baby born in space, on the ISS, a girl named Angela Jorgensen Kent, a tall, blonde, Minnesota Swede with baby blue eyes.

Mia Torno—Italy—Cartographer/Geophysicist, smooth olive complexion, hair so dark brown it’s almost black, Keeps her hair in a single large braid, gentle brown eyes

Li-Ying Chen—China—Pediatrician/Dietician

Suzy Yakamoto—Japan—Geophysicist/Mining Engineer, Black hair, dark brown eyes, ivory skin.

Dr Sari Vindushanti—India—OBGYN and General Physician, a small, dark woman with huge, deep brown eyes, very pretty and popular with the men

Captain Henri Dupree—USA/Canada—Aurora pilot, Blue-black skin and frizzy black hair

Heinz Obermann—Germany—Electrical Engineer, Blonde, brown eyes, muscular.

Muhammad Rahotep—Egypt—Solar Engineer, dark, frizzy brown hair, brown eyes and a prominent nose.

Olivia de Garza—Argentina—Structural/Mechanical Engineer, Think Catherine Zeta Jones in her prime, with a dramatic sense of humor.

Pauolo Guzman-Garcia—Brazil—Machinist, Tool & Die Maker, Master mechanic who fits the bill of small, dark and handsome perfectly.

Kenny Chang—China—Chemical Engineer, black hair, brown eyes, slender build and a bit of a geek.

Marissa Riley—Australia—Computer Engineer & Technician, emerald eyes,

Nyambura Kenyatta—Kenya—Agronomist

Zarita Morshidi—Indonesia—Chef and Pharmacist, dark brown hair and eyes, a charmingly crooked smile

Linette Laverne—France—Waste Management Engineer.

Leila Yoruba—S. Africa—Astrophysicist

Mary Adams—Canada—Aurora Pilot, pale green eyes, dark brown hair, porcelain skin, flexible as a gymnast.

Ceilia Olafsdotter—Iceland—Vulcanologist, Aquamarine eyes, platinum hair

Isabella Cortez—Spain—Meteorologist

Linda Green—Great Britain—Hydrologist, chestnut hair, sky blue eyes

Aeriella Goldstein—Israel—Surgeon, Aaron Goldstein’s sister

Elena Montoya—Mexico—Lunar Geologist

Rana Hamide—Turkey—Industrial engineer

Connie Cho--S Korea—Mathematician

Miscellaneous Characters

Otha Gladson--Private, US Army, promoted to Sergeant, Surveyor

Dikeme (Di) M’buto--Dancer, Zululand, Student at Julliard School

Eric Metz--Amish Farmer

Corporal Blevins--Corrupt US Army Corporal

Bill Dean--Feed Store Businessman

Eileen Massey--Customer of Bill Dean’s store

General Arnold Allison--Commander 3rd Brigade, Fort Benning, GA, Adam Young’s CO

Major Jennings--Adam Young’s XO

Wes Haviland--Farmer, Kansas, Sheila Garrison’s father, Prepper

Jonathan and Mabel Hicks--Missouri farmers (Preppers)

Hardy Matthews--plague carrier

Alexi & Ramona Federov--Refugee invaders

Alicia Diggs--Surgical trainee under Sara Garcia

Earl Baker--Mountain Man, white hair, demolition expert

Bobbi Baker--Earl’s wife

Marci Baker--Earl & Betty’s daughter

Lake and Zeb Baker--Earl & Betty’s sons

Canary & Baldy--Guards at the Medford, Oregon checkpoint

Appendix One: Businesses and Products Named in The Dying Time: Impact

Shelf Reliance http://www.thrivelife.com/home

Augason Farms http://www.augasonfarms.com

The Ready Store http://www.thereadystore.com

Provident Pantry http://beprepared.com/

Best Prices Storable Foods http://www.internet-grocer.net

Honeyville Grains http://store.honeyvillegrain.com

GrainMaker http://www.grainmaker.com

Wondermill Junior grain mill http://thewondermill.com

Olive Garden http://www.olivegarden.com

Water Purification: AquaRain 400 (Superb Product) http://www.internet-grocer.net/aqua.htm;

Katadyn http://www.nitro-pak.com/water-storage/water-storage/water-filters;

Berkey (Possibly as good as the AquaRain) http://www.berkeyfilters.com/berkey-water-filters/systems/?gclid=CL-dod6MtrkCFSRyQgodnTQAgw and

LifeStraw www.vestergaard.com

Dodge Ram Mega-Cab pickup

1967 Ford F250 4x4 pickup

Excedrin

MRE’s http://www.mredepot.com/servlet/StoreFront

Mountain House Freeze Dried Food http://www.thereadystore.com/food-storage/brand/mountain-house

Eneloop rechargeable batteries http://us.sanyo.com/eneloop/About-eneloop-Batteries

Croc’s http://crocsmexicangrill.com

Brown Palace http://www.brownpalace.com/?_vsrefdom=brownpalace-ppc&gclid=CNXP_MOOtrkCFShxQgod1G8A8A

Lenox China vase

iPhone

Deep Impact http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120647/

Grainger www.grainger.com/

Motorola MH 230 R Two way radios

Great Western Extra Dry Champagne

The Grizzly Rose http://www.grizzlyrose.com

Pet Smart http://www.petsmart.com

UCO wind & waterproof matches

Alpineaire Freeze Dried Food http://www.rei.com/brand/AlpineAire

Folger’s instant coffee

Starbucks http://www.starbucks.com

iPod

iPad

Real Milk

Preparedness Pro http://www.preparednesspro.com

American Prepper’s Network http://americanPreppersnetwork.com

Special Forces Guerrilla Warfare Manual available at your favorite book retailer.

The Improvised Munitions Black Book available at your favorite book retailer.

Gunsmithing the AR15 by Patrick Sweeney . available at your favorite book retailer

Survival Nurse available at your favorite book retailer.

Ditch Medicine available at your favorite book retailer.

The Survival Medicine Book by Doctor Bones and Nurse Amy (Doom and Bloom) available at your favorite .book retailer.

Yaesu VX 6R Handie Talkie

Appendix Two: Other Extremely Helpful Sites and Products

The Hostile Hare http://wwwlhostilehare.com All about how to raise rabbits for food.

Backyard Poultry Magazine http://www.backyardpoultrymag.com Raising chickens, ducks, turkeys and more.

Backwoods Home Magazine http://www.backwoodshome.com All about homesteading and self-reliance. An absolute must have.

Countryside & Small Stock Journal http://www.countrysidemag.com Another must have for any Prepper.

Urban Farm Magazine http://www.hobbyfarm.com Extremely useful and informative articles.

The Mother Earth News http://www.motherearthnews.com An oldie but still one of the best sources for information on homesteading and gardening.

Home Power Magazine http://homepower.com You want to go off grid or just keep the power on at your house or homestead this is the magazine for you.

Self Reliance Illustrated http://www.selfrelianceillustrated.com Like the American Prepper’s Network, this site has a terrific forum for information exchange.

Smart Gardener http://www.smartbackyard.com A very useful website on how to plan, grow, and harvest produce from your garden.

Emergency Essentials http://www.beprepared.com

Prepper Groups http://www.Preppergroups.com

The Survivalist Blog http://www.thesurvivalistblog.net

My Patriot Supply http://www.mypatriotsupply.com

NitroPak http://www.nitro-pak.com/?gclid=CJu-vJicqbgCFYdxQgod4iUAPQ

LDS Preparation Manual http://www.carolinaguntalk.com/PDFs/LDS%20Preparedness%20Manual.PDF

12th Edition Boy Scout Handbook http://www.scoutstuff.org/bsa/literature-media/handbooks/12th-edition-bsa-handbook.html Don’t overlook the value of this one.

Pioneer Living http://www.pioneerliving.net

Survival Unlimited http://www.survivalunlimited.com

Good Ideas for Life http://goodideasforlife.com

Millennium Ark (100 Items that Disappear First in an Emergency)

http://standeyo.com/News_Files/INFO_Files/100.items.html

Lehman’s Store https://www.lehmans.com

Redflare Kits http://www.redflarekits.com/military-surplus

The Homestead General Store http://www.homesteadgeneralstore.com

CERT courses http://www.citizencorps.gov/cert/IS317/

Backyard Aquaponics http://www.backyardaquaponics.com

Aquaponics USA http://www.aquaponicsusa.com/Aquaponics_USA_index.html

Sanitation & Cleanliness for a Healthy Environment http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/librarypage/environment-energy/water_governance/sanitation-and-cleanliness-for-a-healthy-environment/

Alternative to Electrical Appliances & Tools http://www.simplyprepared.com/alternatives_to_electrical_appliances_and_tools.htm

Purchase Pre-1974 Cars & Trucks for those concerned about EMP’s.

http://freerevs.com/cars-for-sale/browse/?years=Pre-1974

Meat Grinders http://www.texastastes.com and http://www.meatprocessingproducts.com/meat-grinders.html?gclid=CITq-ajVv7ECFYQGRQodSg8AoQ

Amateur Radio http://www.arrl.org/helloradio-org

Chemicals & Supplies http://www.sciencecompany.com/Chemicals-C665.aspx

Firesteels (Truly excellent products) http://firesteel.com/gobspark-armageddon-firesteel/

Faraday Bags http://superstore.wnd.com/homefront/EMP-Faraday-Bags

All American Pressure Canners (the Best) http://www.allamericancanner.com

Oxygen Absorber Packets to make your long term food store longer http://store.lds.org/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Product3_715839595_10557_21003_-1__195877

Tattler Reusable Canning Lids http://www.reusablecanninglids.com

Dehydrate 2 Store http://www.dehydrate2store.com

Excaliber Food Dehydrators http://www.excaliburdehydrator.com/dehydrators?gclid=COfNp_PBtbkCFYZ_Qgod1DgAdg

Home Freeze Dried Food Makers http://www.harvestright.com/home-freeze-drier-machine/

Vacuum Sealers (I love my GameSaver) http://www.foodsaver.com/Index.aspx?kwid=95cdd980d23647b1a6c581f3e4ef0d20&gclid=CPPhsKXCtbkCFUfZQgodIj0AVg

Sorbent Systems (better bags than FoodSaver) http://www.sorbentsystems.com

Chef Tess Bakeresse http://cheftessbakeresse.blogspot.com/p/52-method-recipe.html

DIY Solar Ovens http://www.wikihow.com/Make-and-Use-a-Solar-Oven

Victorio Grain Mill

http://www.mypatriotsupply.com/Victorio_Hand_Crank_Grain_Mill_p/z_grain_mill.htm

Cooking with Solar http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/Cooking/cooking.htm#Drying

Food Storage Recipes & Videos http://www.simplylivingsmart.com

Shelf Stable Milk (Needs no refrigeration) http://www.bordenshelfstablemilk.com/borden/borden.htm

Canned Meats

http://www.buycheapr.com/us/result.jsp?ga=us86&q=yoders+canned+meats and

http://www.keystonemeats.com/home/ and

http://www.internet-grocer.net (One of the best)

Ammunition http://www.ammoman.com and

http://www.cheaperthandirt.com/Default.aspx and

http://www.midwayusa.com/category/ammunition and

http://www.bigdarmory.com/Ammunition-s/1821.htm and

http://www.luckygunner.com/rimfire/22-lr-ammo

Reloading http://www.dillonprecision.com/#/Dillon_Reloading_Machines-8-1.html (the best you can get) and http://www.lymanproducts.com/lyman/home/ (good starter gear)

How to Reload http://www.ehow.com/how_4529363_reload-own-ammunition.html and http://www.reloadammo.com/relsteps.htm

Lyman 49th Edition Reloading Handbook http://www.dillonprecision.com/#/content/p/9/pid/23915/catid/11/Lyman_49th_Edition_Reloading_Handbook

Numrich Gun Parts http://www.gunpartscorp.com

How to Hide Your Guns http://www.emergency-survival-skills.com/how-to-hide-your-guns.html

Airgun Depot(useful for sniping critters in your garden--esp in town)

http://www.airgundepot.com/pump-air-rifles.html

Communications http://www.trisquare.us/index.html and numerous others -- Google 2 Way Radios

Cold Steel Knives http://www.coldsteel.com Some of the best money can buy.

Generators http://www.yamaha-propane-natural-gas-generators.com/ef6300isde.htm and http://www.rahayugenerators.com/inverters-generator/honda-eu2000ikc-companion-1600-watt-portable-inverter-generator.html and

http://www.homepower.com/articles/home-efficiency/electricity/engine-generator-basics and http://www.consumersearch.com/portable-generators/briggs-and-stratton-30470

Solar http://www.solarblvd.com/Solar-Panels-&-Systems-24-Volt-Solar-Panels/c1_270/index.html

Wise Foods http://wisefoodsupply.com

Thank You for Reading and Again I’d Like to Ask You for the Favor of a Starred Review

The End