A Long Road Back: Final Dawn: Book 8 (25 page)

     “Mark, what about the hospital people? I’ve come to regard some of them as friends now. They’re good people. We can’t just let them perish.”

     “We can’t take them into the mine with us. There are way too many of them. We’ll tell them. They probably won’t believe us. But we’ll tell them anyway. We’ll leave it up to them whether or not to prepare. You said yourself that you weren’t sure when Cupid 23 will strike. Hopefully they’ll still have plenty of time to stock some shelters.”

     “Mark, I’m scared.”

     “So am I, honey. So am I.”

Thank you for reading

A LONG ROAD BACK

Please enjoy this preview of the next installment in the series,

Final Dawn Book 9:

STARTING OVER

    David was a dentist by trade. He, like most men, knew the basics of maintaining a car. He knew how to change a battery. He knew how to check the oil, and could even change it himself if there wasn’t a Quick Change around.

     He knew how to check his fluid levels, and where to add fluids when the levels were low.

     But David had never been a backyard mechanic. And even if he had been he’d have been ten years out of practice. For it had been close to ten years since Saris 7 had collided with the earth, and practically nobody worked on cars these days.

     It was for that reason that David perhaps could have been forgiven for not thinking to check on a very important item.

     They’d made three previous trips from the mine to the recreational vehicle sales lot on the outskirts of San Antonio. Three times they’d brought back five small RVs from the lot to be placed into the mine to house residents and give them each a comfortable place to sleep at night.

     And on all three previous trips there had been no complications. No problems. No mechanical failures.

     There had been no reason to believe that this time would be any different.

     He duly checked the fluid levels on all five RVs before they left the lot. Walked around the vehicles and kicked the tires. Made sure they had enough fuel.

     And he knew damn well there was plenty of brake fluid in the reservoirs.

     But because he wasn’t a mechanic by trade, it never dawned on him he should crawl beneath the vehicles. To see whether the brake lines themselves were rotten and cracking.

     The RV that Eva drove had been a trade-in. It was five years older than the others, and had been driven on the lot just a few days before Saris 7 hit the earth.

     That’s why it was still on the front of the lot, in the same area as the new line of coaches.

     Oh, it was ultra-clean, having been meticulously detailed that same morning. And it was very low mileage, having spent most of its time parked behind the owner’s garage. It would have made someone a fine motor home and a great place to ride out another freeze.

     But the sad fact was it was older than the other RVs being picked up from San Antonio on this particular day.

     The tragic fact was, despite its good looks it was not road worthy.

     David was in the pickup, as was the procedure in every one of the previous trips. Behind him were five RVs, in tight formation, just as before. He was running interference, watching for bandits or other hazards. Around every bend he looked in his side mirrors and counted the vehicles behind him. Just to make sure no one had fallen out. And to make sure no hostile vehicles might be coming up behind them.

     Eva and her RV were bringing up the rear on this last and fateful trip. There was a good hundred feet of space between her and Debbie, in the RV directly in front of her.

     After they crested a steep hill a few miles south and east of Kerrville, Eva tapped her brakes. They were on a steep downgrade now, and she was picking up speed.

     The area around Kerrville was mountainous. It wasn’t the first time she’d had to tap her brakes to control her speed.

     But this time nothing happened.

     It was the brake line David hadn’t thought to check. The one that was five years older than those on the other RVs. The one that the dealer would have swapped out before it was placed back up for sale again, but never had the chance.

     The one that was brittle and cracked.

     It couldn’t take the pressure of the heated brake fluid and gave way, spewing the fluid all over the highway beneath Eva’s RV.

     Because she was bringing up the rear, there was no one behind her to warn her there was an odd pink mist coming from beneath her vehicle.

     Or bright red fluid all over the highway behind her.

     The downgrade veered to the left, and as David was routinely checking his driver’s side mirror he saw Eva’s RV speed up and close the gap between her vehicle and Debbie’s.

     He saw as it disappeared from view, then immediately looked to the other mirror. But because of the curve of the road all he could see were the mountains.

     Debbie, her eyes on the road, never saw Eva coming up close behind her.

     Poor Eva, in her last moments, had a critical choice to make.

     She could have hit Debbie hard from behind, very possibly killing her good friend in the process.

     Or she could veer off the road.

     Out of the corner of her eye Debbie saw something flash in her side mirror.

     It took a moment to figure out what it was.

    And by the time she did there was nothing she could do.

     Eva’s RV sped past her on the right, down a thirty degree embankment, and then rolled. Five, six, seven times.

     Recreational vehicles aren’t built like cars. There are none of the stabilizing bars or heavy steel frames to help keep them intact during a high impact crash.

     And when they roll, they disintegrate into a thousand pieces.

     Poor Eva Woodard never had a chance.

     Debbie screeched to a halt.

     David saw her and did the same. The other drivers followed suit.

     All of them got out of their vehicles and ran to the spot where Eva had left the roadway, and then down to the smoking wreckage below.

     All of them knew what they’d find. There was no way anyone could survive such a tragic event.

     But none of them, not even the most pessimistic among them, could have foreseen the even greater tragedy that was about to unfold.

Final Dawn Book 9:

STARTING OVER

will be available on Amazon.com and through Barnes and Noble Booksellers in July, 2016.

If you enjoyed

A LONG ROAD BACK,

you might also enjoy

ALONE Book 1:

Facing Armageddon

     Dave and Sarah Anna Speer had been preparing for Armageddon for years. They thought they’d covered all the bases, and had planned for everything.

     It never occurred to them that the single thing they had no control over was the timing.

     Sarah was on an airplane with her young daughters when solar storms bombarded the earth with electromagnetic pulses. Everything powered by electricity or batteries was instantly shorted out and would never work again.

     Dave was suddenly alone.

     He was also unsure whether his family was dead or alive. He assumed that the airplane stopped working and plunged from the sky. But it was scheduled to land in Kansas City at almost the exact time everything stopped working.

     Had they landed in time? Was it possible they survived?

     This is the story of a man facing Armageddon alone. It chronicles the things he does to survive in a newly vicious world.

     It also includes Dave’s desperate and poignant diary entries to his wife. Just in case she did survive, and somehow makes it back to him to find he didn’t make it himself.

     From the author of last year’s best sellers “Final Dawn” and “Countdown to Armageddon” comes a new tale of one man’s journey through hell… alone.

Chapter 1:

     Dave couldn’t get the tune out of his head. He’d heard it all morning long, off and on, playing quietly in the back of his skull. And it was driving him crazy.

     Oh, it wasn’t unpleasant. It was a happy little ditty. At least it sounded that way. It sounded more like sunshine and smiles, rather than rainclouds and foreboding.

     Finally, he’d had enough.

     “Okay, let’s play a game,” he announced while looking in the rearview mirror at Lindsey and Beth.

     “I’ll hum you a tune, and the first one to guess the tune gets a candy bar when we get to the airport.”

     Sarah looked at him from the passenger seat. With
that
look.

     “Excuse me, mister? You’re going to get the girls all hyped up on sugar just before I take them on a four hour plane ride?”

     “Not both of them, honey. Just the one who guesses the name of the song.”

     “Uh… no. If that song is still bugging you, just hum it. If any one of us guesses it, you can buy each of us a cinnabon.”

     The girls laughed. Beth gave Lindsey a high five. Lindsey said, “All right! Go, Mom!”

     Dave coughed. At first he had no words.

     Then he found some, and stated the obvious.

     “Why is it okay to get all three of you hyped up on sugar but not okay to do it to just one of you?”

     “Because you know I have a thing for cinnabons. And I’m the mom. So that makes me the boss.”

     Lindsey broke out in uncontrollable laughter from the back seat, and Beth said, “Ooooohhh, Dad, you just got
owned.
”

     “I don’t know if it’s worth it. I mean, those things aren’t cheap, you know.”

     “Oh, we know, don’t we girls?”

     Two heads nodded up and down behind her.

     “But, Dave, they are soooo worth the price. And I’ll give you a bite. And think how sweet I’ll taste when you kiss me goodbye.”

     Beth made a gagging sound.

     “Besides, if you want us to help you with that song, you have to pay the piper. It’s only fair. And if you don’t, it’ll continue to drive you crazy for days. Maybe even the whole week we’re gone. And we’d feel so bad for you if that happened.”

     “Yeah, you’re just oozing with sympathy for my plight.”

     Sarah smiled and blew him a kiss. She was even more gorgeous now than the day they’d met thirteen years before. It suddenly dawned on him that he was an incredibly lucky man, to have such a beautiful wife and family. And that the price of three cinnabons wasn’t that great, in the grand scheme of things.

     In other words, he played right into Sarah’s hands. She knew he would, as soon as she let the kiss fly.

     “Okay, here goes.”

     Dave started humming the tune that had played in his mind a thousand times since the previous evening.

     It took the three of them no more than ten notes. They’d have been “Name That Tune” champions in another era.

     All three of them blurted out, almost simultaneously, “It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.”

     Then Dave felt incredibly stupid.

     “Of course. How could I have not known that? The old Mr. Rogers theme song. Sheesh! Now I really feel dumb.”

     Sarah said, “Did you know that Fred Rogers was a Green Beret in Vietnam, and wore his red sweater to hide all of his tattoos?”

     Dave scoffed.

     “Where did you hear that?”

     “On the internet. Why?”

     “That story’s been going around for years. It was debunked a long time ago. Mr. Rogers was a fine man, but he was never a Green Beret.”

     “Oh, yeah? Where did you hear that?”

     “On the internet.”

     It was too much for Lindsey.

     “Gee whiz, would you two stop believing what you read on the internet? Nearly all of it is garbage.”