Final Dawn: Escape From Armageddon (25 page)

     But Mexican authorities had put a lot more thought into it.
They reasoned that the small countries of Guatemala and Belize would close their own borders with Mexico. And Americans would be trapped in their country. Hundreds of thousands of them. Maybe a million or more. And there wasn’t even enough food and fuel to take care of their own citizens.

     No, the humanitarian thing to do was to seal the borders and deny them entry. So that’s exactly what they did.

     Traffic on the American side, on every single highway going into Mexico, became backed up for a hundred miles or more. Desperate people either never heard the news reports telling them to turn back, or they heard the reports and failed to heed them because they had no other options.

     Once they joined the traffic jam, of course, they were trapped by other cars that quickly showed up behind them.

     In the mine, Hannah joined several of the guests in the lounge area in Bay 8. Their eyes were glued to the large screen television, on CNN, watching the drama unfold. The traffic jam was growing longer and longer by the
hour.

     The CNN News crew reported on
a desperate situation. They said that traffic on Interstate 10, heading into El Paso, Texas and the border city of Juarez, Mexico, was backed up for over two hundred miles now.

     And it was hopeless.
Mexico was adamant that they wouldn’t be reopening the borders. Those stuck in the gridlock had been running their cars to help stay warm. Most of the cars were out of gas now, and couldn’t be moved even if the borders were open.

     Cars were crossing over to the eastbound lanes driving the wrong way in a desperate attempt to get to the border, causing a second, sixty-mile long jam on that side.

     And it wasn’t just the gas that was running dry. Short-sighted people were trying to get to Central America with scant provisions. With typical American arrogance, or perhaps naïveté, they just assumed there would be truck stops and restaurants every step of the way. But the few businesses that were still open weren’t getting resupplied. And their pantries and shelves were empty.

     People stuck in the mayhem were growing desperate. And the CNN crew found half a dozen cars with dead bodies in them. People whose hope had run out.

    
-51-

     Hannah had watched the turmoil unfold on television until she couldn’t stomach any more. She went looking for Mark, and found him in his makeshift television studio.

     “Hi Baby. Whatcha doing?”

     “Just changing out one of the external drives. I’ve been recording CNN non stop for these last few days. Some day, this may be the only surviving record of what happened, and I want to save it so future generations can understand it and learn from it.”

     “It’s just all so heartbreaking. So… overwhelming.”

     “I know, honey. Just try to stay busy. Keep your mind occupied by other things. And stay away from that damn TV.”

     “I know I should. But every time I walk by, it just grabs my attention and I have trouble breaking free.”

     “Hey, I have something that’ll get your mind off the TV for a bit.”

     He took her hand and pulled her forward. “Come with me.” He said.

     Hannah giggled. She liked surprises, and she enjoyed making love with her husband any time of day. So she naturally assumed that she was in for an afternoon interlude in their RV.

     But that wasn’t what Mark had in mind.

     Not at all.

     When Hannah rose for breakfast that morning, Mark told her to go on without him. He said he’d follow shortly, and asked her to guard his tray until he arrived.

     Hannah had thought nothing of it. He had been working very hard, after all, sealing the mine and insulating the main passageway. So if he wanted to grab an extra half hour of sleep, he was certainly entitled to it.

     But Mark hadn’t been sleeping. And when Hannah walked into the bedroom at the back of their RV, she was mesmerized by what she saw. Her mouth dropped, and her eyes began to tear.

     She hugged Mark and held him tight.

     “Wow!” She said in utter amazement. “How on earth… I mean where did you get that?”

     She couldn’t take her eyes off the twelve foot square poster that Mark had hung across the ceiling, and halfway down both walls. It was a poster of the Milky Way, and the heavens beyond it. Besides Mark, Hannah’s only other love.

     “Do you like it?” He asked.

     “Oh, Baby, I love it! And I love you! You are so awesome!”

     “It’s made of vinyl so it won’t tear. I got it from a company that makes advertisements for billboards. This way we can lay in bed at night and look at the stars, like we used to do in the back yard.
I know it’s not quite as good as the real thing, but it’ll do until we can see the real stars again.”

     “Oh, Baby,” she said, “it’s perfect! And so are you! I love it. It’s so sharp and clear, and it’s so… huge!”

     “Yes, I know, you tell me that all the time.” Mark teased. “Oh, are you talking about the poster?”

     She giggled and punched his arm. “Maybe, maybe not. Just what are
you
talking about?”

     The couple spent the next two hours making love under the stars, then took a long nap in each other’s arms. When they finally emerged from the RV, Hannah was tempted to find Sarah and the children and show them what Mark had done for her.

     Then she thought better of it. She decided that it would remain their own personal secret. Their sanctuary. Looking at the heavens late at night had always relaxed them and given them an opportunity to reflect upon things. The past, the future. Whatever happened to be troubling them at the time.

     She hoped that the stars above their bed would continue to give them that s
ame refuge for the time they were in the mine. No, she’d just keep this a secret for only herself to enjoy. Herself and her wonderful husband.

     As she walked back to the recreation are
a she felt the baby kick. Apparently their afternoon interlude had gotten him all riled up. She held her stomach and smiled.

     Then she looked down at him and told him “You, little sir, are going to love your daddy so, so much. He is the most
incredible man, and he will be an awesome daddy to you too. He will give you the world.

     “But for now, my little man, you just settle down and rest. It’s not your time. Not just yet.”

-5
2-

     JAN 12, 2016       3 DAYS UNTIL IMPACT

     President Sanders was on the television again, giving his daily pep talk. Most people in America didn’t believe him any more, although they desperately wanted to.

     He’d stopped taking reporters’ questions several days before. Instead, he merely read from a prepared statement, which
seldom sounded much different from the previous day’s statement, then turned on his heels and left the room.

     Some of the mor
e skeptical in the audience wondered if there were even reporters present any more. The camera always kept a tight fix of the President’s face and upper torso, standing at a podium with the Presidential seal on it. Didn’t even show him entering or leaving the room any more. He might as well have been in a TV studio in his hidden bunker, the skeptics said.

     And they were right, of course. But for every skeptic there were a lot of others who wanted so desperately to believe that their President was telling them the truth. That the earth would be spared the wrath of Saris 7. That desperate hope was all they had left.

     “I have been on the phone with the Chinese Premier within the last half hour.” Sanders said.

     “Their rocket is ready. The final preparations are being made. After fueling is completed this afternoon, the warhead will be armed. Tomorrow, at exactly 2:05 p.m. eastern standard time, the rocket will blast off from its launch pad, and will
rendezvous with Saris 7 fourteen hours later.

     “The detonation will be timed as Saris 7 flies past, and will catch the meteorite’s
leading edge, which will cause it to buckle slightly and will throw it off course. Our scientists expect to it head away from earth until it stabilizes, then to assume a new orbit several hundreds of thousands of miles father away from us.

     “Once the rocket is launched, my office will broadcast status updates every fifteen minutes until detonation, then will switch to live coverage as they track Saris 7 heading away from the earth.”

     It sounded believable, of course. That was mainly due to the circumstances, and that fact that there was no press present to ask the tough questions. Like why no reporters were allowed into China to see the rocket for themselves. And why the Chinese government hadn’t released any video, or even photographs, of the rocket and the preparations they were making to it

     Or even the names of the American scientists and military experts who had supposedly gone to
China to help. Thus far no one in the States had come forward to say that their relatives or loved ones were on the team working on the project. Absolutely no one.

-53
-

     Twelve miles northwest of the mine, on Interstate 10, Marty Hankins sat in a booth at the Trucker’s Paradise truck Stop, drinking black coffee from a Texas Tech University mug. Across the table from him sat Scott Burley, whose surname described him perfectly.

     Sco
tt was finishing up what had been a double stack of pancakes with maple syrup.

     “I sure hope the world doesn’t end.” Scott said. “Unles
s they have these pancakes in heaven. Then it wouldn’t be so bad.”

     Marty countered “Whatever they have in heaven, it’s a damn safe bet that you’ll never see it.”

     The pair was waiting for Tina and Joe Koslowski to join them. The husband and wife driving team was due in from Albuquerque with a load of lumber, and should be pulling into the yard any minute. It had taken them longer than planned because they had to avoid the I-10 traffic jam by heading east on I-20, then heading south on a state highway.

     Marty wasn’t happy about the necessary detour
. They had a lot of planning to do, and time was growing short.

     For days now, the
60 acre lot behind the truck stop had been filling up with dropped trailers. It started with just a few truckers who distrusted President Sanders and the government in general dropping their trailers in the back of the lot and heading for home. They knew they’d make better time without a trailer to drag, and get better fuel mileage in case fuel became hard to find. And if the world was going to end, by God, they’d rather be at home with the family than stuck on a highway four states away.

     The
rows of trucks increased day by day. Lenny, the lot man, was making a fortune. A fortune he might never be able to use. But he was an optimistic soul and was a believer who was convinced that Sanders would stop Saris 7 and save them all.

     Lenny promised to look after the trailers for a few dollars each
per day. Just in case the meteorite didn’t hit and the truckers wanted to return for their loads. He’d keep an eye on them. Refill the reefer unit tanks when they ran dry. And as each day went by, the wads of twenties in Lenny’s pockets got fatter and fatter.

     Just north of the truck lot was a huge hay field. At least it was in the spring and summer. This time of year it was just a big, flat pie
ce of land with nothing on it, separated from the truck lot by three strands of barbed wire.

     T
hree days before, Marty had visited with the farmer who owned the hayfield. His farmhouse was just out of sight, just over the horizon to the north.

     The farmer had been suspicious, and had met Marty with a shotgun. After all, the
se were desperate times, and when somebody just drives unannounced onto your property with the front half of a semi, it tends to make the hairs stand up.

     But the two had something in common, in that they both hated President Sanders and thought he was full of crap.

     The farmer was busy prepping his farm to hold out for a seven year winter.

     Marty had plans of his own, but needed to rent a big piece of land to do it.

     So the pair struck a deal.

     If the meteorite struck, and the sky grew dark, Marty would hook up to a trailer- any trailer of the farmer’s choice, and would haul it onto the farmer’s property. He’d park it behind the barn, out of sight of anyone from the truck stop or the highway. And the farmer and his family could crack it open and see what their 53 foot long grab bag contained.