The Army Comes Calling (26 page)

     She could tell by the paleness of his face that he’d lost a lot of blood, and that he was quite probably in shock.

     Still, as he saw her his face seemed to change. He seemed to gain motivation to keep crawling toward her.

     As he drew closer, she was able to squeak out a few words: “Are you okay?”

     The question seemed ludicrous in the face of the obvious.

     But he didn’t seem to notice. It seemed, in fact, that it took her words several seconds to even register.

     Then, in a tone perhaps meant to reassure her, or to console her, he mustered, “I’ve been better. How about you?”

     She said, “I can’t feel my legs. I don’t know if they’re still there.”

     He managed a smile in what must have been a truly monumental effort.

     “Oh, they’re still there. I was checking them out on the other side. Nice legs. How about the rest of you?”

     “I think I’m bleeding internally. And I think at least one of my ribs is broken.”

      She spoke barely above a whisper, and in short breaths. Any effort beyond that brought her incredible pain.

     She looked again at the arm, and she had to know. Was that the arm of her good friend John? Or was John somewhere else? Perhaps himself injured and hurting on the other side of the crash site?

     “Please, I have to know. My friend John. Did he make it?”

     The crewman looked at the arm, where Hannah had been directing her attention moments before. Then he looked at Hannah, with the most agonizing look upon his face.

     She braced herself for the bad news that she was sure was coming.

Final Dawn Part 6: MISSING
will be available on amazon.com and through Barnes and Noble Booksellers in January, 2015.

      Please enjoy this preview of
Countdown to Armageddon
, available now on Amazon.com in paper and Kindle formats. Also available through Barnes and Noble Booksellers.

COUNTDOWN TO ARMAGEDDON

     Scott Harter wasn’t special by anybody’s standards. He wasn’t a handsome guy at all. He wasn’t dumb, but he’d never win a Nobel Prize either. He had no hidden talents, although he fancied himself a fairly good karaoke singer.

     His friends didn’t necessarily share that opinion, but what did they know?

     No, if those friends were tasked to choose one word to describe Scott Harter, that word might well be “average.”

     If Scott excelled at one thing, it was that he was a very good businessman. And he was also a lot luckier than most.

     And it was that combination – his penchant for making a buck, and being lucky, that led him here on this day to the Guerra Public Library on the west side of San Antonio.

     To research what he believed was the pending collapse of mankind.

     Twenty three years earlier, in 1990, Scott had done two things that would change his life forever. Even back then, he was just an average Joe. He’d had plans to become a doctor, but his average grades weren’t cutting it. So he dropped out of college halfway through his junior year.

     He’d have loved to have married a beauty queen, but his average looks certainly did nothing to attract any. Neither did his average amount of charm. So instead he started dating Linda Amparano, who was a sweet girl but somewhat average herself. They seemed to make a perfect, if slightly vanilla, couple.

     The second thing Scott had done that year was buy a dilapidated self-storage unit on the north side of San Antonio. It was one of those places where people rent lockers to store their things when their garages have run out of space. Or their kids go off to college. Or when they just accumulate so many things that they’ve run out of room to put them all.

     Pat, the guy who’d sold the property to Scott, was a friendly enough sort, but not a businessman at all. He didn’t understand some of the basic principles of running such an operation.

     Not that Scott was an expert. At least back then he wasn’t.

     But even back then, Scott knew the value of curb appeal, and that a fresh paint job and a few repairs could attract a few more customers. And a few more customers would help supply money for advertising, and special offers, and long-term lease discounts. No brainers, actually.

     So by the end of that year, two things had happened. Scott had turned around the business and turned it into a money-making operation. And he had married Linda.

     The pair had said their vows on December 17th of that year. It was bitterly cold that day. The coldest December 17th on record for that part of Texas.

     If the cold was an omen, though, neither of them saw it. If either of them had, and had gotten cold feet, their lives would be so much different today.

     But they just laughed it off, as young couples in love are wont to do. And they went ahead with their nuptials and started their lives together and never looked back at that cold day in December when they ran headlong into a marriage that shouldn’t have happened.

     The marriage lasted nine years. It produced two great sons, so there was that. And Scott and Linda remained friends. That was something else. So there was a good legacy, of sorts, left behind by their mistake that cold December day.

     Scott adored his boys. There was Jordan, his oldest, who was intelligent and talented and a bit of a goofball. And there was Zachary, who Scott was convinced would someday become a scientist or a highly successful engineer. Zach was always taking things apart and making other things with them. His curious mind never stopped working, and he loved exploring new things and new ideas. Zach was sweeter than a bucket of molasses. He was everybody’s best friend.

     Yes, Scott was lucky as a father. No problems with his boys at all.

     He was also lucky in that he lived in Texas at the time of the divorce. Texas wasn’t an alimony state. So he wasn’t saddled with monster alimony payments like his brother in Atlanta was. His brother Mike was divorced the same year as Scott, and was ordered by the court to pay forty percent of his before-tax income to a wife who had cheated on him multiple times.

     No, Scott had no such problem. He voluntarily paid child support when the boys occasionally stayed a summer with Linda, and was always on time with it. And he doted on his boys and bought them nice things.

     But since he didn’t have to pay alimony, he was able to take that money instead and use it to build his business.

     After the first storage facility was turning a healthy profit, he was able to buy a second. Then a third. And with each one he followed the same business model. He’d do some cosmetic improvements to attract a few more customers. Then he’d turn that additional income into air time on the local radio station, or ads in the local paper. Getting the word out drew more customers, which in turn would supply more money for special deals and discounts. Which would provide more money for another new facility.

     It was a business model that had served him well.

     And now, twenty three years later, Scott Harter owned a chain of thirty one storage facilities spread throughout San Antonio and nearby Houston.

     So even though he wasn’t as handsome as a movie star, and would never be a candidate to join Mensa, he was doing all right. And that was good enough for him.

     Linda had remarried within a year. The marriage only lasted two years and was full of problems. She waited a bit longer to marry her third husband, and the third time seemed to be the charm for her. The third husband, Tony, was a good man who treated Linda and the boys well. At least it appeared that way to Tony. He didn’t know that since their divorce, Linda had gotten very good at putting on airs and keeping secrets. Keeping the ugly truth from Scott made it easier for Scott and Tony to be casual friends. Scott eventually found out that Tony was a con man and a user, who’d taken Linda for pretty much everything she had.

     It was Scott who helped her get back on her feet. She banished Tony from her life, and swore off marriage forever.

     From that point on, Linda chose a life less complicated. A life with an endless stream of boyfriends who didn’t provide a sense of stability. But they were a lot easier to get rid of when they didn’t work out.

     Their boys had been brought up in a stable environment, which meant they were well behaved and relatively problem free. Neither of them ever got into drugs, or ran away from home. Neither of them had gone to jail, or left a string of broken hearts. Both of them were good kids, who had bright futures ahead of them. Or so they thought. Actually, there were problems ahead, which none of them knew about, but which their father would soon discover.

     Yes, all in all, Scott was a lucky man, despite his being just an average guy. And he was living a pretty comfortable life.

     That was about to change.

If you enjoyed

THE ARMY COMES CALLING,

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 rain clouds 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.”