The End (5 page)

Hell is empty and all the devils are here.

—William Shakespeare,
The Tempest

San Diego, California

It was another beautiful December morning in Southern California; unlike most of the country, it was a nice sixty-one degrees with blue sunny skies. Perfect for Gordon's morning run. He cherished his daily run; even just twenty minutes to clear his mind while the rest of the neighborhood headed to work was enough to make him content. As he ran, he thought about his conversation with Samantha the night before. He told her he was taking the family to Idaho so they could safely wait out the nonstop attacks and be in an environment where they could relax. She completely agreed and was already packing for the trip. Even though it meant leaving behind San Diego's perfect weather for feet of snow, he couldn't wait to get there. He and Samantha only needed a couple days to plan and pack, so they could be there by the weekend. They had told the kids this morning about the trip, using the prospect of a white Christmas as their excuse. The kids were very excited; they loved Idaho and looked forward to playing in the snow.

Gordon stopped at a busy intersection, pressed the crosswalk button, and waited patiently for the red “Do Not Walk” signal to change. He took the time to stretch; he bent over at the waist and reached for the ground, stretching his lower back and hamstrings. He straightened up and checked the sign; it was black, no red or white. Suddenly, two cars collided in front of him. Before he could shake the shock of the first crash, another car slammed into the first two. He watched as even more cars stacked up on one another. It had been a while since he had seen an accident. Gordon stood looking at the wrecked cars, then slowly noticed that no cars were moving on the usually heavily trafficked road. He then noticed that all of the lights in the area were blacked out, not flashing red as they normally would during an outage. He looked left up the road and saw all the cars stopped or slowly coasting. Looking right, he saw the same thing. He raised his eyebrows with curiosity.

“What is going on?” a clearly disgruntled driver said, slamming his car door and looking around.

“My car just died and now it won't start,” another driver said to the first.

Gordon was just standing there taking in everything around him.

“What's that?” someone yelled loudly pointing to something in the eastern sky.

Gordon followed the man's finger and saw a source of light in the sky, smaller than the sun and not quite as bright.

As he stared at the glowing orb he could hear others commenting on it, while the people involved in accidents yelled. He heard people complaining that their mobile phones and cars were not working.

“Oh my God, it's going to crash!” a woman screamed from down the street, standing outside her car.

Gordon turned to the woman and followed her sight line back up to the sky. A plane was free-falling. It was far away, but close enough for him to see that it was a commercial airliner. The plane looked like a toy as it fell from the sky. The whole scenario felt surreal. He just stood there, frozen, watching the plane fall until it crashed into a distant hillside and exploded into a fiery red ball of carnage.

Screams of horror followed the crash of the plane. Many of those around Gordon were, like him, frozen by what they had just witnessed. Finally breaking his temporary paralysis, Gordon started to run for home. He knew he needed to get back as quickly as he could.

As he ran toward his house, Gordon's military training kicked in. He started to assess the situation and bits of information began falling into place. His heart was pounding. Everywhere he looked, people were standing outside their cars holding their mobile phones in the air. It all seemed so unreal, but he had a feeling he knew what might be happening.

It was obvious his hometown had been attacked, but he didn't know if something worse was coming. As he crested a hill that had a commanding view of the area for miles, he saw smoke in the distance and, in one area, what appeared to be large flames licking the sky. The fire and smoke were miles away, but something dynamic had happened. When he came to the intersection that led into his community, he saw those streets were littered with stalled cars, broken glass, and other debris from numerous car accidents. The lights were not working and the guards at the gate were just standing there talking to the owners of the stalled cars. Nobody was moving.

As Gordon ran past them he overheard a guard state plainly, “Ma'am, we have experienced some power and phone outages, I am sure it will be back on shortly, so let's not panic.”

Reaching the pedestrian gate, he unlocked it with his hard key and kept running. Finally making it to his street, he saw neighbors outside staring at the mobile phones in their hands, pressing buttons, apparently attempting to power the devices back on.

Without slowing his pace, Gordon shouted, “Get back inside now! Get inside and take cover!”

No one listened to him; they all stayed put looking confused and bewildered.

After many hard miles, he made it to his front door. He was breathing hard, shaking, and trying to focus as he grabbed his keys. His hands and fingers were slippery from sweat, making it hard to steady the right key.

“C'mon, damn it!”

As Gordon still fumbled his keys, the door opened. Samantha stood in the doorway, with Haley on her hip and Hunter hugging her leg.

“What's going on? Nothing is working!” Samantha exclaimed urgently. She was clearly nervous; the past months of attacks had already put her on edge. This did not help.

Gordon walked in and told her sternly “Follow me” as he passed her at the threshold.

She did so without hesitation, but kept asking, “What is going on?”

“Samantha, I don't have time to explain everything. Please just listen to me.” Gordon guided them to the built-in desks in the kitchen area. “I need you all to get under there now and stay until I get back.”

“Gordon, why? Please talk to me.” Samantha's eyes were wide open; her fear was visible in her expression. Hunter and Haley could pick up on the tension and urgency. Haley started to cry.

Samantha kissed her and said softly, “Everything will be okay, honey, I promise.”

“I'm scared, Mommy,” Haley said, burying her head in Samantha's shoulder, arms wrapped around her neck.

“Me too, Mommy,” Hunter said soon after. He wasn't crying, but Gordon could see the fear on his son's face.

“Please, Sam, just listen to me and trust me. Get under there and wait for me.”

“Where are you going? Why are you leaving?” Samantha asked, refusing to let go of his arm.

“Honey, I'm not leaving the house, I'm just prepping some things. I'll only be a few minutes.”

“Please, Gordon, don't leave us,” Samantha pleaded, desperately tightening her grip on his forearm.

Gordon knelt down and hugged his whole family, “I promise you, I'll be right back.” He kissed Samantha, jumped to his feet, and walked briskly into the kitchen.

Gordon plugged the sink and turned on the water, then ran into the closest bedroom and did the same to the sink and tub in there. He proceeded to run throughout the house, closing every drain and turning on every faucet. Coming back into the kitchen, he saw his family tucked neatly under the desk all huddled together. They peered out at him; their distress evident.

“Almost done, guys,” Gordon yelled a little too cheerfully attempting to calm them as he walked into the pantry.

Gordon grabbed every open jug, container and glass in the kitchen and filled them all with water. His hands were shaking. He was scared, too, but he knew he had to get this done. He needed to save as much water as possible. His hunch about the attack would mean that water would soon be a rare commodity.

Gordon thought of the many times he had been tempted to buy a five-hundred-gallon holding tank of potable water, but never actually did. Before any guilt could set in, he forced those thoughts out of his mind. Times like this were not about looking backward with regret, but looking toward securing the present and winning the future. After filling all the containers he went back to his family.

As he sat on the floor next to them, Samantha grabbed his hand and asked again, trying to seem calm, “Gordon, what's going on?”

As badly as Gordon wanted to be reassuring, to soothe his wife's anxiety, he felt a responsibility to be honest. “There appears to have been some sort of attack that has disabled the power and all electrical devices. These sorts of attacks usually precede a nuclear attack.”

She squeezed his hand hard and they met each others' eyes. “Is this it? Is this how it ends?”

“I don't—” Gordon paused. “Sam, I seriously don't know. All I know is what I remember reading and some training I went through years ago. I love you. And if this is it, then at least we're here together.”

Hugging each other, they said nothing else, and listened to the surrounding silence.

An hour went by and nothing else had happened that they could tell. Gordon assumed the other shoe wasn't dropping.

“I think it might be okay,” he said as they crawled out from underneath the desk and stretched.

“Now what?” Samantha asked.

“Mommy, I have to go potty,” Haley said, grabbing herself.

“Okay, honey, go ahead,” Samantha told Haley patting her on the head.

“Hey, guys, this time will be okay, but we will have to look at not using the toilets anymore,” Gordon said.

“Why?” Samantha asked looking bewildered by Gordon's statement.

“Because if what I think has happened, the waste treatment systems will soon start to back up and not work properly. Plus, we should preserve as much water as possible.”

“So what do you suggest?” Samantha asked, now sounding irritated.

“Hey, Sam, I don't like it any more than you do, but we might have to create a latrine outside.”

“What? You want us to start going to the bathroom outside?”

“Until we can figure out what's going on, yes,” Gordon answered bluntly.

“Gordon, that's ridiculous!” Samantha snapped back.

Gordon walked over to the sink and grabbed one of the many glasses of water and drank it. He set the empty glass down and said, “Samantha, enough; something bad has happened, you either adapt to the situation or you die.”

“Die?”

“Daddy, are we going to die?” Hunter asked, still standing next to the desk.

“No, honey. I didn't mean to say that to Mommy,” Gordon replied softly, changing his tone completely. Gordon walked over to Hunter and knelt down. “Can you take your sister and go play in the play room while Mommy and Daddy talk, please?”

“Okay, Daddy, but can I have some juice first?”

Gordon thought of his children's innocence. Hunter had no idea that he could be facing the end of the world; he wants juice. Gordon touched his son's face. “Sure, son, go grab a couple of juice boxes in the pantry.”

Hunter grabbed two juices and headed toward the bathroom to wait for Haley to finish. When she opened the door, he grabbed her hand and walked her into the playroom.

“So, let's talk,” Gordon said to Samantha.

They went over to the couch and sat down. Neither could relax; they sat rigidly on the edge of the cushions.

Gordon started in hastily, “Here is what I think is going on. Obviously, you're more than aware of all the terrorist activity we've been having over the past months. Well, today we were attacked with a much larger weapon. When I was out running, I saw cars stall and stop working, street lights go out, and planes fall out of the sky. Here at home all the power is out, your phone doesn't turn on. Nothing works. I think someone hit us with some sort of EMP weapon.”

“EMP?” Samantha stopped him.

“ ‘EMP' stands for electromagnetic pulse,” he answered directly. “It essentially overloads anything electrical and fries it; that's why your phone, the lights, and cars don't work. I am guessing the entire local grid is down. I don't know the extent of the damage because I haven't gone out to see what's going on, but I think I'm right.”

“So, when will the power come back on?”

“It all really depends if this is a local thing, regional, or national. Worse case is it's national and power could be out for months, if not a year.”

Samantha interjected impulsively, “A year! How will we survive? What will happen?”

“Samantha, like I said, I don't know. One thing I want to do is see if by chance our car made it or not. Then, since there's daylight left, I want to try to go to the store and pick up anything we will need for the long haul.”

Gordon slid closer to Samantha and put his hand over hers. She was clearly upset and he needed to at least appear calm; he needed to be the rock. Comforting her, he said, “We will make it through this, I promise you.”

Musa Qala, Helmand Province, Afghanistan

“Van Zandt, get off your ass; we have a battalion formation, right now!” said Gunny Smith, kicking his cot.

“Roger that, Gunny,” Sebastian said, swinging his legs off the cot.

When he left the tent, he noticed a sense of excitement on the base. Seeing Master Sergeant Simpson about-face, Sebastian knew he needed to hurry. As soon as he made it to his unit he saw Barone approach Simpson.

“Battalion all present and accounted for!” Simpson said while saluting.

Barone saluted him back. “Thank you, master sergeant.” Simpson brought his salute back and marched off. Looking out over the men all standing at attention, Barone finished by yelling, “Battalion at ease!”

Barone was a tall and sturdy-looking man. He had a rugged face, light eyes and thick, dark hair that he kept groomed with a flattop haircut. His stature coupled with his personality made him appear like a giant to some of the Marines. He looked out on the fifteen hundred Marines in front of him. While Marine life was difficult for many, it came easy to Barone. This occasion was different, though; to have to address the Marines about any situations back home was difficult. The whole reason these Marines traveled so far from home was to defend their loved ones, but now their homeland was threatened, their loved ones in harm's way, and they were about as far away as they could be from them.