39N-86W , livre ebook

First Edition Design Publishing - Peter Brodowski

Découvre YouScribe en t'inscrivant gratuitement

Je m'inscris

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

122 pages

English

Vous pourrez modifier la taille du texte de cet ouvrage

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

A propos
Informations
Extrait

Description

It was a day like any other after the world ends, bury your wife, make a lot of unanswered calls and make a list for getting out of town before the weather turns. Then you realize you're not alone. Alex found Mattie standing by his wife's grave her only possession an empty valise. The valise is more than it seems and in fact so is Mattie.

Sujets

Science fiction

Informations

Publié par	First Edition Design Publishing
Date de parution	30 septembre 2014
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781622877188
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0360€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

39N–86W

By
Peter Brodowski
39N-86W
Copyright ©2014 Peter Brodowski

ISBN 978-1622-877-18-8 EBOOK

September 2014

Published and Distributed by
First Edition Design Publishing, Inc.
P.O. Box 20217, Sarasota, FL 34276-3217
www.firsteditiondesignpublishing.com

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this book publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means ─ electronic, mechanical, photo-copy, recording, or any other ─ except brief quotation in reviews, without the prior permission of the author or publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Thanks to David for getting me started and cover art.
Peter Brodowski
Prologue

It was never detected. Then it was in orbit and traveling fast. Because it was small it posed no danger. The scientists didn’t have an explanation as to where it came from. It was quickly calculated that it would burn up as its orbit decayed and it entered the atmosphere. It provided a spectacular display for those areas of the earth that it passed over in the evening hours. It was non-threatening, until it changed orbit. Then everybody was interested in it. It orbited the earth three more times and changed orbits again. Then three more orbits and another change, followed by another change. It seemed to be crisscrossing the earth, and then it disappeared. By then it was too late. People had already started dying — all over the world. In retrospect, it could have been messier, a lot messier. For the most part everybody died during sleep. Go to sleep and not wake up. Neat, clean, no mess, intelligent design. Alex didn’t know why he was spared and he’s not sure spared is the correct word but he’ll go with that for now.
Monday was a day like any other after the world ends; bury your dead, make a lot of unanswered calls and make a list for getting out of town before the weather turns. Then you realize you’re not alone.
Monday

1
His name is Alexander; he is fifty five years old, Margaret his wife was fifty four and their sons, Peter and Paul were thirty one and twenty eight. There is nothing extraordinary about Alex. Average best describes his appearance. He would be completely invisible in a group of people. He stands a half inch over six feet and his weight generally holds steady at one hundred seventy five plus or minus a pound or two. His hair is mostly gray now, although it was a thick wavy light brown when he wore a younger man’s clothes to quote Billy Joel’s Piano Man, and he keeps it short.
When he was a kid he and his buddies always got crew cuts during the summer, back then there was something that made him standout in a group of boys — his cowlick. After those carefree summers he spent more time than he cared to think about trying to find a hair style that would hide the cowlick.
He didn’t remember when he threw in the towel. If questioned he would guess it was when he turned 50 and needed reading glasses that he decided to return to short hair and embrace his one distinguishing feature. In for a penny, in for a pound he always said. Mags was disappointed however; she said she liked his hair on the long side thick and wavy; besides it helps offset your father’s nose she said which rivaled titanic proportion. He was into wash and wear however and was tired of the extra time and energy consumed by the longer hair styles.
Alex lives in Carmel, Indiana. Carmel is pronounced as the candy treat and not as the California Car-mel. Locals generally rolled their eyes when they heard Car-mel but said nothing. Carmel is a high rent district, not that it matters anymore. It was also called the roundabout capital of the U.S.A. by the BBC.
In recent years over seventy five traffic lights were replaced by the United Kingdom style circular intersections. Driving a sports car, he couldn’t wait until all the lights disappeared.
He was a Registered Dietician and worked at Saint Vincent Hospital in Indianapolis, was being the operative word. Now he’s a survivor. He has lived here all his life, except for a brief tour of duty with the Army. He grew up in Noblesville and after the Army began to study diet and nutrition at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis, better known as IUPUI.
He met Margaret at IUPUI, she was living at home with her parents in Fishers. Mags was studying nursing. They had a number of classes together and one thing led to another and they got married right after graduation. They have two cats Bella and Diane; the cats seem indifferent to the course of recent events. As long as they have their bowls of food and get to go out in the morning they are content.
He buried Mags in their back yard under the Willow tree. She loved sitting in that spot during the spring and summer after toiling in the garden on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon. It took a long time because he didn’t want a shallow grave that would be susceptible to wild animals discovering it. The cats kept him company for the most part while he worked. When he was satisfied, he pulled up her favorite Adirondack chair and sat with her thinking about their life together until sunset when the evening chill drove him inside.

2
He came to the realization that there wasn’t anything for him here and that he should probably make his way south. The likelihood of an Indiana winter without heat was not appealing. After all, what are the chances that anything will still be working in four months’ time? He decided that he would begin making plans and organizing for his departure. Mags would be proud of me, he thought anal to the end.
His intention was to drive on the assumption that the roads would be navigable. Alex thought about what vehicle to take south. In the garage are two cars, his red Miata convertible, impractical and Mags CRV, practical. Decision made. Arguably, with a little looking he could probably acquire a utility vehicle or a Jeep at one of the local dealerships.
Next, what should he take and where would he find it? He could think of lots of stuff but what are the essentials, after all he didn’t want waste time looking for stuff he could pick up easily along the way. In his mind the holy trinity first – food, water, shelter.
Then he had a cool thought, most everything was still working, did that include the internet? You bet, so he googled “essential survival gear”. After checking out a number of web sites he put together the following list: Multi-tool or Swiss Army knife, water, compass, flashlight (with batteries), first aid kit, emergency space blanket, sleeping bag, matches, maps, nylon rope, and food. Of course these sites were put together for normal survival circumstances and not end of the world circumstances so none of them included firearms for survival.
Even though he was briefly in the Army he knew next to nothing about guns and had never owned one. He was trained in the Army with an M16 but that was long ago and far away. In this day and age there isn’t any shortage of survivalist websites, the general consensus on these sites was for three firearms; a shotgun, mid-range rifle and a long range rifle.
The survivalist’s websites recommended weapons for protection as opposed to hunting, so after checking them out his list of weapons included; a Remington 870 12 gage pump shotgun, an AK47 accurate to 300 meters with 7.62 rounds and a Remington 700 bolt action .308 for long range shooting, sniper work the survivalist web sites called it. These were the top items in each category. His list actually included three weapons for each category in the event he couldn’t find number one on the list. He also did a similar search for a hand gun and knife. The Sig-Sauer P226 9mm 15 round clip and the U.S.M.C. KA-BAR full size serrated knife were atop his additional list.
After putting his lists together, he spent some time looking for information about the meteor or whatever it was that caused all the problems. He didn’t find anything. There were a few references to mass hysteria after the meteor changed orbit but most of the information on the internet, at least what he could find, was about people dying for no apparent reason then the news stopped.
He realized that he was exhausted, he went upstairs and lay down listening to the silence, no cars out on Prairie View Parkway, no planes overhead or voices of neighborhood children; enjoying their vacation play time long after their normal down time.
In the silence he thought; somebody did this on purpose, with that object changing orbit it was planned. He wondered if he would ever find out who was responsible. He drifted off to sleep with Diane, who likes to cuddle, by his side. His last though was will there be a tomorrow?

3
Beep, Beep, Beep, Beep, Beep, Beep, Beep, Beep, Dieter reached over to shut off his cell phone alarm. Usually at 6:30 am on a Monday morning there was hell to pay but not today. On Sunday he spent the day out at his folks place in Oldenburg off I-74. Everybody was excited about the meteor or whatever it turned out to be, it was the topic of conversation in his parent’s back yard during the BBQ. There were reports on the evening news of mass deaths in Asia but nothing was confirmed as yet so he headed back to Indy, he had a busy week ahead.
He knew that he’d fall back asleep if he just lay there, so he rolled out of bed and took care of business in the bathroom. Standing in the shower under a steady stream of hot water he thought how different life might have been had he not sustained an ACL injury to his left knee during the last football game his sophomore year at Purdue. That was followed by a year of excruciating rehabilitation only to suffer an MCL injury on the same knee at the end of his junio