The Long Summer

by Rod Rayborne

  The Long Summer

  The Long Summer

  Copyright Ó 2019 by

  Gunner E. Smith

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording or any information storage or retrieval system except briefly for the purposes of review without written permission of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual persons living or dead is entirely coincidental. Locations have been altered. Brand and product names are owned solely by those companies.

  Cover art by Gunner E. Smith

  This Place is Haunted

  by Thomas Hood 1896

  Library of Congress Catalog number

  ISBN: 9781078019675

  Printed in the United States of America

  For my family and George R. Stewart

  Apocalypse is the eye of a needle, through which we pass into a different world - George Zebrowski

  Chapter One

  G

  ordon tightened his grip on the steering wheel, his face a mask of unreadable emotions as a hysterical voice erupted from the radio, ripping through the melodic strains of Copeland with all the gentle fanfare of a buzz saw.

  Abruptly, the voice was cut off by silence. Then a squelching tore through the quiet. Once, twice, three times followed by a long warbling. Silence again and then a robotic voice sounded.

  "We interrupt this program. This is an emergency alert. The following message is being transmitted at the request of the United States Government. This is not a test. The North American Aerospace Defense Command has detected a number of Multiple Independent Reentry Vehicles inbound to the United States. Expected targets include Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City..."

  Simultaneously to his left, light exploded, blossoming into a giant slow-motion peony of blinding white brilliance, pedals unfolding in gaudy plumage as the monstrous flower rolled skyward. Gordon shut his eyes, unconsciously throwing an arm across his face, his mouth opened in a scream even he couldn't hear.

  A thunderous roar of breathtaking intensity, crushing in its power, enveloped Gordon's world. His car was lifted from the road like an aspen leaf in a gusty autumn tempest, the steering wheel ripped from his grasp as he felt the car tumble end over end. Then the road once again, the center divide with a shower of sparks and a gristle of shattered car parts.

  He opened his eyes briefly, long enough to see a man bounce across his hood and lodge himself firmly in the webbed hammock his windscreen had become under the impact. Then he was aloft again, grunting as his body was forced backward into his seat, his car spinning violently. Upside down now, the car slid along it's roof, arcs trailing behind it. As the car twisted, he imagined seeing something cartwheeling from the sky, appendages snapping with bright puffs of flame, body splitting along its rear axis, spilling tiny figures through a rough tear in its fuselage. Then nothing.

  Gordon yawned, a languid stretch unspooling his lanky body with lethargic ease. A sharp stitch in his side brought a brief but painful grimace and he groaned dreamily. Too tired even to open his eyes, he muttered something instead, something almost inaudible, a phrase those who knew him might have qualified as typical. "Damn." Then, too sleepy to say more, he lapsed into a gentle coma instead.

  Several hours later he began to stir, strange lights flickering across his purpled face in an almost humorous multi-colored rippling only the vultures circling outside would have noticed if vultures bother to notice such things. He reached for the cord to his blinds to shut out the light and a sudden pain in his side pulled his eyes apart.

  His brows furrowed in confusion. Nothing made sense; everything was inverted, upside down. He blinked once, twice and then slowly allowed his swollen eyes to focus on the scene around him. Near his face, inches away, he saw asphalt, grooves scratched in frayed ribbons of loose pebbles and melted tar where what was left of the roof of his car had been dragged and ripped from the side pillars when it had overturned and slid greasy side up over the road. Ten feet more would have worn the pillars down to haircut territory.

  The wind was howling, buffeting the car in horrendous bursts of fury, rocking it back and forth. Sand and pebbles, paper and body parts flew past the missing windows. Occasionally some would find it's way inside the vehicle creating little dust tornados that sandpapered Gordon's face.

  Gordon's arms were hanging down, resting on the asphalt, badly scratched but not actively bleeding. He twisted painfully, realizing suddenly that he was being held firmly in place by his seatbelt. Mechanically he twisted to the side to unfasten himself. A sudden pain sliced sideways through his abdomen and he yelped in surprise. Wincing, he saw a jagged bit of metal embedded in his side near the buckle, a thin stream of blood dripping from it into a congealed pool on the road below.

  "Oh," he yelped, staring at the saw-toothed piece of what he recognized as an anomalous bit of car body jutting out of his skin. Whether from his car or someone else's was indeterminate. He reached again for the seat buckle and tried to press the release but his weight was keeping it taut.

  He looked again at the asphalt near him. There, just out of easy reach, lay his cell phone. It must have fallen from his shirt pocket after the car had finally settled into its current position, he realized. He stretched to reach it but it remained just inches beyond his grasp and the metal in his side stopped him from stretching further. Again he pressed the button on his seat belt but it was no use. He would have to cut himself loose instead.

  He looked around for something sharp enough to cut the tough nylon seat belt with but there was nothing at hand. What remained of the glass from the broken windshield was shattered into squares too small to be of use. He looked again at the ragged tear of bloodied metal jutting through his thin cotton shirt and grimaced.

  Holding his breath, he took it gingerly in one hand and with a sudden flourish, yanked it free. A scream ripped from his lips but he didn't let go of the metal.

  He grabbed his side with his other hand and held it there until he was sure the wound wasn't going to fountain his life away. Then he placed one side of the metal piece against the seat belt and began to saw. Under his weight, the belt parted easily and a minute later he fell abruptly a painful heap on the asphalt.

  It was dark out. Except for a strange pulsing orange glow. Apart from that, flashes of color, the source blocked by the overturned car above him, randomly penetrated the gloom in frenzied patterns through the shattered glass. Debris showered the car in loud, explosive washes. Gordon looked past the car's bent side pillars. On the freeway around him, he could just make out the mangled remnants of other vehicles piled about in ragged mounds.

  Twisting around, he turned and groped behind him with one hand for the phone laying somewhere outside his view. Presently he felt the cold metal surface and knowing the phone was laying on its glass face, lifted it so that he could see what damage had been wrought. Seeing the glass scratched but unbroken, he breathed a sigh of relief, but that was quickly replaced by consternation when the phone failed to respond when he pressed the power button. He shook it and then pressed it again. The screen remained dark.

  Grunting, he pushed the phone into his jeans pocket. Then, lying as flat as he could manage, he slowly slid from beneath the car, howling in agony as he did. Immediately he did so, a shower of debris slammed into him and he buried his face beneath his arms. There he laid for several minutes, resting on the tarmac. Then with an effort, turning his head away from the wind, he sat up and propped himself against a fender, holding one hand against his wound. Mouth agape, his heart thumping in fear, he looked about.

  "What the…?" he winced. He glanced around at the other vehicles lying nearby. "Wh
at...?" he repeated.

  A heavy yellow light throbbed miles away, near the foothills of the San Bernardino mountains, near as he could tell. Around him, a shower of ejecta, flaming bits of the debris that had been thrown into the air by the blast, was falling like rain from above. The blast, so he knew it to be, must have been massive, judging from the roiling gray and black smoke that covered nearly the entire sky.

  Far more frightening, crazed dashes of lightening flashed over him in unearthly colors within the thick mass of smoke followed every few seconds by explosive booms. Booms Gordon could feel pounding against his chest, rattling his teeth. He stared in horror at the bizarre phenomena for several minutes before finally tearing his gaze away.

  Placing his hand against the car, his other hand still grasping his side, Gordon stood up slowly, bracing himself against the wind and looked at the scene on the ground. As far as he could see in the growing darkness, cars, trucks, RV's, 18 wheelers, were lying about in heaps, some issuing black smoke in rising tributaries that joined other columns of smoke high above the freeway, merging as one with the gray billows above. Far away to the south he made out a sliver of blue undulating within the heavy black cumulus. What was left of the sky.

  Abruptly he realized that it had started to rain, competing with the ejecta for air time. A gushing that became so violent, he could imagine bruises appearing on his unprotected skin. A rain of grit and water, a fine greasy filth that was quickly covering him in a thin layer of sticky grime. He wiped a hand across his face and it came away black. Hanging his head, his hair whipping about like field grass in a hurricane, he closed his eyes for a moment, took a measured breath, two, then opened them once again and stared about him slowly, taking stock.

  The stench of gasoline was everywhere. How the ejecta had managed to miss the petroleum puddles Gordon couldn't imagine, but he decided not to wait around to see how long that would last.

  As he stood and began to make his way through the debris, he became aware of another smell, pungent as a slaughterhouse. Vomit. Loosened bowels. Death. How had he not noticed it before? Clapping his hand over his nose and mouth, he glanced about briefly for any sign of life. He didn't look too closely though and seeing nothing, he turned and stumbled through the tumult down the highway, bypassing vehicles where he could, climbing over others when he had to.

  Reaching the shoulder of the highway, it occurred to him that he was thirsty. Looking around, he guessed there must be a wealth of food and drink items amongst the broken bodies that populated the debris around him but his revulsion at the thought of rooting through human remains to find something to drink was stronger than his thirst and grimacing he turned his steps towards a slightly lighter darkness far away in the distance, pausing only for a moment when he heard the sound of a gunshot far behind him.

  But when the sudden ting of a ricochet sang out from a nearby guardrail, Gordon began to run.

  Chapter Two

  A board Air Force One, Robert McNair, President of these United States, fire in his eyes, stared furiously at Nyles. Professor Peter Nyles, head of the department of Physics at MIT and chairman of the President's Special Commission on Strategic and Atmospheric Warfare, stared back.

  They were standing in the large plane's small briefing room, several other men and women, all senior ranking members of the US Armed Forces, surrounding them. Shouting from the brass filled the room. The President swung around facing them with a snarl.

  "Shut the fuck up!" he bellowed, staring hard at each of them. Slowly the room grew quiet, but looks of rage remained largely on display. Then the President looked at Nyles again. He took a threatening step in his direction, right fist up and back, lips curled to reveal gritted teeth. Nyles proudly raised his chin to give the President an easier target.

  Air Force General Curtis Tanner and his Defense Attaché, Earl West, hurriedly stepped between them, holding up their hands. A few of the men gathered around them also jumped in to help.

  The President threw off several pairs of hands, never taking his eyes off Nyles.

  "Why didn't you tell me this before?" he screamed.

  "You didn't ask," Nyles said sarcastically.

  At that the President succeeded in nailing him on the chin before being pulled back once again. Nyles took the Blow with a slight stagger then he defiantly turned to face McNair once again, hands wisely at his sides.

  Pandemonium ensued once more only to be extinguished by another glare from McNair. Then he looked back at Nyles.

  "It's your sworn duty to put down everything in writing, get it on my desk ASAP! Why do you think I appointed you to the Commission in the first fucking place, you idiot? And now you hand me this?" He waved several stapled pages at Nyles angrily and then threw them at his feet. "I should have you SHOT!"

  "I did tell you in writing and on time exactly as I'm required to do! That was two years ago, two years and three months to be precise. And I followed it up two weeks later and another two weeks after that. The Commission never heard word one back about it. Not from you. Not from your secretary. Not from a single member of your staff. Not from anyone. I don't exactly have Oval Office privileges. How else could I have let you know? I could have gone to the press about the seeming lack of interest, but I think the White House would have frowned on that. Look at the date on the report. More than two years old. That's the first copy. There were others. What else was I supposed to do?"

  McNair bent and grabbed the report lying at Nyles's feet. He looked at the date and then threw the paper across the room.

  "Who was supposed to put this in my hand?" he screamed. He stared around the room. No one answered. "Goddammit, what kind of a circus are we running here anyway? A ship of fools!" He turned and swung at the closest body, knocking Rear Admiral, Henry Strickland into the arms of the men behind him.

  President McNair turned back to face Nyles again. "You could be wrong! You're just one guy."

  "Do I need to remind you that we have thirty of the most esteemed Earth science professionals in the US's employ on staff? Good God, you helped pick some of them yourself! And the report was peer reviewed in the science journal Nature in October of last year. You must have missed that too. I repeat, what else could I do?"

  The President stared at Nyles, then walked to where he had thrown the report and picked it up again. He glanced at it a moment, flipping the first page and then dropping it back. He stood for several seconds with his eyes closed breathing deeply and then back at Nyles. In a considerably calmer voice, he said, "Give me the short version."

  "Just what I said. We retaliate, you launch those missiles, even just a handful and that's the end of life on Earth. Not just us, not just man, everything. A dead planet. Mars. Got it? This isn't even new information. Carl Sagan spoke about it back in the 80's, for God sakes."

  McNair stared at him a moment longer.

  "You're suggesting we do nothing!? We were hit by twenty-three, roughly 10 kiloton nuclear missiles. Washington DC is gone! New York City, Portland, Chicago, Seattle. He turned to the desk and picked up a sheet of paper a communications officer had handed him through the door a moment before. Reading it, he continued quickly, "Houston and Dallas both, Boston, St. Louis, Phoenix, Atlanta and Los Angeles. Probably a dozen others by now. Give me something, Nyles."

  "Something? You've got enough conventional firepower in those parts of the world to turn those countries into smoking ruins in two weeks tops. Without nukes. But hey, you want something? Here it is all laid out nice and neat for you. We've had it. Not just us. The world as well. Those men who hit us, they're dead too. Every last socialist hair on their heads just as surely as is ours. Do you know what twenty-three nuclear tipped ICBM's in the 10 kiloton range, all exploded at roughly the same time, will do to the northern hemisphere? That's twenty-three simultaneous Hiroshima's. Even a limited nuclear exchange between say India and Pakistan would throw up enough smoke and dust to kill a couple billion people, through starvation when the smoke blocks the sun long enough
to keep crops from growing. The nukes dropped on us has already far exceeded that paltry outcome.

  "First will come fire, than ice. Within a week, the smoke and carbon and dust still remaining in the sky that hasn't washed out in a thick black radioactive rain will rise into the stratosphere, too high above the clouds to be rained out, blocking the light and heat from the sun. Global temperatures might fall by five, seven degrees. Or more. To get an idea how cold that will be, the last ice age was just five degrees colder on average than what it is now. A nuclear winter that will last for years, no less. Atmospheric currents may spread that into the southern hemisphere as well. That means no sun. No agriculture. Starvation.

  "Sure, the enemy will survive a few days or weeks longer than us, those in shelters a few months more maybe. Same here. But for humanity as a whole, our number's up. That's all she wrote. The fat lady just sung."

  "Then why not? What do have to lose?" The President looked at him without expression.

  Nyles looked back unblinkingly. "We're done. But the Earth can survive. It will be touch and go for a while. Life will have to begin again, start nearly from scratch, but it won't be the first time. The Earth has seen dozens of other catastrophes like this in its past and yet, here we are. Five mass extinctions in all, dozens of smaller ones as well, all buried in Earth's past. Found in layers of iridium and clay, sea shells at the tops of mountains and extinct volcanoes in Siberia and India. A massive crater at the bottom of the ocean in the Yucatan Peninsula. All just blips on the geologic scale. The asteroid that took out the dinosaurs was two million times larger than the largest nuclear device ever exploded. How the world came back from that precipice is anyone's guess. Life is resilient. But it won't come back from this one. At least, not as we know it. We have enough fire power in our conventional arsenal to raze those countries to the ground. But if we drop our load on them, the radiation alone will finish the planet. It's the gift that just keeps on giving. Our adversaries made a terrible mistake when they launched those missiles at us. Let's not make the same mistake twice."