Survive the Blast

by Dave Bowman

  Survive the Blast

  A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Thriller - Atomic Threat Book 1

  Dave Bowman

  Copyright © 2019 by Dave Bowman

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  About the Author

  1

  Wednesday, 1:30 p.m. PST - Los Angeles, California

  Jack pushed the glass door open and stepped out onto the hot sidewalk. The bright light blinded him for a moment.

  He walked away quickly from the restaurant, hoping no one would follow him.

  Once he was a block away, he sighed in relief.

  He was free.

  The business lunch that day had been brutal. When it finally wound down, Jack didn’t waste a second getting out of there.

  Everyone else could stay behind, kissing up to the bosses. But the next few minutes belonged to him.

  Jack Hawthorne had given up a week to come to Los Angeles for a work conference. He was expected to give up his lunch breaks, too. But at least he had a few precious moments before he had to get back to the office.

  The southern California sun beat down on him as he walked along the busy downtown street. He wasn’t sure where he was going, but he knew he needed to stretch his legs before returning to work.

  The afternoon would be full of meetings back at the company headquarters. Jack would spend the next few hours putting out fires and playing along with office politics. He wasn’t looking forward to it.

  Jack picked up the pace, his long stride covering the distance quickly.

  He spotted a small city park across the street. Jack found an empty park bench and took out his phone.

  Miss you! read the text from his wife, Annie. She had sent it half an hour ago, when her last class had ended.

  Miss you too. Just two more days, he tapped out, sending the text back to his wife in Texas.

  He sighed. The timing of this work conference was far from ideal.

  Annie had been going through a rough time. She needed him back home.

  He had offered to cancel the trip and stay with her in Austin, but she would have none of it. She had insisted he go.

  And the truth was, he didn’t have much of a choice when it came to these work conferences. As a mid-level manager of the Austin branch of a software company, Sun Stream Data, his job pretty much required it.

  He had to make these trips to the California headquarters a few times a year.

  It had never been a problem until now, though. His wife wasn’t the type to be needy. But with all the challenges of the past few months, she needed him now.

  He swallowed a twinge of guilt.

  But Annie would be fine. In just two days, he would be back home with her. Everything would return to normal soon.

  And anyway, he couldn’t do much about it now.

  He had to clear his mind of his worries. In a few minutes, he’d have to be in another meeting.

  Jack needed a distraction.

  He absent-mindedly pulled up a familiar website on his phone. It was an online forum with discussions about conspiracy theories. He had discovered the site a few months ago. Visiting it had quickly developed into a habit.

  At first, he thought the people on the forum were mostly a little nutty. He read the site mainly for entertainment. But somewhere along the way, he realized that a few of the people had some interesting ideas.

  Who knew? Maybe some of them were right.

  He had seen enough to know he couldn’t blindly trust everything the politicians said. Much less believe everything he saw in the news.

  Jack scanned through the forum website. He scrolled through the usual sort of discussions. Nothing much new today. He brought the phone down by his side and looked around.

  A young woman walked along the trail at the opposite end of the park. She held the hand of her child, a little boy who babbled happily. Sunlight glistened off the woman’s auburn hair, and it reminded him of Annie’s red curls.

  Jack glanced at his watch and rose to his feet. He needed to get back to the office.

  Time to face the music.

  He glanced at his phone one last time, his thumb poised over the lock button. But before shutting off the phone, a new post on the forum caught his eye:

  HIGH ALERT! TAKE SHELTER IMMEDIATELY!

  Someone had just posted a new thread on the website seconds earlier. Normally, Jack would have ignored it, chalking it up to another paranoid conspiracy theorist.

  But today was different.

  Something told him to take it seriously.

  Maybe it was the sudden knot forming in his gut. Maybe it was the line of sweat that appeared on his forehead.

  But for whatever reason, he opened the post.

  His eyes moved quickly over the message. The author claimed that government officials in Washington, DC, had gone into hiding underground.

  Just moments ago, my contact in the Pentagon informed me that government leaders are beginning their highest level of evacuation protocol. They are expecting an imminent attack on American soil. Get to a safe place immediately!

  The words began to swirl around the page.

  Jack wiped his sweaty hands on his slacks and looked up. He scanned his surroundings.

  Everything around him seemed totally normal. People on their lunch break, children at the playground. It was a perfectly ordinary, warm day.

  This can’t be true, can it?

  Jack knew the warning was probably a hoax. The world seemed to be full of sick individuals who got a kick out of frightening people.

  No way that guy could know about government workers going into hiding.

  He needed to get back to work.

  If he didn’t leave now, he would have to face disapproving looks from the higher-ups. Maybe his boss would call him into his office to have a word.

  Jack wasn’t one to grovel like his coworkers. He was so fed up with office politics that he needed to avoid any confrontations. He didn’t want to lose his cool.

  That post has to be fake.

  But if it was fake, why was his heart pounding like this?

  He had read seemingly urgent warnings on this website before. They had always turned out to be nothing. Someone playing a stupid joke. Or someone paranoid and spreading their panic through the internet.

  But this one seemed different.

  He looked back at the warning on his phone.

  The author of the post had a green light next to his user name, indicating that he was currently online. Jack watched as frantic comments from other people appeared below the post.

  I hope this guy is enjoying himself, Jack thought to himself. Spreading fear on the internet. This can’t be real.

  Suddenly, the green light next to the author’s user name went out, indicating he had left the forum.

  Or maybe he lost power.

  Jack�
��s fingers moved quickly over the touch screen.

  Clenching the phone in his fist, he waited for the call to his wife to connect. Her line began to ring, each tone seeming to take forever.

  His thoughts turned to his family’s ranch in rural Texas. If only he and Annie were there now. Not thousands of miles apart, stuck in two large cities.

  Finally, there was an answer.

  “Hey, you,” her familiar voice said.

  Thank God.

  “Is everything okay?” he asked. “You sound out of breath.”

  “Yeah, babe,” Annie said. “I was just trying to make my way out of this packed restaurant. Didn’t want to take your call at the table. I’m out with Charlotte and the rest of my team.”

  She’s okay.

  “Oh, right,” Jack said, his tension dissolving somewhat. “It’s the first Wednesday of the month. You’re at Diego’s?”

  “Yeah, the monthly English Department gripe session,” Annie said wryly. Jack could hear the smile in her voice.

  Everything’s fine. The warning isn’t real. You’re just freaking out. Get it together, Hawthorne.

  “Are you okay, Jack? You sound tense.”

  Jack ran his hand through his brown hair. “Yeah, I’m all right. Just looking forward to getting out of here.”

  “You and me both,” Annie said.

  Jack started walking out of the park as Annie spoke.

  He needed to hustle to get back to work on time. He should’ve known better than to get all worked up about something on the internet.

  He heard Annie draw in air as if to speak, but then she stopped herself.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “Oh, it’s nothing,” she said. “I mean, it’s not a big deal, it’s just – I couldn’t get anyone back east on the phone just now.”

  Jack froze in his tracks.

  “What do you mean?”

  Annie exhaled nervously.

  “My family – my parents, Brody, Heather . . . It’s like none of their phones are working. I just get recordings saying their numbers don’t work.”

  The knot in Jack’s stomach returned. His throat seemed to close in as he listened.

  “I was trying to get a hold of them after work to make plans for the family reunion. I guess there could be problems with the cell towers,” Annie continued. “But their land lines aren’t working either. And Heather lives two hundred miles from the rest of them. It makes no sense.”

  Jack took a breath.

  “Annie, get out. Now. Leave Austin. Get to the ranch in Loretta –”

  He stopped, hearing the faint static on the connection end suddenly. He looked down at his phone.

  The call had ended.

  He dialed her again. This time, he got the monotonous tones of a robotic voice stating the number was out of order.

  Her line was dead.

  This thing’s real.

  Things were getting serious.

  Jack’s heart was pounding. His skin was cold.

  How much did she hear? Would she know to get to the ranch?

  Would she make it in time?

  Either way, he had to act fast.

  Whatever was happening, it seemed to be moving from east to west across the country. Which meant his time was running out. And his wife was over a thousand miles away.

  Annie’s life was at stake.

  He broke into a sprint.

  2

  Wednesday, 3:34 p.m. CST - Austin, Texas

  “Can we change the subject now? Unless there’s any more complaining to be done about the new assistant principal?”

  Annie took a sip of her coffee and winked at Monica, who had asked the question.

  Annie and the rest of the Victoria High School English department were seated around a table. They were at Diego’s, a popular restaurant in downtown Austin.

  Monica sat across from her and smiled over her diet soda. They were the only two people not drinking margaritas.

  “Yes, let’s please change the subject,” Annie said, pushing her mane of curly red hair behind her shoulder. “I don’t want to think about him anymore.”

  She watched Monica rummage through her purse and retrieve a small card. With a grin, she placed the card face up on the table to reveal an ultrasound image.

  “Brian and I are having a baby!” Monica exclaimed.

  Annie squinted at the blurry image as the table erupted in a chorus of excited voices.

  “Congratulations!” Annie echoed.

  She smiled as she listened to her coworker talk about the details of her pregnancy. Annie was happy and excited for her.

  But she couldn’t help feeling a twinge of jealousy. This would be Monica’s third child.

  And I can’t even have one.

  Annie and Jack had been trying to have a baby for what seemed like forever. Annie kept hoping they would conceive. But month after month, she was met with disappointment.

  And a growing sense of loss.

  The past month had been especially difficult.

  She had been to a fertility clinic. There were problems. It wasn’t impossible for them to conceive, but unlikely. And she and Jack simply couldn’t afford fertility treatments, which may not have worked anyway.

  It was beginning to look like children just weren’t in her future.

  She was supportive of her friends and their growing families. Being a high school English teacher took up a lot of her time, and most of her friends were fellow teachers. She went to their baby showers and children’s birthday parties. She loved her friends’ children. She loved seeing her friends become mothers.

  But it seemed like it would never be her turn.

  She blinked back tears.

  Now is not the time, Annie. Do not cry in front of them.

  She met the eyes of Charlotte, her best friend, for a moment. Charlotte gave her a sympathetic smile. She was the only one at the table who really knew what Annie was going through.

  Of course, Annie’s family back east was supportive, and she was grateful for that. Since Jack was away, she had been hoping to talk to her mom and sister earlier that afternoon. She had been disappointed when she couldn’t reach them on the phone.

  Disappointed, and a bit worried. Why were none of their phones working?

  Annie’s own phone buzzed in her purse.

  Surely that must be one of them.

  Even better – it was her husband. Relieved to have an excuse to take a break from the gathering, she excused herself and rushed out of the busy Mexican restaurant.

  Jack’s absence had weighed heavily on Annie.

  The news about her fertility challenges had hit her hard. And then his work trip to California had come up so soon. Jack meant so much to her, and she wished more than anything to see him.

  Instead, he was on the other side of the country.

  On the phone, he seemed bothered by something. When she mentioned that she had not been able to contact her family, it seemed to set him off even more.

  She heard the panic in his voice from 1,400 miles away.

  “Annie –” he began.

  Then silence.

  “Jack? Are you there?”

  Nothing.

  She had lost him.

  She moved the phone away from her ear, her finger poised to dial his number. But the screen was blank. The phone was dead.

  For a split second, she assumed the battery had simply died. But it had been fully charged when she left work less than an hour ago.

  First her family’s phone lines had all been dead, and now her own.

  Fear instantly began to wrap around her chest, making it difficult to breathe.

  Something very wrong was happening. She could feel it.

  She heard the sound of brakes squealing in the road adjacent to the restaurant. Before she could turn to look, something else caught her eye.

  In the sky, to the southeast a good distance, a plane flew unusually low to the ground.

  Annie blinked and shie
lded her eyes from the sun to see.

  The plane was too far from the airport to be so low.

  Something was terribly wrong.

  She sucked in her breath through her teeth.

  The aircraft blazed wildly through the sky. It careened down to the earth at a diagonal.

  It’s going to crash.

  She felt her body tense as she watched. The nose of the plane angled down.

  A moment later, the aircraft was out of her view.

  It disappeared behind the towering buildings of downtown Austin, crashing down somewhere out of sight.

  Annie stood looking up at the blue sky with her mouth open. She was stunned.

  How could the plane have lost control like that?

  She shuddered, realizing all the lives that must have been lost in the crash.

  What is happening here?

  It had been headed toward the airport. Annie figured it was low to begin with to prepare for landing.

  But then it seemed like the engines had just died – all at once.

  And at the same time her phone had died.

  Her heart began to pound. She had to leave.

  Whatever was going on, it wasn’t safe to be on the streets. She needed to get home. And it needed to be as soon as possible.

  She glanced at the parking lot where she had left her SUV.

  In her panic, for a moment, she considered leaving without saying goodbye to the others inside Diego’s. But she couldn’t do that and live with herself. She had to warn them that something terrible was happening.

  She didn’t know what it was, but planes didn’t just fall out of the sky like that. Especially not at the same time when everyone’s phones died.

  Besides, she was Charlotte’s ride.

  Annie approached the door to the restaurant. It opened quickly as several people left the restaurant in a hurry. She stepped out of the way impatiently to let them pass.