The Doomsday Series Box Set | Books 1-5

by Akart, Bobby

  He stared down at the text message he’d received for what was probably the fortieth time since it came through right before he turned in several hours ago. The words were simple but meant so much.

  Time to come home. H.

  The decision to leave Atlanta behind was not difficult. His original choice to run away from Philadelphia was, on the surface, for the good of his children, but in reality was for Will to keep his own feeling of self-worth. He was a good man, a loving father, and, he thought, a considerate husband. Every aspect of his life was under attack and he simply needed to escape. Atlanta was the solution, and it served its purpose, until tonight. Now he’d been summoned home.

  He’d resisted the urge to turn on the satellite radio and pick up the news from the cable news networks. The kids were confused enough already, but they were too tired to protest when he woke them after they’d been asleep for less than an hour.

  Will glanced into the rearview mirror and saw each of them leaning against opposite sides of the truck, propped against pillows and covered with the comforters off their beds. To be sure, they were zonked out, but Will didn’t want them to hear what was going on around them.

  Hungry for information, he scrolled through his Google news feed and frequently monitored the online news sources he frequented. The events of the evening astonished him, but in a way, he’d expected them to occur at some point.

  It was a matter of time.

  Will drove for another hour and stopped for fuel. The sun was just beginning to rise, and he picked up two large cups of black coffee as well as some breakfast sandwiches and orange juice for all of them. It wasn’t until he fired up his diesel Chevy Silverado that Ethan stirred in the back seat.

  “Where are we?” he asked sleepily as he sat up in the back seat. He glanced toward the convenience store. “Hey, I really need to pee.”

  Will thought about the television playing inside and the chatter among the attendant and some of the locals. “Um, it’s out of order. We have to rough it.”

  He pulled around the side of the station and allowed Ethan to jump out to relieve himself. Will checked on Skylar, who was still asleep. A moment later, Ethan piled back into the truck. Will offered him a sandwich and Ethan declined, opting instead to sleep some more.

  That was fine by Will. It was not the time for explanations.

  He drove another hour and a half along Old Highway 64, running parallel to the South Mountains of North Carolina, until he picked up Interstate 40. A light dusting of snow had fallen New Year’s Eve, but the roads remained clear. As the sun was shining brightly, Will smiled as he admired the North Carolina landscape. It was incredibly beautiful, especially under the circumstances.

  He pulled off the interstate and made his way along narrow, two-lane country roads toward his destination. The kids had awakened, and after a brief pit stop for Skylar, during which she thoroughly enjoyed making yellow snow, they arrived at the end of their journey.

  Will slowed the truck and approached the entrance slowly. Stone and brick columns flanked two wrought-iron steel gates. In the center of the gates, the letter H stood out prominently. Will stopped the truck and lowered the window as two armed men approached.

  “Dad, where are we?” asked Ethan.

  Will ignored his son for now.

  The man dressed in khakis and a black hooded sweatshirt leaned into the window and spoke to Will.

  “Welcome home, Delta.”

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Monocacy Farm

  South of Frederick, Maryland

  New Year’s Eve

  Once again, they convened. They’d come from Langley and Fort Meade, Washington and Arlington. They weren’t politicians or elected officials. They were spooks, spies, and soldiers. Government officials and bureaucrats—accountable to no one but themselves.

  As before, their host greeted them at the front door, braving the cold wind, which swept across the snow-covered grounds, land that had witnessed one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War—the Battle of Monocacy. As he waited for his compatriots to arrive, he recalled the history of Monocacy Farm.

  In 1864, with General Robert E. Lee’s army under siege at Petersburg, Virginia, to the south, Confederate forces led by General Jubal Early conducted raids into Frederick, Maryland and the Monocacy River area. The forces of Union General Lew Wallace were overwhelmed by the Confederates and beat a hasty retreat to Baltimore.

  Emboldened by their successes, General Early rallied his troops and advanced to the outskirts of Washington, a surprise move that threatened to end the war with a decisive victory by the South.

  Fortunately for the Union, General Wallace was able to delay the Confederate’s advance long enough to allow General Ulysses S. Grant to send a portion of his Sixth Corps to defend Washington. The veteran soldiers, rested and more capable than the tired Confederates, successfully repelled the advance and saved Washington from the clutches of the Southerners. From that point forward, the Battle of Monocacy became known as the Battle that Saved Washington.

  Now there was a different battle occurring in Washington. One that involved high stakes for both sides and threatened to tear the nation apart much like it did in the 1860s. The men and women arriving at Monocacy Farm on New Year’s Eve were very much aware of the consequences of the fuse that had been lit. But they considered it necessary to save a nation they believed was founded on their ideals and principles.

  As the evening wore on, they weren’t celebrating, although they were sharing a traditional glass of champagne. As the clock ticked closer to midnight and the new year was upon them, solemn demeanors filled the grand ballroom.

  Conversations were had in the simplest terms, and some were more philosophical.

  “Newton’s Law of Motion posited that all forces occur in pairs such that if one object exerts a force on another object, then the second object exerts an equal and opposite reactive force on the first.” One young man with a British accent could be heard speaking above the others.

  An older woman responded, summarizing the theory, “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.”

  “Exactly,” replied the Brit. “That is why this evening’s events will be met with resistance, but not necessarily from Washington’s reaction. There will necessarily be a force that rises in opposition to us, one that is formidable in ideology, if not will.”

  Their host interrupted the conversation and now had the attention of everyone in the room. A hush came over the gathering as he spoke. A ray of daylight began to peek through the heavy velour drapes.

  Comfortable with his command over his peers, he raised his voice so all could hear him. “The dawn of a New Year has arrived; let me be the first to propose a toast. As our friend just said, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. That’s to be expected. Well, the same theory applies to the concept of luck.

  “One man’s luck is often generated by another man’s misfortunes. I, for one, believe that we can make our own luck. It will be necessary to achieve our goals as laid out in our carefully crafted plans.

  “With this New Year’s toast, I urge all of you to trust the plan. Know that a storm is coming. It will be a storm upon which the blood of patriots and tyrants will spill.”

  He raised his champagne glass into the air, and everyone in the room followed suit.

  “Godspeed, Patriots!”

  And so it began …

  Volume Two

  DOOMSDAY: Haven

  The Doomsday Series: Book Two

  Bobby Akart

  Epigraph

  “Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.”

  ~ Sun Tzu: The Art of War

  The real rulers, you’ll never see.

  ~ Anonymous

  The Tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

  ~ Thomas Jefferson

  If they bring a knife to
a fight, we bring a gun.

  ~ President Barack Obama, 2008

  Either you control destiny, or destiny controls you.

  ~ George Trowbridge in Doomsday: Apocalypse

  Prologue

  October 2018

  Orlando, Florida

  Ryan Smart crouched down next to his bed and listened. At night, in the darkness, his home was eerily quiet, but he sensed a presence in the living room. He turned to the two sets of eyes that he could barely make out in the ambient light. They eagerly awaited his instructions.

  He put his arms on their shoulders and whispered, “Girls, we have to make a break for the front door. You have to run as fast as you can to keep up with your daddy. Can you do that?”

  Unable to fully comprehend the situation, they didn’t respond, but Ryan sensed they would follow his lead. He slowly rose from his crouch and steadied his nerves.

  “Run, girls! Run!”

  He bolted out of the bedroom and raced down the long hallway toward the front door. Behind him, the sounds of the girls’ feet digging at the floor in an effort to keep up grabbed the attention of the figure lurking in the dark.

  “Hey!” the voice shouted as Ryan raced by.

  Now the girls had a new sense of urgency as they ran to keep up. His oldest twin, by all of a minute, was quickly by his side while his other girl, who was slightly overweight, lagged behind like the chubby kid in the horror flicks who always got caught by the ghoul or the demon.

  “This way, girls!”

  Ryan rounded the banister of the stairwell and darted into the library, with his girls hot on his heels. They circled the antler chandelier that hung from the ceiling, its candelabra bulbs dimmed to a low orangish glow.

  The trio had eluded the ghostly apparition that had appeared out of nowhere, and now they had run full circle through the house until they reached the family room.

  That was when Ryan collided head-on with the dark figure dressed in a black cloak and a matching pointed hat.

  The Blair Witch.

  “Gotcha!” she exclaimed, the word coming out with a gravelly, evil hiss.

  Ryan tried to dodge the witch and rolled over the back of the L-shaped sectional sofa until he was tangled up with half a dozen pillows. Within seconds, the girls leapt on top of his back, doing a victory dance as they panted for air.

  “Hide, girls! She’ll put us in her cauldron and boil us for supper!”

  “I’ve got you now, my pretties!” The Blair Witch swung her cape and cackled.

  Blair Smart, his wife, dressed as a ghoulish witch, circled the end of the sectional and piled on Ryan, too. The Smart family, Ryan, Blair and their two English bulldogs, Chubby and The Roo, had become a tangled pile of people and pup.

  “Get off me, you monsters!”

  The Roo barked several times and then smothered her daddy with wet, sloppy bulldog kisses. Chubby, whose name was appropriately bestowed upon her from the day she was born, was the first to leave the scrum and plop on the cold tile floor of the kitchen, panting for air.

  “Ouch!” exclaimed Ryan as he rolled over in pain. The Roo had spun around and pushed off his nether regions in order to join her sister on the floor. Using his best English accent, he complained, “You guys gotta stop crackin’ me clackers. I might need them someday.”

  Blair swatted at him and kissed him on the cheek. “No, sir. You won’t.”

  Ryan pushed himself up on the sofa and pulled the witch close to him. “Hey, baby, you wanna get ghoulish with me?”

  “You’re weird,” she replied with a laugh. “No, we need to feed the girls. The cats are probably staring in the windows, looking for yummies. And I have no idea what we’re gonna eat for dinner.”

  Ryan pouted and held her hand as she rose to go into the kitchen. He stretched behind the sofa and reached for the remote to turn on the television. Orlando’s local news channel filled the screen, and he turned down the volume.

  If it bleeds, it leads—was a phrase often used by New York magazine in the eighties, referring to fear-based media. Over the years, Ryan had learned a newscast was no different than any other business. It had to make money. In order to make a profit, the station had to sell advertising time. The more viewers the station could boast, the higher the demand. It was basic supply and demand economics.

  A report was showing scenes of a violent attack in downtown Orlando at the Dr. Phillips Center, a performing arts complex that frequently hosted concerts, comedy and theatrical events.

  Following a comedy show featuring Kathy Griffin and Chelsea Handler, the attendees filed out of the facility only to be greeted by protesters angry with the duo for their stance on political issues. The verbal assaults had erupted into a barrage of fisticuffs, leaving several people badly injured. In today’s age of digital imagery courtesy of the smartphone, every punch that drew blood was replayed on the family’s big-screen television.

  “What happened?” asked Blair as she set the girls’ food down on their place mats. Chubby stuck her head in the bowl and began to chomp at her kibbles mixed with strained pumpkin before Blair could set the bowl down.

  “Same old, same old. Another day, another riot, or protest, or whatever has managed to piss someone off.”

  Ryan didn’t like to watch the news anymore. It angered him more than it informed him. Plus, he’d become keenly aware that the television news media fed him what they wanted him to see. The nation had become hyper-politicized. It didn’t matter what interaction Ryan and Blair had with the outside world, somebody’s political agenda or point of view slipped into their consciousness. They tried to avoid it by watching less television, to no avail, as tonight’s newscast proved.

  He was about to turn off the monitor when Blair stopped him. “Wait. Check out the Mega Millions payout. One-point-six billion dollars. Maybe we should play?”

  Ryan chuckled. “The lottery is a scam. It’s a tax on poor people by giving them hope to hit it big, but really they’re pissin’ their money away.”

  Blair slugged him. “You’re such a pessimist sometimes.”

  He shrugged and then mumbled, “I guess the news is getting to me.”

  Blair tried to cheer him up. “Come on. I have an idea. Let’s play a ticket. It’s only a dollar, for Pete’s sake.”

  It was a Friday evening and the drawing was to take place that night. Ryan didn’t want to go out just to buy a lottery ticket, but he wouldn’t mind going to Publix to pick up something to eat that didn’t require his bride to cook.

  “Okay, deal. But we have to get some Boar’s Head meats and cheeses with some of that thick Sara Lee Artesano bread, okay?”

  “Fine by me,” Blair replied. “Let’s pick our numbers. There are five regular numbers and then the sixth number works as a multiplier. If we hit the winning numbers, we can cash in on the one-point-six billion bucks!”

  Ryan laughed and pulled his wife to sit down next to him again. He turned off the television and retrieved his phone off the sofa table. “Okay, let me put our numbers on the notepad app; then we’ll head for the store. Whadya wanna play?”

  “No, we’ll do it together,” she replied. “Like this. I’ll pick a number, and then you pick a number. Right?”

  Ryan smiled and readied himself for the first pick. “Go ahead, Blair Witch. What’s the first number?”

  “Four. There are four Smarts, so we should pick four.”

  “Um, okay. I pick eight.”

  “Why eight?”

  Ryan quickly replied, “It’s my birthday.”

  “Everybody does that,” she said, shaking her head. She thought of her next number. “I pick eleven. One is a powerful number. Combining it with another one makes the number eleven, one-one, creating a master number.”

  “You’re joking, right?”

  “Nope,” said Blair, who was very serious. “In numerology, the number eleven is said to have powerful forces that can guide you toward change and opportunity.”

  Ryan shook his head and laughed
. “All-righty, then. I choose twenty-two. There are two of us and we’re a team. Two times eleven is twenty-two.”

  “Good grief,” said Blair with an accompanying eye roll. “Well, lucky for you, despite your logic, twenty-two is also a master number.”

  “Hey, I’m gettin’ the hang of this stuff.”

  Ryan just earned another eye roll. Blair summarized. “So we have four, eight, eleven, twenty-two, and we need one more. I choose one because we only need one set of numbers to win one billion dollars.”

  Ryan cocked his head. “Wait, the jackpot is one-point-six billion.”

  “I know, but after the government sucks the taxes out of our winnings, we’ll only get a billion.”

  “Oh, yeah. Damn government!” Ryan genuinely lamented the thought of paying nearly half his winnings in taxes. He immediately began to think of ways to minimize his tax bite. It was the American way.

  “All right,” continued Blair. “We’ve picked out five main numbers. Let’s add them all together. When we have that number, since it’s a multi-digit number, we’ll add it together to make our last number.”

  “Huh?”

  “Just trust me on this. I am the Blair Witch.”

  The two of them reiterated their numbers. One. Four. Eight. Eleven. Twenty-two. The total was forty-six.