by Logan Keys
“No,” Clive said. “I want to ask them about all this. Maybe they were in the city.”
It was three men and four women, though one of the women looked younger, more like a teen.
Then there were about five children between them of all ages. Clive’s heart tightened to see their ash smeared faces. They were dead on their feet, having obviously walked a long way.
“Hello there,” Clive said, trying to sound peaceful as they paused, and gazed upwards warily.
“Is it the pants?” Siri asked with a smile. “I promise he’s not as crazy as he looks.”
The man at the front came forward, but he had his palm on his pack. Weapon?
Clive held his hands up. “I’m unarmed,” he said, hoping that would stop whatever the guy was thinking about doing. “I’m Clive and this is Siri. Yes, like the phone.”
The teen girl smiled, and she and Siri shared a glance that only surly teens could make.
“I’m Chris and this is Lanny, my wife.” He gave the rest of the names but Clive’s mind was racing, so he missed the details.
He couldn’t tell them about Daniel’s and Lila’s house. Not without their permission.
“Why did you leave the city? Is that where you come from?” Clive asked.
“Yes,” Chris said. Lanny nodded and she said, “We had to leave. Don’t you know?”
“Know what?”
“The air down there,” Chris said. “It’s poisonous now. Everyone’s getting sick. Many went up into the mountains, and we came here, hoping. But it looks like you guys are breathing just fine.”
One of the children started coughing hard until Lanny gave him some water.
Lanny said, “Are you staying somewhere?”
She gave Clive a desperate look, and he glanced at Siri. He shook his head and they had a silent argument but she shrugged and turned to the people once more. They were her friends. He’d let her decide.
Siri nodded. “Yes. My friends have a house. They have food and water aplenty, and you guys can rest there if they let you.”
Clive gaped at her. Just like that. She gave them the keys to the kingdom. Perfect strangers.
The family and friends as one sighed in relief. A few had tears in their eyes.
“It’s just down this hill,” Clive said.
When they were walking, Siri caught up with him. “Clive. Your family.”
“I know.”
“No, I was going to say. They made it across the river and perhaps this isn’t happening in Texas. They’re safer there than they would have been here.” She touched his arm until he stopped and faced her. “The bad thing… that they left, is now a good thing.”
“Thanks.” He forced a smile in gratitude. “Do you think Daniel and Lila will be mad about us for bringing all these people?”
She frowned. “They took me in. They took you in. I’m starting to think it’s kind of their thing.”
Clive glanced around. “Well, I hope so, because I’m sure they aren’t the only people who had the same idea.”
They weren’t. Chris and Lanny and their crew were only the first to arrive. Soon, they had thirty and then fifty people at their front door step.
A man who had arrived last told them the cloud had come up the hill and would be there soon. That anyone inside it was dead in minutes.
They would have to all move to the bunker eventually.
“Can you fit this many?” Clive asked Daniel.
“It will be tight, but yes.”
Clive looked outside and saw that the sky was a whole new level of dark.
He went out the front door and lasted maybe ten minutes before his lungs hurt and the air made his throat burn.
He ran back inside. “We have to go. Now!”
12
Outside Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Kentucky was sinking. The net dragged him further into darkness, a place he’d feared most of his life.
He was more afraid of drowning than anything and he wasn’t sure why that was. Maybe it was because he was alone. It was a lonely way to die for many. Some didn’t even know you had died until they found you later. Something about it. Silent. Cold. Closed off from the world.
He imaged that that was what hell was like. Solitude. Empty. Black.
The burning and the fire weren’t as scary as the other.
He felt himself going limp, giving up, when something crashed into him. A flurry of movement thrashed through the water, and when it stilled, his side ached with pain.
His thoughts were foggy, but he knew an alligator had attacked and tried to bite him. It was too small to take him down fully, but its teeth had no doubt taken a chunk.
Kentucky was holding his side when it struck again. The mouth raked his arm this time, and another ache bloomed along his skin from sharp teeth, that quickly turned to agony.
Kentucky yelled and only released out bubbles into the murky water that were nearly soundless.
It wasn’t very big, but it was pure muscle, and it was back again.
He struggled against the net that was wrapped around his ankle.
This time, the gator caught him in the leg, his teeth gripping right where the net was. It spun, pulling Kentucky’s knee almost out of joint.
But then the net popped as the teeth caught the plastic.
Suddenly, Kentucky was free.
He used all his fading energy to swim to the surface, bursting through in a loud gasp, coughing and gagging up the water that had come into his lungs during the attacks. He turned left and right in a panic, but the raft was nowhere in sight. He’d been towed along somewhere by the net, dragged in the current to another place. They could be anywhere by now.
He was bleeding from his side, his leg, and his nose. He guessed it wouldn’t be long before larger alligators and who-knew-what, sharks maybe, would be hunting him.
The submarine was not far from where he’d come up, and it sat there, moored on something, probably parts of a highways bridge.
He swam for it.
The top of the sub was so high up that he had to climb. After falling off the side several times, he finally got a foothold and made it to the platform above.
He then searched in all directions but saw nothing but water.
He was alone, marooned on a submarine in the middle of the swamp turned ocean.
TO BE CONTINUED…
Special Announcement to Readers
I apologize for the preorder having been pushed back a month. My son was very ill and that included a trip to the emergency room via ambulance. He is doing very well now! I appreciate your patience and continued support. Also, we are now PCS’ing to Oklahoma next month as well, so with orders, we are moving much earlier than I previously thought. This new date is abrupt and the timing poor for this series, but I will of course continue to write as I’m able!
Having said that, Sky Fall the series will be on hiatus for a brief few months (perhaps shorter if things are not too crazy) and I ask that you follow me on Amazon as well as join my Post-Apocalyptic list to keep updated on the release of Solar Storm, episode three.
Link for Amazon: CLICK HERE
Link for Apocalyptic List: CLICK HERE
Again, thank you for supporting me through this time, and I hope that you really enjoy and love this next installment!
Logan
Author’s Notes
04/09/2019
Dear Readers,
Thank you for joining me in my new post-apocalyptic adventure Sky Fall! I have had so much fun writing these characters and as you can see there are a few closer together again and maybe they will meet up…I don’t know yet!
A lot of the places I mention in my books are where I’ve actually lived :D I’ve lived at Fort Polk, and also visited Benning. I live now in Fort Riley and I actually reside across the street from someone who is the General’s Aid here at the Custer House which is what gave me the idea for Griggs as a character.
I have lived near Redlands California and Los
Angeles. I have lived in Arizona where the sibling’s parents live. I’ve been in New Orleans a few times so that’s why that showed up. If you get a chance, email me and tell me if you’ve been to any of these places. I love to hear it!
I had some time to study the Carrington Event and was very interested in the idea of a solar flare causing destruction of this magnitude. If you have time, look up the Solar Storm of 1859. It’s not quite as explosive as Sky Fall, but I like to imagine that if it struck with double the amount in size, the world would change quite a bit, if not end. Scientists can only speculate what a larger flare would do. The ones that have hit thus far have only caused issues that are manageable, although scary in our highly connected world. I’ve added natural disasters to this book because a large solar flare might not only disrupt electricity and radio frequency, but perhaps it would charge our atmosphere with enough radiation that all sorts of other issues would occur.
I hope you will enjoy this book as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it. I truly love these new characters as they come to life on the page. The idea struck me that if a solar flare was moving quickly enough that our world would be struck without hardly any warning. I wanted to know what people might do and how quickly they would react if they had merely eight minutes to survive. Then time to deal with the fallout.
I appreciate feedback in the form of reviews. They also help me prioritize the stories that get written and the focus of my schedule. Please contact me any time at [email protected]. I really hope you will enjoy the continuation of Sky Fall the saga and am planning on this being a 10-12 series, with each book being around 20,000-30,000 words long, and will be publishing a new one every month.
I am always open to discuss my books with you on Facebook or email me at [email protected]
Cheers,
Logan
SOLAR STORM WILL BE available soon!
CLICK HERE
Please sign up for my post-apocalyptic list HERE
