World's Worst Day Ever

by Craig Martelle

  Rioting and looting broke out, as people sought to take care of themselves and their loved ones. Fuel quickly ran dry, with no way of replacing stocks as the few surviving transport systems failed. Hunger quickly spread as food rotted in useless refrigerators and freezers and canned supplies disappeared from store shelves.

  There was no way to move food to people or people to the food.

  It had only been a few weeks, but Rich Gypsum sat on the floor of his apartment, hugging his knees to his chest and rocking. He had the door barricaded and the bathtub half filled with stagnant water. A bucket carried his waste and filled the apartment with the stench of a sewer while the outside air smelled of death and decay.

  The screams of the dying and injured had finally quieted but left him with the noise of his own thoughts. Like most Americans, he was woefully unprepared for everything to stop working and was fortunate to like older cars. His beloved 1967 Mustang ran just fine as new cars refused to run, but guzzled gasoline that was now unavailable.

  Everything was unavailable and only the strongest went out on the street now.

  He finally surrendered. He couldn’t live this way. He opened his window, took a two-step run and dove out, headfirst.

  Then came winter…and the ‘Dying Time’ began. As the seasons changed to cold and advanced across the globe, populations plummeted from starvation, thirst, and lack of medical support.

  As the dead piled up, the harder the survivors found it to live.

  ***

  Within two years, nature itself took revenge for humanity’s offenses. Influenza stalked the world, leaving millions dead in its wake, followed by typhoid, hepatitis, and tuberculosis from the unburied dead. Lack of clean water killed many who no longer had resistances to historic diseases. All of civilization’s ‘conquered’ diseases reappeared to kill hundreds of millions.

  The terror of the Black Death rose once again to devastate whole communities. Polluted groundwater, poisoned industrial sites, and toxic trash dumps made vast areas uninhabitable when the mitigation technologies failed beyond recovery.

  The final strike against humanity was self-inflicted.

  Even though industry died and no longer pumped chemicals into the atmosphere, the previous contaminants continued to warm the globe, as the warming cycle had crossed a tipping point. Each year was warmer than the last and at a point in the not-too-distant future, many parts of the world would become uninhabitable because of drought and heat.

  The North American Southwest, the Sahara basin and most of the Equatorial belt turned into wastelands or steaming hells. Hurricanes and typhoons became more common and much stronger, whipping coastlines across the globe. Tornados appeared in places that not had them before and massive thunderstorms ravaged the plains of the Americas and eastern Asia.

  The thirteen percent of humanity who survived two years past the World’s Worst Day Ever would not be anything like the people who lived before.

  It was a whole new world, a place where people barely existed.

  Bethany Anne had left to take the battle to the stars. She’d save the world as she could, but left some trusted caretakers, like Akio, to watch it and wait for Michael to come back.

  But she had no idea what happened after she left. If she had known, she might have come back…

  The End of this short story

  You can read more about what happens following the WWDE in the Terry Henry Walton Chronicles, available exclusively on Amazon

  https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01NAWTOH3

  DEDICATION

  We can’t write without those who support us

  On the home front, we thank you for being there for us

  We wouldn’t be able to do this for a living if it weren’t for our readers

  We thank you for reading our books

  World’s Worst Day Ever (this book) is a work of fiction.

  All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Sometimes both.

  The Kurtherian Gambit (and what happens within / characters / situations / worlds)

  are Copyright (c) 2016 by Michael T. Anderle

  World’s Worst Day Ever is Copyright (c) 2017 by

  Jeff Morris / Michael T. Anderle / Craig Martelle

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of Michael T. Anderle.

  Version 1.0

  Cover by Christian Bentulan, coversbychristian.com

  Editing by Kat Lind

  Author Notes – Jeff Morris

  Written April 8, 2017

  How does one go about ending the world? Well, it’s all Michael Anderle’s fault.

  No really!

  Many books ago, our intrepid author decided to kill off a minor character (It’s Hell to Choose)…really, minor, right?

  So after he goes and kills off one of the series most loved characters, using a nuclear bomb (yet another incredibly short-sighted decision), he receives a hailstorm of feedback from the readers. I’ll let you guess how that went.

  So he asks me to help him out of his “I used a nuke in the United States” problem and we started talking one night about nuclear weapon effects, fallout, radiation, EMP and other such stuff. Somewhere in that conversation we discussed the effect EMP would have on computers and that lead to my ranting on how fragile modern infrastructure could be to such a weapon.

  But I told him that would be doing the hard way, as corrupting the computer hardware supply chain could be much easier. This lead to other discussions, as he tried to figure how to not get lynched by the mob of angry readers and bring back the missing beloved character.

  Michael gets the idea of having a dystopian future that our intrepid hero finds himself once he returns, then asks me what did I think would have happened to have to create that future?

  Oh boy! Fun times! I get to destroy the world for Michael? Sign me up!

  That’s not to say I dream of earth-shattering kabooms™ on a daily basis, but I have spent some time thinking about it. Why? Well, it’s sort of my job to think about it. I’ve spent many years in the military, where I had training in nuclear weapons and surviving a nuclear battlefield, and some of my jobs were thinking about what could go wrong.

  The military likes to have a plan for everything because it’s easier to adapt a plan in a crisis than create one on the spot. So yes, there are probably plans for the zombie apocalypse and an alien invasion. My current job lets me think about the worse things that could happen if a cyberwar started.

  So Michael let me run with it…starting with a year that is (close to) today and moving 400 years into the future. I spent some time researching EMP, cyber warfare, global warming, nuclear power, hydro graphics, rainfall patterns and all kinds of other details.

  Fun!

  Then I set the stage for what else? The World’s Worst Day Ever. I don’t remember who coined that title in the group, but it stuck.

  Once I had a draft document, Michael tells me not only is he going to use the story as his basis for the future books, he had this mad plan to share his universe with other authors and they would use it also. So he wanted me to turn my admittedly technical document into a story.

  I then reminded him I write technical documents, not stories.

  So he asked Craig to add some human elements into my story and we had to then check our details to match published material, because Michael had another great idea ™…let’s publish WWDE as a story, so here we are.

  Michael and his great ideas…

  Author Notes - Craig Martelle

  Written March 7, 2017

  When Michael Anderle first broached the idea of writing a post-apocalyptic series set in his Kurtherian Gambit Universe, he thought he knew the perfect guy – a retired Marine who already had a great number of PA bo
oks written in a variety of worlds.

  Little did he know what a loon I was, but I am driven to write great stories and with Michael’s help, they get better with each book. No one survives alone.

  To wit, we needed the cause and backdrop of the great cataclysm, the domino of events that led to the second dark ages. I refer to it in the Terry Henry Walton Chronicles simply as the fall. Before the fall, we had stuff. After the fall, not so much – it was a fight to survive to tomorrow.

  Jeff’s analysis and technical portrayal of the WWDE is based on the real world. That’s what makes it so scary. It is plausible.

  I hope that it is unlikely, but in any case, I live in the interior of Alaska, almost off the grid, but I do like my coffee.

  And toilet paper with flush toilets.

  Outside of that, though, I’m hard core!

  How does one come back from such a great loss as we see in the WWDE? Slowly and with tragic suffering. After five Terry Henry books, we are not even twenty-five years past the fall and the number of possible story arcs blossoms as people all over the world are fighting to come back, to return to civilization.

  Jeff sent me his bio, but I had to rewrite it for him. Here’ what I came up with.

  Jeff Morris is hard core Army, descended from a family of soldiers. He's dropped trouser in all corners of the earth, put his grubby fingers on unbelievable classified materials, and saved the world more often than Dr. Who. He is currently fighting the cyber war like Tron - taking on the Master Control Program and its evil foreign minions in defense of the American homeland, day in, day out. Jeff never sleeps.

  What do you think?

  Here’s Jeff’s real one-paragraph biography.

  Jeff Morris is 2nd generation military and currently serves in the US Army. He started his career in combat arms and over the years has served in many different types of units, giving him a broad knowledge of military operations. He’s been around long enough to see the Iron Curtain, watch the fall of the ‘Wall’, trudge the sands of the Middle East and live through the rise of Internet. His current passions include quantum information and cyber security, and uses that knowledge to think dark thoughts about just how fragile our technological world could be.

  I like my version better, but his is probably more accurate from a technical standpoint, but I’m a fiction author. I can’t be constrained within those tight walls. There’s always a better story to be told. Let me tell you about that time I was elbow deep in ….

  If you liked this story, you might like some of my other books. You can join my mailing list by dropping by my website www.craigmartelle.com or if you have any comments, shoot me a note at craig@craigmartelle.com. I am always happy to hear from people who’ve read my work. I try to answer every email I receive.

  Amazon – www.amazon.com/author/craigmartelle

  Facebook – www.facebook.com/authorcraigmartelle

  My web page – www.craigmartelle.com

  Twitter – www.twitter.com/rick_banik

  Thank you for reading the World’s Worst Day Ever and hopefully you’ve dug into the Terry Henry Walton Chronicles, too!

  Author Notes – Michael Anderle commenting on Jeff’s Author Notes

  Written April 9th, 2017

  (**Cause this shit is fun!)

  Mike - Now, I’m not a revisionist history sort of person…

  BUT!

  I would like to provide my OWN feedback on Jeff’s recollections.

  I could just tell you my side of the story, and allow you, the awesome reader to realize my own memory is probably the better between the two of ours.

  I mean, who the hell is going to believe a man who studies and teaches and memorizes more stuff than I forget each day over an author who makes shit up for a living?

  See! That was an easy decision.

  Oh… Wait…Yeah… Ok, I’m screwed.

  In my defense (no, really, hang with me here while I weave a large amount of Bullshit to cover my antics) I’m going to make this as truthful as I remember…

  Ready?

  HERE WE GO!

  ---

  How does one go about ending the world? Well, it’s all Michael Anderle’s fault. (**Dude, you reached out to me! How can one say it is my fault when you spoke to me first? Isn’t that like the original sin or something where we can all get to heaven and then track Adam down and say “Really Dude? Couldn’t you keep you mouth shut just ONE time?”)

  No really! (**Yes really!)

  Many books ago, our intrepid author decided to kill of a minor character (It’s Hell to Choose)…really, minor, right?

  So after he goes and kills off one of the series most loved characters (**How the HELL was I supposed to know Michael was so beloved? I mean, the guy was kind of a dick for so many novels and stuff. I figured … Well, ok, I figured wrong), using a nuclear bomb (yet another incredibly short-sighted decision), he receives a hailstorm of feedback from the readers. I’ll let you guess how that went.

  (**Ok, it was a BACK PACK NUKE. I researched that information for a long time. Very small amount of mushroom cloud. I had the sides of the valley that were in the story to help (I thought) restrain the worst of the explosion. OH MY GOD, Right behind killing off favorite characters (and having pictures of your characters with their fingers on the triggers) is Don’t use nuclear devices inside the United States in stories. Someone should be putting this stuff up on the internet under “Shit you fiction authors shouldn’t do!”)

  So he asks me to help him out of his “I used a nuke in the United States” problem (**I begged, I didn’t ask) and we started talking one night about nuclear weapon effects, fallout, radiation, EMP and other such stuff (** I remember it being mid-morning as I was sitting on the couch for the lower level bar area in the Red Rock Casino, Las Vegas near the front desk). Somewhere in that conversation we discussed the effect EMP would have on computers and that lead to my ranting on how fragile modern infrastructure could be to such a weapon.

  But I told him that would be doing the hard way, as corrupting the computer hardware supply chain could be much easier. This lead to other discussions, as he tried to figure how to not get lynched by the mob of angry readers and bring back the missing beloved character.

  Michael gets the idea of having a dystopian future that our intrepid hero finds himself once he returns, then asks me what did I think would have happened to have to create that future?

  Oh boy! Fun times! I get to destroy the world for Michael? Sign me up! (** Of course, I didn’t realize this was asking the dark man of the horrible dreams to feed my mind horrible and horribly accurate knowledge.)

  That’s not to say I dream of earth-shattering kabooms™ on a daily basis (** I bet he does – and Marvin the Martian is one of my favorite Looney Tunes characters), but I have spent some time thinking about it.

  Why? Well, it’s sort of my job to think about it. I’ve spent many years in the military, where I had training in nuclear weapons and surviving a nuclear battlefield, and some of my jobs were thinking about what could go wrong.

  (** Now, I didn’t KNOW that Jeff was into Nuclear when I reached out in sheer panic. I KNEW he was teaching at West Point in Cyber-Warfare. Then, he explains all of his Nuke knowledge and the clouds parted and the angels started singing ‘Hosanna’ … I can NOT explain how much shit I was getting for that little itty-bitty backpack nuke.)

  The military likes to have a plan for everything because it’s easier to adapt a plan in a crisis than create one on the spot. So yes, there are probably plans for the zombie apocalypse and an alien invasion (** OMG! If anyone in the current military UPPER infrastructure could put that shit up in Amazon on Kindle Unlimited, we (the readers) would probably make you a fucking #1 Bestselling book and you could take the money and buy another couple of tanks with it… Just a suggestion.) My current job lets me think about the worse things that could happen if a cyberwar started.

  So Michael let me run with it…starting with a year that is (close to) today and moving 400
years into the future. I spent some time researching EMP, cyber warfare, global warming, nuclear power, hydro graphics, rainfall patterns and all kinds of other details. (** I had NO idea that he was going to put so much into this – but I am HUGELY grateful. Holy crap! My concern that I told Jeff was ‘we are going to go through a bad time here. If the fans gave me shit over a tiny backpack nuke in the US, what the hell are they going to do with weather patterns after WWDE?’)

  Fun!

  Then I set the stage for what else? The World’s Worst Day Ever. I don’t remember who coined that title in the group, but it stuck.

  Once I had a draft document, Michael tells me not only is he going to use the story as his basis for the future books, he had this mad plan to share his universe with other authors and they would use it also. So he wanted me to turn my admittedly technical document into a story.

  I then reminded him I write technical documents, not stories. (** He shafted my ass HAHAHAHA.)

  So he asked Craig to add some human elements into my story and we had to then check our details to match published material, because Michael had another great idea ™…let’s publish WWDE as a story, so here we are.

  Michael and his great ideas…

  (**Aww, c’mon fans! I wanted YOU to have a chance to see and read one of the untold stories that has helped make the WWDE age, the Age of Madness and Age of Magic what it is… And, if you are like me, to have a few shitty nights of sleep – Hope you like this – Michael.)

  Best Regards,

  Michael Anderle

  The Terry Henry Walton Chronicles

  A Kurtherian Gambit Series

  Book 1 – Nomad Found