Geostorm The Collapse: A Post Apocalyptic EMP Survival Thriller (The Geostorm Series Book 3)

by Bobby Akart

Levi clenched his teeth, and the death grip on his rifle caused his knuckles to turn white. He stood and made his way toward the wheelhouse.

  A dim light emanating from the boat’s navigation control panel filled the cramped space. A solitary man stood behind the ship’s wheel, smoking a cigarette and periodically chuckling as the activities below him continued.

  Sadistic bastards, Levi thought to himself.

  He turned his rifle in his hands and readied the buttstock to be used as a club. He eased up to the door, and when the man began to take a drag on his cigarette, Levi swung the door open and crashed the butt of his rifle into the back of the man’s head. He was still coherent and flailing on the floor of the wheelhouse when Levi struck him again in the face, crushing his nose and splattering blood all over the floor. Unconscious, the man’s body struggled to breathe through his broken nose.

  During the brief struggle, Levi didn’t notice that the attacks on the women below had ceased. He pivoted toward a louvered door that led downward into the hull of the ship. He turned the stainless-steel latch, and just as it released, it flung open and slammed into his bruised knees.

  Levi recoiled from the door and fell back against the inside of the wheelhouse. It proved to be just the advantage his attackers needed.

  Two husky, shirtless men sped up the steps and pounced on Levi. Their fists pounded him with blow after blow until the wind was knocked out of him.

  Incapacitated, one of the men dragged Levi onto the deck while the other one kicked him mercilessly. Levi’s eyes began to swell up from the beatdown, and he had difficulty seeing.

  Through the pounding, he heard the scream of one of the women coming from the wheelhouse. Like a banshee’s shriek, the naked woman ran through the doorway and crashed into Levi’s attackers. She wrapped her arms around the smaller man’s throat and began to pound her forehead against the back of his head.

  Levi saw an opening. He kicked his right leg in a roundhouse-style move that knocked the larger man off his feet. He hit the deck with a thud, causing him to groan in pain. Levi didn’t hesitate as he scrambled onto his hands and knees. He began to punch his attacker, but in his weakened state, they had little effect on the larger man.

  Within seconds, the two fishermen had the upper hand once again. One was pulling the woman’s hair and beating her around the chest. The other continued to kick Levi before standing him up and punching him hard in the stomach, once again knocking the breath out of him.

  “The hell with it,” grumbled the larger man. “Throw them both overboard.”

  The younger man was still wrestling with the woman, who was trying everything she could to break away from his grip. “Why her?”

  “She fights too much,” the other man replied. “Besides, the other one understands the deal.”

  The larger man grabbed Levi by the back of the shirt and dragged him to the edge of the boat. After smacking Levi’s head against the railing for one final punishing blow, he pushed him into the fifty-eight-degree waters of Lake Huron.

  Levi immediately sank beneath the surface. He’d held his breath on the way down the best he could as his body suffered from the beating. He pushed his arms downward in a swimming motion, displacing the water and using the buoyancy of his body to pull himself back up to the surface. He was almost there when the woman’s body landed on top of him.

  She was not heavy, but she was thrown in headfirst. Her skull crashed into Levi’s at the precise location where the knot had grown from the four-wheeler crash. The sudden jolt to his brain almost caused him to black out underwater.

  He was forced downward as the momentum of her body dragged him several feet below the surface. He grabbed her around the waist to keep from losing her in the dark, murky lake waters. Using all the strength he could muster, he forcibly kicked his feet to push them upwards until, finally, they broke the surface.

  With his right arm wrapped around her waist, Levi struggled to stay afloat. He treaded water the best he could using his left arm and legs, thanking God that the woman was knocked unconscious and not fighting him.

  Levi looked around to get his bearings. He couldn’t see anything resembling a shoreline. The boat was idling thirty yards away from them, and the shadows of the men periodically crossed a light that had been turned on near the entrance to the wheelhouse. He began to wonder if they’d changed their minds and would be circling around to pull them out of the water.

  For several tense seconds, Levi watched the activity on the back of the boat. The men argued and shouted at one another. Then the next sound was truly unmistakable. He’d heard it a thousand times. It was the report of a rifle.

  A bullet whizzed by his head and swooshed through the water. Another shot rang out and missed in front of them.

  Levi frantically pulled the unconscious woman away from the boat, lying on his back and kicking with all the energy he could muster to get away from the men’s attempts to murder them. The gunfire continued. Round after round, missing all around them.

  Levi kept pushing away. He stretched twenty yards to thirty. And then forty. With the greater distance, he was feeling more confident that the shooter would miss. Then he heard one of the men shout, “Gimme that!”

  Another shot rang out. There was no splash. No sound of the bullet forcing its way through the water. Only the stinging, burning sensation of his right arm as the bullet ripped through his forearm and embedded in the chest of the woman whose life he’d tried to save, only for her now dead body to save his.

  Chapter 30

  The Aleutian Islands

  The Bering Sea

  Alaska

  The Aleutian Islands stretch from North America far into the Pacific Ocean like stepping-stones to Asia. They form an island barrier between the Bering Sea to the north and the North Pacific Ocean to their south, affecting climatic currents of both air and water. As the warm waters of the Alaskan Stream circle the Gulf of Alaska, they are channeled toward Russia to the west. The islands also influence air currents, creating swirling moisture-filled cloud eddies in the Bering Sea that create a continuous counterclockwise rotation.

  Fifty-five million years ago, the Pacific tectonic plate rubbed against the North American plate, giving rise to the famous San Andreas and Denali strike-slip faults, vertical fractures featuring horizontal movements of granite.

  However, in Alaska, these two plates meet head-on, pushing into one another like two equally powerful immovable objects. Where this underwater scrum of massive solid rock pushes against each other, the ocean plate melted and the molten rock pushed to the surface to create a string of forty active volcanoes—the Aleutian Islands.

  Rock Winters, an appropriately named research geologist with the United States Geological Survey, USGS, had led the team at the Alaska Science Center for two decades as they monitored and studied the Aleutian subduction zone.

  He rarely stayed in the Anchorage offices of the USGS. He preferred fieldwork, as most geologists do. Besides the Anchorage location, he bounced between Fairbanks, Juneau, and the field office situated on Skan Bay on Unalaska Island. Winters had been instrumental in establishing the Unalaska Field Office following two major geologic events there.

  In 1957, a tsunami was generated when the convergent plate boundary along the Aleutian Trench generated a magnitude 8.6 underwater earthquake. While the quake itself didn’t cost anyone their lives, the damages in Alaska were significant. But nothing compared to the damage that occurred in Hawaii, three thousand miles away. The tsunami grew in strength and height as it crossed the Pacific Ocean, prompting a warning from the Seismic Sea Wave Warning System. By the time the wave reached the island of Kauai, it stood over fifty feet tall and crashed into the coast with incredible force. Homes and businesses were destroyed in Oahu and throughout the islands.

  It was the 1964 Great Alaska Earthquake that Winters used to justify the field office at Unalaska. The earthquake rupture started underground, seventy-five miles east of Anchorage, and stretched across the Aleut
ian Trench for over a hundred miles. The four-and-a-half-minute quake shook Alaskans to their core, and geologic studies revealed the megathrust quake, registering a magnitude of 9.2, was the second largest earthquake in recorded history next to the magnitude 9.5 Chilean megaquake in 1960.

  Until now.

  Winters remained on Unalaska Island despite orders from his superiors at the USGS to return to his home in Anchorage. He was a dedicated geologist, and when reports began to circulate in the scientific community of unusual geologic occurrences around the globe, Winters saw this as a unique opportunity to study the impact the pole shift might have on the Aleutian subduction zone.

  Manning the station alone, he was cut off from the world due to radio interference and the loss of satellite communications. The Unalaska field office was completely off the grid, operating on a substantial solar array and stocked with supplies for the permanent team to live on throughout the winter months.

  His first indication of seismic activity began with a series of continuous, slow earthquakes throughout the length of the subduction zone. The Aleutian Islands were typically active as these long-lasting, relatively benign quakes took place along the boundary between the two powerful tectonic plates.

  Winters always likened the action between the plates as someone grinding their teeth together when anxious. The upper jaw was equally as powerful as the lower jaw. The upper teeth and lower teeth might continue to joust with one another for supremacy, but neither would win, and eventually, both would lose as the teeth ground down to the gums.

  These slow earthquakes, as geologists called them, could be as large as a magnitude 7 and could last from days to even years. They took place at the boundary of the plates and oftentimes happened so slowly that people didn’t feel them. While geologists began to accept these frequent, slow earthquakes, Winters rightfully pointed out there had been four massive earthquakes registering magnitude 8 or greater in the last century.

  And now his readings indicated another one was building.

  Winters, an avid coffee drinker, stayed wired on adrenaline most of his day. If he didn’t already have a cool name, Rock, bestowed upon him by his mother, who was a huge fan of the actor Rock Hudson, Winters could easily be called Speedy.

  Speedy Winters, certainly an oxymoron as it related to Alaska, until now.

  When there was seismic activity underfoot, his adrenaline kicked in, and he bounced around a dozen monitoring stations in the Unalaska facility, talking to himself and shouting his findings even though he was alone.

  For nearly two hours, he’d detected near-continuous tremor activity using seismic arrays located on the ocean floor to constantly scan the subsurface for activity. Known as beam back projection, the arrays determine from which direction the seismic signals originated and analyzed that information to locate the epicenter. The technology was so advanced it could track slow earthquakes minute by minute.

  Kinda like watching a train wreck unfold in slow motion.

  At first, Winters identified the tremor sources as clustered in two patches with a fifty-mile-wide gap between them. He deduced that the frictional properties of the Aleutian subduction zone were moving laterally along the fault.

  When a third patch appeared near Anchorage, Winters became concerned. The data was beginning to present a picture mirroring the Great Alaskan Earthquake of 1964. When a fourth and fifth patch appeared near the westernmost region of the Aleutian Islands, Winters wondered aloud whether this would be his day to die.

  It was, but not in the manner he envisioned.

  The tremor events evidenced by these low frequency earthquakes began to increase in strength. Building to a crescendo. Winters studied the data and quickly ran computer models.

  “The fluid activity is higher in the west than in the east, indicating a higher seismic slip rate,” he said calmly as if he were speaking with a coworker. “Look at these temperature readings from NOAA’s buoys. What do you make of that?”

  Winters wasn’t losing his mind, as so many others around the world were at the time. He was perfectly sane. He just needed somebody to talk to. He wanted a second opinion on his theory even if it was his own. To help the two sides of his brain decide, he immediately turned to the geologic record found on the USGS servers at Unalaska.

  He frantically searched for answers. He mumbled the data aloud in an effort to vocalize the information as he tried to compare it to past events.

  “There!” he shouted. “Oh-eight!”

  As in 1908, not 2008. In July of 1908, the Albatross, a medium-sized double-masted cutter, had been cruising the Aleutian Islands when the Bering Sea began to swell into a dome measuring two hundred feet tall by a thousand feet wide.

  It bulged and bulged until the dome ruptured, releasing a plume of gas and steam that spewed upward. The Bering Sea burped that day as an underwater volcano released a cloud of carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and water vapor, rising to the surface. As this gaseous bubble breached the surface, it destabilized and exploded into the sky.

  Winters studied the data and made his way to a large map of the Aleutians posted on the wall. He compared the coordinates. He grabbed a compass, not the kind you use to show direction, not that they were reliable anyway, but the kind with a pencil attached to create a circle around a point.

  He plotted the data points one by one and then stood back to get a view of the whole picture. One island stood at the center of his data points—Bogoslof.

  Bogoslof was one of the tinier islands in the Aleutian chain, at least as far as the eye could see above water. The base of the island was wide and fairly shallow, at one hundred feet below sea level.

  In late 2016, the island began gurgling up magma from the sea floor. The intensity of the eruption was minor, and the lava quickly cooled to form a cap over the vent, sealing in the volcanic gases. Over the next few years, the pressure beneath this cap would grow, the scab of hardened lava would fracture, and the underwater volcanic matter would release slightly. Soon afterwards, the lava would cool and form another scab.

  Winters dispatched an underwater drone to Bogoslof from one of the many unmanned floating platforms installed by the USGS in recent years. The drone was capable of measuring temperatures, taking seismic readings, and providing a continuous camera feed that bounced off antennas located on the platforms.

  Once it was in position, Winters observed the bubbles ascend to the surface. The cap had been breached once again. This time, however, they didn’t disconnect from the newly opened vent as a nice, clean spherical shape. Nor were they small bubbles like one might visualize in a glass of champagne. These bubbles were different, unlike any he’d observed from the frequently opening vents along the Aleutian subduction zone.

  He likened them to someone using those large circular wands to create one long bubble in the air, only there was one after another being emitted from the ocean floor. These bubbles, some of which were seven hundred feet wide, flexed and shrank as they fought the atmospheric changes on their trip to the surface. The Bering Sea pulled them in one direction while the noxious gases pushed back in a continuous struggle of Earth’s natural forces.

  Then the bubbles reached the surface and destroyed themselves. As they reached the surface, the gaseous walls, several feet thick, tried to maintain their shape. But gravity pulled on the surrounding water, causing it to rush down the side of the bubble dome. When the domes ruptured, a jet of hot gas and ash was thrust miles into the air.

  More of the domes reached the surface. From the remaining operating satellites in low-Earth orbit, it appeared that the Bering Sea was boiling. To Rock Winters, who lived for the opportunity to witness such an incredible geologic event, it was a momentous occasion.

  He ran outside and made his way to the rooftop of the USGS facility. He covered his eyes and peered to the west, searching for Bogoslof Island. It was easy to find. It was the one in the middle of the boiling stewpot.

  He was mesmerized. Lost in the moment. Initially, he didn’t n
otice the tremor building underground. He’d focused on covering his nose and mouth to avoid the deadly gases that spewed into the sky. He watched more of the massive dome bubbles pop to the surface and burst.

  Then, in an explosion that rivaled the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Bogoslof Island ceased to exist and a massive void was created in the Bering Sea as the first of four volcanic eruptions along the Aleutian subduction zone changed the face of the North Pacific.

  And Rock Winters experienced it all until the Aleutian Islands were consumed by the sea.

  Chapter 31

  Chicago, Illinois

  Tommy slapped the steering wheel in frustration. “Kristi, this is ridiculous. It’s taken hours to go a few miles. We’ll never get out of the city!”

  Kristi sighed. She immediately felt guilty for the way she’d handled the men at his condominium building. “Well, we can’t go back, thanks to me. Do you wanna try my place?”

  Tommy slowly shook his head. “It was pretty much destroyed, and frankly, we might’ve been safer back there except for the assholes who took charge. No, we did the right thing. We’ve just gotta be patient and keep our eyes open.”

  He’d taken as many side streets as he could to get away from the inner city. Congestion, both vehicular and pedestrian, seemed to be heaviest near the lakefront. Periodically, someone would attempt to stop their car and beg for food. As the day wore on, they’d become increasingly aggressive. As they beat on the windshield, Kristi hesitated to wave a gun in their faces for fear they’d pull a weapon of their own.

  In the waning daylight, Kristi and Tommy were feeling apprehensive about the coming nightfall. They both felt safer on their own than dealing with the condo association people. But now they were able to see just how hellish the City of Chicago had become since the power plug was pulled.

  Shattered storefronts. Overturned and burning cars. Blood-smeared sidewalks. And dead bodies. The night would bring more of the same, and both of them knew it.