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

by Bobby Akart

  As the blackout stretched on for days, the community’s attitude soured. Complaints turned to protests, which in turn became riots. Societal collapse had come to Mayor Pete’s fair city, and he was none too happy about it. He was also frustrated.

  He had no direct line to the White House, needless to say, and the governor of Indiana offered no words of solace. Indianapolis had begun to fall apart two days before South Bend began to experience the dark side of human behavior. The response he’d received from the governor’s office was just deal with it.

  So that was just what he intended to do. He’d reached out to the mayors of Fort Wayne and Muncie, who refused to go along with open rebellion against the president at first. After meeting with the regional law enforcement personnel, he approached the management team of I&M. He told them to initiate the black start plan for South Bend.

  They refused, and then he threatened to have them arrested, knowing full well he had no basis for doing so. When that didn’t work, he bribed them, sort of. He called an emergency meeting of South Bend’s mayor-council government. In a hastily prepared, secretive location, Mayor Pete, the city clerk, and a quorum of the city’s common council members who were politically aligned with the mayor voted unanimously to grant I&M one hundred percent tax waivers on all utility-owned real estate in St. Joseph county, a savings of millions of dollars over the next twenty years.

  Mayor Pete immediately boasted about his arrangements to the mayor of Fort Wayne, who reconsidered his initial refusal to participate in the black start plan without the president’s approval. Fort Wayne, a city twice the size of South Bend, was beginning to experience the kind of unrest found in larger cities like Indianapolis, and nearby Ohio cities like Toledo.

  Fort Wayne officials moved forward with a similar proposal to I&M. With the resolution passed and entered into the minutes by the city clerk, the executives of I&M also asked for, and received, food and supplies from the Allen County food bank together with round-the-clock police protection from local law enforcement. They happily restarted the generators, and soon, both the South Bend and Fort Wayne metropolitan areas were open for business.

  And word spread like wildfire.

  Mayor Pete never imagined that a nation without power, and therefore no means to effectively engage in communications, could announce the news as quickly as it did. But word got around, and people from as far away as Kentucky and all the other adjoining states began to migrate toward Northern Indiana in search of food, medical attention, and safety.

  The well-intentioned Mayor Pete had opened up a can of worms that he couldn’t put the lid back on, even if he wanted to.

  Chapter 45

  Fort Wayne, Indiana

  If one were aboard the International Space Station on a clear day, they’d look down upon the American Midwest and see what appeared to be thousands of ants traveling to a single mound—Fort Wayne, Indiana. Like a magnet drawing in metal shavings, vehicles and pedestrians came from all directions to descend upon the city of a quarter million people. By the hour, as the word spread to adjoining states, thousands of refugees streamed into town in search of food, shelter, and medical attention.

  Despite defying the president’s executive orders to shut down its power grid, the city was receiving kudos from some within Washington, including the FEMA director. Seeing this as an opportunity to help a large number of people without venturing into the dangerous big cities, FEMA directed its recovery assets toward Fort Wayne.

  Convoys of trucks came from nearby Toledo, Indianapolis, Gary, and Louisville to assist. Temporary housing was established on the outskirts of Fort Wayne in an attempt to keep the refugees from clogging up the roadways as they aimlessly searched for help.

  One of these trucks found itself parked outside Lutheran Downtown Hospital, an acute care facility that had recently been expanded to a hundred beds, just in time for the apocalypse.

  Prior to the agreement between the mayor and Indiana Michigan Power to provide electricity to the region in contravention of the president’s order, Lutheran used its large generators to provide power to the six-suite operating room and its critical care units. As the days passed, the hospital administrators watched with consternation as the long-term outage drained the fuel supplies necessary to keep the generators operating. They’d shut down the operating rooms and found themselves treating critical care patients without the benefit of electricity. Therefore, they saw the decision by the mayor and the power company to initiate their localized black start plan as a blessing.

  The gurney burst through the emergency room entrance, pushed by two men wearing blue coveralls and an emergency room nurse. Outside, a cacophony of voices screamed to anyone who would listen to let them in or to inquire about loved ones.

  “That’s nuts, brother,” one of the men said to the other.

  “No kiddin’,” added the other man. “We almost ran over a dozen of them just to save this half-dead fella.”

  An attending physician assigned to the ER greeted them with her stethoscope in hand. “What’ve we got?” she asked as she approached. She arrived at the patient’s side and immediately covered her nose.

  “Nothing short of roadkill,” replied one of the drivers.

  “Who are you, sir?”

  “Chuck Taylor.”

  “Medical unit?” she asked as she pulled the patient’s shirt open and listened to the patient’s heartbeat. She also checked his pulse. She muttered to herself, “Alive, but just barely.”

  He paused before responding, “No, ma’am. We’re with the direct-response team. We’re delivering supplies to the Allen County Fairgrounds for disbursement to the refugees.”

  “Yeah, if those people don’t steal the whole damn truck first,” said the other driver.

  “Any ID?” the doctor asked, ignoring the other man’s snide remark.

  “Nope,” the driver curtly replied. He shoved his hands into his pockets and shrugged before continuing. “We’d heard reports the roads were littered with dead bodies just like this one. Um, honestly, I thought he was dead. We almost ran over him and only stopped because he was in the way. I didn’t wanna squish a corpse and have to clean up the mess later.”

  The doctor gave the man a disapproving look and turned to the male nurse. “Please get these clothes off him immediately.”

  “Doc, all the exam rooms are full,” he said after glancing around.

  “Just find him a spot in the hallway. Do you know how to suture?”

  “I’ve been practicing on the pig cadavers.”

  “Good, same thing. He’s severely dehydrated, so start a normal saline IV. Clean his wound and stitch him up. If you have trouble with the sutures, find me or someone who knows what they’re doing.”

  “What about pain meds?” the nurse asked.

  She pulled open the man’s eyelids and flashed her penlight to assess his pupil response. “Nah, can’t risk it. He could be strung out. At least he doesn’t smell drunk like so many others.”

  “He smelled like death to us,” said the truck driver. “I don’t think the cab of our rig will ever be the same.”

  The doctor had had enough of the denigrating remarks from the two drivers. She addressed them in a snarky, condescending tone of voice. “Gentlemen, thank you for using your better judgment and helping this man. I’m sure he appreciates it, and God will bless you for it.”

  “Um, yeah, sure. No problem.” The men cowered backwards toward the door and left to fight their way through the mob outside the emergency room entrance.

  “Doctor! We need you in OR three, stat!” shouted a nurse at the reception desk. Without further instructions, the doctor hustled down the hall, shoving her way through the throngs of needy patients and their families.

  The male nurse, who’d just been hired a month ago after completing a nursing assistant program at Ross Medical Education Center in town, stood next to his patient for a moment and then glanced around at the chaotic scene in the ER admitting room.


  A man was vomiting blood into a silk plant container in the corner. A pregnant woman was in labor, clutching her husband’s hand as she screamed. A young shirtless boy sat alone in a chair, reading a Dr. Seuss book. His shoulders and arms were covered with red welts that could’ve been symptomatic of anything from poison ivy to measles. A drunk with a gash in his head had passed out, or died, under a row of seats against the wall.

  The nurse wasn’t interested in removing the soiled, bloody clothes of the bearded man. They reeked of dead animal, or people, or both. The crusty blood was gross. He’d do what the doctor requested, sort of.

  He wheeled the patient down the hall and pushed him in line with another half dozen passed out or barely incoherent people on gurneys. Using surgical scissors, he cut off the man’s shirtsleeve to reveal his arm. Then he looked around for an IV stand.

  He made his way down the hospital hallway until he came to a young man who was also wearing hunting clothes. He too was covered in dried blood, and his beard was full of crusty sputum. He felt the man’s neck for a pulse.

  He was dead.

  “Sorry, man, you won’t need this anymore.” He glanced around to see if he was being observed by anyone. Satisfied that the chaos in the ER masked his activities, he jerked the IV out of the arm of the dead hunter and rolled the IV stand down to the new patient. After several tries, he successfully inserted the IV into the new patient, grabbed a blanket off another gurney, and covered him up. Then he patted the patient on the head.

  “Have a nice sleep.”

  Chapter 46

  Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station

  Antarctica

  Dr. Amber Hagood had given up trying to get a restful sleep without the use of the sleeping aid Ambien. Since she’d discovered the extraordinarily cold temperatures in Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia, Australia, and West Central Africa, her further analysis confirmed her quadrupolar theory. This led to a flurry of activity and sleepless nights. Only the sleep aid could force her body to shut down and recover for another day.

  She began to reach out to her contemporaries around the globe, at least those who still had electricity. Prior to the solar storm in France and the subsequent intentional disconnecting of the power in the States, her primary scientific contacts were in those two nations. Now she focused on Japan and Australia as she shared her data with geologists and climatologists.

  In just a few days, Antarctica had changed dramatically. The air above the continent had suddenly grown warmer. Using weather balloons and satellite readings, Dr. Hagood determined that the South Pole was rapidly heating due to a phenomenon called sudden stratospheric warming.

  As the Antarctic winter ended and the summer approached, her forecast model predicted a twenty-degree rise in temperatures. After the last few days, she was prepared to scrap her old model and start over. The rapid rise in temperatures could be catastrophic for the world’s climate.

  Every winter, westerly winds in the stratosphere, moving at one hundred thirty miles per hour, developed above the South Pole and circled the polar region. In the last week, the temperatures had risen so rapidly that the winds dipped very low toward the surface of Antarctica, flowing directly over the mountains of ice.

  Dr. Hagood began to analyze the geological data of the continent. Two large cracks had formed in Western Antarctica’s Pine Island Glacier. This glacier is roughly the size of Manhattan. Another large fissure opened up that morning along the Larsen Ice Shelf extending along the east coast of the Antarctic Peninsula. If the opening deepened, it was likely a glacier of roughly seven thousand square miles in size would break off and float into the Southern Ocean.

  Dr. Hagood was able to get through to her counterparts at NOAA, who accessed the European Space Agency’s satellites—Copernicus Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2. The geologic reports were confirmed by the satellite observations.

  With the help of NOAA and Australia’s Climate Prediction Center, she determined the calving incidents, as the breakaways were called, were the result of warming ocean currents and the unusually warm upper-level winds. As a result, more calving was probable as the warming water melted Antarctica’s glaciers from underneath and the high-temperature winds prevented the ice from replenishing itself.

  Dr. Hagood ran more hypotheticals based upon the newly acquired data. She was able to produce a time-lapse model showing the impact these warming temperatures would have on Antarctica. The result was astonishing. Within two years, the continent would break apart, sending mountains of ice adrift toward Australia, South Africa, and Argentina. If they didn’t completely melt first.

  The natural consequence of the polar ice melt was exponentially rising sea levels. As sea levels rise, shorelines recede, and not just along beaches and ocean coastlines. Any fresh water tributary that dumps into the world’s seas and oceans would also rise as the waters increase in elevation.

  Destructive erosion and wetland flooding would be just the beginning. Disappearance of the planet’s land mass would naturally follow.

  This was what kept Dr. Amber Hagood up at night.

  Chapter 47

  Riverfront Farms

  Southeast Indiana

  Chapman and Isabella had stepped up their patrols as word of the people crossing from Kentucky into Indiana at nearby Mauckport reached Riverfront Farms. The news of Fort Wayne and South Bend restarting their power grids had given many a false hope that the ordeal was almost over. Chapman and Isabella knew better, and they suspected that the isolated occurrence was premature.

  Thus far, other than reports of attempted thefts of gasoline and food, no physical altercations had been reported. The residents of Southeast Indiana were nervous as the throngs of travelers grew each hour.

  Chapman asked the farmhands to extend their security shifts, and everyone stepped up to help out. The employees of Riverfront Farms were like family. Most of them had been with the Boones for years. Some had been married on the property, and others had children who’d been raised there since birth.

  Isabella was riding the four-wheeler along the river, and Chapman had taken a horse to the westernmost part of the farm to both hunt and patrol. He was nearly a mile from the main house when he heard a gunshot.

  With the forest and rising hills to the west, sound traveled in odd ways. It was difficult for him to discern which direction the gunshot came from. In the distance, he could hear the pitched whine of the four-wheeler, and Isabella seemed to be moving quickly. Instinctively, Chapman dug his heels into the horse and urged it back toward the house.

  Another gunshot, followed by a single long blast on the horn, sent his adrenaline levels surging. A single blast meant there was a problem at the house and it involved gunfire.

  It took Chapman several minutes to race through the trails in the woods and then finally onto the dirt roads found throughout the farm. He raced past the barn and struggled to slow his horse as he sped up to the porch. Isabella was waiting for him.

  “I heard shots!” he shouted before he dismounted.

  “They were only a call for help by your mother. Please hurry.” She turned and ran inside the house.

  Chapman tied off the horse to the railing and ran inside with his rifle ready to shoot. He was leaving nothing to chance. Once inside, he found his father lying on the couch, doubled over in pain, with the Boone women plus Isabella trying to comfort him.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  His mother turned to him and raised her arms. “I’ve given him some pain meds, but they expired last year. They may have lost some potency, but they’re something.”

  “Mom, what’s wrong with him?”

  “We don’t know, son. Apparently, this has been comin’ on for some time, and your stubborn father thought it would be best not to worry anybody. Now he’s in terrible pain and we don’t have a doctor to help him.”

  “What are his symptoms?” asked Chapman.

  Sarah sighed, and then tears began to stream down her face. She glanced toward the stairs and
saw Rachel and Jesse eavesdropping. First, she turned to Carly before returning her attention back to Chapman. “Carly, the kids.”

  Carly quickly ushered the kids back upstairs, and Isabella stayed by Squire’s side, holding a wet cloth to his head. His face was reddened with fever.

  “He’s so stubborn,” Sarah continued as she wiped the tears off her face. “He said at first he noticed a loss of appetite and fatigue. He thought he just had a bug or something or that it was because he was getting old. He started losing weight, which I noticed. But I didn’t think anything of it. What he didn’t tell me was that he was having a lot of diarrhea, extreme cramping, and, recently, blood in his stool.”

  “Geez, Mom. How long has this been goin’ on?”

  “More than two months.”

  Chapman closed his eyes and tilted his head back. He opened them, looked at the ceiling, and shook his head in disbelief. He hugged his mom briefly and then led her back to his dad’s side.

  “Isabella, what do you think?”

  “He is burning up with a fever,” she replied and then pressed his lower stomach. “Feel this. It is so hard, but he has not had any food today. He needs to go to a hospital.”

  Chapman rolled his eyes. “Ordinarily, we could be there in twenty minutes or so. I’ve already been told that the clinic in Corydon is closed. I have no idea where the doctors live. Do you, Mom?”

  “No, son, I don’t. But I have an idea.”

  “What?”

  “We’ve learned the power’s on in Fort Wayne. It’s a four-hour drive, but he could get treated there.”

  Chapman ran his fingers through his hair and stared down at his dad, who was coherent but doubled over in pain. The medications from his mother weren’t helping him.