Earth Lost Without Power

by L. S. Wood

  He wanted to know in very much detail the crew’s treatment and just how well they all had survived in such a little capsule trapped in space, and what did they all do to pass the time away for fun, and not so much fun for a year, etc. When Ann had finally satisfied the president’s appetite with the stupefaction of space, he turned his conversation to the many horrible happenings that had occurred down here below and had taken place on Earth that past deadly day along with all the mixed offensive days that followed.

  When the president began his lengthy conversation and speech, it was mostly about the grief the Russian leaders had caused who had ordered the scores of unsafe missiles launched into space and the grief it caused their own people. One quarter of the entire Russian population annihilated by the faulty weaponry their so wonderful leaders at the time, mandated into hurried fruition. Their new greedy leaders all died along with many others around the earth when those damn rockets all returned back to the Earth. By the time they pushed that damn panic button it was already too late for the innocent people down here.

  The emergency button exploded them all in our atmosphere. Too bad all the self-installed Russian leaders died that day along with so many innocent Russians. It would have served them right to have lived long enough to see what they had done to their own people. All the missiles had reentered the atmosphere, he said, and set out their weaponry of destruction when the final decision came to destroy them. If they were to have been detonated in space, nothing would have happened down here on the earth, and he explained how she would have possibly not have been standing there along with them that instant.

  The world would never be the same he inferred, and it would take at least another ten or twenty years or more before the people of the world would get accustomed to this new way of life they had all been thrown into. The strong willed people around the world he said, would survive the many inconveniences of the neutron invasion, and the frail people with internal vises of unworthiness would dominate their weaknesses into enslaving themselves for others of the world as it has been since the beginning of time.

  President Stallman was really beginning to start and frighten the hell out of Ann with everything he was describing in detail, and she knew what he was saying to be the truth, but she almost did not want to hear it. Ben was lost in awe with his every word and did want him to stop talking, but Ann had had enough and was ready to leave before she even got there. When they left for the Grand Colonial Trader Hotel again, she was overwhelmingly pleased to be getting back to her journey going home.

  After having finally arrived back at the Grand Colonial Trader, with the children fed and safely tucked into their beds asleep, Ann wanted to talk more openly about everything that had transpired since she had been gone. She wanted to know just how life had been changed so on the Earth for the past several months for him and the rest of his and her family’s. She asked him flat out without any sugar coating applied to the question just how hard life had been on everyone.

  “Are people on Earth different now, Ben, and how different are they? Are they hot one day like a firecracker and cold the next like ice? Have things really changed as much as the President Stallman and the First Lady say they have? I want to know, Ben, I want to know right now.”

  “Everything on Earth is wearisome Ann, and downright frightful as hell to say the very least sweetheart. This creature, this thing occupying the air of our universe, in the life air we inhale lurking somewhere or everywhere like a devil in our skies over the earth, is our worst enemy. The Neutron force is an enemy to this world and to every last and all living creatures living on the face of this Earth and in its Sky. You or anyone could be just sitting lazily around for instance. Someone out in front of their house on the lawn just minding their own damned business, just trying to get a suntan, or just out watching the beauty of the stars on a warm summers night with a gentle breeze softly blowing. When suddenly from out of nowhere, this thing, this damn invisible creature from the heavens comes out of the sky striking whomever it damn well pleases or wants to, and thumps the life right out of them, and kills whatever other creatures it chooses.”

  “What do you mean it comes from nowhere and strikes you dead?”

  “Oh, it is as if lightning strikes someone but it really is not electricity. No one knows for sure what it really is or where this creature comes from. This invisible thing whatever it is just comes right out of nowhere and strikes its victims like millions of killer bees, and then they are gone.”

  “What do you mean they are gone? What do you mean, Ben, they just up and disappear, vanish, or die, or what do you mean?” “What I mean, sweetheart, you die, you pass away brutally in pain I guess. The scientists and doctors around the world are blaming it mostly on heart failure. That is all we hear, but most think that is a crock of bullshit.

  They all say that anyone who has ever been struck by this creature from the sky have all died from heart failure, but we know better, and so do they. They just don’t want to panic the whole damn world, but the ordinary people around this planet are just a damn bit smarter than to listen to those hypercritical suns-a-bitching lying bunch of bastards.”

  “You sure have changed the way you talk, Ben, and I am glad the girls are asleep, or at least I hope they are asleep anyway. Ann reached over and gave Ben a sweet peck on his cheek before he could continue on about the happenings taking place on the earth since the change. Well any way, Ann, everyone around the planet is starting to get street smart to this damn menacing creature of the universe. People everywhere are all starting to get wise to when and where this creature, if you want to call it a creature, might strike out at them.

  Myself as well as all the rest of the people around Lunenburg and the world even though we are not in the military or are studied scientists, are starting to learn and figure out this creature thing all on our own. We figured it out without the damned help of our government, who aren’t willing to help anyone anyway, it seems.

  I wanted to ask President Stallman just why the hell he didn’t care about the people of our country any longer, but I decided it not a good time to ask, and didn’t want to ruffle his aging feathers any for he seemed so caring when he spoke, but I saw right through that crap.”

  “What thing, up where, Ben? What do you mean killed by a creature living in our heavens?” “That is what I am trying to explain to you, Ann. Please listen! Life on earth has been like living in a bubble pushed up from hell ever since you and the others left from here.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Substitute Duty

  I was required to be your substitute, ordered by our own supposedly caring government, to go out and bury many of our thousands of dead citizens, along with the millions if not billions it seemed, of the dead animals around both wild and domestic by the thousands, after the devastation of those damn missiles.

  Whole towns around this country and the world completely wiped out, Ann, by all those Soviet missiles being all blown up at the same exact time. Not a single building anywhere was hurt or destroyed by the multitude of explosions, only the poor people and their animals, along with a whole bunch of the earth’s large bird population flying in the sky that day were also killed, along with every electrical producing field the earth had ever had.

  It seemed everything within the blast zone above the earth’s surface thirty or more feet or better above the surface of the ground completely wiped clean of life. Not a single moth or butterfly up in the air that day survived. It was just like living in a live episode of a Flash Gordon comic strip, or a Twilight Zone Movie, but this was the real thing, real to life for everyone living in it on the face of the earth that day. Everyone wishing it was nothing but a bad damn dream they were having, and were about to wake up from it all but we are not, and neither are we dreaming it.

  It was like an alien monster from outer space came sailing into our world that day and was going around from town to town to town, zapping
everything in its sights with their death destroying ray guns of grief leaving nothing alive in the wake of things.

  It was horrifying and devastating to so many people, Ann. Remember when President Stallman said to you, you were a hero? Not that you are not one and all that, but, you were probably one of the more blessed lucky ones to have been safe and sound out there in space with your crony friends in the Twitchel, and not stuck back here on Earth with the rest of us.

  Military Police from the damn airbase came around knocking door to door on every home throughout base housing, and took a bunch of us along with them. They even took Jeff, our retired sergeant neighbor. The bastards took gents young and old alike out of base housing along with us as volunteers. We were all very unwilling volunteers at the time.

  Those damned M.P.’s said we were considered as willing volunteers in their eyes having to help in the horrendous clean up in the several surrounding townships in the area.

  They said the several towns we had to help clean up were just outside surrounding the base, the lying bastards. None of us had a say in it if they wanted to help or not one way or another. They never asked whether they wanted to go as willing volunteers or objective volunteers and could stay at home with their or our kids.

  You being in the military and all, they said it was our duty, our civil obligation to fill in for you and yours in your absence. Fill your shoes or something stupid like that, and took me away, right along with a whole bunch the other not so happy civilians who I am sure didn’t want to leave their families as well, including the woman who didn’t have children just like me who didn’t want to leave our girls, but was made to do so anyway!

  You remember Sally next door, don’t you?” “Yes.” “Well anyway she took the two kids, I mean the girls while I was gone and watched over them for the four months that I was away. Those damn lying M.P. bastards told us it was just going to be for a few days helping in the cleaning up of some of the towns outside the main base gates. It turned out to be a whole hell of a lot longer than just a couple of days for us, and more than just the few towns outside the base the way they described it was going be.

  Many of us have been all over this country burying people and animals of all kinds, including zoo animals, birds, and the likes. We all began feeling like the satin’s morbid undertakers from hell doing all this crap. We had to bury little innocent children along with their parents and grandparents that all died in the same house. It has been like living in a hell of death on the earth since that day, Ann. I really did feel like the morbid mortician from hell, most the time, as I was out in the field helping in the cleanup of the wretchedness’ scattered around this country.

  We should have lit all the houses and barns on fire. They could have let Mother Nature take care her own dead and then gone on to the next house and farm along the way and done the same to them. They would not let us do that so we had to carry all the victims out of the houses or barns including the decaying stinking animals and bury them too.

  We put dead bodies and corpses into body bags until we ran out of bags, and then we just started flopping dead bodies upon dead bodies along with their dead animals laying them all out along side of each other in the hand dug ditches and trenches and buried them all together. It was horrid absolutely horrid carrying decomposing corpses that fell apart in your hands because of them decaying on the bone and the stench was something none will ever get out of their nostrils no matter how long they are to live. Unbelievable! Hundreds of the dead bodies along with thousands of carcasses of dead animals had all bloated up from the hot heat of the day and some had already exploded into mounds of rotting stench and piles of guts. Maggots from common houseflies and other insects had already commenced thriving on the exposed corpses. It was horrifying to look at all those damn bodies of young and old alike dead and rotting away. It was horrendous!

  Some bodies were so far gone, their eyeballs were missing and their brains were starting to bloat and swell out through their eyeball sockets. The bomb that caused this mess did not wipe out all the fly population though. Good old Mother Nature did come along and start her messy recovery clean up job by having all her little maggot friends start doing their jobs.

  The worst part of the job was up to people who had to do the dirty work for her.

  You do remember Sally’s husband, the “Sergeant” don’t you?” “Yes,” well you remember what I said about the thing the monster living up in the sky striking out at someone from nowhere no matter what the condition of the day or weather?” “Yes.” “Well I was just about twenty or twenty-five feet away from him I’d say give or take a little filling in a ditch we had already filled with bodies. When suddenly I heard him start to moan and groan wildly. When we turned to see what the matter with him was he was already on the ground thrashing and bouncing around on the ground bouncing up and then down like a damn basketball. He must have died a most horrid death from what I could see and when the officer in charge of our detail bent down and took his pulse reluctantly after a short while, not wanting to get too close to him at first he was gone.

  The other men around just pushed him into the dugout pit right along with all the other assorted dead corpses and we buried him just like the others, after the officer in charge reached down and tore the dog tags from off his neck and his wallet from his pants.

  He had a distinct orange sheen and wicked stench about his whole body. It was worse than any ordinary hard working body odor of sweat as he lie thrashing around on the ground, so we knew it was that thing from the sky that took his life that day. I had an extremely hard time adjusting to life as a father after that when we returned back home from burying so many dead people, especially so many little children around who did not deserve to die the way they did.

  I took Sergeant’s dog tags from the officer in charge who had yanked them from off his neck, then took the Sergeant’s wallet they had also taken from him before they pushed him into the trench along with all the others. There were so many damn dead bodies another one in the trench didn‘t make a bit of difference. It could have just as easily have been me that creature had taken out that day. The weather was clear, and sunny, not a cloud in the sky anywhere around. When we finally got back home, I had to break the sad news to Sally about her loving husband. Sally knew there was something very much amiss as soon as I knocked on her front door. I was standing there all by my lonesome out front without the Sergeant standing right there next to me. The Sergeant and I had left together and as we were leaving he said we would be back together soon. So in my book, that meant the two of us would be returning back home together. At least that was what she had figured in her own mind and when I showed up all by my lonesome, she knew right up front probably from the look of sadness in my eyes, that there was something very dreadfully amiss like there was.

  The sergeant would not have taken the time as I had to knock on the damn front door. He would have just opened the damn thing up and barged right in like the big kid he always was. Just like a young cowpoke riding a Brahma bull for the very first time in a rodeo hooting and hollering madly, getting the kids all fired up and ready to play hard like he always did when he first got back home for the day, but not this time. Sally did not say anything. She did not say one single solitary word to me when she first opened the door wide with a big happy smile on her face.

  When she saw me standing there all by my lonesome, she just put her arms out around me and began to cry like a little baby. She knew the Sergeant was gone and was never going to be coming back home to her or for the kids again!

  The girls were bitterly cold toward me when they first saw me like I was dirt on snow or ice or something bad like that when I returned back home to them from being taken away from them against my will. They probably thought that you and I had deserted them altogether, and had both gone away forever. I did not even have the chance to say goodbye to the girls properly when I had to leave it was done so fast when they to
ok us, the Sergeant and me away. I have been constantly reinforcing them that you would one day soon be coming home to them. I have tried explaining to them why you were not home yet. I do not think they understood. I would show them where you were at night up in the heavens when we caught a glimpse or a glimmer in the southern sky of what I thought was the orbit of the space station going overhead.

  Amber thought it very cool and awesome you being way up there in the heavens with God helping his angles do their work in the sky. When she told us that I had a big lump come up right up into my throat, as sad tears filled my lonely eyes. It was a good thing it was fully dark outside when she said that, so she could not see I was crying. I carefully wiped away any tears from my eyes hoping neither of the girls would see me doing so.

  I really hoped you wouldn’t get the same cold shoulder I got, like they didn’t love me anymore, when I first came back home to them, even though I probably deserved it for leaving them without saying goodbye. I must have become a very cold individual for doing what I had to do even the way I treated myself for what I had gone through. I guess the whole thing still bothers the hell right out of me on occasion. No, most of the time.

  It was like heaven to me to see each their little faces staring back up at me once again, but I guess I was too cold of heart, to see them the way they saw me as their father. I guess they could sense something very wrong with me, when Sally hugged me tight, and began to cry like a baby in my arms. I guess the girls thought it rather strange I was hugging someone other than you, and I did not bring you back with me when I returned. They just could not understand why Sally was in my arms crying so, and would not let me go for quite some time. Finally she invited me in and the girls were still cold to me after that, even though I tried to hug and hold them tight to show them how much I had missed them. It has taken one hell of a long time to win their confidence back. Amber seemed to have smiled a little bit at first right after Sally finally composed herself. Sarah on the other hand has not smiled yet or at least not until she saw you for the first time the other day.