Unearthly Snowbound
Robert C. Waggoner
Copyright 2005 by Robert C. Waggoner
Smashwords Edition
Prologue
Location: NORAD Cheyenne Mountain.
"I'll tell you I did see a burst of energy coming from the moon just before our communication system went completely out," said Clarence Brag with spittle flying across the conference table.
"Now take it easy," said Ben Glass, manager of the mainframe computer department. "There's no proof that shows up that confirms what you claim Clarence."
"Then how do you explain prior to our satellites going off line the slow, steady cold front moving down from the Arctic. Prior to that we were in drought conditions and now Canada and our east coast are experiencing blizzard conditions," asked Steven Fuller head of the space program.
"I can't," answered Ben, "But you're a dreamer Clarence thinking there's life out there and now you are claiming aliens are creating this weather phenomena we are experiencing. It could be a solar flare. Or it could be God is pissed at us again. What do you think, Jenny?"
"I really don't know, but if we could have some mainframe time we could determine whether or not Clarence did see an energy field directed towards the earth from the moon," answered Jenny Lee.
Location: The moon.
"As the earthlings say, 'the seed is sown' and now we watch and see who survives. I have full confidence in our plan to save the planet and its inhabitants."
Unearthly Snowbound
Robert C. Waggoner
Chapter 1
Greg Hoffman pushed open the door of the taxi with his foot against the howling wind and blowing snow. The door slammed shut as he was blown back against the taxi as he started to move off to the doors of the Chicago train station. He struggled against the odds slipping and sliding in his slick Florsheim shoes. Garment bag over one shoulder and his aluminum briefcase in the other, he found the revolving doors and slid into the station. He shook himself off and stomped his feet while the snow in his thick black hair started to melt down into his gray eyes. Lucky he had his Burberry overcoat. That and a sweater over his shirt and tie and he was wearing long handle underwear to guard against the unseasonable cold snap the Midwest and eastern seaboard was experiencing. Greg worked for the CIA as a profiler.
The newspaper he read at lunch time had the story of the weather anomaly that North America and as a matter of fact, the whole world was experiencing. It was much different weather than the past as scientists had warned about for the last twenty years. Since the turn of the century the USA had fought against any reasonable controls on global warming. And since the younger Bush years the world shouted at America to join in the battle against pollution making the trapped air warm up the earth’s atmosphere.
Now, twenty years later with Bush gone and a more environment friendly administration, the first United States female president fought to regulate the industry to stop polluting the earth.
Since October, the Pacific Northwest was experiencing a drought like no other seen in history. The year before was the driest in recent memory. Summers were hot and lakes and reservoirs were all but dried up leaving the Northwest to ration water and build salt desalination plants. Too little too late some said. California like weather could be felt in Seattle. In Vancouver B.C it was the same type of weather Seattle was having.
Water was at a premium and from the snow packed regions of Northeast America, small trucks and enterprising folks were filling the roads bringing drinking water to the starved Northwest as they migrated out of the east due to the never ending snow storm. It was hard to imagine a liter of water selling for ten dollars. The price of oil had skyrocketed since the early 2000s. The price of a barrel of Mid East oil was selling for two hundred or more dollars. Sure many companies were scrambling to find alternatives to oil, but too little too late again as consumers struggled to find a cheap means of getting to work. Few trucks were seen on the roads as trains did the bulk of the transportation of goods and people. Planes were collecting snow from sitting for days unable to fly. Thousands fought for places on trains and buses.
Inflation was out of control. Similar to the Arab embargo in the early 1970s, price controls were put on a multitude of things, such as rent and wages. Surprisingly many people accepted the controls. It would appear that the good times were over and people needed to accept the fact hard times were upon them and for all intense and purposes, here to stay.
Meanwhile, the Arab world and some factions inside the Muslin faith, such as Bin Laden and his group, smiled at the Western World crumbing in the face of Nature’s wrath upon the polluters of the world. Now was the time to strike and unknown to most, if not all, a plan was in effect to rock the world.
Abdul sat in the waiting area of the Chicago train station waiting for the eastbound Amtrak to New York to board. An hour yet until a call for all to board came across the speaker he would have to wait. Waiting was something he was trained to do. He could sit there for hours and wait for his time to act. He’d been trained specifically for this job. In his pocket was a plastic transmitter to the bomb attached to the eastbound train. His time on this earth was about over and then he smiled to himself knowing he would see his creator Mohammed very soon.
His trip to Chicago had been much easier than he expected. With the onset of severe weather he crossed into the USA from Toronto without mishap. It was Christmas break and his documents as a student passed through immigration with no problems. How the bomb got placed and by whom was of no concern of his. That had been someone he didn’t know or want to know. He took out his Koran as a tall man in an aluminum briefcase sat down at the other end of the bench. Abdul looked at him and knew from his training the man was a government man and most likely CIA. He was trained to know the look of such people from the hours spent with slides being shown to him in the caves with the noise of a generator keeping him company.
Now he felt a little nervous, but outwardly he looked like a stoic Arab student with his backpack and he was dressed like a preppy. Greg had been looking at him since he walked in from the outside and looked for a place to sit down and wait for the train.
He was headed home to New York after two grueling weeks running down leads on a car bomber who got his kicks out of blowing up luxury cars. Clever guy, but he was finally caught stuck under a parked Lexus when a snow plow went by. His yells for help brought a few of the curious and finally the police came and dug him out.
Now Greg, tired and only wanting to go home and play with the kids under the Christmas tree by a warm fire, if they could find some wood to burn, was impatient to leave. He watched the young Arab out of the corner of his eye. It was an automatic thing for a man in his profession. Terrorism still ranked number one in America and around the world for that matter. It wasn’t unusual for an Arab to be a little nervous, but this guy was too ridged for his liking. Greg decided to walk around a little to loosen up before the long trip to New York. He moved over to the wall and sat his brief case and garment bag down on the top of his briefcase. The young Arab never moved as he took his cell phone out and opened it up and made a call. He asked the person on the other end to send him pictures of known terrorists in the Chicago area. In a flash his cell was showing him pictures of terrorists. He watched for a few minutes and none of them resembled the guy sitting down waiting for a train.
Greg picked up his stuff and went to the restroom. Coming back he noticed the guy was gone. Greg headed out the door to wait for the eastbound train and while he was walking through a protective glass tube to the waiting area, a young woman was walking ahead of him struggling with too many bags and boxes that were obviously Christmas presents. He caught up with her and asked if he might help he
r with some of her bags. She said, “Thank you, I really appreciate it. If I had thought with some sense in my head, I would have waited until New York to buy gifts for the family.”
He laughed and said to her with a smooth voice of confidence, “I’m happy to help as I have an extra hand.”
They both walked to the waiting area and Greg noticed the Arab was standing against the wall waiting for the same train as he was talking.
Not wanting to stereotype the young man, Greg tried to put him out of his mind. However, his training took over and in computer like fashion, ran the possibilities of why he would be on this train and what might be a target, if any, there might be? In an instant, Greg put the weather and direction they were going and the worst case scenario was a dirty bomb with the fallout over the New York area from the mountains.
Meanwhile the nice lady was talking a mile a minute about the weather and so on and on. Greg mumbled a few words to be polite, but something kept nagging him about the too stiff Arab who was trying too hard to look normal. Greg noticed his backpack was new, but his clothes were not. His shoes were new too. Well, forget it and think about home and a few weeks of vacation time, he said to himself as the eastbound train arrived.
By now people were crowding the door to board the train. An attendant yelled to the passengers to not push, that all of you have reservations. The crowd quieted down and the pushing and shoving stopped. Greg helped the lady carry her stuff on board and found out she sat across the aisle from his seat.
Back where the pushing and shoving was happening, an old couple, Alfred and Belinda, were going to New York for their golden anniversary. They were holding on to each other and a big black guy moved to help them withstand the onslaught of bodies trying to board the train. He told the old couple to follow him and they would be safe behind the huge black guy. Alfred thanked him profusely and obeyed the guy like a little kid following his mother around a supermarket. Belinda was holding on to Alfred and it looked like a train of its own moving down the ramp to the waiting train.
Following them was a nattily dressed guy with a nineteen twenties raccoon coat and beaver hat on; and out of his mouth hung a cigarette holder with an unlit smoke sticking out of his face giving him the look of a cartoon character. An obvious man servant was alongside him looking like the proverbial Jeeves character from England. It was overheard that he was an actor on Broadway returning home after a stint in Chicago and his name was, of all things: Fredrick the Great. He’d picked up the tag from an article about him twenty years before in his one and only successful acting date. These days he acted in second rate plays in Chicago and off Broadway plays. It was reported that some producer from Hollywood was trying to star him in a movie about a once successful play actor gone to seed.
In his hand a walking stick that he used to jab a passenger in the rear with, if that person wasn’t moving fast enough for him; and all the while jabbering like a blue jay scolding his mate. His man Jeeves looked totally embarrassed as he carried a large bag in each hand.
In the very back of the mass moving to the train came a couple of college students and an old man with a railroad hat on. The two girl students, as the old man read on their backpacks, were named Carol and Janet. Both were tall with short hair. The one named Carol had red hair and Janet was a brunette. Both looked, if the old man was a judge of ages, which he wasn’t, about in their early twenties. As it turned out, he had guessed right.
The old man was a little bent over from age, but his keen gray eyes missed nothing. He’d been a train engineer for thirty years and was going to New York to stay with his grandkids for Christmas. His wife had passed away years ago and now he lived alone in Chicago. However, despite his age, he was in good shape as he walked everyday and had a treadmill in his apartment.
A loud noise was heard behind the mass of people. A loud voice was shouting for the people to make way for the senator. A contingent of young men and women were leading the gray haired distinguished looking senator down the tube. The old railroad man stopped and let them pass as did the college girls who had a disgusting look on their faces. The senator, Al Mussa, was widely known as an anti-environmentalist. Carol said to Janet, “If I had a snow ball I would throw it in his face.”
Janet replied with a look of scorn and pity, “Yup, I would like a picture of that ball hitting him smack in the kisser.”
The old man heard them and laughed to himself. He didn’t like the senator either. Years ago he had voted for the Chicago native and now sorely regretted it.
Nobody made way for the senator and he had to wait his turn like the rest of the folks who had paid good money for a place on the overcrowded train. Al paced from foot to foot waiting impatiently for the crowd to board the train. As a short man, with three inch heels, he still wasn’t tall enough to see over the crowd. He whispered in the ear of his aid next to him and the aid gave off a fake laugh to humor the senator with a Napoleonic syndrome.
A half hour later, all the passengers were on board the train, but far from seated or in the sleeping cars attached, for the scheduled eighteen hour trip. All knew it would be a longer trip as the snow continued to fall and they had to climb over the Catskill/Appellation Mountains to reach New York. Total white out blizzard conditions existed and the going would be slow at best.
In Greg’s car he watched the Arab take his seat and next to him the old couple, Al and Belinda. Behind them the two college students busy with sorting through their backpacks and digging out their portable sound systems and glamour magazines, settled in for the long trip. Across from them sat the big black man and the man servant, Jeeves. The actor was still fuming because he had wanted a sleeping room, but they were fully booked and he had to take a regular seat like most of the passengers. The old man retired from the railroad sat next to the lady Greg had helped and he found out since then her name was Adell Briggs.
The conductor came through and asked the passengers to please sit down and have their tickets ready when he came back. He was not a happy camper. Already they were behind schedule and from what he heard from up ahead, the going was not good. A snow plow train preceded them but it was snowing so hard, it did little good. The snow train was too far ahead and the communication between the snow train and the passenger train was nothing but static. He was growling to himself as he walked forward to the next car. Thirty two cars and including the crew, more than a thousand souls were on board the fateful train number 3369.
Because of the fuel crisis, the order to put only an extra five hours of fuel in the fuel tanks was going to result in a potential disaster never before heard. Food supplies fortunately were in better condition. Extra food had been loaded on as the cold weather made people hungry.
Finally the train pulled out of the covered station into the black and white night. Few street lights burned due to the power shortage across the nation. Stop lights bent to the wind blinking yellow as equally few cars were seen traveling on the deserted streets. Every now and then a burning barrel could be seen on the street with a few hearty souls trying to stay warm from burning wood gathered from empty buildings. Every day for months now, frozen homeless were stored in a warehouse waiting for spring to be buried. Army trucks with National Guard patrolled the streets picking up frozen bodies delivered by family or friends each day to the street side.
Martial law was in effect and a curfew made all citizens home at six pm. The National Guard had orders to shoot any looters on sight. The city of Chicago like most Eastern cities were struggling against the depletion of energy to provide customers with heat and light. Oil usually arrived by tanker down the St. Lawrence Seaway. Nowadays the seaway including the Great Lakes was frozen solid. Ice breakers fought a losing battle with the weather. On the east coast refineries struggled to produce enough fuel to keep necessary services and government cars moving. Tanker trucks and railroad cars kept up a continuous flow of oil to major cities east of the Mississippi. The Deep South was in better shape with the weather, but cities like New Orlea
ns continued to fight a losing battle with the rising seas. Matter of fact, all coastal cities was slowly succumbing to the rise of the oceans all over the world. It would appear man was in deep trouble with few alternatives to the weather change. Governments with leading scientists held a grim faced meeting resolving nothing.
Most of the military around the world spent their time moving people away from the rising oceans into temporary camps. Food stores were almost depleted and the world and its people were slowly starving. Areas suitable for planting had no water; where water was plentiful the weather would not permit planting. Food nowadays came mostly from frozen animals and oceans. Only a lucky few had vegetables from hothouses and areas suitable for growing.
In Asia, such as China, thousands starved daily from lack of food, especially rice. Like Eastern North America, China was in the grips of a winter like never before experienced. Cannibalism was being reported worldwide as helpless people starved by the millions.
Chapter 2
Greg laid his head back and closed his eyes for a minute. He could see stars in the darkness, like blinking lights. He increased his breathing taking deep breaths and practicing his eye exercises he once read about from Huxley's book, “The Art of Seeing.” Soon after rapid blinking his eyes felt better and looked around the car to see what was going on.
It was cold in the car. The floor even through his shoes felt cold. The women he could see had their legs tucked under them and the men all had their feet on the foot rests. He still had his overcoat on and when the car doors opened and closed, you could see your breath in the air. He knew the heat was as high as it would go throughout the train. Nevertheless, people were putting on their service lights to complain about the cold.
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