by Saxon Andrew
“Call me, Johan; I’m no longer President.” Jimmy nodded and Johan followed him out of the room.
Juan reached back and took Mellie’s hand. Her eyes went wide as he pulled her along with him. The rider that Gary had ridden in with said, “They must be an item.”
Gary shook his head, “No, what you’ve just witnessed happened as you watched it unfold. They’ve never shown any affection for each other.”
“Really?”
Gary nodded, “Really.”
The Rider smiled, “Well, I imagine you’ll be receiving affection from all directions shortly.”
Gary’s eyes narrowed as he said, “What makes you say that?”
“Get real. You were on board the only shuttle that managed to take out one of those asteroids. You’re a full blown, bonafide hero. Oh, you’re going to get a lot of attention.”
Gary stared at him and smiled, “Really; you think so?”
“I know so.” Gary smiled and followed the rider out of the bike storage room toward the cafeteria. The rider was right.
• • •
The President of the United States watched the death and anarchy that swept the nation from the satellite monitors in the War Room far below the surface under Cheyenne Mountain. The Military personnel and the members of his staff sat by helplessly and felt their frustration mount. They all felt survivor’s guilt in their safe harbor and struggled with their emotions as they watched the country they loved falling apart.
The Joint-Chiefs, along with members of the President’s Staff had begged him to issue orders to the armies to take control but he had declined saying the constitution prohibited using regular army inside the borders of the United States. The President sat in his plush chair with his fingers linked together on his stomach as he rocked back and forth.
Senator James Livingston Cantrell sat in the War Room and rocked in his chair as well. His wife sat beside him and he nodded when she said, “It’s a good thing the President owed you for the last election.”
An officer came over with a portable phone and said, “Senator, I have a satellite call for you.”
“Who is it?”
“She says she’s your daughter.”
James looked at his wife and took the handset, “This is Senator Cantrell.”
“Hello, Daddy. It’s been a long time.”
“Candice?”
“Do you have any other daughters?”
“I thought you were dead.”
“Which time? The fake funeral or the jet crash?”
“Don’t get smart with me!”
“Can’t help it. You’re dumb to have climbed down in that hole with the President. It appears all the rats have boarded the same ship.”
“What do you mean?”
“Daddy, you should know that the President does not make the best decisions. He never asks the right questions.”
“And what questions are you talking about?”
“Cheyenne Mountain was built to withstand a direct nuclear hit and survive. Has anyone taken the time to calculate what force the coming impact will exert on your mountain?” James was silent. “I suspect everyone thinks they are safe as a bug in a rug. However, ask around and see how powerful a force the facility can handle. We’ve calculated the impact will send a pulse through the ground equivalent to more than a hundred-megatons. That mountain is going to be shaken not stirred. If the structure manages to survive, you should be aware that the super-volcano at Yellowstone will kick off and you’re less than five hundred miles away. Our estimates are that you’ll be covered under more than a mile of ash, which I believe will clog your air inlets. Even if it doesn’t, you won’t ever be coming out of the ground. I think it will be an appropriate burial site for you and mommy dearest. I just wanted you to know what’s coming so you know all your wealth and hypocrisy won’t save you this time.”
“You’re a Tramp!”
“But I’ll be safe a safe tramp. That gives me more satisfaction than you will ever know. Die in peace.”
The line went dead and James jumped up and yelled, “WHAT FORCE IS THIS FACILITY MADE TO HANDLE!?”
The President looked at him, “What are you squawking about? This facility can handle a direct hit by a nuclear missile.”
“HOW POWERFUL OF A NUCLEAR BLAST?”
The President looked at General Kent, “Well?”
“Fifty-megatons, Mr. President.”
James sat down and asked, “Has anyone calculated what force will be exerted on this mountain by the asteroid impact?”
No one spoke and a Lieutenant sitting in the back row of desks stood up, “I asked a college of mine at MIT the very same question and he tried to avoid answering it.” Everyone stared at the Lieutenant and he shrugged, “I think he exaggerated to put me off. I can be persistent and he was so over it.”
“What did he say?”
“He said about a hundred-megatons. But he had to be joking.”
The President unlinked his fingers and sat up straight, “Cantrell, what is this all about?”
“My daughter just called me on my private cellphone number via satellite and told me that the pulse sent through the ground by the impact would hit this mountain with a force equivalent to a hundred-megatons.”
The President’s eyes flew wide open and he looked at General Kent, “We have to get out of here!”
The General shook his head, “Sir, the mountain is sealed and all the blast doors are locked in place. It would take four hours to unseal the mountain and the asteroid is going to hit in less than two hours. We aren’t going anywhere in the time remaining before impact.”
“She told me that she would be safe and you never ask the right questions, Mr. President!” James Cantrell shouted.
“Then she is with that Dr. James Caspari. He said the same thing. They were building a facility to survive the impacts.” The President shook his head and said, “I should have seen it.” The President looked at Senator Cantrell, “But I failed to ask the right questions.”
• • •
More than five-hundred meteors hit Earth in the hours before the two giant asteroids arrived. They ranged in size from thirty-yards wide to more than two miles across. The fighting and killing around the planet stopped that day and most of the streets in the major cities were deserted as the billions across the globe awaited their fates. Those that had high ground to flee toward had done it and those that didn’t make it knew there wasn’t enough time remaining to get there. So, they sat in their homes and watched the news reports come in on the meteor impacts. The clear majority of the impacts were in the oceans, after all, 70 percent of Earth’s surface is covered with water.
But those ocean strikes weren’t harmless. They caused massive tidal waves to sweep out and there were very few coastlines that were not affected. Humanity saw the massive destruction being done by the small rocks pounding Earth and they began to understand what was going to happen when the two monsters hit.
• • •
The population of the United States was in a state of shock from the massive killing spree and now with what was coming. Most of the southern states saw their populations headed toward Mexico and, though the new Mexican Government tried to stem the flow of millions from crossing their borders, they failed miserably. Even calling out the Army led to thousands of their troops being killed by the armored vehicles stolen from National Guard Armories. Many members of the National Guard fired up their assault vehicles and joined the rush to Mexico. The Mexicans were forced to standby helplessly and allow them to pass or die.
Canada didn’t fare much better. The impact had been narrowed down to the center of the United States and all the populations north of the projected impact site began moving across the Canadian border and into the southern Provinces. It was late December, and many of the refugees died from the bitter cold. It wouldn’t stay cold long.
Even those that prepared for Armageddon, weren’t as prepared as they thought. A rogue National Guard Un
it moved into the wilderness of British Columbia and stumbled across Grant Wilbanks’ underground shelter. The bodies of his son and wife were thrown in the same ditch as his. The Guard Unit settled in and six hours later, a two-hundred-yard-wide meteor hit a quarter of mile south of them and the shelter disappeared in the crater that was blasted out under it.
The meteor shower caused massive amounts of debris to be blasted into the upper atmosphere and Earth was being covered by dark clouds of hot particles. Forest fires raged across the globe from the superheated rock blasted out of the giant craters and thrown high into the atmosphere. It fell back to Earth and ignited fires wherever they hit.
Then the shower of rocks stopped. It was like somehow they knew they were only the opening act for the Headliners and everything was still in anticipation. The TV stations that were still on the air were broadcasting the feed from Hubble and military satellites continuously and…then…they hit.
Chapter Eighteen
The two massive asteroids flew through the atmosphere at a speed of thirty-six miles per second. The friction of their passage through the atmosphere heated the air to 1,200 degrees and pushed it away at speeds of four-hundred miles an hour. The giant asteroids compressed the air at impact with the planet’s surface causing a superheated shockwave to blast away in all directions at an incredible velocity.
The asteroid that hit in the pacific hit five minutes before the one in the United States. It plunged more than forty miles deep and blasted the seafloor into a four hundred-mile wide crater throwing billions of tons of heated sediment high into the atmosphere. The impact pushed all the seawater 160-miles around the impact site away sending a giant wave rushing out into the ocean.
From space, the wave looked like ripples that move out from the spot where a stone is dropped in a pond with calm water. The reality was frightening. The wave the impact created was the largest in the planet’s history and it was moving at a speed close to the speed of sound. The first casualty of the wave was Hawaii. The two-mile high wall of water traveling at six-hundred miles an hour rolled over the islands and didn’t even slow down. There was no trace of civilization left behind after it passed. The only thing remaining of the once beautiful islands was volcanic rock. Even the soil was stripped off the islands along with every tree, plant, and animal.
Its next stop was the west coast of the United States and the countries in the eastern pacific. Australia and the islands north of it would feel the monster first.
• • •
The largest of the two asteroids hit in central Kansas and the impact was felt and heard on the other side of the planet. It blasted a crater more than eight-hundred-miles wide and all the land inside the giant crater was super-heated and blasted almost into orbit. The super-heated shockwave from the impact blew out from the site of the impact at seven-hundred plus miles per hour. The entire continental plate was shaken by the massive impact and every fault in the western hemisphere broke loose. The shockwave’s pulse moved through the rock where it eventually arrived at Yellowstone and the dormant super-volcano that provided the hot springs and geysers went up in a massive eruption. The explosion blasted hot lava and ashes thirty miles into the atmosphere and everything within four hundred miles around it was blasted and burned to the ground.
• • •
Lilly Baker left Los Angeles a week earlier with her family and moved up into the high foothills looking down on the city from about eight miles away. Her acting career was starting to take off and she made enough money to buy a deluxe motor home. She had it parked in a campground and had all the luxuries of home. She had divorced her husband the year before; single actresses were paid more than married ones. She rented a prime lot where she could look down on Los Angeles and see the ocean in the distance. She was sitting at a picnic table with her fifteen-year old daughter and her eight-year old son eating a lunch when they heard a loud boom; a few minutes later, the earthquake hit. The table they were sitting around was flipped in the air and they were flipped with it. They fell to the ground and tried to hold on to the dirt. They felt the earth shaking violently under them and all they could do was scream. Lilly looked up and saw her motorhome tossed over the one parked next to it. The shaking seemed to go on forever and she managed to look toward Los Angeles and saw tall buildings crumbling and falling all over the city. Smoke was rising from out of control fires and still the ground continued to shake. Finally, the ground stopped moving.
“WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO!?” Her daughter screamed.
“Stay right here and hug the ground, there’s going to be aftershocks!”
They stayed on the ground and her son yelled, “The motorhome is trashed!” Lilly nodded. It had fallen into a crevasse and only the last three feet of it was above ground.
The ground started shaking again and she yelled, “HOLD ON!” They hugged the ground off and on for three hours and finally, the terrible shaking stopped. Lilly slowly stood up and looked at Los Angeles. The city was in ruins. Some tall buildings were still standing but it was clear they wouldn’t handle anymore shaking. Fires were everywhere and the distant wails of emergency vehicles could be clearly heard. There was a dark layer of smoke above the city and she could smell it on the afternoon wind.
Some of the residents of the campground staggered out and joined them staring at the city. Everyone sat down and they saw cracks all around them. One of the men said, “I guess that is what they call ‘The Big One!’”
Lilly nodded and hugged her daughter. She heard a woman say, “What is that?”
Lilly looked up and saw a long white line on the horizon. It extended both north and south as far as the eye could see. “I…don’t…know.”
Fifteen minutes later, they knew. The wave rushed into view and they saw that it was unlike any wave they ever saw. Most waves rolled in, crested, and moved on shore. This one was not cresting and it was a giant. It was moving toward them at an impossible speed and it grew larger by the second. Everyone on the hill began backing away as they saw the wave towered over the tall buildings that were still standing in Los Angeles. They were all looking far over their heads when it rolled over them at three hundred miles per hour.
• • •
San Andres and all the other faults in California broke loose and the entire state was shaken by an 11.6 earthquake. The southern half of California broke off from the mainland and the ocean roared in the chasm separating the two. Los Angeles, San Francisco, and every other major city on the west coast was knocked flat. The death toll was in the millions but it wasn’t over yet.
Three hours later, the shocked and dazed survivors near the coast saw the ocean withdrawing from the shoreline. Those further inland couldn’t see it happening but those that did knew what it meant. The ocean floor was bare for more than twenty-miles out and then a sound began permeating the air. It sounded like a distant wind and then it grew louder until it became a roar.
Many of the residents of California knew an asteroid was going to hit over the Rocky Mountains in the center of the United States. They decided that they would move up into the foothills of the Rockies and settle in until everything settled down. The foothills ran all the way from Northern California to San Diego and crossed the Mexican border. They averaged about fifteen-hundred feet high and those camping in the hills saw a bright white line moving toward them far out on the ocean. That line grew incredibly fast.
The giant Tidal Wave roared up on the entire western coast of North and South America at a speed of five-hundred miles per hour at a height of two-miles. The wave blasted over every major city on the west coast and slammed into the base of the Rocky Mountains to the north and the Andes Mountains to the South. It shot through the pass at Bakersfield and washed into valleys beyond.
From Alaska, all the way down to the tip of Chili, no one that was within thirty-miles of the coasts lived. Pretty much every person in California died from the earthquakes or the tidal wave along with ninety percent of the populations in Oregon and Washingto
n State. The only survivors were the pitiful few who lived close to the tops of mountains and they would be quickly choking to death from the ashes exploding out of Yellowstone.
The wave washed over the foothills as it headed out toward the base of the Rockies. All the crops in the central valley of California, which represented thirty-percent of the food used to feed America, were now under a mile of saltwater.
• • •
The facility under Cheyenne Mountain shook with the initial impact of the asteroid and then started shaking violently. The people in the War Room were tossed around like rag-dolls and then they heard a terrible noise fill the room. The shaking stopped and everyone looked around. The President got to his feet and yelled, “GENERAL KENT!”
“Mr. President, all of the levels above us have collapsed on top of this level. We’re currently operating on emergency power.”
“What does that mean?”
“Every exit is now blocked by hundreds of tons of debris. We have no way to exit this facility.”
“Can’t someone above us dig their way in?”
“Sir, the materials used to build this facility were designed to withstand a nuclear blast. I doubt there are any tools strong enough to dig through them.”
The room was silent. James asked, “How long can we survive?”
“The emergency generators are running so the fuel tanks that feed them don’t appear to be damaged. We should have emergency power for at least a year.”
The President stared at the General and said, “What are you not telling me?”
“The door leading out of this room to our food supplies is jammed closed. We only have the food currently in the room to sustain us.”
Everyone looked at the back wall at the long row of vending machines. James Cantrell yelled, “I’ll pay a million dollars for one of those vending machines!” No one responded to his offer.
“I’ll offer my companionship to anyone willing to share their food with me!” His wife yelled. James jerked his head around to her and she said, “Get over it!”
