INVASION USA (Book 1) - The End of Modern Civilization

by T I WADE

  Another truck suddenly drove past the gates going east, and that prompted Will to follow it and find out why they were able to drive and nobody else could. They couldn’t catch up to it due to all the cars and people milling around, but he did get a look at it in a set of headlights and saw that it was an old Chevy truck, smaller and older than his. Then it was gone.

  Will decided to investigate the closest explosion and drove slowly west for several blocks, driving around dozens of stopped vehicles. Everybody seemed unhurt. The speed limit in this part of the city was 25, and apart from those two dead kids who must have been going double that, everyone seemed dazed, had worried looks on their faces and were either trying to start their cars, or had the hood up and was looking inside.

  The glow in the sky got brighter and brighter as they neared the scene. Will had to stop a block away because it was too bright to drive, and they parked on the curb, locked the truck, and walked the last block, shielding their eyes. He recognized that the block after this was a park with a large pond and walkways where hundreds of people spent time walking their dogs and have picnics on the grass. The park, however, was no more.

  A jet engine, or what looked like part of a jet engine, was silhouetted by the 40-foot high flames behind it. The engine was hanging in a massive tree it must have landed in and parts of the tree had been crushed nearly flat. The blackened engine was supported by the flaming tree, a couple of feet above the ground, but the rest of the aircraft, if there was a rest of the aircraft, was behind the wall of heat and flames. He looked up at the buildings above him and was shocked. These old brick buildings used to be five stories high. Three stories were missing! Will then realized that an incoming aircraft must have hit them on impact and then blown up in the park.

  It was then that he noticed bricks, metal beams, and what was left of a dozen cars, and hundreds of people to his left and right and several bodies lying on the street directly in front of him. There was a sudden explosion to his left and on the north side of the park. He could see part of the street 100 yards away, and suddenly a dozen cars erupted into midair on both sides of the road as an explosion ripped the entire street open and ignited several old houses adjoining the park as the gas lines exploded.

  Both he and Mike had to retreat behind the corner of the building as pieces of shrapnel screamed past where they had just been standing, breaking windows. Larger chunks started falling all around them. A body of a man in what was left of his red car landed a few feet away in the street directly in front of him, and the man was sitting in the driver’s seat, with his seat belt still tight around him. He looked like he was in shock as the remains of his car bounced once on the remaining roadway, and then skidded into a large, broken display window on the corner opposite them. The shock wave hit at the same time and both Will and Mike cowered behind the corner of the building.

  “I’m getting out of here,” Mike shouted to Will, and they both got up and ran back in the direction of the truck when a second explosion from the far side of the park two blocks away erupted, sounding like another gas line had blown up.

  Will squealed out in a U-turn and nearly drove into a couple running for cover. Then a street one block away to their north went up and they were shielded from the explosion as they crossed the junction and were behind the corner building as a massive ball of flame passed down the side street, just yards behind them.

  “This city is imploding!” shouted Will. “Why isn’t somebody turning of the gas?”

  “Hell knows!” Mike shouted back. “I only live a few blocks from here. Please Will, let’s swing by and pick up my wife and kids. These explosions could just go on and on.” Will nodded. He knew the best way to get there and still could not do more than a couple of miles an hour. There were fewer people around now, many hopefully finding shelter somewhere, and he managed to drive three blocks before he had to turn left.

  Several blocks later, they pulled up outside Mike’s small, dark house.

  “I think it’s safer to get away from here,” Will said as another explosion, this time a couple of blocks away, lit up the street and he heard a thump as something landed on the roof. A dead pigeon, dripping blood, slipped down his windshield and Mike got out and ran for his front door while Ben switched on wipers, squirted water over the blood, and swished the bird off the car.

  The mess cleared and he looked through the cleaned windshield, straight into the eyes of two young men with pistols drawn Hollywood style—horizontal and too far above their heads to be accurate. They shouted at him to get out of the truck. One pointed his pistol—a large one, Will noticed—and the other kid shot into the air.

  “Get out, you son of a bitch he shouted. “Get out now! We’re taking your truck!” The other guy shot again, this time lower and just above the roof of the car. “Listen up, or the next one’s for you!” Will noticed that Mike had not yet come out of his house, went for his gun on the seat next to him and opened the door as two bullets hit and went through the door inches from his hand holding the door handle. He immediately rolled out of the door, shooting six bullets with his weapon in his right hand as he hit the ground and cleared the car door. Both men immediately fell where they were standing and stayed there.

  “What happened?” asked Mike, coming out of the front door with his wife and two girls.

  “They wanted the truck, shot at me, and I had to shoot back in self defense. Dang, Mike what the hell is going on?”

  “God knows,” he replied, getting the three girls into the back seat and throwing several bags into the bed of the truck. “Let’s get back to the station and you can file a report about the shooting.” Suddenly, another gas line went up, only a block away, and the two men ducked and climbed into the truck. Will did a U-turn to avoid the two bodies in front of him and headed away from the carnage.

  When they got close to their police station, however, the whole street erupted about 300 yards away in the direction they were heading, and in the exact spot where the police station was located. Will quickly pulled the wheel to the left and into a side street as the powerful explosion ripped up the buildings in front of them. He straightened the wheel to correct, pushed on the gas, and the girls screamed as he bounced off a parked car as he fought to get behind a building. This time he was quite fast enough, and the blast coming down the street caught the back corner of the truck as it sped between the buildings. The blast turned them around 180 degrees and pushed the truck into another car on the opposite side of the street before it came to a halt, facing the way they had just come.

  It took Will a second to react before he ripped the side of his truck and the car it was pinned against trying to spin the truck around and head in the direction of Antelope Acres to the west.

  “What time is it?” he shouted to Mike, the noise around them still deafening.

  “Nine-thirty,” Mike responded. “Where can we go? It’s like a war zone around here!”

  “I’m going to head out to my house. There’s no gas around there and we should have electricity. Hopefully we can call somebody. Something has to work. I want to get on our radio to Maggie—she’s still in North Carolina—and see if she and the kids are okay.”

  It took Will twice as long as usual to get out of Lancaster. The roads were strewn with motor vehicles. It seemed that the explosions behind them had eased up, but flames lit up the sky and it was like daylight as they drove through the streets at less than 25 miles an hour.

  As it got dark again, Will looked south toward Palmdale and Los Angeles and was shocked at how bright the horizon behind the hills was—so much so that he couldn’t see where the aircraft fire on their side of the hills was anymore. Every now and then, they came across a car or house on fire. They were beginning to travel through housing suburbs and leaving the larger city buildings behind. In every window he saw people peeking out at them and his truck, probably hoping that it was help arriving.

  He reached the outskirts of Antelope Hills and was glad to see the houses around hi
s still lit up with electricity. For a moment, he thought that things were coming back to normal and maybe the electricity was back on, but then he remembered the generator sales of his kids, and he knew that the only houses with power he could see were the ones with generators.

  There were only a few cars in the middle of the streets here, and he drove around them slowly. Again the horizon lit up to the south— some massive explosion must have happened somewhere in L.A.

  The house was quiet, as if nothing had happened, as he looked down his 100 foot driveway and pushed his gate-opener button at the entrance. Nothing happened. He looked up at the controller up on his sun visor and noticed that the usual activation light did not blink on. It was dead.

  “Even my gate’s electrical system isn’t working,” he observed to Mike sitting next to him. “I just can’t understand it.”

  Will got out, opened the gate manually. Mike slid over on the front seat and drove the truck through the gate. Will closed and locked the gate with the large padlock he kept for that purpose when they left the ranch unattended, hopped back in the truck, and they drove to the house. The porch light was still burning, and so was the inside light he had left on. Even their dog Jamie, a black and brown Bull Mastiff/Labrador mix was there waiting for someone to come home.

  “Weird, very weird,” mumbled Will, his brain trying to fathom what was going on. It was 10:30, and 91 minutes ago, life was the way it had been for as long as he could remember. But in the last hour and a half, he had seen more carnage in Lancaster than his whole time on the force in downtown L.A.

  “Mike, I just don’t understand it. We’ve just gone through scenes like something out of ‘The Apocalypse,’ and now I get home and life looks just like when I left. There must be hundreds dead back there in Lancaster alone. And by the glow over L.A., I reckon that we are certainly glad not to be there tonight either. There must be thousands upon thousands dead over there.”

  “I just don’t know, Will,” was the reply. “It’s like the world’s coming to an end, just like those religious guys or the Mayans predicted. I have never seen anything like it, not even when I was over in Iraq with the military.”

  “Well, I think we just wait it out here tonight. I’m sure dawn will bring some answers, and I have to get on the radio to Maggie and the kids to see if they are all right.” With that the five of them climbed out of the truck and went inside. Will gave the dog a quick pat. It was quiet in the house. All he could hear was the ticking of the mantelpiece clock in the living room. Everything was where he had left it earlier. He quickly walked into the kitchen and turned on the light. He was quite surprised that it worked! Then he opened the refrigerator—it was not working and the inside light didn’t come on, nor was the oven working, as the LED clock was not on. Not one of the three LED clock lights were working in the kitchen he was so used to. Mike tried the television in the living room. It was dead. He then tried the stereo and the computer. Both were as dead as the television.

  “What heat do you have, Will?” asked Mike, walking into the kitchen.

  “Gas with electrical back-up,” replied Will, checking the warm air inlets. The heat was working. He felt warm air on his hand. “It’s working. I suppose the gas doesn’t have a brain and nobody told it to die on us. I had the tank filled about a month ago and reckon we have enough for a couple of weeks, or even a month, depending on how cold it gets. It’s ten degrees above freezing at the moment,” he reported, looking at the outside thermometer reading by the kitchen door.

  “Everything I’ve tried doesn’t work,” Mike continued. “My wife and kids are sitting in the living room.”

  “Oh! I’m sorry, Mike, let me show you to our guest room. It’s a big room, and I have two cots we can put in there for your girls for tonight. Tomorrow we can organize ourselves a little better depending on what dawn brings. We are safe here tonight and Jamie will keep guard. He’ll tell us if there is anybody out there. I think everybody will stay indoors tonight and I don’t think there will be anybody on the streets—especially not in this area. I’m going to load our two shotguns just in case and place one by the front door and one by the back door. They each carry five rounds with one in the chamber, and both are pump action if you need them. Tell your girls not to touch them. My police weapon is also loaded and I suggest keeping yours handy as well. I’m going into the office and try to contact Maggie. It’s nearly 2:00 am in North Carolina and hopefully somebody’s listening to their radio.”

  Will helped Mike and his family get settled in the spare bedroom. “You and your family go to bed and get some sleep,” Will ordered after they were finished. “You can all use the bathroom in the hall. I have my own in our bedroom.”

  For an hour, Will tried to get someone on the radio, but to no avail. It was as quiet as the streets outside. He was worried, but knew that Maggie and the kids were as safe as he was. Preston also lived rural and the streets around his place were most probably the same as around his house, if they were going through the same situation.

  Will checked the outside temperature. It had gone down a degree and it was now close to freezing outside. Ben put on a jacket he found hanging by the front door and went outside with the shotgun in hand and with Jamie eager for some attention. Together they walked down to the gate to the entrance of the driveway. It was surreal as he left the lights of the house and walked into the semi-darkness. Los Angeles was lit up like a roman candle. So was Lancaster, although not so bright. To the northwest there was a dim glow where Bakersfield was, and everywhere he looked the horizon was brighter than usual.

  It was also a strange kind of quiet, as if the world was waiting for something to happen. A grumble of noise came up faintly from the south and he stood, leaning on the steel gate and listening. He stood there for several minutes—the scenes from the last hour or two going through his mind, especially of the two kids he had shot. They hadn’t looked scared when they approached him. They had looked excited as if they were playing a game and actually had smirks on their faces, like they were having fun trying to get his truck away from him. Will shook his head and looked down the street in both directions. It was empty of vehicles, nothing looked amiss, and he walked back to the house and went to bed.

  * * *

  In over 10,000 cities and large towns worldwide there was chaos and death. In the same number of towns and smaller villages worldwide, many did not realize that civilization as they knew it was coming to an end. They were either asleep or wondering what was going causing their power outages. Many millions in poorer countries, who didn’t see much civilization continued their daily lives, oblivious to the reality that there was now no difference between them and the rich. From this point forward, money was close to being worthless. All the luxuries in life were of no value. There was only so much food on the planet, and within days the rest of the planet would be as hungry as they were.

  Chapter 17

  Z-Day 1 – Dawn

  For many, the coming and going of sunlight wasn’t as important as what was going on around them. Of the millions of people who had been in Times Square several long hours earlier, a large majority of them were dead. In between the buildings and the dozens of crackling fires that flickered in what used to be Times Square, there were piles of dead bodies, now covered with an inch-thick layer of blown snow. Cars were turned on their sides, on their roofs, on top of other vehicles, and even buses stuck out of blackened buildings, most of them now covered in snow. There was no movement, except for a faint cry for help from here and there. In every nook and cranny in every building, people were cowering and trying to keep warm.

  The wind had died down an hour before dawn and the sun rose, but hardly anything could be seen through the thick smoke that still hung everywhere. Whole buildings were still burning, sometimes burning as high as several stories above the street. The city was darker than a park in a forest fire and the people who had survived did not know what to do, except find warmth. Their bodies, still dressed in warm clothing,
were losing valuable body heat and the fires still burning on the street looked inviting. It was the piles of bodies everywhere that kept them where they were, too scared to be the first to move.

  The sight from the buildings in upper Manhattan was not much better. The smoke had dissipated somewhat through the early hours of the morning, but still hung in a dense cloud below the skyline. Many who had taken sleeping pills, or somehow had slept through the destruction the night before, couldn’t believe their eyes as they opened their blinds to see why their apartments were so dark and chilly. Many were not yet cold, but the majority’s heating systems had gone out with the electrical failures. There was no lighting and the only way to get light was to open the blinds and curtains.

  Manhattan’s skyline looked different to those who had survived the night. There still were large buildings everywhere above the smoke, which many thought was clouds, but one or two of the skyscrapers looked different. People quickly realized that flames were coming out of several of them on many different levels.

  Further out of the center of Manhattan, nobody could see very much. It was surreal, apart from the crackling of flames from every direction. Nobody was moving and no vehicles could be heard in the streets anywhere. The thousands of high-rise occupants checked lights and heaters. They all tried to complain to someone over their cell phones, laptops, or intercoms, but the whole city was dead— electronically dead. They tried their neighbors, who they barely knew, and doors were not opened and most were told to go away.

  On the East side, miles of blackened areas, once peaceful houses and buildings continued to blaze. Where there were wooden structures, one caught fire after another and masses of people were being chased by flames this way and that. In areas with more brick buildings, a little normality could be seen, but there was no street that hadn’t been damaged or had cars and rubble strewn all over the asphalt and sidewalks. A whole building was still on fire here and there, and once again people in every corner were trying to get to safety by banging on hundreds of closed doors, or shouting up at windows in buildings, begging for anybody to take them in.