End Days Series Box Set [Books 1-4] Read online

  He could appreciate their concern. If anything, his parents had been irresponsible to leave Sam by himself, although Garth wondered if they counted on him to be their kid’s babysitter. If so, the joke was on them. Pouring whole bottles of craptastic colognes on themselves was anything but responsible.

  “Yeah, I—” Garth tried to respond, but a brilliant flash of blue light caught his eye. It traveled from one side of the skyline to the other with the speed of lightning, from west to east. In a flash, it was gone.

  “Holy shit!” Sam pointed outside.

  “Yeah. Holy shit.” Garth replied with wonder.

  Modesto, CA

  Lunch was exactly what Buck thought it would be. The burger didn’t taste as good as it smelled. The fries had been under the heat lamp for too long. Salt shakers and ketchup bottles that looked like they’d served hard time in an elementary school cafeteria. Buzzing flies added that extra ambiance he always looked for in eateries.

  At least it was cheap and fast. He wasn’t getting any closer to home waiting for his food to digest.

  Buck gathered his things and went out the door the instant he got the text that said his load was ready. The fresh California air made him a bit light-headed after being in the stuffy diner.

  The sound of trucks greeted him. A hundred tractor trailers working the low gears nearby signaled his return to the job he loved and the world he understood. It paid the bills and allowed him to see the country.

  He strode across the parking lot of the giant shipping company, careful to avoid the many rigs pulling in and out. The atlas and logbook were under his left arm, and he carried the Dr. Pepper cup like it was precious cargo. It was so hot on the short walk, he’d already taken a few swigs, but he’d intended to save it, so he’d have something to suck back while on the road.

  A gleam of silver caught his eye on the dark asphalt ahead. When he got close, he couldn’t believe his luck.

  “Bingo, Buck,” he said to himself.

  He squatted down to pick up the quarter.

  A centennial. Must be my lucky day.

  The 1976 quarter wasn’t worth much more than 25 cents, but he collected the special quarters because they meant something to him. Since he did so much travel and spent tons of cash in eateries across America, he figured he’d collected hundreds of them.

  On a whim, he flicked the quarter up in the air like the coin toss at a football game.

  “Heads, I win. Tails, you lose!”

  While the coin was mid-air, a sapphire blue wave of light darted across the sky from out of the east. It was impossible to miss, even in the bright light of the morning.

  “What the fuck?”

  The coin flipped through the air, forgotten, as Buck blinked the flash from his eyes.

  Two

  AirBlue flight 586 flying at 8,000 feet over La Guardia Airport.

  “What is that?” Captain Cody Alderbrook watched as a blue light shot across the sky above their Bombardier CRJ1000 aircraft.

  Charles, his co-pilot, strained to see the phenomenon out his side window. “No idea. Hoo-boy, is it moving like a gunshot.”

  “Call it in,” the pilot ordered calmly. They were already holding at 8000 feet over La Guardia’s air traffic control tower, waiting for a runway to open up, so he needed to know if a meteorological condition was going to screw with his arrival time.

  “Aye.” Charles flicked on the VHF transmitter. “Tower, this is AirBlue 586.”

  The La Guardia tower replied immediately. “Go ahead, 586.”

  “Hey, we’re seeing some weird weather up here. Can you confirm?”

  He didn’t see where the blue wave of light had come from, but it headed out over the distant horizon of the Atlantic Ocean. Cody guessed it moved at several times the speed of sound. He thought it might have been a shockwave from a meteor.

  “586, we have no unusual activity on our end. Wait one.”

  A blue arc of electricity erupted from the plane’s dashboard and past the aircrew.

  “Tower, this is 586—” Cody tried to say.

  The plane nosed downward like the aircraft had fallen off a cliff. The airframe rattled so violently, he thought his teeth would shatter. His harness held him to the back of his chair while the rest of the plane went vertical. While his heart tried to jettison from his chest, he remained steady on the outside. 98 passengers depended on what he did next.

  Cody jammed the throttles forward while pulling the yoke back. “Power up!”

  The twin-engines responded with a roar, and the nose of the plane reluctantly lifted. The shaking stopped somewhere along the thousand-foot descent. The control board shimmered with blue energy. They stared at it, expecting a catastrophic failure.

  “Tell me that was turbulence,” Cody croaked when the worst didn’t materialize.

  Charles’ hat had flown from his head and was wedged against the front window. That was a first.

  “I don’t know,” the co-pilot responded in a deliberate voice.

  “And that blue crap?” Cody added.

  “I don’t know. These are fried, though.” The co-pilot pointed to the altimeter and airspeed dials in the middle of the dashboard; both dials were frozen in place.

  Cody watched the controls while mentally running through the oft-drilled emergency flight procedures. He decided what needed his attention when they were once again flying level. He picked up the mic to speak to the back.

  “This is Captain Cody. We’ve hit a bit of turbulence.” He forced a chuckle because it was proven to calm the nerves of the customers, but more importantly, it soothed his flight crew. “But it looks like we’re in the clear.”

  He got off the line just as multiple audible alarms came on.

  “What now?” he mumbled.

  The captain was ready to play the part of the hero, but his blood froze in his veins when all the noises and lights went out.

  “What the?” he blurted.

  The alarms were off, but so was everything else. The entire plane had lost power. For one surreal moment, Cody and his co-pilot sat in perfect silence.

  Then the screams began.

  La Guardia Airport, New York City, NY

  Garth jumped out of his chair and pointed outside. “Did you see that?”

  The blue light had already faded, so he pointed up into the empty skies.

  “Sure I did. Must have been a supersonic plane, or whatever. I’ve seen videos of fighter jets breaking the sound barrier.”

  Garth turned back and brushed through his unkempt hair. “I didn’t see a plane.”

  Sam snickered. “You’re at an airport, dude. Look around!”

  He briefly thought of fishing trips with his father. They used to spend a lot of weekends out in the country, sitting in their jon boat, with two lines over the side. His dad would point to the sky and pick out cool planes. He’d never seen anything like the blue light on any of those trips.

  “Well, I don’t think it was a plane. It was…weird.”

  “Yeah, okay, Nancy. Don’t be scared.”

  “I’m not scared!” Garth shot back, not sure why he took such offense.

  Sam seemed to study him before speaking. “Look, I know just what can fix you.” He hopped up and began walking. He didn’t even look back.

  “Fine.”

  Garth caught up to Sam, who started talking. “It was probably just moon dust or sun rays or whatever bullshit they taught us in Roper’s science class.”

  “That’s your answer?” Garth laughed. “You didn’t pay much attention to Roper, did you?”

  “Who needs science when you have a whole world to explore?” Sam seemed lost for a few seconds, but then adjusted his course toward a less-crowded portion of the busy terminal.

  “That’s kind of the point of science,” Garth said in a conciliatory voice.

  They soon stood at the sealed doors of an elevator.

  “Why are we here? Aren’t we going to miss your parents?”

  Sam pressed
the button and the door opened a few seconds later. He walked in like it was part of his plan. Garth hated to be led around not knowing what was going to happen next, but that was how Sam lived his life.

  “Entrare,” Sam said in a fake French accent.

  When the doors shut, someone started to sneeze, and it wasn’t either of them.

  Garth leaned around Sam to see a gray-haired man and woman standing way back in the corner. He’d been so busy managing Sam, he failed to notice them.

  He smiled at the couple to be polite.

  “Going up,” Sam said nonchalantly.

  It was a fifteen-second ride, but the woman sneezed a few more times on the way.

  When the doors opened, they all moved forward, but the woman shoved Garth to push past him.

  Sam cracked up laughing at full volume as the boys got some distance from the older people. “You needed a good laugh,” he said in a not-so-quiet voice.

  “My wife is very allergic to perfume,” the old guy said over his shoulder.

  “Oh shit,” Garth said as he realized they’d just trapped the couple inside the enclosed space with their smelly colognes. Between the blue light and becoming mostly immune to the stinky cloud they carried everywhere, he didn’t realize how bad it would smell in there.

  “Sorry!” Garth yelled back. “Really.”

  Sam was still laughing when they reached the ticketing area of the terminal.

  “That was a dick move, Sam.”

  His friend’s shoulders slumped. “Yeah, maybe. I didn’t mean to hurt anybody. How was I supposed to know they’d be allergic?”

  “Look, we shouldn’t be screwing around. I want to find your parents and get out of here.”

  “Ah, yeah. That’s why I brought you up here. See?” Sam started toward a giant billboard showing hundreds of arrival and departure times.

  Garth was happy to be moving in the right direction, but he soon stopped in his tracks.

  “Whoa! That’s amazing!”

  It was Garth’s turn to indulge as he zig-zagged through slow-moving travelers and around the ticket counters until he stood at another set of windows. With an elevated view, they saw over the landing strips to the large island in the middle of the East River.

  “Yeah, that’s Riker’s Island, I think,” Sam said with little interest. “A huge jail is out there.”

  Squat gray buildings and numerous parking lots dotted the island, making it easy to believe as a correctional facility.

  “That’s pretty sweet,” Garth went on “A prison. Right here in the city.”

  “Yep, a real happenin’ place. Everyone wants to live there. Maybe they can move the entire city inside and we’d have one big, happy party. Come on, let’s go. You’re the one who said we shouldn’t screw around.”

  “Yeah, okay,” Garth answered distantly. Could the whole city’s population fit on an island that small? That was the type of science and math he enjoyed, but it wasn’t what they taught in school. Maybe it was worth looking up on his phone while Sam’s parents drove them back home.

  He was going to follow Sam, but he caught sight of a black dot in the air. It fell straight down like it had been dropped from miles above.

  “Hey, there’s a…” He quickly glanced toward Sam, but he was already halfway to the billboard.

  By the time he looked up again, the winged dot was almost to the runway.

  Modesto, CA

  Buck jogged into the shipping terminal, expecting the place to be going crazy with talk about the blue light, but when he got inside, there was only the normal hustle of truckers and shippers trying to get product to market.

  Maybe I’m overreacting.

  Rows of garage doors along the outer wall of the stadium-sized facility gave the dock workers access to trailers. Pallet loaders and forklifts skidded back and forth to fill them up. His own rig was about two hundred yards away. Not even halfway to the other end.

  All of it was exceedingly ordinary.

  Definitely overreacting.

  Still, he wanted to check on Garth before hitting the trail, so he pulled out his phone and opened his contacts. There were only a few numbers programmed into it, so it was a snap for him to get to the one he wanted.

  He mashed the device against his head to drown out the noise of the warehouse.

  “Come on, son, pick it up,” he said under his breath.

  They had an agreement about using phones. Buck insisted that no matter what else was going on, Garth had to pick up anytime he got a call from his dad. Buck thought that was reasonable. Naturally, teenaged Garth believed it was a death sentence of inconvenience.

  His son’s number rang with a hollow echo in the line that made it sound distant. After about five rings, the noise changed to a series of clicks, like someone was dialing using a rotary phone. The connection died after a few seconds of that.

  “What the hell?”

  Something IS wrong.

  He called again, and the ringing was normal.

  Damn. I’m being stupid.

  “Pick up.” He tried to imagine where Garth was at that moment. His boy had sent a text saying he and Sam were almost at the airport, but he provided no updates. They should have collected Sam’s parents and been heading home already.

  Garth didn’t pick up, but it did go to his voicemail.

  “Yo, this is Garth. Drop those digits and I’ll get back to you.” Buck hated how fake he sounded, but it had been “explained” to him that it was how the kids talked these days.

  He took a deep, mind-clearing breath. His anxiety had gone back and forth in the last few minutes. The blue light might have been a nothing burger, but he needed to hear his son’s voice. However, he couldn’t sound panicky and uncertain, especially on voicemail, or he could inject fear where none belonged.

  “Hello, son. I’m, uh, almost loaded here in Modesto, California, and I’ll be mobile within the hour. I just got done eating another crappy meal.” He chuckled. “You would have hated it. Lots of pickles involved and the patty was as dry as tree bark.”

  Buck considered whether to mention the blue light, but in that brief decision loop, he decided against it. Whatever it was in the sky, it only lasted a couple of seconds, and nothing had come of it. The dock workers doing their normal routines proved that.

  “Anyway, I’m looking forward to seeing you at the end of the week. I know we haven’t been fishing in a while. What do you say we pull the old boat out of storage and find a quiet lake? I would really like that.”

  Even thinking about it made him happy.

  “Love ya, kid. Be home soon.”

  He hung up and felt much better.

  NORAD, Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado

  “What the fuck just happened?” General Obadias “Obi-Wan” Smith had spilled coffee on his leg, but that was only a small part of what made him angry. The lights were not supposed to go out in the bunker. Ever.

  He’d personally witnessed a total power shutdown for a full second. Every light. Every computer screen. Every phone charger. Out.

  “Checking!” several subordinates shouted from the control room.

  “I better have a goddamned answer in sixty seconds or heads are going to roll!”

  His mind rubber-banded to a series of impossibilities.

  A nuke could have gone off nearby. If it was big enough, that might shut us down.

  Hackers could have found a way in.

  I’m not saying it was aliens…but…

  Nothing could touch NORAD and not leave evidence. He had to know what it was, no matter how impossible. The life of every American citizen could depend on the answer he got in the next 52 seconds.

  “Warm up the red phone,” he said without a hint of mirth in his voice.

  Three

  5 am local time. Wollemi National Park, New South Wales, Australia

  For an instant, a flash of light filled the Australian night sky.

  Destiny Sinclair woke from a deep sleep, thinking someone had taken her
picture.

  “Real mature, mates.”

  It wouldn’t be the first time she’d been the butt of someone’s joke. It was the kind of childish prank animal researchers pulled on each other after reaching the bottom of Tequila bottles, and several were emptied at camp last night. She was up and ready to chew out whoever did it, but her anger changed to concern for her mates when she smelled smoke.

  “Bugger me,” she coughed.

  She tossed off her wool blanket and fell sideways out of her hammock. It was winter in New South Wales, and the overnight temps sometimes dropped all the way to ten degrees Celsius. That worked in her favor, however, because she slept with her clothes and boots on. Once those boots hit the dirt, she was on duty.

  In addition to surprising her with the bright flash, the prankster made it harder to see anything in the tiny glade where she’d made camp. Her night vision was ruined by a blue afterimage. “Who’s out there? Come on, this is serious!”

  No one fessed up.

  A thunderous crash echoed up the small valley. There had been no rain in the forecast, so she was pretty sure what it wasn’t. Thick smoke gave her a clue what it was: a tree had toppled over.

  Forest fire.

  Ironically, her own campfire had gone out hours ago, so she had almost no light until she pulled a tiny flashlight from her nylon hiking pants. That helped her get to the rope bag hanging from a nearby tree. It was up there to keep it away from critters, but it also gave her an easy landmark to find.

  She coughed from the exertion of those few steps.

  “Shit!”

  There was no way to know how close the fire had come, or how large it was, but if the smoke was thick enough to affect her, she needed to move.

  The first thing she pulled out of the bag was her radio.

  “Base Camp, this is Dez, come in. I’ve got a problem.”

  Static crackled for several seconds before she tried again.

  “Come in! This is Dez. There’s a forest fire nearby. One of the team might also be over there. Possibly lost.” All anger about the prank was gone. That person might have been affected by the smoke, too.