Survivalist Fiction. Man's Sins

[ClanWolf]

Man's Sins

Prologue- Oops
******

11 And the earth was corrupted before God, and was filled with iniquity. 12 And when God had seen that the earth was corrupted (for all flesh had corrupted its way upon the earth,) 13 He said to Noe: The end of all flesh is come before me, the earth is filled with iniquity through them, and I will destroy them with the earth.

Douay-Rheims Bible
Genesis 6:17

******
Terra Solar System
Asteroid Belt
November 1st.
In the Year of Our Lord 2007
******
Captain Mark Jacobson of the RNTSS (Republic Navy Time Space Ship) Paul John Jones still couldn’t find it. All his scans showed nothing capable of creating the massive explosion that had occurred here. Well, would occur in the next 5 minutes. Twin meteorites, SOHO-62 and SOHO-63, were on a collision course with this part of the asteroid belt. Looking at the forward screens, he could see the comets as they approached.

“Lt. Peters.”

“Aye, Sir!”

“Prepare to jump in 4 minutes from my mark. Mark!”

“Mark!” Responded Lt. Peters, “Jump engines at 90%, Captain.”

“Navigation!”

“Aye, Sir!”

“Set jump for home, Ensign.”

“Sir!”

The Captain turned his command chair to his second, Lt. Commander Jake Rogers and said; “Anything?”

“No, Sir. All scanners show the area clear of anything that could cause such an explosion.”

“Damn it, Jake. We have the best ship with the most advanced scanners ever made to find out what happened here.”

Captain Jacobson sunk down in his command chair and muttered; “The Admiral’s going to have me scrubbing toilets on Io.”

“I don’t think so sir, no one has ever figured out what happened, how can you be to blame?”

“Because Jake, you know how hard it is to make time jumps like this. And the expense is incredible! No one will be able to jump here ever again. We had one shot and it’s over. They’ll want someone to take the blame for not finding out the answers and it sure won’t be the Admiral.”

“It’s time, Captain.”

“All right, Jake, said the captain, “All hands prepare for jump. Navigation set time displacement for....”

“SIR! I have an abort coming across my boards, jump engines are failing! Reactors are at 200% and climbing! We have a system-wide failure! Reactors are going critical!"

Captain Jacobson looked out at the screens again. The Twins were bearing down on them!

“Give me full military thrust! Down 20 degrees! Ensign fire emergency chemical thrusters! Give me...”

“Too late.” Whispered his second.

The Captain looked up and had the answer that had baffled man for so long.

“Oh, God. No...”

This wouldn’t look good on the report at all.

[ClanWolf]

Chapter 1
******
USA, D.C.
White House, War Room
November 2
Year of Our Lord 2007
*****

"And as you see here, Mr. President, the earth will pass through this "rain' of asteroids for a period of four days."

President Bush looked at the big flat screen TV and still couldn't believe it was really happening. It sounded like something out of the movies.

"Earth will sustain constant hits by asteroids over this period of time. We think that SOHO-62 has broken up and will also impact the earth. String-of-pearls. We also think..."

"What caused that explosion?"

"Mr. President?"

"I said: What caused that explosion in the asteroid belt?"

"Well, uh." He looked around the room at the other scientist's, all which were looking else where.

"We don't have a clue, Sir. All we know is that the explosion was somewhere around, (cough), 300 megatons."

Bush put his face in his hands. He just could not believe this. This was worst then 9/11! He was just supposed to have a quite term as President and retire back to Texas. But everything kept blowing up in his face and now this!

He looked back up at the scientist and asked; "So what can we do?"

The NASA scientist looked at his feet.

"Nothing, Mr. President, not a thing. It will be like the earth is getting shot everyday with a shotgun. Asteroids will be raining down on the surface and going off like nukes."

And with that he felled back into his chair with a thump and started to cry.

"When... When will they hit?"

The scientist stop crying and said; "November 15th."

"Thank you, gentlemen. You may go now." Said Bush.

After the last of the scientists had finally left, Bush turned to Karl Rove.

"Karl, get those guys locked down till the day before the strike and then send them home. I don't want any leaks on this.

Then get the Pentagon on getting our troops home. Give them order OMEGA-1.

Tell the CIA and the others, I want the K-lists activated."

"Yes, Mr. President."

"Karl."

"Yes, Mr. President?"

“Get ahold of my family and have them contact me.

And shut off the lights, I want to be alone for a while. Then tell Laura to come down here.”

“Yes, Mr. President.”

As Rove left the war room, he could hear the President start to cry.

[ClanWolf]

Chapter 2
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Max's hunting cabin & retreat.
Heath Road
Outside Rose City, MI
November 15
Year of our Lord 2007
******

Maxmilian Joseph De La Salle (39, six foot one, 280 pounds, stocky build, brown hair and blue eyes)
held his breath and squeezed the trigger. The M1A slammed back into his shoulder and the intruder felled dead.

Max got up from the forest floor, his ghillie suit blending in perfectly with the fall colors, and walk over to the intruder.

Looking down at the form at his feet, Max pulled his knife and said; "Bet you’re sorry you came this way, buddy."

He took a knee and struck the knife in the stomach of the intruder and started opening him up.

"Buddy and JR (Max's two faithful Jack Russell's) will be happy tonight!" Max said aloud as he started to gut the 10 point buck. Another perfect Opening Day for deer season in northern Michigan. The day was perfect; cold with the promise of snow. When he was done, he got the Polaris ATV, and got the buck secured to the back and drove off for his hunting cabin.

Max was glad to be back here for the winter. The landscaping and lawn service season was over and he didn't bother with snow removal. His life was a fairly simple one; cut grass in the summer and come here and veg for the winter. That's about all there was left to do in his life.

Oh and he was rich.

But he would have given it all up to have his Mom back in his life. In fact, her death had made him rich.

They had been mowing grass that day and on the way to another job, a gravel hauler had run a red light and smashed into them.

He woke in the hospital the next day. He had come through with nothing but severe bruising and some minor cuts, but Mom was gone. A Clinton Township detective came by later that day to get Max's version of events. Max really didn't know what had happen. The detective inform him that the truck driver had been heard blowing his horn at least 150 feet form the intersection. Witness said that he didn't even hit his breaks. (True story but it was a small flatbed, everyone just got knock around but were OK and my truck totaled. CDW)

It was later learned that the construction company owner had order the man to drive the hauler, even though he had lost his license, because they were getting behind in deliveries.

The company’s insurance company settled for 7.5 million.

But Max was never the same again. He had thrown himself into getting his business up and running again and into being a survivalist. Y2K had come and gone and then 9/11 and that seemed to be it. The economy wasn't very hot and a lot of people were yelling about another Depression. He had a bookshelf filled with books and newsletters that were about nothing but the Next Great Depression, which never had seemed too happened when they said it would.

The latest thing was a mysterious explosion in space. Boy did that have the conspiracy nuts on a roar! A secret space ship had blown up or Bush had a secret weapon he was showing the world’s leaders. But no one really knew, NASA said that two comets had collided with each other.

The Muslims were saying it was Allah, because Bush starting pulling troops out of the Middle East. Most just thought he wanted to give the Republicans a chance to win the Presidency in 08.

Max didn’t care. He hadn’t bothered with the net for the last week. Max just wanted to hunt and get away from it all.

As he drove from the back of his 115 acres, he thought he heard the roar of a jet over head. That was nothing new; the A-10s from Grayling would sometimes buzz over the treetops of his woods.

Max pulled off the main trail and head up to the gate that enclosed the hill on which his hunting cabin sat on. He hit the remote for the gate and went through and over to his buck pole. It looked like a really nice hunting cabin, but then looks can be deceiving. The greenhouse attached to it made most people look twice.

As he pulled the buck up on the pole, Max thought he heard more jets. In fact, a lot of jets. Looking up he thought he could seem some contrails through the trees. Some looked like they were trailing smoke, but they were still pretty high up. Probably just exhaust he thought as he headed for the garage next to the cabin. Once inside he stripped out of the rest of the ghillie suit and went inside. Buddy and JR where happy to see him, as their jumping and licking showed.

Max hugged his boys and headed for the patio. A warm bath and a rum & coke sounded pretty good. He stepped through the back door; He flipped on the CD player and turned up the volume to drown out the sound of jets. Max walked over to his outdoor tub and started running the water. Max had always loved that outdoor bathtub that Lee Majors had in his TV show; The Fall Guy. Even with it being as cool as it was, Max still enjoyed it

As Max fixed himself a drink, he heard in the distant a boom. Then another, this time he felt the earth shake.

Looking up at the sky, Max saw it was filled with contrails.

"Oh, crap!" Max threw his drink aside and shut offed the water. He ran back inside and scooped up JR and Buddy and headed for the basement. Another boom and Max almost felled down the stairs, head first, but he regained his balance and made it down safely. He opened the door for the bomb shelter that was under the concrete patio and shoved the two mutts inside. He ran back into the basement and killed the power at the fuse box and switched off the emergency generator. The emergency lighting system flashed on.

Max heard another boom, the ground lurched again, and he went crashing to the floor. That hurt! He grabbed his left arm and headed back to the bomb shelter, he could hear his boys howling. Max got in and shut the door and threw the locks, just in time for the ground to lurched again making Max smack his head into the massive steel door.

[ClanWolf]

Chapter 3
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Max's hunting cabin
Underground shelter system
November 17th
Year of Our Lord 2007
******

"Oh, God, that hurts!" Said Max as he regained consciousness. Reaching up to his head, he could feel a nice size bump. He had a headache too.

Max found himself lying on his back; Buddy and JR were lying next to him, asleep. As he tried to sit up, he groaned, instantly waking up his boys. They were on him in an instant; whining, licking, crying, and jumping all over him.

"Okay, okay, guys! Get down!" Max struggled to get to his feet. He noticed that the LEDs that made up his emergency lighting system were still on. But Max also noticed that the air felt stale. Then he remembered where he was.

Max was still in the stairwell that connected the house to the shelter. Thankfully, he was still on the top landing and hadn't fallen down the stairs! It was 15 feet down to the shelter's blast door.

He wasn't feeling all that good and when he tried to stand, he started to feel like he was losing his balance. So Max slowly butt bumped his way down the stairs.

He noticed that Buddy and JR had left a puddle at the bottom. Max couldn't blame them, knocking himself out like that must have scared them to death. And Jack's were a bit of a wired breed.

Max unlocked the blast door and went inside and relocked the door. The air was stale in here too. He needed to turn on the ventilation system. Max stumbled his way over to the Swiss filter, said a prayer, and flipped the switch. He heard it turn on and air started to come through the vent.

"Thank you, God!" Max muttered as he leaned against the wall. The terrible two started whining again, even louder than before. Max looked at his G-Shock watch and saw that is showed that it was the 16th! He had knocked himself out for over a day! Max realized that he must have really hit his head hard on the security door. He would check for the dent later.

Max knew what his guys needed; they need to go! He slowly went to the security station and turn on the indoor video system. All of the cameras were working and Max could see that the next shelter was clear of any damage. He'd check the outside one's later. Max grabbed up a first-aid kit and dry swallowed some aspirins for the pain in his head.

He unlocked the blast door, and walked slowly and with one had on the wall, into the tunnel and over to the next shelter. He got his keys out and unlocked the blast door and went in. The lights were already on and all the plants were still in place. The hydroponics system was still working. Max had this shelter designed as a greenhouse. It was easy enough to do. Drug dealers had been doing it for years.

Max walked through the shelter and over to another blast door and then through that to another connection tunnel and to the storage shelter. He needed a bag of dirt, along with a small hard plastic kiddy pool, and a kid's sand bucket and shovel. These were stored right up front, near the door. Max grabbed up the dirt and kiddy pail and took them into the greenhouse shelter. He then went back and got the kiddy pool

Dumping the dirt into the pool Max called Buddy and JR and place them in the pool. They started sniffing around and did their business. He was getting ready to scoop it out when he noticed he didn't feel too good. The smell of doggie poop was making him sick.

"The hell with it", he muttered and got the boys and went back in the primary shelter. Max needed something more for his head and he needed to lie down. Grabbing up a first-aid kit with a green cross, which contained some homeopathic medicines. Max took some Hypericum Perfoliatum (St. John's Wort) that helped with injuries near nerve endings, Calcarea Phosphorica (Phosphate of Lime) which speeds healing of bone fractures, Apis Melifica (Honey Bee) for swollen area from any cause, and some Belladonna (Night Shade) for sudden onset of pain. Max grabbed a cold pack and laid down on the bunk bed. He hoped the knot on his head wasn’t serious.

As he sat in the bunk after an hour, just taking it easy, he suddenly realized that he didn’t know what was really going on outside or what had cause the explosions and tremors. Max really didn’t want too but he got off the bunk and went back to the security station. He saw that the inside camera’s showed that a lot of stuff had fallen over through out the house and that the back patio door was still opened and that snow was blowing in! A lot of snow. Max was going to have to get that door closed and the security shutters powered up and locked in place.

Switching to the outdoor cameras, he saw that 3 of them were not working and 2 others must have come lose and were swaying in the wind. The two that were still working showed that a lot of snow was coming down and that is was pitch black.

“Must be the reason the snow looks so dark.” Max said to Buddy and JR, who were watching him from their bunk bed. The night vision camera’s sometimes showed a lot of shadow and he didn’t want to turn the flood lights on. Not without knowing what shape they were in.

The clock on the monitor showed 3 p.m. and it look like mid-night outside! Dang, must be one hell of a snowstorm. Must be some real Lake effect snow blowing in. Max thought the weather service had said snow was coming, but nothing like he was seeing now.

Thankfully, the main gate camera was working. He could barely see it though the snow, but the amount of snow was almost half way up the gate. And the gate was 4 foot tall.

Max also checked the remote monitors for the battery bank and for radiation, just in case. No radiation was detected and the main battery bank was still at 90%.

The shelters Sentinel 3600 Standby Power Supply was at 73% and falling slowly. The one in the greenhouse was probably much lower due to the growing lights. Max knew that the Swiss filter system drew a pretty good load, and the one in the greenhouse was set on automatic. Plus he had a small electric heater going on in 2 of the shelters. It looked like he wasn’t getting any power from the solar panels, probably due to the snow and darkness. He needed to get them cleaned off and the main generator going again.

And that meant going outside.

Max didn’t know if he had it in him to do it. He could let the panels go for now and see to the generator first and that meant checking the fuel tanks. They were out next to the storage barn.

Dang, he hadn’t check out the cameras at the storage barn and the workshop. Max turned off the outside camera’s and turned on the four outbuilding ones. All were working and he panned the cameras around, everything looked fine. He turned on the inside microphones and listen for any intruders. Still nothing but wind.

Max next tried the SW, then the CB, Business radio, Maritime radio, AM/FM, NOAA, TV, and finally the police scanners.

Nothing but static.

Max was starting to get worried. There should have been something. Even just a carrier wave. Unless nukes had gone off but everything was working so it couldn’t be from any damage due to EMP.

Of course, the tower might have fallen over. That camera was out, he knew.

All this meant he had to go out and see what had happened. Max decided he might as well try, he needed to close that patio door, no matter what.

“No rest for the wicked.” Max muttered. He headed for the blast door that led back into the basement of the house. Max opened the locker that was next to it and started to pull out some clothes and boots he would need. He quickly got into the Cabela’s Military Weight Polartec long johns, a green stocking cap, then a pair of Tiger Stripe BDUs and an M-65 jacket. He wanted range of motion over warmth. And finally a pair of Rocky Eliminator boots and a pair of Max-Tac Combat gloves. He grabbed out of the next locker a Practical Tactical PT-03 MESA Assault Vest configured for the AR-15 and a High Speed Gear thigh holster for the Browning High Power. He then unlocked the weapons locker and toke out a Colt CAR-15, his grandfather's HP, and a PVS-7B night vision goggles.

“You to stay put and I’ll be back” Max said in his best Terminator voice.

Buddy gave Max a yawn and JR didn’t even bother to open his eyes.

“Ingrates.” And then Max turned and opened the blast door and stepped through.

[ClanWolf]

Chapter 4
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Max's hunting cabin
Underground shelter system
November 17th
Year of Our Lord 2007
******

Max closed the blast door behind him and looked at the stairs. He grabbed the rails on both sides and slowly walked up the stairs. Max felt a bit puffed and he rested a moment. He grabbed a Streamlight Trident headlamp from the emergency light box next to the door. Max unlocked the security door, turned on his headlamp, and stepped through to the basement. Max walked carefully over to the fuse box, and flipped on the main switch, ready to shut it off at the first sign of trouble.

Nothing happened.

Max wasn't surprised a bit at that. The way everything had been shaking, he didn't doubt that the power was off. Usually up here, it only took a good snow storm to start having trouble with the power.He looked over at the stairs and frown. Max took out a small bottle of Belladonna, and swallowed five more tablets, and headed up the stairs into the kitchen.

Huffing and puffing, he stripped off his CAR and the tac vest and dropped them on the floor. His head hurt badly and the stuff was feeling like it weighed a ton. Max doubted he would even need a BB gun, but he kept the Browning just in case. He sat down in one of the kitchen chairs and rested for a moment. Max could hear the wind blowing in the open patio door.

With a loud grunt Max got up and walked into the living room and over to the patio door. Snow was blowing all over the room and he grabbed the door and tried to shut it.

It wouldn’t budge.

Max tried again and all he got for his trouble was getting his arm to feel sore again. Max looked at the door trying to figure out what was wrong. He kicked at the snow in the door sill and hit ice.

Max got down slowly to his knees and started to sweep away the snow with his hands. When he got down to the sill, Max could see that some of the snow must have melted and then frozen over it.

Getting, painfully, back up to his feet Max walked back to the kitchen and then on to the garage. He walked over to the Craftsman tool chest, opened a drawer, and took out a rubber mallet and headed back to the door.

Max got back down and smacked the mallet against the ice, with his good arm. He smacked it a few more times, breaking up the ice. Throwing the pieces outside, Max finally got the door closed. He leaned his head against the door, closed his eyes, and tried to slow down his fast breathing. Max opened his eyes after a couple minutes and saw the snow. Feeling overheated he grabbed a handful and stuck it in his mouth.

Yuck!

He started spiting it out and kept it up for a minute. Dang snow tasted like mud! Max grabbed up another handful and took a good look at it and he saw something strange. The snow that had gotten blown in while the door was opened looked incredibly dirty. Max started to shift through it. It looked like the dirt was blended in with the snow, like it was some kind of fine dust. But how did it get in with the snow?

Max tried to make his brain work, but the pain was coming back again. He would let this wait till later; he needed to check the generator. Grabbing the door handle, Max pulled himself back up and headed for the garage. He stopped and grabbed a bottle of water out of the Sunfrost refrigerator. Max took a swig and spat it out. He got some more aspirin out of the cabinet and swallowed them, hoping they would help the pain in his head and arm. Max had some pain killers but knew that he couldn’t take them yet.

As he walked in the garage he headed for the back door that went in the “electric room”, as he called it. This room contains the batteries and the power system. An LED light lit the room and Max turned off his headlamp. Dang, the light was starting to hurt his eyes. He didn’t think that was a good sign. He then checked everything over and it seemed okay to him. Max then went through the next door in the generator room. There sat the China diesel generator 12,000 watt model that he bought back when he had this place built in 1997. It sat next to a 300 gallon flat tank that he just had installed last year.

Max checked the tank and saw it was 3/4 full. If he ran it just enough to keep the battery banks recharged, he should have enough for about a couple weeks.


Max could leave the outside bulk tank for later, but on second thought, he decided to make sure the tank wasn’t leaking. He had a smaller back up tank, by the workshop but that only held a thousand gallons. Max went back into the electric room and switched on the generator.

He headed back for the garage.

Looking out the garage door window, Max could see that the snow storm hadn’t let up one bit. Walking over to his snowmobile, he grabbed up a snowmobile helmet and a hood, putting them on. Max then grabbed up a two million candle power spot light and head out for the fuel tanks.

The wind just cut right through him, even with the military grade long johns. Snow was whipping by so fast that he could barely see, even with the spot light. It took him twice as long as it should have but he finally made it. The earthen berm that the Ogemaw County Fire Chief had insisted be erected, actually help him with the snow. Max took the dip stick and stuck it down in the tank. When he pulled it out he saw that the tank was still almost filled. Max had the tank filled when he got up last week and he hadn’t been running the generator all that much.

Heading back to the house, Max remembered that he had left his M1A on the ATV near the buck pole. Staggering over to the pole Max found his ATV.

Or what was left of it.

It looked like something had torn it apart and the buck pole. Max could see that the ATV was partially in the ground, like something had shoved it into the earth. The only thing left of the buck pole was part of one support pole. As he got closer to get a better look, Max heard an even greater roaring sound then the storm. He looked up, into the sky, trying to figure out what it was that he had heard. Seeing something glowing and moving in the sky he took a step back.

And stepped into space and experienced freefall.

Max felled into a hole and under the snow.

He tried to stand up but he kept slipping down. Max grabbed around and his hands grabbed what had once been the front of the ATV and he pulled himself onto it.

Max pulled himself hand over hand up the wreckage of the ATV. Bruised, tired, cuts all over his hands and body, Max finally got back on solid earth. His head was pounding worse then before. His bad arm felt like it wanted to fall off and the good one wasn’t to far behind.

He found that all the strength had left his legs.

Max crawled his way back to the house. He reached the garage door and crawled in. Ripping the helmet off, Max then tried to stand up, again. But it was no use. He could feel that his body wanted to shut down.

Max knew that if he quite now, he would freeze to death in the garage. It would be so easy to close his eyes and just quit.

But he had his boys to think about. Max couldn’t let them die like that. Sealed up in the shelter with almost no food or water. In the dark.

So Max started crawling again. Across the garage floor and into the kitchen and then down the stairs into the basement. He crawled across the floor and pulled himself up a shelf near the fuse box. Max flipped on the fuse box and saw the power gauge begin to move.

Falling back to the floor, he crawled over to the security door. He pulled himself up and opened the door. Max crawled onto the landing and shut the door behind him. Reaching up he flipped the lower locks on the door and then started down the stairs.

Agonizingly, Max pulled himself slowly down the stairs. He was careful not to go to fast and take a header. Slowly, one step at a time till he finally reached the bottom.

Max’s breathing was ragged. He needed to rest, but not yet. Only a few more feet, he thought.

With shaking hands, Max got the keys and unlocked the blast door. He didn’t know if it was real or not but he thought he felt tremors once again, like had happened the other day. But he was shaking so bad, he just thought it was his body doing it. Max pulled himself up the door and opened it.

The door swung in and he landed with a thump.

He remembered whining and pushing the two mutants back. Max crawled for his bed with Buddy and JR at his side. They were so confused and were frightened by his condition. He tried to soothe them, but he didn’t know if it helped.

As Max crawled for his bunk, he saw he was near the security station that was right across from his bunk.

Max pulled himself up to the ledge of the desk and smacked the panic button.

Turning, with his head pounding worst than ever, he reached for his bunk.

And failed.

In the cabin above, motors started and the security shutters slowly closed over every window and door way in the entire house. Sealing the entire house from the outside world.

[ClanWolf]

Chapter 5
******
Earth
November 17th
Year of Our Lord 2007
*****

As Max lay unconscious, the Earth was being re-made.

As the incoming meteorite's struck the earth, massive amounts of dirt where thrown into the atmosphere.

Tsunamis raged across the Earth's oceans from the impacts and whole island chains disappeared under their onslaught. Coastal cities were smashed. Entire costal regions were either changed or were washed away. Huge amounts of water were thrown in the skies.


Shockwaves from the impacts crushed cities and destroy forests, as if nuclear bombs had gone off. Fire's burned everywhere.

Mountains were pulverized under the barrage of meteorites.

The Earth was covered in a dust storm that had never been seen before. From space the Earth looked like a ball of chocolate ice cream mixed with heavy swirls of vanilla.

Yummy.

In the northern parts of the world, a winter unlike any human alive had ever witness was starting.

And in the southern part of the world clouds of dust covered the skies and rained down mud.

The sun vanished from the sky.

People tried to run, but no place was safe. It seemed as if the end of the world was happening. Many prayed while others took what they wanted. Murder, rape, rioting, and burning. Chaos and insanity ruled the world of men. Hell on Earth was a reality.

But only for a brief time.

Many of the underground super-shelters built for government and business elites around the world collapsed, entombing those who had wanted domain over their fellow man. Many cursing the one that they had thought would give them everything.

But not all of them, evil always survive.

For four days and nights, the earth shuddered under the impacts of the meteorites.

And Omega stayed hidden.

And as for Max, well Max...

[ClanWolf]

Chapter 6
******
Max's hunting cabin
Underground shelter
November 20th
In the Year of Our Lord 2007
******

"Oh, God, that hurts!" Said Max as he regained consciousness. Oh, man, not this again, he thought.

Max found himself lying in his bunk, still in his BDU's and long johns. He hurt, felt hungry and thirsty, still had a killer headache, and he stank.

‘Crap’, he thought, as he took a sniff. The guys must have gone in here. As Max move he realized that the smell was coming from him. And he could feel it.

"Yuck!" He muttered as he slowly took his clothes off, with the smell getting worst as each layer of clothes came off. Max grabbed the trash can near the security center and stuffed his clothes in it.

His bedding was stinking too. Max decided to take a shower first and get cleaned up. As he walked, naked, down the shelter to the shower in the greenhouse, Max realized that he hadn't seen Buddy or JR. He called out for them and two little heads peaked around the corner of their bed.

"Hey, guys. Sorry about the mess." Max said aloud. They just wagged their tails but looked very concerned. He knew that they got themselves worked up whenever they had an accident, it seemed they didn't care for him having one either!

Max continued down to the shower and turned the water on. He gave the Aquastar tankless water heater a few seconds to get going. Max got under the spray of water and gave himself a good scrubbing.

A very good scrubbing.

After the shower and a fresh pair of underwear, he then treated every cut on his body with Tea Tree Oil. Some of his cuts were looking nasty.

Max got a couple of 55 gallon trash bags and some duct tape and got the mattress off his bunk and stowed it in the stairwell, along with his soiled clothes.

At the small kitchenette, he nuked himself some water. Max pulled out a Mountain House beef stroganoff meal pack and sat down at the fold-out table, Max ate it very slowly. He even gave each of the mutts a bit to one of his own. Max knew what would happen to him if he just gobbled it down. So he shared it with his boys as a way not to get sick, and did so again when he made another one.

“Well at least you two welfare case’s are good for something.” He said to them.

All he got was more begging.

He figured that all they had was dry dog food for the last three days. So Max got out a pack of beef cubes from the small Novakool refrigerator and gave them their supper.

Max laid back down on one of the spare bunks and took some aspirin and Kava Kava (for sleeping), and slept for a while.

He awoke, later, still sore and still with a headache, but he at least was starting to feel human again.

Max took his time walking over to the latrine, did his business, and washed up. Walking back over to the security station he turned on the radios and searched again for anything. And once again, nothing. The outside security cameras still showed nothing but snow.

I might as well take it easy, he thought. Max walked over to the book case, and being too tired to read, pulled out the Alien vs. Predator DVD.

Max pulled out the keyboard for his computer and booted it up. When the screen showed ready, he pointed the cursor at the time just like he always did. Max was stunned when he saw the date.

November 20, 2007.

"My God, I've been out for three days!"

Max searched his mind, could it be possible? Three whole days? The last thing he remembered was trying to get to his bunk and falling. But when he woke up, his jacket and boots were off. So at some point he must have awakened but he couldn't remember it.

Shaking his head and then instantly regretting doing so, Max slipped in the DVD and when the program was up and running, pressed PLAY.

He grabbed up a six pack of diet Coke and a bag of vinegar pork rinds. Max called the boys over and Buddy and JR got up with him and snuggled close.

He then lowered the small screen LCD TV, which every bunk had, and watched the movie. At the point where the Predator tossed his wrist nuke into the egg chamber, Max drifted off to sleep again.

He dreamed of snow and Aliens.

And Omega started its countdown.

[ClanWolf]

Chapter 7
******
Max's hunting cabin
Underground shelter
December 5th
Year of Our Lord 2007
******

RRRRIIIINNNNGGGG!

He rolled over and turned of the alarm clock. Six a.m. it read. Buddy growled as Max moved to get out of the bunk, Max always got up too early for his liking.

"Good morning to you too, Mr. Sunshine!" Max said as he got off the bunk. Buddy, just burrowed his way under the blankets with just his nose pointing out.

Buddy was not a morning person.

JR on the other hand was, and greeted Max as he got up.

Buddy just thought they were both nuts.

After doing his business, washing up, and shaving, Max took a good look at himself in the mirror. The bump on his head was just about gone and didn't hurt anymore. Nor did his arm or most of the cuts he got crawling out of that hole.

Just a few more scars and mileage on the old bod, he thought.

He was feeling about 100% again.

And was bored out of his gourd!

For two weeks he had watched movies, listen to music, and finally starting reading again. Max took it easy with only cooking and bathing as his only real chores.

Well, other than cleaning up after those two manure spreaders. You won’t believe how much could come out of the south end of those little guys!

Max just tossed it into the compost tumbler.

He even started to say his prayers once more and thanking God for letting him survival whatever had happened.

Of course, he did ask why he had survived? What made him so special?

And as usual, he got no answer to his questions either. Max also figure it would only get those answers after he left this mortal world.

He decided that it was better to just let it be. God knew better then Max ever would and that, in the end, was okay with him.

Then yesterday, Max started up the Troy snowblower and cleaned a path to the gate and got it opened. That took over an hour and wiped him out for the rest of the day. Thank God it is a self-propelled model.

After having a breakfast of Eggo's with strawberry jam, a nice piece of New York stripe (rare of course), hash browns and Tang, Max sat back down at the security station and did his daily radio and security sweep.

And just like every single day, nothing was there.

Just lots and lots of dirty snow, but not blowing as hard as before or as much. But now it was almost up to the roof of the cabin and the temp was at 15 degrees. With the wind he figured that the wind chill was, perhaps, 10 below?

But he couldn’t take it anymore down here. Max wasn’t going to move back into the cabin. He knew he had to save his wood and the temperature down here was a warm 75, with the electric heater. And without it, a slightly cool 62.

Max wanted outside again. He needed to see the world again. He needed to know what was happening and why. Max didn’t mind being alone but he wasn’t the indoor type either

So, back into another pair of military long johns he had pulled out of the storage shelter, snow boots and his white snowmobile suit. Then a white CTC tac-vest made up for his HK-91 and a HSG thigh holster for his Browning.

"You two be good and I'll be back in a couple hours." Said Max.

All he got was snores.

"What did I ever do to deserve you two?" He muttered as he left the shelter.

As Max entered the garage, he thought of where he should head for. Probably stop at the Beth and Joe McCubbin's home and check it out.

Beth was Max’s housekeeper for up here. Joe did the caretaking and minor repairs around the place. Max even let them us his fenced in garden area, that way they could keep it up and have it ready to go if he needed it. Max also split the orchard 50/50 with them.

Beth and Joe weren’t going to be home, Max knew. She had told him they were going to go and see their daughter, who lived in Kansas.

But it would be worth it to still check it out and the small subdivision at the top of the hill.

Max walked over and grabbed up his helmet and started up the Yamaha Apex Mountain SE snowmobile and activated the remote garage door opener. As the commercial steel door rolled up, the snow began blowing in. Max gunned the sled and took of.

As he approached the main gate, Max hit the gate remote and zoomed through. The snow was at least six foot deep and around the fence the drifts were even higher. Once he found the main trail, Max again gunned the sled and headed for Heath Road.

When Max reached the road, he took a quick look at his grandfather’s old hunting cabin. The front door was open and snow was blowing in. So he got the sled right up next to the porch and slung the HK to his front and slowly entered the cabin.

Max took his helmet off, activated the Surefire light on the HK, and started to look around.

The place had been trashed.

Every can of food, every blanket, and all the clothes had been taken. What was pissing off Max was that whoever had done it, had just flung anything they didn’t want on the floor, smashed open the cabinets, and broke almost all the dishes in their search.

Max just went back out and closed the door. He doubted that he would ever know who did it, if it wasn’t someone from around here.

Getting back on the Yamaha, Max started it up and headed for Beth and Joe’s house. He got on Heath Road, went up the hill, and stopped and looked at their house.

Or what was left of it.

Their house was nothing but a pile of kindling. Max could still see a good size crater behind it, even with all the snow that had fallen. Whatever had crashed there had blown their house apart. He didn’t like the look of that crater. Something had to be moving pretty fast to make it and he didn’t see any wreckage from a plane.

So what had happen?

Seeing that there was nothing he could do, Max headed back up the road and towards the subdivision, which consisted of 12 mobile homes and cabins.

When he got to the entrance, Max shut down the sled and listen.

He heard nothing but the wind.

Since the wind was blowing towards him, Max lifted his visor and took a sniff.

He couldn’t smell any wood smoke.

Max got off the sled and walk into the subdivision. It was slow going through all that snow.

The first mobile home was 40 ft from Heath Road. He took a knee and watched the place. Max could see that the snow had drifted around it, covering the doors and windows. But not the front door. He could see that there was only about a foot or so against it. Max made his way over and knocked the snow from the door and tried to open it. Finding the door unlocked, he did a sweep through the home and found it trashed too. And there were no bodies.

Max proceeded through the whole neighborhood and found nothing but more looted homes. He then tried the homes on Heath Road, heading towards Campbell Road. More trashed and looted homes, till he came to the fancy log house that was almost at the corner. Max never met the people who owned it. The name carved into the log, next to the door, said Ropes.

There he found bodies. Fifteen of them, frozen stiff. Ten adults and five kids.

That confused Max. There was plenty of firewood stacked up and all the food and stuff they had looted from the neighborhood. Why were they dead?

He looked the bodies over and found no bullet holes or other wounds on them. As he moved a couple of the bodies, trying to find out what had happened; Max found a note under one of the adult males.

We have run out of water. Tried to melt the snow, but we became really sick, the kids are really suffering. It must have been the dust in the snow, something in the dust is making us sick. There’s no water, we can’t get the generator to work, too cold. My wife found some pills at one of the homes that should work.

God forgive us.

Max just shook his head, what fools. In his grandfather’s cabin, in the kitchen was a hand pump. He had found his stuff that he kept in the old cabin, here, so these people had been the ones looting it and hadn’t even noticed the pump.

Plus he knew that the Sames’ cabin had a hand pump too. But these people had picked this big, fancy, log cabin with the huge bay windows, to hold out in.

Died in style, he hoped they were happy.

Max avoided the bedrooms that had sheets over tiny figures.

As he checked out the cabin and gathered his stuff, Max found that the food in the frig and freezer were frozen solid. That would mean a boon of frozen meat and such for him and the boys. Max took all the batteries he could fine too. They wouldn't last long in these freezing temps. He'd have to come back with a cargo sled and get the jar's and can's of food before more busted. Most still hadn't.

Then it struck him.

Where was everyone?

[ClanWolf]

Chapter 8
******
Omega Complex Zulu
Oklahoma, USA
December 24th
Year of Our Lord 2007
******
There was a knock on the door.

"Enter!" Said Major General Steve Fraley (63, 5 foot eleven, black hair almost gone gray, fit and missing one eye and left hand).

A Marine Colonel (Ken Vining, 59, 6 foot, white haired, missing his left leg) enters and salutes.

"Sir, Meteorology reports that conditions are now good enough to launch."

Maj. General Fraley returned the salute and ask; "Are they sure this time, Ken?"

"As sure as anyone can be without satellites and no other weather stations."

"And still no word from the other Omega Complexes?"

"No, Sir. The atmosphere is still screw up from all the storms and dust. All the hard-lines are still dead."

"Damn it, I wish just one more had survive."

"I know, Sir, but the system was made so just one Complex could initiate launch. And it's time."

"Your right, Ken. Go on, I'll be down at Mission Control in a few moments."

"Sir." The Colonel saluted and limped away.

Maj. General Fraley sat at his desk for a few moments and followed the Colonel.

Heck of a thing to do on Christmas Eve, he thought, as he headed down to Mission Control.

As he reached the doors, a Army Sergeant and a Navy Petty Officer, First Class, came to attention as best as they could. The Sergeant was affected by a spinal injury and the Petty Officer had suffered from Gulf War Syndrome. Both were armed with M-3 .45cal. submachine guns.

Above the entrance was a saying from his favorite President, Ronald Regan, who had started Omega.

"No arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women."

As he went through the doors, he heard the Colonel say; "General on deck!"

General Fraley watched as some of the men struggled to stand up at attention, some sat straight up in their chairs, and the rest turn towards him in their wheelchairs.

He nodded at them and said; "As you were."

He then headed for a raised platform that held a chair and workstation. He called it his "Kirk" chair. From there he could see everything that went on.

Getting himself settled, and putting on his headset, he look at the Colonel, down on the floor and asked; "Where do we stand at now, Colonel?"

"All drones are ready, Sir, the runway has been cleared of all snow and ice. With your permission, I would like to start the countdown."

"Permission granted."

"Sir! All right people, let's make this happen! Begin countdown for the first drone at my mark. Mark!"

On the huge screen, the first countdown started at Ten, Nine, Eight....

The screen split and the first drone could be seen rolling out of the elevator and onto the runway. As the elevator sunk back into the ground, a pilot in Mission Control started it down the runway.
Everyone held their breath and when the drone became airborne, a cheer was raised.

The General watch as drone, after drone was launched. All six of them had successfully taken off. He watch as the pilots sitting down a row below him, steered the drones to their destinations.

"Sir!"

"Yes, Colonel?"

"Communications reports that the com relay is ready to be lifted to the surface."

"Precede, Colonel."

He watch as Ken turned to the lift control officer and give the order.

Fraley watched on his screen as the 4 story tower com array was lifted up to the surface.

As an hour passed on, he was informed by the Colonel that all six drones had reached the beginning of their broadcast areas. The General gave the go ahead and the drones started to re-broadcast the signal from the Omega Complex.

Deep underground in hidden silos, twenty-seven surviving MX4 missiles waited for the signal and when they once received the signal, they launched. Out of the 27, twenty made high orbit around the earth and started to deploy the satellites they carried.

General Fraley knew it would take a few weeks for the satellites to gather the information he needed and then Phase II would begin.
******

Hilltop Bar
Between Rose City and Mio
On M-33
December 24th
******

Max filled another box with the few remaining bottles of liquor. Wasn't much left and that any was left had surprised him. He had counted at less a fifty people had jammed themselves in the little bar and had one last party.

It was kind of gross seeing so many naked, frozen bodies all twisted up from the cold.

He took the box out to the Ohara Caliber snowcat and put it in the back. Looking up into the sky, he wondered when he would ever see the sun again It had taken Max over a week to get to Tom McCliman’s place and get it. And he lived only 18 miles from Max’s cabin. Tom owned the snowcat as well as being a member of the Snowmobile Trail Association. He groomed the trails so people could have a smooth ride and not get stuck. Tom also picked up some extra cash with hauling people’s wrecked snowmobiles. The Ohara was Japanese made snowcat and had a couple of attachments for it, like a crane.

Max had found that his Yamaha snowmobile couldn’t take the ever growing amount of snow. When he had been on Heath Road, he had failed to notice how much less snow there was on the road, due to all the trees that lined the road. Once on Campbell Road, where there were open fields, the snow had gotten as deep as ten feet. And in some of the dips in the roads, it could be as deep as twenty or even completely filled in.

So Max had to get to Tom’s place by driving through the woods and making trails for himself. With more snow falling all the time, even at the reduced rate it was at now, it still took a lot of work making the trails. He had to dig the sled out a couple of times, set trail makers and caution tape so he could find his way back to where he had stopped.

When he finally had got to Tom’s place, Max had found the snowcat in the pole barn. It had taken him a day to take the battery back home and get it re-charged and it had taken another day to get the snowblower attachment on. Max had thank God that the battery did re-charge, he would have had to pull out one of his spares and Max didn’t want to do that. He only had so many for his own needs and didn’t know how many he would find that would survive the freezing temperatures.

Max had explored Tom’s place and had found him dead in his bed from an overdose of some kind of pills. Looked like they were some illegal kind. Worst was that he had found the guy surrounded by magazines on S&M porn.

Once he got the snowcat back to his place and got it set-up the way he wanted, Max went exploring. He went through many of the houses up and down Heath and Campbell roads.

Max finally found where most people had disappeared to.

Most of the houses were empty and but some contain large numbers of frozen bodies. He figured that they had gathered to pool together what little they had. It looked to Max that most of them had suffered the same fate as the ones in the Rope’s cabin. Their pipes had frozen and they started to melt snow for water. So many had such looks of agony on their frozen faces. Others had killed themselves and sometimes their whole families.

In one house it someone had run amuck with a axe and slaughtered everyone in it.

Max ran out of that house and puked his guts out!

When Max headed into Rose City itself, he found many more dead people. In the bars, churches, or government buildings. With so many dead in only a few places, Max started to carried with him, his New Marian Missal and would say the Prayer for the Dead over them. Since he couldn't bury them, he could at least say a few words over them.

It was in the Rose City Hall/Police office that he found out what had happen. A USA Today paper was on one of the desks and it explained about how the mysterious explosion in the asteroid field had caused many of the asteroids to shatter and be push into the Earth’s orbit. Meteorites would slam into the Earth for the next four days!

What stunned Max was that the paper was dated November 15th!

No wonder the woods had sounded so quite that day. Usually the first day of rifle season sounded like a war zone.

That also explained the tremors and explosions he had heard and felt! Max felt better having some answers as to what had happened, but he was left with wondering how many had survived such a catastrophe, on a world-wide scale like this.

There was only one thing to do and that was to go looking himself.

Max set out to find any survivors that he could over the next week. He started doing a search out from Rose City itself, but all he found was more dead frozen bodies. He rigged up a siren and a spotlight to the snowcat, but no one ever came out of any homes. He did find a lot of impact craters and destoyed homes, like Beth and Joe's place.

Max did stop at a lot of homes and looked for anything he could salvage before the cold destroyed it. Basically, batteries and anything that would freeze and bust. He did make lists of what would be of value to him to come back and get later. It did look like Max would have enough frozen foods to eat. The freezing temperatures were keeping everything nice and frozen.

Finally having enough of finding no one, Max headed out to Mio and to the Amish that lived north of it. He knew a couple of them since he had hired a crew of Amish workers to do the finish work on his cabin. Max figured that they, out of anyone, should have survived this.

When Max was finally getting close to Mio, he saw something was wrong. There were chucks of trees and huge, strangely shaped mounds of snow everywhere.

He got out of the snowcat, got his snowshoes on, and tried to walk to Mio, but the snow had all kinds of stuff sticking out of it. But he kept climbing over it; he had to see what had caused this. Max brushed the snow away from one of the mounds and found a giant piece of concrete, another turned out to be part of a fire engine.

As Max crested the hill, he came to a halt. He couldn’t believe what he saw. He got his Kodak digital camera out and took a dozen shots of it.

Mio was gone and a giant carter was all that was left, it looked to be two miles wide.

There wasn’t anything left, no buildings, no bridges; even the Rifle River Dam was gone.

Max figured that he didn’t have the fuel to go around this and reach the Amish.

He worked his way back to the snowcat, and started to head home. Max did stop on the way to check out all the cars and trucks around the Hilltop bar. He took anything left that was worth it, said a prayer for those fools and went home.

Tomorrow was Christmas and Max want to get ready for the Lord’s birth.

[ClanWolf]

Man's Sins

Chapter 9

******
Max's hunting cabin
Underground shelter
January 16th
Year of Our Lord 2008
******

"Here you go." Said Max as he flipped Buddy a cookie. JR was munching his.

He went back to eating his dinner of shrimp, a nice 3" thick T-bone, seasoned fries, and corn. And some ice cold milk, literally, to drink.

It had been a good day.

******

Suddenly, there was a blinding light.

Max threw his arm across his eyes to shield them, and the snowcat came to a halt.

"What the hell was that?" He shouted. Max saw spots of intense white light, floating in his field of vision, and his eyes were still shut tight.

It was like a nuke had gone off in front of his eyes!

Max sat there confused about what had happened. He grabbed up his Browning HP in case it was some kind of attack. Max listened for any sounds other then the wind.

But he knew he was in deep trouble; he couldn't see anything and with the howling wind, he couldn't hear anything either.

He was a sitting duck.

For all he knew someone was lining up a shot at him right now.

Max tried to open his eyes but everything was still a blur. He rubbed his eyes to combat the tears that were pouring out.

After a while, Max's eyesight began to return to him. He never knew just how frightening it was not to be able to see. He grabbed up a pair of sunglasses that were in the cab and put them on. They gave his eyes some relief, even with it being dark out.

Max jumped out of the snowcat with his HK at the ready. He walked around the snowcat as best as he could and found nothing that showed where the flash had come from.

Suddenly, again, light flooded from behind Max's back. He dove around the corner of the cat and took a peak.

Max saw a shaft of sunlight coming down like a laser beam from a small break in the clouds. It was so bright and beautiful.

He sank to his knees and started to cry.

Max had thought that he would never see it again.

The last two and a half weeks had been hard on Max and his guys. The temperature on January 3rd had dropped to 20 below zero and stayed there until yesterday. It had been a battle to keep the batteries and the generator going. Max had insulated the electric room well. He just never figured on such cold temperatures for so long. If Max hadn't stored some extra 55-gallon drums of diesel in the garage, which he did due to the increasing difficulty of hauling fuel to the house, he might have lost the batteries.

Which meant the lights and greenhouse would have been lost.

Seeing the sun, even for such a brief moment gave him such a feeling of hope and joy, Max couldn't stop crying and thanking God.

After a while, Max got himself under control and started heading for West Branch, the county seat of Ogemaw County. He hoped to find survivors there.

As Max headed down Fairview Road, his watches alarm went off. The alarm meant that Max had used up his time and needed to head back home before "night" and the dangerous temperatures came.

He sat there in the cat and looked down the road; Max must have been all of seven miles out of town. He wanted to find people, any people. Max was a loner his whole life, but now, he needed to actually see someone, even a liberal!

But he knew that to go on, was just asking to get killed. So, reluctantly, Max turned the cat around and headed for home.

As he headed back down Fairview Road, Max took the time to stop at a McMansion he had passed by before, and take a quick look around. Max had got pretty good at his routine of searching a house. Right to the living for the TV remotes and the batteries, then any kids room for more batteries. Then a sweep through the parents room and bathroom looking for any medications, check the fridge in the kitchen, and then the basement or garage for a freezer.

The McMansion was a gold mine. He found 4 remotes, all AAA’s. The kid’s room had a PSP and a PS2. Max took them both as he had played Halo so much he needed a break.

In the den, he found two Browning gun safes that would have to wait till another time. Max doubted that there was anything he needed and the shelter was getting crowded. Whoever had lived here must have been a hunter, from all the mounted heads and photos.

It also looked like the guy was some kind of doctor from all the degree's and books that were about.

In the master bedroom, Max found enough medicine to stock a pharmacy.

Max searched the basement and found, on a shelf, three cases of Del-Monte pears in jars. How they had survived was a mystery.

In the kitchen, he found several cans that hadn't busted, some salt, and the fridge. He found two gallons of whole milk, a half gallon of chocolate, and some BBQ chicken and fixings. In the freezer part, Max found a bunch of snack foods; Pizza, fries, egg rolls, TV dinners and such. In one of the cabinets Max found a commercial-grade FoodSaver, boxes of bags and other odds and ends.

When Max went into the garage, he found two chest freezers and a standup. One was full of FoodSaver bags marked: venison, Elk, turkey, Big Horn sheep, small game, fish, and even bear. He figured that the guy must have been a big time hunter.

The other chest freezer was full of meat. Max figured that the must have been about whole steer and a whole pig.

The upright was full of fruits, vegetables, and more frozen meals.

Max found a couple boxes of garbage bags and used them to haul all the food out to the cat. He didn't have to worry about freezer space back at his place. All he had to do was leave it outside on his front porch and the food would stay frozen.

After Max got everything loaded, he said a prayer of thanks to God for letting him find such a great bounty of food.

He got in the cat and headed back home.
******
Omega Complex Zulu
Oklahoma, USA
January 16th
******

Major General Steve Fraley sat at his desk and watched as the computer uploaded a new map of the world.

He was shocked to see how much it had changed.

Every single coast region had been chewed away at by the numerous Tsunamis. Iceland was gone as were many atolls and small islands.

Many mountain ranges had been crushed. There was a now a huge bay in Australia.

Snow in Cuba and all of Mexico.

But what interested him the most was the number of heat plumes that the satellites were finding.

Thousands in the States, but most were in the northern parts. That did make sense to him. The people that lived in the north would be better prepared to deal with such harsh winter conditions.

But one in particular was of great interest to him.

The one in Kabul.

[ClanWolf]

Man's Sins

Chapter 10

******
Max's hunting cabin
February 10th
Year of Our Lord 2008
******

Max shoved in another log into the wood furnace. He was trying to keep the cabin as warm as he could since the ice storms that had started last week.

He was amazed at how much ice was coming down. Well, it really was rain that was freezing on contact. But Max had never seen days of freezing rain in his life. He could only remember a handful of ice storms in his 39 years.
******

He still hadn't been able to get back to West Branch, the County Seat of Ogemaw. Max couldn't risk the chance again of being so far from home since the weather kept getting really nasty. So he was stuck to his little area of the county.

First the temperatures had dropped again and even the snowcat was having a hard time starting. The outside thermometer had shown it dropping like a rock. It had reached 10 below at the end of the month. Not including the wind-chill, which must have been near 40 below as he could figure?

Max wasn't going to risk getting caught in a broken down snowcat with those types of temperatures. So, he stayed put and worked at keeping the snow off the roofs of the cabin and outbuildings.

Max found that doing such hard work was having an affect on him. He first noticed that he was staying hungry, even after having a decent size meal. Then he noticed that he had actually lost some weight.

He was puzzled at first and then realized that all the outdoor work and extreme cold was sapping his body of energy. Max started eating almost double the amount he had been before. He figured he was eating almost four or five thousand calories a day or more, mattering how long he was outside.

Max thanked God for all the extra food he had found in peoples freezers. Even though he had a large amount of food, over 7 years worth for 10 people, he wanted to save as much of his own long-term storage food as he could. Max didn't know when he might ever get a chance to start raising any animals. Or if there would be any left to raise.
******

Max walked up from the basement into the kitchen, he could hear the “tinkling” sound that rain made as it became ice.

He needed to keep the cabin as warm as he could so that the ice wouldn't accumulate on it, so he had left the shelter and started living up in the cabin again. Still, Max had to get on the roof and knock of chucks of ice. He had to do it too for the other buildings.

The greenhouse’s roofing had collapsed due to the weight of the snow and ice. Thankfully, he kept a large supply of extra roof panels on hand so he could replace the entire roof twice.

He looked over at the couch where his two heroes were stretched out and on their backs. Max didn't know how he could have gone on for this long without them. He never imagined any scenario where no one would be around, not even on the radios.

He gave up on watching movies; they were starting to depress him for some reason.

Max also found his mind drifting into thoughts, which he would rather not think about, when he saw the women in the movies or heard them singing.

And lately he had begun, again, to think about her.

Wasn't 20 years enough already, he told himself. It wasn't his fault that she turned into, what she had.

Just how was he supposed to feel? After going out with ever loser there was, she decided to give me a try? He wasn't responsible. Just because, at the end, she turned to him and he walked away.

Was he?

More questions about how his life had gone flooded his mind. Over and over, he recalled events and people.

He started to have nightmares of being the last man alive. Left with nothing but a frozen world.

It was starting to drive him mad.

So to get his mind off those things, he read his Bible, cover to cover. He made sure he said his prayers too.

He played with his boys until they were pooped out.

Max spent every moment finding something, anything, to do. He had to keep busy and not let his mind wonder. Not let it wonder if he would see anyone, ever again.
******

So as soon as the ice stopped coming down, he suited up with just some long johns, BDU pants and a fleece jacket and cap. He needed maximum range-of-motion when working on the roofs. Grabbing up an axe handle, Max headed for the back door.

Heading out the back door, Max kept a hand on the guide line that he had posted going from the cabin to his other buildings. With all the rain and ice, the snow pack was down to about 3 and 1/2 feet thick from the 6 feet when it had been the dry snow.

When he got to the storage barn, he took a few whacks on the steel door with the axe handle, knocking the ice that covered the door. After that, he went inside and took a seat at the desk in the small office for a rest.

After a few minutes, Max got up and headed up stairs.

When he got to the second floor, he headed over to a ladder that went to the roof. Max had all of his buildings built with a roof access hatch from the inside. That way he didn’t have to bother with wobbly ladders ever time he needed to get on a roof.

He grabbed a rubber mallet, his axe handle and put on a ComforTech safety harness. He then started up the ladder. Max found that he had to give the access panel a few whacks with the mallet to get it to open up.

Getting himself up to the opening, he reached over and attached a lanyard to the eye bolt next to the panel opening.

He then took the axe handle and gave the snow rake, which he had left tied to the eye bolt, a couple of whacks knocking the ice off and freeing the rake. Max took the rake and started to hit the metal roof with it.

Sheets of ice started to come loose and slipped down the metal and crashed into the snow and ice already on the ground.

After clearing the ice within reach of the rake, Max pulled himself out onto the roof. He inched his way over to the next eye bolt six feet away. On every roof there were eye bolts spaced 6 feet apart so that he could hook his harness to them. He hooked another lanyard to that bolt and then unhooked the other one. He repeated his actions with the snow rake and knocked more ice loose. Max kept at this for the next hour.

After getting back inside the storage barn, Max took a break before heading back to the cabin. He checked all the windows and garage doors, making sure everything was still shut tight and no damage had occurred since the last time he had been inside.

Finding everything to be as it should, he decided to start up the vehicles that were under the lend-to that was on the storage barn.

Max took the battery charger and headed out the side doors which lead to the lean-to. He had felt safe with leaving the keys in the vehicles.

He walked out and got into the M-35 Cargo Truck, also known as a Deuce and a-half, and turned it over. Thankfully it started right up. As did the M-151A2 Jeep and the M-1009 CUCV Blazer

The British Ferret Mk. 2/3 Armored Scout Car was giving him some fits like it always did during the winter. Max had found it at such a bargain that he couldn't pass it up. Some times though, he wished he had got the WWII M-3 half-track instead.

As he pressed the starter a very loud crash happened. He stuck his head out and listened for any more sounds. Max wasn't really concerned. Trees had been crashing all over due to the heavy ice. He was going to be cutting up a lot of trees just to get back to Heath Road.

Finally, the Ferret started up and Max let it idle for a while and went back inside. Sitting down at his desk, he started to fill out the vehicles maintenance logs when he heard some kind of thump from upstairs.

Listening carefully, he heard nothing again. As he turned back to his logs, he heard another thump. This time he got up from the desk and headed back up stairs.

Once back on the second floor, he looked around, trying to find out what had made the noise.

THUMP!

Max jerked his head up at the roof and listened.

Thump! Thump! THUMP!

Something was hitting into the roof!

He got on the safety harness and climbed up the latter as fast as he could and flipped opened the access panel and hooked the lanyard into the eye bolt.

Just in time to get hit in the head by something.

Max lost his grip and started to fall. He reached out and tried to grab a ladder rung but missed.

Suddenly he jerked to a stop. The lanyard had gone tight and stopped him from falling any further.

But the sudden stop made his back hurt.

A lot!

Grinding his teeth, he reached over and grabbed a rung on the ladder. He pulled himself over and got his feet back on the rungs. Looking up, he jerked himself to one side, just in time to miss being hit by another chunk of hail.

The golf ball sized hail thumped into the floor and put a dent in the wood.

Max scrambled up the ladder as fast as he could and slammed the panel shut. More hail slammed into it. He unhooked the lanyard from the harness and went down the ladder.

When he got back down the ladder, Max went over to the window and looked out. He reached up and felt another lump starting on his head, once again.

“Dang!” He said.

Hail rained down on the woods outside, crushing branches already heavy with ice. More trees were toppling over. The noise from the hail hitting the roof was deafening.

Max thought of the solar panels on the roofs and wonder just how many would survive this. And just how much damage would happen to the roofs from this?

Damn it! He thought as he slammed his fist on the window sill. Just how much more was he suppose to take? Just how much more was God going to punish him? Max slammed his fist into the wall.

What the hell had he done? Wasn’t it enough that his mom had died? That anything or anyone he knew was gone?

Max slammed his fist into the wall again and again.

Finally exhausted, he slumped to the floor and starred at the damage he had done to his hand and wondered what the hell was wrong with him. He wasn’t like this; he didn’t blame God for what had happened.

Had he finally gone mad?

No. No it wasn’t that. But what was it? The loneliness? The complete isolation? He really didn’t know what was bothering him so badly. But there was only one person to turn to.

He took a deep breath and told God he was sorry for doubting Him. Max prayed long and hard for God to forgive him for his doubts and to grant him peace.

After a while, he felt once again in control. He got up and looked out the window.

It was still hailing.

Max shook his head and wondered just how badly Buddy and JR were taking all this noise without him there.

The second it stopped he needed to get back to the cabin and check up on his two boys. They would be so wired up from this that it would take a couple hours to get them calmed down again.

Max looked out the window and waited for the destruction to stop.

******
Omega Complex Zulu
Oklahoma, USA
******

Major General Steve Fraley looked at the planes being worked on in the aircraft warehouse. He loved coming down here and just soaking up the history that was here before him.

Republic P-47C Thunderbolts, P-51 Mustangs, P-38 Lightnings, F4U Corsairs, Piper Cubs, C-47s, B-25s & 26s, Consolidated PBY Catalina flying-boats. And even a few Douglas Dauntless A24s!

The other warehouses in the Complex were full of other WW2 equipment.

When he had first taken command of Complex Zulu, he thought he was a victim of a bad joke. Propeller fighter planes and Korean War helicopters, Sherman tanks and M7 “Priests”105mm Self-Propelled’s, and old M-1 Garand’s and M-3 “grease guns”!

But he had learned the reasons behind the decision for his base to have such old and out-dated equipment.

The first was that Complex Zulu had actually been designed as the United States military’s fall-back headquarters in case of an invasion back in WW2. No satellite had ever seen it being built. No one really knew that it even existed any more. It had been built with old technology.

Second, it also was the countries biggest depot of weapons, munitions, and supplies in case of said invasion. Even after the war ended, a lot of supplies and equipment had been brought back and stored away here.

Just in case.

Third, the technology was so easy to repair and the stockpiles of parts were gigantic. The equipment here could be rebuilt a couple dozen times easily. There wasn’t a computer chip in the entire bunch! The machine shops in the Complex were able to build any part needed, including vacuum tubes for the radios.

Other Omega Complexes went up the scale in technology, but Fraley felt that if anything truly destroyed civilization, that his old war machines stood a better chance then the newer equipment.

He knew that the higher you went up the technology ladder the harder it was to keep it running. Parts were harder to come by, (sometimes they were even made by your enemies) people needed more specialize training and more people became specialists requiring even more people to be able to keep the machines running.

And now, with the country lying in ruins, it was up to Fraley and his warriors to get things going again.

But they had to be careful.

The US wasn’t the only country to prepare for such things either. Russia had its Ural Mountain underground cities. China had a series of bunkers called Dragon Lairs. The Islamic’s had bunkers and caves. There was also bunkers and retreats of the super rich too.

And of course, there was always the Swiss.

So instead of broadcasting signals out to the survivors, which would reveal their base, they were going to modify the drones to home in on any signals and then tight-beam a message to the survivors.

Then they would use the old C-47s to transport supplies and personal to help the survivors rebuild.

And Fraley knew that it was only his base that stood between a new dark age or rebuilding the Republic.

And he prayed ever night that God would help him.