It is a beautiful day here in Siberia. The permafrost is melting, the long frozen woolly mammoths are pushing up through the earth… Okay, so it’s upstate New York and there are no woolly mammoths at all, but it truly does feel like the awakening after a deep freeze. It has been a rough winter. I went outside and looked at my yard yesterday, tree limbs frozen into a foot of ice, and twigs, branches. Big foot thick sheets of ice here and there. Seemed totally out of whack with the temperatures high enough that I could hang out there most of the day without a coat.
A great deal of that ice did melt, but there is a great deal more, shaded by trees or the house that will take longer to melt. It wouldn’t surprise me if a mammoth did pop up on the front lawn. Edging out of it’s thousands of years of sleep. The neighbors all gathered around. Pretty soon the rowdy bunch will show up: Drinking beers and telling cave man jokes, stealing little bits of fur to sell as souvenirs…
Sorry, got sidetracked. That would have made for a great day though, huh? But, that is not going to be my day. My day is going to be split between writing this Blog, doing some updates to the sites and then just taking it easy. Yes, taking it easy, because, you see, I went out there yesterday and sprained my whole body. It seems a man can not sit on his butt and write books all winter long, program, design and build web sites, and then expect to change hats and go out and do manly things in the yard.
There was the hot water tank that blew up just before snow fall. I put it on the rear porch and told myself I would take care of it in the spring. There was the old kitchen stove that I changed out for a new one a few weeks later. Hey, there was room on the porch so I stuck it there. There was the yard furniture that got blown around in the ice storm and then frozen into the ground. And there was the lawn tractor that I had driven into the garage last fall and then piled stuff all around. I dug that out and discovered I had a soft rear tire. I had pulled it in tight on that side and so to get to the tire I had to manually pick the back of the tractor up and slide it over. What an idiot. Oh, and the yard light I had disconnected when the tree fell on the house last fall too. I got out the ladder, climbed up and fixed that.
The lawn tractor paid me back quickly. The first try to lift caused my back to scream at me. It was something like … “What the $%^$ are you doing you %^$$^%$# Idiot %%^%$ A##@%&* !!!” Being a writer I thought my back was being far too melodramatic and so I remembered the old lift with your back adage and bent over, grasped the back bumper firmly, and picked up the tractor.
It was about that time that I remembered the adage was lift with your legs. Too late, my whole body was sprung, and the tractor was cutting into my hands because, since it was not built to be lifted that way it had a sharp metal edge where I was lifting. So I wisely let it back down to the ground even though the tires had been about to leave the ground, or maybe leave my fingers on the ground. So you would think I would be wise enough to stop right then, go get my floor jack, slide it under the tractor, jack it up and then just pull the tractor sideways because the jack has wheels built into the bottom of it just for that exact kind of situation. But no, a man wouldn’t do that. A man would look around, find some cardboard, bend it and triple it to protect my hands, and then bend right down once more, again not using the legs, and pick that rear end right up of the ground and slide it sideways about a foot. What an idiot.
By the time I was done with myself out there the yard looked about the same, minus the tree limbs that hadn’t been frozen in the ice, and I was shot. Oh, I forgot to mention the fight with the frozen in the ice tree limb that nearly gouged out my eye but settled for punching a hole in the top of my head instead. Needless to say, Mother Nature won, and I lost. If there were a tribal council on this, I would definitely vote myself off. But unfortunately, it’s just me on this island and if I vote myself off nothing will get done… Unless I teach my cat to do the work. He is a big cat. I could at least hook a harness up to him. Maybe he could pull a little cat trailer or something. I’ll just have to teach him to pick up twigs and put them into the cart.
So that was spring and I am sprung. I did not know there were muscles in some of the places that hurt. I have also learned a valuable lesson about lifting with your legs, not your back. And today I am doing easy work instead of the rough stuff I had planned. Oh well. The great thing here is my body will adapt once again. That’s the great thing about us humans we adapt and thrive. Do you suppose that cockroaches think we are the infestation? Like…
“What do you think of that place, Barb?”
“No. It’s infested with humans. I don’t understand how they continue to thrive! I really don’t.”
That would be about the time I would step on the roach. Anyway, the spring weather is here and the deep freeze has gone back up into Canada where it came from, or Russia. Soon I will be able to visit my local Walmart and see men that weigh 300 pounds wearing speedos, and children running around screaming. Soon the neighbors dog will be digging up my garden because my cat pooped there and the dog finds it fascinating. Summer will arrive with all it’s sweltering humidity and last for about 3 weeks and then we will start the slide back toward winter. The fat men will start wearing the stained sweatpants to the Walmart and the kids will still be screaming and running wild only now they will have runny noses too. And I will be dreaming of a beach somewhere down around Cocoa Beach in Florida that I visited about six million years ago with a girl and fell in love. Aw. The beach is still there the woman is long gone.
Spring, fun huh? Everything is brand new again. Soon the trees will be blooming, the birds are already coming back and my stupid cat is trying to eat every one of them too. Don’t worry. No birds were harmed in the making of this blog. If you will recall my cat is about 14 pounds and the birds just sort of laugh at him as he tries to catch them. Yes, they are safe from the cat. The kid across the road with the Bee Bee gun? I’m not so sure. But the kid looks to be a bad shot though.
So that is spring: What else is going on?
I will repeat the links to the Earth’s Survivors books:
And, why not test before you go get it. So, I’ll put a couple chapters here for you to read…
Based on the series by Geo Dell & Dell Sweet
PUBLISHED BY: iWriterz.net Publishing
EARTH’S SURVIVOR’S: BOOK ONE
Copyright © 2010 – 2014 by Geo Dell All Rights Reserved
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your vender and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
LEGAL
This is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, places or incidents depicted are products of the authors imagination. Any resemblance to actual living persons places, situations or events is purely coincidental.
This novel is Copyright © 2010 – 2014 independAntwriters and Wendell Sweet. No part of this book may be reproduced by any means, electronic, print, scanner or any other means and, or distributed without the authors permission.
Permission is granted to use short sections of text in reviews or critiques in standard or electronic print..
OLD TOWN
He came awake in the darkness, but awake wasn’t precisely the term. Alive was precisely the term. He knew alive was precisely the term because he could remember dieing. He remembered that his heart had stopped in his chest. He had remembered wishing that it would start again. That bright moment or two of panic, and then he remembered beginning not to care. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. And he had drifted away.
Now he had drifted back. But, drifted was not exactly right. He had slammed back into himself where he lay on the cold subbasement floor where he had been murdered by a roving gang of thieves. And he knew those things were true because he remembered them. And he knew they were true because he was dead. He was still dead. His heart was not beating in his chest. His blood was cold and jelled in his veins. He could feel it. Some kind of new perception.
He lay and watched the shadows deepen in the corners of the basement ceiling for a short time longer and then tried to move.
His body did not want to move at first. It felt as though it weighed a ton. Two tons, but with a little more effort it came away. He sat, and then crawled to his knees.
In the corner a huge rat stopped on his way to somewhere to sniff at him. Decided he was probably food and came to eat him. He had actually sat for a second while the rat first sniffed and then began to gnaw at one fingernail. Then he had quickly snatched the rat up with his other hand, snapped it’s back in his fist and then shoved him warm and squirming into his mouth. A few minutes later he stood on shaky legs and walked off into the gloom of the basement. Looking for the stairs and the way up to the streets.
March 8th
I debated with myself about how to start this. Isn’t that stupid? Not whether I should start it. I guess that means that I have some hope that I am not the only one.
Actually, I know that I’m not the only one. I’ve heard gunshots more than once. I’ve heard a dog barking. And I’ve seen several dogs, cats, squirrels, etc. . . .I’ve also heard what sounded like a car or a truck, but I couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. Everything is so quiet, it could be anywhere.
The sound of the river drowns things out. Even so, I haven’t seen any other people. None. And, I’m getting ahead of myself too.
I have no idea what has happened. Even here in Old Town. It doesn’t really matter either, except to tell you, whoever you may end up being, what happened from my point of view, I guess. Maybe it’s the same for you. Maybe writing this out is a waste of time. But, it keeps my mind off shit, you know?
So, I wondered where to start? Today? Last week? Just start, I guess…
I have heat. Food. Fire. And I’ve finally gotten myself moved into this old factory, so my mind is more at ease. But again, I’m getting ahead of myself. It started for me last week on the 2nd of March. Only six days but everything here has changed.
I was having a few beers, watching the coverage of the world countdown party; hey, it was supposed to be a joke, right? And, supposedly, we had a few months to go. It was supposed to be one long countdown party. And, one minute everything was fine, and the next the power was out.
Then the first quake hit…
I made it through that night and…. Two more quakes? Aftershocks? Who knows? I was just trying to get through to the morning. Phones were out; Sirens everywhere; No power. But, the closer it got to dawn the less noise there was. The sirens fell off. The rain started hard, and then the lightning came. A thunder and lightning storm in the middle of winter!
It was spooky, and when morning finally came it didn’t make much sense at all. Almost everything I could see in every direction was flattened. The streets had cracked open and had become rivers. The temperature was higher than it should have been as well. But that didn’t last.
By noon the rain stopped and I kept expecting to see someone. Emergency workers… Power Company… Somebody. Even a neighbor. But I saw no one at all that day.
I guess as serious as it was I wasn’t taking it serious. At least not the first day. I was still thinking,… Rescue… Help… It’s on the way. This is the most powerful country in the entire world. Help is coming. So I sat on my ass and drank beer and ate bologna sandwiches and chips, staring out at the street from my front porch which was perched on the edge of a twenty foot rain gully.
Just before dark the real quake hit. It had to have been stronger than the previous ones. It felt like it anyway.
I barely jumped off the porch before it fell into the gully. Scared the hell out of me. It wasn’t long after that when darkness settled in and I knew I was in trouble. Something in the whole structure of the house was damaged .Every aftershock made it dance, sway around me. It was also now a two foot drop down to the ground since my porch was gone. And I didn’t dare leave because I had no idea what it was like outside. No Streetlights. No Moon, no starlight. No starlight, none! Then the storms came back and the air turned back to cold.
Every time the lightning flashed I could see the street, or what had been the street. There was no more street, not really. It was a river, wide, and deep. All of the opposite side of the street was gone now too. No houses, cars, telephone poles, satellite dishes. Nothing. It seemed like the entire side of the street had washed away right down to the river. The water roared past me, just a few feet from where my porch had been, flattened out, and then turned into rapids breaking away to crash into the river further down the hill. That was when I realized it wasn’t just the other side of the street that was gone, the other two blocks that had been between me and the river were also gone.
Later on the rain turned to snow, but the lightning kept up. Lightning in a snow storm. How crazy is that? By the morning of March 4th the river running past my house was down to a trickle, but the snow was piling up. Down the hill the real river was over its banks. There was nothing else to see, a few solitary houses still standing as my own was. But there was no one around anywhere. That’s when I got into the hard stuff.
I drank myself to sleep and when I woke up I’d lost several hours. My watch still worked at that point. When I walked to the front door the first thing I noticed was footprints in the snow. Three sets. Two small, maybe kids or women, one big. Going just past my house. No more than three feet from my house, where once upon a time in some other world my porch had been, and I had slept through it. I yelled and screamed for a half hour hoping that someone would hear me, but no one came. No one yelled back and told me to shut up either. Just absolute silence. No birds, just the roar of the swollen Black. Nothing else.
I’ve thought about the day, the fourth, a couple of times. Was it the fourth? The fifth? Did I sleep more than a few hours? I don’t know. And, that was the day my watch stopped working so I don’t know. One minute it was working the next it wasn’t. The face was blank.
There were a couple of more aftershocks that day and I began to wonder if my house would be standing much longer. After all nearly everything around me was destroyed already. And, I thought, what if that was an aftershock? Like I had thought the first quake was the real one and then the one the next day was so much stronger. It made me realize how stupid I was to still be in that house. And, I thought, no wonder no one is answering when I yell. They were all smart enough to get away from the buildings. Leave. And if I left also, I reasoned, I’d most likely catch up to them. Whoever they were, where ever they had gone. That was when I had glanced at my watch and noticed that it had stopped working.
I had been in the habit of looking at my watch all day. Just nervous, I guess. I was positive that I had just looked at it and it had been working. But, when had that been? What time had it been? And, when had it been that I had looked at it? How long ago? All I could remember for sure was that the last aftershock that had started me wondering had been at 2:57 P.M. I wasn’t sure of anything after that. Even when I thought back on it later, wondering what day it was, I wondered why I had never thought to push the little date button to see what the date had been. Or, had I? Had I and then forgotten that I had? Had I only remembered subconsciously that it was the fourth? Anyway, the watch was dead. And what time was it? And where should I go? And how soon would it be dark? After wasting time wondering about things like that. Things that were absolute bullshit in light of everything else, I just jumped down into the snow and headed off towards Old Town.
There were a few buildings standing in that direction. It was still snowing pretty hard, but I could see the outlines of the buildings through the snow.
There were planes overhead in the night. I know that sounds crazy but I awoke to hearing them. There was a strange smell in the air and I was thinking, in my dream? Maybe in my dream or maybe awake, anyway I was thinking crop dusters. Like they were crop dusting. Spraying something. It was weird. Now I could see traces of blue… Powder? Something, on the snow and it made me remember the dream. But I pushed it away and walked. Too much to see and comprehend as it was without worrying over bad dreams.
Normally it’s no more than a fifteen-minute walk down to Old Town. I figured that if anyone was still alive that was where they would be.
In fact, I told myself, they probably would have some buildings open for shelter. Fire Department passing out blankets… Bottled water… Hot soup. I could see it so clearly in my head. I was wrong, of course, but that’s a story for tomorrow. My fingers are shot. Hey it would be easy to write this on my computer keyboard, but computers are a thing of the past now.
I’m warm. I’m dry. I’m pretty much okay. I survived the day the world ended, but my fingers are sore and I’m tired, so I’ll pick this up tomorrow.
Katie March 8th
Fresh snow today. The whole world is covered in clean, white snow. It makes it look like nothing ever happened here.
I’m with a man named Jake. He’s crazy about me. I just can’t feel the same. I could fake it, but I told myself I’m not going to do that. But I can’t keep on this way either. It is too hard on him, too hard on me.
James and Jana Adams are also with us. I don’t know what I would do without Jana. She is level headed where I am impulsive. A thinker where I tend to just act. A good balance. James has an idea of rebuilding his peoples lands. He’s Native American, so is Jana. It sounded crazy when he first said it but after I thought about it, it began to make sense to me.
Lana is the other member of our party. She hates me. That’s because Jake wants me and she wants Jake. Maybe that will fix itself before I have to fix it by leaving and going on my own.
Today we decided to see if the city was any better on the other side of the river. It isn’t. We crossed the river on a railroad trestle. There is a traffic bridge, and it looks passable, but it’s clogged with cars, and some of those cars look purposely placed to block it off. That creeped me out.
We walked across the trestle, carefully, and went up toward the park. There are markets up there, and we found tracks in the snow. One person. A man I would guess from the boot tread.
I can not tell you what that was like. Seeing a footprint left by someone else. Someone else alive in this whole mess. I felt connected to him. I can’t say it or explain it any better than that. Like a connection existed forever and I only had to find it. I tried to explain it to Lana but she just shrugged. We have this thing with Jake between us though. She wants him, he wants me. I don’t want him. It could be so Goddamn simple but it isn’t.
Except the footprints. Maybe the footprints are the answer. I think they are. I believe they are. We just need to find the person, the man, that goes with those footprints and… And I don’t know. I really don’t. But I think he’ll know.
The only bad thing today; we came across a dead man laying crumpled by the side of the road. I could have sworn he moved so I hurried to him but as I got closer I could see that he was dead. Long dead. We stood for a moment and then walked on. Later when we came back he was gone and I thought, was he dead? Was he? But I know that he was. I suppose that wild dogs or something got him. We didn’t talk about it, but it bothered all of us.
CHAPTER TWO
Conner March 9th
Maybe it’s March ninth. I guess I really don’t know. But, that’s what I think it is so that’s what I’m going with.
It’s late. I spent today getting food. Canned stuff mostly. It was rough. Almost everything is flattened, and what isn’t flattened is badly damaged. I spent about five hours a few days ago digging my way into a market on the Park Street Road. The roof was down but held up by the tops of the aisle stacks, so I was able to make my way through. I just had to be really careful of broken glass. That was where I went back to today.
I had no flashlight at first, but I managed to get a small flashlight and batteries. I had to take so much stuff out of the front area of the store that all the impulse stuff they sell was right there, Candy, little radios, and of course flashlights and batteries also. I tried a small portable radio, nothing but static on the A.M. and F.M. bands both. I bought it back with me along with some extra batteries. I listened to it a short while ago; still nothing, maybe tomorrow.
I spent the day at the market digging out canned goods and bringing them back here.
Here, is an old factory. The factory is down in back of Old Town as it’s called. I knew about it from growing up here. It used to be some sort of a manufacturing plant and it had been closed up for years. The quake took care of that though. The doors that had once been closed and bricked up buckled and sprung open. I was worried about the building itself collapsing, but it seems to be fine.
It’s only about a mile and a half from here to the markets in the village but with no vehicle it’s slow going. I’ve been piling stuff up on a large sled and making trips back and forth.
I found several cars and trucks, snowmobiles, but none of them will run. Most of them have no juice but even the ones that do just turn over but won’t fire up. Maybe if I was a mechanic I could do something, but I’m not. So it’s the sled and a lot of muscle work.
I did notice today, after not going there for two days that no one else had been there either. No tracks in the fresh snow. It’s depressing. No way can I be the only freaking guy here, right? And that made me wonder, what the hell am I writing this for? I mean, if there’s no one left who will read it? I guess those are questions for another day. Another day because, truly, I don’t want to deal with them today.
So I spent my day getting food. There are maybe two dozen buildings still standing in Old Town. But that’s where I was when I left off writing yesterday, heading for Old Town, so I’ll pick it up from there.
When I got into Old Town there was no one there. Only the handful of buildings standing as I mentioned, and two of those went down a short time later from an aftershock. The Police department… Gone. The Fire department… Gone. I know I walked out there. Ditto the high school. All the old houses. The newspaper, museum. Really, it’s all gone.
There were some tracks, but how old were they? I couldn’t tell. And I couldn’t tell where they were headed either. I got pretty down about it and ended up walking back down to Old Town and then down towards the river in back of the buildings. There was a porn shop, still there. It seemed like the dirtiest place I’d ever seen. I mean, why would a place like that still be there, still be standing when almost nothing else was?
Is that a statement or what? Hey, maybe it is. But, since I was down that far I thought I’d take a look at the river, and that made me think about the old Factory down by the river. I remembered playing around that building as a kid. Solid back then. I could never figure out why it was abandoned. Maybe it was still solid.
It wasn’t hard to find it. It’s on an old, abandoned road below the level of Old Town, but a good hundred feet or so above the level of the river. All of the brick work that had once closed off the entrance way had fallen. The building itself seemed okay. Some brick had come down, but not much. Most of the brick lying around looked pretty old. Like it had been there for some time. Given the buildings in Old Town, which were still falling, or this old factory that seemed pretty solid, I chose the old factory. It just seemed to make more sense.
It’s quite big. Lighted from the old wire reinforced windows all along the front. The front area is huge, and dry, more room than I could ever use, so there’s no need for me to go back into all that darkness where the light doesn’t reach and find out how deep it goes. And that’s funny, isn’t it? What is it that I’ll need? Might need? Could need? I don’t know. I do know I won’t be spending the rest of my life living in an abandoned factory, that’s for sure. But it’s winter. I have to stay somewhere for the next few months. Then maybe I’ll head south if no one shows up to rescue me. I guess it would be me, there’s no one else here. It shouldn’t be that way though. There has to be more than me.
I spent the rest of the day looking around. I walked all the way out to the strip, as well as out of Old Town toward the old rail yards. It’s all car dealerships and strip malls now. The South Town mall, or most of it, has collapsed. But I should be able to get some stuff out of it. The interstate is car wrecks and bodies everywhere. I could see it from the overpass. I didn’t feel a need to go down there to see it in person. I didn’t want to.
I hadn’t really seen many bodies. Some at the mall, some at the market, a few others here and there, but there is so much ground, houses, things missing, that I think the other people just got swallowed up by the quake. There is a lot of raw earth. Most of the streets are messed up. The interstate is like that in places, what I can see any way, but close to the mall it’s all wrecks and bodies. Wrecked and burned vehicles and it smells horrible. I could smell it long before I came up on the overpass. I’ve decided it will take a lot to get me to go back out there again.
The market has that smell. It’s just a small neighborhood market really. I found two people up by the checkouts when I first dug it out, but none since then, as I’ve dug out other parts of the store. Maybe it’s the meat department at the back of the store that smells like that.
I spent most of the next day wandering around. Trying to start cars and trucks. Calling out to the people I had hoped were there. Nothing. I heard something that sounded like an engine running, but it came and went on the wind and I couldn’t tell where it had come from. But I took that as a good sign. It has to be someone right
I can’t imagine being alone.
I tried to start new cars, old cars, new trucks, you name it. None of them do anything except turn over. But at least their batteries are working.
That was the day I realized that the daylight seemed to last way to long. My watch wasn’t working, so I can’t say for sure, but the sun just seemed to hang in the sky all day, then it seemed to sink in the wrong direction once it did set. And I was sick all day. My stomach. And I was lightheaded.
The night lasted a long time and the sun came back up in the wrong place, unless my sense of direction is off. Maybe it is. In any case I don’t know what happened. Maybe it was the earthquakes? I don’t know. It could’ve been, but it doesn’t seem possible.
The end of the world books were saying the Earth would stop and then run backwards. Maybe it did, but I didn’t feel weightlessness if it did. Or at least I don’t think so. But I thought about the vehicles, magnetic poles, maybe because everything is electronic now they can’t work? I don’t know. It’s just an idea, but I’m thinking I’ll look for an older vehicle to try out my theory on. Like I said, I wish I were a mechanic and then I’d know.
Once I found the old factory my mind was pretty much made up. I spent a lot of time clearing out the glass and broken bricks. Bringing food in and even some chairs, blankets, things like that. I’ve collected a lot of firewood and every butane lighter I could find. Paper plates. Plastic forks and spoons. And, man oh man, coffee. I found a small metal coffee pot in an aisle with camping gear. It works pretty damn well. I got some heavy duty pots and pans there also.
All of that over the last few days, but still no other people. It makes me wonder about the tracks that went past my house. Where did they go? Where is there to go to? I turn the radio on every once in a while but nothing. Even so I’m keeping my attitude upbeat. Positive. There has to be other people. Doesn’t that just make sense? Winter can’t last much past May, and then it will be time to get out of here. Hopefully with other people…
*******
I hope you enjoyed the small preview. Now go over to Amazon and get the book while it is still free. If you missed free and are reading this book at a later date then don’t worry because you can still get the book for nearly free, just 0.99 cents.
Thanks for stopping by. I hope spring is treating you right where you are and that you are not trying to lift yard tractors. But, if you do, lift with your legs, stupid!
My new series:
Zombie: Origin | Universal Book Links Help You Find Books at Your Favorite Store!
I hope you enjoyed the free reading. Have a great week and I will be back next week…
Home: https://www.wendellsweet.com
Discover more from Notes from the Edge
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.