From Chaos to Recovery

By Charlie Thrun

An experimental weapon misfires, killing all but 1 person out of every 10,000. At random and worldwide. This is the story of three survivors in the US, and how they eventually aid in a local recovery effort. In the telling, logic is used more than violence.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Charlie Thrun
• Release date: Sep 10, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301200900

Charlie Thrun

Charlie has been writing fiction since he retired a few years ago. He has sold occasionally, and won a few minor contests, but not hit the mainstream yet. When he started he hadn't had an English class for over fifty years, and knew only business English, which is in no way akin to fiction. He lives alone in Northern Ohio, in a rural area, his best friend a virtual rat named Oscar, which says a lot about the guy. At least he has gotten Oscar Rat into writing, the two working together. Not surprisingly, Oscar has sold more stories than poor Charlie. Maybe, with practice here, Charlie might pass up that rat?

Book preview

From Chaos to Recovery

A novel ( 61,000 words ) By

Charlie Thrun

SMASHWORDS EDITION

* * * * *

PUBLISHED BY:

Mr. Charlie Thrun on Smashwords

From Chaos to Recovery

Copyright © 2012 by Charlie Thrun

Thank you for downloading this eBook. You are welcome to share it with your friends. This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form with the exception of quotes used in reviews.

Your support and respect for the property of this author is appreciated.

The author would much appreciate contributions of excess food to

needy rodents under your home and behind your refrigerator.

This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

PROLOGUE: Nothing appears more serene than a space station floating across the heavens in an almost perfect orbit. It seems so peaceful and well-disposed , turning idly as it floats in implied contentment, with not a care in the world.

Don’t tell that to the crew with their long workdays, dictated by the huge expenses inherent in the project. Not to mention the toll of the unnatural work environment as they fight to make deadlines imposed by authorities many thousands of miles away.

Hurry up, Jack. Shawn Burns, a theoretical physical psychology expert, looked over the shoulder of his companion who was engrossed in micro-soldering a circuit board in place.

The two of them were putting the final touches on a machine that could end all war--only the last of a long string of such devices, starting with the bow and arrow combination. Yet another ultimate weapon in a long race for the same throughout human history.

That one was designed to send a narrow but deadly beam of energy to any location on earth. The output would, ideally, cause the synapses in a brain to stop synopsizing, or snapping as the old joke goes, killing their hosts instantly.

Most of the space station itself, disguised by the US government as a platform for the study of sunspots, was simply a huge power-source for the device.

Ignring his companion, Yuri continued working in cramped quarters with an almost microscopically tipped soldering gun, using magnifying goggles to jerry-rig hundreds of contacts between the circuit board and the machine itself. That particular part had been hastily ordered from a Slobovian company, and not specifically designed for their project.

Hurrying should not have been an option. However, it was required if they wanted to keep waiting generals on earth happy by keeping to schedule.

Damn it, leave me alone. I’m working as fast as I can. Yuri took time, looking over his shoulder, to glare at his companion. As he did so, he inadvertently let the tip of the tool drift, only a fraction of a millimeter--but a crucial one. Its heat brushed near and melted a thin gold line on the circuit board, shorting the input of a timing circuit and shunting that impulse to the aiming board instead. Not noticing the error, Yuri went back to work. All right, finished. Now let’s test it out.

No time. We already tested it fifty times, Colonel Thomas called from across the room. We only have three minutes until we pass over the Great Salt Flats. If we don’t make our schedule we’ll have to wait twelve hours for the next pass. The bigshots’ll be pissed if they're made to wait half a day in that heat. It’s a go.

The other two tried to protest but the colonel was adamant--and he was in charge. Being late wouldn't have helped Colonel Thomas's career.

The device was programmed to wait until the proper moment, when the station was in position, and to then fire a deadly beam into a section of the targeted desert. Computer controlled, it would only be for a fraction of a second as the satellite passed a specific point, then turn itself off. The beam would hit a penned up herd of various animals, hopefully killing them instantly. It was felt to be better than a nuclear device, in that there would be no fallout of any kind--simply a matter of scrambling nervous systems.

Bastards. Let them fry as far as I’m concerned. Shawn cursed, the two going over to a viewport--although knowing there wouldn’t be anything much to see from that high up. Still, it was human nature to try to see what happened hundreds of miles below.

Those 'bastards' pay your salaries. The colonel grinned, his more practical eyes on the computer indicator lights in front of him. He found himself sweating heavily in the air-conditioned enclosure, heart beating rapidly while waiting for the moment one specific light would go on, then blink off--maybe too quickly for him to see.

At the appointed time, according to a clock on the computer panel, the appropriate lights started flashing in the appropriate manner, indicating the device was activating, preparing to fire.

Colonel Thomas watched one specific bulb. It was dark right then, but should just give a little blink, showing the device activate and deactivate. The machine itself would be far faster than the light. The light blinked on as expected ... but stayed lit.

Hey! Something’s wrong. The colonel jumped to his feet, running over to thump the panel. It didn’t go off, he yelled.

The other two rushed over to look. The light was still on. Maybe it was the light itself? Shawn jerked a panel off the front of the computer to check while John, more logical, ran over to a window to look outside at the device itself.

It’s still shooting, Yuri screamed, pushing a red button marked Off. The light still showed red. The button didn’t work. Something’s wrong. The timing circuit isn’t getting any power and I can’t shut the fucking thing off. He anxiously worked at the front of the machine to get the original panel off. The one covering his recent repair.

Meanwhile, the colonel ran over to another viewport, one that showed the nozzle of the machine.

It’s swinging everywhere, like it has a mind of its own. The colonel backed up, aghast. My God. At this rate it’ll cover the entire earth before we can stop it.

With no time for niceties, once Yuri had the panel off, he reverted to a primitive procedure, simply yanking circuit boards from the device, tearing wires and contacts with bloody fingers in his effort to stop the deadly machine. Crude, but it worked.

The lights dimmed on the weapon and the computer itself. All except blinking red trouble-lights. Lights that signified a great deal of trouble.

In that short time, most of mankind, along with anything else with a complex nervous system, was wiped out. Maybe one in ten-thousand survived, some because of simple chance. Saved by a certain amount of lead, steel, or earth between them and the beam, or a quirk of fate as the beam reflected off a shiny surface. Simple things that kept it from hitting them. Most weren’t that lucky. A few species survived, such as lizards, snakes, cattle, and small mammals--those with simpler brains. Humans, pigs, and monkeys were most affected.

The Result.

Ben's Story.

Damn, my head hurts. Ben Jackson struggled to open his eyes, only to find he was still in darkness. He rolled onto his left side by flopping his right hand and arm violently in that direction, evoking a fresh bolt of pain through his cranium. There was no light whatsoever, he noticed through an alcohol-sodden brain. Suspending such niceties of thought, Ben noticed his arm had landed on a soft object next to him. Maybe he'd managed to pick up a companion for the night? He didn’t remember, which was normal since the man blacked out more often than not while drinking. He idly felt more of the object. Not surprisingly, he discovered it was a woman. He hadn't dropped low enough to bed men, not yet.

He was surprising when she didn’t react to his probing hand. He shook her, with no response. Gripping a limp wrist, he felt no pulse. That last finding woke Ben completely and caused him to sit up rather abruptly. The sudden motion jolted his guts and caused him to heave what little was left in his stomach, across the front of the sheet. Only old alcohol and stomach acid came up.

Did he kill her? Normally he was incapable of killing anyone or anything and, by God, he had tried. Hell, he couldn’t even hit a person when angry, costing him many a bar fight. Could he have snapped out of his handicap while blind drunk? He didn’t really think so, or he would have in the past.

Still retching, Ben swung his legs off the bed, not caring what might be on the floor. He forced his hungover body to its feet. Half-stepping until he bumped into a wall, Ben followed it until he found a door. Feeling a light switch on the wall, he flicked it up. A click but still no light. The door was locked with only a sliding bolt, which Ben slid back. At that point, he only wanted out. Not even noticing that he was bare-ass naked, he turned a knob and pushed open the door.

A fresh cool breeze hit him as he left the room. There was still no electric lights, although he could at least see his way around with moonlight coming through windows at each end of the corridor. The curtains were drawn. Stumbling in bare feet, Ben went to a window and opened the curtains to see outside.

Craving fresh air, he reached down, jammed three fingers under the bottom edge of an old-fashioned wooden window and forced it upward. The frame gave with a loud Screech.

Sitting heavily on the ridged windowsill, he paused to get his hangover under control and return to being a reasoning adult. After a few moments of trying to breathe deeply, his mind settled down and worry took over.

Should I call the police, or just get the hell out of here? Ben considered out load, voice reverberating along the corridor. Somehow, his voice sounded reassuring in an otherwise eerie silence. Maybe I should go back for my pants before doing either? He finally decided that the first thing to do was to try to find out what was going on. Maybe he could find a flashlight before going back into that room of death. Hell, I’ve been in worse situations. At least nobody’s shooting at me or cops knocking on the door, he muttered to himself. The fresh air was clearing his jumbled mind, bringing him back to a reality tempered by residual alcohol.

Looking outside, he noticed that it appeared to be a residential and small-business district. He also saw that, although street lights dotted the empty street they weren’t lit. There were half a dozen cars and trucks stopped at odd angles along the street and sidewalks. Some had crashed into buildings. One truck had hit a light pole and bent the metal at a thirty-degree angle. He could also see a half-dozen bodies dotted around the sidewalks. Many of the vehicles showed very dim headlights as though the batteries were worn down.

Now what the hell’s going on out there? He looked more closely. Bodies in the fucking street? No cops or ambulances around? It was a very unusual sight, almost like Afghanistan, he thought. Something had happened that had killed a whole lot of people while he slept. At least, he thought, it exonerated him of murdering his bedmate.

He had no idea where he was or even the day of the week. When Ben went on a good drunk he was liable to blank-out for long periods, both waking and sleeping. From where Ben was sitting he could see, to his extreme left, part of a sign saying tell hote. He assumed that he was in a cheap hotel, not at all an unusual place for him to wake. With the return of reason, his nakedness became more apparent. He had to go back into the room to find his clothing.

The hell with it. I want some sort of light before I go stumbling around in that room. There might be more bodies on the floor for all I know, he told himself. The sound, though absorbed by lonely walls, did help to retain his sanity.

He could see enough to find the door to the stairwell. It was dark inside the shaft but Ben figured he could make it to the first floor. Idly, he counted three landings before reaching the bottom. The door opened out into a small lobby, dimly lit by large windows in the front. Propping the door open with a floor-ashtray, he headed for the desk to look for information and a flashlight. There must be one somewhere.

Hey, anyone here? Ben tried. Yo, he called out with no answer.

He couldn’t see any bodies in the lobby, which was an unexpected bonus. Ben realized that something had happened. Not just in his room but to a much wider area. Right then, he needed pants more than answers and he didn't like the idea of going into a dark room containing at least one dead body without some sort of light.

After rummaging through a half-dozen drawers and a few cabinets, he found not one but three flashlights. Only two of them worked. One barely. He also found a .38 revolver with a partial box of ammo under the counter. The desk clerk must have been robbed before, Ben thought, smiling.

Might come in handy. An ex-soldier, Ben was more comfortable being armed in an emergency.

With all the excitement, he hadn’t noticed, but his hangover was gone -- completely. He was alert as he retraced his steps up to the correct landing. His room was obvious by its open door. He used the nearly spent flashlight to enter because he didn’t want to see too well--only enough to find his clothing and get out. Avoiding the bed, he directed the light toward the floor until he found the bottom of a chair with a pants leg in the beam. Going over, he turned his back to the bed and felt for his trousers.

While dressing, his shoes were under the edge of the bed, he transferred the flashlights and weapon to his pockets. With his clothing on, Ben felt much more in control. Turning, he finally put a light beam onto the bed.

A woman, all right. I don’t see any blood or bruises on her, he decided, in relief. Puked all over her is all.

When he'd been younger, Ben had acquired quite a bit of specialized training in the military. For a short time, he had even been a low-level agent for the CIA on one of their projects. Of course, that was many years before. At 6' 2" and 210 lbs., Ben would have been dangerous even without training. During his former military career, he had been involved in many violent situations but was glad to see no sign of it in that case. To make certain, Ben looked again with the stronger flashlight. She had died in some other way, not a beating.

***

He returned to the lobby. Sometimes he went on a bender for three or four days at a time without regaining consciousness, ending up God knew where, even another state. On top of that, since he'd had no real reason to notice, he wasn't all that certain of the date he had started drinking.

There must be a calendar or newspaper in the lobby. I have to find out what happened and when. How long have I been out of it? he wondered out loud.

Ben was in luck. The lobby had three clocks and one of them was battery operated. It was about four am. A newspaper lying on a table had a date of July 16, 2015. That didn’t really prove anything, except that whatever happened, it had been after the paper came out on that date. Ben had two answers already. He tried the door to a back room, looking for a television or radio. There didn't appear to be any in the lobby or behind the hotel counter.

He found a body sprawled just inside the backroom with an empty whiskey on a table beside it and a glass clutched in its hand.

There must be at least a radio around here someplace, he muttered, enjoying the sound of his own voice and not bothering to check the body for life. He had apparently found the desk clerk.

Searching behind the desk, more carefully with the help of a flashlight, he did find a battery-operated radio. Dead batteries, naturally. This isn’t one of my best nights.

He had a bright idea. Taking the batteries out of both working flashlights, he put them into the radio. It worked. Searching the dial, he could find only three stations on the air. Two were music and one an all night talk show. Ben listened to the latter.

Surely someone must be talking about what happened.

After a half hour or so, one of the commentators mentioned that the show was taped and not to call in with requests.

So much for modern radio, and modern civil defense broadcasting.

He was out of ideas. Leaving the desk area, Ben found a seat on a frayed overstuffed chair. One facing the front windows. The only thing he could think to do was wait for daylight. At least he could watch the street in case anyone came by. No sense wandering the city until daylight. He was soon asleep, prey to a recurrent dream....

***

Ben was aware of the feel of an insistent pressure on his back and rear--along with the smell of unwashed