Sundown Two

By E. Don Harpe

When a runaway moon collides with the Sun in the fall of 2012, Earth experiences global shock waves and electromagnetic pulses that destroy much of civilization. America is a wasteland, and if the weapons in the Sundown Two bunker can't be deactivated, the world as we know it will be destroyed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: E. Don Harpe
• Release date: Jun 24, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458138637

E. Don Harpe

Award winning author E. DON HARPE has had a varied career, from military service in the 60’s to years spent as a published songwriter in Nashville. During this time he won the coveted Silver Pen Award from the Nashville Banner newspaper. Since retiring from public work in 2004, Harpe has concentrated on writing novels, and continuing to move forward with his writing. He also has nearly 40 short stories available which can be found on Smashwords as well as other sites that feature ebooks. His book of memoirs, THE LAST OF THE SOUTH TOWN RINKY DINKS, published in September of 2008, was an instant success with friends and readers alike. The stories are touching, down to earth tales of small town America, and will bring tears and laughter to all who can remember when the world was a kinder, simpler place. It’s one of those books that you won’t be able to put down, and one that you will re-read many times over the years. Now living in Georgia, Harpe devotes his time to Helen, his wife of nearly 50 years, to his children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, and to his writing. “I’m pretty satisfied in my own skin right now,” Harpe says, “and I just want to continue to write things that will entertain and hold the readers interest.”

Book preview

SUNDOWN TWO

By

E. Don Harpe & Phil Whitley

SMASHWORDS EDITION

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Published by E. Don Harpe on Smashwords

Copyright © 2010 by Ernest D. Harp & Phil Whitley

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook 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 person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work. This is a work of fiction, and any resemblance to any person, either living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Discover more of the works of E. Don Harpe & Phil Whitley

http://www.donharpe.com/

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SUNDOWN TWO

EARLY DECEMBER – 2012

ON OCTOBER 21, 2012, a runaway moon, roughly three times the size of Jupiter, hit the sun at a speed of several hundred thousand miles per hour, generating tremendous electro magnetic pulses and solar flares.

The result was the largest coronal mass ejection (CME) in the history of the Earth, one that flung billions of tons of solar plasma onto the earth’s magnetosphere.

In the six weeks since the event, the Earth has been devastated by wave after wave of energy that is almost nuclear in its strength. All electrical power has been disrupted, and there is no means of communication. No modern automobiles, trains, or trucks will run, no airplanes will fly. So far as anyone knows, there has been no contact with any other country. From all indications, America is isolated.

Every store in the country, from super centers to local mom and pop groceries, has been looted of its food, medicine, liquor, water, weapons and ammunition. Hospitals are filled with stacks of unused beds, banks are filled with stacks of useless money, and the streets are filled with stacks of burning bodies.

Although it is December, the activity on the sun has sent the temperature soaring above 100 degrees, and the wild lights of the electrical storms continue to dance about in the sky.

Those who have stockpiles of supplies can only keep them if they are strong enough, and even then they stand the chance of being overrun by the huge numbers of people roaming the countryside looking for food. There is no barter system, because the people in the streets just take whatever they can take. Killing for a sandwich or a bag of potato chips is commonplace and means nothing.

In the Atlantic Ocean hundreds of undersea eruptions have sent giant tsunamis roaring toward shore and a wall of water over two miles high has devastated America from Miami to Rhode Island, leaving most of the east coast under water. Millions of people in New York, Philadelphia, Detroit, Washington DC, and other eastern cities died when the waves swept across the land, and millions more are missing.

The west coast has fared no better – the dreaded big one has finally been triggered – and a good portion of California has slipped into the Pacific. Hawaii is gone, vanished beneath the waves, but nobody on the mainland knows it yet.

The Great Lakes are now part of the Atlantic Ocean, nobody has any news of Chicago or Minneapolis, and in the middle of the country the New Madrid fault line is beginning to rumble.

Half of Florida is gone; Mobile, New Orleans and parts of Texas have disappeared, nobody knows how bad it is in Mexico, and there's no word at all from any other country. Part of the Mississippi River is dry, with the northernmost stretches now running backward.

The inland cites that weren’t directly affected by the earthquakes or tidal waves were ravaged by the electrical storms. Millions are dead in metropolitan areas such as Nashville, Memphis, Atlanta, Louisville, Lexington, Little Rock, and Oklahoma City. New Orleans is gone, Dallas/Fort Worth is in rubble, Huston and Corpus Christi are under the Gulf of Mexico, and the coastline is now near San Antonio.

Those who are still alive in those areas have vacated the cities, leaving thousands of bodies in the streets and houses. The smell of rotting flesh is overpowering, and there’s no way to avoid the millions of hungry, swarming flies that seem to be everywhere.

Hundreds of thousands of people are on the move, leaving the cities behind, headed for rural areas, hoping to find food and medicine. Most of the people are moving in a southerly direction, although no one really knows why.

Many have weapons, but the supply of ammunition is short. What illegal drugs were ready to be sold on the streets have been taken, and with no more coming into the country from the south, the addicts will soon run out. Outlying areas around every metropolitan center have been ravaged, picked clean of everything that people might eat, drink, swallow, or shoot with.

Domestic pets that haven’t been eaten are becoming feral and wild, roaming the streets and feeding off the bodies they find, be it animal or human.

Farms have been overrun and trampled. Whatever vegetables were growing have already been picked and eaten. There are dead animals – cows, pigs, horses, dogs and cats – on the side of the road in many rural areas, most with parts cut off. Some people are eating what is left.

There are widespread tales of cannibalism, and it is understood that some of those tales are true.

There is no government, and while the military has tried to hold on to as many men as possible, most have deserted, choosing to go home to care for their families. They reasoned that the only people they had to fight are the roaming hordes of hungry men and women – some family, some friends, some neighbors – and they are unwilling to fire on them. In the early days, once the military leaders saw which way things were going, they destroyed as many of their ammo depots as possible, hoping to keep ammunition out of the hands of civilians.

The bunkers and safe houses that were to be used by the President and others of the government remain locked and empty. There was no time to reach them.

After weeks of trying to restore order, remaining military personnel are also hungry, and they have begun to react to the devastation in the same manner as the rest of the people. They are moving from place to place, taking what they want, and killing anyone who resists.

The churches are empty except for small handfuls of people praying – some that this is a bad dream, others for deliverance – and neither seems very close to being answered. One look outside and they know they are living a nightmare. It seems as if their prayers are bouncing off the ceiling of the church and rebounding back into the pews, where they lie whimpering at their feet like whipped puppies.

Individuals in many parts of the country are trying their best to stay alive, keeping to themselves and not wanting to harm anyone else. Others are doing all they can to keep their families together, clinging to whatever shreds of the old way they can find among the rubble.

Some are better equipped than others, but every day it becomes clearer that by themselves none of them can stand for long against the hungry thousands who roam the land, and who have no rule of law other than to find food.

Everywhere in the country, rumors abound.

There are rumors of pockets of civilization in several places, but so far there are no facts about them. Nobody knows how to find them or if they will take anyone in if they succeed in locating them.

More rumors tell of hordes of people cannibalizing others, and there are rumors that devil-worshipping cults have sprung up everywhere.

For many people, one of the most troubling rumors is that the President has disappeared. They fear that without leadership, there will be no hope for civilization.

Another rumor says that parts of the armed forces are planning some kind of para-military takeover of the country, and it’s almost a certainty that some form of martial law will arise.

Marty Bishop, a survivalist from Riverdale, Georgia, is seeking others that want to try to start rebuilding, but it’s all he can do to stay alive one day at a time. His wife Brenda, his daughter Jenna, and his hunting friend Billy Watson are making preparations to leave Riverdale and try to find a place where they can safely live, while they try to figure out what they will have to do in the future.

Marty has been stockpiling food, weapons, medicine, water, and ammunition for the past several years. He has a few thousand rounds of ammo for each of his three pistols - a .40 caliber, a .380 caliber automatic, and an Army issue .45. He also has two shotguns - a 12 gauge and a 16 gauge - and a crossbow.

Billy is a prison guard and an ex Army Ranger, with survival and killing skills, and he has stockpiled many of the same things as Marty.

Brenda is a Native American, a trained nurse with years of experience, and has a great deal of knowledge of herbal medicines.

Jenna is 16, a high school sophomore, and more worried about her boyfriend Brandon Woods and that her cell phone doesn’t work than about anything else.

About sixty miles south of Macon, Georgia, there is a religious compound called the Promised Land, entrenched deep in the heart of a 60 acre Pine forest. Their leader, 46 year-old Gideon Cross, has been in trouble with the law, but is a man of vision. He has some 80 followers, and there are several different skill sets among them. Gideon is also ex-military, a trained sniper and hand to hand expert who saw action in Desert Storm and founded the Promised Land after he lost his wife and seven year old son to a drunken driver. He will protect those under his care by any means necessary.

Cross and Bishop have heard rumors of civilization rebuilding groups that may be in the mountains of New Mexico, but have no way of knowing if the rumors are true. After defending themselves from several groups of marauders, Marty and his group join forces with the flock in the Promised Land, and together they plan to form a small recon force to go to New Mexico, seeking even the slightest shred of evidence that might mean civilization can be reborn. Those plans are put on hold after a heated firefight with a group of marauders who claim they’ve heard that some kind of military operation will soon take place near where Washington DC used to be. Cross sets out to learn what he can about the intended strike, and to do whatever he must in order to stop it.

Both of them have heard whispers in the night that trouble them. Sundown, the whispers say,

Beware Sundown.

# # # #

PROLOGUE

LAUNCHED IN 2010, some three years ahead of schedule, with 20 foot mirrors and fitted with a multi-object spectrometer, near-infrared cameras, and a mid-infrared spectrometer camera, the James Webb space telescope was the most advanced telescope ever sent into space. Its range was nearly unfathomable, and the pictures it sent back the most detailed anyone had ever seen.

The Webb was used in conjunction with NASA’s Spaceguard Survey, and even though it worked exactly as it was designed to work, it made no difference in the final outcome of the events it captured on film.

Walter Biddle was in the monitor room of the Webb the night the telescope discovered the rogue moon, some three days after she entered the solar system. Walter named the moon Ranstad III, mistaking it for the third in a series of asteroids the telescope had reported a month earlier. He then promptly forgot about it.

The telescope’s programming was so intent upon watching for objects that might intersect the orbit of Earth that it completely missed the fact that Ranstad was on a collision course with the sun. Five months and two days later, the Webb scope was nothing but space debris, blown apart from the shock waves that radiated out from the Sun. The last few photos it returned to its earthbound computers were of Ranstad colliding with the sun. They were photos no one ever saw.

On October 21st, at 9:26AM, US Central Daylight Savings time, Ranstad plowed full force into the sun with a destructive force never before encountered in our solar system. Gigantic solar flares and shock waves of devastating power washed outward, and on that morning they found Earth directly in their crosshairs. Earth’s moon did a wild celestial dance as the waves tossed her about the heavens like an autumn leaf in a hurricane.

It was mid morning in America when the waves swept across Earth, and life as we know it was suddenly escalated to a new level of existence. Earth's second stone age, and possibly the last period of time when man would rule the planet, was about to begin.

This event was one the government agencies had dubbed a Survival Factor Zero, and everyone on Earth was about to find out exactly what that meant.

# # # #

–1–

May 19

RANSTAD III SLID AROUND the edge of what appeared to be a developing black hole and rocketed into the Sol solar system, hell driven and on a course that took her closer and closer to Earth’s sun.

Almost three times the size of Jupiter, Ranstad had once been a moon of the star Sirius, having broken away from the gravitational pull of her parent after a few million years as its faithful companion. Since then she had careened across the heavens, at times approaching light speed, then slowing as she entered the gravitational field of one or another planet. In this way she had been erratically working her way on a never-ending journey to everywhere, and nowhere.

Her path was haphazard, and throughout the eons she had touched the outer atmospheres of countless heavenly bodies, bouncing off them and moving on. It made her appear to be zigzagging through the heavens, while racking up near miss after near miss on thousands of stars and planets. Her path had taken her on a joy ride of the Universe, first to one galaxy, then to another, and now, as if some great celestial beacon was showing her the way, she had returned home.

It seemed as if she were top heavy or maybe side heavy. The large asteroid wedged into her dark side may have had something to do with that. Nearly a million years ago she took a direct hit from the asteroid, and since then her flight path wobbled, making it seem as if she were breaking nearly all of the laws of celestial movement. Irregardless of how or why she moved as she did, the facts were she was now headed directly toward the sun. She was moving at several hundred thousand miles per hour, and there was nothing in the galaxy that could stop her.

Not only was Ranstad huge, she was dense; her atoms packed together in extremely small, tight concentrations due to her constant rotation and the great speed at which she traveled.

For some unknown reason as she entered the Sol system she slowed, almost as if she knew her journey was about to end.

She had only carried the name Ranstad III for five months, and most of the information about her was nothing more than a few educated guesses made by Earth’s astronomers, or at least by those astronomers that had noticed her at all.

As her trajectory didn’t put her anywhere near Earth, she was not placed on any watch list. However, it didn’t really matter if Ranstad was on a watch list or not, because nothing could have stopped her. The best we could have done was known a few days ahead of time what was coming.

What was coming was that the zigzagging and near misses were soon to be things of the past. Ranstad had a doomsday date that could not be avoided. She would die a flaming death, and her demise would bring about the single most catastrophic event our solar system had ever experienced.

Ranstad was going to collide with the sun, and even though the inhabitants of Earth didn’t know it, the end was truly approaching. This time, even the sidewalk prophets missed the call.

# # # #

– 2 –

October 20 & 21

AFTER THREE TRIES, and a conference with his sixteen-year-old daughter, Marty Bishop finally established a three-way conference call hook-up between himself and two of his hunting buddies. They had been planning tomorrow’s hunting trip for two months, and after last year’s fiasco Marty wanted everything to be perfect.

He had to smile when he remembered last year. Joey forgot to bring the tent they were to use for the two-day trip, and after killing the only deer they got, Billy had discovered he had never renewed his hunting license. That meant he had to use one of Marty’s deer tags, and then he got busted anyway for hunting without a license. It was just their luck the game warden did a lot of spot-checking every year, and he was waiting on them at their vehicles when they dragged the deer out of the woods.

Marty got Billy on the line first and told him to hang on while he called Joey. "Hey, Joey, got that tent loaded this time? And Billy, I’m going to need all my tags this year. Y’all ready?"

They both laughed and Joey said, Yeah, Marty. It’s your turn to forget something this year – like maybe your gun?

Already got `er in the Jeep, Joey. All I need to do in the morning is make a pot of coffee and get dressed. I spent all day today packing and double-checking.

I’m going to go on down there tonight and spend the night in my truck, Billy said. I’ll probably be in my stand by the time y’all get there, okay? I’ve got the furthest to drive and that way I’ll miss the morning traffic.

It was only a thirty-minute drive for Marty to their campsite. They had hunted the same area for the past three years and he knew where the others had their tree stands set up – deep in a pine thicket with a good stand of old oaks around a small clearing they had seeded with alfalfa.

They continued the small talk for another thirty minutes until Billy said, Well, fellers, I need to get going if I’m going to get any sleep at all tonight. Two or three hours in that old truck are all I’m going to get anyway.

Okay, Billy. G’night, guys, I’ll see y’all in the morning.

Marty went into the kitchen, filled the coffeemaker with water, measured the coffee into the filter and set the timer for 4 a.m. He told Brenda and Jenna goodnight, laid out his hunting clothes, set the bedside alarm and went to bed earlier than he had in nearly a year. It was only 10 o’clock.

He lay there trying to sleep, but with the excitement of the trip and not being very sleepy anyway, it was nearly 1 a.m. before he dozed off. It seemed to have been no more than a few minutes when the smell of coffee brewing woke him. He dressed quickly while listening to the final blurps from the coffeemaker.

Brenda rolled over and said, Be careful today, and I love you.

I will, honey, and I love you too. Are y’all doing anything today?

I told Jenna we’d go to the mall and do a bit of shopping, probably grab some lunch, but that’s it.

Well, y’all be careful too. It’s going to be crowded and the traffic will probably be terrible.

We’re gonna leave here about nine, get an early start. Don’t care much for going to the mall that early, but the longer we wait, the worse it’ll get.

Okay, baby, sounds good. I’m off as soon as I fill my thermos. I’ll leave enough for you. I’ll be back before dark – hopefully with a big ol’ buck.

The grass crunched beneath his boots as he walked across the lawn to his jeep. A light frost, unusual for this time of year, sparkled in the glow of the streetlight and covered the windshield and the canvas top. Sighing, he cranked the jeep, found a shop towel, and cleared the windshield, not wanting to take the time for the heater to warm up.

Just before the on-ramp to I-75, he pulled into a fast food drive-through and ordered a breakfast burrito. It was to be the last fast food he would ever eat.

The northbound lanes were heavy with work traffic, but it wasn’t all that bad in the southbound lanes where he was. In less than fifteen minutes he exited at the Locust Grove turnoff and headed west.

The land they were hunting on was just a few miles distant. It was owned by Georgia Timber Products, where Billy knew one of the owners. Some wheeling and dealing on his part had gotten him and his friends exclusive hunting rights at this site, which meant they would be the only hunters on the property, and the three of them pitched in every year to keep those rights current.

Marty was fiddling with the radio and almost missed the dirt road that led to the property. He pulled in and stopped long enough to find the news and weather channel where they gave the time, weather and traffic conditions every hour, quarter-hour and on the half. The announcer said it was a quarter to six. He checked the railroad watch that had been his grandfather’s and it agreed.

Giving it a few winds, he closed the case and slipped it back into his pants pocket, once again thinking of Papa Bishop and how he had taught him how to properly wind it. Only clockwise, and never in the opposite direction, he had told him.

A few minutes later he reached the old barn where they always parked. Seeing Billy’s truck already there, he smiled and pulled in beside it.

Billy got out and stretched as he walked over to Marty. Guess I finally fell asleep, he said. What time is it?

Nearly six. Want to wait on Joey? He’ll probably be here in a few minutes. You know how that boy loves to hunt.

Yeah, let’s wait on him. Any coffee left?

Marty shook his thermos. Yep, you got a cup?

Has a cat got a climbing gear? Course I got a cup, just ain’t got nothin’ to put in it.

They were finishing off their coffee when Joey pulled up.

Sorry I’m late, guys. Got hung up in traffic. Musta been a wreck or something. Y’all ready to do some huntin’?

Son, we was born ready, Marty said. Let’s get in them stands before the sun comes up. Don’t forget your pistols in case we need to signal. Three quick shots means ‘come to me’, remember?

Billy laughed, Yeah, and one loud bang means I got the first deer. Sure I remember. Now let’s get our butts in gear.

Using their flashlights, they got to Joey’s stand first and waited as he climbed up the metal ladder and got settled in. Next was Billy’s and Marty passed his rifle up to him after he was set.

Marty’s stand was at the lower end of the alfalfa field and the furthest away. When he got to it and climbed up, he flashed his light toward Billy, who flashed him back. Marty then pointed the light toward Joey, letting everyone know they were all in place.

He checked his watch again. It was 6:32. A splotch of pink diluted the eastern horizon and promised dawn would soon be arriving.

Even with no wind, it was cold in the tree stand, but Marty loved this time of day when all was still and quiet. The smallest sound carried a long way and he could hear a rustling in some dry leaves near him. Two raccoons were playing around the base of an old lightning-struck oak and he watched them until they moved out of sight. Next a flock of doves circled overhead and then landed in the field, looking for seeds. He poured himself another cup of coffee and shifted to a more comfortable position.

Twice during the morning he saw a couple of small does at the far edge of the field and he knew that meant there was a buck nearby. They disappeared back into the trees, but he figured they would be back. He checked his watch again. It was now 10:26. He had been sitting in the stand for four hours.

The sun was behind him, and the shadows of the trees stretched out away from him half way across the field. Suddenly he had an odd sensation something was wrong. The color of the light didn’t seem right, and he looked up. A passenger jet left a bright red contrail across the sky.

What the hell…he wondered, a red contrail? Then brightly colored bands of pulsating…energy, it appeared to be, began swirling across the sky. It looked almost like the videos he had seen of that Aurora thing that occurred up north. The Northern Lights maybe? He couldn’t remember exactly, but that sounded right. But he thought that only happened up there, and then only at night – certainly never in the middle of a sunny day in Georgia.

He watched in horror as the jetliner grew larger and suddenly nose-dived toward the ground. He heard a distant boom, and then saw a column of