The Sky Is Falling! the Sky Is Falling!

By Earle W. Jacobs

Was it asteroids, unexpectedly slamming into the earth or was it a large earthquake? Either occurrence could have some quite surprising, even often disastrous, results, as you can well imagine and will soon discover. You will have to read the story and then must make up your mind which event you think occurred. Strange things can happen as you will discover.
Here is tale of fantasy, adventure, sex and a little violence; maybe just a touch of humor, here and there. What more can one require?

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Dec 11, 2012
• ISBN: 9781477297063

Earle W. Jacobs

Earle Jacobs has been a long time resident of Southern California. He lives’ there with his wife, Alla Mikhaylovna, a native of Kiev, Ukraine and their one-eared cat Barrabashka, a native of St. Petersburg, Russia. Alla is a US Citizen. Barrabashka so far still has only her entry visa. He was an Army Lieutenant during WWII and was awarded battle stars for his ETO Campaign Ribbon for Normandy, Northern France, Rhineland and Central Europe. He has been writing adventure novels since 1989.

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© 2012 Earle W. Jacobs. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 12/7/2012

ISBN: 978-1-4772-9705-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4772-9707-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4772-9706-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012923111

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

In the beginning:

What in the hell has happened here?! I’m lying on my back and scattered rain drops are hitting my face. I feel weak as a cat. Outside of the light patter of the rain, there are no other sounds. No bird sounds and there is not even enough breeze to rustle the leaves. It is as quiet as a churchyard on a Monday morning. I feel like old Rip van Winkle must have felt after his long sleep in the Catskills. It seems like I must have been out of it for what must have been ages. Everything about me seems so alien. All I need now is to see some little green people arrive in their space ship to cart me off to some far-off planet.

One thing that I soon discovered is that I seem to be hungry as a wolf. Maybe that is why I feel so weak. Well there is no reason to continue to lie here in this drizzle like a boob, soaking up water. I sat up, looked around and found I was lying in front of a cave of some sort with some kind of woodwork in front of it. Well, it does not take a rocket scientist’s intellect to figure I should move over there and get in out of the rain. I accomplished that just as the rain started to come down in buckets. Sheesh, I could have drowned out there.

Another thing I discovered was that I had a knot on my head almost the size of a billiard ball. Not only that but it was sore as hell to the touch and the rain, I discovered also, has somewhat loosened the blood that had been matted in my hair. Well by now, even with my limited brain capacity, I could figure out that something had knocked me out and was at least one of the reasons I now felt a trifle discombobulated.

I guess it must be late afternoon. It is still light enough that I can see the inside of my shelter, which I can see, now goes back some distance where it just fades into darkness. I can see a pile of what looks like blankets over to one side and I figured I should investigate that while it is still light enough to see.

Thank goodness, it did not turn out to be a pile of human remains, which would not have surprised me a bit under these strange circumstances. They were blankets, three of them. I guess my eyesight is still good. There was also, piled beside the blankets, some equipment that I guess I should also check over while it is still light enough to see. Thank goodness, the rain seems to be letting up and it is now a little lighter.

Well, well, there is a good-sized backpack, among other items, which seems loaded with things. The pack also has a number of small pockets that also seem stuffed with different items. I opened the largest pocket on the back of the pack and the first thing I saw were several of what looked like candy bars. I immediately wolfed down two of those and that took the edge off my ravenous hunger. There was also a canteen of water, which I found was half-full. A couple swallows of that and suddenly I felt like I too was almost full and not only that but for same reason was unbearably sleepy. I just had time to flop down on the blankets and poof; I was out like a light.

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It looks like I must have slept a whole day, possibly even more. There was no way for me to tell. I felt some better anyway and the lump on my head was somewhat smaller and not nearly as painful to touch. I still felt weak but was able to stagger to my feet and to the front of my shelter. It looked like it must be about mid morning. A little way down the hill from my shelter, I could see a small brook. There was almost no water left in the canteen, I had noticed, so I figured I had better get that filled before I tried anything else.

Going down to the little stream was no problem, nor was filling the canteen. Coming back up however began to seem like I must be trying to climb Everest. What is the matter with me? It is only a couple hundred feet, at the most. I was gasping for breath when I finally dropped down onto my blankets. I fished out another of those, what I had now decided were trail-mix bars and ate that with a couple more swallows of water. I was trying to figure out how I knew those were trail-mix bars when, before I knew it, I was stretched out and fast asleep again.

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The next morning when I opened my eyes and yawned, the first question that came to mind as I scratched my jaw was, how in the hell did I manage to grow a beard over night? My whiskers grow pretty good I know but I had never had them grow almost a quarter of an inch just overnight. I was also hungry as a bear just out of hibernation and for some reason feeling unaccountably a little off my feed.

Now I remember–It had taken me a whole day to hike up here to the old, Little Emma mine from the trailhead where I had left my old Tote Goat. The mine had ceased operating almost fifty years ago, partly because of the difficulty of getting its wire-gold quartz ore to market. I had bought it last winter from the grandson of the man who had found and developed it. The price of gold was rising astronomically and at the time, I had a small fund of uncommitted cash. It was now time to see if it was going to be possible to get any of my investment back. That is why I was here. I have enough supplies in my pack to last two weeks I believe plus more that I had to leave back on the Tote Goat. I can go back for that later if necessary. I do believe I could drive the old Goat right up here to the mine after doing a little reconstruction on some of the trail leading up here. I will have to give that a little thought.

Well, I could not wait longer. I had to have a look at that beard. I have a polished steel signaling mirror that I also use for shaving when I’m in the backcountry so I dug that out to have a look. I darn near dropped it when I saw what I looked like. I had bruises all around my head and the hair on the right side was caked with dried blood! Holy mackerel! I could see now there was a lump on my head that appeared likely to be the source of all that blood. I just looked like hell! What had happened to me? Have I been unconscious for several days? I decided to sit down and try to think things out and–-promptly keeled over, fast asleep again.

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When I woke up again it looked like it must be the middle of the afternoon. Now I wonder if it was the same day as when I fell asleep the