Chapter 1: Surviving the Aftermath

Like most people I lived my life happily ignorant of what was really going on. I was considered a prodigy as a child and entered college at the age of sixteen with a full scholarship to MIT. After getting a master in mechanical engineering I went on to patent six of my developments which were quietly gobbled up for millions. At that point I could have just walked away from everything and live the rock star life, but then I wouldn’t be having any fun.

For me the labs and factories were my real playground. I was traveling all over the world by the time I was twenty six and helping one country or another develop the technologies at hand into working solutions for their populace. It was like a dream come true for me until one day it all ended.

No, I didn’t die, but at a conference a female colleague that worked for NASA began to flirt with me. It was rather odd since I was one of those teddy bear types in the scientific realm. You’ve seen them, the six foot plus guy that everyone calls Lurch? Well as everyone was getting up from a lecture she slipped me a thumb drive and told me not to open it on anything that could connect to network. Then she kissed me on the cheek and the oddly hopeless look on her face was like a gut punch.

I got back home the next day and did as she told me. That was the day my life as I knew it ended. The cover letter told me that she was working on an emergency program for the government. All information on the project and connections to it were being monitored and silenced. She was giving this to me not to be leaked to the world, but so that she could feel that maybe she could let someone know, and maybe survive what was coming.

The best estimations they had worked out was three years before the hammer dropped. That was the nickname given to an object confirmed to be on a path to strike the earth.

It wasn’t some massive thing like in the movies, but then it didn’t really have to be. This wasn’t some ten mile wide planet killer. No, this was about a quarter of that size and one people are told wouldn’t do much harm. The reality is that people don’t realize how fragile the modern world is. How easily infrastructure and supply chains are to any kind of disruption.

Thinking realistically if something big enough hit in the ocean, throwing steam and rock into the atmosphere, it could cause nuclear winter without the radiation. There would be instant global cooling, no sunlight for a year or two, no crops, no power, and no satellite communications.

It wouldn’t take a dinosaur killer to eliminate human civilization. As I read this it explained that this impact was really just a trigger for a worse event. Three large dominoes were waiting to be knocked over, three super calderas had been picking up in activity for years and the seismic shock this rock was going to cause would set them off according to all research done so far. It would be as if the earth was impacted four times in a row.

As someone with a lot of fingers in a lot of pies it didn’t take me long to see a quiet buildup of changes going on. It was subtle, but still evident. The US pulled out of two conflicts that were going on and brought everyone and everything back. The opposing forces went to the peace table and the world thought that diplomacy was winning these battles. Yep, peace was breaking out all over the world.

I then decided to move my money around and that in turn began to grow quickly. I knew what the governments would need and invested in those sectors. At the same time I changed my whole life. I knew what my best chances were and I began working through a lifetime of connections to get what I needed.

Thanks to my connection through DARPA it was far easier than I thought. I was able to slowly purchase spare parts not only in the US, but in other nations that when put together would build the one thing that would make the difference in everything. At the same time I began building myself a nice new home in a quiet rural area. The state owned the land and with some money under the table I found myself the owner of acres of deserted land.

Out of seemingly nowhere I started joining prepper blogs, I went to a few of their conventions, and began to look like just another scientist who bought into the conspiracy theories. I knew the authorities made up a good portion of the crowd so I put on a tin foil hat and talked the talk. At the same time I was gathering information, connections, and making plans.

Remember even paranoid people have enemies. Through them I was able to get materials supplied through contractors who had a habit of losing shipments. I was able to make dangerous connections with people that allowed me to make other purchases that would never be allowed if there wasn’t already a de-escalation going on worldwide.

Agencies that would have normally come down on me like a ton of bricks were now tasked to a lot of more important tasks making life much easier for me. People weren’t looking at why a house and pool took far more concrete to build than a large factory. A few locals wondered why so much was going on, but since the area was rather popular among the prepper crowd they just considered it a nice bump to the local economy.

I was running against the clock and the shrinking amount of funds I had. I finished a few ideas I had, while working on all of this, and tossed them into the pool to be gobbled up by defense contractors for some additional funds. Then one day I looked around and nodded. There was only one more thing to do and that was to flick the final switch.

A low hum started, and then with my guts in a knot, saw all the readings were perfect. Now all I had to do was sit back and pray all of this was a waste of time and money. I was hoping against hope that I could turn this into some kind of messed up museum for the criminally gullible.

A few months later, just as I was starting to relax the news broke despite all the precautions. The hammer had been seen by thousands of amateur astronomers and people began to panic. The governments of the world united to destroy said nasty and sent multiple missions to divert or destroy the object. All that did was make things worse.

The rock was bigger than expected, and far more massive. When I say massive that isn’t size but density. No one asked why so many governments had nuclear missiles capable of reaching the moon, but they did and all those massive weapons did was to fracture it into dense buckshot.

It’s theorized that the Tunguska incident was caused by a something the size of a regulation swimming pool. Now imagine hundreds of these, and larger, heading towards Earth at varying rates. This meant they wouldn’t hit one side, this meant hours or even days of constant impacts all over the world. Any of which could hit one of the deadly dominoes.

Not long after I had a few people stop by and ask if I needed anything. These were fellow preppers and one was a real bit of a nutter butter. “We aren’t looking to move on you Dave. It’s just that we were preparing for war, not extinction. A few of us have been going around and offering what we have to others. We figure the dead will be a lot luckier than the living. If what we have can make things better for you, then great.”

I told them I would take anything they would allow me to have and suddenly I had access to things even I don’t think I could have acquired. They told me the food stuffs and easily stored items had already been dispersed to others in the area. I was handed all the bulky and hard to hide materials. They put it in a reinforced storage unit I had nearby. After it was all l secured we said our goodbyes. I gave it some time and then moved it to a much more secure storage area.

Then it began. I was tapped into DOD satellite broadcast when the first one hit off the California coast. The impact set off the west coast faults. More followed causing massive clouds of water vapor to fill the skies. China, and then India were struck making what looked like nuke strike fireballs. Suddenly New Zealand disappeared in a ball of fire, the India strike must have set off their super caldera.

The Italian caldera was next when a rock hit in the Adriatic Sea causing another massive fireball. The governments of the world were telling people that the strikes were out over water and to not panic. As if massive wave formation and millions of tons of water vapor being injected into the atmosphere was nothing to worry about.

One space rock after another caused blooms of gas as they marched across the Atlantic. Now these are just the big guns, there was a small strikes going on along this path as well leveling city after city. All the effect of a nuclear war without the radiation, lucky us. Nature did it to us before we did it to ourselves.

Then the leading edge hit just off shore the east coast, and then northern Florida was gone. At this point I was still sitting in my house ready to go, but I figured that if the initial strike was going to take me out then it would do it while I was sitting at my table.

Then the unbelievable happened. Instead of a rock setting off yellow stone, it actually hit the damn thing. It was just big enough to open the ground wide open creating a hole so big that instead of an explosive eruption like New Zealand, it was larger relief of pressure. It’s like the difference between popping a balloon or simply allowing the pressure to go out the nozzle. The world got very lucky.

I was getting ready to move into my shelter when one of my alarms went off. I grabbed my gun and looked outside. There were ten people outside my house and they were all holding their hands in the air. I knew them all, I would even go so far as to say they were on their way to being my friends.

I stepped outside with my firearm in a ready position. “Why are you all here?” I asked and Dallas, a war vet and good man stepped a little closer. “Dave, you know what is about to hit right?” I nodded. “You understand what is going to happen after that?” I nodded. “Can you help us?” I shook my head. “I don’t have the room or supplies for all of you. We would be at each other’s throats in a month.”

The man nodded and I saw something horrible in his eyes, resignation. “We aren’t asking you to take all of us, we just want you to take our girls in.” There were five girls in the crowd, all between twelve and sixteen I would say. “Dave I served in a combat zone. I’ve seen what happens to young girls in those and I think you know that too.” I nodded.

“I could try and fight you, take what you have, and fuck up any chances of my daughter surviving this. You’re a lot more than meets the eye. You aren’t one of the others that barely got out of high school and have a Rambo complex. We don’t know what you have going, all we hope is that you have something and it’s well planned. Please save our girls and let us die knowing they had a better chance at surviving this than they would with us.”

“Dallas, I’m not prepared to deal with a group of girls. I don’t have the right supplies for them. We might be able to survive but the conditions would get bad eventually. What am I supposed to do about menstruation?” Dallas smiled. “Then it’s a yes then?” I rolled my eyes. “You damn con artists, yes I’ll take them in. I was about to leave for my cabin when you got here, so I will wait two days for you to get their stuff together.”

Dallas turned and waved to the others. The adults all headed to their vehicles and began unloading wheeled trunks. I was a little surprised to see someone had made an off road version of a wheeled suitcase. “I made these when the news broke. I figured we would head into the hills, or find an evacuation point. Then after the damn thing was broken up I knew dragging the girls through what was left behind wasn’t possible.” I nodded.

“We have all their good clothing, they won’t need cute dresses and frills. We even took what we could from Fred’s store to round out winter gear, first aid, and such.” I opened the heavy gate on my carport and they pulled it all in there. “I will wait one, maybe two days before leaving.” He shook his head.

“No, if you can leave don’t wait for us. We are heading home and then heading out to the nearest evacuation point. I don’t know which option is safest, but I know what a refugee camp looks like and I don’t want my girl to be caught up in one.” I nodded and then backed off allowing everyone to say their goodbyes. There were tears and such and then the parents walked each girl over to me and thanked me for taking them in.

After the adults were gone we all went inside and made do for a day. The next morning I heard an alarm and found a few garbage bags filled with all kinds of assorted things like clothing and keepsakes. We took those inside when Mora, the oldest, asked when we would be leaving for my cabin. We went into my garage and opened the fuse box. I then took a special key and when that turned the whole wall shifted back and then slid to the side.

There was a wall with a tunnel beyond that was already lit. “Ladies, this way please.” All the girls started hauling their goods down the tube and into our new home. Before they looked around I asked them to help me and we stripped the house of everything we could carry, right down to the couch cushions. Then I pressed a button and the wall slid back into place and you could hear a thump as the locks engaged.

Now my house above was well built, but only a small two bedroom. Down here was my real home. It was a five bedroom house that to the eye looked perfectly normal. Quality carpets, comfy looking couches, a large flat screen tv, multiple gaming systems, and a large kitchen and dining room. There were four bathrooms with baths and showers. All the toilets had a bidet system as well.

The kids walked around and noticed each room had a king sized bed and a different theme as well. They asked why and I told them that it was meant to stave off mental issues. If I started hating the room I was in I could just move to another. I had even stored away decorations to remake a room if I wanted.

Ellen raised her hand and I nodded to her. “Sir, how do you have so much power? Dad’s generators couldn’t light half this place.” I nodded. “Well I have a special power system set up that allows for good supply and storage. So don’t worry about forgetting to turn out the light in your room.” They all tried to smile despite the pain they were in.

One of the ginger twins, Jess, looked at me and raised her hand. “Girls we can dispense with the formalities. Just call me Dave. If you have a question just ask like normal because for at least the next six months we are going to be like a family on a very long road trip.” She looked at me and nodded. “Why six months?” I figured this was the moment.

“When I built this place I put the door on a six month lockdown. I know the surface will be unlivable soon so I made sure that I couldn’t get out, even if I wanted to, until things settle down a little. The truth is we may be down here for a lot longer than that.” They all looked at each other and then me. “How long is that?” Mora asked.

“Girls this isn’t like a natural disaster where a few months later everyone is rebuilding things.” Ellen gave a small whimper. “Dad said the world was ending. They had a meeting and because dad was a vet they all listened hard. He said that the world as we know it was gone. Life was going to be like living in a constant war zone for months or even years.” They all looked at me with tears in their eyes.

“We all know that we would be dead if you didn’t take us in. Our parents knew that this was the only way we didn’t all die. So how long till you think we will be down here, honestly.” I shrugged. “In six months we will see what is going on out there. After that we will probably lock it back up for another six months. We will do this until things are better, or until we can’t stay down here any longer.”

The other twin Rissa looked at me. “Why do you have a tv?” I was glad to have a nice question for the first time. “Well I may not look like it but I am quite the nerd. I have the TV hooked up to a computer network with just about every movie and tv show I could get my hands on.” Jess looked at me with big eyes. “Do you have anime too?” I chuckled and nodded. “Dubbed and subtitled”.

In fact I had servers from the aerospace industry that would make the pentagon drool. It would be easier to answer what books and movies I didn’t have than what I did have. Thankfully with the panic going on it was easy to find things on the black markets that normally would be impossible to acquire.

In a way it was nice to sit back and know that the banking industry was gone because the level of debt I had was enormous. Everything around us was built on getting loans on all the stocks and investments I had all over the world. Now all of that was erased and I was able to survive.

“Dave, when is dinner?” Bobby asked and we all went into the kitchen. From now on we would survive on a mixture of frozen and freeze dried food. When the frozen foods ran out in a year we would fall back on a combination of Freeze dried and MRE meals I had stored. At least that is what I told everyone. I had a project going, and we would see how long that would take to get really going.

After dinner we all picked our rooms and the kids began unpacking and personalizing each one. Thankfully the twins were happy to live in the same room and so I left them to do their thing while I went to my office to check on everything. The power was steady, everything was running in the green, and that meant we were as safe as I could make us. I then turned on the exterior cameras and all was quiet on the surface.

Yes my surface house had cameras, I even had one on the top of the flag pole in front or my house. The big mirror ball on top was actually a camera housing that could turn three sixty when I needed to. Paranoia is the watch word for the prepping community. I was able to monitor the outside world quite well and knew everything that was going on. I knew when sackers came to the house just days after we hid and after breaking down the door they went through the whole house looking for anything they could take.

They had all been armed and looking pretty grizzly. When they didn’t find anyone they stayed in the house a few days, tearing things up and taking anything they thought would be of use. I was surprised to see them leave the house standing but then I was glad for little blessing.

The world as we knew it was gone. Maybe in a few years, or ten, things would begin to get better but right now it was a police state and the only law was a bullet. I knew I had to stay down here a long time, I just hoped I could find a way to teach the kids that.

Speaking of teaching that was one thing the kids weren’t ready for. I think somehow they thought that school was out after the apocalypse. I made sure they knew different. We started slowly at first, mostly so I could get to know them and their learning styles.

Mora was diligent, but I discovered she was also slightly dyslexic, no big problem there. Ellen was always trying to prove she was faster than the others but that didn’t make her right. The twins were an enigma. They worked together on everything and covered each other’s failings. This was good in some ways, but it also meant that they weren’t learning for themselves. Bobby was a little bit of a mess. He was shy and not very outgoing. He did well on paper but when it was a verbal question he just faltered.

Now none of them wanted to start back up to school but after telling them what was “probably” going on outside, knowing everything they could might save their lives if we had to leave. I also reminded them that anything we could do to break up the boredom was a good thing.

So after two months of solitude they were all itching to do something new. Thus I started my classroom for the surviving. I went over what they knew and began to map out the gaps and learning curves. Soon I knew the kids styles and did my best to tailor their educations. The biggest thing I learned was that they might have been in school but they were not that well educated. I began to work on that. Then things began to creep up that I hadn’t thought of.

At first we were each in our own world of thought. Then slowly I noticed the cracks starting to form. One night when I was upset by what I had seen going on. I was in the kitchen making some tea and I heard a whimper. I went into the living area and found the twins curled up on the couch holding each other crying.

I knelt on the floor in front of them and they looked at me and tried to be brave. “Girls, what wrong?” They looked at each other and shrugged while wiping their eyes. “Are you scared here?” they looked at each other and shook their heads. “Is there anything I can do for you?” They looked down and shrugged.

I wasn’t great at this since I had been an only child and single most of my adult life. When you’re plain looking, younger than those around you, and intelligent you don’t get many dates. I had spent most of the last few years just working here alone and that also created a rift in my interpersonal skills, so two sad little girls were rather beyond me.

I held out my hands to them and was shocked when they both came at me and knocked me to the floor. I laid there holding them as they cried against me. I was amazed at the feelings I was having. Their small warm bodies were shaking and for the first time in years I felt like crying myself. I could feel the sadness and pain of their loss rushing through me.

They had lost friends, family, home, and everything but each other. Now they were trapped underground with strangers and feeling as alone as they ever had. I made a decision I hoped was a good one. I wrapped my arms around the two girls tight and held them. “Don’t worry girls, I’m here for you both. I will keep you safe from the world and take care of you.”

They quieted down a little but I knew they were still very sad. I just held them in my arms, laying on the floor and waited. Eventually they quieted down and we got up. I urged them to go back to bed but the look in their eyes was so sad. “Can we sleep with you tonight?” Karis asked me. Now I wasn’t prepared for that one. Then I figured there was nothing wrong in it at all. We went to my room and all crawled into bed. I laid in the middle and the twins took a side each. There was something very comforting about the arrangement and we all slept soundly.

The next morning is where things got weird. The girls were still asleep when I got up and went to start the day. Mora was already up and starting breakfast. Not that that was hard for her. Heat water, dump in dehydrated food, and then wait. But it was that she liked to do it that made it special.

After a not lonely night I was feeling specially warm and fuzzy and thanked her for going out for all of us. She seemed a little stunned but then she smiled at me and fussed around with the food. Ellen and Bobby left their rooms and headed for the couch looking sleepy. A perfectly normal morning until the twins emerged from my bedroom smiling for the first time since we had come down here.

Mora looked at them with a blank face and then looked at me. I had no idea why but she seemed really shocked at the sight of them. “Why were they sleeping in your room?” she asked in a rather cold voice. I walked into the kitchen and tried to figure out why she was acting this way. “I was up late last night and found them crying on the couch. I figured if they needed a little cuddling it was ok.” Mora’s eye filled with tears and she ran for her room, and slammed the door behind her. I looked around and saw Ellen looking at me. “They aren’t the only ones. We all cry at night.” Was all she said before turning back to the TV with a decidedly stern pout.

I went to Mora’s door and gently knocked. “Go away.” She cried out and I could hear her sobbing. I looked at the couch again but didn’t get any help. I looked to the twins and then just looked at me and then the door. I leaned into the door and took a deep breath. “Mora, please let me come in. I want to explain.” I waited but she didn’t yell at me again so I took that as permission to enter.

The girl was laying across her bed with her face buried in a pillow. I walked over and waited a minute. “Mora, I’m so sorry. I should have guessed all of you are hurting inside but I have been alone so long I’m not very good with people anymore. You don’t know what it’s like to always be so suspicious about everyone that you forget how to see things in them. I would like to be here for you if you need me, but I may need you to let me know when. I’m really smart about a lot of things but not so smart about feelings.”

She rolled over and for the first time I really looked at her as a person not just a responsibility. She was very pretty and with her eyes all red and tears on her face somehow she was even cuter. “I’m sorry too. I don’t know what came over me. I just saw the twins were so happy and I just kind of blanked out. Everything kind of fell in and I just got so sad.”

I leaned over her and she looked up at me with those big, almond shaped eyes. “Mora, we are all dependent on each other in here. We are all we have, and if there is ever anything you need from me I want you to know I am always here for you.” Her smiled looked so fragile that I wanted to make her feel better so I laid down next to her and drew her into my arms. Her arm went around me and we held onto each other tightly. She started to sob against me and I did my best to just let her go. I didn’t know what words she must need, but I did know she mostly needed to be held.

After she quieted down a little she pulled back and looked at me. “Thanks Dave, I guess I kinda needed that.” I brushed the hair out of her eyes and smiled at her. “We all need it Mora, we are all together in this and we all need to know we aren’t alone. I know it was hard to have your parents leave like they did but you have to know that they did it because out there ... out there things are very bad.”

Her face began to crack again. “Why?” she asked softly. “When there is devastation like that people go back to being the animals we always try to hide. That means two kind of people are left, the strong or the victims. You parents left you with me because out there ... out there you would have been killed or worse.” She looked at me in confusion for a moment. “Worse than death?”

How do I tell a young girl things her parents might have deemed to adult for her to know? “You know about sex?” She nodded. “Do you know what rape is?” She seemed scared and nodded. “Imagine if you had been taken by a group of bad people and they raped you over and over for months.” She pulled into herself. “What kind of people would do that kind of thing?” I pointed upwards. “The kind of people who survive off of being cruel.”

Then she looked at the door to the living room. “Do you think the other’s know that?” I shook my head. “No and I had hoped that it would never have to be an issue. I really hate talking to you like this because that kind of thing was why your parents left you with me, so you wouldn’t know or see it, or worse be a part of it.” She got worried. “What about my parents?” I shook my head. “I don’t know little one. I can hope they made it and are somewhat safe, but in the world that is?” I just shrugged. “That’s another reason they left you all with me. To know in their hearts at least something of them would survive no matter what.”

She gripped me once again and held me tight and cried again. We stayed that way a lot longer than before and I held her tight even kissed the top of her head. I was her parent now. That was something I hadn’t thought about when I took them in, their parents had given them to me not just to watch over but really to raise as my own. Something inside of my mind had shielded me from that, probably because if that had occurred to me I wouldn’t have taken them in.

Well it was a reality now and I was going to have to take that responsibility seriously. I had to not just watch these children, I was going to have to give them the love as well as guidance. I felt my cold heart began to warm again as I felt this young woman let out the pain and loss of her parents and the world she had been holding onto.

She calmed down and let me go. “Thanks Dave, I guess I didn’t want to think that they weren’t going to be coming back.” I shook my head. “I never said they weren’t coming back little one, I just wanted you to know and understand that there was a chance one or both might not. One thing we can’t do is give up hope Mora, never do that.”

She smiled at me and nodded. Then I came to another thought. “You know as the eldest here, that would kind of make you like the mom for everyone.” She looked at me guardedly. “You see I will need someone I can lean on when I’m working through all of these things with the others. Not just now but in the future. Would you mind helping with this?” She filled with purpose and nodded.

We walked out of her room and when we came out the others looked at the smile on Mora’s face and then at me. Ellen came over and tugged on my hand. I looked at her and she went into her room but left the door open. I followed her in and closed the door behind me. She sat on the bed and just looked at me. I walked over and sat next to her.