Chapter 7

More and more the clouds thinned and the sun shown brightly on the wounded world. Storms still raged in places, but these were normal storms. Not the huge world storm that had generated the tornados, hurricanes and world wide flooding.

The land was changed, world wide. Entire coast lines were changed so as to be unrecognizable. California as seen from space was a burnt land. You could see the burn scar from space.

Australia which had previously been in a drought for some years, experienced such a deluge of water during the storm, that all its water tanks, reservoirs and lakes had been replenished to overflowing. Rivers and creeks flowed to flood levels. They too had deaths, numbering well over a million. But they would survive.

In space, the crew of the space station kept working. They studied the effects of the impact on the world. They monitored every known radio frequency they could monitor to see who was alive. They kept careful records of what they found. Contact was re-established with NORAD and files transmitted to and from the mountain complex.

On earth, people were trying to survive. Cities no longer provided services. In a lot of cases, the cities no longer existed. As the world moved into winter in the northern latitudes, people were desperate, and fighting for food and warmth was now the norm. Another few million died in that transition from civilized human to a survival of the fittest mentality. Slowly, the total human population died off from it's teaming billions to just a few hundred million. These still had the winter to survive and the disease that was to come in the spring.

Sgt Ballerton was recovering. He had Greg's brother's room to himself during his convalescence. He took to looking over the computer printouts of supplies on hand versus supplies used. Greg believed in having total accountability of his assets, which Sgt. Ballerton thanked God for.

He looked the printout over, and was worried about certain items. Well, Beef and hamburger was no longer a problem. However, eggs, bacon, vegetables were starting to concern him, as was milk. They had two cows, which produced over three gallons of milk a day, but with 21 people now at the lodge, that went quickly. There were not enough eggs to give everyone two eggs for breakfast if they wanted that.

So Mrs. Graso had gotten around that by having pancakes, or other items for breakfast. A couple days build up of eggs let everyone have them. They definitely needed to get more chickens from somewhere. Sausage, sugar, and salt were also starting to get lower than he liked.

Sgt. Ballerton again thought about the forethought that Greg and his brother had done, in order to survive winters in this mountain home of theirs. It was only the extra people here that was straining the resources of the house.

Winter was definitely setting in. It was colder, and snow, natural snow, not the freak of nature snow that had fallen before, was starting to fall. Sgt. Ballerton thought back to his recon. It was just as well that he had done that. He had gone, looked the situation over, and made a decision. As far as he was concerned, it was the only decision that could be made.

If this was just a few months ago, he would be in jail for his actions, at least until an investigation had been done. But there was no law. They checked the local radio and television stations daily, and no transmissions were heard or picked up. No transmissions were picked up by the satellite dish either. The telephone was still dead. At least the land line phone. Greg's satellite phone worked fine. It was a bright spot in the lives for everyone here when it rang.

Greg knocked on the door and entered since it was open and he could see the Sgt. Was sitting up reading.

"What can I do for you sir?" Ballerton asked.

"Everyone is curious about your recon, and what happened. So I thought I would gather everyone in the great room, and you could regale us with your exploits." Greg said with a grin.

"I'd rather not sir. It's sort of a private thing, you know?" Ballerton begged off.

Greg shook his head. "What you did affected us all. Call it a report, but be prepared to give it this evening after dinner."

Sighing, Sgt. Ballerton nodded and Greg left him to himself.

Later, after the dinner was over and the remains cleaned up, everyone gathered in the great room, and Sgt. Ballerton was given the nod to begin his story.

"Well, as you know, I went on recon a few days ago. I started well after dark, since the clouds are breaking up and starlight is starting to get through. I took it very slow, as I didn't want to work up a sweat in this weather, and I didn't want to run into any lookouts.

"I stopped every time I thought I saw something, and studied it with my starlight scope until I knew for sure it was not a person. It took me a few hours to make it to the top. I managed to scout out the area pretty easily, as there was no one really keeping a good watch.

"I spent the remainder of the night going over the terrain and exploring the surroundings. I accounted for ever person there. I saw where they had taken the cattle, and every single cow was dead. There was also a stack of human remains left in a sort of gully. I counted 17 bodies in that gully.