Rockfall Read online

  ROCKFALL

  BOOK ONE

  of the

  TERTIARY EFFECTS SERIES

  William Allen

  © 2019. All Rights Reserved.

  This is a work of fiction and no part of this story is intended to depict real persons, living or dead, or any actual locations. The use of some place names is purely fictional and any similarity is purely coincidental.

  Copyright 2019. All Rights Reserved.

  Malleus Publishing Edition

  Editing services provided by Sabrina Jean of Fast Track Editing

  Cover Art provided by Debbie at Covercollection.com

  Formatting by Polgarus Studio

  Characters of Note

  Bryan Hardin-41 oldest son

  Collette ‘Calley’ Hardin (Dec’d)

  -Charlie, son,10 (dec’d)

  Mike Hardin-39 Michael Albert Hardin

  Wife-Marta-36

  Children- son Thomas “Tommy” 11 daughter Tamara 10

  Beatrice Muckleroy-Marta’s mother 67 years old. Lives in Denton, TX

  Nicole “Nikki” Hardin Parker-31 bank officer in San Marcos, TX

  Husband-Patrick Parker-32 EMT

  Children- Rachel-11 Hunter 8

  Mary Brewer and Charles Brewer-Mary is daughter of Melissa Hardin Adams, sister of Tim Hardin

  Bart Myers-Mike’s old Army buddy and source of their advanced warning.

  Neighbors-

  Wade Husband-36 farmer and building contractor

  Wife-Dorothy-34 registered nurse-works in Jasper at St. Joseph’s Hospital

  Children-Mark 13 Isaac 10

  Esther Husband-matriarch (56 year old)-Donnie Husband (dec’d)

  Doyle Husband (Donnie’s brother) 53-Brigitte

  Nancy Prentiss (Dorothy’s sister) 32, daughter Lisa (12)

  Other Townspeople

  Sally Dwyer-son Billy has Downs Syndrome. Works at the feedstore.

  Bud Collier-works at the feed store with Billy Dwyer

  Sheriff Bernard Landshire

  District Attorney Mel Fellows

  County Judge Alan Peterson

  District Judge Gerald Wilkins

  Rudy Polinsky-accused rapist who beat the wrap even after being railroaded by the Sheriff.

  Butch Kaminsky-Bryan’s lawyer

  Felix Wilson-owns the feed store

  Debbie Stone-owns Stonehouse Diner

  Buddy Cromwell-New Albany chief of police

  Barbara Thompson-early fifties; Bryan’s secretary

  Table of Contents

  DAY ONE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  WEEK TWO

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  WEEK THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  WEEKS FOUR and FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  AFTERWARD

  “Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.”

  H.L. Mencken (1919)

  ROCKFALL

  DAY ONE

  CHAPTER ONE

  I woke to the annoyance of a ringing telephone. At first, I scrambled blindly for my cell, but the ringing continued even after I fumbled for my bedside iPhone. Who the hell, I thought with sleep-muddled frustration, would be calling me on the land line? Rolling out of bed, I stumbled into the kitchen and snatched up the plastic receiver.

  “What?” I barked into the receiver. “No, I don’t want to change my long-distance provider. I’m too busy to take an all-expense paid vacation, and if you call this number again, I’m going to come to your call center…”

  “Bryan, quit messing around. Have you seen the news?”

  I instantly recognized Mike’s voice. Standing straighter, I glanced at the illuminated clock over the sink. It was just after midnight, and my brother’s tension was audible over the line. The last time I got a call like this from my brother, he was calling to inform me of our father’s death. He’d sounded a lot like this, as I recalled, and a chill ran down my spine.

  “Is the family okay?” I blurted out, my heart suddenly hammering to beat free from my chest.

  “Yeah, bro, far as I know. Everybody is fine. But we are leaving for your place in thirty minutes or less, and cell service is spotty at best. I had to use the landline to reach you.” Mike paused, and I could tell he was weighing what to say next.

  “There’s a report of a seismic disturbance centered off the coast of China, Bryan. CNN has been cagy about the details, which is unusual. I caught the first banner alert about eleven p.m. and then nothing but speculation. I got a call from…an old friend before the cell service went down. You know, the one I told you about from Fallujah.”

  Wow. Mike never talked about the war, or what he did and saw during his time in the Army. But there was one guy, a close buddy named Bart, who Mike stayed in contact with after he finished his time. And according to Mike, his friend Bart went on to make a career out of the military. Bart came out to visit one weekend when the family was at the farm, and he impressed me as a very serious individual. Mike never did say what Bart did in the Army, and I didn’t ask.

  “My friend suspects there’s been a rockfall. A big one. He’s trying to get his family out, but he’s near the West Coast and they may be a problem.”

  “How big?”

  “Bart had to be circumspect in his call. Just that it was two Fords long. Look it up.”

  I didn’t need to look it up. Mike wasn’t talking about the latest F-150. The Gerald Ford Class Aircraft carriers were slightly over 1,100 feet long. That put the impactor at in excess of 2,200 feet. Better than six hundred meters. How much more would eventually make the difference in our survival as a species. I tasted vomit at the back of my throat. Forcing those thoughts aside, I focused on what Mike had said about Bart and his family.

  “How far out west is Bart?”

  “Barstow. So, could be worse.”

  I’d never been to Barstow, but I knew where it was and I’d been close once or twice. Desolate was the mildest description I could come up with. What Mike meant by ‘could be worse’ meant he thought the tsunami was going to be bad. Very bad. I tried not to focus on the likely catastrophic outcome of such an event, and the colossal loss of life.

  Depending on the size, I knew a meteor impact could do anything from creating a localized disturbance to eradicating life on earth. Hoping for something on the lesser end of the scale, I started running scenarios in my head. That was my gift, and even as Mike spoke, I bent my thoughts to the likely secondary and tertiary effects. Even if the strike wasn’
t an extinction level event, such a catastrophe threatened our fragile society. Steps would need to be taken immediately, I decided.

  “What do you want me to do?” I asked, and I knew Mike could tell I was asking about more than turning down the comforter in one of the guest rooms. And why in the hell was Mike already in bug-out mode, I wondered.

  “Call sis and get her on the road. I imagine Patrick won’t be able to get any time off, but he’s sure to want Nikki and the kids somewhere where he doesn’t have to worry about them. Oh, and rig up the farm for heavy weather. At the very least, this will stir up the atmosphere.”

  “Sure thing,” I replied. Then I heard the dial tone and hung up the receiver.

  Sitting there in the quiet darkness, I paused in stunned disbelief. As a child of the eighties, I grew up on a steady diet of disaster movies and Godzilla flicks. At the moment, all I could think of was the biggest monster of them all laying waste to Tokyo. Given the spotty news, I started constructing a series of deductions. Off the coast of China didn’t give me much to work with, but I made some assumptions. A water strike was bad. Even without the earthquakes, which I knew would likely be coming, this would likely destroy the world’s markets. China was a powerhouse in manufacturing and a huge consumer of American farm production. No Chinese customers meant reduced grain exports this coming harvest season. However, if California was also hit…

  I stopped there and headed for the kitchen, hitting the start button for a fresh pot of coffee before strolling on into the living room and turning on the television. Using the remote, I punched in the channel selection for CNN and then remembered my promise to Mike. By the time I retrieved my cell, the top story was being recycled, complete with red banners and streaming text below the talking heads. MASSIVE EARTHQUAKE HITS CHINA.

  Thumbing down my selections, I called up my sister’s cell and, miracle of miracles, the call went through.

  “Parker residence,” my sister announced in that brisk business tone that meant she was already up.

  “Hey, Nikki, why aren’t you already on the road?”

  “Walking out right now, big brother. All packed up and just waiting for Pat to get off shift. The kids are already hooking up the trailer. You got the coffee going yet?”

  “I just drank the last cup, so you might pick up some more,” I teased, but it was also a kind of code we used. Just like Mike had said ‘rockfall’ instead of ‘meteor strike’ since he knew as well as I did that all of our telephone conversations were being monitored. The good news, if you wanted to call it that, was the computers listening in on our calls only eavesdropped for key phrases.

  When we were kids, when Mom said she was going to the store to pick up coffee, we could expect her to be gone for hours or days as she left the farm to go on a drinking binge. So, any discussion about picking up coffee meant trouble. That was my subtle way of letting her know something else was going on with this news.

  Nikki was smart. They were as well prepared as their finances and the situation allowed, but the area of the state they called home was less than ideal. The urban sprawl of Austin reached all the way to their small city of San Marcos in Central Texas, and on the other side they had San Antonio. Another lovely city in better times, but with a nasty gang problem. No, they needed to be here, instead. Fortunately, we’d already scheduled this as a “meetup” weekend here at the farm, so my siblings and their spouses were already packed for the trip. By giving Nikki the ‘coffee’ code, I hoped she would get the message and pack heavy. Who knew when they would be going home, if this event proved as dire as I already feared.

  “Well, you’ve got about six hours before we get there, so go rustle us up another can from the all-night WalMart, chop-chop,” Nikki fired back.

  “Sorry, sis, the closest one is in Jasper, and I’m not driving that far tonight. Maybe in the morning,” I shot back as we ended the call.

  Their trip should normally take a tad over four hours, driving the interstate as far as Beaumont, so I figured either the extra time meant Nikki and Pat would be taking the back roads or using the Walmarts they passed to add last minute stock to their supplies. Mike and his crew, on the other hand, should make it in about three and a half hours, if they started when Mike said they would. So, I had some time to get ready for the descending horde that was my family.

  Looking around the kitchen, I located my big mug and filled it with that delicious elixir of life, added a shot of real milk and a dash of sugar, and wandered back into the living room to see what the professional fools had to say about matters. Walking by my desk, I snagged my laptop and headed for the recliner. At least the babble of stupid would keep me awake while I checked the spreadsheets on my inventory lists.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The farm had been a rundown eyesore when I first ran across it four years ago. Eighty acres of property, half in fields and half in lightly-wooded pasture, nestled in the Piney Woods of East Texas might not be the dream for most folks, but for me, the overgrown weeds and the rusty barbed wire fencing felt like a balm to my tortured soul.

  With a barn in need of demolition and a weathered old farmhouse with a sagging roof, once-nicely groomed fields now hosting only an impressive crop of weeds and adventuresome pine saplings, the property gave off an air of abandonment and neglect. From the first look, I could tell the place was likely a hangout for teenage vandals and meth cooks. Perfect for what I had in mind, unless the chemicals from the cooking had spoiled the ground water.

  I found the property listed on a website for condemned property and took a drive up to see it for myself before the sale. The next day, I took the plunge, paying a little over fifty thousand dollars for the property at a tax auction. The sale was sparsely attended, and I only had one other person bid against me, an older gentleman I suspected was more interested in the mineral rights than anything above ground. Property with the mineral rights is a rarity in this day and age.

  The following weekend, as soon as I could get away, I made the drive up from Houston and paid a visit to the feed store nearest to the property. I was dressed for work, of the outdoor variety, and I didn’t set off any warning bells for the locals as I inquired about hiring some work done on my place.

  “You from around here, son?” the old fellow manning the counter asked as I perused the flyer-littered bulletin board adjacent to the front door.

  “Yes, sir,” I replied, plucking one of the attached business cards from the corkboard and noting the telephone number before replacing it. “I grew up over in Call, but I just purchased the old Ferguson place.”

  “Well, I’m Wilson,” the sixty-something gentleman said. “This is my store. You need anything?”

  “Need lots of things,” I replied, forcing a grin. “First thing is some help getting that land cleaned up and the trash burned.”

  “Yep, the place sure went to hell after old-man Ferguson died,” Wilson agreed. “If I was you, I’d just call Wade. He’s your neighbor, after all.”

  “Wade?”

  “Wade Husband. That’s his card you just picked up. You’re on Old Holmes Road, right?”

  “County Road 1109?”

  “That’s it,” Wilson confirmed. “The Husband place is just to the other side of you. Wade is a building contractor when he’s not cutting hay or pulling calves. Did almost all the work on his homeplace, bringing it into the modern age when he took over for his dad. He can fix you right up.”

  I was pleased with the news. I’d noticed the farm just up the road. The property was neat and well-kept, with a nice single-story clapboard-sided house and a double-wide trailer next door. Several outbuildings looked out over a berm I took to be a stock pond, and I took note of the windmill situated next to a round, aluminum cattle trough in one of the pastures near the main house. I envied the look of the homestead, so if the owner was the source of these improvements, I wanted to tap into his expertise.

  “Yes, sir,” I replied. “I’ll definitely be giving him a call.”

  N
ot wanting to waste any time, I called Mr. Husband, introduced myself, and made an appointment to meet with him the next day at the farm. I found a coffee shop in town that had Wi-Fi, set up my little laptop, and began grinding through some of the paperwork I had in my e-mail inbox before pulling out the manila folder from my messenger bag and then sat there, staring at the papers.

  I’ve put this off too long, I told myself as I pulled out a ballpoint pen and began sorting through the insurance forms. I filled out the papers, forcing myself not to react to the words printed on the pages, and went to the small hotel next door where I’d already reserved a room and made copies. I stuffed the originals in the folded and scuffed return envelope, bought postage from the teenaged girl at the front desk, and dropped the offending package in the outgoing mail.

  That night, I remember curling myself around one of the old, flat pillows in the rundown hotel room and allowed myself one last cry. My tears drenched the threadbare pillowcase as I used it to stifle my sobs. No more tears, I told myself that night as I finally said one last goodbye to my family.

  The next day, after enduring some weak pressure in the hotel shower, I shaved quickly and headed over to meet my new neighbor. I saw his truck at the gate, and I was pleased to see he’d waited for me to arrive before pulling up the driveway and into the overgrown circle drive.