Final Dawn: Season 1 (The Thrilling Post-Apocalyptic Series) Read online

  Final Dawn

  The Thrilling Post-Apocalyptic Series

  Season 1

  Episodes 1-5

  By

  Mike Kraus

  © 2012 by Mike Kraus

  [email protected]

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, without the permission in writing from the author.

  To My Readers:

  Thank you for taking this journey with me.

  Without your support, Final Dawn would not be possible.

  Thank you.

  Sincerely,

  Mike Kraus

  Final Dawn: Season 2 is Now Available:

  Final Dawn: Season 2

  A New Book is Now Available from Mike Kraus:

  Prip’Yat: The Beast of Chernobyl

  Table of Contents

  Final Dawn: Episode 1

  Final Dawn: Episode 2

  Final Dawn: Episode 3

  Final Dawn: Episode 4

  Final Dawn: Episode 5

  When the end of the world arrived, it came not with a bang, as most had expected, but with more of a "pfft." As tens of thousands of nuclear warheads detonated across the globe, those who were unfortunate enough to be caught in the blast had their lives ended so quickly that all they registered was a small "pfft" sound as their bodies were vaporized in the course of a few tenths of a second.

  With that "pfft," the world ended far more quickly than it had begun. What took six days to create took less than an hour to destroy, as well over ninety-nine percent of the world's population was wiped out in the firestorm.

  In the years leading up to the end, countless storytellers imagined what the end of the world would be like, with some saying that if it all ended in fire, no one would know who fired the first shot. This wasn't entirely accurate. Technology had moved too quickly to allow for this sort of surprise ending. Before the first bomb was halfway to its target, most first and second world countries knew exactly who had sent it hurtling into space. This knowledge was of no consequence, except to send the few men and women in the top echelons of government into complete and utter panic.

  The rich, poor, powerful and powerless all looked to the heavens together, watching the end of the world descend upon them. Each and every one of them, without exception, was helpless. Greed, influence and intelligence meant nothing as they all bowed to the power of the bomb.

  Final Dawn: Episode 1

  10:17 AM, March 26, 2038

  Nancy Sims

  Nancy blinked and rubbed her eyes for what felt like the thousandth time that day. Driving across the plains of Kansas, bound for Florida, Nancy had barely begun her trip but was already exhausted. Not used to long car rides, Nancy usually preferred to take a plane, but accepting that new job offer required that she move her car along with the rest of her belongings. Money was tight, so she decided to make the trip the weekend before she was slated to start at the new job. Three hours out of Denver and she was already regretting the decision, wishing that she had just sold the car and bought a new one after a few months of working.

  Nancy was well aware of the economics of such a decision, though; after all, she was starting at one of the top law firms in Florida as the head accountant, brought in to clean up sloppy accounting practices and help increase the firm's profit margin. For the last two years she had lived in Denver, taking advantage of the advanced mass transit system and rarely driving except on the weekends and holidays. The only apartment she could find on such short notice in Miami was far enough away from her new office that she didn't want to risk taking its comparatively primitive transit system. So here she was, driving along the highway, already two hours behind her original schedule thanks to a blown tire just outside the Denver city limits.

  Rolling down the windows to let in a fresh breeze, Nancy coughed a few times at the dust kicked up by the tractors plowing the nearby fields in preparation for the next growing season. This was the last place on earth she ever wanted to be, and merely driving through it made her feel like falling asleep at the wheel. Row upon row of corn passed by as she drove on, their waving motion hypnotic in the heat of the sun. Though it was still only spring, the Midwest had been hit hard over the last few weeks with an intense heat wave. While she wasn’t happy with the drive, she was looking forward to escaping to the South, where it was still only in the upper 70’s instead of the 90’s. Of course, that would all change in the coming months, but it would be nice to have a few more weeks of reasonable weather before the heat and humidity kicked into overdrive.

  Nancy rolled past the Kansas/Missouri state border sign just after six that night. Driving faster to make up lost time had cost her dearly with a freshly minted ticket to the state police ball. Still fuming over the incident, Nancy didn't pay any attention to the bright flashes that appeared in front and behind her on the highway. After a moment, they grabbed her attention, though at first she thought that they were simply the lights from Kansas City. As they grew in number and brightness, she had to pull down the sun visor to shield her eyes from the blaze. As she did so, she happened to glance in the rearview mirror. Nancy's jaw dropped as she saw similar flashes on the horizon behind her, then off to the south, towards Oklahoma as well. She glanced up ahead again, trying to keep her eyes on the road without being blinded by the intensity of the light. Finally, as the first lights began to fade, Nancy put her hands to her mouth in horror, watching the mushroom clouds rising in the distance, forgetting that she was still driving along at nearly sixty miles an hour. As the wheels of the SUV hit the ditch and the vehicle began to roll, the last sight Nancy saw before she blacked out was a fresh flash in the sky, back-dropping the multiple mushroom clouds in the distance.

  2:07 PM, March 26, 2038

  Leonard McComb

  Leonard was tired of his job. Twenty-two years cleaning shit from the bottom of the city was enough to drive any man mad, and two decades of being passed over for any promotions left him bitter and angry with the world at large. He had just come from a meeting with his boss where, yet again, just like every time before, he was denied a promotion because the department “didn't have the resources." Leonard stomped down the hall, grabbed his tool belt, shoulder bag and hard hat, and opened the hatch down into the tunnels. As one of the nearly three hundred sanitation engineers in the city, Leonard was often harassed by his friends and family for being nothing more than a janitor. In truth, the term "Sanitation Engineer" wasn't all for politically correct reasons. Leonard graduated at the top of his class in graduate school with a Master’s degree in mechanical engineering and a minor in electrical engineering. Fresh out of school he was immediately hired by the NYC sanitation department to work as an overseer. Six months into the job, the stock market crashed, the economy tanked and everyone in the department took title and pay cuts. Leonard was happy to go along with it at first, but once it became clear that the situation wasn't improving along with the economy and the markets, his descent into bitterness began. In less than a year, he went from a senior overseer to "shit-raker," as he described it. He couldn't quit during the crash, of course, thanks to the devastated economy. Once things improved, he considered it, but by that time he had become so ingrained in the job that it was easier to complain and keep coming to work every day than it was to quit and look for a new one.

  Six hundred rungs later, Leonard stepped off the ladder and flipped on his headlamp. Lights were placed every fifty feet in the overflow drain, but the sheer size of the pipe he was in — tall enough for two men to stand on top of each other and not reach the top — meant that a
portable light was a necessity to see where you were going. The boss had told him that there was a clog in a pipe down near the bottom of the system and an overflow valve had to be turned on to relieve the pressure buildup. Leonard's years of experience with the sewers meant he knew more about the deepest parts of it than anyone else in the department. While most of the other engineers shied away from going deep into the system, Leonard found the experience invigorating, and he volunteered for every repair and maintenance job that took him deep underground.

  The pipe took on a slight slope, winding deeper below the city as Leonard trudged onward. The bowels of the NYC sewer and drainage system were documented long ago, but any maps of the system had long been lost to age and dry rot. The only way you learned the system was to walk it, day after day, year after year. It had taken Leonard the better part of three years before he was comfortable with the upper reaches of the system, and another two to become acclimated with the bowels. By now, he knew exactly where he was both in the system and under the city with his eyes closed—which was good, given the frequent power outages and occasional headlamp battery problems.

  Four hours, half a bottle of water and one energy bar later, Leonard finally reached a small maintenance room that was near the clog in the system. Peering through the viewing port in one of the pipes on the wall, he didn't see anything large obstructing it. With a deep sigh, he pulled out his largest wrench and went to work on the pipe’s overflow valve. After fifteen minutes of grunting, sweating and swearing, Leonard finally loosened the rusty bolt and slowly began to turn the valve to speed up the flow through the pipe in an effort to flush out the clog. As he turned the pipe, a deep rumbling sounded overhead. Leonard froze, swore under his breath, and quickly tightened the valve back up. The rumbling grew louder and the room he was in began to shake. Leonard stepped back from the pipe. His panicked gaze darted around, trying desperately to identify the source of the sound. Lights began to fall from the ceiling along with chunks of concrete and steel. Leonard cursed again, louder this time, and charged out of the maintenance room, running towards the nearest open pipe he could squeeze into. With a loud pop, the lights in the room began to shatter under the force of the explosions, blinking out and leaving Leonard in total darkness. Leonard crossed his arms over his head and pushed himself deeper into a nearby pipe as the rumbling grew louder. Crashes sounded all around him. With a bang, the pipe he was in collapsed at one end, striking him in the head and mercifully releasing him from consciousness and the fears that engulfed him.

  3:16 PM, March 26, 2038

  Marcus Warden

  A cool breeze wafted down into the valley, rustling the pines and making light ripples on the lake. As his bobber gently swayed back and forth along with the ripples, Marcus smiled, leaning back in his camping chair as he closed his eyes. Marcus relished his yearly solitary camping trips that he took every spring. It was the only time that he was able to truly escape from his life and reconnect with his childhood in the backcountry of West Virginia. Marcus had spent the last twenty-five years as an ad executive in New York, the last fifteen of which were devoted to building his own company from the ground up.

  His love for the outdoors had prepared him better for life in the big city more than anyone else he had met. Knowing how to survive in the wild was surprisingly similar to survival in a big company, where an ambush lay around every corner and he had to be constantly in tune with his surroundings if he wanted to survive. It was times like this, Marcus thought, that he was glad he had stayed single and avoided having children. Not one to indulge in lavish parties or the club scene, Marcus poured his entire life into his work and enjoyed reaping the rewards of his efforts. The last thing I need is some whiny brat going on about putting a hook through a worm, he thought. His bobber dipped briefly below the surface of the water, popped back up, then plunged down hard again. Or bitching about cleaning and cooking a fish. Marcus grinned as he sat up and began reeling in his catch. Dinner is served!

  Later that evening, back at camp, the fire crackled against the cold mountain air. Marcus's whistling carried for miles through the valley, a warbling rendition of “Oh Danny Boy,” one of his favorite Irish tunes. Brandishing a fillet knife, he made short work of the trout, spilling its guts into a plastic pail, followed by the head, tail, backbone and ribcage. As the flesh snapped and popped in a skillet over the fire, Marcus carried the pail out into the woods. On guard for predators, he dumped the remains several hundred feet from his campsite, then turned to head back. A bright light rising over the eastern edge of the tree line caught his eye, and Marcus stopped, staring through the trees at the odd sight. He checked his watch. Six at night... a forest fire? Forest fires weren’t unheard of this time of year, but it was still early in the fire season and he had checked the weather and fire reports carefully before he left. Still, he knew it was possible. Better start packing up just in case.

  Jogging back to camp, Marcus continued to watch the ever-brightening sky. His brow furrowed as he realized that the light was too white to be from a forest fire. The smell of burning trout drifted through the air, but Marcus paid it no mind. Frozen in place, he watched as a massive fireball drifted lazily on the horizon, high above the tree line. A warm wind whipped through the valley, too warm to be caused by anything natural this early in the year. The eeriness of the fireball and the warmth of the wind sent chills down his spine.

  Marcus may have been an ad executive who knew more about ROI and television campaigns than science, but every bad Saturday morning sci-fi show came back to him in a flash as he recognized the iconic shape of the mushroom cloud that was rising into the sky. As the light across the horizon began to dim, another light grew brighter in its place and another fireball filled the void left by the first. Marcus stood shell-shocked. The blackened fish was completely forgotten as he watched more fireballs and clouds rising in the sky, blocking out the moon and stars. Each cloud was lit only by the telltale flash that bore with it a billowing new cloud.

  "Fuck me," Marcus whispered to himself. Seconds later, darkness enveloped his mind and he collapsed to the ground, his vision narrowing and growing faint. "This can't be good."

  6:13 PM, March 26, 2038

  Rachel Walsh

  A shout drifted through an open window in the suburbs of Atlanta as Rachel Walsh once again tried to get her daughter, Julie, to obey her instead of ignoring her instructions.

  "For the last time, Julie, get down there and change the laundry out! You're fifteen and more than old enough to be a fully participating member of the family!"

  Julie dutifully ignored her mother, again. Defiant to the last, she turned up the volume on her headphones and slouched lower on the couch behind a magazine, doing her best to stay wrapped up in her world of grunge music and the never ending fashion cycle.

  Rachel stomped over to Julie, ripped off her headphones and threw them to the floor. As they cracked against the wall, Julie screamed at her mother, signaling the start of another night of mother-daughter fighting.

  "Why do you hate me so much!"

  "Get off your lazy butt and start helping out around here!"

  "Leave me alone!"

  As the shouts grew in pitch and volume, Rachel's husband, Jeremy, stepped in with a slow, deep voice that cut through the shrillness of the two women.

  "Hold on just a minute, there. Rach, I'll handle this."

  Jeremy spoke with the thick drawl of a true southerner, born and raised. Rachel passed her husband a look of thanks, then stomped down to the basement. As she descended the concrete steps, she listened to Jeremy's voice grow harsher as he laid into their daughter, trying once again to shape the girl's attitude into one of kindness instead of blatant disrespect. Rachel sighed, thinking about her job, her relationship with her daughter and how she wished she could just get away from it all for a day, or even an hour.

  Damned stairs. Why did we have to build such a deep basement, anyway? This was all Jeremy's idea, she thought to herself. Her thoughts wan
dered from the basement and the laundry back to her daughter. What else am I supposed to do? We've tried grounding her, taking away all of her stuff, pushing more work on her, but nothing is working. I need a break.

  Maybe I'll take up drinking. Though Rachel wasn’t the type to drink, she had to admit that the thought was beginning to sound appealing. Home for just two weeks and I’m already cracking? Get ahold of yourself!

  Reaching the bottom of the stairs, Rachel was started from her musings by the lights coming on automatically, triggered by motion sensors that picked up on her movement. She opened the second door at the bottom of the staircase and slid a nearby brick in front of it with her foot. Jeremy hated when she did that, but she wasn't about to deal with yet another annoyance while carrying a full load of laundry up the narrow staircase.

  The house had originally been built without a basement, but Jeremy had insisted that they put one in as soon as they bought the place. The only trouble was that Jeremy had a streak of paranoia in him, so he had the basement built like a fortress, with six-foot thick walls and buried an extra ten feet underground. He had a dumbwaiter installed to make it easier to move things like the laundry between the ground floor and the basement, but the cable snapped last week. Jeremy kept saying that he would fix it, but he was so busy at the office these days that the replacement cable still sat coiled in the corner waiting to be installed.