On October 12, 2012 the end of the world as we know it, began. At two-fifty-two in the afternoon the rumbling started. The ground shook for miles around. The geysers spewed their scalding vapors miles into the air. At three-fifteen in the afternoon the ash blasted forth, followed soon after by the molten rock. The column of liquid rock was thirty miles in diameter, reached heights in excess of two miles. The earth was exploding before their very eyes.

For many years, John had tried to warn the world and his country of what was to come without success. So instead he prepared places, where a group of people, he would organize, could remain alive through the coming apocalypse and chaos to come. Now, as the richest man in the country, on that fateful day in October, no amount of wealth could keep John and his friends' safe in their struggle to survive. Thus begins the long arduous journey of a group of friends, family and others to a place of safety and security. Along the way, they help those they can and fight off the wolves that man has become.

Word Count: 99,500

Sci-Fi

EXCERPT:

Without thinking, Sue spun to her right, knife up, cutting edge out, stopping short of slicing through the throat that now kept still under her intense gaze.

“Take it easy there Sue,” Dutch said as he slowly started to step back away from the knife.

“Don’t you dare move, pinhead,” Sue said harshly moving forward with him.  Dutch stopped in his tracks.

“But sweetheart…”

“Don’t you ‘sweetheart’ me you goon.  This is your last warning!  Follow me again and I will cut your heart out with a sharp, dirty, stick.  Is that clear moron?”

“Cry…” Dutch stopped as the knife pressed against his throat, “…stal.”

“Now turn around…”

“You’re not going to hit me in the head again are you?”

“Turn around Dutch, now.”  Dutch turned, his hands at his side, expecting a hit on the head at any moment.  “Now walk, walk until your legs get tired.  You turn back to look at me and I will kill you.”

Dutch gulped as he took the first step, expecting any moment to feel something hit his head, then another and another.  He kept walking for another hundred paces before turning to look behind him.  Sue was gone, vanished into the mist that hung over the tumbling blocks of building from a bygone time.

“Dutch,” a whisper came out of the air to his right.

“What?” yelled Dutch into the haze, spinning to his right.

“Dutch,” the whisper was now to his left.

Dutch spun to his left.  There was no one there.

“Dutch.”  From behind him.

“Fuck you,” Dutch yelled as he turned and walked into the haze the way he had come.  “Bitch,” he said under his breath.

“I heard that moron,” a voice called out in the mist from somewhere behind Dutch.

Sue smiled to herself as she walked on, deeper into the forest that ran along the road.  Her encounter with Dutch had raised her spirits and she now had a bounce in her step she had not had just a short time ago.

She was now anxious to get back “home”, to see her children, her husband, Michelle and him.  Susan had forbid him from coming with, she was his doctor and he was not in the best of health.  He had tried to overrule her, but Michelle had backed her as had Jenny.  Jenny was his wife and was not in the best of health herself and although he had come a long way in improving his health, he was not quite as young as he thought he was.  Sometimes you just get old and cannot do the things you use too.

Sue smiled again as the tableau that had played out as she walked out of the compound.  It had been her, Dutch and Johnson on their way to help with some injured people in a small village five klicks from them.

* * * *

“You’re not going,” Jenny said as she pushed John back onto the bed.  “I’ll sit on you until they are gone if you don’t listen to them.”

Jenny’s voice had an edge of hysteria in it that caused her husband to lay back with a worried look on his face.  Michelle stood next to Jenny, with a stern look on her face.  John scowled at them both and nodded his head.  John could here Sue, Dutch and Billy leaving the compound as he closed his eyes.

Sue was walking next to Billy Johnson, a young man who had been a combat specialist in the Marines.  Behind them was Dutch Higgins.  No one really knew where he was from except John.  Dutch had been with John for the past couple of years and was almost his right hand man, but not quite.

John’s right hand man was a quiet, tall, dark man whose demeanor would scare the crap out of anyone who did not know him.  A brooding man who carried out Johns every request, promptly and without question, his name, Waylon, just seemed to fit him.

Dutch on the other hand constantly questioned John’s requests.  Even today, when John had asked him to accompany them Dutch had questioned him.  When Waylon moved from John's side toward Dutch, Dutch shut up and turned, walking out the door to go with Sue and Billy.

Waylon had not interfered with Jenny and Michelle as he always left when John was with any of the three, Sue, Michelle or Jenny.  Waylon left the woman to the business of taking care of his friend.  He never interfered with what the women wanted John to do or not to do.

Sue, Billy and Dutch were on their way to a small village built over the last couple of months just on the outskirts of what used to be a not to large city.  It lay in ruins now, the city not the village, but not long ago, it had been a thriving metropolis.  Word had gotten around that Sue and Michelle and several others at the compound were doctors.  Messages received stated that several people were sick and injured and required the assistance of medical personnel.

The village was five klicks away, an hour and a half walk at the best of times, but this was not the best of times and took the trio the better part of two and a half hours.  By the time they arrived, the late morning fog had rolled in to blanket the landscape in soft grey-white billowy cotton.  Visibility was down to twenty feet or less.