SpaceMan: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller (The SpaceMan Chronicles Book 1) Read online

  Marie pulled away and wiped the corners of her eyes with the backs of her fingers. She looked up at her mom. “What about Dad? And Chris?”

  Jackie bit the inside of her lip, suppressing the bruising knot in her throat. She swallowed against it and forced as reassuring a look as she could muster. She held her frightened daughter’s stare.

  “You know your father,” Jackie said evenly. “Above all else, he is a survivor. For all we know, he’s in better shape than we are. Whatever happened may not be happening in orbit.”

  Marie nodded and blinked back tears.

  “As for your brother,” she said with a chuckle, “that little boy isn’t so little anymore. He’s with Kenny’s dad. They’re camping in the middle of nowhere. Chances are they don’t even know what’s happened. His face is probably sticky with marshmallow and chocolate residue.”

  Marie laughed. “Gross.”

  “It is, right?”

  “Why is he so gross?”

  “All boys are,” said Jackie, content to shift the conversation. “Your father was as disgusting as they come when I got ahold of him.”

  “Really?”

  “I’ve told you this, haven’t I? About his socks?”

  “No.”

  Jackie looked skyward, wishing she could see the ISS silently arcing across the sky. Instead there was blackness from the tendrils of smoke spiraling upward from the half dozen burning homes across from their driveway. Snapshots of the Wickards’ children toddling in the yard popped into her mind.

  Babies. Just babies.

  They quickly dissolved to a different image of a baby she didn’t know. An infant she’d thought was a large doll. She tasted the remnant bile in her mouth.

  “Mom?”

  “Sorry.” Jackie swallowed hard and refocused on the distraction. “Your father would wear his socks until they were ink black on the bottoms. I mean black. Like ‘absence of color and light’ black.”

  It was such an oddly timed discussion, so out of place and yet so needed. Jackie sensed Marie needed a distraction.

  Marie sniffled. “I get it. Black.”

  “He would flip them inside out,” Jackie continued. “He would, I don’t know, wear them until they could stand on their own.”

  “That would gross me out.”

  “Oh”—Jackie’s eyes widened—“it grossed me out. You know me. I’m a bit of a clean freak.”

  “A bit.”

  Jackie laughed. “It was almost over between us before it began. I mean, who does that?”

  “What did you do?”

  “I bought him new socks. A lot of new socks. Maybe twenty pairs. I also threw out the old ones.”

  Marie looked over her mother’s shoulder beyond the roofline of their house at the aurora still dancing in the sky. “I bet his socks up there are disgusting.”

  Jackie turned and put her hand on her daughter’s neck, massaging it gently, then stroking Marie’s ponytail. “You know they are. They only have so many pairs up there. He probably feels right at home.”

  The two giggled until the laughter dissolved into the reality of the moment. Jackie sighed. Her eyes drifted from the sky to the front of their home. Through the large paneled windows, she could see the flicker of candles illuminating the large family room that ran the length of the first floor. Some of the windows were cracked, spidery veins distorting the candlelight. The concussion of the plane’s impact must have done that.

  Jackie’s faint smile evaporated. “We have work to do. We should get inside.”

  SATURDAY, JANUARY 25, 2020, 1:40 AM CST

  CLEAR LAKE, TEXAS

  Jackie Shepard sat in a leather easy chair adjacent to the fireplace, holding court in her family room. Marie sat cross-legged at her feet on the ottoman.

  Across from her on the long matching sofa were Reggie, Lana, and Betty. Betty’s son, Brian, was sitting by himself in a parson’s chair on the other side of the fireplace.

  “We know the Wickards are dead,” Jackie said. “All four of them. There’s no way they survived the impact or the fire. And Marie knows they were home.”

  “The Robinson family,” said Reggie. “They were home too. No way they’re still with us.”

  Candace was sitting apart from the group. She was at the kitchen island, sitting on a barstool. “My whole street is dead.”

  Betty’s shoulders slumped and her body shuddered. She pulled her hands to her face and choked back tears. Lana reached out and put an arm around her, patting her shoulder.

  “It’s okay,” Lana said. “Let it out.”

  Betty dropped her hands into her lap, tears glistening in the flickering candlelight that colored her face.

  “I can’t,” she said, inhaling deeply through her nostrils. “It’s not right for me to feel sorry for myself, Lana. She lost her boyfriend. You lost your home too.” She leaned into her neighbor and reciprocated Lana’s kindness with a hug.

  Jackie didn’t say anything. The women needed their moment. Jackie, though, didn’t want to spend time on what had happened. She couldn’t do anything about that. If she paused to think about her husband and her son, she’d cease to be of any use to anyone. Like Reggie, she wanted to press forward.

  After a minute, she exhaled. “Okay,” she said, smiling faintly against Lana’s and Betty’s focused glares. “Let’s talk about what we do now. It’s critical we focus on what comes next. It will keep us sane amidst this insanity. Reggie, I know you’ve taken inventory.”

  Reggie cleared his throat and looked down at a pad of paper on which he’d made a list. It was obvious he was avoiding eye contact with his wife.

  “I’ve already taken the ice we salvaged from our freezer and yours,” he said. “I nearly filled the Yeti cooler you have in your garage and then I put some of the frozen foods in it. That’ll give them a little longer life.”

  “Good,” said Jackie. “What else?”

  “I’ve filled all of the tubs with cold water,” Reggie said. “We don’t know how the power outage will affect the water treatment plants. Better to use what we’ve got now. The tubs are a last resort but are better than nothing.”

  “Okay,” said Jackie. “We can all use the shower in my bathroom until the hot water runs out. We have two large hot water heaters in the attic. It’ll last a few days.”

  “We’ve got a good supply of nonperishables,” he said. “We also have bread, milk, eggs, some ground beef, and some frozen steaks. We’ll probably want to eat that stuff first.”

  Betty’s wide eyes darted between Reggie and Jackie. “Wait,” she said, waving her hands in front of her face. “How long are we planning on being without power? I need to call my insurance company. I have to talk to the adjuster.”

  “We don’t know,” Jackie said in a calm, even voice. “It could be a couple of days. It could be a lot longer. Maybe weeks. That’s why—”

  Betty stood up from the sofa. “No.” She shook her finger. “That’s not possible. We can’t be without power for weeks. We need clothing. We need to start rebuilding. We—”

  Lana gently took Betty’s hand in hers. She led Betty’s eyes to the parson’s chair across from her where Brian was rocking in the chair. His arms were folded tight across his chest, his fists hidden in the pits of his arms. He was mumbling and rocking back and forth.

  Betty sat down. “Brian, it’s okay. I’m sorry for raising my voice.”

  Brian looked up from the floor. “The dark isn’t good. It’s not good. Not good.”

  Betty stood and glided to her son, kneeling in front of him. “It’s okay,” she repeated softly. “It will be sunny and bright again in a couple of hours.”

  Marie looked up at her mother with worry and mouthed, “Mom?” Her young face was aged with wrinkles across her forehead, frown lines leaving deep crevices along her cheeks.

  Jackie didn’t remember seeing them before. She leaned into Marie and whispered, “I know. It’s tough. We’ll get through this together.”

  Reggie st
ood from the sofa and held up the notepad. “We should do this in the morning once the sun comes up. Brian is probably right. The dark isn’t good.”

  “The dark isn’t good,” Brian echoed.

  Jackie didn’t want to go to sleep. She wanted to formulate a plan.

  Reggie implored her for support with arched brows. “What do you say, Jackie? We could all use a couple of hours of rest. If this does last—”

  Jackie held up a hand. “You’re right, Reggie. We’re all struggling with a mix of shock and exhaustion. We can talk over breakfast in the morning.”

  “Where did you want us?”

  “Marie will sleep with me,” she said. “That will free up her room. We also have a guest room. Take your pick.”

  The group stood and said their goodnights to each other. Betty led Brian up the stairs and stopped at the landing. “Thank you, Jackie,” she said. “I mean that.”

  Jackie smiled. “I know,” she said and then blew out the candles before heading to her room.

  Marie was already in bed, lying atop the covers, curled on her side, her hands between her knees. Her face was half buried in a down pillow, the glow of the lone candle in the room illuminating her sad features.

  Jackie closed the bedroom door behind her and sat on her side of the bed. “The whole house smells like smoke,” she said. “My clothes, my hair, everything. I’d change before bed, but I don’t think it would do any good. These sheets will need changing anyhow.”

  She swung her legs up onto the covers, not bothering to tuck herself underneath them. She felt confined enough given the bizarre turn of events. Jackie propped up two pillows against the cherrywood headboard and leaned back, resting her head for the first time in what felt like days.

  Marie reached out and touched her mother’s leg. “This is going to get worse before it gets better, isn’t it?” she asked in a tone that told Jackie it was more rhetorical than not.

  “The smell?”

  Marie huffed. “No, Mom, the—”

  “I know what you meant,” Jackie said, reaching out to caress her daughter’s arm.

  They were in a house with five neighbors, one of whom had special needs, and one woman they’d never met. They had finite supplies. There were dead, burned families buried in the charred hulks of homes across yards from their home. Chris was incommunicado in North Texas. Clayton was in orbit, hundreds of miles above Earth.

  She picked up the candle on the bedside table to her right, pulled it close, and blew out the flame. Its pomegranate scent wafted across her face as the room went nearly dark, taking on the faint red hue of the aurora sneaking through the gaps in the shutters.

  CHAPTER 6

  SATURDAY, JANUARY 25, 2020, 7:13 AM CST

  DINOSAUR VALLEY STATE PARK, TEXAS

  Rick Walsh awoke to the sound of two boys laughing. His eyes popped open and he immediately felt the sharp stiffness in his back that came with a night on the ground in a tent. He winced as he sat up and then twisted at his waist to loosen the tight muscles. He dragged his phone into his palm and pressed the home button, having forgotten the device was dead.

  He cursed the technology and tossed it into the corner before leaning forward to unzip the tent flap. Crawling from the tent, he pushed himself to his bare feet and stood up. His lower back protested, as did his neck, but he ignored it and walked over to Kenny and Chris. They were playing cards at a picnic table.

  “Hey, boys,” he said. “You might want to keep it down a bit. It’s still early and people are sleeping.”

  Kenny slapped a card on the table without looking up at his dad. “Nobody’s asleep, Dad,” he said. “Everybody’s up. They’re all talking about the apocalypse.”

  Rick stepped to the table and leaned in. “The what?”

  Kenny slapped another card. “The a-poc-a-lypse, he said. “You know, the end of the world.”

  Rick shook his head in disbelief. “I know what the apocalypse is, Kenny. Where did you hear people talking about it?” He looked over his shoulder, scanning the looped road that connected the campsites. “What people?”

  “People at the bathrooms,” Chris said. “They were saying all of the electricity is out, their phones don’t work, their cars won’t start.”

  Rick was dumfounded. “Why didn’t you wake me up?” he asked with incredulity.

  Kenny shrugged. He held a card above the table and looked at Rick. “We’re camping,” he said as if it were the most obvious answer in the history of questions. “What do we care if nothing works? It’s cool.”

  Rick tilted his head. He was raising an idiot. Better yet, his ex was raising an idiot. He was only responsible for the stupidity every other weekend and on select holidays.

  “It’s not cool,” Rick replied.

  “War,” said Kenny.

  “We don’t know that,” said Rick. “It could be—”

  “No, Mr. Walsh.” Chris laughed. “We’re playing war. The card game?”

  Kenny chuckled. “Sheesh, Dad. You’re so uptight.”

  “Why so serious?” Chris laughed, aping Heath Ledger’s Joker, much to Kenny’s amusement.

  Rick planted his hands on the table, ready to let the boys know just how serious a situation this might be, then thought better of it and bit off his retort.

  If the boys were oblivious, so be it. That wasn’t a bad thing. The longer they could go without comprehending the potential severity of whatever it was that had happened the night before, the easier it would be for him to cope with it.

  “You’re right,” he said. “It’s cool. You guys want breakfast? I can do eggs and bacon or oatmeal.”

  Kenny wrinkled his nose as if he’d smelled something rotten. “Not oatmeal, please.”

  “Anything’s fine,” said Chris.

  “Bacon and eggs it is.”

  Rick walked over to his Jeep and opened the rear tailgate. Inside was a large Igloo cooler filled with ice. He unclipped the lid and cracked open the cooler. Fishing through melting ice, pushing aside bottles of Gatorade and cans of Shiner, he reached a carton of egg whites and a package of precooked bacon.

  He spun to walk back to the charcoal grill when he caught the glimpse of someone in his peripheral vision and almost dropped his breakfast.

  It was Mumphrey. “Sorry to frighten you,” he said. “Got a bad habit of it, I guess.”

  Rick exhaled a shaky breath. “No problem. What’s up?” He walked over to the grill, aware Mumphrey was following him.

  The man greeted the boys and then stuffed his hands into his pockets to pull up his pants. “I need your help.” Mumphrey peered over the top of his glasses expectantly.

  “No luck with the camper?”

  “No,” Mumphrey replied. “It ain’t that though. Like I said before, there’s that woman. You know, the athlete? She’s got that sticker on her car. Got numbers on it that says she runs forever.”

  Rick placed the egg whites and bacon package on a camping stool. “Right,” he said, picking up a bag of charcoal and unloading a pile of it into the grill. “I remember.”

  “So”—Mumphrey scratched his elbow through his long-sleeved shirt—“she needs that jump I mentioned to you. You said you’ve got some cables.”

  Rick was piling the briquettes into a pyramid. “Sure,” he said. “Let me get the charcoal going and I’ll be right over.”

  “That’s mighty kind of you. I’d help her by myself, but I ain’t got my cables. Guess I left ’em at the shop or something. So you helping out is good. Mighty kind.”

  Rick doused the pyramid with lighter fluid and then lit it with a match. “That’ll do it, don’t you think?” he asked rhetorically.

  Mumphrey nodded. “Oh sure. I like the charcoal myself. I like to sprinkle some mesquite chips in there too. Gives everything a mighty nice smoky flavor. I also like smokers. I got one back at home. It’s a nice one. I could do up a fine turkey in it.”

  Rick smiled. “I’ll bet,” he said and patted Mumphrey on the shoulder. “Let’s
go help that lady.”

  He reached back into his Jeep and pulled out a set of jumper cables. He told the boys he’d be a couple of sites over and to yell if they needed anything. They were oblivious and totally preoccupied with their card game.

  Rick followed Mumphrey along the circular drive, passing the much-discussed pop-up camper. Mumphrey pulled his shoulders back and puffed his chest as he pointed to it. Rick acknowledged how nice it looked.

  They passed another thicket of tall oaks and pines before the next cleared site came into view. Leaning against the back of a Honda Accord was a young woman with short dark hair and bright green eyes.

  She was wearing a tank top and running shorts. Her toned arms were folded across her chest, her legs crossed at the ankles. Her full lips were pouting. She was a living, breathing example of Rick’s weakness. He caught himself staring a little too long at her when her eyes met his, and he quickly looked away.

  Rick cleared his throat. “Car won’t start?”

  The woman shook her head. “Nope. Doesn’t even turn over.”

  Rick stepped to the woman, drawn into her eyes. “My name’s Rick,” he said, offering his hand. “And you are?”

  “Stranded,” she said with a smile and took his hand. “Mr. Mumphrey here was kind enough to offer your help.”

  Rick chuckled. “Okay, Mrs. Stranded. Let’s see if we can get you started.”

  “It’s miss,” she said. “And you forgot something.”

  “What is that, Miss Stranded?”

  “Your car,” she said. “It would be kinda hard to start mine without yours.”

  Rick felt the warmth grow in his cheeks. He looked at his feet and nodded. “Yeah.” He sighed. “You have a point. I’ll be right back.”

  Rick handed the cables to Mumphrey. “Go ahead and get these hooked up, please.”

  Rick started jogging back to his site with an insecure confidence, making certain his shoulders were pulled back as he pounded the dirt away from the woman. He tried to ignore her disinterested vibe.