The Coming of the End - John Reeves (best classic novels TXT) 📗

I look back now thinking maybe I should have known, with the Haiti earthquake, and then right after that another one in Chile in 2010. The economy was going down the drain. With the money problems so was my relationship with my wife. The hard times had been really tough on the family. My son had always gotten everything he wanted for Christmas and, then it seemed he was going to get little to nothing.
The move from New York to Mississippi was a culture shock to him. The fast pace of the city was nothing like Tupelo, Mississippi. Cory didn't like the new school and, Trish didn't like the move to the south either. Somehow our family seemed to be falling apart and, moving south where we could survive seemed to be what had done it to us. I'm not saying we didn't have some minor problems in the city, but they didn't seem to be as bad.
The floods in the midwest were bad impacting millions. The low lands became part of the river flowing south. The stock market collapsed and, once rich well off people were left struggling to survive. The tornado outbreak in 2011 was horrible, as the vicious storms ravaged the south. There were several times we found ourselves down at the local storm shelter. By the grace of God our lives were spared, unlike the thousands of people who didn't. Coleman, Alabama was wiped off the map completely. That town was across the state line some thirty miles from our home.

December 12, 2012
My son had somewhat found a group of boys his age and, began to find his way in the new town. I had somehow came up with the hundred dollars for him to play soccer. He'd played for three years back in the city and, had gotten pretty good. That Tuesday he was at practice, his mother had slipped off down to Wal-Mart to get him a few small thing to go under the gloom Christmas tree. At 2:00 pm the sky started to look dark like the thunderstorms were moving back in. I had watched the morning news where they predicted the area to clear up.
I sat in my chair when the house started to tremble, the pictures fell off the wall. Through the dark clouds in the sky a bright light peered through them. At first I thought it was the sun, but upon looking again it seemed not to be. From the car I turned on the radio realizing something had happened. I tried to call my wife's cell phone but, she couldn't be reached. The inside of the Wal-Mart did that sometimes.
The news report on the radio had no idea what happened. There was speculation we'd been bombed. Nobody really knew what was going on. As my son ran into the front yard he was asking what had shook the ground. Out of the cloudy sky an ash like substance was falling. It began coming down like snow with no wind blowing it around. The temperatures were rising, as it had been 40 degrees, and had went up to 45 degrees. Cory and I had got in my truck to go look for his mother. When we got to the highway the state police turned us around telling us to go back home.
We obeyed the officer and went home, but I told my son to pack some clothes. We were going to need to be ready to go. I had no idea what was going on, worse the authorities didn't seem to know either. I didn't want the fear to show for my boy to see, but I think he knew there was fear inside me.

New York
The water levels were rising rapidly along the water front. Before they knew what was happening the powerful waves began flooding the the street. Without a chance to escape the waves became deadly, smashing small buildings wiping them out sending debris down between the taller structures. When the title waves stopped the number of people still alive was ten percent of what the city had before. Half of those would die before they found a way to get out of upper levels in buildings, and roof tops in the city. Hours passed as the survivors realized nobody was coming to rescue them. The water flowed through the tunnels of buildings with a swiftness that didn't allow an escape. The occasional building would collapse, concrete tumbling into the depths of flowing water.
The damming of the buildings had given those trying to move more options. Walking across the destruction of cement piled above the forty foot waters. Weakening the standing buildings from the pressure at the base of the foundation, soon those buildings would tumble to the ground.



John Williams had managed to get to shallow waters but, he'd been a survivor his whole life. Pushing seventy he was not the same young guy who'd served in Vietnam. Though in a similar way he found himself trying to survive. When he saw how much of the city was under water he was startled. He also noticed the sun wasn't going down as it once had by 4:00pm in December. The wall of a fallen building had served as his makeshift raft used to escape. The water went on for sometime at the eight foot level, soon he found the dry land again. Although he was no longer in the state of New York. John found several different cars left with keys inside, upon getting in the first one he realized the water had been deep enough to flood the vehicles. The water had ran back down into the city, there wasn't any sign of others in the area. John knew he needed to look for various supplies and, move on toward other people.

San Francisco, California
Before the residents on the west coast could find out the east coast was under water, the tectonic plates below the ground shifted drastically. The state of California had shifted west toward the Pacific Ocean. Breaking a large portion of the state away from the continental United States, becoming an island off some thirty miles away from where it had been located. Within ten minutes Tokyo, Japan suffered the same type of intense earthquakes. The Temperatures had raise to the mid seventies to almost one hundred degrees in less than two hours time. Storms were forming across the western plains, tornado spun off of the unstable atmosphere ripping across the heart of the US. The heat wave in the southwest was pushing the residents of Arizona, New Mexico, and Nevada east toward the storms. The tornadoes were branching off to the deep south. When the ground crumbled below San Francisco millions of people died in the destruction. Those who didn't die quickly suffered trapped below the rubble.

Stanly and Kim had been working in the insurance office when the quake started. They were lucky to not be dead or trapped but, to get out of the city would be almost impossible to do. There were no longer roads to travel on, they couldn't even recognize what was downtown San Francisco. The horrendous devastation was almost more than Kim could stand. Stanly was thinking of what to do, trying to calculate the impending dangers which laid before them.
"Help me...Someone please..Help Me!" The voices echoed from unknown locations under the fallen city.
Stanly knew trying to save them would put himself in danger. He had been a volunteer when things were satisfactory in his life. Stanly always tried to find a way to give himself to the community. The giving part of his human instinct was shutoff drastically. Kim was in a state of confusion seeing the damage, smelling the death, and realizing the total impact of what had happened. Stanly convinced her to move on because their survival depended on it.

Nashville, Tennessee
The tornado ravaged city had just enough break between outbreaks for damage to be discovered by the residents. EF5 tornadoes had moved through the music city damaging structures thought to be strong enough to withstand a tornado. By 6:15pm the second wave of storms pushed into the already destroyed downtown area. Small tornadoes spun off of the thirteen massive EF5 funnels gained strength of their own. The long lived twisters stayed on the ground for hundreds of miles.
Outside of the city of Nashville the storms expanded south into Alabama, north into Kentucky, and pushing through west to east. Memphis had felt the similar impact as Nashville did, though not quite as bad. The streets were covered with debris, cars flipped over, and dead bodies. The weather changed so fast there wasn't proper time to take shelter. Many were caught in traffic by the unannounced storms. The clouds covered the sky. The usual time for sundown came around, the sun was still providing sunlight. There wasn't power in the city, so the extra light was a blessing. Still the question was there, why was the sun not going down?

Residents struggled to get out of the damaged city, they weren't willing to stop to help their fellow man. Surviving meant getting out of there why they still could. The humidity was rapidly getting worse, the sticky feeling air was a breeding bed for more intense storms. With the sun still heating the Earth's surface it fueled the storms in the unstable atmosphere.
There were children crying and lost. Adults just passed them by in their attempts to leave Nashville. The rain lightly falling gave those wanting to go the chance to do it. There wasn't time to decide on what to do, which lead good citizens to turn on the others needing help.

"Laura, we can't help them. Let's go." Chris shouted.

She realized it wasn't going to get better. Seventeen years old out with her boyfriend after school, Laura wondered if her parents found safe shelter before the destruction took place. There was that argument with her mother that morning that was on her mind. She felt then like she was an adult, eight hours later she felt sorry for her earlier action. Chris found his Mustang but, it had taken severe damage still he drove it. The roads were blocked with other vehicles and, other things blown into the street by the powerful winds. Taking one way streets Chris manged to get out to the interstate. The damage was just as bad as it had been downtown. Transfer trucks flipped over into the median, cars thrown fifty feet off the roadway. The signs were twisted or gone, but Chris knew where he was. Looking out the windows as he drove north on I-65 he realized how widespread the devastation was. The two teens were afraid and, although they were together they felt alone. Buildings were