Nuclear Winter First Strike by Bobby Akart (best fiction books of all time .txt) 📗

This is an Attack Warning. Repeat. This is an Attack Warning.”

At that moment, across America and its territories, FEMA interrupted radio and television broadcasts. The FAA sent alerts to all airborne pilots and air traffic control centers. NOAA interrupted its weather radio network. The Coast Guard broadcast nuclear war warnings to all mariners at sea in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Gulf of Mexico.

IPAWS, the acronym for the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System, combined the Emergency Alert System used for decades with the new addition, the Wireless Emergency Alerts System. It was functioning on all cylinders.

Nine minutes after the nuclear ICBMs were launched from North Korea toward the U.S., the warnings were activated. It was estimated the incoming nukes would strike their West Coast targets within twenty-two minutes. The East Coast had two minutes beyond that.

“What did it say?” asked Jessica, who was still groggy from the drinks and the limited sleep.

“It said the shit just hit the fan,” replied Mike as he searched for the light switch. The couple was staying in a guest room upstairs that they hadn’t used in a while. It was located at the end of the hall on the opposite side of the house where Hank’s master bedroom was located.

With the lights on, he scrambled to get his clothes on. He was desperate to get downstairs and turn on the television. Jessica stayed in bed with the sheet pulled up over her chest. She tried to read the alert on her phone with just one eye open.

Mike raced out of their room to wake up Hank. Just as he reached his door, Hank flung it open, half-dressed.

“You got it, too?” Hank asked his brother.

“Yeah.”

“Do you think it’s real or a false alarm like before?”

“I’m about to find out,” Mike responded. Barefoot, he hustled down the wide, sweeping staircase leading to the foyer of the main house. He rushed into the bar, turned on the lights, and skipped looking for the remote. He reached up to turn on the television, which had been on CNN for days during the drama. The screen confirmed his greatest fear.

“God help us.”

The voice was Phoebe’s. She stood in the opening with Sonny and Jimmy. Hank and Jessica arrived behind them. All of their eyes were transfixed on the television. Their mouths were agape but couldn’t speak a word.

Chapter Forty-Eight

Thursday, October 24

Falls Church, Virginia

Peter had stayed up for hours drinking the last beers in his refrigerator and eating two frozen CPK pizzas. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d been depressed and wasn’t sure if that was what he was going through now. He scoured online news sources and monitored social media for any indication of what might be happening on the Korean Peninsula. His mind constantly wandered to Jenna. He missed having her to text with, or even for their occasional sleepovers. Moreover, he worried for her safety when he should’ve been worried about his own.

Mentally exhausted and just a little drunk, he went to bed, leaving the muted television on with BBC International playing. His cell phone had fallen between the seat cushions of his couch. The lights were on. All out of character for the man who normally kept his condo neat. Tonight, he simply wasn’t interested in being responsible.

Peter bypassed the usual stages of sleep and went directly into REM sleep characterized by rapid eye movement and dreaming. Physiologically, REM was very different from stages one through four of the sleep processes. Muscles become atonic, meaning without movement. Breathing became erratic, and the body’s heart rate increased dramatically.

During REM, dreams became more vivid and were often remembered upon awakening. External stimuli, such as sounds and movements, were sometimes disregarded by the brain despite the fact they were real. Oftentimes, it was difficult to differentiate between the visions of the dream and the actual sounds surrounding the sleeper.

Peter’s dream was an odd combination of his past interactions with Jenna and a nightmarish apocalyptic movie that was part Walking Dead, part Thirteen Days, the story of the Cuban Missile Crisis featuring Kevin Costner.

In his dream, he’d placed himself in the bunker with the president, visualizing the decision-making process in real time. He heard the warning signals being emitted from the myriad of computer stations in the control room filled with snappily dressed military leaders. Then his dreamy state rushed outside the safe confines of the bunker, where it witnessed a fireball followed by a mushroom cloud.

The imagery of a nuclear detonation blinded him in his sleep, causing him to roll over to bury his face in the pillow. Then, as quickly as the cloud expanded into the atmosphere, human figures appeared to walk out of the fire. They were charred and still smoldering. Skin had peeled away from their bones while muscles and organs melted before his eyes.

And there were the screams. Ghostly. Eerie. Painful. Souls in agony as they begged for help. Not help for their wounds. They sought someone to put them out of their misery.

What didn’t fit into his fitful dreams were the incessant beeping sounds accompanied by an electronic, monotone voice. The wails of the dead or dying contradicted the repetition of the computer-generated monster filling his head.

Frustrated by his inability to reconcile the intrusion of the outside voice with the nightmarish scene he was visualizing in his mind, Peter opened his eyes and shot up in bed. He blinked twice in order to focus on the cheap LED clock on his nightstand. It was 3:27 a.m. He took a deep breath and listened.

The voice was muffled, as if someone was sitting on the head of the person speaking. His mind raced. Or was the voice being smothered by a pillow in an attempt to silence the warning?

Peter jumped out of bed naked, disregarding the open curtains in his first-floor bedroom that he’d failed to close when he’d passed out earlier. He rushed into his living room. The BBC International broadcast had been replaced with the IPAWS warning chyron.

He rustled