Event Horizon (The Perseid Collapse Post Apocalyptic Series) Read online

  Event Horizon

  Book Two in The Perseid Collapse Series

  A Novel by Steven Konkoly

  Copyright Information

  © 2014 Steven Konkoly. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author.

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  About The Perseid Collapse Series and Event Horizon

  Prologue

  PART I

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  PART II

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  PART III

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  PART IV

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  PART V

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Acknowledgments

  To my wife, Kosia. I carry a notepad with me to capture her thoughts and recommendations—which can arrive, unannounced, at any time of the day. Sometimes I suspect she spends more time thinking about these novels than I do.

  To the beta reader crew for another A-plus round of comments, observations and edits. Trent, Nancy, Jon, Bruce and the newest member of the team, Greg. Greg has been a long time reader and generous contributor to my veteran’s donation campaigns. Welcome aboard!

  To the production crew. Felicia A. Sullivan—editor extraordinaire. Thank you for the early delivery! Jeroen ten Berge—for producing another killer cover design and devouring the story as quickly as I could write it. Stef Mcdaid—for creating the final showcase product. He takes whatever I spit into the file and “nukes” it into shape. To Pauline Nolet for the exhaustively detailed proofing job. Once Pauline is done, I don’t need to look at it again…and I don’t.

  Once again, a special thanks goes out to Randy Powers of Practical Tactical. He beta read The Perseid Collapse and Event Horizon with a prepper’s eye and provided me with a copy of Practical Tactical’s Handbook. Not only did his advice and guidebook help shape the final disposition of the Fletcher’s wide array of survival gear and strategy, it currently serves as the “go to” guide for the Konkoly household. Look for a collaboration between us in the near future. Something along the lines of The Fletcher’s Guide to Surviving the Apocalypse.

  Finally, to the readers, friends and fellow writers who continue to support my transition to full-time writing. None of this would be possible without you. THANK YOU!

  About the Author

  Steven Konkoly graduated from the United States Naval Academy and served as a naval officer for eight years in various roles within the Navy and Marine Corps. He lives near the coast in southern Maine, where he writes full time.

  His first novel, The Jakarta Pandemic, reached readers in 2010, followed by four novels in the Black Flagged series: Black Flagged (2011), Black Flagged Redux (2012), Black Flagged Apex (2012) and Black Flagged Vektor (2013). The Perseid Collapse (2013) signaled his return to the post-apocalyptic genre. Event Horizon is the second book in The Perseid Collapse Series. Book three, Point of Crisis, will be released during the summer of 2014.

  Please visit Steven’s blog for updates and information regarding all his works:

  www.stevenkonkoly.com

  About The Perseid Collapse Series and Event Horizon

  The Perseid Collapse Series takes place six years after the H16N1 virus ravaged the world in my first novel, The Jakarta Pandemic. Book One, The Perseid Collapse, unveils the “event” that catapults the United States into chaos and chronicles the first 48 hours “post-event,” as the characters navigate an unfamiliar, hostile landscape to reach their destinations. Event Horizon picks up where book one ends, spanning the second 48-hour period. That’s all I’ll say. Point of Crisis (Summer of 2014) will open the timeline and scope of the series, addressing some of the bigger picture questions posed by the previous books. As always, the Fletcher’s will be in the middle of the action.

  Time in Event Horizon is measured in plus (+) or minus (-) Hours:Minutes from the EVENT. Happy Reading!

  “Event Horizon”

  In relativity theory, an event horizon is a boundary in space/time, beyond which events cannot affect an outside observer.

  In layman’s terms, it is defined as “the point of no return.”

  Prologue

  EVENT 00:00 Hours

  Boston University

  Boston, Massachusetts

  Ryan Fletcher squinted at his alien surroundings. Unnaturally brilliant light penetrated the translucent curtains, exposing beige cinderblock walls and sparse furniture. The glaring view of his dorm room faded quickly, replaced by a soft flickering light. He raised his head a few inches off the pillow to view the digital alarm clock resting on his desk. A dark object stared back. He raised his left hand to his chest and stared at the illuminated dial until it made sense. 4:59.

  Brutal.

  His eyes eased shut, and he started to drift back to sleep, until the steel bedframe under his thin mattress rattled against the wooden dresser behind his head. Angry thoughts of the “T” waking him every morning of his freshmen year yanked him out of the murky depths, and he sat up, fully awake and pissed off at his room assignment. Nobody had mentioned the fact that the train made stops inside his dorm room. The vibration intensified, accompanied by a deafening roar.

  “No way I’m dealing with this for an entire year,” he mumbled.

  The bed heaved upward, tossing him face down onto the carpeted floor. Distant car alarms sounded. He lay prone for a few seconds, stunned by the violent upheaval. Another massive jolt rocked the room. He needed to get out of here.

  Ryan grabbed the bedframe and tried to stand, but the room pitched violently, dropping him to his hands and knees. He crawled in the darkness toward the door, tumbling sideways into the wooden dresser beyond his bed as the building swayed. Ryan scurried into the small vestibule next to the door moments before both of the room’s heavy, wooden dressers crashed to the floor. He leaned his back into the cold cinderblock wall and pressed his bare feet against the opposite wall.

  Adding and releasing pressure on his legs to stay in place, Ryan moved with the building, hoping the walls didn’t collapse. Not that it mattered at that point. The building was nearly fifty years old, and if the interior walls failed, rescue teams would be lucky to find any of them alive. He dug his feet into the wall in front of him and closed his eyes. He was on autopilo
t, too disoriented and terrified to put any effort into anything beyond his immediate survival. He knew that he should be sitting under the doorframe, but he couldn’t convince his body to give up the stable position he had established between the two walls.

  Moments later, the shaking abated, and the thunderous rumble yielded to distant car alarms and screaming. Ryan stood on wobbly legs and braced himself against the walls with both hands, taking deep breaths to fight the nausea. A strong campfire smell drew his attention to the flimsy curtains flapping gently through the jagged remains of the window. A wave of dizziness struck, buckling his knees.

  Bright yellow and orange light danced against the room’s dark interior, arousing his curiosity. He had to see what had happened outside of the building. Testing his legs, he edged out of the vestibule and stopped in front of the fallen dressers. Glancing up at broken windows, a flash flood of rational, analytical thoughts overloaded him.

  First things first.

  He tilted the top dresser upward, letting all of the empty drawers fall to the floor as he heaved it against the opposite wall. His dresser was next, but he took care to keep the drawers pushed firmly shut. Ryan dug through the dresser and quickly replaced his athletic shorts with jeans. Thick wool socks covered his feet, followed by a pair of well-travelled, dark brown hiking boots. He saw no sense in cutting his feet on broken glass before he left his room. He stepped over to the window and brushed aside the flimsy curtains. Flames engulfed western Boston, extending as far as he could see from his sixth story window.

  Ryan stared at the inferno, transfixed by the enormity of the blaze. Pyres undulated and crackled, draping the city in a dancing blanket of fire. He scanned for wreckage on Commonwealth Avenue, desperate for clues to explain the apocalyptic scene. He’d expected to see the tail section of a commercial airliner or a colossal crater, but the street looked untouched. Even the buildings across “Comm Ave” looked undamaged. Something was off, but he couldn’t bring it into focus. He followed the fires lining Granby Street, tracing them toward the Charles River and beyond.

  “Holy shit,” he muttered.

  The city’s confusing grid of tree-lined streets had been brought to life by the flames, leaving the structures intact.

  Could a solar flare do this?

  Ryan had no idea. He started to pull away from the window, but stopped.

  That can’t be right.

  He checked his watch again. 5:01. Sunrise was still an hour away, but the lights were out across the city. Despite the near daylight conditions created at street level, he couldn’t identify a single light—anywhere.

  Ryan fumbled for the desk lamp. Click. Nothing. He swiped his smartphone and wallet from the hutch and sprinted to the vestibule, trying the side-by-side switches. The room remained dark.

  This has to be a solar flare. What else could knock out the electrical grid and set fire to the trees?

  Another thought crossed his mind, but he dismissed it. They would have been hit by the shockwave already if it was a nuke. Either way, his only mission at this point was to reach Chloe and figure out what to do next. Stay in Boston or trek north? He lifted a blue, twenty-gallon plastic storage bin from the closet floor and dropped it on his bed.

  The bin had been the last item to leave the car, hidden under a blanket by his dad. Ryan had nearly refused to take it up to his room. Of the 21,000 incoming freshmen, he didn’t want to be the only one with a “paranoia pack” taking up precious space in his closet. Of course, that was the point of the bin. Boston University represented a small city of students, most of them completely dependent on the university’s infrastructure for their basic survival needs. With his mom in tears over dropping him off at college, he decided to take it and spare her the worry. Based on what he had experienced over the last few minutes, Ryan was fairly certain that the university’s infrastructure had ceased to exist. The emergency bin didn’t sound so ridiculous anymore.

  The container held an olive green backpack, two CamelBak water bladders and a sealed plastic bucket of dehydrated food pouches. The backpack had been outfitted with enough gear and food to support a two-day journey. Each of the bladders held three liters, which was the theoretical minimum he should drink per day if hiking. Realistically, he’d need more, which was why his dad had stuffed a Katadyn microfilter into the backpack. His first task upon leaving the dorm room was to fill both of the CamelBak bladders. Beyond that, everything he needed to walk back to Maine with Chloe was inside the backpack.

  The pack contained a hat, old sunglasses, maps of Boston and New England, a compass, extra cash, parachute cord, a thirty-foot section of remnant sailing line, a small emergency radio, first aid kit, fire-starting kit, flashlight, three MREs, a Gore-Tex bivouac bag, N95 respirator and an emergency blanket. The only thing he didn’t have was a knife. Any knife, no matter how small, was classified as a weapon by university police and strictly forbidden. Even a Swiss Army knife could get you expelled. He dug through one of the outer pouches and found the flashlight. He aimed the LED light at the window and tested it, relieved that it filled the entire room with a bluish-white light. He had no idea what kind of damage a solar flare could do to battery-powered equipment.

  He considered unpacking the dehydrated food bucket, but there was no way he could stuff anything else into the backpack. The bucket would be awkward to carry, but it had a sturdy handle, and he wasn’t going far enough for it to become a real problem. He’d cover the three miles to Chloe’s apartment in thirty minutes. Forty tops. He heaved the backpack onto his shoulders and tightened the straps. With the bucket in his left hand, he leaned against the door and listened. The screaming had faded to sporadic yelling.

  Ryan unlocked his door and stepped into the darkness. Without exterior windows, the hallways were pitch black. A beam of light blinded him.

  “You all right, dude? Can you believe this?” said a male voice.

  “Did you see what happened?” asked Ryan, locking the door to his room.

  “The whole city blew up, brother. We got nuked or something.”

  A different voice spoke up. “It wasn’t a nuke. There’s a huge contrail in the sky, running from west to east. It disappears at about a forty-degree altitude over the southern horizon. We’ll see more of it as sunrise approaches. I calculate that it struck somewhere off the coast, due east of here.”

  Ryan flashed his light at the two of them.

  “Dude, watch it with the light. It’s like a million times brighter than this,” he said, directing his beam into Ryan’s eyes.

  “Thanks for the demonstration. What do you mean ‘it struck’?” asked Ryan.

  “I think we got hit by an asteroid or some kind of—”

  The student with the flashlight interrupted. “That was probably an ICBM fired from China. West to east, it makes sense.”

  “I’ve seen the ground footage of the space shuttle reentering the atmosphere, and this is about twenty times thicker.”

  “It still doesn’t explain why the lights are out. Nukes create an EMP,” said the first student.

  “Not if they hit the ground,” said Ryan, pushing past the two of them.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Anywhere but here. If the power’s out for good, you need to start filling up any kind of container that will hold water. Even a trashcan,” said Ryan, pushing open the bathroom door.

  “Wrong bathroom, dude,” he heard as the door closed.

  “Hello. Anyone in here?” he yelled, before flashing the light along the row of stalls.

  “Definitely not the men’s room,” he whispered.

  Directing the light in the opposite direction exposed several sinks set into a long Formica counter. The wall-length mirror anchored to the wall behind the sinks had shattered, filling the white basins and covering the tile floor with razor-sharp pieces of broken glass. Satisfied that he was alone, he dropped the backpack on the floor next to the nearest sink and pulled out both of the water bladders, filling them with cold wat
er.

  He hoped the others took his advice about the water. Without power to run the building’s water pumps, pressure wouldn’t last very long on the sixth floor—or any floor. He’d just tucked the second bladder into his backpack when a thunderous explosion rattled the bathroom, rebooting the hysterical screams he had heard earlier.

  Maybe we did get hit with a nuke.

  Ryan crouched against the wall next to the sink and waited several seconds in the dark, hearing nothing but continued screaming. Activating his flashlight, he opened the door, finding the hallway thick with dust.

  Not good.

  A female student bolted out of the cloud, knocking him out of the way. He grabbed her arm and held her in place.

  “Hold on! The floor is covered in glass!”

  Coughing and sobbing, she yanked her arm free and stood there in bare feet.

  “What just happened out there?” asked Ryan.

  She looked up at him with a vacant stare. Her jet-black, curly hair was coated in dust, and she had several small cuts across her face.

  “Something exploded in Boston,” she stated flatly and started crying again.

  “Like a bomb?”

  “I don’t know. I was facing downtown when all of the fires started to go out. Then it hit us. It was like a shockwave or something. How is my face?”