Catastrophe in America Read online

  Catastrophe

  In America

  Pete Thorsen

  Released on Kindle & in Print

  July 2016

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher/author, except that brief selections may be quoted or copied for non-profit use without permission, provided that full credit is given. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead is entirely accidental.

  Four complete stories from one of America’s most popular apocalyptic writers.

  Hard Times. After multiple terrorist attacks and a collapsing economy the incoming hurricane is the last straw and a man flees his town for someplace safe to ride out the coming chaos.

  From Civilized to Barbaric! When the electric power goes out and does not appear to be coming back on a man tries to flee New York City to try and find a safe haven.

  Cruel End to a Great Country. Follow the life of a simple janitor after the nation’s economy gradually winds down to a complete stop.

  Just Another Day. While family from another state are visiting an EMP changes everything. See how this now extended family copes with what has happened.

  Hard Times

  Pete Thorsen

  Originally Released on Kindle

  August 2014

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher, except that brief selections may be quoted or copied for non-profit use without permission, provided that full credit is given.

  Prologue

  Samir Armand slowly directed his boat up to the northern section of Biscayne Bay. His was just another boat along with hundreds of others. He was not very familiar with boats and he thanked Allah that he was now so close to shore. He certainly did not fear death and the fact that he had been afraid when out on the open ocean confused and upset him. This part of his assignment was almost over and for that he was thankful. Soon they would strike a major blow to the infidels and Samir was proud that he could play a part in this.

  Samir had a spot to park the boat at the Sea Isle Marina. The spot was only a temporary one and had been arranged by others likely at great cost. He was happy to ease the boat into the assigned slip and tie it up. Walking away he was again very thankful to be on solid ground once again and have his part of this particular operation done. Samir was much more comfortable with his next assignment and was looking forward to actively taking a more direct hand in the attack against these infidels.

  Chapter One

  Ronald Plover worked hard because it was the only thing he had ever done as far back as he could remember. His father had died when Ron was only five and he could not really even remember him. So he had grown up in a single parent home because his mom had never remarried. She worked hard but still Ron grew up very poor and he had started working doing odd jobs for neighbors when he thirteen. By fifteen he had a steadier job and as soon as he graduated he worked full time and picked up odd jobs on the weekends besides.

  Ron had been paying for most things even before he graduated because his mom was always feeling poorly and could seldom work anymore. She passed away two weeks after Ron turned eighteen. There were medical bills at the end but there was no money so the hospital was just out. The county paid to have her buried because there was no one else.

  After his mom died Ron moved to a very little single apartment with cheaper rent to save money. He did have an old small Toyota pickup that was older than him but it did still run good. Now with the smaller apartment and steady full-time employment Ron was finally able to start saving a little bit of money.

  He worked at a small metal fabrication business and his boss liked him because he was never late or came in drunk and always worked hard whether his boss was watching or not. When the recession hit the little shop did stay open but like many businesses it had a tough time. But Ron did not lose his job and still worked there yet. Even after all this time he was still driving that same old compact pickup though he had to have work done on it several times and that had used some of his savings. The last time he had it repaired he had the guys check over everything and fix it all at once so it would again be very dependable. It had also been time for new tires and the shop gave him quite a discount for getting everything done at once and paying in cash.

  Business at the metal shop was again going pretty good and his boss had given Ron another raise. Things were actually looking up Ron thought at least for him.

  Ron was a big guy and at first glance he did not look like the bulb was burning all that bright in him. When people saw him driving that old beat up pickup and wearing well used work clothes it just added to that illusion. But he had surprised many in school when he graduated as an honor student. The school counselor had tried to get Ron to go on to college and said there was a good chance he could get a scholarship and maybe a grant but Ron said he wasn’t cut out for college and would instead just work.

  Spending his whole life being poor was not something Ron wanted and he was doing what he could to get ahead. He was a very good penny pincher and was very careful with every dollar he spent. He did buy an older laptop computer but did not spend money for an internet connection. Instead he used free wifi hotspots near his apartment. He wanted to use the laptop to teach himself new skills and keep up with the news.

  He thought if he was up on current events and everything that was happening maybe he could see a trend and possibly get in on the ground floor of some kind of new venture.

  Of course so far it had not happened but there was always hope. Lately he had started to think about buying and selling stocks but working full time at the same time the markets were open was not very conductive to making timely trades. He now had a little working capital saved up and was thinking about how to best invest it for rapid growth and the stock market seemed to be the logical answer. But he was cautious with his hard earned money and so far had just continued to do research.

  The small investment in the laptop had not yet paid off financially but it was giving him a lot of entertainment and knowledge. Ron knew the stock market reacted to just about every little thing that happened politically in the world and he watched it all happen using the internet. There was a lot of unrest in the world and this caused the markets to swing up and down a fair amount on an almost daily basis. Plus the recession was supposed to be over but the economic situation worldwide was anything but rosy.

  Announcements by countries concerning their economic outlooks or a big bank making a statement could cause big swings in worldwide markets and not just the market of that particular country. After watching the news and markets for some time Ron was still occasionally baffled when a piece of news that he thought would have one effect on the markets would instead have just the opposite effect. After more reading he saw that he was not the only one confused by some of these odd turns in the wrong logical direction.

  The markets as a whole were definitely going up with many setting record highs only to again beat those new records. Many thought that the markets were going up unrealistically and Ron agreed with that thought. He and others were thinking that the markets were getting ready for a reset and possibly a big drastic reset.

  That was another thing holding him back from investing right now. With the markets going up pretty steady he knew everyday he waited it was costing him money but that thou
ght of a major market reset was holding him back.

  All it would take was something to set it off. Something that was not expected possibly something that some called a ‘black swan’ event.

  Chapter Two

  I was at work when my boss came into the shop and told everyone to shut down right away and come in to the office. None of us knew what was going on but we all saw that he was very upset. When we got in the office the TV was one and the boss told us that there had just been a nuclear explosion in New York City. He turned up the volume on the TV so we all could watch and listen.

  A commentator was speaking when the volume got high enough for us all to hear.

  “For those just tuning in a single nuclear explosion just went off in New York City. There are very few details yet but we have unverified reports that it was detonated in the harbor area near Staten Island. Again there has been a nuclear explosion in New York City possibly originating in the harbor area. We are trying to get more information at this time but it looks like the nuclear explosion is a verified fact.

  Just reported the White House and the Capitol building are both in lockdown. We are at this time trying to verify the whereabouts of the President. But again both the Capitol building and the White House are in lock down at this time.

  It is reported that many F16 fighter jets are now in the air over Washington and a flight is heading over New York City at this time.

  Hold on folks we are getting more information at this time please hold on for a minute…………………….

  It has now been reported another nuclear explosion has just happened in Miami, Florida we are waiting further details but we have confirmation that there has been a second nuclear explosion in or near Miami, Florida besides the one in New York City. That is confirmed that there have been two American cities hit with nuclear explosions at this time.”

  The boss broke in and told us to make sure all the machines were shut down and we should all go on home. He told us just to stay home with our families tomorrow and from there we will have to see what happens.

  Well I had no family but I was trying to think of all the consequences of these two terrorist acts and whether there would any more. On the way home I stopped at my bank and withdrew all my money from my savings account and almost all from my checking account. I also filled the gas tank on my pickup. Neither one of those actions would hurt anything and made sense to me. I then swung by the grocery store and just picked up a few things there along with two cases of water. Again not anything drastic but something that seemed sensible.

  My laptop was in the pickup and I tried to get on line at a couple spots but could do nothing. Maybe the internet had been shut down by the government or maybe it was just being overwhelmed by all the people trying to get on line. So I continued home and when I got there I turned on my old TV set. I only had the local broadcast channels but they had the same news on anyway so I just sat and watched it. They had gotten some more information in the time it took me to get home from work.

  The two bombs were indeed nuclear but were estimated to be of a small size though they still caused huge devastation in both locations. Both were from harbor areas with the Miami one being detonated on the shore of Biscayne Bay and the New York City one being detonated on the shore or near the shore of Ocean Breeze Park on Staten Island.

  They said the President and the Vice President had been moved to separate undisclosed secure locations. All US armed forces had been placed on high alert. I listened the rest of the day and there were no other attacks but I thought the money and expertise needed for those two attacks to me alluded to the very real possibility of additional attacks of some kind were likely immanent. When it got late I went to bed the same as always. I thought there would be more attacks but I really doubted any would take place in Roanoke, Virginia over night.

  I awoke alive to a bright clear day with no apparent mushroom clouds in sight. I turned on the TV to get the news that had happened over night and any updates on the two nuke explosions.

  There had been attacks on two oil refineries in Texas overnight causing massive damage to both facilities in Port Arthur and in Baytown. And an attack on another big refinery in Baton Rouge, Louisiana that it was said would have to be totally rebuilt. In all three cases the refineries still had uncontrolled fires burning.

  A smaller tanker ship full of refined fuels had run at speed into the Port of Tacoma, Washington and had erupted into a huge fire that they did not yet know how long it would take to contain with the fire still spreading.

  Then there had been attacks on many electrical sub stations in several states causing wide spread loss of electrical power in many areas.

  Apparently these attacks on sub stations were still continuing with additional ones still being reported.

  I was not used to having a day off in the middle of the week and after breakfast I tired of the same repeats on the news so I decided to go to a wifi hot spot and see if access was better this morning. I left my pickup at home and just walked the few blocks to the nearest hot spot that I knew of and often used. I just sat on the sidewalk in front of the building where it was out of the sun so I could see the screen better and was able to get on right away.

  I surfed the internet for about an hour and walked back home. My old laptop battery was only good for about an hour so it limited my surfing time. Which was OK too as the concrete was starting to feel pretty hard on my butt by that time anyway.

  The ‘net was full of stuff and mostly conjecture about the attacks. The two nuke bombs were apparently of small power and crudely made compared to modern US or Russian designs. This made for a smaller blast radius but there was expected to be radiation scattered over a wide area. Because they were ground bursts instead of air bursts apparently helped contain the blast radius also. But much of Miami and a good section of that New York City area were both toast and the number killed was so far not even being estimated but would end up being a very large number.

  Plus those areas would not be livable again for likely a long time. The blow to the United States was very substantial. US stock markets were closed of course and they said they did not know when the markets could be re-opened due to their location so close to the blast site. Everyone knew what would be the result if they were to open because it was happening in foreign markets today (and during last night). All world markets were falling in record amounts.

  Some countries had closed their markets “in sympathy of the American citizens who had lost their lives to this horrendous criminal act of cowardice” but really they closed them to stave off the inevitable falling values of their markets and in hopes the fall in markets was only a temporary one.

  I was now glad I had not been invested in the stock market. I might not have lost everything I had invested but I was sure it would have been by far a very large percentage of any money that I had invested. It was hard to say until the markets here were actually open but you can safely assume the losses will be huge. This will likely shove the United States and many other countries over the economic cliff that all of them had been just skirting the edge of for some time now. I was trying to think of things that would be happening now and in the near future here in the United States because of these attacks so I could maybe prepare a little more.

  Chapter Three

  On my walk home from the computer hot spot I decided on a few things that I should buy now while they were still available. So I plugged in the laptop at home so it could recharge and I left to go do some shopping. I went to the Gander Mountain store because I wanted some camping gear just in case things got real bad it made sense to me to have the ability to leave town and camp out. The store was quite busy but I took a cart and made my way to the camping section.

  I found a small tent, a sleeping bag, a small camp stove with a bunch of fuel, a crank up flashlight, a water filter, a backpack, sleeping pad, small first aid kit, a couple different fire starters (with a mental note to buy a bunch of cigarette lighters), and several ot
her small things that seemed reasonable. Pushing my now full cart I happened to glance at the gun section of the store and without conscious thought I turned that way and was soon looking at a vast array of guns.

  A clerk came over a couple minutes later and asked if he could help me. I said I wasn’t sure because I knew very little about guns and had never shot one. He asked if I was interested in a handgun or a long gun and I just shrugged my shoulders. He said I might have something simple that you might like and went a short distance and returned with a handgun.

  “This is a revolver. It is called that because this thing called a cylinder turns in a circle. These are about as simple and durable as guns get.”

  He showed me how to open it up to check if it was loaded and how to then load it. He showed me I could then shoot it by just pulling the trigger through a long stroke or I could cock the hammer back and then the trigger would pull much easier and I could shoot more accurately but much slower. He explained how to get the empty cartridges out of the gun and then reload it again so it was ready to fire.

  He explained while it had no safety that had to be manipulated before firing the gun it was still inherently a safe design. He showed me the sights and explained how they worked. He handed me the gun and had me go through all the same actions that he had just performed. He had me raise the pistol and see how the sights lined up and said if I could keep then lined up while I squeezed the trigger I would hit my target every time.