Hidden (Final Dawn) Read online

  HIDDEN

  Darrell Maloney

  Copyright 2013 by Darrell Maloney

  A recap of FINAL DAWN, the first book in this series

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  Sometimes the gods of fate smile upon you, and bestow on you a treasure of such magnitude, such wonder, that you pinch yourself over and over until you finally believe it’s really real.

  And sometimes those same gods bestow upon you a bowl of smelly, steaming crap.

  They seldom do both within the same week.

  Mark Snyder seldom played the lottery himself. He considered it a hopeless waste of money. But the love of his life, Hannah Jelinovic, played regularly. And sweet Hannah had been sick in bed for two days and hadn’t been able to get out.

  So on a lark, Mark picked up a ticket for her. The right numbers came up and Hannah and Mark were suddenly multi-millionaires. Things seemingly couldn’t be better.

  But not so fast. The very next day Hannah went back to work as a contractor for NASA, tracking meteorites and asteroids in the heavens. She discovered a new one. One that was heading for earth. And it was bigger than the one that wiped out the dinosaurs four million years before.

  For her efforts, Hannah was demoted and threatened with prison if she disclosed the information to anyone.

  “But why?” she asked.

  “Because it won’t be here for almost three years. We have plenty of time to divert it or destroy it. Telling the public will just cause panic.”

  But Mark and Hannah knew better than to trust the government. They began using their newfound wealth to prepare for Armageddon.

  The couple enlisted the help of Mark’s brother Bryan and her good friend and co-worker Sarah. They purchased an abandoned salt mine that would afford them the protection they needed to survive deep underground.

  Then it was just a matter of getting it ready. They created a list of those they’d take into the mine with them. Those family members and close friends who made the cut would become part of the forty who would spend five to seven years in the bowels of the earth. Waiting for the dirt kicked up by Saris 7 to fall back out of the atmosphere, so that the sun would shine through again and thaw a frozen planet.

  There were a lot of things to consider. It wasn’t just a matter of buying food and water for forty people for seven years. That would have been tough enough. But to do so secretly required a lot of planning.

  And there were other things as well. The group had to plan for electrical power, fuel, supplies, medicine, and a thousand other things people take for granted until faced with not having them anymore.

  Meanwhile, Hannah and Sarah waited for their employer to do the right thing… to tell the public what was coming, and let the world prepare for it. They heard from an insider that there are no plans to save the world. Only a chosen few in Washington and their families and friends. The President of the United States had a place to hide, in the cold war bomb proof shelters beneath the streets of Washington. And he had plans to take a few hundred or so others with him. Family, friends, cronies. For the rest of the United States, they’d be on their own.

  For Hannah and Mark, Sarah and Bryan, that just wouldn’t do. The girls risked prison to go on national television to tell the world. Then they went into hiding in the mine.

  The federal government, of course, tried to discredit them and claimed it was a hoax, until other scientists began speaking publicly around the world to support Hannah’s claims.

  Faced with undeniable evidence of the truth, the President had to backtrack. He shifted to his Plan B… another lie.

  “Don’t worry,” he told his citizens. “We have a plan. We’ll work with the Chinese. By combining their rockets with our nuclear warheads, we can send up a weapon capable of diverting the meteorite onto another path.”

  The world was conflicted. They desperately wanted to believe. No one wanted to die. But they knew they couldn’t trust the governments of the world. Some panicked. Some rioted. Some calmly accepted their fate.

  And some, like Mark and Hannah, continued to prepare for the end.

  A few days before impact, the mine was finally ready. The group gathered up family and friends and gave them shelter. It wasn’t a tropical paradise, but it would enable them to survive.

  Final Dawn ended when Saris 7 collided with the earth. Around the world, millions were dying. But deeply hidden in an old salt mine outside of Junction, Texas, these forty people would survive.

  Here, in Hidden, is the story of their survival.

  Chapter 1

  Mark awoke to find a very concerned Hannah, laying on the pillow next to him and staring at his face. Even first thing in the morning, she was more beautiful than most women were at the height of their day.

  “Hello, gorgeous. What are you looking at?”

  “Are you okay, honey?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “You were mumbling in your sleep. I’ve never heard you do that before. I was just worried, that’s all.”

  “What was I saying?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t speak mumble. Were you having a bad dream?”

  “Well, yeah, kinda.”

  “Want to talk about it?”

  He looked at the clock on the bedside table.

  “Maybe later. But right now I want to get dressed. They’ll be ringing the breakfast bell in ten minutes and I’m starved.”

  She put her hand on his face and gently stroked his cheek.

  “You know I’m here for you, honey, when you need to talk. Your problems are my problems. We deal with them together, remember?”

  “Yes, I know, silly. And I’ll tell you about my dream, eventually. But not right now. I just want to forget it right now.”

  She kissed him and said, “Well, get up, then, sailor boy. I’m hungry too.”

  He walked to the back of the recreational vehicle, to where the shower was located, and ran a little bit of water in the sink. The water was so severely rationed in the mine that each of them only had enough for a three minute shower each evening. They could have showered in the morning, sure. But they didn’t want to lie in each other’s arms at night smelling like sweaty pigs. So washing up in a sink each morning would have to do.

  He had Hannah to thank for the RV. It was her idea. He would have just bought a truckload of plywood and two by fours and built temporary shelters for each of the mine’s inhabitants.

  “No,” she’d said. “It’ll be stressful enough on everyone we love. They’ll have enough to deal with without having to live in some ugly wooden shack for seven long years. Let’s give them someplace to go each night where they can at least pretend they’re at home. With pictures on the walls and carpet on the floors. It’s the least we can do for them.”

  As usual, she was right. So they used a good chunk of their lottery winnings to buy identical RVs for their relatives and friends who followed them into the mine.

  It had struck him then that he wouldn’t have been able to pull this whole thing off without Hannah.

  Heck, without her, there would have been no reason to. He’d have done what millions of people were doing this very minute around the world. He’d be dying. At his own hand. Because for most people in the world, it was the best option they had.

  Hannah walked up behind him and placed a hand on his bare shoulder.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “For what?”

  “For making life worth living.”

  He could see her smile in the mirror over the vanity.

  “I don’t know what that means, but I like the sound of it. And you’re welcome. Are you going to shave this morning?”

  “I don’t know, why?”

  “Don’t. I think I’m beginning to like the rugged
look on you. It makes you look tough.”

  He laughed.

  “Oh, really?”

  He pulled on his jeans as the kitchen began ringing their old fashioned dinner bell. It was a signal for one and all that breakfast was ready.

  “Come on, doll. Let’s go eat.”

  They left their RV and walked, holding hands, to the dining bay. Halfway there, Hannah paused and drew a breath. She dropped Mark’s hand and held her expanded midsection.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yes. I’m fine. Little sailor just decided he wants to roll around in there. I think he’s telling me he’s ready to come out and join the party.”

  “Well, tell him to wait until after we finish breakfast, will you?”

  The pair walked to the dining area and to the kitchen’s serving line at the back of Bay 9. Mark’s mom Phyllis came running out of the kitchen to hug them both. She saw Hannah holding her stomach as they walked up and couldn’t contain her excitement.

  “You’re getting close. It’s just a matter of days now. I can’t wait.”

  “Nope,” Hannah replied. “Neither can I. It’s going to be a great adventure for all of us.”

  Mark wanted no part of baby talk when he was starving to death. He asked, “What’s for breakfast, Mom?”

  “Your favorite, dear. Scrambled eggs and grits. With jellied toast on the side.”

  Mark’s mouth watered as one of Phyllis’ kitchen helpers handed him a tray.

  He enjoyed having eggs and grits for breakfast for two reasons. First of all, he loved both of them, and had since he was a boy. Second, since they were both relatively low in calories, that probably meant his mom and her staff of workers would work some magic and come up with a snack later in the day. Like maybe a brownie or a couple of cookies. And even now, although he was a grown man in every other way, he still had his little boy’s lust for sweets.

  Phyllis and her staff were becoming experts at counting calories. When Mark and Hannah began stocking food for their long stay in the mine, they very wisely counted calories instead of boxes. They carefully computed how many calories were in each item they stocked, and made sure there were enough total calories to provide each person 1800 per day. That’s what doctors said the human body needed to survive. And survival, after all, was the reason they were all here.

  Now it was up to Phyllis and her crew to plan three meals accordingly.

  It wasn’t an easy task. They had to determine how best to divide up those 1800 daily calories into three relatively healthy meals. Using too many calories might mean running out of food before they were able to break out of the mine. And that just wouldn’t do.

  Conversely, too few calories and people would run down, and slowly starve to death.

  So every night, after the evening meal, Phyllis and her staff sat down with their calculators and cookbooks and laid out a menu plan for the following day. And even though they’d only been in the mine for a short time, they were becoming very proficient at it.

  Mark and Hannah took their trays and sat down at a table next to her friend Sarah.

  Bryan, Mark’s brother and Sarah’s boyfriend, was already at the drink station pouring himself and Sarah some coffee.

  “You guys want anything, big brother?”

  “Coffee for me, thanks.”

  Hannah looked up.

  “Iced tea, please. Thank you, Bryan.”

  Mark placed his tray on the table and walked over to the huge whiteboard that took up a good sized part of the western wall in Bay 9.

  He took a black marker and an eraser, and went through what had become a morning ritual.

  In the lower right corner of the white board he’d made three boxes the day after they came into the mine.

  The first box was marked “DAYS IN” with permanent marker. A large number 6 below it was in erasable marker. Mark erased the 6 and replaced it with a 7.

  The second box was marked “DAYS TO GO.” Mark erased the number 2549 and replaced it with 2548. The number was just a guess at this point, of course. But it gave everyone a target to shoot for, and it could be modified later.

  One thing was certain, though. They had a long way to go.

  The third box took a bit more effort. Across the top were the words “THOUGHT FOR THE DAY.” Its purpose was to offer a bit of encouragement to help get everyone through the day. A scripture, a joke, or just some kind words.

  Today, he wrote “Congratulations. We’ve all survived our first week here. God is good.”

  His brother Bryan, who’d once toyed with the thought of becoming a minister, looked on approvingly. Then the pair joined their women for breakfast, and to talk about the day ahead.

  After breakfast, as they walked to the livestock bay to gather eggs for the kitchen, Hannah noted a sadness in her husband’s voice.

  “Do you want to talk about it now?”

  “Talk about what?”

  “Your dream. Or whatever else is bothering you.”

  He stopped and looked into her eyes.

  “I’ve had the same dream several times now. I’ve been dreaming that despite all our planning, despite everything we did to prepare, that we missed some things. Some very important things. The dream is not specific. But I see everyone here very sad. And I get the feeling that we missed something, and something really bad happens.”

  “Honey, you know we couldn’t plan for every single possibility. We did the best we could given the time we had. Whatever does or doesn’t happen in the years ahead, we will weather this storm together. And we’ll survive.”

  “You promise?”

  “You’re darn tootin’ I promise.”

  Chapter 2

  Another week went by, and it seemed there were still a thousand and one things they had to do. Saris had hit earth exactly two weeks before, and outside most of the earth’s population was either already dead or getting very close to it.

  Inside the mine, though, these forty people were still trying to make the adjustment, and were settling into a routine.

  “Hey,” Bryan said. “I finally got a volunteer to help out at the water plant.”

  Mark asked “Who?”

  “Brad. He’ll do a good job. He’s old school like me. He’ll make sure the job gets done right.

  Sarah almost choked on her breakfast and looked at Bryan.

  “Old school? You? Mr. Party Animal? The guy who smuggled 12 cases of tequila in here and added it to our essential supplies?”

  Bryan chuckled and said “Hey, if we’re going to be here for seven years, that’s seven new year’s eves. And we can’t ring in a new year without having something to celebrate with.”

  Hannah was a bit more somber.

  “Well, personally, I think every year we survive this hell is a celebration unto itself. But I agree with you, Bryan. Brad will do a good job. How are the rest of the volunteer positions going? Is everything filled yet?”

  “Everything except the power plant helper. I think we can probably talk Robert into doing it. He’s got some electrician experience from way back when. Right now he’s helping John with security, though, so it’ll be a few weeks before he’s available.”

  “How long do you think we’ll have to be on heightened security?”

  Mark said, “I’m going to talk to John about it on my way to the farm. I’ll get his opinion, but I’m thinking until the snow gets too deep for people to drive. As long as the roads are still clear, anybody can just drive right up to our door and start trying to figure out how to get in. Once the roads are out of commission, they’ll have to hike to us in deep snow. And we’re four miles from the nearest house. That’s when I’ll finally feel safe enough to scale back on security a bit.”

  Sami, Sarah’s best friend, stepped over to their table.

  She asked, “Have y’all seen the latest on CNN?”

  “No.”

  “Come on over when you get finished eating. It’s getting worse and worse out there. And CNN is saying they’ll onl
y be on the air for a few more days.”

  Sarah went into a funk. In past days she’d stayed glued to the television for hours at a time. As depressing as it was, it was also… fascinating. The whole world was crashing down around them. Millions of people were dying, and those still alive were becoming increasingly desperate.

  But she knew that someday, she and the others in the mine would be the only surviving witnesses for hundreds of miles. It was important to her that she was able to give her unborn children, and their children, an accurate picture of what happened when Saris 7 hit the earth.

  And besides, there wasn’t much else to do.

  She kissed Bryan and said “See you later.” Then she looked at Hannah and asked if she wanted to come.

  Hannah said “You guys go ahead. I’ll join you in a bit.”

  Bryan left too, saying he needed to refuel generator number one and do preventative maintenance on generator number two. Until he got his backup away from the security detail and trained, he was the only certified electrician available to keep the power flowing and the lights on. For the next few weeks, he’d be a busy man.

  “Well, here we are, alone again, sailor boy.” Hannah said. What’s on your agenda this morning?

  “Well, I have my daily date with the other woman in my life. She just can’t stand to go through her morning without my tender touch. I’m going to pull a few more pallets of cattle feed out of Bay 16 and put it closer to the livestock so I don’t have to lug it so far. And, I have to work with Mike and Stewart to teach them how to drain the gray water tanks on the RVs. I walked past one yesterday that was overflowing, and we can’t afford to waste the water.”

  Hannah leaned over and kissed her husband.

  “Well, you go ahead and see Sally and caress her the way she likes it. Just don’t get so attached to her that I start feeling jealous.”

  “Don’t worry, baby. You’ll always be the number one star on my hit parade.”

  Hannah went to join the girls and catch the latest developments on CNN.

  Mark walked to the livestock area in Bay 17, grabbed a bucket and stool and walked to the corner of the bay where a three hundred pound jersey cow stood with her udder full, ready for her daily milking.