Third wave a global apoc.., p.1
Third Wave: A Global Apocalyptic Disaster, page 1
Third Wave
A Global Apocalyptic Disaster
Copyright © 2023 Jacqueline Druga
All rights reserved
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Big thanks to Paula, Ruth, Connie and of course, Felicia. Your support is invaluable.
Cover design by: Art Jacqueline Druga
To Felicia, I can’t thank you enough for pulling through for me. You are one of a kind and the best! I am so happy we connected all those years ago.
Introduction
Just a super quick note. For the fun of it, I decided to use titles of my own books as chapter titles. Every chapter title in this novel is indeed the title of one of my books. See if you can figure out how many you recognize.
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Introduction
ONE – IN RETROSPECT
TWO – UNTIL
THREE – THE FOLLOWING
FOUR – THE PASSENGER
FIVE – ON BORROWED TIME
SIX – CHARMED LIFE
SEVEN – WORDS WITH MY FATHER
EIGHT – WHAT TOMORROW BRINGS
NINE – FAULTED
TEN – Bleak
ELEVEN – The Calling
TWELVE - UNDER THE GRAY SKIES
THIRTEEN – TERMS
FOURTEEN – THREE MILES OUT
FIFTEEN – BLURRED LINES
SIXTEEN – CROSSING PATHS
SEVENTEEN – THREE MILES OUT
EIGHTTEEN - BELIEVERS
NINETEEN – GONE
TWENTY – THE FORGOTTEN
TWENTY-ONE - STATIC
TWENTY-TWO - BLEAKER
TWENTY-THREE – AWAKENING
TWENTY-FOUR – THE CALLING
TWENTY-FIVE – CONSIGNING FATE
TWENTY-SIX – THE THIRD WAVE
TWENTY-SEVEN - TORN
TWENTY-EIGHT - AFTERMATH
TWENTY-NINE – RESET
THIRTY – LAST DAYS
THIRTY-ONE – GROUNDED
THIRTY-TWO – THREE DAYS AFTER IMPACT
THRITY-THREE - TORN
THIRTY-FOUR – A PATH TO UTOPIA
Books By This Author
ONE – IN RETROSPECT
“Daddy, don’t let go!”
He envisioned her scared, her sobbing voice in his head. He imagined her saying this as her tiny hands gripped tightly to him for dear life.
“Daddy, don’t let go!”
“I got you, baby, I got you.”
But she didn’t say those words, her actions did. She wasn’t old enough to talk. At thirteen months old, her vocabulary was limited to, “Dada,” “oh,” and “Mama,” the last of which she repeated over and over while crying.
“Mama, Mama, Mama.”
She sobbed as if he couldn’t give her the comfort she needed, and at that moment, he truly couldn’t.
None of this was supposed to happen. As a husband, father, and extremely neurotic human being, there wasn’t a thing they would do, or road they would take that he didn’t investigate first. The pros and cons of everything, and that wasn’t the least of it.
Like his name, Joldewin. It was almost intuitively that his parents gave him a name that meant creative, imaginative, and dreamer. Because he was all three.
These traits always got him into trouble. He had a keen intuition; others called him psychic, though he denied that. Usually it came forth through a dream and he ended up doing what he called a “Final Destination” series of events.
He would think it out to the worst possible outcome: “I die on the trip to town. I see it. I take the bus, wear the wrong shoes, stand too close to the curb, and some insane person pushes me into the line of traffic. So, I won’t take the bus.”
That was Joldewin. Or Jolly, as everyone called him.
His habits of overthinking in a pessimistic way drove his wife nuts at times, but she stopped arguing with him the moment he became right.
Jolly knew she thought he was just being jealous. He wasn’t. They had known each other through church when he first came to America from England with his parents when he was eight years old. They dated in high school, broke up until after college, then a simple social media post reunited them and they married six months later. It took them ten years to have their baby, Marni. It wasn’t because they didn’t want a child, it just never happened. Jolly always thought fate was waiting until they were both settled in their careers.
No one knew him better than his wife, Catherine. He begged her not to go with the girls to the club, to stay home or go somewhere else. He could see it. He could feel it. He couldn’t breathe.
She went anyway.
He paced most of the night, feeling it in his gut something was wrong. He texted her and she told him to stop. Then she didn’t reply anymore.
Jolly did his anxiety breathing lessons, but it didn’t work.
It was ineffective because he was correct. Someone, thinking they were funny, yelled out, “Fire!” in a crowded club. Not only did it cause panic, everyone raced to the door. Nine people died in the rush to escape, crushed.
Catherine didn’t doubt him again.
What happened this time? Why didn’t he see it?
He did what he did every road trip, even more so this time because they had the baby. A four-hour drive to Gettysburg. He researched the best times to drive, what road to take, what road not to take. Route 30, or as some called it, Lincoln Highway, off the Chambersburg exit was a source of contention for him and Catherine. She argued it would save them time, which it would, but it was a winding mountain road.
Jolly did his research. It often was heavily foggy and dangerous. Guardrails missing, high elevation, and at times it looked as if a person could drop off the face of the Earth.
So they agreed, if it was a clear day, they would take that road.
It was clear. A beautiful early summer day, clear skies. The baby had been fussy, so taking some time off the trip would be helpful.
He didn’t have any dreams; he didn’t have any bad feelings. Jolly went ahead, confident.
Until that bend.
Nothing he did was wrong. He drove at a safe speed, navigated the bends with caution, didn’t speak but only a few words, didn’t listen to music, and even refrained from glancing in the rearview mirror at Marni, who sat behind Catherine. Looking back, he could only see her partial reflection in the mirror.
Jolly concentrated solely on the road, eyes ahead.
“There’s a restaurant, the Mountain House,” Catherine said. “It’s ahead on the top. Do you wanna stop?”
“Nope. Let’s get off this road.”
That was his focus. He was in control, but that didn’t mean he could control other drivers. At a hairpin bend, going west, Catherine announced that restaurant.
“Look, there it is,” she said. “Oh, looks like a biker bar.”
Jolly didn’t look. He just nodded and then …
WHAM.
The red midsize SUV coming from the east took that hairpin turn and didn’t navigate. Maybe they didn’t expect it or were distracted. None of it mattered because they slammed right into the rear driver’s side door of Jolly’s station wagon.
Jolly felt the impact and the force of the hit. It whiplashed his head, and the wagon did a fish tailspin, causing Catherine to scream. He cracked his forehead on the steering wheel, rendering him out of it for a few seconds. His vehicle came to a stop and Jolly lifted his head.
The baby cried which made him happy, it meant she was fine.
But Catherine was quiet.
He looked over at her. Her head rested against the cracked passenger window. Blood poured down her face and absorbed into her shirt.
“Catherine,” he called out, then reached out.
Creak.
The car moved.
No, it teetered.
Creak.
It was the scariest sound of his life. Looking outward through the spiderweb crack on the window he saw they weren’t just pushed off the road, they were balancing on the edge of the mountain.
“Oh my God.”
He had to get his wife and child out of the car.
The back end was going first, he knew it. He quickly unsnapped his seatbelt.
“Don’t move!” a man shouted.
Jolly shifted his eyes.
A taller man in a tee shirt with short gray hair and a short beard stood at his window.
“Don’t move,” he repeated. “Help is coming, we’re gonna try to balance the car, okay?”
Jolly nodded.
“Please don’t move.” He lifted his hands, then turned his head.
Don’t move. Jolly was panicking. He could barely breathe, not to mention see with the blood dripping in his eyes.
He shifted a glance to the stranger.
The man held up a finger, then his eyes widened, and he turned his head again. “There’s a baby! Hurry, there’s a baby in here!”
Jolly couldn’t hear the rest of what he was saying, but clearly he was speaking to the help that had arrived.
“Okay, buddy,” the man said, “here’s what we’re gonna do. You can’t move. We’re gonna open the back door. Got it? Tiny’s gonna get in to get that baby. We can’t chance you getting out. You’re the only weight on this side. If you get out, this car may tumble.”
Jolly understood. They were going to try to add weight to the driver’s side.
“We’re gonna try to hold it back.”
Again, a nod. Where were the police? The fire department? Were they so far from help that strangers were trying to do the rescue? Jolly was grateful for them.
He heard the faint counting buried under his daughter’s screams. Then the back door opened at the same time as Jolly’s. Slow and steady.
It appeared that three men were trying to hold the car.
Jolly heard the creak sound again, only this time the car felt less teetering.
He lifted his eyes to the rear-view mirror and saw the man in the back seat. He didn’t look all that tiny, but he wasn’t huge. He had large scissors, or some sort, and his hands were over the car seat.
“Don’t worry, fella,” said the man in the back seat. “I’m a volunteer firefighter. We’re getting you and your family …” Tiny grunted, snip, “…out.” Another snip and he moved his hands slowly to the car seat. “I got her.” He pivoted slowly. “Someone, grab her.”
Jolly closed his eyes in relief, especially when the cries came from outside the car.
“Okay, here’s the deal,” the man outside his door said. “We’re all holding on as best as we can, putting weight on this side of the car. What’s your name?”
“Jolly.”
“Jolly, hey, my name is Johnnie,” he said. “The fire department is on their way. They’ll use what’s called a winch and cable to lock onto this car and it won’t go anywhere. Until then, I need you to be absolutely still until they arrive. The only movement I want you to make is shutting off the car. Can you do that?”
“I can. How’s my daughter?” Jolly asked, then shut off the ignition.
“She’s fine. She’s not hurt.”
“My wife, I think she’s dead.”
Johnnie shook his head. “No, her chest is moving. We’ll get you both to the hospital. He lifted his head upward. “You hear that?”
Jolly did.
The sound of the approaching sirens grew louder. Jolly turned his head to look at Catherine. “Help is coming,” he told her.
When he saw the reflection of the flashing lights, heard the deafening sound of sirens, Jolly was overwhelmed with relief.
It was done, they were saved.
That was his thought process. He could still hear his daughter crying. It didn’t sound like a hurt cry, more scared like.
Jolly kept his head perfectly rested back. Voices meshed together, the car creaked, but the victorious sound of machinery clanking let him know it wouldn’t be long.
Johnnie stayed by the car even when the firefighter approached.
“Jolly, is it?” the firefighter said. “We’re hooking up the car. I see you aren’t strapped in.”
“I took it off,” Jolly said. “Should I put it back on?”
“No.” The firefighter reached in. “We’re going to get you out first, then your wife, as soon as the winch is secure. Got that?”
“I do.”
A soft whimper came from Catherine.
Jolly quickly looked at her as she lifted her head.
“Jolly?” She winced, then her voice grew louder. “Jolly?”
“Catherine, don’t move. Not one muscle, not one inch,” Jolly told her. “The baby is fine. She’s out of the car.”
“Oh, God, oh, God,” her voice raised in panic. She lifted her hands, looked down at the blood, and immediately shifted in her seat.
The station wagon tilted and moved.
Catherine screamed.
“Please don’t move,” Jolly begged.
Catherine launched into some sort of hysterical state, jolting around, not understanding the consequences of her actions. She fought to get free from her belt and scrabbled for her door handle.
It flung open and Catherine had to have seen how far of a drop it was. She screamed again.
“Catherine, no!” Jolly cried out.
In the distance, he heard a man shout. “Vehicle’s moving! The line’s not secure! The line isn’t secure! One minute!”
Then it all moved to slow motion.
Blood rushed to his ears, his head pounding with his heartbeat. Jolly felt one hand on his arm the other on his back at the same time Catherine looked at him.
Her eyes widened in complete, utter horror.
The car jolted again and this time it didn’t stop.
As the station wagon tipped over the cliff, Jolly did not.
Whoever caught him was fast and he was pulled at the same time the car let loose.
“Noooo!” Jolly scream, his eyes staying connected to Catherine’s as the wagon dropped twenty feet, slammed into a tree, and ejected her.
Hysterically screaming, Jolly was pulled back, and he fell to the ground. He quickly got back up again, trying to go forward, but the firefighter stopped him, and someone handed him Marni.
Jolly was confused, enraged, and scared beyond belief. It was so surreal, all of it felt like a dream.
From where he stood, he could only see part of the wagon, and that was only the underbelly. Where was Catherine?
Marni cried in his arms, her hands clutching him in her baby way of not wanting him to let go.
Between her wailing screams, she sobbed out, “Mama, Mama.”
As Jolly held his child for dear life on the edge of that mountain highway, all he kept thinking was, “I know, baby, I know. I want Mama too.”
TWO – UNTIL
It was a whirlwind.
How many times did they tell Jolly to step back?
He understood the reason, but he also wanted to see what was going on.
He watched his wife drop with the car then eject like a ragdoll, flopping in the air, landing who knows where.
The paramedics took Marni briefly, they wanted to check her out. Jolly absolutely agreed, he was focused on that cliff, or rather the drop in the mountain. The bend started at the edge of the restaurant parking lot.
Where was the guardrail? Would that have mattered?
He heard the sirens of the ambulance take off. At first he panicked, thinking it was Marni, then he heard crying and saw her still being tended to.
How long had it been? How long since rescue workers ascended over the hill?
He turned back around and that man Johnnie was approaching. It was the first time Jolly got to look at him outside the car. He was probably the same age as Jolly’s father, sixties maybe, a jeans and tee shirt guy.
“Who was in the ambulance?” Jolly asked. “Was it Catherine?”
“No,” Johnnie answered. “It was the other driver. A woman. The rescue workers made it to your car.”
“But they haven’t found Catherine?”
“No,” said Johnnie. “No, but they will.”
“How can they not?” Jolly asked so desperately.
“It’s pretty thick down there.” Johnnie laid a hand on his shoulder. “Let the paramedics check you out. That gash is pretty deep.”
Jolly shook his head adamantly, then saw Johnnie’s eyes stray.
A woman cleared her throat and then said gently, “Here.” She handed him a bottle of water and extended a rag to his head. “Since you won’t let them look at you.”
“Thank you, this is very kind.” Jolly immediately opened the water and drank it. “I have to be here when they bring her up.”
“Do you need anything?” she asked.
“No, I …” Jolly blinked. “A phone. I need to call my mother.”
Without hesitation, the woman handed him hers.
“Thank you, again.” Jolly took the phone and then looked at Johnnie. “Thank you as well. You’re just too—"
“Call your mom,” Johnnie said. “I know if you were my kid, I would want that call.”
Nodding, Jolly stared at the phone. Even though he wasn’t a child, like anyone, he needed to hear his mother’s voice. He didn’t have to think long about the number, they had the same number at the restaurant for a decade. He dialed.
His mother, as expected, answered the phone. Immediately every emotion bubbled in Jolly, and his voice cracked as he fought back sobbing. “Mom.”
