Life Goes On, page 17
part #7 of The Yellowstone Event Series
“From here on out, your recovery is pretty much up to you. Once you walk out that door you’re out of my hands. I feel like the proud parent sending his little girl off to kindergarten.”
He looked Rocki right in the eye.
“Don’t let me down, young lady.”
“I won’t, Doc. Thanks for everything you’ve done.”
“My pleasure.”
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Thank you for reading
THE YELLOWSTONE EVENT
Book 7 : Life Goes On
Please enjoy this preview of
THE YELLOWSTONE EVENT
Book 8: Everything Has Changed
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Dr. Wayne Hamlin leaned back in his lounge chair and tried to get comfortable.
“This is kinda nice,” he whispered to Julie. “I could get used to this. Where are we going next?”
She looked at the pamphlet.
“Burg Eltz. The Eltz Castle. This says it’s a medieval castle built in the 12th century and is one of only three castles in all of Europe which is still occupied by the original family.
“It says that thirty three generations of the Eltz family have continually resided in the castle and it was one of just four castles along the Mosel River that wasn’t destroyed by allied bombing during the Second World War.”
That was as far as she read.
She stopped when Wayne started snoring.
This was Wayne’s first cruise, and he’d been going on and on about what a great time he was having, and how he was learning so much about German culture and history.
Now granted, this was a river cruise and not an ocean voyage.
But river cruises can be absolutely amazing too. A lot of people prefer them. The boats are smaller, there are fewer passengers, and they have more frequent stops.
Oh, and seldom any hurricanes or bad Atlantic storms.
It had been seven months since Yellowstone blew its top.
With the exception of the United States, the whole world was more or less over it. Nations had healed their scars and moved on.
And the oddest thing happened.
The four wars which had been going on in various places around the globe had all wound down and were brought to their ends in the wake of Yellowstone.
For the first time in recorded history there wasn’t a single war going on anywhere in the world.
Yellowstone showed the world that fighting and killing one another for political reasons was just stupid. The earth had the power and ability to wipe out all of mankind in a single act.
The world’s population knew that now.
They were awakened to the fact than man is a very frail creature.
And that they had better things to do than fight wars.
Instead, most of the nations of the world banded together.
Most, because there were a few which just stood back and watched.
There are always a few nations which just stand back and watch while stronger, more willing nations carry more than their fair share of the burden.
It’s always been that way.
So some of the weaker nation-states watched from a distance as the rest of the world worked together to bring mankind back from the brink.
They developed new ways to grow valuable food sources; developed new ways to rid the soil of the poisoned ash. Worked together on the relocation of millions of volcano refugees.
Now, after just seven short months, the world outside the United States was more or less back to normal and humming along again.
As for the United States, that was ground zero.
Getting the United States back to normal would take longer.
But it was making good progress.
Wayne and Julie Hamlin hadn’t been back to the states since they flew to Germany just after the eruption.
They were still in tourist mode.
They were still visiting every city in Europe which struck their fancy.
Oh, they’d eventually go back to the good old U.S.A.
But there was absolutely no hurry.
But wait a minute… what’s that loud screeching noise?
It’s the United States government, putting the brakes on the Hamlins’ plans to stay away from the land of their births.
Wayne got maybe two hours’ sleep in his deck chair when the cell phone in his pocket started ringing.
It was the Federal Emergency Management Agency in Washington, D.C.
“Hello, Dr. Hamlin?”
“Yes. Yes, this is Dr. Hamlin. Who am I speaking to?”
“This is Robert Taylor. I’m the lead volcanologist in FEMA’s risk assessment division.
“I wonder if I might have a couple hours of your time, perhaps the day after tomorrow?”
“I’m afraid not, Mr. Taylor. I’m not in Washington. I’m not even in the states. I’m on a cruise ship on the Mosel River in the Eifel region in Germany.
“Further, I have no desire to come running back to Washington and cut my vacation short.”
“No sir. I don’t blame you. And I’m not asking you to.
“What I’m advocating, doctor… well, with your permission, I’ll come to you.”
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The Yellowstone Event Book 8: Everything Has Changed
will be available worldwide in September 2019.
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If you enjoyed
THE YELLOWSTONE EVENT
Book 7: Life Goes On
you might also enjoy
ALONE: Book 1
Facing Armageddon
Dave and Sarah Anna Speer had been preparing for Armageddon for years. They thought they’d covered all the bases, and had planned for everything.
It never occurred to them that the single thing they had no control over was the timing.
Sarah was on an airplane with her young daughters when solar storms bombarded the earth with electromagnetic pulses. Everything powered by electricity or batteries was instantly shorted out and would never work again.
Dave was suddenly alone.
He was also unsure whether his family was dead or alive. He assumed that the airplane stopped working and plunged from the sky. But it was scheduled to land in Kansas City at almost the exact time everything stopped working.
Had they landed in time? Was it possible they survived?
This is the story of a man facing Armageddon alone. It chronicles the things he does to survive in a newly vicious world.
It also includes Dave’s desperate and poignant diary entries to his wife. Just in case she did survive, and somehow makes it back to him to find he didn’t make it himself.
From the author of last year’s best sellers “Final Dawn” and “Countdown to Armageddon” comes a new tale of one man’s journey through hell… alone.
Chapter 1:
Dave couldn’t get the tune out of his head. He’d heard it all morning long, off and on, playing quietly in the back of his skull. And it was driving him crazy.
Oh, it wasn’t unpleasant. It was a happy little ditty. At least it sounded that way. It sounded more like sunshine and smiles, rather than rain clouds and foreboding.
Finally, he’d had enough.
“Okay, let’s play a game,” he announced while looking in the rearview mirror at Lindsey and Beth.
“I’ll hum you a tune, and the first one to guess the tune gets a candy bar when we get to the airport.”
Sarah looked at him from the passenger seat. With that look.
“Excuse me, mister? You’re going to get the girls all hyped up on sugar just before I take them on a four hour plane ride?”
“Not both of them, honey. Just the one who guesses the name of the song.”
“Uh… no. If that song is still bugging you, just hum it. If any one of us guesses it, you can buy each of us a cinnabon.”
The girls laughed. Beth gave Lindsey a high five. Lindsey said, “All right! Go, Mom!”
Dave coughed. At first he had no words.
Then he found some, and stated the obvious.
“Why is it okay to get all three of you hyped up on sugar but not okay to do it to just one of you?”
“Because you know I have a thing for cinnabons. And I’m the mom. So that makes me the boss.”
Lindsey broke out in uncontrollable laughter from the back seat, and Beth said, “Ooooohhh, Dad, you just got owned.”
“I don’t know if it’s worth it. I mean, those things aren’t cheap, you know.”
“Oh, we know, don’t we girls?”
Two heads nodded up and down behind her.
“But, Dave, they are soooo worth the price. And I’ll give you a bite. And think how sweet I’ll taste when you kiss me goodbye.”
Beth made a gagging sound.
“Besides, if you want us to help you with that song, you have to pay the piper. It’s only fair. And if you don’t, it’ll continue to drive you crazy for days. Maybe even the whole week we’re gone. And we’d feel so bad for you if that happened.”
“Yeah, you’re just oozing with sympathy for my plight.”
Sarah smiled and blew him a kiss. She was even more gorgeous now than the day they’d met thirteen years before. It suddenly dawned on him that he was an incredibly lucky man, to have such a beautiful wife and family. And that the price of three cinnabons wasn’t that great, in the grand scheme of things.
In other words, he played right into Sarah’s hands. She knew he would, as soon as she let the kiss fly.
“Okay, here goes.”
Dave started humming the tune that had played in his mind a thousand times since the previous evening.
It took the three of them no more than ten notes. They’d have been “Name That Tune” champions in another era.
All three of them blurted out, almost simultaneously, “It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.”
Then Dave felt incredibly stupid.
“Of course. How could I have not known that? The old Mr. Rogers theme song. Sheesh! Now I really feel dumb.”
Sarah said, “Did you know that Fred Rogers was a Green Beret in Vietnam, and wore his red sweater to hide all of his tattoos?”
Dave scoffed.
“Where did you hear that?”
“On the internet. Why?”
“That story’s been going around for years. It was debunked a long time ago. Mr. Rogers was a fine man, but he was never a Green Beret.”
“Oh, yeah? Where did you hear that?”
“On the internet.”
It was too much for Lindsey.
“Gee whiz, would you two stop believing what you read on the internet? Nearly all of it is garbage.”
She turned to her little sister.
“Do we have to teach these old people everything?”
Beth said nothing but nodded her head decisively. She was in firm agreement.
Dave was a man of his word, and after the family checked in at the ticket kiosk and Sarah and the girls got their boarding passes, they made a beeline to Cinnabon.
“Daddy, are you going to walk us to the gate?”
“No, honey, I can’t go through security without a boarding pass, so I’ll walk you as far as I can and then you can give me a great big hug and a kiss.”
“I wish you could come with us.”
“I know, sugar. I wish I could too. But with two of the guys being sick at work, they just can’t let me take vacation right now. Uncle Tommy will understand, and we can go fishing another time. And you’ll be so busy helping Aunt Susan get everything ready for the wedding, you won’t even have time to miss me.”
“Bet I will!”
Sarah looked at him longingly. They were going to be apart for their twelfth anniversary. It would be the first one they’d missed.
It was as if he could read her mind.
“We’ll do something special when you get back, I promise. We’ll get a sitter and go spend the weekend at the lake. Just the two of us.”
“I’d like that.”
He walked the three special ladies in his life to the TSA checkpoint and got his hugs and kisses.
He held Sarah close and told her he loved her.
Little Beth rolled her eyes and said, “No mush, you two.”
Dave paid her no mind. He looked Sarah in the eyes and said, “It’ll seem like forever before I see you again.”
Neither of them had a clue how true those words would be.
ALONE: Book 1
Facing Armageddon
is available now on Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble Booksellers, selected Hastings book stores, and at other fine booksellers.
Darrell Maloney, Life Goes On
