One Second After (After #1)

by William R. Forstchen

Here I am, a soldier of twenty years. Saw some action, but the only casualties were the Iraqis, never my own men.

“I taught you and your mom to shoot. And remember what I said about what was most dangerous.” “A woman with a gun who doesn’t have the guts to use it,” she recited. Mary had always said it was such a sexist line.

He stiffened a bit; it was the first time she was even being slightly direct. All the “female”-related issues he had left to the care of Grandma Jen, including “the talks,” other than the traditional old-style father routine of glaring at any boy who started to hang around.

“Yeah, some sci-fi guy wrote a book about it, my boy gave me the book and it seemed on the mark with all of this.

“Global warming, sure, spend hundreds of billions on what might have been a threat, though a lot say it wasn’t.

Everyone was becoming agitated. John realized that for the last fifteen hours they had been waiting for “someone else” to tell them what to do. The reality was beginning to hit, that there just might no longer be “someone else.”

John caught the eye of Liz, the pharmacist. She was in her early thirties and, John always thought, about the most attractive pharmacist he had ever laid eyes on.

“You forget how fragile we really are, the most pampered generations in the history of humanity. Heart attacks, quite a few just damn stupid accidents, at least eight murders, and several suicides. To put it coldly, my friends, all the ones who should have died years ago, would have died years ago without beta-blockers, stents, angioplasties, pacemakers, exotic medications, well, now they’re dying all at once.”

They have plans as well to see if any ham radio operators have old tube sets, maybe Morse code.” “Sounds like that movie Independence Day,” Jeremiah interjected.

dropped dead last night just hauling a bucket of water back up to his house.” “Damn, he was only forty-three,” Kate said. “And fifty pounds overweight with a cholesterol of two-eighty,” Kellor said. “I warned him. Well, so much for too much fast food.

She had sat in his 101 class only the semester before. Cute, yes, a bit sexy looking with her long blond hair, blue eyes, and tight blouses, but still just a kid to him now. His own daughter was not much more than two years younger.

A woman who reminded him a bit of Makala on the first night, with a very sexy gray business jacket and skirt, stockings still on but absolutely shredded, and heels knocked off her shoes to try to make them more walkable, was limping along. She caught his eye, forced a smile, and brushed back her greasy, limp hair. “Hi, my name’s Carol,” she said, and moved towards the median barrier, her hand extended. He could see the lost world in her. Sharp professional-looking woman, intelligent face, sexy and using it to her advantage, the hand extended for a warm handshake to start the meeting … which she was used to having go her way.

Food, bulk food, just a fifty-pound bag of rice or flour, shoes, batteries, an additional test kit for Jennifer, damn it, even birth control for Elizabeth, dog food, a water filter so they didn’t have to boil what they now pulled out of the swamp green pool … I should have had those on hand.