A Bad Day (Book 1): A Bad Day Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Skeeter - 17 years ago, September 2nd Present day

  David - Evening, Mon Sep 2nd

  Turnello - Earlier that morning, Mon Sep 2nd

  Jim - Morning, Mon Sep 2nd

  Turnello makes some phone calls- Late Morning, Mon Sep 2

  The observatory - Night, Mon Sep 2

  Impact - Turnello - Night, Mon Sep 2

  Impact - Jim - Late night, Mon Sep 2

  Post Impact - David - Early Morning, Tue Sep 3

  Post Impact - Jim - Early Morning, Tue Sep 3

  Post Impact - Turnello - Morning, Tue Sep 3

  Starting the walk home - Jim - Morning, Tue Sep 3

  Having a look around - Turnello - Morning, Tue Sep 3

  David goes for a walk in the desert - Morning, Tue Sep 3

  Turnello gets into a little trouble - Late Morning, Tue Sep 3

  Jim meets Bad Ass and Tiny - Late Morning, Tue Sep 3

  Getting back home with Raj - Early afternoon, Tue Sep 3

  David, Ivy and Skeeter witness the aliens - Early Evening Tue Sep 3

  Turnello and Raj make plans - Early Evening Tue Sep 3

  Jim and the Road Queens - Early Evening Tue Sep 3

  Ivy fends off the Aliens - Night Tue Sep 3

  Jim's escape from the Road Queens - Night Tue Sep 3

  Turnello and Raj plan an escape route - Early Morning Wed Sep 4

  Trapped on the bridge - Morning Wed Sep 4

  Jim heads for home - Morning Wed Sep 4

  David and Ivy on the Alien Ship - Morning Wed Sep 4

  A Bad Day

  Part 1

  By Thomas DiMauro

  Edited by Tina Winograd

  Copyright © 2014 Thomas DiMauro

  All rights reserved.

  Cover image and design by Thomas DiMauro

  To Sheila whose love and support made this book possible.

  To John for your lifelong friendship and inspiration.

  Special thanks to Tina who went out of her way to make me a better writer.

  Skeeter - 17 years ago, September 2nd Present day

  Skeeter and April pulled into the Aspen Vista overlook well after midnight. A waxing, gibbous moon shone far above the horizon bringing the dark valley into relief.

  Skeeter hadn't noticed the alien ship in the barren distance and had no idea this chance encounter would change the future of the planet. Being eighteen, all he cared about was getting high and getting laid.

  He and April sparked their own joints. Then Skeeter reclined his seat and unzipped his jeans. April had developed amazing dexterity with her left hand, he thought, as he lay back and puffed.

  April stared glassy-eyed at the stars, indifferent to the affair as she smoked. Done after a few minutes, he pulled the seat up and reached into the glove compartment for napkins. He cleaned himself and checked the steering wheel as he hated coming across a sticky surprise when making a turn later.

  Each had a pretty good buzz going so neither felt sure if the pair of flashing blue lights in the valley wasn't a delusion. Something about them looked strange. The way they moved. Like, floating.

  "Whoa! You see them lights, Skeeter?"

  "Yeah. What the fuck is it?"

  "Fucked if I know. Nothing but desert down there...bushes and shit."

  "Where'd I put the lighter?"

  "Here," she said handing it to him. "How much weed you got left?"

  "Plenty. Enough to get your whole family high," he said taking a long toke and holding it.

  "Pendejo," she mumbled. "Hey, think we should check it out?"

  "What? And drive the fuck down there?" he said, coughing while exhaling a small cloud of smoke.

  "Well, this piece of shit got four wheel drive, don't it?"

  He grumbled and set the joint in the ashtray then pulled out a cigarette from a Parliament hard pack on the dashboard. His eyes followed the pair of lights as he put the cigarette on his lips. "I ain't drive..." The lights stopped and blinked in a hypnotic rhythm.

  A whisper, barely recognized, beckoned him. Eyes focused on the mesmerizing site, his hand found its way to the ignition and started the truck. The unlit cigarette fell into his lap.

  His eyes remained fixed on the lights as he pulled out of the lookout and down the road. As soon as he saw an opening in the vegetation alongside the dirt lane, he took a hard turn, switched into four wheel drive, and roared down the mountain kicking up a cloud of dust. He dodged several ponderosa pines and large stones. Brush lashed at the sides of the truck.

  Not seat belted, April bounced off the dashboard and against the door. "Jesus Christ! Take it easy, goddammit. You're gonna get us killed."

  Skeeter ignored April's plea and kept going until he reached bottom where he skidded to a stop about a hundred feet from the lights. Dust swirled around them and her nose and throat burned, but Skeeter seemed unaffected.

  Through the settling cloud, the outline of a ten foot long oval floated a couple of feet above the ground. At its center, the thickest point, it stood about eight feet tall.

  He turned off the ignition, got out, and came around to the front bumper.

  "Skeeter," she said in a loud whisper, "where the fuck are you going?" He remained motionless, eyes wide and unblinking. "What is that?" April opened the truck door and scooted a leg out, but stayed behind the metal and glass shield.

  Skeeter stepped forward. Without a sound, a doorway opened in the oval, spilling bright light on them. Three creatures nothing like they had ever seen moved out of the opening. The aliens looked human in shape, except for their dark gray skin. They had disproportionately large heads with equally large black eyes.

  April wanted to get back into the truck but she remained frozen in place.

  There came that whisper again in Skeeter's hazy mind. He went back to the truck and grabbed the bag of pot and the horror movies he had rented.

  Without understanding why, Skeeter and April followed the creatures into their ship. A red light bathed the inside. The main compartment was sparse. Only a perfectly smooth obsidian black console in front of two oversized egg shaped seats and an enormous video screen.

  One of the creatures took the bag of pot from him and lifted it to its face. A sniff came. It gave a little jump and moved his arms side to side with excitement, then it passed the bag to the other two. A skeleton thin hand grabbed the videos from Skeeter, a copy of George Romero's Dawn of the Dead, and Meteor starring Sean Connery and Natalie Wood. They studied these carefully, turning them over and over, seeming unsure what they were.

  Skeeter and April woke in the truck to bright morning sunshine. All the pot was gone along with the video tapes.

  What happened was a bit hazy. Flashes of memories and terrifying nightmares were tough to make sense of. Some were painful. Some made him feel violated.

  They tried talking to each other about it but it made things worse by fueling their anger and fear. April blamed Skeeter for the incident. Skeeter blamed himself. They tried telling people but no one believed them. Everyone said it was a hallucination and they had a bad batch of weed. But they smoked some of that batch before with no ill effect. And how do two people have the same exact hallucination anyway, Skeeter wondered.

  He and April fell into deep depressions and lost touch with one another. He learned a few years later she overdosed and died.

  Skeeter never made much of himself, and for the last seventeen years as often as he could, he drove to the overlook and stared at the landscape. He no longer smoked weed. Lost his taste for it shortly after that night. He still smoked cigarettes and always lit one as he sat watching. These days, t
hough, he kept a rifle in the truck, just in case.

  Sometime in the past week he came across an article in the New York Times about an asteroid passing close to the Earth. It quoted an astronomer from the local observatory. Something about it...something significant. He picked up the paper and read it again.

  August 26thHUGE ASTEROID TO BUZZ EARTH by Staff

  The largest known Near Earth Asteroid (NEA) will pass Earth early next week. Labeled 220013, the NEA is massive at 60 km in diameter making it almost the size of Rhode Island. At its closest approach it will be about 4.6 million miles away.

  According to NASA officials, the fly-by will be for the record books. But there is no cause for alarm since its flight path is precisely projected and there is no chance it will hit Earth.

  Some think this latest NEA approach should serve as a wake-up call to take threats from space seriously.

  During the Tunguska event of 1908, an asteroid approximately 100 meters in diameter burst 5 miles above the Earth's surface, destroying an area of 830 square miles with an explosive force estimated between 10 and 15 megatons.

  Scientists have calculated the impact of a 10 km asteroid would be the equivalent of detonating 60 million megatons of TNT and would cause an earthquake greater than 12 on the Richter scale. An ocean hit would cause a tsunami with 100 meter waves halfway around the planet and ten times that height near the point of impact.

  "It would be a really bad day on our planet," says Dr. David Hadley of the Catalina Sky Survey, a NEO observatory outside of Tucson. "That's why NASA is continually looking for ways to improve our ability to spot such objects."

  As of the writing of this article fewer than 10,000 NEOs have been discovered with a belief this is a fraction of the number.

  Skeeter's intuition screamed. Every fiber of his being knew something big would take place, and whatever that was, he knew he needed to be at Aspen Vista to witness it. Last time they caught him by surprise. This time, he would be ready.

  David - Evening, Mon Sep 2nd

  If Dr. David Hadley of NASA's Near Earth Object Program had known at the time of his discovery that the asteroid he named 220013 would be the instrument of death for billions around the world he might have chosen something more apropos.

  In his defense, and according to all computer models, the tiny speck of light in his telescope should pass relatively close, but harmlessly, by our planet. He classified 220013 as a PHA, potentially hazardous asteroid, and though it was an important discovery, he thought nothing more of it.

  Monday evening, the night PHA 220013 reached its closest point, David began the drive out to the observatory.

  The night air was pleasantly warm and dry and the sky was clear. A perfect night for work. He tossed a briefcase with his laptop and lunch on the passenger seat and a small duffel bag with his running shorts and sneakers on the backseat. He sat for a moment, looking into the front window of his modest ranch home, at his wife. She sat curled up on the sofa with a glass of wine, watching TV. Just as a sense of desolation began to creep into his consciousness he started the engine and backed out.

  The observatory was located in the Coronado National Forest at the top of Mt. Bigelow which stood at 8500 feet above sea level. The first part of the trip involved driving through town but the longer portion was a winding road up into the Catalina Mountains.

  Shortly after leaving town, the road climbed and made its first hairpin turn. There, for a short distance, it faced the driver to the skyline.

  On this stretch of road he always slowed and took a last lingering look at the city below. It was an oasis of light pushing against the inhospitable inky blackness of the desert surrounding it. As the road turned away once again, he drove into that inky blackness alone.

  An hour later he arrived at the observatory. Not being one to dawdle, especially at a job he was passionate about, he went straight to work. He set his telescope to the asteroid's current calculated location, only to find it wasn't there.

  David checked his calculations and checked the scope position. They were correct. Again looking where the asteroid should have been he saw nothing. What happened? Did something cause it to disintegrate? Maybe something had collided with it and changed its trajectory? Both theories were highly unlikely.

  Zooming to a wider field of view and carefully combing the sky he eventually found it. After zeroing in on its current position, he reran the calculations for its projected trajectory and compared it to his original. They were significantly different.

  "What the hell is going on?"

  He studied the data for its position yesterday and found it exactly where he knew it should be.

  "How can that possibly be? More importantly what does this change mean?"

  He took the new data and entered it into his computer modeling software and looked at the graphic simulation. His body jolted with shock at the display. He verified he had not transposed any digits or made some other transcription error. The numbers were exactly correct.

  "Oh, holy shit, this can't possibly be right," he said. He picked up the phone and dialed.

  "Mark, this is David."

  "Oh, hi. What's going on? I can't really talk long. I'm right in the middle of dinner."

  "I hate to bother you because I'm sure there's some kind of glitch with either my computer or telescope or quite possibly my brain."

  "Okay..."

  "You know about PHO 220013 I'm tracking tonight? Well, it's not where it should be."

  "What?" Mark laughed. "What exactly do you mean it's not where it should be?"

  "What I mean is the trajectory changed and--"

  "Wait, what? That's not possible. I mean, it is theoretically possible if some outside force acted on it...but that's ridiculous."

  "Mark, listen, at its current trajectory, impact is in less than eight hours."

  "Impact? David, please tell me you're joking."

  "I'm sure there must be something wrong with the equipment."

  "I'll get there as soon as possible."

  David hung up, slid his glasses off and tossed them on the desk. He felt panic welling, and it clouded his thinking. There had to be a rational explanation. At this point, however, when he tried to think of one all he heard in his mind was "Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit..."

  Turnello - Earlier that morning, Mon Sep 2nd

  Turnello woke to the sound of his own scream. He looked around the dimly lit room, confused. Where was he? What just happened? He felt breathless and sweaty. His heart hammered in his ears. It seemed like he had slept through his alarm on a day when he had somewhere important to be.

  That's it, he thought, he needed to get somewhere important, but where? He couldn't remember. He must've been having the same nightmare plaguing him in recent months. Realizing he was actually home, he sighed and rubbed his face trying to wipe away the sleep and anxiety.

  He sat at the mattress edge, elbows on his knees and hands cradling his head. His thoughts wandered to the nightmares and then to his teenage years. He had exactly the same kind of dreams in high school during a dismal time in his life over twenty years ago.

  A deep existential crisis consumed him. The world was a place that made no sense. All he saw were people lying to one another and to themselves. One group always tried to dominate and control another. Everywhere there seemed to be tremendous suffering.

  That world view led to a feeling of meaninglessness. Just when the perceived futility of Turnello’s life was at its greatest, his grandfather unexpectedly passed away. The loss of the man like a father to him pushed him to the edge.

  But that happened a long time ago and he managed to get through it. He survived the grief of that loss and the sorrow he felt about life in general. Having the same kind of dreams again made him fear he was slipping back into that dark place. That terrified him. He could not allow that to happen.

  Turnello slid to the floor and knocked out twenty push-ups, flipped to his back and did twice as many sit-ups. Maybe he would go for a hike
today. Exercise always made him feel better and so did being in the woods. The forest gave him a sense of solace. It became a refuge that saved him.

  At forty, he had no wife, no children, no home, no career, and not even a pet. He was grateful for a few good friends. Some of which he'd known for a very long time.

  His best friend Jim he had known most his life. They went to the same schools from first grade to twelfth, and even shared an apartment for a few years in college. They shared many experiences, but in many ways they couldn't be more different.

  Turnello was philosophical and given to fits of capriciousness and depression while Jim was straight-laced and upbeat. Since they graduated from college, Turnello had a dozen different careers and at least twice as many girlfriends. Jim stayed with the same brokerage firm he worked at part-time while in school and married, then divorced, his college sweetheart.

  He lay on the floor out of breath from the exertion and then rolled onto his side to face the alcove in his tiny cottage. Steadily it filled with boxes. Boxes that would make his friends think he was off his rocker.

  He counted four cases of MREs, twelve gallon jugs of water, a dozen boxes of 9mm ammo and several boxes of various shotgun shells. He shook his head and frowned. For someone who wasn't working much these days he couldn't afford to spend money on stuff like that, but something compelled him.

  He felt like a character in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Next, he'd be recreating Devil's Tower with mashed potatoes during a dinner with friends and there would be an intervention.

  He'd wind up in a psych ward, and between doses of Haldol, he'd explain to some bored, uninterested psychiatrist his apocalyptic dreams with fiery missiles, widespread destruction, and desperate hordes of creepy looking people chasing him through the streets.

  Turnello jumped in the shower, and while letting the hot water pour over his head, he decided to put off work and go for that hike. After toweling off he pulled on jeans and hiking boots. Then, deciding it felt warm enough, he donned only a canvas shirt and fleece vest.