The Forsaken - The Apocalypse Trilogy: Book Two by G. Wells Taylor Page B

for a report from the U.S. Department
of Defense. A crowd of guests and New Yorkers sheltering from the
rain gathered on the snowy blue rug in front of it. Cawood joined
them, watching. The screen flickered from gray, to snow, to black
and then projected the image of a news anchorman. He fixed his
steady gaze on the viewers.
    “A weather system is forming at a speed and
magnitude unprecedented in recorded history.” The newscaster seemed
anxious. “The Department of Defense and the National Weather
Service have issued this joint release: ‘All citizens of the
continental United States are advised to remain indoors pending
further notification.’” Electric tension jumped through the people
around Cawood. The statement was punctuated with satellite pictures
of the earth’s surface covered with whirling tempests of black and
white and gray. It had all begun three hours before, the report
said. Military and civilian satellites recorded the phenomena. What
at first appeared to be several hurricane formations had taken on a
more destructive tone.
    Global weather stations confirmed the growth
of a contiguous worldwide atmospheric disturbance. The picture of
the growing cloud cover intensified during the broadcast, with a
time-lapse effect, until the once blue globe darkened to a uniform
shadow. Soon after, the satellite picture broke up and was lost.
The news anchor’s image returned, flickered and was gone
forever.
    Cawood paused in her reverie.
    Beads of sweat stood out on her pallid
forehead as the moment returned to her in full. The lights in the
lobby died. A man bellowed repeatedly into his cell phone until he
charged out of the building screaming his children’s names. A woman
shrieked, then apologized in embarrassment. The crowd hurried
across the lobby to the desk, to a line of dead pay phones on one
wall. There was a loud harsh clap of thunder, and the Change had
arrived.
    “Damn!” she cursed. All this was behind her,
but Able had a way of stirring things up. Coming into her office so
early in the day babbling about Angels and salvation and a new
mission. “There’s no fucking mission,” she said to the empty
room.
    The first days of the Change were crisp in
her memory. The group at the Venture Inn had dispersed quickly:
huddled, cautious shapes going into a hissing gray nothing that
smelled like autumn. Cawood was taken to a room by a busboy with a
flashlight: taste of salt from the back of her hand as tears came
upon her in the dark. She slept uncomfortably listening to sirens
and awoke next day to the rain: smell of cleansers, the dry
reconditioned air on her tongue. Cloud cover kept New York in
perpetual twilight: searching for her underwear on the floor, the
dusty curtain made her sneeze.
    Rain thundered down for weeks without end.
The riots started in week two, close on the heels of the looting.
There was a slow realization setting in that things had changed
permanently. As communications returned at the end of the first
week—radio and television signals were inconsistent and
distorted—digital signals were lost, replaced by analog. American
meteorologists blamed the ozone and greenhouse gases, European
scientists suggested an undetected meteorite impact. Few
ocean-going vessels returned from the wild maelstroms the seas had
become. The melting ice caps threatened to drown coastal cities.
Estimates had 85% of all aircraft aloft at the time of the Change
were crashed or missing.
    Electrical systems went wild, city lights and
telephones flickered and died, computers crashed and subways ground
to a terrifying halt deep in their dark black burrows. Factories
fell silent and millions died. No one was unaffected. Presidents
and Prime Ministers made reassuring statements that could not hide
their ignorance. Leaders religious and political wanted calm.
    Calm. The absurdity still provoked a
sarcastic smile in her. Their world was dying and they asked for
calm.
    Her first steps off the high road came when
she