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  ACROSS THE LAKE

  A novel by

  Doug Kelly

  Andy Weir

  —Novels written by Doug Kelly—

  INTO THE DARKNESS SERIES:

  Book 1: Into The Darkness

  Book 2: Fade To Black

  ACROSS THE LAKE SERIES:

  Book 1: Across The Lake

  Book 2: The Long Journey Home

  Copyright © 2015 Doug Kelly

  This is an original work of fiction by Doug Kelly, who holds the sole rights to all the characters and concepts herein. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this novel may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author.

  11222015

  Cover art: SelfPubBookCovers.com/houchi

  Edited by Carol Madding

  To my children.

  They inspire me in all aspects of my life.

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER ONE

  The Event: Impact and Aftermath

  Between Jupiter and Mars, a metallic asteroid had shared the same planetary orbital plane as Earth since before life began. There, for billions of years in the never-ending vastness of the dark void of outer space, it faithfully remained in the confines of its elliptical orbit around the sun. Gradually, over a multibillion-year timeframe, celestial gravitational attractions slightly affected the asteroid’s path, causing intermittent minor deviations of its route. As a small progression of changes in its orbit occurred, those random astronomical events laid the foundation for a series of actions that would send it on a collision course, resulting in an apocalyptic outcome for life and civilization on Earth.

  It finally happened by chance, a rogue asteroid hurtling its way through the solar system and colliding directly with that faithfully orbiting chunk of metal. The former, composed of rock, fragmented on impact, and the latter, composed mostly of iron, remained intact, but tumbled violently out of its ancient orbit. After that collision and because of the sun’s powerful gravitational attraction, its ancient route abruptly changed. Its new course was toward the center of the solar system. The iron asteroid streaked toward the sun, ultimately headed on a collision course with Earth.

  As the asteroid careened closer to Mars, the closing distance increased their mutual gravitational attraction so much that the veering asteroid began to arc around the red planet and almost started to orbit it. However, as they advanced on each other from opposite directions, the asteroid whipped around the fourth planet from the sun so swiftly that it flew out of its brief orbit with Mars, and like a stone from a catapult, headed directly for Earth at an even higher velocity. It was flung around Mars in such a direction that its course of travel was straight into Earth’s oncoming orbital path, therefore increasing the energy of the impending impact.

  With a diameter of only ten miles, the tumbling asteroid deserved hardly any comparison in size to the planet Earth, but a mass of metal that large and traveling that rapidly could produce a force on impact greater than that of all the atomic weapons in the world, combined. To anyone looking up at the clear blue sky that day, the plummeting asteroid first appeared as a pinpoint of light. It was at such a great distance from Earth that it seemed like nothing more conspicuous than the glint of a high-altitude commercial airliner reflecting sunlight from its underbelly as it cruised through the air. As the asteroid got closer to Earth, the arc of speeding light continued to expand, and its luminous intensity exponentially increased. What initially and briefly had looked like a contrail from the expanding shiny dot in the sky evolved into a fireball with a wake of vaporized metal, appearing like a horizontal storm cloud as long as the sky was wide, trailing behind a blaze of intense brilliance. As it streaked through the sky and plunged deeper into it, the approaching noise became deafening. The sonic boom that followed its entry into the atmosphere obliterated glass from windows, causing jagged shrapnel to fly through the air at supersonic speed. Nearer to the surface of the earth and closer to impact, the ensuing pressure wave tumbled tall buildings and forests full of trees, brushing them over like a celestial broom whisking away a pile of rubbish. The asteroid headed toward the Atlantic Ocean, where its impact would devastate the world.

  Because of its speed and the heat resulting from its violent descent, the asteroid had pushed aside the atmosphere in front of it, creating a column in its wake that was void of air. As the fireball plunged below the surface of the ocean, it pushed the water aside, or rather vaporized it with its great heat, and quickly hit the ocean floor, forming a large crater that glowed bright red with molten iron and rock. The water that the asteroid had pushed away formed a huge tidal wave, a mega tsunami, in an expanding circle that radiated across the world’s connecting oceans. Material from the impact, such as vaporized metal, Earth’s crust, and steaming-hot ocean water, escaped upward through the hole in the atmosphere before the air surrounding the vacuum, which the expanding pressure wave of the falling asteroid had caused, rushed back in to fill the void. The colossal plume of debris, thrust upward through the gap, expanded like an umbrella and hovered over the globe. The glowing, red-hot crater on the ocean floor evaporated the surrounding water that returned, creating a giant bubble of super-heated steam that exploded and sent continuous waves of tsunamis bombarding the coastlines of the world, as each giant bubble of steam over the crater successively expanded and collapsed.

  The immense force of the collision radiated through the earth’s core to the other side of the planet. Across the globe, the impact shook tectonic plates, and they released all of their compressed energy as they shifted the continents and fractured previously dormant fault lines. Due to the violent and recurring earthquakes on the seabed, more tsunamis assaulted coastlines around the world, and more volcanos erupted with unbridled fury.

  The worst eruption of all was the Yellowstone caldera. The impact shockwaves reverberated across the North American continent and woke a sleeping giant lurking beneath Yellowstone National Park. Just below the earth’s surface was a reservoir of hot magma five miles deep, fed by a gigantic plume of molten rock welling upwards from hundreds of miles below. The heat that had been responsible for many of the park's famous geysers and hot springs, which had attracted tourists from all over the world, was like a loaded weapon just waiting for an event to pull its trigger. The shockwaves that emanated across the continent caused massive earthquakes that fractured the earth’s crust. Through these vents and fissures in the caldera, magma blasted to the surface with such force that it formed a deep crater under an ever-growing mushroom cloud of scalding ash. Since the ash was very hot, it was less dense than the air surrounding it, so it rose high into the atmosphere, and the tremendous force of the volcanic explosion accelerated its propulsion into the sky. Ash covered the upper Western States and part of the Great Plains to a depth that crushed houses and killed almost everything. The explosion covered the upper Great Plains with ash at a decreasing depth from west to east, but on some of th
e middle country, it was only deep enough to choke the life from some smaller animals and only smother delicate, sun-loving plant life. Around the caldera’s kill zone, the thick blanket of ash interfered with plant photosynthesis, and the food chain partially collapsed. The falling ash that covered part of the North American continent like a death veil had missed most of the region from the Gulf States to the eastern seaboard, sparing that land from its morbid embrace.

  The high-altitude ash dispersed throughout the atmosphere and wrapped the globe in a translucent gray blanket. The dramatic decrease of sunlight reaching the earth’s surface produced an immediate short-term global reduction in temperature, the beginning of an impact winter. Initially there was a cooling effect from the suspended ash, but the high-altitude moisture cooled, condensed, and rained back down all over the world. That precipitation helped to clear the atmosphere for the sun’s golden rays to reach the globe, and the additional water vapor in the air created a greenhouse effect, so that although there was an initial cooling, the suspended water attenuated the volcanic ash’s temperature-lowering influence. During the post-impact rains, that atmospheric soot fell back to Earth like thick mud. Without the torrential rainfall that had poured all over the globe, a long-term volcanic winter and possibly a new ice age could have gripped the world.

  In the center of America, under a blanket of ash, the New Madrid fault released its fury. Near the earthquake’s epicenter, the ground rolled in visible waves so powerful that in wide sections of forest, trees snapped in half as the landscape recoiled. The terrain moved like the ruffled waters of a lake with high waves, until it burst, hurling up geysers of hot water and sand. Fissures in the ground opened wide, like demonic mouths, swallowing the accumulated volcanic ash and drinking the muddy rain falling from the sky. Giant crevices consumed houses and buildings, along with anyone inside. The ground moved like a field of wheat before the breeze; some land rose as tremors rippled across it, and other land sank. Water inundated the sinking ground as rivers changed their courses to fill the basins. Huge chunks of riverbank collapsed into the Mississippi River, and islands rose from it, blocking the current from running downstream. As fissures opened in the riverbed, and the banks collapsed further, gravity forced the water to run backward, or upstream, until the powerful flow of water washed away the temporary islands and the mighty Mississippi changed its course, obliterating everything in its path as it did. It cut a deep furrow across the ground to form a new riverbed on its way down to the Mississippi River Delta and the flooded city of Baton Rouge.

  A great many changes happened to the natural features of the land. The terrain buckled from the massive earthquakes, torrential rains flooded the lowlands of the altered terrain, rivers and streams shifted their routes after spilling muddy floodwaters over their banks, lakes expanded, and the ocean’s shorelines encroached and drowned coastal areas. The violent aftermath of the impact laid waste to humans and their creations, too. Once proud buildings now lay in the ruins of decimated cities. Rubble clogged the roads through every town. Former population centers that had bustled with life, changed into deserts of concrete, twisted rebar, fractured asphalt, and broken glass. Dead cities and towns pocked the landscape like putrefying infections. Although the post-impact cull took away most of the human population, nature still thrived, and soon began to reclaim the fallen cities and the roads that connected them.

  Under a layer of thin ash, farmlands surrounding the southern cities of the North American continent were all still green with the last crops planted. Persistent rainfall washed off the scant dusting of ash, and the swollen rivers and streams took the gray water away. Invasive weeds overran unsown fields and hid what remained of the plowed rows of dirt. As summers came and went, invincible weeds in the ruined cities and the countryside spread slowly through the many small crevices to cover the roads and sidewalks.

  During successive autumns, there was no one to tend the fields; plants simply withered in their rows, collapsing to the ground like once-proud soldiers trying not to die as they stood at attention. With no one to harvest the mature crops, flocks of birds, undisturbed in their migratory paths, devoured them. Because throngs of men no longer hunted birds for sport or even intimidated them with scarecrows, that reprieve from human interference liberated a burden from the birds’ quest for food. Storms punished tall stalks of corn, bushes of beans, cotton, and amber waves of grain, soaking them with rain and crushing them with hail. Domesticated animals that survived the event became feral and conquered the fields that had imprisoned them, flattening what remained of the genetically modified crops.

  During the following years, young green shoots of corn, bean, cotton, wheat, and barley that had sprung up from the seeds sown by the fallen plants, concealed dead weeds and the desiccated remains of the old abandoned crops. Year by year, the succeeding generations of grains affirmed their presence by continuing to shoot up through the twisted weeds, but in gradually diminishing numbers because undomesticated plants spread throughout the fields and began to strangle them. Under a blaze of purple flowers, thistle hid the rotting roots in the uncultivated fields. Prairie grass, once so common on the middle of the continent, began to push its way up through the dead fabric of past year’s vegetation, woven tightly and prone on the black dirt. Across the south, kudzu stretched its mighty vines and spread like a green hurricane.

  The vegetation surrounding the ruined, vacant cities began its ascension to reclaim it all, covering the stone rubble that surrounded the outlines of the foundations of once proud structures. Vines, shrubs, saplings, and grass emerged through the crags like resurrected corpses from their graves. As decades passed, the color green became ubiquitous and radiated from the countryside to the ruins, like light from the sun entering a slowing opening tomb.

  In the southern area of the continent, before the event, farmers had reclaimed marshland for agricultural purposes. Formerly dry land became bog and with the absence of human intervention, invasive ivy extended into the wet fields, and with other vegetation, helped to destroy or take the place of the crops that farmers had sown in the ground so long ago. All the while, the hedge trees, which grew very slowly, began their advance farther and farther from the former straight lines that had divided the fields. This arboreal encroachment slowed as the marshland returned to its natural state. Aquatic plant life went back to its belated throne and former glory, bringing wetland wildlife with it. Cypress trees reclaimed the newly formed swamps.

  Young trees began to convert most of the formerly arable parts of the country into an immense forest. Saplings rose to the heavens through thorn bushes that sheltered them from grazing animals. Wild herds of cattle had once eaten the saplings with the grass, but then thorny twigs protected the little trees by wrapping around them. Mature trees continued to grow higher without the worry of turning into boards of lumber at the whim of humans.

  Decades later, when nature’s reclamation was well in force, there were few open places remaining where people could walk unless they followed the tracks of wild creatures or cut their own path. Clear areas diminished quickly. The drainage swales and underground culverts had long since become full of leaves and dead branches, so that the run-off water, which should have drained down them, stagnated and spread out into the low areas, forming marshes where aquatic vegetation hid the shallow water.

  Because humans no longer provided maintenance to the remaining bridges over streams and rivers, their foundations gradually crumbled, sending stone, metal, and concrete into the flowing water that was now uncontrolled by the ruins of dams, forgotten long ago. The force of spring rains carried away the remnants of these structures like bones from decomposing carrion. Where that wreckage stopped the flow of water, it flooded the lower ground, which became marshland in the rainy season. Burrowing rodents drilled through the levees. The turbulent river water percolating through the burrows slowly increased the size of their tunnels until the structures burst and the current swept onward and added to the floods below. Over t
ime, the oceans continued to rise and contributed to the flooding, too.

  On the southern part of the continent, near the Mississippi river, the lower lands adjacent to this waterway had become swampland, extending for a great distance to the north, and occasionally spreading in breadth as well. This was particularly the case where that great waterway joined its significant tributaries, which were also blocked and obstructed, and the overflowing rivers covered the flood plains. Rivers brought with them trees and branches, logs floated from the riverbanks, and all kinds of similar materials, which stuck in the shallow water or caught against snags, forming huge masses where there was any obstruction. Sometimes, after great rains, the irresistible power of raging waters carried the mass of floating refuse downstream like battering rams. The remaining foundations of weathered bridges cracked and were brought to ruin, covered with gravel, sand, and silt as silently and regularly as night follows day. The floods brought with them sediment that concealed the remains of towns and cities small and large, that had existed along the rivers or on the adjacent lower lands. The aquatic flora that arose from the wetlands completed the work, obscuring the ancient structures and camouflaging the remains of formerly immense buildings.

  Generations later, near that massive river’s delta, as viewed from the top of the tallest Cypress tree, there was nothing visible but endless forest and marsh. On level ground, the view was limited to a short distance, because of dense thickets and the saplings that had become tall trees. Venturing off the ancient roads, the expansive plains in the North Country were still partially open, but it was not convenient to walk across them, except in the tracks of animals, because of the long grass. Domesticated animals did not regularly graze upon that land, as was once the case so many forgotten years ago. Vegetation grew thick and tangled.