"The Center Pointe" Chapter 2

Chapter 2

          Rich Carson closed and locked the front door of his home, his roommate Brain had stormed off to his room after the argument and Karen was lying in bed still crying under the sheets because of the stress of the heated exchange between Rich and Brian.  Rich knew that she hated the anger that keep rearing its ugly head in the house.  All the anger weather they wanted to admit it or not was due to the money problems they now faced since she was diagnosed with a severe case of crohn’s disease.  They could not get any help from the assistance office and her medication was over $700 a bottle.  Rich knew she blamed herself for their financial woes, but Rich could never and would never blame her for something that was so far out of their control.

          He loved Karen and felt her frustration and fear over her health problems.  As rich entered the kitchen he instinctively reached for the kitchen light then realized they had no electricity.  It had been shut off last week due to nonpayment.  Rich could also not be mad at Brian.  Brian had been there many times when Rich and Karen had really needed him and he planned to make things right between him and his best friend in the morning, but for right now all he wanted to do was lock up and slip beneath the cool sheets and hold Karen.  She had been so unhappy since the diagnosis.  She had almost died do to malnutrition and anemia because of the ferocity of the disease that had almost destroyed her intestines before it had finally been diagnosed by a specialist in the field.  Even with the medication that was putting the two of them in the poorhouse Karen still had many problems with the disease.  She could barely eat and spent a lot of time in the bathroom evacuating her diseased bowels.

          Rich just wanted things to get better, for Karen to get better, but he knew deep down that could never happen.  He had to quit his job so he could take care of her which had become a full time effort to keep her out of the hospital; they were living on savings in hopes that they could get Karen SSI to help pay for her large medical bills.  There were so many foods that she could not eat just keeping her fed had become a war between him and the grocery mart pricing.  Rich felt as though the world had him against a wall and there was no escape, what was worse Karen felt the entire thing was her fault and it filled Rich with grief that he could not find something to bring her out of that depression.

          He opened the fridge which now had a melting bag of ice as its only cooling system and pulled out an off brand soda.  As he opened it the generic taste was only good to remind him of their present financial situation.  He took a few sips and poured the rest down the sink.  Rich looked through the window over the sink at the bright full moon.  For a moment he took notice of the object directly below the moon but mistook it for a low flying plane as he was too tired from the argument to really look at it.

          As Rich finally lay down beside his wife he felt safe from the world and as he drifted off to sleep he was spared the thoughts that plagued him during the day.  In this bed he was safe.  With his wife he was happy.

          A great loud noise brought all the occupants of the small house at the end of the block out of their slumber and to full attention in time for another successive round of loud bangs and rumblings that shook the house to the very foundation.  The first thought through their heads was an earthquake and they all almost ran into each other groping in the dark for the bathroom.  Then all the sudden the house lurched again and they all thought it would come down before they realized they could all now see each other.   It was as if the sky had lit up all the sudden and daylight now spilled in through the windows.  But this light was orange and red. It flickered with the all too recognizable familiarity of fire.  When things finally quieted down for a moment the three occupants of the small house at the end of the block looked at each other and the fear was evident in all their eyes.  Without a word to one another they rushed to the window thinking there had been a huge car or plane crash outside their home.

          They were all unprepared for the sight they would see as they slowly drew back the curtains and revealed the scene before them.  It took them a moment to take it all in.  Even as it was displayed before them the horror of what they saw took a few more minutes to sink in.

Rich was already turning the knob to the door with Brian in close pursuit before Karen could even say anything to stop the pair they had disappeared.  Karen turned back to the window horrified as the two men rushed to the front lawn trying to see if there were any survivors to the horror that had been introduced to the tranquil little suburban neighborhood.  Karen was in shock, there were no longer any houses outside, the homes were just smoldering piles of rubble and burning wood.  Grotesquely burned bodies littered the scene splayed out in different degrees of undress. Plumes of smoke rippled through the devastated neighborhood hanging close to the ground.  It was as if the hand of god had come and smite the quiet with fire.

           Karen knew Rich and Brian all too well and no matter the danger to themselves they would rush to the aid of anyone they could, but the two men just stood on the front lawn amidst the smoke and ash permeating the air staring at the sky.  It was a few minutes before Karen gained the courage to finally move from the window to the door.  She looked bewildered at the two men on the front lawn staring at the sky. Then she looked up and what she saw knocked her to her knees.  There in the sky now three times the size of the moon there looked to be a huge planet and it was getting bigger.

          Karen rushed to her husband’s side terrified to be even a few feet from him.  They all joined their gaze staring at the new decoration to the night sky.  The smoke was low enough to the ground for a clear view of the moon or planet that had now wandered into the interstellar path of our own planet. It was almost ten minutes in the choking smoke before any of them could speak.  Karen broke the silence first.

“What is that?”  She said tightly gripping Rich’s hand.

“I don’t know but it’s getting bigger.” Rich said

          “Will it hit us?”  Karen said pressing her body against Rich for comfort.

          “I don’t know.”  He said putting his arms around his wife to comfort her.

          Brain had remained silent through the brief conversation and after a few minutes of silence he spoke. “I’ve heard about this but it was all just conspiracy theories.  That is the planet Nibiru or better known as Planet X.  With something like that in the sky this whole planet is going to go to hell very quickly, that is probably what did all this.”

“Why weren’t we blown up to?”  Rich said staring at the heavenly body.

“It must have messed with the power in houses and caused a buildup, it would be like a chain reaction through the whole neighborhood but since our power was out and were are decently separated from the rest of the other houses we didn’t get hit.”

“Lucky break I guess.”  Said Rich and Karen in unison to Brian’s theory.

          Karen looked at the two men who could easily pass for brothers, normally so strong they looked like lost children searching for their mom in the mall.  “What do we do now?”  She said renewing her hold on her husband’s hand.

          Brain turned to Karen and looked at her for a moment.  Karen could see a quick sign of sorrow cross his face before he answered. “Survive.”

          Oh dear reader the irony is so sweet, like a finely aged wine.  I myself find it incredible that there is some truth to the old bible saying “The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth.”

All across the globe the proximity of the arrival of the dwarf planet Nibiru had triggered massive electromagnetic feedback in power grids and homes instantly turning millions of houses into bombs.  The entire globe rocked with the gravitational pull between the two planets and power was cut instantly worldwide. The temperature would then drop worldwide.  The tectonic plates began to shift and the oceans swelled with the new satellite that would eventually catch itself in orbit around planet earth.  We could say the planet was very lucky that Nibiru had not collided with the moon hastening the demise of earth, but as a devil’s advocate would state.  “It would have been better for the planet to die quickly for now it is doomed to deteriorate slowly causing unknown suffering among the surviving masses.

          In the following days scientists would surmise that the planet would only be caught in orbit around the earth for a period of seven years then Nibiru would slingshot out of orbit and continue out of the solar system, but during the period in the center of this event the earth would undergo traumatic and devastating changes that would most likely bring the human civilization to the brink of extinction.  The gravitational forces would continue to increase and the clashing of the two electromagnetic shields of the planets would make the use or creation of electronic devices impossible.

          Many conspiracy theorists began to circulate newsletters that this was the end days and they would turn from bloggers with the loss of their electronic devices to old world doom Sayers spreading yet more fear and chaos to the crippled Earth.  Many religious leaders would gain mass numbers of followers preaching that this event was the tribulation and would be followed by the return of Christ while alien enthusiasts were convinced that the fabled Annunaki of the Sumerians would return to re-enslave mankind.

          My dear reader it is a continuing irony to state that 90% of the survivors of this upheaval were the poor and downtrodden that we as a society have ignored.  At the crucial hour all our technology had turned on us killing us without mercy.  Lucky were those without power and without modern technology.  The unlucky were consigned to being burned, electrocuted and blown apart by the very technology they created to protect them and make their lives easier.

          The survivors of the apocalypse were then divided overnight into two categories.  The Clean and the Static.  The static were masses of people and animals that were adversely affected by the clashing electromagnetic fields.  They had become like feral beasts attacking anything on sight.  In the first days of the apocalypse hundreds of thousands were attacked and killed by these creatures.  The new world was bleak and mankind was slowly dying in a new hell.