Richard Stephenson - Collapse

Captain Zamani did not dare to wait more than ten minutes. He knew that to do so would be very dangerous and left him vulnerable to attack. He gave the order and the missile was launched. He submerged the Habibollah Sayyari and hoped that a major news outlet had a satellite broadcasting his launch on live TV.

“Oh, God! What is that? Where are they?” Lindsay watched the live newsfeed over the Internet and tried to keep up with the journalist speaking in the background.

John spoke but didn’t take his eyes from the monitor. “That’s an Iranian submarine.”

“Where is it? What are they doing?” Lindsay squeezed her children’s hands harder.

“It’s in the Atlantic. They’re broadcasting a message over and over. It says ‘The Star of Allah illuminates the wicked.’”

Lindsay began to cry. She had never wanted her husband by her side more than she did at that moment. She was terrified and knew that she and her children stood a real chance of dying if that submarine started launching missiles. Washington, D.C., would be the first and most obvious target. If that submarine had a second missile, it was heading for New York.

“Please..oh please..oh please, NO!” Lindsay picked up both of her children and hugged them tight.

“Mommy, why are you crying? Do you miss Daddy? It’s okay Mommy, don’t cry, I miss him, too.”

“Mommy loves you both so much. Everything is fine, my sweet babies. You’re right, angel, Mommy just misses Daddy. We all miss him.”

Lindsay slid down the wall and buried her children’s faces in her breast. “Hey, have you guys decided on what we’re going to name the puppy?”

“Rascal!”

“No, Howie!”

Lindsay wiped the tears from her face and calmed her shaken voice. “Come on now! I told you guys, you both have to agree on the name!”

“Rascal!”

“Howie!!”

“Oh my God, they launched something! No! We’re all gonna die!” John jumped over the counter, locked the front door and turned off the light. Lindsay motioned for the young man to sit down next to her. She managed to let a silly thought come to the surface and almost laughed amidst the horror. John had locked the door and turned off the lights, as if the action carried real weight.

“Who’s gonna die? Are we gonna die?” Lindsay’s son started whimpering.

“No, no, no baby. John was just talking about a movie, right John?” Lindsay looked at the young man in desperation, hoping he would realize he was scaring the children.

“Uh, yeah, yeah. Sorry, just excited to see this really cool movie.” John reached over and held Lindsay’s hand. He looked away from the children as tears stream down his face. John had called his girlfriend but it went straight to voicemail. All he wanted was to hear her voice.

Lindsay looked outside at the street directly in front of the Western Union office. Cars began to crash into one another. People ran down the street screaming. A man was in the street trying to pry open a manhole cover so he could escape down into the sewer.

Lindsay had managed to distract her children from the horror around them. She had learned from the best. William could transform an upset, crying child into a happy smiling one in no time flat.

Suddenly, the night sky was filled with a blinding flash that turned the darkness into daylight. A feeling of calm and joy washed over Lindsay. So this was how people went to heaven. They followed a bright light to the pearly gates of heaven into the arms of Jesus; all their loved ones that had passed before them were there to welcome them. Lindsay was thankful that it was over and relieved that neither she nor her children felt any pain. She closed her eyes and knew that when she opened them, she would be in heaven. She hugged her children tighter and opened her eyes.

Darkness. Screaming. Crying.

Lindsay was not at the gates of heaven. She was still sitting on the floor of the Western Union. The world around her was completely black. She waited and waited for her eyes to adjust, but they never did. Her children began to claw at her, digging their hands into her sides. As they called out for her, she gently stroked their hair and shushed their cries

“Phone’s dead. Computer won’t turn back on.”

Lindsay pried her children from her sides. The two children hugged each other and continued to cry. Lindsay felt her way along the wall to the front door and found the light switch.

“Power must be out. Hey, John, get your smartphone out, we can use the light from the screen to see what we’re doing.”

“Yeah, hold on. Good idea.” Lindsay could hear him fumbling around the countertop. “What the hell? My phone’s dead, too. Damn thing was on eighty percent a few minutes ago.”

“You got a lighter or a match?”

“No, shit, I wish I did. This is getting freaky.”

“You hear that?” asked Lindsay.

“Yeah, what is that?” replied John.

A low rumble filled the air and rattled the windows. Then in an instant, the rumble became a deafening, ear-splitting roar that sounded like a wrecking ball knocking a train from the track at full speed. The building shook and the glass wall at the front of the Western Union shattered and blew inward. Lindsay’s children were thrown into the counter. Lindsay and John were knocked off their feet and hit the wall behind them.

Lindsay recovered and sat up to take inventory of herself. She wasn’t bleeding and didn’t feel the sharp pain of a broken bone. She crawled on the floor, desperately clawing for her children. “Brent? Heather? You guys okay?”

“That was fun!” screamed Brent.

Heather was crying. “Mommy, that scared me!”

Lindsay quickly ran her hands over their bodies to see if they were injured, delighted to find them both no worse for wear. She looked toward the street and could finally see light. The source of the light was not a street lamp or the headlights of a car. It was from a fire.

A passenger jet had fallen from the sky.

The Great Empire of Iran had detonated a nuclear warhead high in the atmosphere. The electromagnetic pulse destroyed every circuit board on every electronic device in its range. Every piece of technology, from a clock radio to the life support systems keeping patients alive in hospitals, stopped working. Every computer, every smartphone, every television, every piece of machinery man depended on ceased functioning at precisely the same millisecond.

From the eastern shores of the United States to the Great Plains, down to North Texas, and into the northern half of the Gulf States, every electronic item was fried and useless. Countless automobile accidents took thousands of lives as vehicles lost power. Surgical wards were thrown into darkness, only to lose patients. Hundreds of aircraft, from passenger jets to helicopters, fell out of the sky, killing thousands and starting fires that only Mother Nature could extinguish. The only saving grace was the fact that few people could afford to fly. Millions of people were instantly left penniless, their finances not in physical cash but in useless bank accounts. Frightened Americans were instantly thrown backwards into an era that was completely alien to them — an era before electricity, technology, and comfort. They had no means of communicating with each other because they couldn’t pick up a phone or turn on a computer. They couldn’t travel to a local store to buy food and water. Emergency services were brought to a standstill. Before the sun rose the next morning, chaos would become a way of life.

The Silent Warriors of the Empire had no idea that the night sky would be illuminated by the Star of Allah. Along with their vague instructions to “improvise and be creative,” they were also told to await the Day of Judgment. The Silent Warriors who saw the broadcast of the Habibollah Sayyari launching her payload knew the Day of Judgment was at hand. They knew that in the coming chaos they would be able to operate out in the open and strike a serious blow to the enemy.