Winds of Ares: An Apocalypse Thriller by Druga, Jacqueline (most recommended books TXT) 📕

I shifted my eyes to Martin. “When we are in the middle of all this.”

“You’re right,” Martin said humbled. “I wouldn’t do that or pick now. It’s silly and dumb. Aunt Jana lied to you about … about something silly and little. You tell her Jana, you’re good with stories.”

“Oh, I know what he’s talking about.” I waved out my hand. “I know what you’re talking about. I did lie to you, Jana, but that’s only because I didn’t want you to get your hopes up. You know they have these special spaceships up there that go back and forth from earth and Mars. Your mom was thinking of coming back and working out of Wyoming, but she couldn’t catch the flight in time.”

“It’s a good thing, isn’t it?” Carli asked. “Or she wouldn’t be safe up there.”

“Yes. It’s a good thing,” I replied looking at Martin, then turned around back in the seat to stare forward.

I understood why he wanted to be honest with the kids. It was just bad timing. Martin didn’t have any love lost for my sister. When the private investigator found her and she didn’t want to come back, he washed his hands of her.

I often wondered if something snapped. If I could have seen her, talked to her, I would know. She was my sister.

Lane and I went to look for her. We went while Martin had the kids for a visit, and we found the ‘off the grid’ commune. A big piece of land, they farmed it and lived in trailers. It was fenced off and two men stood guard.

They weren’t mean or disrespectful. In fact, when I told them who we were they went to get her. I watched as they walked to a trailer, saw just a snippet of my sister as she peeked through the door.

She didn’t want to see us.

I mourned her, even though she was alive, I mourned the loss of my sibling.

My love for her was still there and I believed she would return for them. I never wanted her children to hate her.

That was why I told the Mars story.

“Are we going to stop soon?” Carlie asked.

Lane replied. “We just did, an hour ago.”

“I’m ready to drive again,” Martin said.

“We’re getting off the interstate soon,” Lane told him. “We’ll pause then.”

My husband was right about the interstate. It did save us time; we were able to move steadily at a good pace. There was a lot of lightning, a few claps of thunder, but no rain. It was coming, I knew it, I just didn’t know when. I kept feeling like we were playing Russian roulette with the weather. There was nothing around, left or right.

“It was a good call,” I reached over and grabbed his hand. “It really was.”

“Maybe if you look at the map again, we can find a good area to hit it again farther east,” Lane suggested.

“I can do that. I just wish I knew the track of the storm the Reverend mentioned. I’m just grateful we avoided bad weather, we’d be out luck if something hit. There’s nowhere around to take cover.”

“There’s always an overpass,” Martin said.

“Yeah, but how safe are they? We’ve been lucky.” Those words just slipped from my mouth when I heard the first tap.

A single tap on the roof of the RV. I raised my eyes when another occurred, then another.

“What is that?” I asked.

Soon it was steady, stronger and louder. I went from looking up to looking ahead.

It looked like snow, but I knew it wasn’t. Each piece was frighteningly too big to be snow and every single particle that fell from the sky, grew heavier by the second. Pinging sounds turned into thumps, then bangs.

I heard the click as one hit the windshield and a tiny crack occurred. They weren’t just coming down hard, they were coming down fast.

“Look!” Reese called out. “Look, they’re sparking.”

Thinking, ‘they’re what?’ I looked out the window and sure enough, on the side of the road where there was grass and the hail landed with a fierce connection causing sparks to ignite.

“Is that possible?” I asked. “How is that possible?”

“Friction,” Lane replied.

Wham!

A chunk of ice, the size of a brick landed on the hood of the RV

It startled us all and Lane swerved, causing the RV to glide across the highway.

“Lane!” I yelled, as if my scream was going to help matters.

“It’s slick, it’s really slick.”

Martin reached up. “Give me the radio.”

I handed it to him.

“Lane, overpass ahead. Stop there.” Martin instructed. “Rick, we’re stopping under the overpass.”

“Thank God,” Rick responded.

Lane decreased his speed; it was the only way to maneuver on the increasingly slick road.

Once we found sanctuary under the overpass, it seemed as if the hail let up.

Still, the result of the fast blast left a layer of rocky looking, white objects in various sizes on the highway.

We all stepped from the vehicles.

“Let it melt,” Martin said. “It won’t be long. It has to be ninety degrees.”

There was something about everyone’s expression that screamed we were all over it. Just another delay, just another irritation.

Rosie stood with her two young grandchildren near the edge of the ice. The youngest, Marta played with Dooley, both of them reaching down and touching the substance.

“They sparkle,” Marta said innocently. “Like diamonds.”

“Yes, they do,” Rosie said. “All different. Very pretty.”

There we were, standing there with another road above us, the hail stopped falling, but we were stalled due to the conditions of the road.

We had almost made it across the interstate with few problems. We cut some time but were losing it as we waited for the road to be passible.

Everyone kind of paired off but Liza.

Lane and I stood by the RV. Carlie and Reese, like Rosie’s grandchildren were enthralled by the ice. Something they had never seen.

Martin talked with Anita. Skip was checking on the vehicles for damage, and Rick and Liza stood off alone. I didn’t think anything about it.

Skip lifted one of the gas cans we had filled