Free United States Of Apocalypse by Mark Tufo, Armand Rosamilia Page A

control for the television. It doesn’t matter what channel, they’re all running it.”
    Darlene didn’t move. She watched him walk back outside onto the porch.
    She felt horrible. She’d walked into their private conversation. Now Pheebz was upset at Herbert, and he was probably mad at Darlene.
    Her first reaction was to get up and slink back into the bedroom to try once again to sleep. As she stood, she saw the remote control and picked it up.
    Darlene glanced at the television and back to the remote. If she turned on the TV, what would she see? Whatever it was, she wouldn’t be able to un-see it and it was obviously something the couple thought would upset her.
    She sighed and sat back down on the couch, aiming the remote control at the television, praying things weren’t as horrible as the couple led her to suspect. As soon as the picture came on, she saw a shot from above, a news chopper filming live over a large metropolitan area. A city was burning.
    Tall buildings threatened to topple, and she could see abandoned cars and even bodies on the streets below. Every third structure seemed to be ablaze.
    The news scrolling underneath the live shot talked about another terrorist attack on Boston, but details were sketchy.
    Boston had been attacked.
    Darlene put her hand to her mouth. She had so much family in and around Boston. Was this possible? Were they all dead? Was her aunt gone?
    She tried to use her cell phone to call, not caring what time it was, but she couldn’t get a signal. Darlene went into the other room and found the house phone. She dialed her aunt’s number, but it wouldn’t connect.
    Darlene dialed every number she could remember in Massachusetts and Maine, but the lines were all down. She guessed with the attack the cell phone towers had been compromised or destroyed, and all calls to New England would be unable to connect.
    This isn’t happening , she thought.
    She went back to the couch and surfed through the channels, trying to find more news about New England. She needed to know if Maine had been part of the offensive. No one seemed to know who’d been behind these attacks on America.
    Too many people were taking credit for it, and the news anchors were spewing forth unfounded facts at an alarming rate. No matter which channel she stopped on, everyone had their own opinion. When had the news become a game of ratings and one-upping the other channel? Every news agency had Exclusive and Seen Here First scrolling across every spot they could jam it on the screen.
    Now Darlene was getting mad. From the looks of more than a few stations, it seemed like there hadn’t been an actual new story in hours. Boston had been attacked ten hours ago, but there was nothing else to report.
    Every channel had live talking heads holding microphones with a burning or ruined building behind them, but none of them could say how the attack had come in or anything useful.
    Frustrated, Darlene turned off the television and cried.
    Life as she knew it had changed. There was no more home to go back to, was there? If Boston had been attacked, maybe parts of Maine had been as well. One of the newscasters had briefly touched on unconfirmed reports of a small invasion force landing near the Canadian border. Was it even possible?
    Darlene stood and wiped her tears, but she couldn’t stop crying.
    She went to the front door and was about to join Herbert when she heard the man sobbing on the porch. It made Darlene cry even more. She walked away quickly so she didn’t embarrass him.
    When she got down the hallway and was about to enter her bedroom, she could hear Pheebz crying as well.
    The three of them were a mess right now, and Darlene was glad they all had a private space and were away from one another to mourn for whatever they were crying about in peace.
    Darlene threw herself on the bed and cried into her pillow. She cried for her dad and her family in New England. The life she’d left behind forever. The unknown