SHORT FICTION
The Meteor Showers
Meteor showers had become a significant problem in the Central Valley of California recently. As if the earthquakes and pollution weren’t enough, meteor showers were raining down.
It had come to the point where the term “meteor showers” were a bit antiquated. Nowadays, these had become meteor storms. Several houses and buildings had already been destroyed, as had cars traveling on the 5 and out on State Route 99. It can get ugly when a car going 80 or 90 mph gets hit by a meteor.
Anyway, there’s not much a driver can do to control a car ablaze after being hit with a meteor even if the driver survives. And in some cases, they do. I mean, not all meteors are that big.
Some are the size of a marble, a golf ball, or baseball. But then, some have been as big as a house. Even those small ones when they hit a semi hauling HazMat or a tanker hauling propane can make a hell of a mess.
The Meteors Make It Personal
We had an eco-friendly house built outside of Buttonwillow, CA, about 15 miles from Bakersfield. The town population is less than 2,000, just my style. One of the many eco-friendly amenities was the rainwater and filtration system, all solar roof, and solar power throughout.
We had steel shutters installed on all the windows and doors, with a smart home protection system with infrared cameras everywhere.
Although we had a central air conditioner, I had the builder put a lawn-sprinkler system in the roof so that it would help cool the house and take some of the load off the HVAC.
That’s what happens I guess when you have more money than you can spend sensibly. However, all of those amenities came in handy when the meteor showers started.
If the news called for meteor showers, we turned on the sprinklers, closed the shutters, and went to sleep rather soundly, I might add.
That was until the meteor showers turned to meteor storms, then the dipshit governor decided he wanted to evacuate his citizens for their own protection.
The Calamity of the Governor’s Plan
His “grand plan” was to cover the windows of all the public schools and building with corrugated steel and wait out the storms. So, for however many days or months it took, we would be sleeping on cots and eating cafeteria food. No, thank you, Mr. Governor.
Well, the first rescue wagon came along. A helpful gentleman from the sheriff’s department knocked on the door and asked if we were ready to go to the shelter. I politely told him, “We will wait it out at right here.”
Of course, he gave us the safety spiel and told us there would be no fire or rescue. We would be on our own. I said thank you and goodbye.
The next fellow wasn’t as friendly. He insisted we were to go to the shelter with him. I told him we weren’t leaving our home. He started to say he couldn’t make us… but a meteor the size of a baseball hit him in the head, and it exploded.
I pushed the button to lower the shutters and went into the kitchen with the wife to watch the news. We saw the highways jammed with people trying to escape, and some of those were hit as we looked on in terror.
People were running around screaming, and fireballs were hitting stranded travelers trying to get somewhere safe. We were already somewhere safe and not leaving.
The news went out a few minutes later. We flipped through the channels but all we got was an error message, “no signal.” I don’t know if the feed was lost, our satellite dish got hit, or if there was a bigger problem. So, we just hunkered down to ride it out.
When the storm subsided, we went out to assess the damage. Our house stood up to it surprisingly well, but many of our neighbors weren’t so lucky. Even our satellite dish was still standing, so that answered that question.
We saw on the news after the TV came back on that meteors destroyed six of the buses carrying families to shelters. The death toll was around 25,000 across the state.
Later that day, the Governor came by to ask me about some of the things we had done to the house. It seems they might install some of my ideas in government buildings and schools. The Governor offered me a post in his administration, but I politely declined. I’m a writer, not a politician.
As we stood in the field by his helicopter talking, a meteor that must have been 20 feet wide struck dead-center of my house, driving it into the ground. I stared in terrified horror as I realized my wife was still inside. I sunk to my knees, sobbing as my world came to an end.
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Stephen Dalton is a retired US Army First Sergeant with a degree in journalism from the University of Maryland and a Certified US English Chicago Manual of Style Editor. Currently living in the Philippines, Stephen is a Top Writer in Virtual Reality.
You can see his portfolio here. Email [email protected]