The Book of Apex: Volume 2 of Apex Magazine by Jason Sizemore

Author:Jason Sizemore
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Apex Publications
Published: 2011-01-20T06:00:00+00:00

3

The weatherman danced in front of a map of the northeast with a mixture of excitement and sheer panic. He pointed at New England—at least what little of it that could be seen beneath the massive animated cloud—and then ran his finger down the entire east coast, stopping at the Carolinas.

“Folks, I can safely say that this is something we’ve never seen before,” he said breathlessly. “This massive system literally came out of nowhere and, in the past few hours, has absorbed several smaller systems riding the jet stream, forming a ‘super storm’ that is now blanketing the northeast. We’re talking hurricane force winds, and snowfall at a rate of several inches per hour; in higher elevations, we could see as much as a foot or more an hour, with no sign of slowing …”

“Yeah, tell us something we don’t know,” Billy muttered. He cradled Margot in his arms. She snored softly, long ago surrendering to the valium Linda had given her. Linda sat next to Billy, equally as doped, but working on her fifth glass of wine nonetheless. Maxie and Quinn lay curled up on the floor beside Rob, who sat Indian style in front of the small television.

The weather-map had changed and now depicted the entire United States. The Great Lakes were obscured by a swirling mass of clouds the size of Texas, while two huge tropical storms book-ended Florida, one in the Atlantic, and one moving up toward the pan handle from the Gulf.

“This is unprecedented stuff, folks. Completely unprecedented. And they’re no better off across the pond, where, we’re told, much of northern and central Europe is experiencing blizzard conditions, with London reporting more than two feet of snow fall in the last three hours.” The weatherman took a deep breath and shook his head and laughed. “This is…it’s a little scary, is what it is.” He looked at his watch and laughed again. “Here we are, thirty minutes away from December 21st 2012. I don’t have to remind most of you what that date signifies. It’s got to make you wonder, right? I mean…”

The camera panned violently and then cut back to the news desk. The anchors—a meticulously coiffed silver-haired man and an overly made-up middle-aged woman—stared slack-jawed at a commotion off camera. After a few seconds of silence, the male anchor regained his composure, looked into the camera, and smiled unconvincingly.

“Dan…Dan is obviously joking, folks,” he said. The reporter paused, his smile wavering, as he held his finger to his ear. “We, here at WCTV, want…to…assure you that…okay, hold on a minute folks. We’re getting some news out of…I can’t make this out. Is somebody going to throw this on the prompt…?”

The image on the screen froze and flickered before giving way to color bars and a droning, high-pitched tone. Rob flipped through the stations and, after nothing but static, test patterns, or no picture at all, switched off the television.

“Satellite dish is probably buried,” Rob said. “With that wind, I’m surprised we had reception as long as we did.

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