The Rider (Complete)

Chapter Twenty-Two

"What's happening, mama?" a young boy asked his mother.

Kade sensed his mother's panic and quickly peddled toward the open garage.

"I'm not sure, but we need to get inside now."

"What about papa? Is he going to be okay?"

"Your father is going to be just fine. I'll call him now."

Kade's mother turned on the news and saw live feeds of the disaster. The Caldera supervolcano located Yellowstone National Park had erupted and was spewing hot lava hundreds of feet in the air. Scientists were being interviewed on television, speaking about the long-term environmental, economic, and social impacts.

"We are entering the early stages of another mass extinction event," one scientist said. "This will come in several waves that people need to prepare for. 

"The first wave to hit us will be infrastructure breakdown. Roads will become congested, making it difficult to mobilize and have first-responders come to people's aid. Delivery drivers won't be able to supply food, medicine, and other essential items to distributors. Hospitals will be overwhelmed and unable to treat those in need. People will not receive proper food, water, and medical care.

"This will lead to the second wave, which is a complete collapse of society. Riots, looting, murder will all become common place as systems erode and people become desperate.

"Next will be a widespread famine. Crop yields will plummet, millions of people living in cities will die of starvation.

"The fourth wave will hit whoever remains in rural environments. Pestilence brought on by a lack of clean drinking water and sewage treatment will wipe out nearly everyone.

"The final wave will be from a lack of oxygen. After the trees and plant life die off, people will simply suffocate to death.

"There will be survivors, but they will be few. To quote Thomas Hobbes, life on Earth will be nasty, brutish, and short. Ninety-nine point nine percent of all life on this planet will eventually die within ten to fifteen years.

"Over time, hundreds of thousands or millions of years, Earth will undergo cataclysmic shifts in climate and other environmental changes. The sky will eventually return to its natural state, and a new life will begin again.

"It goes in cycles," the scientist said frankly. "The dinosaurs were around a lot longer than us and they became extinct. Now it is our turn. We had our run. It was a good run. And we will leave this planet for the next civilization that comes after us. By then, nothing man made, aside from large stone structures will remain.

"The next intelligent life that comes after us will think they're the first. They will postulate about the stars as we once did, they will develop philosophy and mathematics, science and medicine, they will have inventions and discoveries, and a life they call their own. It may look nothing like our civilization, or it may be pretty similar.

"As a scientist, I can say with confidence there's nothing we can do to prevent this from happening. I recommend gathering all your family and friends, enjoy each other as much as possible, and hope that you die quickly."

The matter of factness in which the scientist spoke was enough to freak anyone out. Kade's mother stared at the screen holding her mouth open in shock. Her eyes welled up with sadness as despair set in.

***

Kade's body was in transit. A group of insurgents had found him up and where carting him back to their base — a dwelling carved into the mountains. His body had endured a beating and had succumb to a comatose state in an effort to repair itself.

Kade's mask had been pulled off and replaced by one of their own. One of the insurgents — a former doctor — tended to Kade by injecting him with a dose of steroids and a sedative. A saline drip hung overhead, slowly delivering much needed fluids into his depleted body.