The Doomsday Series Box Set | Books 1-5 Read online

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Volume 3

  DOOMSDAY: Anarchy

  Epigraph

  January 2

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Volume 4

  DOOMSDAY: Minutemen

  Prologue

  Part I

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Part II

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Part III

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Part IV

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Volume 5

  DOOMSDAY: Civil War

  Epigraph

  Part I

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Part II

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Part III

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Part IV

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Part V

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Part VI

  Chapter 48

  What’s coming next from Bobby Akart?

  Series synopsis of Author, Bobby Akart

  Volume One

  DOOMSDAY Apocalypse

  The Doomsday Series: Book One

  Bobby Akart

  Epigraph

  To argue with a person who renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.

  ~ Thomas Paine

  I never considered a difference in opinion in politics, religion, or philosophy as cause for withdrawing from a friend.

  ~ Thomas Jefferson

  “I’m right!” “No, you’re not, I am right!” “Yes, I am!” “You’re stupid.” “No, I’m not, take it back!” “I won’t, you stupid idiot!” “Shut up!” “No, you shut up!”

  ~ Two seven-year-old friends on a school playground

  America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.

  ~ paraphrased from a speech by Abraham Lincoln, 1838

  All empires collapse eventually. Their reign ends when they are either defeated by a larger and more powerful enemy, or when their financing runs out. America will be no exception.

  ~ Author Bobby Akart, 2015

  Prologue

  Monocacy Farm

  South of Frederick, Maryland

  October 31

  Any two of them rarely met in person, and only on one other occasion had they congregated as a group. Their backgrounds and ideologies were as diverse as the country in which they lived. Matters of race, gender, religion, and culture were irrelevant. Commonality of purpose was tantamount in their minds.

  If the meeting were known to the public, one day it would be deemed historic. The gathering, located at a hundred-acre farm twenty miles south of Frederick, Maryland, was not called hastily. Hushed conversations and encrypted messages, starting several months earlier, preceded the clandestine meeting.

  As fall set upon the Northeastern United States and the first Tuesday in November rapidly approached, the men and women began to feel a sense of urgency. The whispers grew louder—a meeting must be convened posthaste. October 31 was agreed upon.

  The location sitting on the banks of the Monocacy River was a given, especially in light of its historic significance. One by one, they arrived at the mansion, a beautiful antebellum structure that had been in their host’s family for generations dating back to its construction in the early nineteenth century. Sitting nearly a mile off the road, the stately home and adjacent barns were enveloped with sugar maple trees, whose leaves had mostly changed to golden yellow and brown. Interspersed around the property to maintain its privacy were enormous eastern hemlocks that managed to avoid a plague caused by the infestation of the hemlock woolly aphid, a blight upon the beautiful tree, which resulted in its slow deterioration and death.

  The heir to the farm, who concealed his ownership through a blind trust, stood on the front porch despite the cool autumn air, and greeted his guests one by one. Although it was not intended to be a festive occasion, the attendees took the rare opportunity to socialize with their comrades by enjoying hors d’oeuvres and cocktails.

  The staff who waited upon them were well trained and sworn to secrecy by more than a nondisclosure agreement that had become a worthless legal document in this day and age. No, they feared for their lives, for they presumed the
tentacles of their powerful employer reached far and wide.

  For the next several hours until midnight approached, they commiserated and debated. A consensus was reached, and then arguments began about things like moral high ground and sacrifice.

  A plan was set forth to advance their goals, and countermeasures were adopted in anticipation of their enemies’ reaction. All of them envisioned a high-stakes game of chess that history would prove to be unparalleled in the modern age of geopolitical stratagems and tactics.

  As the evening drew to a conclusion, their host proposed a toast.

  “I was once confronted by a man of great political power who stood in my face and said, ‘You’re not strong enough to withstand the storm.’ Today, my friends, drawing from our collective strength and love of country, we have taken our stand. I would say to those who will condemn our actions—we are the storm!”

  “Hear, hear!”

  The group raised their glasses and drained them. Then their acknowledged leader stepped forward into the spacious living room that had hosted gala affairs and events over the centuries. He positioned himself in front of a massive stone fireplace containing a blaze that shot flames well up the chimney flue.

  Before he spoke, he glanced up at the emblem carved out of granite that was inset into the stone. The skull and crossbones were fitting for their Halloween gathering. The numbers three-two-two carved beneath, were shrouded in mystery just as those who attended on this cold evening.

  He slowly turned and looked around the room. “Messenger, are you ready?”

  “I am,” replied a younger, bespectacled man, who apologetically pushed his way through the group.

  Their host addressed him authoritatively. “Read it before it’s disseminated to your usual platforms.”

  The Messenger already had the screen open on the secured, data-encrypted application designed by him for this specific purpose. As the Messenger, he was responsible for communicating with other like-minded individuals around the world. He pressed the enter button, and the message was sent.

  Their demeanor solemn, the guests quietly exited and returned to their homes and families, the weight of their decision hanging over them. Their host allowed himself another drink and poured two fingers of Glenlivet single malt scotch whisky into a glass. He dismissed the staff and walked out on the veranda overlooking the Monocacy River to be alone with his thoughts.

  He gazed up at the full moon, that had taken on a somewhat bluish tint, befitting its significance. Historically, the first full moon of autumn, known as the harvest moon, allowed farmers extra time in their fields to bring in their crops. That had occurred earlier in the month of October.

  On this Halloween night, this second full moon of the month, much to the consternation of soothsayers and zealots, represented the proverbial blue moon, the second full moon in a calendar month, which rarely occurred. The unusual astronomical event was coupled with the second moon of that October being designated the hunter’s moon, so named as the next full moon following the harvest moon. The confluence of the three designations in the same month caused the cable news media outlets to take notice.

  Throughout the month of October, psychics, clairvoyants, and prophecy pundits filled the airwaves. The media countered with scientists and historians, who roundly mocked the prognosticators as crackpots. Even so, many said the rare occurrence of the harvest, hunter’s and blue moons occurring in the same month portended doom and that the apocalypse was upon us all.

  They were right.

  As if to confirm that the evening’s events were real, he pulled out his phone and read the message appearing on the screen.

  On the day of the feast of Saint Sylvester,

  Tear down locked,

  Green light burning.

  Love, MM

  And so it begins …

  New Year’s Eve

  Chapter One

  One World Trade Center

  New York City

  It was cold in Manhattan as darkness overtook the city on New Year’s Eve. A light snow had just begun to fall on the concrete jungle, which spread out one hundred four stories below them. The rebuilt One World Trade Center boasted the tallest building in the western hemisphere and the sixth tallest on the planet. It was America’s way of giving the middle finger to the terrorists who had attacked the nation on 9/11. On this evening, a terror of a different nature was going to be unleashed on the world’s superpower. One that would lead to an upheaval not seen in more than a century.

  The SkyPod elevators carried them one hundred two stories to the One World Observatory in just forty-seven seconds. It was a remarkable ride to the top of the building that transformed the landscape with a herculean endeavor. Also known as Freedom Tower, the new World Trade Center stood proud at the heart of a forest of skyscrapers dotting the center of the world’s financial markets.

  The view from the observatory was nothing short of spectacular. As the snow fluttered from the blue-black winter sky, the visitors to the One World Observatory didn’t seem to mind their view being obscured slightly. Many pressed their faces as close to the glass as they could, longing to reach out and touch the frozen snowflakes as they fluttered past.

  The excitement of New Year’s Eve added to the jovial mood of the visitors. This was the legendary city in which the ball drops in Times Square, to the delight of millions in attendance and many millions more watching around the world. On New Year’s Eve, New York was more than a place of power for the world’s financial elite, it was a preeminent city against which all others were measured.

  Admired by most, envied and despised by others for what it represents, the Big Apple was more than a collection of tall buildings and financial brokerage houses. It was a cosmopolitan gathering of cultures, races, and ideologies—constantly in motion.

  New York City was alive as people made their way to elaborate dinners or to find a place in New York’s Times Square, four miles from the World Trade Center, in Midtown. From the observation deck, visitors could feel the surging energy throughout the island. Multitudes of office towers and apartment buildings were lit up as parties were in full swing, or revelers were readying themselves for the big night.

  Many of the visitors focused on the beautiful panoramic views. They looked intently through the telescopes located around the perimeter of the observation deck. Their focus was on what was happening outside and not the two men who leaned quietly against a wall on the inside.

  A gaunt-faced man in his fifties wore a black woolen trench coat with the collar turned up around his neck. His old, wire-rimmed spectacles contained lenses that made his eyes look larger than life. His flat cap hat resembled those worn by newsboys in the 1940s, those young street-corner newspaper sellers who helped their families make ends meet during World War II. The man was a throwback to the last century in more ways than one.

  His associate, a much younger man built like the Incredible Hulk, was more out of place than the older man. Unlike his partner and the majority of the visitors, he wore khaki pants and a short-sleeve, black polo shirt. His chest and arms bulged, threatening to tear the shirt apart at the seams. The skull and bones tattoo on his right bicep seemed to come alive as his muscles flexed. The number 322 underneath fluttered like a flag atop a ship’s mast.

  The older man made casual conversation, not attempting to hide his native Irish accent. “I watched them tear it down, only to build it back up again, stronger and more powerful than before.”