Epoch's End Complete 7-Book Series Omnibus (Paperback)

Preface

A remote
island off the coast of New England

The wet sand cooled Robert’s feet as he pulled the small
sailboat a little farther onto the beach and stepped back to ensure the gently
lapping waves wouldn’t drag it away. Once satisfied the boat was stable, Robert
put his hands on his hips and gazed across the beautiful North Atlantic from
the island’s shore.

The sun glinted off the flat surface, the stark blue horizon line
dividing the water and the clear blue sky, birds calling down the shore. Robert
took a deep breath of fresh air and let the tension drain from his body, stress
from the day job melting away like wax down the side of a candle. He backed up
the beach onto the drier sand and wiggled his toes in its warmth.

A pair of wine glasses clinked together, and Robert turned to see
Denise kneeling on the beach blanket, auburn hair whipping around her shoulders
as she held up the glasses and tapped them together, a sly expression on her
face.

Robert couldn’t help but grin, his beautiful wife looking
like a goddess against the backdrop of the old lighthouse on its grassy rise. Turning
his back on the ocean, he grinned and tried to wipe away the mild guilt at
drinking so early in the day. But it was their vacation, and the picnic was
just the start of things to come.

“Coming, honey,” he said, starting
over when his daughter called from the lighthouse yard.

“Hey, Dad! Look!”

Robert turned to see Cleo’s head sticking up above the tall
grass, her golden-brown hair sunbaked as it lay over her shoulders. Her finger
was aimed at something in the ocean, and he turned to face the water as a
school of flying fish burst from the waves and flitted upward in a spray of dazzling
foam.

“Flying fish! Exocoetidai!”
Robert’s smile was wide and a little strained. Being from New Bedford, Rhode
Island, he’d heard of the flying fish reaching as far north as Buzzards Bay, though
it was strange to see them so far out.

They were beautiful creatures, sunlight glinting off their
cylindrical bodies in sparkles of wiggling movement as they soared hundreds of
meters through the air. Gulls swooped down and plucked some out of the sky,
beaks snapping them up in a frenzy of activity.

Robert turned away from the ocean and trudged through the sand
toward his wife, kicking warm “You sure it's not too early for wine?” Robert
asked with a smile, already knowing the answer.

“It’s never too early for wine! The
kids are playing in the lighthouse. Now," she smiled, holding a glass up
toward him, "this lady wants to spend some quality time with her husband.”

The children’s laughter danced down the hill, and Robert glanced up at
the lighthouse to watch his son, Brad, chase his sister around. They were
running the sand trails between the dunes, the rustic lighthouse and its
beach-scrub yard lingering in the background in its deep brown granite face,
the iron catwalk spotted with rust where it encircled the octagonal lighthouse
on top.

“Stay where we can see you!” Robert
called up to them.

“Okay, Dad!” Cleo called back.

Robert started to sit when the feeding birds clambered and
squawked excitedly, the burst of activity causing his wife to tick her head
to the side.

“The flying fish are beautiful, aren’t
they?” Robert reached for a wine glass.

“It’s not just flying fish anymore,”
Denise replied, still staring at the ocean, nodding at the water.

Brow furrowed, hand still held out for a glass, Robert half turned
and gazed back at a dozen or more dorsal fins cutting through the water, moving
south at a high rate of speed, tails churning up the foam as sleek gray forms accelerated
like bullets across the surface. Clicks and squeals penetrated his ears above
the sounds of rolling surf, drawing him the rest of the way around to face the
water.

He squinted. “Those are… dolphins?"

Denise put her hand to her forehead to block the sun. “I think so. And…
Oh, look at that!”

Five large humps rose above the water’s surface,
massive gray backs with hard crescent shapes slipping through the waves and
diving hard, sending sea foam splashing up. They drove through the ranks of
dolphins and sent them turning and zipping away through the water.

“Those are humpback whales.” Jaw
hanging open in awe, Robert stared at the whales’ barreling, knob-ridden snouts as they
pushed through the other animals, knocking them aside, fins smacking the water
as whale songs lifted high and strained.

“This is crazy,” he said, blinking in
amazement as the squarish head of a sperm whale breached the water’s surface,
its body soaring several meters into the air, trailing salt water, a squid
clenched in its mouth. The squid’s tentacles still clung to the whale’s head,
hooked in even as the deep-sea creature was actively being devoured.

“Those two came from deep down.
Something must have driven them to the surface." He staggered closer, feet
dragging through the sand, hand raised to his eyes in bewilderment. "What the hell's going on to get them running
scared like that?"

“Robert?” Nancy’s voice rose with an
uneasy lilt. “Do you feel that?”

“Feel what?” Robert watched as Denise
backed up along the beach, hands held out as if she were trying to get her
balance.

A tremor echoed through the ground, a slow, low rumble of tectonic
shift that shook the sand, sending his feet vibrating in a wave that moved up
and down his legs, setting every hair on end. Eyes darting to Denise, she
returned a wide-eyed horrified stare. The ground bucked, lifting Robert off his
feet and tossing him into his wife, sending wine glasses flying, the bottle
tumbling to the sand, red wine spilling out in a quivering gush. He caught her,
turning, eyes darting like a pinball as they stumbled around. Robert held on to
her, the two dancing on the balls of their feet to stay upright.

Cleo screamed and Brad cried out, “Mommy! Mommy!”

“The kids,” Robert’s voice ejected in
a panicked grunt, watching as Cleo tried
to stand before being violently thrown back to the ground. Brad ran toward his
sister, but the grassy yard kicked upward and pitched him into the tall grass,
tumbling head over heels.  

“No!” Robert cried. Teeth gritting
against Nature’s fury, he braced himself with his hands on Denise’s shoulders, pushing
himself to his feet. Denise helped stabilize her husband, gripping his arms
until her fingernails made furrows in his skin, pushing and shoving him ahead
like a shield. He stumbled
forward five yards before losing his balance, and he threw his legs wide just
to stay upright. Denise smashed against him then fell away, staggering, hands
bent into claws as she strove to cling to him.

Robert craned his neck back toward the beach, mouth falling open
at the massive form surging toward them, skimming across the wet sand on a
layer of brine like a water demon from the darkest depths of the ocean. At
first, Robert couldn’t believe his eyes, but the massive
black-backed creature slid toward them, its white underbelly plowing through
the sand, displacing a thousand pounds of grains in a sweeping wake.

Adrenaline shocked his limbs, and Robert jerked backwards, dragging
Denise with him. They stumbled a dozen yards and fell to the side as the killer
whale slid past them, six tons of massive bulk throwing a wake of gritty brown
sand over their heads, a pungent brine smell washing over them. 

Wiping his eyes with one hand, spitting, choking, coughing up
sand, Robert grabbed Denise and shouted into her face. “We’ve got to get
to the kids!”

“How?” she called back, straining to
be heard over the rumbling.

“Crawl!”

Robert pulled her away from the Orca, falling to all fours and
propelling himself forward any way he could. He kicked with his legs and knees,
digging his arms into the sand, using them like flippers. Head down, ears honed-in
on the screams of his children, he dragged himself across the shivering sand.

After several yards of scrambling, Robert glanced back to see
Denise lying sprawled on the beach, face turned up to him, frozen in terror, a
silent scream ripping from her throat. Her hair shimmered where it fell across
her forehead, arm outstretched and reaching, fingers clutching.

Robert faced forward and dove with his arms spread wide, crawling
harder, glaring up toward the rise as the brown granite of the lighthouse burst
apart. The stones shook out of the wall, mortar turned to dust, sifting down in
a dry cascade. Up in the lighthouse, glass exploded from the massive lantern
pane, sending razor sharp shards zipping to the ground. The catwalk buckled and
broke away, and the tower split and folded downward in a screech of twisting
metal.

The steel cupola rolled off and plunged end over end in a
slow-motion free fall toward their children. The rounded bell smacked the
ground with an ominous clang, cutting off their screams. A moment of shock and
disbelief passed through his system, a dreadful reality gripping him with shock.

“No!” Robert screamed.

Tears and sand stinging his eyes, Robert pounded forward, arm over
arm, dragging himself across a ground that had become more ethereal than firm, determined
to somehow reach his children. Changing direction, he grunted and shouted unintelligibly
as his struggle to crawl grew. He cried out in dismay as a crack ran across the
base of the dune, sand sifting into the gap. The ground buckled, dumping the
lighthouse into some bottomless underground chasm before a dozen water geysers
sprouted up into the sky, the ends flailing outward in a fine mist.

Up the beach, more geysers and cracks sprung open, vomiting up
fish, eels, and gelatinous creatures onto the beach, leaving them squirming and
flopping around as they died. Rolling onto his back, Robert tried to find
Denise, his heart seizing again at the sight of another crack running into the
sea, the killer whale floundering half inside the gaping fissure.

Denise was gone, disappeared, swallowed up or taken by the ocean
waves. An anguished cry tore from his lips as he closed his eyes and
prepared to meet his maker. Powerful
forces tore apart the island, split by the violent tides. A chasm cracked the island’s bedrock, the
yawning maw consuming rock and silt and sand, punctuated by geysers of
freshwater stirred up from the ocean floor and shot up from the muck.

The crack continued toward the east shore where it split the
island in two. Stone exploded upwards, massive rocks tumbling through the air,
cracking together like lightning before exploding into brittle bits, crumbles
of sediment raining down, splashing into the spreading waves.

The island slowly slid beneath the churning swell of silt and
freshwater soup surging upward from the Earth’s crust, bubbles
gurgling upward in a final, wet gasp.

The sea fell silent, and it was all gone[MP1] .

 [MP1]Wow!
Great start!