Sean Marsh [Marsh - David

Introduction

This book is intended as a manual as much as a novel. Sitting in my hotel room bored one night while away on business I idly wondered, if there was a calamity, just how long it would take me to get home and what would I have to do to see my family again.

Cover illustration: BravoCovers

Copywrite 2019 by Sean Marsh
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be
reproduced or used in any manner without written
permission of the copyright owner except for the use of
quotations in a book review.

Thanks to Matt for reading every chapter time and time again,
to all my children who I love very much
and to my wife Hannah for amazingly proof reading for me.

Chapter One

T he meeting had ended early and David was nicely back in his hotel room by three thirty pm. Leisurely stripping off his shoes and tie, he flung them, then himself wearily onto the bed and dropped into a cosy half asleep. It had been a very productive, but also very tiring meeting. As was usual for this type of meeting, the clients wanted to add extra work to the project at no extra cost. So, most of the day had been spent reducing their expectations and slowly adding in the additional charges.

At 45 years old David was the head developer for an IT company specialising in business solutions. It was a job David would say was just as boring as it sounded, but secretly he thoroughly enjoyed designing and building complicated systems that no one else would understand. Being call Dave and being in IT was a complete pain in the ass, as it meant that he was quite frequently the brunt of the is everyone in IT called Dave joke. A joke that he, with quite a bit of difficulty, usually ignored or if it was a customer smiled politely through tightly clenched teeth, all the while wishing the meeting was over.

Being away from home in Manchester was something that David was getting fairly used to, as it was now becoming almost a monthly occurrence. He still missed his family back home on the Kent coast, but the train ride wasnt too bad. At least he had broadband, so he could work during the long journey and to be honest the Premier Inn hotel he was regularly staying at was right in the centre of Manchester, so it meant that he could simply walk to his meetings.

Laying the bed and staring without any real focus, Davids thoughts thickened, and he drifted away into a heavy sleep.

*

Waking with a start David wondered what the on earth the booming and the rattling noises were that had roused him from his pretty much instant and fairly, deep sleep.

Shaking his head to clear the cotton wool feeling, he looked at his watch, Oh Great, he said aloud as he realised that hed dropped off to sleep for, at the most ten minutes.

David was still in his shirt and his suit trousers, which after his short nap were now in need of a good ironing. Although still groggy from the short but deep nap, he managed to roll himself over onto one arm and very slowly grab the TV remote control.

With sleepy eyes he pressed what he thought was always the start button on a confusing hotel remote a couple of times, but nothing happened, the TV refused to turn on. Thinking he was probably an idiot, as he was still more than half asleep. David, with a grunt, slowly got off the bed and wandered over to the TV. His aim was to try and press the on button near the front of the TV unit. Achieving this he was once again surprised when nothing happened, the TV stubbornly refused to turn on.

Perhaps its off at the wall, he thought. Being a techie, he was quite used to IT support. Either through work or friends and family so he began to follow the wires from the back of the tv down the back of the cabinet. Nope thats not it, he said to himself seeing that the wall switch was turned on.

Too tired to give a shit, David gave up with the TV and turned back to the small table huddled in the corner of the hotel room. From there he grabbed his laptop and, opening it up he thought, well if the TVs not working then Im definitely going to browse the internet instead.

It didnt take long before David was shaking his head again in confusion. He was pretty sure that hed just closed the laptop and not turned it off when hed left the meeting and to be honest, he was more than a little annoyed when it didnt immediately start up. With a heavy sigh he, once again, hit a so called on button, and once again there was no response from the so called on button.

Annoyed, a bit confused and ever so slightly concerned, David looked over at his mobile phone. The screen too was totally dark, but he rationalised that could be just because it hadnt been used since hed got back to the room. Try as he would he could not even slightly believe this himself and it gave him an even deeper feeling of dread as he walked over to the mobile.

Really?, he asked no one out loud, as his phone wouldnt turn on.

Scanning the room David began, slightly frantically looking for any other electrical devices. The first one he spotted was the bedside alarm clock. This too had no display and was dark. He next tried his kindle, which as you would have guessed, also would not give a response.

Oh god, oh god, he panicked, as for a final test he crossed the room to the bathroom. Once there David flicked the switch to the lights on and off five, maybe six times, but the lights would not turn on.

Woodenly walking back to the bed David hesitated as he also realised that he could no longer hear the normally, ever-present humming of the air conditioning unit. For David this caused an involuntary shiver to track down the length of his back.

Running over to the window David stood, hands pressed flat against the glass, as he stared down at the city five stories below. Everywhere he looked there were cars littered over the streets and pavements, none of them were moving and quite a few of them had crashed into each other or even into buildings.

From his viewpoint he could see that a handful of the cars had unfortunately hit people, as there was loads of screaming, some people were splattered in blood and surrounded by helpers or just watchers.

It was a chaotic view, people were everywhere. Some looking under the bonnet of their, now stationary cars. Others just running along the streets, hurriedly trying to get to where they had to be. It was as close to chaos as David had ever imagined.

Glancing up into the distance, over the top of the hi-rise offices, David could just make out the edge of a wing. Then a bit of fuselage and, unfortunately piles and piles of black smoke billowing up into the clear, late October sky. Judging from the amount of smoke, and also the position, David guessed it must be coming from the airport.

Looking at the carnage below his mind quietly and sluggishly went numb, as he thought about the poor people who were on the plane.

The plane that was now just an inferno of twisted wreckage and wasted lives. He guessed that the passengers last few moments aboard must have been truly horrific. With the loss of all electronics the plane would have literally dropped from the sky like a brick. The passengers would have had no warning or even an announcement from the crew to prepare to brace for impact, just the instant silencing of the engines followed by a nosedive into the ground as people screamed in terror until the very end.

Shaking his head and forcing his eyes from the billowing cloud of flames and black smoke that was once an airplane, and sadly peoples lives. David looked down to the street below shaking his head in fear. He began to think almost with a giggle that this was just like the disaster movies hed loved to watch. Only this was brutally real and it was happening right now, right in front of him.

Unable to stop watching, it was almost like he was viewing a bad movie. David noticed that nobody appeared to know what to do or, even what the hell had happened. Mostly the people he could see were all staring around, somehow looking for answers in the streets or sky. Either that or asking each other questions that no one knew the answers to.