Dare to enter the chilling world of Glenn Riley's "Creepy Crawlies", a spine-tingling collection where the smallest creatures cast the longest shadows. In this gripping anthology, Riley masterfully weaves tales of horror that skitter and scuttle fro...
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When the asteroid first appeared on the radar, no one paid it much attention. Small meteorites burn up in the atmosphere all the time, nothing more than a momentary flash of light in the night sky. But as it drew closer, the calculations changed. This was no typical rock; it measured over a hundred meters across and was hurtling towards Earth at nearly 60,000 mph.
The news spread like wildfire as backyard astronomers turned their telescopes upward and captured the first blurry images of the massive, crater-pocked asteroid barreling through space. NASA rang the alarm bells, but by then it was too late - the asteroid had grazed by the Moon and Earth’s gravity had it locked into a collision course.
It slammed into the suburbs of Chicago with the force of a nuclear bomb, vaporizing entire neighborhoods instantly. The blast wave leveled buildings for miles while a massive fireball erupted skyward, visible from states away. In an instant, thousands were dead or dying. But for those who survived initially, the worst was yet to come.
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Detective Jean Frances pulled her battered Crown Vic up to the smoking crater, now a quarter mile across and stretching almost into downtown. The National Guard had cordoned off the area, waving her through the checkpoint with barely a glance. Formerly one of the department’s rising stars, she had gained a reputation as a drunk ever since her messy divorce and suspension six months earlier. She took a quick nip from the flask tucked beside the seat before getting out to survey the devastation.
Little remained standing for half a mile in every direction. The crater still smoldered from residual heat, the meteorite itself now a bubbling pit of molten rock buried deep underground. This area should have been bustling with traffic and pedestrians, but now it was eerily silent. Guard troops wearing hazmat suits combed through rubble while firefighters hosed down the last isolated blazes. In the crater’s center stood a hastily erected science station, filled with NASA scientists aiming various instruments at the simmering hole. What were they looking for? She decided to find out.
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