Winter in July (The Doomsday Clock is Ticking; it Will Reach Midnight)

By James W. Nelson

Some time ago I got 4 not-happy reviews for this book. These men obviously liked thrillers (as do I) and when they bought a book about nuclear war they expected a thriller, and were disappointed. But getting 4 bad reviews in a row like that and close together, well, "that" disappointed "me." The next review was quite different, and he describes my book to a "T." So, I've decided to use his review for my long description.
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An unusual, introspective take on the apocalyptic / post-apocalyptic tale, May 5, 2012
By Kurt Stallings “Kurt Stallings — Author, Law... (Fort Worth, Texas
Kirby Yates lives in a part of the country where there are almost as many nuclear missiles as there are people. The small little town he calls home is filled with lonely people making their way through silent lives. They would be mere numbers waiting to be dumped onto a casualty list if it wasn’t for the fact that their exact location is just beyond the range of total destruction by any enemy missiles aimed at the American bases a short drive across the prairie. Even so, Yates would be nothing among them in the eyes of planners, but for the fact that he happens to have a combination of basic military experience, a quiet competence for planting and managing landscapes, and a bit more intelligence than most — common enough throughout the world, but rare in that particular spot. He’s chosen to prepare for and participate in any nuclear exchange without being informed of the fact until it’s too late to quit, although he is bright enough to realize it before. Ironically, he realizes, he is preparing the stage for the tragedy that has given him nightmares since discovering a secret stash of materials in his uncle’s house. His artist’s vision, which he keeps hidden from others, makes his sense of what may be coming only more vivid.

The author achieves something rare, if not indeed unique, with a work of fiction that not only broadens the reach of its particular sub-genre but doubles as a commentary on that sub-genre in itself. Certainly, this is the first of the A/PA novels I’ve read that explores the reason I am compelled to read so many. The protagonist grew up with the same obsessive sense of impending nuclear doom that vested in so many of us at a certain age, thanks to countless drills at school, those ridiculous films in class, and any number of black-and-white movies on TV. While some reviewers here are put off by Kirby Yates’ initial, relative immaturity — brilliantly and incisively detailed for him halfway through by a woman explaining why they can not be together — readers more accustomed to novels that aren’t purely action-driven will enjoy following his maturation, complete at the end of the book.

I’m not knocking action books, or those who enjoy them, I’m simply making the distinction so you can choose whether you personally might enjoy the book or not. I like action books; I also like this one. This is a book about a man, not a war, albeit a man preparing for the most terrifying of wars; and it’s a book about a real man, not a caricature.

I recommend BUY as someone who enjoyed the tension as the subtle shifts in his relationships, always driven by an artist’s appreciation for the insanity of nuclear war, was also balanced by an appreciation for the need for “adults” (as Yates puts it in his musings) who deal with insanity as something that is never going away. The struggle to achieve some sort of mature balance within himself as between those two impulses are what drive his decisions throughout the book. The ending is so satisfying because he finds that balance under the most surprising of circumstances — or perhaps the only situation in which he might have stumbled onto it. In any event, it’s his decisive action that wins him his “adulthood,” and brings the security he’s always sought to himself and those for whom he cares.

• Language: English
• Publisher: James W. Nelson
• Release date: Sep 2, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310209901

James W. Nelson

James W. Nelson was born in a farmhouse in eastern North Dakota in 1944. Some doctors made house calls back in those days. He was living in that same house on the land originally homesteaded by his great grandfather, when a savage tornado hit in 1955 and destroyed everything. But they rebuilt and his family remained on that land until the early nineteen-seventies when diversified farming began changing to industrial agribusiness. James spent four years in the US Navy, worked many jobs and has finally has settled on a few acres of land exactly two and one half miles straight west of the original farmstead, ironically likely the very spot where the 1955 tornado first struck, which sometimes gives him a spooky feeling.He lives among goldfinches, chickadees, nuthatches, blue jays, crows, cottontails, squirrels, deer, mink, badgers, coyotes, wallflowers, spiderworts, sunflowers, goldenrod, big and little bluestem, switchgrass, needle & thread grass, June berries, chokecherries, oaks, willows, boxelders and cottonwoods, in the outback of eastern North Dakota.

Book preview

Winter in July

(The doomsday clock is ticking; it will reach midnight.)

by

James W. Nelson

Copyright 2011 by James W. Nelson

Published by James W. Nelson at Smashwords, 2022

To John Larson and Dennis Herrick my Good Friends and First Readers

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Providence

Chapter 2 Denial

Chapter 3 Nuclear Sanity

Chapter 4 The Nightmare Begins

Chapter 5 The Energy House

Chapter 6 Samuel Hatwell, Esquire

Chapter 7 80 Acres of Paradise

Chapter 8 Reflecting

Chapter 9 The Protest

Chapter 10 Delusions

Chapter 11 The Appointment

Interlude

Chapter 12 The Nightmare Continues

Chapter 13 Bomb Shelter

Chapter14 No Quarter for Carrion-hunters, or Survivors

Chapter 15 His Human Need

Chapter 16 Almost Crazy

Chapter 17 The Brawl

Chapter 18 Lisa

Chapter 19 Colleen

Chapter 20 Open House

Chapter 21 Birthday Bash

Chapter 22 From Heaven to Hell

Chapter 23 Hell

Chapter 24 Hope

Characters

Books by James W. Nelson

Descriptions

Biography

Contact

Prologue

The world is still a dangerous place, and changing more quickly than most people (including me) can keep up with. North Korea now not only has nuclear weapons (that work) but ICBMs claimed to reach anywhere in the United States. According to Kim's last test there's very little doubt of that being true.

Update in 2019: Kim and President Trump have been talking. A good thing.

Iran, thanks to getting a ton of cash on a pallet, sanctions lifted and an agreement the mullahs are ignoring is said to be capable of creating nuclear weapons within ten years.

Rubbish. They very likely all ready have them buried in a mountain somewhere and just need to get the bugs out of their missile technology. Being a major sponsor of terrorist activity, how long till the Islamic terrorists get a few suitcases filled and cross America's wide open borders?

Russia and China both have Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles still aimed at the United States, and likely most other nations of the free western world. India and Pakistan have nuclear weapons, although, presently at least, we think, just aimed at each other. North Korea has nuclear weapons, but we don’t know, exactly, what they have. Iran badly wants nuclear weapons, no matter what their leaders are saying. And who knows how many other nations have nuclear weapons and/or the capability of acquiring them very quickly. Oh, yes, and terrorists: How many suitcases can a terrorist carry? Or a dozen? Or a hundred? A nuclear winter is still somewhat in the realm of theory; that is, we really don’t know what would happen during and after even a small nuclear exchange. And that’s the key: We don’t know.

This novel, Winter in July, is fiction. It is not meant as a call to arms by the doves of the world, nor as a call to quarters for the hawks. It is meant simply as a good read, and a reminder to the millions of moderate individuals out there of what is possible.

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.

Edmund Burke

Irish orator, philosopher, & politician (1729 - 1797)

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While researching and then writing this novel I experienced several nightmares—terrifying ones? Yes.

(I placed them in the viewpoint character's mind.)

For a while I lived at Grand forks, ND, just miles from the SAC Base and all those Bull's-eye missile silos (the missiles were still in place, then.)

At that time Prince had a great recording. At the end, it had the best whine of guitar I have ever heard...which, unfortunately, can also sound like a siren if one is sleeping. Often I fell asleep with the radio playing. I woke up to that sound and accepted I probably had just minutes—or seconds—to live.

Finally I realized it was Prince and not a siren announcing atomic attack.

Chapter 1 Providence

Fall rain spattered the windshield as Kirby Yates aimed his side-mounted spotlight straight ahead and down.

A gargantuan black hole gaped back at him. He couldn't see the bottom, nor the far end, nor, plainly, even the sides.

At least twenty-five feet deep, the excavation was large enough for a university sports stadium. He swept the powerful beam from one murky corner to the next. The entire population of Hammett's Mill, 240 men, women and children, could probably live and work in that hole.

That speculation bothered him. It gnawed at him, and his thoughts seemed to lead there more and more. Four enamel nubs protruding from the sides of his jaws gnawed at him, too, worse when he did too much thinking and speculating.

He licked at the nubs, each in turn, then flipped on the wipers as the rain fell harder. He moved the beam to the left where a recently-arrived crane sat, and a pile of eighteen-inches thick steel and concrete roof-sections. Why was everything so massive? Wonderful to demonstrate self-sufficiency and energy-savings, but why at tiny Hammett’s Mill? In fact, why North Dakota at all?

And why didn't he believe a word of it?

The spookiest part of all, why financing by the Department of Defense? Why on earth would those people care about homeowners saving energy? And what homeowner could afford eighteen-inches-thick concrete roof sections? He suspected no other townsperson knew who was financing, just that it was government. Nobody cared which department.

On a drawing for a visitor brochure—tourism being an obvious goal—the underground building was represented by only the vehicle-wide down-ramp entrance and a very small rectangle labeled ‘Energy House,’ forty-by-fifty feet. Not even a dotted line to indicate the sheer vastness beyond, as if, officially, it wasn’t there.

Kirby had gotten employment from the deal, too. He had gone along with everything at first, but one day he noticed the Department of Defense logo on paperwork that arrived with a shipment of, he didn’t know what. The site supervisor saw to it that the crates disappeared as fast as they arrived. Then he began noticing other things, asking questions never answered. Like the brochure. The supervisor told him, Probably a mistake, Yates. Don’t worry about it.

But no mistake he felt sure. The brochure said exactly what it wanted the public to know. He had hinted to other locals what he thought. But nobody would discuss it. Most people chose to approach the unexpected windfall with jokes and much laughing. The general consensus, Why question it?

Providence moved in strange ways. With small town economy as it was anything was better than nothing. So, if the federal government wanted to call the construction site Energy House, so would the town. Energy House. Period.

A gust blew several raindrops through the partially open window. He drew his jean jacket closed at the neck and shivered, not just from the cold, then shut the window tight. He sat for several seconds, licking the nubs, shivering, then moved the spotlight beam farther left, past two bulldozers. With the immense steel-reinforced walls and floor poured and most of the I-beam ceiling supports in place, ready for roof sections, it appeared the excavation could soon be filled in. Then grassy sod would be laid out and the truth would be buried, along with any admitted memory of the size of the original excavation.

He shut off the spotlight, sat several moments staring through the gloom and the pickup’s piercing headlights, and licked at the sharp nubs. Four impacted wisdom teeth. They had to come out now, his dentist had said, while he was young. Young, he was forty. In 2024 forty was young, very young. And he usually felt young. Except when he speculated about the truth of the gigantic excavation. Then he felt old, very old. And very helpless.

The town could call the project what they wanted, and deny what they did not want, but a thing denied had a way of making itself believed sooner or later. Hammett’s Mill, North Dakota, would continue minding its own business and wishing the rest of the world would do the same. But with the presence of the denied underground monstrosity, minding one’s own business was no longer possible.

He started the engine and followed three muddy curves similar in shape to lazy oxbows in a wide river plain. At the graveled street leading into town he stopped.

With the trees and shrubs he had planted, following the landscape design exactly, the oxbows prevented viewing from the street. Anyone passing would not be tempted to just swing in, likely wouldn’t even notice the quiet road until too late. Most people would not turn around and go back. And a twenty-year-old shelterbelt of trees hid the site from the nearby county highway.

The more he thought about things the more he did not want to face his empty house that night, just did not feel like being alone right then, as if mere presence of other human beings could change things. Temporarily, at least, he knew they would help, and some warming drinks, and a hot sandwich.

He turned onto the street, went about a block to the first house, and blacktop, then another block. At that intersection he turned left toward the main street, and Colleen’s Collage.

.

Chapter 2 Denial

Music drifted through the walls as Kirby approached Colleen’s, a combination cafe/tavern/recreation hall. He pulled the door open. Along with laughter and increased music volume came a swish sound. The swish had an airtight quality, as if it could shut things out. But he knew one thing it could not shut out. What a joke. He laughed to himself.

Kirby! came a beery-sounding voice, Yer out purty late, ain’t ya?

Kirby realized he had stopped just inside the door, had been standing staring, so pulled the door shut. It swished into air tightness. He laughed again, but only on the inside, and looked toward the bar.

A sometimes drinking-buddy sat there. Big Elmer Vanders. The voice had sounded coarse, like the words were scratching to get out the throat, the way Vanders sounded when drunk. A usual case.

Sad-eyed city councilman Ralph Linden sat next to Vanders, then staunch Mayor Gorman Bradding, finally Channing Smith, city and county engineer. About a dozen other people sat in booths or by tables around the spacious room filled with deer and moose antler trophies, posters of dogs playing cards and shooting pool, huge display advertisements of tall models in bathing suits serving beer, and a collection of caps next to the ceiling running the entire length of the walls. A man and woman locked in each other’s arms danced to slow country-western music near the jukebox.

A normal evening at Colleen’s Collage.

Linden, Bradding, Smith, all late-forties to late-fifties, nodded. Vanders, late-thirties, motioned, C’mon over’n’drink, Kirby. Colleen! Bring Kirby—Kirby! What’ll ya have?

Rum. Beer would not move fast enough that night.

Bring’im rum, Colleen! Vanders shouted.

Straight, Kirby? Colleen Youngston sat perched on the far end of the bar, one foot on the counter, arms wrapped around her knee watching the TV. A special report on North Dakota’s nuclear armament, a visit to one of the missile silo command centers in direct communication with the White House and Commander-in-Chief. A young air force captain saying, Yes, I would push the button.

His stomach tightened. He knew things had changed. Local missile silo commanders were no longer directly responsible for the actual launch. But they still had to be there. Light beads of sweat spread over him. He licked at the wisdom tooth nubs.

After her question Colleen jumped down, her dark hair swinging like a pendulum. She sent one of her wide, toothy smiles from behind large-rimmed glasses. Her smile always blew him away. And the glasses gave her a hell of a sex appeal. Seeing Colleen should have made him feel better.

She appeared in front of him. Her smile did not help his frame of mind. She repeated, Straight up, Kirby?

He gazed at her bright face for a second. No, ah, Coke. Rum and Coke. Tall one. She looked somehow naive when she smiled like that, like she would do anything a guy wanted. Pretty, too, and early-thirties he thought, Throw in a pizzaburger, too, okay, Colleen?

You got it. She turned quickly. Her hair, for a second, fluffed from her head as if caused by a breeze, but not far for it was always held down by a colorful headband. Tonight, a red one. She hurried to the freezer, got the burger microwaving, grabbed a tall glass, dropped in several ice cubes, poured a shot without using a measure, then began filling with Coca Cola. She glanced at him again, sent her wide smile again.

He had watched her going through her motions, something he had unceasingly admired since she arrived in town and bought the bar over a year earlier.

She increased her smile. He smiled back, glad to be in her presence, glad his mood was changing. But suddenly came what had been building all night from memory of another television special. He had watched it the prior evening, televised late to avoid causing too many nightmares for too many children. A white hot flash melted the wall behind Colleen, vaporizing her into shadow, a skeletal silhouette of memory.

The beads of sweat became drops running down his back and from his armpits. The unplanned vision caused his stomach to tighten. He turned away in anger, swallowing. His smile turned hard as he cursed silently, hoping Colleen had not noticed his harsh change. He reached the bar, eased himself from her sight beside big Elmer Vanders.

Not just the television special haunted him. In all its fury nuclear war was back in all media. Memory of the front page newspaper article flooded him, the headline, ‘Nuclear War in your Future’.

The subhead had noted ‘first in a series’, a graphic, mind-searing account of what would happen—not what could happen but would happen. He had not meant to read it. He had avoided such unpleasantness all his life, most of his life, at least since he had found that stash of nuke literature left by his uncle—his crazy uncle. But his summer-long job at the Energy House site had brought the reality home. Again.

Vanders slapped his shoulder as he sat, and mumbled some stupidly-friendly comment that didn’t even register in his agitated mind. He only wanted to drink, get drunk, and forget.

What had really gotten to him was a sidebar article on peace movements. People who believed the United States could disarm, even unilaterally if that’s what it took. But what had really, really, gotten to him was his plan to attend one of those meetings the next night.

How could he? For a few seconds all the nuke literature from his uncle—his crazy uncle—blurred through his mind. Dozens of articles, maybe a hundred, and books, brochures, charts and graphs. He shook his head, shivered, gulped a deep breath through his nose. He was just as hooked as his crazy uncle. So how could he not attend the meeting?

Here you are, Kirby. He didn’t really see Colleen as she brought his drink and sandwich. Just a blur, a vague outline of a human being. I hope everything’s all right. She touched his arm, tilted her head. He saw her a little more clearly, but didn’t answer. She gave a light squeeze to his arm, then patted it, then walked back toward her high perch. He didn’t watch, not even the undulation of her full hips, which he had always, always, watched before.

****

By nearly closing Kirby had stomached all the rum he could and then some, yet remained sober. His eighth drink was half full. He belted it down and ordered another. And still he wanted someone to admit the truth of the construction site. Say, Elmer, you work out on the edge’a town, too. For a second the rum hit kind of hard. He felt dizzy.

Vanders faced him, Yeah, so?

The dizziness passed. It always did, What’re they buildin’ out there?

Vanders took a deep breath, smoothed his handlebar moustache, then faced away, It’s called an energy house, Kirby. Sort’a like a museum. A demo site. You know that.

I know that’s what we’re told, yeah.

Vanders kept facing away, hunched his shoulders, Why question it? It’s a job. Something we both need.

But don’t you ever wonder?

Nope. Vanders appeared to have sobered, slightly, Never.

Nobody’ll talk about what’s goin’ on out there, Elmer. Why is that?

Cause nuthin’s goin’ on. Vanders faced him, appeared to have sobered even more, I get paid workin’ there, Kirby, and that’s all I care. If somethin’ else’s goin’ on, fine. But I don’t need to know about it. And I really don’t care.

I know what’s bein’ built, Elmer.

You don’t know shit.

He had not actually spoken the words before. Sometimes he had trouble even thinking them, and said, not quite whispering, It’s a bomb shelter.

The jukebox music stopped. By chance the song had finished, but abruptly. So did the television. He jerked toward it. Evidently a short pause. The silence throughout the place roared through his ears.

He stared at Vanders, who—eyes bulging—stared back for a second and then looked away. He glanced around the room. Colleen sat absorbed on her TV viewing perch. Linden, Bradding, Smith, everyone in the tavern just sat, not talking but not indicating they had heard, either.

He licked at his sharp wisdom tooth nubs furiously. His armpits ran again. Then a new song began on the jukebox. The television came back on. Conversations from several directions drifted in. Things returned to normal, with nobody but him knowing they had been kind of abnormal for maybe three seconds. A point in time when everything had simply stopped.

He took a breath, then faced the front of the bar, like everyone else, and belted the rest of his drink, How’s the family, Elmer?

Vanders answered without facing him, Family’s fine.

The evening passed back into the norm, and the complacent acceptance of what was being built outside of town.

****

Absolutely last call, everybody. Colleen jumped from her perch and began clearing empties and litter.

The alcohol finally having caught him, Kirby did not need last call, so pushed from his stool, then wavered. Vanders reached and steadied him. He grasped Vanders’ arm, held on for a second, then pushed off for the door.

I wouldn’t worry about what’s bein’ built out there, Vanders’ coarse voice came low, It’s none’a our business.

Right, Elmer. But whose business if not the town’s? He waved and walked to the door, grasped the knob, wavered again, smiled. Let the residents of Hammett’s Mill settle for apathy. He knew about the swish safety of the door. He knew Colleen’s Collage was the only safe, air-tight, bomb-proof, place in town. That was, outside of the bomb shelter nobody believed was a bomb shelter. Ha! He turned the knob and pushed. Swish went the door.

Ha! He stepped into the night and closed the door, and forgot about the swish-safety sound. The rain had stopped. The night was bright with the harvest moon washing his red, black and silver pickup. Even though growing old how it shined right then. He glanced at the brilliant yellow orb in the sky, but felt no romance. Wavering again he gripped an entrance support.

The tavern door opened.

Let me give you a ride home, Kirby. Colleen’s voice came from behind, You can walk up tomorrow and get your pickup.

He had not considered not driving. Colleen’s offer made him think again. He turned and stared at her. Several seconds passed as he attempted to clear his head. Finally he saw the highlights in her eyes caused by the moon, her white teeth shining, but, really, sweetheart, what could I do with you tonight? That’s some good treatment for your clientele, Colleen.

Oh, yes, I try to take care of my people, Kirby.

Yes you do, and you’re a real dear to offer, but I reckon I’ll just walk home. He moved off the entrance step, then glanced back.

Goodnight, Kirby. She smiled and stepped back