Thunder Road

When they came through the Rift, the rains came with them.

Marko wasn't even close to the freak happening, but saw it on an internet newsreel that he initially mistook for a Japanese monster movie clip.   He'd been working on his '40 Ford Coupe Rum Runner when his nephew had come bursting into his workshop, cell phone in hand.

The picture quality was poor due to the torrential downpours they inhabited and the boy's shaking hand.  The small screen showed massive lightning strikes illuminating the insides of roiling clouds, revealing the outlines of what could have been mistaken for large electrical towers lumbering over the wetscape.  They belched waves of electromagnetism that fried electronics in a radius of hundreds of miles.

The image on the screen flickered out, like the hopes and dreams of those whose lives were built on convenience and unrestricted access.  The world of smart phones and computers was soon to be a thing of the past, like rotary dials and sunny days.  Marko immediately recognized the new import of his green-flamed coupe, a machine of power and grace built in a time before dependent complexities and complicated gadgetry.

The battle for Thunder Road was soon to begin.


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