New Year's Dark

       Authorities ignore the insistence of a few experts that small comet hits across the globe are evidence of a dark matter asteroid that will likely hit the United States in late December.  Sure enough on New Year’s Eve, as the ball is about to drop, a massive hunk of space matter levels New York and kicks up a cloud of dust that casts an endless night over the north-eastern US.  Our scientist heroes suspect they know how to neutralize the dark matter particles but first, with no cell service or visibility, they must escape from a path of deadly dust, and from the darkness of the new year.

A Cajun Christmas

            It’s early December when high-school junior, Cathy Romero flees her emotionally abusive step-father and runs away into the swamp that borders their small white-collar Louisiana suburb.  In the swamp, she debates her options with a friend on the phone until the battery dies and she finds that she is lost.  As night falls and the gators come out, Cathy is sure that hope is lost until she is rescued by Monty Callais, a Cajun teenager who’s family home-school him from their community in the swamp.

            Monty brings Cathy home with him and she meets a community of swamp people who are hesitant to accept her because of the way her city and its government act towards the natives.  Cathy quickly acclimates and finds that she can learn a lot from these seemingly primitive people.  She even begins to have a relationship with Monty.  One of the biggest problems facing the Cajun group is the horrible erosion that is slowly washing away more and more of their community, and Cathy thinks that maybe she can help.

            She re-enters ‘civilized’ society, though she continues to avoid her step-father.  She makes an impassioned plea before a prejudiced city council, and after overcoming many obstacles, she convinces the townspeople to sacrifice their Christmas trees to help prevent coastal erosion.  The people rally behind Cathy, and a massive joint effort is undertaken to save the swamp community.  All seems to be going well until a Christmas Eve storm traps the city-folk in the swamp.  This gives the Cajuns an opportunity to show their hospitality as they have a massive joint community Christmas.  Cathy’s dad shows up to ruin the festivities, but the Cajun townsfolk oversee their reunion and promise to keep a close eye in the future.

The Last New Year

            On New Year’s Day 2014, the Earth’s came to a halt following a meteor impact.  The effects weren’t immediately noticeable, and NYC revelers still dropped the ball, despite the fact that it was still dusk out.  Then things got worse.  The dark side of the Earth plunged into brutal freezing winter, and the hot side, the America side, became a barren desert wasteland.  Only a small portion of the planet, the dawn/dusk circumference, remained livable, but became perpetually besieged by horrendous storms.

            Now, five years into 2014, people still struggle to live on America’s east coast, between the central desert wasteland, and the mostly frozen Atlantic ocean.  The gulf is a pretty nice place but for the never-ending hurricanes, but then, what’s new?  Searching the desert for food, a young couple find an old man with knowledge of a plan to restart the rotation of the earth, a plan started the year of the disaster.  He tells them that there were massive rockets installed around the globe and that many of them are still manned, but that in order for them to be effective, all of the operators must be notified to fire them at the same time.

            So the couple begin a voyage up the destroyed east coast in an attempt to find an operational radio tower which they could then use to orchestrate the plan to get the world back on track.  And all the while they are hampered by natural obstacles, by people who distrust their motives, doomsday cults, and wild animals gone even wilder.  But if they succeed, a new day, and in fact a new year would dawn (literally) for mankind.