Ray Gorham was born in Calgary, Canada in 1966. Prior to graduating college and settling in
the United States in 1991, Ray had the good fortune to live in a variety of
locations around the world. Years in
Australia, England, Lebanon, Japan, Canada, and the United States all helped to
shape his background, worldview, and appreciation for other people and cultures.
Graduating with a degree in Accounting, he decided he
couldn’t spend a future studying tax law and sitting in front of a computer all
day, so he took a management position with Wal-Mart and spent the next 10 years
in retail management where he had the opportunity to interact with hundreds of
employees and thousands of customers on a weekly basis. Growing tired of large corporations, Ray next
tried opening and running a restaurant, but decided after a year that wasn’t
for him either. From there, he found a
small log home business for sale in Montana in 2006 and settled in for what he
hoped would be a long-term career.
When the construction industry slowed down in 2008, Ray knew
he was going to have a lot of time on his hands, so he determined to cross off
one of the items on his bucket list—writing a novel. After thousands of hours of writing and
editing he had the final draft of his first novel, a 108,000 word effort
telling the story of a husband struggling to return to his family after a major
terrorist attack. While agents and
publishers have passed on his efforts to this point, he
has found significant success so far in digital format, selling over 10,000
copies of his work.
Synopsis:
On
a Friday afternoon before Labor Day, Americans are getting ready for the
holiday weekend, completely unaware of a long-planned terrorist plot about to
be launched against the country. Kyle Tait is settling in for his flight home
to Montana when a single nuclear bomb is detonated 300 miles above the heart of
America. The blast, an Electro-Magnetic Pulse (EMP), destroys every electrical
device in the country, and results in the crippling of the power grid, the
shutting down of modern communications, and bringing to a halt most forms of
transportation.
Kyle
narrowly escapes when his airplane crashes on takeoff, only to find himself
stranded 2,000 miles from home in a country that has been forced, from a
technological standpoint, back to the 19th Century. Confused, hurt, scared, and
alone, Kyle must make his way across a hostile continent to a family he’s not
even sure has survived the effects of the attack. As Kyle forges his way home,
his frightened family faces their own struggles for survival in a community
trying to halt its slow spiral into chaos and anarchy.
77
Days in September follows Kyle and his wife, Jennifer, as they are stretched
past their breaking point, but find in their devotion to each other the
strength to persevere.
Excerpts:
High above the sun-baked prairies of Lawrence, Kansas,
the missile reached its target. No one
on the ground even noticed the blast.
Perhaps had someone been looking at precisely the right location, at
precisely the right time, they might have noticed a tiny, momentary spark in
the bright afternoon sky. Had they seen
the flash, it likely would have been attributed to the glint of sunlight
reflecting off a passing airplane. From
every vantage point below the detonation, there was no sense of the destructive
capacity contained in that tiny speck of light.
More than 300 miles above the earth, a nuclear explosion impacts nothing
with the force of its blast. It is
merely a large bomb going off in a vacuum, creating no shockwaves, no
fireballs, no radiation, not even any sound.
Despite the lack of explosive destruction, this was
now the most lethal weapon to be unleashed in the history of the world, but it
was a weapon that would have had absolutely no discernable affect on mankind
200 years ago, other than creating a more colorful aurora. Upon detonation, the bomb expelled an intense
wave of gamma radiation in every direction.
The gamma rays traveling earthward interacted with the upper levels of
the atmosphere and created a chain reaction of displaced electrons that rushed
towards the surface of the earth at the speed of light. Most of the these displaced electrons passed
rapidly through the atmosphere and grounded themselves harmlessly in the earth.
A small percentage, however, encountered conductive
materials: metal, antennas, copper
wiring, and silicon chips. As these
conductors absorbed untold billions of free electrons, they experienced sudden
surges in both voltage and current. In
simple items, like a garden rake, this surge was manifested as a harmless
static electricity-like spark. But in
larger networks and sensitive objects, the consequences of the electron
overload were devastating.
******
They sat in silence, lost in their thoughts and
watching the pandemonium. Ed spoke after
a long period of silence. “I don’t think
we’ll be flying out of here today, even if we want to. I don’t think anyone is. This is completely different from anything
I’ve ever seen or heard of. With all
those crashed airplanes, there should be hundreds of emergency vehicles from
all over the city out there, but I didn’t see a single one. There should have been enough help for us,
even with the other planes down. I bet
we’d still be waiting out by that airplane if we hadn’t come in on our
own. Something is wrong at a level I
can’t fathom.”
Kyle nodded.
“I’ve been thinking the same thing.
I think everyone is. You can see
it in their faces; there’s a fear and helplessness that I’ve never seen. Of course, how are you
supposed to act when you’ve seen an airplane fall from the sky?”
“It’s not just one plane wreck, Kyle. It’s multiple wrecks. It’s no emergency assistance to our flight,
and no response for those other planes.
It’s no power in the terminal.
It’s total confusion with the airport employees. You saw them.
They had no idea what they should be doing. Some of the smart ones are faking it, but
most of them look like they want to cry.
And the passengers…they’re freaked out bad. There’s a deeper fear there than just the
power being out, more than a plane crash.
Have you noticed that no one is using their cell phone? We tried mine, but it’s dead. They’re all dead. In a situation like this, everyone would be
on their phone. It’s like…I know this
doesn’t make any sense, but it’s like we’ve been attacked.” Ed paused a moment before continuing. “You remember 9/11?”
Kyle nodded.
“Who doesn’t? I’ll always
remember it. I was listening on my car
radio 2,000 miles away from New York when it happened, but I’ll always remember
it.”
“It feels like that, but ten times worse. Remember how unreal everything felt that
day? How you couldn’t believe it was
happening, even as you watched it on TV?
This feels the same way. I don’t
know why, but it does.”
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