Chapter 5 Summary

Randy wakes to the feeling of someone shaking his couch. He hears a long deep rumble, ebbing and then a boom. He recognizes it is not thunder and steps out on his porch to see the orange glow of the sun rising in the east and, to the south and beyond, a similar glow fading. He later learns his sleep is jolted by two nuclear explosions at Homestead and Miami. Shock waves through earth shake his couch and the glow from two hundred miles away incinerates a million people. Peyton, Ben Franklin and Helen burst onto the porch to see what is happening. Randy says he's afraid it's here and Ben asks why there is no mushroom cloud. They comment on the silence of no sirens or planes but Ben says planes woke him and they begin to hear more. Helen and the...