The End The Beginning (Humanity's New Dawn Book 1)

by Ryan Horvath

  “Well, I guess since I am taking you as my new pet, you should call me ‘Master,’” the cat meowed.

  Jack chuckled. “’Master?’ You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “Is ‘Master’ not the appropriate name of a pet’s owner? I apologize but I am still learning your language. You are to be my new pet correct?” the cat asked.

  Jack smiled down at her. How very typically cat-like of her to think of herself as the master and him as the pet. He spoke to her through his grin, “Well, I suppose I can see why you think that.”

  “My previous pet brought me food, pampered me, gave me massages and cleaned up my bathroom after I was done. Although, I found it infuriating that she did not understand me like you. Does that not make me the Master?” queried the cat.

  Jack was trying very hard not to burst out in laughter. He finally managed, “How about this? Since you and I can understand each other, unlike you and your former… uh pet, how about neither of us is a pet and neither is a master?”

  The cat thought about this for a moment before saying, “Ok, I agree to that.”

  “That would make us friends then. But, I’ll still bring you food and water if you’d like me to,” Jack offered.

  “That would be nice. In fact, I am quite hungry. A couple of humans gave me a little to eat but it was not enough. I would like some more,” the cat said. Her yellow-green eyes gleamed at Jack.

  “Please,” Jack said with a smile.

  “What is that?” The cat questioned.

  “We are friends now. Friends say ‘please” when they say they want something. Actually, now that I think of it, most everyone says please to get something from someone else, or at least they should. It’s called ‘common courtesy,’” Jack educated.

  “Oh, okay. I would like some more, please,” the cat amended.

  “Good job. Thank you. That’s another common courtesy. To say ‘thank you,’” Jack instructed.

  The cat looked pensive for a moment before orating her next sentence, “Thank you, Jack, my friend, for teaching me about common courtesy.”

  “Wow! Impressive!” Jack said with pleasure and a small hint of pride.

  “Now, Jack, I would like some more to eat, please and thank you,” the cat said and moved in the direction of the front door to the left of where Jack had been sitting.

  “Wait a minute, my friend,” Jack said.

  “Yes, Jack?” the cat asked.

  “Since I’m not calling you ‘Master’ and you are doing a very good job calling me by my name, we need to decide a name for you. Do you remember what your previous pet, who really was also your friend, used to call you?” Jack queried.

  “No, I remember her face and when she pampered and catered to me but not much before I woke up in the park across the river is clear to me,” the cat stated.

  “Let’s get one more thing straight, my friend. She wasn’t pampering and catering to you, she was taking care of you. And I’m sure you took care of her as well. You probably didn’t realize it but whatever way you look at it a master pet relationship is a symbiotic one. That means each one in the relationship needs and benefits from something provided by the other. Let’s start our relationship out like that. I’ll help you with common courtesy.” Jack said.

  The cat pondered this a moment and asked, “And what shall I do for you, Jack?”

  Jack smiled broadly. “I’ve just been given a new lease on life. You can help me enjoy it.”

  The cat thought about this. “I think I can do that, Jack. And Jack, I like your name. Can my name be Jack too?”

  Jack laughed. “No, silly. Jack is a man’s name. Are there any other names or words you’ve heard that you like?”

  The cat looked back at her time with the English language and her eyes brightened. Jack recognized that she had something.

  “I like the word ‘river,’ Jack. Can my name be River?” she meowed.

  “I think River is a lovely name,” Jack replied.

  “Thank you, Jack,” River mewed.

  “You are welcome, my new friend. Now, shall we get you something to eat? I have some tuna I think you will enjoy,” Jack told River.

  “Thank you, Jack. Again,” she responded.

  Jack moved to the front door and held it open for River.

  A passerby witnessed some of this conversation between Jack and River and was dumbfounded. What she saw was a man talking to a cat and the cat meowing in return. Which wasn’t so strange but the cat’s meows had an almost human inflection as if the passerby could tell when the cat understood something the man was saying or if it was asking a question. She was also mystified as to how the cat never once interrupted the man, or vice versa. She had a cat of her own at home and it was so chatty she could hardly get a word in edgewise.

  Once inside, Jack led River to the kitchen. She followed close on his heels and Jack adored the enthusiasm in her step. Once in the kitchen, they found it vacant. Brian had finished shucking the corn and it was sitting in a pot of water on the stove. Jack could hear the sound of a shower running and assumed that was where Brian was. He opened a cabinet and took out two dishes. One he filled with filtered water from the refrigerator and set down next to River which she immediately began drinking.

  “Thank you, Jack. I didn’t realize I was quite thirsty as well,” she mewed.

  “You are welcome,” Jack replied. He opened a different cabinet and pulled out a can of tuna and busied himself opening it.

  River thought back to the conversation she overheard while under the sidewalk bench and asked, “Jack I’ve come to understand the words ‘danger’ and ‘massive’ but what do ‘virus’ and ‘eclipse’ mean?”

  Jack stopped twisting the handle on the can opener and looked puzzled. “Why would you want to know that?” he questioned.

  “I heard some men talking a short while ago. Their conversation contained all those words,” River replied.

  Jack turned around to face River and as before, when he got her to select a name, he decided to ask her about other words she heard in the conversation.

  River thought for a few seconds and said, “I believe they thought a virus was in an object that would be seen during an eclipse and it would incite a panic.”

  “What else did they say?” Jack asked with worry creeping into his voice.

  “They talked about something happening already to people and some of the animals. I guess that’s why you and I are able to talk to one another. I think you might be experiencing other things too because you said you could hear my heartbeat before I was even close to you,” she said.

  Jack nodded slowly and said, “Yes, my hearing seems to be heightening and I’ve noticed my sense of smell is keener.”

  “And, I don’t know how to explain it either but I think I am getting smarter,” River said, “even since meeting you.”

  Jack agreed her reasoning skills were quite good.

  “The men said something else, Jack,” River said and Jack could detect a foreboding tone in her voice.

  “What’s that, River?” Jack asked.

  “They said the eclipse is on Friday,” River replied.

  Eclipse? Virus? Object? Panic? Jack thought. He was looking past River now. Trying to figure out what River had overheard.

  “And, Jack?” River meowed.

  Jack looked back at her, “Yes?”

  Her meowing said, “Something else they called ‘the main event’ is happening on Monday.”

  14

  AMAMDA

  Amanda’s flight from Denver International to Dulles International was not entirely uneventful. The plane was less than forty percent full so Amanda had a section of three seats to herself. She tried reading on her flight but couldn’t stay focused on the plot of the novel. She then tried playing some Angry Birds on her tablet device but after an hour or so she became frustrated with that. The in-flight movie did not appeal to her so she didn’t bother to purchase the headphones.

  Amanda reclined her airline
seat the small amount that it would allow her to do so, closed the window shade with her right hand, laid her head back on the head rest and closed her eyes.

  After about five minutes, just when sleep was about to find her, she was startled awake by a face projected on the back of her eyelids.

  It was a man with blonde hair and crazy green eyes. He was looking at her with a malicious grin and he licked his lips. This man seemed familiar to her but she couldn’t quite remember why. Then it came to her. It was the same man she had seen when looking toward her television during her conversation this morning with her sister.

  Amanda thought back hard to a few hours ago and was rewarded with the memory of what she had said. She was convinced this man was Jack Thomas’s shooter.

  But how can I possibly know that? she thought to herself but got no answer.

  Amanda was wide awake now and sleep was far from her mind. What wasn’t far was the green eyed man and the way he looked as though he were about to feed on her.

  Just then, another image played before her eyes. This one was more vivid than the previous and it played before her like a movie. She was bruised, half naked, and running down a corridor with her sister, Karen, and a Dalmatian with one green eye and one blue. The green eyed man was in close pursuit. As Amanda and her sister and the dog exited the corridor they looked up to see the light in the sky was funny. It was daytime but it was eerily not as bright as it should have been. She looked toward the sky and she could see some stars out.

  And just like that the vision was gone and she was again looking at the back of the seat in front of her.

  “Miss, are you alright?”

  One of the flight attendants was standing in the aisle at the end of Amanda’s row of seats. “You look terrified,” she said.

  Amanda tried to steady and focus herself and said “Yes, I nodded off and must have had a bad dream.”

  “By the look on your face it must have been a real whopper. Can I bring you anything?” the attendant asked.

  Amanda thought for a minute and said, “Yes, a whiskey rocks, double, please,” she pondered for a second and amended, “On second thought, make it a triple.”

  “Absolutely. I’ll be back in a moment,” and the attendant turned and walked away down the aisle to the rear end of the plane.

  Alone again, Amanda’s mind started to race. What was that vision? Who was that green eyed man? Why were she and her sister fleeing that man on a starlit afternoon? And why was a dog with them?

  Questions came but no answers followed. She shut her eyes and from memory, recalled the countenance of the green eyed man. Doing so sent shivers down her spine. In the vision of the corridor the green eyed man was snarling at them with teeth bared. Was the vision the future? She sincerely hoped not.

  In the vision, her face looked like it had been used as a punching bag. It had two large bruises. There were small cuts on her arms and shoulders, as if she’d been scraping against wood, and the pants she was wearing were torn and dirty.

  The flight attendant returned to Amanda with a plastic cup full of ice and three airline size bottles of Jameson whiskey. Amanda rummaged through her purse for her credit card which she used to pay and tip the attendant, thanked her, and the attendant said she hoped the drink would make her feel a little better and departed.

  Amanda unscrewed the top of one of the bottles and poured its amber contents over the ice cubes which crackled in protest at the sudden change in temperature. She brought the glass to her lips and sipped deeply just as the captain announced on the loudspeaker that they had begun their initial decent into Dulles International and would be landing in about forty minutes. He announced the local time and told the passengers the temperature was seventy-five degrees which was much better than the forty-seven degrees she had left behind in Colorado.

  She finished the whiskey in the glass in one quick drink and then poured the remaining two bottles over the ice. She sat back in her seat and drank slowly, savoring the smoky aroma and flavor of the whiskey and trying not to think of the green eyed man.

  She’d be with Karen soon. That thought relaxed her and when the whiskey kicked in, that relaxed her more.

  15

  SIMON

  Immediately after Jack Thomas had departed Simon Shepherd’s apartment in Philadelphia, Simon grabbed a bag from the closet at the end of the hall just outside his bedroom. He went into the bedroom, stopped just inside the door and looked around the room. It was mostly clothing in here and he figured that would not be something he would need. Though it sounded mysterious when he said it, the congressman had said the facility would have most everything Simon would need. There were some books in here but he only kept them for sentimental reasons and they could all be accessed with his tablet assuming the facility had the internet.

  Instead, he turned around and left his bedroom, unbeknownst to him, for the last time.

  He crossed the hall to the second smaller bedroom that he used as a home office and small laboratory. He packed his laptop into the bag, along with his tablet. There were three zip drives with files of star charts on the desk that also went into the bag. He also had a copy of a stellar atlas that he had been a part of compiling that he decided to include.

  Satisfied he would not need anything else, he returned to the kitchen where he discovered it had taken him less than five minutes to pack everything he wanted in the world. He had fifty-five minutes to wait before the aforementioned vehicle would be coming for him but to Simon in felt like fifty-five years.

  How his body quivered with excitement, anxiety, and wonder.

  “Found something in space,” the congressman had said.

  And I get to be in on it. He said it was my lab Simon thought to himself. He had no idea how long the flight to Hawaii would take but that too felt like an eternity to wait. He felt like a young child looking through the window of a candy store in the mere minutes before it opened its doors for the day.

  He speculated what his new lab would look like. He envisioned it as grandiose with all the appropriate bells and whistles. He wondered how many staff there would be and of the various backgrounds of knowledge they would possess. And all in beautiful sunny Hawaii!

  He should have confirmed but he was sure the compensation he would receive for his work would probably pay off his condo and student loans. He reminded himself to ask the congressman the next time he saw him.

  Simon decided to fix himself a drink to try and pass the time and relax a little before the flight. While not overly afraid of flying, he was still a somewhat nervous flyer and crossing the country and a few thousand miles of ocean was farther than he had flown at one time.

  He took a bottle of Absolut vodka from his freezer and then filled a glass with ice from the dispenser on the refrigerator door. He poured the vodka in his glass and sipped slowly. He looked at the bottle of vodka on the table and decided to bring it with him. He wrapped it in a towel and returned to his drink.

  The minutes ticked by slowly while he drank but the time finally arrived for him to take his bag, say good bye to his condo and head down to the building’s lobby.

  Exactly one hour after the congressman departed, a black SUV with government license plates pulled into the drive up and stopped directly in front of Simon. The tinted rear driver’s side window slid down and Congressman Jack Thomas gazed at Simon from the passenger’s side rear seat.

  “Thank you for being on time, Simon,” Jack said.

  “You’re welcome, Congress- er, I mean, Jack. I was actually ready about five minutes after you left,” Simon stammered through a weak smile.

  “Please, won’t you join me in the vehicle?” the congressman said.

  “Yes. Thank you,” Simon answered.

  Simon opened the door to the SUV and climbed in the seat next to the congressman. The window was rising and the vehicle was on the move before he even got the door closed. Simon noted that the two men in the front seat were the same agents who had brought the congressman to h
is home earlier.

  “Would you like something to drink?” Jack asked Simon.

  “Yes, please. A vodka soda if that’s possible,” Simon replied.

  “Please help yourself. There is a mini bar behind you and your seat swivels,” Jack directed.

  As Simon turned to make his beverage, Jack pressed a button on the console beside him, raising a soundproof partition between the front bench seat of the SUV and the remainder of the vehicle.

  When Simon was finished making his drink and facing Jack, Jack said, “We’ll be flying out of Horsham Air Guard Station and stopping once to refuel in Los Angeles and then be on the way to Hawaii. We’ll land at Hickam Field, which is adjacent to Honolulu International and from there we’ll take a helicopter to the facility which is inside and beneath the Helemano Military Reserve. We should be there in around fourteen hours. I know that’s a lot of air time so I hope you are okay with that.”

  Simon rattled his glass and said with a smile, “As long I can have a few of these along the way, I’ll be fine.”

  “Good,” the congressman turned his chair to the mini bar and proceeded to make himself a drink and added, “But please don’t have too much. I will need you sharp when we arrive at the lab. I have questions and hope like hell you have some answers for me.”

  Simon’s well of curiosity was full and he had to burst. “Sir, Jack, can you please tell me what it is you’ve found?”

  The congressman looked at Simon and thought for a moment. “Actually, no, I can’t tell you what it is.”

  Simon felt disappointment rising. All this suspense and the congressman was going to play the classified bullshit card. “Sir, Jack, why did you bring me if you’re not going to tell me what it is you’ve found?”

  Jack replied, “I didn’t say I’m not going to tell you what it is. I said I can’t tell you what it is.”

  Simon was confused, “Sir, Jack, What?”

  “Simon,” the congressman said, “I can’t tell you what it is because I simply don’t know what it is. In fact, I brought you because I am hoping you can tell me what it is.”