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

by Ryan Horvath

  A baffled Simon felt the earlier feeling of disappointment fall away. A new discovery!

  “And no one on the staff at this laboratory of yours has been able to identify it?” Simon queried.

  “No, but none of them are, or I should say were, as smart as you,” the congressman answered.

  “I’m sorry sir, ‘were’? What happened to the staff?” Simon asked with a bit of worry in his voice.

  “I fired them; well it was more amicable than firing, so let’s just say I relieved them of their duties, paid their contracts, and sent them home sworn to secrecy. There was no need to continue to have them there if they were of no use. They are of course being monitored. But after their dismissal, I decided to enlist your aid,” the congressman replied.

  At the mention of the payment of the former staffs’ contracts, Simon reminded himself that he had wanted to ask the congressman about his own compensation but a different question took over. “Can you at least describe it, even if you can’t tell me what it is?”

  The congressmen had obviously put a lot of thought into it because he answered almost right away. “Well, in my limited experience from movies and pictures from telescopes, and granted that I am a politician and not an astronomer or astrophysicist, I’d say it is an asteroid.”

  Disappointment rose again in Simon. An asteroid? Those are dime a dozen and not very remarkable however, he felt a “but” coming so he prompted the congressman, “Except?”

  “Except, about three months ago, my former staff confirmed it was going to come very close to the Earth, and could very well make direct contact with the planet. Except, then about a week ago the object did something my staff and myself did not believe that an asteroid on the move would do,” the congressman stated.

  Shocked and bewildered, Simon said in a barely audible voice, “And that is?”

  “It slowed down,” Jack Thomas revealed. And then, “We’ve reached our jumping off point.”

  And with that their vehicle doors were pulled open by the men from the front of the truck. Simon was so dumbstruck he had not even realized the vehicle had stopped. Simon and the congressman were ushered by the men to the awaiting plane, a Falcon 2000 super mid-jet which was owned by the United States government, one of a fleet of ten the government had purchased because it was one of the few planes in its class that could make the flight from the Eastern Seaboard to the Hawaiian Islands with only one stop to refuel. As soon as they were on board, the takeoff was initiated and Simon Shepherd was on his way to a situation he never had any chance of controlling and all thoughts of compensation were the farthest thing away in his mind.

  And now, on the day after the assassination of Congressman Jack Thomas, Simon stood in his lab on the island of Oahu with the threatening fax he had earlier received in his right hand and watched the thing on his monitor.

  For about three weeks now, the object that Jack Thomas initially thought was an asteroid had been orbiting the earth in the most peculiar way between the thermosphere and mesosphere layers of the atmosphere but Simon had never been able to catch a glimpse of it with his naked eye. It was as if the thing were transparent or perhaps reflecting or refracting light the way water vapor does thus giving it a color matching the sky. It was not a huge object in the grand scheme of things but even Simon, who had a lab full of high tech equipment and satellites that told him when the object was directly overhead of him, had not been able to see it on any of its passes over Oahu in the last three weeks. And, orbiting wasn’t the only thing the object was doing.

  From a small opening on the side of the object that was facing the Earth, Simon’s computers were able to pick up that the object was emitting a substance of some kind. One of the questions he had been able to answer for Jack Thomas was that the core of the object was filled with a liquid and now that liquid was leaking out and evaporating into the gaseous state as it approached the warmer layers of the atmosphere of the Earth.

  16

  KAREN AND BLAZE

  Karen walked Blaze down the sidewalk from the animal control shelter to her car. Well, to say she walked him would be inaccurate. Their pace was equal, both of them glancing at each other occasionally, both with smiles on their faces. When they reached the car, Blaze sat down on the asphalt next to the rear passenger door and Karen bent over and unclipped the leash from the collar around his neck. She coiled it up and dropped it in her purse. She was quite certain Blaze would never run away from her. Karen scratched Blaze behind his right ear and his tail wagged vigorously across the pavement.

  “I’m Karen, Blaze,” she finally said. “I’m glad you wanted to come with me.”

  Blaze smiled at her and woofed, “Thank you for coming to get me.”

  “I’m sorry about George and Ann. I’m going to miss them,” Karen said softly and continued to scratch.

  Blaze is sad for the loss of Master George and Master Ann. But Master Karen, Blaze is excited to be with her.

  Karen used the fob on her key ring to unlock the car and opened the front door and Blaze jumped onto the seat. She walked around to the driver’s side and got into the vehicle herself. As she inserted the key into the ignition, Blaze barked, “I saw the man who killed my masters, the bad smelling man. I chased him but he was too far ahead.”

  Remembering back to her phone conversation with her sister, Karen said, “So it was a man? Did you see his face?” Karen was visibly agitated. Blaze was probably the only witness to her husband’s and neighbor’s assassin.

  “No, Master Karen, I only saw him from behind. He was tall, taller than my Master George. And he had hair that was very light. But I smelled him. I could never forget that smell,” Blaze barked.

  Karen thought about this and started the car. A tall man, probably blonde by Blaze’s description of his light hair. That meant the attacker was also most likely Caucasian. Karen put the car in reverse and backed out of her parking space. Once at the exit of the shelter’s parking lot, she turned left onto the county road and headed toward home.

  Blaze barked, “What did the bad smelling man do when he crossed to your yard, Master Karen?”

  Karen chocked up at the thought of Jack. “He killed my husband,” she said in a small voice.

  “I’m sorry,” Blaze chuffed. He looked very sad.

  “Me too,” Karen replied as she glanced from the road to Blaze. Teardrops spilled from the corners of her eyes. Blaze leaned over to her and gently licked her tears. Karen laughed and smiled through her tears. “Thank you, Blaze.”

  Blaze pulled away and returned to his original position on his seat.

  “Master Karen?” he yipped.

  “Yes Blaze?” Karen asked.

  “We can talk. I’ve never been able to do that before. I could understand a few of Master George’s and Master Ann’s words, and then a lot more of them recently, but I can understand almost everything you say. Do you know why?”

  Karen was perplexed. “No, Blaze. I don’t know why.” She paused and added, “But I like it.”

  “I like it too,” Blaze woofed. “How did you know where to find me?”

  Karen thought about her visions of Blaze in the meadow. “I guess, you told me. I kept seeing you and couldn’t stop thinking about you so I deduced where you’d been taken after… yesterday morning.”

  “I’m glad,” Blaze barked.

  “Me too,” Karen said and reached over and scratched Blaze behind his left ear.

  “Ooohhh,” Blaze keened. “I love scratch ears.” His tail wagged feverishly, making a slapping sound against the upholstery.

  Karen smiled and continued to scratch Blaze behind the ear. Fifteen minutes later, Karen made the right turn onto her driveway. A few police and investigators were still poking around her house and the Lewis’s but they had been courteous enough to not block her access to her garage. She stopped in front of the garage door and turned the car off. She used the garage door opener on her visor and the door started to slide up.

  Karen stared with horro
r into her garage.

  Her younger sister Amanda was chained up. Her arms were outstretched and her head was slumped down to her chest. She was bruised and bleeding and half naked and just looked defeated.

  And just as quickly as Amanda was there she was gone and Karen was looking at her empty garage stall.

  “Master Karen?” Blaze chuffed from the seat next to her. “Are you okay? You look upset.”

  Karen was shaking from what she had just seen. It was like the vision she’d had yesterday morning right before she lost her husband. Was this vision to come to pass as well? Karen seriously and sincerely hoped not. She looked at Blaze with worry and dread crisscrossing her face. “Blaze? Did you just see someone in my garage?”

  Blaze looked at the garage and back at Karen. “No, Master Karen. I did not. What’s wrong?”

  Karen tried to calm herself. She could see her agitation was rubbing off onto the dog. “I just thought I saw…” Karen didn’t want to scare Blaze. “Never mind. C’mon, let’s go inside. We have a guest coming and I’ve got some phone calls to make.” She exited the car, and Blaze left via her door as well. He padded beside her in even pace and they entered the kitchen through the service door off the garage. Karen put her keys and purse on the table by the door as she always had over the years. It felt different coming home this time. With both the permanent absence of her husband and the new addition of Blaze, her heart felt pulled in two.

  Blaze looked up at Karen and ruffed, “Master Karen? May I have some water?”

  Karen looked down at Blaze and her heart was pulled in his direction. “Of course you may, Blaze. Are you hungry too?”

  “I miss my home kibble,” he chuffed.

  Karen smiled at this. “I don’t have any home kibble but I do have something I think you will like.”

  “Thank you,” Blaze barked. He sat down by the kitchen chair closest to her. Always want to be close to her. Shouldn’t let her out of my sight. I’m so happy she came for me.

  Karen went to the refrigerator and opened it. Going to have to relearn that trick. The handle on Master Karen’s refrigerator is different from Master George and Master Ann’s.

  Karen took a dish of food from inside the fridge and walked with it over to the counter. She set it down and opened it and the smell hit Blaze in a second.

  His tongue began darting hectically over his lips in anticipation. That’s chicken!! That’s really really good chicken! Like Master George and Master Ann give me as a treat sometimes. And it smells soooo yummy. Boy, I couldn’t make my tail stop wagging for anything now. Chicken! Chicken! Chicken! OOOHHH! And look and how much she’s giving me! It’s going to be so awesome.

  Karen shredded up about half a large chicken breast into a dish and set it on the floor next to where Blaze was seated. He smiled and thanked her with a bark and began to greedily devour the chicken with his tail flapping fiercely back and forth. She remembered that Blaze had also asked for water. She turned from him and took a bowl out of one of the glass fronted cabinets. She walked to the kitchen sink, turned the tap to cold, started to fill the bowl, and gazed out the kitchen window where just yesterday she’d seen a bullet take the life of her husband mere seconds before it happened.

  Jack was outside.

  Well, not Jack exactly, but it was Jack as he probably looked a short while before she had met him. Except, his clothing and hairstyle wasn’t right for the time period that he would have been at that age. His attire and hairstyle were modern and consistent with that of a young man from the two-thousand-teens and not a man from the nineteen-eighties.

  And even more curious, there was a cat with him. That was strange because Jack was allergic to cats. The cat was close to Jack’s feet, sitting, with its tail wrapped around it and its tip resting on its forepaws. She believed she’d heard the type of cat she was seeing was a tortie cat, tortie being short for something that eluded her at the moment. This feline was quite striking, mostly due to a line bisecting its face with one side being fur the color of rich caramel and the other side being the hue of deep ebon black.

  Jack and the cat seemed calm and they were both definitely looking at Karen. Then she noticed a smile start to cross Jack’s face and seconds later Jack and his feline companion faded before her eyes.

  She looked down and realized the bowl had been filled more than once over. She turned off the tap, adjusted the volume of water in the bowl and set it down next to the dish of chicken that Blaze was still working on.

  Unlike the vision of Amanda hung up in the garage, and, obviously the vision of her husband’s gruesome demise, this vision felt very different. Young Jack and his purring partner did not feel disturbing or threatening in any way.

  But, why am I even having these visions? Karen wondered. The first vision had turned into an actual event. The vision of young Jack and his cat felt safe. And the vision of her younger sibling in chains felt like a looming black cloud. Am I seeing the future? She wondered. Karen suddenly and desperately longed for her sister. Even just to hear her voice and know that she was all right.

  Karen crossed the kitchen to the table where her purse was earlier placed and withdrew her smart phone. She punched in the first few letters of Amanda’s name in her contact list and her sister’s smart phone number came up. Karen sent the call and waited anxiously. A moment later, Amanda’s recorded voice came on and asked the caller to leave a message.

  Damn! Karen thought to herself. Straight to voice mail. She must still be on the plane. She waited for the beep and when it came she said, “Amanda? It’s Karen. Please call me as soon as you get this. I… I just want to make sure you’re okay.” She ended the call and stared worriedly at the phone, willing it to ring with Amanda’s return call but it did not.

  She would try again in fifteen minutes. For now, she had some other calls to make. Blaze had finished eating and was greedily slurping up the water. Karen took a bundle of paperwork from her purse and sat with it at the kitchen table. It was a copy of her husband’s will and as much as she didn’t want to, she busied herself with making the arraignments for his funeral. Her mind was half on the reading and phone calls she was making and half on Amanda.

  Just after her third phone call ended, her phone rang. It was Amanda. Karen quickly answered, “Hello? Amanda?”

  Amanda’s voice, calm, safe, “Yeah. It’s me. What’s going on? Your message sounded really weird.”

  Karen replied, “Nothing. I’m just glad to hear your voice.”

  Amanda stated, “I just got off the plane and am headed to the cab stand. I packed light so I don’t need to wait at baggage claim. I should be at your house inside an hour. Are you sure you’re okay?”

  Karen found herself wishing she and Blaze had picked Amanda up directly from the airport but Amanda had left with such haste that she had not called Karen with her estimated arrival time. Karen almost chastised her younger sister for this but did not.

  “I’ll be better when you get here,” Karen said.

  “No problem, sis. See you in a bit.” And Amanda hung up.

  She’s okay… landed safe… headed for a cab. The hovering blackness over the Amanda vision still remained.

  Hesitantly, Karen returned to her husband’s final resting wishes, her foot tapping nervously on the oak hardwood next to Blaze who rested close, his belly flat on the floor and his chin resting on his forepaws.

  Hope she’s ok. I’ll just stay close to her. I like her a lot. I wonder what she sees when she does that funny thing where she stares into space. At least the time just when she was getting my water didn’t seem to bother her like when she opened the garage. Maybe she will talk to me about it. But this is not my comfy home joy place. Not like I had with Master George and Master Ann.

  In fact, I have a feeling we won’t be here long enough for me to find a comfy home joy place in Master Karen’s home.

  I can still smell the bad smelling man here.

  17

  JACK, BRIAN, IAN, AND RIVER

 
“The main event? What did they mean by that?” Jack asked River.

  “I’m not sure, Jack. And, Jack, will you please now tell me what virus and eclipse mean?”

  Jack, not wanting to get into talking about viruses so soon after his phone call with Dr. Blake thought for a moment. He was surprised that Dr. Blake hadn’t called him back and with that thought, he reached into his pocket, produced his smart phone and turned it off. Everyone Jack wanted to be with at this moment was right here in his home.

  “Well,” Jack began, “an eclipse can mean a lot of things but it basically means one or more objects covering up part of or all of another object.” Jack spied and grabbed two nearby coasters and illustrated. “Like this,” he showed River as he passed one coaster in front of the other. “But like I said, eclipse can mean a lot of things. That was just a simple example. Did those men happen to say anything else about the eclipse?”

  River thought back and discovered that her memory was improving along with her intelligence. “Yes, Jack. They called it a solar eclipse. What kind of eclipse is that, Jack?”

  Jack was easily able to explain this. He wasn’t an astronomy genius but you didn’t have to be. “A solar eclipse is when the Moon,” he paused, realizing River might not know the concept of the Moon, Sun, and Earth. “Do you know what that is, River? The Moon?”

  “No, Jack,” she replied.

  Jack realized this was going to be a bit more complicated than he had initially thought.

  “Okay,” he said, “come over here.” He motioned for her to follow him as he moved to a nearby window. River jumped up on the window sill and enjoyed the nice breeze from the outdoors. “All right, now, without directly looking at it, do you see that big ball of light up there in the sky?”

  “Yes, Jack,” River said as she glanced up. “Is that the Moon?”

  Jack laughed. “No, no, we’re not there yet. That’s the Sun. Do you know what that does?”