by Eddie Patin
Samson the cat lay on the bed, curled up in Sheryl’s messy blankets. The feline raised his head, looking up at Arthur with a fanged smile and his eyes mostly closed. Arthur reached out and scratched the orange cat’s head, then folded his pants, leaving his keys, extra magazine, and other gear attached.
Slipping into some sandals, he headed straight to the kitchen, to the fridge, and grabbed a bottle of IPA. Pulling the bottle opener off of the fridge door, Arthur opened the beer with a hiss and took a hearty draught, flooding his mouth with cold, hoppy goodness...
“Aaaah...” he said, turning to look at the kitchen.
There was a plate of food on the counter, covered with the Microwave’s splatter guard.
Walking up, beer in one hand, he pulled the impromptu cover off of the plate.
Steak. And a side of the kids’ mac and cheese with some extra cheese melted on top. It wasn't steaming with heat anymore, but the meal was still far from cold. Sheryl had cooked him a steak before leaving to have dinner with her parents with the boys.
He smiled.
“Awesome,” Arthur said to himself. “Thanks, Sheryl...”
He put the beer on the counter and pulled out his cellphone, immediately navigating to his long-running text with his wife.
He started to type with his finger on the touch-screen.
“Found the steak. :) Thanks bab—”
A sudden thunderclap suddenly split the air, shaking the walls and slamming Arthur with a surge of adrenaline! The lights in the house went out. Arthur was cast into darkness and dropped his phone to the floor...
“What the fuck?!” he cried.
Did a transformer blow up nearby or something? He wondered.
Must be really damned close.
So loud...
The dim light of the darkening evening glowed through the closed blinds of the kitchen. Arthur staggered over to the window and pulled open a crack of blinds with a trembling hand. The neighborhood was totally dark.
Yep. Power outage. Damn.
Arthur reached down and picked up his phone. He pressed the unlock button so he could finish his text.
It was dead.
Did it reset itself? he thought, holding down the lock key to make the phone turn on again. He held the button down for several seconds.
Nothing.
He tried again, holding the button down for a while. If the phone was jolted into turning off, this should at least turn it back on...
Nothing.
The phone was dead.
Weird, Arthur thought, pulling open the battery case. He pulled out the battery, put it back in, closed everything up again, then tried to turn the phone on...
It didn’t respond.
Instinctively thinking to smell the phone, Arthur lifted it up to his nose and could detect the faint odor of singed electronics.
“Killed my phone?” he asked the empty room.
The silence of a house completely without electricity answered him. The fridge was off. The furnace was off. All of the normal droning sounds of domestic life—gone. The cool quiet of the house was spooky, and Arthur stood still for a moment before shrugging. Then, he made his way back toward the steak...
Click-click.
Nothing.
This flashlight was also dead.
“What the hell happened to all of the electronics?” Arthur said to himself in the dark. So far he’d tried three different flashlights stashed around the house. The penlight he kept on his belt was dead, and he had just changed the batteries on that thing. The flashlight stashed in the lower bathroom wasn’t working, and the handheld gun light he kept next to the bed was dead as well.
Stumbling through the darkness of his bedroom on his wife’s side of the bed, Arthur found a couple of candles on her night stand. Then, he stumbled back around the bed and retrieved a cigarette lighter from his pants on the floor.
It had been over an hour since the power went out, and he was wondering what was happening at his in-laws’ place. What was his family doing? Were they experiencing the same outage over there?
If Sheryl tried to call his dead phone, she’d go straight to voicemail. She’d probably know that his phone was off for whatever reason.
The urge to make sure that his family was okay hit the man like a ton of bricks...
Arthur shook his head.
They’re probably fine, he thought. They’re having dinner with Seth and Maggie. Maggie’s probably being pushy with Sheryl’s parenting. Sheryl’s probably smiling and biting her lip. Little Justin is probably resisting eating whatever food doesn’t have cheese or butter on it. Maggie is probably threatening her grandson that he won’t get desert unless he finishes his food. Seth is probably sitting at the head of the table, drinking his wine and staying out of it...
At any rate, they’d still be back in ... maybe an hour?
Hopefully, he thought.
Once Arthur had the faint, golden light of a lit candle, he started gathering other candles from around the house. If his flashlights were all dead for some reason, he could at least go with good old-fashioned fire. He thought back to his parents, who'd always kept oil lamps stashed here and there for power outages.
Arthur hadn’t touched an oil lamp in years.
Once he'd gathered several unlit candles together on the dining room table, Arthur checked his wristwatch. How long had it been? Sheryl and the kids should have gotten back from dinner by now, shouldn’t they?
Dead. His Casio’s digital display was blank.
What in the hell is going on? He thought.
Arthur looked outside the living room window at the dark neighborhood. He saw the glow of candlelight in the windows of a couple of houses across the street. Idly stroking his beard with a free hand while he stared out of the window, Arthur figured that he had been home for somewhere between ... two and three hours?
Heading upstairs, he dressed himself in his day clothes again, strapped on his concealed Glock, and pulled his keys off of his belt. Grabbing a fleece jacket, he blew out the single candle he was using for light, stepped outside into the crisp night air, and locked the front door behind him.
Everything was so quiet...
The wind blew through the trees. It was the beginning of April, and Colorado was just starting to warm up again, but the crazy weather here still flirted with storms and the idea of winter. Arthur never really thought about all of the road noise he normally heard; the constant drone of the city in the background of daily life. His little neighborhood circle was pretty isolated, but it was still close to a few streets that always made noise. Montebello was close, and Academy Blvd wasn’t too far away.
But the night was quiet like ... being up in the mountains...
The only sound was the movement of the wind in the trees.
Arthur walked down the concrete pathway, his footsteps louder than he expected, and unlocked his truck. Climbing up into the seat, he put his key into the ignition and tried to start the vehicle.
The truck’s starter turned over and over, but nothing happened.
“What?” he said.
He tried it again. Cranking the key, the starter turned, whining loudly, over and over, over and over, but the engine didn’t catch on.
Arthur stopped, pulled the key from the ignition. He lay back, head on the seat.
“So,” he said to himself, “the battery is okay, but ... the ... what?!” Arthur sighed. It didn’t make sense. If the battery was okay, why wasn’t the truck starting? “What the fuck?”
He sat up, put the key back into the ignition, and cranked over and over again.
What kind of power outage kills phones, flashlights, and cars? he thought.
Arthur left the truck, locking it behind him, and went back inside, struggling with the front door’s deadbolt a little on the way in.
“Stupid lock...”
So he couldn’t call Sheryl, and he couldn’t drive there. He couldn’t call a cab—he couldn’t do anything! He could—what—walk
there maybe? He could take his old mountain bike. It was hanging up in the garage...
This was not good.
If Sheryl and the kids were experiencing the same kind of outage...
He had to make sure they were okay.
But how?
Relax, Arthur thought. There was no need to get worked up about it. Sheryl’s parents lived all the way over on Dublin. That part of the city was probably fine. If a transformer blew over here, it was probably just his circle, maybe some of the streets around it.
But the night is so quiet, he thought. Shouldn’t he be able to hear the sound of cars on the street outside of the outage?
Should he take the bike?
Wait longer?
It was probably ... eight o’clock? Nine?
Probably better to wait, he thought. Sheryl was likely on her way back already.
Arthur lit his single candle from before and made his way down to the TV room.
He looked at the couch, but didn’t want to get settled in just yet...
If there was nothing left to do but wait, he could at least make sure that when he found Sheryl and the boys again, they’d at least be prepared to deal with the power outage if it lasted longer than a few hours...
Over the next hour or so, Arthur carefully made his way through the dark house, gathering the saved old milk jugs full of water from the basement, extra blankets and fleece throws, old flashlights and batteries stashed in his outdoor gear and backpacks—anything he could think of that they might need—and stacked it all on the table next to the cluster of unlit candles he’d already put together.
A little more satisfied, and feeling a little better about trying to do something, Arthur walked back downstairs to the TV room.
The little candle on the coffee table burned with a tiny flame, drooping and leaking hot wax from a crevice in the side.
Pulling his Glock out of its holster and setting it on the end table, Arthur sat down, sinking into the leather couch, and settled in to wait...
He was cold.
Arthur opened his eyes, shivering madly.
Daylight pushed its way through the closed blinds and curtains, and he could see the steam of his breath in the air.
Arthur was still in the TV Room.
Wearing his normal clothes, boots up on the coffee table and arms clenched together, Arthur's body shivered to warm itself under just the fleece jacket...
“Wha—?” he started, his mouth trembling and his teeth suddenly clattering together.
With great effort, Arthur moved his body, pulling his stiff legs off of the coffee table and finding his feet under him. Vigorously rubbing his hands together, he struggled to stand, then rubbed his arms.
The power was still off.
It was morning.
He’d slept in.
Where were Sheryl and the boys?!
Arthur’s joints popped and creaked as he got moving, trying to warm himself up, and he took some shaky steps toward the stairs back to the front room. He stopped, turned, grabbed his pistol, and put the weapon back into its holster, taking great care because he realized that his hands were shaking from the cold.
Unlocking the front door and stepping out into the bright, chilly morning, Arthur tried to start the truck again.
It was still the same.
The starter turned, the battery was still strong, but the engine just wouldn’t start.
Looking around the neighborhood, the streets were quiet, and several fireplaces showed thin plumes of smoke.
Yeah, he thought. Everyone was inside trying to stay warm. No electricity. No heat.
The sun was low in the sky, but dawn was definitely behind him. Normally, Arthur woke up to his alarm at five and was up and heading to work before sunrise.
“Even the alarm clock,” he said to himself. It was battery-powered. “Huh.”
He looked at Gill’s house, his neighbor next door.
All quiet on the outside.
What was that kooky dude doing? Was he even home? Gill always kept that SUV of his inside the garage, so there was no way to tell.
No lights, of course. No smoke.
Arthur went back inside and stepped into his garage from the kitchen.
That’s it, he thought. He had to make sure; had to help his family get home.
Arthur pulled down the old black mountain bike. Somehow, he’d managed to hang onto the same old bike he'd owned since his teenage years. That bicycle had been through his twenties, back when he used to go biking all over Colorado’s mountain trails, and all through when he was a teenager, riding it to high school. Back then, he'd called it The Black Dragon. It was an old Schwinn. Now, Arthur was thirty-two and had a family with two small boys. He worked ten to twelve hours a day, running equipment for Heavy Tracks Construction, and his old bike just ... hung in the garage.
With the help of another candle, Arthur swept all of the dust and spider webs out of the gears and off of the seat and handlebars, found a pump, and filled up the tires, which were low and floppy.
Taking the bike outside through the front door—no power meant no working garage door—Arthur locked the deadbolt behind him, checked the retention of his holster, and hopped up onto the bicycle’s seat. The man pushed down on the pedal with his lead foot for the first time in a long time.
His stomach grumbled, but he ignored it. Gliding out past the driveway and onto the open street, Arthur started making his wobbly way toward the exit from his neighborhood circle, adjusting the bike’s gears as he went until he found a comfortable balance of power. He shook his head a little as he faced into the wind of his own movement, feeling his hair and beard flow with the breeze.
If his family was still at Sheryl’s parents’, he'd have to make sure that they were okay at least...
The ride would be maybe four or five miles. No problem.
Up ahead of Arthur, before his street joined up with Montebello Drive, he saw several people run from one side of the road to the other.
Odd, he thought.
But by the time he reached the corner, they were gone.
CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE READING “Portal Zero”
Author Notes & Appendix – Minotaurs
"The Minotaurs of Maze World" is book two of a series that will eventually contain at least six books. In this 'Author Notes' section, I'll be throwing in thanks to contributors and others, as well as compiling an ongoing 'Appendix'—certain bits of information and concepts, characters, and other things from this series. If you're ever unsure of a concept from this series that you feel you should know from past books, check here.
First some thanks. This is a large and involved series, and there was a lot of world-building involved before I started. I've actually been working on "Monster Hunting for Fun and Profit" for all of 2018. I'd like to thank certain people and YouTube channels for their awesome work and videos that helped inspire me and provided great information for my research:
Dinosaur Stuff. I've been really into dinosaurs ever since I was a little boy growing up in the 80's. Dinosaur lore and science has evolved quite a bit since back then—even since the 90's when the first Jurassic Park movie came out. I've learned a lot this year and last year about the new dinosaur science from YouTube channels like "Trey the Explainer" and "Dangerville" mainly, as well as others.
Quantum Physics and Dimension Theory. There's a lot of stuff out there on the Internet about higher dimensions, many worlds theory, string theory, etc. Ultimately, I found a really interesting interpretation model out there that made a lot of sense and worked well as a foundation for my higher dimensional theory in these books. My concept of higher dimensional travel for this book series is based largely on the "Imagining the Tenth Dimension" interpretation by Rob Bryanton. He has many great, old videos about his Ten Dimension model on YouTube, and I share them on my Facebook author page from time to time. We start ... with a point. Special thanks to Rob Bryanton. In Book Two, Rob's 10th Dimensional Model is briefly discussed in Chapter Two,
and more information and concepts are filled in here and there over the series as Jason learns and experiments. Hopping from universe to universe in pursuit of bounties is a major part of this series.
Monster Lore. I love monster stuff. Most of the books I write involve monsters of some kind; usually the more fleshy beast-like sorts and aberration-types rather than common undead (although sometimes I have zombies and more creative things). I'm always listening to YouTube videos about various types of monsters from DnD, folklore, video games, and other sources to help fuel my ideas and flesh out my own monster appearance in fiction. I've listened to plenty of channels, but one I'd really like to mention for being an extra-awesome source of monster ecology is "The Mighty Gluestick" Channel by AJ Pickett. Keep up the awesome videos, AJ!
Running Appendix
This is Book Two in the series, so this section is a little different than the equivalent Appendix and Notes section in 'Wyvern'. Every time you see this 'Appendix', it should grow a little bit with knowledge you should have by the end of the book. This will also serve as help to anyone jumping into the series without reading the previous books (if anyone's crazy enough to do that!). As I mentioned before, if you ever need to look up a character, or which universe is which, or clarify what dimension does what, check the back of the book to see this section. I don't want to spoil anything for later, so you'll find each Appendix limited to the stuff you'll learn in each book.
The Characters
Jason Leaper 934. This is the series main character. He starts the series at thirty-three years old, living in a fictional Colorado mountain town next to Lake Granby called "Ridgeview". When he was eighteen years old, Jason's family went down in a plane crash on the way to Alaska. His parents were both killed and Jason was crippled for life. After that, he dropped out of college (Physics major) and spent the next fifteen years of his life distracting himself with games and friends. He lives in his parents' house, which he inherited. All Jason Leapers have the ability to 'rift'—to manipulate dimensions to move between or inside different universes and multiverses. Jason's very smart and has a lot of capability. He can invent solutions to his problems from limited resources and imagination, and is fairly skilled with firearms as a hobby. At the end of Wyvern, Jason is given a previous Jason's OCS—Omniversal Cosmic Scanner—which allows him access to any information he desires and can help him rift through an elaborate coordinate system. After the events of Wyvern, Jason is a changed man, no longer wanting to waste his life with distractions. He joins the Reality Rifters and goes on his first job with them in Book 2 to hunt minotaurs. In Book 2, he struggles to learn basic rifting concepts and abilities.