The Harvest (Book 2): Eve of Man

by Anne Ferretti

  Eve of Man

  Part II of The Harvest Series

  Anne Ferretti

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by this author.

  A special thanks to Kay for her help and never ending support.

  A very special thanks to my husband for supporting my dreams and for never growing tired of seeing me bent over my computer.

  Copyright 2014 © By Anne Ferretti

  All rights reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in retrieval form, or transmitted in any form by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without express permission from the author.

  In nature, competition to survive guarantees only the strongest species will prevail, thus eliminating the unfit. It is the evolutionary theory known as survival of the fittest.

  अग्र

  Table of Contents

  THE HARVEST

  1 THE SPREAD

  2 UNITED STATES EMBASSY

  3 THE ADITA

  4 THE GIFT

  5 HULK

  6 DEPARTURE

  7 CROSSING THE STRAIT

  8 REUNION

  8 FUR ELISE

  9 CHRISTMAS & PLANES

  10 EVE

  11 FLYING UNDER THE RADAR

  12 UNLIKELY ALLY

  13 BEST WESTERN

  14 UNKNOWNS

  15 CHRISTMAS

  16 LIFE FOR DEATH

  17 CHANCE MEETING

  18 THE GREATEST ODDS

  19 THE HARVEST

  20 BLOOD TYPING

  21 SAVING RYAN

  22 NOWHERE TO HIDE

  23 BROTHERS

  24 GERMANY

  25 POINT OF NO RETURN

  26 AFTER

  27 EVE OF MAN

  28 PROPOSAL

  29 GUARANTEES

  30 CHANGE

  31 FINAL DEPARTURE

  32 PARU

  EXCERPT FROM PART III

  The Harvest

  In the aftermath of a brutal alien invasion and a winter storm that left several feet of snow blanketing the landscape, Earth’s temperatures plummeted to the single digits. Veiled in the falling snow, corpses of the missing were dropped from the sky. Within forty-eight hours, other than a few desperate survivors, all signs of life had vanished from the face of the Earth. For one such desperate soul, Captain Austin Reynolds, a slow nightmare had begun as he set out on a quest across the frozen tundra of the United States.

  He traveled under the guide and protection of a mysterious being called Eve, hoping she would lead him to his pregnant wife. Eve had protected him since childhood, saving his life many times throughout his twenty-seven years and he had placed all of his trust in her.

  Austin journeyed to Section Seven, a top secret facility hidden under Cheyenne Mountain. The Section was where he expected to find General Roth and answers about his missing wife. As Austin navigated towards Colorado, he crossed paths with other survivors; Luke, a college football star; Madison, a Tampa Bay police officer; Edward, the last tax attorney standing; and Zack, a genius who made millions selling marijuana. They were drawn to Austin and he’d willingly accepted the responsibility for their safety. This was as much for his sense of duty as for his redemption.

  Upon reaching Cheyenne, Austin discovered General Roth had taken a one-way trip down the rabbit hole and believed himself to be chosen by God to carry out divine orders. Roth tried to lure Austin into his web of deceit with promises of finding his wife and son. For Austin the general’s promises presented a conflict between duty and personal pursuits, which forced him to choose his own agenda over that he’d sworn to protect at all costs. The consequences of this decision led him to the planet Bliss, a newly discovered planet only a few knew existed. On Bliss, a place of untold truths and unending lies, he met Eve’s people and discovered what they’d been hiding from him since Eve first came into his life.

  Eve of Man picks up where The Harvest left off. I hope you enjoy.

  1 The Spread

  COLOGNE, GERMANY

  12:00 am

  Military Counterintelligence Service (MCS)

  In a room buzzing with computers and high tech gear, a young plump faced soldier sat at one of the many terminals, a bored look holding his face captive. He glanced up at the large screen on the wall with indifference. The live streaming video gave a bird’s eye view of the United States or at least where the country should be located. He’d been assigned this duty two months ago. A shit detail as far as he was concerned. Every day the same old thing, watching the screen, watching nothing happen. He set his chin into his hand, the pressure scrunched his lips together and pushed his fleshy cheeks up into his eyes. His eyelids drooped, threatening to close down at any second. He fought the sleepiness by tapping his fingers.

  Tap-tap-tap... Tap-tap.... Tap.

  His eyelids fell, darkness fell, the battle over sleep lost...

  He jerked awake, sitting up with a start and taking a quick check over his shoulder, hoping his superiors hadn’t noticed his lapse. With a relieved sigh, he turned back to the screen, rubbing his eyes in the process. His vision refocused on the same white mass that had covered the United States and Canada for over a year. As he watched, his eyes widened, he leaned forward and then stood up, waving his arm behind his head to catch someone’s attention. An officer noticed the soldier waving and walked over to him. About to say something about his conduct, the officer stopped in his tracks, his eyes riveted to the screen. The white mass was moving, spreading down towards South America.

  “It’s moving,” Plump Face stated the obvious for lack of knowing what else to say.

  The others in the room gathered behind the soldier. After a year of waiting and watching, and no activity, their initial reaction was to stare, mouths agape. The mass rolled over the top of Mexico, moving slow at first and then picking up momentum. Within a matter of seconds South America disappeared. Only then did the ranking officer, Major Gaynor, consider sending a warning. But the point of taking action had come and gone, if it ever was a point at all.

  “Get Agent Bosch on the phone,” Gaynor instructed the soldier standing next to him, the uptick in his voice giving away his uneasiness. The soldier nodded, his eyes still glued to the screen, expecting, or wanting, something more to take place. Gaynor cleared his throat motivating the young man to pick up the phone.

  A buzz of nervous excitement flowed through the room. Although no closer to having answers than from when the cloud formation initially dropped from the sky, they welcomed and feared any sign of change. Any sign at this point held meaning over the nothingness they’d been dealing with, and also worth a rise in heart beats per minute. Every mission or attempt to gain access into the cloud failed to provide insight or a clue to what happened. One drone after another flew into the mass, never to return. The computer systems tracking the drones proved useless, returning blank screens as soon as the drones disappeared into the white nothing. Mighty war ships and submarines simply vanished from radar screens never to be heard from again. Pilots stopped volunteering after the list of missing grew to over one hundred. The nations remaining, those left to make the big decisions, gave up trying to enter the United States or Canada. Watch and wait became the standard approach. Watch and wait, hoping for the best while assuming the worst.

  Six months after the last drone disappeared, hope waned to a whisper and the mood darkened. In a last ditch effort to gain access, the Russians offered their only remaining drone to fly one more mission. The drone flew in low, and they’d all held their breath, hoping data would be sent back. As with all flights befor
e, this one failed and hopes crumbled, coming closer to falling into the dark pit of despair. With all communications from the West dead, they’d no way of knowing that their concept of the worst didn’t scratch the surface of the situation overseas. They’d no way of knowing how well off they’d been while the mass was stationary. Major Gaynor realized many unknowns existed still, but wasn’t ready to give up. He thought maybe the time to take another shot was upon them. The prospect of going in excited and unnerved him. Traditional methods proved useless, leaving only one alternative to consider. He didn’t have to wonder who would be suicidal enough to volunteer.

  “Agent Bosch sir.” The soldier handed Gaynor the phone.

  “Bosch. You guys seeing this?” Gaynor asked the obvious first.

  “You know we are.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think maybe it’s time you cleared me to go in.”

  “I still think you’re crazy. No maybe about it.”

  “Maybe I am. Maybe I’m not,” Bosch said, “but your opinion of my mental capacity doesn’t change anything.”

  Gaynor grunted in response. Despite the agent being thirty years his junior, they’d become good friends. Over the past year he and his wife Ada had welcomed the American into their home and treated him like family, an understatement in his wife’s regard. She thought of Kyle as her own son.

  “Ada will never speak to me again,” Gaynor added, hoping guilt would hold sway in his decision.

  “I have to try,” Bosch replied, desperation clung to the edge of his voice. “Or I’ll never have peace.”

  “I know,” Gaynor answered. “Can you at least wait for us to send in another drone?”

  “How long?” Bosch asked.

  Gaynor heard the underlying frustration in the young man’s tone. “We’ll have to contact the Italians. I think they’re the only country with a drone. A week, maybe two.” The call would take minutes to make, but Gaynor wanted to delay the agent’s departure for as long as possible. The delay was as much to avoid Ada’s wrath, as to allow more time to pass, to allow for, by some miracle, contact with someone, anyone, overseas.

  “I’ll give you one week. Then I’m going in,” Bosch said. “Even if it’s without permission.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Gaynor replied. “I should know more in a couple of days.”

  “Thanks Will.”

  “For sending you to your death? You’re not welcome. And you will come by the house tomorrow for dinner.”

  “Need back up?” Bosch asked.

  “Damn right.”

  “See you then.”

  Gaynor handed the phone back to the soldier and sat down in a nearby chair. In his thirty years working for MCS he’d never experienced anything like this. WWII had been written into the history books by the time he was born. His grandmother had taken great pains in providing him with a full understanding of what took place during that war. As a special bedtime treat, she would tell the story of how the Royal Air Force dropped fifteen hundred tons of explosives on top of their heads. She’d go into great detail of how his grandfather dug them out of the rubble with his bare hands, only to find their home no longer standing. He wondered what his grandfather might have thought of the world’s current state of affairs, of this war with an invisible enemy.

  Many discussions occurred amongst Will and friends, as well as with his colleagues over the sad state of affairs. Surviving the disappearance of North America was always the common thread of these talks. The words minor miracle were thought and mentioned often, and with good reason. In the first few months the chaos ensued like nothing Major Gaynor or anyone had ever experienced. He imagined the dark ages to have been similar. His grandmother would have blamed God; everything bad fell into God’s lap as far as she was concerned. Gaynor would have argued she was wrong. God didn’t own this one and though Will didn’t believe in the devil as a physical entity, he believed in evil.

  Throughout the turmoil people somehow managed to persevere, to muster up a resilience they hadn’t known they possessed. The surviving countries settled down into a relative calm. Markets stabilized, panic was squashed, and people moved on in the best way they knew how. A minor miracle? In Gaynor’s opinion, their survival constituted a major miracle and represented only the tip of the iceberg. Sustaining in the aftermath had been the real test of their true grit. Society and its many rules persisted. New rules were instated, replacing or changing the old in order to suit the current state of affairs.

  One such order, issued within hours after the event by the collective governmental powers, brought all air traffic to a grinding halt. This order was enforced for several months after the event, stranding millions of travelers, business and vacationing alike. Some resigned themselves to becoming temporary and sometimes permanent residents of wherever they happened to be stuck. For the most part the transients were treated with kindness and hospitality. For the most part meant not for all of the part, as unscrupulous predators who thrived on such situations came alive. End of days scams, money scams, you name it scams, attacked from all directions. Looters slithered out from under their rocks to take advantage of this situation that was favorable to their particular lifestyle. They broke windows, stole TVs, set cars on fire, all because the conditions were ripe. Eventually the law dealt with the dregs of society and they crawled back into their slimy holes of existence waiting for the next opportunity, comforted in knowing there would be another. Although considered the scum of society, these parasites understood human nature better than many of those considered educated in such matters.

  A few months after the event, people stopped asking questions. They stopped asking about the happenings overseas or the cloud mass. Not because they no longer cared, but quite simply because no one had the answers, so they stopped asking. At least to any government official, who many believed were either hiding the truth or didn’t know what the hell happened. When an opinion formed on the latter belief, which happened often, the officials were viewed as incompetent, idiots and worse. Although the general populous gave up asking the government for an explanation, plenty of speculation went on behind closed doors and in dark corners of local pubs. All of this chatter a wasted effort. The answers weren’t theirs to know.

  Life continued under a constant state of unease. The weather became a topic of conversation for what might be considered obvious reasons. However, the only obvious reason was the white mass of clouds might move in their direction at any given moment. In the early days sirens blasted the airwaves whenever a cloud mass appeared on the radar. People hid in storm shelters, and cities and towns went into lockdown. After several months of repeating this activity, resulting in nothing more than normal weather occurrences, the government ceased sounding the sirens. But unease had embedded itself into people’s lives as a habit and, despite the sirens being silent, whenever the clouds rolled in people went inside not to emerge until the sun rose high in a clear blue sky.

  2 United States Embassy

  The offices of the United States Embassy occupied the top floor of an unassuming ten story brick building situated on the Rhine River. The US shared the building with Armenia, Spain, Bosnia, Italy, Australia, Russia, and Argentina to name several. Within the building, close to five hundred people worked at the various consulates and embassies, carrying on the world’s affairs in twenty or more different languages. On a normal day the building hummed with activity; people went about their daily duties, phones rang, copy machines copied. A well-organized hive. On the day the white mass moved the bees shifted into high gear, and the hum turned into a manic buzz.

  In a corner office on the top floor, Agent Kyle Bosch paced in front of a wall sized picture window, the swarming bees around him only a small beep on his internal radar. From his vantage point, the view of Cologne and the Rhine was five star. The view was the single notable attribute of the office. A laptop and a mug of stale coffee kept company on an oversized walnut desk. An office chair and an old leather couch
kept company with the desk. The walls were bare of personal effects, giving the impression the office was used on a temporary basis, if at all.

  For Kyle the office had served dual purposes over the past year. During the long days after the cloud’s appearance, a place to pace, to ponder, to wonder what the hell was going to happen next and when. At night, after a few too many beverages, he’d pass out on the couch. The couch resulted in a stiff back and neck, but was still his preferred place to catch the sun rising, a seldom occurrence in Cologne. If not the office, he was waking up in some woman’s bed. This usually resulted in him creeping away like a thief in the night, and going through great pains to not awaken whatever nameless female he’d met the night before. He made it a point to not know or remember their names. Cologne was temporary. A reminder he repeated to himself anytime his emotions tried to override his determination.

  On rare occasions he’d accepted Ada’s invitation to spend the night in their guest room. Those evenings spent with Ada and Will were the closest he’d come to feeling sane, to feeling like the world had not spun out of control and they were all hanging on by a thread. The normalness kept him from becoming a permanent guest in the Gaynor household. Normal dulled his senses and diminished his memories to whispers in his mind. He didn’t want whispers, he wanted and needed those memories to stay loud, to continue in reminding him of what was at stake if he became complacent. Although he’d attempted to numb his mind and body with Kölsch on a regular basis, Kyle remained in a constant state of alertness. A curse he sometimes thought.

  Curse or blessing, he was going to need every advantage at his disposal if he had any hope of surviving the unknown enemy overseas. His plan had been conceived months prior, but Will had refused to even entertain the possibility of sending him into the white mass. Kyle was confident in his success and had already decided to act upon his plan before Will called. Now, with Will’s help, preparing to leave would be easier on all involved. Kyle knew sending in a drone was a stall tactic, but he’d allow his friend that time, which was more for Ada, his surrogate mother, than Will. For Ada, who reminded him of his mother, he would wait a few more days.