They’d known each other since high school, where Joe was one of the coolest guys Mark knew. Joe knew everything about music from the good old days. The music from the 60s and 70s. Back when music was good, and you could understand the lyrics. And every other word wasn’t profane.
They’d played this game almost as long as they’d been friends. Mark would find an obscure song lyric and try to stump Joe. But he seldom succeeded. Joe played five instruments, and had been in various garage bands since he was ten. Music was pretty much his life. At least when he wasn’t at Exxon counting cigarettes.
The line was a lot longer than usual. A rolling marquee above the cash register said the Powerball jackpot was at $310 million. Mark let out a slow whistle. That was a good chunk of change.
He seldom played the lottery himself, but Hannah did all the time. Poor sweet thing. She’d been stuck at home with the flu for the last week and hadn’t been able to get out. But he knew she’d have gotten herself a ticket if she hadn’t been sick.
So as a last-second lark, he told the clerk to throw in a quick pick for the lottery, cash option, and paid two extra bucks. It was worth two dollars to make Hannah smile that beautiful smile. And it was the least he could do for her, for thinking enough to record the game for him.
But Mark forgot to give her the ticket. Forgot to even take it into the house. He laid it on the passenger seat of his Explorer and it sailed down to the floorboard when a dog ran in front of him and he had to hit the brakes hard. And he pulled into the driveway, took his beer and watched the game, and never gave it another thought.
On Thursday, Mark was doing a sales pitch to a banker who was worried because his neighbor three doors down had been a recent victim of a home invasion. The banker’s community was gated and a private security company made their rounds occasionally, but none of that had stopped the brazen thieves from posing as utility workers.
In broad daylight, they knocked on his neighbor’s door, and flashed fake IDs to gain access to the back yard “to check the power lines.” From there, they cut the phone cable, kicked in the back door, and tied up the occupants before leisurely looting the place of all its valuables. They even stopped long enough to make themselves a sandwich before leaving.
Thievery, it seems, works up one’s appetite.
The banker decided he needed a better security system, and Mark was trying to convince him that he was the man for the job.
Mark’s cell phone went off. A little bird whistling “I’ve Got Sunshine” told him he had a text message from Hannah. He hit the mute button and went on with his presentation.
Half an hour later he’d sealed the deal and was returning to his Explorer when he remembered the text. It said “Call me ASAP.”
Oops.
But luckily Hannah wasn’t mad. She was way too excited.
“Did you hear about Joe’s store?” she asked him.
He answered with a bit of apprehension. “No. Did they get robbed again? Is he okay?”
“Oh, yeah, I’d say so! I heard on the news that they sold the winning ticket to the Powerball drawing. Somebody won over two hundred million dollars after taxes. And it’s somebody that lives right here in San Angelo. Wouldn’t it be cool if it’s somebody we know?”
“Baby, hold on a minute.”
Mark put the phone down and took out his wallet. The ticket he had purchased on Sunday night wasn’t there. Crap! Did he leave it on the counter at the store? Did some cretin come up behind him and pick it up?
He instinctively felt his pants pockets, even though he knew he wasn’t wearing the same jeans he had on Sunday night.
Then, on the floorboard of the passenger side of his ride, he saw a lonely piece of paper. And he remembered that damn dog.
He picked up the ticket, then the phone.
“Honey, don’t freak out,” he said. “But I bought you a ticket on Sunday night and forgot to give it to you. Would you go on line and see what the winning numbers are and read them to me?”
The next thirty seconds lasted twenty years.
Hannah came back on the line and said “Okay, here goes. 13, 25, 26, 44, 57, and the Powerball is 18.”
Mark’s chest actually started to hurt, and he felt faint. In his mind’s eye, he saw Redd Foxx playing Fred Sanford, holding his chest and saying “This is it. It’s the big one…”
But Mark wasn’t having a heart attack. Mark was experiencing what it felt to find out that you were suddenly a multi-millionaire.
Hannah didn’t believe him, of course. She thought he was playing one of his dumb practical jokes. She met him at the door as he walked in and presented her the ticket as a new father might present his first born to a hospital nursery visitor.
“Be careful,” he said. “Don’t damage it or tear it or sneeze on it.”
The next day was Friday, and Hannah insisted on getting up and going to work. Even though she only got an hour’s worth of sleep. Mark stayed behind in bed, telling her just to call in and say “Go to hell, you bastards. I’m rich!”
But Hannah was a scientist and an honorable one at that. She was above doing such a thing. She’d wait until her boss pissed her off. Then she’d tell the bastards to go to hell.
When they parted that morning, both of them were on cloud nine. They’d spent most of the night talking about all the great things they’d do with their new fortune. They laughed when they thought of sour old Reverend Samuels, and how he might actually crack a smile when they presented him with a tithe check for ten percent of their winnings.
They talked about which European countries they’d visit first, and even considered buying their own Caribbean Island.
Yes, when they parted that morning, neither had a care in the world.
What a difference a day makes.
If you enjoyed
RED Book 2: Too Tough to Tame
You might also enjoy
ALONE
Available now at
darrellmaloney.com
Amazon.com
and
Barnes and Noble Booksellers.
Dave and Sarah Anna Speer had been preparing for Armageddon for years. They thought they’d covered all the bases, and had planned for everything.
It never occurred to them that the single thing they had no control over was the timing.
Sarah was on an airplane with her young daughters when solar storms bombarded the earth with electromagnetic pulses. Everything powered by electricity or batteries was instantly shorted out and would never work again.
Dave was suddenly alone.
He was also unsure whether his family was dead or alive. He assumed that the airplane stopped working and plunged from the sky. But it was scheduled to land in Kansas City at almost the exact time everything stopped working.
Had they landed in time? Was it possible they survived?
This is the story of a man facing Armageddon alone. It chronicles the things he does to survive in a newly vicious world.
It also includes Dave’s desperate and poignant diary entries to his wife. Just in case she did survive, and somehow makes it back to him to find he didn’t make it himself.
From the author of last year’s best sellers “Final Dawn” and “Countdown to Armageddon” comes a new tale of one man’s journey through hell… alone.
Chapter 1:
Dave couldn’t get the tune out of his head. He’d heard it all morning long, off and on, playing quietly in the back of his skull. And it was driving him crazy.
Oh, it wasn’t unpleasant. It was a happy little ditty. At least it sounded that way. It sounded more like sunshine and smiles, rather than rainclouds and foreboding.
Finally, he’d had enough.
“Okay, let’s play a game,” he announced while looking in the rearview mirror at Lindsey and Beth.
“I’ll hum you a tune, and the first one to guess the tune gets a candy bar when we get to the airport.”
Sarah looked at him from the passenger seat. With that look.
“Excuse me, mister? You’re going to get the girls all hyped up on sugar just before I take them on a four hour plane ride?”
“Not both of them, honey. Just the one who guesses the name of the song.”
“Uh… no. If that song is still bugging you, just hum it. If any one of us guesses it, you can buy each of us a cinnabon.”
The girls laughed. Beth gave Lindsey a high five. Lindsey said, “All right! Go, Mom!”
Dave coughed. At first he had no words.
Then he found some, and stated the obvious.
“Why is it okay to get all three of you hyped up on sugar but not okay to do it to just one of you?”
“Because you know I have a thing for cinnabons. And I’m the mom. So that makes me the boss.”
Lindsey broke out in uncontrollable laughter from the back seat, and Beth said, “Ooooohhh, Dad, you just got owned.”
“I don’t know if it’s worth it. I mean, those things aren’t cheap, you know.”
“Oh, we know, don’t we girls?”
Two heads nodded up and down behind her.
“But, Dave, they are soooo worth the price. And I’ll give you a bite. And think how sweet I’ll taste when you kiss me goodbye.”
Beth made a gagging sound.
“Besides, if you want us to help you with that song, you have to pay the piper. It’s only fair. And if you don’t, it’ll continue to drive you crazy for days. Maybe even the whole week we’re gone. And we’d feel so bad for you if that happened.”
“Yeah, you’re just oozing with sympathy for my plight.”
Sarah smiled and blew him a kiss. She was even more gorgeous now than the day they’d met thirteen years before. It suddenly dawned on him that he was an incredibly lucky man, to have such a beautiful wife and family. And that the price of three cinnabons wasn’t that great, in the grand scheme of things.
In other words, he played right into Sarah’s hands. She knew he would, as soon as she let the kiss fly.
“Okay, here goes.”
Dave started humming the tune that had played in his mind a thousand times since the previous evening.
It took the three of them no more than ten notes. They’d have been “Name That Tune” champions in another era.
All three of them blurted out, almost simultaneously, “It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.”
Then Dave felt incredibly stupid.
“Of course. How could I have not known that? The old Mr. Rogers theme song. Sheesh! Now I really feel dumb.”
Sarah said, “Did you know that Fred Rogers was a Green Beret in Vietnam, and wore his red sweater to hide all of his tattoos?”
Dave scoffed.
“Where did you hear that?”
“On the internet. Why?”
“That story’s been going around for years. It was debunked a long time ago. Mr. Rogers was a fine man, but he was never a Green Beret.”
“Oh, yeah? Where did you hear that?”
“On the internet.”
It was too much for Lindsey.
“Gee whiz, would you two stop believing what you read on the internet? Nearly all of it is garbage.”
She turned to her little sister.
“Do we have to teach these old people everything?”
Beth said nothing but nodded her head decisively. She was in firm agreement.
Dave was a man of his word, and after the family checked in at the ticket kiosk and Sarah and the girls got their boarding passes, they made a beeline to Cinnabon.
“Daddy, are you going to walk us to the gate?”
“No, honey, I can’t go through security without a boarding pass, so I’ll walk you as far as I can and then you can give me a great big hug and a kiss.”
“I wish you could come with us.”
“I know, sugar. I wish I could too. But with two of the guys being sick at work, they just can’t let me take vacation right now. Uncle Tommy will understand, and we can go fishing another time. And you’ll be so busy helping Aunt Susan get everything ready for the wedding, you won’t even have time to miss me.”
“Bet I will!”
Sarah looked at him longingly. They were going to be apart for their twelfth anniversary. It would be the first one they’d missed.
It was as if he could read her mind.
“We’ll do something special when you get back, I promise. We’ll get a sitter and go spend the weekend at the lake. Just the two of us.”
“I’d like that.”
He walked the three special ladies in his life to the TSA checkpoint and got his hugs and kisses.
He held Sarah close and told her he loved her.
Little Beth rolled her eyes and said, “No mush, you two.”
Dave paid her no mind. He looked Sarah in the eyes and said, “It’ll seem like forever before I see you again.”
Neither of them had a clue how true those words would be.
*************************
Please enjoy this preview of
COUNTDOWN TO ARMAGEDDON.
COUNTDOWN TO ARMAGEDDON
Available now at
darrellmaloney.com
Amazon.com
and
Barnes and Noble Booksellers.
*************************
Scott Harter wasn’t special by anybody’s standards. He wasn’t a handsome guy at all. He wasn’t dumb, but he’d never win a Nobel Prize either. He had no hidden talents, although he fancied himself a fairly good karaoke singer.
His friends didn’t necessarily share that opinion, but what did they know?
No, if those friends were tasked to choose one word to describe Scott Harter that word might well be “average.”
If Scott excelled at one thing, it was that he was a very good businessman. And he was also a lot luckier than most.
And it was that combination – his penchant for making a buck, and being lucky, that led him here on this day to the Guerra Public Library on the west side of San Antonio.
To research what he believed was the pending collapse of mankind.
Twenty three years earlier, Scott had done two things that would change his life forever. Even back then, he was just an average Joe. He’d had plans to become a doctor, but his average grades weren’t cutting it. So he dropped out of college halfway through his junior year.
He’d have loved to have married a beauty queen, but his average looks certainly did nothing to attract any. Neither did his average amount of charm. So instead he started dating Linda Amparano, who was a sweet girl but somewhat average herself. They seemed to make a perfect, if slightly vanilla, couple.
The second thing Scott did that year was buy a dilapidated self-storage unit on the north side of San Antonio. It was one of those places where people rent lockers to store their things when their garages have run out of space. Or their kids go off to college. Or when they just accumulate so many things that they’ve run out of room to put them all.
Pat, the guy who sold the property to Scott, was a friendly enough sort, but not a businessman at all. He didn’t understand some of the basic principles of running such an operation.
Not that Scott was an expert. At least back then he wasn’t.
But even back then, Scott knew the value of curb appeal, and that a fresh paint job and a few repairs could attract a few more customers. And a few more customers would help supply money for advertising, and special offers, and long-term lease discounts. No brainers, actually.
So by the end of that year, two things happened. Scott had turned around the business and turned it into a money-making operation. And he married Linda.
The pair said their vows on December 17th of that year. It was bitterly cold that day. The coldest December 17th on record for that part of Texas.
If the cold was an omen, though, neither of them saw it. If either of them had, and had gotten cold feet, their lives would be so much different today.
But they just laughed it off, as young couples in love
are wont to do. And they went ahead with their nuptials and started their lives together and never looked back at that cold day in December when they ran headlong into a marriage that shouldn’t have happened.
The marriage lasted nine years. It produced two great sons, so there was that. And Scott and Linda remained friends. That was something else. So there was a good legacy, of sorts, left behind by their mistake that cold December day.
Scott adored his boys. There was Jordan, his oldest, who was intelligent and talented and a bit of a goofball. And there was Zachary, who Scott was convinced would someday become a scientist or a highly successful engineer. Zach was always taking things apart and making other things with them. His curious mind never stopped working, and he loved exploring new things and new ideas. Zach was sweeter than a bucket of molasses. He was everybody’s best friend.
Yes, Scott was lucky as a father. No problems with his boys at all.
He was also lucky in that he lived in Texas at the time of the divorce. Texas wasn’t an alimony state. So he wasn’t saddled with monster alimony payments like his brother in Atlanta was. His brother Mike was divorced the same year as Scott, and was ordered by the court to pay forty percent of his before-tax income to a wife who had cheated on him multiple times.
No, Scott had no such problem. He paid child support, of course, and was always on time with it. And he doted on his boys and bought them nice things.
But since he didn’t have to pay alimony, he was able to take that money instead and use it to build his business.
After the first storage facility was turning a healthy profit, he was able to buy a second. Then a third. And with each one he followed the same business model. He’d do some cosmetic improvements to attract a few more customers. Then he’d turn that additional income into air time on the local radio station, or ads in the local paper. Getting the word out drew more customers, which in turn would supply more money for special deals and discounts. Which would provide more money for another new facility.
It was a business model that had served him well.
Too Tough To Tame: Red: Book 2 Page 19