by The Abbotts
The Charismatic One
A Saint or a Devil?
By
The Abbotts
A Beacon of Light Book
e-Edition
Copyright 2017, The Abbotts
All rights reserved. This work is copyright. Apart from any use permitted under the Copyright Act. No part of this book may be reproduced, in any form, by any means electronic or mechanical, including but not limited to photocopying, recording, copying, or any other information storage or retrieval system currently in use or yet to be devised without the prior written permission of the copyright owners.
Thank you for respecting the hard work of the authors.
ISBN: 9781370336975
Table of Contents
Title
Chapter One - Middletown
Chapter Two - Lucien
Chapter Three - Conspiracies
Chapter Four - Deeper
Chapter Five - Fears
Chapter Six - The Runaway
Chapter Seven - The Ranch
Chapter Eight - Joe
Appendix
Other book titles by The Abbotts
Over 245 titles available including -
2016 to 2028 - The Hope Years! - Preparing for Cosmic Changes!
Omni - The Path of Unity - A Philosophy for Life
The Authors, The Abbotts, Tony Abbott, Robyn Abbott
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End
*******
Chapter One
Middletown
Sarah ran down the street whooping and holding her electronic tablet in her hand. She was a small, chubby girl of seventeen with fuzzy brown hair and large, dark eyes. She opened the front gate of a well-kept, but modest house, ran down the concrete path and knocked loudly, on the freshly painted, red front door.
The door was opened, by a slim woman in her late thirties with shoulder-length, dark hair and large, friendly grey eyes.
“Hi. Sarah; what’s up with you?” she asked the excited teenager with a smile.
“Oh, Mrs. Thomas, I’ve just got to speak to Ashley, is she in?” The girl almost did a jig, on the doormat.
“Sure!” laughed Kate Thomas with a reminiscent gleam in her grey eyes; she remembered what it was like to be seventeen and so excited about every new thing that happened. “She’s in her bedroom.”
Sarah nodded and rushed up the stairs to her best friend’s room, her plain face flushed with her unusual exertions. She knocked on the bedroom door, waited impatiently for a few seconds and then hurried inside.
A tall, blonde girl dressed in jeans and a blue tee shirt lay on her bed surrounded by her schoolbooks, while loud rock music blared out from a music system in one corner of the small room.
She looked up with surprised grey-blue eyes and then she suddenly exclaimed, “No! Tell me it’s happening, Sarah?”
Sarah hugged her and they danced around the room laughing. “Look, look!” the chubby girl showed her the news article on her tablet and Ashley read the story with wide, excited eyes.
“Wow! He’s really coming to Middletown! He really is! I can’t believe it… Lucien, in this dead-end town!” The two girls screamed at the mention of his name and then collapsed on the bed.
As one, they turned to look at a large, coloured poster on Ashley’s bedroom wall that showed a slim, dark-haired young man with an almost androgynous look smiling out of the picture. He was startlingly handsome and his large green eyes seemed to look at each girl with a special sympathetic look, of inner knowing.
“He’s so handsome!” sighed Sarah, her pink face aglow with teenage love.
“He’s awesome!” added Ashley with a devoted look and she stood up and changed the disc in the music system for one of Lucien’s own creations.
The two girls sat rapt for the next half hour, as they listened to his high-pitched melodious voice ring out, accompanied by a rock band. He seemed to represent all the teenage angst that they could possibly feel, at their age.
When the last loud note faded away, Ashley sat up and said determinedly. “We have to get tickets to his concert, before they’re all sold out! You know that everyone will want to be there and they’ll all come from all the small towns, around. He only has a few concerts, in our state. If we missed seeing him, well, I’d just die!” she said with a wail.
Sarah agreed with a nod. “But the tickets are pretty expensive, Ashley. I don’t know if my folks can afford a hundred bucks, for a ticket?” Her worried face fell.
“We’ve got to go, both of us, Sarah!” said Ashley determinedly. Her eyes flashed. “I’ve got a birthday next month... I’ll ask Mom to give me two tickets, instead of something big and then we can both go!”
Sarah looked at her best friend adoringly. “Oh, Ash, you are so kind! Do you think, she will say yes?”
The blonde girl nodded and said confidently, “Just leave it to me, Sarah!”
“I better go.” answered Sarah with a sigh, glancing at the schoolbooks resignedly. “I haven’t even started revising my history lesson. Let me know, when she says that we can go and book the tickets fast, Ash. Oh, it’s going to be so good!”
She wandered down the stairs and out into the street, in a daze. This was the most exciting day in her young life!
Ashley approached her mother with what she assumed was subtlety but what Kate quickly recognized, as teenage manipulation. She helped prepare their simple meal of pasta and sauce and set the dining table without being asked to, by her tired mother.
Kate was a single parent and worked long hours at a local electronics store, as its assistant manager and earned just enough to keep herself and Ashley safe and secure. In her late thirties, she often day-dreamed about what life would have been like for them both, if her husband, Joseph had not been killed in a motor cycle accident, after just four short years of a happy marriage.
All their dreams had been upturned and Kate had returned to needed employment, placing Ashley into the care of a reputable pre-school while she worked mondays to fridays, in the business centre of Middletown. Their life was happy and secure, but at times, necessarily frugal and money was rarely, wasted on unnecessary frivolities.
Over dinner, Ashley began her campaign, reminding her mother about her up-coming eighteenth birthday. Kate listened with an amused light in her fine grey eyes.
“Oh, yes, I was thinking of having a barbecue party for you here with your friends and maybe, a clothing voucher for you to spend at the local mall. Would that suit you, Ashley?”
Ashley tried to smile, but said with a frown, “Mom, I’d much prefer to buy two tickets for me and Sarah to go the Lucien concert, in a fortnight. It would be much less hassle for you and its something I really, really want!”
Her blue/grey eyes pleaded eloquently.
“How much are the tickets?” asked her Mom, trying to look serious and practical.
“Two hundred dollars!” replied Ashley gloomily. “But it’s well worth it Mom, he’s so radical! I’ve just got to go and I can’t leave Sarah behind. Her parents are much poorer than we are! Oh, please, Mom!”
Kate remembered how much she had once wanted to go to a Wham concert, long ago and how her parents who were quite strict, had banned her from going. It had quite broken her teenage heart and she had thought at the time, she would never recover!
She sighed to herself and then said. “Okay, I’ll pay for the tickets, but it will have to be that and nothing else for your birthday and definitely, no extra treats!”
Ashley stood up delighted and hugged her mother excitedly and then ran to her cell phone and rang Sarah, shouting all the time,
“We’re going, we’re really going!”
***
Kate worked at the electronics store the next day and after a few hours work, took a morning coffee break with two other workmates, while a part-time worker, Elaine minded the store. Oscar was a small, rotund man with a goatee and a gold earring in his left ear. He was an odd man who believed in world conspiracies and alien abductions which highly amused Kate at times, although she always listened to him with a respectful face, even if she sometimes strained to stop herself from giggling.
Kate no longer believed in a God or anything spiritual; her husband’s sudden death had quashed any religious feelings that she might have, once had.
The other workmate was her boss Dan Frost, a tall, pleasant-looking man of forty-five who loved the outdoors and somehow, seemed to be a rather incongruous owner of the small electronic store. She could best imagine him on a ship at sea or as a park ranger, rather than as a computer nerd!
Both men were bachelors and took an interest in Kate and Ashley’s life. They had followed Kate and Ashley’s struggles to set up a home; find employment and make a secure lifestyle for themselves, in the small town of Middletown. Ashley had often played in the store when she was little, while her mother worked and she had soon become a favourite of the two bachelors.
She told them of Ashley and Sarah’s wiles, to get her to pay for the two tickets to the Lucien concert and while Dan laughed, Oscar looked quite upset.
“I’m very suspicious of that Lucien fellow!” he said in a conspiratorial voice. “No one seems to know where he came from and what he talks about to those kids, at his concerts! You know that adults are banned from them, Kate?
An online contact, ‘Bigmommamullans’ told me that her daughter changed, once she had gone to one of them and became quite defiant! I wouldn’t let a child of mine go to one of his concerts!” he added emphatically, unaware of the obvious irony of being a bachelor with no children.
“Ah, but my parents felt the same about WHAM! And look how innocuous they turned out to be!” laughed Kate and drank the last sip of her coffee.
Dan merely smiled and answered in his serious way, “You’re a good mother, Kate and Ashley’s a smart girl. You know what to do.”
“Still, I’d investigate him myself, if I was you, Kate. Ashley’s a pretty precious cargo!” Oscar added defiantly.
Kate thought about his comment all day and that night, while Ashley did her homework, she looked up his details on Google. Oscar had been quite right; although there was lots of praise for Lucien’s singing abilities and his looks, there was very little about his origins.
She read that he had been born in the mid-west to farming people, orphaned young and moved to Los Angeles in his late teens, where his career seemed to flourish. He then went on to win a talent show on television and soon released several number one albums of his unique music.
His band, The Mist, half a dozen young men were much more commonly quoted or speculated upon, than he, Lucien was. However, they were rarely in trouble and it seemed that they advocated a ‘drug-free’ philosophy that relieved some of Kate’s anxieties.
She studied several publicity shots of Lucien, as he posed with a large friendly dog and sat contemplatively under a willow tree. Lucien’s slim body and almost feminine face with his trademark luminous green eyes were highlighted and she wondered, what thoughts went through his mind.
Was he lapping up all the acclaim and girlish worship knowing that like all music fads, he would one day be relegated to the ‘has-been’ pile? Or was he super-arrogant and believed that his success would go on forever?
He had charmed the press and all the television daytime hosts with his quick wit and good looks and had seemed to portray a clean image. Surely, he was just a passing celebrity fad?
She clicked the laptop shut and nodded; she was satisfied that he was just a current celebrity who could do no harm and she was quite justified in letting Ashley go to his concert. After all, she was unlikely to ever meet him and just sitting in the huge audience, surely couldn’t harm her. It was probably the worst mistake that Kate was ever to make, in her life!
Chapter Two
Lucien
Lucien slapped his current girlfriend, Alexis’ beautiful face with a resounding whack. She was a tall, statuesque model with long blonde hair and usually dreamy blue eyes; but not at the moment!
She gazed at him with astonishment and then burst into tears, holding her reddening cheek, in her carefully manicured hands. “What the hell, was that for!” she screeched in a very loud tone.
Lucien pointed at the lit marijuana joint, in the ashtray. “No drugs, whatsoever, I won’t say it, again!”
“But I’ve seen you take…” began the angry girl, but he cut her off with a fierce gleam of his cold, green eyes.
“Not now, not when we’re so close to victory!” he answered her. “Obey me or get out!”
The girl, Alexis nodded meekly and rose to stare at her face, in a gold-rimmed mirror on the wall. They were in the best suite of a local hotel and she had grown used to the luxury that Lucien and his manager, Zack Hobbs supplied and despite her boyfriend’s trigger temper, she was not going to let one violent action finish her luxurious life.
“Sorry darling, I won’t do it again!” she purred and sent him a sultry look. She was never just quite sure what it was that Lucien wanted from her, as he rarely visited her bed and seemed to dislike physical hugs and kisses, but she was used to being a trophy companion to older men and at least, he was young, attractive and very rich.
He had forgotten her in a few minutes and joined his manager Zack, a small, grey-haired man in the sitting room. He fidgeted and walked to and fro, as he said, “Is everything set up for the next town. Where is it, again?”
Zack spoke with a strong Brooklyn accent, while a lit cigar hung from his lips. “Middletown, a reasonably large and prosperous town. Lots of teenagers and very naïve parents! We should make a killing, there! The mayor even wants to give you the keys of the town! What a laugh, but we’ll go along with it! Won’t he regret that, some day! Ha ha!” he laughed nastily.
Lucien nodded; the plan was coming along nicely. Soon he could give up the singing star title and become something much more! His green eyes glowed at the thought.
***
Ashley and Sarah were examining each other critically, on the evening of the concert. Sarah wore a very short skirt of red stripes and a white low-cut top that Ashley privately thought made her look like a short, stumpy barber’s pole, but of course, she didn’t say so, as it would have hurt her best friend’s feelings.
They had been friends since kindergarten, at the local school and now in their last year at college, the bonds of friendship were still as strong, as ever. Sarah wanted to go on to complete a beautician’s course when she left school, but Ashley was still undecided. She had enjoyed writing essays and had written several pieces, for the monthly school newsletter; maybe she would do a journalism course, but then maybe something more exciting would come up.
She let Sarah admire her new shorts set in an aqua blue colour and she displayed her long, tanned body and shapely legs with a mock model’s pose.
“You look great, Ashley!” remarked Sarah with a sigh. “I wish I had your figure and height! I hate being short!”
Ashley tried hard to think of an asset of Sarah’s that she could admire and then, she smiled and said, “I wish I had your boobs, Sarah. You know how the boys love your cleavage!” This sent them both off into peals of girlish laughter.
For the truth was that the girls were quite old-fashioned in their own way and had only been on casual dates with boys from their school. And when any of those gawky and pimply youth had become too ‘hot and heavy,’ they had quickly ended the relationship.
“I wonder if we’ll ever meet real men who’ll take us seriously and treat us, as princesses?” asked Ashley with a sigh, for she was tired of her male classmates who she had known for years and seemed so bland and u
ninteresting.
“Maybe it will be different when we’re both working, Ash!” answered Sarah with a brighter look. “Surely then, we will meet some more sophisticated men, not just the usual boys!”
She looked at a silver watch on her plump wrist. “We’d better go! Is your Mom going to drive us?” Ashley nodded and called out to her mother that they were ready to go.
Kate was dressed in a smart trouser suit and ushered the excited girls out to the waiting car with an amused look. They talked about the concert and what they expected from it, for the ten minutes it took Kate to make their way, into the centre of town.
“Did you see on television, Lucien getting the keys of Middletown, Mrs. Thomas?” asked Sarah politely. Both girls had sat watching transfixed, as the mayoral ceremony proceeded.
“Yes, he seemed quite humbled, by the occasion” remarked Kate.
“Oh, he’s just so incredible! I can’t wait to hear him perform!” sighed the young girl in adoration, her brown eyes aglow.
“Just drop us down the street, a little, Mom!” instructed Ashley, as they drew up to the concert hall, where a large throng was gathered.
Kate smiled to herself; obviously, the girls didn’t want to be embarrassed by being seen chauffeured, by their mother. She remembered how she had once done the same thing to her long-suffering parents. She let them out and they scurried away.
“I’ll pick you up here, after the concert! Have a good time!” she called after them, before they disappeared into the crowd of teenagers.
Then she went shopping in the local mall for groceries and other household items, finishing with a coffee at a small café opposite the concert hall.