DAY ONE
“People are bright, but when push comes to shove, people will look out for themselves. It is the natural order of things.”
- Social Chaos, Kimberly Evanston
CHAPTER SIX
Adam saw Calvin walk in and was instantly happy to have his old leader around. He hurried to the front of the restaurant and, grabbing a menu for him, seated him in a small booth away from the rest of the patrons, where he felt they could talk without being bothered. They hadn’t even begun to chat when one of the servers, a gal in her mid-twenties named Erica, came over to get them started with a meal. After she left to put their order in, it was time to catch up.
“How have you been, kid?” Cal started, “Are you liking the job? The civilian life?”
Adam just grinned, no one but Calvin Ward called him kid. He was in his mid-thirties. “The job is okay, though probably not for me long term. The civilian life is definitely for me long term.” They both laughed at this. “What about you? How are Kate and the kids?”
“Well, Kyle moved in with some friends, and he is at the community college. Natalee is in her senior year, and whatever you would normally expect from a girl of that age, that is pretty much who she is. Ted and Kayla just moved to town, he helped me with the opening of a dojo in the forest. You should go see him, he would love to catch up. He is finishing up his career at Carson.”
Adam smiled. “I hope your dojo is better than the shit show that the Major runs on base. I stopped in there on accident and thought I was going to lose it. I heard he opened one downtown as well.” The Major was their former Executive Officer of the battalion in Iraq. He had been directly responsible for Cal’s leaving the army, and was the type of person who was scary when in power. Fiercely territorial, full of himself and a bigot as well, Major Eric Fine was everyone’s least favorite person they had ever served with. Most people knew it was worse for Cal and Ted, because they were known martial artists. Somehow, this brought on the Major’s disdain. The Major treated their accomplishments, their training, their martial art and their leadership with the upmost disdain. He did so in front of everyone, all of the time. While Cal was the best leader Adam had ever seen, The Major was the worst, except possibly for Sergeant Meyer. He also insisted everyone call him “The Major” which was obnoxious in the extreme.
Cal did not take the bait to talk shit about the man though. “I had heard he was still at Fort Carson, and still a Major, but hadn’t had the pleasure of crossing paths with him.”
Adam was about to say something snarky about the use of the word pleasure, but the power in the building suddenly went out. Adam looked around. He had been trained in what to do with power outages, as there were some things that became fairly dangerous in a restaurant with no power. “I guess I better go deal with that. Be right back.”
There were standard procedures to follow in the case of a power outage, thinking back on that training, Adam went to begin those procedures. “Hey guys,” he yelled back to the kitchen, “Let’s turn the gas off and stay clear of the hot oil. Actually, as soon as you turn it off, let’s just sit out front and wait for the power to come back on.” He opened the office door, but it was pitch dark inside. “Does anyone have one of those flashlight apps on their phones? I can’t see shit in here.”
One of the waiters said, “Hey, my phone isn’t working.” This was followed by a cascade of exclamations as each person realized that their phone was also not working. It is an amazing thing how much faith society places in the constant stability of technology. A minute without their cell phones and people lose all semblance of composure.
A bartender screamed out about accidents at the intersection right outside. Adam looked out the front windows at pile ups on the road. Wow, he thought, the power must be out at the lights too. Adam checked with a few people then grabbed his phone out of the office and found that it also was not working at all. He had been without worse things than a cell phone in his life, and adaptability was an asset. He walked back out to where his friend was. Calvin was standing up, his dead phone in his hand.
Calvin turned toward him. “Adam, you need to get everyone out of here. The only thing I know that can cause widespread loss of electronic use is an electromagnetic pulse. I don’t think even the largest pulse would cause that though.” He pointed out the window.
Adam turned to look and saw the cars stopped out on the street and people getting out of them with looks of confusion, and some injuries. Adam looked up and down the usually busy street and nothing was moving, no car, no truck, no motor vehicle of any kind. The traffic lights seemed completely off. He heard Calvin say in a low voice behind him, “This won’t be fixed today. These people need to start heading home.”
Adam nodded and headed back into the employee area. He trusted Cal implicitly and acted on his friend’s suggestion. “Okay guys, I don’t think this is going to end soon. It looks like a major power outage. Let’s get everyone out and you can all go home.” The staff loved that idea so much that they jumped right in to get everyone out. Within ten minutes, all of the patrons except Cal, and all of the staff had left. As Adam locked the front door, Cal walked up.
“Kyle works not far from here at that big sporting goods store,” he said, talking about his oldest child, “I am going to see if he is working and then make sure that Kate and Nat are okay.”
Adam nodded. “How are you going to get there, it doesn’t look like cars are working.”
Cal smiled a warm and reassuring smile. “I am going to walk, kid. I seem to remember doing a lot of walking back in the day. Once a soldier, always a soldier. You want to join?”
Adam thought about it for a minute and had no real reason not to. “Sure, Sergeant, I am on your six.” They both smiled and left the building. Just outside, they were confronted with the staff and the customers who had just left. Everyone was pretty upset, and some were heading back like they wanted to get back in the restaurant.
Ellen Harris, one of the servers, trotted toward them and Erica was right behind her. “Our cars don’t work. How are we supposed to get home?”
Adam surveyed the parking lot. “I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but walk. We are going north, walking, if anyone wants to join. I have always found that there is something about walking in a group that makes it easier. Any of you need to head north?” The only ones that were headed north were Ellen and Erica. Some people headed off in different directions, some just stayed put, hoping for a change of circumstances. The two servers, as well as Adam and Cal, walked north to go to the sporting store. It was only about two long blocks up the road. The girls stuck together, and Adam walked next to Cal. They took it slow, like they had learned in the sand. Don’t overexert yourself in the heat, it saps your energy and slows you down anyway. You might as well take it easy and get to your destination with a little energy left.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Jenny looked around on the street and saw the chaos quickly taking hold. Cars had crashed into other cars and people were out in the street. She could tell this was more than a power outage, since she had never lost her ability to use her smart phone in a power outage. However, she couldn’t tell exactly what it was. Her assistant, Peri, had wanted to go home, so after Peri left, she locked her front door as her irrational fear and anxiety increased. There was no reason to be afraid of things one can’t control. She decided to just do a simple meditative yoga practice to calm her nerves and wait until this all got fixed. The yoga room was completely pitch black right now, so she grabbed a mat and decided to just begin behind the counter. She sat and began breathing, picturing the tiny ball of light.
As she centered herself and released the tension, she felt she could see, in her mind’s eye, that glowing light. As she brought more peace, and more focus into her practice, the glow grew brighter and clearer, colors intertwined and moved, and a sense of warmth and calm came over her. She was a long believer in chakras and auras. For many years, and through many teachers, she had tried
to learn the ability to read people’s auras with no success. On this weird day, with no power and no distractions, she was truly able to visualize the light that she talked about in every practice, but never truly was able to see. This was one of the best practices she had ever had, and it could not have come at a better time.
When she opened her eyes, shock about what she saw slammed her mind. She could see hazy auras around some of those who passed the front of her studio on the sidewalk. This man had a foggy blue and then a woman with an almost unnoticeable yellow outline. She just stared, not even worried any longer about the chaos. As she looked out into this mass of people, she noticed that colors and shapes seemed to follow the actions of the people in the street, with the angry ones exhibiting a red fiery aura and the fearful ones a deep purple. It was simply fascinating to her that she felt she could read their emotions through their auras, but there was more, and she had no idea what it meant. These people had varying thicknesses of those auras, varying borders to them, varying opacity. She was about to walk out onto the street when a fight broke out right in front of her studio and one man fell against the window with a loud bang. She jumped back and all of the auras disappeared. Now she saw the people, no colors, no difference. How that could be?
Over the next hour as things got more chaotic on the street, Jenny tried to see the auras again with no luck. She had some raw vegetables and raw nuts, so she didn’t need to go out and thought it was probably safer to wait out the power coming back on in the quiet protective environment of her studio. People were acting crazy out there. They were fighting, yelling, crying, running, just engaging in a level of chaos she was not expecting and did not care for. The hardest part about it was the fact that she had no news, none at all. Occasionally, she would peek through the window to see if anyone she knew was out there. The only people she knew were from that martial arts studio across the street, and those guys were complete assholes. They were the kind of gung ho idiots that most people think of when you say martial arts guys – very misogynistic, very macho, and not too bright. Those guys almost seemed to be guarding their studio. It was a bit much.
Walking back to the little nest she had created behind her counter, Jenny sat with her back against the wall and considered everything she could remember about the auras. Had she imagined them? Was it some kind of delusion her mind had allowed her to break her from the fear of the moment? She wasn’t sure, but she knew it helped, and she knew that she would be just fine to get that kind of calm again.
Calm. That was it! She had begun to feel the auras and almost see them in her mind during her last practice, so she began moving through her poses to see if anything popped. Her mind raced and reached for any hint of a color or feel of warmth. But, there was nothing. She wasn’t sure how long she had been sitting there, but she was getting a little bored. Opening her eyes, Jenny looked again out the window. A mass of the martial artists, about fifteen of them, were standing around the front of the studio and the guy who owned it, the jerk with the salt and pepper flat top, seemed to be giving them orders. Jenny hated that guy.
When she had first rented her space a couple of months before, and was in the middle of renovating it, that guy had stopped by. Many people stopped in to see what she was opening and wish her well, but his visit was different.
“Eric,” he had said as a greeting, and thinking it a joke, she had replied with snarkiness.
“Nope, Jenny. But if you need to, you can call me Eric.” She put out her hand to the visitor, he did not take it.
He looked down at her hand and just said, “I am the master of the dojo across the street. Do not try to steal students, my students do not need to have this crap put in their head.”
Jenny was taken aback and their conversation did not go much farther. She hadn’t really thought about him since that day, but now it was hard to avoid. He would stop in from time to time with some other warning, or “advice”. For the life of her, she couldn’t figure out what his problem was. But now there he was, staring in the direction of her studio again. She saw him motion to two of his guys and both started walking over. She went and sat down in a shadow behind the counter so he couldn’t see her if he looked in. Through a crack between the two parts that made up the counter, she saw him approach. He banged hard on the door, but for some reason that even she didn’t know, Jenny stayed hidden behind the counter. She saw him peer through the glass, looking around to see if anyone was in there, and stayed as still as she could. There was always something menacing about this guy. She knew a lot of military guys, and there was no mistaking Eric was a military guy, but none of them gave her the creeps the way this guy did. It wasn’t only in his constant hassling of her, but in his manner, like all of his warnings were a show.
After a short bit, Jenny saw him say something to the others and they all turned back and walked back to his studio. She figured it would begin to get dark in a few hours and she could most likely leave in the darkness and avoid them altogether. The only problem she could see was that there were stalled cars in the road, it was actually full of them, and she wasn’t sure she could get to her car or if she could get it out. That was a problem for later, so she decided to close her eyes for a while and take a nap.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The loud crack of someone hitting his door woke Ronnie from the deep sleep that only a night of excessive partying would bring. He reached over the naked, sleeping body of one of the two young women who had come over to party with him the night before. He didn’t even look to see which it was, he just opened the drawer from his bedside stand and pulled his Glock 9mm out and cocked it. He heard mumbles on his porch and could tell there were a number of people there. He listened at the door before opening it.
“I told you I will ask him. You know he ain’t gonna like you being here at his house, man. You should all go now.” A rumbling murmur let Ronnie know that there had to be a dozen or more people out there. A different voice yelled out.
“This is bullshit! I paid for ice, not sugar. I don’t know how you got it to taste like ice, but it ain’t ice. I tried snortin’ it, smokin’ it, and a friend of mine tried shootin’ it. I heard it killed him.”
The first voice, that Ronnie now recognized as his friend, and slinger, Jake, shouted over the murmur. “I ain’t jokin’. Ronnie comes out here, you are all gonna be sorry. This shit is real.” There was a loud thud. “Who threw that, I am gonna cap some…”
Ronnie swung the door open, making no effort to conceal the handgun he was holding. He saw a large rock on the ground and far more people than he had first assumed. He looked at Jake, who was holding a hand to a gash on the side of his head and blood was coming out over his fingers. Jake was paling by the second.
“Sit down, man, or you are going to pass out.” Ronnie said, as Jake was swaying on his feet. He looked out over the crowd of about thirty tweakers, who were in various stages of hurt. “Did I hear one of you have a grievance about my shit?”
“Shit is right, man.” Said one of the people in front.
“Oh, you the spokesperson? That ice is pretty pure bitch, what you want to say now?” Ronnie waved his gun around. “One of you want to pick up a rock? You throw a rock and you will be dead before it hits near me. No? Then get the fuck away from my house!”
“You cheated us, mister kingpin, or whatever you like to be called,” said a voice from the back.
Ronnie had just about enough, he decided to make an example and pulled his gun up to knee level and pulled the trigger on the guy with the big talk.
Click.
Nothing happened. Ronnie released the dud and put a new round in the chamber and pointed it again.
Click.
From behind him one of the naked girls came walking up. “Ronnie, this ice isn’t getting me high. What is wrong with it?” Ronnie turned around and saw the weirdest thing he had ever seen. There stood a pretty beautiful girl, completely nude, with so much meth on her face she looked like a sugar cookie. He was about to s
tart laughing when he felt the sharp pain in his side, then in his back three times. He turned to see what caused it and saw a skinny woman with a look of absolute rage on her face. He looked down and saw the knife she had just stabbed him with. He watched with incredulity as she slammed the blade into his abdomen another four times. He fell to one knee and grabbed the knife out of her hand. She just stood there looking at him and spit on his face as he fell over on to his side. Ronnie felt and saw his life’s blood draining on to his front porch, as all of the people ran in various directions.
The last thought of Ronald Parker Jones was, “What was wrong with the ice?” Everything faded out, forever.
CHAPTER NINE
Ted pulled the levers on the breaker box. Flipping them back and forth, he wondered if he might have hit a wire, but even the main was giving no juice at all. What could cause this kind of loss? All that seemed to make sense was a major area outage. Kayla walked around the corner with the handheld house phone in her hand.
“It’s not just that there isn’t a dial tone, Ted. This thing is like a paperweight. Nothing works, my cell doesn’t work, my iPad doesn’t work, nothing. Look up at the corner, even the light is out.”
Ted walked back around the front and up to the corner, it looked like the light was out and people were milling around the little bar and grocery on the corner. “Hon, would you drive up and see what’s going on up there?” It wasn’t that far, but far enough to seem like a chore he was giving his wife. “Or I could go, if you would rather not.”
Kayla just looked at him and smiled. “Where is Max?”
Maxine Craven was their daughter. She was ten years old, and somewhat shy but friendly. She actually preferred to be alone, and had taken to walking off in the vast forest behind their house since they had moved here. Ted just nodded back toward the woods, and Kayla started walking that way, shouting as she walked. “Maxine! Get your butt home for a sec, I need to talk to you.”
Age of Mystics (Saga of Mystics Book 1) Page 2