The Keepers Book Two of the Holding Kate Series

by Cole, LaDonna

  I frowned.

  My Kate had to be in there, somewhere. I would bend heaven and earth to find her and bring her back to the surface. I feared Trip would hold her in this altered state so that she would choose him. I couldn’t let him do that, for Kate’s sake. I’d fight for her.

  It felt like a line drawn in the sand between Trip and me as I stared at him, and the unspoken challenge rang between us.

  Eunavae walked in and the screen slammed behind her. “So, I’m a Keeper now, huh? I’ve been promoted to badass, then?”

  We all laughed and predictably, the sphere fell.

  We literally hit the ground running. We were back in the tornado city and twin demon twisters bore down on us.

  “Run, run, run!” Dirk shouted. We abandoned our supplies and turned to scatter. Tara and I banged through the first door we found and ended up in the dirty bathroom of a market while the tornados pounded the building.

  “Did you see where the others headed?” I asked.

  “No, I just covered my head and followed your feet.”

  “Is this the same place we came before?”

  “I think so. Have you ever heard of jump teams revisiting a site? Before us, I mean.”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “You think Mama Ty is trying to tell us something by bringing us back here?”

  “Maybe. Seems likely, doesn’t it?”

  She nodded. The door to the bathroom shuddered on its hinges. Tara curled into a ball, and I draped myself over her.

  We must have come in at the end of the night, because the tornados only haunted us for about an hour before they receded. Stiff, sore, and smelling like urine and cheap pine scented cleaner, we emerged from our hiding place.

  We walked woodenly out to the street and saw Mel sobbing into Trip’s arms. I glanced around. We were missing some team members.

  “What happened?” Tara ran to Mel.

  “They took them,” she sobbed.

  I looked at Trip. “Dirk, Donnie, and Pinky got sucked up into the tornado just like—” he blew out a huff of air. “Gregory,” he finished huskily.

  “No!” Denial blistered through me. “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah, we saw them. I barely managed to hold onto Mel, she kept trying to get back to them.”

  “Why do we keep coming back here?” I fought for an elusive control.

  Trip shook his head. “Let’s get to the subway.”

  “No need. The sphere should come for us any minute. Now, that Eunavae is gone.” I cracked, tears stung my eyes.

  Trip put his arm on my shoulder, tears welling. Mel and Tara pressed into us and we all put our heads together, embracing, and waiting for the sphere. We didn’t have to wait long, but it wasn’t the sphere that fell down out of the sky on top of us.

  The tornado descended lightning fast and snatched us up into its maw. I tried to hold onto Tara’s arm, but she wrenched out of my grasp. The vortex vacuumed every last particle of air out of my lungs, and I felt it would suck my lungs right out of my body. I kept my arms over my head, afraid of debris, tumbling through my last few moments of life.

  I thought of Kate.

  Not the Kate that betrayed me or tried so hard to seduce me, but my Kate. The one I had fallen for in the parking lot the first time I saw her; Kate of a Thousand Years who shared her very soul with me; Kate, the tender soul.

  My Kate.

  Her eyes gazed into mine, full of love and passion. Her lips sought to please me. Her scent drove me wild. I thought of my Kate. With my last remaining breath, I whispered her name, and then passed away into the black void.

  QUANTUM PERSPECTIVE SOURCE (QPS): DONNIE DUDGEON

  Donnie’s feet left the ground. He still had an iron grip on Mel’s hand. Fearing she would be sucked in with him, he flung her hand away. She stumbled forward, reaching for him as he flew away into the cyclone. Caught up in the maelstrom, he covered his head and closed his eyes.

  Memories of his childhood, being passed from foster home to foster home, flitted through his mind. His brother in Alaska, who never came to rescue him, raised his own kids in Seward. The memory of meeting Mel in the sixth grade, how she took him in, showed him what it meant to be loved, scraped through his head.

  He saw them standing on a hill in the Crags, with Corey in front of them and the Chartreuse jump team behind them. Mel had a wreath of blue flowers in her hair and a long coat of white fur, his beautiful bride. Mel and Donnie were the first of the jump team to pair up. They were the oldest and he had loved her since sixth grade, naturally they’d end up together. Corey pronounced them husband and wife and Donnie took her beaming face in his hands and pledged himself.

  They got busy making babies, seven within the first ten years. Gorgeous, a beautiful combination between fair Mel and his dark features, the children completed them as a family. Donnie ran their faces and names through his head as he spun in the twister, then his grandchildren, and great grandchildren. Mel and Donnie didn’t age, so they just kept having kids. Mel got pregnant the same time their grandchildren were having babies. Weird, but true. Everyone else seemed to be sad that they jumped for 212 years. Not Donnie. It stood out as the only time he lived surrounded by loving family. He treasured every moment of it.

  Now, dying in this spinning nightmare, he wanted his last thoughts to be of happy times with Mel and the kids. With Mel’s beautiful face in his mind, he hit something. Hard. It knocked the breath out of him —what breath he had left that the tornado didn’t steal.

  This is it. This is where I die.

  He didn’t die. Very much alive, he lay in a field of dirt. He levered himself up and took in his surroundings. Seeing a massive shape about a hundred yards away, he crawled, then walked, then ran over to see Dirk lying face down. “Dirk!”

  Donnie rolled him over and saw he had some cuts and scrapes, but otherwise seemed fine.

  He blinked. “Auugghh,” he groaned and sat up. “Donnie, where are the others?”

  Donnie scanned the field but didn’t see any other bodies. He shook his head. “I don’t see anyone else.”

  “Pinky,” Dirk said. “I mean Eunavae got caught in the funnel. I saw her.”

  Donnie panned the area, again. They were on an abandoned farm. A thatched roof house to the left and a small barn beside it stood steadfast against the barren land.

  “Maybe she is on the other side of the house. Can you walk?” Donnie held out his hand.

  “Yeah. Let’s go find her,” Dirk grunted, rising.

  They walked toward the house leaning heavily on each other. Noting the door to the little shack ajar, they passed between the house and the barn and gazed into the dirt field beyond. “Where do you think we are?”

  “I don’t know, but no zombies is a definite improvement.”

  “Would somebody please get me DOWN FROM HERE?”

  They spun around and saw Eunavae buried to her waist in the thatch roof of the barn. She struggled futilely, red in the face in complete exasperation.

  Dirk and Donnie burst out laughing. She let out a string of curses while she wiggled. CRACK! Eunavae disappeared into the barn.

  Their laughs died on their faces and they rushed into the barn to find Eunavae rising up from the center of a huge mound of stale hay.

  “Are you okay?” Dirk rushed to her.

  Donnie looked up at the huge hole in the ceiling. “She did more damage to the barn than herself.”

  “Funny boys!” she snapped, picking hay out of her hair.

  “Well, let’s go find the owner and see if we can help him repair his barn,” Dirk suggested biting the corner of his lip to squelch the smile.

  Donnie patted Eunavae’s shoulder and whispered, “You okay?”

  She wobbled her hand back and forth and rubbed her elbow as she followed Dirk into the yard. Donnie stepped out of the barn and scanned the yard and house. A shutter hung at an angle, rattling in the breeze. A small picketed area overgrown with weeds sported a few vegetables growing wil
d. A half rotten tomato and some string beans hung tenuously to the vines. Weeds choked out the remainder of the garden.

  Wedged between the front step and a dry scrub brush, a wicker basket sat upturned. A rusty plow anchored deeply in an unfinished row beyond the house appeared to have been suddenly abandoned.

  They walked back to the small slat board house and Dirk called, “Is anyone here?”

  Pushing open the door, Dirk walked in and Donnie and Eunavae followed. The room smelled musty, the ashes in the fireplace cold. The house stood fully stocked with overturned furniture, tables, chairs, and canned food with strange writing on the labels.

  Eunavae walked over to a bookshelf and opened one. “Is this Russian?”

  Donnie took the book out of her hands and shrugged. He didn’t know the difference between German, Russian, or Polish. It could have been any of those.

  She fingered the stacks of books, removed what appeared to be a scrapbook and opened it.

  It contained lessons in a child’s hand. “English to Polish Words” scribbled across the top of the front page. The book, chock full of English to Polish translations, seemed to span years as the handwriting became more and more legible and the lessons became more and more difficult. The last pages of the book were completely in Polish.

  Donnie and Eunavae frowned at each other and continued the investigation. Eunavae pawed through the books and Donnie followed Dirk down the empty halls and peered into each room. After climbing a staircase, they found a large attic full of furniture and clothing, trunks and broken toys.

  “What do you think is going on here, Dirk?” Donnie asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Should we leave?”

  “And go where? Mama Ty probably sent us here for a reason. Let’s stay and see if anyone shows up.”

  They stayed. Eunavae cleaned, and Dirk and Donnie repaired shutters on the house, and the roof on the barn. They expected the owner to show up at any time. No one came. Donnie found several of their jump crates scattered across the property and brought them into the house. Dirk found a stray mule wandering around and brought him back to the barn.

  Weeks passed and no one came. Rations running low, Dirk hitched the mule to the wagon one day for a trip into town to try to barter for some grain, oil, and supplies.

  They followed the trail of wagon wheels down the road that seemed to have the most traffic, maybe three travelers per day, and found a small town. Eunavae had been studying the translation book and had a rudimentary understanding of the language.

  “Orphanage.” She pointed to a building deconstructed to rubble. Children picked and shuffled, clearing away the debris and climbing on stone pillars that had once supported some structure. The town wrecked, tenuously struggled for civilization. The jumpers rolled the wagon to stop in front of a general store. Dirk jumped from the driver seat and secured the reins. Eunavae and Donnie huddled around him.

  Eunavae looked funny in the clothes they had borrowed from the homeowner. They were about three sizes too big for her. Donnie couldn’t really make fun, though. His borrowed trousers were three inches too short. Dirk pulled the short straw, nothing fit his massive frame. He wore his jump pants and a T-shirt strained across his chest.

  “Donnie, walk the board and see if you can find out where we are. Eunavae, come with me and get the things you think we will need, and I will see if he will trade for the gold watch.” Dirk had found the watch in a highboy at the farmhouse.

  They nodded and Donnie ambled down the boardwalk until he found a shop front with a printing press in the window. He eased into the shop at the ring of a bell. A small man with thick wire rimmed glasses perched on the end of his nose fidgeted with tiny tiles.

  “Excuse me.”

  He looked up.

  “Do you speak English?” Donnie asked.

  “Tak.” He tipped his glasses off of his face. “I spek pachniec…small English.”

  “Can you tell me the name of this town?”

  His shocked expression faded into suspicion. “Garwolin, Poland,” he said, a shrewd eye swept over Donnie. “Niedaleko. Not far. Warsaw.”

  “Where are all the people? The population?” Donnie waved his arms around to include the whole town.

  “War.” The man’s face grew long with sorrow.

  War? Donnie wracked his brain, trying to remember seeing newscasts of a skirmish in Poland. Pensive, he nodded and started putting together facts. No cars, no electricity in the farmhouse. Not only were they in a very real place in the manifest world, but they were in an alternate time.

  He shifted awkwardly and then asked a question he expected to send the little man scampering off to find the local law enforcement. “What year is it?”

  Donnie could see the wheels in his head turning. Evidently the journalist in him won out over the skeptic. “1948.”

  Now Donnie took a turn at shocked. He studied his feet to hide his dismay and choked out a thank you. Leaving the shop without looking back, he hurried away. He waited with the mule, mind frenetic with all the possible implications.

  Eunavae and Dirk exited the store a few minutes later loaded down with supplies. They piled them in the wagon, climbed aboard, and headed back out of town before Donnie broke the news to them.

  “I thought we weren’t supposed to go back in time. Paradoxes and all.” Dirk fidgeted with the reins.

  “Yeah, well, there are a lot of things that aren’t supposed to happen, right? It’s the whole reason we are investigating,” Donnie said.

  “Are we stuck here, then?” Eunavae whispered.

  Donnie shrugged his shoulders and turned his face to take in the war ravaged landscape.

  “I wish I had paid more attention in world history.” Dirk slapped the reins.

  They settled in for the long haul. Not knowing how long they would have to sustain themselves, Eunavae got a job at the orphanage helping with the Tuberculin outbreak, and Dirk and Donnie found work clearing post war rubble. They learned that 70 percent of the city had been destroyed during WWII. About a thousand people were murdered, several thousand were shipped off to concentration camps and as slave labor in Nazi Germany. Many families fled during the occupation. Only a slight percentage of the population remained or had returned.

  The farm they inhabited had belonged to an elderly Jewish couple who had adopted a boy. They disappeared one day and no one knew where. Or they weren’t saying, not unusual for neighbors to be taken away to concentration camps, suddenly. Several abandoned farms lay vacated, and the villagers were apathetic about them living in one. Mostly, they just wanted to be left alone to heal. A great mistrust toward foreigners reigned, understandably.

  They laid low and tended the farm. Donnie seeded a garden. Eunavae bought some chickens for eggs and they all hunted for meat. After they had spent four months on the abandoned farm, one day they had visitors.

  They fell out of the sky.

  QUANTUM PERSPECTIVE SOURCE (QPS): COREY CHASTAIN

  I woke up with my cheek pressed into foul smelling mud. A light drizzle whispered across the ground around me. I gasped for air and felt pinpricks run along the tips of my fingers and toes. Stabbing pains in my chest and lungs forced me over to my side and I yelped when pain lanced through my leg.

  I looked down and saw a shiv of debris sticking through my calf. I tried to sit up but the world lurched and spun wildly around me. Blood mingled in the mud puddle by my head and schooled me on the pounding sensation in my skull.

  The wet world faded in and out of darkness and dimness. Blurred images struck me, a house with a thatched roof, smoke curling from the chimney.

  Black.

  A horse drawn cart in the distance splashing through a heavy downpour.

  Black. Gray. Black.

  A raven circling overhead, its feathery spiral echoed a distant memory.

  Black.

  Warm hands on my face, a familiar smile.

  Gray. Excruciating pain and a floating sensation.

>   Black.

  I woke to the smell of my grandmother’s beef stew. Though the smell conjured up warm memories, it also made me retch then black out again.

  “…needs a doctor…”

  “Not these quacks. They will kill him for sure.”

  “Kate.” I struggled to lift myself from this oppressive lethargy.

  “No, Corey, it’s just us, Mel and Eunavae.”

  “Eunavae?” Why was I so happy to hear her name? “Eunavae.”

  “Yes Corey, I’m here.” Her hand squeezed mine. “I’m watching over you.”

  Good. Eunavae. She’ll take good care of me.

  Black.

  I opened my eyes, but the blackness remained. Was I blind? My heart squeezed until I saw a faint glow at my feet. Moonlight reflected on the bed sheets. I struggled up on my elbows and the room spiraled around me. I slurped in air then tried again. My limbs, aching and stiff, resisted as I swung them off the bed. Pain shot up my right leg and I had a vague memory of a metal spike lodged in it. Nausea coursed through me and I gagged, but nothing came up. My head pounded, and I reached up to touch a bandage across my forehead.

  “Corey?” A whisper in the darkness.

  “Augh,” I moaned.

  Scratching sounds and a flash, then a small hand lit a lantern. The wick caught, and Eunavae’s face peered into mine.

  “Hey.” She smiled.

  “Hey,” I scratched out.

  “How do you feel?”

  “Like I was eaten by a tornado.” I stuck my tongue out a few times and tried to moisten it. My mouth felt like cotton. “Eunavae! You’re alive!”

  “Yeah,” she giggled. “Here, take small sips.” She proffered a tin cup to my mouth and I sipped on the stale water. “Lie back down, rest.”