by Eli Constant
My bond with Jason grew stronger daily.
I was blissfully and largely pregnant with our first child. There was a woman of the Vuntuta with knowledge of herbs and childbirth- she visited me daily with a steaming, wood bowl of herbal tea. On my child’s birthdate, I had no doubt that this woman would be as effective as any hospital physician.
Jason was impatient for the arrival of our son or daughter.
He rarely left my side, his head ever pressed to my growing belly. When his duties called him away from me, I sang to our unborn child and helped complete small tasks- cleaning clothes in the stream, gathering wood for our fires, listening to the children teach each other in nature’s classroom.
I also lovingly worked on a small bassinet, formed of pliable vines and lined with the softest of mosses. It became so easy to not think of violence and death, to let my harder self disappear beneath a blanket of happiness. I could let go of that self… the violent part of me that I’d once thought was my real personality.
Michael and Allison were married now, both seventeen years of age, Allison a few months older. So young. But things are different now… The ceremony had been a simple, lovely thing. The Vuntuta chieftain had blessed their union and a low chanting of voices had filled the soft twilight.
They were a strong and vital couple, impatient for a family of their own, but enjoying each other. Jason and I encouraged them to wait, they were still so young, but conventions weren’t important now.
Michael worked daily in the small fields that were planted a short space away from our main cavern entrance. Having one arm did not slow him down in the least. He and Jason diverted a downward stream to irrigate the fields and they were always discussing ways to improve our lifestyle.
It was all very primitive, but the very primitiveness of it felt modern- like when a fashion would come back into style and would be considered chic because of its very retro-ness.
***
The day that our little oasis was discovered was not special. There was no cosmic indication that our little, comfortable life was to be altered.
When the helicopters landed adjacent to our planting field, we gathered; we watched. Our more vulnerable persons centered in a circle of stronger bodies. It reminded me of more violent times.
The uniforms that exited the choppers were armed, but those weapons were not pointed at our populace. Instead, the barrels swung back and forth, examining the woodland beyond our sanctuary.
It was strange, to see a gun again after so many months of arming myself with simple knife or spear or bow and arrow. Jason still had the guns from our last stand at NORAD, but they were long forgotten, hidden in a small crevice in our rock-walled, bed chamber. We didn’t have ammo. He kept them anyway. Perhaps they provided him some comfort or memory from a past life.
The last man to exit the closest chopper was uncommonly large and wide of frame.
“Benson!” The surprise I felt rang out in my voice. I pushed past Jason and walked swiftly towards the man, hugging him in welcome and friendship. “What in the world are you doing here?”
“Elise? I’ll be a son of a bitch!” he hugged me hard and then pulled away, his hands resting on my shoulders. His eyes flitted down to my enlarged midsection. “Looks like congrats are in order.” I rubbed my baby bump and smiled. Jason walked up behind me, a smile stretching his sun-chapped lips. “Jason. Nice to see you.”
“Got to say Colonel, you are the last person I expected to see today.”
“We’ve been searching for survival pockets. Believe it or not, we’ve found over eight dozen groups in North America alone and hundreds around the world.”
I beamed at the words Benson spoke.
“That’s amazing.” Jason said, as he protectively snaked his arm around my waist.
“Odd thing is most of the survivors have chosen to continue their current lifestyles. Looks like modern society is on the outs.” Benson looked past me to the large group congregated in front of the dark cavern entrance. “I’ve got the sneaking feeling you guys aren’t going to be among the minority choosing to get back to all the comforts of home.”
His words, ‘comforts of home,’ rang in my head. The undergrounders were not gone, they would not disappear. I could only imagine the new, modern world would be a fortified one- sheltered, barred from outside threats.
I could no longer feel free under lock and key, not after living in such wild, wonderful beauty.
I turned around and tried to see my home from Benson’s perspective. I couldn’t. All I could see was a family- each and every individual unique.
Our home was surrounded by the natural loveliness of the Yukon. I looked at the small, growing cemetery where our friends took their final rests. It was a place I loved and would never leave.
I turned back to Benson and smiled. “We have all of the comforts of home right here, Colonel.”
Benson’s men counted and profiled the individuals of our group. Our existence would be further encouragement that humans were still a part of the world. While the uniforms circulated, Benson brought us up to date on the outside world we’d declined to reenter.
Nick and Jamie had been successful at re-formulating the H2H to avoid the majority of the adverse side-effects on exposed humans. Majority being the operative word. H2H was no longer fatal to the human body, but the non-fatal side effects had one major world effect.
When the H2H had been released into the natural world, not only did it change the humanoids into genetic humans, but it had altered the natural human brain.
Exposed humans were essentially smarter with decreased sexual libidos. Less sex meant a slow population rebuild, but perhaps when people did make love it would be purposeful- with each child truly wanted and loved.
Oddly, the one visual indication of an exposed human- snow white hair. This seemed a strange, but appropriate, compliment to the undergrounders’ silvery hair.
I was saddened to hear that Nick and Jamie died six months after inhaling the original H2H vaccine. My grief was balanced with joy; they’d lived long enough to save the world.
Our two species, human and undergrounder, were slowly merging. I’d hated the doctors for wanting a unified world with the husband-killers. Now I saw in myself an unreasonable bigotry. I had blamed the entire humanoid race for the actions of a few humanoids on a night long ago in Georgia.
Benson said the exact world population was unknown, but that the reality wasn’t a pretty one.
I wondered where God kept all of the new angels.
Did they rest in white cages while he contemplated his next pawn shuffle on the board of our planet? Did they fly freely, afforded the right to gaze upon our much-changed world?
I did not try to quiet the musings and ramblings of my brain. They were not thoughts I’d share with others, but were, instead, my private questions for a later audience with God.
Our sanctuary was not to be forever.
Benson warned us that the H2H was coming, and coming soon. We reasoned with him that the undergrounder sightings in our area were few. There was little reason to waste the precious cure on our well-loved piece of land.
Reason was a futile effort. The entire world was to be blessed with the H2H.
We had been saved from earlier exposure by the very remoteness of our location. It had taken months to properly dose areas of the world with higher undergrounder concentration.
I asked Benson why the tech had not reached us naturally. I’d always thought Jamie and Nick would work out the sustainability issue alongside the vector issue.
Benson shook his head.
“The longevity of the tech has been vastly improved, but even carried by the swiftest winds it couldn’t survive to touch your people.”
We were lucky, but lady luck is a flighty lover.
I was happier to see Benson leave than I had been to see him arrive. Before he’d left though, he’d given us a slip of paper torn from a small notebook- a series of numbers. They were coordinates. Wi
th a smile he’d said “in case you run into some trouble or decide you miss indoor plumbing.” We’d thanked him and hoped, ardently hoped, that we’d never have to follow those numbers away from danger.
He’d brought only unhappy tidings and introduced a new uncertainty into our immediate future. But that is the nature of life. Peace cannot last forever without instances of war. Love cannot last forever without instances of hate.
I thought back to the woman I’d written off as a bible thumper years ago in the Virginia Mountains- it felt like a lifetime ago. Maybe I’d been wrong about her.
We had been granted a gift, a gift of life and home.
The blues and greens of Earth’s far away image were scarred by man. We had raped, pillaged, plundered. We’d destroyed treasure after treasure in pursuit of more treasure. Maybe the undergrounders were, in fact, God’s safety net- as the woman had suggested. God loved us unconditionally, but so did he love them- in all their strangeness.
Perhaps when the bible spoke of fire, it spoke of something that consumes and not something that burns. From the belly of the world, rose the undergrounders.
It was hard to recall, surrounded by the beauty of Bear Cave, the graying trees that had warned us of coming change and death.
I’d never asked myself what the first of them saw as they pulled themselves up into the open air of the surface. Did they see litter and waste? Did they see greed and hate? Did they sense the hardness of our human hearts?
Perhaps, the humanoids concluded that they were entitled to the world we maltreated. Perhaps they were right.
I had a vision of the future.
I saw the first truly humanized undergrounder walking into our cavern society and us greeting him or her with open arms- unaware that the newcomer was once a monster.
And in my imaginings I saw that x-humanoid fall in love with a pure-human beauty. I saw genetic children of that union; a conjoined world.
The world would be repopulated- one offspring at a time. Hopefully subsequent generations would be wiser with this world.
And maybe there would never be need for another cleansing flood or consuming fire. With the Humans and the Beasties unified, maybe we’d finally get life right.
I stood thinking.
In the distance, I heard a chorus of screeching.
Continued in…
‘LIFELINES’ Dead Trees, Book Two
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Eli Constant also writes as Eliza Grace.
Eli adores all things quirky, eats ice cream with a fork, and likes warm Dr. Pepper (on a cool day). She once thought she'd marry Martin Short... until she discovered Alan Rickman. #Always (She might also have Martin Freeman and Simon Pegg on her 'I get a pass' list. And, please, don't get her started on Jeff Godblum... erhm, Goldblum. #lifefindsaway).
The most important things to her are family, friends, books, and dresses with pockets. Typically in that order. Also really, really good coffee (winks at Claire C. Riley, USA Today Bestselling Author).
Available Books by Eli Constant:
The Victoria Cage Necromancer Series,
The Dead Trees Series,
The Water is Sweeter,
To Scream Within a Dream,
and many more…
Available Books by Eliza Grace:
The Shadow Forest Series,
The Birthright,
A Shade of Hades (Book 1 coming 2020)
Available Co-authored Books:
Scatter My Ashes,
Darwin’s Fall,
The Red Eye Series,
and more…
*
Stalk Eli Constant on social media:
Website: www.authoreliconstant.com
Newsletter: https://www.authoreliconstant.com/newsletter-subscription
Reader Group: Beastly Books & Badass Readers: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1996067960679574/
Twitter: @Author_EliC
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorEliConstant/
Books on Amazon: https://amzn.to/30Y0KJk
Goodreads: http://bit.ly/2LWSiGj
Author’s Note
I’m not a football fan. If I had to pick a team, I’d probably say the Packers, simply because I grew up watching their games with my dad. I’ve got an ancient team sweatshirt buried in a box that I refuse to give up, but the sentimental value isn’t about the sport, it’s about the person who gave it to me.
You didn’t buy an apocalypse book to read about football? Yeah, I get it. Bear with me a little longer.
Imagine my surprise when I realized some time ago that one of my favorite quotes was uttered by a famous former football player for the Chicago Bears. Walter Payton, also known as ‘Sweetness’.
“When you're good at something, you'll tell everyone. When you're great at something, they'll tell you.”
A person is rarely good at a thing on their first attempt. They’re rarely good at a thing on their second, third, or twentieth attempt. Goodness is relative and greatness is also relative. I love Payton’s quote because it reminds me to be humble. It reminds me that I still have so much to learn, so many ways to grow, and I’m a long way off from the world telling me I’m a great author. Though, nowadays, it’s less the world as a whole I’m concerned with, and more ‘simply me’. I want to make myself proud.
Dead Trees #1 was my debut years ago. It was the book that if I didn’t publish the damn thing, I might never do it. I told a fair few people, mostly family. I thought I was finally ‘good’ at something. I quickly learned what a hard industry indie publishing is; I learned to be quiet, press forward, and keep learning.
I didn’t do massive rewrites (any rewrites really) on this book before re-releasing it. This is ground zero. The starting point. The beginning.
I don’t think any of us should be afraid of who we were when we first started to work towards goodness and greatness.
Xx
Eli
Also by Eli Constant
THE VICTORIA CAGE SERIES
-Garden of Lilies-
-Water of Souls-
-Body of Ash-
-Hellhole Bay (Coming soon!)-
Amazon USA
Amazon UK
Victoria Cage has one main objective in life—make sure that no one finds out she’s a necromancer. You know, a carrier of that pesky little power that caused zombies to rise back in World War III?
Of course, it’s hard to stay hidden when you deal with dead bodies. Like, every freaking day.
Maybe taking over the family funeral home wasn’t the smartest choice in the world, but sometimes being the local mortician and resident ‘crazy pants’ has its benefits. Like… when Victoria’s caught talking to thin air, folks just dismiss it as her own brand of strange. I mean, what person in the business of death isn’t a little weird?
When a murder victim reanimates on her embalming table, Victoria is drawn into an unfinished business that puts her to the ultimate test. It yanks her in like a fish on a sharp shiny hook, until she’s knee-deep in a cocktail of blood magic, death power, and fairy meddling.
Talk about complicated.
Fans of Hamilton’s Merry Gentry series & Briggs’ Mercy Thompson series will fall in love with this world that mixes a little bit of this, a little bit of that, and a lot of kick-ass, relatable necromancer in size twelve jeans. And don’t worry, there are enough sexy AF men to go around.
****
Sex & Language Warning
Victoria Cage has sex… people around her curse. There are dead people sprinkled between instances of profanity (okay, maybe the language isn’t that bad). The Victoria Cage series will also deal with some heavy material—child trafficking, gender acceptance, rape. If you can take the dark with the light, you might just love this series. Me personally? I’m all about the shadows in between. -Eli C.
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