by RWK Clark
Overtaken
Captive States
by
R.W.K. Clark
Copyright © 2015, 2016 R.W.K. Clark
All rights reserved, www.rwkc.us
This is work of fiction, all names, characters, locales, and incidents are product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual people places or events is coincidental or fictionalized.
Published in the United States by Clarkinc.
Printed and distributed by
Amazon Digital Services LLC
Edition 1.2 Last Updated 12-19-2016
United States Copyright Office
#: 1-3416897828
International Standard Book Numbers
ISBN-10: 0692489312
ISBN-13: 978-0692489314
ASIN: B011Z9UBLM
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I dedicate this novel to my wonderful readers and for all the amazing people I’ve met and those I haven’t. To my family and loved ones, all your support will not be forgotten.
Thank you
Prologue
Huck Brown looked up at the sky as he pumped gasoline into the Aveo that sat at the pump before him. Not too many service stations pumped your gas anymore, and Huck was proud to work for one that still took customer service seriously. You don’t make commuters in business suits do things like handle gas pumps. Who wants to go to work smelling like petrol, anyway?
The sky was a beautiful shade of blue, with tinges of violet as it neared the earth. Perfect! This was going to be a day like no other, a day to remember. Already it reminded him of those early mornings when he and his brother Cayden would walk to school just as the sun was lighting the sky. In all his twenty-nine years this was likely one of his favorite, and most often recalled, memories. The butterflies, the dew on the grass, and the anticipation of seeing Violet Hanson were all overwhelming to his mind.
The pump clicked off in his hands and he turned, still deep in thought, to replace it into the pump unit itself. He flipped the lock and looked at the sky again. It seemed like it was getting a bit darker to the north. He didn’t recall any less-than-desirable forecasts on the news or radio. Must just be a few sparse clouds.
He walked to the front of the Aveo and tapped on the driver’s side window. “Did you want me to check the oil for you today?” The woman inside smiled pleasantly and shook her head. She was dressed in a purple jumper with a silky white shirt underneath, and she wore eyeglasses that had to be worth a small fortune.
Whatever suits your hoity-toity ass then, thought Huck. He never had been a fan for those who acted like you were their servant. He smiled back with great heartfelt love and proceeded to take the windshield washer blade out of the bucket next to the pumps so he could wash her windshield. A loud, brief honk brought him to reality, and he looked at the woman inside the car. She was shaking her head while simultaneously waving him aside impatiently.
“Well, screw you very much lady,” he said, nodding while he tipped his dirty black NASCAR hat in her direction. “I have cigarettes with my name on them waiting to be smoked, you old rag.”
Huck watched with a bit of distaste as the car drove hastily out of the lot; thank Goodness for prepay. These people think the whole world is about them; screw the rest of us. He looked up to the sky again. The gray was now taking on a hue that was much closer to black in color, and it was sharp in contrast against the blue sky which surrounded it. It even seemed to be moving rapidly in his direction. Out loud he said to himself, “What the heck kinda storm is this gonna be?”
He turned to walk back into the station, subconsciously humming along to the Bee Gees tune playing over the speakers which were set into the overhang which housed the pumps. “You should be dan-cin’, yeah!” His feet got a bit out of control as he ripped off a couple of John Travolta steps. He would have been good if he had really tried.
He walked first around to the restroom which was located at the side of the building. He fished in his pocket for his keys and opened the door. Reaching inside he flipped the light on and entered the area, smelling and looking around at the same time. Empty.
He stopped at the mirror and took a look, removing his NASCAR hat and running his fingers through his greasy mop of light brown, unkempt hair. “Ya know, Huck, if your mama would have named you anything else you would have had a serious chance at the limelight!” His light blue eyes shone as he smiled broadly, revealing four missing teeth along his bottom row. His smile straightened up immediately. “At least, if you had seen a dentist too.” He smiled at again, this time at his own humor.
Huck walked over to the urinal conveniently located in the co-ed bathroom just for studs like himself, and he did his business in little to no time. He didn’t really bother to wash his hands, but for the sake of conscious he rinsed them off pretty good. Mama would have been proud. Not too many of his Harrisville, Illinois friends would have had the courtesy to do the same and then touch a gas pump. This was because Huck had real class.
He dried his hands on the last brown paper towel in the dispenser, making a mental note to send Dickie, the go-fer here at the pump-n-jump, out with a new stack of towels as soon as he got back in. He tossed the wadded up paper waste into the trash bin and thought, “Have him take the trash out of here too.” With that he turned the knob on the restroom door and went back out into the April day.
But the sun was no longer shining, and the sky was no more blue than a room with no lightbulbs or candles. It was just damn dark.
Huck snapped his neck back almost immediately to observe what he thought was a storm-filled sky. Instead, he observed a slate-gray object which nearly filled the entire area above. Here and there the twinkle of what appeared to be stars were dispersed over the surface of the gray.
“What the heck…”
Huck took a sharp breath in as his eyes began to make out what he was really seeing. The entire sky over Harrisville, Illinois was filled with what looked to this uneducated hick to be a… spaceship of massive proportions.
June Ellison stood from her desk at the TransCoverage Insurance Headquarters in Mesa, Arizona. She stretched long and leisurely like. It may be only 2:00pm here, but she felt like she had been working for the last three days straight. It certainly didn’t help that she had twin girls at home, and they were under a year old at that. She was simply flipping exhausted all the time!
She walked away from her desk and headed for the break room. She hated her job, filing data on claim investigations. It was the same old same old, day after day, month after month, and year after year. Nothing changed: they were either legitimate claims or they were attempting to rip TransCoverage off for chunks of dough. Frankly, she thought it would be worth it if they could get away with it. Some of the premiums these people paid on their policies were enough to incite larceny if she had ever seen it, and TransCoverage seemed to rarely be the one making the payoff. At least that was how it appeared to her.
She stirred liquid creamer into her hot java, thinking that if caffeine and sugar together could not get her to move her ass nothing could. For good measure she plopped another dollop of the creamer in and continued to vigorously stir. It certainly couldn’t hurt. She still had three more hours to go before her shackles were unlocked. Her freedom was nonetheless imminent.
June took her steep cup of Joe and headed to the outdoor employee break area. She didn’t smoke, but from the windows the day looked ravishing: warm and sunny, even better than she would have hoped for a brand new spring day in April. She simply had to have a taste. She had listened to the radio on the way to work and the weather forecast was adamant: it would reach sixty degrees! She was bound and determined to
have even the tiniest taste. As she stepped outside she was initially oblivious to her co-workers gathered at the hand rail which served to keep people safe from falling six inches to the hard concrete below. She smiled to herself at the crowd they formed, then gained the clarity of mind to realize that there was, indeed, a crowd there, and for no apparent reason.
Looking the crowd over briefly, June realized they were all looking at the sky, and in the same moment she realized how dismally dark it was for this time of day. Was it going to storm? Reality did not want to kick in and support her visual, so she continued to struggle to make mental sense of the strange behavior she was seeing. “What’s going on, everybody?” She asked as she made her way over to the group of people she lightly referred to as friends.
As her eyes went up to see what they were so intently staring at she sucked in her breath. “What in the name of ….?” The coffee fell from her hand without even a shred of realization. She could make no more sense of what was in the sky that she could of the dark afternoon.
A dark gray, or almost black, crescent filled the entire skyline, with the exception of a small sliver of blue which sat to the north. From the look of things, this sliver was closing fast. The gray was covered with twinkling lights. “Look at the stars…” was all she managed to get out before the entire group began to descend into chaos.
Before the screams of disorganization began she was able to get a good hard look at the sky, or at least, what appeared to be the sky on first sight. This was no sky at all; if it was, it was made of metal. It was the kind of sky which would never stop raining, with a color like that. She sucked in another deep breath just as the sliver of blue disappeared from her vision for good.
All June Ellison could do was scream loudly, and for as long, as she possibly could.
Jake Hartwell was on his way to his son’s junior high school to have an emergency conference with the principal. The little jerk had done it again, but this time it seemed he had gone beyond vandalism and delinquent bullying. It seemed the kid had stolen his .22 out of his end table drawer and proceeded to wreak havoc throughout the entire learning institution, and this was not the first disruptive incident; it was only the most serious. At the beginning of last year he had set four rolls of toilet paper of fire in the boy’s room on the second floor, and only two months ago he and a friend had flattened all four tires and poured sugar down the gas tank of the science teacher’s classic Beetle. He had been suspended for a month for the last offense, and had only been working himself back into the ranks in recent weeks. Now this. It appeared that Jacob, Jr. was going to be graduating from middle school from the inside of some kind of fence.
Jake and his wife just didn’t know what to do with the boy. He had the most comfortable and indulgent of upbringings. Television, satellite, every gaming system known to mankind, a cellular phone all his own, and an endless supply of money (they didn’t want him stealing from them, so they gave in to his every whim). This couldn’t be the problem, could it? Jake highly doubted it. After all, he was a renowned Baltimore physician. No son of his could be so confused and screwed up, could he? Of course not.
He turned left at a stoplight and proceeded onto the interstate toward the boy’s school, his mind turning and twisting the entire time. He simply didn’t have any idea where he and Irene had gone wrong with the boy, but everything they did to try to rectify the situation only seemed to make it worse. He was bitter and resentful. His son was downright angry.
The traffic before him came slowly to a halt. He was paying just enough attention in his state of deep thought to stop the car, and chewing on the nail of his left forefinger he continued to ponder a new and more fitting form of discipline for the young man. He knew that with things the way they were today the boy would be suspended, possibly even expelled. The embarrassment! Irene was out of town visiting her sister. He simply couldn’t bear the thought of dealing with her crying and begging while he tried to cope with Jake and his issues. Maybe he should take away his electronics after all. Something was influencing the kid in a negative fashion, and he didn’t seem to have any friends they could blame it on. It was worth a try.
He snapped himself out of his reverie and shut off the ignition. The line of freeway traffic went on forever; he wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. It was then that he became aware of how dark it was. There was no rain; what was going on? He looked from side to side at the cars lined up, and that was when he realized they were all staring wide-eyed at the sky.
Jake turned the ignition to ‘accessory’ and toggled the moon roof of his LS until it was open. He looked up. There were no clouds, no sun, no sky. It was as dark as night, with the exception of the stars twinkling like diamonds scattered across a blanket.
“What the heck?” He unlocked the driver side door and climbed from the car, his eyes fastened above the entire time. It was then he noticed that the northern sky still held a sliver of sky, shaped like the moon. Within seconds it was gone. The entire Baltimore skyline was filled with… what?
One by one other people began to emerge from their vehicles, their necks wrenched upward, mouths wide open in wonder and amazement. Small children plastered themselves to windows to get a look at what had demanded the attention of their parents. Some were on cell phones, others were still in their cars, frantically locking doors with looks of sheer panic across their faces.
Sirens all over Baltimore began to sound in stereo.
Chapter 1
Joshua Nichols sat at the desk in his office staring blankly at his computer screen. He held a pen in his right hand and tapped it rhythmically against his thigh to the beat of a Foo Fighters song playing out of his mp3 dock. He was virtually looking at nothing. At least, nothing he was seeing was registering. So much for his mid-day burst of energy. What a day to cut back on coffee.
Josh had been working for the United States government for three years as a software engineer, writing code and cleaning up their systems. Most of his co-workers resented him a bit; he was only 23, very young for such a position. He had been considered a prodigy, graduating college at 20 with honors. The government had been on top of their game, recruiting him, grooming him, and wiping the wetness from behind his ears as they held his hand. He learned to walk on his own, and learned to keep his distance from the old fogies. Regardless of the nastiness, he had made a name for himself here, and while they didn’t have to like him, they did show him respect.
He heard chaos going on behind him and turned from his computer. People were rushing around, and a few of the women had a confused, panicky look on their faces. He had his door closed; he could make out no real words, but the scene said it all: something was definitely out of the ordinary. ISIS? Other terrorist attacks? He should have gone to med school like his dear mother wanted him to.
Josh stood from his seat at his desk and, opening his office door, entered the ado which grew increasingly stronger. Some were speed walking from point ‘A’ to point ‘B’; others were jabbering to whoever was next to them. All had panic-stricken looks upon their faces.
He touched the arm of Jill Wilson, a thirty-something who worked the main desk on their floor screening visitors. “Jill, what the heck is going on here?” She looked at him as though he had lost his mind.
“What do you mean? Look out the window, Josh! I have to take these messages to Jim Holbrook so they can be forwarded to the governor. We are being invaded!” Just like that she took off full speed ahead toward the elevator at the end of the hall. Josh shook his head as if trying to clear it, then walked to the end of the hall himself to look out the window.
His first thought as he approached the window was, when did they tint these windows? It was much darker than he remembered it, but he rarely paid the windows any mind once he got here. He walked up to it and looked out.
People ran all over the street like they had lost their minds. The sky was completely dark and filled with stars. There was no sun and there were no clouds; the sky was as slate. The comm
otion on the street, from what Josh could tell by just looking, was out of control, and he could not wrap his mind around what was going on at all.
“It’s a spaceship! Josh, it’s a spaceship!” The voice behind him was that of Tom Drew, a mid-level supervisor on his floor.
“What do you mean, it’s a spaceship?” This guy was obviously nipping the bottle when he was behind closed doors. “The sky is overcast, looks like a big storm…”
Drew’s eyes were completely panic stricken. “Don’t you listen to the news? Don’t you have a radio at your desk?” His voice had gone from one tinted with desperation to a high nasal whine, and his words fell out of his mouth at an increasing pace. “This isn’t the only one. This isn’t a storm!” He turned on his heel and headed for the fire stairs; he wasn’t even going to consider the elevator.
Josh shook his head, more to clear the cobwebs of confusion than to express disgust at Tom Drew’s adolescent behavior. What the heck was going on? As though he were in a trance he made his way back to his office to pull up the radio on his computer and see what he could learn. He didn’t even make it to his office before noticing a small group of co-workers in the smaller office next door, gathered around the desk inside listening to a radio.
“…State and federal authorities claim. Again, it appears that a massive flying vessel has lit, not only over the Washington, DC area, but reports have been received stating similar vessels are hovering over Baltimore, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Seattle, Phoenix, and Sacramento. According to distant news sources, Paris, Luxembourg, and London are also under the shadow of unknown ‘ships’. Stay tuned for updates from our news source.” The thread then went to a repetitive alert sound, followed by an announcement for a presidential address in two minutes time. Josh slid down the wall of the office next to the door and made himself as comfortable as possible. He wanted more details.