Justin made a beeline in Luther’s direction, which was thick with sticky bushes and annoying buzzy-like bees. He trampled on, ducking at every shadow, every bird, every freaking dragonfly.
A rifle shot shattered his nerves. Scarlett? He hit the ground. Groaning—behind that bush. He couldn’t shoot the Z. The gunshot would alert the horde and soldiers. Slowly, without a sound, Justin unsheathed the knife from his belt.
In a lethal move, he dove into the thick underbrush to de-activate the hidden Z. No! Unable to stop his momentum, Justin willed a microburst of energy, extending the knife’s trajectory—just enough—stabbing the dirt inches from Dean’s head.
What’s Dean doing here? Is he dead? No! He can’t be. Dean was like a father, well, more like a great-grandfather to him. Besides, Dean always said he was too ornery to die. He retrieved his blade before nudging Dean’s shoulder. And prayed he didn’t awaken with—bulging, unknowing eyes.
Dean groaned just as the forest went commando a hundred yards away. Justin placed a shaky hand over Dean’s mouth. Dean’s eyes popped open. “What the devil?”
“Shhh.” Justin hunched lower into the underbrush. The soldiers took off in the same direction as the mini-horde. That’s gonna get messy!
Dean pushed away his hand. “Am I ever glad to see you.” He stumbled to his feet.
“You’re supposed to be with Ella and Mindy,” Justin grated, darting at every twig snap.
“I went looking for the blasted creek. From out of the blue, those Ancient Ones tried to take over my mind. Left me discombobulated.”
“I think Luther found it. He went that way.” Justin pointed. “Where’s Ella?”
“I left them in a clearing not far from here,” Dean said, finally sounding normal. “Let me get my bearings straight.”
“Justin! Where are you?” Ella’s voice livestreamed into his mind.
“Well, I’m not waiting around here. Ella needs me.”
“Hold on.” Dean rubbed his chest. “I know where I am now. I passed that double-trunked tree.”
“Hurry!” Ella’s desperate plea pinched his heart.
“I’m coming, Ella!” Justin shouted back in his mind.
They half-hiked and half-sprinted through the dense forest.
Up ahead, two anxious horses twitched, swinging their heads from side to side. Dean let out a low “ca-caw” cry, the one he and Twila had been goofing around with lately. Unexpectedly, Zac, Luther, and Scarlett stealthily stepped out from behind the trees on the edge of the meadow like Red Dawn Wolverines.
Zac impatiently motioned them to hurry.
But where was Ella? The black stallion pranced out of the way. There she was, blowing him kisses as he rushed to her. Justin wanted to grab her and hold her and kiss her. And not let go. But, they had to get out of there.
“Gotta horde to the left and to the right of us,” Zac advised with a heavy frown.
Luther grabbed him and Dean by the shoulders. “Ya’ll decide to stop for brewskies without me?” he ribbed while Scarlett dished out hugs.
“So, where’s this creek?” Justin wondered why they just stood next to the dead tree in the meadow.
“The lighted path in my mind stops—here.” Zac tapped the ground with his foot. “An underground entrance?”
“The answer waits for us at the tree,” Twila said dreamily, gazing at the creepy Nightmare-Before-Christmas tree, complete with ornaments dangling down its tangled limbs.
He opened his mouth to tell Twila to get real, but Ella must have read his mind. She quickly clamped his mouth with her hand. With questioning frowns, they gathered around the tree.
Twila took his hand. “Kindred spirit, the answer lies within you.” For a nanosecond, her face seemed to morph into a witchy wise woman.
Justin shook off the freaky image. “Moi? I don’t even know the question,” he snarked back.
Twila crossed her eyes emphatically. “You know, the Entanglement in Time prophecy.”
Everyone seemed to pry his mind for answers.
“Don’t make it more complicated than it is,” Dean clipped as if insinuating he was the child there.
“This tree—I’ve seen it before,” Scarlett exclaimed with a baffled-eyed expression. “It has something to do with Time Entanglement, which has something to do with a time-fold in the matrix. But I don’t understand—”
“Justin!” Ella tapped her foot. “Tell us what you know!”
“No pressure, but preferably in the next twenty seconds.” Zac kept his eyes on the perimeter.
Uh, uh, Time Entanglement? It was a quantum theory. Not a prophecy. “So, like I wrote this paper in college—” Basically, he’d only chosen the convoluted topic to piss off his narrow-minded professor. He had made up most of it since he had found little on the subject back then.
“Wait!” Scarlett blurted. “The Silver Lady said, ‘Watch yourself!’ I assumed it was a figure of speech.”
Twila began handing out the ornaments from the tree. “Yes! We have to wear the watches. All of us. Even the horses!”
That’s when he realized the ornaments were actually steampunk-looking pocket watches that had been tied to the tree with golden ribbons. Like a bad acid-tripping dream, everyone ignored him and stared at their watches, bewitched.
Dean fiddled with his. “What’s the basic concept of this Time Entanglement theory?”
“Uh, uh,” Justin stuttered away, wondering how the heck he could explain quantum mechanics in a few seconds.
“Son,” Dean started in, “now’s not the time for a dissertation. Just give us the gist of it.”
“Right, okay.” Tongue-tied, Justin struggled for the precise words. “So, there’s a spin up and a spin down.”
Mindy gasped. “Like a Merkaba!”
He had never thought of it like that. “Ye-ah, I guess. And when two entangled properties—”
“Blah, blah, blah,” Twila interrupted. “It just means we can create our own reality. But only Justin”—she probed into his mind—“knows the magical time.”
“Magical?” Justin scoffed.
“Interesting timepiece.” Dean seemed intrigued by the watch. “It’s actually digital.”
“O-M-G! I get it! We need to set the watches to the exact same time,” Ella gushed, shocking the crap out of him.
“Guys, that’s just a fairytale version of Time Entanglement,” Justin quickly asserted.
“Believe . . .” a mystical voice drifted through the forest. Was anyone else hearing it?
A horde growled from his left. The soldiers approached from the right. Time! Time! They were out of freaking time. And they just stood there, talking about a wacky time theory most scientists didn’t concur on.
“What time do you always see in your dreams,” Twila pried. “I can’t see it.”
“I don’t see a time,” he mocked back. Then, it clicked. “Ones! Lately, all I see are ones. Everywhere. When I’m asleep.” Even when he was awake.
“That’s it—11:11!” Scarlett proclaimed.
“But how?” Mindy frowned at the watch.
“To set the time, press the stem at the top. Like so.” Dean demonstrated. “Then press this button—”
“Wait!” Twila warned. “We all have to press the button at the same time.”
Justin tried blocking out the approaching soldiers, waiting to catch a bullet in the head as the soldiers neutralized the horde. At least they were crack shots.
“Everyone set?” Dean asked calmly under the gunfire.
“Don’t forget the horses!” Twila pleaded.
“I got Onyx.” Scarlett tied one of the extra watches to the bridle.
“I got the packhorse,” Zac said.
Why did the horses need watches?
“Drop your weapons!” The soldiers inched closer.
Another horde charged into the clearing.
“Folks,” Dean announced, “on my mark. One—two—three.”
They clicked simultaneously on three.
The tree contorted into a gigantic hourglass—representing eons of time. A sort of tugging at his mind made him go all wonky as he struggled against the maelstrom of sand—sucking him through the hourglass. Of eternity.
Chapter 43
Scarlett Lewis clicked the vintage-like pocket watch’s button before squeezing her eyes shut as soldiers stormed the edge of the clearing. In a meteoric flash, she and her friends hurtled down a cosmic vacuum. As if torn apart molecule by molecule, they whirled inside a celestial hourglass revealing each and every moment, molecule, and memory of humanity.
Swirling down. Farther down still. Scarlett finally landed on the familiar soft-dewy grass of dawn. She opened her eyes to witness the soldiers’ ill-fated attempt to invade their Time Entanglement reality. Their screaming bodies contorted and stretched—bursting into trillions of particles.
Her heart thumped erratically. Would the soldiers suddenly reappear in their new reality? Or had she and her friends donned the time-portal watches—in the nick of time? She sat there and reached for an awestruck Twila who couldn’t seem to stop fluttering her eyelashes. Zac scrambled to his feet and brandished his gun at the Merkaba’s translucent oscillating perimeter.
The air sizzled and zizzled with the luminous reds and oranges of lightning sprites. Just as abruptly as it had started, the spectacular light show ceased. She sat there in breathless anticipation, dreading the soldiers’ invasion. Instead, a peaceful calmness melted over her.
Odd, the air seemed to have a shimmering three-dimensional quality. As if one could actually see the air. Touch it. Hold it in one’s hand. That’s it! The air flourished with prana—the breath of life. She no longer had to ward off the creepers’ insufferable agony—a tremendous relief for her empathic side. She felt at peace for the first time since the pandemic.
All eyes probed one another in the piercing silence that followed. Scarlett awaited the inevitable while the horses flicked their tails. But the soldiers didn’t invade their dimension. The Time Entanglement prophecy must have worked—protecting Lightworkers.
“Uh, what just happened?” Justin croaked.
Dean patted down his body as if looking for missing parts. “The Philadelphia Experiment,” he muttered.
“This must be the fold hidden in the Earth’s matrix. Our paradise!” Scarlett exclaimed.
Luther darted to the edge of the electrified Merkaba bubble, yelling, “Oh, hell yeah, take that! You mofos!” He pranced, pumped on adrenaline. “That was some serious shit.”
Ella clung to Justin with apparent tears of happiness, and Mindy rocked Starla with the sweetest smile she had ever seen her wear. Dean sat there thunderstruck as if witnessing the Ascension. In a way, she supposed they had ascended. To a higher dimension. Perhaps this was the 5D earth Shari had so often preached about.
The spinning Merkaba shield faded away into invisibility. But her third eye captured its existence: protecting them. The soldiers and creepers on the other side of their protective shield were no longer visible even with her third eye.
That was when she realized the peculiar tree with only one watch dangling from its entangled limbs had also disappeared. Had the remaining watch been meant for Shari or Sheena? Willow? Or someone who had yet to claim it? She clutched the watch around her neck, afraid if it disappeared, so would she.
“Dean,” Scarlett asked after inhaling the serene sweet air, “are you all right?”
“All and all, I’d have to say, this turned out to be a darn good day,” Dean said incredulously. “For the apocalypse, that is.”
“Right you are!” Zac belted out. He pulled Scarlett to her feet. “Pardon me for a sec.” He planted a rather indulgent kiss on her trembling lips. One she never wanted to end.
Scarlett relished every micro-second of his embrace. For if their bubble of reality suddenly burst, it would have been worth it for this final perfect moment.
“A-hem.” Dean cleared his throat rather harshly. “Folks, we’ve got company.”
The abruptness of a kiss stolen too soon stung her lips. But she was ready. Ready for the perfect moment to end—just as every other bit of happiness had quickly fallen to misery since that day the Super Summer flu had assaulted humanity.
A group of unarmed men and women approached. On impulse, Scarlett decided against drawing her weapon. As did her friends.
“Howdy,” Dean greeted cautiously, tipping his cap.
Scarlett’s friends huddled closer. It’s not that she felt threatened by these strangers, more like flustered, used to running for cover.
“Any weapons?” a tall, muscular man in dark sunglasses shouted.
“What’d you think?” Justin flaunted his trademarked smirk.
“Excuse us for trespassing.” Dean stepped up to the plate as their leader and chief. “We’re not lookin’ for any trouble.”
“This is private property. How’d you happen into our neck of the woods?” the man demanded.
“Dude, like the universe sorta just plucked us up and plopped us here,” Justin zinged. Ella and Mindy giggled.
“That fella sure sounds familiar,” Dean mumbled under his breath.
Great, they had stumbled upon an alcove of marauders from Dean and Luther’s Boom Town days. So much for finding paradise.
Still, no one seemed particularly threatened. Wary yes, like new neighbors moving in, not the murderous mobs of the End Times. One of the babies went into a crying fit. Justin and Ella went rigid.
“Heavens, a baby?” the woman in overalls cried out.
No one really knew what to say. Normally, guns would be drawn, followed by threatening posturing. People would die. Instead, the strangers smiled. Their heart chakras bloomed into spinning mandalas of vivid pinks and greens.
“May I see?” The woman edged closer.
“Sure.” Ella smiled. “Plug your nose. Baby Mateo needs a clean diaper.”
Then Mindy’s baby decided to start crying.
“Son of a—” The man in the sunglasses gaped. “Two babies?”
Before Scarlett knew it, everyone gushed over the babies. This must be Shambhala. She eyed Zac questionably.
Zac wrapped his arms around her. “This is it. The place I’ve been searching for—the one in my dreams. And I never would have discovered it without you.”
Twila had remained inordinately quiet. “Ooh, I see a girl over there.” Twila skipped around. “She wants to be my new friend!”
“You’ll have lots of friends. We’ve got almost a dozen kids here,” the man with the sunglasses said. “But no babies. Until now,” he added. There was something about the man’s smile.
She wondered why Dean wasn’t saying anything. His face had gone pale. A tear caught in the creases of his lined eyes as he choked out, “K-Kyle?”
The man’s head jerked in Dean’s direction. “D-dad—”
A second later, the two men were in each other’s arms, weeping. Like father, like son, Scarlett marveled. Dean and Kyle’s protective nature must be encoded in their DNA, unbeknownst to them. She couldn’t think of anyone who deserved happiness more than Dean.
“Wait—that’s Dean’s son? O-M-G!” Ella’s mouth hung open before she covered it.
“Twila, how’d you know about Time Entanglement and—everything?” Justin rambled. “I’m super sorry for being such a shit. I’ll never doubt you again.”
“You got some splainin’ to do.” Luther picked up Twila and held her high with brawny arms before setting her back down.
Twila giggled. “See, it was like a very, big cosmic puzzle. We each had a little piece, and it took all of us to finish it.”
“Works for me,” Zac said. “I’ll certainly never understand any of this.”
Dean and Kyle finally contained their emotional outburst and busied about straightening their clothes.
“Dude,” Justin said to Kyle, “it’s super cool to meet you. Did you time-warp here, too?” He pointed to the gnarly tree that no longer existed with the craziest of
expressions sweeping over his face.
A burst of laughter erupted from the crowd.
“You’re a riot,” Kyle said. “Long story short, I was stuck in Afghanistan for a while. My team finally caught a flight back to the States.” He turned to Dean. “Dad, by the time I got to the cabin, you had split. No note, no nothing—”
“Sorry ’bout that, son. Meant to get back,” Dean bemoaned.
Scarlett brushed away the sudden pang of guilt for all those times Dean had desperately wanted to return to his California cabin. Someone or something had always prevented it.
“It’s all my fault.” Ella took the blame. “I needed Dean. I never would have made it without him.”
“Anyhow,” Kyle continued, “I thought, where would Dad bugout to? See,” he announced to his friends, “Dad and I used to come here every summer.”
“Reckon, fate has a way of sorting out the chaos it creates,” Dean muttered.
“Any sickness here?” Zac inquired. “Zombs?”
“In the beginning we had to clear out the Infecteds. No problems after that,” Kyle informed. “We seem to be in our own protective bubble here.”
“And we’ve got gardens, dairy cows, and chickens,” Kyle’s wife or girlfriend said as she cozied up to him.
“But, what about the wild strawberries and fish Grandpa promised?” Twila’s lower lip pouted in disappointment.
“More than we can eat.” Kyle winked. “This is where my daddy taught me to fish.”
The bliss emanating from Scarlett’s heart had her entire body tingling with love, and even more amazing—hope for a peaceful future. “Silver Lady, if you can hear me,” Scarlett whispered. “Thank you for getting us here.”
A faint image of the Silver Lady flickered in the fringes of her inner vision. “My dear spirit warrior, your arduous journey has come to an end. Alas, enjoy this precious time, for this elusive plane of Time Entanglement shall not last—merely long enough to seed a thriving clan of the untainted New Hu.”
And poof, the Silver Lady vanished.
The End
Only The Dead Don't Die | Book 4 | Finding Home Page 38