Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
CHAPTER Two
CHAPTER three
CHAPTER four
CHAPTER five
CHAPTER six
CHAPTER seven
CHAPTER eight
CHAPTER Nine
Chapter Ten
CHAPTER eleven
CHAPTER twelve
CHAPTER thirteen
CHAPTER fourteen
CHAPTER fifteen
CHAPTER sixteen
CHAPTER Seventeen
CHAPTER eighteen
CHAPTER nineteen
CHAPTER twenty
CHAPTER twenty-one
CHAPTER twenty-two
CHAPTER twenty-three
CHAPTER Twenty-four
CHAPTER twenty-five
CHAPTER twenty-six
CHAPTER twenty-seven
epilogue
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The Phoenix Project
M Pritchard
Pritchard Publishing (2013)
* * *
Rating: ★★★★★
The United States is crumbling under the weight of the worst recession in decades, and The Reformation has been causing a stir. It started with promises of overthrowing the election, under the premise of change. But change starts where we least expect it, in Phoenix, a small lakefront town, hidden in the backwoods of Upstate NY.
Andie's life is about to change forever. She thought making it home was the hard part, but much worse is to come. She needs to find her family, she needs to find out what's happening to her town, and she needs to find someone she can trust.
The United States is crumbling under the weight of the worst recession in decades, and The Reformation has been causing a stir. It started with promises of overthrowing the election, under the premise of change. But change starts where we least expect it, in Phoenix, a small lakefront town, hidden in the backwoods of Upstate NY.
Andie's life is about to change forever. She thought making it home was the hard part, but much worse is to come. She needs to find her family, she needs to find out what's happening to her town, and she needs to find someone she can trust.
The Phoenix Project is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2013 M. R. Pritchard
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means whatsoever without express written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Please refer all pertinent questions to the publisher. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system – except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a magazine or newspaper – without permission in writing from the publisher.
ISBN-10: 1482529300
ISBN-13: 978-1482529302
For my Zombie Apocalypse killing partner. I’m glad you’ve got my back.
Table of Contents
PROLOGUE · CHAPTER ONE · CHAPTER TWO · CHAPTER THREE · CHAPTER FOUR · CHAPTER FIVE · CHAPTER SIX · CHAPTER SEVEN · CHAPTER EIGHT · CHAPTER NINE · CHAPTER TEN · CHAPTER ELEVEN · CHAPTER TWELVE · CHAPTER THIRTEEN · CHAPTER FOURTEEN · CHAPTER FIFTEEN · CHAPTER SIXTEEN · CHAPTER SEVENTEEN · CHAPTER EIGHTEEN · CHAPTER NINETEEN · CHAPTER TWENTY · CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE · CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO · CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE · CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR · CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE · CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX · CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN · EPILOGUE · ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
PROLOGUE
I turn my attention towards Dr. Drake. He's sitting behind a large desk. His old yellowed eyes looking me up and down as I stand in front of him. I notice he’s wearing the white lab coat again. It’s just for show. I know this, since he hasn’t laid his hands on the lab equipment in decades.
"Mrs. Somers, I suggest you think about your decision," he tells me, again.
I've already thought about it. "My decision is final. I'll pack my things now," I reply, unable to look at him any longer.
"I will not offer you your job back." He taps his pen on the desk, probably expecting me to mull it over a few minutes longer.
"I don't want it back." I turn on my heel and stomp out of his office.
I’m free. I’m finally free. I never have to return to this lab again, with all its sterility and coldness.
Ian is going to be pissed. I was supposed to stick it out here for a few more months, but I can't take it anymore. I'm tired of coming home late, missing Lina's childhood. She's almost three and I feel like she spends more time at the babysitters than at home with us. To tell the truth, I was planning on leaving. I've been attending night school to become a nurse and I only have twenty-four virtual clinical hours left until I have my nursing degree.
I walk swiftly through the offices and dull hallways, headed for my workspace. I should have taken it as a sign when Dr. Drake showed me where I was going to be working. The desk is shoved between two laboratory benches in the back of the room, secluded, which is how I’ve spent almost every day here. I grab an empty box from under the lab bench, bringing it to my desk. I pile everything inside, paper files, electronic files, textbooks, notebooks and the few personal belongings I've brought in with me: a statue of a unicorn, a framed photo of Ian and Lina, Lina's drawings.
When I’m done I stand there, looking around, making sure I’ve taken everything.
I will not come back to this place. Not after what he’s done to me, humiliating me in front of my peers at a national conference. I was presenting my research and I had theorized that we had the ability to create genetically enhanced organisms through selective breeding, and minor genetic alterations. I had even tried it, creating a non-aggressive, highly intelligent breed of rat. Dr. Drake’s lab assistants couldn’t replicate my work, so I’m sure that’s what brought on his growing distaste for me. He interrupted me during my seminar, questioning my methods, arguing against my theories, claiming that he didn't see any hard evidence of my findings.
I should have been prepared for it. My college professor warned me that this could happen, the way I could answer analytical test questions with minimal work, how I had such trouble explaining my laboratory methods, even though my findings always worked out perfectly. "You have something special." My molecular genetics professor told me one day. "You don't need to see the genes, you don’t need to experiment for years, somehow you feel it. I like to call it genetic intuition, very few can do this. It’s a gift, a talent, embrace it." But whatever gift he thought I had, it wasn’t getting me any respect from Dr. Drake.
I look around to make sure I have all of my belongings. I walk to the large subzero freezer and search the frozen shelves for my samples. I take out the three metal trays, containing hundreds of tiny micro containers. It’s all the genetic material I've worked on for the past four years. Hydrochloric acid? No that would make too much of a mess. Instead, I throw them in the sink and turn on the hot water. I plug the drain with a paper towel and leave. The hot water will denature everything in those tubes, rendering it useless. Now Drake can start over from scratch. I'm done with this.
I leave the lab. I take the elevator to the main floor. I rip the badge off my blouse and throw it in a tall metal garbage can as I walk out the door. I hope I never see another genetics laboratory again.
CHAPTER ONE
There is a child in my room, giggling, hiding under the heavy covers at the foot of the bed
. I have been laying here for an hour, waiting for my alarm to go off so I can get ready for work. I didn't hear her sneak in, though. She giggles again. I lean over the side of the bed.
"Lina?" I ask.
She sits on the floor, wearing the same princess pajamas that she has had on for two days. Her curly blonde hair is clumped into a tangle of knots at the back of her neck and the old family Bible is in her hands. She’s looking at a drawing of Adam and Eve. I’m sure other parents might be appalled to see their five year old looking at a picture of mostly naked adults. But she goes to Catholic School so I’m sure she’s seen this picture before.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“I found this, Mom.” She points to the apple in the drawing.
“What do you think that picture means, Lina?”
“You shouldn’t eat forbidden fruit.” I wait, resting my chin on the mattress and giving her a chance to continue. She runs her little finger over the image of the snake hanging over the apple, “There’s always some crazy worm inside trying to turn you to the dark side.” She turns the page of the Bible, moving on to the next drawing. I laugh to myself at her interpretation of the image, so naive yet so incredibly true. I get out of bed and start for the shower.
The bathroom door cracks open, just as I finish, pulling the heavy mist from the hot shower out of the room. I can see one dark brown eye watching me intently from the small crack between the door and the door frame. He knows I don’t like to be bothered when I am getting ready for work, that I don’t like talking this soon after I wake up. Finally, Ian opens the bathroom door the rest of the way.
“Your brother called.”
“What does he want?” I ask.
Ian hesitates. His dark eyes turn to the floor as he runs his hand through his shaggy blonde hair. “He had a cyst removed from the back of his neck and needs someone to change the packing.” He pauses for a moment, watching me. “And… you’re the only nurse he trusts.”
Now I know what took him so long to speak, he knows, I hate packing wounds. I sigh and turn back to the mirror. “Let him know I’ll stop by on my way to work tonight.” He doesn’t reply. Instead the bathroom door closes with a puff of air, knocking a pile of Lina’s hair ties off the counter. I turn back to the large mirror and start drying my hair, leaning in close. I can see dark circles under my eyes, tingeing my pale skin a bluish grey. I search the skin around my eyes and mouth for wrinkles. I don’t find any, but the disappointment is still there, the fact that I used to look at least five years younger than my actual age, now, I certainly look all of my twenty six years, and it only took four years on the night shift to age me.
I turn off the hairdryer leaving my hair damp and then rummage through the makeup case on the counter. Pulling out a thin tube of black mascara and stick of eyeliner, I lightly apply the mascara, and then line my eyes with a thin stripe of black eyeliner. The University Hospital dress code states that registered nurses are not allowed to wear makeup or perfume on any unit in the hospital. I don’t like the idea that the hospital thinks it owns me since they were kind enough to employ me. I don’t like the feeling of being controlled. I like to break the rules, but just a little bit.
Searching the laundry basket on the floor I pull out a matching black uniform and undershirt, I shake the wrinkles out of them. Dressing as a nurse is definitely much easier than dressing for the research lab I used to work in. It seemed like every day, the business attire I had to wear to the lab got ruined by caustic chemicals, burning holes in them or staining them. I stare into the open closet at the row of blouses, slacks, expensive shoes, barely worn for the past few years. A few pieces still have tags hanging off them, never worn. A little piece of me misses wearing them.
I push the hanging clothes aside and reach for the shelf, selecting a well worn sweatshirt with the hospital logo. Strangely enough, the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit is freezing at night, of all places, the unit that is filled with pre-term infants who have trouble regulating their body temperature.
Lina greets me at the bottom of the stairs, “Aw mom you have to work tonight again.” She contorts her cherub face into a sad frown.
“I will come home in the morning. Just like I always do.” I pick her up and hug her tightly, kissing her cheek, breathing in the strawberry scent of her curly hair.
I turn to the couch where Ian sits. “Do you think you could give your daughter a bath tonight? Perhaps comb her hair so I don’t have to cut the knots out of it again?” He glances at me then reaches for the remote, turning the volume up on the television.
He’s watching another news channel, there are men talking at a desk, political babble, discussing something about the Reformation. He’s been tracking the politicians, carefully honing in on who he is going to vote for in the spring elections. Come election time I’m going to wish I had watched a little bit of this, but I don’t have the time right now. I can trust in Ian to make the decision for me when it’s my turn to vote.
Lina giggles and runs back to the couch, sitting next to Ian, holding a book in her hand. The living room is a clutter of toys and dirty dishes. I step over them, walking towards the kitchen to start the coffee maker. Leaning my back against the cold granite counter I stare at more dishes piled up in the sink and on top of the dishwasher, wishing Ian would do some cleaning while I’m working. The dishes will have to wait, just like the rest of the mess in this house.
“What are you making for dinner?” Ian shouts from the living room.
The disorder of the house is frustrating me and I want nothing more than to scream at him. I have exactly fifteen minutes to get on the road. There is no time for dinner tonight. “There’s plenty of cereal,” I shout back to him.
“Stevie,” I call. Our black, shaggy Shepard mix runs to me from her dog bed in the corner of the kitchen. I pet her soft head and lead her towards the back door. Stevie runs around the backyard, inspecting its corners for intruders or anything out of place. I walk over to the garden and check for any ripe vegetables, there are a few sparse weeds sprouting out of the soil between the rows of tomatoes. I reach into the dark soil and rip them up from the roots. Nothing is ripe but I can see the small fruit starting to hang off the vines, little green tomatoes and tiny cucumber buds. Similar to the rest of the U.S. my new year’s resolution was to start living a more organic lifestyle, trying to avoid eating the genetically engineered food, shipped in from far away countries. So I forced Ian to build a raised garden bed. We worked for two weekends, hammering boards and shoveling dirt. At first he wasn’t happy about it, but after everything was planted and now he can see the vegetables growing, he’s a little more accepting of the garden.
After Stevie is done inspecting the yard she bounds back to where I am standing and we walk to the back door together. Once inside I look through the shelf of books in the dining room, searching for something to read if work happens to be slow. I settle on a handbook of edible plants and place it in my work bag. It’s a strange book I inherited from my mother, but filled with short snippets of information, easy reading for the night shift.
“Okay I’m leaving now,” I announce, but there is no response, no one is listening. I head back to the living room carrying my bag and a travel mug of coffee. “I love you little Catalina.” I bend down to kiss Lina on her nose as she reaches up and hugs me around the neck. I turn to Ian, putting my face in his line of view of the television and kissing him hard on the lips, letting him know that even if my words aren’t the nicest, I do actually love him, a lot.
“Family hug!” Lina shouts. Ian presses the pause button on the remote. Finally taking his attention away from the television to notice I am leaving for work. Lina stands on the couch wrapping her little arms around us. I tell them both that I love them, that I will see them in the morning. I remind Lina to brush her teeth before bed, since I know I can’t count on Ian to do it. I slip on my black rubber clogs and close the heavy wooden front door, locking it from the outside.
One day
Ian asked me why I lock the doors on my way out. So no one will get in the house and steal Lina. Is what I had replied.
He laughed at me. “You don’t think I can protect her?” he had responded, scoffing at me. The truth is I know he would protect her. But I don’t want anything happening to either of them. They are my family, my life.
CHAPTER TWO
The highway I drive to work runs parallel to a winding river. I glance to the wavy dark water as I drive. Turning the radio on I click through the stations but nothing catches my interest. I turn it back off and decide to drive in silence, instead. When the road bends away from the river, I resort to counting things in two’s as I drive. Trying to keep my mind busy, taillights on cars, signs on the side of the road, window panes on the few passing houses, and the lines on the blacktop. The highway snakes past dense green forests and rolling farmlands. Clusters of sickly looking cows stand in the large fields, swiping flies off their sides with their long tails.
After a while I come to the two consecutive exit ramps on the highway, each one leading to a town with a population less than ours. Small communities formed hundreds of years ago, back when our town, which sits on the shore of Lake Ontario, was a bustling port, and the mouth of the dark flowing river provided a means to ship goods south. Between the port and the farms, the residents of this area enjoyed prosperous times. But those times haven’t been seen in many years. Instead, a foreign enterprise erected three nuclear power plants, utilizing the bitter waters of Lake Ontario to cool the nuclear reactors, shipping the powerful current to the large cities of the northeast, providing jobs to only a few hundred of the local population. The farms have shriveled, resorting to employing immigrants only during the harvest seasons. So those of us who don’t work at the power plant or the local state college must travel the forty miles south to the city for employment. Evidence of our travel lie on the shoulder of the road, which is littered with dead wildlife: deer, opossum, skunks and foxes.
The Phoenix Project Page 1
