The End The Beginning (Humanity's New Dawn Book 1)

by Ryan Horvath

  “Mrs. Thomas… I mustn’t.” But Gary looked unsure.

  “Look, here,” she fumbled open her purse and began rummaging through it. She produced her business card which she thrust at him. “Here, take this. It has my address, cell and home phone numbers and my e-mail address. Please let me take Blaze. If anyone… anyone, comes to claim him in the next two weeks, you contact me and I’ll drive him over myself.”

  That was a lie. She had no intention of giving up Blaze once she had him out of this place. Fortunately, there would be no one coming to claim him.

  Blaze continued to howl. It seemed, impossibly, to be getting louder.

  “I’m sure you can be reasonable here. And see the logic. The dog wants to come with me. I want to take him. I am equipped to handle a dog and you have many means to contact me should a family member claim him. I mean, come on, do you really want to listen to him doing that for the rest of your shift?” Karen was getting desperate.

  Gary finally seemed to be softening. At last he said, “Okay, okay. No, I don’t want to hear that for the rest of the afternoon and evening. But, Mrs. Thomas, I’m doing you the favor here. Don’t you forget it when I have to take him back.”

  Karen barely heard him but said, “Yes, Yes,” anyway.

  Gary went down behind the double doors. A couple moments later she heard Blaze stop howling and a couple moments after that, Gary reappeared from the double doors with Blaze in leash.

  Blaze was agitated when he had come out but when he saw Karen he instantly calmed. He smiled at her. He winked his green eye. Karen smiled back and winked back as well.

  Blaze sat before her, looking up.

  Karen knelt.

  Blaze’s tail wagged.

  Karen rested her hand on the back of Blaze’s neck.

  She said, “Blaze, I’ve been thinking about you all day.”

  Blaze woofed softly but what Karen heard was, “Me too.”

  10

  TWO CIA ANALYSTS

  On Monday in Minneapolis, two CIA analysts met on a downtown bench. Unbeknownst to them, a certain feline was catching some shade underneath the bench where they now sat. The feline would also be catching bits of their conversation and had the analysts known this and known the feline understood a little more English with every passing minute, they would have captured the animal and destroyed it as soon as they were out of site of the general public that was passing by all around them.

  “What have you heard?” the analyst seated on the right asked.

  “Enough to be scared,” the man on the left said.

  “Shit,” Righty retorted. “How long?”

  Lefty replied, “It’s already happening.”

  “Shit,” Righty repeated. “And the danger threat is still the same?”

  “Yes but I’m hearing different things are happening to different people in different timeframes. We thought this thing was some kind of virus but to tell you the truth, I haven’t ever seen anything like this in my entire life so I don’t really know what the fuck is going to happen. For all I know, this could just blow over with no more effect than it’s already had.”

  “Well at least we found out when we did. That was a royal fuck up on Hayes’s part for not catching wise of this from that Dr. Shepherd at DAFP earlier,” Righty commented.

  Lefty looked at his bench companion with a dumbfounded expression. “What the hell good does it do us that we found out before everyone else? This has massive global ramifications, probably for all of us.”

  “I know, I know,” Righty said, “but knowing sooner gives me that much more time to make peace with God.”

  Lefty stared at his bench companion with incredulity while Righty stared straight ahead. To still believe in God after all they knew now amazed the man but he had no desire to press the issue. Lefty moved his gaze to the ground at his feet and both men were silent for a few more moments. It was Righty who broke the silence.

  “So you said some of it is happening already. Like what?”

  “Headaches, visions, physiological and psychological changes, I can’t be sure but I think it may be affecting some animals as well, at least the domesticated ones, that is.”

  “And if this doesn’t just blow by when is the main event expected?” Righty asked.

  “It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly but early next week is the general consensus. My guess is Monday. What a wonderful way to start the week, huh?” Lefty said with icy sarcasm.

  Righty ignored this last statement and returned his stare to its previous location. It was Lefty’s turn to ask some questions.

  “What about the public? Will they be warned? You know, maybe some people can find suitable shelter if they have notice.”

  Righty’s expression turned from its stoniness to a deeply apparent sadness. His own wife, his two daughters, his younger brother and his mother would all very likely become victims of the event. He hated himself for not being able to tell them but the higher ups had made it very clear that going public was not an option. He’d already been tapped to take care of the potential leak from the Virginia congressman and while Simon Shepherd’s intellect made him far more valuable than Jack Thomas had been, Righty knew the order to take care of Shepherd could come at any time. After his contemplation, he looked with heavy eyes at the man sitting next to him.

  “The powers that be have decided that going public would incite a panic. They’re taking precautions to, well as best as they think they can, safeguard some of themselves and their select few in the bunker in Hawaii but even they are not sure that will be enough. You said you predict the main event to occur on Monday?”

  “That’s my very educated guess, but as I’ve said this is entirely unpredictable,” Lefty answered.

  “Do you have your laptop with you?” Righty prodded.

  “No, but I have my tablet,” Lefty replied.

  “Does it have the tracking software on it?” Righty pressed.

  “Yes, of course. Why?” Lefty asked.

  Righty was getting anxious. “Damn it, get that program open. Now!” he said curtly.

  Lefty was flustered, “Okay, okay.” He rummaged through his pocket, produced his tablet and opened the application for his astronomical tracking program. “What do you want to know?” he asked his bench companion with curiosity.

  “Show me the current position of the…” Righty did not like the term but it was what those in the know were calling it well, because no one really knew what the hell else to call it. “…object,” he finished.

  Lefty tapped some on his tablet and brought up the current position of the object as requested.

  “Okay, now can your software show its anticipated position on Friday afternoon?” Righty asked.

  “Of course it can,” Lefty replied haughtily. “That is if nothing changes in its movement patterns in the next few days but, again as I have said this is highly unpre—“

  Righty interrupted him, “-dictable, yes, yes, you’ve said. Just show me the anticipated position on Friday afternoon. According to DAFP the damn thing has been on the same spiral path since it was picked up so why would it change in the next few days?”

  Lefty, not sensing Righty’s growing frustration said, “Well, the Earth’s gravity could affect…”

  “Just show me the God damn position!” Righty snapped.

  Lefty, now aware of his bench companion’s irritation, quickly pulled up his best guess for the object’s anticipated position on Friday afternoon. It would be over the mid-west, more specifically, the city of Chicago. “There,” Lefty said pointing at the screen.

  Righty’s dread was confirmed as Lefty pointed at the tablet screen. He’d hoped the main event would be all and would be a quick end but unfortunately that probably wasn’t going to happen as the general public would likely find out about the object’s existence Friday afternoon.

  “Shit,” Righty said for the third time since joining his bench companion. “I guess the higher ups are probably going to have that panic on t
heir hands after all.”

  “What? Why?” Lefty looked confused.

  “There’s a solar eclipse Friday afternoon. My daughter, Amber, she really loves astronomy and it’s all she’s been talking about,” Righty said.

  “Yeah, so?” But even as he said it, realization was already on Lefty’s face. “Dear God,” he groaned.

  “Yes, you agree then that it looks like our little… object is going to pass directly in the path of the eclipse. Meaning…,” Righty started.

  Lefty finished his bench companion’s sentence for him with frightened trepidation, “The object may possibly become visible to the public when a lot of them will be already looking at the sky.”

  The two men looked at each other with stunned shock and realization before both suddenly drew blank expressions on their faces. They sat this way, looking as if something was being downloaded into their brains for about thirty seconds. Righty’s face then contorted in confusion and he got up and left the bench without a word.

  However, Lefty’s face appeared as if it got the download and leaned over on the bench and spoke into the crack in it. “The cat should cross the nearby Mississippi River and walk a little bit beyond it ‘til she feels the need to stop. There will be a man at that location. You will help each other in the coming days.” And with that, Lefty stood up and walked in the opposite direction of his former bench companion.

  A moment later, a familiar tortoiseshell feline came out from under the bench, looked in both directions that the men had departed and joined a group of humans while they crossed the street. Once across, the feline proceeded toward the Mississippi River and her destination beyond.

  11

  ART

  On Sunday, after assassinating Jack Thomas, Art returned to his DC residence, a one bedroom condo just outside of Georgetown. As he traveled a lot performing his murderous escapades, he had properties on each continent, excluding Antarctica, just like this one but he considered DC his base of operations although he now thought of Minneapolis as his true home. Unlike this one, however, all of his properties were downright Spartan, containing only a bed, bed table, lamp, kitchen table and chair, and a few articles of clothing.

  His DC residence contained the same furnishings but there was an extra room that Art used as his office. It contained a television and a desk with an elaborate computer system spread across it.

  After the wet work with the Lewises and Jack Thomas, Art called his client to confirm the hit and was told the second half of his four million dollar payment would be wired to his offshore account immediately. A few moments passed after ending his call with his client and the remaining two million dollars he was due appeared in his deposit column. Satisfied with this deal’s conclusion, Art switched off his computer and pushed back from the desk on his rolling wheeled chair.

  The result of the push startled him when he soared the remaining six foot length of the office and crashed hard enough into the wall to leave a gouge mark in the sheetrock.

  “What the hell?!?” Art rose quickly. He’d barely put forth any effort to move the chair away from the desk. He grabbed the chair by the arms and slid it away from the wall convinced he would find a rope or chain tied to the base of the chair and that someone had pulled him but there was nothing attached to the chair.

  Confused, Art slowly walked the chair back to the desk and sat back down and carefully slid his legs into the kneehole of the desk and resumed the same position he had originally been sitting in. Using what he felt was his normal force, he pushed out again with his legs and once again sailed across the room with a hard thud against the wall. Art was a very strong and powerfully built man but the tiny amount of strength he exerted to push away from his desk had never come close to doing something like this once before.

  Art got up from the chair again and returned it to the desk but he did not sit back down.

  Bewildered, he put the incidents with the chair out of his mind and left his office. He proceeded down the hall to the bathroom and stripped off all of his clothing. He reached into the shower stall and turned the water on. As he waited for the water to become warm, he studied himself in the full length mirror that was attached to the bathroom door. His six foot two frame housed a remarkable specimen of the human male. He had thick powerful looking lower legs and thighs. His abdomen was chiseled with a granite hard eight pack, rather than the proverbial six. His pectoral muscles were massive and looked as if they could stop bullets like Kevlar. His upper arms individually were the size of two arms of an average man. His buttocks were high and solid and he was very well endowed, although he only seldom used his penis for sexual activity with another individual.

  Art’s face was handsome but not overly attractive. He had a taut square jaw, his nose was straight and his blonde hair showed no sign of receding. His cool mint green eyes were perfectly and evenly set on either side of his nose.

  The mirror started to fog up and Art opened the shower door, stepped in the enclosure, and pulled the door closed behind him.

  Under the warm flow of two opposing shower heads, Art let the water cascade off his head and body, closed his eyes, and thought about murder.

  Today, he had taken lives fifty-five, fifty-six, and fifty-seven and he never felt more alive. To Art, it was as if he gained a piece of each life that he tore from existence. Of the fifty-seven individuals he had slain, only ten had been paid sanctioned hits. His remaining forty-seven victims had been for his pleasure only; innocent people who had met their demise at his hands because he simply wanted to do it. Art killed both men and women but of his forty seven pleasure kills, Ann Lewis had been the fortieth female to fall at his hands and George Lewis the seventh male victim.

  Art loved killing women. Perhaps some psychoanalyst might attribute this to his mother’s abandoning him as a child but Art didn’t think that was the case. Women were just more fun. They cried. They whimpered and pleaded for their lives The men Art had killed had mostly been in the way of one of his intended female victims although he had once brained a man with a piece of rebar because the man bumped into him on the sidewalk and did not apologize or excuse himself. The man had been talking on his cell phone and was oblivious so Art had followed the man, and when the time was right, he grabbed the phone-distracted-asshole, pulled him into an alley by the neck so the man could not scream and found the length of rebar by chance. He would have throttled the man with his bare hands but the rebar was a nice touch. He struck the man twenty-two times in the face and head while holding tightly to the man’s neck and by the time he was finished, the man’s mother and probably even his dental records couldn’t identify him. Yes, Art’s male victims died abruptly and spontaneously.

  But the women, Art liked to take his time with them. He’d select his target at random and spend hours or even days breaking and torturing them before finally finishing them off. Art would employ different profiles of the victims and would execute them in different ways so as to have his crimes avoid being connected and thus bringing his acts to the attention of several federal agencies.

  Art had sometimes used guns on the women but usually only to disable as a gun was just too fast a method to kill and he enjoyed prolonging the misery. He was sad he could not have taken his time with Ann Lewis but as he was on a sanctioned assassination of a United States Congressman, time was of the essence. He took pleasure, at least, in knowing he destroyed her pretty face.

  Art thought back to one of his particularly favorite kills.

  He had snatched the woman just as she got into her car, striking from the backseat when she was most vulnerable. He put the barrel of his gun to her temple and slapped his large hand across her mouth and nose. He blocked the woman’s air just long enough so she passed out. He’d used chloroform before and needed this to look different. Plus, he wanted to experience the fear in her eyes which he could see in the rearview mirror and he wanted to feel her while she squirmed trying to break free and get air. Art never wore a mask and she’d seen his face so s
he was doomed no matter what. Had the woman been able to escape Art’s hand, he simply would have put a bullet in her brain. After Art was through with her though, she definitely would have preferred the bullet.

  Art had this victim for only two days but he’d very much enjoyed those two days. Art took the woman in her vehicle to an abandoned foreclosure property that was amid numerous other foreclosure properties, all unoccupied, of course. He removed all of her clothing except the silk thong panties she was wearing and strapped her tightly to a large wooden work bench.

  Art started his pleasure when the woman woke up about an hour later and by the time he was done and slit her throat ear to ear, he had removed her pinkies, joint by joint, with a pair of tin snips; removed her pinky and big toes with a dull hacksaw; took a power sander with a very coarse forty grit paper attached to the bare side portions of her buttocks, her nipples, and her left cheek until all were raw and bleeding; ran a sharp metal spike underneath her right kneecap and slid large wooden splinters underneath the nails of all of her remaining fingers and toes. When she was ready to be killed, there was simply no more tears left in her so Art cut her deep and long and the last of her life drained away in seconds. During almost all of the torture, he stretched it out to prolong his pleasure, Art was aware of the bulging erection in his pants.

  And now, back in the shower after Thomas’s assignation, Art opened his eyes and looked down to the familiar erection jutting perpendicular from his body. He seized his penis with his right hand and vigorously masturbated to the mental images of those two days. He ejaculated when he thought of the final act of opening her neck and as the semen pumped out of him, he envisioned the cutting over and over until his orgasm ceased.

  After, he finished his post homicidal cleansing ritual, and twenty minutes later, turned off the water. He gently opened the shower door and grabbed his towel from the hook on the wall. He thoroughly dried himself from head to toe, wiped the fog from the vanity mirror, and tossed the towel in the nearby laundry hamper. When he returned his gaze to the mirror, he had to do a double take.