Age of Mystics (Saga of Mystics Book 1)

by Chris Walters

  They all put the backpacks on, and walked out into the pouring rain. It wasn’t even seconds before they were drenched to the bone. The streets were flowing with water like fast running streams, all going downhill. Every intersection they could see through the haze, which wasn’t many, was flooded with a pond-sized amount of water. Cal led them into the haze, soaking wet, through whatever obstacles. He led them north and they followed, because they knew not what else they could do.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Drains in the garden now seemed like the greatest design feature in the history of man. Emma watched the rain pour in a steady stream through the openings and rush down into the pipes below the slab. The rain had fallen all night, and was still continuing in a very uncharacteristic way. They were also lucky in a completely different way. Due to the small security opening, the plants weren’t being drowned in this ridiculous storm. Not knowing what she could do, she decided to take care of the plants. It had been her stress-relief for years, the simplicity of taking care of plants. There was something so calming in the simple pattern of leaves, in the way plants just lived. Plants don’t worry, plants don’t think, they just are. Emma found that beautiful. Donna Harris had originally helped out and talked about the plants, but now was clearly going stir crazy. Specialist Kane, or Jordan as he had asked her to call him, was an unusual man. He was certainly young, perhaps twenty years or more her junior. But, he had a calm that didn’t make sense with his age. He just sat in the corner humming to himself. It was crazy, but Emma found herself thinking that if he had just been ten years older, she would have asked him out. She hadn’t had sex in months. There was nothing wrong with being attracted to someone, but she needed to stop thinking about that aspect of attraction. Maybe she was going stir-crazy too.

  Turning back to her plants, she gently traced the pattern of the leaves, she brushed off any dirt or splatter that had splashed up from the rain and she checked the status of each one. It was an odd experience. Maybe it was due to them being caged in the concrete garden, unable to get out, or maybe she was going insane, but she felt she could sense the movements inside the plants, the life flow in them. She imagined this as she traced their patterns in her hand, and took care of them.

  “How the hell are we going to get out of here?” Donna asked pacing around. She grabbed the axe and hammered it hard into the wall where the opening was.

  “Harris, that is a little futile.” Jordan started, “looks like eighteen to twenty-four inches of concrete. I would guess those bars go a foot in each direction, if they are not a part of the full structure. It would take weeks to get out of there.”

  “Yeah?” Harris was in no mood for Jordan’s nay-saying, “I got nothing but time, so I think I will keep this up” and she began hitting the concrete. To Emma’s surprise, chunks of the concrete began to crumble off. Donna was elated, she raised the axe high above her head. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the look of abject horror on Jordan’s face as the axe swung down at the opening. She saw him rise and run toward Donna as the axe hit the concrete, twisting in her grip and bouncing from the structure, the axe buried itself in her thigh.

  Donna’s mouth went wide, but no sound came out, Jordan caught her as she fell, but he was not fast enough to keep her from instinctively ripping the axe from her flesh. Her blood sprayed across his body and up his neck as the femoral artery was laid bare. Jordan shoved his hand over the wound and tried to keep it closed up, but it was no use. Donna Harris bled out in less than a minute. This kind woman who had come to Dr. Pare’s lab every day to talk about gardening died on the floor of the outside garden in one of the most secure locations on earth.

  Jordan had tears in his eyes when he looked up, and a deep sadness washed over Emma Pare. There had been nothing either of them could do. Emma knew that people died in the military, but she had never been close enough to one to see it. She had never seen anyone she knew well die before her eyes. The shock of it was devastating. She knelt down beside the body of PFC Donna Harris and put her hand to the quickly cooling face of this young woman who had only moments before been helping her take care of her plants.

  After sitting there for a half hour or so, Jordan said, “We should do something. We should take care of her body.”

  “What do you want to do?” Emma whispered.

  “Bury her.” Jordan was in a deep grief, but Emma didn’t think the two soldiers knew each other well. “We should bury her. They can reclaim her when they rescue us, but out of respect, we should give her that dignity.”

  “Jordan, are you okay?” Emma put a hand on his shoulder.

  He had tears in his eyes, which partially smeared the blood that had coagulated on his face, “I should have got to her. If I had been quicker…. I saw what was going to happen. When she raised the axe up, I tried to get up.”

  Emma pulled him into a hug. “I know you did. I saw you moving to help, before she even swung down. Shit happens Jordan, people die, even when we try our best. This is not your fault.”

  Jordan stayed in the hug for a bit, and Emma tried not to think about how much she needed the comfort of another person’s touch. She held him for him, but she also held him because she needed it. She needed that comfort just as much as Jordan did. After a few moments more, Jordan pulled away and grabbed the bloodied axe. He used it to clear a space, and pulled his fellow soldier into the shallow grave. This area was all top-soil on top of concrete, so there wasn’t much depth to bury her in. Jordan grabbed some bags of soil from the nearby stand and poured them over Harris’ body until a mound of soil appeared. He then said a sweet goodbye to a woman her hardly knew.

  “PFC Donna Harris was brave, and good at her job. She was kind to those she met, and helpful to those who needed it. She died trying to help her team get to safety. We honor her today.” Both Jordan and Emma bowed their heads for about a minute. Emma had grabbed a flowering plant from the other side of the garden. It was the only thing she could think of to honor this woman who loved gardening.

  Emma planted it atop the mound. In her mind, she imagined the mound fully covered in the flowering vine. She pictured it in her imagination in full bloom, with tiny pink flowers sprouting up to honor this woman.

  Emma Pare could not go back to her plants right away. The sadness and shock of seeing Donna die right in front of her made her sit in a corner and sulk. A short while after that, Jordan came and sat next to her.

  “That is a beautiful plant, Emma. Donna would have really liked it.” He patted her arm.

  “I hope she can see it, whatever our life after this one means, I hope she can see those flowers today and carry them with her into eternity.” Emma didn’t really believe in that stuff, but today she hoped she was wrong.

  “She does,” Jordan said softly, “she does.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Alton Tooney had been a handyman in the Black Forest area for over seven years. He, and his nephew Craig, had mowed lawns, fixed roofs and painted barns in the area the whole time. He was practically a fixture in the area. To his benefit, people didn’t really check the sexual offender registry. Seven years before, Alton had been released from prison after serving fifteen years for rape. There had been no time off for good behavior. Alton was a sexual sadist, he enjoyed the pain he caused others, but what he reveled in was their fear. He had raped several men while in prison. Alton was not a homosexual, he was not a heterosexual, Alton was only interested in hurting others. He received sexual gratification from this. Since his release, he had made a good living doing chores for the people in this small community of rich, religious folk until about a month before.

  Alton had kept himself in check, and so had not been hampered by this past, by finding a recipient for his vices. His half-wit nephew Craig had been his only victim for seven years, and it tore Alton up. He wasn’t even sure it hurt Craig anymore, and Alton had taken to peeping into the windows of his customers and fantasizing about binding and raping everyone, while making the others watch. It was
only a matter of time before he was able to find one alone, and take her to the dungeon he had prepared under his trailer park. This was where he forced Craig to do his bidding, but Craig didn’t even cry any more. It was pathetic.

  A little over a month before, the cops had come calling. This uptight Christian bitch, who wasn’t even one of his clients, had checked the sexual offender registry and had begun hanging signs to “warn” people about him. The cops had almost caught him peeping once, and had searched his house, but not found the dungeon. They had begun doing weekly checks on him and Alton was fed up with it. But something had changed yesterday.

  He had peeped on that meddling bitch, Kimberly Pile, but he knew he couldn’t take her. They would look for him first, so he had begun to peep on her. He was looking for some way to take someone close to her, to make her feel the pain, without Alton getting caught. Apparently, the little twat had seen him on the road yesterday and called the police. Corporal Danvers, of the Sheriff’s department had come to the trailer to serve him with one of those restraining orders. He had found the entrance to the dungeon, and had pulled his gun on Alton. But then the power went out and Craig had hit the Deputy with a shovel, the cop turned on Craig and fired his weapon. But nothing happened.

  Alton had calmly walked up behind the cop and smacked him over the head with a bat, knocking him out. He planned to take him downstairs and get off, before the rest of the cops came to arrest him. But the idiot nephew then started bashing the cop’s head in with the shovel. He killed the only victim Alton had a chance to make use of. Alton had still dragged the Deputy’s corpse into the dungeon, and waited to see what he could do. But no one ever came. The power never came back on, and the phones didn’t work. He couldn’t even move the cop’s car, because it didn’t work. The rain had flooded the dungeon and they hadn’t even hung the cop up yet. So that bastard was just floating in the water downstairs.

  When Alton had woken up that morning, the rain still hadn’t stopped, but he knew what he was going to do. That bitch’s house was only a mile and a half if he walked through the woods. He told Craig to grab rope, tape and a knife and the dim wit always did as he was told. They had trekked through the woods to the Pile home and here they stood, peeping in her window. She seemed to be alone, but he could see she had a shotgun out on the table. She was reading a bible; Alton could feel himself getting excited for the rage he was about to unleash on her. He sent Craig around the front of the house to knock on the door. He was even hoping the idiot might take a shotgun blast and be removed from his existence.

  When he heard the knock on the door, he saw Kimberly Pile get up from the table, her hair finely cut, her makeup perfectly applied. She walked to the front door and Alton walked to her back porch. As he suspected on this hot wet day, she had the door open and the screen closed. Like most stupid people, she had locked the screed door. He just pushed his way through it and walked into the room where she was holding the shotgun on Craig.

  Craig made a stupid move, and the bitch pulled the trigger. It was Craig’s lucky week, because once again, nothing happened and he grabbed the shotgun out of her hands. She turned to run and ran right into Alton, who pushed her back. Craig grabbed her arms from behind and she kicked out at Alton with all of her force. She missed his nuts, and instead hit his hip as he turned. He punched her square in the face and she fell back, unconscious. He was already aroused by the activity, but that fight had almost sent him over the edge. He decided right then and there that he was going to go slow with this one, enjoy every minute of it. He tied her hands behind her and slapped duct tape over her mouth and sat on her couch to wait until she woke up.

  Sitting there, Alton began to have ideas of such cruelty that he almost climaxed waiting. He had a plan, a plan that included the death of his idiot nephew, the destruction of this meddling bitch and her being found out in the open. The fear this would cause would thrill him. He wasn’t a fool, he knew this would take him back to prison, but he couldn’t come up with a better way to go. He would be the bogeyman that they told stories about for years. It was the best ending of his so-called freedom, and he could return to prison, a place ripe with victims.

  “Craig, get your dumb ass in here!” He called back to his nephew who was wandering through the house looking for valuables. Craig walked in from the hallway with that moronic look on his face he carried at all times. “Grab her feet, we are going into the rain.”

  “To the basement?” Craig smiled like they were going to see a pony.

  “No, not to the basement, idiot. Now that basement is full of water and a floating cop, ain’t it? You are so stupid.” Craig just looked down and followed his uncle’s lead as they took Kim out into the rain. The pouring rain was enough to wake her and she began to struggle. Alton always loved the struggle of his victims, it was like foreplay. The next house was about a hundred and fifty yards behind them, so he would go about seventy-five, rape her, make her watch him slowly kill the dimwit and then gut her like a pig next to a tree.

  As she struggled, Craig dropped her legs. Alton slapped her in the face, “Oh keep struggling you little bitch, I like it that way. I am gonna do you in every hole, then my idiot nephew is going to do the same, and we are going to leave you naked and tied to a tree so everyone can see. You will learn to mess with Alton Tooney.”

  Alton wanted her to know it was him, her fear was almost to the height of its possibilities. He grabbed her hair in one hand and an arm in another and listened to her try to scream, it was the funniest thing he had ever heard. He found what he was looking for, a clearing within ear shot of the next house, but far enough that they wouldn’t find this mess for a while. He dragged her up against a tree and threw her roughly down onto the ground. “Hold her feet, moron.”

  As Craig held the woman’s feet, Alton stuck his knife under her blouse and slowly cut it from her body. Her sobbing and gasping were delightful; this was working out better than Alton could have hoped for.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Walking up to the door of the target store, Adam could see that it was double locked. The store had strong locks on the doors and a gate pulled down and locked behind that. On top of that, they had apparently managed to get all of the carts inside before locking up. Target, it seemed, was a bust as far as their purposes went. It was not flooded, but there was nowhere to go to truly get out of the rain. For the moment, the overhang was providing some shelter, but it wasn’t much as the occasional gust of wind would splash them with a strong spray. Adam felt like he was on the beach during a tropical storm.

  “The high school?” He asked, turning toward Cal.

  Cal shrugged. “I don’t see any other option.”

  Each member of the group sort of sighed and steeled themselves to head into the torrent of water and wind again. Ellen began the walk out front on point and Cal just smiled. Adam knew that his old boss liked anyone who showed initiative. They all fell in line and moved out toward the highway.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Ted stared out the back door into the rain. It had been pouring for almost twenty-four hours. It would be dark soon. He really didn’t want to look the same way out the front window, where Kate was, she might notice that he was also growing concerned. Where Kate was worried something had happened to her husband, and worried she would never find her son in all of this, Ted was worried about something else. Ted looked at this rain in a traditionally dry area, and knew what that meant. It meant flooding, it meant washed out roads and bridges. Without the power or communications, he was worried they would be stranded here much longer than he had provisions for. Rich had run through the rain back to his chapel to collect some clothing, some more food and some gear to get through the nights and days. He hadn’t returned yet.

  Ted was surprised to see all three dogs rise, almost as one and stare into the rain. He saw the hair on the back of their necks stand up, and as one body, they ran full sprint into the woods behind his house. He opened the door to try to stop them or call them
back, but they were gone into the trees without a trace. He turned to see if anyone else had seen that and saw his ten-year-old daughter with a look of abject horror and rage. He stepped toward her to see what was the matter. “Sweetheart, what’s up?”

  She ran a dead sprint, as fast and suddenly as the dogs had right out the door he had just opened and into the woods. Rich had just come in and had seen her run.

  “Max! Come back, it is not safe!” Ted called, as Kayla and the rest of the family came up to the window. He and Rich both stepped out into the rain. “I will get her; I have never seen anything like that. Did you see the look on her face? She looked pissed, I have no idea what is going on.”

  Ted and Rich ran into the woods in the direction his daughter had just disappeared, shouting for her and knowing how muffled the rain was making their calls.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Alton finished his undressing of this uptight whore with a nick of his knife cutting her bra open and exposing her large breasts. What was it about these uptight broads? They always had a great rack, he chuckled softly.