Just before reaching the street she intended to turn, she looked up and saw the shimmer of far off auras coming her way from what she could only assume were the men from the street. She ducked down. For the first time, it occurred to her that others might be able to see auras too. She began to lightly check the doorways, and finally found one open. She slipped inside and quietly turned the lock. She waited for what seemed like forever, but the men never came this far. She leaned against the doorway and rested for a moment. She needed to figure out where she was and see if there was any food here. She searched around with her inner sight and saw no auras, so no people that she was aware of. It was pitch black like everything else was right now.
Jenny crawled along slowly and tried to make out her surroundings by touch. It was pretty clear that she was on a carpeted floor, low carpet, not shag. Feeling around, she soon came to a counter, it felt like glass, maybe a retail counter? She moved around to the other side of the counter and touched a leg. It was all she could do not to scream out loud. The person was cold to the touch, she knew immediately they were not alive. She didn’t feel anything that might be blood and she inched by the body as best she could. What is this place? Jenny searched her mind and tried to picture, store by store, what it could be. Then it hit her, it was the jewelry store. An elderly couple owned it and worked here. She hoped no one had killed one of them, but she was sure that was one of them. All they have here is antique costume jewelry! There is no reason to rob the place. She had met the proprietors at city meetings a few times. They were sweet, welcoming, they told her about their shop. They had said something about a display of ancient Middle Eastern jewelry. They were very proud of it, but they had shown her pictures and it was just some gold wristbands and rings with large uncut stones in them. Would someone kill them for this?
But she had only found one, was the other here? She used her inner sight to peer around as she crawled, she needed a line of sight, so she headed toward the back to listen and her hand touched something smooth and round. Her mind was filled with images, first of the Roth’s. That was their name. Then other images came to her but she didn’t know how to slow them down. Ancient images, words in other languages, people she had never seen before. It was so shocking, she dropped the bracelet. She knew what it was, she could see it in her hands when she touched it, but her sight of it was like a memory and the hands weren’t hers. She felt around on the floor and found three rings and another bracelet. Nothing happened when she touched them, then she grabbed the first one and nothing happened. Had she imagined all of that? No. She hadn’t imagined the auras and they had gone away when she was startled. I have to calm myself and reach out with my mind. Jenny pulled herself into a cross-legged pose and calmed her mind. Opening her eyes, she turned her focus on the items. Two of the rings and one of the bracelets seemed to have memories of their own. She could feel their past on them. She could not control it and tried her best to slow it down, but it was useless. She didn’t know how to do this. She needed to get home and see if any of her yoga books touched on this subject. She was just grateful that she had old-fashioned paper books, instead of only digital books like her friends.
Reaching the back of the room, she found a door and Jenny reached up to turn the handle, but it was locked.
“Is anyone there?” She loudly whispered. “This is Jenny Martinez; I am trying to see if anyone is here.” She said it three or four times, but heard nothing. Not only did no one respond, there was no sound of movement. Depending on how the person died that was lying in the middle of the floor, there might be someone keeping as quiet as possible, or there may be no one there.
“I can’t stay here, it isn’t safe.” She said as much to herself as to any person who might be there. “I am going to leave. Please come out if you are there, I don’t want to leave you if you need someone’s help.” Jenny could hear the strain in her own voice. She was overwhelmed; she was on the brink of a teary breakdown. But, there was still no sound.
Jenny steeled her resolve. She crawled back the way she had come, making sure to only lightly touch the body as she passed it, and pulled herself up by the door. She reached out with her mind, but still no flashes of aura around where she could see. She unlocked the door as quietly as she was able and opened it enough to get out, and then let it shut slowly behind her. She looked down the street to where the men had been coming, but now she could make out no one. The heavy rain was the only sound she could hear. There were houses for the next two blocks, then the other park, where she always ran. She would make her way over, cross the little creek there and head toward home. Anywhere on the other side of the creek would be relatively safe to crash and she needed to find some food fast. She was so hungry.
She crept her way along, keeping low next to cars and peering out with her inner sight all of the time. Occasionally, she would see a flash of aura in the distance, and she would change course to avoid contact. She didn’t know who she would run into out here and couldn’t take the risk. Then she remembered, right next to the park was a little fish taco restaurant she had eaten at once. She made her way in the dark, wet night to that place. It took far longer than it should have, but she was careful. The front door of the restaurant was propped open. She searched through the dark for auras, but nothing was showing. She slipped into the tiny eatery, stopped and listened. She listened inside for movement or voices. She listened outside for the same. All she could hear was rain on the roof and rain on the patio. She crept behind the counter and began feeling around for anything. It took some time, but in a cabinet somewhere behind the counter, Jenny found tortillas. There were packs and packs of both flour and corn tortillas. She ate a whole pack of flour tortillas and was so relieved that she rested and waited.
Jenny was not used to real hunger, not used to going a few days with little to eat. She did not have the experience to know what those who have dealt with hunger know. Her whole body relaxed, her eyelids grew heavy and Jenny fell asleep. Generally, people call it a food coma. Her body was able to relax now that it was fed. Relax it did, she was out so fast it was unlikely she would have been able to stop herself if she had wanted to. As it was, she didn’t want to. This was a wonderful feeling.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Kyle slept in the deep dark of the High School Theater backstage. He slept with restless dreams, with the pictures of the beaten police officer; with images of the nurses mourning outside the hospital; with images of a woman he had just met, and come to like, lying peacefully at the side of the road in her final rest. These were not good images, and they swirled around like water falling down the drain. Around and around they swirled, and grew bright. Brighter and brighter to where he had to almost shade his eyes. He realized he was asleep, but that realization brought him to waking, and he snapped his eyes open.
In that moment, in that fleeting second, Kyle saw the room brightly lit. He saw the other four people in the room in various positions of sleep. He saw the entire space in which they were sleeping, the walls, the floor, the furnishings, the stacked chairs. And then it was pitch dark again, he could see nothing. It had been so fast, but he had seen everything. Did the power come back on? Did I just imagine that? Am I losing it? Kyle lay there for a while. He wasn’t sure when he fell back asleep, but it was his Dad who woke him to tell him it was morning.
DAY THREE
“The sky opened up and the sun shone down and they were alone, just that small group. Noah led his family off the ark, and into a new world.”
-Pastor Rich Carson, In Noah’s Days
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The early morning light woke Natalee up, as it had done the day before. It was sort of like camping, you woke up early because there was nothing to do with no light. She rolled over and remembered why she was waking up early, that lack of technology. Her cell phone not working was a pain. She couldn’t text her friends, call her friends, or email her friends. She was supposed to meet up with that boy, Glen, today. That wasn’t going to happe
n now, she didn’t even know how to get a hold of him. This sucked.
After another breakfast of peanut butter and bread, she just lay on Maxine’s bed, bored out of her skull. Her cousin had wandered on to the porch to hang out with her “pack”. It was so weird, she seemed to be able to talk to them or something. Something had happened in the woods with that lady Kim, she was almost naked when Pastor Rich had brought her in. I guess it was okay to add her, because now Natalee’s grandmother had someone to dote over and could quit asking her questions about her friends, boys in her life and her menstrual cycle. What was it about grandmothers that they were always so creepy without even knowing it?
It was still pouring outside; the steady deluge of rain was yet another thing she wasn’t prepared for. Natalee hadn’t seen rain like this in Colorado ever. It was sort of like the rain that fell in Florida when they were on vacation, sheets of water just drowning everything, but that lasted less than ten minutes and this had been almost forty-eight hours. She rifled through the kid books that Max had, animal this and animal that. She heard footsteps coming down the hall, the lumbering could only be her uncle. She knew no one else who stomped like that.
“Nat?” came Uncle Ted’s voice, then he poked his head in the room, “Hey, Nat. Come work out with me, there is no one to work out with.”
She rolled her eyes, “Uncle Ted, no. I don’t want to work out.”
Her uncle looked at her with a knowing look, “Too busy?”
She thought for a second, “It’s my period.” Natalee laid her hand across her stomach. Her uncle smiled and threw a gi (karate uniform) at her.
“Nice try, darlin’,” he said, “Now suit up and meet me in the garage. Five minutes, and I expect you there, or you will be doing push-ups all afternoon.”
Stomping around the room after Uncle Ted had closed the door might make her feel better for a moment, but she knew him. She knew there was no dissuading him once he set his mind on something. Without a chance of resisting, she went ahead and put her gi on, tying the brown belt around her waist. It had been over a year since her Dad had made her workout in Kenpo, but it felt good to put the belt on. That belt was a symbol of her hard work for many years. Her dad and uncle, both being advanced Black Belt holders, had forced her and her brother into training since they were old enough to walk. But, she would be willing to swear that it was harder for the Ward children to advance than it had been for any other child ever. She had trained for eight years, and watched younger kids get Black Belts. Only her father could say she was ready to earn it. Her brother, Kyle, had never given up training and had earned his first degree Black Belt two years ago. She thought maybe he had advanced one more time, but wasn’t certain. She didn’t do this stuff anymore, she had a life.
Natalee walked out into the living room, where her Mom was a little too excited to see her in the gi. Her aunt Kayla ran up and gave her a hug.
“Ah, sweetie, it is so good to see you in the gi again.” Kayla blurted out.
Maxine smiled broadly and called out from the porch, “Ooh, can I come watch?”
Nat just deadpanned at her mother and walked toward the garage. On the floor of the garage, Ted had laid out the padded flooring that one usually sees in a dojo. There, in the middle of the garage, her uncle sat kneeling, his eyes closed. “Come over beside me. You know what to do, let’s warm up.”
At her uncle’s cadence, they did all kinds of stretching. She knew that getting warmed up was the best way to prevent an injury, so she was more than happy to do it. She certainly didn’t want to gimp around the house for a week or two because she was unprepared for the workout.
“Today,” Ted began, “Let’s go through some meditative katas and a couple of sets, then we can spar. Let’s see if you can kick Uncle Ted’s ass!”
Natalee couldn’t help but smile. Beneath all of her disapproval of anything uncool, Nat loved her uncle dearly, and she knew he loved her too. They began the katas. She really had to concentrate on each move, the pattern of her feet, and the movement of each limb. In a remarkably short period of time, she was crisp. She was hitting and sticking her moves in the pattern with a speed and comfort she wasn’t sure she had ever felt.
“Nice, Nat. I think someone has been training in secret.” Ted smiled through his moves, but as Nat looked in the wall-sized mirror he had up on one side of the garage, she swore she was doing the moves as well as her uncle. It was kind of fun to watch, and the katas really centered and settled her. She felt in full control of herself. It was kind of awesome. “Follow my moves.” Ted said and began doing complicated kata moves, but as she watched, Nat found herself following along without a problem. Ted led them through about six different katas, and four sets, before turning to face her.
“I am really impressed, young lady! Your dad may need you to do a demo for him, so he can get some more students.” Ted’s pride showed all over his face. “You ready to mix it up?”
‘Mix it up’ was a euphemism for sparring. She nodded and they went over to a box on the floor and pulled out some sparring gloves and foot covers. Ted really didn’t need those, his control was amazing, just like her Dad’s. They wore them because that was protocol, and probably so Nat wouldn’t kick or punch her uncle too hard.
Taking opposite sides of the mat, they met in the middle and touched gloves, a universal sign of good sportsmanship before a fight. Then her uncle gave a jab here and a jab there. Natalee looked at him and stopped moving.
“Why are you taking it easy on me?” she asked.
“Oho!” he said in response, “Okay, it is on then.”
Her uncle closed the gap with amazing speed, but Nat just sidestepped and countered with a punch at his side. Ted pulled up and looked at her, “Nice, girl, nice.”
Once again, they were moving around. Ted seemed to be not even trying and it was pissing her off. His moves were telegraphed, slow and too predictable. It felt a little insulting, so she went on the offensive. She moved quickly and accurately. The look of surprise and shock that showed in her uncle’s eyes was a fine reward. She was keeping up with him, even beating him at times. They continued for more than an hour.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Calculating his plan with a precision that only those trained by conflict can manage, Eric walked to the front of his dojo. In the pouring rain, his men were now going door to door on the street. If people answered, they were questioned and assessed. If no one answered, his men busted in a window or the door and made sure the shops were empty. He had sent them out just after lunch, twenty-five of the twenty-seven. He kept two with him for other duties. He stared into the large wall-covering mirrors at the front of the room, looking at his own face.
What did I see? Was any of that real?
In his desire to collect his thoughts, he had gone into the dark last night to do a meditative kata. In that blackness, all alone, he had felt a power in each punch, in each kick, that was growing. Eventually, it presented a perceptible light around his fists and hands. He had power, what he knew as chi energy, which he had only read about and frankly, had always doubted truly existed. He knew it more from movies and books, but it was fiction. He was a man of the world, every time he heard about such a thing and checked it out, there was no truth to it. Waking early, he had made his men workout, and then had done a breaking demo.
Eric hated breaking demos. The science of it was there, he had broken many one-inch pine boards over the years, they broke on the grain. If one followed through, the force of the strike broke it. He hated doing the demonstrations, because people loved them and it wasn’t what it looked like. It wasn’t some form of extra-body energy; it was just physics. Mass times velocity equals power. But this morning, when he did the breaking ceremony, he almost broke the arm of the guy holding the boards. He made each of the men hit him as hard as they could. He felt nothing. It was chi energy; he was sure of it. Now, he would harness and display the chi, he was going to use it to show people he was in charge.
Two of his
men brought in five people from down the street. “They want to stay” the older of the men stated. Eric walked up and looked into the eyes of each. They were villagers. They wouldn’t be called that here, but in the sand, the mewling civilians were called villagers. There was an old man, three women and a young boy.
“Why do you want to stay?” Eric asked.
One of the women spoke up, “I don’t know what is happening, but we need to be protected. I have been in cities with looting and such. It is going to happen here if the power doesn’t come back on soon. Only the rain is keeping them out. You have numbers, that means safety. I am begging you, please let us stay with you. We can cook, we can clean up, we can stand watch for looters.”
Eric thought a moment and then began a speech he knew he would have many times today. “Okay, here is the deal. We don’t think the power is coming back anytime soon. If you stay, you do exactly what I tell you to do at all times. No exceptions. Once you are in, the penalty will be stiff if you put us in danger. Not obeying my orders puts us at risk. I will need each of you to commit personally to this, even you, son.” He looked down at the boy.
The boy nodded. “I need to hear you say you will follow orders.” Eric said.
“I will follow orders.” The boy said, then the four others followed suit. Eric sent each of them into stores on the street to bring back any food or anything valuable, so they could “keep it safe”. He walked up the stairs of the building he was in, a three story building built in around 1910. On the top floor, they had one of the soldiers, who had decided not to play along, one of his former students, who had done the same, a shop owner and a cop. All of them did not want to get with the program. All of them had their own ideas. They were a danger to his team.
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