Earth Shout: Book 3 in the Earth Song Series

by Nick Cook

  ‘He’s in recovery and it may be some time before he wakes up. But I can think of no better medicine for him as seeing your face when he comes round.’ Jack held the door open, and Jodie and Niki headed through it. But as I went to follow, Alice reached out and gently took hold of my wrist. ‘Lauren, you look dead on your feet. You need some R & R. Grab yourself that sleep we talked about, now.’ She nodded towards Jack. ‘That goes for you too. You look as pale as my grandmother’s finest bone china.’

  Jack raised his chin, but didn’t reply as he avoided her gaze.

  ‘I’ll take that as a yes,’ Alice said. ‘I’ll see you both at breakfast in my kitchen tomorrow. With a new day things will seem brighter. Lauren, please fill Jack in about moving back to my house.’

  ‘I will,’ I replied as I gazed at Jack.

  She nodded and then disappeared through the doors. The second she’d gone, Jack almost collapsed into a nearby chair and hung his head.

  ‘We tried everything, but nothing worked, Lauren.’

  I sat next to him, rubbing his shoulders. ‘But you saved him, Jack. That’s what really matters.’

  He tipped his head back, resting it against the wall. All I wanted to do was take the pain away from this most wonderful, caring person.

  We walked towards Alice’s house under a canopy of stars on the cavern’s ceiling screens, the Milky Way impossibly bright. A razor-thin new moon hung over the house, giving it a fairy-tale look – no doubt the intended effect of whoever had designed it.

  As we approached the porch, Alice’s hens were gently clucking and a warm phantom summertime breeze murmured across the lake. Quite how the designer had pulled that off I had no idea, but it only helped heighten the illusion that this was a dreamy summer’s night.

  Jack hadn’t said a thing since we’d left the medical centre. He seemed closed in, his walls up as he grappled with whatever was going on inside. I was on the outside looking in. It was killing me that he was beating himself up over what had happened to Mike.

  As we stepped on to the veranda, Jack veered towards the swing seat and dropped into it. He just sat there and gazed out towards the lake.

  I sat down next to him, but what could I possibly say that might help?

  At last Jack spoke. ‘I used to sit on a seat just like this back at my mom’s house. It was one of my favourite places in the world when I was growing up.’

  I angled my body towards him. ‘You’ve never mentioned your mum before.’

  ‘I know… She brought me up single-handedly after my dad did a flit and we never saw him again.’ A sad smile filled his face. ‘We lived in a small town where everyone knew each other’s business. She was the go-to person whenever someone had a problem, and they all loved her for it. Mom used to sit on that old swing seat with me and get me to talk about my dreams for my life. Then she encouraged me to chase every one of them.’

  ‘Aunt Lucy was pretty much the same for me. Your mom sounds like an amazing person. I’d love to meet her one day.’

  ‘I’m afraid you can’t. I lost her to the big C.’

  ‘Oh god, Jack, I’m so sorry.’

  He shook his head. ‘It was a long time ago. It’s one of the things that prompted me to become a doctor, to try to make a difference where I could. You understand?’

  ‘I do…and today you did as much as anyone could have possibly done for Mike. Right man, right place, right time.’

  ‘Maybe, but it doesn’t take the pain away, Lauren. I let my friend down.’

  I reached out and cupped his face in my hand. ‘You so didn’t, Jack. He’s alive. And, like Alice said, Mike will get through this, especially with our support and our love.’

  ‘Yes, at the end of the day it all comes down to love…’ His eyes looked deep into mine.

  ‘Jack, I…’

  He rested a finger on my lips. ‘Enough talking.’ He leant towards me, closing the distance between our faces. I found myself raising my mouth to his.

  Our lips found each other. The world melted away around us as we joined as one at last and the start of our own healing began.

  Links

  Do please leave that all important review for Earth Shout here: https://geni.us/EarthShout

  BOOK 4: Lauren, Jack and the others, will return in Earth Shriek in a desperate battle against an entity that takes over Eden and will threaten the survival of our whole world!

  Author Notes

  So here we are again at the end of another book. As I write this I can’t not touch on the pandemic that has swept the world, grinding it to a halt. It is one of the rare events in human history that has touched every single person on the planet, some in the most tragic of ways. For me the irony is that the rhythm of my days has pretty much continued as normal, apart from the fact I’m confined to the house as I have an underlying health condition. I feel fortunate in so many respects and my thoughts go out to everyone on the frontline, risking their lives for the rest of us, especially the health workers. I’m not forgetting the others who are helping to keep our society going, from delivery drivers and supermarket workers to postmen and women. For me you are all heroes of this heart-breaking tragedy. But as awful as this pandemic is, there have also been so many inspiring stories too. As always, the most challenging events bring out the very best in people. And now more than ever we are reminded of what really matters, namely each other, reaching out to our friends and family through phone and video calls. I suspect that this event will change the world for the better and good may actually come out of it. I certainly hope so.

  If you’re reading Earth Shout whilst the pandemic still has its grip on the world, I hope you found yourself lost in the book in a good way. Stories have always been important to me, and especially now during these difficult times when they help our imaginations to continue soaring.

  You can probably tell that I had a lot of fun writing Earth Shout, not least when it came to imagining what it would be like to pilot a real-life flying saucer. No stranger to flying myself, the idea of controlling a craft that could change its flight direction to any angle was incredibly intriguing, especially one with little in the way of G-force to pin you into your seat.

  If you’ve read any of my previous novels, you’ll know I like to research my stories as thoroughly as possible, and Earth Shout was no exception. For the TR-3Bs and Ariel I obviously had to make a lot of educated guesses, including cockpit configurations that had to be radically different to those of a conventional aircraft. I have to admit I really let my imagination go wild with Ariel. A 3D-axis gimbal-mounted flight deck makes an awful lot of sense from an engineering perspective, and certainly it would be very cool. Technically the REV drive would need to rotate with the flight deck so that the gravity pull was always downwards for the crew, whatever its orientation. I can see it clearly in my mind, which is half the fun of writing about an imaginary craft like this.

  I tried to come up with details that wouldn’t upset the ufologists too much – or Mulder for that matter, especially in my depictions of the TR-3Bs. There is a lot of conflicting information about secret military craft out there and I did my best to wade through it to create my own interpretation. Whether TR-3Bs actually exist is open to conjecture. During my research I came across rumours that the TR-3Bs are a black-budget project and part of the US military’s Aurora programme. Just to confuse things, there is also allegedly the TR-3A, another triangular-shaped but more conventional craft that’s radically different in design. It has been suggested that this is part of the reason why there are conflicting reports around these craft.

  As for Area 51, it is probably one of the biggest enigmas on the planet, a secret in plain sight. With a quick internet search you’ll find numerous aerial photos of the airbase that show it has been considerably expanded over the years it has existed, including the addition of a second runway. But who knows whether there really is a vast underground base beneath it? Please remember that this book is a work of fiction – I have done my best to draw m
y descriptions from the numerous rumours that swirl around that mysterious facility, but I have no way of knowing the truth. Of course, I would love for there to be UFOs down in Area 51 that are being actively researched, but if so, I hope one day these technologies are shared with all of humanity. Can you imagine the possibilities? I know Lauren can!

  I will close this by thanking the usual suspects who help to hone my books and push me hard to make them the best pieces of work they can be. Once again, I doff my imaginary hat to both my editor Catherine Coe and also Jennie Roman for catching all those pesky typos. And a shout-out to my assistant Makenna Guyler who helps me to juggle all the newsletters. I’m not sure what I’d do without her. I must also thank Karen, my wife, for helping to keep me sane during this lockdown period. She is my best friend and guiding light on the darkest of days.

  It’s time for me to sign off and get writing the next book in the Earth Song series. Will Lucy be OK and what is the significance of the red glowing micro mind? Keep an eye out for Earth Shriek, which will continue Lauren’s story and reveal more answers…

  Nick Cook, April 2020