Age of Mystics (Saga of Mystics Book 1) (6 page)

Kayla woke and did her best to prepare breakfast for everyone. It was still raining cats and dogs outside, but the issue was – what was she going to make? In the end, she decided bread with peanut butter might be best, and they still had some fruit, so she cut some up for everyone. She made her apologies, but the group was pretty thankful for anything she could whip up. The pastor from down the street, Rich, had said that he would grab whatever he could from the church and his house as soon as the rain let up, but they had no idea when that was going to happen.

As soon as they had woken, her sister Kate had taken the same position she had been in for most of the night before – at the front window, looking for any sign of her husband or son. Her mom walked up behind Kate.

“Honey,” she started, “you know that man of yours is the most capable person I have ever met, no offense Ted...” she said, turning to look toward her other son-in-law. He just shrugged and waved her off as if to say he agreed. “But he is also a very intelligent man. He would not come trudging through this mush, and flooding unless he thought you were in danger. He knows you are here, so I am sure he will be here as soon as he can get here.”

Ted was rolling up a piece of bread that was slathered with too much peanut butter. “You know Mom is right, Kate. He will be here. This rain is crazy, there may be roads out. I am sure he is just waiting until it is safe to come, then he will be here.” Kate nodded without much confidence. Kayla looked at her sister and was overcome with a gratefulness that her husband and daughter were home when this had happened. How similar would her reaction have been to Kate’s, if they had not been home when this happened. She could only imagine the worry.

Natalee walked out of the back yawning and stretching and grabbed an apple. She had put on a pair of Kate’s sweats, looking like she came out of the catalog modeling them. Kayla shook her head, part of her hoped that Max did not grow up to be as stunningly pretty as Natalee was. She wasn’t sure she could handle it.

“Well, good morning, miss Nat!” Kayla called out, Natalee rolled her eyes at her aunt. “Is your cousin coming out too?”

Natalee took a chomp on the apple in her palm. “She took that dog out to do its business. Is there any way the dog could just stay outside? She snores.”

A chuckle went around the room. Rich was sitting near Ted and had spotted a guitar, which he had picked up and began strumming. After a full day of silence, it was a beautiful thing to have a little light guitar in the background. It was relaxing to all of them. It even made her sister come out of the window and sit next to her daughter, who immediately put her head on her Mom’s shoulder.

As Rich played, he talked. “Whose guitar is this? Who is the musician in the Craven family?”

Kayla came in and sat next to her mom. Beth had always been a church-goer and Kayla knew that her mother was comforted by having a preacher in their midst. Had he not been there, she would have said, “among all of you heathens.” Beth is the one who answered. “All of the children play piano, guitar and one other instrument. I made sure of it. I have paid for their musical education since they were toddlers.”

“And we are grateful for it mom, even if our children are not.” Kate offered, but Natalee acted like she hadn’t even heard. She was playing with her iPhone, still trying to get it to work. They had told her numerous times that it was no use, but she would not be dissuaded.

Rich played a really nice toon and sung a light hymn, which made Kayla’s mom very happy and her husband uncomfortable. Ted would never stop blaming every church member for the actions of one creep. He just hated church and anything related. Because of this, it had been hard for Beth to accept him, but Kate and Kayla’s father had convinced her that a man’s goodness did not reside in his house of worship, but in his heart. Eventually her mom had grown to love Ted as much as she loved Cal, which was a lot. God, Kayla missed her dad. They were just coming up on two years since he passed.

Beth decided to make small talk. “Are you married, Rich?”

Rich kept playing but he dropped his head for a moment, “No, ma’am. Not anymore. If y’all had been around here a little longer, you could have heard the gossip. My wife ran off on me. She ran off with one of my elders. People blamed me for not keeping my house in order, and that is why the church is so bereft of congregants.” He kept playing. He had said all of this so matter-of-fact, like he was talking about business.

“Oh, I am so sorry Rich,” Kayla said.

“I am confident that all things work together for the good,” he said leaving out part of the passage and Kayla knew it, “and I am confident that He will reveal to me my purpose at some point. I have to believe there is one.”

Ted rose and headed toward the back sliding glass door. He made no mention, made no face, there was nothing to show it, but Kayla knew what her husband was thinking. He was thinking that man will make anything up to convince himself that he has purpose, it was almost a mantra of Ted’s. Ted opened the door and called out for his daughter.

“Damnit, Maxine Craven! You get your butt in here, you are soaking wet. And what is this? I thought you had the one dog.” Ted grabbed a towel out of the nearby bathroom.

Max looked like a drowned rat, her hair all matted, her clothes soaked through. Her dad began drying her off as she answered. “Daddy, they were alone. I told them they could be part of our family.”

Ted didn’t even miss a beat. “Yeah? Well tell them they can stay on the porch.”

Max looked up at her father with a broad toothy smile and said, “okay.” She didn’t even turn around, but the dogs all laid down on the porch. Besides the pit bull, there was now a mutt of some sort and a huge German Shepherd. “Their names are Snickers and Rex. Rex is the big one.” Ted gave her a hug and closed the door. The dogs didn’t seem to care less.

Looking into the hazy mess that was created by the deluge of rain, Adam was perplexed. He hadn’t seen rain like this in a long time. It kept the day in almost dusk-level darkness all morning. As far as he could tell, it was after mid-day, but there was no way to be sure. The rest of the group were trying to place stops in the crevasses under the doors to keep their little shelter from flooding. The pool had flooded within an hour, but the rest of the area was now covered in about an inch of water that was seeping in every nook and cranny around the building where they had slept. It was not really a great place to take shelter any longer.

“Well, this isn’t going to work”, Kyle said as Adam turned to see the water coming in under the door they were trying to seal up with towels.

Cal looked down on it and gave up. “Yeah, never mind. We are going to have to find some other shelter. What is between here and Forest Township?”

Kyle thought for a moment and replied, “Across the highway is a hardware megastore. There is a Target on this side, just up the road, then nothing until you get to the high school.”

Cal nodded and looked at the rest of them. “Do you all want me to decide, or do we take a vote?”

Adam was the first to speak. “Well, Sarge, I have followed you many times before, but you never asked for my vote before.”

Cal grinned broadly. “Thanks, Doc, but you didn’t enlist for this one. Also, I have no authority over you guys. So if you want me to be the decision-maker on the team, just let me know.”

Adam nodded, “I am good with it, never went wrong before with that.”

Kyle just said, “Seriously, Pop.”

Jessica and Ellen nodded, and Erica asked, “You are a doctor, Adam?”

Cal turned to her, “No, ma’am, he is so much better. He is a battle-tested and Army trained combat medic. Hua.”

Adam replied without thinking, “Hua.”

Cal thought for a moment. “Well, in that case, if it is up to me, we can move a lot faster. If anyone has a question, shout it out, I won’t take long to decide.” He looked around, but clearly no one was questioning him. “Okay, it seems we will get very wet. We need to stay close to each other, as I would guess some of the roads are flooded. We will walk north until we get to the Target store. If we can get in, to be honest, we will probably loot some goods. We will at least take a cart or two so we can more easily carry some of the heavy loads.” He looked around, still no questions. “From there, we will again head north, this time up the main highway so we don’t get stuck in the mud in the cattle land out there. Then head for the high school and on up into Black Forest until we get to the town. We will probably move on from there with a slightly larger group of my family and head back west. We have to find a place that is high ground due to the rain, and preferably well-stocked, or has some other benefit to wait out whatever this is.”

Ellen spoke up, “You said you would tell us what you think it is.”

Cal looked at the ground for a bit. “I will, but it is only a guess, and it would be best to wait until we get to a more secure location. We are going to have to make some long-term plans…”

“How long, Cal?” Adam asked, wondering at what his old leader was thinking. Cal was smart, but more importantly, he was wise. Knowing is good, but the ability to synthesize information and make plans makes all the difference. Calvin Ward was gifted at this kind of wisdom. Most of the guys found it kind of creepy, feeling like he could tell the future. Adam had always just appreciated it.

“I don’t know, Adam. But, it is going to be a bit. I don’t want to get into it until we stop moving, but think about it. It has been 24 hours, nothing has come back on. We haven’t seen any movement on the roads, no cars, which probably means the cars aren’t working. No cars from outside the area, so it isn’t just here. Nothing has come back on, which could mean it is persistent, though there hasn’t been enough time to tell yet.” Adam’s head dropped but it was the jaws around the room that dropped, they were seeing a glimpse into a special mind. In the midst of stress, change, fear, and unknowing about his family, this is what Calvin Ward had assessed. Knowing Cal as long as he had, Adam knew that Cal had assessed that in a flash, in the first few seconds. Cal looked around and had been in this position before, so he knew what he would need to do. “Anyway, it will be a while. Like I said, let’s talk more when we get to a more secure location.”

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.

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.”