Elijah's Chariot (The Forgotten Children Book 1)
Read Elijah's Chariot (The Forgotten Children Book 1) Online
Authors: Andrew Griffard
ELIJAH’S CHARIOT
The Forgotten Children
Book One
ANDREW GRIFFARD
Copyright © 2015 by Andrew Griffard
All
rights reserved. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and
incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is
coincidental.
ISBN: 978-0-692-35825-2
Table of Contents
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Red
Square lay before him, its far edges seeping into the gray and winding streets
of Moscow. His feet shuffled slowly along the gutter as his eyes remained
riveted on the plumes of smoke still rising from St. Basil’s Cathedral. The
smoke and strong odor of burned rubber and spilled gasoline filled his nose and
throat, and from deep within tears welled up, filling his eyes. The only sound
was the wind.
The
cars lining the bridge that led to the square had been smashed aside by some
great force. The cleared path continued up to the walls of the Kremlin which
were blackened and pockmarked, possibly by some of the twisted pieces of metal
and debris that lay at the front gates. Most of the detritus was
unidentifiable, but some twisted shapes were all too familiar.
His
feet carried him along the path of destruction as if by their own volition,
drawing him closer to some inescapable and terrible truth, begging him to draw
back the curtain and stare it full in the face. But he feared that if he did it
would swallow him whole.
Through
the smoke and tears, movement fluttered in the corner of his eye. It looked
like a bird, its white wings flapping as it raced along the ground. Wiping his
eyes, he took a few steps toward the strange object as it drew closer.
It
wasn’t a bird, but rather a white jacket or sweatshirt, its owner’s arms
pumping wildly as he ran. The first figure was followed closely by another and
then an additional two, no – three, others further behind. Suddenly the still
quiet of Red Square was split by the distinct report of gunfire and the two
lead figures instinctively flinched – then kept running.
As
the group continued getting closer, he clenched his fists and fear knotted in
his stomach as his earlier dread was replaced by a much more immediate concern.
He turned his back on the smoking buildings and failures of a now silent people
and started running.
The
meteorite descended through the sky, a thin trail of otherworldly white smoke
billowing behind, pointing the way from heaven to earth like the finger of God.
The kilometer-wide rock struck the ground with supersonic force, throwing up a
mountain’s worth of dirt and rock in an ellipsoid wave that quickly rained down
across the desert plain. A split second later, a wave of heat and light
exploded, mushrooming in every direction, incinerating plant life and turning
sand to glass. Overpowering gusts of air several times stronger than hurricane
winds strafed the landscape, scattering soil and rocks for miles. Moments
later, when the sulfurous smoke cleared, the only thing that remained was an
immense, charred crater several miles in diameter, surrounded by millions of
shattered chunks of blackened rock.
The
imagery replayed itself for probably the hundredth time that day in Sean
Prochazek’s thirteen-year-old mind as he bounded up the path to his front door.
Mr. Alvarez had shown the video earlier that week in his eighth grade science
class as an example of the type of impact a larger sized meteorite would have.
But, Sean knew that Earth’s imminent rendezvous with Jerry, a much smaller rock
estimated at 100 to 200 meters in diameter, wouldn’t be quite that spectacular.
It had only been a few weeks since the Near Earth Orbit Program, the group that
his father managed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory site in Pasadena,
California, had discovered Jerry’s intercept course with Earth. The rock from
outer space was calculated to touch down in three days somewhere in Russia’s
expansive wilderness several hundred miles east of Moscow. And Sean and his
father were going to be there to witness the whole amazing event firsthand.
Well,
not exactly, Sean thought to himself as he stopped on his doorstep to retrieve
his key. They would be in Moscow probably in some dull Embassy conference room
watching scratchy satellite photos with all the other scientists until Jerry
landed. Then they would fly out to the crash site and get to work with the
first response research team to find out all about Jerry – what it was made of,
how old it was, where it came from. Although somewhat less interesting, the
conference room scenario was probably a lot better since his mom would totally
freak out if she thought they were going to be anywhere near the actual landing
site.
Sean
turned as he heard his sister, Elizabeth, running up behind him. He laid a
gentle but firm hand on her shoulder to block her way to the door.
“Not
a word to Mom about the fight – okay?” he said quietly.
“But
they started it and there were two of them – it wasn’t your fault! Kyle Moffett
is a stupid bully and everyone …”
Sean
cut her off. “You can’t say anything – promise!”
Elizabeth’s
ten-year old eyes stared up at him for a moment, then she nodded silently.
Sean
opened the door and started making a quick dash for the stairs.
“Hey
mister, no hello? How was school?” called their mother from the kitchen.
Pausing
on the first step, out of his mother’s line of sight, he turned slowly and
stared at Elizabeth as she set her backpack down by the coat closet.
“Fine
– same boring stuff,” he said.
Cindy
Prochazek stepped out of the kitchen into the entryway holding a plate of
celery sticks with peanut butter. “Boring? Wasn’t there a math test? I still
don’t think you studied enough.”
Sean
left the stairs quickly and grabbed a celery stick from the plate and popped it
into his mouth.
“Smoked
it – even easier than I thought it would be. Oh yeah,” he paused again on the
first stair before heading up, still chewing. “Terrorists attacked during
second period and tried to take over the school. I had to grab one of their
guns and take them all out. Everyone was scared out of their minds but, you
know, somebody had to do something.”
Cindy
stared for a moment at her son. “Sean, that’s not even funny.”
“What?”
he said. “You asked.”
“Sean
was a real hero, Mom. He even saved the girls first – Jenny Hilton went
hysterical over him,” Elizabeth said.
Cindy
looked back and forth at the faces of her two children. “You guys are terrible.
Your dad’s upstairs packing – have you finished your suitcase yet? You’ll have
to before dinner because you need to be in bed early tonight for your flight
tomorrow morning.”
“I’m
almost done,” Sean said as his mother turned back into the kitchen. He smiled
conspiratorially at his sister. She smiled back.
Sean
dropped his backpack onto his bed and pulled out an internet article he’d
printed out for the current events portion of his history class. Folding it in
half, he pinned it to the corkboard above his bed, covering up the lower half
of a diagram of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the satellite that had made
the Jerry discovery. The boy looked slowly over the rest of his collection of
articles and solar system posters, making sure that everything was in place and
wasn’t going to come crashing down on him in the middle of the night. Grabbing
a magazine from his backpack he jogged to his parents’ bedroom.
“Hey
Dad,” Sean said as he jogged through the doorway and jumped on the bed. Kevin
turned to him and smiled. He was standing near the dresser with a handful of
socks, staring at the rows of framed pictures that were hanging on the wall and
spilling down onto the polished wood of the dresser itself.
“You’ve
really grown a lot in just two years,” Kevin said as he picked up a picture
frame from the dresser. The photo had been taken during their trip to Tahoe two
summers ago. They’d stopped at a campground outside the resort town for a
couple of nights. In the picture, all four of them were sitting on logs around
the campfire, with Sean holding a skillet of grease-soaked pancakes. Kevin’s
hair was standing up in back and Elizabeth still had a big, red crease on her
cheek from the pillow.
“Pretty
soon, you’ll be as tall as me.”
“Taller,”
Sean said, smiling as he kicked the box springs with his heels.
Kevin
turned and set the picture frame back in place on the dresser.
“Have
you finished packing? You’ll need some coats and sweaters? It could be cold in
Moscow. They have pretty long winters.”
“Yep,
got all that. And my hiking boots for the snow.”
“Your
Swiss Army Knife?”
“Yep.”
“The
neck cushions for the plane?”
“You
said we’d get those at the airport.”
“That’s
right, I did. We can pick some up tomorrow morning. What time do you want me to
wake you up?”
“If
we’re leaving at 6 a.m., then probably at 5:30.”
Sean
placed the magazine on the edge of the bed. “May issue of
Science
is out
– I wanted to bring it on the plane to read.”
Kevin
glanced at the cover. A round, middle-aged man in a rumpled suit posed in front
of a large, blurry photograph of an asteroid.
“John
on the cover again – probably all Jerry articles.”
“Yeah,
I read the one in the
L.A. Times
that they wrote about you and the team
from the… what do they call it, Russia’s NASA?”
“The
RKA, Russian space agency or something like that. It wasn’t all about me
though, I read it this morning. Most of the interview questions were with John.
They just mentioned me toward the end.”
“Yeah,
Dad, but they know who the most important guy is. You’re the Program Director.
John just discovered it. And it wasn’t just him anyway, the mission guys were
all there, too. Besides,” Sean said, holding up the magazine, “you don’t wear a
yellow flower tie and a green suit when you’re going to be on the cover of
Science
.”
Kevin
chuckled and sat down on the bed. “How do you know about suits and ties?”
He
shrugged. “Mom told me.”
“I’ll
have to remember that. In case
I’m
ever on the cover of
Science
!”
“You
will be, Dad. You’re going to make some great discoveries about Jerry,” Sean
said confidently.
“We’ll
see,” Kevin said as he looked out the window above the bed.
Sean
stood up and walked toward the door, holding the magazine. He stopped and
turned back, pausing for a moment before he spoke.
“Do
you hate John?”
Kevin’s
eyes rose slowly until he was peering at his son over his wire-framed glasses.
He stared at Sean for a second in confusion, not saying anything.
“I
mean, because he discovered Jerry and you didn’t,” Sean explained quietly.
Kevin
swallowed and continued to look at his son. “No, I don’t hate him.”
Sean,
seeming satisfied, nodded and turned into the hall.
“Sean,”
Kevin called after him.
The
boy turned and looked back at his dad.
“Do
you… never mind,” Kevin said as he waved his hand. “I’m almost done packing –
I’ll be downstairs soon.”
Sean
smiled at his father.
“Hey,
Dad,” he said excitedly, “tomorrow we’ll be in Russia!”