 
Age of Mystics

Chris Walters

Published by Chris Walters at Smashwords

Copyright 2016 Chris Walters

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THE DAY BEFORE DISASTER

"...on that day, no one will know. They will go about their business, their lives, their activities, unaware that life as they know it will no longer exist..."

-Dr. Neil Amarand, United Nations speech on global catastrophe
CHAPTER ONE

Adam Cross looked up at the sky. It was a beautiful clear blue dome over the city. It was also hot, but that is the way that things go in Colorado Springs in July. It was nothing like the sand, though, and for that he was grateful. Every day was pretty much the same, a horribly hot day followed by the afternoon showers that usually brought tornadoes to the plains. When he had been stationed at Fort Carson, on the south side of town, Adam had found the lightning shows of the everyday thunderstorms one of the most beautiful things he had ever seen. But, on this afternoon, there was not a cloud in the sky. That meant that the temperature was sure to rise above one hundred degrees. As Adam walked toward the door of Pep's restaurant, he was grateful to be working inside. The smooth hum of the air conditioner was something Adam had come to relish while deployed.

This was a new job. Adam had only been out of the army for about three months, having finished fifteen years. He had been a good medic, but after all he had seen in Iraq and Afghanistan and Syria, he had decided not to pursue that career field in his civilian life. Even the blood on a steak could start up his memories of the injured men and women he had worked on in country. Immediately after his release from duty, he had begun training in the corporate restaurant manager training program for the national casual dining chain, Pep's. Even though he was the newest manager, only out of training for 4 weeks, he was probably the most well-liked manager in the restaurant. Adam liked the people also, he liked the staff and he liked the customers. He did not like the work very much. While very good under pressure, he did not like being placed in what he considered unnecessary pressure. Restaurant companies have a way of heightening pressure on their managers that Adam found unproductive. He figured he would stay about two years, then find something more to his liking.

Holding the door for some patrons as he was headed into the restaurant, he waved hello to some regulars he saw at a table nearby. He was already known by customers in the short time he had been there. It made him feel at home.

"Hi, Adam." The cute hostess, Sara, stepped in front of him. Adam had not been able to figure out how to tell her that he was too old for her, and she had been bringing the flirt on strong from the first day he had started working there. Sara wore tighter and tighter work shirts every time she worked with him and gave all the telltale signs of being interested. Had he been a different kind of man, he would have ended up taking advantage of the girl, but Adam Cross had no interest in using others.

"Hi, Sara, how are you today?" Pretending to see another guest nearby, Adam stepped deftly around the young lady. As he walked by, he couldn't see the look of disappointment that covered her face, but he had seen it before and knew it was there. He walked into the back, stopping to greet all of the cooks on the line, and headed into the office to check the notes for the day. His cell phone dinged with a text, and he pulled it out to look at the message.

"Ward: Hey Doc, was thinking of coming by 2mrw cool?"

Adam smiled. Calvin Ward was a man for whom he had a great deal of respect. They had served together, including one difficult deployment in Iraq. He was also showing his age in his inability to properly text. SFC Ward had left the army a few years before and settled with his family on the north side of Colorado Springs.

"Me: snds gr8 cu then" Adam always tried to match Ward's text in style, mostly because it was a hoot to see the older man try to be cool.

"Ward: time?"

"Me: btwn 2 – 4"

"Ward: done"

Adam put his phone back in his pocket and settled in for a ten-hour shift. It was going to be a long, busy night. But, it was going to be air conditioned, and that made it okay.
CHAPTER TWO

Jenny Martinez opened up her yoga studio and let in her usual practitioners, the collection of Moms, students and the elderly that had time to go to a yoga class on a weekday. Only twenty-seven years old, Jenny was probably the best-known yoga instructor in all of southern Colorado. Her signs appeared everywhere in town, and the new television spots had begun to appear on all of the local stations. She was becoming a celebrity in her own right and had even planned a yoga retreat for the fall to Thailand. She taught every day, appeared on a local TV morning show, and was in the process of writing a book. Things were going her way.

Jenny believed in intention. She believed in setting her goals and moving toward them with purpose. This is also what she taught to every person who came to practice yoga in her studio. Earlier that day, she had met with a Denver-based publisher who wanted her to put this particular teaching down in print. She owned her studio in downtown Colorado Springs, she was becoming a household name, she had set up retreats for various places around the world and now she was to be a published author. Her life was humming along with precision in all areas but one. Even though she was an attractive Latina woman, she could not find a date to save her life. She wanted to be loved but had no room on her calendar to make time for a mate. She also was not running into a lot of eligible men. Women were abundant in her classes, but the only men she saw regularly were either married or aged into their seventies.

She had been in a relationship with a woman for about six months just three years before and being a lesbian would probably give her more options. The problem was that she had discovered that she wasn't a lesbian. Her girlfriend from back then, Karen, was a beautiful woman and a lovely person. Jenny loved hanging out with her, and still considered her a great friend, but Jenny was not particularly attracted to women. The saying is that love chooses, but preference is not a choice. She was happy for the experience, because she probably always would have wondered, but they had both figured out that Jenny was more interested in men and the relationship just didn't work out. Karen and her girlfriend, Kelly, came in for classes a few times a week, but it didn't look like they were coming in today. Her desk help, Peri, finally showed as Jenny was about to have to delay the class. Peri manned the desk as Jenny walked into the yoga room, turned the lights down, and the heat up, and began her class.

"Take a deep breath and center yourself," Jenny began, "Picture the tiny light that is the purpose at the center of your being. As each deep breath goes in, focus on that light. As each deep breath goes out, picture that light growing into your body, into your chest, your arms, your legs. Picture it filling up every part of your body." Maybe in a few years she would find love, for now she was pursuing her business with passion and intention.
CHAPTER THREE

The two men stood across from one another, completely encircled by the watching crowd. Ted Craven felt the sweat pouring down his back, under the thick black gi he wore any time he represented the martial art he had studied for his whole life. Across from him was his brother-in-law and oldest friend, Calvin Ward. They had history and a great fondness for one another. This sparring match was one of the most fun events he had participated in for quite some time. It was a demonstration to market the opening of Cal's new dojo and they had quite a turnout.

That he would support Cal in this was both unsurprising and extremely gratifying. They had joined the dojo at the same time, around eight years old, in West Los Angeles. They had joined the army together, just out of high school, at the ripe old age of eighteen. They had married the two sisters they had met when both were stationed at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. They had served in combat together, both in Iraq and in Afghanistan. And they had both settled in the north side of Colorado Springs, Cal after leaving the service, and Ted after being stationed for his final post before retirement. This was his thirtieth year in the army, and his last. On top of that, Ted would do anything for Cal. Cal had saved his life.

Cal grinned at him and attacked. To the outsider, standing and watching this display, it must have been amazing to watch the speed and precision with which each man attacked, blocked, parried and countered. But these two knew each other so well, that they could almost dictate the next move of the other. Considered great practitioners of the martial arts in their own rights, together they were a force to watch. After an impressive sparring match that ended in a stalemate, as was the case any time these two squared off, the two performed an intricate kata – a martial dance – in unison. In their art, it was a manner in which they could meditate through movement. Both men had practiced this art for forty years.

As they finished, the crowd erupted in applause and kids came running up to ask them questions. He looked over at his wife, Kayla, and his sister-in-law, Kate, to see them forming a line to take sign-ups for the new dojo. This could not have gone better. Most people would not have noticed it, but when he looked at his best friend, he saw a shadow cross his face. As the crowd died down, he walked over to check up on him.

"What's up?" Ted said as he closed in on him. They knew each other too well for deception, so it never crossed Cal's mind to not tell his friend what was on his mind. However, he just shook his head.

"I'm not sure. I felt something odd while we were doing the kata, the memories and flashbacks never really end, do they?" Ted shook his head no; he knew just what Cal was talking about. "What are you going to do? It will fade in time, I guess."

Ted took a long look at Cal. It was not wise to discard anything Cal said. Calvin Ward was uncommonly intelligent, had been a deductive prodigy as a child, and was a true whiz at predictive analysis. Though his statements were sometimes taken by others as psychic, Ted knew that when Cal spoke about matters, there was something he was analyzing, something real, something one could count on. It had saved their lives in firefights more than once. However, he had never seen Cal not know how to describe what he was perceiving. "Can you describe it?"

Cal looked up into his eyes and just shrugged. "Not really. It was just a feeling like something wasn't right."

"With the demonstration, or the dojo, or what?"

"With the world," the tall man offered, "I can't explain it. It was just a feeling."

Ted was not perfectly comfortable with this explanation. Even in this intense heat, it sent a shiver down his spine. He knew Cal would tell him what was up when he figured it out. In the forty years Ted had known him, Calvin Ward always figured it out.
CHAPTER FOUR

Emma drove up the long winding road to what euphemistically was called "the Mountain" but was known throughout the world as the military base NORAD, built inside Cheyenne Mountain on the southwest side of Colorado Springs. The heat was a bit much right now, and it hit her as she rolled down her window to give the guard her ID.

"Good afternoon, Dr. Pare," the guard said.

Though she had worked here for two years and had come just about every day, they were a secure base in the truest sense and the guards went through protocol to check her in. They knew her well, but these were professionals and they did their job. After receiving her ID back, she pulled into the parking spot she had pulled in to so many times before, got out and began to unload some plants from her trunk.

"What kind of greens you got today, Doc?" said a tech that walked by. "You stocking up on weed for the end of time?"

Dr. Emma Pare just laughed. "That is something I should consider, I guess. Right now, I just need to make sure we have every plant in the lab."

Emma was a renowned botanist. She was a government contractor and most people assumed she was doing genetic experiments with the plants, but her job was much simpler and much more serious than that. Dr. Pare's top secret job was to repopulate the earth with plants in the case of a thermonuclear war, or a meteor strike, or any other extinction level event. As such, she had to continually check on plants and replace those that refused to grow in the conditions provided. Most people heard Dr. Pare and confused her with her deceased husband Dr. Mark Pare, a geneticist who was best known for his work on the human genome project. Since they were both Dr. Pare, she understood the confusion. It had been three years since he passed, and Emma's thoughts drifted to him at least every hour or so. Their love had been a deep and lasting one, unchecked by the stumbles that many marriages suffered. She wouldn't have liked anyone to find out, but when it was just her and her plants, she sometimes talked to Mark as if he were there. She missed him greatly.

Emma had to present her ID again to get past the huge door and into the facility, then down two floors, across an entire floor and up three floors into the Mountain to her lab. She was well-liked and was greeted by a steady flow of acquaintances as she made her way through the maze of passages to her place within the giant facility. She had two labs really, one was the main lab, a huge room with watering features, misters, UV lamps and every conceivable plant and the other was up another two floors into an exterior concrete section with two one-foot holes that allowed air and light into a medium-sized garden. It was to this area that she brought her plants today.

The nature of the extinction level event could not be known, since it was hypothetical, so they had allowed her to maintain the two different environments. However, due to the nature of the facility, the "outdoor" garden had two solid feet of concrete on all sides, as well as the top and the bottom. The air/light openings also had steel bars that ran through them that would not allow anything larger than a mouse through. Emma had once mused that it would take years for someone to break through, but the truth is that she didn't even know where on the mountain this garden came out. One could not make heads nor tails of location by looking out the holes and talking about such things was a red flag to base security, so she never asked. After planting the specimens, she had brought for the day, she did what she always did. She pulled out her tools, began her work in the middle of the garden, and thought of Mark. Then she began her conversation with him by telling him about her day.
CHAPTER FIVE

Ronnie Jones had been everything. He had been a thief, a scammer, an outlaw biker, and now he was a drug dealer. Ronnie supplied the entirety of Southern Colorado with Meth. From his house on the south of town, he oversaw the production and distribution of product for a cartel that included his biker brothers but was mostly a subordinate enterprise of the Mexican drug lords. Ronnie was good at what he did, and his life showed it. He did what, and who, he wanted. He was sanctioned to kill anyone that got in his way, but Ronnie was smart enough to not pull the trigger himself. He had more than thirty people who worked directly for him, and he was feared throughout the southern part of the state. Ronnie sold the best shit available, pure high, and he worked it like the multi-million-dollar business that it was.

On this blistering hot day, he had just come from a meeting with his supplier. This new batch was supposed to be amazing, but Ronnie had never used, and would never use, any of his product. He was careful and checked to be sure no one was watching as he opened a panel in his dining room that hid a storage spot for his dope. He packed pounds of it into the wall before locking it up. Ronnie didn't like having product on hand. For one thing, it did him no good in his wall, instead of being sold on the street. Secondly, it was the time he was most vulnerable to the cops or someone coming to rip him off. It was also the only time he carried a loaded firearm on his person. Ronnie made sure his Glock was ready to go when he heard the sound of someone walking up his steps. A moment later, there was a light tap on the door.

Ronnie opened the front door to see Charlene, a local girl from down the street. She was a case that proved all too well why Ronnie's product was bad. She had been a gorgeous High School cheerleader the year before and had been to a party that Ronnie's boys had provided the product for. After bad choices, and progressive use, Char was a far too skinny girl with bad teeth and aggressive acne, who was known for her willingness to put out for a hit. Ronnie knew why she was there.

"Not tonight, Charlene," he said as he started to close the door.

She blocked it with her foot. "No wait," she pleaded, "my friend here is looking to score."

Ronnie opened the door a little bit more and saw the young girl standing behind Char. She had to be barely eighteen, and she was hot. Ronnie opened the door wide and talked directly to the girl. "You better have cash, because I don't take layaway."

The girl looked at Charlene and then back at Ronnie. "Do you take barter?" she asked and pulled her top up to show her perky little breasts with no bra on.

Ronnie thought for a quick minute, stepped out and looked up and down the street, but no cops were there. He walked back and grabbed the girl by the hair. "If you do well, you will get the shit for free" and he shoved her into the house. Charlene smiled, showing her messed up teeth and ran inside also. Ronnie took one more look around and walked into his house, locking the door behind him. He knew the way this night would play out; it would be like all the other nights played out with all the other girls. He would make sure she was hooked, and then get her to do things she never thought she would do. It was the power that got him off, and he planned to work that power tonight.

DAY ONE

"People are bright, but when push comes to shove, people will look out for themselves. It is the natural order of things."

  * Social Chaos, Kimberly Evanston

CHAPTER SIX

Adam saw Calvin walk in and was instantly happy to have his old leader around. He hurried to the front of the restaurant and, grabbing a menu for him, seated him in a small booth away from the rest of the patrons, where he felt they could talk without being bothered. They hadn't even begun to chat when one of the servers, a gal in her mid-twenties named Erica, came over to get them started with a meal. After she left to put their order in, it was time to catch up.

"How have you been, kid?" Cal started, "Are you liking the job? The civilian life?"

Adam just grinned, no one but Calvin Ward called him kid. He was in his mid-thirties. "The job is okay, though probably not for me long term. The civilian life is definitely for me long term." They both laughed at this. "What about you? How are Kate and the kids?"

"Well, Kyle moved in with some friends, and he is at the community college. Natalee is in her senior year, and whatever you would normally expect from a girl of that age, that is pretty much who she is. Ted and Kayla just moved to town, he helped me with the opening of a dojo in the forest. You should go see him, he would love to catch up. He is finishing up his career at Carson."

Adam smiled. "I hope your dojo is better than the shit show that the Major runs on base. I stopped in there on accident and thought I was going to lose it. I heard he opened one downtown as well." The Major was their former Executive Officer of the battalion in Iraq. He had been directly responsible for Cal's leaving the army, and was the type of person who was scary when in power. Fiercely territorial, full of himself and a bigot as well, Major Eric Fine was everyone's least favorite person they had ever served with. Most people knew it was worse for Cal and Ted, because they were known martial artists. Somehow, this brought on the Major's disdain. The Major treated their accomplishments, their training, their martial art, and their leadership with the upmost disdain. He did so in front of everyone, all of the time. While Cal was the best leader Adam had ever seen, The Major was the worst, except possibly for Sergeant Meyer. He also insisted everyone call him "The Major" which was obnoxious in the extreme.

Cal did not take the bait to talk shit about the man though. "I had heard he was still at Fort Carson, and still a Major, but hadn't had the pleasure of crossing paths with him."

Adam was about to say something snarky about the use of the word pleasure, but the lights in the building suddenly went out. Adam looked around. He had been trained in what to do with power outages, as there were some things that became fairly dangerous in a restaurant with no power. "I guess I better go deal with that. Be right back."

There were standard procedures to follow in the case of a power outage. Bringing that training to mind, Adam went to begin those procedures he had been taught.

"Hey guys," he yelled back to the kitchen, "Let's turn the gas off and stay clear of the hot oil. Actually, as soon as you turn it off, let's just sit out front and wait for the power to come back on." He opened the office door, but it was pitch dark inside. "Does anyone have one of those flashlight apps on their phones? I can't see shit in here."

One of the waiters, he couldn't tell which, said, "Hey, my phone isn't working."

This was followed by a cascade of exclamations as each person realized that their phone was also not working. It is an amazing thing how much faith society places in the constant stability of technology. A minute without their cell phones and people lose all semblance of composure.

A bartender screamed out about accidents at the intersection right outside. Adam looked out the front windows at pile ups on the road. Wow, he thought, the power must be out at the lights too. Adam checked with a few people then grabbed his phone out of the office and found that it also was not working at all. He had been without worse things than a cell phone in his life, and adaptability was an asset. He walked back out to where his friend was. Calvin was standing up, his dead phone in his hand.

Calvin turned toward him. "Adam, you need to get everyone out of here. The only thing I know that can cause widespread loss of electronic use is an electromagnetic pulse. I don't think even the largest pulse would cause that though." He pointed out the window.

Adam turned to look and saw the cars stopped out on the street and people getting out of them with looks of confusion, and some injuries. Adam looked up and down the usually busy street and nothing was moving, no car, no truck, no motor vehicle of any kind. The traffic lights seemed completely off. He heard Calvin say in a low voice behind him, "This won't be fixed today. These people need to start heading home."

Adam nodded and headed back into the employee area. He trusted Cal implicitly and acted on his friend's suggestion. "Okay guys, I don't think this is going to end soon. It looks like a major power outage. Let's get everyone out and you can all go home." The staff loved that idea so much that they jumped right in to get everyone out. Within ten minutes, all of the patrons except Cal, and all of the staff had left. As Adam locked the front door, Cal walked up.

"Kyle works not far from here at that big sporting goods store," he said, talking about his oldest child, "I am going to see if he is working and then make sure that Kate and Nat are okay."

Adam nodded. "How are you going to get there, it doesn't look like cars are working."

Cal smiled a warm and reassuring smile. "I am going to walk, kid. I seem to remember doing a lot of walking back in the day. Once a soldier, always a soldier. You want to join?"

Adam thought about it for a minute and had no real reason not to. "Sure, Sergeant, I am on your six." They both smiled and left the building. Just outside, they were confronted with the staff and the customers who had just left. Everyone was pretty upset, and some were heading back like they wanted to get back in the restaurant.

Ellen Harris, one of the servers, trotted toward them and Erica was right behind her. "Our cars don't work. How are we supposed to get home?"

Adam surveyed the parking lot. "I know this isn't what you want to hear but walk. We are going north, walking, if anyone wants to join. I have always found that there is something about walking in a group that makes it easier. Any of you need to head north?"

The only ones that were headed north were Ellen and Erica. Some people headed off in different directions, some just stayed put, hoping for a change of circumstances. The two servers, as well as Adam and Cal, walked north to go to the sporting goods store. It was only about two long blocks up the road. The girls stuck together, and Adam walked next to Cal. They took it slow, like they had learned in the sand. Don't overexert yourself in the heat, it saps your energy and slows you down anyway. You might as well take it easy and get to your destination with a little energy left.
CHAPTER SEVEN

Jenny looked around on the street and saw the chaos quickly taking hold. Cars had crashed into other cars and people were out in the street. She could tell this was more than a power outage, since she had never lost her ability to use her smart phone in a power outage. However, she couldn't tell exactly what it was. Her assistant, Peri, had wanted to go home, so after Peri left, she locked her front door as her irrational fear and anxiety increased. There was no reason to be afraid of things one can't control. She decided to just do a simple meditative yoga practice to calm her nerves and wait until this all got fixed. The yoga room was completely pitch-black right now, so she grabbed a mat and decided to just begin behind the counter. She sat and began breathing, picturing the tiny ball of light.

As she centered herself and released the tension, she felt she could see, in her mind's eye, that glowing light. As she brought more peace, and more focus into her practice, the glow grew brighter and clearer, colors intertwined and moved, and a sense of warmth and calm came over her. She was a long believer in chakras and auras. For many years, and through many teachers, she had tried to learn the ability to read people's auras with no success. On this weird day, with no power and no distractions, she was truly able to visualize the light that she talked about in every practice, but never truly was able to see. This was one of the best practices she had ever had, and it could not have come at a better time.

When she opened her eyes, shock about what she saw slammed her mind. She could see hazy auras around some of those who passed the front of her studio on the sidewalk. This man had a foggy blue and then a woman with an almost unnoticeable yellow outline. She just stared, not even worried any longer about the chaos. As she looked out into this mass of people, she noticed that colors and shapes seemed to follow the actions of the people in the street, with the angry ones exhibiting a red fiery aura and the fearful ones a deep purple. It was simply fascinating to her that she felt she could read their emotions through their auras, but there was more, and she had no idea what it meant. These people had varying thicknesses of those auras, varying borders to them, varying opacity. She was about to walk out onto the street when a fight broke out right in front of her studio and one man fell against the window with a loud bang. She jumped back and all of the auras disappeared. Now she saw the people, no colors, no difference. How that could be?

Over the next hour as things got more chaotic on the street, Jenny tried to see the auras again with no luck. She had some raw vegetables and raw nuts, so she didn't need to go out and thought it was probably safer to wait out the power coming back on in the quiet protective environment of her studio. People were acting crazy out there. They were fighting, yelling, crying, running, just engaging in a level of chaos she was not expecting and did not care for. The hardest part about it was the fact that she had no news, none at all. Occasionally, she would peek through the window to see if anyone she knew was out there. The only people she knew were from that martial arts studio across the street, and those guys were complete assholes. They were the kind of gung ho idiots that most people think of when you say martial arts guys – very misogynistic, very macho, and not too bright. Those guys almost seemed to be guarding their studio. It was a bit much.

Walking back to the little nest she had created behind her counter, Jenny sat with her back against the wall and considered everything she could remember about the auras. Had she imagined them? No. Was it some kind of delusion her mind had allowed her to break her from the fear of the moment? She wasn't sure, but she knew it helped, and she knew that she would be just fine to get that kind of calm again.

Calm. That was it! She had begun to feel the auras and almost see them in her mind during her last practice, so she began moving through her poses to see if anything popped. Her mind raced and reached for any hint of a color or feel of warmth. But, there was nothing. She wasn't sure how long she had been sitting there, but she was getting a little bored. Opening her eyes, Jenny looked again out the window. A mass of the martial artists, about fifteen of them, were standing around the front of the studio and the guy who owned it, the jerk with the salt and pepper flat top, seemed to be giving them orders. Jenny hated that guy.

When she had first rented her space a couple of months before, and was in the middle of renovating it, that guy had stopped by. Many people stopped in to see what she was opening and wish her well, but his visit was different.

"Eric," he had said as a greeting, and thinking it a joke, she had replied with snarkiness.

"Nope, Jenny. But if you need to, you can call me Eric." She put out her hand to the visitor, he did not take it.

He looked down at her hand and just said, "I am the master of the dojo across the street. Do not try to steal students, my students do not need to have this crap put in their head."

Jenny was taken aback, and their conversation did not go much farther. She hadn't really thought about him since that day, but now it was hard to avoid. He would stop in from time to time with some other warning, or "advice". For the life of her, she couldn't figure out what his problem was. But now there he was, staring in the direction of her studio again. She saw him motion to two of his guys and both started walking over. She went and sat down in a shadow behind the counter so he couldn't see her if he looked in. Through a crack between the two parts that made up the counter, she saw him approach. He banged hard on the door, but for some reason that even she didn't know, Jenny stayed hidden behind the counter. She saw him peer through the glass, looking around to see if anyone was in there, and stayed as still as she could. There was always something menacing about this guy. She knew a lot of military guys, and there was no mistaking this, Eric was a military guy. But no soldier, sailor, marine or airman had ever given her the creeps the way this guy did. It wasn't only in his constant hassling of her, but in his manner, like all of his warnings were a show.

After a short bit, Jenny saw him say something to the others and they all turned back and walked back to his studio. She figured it would begin to get dark in a few hours and she could most likely leave in the darkness and avoid them altogether. The only problem she could see was that there were stalled cars in the road, it was actually full of them, and she wasn't sure she could get to her car or if she could get it out. That was a problem for later, so she decided to close her eyes for a while and take a nap.
CHAPTER EIGHT

The loud crack of someone hitting his door woke Ronnie from the deep sleep that only a night of excessive partying would bring. He reached over the naked, sleeping body of one of the two young women who had come over to party with him the night before. He didn't even look to see which it was, he just opened the drawer from his bedside stand and pulled his Glock 9mm out and cocked it. He heard mumbles on his porch and could tell there were a number of people there. He listened at the door before opening it.

"I told you I will ask him. You know he ain't gonna like you being here at his house, man. You should all go now." A rumbling murmur let Ronnie know that there had to be a dozen or more people out there.

A different voice, one he had not originally heard, yelled out, "This is bullshit! I paid for ice, not sugar. I don't know how you got it to taste like ice, but it ain't ice. I tried snortin' it, smokin' it, and a friend of mine tried shootin' it. I heard it killed him."

The first voice, that Ronnie now recognized as his friend, and slinger, Jake, shouted over the murmur. "I ain't jokin'. Ronnie comes out here, you are all gonna be sorry. This shit is real." There was a loud thud. "Who threw that, I am gonna cap some..."

Ronnie swung the door open, making no effort to conceal the handgun he was holding. He saw a large rock on the ground and far more people than he had first assumed. He looked at Jake, who was holding a hand to a gash on the side of his head and blood was coming out over his fingers. Jake was paling by the second.

"Sit down, man, or you are going to pass out," Ronnie said, as Jake was swaying on his feet. He looked out over the crowd of about thirty tweakers, who were in various stages of hurt. "Did I hear one of you have a grievance about my shit?"

"Shit is right, man." Said one of the people in front.

"Oh, you the spokesperson? That ice is pretty pure bitch, what you want to say now?" Ronnie waved his gun around. "One of you want to pick up a rock? You throw a rock and you will be dead before it hits near me. No? Then get the fuck away from my house!"

"You cheated us, mister kingpin, or whatever you like to be called," said a voice from the back.

Ronnie had just about enough, he decided to make an example and pulled his gun up to knee level and pulled the trigger on the guy with the big talk.

Click.

Nothing happened. Ronnie released the dud and put a new round in the chamber and pointed it again.

Click.

From behind him one of the naked girls came walking up. "Ronnie, this ice isn't getting me high. What is wrong with it?" Ronnie turned around and saw the weirdest thing he had ever seen. There stood a pretty beautiful girl, completely nude, with so much meth on her face she looked like a sugar cookie. He was about to start laughing when he felt the sharp pain in his side, then in his back three times. He turned to see what caused it and saw a skinny woman with a look of absolute rage on her face. He looked down and saw the knife she had just stabbed him with. He watched with incredulity as she slammed the blade into his abdomen another four times. He fell to one knee and grabbed the knife out of her hand. She just stood there looking at him and spit on his face as he fell over on to his side. Ronnie felt and saw his life's blood draining on to his front porch, as all of the people ran in various directions.

The last thought of Ronald Parker Jones was, "What was wrong with the ice?" Everything faded out, forever.
CHAPTER NINE

Ted pulled the levers on the breaker box. Flipping them back and forth, he wondered if he might have hit a wire, but even the main was giving no juice at all. What could cause this kind of loss? All that seemed to make sense was a major area outage. Kayla walked around the corner with the handheld house phone in her hand.

"It's not just that there isn't a dial tone, Ted. This thing is like a paperweight. Nothing works, my cell doesn't work, my iPad doesn't work, nothing. Look up at the corner, even the light is out."

Ted walked back around the front and up to the corner, it looked like the light was out and people were milling around the little bar and grocery on the corner. "Hon, would you drive up and see what's going on up there?" It wasn't that far, but far enough to seem like a chore he was giving his wife. "Or I could go, if you would rather not."

Kayla just looked at him and smiled. "Where is Max?"

Maxine Craven was their daughter. She was ten years old, and somewhat shy but friendly. She actually preferred to be alone and had taken to walking off in the vast forest behind their house since they had moved here. Ted just nodded back toward the woods, and Kayla started walking that way, shouting as she walked. "Maxine! Get your butt home for a sec, I need to talk to you."

Ted looked up the road again and could just see three women walking across the intersection. Recognizing them, he called out to Kayla, "Hey babe, your mom, your sister, and Natalee are walking up the road here."

Kayla stopped and turned around, "Why are they walking?"

Ted looked at his wife with the expression that had always let her know that he was about to be a smart ass. "Gee, Kayla, it is hard to tell, perhaps I will be better able to read their minds when they are a bit closer."

Kayla was not as amused as he had hoped, she cocked her head to the side, "really, funny man?" Then she shouted out, "Max! Can you hear me? Where are you?" She walked around the side and toward the woods, "Oh God, Max! Get away from it!"

Ted ran around the corner, his heart pounding with the unmistakable fear he heard in Kayla's voice. He ran out to see their daughter about twenty-five yards away, walking right toward a pitbull that was growling, baring its teeth with the hair on its back raised to a ridge. He began to run toward her. Just before he got there, the dog fell over to its side and showed its belly, submitting to her. It didn't attack, it submitted. It was the craziest thing he had ever seen and now his little girl was petting its belly and giggling. When he got close the dog reared up in a defensive stance, but Max just kept her hand on its back and pet it. Within less than a minute, it reached up and licked her hand and then walked around sniffing things.

Max walked over to her parents. "She won't hurt anyone."

Kayla hugged her daughter close, "Baby, you don't know that dog. You can't be sure it is safe. Please don't do that again."

Max just smiled, "But I do know her. It's okay now, she was just scared."

Ted tousled her hair, "I know the feeling. What is her name?"

Max turned and looked at the dog who looked right back at her, "Princess."

Ted and Kayla exchanged a smile, and Ted responded, "Princess the Pitbull, very fitting." They all turned and walked back around the front of the building, but Ted occasionally glanced back at the dog who seemed perfectly at home in their yard.

The three women had arrived just as he came to the front. Kayla walked up to give them all a hug. Her mother, Beth, was sweating from their short walk in the heat, and she and Ted both knew she would have to hear about it for the rest of the day. Her sister, Kate, smiled the broad smile she gave to everyone she met and hugged her closely before moving on to meet Max's new dog. Her niece, Natalee, looked more miserable than anyone. Natalie was a prom queen, a real one. She was not having any of this walking, Natalee Ward did not walk to her destination. She barely put up with her family, and only when forced to by her mom.

"The car just stopped up the road," Beth began, "It was the strangest thing, the power brakes didn't work. I thought we were going to die and then it just rolled to a stop. And when we tried to call you to pick us up, we found out none of our cell phones work."

Kayla looked back at Ted, "Yeah, ours either. The power is out at the house, it looks like it is up at the bar and the store also, is it?"

Her mother wiped the sweat from her neck with a handkerchief, "Yes, and the light. Kate, what are you doing? Pitbulls are dangerous."

Kate just looked back over her shoulder while rubbing the pit under the chin, "Her name is Princess, isn't she beautiful?"

Kayla saw the big smile on Max's face and was again about as thankful for her sister as one is capable of being. Kate had a way of making everyone feel special and okay. She was a bright ray of sunshine, regardless of the storm of other people's day.

Ted walked up to Beth and kissed her on the cheek, "Hi, Mom. Strange events, huh?" He led her to a bench, where she could sit in the shade and they talked for a bit. Ted always knew how to distract Kayla's mother so the complaints were less and for that his wife was very grateful.

Kate looked up at Kayla and asked, "Can I use your land line? I want to call Cal and make sure he is okay, and at some point touch base with Kyle also."

Kayla just shook her head. "It doesn't work. Nothing does. Do you want to walk to the corner and see if we have any better luck with their phones...if they will let us use them?"

Kate nodded, "Sure," she said, "Natalee, do you want to walk to..."

Natalee gave her mom a look that only a parent of a teenager knows. It was a look that simultaneously dismissed the question and called Kate's sanity into question. "Seriously" is all she said as the prom queen walked to the shade and sat down, still trying to get her smartphone to power up. The difficulty of being a teen today, who is suddenly without access to information, is that they don't know what to do with themselves. They have always had access to everything at their fingertips. Natalee was in a huge state of confusion, like she had suddenly gone blind.

The sisters gave each other a knowing look. They knew that they had both been that same girl. They were popular in high school but it is very hard to explain to a teenager how little that means in the rest of your life. Teens have to become adults and figure that part out for themselves, then try to convey that to their own children. It is a vicious cycle. They shouted back to Ted and their mom and told them where they were headed. Max just hung out at the edge of the woods and that dog was never more than five or six feet from her side.

Ted looked in the opposite direction, up across the street to where a small chapel sat. He didn't know them, but wanted to check on his neighbor so he let the ladies know he was going. Max chose to come along, and to no one's surprise, the dog came also.

As they walked, Ted reached out for his daughter's hand. He had known that the time when she would let him hold her hand was soon to end, with her coming within a few years of puberty and the hatred of parents that comes with the age, so he took every chance to still be with his little girl as a little girl. He cherished this time, and so far, Max didn't seem to mind.

"Where do you know that dog from?" He asked.

"Princess? From now. She walked up a few minutes before, while I was looking for pine cones in the woods."

Ted smiled, "You have a good rapport with her. Does her collar say her name is Princess?"

Max looked over at the pit and pet her on top of the head. "No, she told me her name was Princess."

Ted laughed. That was another thing that would most likely not last, his daughter's imagination and playfulness. He cherished that as well.

They came up to the front of the small church and knocked, but a voice called out from the side of the church. "Knockin' don't help. That door is always open."

The southern drawl was very pronounced, but so was the good nature behind it and Ted, Max, and Princess walked around to see a bald man in his fifties working on the engine of a truck.

"Hi there. The name is Ted Craven, this is my daughter Max and this is Princess."

The man came out from the hood, wiping the soot off his hands and he approached, "Rich Carson," he said, as he held his hand out to shake Ted's.

"You the pastor here?" Ted pointed back at the church.

Rich smiled and nodded, "Yep. I think I saw you opening that karate school in town yesterday, right?" Ted nodded. "Just moved into the house yonder?" Ted nodded again. "Well, welcome to the neighborhood. We have church services Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights. I hope you will come pay us a visit."

Ted smiled, he instantly liked the guy, even if this wasn't his thing. "We aren't really church people, Rich, but I appreciate the offer."

Rich stepped up close, "Can I tell you a secret, I am not a church person either." They both laughed. "For some reason my car won't start."

Ted grimaced a bit, "I don't think you will be able to fix that. None of the cars work, all of the power is out and the phones don't work. It is a bit of a mystery. The only thing I could think of was an Electro-magnetic pulse. I hear that solar flares could do that, but I always thought that was an old wives' tale."

"Hmm, well that is unfortunate. I guess there is nothing left to do but grab a beer and wait it out, huh?"

"I like the way you think, Rich, I think we are going to be fine neighbors." Ted shook his hand again.

"And good friends as well, I hope" Rich replied. Ted smiled, and they walked to the back of the church where Rich's cottage was and each grabbed a beer from a cooler he had out.

Rich took a decent draw on the long-neck bottle of his Sam Adams, "So, in those old wives' tales, how long do these things last?"

Ted shrugged, "No idea. I am not sure that part is covered." Princess walked up and licked the condensation off the bottom of Ted's bottle and Ted rubbed her behind the ear.
CHAPTER TEN

Specialist Jordan Kane had barely made it into the botanical lab, sucking in huge gulps of air in a frantic effort to breathe. The power in "the Mountain" had gone out very suddenly, but the generators had not come on as they were supposed to come on. When everyone else ran in the dark toward the doors, Jordan remembered what he had learned in High School biology, plants produce oxygen. He also remembered that the lab was much closer than the doors that were across a huge area and up a couple of floors. In the pitch dark of the lab, he had breathed in the sweet oxygen the plants put off and realized he was not alone. Though he couldn't see them, there were three others in the room – the research scientist Dr. Pare, her lab tech Private Jose Rio, and a guard who was normally stationed in another area, but liked to talk to Dr. Pare about gardening, PFC Donna Harris.

Jordan knew a lot about the survival aspects of the base, because it was his job to maintain many of them. He had switched from infantry to mechanical last year when he re-enlisted, and was responsible for generators, filters and such. What he didn't understand was why none of them had worked. The power had simply disappeared. That was not supposed to happen. There were backups to the backups, for God's sake.

"Dr. Pare, do you know when they will come and get us?" Rio had asked, but it wasn't the doctor who answered.

Knowing he was the person in the room with the most knowledge about this, Jordan went ahead and answered for her, "They aren't coming. The generators never came on. The oxygen was depleted. Trust me when I tell you that no one is coming to get us. I am sorry, there is no chance they made it."

Dr. Pare's calm voice came out of the dark, "No, that's not right. It is not oxygen depletion that is causing the problem you experienced."

"Hey, Doc, I know what I felt. I couldn't breathe out there."

She continued, "It seems counter-intuitive, but it isn't the oxygen. It is the carbon dioxide. With all of those people out there panicking, they are forcing carbon-dioxide into a sealed space. They are poisoning themselves."

Rio popped in with a question, "Why are we okay?"

Jordan answered, "The plants, right Doc? They eat Carbon-Dioxide."

Dr. Pare was quiet for a moment and Jordan wasn't entirely sure whether she was sad or laughing at his stupidity. Eventually, she said, "Pretty much. They also consume more carbon dioxide when the lights are out, so they are eating up our refuse air at the moment."

Harris spoke up once again, "Wait a minute. There are hundreds of people in this facility, are you saying they have all died?"

He hadn't let that reality set in. Jordan was just stunned as he thought about it, "On any given day, there are around thirty-two hundred people working in this facility. Unless this is some strange test, we are the only four who will still be alive in a very short period of time. People screamed in the darkness and all clamored to get to the main doors, which absolutely will not open in a power outage. That is not the way out."

He heard a quiet sob coming from the direction which Harris' voice had just come. It could have been the doctor, he couldn't tell. But it was the fear in Rio's voice when he spoke that cut through Jordan's certainty. "But, it has only been what, an hour or two?"

Jordan had no good news to give, but he didn't want to give false hope either. "With the doors closed and a full complement of workers, they will suck the air out...or I guess press the CO2 in, until they die. The panic levels I experienced on the way here make me think it was not a long time. There were people collapsed on the floor already by the time I got here. You know what they say on a plane, get your own oxygen before you help anyone else or you'll both die. I thought there was plenty of time for the generators to kick in. But they didn't. That is not supposed to be possible. I don't understand it. All I can tell you is that they didn't come on. All of those people are gone."

"Oh, Jesus," was all Rio could say in response.

"We have these plants to thank for not being dead." Jordan said, his tone reassuring.

"The bad news," Dr. Pare answered, "is that these plants won't last without the generators either."

"What do you mean?" Harris asked.

The doctor's voice was calm, and Kane realized that it must have been Rio who was the other crier. "Without power, there are no sun lamps. Without sun lamps, these plants will continue to put out oxygen, and take in carbon-dioxide for maybe a day. Additionally, we have no food. The edible plants are in the outside garden right now. We rotate them to give certain opportunities for growth."

Jordan just hung his head, it seemed his escape into the lab was only a temporary reprieve from the angel of death. Even in his despair, though, his curiosity was peaked. "I have never heard of an outside garden, where is that?"

"Up the stairs two floors and out the door. It isn't far." Rio was the one who answered.

The wheels began to spin in Jordan's head and a plan formed. He steeled himself, knowing he would have to motivate the others to join his plan. It was the only way they made it more than one day. That much he knew. "Okay, there may be a way out for us," he said, "There are reasons why power goes out here. It isn't supposed to take all power, but that is actually a better scenario than the others. It probably isn't a nuclear attack, because that wouldn't affect the generators at all. In fact, this catastrophe may just be in the Mountain. If that is the case, or if anything is the case, other than nuclear attack, we are way better off outdoors. I think we should make a run for it."

There was a long pause, clearly the others were thinking about it. Harris was the first to speak, "I am with you. I don't want to die here without even trying to get out."

"Thanks Harris," Jordan replied, "Anyone else have thoughts?"

"What if the door has sealed in some way?" Rio asked.

"Due to accidental shut down, the doors of the facility are made to open from the inside and only seal to the outside. Most people don't know that because they didn't want anyone to try. However, it would help to have something to bust the door down just in case."

The doctor finally spoke, "There is an axe in the fire extinguisher area of this room. That could help. If we hurry, we should be able to get up there and out the door just holding our breath, it really isn't that far. But, if we have to bust down the door, with no air? It won't be good."

Jordan considered the doctor's words. "I am willing to take those odds."

"Me too," said Harris.

"Okay," the doctor replied, "It sounds like our best option."

There was a long pause. The doctor then asked, "Jose?"

Rio sniffled, "I am not going."

Dr. Pare pleaded with him, but in the end, he would not change his mind. He said he would seal the room up but be inside to let them back in if they could make it back. The three of them gathered their items near the door, crawling and reaching out in the pitch black. Jordan took the axe. In the dark, they had traced in each person's hand the route they would take and had tied a string to each person's belt to keep them together.

Jordan did a last check and they were all ready. "Rio, there is no way to come back for you. This is the last chance. Are you certain this is what you want?"

Jose Rio patted him on the shoulder and just said, "Go."

They opened the door and quickly walked to the right, opening the first door into the stairwell with the simple push bar. They headed up the stairs in pitch black and Jordan tripped over a body that he tried unsuccessfully to steer those following him away from and Harris gasped. This little intake of a bad air mixture made her short on breath, and Kane had to pull her up the last flight as he kicked open the door with an axe in his left hand and his right arm around Donna Harris.

As they collapsed onto the ground, gulping in the fresh outdoor air, they should have been in relative darkness. But the few hours (it had only been close to two by this point) in the pitch black of the facility had made the darkness of the outdoor lab in the afternoon seem downright bright in comparison. Though it could not have been more than four in the afternoon, it was pretty dark, because this section of the facility was right up against a cliff. Its small openings were not enough to compensate. Jordan was surprised that enough light came in to keep the garden alive. The stress, the lack of oxygen, and the run for life from the lab had exhausted all three of them and they decided to wait until morning to plan out their next move. They were each able to lie down in the dirt, close to one another. They barely knew each other, but they were together now and had a bond that he hoped would last.
CHAPTER ELEVEN

Kyle heard the rattling and knocking at the store door, but with all that had just happened, he was not very interested in opening the door. It seemed that he and Jessica were better off with that particular barrier between them and the outside world. He looked back to where his boss, Jeff, was tied and gagged in the corner. Jeff had tried to attack them, maybe even kill them, when the power had gone out. Kyle just didn't understand it; he had always got along with Jeff. Then the power goes out, and after a short period, Jeff just went nuts. He had gone to the gun section of the store and opened the cases, loading a shotgun and a pistol with ammo and ordering Kyle and Jessica out.

He heard a muffled call, "Kyle!" With great relief, he realized it was his dad. A sense of 'it will all be alright' washed over Kyle as he ran forward, yelling out to Jessica that it was okay, and unlocked the security gate, then the door to let Kyle's dad Cal in. Along with his dad were his Dad's friend, Adam, and two blonde women he had never seen before. He let them all into the store. As soon as the last passed the door, he immediately locked both door and gate back up. Once he had done that, he turned and gave his dad a long hug.

"Pop, it is good to see you. Some crazy shit is going on."

Cal just nodded calmly, looking around the store. It was as if there were nothing unusual about the day. Kyle never ceased to be shocked at his dad's ability to remain calm under stress. He assumed that is what had made his dad such a great soldier. Calm under fire is what people always told him about his dad. Cal turned toward those following him.

"Kyle, you know Adam," he started as Kyle reached forward and shook each hand in turn. "These young ladies are Erica and Ellen. They have decided to come with us, as this thing, whatever it is, seems to call for people to stay together." Kyle nodded his assent. Cal continued, "Do you have anyone else here with you, son?"

Kyle was surprised that he had forgotten his friend, "Oh, yeah, sorry." Turning toward the back he yelled out, "It's okay, it's my dad."

The young brunette with big blue eyes came out from her hiding place behind some shelves. She was obviously terrified. Kyle introduced her, "Dad, this is my friend Jessica, she works here." Turning back to the group he said, "This is my Dad, Cal. This is Adam, and, I am sorry..."

The taller, skinny lady with long blonde hair said, "Erica."

The shorter, fit woman with mid-neck blonde hair said, "Ellen."

Everyone shook hands and Kyle stepped close, "Dad, my boss is tied up back there, he tried to shoot us. I disarmed him and took him down." Cal just nodded and put his hand behind his son's neck, pulling him close into another hug.

"Show me to him. Adam, just in case, will you come with me? Ladies, if you don't mind keeping Jessica company? She looks like she could use some." Cal followed his son back to the corner, where Jeff was being held. "What happened?" he asked.

"When the power went out, we all sort of hunkered down to wait it out. I mean, it happens, right?" Adam and his dad both agreed that it did sometimes happen. "But, then the phones didn't work. Our cell phones didn't work. We saw all of the cars stop, some crashing like their brakes didn't work. We locked up, because it is policy in these types of situations, if there are these types of situations. We had locked the front, and pulled the gate down, we were watching people act weirdly out the window and we see these people get in a fight right outside. A cop ran up to stop it, could not have been more than twenty feet in front of us, and he pulled his gun at some point. The guy beat him up and sent him running back that way. It was crazy. But, Jeff...he just went wild. He ran to the back and pulled a shotgun and a pistol out of their cases and began loading them. Jess and I ran back to see what was up and he pointed the gun at me and told us to get out. He said it was the 'beginning of the end.' I told him to calm down, it was okay, this was just a power outage and the power would be back soon. He pulled the shotgun on me and pulled the trigger, twice. I was so shocked, I just stood there, and then he pulled the pistol and I had to act. I disarmed him and knocked him out cold. Then Jess helped me tie him up, and we have sat here for the whole time since that. She is really freaked out."

Cal nodded. "Adam, would you check on this man, and make sure he is okay? Kyle, take me to the gun case."

Leading his dad to the case, he unlocked it and his dad took out various weapons and ammunition, loaded them and pulled the triggers. The first two times he did this, Kyle recoiled, waiting for the inevitable sound of the guns discharging. But, they just made clicking noises. His dad repeated this with about ten different weapons and then stared off in deep thought.

"This isn't just a power outage, is it?" Kyle asked. His dad was the smartest, most deductive person he knew. If anyone could figure this out, he could. But his Dad just looked at him and shook his head.

"No." He didn't elaborate, he just headed back to where Adam and Jeff were. Arriving, he bent over Jeff and removed the gag from his mouth. "You told my son this was the beginning of the end. What did you mean?"

The man looked up wide-eyed and whispered a single word, "Armageddon."

Adam let out a little chuckle and Cal shook his head, as if to say, "don't make fun of the crazy guy", but Kyle wasn't sure it was that easy to dismiss the guy's ideas.

"Dad," he started, "what if he isn't far from the mark?"

Cal looked at his son with a very reassuring smile. It was the first time since the lights went out that Kyle had felt that everything was going to be okay. His Dad clapped him on the shoulder, "I don't know what this is, but I am pretty sure it isn't any kind of apocalypse."

The three men walked back up to the front, and Cal gathered the six of them together. It would be seven with Jeff, but Cal had left him bound up in the back of the store. "Okay," he began, "we won't be able to figure this out from here, but I think it is safe to say that we will be without power for a while. We have some decisions to make."

The skinny girl, Erica, spoke up, "Mr. Ward? Why do you think the power won't be on soon?"

Cal seemed to consider her question for a moment, not like he didn't know, but like he didn't know how to communicate it. "There are a lot of reasons. I will be more than happy to elaborate later, but we have to get to the rest of my family. You two need to decide if you are coming with us, or if you want to venture out on your own. You are both more than welcome, and I would strongly advise staying in numbers, but I have no hold over you if you want to go."

The women looked at each other, but it was Jessica who spoke up. "I don't have anyone in this area. Can I come with you? I would rather stay with Kyle; he is the only person I know...except Jeff."

Kyle really hadn't thought about Jeff. "What are we going to do with him?"

"We can't leave him inside. At some point he will figure out there are more than guns in this store. We can give him the option of joining us too, but that will mean continued restraint. My guess is he will head in the direction of his own home. We will keep his keys to keep everyone safe."

"I want to go with you also," Ellen offered, "My family is all the way in Walsenburg. If the cars don't work, I can't get to them. Friends are important; I would rather stay with you guys."

"Me too, I guess," Erica added, "I didn't really think about that, but I am here for school. My family lives in Nebraska."

Cal nodded again, as if accepting that what he thought would happen is just what happened. Kyle had seen his Dad do this before. He allowed people their own choices, but always seemed to know what those choices would be. "Then we come to the harder choices. I believe we have a long haul ahead of us. I would not normally suggest this, but I think we need to take some items from the store."

Kyle's head jerked up and his dad was staring right at him. "Pop, I am responsible for this stuff, for the store. I can't just take things."

Cal sighed, but not with dismissal, more with the knowledge that his son was going to have to make a hard choice. "I know, bud. You are a responsible and honest young man, and I am very proud of you for it. Maybe I am wrong, and we won't need anything. But, if I am right, we will need some help with survival and I don't want to have to come back without a car to try to get stuff. Does that make sense? If I am wrong, I will pay for everything we take when the power comes back up. But, if I am right, it really won't be an issue."

Adam stepped in this time. "What do you think is happening?"

Cal looked at Kyle and Adam, from one to the other multiple times before answering. "I will explain it all when we get somewhere settled. For now, I need to ask you to trust me."

Adam just nodded like that was all he needed. Kyle just said, "Of course."

Cal then broke down what they needed to take and assigned each person to grab specific items. He listed backpacks, dried trail food, compound bows and arrows, and some clothing items. He told each person to go to the shoe area and pick out the best, most comfortable, hiking shoes. He also picked some out for family members in sizes he knew they wore. He had the group grab assorted camping gear, climbing gear and other items which made no sense to Kyle. But he trusted his Dad. When Cal had checked everything was there, and they had all packed backpacks for themselves, he brought Kyle back to where Jeff was.

Cal knelt down by Jeff's side. "I understand that you have beliefs about our current surroundings. I may not believe the same things, but I do believe we are in a perilous circumstance. I am offering you the chance to come with us. We are going to meet up with my family in Black Forest. There will be room for you. Do you want to go with us?"

The man looked back at Cal with suspicion. "If I say no?"

"We will let you go, outside. We will keep your keys to make sure you cannot access the firearms, but you can leave of your own free will."

"Then I choose go." Jeff looked like he had fooled Cal, but Cal just looked resigned and sad. He rose, and lifted Jeff to his feet. "Kyle, let's take him out front."

They walked back up front. The day was turning to dusk and the light was growing dim outside, but it was considerably brighter out there than it was in the store. They all filed out the front and Kyle locked the gate behind them, and then did the same with the front door.

Cal turned around to Jeff. "Kyle, cut him loose. Jeff, I wish you the best of luck." Cal stuck out his hand to shake and Jeff just looked at it before walking off to the south, not even giving the inch that would be a friendly handshake. Cal grinned over at Adam at some inside joke that Kyle assumed related to their time serving together in the army. "Alright, we have a little light. Let's walk."

They walked up the back road that passed the police station and they could see no movement inside, no lights, and no people. Just on the edge of turning to night, they came up to the main regional hospital. There they saw a few people crying on the front drive, where the emergency vehicles normally would be. Kyle's group walked right up to them.

"Ma'am?" Adam asked as they came close to what they could now see were nurses. "Is everything alright?"

"No," the woman responded bitterly, as she looked up to Adam's face, "We lost so many. So many."

Cal tried to comfort the woman, "May we ask what happened?"

The woman just sobbed, so one of her companions answered. "Nothing. Nothing happened. The generators didn't come on. The pain meds didn't work, none of them. Our patients just died, all of them. I don't understand what is happening."

Cal said, "I am sorry for your loss", and waved everyone on to follow him. The clouds built up in the afternoon, and shortly after passing the hospital, it began to rain. This was not unusual on the front range in the summer. It being July, they were just thrilled it wasn't thunderstorms. Within a mile of walking, though, it just began to pour. The rain and wind pelted them, stinging their skin and drenching them. This had gone from common rain to torrent, and the group knew they needed shelter. Additionally, the clouds were blocking moonlight and it was close to pitch dark out here. They trudged on ahead until Kyle remembered a place nearby.

"The pool house," he shouted out and everyone just stared, peering in the deepening darkness to see if he had perhaps gone insane. "Dad, the pool house is just up here. The neighborhood rec area."

His dad nodded and they picked up the pace, finding their way in the darkness to the pool house of the neighborhood homeowner's association. As they approached, they found the place unlocked. It was fortuitous, and unusual. The best bet was that someone must have left it when the power went out. The six of them filed in, wet to the bone and cold, even in the warm afternoon. They searched through the small building, finding no other occupants.

The night continued to be warm and their clothes mostly dried out quickly. None of them were prepared for the walk and everyone except the two recent soldiers did not have the stamina yet for the excessive trek. The result was that the group was exhausted and most of them fell right to sleep. Having done their very best to lock up the pool house, they had some semblance of security, but there were no guarantees. Kyle had the impression that his father was sleeping lightly, ready to jump up if the situation called for it. Luckily, it did not. They all got a great night's sleep, or as great a sleep as one can have with no blankets or pillows, on a hard rec room floor, with the sound of torrents of rain beating down on the roof of the building.
CHAPTER TWELVE

Jenny looked up and down the road. It was absolutely pouring down rain. She didn't know if she had ever seen it rain like this in Colorado Springs. Can things get any weirder? She thought to herself. She peered across the street at the martial arts studio. There had been a steady stream of the studio's students coming and going all day. Now that the heavy rain was coming down, they all huddled inside the door and looked outside, much as she was doing now. It was so dark, and the rain so thick, that she only could see them when they moved.

She hadn't eaten much for most of the day, so Jenny was beginning to feel the pangs of hunger and occasionally her stomach let her know it was empty rather audibly. Having finished the lunch she brought with her, which wasn't much, Jenny was now out of food. The only way she knew to calm her physical discomfort was yoga or simple meditation. She decided to do a mixture of both.

As she settled into the lotus position, Jenny concentrated on her breath, making it slow and steady. She was very intentional with her intake and the expressing of her breath. She focused on the pit of her stomach, centering all thought, and the strangest thing happened. In her mind, she saw a small light in the area she was focusing on. As she concentrated, it grew in both brightness and size. She continued until the light settled into place, a perfect view of chakras, just as she had seen in every book she had read on the subject. She felt a low throbbing of heat emanating from her entire body and then could see in her mind, this heat turn to a bright golden aura. Knowing what she had seen before, she opened her eyes and looked around. She could still see her aura, but nothing else, then she realized it was because she could see no people.

Jenny rose from her pose and walked to the window. Peering between the blinds, she looked up and down the street. Through the rain and the dark, she could see colors and shapes. She looked to the door of the martial arts studio. There, in the doorway and in the windows, she saw many brown shapes of various shades. But, there was something in the midst of the group that greatly concerned her. There was a black figure, darker than even this awful night's darkness. It was like a void; it was so dark. It was surrounded by and outline of silver and red. She could see the brown shapes go to it and go away. She looked away from the window, somewhat concerned that someone else could see her aura. Turning her gaze inward, to look at her own aura, it was a mixture of bright gold and violet. She didn't know what the colors meant, but she knew they meant something.

There were magazines and books that might illuminate the issue for her, but books don't have auras and her aura did not provide any illumination which might allow her to read in the dark.

Well, she thought, I have nothing else to do, let's practice with the meditative approach and the sight.

From that point on, Jenny Martinez began working on bringing the sight into her control. She played with what caused it to appear, what caused it to stop, and then worked on making both happen at will. She sat on that floor for hours, learning to control this new gift. She was so interested in the meditation, that at some point, she fell asleep. It was a deep sleep, a good sleep.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Ted peeked at his sister-in-law, sitting next to the front window, staring out into the darkness. Everyone else had long since gone to sleep, Natalee and Max sharing Max's room, Kayla passed out in their bed and the pastor, Rich, asleep in a corner of the kitchen underneath the dining table. Ted liked the new friend they had made. He was a much more easy-going guy than any of the chaplains he had met in the service, and certainly more of a normal guy than the bible-thumpers Ted had met over the years. But, Ted was still prejudiced. He had grown up in a Jewish home but had seen his own mother give up all of her money to a preacher in Los Angeles in the hopes of a miracle cure for her cancer, and none had come. Reason didn't work with his Mom and Ted had become so embittered when his Mom had passed away. Once he discovered how much money she had donated to this scam-artist, any tolerance for the church had melted away. He vowed to give this guy, Rich, a chance, but at the same moment, he was not going to let his family be taken advantage of again.

Right now, his main concern was Kate. When everyone else had gone to sleep, she had sat next to that window, waiting for her husband. She had assured him, "He knows we are here. He will come for us."

Ted had no reason to doubt that. In fact, Ted had counted on the steadfast nature of Calvin Ward since they were both eight years old. If Cal could get here, he would be here for his wife and daughter. Hell, Cal would be here for Ted, and Kayla, and Maxine too. It was just the kind of guy he was, he was the perfect person to bring into battle, he never left anyone behind, no matter what.

Ted thought back to a tour in Iraq, where Ted's squad was pinned down under enemy fire. A Humvee had come to rescue them and had hit an IUD, blowing all the way into the air and toppling over four or five times. There was no chance that anyone had survived. There wasn't even much left of the Humvee. Cal's squad had been sent in to recover Ted's squad, and as soon as he got there, Ted could see on his brother-in-law's face that there was no chance he was leaving without getting to the damaged vehicle. Ted didn't even try to talk him out of the rescue, even though the Major was screaming over the radio to pull out. Ted would only find out later that Cal had violated a direct order to come save him and his men. Cal told all of the men except Ted and Cal's medic, PFC Cross, to pull back and then the three of them charged into open fire to see if anyone was there. There had been four men in that Humvee, and three of them were in pieces. The fourth was badly injured and they got him out. All three of the rescuers were injured. Cross even received a Silver Star and Ted received a Bronze Star for their actions. But the man who refused to leave a fellow soldier behind intentionally took the blame for refusing a direct order. The Major went after him with a passion. SFC Ward and Major Fine had never got along, of that there was no doubt. But, Calvin Ward had defied that order to save a brother in arms, and it had worked. The rest of them got medals, and Cal got a discharge. After twenty-six years in the army, Cal was drummed out by a vindictive prick who wasn't half the soldier that Ward was. It took a Brigade Commander stepping in, just to get Cal an honorable discharge.

Now, that brilliant soldier's wife worried at the window, just hoping to see her husband and son come walking out of the rain. Ted walked up, Kate turning toward him as he approached. He could see the tears welling up. He put his hand on her shoulder.

"He'll get here, Kate," he said softly, "You know he will." Kate nodded and wiped a tear from her eye. Ted looked out the window she was staring through. "Jesus." The rain was like nothing he had seen since he had been stationed in Panama in the 1980's. "I didn't think this kind of rain happened here."

Kate shook her head. "It doesn't," she whispered, "In the decade we have lived here, I have never seen anything like it. Do you think it has anything to do with the power going out?"

Ted looked out at the road, seeing the huge streams of water rushing down the streets and into the storm drains, where it was beginning to pool into small ponds. He doubted there was any connection. "I don't think so, but I don't know, kid." Ted always called her kid, and it had the effect he was hoping for. It is the little bit of normalcy that relaxes a worried person. He learned that from Cal. Kate's shoulders relaxed almost unnoticeably, but it was enough, Ted knew that. "You should get some sleep."

Kate nodded. "I will, as soon as I feel tired in the least."

Ted gave her a hug. "Come on, why don't you go climb into bed with your sister. I will take the sofa."

Kate frowned. "No, Ted, it is fine. I can sleep on the sofa."

Ted looked over to where Rich was curled up in the dining room. "We have new friends. I would feel more comfortable if I took the couch. Would that be okay?"

Kate looked over at Rich's curled up form just as the pastor began to snore. She smiled at her sister's husband a broad, joking smile. "You got it."

Ted gave a soft chuckle. "Go, before I change my mind."

They hugged again, and Kate walked back to the bedroom. Ted looked out one more time, then lay down on the couch to get some rest. He thought for a long time about Kate's question about the cause of the outage. Something wasn't right. He wasn't sure what it was, but this was something different than just a power outage. He slept soon after, but it was a restless sleep, full of vivid dreams.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The rain had been pouring through the small openings in the "outer garden" for hours and Jordan was just happy that the drainage worked in this small, confined space. They had few dry spaces, but he, the doctor, and Harris were all able to find good spots to lie down. They kept the door propped to let air in, just in case Rio ever tried to follow them, but in the couple of hours they had been up here, there had been no sign, nor sound, of him.

Doctor Pare huddled in close, even though the rain had not made it considerably colder. Quite the contrary, the rain added humidity to what was already a dark, hot space. Jordan began to wonder if he would become a mushroom, or just sprout them from his clothing. As far as he could tell, they had been outside for perhaps three hours when it had begun raining. Never having had to keep time without either sun or time piece, he couldn't be sure.

"Do you think we can go back and get him?" The doctor asked quietly, trying not to wake PFC Harris. She was thinking of Rio.

"There is no point," Jordan told her, "Each door we went through is made to seal back up as soon as it shuts. That is how I know none of the others made it out. The idea was to keep radioactive air from spreading if some got in. However, right now, that seems a little short-sighted."

"So, what are we going to do?" The doctor asked. Jordan was amazed that he was being given such deference as to his wishes. He was the highest rank of the actual soldiers, but he wasn't even an NCO. Though Dr. Pare was a civilian, she had authority in these cases.

"I don't know," he said, "What would you like to do?"

There was a long pause. "I would like to leave it up to you."

Jordan didn't say anything. He just sat and listened to the drip, drip, drip of the rain pouring through the little opening on the top of the enclosure. It was actually quite peaceful. It reminded him of a noise machine he had heard once that put babies to sleep. As he sat and listened to it, he also began to hear the heavy breathing of Dr. Emma Pare. Apparently, it did pretty good job of lulling forty-year-old doctors to sleep also.

DAY TWO

"The rain it came, and the flood soon rose. What could Noah do, but watch and hope?"

– Pastor Brick Martin, The Spring Life Church
CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Jenny woke to the sound of her own hunger. She smiled at the way her body was communicating with her. It had always been fascinating to her how the body would talk to a person to let them know what was needed. When it comes to hunger, one gets the feeling of emptiness, followed by a patter and grumbling from the stomach area. If one waits long enough to eat, the body will make an even louder noise, and eventually that will be followed by a severe pain or cramp. The body is an amazing thing. With the loud groan coming from her mid-section, she knew she needed to find some sustenance soon.

Rising up, she also felt the weakness in her legs from not enough fuel being fed to her body. Carefully standing, she stabilized herself before moving to the window. Outside, the rain that had begun the night before didn't look like it was letting up in the slightest. It was hazy, but she could make out the figures in the clear windows of the dojo across the street. They had found umbrellas and three of them were standing out front. Using the technique she had developed the night before, she turned her inner sight on and immediately saw so much more. She could not see the black figure, so she figured Mr. Fine must be away from the window. Reflecting on it the night before, she knew that was who the black figure must be. Her vague recollection about auras told her that black was not an evil color. If she remembered it correctly, black auras were about power, desire and oppression. She did not at all remember what some of the other colors were and reminded herself to try to go through the books in the light to find something about aura colors. If her phone worked, she would have googled it. But her phone didn't work. In fact, nothing worked. She was amazed at how helpless she felt, how in the dark, without her smart phone. It was a good thing to remember for when this all ended.

As she looked up the street, she saw shapes and various colors – a brown, a blue, a red, a muddy gold, a dirty gray and the occasional flash of white. It was actually all she could do to not just sit there and marvel at the colors. But there was activity across the street and she saw the black aura reappear. Mr. Fine has made an appearance, she thought to herself. She watched him order some men to go one way and some to go another on their side of the street. Then he looked across at her building. She shrunk away from the window. There is no way he could see me through the blinds, the shade and the window covering, she thought.

She had just about calmed herself when she saw the shadow and heard the knock. She remained silent, uncertain why she was afraid of this man. A harder knock came after.

"Hey yoga girl" came the friendly sounding voice muffled by glass and window dressings. It was a voice practiced in friendliness with a purpose, it sent cold shivers down her spine. "Come on, I know you are in there. I want to ask you something." He knocked again, but Jenny stayed hidden behind the counter. She then saw a violet color enter the black aura that was practically emanating through the front of her studio. She knew instinctively he was preparing to do something, but what? Apparently, something distracted him. She heard a voice and he moved off. Jenny knew she would have to make her way out of this building and get away, the man was not going to wait for long. At some point, he would lose patience and do whatever it was that was in his head. She didn't want to be around for that.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Kayla woke and did her best to prepare breakfast for everyone. It was still raining cats and dogs outside, giving her pause to consider what to make. In the end, she decided bread with peanut butter might be best. They still had some fruit, so she cut some up for everyone. She made her apologies, but the group was universally 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 in this uncertainty. She could only imagine the worry.

Natalee walked out of the back yawning and stretching, grabbing an apple as she passed the table. 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. The light strum and easy melody was relaxing to all of them. It even made Kate come out of the window and sit next to her daughter. Natalee rested 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." This was her playful and passive-aggressive manner of reminding them that they did not go to church, as though they didn't already know.

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 tune 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 could not have cared less.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

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 caught the eye of each person in turn. He 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."

Each person grabbed their backpacks and slung them on. Their faces showed the apprehension of the slog ahead, but each was determined to do what they could. Without another word, they walked out into the pouring rain. It would be nice to think that it took time to drench them to the bone, but anyone who has ever been in this kind of rain knows that it is like jumping into a pool. One moment you are dry, and the next, you are wet from head to toe and every stitch of clothes is soaking within seconds.

The streets outside 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. This bunker was made to withstand much more than a little rain, everyone knew that. But, the design was such that they assumed things that would never happen. One of those things was that the location would get an abundance of moisture in this nearly desert climate. This was a spot of good luck, indeed.

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. Many of these plants would have died immediately in this kind of downpour. Emma was a botanist, and having no other activities to keep the stress of their situation at bay, 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 her with the care and talked about the plants, learning all she could. But, her interest waned, and now she 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 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 that way."

"Yeah?" Harris was in no mood for Jordan's nay-saying, "I got nothing but time, so I think I will keep this up."

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 unexpectedly 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 his sake, not her own, 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 in the dirt where Emma had not yet planted. He pulled his fellow soldier into the shallow grave. This area was all top-soil on concrete, so there wasn't much depth to bury her in. She watched as 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 he 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, a fallen soldier and true."

Both Jordan and Emma bowed their heads for about a minute. Emma 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. She made a place in the mound and planted it above her resting place. 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 splashed on her face like a wakeup call 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, 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. The lack of salt on his skin and tongue was the only difference between this and being on a beach in 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 sighed and steeled themselves to head into the torrent of water and wind again. Ellen began the walk out front on point and a warm smile creased Cal's face. Adam knew that his old boss liked anyone who showed initiative. It was the best way to win him over. This young woman was going to be fine. They all fell in to a single line and moved out toward the highway.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The rain was coming down in sheets. Ted stood at the back door, watching it pool in every dent in the earth. It had been pouring for almost twenty-four hours. It would be dark soon. Another hot, wet day in an area not suited for such things. He had been avoiding the front window, where Kate was, for fear that she might notice his growing concern. They did not share the same concern, and he didn't want her to see his. Where Kate was worried something had happened to her husband and son, Ted was worried about something else.

Ted was assessing a catastrophe. Colorado Springs and its surrounding area normally has an arid climate. The humidity in the area rarely gets above thirty percent. It is nearly a desert. The red earth in the area is made up of sandstone. These two facts together could only indicate one thing with this deluge. It meant flooding, it meant washed out roads and bridges. Without power or communications, he was worried they would be stranded here much longer than he could provide this many people with provisions. He was thinking tactically.

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. It was a few doors down, so Ted was unconcerned about his safety, but he hoped the man returned with some food to help out.

Ted looked at the dogs, all laying on the porch. He wasn't sure what had first caught his eye, but their heads all raised as one. Each canine rose to its feet in unison, staring at something in the rain. As hard as he searched, he could see nothing. Looking again to the dogs, 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. It was such a shock that Ted didn't think twice before opening the door to see what was up. They were gone into the trees without a trace before he could even step out the door. It was one of the strangest things he had ever seen. Turning to see if anyone else had seen that, he came face-to-face with his ten-year-old daughter, a look of abject horror and rage across her tiny features.

He stepped toward her to check on her, "Sweetheart, what's up?"

Like a bolt, she ran a dead sprint, as fast and suddenly as the dogs had, right out the door and into the woods. He saw a jovial Rich come through the door, his arms laden with food and gear, as he turned to try to stop Max.

"Max! Come back, it is not safe!" he called, as Kayla and the rest of the family came up to the window. Rich dropped everything and joined him as he stepped out into the rain. Ted turned back to the family, "What the hell was that? Never mind. I will get her. I have never seen anything like that."

Kayla called after him, "Neither have I. Go get her," turning to her mother and sister, she said, "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 Max had just disappeared, shouting for her. The rain itself acted as a curtain against sound. Ted wondered if his daughter could even hear him.
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.

Putting his head right up to her ear, he said, "Oh let me cut you out of these panties, and then the fun begins."

The bitch was whimpering quickly, sobbing and shaking her head. He looked up into her eyes, but she wasn't looking at him, she was looking past him.

"Umm, Uncle Alton?" Craig stammered.

Alton turned to see a skinny pre-teen blonde girl staring him down. If this had been a grown man, Alton might have grabbed a weapon. She had murder in her eyes, it was a look Alton understood well.

"Well, lookee what the storm brought us Craig," he turned toward the little girl, twirling the knife in his hand. "Have you come to give Uncle Alton something sweet? Uncle Alton is going to hurt you. You know that don't you?"

He moved closer to her with each word, and she just stood there, saying nothing. The little prey waiting to be taken. Alton smiled to himself. He was about three feet away from her. He could almost smell her blood in his mind. This day was turning out even better than he had thought. He was just about to reach out and snatch her by the hair, when she spoke.

It was a simple word. She snapped it out low, almost to herself. All she said was, "Now."

Alton reached for her. He watched aghast as a pitbull leaped forward and clamped down on his outstretched arm. Any thought he had of fighting it off was stopped when a mutt of some sort tore into his leg, its teeth rending his flesh and spraying his blood out into the rain. A huge shepherd jumped over him as he fell and ran full steam at something behind him. He jerked his head upward at his nephew's scream. For a quick moment, the pitbull released his arm. Blood was spewing from the gash near his wrist. Alton reached for it, but never had the time. As he looked down, the vision of the pitbull's huge, gaping maw was a flash in his mind. In some way, he saw the snap as it latched on to his throat, clamping down hard on the flesh exposed by his moment of stupidity in caring for his kin. That small movement of looking up had exposed his throat and the dog had not hesitated. A moment later, it shook its head and ripped out the majority of the soft tissue in Alton's neck. He heard and felt the crack of his neck breaking beneath the onslaught. It was over as quick as it had started. Alton Tooney, convicted rapist and sexual sadist, died before he hit the ground.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Ted had run right into the clearing to the strangest sight. He saw a woman naked and tied up to a tree. There were two men in the clearing that he didn't recognize. One of them, the older, had reached for Maxine, a lurid threat in his eyes. Ted had seen the look before, he didn't need to hear him to know his intent. But before his rage could even rise in his throat, his daughter had mumbled something, and the three dogs had attacked the two men. It was the most brutal attack he had ever seen, and he had served in four war zones. There was no way around it, he had just witnessed his ten-year-old daughter order her dogs to kill. He was petrified and weirdly proud, all at once.

He could not wrap his mind around the vision before him. It was ridiculous. The men clearly seemed to be in the process of raping a woman, and for all he could tell, somehow his little girl had known, had run to the woman's rescue and had unleashed the hounds of hell on her attackers. Then it was over. He watched, dumbfounded, as Max reached down and scratched princess on the back of the head. It looked up at her with its tongue lolled out the side, blood splattered across its face and chest. The Shepherd had caught the other man standing and had grabbed him by the side, ripping at the flesh with teeth and claws. That man sat on the ground, holding his own entrails, dying in front of their eyes. The dogs were now as docile as they had been vicious just moments earlier. The rain itself was cleaning their fur.

He was standing there stupefied as Rich inched past him and untied the woman from the tree and took his coat off to cover her. His little girl was back to normal that quickly also. She walked up and threw her arms around her father's leg.

"It's okay, Daddy," that little, angelic face looked up at him and smiled a calm smile, "I saved her." Then Maxine and the dogs started a slow walk back to the house. The rain didn't seem to bother them at all.

Rich was helping the woman walk in the same direction, back toward the house and passed within a foot of Ted, who was just standing there stupefied.

"Come on, buddy," the pastor offered, "We can figure it out back at the house."

The man who was trying to push his intestines back into the gaping wound the dog had created looked up and reached a hand out for help. Ted had seen what they were up to, anyone with two eyes could see it. On top of that, there was nothing he could do for the man. His combined apathy for a rapist and his sense of powerlessness in the situation took control. He ignored the mimed plea for help, turned, and walked back to his house. Whether from the rain muffling the sound, or because the man no longer had an intact diaphragm, Ted never heard a peep out of him. Ted didn't know it, but Craig Tooney died within moments of watching Ted walk away. His last thought on why Uncle Alton was not helping him.

Ted walked into his living room and saw his wife doting over her daughter, while Kate and Natalee were attending to the woman Rich had brought in. Beth looked at him with a look of query and all Ted could do was shrug. He walked over to his daughter and knelt down so that he could look her right in the eyes.

"Maxine," he said, trying to wipe away the fear and confusion he was feeling, "I need you to tell Daddy about the dogs and how you knew to save that lady."

Kayla looked up at her husband, and was forming a rather serious angry retort, when their daughter spoke. Everyone in the room went silent, except for the continued sobbing of the woman.

"They are my friends, Daddy, I told you that."

Ted was seeing more to the picture than he had before, he knew there was more. "But they are more than that, right?"

"Yeah, I guess so. Princess says she is in my pack, and Rex and Snickers joined after that. We are like a family, like our family, only different."

Ted looked out at the dogs on the porch, where they lay, just like before they ran to the woman's rescue. "Honey, how does Princess talk to you?"

Max looked up at him like these were very strange questions. "In my head, Daddy. Dogs can't make words like you and me. Don't be silly."

Ted was having a hard time with this, but no one else was talking, or even moving. "And Princess told you that the lady was in trouble."

"I don't know how to say it, is it important?" Max was clearly done with this line of questioning.

Kayla spoke up, "please answer your father's questions, sweetie. We need to know."

Max thought for a minute. "It isn't words. It is smells, and sounds, and feelings. It wasn't Princess, not at first. Snickers smelt the fear, and the bad guys, they smelled like, well, like bad. Do you know what I mean?"

Ted nodded. "Okay honey, will you do Daddy a favor and tell me if you need to go, or if the dogs, your pack, let you know anything else?"

Max looked completely bored, like this was a crazy approach, "But they send me these messages all the time, I mean all the time. Do you want me to tell you all of them?"

Ted hugged his daughter, he didn't know what was going on. "I guess just the important ones."

Max squeezed him, "It's okay daddy, I will protect you. My pack is strong. There are more dogs out there, they are wandering and have no pack. Is it okay if I add them to the pack?"

Ted peered into this tiny girl's eyes, "Can you control them baby?"

Max just laughed at this, "They are me, Daddy."

She wandered back to her room. Ted looked back out at the dogs and a large Rottweiler walked out of the woods and lay down on the porch next to the others.

Ted called out, "Maxine?"

The sweet voice of his only daughter called out from her room, "Her name is Queenie."

Ted looked around at the rest of the people in the room, who bore the same incredulous look on their faces that Ted assumed was plastered across his own.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Kyle watched each step the person took in front of him. They splashed mud up with every drop of the foot, but it was immediately drowned by the rainfall from the sky. It was hypnotic. They walked in the single-file line they had made following his Dad's lead, through the pouring rain, up the highway toward where he hoped his mother and sister were. This rain was crazy. It was actually hard to see the people ahead, which is why his dad had wanted them to walk single file. Keep track of the person in front of you and no one gets lost. Through the downpour he could just make out Erica walking close to Adam. It amazed him how oblivious the man was to Erica's advances.

Adam was typical of many of his Dad's friends. He was honest, straight-forward, hyper-capable and completely clueless to interpersonal relationships. Adam was the youngest of his Dad's friends and Kyle had always been fond of him. A man in his mid-thirties, accomplished combat veteran, who was as kind as the day is long. Jesus, Adam, he thought, Does the girl have to throw herself at you? Kyle smiled to himself and shook his head.

Kyle, on the other hand, was not clueless where the opposite sex was concerned. He knew Jessica had liked him, even before all of this happened. He thought she was exceedingly beautiful but was not yet over his two-and-a-half-year relationship with Mary, his high school sweetheart. Mary had gone off to school in Portland, and they had chosen not to stay together. It was hard, even though he knew it was right for both of them. The idea of starting anew with another girl was just not in his interests at the moment, even if she did walk as close to him as Erica was walking to Adam. His family had never liked Mary, always saying that she played games with him. Kyle didn't see it that way.

When they had started up the road, he had chosen to bring up the rear of the group, and Jess had dropped back to walk with him. The night before, she had conveniently made her sleeping spot right next to his. His Dad had given him a big knowing grin at that. It was one of the bad things about having someone with Calvin Ward's gifts as a father, nothing was ever secret.

They didn't really have far to go before their next stop, just up ahead about a mile and a little to the east. The difficulty was this damn rain. It was hard to see through. The mud, and run-off made you feel like you were walking through quicksand and the drench made your clothes very heavy. The wet clothes were also not doing wonder to his underwear, he was chafing something fierce. He was pulled out of his thoughts when Jess tried to make conversation with him.

"Your dad," she said, "He is pretty smart, huh?"

Kyle nodded, "smartest man I have ever known. He may be one of the smartest anyone has ever known, I don't know. People have always put a lot of stock in what he says."

"Do you think he is right about it taking a long time before the power comes back on?" She looked at her feet, she didn't sound that disappointed.

"He is usually right. He really will explain it when we get to where we are going, he doesn't promise unless he can deliver." Kyle wasn't just saying that. His father only made commitments when his plan was to ensure them. He believed his word meant something, it was something you didn't see that often any more. "You can count on him telling us why he thinks what he thinks. Then he will let you decide if you believe it. He will never judge you for not believing it."

"Wow," she said, a big smile crossing her face, "you really like him."

"Well, he is my Dad," Kyle said with a grin.

He could just barely hear Erica and Adam talking to each other up ahead, this rain was both a loud noise, and it muffled any sounds one might otherwise hear. They trudged on through the rain and wind and he could see the school, or at least an outline of the school, up ahead. Ellen, the server from Adam's job, was out in front of the group. She had a great attitude and always seemed to have a smile or an uplifting word. Kyle had liked her immediately. As he stared up through the haze caused by the rain, Kyle saw Ellen start to cross over a little part of the road where the water was running pretty heavily into a drain. Involuntarily, he started to move forward and could see his Dad doing the same. She must know that wasn't safe.

Kyle ran past Adam, right on his Dad's heels. They were both shouting out to Ellen not to cross the water without help. She turned to look at them, the water was up to her knees now. She smiled and was about to shout something back, when she went down into the water. People who weren't used to streams and rivers always underestimated the power of that water. Rain runoff in the street was essentially a fast-moving stream and was more powerful than a human. As he and Cal ran up to the edge of the water, Ellen tried to raise herself up. He knew what she was thinking, the water wasn't even two feet deep, she should be fine. But she wasn't fine, and the Wards knew it.

Ellen steadied herself a bit and began to walk slowly toward them, fighting against the current. Cal was reaching into the pack on his back for climbing rope, when she went down again, this time the water tumbling her over and over. She was on all fours, the water rushing over and against her. Kyle could tell she was strong and working hard to get up, but the first attempt probably took all of her energy. Cal had finished tying the rope around himself and Kyle had wrapped the other side of the rope twice around his body to stabilize himself when he felt Adam grab him around the waist to anchor him. Cal started to inch out into the water toward her, and she rolled over, disappearing from sight. They all stood there looking for her and Cal pointed to the drainage pipe, where all of this water was headed. All five of her companions rushed down to where the pipe was, there was a way to cross the water there. They couldn't see her. The water was dark and full of mud and debris. Having the safety rope around his waist, Cal waded out into the water which at this point was up to near his crotch. The pull on the rope was incredible, it began to cut into Kyle's skin.

There was no sign of her. Somewhere in this twenty yards of rushing water, their companion was under the water, being rolled over in it, unable to see through it, unable to breathe. It was a terrifying thought.

Adam shouted out, "Cal, get out of the water. You won't find her in there."

Cal began to wade back to the edge of the street, almost falling himself three times, until his son reached out and pulled him to safety. They both sat on the ground as the rain washed over them. Adam, Erica and Jessica ran up and down the water, looking for any sign of Ellen. Four or five minutes later, Erica sank to her knees and cried out, "No!"

They all ran to where Erica was kneeling. There, in the water, sort of floating, but clearly stuck on something was the body of Erica's friend. She was face down, and no longer struggling. With a sad look on his face, Cal stood and waded into the water there, while Adam braced himself as the anchor on the shore. Cal pulled Ellen's foot out of something it was caught on and dragged her limp body to the side. After Cal and Ellen were on shore, Adam began mouth to mouth and CPR. It was to no avail. Adam felt for a pulse one more time and then called it. Ellen died in two feet of rainwater. She was vibrant, happy and beautiful. Now, she was dead, and it brought a clarity to how precarious their situation really was.

They all kneeled by her body, oblivious of the rain still pouring down around their heads. They sat there for more than ten minutes before anyone spoke. Erica and Jessica both sobbed.

"What are we going to do with her?" Erica said quietly.

No one said anything. Kyle felt certain his dad had an answer, but for some reason wasn't saying it.

"You just want to leave her here, don't you? Leave her in the middle of the road?" Erica was looking right at his Dad. Calvin Ward kept silent, his head bowed, and his eyes closed.

"Erica, what else are we going to do?" It was Adam who spoke up in answer. "How are we going to carry her? If we could have got a cart back there, maybe we could put her in it and push her to the school."

"Cross, that is enough," Cal opened his eyes, with tears welling up, he looked right at Erica. "I never have, and never would, leave a soldier behind. Ellen was a soldier to me, you all are. We either find a place to bury her, to give her rest, or we carry her with us."

Kyle thought this was crazy. "Dad we can't," he interjected, "We don't have the strength. What would we do with her at the school? Wouldn't it be best to leave her for anyone coming along?"

"Sarge," Adam started, "I am with Kyle here, we can't take her with us."

"Okay, Adam. You decide. What do we do?" Cal's words were a shock to Adam, but Kyle had sort of seen it coming. Cal put it back on Adam, so Erica could see it as a good thing to do. She had conflicting emotions, her admiration of Adam and her feeling of helplessness about her friend. The truth is there were no good answers, and Cal knew it.

Adam looked down and then reached out for Erica's hand, "I think we should bury her in the soft dirt up here, but we have no way to mark it. How do you think she would want to be honored?"

Erica laughed, surprising even his Dad, who turned and looked at her like she might have lost her mind. But Erica was smiling as she said, "We actually talked about that. Isn't that weird? A few weeks ago, we had both watched a Zombie show on TV and we talked about what we wanted to be done to us if we died. She told me she wanted to be left for the animals. She said it was, umm, 'the circle of life' or something like that." Erica wiped away the tears in her eyes, even though her eyes were still filled with rain seconds later. "We leave her here; it is what she wanted. She would have liked that. I am sorry for being difficult."

Cal walked up and put his hand on her shoulder. "You don't need to ever apologize for standing up for your friends. I hope to count myself as one of them someday."

Erica smiled, as she and Adam folded Ellen's arms across her chest. Kyle had seen people do this in movies, and he never understood why. But, here in the wet Colorado afternoon, he got it. It makes them look at rest, instead of thrown away. Erica ran her fingers across Ellen's hair. "Bye, girl. Hope to see you on the other side." Erica sniffled, and Adam put his arm around her to comfort her.

Kyle looked at the two of them. It wasn't a romantic gesture from Adam, he knew that, but he wasn't sure it wouldn't be romantic for long. Adam's care for her was enough to sway any woman, and Erica was already head over heels for him. The five remaining members of the group walked on.

The school wasn't far, making the loss all that more pointless. It only took about fifteen minutes to get there. The light was fading fast as they came up to the front doors. There was an overhang, but it wasn't any better than Target's had been.

Erica pulled on the doors and they rattled, the sound echoed inside the building. "I went to school here," she said.

"Me too," Kyle answered, "weird way to come back."

Erica thought for a moment and looked at Kyle. "When you were here, did you ever break into the tech entrance to the theater?" Kyle shook his head. "Do you know where it is? Around the side?"

"Yeah," Kyle had heard of people doing that. "I don't know if they fixed it since I left a couple of years ago, but you could still hit that door hard and the lock would pop back then. Wait here."

Kyle ran over around the side and up to the stage entrance in the back of the building, near the baseball diamond. He had been told about this when he was a freshman at the school, but he had never taken advantage of it. It was mostly something the stoners did, which gave him a new view of Erica. As he had been told years ago, he lowered his shoulder and rammed it against the door in an upward fashion. The door just popped open. Not knowing how to get through the building in the dark, he ran back around to get the group and led them back to the door. They all hurried inside. It was dark, but it was warm and dry. The door was even three steps up from the ground level, so no water was flooding the room.

Erica had apparently been involved in drama eight years ago when she graduated, so she still had a decent memory of the layout. A few bruised shins later, she had opened the costume closet. It was nearly impossible to see, but they were able to find enough clothing to lie on the floor and make that comfortable. They spread almost all pieces of soft clothing they could find and lie together on the floor of the backstage at the high school. The dark and the quiet were ideal for how tired the whole group was. It had taken them hours to travel maybe three or four miles. They secured the door on Cal's orders and settled in for the night. In the absolute blackness of that night, he felt Jessica put her hand in his. He fell asleep with that comfort.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Eric stood for a while in deep thought. He was at his private dojo in the downtown area of Colorado Springs but would need to make it back to base at some point in the next 24 hours. He could explain his absence in the short term by making something up about helping the townsfolk, but at some point, the Old Man would lose his shit if Major Fine wasn't there to take care of things. He looked back to where his students were wrangling a family into the area that Eric had set up for them. He really needed to get this under control. In a strange way, the Middle East had been easier than this. He had been a part of a conquering force, the people knew to listen, to do what they were told. When the people did not, he sometimes had to take harsh measures to deal with it. Whatever was happening here, in his town, was different. This was partly due to the fact that they were all Americans, and partly due to the fact that Eric Fine was not officially in charge, and not in a position commanding troops with guns. What these people didn't realize was that he was protecting them, they all looked at him the way villagers always looked at the man in charge, like he was some sort of oppressor.

In the cool light of peace and freedom, it is sometimes hard to see what needs to be done in war, or conflict, or stress. He had made a career out of taking charge, and smoothing out the situation, no matter the necessary action. Eric was quick to decide, trained by the U.S. Army and deadly combat, to control his surroundings. This was for the safety of all, but he needed to figure out how to convey this to the people he was rounding up. There was safety in numbers, anyone who could help would be added to the ranks. Anyone who could hurt, would be confined. Eric knew the power wouldn't be on today, it was already almost completely dark. But he still had hope for tomorrow. If it didn't come on tomorrow, then a new set of decisions would have to be made.

One of the students from his dojo called out, "Soldiers approaching!"

Eric ran over to the barricade he had his men make out of the cars on the road. It wasn't too hard to create a barrier at each end of the street. This sort of power outage brought lawlessness, looting and bad actions. Eric had determined to keep this street safe, and he would not let anyone interfere.

He saw the men coming up, armed with rifles. The rifles had bayonets attached. He hadn't seen that in years. As they came close, he was certain he recognized the man leading them. He called out.

"Lt. Rodriguez? Is that you?" He waved and told his men to move one of the cars out of the way and they began pushing.

"Major?" the Lieutenant saluted, then slung his rifle over his shoulder, "Well, holy shit!" A big grin crossed the man's face. "There anywhere to get my men out of this rain?"

Eric smiled good-naturedly, but he also kept reminding himself internally that these soldiers were not his men, they might have a different purpose. He needed some info, so he invited them in. "What do you got? Ten, twelve? Yeah, we got room in the dojo. No light though."

"Yeah," Rodriguez responded, "ain't no light anywhere, Major."

They all walked back to the dojo and Eric began to work a plan in his head to get info, not give much, and then get these guys on their way. Walking through the double-glass door of the dojo, Eric pointed to two of his students to guard the door and keep watch on both sides of the street. He looked across to where that hot, young yoga gal was holed up. He didn't want to scare her, but he needed to know why she wasn't coming to the door, he needed to categorize her as a friendly, or unfriendly. He had other needs at the moment.

"Your men here have good discipline," Rodriguez started the conversation.

"Ah, some of them are ex-grunts is all. They are my students now, not my men." Eric lied, every man here was practically sworn to him, he knew he could count on them. The ones he wasn't sure about; he had pressured to check on their families. There was one problem case he had tied up on another floor with some rabble rousers from down the street. This was something he didn't want getting back to General Stone, who they all called "the Old Man."

"Well, I am not surprised they fall in line when under stress. Man, Major, it is good to see you. We could really use your leadership right now." Rodriguez was holding something back.

"What's up, Rodriguez?" Eric comforted the officer with a hand on his shoulder.

The Lieutenant walked away from ear shot to talk to him in a low voice, "The men don't know about this. I would guess most officers don't. Not sure why Colonel Mann sent me out, as most people who knew about it were kept in the command hut on base. Maybe they didn't catch that I was on duty this morning." Eric stood close to the Lieutenant, he wasn't sure he wanted anyone else to hear what he was about to hear. "About 0700 this morning, comms went out in India. The Mountain was tracking this massive outage as it moved across the planet and we lost one station after another. We weren't sure what it was, solar flare, nuclear, whatever at first. Not my area, so I still don't know. But the bases had time to prepare, between six and seven hours. As it spread in a clean line around the earth, like the whole planet was slowly falling into a pit of darkness and silence, they closed the gates at the Academy, Carson, Petersen and shut the big door up at the Mountain. We knew that comms would be down and we could track the loss of power for a bit, but the satellites were going out in the same fashion as the rest of the planet. This is some kind of event, some kind of serious shit. I saw the panic on the civilian contractors faces, I mean the scientists. Before I had to move on to other duties, I heard one of them say he didn't know if it was ever going to end." Eric Fine was surprised for the first time in a long time. He knew this was a big deal, but had no idea how big. The whole world had changed, and in that moment, so had his priorities.

Eric leaned in close to Rodriguez, "You and your men can stay if you want. Remain for the night, longer maybe. Having soldiers around is always a good thing, keep things safe here."

Rodriguez just shook his head, "We are just resting, it will take us much of the night to get back in this shit." He pointed out to the rain. "Don't worry Major, I will let them know you are here. General Stone is going to declare Martial Law; we could use a man like you to settle him down. We are just bringing recon back to the base."

Eric nodded, "Sounds good. Did you guys find anyone else? Anything else that I need to know?"

"Just this: The medicine doesn't work. People at hospitals are dying in droves. The south-side is in chaos, looting, and criminal activity, just what you would expect in an area more densely populated. Food and supplies are going to be a problem, but it seems people are just reacting to this right now, they haven't figured out that what is there is all that is going to be there for a while. And these?" Rodriguez pointed to his weapon, "Useless. If the shit comes down, it will be tooth and nail, clubs and knives. The guns don't work at all." Rodriguez leaned against the wall.

"Well, I am glad we met up then. I think we can help each other. Are there more out there, more squads patrolling?" Eric looked genuinely concerned.

Rodriguez shook his head. "Most are just trying to protect the base. A bunch of enlisted ran off, wanted to find their family. The Old Man shut down the gates, said to shoot anyone who tried to leave. But like I said, Major, the guns don't work anymore than the medicine. Our job was to get to the Academy, tell them that Stone was in charge and we were going to act in concert. They told us to go fuck ourselves. The Commandant came out himself to the gate and told us to tell Stone to go fuck himself. It wasn't great, and the Old Man isn't going to be happy."

Eric nodded again and turned to one of his men and made a little motion behind the Lieutenant's back. "Okay, here is the deal. We are telling you to fuck yourselves too." He looked up at the officer and saw the shock on his face. "Now, I need to know, are you going to stay and join up this downtown group, bolster our defenses? Or, are you headed back to base to give Stone doubly bad news?"

The man turned to tell his men to rise, but Eric reached out, pulled Rodriguez' chin with four fingers and pushed against the back of his head with the palm of his hand, snapping the younger officer's neck. Rodriguez fell dead where he was. Men reached for their rifles, just realizing that the students had already grabbed ahold of them. "Men, men, I am sorry you had to see that. What the LT just told me is something you need to hear. The world has changed, and we aren't going to get orders from Washington, ever. Now, as I see it, you have two options. One, you can join us, I will train you in expert hand-to-hand and close quarter combat, and you can bolster our ranks. Option two is we confine you. If anyone tries to escape, we will track you down and kill you. This shit is real. The Old Man is looking to seize a little kingdom here, and I can't let that happen."

One of the men, an overweight sergeant in his early forties, rose up. "He is right. I wasn't supposed to hear it, but I overheard what Loo was saying to the guards at the Academy gate. This is the new thing, Stone ordered martial law and told the academy they had to comply. The academy told him to go fuck himself. I heard it." The pudgy non-com turned toward Eric, "The name is Meyer. I, for one, will join you."

Eric saw what Meyer was doing. There were no men in the unit who knew they had served together, so there was no way for them to know they were being played. Meyer was showing his loyalty to his old commander.

Eric walked over and shook the man's hand. The rest of the men agreed also. Suddenly Eric's group had gone from sixteen to twenty-seven. He walked to the front of the room, the last dim light of dusk escaping. "Form ranks. Help the new men find their place. Men, this is a new existence. Something serious has happened, and there is no longer a civil or military authority. We will create our own. You all know your rifles don't work, I just found out that medicine doesn't work. It is imperative you learn to protect yourself. We are the beginnings of a new order, a new life. There are few of us and we control this block. Tomorrow we begin to build, to train, to gather resources and to take more area. Welcome to the new order."

The men responded with "Hua!" in unison. He looked into the eyes of one of the students, a man recently drummed out of the Army, named Miles Damiano. He had been an unfit soldier, but he had his value. Eric knew that he was the one man in the room who knew that Meyer had served with him before, because they had all served together in the sand. Eric would have a talk with him and motioned him toward the back. But at that moment, Eric saw movement out of the corner of his eye. The men at the door turned toward him, and past them, he saw the yoga girl dart out of the door of her studio and sprint up the street. "Go get her," he said and the two of them ran in the direction she had just run.

Eric walked off to a private training room in the back. Damiano followed. In the doorway, he made it clear to the man what the situation was. "You know who that is?" He said, pointing at Meyer.

"Of course, sir," Damiano replied.

"No, you don't. This is the first time you have ever seen him," Eric said, staring hard at the man's eyes.

A moment's pause was all it took, then the reply from Damiano, "I misspoke, sir. That is what I meant, I have never seen that man before."

Eric smiled, "Good man. Why don't you take charge of our original group? Acclimate the new men to their surroundings. And, Miles..." Damiano looked up, "We are in a predicament, do not hesitate to use force if anyone gets out of hand."

Miles smiled, and bowed in the martial arts way, before turning and acting on his new authority.

Eric walked into the private training room and pulled the door shut to where only a centimeter of the door was still open. It was hot, and pitch black in the room. But he knew its size and he knelt to begin his own training. His meditation, katas and sets gave him strength, focus and calm. He would need all of these to do what needed to be done.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

The Craven abode had sunk into the same pitch black they had experienced the night before. After caring for the new addition, Kim Pile, Kate had returned to her worry. There was nothing to see outside, so she had settled down at the dining table, a deep sadness and loneliness covering her. Her sister walked in, bumping into another chair.

"It is going to be okay, Kate," Kayla had offered, "you will see. Besides, Kim prayed for you."

They both chuckled at this. Their mother was a believer, but neither of the younger women still bought into the beliefs of their youth. They could hear the soft playing of Rich on his guitar. He played well even in the dark. It was what her mother would have called "a blessing" to have him there, playing his soft melodies. It really calmed the nerves.

Kate smiled, though she doubted her sister could see it. "Is it weird that I find that guitar super comforting?"

Out of the darkness, Kayla said, "No. I do too. I think he has a gift. I feel hope, and a little emotional strength just listening to it."

"Me, too," came her brother-in-law's voice out of the dark somewhere behind her.

His wife was the first to respond, "Damn it, Ted, make some noise. That was creepy as hell."

They all chuckled. "Kim and Mom in our room?" Ted asked quietly. There was a long pause. "I can't hear you nodding, honey." They laughed a little louder.

Kate was actually beginning to feel that everything was actually going to be okay. "Did you talk to Max again?"

"Yeah, a little. She is just the same sweet little girl. This is just bizarre. You know there are seven dogs on the porch now?" Ted's voice had a hint of pride in it. "They can all stay. Can you imagine if those bastards had got to my little girl? I would have torn them apart also. The dogs are fine in my book."

Kate felt Ted's hand on her shoulder. "Don't be too lovey, that isn't Kayla you are touching." They laughed again. "Well, if we are going to all sleep in the living room, I guess we better go find our places so we don't trip over each other in this dark."

They all walked into the other room, each with a hand on the shoulder of the person in front of them. "Hey, Rich," Ted said, "We are going to get situated for the night."

"Oh, alright," the pastor said, "You all want me to stop playing so you can get some sleep? I can go back to the kitchen to sleep."

Kate spoke up, "No, Rich. You can have the loveseat, if you are still sitting on it. I like the recliner over here and Ted and Kayla can take the big couch." She sat down and everyone heard the foot rest kick out. "Please don't stop playing. It is really wonderful."

"You got it, ma'am. I will play for a while longer." Rich began a beautiful classical piece; he really was a gifted player.

Kate fell asleep right away. They all fell asleep quickly and had the most restful sleep. Natalee and Max in Max's room, Beth and Kim in the master bedroom, and the rest of them in the living room. There was an added feeling of safety with those dogs on the porch. As Kate drifted off, her thoughts slipped into a hope that tomorrow would be a change, that they would learn something, anything.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Loud yelling broke the silence of the night, muffled by the steady patter of rain on everything. Those jerks from across the street had come running after Jenny moments after she darted out of the door of her studio. She was super hungry and didn't have a lot of energy, and she needed to hide. She lived in a little house on the west-side, even with the weather and the darkness, she thought she could get home in less than two hours. But, right now, she was hiding in the park. As she saw them come after her, she slipped behind the park restrooms to hide. She couldn't be sure, but she didn't think they had seen her. All she could do is hope they wouldn't come this way. After what felt like a very long time, she poked her head around the corner to look for them. They didn't seem to have any idea where she was.

She wasn't really dressed for this. Light shoes and yoga clothes were not really heavy weather clothes, even in late July. Worse than that, though, in her haste to get away, she had run the wrong way. She needed to cross the street and there was a chance the karate guys would see her when she did that. Her only chance was to go north for a bit through the park, and then head west toward the freeway. She glanced around the corner once again and quickly dipped her head back behind the structure. The men were across the street, maybe thirty yards away. Or she thought it was them. It was so dark that they were just outlines. She closed her eyes and centered herself and opened them again to see auras. The two men were surrounded with dark brown and the occasional flash of red. She had not found any books or magazines with helpful info on the colors, so she still had no idea what they meant. However, she could see the outlines, which allowed her to track them and was just the kind of thing that would get her out of this.

She tracked their movements and saw others near the barricade of cars. The first two headed back toward the others, giving her the chance to sneak out from behind the structure and move her way back through the park. Once she came to the corner of the street her studio was on and the far end of the park, she turned to look for followers, but there were none. She could make out little flashes of auras at this point, but nothing discernible.

I guess distance is a factor, she thought to herself.

She needed to avoid people, so she kept her aura-awareness up for her walk. There was a pretty good chance she would see someone coming before they saw her. Keeping low, she crossed the street. She decided at two blocks to turn west. The pouring rain was still a bit much, but it wasn't that cold in the summer night, even here at high altitude.

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. Jenny 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. 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 person, was the other here? She used her inner sight to peer around as she crawled. In order to see an aura, she needed a line of sight, she couldn't see through walls. 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. Not being allowed to go to the top of the peak with the other popular kids had already bummed her out and made her mad at her mom. This was a tradition among seniors at her school. She was about to be a senior and now, if she wanted to do it, she would either have to be alone or with kids that weren't part of her group. Natalee was nothing, if not resourceful in the social sphere, so she had made other plans. She was supposed to meet up with that boy, Glen, today. That wasn't going to happen 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 is 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?" Uncle Ted's voice came from the hall, 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 could 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 replied, 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.

Eric walked over to the windows. In the dark, he had not realized the advantage these higher buildings gave him. The rain was still pouring down, but in mid-day, he could see most of the block they were on. After a short thought on this, he realized that he couldn't even see the street yesterday. Was it possible that the rain was letting up? He watched his men go from storefront to storefront, but there were multiple floors in some of these buildings. He needed watchers at the highest points near each corner. He walked to the back of the building and opened the door to the fire escape. Someone could get up this, or someone could get out of it. There was an alley there. He realized that he didn't need to secure the opposite side of the street as much as he needed to secure the block he was on. Glancing down at a small restaurant on the corner on the other side of the alley, he thought there might be food there.

Food. Resources would be very limited. They needed to ration, and they needed to systematically loot any resource or item of value first from the block they were on and then moving out. He needed to control his surroundings. Also, they had twelve rifles with affixed bayonets, which were good weapons, but they would need more if push came to shove. As he walked back in and locked the door, one of the tied up and gagged individuals was trying to communicate with him. It was Marcus, the student who didn't want to join, but didn't want to leave. Eric walked over and pulled the gag down.

"Sensei," he said, "I am sorry. There is more going on here than I thought. I am hungry, I am aching from these binds, and I am ready to comply. I want to be part of the group."

Eric smiled a broad smile, but he wasn't fooled for a minute. He helped the man to his feet and untied his hands. He led him down the stairs. In the dojo, most of his men had returned.

"Men," Eric began, "Marcus has changed his mind. He would like to be part of the group now."

No one said anything, they just looked at him. Eric saw the tension in Marcus' shoulders. He had wondered how he was going to show power to secure his command and Marcus had given him the chance. Marcus was a Black Belt and a gifted fighter. Eric knew what the man would do, even before he knew, if that was possible.

The man took a long stride out and turned to strike Eric, swinging low for the stomach. Eric let out a low Kiai, bracing his stomach against the punch. The man hit, but Eric only felt enough to laugh. Then Eric performed a three-inch punch. Holding his fist out, Eric settled into a stance and the chi from his fist hit Marcus in the mid-section and the 225-pound man flew in the air about eight feet and landed on his back. He rolled over and went to rise, but Eric was already on him. Using the chi, he kicked the man in the side, raising him about three feet off the floor and then quickly side-kicked him while he was in mid-air, launching the man through the window and into the street. Eric walked out into the rain.

Marcus lay on his back, coughing up blood. He was covered with small cuts from the glass of the window and was most likely not going to survive the hits. This was not enough of a show to ensure obedience from the others. Eric lifted his leg straight up high over his head and came down with a crushing axe kick, his heel smashing into Marcus' sternum. It wasn't just that Eric felt the shattering of bones, which he did. It was the sound of pulverized bone and flesh which preceded the massive amount of blood that flew out of the man's mouth and nose. Eric had crushed his chest, crushed his heart. Marcus lay dead in the street.

"Gather him up, take him over to the park. Leave him near the fountain," Eric said, and two men rushed forward to do as told. "He does not deserve the honor of burial. That is only for ours. He can be eaten by the birds."

Eric turned and walked back into the dojo, fully aware of every eye in the vicinity watching him go. That will be enough fear. They will not get out of line again. A smug smile crossed his lips.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Running her tongue across her teeth and feeling the night's film covering them, Jenny opened her eyes. She could taste that nasty morning-breath. She was on the floor of the taco spot at which she had passed out the night before. She had no idea how long she had slept, but it seemed to be mid-day. Tentatively rising, she looked around the small restaurant and saw no people. There was also no sound, other than the never-ending rain. Colorado Springs was a notoriously dry area, and it had been raining hard for over two days now. That was odd in itself, but what wasn't this week? She rose above the counter and looked around the outside of the building. Unsure whether it was a lightening of the rain, or just that she had grown used to it, she peered through the unending wet feeling like she could see better than she had from her studio. She was still only a block and a half from those creeps at the martial arts studio, so she needed to be careful.

Now that there was mid-day light in the building, she could see that she had not been the only person to go through the cupboards. Somehow, whoever had gone before had missed the tortillas and Jenny couldn't be happier. She gathered what she had left and threw them in a plastic to-go bag. She wasn't sure how long she would be without food, and this was all there was for now. Clothes that were already made to be snug, clung to her body in a way that made her feel grimy and gross all over. This was the third day she had been in the same clothes, as well as having worked out in them and then run through the rain. She longed for a shower and her own bed.

Creeping to the door, she peered around to see what she could see. There really wasn't anything moving that she could tell, and she could hear nothing but the rain hitting the tin roof of the little eatery. There were houses up the street, she knew that from her runs, but no one was out and about. Maybe it was just the rain. Closing her eyes and centering herself, she looked out into the rain with the inner sight she had come to know in the past two days. At the edge of her vision, she thought she occasionally saw flashes of people's auras in the windows, but there was no way to tell if they were looking this way or not. She didn't know why she was so scared, why she didn't want anyone at all to see her, but she didn't. She decided to go through the park. In the rain, there was a much lower chance of people being out in the open space.

With one last look around, Jenny ran across the field of green damp grass, and promptly slid onto her back. The grass was so soaked that she had basically hydroplaned across it. It was like a solid puddle across the green. From this vantage point, she could also see the muddy pond-sized puddles in numerous places around the park. The pavement was a better choice, so Jenny walked carefully toward the nearest paved path, about fifteen yards away. This was a path she knew well, having jogged it a number of times. It wound its way around the park and then down by the nearly dry creek and under some overpasses before coming to a walkway over the freeway that would be ideal for getting her nearer to home.

Reaching the path, she tried to look as normal as one can, when one is walking in the pouring rain, carrying a taco restaurant take-out bag and wearing yoga clothes. With more solid ground underneath her feet, she began to jog, attempting to put as much distance between herself and the karate guys as she could. Rounding a corner, and drawing near to an overpass, though, she heard the murmur voices through the rain and slipped into a dense brush off the path. She couldn't make out the words, she could only identify them as voices, but they seemed to be either celebrating or yelling, she wasn't sure.

Finding that there were places she could creep around in the dense bushes, she got closer to the overpass. The rain was so loud, echoing through the under-side of the cement structure like it was going through a bullhorn. Jenny thought she could make all the noise in the world, and no one would hear. Calming herself, she crouched there for a moment to collect her thoughts. Centering herself and accessing that inner sight, she opened her eyes and peered through the brush. There in a clearing were a mish-mash of auras, she didn't know how many. But, there were reds and muddy golds, dirty gray, quite a bit of grayish white, and a healthy dose of the dark brown she saw on all of the students at the martial arts place. As she peered, she saw something else though. There were bodies on the ground. These people weren't arguing. They weren't celebrating. They were mourning. Then Jenny saw what was causing the sound, it wasn't the rains that beat down on some building or overhang, it was a river. The creek that was always dry wasn't just full. It was flowing like the rivers up in the mountains that she had gone rafting in many times. She couldn't believe her eyes.

She wasn't afraid of these people either. Jenny couldn't tell if it was due to their grief or something else, but she didn't feel any malice from them. She walked out of the bushes and toward their clearing. She had to go that way anyway. As she walked into the clearing, they turned to see her coming, but didn't seem to care that much. She saw the state of their clothes, the shanty that was constructed under the overpass. These were the homeless; they were the faceless many that polite society turned away from when, and if, they did notice them.

"Is everyone alright?" she asked.

One of the men looked at her and just shook his head sadly, "No, ma'am. Quite a few of our friends didn't make it. They was killed by the storm." He pointed to about twenty bodies lined up under the overpass, "Most of 'em had shacks down in the creek bed, they didn't move in time."

Jenny walked over nearer to the bodies, many of them were pretty banged up, but all showed the bloat that probably came from pulling them out of water where they had drowned. They were mostly older, but there were a few that were her age and younger. There were only seven still alive, that she could see.

"Are the rest of you okay? Is there anything I can do?"

"That is very sweet of you, ma'am," said a woman who had been standing behind the man she was talking to, "but you have to get to safety. Don't be by the water. It isn't safe." The woman broke down in tears and walked the other way.

Another man came up to her with something in his hands, "Do you need some food?"

He held out three cans that looked like they had been taken from the restaurant she had spent the night in.

"Thank you, no, I have some. Do you all need some of this?" She was overwhelmed at the generosity of those who had nothing. They were willing to give some of the little bit they had to help people out. Generosity is abundant in those who have little, and rare in those who have much. It was quite beautiful and brought tears to her eyes. "I have to get across the creek."

The first man looked up at her, "You can't go this way, Miss. The water has washed everything out."

Jenny looked past him, there wasn't even a way through this area without going into the water. She was going to have to backtrack. He continued, "You have to go back up to the road to pass but be careful. We had someone come through yesterday who tried the pass. He is lying over there now." He pointed to the bodies.

"You all need to stay safe," she said, "there are bad men around."

The guy nodded, "looters."

"And others," Jenny said.

"There always are when bad things happen," he said rather matter of fact.

Jenny wondered how many disasters this aged man had experienced. She looked at the lines of his face and knew that she could never have told how old the man was. He had the indiscriminate age of poverty. But, he had a kindness that can only be molded by the harshness of life. Many people are embittered by their circumstances, but a few come through that to be truly changed into a beautiful person, refined by life's troubles. She thought she was looking at one of those few now. She thanked him for the info, making a point to remember that bad circumstances can make you nasty, or wonderful. It was entirely up to you. She then turned and made her way back around to the path which would carry her up to the road. It wasn't entirely safe to be out in the open in broad daylight like that, but the more distance she put between herself and downtown, the better off she thought she would be. There is a hotel on the other side of the freeway, just up this road. I wonder if anyone is there. Jenny made her way up onto the road.

She couldn't see any reason why a man would have died coming up here, and that frightened her. What might have happened? She thought it best not to think about it and walked up over the overpass toward the opposite side. When she reached the peak of the hill that was made out of the overpass, she could see the other side. She saw the crashed cars, and as she looked down on the deserted freeway, there were cars for miles, empty cars, many of which had crashed into each other. It was the loneliest thing she had ever seen. Is this the end of the world? She thought to herself. Is this what the end looks like? She moved on down the other side of the overpass, very concerned about what she might find closer to home.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Jessica felt an undeniable attraction to Kyle. She had fallen for him when he was training her at the store, but his strength in the crisis only made her like him that much more. They walked along in the rain, which honestly felt lighter than it had yesterday, but it was hard to tell if it was lighter, or they were just used to it, because it was still incessantly pounding down on them. They avoided ditches, and Kyle's dad had told them to stay to the middle of the road, so they all walked single file down the dotted yellow line in the middle of the road. Well, everyone walked single file except for Kyle and his Dad. They were at the front, about fifteen feet ahead of her, in a conversation she couldn't here. Kyle was being emphatic about something, but she had no idea what it was.

When she had woken in the High School, Kyle was already up and outside the door. He seemed genuinely concerned about something, but what it was, she couldn't tell and he wasn't telling, at least not to her. She had laid a little close to him last night, she really hoped she hadn't scared him away. She sloshed along, looking down at her feet, at her shoes that were already ruined by the water and the walk. She was in her work uniform, but it was drenched to the core. Every garment she wore was absolutely soaked all the way through. It was disgusting. But, Jess was a trooper, she was not going to whine about it.

They occasionally passed a house, though they were less frequent once they had moved into the forest. She couldn't believe there was a forest like this right next to the city. It was tall, full of pine trees and dense. She really liked Colorado Springs, but it was nothing like home. Home was suburbia, of the stereo-typical Christian brand that was so popular these days. Her parents had found religion in the 1990's and had moved them to an aggressively conservative community to raise a family. They had agreed to pay for her education if she went to a Christian University, so she had chosen one right here in Colorado Springs, a town her parents loved. She thought about her parents and wondered when she would be able to call them again.

Considering her fellow travelers, Jess looked back over her shoulder at Erica. The woman had not spoken much since her friend had died. She seemed to be trying to stay as close to Adam as Jess tried to stay to Kyle. Erica was probably six or so years older than Jessica, but she liked her and hoped that they would become friends. Kyle was dropping back now into the single line, behind his dad and directly in front of Jess. She sped her pace a little to catch up to him, her legs burning with the strain of the walking they had done the last two days.

"Hey, I am glad you guys are done talking. The walking can get a little boring," She said as she pulled up close.

"Yeah? I will try not to bore you then," He replied with a smile.

"If you don't mind my asking, what were you talking to your Dad about?" Jessica didn't want to pry, but she was just so curious about it.

"I had a dream," he said sheepishly.

"You seemed pretty, well, pretty animated," she pushed a little bit, nothing about that seemed like a dream.

"It was quite a dream," he said with a smile, and diverted her with a question, "Did you have any dreams last night?"

This small talk was as good as any other talk for her purposes, but in her mind, she committed to herself that she would find out about that dream. They talked for a while, but when they came a spot where the road was completely washed out, they all just stopped. After what had happened to Ellen, none of them wanted to test it. But, it had to be done. Cal was tying a rope around his waist and giving the other end of it to Kyle and Adam who wrapped and secured it around their own.

Cal gave them all directions, "Okay, here is what we are going to do. I am going to wade across, secured by Kyle and Adam. Once there, I will tie my end of the rope to a tree. They will then tie their end of the rope to a tree. Adam is going to make a harness out of the other rope and we will attach a carabiner to the stationary rope and then Jessica and Erica will go across, then Kyle, and finally Adam will untie from the tree on this side, secure it around his waist and we will get him to the other side. Keep your feet about shoulder width apart. Don't walk too fast. Don't pick your legs up too much. If we are careful, this should not be a problem." He looked each person in the eye and asked, "Is everything clear? Any questions?"

When each person gave their thumbs up, Cal began across the water. He walked slowly, and almost pushed into the water. It took longer than she would have thought, but he came up on the dry other side, or relatively dry since it was still raining.

He called across to them, "The current is stronger than I would have guessed. Be careful. This is straining the muscles."

Adam tied the other side around a tree, while Cal did the same across the water. They pulled the rope tight. Adam then built a harness to go around the waist and crotch of the person who would cross. Erica stepped up first, and Adam helped her into the harness. Once he had secured her in it, he attached it to the other rope with one of those little climbing hooks, Jess assumed that is what a carabiner was. At numerous points, Erica looked like she was going to fall, but eventually she made it across and sat on the ground, exhausted. Now it was Jessica's turn, and Adam pulled the harness back across and got her situated with it.

As she stepped into the fast-moving water, she felt the small tug of current under her feet and at her ankles, but it wasn't that bad. She wasn't sure what the problem was and wanted to be out of the water, so she picked up her pace a little. The drag of the current became suddenly stronger, and she slowed down, but then something squishy hit her leg and she lost her footing. She was able to catch herself before going completely under water by holding tight to the harness rope and keeping her hand on the guide rope. Her legs were shaking against the strain as the power of the middle of this stream hit her. It took every bit of energy she had to get through the middle, and as she got a little closer to the other side, Cal held his hand out and gave her help to get to the "dry" land. She collapsed next to where Erica was sitting, lay back on her back and just let the rain fall on her face. Kyle and Adam were actually over pretty quickly, as they were already detaching the rope from the tree on this side.

Laying on her back, staring up, Jessica saw blue sky. Just for a second as she breathed deeply and tried to regain her strength, and for the first time in over two days, she saw the sky above the clouds.

"Hey," she said, pointing up, "It was the sky. It was clear."

Everyone looked up, but it was gone. Kyle smiled down at her, "Did you hit your head when you got to this side?"

He held out his hand to help her up. She took his hand, and hoped he would keep holding hers, but he immediately dropped it once she was up. He then helped Erica up in the same way.

"I really did see the blue sky," she wasn't offended, but she wanted them to believe her because she had in fact seen it.

"I believe you," Kyle said, "I was just messing with you."

He smiled, and Jess was once again taken with his calm demeanor. They had lost power, which his Dad said wasn't coming back on any time soon. They had walked for two days in what they all said was very uncharacteristic rain. They had lost a woman and left her in the rain on the side of the road. But, Kyle Ward smiled. He seemed to take it all in stride. She liked him even more.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

A black line, very thin against the gray cement was the only indication of impact on the walls. Jordan looked at the little bit of stone that Donna had chipped away yesterday. He wondered if there was anything he could do to expand on it. He had to wonder about something, because some weird shit was going on. When they had woken that morning, the mound where they had buried Donna was completely covered with flowers of the kind that Emma had placed on Donna's grave. No flowers in history had ever grown that fast. They had chosen not to think about it, or to try not to think about it. They had definitely chosen not to talk about it.

Emma had gone to caring for the plants, some of which were growing fruit a little earlier than they should, or so Emma said. Additionally, many of them had large amounts of said produce. They could eat that, and he was hungry, so that thrilled him. He didn't have much to do, so opening that hole wider seemed like a good choice. He looked over at the axe, still covered with the young soldier's blood from where it had been buried in her leg. He picked it up and walked over to one of the air holes, letting the rain fall down on it and wiping the blood away.

Axe in hand and standing before the one place where Donna's efforts had produced any result, he looked carefully at the structure. He needed to know whether the bars went for a while or forever. If they went on as a skeletal structure for the concrete, they would never get out, but if they were only for a short bit, they could get out.

"Jordan, don't," he heard behind him. Emma was standing and staring at him, shock and fear on her face. He walked over to her.

"It is okay, Doc," he replied, "I will use the pick side, I will swing one handed, in a short motion and I will protect myself against injury. I don't want you to have to make a second grave any more than you do." He smiled, but she was having none of it.

"That is not funny," she turned her back and went back to her plants.

Jordan stared at her for a bit. The Doc was older than him by almost double, but he found her very attractive. "You are right, Emma," he said, "I will be careful, okay?"

She didn't turn or say anything. He took that as an acceptance and turned back to work on the wall. He followed the line of one of the bars down the wall. As he hit, it wasn't very hard. Initially, he was lucky to get a millimeter of cement to come off of that wall. Eventually, the pieces became almost a centimeter in diameter. This was going to take forever.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Miles Damiano had studied at the Fine Modern Karate Academy ever since it had opened three years before. At that point, Major Fine's constant duties in the army required someone to occasionally watch over his dojo. Miles, being in his mid-twenties, with no commitments and a fierce sense of loyalty, was a great choice to "manage" the dojo. He was pretty sure the Major valued him now. Miles was the highest rank in the classes, a Brown Belt, only months away from testing for his Black. Marcus had been the highest rank, but he now lay dead in the park, a victim of his own hubris in attacking Fine. Now, something was going on, and Miles was in the perfect place to capitalize. He was already shaping up to be Major Fine's right-hand man in this new crisis.

Trusting Fine's motives was nothing new to Miles. Until the day before, he thought the Major did not remember him, but they had met when Miles was stationed at Ft Carson for a year and a half, and they had served together in the sand. He always thought it best that Fine didn't recognize him, even after all this time, because Miles had been a sub-par soldier. Like many who join the military, Miles Damiano was trying to find his place in the world. He had a natural flair for leading and was instantly drawn to leadership positions. He also came from a pretty poor family, many of whom had devolved into lives of crime. This showed itself in Miles' ability as a scrounge. In the Army, a scrounge is someone who can get things, anything. Miles was an excellent scrounge. Languishing as a buck private in the Army was never going to work for him. Now he had the chance to increase in importance and power based only on his actions, and he was thrilled.

When Eric Fine gave an order, Miles was not one to question it. He just did as he was told. This morning, Miles had seen Sensei (as Mr. Fine was called) absolutely destroy that traitor, Marcus, who had tried to attack him. The power exhibited by his sensei only served to cement his loyalty and admiration. He wanted that power. Marcus' death propelling him into the highest ranked follower only added to his joy at the circumstance.

For the last few hours, he had directed the efforts to clear the buildings on their block. They had collected over fifty villagers (as The Major called them) and rounded them up for Fine's assessment. Some joined them as helpers, some were thrown in the stockade, and some Eric Fine would point out – nodding to Miles and tell the group that they could not be in the camp. Miles would then take them out to "release them". Four men, no women, had been taken to a part of the park and "released". They had been released from life, as Miles crushed their larynx, so they couldn't yell out and then suffocated them. Major Fine gave him the order, and he carried it out. He would not question the orders, and there was no reason to do so. Eric Fine was keeping the group safe and seemed the only one able to tell the bad apples from the good. Miles was more than happy to remove those bad apples from the barrel.

The street in front of the dojo was now cleared of cars and the barricades extended down the street and around the current block. Miles was now documenting each room and its capacity on the block for Eric's approval, and then he would assign housing to the team, followed by assigning poorer housing to the villagers. The Major had been very clear, where people were housed and their access to supplies would be based on their benefit to the team. The assessment was only done by the sensei, but he had left the actual housing to Miles. It wasn't his favorite chore, but it was a responsibility he did not take lightly. He looked over the list to make sure it was complete, and then presented it to the leader.

"Sensei," Miles began with a bow, "I have the housing list for you."

Eric took it out of his hand and perused it. "This is everything?" He didn't wait for a response and Miles didn't offer one. "This is more than enough for what we have right now, but it won't be enough to last. We will have to clear out other buildings also. Move the men through the buildings across the street here. Actually, take the whole next block, then move all of the barricades to enclose our camp. Is that clear?"

Miles bowed again, "It is, Sensei."

"Then move out," Fine turned back toward the dojo and walked inside. Miles motioned to four guys nearby of advanced rank (minimum green belt) and called them to himself.

"We have orders," he said when they were close enough, "Each leader take two soldiers with you, we are going to clear the east side of the street and that whole block. I will take a different group and move the barricades, we are expanding the camp. Choose, and move. We need to finish before the light gives out."

The rain was in waves now, instead of the steady downpour they had experienced for the last two days. A cheer had gone up from the crowd when the rain had stopped, but it had soon come back. It was intermittent now, and that was okay. They were all already so wet, they didn't notice it that much. He would have to catalog the other block tomorrow, but for now, he needed to get people moving cars and securing the other block as well as they had this one secured. Mostly, he had the soldiers from Fort Carson do that.

"Meyer," he said to the man that had told the others to stand down when the Major had killed their officer, "Sensei wants us to move the barricades around the east block here as well."

Meyer had served in the sand as well; he had been Miles' platoon sergeant. They did not like each other, and Miles enjoyed giving him orders rather than deference.

"Are you kidding me? After the work we did to set this one up?" The heavy-set man wiped his brow.

"I don't know. Do you want me to go ask him if he was joking?" Miles said sternly. "I am sure he would be thrilled to know that soldiers are questioning his orders."

The man waved his hands up, immediately giving in. "No, no, we will do it," he turned to his men. "Okay guys we have a little more labor to do before the light goes down." There were groans and murmurs, but they did the job. No one wanted Eric Fine to be angry with them.

Miles was even more impressed with his sensei after the way today had gone. After absolutely destroying the man who tried to attack him, he had given a big speech, letting them all know where they stood. He had classified the members of the camp as Tigers who he defines as leaders, as soldiers, or as villagers. Everyone had work to do within the camp. Mr. Fine's show of power was already enough to get the people in line. As it started to sprinkle again, Miles stepped inside the main building where the villagers were gathered. Three days ago, it had been a restaurant.

He sat at a table and began to write out this night's housing as he had been directed. He gave favored housing to Tigers, then soldiers, then villagers who were able to perform very useful work, and finally to villagers who could only do the simplest of work. This was most of the villagers. When he was finished, he stood and called for their attention. When he had it, he gave them simple direction.

"Okay, folks. We have housing assignments for tonight for each of you. Don't get too settled in, we may have to move you every day. We don't know what tomorrow brings. After I am done here, you can come get the info of where you are going to be staying tonight. To keep you all safe from flooding and any other potential risk, we have moved all of you to second or third story spots. Additionally, Sensei Fine wanted me to let you know that anyone who wants to train in combat is welcome. If you want to join the soldiers, or if you would just like to learn the basics of defending yourself, we will gather just after daybreak in the street to practice. All soldiers are required to attend, but for you all, it is a choice."

As they came to him to get their assignments, Miles thought on the brilliance of the words that Fine had told him to use. The real reason they had moved them up floors was so they couldn't sneak away in the night and warn people about the camp before the camp was ready to defend itself. He also said 'anyone' could train, but they would weed out any women that wanted to train. The Major was old school and didn't believe it was a woman's place to fight. He had also promised the men they could have their pick of the villagers, that fighting men needed a woman to warm their bed. Miles looked at the group and singled out a few that might meet that need for him. After Eric Fine, Miles Damiano had first pick, and he planned to use it well.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Jenny entered the wide-open lobby of the hotel, half-expecting to meet a gaggle of people who were either staying there, or who had taken up residence since the power went out. But, there was no one. This small chain hotel on the west side of the freeway had always been a popular spot, so she was a little worried about the place being packed, but there was no one at all. She walked around in the dim lobby, only lit through the full glass at the front and everything was put together, but she was the only person in the area. She sat down behind the counter for a bit of quiet, but there was no sound coming at all, and no auras when she checked.

Thinking there must be people in the rooms, she made her way to the staircase, which was pitch black. Even reaching out with her inner sight, there was no movement or aura in it. She felt her way all the way up to the fifth floor, which she knew was the top. She assumed the roof was one more floor, but she wanted to see if anyone was inside. The halls on floor five were bare, she listened and lightly knocked on doors, but there were no sounds, nothing. She tried the doors, at first afraid that the electric locks would block her entrance, but their electric nature meant that every room was actually open. No one was here at all. Some of the rooms were in disarray, like they had been used and not cleaned, but at least half of them were made up for new guests. Jenny went back to the stairway door and jammed a chair up underneath the handle.

In each room, she foraged for any food. There were nuts and water in each refrigerator, as well as four vending machines that had candy, snacks and sodas in them. It took Jenny what she considered to be a ridiculous amount of time to figure out how to get items out of the vending machines. She had hit them, pushed them and done just about everything she could think of, before she noticed the fire extinguisher, which she used to smash the Plexiglas and take what she wanted. The sodas were a little too secure, but she wasn't much of a soda drinker and there was water in every room. She pulled her haul into a large room with a queen-sized bed and opened the curtains to look outside. The room faced south, and far off to the south, there were fires. The rain had only let up occasionally, but she could see the smoke in the south and center of the city. It looked like a lot.

Opening up some chips and a bottle of water, she sat on the bed. It was so comfortable; she knew she wanted to rest here before moving on. She decided to stay the night in a warm bed, under fresh covers. It wasn't even dark yet, so she decided to practice her yoga. On the carpet of that hotel room floor, she stretched and posed. She centered herself in a way she had not experienced before, and the calm of it gave her such a sense of stability. She was learning to use the inner sight, or more accurately the practice of calling it up, as a manner in which to achieve a deeper meditative state. It was wonderful.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Watching from behind him, Kyle could tell his Dad wanted to get to Uncle Ted's badly, since he didn't even stop to look around the little bar and restaurant on the corner as he turned up the street toward the Craven residence. All the rest picked up their pace to follow him, even though Kyle was pretty sure he was the only one who knew where they were. Kyle had always liked Black Forest, with its tall trees and long, straight roads. He was thrilled that his Uncle, Aunt, and Cousin had chosen to move here when Uncle Ted had been transferred to Ft. Carson. He loved family and loved having them near.

"What the hell was that?" Cal said as they walked into the garage of Uncle Ted's house and heard a loud thump from inside.

Kyle hadn't seen anything, but his Dad sure did, and it was something that startled him. Cal was so startled that he didn't see the five menacing dogs round the corner of the building, stand there for a moment, and run back. He heard his mother yell out.

"Cal!" She came running from some place in the back and Kyle wasn't sure how she knew they were there.

"Daddy!" Natalee screamed and ran to their Dad as his Mom wrapped Kyle in a big hug.

Kyle could see some guy helping his Uncle Ted up off the mat, and wondered if he had fallen, because he looked hurt. Apparently, his dad had seen it too, but he didn't say anything to his brother-in-law, he held his daughter's face in his hands instead.

"What did you just do to your Uncle Ted?" He was looking right into her eyes. Natalee's face was instantly filled with shame and she looked down. But, her Dad pulled her into a hug and laughed, "That was awesome!"

Kyle looked to Ted and saw the big grin on his Uncle's face as he walked toward them all.

"She is a beast, Cal!" Ted said, wrapping his best friend in a big bear hug before pulling Kyle into the same. "I just wanted to work out and your little girl wipes the floor with me."

Kyle was beginning to understand what he had missed and was really sorry he didn't see it. Apparently, Nat had put a smack-down on their accomplished martial-artist Uncle. Kyle looked up at her.

"Hey, kid," he said and she actually came over and hugged him, something that hadn't happened in a long time.

"Where have you guys been?" Natalee said, "We were so worried." She punched Kyle in the arm and it kind of hurt.

Kyle saw his Aunt, Cousin and Grandmother walk in with another woman. He turned to the guests his group had brought, "Hey, everyone. This is Jessica, with whom I work. This is Erica, a friend of Adam's. And, of course, you all know Adam." Then he presented his family to the group he had come with, "This is my Uncle Ted, Aunt Kayla, Grandmother Beth, Cousin Maxine, and?" Kyle looked to his family.

Aunt Kayla responded, "Oh, I am so sorry. This is Rich, a pastor from down the street. And, this is Kim, umm, a neighbor."

Ted put his arm around Adam's shoulder, "Guys, we have a lot to talk about."

Cal looked at him and said, "We certainly do."

They all walked into the residence and took various seats around the living room. Ted asked, "Should the kids go into Max's room?" This was just about to get a massive angry response from Kyle's sister, when his Dad cut in.

"No. I can't speak for your beautiful daughter, of course," he tousled Max's hair and she smiled at him with a huge toothy grin, "but, I think everyone has a right to know whatever we know. And I think we can only do ourselves a favor by hearing from everyone."

Ted looked up at his wife, and Kayla gave him a little nod. "Okay, what is going on out there, have you guys seen anything?"

Cal started, telling them about the restaurant, the beating the cop took, the nurses at the hospital, the loss of Ellen, and the night at the High School. As he rounded to the morning after, he looked at Kyle and nodded.

"Umm, yeah. In the middle of the night, I saw something. I saw light come from nowhere. No one else saw it, but I knew where each person was," Kyle said to the group. "Maybe my eyes adjusted, maybe I was hallucinating, I don't know. But, it didn't feel like either, it felt like a flash on a camera had gone off. I just got a snapshot of everyone."

His Dad took over again and went on, "Then, frankly, what I saw with Nat when we came up to the window. Something more than a power outing is happening."

"That is not the half of it," Ted started, "Max has, an ESP thing with the dogs." He pointed to the patio. Everyone looked at the ten-year-old.

"They are my pack," she said rather matter-of-fact.

"So, is it only our family?" Kyle asked, looking around the room. His Dad was shaking his head.

"No, I doubt it, bud. There certainly is some reason why the youngest seem to be experiencing it."

"I am the same age as Kyle," Jess spoke up, "I am not experiencing it."

Cal looked at her thoughtfully. "I don't know, Jessica, but I think you will begin to exhibit something. This has to do with some event, not with our genetic makeup as Wards and Cravens."

The pastor then put in his two cents, "So, are you saying that you think some change happened? Something in the world as a whole?"

Initially, Kyle thought the pastor doubted Cal, which was never a good plan, but it seemed that he was willing to accept this idea. How could they all not accept it, with what they had already seen? It wasn't definitive as to what had changed, but something certainly had.

Kim followed that, "Is it Armageddon?"

Only because he knew his Dad could Kyle see that the man was doing everything in his power not to respond to that negatively. Cal, Ted, and Adam had served in an area where they had to deal with people who valued their own religion, to the exclusion of all others. When they had returned home, they had all had less tolerance for religious judgment when they encountered it. As Kyle looked around at the other former soldiers, he saw the shadows cross their faces.

Cal was thinking carefully about his response, "I am not one to speak about such things, I will leave that to Rich. But, if we change the question a little, is our existence different today than it was two days ago? To that, I would have to respond in the affirmative."

It was Erica who broke the silence next, "You said you would tell us why you thought the power wasn't coming back soon."

Cal nodded, "So, let me preface this with a reservation. I don't know what is going on, I am only guessing..."

Adam cut in, "Do not discount the guesses of Calvin Ward."

Cal grinned at Adam, "Okay, but it is still a guess. The cars crashed into each other, meaning the brakes didn't work. The guns didn't work. You can't restart the cars. Batteries that weren't in use don't work. Medicine doesn't work. The power going out is the least of our worries. It isn't just that I don't think it will come back soon, I am not sure it will come back ever."

The look of abject horror on everyone's face was in stark contrast to the way Kyle felt. This is pretty much what he had assumed also.

Cal continued, "A solar flare or some kind of electro-magnetic pulse would have killed the power in technology that was currently in use, but not batteries not in use. And it would have done nothing to many of the other things we have seen. It isn't just that electricity doesn't work, it is that chemistry doesn't work, well bio-chemistry still works, or we would all be dead, but general chemistry isn't working the way it should. Something profound has changed our world, and we most likely won't get it back. It is time we thought about moving forward and need to plan for a world without the comforts we are used to having."

DAY SEVEN

"...and what would be the result of such a thing? Groups would join together into larger groups and they would invent cultural differences from which to wage war."

-Dr. Penelope Hymes, Apocolypsis
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

It was so hard to think they were just going to leave it behind. He had just finished the renovations barely a week ago. They had bought this property and Ted had really grown to love it in that short time. It was crazy how much could change in a week. Cal's predictions were playing out pretty much just like he said. And Ted knew Cal was right about them not staying in the forest, it was just hard to leave.

Ted was packing the few things he needed to take with him. He looked around, they didn't want to take a lot of clothes and were lucky enough to have Kayla's Mom to sew things. She had spent the last couple of days turning everyone's denim jeans into durable travel clothes that weren't too constraining. His old BDU's came in handy now, not only for himself, but fashioned into useful clothing for others. Beth had used the idea of the basic dress uniform of the Army to sew outfits for the group, and they were almost as good, though a little hotter than he liked. He couldn't take more than one change of clothes (except underclothes) with him anyway. They needed space for food.

Kate and Kayla had been putting all the food they could together, and Ted was in a constant state of hunger now. They had little food at the house with all of the people in their group, and the little restaurant, bar, and market up on the corner had been raided by a neighbor back when the rain was still pouring down. That was a blessing, the rain was back to its usual afternoon showers now, though there was more precipitation in them and they lasted slightly longer than they had before. Ted was gathering weapons at the moment, he had three six-foot staffs for katas, two wooden Kendo practice swords, and even a pair of nunchaku he had on display. Six weapons were all they had to add to Kyle's Bow he had brought from his work. Rich had collected a hammer, a hatchet and a large wood-cutting axe from his house, so they were able to arm everyone. Each of them also had knives, either kitchen or some hunting and fishing knives Rich had passed out. Kim, Beth and Max were the only ones who did not carry weapons. The first two objected to carrying them and felt they would be useless with them anyway. Max was too young and didn't need them anyway. She had eight dogs now, in her pack, and she was by far the scariest person in their group someone might have to face.

Cal had said no mementos, so he was taking a long last look at his pictures when his wife came in.

"Hon, you about ready?" she asked, lying her hand lightly on his shoulder. He nodded back at her, "Cal is right, you know."

"I know he is right, babe," Ted said, "I know. We were just settled, though. I thought I would get some time from the wars and the stress."

Kate touched his face and looked into his eyes, "You are the bravest man I know. This will be hard, but I trust that we will settle again. We will be safe. We will find our place." She smiled at him, and his heart melted.

"God, you are the best," he said as he pulled his wife in for a big kiss, "I am so lucky to have you around."

"Right back at you," she said and turned toward the door. "I think everyone else is ready. It is time to go."

Ted followed her into the living room and through the garage out to the street, where everyone was indeed waiting. He walked up near Cal.

"You doing okay?" His oldest friend asked.

"Yeah. It's an adventure, right?" They both laughed, and Cal turned to the group. It was something they said in the sand when they were asked to go on difficult missions. There were twelve in all now, plus eight dogs.

"Okay," Cal started, "we have discussed the plan, but let me go over it again. If anyone has any questions, now is the time to ask them. We will head directly west, since the road south of here was already washed out days ago. We go down the road and out of the forest. There is a creek down there that I hope to move along until we can find safe crossing. Then we are in rolling hills after we cross the country highway. We will head to the big church for two reasons, one is that they may have some food, and the other is we may get info if anyone is there. I doubt anyone will be there. We will stay there overnight, then head west in the morning. We will cross the freeway and enter onto the Academy. Hopefully, that will provide us some intel of what is going on also. There are some restaurants on the road west just before the freeway. We will need to forage in those. If anyone still has issues with this, let me know now."

Cal looked around at the group. Rich and Beth had already spoken their problems with what Cal was calling foraging, it was really looting. Ted thought Kim had a problem with it as well, but she didn't speak up before, and didn't speak up now. In fact, no one did. It was a good sign of their group cohesion.

"Excellent," Cal continued, "we will go slow. We are not in a rush at the moment so let's save our energy. After we check in at the Academy, we will move toward what I hope to be our final destination, Hillside Restaurant. It is defensible, has limited access, and an excellent view of the city. I really hope we are able to use it as a home base for a while until things settle. We are going to continue meditative katas and morning training every day, I think we must. As for how we go. Ted and Kyle, you have point..." Natalee interrupted.

"Dad," she said, "I would like to be on point." Cal looked over at Ted, who just shrugged. She had certainly proven her ability to fight the last couple of days, and had grown uncommonly good at climbing, jumping and balance.

"Okay, Nat you're up front with Kyle. I will be right behind, and Ted will take up the rear. Max, sweetie, can you let me know if the dogs see anything?"

Ted's daughter smiled sweetly, "Sure will, Uncle Cal."

Ted couldn't help but love her attitude. She was the only one of them that actually seemed to be enjoying this whole thing.

"Thanks, kiddo," Cal grabbed his backpack and slung it over his shoulder, "Then let's move out."

The group took off down the road, keeping their eyes open for anything unusual, but seeing about the same things they had seen for days in this area.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Meyer moved his men down the street. They had been patrolling on Fine's orders for days now, and he was a little annoyed by it. He hadn't even heard it from Fine, but from that little weasel, Damiano. It really irked Zane Meyer to take orders from a guy who washed out of the Army a few years back. Meyer had been Damiano's squad leader in the sand, he was a screw-up of epic proportions, and somehow, he was now in charge of things for Fine.

Meyer, on the other hand, was a great soldier. He had led his men to setting up, and clearing, the entire perimeter. It was now at nine square blocks, with the original block in the center. Surely Fine would see this was his, and his men's doing, not that prick Damiano. Up ahead, his point man held up the sign for halt and everyone took positions more appropriate to squad maneuvers than close combat, but what could he expect, that is how they were trained. Meyer ran to the front.

"What's up?" he said as he knelt next to Griggs.

Griggs pointed up about a block and Meyer saw the movement. Using hand motions, Zane got them to spread out and move slowly toward the building where they saw movement. He could feel the power in his men, somehow Fine had given them some of the power he had in their morning trainings, and these guys were itching to try it out. Two young men walked out of a small building just ahead of them.

"Halt," Meyer called out, and the guys turned toward them.

The one closest looked right at Meyer and said, "Man, fuck you. I don't have to halt for no one." He turned to his friend and laughed, but his friend wasn't laughing.

Meyer's men moved forward. His point man grabbed the guy in front and swung him around. Griggs was taken by surprise. Without warning, the guy suddenly had a knife in his hand. He buried it into the Griggs' gut. Griggs shoved the guy across the open space and grabbed the knife protruding from his abdomen. The man looked to Meyer as he fell to his knees. If Meyer could have stopped his men, he wouldn't have. In the wars, they had always had rules of engagement, but Fine had taken those away. Their commander, or sensei as he liked being called, told them that if someone attacked, it was their duty to put that person down. His men did just that. The guy was hit by power kicks from the two closest soldiers and then beaten to death by about five others. The rest caught the man's friend and proceeded to give him much the same. The guy cried out for mercy and Meyer held up his hand to stop them.

"What did you say?" Meyer asked him.

"Please," the man gurgled through a busted jaw and missing teeth, the blood flowing freely from his mouth, "I didn't do anything."

"Wrong. You came into downtown with this man and robbed our store. You are a criminal and will now meet your just punishment."

Meyer nodded to his nearest soldier, who stomped on the man's knee with the power of his new-found ability. The knee was liquefied in that moment and the guy yelled out before the soldier stomped his boot into the man's throat, silencing him. The men all laughed and patted that warrior on the back.

"Okay, form up," Meyer called out, "mark Griggs so the villagers can collect his body, and let's get back to patrol."

Griggs wasn't dead yet, but they had no way to help him with a stomach wound. He was going to die eventually, and there was no reason to waste resources on him. One of the men tagged him with an orange road-worker vest, and the group moved on.

They rarely lost anyone, but Griggs wasn't the first. Clearing the camp area was grueling. They were attacked by villagers, and occasionally someone who exhibited powers. Most of the time, Fine wanted them to bring him anyone who exhibited powers. Sometimes that wasn't possible. Corcoran had been power kicked off a fourth-floor balcony by a person they took to be a villager. Now that person, who killed one of Meyer's men, was being trained by Fine to be a Tiger. Meyer did not like Fine's men, they were misfits. They just had more ability with this new energy thing than the rest, but Meyer's men were better soldiers. He knew that Fine was a US Army Major, so he knew that he recognized this. There must be a reason for his choices. All Meyer knew is that he didn't want to mess with Fine. That guy's powers were downright scary, and Meyer had memories of how angry and compulsive the man could be. When they had served in the sand, Fine had been so mad at him for not stopping another squad leader that he nearly killed him. That was before all of these powers started to manifest themselves.

His team covered two more blocks and their duty was almost complete, they just had to patrol back to meet the next squad on duty. On the way back, his new point man dropped and held up his fist.

Meyer ran up to the front whispering, "Let's not lose another soldier, keep your heads about you."

When he reached the front, he didn't have to ask what was up. Off to the south, just beyond a turn he could not see from where he was, they could see buildings burning, a lot of them. There were also people running around up there, too far away to hear anything, but Meyer could see them. This was a turn of events that he needed to tell Fine.

"Double time," Meyer told his men, "we are headed back to camp to tell Sensei about this."

He didn't really like calling Fine "Sensei". He much preferred his military rank of major, but most of the men had begun to call him Sensei and it had stuck. Meyer thought it meant teacher, but he wasn't sure.

The squad ran in the direction of camp, making more of a bee line than the route he had originally planned for his patrol. They slowed when he saw their replacements patrolling. Meyer ran up to their squad leader.

"Looters and burners about a click and a half past the patrol area, south, southeast. I need to run and tell the Major," Meyer told him, "You guys cover that area to make sure they aren't heading this way. I will make sure you have reinforcements inbound."

The other squad leader nodded, "Move, move, move." His men took off at a run in the direction Meyer had sent them.

See, that is a soldier, he thought and turned his men toward the camp. In less than ten minutes, they entered the perimeter and another five brought him face to face with Fine.

"Major," he began, "there are looters and burners about a click and a half past the patrol area. It looks like a bunch of villagers running around too."

"Could you tell if they were headed this way?" Fine asked, seemingly unconcerned.

"Didn't look like it," Meyer replied.

Eric Fine nodded, "okay, hold here a second. Miles!" he called out for that sniveling twerp, Damiano. The man came running up and bowed, Meyer always forgot that part.

"Yes, sensei?" Miles said.

"Send a squad of watchers to the south, where Meyer tells you. We do not respond unless we have to. Let the others hurt each other. Double the patrols."

"Yes, sensei," Damiano turned to gather squads and Eric looked at Meyer.

Meyer bowed, "Anything further, Maj...Sensei?" he asked.

A short grin passed the leader's face, "No, Meyer. Good work, though, get your men some rest. And join us at the Tiger meeting tomorrow."

"Yes, sensei," Meyer said, and bowed again.

Fine had noticed him, and he was one step closer to replacing that useless hack, Damiano. He turned to his men, "Get some rest, men, we may need to hit the patrol again tonight and keep our people safe."

Meyer headed toward the rest area, where the single women had to work serving food and water to the warriors. He had his eye on one, but she wasn't one of these, she was one who served the Tigers, one who Damiano had taken. Meyer planned how to take her from him, along with his position.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Jenny had enjoyed her stay in the hotel. No one had bothered her, she had rarely even seen anyone out the windows. What she could see from her vantage point was that the south side of town was burning. It had been on fire for days now and it had grown closer and closer each day. She had good rest here and had ransacked the other floors to make sure she had food. This was mostly comprised of chips, nuts and other such snacks. She hated to eat like this, but it was better than starvation. Her yoga kept her calm, and she ate as little of this crap as she could.

The last four days she had spent here were almost a vacation, and she would have stayed longer, but the fires were getting closer. It almost seemed intentional and she assumed that half of it probably was. If she was right, that would mean whoever was burning the town was headed this way, and that meant it was time to move on. She was maybe a day of cautious walking away from her home, and she decided that the time to leave was now. She gathered her things into a duffel bag she had found on the second floor, including all of the snacks and the few water bottles she had left. It was a little bit heavy, but she could manage, and she made her way down the pitch-dark staircase and out into the lobby. Outside the stairway door, she listened for any movement, and finding none, she headed out into the street.

Turning north and west was the plan, but she needed to stay relatively hidden and it was just before mid-day. So, she walked slowly behind houses and in between blocks, even though it would have been easier and faster to use the streets. She listened at houses, and only got close to those that were very quiet. She had no idea where the residents of all of the houses had gone, but most were empty, and the ones that weren't she stayed away from. She passed more bloated corpses, it seemed like people were just leaving their dead in the street, the smell was awful.

Closer to the mountain, and after a bit of a walk, she came up to a golf range and took a break in the shadow. The day was hot, and the sweat was pooling on her neck. She drank some more water and then saw some stairs that led up to a patio that she assumed had a restaurant or something. She slowly crept up the stairs and activated her inner sight, but there was no one there. She saw the auras down closer to the river now. There must be hundreds of them down there, she thought to herself. This was not a place to hide. While it gave her a great advantage point from which to view the town, it was also possible for anyone who looked closely to see her. Without police, she had already seen what people could do. She just wanted to be home.

Jenny made her way farther to the north and out of the golf range into an industrial district. Off to the west, she could now see the Garden of the Gods rock formation and knew she wasn't far from the small house she had bought last year. Seeing people milling around the shopping center parking lot up ahead, her first thought was to go wide around it. But, there were many people there, probably close to fifty. She figured there would be some safety in numbers, and a week without any news made her feel like she didn't know what was going on. Maybe some of these people had heard from the authorities.

Jenny crossed the large street there and walked on to the shopping center lot. As she looked, almost all of the windows of each business were busted out. Some had people inside, some did not. There were people near the grocery store talking, so she walked up to see what was going on. She saw an older woman with a kind face and approached her.

"Hi," Jenny said tentatively.

"Hello, sweetie," said the woman, "you here to trade?" The woman looked at the duffel bag.

Jenny didn't know what she meant. "Trade?" The woman nodded and pointed to Jenny's bag. "Oh," Jenny exclaimed, "no. I was just looking for information."

"Aren't we all, kiddo," The woman said and started to walk away.

"Wait," Jenny called out to stop her. A few people turned to look at Jenny, but she continued anyway, "Do you know what is going on? With the power outage and all, have you talked to any of the authorities?"

A man who was coming up with a bag of his own answered her, "There are no authorities, miss. Do what you can to survive."

Trying to comprehend what he was saying, Jenny just stared at the man. What did he mean there were no authorities? There may be a power outage, but government doesn't stop just because of no power. She said as much to the man. His reply already gave her information she did not have.

"It isn't just power," he said, "it is communications, vehicles, medicine. Some people think it is the end times, others that we were hit by a comet or something. I don't know, I just know that you have to survive. And don't expect people to help. There is no community any more, it is every man (or woman) for himself."

"So, people just looted these stores?" Jenny asked.

"These stores here have been picked dry for days," said the woman she had first talked to, "you are up a creek without a paddle if you haven't already got something to trade. We setup here during the daylight to try to trade and make sure everyone gets what they need."

"Please," Jenny was about to start crying and it showed in her voice as it cracked, "can you tell me what is going on?"

The woman took pity on her and put her arm around Jenny's shoulders, pulling her toward the shade, "Not much, but we did meet some cadets from the Academy who were riding bikes around to check on people. They are the ones that told us there was no civilian authority now, and that we were sort of on our own. They said the Academy was not taking people in, but we could head down to Fort Carson if we wanted, they were setting up a town or something. They did mention that the law would be martial there."

The man who had spoken with her walked by and spit at that comment, "I don't serve the military; they are supposed to serve us. I will keep to my own affairs, thank you very much."

"Do you need water, honey?" the older woman asked, "I could probably spare one. Do you have anything at all to trade?"

Jenny sunk her head in despair, shaking it from side to side, "No. All I have is chips and candy and other snacks."

She was surprised to hear the woman laugh before she gave Jenny's shoulders another squeeze. "Young lady, you have a gold mine then. Snacks is what everyone is trading big for," she said with a big smile, "Here, I will help you. What have you got?"

As the woman went through Jenny's duffel bag, others came around and traded with her. When she left the "market" an hour or so later, she was loaded up with water, canned food, a knife and she still had half a bag of tradeables left. She walked away with the warning to stay safe from the people she had met and headed the last few blocks to her house.

She couldn't take everything in that they were claiming about government and all, as it was just too hard to wrap her head around. They had tried to tell her that after a simple week without power, total chaos reigned in America, and she couldn't accept that. Then she walked up to her house and despair set in. People had broken into her house, broken every window and smashed the door in. The place was ransacked, her clothes and even her cutlery were taken. Anything even mildly useful had been removed. She wandered around the house and looked at how value had changed. Untouched were her big-screen TV, and any kind of electronics. Gone were all draperies and most of the clothing she had there. She wondered if there was any reason to remain.

After having a good cry on the floor of her broken house, Jenny got up and left. She couldn't head south, due to the fires and whatever lawlessness might be there. East seemed an unlikely area to be hospitable, and the west was straight into the mountains. She knew where some caves were just north of here, near the Hillside Restaurant. She and her girlfriend had hiked around them multiple times. People were going house to house, perhaps the caves were safe. Scared, alone and uncertain of what to do, Jenny Martinez walked into the open space (as it was called) park and headed toward those cliffs.
CHAPTER FORTY

Cal felt prepared. He had felt that way most of his life. His ability to predict the behavior of others and future events by strict analysis of patterns and past events had always come in handy. The situation he now found his family and himself in was no exception. But, what he was seeing, what he was deducing was just crazy. Being with his family these last couple of days had given him the calm he needed to make sure he was not going crazy, but it was still hard to believe.

As his group headed toward the west, an oddly safer destination than staying home, he knew he would have to be a strong and steady anchor for the things they would discover. He couldn't be positive at the moment, but something had changed the fundamental basis of reality and Cal would need to figure it out so that his family could survive. Walking down this long road was only a part of it. The strange powers that his family members were exhibiting were a wrinkle in any theory he could compose. Why the youngest? The abilities seemed to be showing from youngest to oldest. This would only prove itself if Beth were the last to exhibit and that might take days.

Kyle had exhibited something in the high school. Cal was pretty sure he had inadvertently discovered the ability to make light, though he would have to help his son test that when it got dark. His meditative katas opened him to something also, and it seemed to do the same to Ted, so maybe age had nothing to do with it. He looked around and saw Max walking with one of her dogs, the whole pack thing was amazing. Did their group really understand what that meant? Did they get that Max could see farther, spy better, and defend better than all of them combined at the moment? Did Max? He shook his head in amazement.

"What is it honey?" Kate walked up next to him. She was the best thing to ever happen to him and he was so glad to have her at his side again.

"I was just contemplating the strangeness of our current situation," he answered. Kate looked down, just listening to her husband. Cal continued, "Have you exhibited any strange ability or anything like that?"

She shook her head, "I don't think so, though they all seem kind of surprised when it happens. Well, except Max."

They both looked in the direction of their niece, who was picking up stones at the side of the road that looked like hearts and showing them to her mother. Kate continued, "Just normal Max for now."

"Yeah," said Cal looking over at Maxine, "I have been thinking about that. Young people dream easier, create easier, and don't have as many blocks. Maybe that is the deal with the abilities. Maybe they are just not yet encultured to reject the metaphysical."

"Maybe," Kate replied, "So you think we can all do this stuff?"

"It makes sense to me," Cal responded.

They walked on in silence for a while and Kate dropped back to where her mother was walking. Beth was having a hard time with this hike, and they all knew it would be slower due to the pace she needed to walk. Up ahead, he saw Natalee looking off through the trees until she stopped and looked his way. Cal held up his hand, temporarily forgetting that most of the group didn't know the hand signal for stop.

"What is it, Nat?" he said, drawing close to her.

"House off through the trees," she started, "there are people moving around. They look a little frantic."

"Shall we help them?" Cal smiled at his little girl, who was doing a fantastic job on point.

"Well, we can check it out," she was ready to go, so Cal sent Natalee and Kyle through the trees to the house to talk to the people.

A few moments later, Kyle ran back through the trees, "Pop, Adam, I think we need you in here."

Adam took off at once, Cal called back before following, "Everyone take a rest. We will be right back." Cal noticed Erica running through the trees with Adam and just let it go. He made his way to the opening, where a family of four was on their porch, next to an old man lying on a bench. Having already arrived, Adam was leaning in close and listening to the man.

"Hello, sir," Adam said with his best reassuring voice. Cal could see the blood on the man's hip and the way his foot was turned in an awkward position. After a few minutes, Adam came back to Cal.

"He has a broken femur. There isn't a lot I can do, but I can set it. It is going to be super painful." Adam was looking for approval for something.

"What about the blood?" Cal asked.

"He has some mild blood loss, but the way the break is, there is a risk of tearing the artery, which is laying against the break at the moment." Adam's words surprised Cal, there was no way without an MRI, or something, that Adam could know what he was saying.

"How could you know that?" Cal asked him.

A look of surprise came over Adam's face as he looked up into his old friend's face, "I don't know. I shouldn't know that, but I do."

"Okay," Cal said after a short thought, "I need to ask you to do something, and I need you to trust me, because it is going to sound weird." Cal knew that he was about to give the strangest command he ever had, and that was saying something. Adam nodded. "I want you to concentrate on the injury and picture what it would take to fix it. See if you get any answers."

Adam gave Cal a strange look but didn't reply. He went back and kneeled next to the man and put his hand on the leg near the wound. As Cal watched, he saw something that the lack of reaction on everyone else told him they did not see. Adam's hands glowed for a moment and the man yelled out. Adam kept his concentration and the man's foot slowly turned back to the correct position. After this there was an audible click and the man sat jolt upright.

Adam sort of fell back against Erica, seemingly exhausted, and she stroked his hair as he rested there. Just before turning to look at the family, Cal saw a very slight glow coming from Erica and falling over Adam. Adam's body visibly relaxed. The man was putting a little pressure on the leg that Adam had just been working on. In a few minutes, he was standing on it gingerly.

A younger woman looked at Adam and then at Cal as he walked toward them, "What just happened?"

"I don't know," Cal replied, "but it looks like it helped."

The entire family were now surrounding Adam and thanking him as he said over and over that he didn't really do anything. Cal talked with the family for a bit, asking if they needed anything else. He looked up to see two of Max's dogs just staring at them all out of the woods. It was a little creepy, but he was sure that Max was now telling everyone that all was well. Adam was getting back to his feet, so they said their goodbyes and told the family where they were headed, just in case it became necessary to look for them.

The five of them made their way back to the road, flanked on each side by dogs. Cal reminded himself at that moment that he was never alone, he always had the eyes of a ten-year-old girl watching him.

Back at the road, he turned to Adam and Erica, "Do you two understand what happened?"

"Yeah," Erica exclaimed, "Adam healed that old guy."

"Do you know what you did?" Cal continued pressing.

"Me?" she asked, "I didn't do anything."

"Adam healed the man, and you restored Adam's strength," Cal said. Adam was looking right up at Erica. He really had avoided the obvious attraction they shared up until now, but something about Cal's statement seemed to wake him up.

"You did that?" Adam asked.

"Did I?" Erica questioned, seeming a little confused.

Cal nodded, "You did. I think we need to talk with the group. I think I know a little more about our new world."

They walked forward, and though he was excited with the possibilities, he wasn't sure everyone had the energy to talk about it.

"Everyone?" He called out, once they arrived, and all of the group turned to listen. "We have some things to discuss, but I have no idea if discussing it in the middle of the road when a storm is coming," he pointed to the clouds that were gathering over the front range, "is really the best time and place. I need a vote, who wants to discuss things now and who wants to wait? If now, raise your hands." Only Erica, Adam and Nat raised their hands. "Later?" Everyone else raised their hands. Cal shrugged, "Okay, later it is. Let's all head down the road. Adam are you good to travel?"

"Yep," Adam said, and he and Erica started walking.

They all walked the miles to the country highway; all the while, Cal was searching his considerable intellect to wrap his head around the ramifications of what it would mean if he was right. If they were now in a magical world, instead of one that had the known scientific structure, the conclusions would be profound. He found himself so deep in thought that he needed his daughter to yell out a second time. He looked up and realized everyone else had stopped and he was a few yards ahead of them. He had almost walked right over the edge of the road where it had washed out.

Looking down over the crevasse, it wasn't that far, maybe twenty feet. But, below him was a raging river. What had once been an almost empty creek was now a raging river. It stood between his group and the other side. They needed to get to the other side in order to achieve their objective. Cal looked north; there was no crossing that he could see. He looked south and far off, it looked like most or all of another crossing was intact. He could take the group that way.

Cal turned to tell the group and saw his fatal mistake. There was a widening crack in the pavement upon which he was standing. He was the only one to notice it. He looked around for something to grab.

"No one come over here," he said as he felt the weight under him start to shift. "Kyle, take the rope out of your backpack."

He watched as Kyle did as he was told and saw the look of horror on everyone's faces as they watched the crack grow wider and wider. Kyle had the rope out and tossed it to his Dad. As Cal reached for it, he felt the ground beneath him slip. He hit his head hard against the asphalt as the road crumbled underneath him. He was never close enough to the rope to get it, but he reached wildly out for any handhold as he fell.

A piece of the road that had crumbled previously had a bar sticking out of it and Cal was able to grab ahold of it. The water rushed so furiously by that it was loud, but he could hear the yells of his family above him as he pulled himself toward dry land. He looked up and saw the rope being lowered at the same moment he felt the soft earth give way under his anchor. He fought against it, but the mud was too wet and slippery, and he slowly sank into the river and its incredible current. He held on for dear life, but the current began to tug at him as more of his body sunk into it. His arms burned with the strain of holding on and in this short time, he almost couldn't feel his fingers any more.

He couldn't hold on and fell into the river, which quickly carried him downstream. He tried to call out but swallowed a huge amount of water in the attempt. He was just able to see the pipes that led to the underground portion of this. Maybe he could grab the side. It would probably rip his hand apart, but maybe he could hold on long enough for the family to get there. He reached out but missed it and the effort brought him right into the path of a branch that hit him hard on the head. As he faded out, he wondered how everyone else would survive. He said a silent prayer to a god or gods he had long since forgotten as his vision faded to black, and Calvin Ward faded from this life.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Cliff Ko was an intelligent boy, a bit of a geek really. He liked all things mystical and magical and had generally been ostracized by others his age for being weird. Most people today think kids embrace nerdiness, but it has never been quite so simple. Kids find a way to categorize those that are not like everyone else, they always have. Maybe they always will. He had lived all twelve years of his life in Colorado Springs with his father and his brother, his mother having died when he was very young. The change from one existence to the next was taken as a real positive by Cliff. He had been at the Target pharmacy with his Dad when the power had gone out, and shortly after that they had walked home. It wasn't too far, and Cliff got to spend time with his Dad. Cliff had gone to his room to begin planning the next RPG game he would try to get introduced into the Middle School's gaming club.

When it got dark that first night, and the rain started pouring down, he wasn't able to see much and became a little frustrated. In his mind, Cliff had been making patterns he could use in the maps for the game and one in particular that was basically concentric circles, when he wished he had light in the room to read. He just wished it, and it happened. It was low, and had come out of his hands, and went out as soon as he started reading. He played with that light all night, not telling his father about it. He really wished he had. He wished that he could have helped his father, but those wishes never came true.

On the second day, Cliff's father had grown steadily more ill. He said his heart medication wasn't working. Late in the afternoon, he didn't wake up from his nap. Cliff had tried to push the light into his father, trying to give him energy, but apparently the magic didn't work that way. On the third day, he wrapped his Dad in a sheet and left him in the living room. The smell was horrific now, and Cliff mostly stayed in his room upstairs. He had rung doorbells nearby, but no one seemed to be home anymore. Now, with six or seven days having passed since the world changed, with no sight of his brother in all that time, and with his food reserves down to a few fruit rolls and some granola bars, Cliff wanted to get out and see if he could find people. There were two problems with this.

One problem was that there were people Cliff had seen in the last couple of days, since the rain stopped. There was a group of five or six boys, high-schoolers, who were roaming the streets, breaking into houses and taking food and pretty much whatever they wanted. They hadn't come to Cliff's house yet, but he knew they would get here eventually, based on their pace, probably today.

The other problem was that Cliff was afraid of the other way out of the house, the back way. There was a creek back there, that now was a river, but that wasn't the problem. Since he was a little boy, he had always heard the rumors of the Hermit. A local bogeyman of rumor, the Hermit was one of the scariest ideas Cliff could imagine. He didn't even like exiting his house in that direction. His older brother, Kin, always got mad at him for this fear, but Cliff knew the Hermit was real. The story went that a homeless man lived in a cave down by the creek. He was crazy and abducted and killed small children. Cliff had thought he had seen him once in another part of town. He was a tall man with mud smeared all over his clothes, and he had looked at Cliff straight in the eyes when he, his father, and Kin had been at the park downtown some months ago. The dull stare in his eyes were enough to frighten Cliff forever. Cliff peeked out his bedroom window, looking for any sign of the Hermit. He thought he saw movement in the trees near the creek, just off their property. It was growing dark, and he couldn't be sure.

The sound of breaking glass brought Cliff to his senses. He heard voices downstairs.

"Oh, shit, man. Is that a corpse?"

"Go check," said a second voice.

"I ain't checking, you check," the first voice replied.

"You guys are such pussies!" chimed in a third voice, "Yeah it is a body, and someone wrapped him up." Cliff was about to sneak out to see who it was, but stopped short when he heard, "let's check the house. Load anything worthwhile on to the patio and we will take it with us, Jay, go downstairs and check the basement."

"It's always flooded in the basement," the man named Jay whined aloud.

"Just do it," said the voice of the man who was obviously the leader, "I will check upstairs."

Cliff had heard enough, he loaded his DM guide, his player's handbook and his book of game magic all into his backpack with the little food items he had left and crawled out his window onto the small roof area. There was a lattice he and his brother had used to sneak into the house when he had been in school and had stayed out later than his father had wanted. Cliff crept over to it, just as he heard the door to his bedroom open. Cliff was just beginning to ease himself down the lattice work, when the man shouted out the window.

"Hey, there he is. It is some kid."

Cliff looked up to see the teen (which is what he really was) climb out onto the roof. He heard the lumbering feet of another running across his hardwood floors and Cliff made a leap for the ground and took off running toward the woods and the creek. The young men were on his track in less than a minute. Cliff darted through the trees, only slowed by the overwhelming fear of the direction he was headed. He saw the swollen creek and knew he didn't have far to run, so he tried to hide behind a tree. He heard the men moving through the small brush.

"We know you are here kid," said the first voice, "just come out so we can talk about the body. You kill that guy?"

Did he kill his own father? The question really upset him, he stood and walked around the tree, to where three young men stood. A fourth was just running into the wooded area at that moment.

"No, I did not kill my father," Cliff began indignantly, "he died of heart problems a couple of days ago. Now, you leave our property."

"Or what?" came the leader's response.

"Or the Hermit will get you," Cliff replied, his fear growing greater every second.

"Kid, that story is older than me. Now get over here, and we will decide if you live or die."

Cliff was so afraid, he wasn't certain he didn't feel a little pee come out. The man started walking forward, and Cliff was certain he was at least about to get hurt. But, the leader stopped up short, his eyes wide. He was staring, not at Cliff, but behind him. Cliff turned to look behind him but was shoved roughly aside by a man walking by. His head hit the tree he was standing next to and he fell down, dazed. When he could regain his thoughts, he looked up to see the man who had walked by. It was the Hermit, with the mud-covered clothes and skin, exactly as Cliff imagined. He shrank back against the tree, because around the Hermit lay the four bodies of the young men who had wanted to kill or hurt Cliff.

The Hermit paid no mind to Cliff, he rifled over the men's bodies, looking for something. Cliff saw him rip a diamond stud earring from one of the boys' ears. The Hermit's back was to Cliff the whole time. The man stood, looked down at the bodies for a moment and started walking off parallel to the creek.

Cliff called out, "Sir?" There was no response.

The man kept walking, farther away, without looking back. Cliff followed him and called out again, "Are you the Hermit?"

At this, the man turned. Cliff fully expected to see those dead, scary eyes, but what he saw was something quite different. The Hermit's eyes sparkled with power, like there was something shiny inside his head. He said nothing, but Cliff was suddenly overwhelmed with fear and he shrunk down as the man turned to leave. As fearful as he was, the man had saved him. So, cowering on the ground, he yelled out one more thing, "Thank you for saving me."

The Hermit turned once again, considered Cliff for a moment, and then turned back and continued his fast-paced walk away. The fear immediately left Cliff, like someone had drawn a curtain back. It was an odd sensation. Cliff threw his backpack over a shoulder and followed after the man at a distance, never getting close enough to incur his wrath, but every once in a while, Cliff would see him turn and look and shake his head.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

She had not spoken to her husband in many days now. It was hard to remember how many had passed in this damp, overheated concrete box. Only Jordan to keep her company, Emma was going a tad stir-crazy. Before this thing, whatever it was, she had spent every lunch hour here, in this enclosed garden, speaking to her dead husband. He had been cremated when he had passed, and according to his wishes, Emma had spread his ashes in Hawaii. So, she had taken to sitting in the garden and having a one-way conversation with him. She knew he was gone. It just calmed her and gave her peace to speak with him like he was there.

The thought of sharing this little section of her crazy was abhorrent to her. She had not wanted to do that when Jordan was there, and there was no privacy to do it without him here. She was pretty sure it had been about a week they were trapped there. She also felt guilty, because she was becoming increasingly attracted to Jordan. It wasn't only because of her continuing love for her dead husband, but also because of the age gap between herself and the young soldier, that caused her to feel such shame.

On top of that, she had realized a few days ago that she was actually having an effect on the plants themselves. First it had been the way Donna's burial mound had covered with flowers in less than a day. Then, she had been able to make the plants bear fruit quicker than was physically possible. She didn't really question this ability, because it had provided food for them. But, now, missing the guidance her husband would have provided, she wondered what good this gift would do if they remained stuck in the garden forever.

Jordan took the same place he took every other day. He knelt near the air opening, picking away at the hole in the wall in tiny chips. In six or seven days, she wasn't sure, he had picked out about eight inches long, by three inches deep, and three inches wide. At this rate, it would take months to get out of here.

She whispered softly to herself, "Mark, what would you do? What would you tell me to do?"

"I'm sorry," Jordan called out, "did you say something?"

Emma turned toward him, they would be alone for a long time, she needed to let him know what was going on with her, "Not really. I need to tell you something."

Jordan stopped picking, turned and walked over to her, sitting next to her, "Sure, what is it? Are you okay?"

"Yes. You are very sweet," Emma started, "Umm, I just want you to know that I sometimes talk to my husband, who passed a while back. It keeps me stable, I guess. I know it sounds crazy, but somehow it keeps me sane." Jordan just nodded and smiled a sad smile, and no apparent judgment, so she continued, "But, that isn't what I wanted to tell you. Well, let me show you."

She reached down to where a young strawberry plant was just flowering and took a leave in her hand. Concentrating, as she had practiced all day before and most of today, she thought through the deep process of growth and reproduction of this particular plant. As she conjured it in her mind, she followed the pattern of growth with her eyes, as the plant's flowers spouted fruit. The fruit grew and colored a deep red as the berries became about half the size of her palm. Fearing him freaking out, Emma looked up at Jordan and saw something quite different.

He had a look of amazement and joy on his face as he took the strawberry off the plant and bit into it. A look of almost ecstasy crossed his face.

"Wow, Emma! That is delicious. That is so cool. How did you do it?" He asked in a staccato of statement and question that mirrored the look of excitement on his face.

She giggled with a little glee at his response, "I don't know. The last few days, I have just been able to do it."

"Oh my God, Emma," Jordan exclaimed, "Could you do that with a vine?"

She shrugged, "I think so."

"Don't you think the vine will work much better on the concrete?" Jordan asked, waiting for her to pick up his meaning.

Shocked, Emma snapped off an ivy vine, grabbed some potting soil and walked over to the area in which Jordan had been working. She quickly planted the vine and took it through the planting, rooting and growth pattern to get it up to the opening. She then guided the vine through the process of attaching to the concrete and pulling at it until pieces of cement started to break off. They were small, not much different than the size that Jordan was breaking off. But, Emma could feel micro-crevasses in the concrete and sent tentacles of vine into each one. Within about thirty minutes, she had broken off an amount equal to the amount Jordan had taken out in days. As she broke off her concentration, she realized how much it was taking out of her. She collapsed into Jordan's arms as he rushed to catch her.

"Emma!" he exclaimed, "You did it! We will be able to get out of here now."

Without warning, he bent his head down and kissed her deep on the lips. Emma gave in and gave up all of the shame she was carrying for being attracted to him. She momentarily forgot about her grief, her fright, and her exhaustion. She wanted this young man, and she gave in to the feeling. The wall could wait.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

The anticipation was thick as Eric walked back into the camp briskly and whistled loud. t was growing dark and he needed to act quickly.

"Everyone into the street," he called out.

People began to come out of the buildings all around. Being roughly the time of patrol change, all of the soldiers and Tigers were soon in front of him as well. He paced and planned as everyone gathered. Once everyone was there and quiet, he spoke to them, using the command voice he had honed over thirty years in the Army.

"Team," he began, "We have a real crisis in front of us. The south of town is burning, as anyone can see, and it is getting close. What our scouts have discovered is that it is intentional. We met up with some soldiers from Fort Carson and learned the cause of the fire. The commander of the base, General Stone, has ordered the city burned to protect against looting and to get everyone to come to Fort Carson under his control. He has, to put it nicely, gone off his rocker. The problem is that it means we can't keep our camp here. It means we have to save lives. We have to stop what the soldiers are doing; they are destroying resources right now. We also need to find a safer location. My plan is to go south to the base and demand that General Stone stop. I fully expect a confrontation."

Eric softened his voice to show care, and continued, "I want everyone to know their options. I will need all of our soldiers with me. It is important to me for you all to be safe. So, you can come with us and carry goods for us, you can stay and see if you can survive, or you can run away. It is important to note that the last two options give you no protection, and if you choose them, you will no longer be considered part of our group."

Eric looked around, trying hard to ensure he made eye contact with everyone he could see. They had twenty-nine soldiers, including the three Ft. Carson soldiers that had turned and joined their side. The other thirty-seven people were "villagers". He knew he would destroy anyone who chose to leave his group, he would have to just to maintain order, but he wanted to give the perception of choice.

"It is your call," he said, "make it."

Eric turned and walked toward the dojo, he called out to his men, "Gather all weapons, as well as what supplies we can carry. Put everything out here in the street, we leave before dark. I want to be at the gates of the base by dawn."

Readying himself for conflict, he walked into the dim dojo to make sure he grabbed his Bo staff and nunchaku. However, he knew his power lay in his physical and mystical gifts first and weapons second. He had not told his "town" of the battle in the streets just south of camp. He had kept from them the fact that he and his men had destroyed a group of over one hundred soldiers in quick order, and that some of the soldiers had got away and were running as fast as their feet could carry them to the base to report on this. Both Meyer and Damiano had followed him in. He was growing tired of their bickering and sycophantic climbing.

"Gentlemen, we will use every bit of chi energy in this battle, this is our chance. We take down everyone. Many of these foes are battle hardened, but some will join us, once they see our strength. Anyone who attacks us will be killed. All prisoners who engage with us will be brought before me, only I will make the call as to whether they live or die. Clear?"

Both men gave a short bow in acknowledgement of the order. Eric continued, "Meyer, once we are close, you will take eight men and go left flank. Miles, you will take eight and go right. I will take center and go straight to the gates. We will have to kill many of them to show our power and resolve, and we will be tired as we draw close. Due to numbers, they will underestimate us, so don't let your soldiers play with them. Death will rain on them today."

In unison, both men said, "Yes, Sensei!"

"Okay, go get ready, dismissed," Eric turned back, was there anything else he wanted to take with him? He rifled through the items and found a couple of books, as well as a ring he had not put on since his marriage had ended four years before. Then he walked into the pitch black of the private training room and sat to meditate and prepare his mind for what he must now do. Days ago, the men of Fort Carson had been comrades in arms, now they were to be the enemy and he could not think of them as anything but the foe they were.

Eric finished his meditation of roughly thirty minutes and walked out into the growing darkness of dusk. He saw people gathered and without counting them all, it seemed that every villager was preparing to go with them. The implied threat had worked. Eric smiled a satisfied smile. This meant they could bring all of the supplies. He walked out to the middle of the street to find Meyer corralling the villagers.

"Any dissenters?" Eric asked coldly.

Meyer shook his head, "No, Sensei. We have a full count of every soldier and every villager."

"Excellent," Eric replied, "I will leave two soldiers from my group to watch over the town-people. How long before we can leave?"

"Within the hour, Sensei."

"Okay, make it happen," Eric walked off toward where Damiano was chatting with his set of soldiers.

"Miles, with me," Eric called out and Damiano came running over.

"Yes, Sensei?" Damiano asked.

"Meyer has his troops ready and all of the villagers in tow. What have your men done?" Eric didn't even try to hide his disappointment at the lack of efficiency of the group.

Damiano's eyes went wide, "Sensei, we were waiting to leave, as you have asked."

Eric turned on him and got close to his face, "Then I suggest you and your men help gather our supplies and get them to the villagers immediately, am I clear?"

The second man bowed deeply, "Yes, Sensei. My apologies."

"Apologies aren't needed if you do it right the first time," Eric said and let it sink in, "Now, go. Make it happen."

Damiano ran off to his men and Eric watched as they frantically tried to "help out', all the while getting in Meyer's way. Within the hour that Meyer had quoted, they began their march southward. Eric was beginning to see the value in the former soldiers over their less-trained brothers. None of them had the power that Eric did, but he was able to train people to use Chi. That had become apparent over the last week. Discipline and order were traits that took longer to train. I will have to find a way to reward discipline over other factors. Yes. Discipline and fidelity are the cornerstones of this new order. He knew the biggest test of his men was about to come to fruition, as well as the biggest test of his leadership. He steeled his resolve and prepared himself for what lay ahead.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

There was no hope of a rescue. Ted was devastated. They had searched as best they could up and down the river bank and found nothing. It had been hours since Cal had fallen into the river. Max said the dogs smelled death. He couldn't accept that Calvin Ward was really dead. It was too much to deal with. The group was now taking shelter from a passing lightning and hail storm in an abandoned house nearby. Calling it a house was being simplistic, it was a mansion, as many of the houses on the border of Black Forest and Colorado Springs were. Someone had broken in, broken things, and stolen everything they could get their hands on, but it still sheltered his small group from the storm.

Everyone in the room was sad, but none more than Cal's family. Natalee had climbed trees to get a better look, which was a feat in and of itself. Ted had no explanation for her sudden fighting ability, immense strength, and lightning quickness. He had no more explanation for this than he had for his own daughter's new ability to mentally connect with dogs. But, Nat had scaled those trees like she was a squirrel, and jumped between them even, as she tried to get sight of a body, even a dead one. But, Cal had slipped into that drain and they couldn't even have the benefit of a burial.

Rich stood up in the middle of the group, near where Kate, Kyle, and Natalee all sat crying quietly. "I know Cal wasn't one for church," he began, "But, would it be okay if I said a prayer?"

When no one objected, Rich said a soft prayer and reached for his guitar, which he began softly playing. Much like the situation with Kim in the first few days, Rich's guitar playing calmed the emotions and restored hope that things were going to be alright. Ted began to wonder if it was anything like Nat and Max's gifts. He pondered this as they all listened, and then he spoke to the group.

"Everyone," Ted started, "I today have lost the best male friend I have ever had. I enjoyed his friendship for forty years. It is hard to function. But, Cal would have told us to keep moving, to stick with the plan." Everyone nodded, so Ted continued, "Before we go, we need to talk about some things, I think."

Kayla looked up at Ted, even she didn't know where he was going. He said, "The abilities, or powers or whatever, let's discuss them really quick."

Kayla interrupted him, "Is this really the time, honey?"

"I understand," Ted replied, "but there is never a good time. I think Cal had more to say about it, and if we don't get it out in the open, we might not have another chance." The quiet in the room let him know that it was okay to continue, "Has anyone experienced anything unusual in the last few days? We know about Max and her dogs, I think we all know that Nat has some kind of ability with movement, strength, and instinct. I have noticed some pick up in my senses, that I wasn't really attributing to much, but I think it is in the same vein as Nat's abilities. Anyone else?" He looked around the room, expecting one of his family members to talk, but it was Kim who spoke up.

"I have been a Christian since childhood. I have prayed and prayed for things and never experienced anything that could not be attributed to chance. But, I have to admit what is before us, what God has placed in my path. I seem to be able to warm things with my hands. Not a great help in the heat we have experienced, I know, but there may be some need for it," Kim sat back down nervously. Even in the twilight, he could see how hard it was for her to admit that.

Kyle didn't stand up, he just said, "Well, there is this."

He held his hand out and a small ball of light appeared in it. It functioned more like a flashlight than anything else.

"Not very useful," he said.

"Seems pretty useful in a world of darkness," Rich's southern drawl cut through the darkness they all experienced when Kyle stopped showing the light. "I don't know if anyone had noticed, but when I play the guitar, it seems to calm the nerves. I don't know if that is real or not."

"I noticed it," Ted interjected. There were a few murmurs of assent.

Adam was next to share, "I think I can heal people, but it takes a lot out of me."

"But I was able to refill his energy," Erica offered in sort of a bubbly fashion that made Ted smile.

His mother-in-law then inserted her words, and they seemed almost filled with shame, "I have nothing. I am the same old boring person."

Both Kate and Kayla broke in with, "Me too."

Jessica said, "I haven't tried."

They had a nice little laugh around the room, which had about the same effect as Rich's play had.

"Okay, that is good," Ted was starting to get an idea, "In the Army, we inventory our strengths. These are our strengths. Let's make sure to train them, to try them out, to use them when needed. Let's not be afraid of judgment. This is the new world; let's make the most of it."

As it had grown to night, they couldn't really see each other and the group broke into little conversations. But Beth stood alone near the window, and Ted could just make out her form in the small difference between the darkness outside and the darkness inside.

She called to him, "Ted?"

He walked over to where she was, "Yeah, Mom?"

"What is that light?" She was looking out the window, and in the far distance, he could see some orange glow and its reflection on some buildings. The room grew quiet and people went to windows to look.

"Is that the big church, Uncle Ted?" Natalee asked.

Ted had always disliked that church, with its televangelist pastor and holier-than-thou congregation. He had seen it on his visits to town to see the family, but also knew its reputation nationally and its impact in the area from the last time he had been stationed at Fort Carson years before.

"Yeah," Ted answered, "I think it is."

"Is it on fire?" Kim asked worriedly.

"Nah," Adam said, "I am pretty sure those are bonfires glowing on the side of the buildings."

"How far away is that?" Ted asked, to no one in particular.

"If we hit that bridge to the south and make our way there," Kyle answered, "Maybe a mile and a half to two miles."

The storm had passed, and the darkness was deep, Ted was worried about losing another person in the group to the river, "So, we know where we are going in the morning then."

Everyone agreed, and people spent the rest of the night playing with their abilities. The most useful of these was the examination that Adam performed on every member of the group. He was able to find some small infections. He even found a skin lesion on Rich and took it out, completely healing Rich. This had tired him out and Erica had come to give him some more energy, but he had stopped her telling her that it would help him sleep. Kyle had learned pretty quickly that he could throw the ball of light. It did no damage, but then he didn't need to think about it to keep it going. Right now, it was about a centimeter in diameter and would last under a minute, but it was still pretty cool.

Ted and Nat had worked on their abilities together, and Ted had discovered his were a little different than hers. His were defensive mostly and kept him from being hurt when he sparred with her. Ted was pretty sure that anyone else who sparred with her would have been hurt badly, she had not fully learned control. Jessica had also discovered a skill, but it didn't work well. She could move things telekinetically, but all they did was shake from side to side, and it drained her terribly to try. People tested their current limits, and Ted found hope in it. They were embracing the world, as it is. He was sure that is the only way they could survive.

TWO WEEKS PASSED

"One group confronts another, their aims different, their cultures at odds. One comes out victorious and the other is lost to time."

-Merritt Kelly, On Ancient Warfare
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

Smoke billowed into the sky above towering flames from the church. Kyle looked back at the burning buildings, wondering how they could have done things differently. The mega-church was so big that it burned high into the dawn's waning darkness. They had a group of more than thirty now, and he and Nat would take the lead on their trek to the front range of mountains. These last two days had taught them that they needed a more defensible home.

It hadn't started out that way. When the group had arrived at the church, they had been welcomed by the parishioners, who had made a tent camp in the courtyard between their three buildings. Everyone pitched in and it almost felt normal, more like a camping trip than a complete change in the way the world worked. It had actually been kind of fun, except for the part that the pastor thought their powers were "of the devil" and refused to let them practice in the camp. It was not much of a deterrent. The group continued to practice outside the camp whenever they had the chance. Even very religious people like Rich and Kim had found the prohibition just fear of the unknown. They had been there a little more than a week when the trouble brewed.

Two days ago, some young men who seemed about Kyle's age, maybe a little older had come to the church asking for food. Max's dogs had immediately sensed something was wrong. Nat had grabbed a broom handle and walked to the front of the camp, looking as demure as possible, but something in her told her she might be needed. Adam had watched the men and commented that it reminded him of some villagers from when he was in Afghanistan once, that the Taliban would come to town on friendly terms, but were looking for something. He said it often ended in some kind of bloodshed, and this was no different.

These men had returned at the break of dawn yesterday, one day after their initial introduction. Armed with axes and machetes, they, and the two dozen guys they brought with them, tore into the camp. Uncle Ted figured they were trying to take food and supplies. The pastor told them to put their weapons away, there was no need for them here, and he had been killed on the spot. Kyle couldn't believe how quickly society had broken down, that in America people would act like that. The rest of the people in the camp must have been pretty delighted to see Kyle's group jump into action. But they were stunned when the two most dangerous people turned out to be Nat and Maxine. Nat was like a warrior from a Kung Fu movie, she moved fast and brilliantly, but it was Max that had scared the "campers". To see the little girl with rage on her face as she stood mid-camp and directed her dogs (there were thirteen of them now) into an attack of awesome force and brutality was more than most of them could bear. The attackers had then taken hostages to use as human shields. Kyle had personally had to restrain his ten-year-old cousin to keep her from unleashing the dogs right into the group.

As the night turned to dusk, the men tried to get away, but Max's dogs were on them. Not one survived. It was too late that he had seen their mistake. The men had lit all three buildings on fire and the fire took hold quickly. The camp had burned, and all his group could do was save those who remained and get them out. Now, their group of thirty plus survivors was about a mile away watching their camp, and church, burn. It was almost over now. It had been burning for hours. Most of the supplies were inside those buildings. Kyle had pulled the last shift of guard duty while most of the others rested. He couldn't sleep anyway.

He heard footsteps behind him and turned to see Jessica walking up with a piece of the jerky they had taken from his work. She offered it to him, but he just shook his head.

"You have to keep your strength up," she said quietly, "come on, it is the breakfast of heroes."

He laughed and took the food and began to chew it, "Is Uncle Ted up yet?"

Jessica nodded, and Kyle walked back to where his Uncle and Aunt had laid down for the evening. He spoke quietly, so as not to wake anyone who was actually able to sleep.

"So, what now, Uncle Ted?" Kyle started, "You had a chance to rest. Still think the mountains are the best place?"

Ted nodded, "Your dad thought we should go to the Hillside, and I think I know why now. That restaurant is on a cliff that would be hard to scale. The entrance to it is a fairly narrow canyon from a secondary landing. We could set up a camp at the base of the road up to it, with another inner camp up at the restaurant. I doubt anyone is there, I think it has been closed for more than a year." Ted looked down at the ground. "It will be hard for your mom. That was the restaurant they always went to for special occasions."

Kyle remembered all the times his family had gone to the Hillside. They had enjoyed birthdays and holidays there, but mostly, until it had closed it was the place where his parents celebrated their anniversaries. The view was the best in town, because it looked out over most of the city. He had not really considered it, but it really was best for defending a position.

"I think in some ways," he said, "it will be better for Mom. Plus, it has that little waterfall and pond, right?"

"Right," Ted replied, "Good for drinking. We will have to forage and stock it up."

Foraging was the word they used to describe how they collected their food and supplies. In the old world, it would have been called stealing. But the concept of personal property had been lost in the last couple of weeks. There were so many people who had died, or just never come home. They would forage through empty houses for useful items and food. Even in the two weeks that had passed since the event, it was hard to find any store that hadn't been looted down to its bare shelves.

"What about our abilities?" Kyle asked and drew up a small ball of light in his hand.

"We need to talk about that. Can you see if Rich and the others are awake?"

Ted began gathering up his items from the ground and packing them into the backpacks he and Kayla and Max had brought. Kyle walked around and collected their group. It had not taken long for Adam and Erica to become more of an item, and they were nestled up together in a half open sleeping bag. Kyle woke them and the others and pulled everyone together to one spot. As they walked back to where Ted was, the whole camp seemed to follow.

"Hey, everyone. You can gather your things," Kyle told them, "Our group will be talking over where we are going."

"Don't you think we should all talk about it?" a man said, Kyle thought his name was Tom.

"They are right," Ted said from behind him, saving him from having to answer, "everyone gather 'round. Let's discuss our destination."
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

Cliff's feet hurt. They had been walking for over a week, seemingly to an endless list of unrelated places, but always leaving with something the Hermit seemed to want. Not that he was saying anything. Cliff wasn't sure if it had been seven, eight, or nine days they had been together, but the Hermit hadn't said a word. He would communicate by gestures mostly. He would point to something and move out without comment, and Cliff would follow.

They had broken into the mall, taking survival supplies from the Sporting Goods store and some knives and swords (yes, swords!) from a cutlery shop. For some reason, they had also broken into every jewelry store and the jewelry departments of the big department stores, coming away with only diamonds and diamond-embedded items, hundreds of them. Cliff had no idea what value there would be for the gems now, but they had loads of them if they were ever valuable again. He assumed that the Hermit was homeless and had attached the idea of wealth to the gems, but it was a guess. Two nights before, Cliff had woken to find the Hermit, huddled in a corner, rubbing the gems in his hands like Gollum with the One Ring. It was kind of creepy, but the next morning all had returned to normal.

Cliff was also now always hungry. Granola bars and trail mix aside, he hadn't eaten a real meal since they had left his house. He had left as a twelve-year-old, pudgy, Asian kid and now was getting leaner by the day. He had stopped complaining about it, since the Hermit would only nod every time he said something and then move on to wherever he was going to go anyway. Cliff felt like he had to remind the Hermit to eat sometimes. Even then, the man didn't eat much. He just seemed on a constant search for something. Right now, they were on the far south side of town. Everything was burned in the area, every building, every vacant car had been burned at some point in the recent past. There were no people, only bodies. Almost from the time they had left Cliff's house, when the Hermit had saved his life, they had seen the dead by the side of the road, or inside buildings they scavenged through. It didn't seem to faze the Hermit, and Cliff was getting numb to it as well.

It was clear they were headed toward the Army base at the south of town. They had approached from the north a couple of days back, but some kind of battle was going on and the Hermit had stayed in the shadows, only moving at night, toward the west. They skirted the base, just out of sight, and were now approaching it from the foothills of the Rockies, where the Mountain was. This was a very well-known military base, set up during the cold war to protect against nuclear attack. The idea seemed almost laughable now.

As they turned a corner on this back road, they were seen by a small group of men in military attire. The Hermit stopped, as though waiting for them, and the men obliged as they came in close, clearly cautious.

"You there," shouted out the man in front, clearly their leader, "Everyone is required to move on to the base for their own safety."

The Hermit shook his head to indicate he would not be doing that.

"We have orders. Now you have orders," The man continued. This was not going to go well, as Cliff had seen at other times when other men had tried to force the Hermit to do things, "Now come over here so we can identify you, and then we will look for you at the base. If you do not present yourself at the base, you will be hunted as a fugitive. Am I making myself clear?"

The Hermit shook his head again. Even from behind him, Cliff could see the tension building in his shoulders, and the grimy man's feet set into a stance. One of the men stepped toward the Hermit.

"Take your hood off and the sunglasses off," the man reached toward the Hermit's head and the Hermit opened his hand and pushed into the air between them. The man flew back through the air about fifteen feet and landed on his back. He immediately jumped up, as all of the others stepped back a few paces.

The Hermit shook his head again.

"Tiger, get up here," the leader yelled out, "this one has power."

A man from the back in camo pants and a black gi top with no sleeves jogged forward. "Okay," he started, "this can go one of two ways. You do as the nice men say, or I turn you into a bloody pulp at the side of the road." Cliff saw a look cross the man's face of question, which turned to confusion, and then almost to a mix of fright and anger, "You! Everyone attack now!"

He rushed forward, but he had no chance, nor did any of the other men. The Hermit whirled in a dance of power and pain, and the men flew in all directions. Those that could scrambled back up and rushed again, but that was the last chance they got. Two went down immediately, as his staff pulverized their skulls. Another three were cut where they stood, the Hermit slashing the air with his staff and the men's necks opening like they had been sliced with a knife. It went on like this for only a few moments, but it seemed forever. Time slowed. As Cliff watched from a few yards away, the Hermit dismantled a trained group of men in brutal fashion. At the end, there was one man left, who was trying to crawl away. The Hermit let him go, a few yards down the street, the man got up and limped out a run away from them as fast as his injured legs would allow.

Cliff ran up to go after the man but was stopped short when the Hermit held an arm out in front of him. "You let him go!" Cliff said to the older man, "he will tell the base and they will look for us."

The Hermit nodded his agreement and then went to rifling through the pockets of the men who had died there. He took their jewelry, some identifying items, which he placed on the outside of their clothes, but he kept the jewelry, and the badge he ripped from the man who was called "Tiger". Cliff saw the badge closer as the Hermit was holding it up, it had a picture of a Tiger circling a fire and the words, "Fine Modern Karate Academy." I would have gone with Great Modern Karate Academy, but I guess fine was good enough for this guy. The Hermit then stood as though he had been picking daisies, stretched his back and began walking. Cliff, ever the dutiful sidekick, ran up and followed him.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

Jordan and Emma had watched the squad coming up the road from the growing hole in the wall. They were almost through, thanks to the vines Emma had grown into the crevasses. Watching the men slaughtered by the disheveled man, with a young Asian kid just standing there viewing the scene, was a little disconcerting. They were about two hundred feet above the road in the outside garden, so they couldn't hear what was said, and they certainly weren't going to shout once they saw the way the man had torn into the squad. It was a brutal display of combat fighting and they wanted nothing to do with it.

"Holy Shit!" Jordan exclaimed quietly, "what is going on in the world?

Emma just shrugged, her mouth agape at the raw force of the mud-caked man, "All the more reason to get out and as far away as we can. Let's get back to this."

She concentrated, as she had done for a week, on the micro-crevasses that were in the cement. They had discovered that the bars only went a little more than a foot outside the openings themselves and gave ample hold for the vines to pull. Interestingly, it was the inclusion of the bars that had made them able to dismantle the cement in a quicker fashion. After a couple more hours, Emma could feel the vines fully encase the bars and reach the other side of the hole as well. Now, she put all her thought into growth and expansion, and the vines responded.

She stepped back, exhausted, to let the plants do their thing. Jordan came up behind her and let her lean on him, while he gently rubbed her shoulders. For a man in his twenties, Jordan was a very thoughtful and affectionate person, and had quite the stamina in love. Emma had found this out after their initial embrace the week before. They were now having sex two to three times a day. Jordan was just always ready it seemed. This was very different from men of her own age. Since Mark had died, however, she hadn't had a lot of opportunity to test that theory.

She could feel Jordan getting excited behind her and was ready for the next physical ecstasy she was about to embark on when a loud crack split the silence, and parts of the wall tumbled out of the opening. They watched with glee as the vines tore the bars free from the wall, leaving a hole roughly two and a half feet in diameter.

Jordan did not wait but clambered about half way through the hole. It was sort of funny to see him half in and half out of the hole where he stopped, but she suddenly became concerned.

"Are you stuck on something?" She asked nervously.

Jordan pushed his way back the way he had come, until he was all the way back in the enclosure. "No," he said, in a defeated way, "There is about a one-foot ledge and then a cliff that drops down about two hundred feet. I thought maybe there would be some kind of ladder or stairs, I don't know. I didn't think it would be impossible to get down."

Emma looked at Jordan, at his clear disappointment, and wanted to help. She knew of nothing that could so she held him close and took his mind off of it, moving quickly to unbutton his pants. She always found it amazing that women in their forties and men in their twenties had about the same level of sexual drive. At the moment, it seemed very opportune.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

"The Battle of Carson" That is what people were already calling it. It had really been a slaughter that Eric Fine's men had visited on the United States Army stationed at Ft. Carson, Colorado. Zane Meyer walked through the open field that would be forever remembered as the site of that name. He stood prouder than he ever had. His group had been instrumental as Sensei Fine's attack on the base had escalated into all-out battle. Their ranks were now growing as a majority of the living saw their group, called "Tiger Squad", as the only means to survival. Meyer wished it was only his squad that received the name Tiger, it was so cool. But, Sensei Fine had ordered all of the soldiers and students from his dojo who had fought on his side to use this title after the battle. Fine was the Dragon, they were his Tigers, and the villagers were villagers. Plus, there were new soldiers now. The men who turned to Fine's side from the base were called soldiers.

Due to Meyer's history with the military, Fine had put Meyer over all of the military men and women, while Damiano had been relegated to logistics with housing and inventories and the like. While all Tigers carried the same rank, most people began to perceive Meyer as being Sensei's right-hand man. Damiano did not like this, and it made it all the better to Meyer.

Stepping inside a Quonset hut, Meyer looked at the two men guarding the Old Man, General Allan Stone. What a turn of events this was, the Old Man a captive, and Meyer a man of importance.

As Fine had ordered the General be brought to him in the "square", really a centrally placed parking lot where Fine had set up his command tent and a stage from which to speak to the masses, Meyer nodded for the two Tigers to bring the Old Man and follow.

As they entered the square, they saw that almost all of the population was gathered, probably on Sensei's orders. There were a couple of thousand people milling about, many eyes on Meyer as he led the former Commanding Officer of this base up on to the recently built stage. During, and shortly after, the Battle of Carson, many of the residents of the base had been killed. This had included both military and civilian. His men had not only not been discouraged from "the spoils of war", they had almost been ordered to take what they wanted by Sensei. This included property, but also women. Some had fought and died. Some had run and were chased down and killed. It was thrilling to think that their original group of nearly thirty had taken down tens of thousands in the battle and its aftermath.

With his hands cuffed behind his back, the Old Man was no threat at all. But, he still had a fire in him, Meyer could see that much himself. Sensei Fine walked out of the command tent with purpose, striding his long stride across the parking lot and skipping up the short stairs to the stage. Turning toward the audience, he spoke in a loud commanding tone.

"Before you today is General Allan Stone, the former Commanding Officer of this base," Eric began to a stunned silence as the crowd watched on, "He has ordered your rights taken away, your liberties crushed, and your lives subject to his whims. He will now confess his crimes or pay the consequences."

Eric turned and looked at the General, who glared at him but said nothing. Eric smiled at the Old Man, as though he had just played into his hands, "Then let the inquisition begin."

Eric nodded to him, and Meyer brought up the base Executive Officer, Brigadier General David Pryor.

"Mr. Pryor," Eric started up again, loud enough for all to hear, "You have also been found guilty of crimes against the people." Pryor just looked around nervously. "Do you have anything to confess?"

General Pryor was a nice guy, Meyer had always liked him, but he knew what needed to be done.

"Eric," the man said in a low tone that only those on stage could hear, "why are you doing this?"

Sensei just looked at him coldly, "No? Then you are judged guilty of these crimes and sentenced to loss of sight."

The look of horror that crossed Pryor's face, was nothing in comparison to the look of horror in the audience when Eric reached out with a two-finger eye-poke and ripped one of the man's eyes from its socket and threw it down on the stage. It happened so quickly that it shocked even Zane Meyer, who had seen quite a lot since this whole thing started. Just as Pryor started to scream, Sensei did the exact same thing to the other eye. Markus Pryor now had no eyes.

There were screams in the crowd at the spectacle of General Pryor's bloody, empty eye sockets while the man screamed in place. Eric turned to look at the Old Man, "Will you confess your crimes? Or will you watch your entire Senior Staff suffer?"

The Old Man was just staring at the eyes of his Executive Officer laying on the stage at his feet where Eric had thrown them. He said nothing, his shock was complete. This was exactly the effect Sensei had planned for, and Meyer knew it.

"Tigers," Fine called out, "Take the criminal back to his cell to consider his response. We will gather tomorrow for another sentencing, and every day until they are all punished for their crimes, or you confess yours."

Stone just looked up at Eric with his mouth wide, but nothing coming out. Meyer motioned to the two Tigers who had brought him and they walked forward and took the Old Man away. Meyer walked up to Sensei.

"Sensei," he said, bowing, "what would like me to do with Pryor? Should I take him to the infirmary?"

Fine turned on him with disgust on his face, "What good is a blind man to our cause? Take him to the restricted area."

"Yes, Sensei!" Meyer replied and turned, grabbing Pryor by the arm and dragging him off the stage.

The restricted area was a metaphor, and a reality. It was restricted, but "take this person to the restricted area" meant to kill them. Meyer marched his captive across the lot and off to the area where others were not allowed. Once there, and out of sight, he quickly and quietly snapped the neck of the man. He dropped the body of General Markus Pryor into the mass grave on top of countless other bodies that were in a constant state of burning. As he looked out at the area, and the six other pits which had become mounds after they had been covered with dirt when they became too full. There were thousands, if not tens of thousands, of bodies out here. This was the other part of their new existence, and Meyer was just happy to be on the side of the strong.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

Jenny sat in the little cave she had found, surrounded by her most recent trading trip. She was learning the way of life in this new paradigm and was reaping the benefit of her "second sight" as she now thought of it. Sometimes she felt like it was manipulative to use it to negotiate for goods, but this was survival and she was determined to use whatever advantage she could to make it. She could tell when people were lying, when they were hiding something, when they were angry, or malicious. Reading their emotions through their auras had been truly handy in the trading aspect of her new life. That usefulness was also training her in the use of the second sight.

There wasn't a lot of room here, but it was relatively safe. She always searched for auras before going into the bushes, behind which was the entrance to her little cave. It was dark in here, but she didn't really mind. She had also found that she could see a type of aura in other animals, like when she had almost run into a bear, seen its fear and walked the other way, probably saving her own life.

Deciding to check her goods for the day, she began pulling the items she had traded for out of her bag. Some of it was things she needed, some of it was just good trade that she knew she could obtain more value out of another trading partner. It was mostly food items, with a few valuables thrown in for good measure. As she brushed up against a copper necklace, which most people had passed on due to its lack of intrinsic value, Jenny once again felt the thrum of some kind of energy. Having nothing but time, she reached for the first duffel bag she had brought from the hotel. Inside that bag still sat the strange, gaudy jewelry she had taken from the jewelry store that first night she had escaped her studio.

Jenny sat in a lotus position in the dirt and calmed her mind. When she felt truly centered, she reached out for the copper necklace first. The images came quickly to her – a woman putting it around her neck; a man and a younger version of the same woman pulling that necklace off a small stand at a festival; a person buying a group of the same necklaces; a brown-skinned woman in a factory carving the intricate patterns into the face of the necklace.

Jenny snapped opened her eyes. These are the images of its history! She thought to herself.

Reaching for one of the three bracelets, it was simply too much, too many jumbled images as she held it in her hands. She went to put it back down and as her hand pulled away, the images slowed. Maybe I don't have to touch it.

She reached out again, this time she merely held her hand close to the item, hovering over the top of it and the images slowed – she could see the old couple in dim light in their jewelry store, dim light as the power had gone out. This was the day of the event. The man pulled the three bracelets out of the case and dropped them, clutching his chest. The old man fell to the floor, right where Jenny had found him in the dark, dying of an apparent heart attack. She opened her eyes, tears slowly rolling down her cheeks. It was as though it was her own memory of the incident, as though she had silently watched this happen and the emotion was a lot for her to bear.

She put the item back in the duffel bag, closing off her inner sight so that it would not rush her with images. She would come back to it, she would look into every item she touched at some point, but right now she needed to eat and sleep. As she dozed off, it occurred to her the benefits this new part of her sight would bring to her trading.
CHAPTER FIFTY

The Hermit had allowed Cliff to get closer in recent days. When they walked, the man still walked significantly ahead of the boy. However, six to eight paces were better than the twenty to thirty yards with which they had started. They had been walking around the city for two weeks, literally around the city, going from the north, around the outside east of the city, down to the south by the base, where they had seen the battle at the army base. Then they had turned up the west side of the city, where the Hermit had destroyed that group of soldiers, if they really were soldiers. It wasn't the first time Cliff had seen his companion annihilate anyone who attacked him, but it was the first time anyone had recognized him. He had taken the time to wonder about that, but he dared not ask the Hermit, nor was the man likely to answer him.

Now, they were back up the North-West side of town, coming up to the Air Force Academy, which simply wasn't far from where Cliff lived. He began to wonder if his brother had ever come home, and what had become of his father's body. On their nightly stops, the Hermit had taken to reading Cliff's D&D books, he seemed particularly fascinated by the Dungeon Master's Guide (which showed the rules of the game) and the Spell Compendium. Cliff was surprised the man knew how to read, because he clearly didn't know how to speak. He seemed particularly interested in the info on gems. Whenever he got the chance, Cliff would look at whatever the man read, and a couple of nights before, he figured it out. The man was collecting diamonds, as well as other gems, but mostly diamonds. He was reading about focusing stones in the lore. The Hermit had embedded gems into his staff, he had worn the rings that would fit, but carried and collected all jewels he could. He was focusing the power he exhibited through the stones. For the past two days, Cliff had been working on his understanding of this and had even helped the Hermit to "ready" some stones. When it came down to it, Cliff seemed to finally find some usefulness, he was able to work the gems better than even the Hermit, but he needed the Hermit to imbue them with power. Because of this, after readying them, the Hermit had given Cliff stones with the ability to cause fear, to increase his strength and stamina for the walks, and one for hiding. Cliff had put the stones in the little pouch he used for his dice.

Suddenly, the disheveled man stopped and almost seemed to sniff the air. He turned toward Cliff and pointed to the bushes, a little bit off the road. They sat in the bushes quietly and waited. After a couple of minutes, Cliff heard the sound of people talking. The sound was getting closer. A group of maybe thirty people were slowly walking from the east across an open field between them and the freeway.

Cliff turned toward his new friend and watched the man's face, riddled with concern. The Hermit pointed at something up the road the other way. Cliff peered through the foliage and saw what the man was pointing at. There was a squad of either cadets or air force guys moving up on a direct course that would have them collide with the group of people walking across the field.

The Hermit rapidly pantomimed some directions to Cliff. He pointed to Cliff, then to the large group, indicating he wanted Cliff to tell them to stop. Then he pointed to himself, seeming to indicate he would go deal with the air force guys. Cliff thought he understood, so he nodded and began to creep his way in the bushes to a turn where he could get across the road without being seen by the military people. He looked behind him and the Hermit had already moved out, silently disappearing into the brush in the opposite direction of the way Cliff went.

Cliff snuck around and into bushes on the other side of the road, closer to the large group. He couldn't see them anymore. It was like they had suddenly all vanished. As he stuck his head out of the bushes to get a better view, he heard a woman's voice above him say, "Don't move boy, or I swear to God, I will snap your neck."

Cliff froze in place. Turning his head to look up, he saw the most beautiful young woman clinging to a tree above him. She leapt down so lightly, he thought he must be looking at an elven goddess. Suddenly coming to his senses, he blurted out, "There are men coming up the road. You have to hide yourself."

The woman grabbed his shirt and quickly pulled him down into the high grass, where they both crouched for a few moments until the cadets (which is clearly what they were, now that they were close enough for Cliff to identify them) came into view around a corner.

"I am telling you, sir," the one in front said to a man right behind him, "there was somebody here. Right here."

The two were standing right where Cliff and the Hermit had been just moments before. The officer looked around in all directions, as the rest of his squad also seemed to be doing.

"I don't see anyone now, Morris. Ah, never mind, good eyes," The officer pointed in the opposite direction and all of them ran back the way they had come.

When enough time had passed, the woman turned Cliff around to face her, those stunning green eyes burrowing into his soul, "Who are you, and who were you with that the cadets are now chasing?"

"I am Cliff Ko," he sputtered out, "They are chasing after the Hermit."

The young woman let out a truly delightful laugh. "The Hermit?" she asked, "That is just an urban legend, kid."

She made some kind of hand motion in the air and the other thirty people stood up from their very effective hiding places, "Nice to meet you, Cliff. My name is Natalee Ward, let me take you to my Uncle."
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

Things were falling apart for Miles. As quickly as he had gained some level of authority, it seemed Sensei Fine had turned on him. He was still a leader of the Tigers, but was relegated to managing things, rather than people. He was in charge of stores, he was in charge of housing, and he was in charge of weapon registry. He even had quite a few villagers reporting to him, but the warriors all looked on him as unimportant now. He knew it was Meyer, that prick had somehow turned the Major against him. He needed to figure out how to get back into the inner circle.

Sensei Fine had told him to make a report later that day, and he needed to show his worth, so he was pouring over the hand-written notes he had made and trying to come up with a plan to do something special. This was a hard task when talking about inventories.

One of the villagers poked his head into the tent, "Sensei is calling a meeting."

Miles grabbed all of his paperwork together and headed out the door. Tardiness could not help his cause. As he walked toward the stage, he saw Meyer with that smug smirk on his fat face. Just ahead, Sensei walked out of the Command tent, and Miles made a bee line for his leader. Fine looked at him and nodded, not stopping for a second before climbing the stairs to address the people. The guards closed rank behind him. It was clear that no one was to be on the stage with him.

Everyone hushed immediately as Fine took the stage. "Friends," Sensei began with a large smile, "I am so proud of the work you have done. In such a few short days, you have turned a rag tag group of scared people into this," he pointed out to the crowd with an open hand, "a community of survivors."

Some people cheered.

Eric waited a moment for the applause, then continued, "The stubbornness of the former leaders of this outpost notwithstanding, we all know what they have done. We will finally deal with the last of them shortly. But first, let's talk about the future. If there is one thing our victory has shown us, it is that this base was not made for the new kind of warfare. It is not safe."

The murmured agreement that spread through the crowd did not surprise Damiano as much as the effect that a true leader had on a large crowd.

Eric continued, "It has been more than two weeks since the Event happened, and our lives changed. We must look beyond survival and into being a thriving community. Can we agree on this?"

The cheers were louder this time.

"As such, we will be leaving this base in the morning. Our new community site will be the resort up the hill."

Fine waited, and the assent was exactly what he seemed to be waiting for. The hotel resort in town was one of the best known in the nation, and it made sense as a stronghold. With cliffs at its back, three small lakes for water and fish, streams throughout, a hotel, bungalows, etc. all around and the high ground to see any force coming toward them, the resort was an ideal place to defend and had enough housing to support their growing community. Miles also liked it because he finally saw his in; he would be the steward of the goods and services that keep the community thriving. Meyer was too stupid to realize, as Damiano looked over at the smug bastard, that it was the control of goods that would bring power once they moved to a more defensible position.

Eric made a hand motion and some of the warriors went back behind the stage, "I want you all to gather all of the belongings that you can carry and we will move out at first light tomorrow morning, but first, we must deal with the acts of a traitor."

All eyes turned as the two warriors brought the Old Man back to the stage. Every meal break, he had been brought up to the stage, where a member of his senior staff had been told to confess, and not doing so, they had been either killed or maimed in front of the crowd. At first the crowd did not take well to it, but it was almost entertainment now. Eric Fine knew what he was doing, he was showing power and getting the crowd on his side all at the same time that he was solidifying his power and eliminating a rival. Early on, the General had fought against his captors every time he was brought on stage. But now, with all of his friends dead, it was a sense of resignation that covered the old soldier's face as he slowly walked up the short stairs.

Eric turned toward his former commander, "General Allan Stone, you stand accused of treason, murder, and the subjugation of the people. Will you confess your crimes, or meet the fate of your senior staff?"

Stone had remained silent and stoic throughout the torture and executions of his senior staff, so everyone expected him to continue. But if they assumed that, they were wrong. They knew it when he cleared his throat. This seemed to surprise even Sensei, who raised his eyebrows as he turned toward the man.

The Old Man began, "Eric, you have won. You have taken my base and killed my friends and loyal soldiers." His voice rose as he was clearly trying to win over the crowd, "They call you Sensei, which means Teacher, but you are no teacher. You are a dictator, an overlord. There is an appropriate Japanese term for that as well, Shogun. You have..."

The words stuck in his throat as Eric reached out and clawed his fingers into the man's neck. If one was close enough to the stage, they could hear the horrible sound of the General's larynx crushing like a cardboard box. Blood spurted out of his mouth, his eyes rolled back in his head and his body went limp into the arms of the soldiers at his side. General Allan Stone, former base commander of Fort Carson, Colorado, was dead where he stood.

The silence following the quick and deadly motion of their leader was soon disturbed by a whispered word, which became a spoken word and eventually a chant, "Shogun. Shogun! SHOGUN!! SHOGUN!!"

The crowd cheered and chanted for their leader and Sensei Eric Fine was no more, he was now Shogun Eric Fine. From that moment on, people simply called him sir or Shogun.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

Ted listened to the tale the young boy told of his travels with the mythical bogeyman, the Hermit. At any other time in his life, he would have thought the boy was making stories up. But, their current increase in abilities and the actions of his own family told him not to discount anything the boy said. Cliff Ko related the killing of some dangerous teens, a battle at Fort Carson, the burning of the south of the city, and the looting of jewelry stores. It was the last part that stuck out to him.

"So, you were able to put the powers into these gems?" He asked.

The boy nodded and pulled out a small pouch, explaining the power in each gem and then showing that power. The fear one was the most intriguing, but it was the idea of the possibilities that this could bring that most interested Ted.

"Cliff," he asked softly, "Do you want to join our group? We could use someone with your talent."

Cliff looked at Ted with wonder, "What talent?" He asked, "I only readied the gems, so the Hermit could put his power into them."

"Your talent has great promise," Ted began to explain, "Your 'readying' of the gems means those powers can be used by others. I can think of one that can be used right now, but it is pointless unless you want to spend some time with us."

The boy looked back in the direction they had come. Ted thought he was looking for the man he called The Hermit, but none of their people had seen any sign of him. Even Nat had not been able to find a trace of his passing. Ted believed there was such a man out there, but it could easily also be the overactive imagination of a pre-teen boy. Either way, Ted didn't want to leave this boy alone in this world if he could help it.

"What about the Hermit?" the boy asked.

"If he shows up, he is welcome in our group as well," Ted answered.

The boy thought for a moment and stuck out his hand to shake Ted's. Ted was amused by the earnestness of the young guy, but at the same time, maybe that earnest approach is just what the current situation required.

"So," he asked, "are you ready to put that wonderful talent to use for us?" Cliff nodded excitedly, and Ted called out into the growing darkness of dusk, "Kyle!"

Kyle rushed up to where his uncle and the boy were talking.

"Cliff is going to prepare a gem for you," Ted said, "I want you to try to attach your light into the gem."
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

Jordan was exhausted, but clearly not as exhausted as Emma was. Emma had grown vines thick enough to use as ropes and they had spent the better part of two days getting themselves down about one hundred and fifty feet of sheer cliff face. It was a snail's pace, it was dangerous, and it was grueling work. In the middle of the night on the second day of their efforts, Jordan felt his foot touchdown on a hard, flat surface. It was dark in this spot, where clouds and the cliff's shadow dulled the moon's light. Even with their eyes adjusted to the darkness, they could see nothing.

They rested on the patch of ground they had landed on, not knowing if they were at the bottom or on an outcropping of rock. There is a darkness that is darker than dark, one that almost seems to be dark in sound as well. It became that dark as the vines grew around them to give them shelter. They said nothing to each other, but fell asleep in each other's arms, the darkness and quiet of their little nest creating the perfect environment for rest. Finally, out of the concrete garden prison in which they had been stranded for a couple of weeks, they would now get to see what had become of this world. But that could wait until morning and new light. Now was the time for the bliss of sleep.

A MONTH BEHIND THEM

"The earliest man crawled from his hunting and gathering existence into his own space and somehow made fire, something only nature had made before." Dr. Alice Weathers – Introduction to Anthropology and Human Origins
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

Skirting notice was a monumental task all by itself, but Jordan and Emma had an effective strategy that had kept them safe for the last couple of weeks. After coming down from the Mountain, they had made the choice to only travel by night. During the daylight, they remained hidden in nests which Emma's power had created. Jordan sat with Emma in his arms, her soft breathing comforting him as he lay there. He had been awake for a little bit, but it was hard to tell what time it was, because it was so dark inside the nests. He guessed it was late afternoon.

Feeling Emma stir let him know he was most likely correct. She had a connection to the plants and seemed to wake at the same time each day, just when the sun had gone down. Small, edible fruit of a type Jordan did not know, but whose taste he absolutely loved, grew out of the ceiling part of the nest to sustain them. Emma had grown better and better at using her ability to improve their food and shelter. He didn't know where he would have been had it not been for her.

The vines began to unravel shortly after they ate in silence. They always remained in silence until they could be sure they were safe. This had become almost a policy after once opening the nest and nearly being caught by a group of soldiers from the base. Since it was relatively close, and because Jordan lived there, they had made a bee-line for Fort Carson as soon as they had come down from the Mountain. What they had found was horrifying.

There had been no people left, though it could not have been long since they left, as there were signs of a recent departure all over the base. Jordan and Emma had searched all over the base for supplies and had come upon mass graves and burning bodies. The most recent addition to the graves was a man that Jordan knew. The base commander, General Alan Stone's body was atop one of the mounds, no one had even tried to bury him. While looking at this, they had their first run in with soldiers.

It wasn't really a run in, as much as a view. They had heard people coming and got out of sight when some soldiers came into the area and picked up Stone's body and threw it into the fire pit. They intently listened to the conversation of the men as they rested next to the burning bodies.

"Why do we always have to do the shit duty?" said the first. This was the beginning to almost any conversation about duty in the Army, so it wasn't too surprising.

The second man replied, "I don't know. Want to go ask the Shogun for better duty?"

"I didn't say that. It just seems like the guys from his civilian biz get better treatment, and we always get the shit detail."

"Yeah."

"It was wicked how he crushed the Old Man, wasn't it?"

"Hell, yeah it was. Let's not talk about it though, gives me the creeps. Let's finish up here, so we can catch up to the convoy."

"Alright."

The two men cleaned up a little, shoveling dirt on top of a few of the mounds, before hastily departing. Emma and Jordan only came out of their hiding place after they were sure they were alone, and Emma finally spoke.

"When they say the Old Man," she began, "Are they talking about General Stone?"

Jordan nodded, "That was him on top of the mound that they threw into the fire. Did you see the only thing they left?"

Emma shook her head no.

Jordan continued, "They left the firearms. There are firearms lying all around. It is weird, right?"

That experience of weird things continued in the days since they had that experience. They had come to realize that there no longer was a society, and that people were afraid. They had seen people separated into two categories, the cruel and their victims. However, they had seen all of this from the sidelines. After what they had seen of the that fight when they were still in the garden, and what they deduced from the bodies at the base, they stayed as far as they could from people.

In many ways, Jordan thought to himself, their current existence was no different than being trapped in the garden. They were of course mobile, but they had no contact with anyone else, ever. For a guy like Jordan Kane, that was lonely.

As the vines separated to let them out, and Jordan stretched out in the fading dusk of the west side, he tried to consider where they should go next. Emma had just come out of the nest and was turning toward him when her eyes went wide. She stood perfectly still. Jordan turned slowly, worried that he was going to come face to face with a Mountain Lion or Bear. However, it was a group of soldiers that stood looking right at them. He knew his best option was charm.

"Oh wow, Dr. Pare," he said, setting the tone and expectation for their encounter, "finally we meet up with some Soldiers." He hoped she would follow his lead, but she just stood there staring.

"Kane?" a voice from the back said and coming into view was an old friend, the scrounge from their unit in the sand, PFC Anthony Johnson. He reached out for a handshake and the large man pulled him into an embrace, fairly uncharacteristic of the Johnson he knew.

In the embrace, Johnson whispered into his ear, almost imperceptibly, "follow my lead." Out loud, he turned to his squad, "Guys, this is Specialist Jordan Kane, we were in Shogun's battalion in the sand." The men around all seemed to relax a bit and one came forward who didn't look very military at all and had a gi top with no sleeves on it. "Kane, this is our unit's Tiger, Vance."

Jordan stuck his hand out, but the man just scowled at him and Johnson corrected him, "No, brother, like this," Johnson bowed at the waste a low bow, "Always bow lower than he does to show respect." Jordan followed Johnson's lead and bowed low. The scowl on the Tiger's face gave way to a look of dismissiveness.

Jordan pointed to Emma, "this is my friend, Dr. Emma Pare." The men all pricked up their ears at this, like they had not seen a doctor in some time. Even the Tiger was interested.

Vance spoke, "Alright, let's take them with us. Shogun Fine will want to meet a doctor."

Jordan looked to Johnson and was about to ask, "Fine?" but was cut short when Johnson shook his head to bring him up short. It was nearly imperceptible, but it was enough. Johnson turned to the group, and said, "Okay Kane, fall in. You are responsible for your doctor; we are headed back to the compound."

Jordan and Emma walked in between the men, and he tried to convey to her through only looks that she should just go along. He really hoped she would do so.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

Every time they stopped, Cliff would spend time readying stones. The entire group had given him their stones from rings and earrings and necklaces. Most of these were used for light, which Kyle would imprint into them. Though he was twelve and had what he considered to be a limited talent, he was the person most researching the use of this new power, or magic, or whatever it was. He had learned a few things, and Ted had asked if he would tell them all at the next stop.

As it was past dusk and into the early evening, he was readying a list in his mind of just what he would convey. It was hard to concentrate while also trying to make sure not to stumble in the dark. Ted had decided they would not use lights in the open after what had happened at the Air Force Academy.

Shortly after Cliff had joined this group, they had met up with some folks from the Academy, who had brought them back to the Commandant. The Academy had basically set up a camp at the football stadium and the nearby sports complex that included a basketball stadium. It was all very military, and Cliff found it kind of fun. The problems had come when the group began to show their abilities.

It seemed that some of the cadets had shown abilities, but the leadership had decided it was disruptive and told people they could stop using them or be barred from the grounds. They had already lost over a hundred cadets, who had chosen banishment over not using these new powers. Now they had a group of thirty people who embraced their abilities. The Commandant had ordered them not to use them, or to leave. Ted had taken a vote, and it was close, but the group had decided to comply. They had apparently had a similar experience before Cliff had joined them.

The situation had come to a head when some cadets found out the group were practicing their abilities whenever they went for walks. Ted had tried to reason with the base's leadership, but they had all been banished. As a parting gift, Cliff had presented the Commandant with two light gems, but the man refused to touch them.

He still wondered about the Hermit. He had disappeared on the day that Cliff had joined the Black Forest group, as they called themselves, and no one had seen him since. That was about two weeks ago. Many in the group thought Cliff had made him up, because even a great tracker like Natalee could find no sign of a grown man who had travelled with Cliff.

They made camp and Cliff prepared for his little speech in front of a bunch of adults. As they gathered, Ted put five light gems before Cliff, so everyone could see him. Ted stood and addressed the group. None of these get-togethers were mandatory in the group, but everyone seemed intent on listening anyway. It was a lot of pressure.

Ted cleared his throat, "As most of you know, Cliff Ko has spent every waking hour he has been with us studying the nature of our new-found abilities, and the gems. He has agreed to tell us what he now knows. Cliff?"

Cliff stood up and looked at what he could see of the group. To an outside observer this looked like a group around a camp-fire, and that is just how Ted planned it. Maxine's dogs were guarding. They were the most useful sentries.

"Hi, Everybody," Cliff started nervously, "Ted asked me to speak about what I have learned about our abilities and the gems. So, let's start with the abilities. Everyone has them. If you aren't exhibiting them, then we just haven't figured out what yours is yet. I can't figure out how your abilities are chosen, some seem related to your likes, some to dislikes, some to natural talents, some to learning. Now, even though everyone has them, some are definitely stronger than others and I don't know what causes that." Cliff looked around at the faces he could see, he concluded that this was at least something everyone assumed, so he continued, "there seem to be two types of abilities. One is kinetic – like Jessica's ability to move things, or Natalee and Ted's martial abilities, or Kim's ability with fire." This part seemed to surprise even Kim. "The second type is empathic, like my ability with items and Max's abilities with her pack."

"So, as for using them, as far as I can tell, there are two parts of the use of these abilities. I call these parts form and function. Form is figuring out what it looks like. It seems like you have to know the form of the ability you are looking to use. If I were to guess, that is why Kyle's light is small right now, he hasn't imagined it as something else. Max has great form because there is no separation between her and the dogs in her mind. So, Pastor Rich could change from calming music to some other emotion if he imagined a different form of the music."

Ted broke in at this point, "Cliff are you saying that only our minds make this form?"

Cliff thought about his answer for a minute, "Well, I wouldn't say it that way. I would say we form it in our minds and then it becomes the ability. Does that make sense?"

Ted seemed to just think about that and no one asked any other questions, so Cliff continued.

"The second part of the use of the abilities is function. Another way to say that is purpose, what is the purpose of the ability. Again, using Kyle as an example, he hasn't found a use beyond lighting up an area, so that is how the power manifests itself. To sum it up, you must have imagination, openness, and purpose." There was a long pause, so he asked, "Any questions?"

The questions were many, and varied, and lasted all night long. Cliff did his best to answer them, and slept well that night, knowing he had been of use to the group.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

Zane Meyer's patrol was going well. It seemed the rich people who lived in the area around the resort had deserted the area in the month since everything had changed. He knew there was a zoo up the mountain with wild animals and he hoped two things: one, that the animals were taken care of; and two, that the animals were not released. So far, they had seen no animals except for those indigenous to the area, such as deer, elk, cats, and dogs.

Shogun Fine had slowed the march to the resort, ordering the Tigers to search the mansions and create a perimeter. They used a map they had found in one of the houses to plan and set things up. Shogun had already determined rings of housing with the best housing at the resort and the lowest for the villagers with the least use. As they searched in this widest perimeter of houses, they had not found a single person living. They had found a few dead.

They expected more looters, but for whatever reason, there were none. Each house, or estate, was still in good condition and was full of the things that one would expect in a mansion where people had gone to vacation. He knew an inventory would need to be conducted, but that was a job for Damiano and the villagers he oversaw, not for the Tigers and soldiers of whom Meyer was the leader. He and his men would occasionally take a little something, a bottle of booze or a trinket of value, but mostly they left things as they found them. Meyer had made it clear to the rest that they would have to declare to Shogun whatever they took.

The day wore on and this slow, house by house, room by room search was grueling. As his group was searching houses, he was followed by Damiano's group inventorying and another group who were moving cars, and fences and such to create a long barrier wall going around this section of the housing. Shogun's plan had been to build a total of three defensible walls. Once they finished this level, the next would be a smaller circle and then they would move onto the grounds of the resort itself. Each level would be cleared, inventoried and secured. Eric considered the priority to be searching and inventorying, so those tasks had fewer and more valued workers, but the walls were being built by the masses of villagers, so they were erecting much faster than Meyer was searching.

Meyer saw a small movement out of the corner of his eye. It could have been a dog, but he didn't think it was. He sent his men on to the next house but kept two of his best with him and put his finger to his lips to keep them quiet. They crept back toward the back of the estate, and Meyer saw the open door that he was sure he himself had closed. It had led to the pool house, which they had searched. It was certain that this was a person, and that person had effectively moved around to avoid detection while they searched.

Meyer then saw a shadow and knew where the person was, he made a hand motion to the others, but said, "I guess it was nothing, let's move to the next house."

After a short pause, he moved behind the couch and saw the woman cowering, looking the other way and waiting for them to leave. A smile crossed his face, "Lady, you want to get up now?"

The woman turned toward him in fright. She was in her mid to late forties, in full make up, had clearly had some plastic surgery and had huge fake tits. She had a skin-tight jogging suit over her curvy frame. She wasn't obese, she just had the heaviness of wealth, and even that was giving way to lack of food, he guessed. Before he could say anything else, she jumped up and tried to run, but the other men stood in her way and she ran back toward Meyer. As he reached out and grabbed her, she beat against his chest and tried to squirrel her way out of his grasp.

"Lady seriously," Meyer said smiling, "this isn't going to work. Just calm down."

The woman then made one of the biggest mistakes that people do when they fear a man, she went for his groin. Turning with a speed he wasn't expecting, she tried to drive a knee into his genitals. She missed, but it was still a bad move. Meyer slapped her hard across the face with the back of his hand and it twisted her around, flopping her across the back of the couch. Meyer pressed his body against her to keep her in place and could feel himself becoming erect as he pressed into the unhidden form of her ass. He leaned over her and put his mouth right next to her ear.

"Oh, you want to play?" He said into her ear, then looked at the two others, "Hold her arms."

With one move, Meyer roughly pulled her jogging pants and underwear down to her knees. She began to cry, and squirm, and he grabbed her by the hair, jerking her head back. He would have violated her in every hole and then told his men to do the same, but suddenly the thought of Shogun Fine came into his head. Eric couldn't care less if he ravaged this woman, but he would have told him to do it on his own time. Meyer did not find her that attractive, it was the power that was giving him a hard on. He ripped her pants and panties all the way off, then had the others remove her top and sports bra. He turned her toward him, while she tried to cover her breasts and privates.

"Don't try to kick a man in the balls unless you are prepared to take care of those balls later," He reached up with the palm of his hand and roughly smeared the heavy make up she wore all over her face. Turning to one of the men, he said, "Take her out front to the others. She gets no clothes until I say she gets clothes."

"Yes, sir," the soldier said before dragging her by the arm out into the street. Meyer searched again throughout the house, but the woman was the only one there. He marked the door as cleared, and then moved on. In the street, he saw the woman sitting on the ground, completely naked, while many villagers looked on with varying looks of horror and disdain. It thrilled Zane Meyer to see her shamed. It was his power that brought this rich bitch into the streets, and he would teach others to fear him, much as they feared Shogun.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

Jenny Martinez had turned her small cave into a home. She had a small mattress, and as many amenities as anyone, she assumed. She was sheltered from the weather, safe from intrusion since she had secured the entrance and hidden it with bushes and had traded for enough goods and water to keep her going for a while. She had also begun going to the market and selling her gift of telling the story of an item. It was usually good for a few bartered goods, and she didn't produce anything else, so she needed to sell what she could.

She had also honed her talent a bit, and now knew how to slow the images so she could tell the story. It wasn't always in order, so for the purposes of barter, she preferred newer items. Items like the ones she had taken from the jewelry store had long histories that mashed up into each other. Her little glimpses of their past telling her something, but it was sometimes hard to put together. But, these were the ones she enjoyed more. It was her entertainment to try to put the pieces of this puzzle together, and she was getting better at it by the day.

She was now out of tradable goods and needed everything she had to survive. This would be the first day that the only thing she was offering was her reading services. She looked around her cave and grabbed two empty bags in the hope that she would be able to bring back some real items of value, or at least some antiques she could use to hone her skills and fill her nights with stories. It was a lot like watching movies, except you only got pieces and they never concluded.

Jenny went to the front of her cave and looked out the little peek-hole she had created. Since she saw no people, she moved the large plywood sheet she had laying across the entrance, but just enough to get out, then she replaced it. Even this was behind a large section of brush, so it could not be seen from anywhere but very close up. In the bushes, she centered herself and reached out with her mind. Seeing the occasional small flash that animals put out, and no evidence of a human, Jenny made her way out of the bushes and then dusted herself off to make herself presentable for the market.

The market was now going every day, and a little church service had started on Sundays. It took her a little less than an hour to walk to market each day, and it was a decent walk. Men had occasionally tried to follow her, but she was always able to lose them long before she got anywhere near her home. She was always on the lookout for people following her, because she was a young woman, who lived alone. Every walk, about once every four or five minutes, she would reach out with her mind and search for any people in the area. This day was no different.

About half way on her walk, she turned onto the downhill path toward the market area and immediately felt a fear come over her. Trusting her instincts, she drew herself off the path, and hid in the nearby growth. She reached out with her mind and saw him immediately. There was a man about twenty yards ahead of her, also crouched in some bushes, but looking the other way. His aura was so distinct, it shocked her. She could see his features in it, which was unusual, as most people's auras were just hazy glows. His was vibrant, intermittent blue, violet and bright white, but ringed with a grayish white border. She was glad that he looked the other way and thought to slink away back the way she had come.

But then he turned, and two sparkling violet eyes stared right at her. He did not move, did not seem overly concerned, but she could not even muster the strength to inch her way away. He stood and moved her way and she dropped, cowering in place. Jenny wasn't sure she had ever been this scared in her entire life. He walked right up to where she was, and the fear just disappeared. Jenny stared at what she assumed was a homeless man. He was covered in dirt and mud, had a full beard, and even in this heat wore a hoodie with the hood up. It was only Jenny's skill that allowed her to see his eyes, because up close, she could now see that he was wearing sunglasses.

"Hello," she said, "I am Jenny Martinez."

But the man was done with her. As though they were just passing on the street, he moved off back the way Jenny had come. He didn't look back at her, just slowly walked away. Jenny didn't really know what to do with herself, but she decided to just do what she had planned, and after a short pause, she returned to her trek to the market. That was the strangest encounter she had yet had, in this new existence.

After twenty minutes or so, Jenny came over a hill and could see the market. As usual, there were hundreds of people there. It always filled her with joy to see this. People were finding ways to survive, and it was beautiful. She made her way down to the old shopping center parking lot that now served as the area market and began saying hello to people she knew. As she looked around the little booths that people had set up, she could see the diminishing amounts of food. Over a month had passed and food was disappearing. There were men who sold dried meats that seemed to always have something to trade. Jenny assumed that they hunted or had livestock somewhere. Cheese was sold by some folks who she knew had goats, but they were beginning to lose goats to poachers and thieves, so the cheese was growing sparse. Jenny had traded for many jams, jellies, and preservatives and stored them for the winter. She was all set, but she couldn't say the same for many of the people she saw.

"Jenny, darlin'! How are you doin' today?" came a rough man's voice from a few stalls away. It was Carl Petersen, a kind old man who carved wooden staffs and whose wife, Maribel, made quilts. "Maribel is over at our stall, and she has someone who wants a reading!"

Jenny loved this kind, elderly couple. They looked out for others and everyone enjoyed their company, "Thanks, Carl. I will go see her."

The Petersens were one of the first families to start up the market, believing that everyone was better off when they worked together. Jenny walked over and found where Maribel was set up. Her dark hair belying her age, Maribel Petersen was a beautiful woman. The two of them shared a Hispanic heritage, and in these times, any connection was good.

"Jenny," the older woman started, "I want you to meet someone." Maribel led Jenny over to where some people were looking through her goods. An attractive young man stood looking at quilts, "This is Jeffrey Cole."

The man reached his hand out and Jenny reached out also. Instinctively, she switched her inner sight on as she always did when making a deal. The man was shrouded in pink, silver and dirty gray. These were not good colors, but they told Jenny something. They told her that this young man was being deceptive, guarded and that he wanted something from her. There was more to this meeting than she assumed. She looked around at the other people, and she spotted what she had not seen on the way in. Here, scattered among the hundreds of milling market-goers, were this man's cohorts. They bore the browns that she had seen in the dojo men, but that was not uncommon in today's environment. It meant they were self-serving and uncertain. It was the black outline that concerned her, that meant power and subjugation.

Just as Jenny had spent time honing her ability to read items, the market had given her time to learn the meanings of the different colors. These men were up to no good. She worked a plan in her head to get away and spied a path which the men were not watching.

Jenny smiled at the man, "Okay, Maribel says you need your palm read or something?"

Maribel looked at her inquisitively, but Jenny continued, "Let me go behind this sheet over here and center myself so I can see with my inner sight, and then I will be ready."

Jenny saw the man look at the other men, as she walked back behind the sheet. As she hoped, Maribel came soon after.

"Jenny," the older woman asked, "What is wrong. You never had to center yourself before."

Jenny whispered to her friend, "Grab Carl and get out of here. Those are bad men."

Maribel nodded and said, "I will hold them off, when they try to find you, Carl and I will slip away."

As Maribel pulled the curtain aside, Jenny could see Jeffrey Cole still standing there. As he turned toward her, his jacket came open a little bit, and she caught a glimpse of the black top underneath, emblazoned with the patch of the Fine Modern Karate Academy from downtown. She didn't know how, or why, but they found her. Jenny ran, she didn't look back, she just ran as fast as she could. She never even heard the violence that began shortly thereafter.
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

Kyle walked forward, flanked by two of Max's dogs. His small waif of a cousin walked cheerily behind them, picking daisies. Most of the team was farther back, staying out of sight while Kyle and his "team" moved forward. They were very close to their destination and he didn't want anything to go wrong.

Suddenly the two dogs ran off ahead of them. Kyle stopped and turned to look at Max. She was staring off into the distance.

Without looking at him, she said, "Don't go that way. Lots of dead people." She went back to picking daisies.

Kyle looked at her for a long moment, until she looked up again, "What?" she asked.

"Do we know how they died?" he asked.

Max thought for a moment, and then nodded, "Foul Play." She kneeled down, "Ooh, a purple one."

"Max," Kyle said as calmly as he could, "What do you mean by foul play?"

"You know, foul play, they were murdered."

Kyle looked in the direction she had mentioned and saw the dogs trotting back. He wished he could see what she could see, "So, no live people?"

Without looking up, the little girl said, "No, but there are birds picking at the bodies. It is kind of gross. You can go look if you want, but it isn't new stuff."

Kyle knew just what she meant. They had seen many victims of murder in the month past. It was all too common a problem, and the murders seemed fresh lately. He guessed it was hunger and survival causing the fights, but he couldn't be sure. Uncle Ted thought that was it, but he always believed the best of people, even after all the war he had experienced. His dad had always said it was one of Ted's best features, but it allowed him to miss things. Kyle was pretty sure some of this was just a violent form of domination and power-grabbing. He decided not to look at what Maxine had described.

The thought of his dad brought a new pang of sadness to Kyle's mind. He was functioning well, but it was hard whenever he thought of his dad. It had dropped from constantly to about once every five minutes. He missed him so much.

He looked back to where his cousin was playing, but she was standing up and looking at him. "My Dad wants us to come back," she said and turned back to walk to the group.

Ted had taken to using Max's gifts to communicate with people who were far apart from each other. It was really a great advantage. The dogs ran up to Max and she absent-mindedly pet them with each hand as she walked. Kyle ran to catch up and walked a pace behind them.

Reaching the group, they found they were the last to arrive and they had gathered, as was their custom now, into a circle.

Ted spoke at a level everyone could hear, "Okay, we are almost at the Hillside. We may encounter people there, so Max, don't send the dogs in too quickly. As those of you who have been there know, there is a winding road that goes up and a sort of flat place they used for additional parking. Most of the group will wait there while a few of us go ahead to scout the restaurant and grounds. We are going to want to secure that first area if we end up being able to stay, so there is no reason not to start looking for things to make a barricade. Make good use of the time. Any questions?"

Since no one had any questions, they moved out again. As he walked toward the front, Kyle's mom ran up next to him.

"I think I know what my ability is," she said with a smile that he hadn't seen since his dad had died. It was wonderful to see her smile.

"Yeah?"

She nodded, "Jessica and I were walking, and we heard a noise," she saw the concerned look on her son's voice and put him at ease, "It was a rabbit. But, I didn't know that, and we ducked down. Nat came running when she lost sight of us, and she didn't immediately see us. I played with it a little bit, using the form and function thing that Cliff taught us and watch."

Kyle turned around and his mom was gone. He started to get frantic and looked all over, but turning around once again, there she was. "What the fuck?" he whispered.

"I know right?" she said with a big smile.

"You can be invisible?" he asked holding onto her arm like he was afraid she might slip away.

"I don't think so. Not really, anyway, I just sort of hide in plain sight. I asked Cliff about it and he said he thought I was bending light, so I think you and I have similar powers, but a little different."

Kyle laughed a little, "Well, that could come in pretty handy, Mom," and they both laughed a bit.

It took another half an hour to reach the base of the road up to the restaurant and Kyle was again amazed at his dad's mind. Not having thought of it this way, Kyle did not perceive it the way his dad had without any hesitation at all. The road up was narrow and steep, with towering cliffs on the west side and a growing drop off on the east side. It had one access point and that was easily guarded against a group of any size at all. The road up was barely two lanes and pretty skinny even for that. There was a landing half way up the road that his Uncle ted had called a platform, really a round-about road with flat space in the middle for parking, which gave way to another steep road that went up to the main parking lot, the restaurant and its garden patio. The garden patio was next to a stream and waterfall that came off one of the high cliffs from some lake high in the Rockies, and then ran off into a stream on the other side which went under another road after cascading down the cliffs in another beautiful waterfall. It was gorgeous, but more importantly, it was defensible, you could see all around, it had a fresh water source, and room to grow some vegetables in the spring. The former restaurant had even gone into the locavore concept of fresh food by plating a large amount of herbs and produce before it eventually closed.

Kyle saw his Uncle say something to Max and saw two of the dogs break off and lay down next to the road at the bottom. The group began to make its way up to the first landing. The storm of those first few days when this all started had taken a toll, there were branches and leaves everywhere and it didn't look like anyone had been on the road. It was steep though and walking up it was slower than they had gone on relatively flat ground. After a short time, they rounded a corner and found themselves on the first landing. Ted turned to the group.

"Let's secure this landing, and if we have time, the bottom of the road up. Kyle, Nat, Erica, and Adam, can you come with me?" He turned without waiting for a response and the others followed without feeling the need to respond. Kyle ran up to where his sister was, and they stepped their way toward the top. It was frustrating to see three of Max's dogs run up ahead, but then he turned and saw his Uncle holding his cousin's hand. He realized what it was, the dogs would smell anyone long before Kyle or Nat could see them. In the end, it was pointless, not only was no one there, but the place was in shambles. The storm had caved in the roof of the abandoned building and the whole place was just destroyed. The pond was now a lake and the waterfall from the high cliff was a torrent. Nature had retaken this hill.

"Perfect," Ted exclaimed.

Kyle turned to what he thought was a sarcastic statement from his Uncle, but Ted's face told him something different. Ted was delighted with this. Clearly seeing the confusion on his nephew's face, Ted explained. "More water is good. The building didn't serve our purpose anyway, so we will clear away the structure and use whatever we can to build our new home. This is great, did you see the soil over at the vegetable garden?"

Kyle looked at his sister and saw the relief on her face as well. After looking around for a short bit, they all went back down the road to tell the others. What they found surprised the hell out of them.

Across the road was a stone wall, like a castle wall, with a door opening in it, into which some of the people were constructing a barricade. Ted called out, "What have we here?"

Kyle's aunt Kayla ran up with the same gleeful look he had seen on his mother's face earlier, "It was me," was all she said as she and Ted embraced in a huge hug.

"I was thinking that if we could only learn how to build with stone, we would be in a great place, and for some reason my imagination started to go to the castles I saw when we toured Northern England. The ground started to move, and there you have it," She pointed at the wall and she and Ted laughed. Aunt Kayla was the means to building everything they would need up here, but he had another idea as well.

"Uncle Ted?" Kyle called out, "Has my mom shown you her talent?"
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

Jenny's run back to her cave was not a straight line. She wasn't quite sure she had lost the group from the market that had been following her. Every time she had taken a break in her flight from that particular danger, she had seen the auras of the men following her, sometimes far off and sometimes much too close for comfort. Because of this, she had gone west instead of north. But now, she was up against the foothills and would need to turn north toward her cave, or south to lead the men away. South would mean she would be outside at night, which was not a safe thought. So, reluctantly, she turned north.

She couldn't believe what she was running from, what kind of monsters were these men? When she had run from the market, she had not initially gone far; hiding about a block away and watching as the men systematically attacked, and killed, many of the market-goers. She hoped the Petersens were among those she saw running off south, but she couldn't be sure. She had waited to find out, the first of many mistakes that day, and then when all had calmed down, she had gone back to the market to try to help.

The dead were everywhere, but she never saw Carl or Maribel Petersen. At least she could still have hope they made it out. Many of the corpses were mangled in ways that she didn't think a human attacker should be able to do. She had sat on the asphalt of that parking lot and cried, until she heard the men return. They saw her before she got away and the chase was on. It had been hours now and was growing dark.

Her legs burned from the exertion of running, and her shoulders throbbed from the tension. She was unbearably hungry, and completely out of energy. She knew if she were to sit down, she would not be able to get running again, inertia was not her friend right now. So, she kept moving.

Jenny ran north along the road that would lead her to the park in which her cave was made. Her access to the inner sight gave way. She was too tired now to call up that ability. She did not have the energy or focus to achieve the mental peace necessary to make it work. Nonetheless, she thought she might have lost them. Looking around, she saw no one. All was clear.

She darted across the main road and into the park itself. Looking back through the bushes she took refuge behind, she saw no movement, heard no sounds of humanity. She realized that she had already waited too long, feeling the stiffness settling into her legs. She mustered all the energy she could and began up the path toward the cave she had made into her home. She was so exhausted, and so intent on checking behind her, that she did not see the men in front of her. She walked right into the clearing they were standing in.

She turned to run, but was so tired, her legs just didn't move fast enough. One of the men reached out and grabbed her by the hair. Jenny was thrown, by her hair, into the dirt at the group's feet.

"Someone is looking for you," said the man who had called himself Jeffrey Cole, "He doesn't like to be kept waiting."

Jenny mustered all the strength she could to stand up for herself. She would make them kill her before she would let them rape her, "I don't like to be kept waiting either, so I am going to kill each and every one of you."

They began to laugh, and Jenny rushed. It didn't work. Jenny was hit so hard, that her feet flew high into the air and she slammed down on to her back, knocking the air completely out of her. She rolled over to get up and one of the men kicked her in the side, rolling her back on to her back.

"Relax," said Cole, "let's have a rest before we take you back. That old couple who tried to guard you said you lived up here, so tell us where so we can go get your things, you are moving to the compound."

Jenny had no idea what the compound was, but she knew she didn't want to go there. "There is no way that Carl or Maribel would tell you where I live," Jenny spat out defiantly, through the pain she was feeling in her ribs and chest.

"Well," Cole said, "it is amazing what a man will tell you when he watches his wife being stripped nude and threatened with violation. He spilled the beans, dear, then we spilled their blood."

Jenny collapsed and broke into sobs, "No. No, it can't be. They were just trying to help."

"They did help, they helped all they could, and we put them out of their misery."

The men's laughter after this statement enraged Jenny, and she was going to go out fighting. She rolled to her other side and lunged upward to gain her feet. But, when she turned, they weren't even looking at her.

Jenny looked to see where they were looking. There, at the edge of the clearing in which they were standing, was the homeless man Jenny had passed on her way to the market. He just stood there looking down, his arms lying listlessly at his side. Jenny wanted to shout for him to run, but she was mesmerized by his calm.

One of the men stepped forward, "What the fuck do you want?"

As the soldier reached the man, his calm became sudden fury. The guy hit the soldier so quickly, that it was hard to see in the dusk. Before a few seconds had passed, the soldier was lying unconscious (or maybe dead) at the homeless man's feet and the homeless man was back to the same calm posture. The homeless man pointed to Jenny and waved her over to him.

Jenny stepped forward, but Cole stepped in front of her.

"No. Our leader has ordered us to bring her to him, and you won't stand in the way," Cole motioned to two more men on one side and one on the other, who all rushed in unison.

In seconds, they also lay in the dirt, dead or incapacitated. The remaining five men, who Jenny had seen kill and maim hundreds at the market, took a step back. Then Cole took off his overcoat, revealing the sleeveless gi top, emblazoned with the patch she had seen earlier.

"Oh, you fucked up now, old man," Cole took a stance.

The calm man just looked at him, and pointed toward the south as though to say, "Go!"

Even without her inner sight turned on, Jenny could see Cole had some kind of power. As he did strange strikes in the air, she could see an aura form around his fists. She wasn't sure anyone else could see it, they weren't even looking at him. Fast as lightning, Cole lunged at the homeless man, who turned on the spot, spinning low and knocking Cole's feet out from under him. The move was so fast, that Cole was still in the air when the homeless man drove a heel kick down into Cole's back, driving him into the dirt. The audible sound of crushed bone was only drowned out by the thud and exhale of Cole's last breath.

The homeless man was again calm, as he stood in the same place, position and posture as he had to begin each round of this fight. He again pointed south, but this time, the remaining four men ran. They ran as fast as they could in the direction that the homeless man had pointed. After they were out of earshot, and sight, the man waved to Jenny to follow and began walking up the path. Jenny did her best to follow.

"Sir?" She called out, but he didn't turn around. "Sir, what is your name? I just want to thank you."

The man turned, and nodded as if to accept the thanks, but said nothing. Jenny continued, "My legs are so tired, I am having a hard time keeping up."

The man looked at her and nodded, then turned and began walking up the path again, only at a slightly slower speed. It was only a short moment before Jenny realized he was walking her right back to her cave.
CHAPTER SIXTY

Damiano was tired of paperwork, especially this kind of paperwork. It was actual paper and actual pencil. He had inventoried everything in the houses of the outer circle, everything in the inner circle, and had just finished inventorying everything at the resort. It took forever.

They were now calling this position The Compound, but that name sucked, and Miles was sure that it would change as soon as someone came up with something better. Just as Fine's name had gone from The Major, to Sensei, to Shogun, Miles was sure that the name of their encampment would evolve to be something spectacular.

Shogun had declared one of the giant banquet halls at the resort to be the meeting hall, or audience hall as some called it. It was here, as Miles and many other leaders waited for Shogun to appear, that they would form the beginnings of a permanent government. Leaders of the Tigers, the Villagers, and those Miles had taken to calling the In Between were gathered to jockey for position in the new government. Shogun had taken the Penthouse suite and the entire top floor of the residence building across the lake as his personal residence and was currently giving some direction to villagers to clean and prepare his residence.

Damiano looked around the room, at Meyer – the fat-faced commander of the Tigers, at Colson – the Villager who had made himself so useful in food preparation, at Summers – the Soldier who had helped turn the entire base to support Shogun when the battle was at its height, by capturing Stone. These were the three he would most need to watch. There were dozens of others jockeying for position, but these three were the only ones on a par with Miles that Shogun would consider important. He would keep his eye on them, and when the time was right, he would take them down one by one.

The room quieted considerably, which let Miles know that Shogun was entering the hall. The tall, fit man walked across the room and the people parted as though the seas were parting. He walked up to the stage. This was the type of structure which would be set up for some speaker in some corporate event until that day that everything changed. It was just as they had found it and perfect for their purposes. Eric Fine grabbed a folding chair, because it was going to be a long meeting, and began hearing from each of his leaders, starting with Meyer telling him how he had cleared the houses.

Miles scoffed, cleared the houses, there had been nothing but one naked woman in all of the mansions they had moved through. On top of that, Meyer had almost missed her, if the stories could be believed. Other stories had said that Shogun had taken her as his own, and that she was now up in his residence.

Meyer gave an accounting of the men and their readiness for battle. By Meyer's account, there were twelve hundred soldiers in their ranks and an additional seventy-eight Tigers. Meyer rated the soldier's readiness at C level and the Tigers at A level. When Meyer finished his long explanation, Eric Fine spoke.

"Good job, Zane. You will remain over the armed forces of the compound as General Meyer, and take residence in the Shogun's tower, two floors below my residence. All fighting men will report to you, except for policing which will be handled differently. You will train the men daily and see to their well-being. They will all be at an A readiness level by next summer. Is that clear?"

"Yes, Shogun!" Meyer responded and bowed low.

The next up was Colson, who gave an account of the food stores, and what it would take to feed the masses. He also rated the service quality of the Villagers, he said there were two thousand one hundred and five who had a useful skill for the compound. He also said there were four thousand and fifty-two who did not have a useful skill. When he was finished, Eric spoke again.

"Well done, Mister Colson. Your title will be Mayor Colson and you will be in charge of the people and running of the inner circle. Only skilled villagers can move into the inner circle, if others want to move into the inner circle, they should learn a useful skill. You will live in the top floor of the second building, one of the three suites there. You will manage the workload of the villagers and be in charge of providing goods and services. Is that clear?"

"Yes, Shogun!" Colson bowed low.

Following Colson, Summers gave his report, which was short and mostly about the information they knew about the City of Colorado Springs and various criminal activities. Eric's granting of position to him was particularly interesting.

"Good, Summers. Your title will be Chief of Intelligence and Policing, and you will be called Chief Summers. You are responsible for intel and counter-intel activities, the wall guards, the policing of the circles and my personal guard. Any outside activities will be coordinated between you and General Meyer. You will live on the same floor as Colson. Is that clear?"

"Yes, Shogun!" The young man almost shouted and bowed.

"Now, speaking of outside activities, you have something to report?" Shogun asked. Chief Summers suddenly went a little green.

"Yes, Shogun, two reports. The first I believe you know. This is Specialist Jordan Kane and Doctor Emma Pare," Summers said as two guards walked a young man, maybe in his early twenties, and a striking woman in her forties, into the hall. Eric stood and walked to the edge of the little stage.

"Kane?" he reached down and shook the man's hand. Miles sort of remembered the kid now. He had been in the sand with them. He was quiet, but good at his job. Everyone liked him. "Where did you come from?"

"Hello, sir..." Kane started, but was cut off by Fine.

"The title is now Shogun, so just call me that."

The boy stuttered a bit, "Yes, Shogun. I was stationed up at the mountain. We were in an outside garden up on a cliff when the power went out. Dr. Pare and I just held out."

Shogun paused. There was something the kid was holding out and if he knew it, then Shogun knew it too. "Okay, Kane," Eric said, "Report to General Meyer for duty assignment and Dr. Pare, is it? We will get you set up in the inner circle, we can always use more doctors."

When they separated the two of them and sent them out, Miles saw the look and knew what the boy was holding out. They were more than friends, maybe even lovers. Well, good for him. But, that thought went by fast, because now four soldiers were brought in.

Summers cleared his throat, "Shogun, I regret to tell you that these four are all that remain of the squad we sent looking for the Yoga girl, Jenny Martinez. They seem to have been attacked by the same crazed man that set upon the squad we sent near the mountain for intel. No Asian boy this time though."

Eric called out, "Men, come forward." All four men sheepishly moved forward. "Who is your leader?" Shogun asked.

"It was Cole, Shogun." The front one said.

"And, where is Cole?" Eric asked.

"Dead, Shogun. The mud man killed him."

Eric paused for a moment, "Yet you return unscathed. It is disappointing. I sent you out to find one small woman, and you return alone, your comrades dead in the field." Eight guards came up silently behind the soldiers and two took each by the arms.

"No," was all the men got out before they were bound and gagged.

"Take them out to that tall tree at the entrance to the Inner Circle and hang them for all to see. I do not take lightly to leaving men in the field."

The men were dragged out, as commanded, but Miles was sure he wasn't the only one who remembered Major Eric Fine ordering Calvin Ward not to go after Craven and his men who were left in the field in the sand. This was not something he would ever bring up, unless he wanted to join the men who would shortly be hanging from the tree in the Inner Circle. As it was, it was his turn to present his report.

Miles stood and began his recitation of the inventories, or at least their summaries. He told not only what was available in each circle, but also what had been brought to the Shogun's tower, so he could have first choice. His report was thorough and succinct, just as Major Eric Fine had always liked. Shogun Fine was no different than he had been before, and he smiled with the short report.

"Excellent, Miles," Eric began, "To you, for your fidelity and loyalty, I give the position of Right Hand. You will be second only to me and will act only in my interests and on my orders. You will live in the level directly below me and be responsible to me at any time I need you. Are we clear?"

Miles had a hard time not smiling, made even harder after he saw the look on Meyer's face. He was over all of them, and he would make Meyer pay for the derision and mistreatment he had suffered at his former squad leader's hands. But, for now, he would just show his value to Shogun and bask in his new position.

TWO MONTHS IN THE NEW WORLD

"Starvation is a funny thing. It convinces your body that you are full, as each part of your system begins to fail." Anton Karimov, Food for Africa Chairman
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

Cliff, Natalee, and Kyle moved from building to building as quietly as they could. The level of stealth required exhausted Cliff and brought a stinging headache behind his eyes, but they could not do this work without him. The Hillside was coming along. Kate's ability called for gems to implant the illusion that would hide their new home. It had been Kyle's idea at first to have her implant illusion into the gems and then plant them atop the stone walls that Kayla raised from the earth around the grounds. They had quickly run out of gems on hand.

Their first run, a couple of weeks ago, had been searching the corpses they found for wedding rings and such. It was disgusting work that gave Cliff the shivers, but he was so used to seeing dead bodies now, that even the smell didn't make him sick any more. Now they searched businesses. They moved down the Westside Colorado Springs retail district, searching for jewelry or gems in the shops. So far, they had some success. Diamonds worked the best, but other gems could be utilized to make an effect. Cliff had learned to stagger the gems when in stationary use, which gave the lesser stones the ability to act in support of the diamonds.

The three of them had also collected canned goods and any other valuable items they could find. Each of them had a backpack full of items to bring back home and were marking off the last block before heading home. It was a jackpot. The last store they entered had already been broken in to and was in a bit of shambles. It had been a jewelry store and had clearly not had a chance to close their large safe before the power went out. People had ransacked the display cases but hadn't really taken much. Cliff assumed this was because people did not know the value of gems. The cash was gone from the cash drawer, again Cliff assumed that the people did not know the lack of value in paper money. But what was inside that safe was a bonanza. There were drawers and drawers of cut gems.

They all paused for a moment, stunned at their good luck, before frantically filling every remaining space on them with the jewels. The grin covering Kyle's face was a joy to behold, and Cliff turned to tell Nat, who was watching the door. He saw her duck down and put a finger to her lips to quiet them. Cliff reached out and repeated the gesture to Kyle, who crouch-walked his way to his sister's side. Cliff finished filling the three backpacks and then joined them, giving each theirs to carry.

When he got close, he could hear voices and those voices were headed their way. Crouching, Kyle pulled an arrow out and readied it while Nat took her staff in one hand and a long knife in the other. Cliff knew his job was to stay out of the way.

"I am telling you, if we don't find some more food soon, we will have to go to the compound," said a voice, muffled by space.

A very familiar voice responded, "I am not going to that place, it is like a work camp."

Cliff stood up, startling and concerning his team mates, "Kin?" He flew out the door, past the outstretched arms of both Kyle and Natalee.

The two men turned, one had a baseball bat in his hands and the other had a shovel. The one with the shovel, he knew immediately, "Kin!"

Cliff ran forward and hugged his older brother as tightly as he had ever held anyone. Kin had gone away to college on the day this all started, and Cliff wasn't sure he would ever see him again. He was so happy to see his brother. He just didn't know what to say. He looked up at Kin and saw the tears coming down his face.

"Ahh, Cliff, I thought you were dead," Kin started, "I got to the house, but Dad..."

Cliff nodded, looking down, "Yeah, Dad died. His medicine didn't work."

"So, you wrapped him up?" Kin asked.

Cliff nodded but didn't say anything.

"I took care of him, buddy. My friend Mike and I buried him in the backyard," Cliff saw his big brother look up at his friends.

"Oh, this is Kyle Ward and his sister, Natalee," Cliff turned toward them, "They are my friends and sort of my protectors. This is my big brother, Kin."

Kyle shouldered his bow and reached out to shake Kin's hand. Nat just waved and smiled that gorgeous smile.

Kin patted his friend on the back, "This is Mike Paolo, chef extraordinaire. His wife Amy is in one of the buildings grabbing some infant clothing, she is pregnant." Both men stared down at this announcement.

Mike spoke up, "Yeah, umm, we aren't sure how to deal with that. I was just telling your brother we would probably have to go to the compound."

Natalee stepped forward, "What is the compound?"

Both men looked surprised, but it was Kin who responded, "I thought everyone knew about the compound. It is where the Shogun is? No? Anyway, it is the area of the resort and the surrounding buildings. It is sort of a community of ex-soldiers and karate guys taking over the new world. I don't want to go."

Mike chimed in, "Yeah, but we will need medical help to deliver the baby."

Cliff suddenly looked up to his companions. Both Kyle and Nat nodded at him, so he said, "We have a healer at our place. You could come with us."

After a short bit of conversation, they went and found Mike's very pregnant wife, Amy, and they all began a slower trek home than they had planned. Cliff had his brother now, things were definitely going to be okay.
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

Jordan slipped his way into the Inner Circle, fully aware that he was being watched by one of the goons that passed as an Intelligence Operative, or just "Op", as they were called now. During his free time, which wasn't much, he would come and have lunch with Emma. They were not able to hide their relationship for long, but it put them both in danger. People knew that Jordan Kane had some kind of connection to General Meyer, the Right Hand and even Shogun himself, so they were cautious about upsetting him. But, Emma was an attractive woman, and in this ridiculous community, that meant she was a possession to be taken.

Making sure he knew just where his "tail" was, Jordan thought about how dumb the Ops were. They were just so obvious. However, as he passed the latest hanging corpses, he considered the ramifications of being accused by one of them. Executions were semi-common in the last couple of weeks.

Jordan and Emma had arrived a little over a month ago, he thought. He couldn't be sure because no one kept any calendar or time around here. It was always morning, or mid-day or night. It was a few days ago, or a while back. They had already stopped counting in days and hours. People were getting stupider by the minute.

It was also very dirty in the compound, not up by the tower but definitely in the inner circle. The outer circle was already a slum, even though people lived in former mansions. They had to get out of here, but few survived fleeing from the compound and were forever considered disloyal if they did. Jordan had a hard time thinking about how far society had fallen in just two months. He assumed that things might get better but didn't know if he would live to see it. Turning a corner, he heard Emma's voice.

"Haven't you done enough?" Emma was arguing with one of the "policemen" that were appointed to keep the peace, but really were just oppressors who raped young women, and extorted from the poor. Their time in the Compound had taught them that strength and connection were the only two things that kept people alive.

"If you know what is good for you, Doc, you will just hand her over. We have some questions for her," said the man standing in front of her with two of his buddies standing behind him grinning at a teen girl that Emma was shielding. Jordan picked up his pace.

"Can I be of any help guys?" Jordan said as he trotted up next to Emma.

The group turned toward him, they were always a little more comfortable with men than with women. The leader spoke again, "This girl needs to be questioned. She has...information we want." He leered past Emma at the cowering young woman, who could not be more than fifteen.

Jordan turned on the charm, "I get that. Well, Doc, let's make that happen. We don't want to keep these guys waiting." The look on Emma's face could have melted his skin, so he continued, "Umm, yeah, guys, I think the Doc needs to finish her examination. I can drop the girl by the guardhouse if you guys tell me which one you want her at. I was just going to have lunch with the Doc, then I will bring her over." Emma's expression relaxed. She could see what Jordan was doing. He was a believable witness against them, which he was showing by offering to help them.

The leader nodded to his men, who headed off with mumbles of "fuckin' Kane" and "won't be safe forever." The leader himself just said, "We will pick her up ourselves in the outer circle later." He turned and made his way through the throng of people milling about the aid area of the inner circle.

Emma hugged Jordan and gave him a light kiss, "I don't have an examination to give, she came here to hide."

Jordan nodded, "I figured." Turning toward the girl, he said, "Hey, go to the south guard post and ask for Johnson. Tell him I said you would be a good fit for washing the clothes. It won't be fun, but they are all afraid of Johnson, and he won't rape you. Okay?" The girl smiled and nodded, saying nothing. "So, sit here for a bit and then go around the long way. They won't find you." The girl nodded again, and Emma took his hand in hers.

"Come to have lunch with me again?" Emma asked, a hint of flirt in her eyes.

"Yes," he blurted, "That sounds awesome. Is there some quiet place we can find to enjoy our lunch?" Emma led him to a back area, as he passed inside, he saw the Op following him sit down to wait for Kane's dalliance to be over.

Once out of sight and hearing of anyone, they dropped the flirt. "I think it has to be tonight," Jordan told his love, "Make an excuse to get to the outer circle, maybe to go see that girl I just sent down to Johnson. He will be waiting for us. I will come back here when I get off tonight, and not finding you, I will follow you into the outer circle. The morons following me are too scared of the outer circle at night." She smiled that beautiful smile at him. "What?"

"You are brave, and smart, and I am lucky to be with you."

Jordan was regularly amazed at his relationship with this beautiful woman, "No, I am lucky to be with you."

"Then let's make this look good," she said and reached into his pants. He smiled and gave her a long, hard kiss as he unbuttoned his pants for "lunch".
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

Eric sat at his command table, looking around their setting. This was just a part of one of the four former restaurants at the resort that they had turned into a command center. Around this table his four advisors, Damiano, Meyer, Colson, and Summers sat, debating the issues of the day as they did most days. There were guards at the door, though they were more for show since Eric could physically destroy anyone who came near to him. He was bored with this meeting. Colson was making the case that the executions that Summers was engaging in were counterproductive.

"We need to win these people over, Shogun. Fear is one method, but kindness is another," The older man was saying, "The people in the outer circle..."

"Are not our problem," cut in the much younger Summers, "They add no benefit, no value, which is why they are in the outer circle. They are safer than they would be out in the old city. We have given them more than they deserve."

"Correction, Chief," Eric interrupted, "I have given them more than what they deserve. We have done nothing." The young man bowed his head slightly. Eric used a form of intimidation that perfectly suited the historical form of leadership he exhibited on a daily basis. He had intentionally set himself up as a Warlord because that is what the situation required. Brutality cemented his reign. He would leave it to his eventual progeny to be the kinder gentler form of governor, "But, give me the intel on the old city, since you brought it up."

The old city was what they called the entire area, except for the compound. Summers began, "South side is a ghost town, between the battle, the burning of the city and the rioting, few people are left. Our scouts tell us that an occasional wanderer will be put down out there, but there isn't much sport on the south. Most of downtown came with us or fell to the same as south side. The east side is a jumble of small neighborhoods, none of them yet composing a threat to be dealt with, but we are watching them. The west side is quiet. We have given people the chance to join the compound or face being put in enemy status. The plan you ordered is working well, most come in, but soon, we will send out General Meyer's troops to put down any rabble remaining."

Eric nodded, he had a plan to bring everyone in the area under his control, but it would take time. First, they were given a choice, the word is spread, then they either bend the knee or they are killed.

Summers continued, "The rest is mostly rumor, though there is some fact behind it that we know. The far north side is chaos, roving bands of looters and bandits destroying things and hurting people. They don't seem to have an agenda except for anarchy. They are doing our work for us, when we move into that area, the masses will comply just for the safety factor. There are three unknowns."

Eric perked up at this, everything went so much according to his plan, he was always surprised at new intel. Summers noticed his attention and went on, "The Air Force Academy has retained discipline and security in a way none of the other bases were able to do. We don't know if they have power, rumor has it they do not. But it is hard to understand how their discipline has held up."

"It is because they actually had discipline to begin with," Eric interjected.

Even though it was an insult to himself and Meyer, Summers just continued, "Stories are still emerging about the 'Walker', the 'Hermit', or whatever. We think this is the man who single-handedly dismantled two of our patrols, but the character is so shrouded in myths and old wives' tales, it is hard to tell fact from fiction. We have heard stories of him saving people, of killing people, of stealing, of giving things away. The stories are so varied; we aren't even sure it is one person. If it is, it is a threat we will need to deal with." Eric nodded, and Summers continued, "Finally, there is the Hillside."

"The restaurant up on the hill?" Eric asked.

"Yes, Shogun. A group seems to have moved in and fortified it. They are trading power for goods as far as we can tell." The man looked a little nervous, but Eric didn't care. This was intriguing.

"What kind of power?"

"Again, Shogun, this is just rumor as we are looking into it. What have heard though is healing and creating items of power."

"Items of power?" This time it was Miles who jumped in, "What do you mean?"

Eric could tell it bristled Summers to answer to Damiano, but Eric had appointed Miles as his Right Hand, and he waited for an answer from the younger man.

"All we have heard about are convenience items, so far. Little gems that produce light, that sort of thing. But it is worth looking in to."

Eric agreed, "That it is, Chief, that it is. Any word on the whereabouts of Jenny Martinez?"

Eric didn't even know why it mattered to him, he could have his pick of any woman in the compound, but he had sensed she had power and that would be an excellent match for him to bear children. He needed someone who would build on what he already had, and he had determined she had the right stock.

"No, Shogun," Summers continued, "She disappeared, no word or sight has been obtained."
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

Jenny sat in her cave and watched the man sleep through the view hole she had made when she first set the cave up. He seemed to have no care in the world, and she just couldn't understand it. He never came into her cave, seeming to dislike the enclosed space, so he just lay outside in the bushes, just as she had found him every morning for the last month or so. He never came in even during the afternoon rains, or as it got colder. She assumed it had to be late September by now. Without any means to keep track of the time or day, time had less meaning, less importance.

She had studied this man's aura a number of times in the last month and was still amazed by it. It was vibrant and strong; it even was strong when he slept. Oddly, the staff he carried also had power on it, she could see the aura from that and the ring on his hand. She looked around again to see any other auras and there was nothing there, so she rolled up the yoga mat on which she had just worked out and then pulled back the covering of her cave. To her surprise, he was standing there, eating a granola bar. He would disappear and come back with food every day. Jenny had quite a stockpile now.

"Good Morning," Jenny said as she left the cave and stretched in the crisp morning light.

The man nodded at her. In a full month, he had never spoken once, never even made a sound. She didn't know if he had vocal chords. He was staring off to the south with a concerned look on his face. Jenny looked but saw nothing. Turning her inner sight on, she saw the occasional flash of a small animal but that was it.

"What is it?" she asked.

He pointed to her, then to her stuff and made a large circle with his hands, drawing them into his chest. Then he pointed north.

Oddly, Jenny knew just what he meant. He wanted her to grab her things and move north.

"Why?" She asked.

He just shook his head and pointed south. She wasn't sure what it was, but the man felt something bad was coming from the south. He had never tried to harm her and had only helped in all the time they had spent together. She had no reason not to believe him.

"Okay. It may take a bit."

The man pointed to himself and then to the south, Jenny just nodded, she thought he was going to go check things out. She was probably right, because he immediately walked off south. Right about the time she had gathered all of her items, about four bags worth, he came back. He lifted two of the bags in one hand and threw them over his shoulder and just started walking north. Jenny grabbed her things and walked after him.

After about an hour, they came to the high cliffs on which the Hillside restaurant sat. The man turned to her and pointed up. Using his index and middle fingers, he pointed to his eyes, then to hers then up at the restaurant. Jenny looked up and was amazed at what she saw. There were stone walls around the top of the cliff that sort of curved out from their base to their top. They would have been impossible to scale. The man made a hand gesture like an explosion and pointed to her eyes, she turned her inner sight on and saw the guards. When she looked back at the man, he was just nodding. How did he know she had inner sight?

The man waved her on. They had to walk to the street ahead to get over the river that had once been a dry creek bed. The cascading water down the cliff was just gorgeous and the man stopped and cupped his hands to take a drink of water. He smiled, the first time she had ever seen him do that and she saw he had good teeth. What kind of homeless man takes care of his teeth?

Jenny took a drink also and knew why he smiled, it was delicious. After two months of bottled water, natural spring water was wonderful. It was also naturally cold, which was wonderful. She even splashed some on her face.

"The road up is on the other side," she said, but when she turned, he was nowhere in sight. The two bags he had been carrying were right where he had been standing just moments before. But, now there was no sign of her companion. She reached out with her inner sight and saw nothing, no movement, no aura, nothing. She was alone, drinking water from the waterfall. Not sure what to do, Jenny grabbed all four bags as best she could and walked slowly around the face of the cliffs to get to the road up. As she approached, she saw more people than she had since the world had changed. There were more even than gathered at the market regularly. There were hundreds of people in lines and they all seemed to have some goods in their hands. A young man asked her if she needed help.

"Do you need a hand with your bags?" he asked.

She shook her head, no.

"Okay, well, which line are you here for?" he asked.

"I have never been here before. Are the lines for trading?" She assumed that the long list of goods was for that purpose.

The young man smiled, "Sort of, I guess. The longest line over there is for healing, if you need that. The middle line is for light gems, but you need to bring a replacement gem for that one. That small line up front is for information, advice, or to apply to be part of our community. That line is really for those with abilities."

Jenny looked at him, confused, "Abilities?"

"Umm powers, magic, ESP, I don't know what to call it. We call them abilities."

Jenny was stunned. There were other people with "abilities"? She thanked the young man and made her way to that line. As she drew closer, she realized that the road no longer went up to the restaurant. In fact, the road went right into the side of the mountain and just stopped. Jenny was close to the front, since her line was the shortest. Each of the three lines ended in a small group of people who seemed to help the others in some way. The middle line moved the quickest and seemed a quick exchange of whatever the people brought for something small that was put into their hands. It all reminded her of the magic beans from Jack and the beanstalk.

She was just trying to take it all in, when a woman said, "Ma'am?"

Jenny looked up and she was in front of the line. She had only been in line for maybe twenty or thirty minutes. An older woman stood with an inquisitive look on her face.

"Can we help you?" asked the younger woman at her side.

Jenny wanted to gauge this transaction, so she turned on her inner sight. Everyone there had an aura but the elderly lady right in front of her. She was a little confused, but she could read the other woman and immediately knew their intentions were good.

"Hi, I am Jenny Martinez," Jenny wasn't even sure why she was in the line and not sure what to say.

The elderly woman spoke first, "I am Beth, and this is my daughter, Kate. This line is for those with questions about their powers. Do you have questions?"

Jenny just blurted out, "Do a lot of people have powers?"

Kate smiled, "As far as we can tell, everyone has at least one ability. We are doing research to understand them, so we share what we can share."

"I don't mean to be indelicate," began Jenny.

"But, you want to know what it costs, right?" Beth asked and both women smiled.

Jenny nodded.

Beth replied, "We take donations for the healing, barter for the gems, but this line is free. We are open to donations, but it isn't really the purpose of this line. We would prefer education or information. If we can trade in information, then we are in a win-win situation."

Jenny thought for a second, "That young man said people could apply to be a part of your group. What does that look like?"

Beth and Kate looked at each other, then Kate responded, "Let me get my brother-in-law."
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

Ted walked around the edge of the wall, searching to see if he could discover the openings. Ever since the kids had returned and the hiding gems had been made by Cliff and Kate, he had made these rounds to see if there were cracks in their façade. Kayla had built the walls up and created archways through which people could pass, but you really had to know where those archways were, or you would walk right into a wall. This walk wasn't so much for security, though. This walk was for peace of mind in another manner. Ted needed to think of how to move forward with their group.

Every person in their group was getting joy out of the experience of their abilities, which were inherently creative. He looked over at his niece and nephew, who were currently engaged in a game, where Kyle would throw little balls of light at his sister and she would catch them on the end of her staff, dissipating them instantly. They had unwittingly created an amazing practice for their reflexes, just in the pursuit of having fun. All of their pursuits were like that.

Kayla had started by building walls through her ability, which Cliff had called Terrakinesis, the ability to move earth. But now she was creating a carved mural in the side of one of the cliffs, which she had first smoothed with her mind. Cliff had taken Jenny, the young lady who had joined their group yesterday, and together they were "reading" jewelry and other items and defining exactly what these powers were. His own daughter, Maxine, just seemed to play with the dogs that were part of her pack. Ted couldn't be sure how many dogs were in that pack now, but he knew it was more than 20 and most were outside the walls. They were the most effective guards and sentries one could hope for. Cliff's brother had not yet found his power, nor had his friend Mike. But, Mike's pregnant wife, Amy, turned out to be an Aquakinetic. Her gifts were in the manipulation of water, the direct opposite of Kim Pile's gifts in fire, Pyrokinesis.

Rich's guitar playing effected emotions, and Jessica's bourgeoning telekinesis was useful to move things around without people carrying them. Even Ted's power of defensive shielding was growing, and they were learning more and more from their weekly "Service Day" which was what they were taking to calling the day when people from all over would come for healing, for barter, and for education. They were actually having fun, but Ted knew there needed to be more. They had to make the world a better place for people to live in.

He had heard the stories of "Shogun" Fine, the Major's arrogance taking on a whole new movement in this new existence. The Academy had shut down from allowing people in and out of the grounds, and were vehemently anti-powers, as his group had found out themselves. The city was in chaos, and winter was on its way. Cliff was already creating heat stones, using Kim's abilities, to combat the inevitable cold of a Colorado winter. Additionally, Adam told him that more and more people were coming in very sick from the flu. If the flu took hold in the city, people would not know how to combat it. He was absolutely certain that a large swath of the population of the city were still going to die from exposure, illness, and the bad actions of roving bands of teens, hell-bent on destruction.

He looked up at the barking of one of the dogs and saw Max walking toward him.

"Daddy, someone is coming up the road," Max said, dusting off her pants from the pine needles she had been sitting in.

"Who is it sweets?" Ted asked.

Max seemed to think for a minute, "Soldiers."

"Okay, sweetie. Will you tell Kyle and Nat to join me, please?" Ted began to walk to the first hidden door that would lead him down to the first platform. By the time he got there, Kyle and Natalee were at his side. They continued down to the lowest level, what they had taken to calling ground level, and Ted again had a hard time finding the path through. Kyle laughed and led him through. There were multiple walls in the area and offset doors, so one who did not know the way would be stuck there forever. It was an ingenious system his wife had worked out, but Ted found it frustrating all the same.

The nice part about the dogs was that they alerted the camp long before anyone arrived, so when Ted and Nat and Kyle slipped out from behind a bush, the military squad was just walking up. There were about twenty of them, and they were armed with swords that he was sure were only decorative until about two months ago. Ted didn't really know the ranks of the cadets well, but there were enough stripes and rockers on the young man's arm who stepped forward, that he was confident he was speaking to a cadet officer.

"Good afternoon, sir," the cadet began, "I am Cadet Commander Britton Casco. I have been sent by the Commandant to ask for a meeting."

"Nice to meet you, Commander Casco. I am Ted Craven."

"I remember you, sir," the young man replied, "We met when you were at the Academy a few weeks ago."

"I am sorry, Commander. I meant no insult by not remembering. It is either the stress of the times, or the effect of old age," Ted played on the assumption of weakness and hoped it would work but wasn't sure it would. The young man was stoic. "What is the nature of the meeting the Commandant would like to propose? I feel like he made it quite clear that he found our abilities a distraction."

The man thought for a moment, "I believe I would not be remiss in saying that the Commandant has changed his position. The events bear out a further investigation of these abilities. More and more cadets are showing a power. We need to survive in this new world, and after hearing of the aid your group has provided to the community at large, we thought an alliance would be of interest."

Ted considered the young man's words, "We?"

Casco looked visibly stunned. As Ted looked past him, he realized that there was more to his question than he thought.

In a soft, kind tone, Ted asked the question that needed asking. "Son, what is happening at the Academy?"

The next hour was enlightening, to say the least. Shortly after Ted and his group departed the Academy, cadets had begun to show evidence of power, but they had kept it all hidden. About a week and half ago, the flu had hit the base hard, including the Commandant himself. Many of the professors had already died, as the flu was harder to survive for the elderly. Discipline held at the base, but the Commandant was seriously ill and delirious. The cadet leaders had taken temporary control, and their leader, this young man, had chosen to come himself to entreat for the healing of his Commandant.

It wasn't something that needed a second request. Ted had sent Adam, along with Erica, a couple of others, and half of the Commander's squad with all haste. Commander Casco and the rest of the squad had stayed at the Hillside. They all had exhibited power and had hoped for some instruction. Ted and the young man worked out a transfer of personnel, in effect. When the others returned, Ted would send Kyle along to the Academy to train in fighting. A group of ten cadets would remain at the Hillside for training in abilities. They would share information and defend one another, if needed. It was a good agreement, and Ted was thrilled to enter into it.

Kayla, Jessica and a couple of the others began to build a barracks on the ground level for the cadets. The only people allowed inside the walls of the Hillside were their group, which right now numbered fifty-one men, women, and children. Ted began to see where his group could aid the community even more.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

Miles crouched in the dirt near the Garden of the Gods Park, this majestic land formation on the west side of Colorado Springs. From this vantage point, he could see the Hillside Restaurant, or what used to be a restaurant, in the distance. Now it had stone walls around the top of the cliffs where the restaurant had always stood. How could they build those up that fast? The walls were better looking and better fortification than the barricades around the Inner and Outer Circles. He was too far away to see individuals from here, but he assumed that is where his prey was headed.

On Shogun's orders, Miles had set out to find the traitors himself. He had a group of five Tigers and twenty soldiers with him, as well as two Ops. It was a formidable squad, to be sure. Miles was pleased to be out of the compound. Although he had his pick of everything within the circles, it was still a joy to feel the freedom ofn being released from the confines of the growing number of bodies who sought refuge in the fortification. However, he could not dwell on this, he had a job to do.

Anthony Johnson, one of the guards in the Outer Circle and his old scrounge adversary from the sand, had taken Jordan Kane, Dr. Emma Pare and some waif of a girl out of the compound in the middle of the night. If they had come back immediately, Miles could have been merciful. But, once they were gone, it made Miles look bad in Shogun's eyes. Kane and Johnson were old buddies of Miles', and now they would have to pay for their stupidity.

Miles and his team had tracked the four into the west side retail district, then had been held up in the small hamlet of Manitou Springs. They were not accosted in any way, but Summers' men were unaware that the little city had been fortified and could potentially serve as a rival to the compound. Shogun would want to know, and it would give Miles an opportunity to again make Summers look like an incompetent fool. He had gathered intel himself to show he was more capable. He stood to his feet.

"Men, we are moving out," he said and turned to see everyone get to their feet. "Jackson, to me."

The large Tiger came forward as ordered, "Yes, Lord Damiano?"

Miles liked the title Lord, he was the only one who Eric had given that particular title to, and he relished in the way it made Meyer unhappy to have to call him that. The Tigers and Soldiers were Meyer's men, but he knew they were aware of who had the power here. "Take three soldiers and get close to the restaurant. The road up is on the other side. If you see Kane, or Johnson, or either of the women, report back and we will take them."

The stocky man nodded, bowed, and pointed to three men, who followed him in a quick trot up the road. Miles and the rest of the men searched throughout the open park, and up the trails to see if any of the caves in the area were housing people. They found one cave that looked like it might have been used before, but mostly the area looked like it had before the world fell to shit.

He saw the men returning shortly after mid-day and they were trotting faster coming back than they had even been when they set out. Miles waited in the field from which he had sent them out. Their look of excitement told him that they had found their prey.

"I see that you found them," he said, so sure of himself.

"No, sir," the man started.

"That is no, Lord Damiano, Jackson." Damiano let his contempt cover his features.

"Yes, Lord," He replied catching his breath, "We did not catch sight of the traitors."

"Then why are you here?" Damiano asked.

"The girl, the yoga girl, Jenny Martinez...she is there."

Miles was stunned. It was far more than he could hope for. "Why didn't you grab her?"

"She saw us, Lord Damiano, and ran. She literally ran into the side of a mountain."

Miles ignored this last part, the foolishness of some people just astounded him. Jenny Martinez was at the Hillside. He would not spook her, they would return to Eric and tell him. Miles would be rewarded for this and the information about Manitou Springs. Everyone would forget about Johnson and Kane, and that Miles had spoken well of their fidelity.

"Men, Gather your things. We move out, back to the HQ." The men looked at each other, and Miles answered their inquisitive looks, "Back to the compound, whatever. You know what I meant."

The men gathered their things. If they had noticed, they would not have thought much of the two dogs that lay in the grass nearby watching them. Two feral mutts were not worth their notice and certainly not a danger.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

"They took off," Anthony Johnson told his friends, as he returned to their little camp site at the Garden of the Gods, "Don't know what spooked them, but they grabbed their shit and literally ran back to the compound."

Jordan smiled at the two women, in order to keep them calm, something he was not feeling on the inside. "They'll be back; don't you think?" He said to Johnson.

"Yeah, I would say so. I can't believe that prick, Damiano, came out himself," Johnson spit when talking about Damiano.

"I am sure Major Fine made him," Jordan contemplated the weird dynamic between the former Major and the former Corporal, "Those two have really gone 'round the bend, as my grandmother used to say."

Emma interrupted, "If they are coming back, we need to be somewhere else."

Jordan nodded, "I think the Academy is still our best bet. They rejected the Old Man's attempt at control, I would guess they would do the same with Fine." Johnson and Emma just nodded in agreement. "So, let's get moving."

They had not brought a lot with them but had picked up a few things along the way. Jordan was amazed that in only a couple of months, most houses and businesses had already been stripped bare. That camp in Manitou Springs had probably looted everything over here in the west side. It was a shame they wanted no new residents, as they had told their small group to keep moving. Luckily, there was still the occasional missed can of something (usually something gross) to be found. The community in Manitou Springs had not only blocked off any access to their small city, but in the process, had also blocked off Ute Pass, the access point up into the mountains from Colorado Springs. Jordan knew of two others. Gold Camp Road was south, past the compound, and was probably being watched. The Academy had an access point that went up to a reservoir, and then opened up into the mountains and the small towns that might work as permanent homes for his small group.

They opted not to take the paths, nor the roads, for fear of being seen. Jordan's big concern in this area was wildlife. If it was summer, they would have had to worry about rattlesnakes. Being this close to winter (it was already getting quite cold, especially at night), they might run into bears or mountain lions that roamed in this area. However, to go north, they would have to get really close to the camp that their pursuers had just vacated. They took it slow.

Jordan suddenly stopped. Something was moving through the tall grass ahead of him, and it wasn't human. It wasn't big enough to be a bear or a deer, so he was afraid he might be about to confront his biggest wildlife fear, a hungry mountain lion. They had no weapons of any kind and were about to be easy prey. The tension in his shoulders and the rush of adrenaline made him have that tin taste in his mouth he hadn't had since the sand. His group were standing perfectly still as the grass moved, about twenty feet away from them. Then whatever it was stopped in the grass. There was a very long pause, Jordan wasn't sure he even breathed, waiting for the inevitable lunging great cat. Instead, a German Shepherd walked out onto a path nearby. Jordan's audible sigh was cut short.

A woman's voice came out of the bushes nearby, "Sorry to ask, but I need you to lay any weapons you have on the ground and show us your hands."

Jordan and Johnson looked around and tried to peer through the bushes, both angling for an advantage. But, it was Emma that spoke next, "We don't have any weapons."

Jordan looked at her with astonishment and gave a quick shake of his head to let her know to stop. He looked in a different direction, assessing their ability to run.

This time it was a man's voice from the other direction, "You can't run this way either," he said, "We aren't going to harm you, we just want to make sure you don't try to harm us."

Jordan looked at Johnson, and they joined the two women, who had already raised their hands up, "We don't have weapons."

The young woman stepped out of the bushes in front of them. She was remarkably beautiful, in her late teens, and held a staff in one hand and a machete in the other. Behind them a young man came out of the brush also. He was in his twenties, fit, and held a bow with an arrow knocked and ready to fly. The young man immediately let loose the tension on the bow, but kept the arrow knocked and the bow pointed downward.

"Sorry for the hostility, you just never know these days," The young man grinned warmly.

The young woman was not as friendly. She walked over to the camp the men from the compound had left. "The men that were here, you knew them?"

The tension immediately returned to Jordan's shoulders. None of his group responded, uncertain of the danger into which their answer might sink them.

The young man put his arrow back in his quiver and slung the bow over one shoulder. "Calm down, Nat. Let's try not to scare the shit out of our new friends." He stuck his hand out, "Hi, the name is Kyle Ward. This is my sister, Natalee."

"No fucking way!" Johnson blurted out. Shock and confusion fell over the faces of the two young people.

Jordan smiled broadly and let out a little chuckle, "Wow, you guys have grown up."

Kyle and Natalee showed a queried look, as they looked at each other. Jordan understood, he was only maybe two years older than Kyle Ward, but had met him when Kyle was still in High School.

"We both served with your dad," Jordan offered, "What was it, four years ago when your dad got out? We met you at his party, but you were just kids. How is your dad? Is he around? I would love to see him."

A darkness fell over both of their faces and Natalee looked at the ground.

"Dad didn't make it," Kyle said, "The first few days of this, he fell into a swollen river and drowned."

Jordan was stunned, he could not imagine a world without Calvin Ward in it, "I am so sorry. Your dad was the best man I have ever known."

"Me too," Johnson interjected.

"I don't know what to say," Jordan was saddened by this news. If there was one person alive who would know how to survive, it would have been Calvin Ward.

Natalee seemed to just move on. She responded in the way he had seen many soldiers respond when overcome with grief, just get to the facts. "So, you knew these guys?" She asked.

"I am sorry, yes, they were chasing us. We escaped their compound and they had been sent to bring us back, or more likely to kill us," Jordan said, then putting offering his hand to shake Kyle's, "I am Jordan Kane, and this is Anthony Johnson. We both served with your dad and your uncle in the sand. This is Dr. Emma Pare and Mischa Orna, a young woman who came with us."

Natalee bent down and talked to the German Shepherd who was by her side, it was kind of weird, "We are coming back with our guests, tell your dad to meet us at the gates."

The German Shepherd didn't do anything, Jordan thought Natalee Ward had lost her mind. The thing was, Kyle Ward didn't even seem to notice. He just started walking north. Jordan, Emma, Johnson, and Mischa followed close behind.

"Did you ever serve with my Uncle Ted?" Kyle asked.

"Sgt. Craven?" Johnson replied, "Yeah, he is a good man too. He around here somewhere?"

"He is back at our camp. So is Adam Cross, if you knew him."

"Doc?" Jordan asked.

"Yep," Kyle continued, "There are quite a few of us. Any of you showing abilities?"

Jordan didn't know what he meant, he wondered if they separated people by usefulness like they did at the compound. "Not really," he replied, "I was a network tech, not very useful now. Johnson is a scrounge, but he is also a big guy and a good fighter. Dr. Pare is a botanist, and Mischa is only fifteen, so she hasn't decided what to do with her life." He turned around, but Natalee was nowhere to be seen, nor was the dog.

"No, I mean, how do I put this?" Kyle stopped, and noticed Jordan looking for Natalee, "Oh don't worry about her. We don't like everyone to be able to see all of our strength at once. You know how it is." Jordan did. "When I say abilities, I mean, like ESP or the ability to do things with your mind. It is becoming prevalent in the world now."

Jordan thought about talking about Emma's power with plants, but that was hers to decide to share or not to share. She had hidden that ability the entire time they were at the compound. He looked at her and could tell she was considering the situation also. Kyle noticed the look. He was certainly his father's son and had that perceptive ability that Ward had shown in the sand.

"It doesn't matter," he said, "But, so you can see that I trust you, I will show you a little something."

He opened his hand and a small ball of light was in it, like a small pebble. He began playing with it in a rather fascinating way, bouncing it from one hand to the other, and then slicing through it with a karate move that instantly dissipated it.

Jordan was amazed, but it was Mischa who spoke. She had said maybe four words the entire time they had been running away from the compound, "That was amazing! How did you do that?"

"Like I said," Kyle responded, "Abilities."
CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

Eric listened intently to what his Right Hand was telling him. He was interested in Manitou to a great degree, but it paled in comparison to his interest in the Hillside. He would have to act quickly. Moments before, Colson had been reciting the poor state of supplies when the other men had returned from their search for Kane, Johnson, and their two whores. A plan formed in his head, and he moved it quickly into action.

"General Meyer, take two hundred men, and ten Tigers, and attack the Manitou encampment. Keep the walls if you can, it is a good fortress and control point into the mountains. Do not destroy it, we need the supplies. Kill every person breathing in that place, it will be ours."

Meyer bowed, "Yes, Shogun. If they surrender?"

"If they surrender, man the town, remove all its residents, without any supplies to carry with them. If they surrender, they live, that is all. If they do not surrender at first try, execute every man, woman and child. It doesn't matter, they will not surrender."

Eric stood and paced the room, "Summers, take the remaining eight hundred and fifty men, as well as all of the Ops, and all of the guards, and clear out the Outer Circle. We can no longer afford those mouths to feed that are not productive. Clean them out of my city, beyond the outer wall. Hang any who resist as a warning to the others. Lord Damiano, you and I will create a plan of attack for the Hillside. When these other two actions are complete, we will move our full force there and take the encampment as well. That will give us three control points, and we can build from there. Gentlemen, the time has come to build our power base. Do well, and you will be rewarded. Now, move out. Damiano, with me."

All of the men moved out with purpose, they finally got to do something. Eric did not need to tell them what would happen if they did not succeed. That was self-evident. If he could get into action before the first snow, he could solidify his hold and prepare for new governance. Hold the three fortifications, then build up to take out the Academy. Seal off the mountain access, then move east and plan out the city. Within a year or two, he could provide a safe home for the best of the best and rid himself of the riff raff.

When the room had cleared, he turned to Miles, "Okay, my friend," he started, "Now is the time. We get the three fortifications, but much of this hinges on capturing Jenny Martinez. That running into the wall story is probably true. She has some kind of power, some mental power of the chi. I will mate with her and produce exceptional children to rule after me. But, you personally must get her, and you must get her before we move on the Hillside, so there is no chance of her getting caught in the cross-fire. Do this for me and I will give you Manitou. You will still answer to me, but will be Lord Governor of Manitou Springs. How does that sound?"

Eric didn't need to see the low bow or hear the agreement. He knew his closest servant's desires and knew how to manipulate him. Miles would bring Ms. Martinez back, and then Eric would find a reason to show his displeasure with the sniveling sycophant. His plans were coming together well. Eric Fine was very happy indeed.
CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE

Ted looked around the small group, nine altogether, and wondered how this was going to go. It had only been a few moments since they allowed the first outsider to have access to the highest level of the Hillside. With all of the work that Kate and Kayla had done to put up walls and illusions as a defense, they had until now, only allowed those from their original group to come up here. Everyone from the church on had only been allowed to the middle level, and outsiders had only been allowed to the ground outside the gates. But now, they had allowed Jenny Martinez, Amy Paolo, and Tom Barrett (one of the group from the church) to join them from the middle landing, and they had even invited Commander Britton Casco, the Cadet Commander at the Air Force Academy. It was time to trust. This group would be the beginning of how they would move forward.

"First," Ted started, "I want to thank everyone for coming. It is an honor to have you all here."

It was Rich who responded, "Yeah, why are we here though, Ted?"

Ted looked at the group again. Commander Casco was the leader of the Academy since the Commandant had taken ill. Adam was still not sure he could help the man, as the flu had ravaged his system. Ted's sister-in-law, Kate, was an icon to the women in the group now, both because of her abilities, and because of her strength when her husband had died. She gave hope to the women in the group. Jenny Martinez was a strong and vibrant leader, but the reason she was there was her ability to discern people's motives. Rich himself was a leader of people, even without his abilities, he could motivate people better than anyone Ted had ever seen. Amy Paolo, a new member of the group, was showing some promise as an Aquakinetic. This was going to be a necessary skill in the coming months. Dr. Emma Pare, their newest arrival, had an air of authority that could aid them in legitimacy. Tom Barrett carried a lot of weight with those who had not yet shown powers or were not strong in those powers. Finally, his wife, Kayla, had built the walls. She was seen by the people as the embodiment of protection. These would be the beginning leaders of the group.

"We are here, my friend, to talk about the future," Ted waited to see any reaction, but there was none. "I wanted to ask all of you to be part of a leader's committee, or council. We will need to make decisions going forward and I don't think I should make them alone, though I appreciate the way everyone has granted me that ability up until now."

"I think you are doing fine, Ted," Kate offered.

"I appreciate that, sis. I really do. But this isn't going away, this new existence. We need to prepare for winter and beyond, and I don't want advice, I want partners."

"Why am I here?" asked Casco.

"One of the most important partnerships we have already begun is that with the Academy. I want that to continue and be a model for how we all live in the world together. So, I am asking that the Academy always have a member on this council." Ted looked around and everyone was nodding at the logic of this decision, "Look, maybe it would be best to say why I chose each of you, then we can move on and figure out how this will work."

"I have already stated why I chose Commander Casco. I chose Kayla, not because she is my wife, but because she has planned and constructed our fortifications. Kate for much the same reason, but also due to the respect given to her by many in the group. Rich and Tom are both natural leaders, to whom people just go for their advice and ideas. Dr. Pare is an authority, a visible authority. Amy understands leadership, and her Aquakinesis is going to be very valuable as we plan to provide for the people of our group."

There was a pause, but Jenny looked around and asked, "What about me?"

Ted smiled broadly, "Oh, I thought that was obvious." Looking at the council, Ted could see that they thought it was too.

"Sweetheart," Kayla replied for all of them, "You can tell when people are lying."

A little chuckle went around the room and set the mood for this, the First Council of the Hillside. The meeting went on for hours, but in the end, they had approved Ted to be the Head of the Council and had all taken on tasks and responsibilities. They had set rules for access, and days when each of them would be "in charge" to judge for people and make smaller decisions. They had decided to be mostly a place for education and information, and to dedicate themselves to be a resource for those in need, and to try to make the world a better place. Ted could not have chosen a better group, nor could they have done a better job with that first meeting. The word spread quickly about who they were and what they were about, just as Ted had intended.

In the days that followed, Kayla found two other Terrakinetics with whom she worked on her cave project, creating a place on the mid-level that reached into the cliffs and provided shelter for the coming winter. Tom, working with Mike Paolo and Kin Ko, created a task assignment list that everyone who lived at the Hillside signed up for and worked on. Jenny began working on the intricacies of reading items with Cliff, though she never really understood imprinting. Casco had carried the word back to the Academy, which had responded very well to be included on the Council.

Before the week had finished, the Commandant had succumbed to the flu, and the Academy leadership had appointed Casco as the new Commandant. Kyle and Jessica had taken up semi-permanent residence at the Academy to teach and help and keep a conduit of communication open. Emma had built gardens and had produced incredibly fast fruit. Amy Paolo had been working on preserving the fruits and vegetables when she had gone into labor. Cooper Paolo was born on a Thursday; the first child of the new world they had known. He was a quiet kid, right from birth, who seemed to have no problem with the cold.
CHAPTER SEVENTY

Miles' disguise was barely a disguise. In his own opinion, he wasn't even convincing as a homeless guy. As he approached the Hillside's long lines, he simply stood in the longest to get his bearings. Much as the Tiger had said, the road no longer went up to the restaurant. Instead, there were cliffs which had never been there before, and there were multiple stone walls up what had been the street, which one could barely make out from here. If you didn't know to look, you wouldn't even see the road that wound its way up behind the cliffs. There was a stone building near the base of the cliffs and a bunch of people who looked like Academy Cadets, by their uniforms. There were dozens of people in these lines, and people who were clearly helpers, handing out blankets to everyone in the line.

"Hi," said a woman in her late twenties, "If you are here for healing, the next healing will be on Monday. Is that why you are here?"

Healing? Miles looked around. "No, I am sorry, ma'am. I was looking for a friend of mine that I heard was around this place."

"Oh, do you need a blanket? Winter is on its way and we have extras. I am Amy Paolo, by the way."

The young woman smiled at him and stuck out her hand, and Miles just wanted to rip that grin off her face, but instead he just shook her hand and smiled back. What world did she think she was living in?

"Thank you, you are very kind," is all that he said in response, "But, I was looking for my friend. Maybe you know her, Jenny Martinez? Someone I know said he saw her here."

Miles saw the shadow of doubt cross the woman's face, and knew he was going to have to go with plan B.

The young woman smiled, a clearly fake smile, she was new to deception, "No, umm sorry, I don't know your friend. I should probably go get some more blankets."

Amy turned to walk back to the front. Miles had to take a more drastic action. He reached under the shirt he was wearing and pulled out his long knife, then with his other hand, he reached up and grabbed her by the hair, pulling her back to him. As he pulled her back, a woman screamed, and people yelled out. A large blonde man ran from the front of the lines, near the cadets.

"Amy!" He screamed as he ran.

Amy Paolo just whimpered in his grasp, "Please, no, Cooper..." Miles put the knife to her throat.

The large man yelled out, "Let my wife go!!" He lunged at Miles, but the original leader of the Tigers was ready for him.

As the man rushed, Miles planted one foot and drove the other upwards into the man's solar plexus, lifting his two hundred and fifty-pound frame off the ground with ease. Before, the man could fall to the ground, with dizzying speed that even surprised himself, Miles axe kicked the man in his head, driving his skull into the ground with such force. He heard the crunch of broken bone as he felt the skull give way.

Miles looked up at the gasping crowd. The woman, at whose throat he still held the knife, sank to her knees and sobbed. Miles kept the knife in place.

"That was not necessary, Damiano," said a voice to his right, he turned to see a face he knew well, but had not seen in years.

"Sgt. Craven? You are with this rabble?"

The stocky man, with a growth of beard his commanding officer would not have been happy with, just looked sadly at Miles, "Miles, what have you done? These are people, or have you forgotten already what they look like."

Over Craven's shoulder, Miles saw Kane and the other traitor, Johnson, move through the crowd toward him. At the same time, a pre-teen girl walked through and stood right at Craven's shoulder. "Oh, so you harbor the traitors too? I was sent to get Jenny Martinez, but now I see I have more to do to put this right."

Miles looked down at the woman in his grasp and drew the knife deeply into her carotid artery and larynx. He felt the warm blood splash onto his hand, as he heard the gasps of the crowd and saw some of the men (including the traitors) lurch forward.

Throwing off his overcoat, he held the knife up and said, "Let's do this then."

The men started to come forward, but Ted quietly said, "No." Everyone stepped back.

"Oh, Sergeant, you are the leader then?" Miles taunted, "After I cut the head off the head, maybe then they will give me Jenny Martinez."

Miles began to circle in the wide area that the crowd now made for the fight that was about to happen. With intense speed and focus, Miles leapt, driving the knife in a downward motion toward Craven's chest. The man just stood there, waiting for it, this was going to be over quick.

At the last possible second, Craven turned in place and parried the blow, sending Miles sprawling on the ground. Ted looked down at him, "Who sent you?"

Miles jumped to a crouch and swept with his legs, following with a spinning side kick, but into dead air. Craven was not in the spot he was when Miles had begun the spin. He felt the sharp blunt kick to his ankle as his feet flew out from under him, and he was again sprawled out on the ground. The knife flew out of his hand and Kane picked it up where it landed.

"Who sent you, Damiano?" Ted said, still standing in a completely relaxed position.

"Oh, Craven, you know who it is. He wants the girl," Corralling all the chi energy he could muster, Miles struck at Ted Craven's chest.

This time the man did not move, did not parry, did not flinch. It was like striking stone. Miles felt the reverberation of the impact carry through his arm, but he followed with strikes to the face, a flurry of fists on the man's visage. It not only didn't hurt Ted Craven, he seemed barely to notice. He took the punches just like Shogun had in the early days of this. When Miles had expended every last bit of energy he had, the man finally moved. Settling into a stance, Ted reached out with the palm of his hand and hit Miles in the center of the chest with such force that he flew back in the air over fifteen feet and landed on his back with a thud.

Miles scrambled to his fee. Shogun needs to know about this power! He saw his opening and ran, looking back, he saw Ted stopping the crowd from following him, and laughed to himself at how stupid the former soldier was. He bolted as fast as he could to get back and tell Fine what he had found out.

Ted turned to the little girl at his elbow, "Okay, sweetie. You do it."

Miles turned a corner and saw two snarling dogs running at him in a full sprint. He quickly moved the other way, but saw another dog join them. He didn't know where they found or trained these guard dogs, but he just needed higher ground and he would be fine. He saw an outcropping of rocks and quickly climbed on top of them. He would be safe there.

Snarling, barking and snapping their jaws, the three dogs were jumping up toward the cliff, but were too short to reach it. Miles spit down on them from his safe vantage point. It was then he heard the sound. The growling behind him barely alerted him, with increasing fear he turned and saw the pit bull leap at him, knocking him off the ledge and onto his back on the ground below. Searing pain entered his leg as one of the dogs grabbed ahold of his ankle and ripped at his flesh. He reached up to get the dog off of him, when another of them clamped down on the soft tissue under his arm. All four dogs were then on him. He fought to get them off but was losing flesh and blood rapidly. He saw the teeth and the gaping maw, as the pit bull bit into his face, its teeth sinking into his left eye. He went limp as he felt the burning in his side and felt the jerking of his intestines being pulled out of his body. He felt the crack in his neck and all pain and feeling seep away, and the dog that had been biting his head and ripping side to side let go.

Miles Damiano looked up with his one good eye, unable to move below his neck, standing right above him was the little girl who had recently been at Craven's side. Her blonde hair framing that cherubic face, now distorted with hate and anger. She leaned over him, "That was someone's Mommy."

The little girl spit down onto his forehead and looked at the pit. The dog lunged and bit hard into Miles' neck. The last thing he felt was the dog ripping out his voice box, and Lord Miles Damiano, the Shogun's Right Hand, was no more.

THE ONSLAUGHT OF WINTER

"Cold can bring out the best in people, but very often it brings out the worst." Dr. Bill Montgomery, Director of the National Weather Service
CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE

The snow began falling lightly as Shogun Eric Fine and his army moved out of the small, fortified town of Manitou Springs. Leaving behind two Tigers and fifty soldiers, the remaining four hundred or so soldiers and forty-three Tigers moved down the main road toward the west side retail district of Colorado Springs. Of the Twenty-seven Operatives in Summers' group, only two accompanied the force on their march. Summers had been left behind in the compound to aid Colson in completing his duty to cleanse the compound of those without value.

Eric looked along the sides of the road, where the people of Manitou Springs hung from trees and utility poles as a sign to all people who would not comply with the orders of the Shogunate. The leader of the small town had been beheaded after watching every last man, woman, and child be hung for their obstinacy. Now, Eric held two fortified camps, and was slowly moving his force to take the third. It would take them about a full day to get there with the large group they had, and the pace they were moving. He was not in a hurry, he wanted fear and anxiety to go before him to prime the people who squirreled away at the Hillside restaurant for the order to vacate and comply.

He had sent Miles Damiano to do a simple task, bring back Jenny Martinez. The man had never returned. A small group of Operatives had gone the next week to obtain intelligence and had returned with the torn and bloody gi top that many of them wore under their jackets. The Ops thought it looked like the work of a bear or a mountain lion, but Eric had to act. He had to show that any harm coming to his appointed officers was dealt with in a quick and merciless fashion. He would have the entire community of the Hillside executed and tear their fortress down. This would set the stage for the eventual confrontation with his only real remaining nemesis, the Air Force Academy.

It was cold. He guessed that it was mid to late November, though no one kept a calendar any longer. It had been somewhere between three and a half to four months since the new world order. They had a few snows, but the snowy season in Colorado Springs did not really get going until January, so he figured he could take out the Hillside, and then return to his Shogunate and attack the Academy in the Spring. The flu had taken hold in the compound a couple of weeks before, and people had died. Without any medicine, it would not be the last mass death. He assumed many of those not in one of the compounds would die this winter from lack of sufficient protection from the elements. Up ahead, people started to give way as he walked up the streets.

As the people parted, most of whom were the remaining rabble who had not been allowed into Manitou, he saw Meyer and another Tiger standing there. The chubby man's face was broad with a grin. Eric was a little annoyed at how much Meyer enjoyed that Damiano was no longer there to be a thorn in his side, he would have to appoint someone to the role of Meyer's nemesis. The thought gave him a small smile.

Meyer called out, "Shogun! We have found a gift for you!"

Meyer pointed with a full hand to the side, and another Tiger walked out leading four horses, saddled and ready to go. Eric was instantly pleased; it had been months since he had been in the saddle. He walked forward and pet each horse on the head. Finding one that responded well to him, he climbed up into the saddle and immediately appreciated the historical value of horses to warriors. He sat atop this gray mare and was able to see his whole force behind him, the mewling crowd and the direction they needed to face.

"Well done, General!" He said, "Where did you find them?"

"There is a stable nearby. George here knew the area and wanted to see if they were still there. They were," Meyer smartly waited for the Shogun to give him permission.

"Well mount up, General!" Eric smiled, "You too, George. Leave the other animal for a replacement horse if needed." He quickly added this last part, as a third Tiger reached for the reins.

Turning the three horses eastward, the three men sauntered down the street, their new perspective allowing them to better assess the surroundings. This was already working out well. The snowflakes became a little larger and fell with more rapidity. A light blanket of snow was accumulating on the roads and the houses. Four hundred men fell in behind the horses and they began the march to their next conquest.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO

"You are sure they are headed this way?" Ted asked of the two men who came to the gate.

The man on the left nodded, "They are killing as they go, the trees and power poles are hanging with corpses like they are Christmas decorations."

Ted looked at the second man, who was clearly horrified, "Come, sit by the fire."

The second man shook his head, "We just wanted to warn you. We have to keep moving." He looked at his friend, who nodded, and they left heading north. They moved quickly, like the hounds of hell were on their tail.

Ted looked down at his daughter, thinking of hounds. Her beautiful little face looked up at him, "There are four men at the Garden of the Gods, heading this way, but trying to hide."

"Scouts," Ted said, mostly to himself. He and Max walked back to the hidden entrance to the Hillside, "Honey, can you have the dogs call a council meeting."

Max didn't say anything, but immediately Ted heard the double bark, followed by the long howl and knew she had already responded. Getting through the first three walls into their encampment was hard enough. Three walls with offset opening, which were all hidden with illusion, made for tricky access, even for those who knew the tricks. Looking up, he could see Tom and Beth heading up to the next set of walls. Beth held the baby, Cooper Paolo, orphaned shortly after his birth by Miles Damiano. The community raised the baby now, but Beth was the main caretaker. She had also been a unanimous appointee to the Council, even though she still was the only person in the area who showed no apparent abilities of any kind. Taking care of Cooper gave her something to do.

As he and Max passed the second set of security measures, he saw the rest of the group waiting. They had torn down the restaurant and erected a stone replacement, but the enclosure was cold as one could imagine it would be, so no one probably wanted to move inside.

"Anyone have a heat stone?" Ted asked, referring to the stones created using Kim Pile's ability. Rich Carson took something out of his pocket and squeezed it in his hand, his eyes closed. He rapidly threw it into a pit in the middle of the dimly lit room, while Jenny walked around and turned on four light stones implanted in the walls. Each of them took seats on the benches around the fire. Casco could not come to every meeting, so one of the cadets, Eleanor Coolidge, sat in for him. Seeing that everyone had arrived, and was in place, Ted began.

"We knew they would come at some point. A large group is headed our way, maybe hundreds of fighting men. They are coming from the south, so we can assume that Eric Fine sent them," Ted had learned who the Shogun was from Jordan Kane and Anthony Johnson, but he had assumed who it was from previous conversations. He also had a pretty good idea of what their compliment of men at arms was going to be. "If they emptied their barracks, we are looking at nearly five to six hundred fighters. From everything Jenny, Emma, Jordan, and Anthony have told us, they won't stop or reason, they will find a way to destroy us. Thoughts?"

Tom Barrett spoke up, "Can we run?"

Kayla cut him off, "When would we stop running? We have made a home here, it is defensible. Isn't that right, Ted?"

Ted nodded, "It is. That doesn't mean we will win. If it is a siege, we will definitely win. With Emma's gardens in full swing, we can eat vegetables and fruit until the end of time. They would run out of supplies before the real cold sets in. But I know Major Fine, he won't wait and do a siege. He knows time is not on his side. No, they are going to attack us directly."

"What do we do, Ted?" his mother-in-law asked, still holding that baby in her arms.

Ted was still surprised that the child never got cold. That was, however, an informational pursuit for another day.

"Well, I wish Jessica was here to help move some rocks, but Kayla, you will just have to do. How many Terras do we have now?" he asked about Terrakinetics, those whose abilities were with earth. They had begun shortening the names for ease of conversation.

"We have three beside myself," Kayla answered.

"Okay, I need you guys to raise random and difficult to pass stones in a wide circle around us, leave no paths. It won't stop them, but it will slow them and break formation. I wish Amy was here, we could put a moat up."

"What about a moat of fire?" Rich asked. Leave it to the pastor to have some kind of hellfire response.

Ted smiled, "Great thinking, can you work with Kim to see how many pyros we can get to work on it?"

Rich nodded, "Will do."

"Okay, how many healers? Six, right?" Everyone nodded, "Kate, I need you to hide healers, civilians who can't fight and the kids inside the caves. Those caves can't be seen, no matter what. Okay?"

Kate agreed.

"Jordan, Nat, and I will go out and face them. I wish Kyle was here." Ted shook his head.

Eleanor spoke up, "I will send two cadets as fast as possible to get them to come back."

Ted relaxed a little, "It won't be fast enough, but I would like him to come back as soon as he can."

Eleanor nodded and walked out of the chamber to send her two cadets.

"They are approaching fast, so we need to prepare equally as fast. Any questions?"

No one had any, so they all got up and went about their tasks with urgency. Ted walked out of the chamber and over to the cliff. As the snow picked up its pace even more, and the wind grew, he stood looking toward the south. The weather hampered his vision, but he knew where they were, and how they were coming. He knew Eric Fine well and knew he and his family would be dead within the week unless everything went their way.

He started to walk down to find Nat and saw his daughter, uncharacteristically cowering near one of the walls. He ran over to her, "What is wrong, sweetheart?"

Tears streaming down her face, Maxine hugged her dad with all of her strength, "Something bad is out there, Daddy. My pack is afraid."

Ted ran his fingers through his little girl's hair and patted her on the back, "Daddy will protect you, sweetie, don't you worry!" He sincerely hoped he would be able to make that statement true.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE

Colson walked around the compound in dismay. He thought he could do this, but the first execution had proven to him that he was unprepared for this new world. After he had watched Summers' men execute another two hundred of the people from the Outer Circle, he got violently ill. He had continued to be ill each day, and Summers seemed to revel in his discomfort. The young man was a sadist. He would find new and disgusting ways to execute people, and his men were no better. Colson knew they were following him through the Inner Circle even now.

Turning toward them, he just said, "Go, tell your boss I need to see him at the Tower."

He immediately turned back around and began heading toward the gate to the Shogun's Tower area, or what had formerly been the hotel portion of the resort. Shogun was outside the grounds. There was a slim chance that Colson could save some people, maybe head back to Fort Carson, or up to the Mountain. There was also a back way up into the region behind Pike's Peak. Yes, that was it, he would lead a group up Old Gold Camp Road and then destroy the road, so none could follow. But, first he would need to deal with Summers.

Walking through the final gate, he could see that the Operatives who had been following him had somehow beaten him to the Tower area. The two of them were walking up with Summers now.

"What is it, Mister Colson?" Summers said, his disdain for the title Mister dripping from his tongue, "I don't have time for this right now."

Colson knew that the young man meant he had to get back to killing the defenseless people in the Outer Circle. "Yes, that is why I wanted to meet with you. The smell is atrocious; it is making me sick every day. Why don't you take the rabble away from the compound and dispose of them in a place more conducive to such things?"

Summers stepped in close, "Do you think I'm a fool, old man?" Colson chose not to answer the question, but he hoped the answer was yes, "I am not leaving the compound, so that you can take over."

"This can't continue," Colson added, luring the younger man into the trap. "If Shogun returns to this smell of death and decay, he will deal with your inability to see reason." He saw the question in the younger man's eyes and knew that he had already won.

Summers spit off to the side, "Well, I am not leaving the grounds. Why don't you take them away and deal with them? You are the Mayor, right?"

"What? I am not the executioner, you are!" Colson was careful not to go too far with his false indignation.

"And you are responsible for the care of the compound, Mayor!" Summers responded and laughed with his idiot cohorts. This was working out well.

Colson paused, as though he was searching for an answer to this dilemma, "Fine. But, you have to provide me with Ops and Police to aid in the duty."

"No. It is your job; my men have their own work to do." Summers turned and walked back the other way.

By their body language, Colson could see they were sucking up to him and telling how brilliantly he had handled the older man. Feigning concern, Colson walked off, knowing he was still being watched. He had not imagined the situation would go quite this well. If he had any intention of coming back, he would have worked that manipulation into a glorious coup. As it was, he hoped to never see the younger man again.

After a few hours of preparations, Colson managed to lead the two thousand, four hundred and sixty-eight "value-less" people away from the Outer Circle, interspersed with them were the two hundred and fifteen "helpers" Colson had brought along. They were really just family members and friends, who didn't even know they were being rescued. Due to the Ops watching his every move, Colson had to keep up the charade even with those he loved.

Just before dusk, on a cold, snowy, November day, Colson led thousands of people to safety. They didn't know it, but he was saving their lives.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR

Natalee Ward hid in some high branches of a tall pine tree and looked across the south area, a couple of miles south of their camp. The group of men walked slowly, but deliberately, toward them. They were probably miserable in this weather. The snow storm had grown to almost blizzard conditions and the wind was gusting and blowing all around them. Natalee did her best to count them. The men wore dark clothes, which was a blessing for her counting, as they stood out against the white of the snow quite well. There were four columns, each roughly square, and they had what she thought were ten people across the front of each column. That would be four times one hundred.

She looked down to the base of the tree and made hand signals to let Jordan Kane know there were four hundred men. She looked back up and made sure she didn't miss anything. It was the first real scouting she had to do since they started using Max's dogs. For some reason, the dogs were afraid and would not come in this direction. No one felt good about that.

Making her way nimbly back down the tree and jumping to the ground, she pulled Jordan with her, as she moved very quickly through the brush at a low walk, to keep as concealed as possible. They found their way back to Uncle Ted and let him know what they had seen.

"There are about fifty Tigers, or whatever, but the main force is over six hundred soldiers, plus three on horseback and one horse without a rider," Nat told him as she took a drink from her canteen. Nat could see the concern on her uncle's face and knew its reason. They had maybe twenty people who could fight, plus the dogs. Even the dogs could be outmatched with numbers. They would have to be smarter than the group of soldiers. It was their only chance to survive.

Natalee had a special dislike for the group's leader. Her dad had been drummed out of the Army by this man. She missed her dad more than she knew was possible, and if given the chance, she would take out her anger and grief on the man who had once caused her dad the same.

"Okay, we know what we have to do?" Ted asked.

They both nodded, and Jordan ran back to tell Johnson, Kin Ko, and Tom Barrett about the plan. The three men were spread out, intending to seem like there was more of an opposition. Uncle Ted wanted Eric Fine to know they had people, but not how many people. So, the three men's jobs were to make noise and occasionally show themselves.

As Ted and Nat walked toward the clearing where they would confront the group, he talked lightly to her.

"So, you ready to see how far those abilities really go?" He smiled a warm smile at his niece.

She looked back at him grimly, "Like you wouldn't believe."

"Nat," her uncle began, "don't let them take your soul away. We only kill if we have to, we stay who we are by saving them from their own bad actions."

She nodded and tried to settle her nerves, "I know. I will do my best."

Ted put his arm around her shoulder, "I know you will, kid. I know you will."

They walked the rest of the distance in silence. When they arrived in the clearing, one which was in the direct path of the oncoming force, Ted brushed some snow out of Nat's hair.

"Uncle Ted," she asked, "why are they bothering with us?"

"Eric Fine is a control freak. He always has been. He just wants to control the area. He has always thought himself better suited to lead than any man in the world. I should let you know that you are our biggest asset." Ted looked over at her and smiled.

Natalee was confused, "Why is that?"

"Because Fine is an old school misogynist. He does not see women as having value, he never has. He won't see your strength and will only see me. It is important that we take advantage of that. Do not show any aggressiveness or power until we are ready to fight. Can you do that?"

Natalee loved when people underestimated her, this was going to be fun. She nodded firmly, "No problem, back to being the prom queen!"

"Just on the outside, sweetie," Ted winked at her, "On the inside, we all know you are a warrior of the first order." They both laughed and waited for the arrival of the enemy.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE

Eric saw the two snow-dusted figures standing in their path. It was a man and a young woman. By their body language, Eric could tell they were blocking the path and had something to say. There was something strangely familiar about the stance.

Eric halted the columns with a hand motion, "Meyer with me, George watch the horses." He climbed down, and Meyer did the same, following his lead.

Eric enjoyed the stretch. It had been some time since he had been in the saddle and it caused a different kind of muscle ache than other activities. He and Meyer trudged through the four or five inches of built-up snow for that extra fifty yards to where the couple stood.

"You are in our way. Would you happen to be from the Hillside?" Eric began.

"Yes, we are from the Hillside, Major, we came out to talk with you," the man said, but the blowing snow and the remaining fifteen feet obscured his vision and he couldn't see the face. It was clearly someone who knew him, and he recognized the voice.

"Do we know each other?" Eric asked.

"Of course," The man said back, and Eric looked into a face he had not seen in years, one he had thought already dead all those years before in the sand. Sergeant Ted Craven, though bearded and a little grayer, looked pretty much the same as he remembered him.

"Craven?" Meyer said as they walked closer.

"Hello, Zane," Ted responded, "Why have you come to our little encampment with four companies of men at your back?" Ted smiled, but this was the usual battle parlay, and all three men knew it.

"Well, Sergeant, we have a list of grievances," Eric replied, letting his companion quietly know to shut up, "You are harboring a criminal. We have come to reclaim her. But, I am surprised you are here. Your buddy Ward always took the lead with you two. Where is he? Is he one of those hiding in the bushes?" Eric looked around to make it clear he knew there were others there. He couldn't be sure how many, but he guessed a small number. Looking back at Ted, he saw the grief there, "Ah, didn't make it, huh?"

The young woman shifted uncomfortably, and Eric looked at her for the first time, "Are you going to introduce us, Craven?"

"No, I am not, Major."

Eric's jaw set, "I don't go by that title any longer, it is Shogun now. The New World calls for new titles."

Ted looked at him dismissively and cleared his throat. "Yeah," he said in a monotone, "So I have heard. Anyway, Fine, what are you talking about?"

Meyer stepped forward, "You will show the Shogun the respect he deserves, or I will personally make you kneel before him."

"Well look at you getting balls, Meyer..." Craven said, and Eric held out a hand to hold his companion back.

"Okay, enough. Here are our terms. Tear down your defenses and bring out every person in your little walled restaurant. Those of you we deem valuable can return with us," Eric said, "the rest can leave. The Hillside is now ours. We will give you until tomorrow morning to consider our offer. If you do not accept, we will attack, and no one will survive. Not you, not this little girl, not your wife," and much louder so all could hear in the bushes, "Not one of you shall live through the day tomorrow. Go, ask your people what they want to do, Craven. You needn't answer. I will know if you are surrendering tomorrow morning that you have chosen life. If not, you have chosen death. Come, Meyer, let's give them the space to realize the futility of their situation."

Eric turned, Meyer following, and walked back to where the horses were. He yelled out to his force, "Make camp for the night!"

Turning and looking back to where they had just been, he saw no sign of the two people he had just been talking to. He smiled to himself.

"Do you want me to send someone after them?" Meyer asked.

"No, let them go," Eric replied.

"So, you are going to let them choose?" Meyer asked more quietly.

"Of course not. They have no intention of complying, which would be sad if they did, General." He looked off north toward the restaurant, the snow landing on his face and melting against his warm skin. "No, they will not comply. Leave two columns here. As soon as it is at its darkest, send one column around to flank them and block them in. You take another column and have twenty men climb that cliff in front. I want their exits blocked and our men inside their camp before they wake in the morning. We will begin the hangings after dawn. Not many trees or poles around though, what do you think? Maybe we hang them from the cliffs?"
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN

The snow was still falling lightly, but the best part of the night was the fact that the cloud cover remained. Meyer stomped his feet to keep the blood moving. It was bitterly cold, and he could feel his toes growing numb. He had taken his one hundred men right up to the cliff on the south side of the restaurant, and no one had noticed a thing. Another hundred men had gone around to the entrance side. They had given a wide berth, so as not to be seen approaching. The Shogun's orders were to attack at first light, so here they waited in the brush.

There were lights up on top of the cliff, but they didn't look like fires, the light was too white. What could cause lights like that to shine? Could they possibly have working flashlights? No, that didn't make sense. No light, lantern, or even pin light worked in the last four months. He really couldn't wait to find out what made the lights.

Turning to those under his command, he whispered, "Spread out along the cliff. We climb before first light. We have to be in the compound before first light, so we can attack."

The men nodded. These were all soldiers. Shogun had kept all of the Tigers with him, and Meyer really wished he had a few now. The Tigers just responded better, more quickly, to his commands. The soldiers were decent fighters, but all a little dull, in his opinion. One of the soldiers held up and hand and Meyer crouched his way over to the man.

"General," the shivering man began, "Up on the left, I saw two people for a moment in the light. It looked like they were looking down on us, but the lights went out."

Meyer looked up to where the man was looking but saw nothing out of the ordinary. He did see, however, that finally all of the lights that shined on top of the cliff were out. What the man had probably seen was whoever was turning the lights out, looking out toward where they assumed the army was south of the encampment. There was certainly no sign of any problem. Still, he would need a better vantage point to make sure.

Motioning for two men to follow him, he made hand gestures to the rest of them to stay put, low in the bushes. He had noticed a small rise back along the side of the mountain here that gave no advantage for attack but would set him about half way up the cliff in view. From there, he could get a better vantage point and more accurately assess the situation.

It took about fifteen minutes to climb the little rocky incline, but once atop he could see there was nothing to be worried about. It looked like their enemy hadn't even posted guards on that side of the cliff, probably assuming it was inaccessible. Meyer would prove before the night was finished that it was not.

One of the men with him tapped him on the shoulder and pointed to the far side of his company of men. He could make out the brush but couldn't see any of his men. That was a good thing. Then he saw what the man was pointing at, there were two large dogs creeping toward his men. He was a little concerned about them startling the men, someone shouting out and the company losing their stealth advantage, but the dogs stopped and ran off east at a full sprint. They must have seen a rabbit or something.

As he watched the dogs, they passed a tree and he saw movement, he was pretty sure someone was climbing that tree. Perhaps that was the guard he was looking for. But, after watching the tree for a good five minutes, there was no more movement. It must have been the wind.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT

George had been given command of this company and he was not going to lose the favor he had gained in Shogun's eyes. He might even be able to take over as General if Meyer slipped up. His orders were simple, make a wide berth and flank the Hillside, kill or capture anyone trying to escape. He would do his duty.

He remembered the Hillside fondly. He had asked his girlfriend to marry him beside the pond there before his last deployment. Then the skeezy bitch had cheated on him while he was serving his country in combat. It had been his great pleasure to choke the life out of her when all this shit went down. He thought about the man and girl who had stood in the road before Shogun, maybe Shogun would let him have the girl. He would keep her in line.

He motioned to the men, and whispered, "Turn west. We head for the Hillside now."

Turning, he saw yet another dog. Had someone released every damn mutt in a shelter near here or something? This had to be the fifth dog they had seen since they left Shogun, and they all seemed to just stare at the men. It was kind of creepy.

His men were all standing around, "Move out, god damn it." He wasn't whispering any more. These soldiers were pissing him off.

A scream tore through the night. Was it one of his men, had someone attacked? George ran through the line they had made to the far side and the sight that met him was gruesome. One of his men, lying on the ground with his throat torn out, lay there dead. He remembered seeing stories on the local news about bears and mountain cats in this area. But he didn't remember any of the stories about them attacking people. He had also assumed that they would be hibernating by now.

From the side of the line he had just run from, he heard, "No, no, no, aaaaaughh!"

Running back that way, he noticed the men were getting skittish, and he couldn't blame them. Another man lay dead at his feet when he arrived to where the sound had come from. He saw two men make a bolt from the group in different directions. He was about to run after one of them, when the man dropped from sight. He heard some kind of muffled sound, then silence. He turned to steady the men, but what he saw now was chaos.

A small group of his soldiers seemed to be fighting amongst themselves, others were fleeing. He saw some rolling around on the ground. It was pandemonium. Gathering all the energy he could muster, using the techniques that Shogun had taught them, he strode into the group of men to put an end to this. He almost immediately realized his mistake.

The first sight to change his view was the men rolling on the ground. They weren't alone, there were dogs attacking them. The men who fought amongst themselves were not fighting amongst themselves. There were fighting women among them, and Shogun had no women in his fighting ranks. Also, a group of a dozen or so of those fighting wore camos that looked more Air Force than Army, as he had seen them in the sand. The ones who ran, were immediately set upon by dogs in the perimeter. George started to back away, but when he turned, there was a little girl in front of him. She was maybe ten or eleven years old, with medium length blonde hair and pale skin. But the look on her face chilled him to the bone. It wasn't a look a child should ever have on their face. It was a look of hate, a look of war.

George decided his only chance was to take this girl hostage. Reaching for her was a mistake, a growling dog moved into his sight on his left. He pulled his hand back, but looked to his right and saw another, its hair raised on its back, snarling sharp teeth and drool. He planted and kicked at the dog on his right as it leapt, hitting it cleanly in the chest. The dog flew into a nearby tree trunk and he heard the satisfying crunch of broken bone and a small yelp, as it lay there dying. Turning toward the other, he shouted at it.

"Oh, you want some too?" Then he reached for the girl again, and teeth bit into his arm.

He spun and delivered a spear hand to the dog's throat. The dog released his hand, but the one on his left lunged and tore through his camos, sinking its teeth deep into the flesh of his calf. As the dog ripped, George dropped to one knee and drove the point of his elbow into its neck at the base of the pitbull's skull. He lost the flesh that was in the pit's mouth, but he was free of the dead animal.

"Princess, no!" The little girl called, and George looked up to the face of a monster. The little girl herself ran at him full speed, and with an unexpected force, knocked him to the ground. His back hit with a dull thud and she was on him. He reached out to throw her off, and she bit deeply into his hand around the thumb. She shook her head like the pit had and ripped his thumb off. George screamed in pain as blood squirted out of the hole where his thumb had been.

He back-handed the girl across the face with his remaining good hand, though that one had teeth marks from the second dog. Gathering as much wits as he could in the pain and blood loss he was now experiencing, he got to his feet and began to limp his way away from the men who were dying behind him. Searing pain in his one good leg overtook him, as yet another dog grabbed ahold of him. Turning to deliver another killing blow, he was bowled over by a giant German Shepherd. The Shepherd bit hard into his shoulder and George screamed out once again, he reached up to push it off and found it was the little girl who had bitten him again, she released and he looked up at her pale blue eyes, her mouth smeared with his blood, and saw the rage there. He looked above his head and the Shepherd was rushing him, but it was a ruse. The dog had got him to look up, exposing his neck, and the little girl lunged at him, burying her tiny teeth into his exposed throat and ripping his throat out.

As he slipped from consciousness and into eternal rest, he saw this little girl spit his flesh from her mouth and turn back to finish off his men.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE

The men moved in the cold, they were hard to see, but Nat could just make them out in the bushes. A little while before, she had seen the three men go up to the rise, but there still had to be about one hundred and fifty in the brush. She scampered down the tree and quietly pulled the long blade rom the sheath. Most people thought it was a machete, but it was a long knife used in certain Marital Arts in Polynesia, and Natalee Ward knew how to use it. Jumping lightly to the ground, she also grabbed her bo staff that she had leaned against a nearby rock and made her way back to where Kim was waiting.

It had been difficult to get Kim to agree to come out from behind the walls, after all that she had been through back in Black Forest. No one had ever given her all the details, but somehow Max's dogs had saved Kim from some men in the forest. Based on the fact that Kim was nearly nude when Nat first met her, she assumed it had something to do with rape. That was not something you really asked someone about. But, this was her chance to get back and stand her ground. Kim Pile had been working on her ability for the last two months. She was a Pyrokinetic, her abilities involved fire. Kim's abilities had created the warmth stones that were a godsend as the nights grew colder and colder. Now she needed to muster all her strength to bring more fire than she had yet been able to bring.

Natalee crouched down as soon as she was in the hiding place with Kim.

The woman trembled. "I don't think I can do it," She whispered.

Natalee calmed herself, she was tiring of this conversation. If the woman didn't want to help, then Nat would do what she did and take as many out as she could, "We talked about this, Kim. You are doing your part to save us." Ted had been the one who made Nat bring this lady with her, and Nat wasn't happy about it. Natalee had no qualms about what needed to be done.

"I know, but I have never brought this much fire," Kim continued, "Do you know how many of them are out there?"

"No. But I am not going to lie to you. There are a lot. If you don't light up those bushes, I will have to try to fight them all off at once." Nat put a hand on the woman's shoulder, as she had seen her Dad do a number of times to calm people, "Kim, we need you, or these people will rape and kill every last one of us." Nat felt bad about the rape comment, it was intended to manipulate Kim and she could see on the older woman's face that it shocked her and hit her in the core. But it also worked.

Kim nodded, clearly steeling her resolve, "Then let's do it. Let's get it over with."

Both women stood. Nat knew just where Kim would have to start the fire, and also knew that as soon as she did, there would be no cover for them. They crept to the place, only about fifteen feet behind two men who were looking up at the cliffs. These men's attempt to hide in the brush was going to be their undoing. They all sat, knelt or crouched in about four feet of dry bushes. The snow would keep natural fire at bay, but the abilities were not hampered by such things. Nat hunched her shoulders and readied her weapons, centering herself the way she had been taught since she was four.

Turning to Kim, she gave a short nod and the woman closed her eyes, as did Nat. The first fire would be blinding in this darkness. She immediately saw the light through her eyelids and felt the warmth on her face, but it was the screams of the men that made her open her eyes. Many of them were on fire themselves and they ran around trying to put themselves out. But as the flames grew higher, she saw that the enemy also saw them.

Locking eyes with Nat, one of the men pointed and shouted something and about six of them ran right for Kim and Nat. As the men drew close, their teeth clenched, their faces hardened by purpose, Nat stood calmly and waited. At the last possible moment, Natalee Ward erupted in a deadly dance of fury and malice. Her staff cracked across the face of the first man to get to her, the second lost a hand just above the wrist to her singing blade. The third took a side kick to the throat and the fourth was disemboweled where he stood. Nat spun in place and lopped off the handless man's head, before turning toward her two remaining attackers. They had stopped in their charge, suddenly faced with this she-demon's onslaught.

Natalee smiled at them. She actually enjoyed the fight, every time she was in one. Oddly, in was in these great moments of violence that Nat found the most peace. She heard Kim's scream behind her and dispatched the two remaining attackers before turning to see three new attackers surrounding Kim. Before Nat could reach them, Kim unleashed a fury of her own. Somewhere deep within the petite woman there rose an anger for what had been done to her. Nat saw it on her face, and then saw its power unleashed in her abilities. The older woman put her hands out as if to push her attackers away, but fire appeared in between Kim and the three men. That fire engulfed her foes with such heat that Nat was afraid she herself might be singed by it. Unlike the men in the brush, these ones did not run around patting themselves and trying to get away. The heat and flame were intense, and the men incinerated in place.

But Kim collapsed, and Nat ran to her side. Nat caught the woman before she fell to the ground.

"I did it," Kim smiled up at her young friend.

"You did," Nat replied, "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, it just took everything out of me. That last part was all of my fear and anger and rage."

Natalee just nodded and smiled, "I could see that."

Kim smiled back, "I will be okay. Just go finish them."

Natalee looked back at the burning men and those who were aiding them. They had done what they came to do, these men would not be a threat this day. She needed to get Kim back to the walls before dawn. She helped the woman to her feet, "No, let's get back inside the walls."

Helping Kim back was the right choice, and Nat knew it, but she also wished she had finished off every last one of them. She would like to have met Eric Fine in that field today, but that would have to wait for another day.
CHAPTER EIGHTY

Jenny walked by Natalee and Kim. Kim was exhausted, and her clothes were singed with fire, but she and the teen beauty were huddled together on the middle level telling Kin Ko about what they had done. Jenny wondered if Nat noticed the adoration that young man had for her, it was pretty obvious to everyone else.

As Jenny kept walking, she passed by Ted and Kayla trying to clean Max up. The little girl was absolutely covered with blood, though apparently most of it wasn't hers. Jenny didn't even want to think about that. The little girl was bawling and mourning the loss of some of her dogs. Near them was a group of cadets mourning over the bodies of their fallen friends, about half of the group that went with Max had not made it back alive. The stench of death was growing. It was not quite dawn and the night had already taken its toll.

This is my fault. Jenny thought to herself. If I had just let that Fine guy take me, none of this would have happened. That is what this army of men had wanted, just her. Apparently, they had said they would leave if Ted gave them Jenny. Ted Craven was a good man; it would never enter his mind to give her up. But the question that haunted Jenny Martinez was whether or not she could still consider herself a good person if she didn't do all she could to stop this bloodshed. She needed to find a way to give herself up.

"Hey, Jenny, could I get a hand?" Erica called out as she headed toward Kim and Nat.

Jenny nodded and followed.

"I was just thinking," Erica started, "You can read the people, right?"

"Their auras, yes." Jenny had no idea what Erica was getting at.

"So, can you tell when they are emotionally depleted?" Erica asked, and Jenny still wasn't getting it.

"Yes, the auras become more translucent. At least, that is the only way I can describe it."

Erica grinned at her, "Great! Let's try something on Kim. I am going to restore her power a little bit. You tell me when it is opaque enough that she can function again. What do you say?"

Jenny looked over at Kim, laying against a tree trunk. "Yeah, that would work."

Erica continued, "That way I don't spread myself too thin and we are sure to have everyone at good levels of power, maybe not max levels, but good enough."

Jenny nodded, it was a good plan and they got to work on it right away. Rich came out with his guitar and started playing, which also helped, as Jenny could see everyone's auras firming up. Jenny and Erica went from group to group for a while healing up people's power, all the while Jenny was more and more realizing that she could make this all end.

She knew what she would have to do, and as the morning was approaching rapidly, she made up her mind. Making an excuse, she cleared away from Erica, and then the rest of the group and silently made her way down to the ground gate. Seeing only one guard, she made no attempt to explain herself, just saying she would be right back and slipped into the blackness of the night. She knew she would have to avoid detection, because her friends would come after her. She also knew that Fine was south of the Hillside, so that is the direction she headed.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE

As soon as Eleanor's aide had arrived at the Academy, Kyle had told Commandant Casco of his need to go. Britton had allowed him to take a dozen of his trainees with him, so he had taken the twelve best. He had to argue with Jessica to get her to stay at the Academy, and with Casco to not force him to wait for a larger group. Kyle and Britton Casco had become good friends in the last couple of weeks and had a natural rapport that served their alliance well. It had also made Casco bend to Kyle's need to go immediately.

His team had camped for a couple of hours in the night at some abandoned house along the way. They had passed various people who had come together in camps, and some of those gave them information about the best place to make camp and such. There was now nearly a foot of snow on the ground and it was that bitter cold time when the sun outlines the horizon to the east. The eight men and four women stomped their feet to get warm, and get the blood moving in their legs. Kyle had only allowed them a few hours' rest, so worried was he that they would return to find an abandoned hillside or worse.

"Ok, folks, let's move," Kyle called out and the group gathered their swords, the sabre now a sign of the cadet of the academy, and marched out. In another hour or so, they should be able to round the high ground and see the lights of the Hillside.

As dawn broke, they came within view of the Hillside far away, but the light that shone atop the plateau were not lit. A sense of deep dread fell on Kyle, and he picked up the pace to get there. He hoped he just could not see the lights through the blowing snow but feared there was some other reason. Half way to the restaurant, they found the site of a battle of some kind. He saw corpses with the tell-tale marks of dog bites, but this also didn't seem one-sided, though there were many corpses there. The cadets seemed concerned.

Cameron Bridges, one of the more gifted fighters in the bunch, stepped forward, "Sir, are any of these yours?"

Kyle searched through all of the bodies he could find and did not recognize one. But he saw that some had been dragged away, there were various drag marks in the dirt. He had to chase away a few coyotes that were scavenging the dead, it was a disgusting sight. His head was reeling. When he took it all in, there were more than one hundred corpses here, maybe as many as one hundred and fifty. How could his family and friends have survived?

One of the women let out a low hiss, which turned out to be a warning and they all ducked down and hid themselves.

"This way," came a call out of the growing dawn light to the south, "Jesus. Will you look at this? Looks like we should have sent Tigers with them. These soldiers didn't stand a chance."

"We've got company," said another of the men as they came into view. They wore a mixture of gi and camo, that just looked ridiculous to Kyle.

Kyle stood to face them, some in the group had already been seen anyway. "These your men?"

The man who was clearly the group leader turned and looked at him, "Well, look here. Academy Cadets! Why don't you all hand over those weapons before I shove them up your ass?"

Kyle's squad were disciplined, and he knew they would not take the bait, "I asked you a question."

"Yeah, kid?" asked the man next to the leader, "And who the fuck are you to ask us anything? Now hand over the swords and we may let you live."

Kyle made a quick hand motion and the cadets pulled their swords in unison, "I will ask one more time. Are these your men, and did you do this?"

The leader made his own hand motions and the twenty men behind him hit a stance and shouted "Kiai!"

Kyle's ability was not in fighting, but in light, and his squad knew it. It was interesting that he was one of the people best suited to train fighters, due to his training growing up, but he did not have that gift. He was, however, a second-degree black belt. It was clear to him almost immediately that these men were trained and had powers. His squad had weapons, but their squad had numbers, outnumbering them twenty to twelve. Kyle dropped back into line with his people.

"Fuck this," said the leader and he rushed. Kyle did his best, but the man's power was overcoming Kyle's superior training. The rest of the squad was fighting all around him, their weapons evening the odds. But it was the thought of powers that saved Kyle's life.

He was getting hit hard and fast, parrying about two thirds of the blows and he knew he wouldn't last when he remembered that he had powers of his own. With each punch he threw, Kyle now also threw light. The distraction was enough, and he started to get through the man's defenses. He had to focus on his own problem, but he was aware of people dropping nearby. He could only hope they weren't his men. The flurry of punches and kicks both men threw was stunning, Kyle's flashes and balls of light were finally gaining him an advantage as the man was overusing his power. If he could keep up the fight, Kyle was starting to realize he could win.

He was suddenly hit with a massive blow in the back that sent him reeling and found that he was being attacked by a man on each side of himself. He was losing ground; the blows were taking their toll. He thought of the grief his mom would bear losing him as well as his dad, and suddenly he stopped getting hit.

"What the fuck? Where did he go?" said the man directly behind him.

The man before him looked around blindly, clearly not seeing him. Without wasting a moment, Kyle drew a knife from its sheath at his waste and buried it to the hilt under the man's chin. Blood spurted out of the man's nose and mouth as he fell to the ground dead, the knife having gone all the way into his brain. Kyle did not have time to react and pull the blade out, so he turned to face the other man who put his hands up and fell to his knees.

"Stop, stop, okay," the man shouted, loud enough that even the other men and Kyle's squad broke off their fighting, "You win, I surrender."

The man's eyes focused on Kyle finally, and he said, "How did you do that?"

Kyle knew that he would need to make this stick, "It is not the only thing I can do," he said, though he wasn't entirely sure what he had done.

The man called out to the rest of his group, "They can go invisible boys. Give up, we won't win this one."

The men all stopped fighting and gave up, and his group looked at him inquisitively, "Bind them, we will take them to the ground gate." Turning toward the man kneeling before him, he added, "Now, I asked you a question. Are these your men, and did you do this?"

Kyle leaned in close and put the most intimidating look he could muster on his face. The man gave him the answer, "Yes. These were our men, and no, we didn't do this."

"Where are those who you fought here?"

"I don't know. I didn't get here until we found you."

Kyle looked around. Six of his dozen, including Cameron Bridges, lay on the ground dead. Twice that many of the enemy were dead. So, he had seven remaining, including himself. The others had eight, including the man before Kyle. The team bound the men's hands behind their backs. Just as Kyle finished tying up his own captive, he looked up to see a small dog watching them. He smiled at it and said, "Tell your dad I will be home in a few minutes."

The dog ran off.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO

As the light steadily grew toward the day, Jenny walked on. She was rounding the area toward the south side of the cliffs over which hung the Hillside Restaurant, and no longer needed to hide. Her friends might be able to see her now, but they could not get to her in time to stop her from ending this violence. If she could put an end to it by anything, up to and including sacrificing her life, she would do it. She didn't want any more people to die on her behalf.

As she got close to the cliffs, she smelled something similar to meat cooking on a grill, but with a slight hint of foulness. She saw the burnt shrubs first, and then the charred corpses, three of them under a tree. She stopped in her tracks at the sight of it, the flesh burned off of the faces of these people lying there, seemingly where they had caught fire. She turned away and continued on, seeing so many burnt bodies, some partially charred and some complete charcoal. Nearby, she heard someone move and ran forward to try to help.

Kneeling over one of the corpses was a portly man with peppered hair and a goatee. He turned as she came up. It was too late by the time she saw the dojo patch on his jacket. She turned to run but was stopped by another man in the same garb who had been behind her and she didn't even realize it.

"I am Jenny Martinez," She blurted out, "I am giving myself up to Eric Fine. You stop all of this butchery now."

The man smiled, a twinkle in his eye, "Good luck for us. I was going to have to tell Shogun that we had lost the whole company, but now I have you to bring to him."

"Fine, I am ready to go. You can call off the attack now, let my friends live. I gave myself up before dawn."

The men all laughed. "Cute idea, Jenny," the goateed man said, "But your friends are all dead."

"I just left them. They are not dead."

"They might as well be," said the man on her right, "They will be soon enough." The men chuckled again, but not the portly man, who was looking at something past her.

"No. It can't be, you are dead!" the man said.

Jenny cowered as he moved forward, but it was like he had forgotten entirely that she was there. He pushed his way past her and the other two men turned around to see what he was looking at. Standing at the edge of the clearing she had just come through was the homeless man who had saved her before. His beard was a little longer, but other than that he looked the same. His hood was up and even in this light; he wore those sunglasses. Cliff called him the Hermit, the portly man called him something as he ran at him and swung a huge punch at him.

The man side-stepped the punch with ease and cracked the other man on the back of the skull, sending him sprawling into some thorny looking bushes. The other two men rushed, it was a bad idea. The Hermit apparently had a samurai sword on him as well, and with dizzying speed he sliced the air. Jenny saw the man's bowels fall to the ground in front of him while he was still running. Slipping in his own entrails, he fell to the ground and lay still. The other man might have fared a little better. He lost his head in one swipe of the man's sword. Just like that, the sword was back in its scabbard and the man just stood there calmly. Jenny lost her lunch on the dirt at her feet.

"When Shogun hears that you are still alive..." the portly man began. Before he could finish that sentence, the Hermit had drawn the sword again and hurled it through the air. It went through the man's throat and lodged in the tree behind him. Unable to speak or move, he reached up and tried to remove the sword, but there was no chance, he just died there, propped in a standing position by the sword in his neck.

Jenny wiped the bile from her mouth, trying hard not to look at the carnage that surrounded her, "I have to turn myself in to these men's boss."

The Hermit looked off south and shook his head no.

She pleaded with him, "You must understand, my friends will die if I don't."

The Hermit pointed to the charred corpses, as well as the ones he had just killed and shook his head no again.

"Okay," she said, realizing that he was saying there was no need, "But you can come meet them. You can stay with us, be part of our group."

He turned and looked at her, something like pain or regret covering his face and he again shook his head no. He turned on the spot and walked back into the brush. When Jenny tried to follow, she could find neither him, nor any trace of his passing. He had just vanished.

Jenny walked back to where the other men died, and one of the dogs was standing there staring at her. She knew that Maxine was now telling her father where Jenny was, that they would all be along shortly to save her. She had also heard the tone and tenor of what the dead men had said. Jenny giving herself up would not save the group, they would either save themselves or perish. This was the way of the world now. She began to make her way back to the Hillside, with a small dog for company.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-THREE

Eric seethed with anger as he rounded up the remaining four hundred soldiers and twenty-nine Tigers for their final attack. He decided he would make an example out of Meyer, since Damiano was no longer available to him. He had been very specific about his orders. He said nothing about burning. Why could they not just do as instructed? He hated when his men got creative. For lighting a fire and ruining his moment, he would burn Zane Meyer alive. This would be an example to those who tried to be creative with his instructions in the future.

Light was peering over the eastern horizon now, and as the sun bared its corona into the eastern plains, Eric raised his hand to ready the men. He was pleased about one thing. The snow was lighter, and the visibility was better. From his camp, he could now see the Hillside, though it was far away. It would take his men a half hour to get to the Hillside, maybe more.

Turning back to his men, the extended visibility showed him something else. Far to the south, about an equal distance from how far his camp was from the Hillside, a small band approached. They walked openly, and wore all black, so they were easy to spot.

"Hold, men!" He called out, "We have company to the south. Give me five Tigers." Six Tigers came forward and Eric just shook his head, he was certain he had to stupidest force in the history of military armies, "Five, I said five. One of you go back to formation."

The last one running up sort of slinked off. It would have been comical, if it were not so tragic. "You five, run to the south to that group of men flanking us. If they are a threat, deal with them. If they are not a threat, wave this." He handed them a large red flag he had removed from one of the mansions that made up the Inner Circle. "Am I clear?"

"Yes, Shogun!" The men all shouted in unison.

"At ease, men," He shouted out to his force. "We have a short delay and should get back to the attack within the hour. Dismissed."

The men all went back to what they were doing before, small conversation and such. Eric sat in his saddle and watched the north and the south for any sign. For its part, the north looked as it would any other day. He could just make out the charred outline of a burn area at the foot of the cliffs below the Hillside. Meyer's group, he thought to himself and renewed his resolve to kill that man.

With nothing of note to the north, he spent most of the next half hour watching the five Tigers head south. He had not given credence to the more than a foot of snow on the ground that the men had to walk through. This changed his view of the men heading their way. Those men were moving with a speed that was greater than the Tigers. The two groups met up roughly half way between where Eric had sent the Tigers, and the place he had first seen those approaching. He waited for the flag, but none came. Instead, without much hesitation, the group started heading his way again.

"Fall in!" He yelled out, "We are headed south to see about this new threat." He saw the confusion in the ranks but refused to explain himself. He just trotted his mount over to the other side of the ranks and led them toward the oncoming group. Eric guessed their size at forty to forty-five men, nothing his force could not dispatch.

Within ten minutes, he was close enough to see that the Tigers walked with them, having fallen in line behind some leader. Another few minutes showed him that the leader was none other than one of the men he had left in charge at the compound, Chief Summers.

"What is the meaning of this?" Eric yelled as they approached.

The small man looked around at the force, "Good morning, Shogun. May I speak to you in private?"

Did the man really think he could get Eric Fine alone and deal with him? Eric could see what this was, it was mutiny. "You may speak to me here, Chief. Why have you interrupted my operation? Who is watching over the compound?"

Summers looked around and seemed to resign himself to speaking in front of everyone, "The compound is no more, Shogun."

Eric didn't know what the young man was trying to say, "What do you mean, 'no more'?"

Summers exhibited genuine sadness, "It burned two days ago, everything. We tried to stop it but didn't have the means. People had lit fires to protect them from the cold, there was trash and refuse everywhere, it fueled the fire. It started in the Inner Circle, and then went to the Outer Circle. People broke through the barricades to escape. Other people from the Inner Circle escaped inward. When we put some of them down, they began to riot and intentionally burned the Tower and the outer buildings. We couldn't put it out."

Eric took all of this in. Summers was clearly not making this up, but there were things he still wasn't saying. "Is Colson watching over the rest of the people?" There was a long pause, "Summers, where is Colson?"

"Mister Colson fooled me, sir. He left the compound with all of the people from the Outer Circle, to dispose of them. He took some of his people to help him out. I believed him, he was one of us. That was only two days after you left. They headed south, we haven't heard from them or seen them since."

"Who is watching the rest of the people?" Eric asked in bewilderment. The fear and shame in the young man's face as he looked up at his leader was difficult to see.

"This is it, Shogun. Forty-Two men. None of the women made it, none of the villagers, just us." He paused for a moment, "I have failed you, Shogun."

For the first time since this all began, Eric had someone before him who understood his role. Eric was short-handed right now, so Summers would not be an example. "You have, Chief, that you have. But this is not the time for recriminations; this is the time for action. Add your men to the ranks of soldiers. We are all one now. Come with me and let us make a new plan. This changes everything."

Summers gave his men orders, while Eric thought on what he had just learned. He had nowhere to bring Jenny Martinez to; he saw more snow falling and the dense clouds moving back in over the front range. There was a reason why ancient armies went to war in the spring, and not in the winter. He would train this young man to be a leader, beginning with their first move.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-FOUR

Kyle, Natalee, Ted, Kin, and a newly invigorated Kim led a small group out to meet the army that was waiting for them. A much larger force than they had first expected was marching up the road to the ground gates. Ted had no idea where Major Fine had found an army of this size, but his group could not defend itself against them. There had to be a couple of thousand soldiers heading their way. Ted had already determined that he would try to leverage his own sacrifice to save his family and friends, when he saw the four people break off from the group and trudge through the growing snow toward them.

There was a moment when the snowfall broke and it looked like the little over a foot they had already on the ground would be all the snow they would see in this storm. But much like the rain of the summer, it did not look like this snow was done. The wind wasn't a problem, and it wasn't quite as cold as it had been, so Ted was thankful for the small things. As the four came close, their leader looked up and Ted was surprised to see one of his own council members, Commandant Britton Casco of the Academy.

"Rumor has it you need some help," Casco said with a large grin.

Ted smiled and walked toward him, but Kyle ran in front of him and embraced the other man in a large bear hug. It held for quite a while before they broke off and Kyle gave a smaller hug to the woman standing at Casco's side, who turned out to be Jessica.

Casco looked up at Ted, "We have a lot to talk about, but right now, we have something else to deal with. Shall we go meet your foe?"

Ted liked the young man immensely, and his manner only improved that affection. Rather than giving himself up, Ted would be meeting Eric's army with a force ten times its size. They turned and began to walk back down to where the Academy Army was waiting.

"Who did you leave to watch the Academy?" Ted asked.

"No one, this is everyone. I was going to wait, but I guess we can talk about it as we march." A group of about two hundred cadets were passing them to take up a guard position at the ground gates, they saluted Casco as they passed, and he returned the salute with a smile. "As you know, the flu killed many people and weakened even more. This is all we have left, about twenty-six hundred. We are mostly former cadets, since the locals were released by the old Commandant to go to their families. We have a few of the old instructors, but the rest are cadets. Many of those killed were the professors, since they were older, their bodies did not adapt to the virus and they went just like the Commandant. After some discussion, we think it unwise to remain tightly packed like we were at the stadium. Also, the Academy was made for a different kind of defense. It isn't a great place to defend with this kind of warfare. We need higher ground."

Ted could not argue with the Commandant's logic. He just listened intently.

"So, I want to propose merging our groups and making a true community."

"It sounds great, Britton," Ted began, "But where are we going to house your twenty-six hundred and our fifty or so?"

"Funny you should ask. Kyle and I spent many hours looking over maps of the area and we talked a bit about maybe someday building up Red Rock Bluffs."

Ted looked at him with confusion, "What the hell is that?"

Casco laughed, "I can tell you weren't in town long before this all happened. It was in the paper, online, every hour or so you would hear a commercial for the newest gated community, a planned community on a bluff over cliffs even higher than the Hillside's that had one entrance, a narrow road they built up with a bridge over a chasm. They had not yet built any of the houses. From what I understood, they built the infrastructure and laid out the street. They built the bridge and the gate but had not yet built the houses. We would have to figure out this winter, but then we could have a real community. It was designed for two hundred and seventy homes, well really mansions. We could build a lot more for our people."

Ted loved the idea, "Where is this place?"

Casco pointed to their left as they rounded a corner, "Right against the mountains there."

Ted followed his direction, looking to a place just south and up higher, where the cliffs were a little more west, just barely north of the Garden of the Gods Park. Britt continued, "Also, one of the reasons that they hadn't built houses yet, is that in laying the ground work, they found natural springs of the kind about which this city made its name."

Ted had heard these stories before, of the springs that gave towns like Colorado Springs and Manitou Springs their names. But those springs had all dried up more than a hundred years ago. Ted's thoughts on this were interrupted by the sight of charred ground and charred corpses.

They came to the place where Nat and Kim had taken on a hundred men with flame and fists. It was a bit gruesome, even for someone like Ted who had seen his share of war.

"Commandant!" the call came from the point up ahead. Ted and Britton moved quickly forward.

"Meyer," was all that Ted could get out. His former colleague was stuck to a tree with a samurai sword through his throat. "Let's get him down from there. We will bury him with the rest."

Casco made a small nod, but it took three cadets to get the sword out of the tree, it was embedded so deeply. They moved on, leaving a group of twenty behind to bury the bodies that they could find. Ted looked up and saw one of his daughter's dogs, it whimpered and ran off to the west. Ted followed as quickly as he could until he found Jenny balled up under a tree, her head in her hands.

Ted kneeled next to her, "Hey, Jenny, you okay?"

She looked up, tears in her eyes, and shook her head.

"Were you here for this?" he asked, pointing back to the corpses.

"Just the fat man, and the guts guy, and the headless one," She said, trying to sound funny, but it only caused her to tear up more.

"Aw, kid, I am so sorry you had to see that," Ted put his arm around her shoulder, "Who did it?"

"You know that homeless guy I told you about, the one that Cliff called the Hermit?"

Kin happened to be standing nearby and walked closer, "My brother has a vivid imagination, there is no Hermit."

"Tell that to those guys!" Jenny almost shouted at Kin.

They helped her up, but she demanded to go on to the battle with them, no matter how much Ted encouraged her to get help from Erica back at the Hillside. In the end, Ted made the decision to let her have her own way, saying it was freedom that defined their group.

Their army marched on. Within fifteen minutes, they found Eric Fine's camp. It was totally abandoned.

"Ted?" Casco called out and Ted walked to a rock onto which he had climbed. Far off to the south, they could just make out a few hundred men moving away from their location. The snow was picking up, but it seemed that they had sent their foe packing. Ted put a damper on any celebration, instead encouraging the group to retreat to the safety of the Hillside. They needed to rest, to recuperate, and the Council had some decisions to make.

THANKSGIVING

"a time of friendship and unity, a time of peace" – Unknown, a thanksgiving folk song
CHAPTER EIGHTY-FIVE

Ted, Commandant Casco, and the rest of the council stood at gates overgrown with brush, staring through the bars at the long rows of well-planned plots for the community that was never finished, to which were laid brand new roads. The pre-construction work must have been done right before the Event (the name all were calling the world's change now). It was perfect. The road to this gated entrance, the only access point to the high bluff, was a long and windy dirt road that wound up the mountain north of the Hillside and planed them here just south and west of their base camp.

Anyone coming up the road would be so visible, for so long, that the thought of attack would be unthinkable. They shook the gates, but they were locked solidly. The humor of these locks was not lost on their party. Ted turned to Kayla, with a grin.

"My love?" he said.

Kayla stepped forward and put her hand on the stone archway. "It isn't real stone; it is a façade."

"I guess we will have to remedy that," Ted said, and let out a soft Kiai as he settled into a stance and hit the middle of the gate with an open palm.

The gate bent inward, and the lock shattered. Wind had blown the snow away from the gates, and the last couple of days of sunshine had melted some of it, but the plateau was still knee deep in snow. The lack of brush or trees was mostly due to pre-construction work, and the plateau had been completely flattened on top to make room for houses. They could see the steam rising up from a few places and knew that was where they wanted to go. They all headed out in different directions to answer questions of their own about the space.

Ted thought back to the last week and a half. They had cleaned up the bodies, and had mourned their own, including a special ceremony Rich had performed for Princess. Eric and his minions had not come back, though they all doubted they had seen the last of Eric Fine. After the snow storm broke, they had made the decision to check out Red Rock Bluffs and see if it was conducive to the move they planned. As they walked around the grounds and took in its size, it was a huge planned community, Kyle approached. He had taken Tom Barrett's place on the council when Tom was killed while fighting the Tigers alongside the cadets and Max's dogs. Natalee had taken over the training of all people who showed power for fighting, a special and necessary type of kinetic ability.

"You were right, Britt," Kyle called out, "hot springs, at least three of them. There are also two creeks and a pond that flow from a natural spring in the center of the bluff. It has what we need."

"Okay," Casco said, "let's get everyone together."

Kyle called out to the others and they all made their way to a spot near the center of the bluff where the Natural Spring created a deep pond that sprouted the two streams of which Kyle had spoken. They all stood there taking it in.

"Thoughts?" asked Ted.

"Everyone knows mine," Casco offered.

"The Terras and I can work with this, but it will take time," Kayla followed, "We would be in tents most of the winter. It is going to be cold, there is no wind break up here right now."

Ted nodded; he had thought much the same thing. Kyle just said, "I like it, I approve."

"It is safer than even the Hillside," Jenny replied.

Beth just nodded, trying to get Cooper to take a bottle with some formula they had found in a house while foraging. Kate also gave a curt nod.

"I think you all know what I am going to say," Emma began, "It is perfect for planting fields, especially here near the springs. The flat land works out great, but I will need seeds. To Kayla's concern, some of the cadets are showing promise with plants. We might be able to grow some brush or small evergreens to work as a wind break, there are plenty of graft materials in the plants that are natural to the area."

Ted considered that for a moment. Now that everyone was beginning to show abilities, they would need to categorize them for best use. But, that was a conversation for later. Rich had still not given his assessment. "Rich?" Ted asked.

"Well," drawled out the incredibly likeable southerner, "This seems like a Godsend. I think this will do nicely, but I have a question."

Rich waited for Ted's nod to continue.

"Ted, I know how you feel about the faith, but a lot of us count on it. I would like to build a church, for services for those who wish to partake of them, for ceremonies and such, for meetings. Would that be something I could do here?"

Ted looked around, but everyone was looking at him, waiting for permission, "You are a good man, Rich. As long as the center is open to different beliefs and it is not mandatory to attend, you won't get an argument from me."

"Well, since we have moved off of the move, which I think we are all agreed on," Ted started, getting nods around the group, "Kate wanted to say something."

Kate was looking down, "Yeah, I think I need to resign from the council. Before you try to talk me out of it, I have thought about it and Ted and I have talked about it. I want to finally grieve the loss of my husband for a bit. If we end up being safe here, I can begin that. Also, I believe we are underrepresented on the council in the healing ability. I would like to nominate Adam to take my place."

Rich cut in, "I am not sure Adam has any interest in that position. He enjoys healing and teaching the newbies how to heal. He doesn't want to be a leader."

Kate thought for a moment, "What about Erica?"

There were smiles all around as the Council approved greatly of the young woman.

Ted concluded the meeting with something to think about on their long walk back to the Hillside, "We have come through the end of the world as we knew it, into a new kind of existence, one of power and treachery, or beauty and of danger. I can't wait to make this new home, but it must be a choice, and we must have a purpose. I would love for all of us to consider this. I think that purpose lies in making the world a better place. It lies in healing, in protecting, in teaching and in challenging. I have some ideas on how we could make that happen, but we are a team. Let's decide together what our new world looks like, and how we move forward."

As they walked out the front gate, Kate turned and dropped a small diamond into the dirt at its base and the gate disappeared from view behind a large boulder, an illusion to keep wandering eyes away from their new home.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-SIX

Leaving behind the burnt-out shell of his former fortress, and before that the most famous resort in the area, Eric had led his small band back to Manitou. When they first returned to the Compound, his anger burned, and he took the group after Colson and the refugees. That size of a group was not hard to track, he had seen that the group had regularly split, there had been fights (they found bodies), and it looked like some headed south, some east and a small band of maybe a couple of hundred had headed up the back route to Pikes Peak. The snow storm had taken care of many of them. Whenever Eric came across any, his band would deal with them immediately. But now, sadness fell on him like a wave.

All of Eric Fine's plans had been dashed, and those to whom he gave his leadership had rejected him in favor of chaos and death. He had decided to retreat to the built-up town of Manitou Springs and wait the winter out. One of his men even said the old hot springs were active again for the first time in a century.

He had lost Damiano, and Meyer it seemed. Meyer's group had never returned, and Eric felt confident that could only mean one thing. Colson had rebelled and slipped out of his grasp, and his home had burned to the ground. He found himself retreating, a position he never wanted to experience. He wasn't ashamed, Eric had never quite felt that emotion. What he felt was a despair about his plans not working precisely as he had outlined them.

As they approached the gates of Manitou, there were two guards on top of the barricade.

"Who are you, and what is your purpose?" called down one of the guards.

Eric just scowled up at the man, when another ran up next to him and said something.

"Forgive me, Shogun," the man stated, and the gates opened to allow them in.

He hated that name now. It carried failure with it. He had already ordered the men he was with to stop calling him that, now he would have to train these men at Manitou anew. Walking into an old brick building on the main street, he looked around for the man he had left in charge. The people who had occupied the town before them had set this spot as the headquarters, and Eric's group had just continued its use.

"Where is Garner?" he asked, annoyed by the delay.

The place was a shamble. The lack of discipline this showed was concerning. The man came running down some stairs, disheveled. It was clear he had been sleeping. The morale was low for the men he had passed and now he saw why. With the cat away, the mice just fucked off all day.

"Gather your things and get out," Eric said.

The man looked at him inquisitively. "Where should I take up residence, Shogun? I live upstairs. By your leave, I will remove one of my subordinates, but it will take perhaps a day for two people to move everything."

Calmly, Eric responded, "You misunderstand. Get out of my city, you are unfit to serve in my force. You have five minutes and whatever you can carry. If you are not outside the city in five minutes, I will allow any man who wishes it to take your life. Now, do you think you have many friends here, Garner?"

Garner's face went suddenly pale and he ran back to the room he had occupied for the last few weeks. Summers walked into the building.

"The discipline is gone. This place is a wreck," Eric stated.

Summers said nothing, it was a statement of the obvious.

"Gather everyone in the street. And, Summers, I mean everyone."

The man walked out with the same stoic look on his face he always carried. He was probably one of the hardest men to read that Eric had ever engaged. Eric prepared to give the men new perspective. He walked out into the shining sun, made ever brighter by its reflection off the snow on the ground. He climbed up to the guard tower the man had just been standing on, watching Garner be let out into the street, and run away.

Turning toward his assembled group of maybe three hundred men, he began, "The world is changed, more than we thought. Playing games as 'Shogun' no longer can be tolerated. If anything, I am a warring Marshall, intent on two things. Those things are your survival, and our way of life. Look around you, these are your brothers, there are none like them. We are all that matters. Everything else is trash, everyone else is beneath us. We will conquer again, we will take what we want, be it person or possession. We will do this because we are the best. Your loyalty is required; infidelity is to be dealt with as a high crime. You men are on the inside of the movement, everyone out there is an enemy, even if we treat them as friend to achieve a goal. We are all that matters, we have no equal. There will be no more civilians in our walls. When you have needs, go out into the world and take what you need. We are the last fighting men of earth, and I am your Marshall."

Eric finished his speech and felt the morale lift immediately. Appeal to men's baser instincts and they will cling to you. These men would cling to him. As he passed, they adjusted what he asked to be called. They did not refer to him as Shogun, but instead as Lord Marshall. He guessed this was Summers' doing, but it didn't bother him. This force would rule the area with fear and brutality. Eric would teach those who challenged him, or betrayed him, what were the consequences of those actions.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-SEVEN

Kate could not take the smile away. She had to face it, she loved the idea of a wedding. When they had returned to the Hillside and found out that Adam proposed to Erica, it just made her happy. She had been grinning from ear to ear ever since she found out. She had rushed to tell Natalee and the two of them had giggled like school girls. Now she went to tell Kyle, who was gathering his things for the move like everyone else.

She turned up the hill and almost ran into her son in a moment of intimacy, an emotional bond with the young woman in front of him.

Jessica looked lovingly into Kyle's eyes, "I think you have to tell your family."

Kyle nodded, Kate thought he might have even had a tear in his eye. It was beautiful to see these two together.

Jessica kissed Kyle on the cheek, "You know I love you."

Kyle looked sadly back at her, "I love you too, you are the best."

Kate felt suddenly uncomfortable to be intruding on this moment, but she was already there, so she pretended she had not just seen that moment. "Hey, you two, do I have some news for you."

They both turned and looked at her, but not until Jessica had given Kyle a knowing look, pushing him to say something. "What is that, Mom?"

"Adam and Erica are getting married."

A wide grin crossed Kyle's face and Jessica let out a little squeal. "That is fantastic!" She said. "They are such an awesome couple."

Kate looked at the two of them for a moment, but since neither was giving her any more info, she decided to get that conversation started herself. "I wasn't trying to eavesdrop, but I just walked in on something about telling your family something?"

Kate was pretty sure that she knew what it was by the nervousness on her son's face. For some reason, he looked exactly like he had when he was fourteen and needed to give bad news, something in his eyes. He had always been a soulful kid, "Are you worried to tell me that Jess is pregnant?"

Both of their heads popped up and Kyle let out a genuine laugh, "No, Mom, that is not the conversation we are going to have."

Jessica was beet-red with embarrassment, but said, "That would be a miracle."

Kyle stood up and walked over to his Mom and grabbed her by the shoulders, "Mom, I am gay."

Suddenly the pieces fell in place. Kyle had a long-term girlfriend in High School, but she had been a total psycho. She and Cal had always assumed he didn't date more because of the devastating effect of that relationship. Kyle went into a long explanation about how he didn't know, he never really thought about it. It was due to his real love for Jessica, a platonic love, that he came to understand that he just wasn't sexually attracted to women. He and Jessica had long talks about it while they were at the Academy.

"Wait," Kate interrupted, "Commandant Casco..."

Kyle smiled, "Yeah, Britt and I have been together for a little while. He is a great guy."

"He is," Kate stated factually, "I just thought there would be a problem with the military thing."

The incredulous look that Kyle gave her reminded her of what she was saying. There was no American Military any more, and even if there was, the prohibitions against gays and lesbians were not what they once were. Kate just stammered out, "right, sorry."

"But, Adam and Erica, huh?" Kyle said and gave his mom a hug.

She pulled away from him and this time took him by the shoulders, "You are, and always will be, my baby boy." She teared up a little, "I am proud of you."

Kyle hugged her so tightly she had a hard time breathing. Then Jessica hugged her, it was a nice moment, but Kate broke away suddenly and looked at them both, "Oh, I have to go tell my Mom." Kyle's face was filled with shock and concern. "Please, Kyle, I am not an idiot. I meant about Adam and Erica."

Kyle looked down, "You can tell her if you want. I guess it would be nice to have a buffer between me and her old-school Christian ideas."

"I wouldn't worry about it too much, buddy. Grandma has room in her heart to accept this, but if you want, I will grease that wheel for you," She ruffled his hair a bit with her hand, putting him at ease.

Kyle just nodded, and Kate continued her walk up the road until she found her mom and the baby, Cooper Paolo, sitting near the pond. She told her first about Adam and Erica.

"It is about time," Beth said, "Those two are adorable together. Plus, that is a great way to break in the new home at the Bluffs, to have a wedding."

Kate strengthened her resolve to combat any judgment her mom was about to unleash about the next topic, "There is one more thing I need to tell you about. Kyle just came out to me." Her mom just looked at her with a blank stare. "Mom, Kyle is gay."

Beth looked out over the expanse of Colorado Springs from her perch on the cliff, "Flowers will bloom in the spring."

Kate just shook her head. Her mom said the weirdest things. She was not going to let her ignore her son's identity. "Mom, what the hell are you talking about? Did you hear what I just said?"

Her mom looked back at her suddenly, "Oh I am sorry, Kate. I thought we were telling each other things that were totally obvious. The love he has for Commandant Casco is so obvious."

Kate was completely taken aback by her mother's rather matter-of-fact response, "You knew?"

Beth let out a low chuckle, "Of course I knew. I probably knew before he did. I obviously knew before you did. I guess I didn't have the same expectations you did, so I just saw it earlier. I never understood why he was with that tramp for so long while he was in high school. All she did was play with his head."

They sat for a while in silence as Kate took in her mother's grace and awareness in a whole new way. She didn't know what to say, and a long period went by while they said nothing. Finally, Kate asked, "You don't have a problem with this?"

"Oh, honey," Beth began, "We all have almost magical powers. I don't think Kyle's being gay is even something for me to think about."

After a moment, something occurred to Kate, "We all?"

Beth smiled with a little pride, "I figured it out. I didn't think I had a power and then this little baby taught me." She looked into Cooper's eyes and the baby cooed.

"He did?"

Beth nodded, grab that bowl down there by the pond and put some water in it. Kate did as asked and brought the water back. Beth put the baby in the car-seat carrier they used to carry him around when Beth wasn't holding him, very near to where Kate had put the bowl of water. Beth walked over to where her daughter was standing a few feet away.

"Look at the bowl," Beth said.

Kate looked over and the water inside the bowl was solid ice. Kate walked over and picked it up.

"You have an ability with cold?" Kate asked.

"Oh, no, that is Cooper's ability, ice and cold. What would Cliff call that?"

"Umm, Cryokinetic I think," Kate was pretty sure she was right.

"Have you ever wondered why I find it so easy to find the doors you hide?" Kate nodded, "Well, I always wondered why everyone else was having a problem. I can see the doors others cannot. Your powers have no effect on me. As far as I can tell, no one's powers have any effect on me."
CHAPTER EIGHTY-EIGHT

They had been walking for a while up this long and winding road to their new home. Leaving the Hillside was tough, and his aunt had filled in every door, as well as building up the walls to make it harder for someone else to use until they found a purpose for it. But Kyle's thoughts were on other things. Jessica had gone with many of the other women to chit chat about weddings with Erica on the walk. He didn't know what it was, but women in general became so overwhelmed at the thought of a wedding. These were strong, vibrant, powerful women. But, they loved some romance a little too much. It was kind of funny.

Cliff and Jenny were in an excitable state not far ahead of him, probably talking about some theory or item or such. His extended family, this group, was ever more fascinating to him. He loved them all so much, and his deep love for Britt was something he would not have been able to explain to others until recently. Britt had to be with his army, or he would be at Kyle's side right now. Everyone knew about them now, and to his great shock, no one seemed to judge them. Well, maybe Kim Pile, but she was adjusting. Even Pastor Rich didn't have a problem with them.

He heard someone trotting up behind him and turned to see his uncle sidle up next to him.

"So, gay huh?" he said.

"Yeah, sorry I didn't tell you."

"Kyle, other than your dad, you are my favorite man in the whole world. You can tell me anything, or nothing, and it doesn't change anything for me."

Kyle was grateful for his uncle's acceptance, but another issue weighed heavy on his mind. "Uncle Ted, do you think my dad would be okay with me being gay?"

"You know, Kyle, we never talked about it. But I knew your dad well. You knew him well too. Your dad didn't judge people, not qualitatively. He didn't consider one person better than another and didn't have any patience for those who did. Your dad would be pleased you found love, but he would not have particularly cared for whom that love was."

Kyle nodded, that was true. His dad was the man most full of grace for others of any man he had met.

"Any idea what they are on about?" Ted asked about Jenny and Cliff who were really excitable at the moment. Kyle just shook his head no.

Ted gave a head nod for Kyle to follow him and they jogged up in the line to where the two were talking. Kyle could see that they were both very happy about something, but not sure what.

"Hey, you two!" Ted started, "You are causing quite a ruckus. What is going on?"

"Ted, this is so cool!" Cliff replied, "I was just showing Jenny something I figured out while you guys were gone."

"It is amazing, Ted. Oh, hey Kyle." Jenny said.

Kyle smiled at Jenny in response.

"Well, I have nothing but walking time. So, explain it to me," Ted was a very giving person, but also naturally inquisitive, like Cal had been.

"So, we couldn't figure out why Jenny or I couldn't read the history of the items in a clearer way, right?" Cliff asked.

"I remember you saying that."

"Well it is because, without being imprinted, the items only keep broad emotions, you know, big emotional moments. So, when we have read wedding rings, we see the engagement, the wedding, sometimes the divorce, but not the rest of the wearing of the ring. It is the big emotional moments that imprint on the items."

Ted seemed intrigued, "You said 'without being imprinted'."

Cliff continued, "Right. But we can imprint them."

Ted shook his head, "Okay. I am missing something."

Jenny looked at him with huge smile, "We can record things, Ted. We can keep a history or put information into some gems for the future."

Kyle watched the concept wash over Ted, as clarity hit him. He broke into a gleeful laugh, "If only I knew what day it was; I could mark this as one of the more important days since the Event."

Cliff just looked at him with some confusion, "It is December third."

Ted and Kyle were both startled by the answer, Kyle queried, "How could you possibly know that. I thought we all lost track of the days."

Cliff just shrugged, "It has been one hundred and twenty-seven days since the Event. The Event happened on July twenty-ninth. So, it is December third."

Ted grinned, "Has anyone ever told you what a remarkable young man you are, Cliff Ko?"

"Sometimes," Cliff answered.

"Well, not enough they haven't," Kyle offered.

The walked on. It would not be long before they came to the bluffs and their new life. Now, they knew they could record their teachings, what they learned and who they were for posterity. This very well may be a turning point in the future of their community.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-NINE

Tents were set out across the high bluff, arranged on the blocks that the pre-built streets made up. The Terrakinetics had only built the gate itself, and under the direction of both Kayla and Rich, the church. Kayla had taken a special interest in forming rocks near the hot springs, and everyone wanted their turn, so the council had to put restrictions on the use of those. Everyone was allowed one hour a week and they had to assign three people just to manage that.

Emma and her people had erected wind-breaking rows of trees, and shrubs. Over time, they would add dividing shrubs between individual housing areas. Their biggest concern was food, of course, and once spring came, the plant empaths would need to work only on that for a while. There were questions, as some of the residents really wanted the empaths to grow cannabis for various reasons. The council would have to take that up at some point soon.

Adam's hospital was just tents now, but it was near the hot springs, which he would sometimes add to someone's prescription just for kicks. Today was his day, though. They didn't have nice clothes, but they did their best with what they had. Emma had made sure to grow beautiful flowers for the ceremony, and the first function inside the church was to be the wedding of Adam Cross and Erica Butterfield.

Adam was pleased that Erica would have a voice on the Council, because he wanted no part of it, but understood the need for the healers' input. He knew that most of his time would be spent in the next few months treating people with exposure related illness, and perhaps a resurgence of the flu. His group of healers was coming along well, which really took a lot of the pressure off of Adam.

The men lined up for Adam were Kyle Ward, Ted Craven, Anthony Johnson, and Jordan Kane. These were the men he had served with in the sand and he was thrilled to be with them again. The only one missing was the one who would have been his best man, Calvin Ward. Here, on his most important day, he missed his old friend more than he could say. Standing in for Erica, and now waiting across from his groom's men, were Natalee Ward, Jenny Martinez, Emma Pare, and Maxine Craven (with two of her dogs).

The feast they would take part of later would not only be the wedding feast of the Cross', it would be the first annual Thanksgiving feast. Adam was honored to start off their concept of a new life together with the ceremony that kicked off his new married life. Rich walked to the front with his guitar and began playing the wedding march on it, it was gorgeous. The opening of the chapel was suddenly filled with Kate Ward, and the most beautiful version of Erica he had ever seen. Somehow, in secret, they had dug up a wedding dress and she stood there, shining in white as she walked down the aisle to meet him. He thought the smile might break the corners of his mouth, he smiled so widely.

When she reached him, he took her hand from Kate and Kate went to sit down in the front row. The ceremony was beautiful, but Adam could not have told you what happened. He only had eyes for Erica, the new Mrs. Cross. But, as the ceremony finished, and he walked his new bride back down the aisle, he had only one thought. The goodness of life continues, was all he thought. It showed itself to be true.

THE END OF BOOK ONE

GLOSSARY OF NAMES

Adam Cross – 33, former US Army Medic, now restaurant manager at Pep's

Alan Stone – 64, commanding officer at Fort Carson; Lieutenant General

Alton Tooney – 57, registered sex offender and neighborhood handyman, Black Forest

Amy Paolo – 26, wife of Mike

Andy Summers – 28, clerk at Fort Carson, Private First Class

Anthony Johnson – 27, scrounge, heavy weapons, Corporal

Beth Merritt – 68, mother of Kayla Craven and Kate Ward

Brick Martin – 52, pastor of the Spring Life Church, megachurch pastor, televangelist

Britton Casco – 22, Cadet Commander at Air Force Academy

Calvin Ward – 48, Dojo owner, former soldier

Cliff Ko – 12, role-playing gamer

Clinton More – 67, Commandant at Air Force Academy; Major General

Corporal Danvers – 36, Black Forest Police Department

Cooper Paolo \- infant

Donna Harris – 24, Private First Class, stationed at NORAD

Ellen Harris – 28, server at Pep's

Emma Pare – 42, botanist; stationed at NORAD

Eric Fine – 54, infantry officer, dojo owner; Major

Erica Butterfield – 26, server at Pep's

Hermit – middle aged, unknown origin and identity, considered an urban legend

Jeff Prince\- 35, store manager at the sporting goods store

Jenny Martinez – 27, yoga instructor, businesswoman, local celebrity

Jessica Peters – 19, student, retail employee at sporting goods store

Jim Colson – 49, government worker for city government

Jordan Kane – 22, technical support at NORAD; specialist

Jose Rio – 21, infantry soldier, stationed at NORAD; Private

Karen Pile – 47, Realtor, Black Forest resident, overtly religious

Kate Ward – 43, Cal's wife

Kayla Craven – 45, Ted's wife

Kin Ko – 21, student at Denver University

Kyle Ward – 20, student at Pikes Peak Community College; works at Sporting goods store

Maxine Craven – 10, Ted and Kayla's daughter

Mike Paolo – 28, Amy's husband

Miles Damiano – 33, former army scrounge; part time dojo manager at FMAA

Natalee Ward – 17, prom queen

Peri – 21, Jenny's assistant

Rich Carson – 59, pastor of small church in Black Forest; neighbor of Ted and Kayla

Ronnie Jones – 25, drug dealer

Ted Craven – 48, infantry NCO; stationed at Fort Carson; Sergeant First Class

Zane Meyer – 50, infantry NCO; stationed at Ft. Carson; Staff Sergeant

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