World War S 1-2

Stephen Paul Thomas World War S I.-II. The Silence Begins The Servants of the Dragon The World War Spiritual series Book 1. and 2. “Brutally good” “Prophetic...” “The reality of the demonic...” “Genious...”   1. “It’s your turn now,” said Josh, laughing while he hit the back of the front seat with a paper trumpet. They were driving back from Morristown, from his grandmother’s, cruising on the 124 to join the evening traffic going east to New York. Josh’s Granny Ruth had thrown him a surprise birthday party; she’d planned everything very carefully. “When you pass ten, you realize you can’t have any more single-figure birthdays,” said Josh, the blond-haired son of Linda and Benet Heartley, in his precocious style, waving his hand in resignation. Linda loved this premature talk of her little prince, he really had the gift of the gab; that’s why she kept a diary of his wisecracks. For these tiny moments she could even stand Josh’s antics, like when he reduced the paper horn to a pulp, smashing it against her seat. “All right,” she surrendered, her voice reflecting her exhaustion after the long, rushed day. Granny Ruth could not handle all the preparations by herself, so Linda had helped her. Meanwhile, Benet had taken the young guests and their dads to the riding school, letting the women get everything ready. “But this is the last one,” she made Josh promise, for the sixth time, that they would not continue the quiz. “I have it. I have a specific car brand in my mind …” “American?” “No.” “European?” “No.” “Then it has to be Japanese,” Josh smiled into the mirror to show his mother that he was sure about his answer. “You got it, smart aleck!” said Linda, smiling back. She couldn’t get enough of the view of her son’s beautiful face. What a nice guy he’s gonna be, she thought. She was already jealous of those girls who would someday fall madly in love with him. “Then I have two options,” pondered Josh, touching a forefinger to his lips like somebody racking his brain for an answer. “Either Honda, or Toyota!” “So close, so close …” nodded his mother. The family car, the Ford had just arrived at an intersection with a green traffic light and crossed through, sweeping toward the entry for Highway 24. “Then it’s a Toyota! And I can even tell you the colour; it’s a white Toyota you had in your mind!” shouted Josh, lightly tapping his father’s head with the paper trumpet for emphasis. In one swift movement, Linda unbuckled her seatbelt to grab the irritating toy. “If you don’t use it as intended, I’ll take it away!” “If we make it home, I’m gonna get you!” said Benet, pretending to be angry, turning halfway to Josh. It was at that exact moment that something rammed into their side with brutal force. Benet thought he ran through the red light at the next crossroad. The oncoming vehicle crashed right into the front left door, where Linda sat. The car tumbled with the force of the collision, slid onto its top, and ended up in a shop window. Josh burst headfirst through the rear right window and fell onto the pavement splintered with glass and lost consciousness. Linda’s shaking body was stuck between the dashboard and the remains of the windscreen—which had shattered into a spiderweb—laying in a pool of blood. Strangely, Benet could barely feel pain, only a twisted ankle and maybe sprained neck muscles. He tried to pull his wife out first, but that fragile and beautiful woman, who was now hovering between life and death, was stuck in the wreckage beyond help. Those lips that he loved, shiny with lipstick and blood, were only gaping now. Benet recognized the words she wanted to say; Go … Josh… “Jesus! Josh …” shouted Benet. The boy wasn’t in the car anymore. Benet had just realized that he was in the middle of the intersection. He lay there like an orphaned rag doll. His limbs were unnaturally twisted. “Josh, get up!” yelled Benet at the top of his voice, but the boy didn’t move. The door didn’t want to move either, the lock mechanism was clearly crushed, so he raised his uninjured leg and kicked out the window on his side. It seemed to take years to get out of the car. There was dead silence on the street, broken only by the strident noise of his car’s still-turning wheels. But he saw lights quickly approaching from the highway. They’re coming this way, the thought struck into Benet’s mind. He dragged himself on his double-swollen ankle towards his son. He had to get to Josh before the lights reached his son. The streetlights aren’t on here and nobody will be able to see Josh, Benet thought. Suddenly, out of nowhere, he saw the familiar outline of an eighteen-wheeler barrelling down on them. It came from the opposite side of the highway, but he should have been able to see its light earlier. Benet had a feeling that this truck had switched on all its beams at the last second, just before the intersection, as if it were trying to creep up on them. At the same time, he could see the driver pulling the string and heard the blast of the rich bass horn—Get out of my way! “Oh, my God, stop him!” said Benet, his last invocation; there was no time for anything else. He covered Josh’s body with his own, waiting for the several tons of monster-machine to sweep them away. Then everything went black. Benet regained consciousness on the stretcher. A cop was looking at him, standing in the circle of emergency workers. His badge dangled from his jacket pocket, reflecting the glaring red-blue emergency lights of the police cars and fire trucks into Benet’s eyes with every little movement. “My family …” said Benet, lifting his hand towards the policeman, but the paramedics pushed him back. “Everybody is on the way to the hospital, you can relax now,” said the cop. The flashing lights gleamed in the drops of sweat on his dark brown skin. “Lieutenant John Levi. I was out on another case when I bumped into your car accident. I came from the highway, and after I stopped I immediately called the paramedics. They’ll take you in, and we’ll talk again when you’re better. Hold on!” he said, nodding before he disappeared in the whirl of activity. The paramedics slid the stretcher carefully up onto the rails, into the back of the ambulance. The sterile inside of the car slowly swallowed him as he saw the receding details of the accident scene. Then his head fell to the side. He watched as the EMT climbed in and pulled the doors slowly shut. At the last movement, before the terrible gate to the nightmarish, outside world finally closed, he noticed the wreckage of the other car involved in the incident. It was a white Toyota. * Salome Sue Richardson could not calm down. She was always like this when she had to visit a client. But this visit was more important than any before; the reality show—and her future—depended on it. Not that she couldn’t live without this media fuss; actually it annoyed her sometimes, but she was mercilessly used to the success, like an addict. She felt like everything looked all right on the surface, but the deep chasm beneath was stormy. The main problem was that she was unable to calm this abyss because the situation was out of her control. It was up to outside and unruly forces. Let’s call a spade a spade; it all depended on the spiritual realm. They were trying to record one of the episodes of Medium on Call, a reality show now in its sixth season. Her producer was a patient man, and Sue did not sense the spirit of the shadow-world running around his head, but she clearly saw that his point of explosion was not that far off. They had run behind the cameras for two days already, waiting to catch some real action. It hadn’t been like this in the last five seasons. The clients had been queuing up; the fortune-tellers and mediums were very popular in the 20’s, especially around 2025. All of them wanted to know where to go next in a world so out of joint. The governments could not stop the runaway horse of inflation. The uncontrolled wealth appeared to reach apocalyptic proportions in contrast to the rampant poverty. Why this one? she pondered. Why does it have to go bust in the sixth season? It’s just not working. Before, when she popped into a bar and looked around, she could immediately contact the spirits; she worked all the time, even when she didn’t want to. The spiritual world didn’t let her rest. And now—it was so funny to say it—there was deadly silence. “Are you ready?” “Oh, s**t,” Sue jumped. “You almost killed me!” she bawled at Jim, her producer, when he burst through the door. This isn’t working either, she thought about her precognition skills. Until only recently, she could feel it when somebody stood in front of the door, about to knock. Before that person lifted up his hand, she had already shouted, Come in. So nobody felt obligated to knock on her door anymore, they just came right in. “Salome, I thought you knew I was coming …” said Jim, confused. In his eyes, Sue could see not only surprise, but dismay too. It was the clear projection of that feeling that nothing was the same as before. He only called Sue by her great-grandmother’s name when he wanted to be formal. “I didn’t feel it this time …” “Nevertheless, will we try today? If you want, you can rest on the weekend, and …” he said, gesticulating, trying to curb the anger and stress that had just accumulated, that was accumulating in him too … “I’ve explained to you already; it doesn’t matter whether I’m tired or not. The spiritual world doesn’t rest either. They have no bodies, they don’t get tired, don’t need to eat and sign contracts.” “They don’t even need to perform their contracts,” said the producer seriously and turned on his heals, leaving Sue alone. “Damn it, Jim!” Sue shouted after him. She buried her face in her hands, smudging the makeup that her assistants had put on her half an hour ago. Hilarious, she thought, now I’m no different from those ordinary television fortune-tellers. I, the great-granddaughter of the famous medium—who even solved many mysterious murder cases for the police. The Internet is full of her old séances, and all practicing mediums around the world look to her as their master and paragon! I’ve brought shame on her … Or I’ll just be simply normal after all these years of being a medium. It’s only a question of viewpoint. I’ll be an everyday woman without any spiritual ability. I have to go, at least try, it might work. I just need to decide, and it will be done … Three impatient knocks came on her door. Jim must have passed the boiling point, he probably had given vent to his rage somewhere—Sue didn’t need to use her clairvoyant abilities to establish that. She stood up, fixed her lipstick, and penciled her eyebrows. “Great-granny Salome and spirit of all ancestors, don’t leave me alone now!” she said loudly to her reflection in the mirror. But the vibration and jostling she’d felt many times before, coming from the spirits around her, was no longer present. Her lipstick fell from the dressing table with a hard thud, rolling under the heater. There were many old lipsticks dying in that grave, waiting for their red destiny, inaccessible.