Doomsday

2. Invasion-1

ANTON EDWARDS

“Ever since this demon stuff began, I’ve felt like an outsider.” Yvette Edwards was collecting dishes to take to the kitchen.

Anton chuckled, refilling his mug with coffee from the pot. “You were an outsider.” He and Yvette both wore red plaid flannel shirts and blue jeans. He felt silly wearing the matching clothes, but Yvette thought they looked cute together. Anything to please her.

were“Don’t listen to him, Yvette,” said Parrish. “He knows nothing.”

Yvette stopped and nodded emphatically. “You have that right!” Everyone laughed.

Anton raised his coffee mug in Parrish’s direction. “I appreciate you having us over this morning. We needed this.” He sipped the coffee and considered what his wife had gone through while he’d been a slave in the demon mines. “Every time I think about you living in the same house with that freaking demon copy of me, I shiver.”

“Me, too.” Yvette nodded, hugging herself against the uneasy memory. “This was a great breakfast, Matilda.”

“Yes, it was,” said Anton.

“Thank you both,” said Matilda proudly. “I feel more domesticated these days, though I’ll admit, eggs and bacon are the only breakfast meal I can cook. Leave the dishes, Yvette. Mark and I will take care of them later.”

“You’ve mastered eggs and bacon.” Yvette set the dishes on the table and touched the older woman on the shoulder. “It was delicious.” Matilda grinned, which made Yvette smile.

Anton beamed. Whenever his wife smiled like that, it lit up the room. He loved that woman so much it hurt. “Mark, did I tell you I went to Crystal Creek Park yesterday? I spoke with the head ranger to see how he was doing.”

“Who’s the head ranger now?” asked Parrish, blowing on his coffee.

“Name’s Auslender. I don’t remember his first name.”

“If you wanted to find out what’s going on in the park, you should have asked our buddy, Ned.”

“I wanted to pay Auslender back the twenty dollars he gave us when Jon, Dante, and I first came out of the cave. We bought food with it, which might have saved our lives.” Anton cleared his throat. “So, Mark, what do you think I should do? I read there’s a shortage of teachers in the public schools now, but you can bet Dillon won’t consider rehiring me. I could end up teaching at another school thirty miles in the wrong direction. I’d like to do my part for the kids, but I’d rather skip the commute if I can.”

Parrish laughed. “I can’t say what you should do, Anton, but I find it difficult to believe you’re bored being so rich. If you hadn’t gone into teaching and you could have done anything you wanted right out of college, what would it have been?”

Anton thought for a moment. “I wanted to be a novelist.” He nodded to himself. “This might sound silly, but I’ve always wanted to write historical fiction.”

“You’ve got the time and money,” said Matilda. “Best take charge of your dreams before they get away from you.”

“You’re right. I don’t have to teach, though I do miss interacting with the kids. I need to start writing. I still have my old notes from college, you know. I was putting together a novel based on the first English women to arrive at Jamestown, and I’d collected all kinds of research. It’s in a notebook in the attic, I think.” He sipped his coffee. “You see? That’s what friends are for. Yvette was trying to help me figure out what to do, but I told her we needed to talk to you guys about it, too.”

Matilda looked at Yvette. “What do you want to do?”

youYvette’s gaze became dreamy. “I want us to travel. See as much of the world as we can. I want to spend months in different countries to learn the cultures and make some friends.”

Anton shook his head. “Months seem too long to me. My idea of traveling is a two-week trip and then coming home.”

“It’s called visa-hopping,” explained Parrish. “Dr. Garrity in the physics department took a year-long sabbatical a while ago and did just that. He picked a country, stayed till his tourist visa ran out, and moved to another country. How long do tourist visas usually last?”

“Ninety days,” said Yvette. “Most countries anyway.”

Anton shook his head in wonder. “What did Garrity think of traveling like that?”

“He loved it.”

“He must speak other languages,” said Anton. “If I were in a country that doesn’t speak English, I’d be lost.” He shook his head again. “Well, to change the subject, Yvette, tell them about your investigation.”

Matilda raised an eyebrow. “You’re an investigator now?”

Yvette smiled again. Excitement blazed in her eyes. “It’s about Summit Beverage Corporation. You know, the plant that makes all the Majik Juice?”

“What’s going on there?” asked Parrish.

Matilda popped him on the arm. “Haven’t you heard, Mark? They’re goin’ to give a big cash award to the one-billionth buyer of MJ the week after Thanksgiving.”

“A cash award?” Parrish scratched his head. “That’ll make people buy the stuff even more. Sounds like a marketing gimmick to me. Did you say, one-billionth buyer?”

billionthYvette nodded. “You know what’s funny about that? Summit has been talking with the major bottlers about sharing the wealth of MJ, but they’ve never come to an agreement. Every bottle of MJ in the world has been produced and shipped out of that one plant.”

“So?” Parrish sipped his coffee.

Yvette stood and entered detective mode. Her expression became serious as she began pacing the room. “It made me curious about what kind of machinery they had there that could produce, pack, and ship so many bottles, so I took a tour of the plant. I’ll admit the place is huge. I forget how many acres of warehouse space they have, and their bottling machinery is state-of-the art. But when I asked the guide how many bottles they could make, you know what he told me? He said they make 100,000 bottles of MJ a day.”

“That’s just over 36 million bottles a year,” said Parrish. “The big three put out more than that, by far.”

“Yes,” agreed Yvette. “Coke sold over 1.6 billion cases last year. That’s cases, not bottles, but they’ve got 275 plants around the world. Summit has only been producing MJ for two years. What I want to know is how did they jump from selling fewer than 40 million bottles a year to a billion bottles when they don’t have the facility to produce so much?”

casesMatilda lean closer to Yvette. “Did you ask?”

“Yes. The guide said the machines never stop running, and they employ over a thousand people at night to make sure every bottle is shipped where it belongs. I showed him the numbers I got on my calculator, but he only shrugged. Either they’re lying about sales or there is something else going on. I want to know what they’re up to.”

Parrish laughed. “I hope you never decide to investigate me. What are you going to do about Summit?”

Anton stood with his coffee and stretched his legs. “We’re going to spy on the plant at night. Yvette’s been on two tours now, and the second one she made secret videos of the facility in action.”

Yvette became animated. “I used some of our moldy architect money and bought spy equipment. I had a video camera hidden in my purse and another camera built into my glasses.”

“But you don’t wear glasses,” noted Parrish.

“They were fakes. Isn’t it exciting?”

They laughed. Anton continued. “Her videos prove the machines don’t make anywhere near 100,000 bottles a day, even at full production.”

Holding her coffee aloft, Matilda looked at Anton. “I never thought I’d give someone advice like this, but you should talk to Agent Smith about what you’re doin’. He could have some sage advice for you. He might even take an interest.”

Anton wandered around the downstairs, admiring the work done by Parrish and Matilda in the house. He paused at one of the front windows and sipped his coffee.

“Are these windows bulletproof, like at Chris’ house?”

“Yes,” replied Parrish from the dining room. “We had Blandford Construction put them in. That’s the company that did the work next door.”

“They did the brickwork too?”

“No, that was Joey Petulla’s father. He has a siding company, which includes brick. It only took them a week from start to finish to brick up everything. We had them put on a double layer, so the wall is thicker than usual.”

“You’ve been talking to Angie.” Anton sipped and laughed. “That woman is serious about home security.” He looked on as several men pushed wheelbarrows past the house and up the street. He leaned to one side to see them better.

“You know, you can certainly write while you travel,” said Parrish. He rose from the table and joined Anton at the window. “It’s an ideal job for that.”

Anton lowered his voice. “I was trying to avoid the subject of traveling.”

Parrish laughed. “Oh. Sorry. What are you looking at?”

“Those guys with beards and wheelbarrows,” said Anton. “They came from the woods.” Yvette appeared beside her husband and leaned on his shoulder. Matilda joined Parrish as well.

“The woods?” asked Matilda, trading a worried glance with Parrish. “Are they monsters?”

Parrish shook his head. “It’s daylight.”

“What about the demon-human kind of monsters?”

They watched as the strange parade continued out front. Anton sipped his coffee again. “What the heck?”

Six bearded men formed a line across the front yard, facing the house. Each wore a backpack strapped over their shoulders and stood in an “at ease” position. Four more men pushed wheelbarrows up the road and stopped at the crest of the low hill. They began unloading sandbags and stacking them across the street.

“All those men look alike,” said Parrish. “I mean, like twins.”

“The women look alike, too.” Matilda turned to the side. “Two of them just went around back.” She moved to the window in the dining room on the side of the house. “Holy, Dooley, they’re carrying AKs! Mark!”

“Got it!” Parrish hustled up the stairs. Matilda followed him at a sprint.

“HK-416 work for you, Anton?” she called out, disappearing up the stairs.

Anton sipped the coffee again, then looked back out the window. “Yes. Do you have ammo?”

“Plenty!” came Parrish’s voice from above.

“What about me?” Yvette looked worried.

“You’ve never shot a g*n, have you?” asked Anton. “How about a handgun?”

“Anton, you’re scaring me.”

Anton kept a watchful eye on the sandbaggers as they built a knee-high wall of bags that blocked the road entirely. Then they piled the wheelbarrows on top of the sandbags and went to work, taking ammunition from their backpacks and stacking it strategically. They set themselves up along the wall with their backs facing the houses as if they were expecting an invasion to come from up the road.