Here’s a snippet from the draft of my next upcoming book, Prophecy Revealed; the second book in the World Paranormal Organization series. This is the conclusion to the first book, Cursed Dagger and Dragon (available on Amazon). You can see more on Cursed Dagger and Dragon here.
* * * *
That evening, after a quick shower, Clari got comfortable on the couch to dig around in the box her father left her. Her hand brushed something metallic, so Clari let her fingers seek the metallic item out. She grabbed it and pulled it out of the box. Oh, a bullet casing? Her psychometry ability kicked in.
The memory-vision played out as though she was thrust into a movie. She watched as the scene played out through the eyes of the female character, Hope Jones, a seven or eight times great grandmother. She experienced this vision as though she was Hope Jones.
Clari Felt the sun beating down on her as she dug into the hard packed red earth. Her bones and muscles fought against the work. “I think I’m getting too old for this,” muttered her great times eight grandmother. Hope loosened the dirt to mix enough compost in to enrich the soil. It has been a while since she gardened and it was her hope to grow some vegetables this year.
* * *
She Saw Hope Jones standing outside of her home as she overlooked her future garden. Clari, still holding the shell casing, was connected to the past and to Hope’s experiences that were imprinted onto the casing.
She could Feel Lucas “Luke” Jones, walk up behind her. “Hey. What’s wrong?” he asked.
Hope kept her attention on the horizon. “Something is coming. Something dark, and filled with evil. And it’s heading straight for us.”
The husband stepped forward, into her sight line. “Do we get the guns?” Even though her husband had a few more years on her, he still stood a good foot taller, putting him at six foot five, so she had to crane her neck to see him. His solid build contradicted the uncertainty and concern in his hazel eyes.
“No. Guns won’t help us with this one, honey.” Hope’s joints ached; her seventy-plus years had started slowing her down.
His frustration was evident as he paced in the dirt. “Maybe I should at least get my sidearm. I don’t like this, Hope. Not one bit.”
Her gentle smile broadcast her understanding. She knew he worried that, since they lived so far out in the desert, isolated, they had to defend themselves. And his preferred method of defense was firearms.
She didn’t dare tell him it was a squad from the dictator’s personal army. She knew he’d be hauling out more aggressive forms of self-protection. She sighed. They were so different, he and she.
They both stood, watching, as the dust plumes rose from the ground, marking the squad’s progress to their home. Comprehension dawned and the husband swung to confront her. “Dang it, Hope, why didn’t you tell me? I could’ve had the perimeter protected!”
Unfazed, Hope gently touched his arm. “Luke, it wouldn’t have mattered. This is more my stuff than yours.”
“What does that mean?” he demanded.
Hope’s eyebrows rose and she waited.
He leaned forward. “You mean they aren’t human? But they’re kicking up dust as they move, so they have to be real, right?”
“Oh, make no mistake. They are real and they are human. And dangerous. But guns won’t change anything. We just wait, Luke.”
The dust cloud moved closer until Luke and Hope had a clear visual. They saw twelve men marching towards them. Each man was dressed in black from head to toe — black hat down to black boots. Each wore black sunglasses. Each carried a semi-automatic. Each had a belt that carried various “tools” of the dark army’s trade. These tools promised pain and misery.
Soon, the dark army halted before them. One soldier stepped forward, out of their formation, and announced, “We are here under the authority of our Supreme Ruler, Robert Chamba. You are to surrender your property and belongings and come with us.”
Luke clenched his fists and spoke through gritted teeth. “I do not recognize any dictator in the United States of America. Get. Off. My. Property.”
As Hope stepped forward, she could see her reflection in the soldier’s sunglasses. Her dirty blonde hair was well wind-blown. Her squinting chestnut brown eyes were the only indicator of her determination. She addressed the soldier. “Please remove your glasses. I like seeing the eyes of the person I am talking to.”
The soldier reached up and removed his sunglasses.
Hope searched his black eyes. “What is your name, soldier?”
“Ba’hamet.”
“I see.” She turned to speak to the rest of the squad. “And what are your names?”
Each soldier gave his assigned name.
Hope turned back to the first soldier. “I am going to go out on a limb and say that there is a reason why each one of you is named after a lesser demon.”
Before anyone could respond, Hope concentrated her energy and overwhelmed the soldiers with blankets of positive and loving energy as she very calmly, energetically ripped the programming out of each soldier standing before her – removing and deleting any control anyone else may have had – and then turned her attention to the aftermath.
The suddenness of the separation had knocked them off of their feet. Most had collapsed, still conscious. Hope filled the soldiers with white light; cleansing the taint left behind from the programming that was forced on them.
The soldier that had identified himself as Ba’hamet stood back up. The abusive and aggressive energy was no longer part of him, and he looked relieved. “Thank you, ma’am. How could you tell?”
“I was taught, from a young age, to remove things from humans that went against that human’s free will. Your energy disclosed to me that you hadn’t given permission to be altered in such a way, so it was my duty to remove that which was forced on you. What is your name?”
“William. Bill. Bill Arthur.”
“Hi, Bill. I am Hope and this is my husband, Luke. Can you tell us how this happened?”
“We were taken from our homes when we reached our tenth birthday, and put into a ‘special school’. We were trained…”
Another soldier was standing back up when he interrupted Bill, anger oozed from each word. “Tortured is more like it!”
Bill continued, “Yes, tortured and trained in combat and… other things. But I, and I’m sure the others here, woke up one day and found ourselves kind of pushed into the back of our brains and something — or should I say someone else – was in control of our brain and bodies. From that point on, we could only watch, scream, and cry from inside and try to hide from what was driving our bodies and to try to hide from the things they did to, and with, our bodies. We were prisoners in our own brains.”
Clari was jolted back into her body and the present time.
Morris stood before her holding the old casing in his hands. He yelled, “Clari. Clari! Are you okay? Talk to me! Say something!”
She held her hand up. “I’m fine. Give me a minute.” She took a deep breath and let it out in a puff. “Wow.”
Morris took a step back. “Wow? You scared the crap out of me, and you say ‘Wow’?”
“What? I’m confused. What scared you, Morris?”
“You. You scared me. You had this thing in your hand,” his arm swung up towards her to show her the brass casing in his open palm. He took a couple of deep breaths to push back the panic. “You have been standing there, frozen, for ten minutes that I’m aware of. Who knows how long before I showed up.”
“Wow. Ten minutes, eh?” She frowned, and then complained, “You certainly yell my name an awful lot.”
His voice rose in frustration, “Because you do a lot of things that require me to yell your name. Are you okay? Are you my Clari?”
Clari rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I’m okay. And yes, it’s me. That was incredible!”
Morris shook his head. “Unbelievable.”
She smiled at him.
“I’m glad you’re okay. Care to share what happened, and how this,” Morris waved his hand, “triggered whatever happened?”
“That casing apparently belonged to Lucas and Hope Jones, who I am guessing are my distant relatives. They lived in the desert like me. They were from the mid twenty-first century during the demon-wars.”
“How do you know their names?”
“I got their names from that brass casing. As soon as I touched it, I was able to witness the day in 2049 when that they had encountered the Dark Army. Hope energetically removed the programming out of the soldiers that came to her property. Morris, she was just like me. She was trained as a young child on how to remove stuff that doesn’t belong in humans.”
Morris’ mouth dropped open. “Do you think she was the one who initiated the Americans to revolt against dictator Chamba?”
“I don’t know because you yanked me out right as the soldier was explaining how the programming was done.”
Morris’ energy changed from concerned to astonishment. “Wow.”
“Yeah, like I said. This experience was kind of like having a front row seat while the war was in play instead of the sanitized version taught today in Ancient History classes.
“The Demon Wars was what the general populace called the revolution against the president, Robert Chamba, who had declared himself the Supreme Ruler of the United States. This was after the G5 geomagnetic storm in 2049 that hit Earth, collapsing the electronic grid systems globally. Unbeknownst to the United States citizens, Chamba had been building an armed force that had been forcibly programmed to follow his instructions and his only. He then took advantage of the chaos following the grid system collapse and used it to his advantage.
“The Dark Army was dressed in black to signify that they belonged to Chamba and were relentless and without compassion or mercy as they carried out their mission to terrorize the citizens into compliance and what amounted to slavery, or be killed. And each soldier carried the name tag of a demon on their uniform. I guess that was another scare tactic. So between the dark uniforms, their cold demeanors, and their assigned demon names, people called them the Dark Army.
“The U.S. citizens fought back, and eventually ended the reign of terror of Chamba.
“We were never told that the army was comprised of men who were kidnapped at a young age to be trained and programmed to follow Chamba. I don’t know if there were more people like Hope who helped deprogram the soldiers, or what exactly happened that turned the tide for the citizens, but I’m glad it ended.
“As for technology following the recovery of the geostorm… since humans had to basically start from scratch with the knowledge they had, things moved slowly in bringing technology back. I don’t think they wanted to make the same mistakes that were made prior to the geostorm.
“I often wonder if the G5 storm hadn’t collapsed the grid, where would we be with the human and technology relationship. Would we have more artificial intelligence beyond our smart phones? Would we have food replicators like the old science fiction shows?” Clari pondered.
“Well, I know they didn’t have the holographic computer systems like we have today. We’ve come a long way since then, and I kind of like doing some things the old ways. Like my truck and my passion for the old body style in vehicles,” Morris reflected.
by Jan Toomer
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