Story Time

  Story Time

  Third Edition

  Linell Jeppsen

  World Castle Publishing

  Nominee for “Best Read of 2011” by the Paranormal Romance Guild

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, organizations, or person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  World Castle Publishing

  Pensacola, Florida

  Copyright © by Linell Jeppsen 2011

  ISBN: 9781938243509

  Third Edition World Castle Publishing May 5, 2012

  http://www.worldcastlepublishing.com

  License Notes

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you respecting the hard work of this author.

  Cover: Karen Fuller

  Photo: Shutterstock

  Editor: Eric Johnston

  This book is dedicated to

  Daniel Jeppsen

  Acknowledgements

  I really want to thank the usual suspects for all their help in finishing my latest novel, Story Time.

  First, I want to thank my husband, Dan, who looked at me with equal parts horror and pride, when I told him I was going to write a science fiction piece.

  Second, my friend Lorraine Mainzer, who helped me edit about five times with humor and good grace.

  Third, I want to thank my Tech Support, Gordon Henderson, without whom this novel would still be just an idea.

  Last, but not least, I want to thank many of the Indy writers I have met this last year since my first novel, The Hunt, was published. People like Shirley Hicks, Recluse, Judith McDowell, Sandy Wolters, Bryden Lloyd, and many more. These people have helped me find my voice, and have done it with a generosity of spirit that is unequaled anywhere on earth. (A special shout out to Bryden for all his help in formatting, and finding the perfect art for Story Time!)

  And now, it’s Story Time!

  Preamble

  The Year 2045

  Two young men helped the old woman onto the stage. They guided her to a wrap chair, fussed with its cushions, adjusted the footstool, and positioned the speak globe, so it hovered approximately eight inches away from her mouth. She smiled at them when they bowed slightly and stepped to the back of the stage. The lights on the stage dimmed until only one light remained; a spotlight that bathed her in a cocoon of gold.

  She cleared her throat and grinned out at the audience. “I have never gotten used to these things,” she said. There was a stir of laughter, as the speak globe shuddered and moved another four inches to the left. She clasped her hands together and announced, “Welcome to Story Time!”

  The applause started slowly, rising in volume until it thundered through the amphitheater. The purr-grass, sensing the emotions of the beings within the theatre, hummed and undulated in shades of pink and purple…the colors of love and joy.

  The woman held her hands up. “Please, sit down children!” she laughed. “We don’t want to upset the grass, do we?”

  There was more laughter, but after a few moments, the teachers settled their students down and they waited for the old woman to speak. There were almost as many adults in attendance as children for today’s story, as it had been many years since the story was told.

  A hush fell over the crowd. For a moment, the speaker looked up at the emerald sky and its three attendant moons, and she was overwhelmed with emotion. One tear fell from her eye, and one of the young men rushed to her side with a glass of water in his hands and a question in his eyes. She waved him away with a smile. She glared briefly at the speak globe and said, “Shall we begin?”

  Chapter 1

  The Lord already possessed me long ago, when His way began, before any of His works. I was appointed from everlasting from the first, before the earth began. I was born before there were oceans, before there were springs filled with water. I was born before the mountains were settled in their places and before the hills, when he had not yet made land or fields or the first dust of the world. 8:22-26 God’s Word

  Naomi –

  In the year 2010, newscasters announced that birds were dropping dead in isolated places all over the world. This strange phenomenon only lasted a couple of weeks, and was the most prevalent in the United States. Five thousand blackbirds fell out of the sky near Bee Bee, Arkansas. They fell in an almost perfect circle, showering the ground in dark confetti and causing the citizens in the area to flee in alarm.

  The CDC and animal control folks were called in to inspect for disease, but none was found, to the relief of those showered in feathers. Approximately a month later, 85,000 fish floated up, dead and stinking, in the Arkansas River.

  These were the first signs, although no one knew it at the time…certainly not me. I was twenty, and studying for a degree in Education at Whitworth College in Spokane. I was busy with homework, a job search, and a boyfriend. I was full of beans, although I didn’t realize it.

  I was struggling with final exams, when a large earthquake hit New Zealand, and soon after a huge earthquake ravaged Japan. These were blips on my own personal monitor…I remember feeling bad for the people affected by the quakes, and I gave money to the Red Cross to help out in their search and rescue efforts, but for the most part those events sailed past me, like a brief but violent summer storm.

  In June of 2015, my mother called to see if I would come home to watch the boys while she and dad took a well-earned vacation in Hawaii. They would have taken my brothers, Zack and Josh, but Zack had just graduated from high school and wanted to spend time with his friends before going off to college in the fall. Josh was in baseball camp, so he couldn’t leave either. It had been years since my folks took some time for themselves, so I said sure…I would come.

  My test finals would be sent by mail, and it was time to give up the dorm room anyway, so my boyfriend, Kyle, and I packed my meager belongings into my battered, old Subaru. Kyle was going to Europe to study art. (And, I suspected, other prospective girlfriends). After a cool kiss, and a hug goodbye, I headed back north to Kettle Falls, where I was raised.

  As usual, the house was a beehive of activity when I arrived. Dad was barking orders and Mom kept running in and out of the house with things she had forgotten to pack for the trip. Each time she passed my dad in the front hall, he would stop her with raised eyebrows as though mentally weighing each and every item in terms of how much the extra weight was going to cost. “Put it in the carry-on, Mary!” he grumped, until she stopped and said, “That carry-on is going to weigh more than you do, Peter!”

  There was a moment of hysterical silence, and then my brothers and I burst out laughing. My dad was a guard for the Washington Huskies in college. Although he tried to watch what he ate, the muscles that earned him the nickname “The Wall” in college football ran to fat in his middle years. He was the sweetest, kindest man I knew, but he was no lightweight. My mother apologized and walked over to give her husband a hug. She told us kids to shut up, but by this time, we were almost breathless with mirth.

  I saw the hurt look on his face and ran to give him a kiss, and glared at my brothers until they too came over and cuffed their father in gruff affection. Twenty minutes later, my mom and dad sailed down the driveway. I could see the sleeve of my dad’s coat dangling from the bottom of the driver’s side door, and I felt such a wave of tenderness it almost took my breath away.

>   Three days later, I was curled up on the couch, watching DVDs. I had received my test scores the day before, and I was basking in the fact that I was now a certified teacher. I had already sent ten resume packages to different schools, so I just needed to wait for one of them to call me. In the meanwhile, I figured I deserved a little downtime. Armed with the latest new releases and a giant bowl of popcorn, I was putting the final coat of pink on my toenails when Zack burst through the front door.

  “Hey! Don’t run in the hou…” My voice died as I saw the look on my brother’s face. His pretty hazel eyes were wide and ringed around in white, like a spooked horse. Poised at the end of the couch, I realized how much he resembled my father. He had filled out over the last year and at 6’4” was almost as tall as dad. “What’s going on, Zack?”

  In answer, he picked up the remote and stopped the video, switching over to live TV.

  “Zack, jeez…” I protested, but he glared and pointed at the live news feed. I turned to look, and he sat down on the couch next to me. It took a moment for me to see what was going on. The screen was split into four squares and the four talking heads were all babbling at once. A line that squirmed along the bottom of the screen screamed, MASSIVE EARTHQUAKE JOLTS CALIFORNIA…ESTIMATED 500,000 DEAD!

  “Oh my God, Zack…” I murmured.

  My little brother reached over and took my hand. This alone was enough to send a jolt of fear through me. At seventeen, Zack was fiercely independent and hadn’t given me a voluntary hug since he was twelve. He spoke to me in a low voice while he stared at the television.

  “Nay…I’ve been watching this for the last couple of hours, since it first started, okay? It was a magnitude 8.7, and that figure of a half a million people? That’s only a low estimate…they say that it could end up being three times that much! That’s only in California! Apparently, there were huge quakes all up and down the western coast.” He looked over his shoulder toward the staircase. “Where’s Josh?”

  “He’s downstairs with his friend, Nate.” I got up to make a pot of coffee, but he held me in place.

  “Naomi! They’re saying that these earthquakes have shifted the ground under Mt. Rainier and now they think it might erupt. Also, there is a big tsunami heading toward the Hawaiian Islands!”

  Tears were streaming down either side of Zack’s nose now, and the paralysis left me, all at once. I jumped up and grabbed the phone. I dialed the number for my parent’s room at the Hilton in Waikiki, but heard only a busy signal. I hung up and dialed again, but the steady beep, beep mocked me, and I muttered, “Come on, come on. Shit!”

  Zack ran downstairs while I tried to call the folks, and I could hear Josh complaining about losing his score on his X-Box if he and Nate quit the game now. As I paced, I heard Josh say, “Oh, man—” and his brother said, “Sorry, you guys. You need to come upstairs…now!”

  The three boys trooped upstairs, and Josh said, “What’s going on, Zack?” Josh was dragging his heels, angry that his big brother interrupted his game session with his best friend, but something in my face made him stop short and stare. “What’s going on, Nay?” His short blond hair stood up in cowlicks, and the front of his T-shirt was orange with Cheeto powder.

  Before I could answer, Zack asked, “Are your folks home, Nate?” Nathan Williams nodded his head, and at that same instant, the doorbell rang. I ran to the door and opened it. Nate’s mom, Cynthia Williams, was standing on the stoop. It was clear she had been crying…trails of mascara were pooled in the hollows under her eyes.

  “You need to come with me, honey,” she said, and held her arms out to her son.

  Nate looked scared and said, “What’s happening, Mom?”

  She bent down and hugged her boy, staring over the top of Nate’s head and into my eyes. “I’m sorry…” she mouthed, and hustled out the door and down the sidewalk.

  Josh was sitting on the couch with Zack, and they were both watching the TV as pictures spooled out like multi-colored ribbons of destruction. I picked the phone up again, but set it down a moment later. The split screen had condensed into one, and now showed a wall of water rushing toward a small land mass in the Pacific Ocean.

  I sat on the couch with my brothers and watched as the earth’s tears washed my parents away.

  ***

  People came and went over the next couple of days. They brought condolences and casseroles but I, at least, was unwilling to accept the fact that my parents were dead. The boys and I sat in front of the television set. Neighbors showed up to see if we were all right, and some of Zack’s school buddies showed up on the second day. It was cold comfort though…scenes of devastation filled the TV screen and our minds until on the third day, I ordered Josh out of the room. I told Zack that we needed to keep abreast of the news, but only in short doses. At twelve years old, I thought Josh was too young to stay emotionally balanced during this global crisis. Even as I spoke, a news alert came over the wire, with its high-pitched whine. Zack and I turned to the TV and saw images of a mountaintop that we knew to be Mt. Rainier.

  We had seen footage of the wreckage in Seattle, after the 7.9m earthquake rattled the city… eight hours after the 8.7m earthquake virtually destroyed California. The death toll was up in the millions now in California, and was expected to exceed 100,000 in the Seattle/Tacoma area.

  Most of the Hawaiian Islands were submerged, and towns and villages all up and down the eastern Asian seaboard were destroyed by tidal waves created by the big quakes to the east. I could hear the Mario Brothers sound track drifting up from downstairs, and saw that whole sheets of Mt. Rainier were sliding down into the valley below. Zack and I exchanged glances, got up off the couch and knelt in front of the TV to listen.

  A reporter was screaming about lahars… molten sheets of mud that were sloughing off the mountain like a snake’s skin. He was flying in a helicopter and the chopper blades beat like war-drums. The cameraman aimed his camera at the mountain’s summit and steam and smoke were billowing out of a crevasse, like a kettle left on the stove too long.

  Then he panned down. Zack and I saw the long line of cars in the valley below that were riding the lahars like surfers on a cresting wave. As we watched hundreds of cars roll and slide on the smoking mud and thousands of people smother and perish under the onslaught, Josh said, “Hey you guys…what’s happening now?”

  Both Zack and I jumped. I turned the TV off and ran to my little brother’s side. Tears were raining from his eyes and he trembled like an aspen tree in a strong wind. I put my arms around my kid-brother and a moment later Zack came over and wrapped his big arms around both of us. We stood together and wept for our broken world.

  Chapter 2

  The following excerpts are compiled from interviews and written accounts of Dwight Engle and his followers (CHURCH OF THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST) and the faction group (THE ANGEL’S SWORD).

  By no means do the statements reported in the following reflect the opinions of the writers or reporters of the facts herein; furthermore do we note, that most of the accounts recorded here were given by war criminals and enemies of the state prior to EX 2016. Steven Cummings, reporting for The New World Chronicle.

  Frank Engle –

  “Everybody knows my brother was a prophet. That’s why he had so many followers. In the year 2015, there were about twenty-two families living in the Second Coming compound, including my brothers and me.”

  Reporter notes: Mr. Engle slumped forward slightly with these words and rubbed his hands over his face, which was scarred laterally with what looked like a knife or sword wound. Mr. Engle had lost his left eye and ear, and seemed prone to tics, which caused his mouth to rise up every few seconds in a ghastly smile.

  “We all knew the end was nigh…” he continued. “And why not? The whole country was going to hell, what with the Jews running the government, and the fags taking over the military. Don’t even get me started on the spics and the chinks…my brothers and I knew that God was going to step in and put a stop
to it.”

  Reporter notes: At this point, Mr. Engle fixed his one remaining eye on me, as if daring me to deny the truth of his words. Having been married to my partner, Sean, for over twenty years, it was very difficult to keep my feelings to myself. I must have masked my distaste adequately, however, because he continued with the following…

  “There was Dwight and his wife, Maryanne. They lived in the big house. That’s where we went to church on Sundays, and where the elders met every Tuesday and Thursday, to discuss global events and our place in the New World Order.

  Then there was my kid brother, Jackson…Jackson Engle. You may have heard of him? He was always a good boy…he was first lieutenant for the Angel’s Sword, you know. God rest his soul.”

  Reporter notes: Mr. Engle took a moment to wipe tears from his eye, and blow his nose…

  “Anyway, we sure were glad that we were prepared. The pantries in every house within the compound were stocked with supplies, meant to last a year, by order of my brother, Dwight. It was a good thing, too. The earthquakes in California, Oregon, and Washington were bad enough, but when Grand Coulee dam gave way, and the nuclear waste from Hanford started seeping into the air and the drinking water, things got really bad.

  “Dwight called a special meeting one night. He explained to us that it was time to take up arms. What with the so-called Super Storm raging in what remained of California, and the flooding and radioactive inundation of eastern Washington state and northeast Oregon, he knew that people would try to seek shelter here. He figured that those people were sinners, and it was no one’s fault but their own.

  “Boy, there were some really sick people, though. Sometimes I felt kinda bad that they were turned away.”

  Reporter notes: Mr. Engle rose from his chair and walked over to stare out the window. I think he was weeping, but he kept his back to me, so I couldn’t tell for sure.

  “Influenza came to visit the planet, after the volcano erupted in Yellowstone. I learned, growing up, about the super volcano that hid under the ground like a feral beast, and vented its wrath from hundreds of separate geysers every day. The earth was cracking up from within, though. A major shift of the crust’s plates allowed the molten lava to explode skyward. Where Mt. Rainier melted like a snow-cone that was left out in the sun too long, Yellowstone went off like a nuclear bomb!”