Ark Book V: Beneath

Ark

Book V: Beneath

A Fantasy Novel by John Heldon

Copyright © 2015 John Heldon

All rights reserved

ISBN: 1517161398

ISBN-13: 978-1517161392Library of Congress Control Number: 2015914660

CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform,

North Charleston, SC

Disclaimer

This book is a work of fiction. The events, characters, locales, establishments, roadways, etc., are products of the author’s imagination. They are solely meant for the entertainment of the reader, and any resemblance to reality is purely coincidental.

Once again to Ginni

Acknowledgments

I need to thank my mother and father, Laney and John Sr., who together are 180 years young. They have continued to give me encouragement since the day I was born, and even now when I’m also a senior.

To my wife and son, Ginni and Geoff, who have put up with my irritability and distance at times during this process.

Again to my wife, as my in-house editor, whose keen eyes never miss what mine did.

To Calvin Schwartz, author of Vichy Water, for his encouragement and willingness to offer any and all help he could give me. Being a ‘character’ in real life inspired a character in this book.

To Barry Sheinkopf of the Writing Center in Englewood Cliffs, N.J. Thank you for planting the seed about twenty years ago, from which another bloom emerged this day. I owe you my gratitude for every book that comes out of me.

To the Taub brothers, Jordan and Benjamin. Jordan, for cover design help, and Jamie, for invaluable advice and counsel regarding publication.

To Rob Ducker, for his editing, design and Internet savvy, allowing me to see my writing on a whole new level.

Finally, to an assortment of friends and neighbors, who at one time or another, gave me an idea for a character or trait, which I shamelessly used.

Thank you all, again.

John J. Heldon, Jr. March, 2015

I hope you enjoy my words once more.

Chapter One

I’m poolside at the clubhouse barbecue on the Fourth of July, nursing a clear plastic cup of red wine. This is a ‘no glass by the pool’ function. Another rule for the few klutzes that may be here. There’s a pause in the banter Genna and I are having with Mike, Donna, Geoff, and Sarah, our close neighbors. I glance toward the sun with closed eyes for that warm orange glow, the free mental relaxant I dose whenever I can. I take a very deep breath...

The soreness in my arms and legs reminds me of a recent and rather traumatic experience, a personal encounter from which I retain mere fragments of recollection. All I know for certain is that I’m alive and thankful to be standing here. My wife stops my mind from drifting too far.

John, Mike, and Geoff said they were going to get us some burgers and dogs. Give them a hand and bring back plenty. We’re all starved.

Genna shakes my elbow as she says this, and I fly from my daydream back to Marlton, Delaware, in a blink. She feels the need to add an excuse for me.

He’s been a little off the last couple of days. I wasn’t sure he was going to make it today, but he rallied.

She explained this apologetically to our four neighbors. A little off is a mild way of putting it, after what I’ve been through, or I should say, whatever I’ve been through. I appreciate her keeping the matter at that level, for now. I can seem a little weird until people get to know me. We haven’t lived in this development that long, and I want to be the good neighbor, not the weird one. Above all, I want to unscramble the strange event that blitzed me two days ago so I won’t be cast irrevocably as an odd person.

I feel fine, and this is a gorgeous day to be outside with the best of friends. C’mon, Mikey and Geoff, let’s load up on this American fare and clog a few more arteries!

I say this while doing a little soft shoe, clowning, pagliaccing my true emotional state. As Genna said, I’m a little ‘off’.

The three of us saunter toward the smoking pit and get in line behind other community members on the same mission. As we gather closer, I feel the temperature rise to a scorch on this already very hot day. The smoke and smells convey that Great American Picnic which proclaims, ‘summer’s really here’. Buffalo chicken wings, fries, corn on the cob, london broil, salads, and on and on, to go with our first round of dogs and burgers. I smirk to myself, ‘no blood test tomorrow’. The line moves fast enough so that we don’t feel like we are the ones on the grill. We stack as many dogs and burgers as we can on the plates we carry. Our groaning stomachs will be quiet in a moment. Geoff, Mike, and I move away from the pit to under the umbrella table the three girls have claimed for us. In the shaded protection of the umbrella the temperature is noticeably cooler. I glance back at the griller and understand his forced smile as he works beside the hot cooking surface. He glances in my direction. When our eyes meet, his smile turns to a sneer... His is a Devil’s job to do, I’m thinking, but why take it out on me? I allow him to win the staring contest, turning my gaze toward the pool, and for less time than between two blinks, I see a strange mist at the far end, then it’s gone... A speck in my eye, perhaps. I look back at the griller, and he’s smiling again. After a few seconds, I let it go. No matter I’m thinking but not believing. Back to some fun.

After this round of picnic fare is divvied out, we six smile in unison, and get that ‘doesn’t get any better’ look on our faces. Memories of uncounted July 4th picnics merge with the mood of today’s celebration. The feeling of joining together to enjoy great company is one we always like to share on the 4th, even though we come from our own cultures and towns. We aren’t planning to change a thing about this part of Americana.

John, Mike asks, what’s been going on the last few days? Yaw looking fine now, but is everything gelse ok?

He had leaned over and whispered this query to me in a confidential manner. This is one of Mike’s endearing qualities. He has a seismic sense when and if to ask a question like that. Geoff was preoccupied knoshing a burger; the girls had already started their own conversation and weren’t listening to us. He asked it with a heavy, Long ‘Guyland’ accent not short on consonants. I give him my short, if not totally honest answer:

Mike, I’m fine, really fine. I’ve had bouts of insomnia from time to time. They come and go. It’s just something I must continue to deal with.

I don’t want to get into what really happened to me. Mike will think I should buy a new suit: a straight jacket for the psych ward. Besides, at this point, I don’t have total recall of the ordeal….

I change the topic, and steer the subject away from me.

How’s business. Is it getting any better?

Mike’s a few years younger than me, and he has a few more years, maybe more than a few years, remaining in his working life, but his job is tailor-made to his personality. He loves it and is so good at it. He’s a ‘schmoozer’, and that’s my nickname for him. His role at a construction company is that of a deep sea fisherman who lands those ‘big fish with deep pockets’, and keeps them happy in the company pool. Selling is a combination of psychology and hand holding, especially when the economy is unkind. Mike’s very kind, a master of each, and he ‘schmoozed’ right into his answer:

Business would be great if I could bid everything gat cost, which is what many of my customers want me to do. I shake their hands and say ‘maybe some other time, but let’s still be friends.’ So we’re doing gless business, but at least we’re not working for free. Things’re slowly turning garound, but it’s taken a lot of grief counseling galong the way.

He delivers these lines with a chuckle, making what he says, and the way he says it, upbeat, positive, and funny. Closing my eyes, I can easily imagine standing on a street corner in Great Neck, talking to him.

The girls are talking and giggling about whatever, probably making fun of their guys. Mike and I decide to get up and mingle before the next round of greasy spoon fare is portioned. Geoff expends three napkins to wipe away pieces of burger and condiments that missed his mouth, then he joins us. We move among acquaintances, from table to table. The community is basically very nice. There are reminders of ‘factions 101’ from basic poly sci, but not to the point of civil war. The community is typical in the sense that it has a few people that haven’t been, and are never going to be, happy about anything. They’re easy to avoid, which makes the rest of the time enjoyable.

The afternoon continues that way. Of course, we eat and drink too much, but we only have to wobble home a few blocks without driving. The six of us stroll to our doors around dusk, before the bugs can have their feast, on us. We exchange a few final laughs and hugs, and call it a day.

***

Back inside our home, Genna says, You seemed like your old self today, I was glad to see.

Genna doesn’t seem too sure what to make of the events of two nights ago, and I’m still trying to piece them together myself. If I am able to figure it all out, I expect I’d rather she not know all of it. I especially don’t want her thinking the psych ward was the place for me.

Genna, I’m really ok. I’m wide awake, and up for watching some fireworks on TV. How about the Boston Pops?

I’m not really wide awake. Overeating has made me very tired, like I could fall asleep in an instant, but I’d wake up in the middle of the night, have to pee, and be unable to return to REM sleep. The next day I’d be a Zombie. Minutes would feel like hours. I’m determined to stay awake for a while, liquidate my bladder holdings, and digest as much as I can before surrendering to Morpheus. The thought of The Boston Pops brings back happy memories when George, our son, was little, and we three spent The Fourth weekend there.

Anyone who has even an ounce of Patriotism should go at least once to Boston for a long Fourth of July weekend. Much of the country’s Revolution history is right there, and nobody does it better.

As amusing and uplifting as the Pops concert is, my mind drifts back to the Ark, the Sunnyside College gym which was the focus of my life two nights ago. My memory of that visit is a scattered puzzle, with only a couple of pieces back in place….

Bam!!

A mind and body seizure shakes my very being. A cerebral flash whitens my vision, erasing the objects in the room around me. I’ve been gonged by a force beyond my senses. Just snippets in my head are apparent, like a few frames of a movie that keeps switching to other scenes...ghostly images...basketball...a fog over a pool… These images revolve in rapid sequence. Each pixelates and fades at the end as another fades in. My body heaves and tosses as my mind tries to grasp meaning from these flashes… through a darkened tunnel... whose sides become a rainbow…

It stops suddenly, as it started. I’m glad to be sitting. I’m grateful that I haven’t fallen to the floor.

All that remains is numbness, sweat, and chills.