Thursday, October 27, 2016

AFTERMATH PART XI - THE CONCLUSION

AFTERMATH

A miniseries set in the world of the Senses Novels

Part XI

The human body can only endure so much pain. After a certain point is reached, the brain shuts down. I hesitate to call it unconsciousness, it’s more like the mind goes someplace else, a place where the pain can’t be felt. People in this state can sometimes continue to interact with the world; most appear lifeless, barely breathing. From what the others have told me, that was my condition, the state all of us were in.

My first ‘conscious’ memory after the event was of several people kneeling over me. One of them looked familiar. It was my wife, no longer the beauty she once was, a gaunt woman looking a dozen years older than her real age. I was amazed that she had any tears left to shed for me, but there she was crying over me and repeating the word, “Zeke.”

Others helped me to my feet, but it took a while for me to be able to stand on my own. My legs kept buckling. I looked around, I was having trouble with my eyesight, everything kept going in and out of focus. I was looking for Eli.

He was nowhere to be seen. What I did see was more shocking than anything I had seen to-date. Every single guard was dead. No, not just dead, reduced to a still smoking pile of some black, tarry substance. Their clothing was untouched, but the guards were gone.

It took me a little while, but when I was finally able to form the words, I asked about Eli. One of the women that were helping those of us that had been with Eli answered, “Do you mean the bald man with the thick coat? He told us to come and take care of you. He said that you would all be okay, but that you would need some help for a while. He left us an enormous pile of food in one of the buildings and then tore down the gate with his bare hands.”

I was shaking my head. I had wanted to ask him so many questions. The woman wasn’t done, “Is your name, Zeke? He had a message for you. The man said, to tell Zeke that he had done well, that he now needed to head toward the mountains in the west and to gather as many fighting men to bring with him as he could.”

I wondered at that. First, I had never told Eli my name. Second, why would he think that I would be anyone that could gather men to fight? What or who were we going to fight anyway? The woman had one more thing to tell me, “The man said to tell you that your daughter isn’t here. She was, but now she is in a camp out west.”


My wife was nodding, “They took her and a lot of the other young women a few weeks ago. We didn’t know why and none of us were brave enough to fight them.”

She was my daughter and the months here hadn’t changed me that much. I had a purpose and a destination thanks to Eli. I could only hope that I would get to her in time and see him again.

This concludes the miniseries AFTERMATH. If you are interested in learning more about Eli, hang on, you’ll see a plenty of him in Book #4 of the Senses Novels. And you will see Zeke again in the concluding book to the series.

Interested in learning more about the Senses Novels series? You can start with volume 1, the #1 Best Seller, AURA, exclusively on Amazon.


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