Sleepers Prequel 1: Beck's tale

Here is the first story of many in the Sleepers Prequel...

Beck's Tale
Beck is an amazing man, strong and quiet, dedicated. The world wasn't kind to Beck and this is story of what happened to Beck before he met Mera.


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It had been the first time Gavin Back had been out of uniform in three weeks. It was the first weekend he had off in a long time. Being Executive Office at Ohio’s Army largest training base took its toll on his home life.

            But he had off. Finally. A weekend where the weather was supposed to be perfect.

            Beck had plans.

            One of them being to sleep in, but he couldn’t. His wife, Robyn, was always with the children and when his two month old son, Levi, cried his first ‘hunger’ whine of the morning, Beck was glad to handle it.

            It was his son. His pride and joy.

            Beck was a big man, six foot five, intimidating in bulk, and in comparison, his son looked like a baby doll in his huge grip.

            He changed the baby’s diaper, kissed his sleeping wife, pulled the covers over her and carried the baby into the kitchen. One arm, one forearm was all Beck needed to carry his son. Head cradled in his hand, Beck kept him close to his chest, like a football player, as he prepared the bottle.

            “You hungry?” he asked softly. His voice cracked as he did. Whispering wasn’t vocally possible for Beck. His voice was deep and trying to soften it only caused it to squeak and miss. “Yeah, you are.”

            He turned on the kitchen television to watch while he fed the baby, and as the formula heated, Beck brewed his coffee.

            His phone sat on the counter and he lifted it.

            Six missed calls? All from base.

            “Are you kidding me?” He grumbled and thought, ‘bottle for the baby, a sip of coffee, it can wait.’.

            The coffee was faster than the bottle, that new machine Robyn got brewed it in an instant.

            Beck took the cup, took a sip, and grabbed his wits.

            “Hey Daddy.” His daughter, only three, darted in the kitchen. Still in her pajamas, her ponytails tossed from sleeping.

            “Hey Sweetie,” Beck accepted a kiss. “You’re up early.” The baby squirmed in his arms, fussed vocally and Beck started to feed him.

            “No, silly. I always get up early.” She giggled. “Can I watch cartoons?”

            “Yeah, let Daddy have some coffee, make his call and I’ll get you food, too.” Holding the baby and bottle in a single wraparound grip, a task he was quite good at, he reached for the remote and that was when he saw it.

            Across the screen were pictures of devastation. The headline read, ‘earthquake in Seattle’.

            “Oh my God,” Beck said.

            “Are they hurt, Daddy?” Dakota asked.

            “I don’t  know––” his phone rang. “Damn it.”

            “You swore.”

            “I’m sorry.” Beck answered the phone. “Major Beck.” He sighed out. “No, Benson, I haven’t checked my voice mail, what’s up?” he paused. “National emergency, how is this affecting us it’s in Seattle …” Beck’s eyes widened. “How many?”

            “Daddy?”

            “Twenty-seven? Are you serious?”

            “Daddy?” his daughter tugged on his leg.

            Multi tasking. Beck was good at it. He noticed the baby consumed a few ounces and placed him against his chest to burp him. “We’re mobilizing?” he spoke on the phone.

            “Daddy.”

            Burp.

            Beck placed down the bottle and sipped his coffee as he listened. “Where are they putting the center? You don’t know.” He exhaled. “Get the Intel, have it ready, I’ll get dressed and be at base in an hour. Thanks.” He hung up. “What the hell is going on?”

            “Daddy.”

            Thump.

The rest is FREE (just too big to post here) If you are interested in reading the story, please simply CLICK HERE, or right click download the PDF.

Thanks

Sleepers

I have been getting a lot of emails and facebook messages about it, so I thought I'd address it here.

Sleepers (1, 2, 3) is alive and well and ... getting ready to awaken via the hands of Permuted Press.

2014 Brings you Sleepers 1, 2, 3, 4 and Sleepers: Respite.

On the eve of the re-release of the Sleepers Series, I have decided to do something different for those of you who have read it or plan to. I will be posting on this blog, a series of short stories, prequels, to Sleepers. They show the different characters, that we’ve come to love and know,  as they experienced the event that started the end of the world.

Sleepers is told from the POV of Mera Stevens and she meets some great characters in her plight. But we never see what happened to them before meeting Mera. Through the prequels you will.  I hope you enjoy them as we get ready (and pumped) for the Permuted Press release of the Sleepers Series. (And yes there is a Sleepers 4 – look for that here on this blog as well)

You are invited to bookmark or follow this blog, because in a few short hours, the first story will be posted … Beck’s Story.

Sneak Peak - Earth Abounds (Book 3 - Last Mile Series)

When mankind faces insurmountable odds, mankind will rise to the occasion.

After eighty percent of the world’s population is destroyed by a plague delivered by an alien race, a group of survivors build the ultimate underground civilization known as So-Cal. They wait and prepare for the impending war against the invaders.

What they are not prepared for is the arrival of the crew from the Galaxy, a ship long lost in space. Galaxy’s joyful arrival is thwarted by a last second alien attack at the gates of So-Cal. The not only leaves members of the crew seriously injured, but one is missing. Vanished into thin air.

While the crew of the Galaxy struggles against life threatening injuries and trying to understand what has happened to their world in their absence, Robi Pierce, leader, recants to them how So-Cal came to be and the hardships they endured in getting there.

Available Amazon - May 2013

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Chapter One

NV 5 (Nevada Section 5)

There was a spot of blood on the screen of the cell phone, and Colonel Reese Gray wiped it away with his thumb.

            David Hawk’s blood.

          The desert air whipped against him, a forceful air, hot and dry, taking a bit of his breath away; then again, it could have come from emotion.

        Reese was confused. Internally he suffered a potpourri of feelings that he was trying so hard to decipher.

            Reese was a strong man both physically and emotionally, but he was close to breaking.

Keep it in check, he kept telling himself. Keep it in check.

Standing in the middle of the Nevada desert, he knew that alone he wasn’t going to make heads or tails out of the situation, nor would he find his friend. Although only a couple of weeks earlier, David Hawk wasn’t a friend. He was a coworker, a crewmember on the Galaxy with Reese. The Galaxy was a spacecraft, sent to orbit Earth carrying not only a skeleton crew from NASA, but also four civilians who won a space lottery.

            Four days in space.

            That was it, but when they returned they not only caught some sort of wormhole, they landed five years later on a desolate Earth, a planet void of hydration and life. Void of people … that they knew of. A trek across the country, following the trail of family member, brought them to Nevada. They were in search of a survivor complex known to them as So-Cal or SC.

            During this trek, he lost two crewmembers, but the six of them that remained bonded and became friends. Now they were torn apart by tragedy and circumstances just inches from the victory destination of SC.

            They discovered the entrance, and then they were attacked. Reese tried to recall the details, but they were vague. He hoped they came back. He wanted to remember every single second.

            Driving full speed across the plains to the entrance, something from the sky fired at them. The people of SC came to their rescue, but it was too late. Even the residents of SC hadn’t a clue what attacked them. It was a new kind of attack.

         They tried, they battled, but the crew of the Galaxy lost. The vehicle was struck, thrown, and crashed.

            Reese walked away with minor scratches, but his crew wasn’t so lucky.

            Two of them were seriously injured, two fatally injured, and one, David Hawk, was gone. Not dead. Injured for sure, but gone. Vanished into thin air.

            All that remained was one of the five cell phones he brought with him to test in space.

            Ironically, it was the only phone that powered up after they landed in what once was the Atlantic Ocean.

            As if he were some sort of tourist in the apocalypse, David Hawk took pictures with that phone, and Reese was grateful.

            He looked and would forever look at the pictures, not for the scenery, but for the images of Ken, Paul, Thad, Kip, David, Gene, and … Lucy.

            A polite clearing of the throat snapped Reese to attention. He turned to see Tate Hoyt, one of the warriors, survivors, or soldiers, he didn’t know. Reese assumed he was someone in authority, at least in a security capacity. The man stood armed and stared compassionately at Reese.

            The was something young about him, but Reese knew he wasn’t. Tate spoke rough; he had lines around his eyes and scars on his face.

            “We’ll find him,” Tate said. “No one just vanishes. But right now, we can’t leave the entrance open, and it’s too dangerous to be out here too long.”

            “I understand. And …” Reese inhaled. “I want to see my crew.”

            Tate nodded.

            “Any word on them?” Reese asked.

            “No updates since we came out. Then again, we try to keep radio signals out here to a minimum, but it’s a fifteen-minute trip to the main hub of SC, so we need to go now. I’ll order a tube transport. Shouldn’t take long.”

            “Tube transport,” Reese mused as he followed Tate. “I thought we were in SC.”

            “Not at all, we’re at one of the five survivor/salvage entrances. SC is quite a distance. We take the tubes, sort of like super high-speed trains to SC.”

            Reese paused at the entrance; it was a solid rock cliff that just slid to the side. “How can you be so high tech?”

            “Long story. We’ll tell that when we fill you in. Knowing who you guys are, I know I would want answers.”

            “I do,” Reese replied. He watched Tate secure the door as he looked around. The other man wasn’t there, Tate’s brother Jeb. Complete contrast to Tate, except in attitude. “Where’s your brother?”

            “He went back. He’ll meet us there.” Tate then spoke into his radio about returning and then faced Reese again. “Tube is there already.”

            They moved from an entrance down a long cave-like corridor that emerged into what looked like the platform of a train station. Earlier a portion was triage; now it was empty. The tube transport awaited them.

            “You okay?” Tate asked. “Other than injured, I mean.”

            “No, this is just very surreal to me.”

            Tate cracked an ornery smile and released a short laugh. “Yeah, well, I bet. This is just the beginning. I guess to me it’s normal. It’s our way of life.”

            “In my memory, two weeks ago, my way of life was coming home from work, cracking open a beer, and watching reruns of Roseanne.”

            “We still have comedy around here, just not what you’re familiar with,” Tate said as the door to the tube slid open. “But, man, are you in for some culture shock.”

            Reese mumbled, “That’s an understatement,” as he followed Tate onto the tube. The doors slid closed.