The Impossible Future: Complete set by Frank Kennedy (mini ebook reader .txt) 📕

speeding car screeched yards behind her, did Sammie look down and see the bloody hole in her belly. She wobbled and fell to her knees. As she swooned, she saw both Bidwells rise from behind their protective shield and take aim.

Bullets whizzed past her, but they were not from the Bidwells. A car screamed to a stop behind her. Two doors opened, and the thunderous blasts of rifles shouted into her ears. Someone’s left arm wrapped around her, and that same savior’s right arm stretched forward, an M16 blazing at the end of it. She felt sleepy.

57

A minute earlier, the owner of a Cadillac convertible fled as Jamie and Michael approached with weapons extended. As the best friends jumped in, Michael said:

“You couldn’t have asked that dude for the keys?”

His words fell flat when he saw what Jamie was doing.

“Holy shit on a …” Michael muttered as he fell into his seat.

Only when Jamie pushed his hair from his face and looked to the ignition did he realize his right hand was buried inside the machine, as if welded to it. He saw inside the device, positioned his fingers around the starter mechanism, and turned. The convertible roared into life.

He hit the gas.

The wheel felt natural to Jamie. He sensed an immediate and deep connection to the car, the power surging through his blood much as it had with the guns. He drove wildly through the park, short-cutting between trees and past abandoned picnic tables.

He couldn’t believe what Sammie was doing alone in the middle of the parking lot. The instant she was hit, he sensed it.

“Ready, Coop?” He yelled. “Start shooting before I hit the brakes.”

Michael grabbed the door and held on, his pistol poised. As soon as the car screamed into the lot and became exposed along with Sammie, he opened fire. Jamie hit the brakes just as Sammie fell to her knees and dropped her rifle. He spread machine-gun fire on the Bidwells as he knelt then clutched Sammie.

“Grab it,” he told Michael, pointing at Sammie’s rifle. “I’ll cover.”

Bullets embedded into the Caddy as the trio leaped in. Jamie all but flung Sammie across the seat to the passenger side, where she lay barely conscious. He slammed the door and threw the car into drive in a simultaneous movement, again allowing the Jewel to assist.

He crouched as he drove the car from the lot. Michael, cursing more than Jamie ever heard, said the Bidwells were coming after them on foot. Jamie didn’t think this would pose a problem – until he saw the very thing Sammie warned them about moments ago.

An ASPD patrol car careened toward them, blue lights flashing.

Jamie dropped the rifle and grabbed the wheel with both hands, swerving to avoid the patrol car. Sammie tossed about like a rag doll. Michael tumbled in the back. Jamie thought they were home-free.

That’s when he heard more weapons fire and looked through the rear-view mirror. The Bidwells turned their attention to the newly-arrived officers and fired full-on into the vehicle, which slammed into the parked patrol car that a now-deceased boy had tried to wash.

Jamie set his focus on two purposes. He drove not toward the park’s main entrance, but rather to a private service exit at the park’s northeastern corner, farthest from the police station. He had no prior knowledge of this way out, but he knew it was there; the Jewel pointed the way.

Once there, Jamie smashed the car through a wooden gate.

He laid one hand upon Sammie and felt the healing power of Caryllan energy surge into her. Her wound would be healed within minutes. For that, he was thankful.

Jamie turned his focus to his ultimate destination, a world planted in his mind to show him the way home. He knew how this would end.

Jamie saw it all. His mind’s eye opened to the land east of Austin Springs, which rose steadily as the forests grew thicker and the hills became steeper. He saw streams and small waterfalls, the bounty of wildlife that was safe until hunting season, the isolated cabins where a lucky few hid away from this insane world, and the tiny and winding dirt roads that led nowhere and everywhere. He saw this place, stretching for more than ten miles, as clearly as he saw a large, glistening city on this very same stretch of land but located across the interdimensional fold.

He felt the history that built this land, from the fiery birth of the planet to the first seedlings that pushed through the hard-packed crust. He saw slaves passing through these woods as they escaped from life on the plantations. He felt the spirits of wild and reckless criminals who fled into these hills over the past century, only to be hunted down like dogs or to live a meager, desperate existence until dying of starvation or loneliness.

As much as Jamie tried to fight it, the threads of the universe twisted his mind and tugged at the Jewel, which he knew was ready to be reborn. He felt the heartbeat of time and space itself.

His hands steered as if they were independent contractors. The back entrance to the park soon gave way to a two-lane paved road, onto which he swerved without bothering to look for traffic. He pressed the gas.

Among the many images and feelings bombarding his mind’s eye were five moments that seemed to lock into place as still pictures, but each of them carrying the odor of rage and filth.

He saw himself shoot Walt Huggins twice in the gut, not because he had to but because he wanted to. He saw himself unload countless bullets into an attacker with an AK-47, and he was pleased with the outcome. He saw himself pound a police officer unconscious, take the deputy’s gun, and unload a full round into a man