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

He led them to arm’s reach of the fold and said where to walk.

“Think we’ll feel anything freaky?” Michael asked.

“Be ready,” Sammie interjected, clutching a pistol. “There’s no telling what we’ll find or how they’ll respond to us.”

Jamie kissed her.

“Trouble’s gonna come,” he said. “Once the bullets are gone, we’ll figure out something else.”

“So, you can see the other Earth before we even travel to it?” Michael asked. “That sort of tool could come in handy.”

“No, Coop. It’s instinct. Something I never used to have.”

Michael rolled his eyes. “Swell. So, you got a plan worked out?”

“Yes, but I’m not sure you want to know the details just yet.”

“Hey, you’re my No. 1. Whatever you need me to do …”

Jamie decided to offer a little hope.

“I know a couple people on the other side,” he said. “They might help.”

“Cool. Although I can’t rightly imagine how, but maybe I shouldn’t ask. You know where these folks are shacked up?”

“Not exactly. Doesn’t matter. I know their names. Emil. Frances.” Jamie squatted down and reached toward the ground with his left hand. “Emil and Frances Bouchet. They knew me once – for a little while.”

Michael persisted. “Sure, J. Whatever you say. Let’s make this happen before I turn chickenshit and run home.”

Jamie pressed his left palm against the bare ground. The Earth vibrated, and loosened soil danced. Pine needles twitched, zigged and zagged. The ground buckled, and crevices the width of fingernails radiated outward through the forest.

The low rumble of a tremor followed.

And then, in a flash, the crevices became white-hot; flames launched like hundreds of tiny torches, burning blue on their tips. The flames swirled and dived around each other as if choreographed, until they merged into a larger conflagration. The fire raced onward and charred everything.

No footprint remained, and all that was green fell into black waste. The fire swept in a circle around the teenagers, but they did not feel its heat.

Just as quickly, the fire died. The forest was ashen for a hundred yards in any direction.

“Holy shit on a …” Michael said. “I need a new catchphrase.”

Jamie grabbed each of his friends by the hand and smiled.

“I’ll look after you as long as I can, just like you did for me. The Chancellors won’t say no to me. I won’t give them a chance. We’re not running anymore.”

There were no more words. He guided them forward, and they stepped through the invisible tear between universes.

Before he followed, Jamie placed his right hand on the ground and blew upon the ashen soil.

The Earth trembled again; but this time, the only color emerging from beneath the surface was green. All around, as far as he could see, life took shape. It twisted and snarled into being, forming a thick carpet of grass, wild herbs, and moss. Whole thickets of shrubby bushes reached toward the sun, transforming from newborns into full-leafed, mature plants in no more than the blink of an eye. The pines shook off their coat of ash and grew a new dress of bark. High branches stretched outward with thick new clumps of needles.

Vines wrapped the base of the trees and sprinted upward. Mushrooms opened, the aroma of the herbs drifted on the breeze, and the distant chirp of birds grew closer.

Jamie knew in his heart he was saying goodbye forever, but he was not sad. On the contrary: The fear and anger were gone, shed from the soul of someone he no longer recognized.

He made peace with what he had to do: For this nightmare to never be repeated, the child named James Bouchet had to erase all others like him.

Jamie looked to the sky, said farewell to Ben, and left behind a life that was never his own. Then he stepped through the fold.

A wash of golden, late-day sunlight cut through the forest.

The dust cloud disappeared.

The saga continues now in The Risen Gods …

The Risen Gods

The Impossible Future: Book Two

  Frank Kennedy

c. 2019 by Frank Kennedy

All rights reserved

PART ONE STRANGERS

I used to play in the river when I was little. I swam naked because nobody was around. I liked peanut butter and jelly. Skippy was my favorite brand.

I wanted to draw comic books for a living.

When I was twelve, I started smoking. My best friend and I walked the long way home from school and shared a cigarette at our hideout.

We decided to become world-class burglars. We weren’t very good at it, but we stole our first car when we were fourteen.

It was fun, and nobody got hurt.

We knew our hometown could never contain us. But we weren’t stupid, so we planned to wait until graduation, then we’d be off. Where? Who knew? We just wanted to have fun and ignore as many rules as we could.

Maybe it was all a dream.

Maybe I was never that boy.

Maybe I will stop killing people someday.

Maybe they will figure out how to kill me before the dark drowns them all.

1

The Interdimensional Fold

J AMIE SHERIDAN FELT HIS HUMANITY peeling away like thin sheets of sun-ravaged skin. He transformed just as the Jewel of Eternity promised, but with the unexpected burdens of memory, love, and compassion. His DNA was realigning. He sensed the coming stages of his next evolution.

How much time do I have?

He turned from the Earth he knew and disappeared into an impenetrable fog between universes. Inside the fold, he looked around for Sammie and Michael, who entered before him, but he saw nothing through the gray soup.

“Seriously. Dude.” Michael Cooper’s voice rose a few feet ahead. “This is not cool.”

The air was stale