The Future People

The Future People

  By Carl Johnson

  Published by Publications Circulations LLC.

  SmashWords Edition

  All contents copyright (C) 2014 by Publications Circulations LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this document or the related files may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means (electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, companies and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.

  ~ ~ ~ ~

  DAY ZERO

  ONE

  WHEN CAROL WREN woke up at five in the morning for her two-mile run, she hadn't expected that the day would be any different from the others she normally experienced.

  As a gym teacher in Bristol Area Middle School in Bristol, Pennsylvania, she knew all about school shootings, Amber Alerts and anything else that ensured children received a good education. Of all the teachers at the school, she had received the most training in what was euphemistically called "assault management."

  This, Carol thought as she slid her shoes on, was just a clever way for petty politicians to describe the unnatural fixation some people seemed to have with ruining the lives of children who had never done anyone harm.

  Well, Carol thought to herself with a grin, mostly never.

  Kenneth Yardrow, a child in one of her morning gym classes, might be the exception to the rule.

  Yesterday, he had been caught writing colorful monosyllabic words on the school lockers prior to homeroom. Even after he'd been scolded by the school's vice-principal, John Hoover, Kenneth had just sat in the chair smiling as though he didn't have a care in the world.

  Kenneth always chose to sit out gym class, declaring it a waste of time. Rather than provoke an argument, which usually inspired him to commit yet another prank, Carol let Kenneth have his way. She knew that wouldn't go on much longer, yet she couldn't think of a thing that would resolve the solution.

  No matter how much the school tried to reform him, Kenneth always did what he wanted.

  That, she thought as she tied her brown hair back into a ponytail, might be the whole problem with the school system, not just in Bristol but everywhere.

  She couldn't think of a way to solve it, much less explain the necessary changes that wouldn't cause the administrators to frown at her and shake their heads as if to say, she's only a woman. They didn't dare say that these days, at least not since Wanda Tanner, the school nurse, had filed suit against the district after a seventh-grade history teacher had harassed her.

  There were some days that Carol wanted to be rid of the entire bloody system that didn't seem to care about anything other than test scores and corporate profits.

  This, she decided, was one of those days.

  Stepping out her front door, she observed that the rain had come and gone the previous night.

  The pre-dawn air had a cool, moist taste to it. It reminded Carol of the days she had spent as a child in rural North Carolina. The sky overhead remained dark, with a bare hint of light that would soon creep over the horizon. A silver crescent moon hung in the sky, obscured at times by gray clouds. The stars shone particularly bright that morning, the light from millions of years ago from another part of the galaxy only now just arriving.

  All of it provided illumination to light Carol's way.

  THE FIRST STEP'S both the easiest and the hardest.

  She had been told this by her personal trainer after spending seven months rehabbing a knee injury. Her commitment to take the first step-figuratively and literally-always proved to be half the battle required for physical exertion. Once taken, the first step invariably led to another, and then countless more, all originating from that initial single step.

  While this morning felt no different than any other, in the back of her mind remained the sheer agony that had come with twisting her knee out of place.

  All it had taken was one errant misstep straight down into an abandoned groundhog's hole. Caught in mid-stride, her leg suddenly wrenched, tearing tendon inside her knee.

  She hadn't screamed, at least not until she pulled her leg out.

  There, grotesquely attached to her hip, protruded a limb that she didn't recognize.

  Never before had she seen anything as twisted to the side as her leg had been.

  She had always wondered in the back of her mind if this would happen, despite the precautions taken. She had always stretched appropriately during her pre-run warm-ups and knew the route she ran by heart. She even made sure to stay on the road's concrete shoulder.

  THE FEAR THAT came with the recollection of her injury dissipated when she took the first stride leading out of her driveway and onto the country back road that lay parallel to her property.

  Before long, she found herself running along the road, her sneakers pounding the ground in a soft, steady cadence that was reassuring.

  Both knees felt the same that morning, and for this, Carol felt grateful. Her knee ached most of the time. Other times, it throbbed just enough to be a bother. Her doctor had told her that her running days might have to end soon, but she didn't believe him.

  One step, and then another.

  A short time passed before her breathing became heavy.

  She remembered the lesson she'd learned in the Air Force, taught to her by a mean-spirited man with wide, thin metal glasses. Mind over matter, he'd said. A person could force themselves to breathe normally if they focused. Oxygen would reach the muscles, staving off cramps.

  She only had to focus upon it.

  She concentrated now, running down the side of the road.

  One breath in, one breath out.

  Her feet moved without her thinking about it.

  Before long, the running came easier.

  After her eyes adjusted to the dark, she saw the usual sights along the road.

  The painted white line marking off where the shoulder began diverted in a half-circle around some obstacle the road-painting machine had encountered where it had last painted. Water dripped from the leaves of trees on either side of the road. Birds called out their warbling songs here and there. A few of them flew across the road.

  A brown squirrel ran across the gray asphalt, stopping at the double yellow line. He stood on his hind legs, intently watching Carol approaching. In his small hands he clutched an acorn that looked far too large to eat. Carol smiled.

  FURTHER UP THE road, a grungy-looking Frank Charles plodded out to his mailbox on the side of the street in a blue bathrobe, his tangled hair appearing as if someone had held a magnet over his head. He ambled along in sopping-wet blue slippers, oblivious to his surroundings.

  Opening the mailbox and sticking an arm inside, he came away with a hunk of mail that he held to his chest as he plodded back towards the house.

  Carol didn't speak to Frank, nor Frank to Carol. She could count on one hand the number of times either of them had so much as even looked at one another. It had been that way as far back as she could recall. They ignored each other, for that was how things were in Bristol. Neighbors rarely bothered each other, except to utter a brief hello or to ask a favor.

  Since Frank had never asked Carol for anything, Carol often had the sense that she ought to move somewhere different, back to North Carolina, perhaps.

  The awkward silence that passed between them as Carol ran past only reinforced this idea.

  Before she knew it, she reached the halfway point of her run. A pothole in the shoulder marked off exactly one mile away from her house.
A puddle of dark water had pooled up in it, rendering it deceptively shallow. Carol knew better.

  She turned around, running back the way she came. By this time, she felt as though she could run for a good long while.

  Nothing in her body hurt.

  Her breathing came free and easy.

  Her opinion of the day gradually changed.

  She felt it might be a good day after all.

  If anyone had told her just then that two students would be kidnapped in the most bizarre way possible, she wouldn't have believed them.

  So occupied was she with her morning run that she didn't notice the man sitting on the front porch of the abandoned property across from her own, staring at her.

  TWO

  WORMS CRAWLED ABOUT on the paved recreational area behind Bristol Area Middle School. The chilly April rain had come around four in the morning, but had tapered off around seven, leaving a dense fog in its wake. As the sun rose, the fog dissipated. The ground, still wet, brought all the writhing pink crawlers forth, fresh from the loam that protected them from the usual predators. Some had been eaten by birds braving the weather. Some would perish on the pavement, separated from their place of sustenance by what, to them, proved to be a considerable distance.

  As the morning's gym class assembled to listen to their teacher's instructions, one particular worm caught the notice of Kenneth Yardrow, known to his friends as Kenny, and known to his enemies by a variety of unpleasant nicknames.

  The worm didn't look any different than the others wriggling about at the edge of the grass. In fact, its similarity to the