Conscripts, p.1
Conscripts, page 1
CONSCRIPTS
THE FIRST BOOK OF
THE OFF WORLD TRILOGY
By PATRICK LOCKE
Copyright 2014 Patrick Locke
Smashwords Edition
All rights reserved.
Edited by: Laurie Woicik
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
You are the love of my life,
You are my sunshine,
I need you more than the air I breathe;
And our little Pupcake, Chloe,
You are dearly missed.
Table of Contents
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Prologue
Jacob had never been what you’d call a morning person. And even if he had been, this was no usual morning.
Wake up, he thought urgently, as he often did when half asleep and trying to force himself out of a disturbing dream.
He drifted in and out—straining for consciousness—as wave upon wave of a murky darkness washed over him, threatening to pull him down into its depths.
Come on, Jacob. Without warning, his stomach lurched violently, snapping his thoughts into focus and sending little pinpricks of light dancing behind his closed eyelids.
“What is going on …” he heard himself mutter out loud. As his mind battled to put the pieces together, instinctively he knew something was terribly wrong. Another wave rushed over him—capped with more nausea—and bringing with it a long ago memory.…
It was the day of his seventh birthday and his family had taken a trip to Seaside, Oregon to celebrate. It had been a gorgeous day for the beach, the bright sunlight in perfect balance with the Pacific Ocean breeze that typically kept the place cold and windy in the sun’s absence.
He had been building a sand castle at the water’s edge—the kind of castle his dad had taught him to build—with high walls, strong towers and a deep moat.
Intent on adding his own special lookout tower, he had failed to notice the fast-rolling sneaker wave crest and hurl itself onto the sandy beach, knocking him down and filling his lungs with salty water. His seven-year-old self had been no match for the ocean’s strength as it dragged him out; if not for his dad’s level-headedness and fast response, his castle-building days would have ended there.
As the fear-filled memory faded, the current light stung his eyes, and he tried to quiet the whirling of the propeller-like vertigo that spun the world around him. He coughed violently and was rewarded with an unbearable burning sensation in his sinus cavities, like he’d somehow managed to snort ignited alcohol—a fire breather’s trick gone dreadfully wrong.
His head bowed, Jacob's face felt like it was oozing fluid, and he shook it back and forth to try and dislodge some of the dregs. The extra movement only brought on another bout of nausea, and an unmistakable acid taste filled his mouth. He swallowed hard—his throat and mouth coated in its sour paste—as he tried to force down the unpleasant mess. I could go for some water.
When he attempted to open his eyes, it felt like someone had squeezed a juicy orange peel directly into their sockets. He pinched them shut, waited a moment, then tried again—blinking rapidly against the light—until he was able to open them wide enough, and long enough, to look down towards his hands … his hands that were lying in a large puddle of noxious-smelling fluid … a fluid that pooled around him in a thick layer of syrupy sludge.
With his mind clearing, he noticed the deep, throbbing ache in his knees, as if he’d kneeled so long on a cheese grater that the skin had sunk firmly into its serrated holes. He wanted to move them but imagined the skin—misshaped and pallid from lack of blood—tearing off in gooey chunks that stayed stuck to where they were pressed into the cold floor.
“Where am I … how did—?”
His mumbling was cut short as a white-hot pain erupted from his head and emanated down his spinal column. It quickly spread throughout every nerve of his body, every muscle firing at once as the air in his lungs escaped his body in a torturous hiss.
He began to gag; his muscles pulsated uncontrollably until he no longer had the strength to keep himself upright and flopped chest first into the vile-smelling sludge.
As the pain continued its assault, wracking his body with convulsions, Jacob’s mind flooded with a fear so palpable he panicked. He was barely able to comprehend what was happening as his teeth ground down on his tongue, the unpleasant taste of iron and salt filling his mouth.
He didn't know how long he lay there shaking. But when the pain and spasms finally dissipated, Jacob was left gasping for what little life-giving air he could manage to pull into his lungs. A deep, pulsating ache coursed through his bones; every nerve fiber in his body felt singed and raw. His only sense of comfort had oddly become the cold, wet floor, which was now firmly pressed against the side of his face.
He forced his right eye open; his left remained clamped shut, firmly held that way by the floor. He slowly blinked until the ground came into focus. The floor had a stone-like texture, the light exposing the dimpled surface until his eye locked onto a small floor drain.
Jacob ebbed in and out of consciousness—his eye continuing to return to that drain, until he found his view obstructed. He blinked to see if he could trust the image in front of him … blocking the floor drain was a pair of peculiar-looking shoes.
“Help … me … please,” he mumbled, his voice so weak that the sound of his plea didn’t register outside of his own head.
The shoes took a step closer, and an acute sense of foreboding came over him. As he struggled to understand, the surrounding light quickly faded and narrowed until it became a single microscopic point.
And with a whimper that sounded more like an exasperated sigh, the darkness reclaimed him once again.
PART 1
DREAMS
CHAPTER 1
1
He woke up with a start at the sound of his mother’s voice drifting through the thin walls, coming from somewhere in the vicinity of the kitchen. Frowning, he chastised himself. Ugh, I must have drifted off to sleep again.
The traces of an unsettling dream still lingered in his mind; though, when he tried to remember what it had been about, its meaning quickly dissipated into nothingness. He had a fleeting image of his girlfriend Sarah, crying up at him, as she held an odd-looking, open-topped box with what appeared to be a spectacle wearing earthworm inside. A sort of Alice in Wonderland meets Scholastic’s cartoon character … Hmmm, well anyway, it made no sense now, but he must remember to text Sarah about it. She always loved trying to figure out what his weird dreams meant, especially when she was in them.
He rolled over and stretched. I can’t forget to text her this morning, he thought.
Sarah liked it when he did that. She said it was because it let her know he was thinking about her first thing in the morning. And things between them had been going especially well for the last few months and he wanted to do whatever he could to keep it that way … especially given how patient she’d been with him lately.
He cautiously cracked opened his left eye to glance at the alarm clock, balanced precariously on the stack of books piled on his nightstand, and sighed. Graduation had come and gone faster than he had imagined possible. For four years he had put so much emphasis on that single day, that day that would be the stepping off point for his “perfect life.”
The only glitch in his well-thought-out plan was that somehow, inconceivable really, his perfectly-planned-out future had failed to launch in the dramatic fashion of his reoccurring daydreams. Here’s the way it was supposed to happen: graduate with honors, get a great job with good money and responsibility, find his four-legged best friend (a Lab of course), move up the ranks, get married, buy a Range Rover, move to a sprawling brick house in the suburbs, have kids (two or three depending), eventually run his own company, and then take early retirement—complete with all the travel and golf one could ask for. The stuff of dreams, right?
However, for Jacob Young, instead of being firmly on the path to realizing his so-called perfect life, he found himself on the side of the road … his route blocked by one single, but major obstacle.
Imagine if you had waited years for your favorite book to be made into a movie. And when it finally arrives, you spend hours on opening day to ensure you get a great seat—even camping out to be first in line for tickets. Anticipation builds as the lights dim, the curtain rises and the previews play. Finally, the music stops, signaling the movie is about to begin. But then … the screen gets fuzzy … there is a pause … the pause continues … it grows longer … the crowd grows restless … and for months, nothing appears on the screen.
That was the way it was for him. Up until this point he was jobless, and this morning would soon join a long line of wasted days … waiting for the rest of his life to begin.
For the first few months after graduation, he had focused in and worked hard. He had been super motivate d and highly optimistic that the job he was looking for was right around the corner. He had got up early, sent out what felt like a thousand resumes, went to every job fair in a 30-mile radius, and dressed as if he was that “young man going places” like his Grandpa Sherman used to call him whenever he got dressed up. He showered every morning.…
But, pretty soon the monotony and frustration of it all started to ebb away at his motivation. He just could not understand why, after all his hard work, he couldn’t find the right job … or any job for that matter. Sure, he knew the stats about the economy and unemployment rates, but could it really be this difficult? He was still trying, but at this point he was having a hard time not feeling like the only thing he was accomplishing was going through the motions—continuing more because he didn’t know what else to do, rather than having any actual hope of being employed.
Through the walls of his bedroom, he could hear his mother and younger sister, Natalie, who was still in high school. They were locked in a heated discussion about the length of a skirt she had bought—apparently on sale as if that mattered—and wanted to wear to a friend’s birthday party. He couldn’t help but smile in amusement as the conversation ended—abruptly, with the same dramatic flair it had so many times before.
“Fine Mom, whatever…,” he heard Nat say, followed by the sounds of her flouncing out of the kitchen and down the hall. But before quiet settled back over the house, he heard one more sound. The slam of her bedroom door.…
It had been years since he had been the same age as Natalie was now, trying to figure out how he fit into his family, his school and the world around him. But still fresh enough that he could empathize with what she was going through.
He scrolled through old memories in his mind, hitting play on similar scenes from his past. His mother, so patient, trying numerous times to explain her perfectly logical reasons for her decisions; while—in the other corner—he continued to try out his new found reasoning and compromising skills to get what he wanted. There would often come a point when she would turn her beautiful, careworn face towards him with what he had coined her “we’re done now look.” When that look emerged, it meant that the discussion was over, her decision non-negotiable, end of story.
When he had been on the receiving end of that look, he had lamented about the unfairness of it all, thought she was so mean, raged against the machine as it were. But looking back with his current perspective—with time, age and maturity as the trifecta of filters—he could better understand why his mom did things the way she did. He now had an appreciation for her decisions, knowing that her reasons were based on an immense love for him and his sister and not some diabolical-controlling method.
They were both truly lucky because they could not have asked for a better mom. Times had often been hard for their little family, but he felt she’d done a great job—actually, to her credit, an amazing job—raising two kids alone after his dad died. And for some reason, now that he was a little older, he had become fiercely protective of her. Even though she didn’t seem to need it, he secretly felt better looking out for her.
Jacob often thought of that day they learned his father had died. His mom had taken them to their grandparents’ farmhouse in Eastern Washington to welcome his Uncle Roger back from the war. Roger had joined the United States Marine Corps right out of high school, and when he did his parents knew it would only be a matter of time before their younger son Tom followed suit. Their boys had always been inseparable.
But Roger's truck wasn't the only one to pull into the driveway that evening. Not long after he had arrived, a second vehicle climbed the long dusty hill to the house. When Roger answered the door, Jacob could see two Marines—wearing their Dress Blues—standing on the front porch.
On the day Uncle Roger had been honorably discharged, his brother Tom—his best friend—and his squad had been ambushed. Jacob’s dad had run out to grab a wounded buddy and was running back to cover—his squad mate draped over his shoulders—when a mortar round landed next to them; he had died instantly.
When the news was delivered, Roger didn’t say a word. He just stepped around them and a moment later Jacob heard his uncle’s truck start. He had sat at the window listening to it fade away down the old dirt drive.
It was long ago now, but while many memories fade, this one did not. He readjusted his pillow as he lie there trying to build up the motivation to get his day started. Another childhood memory that always stood out—he wasn’t exactly sure why—was being asked by his favorite teacher, Ms. Adams, who he’d admired most. He hadn’t been able to pick one. He had always had three.
"My mom because she loves me,” he’d said. “My dad because he was a Marine and he died trying to help his friends.” And the third person he’d admired most, to this day—
“Jaacobbbb,” his mother yelled from the kitchen, pulling him back to reality. “Roger said he’ll be here at eight.”
The third person that he had wanted to be like would kick his butt if he was not ready to go when he got there.
2
Roger had never left himself off the hook that, because of him, Jacob’s dad had enlisted and as a result died in the war. He believed that if one of them was going to die, it should have been the bachelor, not the family man with a wife and two young kids.
When he learned of his brother’s death, not only was he weighted with grief, but with an immense sense of guilt. When they were young, the brothers had always talked about hiking the Pacific Crest Trail together. So with some of Tom's ashes he had quickly made his preparations and headed out to the town of Campo, California, the launching off point for the trail. Roger would hike it in his brother's honor. For months he plodded along, alone but determined, the pain of those 2,600-plus miles nothing compared to the pain in his heart.
Then on one particularly starry night under a New Moon—the sky a cloudless canvas—he had sat gazing up at the silently shifting universe, alive with countless stars and unexplored planets. He was struck by its beauty and how much Jacob’s dad would have loved to be there. A meteor, burning its way across the upper atmosphere, caught his eye, and he took the opportunity to speak for the first time in a long time.
“I miss you Tom … I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you,” he yelled to the streaking ball of flame—this simple act releasing a shower of pent up emotion. And, for the first time since his brother’s death, he wept.
At that moment he remembered the oath he’d sworn to his brother—to look after his family if anything ever happened to him. And while he couldn’t change the past and bring his brother back, he could do something about what happened in the future.
With this new responsibility waiting for him, he’d quickly finished his long trek and returned home to fulfill his pledge. Since that day he’d been a constant guardian and companion to Jacob and his sister—always there for anything they needed.
He taught them to respect others, to love the outdoors, and the virtues of hard work. And he was always looking for opportunities to weave in some type of lesson; e.g., how you should be true to yourself, why it’s important to be fair and honest when dealing with others, or his favorite all-time speech: the importance of respecting one’s family.
3
They had been planning this weekend for months. Roger took the day off to make it a three-day and the plan was to head out for some rock climbing at Smith Rock State Park near Bend, Oregon. By the time Roger pulled up out front Jacob had showered, grabbed breakfast, and already rechecked his gear bag to make sure he had everything.
With a hurried kiss and hug to his mom and little sis, he vaulted out the door as soon as he heard Roger's truck and was buckling his belt almost before the truck had come to a full stop. The two looked at each other out of the corner of their eyes for a moment before a smile crept across Jacob's face. Sometimes they didn’t have to say anything at all; they loved this stuff.
