The Divide: Origins Read online

  The Divide: Origins

  By

  Mitchel Grace

  Other Titles by this Author

  Wrong Place

  Wrong Time

  Wrong Life

  Wrong Regrets

  Wrong Fortunes

  Wrong Mission

  Wrong End

  Strange Visions: The Beginning

  Strange Visions: Yesterday’s Sins

  Strange Visions: False Endings

  Strange Visions: The Calm

  Strange Visions: The Storm

  The Divide

  Wrong Visions: Lost Memories Vol. 1

  Wrong Visions: Lost Memories Vol.2

  Wrong Visions: Lost Memories Vol. 3

  The Unseen: A Broken Mind

  The Unseen: Shadow Wars

  The Unseen: Watchers

  Destiny

  The Divide: Origins

  By Mitchel Grace

  Published by Mitchel Grace

  Copyright 2015 Mitchel Grace

  License Notes

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to the author and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Thanks to all those who have been there from the start. You know who you are. This one is for you.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1: A Nightmare Begins

  Chapter 2: The Value Of A Life

  Chapter 3: Tears and Curses

  Chapter 4: The Storm

  Chapter 5: When To Take A Life

  Chapter 6: Family

  Chapter 7: Ghost Town

  Chapter 8: Innocence Lost

  Chapter 9: A Light Amidst The Chaos

  Chapter 10: Death And A Kiss

  Chapter 11: Lost And Found

  Chapter 12: Finding Death

  Chapter 13: Decisions

  Chapter 14: Heaven Or Hell?

  Chapter 15: The Fight

  Chapter 16: A Hasty Plan

  Chapter 17: Surgery

  Chapter 18: An Intriguing Proposition

  Chapter 19: Powerless

  Chapter 20: A Storm Is Coming

  Chapter 21: A New Home

  Chapter 22: Norak

  Chapter 23: Written In Blood

  Chapter 24: No Regrets

  Chapter 25: One Cold Night

  Chapter 26: Bury The Sun

  Chapter 27: A Shell

  Chapter 28: The Escape

  Chapter 29: Forgiveness

  Chapter 30: Outside The Wall

  Epilogue

  Notes

  Prologue

  “Think about it for a minute, Max. This girl is holding us back. Are you really willing to kill me over deadweight?” Jerome asked.

  “More willing than you might think,” Max said as he raised his gun.

  Jerome had a knife against the girl’s throat, and with one flick of the wrist, she could end up lying in a pool of her own blood. Max needed to be careful, but this had to end soon.

  “So four years in a cell means nothing to you, huh? Who saved your sorry ass time and time again? No one else would look out for you, but I was there. Now you’re just going to throw that away for some girl we don’t even know. Face it! The world has changed. Innocence is a liability. People like us rule this world now. You can get with the program or get dragged down,” Jerome said.

  “Good luck with that train of thought. I’m the one holding the gun.”

  “You won’t pull the trigger. This is what’s going to happen. I’m going to get rid of her, and you’re going to give me your gun. If you don’t, you’ll be next.”

  “Max, just shoot him,” Zoe said.

  “Shut up, you little . . .” Jerome managed to say before Max fired.

  He couldn’t immediately tell who was dead. There was so much blood. As Jerome and Zoe fell to the floor, he knew one thing. The world had changed. There was no such thing as redemption or good men anymore. There was only struggle, and it wouldn’t get any easier.

  Chapter 1

  A Nightmare Begins

  Max Green was viewing a familiar scene for what seemed like the one-millionth time. He could see himself standing above a woman. He had a knife firmly gripped in his hands. She didn’t beg or plead for mercy. She simply lay on their bed and took her death like she thought she deserved it. Max saw himself stabbing her over and over again. Before he could figure out if this was a dream or a memory, he heard a familiar noise and opened his eyes. The doors were opening in their prison cells. As he rolled over, he wondered what his dream could have been about. He had the same dream almost every night. He was in the New York State Penitentiary because what he saw was exactly what people thought he did. He had been accused of murdering his wife and little girl. They said he stabbed his wife, Kenzi, ninety-seven times. He had no memory of the incident, but there was plenty of evidence saying he was responsible. Still, he didn’t think he could have done it. Why would he? Then again, if he didn’t kill them, why did he have such vivid dreams about it? Was he just seeing a story he had been told, or was it the truth?

  “Are you ever getting up? We’ve got to get in line,” Jerome said.

  He was talking about breakfast. Truthfully, Max had no intentions of eating what looked like slop. He would rather die of starvation than eat one more prison meal. Actually, dying didn’t sound half bad then. He was living a life of punishment for a crime he didn’t even remember committing. Hell couldn’t be any worse than this.

  “I think I’m going to stay here for today. You go ahead,” Max said.

  “Normally, I would let you get away with that, but not today. It’s your birthday. I can’t believe it’s been four years since they dragged you in here. I’m getting out in a few weeks now, you know. I’ve got to know you’re not going to fall apart when I leave, so try to show a little initiative today.”

  Jerome wasn’t wrong. He had been locked up because he was accused of molesting a little girl. From the moment he stepped foot into that prison, he put up a tough front. He had heard what happened to child molesters in there, but no one messed with him because they knew he wasn’t scared of anybody. It didn’t hurt that Jerome was large either. His 6’5 and 250 pound frame was intimidating to even the bravest of men.

  When Max got locked up, the prison world was foreign to him. He went in with absolutely no idea what it would take to survive. Luckily for him, his cellmate just so happened to be Jerome. He had been looking out for him ever since. With Jerome leaving, nothing was certain, though.

  It was a little strange. Jerome had become his only friend. In the past, Max wouldn’t have even associated himself with a child molester, but no one in this place was good. He was accused of killing his family, so did he even have room to judge anyone else? Besides, Jerome had always insisted that he wasn’t guilty, and Max didn’t see him as a man who could hurt little girls.

  “I’ll be just fine when you’re gone, but all right. I’m up. Let’s go get what they’re calling food,” Max said and stood.

  “That’s not the only thing happening today. They’re breaking up that comet, too. I heard they were using a laser to shrink it, and our atmosphere should do the rest. Still, it’s pretty scary to think about
something the size of Texas potentially hitting the planet.”

  “The size of Texas? Who in the world told you that? If that were true, there would be no way we could shrink it enough to keep it from killing everyone.”

  “Diaz said he has a brother who works at NASA, and . . .”

  “Diaz, huh? Diaz seems to know everything. I hate to break it to you, but he’s a born liar. He probably doesn’t even have a brother.”

  “You’re no fun at all.”

  “Sorry to burst your bubble.”

  “It should still be interesting. We can get a seat by the television after breakfast and watch the whole thing unfold. They say it’s heading straight for this region. That would be our luck. We get locked in here for crimes we didn’t commit, and then a deadly comet comes crashing down on us.”

  “It might be a mercy at this point,” Max whispered.

  “What was that?”

  “Nothing.”

  The comet they were talking about had been all the rage in the news. There was panic worldwide. They were acting like this could be an apocalyptic event. The politicians were trying to assure everybody that things were going to be fine. They were going to shrink the comet with lasers until the atmosphere could do the rest of the job. It was that simple, or at least that’s what they were telling the public. The news stations were bringing in a lot of so-called experts, however, and all they talked about was doom and gloom. According to them, no laser or bomb would be enough to keep the incoming comet from causing catastrophic damage. Max hadn’t decided whether the news stations were just trying to get ratings by reporting on the end of the world or if there could be some truth to it all, but he did have to admit that the name they were giving the comet was fitting. Ira was the name they had picked, and it meant wrath in Latin. If they were right, it was certainly going to bring wrath like the world had never seen.

  As the day rolled on, Max and Jerome got breakfast. Then they found some seats and watched the news. It took some time for anything to come out besides speculation, but eventually, something concrete was reported.

  “We have breaking news concerning Ira. We’re hearing that it has been shrunk considerably, but not all went as expected. It was broken into pieces with one larger piece surviving. Its course was changed from the American Northeast to what we’re currently calculating will be somewhere in the Middle East. Our head science analysts have calculated based on how Ira was broken apart that many pieces of it might survive. It’s impossible to predict where the debris will fall, but one thing can be determined. The results will be catastrophic for the Middle East, and we’re still not sure how this will affect us at home or the world as a whole. Stay tuned. We’ll have coverage all day, and we’ll show you firsthand what happens to our friends in the Middle East,” the reporter said.

  “Can you believe this? They have no idea what’s going to happen here, and part of the world is probably going to be gone in a few hours,” Jerome said.

  “It’s just speculation right now. You can never believe everything you see on the news. Besides, they should be happy. How long have these stations been doing stories on how we should attack different Middle Eastern countries? It looks like their wish is coming true, and the equivalent of a big bomb is about to go off on the people they hate so much,” Max said sarcastically.

  “I don’t think it’s that simple, Max. If it’s truly a big enough disaster to destroy a large part of that region, then it could affect weather patterns here. We could all die as a result of this.”

  “You’ve been watching the news too much, my friend. You’re getting out of here soon, and the world is going to be just fine for you. Trust me on that.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  In truth, Max had no idea what was going to happen. He had been a schoolteacher before he killed his family. Max taught science, so Jerome thought he knew something about what was happening. The truth was that he was just as blind as everyone else, and sometimes he wondered if the politicians and media even had an idea of what was coming their way. Could the world be ending in the year 2034? It was definitely possible, but Max wasn’t counting on it. That would just be too easy for him. Odds were that he was going to rot in that place for another forty years before the sweet release of death took him.

  While he was thinking about what could be, three men stepped into the room. Sam Mays and his gang had tried to jump Jerome on his first day. They had succeeded in giving him a proper beat down, but the following morning, Jerome had shown them exactly how things were going to be while he was staying there. He cornered Sam alone and beat him within an inch of his life. Sam ended up in the hospital for nearly a month, and no one dared cross Jerome afterward. After Jerome got the news that he was getting out soon, Sam started eyeing him, though. They had seen this a thousand times. When someone came up for parole, a desperate lifer would either force them into an action that would cause the parole board to reconsider, or worse, they would kill them. One thing had become very clear in Max’s time there. If he ever got the chance to get out of that place, the days leading up to his release were going to be the most hellish ones of his life.

  “So I hear you’re getting out in a few days,” Sam said.

  “I am. Have you got something to say about it?”

  “We just wanted to congratulate you in the typical way around here,” Sam said and pulled out a poorly crafted knife.

  He attempted to drive it straight into Jerome’s heart, but Jerome caught his hand in mid-air and wrestled it away from him. Then he threw it to the side. The last thing he needed was a murder charge right before he was getting out. Still, if these boys wanted a fight, he was going to give it to them. Sam’s friends stepped forward, and Max stood up. Jerome had done so much for him. At the very least, he could insure that his friend got out of there alive.

  Sam smiled and came at them. Jerome caught him with a right hook that knocked him to the floor. Max didn’t hesitate to go after one of Sam’s friends. He speared him and got really comfortable on his chest. As he pounded his enemy, memories flowed back to him. He had been sitting on top of another person and slowly taking their life once before. As he looked down at a man who would gladly kill him over nothing, he didn’t see some thug. He saw his wife’s tears as he plunged a knife into her chest. For the first time, he knew. He had done it. Max had murdered his entire family. For a split second, he stopped, and that’s when he felt it. A pain shot through his back as Sam’s other friend shoved the shank into it. As he fell to the floor, he heard the guards rushing into the room. The fight was over, but it appeared that so was his life.

  * * * * *

  Max awoke several hours later in the prison’s medical ward. He seemed to be okay, except for the awful pain in his back. They didn’t exactly spare a lot of pain medication for prisoners.

  “Good. You’re awake. You’re one lucky guy. You know that, right?” the prison doctor asked.

  “Yeah. Excuse me if I don’t feel very lucky.”

  “If you had been stabbed a half inch to the left or right, you would be dead right now. He missed all your major organs, and we were able to get you patched up pretty easily.”

  “Why am I not at the hospital?”

  “A lot has happened while you were asleep, Mr. Green. Perhaps you would care to glance at the news,” the doctor said and flipped the television on before leaving.

  There were videos of people storming grocery stores and hospitals for supplies. They didn’t take him to the hospital because the everyday citizens of their country had been driven mad by panic. What could have changed over the few hours that he was out, though? That question was answered when they showed a report on the comet. It was headed straight for Pakistan, and it was estimated to be the size of a small state. Early reports were estimating that most of the Middle East would be completely destroyed. There was no way for them to do anything more than speculate on what the affects on the environment could be, but as usual, the media was only talking about the worst
case scenarios. In their version of what would happen, it would throw the world into another ice age where only those who had stocked up on supplies would have any chance of survival. That explained why people were looting stores and hospitals. It was strange, but it seemed like the safest place in the world might have been right where Max was.

  He simply lay in the bed and watched everything unfold until it started to get late. Just as he was about to doze off, the moment everyone had been waiting for happened. They had live footage of the comet as it was falling. A Pakistani reporter who refused to leave had volunteered to film it, but it wasn’t much of a clip. The sky darkened as Ira blocked out the moon and stars, and then there was a thunderous roar. After that, all that was heard was screaming as the clip came to an end. It didn’t seem real in that moment, but as the room started to shake and the electricity went out, it became very real to Max. The Earth was shaking more violently than he had ever thought it could. Things were falling off the walls, and all he wanted to do was run for cover, but he was handcuffed to the bed. All he could do was ride it out. Thankfully, the doctor stumbled into the room with the keys and found a way to crawl to Max. Once he had taken the handcuffs off, Max rolled off the bed and got underneath it. The doctor attempted to leave the room, but the Earth was shaking too violently. He simply couldn’t move anymore. Max didn’t know what to do. How could an earthquake this extreme last for so long? How were they supposed to survive this when it seemed like the prison would come down at any moment?

  Suddenly, the most disturbing part of it became apparent. He heard a thunderous roar and saw a glowing red light at the window. He crawled over to it and grabbed the bars to pull himself up. It took all the strength he had to get to his feet, but he managed to. What Max saw told him what his next move had to be. He could see a bright light in the sky far away. He knew what that was. An explosion all the way across the world was visible even there. The source of the deafening boom was much closer, however. One of the many small pieces of Ira had landed very close to home. The cellblocks were on fire, and a huge hole was in the side of the building. It was time to get out of there, but first he had to see if he could save Jerome.