Dawn of the Unthinkable

  Acknowledgements:

  This book, some twenty plus years in the making, would not have been possible without the support and contribution of some very important people in my life.

  First and foremost, Ms. Stacey Kucharik, owner of Polished Print (http://www.polishedprint.com/), who made corrections, suggestions and gave encouragement to bring the book to life.

  Matt Schmidt, my awesome nephew who designed the cover (http://mattschmidtart.com/).

  My family, who encourage me in all my life's various adventures, including this one.

  My friends, Scott, the two Steves and the "Merts" who make my life fun and exciting.

  The Montgomery County Amputee Support Group, the Amputee Coalition, and Trish for a first edit.

  And last, but not least, my doggies, who love unconditionally

  Thanks to all!

  Dawn of the Unthinkable

  Copyright (c) by James Concannon 2016

  All rights reserved

  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

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Epilogue

  About the author

  The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one – Mr. Spock, Starship Enterprise

  PROLOGUE

  This is the story of one of the greatest events in the history of mankind.

  When an enlightened group of colonists landed in what would become the United States of America, they thought of a different type of government from what they had been living under. They created a method that would guarantee “liberty, justice, and the pursuit of happiness for all.” Over two hundred years later, many had no liberty, justice depended on how much you could afford to spend, and the pursuit of survival was all that most people could manage. Forget happiness. So society limped along, the rich got richer, the poor got poorer, and it did not seem that anything would ever change.

  Was there one way of doing things that could not only meet the needs of those people, but also surpass them? Amazingly enough, there was, and it started where it had started before. In Philadelphia.

  Chapter 1

  Spring 1976

  Nicholas Ryan walked into the Wawa near his house in Northeast Philadelphia for his morning Diet Dr. Pepper and Philadelphia Inquirer. The ubiquitous gas-and-go convenience store could usually get him in and out within a few minutes, and he liked that it required minimal effort to get what he needed. Just grab your stuff, hand over a card, and be on your way.

  He did what he had done a million times before but was surprised when the clerk said, “Uh, sorry sir, this card has been declined. Do you have another, or cash?”

  Ryan, who had been reading the headlines of the paper while waiting for the transaction to complete, looked up. “What?”

  The clerk said, in a louder voice, “Your card, it’s been declined. Do you have another form of money?”

  The tone in the clerk’s voice and the people shuffling impatiently in line behind him snapped him immediately to attention. Not having enough money to pay for his transaction was the ultimate humiliation! He only carried one credit card with him and sometimes forgot to change his cash from one pants pocket to another. Please, don’t let it be one of those days, he thought. He dug around in his pockets and sure enough, he had forgotten.

  “Damn,” he said as a little sweat broke out under his arms. He shook his head and said, “Nope, sorry, don’t have it. I wonder why the card was declined. Did it say?”

  The line behind him was starting to grow and the clerk did not have time to get into Ryan’s credit history. He said with his fingers tapping the counter, “No, man, it just won’t take it. You want to go home and get some money or something?” He was giving him an out to help him save face but obviously wanting to move the line along.

  Ryan grabbed his stuff to put it back. “Yeah, I’ll do that. Sorry.”

  The people in line cast their eyes downward or to the side as he passed. They shied away as if he had brought in one of those nasty modern infections like “homeless,” “broke,” or “street person.” He didn’t look that way, but without money to pay for a $1.99 purchase, what else were they to assume? He himself had cast that look, but this was the first time he had felt the sting of those degrading looks himself.

  He put the paper and the soda back while nodding at some of the people in the line as if to say, “Hey, I actually have the money to pay for this. I’m not one of them….” But the people would not meet his gaze, looked through him or away, not wanting to risk catching his disease.

  He slunk out of the store, still ashamed. What the fuck happened with the card? he wondered, trying to remember if he had paid the bill. He was usually pretty good about that, but maybe he had missed a few months and they had shut it down. That was hard to imagine; usually the credit card companies started screeching in a loud voice if you were like a minute late on a payment. “Money,” he said ruefully, shaking his head.

  He got into his Hyundai Elantra for the short drive to his house. He got home and ambled up the walkway to his new-construction twin, a house he was extremely proud of. He had lived in older houses most of his life and had put together all the small pots of money he had in order to afford this home. It had many airy windows and was a bright and cheery place on a cul-de-sac street: the modern equivalent of an urban Valhalla. He opened the door and heard a strange noise. Was that his wife…whimpering? He walked a few steps into the kitchen and saw a scene that almost made his sphincter open up.

  He saw his wife, Donna, first. Her normally pretty hair was mussed, and she had blood leaking from a cut over her eye. His jaw slacked open as he took in the rest of the damage—scrapes on her face, bruises on her arms, her chest heaving up and down in controlled terror. His gaze shifted quickly from her back to the other occupants of the tiny kitchen. If he was scared before, he quickly joined her in her horror as he saw what she had been looking at.

  Standing by the kitchen counter was a large Hispanic male who was bald with a goatee. He had many homemade tats up and down his arms, chest, and neck. He smelled of weed and alcohol, but he was beyond that. His eyes were glazed and full of rage and hatred. He was dressed in biker’s colors and would have been frightening even if you had met him in church. But in this context, having apparently beaten his wife, it was practically beyond comprehension. The worst thing, the absolute worst thing, was he had their baby, William, in his arms. And he had William’s arm pushed down in the blender that was full of some goop Donna was probably making for him. William was screaming and squirming, knowing that this man was not his people, was scaring him, and had hurt his mom. And the man’s finger was poised over the “Frappe” button, ready to turn his son’s arm to paste.

  “Wait! What do you want?” Ryan yelled at the man, simultaneously holding Donna back, as she lunged at him, trying to reclaim her b
aby, her life, from the horrific man.

  The sound of Ryan’s voice made the man pause, and he seemed to search his cooked brain for an answer. This gave Ryan a second to grab the coffee pot unnoticed behind him. He would have just one shot. But he would need a distraction.

  “The money! Gimme all your goddamned money!” the crook screamed, apparently remembering what he had come for.

  Ryan thought quickly. “Do you mean the money in the living room or upstairs?” he asked, pointing to the left while tightening his grip on the pot handle.

  The man’s bloodshot eyes instinctively followed the pointing finger. He looked eagerly, as if expecting to see piles of cash that he had missed before.

  Ryan was already starting his swing as he released Donna and took a step toward the man. He was aiming for the top of the man’s head, but in his adrenalized state, he forgot to figure in his own height. As he came from behind his back swinging straight overhand, the pot hit the ceiling and shattered into a million Pyrex pieces. They were all showered in jagged glass.

  This brought the Horror Man back to attention and with Donna lunging at him, he hit the blender button. The machine lurched instantly to life with a full load of baby arm and creamed bananas and strawberries and started spewing pink slop over the top. Donna, fearing the mess was William’s arm, jumped across the room, and grabbed the only William-skin close to her, his other arm. She jerked it with all her might, fearing that she would tear it off, but surprisingly, the man was letting go.

  Ryan was regaining his composure after missing his chance to hit the guy with the pot. He still had the pot handle in his hand, and it had two screws sticking out where it had attached to the glass. He had never stabbed anyone with a pot handle, had never actually stabbed anyone at all, but this was not an ordinary day. He jabbed his hand straight out and drove the screws straight into the man’s eyes, fitting perfectly around his nose. This caused him to release the baby to Donna’s grasp and fall screaming to the floor. Ryan kicked him a few times for good measure, but the guy was out of commission. He was in severe pain. Ryan grabbed Donna, who was trying to comfort the still-howling baby, and held her tightly.

  Neither of them noticed the Horror Man move.

  The intruder moaned and Ryan whipped his gaze away from his wife and son. One of the man’s hands went to his face, grasping at the handle still lodged in his eyes. The other hand held a silver semi-automatic handgun, and it was aimed roughly in the direction of the little family.

  He couldn’t see, but he could pull a trigger. His first shot went wide and shattered the china dish that was a wedding gift from Ryan’s grandmother. The next four went into the walls leaving holes and little puffs of sheetrock dust. The sound was deafening in the small kitchen, and the acrid smell of gunpowder filled Ryan’s nose. Fear almost paralyzed him, but he realized he had to do something now or this monster was going to kill them all.

  He pushed Donna, who was crushing Billy to her chest, toward the door. He shoved her so hard she lost her balance and almost fell, but she got her feet moving toward the safety of outside. Nick dove on top of the Horror Man, reaching for the gun, trying to get it away from him.

  But it was too late. The last shot found its mark.

  Chapter 2

  The funeral was a blur. Ryan remembered bits and pieces of it—people expressing their sorrow and grief, half-sincere offers of help, and rage and indignation at a beautiful young life cut short. He was on autopilot, numbly shaking hands, exchanging hugs, and expressing thanks for people’s genuine efforts to comfort him. But through it all, a gnawing sense of guilt and shame chewed him up, making his stomach churn with nausea.

  He was a widower now. A single father. He had not been able to protect his wife from the monster. He could only hope that in her last seconds of life, before the light went out of her pretty blue eyes, she realized that Billy survived.

  He had survived with just a flesh wound, mostly because she had pulled him away before his arm was pulverized. Ryan took care of the man after he had emptied his gun, pounding him until the police arrived and pulled him off. Now, he faced a life alone raising his son.

  The little boy cried for his mother at night before he went to sleep. “Mom-mom?” he would ask.

  “She’s not here, honey. Go to sleep.” Ryan would try to comfort his son while stifling a sob of his own.

  “Mom-mom,” he would murmur sadly, as he would drift off in his father’s arms.

  The doctors had assured him that, being so young, Billy would have no memory of the traumatic events, but neither would he remember his mother. That thought left Ryan devastated because she was the better person of the two of them, and his son was being horribly short-changed. Ryan tortured himself with the thought, If only I had killed the SOB while I had the chance!

  But, he realized, he just wasn’t that person. At least at that moment. He had done his best, disabled him, but it was later found out that the man had smoked weed laced with “angel dust” and had more juice in him than Ryan had given him credit for. He thought he had put the man down, that there would be time to call the police, to get him out of there and go back to being a regular family. Now, nothing would ever be regular or normal again. He stared into the horizon, looking for answers.

  “Dude, snap out of it. It’s time to go,” said Stephen Douglass, his close friend from their high school days.

  “Huh? Oh, yeah, I know. It’s just that leaving means….” Ryan was still sitting in his chair near Donna’s casket in the cemetery. A cold wind blew a flower off the shiny bronze lid. It fell into the hole underneath, making him shudder. The burial crew shuffled off on the side of the road, eager to get his beloved underground so they could get home to their families. He was alone with Dawes, and it was time for them to go.

  “Yeah, I know man. But she’ll always be with you, with us, through Billy. No asshole can take that away from you,” Dawes said softly.

  It was what Ryan needed to hear. “You’re right. I have a kid to raise, and she would want me to focus on that. But I will always miss her. She was the love of my life….” Ryan trailed off, looking at the casket again.

  “Man, I know. You two had a marriage we all envied, and I can’t even imagine the pain you’re going through. But right now you have a reception to host, so we have to get you there. You can come back here when all the fuss dies down and spend some quiet time here. Talk to her, maybe,” he offered, trying to be helpful.

  “Okay,” Ryan said as he heaved himself to his feet and followed his friend, turning his back on his old, comfortable life.

  Chapter 3

  Fall 1983

  It turned out that the problem with the credit card in the store was not an isolated incident. Somehow his bank had swapped his accounts with a guy whose name was one letter different than his. This guy was going for Deadbeat of the Year, and Ryan suddenly found himself talking to bill collectors, auditors from the IRS, and a scary guy named Vic who actually came out to the house.

  He tried to explain that he wasn’t the guy that had caused all this trouble, and some were sympathetic, but more than one suggested that he pay the other guy’s bills, advising that it might be easier than trying to fix it. Ryan thought he was finally getting to the bottom of it when an eviction notice arrived at his house. Apparently his going to the bank and trying to work things out had not taken, and here he was staring at being homeless. Although he knew that it would take a while for even an aggressive mortgage company to force the eviction, it was still pretty unnerving and more than a little upsetting. Despite feeling that he was losing even more of himself, he decided that his best option was to move to get away from all of this money madness. As he stared at the For Sale sign in the yard of his cherished home, he marvelled at how much money effected everyone’s lives.

  Life settled into a routine for them. Ryan eventually returned to work and used a patchwork of family, friends, and babysitters for day care. He woke up in the morning, got ready for work, and took Billy to
whoever was watching him that day. He went off to his job, and at night, he returned and played with and read to his son until it was time for bed. He mostly ate alone, not having much interest in mixing with friends or family. His mind constantly circled the horrible events, and something kept poking at him. What caused this? he wondered for the five hundredth time. He stretched out on his sofa in the den with a grunt and opened his paper. His day had been routine, too routine, and his mind hungered for intellectual stimulation. This would come from the TV show Star Trek: The Next Generation, which was in reruns for about the nine millionth time. It was hard to get excited about something where you had practically memorized the dialogue, but when your workday was boring, something that was off in the cosmos could still grab you.

  At thirty-eight years old, Ryan stood about six feet two inches, and weighed about two hundred twenty pounds, so he was moving toward being a middle-aged, slightly overweight, suburban, white guy. He was acceptable looking in a bland sort of way. That is, most women did not look twice at him, unless it was in a bar with dim lighting. He was a federal government worker, with seventeen years in. He was a building manager, responsible for making sure that the building under his control was safe, operational, and efficient in its operations. There were many tenants in his seventeen story downtown high rise, and it had elevators, HVAC, roofs, and other building systems that had to have constant maintenance and upkeep. Not to mention security for sensitive areas, and janitorial services throughout, so it was a full-time, challenging job.

  When he had free time at work, he started to think about life in general. He read a lot, consuming novels in his youth and the newspaper, cover-to-cover, daily. He watched the news every day and was an ardent web surfer. He found himself gravitating toward Utopian sites, where people and “experts” discussed how to create the perfect world. He felt reasonably well-informed on most issues, and had his own opinions on the affairs of the world, which he generally kept to himself. He appreciated Abraham Lincoln’s saying, “A person never learned anything by talking,” and someone less prestigious, but no less accurate, “Opinions are like assholes, everyone’s got one, and they all stink.” He had used these sayings to remind himself to be a good listener. He found that what he had heard and learned throughout his life had left him dissatisfied.