The Divide: Origins
Read The Divide: Origins Online
Authors: Mitchel Grace
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
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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.
“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.
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?