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  The

  Cleansing

  Earth Haven:

  Book One

  Sam Kates

  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious.

  Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead,

  is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2013 by Sam Kates. All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Printed in the United States of America. First edition, December 2013.

  ISBN 978-1-62927-005-0

  Smithcraft Press

  1921 Michels Drive NE

  Palm Bay, FL 32905

  www.SmithcraftPress.com

  To Joanne

  for putting up with a husband

  often lost in imaginary worlds.

  Contents

  Part 1: Santa Claus is Coming to Town

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Part 2: In the Bleak Midwinter

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Part 3: Auld Lang Syne

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  About the Author

  Part 1:

  Santa Claus is

  Coming to Town

  Chapter One

  The message washed over her like a cold wave. She gasped and sank back into the armchair, which groaned beneath her bulk. She closed her eyes and saw the images, still so familiar to her after all this time: ebony spires and minarets and monoliths, great glass domes peering from the constantly shifting dunes, pyramids and ziggurats, obelisks and amphitheatres, and endless deserts of dark sands gleaming faintly in the baleful light of a dying sun.

  She gasped again as she saw the craft: vaster than a mountain range, blacker than night, sleeker than an otter’s hide. It was emerging from the desert floor, the sands broiling and parting; she could almost hear the slithering sound the sand made as it cascaded off the smooth sides of the craft.

  Her jaw set into a determined line as she opened her eyes. At last they were coming.

  It was time for her to send a message of her own.

  The armchair creaked and complained, then sighed as she pulled herself upright. From habit—there was nobody before whom she had to make herself presentable—she smoothed down her housecoat and walked in a rolling gait across the apartment to the work station upon which stood her computer.

  She eased herself into the chair that she’d had custom made; it supported her weight without so much as a creak. The work station stood before a picture window that looked out over Central Park. While she waited for the computer to boot up, she stared down at the people braving the December cold. Couples strolled beneath the weak morning sun, muffled and gloved and hooded against the biting winter breeze. Long-coated businessmen strode purposefully, clutching briefcases or portfolios, intent on reaching the cosy sanctuaries of their plush offices on Fifth or Madison. The occasional fitness enthusiast in jogging bottoms and sweat shirt bounded by. A chattering kindergarten class snaked along the paths, the children in woolly hats and gloves, the cold failing to douse their excitement at the field trip.

  She watched this snapshot of humanity and for a moment, only a moment, felt a pang of sorrow. Her broad brow wrinkled into a frown and she shook her head to clear it. This was no time for regrets.

  Returning her attention to the computer, she opened her e-mail application. The message had already been written. It had sat in her drafts folder for years, since she had first decided that e-mail would be a far simpler, relatively effortless way to spread the word. Of course, not every intended recipient of the message would have e-mail access. Even with today’s blanket coverage, some remote corners of the globe were out of reach or were blocked from communication with the outside world by isolationist governments. She had another method of reaching them; a method that would cost her a great deal of mental energy, but she was prepared. She had been prepared for many years.

  She opened the message from the drafts folder. It was simple, only four short sentences:

  They are coming. Begin immediately. Mercy is not an option. Acknowledge.

  The e-mail was set up to be sent to almost five thousand addresses, addresses that she had painstakingly kept up to date.

  Her right hand clutched the mouse, moving the cursor over the send button. Her index finger hovered over the left-click button of the mouse as she hesitated.

  She allowed herself one more glance out of the window, at the people moving through the Park, and was powerless to prevent a profound look of sadness from moving across her face like a dark shadow.

  Again she shook herself and her features hardened. Looking back at the computer screen, she pressed the send button.

  Mankind’s fate was thus sealed by the click of a mouse.

  * * * * *

  Two thousand miles or so across the Atlantic Ocean, Tom Evans glanced up at the clock on the classroom wall. Ten past three.

  He rose to his feet and stepped around the desk. Leaning back against it, he clapped his hands.

  “Everybody! Pay attention, please!”

  Twenty pairs of eyes turned towards him and two of those belonged to his teaching assistants. That was the beauty of teaching in a village school: manageable class sizes.

  “Right, then,” said Tom. “As you know, children, from all the chocolates you’ve been eating every morning before coming to school, we’re well into December.” One or two children giggled and Tom smiled. “There are only two weeks left in school before we break up for the Christmas holidays. So—on Monday, we’ll be starting rehearsals for the Nativity.”

  A murmur rippled through the class as children turned to each other and grinned or whispered excitedly.

  Tom clapped his hands once more and the children all stared up at him raptly.

  “Miss Jones and Mr Davies”—Tom nodded towards his teaching assistants—“will be helping me decide which parts you’ll all be playing. There’s Mary and Joseph, and the kings and shepherds, and angels, even the star.”

  “Mr Evans . . . Sir?”

  “Yes, James?”

  “Sir, can I be the baby Jesus? Sir, please?”

  Immediately, hands shot into the air as other children vied to stake their claims.

  “Sorry, James, but the baby Jesus is the one part that nobody will have.” Tom grinned wryly at his teaching assistants, recalling last year’s Nativity. The way that Mary had swung the baby Jesus by the legs, clonking His head on the manger, even dropping Him once or twice, had ensured that the part of the holy babe would always have to be played by a doll. “Hands down, everybody. You’ll all get a part, I promise.”

  Tom glanced again at the clock and straightened.

  “Okay, your mums and dads will be outside waiting to take you home so pack away quietly. Miss Jones and Mr Davies will help to make sure all your things go away into your trays. Oh, and one last thing—shush for one second, please. . . .” He held up a hand and the bustling ceased. “A few of you have been away from school with coughs and colds and flu, but I want you all fit and healthy to make this year’s Nativity the best one yet. So, no playi
ng outside this weekend unless you’re wrapped up warmly. I don’t want anybody catching chills and falling ill, okay?”

  “Yes, Mr Evans,” the class chorused.

  “Good! See you all on Monday, bright and breezy.”

  * * * * *

  On the other side of the world, darkness had long fallen in Sydney. The heat of the day had faded with the light, but the night breeze was balmy.

  Troy Bishop lay on his bed, naked, covers thrown back, resting. Not sleeping, for he rarely felt the need to sleep. Indeed, it was only habit and boredom that drove him to inertness on this night; the day had been so filled with life-regenerating sunlight that he felt bursting with energy, like a fully charged battery. He experienced the same problem each summer and had learned that he shouldn’t expend that energy merely for the sake of it. He sometimes became reckless with the joy of renewal and allowed that joy to overcome the restraint that usually kept him from indulging in his greatest and darkest pleasure. Also his most dangerous pleasure.

  So he lay still, listening to the sounds of the city through the open window and idly watching the curtain sway in the warm breeze. When his iphone pinged and the screen lit up to announce a message received, he didn’t turn to it immediately. He had been waiting so many years, so many hopes had been dashed, that he had stopped anticipating the only message that he yearned to receive.

  By the time he languidly turned onto his side and stretched out one hand to retrieve the phone from the bedside cabinet, its screen had darkened. He turned onto his back and held the phone above him while he pressed a button to relight the screen. When he saw who the message was from, he sat bolt upright and a low whistle escaped his lips.

  “Milandra,” he breathed. “At last.”

  He quickly opened and read the message. His tanned features twisted into a grin that contained no humour. The grin of a wolf.

  “Mercy is not an option?” Bishop snorted. “As if I need to be told that. . . .”

  * * * * *

  In downtown Los Angeles, the background hum of traffic increased as the rush hour began in earnest. Diane Heidler had only recently moved from Beverly Hills and had not yet grown accustomed to the noisier environment. Traffic was much heavier here, even outside the rush hours, the strident klaxons and wails of emergency vehicles more prevalent. She had even heard the occasional sounds of gunfire while she lay awake in the small hours.

  Diane had chosen to move after growing bored with the opulence of the Hills and what she considered the plasticity of its people. She was becoming increasingly fed up with L.A. in general and was considering moving further south, maybe to San Diego. She had already tried the north; had lived for many years in San Francisco, watching it grow and burn and grow again.

  But she couldn’t leave California; it was her area, her responsibility when the time came, though another shared the responsibility. He lived in Sacramento and would take care of the northern part of the state before pushing into Oregon. Sometimes she could sense him.

  Diane would look after the southern half of the state and would then head east towards Las Vegas, taking a winding, circuitous route to take in as many townships and smaller settlements along the way as she was equipped to handle.

  It wasn’t just boredom that had driven Diane to move downtown. Restlessness had grown in her of late. A restlessness that had to do with more than the tedium of her friendless, joyless existence. A sense of urgency was growing inside her; a sensation she had felt before, but not for many, many years. Something momentous was about to happen, she knew, without knowing how she knew.

  It therefore did not come as a huge surprise when her laptop made a sound like a light hammer blow on a tin bathtub that signalled the receipt of a message.

  Diane rose from the settee where she was sipping a morning coffee and strode across the small living room of her apartment to where her laptop sat on a leather-topped desk. She opened and read the message.

  Expressionless, she stared at the screen for a few moments. She didn’t know how to feel so she felt nothing. She sent a response to the message; just one word.

  She finished her coffee before starting to pack.

  * * * * *

  All around the globe, in most major cities, in many major towns and in various places in between, in almost five thousand locations all told, home computers and laptops and iphones and pagers bleeped, pinged, flashed, vibrated or buzzed to signify that a message had been received.

  Not every recipient was within earshot of the receiving medium; not every medium was turned on; not every message was received instantly it was sent: some had to be routed through a network of servers before reaching their destinations. But they all would arrive and be read within seven hours of Milandra pressing the send button.

  Almost without exception, every recipient responded to the message within minutes of receiving it. Almost.

  Chapter Two

  The large woman whose apartment overlooked Central Park in midtown Manhattan had only a first name. She had never needed a surname and so had never taken one. Though wealthy beyond measure, she held no bank accounts. Though she owned this swish apartment and another, equally salubrious, in Palm Beach, Florida, she was not named in any deeds or land transactions. She had no national security number or driving license. Though widely travelled, she held no passport. National authorities were not aware that she existed.

  She spent most of the winters in Florida, only returning to New York for the two weeks or so leading up to Christmas. There was something about Christmas that fascinated her. Not the religious significance or mythological aspect, but the spirituality that she sensed at this time of year; the general feeling of being part of something bigger, something more significant, more cosmic, that was shared by people of all races, religions and creeds. This sensation was stronger in the massed humanity of New York City than in Florida and attracted her back to the city at Christmas year after year. It reminded her of home. Of course, she also sensed the underlying cynicism, the desire to make a fast buck, the despair and loneliness that came to the fore during this season. Strangely, this too attracted her, making her marvel at the contradictions in mankind. She also wondered at herself; whether she was growing soft and sentimental. She could not afford to indulge such weaknesses.

  Within seconds of sending the e-mail around the world, she started to receive replies. They were terse and along similar lines:

  Acknowledged and complying or Message received and understood or Will action immediately.

  For thirty minutes, she sat in front of the computer and read each response, her face set grim. Only a couple of the replies gave her any pause. One was from California; just a one-word reply: Obeisance. Her eyes narrowed slightly as she stared at that word; for some reason that she could not put her finger on, it caused her a little disquiet.

  Then she read the response from Sydney in Australia and her frown deepened. The message was from Troy Bishop: Yes! At long last! It will be my great and undiluted pleasure to begin at once. Whoo-hoo!!! The last thing that Milandra expected or wanted was for anyone to derive pleasure from what they were about to do. She made a mental note to keep an eye on Bishop.

  The replies were now arriving thick and fast. The computer had been programmed to check each response against the addresses to which the original message had been sent and display at the side of the screen a list of recipients that had not yet responded. As her inbox rapidly filled, that list grew shorter.

  Milandra eased her bulk from the computer chair and moved back to her favourite armchair, again causing it to creak ominously as she settled into it. She pulled her cell phone from the pocket of her housecoat and speed-dialled a number. It rang once before being answered.

  “Milandra?” The voice was deep and resonant.

  “Jason, listen. I’ve been contacted. They are coming. It is in motion.”

  She heard a deep intake of breath and she waited. He did not disappoint her.

  “Okay,” said Jason. “I’ll
contact the others. We’ll stock up on perishables. We’ll be with you by lunchtime.”

  “Yes,” she said and broke the connection.

  She smiled, gratified by his reaction. No questioning whether she was sure; no panicking; no superfluous words. When she had chosen Jason Grant to be her immediate right-hand man, she had chosen well.

  Grant was one of four of what she liked to refer to as her ‘Deputies’. He would now be contacting the other three and they would go shopping for fruit, vegetables, dairy products and other short-to-mid-term perishable items. In addition to the refrigerator she had for everyday use, the kitchen in her apartment contained two industrial-sized refrigerators and freezers for the very purpose of storing all this produce that the Deputies would shortly be bringing. Her villa in Florida had a custom-built walk-in refrigerator for the same reason, though it would never now be employed for this purpose.

  Milandra remained in the armchair, listening to the pinging of the computer as more responses arrived. Even through the triple-glazing she could hear the faint sounds of New York on a December morning: the dull thrum of traffic; the honk of horns and squeal of brakes; a distant siren; a muffled shout. The rumble and grumble of a city alive and seething.

  Another look of deep sorrow creased her face.

  * * * * *

  Tom and his teaching assistants bustled about the classroom, straightening furniture, washing paint pots and brushes, wiping aprons and table-tops, feeding and watering guinea pigs, all the while chatting about the Nativity and which child should play which part.

  By four o’clock, they were almost finished.

  “Any plans for the weekend, you two?” Tom asked.

  “I’m meeting up with some old school friends tonight,” said Mark Davies. “Not seen them in a while so it’ll be good to catch up.”

  “And a couple of pints while you’re at it?”

  “Oh, one or two.” Mark returned Tom’s grin.

  “What about you, Lisa?”

  “Um, nothing much tonight,” said Lisa Jones. “A spot of Christmas shopping in Cardiff tomorrow and. . . .” She paused, cheeks dimpling as she smiled, green eyes twinkling mischievously. “Tomorrow night I have a tryst planned with my secret lover.”