Abduction Revelation II: Truth Be Told (The Comeback Kid) Read online

  ABDUCTION REVELATION

  II

  Truth Be Told

  Thomas L. Hay

  Copyright © 2016 Thomas L. Hay

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN:

  1

  DEDICATION

  Again, to my lovely wife for giving me inspiration, ideas, and the space to write this sequel. She has earned another sea cruise.

  To my computer, for an astonishing recovery from a nasty virus. Afterward, they said you were out of date and needed a facelift, but with a little TLC, you sucked it up and got me through another book.

  To Office Max for curing and restoring my virus infected computer.

  To my manuscript appraiser and editor, Loretta Leslie, to whom I can’t say thank you enough. Her remarkable insights and guidance lifted my story to greater heights.

  A special thanks to my proofreader, Mark Schultz, for finding many issues that I had overlooked.

  To my cover designer Tanja Grubisic. What an awesome cover she designed. If it’s true that a book can be judged by its cover, then her cover should put me on the New York Best Seller list.

  1

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Preview

  Prelude 5

  Chapter One....................Escape 7

  Chapter Two....................Back to the Past 15

  Chapter Three..................Parenthood 31

  Chapter Four....................Three Times a Charm 49

  Chapter Five.....................Life Goes On 71

  Chapter Six.......................Dream Weaver 99

  Chapter Seven...................Recollection 113

  Chapter Eight....................Monroe Returns 121

  Chapter Nine.....................A New Revelation 127

  Chapter Ten.......................Improbable 133

  Chapter Eleven..................Back to the Future 139

  Chapter Twelve.................Legitimacy 147

  Chapter Thirteen...................Exploration 153

  Chapter Fourteen..................Exploration II 165

  Chapter Fifteen.....................Assimilation 187

  Chapter Sixteen.....................Conflict 195

  Chapter Seventeen................Trapped 201

  Chapter Eighteen...................Survival 211

  Chapter Nineteen...................Rescue 217

  Chapter Twenty.....................Aftermath 223

  Chapter Twenty-one..............Veracity 237

  Chapter Twenty-two..............Diversion 247

  Epilogue 259

  About the Author 263

  1

  PREVIEW

  My grandson had brought me and many others to the future to help preserve the human race. He had convinced us we could help save mankind from extinction.

  Well, getting shot at by your kinfolk and his cronies ain’t doing much for my preservation.

  So why, pray tell, was he now attempting to splatter my guts all over the wasteland?

  PRELUDE

  Howdy! Welcome back. Nice to see you again.

  I see your curiosity has gotten the best of you. You have somehow discovered that my story had not ended. I know, after the last sitting, we both thought it was The End.

  Well, as Gomer Pyle would say, “Surprise, surprise, surprise.” Due to unforeseen circumstances, it came to light that An Abduction Revelation was just the beginning of the end. A new revelation has dawned, and I am compelled to share it with you. So pull up a chair and let’s get down to the nitty-gritty.

  I must warn you, though, if you experienced a mind blow in An Abduction Revelation you might get completely blown away after hearing this one. Some of you might have thought that my story was a bit far-fetched. You might still be wondering, was it reality or my imagination? Or maybe a blend of both? Well, this sequel might shed additional light or have you scratching your head even more.

  However, if you’ve just stumbled in and are a first time visitor, stop right now and read An Abduction Revelation first.

  For those of you who have read An Abduction Revelation; you may now begin your next adventure…

  CHAPTER ONE

  Escape

  SWISH! BAMM! CA’BOOM!

  The posse was hard on my tail with the rain of their laser beams interrupting the eerie silence of the night. I raced through a wasteland dodging colored beams and trying to find cover.

  SWISH! BAMM! CA’BOOM!

  “SON-OF-A-BITCH!” I shouted in pain.

  A laser beam had just scorched the side of my head as it ricocheted off a dead tree I had passed in my frantic flight. The beam chewed off a large chunk of bark and left a big smoldering hole. It probably missed scrambling my brain by one small gray hair. The stench of burnt flesh strained my nostrils.

  Christ, give me a break, I thought as I stopped to catch my breath.

  I raised my hand to the side of my head to assess the damage. My blood-smeared fingers held a small chunk of my right ear. The blood and ear were quickly washed away as it started raining cats and dogs.

  The icy-cold, numbing downpour just added to my misery. I was soon soaked to the bone and shivering like a vibrator on its high mode.

  Shit! That was too close for comfort. You best keep moving and keep your head down, Tommy boy.

  I’d been dodging numerous laser beams ever since I escaped the Dome. The laser gun just happened to be the nasty little weapon here in the future. It could drill a hole in you the size of your fist within a millisecond.

  Where are the screaming, anti-gun fanatics when you need them?

  It seemed everyone chasing me had some sort of a weapon and was bound determined to terminate my sorry ass. I couldn’t even find a stick or stone to fight back with. Come on man, something would be better than nothing. This most definitely was not a fair fight. The ACLU would have a field day with this.

  It would have probably been a good idea to have checked the weather report before leaving on this dreary evening. But then, I really didn’t have time to contemplate the circumstances. My outside contact had convinced me that they were on to me. He recommended I best be getting out of Dodge on the double. I took his advice and skedaddled, with only the shirt on my back and no forethought to any consequences.

  The wasteland outside the Dome was really not an ideal place to be on the run. Especially in this barren terrain and in this type of nasty weather.

  Monroe must have gotten wind that I had flown the coop because he and few of his warriors had been hot on my trail ever since I left. It had to be that damn tracking device they had installed because I had discarded the communication helmet right after departing the Dome. In my haste to make tracks, I had forgotten about the darn tracking device implanted in my toe. Talk about a dilly of a mistake. No matter where I ran, there weren’t no getting away from them. But I’m not getting rid of my big toe, not yet anyway. There’s got to be a better solution.

  As you probably recall, my grandson had brought me and many others to the future to help preserve the human race. He had convinced us we could help save mankind from extinction.

  Well, getting shot at by your kinfolk and his cronies ain’t doing much for my preservation. About now, I’m convinced he manufactured one big fat lie. Or maybe I should say, he didn’t tell the truth, the whole true, and nothing but the truth, so help him, God.

  So why, pray tell, was he now attempting to splatter my guts all over the wasteland?

  Right now, your guess is as good as mine. But on second thought, I probably know the answer. Talk about being naive and gullible. It took a while, but eventually I discovered wha
t it was that Monroe had been hiding. When the truth was exposed, I knew there was really only one option. I had to join other originals like me who had left the Dome earlier. Some had told me that we had been deceived, but I hadn’t believed them. Not until now.

  It was impossible to find food and shelter out here, let alone a friendly face. But, my contact, had assured me there would be no problems. He said he had it all planned out. A piece of cake, were his assuring words. I seemed to have this problem of taking people at their word.

  Then he had to go and get in the way of one of those deadly laser beams before he had time to let me in on the plan. I was in a heap of trouble now, to say the least.

  Chilled to the bone, feelin’ and most likely lookin’ like a wet rat strung out on a high wire, I was now on the run out here in no man’s land. I hadn’t a clue what to do or where to go. I’d been running around like a chicken with its head cut off for several hours. I knew I should have stayed in bed this morning, ‘cause it’s obvious I got up on the wrong side.

  SWISH! BOOM! CA’BAMM!

  Here we go again!

  Laser beams again lit up the dark and gloomy night. My surroundings started to resemble a scene straight out of a Terminator movie. The bad guys had the upper hand and looked to exterminate anything and everything that moved, which obviously included yours truly.

  Christ! You best move your butt, Tommy boy, I reminded myself. The bad guys are a comin’ and their laser beams are singin’ your death song.

  One big gigantic problem here. I hadn’t the slightest idea where to run. Where does one run in a wasteland, when getting fired upon, with no place to hide? I just knew I’d best get movin’ or I’d soon be toast, with my peanut butter and jelly scattered to kingdom come.

  Another laser blast hit a dead tree right above my head. This provoked me to make like a scared jackrabbit and high-tail it as fast as my legs could carry me. I should have been going to the gym and stayed in shape, ’cause the muscles in my legs were cramping. Hindsight is not foresight. But then, who would have foreseen that I would be dodging laser beams 170 years in the future.

  Come on man, I’m getting to old for this shit.

  These heroics belonged to my Marvel hero buddies who never seem to grow old. But they, again, were nowhere in sight.

  My sudden movement intensified the laser beams, which made a bad situation even worse. All the laser lights had me thinking I was in the middle of a rock concert, only it wasn’t music blasting me.

  A box of Russell Stover assorted chocolates would come in handy right about now. I could definitely sense some post-traumatic stress disorder coming on.

  I heard someone shout, “Set your lasers to stun. We must take him alive.”

  Somehow, those words were not very reassuring. I had no idea what a ‘stun’ would feel like and I was not about to hang around to find out.

  I hadn’t run far, when another ear-splitting blast and its force propelled me through the air. Hey, I ain’t no Superman, nor Spiderman, but I took to the air without a cape or web.

  It was not a soft or dry landing. The wind was knocked out of me as I flew head over heels, tumbled, and crashed face down in a horrendous, stinky mud puddle. A dank smell of mold hung in the air as its gritty scent made me want to puke. It was not where I, nor anyone for that matter, would want to dine.

  I immediately felt an uninvited, boney and rock hard object. I tried to grasp whatever it was that wanted me in its grip, but all I got was a hand full of smelly, squiggly, nasty looking varmints. I’d have protested, but my mouth was filled with slimy muck one might take for baby poop. It left me gagging with my nostrils screaming for fresh air.

  While thrashing about, I latched onto a boney fleshless hand. Up popped a human skeleton with me in its arms, wanting to be my buddy. Not the type of hug anyone would crave.

  AHHH! Jesus Christ! Get off of me you skinny son of a bitch!

  With the strength of someone possessed, I hurled that frightening sucker off me. Hey, I appreciate a hug now and then, but not with someone on a crash diet. I felt my blood pressure spike ‘cause it scared the you-know-what out of me. I didn’t have my ‘old fart’ diapers on for this event, which just added to the stench and my misery.

  My frantic thrashing about caused the mud hole to suck me further into its nightmare. I had sailed smack dab into some frickin’ rats that had been gnawing on the skeleton bones. You know how I hate them squirmy suckers. But they would be the least of my worries.

  I tried to crawl and paw my way out of the mud pit again. Every time I gained some momentum, the cesspool sucked me back under its oozing muck. I finally touched something hard, hoping it wasn’t another boney hand. Do I grasp it or what? Desperation told me to grab it. It was a tree root, and I finally made my way out of the hellhole, only to find myself in an even worse predicament.

  As I looked up, I saw Monroe charging on a huge and really mean lookin’ black stallion. The stallion’s fiery red eyes spoke of the devil himself. Fire shot from its nostrils as it reared to trample me. The thought of being a trampled carcass was not very reassuring, so I frolicked back into the mud hole to escape the flying hooves of a horse with no name.

  Monroe’s head was enveloped in a blue static electric halo that was certainly not of an angel. Behind him charged a band of his warriors screaming bloody murder with their laser guns spittin’ hell-fire, and damnation.

  My little bugged eyed grandson waved a sword type weapon that shot a laser beam from its tip. Flashing him the Vulcan peace sign had no effect. The evil sense of satisfaction written all over his face told me he was hell bent on putting some hurt on me.

  A blast from his laser sword dissipated the two middle fingers on my left hand. Before I could contemplate the pain, another blast hit a dead tree just a few feet to my right. Thank God, the unsteady horse was disturbing his aim.

  “Jesus Christ, Monroe, will you lighten up,” I shouted, showing him the hand with two missing fingers. “That was uncalled for you earless little gimp.”

  I could have sworn someone had said to set their laser’s to ‘stun’. Apparently, ‘that someone’ hadn’t gotten the message.

  I heard a cracking noise and turned to watch, in slow motion, as a dead tree fell towards me. I was frozen in my tracks as it smothered me under its mass. The weight of the tree pinned me beneath the mucky water. I was back in the arms of the skeleton and among the frickin’ rats.

  My lungs had begun to fill with the murky, smelly water as I grasped for a straw. This was turning into one horrendous nightmare.

  A horrific blood-curdling scream, which gyrated from deep within my gargling throat, jolted me from my sleep. The scream protruded through my body, bolted me upright and back to reality. It scared the crap out both Karen and me.

  “What is it, Tom?” she asked as she wrapped her loving arms around me.

  I was shaking like a leaf on a very windy March day. The bed sheets were soaked in my sweat. My heart was pounding like I had just crossed the finish line in a marathon.

  Lord have mercy! Another nightmare and it was a dilly. The dreams had increased these past few weeks.

  For Pete’s sake. What the hell is going on with Tom?

  CHAPTER TWO

  Back to the Past

  It has been 37 years since Tom and I traded places. Monroe had returned me (Tom-Tom) to Tom’s timeline of October 1978, after he installed a memory block and a tracking device. Time wise, Tom had only been absent less than a millisecond. NASA never came calling, Tom never met Monroe, never traveled to the future, and I hadn’t a clue I was his clone.

  During those 37 years, I changed jobs, moved back to the Midwest, had several more relationships go belly up, became a single parent, found ‘the love of my life’, retired to my dream world, and wrote my memoirs.

  I am now having trouble recognizing the ‘old fart’ that stares back at me in the mirror. Age has stiffened my joints and turned what hair I have left to silver gray going on white.

&nbs
p; I now have three sizes of clothes in the closet, two of which I will probably never wear again.

  Today I am the oldest I have ever been and the youngest I will ever be. Once upon a time, someone said that with age comes maturity and with maturity comes wisdom. But I haven’t noticed that my IQ has increased, but my waist line sure has. Reckon I shouldn’t fret about aging, because should I live long enough, I’ll be feeling like a newborn baby again; no hair, no teeth, and back in diapers.

  *****

  Let’s pick up my story now from where Monroe had returned me as Tom-Tom.

  As you recall, Tom’s second wife, Fiza, had just disappeared and he was in a state of shock. It was a struggle to get though each day, as gloomy thoughts of her disappearance assailed him.

  He could only speculate what actually happened to her or how she disappeared. He missed her more than life itself. He craved the feel of her hand in his, the taste of her sweet kisses of wine, the embrace of her warm body, and the sensual love making they had shared. Only it’s me (Tom-Tom) who is now wallowing in his agony.

  Adding to my distress, I started having weird dreams of being lost in a strange futuristic world and longing to return home.

  I traveled across continents laid barren to several Domes, each a replica of one another. The beings that occupied the Domes all looked and dressed the same. They were humanoid but apparently not human.