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    Just Another Quiet Little Town
    Just Another Quiet Little Town
    Just Another Quiet Little Town
    Ebook254 pages4 hours

    Just Another Quiet Little Town

    By J.S. Frankel

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    About this ebook

    City dweller Gabe Common, seventeen and a high school dropout, has just moved with his mother to Chumsville, South Dakota, a speck in the eye of humanity. With a population of around three hundred people, Gabe is resigned to spending his summer studying online and watching the wheat grow.

    It all changes when he wakes up one morning and finds most of Chumsville’s population gone, including his mother. Along with the other survivors, he finds that an impenetrable barrier has surrounded the town which allows people to enter but not leave. To make matters even stranger, he finds wings growing from his body, and the other residents exhibit changes as well, some of them interesting and many of them frightening.

    Soon the Changed, as Gabe comes to call them, are met by the FBI, and they are just as bewildered as everyone else is. Tensions mount as the heat rises, harsh words are exchanged, and sides are drawn. Once Gabe discovers the reason for their transformation, he has to deal with another matter—the darkness of the human heart. It is only then that he learns what it is to confront evil and face it down, even if it might cost him his life.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublishereXtasy Books Inc
    Release dateApr 1, 2016
    ISBN9781487405816
    Just Another Quiet Little Town

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      Book preview

      Just Another Quiet Little Town - J.S. Frankel

      Magic is in the air tonight... but what kind of magic, no one can say.

      City dweller Gabe Common, seventeen and a high school dropout, has just moved with his mother to Chumsville, South Dakota, a speck in the eye of humanity. With a population of around three hundred people, Gabe is resigned to spending his summer studying online and watching the wheat grow.

      It all changes when he wakes up one morning and finds most of Chumsville’s population gone, including his mother. Along with the other survivors, he finds that an impenetrable barrier has surrounded the town which allows people to enter but not leave. To make matters even stranger, he finds wings growing from his body, and the other residents exhibit changes as well, some of them interesting and many of them frightening.

      Soon the Changed, as Gabe comes to call them, are met by the FBI, and they are just as bewildered as everyone else is. Tensions mount as the heat rises, harsh words are exchanged, and sides are drawn. Once Gabe discovers the reason for their transformation, he has to deal with another matter—the darkness of the human heart. It is only then that he learns what it is to confront evil and face it down, even if it might cost him his life.

      The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

      Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

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

      Just Another Quiet Little Town

      Copyright © 2016 J.S. Frankel

      ISBN: 978-1-4874-0581-6

      Cover art by Martine Jardin

      All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

      Published by eXtasy Books Inc or

      Devine Destinies, an imprint of eXtasy Books Inc

      Look for us online at:

      www.eXtasybooks.com or www.devinedestinies.com

      Smashwords Edition

      Just Another Quiet Little Town

      By

      J.S. Frankel

      Dedication

      To my wife, Akiko, and to my children, Kai and Ray, for you have always been there when I needed you most.

      Chapter One: The Town, the People, and the Really Big Happening

      June Seventeenth, Present Day

      Gabe Common rammed his shovel into the hard earth, scooped out a large clod of dirt and weeds, heaved it off to one side with all the force he could muster, and wondered what he was doing here at five-thirty in the morning. He leaned on the handle as he took a breather. With an effort, he lifted the shovel to shoulder height, but his muscles seized up and he decided to take another few minutes to get ready.

      While shaking out his arms and legs, he felt the burn of lactic acid and he ached all over. Beads of sweat rained from his head and stung his eyes. He put his right hand up to swipe the offending moisture away and his palm stung as well.

      Looking at the palm of his right hand first then his left, pockets of swelling tissue had already formed. Great, blister time, something to cherish and adore and did it have to be now? This wasn’t the kind of job he envisioned himself doing, certainly not at this hour.

      Gazing out over the length and breadth of the area, it was still dark and hard for him to see. While other, normal people slept in—or at least, should have been in bed—here he was in a cemetery, shoveling dirt like a slave. His mother wanted him to fit into the community, so she’d kindly volunteered his services the night before and thanks a lot for the advice, mom. While it pissed him off at the time, what choice did he have?

      You could have said no, he’d said to his mother.

      She sat on the couch perusing a book. It’s community service, Gabe. It won’t take long.

      Community service my...

      Back in the here and now, he started to think the worst thoughts then squelched them. What did it matter? A shiver traveled up and down his spine due to a faint chill in the air, and he hoped Carl would say yes and bail him out early. And who wanted to clean up a cemetery, anyway? Talk about ghoulish. Something he’d seen on television about waking the dead...

      Hey Gabe, a voice called.

      Turning around, the short and stocky form of Carl Denham emerged from out of the gloom. He was carrying a large bundle of weeds and dried grass under his arm. Are you finished with the digging? he asked in a gruff voice.

      Just about, give me a second.

      After dusting off his hands, Gabe hefted the shovel and drove it into the hard dirt. Weeds were the enemy, and he’d been on the hunt for those pesky clumps of tough grass ever since he’d started. His hands and lower back hurt, his body cried for sleep, and his stomach whined for sustenance...

      A loud clinking resounded, as if the metal end of his shovel had struck something other than hard dirt. Hey! he called out. I, uh, I think I broke something.

      Even in the darkness, his eyes registered the slight wisp of purplish-blue smoke wafting up. He coughed and waved it away. What was that?

      Carl stared as the smoke drifted off in the direction of the town, slowly dissipating as it went. Probably old clothes turned to dust, he muttered. What did you hit?

      I don’t know, Gabe said, once more wondering why he was out here. Oh yeah, right, he knew why. It constituted part of his farming education. Digging up weeds was so edifying. Maybe it’s an old grave...

      Abruptly, he stopped speaking and twisted his head as laughter, high and faint, floated down from above. Did you hear that?

      Carl obviously hadn’t, as he crouched down to run his hand in the hole. Apparently finding nothing, he got up, grunting as he did so. What did you say?

      I asked you if you heard someone laughing.

      A quiet, taciturn type, Denham must have thought the comment funny as he gave a short, sharp bark of amusement. It’s early in the morning, we’re out in the open, and the air plays tricks with you sometimes. Anyway, he added as he massaged his lower back, this must be an old grave. I’ve never seen it, and I was born here.

      He muttered something about aging—he was fifty-four—and walked off, pausing long enough to say, Take ten minutes and relax. I’ve got to find a bag to put all this in.

      Gabe went back to leaning on his shovel, took in the wide green and golden-brown fields of corn and wheat, and let out a sigh of frustration. He’d been living in this little town for less than a month and somehow it seemed like forever...

      Three Weeks Ago

      We’re moving, his mother said to him as he studied his texts in their cramped two-room apartment in Chicago. He’d been sitting scrunched over at his used desk in the living room which doubled as his mother’s workspace, poring through a Sociology text.

      Her statement caused him to sit up. We are—again?

      The elder Common didn’t follow up her initial statement. Instead, she sat in front of her computer, typed steadily away, and occasionally muttered something as if communicating with an inner force meant to guide her hand and pen her next great work.

      His mother, a one-hit literary wonder, drinker, neglectful and self-absorbed with her career, had taken him from one city to the other. She got hammered at parties, basically just came back to wherever they were living at the time to type, drink and sleep, and he wondered when it would end. It’ll end when I get my book finished, she’d snapped at him when he’d asked.

      An apology immediately followed. Sorry, Gabe, it’s all the pressure I’m under.

      Apologies—he’d been listening to them for the better part of nine years and by now he was used to her feeding him false hopes and dreams. A part of him wanted to tell her that he loved her, needed her to act as his mother.

      One second later, another part of him said, let it go, she needs to find her dream. It became his fantasy to move out and find his own destiny, but reality always intruded. At the age of seventeen, he was a minor, had zero cash and zero prospects. Without even a high school diploma, he had to put up with it.

      Where to this time? he asked, weary of the constant pack-up-and-go routine.

      Perhaps his mother caught the tone in his voice. If she did, nothing in her facial expression showed it. All it showed was indifference. It’s a small town in South Dakota.

      What could he say to that? In a word, nothing, so he turned back to his textbook and wondered what his new home would be like. Since the age of seven, he and his mother had moved around the country at a frightening pace. By his count, he’d lived in at least twelve cities and been up to Canada once.

      His mother had been writing about life in the suburbs since he was old enough to know what the word meant. While it had given him a great chance to see the country, it had also taken away his chance to make friends, at least on a long-term basis. Mom, are we going to stay more than six months this time around?

      We’ll see what happens.

      Short and overweight with a red nose lined with broken capillaries, the sign of a heavy drinker, his mother gave him a false smile as false as her dark hair dye job. All this fakery made him hate his lifestyle and rage against his mother for pulling him along with her. You promised, Mom, he said, trying not to whine and failing.

      Gabe, this is my livelihood, she stated in a sober don’t mess with me voice, and rapped her index finger sharply on the table. It was surprising she was sober to begin with. I get paid to do this, and you get a chance to travel. What are you missing out on?

      If she couldn’t see the forest for the trees, there was no help available for the fail in this scenario. He put down the textbook and looked at her. Right away, he realized her mind was on other things besides parenthood, mainly because her eyes were glued to the computer.

      What do you think, Mom? He tried to keep the angst out of his voice. Tried... but couldn’t. I’m missing out on friendship, parties, maybe meeting someone nice—the usual stuff. We travel, you write, and I study online. That isn’t what I call a regular life.

      A look of vexation twisted across his mother’s profile. The sharp downturn of her mouth was a dead giveaway, and after blowing out a deep breath, she swiveled around to face him. Gabe, it’s important to me. This pays the bills and it’s not going to be forever. This next place is the last one, I promise.

      She promised. That’s what she’d said the last time and the time before, but it never worked out. Whatever protests he mounted, they went with the wind, and her excuse of Gabe, your father’s not around anymore and this pays for your future invariably arose.

      When the arguments got hot and heavy—and they usually did—she sought refuge in the kitchen where a bottle of Scotch sat on the table. She couldn’t even be bothered to hide it in a cupboard. With a practiced flick of her wrist, off came the cap then the boozing began.

      Soon, her eyes would get bleary. In the beginning he used to help her up to bed, but after a few years of putting up with the same crap, he just left her wherever she’d decided to get hammered.

      And she would have to mention his father. Like the elder Common, Gabe stood around five-ten with a slender swimmer’s body. Every time he looked in the mirror, he saw himself as being average in every way, with blue eyes, thick brown hair, an angular face, and a long nose.

      His mother, though, when she wasn’t toasted, often told him his eyes were his best feature. Blue, like the sky on a summer’s day, she’d repeat. They make me think of summer, the best season of the year.

      Well, a person had to have something going for them. Some of the girls he’d met in school said the same thing. Coming from them, it was a major ego boost. However, he’d never hung around any one place long enough to establish a relationship.

      Blame it on his mother’s lifestyle. Gabe’s father died when he was seven. Heart attack, the doctors said. His mother, having never worked a day in her life, mourned, drank to ease the pain, worried aloud about school and bills, and for some unknown reason got the bug to write about their hometown of Green Bay, Wisconsin. Surprise, surprise, people wanted to read it.

      It’s not a bestseller, she’d said at the time, but it’ll pay the bills.

      All of that had happened almost ten years ago. She’d written a few decent novels during their time in each city, made some more than decent coin, spent most of it, and now, returning to the near present, they were about to move to Chumsville, an out of the way place so out of the way few maps had it listed. It’s small, right? he’d asked her.

      It’s pretty tiny.

      She didn’t elaborate and he didn’t bother asking for more details. What was the use, anyway? His mother paid the bills and he followed along. All he needed was a leash.

      It turned out to be just as she’d described. Chumsville wasn’t even really a town. It was a blip on the map, a speck in God’s eye. It lay between Hand and Faulk Counties in South Dakota.

      Upon his arrival there, Gabe took in the green fields, tall grass, farmhouses, and silos. All he needed to make his life complete was the pig from that old television show.

      His mother had rented a house and once their Internet got set up, she started writing. The locals seemed perplexed at the idea of big-city people coming all the way out to nowhere in order to get ideas. They also considered the Common’s outsiders because they were from the city and knew not about the ways of the earth or the beasts of the field.

      Even the name of this place—it had a population of slightly over three hundred people—didn’t match Gabe’s expectations. The move from high gear to neutral was a big one. The name itself implied friendliness, but the people didn’t really extend themselves, not at first. Trying to make friends, he got a few names and not much else.

      One of the farmers, a short and stocky middle-aged man named Carl Denham, asked him during his first week there if he’d ever been on a farm. Uh, no, I haven’t, sir, he mumbled.

      Denham grunted out his response. Well, you might as well learn. Come on over to my place.

      Gabe tried his hand at baling hay, feeding chickens, and milking cows, and the puzzled looks he got as he worked were enough to make him think becoming Farmer Jones was a bad idea. Clumsy wasn’t quite the right word to describe him. The first word that came to mind was inept.

      When looking at the cow’s feeding stations, he faced the wrong way and asked, You want me to pull on those?

      Mrs. Cow had a temper and kicked his leg three times before the farmer stepped in to halt the slaughter. With a wry smile on his face as he pulled Gabe out of harm’s way, he said, You’d better stick with the books, son. This kind of life ain’t for you.

      Although this situation deserved a smartass answer, Gabe managed to refrain from doing so. Instead, he massaged his aching leg while the farmer waved his hand at the barn door. Forget about milking cows. Let me show you around.

      Ten minutes later, they stood at the edge of the highway and Denham proceeded to give him a quick geography lesson. Chumsville isn’t what you city folk would consider a town. It’s just a long stretch of farmyards and wheat and cornfields two miles square on either side of that there highway.

      With a stubby forefinger, he pointed at highway two-one-two. It led to Faulk County, a forty-five minute drive away. Jerking his thumb in the opposite direction, he added with a chuckle, Hand County is that way. Won’t take you too long to figure out where you’re going.

      Gabe strolled around the area, taking in the sights of old wooden houses with barns and silos nearby. Even though Chumsville had a population of less than three hundred people, the farms and their adjacent structures lay far away from each other. It wasn’t ideal for face-to-face communication. He’d moved to the middle of nowhere.

      The local diner remained the focal point of the town, situated dead center, along with one small general store. No post office or hospital. If you needed medical treatment, you went to Pierre.

      At the other end of town lay Ben Waterston’s barn. In between the one major landmark, the farmers worked and went about their daily lives. Miller’s general store handled mail delivery and other dry goods sales. Living with farmers who only talked about crops and weather amounted to a huge slice of boring.

      As for the history of the mote in the world’s eye. As far as I know, Carl started to explain, Chumsville once belonged to a larger set of towns. There’s another guy here named Percy Fishlake. His family goes back a long way. I’ll introduce you to him.

      At Percy’s house, a prim and quaint looking structure of wood and white paint, something out of an Andrew Wyeth painting, the one thing about the downstairs living room outside of the standard furniture and television that stood out was the number of bookshelves which covered every wall. All of the books looked to be very old.

      Percy, short, bald, middle-aged, and as plain-looking as a blank sheet of paper, welcomed his visitors inside. I see you’re admiring my books. His voice, high and reedy, sounded snobbish. They’ve been in my family for decades. I have the complete history of this town in my home.

      Uh-huh, Gabe said trying to muster up the enthusiasm. That sounds interesting.

      Truthfully, he didn’t roll that way. Libraries and farming were two alien subjects. To him, fun meant movies and shopping malls and bookstores, not hoe-downs and chasing chickens and shucking corn.

      Still, no room for rudeness here, so he let Percy prattle on about how his family came here long ago, became farmers, and lived off the land. I’m a little different than my ancestors. I’ve never been one for farming, just for reading. I have a degree in library science and this is how I spend my days.

      And while you spend your days reading, I get to study online and watch my mother come home hammered. It all sounds cool, er, interesting, Mr. Fishlake, he said, attempting to be polite. But, I’ve got to study. Excuse me, sir.

      Half-assed excuse given, he walked out of the house and went home, almost grateful for the chance to get back online and study—almost...

      The sound of approaching feet startled Gabe from his daydream and jerked him back to reality. So as not to appear as if he was shirking his duty, he began to gather up all the weeds and clumps of dirt. Carl proffered the bag. I’ll help you, he said.

      Ten minutes later all was done and Carl

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