The Homestretch

Watch the book trailer for Time: A Wayfarers Story . You'll be introduced to Sarah Marsden who finds herself walking the old Erie Canal Towpath seeking freedom and safety. It's the End of Days, and it's not the time for a young woman to be walking the old path alone in winter's harsh elements! Get Time: A Wayfarers Story in Kindle and paperback on Amazon . Kindle Unlimited users can read it for free!  

  We join Sarah as she makes her way through Fayetteville, New York: Modest ranch houses lined North Burdick Street across from the shopping center. Several of them stood in defiance of Reconstruction Solstice and were splendidly decorated with Christmas lights. The postage stamp front yards of the homes featured nativity scenes and Santa in a sleigh pulled by eight reindeer. A fifteen-foot-tall pine tree in one yard was strung with red and green lights and featured a lighted silver and gold star at the top that managed to stay attached during the gusts of wind. The owner of another house had been the sound tech for False Walrus on their final tour. On a flatbed trailer with a plywood backing and roof he had set up a sound system with two speaker columns, each comprised of a 15” woofer, a 12” mid-range, and a horn for high-end. From an amplifier and mixing console in the living room he pushed music out at 1,600 watts while the lights arrayed around the outside of the home blinked i...

  The signs of the desecration and destruction that were the Reconstruction were everywhere. A sign in front of the Episcopal church across the street read “Christmas Eve Service Cancelled. Happy R-Solstice.” Spray-painted on the public library’s door was come new world savior , each word done in one of the RYBB colors. It seemed that everyone knew the red, yellow, blue, and black, but they had yet to see the figure that would claim to be the god of it. The police station behind the library had been abandoned after it was trashed by rioters in November. The windows were boarded up, and on one of them was spray-painted WE POLICE OURSELVES . On another was the upside-town “T” known as a falsum, which was part of the UpTack Security logo. On yet another section of plywood was a human eye painted by someone with artistic skill. The iris was done in red, yellow, and blue, while the pupil remained black. Below the eye in black paint was the letter C, and below that was U. When...

  Alias Elvis tunes into AM 63, where he catches a broadcast by pirate radio personality Donny Bee sharing useful nuggets of information: “Right now, it’s fiat military rule until the regional governors are installed after the transition into the North American Union is finalized. There won’t be any more voting, do you understand? You see that your retirement benefits are now provided by a world financial consortium, right? You see there’s nothing but RYBBCoin, right? “Are you hungry? I’ll bet you are by golly! Did you prepare all those months ago? Of course, you didn’t, because you thought Uncle Government would provide for you, because after all, you paid into it, right? “Normalcy bias is like brain damage folks, yessir! You think because you’ve got your Abundant Life digital applique and your roll up your sleever and your ALL phone that everything is taken care of, don’t you? Well, expect consistent outages with the Abundant Life payment system because the real Mark of the Beast...

  To assure herself of her desirability outside of the superlatives of one man’s description, she uttered “I’m blond-haired, blue-eyed, and small-boned. I’m pretty, and I’m physically fit from being a runner. I’m smart and witty, and I’m very loving. I’ve been told that I’m sexy. I’m a good singer, too!” After snapping another drag, she continued her self-interview with “why can’t I find a good guy to love me? Well, I know of one and I’ve been dreaming about him for years, but I guess it’s too late now, being the End Times and all.” “It’s not the End Times, it’s the Reconstruction” came the answer through the speaker in a quad-copter drone that lowered to a spot five feet in front of her, causing her to stop on a dime in sudden, shocked surprise. Its digitized androgynous voice wasn’t finished, and critiqued “you can’t find a partner because you’re quick-tempered, moody, and taste like an ashtray. And you act like you’re menstrual every day of the month.” “Lord Jesus, please help m...

  BOOM! It blows up just like that, and I could’ve been in it. Seriously, what the hell!?” Slim, 5’4” tall, nineteen-year-old Sarah Marsden was dressed for the cold in a blue ski jacket, blue knit winter hat, blue shooting gloves that were a shade darker than her coat, and jeans. Her feet were togged in white socks and white running shoes. On her back was a blue “bug-out” backpack filled with edibles, bottled water, a slew of necessary supplies, and the comic book telling her story. Around her neck was a purple bandana with sewn-in dazzler fabric that would cover her face to confuse ALL’s facial recognition software. Despite that purpose, the bandanas represented so much more to those who wore them as part of the Purple Revolt. Moments before, she had been smiling about that comic authored, illustrated, and left on the Old Erie Canal Towpath by her friend Michael Massey. And then the grim realization truly settled in of what happened to her house and almost happened to her and her ...

She was affronted and a nerve was struck. The tuning fork of her anger hummed as she snapped a drag, inhaled deeply, and then argued “he wanted nothing to do with me until I got a letter from him just after he died! I wanted to be close to him, but he was always busy with False Walrus. He was a great dad when I was little, but once the band became his living his bass guitar was more important than me and mom, and that’s why she divorced him, you know?” Her eyes were narrowed as she took another drag, and her inhale was like a wet pan being set on a hot stove burner. “He abandoned us” she fumed before her quick, forceful exhale sounded as though she was blowing out a match. While a cloud of smoke hovered between them, she continued with “but I loved him and now I know that he loved me too and it’s too late! He’s home now and I’m stuck in this crap hole of a world trying to survive without him or mom while some evil nutjob who works for ALL is stalking me and blew my house up because he ...