Anderson Finding Home

1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 979-8-31781107-5
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 272 Seiten

Reihe: Finding Home

This is the story of a spiritual messenger who is also a homeless prophet. Hunted from his birth in a NYC Central Park stable by the forces of evil, the story follows Andi through the growth of his healing powers to his climatic confrontation with Satan on Liberty Island.

This is my first novel after working in Public Affairs as a writer, editor and social media coordinator for 30 years. I love fiction and wanted to write a novel that I always wanted to read,

Autoren/Hrsg.

Anderson, Bob

Leseproben

Chapter 5

Joe stops the horse near a subway entrance that is spewing heated air from the train tunnels below. He shakes his head in disbelief at the animal’s responsiveness. The horse stops at the subway entrance and Joe falls to the ground headfirst as he attempts to dismount. His breath knocked out, Joe is lying face down in the snow, and he can’t remember being so cold. He wishes he could just sleep. The insistent horse reaches under Joe with his long face and shoves him with it several times until Joe rolls over. The horse licks him sloppily across his entire face until Joe disgustedly smacks the horse’s mouth away.

“Can’t a man rest a little while, you shit breathing future bucket of glue,” Joe says as he sits up with difficulty.

The horse whinnies at Joe and tosses his head in the air in the direction of the park. Glancing past the horse, he can make out Tony’s lumbering figure as he moves steadily toward him.

“For Christ’s sake,” Joe mumbles as he unsteadily regains his feet and stumbles toward the girl and her baby. He is surprised to find the girl awake as he looks into her pain filled eyes. “Do you think you can walk?” he asks as he picks the baby up.

“I can try,” she answers. Joe reaches his free arm down and helps the girl get to her feet. She sways unsteadily as he propels her toward the entrance leading down to the subway station.

“We’ve got to make it down the stairs to the platform if we don’t want to die,” Joe says. “Our favorite psycho killer is getting too close for comfort.”

The girl leans heavily against Joe as they make their way slowly down the stairs. He can hear the horse’s fearful neighing as they reach the stair’s bottom and the hallway leading to the subway station.

“Never have a token when I need one,” Joe mutters as he slips below the turnstile. He quickly motions for the girl to follow.

Joe is happily surprised when he sees a train waiting at the station’s platform. The operator sees the two walking toward the train and yells at them, “This train doesn’t leave for another 30 minutes.” As the two figures get closer to him, the operator notices the girl is covered with blood.

“What happened?” the operator asks, fear raising his voice to a falsetto.

“There’s a deranged man after this girl, her baby, and yours truly,” Joe says fearfully, his words spilling out in a torrent.

“What am I supposed to do about it?” the operator asks.

“I don’t know, maybe get that train going,” Joe says with snark. “The psycho after us wants to kill everyone he sees, and I feel certain he’ll want to kill you too. He’s heading this way and we’ve got to get out of here now!”

The confused operator looks at Joe and says, “What?”

Joe grabs the operator by his shoulders and shakes him. He gets as close to the operator’s face as he can without touching it and shouts, “We need to get the hell out of Dodge, or we’ll all be dead!”

The operator starts to shake his head, but then glances over Joe’s shoulder. He sees a giant man holding a bloody butcher knife enter the platform from the entrance hallway. The conductor freaks when the giant starts running toward them.

“Holy Shit!” the operator says, fear raising his voice to a higher falsetto.

The operator removes his radio from his belt and punches in a mayday code. He turns to the girl and Joe, telling them to follow him. The operator leads them quickly to the cab at the front of the train, nervously glancing over his shoulder at the freak charging toward them. Once inside his crowded cab, the operator closes all the train’s electric doors. Just as the door nearest to him is about to close completely, the attacker stabs with his knife between the sliding doors, causing the doors to reopen automatically.

The operator picks up a sawed-off baseball bat he uses to calm unruly passengers, mostly drunks after a ball game, and swiftly delivers a vicious blow directly to the bloody horseshoe shaped wound on the big man’s forehead.

Crying out in rage and pain, Tony takes a step back with his hand pressed to his forehead. Again, the operator pushes the button to close the train’s doors, but the man’s foot stops it, causing the door to open again. Still acting from sheer terror, the operator attempts to deliver another blow with his bat, but this time Tony catches the bat with his hand and pulls the operator from the train. As he pulls the much smaller man close to him, Tony brings his knife down savagely into the center of the operator’s back, and the mortally wounded man’s eyes go wide with shock and pain.

Tony lifts the impaled body from the ground and turns him toward Joe and the girl. In a dying gasp, the operator looks into Joe’s eyes and says, “Close the door .... clos...,” and then a strangled cough racks the operator before his body goes limp, still impaled on Tony’s knife.

Tony tosses the body aside as Joe flips the switch to close the train’s doors. They shut tight and Tony slams his huge body against them, causing the Plexiglas to crack and the doors to buckle inward. The doors do not reopen.

Frantically, Joe looks for a way to start the train and get it moving. His efforts become more urgent as Tony uses the handle of the knife to smash at the window in the operator’s small cab. Just as a large crack appears in the window, Joe sees a long lever with a green handle next to the operator’s stool. He removes the lever from its off position and raises it as far as he can, hoping the train will leave the station with speed. He hears an electric hum as the train’s ceiling lights brighten. Holding the lever to its full-on position, the train lurches forward slowly. Tony moves with the train as he continues to pummel at the cracked window. The crack grows and then a large piece of the plastic window breaks off, falling into the cab. Picking up speed, the train moves steadily toward the darkened subway tunnel less than 60 feet away. Tony is jogging alongside the train. He turns the knife around and plunges it through the broken glass, slashing deeply into the arm Joe is using to hold down the throttle. Joe screams in pain and lets the throttle’s lever go. The lever’s spring slams it back to the off position on the floor, causing the train to slow to a crawl. The train jerks to a halt 20 feet from the subway tunnel opening. Grabbing his wounded arm, Joe moves as far away as he can from the constant knife thrusts through the broken window. Smashing again at the window to enlarge the opening, Tony shouts with triumph, “I’m gonna’ gut you!”

Clutching her baby in one arm, the young girl picks up the long, thin piece of the jagged broken plastic window from the floor. With all of her remaining strength, she stabs toward Tony’s leering face, and it enters his right eye with a popping sound. Tony cries out, dropping his knife to remove the sharp object protruding from his destroyed eye.

As she tries to lift the power lever, the girl slips on the blood pouring from Joe’s wounded arm. She catches herself with her free arm, but almost drops the baby. Joe quickly helps her back up from the slippery floor and moves her away from the lever. With his other hand, the one with the cuts and gangrene fingers, Joe painfully raises the throttle’s lever from the floor and the train begins moving again.

His face a grotesque mask of blood and rage, Tony screams and runs at the train, smashing all of his weight into the cab’s shattered door. A large piece of the Plexiglas pops out of its frame and into the cab. Tony thrusts his arm through the large opening, grasping at the girl and her baby. Just as Tony’s hand claws a piece of the girl’s bloody winter coat and he begins to lift her from the floor, the slowly accelerating train slams Tony’s body into the wall of the subway tunnel’s entrance. Tony’s outstretched arm is still inside the smashed train window. The trapped limb is caught between the subway tunnel’s wall and broken plexiglass of the train’s door. The arm is crushed by the wall and almost severed by the jagged window. As the dark tunnel swallows the train car by car, Joe hears Tony’s pain wracked screams echo through the tunnel.

Turning to the girl, Joe shouts triumphantly, “We got that asshole! I think his damn arm is gonna’ fall right off!”

He releases the throttle lever and as the train jolts to a halt, Joe slips on the blood slick floor. Sitting next to the girl, Joe checks her breathing. After ensuring she’s still alive, he lifts the infant from its mother’s limp arms. He unravels the baby’s bloody blanket and checks to be certain the child hasn’t been stabbed. He’s amazed as he stares into the clearest blue eyes he’s ever seen. It’s the first time he’s gotten a good look at the baby’s eyes.

“How could a little fellow like you cause all this fuss?’ Joe asks.

“He’s a special baby.”

Joe is surprised by the girl’s weak voice as he looks into her blood-spattered face.

“How so?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Try me. After tonight, I could believe...