In the Beginning: Mars Origin I Series Book I Read online

“Dr. Yeoman - excuse me, Samuel, there is not much opportunity for fortune or fame in your chosen profession. Would that be a correct statement?”

  “Yes, that would be correct. And, I didn’t work for the money or the fame. You had to be very fortunate and in the right place at the right time to become rich in this profession. I, like many others, was driven by my love of history and of God. What I wanted as a scholar was to search for the truth, the truth about our beginnings, and then to share that truth, no matter what it was, with the world.”

  “But you have achieved fame. You have won numerous honors, including the Nobel Prize in Science for your participation in the translation and preservation of the Dead Sea Scrolls.”

  “Yes, that’s true, but I didn’t set out to do that.”

  “You are indeed a great man, Samuel, and I say that with all sincerity. And, a very honest and a modest man as well. But you must realize that you will go down in history as a great scientist.”

  “Yes, I guess I will,” a sly look emerging on his face, “but again, not because that had been my mission. I would much rather think that it must have been my destiny.”

  “Destiny,” the interviewer repeated thoughtfully.

  A few seconds passed. The interviewer reached over and turned off his tape recorder then closed his portfolio. He cleared his throat, “Well, that’s all the questions I have for you. Thank you for your time today. I’ve truly enjoyed speaking with you.”

  Dr. Yeoman exhaled quietly. “It was my pleasure, David.” He stood up, extended his hand to the reporter, and the two shook on a job well done.

  “We would like to take a few more pictures of you.”

  “That’s fine. If you think it more apropos, we can take pictures in my study.”

  “That sounds perfect. Rudy will direct you with that. Perhaps we could take some of your family as well? Do you think that your wife and daughter would mind?”

  “Oh, they will love that. The women in this family are very vain.”

  Dr. Yeoman smiled contently. He was very pleased with himself as nothing in his eyes or actions had showed the truth.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Cleveland Heights, Ohio

  1997

  It was my destiny.

  I knew it down deep in my soul. It was my destiny to translate those manuscripts. It was for me to do so that the world would know its secrets and for me to find the secrets to inner tranquility. But, I hadn’t the faintest idea how I was supposed to do it.

  Rain pummeled the city the whole week before Halloween. Lake Erie’s levels rose so high that it spilled over into backyards and basements. Leaves clogged sewer drains on side streets and main roads, and winds pushed so hard that even the most stalwart of trees were uprooted and toppled. For a full seven days and seven nights it rained. Seven – the Biblical number of completion. I felt it was an omen, a portent of the impending doom and devastating revelation that was to come from me fulfilling my destiny.

  If I ever got them translated.

  I had been back from Jerusalem for about two weeks when the rain started. I spent most of my days working with Dr. Margulies on the tour. He had a full load over at the University this semester so he needed me to help out a lot. I didn’t mind. Whatever he needed.

  But when I wasn’t working on the tour, I spent every waking moment locked in my bedroom or study. I spent hours writing down, over and over, the words from the manuscripts from memory. I didn’t need to look at the notes I had made while in Jerusalem because I remembered each and every word of everything I had read.

  My brother Sean, a police officer for the last fifteen years, is also the family’s computer genius. He wrote a program for me that took the words I typed in and attempted to make them into complete sentences. It didn’t work too well, though, because I really didn’t have enough words to make a coherent sentence. I just couldn’t make anything out of what I had. And while it was making me feel idiotic, I didn’t stop. I kept trying, putting the same words into the program over and over expecting a different result.

  Isn’t that the definition of insanity?

  Because of it, I was nervous all the time. Everything startled me. I was short-tempered. I didn’t eat and I rarely slept and my house was a mess. I didn’t clean, I didn’t go grocery shopping. We had to get take-out every night. I wasn’t doing the laundry either so clothes were piled up everywhere. And, I had this feeling of doom and gloom like something bad was about to happen. It was scaring me. And since I couldn’t think of anything else that could make me feel like that, I decided it was the manuscripts and what they would reveal. Only nothing was “being revealed.”

  I told Mase all about my escapades in Jerusalem. I told him every little sordid detail. I needed someone to talk to about the manuscripts, and talk I did. I talked to him incessantly about my frustrations, my feelings and the constant, painful yearning in the pit of my stomach - - the need to know.

  Manuscripts, manuscripts, manuscripts. That’s all I could talk about. Mase said I even talked about them in my sleep. Those manuscripts had taken over my soul.

  On one of those rainy nights, during a restless sleep that had now become common, I dreamt that I was all alone, drowning in a sea of the tattered and fragmented pieces of the manuscripts. It was dusk and the overcast purplish sky was grazed with long, gray, translucent clouds that seemingly were being pulled into the horizon. My arms were flailing, splashing in desperation as icy waves wafted up on gusts of winds, swirling around me, pulling me in. Screams shrieked from all around me. I could hear them, but I couldn’t see anyone. I opened my mouth, desperately calling out to anyone who could hear me. I pushed to make a sound, but not even a squeak came out of my still throat. Spitting out the dark waters from my mouth, I tried to stay afloat, swishing from side to side looking for a way out. As a thunderstorm began to rage, pieces of the torn and faded manuscript rained down hard, turning my watery grave black from the ink that was smeared across them.

  I woke up from the nightmare and bolted upright grabbing my throat. I kicked the sheets off my legs.

  Breathe. A groan came as I exhaled.

  “Are you alright?” Mase woke up.

  “Yeah.” I answered. “I must have been having a nightmare. I’m okay, go back to sleep.”

  Laying back down, I watched the relentless downpour outside my bedroom window. The rain, steady and sure, looked black against the darkness of the night.

  It must be an omen, I thought. Because that’s where I was, in the middle of a thunderstorm. Literally.

  Mase noticed my worried look the day after the dream, and per his usual, sympathetic self, he reassured me that everything was okay. He told me it wasn’t an omen, and for me not to worry, which made me mad. He couldn’t possibly know whether it was an omen or not. And how could he understand how I felt, how irritated I was or what I was going through? Or, how scared I was that these bad things that spun around in my head all day, were now seeping into my dreams?

  I decided just to complain to him and not listen to the dumb stuff he said in response. But then he told me, “Just pray about it. If it’s of God and from God and if He wants it revealed he will find a way to do so.” Okay, so I couldn’t be mad at that answer. I decided to listen to that part of his advice. So, I prayed and I cried and I prayed some more, all the while continuing to try and put the same hundred or so words together to reveal the secrets of the manuscripts. But no matter how I prayed, nothing happened except for my frustration level reached a new high every day. I finally decided that the hope of gleaning anything from what I had was just foolishness and even God couldn’t help me with that.

  Still I kept at it. I just stopped praying about it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  One rainy night, I had just finished translating a paragraph of a piece of the manuscripts (well, actually I had discovered the meaning of five more words and had added them in to the long, nonsensical, rambling paragraph I always worked on), when the storm knocked out the pow
er to the house. The lights went out and so did the laptop I was working on. I could have screamed.

  The kids did scream.

  “MAAA - MEEE.”

  Their TV went out. They didn’t seem to care about the lights.

  “Here I come.” I yelled.

  Trying to maneuver my way through the dark without waiting until my eyes adjusted from staring at a bright computer monitor for two hours wasn’t a good idea. I tripped over the Ethernet and power cord to my laptop, stubbing my toe. Hopping around in pain, I hit the metal thingy on the door frame and cut my arm. I felt the warm blood trickle down my arm.

  “Jeez!” I was killing myself just trying to go fifteen feet.

  I had to get some light.

  “Mommy, where are you?” The kids were yelping.

  Where was Mase? How come he hadn’t come running when he heard me tripping over everything and them making all that ruckus? I called out to him.

  “Mase,” I shrieked.

  “Daddy’s not here. Come and get us!”

  “Here I come!” I screamed back.

  Mase evidently hadn’t gotten in yet from that interview he had with some sports personality. That made me mad. I got up off the floor, hopped into the kitchen, and groped around in the dark for the kitchen table. Retrieved candles and a flashlight and headed upstairs.

  My arm was stinging by the time I made it upstairs. So, I stopped by the bathroom and washed the cut off and got a Band-Aid to put on it. With the kids in tow, I went in my room and put on a clean blouse and we all went downstairs. And lucky for us, I got a fire going in the fireplace. I lit more candles and with that and the glow from the fire, the kids were fine. We sat quietly, or at least I tried to keep them quiet, while we waited for the lights to come on or Mase to come home and make everything all right. That didn’t work for long.

  With no TV or radio, and no longer afraid that the darkness would swallow them up, time just dragged on for them. Micah and Logan became restless, and of course, hungry. There was nothing of any nutritional value to eat in the house, since I had been neglecting my duties, so I decided I’d call out for pizza (figured it had to have some nutrition in it). I called my usual places and of course the ones that answered were having the same problem as we were – no lights and no power. I decided to go out and get something. It had to be easier than sitting here listening to the two of them whine and complain. I did enough of that myself.

  I ordered pizza from the only place that was operating, which was about four miles from our house. I checked my arm to make sure no blood was coming through the bandage, put on some galoshes, my rain hat and coat, and grabbed an umbrella. I left them with instruction not to kill each other while I went to pick up pizza.

  The streets were so bad. Tree branches were everywhere and in some places entire trees straddled the roads. Rainwater had accumulated so high on some streets that I probably would’ve had more luck swimming through them. I turned the car around and tried to go down the next street.

  “Uh oh, not that way.” Praying that I didn’t get stuck in the water, I turned the car around again.

  This was awful. I yelled at Mase the whole time for not being around when I needed him. I would have to be sure to tell him all the bad things I said about him whenever he finally got home.

  When I got to the pizza parlor, my order wasn’t ready, which I couldn’t understand since there was only me and one other guy in the place. I knew they weren’t making deliveries, so what was the hold up? I sat down to wait.

  I looked out of the large window that made up the front of the store. There were repair trucks dotting the street to return power to the houses. All the lights on the street were out, as were the lights on most of the streets I had passed on the way here. I wondered how this place had lights. I looked around the store. They must have an emergency generator, I thought. Then I thought, why in the world would a pizza parlor have a backup generator? ‘Who cares why they have one, Justin,’ I said to myself, ‘It’s a good thing they did, otherwise, your neglected children wouldn’t have anything to eat.’ I hung my head. I was becoming such a bad mother.

  As I looked around the store my eye caught the eye of the other guy who was waiting. He was staring right at me. He made me feel really uncomfortable. I smiled faintly at him and nodded since he was looking at me and then I turned and looked back out of the window. I focused my eyes so that I could see the reflection of the man in the window. He looked familiar, but I couldn’t figure out why. It’s amazing, I can remember the words of an entire book, verbatim, but I had a devilishly hard time remembering faces.

  The guy behind the counter beckoned that my pizza was ready. I went to write a check to pay for it and was digging in my purse to find a pen when the man, who I could feel still staring at me, came up behind me and tapped my shoulder. When I turned around he handed me a pen. Now he was really beginning to make me nervous. I paid for the pizza, smiled a ‘thank you’ as I handed him back his pen and left. I was glad to get away from him. But as I pulled out of the parking lot I noticed that he was pulling out behind me. I didn’t remember him buying any pizza. Come to think of it, I didn’t remember him ordering any pizza. How could he be leaving at the same time I was?

  No one else was out. It seemed that we were the only two people foolish enough to be out in this storm. Oh, except for my husband. And for a moment, it almost made me forget about this man following me. I glanced in the rearview mirror. I turned the corner. Who was this guy? What was he doing? He turned, too.

  Why was he following me?

  A pale moonlight lit my way. It gave an eerie silhouette to every house, down every street that was stilled by the storm. My breathing became shallow and forced, making condensation form on the windows. I pulled my coat sleeve down over my wrist and wiped off my windshield, then rolled down my window to try and keep the other windows clear. I heard the sound of my tires as they rolled over the wet pavement. A cool wind hastened through and I could smell the rain and wet leaves in the night air. I took a deep breath and tried to calm down.

  I glanced in the mirror. He trailed at every turn, at every stop sign. His bright lights came on, and I raised my hand to shield the flickering, bright light that now bathed my car.

  Could he see me?

  My hands trembled and my heart leapt into my throat. I know my fear was evident by the spotlight that made visible my every move.

  Then the manuscripts popped into my head.

  Maybe he wants the manuscripts.

  Could that be why he’s following me?

  But, I didn’t have them.

  Maybe he didn’t know that. Maybe he thought I had them. Someone must have found out that I knew about the manuscripts, that I had seen them.

  But that’s all. I just knew about them. I didn’t know what was in them.

  I started feeling dizzy and his bright lights stung my eyes as I watched him from my rearview mirror.

  I inhaled deliberately. “Calm down, Justin.” I whispered the words. “Don’t be scared.”

  “Okay.” I said. “Maybe he’s not following me.” I looked in the rearview mirror. “Stay calm.” With shaky hands I reached down and turned on the radio. Maybe a little music would help. Off pitch and strained, a popular non-singer whined out his love and begged for reciprocity. How do they let those people make records? I turned it off. It just made me more nervous.

  My eyes darted from the rearview mirror to the road ahead. Could I outdrive him in all this rain?

  What if he tried to grab me? I leaned over and rambled through the glove compartment to find something I could use to scare him or protect myself. Nothing.

  What if he wanted the manuscripts? I sat back up. Well, he couldn’t get them from me because I didn’t have them.

  But would he believe that?

  As I pulled up to a stop sign, I looked in my side mirror. He did look familiar, I thought. Where had I seen him before?

  Maybe in Jerusalem.

  “I know,” I sa
id. He had been on the bus I took to work last week when my car was in the shop.

  I turned the corner.

  Why was he on the bus if he had a car?

  Had he been following me that long?

  I held my bottom lip tightly between my teeth, trying to stop it from trembling. My hands shook uncontrollably. I could barely hold onto the steering wheel. I felt the sting of tears pooling in the wells of my eyes.

  C’mon, Justin. You were on the bus, you have a car, I reasoned. So, maybe he being there was no big deal. I glanced in the rearview mirror. This man following me was a big deal.

  The manuscript popped up in front of me and flashed ‘God Help Us.’

  “God help me,” I whispered.

  I picked up the car phone and dialed 9-1-.

  What could I say? A man from the pizza parlor didn’t buy any pizza and now he’s driving down the street behind me? He hadn’t actually done anything.

  I hung up the phone.

  I can’t go home, I thought. I didn’t want him to know where I lived.

  Maybe he already knew.

  I shouldn’t have left the kids there by themselves.

  I picked up my speed. So did he.

  Thirty. Thirty-five. I watched the speedometer.

  Maybe I should destroy the notes from the manuscript and delete everything from my computer.

  I will, I vowed, as soon as I get home.

  I put on my blinker.

  So did he.

  If, I get home.

  My jaws tightened. A layer of cold sweat covered my head and the back of my neck. I was beginning to feel sick to my stomach. Why did I ever go back for those stupid manuscripts? My head was aching. My mouth was dry. Every inch of my body was balling up in little knots.

  What was I going to do?

  Those feelings of gloom and doom I had been having – maybe this was it. Maybe this man was going to kill me over those stupid manuscripts, just like that man who translated them was murdered.

  I felt the cold rain as it started up again, stinging as it beat against my face. My tears mixed with the rain as it rolled down my face. I turned on the windshield wipers and rolled up the window. I turned on the defroster because between me sobbing and the fogged up windows I couldn’t see a thing. But it made too much noise. I turned the defogger off and opened the window again. Why worry about the rain getting on me, I thought, I was about to die, what should I care if I was wet.