Chapter One
It had been ten years since Calvin Roberts death. Ten years without a father.
Gabriel Roberts twisted the wrench on the old rusted nut, grunting as he tried not to snap the bolt. The old wind turbine was machine built alright. There was no space for a human hand inside the turbine compartment.
He grunted and cursed under his breath. “Give me a break!” The bolt snapped off with the old nut. He smacked the machine several times with the wrench, wishing the thing could feel pain. He breathed out in a huff. Why his father had insisted on using such old technology was beyond him. Now he’d have to rewire the whole thing.
“At least, I can change it to a standard clip,” he murmured under his breath, trying to see the upside. The bright light above his head flickered out.
Not now. His anger only rose as he shook the light, hoping it was just the bulb. Nope – it was out of juice.
It was almost eleven o’clock at night. He had been trying to get the turbine up and running all day. They were down to only two working power cells to run the ranch. The other ten needed to be recharged and the forecast was full of wind for the week - hopefully enough to fill the rest of the power cells. But not if he couldn't get the turbine working. He climbed down the ladder in the dark, taking the small tool belt with him. The old steel ladder creaked as he pulled it back from the tall wind turbine. The ladder’s hydraulics were slow. It took several minutes of standing in the dark and pressing the button over and over for the twenty-foot tall ladder to shrink to four. Gabriel sighed, picked it up, and walked back to the barn.
A gust of wind blew his long hair across his face. “Great.” He sighed. They were going to miss a prime opportunity to get a positive charge on the power cells.
Sometimes he hated living on the archaic ranch. His father had designed it to function off the grid, a pet project he loved to tinker with. At least, he did when he was alive. Now the system was in serious disarray, half the solar dials were burnt out, the turbines were falling apart. The only system that still worked was the bio-compost, a fancy machine that turned animal manure and scraps into bio-fuel. Why they didn’t just move into the radiant zones like everyone else was beyond him. There you could just plug in and get power. They weren’t even that far out – around fifty miles. Tomorrow he would have to go into Burlington, a small town on the outskirts of the zone around Denver. Maybe the scrap yard had something he could use until he could rewire the turbine.
Gabriel tossed his tools into the barn and leaned the ladder up against the wall. He glanced up at the roof – nothing in the old loft made a noise. Nate Reinhart, their ranch hand, was probably asleep by now. He had said goodnight to Gabriel hours earlier before reminding him that the turbine repair was his responsibility. Nate was ex-military and wasn’t the most tactful person; most of his reminders sounded more like orders to Gabriel. He was used to it by now. His father’s best friend had moved into the barn the week after Calvin died. It was like Nate had always been around. Gabriel decided to check in with him in the morning. Maybe he had another idea of how to get some charge on the cells. By the end of the day tomorrow, they’d be running dangerously low on power.
He crossed out into the yard. The wind had picked up. He kept his head down as he jogged back towards the old farm house. The side door to the kitchen had just the screen open, and the wind knocked it around with each gust. He stepped inside and secured the screen door. The house was cool; the wind outside had a chill to it. The summer months were vanishing and fall would be here soon enough. It reminded him about school. Gabriel still hadn’t picked out a college to attend. His mother had been all over him about it lately. It was the only reason he was working on the turbine so late. Dinnertime had revolved around the same conversation. He didn’t know what he wanted to study, let alone where to do it.
He pushed the thought from his mind and opened the fridge. The light inside was weak. Another reminder about the heavy work day he would have tomorrow. He sighed. At least if he went to school, he wouldn’t have to deal with the unending maintenance of this place anymore – a big plus in his mind. He grabbed everything he needed for a sandwich and shut the fridge, crafting the food in the dark. He crept up the long, narrow staircase to his room, careful not to wake his mother. He slipped inside and shut the door. Hopefully, tomorrow was going to be a better day.
He kicked off his clothes and climbed into his bed. On his bedside table was a clear case that protected his glowing crystal. It was a memento left to him by his father. “Too bad I can’t just hook you up to something.” He picked up the case.
The crystal inside was a rare ore, a sample of one of the only energy sources left on earth. He had been barely nine when his father discovered it, buried deep within the ground, under the rumored resting place of the Garden of Eden. All across the globe, news stations broadcast the story, dubbing the ore Eden’s Ore. Not even a year later, Calvin was found dead at work, the result of a mysterious accident. The crystal had sat on Gabriel’s bedside table for the last ten years. He knew every line and angle on the glowing shard as well as he knew his own face. It was the last thing his father had given him and was worth more to him than anything else he owned. Every time he stared at it, his mind filled with the few happy memories he could remember about his father. His eyes followed the weak glow of light from inside the large crystal as it pulsed out towards its sharp corners.
Crack. Gabriel jolted in his bed, his heart instantly thumping in his chest. “What the?” He tossed the crystal onto his bed and stared at the window in his room. The glass pane was cracked. He climbed out of bed, confused. What had hit it?
A series of thuds echoed against the outer wall of his room. He crept towards the window, unsure of what was happening. The thuds multiplied. The glass pane cracked again as a small white ball crashed into it. Then another. And another. The window shattered under the force and his room was filled with the howl of wind. His muscles jolted at the sudden explosion and he scrambled the rest of the way to the window, trying to not step on the broken glass.
“Hail?” He picked up a round chunk of ice off the sill. As his eyes lifted, his jaw dropped.
Across the horizon was a menacing wall of black clouds. It lurched forward in the dark. Lightning streaked across its surface, cutting through the dark clouds as it connected wildly with the ground below. The wall of black stretched up to the moon and blocked out its light, a blanket of darkness sweeping across the fields. As the storm moved closer to the ranch, its surface began to distort and twist. Dirt and debris were scooped up from the fields by an invisible force. It twisted and spun around in a huge column, giving shape to a massive tornado. The thuds of hail multiplied by a hundred, and the house shook as they struck against it. Gabriel immediately crossed the hallway and burst into his mother’s room.
“Mom!” He rushed to her side. She was already sitting up in bed, looking upwards at the ceiling. “We’ve got to go! Come on! We gotta lock down the house and get to the basement.”
“Gabriel! What is happening?” She climbed out of bed, glancing from him to the ceiling and back as the sound of the hail only increased.
“We got a storm!” Gabriel grabbed his mother’s dressing gown and threw it at her. “Let's go.” This wasn't the first storm they had faced.
He ran back to his room and grabbed the first pair of jeans he saw. Once they were on his legs, he kicked at the other clothes sprawled across the floor, searching for a pair of shoes. He whipped a T-shirt off his bedpost and pulled it over his head, fighting to get his arms through. Out his window, he could see the black wall of terror was just beyond the barn. His mother shuffled into his room in her lime-green housecoat, still looking up at the rapid bangs of hail bombarding the roof.
“If the storm is dangerous, why haven’t the sirens…?” She gasped and pointed to the window. “Oh my goodness …” His mother’s mouth hung open. She seemed frozen where she stood.
He twisted her around and p
ushed her towards her room as a howl blasted in the distance, warning all to take cover and hide.
“Get the blinds down!” He pointed to her windows. Nate had drilled him on how to lock down the house ever since he was a boy. He sprinted back to his own window and pulled down on a steel chain. A series of metal blinds cascaded down over the windows, covering them inside and out. He bolted them in place then raced to the next bedroom just down the hall – his brother Adin’s old room. He pushed through the stacks of boxes stored in the abandoned room; they tumbled down across the floor as he clawed his way past them to the window. He yanked on the steel blinds and snapped them into place. As he raced out of the room he slammed into his mother, nearly knocking her to the ground.
“My room is done and your father’s office is too,” she told him as he steadied her from falling.
“Good!” He pulled her towards the stairs. “You get the rest of the windows downstairs!” Gabriel yelled over his shoulder as he raced down before her. When he hit the main floor he ran for their front double doors. He heaved on a large steel panel hidden within the door frame. It was only halfway out when the wind crashed through, kicking the front doors inwards. The hinges on the right door sheared off from the wall and swung against the steel panel with a crash.
“Help me!” Gabriel's sweaty hands slipped on the handles as he tried to push the door out of the way. With the help of his mother, they jerked on the steel panel, but it was useless. The heavy steel panel only retreated back into the wall as the force of the wind drove the front doors inward.
The sound of broken glass filled the room as the windows shattered around them, the metal blinds failing to hold back the storm. Protecting his face with his hand, Gabriel abandoned the steel panel and staggered back towards the kitchen, holding onto his mother. Pieces of the living room wall exploded, punched in by broken fence posts. He dropped to the floor with his mother, shielding her from the splinters as more unknown objects slammed through the outside walls and windows.
The wind burned his eyes as he stared through the broken walls. Lightning flashed in the yard – so close he could feel the electricity in the air; every hair on his body stood on end. The tornado battered everything in its path, tossing steel feed containers like paper cups. Pieces of wood ripped off the barn, disappearing into the black emptiness of the storm. The old tractor flipped onto its side and was dragged across the yard. A painful grip dug into his forearm. He turned to find his mother’s hand gripping him. He planted his feet and stood, pulling her up with him as they watched the barn. The old building was being torn apart piece by piece like someone had placed it in a giant blender. Nate!
“Nate!” His mother echoed his thought. She went limp in his arms, tears streaming down her face. He jerked her back up and dragged her towards the basement door.
“What about Nate?” she cried.
“I don’t know!” He needed to get them to the shelter in the basement. Nate would have to fend for himself.
Gabriel reached the old wooden door and had barely opened it when the wind ripped it from his grip. He pulled his mother down the steps, the howling winds chasing after them in the narrow stairwell. As his feet hit the concrete floor, he jerked his mother in front of himself and pushed her towards the short steel door in the corner. The flicker of automated lights illuminated the dark space as she ran straight to the back wall of the shelter.
She collapsed against it. “Nate might still be out there. He might need our help!”
Gabriel didn't know what to say. Everything outside was being destroyed, nothing would be left. He turned away from her to secure the metal door on the shelter. Just as he slid the final bolts into place, he stopped. The shard on his bed … Dad’s crystal!
He began to slide the bolts back to unlock the huge door.
His mother mumbled something behind him then yelled, “Gabriel! What are you doing?”
“Just stay here. Don’t leave no matter what!” He didn’t have time to explain. His heart thundered in his chest. Gabriel opened the door just enough to slide through and leapt up the staircase into the gusts of wind. His vision blurred as he burst onto the main floor, barely able to see his way through the broken kitchen. The wind drove him up against the counters as he clawed his way towards the stairs leading up to the bedrooms. A loud snap began to repeat itself above his head, like the crack of a whip. Gabriel grasped the unsteady hand railing and bolted up the stairs. The ceiling overhead shredded away with each step he took. Pockets of blackened sky swirled above him as the tornado devoured the roof, spitting rain and dirt into his face. He focused past the roof being torn off the house, past the cold pellets of hail stinging his chest, past the distant cries of his mother. He pictured the pure white, soft glow of the piece of ore his father had given him. He ignored his pain, his muscles pumping faster than he’d ever worked them before. His heart thundered in his ears, blocking out every other sound. He barreled down the hallway. The roof was nearly gone, pieces rained down all over his path. A gust of wind knocked him out of the doorway as he reached his bedroom. A slice of pain dragged down the back of his left shoulder as something dropped on him from above. His skin was on fire, and the warm trickle of blood rolled down his back. Almost there. He gritted his teeth and clawed his way into his bedroom.
One of the outer walls had been torn off; the room was completely exposed to the storm. His bed was flipped over and pinned against a remaining wall. He crawled to where his bed should have been. He scrambled on the floor for what seemed like an eternity, wildly searching for the hard, clear case. Then he saw it.
The crystal was in the far corner of his room, free from its container, driven around by the relentless wind. Don’t touch it! His father’s voice screamed out in his head. Gabriel quickly grabbed a shirt that was wadded against the wall. He twisted it around his hand and bellied along the floor towards the glowing shard. He scooped it up in the shirt, careful not to let it touch his skin. He pressed the bundle to his chest and staggered to his feet. The gale winds tossed him around like debris. He slammed up against the doorframe and was spit back out into the hallway. He couldn't stand up anymore, and crawled along the floor towards the top of the stairs. His forearms ached with pain as he dragged them along the sharp edges of wood and nails scattered across the floor. He could feel them stick into his skin. Each one punched in deeper as he leaned down on each forearm, desperate to get back downstairs. He grasped the top of the steps and pulled his chest over the edge. His stomach wrenched. There, at the bottom of the stairs, was his mother. She clutched what was left of the outside wall of the kitchen. Her hand reached out towards him.
“Go back! Get downstairs!” His voice was overpowered by the storm. Any sound he could push from his lungs vanished.
He twisted around and slid down the steps on his back, trying not to get sucked out into the open rage of the storm. His eyes met hers. She barely hung onto the broken outer wall. Her lime green dressing gown blew in all directions as she continued to reach out to him. Gabriel traveled towards her, gripping the stairs with his free hand. The shirt around the shard began to unravel, and the fabric pulled the crystal free from his grip. He latched onto the crystal with his other hand as the shirt was stolen by a gust of wind. His hand burned, as if dipped in fire. The crystal flashed with light at his touch. He buried it against his chest and fought to get down the stairs. His back scraped against the metal edges of another two steps as he pushed towards her. The storm raged overhead. Pain erupted in his head from the immense pressure. He had made it halfway down the staircase. She was still trying to reach for him. He needed to get to her faster. He needed to leap the rest of the way. Gabriel gripped the jagged edge of the outer wall still attached to the staircase and pulled himself up. He braced himself on it as he prepared to leap for her, but it collapsed under his weight. His stomach lifted into his chest as he plunged off the edge of the stairs. Unable to stop his free fall, he smashed through the old cellar doors outside the house.
/> The roughly cut wooden steps broke his fall as he tumbled into the dark pit of the old root cellar. He stopped face down on the hard earth floor. A sharp pain blasted in his chest. Dazed, he tried to stand, but was pelted from above by nail-studded boards. He collapsed in agony under the bombardment, and rolled onto his back. His fingers dug through the warm blood oozing from his chest. Whatever was there, he tried to pull it free, but it refused to leave. It sank deeper into his ribcage. His body shook as he gasped for air. He was sick and dizzy. As he prayed against death, a white light flooded his vision.