Redemption

Thomas Pendrie

Description

Wars destroy many lives and irrevocably change many others. For Robert Faulkner, the change was more profound than for most. Not all soldiers went to fight; in Robert's case, he was drafted into a top-secret experimental facility, with catastrophic results. Now he finds his memory gone, along with the world and the very time he knew. This is the story of Robert's journey of rediscovering who he was, a journey that reveals dark and tragic secrets, for not all victims of war died on the battlefields. In discovering his past, Robert also discovers love and how he can reshape his future. He will seek, on behalf of humanity, redemption not just for evil deeds long buried, but for the betrayal of innocence.

Informations

• Publié par: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Date de parution: 30 avril 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781528966658
• Langue: English

Extrait

Redemption
Thomas Pendrie
Austin Macauley Publishers
2019-04-30
Redemption About the Author About the Book Dedication Copyright © Part 1 A Time of Redemption Six Months Later Notes on Human Perception of Time Notes on the Nature of Deities and Places of Power Further Notes on the Interaction of Power Sources Observations on Facility 23 and Beyond Alien Sighting Terrifies Local Man Ghostly Happenings on Yew Tree Hill Further Notes on the Perception of Time Part 2 A Place of Redemption
About the Author
Thomas Pendrie was born in a small Cheshire market town in England just after WW2. He has worked in banking (briefly), teaching and, later in life, for the UK National Trust. He confesses to being interested in everything but expert in very little. He has lived, in more recent years, in coastal Spain; in an old stone farmhouse in rural France; and resides now with his wife in Southeast Queensland. He finds life busier than ever, alternating between bushwalking, painting, photography and writing, and often wonders how he ever found time to go to work.
About the Book
Wars destroy many lives and irrevocably change many others. For Robert Faulkner, the change was more profound than for most. Not all soldiers went to fight; in Robert’s case, he was drafted into a top-secret experimental facility, with catastrophic results. Now he finds his memory gone, along with the world and the very time he knew.
This is the story of Robert’s journey of rediscovering who he was, a journey that reveals dark and tragic secrets, for not all victims of war died on the battlefields.
In discovering his past, Robert also discovers love and how he can reshape his future. He will seek, on behalf of humanity, redemption not just for evil deeds long buried, but for the betrayal of innocence.
Dedication
This book is dedicated to all the children, everywhere, who never had a real childhood.
Copyright ©
Thomas Pendrie (2019)
The right of Thomas Pendrie to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781528966658 (ePub e-book)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published (2019)
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
25 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5LQ
Part 1
A Time of Redemption
He was walking down a road he didn’t recognise. Actually, if one were to be precise, it was hardly qualified to be called a road; lane, maybe – or byway.
It was steep and under his feet the surface was slippery from the recent rain, which still dripped from the leaves of overhanging trees, occasionally splashing on his head, running down his neck or more irritatingly, splashing into his eyes. He glanced down and saw the reason for the slipperiness; cobblestones, not tarmac, made up the lane’s surface and the stone sets, worn smooth by a million hurrying feet, glistened in the weak sunlight which filtered through the foliage above him.
He carefully made his way down the hill and soon the lane broadened a little, the cobbles gave way to tarmac and the trees, reluctantly at first, gave way to houses and then shops. Pretty gardens fronted the houses, roses and wisteria climbed the walls and trailed over fences and now and then a curtain fluttered briefly as he passed. Other than that, the village – for such it was – seemed deserted.
Soon he came to a small square, with an ancient stone cross on a plinth of worn stone steps in the middle. He noted the carvings on the cross, swirls and scrolls. The whole thing was pitted with age and green with lichen and moss.
He looked around the square, noting the usual assortment of shops. There was a bakery, a butcher and what looked to be a general store. Still no people, though, which should have seemed odd to him, but didn’t.
In a corner of the square, leaning a little drunkenly, was a timber-framed structure with what looked like a shop window comprising many small panes. Beside the window was a battered looking green door.
Almost without thinking, he approached and noticed a small sign in the window adjacent to the door. ‘Open’ said the sign, handwritten in a flowing script.
Before he realised it, his hand was on the doorknob and he turned it and went in.
“I think his eyes fluttered then!”
The voice came from far away and sounded young and quite excited.
“Sure you didn’t imagine it?”
This voice was deeper, somehow more careworn – if indeed a voice could be so.
“After all, he’s been like this for ten months, give or take a day or two. I sometimes think he’ll never come out of it.”
He tried to open his eyes, to see who was speaking, but everything just fogged up and he drifted away again, to a place where no one could reach him.
Over the course of the next few days, the dream came again, for dream it was. It always featured the same lane, the same village square, the same strange corner shop. He began to look for more details, which again would have seemed odd had he been able to think about it. He noticed that the door had a knob, but no keyhole. No hasp for a padlock, either. Absurdly, he found himself reflecting that this must be a very law-abiding place, where you did not need locks.
He noticed too, that when he peered through the grimy and cobwebby panes of window glass, there was nothing to be seen which might indicate the nature of the business.
Also, there was a sign hanging over the door itself, but there was nothing on the sign.
He always awoke just as he opened the door to enter.
After eight more days, he heard the younger voice again.
“There! He definitely flickered his eyelids!”
He felt a hand gently grasp his and the voice, softer now and more coaxing, spoke to him.
“Robert, can you hear me?”
He slowly climbed, a laboured step at a time, from wherever he had been and gradually forced his eyes open. Despite the fact that the lights had been thoughtfully dimmed, he winced at the glare and promptly shut them again, screwing his eyelids tight closed.
He heard a click and the voice said,
“Robert, come back to us! The light’s out now. Try to open your eyes.”
There was an anxious wait and the hand holding his began to tremble.
“Come on, Robert. If you can hear me, please open your eyes.”
So he did.
Six Months Later
Robert Faulkner looked out of his bedroom window and sighed. It was raining again. The flowers on the climbing rose outside had long since faded and died and their brown remains hung forlornly on the thorny branches. The leaves had turned, keeping time with those of the trees opposite and autumn’s reds, browns and yellows had turned the green world to the colours of a dying flame.
Robert gazed at it all through the rivulets streaming down the windowpane and sighed again. “I can’t believe it’s bloody raining again!” he declared, to no one in particular.
He eased his way across the room, favouring his worst leg. Many people had a ‘bad leg’ but mostly not like him, in their early twenties and certainly most did not have a pair of legs which had been smashed beyond belief and painstakingly repaired by skilled and patient hands.
He had seen the x rays. He kept them in a drawer and showed them occasionally – and always reluctantly – to friends, who were invariably amazed that he could be alive at all. For many months it seemed he wasn’t and the life support had given way to a deep coma and eventually to the awakening.
He kept in touch with the young nurse who had held his hand and whose pretty face had been the first thing he had seen. He tried to make a point of catching up when he went in for the painful but necessary physiotherapy. No romance there, though. She had a steady boyfriend, a big lad who gave Robert the once-over with a glance which said,
“Look but don’t touch!”
The x-rays also showed rib fractures, a broken arm and a skull which had been like a cracked eggshell when he was brought into the hospital after the accident.
He had been found in a gutter, more dead than alive and could remember nothing of what had happened. There were no witnesses and no one ever came forward. People from nearby houses had heard the screech of brakes and a bang, then a rapidly accelerating vehicle. Nobody had seen a thing.
Robert sometimes wondered how he was alive.
Sometimes he also wondered why.
He often awoke with a splitting headache, usually after the same dream.
He had had ‘repeat’ dreams before, but never in this detail and never so often. He increasingly wondered where the hell the place was, if it existed at all. He found himself Googling all the villages he could find with cobbled lanes leading into them. He was surprised how many there were. Google Earth helped, but there were lots of likely candidates, even down to the ancient stone cross in the square. If only he could remember a few more details. It became an obsession.
Then, one night, the dream changed slightly, but in one crucial respect.
Where the cobbled lane met the village street, another road went off to the right, a road he had never noticed before. He looked up and in his dream he saw a road sign.
It said ‘Bottingsley 3 miles’.
He awoke shortly afterwards, head clear, no pain. “Bingo!” he breathed.
He was walking down a road – or lane – he recognised, in a place where he’d never been. It felt strange and the reality was scary, where the dream had not been. He was using a walking stick, more out of a need for confidence than in a practical sense. He limped, but that was less pronounced than it had been. Everyone declared his r