The Anron Chapter

Tommy Bell

Description

In 1990 preteen Jason Harbour wants nothing more than to spend time with friends in a new video game or a rousing baseball match, until a freak storm turns his tidy world upside down and back twelve thousand years. Thrust into the turmoil of a prominent scientist's kidnapping, will he able to help against the evil Zaynar's plans for domination over both dinosaur and human kind?Exotic and courageous new friends make it difficult to choose which world he truly wants.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Religion

Informations

• Publié par: Xlibris US
• Date de parution: 29 novembre 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781669857778
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

The Anron Chapter
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Tommy Bell
 
Copyright © 2022 by Tommy Bell.
ISBN:
Softcover
978-1-6698-5778-5

eBook
978-1-6698-5777-8
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.
 
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
 
 
 
Rev. date: 11/29/2022
 
 
 
 
Xlibris
844-714-8691
www.Xlibris.com
848451
Contents
Foreword
 
Chapter 1     An Ordinarily Day
Chapter 2     A New Friend or Two
Chapter 3     Escape to Where
Chapter 4     The Hidden Lair
Chapter 5     Amula
Chapter 6     A New Threat
Chapter 7     The Youngster
Chapter 8     Treks and Reflections
Chapter 9     Traykor the Beast
Chapter 10   An Unlikely Duo
Chapter 11   Back to Life
Chapter 12   Traykor’s Home
Chapter 13   Zaynor’s Palace
Chapter 14   Zaynar’s Plan
Chapter 15   Siros’ Cell
Chapter 16   Barely Holding On
Chapter 17   I’m From Where?
Chapter 18   Payments Made
Chapter 20   Traykor
Chapter 21   Scholars Galore
Chapter 21   The Arena of Observation
Chapter 22   Into the Whirlwind
Chapter 23   Socar’s Vision
Chapter 24   Waking Out of Darkness
Chapter 25   Flight to Safety
Chapter 26   The Cave
Chapter 27   Keeping Strong
Chapter 28   A Woman and Child
Chapter 29   The Substitute
Chapter 30   Up In the Air
Chapter 31   A Fine Meeting
Chapter 32   Meeting Traykor
Chapter 33   A Valiant Effort
Chapter 34   Darkest Night
Chapter 35   Free
Chapter 36   The Final Ascent
Foreword
This is a story I began in 1990, in my 20s working long evening shifts at a shipyard in southeast Virginia. How can I verify? Daily Swipe Sheets! We measured levels of contamination in work areas -as safely as possible. I wrote mostly poems, 2-page adventures or romance pieces back then. My oldest nephew is named Jason. He was ten. Harbour is an ancestral last name. In the 1980s, The Grateful Dead played the Hampton Coliseum yearly and I’d spoken to a few “Deadheads” -fascinated to hear of things like mystical Atlantis and earth’s axis changing by 2020. “Traykor the Dinosaur” was hand-written on extra swipe sheets and lined yellow paper. I completed fifty pages before moving to Chicago in October.
There were re-writes and edits and -later- typed pages. I tore out an ad for Prentice women’s hospital in Chicago- a head shot of a pretty young woman with dark wavy locks and a white brocade top. She was my Amula- down to the confident, caring smile. That was probably 1995. I was stuck on the antagonist for years- how to understand him. I put the story away to work on life and what became my first book, “Rouges”. Years passed. “Rouges” was finally published in 2016. An adult-themed book. The renamed “The Anron Chapter” waited in the wings.
After “Rouges” I did three similar books based on current experiences. The last in early 2020. Still, I had a hankering to change things up with a different genre. Fantasy wasn’t new- I had fiddled with “Traykor” for all those years. In January of 2020, I started working on “Traykor” in earnest. I’d hide away in local library cubicles after work most every weekday, plus some weekends. It was a happy time though I juggled my Social Services career, care-taking responsibilities and my desire to write. My roommate Jack and our dog didn’t see me til late. One March day, I took a picture of the sign on the last open local library’s door, saying they was closing due to Covid-19. “For a few weeks.” What’s a Boomer to do? My home laptop wouldn’t save. The country and world were upside-down. I’d even washed my flash drive.
After days of frustration, it occurred to me I could write in email format and send to a friend for safe-keeping, cutting and pasting to a flash-drive later. This started a productive period, during the early pandemic. “Traykor” became “The Anron Chapter”- a joy during those isolated days. Of course, the email format precipitated corrections when saved to zip drive. Things saved looked like this, separated and with odd symbols and rectangles. Fifty pages worth! Traykor and friends were there for me, though far from my 20s, in job shake-ups and illnesses of my elderly mother and then my housemate.
One thing I wanted was a book involving faith. I noted few series, movies or books with a Christian character. Someone who saw God working in the world and had a faith that was not stereotypical and powerless. I wondered what faith long before Christ’s lifetime may have looked like. I believe there have always been those who marveled at the mystery of God drawing people to Himself, even before Abraham leaned on his staff. I hope that persons of faith would feel a kinship with some characters here. Yes, there are other types in the mix, as well. That’s what life is about- we all come at it differently.
Also, I do not presume to be any kind of a scientist. I believe my readers have great imaginations all their own, and can add any degree of zest to the colors I have already painted here. I purposefully did not study dinosaurs. There is a plethora of books, movies and literature about this group. This is a book about relationships, about surprises that leave us ever-changed. This is a book, hopefully, about each of us, our strength and power, plus the hopes we share.
Tommy Bell, November 2022
 
Dedicated to Allie, my Golden Dog who helped me write each word.
Chapter One AN ORDINARILY DAY
How odd when the past crashes into the present! Our worlds are shifted. Realms we never imagined can beckon us forward, and hold us. These times can destroy us. Or build us up. It is often our choice.
Such was the way of things for Jason, a twelve-year-old boy. His dark-blond hair floated on the breeze on that hazy, sunny Florida afternoon. It was a normal day- school, and then the hope of enjoying the world around him. He didn’t hear the birds’ songs overhead, sweet and persistent. The whooshing of cars as they passed meant nothing. They were merely objects in a maze, to be weeded through as he rode his bike top-speed down the street toward Billy Snyder’s.
His mother’s friend had dropped by. Of all days! He’d stayed after school, working on his year-end Social Studies project with classmates Pete and Maria. He’d sacrificed, earning some time to enjoy himself! He’d barely gotten home when “ding-dong” -Mrs. Yeager rang.
“Shirley!” dark-haired Jenny Harbour had smiled, answering the doorbell. Her best friend. They’d known each other for five years, since the Harbours moved to Florida in 1985. Eons ago.
Shirley was tall with a helmet of blond-white hair. She looked as if she’d been crying, her eyes black-shadowed as she swept into the house. Jason’s mom herded her into the family room, her voice soft. Jason’s game on the TV was calling out to him, like a pepperoni pizza.
He was ten feet away from them, but he heard the continued sobbing. Why did adults do that? He only wanted to finish his game. It had been going well.
He knew the boom was falling. Sure as Karen Carpenter sang “why do stars fall down from the sky, every time you walk by” in one of his mother’s favorite 70’s records. It sounded like she was singing “Why?” That was Jason’s question. Why today? Why now!
His mother puts words to it his fear. “Jason -can you give us a while? Shirley needs to talk. Can you, uh, turn the video game off and go down to your friend’s for a bit?” She smiled at him. That “be a good little man” smile of hers. “Just for a while,” she added.
A while! Just when things were getting good in the game! Why did Shirley have to come over to his house? Grown-ups! When his father yelled at his mother, she never went to any neighbor’s house! She made a beeline for her bedroom, alone. Jason didn’t dare knock on the door, even that time last week when he heard her sobbing.
But now Jenny Harbour was yelling for him to take his jacket. “You know it may get cooler this evening,” she reasoned. Jason grabbed the maroon-gray nylon wind-breaker and tied it on his bike’s handlebars. The day was hot, but he’d take it if she wanted.
Jason’s little white-blond dog, Allie, was at his feet, looking up to see what was the plan. A mop of hair, she followed him everywhere. “Not now, girl,” he said, guiltily. “I’m going to a friend’s. We’ll play later,” he promised. She looked discouraged. He stroked the back of her head hoping that would suffice. “Good girl,” he told her, hopping on his bike.
Billy’s or Pete’s? He couldn’t decide. Billy’s house first. Toes like spikes in his shoes, he maneuvered the bike out of garage, hopped on and started peddling fast. He’d be there in a flash. This thing wasn’t going to ruin his day.
Let’s see. Billy had the same games he had. Pete had only two. If he wasn’t on “restriction”.
Jason found Billy at home and ready for a game. If there was one thing Jason was good at, it was video games. That and baseball. An hour and