We Live and Walk Among You

Chapter 1 - Excerpt As the sun burned brightly over the small Midwestern town of New Madrid, Missouri, the residents treated the early morning like any other day. Kids while on summer break gathered in the playground to choose up sides for kickball. The barber on Main Street swept the sidewalk in front of his shop as he spoke to his sleeping bloodhound. The smell of fresh baked bread wafted past the noses of a women’s group as they made their way to the daily prayer meeting. The scene of smoke dissipating into the atmosphere meant the ceramic tile plant operated at full capacity. Everything seemed to be going well on the first Friday in June. Or was it? Outside interest had come back to the small town over the last year. Fronting as a team of paleontologists on an assignment from the Smithsonian Institute, the group took up temporary residence at the neighborhood inn. They told the locals two of their colleagues found rare prehistoric remains after a recent visit to the cavern. No one questioned their somewhat believable story because all the permits and credentials seemed authentic and more importantly, the team spent lots of money. The town officials and especially all the merchants welcomed their presence. When the leader of the squad determined their presence was accepted, it was time to bring in the device his fellow brothers and sisters of the Sons of Allah had assembled at their camp in Nunavut, Canada over the last three years. As usual, the day’s grind above ground moved on but deep within Minefield Cavern stood two anxious Middle Eastern scientists. They rehearsed the same drill everyday for over a year but now argued as to what their next move should be. “It has been two days and the Ruler has not answered my daily calls. You know what we are to do at precisely 9:00 AM Washington, D.C. time if he has not replied after forty-eight hours. We must proceed. We have two minutes.” The deafening blast caused an enormous glowing dome to form. But what followed immediately would be scarred into everyone’s mind. The towering nuclear pillar grew into the atmosphere. As the recognizable mushroom cloud took on its ire and harrowing shape against the once beautiful blue background, there was something very different about its appearance. Something very different…  The Midwest was experiencing beautiful weather for the past few days and a sense of composure slowly settled in across the country. Americans started to lift their heads up but no one could ever forget the saddened events which shook the world over the last week and a half. Gradually lives got back to normal even though woeful history was made. Americans had been led by three presidents during the last ten days. That sequence started when their beloved President Whitcomb was assassinated. Having lost the top three U.S. officials in the blink of an eye, government representatives, corporate executives, school chancellors and many other levels of authority all encouraged the American people to show their continued resolve and move on. Of course, many grieving individuals were forever petrified by the horrific acts which manifested only a few days earlier. It’s been said, ‘time heals all wounds,’ as most believed America was once again safe. That was until the earth started to move. Just a few minutes before 8:00 AM central time, maintenance crews were busy with their daily upkeep of the grounds which surrounded the ever so popular Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri. It was early but still a few tourists started to approach the structure. Perhaps some would later make their way to the top by way of the egg shaped cages which carried eager patrons to the viewing section. Two seniors in particular were mesmerized by the silvery wonder. Both carried coffees but it was Gus, who had a camera draped around his neck, shouted out to Martha, “Guess how...?” Suddenly, something happened beneath everyone’s feet. Two other small towns, Cairo, Illinois and Fulton, Kentucky, started to feel rippling movements particularly under the unpaved streets. Cairo was just forty-eighty miles northeast of New Madrid while one hundred one miles directly east was Fulton. Both towns were noted for their meatpacking plants and as always, the fully staffed factories started operations promptly at 8:00 AM. That was the case until the trembling ground was felt throughout the two whistle stop communities. Within seconds, hundreds of miles of U.S. Midwestern heartland opened up. Cavernous channels of gaping earth appeared instantly as the unforgiving wrath of Mother Nature swallowed everything in its path. The muddy Mississippi did not flow idly along. What wasn’t devoured or destroyed by the quake was submerged or washed away by the steady torrent gush of brown water.  The events of the early morning hours across the United States seemed pretty routine. As the Boston to Washington northeast corridor experienced its normal hustle and bustle, train cars from coast-to-coast bulged from its over capacity allowance of commuters. In every state which was fortunate to have a rapid transit system, there’s always that one person at nearly every scheduled stop who was pinned between the closing doors. The unofficial rule stated the next person in line was to push the aggressive one through. Out of town visitors, who are not accustomed to such a daily ritual of getting to and fro, have often viewed those unsafe maneuvers as barbaric. But to the millions of perturbed riders over the decades, it served as their daily morning fix of excitement. New York City topped the chart with approximately seven and a half million daily subway passengers while Detroit at the low end, reported some six thousand everyday loyalists. Millions of people in other cities such as Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Miami, and Cleveland have joined in this clamor of commotion. Any reported use of the daily U.S. transit system would be considered incomplete if it did not include the tens of millions of individuals who rode buses, ferries and trolleys throughout the day. For several thousand innocent commuters on that first Friday in June, their day likely started out as it did the day before. But did their means of transportation reach their final destinations? After the thoroughly trained and planted Sons of Allah martyrs learned their Ruler, Omar Fahee was killed and his army captured, they prepared to execute nationwide devastation. The next morning attractive and well dressed Middle Eastern looking young couples were aboard trains, buses, ferries and trolleys. They asked a nearby fellow commuter if they could borrow their cell phone to make an important call home to speak with their babysitter. The forgetful phony husband claimed he left his phone in the baby’s room while the bewildered impersonating wife held up her drained cellular. The terrorists knew anxious looking parents could not be turned down when a child was at stake. At 9:00 AM eastern time – 6:00 AM pacific time, forty-eight Sons of Allah sisters called 9-1-1 and placed the cell phones on speaker. Everyone around them heard the rote greeting, ‘what is the nature of your emergency?’ At that moment, the terrorists yelled in loud voices, “You have taken him from us and this is a tribute to our beloved Ruler of the Sons of Allah.” A second later, ninety-six martyrs across the United States detonated bombs in their briefcases.