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  RESURRECTION

  RESURRECTION

  REMNANT

  VOLUME II

  MICHAEL CLEMENTS

  Resurrection is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or events is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2017 by Michael Clements.

  All rights reserved.

  This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Paperback ISBN: 978-1-539-91281-7

  Front artwork by Sheryl Abid

  Back artwork by Brooke Clements

  ThinkingMichael.com

  [email protected]

  A NOTE ON CHRONOLOGY

  Resurrection is indeed the continuation of Remnant, but a portion of its chapters take place in the past. Those chapters, and only those, begin with a date inscription. Additionally, the present-day chapters are storylines of their own, and sometimes transpire simultaneously with previous chapters, or even much later.

  for my family

  GHOST

  SEPTEMBER 1992

  20 YEARS BEFORE THE COLLAPSE

  Ethan and Eva ran home in a haste as soon as the bus dropped them off. The air was cold, and the rain was pouring. The twins were more than half a year past their ninth birthday. Despite their age, they had to walk home every day. On days such as that, with poor weather and low temperatures, they rushed home and attended to their usual duties – Ethan occupied the TV, and Eva read whatever she had checked out from the library at the time.

  For over an hour, since he came home from school, his mother had been asleep. Ethan felt sorry for her. Working two jobs sounded like it would be unpleasant, almost painful. Perhaps it was both. Boredom caused him to think about such things while he watched TV. In his boredom he thought about how hard his mother worked, and how she rarely had energy to do anything she enjoyed. Once she woke, it would be dinner, then probably back to bed before it all started again. Looking for something to do, feeling a need to help his mother somehow, and not caring what his sister was up to, he decided to wake Mary and make her smile somehow. She deserved to smile.

  I’ll make a funny face, right when she opens her eyes, he thought. He quietly stepped to Mary’s bedroom door, turning the knob slowly. Once the door creaked open, he looked at his mother to make sure she didn’t hear him. Fortunately, she hadn’t. He snuck up, trying not to laugh as he could hear her snore, and in one quick leap he jumped on the bed right onto her shins.

  “Ethan!” she said, gasping from fright. “What are you–”

  He was already making that face as planned. Mary’s expression quickly shifted from annoyed and grumpy to slightly amused, enough to smile a little.

  “Ethan, you can’t jump on the bed!” She pushed his feet while saying, “And no shoes, either.”

  Just the bed? he thought. “How come you didn’t say I can’t jump on you? Shouldn’t that be against the rules?”

  Mary laid her head back down, brushing her curly brown hair off her face. “Of course. But I’ve been saying that since you could walk. You’ll always jump on me every chance you get. You always have. Glad you broke the habit years ago. Wait…, apparently not.”

  Ethan chuckled. He started virtually singing. “Yep. When you’re on the couch, and when you’re walking to the kitch-en, and when you’re getting in the caaar.” When his mother shot him a glare, he stopped, but still smiled. “Sorry, mom.” He fell forward with his arms wrapping around her. “I love you.”

  She sighed. “And I love you, baby. Now, get off. Since I’m awake, I may as well make some coffee.” Ethan flung himself to the other side of the bed. It invoked a strange feeling, because his mother still reserved that space for his father, and that spot always reminded Ethan of him. “Where’s your sister?” Mary asked.

  “Pssh! I don’t know. Not like I care. She’s prob’ly doing stupid push-ups and swinging around something like a monkey.”

  “Probably,” said Mary. “You hungry, baby?” She raised her voice. “Eva, where are you?”

  There was no response.

  As Mary walked into the kitchen to prepare a cup of coffee, Ethan thought about how he woke her up. “Mom?” he said softly. “I’m sorry for jumping on you.”

  Mary chuckled. “You said sorry, Ethan. It’s no big deal. Just don’t do it again. I’m glad you didn’t hurt me, or yourself.” She looked at him with intrigue. “Why do you feel so bad?”

  He imagined his knees had landed on her stomach, or that his fingers had accidentally jabbed one of her eyes. “’Cuz I could have hurt you,” he said lowering his head.

  “You couldn’t hurt me,” Mary said, smiling. “I’m invincible. Indestructible.”

  He thought for a moment about how strong she really was. She gave birth to two babies at the same time, he acknowledged. She really is tough. Still pretty young, right? Yeah, she’s not very old. “How old are you, Mom?”

  “Ethan, honey, you should never ask girls such questions.” She poured the water in, then closed the lid.

  “Why not?”

  Mary turned toward her son as she waited for her coffee to brew. “Because girls are sensitive about their age, especially when they’re grown up.”

  Ethan stared at his mother with a growing smile. It was his way of saying he still didn’t understand something, but was too embarrassed to admit it.

  Mary sighed. “Nobody wants to be old, Ethan. That’s why we’re sensitive about it. When we’re old, our skin gets wrinkly, our boobs sag, our hair loses its color… All kinds of things.”

  Ethan tilted his head. “So, you’re afraid of being ugly?”

  “That’s right. Not to mention, the older we get, the closer we get to dying.” She kissed the top of his head.

  He understood what she meant, but couldn’t quite piece together how all those reasons made it wrong to ask girls about their age. He gave it a moment while his mother’s coffee finished preparing and she grabbed an empty cup. “Wait… So, asking girls how old they are is like reminding them how old they’re getting.”

  Mary smiled, pouring her coffee. “Yes, baby.” She kissed the top of his head, then walked back toward her bedroom.

  “I’m sorry, Mom. I was just wondering. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

  “You didn’t, honey, I was just advising you, for the future. Just trying to save you a bunch of trouble with girls later in life.” She set her coffee on the nightstand then crawled back into bed while Ethan remained by the door. Once she was comfortable, he offered the cup back to her. “Thanks, honey. And to answer your question, I am thirty-one.”

  “Psssh! That’s not old at all.”

  Mary laid back and closed her eyes. “Yeah, but it’s not young, either.”

  “I can’t wait to grow up. I wanna do what I wanna do.”

  “Of course, honey.”

  Ethan recognized that Mary wanted to nap. He understood the reason, and so without another word, he left her alone, first giving her a kiss. After closing the bedroom door, he strolled into the living room. Though watching TV was an option, he wasn’t interested. Nothing he could think of sounded interesting, so he figured he’d find his sister and kill some time with her.

  He checked her bedroom a second time; still not there. He checked the bathroom, the front yard, inside the car, and even the street. It wouldn’t come as surprise to find her somewhere down the street getting into trouble.

  She was nowhere to be found.

  “Where are you, Eva?” he said to himself. Since he was already outside, he he
aded toward the forest near their house. A place that all three of them enjoyed walking through as a family from time to time. It was the only other place Eva was likely to be.

  Unless something happened to her…

  Ethan sensed something was wrong. Whether she was in the forest or she was missing, it wasn’t a good situation. She had been caught running off several times before. He predicted he would tell on her, perhaps earning some extra privileges for doing so. Wait, I’m out here, too… Now, he debated going back inside. But something could be wrong with Eva, he thought.

  So, he just figured to hell with it, then proceeded down the sidewalk, past the houses and Plaid Pantry convenience store. A narrow trail between two houses led into it, and he veered off the concrete path once he was there. He had a hunch Eva would be near the creek.

  Countless branches scraping against his body, several spider webs, and a deep mud puddle later, Ethan stumbled upon cleared ground that was right beside the creek, the top of which being three feet above the water’s surface. A tent was setup there. Expecting a homeless man, or a whole group of them, he nearly turned back, but he heard someone gasp. It sounded familiar…

  “Eva?” He waited. “Eva, are you in there?” Nearly a minute passed. “Eva, I know you’re in there. If you don’t come out, I’m telling on you.”

  “Ugh! How did you find me?” his sister said.

  He stepped up to the tent. “You always wanna go over here when we go walking with Mom. And, it’s a tent, so, you know … duh.” When he stepped inside, he saw Eva was only wearing a pair of loose Nike basketball shorts. “Ahh!” Ethan screamed. “Put a shirt on!”

  “Why? I don’t like wearing clothes. You and mom know that.”

  “Yeah, but I thought you stopped doing this. Seriously, that’s gross.”

  Eva sighed. “Fine,” she said, moving to pick up her tank top. Ethan was at least thankful to see nobody was in there with her, especially a creepy homeless man. After putting on a top, fixing her long brown hair, Eva asked, “Did you tell Mom?”

  Ethan laughed. “Not yet!” He nearly bolted off.

  “Wait! Wait! If you don’t tell mom, I’ll share the tent with you.”

  Ethan stopped four steps away from the tent. “Why would I want a hobo tent?”

  “Because there’s some really cool stuff.”

  “…Like what?” he asked, walking back toward it. “And why do you even do that?”

  “Do what?”

  Ethan winced as he answered, “Walk around with no shirt. Especially after what Bryan did to you.” He stepped back inside.

  “Boys can walk around without shirts on, so why can’t I? Besides, you’re my brother. I’m not embarrassed around you.” Eva corrected.

  “… Bryan’s our brother, too. Didn’t stop him from doing things to you, did it?”

  “Half-brother, Ethan.”

  “He’s still our brother, whether he’s ‘half’ or not. Whether he’s sick and twisted or not.”

  “Well, just because there’s creeps like him around, that doesn’t mean I need to be afraid of them. I just need to be more … on guard.”

  The subject itself disgusted him, so he only listened to half of the last thing Eva said. When Ethan had looked away from her, he spotted two knives. He reached down to grab both. Though their blades were dull and their hilts worn out; he liked them anyway. He had never owned a knife before. Since their mother forbade them from even playing with sticks like they were swords, there was no chance on Earth she would permit them from owning these things.

  “Like ‘em?” asked Eva.

  Ethan shrugged. “They’re okay.” He dropped one and began to toss the other up and down in one hand. “What else will you let me keep if I don’t tell Mom?”

  “What else do you want? You wouldn’t like anything else in here.”

  Speaking of which, thought Ethan as he scanned the rest of the tent. Other than the two knives and a sleeping bag, there were only a few books and two small backpacks. He picked up two books at random. The titles read ‘The Book of Lilith,’ and one with a long title which included the word ‘Talmud,’ neither of which he had never seen before. “What the heck are these?”

  “Books. Ever seen one?”

  “That was mean. What’re they about?”

  Eva shrugged. “I don’t know. Random stuff about the Bible and whatever. Mom told me to check ‘em out when we were at the library. Remember at Mass we learned that Adam and Eve might’ve not been the first people created.”

  I don’t really pay attention much anymore… “Really?”

  “It was Adam and Lilith.” Ethan became very interested. “Yeah, it turns out that Eve wasn’t Adam’s first wife. It was Lilith. She wasn’t made from a rib, she was created from dirt, just like Adam. They split up because she didn’t want to be on bottom when they were having sex.”

  “Ehh!” said Ethan, covering his ears.

  “Wow, Ethan, grow up. Sex is a thing, and you’re going to like it one day, too. Anyway, since Lilith didn’t want to be… Um, what’s the word? ‘Inferior?’ Yeah, ‘inferior.’ Since Lilith didn’t want to be inferior to Adam and have to obey him and stuff, she left. God cursed her for doing that because God’s always wanted men to be in charge. That’s why I don’t like God.”

  “Well, if it’s the way he wants things to be…” Ethan didn’t feel entirely sure of himself.

  “How do we know it’s what God wants? I mean, shit, how do we even know God even exists?”

  The words offended Ethan. “Um, because He obviously does!”

  Eva laughed loudly. “Says who?”

  “The guys that wrote the Bible…”

  “What if they’re wrong? What if Christians are wrong and a different religion is true instead? Just because some people wrote a book and a bunch of people think it’s true, doesn’t make it true.”

  Ethan shot up fast. “That’s it! I’m telling Mom. Now you’re saying God isn’t real and I don’t like it.”

  Eva stood angrily, grabbed him by the shoulder and threw him onto his back. She was much stronger than he ever thought. He had never had the displeasure to learn just how much all her annoying exercising around the house improved her strength. “You agree with me, Ethan. Don’t pretend you don’t. I’ve heard you talking to yourself in bed when you think I’m asleep. You’re scared! Haha! You’re scared that God isn’t real.”

  Caught.

  Though he was embarrassed that she knew about his little secret, he acted like it didn’t faze him. “So, what? You stopped believing in God and now you’re just pretending to make Mom happy? You pray with your eyes open and stuff?”

  Eva confidently nodded. “Yep.” Ethan sat up and straightened himself from being pulled onto his back. “Anyway, Mom told me to get these books because I wanted to know more about Eve. Did you know Mom named me after Eve? But I wanted to learn more. I wanted to know as much as I can about Eve. Mom said to check out the Lilith book because it describes her a lot, too. Now, I’m just sad.”

  “Sad about what?” asked Ethan, scowling.

  “I’m sad about my name. Mom named me after some pathetic girl that got tricked by a snake for crying out loud! Why didn’t she name me after the girl that just wanted to be equal? Girls aren’t less than guys. That’s stupid. I’m gonna ask Mom if I can change my name.”

  Ethan rolled his eyes. “You thought about this waaaay too much. It’s just a name. I mean, I don’t even know what my name means, and I don’t care. I always just thought Mom wanted us to have names that start with the same letter ‘cause we’re twins.”

  “Yeah, but I’m still older.”

  “What does that even have to do with anything?”

  Eva smiled. “Nothin.’ Just reminding you.”

  “You’re only like five minutes older than me!”

  “Um, twelve minutes! Get it right.”

  Annoyed, Ethan stomped out of the tent. “This is stupid. I’m leaving.”

  Eva followed c
lose behind. “Wait, wait! You’re not gonna tell Mom, right?”

  –––––––

  Ethan told their mother immediately. As he expected, Mary sat Eva down and told her why it was wrong to sneak out of the house. Ethan forgot that he was equally guilty, but she didn’t. He was justified, but she didn’t think so.

  “You gave me a heart attack. I didn’t know where you were! First, I can’t find Eva, then Ethan disappears! What’s wrong with you two?”

  “I wanted to be alone. I saw a chance, and I took it,” said Eva. “There’s nothing wrong with me.”

  Mary now looked pissed off. Her eyes shifted toward Ethan. “You wanna say anything like a smart ass, too?”

  “You said a bad word!” said Ethan. He was raised to have a clean mouth, and sometimes he felt he was the only one who did.

  Mary sighed. “Well, at least one of you still tries to obey the rules.” She stared down her children for a moment. “Eva, go to your room. I’ll talk to you later.”

  From the way his sister left the living room, she didn’t seem to care she was going to be punished. She never seemed to. All she really valued was her books, stretching and exercising all the time, and sometimes playing the Super Nintendo. The video games were always the first to go when either of them got punished. If that didn’t sink the lesson in, it was the books. Eva loved to read as much as most kids – including Ethan – loved video games. Once she started reading a book of any kind, she would be fixed on it for hours. She didn’t have friends, but that never bothered her. If Mary was going to get anywhere with Eva, she would have to revoke whatever book Eva was reading, or all of them.

  Mary commenced her lecture, saying, “You left the house alone, too. You know that, right?”

  He nodded with guilt. “I was just looking for Eva.”