Red the First (25 page)

Part of me worried that my optimism was
misplaced. How could Red possibly pull this off? What could he
possibly do to cure the world of the Armageddon that had destroyed
it? Not even Red himself understood the nature of his gift. Perhaps
I put too much stock in my dreams.

“
I’ll see you at the top of
the world, Mike,” Jessica said, looking at me with tears running
down her sooty face. “Love ya.”

“
And I love you. Now, up you
go,” I said, urging her to continue up the ramp without
me.

Jessica and Red’s wife ushered the kids
between them and disappeared into the crowd. My god, I felt like a
pirate sending my family down the plank, into shark-infested
waters. What would they find up there? The crowd was growing thick.
People were shoving. Red and I were crowd control, keeping order to
prevent people from getting crushed. The hatch was programmed to
stay sealed until the surface was habitable again, but Veronica was
in one of the secondary control rooms working on overriding it.
When the crowd began to move, I knew she had succeeded, but would
Veronica and her team make it out alive?

The smoke was getting thicker. People
were coughing and hacking, but other than that, they were eerily
quiet. The lights were flickering on and off. The generator room
was probably engulfed in flames by now.

Michael and I were directing traffic
when the crowd parted to let our mother through. My heart sunk when
I noticed that our other brothers, Barrett and Bryce Fade, were
nowhere to be seen. They were big strong men, so I tried not to
worry about them. Mother, on the other hand, was a concern. Her
limbs were shaking. Exhaustion reflected in her bloodshot eyes.
Arthritis had bent her spine over the years, but her mind was still
sharp. She indicated that she wanted Red to help her up the ramp,
but he said his duty was to all the Galatians, not just his family.
Mother argued with him. I offered to take her up myself, but she
only wanted Red. That stung, but everyone in the bunker knew that
Red was her favorite. Hell, he was my favorite too. The crowd
finally convinced Red to help his mother up to the surface, if it
meant saving their beloved matriarch and resuming the smooth flow
of traffic up the ramp.

“
All right, everyone!” I
hollered. “Women with infants and young children first!” I hoped my
chivalrous efforts weren’t sending them to their deaths. Veronica,
her youngest daughter—a pretty teenager with short black hair and
bright blue eyes—and one of her grandchildren appeared on the
scene, gagging and coughing from all of the smoke.

While Mother’s hair was gray,
Veronica’s was still blonde, but it had been singed off in places.
She was holding her arm close to her side as if in pain. Her
daughter rushed to her side, and helped guide her up the
ramp.

“
The fire has consumed
everything,” Veronica informed. “There’s no going back.”

“
Can you climb?”

She nodded and began the steep
ascent.

The lights went out for good, but
trucks were still coming up the ramp with their headlights on. It
was still too dark to see if anyone else had made the bottom of the
ramp. I bellowed into the darkness. “If anyone is down there,
follow the sound of my voice!” That ushered a few stragglers up the
ramp. I yelled one more time, choking off the smoke as I did so,
but the heat of the flame began to burn my skin. I had no choice
but to climb.

As I exited the portal, I was assaulted
by a wall of swirling yellow and green fog. The air smelled like a
mix of vinegar and decay. This was not the world I had left forty
years ago. I shivered against a biting wind. I hadn’t felt intense
cold like this for a long time. It was very bad luck to emerge in
what must be the dead of winter.

Families huddled together in groups,
but I could barely make them out through the thick mists. If I
lived a thousand lifetimes, I’d never get the sounds of my people’s
wailing out of my head.

The acid air burned my throat. I
started coughing. My head felt woozy. I called out for my wife. Her
voice came back, weak and frightened. Then, through the fog, a
bright light burned. Someone shouted and pointed. The tainted mists
parted long enough for me to see Red struggling to climb up a steep
hillside, and the barren wasteland all around us, rolling on and on
without end.

We wouldn’t last much longer, but I
knew of my brother’s secret gift, so I hadn’t abandoned all hope. I
watched as Red reached the top, turned in a circle, then stretched
his hands toward the sky.

In a voice like thunder, he screamed
to the heavens. “In the name of my father!”

A burst of energy radiated from his
body like ripples from a stone thrown into a pond, pushing away the
tainted green mists and the mustard colored clouds. The pulse went
right through me, setting my nerve endings on fire. For a moment
white light blinded me. The next thing I knew my wife was standing
beside me, holding my hand. Our children stood around us in
wonderment. This was the first time any of them had seen the real
world. Blades of grass burst through pale dirt, flowers burst from
stems, and the world instantly brightened all around us.

When Red was done, the land had
changed from burnt brown to lush green. A rainbow arced in a
turquoise sky.

I didn’t realize that this was the
beginning of a life I could never imagine, full of hardship and
sorrow, but also full of beauty and purpose. And that was barely
the beginning of the great things Red’s son with the star-shaped
birthmark would do. Under his direction, we would travel this
alluring new world and rebuild human civilization, but that's
another story.

~ ~ ~

Note from
Author

If you enjoyed
Red the First,
please
consider leaving a review at your favorite online retailer, on your
blog, or anywhere you enjoy discussing books. Reviews are the
lifeblood of authors, so even if you leave only a sentence or two,
your opinion matters. Thank you for the support.

Sincerely,

C. D. Verhoff

~ ~ ~

To find out what else is in store for Michael and his
people,

check out these other
titles from the
Galatia
Series
:

PROMISED LAND

Book One. Already
Released.

SEEKER OF THE FOUR
WINDS

Book Two. Expected. Release Date,
December 2013

EXILED

Book Three. Expected. Release Date,
Mid-2014

~ ~ ~

About the Author

C. D. Verhoff grew up in the Midwest.
Indiana University is her alma mater. She has worked in retail,
education, insurance and finance. Currently, she lives in rural
Ohio with her husband, two children, a dog, a kitten, a goldfish
and a colony of dust bunnies.