Acts of God Read online

  8:40 p.m. October 6, 1 N.A. (2023 A.D.) — Snow Hill, Maryland

  "Okay, now close your eyes and don't open them until I tell you," Dan Highland told his wife, Betty. It was their fifth anniversary and to make it special he had made reservations at a bed and breakfast on Maryland's eastern shore. The only problem was that he was lousy with directions, so Betty waited with her eyes closed for about ten minutes as Dan drove up and down every street in the tiny town looking for the right address. He was just about to ask for Betty's help when he found it.

  "Okay, you can open your eyes now," he said as he stopped in front of the old Victorian mansion that had been converted to a bed and breakfast. Betty didn't respond. "I said you can open your eyes now."

  "Oh, I'm sorry. I guess I fell asleep," she joked as she pretended to yawn. Then, looking at the old house, her eyes opened wide and it seemed as though she had lost her breath as she stared in apparent disbelief at the house.

  "You like it?" Dan asked. But he sensed something far more in her response.

  "I've been here before . . ." she started, and looking around, modified her statement, "I lived here! This was my house!"

  This was not at all the response Dan had expected. He had known Betty since they were teenagers and as far as he knew she had never even been to Snow Hill, Maryland. Nevertheless, he searched for some reasonable explanation for his wife's claim. "You mean you lived in a house that looked like this?" he asked.

  "No! I mean I lived in this house!" she insisted, as she quickly got out of the car and began looking all around.

  "But when?" Dan shouted, as he turned off the engine and followed her.

  "I don't know, but I did!" Searching her memory she found what seemed proof of her claim. "One street over that way," she said, pointing, "is Washington street. And two streets over is Collins street where Uncle Jack and Aunt Olive lived."

  "You must have seen the street names when I drove by them," Dan reasoned.

  "But I had my eyes closed," she countered.

  Dan didn't want to argue, but there was no other explanation. "Maybe they were opened just a little," he suggested, but Betty didn't respond. Instead she ran up the front steps to the porch and the front door. Without knocking, she went inside, leaving the door open for Dan to follow.

  "It's been changed some, the furniture is different and there used to be a door there, but this is it. I'm sure it is!"

  "Betty, you can't just run into a house, even if it is a bed and breakfast." But Betty ignored his pleadings. A thought had occurred to her and she intended to pursue it. Turning, she ran from the foyer down a narrow hall with Dan following close behind. Where the hallway widened they were met by a woman in her mid-sixties, dressed in homespun and wearing an apron.

  "Hello," she said, wiping her hands on her apron, obviously surprised but not wanting to seem inhospitable.

  Betty had already opened a small door off the hallway as Dan answered the woman. "We're the Highlands," he said, being able to offer no more explanation.

  "Oh, good, I was hoping you were," she said cheerfully as she turned to see Betty Highland descending a rickety flight of stairs. "That's the cellar, dear," she said, and then taking her best guess at the reason for Betty's actions, she added, "the bathroom's right down this hall." But the Highlands were no longer there to hear her. Following them into the cellar, she reached for the light which neither Betty nor Dan had taken the time to locate.

  "Betty, what on earth are you doing!?" Dan demanded.

  "It's here! I know it is!" she answered as she felt her way along the stones in the foundation wall. And then she stopped. "This is it," she said in a hushed tone. Dan and the woman could only watch and wait as she wiggled the stone back and forth and pulled it from its place. Confidently at first, certain that she was about to be vindicated, she reached in, but did not find what she was looking for. Then in desperation she reached in with both hands, feeling her way over every square inch of the cavity. "It's not here!" she said with great distress.

  Dan struggled for something to say but before he could speak, the woman asked haltingly, "What ... is it you were looking for, dear?"

  "The locket," Betty Highland answered, almost crying. "The locket from Augustus."

  "I'm very sorry about this," Dan told the woman.

  "Augustus?" the woman asked with a strange tone of recognition.

  "Yes," Betty answered, no longer holding back her tears, and still just as certain of her fantastic story. "They told me he had been lost at sea..." she sobbed. "We thought he was dead. After a year, Papa insisted that I marry Micah Johnson." None of this made any sense to Dan Highland, who took his wife in his arms to comfort her. But Betty had not finished her story, and she continued to sob. "Just three days after Micah and I married, Augustus returned." Betty Highland looked up at her husband and then to the woman, her expression asking forgiveness for the things she was confessing, her voice filled with equal parts of guilt and desperation. "There was nothing I could do. I had to send him away ... I was married. I never saw him again." Betty sniffled and wiped her eyes and tried to continue. "A few days later, Augustus' sister, my best friend, Regina, called on me and ... and gave me the locket. I couldn't part with it, but I couldn't let Micah ever find it. So I hid it behind that loose stone."

  "Honey, it's all right. It must have been a dream or maybe an old movie," Dan said consolingly. Betty knew it sounded crazy, but she was sure it was real.

  "Come with me, child," the woman told Betty, and then turned and left the cellar. "My husband, Will," she said as Betty and Dan followed her up the narrow steps, "you'll meet him later — he's doing some repair work next door. He and I restored this entire house; spent six years getting it into this condition. We've been over every inch of this house. But it was just last year when he noticed that loose stone down there." The woman led them into the kitchen as she continued. "Will was going to put a little cement in to hold it, but Will — he never does anything halfway — he pulled the stone out to put cement in all around it. That's when he found this." The woman reached into a drawer of a period hutch and pulled out a dishcloth, which, when she unwrapped it, revealed an antique gold locket and chain.

  "That's it!" Betty exclaimed, as she reached for the locket.

  "After we found it, Will never did get around to cementing the stone, so I finally put it back in place."

  Betty Highland carefully opened the locket. In it Dan could see the picture of a bearded man in his early twenties. On the other side was an inscription which he could not help but read out loud: "I shall always love you." And below it was inscribed the name Augustus.

  10:32 a.m., October 8, 1 N.A. (2023 A.D.) — Cifuentes, Spain

  Mercedes Xavier opened her eyes and immediately sat up. Something was wrong. She had fallen asleep only fifteen minutes ago after being up since three o'clock with her two-month-old son, Rauel. Finally, after nearly seven hours of crying, Rauel had fallen asleep. But now something was wrong. She did not stop to ask herself how she knew. Running as fast as she could to his room, Mercedes found her son, his blanket tangled around his throat and his face turning blue for lack of air.

  "Rauel! Rauel!" she cried as she pulled the blanket away.

  Rauel Xavier gasped and began to scream. Mercedes had reached him in time.

  11:47 p.m., October 10,1 N.A. (2023 A.D.) — New Orleans, Louisiana

  Brian Olson was having his usual run of luck shooting craps at the Rising Sun Casino — which is to say no luck at all. So far he had lost over two weeks pay in less than two hours. Holding the dice in his nervously perspiring hand and blowing on them for luck, he was about to throw them when the gnawing fear and anger about his misfortunes to this point suddenly left him and a cool rush of confidence swept over him. It was not a logical thing to do, but Brian Olson did very little based on logic. Reaching down to the table he increased his wager, betting everything he had left, $240, on his next roll of the dice.

  With more confidence and certaint
y than he had ever had, Brian closed his eyes and threw the ivory cubes, picturing in his mind a pair of dice with a four and a three showing.

  "Seven, a winner," came the voice of the croupier.

  "Let it ride," Brian said as he took the dice again. This time he pictured a five and a six.

  "Eleven, another winner," came the voice.

  "Let it ride," Brian said again, as he pictured a five and a two.

  Within ten minutes, Brian Olson had won over $68,000. This, of course, attracted the attention of the casino management, who thanked him for his business and escorted him to the door with his winnings.

  8:43 a.m., October 11,1 N.A. (2023 A.D.) — Lafayette, Tennessee

  Esther Shrum had worked at Citizens Bank for two and a half years, but she had been working at trying to get Jack Colby, the bank's new vice president, to notice her since they were in fourth grade. Over the years she had tried everything, but nothing had worked. He was cordial enough, but despite her best efforts he just never seemed to really notice her. Esther's interest in Jack Colby did not, however, go unnoticed by her coworkers, who found her attempts the source of considerable amusement. It was difficult enough for her to deal with her feelings for Jack and his lack of response, but the snickers of her coworkers, which she pretended not to notice, frequently caused her to cry herself to sleep at night.

  Every morning Jack would greet those along his path as he walked from the bank's front door to his office, and Esther always managed to be along that path, even though she worked on the other side of the bank. Somehow, though, she felt today would be different. Today he would notice her. The strange confidence she felt was both invigorating and intoxicating. It wasn't the first time she had felt this way, but it had been a long time since . .. Suddenly a feeling of dread swept over her as she remembered the last time. It was the night of the senior prom, nine years earlier. She knew that even though Jack could have his choice of girls, he hadn't asked anyone. Some other girls cruelly told her that he really wanted to ask her but was too shy. Acting only on this and her strange feeling of confidence, she convinced herself and told her friends that she was going to the prom with Jack. That confidence remained with her, and when the night of the prom arrived and he still hadn't asked her, she put on her prom dress and the corsage she bought for herself, drove to Jack's house, and went up to his door and knocked. When Jack came to the door, he acted as if he didn't even know who she was — a not too likely possibility in a town the size of Lafayette. Some unkind people had told her on occasion that she was 'plain,' and for Jack to act like he didn't even know her was a crushing reinforcement of that assessment. Nonetheless, she boldly asked him to go to the prom with her. Jack politely thanked her but said he couldn't go because he was watching a ball game on television and, without a second thought, closed the door in her face. It was a week before she recovered enough nerve to go back to school.

  The thought of that night caused a crippling pain that was every bit as real now as it had been all those years before as she stood on the front step of his house and heard Jack's mother ask who was at the door. "Oh, nobody," she heard him answer.

  Esther looked around and saw that Jack Colby had arrived and was headed for his office, which would take him directly past her. The remembered humiliation was too much and she couldn't face him. Turning to get away, Esther somehow managed to trip over her own feet, dropping two rolls of quarters which broke open, sending coins rolling everywhere. Flushed with embarrassment, she picked herself up off the floor and proceeded to collect the scattered quarters. Around her she could hear the laughter of her coworkers. She was about to burst into tears, only to find that Jack Colby had stopped to help. She bit her lips to keep from crying and hoped that he would just hand the coins to her, but then their eyes met.

  In his eyes was a strange look of surprise; in hers was mortification, but she could not look away. The two of them stayed in this position for several seconds, squatting down a few feet apart, until finally Jack broke the silence.

  "Esther?" he said, as though he wasn't sure.

  "Yes?" she responded cautiously, preparing herself for the worst.

  "Forgive me for staring," he said, without taking his eyes off her, "but as long as we've known each other, I don't think that I've ever noticed how beautiful you are."

  All around them the bank was suddenly filled with the sound of jaws and additional rolls of coins dropping to the floor.

  11:56 a.m., October 12,1 N.A. (2023 A.D.) — Osaka, Japan

  The noise of nail drivers and power saws filled the air around the site where new apartments were being built to replace those that had burnt to the ground only three weeks earlier. October was not the best time to start such a project but every passing day represented hundreds of thousands of yen in lost rent. And so the crews worked in shifts, around the clock, seven days a week, in an attempt to meet the absurd schedule. If they did manage to meet the deadline, they would receive substantial bonuses.

  The night shift replacement for Utura Nojo had fallen seriously ill and had not come in the previous night, with the result that Utura had been working more than twenty-four hours straight. Despite the raucous noise around him, despite even the sound of the skill saw in his own hands, Utura's eyelids slowly dropped shut. He awoke an instant later as he felt the saw rip a gaping path through his right thigh. Immediately he dropped the saw and fell to the ground, grasping the wound and screaming in intense pain as blood spilled out on the plywood floor.

  The foreman called for an ambulance and those around him stopped their work to try to assist, but there was little they could do. One of the more resourceful men took off his tee shirt and fashioned it into a tourniquet. It was not easy to get Utura to hold still, but with the help of some of the others who held him steady, the man knelt down in the pool of blood to tie the fabric strip above the wound. As the man's hand brushed against Utura's leg near the wound, suddenly the screaming stopped. Startled by the unexpected calm, the man turned to see Utura's face reflecting not great pain, but great surprise.

  Looking back at the leg, he began to understand why, but at the same time he could not understand it at all. The bleeding had completely stopped.

  Still kneeling in the pool of blood, he tore at the blood-soaked cloth of Utura's pant leg in disbelief. To the amazement of all, the wound was completely healed.

  Around the world, hundreds of other equally unusual events were occurring. People were remembering past life experiences. Many had premonitions of both major and minor events. A few experienced the ability to control physical objects by the power of their minds. Some acquired the ability to hold sway over other peoples' actions and decisions. Many others could read the thoughts of those around them. And some had the power to heal. The events appeared to be totally random and lasted for relatively short periods of time, usually leaving those who had experienced the power fatigued. Accounts of the events began appearing in tabloid newspapers, but when over 800 people all picked the nine winning numbers in a national lottery, it was no longer just the scandal sheets that carried the stories. It didn't take a psychic to see what was happening. The changes in the human race predicted by Christopher had begun.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The Great City

  October 24 (United Nations Day), 1 N.A. (2023 A.D.) York City

  New

  A crowd of nearly half a million people listened, some swaying, some tapping their toes in time as the lilting music of Divination, a New Age band from Miami, poured from the speakers on a massive stage and drifted like falling leaves through the trees and fields of New York's Central Park. They had gathered there to celebrate the seventy-eighth anniversary of the founding of the United Nations. The weather was perfect with temperatures in the mid-seventies and just a few scattered white billowy clouds in the sky. It hardly seemed possible that only seven months earlier the human race had been threatened with the possibility of complete extinction. Now, not only was it apparent that the world would survive,
there was undeniable evidence that Humankind was on the brink of both its biggest evolutionary step and its greatest adventure. The psychic occurrences that had begun a few weeks earlier grew more and more frequent, though at this early stage no one held onto their powers for more than about twenty-four hours. Among those in the park this afternoon, hundreds or perhaps thousands had experienced such abilities in the past few weeks, and scores were having such experiences at this very moment.

  Under a tree at the edge of the crowd, two women — strangers moments before — sat reminiscing of lives long past when they, as men, had fought and died side by side in the second Battle of Bull Run. Elsewhere, a group of about thirty people listened intently as a fifteen-year-old girl told of the knowledge and wisdom she had gained in her previous life as a eunuch in the court of the ancient Babylonian king and law-giver, Hammurabi. Not far away, a homeless man suddenly found himself very popular when it was discovered that, for the time being at least, he possessed the power to heal.

  On the stage the band completed its set and the mayor of New York, who was serving as master of ceremonies, announced the arrival of United Nations Secretary-General Christopher Goodman. Christopher's United Nations Day address to the world would be his first major public appearance since the strange psychic powers began appearing, so the world was particularly interested in what he had to say.