One Man's Island Read online

  A PERMUTED PRESS book

  Published at Smashwords

  ISBN (Trade Paperback): 978-1-61868-1-

  ISBN (eBook): 978-1-61868-1-

  One Man’s Island copyright © 2014

  by Thomas J. Wolfenden

  All Rights Reserved.

  Cover art by Roy Migabon

  This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author and publisher.

  Table of Contents

  Author’s Note

  Forward

  Part One

  Chapter 1: The Nothing Man

  Chapter 2: Careful What You Wish For

  Chapter 3: Booze, Books and Bullets

  Chapter 4: Conflagration & Exodus

  Chapter 5: Friday

  Chapter 6: Replenishing Hands

  Chapter 7: Another Winter

  Chapter 8: Holidays Passed

  Chapter 9: Ports of Call

  Chapter 10: Intestinal Fortitude

  Chapter 11: Go West Young Man

  Chapter 12: Rude Reception

  Chapter 13: Pass Interception

  Chapter 14: Q&A

  Chapter 15: Retaliation

  Chapter 16: The Ancient Ones

  Part Two

  Chapter 17: Home Sweet Home

  Chapter 18: Fly the Friendly Skies

  Chapter 19: Aloha Haole!

  Chapter 20: The Island

  Chapter 21: The Battle of Volivoli

  Chapter 22: Rockets’ Red Glare

  About the Author

  Author’s Note

  Dear Reader,

  A lot of research went into writing this novel, and I took great pains to get everything as accurate as I could. That being said, I did take some literary license in some aspects, sometimes great leaps, especially the naval aspects, in order to make the story work the way I desired. That being said, I hope you’ll forgive me these discrepancies, sit back in a nice comfortable place and enjoy the journey.

  I would also like to take the time to thank all of my friends and family for your support in the writing of this novel. I’d especially like to thank my best and worst critic, my partner, Catherine. Without your love and support, I’d never have been able to complete this work. You truly are my Soul Mate! I’d also like to thank Ed McDonald and Trevor Emmitt, whom without both, I’d never have been able to finish this work. Thanks guys! You’re the greatest!

  This is also a work of fiction, and any similarities to places, events and characters, to any persons, living or dead, is purely coincidence.

  Newcastle, NSW Australia, August, 2012

  Sigatoka, Republic of Fiji, November, 2012

  Forward

  It has been said in various scientific circles throughout the years, that 99% of all species that have ever lived on planet Earth, are now extinct.

  When we look up at the night sky, we are looking far into the past. What we see isn’t the stars as they are now, only images of what they once were, so vast are the distances. In a far corner of our Milky Way Galaxy, 100,000 light years from Earth, almost that many years ago, a huge star exploded into a Supernova. A star’s death, is the stuff of life itself, but in that power of life, is also death. It will take many millennia for the light of that huge event, to get to us.

  No one saw it coming.

  It also will take that much time for another little gift this cosmic event is sending us…

  After all the theories, speculation and research, in the end the scientists were wrong. And the most ironic thing about it was that no one was left to know what had actually happened.

  Almost no one.

  “The past is but the beginning of a beginning, and all that is and has been is but the twilight of the dawn.”

  ~H G Wells

  PART ONE

  Chapter 1: The Nothing Man

  It was a cold and damp November morning when Sergeant Major Timothy Flannery stepped off the jet way at the Philadelphia International Airport. He headed for the baggage claim tiredly, hoping this would be the last time for a while. This last tour was the hardest. Not because of combat, it was being away from his wife and family that was finally getting to him. All of his adult life he’d been in uniform. He’d enlisted right out of high school and spent eight years in the regular Army, then came home and joined the police department. While on the job he enlisted in the Pennsylvania National Guard.

  This was okay for a while, until the first Gulf War. That deployment wasn’t so bad because he was still young and single, but he had met and married Connie shortly after returning home from the Persian Gulf. After the attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001, things got tense in the Flannery household. Arguing and fighting started and the first deployment came as a relief to him. He came home after that tour and things were back to normal for a while, then the nightmares came and the fights started again. To be sent off on the second deployment, again, was a relief. The letters and emails tapered off, and then stopped altogether.

  Between the last time and this, things were absolutely frigid in the Flannery home. The slamming of the door when the taxi came to take him to the airport the last time was like the sound of a casket closing. However, after several emails, phone calls and promises these last eighteen months, Tim and Connie had both decided to try to work on things and patch things up.

  That’s why he wondered why Connie wasn’t answering her damn phone. He’d sent her an email three days ago letting her know when he was coming home. He did think about just surprising her, but he was getting a little old for that bullshit, and just wanted to get home.

  Answer the phone, Connie!

  Still going right to her voicemail… He closed his phone and dropped it back into his pocket as he arrived at the baggage carousel. The luggage was just coming down the chute and he had to wait for a while until he saw his battered old duffle bag. He quickly shouldered it, placed his ACU cap on his head, and left to see if she was waiting for him at arrivals.

  He walked outside to the pavement, and through the exhaust of the courtesy shuttles and taxis, he groped in another pocket and retrieved a battered pack of Winstons and a crumpled book of MRE matches. The security assholes at the airport in Germany had taken his old Zippo, and he had only four matches left. He cupped the flame and lit the smoke, inhaling deeply, savoring the taste. He looked around again and didn’t see the blue Chevy Connie had driven for years.

  Where the hell could she be?

  He leaned back against a concrete pole and closed his eyes.

  “Hey pal, can’t you read?” someone said sharply. He opened his eyes and saw a cop heading towards him.

  The cop pointed at the sign right above Tim’s head that plainly read “No Smoking”.

  Looking at the young officer’s face, Tim couldn’t resist. “Does your daddy know you’re out playing cop?” he said snidely.

  “What are you, some kind of smartass?” the officer growled, and reached for his back pocket.

  “You might want to rethink getting that sap out; it’ll look mightily funny sticking out of your ass.”

  “That’s it! Soldier or no soldier I’m gonna—”

  Sensing he had gone too far, Tim said, “Hey, I’m a three-six-nine. Cool off, Troop!” using the Philadelphia Police code for a cop. He reached for his wallet and flashed his badge and ID card.

  “Listen, I’ve just spent twenty-seven hours on planes and this is my first smoke in twelve hours. Cut me a fucking break! When did they do this shit?” he asked,
pointing at the sign.

  “The city did it a while ago. Listen, Sar’ Major, you just get back from the sandbox?” the exasperated cop asked. “This is my first gig out of the academy and my lieutenant is riding my ass.”

  “Yeah... I know how that goes.”

  “Anyway, welcome home. Finish the butt before my LT sees you, okay?”

  “You’ve been over there?”

  “Two tours,” the cop replied, “Marines.”

  “I had a favorite uncle in The Crotch. Welcome home yourself.”

  With that the beat cop nodded and walked away. Tim finished his smoke and hailed a cab. He tossed his duffle bag into the trunk the driver had popped for him and climbed into the back seat.

  “Eighty-two hundred block of Leon Street,” he said.

  The driver nodded, turned on his meter, and plugged the address into a dash-mounted GPS.

  The drive from the airport was quiet, thankfully. He really didn’t feel much like talking and he really hated talkative cabbies. The temperature was even now starting to fall, and the solid, slate gray sky threatened snow. He stared out the window, watching the city pass by from Interstate 95. A lot had happened these last few years, and he thought this time would be the last. Tomorrow he’d go up to the Armory and put his papers in. He had enough time in service to retire. He owed it to himself. He owed it to Connie. All the time away… He’d been in uniform since he was seventeen and now he was on the near side of fifty and he wasn’t getting any younger. It’s not that he wasn’t proud of his service, but it was a long time to be away from his wife. Thank God they’d not had any kids. Being away from his wife was hard enough, but to be away from kids would have been even worse.

  The taxi took the correct exit off of the highway and headed west on Cottman Avenue. It was all the same, but different too. It looked dirtier, like no one cared anymore. He remembered as a kid how everyone in his neighborhood had taken pride in their homes. By the looks of it now, no one gave a shit anymore. A thin patina of filth covered everything, even a small dog being walked by a man in a grimy overcoat.

  The cab driver made a right hand turn against the light at the intersection of Cottman and Frankford Avenues and he looked to his left to see the shell of the old Mayfair Theater. As a kid, he’d walked there with his friends to watch Star Wars and Jaws on Saturday afternoons in the summer. It was now a Rite-Aid pharmacy. A lot of the shops were still there, just different names now, hawking junk made in China. It used to be a nice place to live. He wondered what had happened to it.

  Apathy, that’s what had happened.

  No one was willing to work at keeping things nice anymore. It was a goddamn shame. His dad had come home from World War II into a bright, shiny new world filled with hope. And like the millions just like him, they strived to give their kids everything they didn’t have, and in doing that, they bred a generation of mostly ungrateful bastards. The world owed them everything. Not his parents.

  Tim and his brother were both instilled with a strong work-ethic. When his friends in high school turned sixteen, one by one, all had been given new or almost new cars. The day of his sixteenth, his dad had driven him down to the used car lot on Torresdale Avenue where young Timmy paid cash for a 1969 Dodge Challenger. He’d saved the money after three years of mowing lawns in the summer, and shoveling driveways and sidewalks in winter.

  It wasn’t the best car in the world. It was in bad need of a ring job and shocks, and there was rust in the floor pans, but by God it was his car, and he took care of it. He’d had that car for several years, driving it to Georgia to his first duty station in the Army, and only sold it when he got orders to ship out to Panama. Not one of his friends had kept their cars as long, and one kid, after getting blind drunk at a party, wrapped his brand-new Corvette around an oak tree on Holme Avenue three days after he got it.

  “This is fine right here,” Tim said as the driver turned onto his block. He looked for Connie’s car and didn’t see it, but he did see the big “FORCLOSURE” sign on his tiny, overgrown, postage stamp sized front yard.

  “What the fuck is this?” he said aloud to no one. He gave the cabbie a $50 bill for a $40 fare. “Keep it,” he mumbled, he lifted his duffle onto his left shoulder, and bounded up the small flight of steps to his front door. Standing on his porch he fumbled in his pockets for his key ring. Finding the right one, he inserted it into the lock, but the key wouldn’t work.

  “Jesus jumping Christ almighty!” he said a little too loudly, the anger beginning to boil up in him now.

  “Hey, Tim! Eh, I didn’t expect you back…” the words trailed off from the open door of the row home next to his. It was Phil, his longtime neighbor who’d lived in the house longer than Tim had had this one.

  “Yeah, well… I’m back,” he said with growing frustration. “Can you tell me what this is all about?” He thumbed back at the foreclosure sign.

  “Well, Connie moved out about three weeks ago, and then a day later, some guys from the bank came and changed the locks, and put that sign up.”

  “Moved out? Did she say where she was going?”

  “No Tim… She didn’t. Tim, I really hate to tell you this, but…”

  “But what?”

  “Tim, she said you were dead… that you got yourself killed over in Afghanistan.”

  “Well I’m not dead!”

  “Tim, I can see that. Don’t get pissed off at me. Ah fuck, I’m sorry, man…” he let it trail off. “Look, it’s a little early, but you want a beer?”

  “Yeah, I think I could use one.”

  Tim took out his crumpled pack of Winston cigarettes, and lit one as he leaned against the porch railing to contemplate his situation. What the fuck was he going to do now? He let the thought go for the moment when Phil returned with an opened bottle of Miller for both of them. Tim downed half the bottle in one pull and looked over at Phil. “Thanks,” he said, lifting his bottle up in a toast. “I have a feeling this is only the first of many today.”

  “Yeah, man… this just sucks. She told me about three months ago you’d been blown up, one of those IAD things I hear about on the news. Nothing left to send back. She said it like she was discussing the weather. Kinda’ gave me the creeps. Like, Oh, Timmy got blown up the other day, you think it’ll rain this weekend, Phil?”

  “Well, we’d been having problems, but I didn’t think it was that bad…” he said, then a long draw off his cigarette. So much for quitting these things now, he thought. “So you said she moved out? Anyone help her?” he inquired, sounding very much like the cop he was.

  “Ah shit, Tim. She had a big moving van. Mayflower Movers, I think. They had six guys in and out in about four hours.”

  “No one else? Her sister or dad or anyone?”

  “There was a guy. Always wore a cowboy hat. Big 4x4 pickup with Wyoming tags… started comin’ round’ about three months after you left.”

  “Wyoming? That’s odd.” Tim finished off his beer. “Thanks for the cold one, Phil. Looks like it might snow tonight,” he said, looking up at the sky and taking off his cap.

  “Yeah, that’s what Accuweather says, maybe six inches overnight.”

  “Of course.”

  “Are you going to be okay, Tim?”

  “Yeah, I’ll be okay. Just a little pissed off right now.”

  “I can sure dig that, man. Hey, what are you doing!?”

  Tim put his fist into his patrol cap and punched out one of the small panes of glass in the front door.

  “I’m just using my universal key to get into my house, Phil,” he said, matter-of-factly, reaching into the hole and unlocking the deadbolt.

  “You ain’t going to go off and do something, are ya’, Tim?”

  “Nah, I’m good. Just tired and want to get some sleep and try to figure this out. Thanks again for the beer.”

  “Sure, no problem…” Phil mumbled, watching Tim’s back as he walked in the dark house, and the door shut with a click.

  “Oh, this
is not going to be good,” Phil said to himself, and turned to walk into his own home.

  Tim’s boot crunched on the broken glass when he walked into his living room. The anger was starting to well up. He looked around at a completely bare room and dropped his duffle bag. His footsteps echoed eerily in the empty house as he walked from room to room, to find nothing but some forgotten packing foam, and discarded newspaper pages.

  Upstairs, he found three empty bedrooms, even the drapes, closets and bathroom were stripped. She’d even taken the goddamn shower curtain. “That bitch,” he said in a small whisper.

  He went back down stairs and into the kitchen, looking into all the cupboards and drawers. Not even a coffee cup or a spoon. He tried a light switch, and found that the electricity had been turned off. He went to the kitchen sink and tried the taps. No water either.

  “That fucking bitch!” he screamed. He wanted to throw something, but she didn’t even leave anything to throw. Then he thought about money. He pulled out his cell phone, and dialed his bank. After a few minutes he got connected with the bank manager, a man who he’d grown up with and considered a good friend. After several minutes of explaining, he’d found out that Connie had cleaned out the account a month ago, but left it active. His US Army pay did go direct-deposit a week ago, so he had a little money, maybe enough for a few weeks, but not enough to save the house. He put a stop on all her credit cards, and blocked her access to the account from that point. It was a little unusual, but the manager being a friend had expedited everything right over the phone. He’d have to come into the office later that day or tomorrow to sign some papers to make it official, though. Tim thanked him and thumbed off his phone.

  “Now what the fuck am I going to do?” he said aloud, looking around the empty kitchen, the anger slowly beginning to be replaced by sadness. He looked at the door leading down to the basement. “The guns!”