Free The Warrior's Beckoning by Patrick Howard Page A

a seat and buckling her in. He looked back at me, and our eyes met. No fear…

The Survivor’s Ascent
    THE HELICOPTER LIFTED us into the air, leaving behind just a handful of men to face the darkness. I had read no sense of regret in Rick’s mind and seen no fear in his eyes. He was strong to the end. I could feel the others weakening, though, and I could hear the gunfire and unearthly shrieks even over the loud blades of the chopper as we made for the horizon, until finally we were too far to hear the sounds of battle.
    The little girl beside me, dressed in nineteenth-century nightclothes, carried a doll with a glazed porcelain head and a sawdust body dressed in multiple petticoats and a high-neck silk dress. She was thinking about the battle we’d left behind and the amazing fact that we were flying in a large metal whirligig, but she did not seem frightened. A strange power radiated from within her; she was unique. Her name was Hope.
    We flew for a few hours. The pilot had informed us that we would be touching down soon. Aside from that, no one spoke. Finally, the helicopter hovered over a helipad and slowly descended atop a three-story building, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. Moments after we landed, a man in military uniform opened the helicopter’s door and motioned for us to exit. I unbuckled the girl and carried her off the helicopter, following the soldier inside the building.
    There we were met by a young woman in a tan suit. “You’ve done well,” she said to me. She stood in the doorway of what looked like a training area. I said nothing. “You will be employed as our specialist. You have proven yourself to be strong and resilient. You will be trained to unlock your full potential.” I knew what she had in mind and that I was not being given a choice. The girl was taken from me. She, too, would undergo training. Perhaps some good would come out of it somehow…

Part II

The Beckoning
    SHE BECKONED ME in a dream, her eyes beautiful, alluring. I watched as she was relentlessly pursued. “Come to me, my Warrior,” she said, pointing to a street sign. It held not only an address, but a date. An arrow pointed to an adjacent building: 11 Plymouth-Sorrento Road, January 1, 2009.
    What did it mean? As I pondered, I caught a glimpse of what pursued her. It was a man in frame but a shadow in appearance. He laughed menacingly, pointing at me.
    “You cannot save her,” he said, with an evil grin. A strange sensation overcame me. Was this not a dream at all but real? A message? The woman looked at me again, and our eyes met. She was so beautiful—how could she be real?
    She vanished behind a door, and I remained frozen. The shadow followed her, still laughing. Everything went dark, and I woke up. The clock said midnight. I had been asleep for only a few hours.
    Is that a real address, 11 Plymouth-Sorrento Road
? I wondered. I looked at the clock again and saw the date. The first of January in 2009. I sighed. The burning desire to investigate overpowered me. I slid out of bed, and I slipped on my nearest clothes, my uniform shirt and the black dress pants I wore with it. I hung my flashlight and holster on my belt, placed my EMF meter and infrared thermometer intomy pockets, and reached for my God’s Army hat. I left the house and started my car.
    “She called me her Warrior. What did she mean?” I plugged the address into the GPS, and it was real—and local. I put the car in gear. I didn’t know what was going on, but I intended to find out.
    The GPS led me to the address from the dream. It looked exactly as it had appeared then, too—a large, three-story building, like an office building or a hospital. I parked some distance away and approached on foot.
    To the right, along the corner of the building, I heard rushing water. Shining my flashlight on the source, I saw a maintenance entrance to a sewer system, a tunnellike opening, like a subway entrance. It didn’t appear to extend down very far.
    I