Serious Times

By Margaret O'Neill Lamont

"Serious Times" is Margaret O'Neill Lamont's 2nd novel. An exciting ride with the usual surprises along the way. Post-Apocalyptic ( naturally ! ) , well-written, chillingly realistic; the novel tells the story from the perspective of a young girl and her sister caught by " The Event, " the culmination of tensions between the U.S and the middle eastern territory of Al-Quada. Protected by the perimeter in Yosemite Valley, the Nichols family has a secret: they can " Save The Skies." Refugees from the neighboring fictional community of Las Gatos visit the Nichols home. The " Sister's of Mercy, " a splinter religious sect, make the trek to Yosemite Valley, where it's rumoured to be safe. A young woman from the East Coast with psychic abilities is sprung from a maximum security Mental Institution by a black ops Soldier of Fortune. Dr.Nichols flies to the Amazonian jungle with him for the thrilling culmination of their efforts. A must read.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Margaret O'Neill Lamont
• Release date: Apr 25, 2016
• ISBN: 9781311027283

Margaret O'Neill Lamont

Margaret Lamont is Chef and writer living in the Boston area. She's worked in over 15 restaurants over the past twenty years, likes to travel, write, and cook for friends and family. Margaret is currently working on a third novel.

Book preview

SERIOUS TIMES

Maggie Lamont

Copyright 2016 Maggie Lamont

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever including Internet usage, without written permission of the author.

CONTENTS

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Epilogue

CHAPTER ONE

Since the Event, few have come to our valley. The Event was something that was brewing over decades, yet no one could see it coming until it did. Unrest abroad, a train hit by projectiles and derailed, a mass epidemic outbreak, and suddenly sirens screamed in the night, and people rioted and looted. Then the Army Reserve was knocking on our door, telling me, my sister, and my father that we had to come with them in the lorry. We refused at gunpoint. My father gestured to Skye, my sister, who was rocking back and forth, grabbing fistfuls of her own hair, while her tropical parrot, Sanjan, swooped and dived at the soldiers. When Sanjan took a bite out of the ranking Officers forearm, and Skye began to scream, the soldiers looked at eachother disgustedly, checked off the ' Non-compliant, ' box and turned heel, shutting the door behind them with way too much force. We could hear the Officer examining his wounded arm and complaining loudly, SHIT ! Three non-compliants and now THIS ?! What the fuck type of bird was that ?! Get the first aid kit, I'm going to PAINT my arm in neosporin, No, no, get the rabies booster out, that fucking thing looked dirty.

Sanjan flew back to his perch by the kitchen window, his feathers puffed up all around him so he was twice his size. Skye stopped rocking back and forth, slid off her chair, and went to go comfort him, crooning his favorite song, smoothing his ruffled feathers, which were a brilliant green, tipped with yellow, fire orange, and blue in strategic places.

His feathers are meant to blend in with jungle foliage, Skye, our Father had explained in better times, From below, he blends right in with the leaves in the trees.

But what about the yellow and orange feathers, Daddy ? Skye had asked anxiously,

What about them ? She pointed.

Those are meant to imitate jungle blooms, Skye, and the sunset. The patches of blue look like the sky.

Skye had been conceived on a trip to the Amazon basin in Brazil. My father was studying the neurolinguistic patterns of Amazonian tribes, while my Mother, an ethnobotanist, gathered samples for her study. I was three and crankily at home with my Aunt, who claimed I cried practically non-stop for two weeks, threw up my breakfast cheerios every morning, and caught a cold.

It was a long week, Laura, she would say, patting my arm, But then I discovered your mother's stash of Disney videos. We got along so much better after you'd watched ' The Little Mermaid, ' five nights in a row. Do you know that I can sing every word on the sound track ? My Aunt Kath cleared her throat and pushed her wavy auburn hair away from her face,

Under the Sea ! She would launch into the entire song, filling in the parts for the friendly hermit crab, the schools of fish that were Sebastians back up singers, the jolly clams that sang the refrain. She said she knew all the dialogue between the characters, too.

Ariel was slightly goody-goody, but you loved her because she had red hair like yours. Hers was down to her elbows and yours was a fire mop of curls around your head. No offense, Laura, you were no Ariel, but if it made you happy, I didn't care. My Aunt would wander off humming the evil witches part, put a pencil in her bun, carrying a book. She wrote romance novels.

Cheap thrills but it pays the bills, She would say grimly.

NEVER underestimate the market for bodice rippers, Laura. She sniffed.

Apparently there are hundreds of thousands of women who want their white linen chemises torn off in a Captains quarters on a Spanish Galleon. I've used the same male character so many times, I feel like he's an actual person. I just change the name for every novel, ' Brant, Byron, Garth, Ruark, Roberto, Rual…' I change his appearance using paper dolls. I've got Treasure Island Pirates at home, five boxes of them, a mustache here, a sword and boots there. I just make a system and it's surprisingly easy. She poured herself a glass of lemonade and wandered off. My Aunt Kath lived in a building adjacent to the main house. Our house was an old Mission building and was on the historic register of California residences. It was built of aging pale stucco, had curved red tiles, porticos, alcoves, and a central walled in-patio that the monks used for morning and evening prayers. Some of their iron crosses were still on tiny ramparts rising from the roof. There was a small indoor chapel that my father remodeled into his office. My mother used to work in a study on the second floor with south facing windows.

She had died of a scorpion bite when we were little, my parents had been camping by the Rio Grande. A wonderful place, my father would say, removing his glasses and polishing them. He took of his glasses so we wouldn't see the tears magnified behind the lenses, he couldn't stand seeming sentimental.

The stars overhead and a giant full moon over the river. We had a blissful two weeks and then your mother decided she just had to put her boots on and take midnight photography. I told her to check her boots nightly, but she was so excited by the full moon over the river that she forgot. Miles from the entrance of the camp. The scorpion was particularly venomous, an astounding concentration of toxins. Your Mother's central nervous system shut down almost instantly, she felt very little pain. She said ' Ow ! Dammit ! ' and three minutes later she was slumped over onto her sleeping bag. I didn't know what happened, I thought she had fainted and kept trying to wake her. I didn't see the scorpion crawl away until it was too late. My father put his glasses back on, his lips trembling just slightly. Mr. Boates came up to him under the table and rubbed his face against his shin. He stooped and picked him up. Aah, Mr. Boates, it's time for your dinner, is it not ?

Mr. Boates was an overweight, oversized black and white tabby prone to hairballs. He skittered all over the polished floorboards of our house all morning, napped for two hours at noon, and then followed us around after that. He was sort of my cat, he slept on my bed. He was a stray and had appeared around our stable one spring morning seven years ago, a bad scratch on his eye, and too thin.

He's eating mice in the stable, Laura, my father said. Just let him stay there, he'll come up to the house eventually. It took weeks of coaxing before he would accept food or let us pet him. My Aunt Kath gave him a bath, wrinkling her nose.

I'm afraid this ones male, she said regretfully, Judging by his prodigious scent and er, male assets, I'd say your furniture will never be the same. My Aunt Kath had a very sensitive nose, she could tell each scent in the air in the evening, guess everyone's cologne or perfume, and nurtured a garden with jasmine, honeysuckle, and climbing roses. She loved the smell of dark chocolate, creosote, lit firewood, beef stew with hominy, scorched chilis, and dulce de leche cooking in a saucepot. She wore a lilac perfume called Diorissimo, and her hair smelled like cut green wood.

Please keep Mr. Boates away from my house, Laura, she said, I can smell him twenty paces away, my God, that tomcat reeks ! My Aunt Kath was a singular person. Her books lined an antique bookcase in her study, each cover more lurid than the last. The romantic heroines had shiny, raised gowns, clouds of wind - blown hair and scarlet lips. The male Lotharios had tanned muscles bursting from their pirate's ruffled shirts, tight breeches, and perfect teeth.

Skye and I used to pore over them when we were little, giggling at the covers and laughing at the stories. My Aunt didn't mind. She said we were too old for The Little Mermaid, video, and if it kept us out of trouble, who cared if we read words like

Heaving breasts and straining member ? We repeated the words on the playground and our teachers were scandalized. It took a lot of careful explaining at the parent-teacher conferences. My father was delighted to elucidate the linguistic origins of 'member.' Our teachers decided that my Father had gone slightly mad from the loss of our mother. He never did well in parent teacher conferences.

My Aunt Kath had come to stay with us after my Mom, Gwen, died. She had been a full time writer in Los Angeles, living in an expensive condominium, drinking pink champagne at her book launches ( awful ) and dating, as she put it, An ever more sordid cast of Actors, who had one eye on her wallet, the other on her several properties. She had a cottage in Oahu, and a small house in Napa that she rented out during the spring. One of the actors had broken her heart badly, and after that she seemed bored and remote concerning men. I was never the marrying type, she'd say and then shrug. That was Gwen's department. We adored her.

My Father was practically mute after my Mother's death. Aunt Kath flew in from L.A three days later and began the funeral arrangements, and cooked us dinner nightly. She only knew how to make chicken soup with chipotle peppers, beef tacos, and guacamole, but we didn't care. She let us have ice cream when we cried, and blew bubbles with us on sunny afternoons. She handled my Father's stunned grief well, leaving him piles of books, taking away the photo albums and Jack Daniels, and inviting his one friend, a fellow professor, over every few days to take him on a walk, as you would a puppy. After a while, my Father stopped grieving and began to take an interest in us again.

Aunt Kath had driven up to L.A, piled her belongings into a rental truck, and drove on the freeway all on her own back to Yosemite. The drive helps me think of my next novel, She moved in her antiques, extensive wardrobe, gardening tools, hundreds of books, and best of all, her perfume collection in art deco bottles from the thirties. She spent afternoons telling us stories about her life in L.A when it rained, cooked posole –

( she had learned, ) and allowed us to wear her jewelry, her rhinestone combs, designer shoes, scarves, and scent. We liked Chanel best.

She was the perfect substitute for my Mother, and she took to her role well, only on a few occasions snapping and losing her composure.

We became our own little family unit while the world outside grew more and more disparate. The poor townspeople were bitter, the ones who couldn't find work because of the influx of cheap labor from Mexico. They didn't speak Spanish, and definitely didn't want to learn. They were often descended from German Mennonites, had owned their own farms, and were forced to sell them once the drought hit.

Do you know how much land prices plummet during a drought ? Evidentially, there's not a huge demand for failing tomato and artichoke farms. There were skirmishes between immigrant communities and the townspeople in places like the Inland Empire, all the way down to the border, where the Mexican drug cartels slowly invaded the settlements. The Race wars, as they were called, were on the nightly news vids. The drought stretched on an on, until showering for three minutes, having no lawn landscaping, and measuring water use seemed normal.

We were better off in the valley. Scientists called Yosemite a Micro-atmosphere, with its own weather system separate from the dry lands around it. Moisture precipitated in the mountains and became run off, rainstorms cooled the heat waves, we even had snow sometimes. It was cool and dry where we lived, but there were pine trees and deciduous growth everywhere. Elk, bison, deer, pheasants, and raptor birds thrived in meadowlands. If there was scarcity, we didn't really have to worry about it. Venison was traded openly, hare and pheasants were profuse. There was a fully stocked Safeway, a large police force, a good school system, and a harmonious community. The university was an hour's drive away and Aunt Kath was always at home in the afternoons, plus we had a housekeeper, Maria, whose brothers took care of our property. Weekends were spent swimming in watering holes, hiking, canoeing, and in winter, skiing at Aspen.

Life was normal until the Event.

We were enrolled in La Mission Yosemite High, me in twelfth grade, Skye in tenth. I wanted to be a filmmaker and was applying to film school in L.A. Skye loved to paint, eschewing becoming a cheerleader like I had, and favored natural fiber clothing and friends who were in her art classes. As a child she had been Tow-headed, but her hair grew long, thin, and fly-away once she hit puberty. Skye was a vegan, and subsisted on tempeh, raw vegetables, millet seed bars, and things like bean chips, kale, and near – cheese. She had crumbling gluten-free molasses cookies in her knapsack, next to her art books. She wore hemp jerseys, North face jackets, and sensible sandals with dark green leggings. We were nothing alike.

I liked the color pink and matching my earrings to my nail polish. Cherry red was an acceptable substitute for pink, also cream – colored cashmere, with designer jeans and the newest shoes. Everyone was jealous of my dark red hair that waved to my shoulders, and how I had light brown eyes instead of the red heads typical green. I didn't burn in summer either, rather getting a toasted almond shade that made my teeth and the whites of my eyes glow.

We didn't really date in high school, there was no system of approaching eachother, and there were few steady couples. We drank too much at keg parties instead and learned about kissing or hooking up, by trial and error. I might've looked like I fit in on the outside, but I still felt separate, apart somehow, as if I was watching everything from high above. My mind was always going, analyzing, comparing, grading, measuring.

My class mates were addicted to their Iphones and Androids, but we worked hard and went to Keg parties or Bonfires on weekends. We learned about the things we needed to know from the information highway. The boys at school did boy things and a new one was cropping up and was seriously disrupting gender relations at La Mission Yosemite High. It had a negative effect, was alluded to with crude gestures, drawings, graffiti, and Twitter feeds. It was the reason some guys had twisted ways of interacting with us, going through girls like they were objects.

We didn't need sex education, we had the 'net. Information a click away. Reputations made or destroyed by what some one else wrote about you, a bad yelp review, a thumbs down movie review, pundits dragging politicians through the mud, and Celebrity magazines making and breaking buzz factor by writing a few paragraphs for a rag or lame column.

My Aunt Kath had similar unpopular opinions. She claimed advertisements of all kinds preyed upon consumers insecurities and filled their minds with mindless jingles, slogans, and catch words. They floated around in people's unconscious and popped up when they needed to make a purchase, as if they had been embedded by careful use of hypnosis. The repetition of brands names, the calculated images, smiling blonds, friendly minorities buying new houses, red lips, erotic fast food commercials, boobs and beer. She tore each one apart grimly, snickering at the naked commercialism of it all.

There's something extremely slutty about Capitalism, Laura, She said solemnly.

Buy me, Buy me, Take me, Take me ! She giggled meanly. She should talk.

Filling the airwaves, beamed down from cable satellites. In our house, we put commercials on 'mute' the second they appeared on the screen, looked away, threw out circulars and coupons, were bored by fancy cars, and except for me, bought clothes for the way they fit, not because of their labels.

It seemed obvious to me that malls and stores were getting emptier and emptier, clothing crammed on plastic hangers that never sold, perfumes and cosmetics that sat on the shelves, Mercedes and Lexuses that Auto Dealerships practically gave away, the rates were so low to lease, because not many people were buying them anymore.

The 1% were buying expensive cars. Everyone else bought Camrys, Accords, Nissans, Ford or Chevy trucks, and the middle class bought Pruis'. The 99th percentile slaved in their factories, malls, and stores for low wages, and seldom could afford to buy the products they created, hawked, hustled, or rented. Academia made education more and more exorbitant, so much so that even the 1% were nervous. The 99% percent thought about state schools, scholarships, financial aid packages, or trade schools. Or no college at all. Throw their young to the wolves, because they weren't convinced that their own expensive BA's helped them in the rat race anyhow.

You know, you're getting frightfully shallow. Aunt Kath complained one day after I'd spent two hours on Facebook, emerging only to inhale her beef stew. My Father was at a conference. She was bugging me lately, her eccentricity seemed forced, the rhinestone combs no longer interested me, and I didn't care that she'd published fifty novels and had scads of money. Why was she single ? Didn't she know that anyone who was ANYONE was engaged or married ? Aunt Kath seemed not to notice my attitude, always writing or gardening or cooking, or so I told myself.

If I had known that I wouldn't see her again after the Event, I would've made more of an effort. I wouldn't have been so obnoxious, I would've answered her questions, not complained about her chicken soup with chipotles.

I'm sick of this recipe ! I had exclaimed one night, noisily dropping my spoon and sulking. Aunt Kath's eyebrows raised slightly. Hormones, she mouthed at my father. She passed me a homemade roll that she had made and I tore it to shreds, even though I was hungry. My family was piggish, heads bent over their bowls and masticating, tearing off bread and slathering it with sweet butter, or in Skye's case, with white bean dip whose vinegar and garlic flavoring was making me sick to my stomach. I'd felt strange all day, my temples pounding, stomach upset, cramps from my knees to my ribs. It didn't seem fair but we didn't discuss what was fair or not, we were too busy, too absorbed.

Will hadn't answered my text. My feelings were hurt and I didn't know how to talk about how bad I felt. I scraped my chair from the table, left my bowl and silverware and glass of spring water, and pounded up the stairs. I slammed my door and cranked the air conditioning, flicked off the light and turned my lava lamp on. I picked up my phone and put it down again. I stared at the moving blue shapes in the lamp. I glanced at my Android again, stripped off my jeans, enjoying the cool of the sheets and pillow against my throbbing back and neck, and dropped off to sleep. When I woke at three, it was eerily silent, then sirens and helicopters began piercing the night.

I heard footsteps as my father pounded down the hall to knock on Aunt Kath's door, Mr. Boates jumped off my bed and onto the windowsill anxiously, ears flattening. He and I watched the flood lights, the red and blue flashing lights, heard the screams and shouts of people and slamming brakes of cars on the freeway, fifteen miles south. It sounded like cars were crashing. Helicopters flew over every hour or so.

My Father knocked on my door and told me to get dressed and wake Skye. He wanted to tell me something. I hurried to dress in the dark. Mr. Boates dove under a pile of sweaters near my closet. Skye was stirring and I hissed at her to just throw sweats on, because something was happening. We crept downstairs and saw my Father squatting in front of the flat screen TV. He only did that when something really important was on, the Superbowl, or the latest politician discussing the Race Wars. Sometimes he cursed and threw popcorn or empty beer cans at the plasma screen. But not this time.

We stared at the blare of lights flickering over the darkened study. The cable news station said Breaking News, in scrolling red letters. Weapons of Mass Destruction used by Mid East against the U.S, Skye began whimpering, then crying. I put my arm around her. Her sobs grew louder as she hugged herself tightly, then she began rocking back and forth.

No, no, no, no ! She repeated over and over again. She pressed her palms against her ears so hard her knuckles turned white. She was usually so shy and quiet, just doing her homework and holing up in the Arts Studio building. This display of emotion was totally unlike her. She liked Farmstead, on Facebook, an application for organic gardening. She wore hemp braided bracelets and had a silver dolphin necklace.

The silver dolphin necklace symbolized her membership to the Endangered Species of The World, club. She and her friends liked Japanese anime and Vegan cookbooks. She chose avatars from anime for her Facebook account, an endless array of doe- eyed, swirling, platinum – haired wraiths with psychic powers. Her girlfriends did things like cook seitan chili and watch peace documentaries on weekends. Sometimes a hippie like teen age boy or two would come over in the afternoons. They didn't even drink. She had never kissed a boy or tried pot. I think holding hands was as far as she went with Hippy Hemp Boy. She seemed not of this world somehow. Her light gray eyes were always buried in a book or over her easel. She said she needed to feel that she really, really knew some one as a friend before making out. I would always snort and roll my eyes, but Skye didn't care at all. She was immune to sarcasm. Earnestness, Art, and the Vegan revolution would change the world.

I personally hated Kale and would disappear to Arbys whenever she and her friends made it. Dirty feet, Aunt Kath would sigh. Cooked kale smells and tastes like dirty feet, and that's no lie. She would cut herself a large wedge of brie, tear off a half loaf of fresh French bread, cut a stem full of grapes, pour a big glass of white wine, arrange it all on a tray and vanish into her study when they cooked kale. Even Mr.Boates hated the smell of kale.

Skye reached up and twisted a lock of straw blond strands around her index finger, then began pulling. And pulling. And then pulling some