Halfway to MMXX The Year 2020: It Begins

By Anthony Mays

Professor William Lonsdale and climatologist Neil Garret are hot on the trail of a mystery surrounding a monk’s predictions from the year 1010. Old documents, recently discovered at Fleury Abbey in France, point to a potential disaster beginning in 2020. In the meantime, world-wide seismology sensors are picking up unusual tremors in the Arctic’s Pechengsky District. The Russians are telling everyone the quakes are the result of mining operations. However, a young woman in pursuit of her doctorate degree in earth sciences isn’t satisfied with their answer. She meets and seeks help from Neil Garrett and his partner. It isn’t long before they discover that events in the Russian Arctic and the prognostications of the monk are closely linked. Ultimately, five unlikely acquaintances team up and bring their unique understanding of science, history, and religion to combat the forces of nature. Will their efforts prove too late to stop the foretold beginning of the end?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Anthony Mays
• Release date: Jul 23, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005521660

Anthony Mays

DO YOU KNOW THIS AUTHOR?Probably not, but you should. Anthony Mays, the author of the ‘Halfway to’ themed books, chose to use the ‘halfway to’ expression based on his road travels around the country. Seemingly, he was halfway to his destination when a character, plot, or location came to his imagination taken from things he saw along the way. Throughout the remainder of the trip, a strong, mental outline followed on how he planned to use those elements.HONORED to be added to the Illinois Authors Wiki, a project of the Illinois Center for the Book. It is a comprehensive resource for information on authors, photographers and illustrators who have published books and have lived in Illinois or written about Illinois.Writing books became a natural extension from Anthony’s career in the U.S. government where he wrote briefings, operating procedures, and instructional guides. His biggest challenge in making the transition was moving from writing succinct, factual, bulleted ideas to writing prose narrative for a fully developed novel.Along with his wife, Sherry, he lives in southern Illinois and enjoys sharing the experiences of their three children, their significant others, and four blessed grandchildren. Most vacations are spent near water where Anthony envisions finding the next great treasure trove. In the meantime, he is excited to take pieces of his life experiences and mold them into fictional works of art.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1 (Year of Our Lord 1010)

The man lay dying in his bed. Losing the battle to keep his eyes open, they fluttered shut as he signaled for a drink of water.

At his bedside, a fellow monk raised his friend’s head with one hand, while he grabbed a goblet from a crude table nearby.

Lifting the cup to his colleague’s parched mouth, he let him wet his lips with the liquid contained inside.

What few drops managed to make it into the ailing man’s throat, he coughed out.

Returning the cup to the stand, the monk carefully used both hands to make his friend comfortable.

A whisper caused him to lean close to his companion.

After a few seconds, the monk reached to the table and picked up a bible.

Opening it, he pulled two sheets of folded parchment from inside.

The fading man suddenly yielded a soft gasp, and, with it, he was gone.

His comrade made the sign of the cross over the lifeless man’s head.

Then he gently crisscrossed now limp arms upon the deceased’s chest.

I love you, Frobisher, he remarked.

Moving to a near corner of the room, he opened the documents and read the first paragraph.

Solemnly shaking his head, he glanced back at his friend before pressing a hand against the rock wall moving one of the stones.

Wedging it out slightly, he placed the parchment behind it in a crevice and forced the stone back into place.

Patting the rock, he turned toward Frobisher saying, These are not the writings of your legacy, my friend. It is best they stay in your secret place forever so that your spirit is free to enter heaven.

CHAPTER 2 (Year of Our Lord 2020)

"Neil, are you able to stop by my place on your way home?"

Sure, professor, I said. But, perceiving a degree of apprehension in the professor’s voice, I added, Are you alright?

Oh yes, my boy, I’m fine. There is something I would like to discuss with you but if you’re busy it can wait.

No, I was leaving work anyway. I’m probably less than fifteen minutes from your apartment.

Great. How about I call in an order of Chinese and you can pick it up on your way. If I remember correctly, you like Kung Pao chicken with a side order of Crab Rangoon.

Sure, professor. I missed lunch today preparing for a symposium. Chinese cuisine sounds wonderful to me. See you in about twenty minutes.

A short time later, I knocked on the professor’s door.

Come in, come in, the older man invited. Then he pointed to the center of the room. Put the bags on the coffee table. I’ll retrieve usable utensils and bring us a drink. Make yourself comfortable. I’ll only be a moment.

Professor William Lonsdale meandered his way from the front door toward the kitchen. His stocky five-foot, eight-inch frame bent slightly forward as he shuffled over the wood floor into the next room. Although dressed, he wore a pair of black slippers over his black socks. The professor had turned sixty on his last birthday. His salt and pepper, collar-length hair was thickest in the back, while the thinning hair on the top of his head insufficiently hid the shine that peeked through. Seemingly always jovial, his round face gave the hint of a department store Santa Claus without the beard. A look especially noticeable when he slipped on his reading glasses.

After placing our dinner on the table and sitting on the sofa, I looked around then yelled into the next room. The place seems different since the last time I was here, professor. Did you do some remodeling?

Heavens no! he replied, re-entering the room, and sitting next to me. I decided to clean up the place is all. Hired an agency to come in and simplify my life. With all the clutter, it was becoming a challenge to find things. It’s been two months now, and somehow, I’ve managed to keep everything in its place. The only problem is now I can’t find a damn thing.

He gave a silly laugh as though his lost things would magically reappear if he needed them. And, knowing the professor as well as I did, they probably would. The man had an uncanny ability to be incoherent one minute and totally focused in the next. It was one of the things about him that drove me crazy. Yet, because he could transition between the two with such finesse, it became difficult to know whether he desired keeping one off balance or actually had a problem.

Opening the box of Kung Pao chicken, I didn’t know if I wanted to learn the reason for the professor’s call. On the phone, he sounded concerned about something which was a departure from his usual confident self. But I also knew he wasn’t going to tell me anything further unless framed in the form of a question. I thought the man watched too much Jeopardy.

When he returned with our eating tools and drinks, I reluctantly asked my question. 

So, tell me, professor, what has your attention that you wanted to see me?

The old man shifted his body as he reached for a napkin and fork before answering.

I recently received an email from a former student who was visiting Fleury Abbey in Saint-Benoit-sur-Loire, France. He and his wife were on a tour of the facility when a mysterious envelope was passed to him. The presenter, an abbey monk, quickly disappeared into the dark recess of a hallway. The only words he ever said to them was that the contents were very fragile. They never saw him again. The envelope contained two pieces of old paper written in an old French style. The student’s wife, who speaks and reads some French, roughly translated a few of the passages. She believed they were divinations, however she wasn’t exactly sure. Knowing my interest in that part of the world, my student sent them to me.

Do you have them?

Yes. I asked someone I know to translate the text, he said, handing me two typed pages.

I read the first three numbered paragraphs, then shrugged. These are a synopsis about events which have already occurred.

I spotted a familiar twinkle in the old man’s hazel eyes even before he spoke.

Look at the last page…pay attention to number fifteen.

I shuffled the papers, read, and re-engaged the professor’s face before making another comment. "So, Donald Trump did become President of the United States. What is newsworthy about that?"

He smiled as any teacher would before enlightening their pupil.

Now, take a look at number sixteen, he invited again.

Not only did I read paragraph sixteen, I re-read it several times. Then I studied the remaining sections below it as well.

Whoa, I can’t believe... My words trailed off as I went deep into thought.

"Yes, that was my response as well. Tell me what you think you read."

Hesitating, I’m not sure, professor. My first thought was that someone simply put an assortment together of historical events. But the last five on the list seemed like a list of predictions.

He gave his concurrence, then said, Considering the potential age of the original manuscript, everything written on those pages was a prediction by the author.

I shuddered, which did not go unnoticed by the old man. 

"How old are the documents?" I asked.

I don’t know, he said, but they were probably written before the twelfth century. I’ve taken them to a friend who owns a bookstore not far from here. He has spent his life studying old manuscripts and is better qualified than I am to decide their age. After we finish our meal, we can walk there. He closes at six.

I returned my attention to the last page and pointed to the bottom. What is this word, Frobisher?

Ah, that is the million-dollar question, young man, he answered. "I turned to the internet for an answer and my search revealed that Frobisher was the name of a monk who lived at Fleury Abbey and who was known for his chronicles and other writings. Others, who chronicled his life, recorded that he died in the year 1010."

"If these are predictions, I said, the year of his death is halfway to when paragraph sixteen begins to have significance."

Correct! he punctuated happy to have made his point. That fragment gives reference to the year 2020. Altogether there are twenty proclamations, all of which apparently predict future events of which Frobisher could not possibly have known. Even with his level of education, it’s impossible he could have understood the events that he predicted. For example, his writing about the moon landing and that it would be accomplished before the end of the new millennium in which the world had just entered. Fourteen of his other predictions are remarkably accurate as well.

I’ve never heard of Frobisher before. During his era, I imagine it was prohibitive for a religious man to write such a treatise. Wouldn’t his text have been tantamount to blasphemy? And why would his writings appear now? How is it possible a monk from our time came into possession of such information? What was his intention in giving them to your friend?

Finishing a bite of Crab Rangoon, the professor looked away and wiped his mouth. I could sense I was about to go under his spell, or at least conned by this would-be snake charmer.

I hope those are questions you can find answers to, my boy, he said, reaching for another morsel of food.

Me?

He turned to face me again. I could feel the puppet master pull tighter on my strings. In an attempt to control the final act, he would deliver a flattering remark intended to keep me off guard.

Yes, you. You’re at the top of your field, Neil. Who better to consider this mystery? You have to admit that paragraph sixteen caught your attention.

I will concede I’m intrigued. But this all could be a hoax of some sort, I said, trying to parry his soft-soaping attack on my natural curiosity of the passages.

Do you remember that class I gave in which we discussed prophecies of Native Americans, The Book of Revelations, Nostradamus, and astrology predictions? he asked.

How could I forget. You gave our class a writing assignment to critique each of Nostradamus’ 942 quatrains. It took the whole damn semester to write. I thought of dropping the class halfway through.

The professor laughed. It apparently stayed with you, so I accomplished what I hoped I would.

I continued. But, unlike Nostradamus who lived five hundred years later, Frobisher’s predictions were not written in quatrains. He wrote them in simple prose which required no interpretation or strained readings to match them to future events.

Who decides in what forms the foretelling’s of soothsayers should come to us, said the professor. Whether by the written word or simple stories passed from generation to generation should we consider them any more significant than Frobisher’s prose?

Considering his statement, I returned my attention to the papers and read aloud the sixteenth paragraph. "The Sun will swell scorching the Earth. The people of the land will wander to quench their thirst only to find misery. The end begins at twice the year of my death unless those who can change the course of history make themselves known."

"I’ve read your essays and articles on climate change, Neil. Seems to me that passage, and the ones that follow, express many of your own thoughts about the future. What do you think?

The young man gave pause to the professor’s question. "Looks like I have a trip to Europe coming. When do we plan on leaving?"

His mentor picked up another Crab Rangoon and shoved it into his mouth. The twinkle in his eyes brightened as I acquiesced to his wishes without putting up much of a fight.

Checkmate! He won again. I thought. Quest or ruse, I knew this was only the start of it. Why did I fold and allow him to pull me into his scheme?

CHAPTER 3

The tremor lasted only a few seconds. Unless you were stationary, one likely would not have noticed. Even though the shocks were becoming more frequent, the residents of Zapolyarny, Russia were also becoming accustomed to the mild vibrations of the earth.

The series of temblors began ten months ago. Local authorities could not remember the last time there was a period of activity shaking the region as there was now. Five quakes had occurred in just the last nineteen days. The last one at 7:37 p.m. the previous night. The earthquakes were of three to four magnitude but only caused minor damage. The shaking only caused unsecured items to fall from shelves. A nuisance but nothing more. Everyone expected the pulsations would eventually stop on their own.

Not too far away, a young woman entered a research facility as she did every day for the past six months. She removed her thick overcoat, hat, and gloves. 

Fluffing her shiny rust-colored hair to restore its body after being matted down under her winter hat, she eased into place at a computer console.

Outside, a gray sky signaled another gloomy day in Ny-Alesund, Norway. The temperature hovered at thirty-six degrees—average for the month of June.

Turning on the monitor, she saw for the fifth time in the last three weeks a familiar pattern appear on the screen.

Another person entered the test station.

Anything new? he asked, removing his outer garments, and hanging them on a set of antlers fixed to the wall.

Two quakes occurred last night. One was close to a magnitude three but was twelve hundred miles away from our usual spot and in the middle of the ocean. The other was a magnitude 2.4.

Was the smaller tremor at the same place as last time? he asked, pulling up a chair next to hers.

Yep, coordinates 69° 23′ 46.39″ N, 30° 36′ 31.2″ E.

I wonder what the residents in Zapolyarny think of all this, he said. We’re seven hundred and forty miles from there and we don’t feel a thing, but they must feel a little shaking.

She hit the print button. Probably getting used to them by now, she surmised.

Since we arrived on-station, we’ve recorded sixty-three events in the Arctic Circle. Thirty of them coming from Zapolyarny alone. So far none of them have been at magnitudes higher than this last one. The lowest one being recorded at 1.9 magnitude. These readings, as I see them, are indicative of Russian mining operations as the probable cause of the tremors.

The woman removed the seismological chart from the printer. The quakes are not big enough to cause any serious damage, she added.

Do you know for a fact that mining is occurring in that region?

It’s the basis of the entire economy on the Kola Peninsula. I’m betting my paper’s grade that mining is the source of the recent activity recorded there.

Do you think you have enough results to write your thesis? he asked. We leave next week, you know. Our respective universities only funded short-term projects.

Yes, I believe I have plenty of information for my dissertation. Wish we had more time though, she said, flicking a finger at the chart in her hand.

How about you?  Are your research projects completed?

I’ll be taking the last of the carbon readings later this week, he replied. So far, nothing interesting has manifested in the atmospheric conditions I’ve studied. But I should have enough material to complete my doctoral. One of the Italian team members helped me make sense of a few readings that were stumping me. I will admit I’m looking forward to leaving Ny-Alesund. I’m just not a cold-weather person. Give me the beaches in Miami any day.

She snickered. You knew you were coming to the Arctic Circle, right?

Yeah but I thought there might be some sort of night life here too, he said. I thought for sure the research site’s permanent population of thirty-five swelling to a hundred or so during the summer would lend opportunity. However, they’re all research types from ten countries and too serious about why they are here. I can’t even understand most of them. Have you noticed the women are mostly middle-aged? No, no chance of getting laid here. I’m definitely ready to leave this station and get back home.

Is that all you men have on your minds? she asked.

He shifted in his chair. No, sports are right up there, he said with a twinkle in his eye.

I guess you should have done better research then, she mildly scolded him, returning her attention to studying the chart in her hand.

CHAPTER 4

A lone figure stood at the corner yelling nonsense.

As the professor and I drew closer, we heard him say, Revelation 1-3, blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near.

When I passed by him, he reached out and grabbed my arm spinning me around to face him. He wanted me to pay attention to his words.

Brother take heart… He suddenly stopped in mid-sentence and considered my eyes, then immediately released his grip. His demeanor changed with only a silent smile appearing on his face.

The professor tugged at me from the other side. He’s harmless. We need to go, Neil.

But I remained locked on the eyes of the man in front of me. A shudder triggered along my spine.

Regaining my composure, I casually looked him over. I guessed he was a little older than me—maybe about forty and stood almost the same height as me. His dark brown hair was wild and uncombed, matching the beard sprouting from below. There was slight graying at his temples and in small streaks buried in his facial hair.

His clothes were shabby. A faded, short-sleeve black shirt over baggy brown pants covered his frame. The wrinkled, untucked shirt and crumpled look of his slacks suggested he slept in his clothes. I noticed a tear in his pant-leg centered over the right knee and stains from who knows what soiled his attire. Well-worn, brown, slip-on sandals barely covered his feet. They looked to be the kind you would find on sale at Target or Wal-Mart. He wore the garments of a street-person, yet his manner contradicted his appearance. 

He raised a hand and rested it on my left shoulder. His brown eyes peered into mine. Something was different about the way he stared and me. Not a look of hate or disgust. Nor a look of crazy or wild. No, his was more like, you understand, don’t you?

Around the edges of his pupils, I perceived a fire. Not a full blaze, more like glowing embers left when the flames died down. Momentarily, I believed he was reading my mind.

The professor broke the gaze between us by gently pulling me backward.

Neil, come along now, he said, slowly moving along the sidewalk.

I hobbled after him, all the while looking over my shoulder at the man standing on the corner. His eyes continued to shine as he watched me disappear around the corner. The smile on his face never wavered.  I considered returning to talk to him, even as the professor rambled on with words that I did not hear.

What did you say, professor? I finally asked—the spell over me now broken.

I said, the bookstore is closing in a few minutes. We need to hurry along.

Opening the entrance to the bookstore, the top of the door caught the base of a small bell signaling our presence.

The professor entered first and called out to a figure placing a book on a shelf across the room. Ed, sorry we’re late.

Completing his task,