Compendium Twenty Three: Part I - Through the Valley

By Adam K. Moore

Jacob Curzo Crawley believes he is a less than interesting construction worker living in the heartland. He thought he was destined for greater things after he saved the life of a classmate in high school, but the opportunities did not present themselves as he had hoped. On a typical ride to work one morning he is confronted by a stranger who appears out of thin air next to him in his little red pickup truck, nearly costing them their lives. Much to Jacob’s disbelief the man claims to be his guardian angel, Maddox. But Jacob is not the only human to learn that they have been followed for their entire lives by a guardian. Rather, the entire world now faces the fact that there is a God, a Devil and servants of both struggling to control the Earth. Jacob, his friend Pete, a former flame Quinn and a cocky tag-along named Luke are accompanied by their angels and enjoy a time of peace and enlightenment that is interrupted 7 days after "A-Day" by forces that are eager to take over the world once and for all.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Aug 21, 2015
• ISBN: 9781329495661

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Compendium Twenty Three: Part I - Through the Valley

COMPENDIUM TWENTY-THREE PART I: THROUGH THE VALLEY

Copyright 2015 Adam K. Moore. All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-329-49566-1

For

AMANDA

My guardian

Chapter I

Jacob’s eyes opened heavily and fell upon the red glow of an alarm clock mocking him from his nightstand. 5:28am… Perfect he said out loud to nobody, listening to his voice echo in his sparsely decorated bedroom and amplified after a night of silence. He thought about the upcoming day, a Monday, and how he would have to throw off the covers, decide whether or not to get in the shower and face another ten hours at the worksite. He thought about the cement pad they poured Friday, and how much suffering and grumbling there would be if he and his coworkers were ordered to redo the project for the umpteenth time by the eccentric pain in the ass fronting the money for the enormous (if not impossible) expansion of Independence’s small, outdated hospital. Jacob often wondered if he would collect a paycheck at the end of each week, as his compensation was not always as timely as he was expected to be day to day.

EH… EH… EH, the monotone alarm cried out making the hairs on the back of Jacob’s neck stand on end as his heart raced. Skip the shower, straight to the coffee he decided. Jacob descended the stairs and stumbled through the dark, twisting his ankle and nearly falling after stepping on one of his work boots. He slipped on a mostly clean t-shirt and poured himself a cup of yesterday’s coffee that lingered in the pot and popped it in the microwave. Clearing the sleep from his eyes he gathered up his tool belt and other items he would need for the day. Jacob looked out the kitchen window facing the backyard and a field, his outline lit by a small fluorescent light above the sink that he turned on before bed every night, a habit his mother had taught him. He surveyed the blue and purple horizon that let him know sunrise was not far off. Jacob took a sip of his coffee and cringed, the bitter inky liquid regrettably coating his mouth and throat. Even on the first day of its conception it was not that good, and now it was intolerable. He took one more sip for good measure and, deciding it was beyond saving, Jacob dumped the coffee in the sink and repeated to nobody as he had before Perfect, acknowledging that this day was going to be just as predictable as the one before.

Jacob walked out of the house and let the screen door slap behind him. He knew there was no real point in locking up as people rarely even glanced at his home let alone stop when passing by on their way to or from town. Even the most novice of burglars would be able to tell from the simple home’s exterior and the generally shaggy condition of the surrounding yard that there was nothing of significant value within the old farmhouse. As he hopped into his little red two-seat pickup, Jacob turned the key and listened for the engine to turn over. A familiar grind echoed forth as the old beat-up truck tried to start. Come on… you can do it girl Jacob begged. Finally after a moments rest the truck burped to life and the tired couple set off on the drive to work as they had many mornings before.

One of the few benefits of living out in the country and driving to work in the wee hours was an unobstructed view of some spectacular sunrises on occasion. A sliver of light began to peak up over the vast landscape of freshly tilled fields, waiting to spring forth with life from an early planting season. Oh, to be doing anything right now but driving to work he thought.

Jacob always thought he would amount to something more than a skilled laborer on a construction site. Not that he felt he was too good for the work he was doing or that his coworkers were less valuable men than he. Quite the opposite was true; Jacob admired the skill and dedication of the men and women around him who, day in and day out, could craft metal, stone and wood into massive structures useful for any conceivable purpose. Jacob, on the other hand, did not feel that sense of pride or commitment that many around him felt and he was often reminded of this by his foreman when he was found to be draggin’ ass on the worksite. But he was somewhat of a local legend to many in town which earned him a bit more leniency than others might receive.

Jacob’s prospects were certainly much better twelve years ago when he saved a girl’s life in high school shop class which opened a world of fame and opportunity (that is to say as much fame and opportunity as Independence, Indiana could allow). The young girl had been carelessly operating a large drill while talking with a classmate about how hot the high school quarterback was and how she thought he noticed her at some party or another. While attempting to drill a hole in her children’s top as assigned by the teacher, she neglected to better manage her flowing blonde hair which she had previously been running her hands or a brush through over and over before finally forgetting to put it up into a ponytail. As a consequence, the silky and durable strands became entangled in the giant high speed drill that was as uninterested in her regaling of the kegger over the weekend as her friend (and Jacob) were. Consequently, what started out as a single strand of loose hair became many strands of hair as they wound around the spinning drill bit that effortlessly and without remorse ripped off a portion of the unsuspecting girls scalp with the greatest of ease.

Chaos ensued as several students ran screaming from the room and the teacher passed out cold on to the concrete floor. Jacob, now the closest person to the calamity, dropped the bit of wood he was carefully chiseling, peeled his feet from the floor and acted even though he was far from willing to do so. He hit the emergency kill switch and grabbed the cleanest rag he could find and placed it on the girls head in an attempt to stop the bleeding. Jacob did his best to keep her, and himself, calm. He also found himself fighting the urge to think how there was no way the high school quarterback would possibly date her now.

For what seemed like hours, he continued to scrounge for rags, paper towels and anything else that would absorb some of the blood that was desperately trying to escape from the girls head and on to the floor. Jacob controlled the scene like a professional ordering this student and that teacher about in an effort to control the scene. When the EMTs arrived, they were shocked to see how this 18 year old kid managed to keep the girl relatively calm and stable throughout the ordeal.

As the first responders took control of the situation and Jacob was relieved of his lifesaving responsibilities, applause and revelry erupted in his direction from every corner of the classroom. Students congratulated and thanked him for being cool and collected or as they put it a badass throughout the traumatic ordeal. News crews showed up at the school from all over the state and a lengthy article in the town paper, The Independent, made him the biggest thing to happen to the region since the opening of the first 24hr Shake-N-Fry. He thought to himself, perhaps he had a future in saving lives? Maybe he was meant to be a first responder with the local EMS… or a doctor! Yes, celebrity would be his gateway to many great things. All he had to do was sit back and choose what glamorous life he wanted for himself.

As Jacob fantasized about medical schools clamoring to send him scholarship offers to the most prestigious programs in the nation, an odd thing happened. The rescuer in him was ignored, and a workplace safety advocate was sought by the local building and trade unions. He received a small trophy with a golden hard-hat on it, a certificate from the mayor for managing a workplace crisis, and even a giant top-of-the-line tool chest full of tools from the owners of the local hardware store who just so happened to be the grateful parents of the girl he saved.

Jacob felt so appreciated by the labor union that he walked on to the freshly broken ground of a housing development near the edge of town the summer after he graduated and asked for a job doing whatever he could to make the workplace safer. The foreman appreciated his celebrity and eagerness, but told him he would have to start where all unskilled persons start; the bottom. As the years passed and none of his wildest dreams were realized, Jacob wondered how things would have been different if he saved the life of someone at a Fortune 500 company.

Alas, twelve years saw him through his apprenticeship, several different worksites, and a half a dozen different attempts at finding his true place in the world. Jacob settled on laying brick as a mason, something he felt had a significant history and was literally the support structure for nearly all buildings he worked on. If it was good enough for the founding fathers of the country he lived in, why shouldn’t it be good enough for him? He admitted to himself though, that he was not very good at it nor did he feel any more presidential than he had before. Besides, all he had done lately was help pour and tear up concrete as the building was so far from completion that brick palettes had not even arrived on the site yet.

Glancing at the rearview mirror, Jacob watched as his parent’s house faded from view. His mom and dad were no longer living, having died a couple of years ago. Their passing was neither tragic nor remarkable as they had given birth to Jacob later in life when they were both in their mid-forties, and many of their close friends had already passed away by the time it was their turn. They loved their little oops-baby, yet Jacob always felt as though he had ruined his parents plan to pass along quietly through life and enjoy an unceremonious death. However, they did leave Jacob the handsome old farmhouse he and his father and his grandfather grew up in, along with two of the original two-hundred acres of land his great-great grandparents claimed as their own when they first settled in the area back in who-knows-when.

Ahead of him in the distance, in faded purple just beyond the reddish-orange sunrise was the silhouette of Independence, Indiana. Not much of a city, Independence had a few small buildings, church steeples and a tall brick shot tower resembling a smokestack that formed what some might call a skyline. From where Jacob was on the road, the majority of the other buildings were obscured by the large amount of trees the city was so proud of. Independence had been a whistle stop town on one of the many railroads that crisscrossed the nation in the early1800s, and as a result railroad cars still clanked through from time to time. However, these days they found no need to stop and load goods in the tiny town as the larger, more forward thinking towns and cities surrounding Independence fulfilled their needs.

Many who lived there felt that the little town had seen its finest days when the same shot-tower Jacob could see on the horizon employed a large number of the town’s inhabitants providing shot and cannon balls for the local forts and strongholds in the region prior to the civil war. Others said that the new hospital that Jacob and many other townspeople were working on would allow them to see the brightest days in the near future. Regardless, this was the route Jacob and others had taken day in and day out to get to the only jobs they could find in the area.

As he came down a hill, the sun filled the cab of Jacob’s truck and warmed his chest, the light glancing off a number of small scars on his hands, and a thin yet bold scar that completely encircled his left wrist. His father had told them that they were tied together during a game at some point during Jacob’s childhood and the two of them received matching rope burns or something along those lines. This was one of the few things he shared in common with his father, though he could not for the life of him remember his father ever playing games.

Jacob’s hands had become rough and cracked from his days as a hard laborer, and he rubbed his callused thumbs together as he gripped the steering wheel to see if they still had any feeling left in them. He closed his eyes and breathed in the country air deeply, allowing his lungs to open and fill with the sweet smell of turned soil and grasses before they became choked with cigarette smoke from his coworkers and the dust of another day.

Jacob opened his eyes to see the road ahead, desolate except for a dump-truck in the near distance, no doubt leaving town after depositing a load of gravel or hauling away a load of dirt from the huge construction project he was now driving towards. Almost as soon as he saw the truck something else caught his right eye, just within his periphery. He glanced over and saw a pale slender man sitting in the passenger seat, a few years his senior staring nonchalantly at the road ahead. Jacob looked back to the road without a second thought then quickly back toward the man sitting directly next to him, almost touching elbows in the little truck. Jacob’s initial reaction was shock; he was completely unable to move his arms or legs. He recalled having this feeling before, about twelve years ago in shop class. Jacob stared at the stranger sitting next to him, unable to scream or comprehend how someone who was not there only a minute ago, was now sitting within arms-reach of him. The sound around him faded and his head felt as thick as cured concrete.

A faint trumpeting sound seemed to alert the person sitting next to him as Jacob remained dumbfounded. The passenger’s posture changed as he looked into Jacob’s eyes and realized the driver of the vehicle he was in had checked out. The stranger mouthed something Jacob couldn’t quite make out over the increasingly loud blast of a horn or a trumpet. He eventually made out the words JACOB… TRUCK! He looked back to the road and his eyes locked on to a very large, shiny chrome grill with a small bulldog hood ornament only seconds from meeting with the front of his truck and then his face. The passenger grabbed the steering wheel and turned it toward himself. For a moment the only sensation was the gut wrenching pull of gravity, followed by a dirt filled haze lit by sunshine as the truck spun off the road and into a field Jacob was admiring just a moment ago. The world spun, up was down, and the horizon became a blur as he lost his senses.

As the truck came to a skidding stop thirty yards in the field, Jacob managed to unglue himself from the seat and clambered from the truck without thinking or looking back to see how his uninvited passenger had fared. After jogging a few steps away from the truck, he finally worked up the courage to look back and see if