Mortis

By Mark Massei

Humans are not Earth’s dominant species and never were.

Nestled on the outskirts of Boston, Sudbury, Massachusetts, is a quaint colonial town that was incorporated in 1639. Mark Massi has recently moved back to his childhood home with his wife, four kids, a cat, a dog, and a tortoise. He and his family feel safe and secure and are loving life until Mark starts getting horrific thoughts of a worldwide holocaust and total decimation of the earth. He comes to a startling realization that his thoughts are no longer his own, and someone is directing him on what has to be done to save himself, his family, and thousands of other lives.

Mark is not the only man that is taking direction from an outside, unknown source. The earth’s leaders are about to take action on thoughts and ideas they think are their own but, in reality, are the plan of a superior being that hates humans.

These nightmare intuitions, thoughts, and plans will soon become reality, and the individual responsible for guiding Mark will reveal himself and introduce humans to new worlds, weapons, and technology far superior to what man has been able to achieve. Life on Earth will never be the same, and the Massi family and thousands of others will have to fight for their lives and perhaps abandon the planet.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Newman Springs Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jan 31, 2020
• ISBN: 9781640966826

Book preview

1

Everything is unfolding as planned as Mark Massi pushes the pedal to the floor of his custom 1974 Buick LeSabre Convertible. It is royal blue with white-leather interior and a 450-horsepower 16-cylinder engine. The sound system was the first to have an FM stereo. The speakers are loaded and pounding out The Undisputed Truth ’s Smiling Faces as the car explodes forward like Secretariat walking Sham in the final turn of the 1973 Belmont Stakes.

And yet, another glimpse of all the overpriced real estate on Willis Road flashes by.

It is Friday night, Labor Day weekend, fifteen minutes from the start of the best of several parties over the next three days.

It’s not just any party, but The Party, an intimate $450,000 get together thrown every year by Ray Augst and his wife at their $70-million country estate in Sudbury, Massachusetts.

And Mark is late.

His left hand is pressed on the wheel as he rounds The Rock on the unlit, unmarked narrow streets of Colonial Sudbury. Stonewalls built by Minutemen during the Revolutionary War are set fifty feet back from the tree-lined roads. The grid pattern developed in 1639 was not meant to be driven at speeds over fifty miles per hour, but as he passes the Martha Mary Chapel on Dutton Road, the needle is past ninety. When Mark rounds the bend past the Old Grist Mill, he flashes his lights, knowing Buck McNamara, one of Sudbury’s finest, is on duty.

Buck is a great friend and more like a brother. His family is a typical large South Boston–Irish family comprised of generations of tough cops with big personalities. His brother Tim has some dubious connections in Boston, where he is in the midst of a nasty campaign for chief of police. His other brother Teddy is an intimidating character who has been chief of police in Sudbury for the past ten years and is well known for taking the law into his own hands whenever he deems it necessary.

Buck always has been the easygoing son. But as a rebellious teenager, he could raise hell with the best of the Rats and did so on many occasions. (Rats are Sudbury’s version of greasers or kids from the tough side of the tracks.) He will confiscate some liquor and perhaps some good bud during the course of the night, and if someone pushes him, he will not hesitate to take him down.

One wouldn’t think a newly renovated Buick would be a place for reflection, but every time Mark drives the old classic, memories from his youth pop in his head, and he gets nostalgic. Lately, when driving alone with his thoughts, a gloom sweeps over him, and he gets an inescapable, uneasy feeling about the future—the immediate future.

He thinks maybe he’s getting old because solemn reflection is something he has never been concerned with. His older brother, Chris, does enough of that for the both of them.

Chris is an Ivy League law school graduate. He has a hugely successful law practice, where he represents some of the wealthiest people in the Greater Boston area. Chris has always cared about money and pretense. Whenever he calls, one can be sure in the course of the conversation, he will mention his newest toy. Last week, it was his new Mercedes-Benz S-Class 550. Mark has learned how to be interested but not impressed.

Mark’s wife, Dianne, loves Chris, and in some respect wishes Mark was a little more like him. It’s true that Chris can be a big talker, but he does not only think of himself; he is also intensely loyal and reliable like a great family dog, always protecting the family and looking out for all that are close to him. Mark tends to jump into things and goes with the flow. Chris is a planner; everything in his life is organized and in its place. His appearance is impeccable.

Mark knows if he ever has a problem, Chris will be there in a moment’s notice and will always have his back, no matter how dire the circumstances.

Whatever the reason, Mark is slaloming through traffic at ninety miles per hour, racing to the Augst Estate. A mile away, he can see the party lights and cars streaming in, and he gets that feeling of adrenaline pumping through his veins. Something is in the air, and he twists in his seat with baited anticipation.

Upon arriving, an armed military man in a white suit gives him a toothy grin and waves him through the cast-iron gates. The air is crisp and cool; it is a beautiful New England evening.

Mark wishes he could say that the place was tacky and overreaching, but in fact it is understated, and keeps up the colonial tradition of Sudbury and neighboring Concord.

Sometimes, the rich can confuse others. It is the type of property that may go on the market once every fifty years—twenty-five beautifully landscaped acres of hedges, hidden gardens, swimming pools surrounded by lush forest and a 2,500-acre lake with white-sand beaches locally referred to as the Water Hole. At the end of the white-pebble drive sits a 17,000-square-feet mansion with spectacular views from most every room, of course with the exception of the wine cellar.

Tonight’s party is relatively small—fewer than two hundred people—but most of the people who matter are present. It’s a theme party set around the Augsts’ purchase of the Country Club in Brookline. The golf course has been the host of five US Opens and was opened in 1892. It is one of the first golf courses in America.

The tables are covered in rich-green linens with a golf motif. The waiters are dressed in 1920s golf attire, complete with knickers and a classic golf cap that great golfers like Walter Hagen and Gene Sarazen wore.

Walking among the golf-clad crew and partygoers are some of the richest and most powerful men in the world. The governors of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut are present, as are congressmen from Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. Also included are Fortune 10 CEOs and a few IPO Internet billionaires. Mark also detects Secret Service men milling around in tight blazers and earphones and realizes the vice president must be here. Dispersed like party favors are top vocalists and musicians, NFL owners, Hall of Famers, actors, and models—all friends of Ray Augst, Mark’s uncle. However, don’t get too envious of Mark because he’s not on the guest list either. He’s just a prodigal townie with a wife, four children, a dog, a cat, and a tortoise. He is here to tend bar.

2

Mark hasn’t been on the Augst Country Estate since he was seventeen twenty five years ago. For the past fifteen years, he has been married to Dianne. She was and is literally breathtaking, five feet seven inches tall, hair like black silk, an awesome figure with a twenty-one-inch waist and long, firm legs. But what he likes best about Dianne is her intelligence, tough-mindedness, and her sweet disposition like that of a stereotypical librarian. She has stuck with Mark through thick and thin. It has been very thin recently.

After making millions as a business partner for IBM, and by investing in large and small company stocks, he decided to start his own energy business. He purchased mineral rights in the Barnett Shale and drilled natural gas wells. To help fund the wells, he took on investors and sold them, working interest in the wells. For ten years, things couldn’t have been better. He hits his wells, and the natural gas price went to $14.00 per thousand cubic feet and stayed above $5.00 for a decade. He and his investors made a lot of money for a decade and then the bottom fell out. Natural gas went below $3.00 and has stayed there. It is not worth drilling wells when gas is below $3.50. So long story short, he lost everything.

Knowing that he couldn’t kiss ass to twenty- and thirty-something kids, Mark took the family back to Sudbury. He and Dianne decided that going home was a great place to regroup.

There’s something about coming home to New England. The dramatic and definite change in seasons, the sea breeze in the summer, the crisp cool air and extreme colors in the fall, the snow-covered mountains in the winter all feel like home—a place that helps clear one’s head and opens their mind up to all possibilities. But for tonight, Mark is tending bar for the rich and famous.

A high point of the night is when an older man comes to the bar and orders a double Johnnie Walker Blue. He hands him the drink and notices it is Bo Jackson. He presses a twenty in Mark’s palm and walks away without saying a word. He avoids direct eye contact with people, and one can get the idea he’s trying to escape the inevitable discussion of his past greatness and the review of every play he ever made in his short career. Jackson has always been Mark’s favorite athlete. In his opinion, he’s the best offensive football player ever. Mark thinks to himself that if Jackson hadn’t given off that vibe, he would have been one of those people who would have offered him his opinions of his greatness and how he would have been even better on the new sports turf and climate-controlled stadiums.

With the rush over, he finds a moment to score a couple of beers and a plateful of appetizers. He is savoring the stuffed crab and raw oysters when a waiter he has never seen before saunters up and stuffs a scrap of sky blue–colored stationary in his pocket. The note is familiar because he notices it’s written on his eight-year-old daughter Christina’s notepad and says, Please come home now. It is from his wife. But it doesn’t say there is an emergency, and he still has drinks to fill and considerable tips to collect. So Mark decides to stay for a while and does until he gets this overpowering sense of danger. It is a feeling like nothing he can put into words, an almost psychic communication that is sending unrelenting messages slamming into his brain. The messages get louder and more aggressive like a volcano on the verge of eruption. It is not going to subside until he relents and leaves for home.

As he gets in his car, he feels a tap on his shoulder. Without turning he says, Hi, Buck.

Hey, Mass, Buck says in his thick Boston accent, reaching through the window to pat Mark on the back. (Mass has been Marks nickname since the fifth grade.) Some party, eh, kid.

Mark precedes to tell Buck about his premonition of impending danger and doom. Buck senses his trepidation and, being a good friend, reminds Mark how his sister had been convinced aliens were out to abduct her after her husband left her for her best friend. Panic can do tricky things to our brains, and you have been through some tough times lately. You may be going a little nuts, Mass.

Laughing a little, and having been somewhat placated and distracted for the time being, Mark listens. Buck then asks if he had a great time at the party, rubbing elbows with the rich and famous.

Mark quickly reminds Buck that he wasn’t there as a guest but as an employee, and though Mark does idolize Bo Jackson, he is not impressed by wealth or fame, so he gives little to none of the details Buck wishes to hear. However, Mark notices that Buck looks like a disappointed puppy at his lack of juicy details, so he indulges him. He tells Buck all about the rich and famous guests and adds some exaggerations that he knows Buck loves, like how DiCaprio talked to Mark with a big piece of caviar stuck between his front teeth and how Jennifer Lopez’s butt is even bigger and better in person. He also tells him that Halle Berry is every bit as good-looking as she looks on the screen. Those details and others give them both a much-needed laugh. Mark admits that it was pretty cool, even if he was just serving them.

Buck is off for the evening, so he hops in Mark’s car without opening the door. Then they both notice several helicopters hovering above the Augst Estate. Mark figures it is just some late guest making a stately arrival. He starts the Buick and heads for home. As they turn back onto Willis Road, Buck and Mark hear something loud like fireworks off in the distance. Perhaps they left too early.

3

After sixteen happy years in Allen, Texas, Mark still considers Sudbury, Massachusetts home.

People say, Once a New Englander, always a New Englander, and that fits Mark perfectly. He and Dianne grew up eating seafood, hanging out in a city rich with revolutionary war history, saying wicked, and loving Boston sports. Some of their greatest childhood memories are watching the Red Sox play the dreaded Yankees, Celtics versus Lakers, and Pats versus the NFL. Their devotion to the Red Sox, Celtics, and the Patriots has never swayed.

In fact Boston sports fans have been spoiled over the years with their sports teams dominating specific decades. The Celtics were the dominating NBA team in the sixties, seventies