Odyssey -p

By Elena Dorothy Bowman

A small sleepy New England village is suddenly thrust on an unintended journey to a place before time began. A devastating flood bearing down on the unsuspecting village devastates a neighborhood. When the waters finally subside, a strange object — a probe — emerges from the depths of a sinkhole. Two young brothers inadvertently activate its teleportation system sending the town and its unconscious citizens soaring towards a dead planet drifting in space. Eons ago, its twin suns were on the verge of colliding. In a desperate effort for survival probes were sent from the stricken planet through time to the far reaches of the Universe. When the people of the tiny village of Oakville awaken they will discover that the incident that befell their town would soon become a reality that would change their lives forever.

ISBN 978-1-59431-863-4 Science Fiction, Romance, Futuristic Romance

Chapter 1

The Odyssey

A small sleepy New England town is struck by a devastating flood. But an unusual occurrence sends the people of one neighborhood on a voyage they had never expected, and surely would not have believed that the flood had a big hand in causing it. However, on this morning, and at this time, the people of the tiny village of Oakville would wakeup not knowing that before the day was out, the incident that was soon to become a reality would change their lives forever.

With the exception of the Anders, every house in this community was blessed with children. It wasn't that Bill and Joy didn't want children but at this time they were career oriented. They were both physicists working for the same company. Children would come later when they felt they were ready to raise a family. And while they held high paying positions in their respective departments and could well afford them, they were content to let things stay as they were at least for now.

Every house in the neighborhood was blessed with large acreages surrounding them, so there was plenty of room for the children in the Community to play without fear of danger. So went the real estate ad. The Anders were planning for the future.

When the dam above the town was built, it changed the course of a river flowing underground, and up to now had never been a problem. People knew it was there and had once inundated their neighborhood, but most days never gave it a thought. Now, however, once the dam was breached the huge flood of raging water rushing through the town was instrumental in rerouted the underground river back to its original course and in so doing was responsible for the creation of a large sinkhole to emerge in the back lot of the land belonging to the Knights.

As the flood raged down on them, the residents were forced to evacuate their neighborhood and wait for the waters to run its course. Days later, when the waters receded the villagers returned to survey the damage to their properties. It was when the Knights' inquisitive young sons decided to see where their oak tree disappeared to, did they discover the large sinkhole on their property, and with it their huge oak tree inside.

The oldest of these young adventurous boys had noticed a shiny object at the bottom of the sinkhole embedded in its side and decided to climb down the tree unceremoniously sitting within the sinkhole to investigate further. But the object was more than he could handle, he called on his younger brother to help. Seeing that they were unable to retrieve it, the youngest brother raced back up the tree to get his father, bringing both the Anders and his parents back with him to help his brother.

It wasn't that simple. The two men, with the help from the boys, their wives and some creative thinking finally managed to dig out the object and bring it to the surface. When they did so, they were stunned to see that the strangely marked object they unearthed appeared to be a probe, dating back in time, possibly from a strange and unheard of civilization, or as one member of the group put it perhaps from a dead alien planet drifting somewhere in deep space.

Baffled by the sudden revelation of the mysterious probe, and the long discussion as to where it originated, why and when, the afternoon wore on and the adults were undecided as to how to handle the situation. Should they call NASA or try to determine what it all meant themselves. They decided to leave it for another day. In the morning, they could think more clearly as to what action they should take concerning the probe.