Parallel - The Awakening. A book by Paul A Rice

Synopsis - Parallel - The Awakening

 

 

 

 

So, you think you know how things work do you?

Kenneth Robinson is an ex-soldier who, after leaving the Army, finds work in the Middle East and Central Asia. He smokes too much and he swears too much, but he has a pure heart. That particular attribute is going to get him into trouble. With the help of his friend and partner, Mike, he has started his own company located on Kandahar airfield. They are doing quite nicely and things look set to become even rosier in the very near future. Yes, it’s looking pretty damn good for them, they’ve worked hard, taken risks, and now it looks like payback time?

Yeah, it was all going just fine until the Storm arrived. The howling beast transforms not only Ken’s day but his entire perception of how the world works. He is thrust into a reality that is beyond the edge of reason and shown the truth about what really lies behind the scenes. Ken sees those little things that wait in the darkness beyond the dim glow of our own perception. Whilst looking for Mike, who along with everybody else has disappeared, Ken finds himself taken to a place that would fracture most people’s minds. He becomes plagued by horrific dreams and is tipped toward insanity. Fortunately, Ken is made of stronger stuff. His stoicism and dry humour, when coupled with his experience, enable him to cope with the madness of the crazy things he is shown by George. The old man takes Ken and shows him a view of the universe he never even dreamed of. Events almost beyond comprehension have happened and are still happening, events that require their immediate intervention. Ken and Mike are told that the future for them, and all that remains of mankind, lies in their hands. 

From the madness of a storm, to being trapped and escaping, through his search for Mike and to the shattering arrival of reality, we follow Ken on his discovery of the truth. He finds himself being shown ancient history and then a devastating possible future - both are inextricably linked and both need his help. George tells the tale of how the world was, of how it is now and of how it’s going to be in the future.

It’s not a happy ending, either, or at least it won’t be unless they get to ‘Red’ first? The red-haired giant is going to have his say all right, he’s on a separate agenda and doesn’t care who gets in the way. Killing is a second-nature for this guy. Fortunately, Ken has done his own share of killing, and if it’s a fight you want, well, you've picked on the right man. From dreams to ‘slideshow’s, history to ‘Rip-Fixers’, the past and the present, this tale has them all. It also has the reality of a normal guy who just happens to be pretty handy when it comes to ‘sorting things out’. All Ken needs is Mike, some big guns and the Spears. Ken has the skills and Mike has the magic, together they ride into battle to stop the Demon and his plans. Ordinary men dealing with very extraordinary circumstances

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For paperback editions, please visit Amazon or any other on-line retailer - it can also be ordered from all good bookshops: Barnes and Noble, Waterstones etc.

For the quickest buy of Parallel 2 - The Gift, brand-new paperback edition, please visit:

http://www.feedaread.com/books/Parallel-II-The-Gift-9781908603371.aspx

For Parallel 3 - Demon Hunters, brand-new paperback edition, please visit:

http://www.feedaread.com/books/Parallel-III-Demon-Hunters-9781908481177.aspx

All three books are now available as eBooks and you can get them from the following sites:

 

http://www.smashwords.com

http://www.lulu.com

http://www.kobobooks.com

http://www.amazon.com 

http://www.amazon.co.uk

 

You can now download the books in many different formats, they are all available worldwide from the sites mentioned above, and also several others. Amazon sell it in their 'Kindle Store' and you can get it for Apple and also for iPhones etc. Just find the site of your choice and then browse through the various formats. Many allow you to have the first few chapters for free, so you can see if you like the story. eBooks are a brilliant idea and are also about half the price of a normal book. Definitely worth looking at.

PLEASE NOTE! The latest eBook editions are subtitled with '2011 Edition' or '2012 Edition' next to the main title - if they don't say that, then you will be getting the raw, unedited edition. You can also tell by the price: early editions of the eBook are selling for as low a price as Amazon will permit. The latest editions are selling for the higehr price. The Gift & Demon Hunters are not yet available in their 2012 editions - you will be buying the raw, unedited edition. The Awakening is available now in its 2011 edition.

 

 

Parallel - The Awakening.

This is where it all started...

Awakening new cover

 

 

Parallel 2 - The Gift.

The tale continues...

New cover for The Gift

 

 

Parallel 3 - Demon Hunters.

The third installment in the saga...

Cover for Demon Hunters

 

Provisional cover for my new, fictional novel - Tears in Tripoli

New book cover

I'm busy with the first draft-copy - hopefully I'll have the final copy finished by the end of March...

Here's a sneak-preview of the opening chapter:

Tears in Tripoli

 

A Jake Collins Novel

 

Paul A. Rice


 

Although the liberation of Tripoli was a reality, as was the presence of the international media and their security teams during that time, the characters in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Copyright. 

Copyright © Text Paul A. Rice

The author has asserteded their moral right under the

Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified

as the author of this work

First Edition - 2012

All Rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, copied, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the copyright holder, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

 

 

1

 

The tears of Jake Collins

 

We’ve all cried at some stage or another, I suppose. I’ve certainly done my share of crying. I guess that I must have cried when I was born, and I know for sure that I cried when I used to get the shit kicked out of me at primary school.

I damn-well cried when my Dad died.  

‘Why’d he have to go and do that?’ I thought at the time – being eight-years-of-age doesn’t give a boy much of a clue about life and death. Still, without me knowing it at the time, I’d have plenty of opportunity to find out about life and death later, and in great detail.

Then, because we had to move house, my Mum sent me to a new school – I cried that day, let me tell you. I cried my arse off all the way to the bus stop and for most of the way to where I had to get off. That’s what you got for living in Newcastle back then – dreaded bus journeys to a school that you really didn’t want to attend.

I hated it so much at first that every night, whilst laying hidden beneath the sheets, I still cried – fear, anger and frustration filling my head. But I cried quietly, being labelled a ‘cry-baby’ whilst living on a tough council estate could get you into a whole heap of trouble in those days. After a while I stopped the crying. I’d discovered that school was actually fun, hard but fun. There didn’t seem to be much need for crying, except for when the older boys took it upon themselves to take some of their bravado out on us younger kids – then you got the shit kicked out of you again, and so you did some crying, most-likely into your pillow late at night as the pain from a pair of repeatedly-deadened legs came around to keep you company.

When I was fifteen, my Mum simply upped and went to join my Dad, just like that – and so I got to do some more crying. By now I was pretty good at keeping my crying on the inside, no open tears for me anymore. I just let the pain sink into my chest and kept my eyes locked onto some imaginary thing that lay straight ahead. It was to become a standard procedure with me and I have often been called heartless since then, but that’s another story.

When I hit sixteen, I started to become a real ‘pain-in-the-arse.’ That’s what my aunt kept telling me, and she was probably right. I’d been living with her since my mother had passed-on. Hitting puberty had turned me into a bit of a tearaway. One brush with the law too many and before my feet could touch the floor, my aunt had enlisted me into the British Army. In a matter of weeks, I was whisked away to a Junior Soldiers’ training camp where I was to stay for a year. Let me tell you, they weren’t joking back in those days. Boy-soldier or not, they gave it to us hard. I did some crying there – definitely I did. Both mentally and physically, I wept. But the stare had taken over fully by now and no-one ever saw a tear roll down my cheeks.

By the time I was seventeen-and-half, any thoughts of messing with the law, were long gone. I had become a soldier, I was proud, I was loyal, and I was pretty good at it, the soldiering. Thirty-three years later, having spent twenty-four of those in the Army – eighteen in the Special Forces – and I can’t remember the last time I cried.

Oh, there have been a few times when perhaps I should have wailed my damned head off, but I didn’t. I just stared straight ahead and let the emotions sink back down to where they belong. These days that would be right at the very bottom of my stomach, and that’s just fine because the alcohol will flush them out later.

It came with the territory – the drink.

Being involved with the people I knew, made absolutely sure that you were also involved with drink. Most of the guys I know have some form of drink-problem, or will have done at some stage – usually the problem involves not being able to get enough of the stuff down your neck at even the slightest hint of a good piss-up. It has always been that way. Work hard, party harder. No quarter asked or given – if you couldn’t get out of bed and perform the day after a mass drinking session, then you were screwed. And, as the saying goes: ‘If you want to hoot with the owls then you’d best be able to screech with the eagles…’ You either learned how to do it, or you were finished.

I know of many a good man who lost their career due to drink, lost their career and a whole lot more besides – like their wives, their money, their possessions, and all of their dignity.

Some of them even lost their lives.

Ah, the drink… it has a way up creeping up on you. Then one day you suddenly realise that it’s hooked you. It’s then that you will either fight it, or flow with it. I have chosen to flow rather than to fight. That is to say: I keep an eye on what I’m drinking, not too much of the hard stuff, just stick to beer, if you can, Jake. I also make an effort to keep on top of my physical condition. I tried fighting the drink, but it was a waste of time – too many good parties and too many great times are to be missed when you’re a teetotal. Fuck that for a game of soldiers.

These days I’m not a soldier anymore – I work in the private security industry, earning the type of money that the Queen could never have paid me. Ironically, it is almost like being in an army, but it’s a lot more fun, a lot better paid, and it suits me just fine. I am, in many ways, almost totally independent. I work when I want to work, and if the job turns out to be a nightmare then I’ll politely resign and walk away. I’ve been doing it for a while now and the work has taken me around the world, mostly from one dangerous dump of a place to the next.

Having said that, there is the odd occasion when my previous employers, the military boys, will give me a ring. Usually they ask me where I am, and if it turns out that I’m somewhere useful, for them, they might ask me to do them a little favour whilst I’m there – you know, just pop down to so-an-so street and have a little nosy? I don’t mind, it keeps me from being bored. Sometimes they even ask me to do something a little bit more interesting than just taking a nosy, a simple task like sitting in a darkened room and firing a laser target-marker at some building or vehicle they happen to want wasting.

It’s easy, I just spend a few days checking out the area, once I’m happy and the target is clearly identified, I do the job and then it’s just a case of: Ka-boom! Bye-bye bad guy. I leave the equipment with whoever the local contact is, clear the area and go back to my little security job, probably looking after some fat guy in a five-star hotel nearby. Yeah, it’s a blast and helps pay the bills. What, you didn’t think that I’d do anything for those guys without charging them, did you? Hell no, people! There ain’t no free lunches out here in the real world, they pay me and pay me well. It’s just business.

At this precise moment I’m at home in my London apartment, sprawled out on a leather settee with the news burbling out from the TV. I’m alone and the hangover is killing me. I only live in London because of work, it’s near all the head-offices of the people I work for, and makes getting the task of acquiring all the various visas I need to travel to el-shithole, easy.

My name is Jake Collins – I’m six-feet-two-inches in height, ropey in build with short-cropped, greying hair. I’m clean-shaven. I carry a few scars on my body, including two bullet holes – one in the cheek of my left buttock, and the other through my left breast, just below the collarbone – that was a big day, let me tell you. Still, I suppose it’s a story for another time, perhaps.

In truth, I don’t really know what I look like, mainly because I hardly ever look in the mirror, and when I do I’m not really looking at myself, I’m just shaving. I guess that I look like what life has made me look like – rugged, leathery-skinned and a bit battered around the edges. A few of my so-called friends say that I’m an ugly bastard, but that’s only because they’re jealous.

You see, for some unknown reason, I don’t seem to have too many problems in finding a woman. I’m not being a big-head here, definitely not – mostly since I, too, happen to think that I’m an ugly bastard, especially on the inside. But, a fair few women have found themselves involved with JC and his fucked-up life. None of them ever hang around for too long, though. As soon as they figure out that I like a drink and that work comes first, then one-by-one the ladies in my life have all headed for the door, or the hills, and some quicker than others. Who could blame ‘em?

Finding a lady isn’t a problem, keeping one is.

These days I don’t bother trying to form a long-term relationship, it never works out. Either I turn out to be totally unreliable, or the lady in question does. No, the only real relationship I have these days is with my car. I have a Porsche 911. It’s the turbo one, it’s black, it goes like a missile, and it’s totally reliable. There ain’t no way is that bitch ever going to let me down. I worked my arse off for three years solid to pay for her. I love that car.

I don’t believe in many things, life is tough and death is easily acquired. The only things I set my store by are the ones that I’ve learned the hard way. People lie, money changes everything, and we’re all going to be dead for a long time – forever.

I don’t cry anymore, either. There are no tears left in me.

I’ve killed too many people and seen many more killed. I’ve lost some of my best friends in some of the worst places – left them there with their blood soaking into some shitty desert in the middle of nowhere. I’ve attended their funerals and listened to the words of love that have been spoken afterwards. None of it makes sense to me anymore. When you’re dead, you’re dead forever and no words or thoughts will ever change that.

That kind of stuff has a way of getting to you, if you let it. That kind of thing will just suck the life out of you, if you dwell upon it. I don’t let it, and I don’t dwell upon it. Not because I’m all big and tough – no, I don’t because I couldn’t. It would kill me, and if anyone around here is going to kill me, it’ll be me.

Sometimes I have a dream, it’s the same one, and it isn’t a good one. There’s not a lot I can do about it, so it just gets swept under the carpet along with all the other dust of my life.

Yeah, I’m a fuck-up, and I drink too much – when I’m not working that is. Well, what the hell else should a man do? Moping around my flat all day would also probably kill me. No, instead I hit the gym or go for a run at least three times a week, it used to be every day but I just can’t seem to be bothered these days – three times a week is enough for any man. Then I’ll read my email and sort out anything that needs doing around the flat, by then it won’t even be lunchtime.

It won’t be long before I get to thinking about the pub and wondering who’ll be in for a pint, so I head on down to my local and then, before I know, it’s teatime and I’m shitfaced – hell, who needs to go home from a pub at teatime, especially if they’re single? Perhaps I’ll stay for a few more beers and some pie and chips. Maybe I’ll try my luck with that good-looking woman, the tall one who’s standing at the bar all on her own. She’s looked at me a couple of times already; last time she did it I saw her checking my ring-finger.

Ring? That will be the day…

I hit the big ‘five-oh’ this year, so I guess that it’s getting a wee bit late for any plans of marriage for me.

And so it goes on.

Until my mobile phone rings, it does.

Then I get sober in a hurry, grab my kit and head straight for the airport. At a moment’s notice I’m straight back into the machine, going somewhere crazy to do something even crazier.

That’s me – I’m Jake Collins. I’ve got a really brutal sense of humour, I’m more cynical than is good for me, and I don’t believe in regrets. You are where you are because of the opportunities that arose and the choices that you made. Live with it.

Oh, and I don’t do tears.

Welcome to my world.

 

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