Accidental Prophet

Accidental Prophet

By Bud Gundy

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2019 Bud Gundy

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Synopsis

By the Author

Acknowledgments

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

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About the Author

Books Available From Bold Strokes Books

Accidental Prophet

Intelligent, handsome, and struggling to make his rent, thirty-year-old Drew Morten loses his only meaningful relationship when his grandmother dies. A famous television anchor, Claudia Trenton, leaves Drew the legacy of her secret memoir. From the fate of a vanished medieval prince to a top-secret NASA study about a mystifying space object, her unreported discoveries hum with wonder.

But history merges with the present and upends Drew’s life when he has a terrifying revelation. Teaming up with a brilliant woman who receives the same vision and a handsome man whose arrival is either fortuitous or sinister, Drew follows the clues in his grandmother’s memoir and races against time to save the world from an apocalyptic nightmare about to be unleashed in downtown San Francisco.

As catastrophe looms, so does the question: Who, or what, is the real enemy?

Accidental Prophet

© 2019 By Bud Gundy. All Rights Reserved.

ISBN 13: 978-1-63555-453-3

This Electronic Book is published by

Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

P.O. Box 249

Valley Falls, New York 12185

First Edition: June 2019

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

Credits

Editors: Jerry L. Wheeler and Stacia Seaman

Production Design: Stacia Seaman

Cover concept: Zaldy Serrano

Cover Design by Melody Pond

By the Author

Elf Gift

Butterfly Dream (cowritten with Dave Lara)

Somewhere Over Lorain Road

Accidental Prophet

Acknowledgments

Thanks to the members of my writing groups, whose insights and critiques are essential for me: Scott Boswell, James Warren Boyd, Barbara Brunetti, Christopher Calix, Cole Dennis, Shoshana Dembitz, Susan Domingos, Pat Elmore, Gabriel Lampert, and Tyler Patton. Thanks also to Jerry Wheeler, who amazes me with his precision edits, and to Bold Strokes Books for deciding this quirky story had promise. And to Elaine Eichman for her suggestions and input. There are many others to thank for their help and support while writing this book, but I feel especially grateful for everything I learned from my mom as well as my friend Marion, both of whom I lost while working on this story.

One more time, for Chris

1

Drew Morten’s grandmother revealed a number of startling things the night before she died, starting with: I uncovered what would have been the biggest news story of all time, something terrifying that’s still out there waiting to be told, and, I kept silent about a killing I witnessed, except that it wasn’t really a killing. Sort of. It’s hard to explain.

Drew struggled to respond.

And there’s a lot more you don’t know, Drew.

The lace sheers at her bedroom window misted the room with the amber light of sunset, touched by rose. Grandma’s eyes glowed like candlelight above her gently sagging skin, her tight curls in disarrayed bouquets. She smiled, and the yellowing stumps of her teeth softened and warmed her gaze. He was glad she never had them fixed.

You also need to be on the lookout for a man named Victor.

He drew back. Why?

She shook her head, raising her hands. I don’t know.

Who is he?

She sighed. Drew, I’ve seen much more than you’ll ever know, and I kept diaries for years. I guess they call them journals now. About five years ago, I organized them into a memoir. It explains everything, or at least as much as I can explain. Respect and admiration radiated in her eyes, for which he felt wholly undeserving. Every word I wrote, I thought of you. It’s very important that you read it.

She pointed to her bedside table, strewn with medicine bottles. Arthritis inflated her joints like marbles stuffed into her skin. In the top drawer. There’s a card in there somewhere. It looks like a business card, but it only has a printed passcode.

He opened the drawer and rummaged through a clinking assortment of small, long forgotten things. He found the card in back, blank save for a centered line of random, jumbled text.

That’s the code that will open my safe deposit box at Security National Bank in Santa Rosa. You already have my power of attorney, so you won’t have a problem.

Safe deposit box?

Don’t get all greedy, she teased. All you’ll find is my manuscript. It’s about my first year at the network when amazing things happened. I used real names, but most of them are probably dead.

What do you want me to do with it?

Promise to read it. Some of it will sound crazy but I told the truth as best as I could. There are a few surprises in there for you as well. When you’re done, you can do what you like with it. Publish it or burn it. It doesn’t matter because I told the truth. She sighed as if exhausted from sharing wisdom in such an irrational world. Just be aware most people don’t want the truth. It’s one of the things I learned as a television reporter. You have to promise me you’ll read it.

Try to stop me.

There’s one more thing. She pointed to the dresser at the foot of the bed. There’s an old necklace in the bottom drawer. I saw your Aunt Viv looking at it last week, wondering how much it’s worth. An old friend left it to me in her will. I want you to have it for helping me all these months, so take it to your room and hide it really well. Viv’ll turn the house upside down if she thinks it’s worth something.

Grandma, we don’t have to do this now. It’s not like you’re going to drop dead tomorrow.

I’ve been waiting for the right time to tell you these things. I’m certain that time is now. I can feel I’m near the end. I can’t explain it. It’s not a darkness, and it isn’t frightening. It feels like a destination.

You’re tougher than I am, and I’m not dying any time soon.

Dearest Drew. She stroked his hand. You’re one of the strongest people I know. You’ll realize it soon enough.

The next morning, the hospice nurse Tisha knocked and opened Drew’s door. A beautiful African American who wore her hair in tight braids, Tisha was just as dedicated to her patients as to her pursuit of a physics degree at Sonoma State. Drew trusted her judgment, and if she interrupted a private moment, it damn well needed to be interrupted. Already awake, he shot up, quickly arranging the tangled sheets to cover his nudity.

I’m sorry to barge in like this, but your grandma took a turn for the worse overnight. Based on my experience, you should tell your family to get here as soon as they can.

Uncle Dennis and his wife Jean arrived first, hugs all around, Tisha included. Aunt Viv and her a daughter arrived a few minutes later, their heads capped with peroxide puffs.

Drew sat next to Grandma’s bed, holding her hand. It looked blue and felt cold. They shared a loving smile. Standing next to him, Tisha put a hand on his shoulder.

Victor, Grandma said, so softly that if he hadn’t recognized it from last night’s warning, he’d never have been sure of her final word.

The others looked at him for an explanation, but he focused on Grandma. She rubbed and pinched the bedspread until her eyelids drooped and her head slumped. A death rattle gurgled softly, like a forgotten pot set to simmer.

Drew took a deep breath, overwhelmed by being present at the end of Grandma’s life. She was born as World War Two raged. Every moment she’d lived, many as a famous national news anchor, brought her here in this room with these few people, and he was one of them. It was as much an honor as an unfathomable loss.

Well, that’s it, Aunt Viv said quietly, giving her mother a quick kiss on the forehead. We need to find the stock certificates.

The comment jolted Uncle Dennis. Viv, Mom told me the stocks were going to be divided between you, me, and Drew. She said she put it in her will.

Drew’s cousin Regina looked scandalized. Why does Drew get a third, but there’s nothing for the other grandchildren?

Uncle Dennis raised his voice. Because Drew’s mother was our sister and she died. If your mom wants to give you some of her share, that’s her business, but Drew’s parents are dead, so he inherits that third.

Regina started to argue, but Aunt Viv stopped her. I’ll call the lawyer in a few minutes and ask when we can see the will. Right now, let’s just find and protect all the valuables. She nodded at the dresser. There’s an old necklace in there. It’s in a purple pouch. I’ve never seen it before, and my mom couldn’t remember where she got it. It wouldn’t surprise me if we could get a pretty penny for it.

Why don’t you see if she has some gold fillings to dig out before the people from the funeral home come? Drew said.

Aunt Viv lifted her chin. My mother wasn’t sentimental. She’d want me to secure the family heirlooms.

Tisha said softly, Drew, venting your anger at her death won’t bring her back.

His anger was bigger than that, but Tisha was otherwise correct, so he turned away and trundled downstairs. Uncle Dennis and Aunt Viv started arguing.

For the past five months, Drew had lived in the tiny pantry / sun room next to the kitchen, the only available room in Grandma’s small house with a door that closed. He’d cleared away the dollhouse dining set, inflated an air mattress, and covered the windows with sheets. He’d borrowed a rolling coat rack to use as a closet, and it just barely fit.

He sat on the bed and flipped up the blanket, lifting the purple velveteen pouch Aunt Viv and Regina were searching for upstairs. From its weight, the silver was real, formed into a choker of twisted ropes. He examined the large, tear-drop pendant. Despite a shade of ruby as deep as a royal cape, the flawless crystal was clear enough to read through.

He luxuriated in the gem’s hypnotic gleam before pulling the safe deposit box passcode from the pouch. He returned the necklace to the pouch and looked for a less obvious hiding spot, which he found behind a shelving unit displaying decorative but unused kitchen supplies like a fancy porcelain tea service and platters. He gave his beard and buzzed hair a quick brush, grabbed his car fob, and set out.

Grandma’s cottage nestled on a hillside among soaring redwoods, ancient giants that ignored the humans living out their brief lives at their roots. Once the masters of forests across the earth, the trees survived in only a few spots of Northern California, with distant relatives huddled in a valley in the misty wilds of China. Limbs shot from the trunks in horizontal precision, softened by the pine-like needles that fuzzed their branches and covered the ground with spongy carpeting.

Across the lane, a light snapped on deep inside another small house hunched in the eternal shade of the redwoods. A friendly widow named Althea Miller lived there, and if he told her Grandma had died, she’d spread the news across the hillside, sparing him the task. He started across to knock on Althea’s door but changed his mind and climbed into his car.

Scattered homes lined the narrow roads that twisted along the hills above the Russian River. He wound slowly downhill, alert to the possibility of an opposing car suddenly appearing around the next curve that would require a clumsy dance of backing up and pulling over. Often one could do nothing but ease aside and let the other car crunch past with a friendly wave.

At the bottom of the hill, he waited at a stop sign for a break in the heavy traffic along River Road. Trucks, RVs, and other vehicles roared past. Merging required gunning the pedal and holding your breath.

He peeled out at a spot between a pickup and a big rig and survived one more time. About ten years ago, late one night after spending the day with Grandma, his parents hadn’t. The CHP officer had assured him they didn’t see the truck and died blissfully unawares, but Drew never believed her. He knew they saw the headlights, the lightning streaks on chrome moving much too fast and much too close, their screams drowned out by a blasting horn. He never crossed the spot without thinking of their last terrifying moments.

River Road slalomed along, flattening to a straight line only when passing through Guerneville, the once-posh resort town for San Francisco’s elite, now a roughened but popular vacation spot for a mix of people casual about being openly gay and startled straight tourists casting surreptitious glances. Restaurants, bars, and tchotchke shops ran for several sunny blocks before the road plunged back into redwood shade.

Forty-five minutes later, he pulled into the parking lot of Security First Bank in downtown Santa Rosa. Inside, an efficient woman confirmed his power of attorney before leading him into a room with an empty table and chair.

She tapped the code into a glowing pad. Soft machinery whirred behind a wall patterned in beige and black. She pointed to an empty recess. Just enter the passcode on the front. When you’re through, put the box back in the slot, hit the return button, and the system will automatically refile it.

A moment after she left, a box rolled forward like an offering. After he punched in the passcode, the front popped open, and Drew removed a jumbo manila envelope with his grandmother’s manuscript.

He returned to Grandma’s house, where only Tisha’s car remained. She came outside as he parked.

They hugged. I’m sorry for your loss, Drew. I’ll stop by tomorrow morning with the final hospice forms. I’ll also have to do an inventory on the remaining supplies.

Sorry for your loss, too. I know you were fond of my grandma.

I was. Her eyes glinted. Your family went to see the lawyer in San Francisco. Oh, and Althea across the way saw the funeral home’s van and came over, so she knows, too.

That settled his obligations to the neighborhood.

They took her?

Tisha nodded and rubbed his arm. How are you doing? Do you want to talk?

Thanks, but I’m not in the mood. I’m not sure how I feel yet.

That’s perfectly normal. Do you want me to call someone for you? Like a boyfriend or something?

I’m not seeing anyone, and I’ll be fine. Why don’t you take off? I can handle anything that comes up here.

She studied his face. Okay, then. I’ll see you tomorrow morning at the usual time.

She drove off and sounds rose all around. Chattering birds, a barking dog, a distant chainsaw, and the hollow, deliberative thunk thunk thunk of woodpeckers.

He couldn’t go inside just yet. In the comfortable shade of ancient redwoods, he eased himself into a metallic rocking chair on the porch. He slipped the manuscript from the envelope.

2

Requiem for a Girl Reporter

1943–1975

My name is Claudia Trenton. For fifteen years, from 1965 until 1980, I was a famous television journalist. I was born in Vermont in 1943, and I have no siblings. My father was a soldier killed in the recapture of Guam in 1944, and I have no memories of him.

I’ve kept meticulous journals all my life and I can report with confidence about a transformative year when I enjoyed a string of triumphs as a television journalist. When the cameras were off, however, my world cracked open and I glimpsed a reality that left me breathless with wonder and fright.

After my father died, my mother moved us to Cleveland to live with her older sister in a brick duplex that overlooked a valley filled with clanking steel mills belching fire and smoke. I attended St. Mark’s parochial school where one of my friends referred to my aunt Lydia as a spinster. I took great umbrage because it sounded like a terrible accusation, and my aunt was a kind and sensible woman. I shared my anger with my mother. To my horror, she told Aunt Lydia, and I was mystified when they both laughed uproariously. I’d never seen my aunt more sincerely delighted.

Unlike my schoolmates, I found television shows like The Mickey Mouse Club embarrassingly childish and all those westerns excruciatingly dull. Mom and Aunt Lydia loved watching The Honeymooners and I Love Lucy. I enjoyed those too, but I was transfixed by a mythical being on the local news, a creature so rare and magical all of America knew about Cleveland’s girl reporter.

Her name was Delilah Fuller, and she was in her forties when she made her television debut, but everyone called her the girl reporter. Her popularity spurred other stations to hire women, which made me anxious. I wanted to be a girl reporter, and I worried I’d never find a job if every station in the country already had one.

I studied the way Delilah looked into the camera, the way she spoke and nodded during interviews. The girl reporters who appeared on the other stations were much more attractive than Delilah. They smiled while interviewing cooks and singers and puppets, while Delilah angrily tapped the table when the mayor or a congressman avoided her question.

I worshiped her.

I started reading both the morning and afternoon newspapers. I studied the weekly magazines at the library and almost never missed a political press conference, State of the Union speech, or special coverage of major events.

I graduated from high school in 1960. My grades weren’t exceptional enough for a scholarship, and both my mother and aunt toiled for small wages in the cafeteria of a steel mill, so college was out of the question. I held on to my dreams but couldn’t fathom how to fashion such a glamorous and demanding career.

With a plan to save money for college, I became a secretary at an insurance company downtown. Since I was often still on the bus at six o’clock, I missed many of Delilah’s newscasts, but I continued to read the papers and magazines and watch as much television news as I could.

For five years, I filled out insurance forms, typed letters, transcribed memos, answered phones, and ordered lunch for executives who didn’t seem half as bright as Delilah. I saved money by skimping on clothes and eating only at home. Raising enough for college proved more challenging than I expected, and I felt my hopes fading.

A cultural revolution was brewing. The Beats and the Beatles cleared a path to hippies at Woodstock, protests of every sort, and women’s libbers without bras, but Delilah was my role model. While she didn’t seem unsympathetic to these changes, by now she was a fussy old woman. In stores, color TV showed her bright red hair and she wore a lot of makeup.

One of my shabby younger bosses who fancied himself quite the lady-killer said, You could be really pretty if you started wearing nice clothes and had your hair fixed up. I’ll bet you could be on television. You’re way foxier than that old hag Delilah Fuller.

Maybe that’s what television needed: a foxy Delilah Fuller.

That weekend I spent a fortune on a hair stylist and a fancy outfit from an upscale department store. On Monday, I called in sick and arrived at the television station first thing in the morning. I summoned the courage to march inside and ask to meet with the news director.

What’s this about? the receptionist asked. She was prettier than I was, and I stuttered until I said, I’m here about a job.

Amazingly, he agreed to meet with me. I perched nervously in a chair facing his desk. He wore a rumpled brown suit and was almost completely bald. He gave me a friendly smile.

What can I do for you, Miss Trenton?

I took a deep breath. I’ve studied Delilah Fuller for years. I know every move, every look. I’ve even practiced how she holds a microphone. I’ve been studying politics since I was a little girl. I gave up my social life to read and watch the news, and I was born to be a television reporter. If you give me a chance, I’ll bring something just as fresh to your station as Delilah did.

His smile grew. Did you know that I hired Delilah? I gave him a startled, spontaneous look of admiration that, in retrospect, was the perfect response. You think you can replace her?

I was mortified. No, but I can bring a new style to what she does.

You mean you want to be a pretty Delilah Fuller?

I felt my face burn. I mean I can be the voice of a new outlook in Cleveland. We’re much more reserved than San Francisco or New York or Los Angeles, but the young generation here is just as restless for something new. I have the talent and the skills to bring those viewers to you, people who appreciate an intelligent woman who understands them. I worried I’d gone too far.

He cupped his hand over his chin, ready to order me out.

Can you start today?

Two hours later, I stood in front of a burning tool and die plant in far-off Elyria. I interviewed the manager and shop steward about the loss of revenue and jobs while a scornful cameraman and audio tech rolled their eyes. We rushed back to the station and a sympathetic editor helped me record the voice-over and pull the piece together, peering at the film through an eyepiece while swiveling the hand cranks. My story led the six o’clock news and Delilah Fuller, by now a bona fide journalism star, read the intro copy that I wrote.

After that first newscast, I eagerly waited to introduce myself to Delilah, but she gave me a slight smile and walked past. She rarely took notice of me. My idol tottered around the station like an aging queen who expected scraping subservience. Although she was always regally polite, she rebuffed every attempt to get personal. Now and then, she complimented one of my stories. When the ratings rose because of me, she even seemed tender.

For three years, I worked as a general assignment reporter covering crime scenes, fires, storms, labor disputes, train derailments, and car crashes. I made my mistakes, I learned my lessons, and I was thankful for every moment. I had to prove myself before I could sit down with a congressman and demand answers, and I wasn’t interviewing puppets. I made good money, people recognized me everywhere, and my mother and aunt grew giddy with pride. I moved into my own apartment.

I’d never been asked on a date, but soon every kind of man approached me, from the attractive and successful to the slovenly joes I interviewed in sketchy neighborhoods. I cautiously accepted a few invitations to dinner, but only with the handsome and better-off sort. When a date suggested an intimate night at his place, I smiled and said I had commitments the next morning. When he grew more insistent, I truthfully told him my career came first. I got used to being called a stuck-up bitch.

As Delilah’s stardom faded, the ratings stalled and began to sink despite our hard work.

In 1968, the old news director retired, replaced by a restless go-getter named Barry with lots of bushy hair and muttonchops. He wore mod, psychedelic fashions and spoke in a rapid patter. Soon after he started, he asked me to lunch at a fancy restaurant. The other diners recognized me and stared.

Delilah is ancient, he said, sipping whisky and water. She’s also an icon, and you can’t buy that for a million bucks, so I’ll keep her on the air for as long as she can breathe. But she’s a square, and she’s getting senile. We have to jazz things up, so here’s the nitty-gritty. We need a new girl co-anchor to replace Delilah on the six and eleven o’clock news. Pronto.

I concealed a surge of excitement and hope.

Check out these numbers. He handed me a sheet of paper. You’re the most popular chick in the market. You’re gorgeous and you’re smart, but you don’t act like some stuck-up bitch. I’m offering you Delilah’s spot. He smiled like he’d just suggested something indecent, a proposal that felt inevitable.

I pretended to study the numbers while I considered my options. I was on the verge of a rocketing career ascent, but I couldn’t imagine knocking my childhood hero from her co-anchor chair.

I forced the words out. If you think I’m going to betray Delilah Fuller, you don’t know me at all.

"Don’t sweat it. We’re starting a newscast at noon. We’ll park Delilah there for the old people and housewives and cripples. They’ll love it, she’ll love it. She’s a childless spinster, so she can deal