IMMORTALITY
by
Kevin Bohacz
Published by CPrompt
Paperback and Kindle, 389 pages
Techno-thriller
About the book
Without
warning, something has gone terribly awry. In the remote and unnoticed places
of the world, small pockets of death begin occurring. As the initially isolated
extinctions spread, the world’s eyes focus on this unimaginable horror and
chaos. Out of the ecological imbalance, something new and extraordinary is
evolving and surviving to fill the voids left by these extinctions. Evolution
is operating in ways no one could have expected and environmental damage may be
the catalyst. Once discovered, this knowledge changes everything.
Praise for Immortality
“There is enough power in the premise to
leave readers reeling. A novel that will surprise fans of science-fiction and
doomsday scenarios...” - Kirkus
“Bohacz’s vision of a humanity that faces the
need to evolve profoundly or face certain destruction is as timely as today’s
news and as chilling a doomsday scenario as any ecological catastrophe can
suggest...” - Publisher’s Weekly STARRED review
“This book manages to do what all the
best sci-fi does—provide a thought-provoking, alternative viewpoint on the
business of existence. I recommend you give it a go...” - Sci-Fi Reader 4 Star review by S.J. Higbee
Purchase your copy
Amazon
Discuss this book in our PUYB Virtual Book Club at Goodreads by clicking HERE
About the Author
I am Kevin Bohacz the bestselling
novelist of Immortality and a lucid dreamer… Welcome to my dreams. I am also a
writer for national computer magazines, founder and president of two high
technology corporations, a scientist and engineer for over 35 years, and the
inventor of an advanced electric car system – the ESE Engine System (circa
1978). I was also a short order cook for I-Hop, flipped burgers at McDonalds,
and delivered Chicken Delight. All of those careers and more are behind me now
that I am a full time storyteller, a catcher of dreams. Thank you for reading
my stories and making this all possible. His latest books are Immortality and Ghost of The Gods
Visit Kevin’s website at www.kbohacz.com.
Social links
EXCERPT
Amazon Forest: January, present day.
The rainforest had a humid, earthy smell that reminded him of home.
Diego was twenty-two years old and, like most of his village, he’d spent half
his life away from home. The bulldozer he was illegally operating was idling in
neutral. In front of him were a half dozen control levers and gauges. With a
worker’s rough hands, he compressed the squeeze-grip on a lever and pushed
forward. He heard the sound of grinding gears. The tree cutter failed to engage.
The huge dozer was thirty-year-old army surplus. There was a cable problem in
the lever he was working. The problem sometimes caused the squeeze-grip to snap
shut when the transmission grabbed. If he was not careful, the squeeze-grip
could badly pinch his hand. Diego pushed harder on the lever. He could feel
teeth missing in the gears from how the lever bucked back against his push.
Without warning, the gears dropped into place as the squeeze-grip bit his palm.
It was like a vicious dog. An angry welt throbbed in his palm. He cursed the
dozer. He cursed the steaming heat. He’d drunk two quarts of water since
breakfast, and lunch break was still hours away.
The rainforest was alive with insects. Diego had never seen this many in all
the years he’d illegally logged the deep forests. There was a steady drone
which was louder than the diesel engine he controlled. Tiny no-see-em’s, biting
things, had left a rash across the back of his neck that felt like sunburn.
Earlier, he’d scratched it raw but now had a bandanna tied around his neck to
remind him to leave it be. The bulldozer rocked into a depression as the cutter
began chew-ing through the trunk of a mahogany tree. Diego fed more fuel into
the beast’s engine. The dozer’s treads dug in; there was a hesitation. He could
feel the strain building. Tons of steel lurched forward pitch-ing him in his
seat. Another tree tumbled, its branches snapping like rapid-fire gunshots as
it crumpled into the ground. The front of the beast was equipped with a chain
driven saw instead of a dozer blade. The fixture had a pair of serrated edges
that shimmied back and forth like steel teeth. Pieces of shredded green leaves
and bark caught on the teeth’s edges. Diego had long ago decided the beast was
a sloppy eater.
The insect sounds of the forest had stopped. As far as Diego knew, these
insects never stopped. He dropped the beast into neutral then switched it off.
There was silence.
Out of this stillness, a faint crackling sound rose from the distance,
then disappeared, and then came again. He listened carefully. It took him a
moment to realize the faraway sound was trees falling. The log- ging company
operated a small army of dozers, far apart now; but by evening they would all
meet up, connecting each of the separate cutting tracks into a solid plot.
Diego swung round in his seat and gazed back. A swath of fallen tropical forest
lay behind him: mahogany and cedar and even some rosewood along with countless
varieties of plants and bushes. The largest trees were left standing so their
canopies would hide the results of his work from the few government scouting
planes that were not on the company’s payroll. Heavy tractors would come
through later to drag out the good logs. He got paid by the yard for mahogany,
rosewood, and cedar; the rest was trash. Today it looked like he would earn a
small fortune; tomorrow might bring nothing. He lit a cigarette and left it
hanging in his lips. After starting the engine, he ground the shifter into a
forward gear and moved out. He drew cigarette smoke into his lungs then exhaled
through his nose. No time to rest. He needed every bit of money he could earn.
He didn’t blink as a cloud of insects flew into his face as their nest was
churned into rubbish by his dozer’s teeth.
The humidity was so high that water had begun to evaporate into a fine
mist. A steam cloud floated through the tops of the trees blurring the upper
canopy into a milky green. Diego swung the beast around in a stationary
about-face. The base camp was miles behind him by the river. The camp was a
dock and tents with ratty screens. Beside the camp was a tree covered clearing
that at night was filled with sleeping dozers and other heavy equipment. By
now, a pot of beans would be simmering for lunch. A hunk of flat bread and
canned beer would complete the meal. No meat. He’d lived worse. Everything here
had been secretly brought in by river barge, including him and the other
labors. With luck, he could cut a second swath back toward camp and arrive by
lunch. Today would fill his pocket with more than two hundred Reals… a new
record.
The logging ride out of the forest turned out to be easier than the ride
in. The trees in his new path were an ideal size for cutting. Diego began
thinking about his wife Carla and their dream. She’d been anx- ious to come
with him into this hell. He had kissed her and told her no… no wife of his
would suffer in a place like this. In seven months, he would be a father. The
foreign company running this operation was taking good care of her. She’d
written last week that the company had paid for a test with a machine that was
like an x-ray but used sound. The nurse had told her the baby would be a boy.
Diego smiled with that memory… it was a good one. He would have a boy who would
grow up to be his friend. That was a new part of the dream; the old part was
still a small house outside Maceio, the coastal city where Diego was born.
Diego instinctively slowed the dozer to the speed of a man’s stride.
He squinted watching a cloud of rain moving toward him along the path
he’d just cut from camp. The rain didn’t appear heavy, but when mixed with
ground steam it was solid enough to bring a false twilight. Nothing could be
seen inside the cloud. The dozer had a roll cage. A piece of corrugated sheet
metal had been welded to the top of the cage as a roof. Diego switched on
spotlights. Drops started hitting the sheet metal with rhythmic pings. The
humidity grew heavier. The air surrounded him like a damp towel. He pulled off
his t-shirt and wiped his face with it. A storm of birds fled from some trees
his dozer was about to consume. Their colored shapes moved past him at eye
level like watercolor paints in fog. Diego cocked his head to one side. He
sensed something wrong.
Grinding the shifter into neutral, he idled the machine. As the noise of
his engine simmered down, he was able to hear the far off sounds of a dozer
racing at top speed. He heard an engine revving at its highest rpm… no, it was
two engines. More than one dozer was racing through the forest. This was very
unusual. A hollow feeling began gnawing inside his chest. He remembered stories
of odd things that happened to people alone in the forest. He heard a different
sound like a wet towel hitting the ground in front of him. He leaned forward,
squinting into the fog. A bird tumbled from the air bouncing off the cab, the
sound startling Diego badly. The bird fluttered, then righted itself on the
ground and took off. He saw another bird fall a couple yards away, then
another, and another. They would roll around a bit, then fix themselves and fly
off. This was very strange… too strange. He now understood why dozers were
racing through the forest. Something very bad was happening. He shoved the
dozer into gear and slammed his feet into the pedals. The beast jumped forward
at top power. He heard muck spitting into the air off the backs of the
tread-plates. To devil with cutting the second track. To devil with the money.
He was going to get out of here as fast as this dozer could race. The treads
were clanking at an accelerating pace as the beast slowly picked up speed. He
disengaged the tree saw to gain a few more drops of power. He plowed through
the top of a tree he’d cut earlier, then another. He was doing close to ten
miles per hour. A man might run faster, but not through this brush and not for
the miles that remained to the camp.
Without warning, he felt dizzy, an ill kind of dizzy. The fingers on his
right hand went numb, then paralyzed. He tried to move the fingers, but they
were limp. Coldness was spreading up from his hand. The more he tried to flex
his fingers, the worse it got. In seconds, his entire right arm was hanging
flaccid at his side. Whatever had gotten the birds was working on him. He knew
it. The trees kept moving past him in a blur. He realized with an odd
disconnect that he was having difficulty drawing breaths.
He thought about Carla and the baby. His jaw squeezed tight. His lips
formed a grim line. He would make it for them.
The dozer glanced off a large tree and kept going. The impact rocked
him. He wheezed, attempting to draw air into his chest. Maybe two miles
remained until base camp. He began veering off the trail. The saw-blade snagged
on a mahogany six feet in diameter. Diego was pitched from his seat. Dizzy and
unable to hold on, he fell from the cab. His shoulder hit a moving tread-plate,
which tossed him off the rig. He was like a paralyzed sack of meat.
“Umph!” He landed on the ground. He thought how odd it was that he’d
bounced. He didn’t know people could bounce when they hit the ground. The tractor
rumbled beside him. Without his feet on the pedals, the dozer had stopped. The
left side of his face was a mix of blood and dirt. He tried to draw air into
his lungs but failed. His mind felt like it was beginning to evaporate. His
entire body tingled. He felt no pain. The muscles that worked his lungs were no
longer responding. He thought of calling for help, but without his lungs he
could do nothing. He gave up struggling and stared skyward at the treetops and
thought of Carla. Moments later, his heart stopped beating. He felt calm as
what was left of his mind faded into a warm nothing.
New Jersey: January
Sarah Mayfair opened her eyes. The nightmare was still around her. Her
vision was not in this world but in some other. The nightmare was of underground
water, great arteries of rivers and streams and lakes. Where the liquid pooled,
it was cool and deep. She sensed this water was alive with thoughts, evil
thoughts. A teaspoonful of it teamed with plans of death. She was floating deep
under the water, staring as drowned people glided past her face sinking into
the depths of a bottomless pool. Looking down, she saw a trail of countless
tiny bodies slowly pirouetting as they drifted into the yawning darkness below
her feet… Headlights from a car traveled across a wall of her room. The lights
dwelled on a wooden credenza, then moved on. She followed the glow with her
eyes seeing reality for the first time. The simple act of seeing began to clear
the veils of her nightmare. Her breathing slowed. She realized she was covered
in sweat.
Outside, a subzero wind was blowing unimpeded through a forest of
leafless trees and ice crusted snow. The windowpanes rattled and hummed. Small
drafts snuck through the rooms. She shivered as the drafts caressed her
dampened skin. She was in the living room of her home. She recognized the
shadowy details of furniture and walls. Her boyfriend Kenny was in the bedroom
asleep. She remembered getting up and walking out here to be by herself to
think. The nightmares had grown worse, more of them with each passing week. She
was starting to see the faces of people she knew in these nightmares. She
sensed it was some kind of horrible parade of those who would die. She remem-
bered Kenny’s image from the dream.
Her body stiffened. A disembodied voice was whispering into her left ear. The
words were unintelligible… garbled, but unmistakably evil. This can’t be
happening. She screamed out in frustration and grief at the seeds of budding
madness.
Social links
Amazon Forest: January, present day.
The rainforest had a humid, earthy smell that reminded him of home.
Diego was twenty-two years old and, like most of his village, he’d spent half
his life away from home. The bulldozer he was illegally operating was idling in
neutral. In front of him were a half dozen control levers and gauges. With a
worker’s rough hands, he compressed the squeeze-grip on a lever and pushed
forward. He heard the sound of grinding gears. The tree cutter failed to engage.
The huge dozer was thirty-year-old army surplus. There was a cable problem in
the lever he was working. The problem sometimes caused the squeeze-grip to snap
shut when the transmission grabbed. If he was not careful, the squeeze-grip
could badly pinch his hand. Diego pushed harder on the lever. He could feel
teeth missing in the gears from how the lever bucked back against his push.
Without warning, the gears dropped into place as the squeeze-grip bit his palm.
It was like a vicious dog. An angry welt throbbed in his palm. He cursed the
dozer. He cursed the steaming heat. He’d drunk two quarts of water since
breakfast, and lunch break was still hours away.
The rainforest was alive with insects. Diego had never seen this many in all the years he’d illegally logged the deep forests. There was a steady drone which was louder than the diesel engine he controlled. Tiny no-see-em’s, biting things, had left a rash across the back of his neck that felt like sunburn. Earlier, he’d scratched it raw but now had a bandanna tied around his neck to remind him to leave it be. The bulldozer rocked into a depression as the cutter began chew-ing through the trunk of a mahogany tree. Diego fed more fuel into the beast’s engine. The dozer’s treads dug in; there was a hesitation. He could feel the strain building. Tons of steel lurched forward pitch-ing him in his seat. Another tree tumbled, its branches snapping like rapid-fire gunshots as it crumpled into the ground. The front of the beast was equipped with a chain driven saw instead of a dozer blade. The fixture had a pair of serrated edges that shimmied back and forth like steel teeth. Pieces of shredded green leaves and bark caught on the teeth’s edges. Diego had long ago decided the beast was a sloppy eater.
The insect sounds of the forest had stopped. As far as Diego knew, these insects never stopped. He dropped the beast into neutral then switched it off.
The rainforest was alive with insects. Diego had never seen this many in all the years he’d illegally logged the deep forests. There was a steady drone which was louder than the diesel engine he controlled. Tiny no-see-em’s, biting things, had left a rash across the back of his neck that felt like sunburn. Earlier, he’d scratched it raw but now had a bandanna tied around his neck to remind him to leave it be. The bulldozer rocked into a depression as the cutter began chew-ing through the trunk of a mahogany tree. Diego fed more fuel into the beast’s engine. The dozer’s treads dug in; there was a hesitation. He could feel the strain building. Tons of steel lurched forward pitch-ing him in his seat. Another tree tumbled, its branches snapping like rapid-fire gunshots as it crumpled into the ground. The front of the beast was equipped with a chain driven saw instead of a dozer blade. The fixture had a pair of serrated edges that shimmied back and forth like steel teeth. Pieces of shredded green leaves and bark caught on the teeth’s edges. Diego had long ago decided the beast was a sloppy eater.
The insect sounds of the forest had stopped. As far as Diego knew, these insects never stopped. He dropped the beast into neutral then switched it off.
There was silence.
Out of this stillness, a faint crackling sound rose from the distance,
then disappeared, and then came again. He listened carefully. It took him a
moment to realize the faraway sound was trees falling. The log- ging company
operated a small army of dozers, far apart now; but by evening they would all
meet up, connecting each of the separate cutting tracks into a solid plot.
Diego swung round in his seat and gazed back. A swath of fallen tropical forest
lay behind him: mahogany and cedar and even some rosewood along with countless
varieties of plants and bushes. The largest trees were left standing so their
canopies would hide the results of his work from the few government scouting
planes that were not on the company’s payroll. Heavy tractors would come
through later to drag out the good logs. He got paid by the yard for mahogany,
rosewood, and cedar; the rest was trash. Today it looked like he would earn a
small fortune; tomorrow might bring nothing. He lit a cigarette and left it
hanging in his lips. After starting the engine, he ground the shifter into a
forward gear and moved out. He drew cigarette smoke into his lungs then exhaled
through his nose. No time to rest. He needed every bit of money he could earn.
He didn’t blink as a cloud of insects flew into his face as their nest was
churned into rubbish by his dozer’s teeth.
The humidity was so high that water had begun to evaporate into a fine
mist. A steam cloud floated through the tops of the trees blurring the upper
canopy into a milky green. Diego swung the beast around in a stationary
about-face. The base camp was miles behind him by the river. The camp was a
dock and tents with ratty screens. Beside the camp was a tree covered clearing
that at night was filled with sleeping dozers and other heavy equipment. By
now, a pot of beans would be simmering for lunch. A hunk of flat bread and
canned beer would complete the meal. No meat. He’d lived worse. Everything here
had been secretly brought in by river barge, including him and the other
labors. With luck, he could cut a second swath back toward camp and arrive by
lunch. Today would fill his pocket with more than two hundred Reals… a new
record.
The logging ride out of the forest turned out to be easier than the ride
in. The trees in his new path were an ideal size for cutting. Diego began
thinking about his wife Carla and their dream. She’d been anx- ious to come
with him into this hell. He had kissed her and told her no… no wife of his
would suffer in a place like this. In seven months, he would be a father. The
foreign company running this operation was taking good care of her. She’d
written last week that the company had paid for a test with a machine that was
like an x-ray but used sound. The nurse had told her the baby would be a boy.
Diego smiled with that memory… it was a good one. He would have a boy who would
grow up to be his friend. That was a new part of the dream; the old part was
still a small house outside Maceio, the coastal city where Diego was born.
Diego instinctively slowed the dozer to the speed of a man’s stride.
He squinted watching a cloud of rain moving toward him along the path
he’d just cut from camp. The rain didn’t appear heavy, but when mixed with
ground steam it was solid enough to bring a false twilight. Nothing could be
seen inside the cloud. The dozer had a roll cage. A piece of corrugated sheet
metal had been welded to the top of the cage as a roof. Diego switched on
spotlights. Drops started hitting the sheet metal with rhythmic pings. The
humidity grew heavier. The air surrounded him like a damp towel. He pulled off
his t-shirt and wiped his face with it. A storm of birds fled from some trees
his dozer was about to consume. Their colored shapes moved past him at eye
level like watercolor paints in fog. Diego cocked his head to one side. He
sensed something wrong.
Grinding the shifter into neutral, he idled the machine. As the noise of
his engine simmered down, he was able to hear the far off sounds of a dozer
racing at top speed. He heard an engine revving at its highest rpm… no, it was
two engines. More than one dozer was racing through the forest. This was very
unusual. A hollow feeling began gnawing inside his chest. He remembered stories
of odd things that happened to people alone in the forest. He heard a different
sound like a wet towel hitting the ground in front of him. He leaned forward,
squinting into the fog. A bird tumbled from the air bouncing off the cab, the
sound startling Diego badly. The bird fluttered, then righted itself on the
ground and took off. He saw another bird fall a couple yards away, then
another, and another. They would roll around a bit, then fix themselves and fly
off. This was very strange… too strange. He now understood why dozers were
racing through the forest. Something very bad was happening. He shoved the
dozer into gear and slammed his feet into the pedals. The beast jumped forward
at top power. He heard muck spitting into the air off the backs of the
tread-plates. To devil with cutting the second track. To devil with the money.
He was going to get out of here as fast as this dozer could race. The treads
were clanking at an accelerating pace as the beast slowly picked up speed. He
disengaged the tree saw to gain a few more drops of power. He plowed through
the top of a tree he’d cut earlier, then another. He was doing close to ten
miles per hour. A man might run faster, but not through this brush and not for
the miles that remained to the camp.
Without warning, he felt dizzy, an ill kind of dizzy. The fingers on his
right hand went numb, then paralyzed. He tried to move the fingers, but they
were limp. Coldness was spreading up from his hand. The more he tried to flex
his fingers, the worse it got. In seconds, his entire right arm was hanging
flaccid at his side. Whatever had gotten the birds was working on him. He knew
it. The trees kept moving past him in a blur. He realized with an odd
disconnect that he was having difficulty drawing breaths.
He thought about Carla and the baby. His jaw squeezed tight. His lips
formed a grim line. He would make it for them.
The dozer glanced off a large tree and kept going. The impact rocked
him. He wheezed, attempting to draw air into his chest. Maybe two miles
remained until base camp. He began veering off the trail. The saw-blade snagged
on a mahogany six feet in diameter. Diego was pitched from his seat. Dizzy and
unable to hold on, he fell from the cab. His shoulder hit a moving tread-plate,
which tossed him off the rig. He was like a paralyzed sack of meat.
“Umph!” He landed on the ground. He thought how odd it was that he’d
bounced. He didn’t know people could bounce when they hit the ground. The tractor
rumbled beside him. Without his feet on the pedals, the dozer had stopped. The
left side of his face was a mix of blood and dirt. He tried to draw air into
his lungs but failed. His mind felt like it was beginning to evaporate. His
entire body tingled. He felt no pain. The muscles that worked his lungs were no
longer responding. He thought of calling for help, but without his lungs he
could do nothing. He gave up struggling and stared skyward at the treetops and
thought of Carla. Moments later, his heart stopped beating. He felt calm as
what was left of his mind faded into a warm nothing.
New Jersey: January
Sarah Mayfair opened her eyes. The nightmare was still around her. Her
vision was not in this world but in some other. The nightmare was of underground
water, great arteries of rivers and streams and lakes. Where the liquid pooled,
it was cool and deep. She sensed this water was alive with thoughts, evil
thoughts. A teaspoonful of it teamed with plans of death. She was floating deep
under the water, staring as drowned people glided past her face sinking into
the depths of a bottomless pool. Looking down, she saw a trail of countless
tiny bodies slowly pirouetting as they drifted into the yawning darkness below
her feet… Headlights from a car traveled across a wall of her room. The lights
dwelled on a wooden credenza, then moved on. She followed the glow with her
eyes seeing reality for the first time. The simple act of seeing began to clear
the veils of her nightmare. Her breathing slowed. She realized she was covered
in sweat.
Outside, a subzero wind was blowing unimpeded through a forest of
leafless trees and ice crusted snow. The windowpanes rattled and hummed. Small
drafts snuck through the rooms. She shivered as the drafts caressed her
dampened skin. She was in the living room of her home. She recognized the
shadowy details of furniture and walls. Her boyfriend Kenny was in the bedroom
asleep. She remembered getting up and walking out here to be by herself to
think. The nightmares had grown worse, more of them with each passing week. She
was starting to see the faces of people she knew in these nightmares. She
sensed it was some kind of horrible parade of those who would die. She remem-
bered Kenny’s image from the dream.
Her body stiffened. A disembodied voice was whispering into her left ear. The words were unintelligible… garbled, but unmistakably evil. This can’t be happening. She screamed out in frustration and grief at the seeds of budding madness.
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