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86 pages

English

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A secret Government experiment thrusts Major Joshua McNeal forward in time to the end of the 21st century. After losing everyone in his world whom he loved, McNeal volunteers for a secret and dangerous experiment which propels him through space and time where he hopes that he will find a better world at the other end. Instead, he finds himself back on Earth at the advent of the Great Tribulation. His country is no more and his former home is unrecognizable. Unable to function in the great city, he escapes to the wilderness where he is taken in by a group of Christian Separatists who live outside of the regulated society. He lives among these Christians. He learns to love them and eventually becomes one of them. And as the persecution of Believers by Anti-Christ intensifies, they must all take bolder steps to try and survive as the whole world system closes in on them.

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Publié par	Book Venture Publishing LLC
Date de parution	16 mai 2017
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781944849894
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0154€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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The Stranger Returns
THE
STRANGER
Returns
A NOVEL BY
Mark McGunegill
Copyright 2016 Mark McGunegill
Copyright © 2016 by Mark McGunegill.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.
BookVenture Publishing LLC 1000 Country Lane Ste 300 Ishpeming MI 49849 www.bookventure.com Hotline: 1(877) 276-9751 Fax: 1(877) 864-1686
Ordering Information: Quantity sales. Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address above.
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016907759 ISBN-13: Softcover 978-1-944849-87-0 Pdf 978-1-944849-88-7 ePub 978-1-944849-89-4 Kindle 978-1-944849-90-0
Rev. date: 07/07/2016
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I would like to thank my wife and life partner, Susan. She has been with me and helped me through many years of struggle. Most recently, her patience and encouragement motivated me to see this work to completion. She is an expert in English, grammar, and word usage. Working with me on the final edit, she spent many long hours and many long nights helping me perfect the message that was so strong in my heart and mind. Every great story has to be well crafted and fine-tuned. Susan has made this book and my life more effective and whole.
FORWARD
Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.
—Matthew 24: 9-14
Contents
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
FORWARD
CHAPTER 1
The Question Of Time Travel
CHAPTER 2
No Welcome
CHAPTER 3
The Outlands
CHAPTER 4
The City
CHAPTER 5
The Family
CHAPTER 6
Fugitive
CHAPTER 7
Angel Camp
CHAPTER 8
Sarah
CHAPTER 9
Unholy War
CHAPTER 10
The Mark
CHAPTER 11
A World Shaken
CHAPTER 12
The Darkness And The Light
CHAPTER 1
The Question Of Time Travel
I pondered over it many times while lying on my cot, staring into the dim light of my sleeping compartment. It was not a new question or one that I had to work out myself. Albert Einstein developed his Theory of Special Relativity more than a century ago. But I became the first human guinea pig on whom its affects would be tested. It’s hard to visualize it, unless you have a mind like Einstein’s. Simply put, the theory states that the relative or perceived passage of time would be different between an observer on Earth and one travelling through space at very high speeds. For the space traveler, time would pass more slowly than for people on Earth. Upon his return to Earth, the space traveler would experience a perceived acceleration through time, perhaps months for years or even days for years. It would depend on many factors such as acceleration, top speed, distance travelled and proximity to strong gravity fields. There were enough people willing to take the risks to find the answers to those questions, even if they never lived to see the results. As for me, the idea of launching into space, with a very real chance that I would never again see anyone I knew, was an enticing adventure. An appealing undertaking that offered challenge, escape and respite.
The months of isolation might have driven most people mad. But for the most part, I preferred being alone with my thoughts, to the company of others. With almost every moment that passed, I found myself regretting not having spent more time with my wife and daughter before the accident which snatched them away from me so suddenly. As a test pilot, I had been away for weeks at a time. But I could have made more of the time we had together. I was crushed and broken in spirit. The Air Force had given me leave of absence for a few months and eventually I ended up in the Reserves, still maintaining my rank of Major. After that I threw myself back into my work with a vengeance, volunteering for the most exotic and dangerous assignments. It was tough to keep up the façade of a well-adjusted human being, but it was necessary to keep my psychological profile clean so I could continue working. In fact, I was only two months from my silver leaf when I was launched into space.
The late twenties and earlier thirties were a renaissance of space exploration for the United States. But by 2034, the year I was launched, economic troubles were spreading around the world like a virus. Economies and currencies were nearing the breaking point and governments were losing the means and the will to continue further ventures in space. For this reason, the conception of this experimental spacecraft and its mission were kept top secret. But I did not need or want the publicity or fanfare. I did not even care if I would be remembered. Since I was a boy, I felt like a loner and a stranger in the world, always looking beyond what is, trying to imagine what could be.
I am Major Joshua McNeal, United States Air Force Reserve. My goal in volunteering for the mission was not to commit suicide or to entomb myself in a 20 billion dollar coffin hurling through deep space. But rather, I wanted to live to see a different and better world.
Even theoretical physics suggests that travelling backwards in time is impossible. Once events have passed, they can never be revisited. And I am content to see the past sink into the deep sea of forgetfulness. But for better or for worse, the future holds endless possibilities. The one certainty is that there will be change. But will I live to see the change? Have I travelled far enough and fast enough to really make a difference? Will I arrive in a new world as a hero, or will I arrive back in my old world as a laughing stock and a failure? These questions have filled my brain more and more as I come to the closing leg of my long journey. There are no instruments that can tell me how much time has passed on Earth. There is no way of knowing the effects of the time differential until I actually land on Earth and see it for myself. No mortal can know the future until it becomes the present.
The second approach toward the sun would be the most dangerous because of the relatively close proximity of the ship’s flight path. My speed through space at that point would be so great that it could not be calculated by instruments. Why? Because the relative speed of the ship moving toward or away from celestial bodies has to take into account the movement through space of those bodies, as well as any time differential affect that may greatly accelerate those movements. This was indeed an experiment, wherein the exact outcome could not even be postulated. My speed upon leaving the sun’s orbit would be so great that the 93-million-mile gap between the sun and the Earth could theoretically be covered in less than ten hours, according to computer estimate. But in reality, most of that distance would be spent decelerating, so the time to final approach would be stretched to four or five days.
Nine months have I spent travelling through space, many times faster and farther than any human has ever gone. I spent nine months monitoring volatile nuclear engines, eating, sleeping, exercising, and watching movies, playing games on the computer and just thinking. For nine months my life has been spent in an 800-cubic-foot womb, waiting to be born again into a strange new world. My long journey was coming to an end. The computer alerted me that the engines had slowed to the point where conventional navigation was again possible. The Earth was visible only as a small blue dot 50 degrees to the left, off the nose of the spacecraft. For all my misgivings about the human race, something deep inside me was happy to see the Earth again and to finally come home.
As for the question of time travel, I placed that in the back of my mind for the time being. My questions would all soon be answered if and when I could reach Edwards Air Force Base in California or some other flight control center in the United States. But the bigger challenge would be to pilot the ship through the Earth’s atmosphere and land it safely. I got into my flight suit and secured myself in the pilot’s seat.
CHAPTER 2
No Welcome
T he lights and displays in the cockpit all lit up like a Christmas tree. The Earth appeared about the size of a tennis ball outside the forward window. It looked like a blue and white jewel hanging in space. To me it was the most beautiful planet in the solar system. That opinion, I am sure, was mixed with a lot of emotion after seeing most of the other neighboring worlds. Every single one of them is strange, lifeless and deadly. But I was not home yet. Many things could go wrong before I would touch down on the dry lake bed at Edwards. Or looking at it the other way, many things had to go just right for me to land safely at my destination. I was still travelling very fast. The ship was slowing, but was it enough? Was I on course? I had to trust the computer at that point.
I knew the time had come to talk to the computer and have it radio in. I hesitated for a moment. Who would answer? What would they tell me about the world I was approaching? How different would it be, or would it be different at all? I had an anxious lump i