Prologue
The dreaded year was 1999.
At least that’s what people called it.
The newspapers called it historic. The television networks called it uncertain. Politicians called it a challenge. Computer experts called it a crisis. The rest of us called it terrifying.
Y2K was rapidly approaching, and nobody was ready for that shit.
Every day seemed to bring a new prediction. One expert would appear on television and assure everyone that the transition into the year 2000 would be perfectly safe. Ten minutes later another expert would predict the collapse of banking systems, electrical grids, communication networks, transportation infrastructure, and every other complicated thing society depended on.
The problem sounded stupid.
That was part of what made it so frightening.
A tiny mistake buried inside millions of computer systems. Years stored as two digits instead of four. Ninety-nine becoming zero-zero. A microscopic error with potentially enormous consequences.
Nobody knew what would happen.
That uncertainty spread everywhere.
People stocked food.
People bought generators.
People filled basements with bottled water.
People purchased flashlights and batteries as if darkness itself had gone on sale.
Entire businesses devoted millions of dollars to fixing software that had been quietly running for decades. Governments formed special task forces. News anchors discussed computer code with the seriousness usually reserved for wars.
Fear became a kind of national hobby.
Maybe even a religion.
It was impossible to escape.
Walk into a grocery store, and somebody was talking about Y2K.
Turn on a radio, and somebody was talking about Y2K.
Sit down at a restaurant, and somebody at the next table was talking about Y2K.
Every conversation eventually drifted there.
The end of the century.
The beginning of the new millennium.
The possibility that everything might fall apart.
Looking back now, it all seems absurd.
But hindsight is a luxury.
Back then, it felt real.
Back then, midnight on January 1st looked like the edge of a cliff.
My wife didn’t buy any of it.
She thought the whole panic was ridiculous.
“People love being scared,” she’d say.
She’d laugh whenever another television special appeared predicting catastrophe.
“Nothing’s going to happen, Martin.”
I wanted to believe her.
Most of the time, I did.
She had a way of making everything seem reasonable.
She could walk into a room filled with anxiety and somehow leave everybody calmer than she found them.
That was one of the reasons I loved her.
Her name was Emily Gordon.
She was thirty-two years old.
She loved mystery novels.
She hated horror movies.
She drank tea instead of coffee because coffee made her nervous.
She sang along to songs despite rarely knowing the lyrics.
She never remembered where she left her car keys.
She was the kind of person who apologized to furniture after bumping into it.
And she was the center of my world.
I didn’t know it then, but those ordinary details were becoming precious.
Soon they would be all I had left.
The day she disappeared began like every other day.
No ominous music.
No warning signs.
No feeling that history was preparing to punch me in the throat.
Just an ordinary October morning.
Emily left for work around eight.
She kissed me goodbye.
She told me not to forget to pick up groceries after work.
I told her I wouldn’t.
Neither of us understood that we were having our final normal conversation.
The last one.
The kind of conversation people never appreciate until it’s impossible to have again.
The day passed uneventfully.
Work.
Traffic.
Radio reports about Y2K.
More predictions.
More fear.
More uncertainty.
The entire world seemed obsessed with what might happen in a few months.
Nobody was paying attention to what was happening right now.
Least of all me.
I got home shortly after six.
Emily’s car wasn’t in the driveway.
At first, I wasn’t concerned.
People run late.
Meetings happen.
Traffic exists.
Life happens.
I made dinner.
Waited.
Watched television.
Waited some more.
Seven o’clock became eight.
Eight became nine.
The uneasiness arrived slowly.
Not panic.
Not yet.
Just a small knot tightening somewhere behind my ribs.
I called her office.
No answer.
I called her friends.
Nothing.
I checked with family.
Nobody had seen her.
The knot became something heavier.
Something colder.
By midnight, I was driving through the city looking for her.
I searched parking lots.
Gas stations.
Restaurants.
Hospitals.
Anywhere my increasingly desperate mind could imagine.
Nothing.
No Emily.
No explanation.
No answers.
Just absence.
The police took a report.
They asked questions.
They promised to investigate.
They told me not to assume the worst.
People disappear for all kinds of reasons.
That was supposed to comfort me.
It didn’t.
The next three days felt like three years.
I barely slept.
I barely ate.
The world outside continued discussing Y2K while my own world had already ended.
I didn’t care about computer systems anymore.
I didn’t care about power grids.
I didn’t care about the future.
I only cared about finding my wife.
Then the card arrived.
No return address.
No postage.
Just a plain white envelope resting inside my mailbox.
I remember staring at it for several seconds.
Something felt wrong.
Not suspicious.
Wrong.
Like seeing a stranger sitting in your living room.
Inside was a single white card.
Nothing else.
No explanation.
No demands.
No instructions.
Only an image.
A black rabbit’s foot.
Printed in the center.
Beneath it were two words.
KEEP CHASING.
I read them once.
Then again.
Then a third time.
I didn’t understand.
Not immediately.
A few hours later, the phone rang.
The voice on the other end was distorted.
Artificial.
Mechanical.
Impossible to identify.
The caller spoke only one sentence.
“We have your wife.”
Then the line went dead.
Just like that.
No ransom demand.
No negotiation.
No explanation.
Only certainty.
Emily hadn’t left.
She hadn’t run away.
She hadn’t gotten lost.
She had been taken.
Kidnapped.
Stolen from her life.
Stolen from mine.
And for the first time, I heard the name Rabbit’s Foot.
Not the lucky charm.
Not the superstition.
The organization.
The criminal network.
The cult.
The nightmare hiding beneath the surface of ordinary society.
While millions of people feared Y2K would destroy the world, my world had already been destroyed.
The millennium wasn’t my nightmare.
Rabbit’s Foot was.
And I was about to spend the rest of my life chasing it.
Can't wait to read more!
I will be writing every day! 😉