Chapter 1: Little Budge
Secretary rolled over in his armchair. Night was waning. His bed beckoned to him again after lying undisturbed for four nights, but his chair was comfortable enough and his mind was always clearer when he sat or slept in it.
“Few twenty-three-year-olds favor armchairs,” he thought to himself.
“Among other things…” his mind countered.
He heard no sound from the floors above him. Secretary hoped for only silence. It meant they were sleeping and he only had to worry about himself…
Summer descended over Linden Woods, but summer had lost its life and adventure.
In the nearby town of Shires Crossing, Alicia Finley sat against one of the maples in her back yard. She whipped her head toward the woods. A tree was falling somewhere, a familiar sound she had heard many times in her eleven years. Her home lay on the eastern edge of Shires Crossing, right next to the tree line.
“Alicia?” her father called from the back steps. “I need your help inside.”
Alicia brushed her light brown hair behind her ear and nodded. She glanced once more at the woods then scrambled to her feet. She was tall for her age, with lanky arms and legs. Her piercing brown eyes were her most striking feature, according to everyone who knew her.
Her father watched her with concern as she ran toward the house.
“Another tree came down,” Alicia announced when she reached him.
“A lot of them have been falling lately.”
“Is that why no one wants to live next to the woods?”
“It could be.”
Alicia was undeterred by his vague responses. “Ms. Harrison says there’s evil in the woods, and she wishes she didn’t live so close.”
Her father held back a derisive laugh. “Really? It’s some wonder she’s lived in that house for twenty-seven years then.”
Alicia laughed and a sparkle came into her eye. Her father smiled, the same smile he had passed on to his daughter.
“That’s a face I love to see, Little Budge.” He gently nudged Alicia’s cheek with his fist. “Did you finish your schoolwork?”
“Most of it.”
“Most of it?”
Alicia closed her eyes and smiled. A flush of embarrassed guilt came into her cheek.
“Young lady, don’t think you are going to skate by just because you don’t have a school anymore.”
“OK, I’ll finish the rest tonight!”
Her father put his arm around her and they walked up the steps to the house. As they did, he glanced over his shoulder at the woods.
“William, what did you hear?” asked Alicia’s mother in the same soft voice that had lulled Alicia to sleep many times before. This time, the voice woke her. She could tell it was late. Her parents were already in their second-floor bedroom, just down the hall from hers. Alicia reached to turn on the lamp by her bed. She stopped as she heard her dad’s solemn but steady reply. For an eleven-year-old girl, that warm, comforting steadiness could always calm her fears.
“Jude thinks they’re moving down from the north. Others are saying they entered Mondragon Bay and plan to make their way up Scudder’s River.”
“They’re only coming along the river? What about planes?” her mother asked.
“Some have been seen down in Sparrow’s Point. That’s the closest any of us can figure now.”
Alicia wanted to slip out of bed but didn’t. Her floorboards creaked constantly under her step. Ever since she was little, she had tried to make a game of figuring a path from her bed to the door without making a sound. Sometimes she seemed sure she had finally figured it out, but the boards would inevitably creak when she least expected.
She was dying to hear better and it took every ounce of effort to listen from her bed, straining her ears, hardly daring to breathe. If she moved, the slightest sound could make her parents suspect she was awake, and they would lower their voices.
“There’s talk that the networks warned Sparrow’s Point that Erdagon is coming. They might be able to get out in time.”
Alicia had known about these developments for days. Erdagon was after something or someone, but she didn’t know what. That name had crept into her world through the quiet conversations of her parents and the other adults in Shires Crossing. In some ways, it seemed distant and unreal to her, but Erdagon was a lifelong reality for children throughout the known world – whatever was left of it.
She knew that generations ago there were more than two hundred nations. One by one – through war, revolutions, economic collapse – they dissolved, until only a handful of major powers remained. For more than a century they held on until they too destroyed one another in the Fall of Nations. Now the only locations that mattered were the continents – Northern America, Southern America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania, and Antarctica.
Alicia knew all these names, but the only name that mattered in her corner of the world was Erdagon.
Adults never spoke openly about Erdagon in front of children. Because of this, Alicia and all of her friends knew little about it or its purpose. Over time, though, they had picked up bits of information from overheard conversations or bold-faced eavesdropping.
She knew Erdagon was some kind of corporation, created somewhere far south and west of Shires Crossing after the Fall of Nations. It had gained power over a large region of Northern America, growing slowly under the cover of anonymity for years while the world around it crumbled.
“God knows Tracton doesn’t care if the people escape Sparrow’s Point in time. There are no governments or militaries to stop him,” her mother said. “We’ve barely managed to make Shires Crossing self-sufficient.”
“I know, Anna. It’s been centuries since the world existed under such primitive conditions.” Alicia heard her father sigh. “It’s the perfect chance for an organization like Erdagon to get the upper hand and sweep up what’s left.”
Alicia’s mind churned relentlessly. Her parents stopped talking and the house was quiet. After what seemed like hours, she fell back to sleep.
