Tag: Meg Sorick

Inhuman (12)

~ Meg ~ 14 Comments

To read from the beginning, please visit the Inhuman Page.

Sunday had proved uneventful. After a fitful night’s sleep, Amanda set to work putting her house together: hanging artwork, shelving books, organizing the kitchen and bathroom. By dinner time, she was weary and ready to put her feet up. She heated some soup and had just turned on the television when her phone rang. Nathan’s name came up on the ID. “Hello?” she answered nervously.

“Amanda, how are you settling in? The house to your liking?” he asked.

“Um, yeah. It’s great, just great.”

“Good. I called to give you instructions for coming to work tomorrow. Are you ready?”

“Yes.” As if there was an option, she thought.

“Excellent. We have a bus service dedicated to bringing our staff into the facility. That way we don’t have a lot of traffic or wasted space for parking cars. You need to walk out of your development to the main road where you will see an unmarked shelter. That is the pickup location. Be there by 8:00 sharp for your bus.”

“Alright. I’ll be there,” she replied.

“When you arrive at the facility, I will meet you and take you to Human Resources where you will be issued a photo ID badge…”

“What no retina scan?” she asked sarcastically.

He ignored the remark. “…and then I’ll take you to your department. After tomorrow you’ll be on your own. Any questions?”

She sighed. “Nathan, I have a million questions…”

“About tomorrow, Amanda,” he cut her off. “Anything else you need to ask me can wait, do you understand?”

Not safe to talk on the phone, then, she thought. “No, I guess not.”

“Good. I’ll see you in the morning,” he said and disconnected abruptly.

Amanda set the phone down and chewed her thumbnail. A bus. She wasn’t the only agency employee in town, then. It made sense. She had checked the area on the map and saw that besides Makepeace, there were no other towns within ten miles, just a few isolated farms and a truck stop out on the interstate. Wouldn’t a bus service attract attention, though? The rest of the people in town surely would wonder about it, wouldn’t they? There must be some sort of cover story… Just one more question to add to the list.

Despite her exhaustion, apprehension kept her tossing and turning all night. In the morning, she showered and dressed on autopilot. Then, after coffee and cereal, she made the short walk to the bus stop. Three other people were already waiting. She pasted on a smile and said hello. They all returned the greeting but when Amanda looked away, she immediately felt their eyes on her again. She stared at her phone and checked her email to avoid the stares. The bus arrived exactly on time and as the passengers all boarded, they quietly acknowledged the driver and found seats. Amanda sat next to a woman who appeared to be in her late forties or early fifties, reading a paperback novel. In fact, everyone on the bus seemed to be middle aged or older. I’m so much younger, she thought. Maybe that’s why they’re all staring.

The bus made its journey not out to the main road, but along a narrow, winding country road which eventually left all signs of civilization behind. Not long after leaving the town, a chain link fence perimeter, marked with warning signs for the hazards of the underground coal fire beyond, appeared along the right side of the road. When the bus stopped, there was no evidence whatsoever of the sprawling facility beneath their feet. Unsure what else to do, Amanda rose and followed the other passengers exiting the bus. They swiftly and wordlessly hurried toward a small, dilapidated building just outside the fence, which must have once been a storage shed or garage for the mine. Amanda followed at the end of the line. Once inside the building, she found Nathan waiting for her. Relieved, she squeezed through the crowd to his side.

“Amanda, good to see you,” he said. “All’s well so far?”

“I suppose. Except I feel like everyone is watching me,” she replied.

He gestured for her to walk with him. “Hm, well, considering we haven’t had a new employee join the team in over ten years…”

“You’re kidding. Isn’t there any turnover? People retiring? That kind of thing?”

“Not yet. The original staff and support personnel are aging, but this program is new enough that no one has retired yet.” They joined a queue of people at the back of the building. Amanda couldn’t tell what was happening at the front, but the line steadily moved forward.

“And no one just decides to leave? To find a new job elsewhere?” Amanda lowered her voice. “Or isn’t anyone allowed to leave?”

Nathan frowned. “It’s a situation we have yet to encounter. The doctor is the first person who demonstrated a desire to leave. Anyone else who may want to go has kept it to themselves,” he said quietly. Then looking at her out of the corner of his eye, he added, “So far.”

When the line of people had dwindled to just a few, Amanda was able to see that one by one, the employees were being retina scanned at a panel discreetly camouflaged as an intercom. As the employees were cleared, a hidden door opened and closed behind them. After everyone had passed through and she and Nathan were the last ones left, he stepped forward to be scanned and pulled Amanda close to his side. “We’ve got to go through together, Amanda. It might be a tight squeeze.”

As the door opened, Nathan stepped in and pulled Amanda into his arms. Amanda gasped as she was pressed up against his body and the floor seemed to drop beneath their feet.

The Bucks County Novels – by Margaret Sorick

~ Meg ~ 13 Comments

Once a year (yes, I’m terrible at marketing…) I like to remind my followers that I have a series of novels available for purchase on Amazon. The novels are set in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, where I live. My characters are ordinary people with families, people who fall in love and sometimes find themselves in outrageous circumstances. While the same cast of characters appears in each of the books, the plot focuses on a different one every time. The first  novel in the series: Three Empty Frames won first prize in The Writer’s Digest E-book Awards for Mainstream Fiction in 2017. Here is a look at each one of them:

Three Empty Frames  – Book OneThree Empty Frames_02_HR_front_2

Life just got complicated for Jennifer Dunne. Her dead mother’s diary has revealed clues to a famous art heist from the 1960s. Have the missing masterpieces been hidden among her things all this time? Jen is targeted by a pair of ruthless criminals who certainly think so. Meanwhile, she’s falling in love with her new lawyer, who works with her to unravel the clues. But will the fledgling relationship survive when another handsome rival appears on the scene? And have the clues to the whereabouts of the missing masterpieces led them astray? Were the paintings hidden in plain sight all along?

Seeing Red – Book Two 514HE57Sz1L

Beautiful, hardworking, Desdemona Murray doesn’t see herself the way others do. She only remembers the awkward teenager she once was. The talented landscape designer is hired to install a custom deck at the home of star football player, Ethan Samuels. When she catches the eye of the handsome professional athlete, and he begins to pursue her relentlessly, she is at first, flattered and amazed. However, her heart belongs to a man whom she believes only considers her a friend. Adam Quinn has always been a ladies man, not one to settle down, or so she thinks. Little does she know his feelings for her run much deeper. When Des finally sees both men for who they really are, the choice she must make is obvious. But when she chooses, Des finds out how dangerous it can be to break free from a man who can’t take no for an answer.

Run For It – Book Three fullsizeoutput_cc7

Joni Cooper is in the best shape of her life. In fact, she’s training for the Boston Marathon. So why does she feel like the last kid picked for the team? Mostly because her two best friends have fallen in love with a pair of handsome brothers. It looks like she’s stuck with the third and final brother, Graham, as an escort for both weddings. Even though Graham is gorgeous and successful, he’s also irritating as sin. Will the two of them manage to call a truce until the two couples are married? Or will the sparks these two generate erupt into a five alarm fire?

Tainted Inheritance – Book Four fullsizeoutput_f0c

Why would anyone want to hurt Olivia Sutton? Her life was finally coming together after her divorce. She’s found new love with contractor Leo Donovan and made a fresh start in a new home. When she becomes the victim of one too many random accidents, she realizes someone is stalking her. Has something in her past come back to haunt her? And can she and Leo discover the secret before it’s too late?

Breaking Bread – Book Five breaking bread_01 copy

Maya Kaminsky has finally realized her dream of owning a French bakery cafe, despite the opposition of her rigid, narrow-minded family. But as the business grows and thrives, Maya discovers she has an enemy. Beginning with petty mischief, the cafe becomes targeted by vandals who quickly escalate to dangerous sabotage. To complicate matters, Maya’s childhood friend, Brad Logan, moves back into town and with his recent inheritance, buys her building, intending to help her out. However, Maya’s fierce independence makes it a struggle to accept help from anyone, let alone a man with whom she finds herself falling in love. Nevertheless, Maya will need all the help she can get to save both her business and her life.

Inhuman (10)

~ Meg ~ 17 Comments

To read from the beginning, please visit the Inhuman page to find all the links.

The following days, weeks had been a whirlwind. Brian’s ‘accident’ and subsequent funeral, Amanda’s resignation from her job, and giving notice to her landlord all came in rapid succession. Amanda’s family had pleaded with her. “This is a mistake. You’ve just lost your husband, how can you just pick up and leave everything behind? They say you should never make big, life changing decisions so soon after a trauma. Wait a year at least.”

She made the excuse that she couldn’t bear to be in the home she’d shared with Brian. She needed a fresh start, in a new town with a new job. This opportunity was too good to pass up. “Don’t worry, I’m not going across the country or anything. It’s only about two hours away,” she had said. And so with her belongings packed and her rent deposit refunded, Amanda drove north and west from Philadelphia with the agency-hired moving truck following her. She had been issued a new phone and she used its GPS to guide her to Makepeace, the small town she would now call home.

The long drive gave her the first quiet time, the first alone time she’d had since Nathan had driven her back to her apartment after that fateful day at the laboratory. She’d been given a more thorough tour, and a cursory interview for the job she would now be performing. Lastly, she’d been required to sign the confidentiality agreement that would ensure her silence about the agency’s true purpose. For all her friends and family knew, she was going to work for a sub-agency of the Department of Energy, responsible for oversight of the region’s controversial hydraulic fracturing industry. She’d left the place with her head spinning. Nathan had been quiet on the drive, just answering questions as they came to her. Upon leaving her, he’d given her a final warning about what could happen if she went to the authorities or the news media and also his cell phone number if she felt that she needed to talk. She hadn’t used it.

The city gave way to suburbs and then long stretches of farmland interrupted occasionally by small towns, more like villages, until she reached the road that circled around the restricted area that once was the mining town of Centralia. A few miles further and she passed a sign welcoming her to Makepeace, established 1947 and boasting a population of 1701. She passed a gas station and convenience store, a supermarket and drug store and a medical complex with a general practitioner, dentist and eye doctor. The town center had a square with a well-tended park and each of the store fronts facing the square seemed to be occupied with small businesses —a jeweler, florist, hair salon, and dry cleaners, as well as the post office. Self-contained, she thought. Then again, the town was out in the middle of nowhere. It made sense to have everything you would need close at hand.

The GPS directed her to turn left onto Elm Street which, true to it’s name, was lined with stately old trees fronting the neat, uniform yards of nearly identical Cape Cod style homes. The street was oddly quiet for a beautiful, sunny Saturday —no children outside playing or people walking dogs. She pulled in front of number 12, allowing the moving truck to back into the driveway. The pale grey house with its black shutters and red front door, were as pretty as a postcard. Window boxes full of cheerful flowers adorned the two sills on either side of the door. Amanda took a moment to absorb it all. She shook her head. A dream come true, a nightmare in disguise. Well, at least I will be comfortable while I figure a way out of this mess, she thought.

As the movers brought boxes and furnishings, she wandered around the rooms, trying to stay out of the way. She found herself at the kitchen window, staring across the lawn to the yard of the neighbor behind her. Another Cape Cod, quiet and eerily similar to her own. A post-war town, she thought. All the homes built for returning soldiers.

“All finished, Ms. Connor,” one of the movers said. “We’ll get our of your way, if everything looks good to you.”

“Sure, sure. Thank you,” she replied absently. Movement in the house behind hers had caught her attention. A figure stood silhouetted in the window, then pale fingers pulled the curtain aside. Amanda instinctively stepped back into the shadows to avoid detection but it was probably too late. The watcher remained at the window, but she couldn’t see the person’s face. Someone curious about their new neighbor, no doubt. Then why did she feel unnerved? She took a deep breath and stepped back into view. She leaned toward the glass and smiled and waved. Immediately the curtain fell back into place. “Hmm, maybe curious, but not particularly friendly…” she murmured.

At the sound of the moving van backing out of the driveway, she looked around at the boxes trying to decide where to start. She had left her suitcases and toiletries in the car. Might as well pull the car into the drive while I’m at it, she thought. So grabbing her keys, she walked out to the street where her car was parked. Movement in the periphery of her vision had her turning her head. Another curtain parted, another watcher in the window, this time in the house across and to the left of hers. Then again, at the house straight ahead and yet again in the one to the right. A finger of anxiety traced along her spine and she found herself running to the car as the invisible eyes of her neighbors watched her.