Addison Hollows, a town with a thriving “Main Street USA” kind of feel and a population of about 5,000. It’s not a tiny little small town, but rather a completely self sufficient town that is almost considered a big town.
The downtown business district, seven blocks on either side, houses a combination of restaurants, casual and upscale, tourist and normal shops and services mingled together. Every building a different color and a different structure, yet build side by side. Bailey & Quinn, a five and dime store, Quality Cleaners, a dry cleaning place, Perry Drug, a pharmacy, Mcleods, a grocery store, are just a few of the stores in the myriad of businesses along Main Street. There are a few factories and other industrial business such as, a lumber mill, a feed mill and steel mill, as well as car dealers and shops just outside of town.
The tracks run through the streets here and there and on past a typical tile roofed brick depot with an open waiting area at the end. Giving the impression of the history of the town that grew around it. Some would say the depot is all but a forgotten memory as a larger depot, on a different track, closer to the industrial area of town takes most of the business.
Among all of the businesses and the few tourist attractions, it keeps the town of Addison Hollows a thriving, self sufficient community. White and Blue collar workers live in harmony. The people of the community are friendly, regular everyday people, not pretentious. The schools are exceptional with high regard for education and furthering education.
The streets are clean, the trees and yards are green and very well maintained. The city almost seems like a Utopian small town but it has its secrets just like everything else. Secrets that could tear the very beautiful town asunder.
It was a beautiful sunny day with a slight breeze to keep the heat from being too much. The birds were chirping, the kids playing and business going on as usual. It was just another typical day in Addison Hollows. At least that is what it's townspeople thought. At 12:13 pm a very strange occurrence happened.... a very large, invisible structure slammed down around Addison Hollows, cutting everyone off from the rest of the world.
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Sharon Emery, the town's councilwoman and used car dealer, inherited from her husband, is a woman known to have skeletons in the closet but no one knows what they are. Rumors spike and ebb like in any small town, usually around re election but that never turns the tide of the votes nor does anything reveal itself. Most people like Sharon, her strong love for Addison Hollows and her determination to keep it a thriving city free from the vices that usually take hold of other cities.
Sharon stood outside the Town Hall, watching the morning people pass by her, saying their hellos and good mornings. This was her routine every morning. She would make the appearance to the public as she knew that it was important to them to constantly see their elected officials on a normal basis. A feeling of closeness is generated by what she does. After the majority of people are through with their morning commute she heads inside to her own work. Traffic ordinances, noise control regulations, anti-pollution measures and ordinances regarding land development are all examples of what most of her job entailed. Not the most entertaining job but definitely one that needed to be done to keep the town safe.
Appointing people was definitely something she enjoyed with a great enthusiasm. These people usually owed her something or she had dirt on them of some sort. These things she used sparingly and only to get what she wanted or the town needed.
After a few hours of pouring over paperwork, reading and notating changes or concerns, and checking off her to do list a bit she grabbed her things and headed of the Town Hall and headed for Main Street, a block away. She glanced at her watch. Twelve Twelve... perfect timing. Sharon thought to herself as she hurried along to her favorite place to eat. As she turned the corner onto Main Street, the ground began to shake something fierce and a strange thundering noise ripped through the air. Sharon was able to stabilized her as it grew eerily quiet before bursting into yells and screams of confusion.
Sharon shook her head slightly, regaining focus and knowing that it was time to take control of the situation. She stepped into the road with all the other people running out of the stores.
"An earthquake?!", one man asked.
"We don't get earthquakes here.", a woman answered.
"A crash? Plane or meteor?", another woman spoke.
Sharon raised her fingers to her lips, giving a loud whistle, startling everyone around her. "C'mon everyone. Let's calm down. We do not know what is going on. It could be as simple as an earthquake. Everyone go back to what you were doing and I will update you later this afternoon.", her voice was louder than normal but gave off a sense of security as well as authority. The people whispered among themselves for a few moments before heading back inside to what they were doing before. Rumors would start about what had just happened but that was pretty much unavoidable.
Sharon began heading back to Town Hall to grab her car and when she was almost there she heard a familiar voice calling out to her. She turned to see one of the policeman running toward her. He must have left his car behind in his excitement. When he got closer she realized it was not excitement but fear.
"Sharon.... There... It's.. You... You just need to see this.", his breaths broke up his speech and she guessed that he sprinted the whole way here.
"Okay Okay, Reynolds. Get in the car. I will drive you back." The man got in without another word, still trying to catch his breath. "Where are we going?", she questioned Officer Reynolds.
"To the... Bridge just outside.. of town.", he spoke better this time.
Sharon brought the car to life and sped away from Town Hall and the downtown district. She was speeding but did not give a damn. Something had her Officer scared and she was going to see what is was and handle it accordingly.
What Sharon saw when she got there was literally unbelievable, impossible. From her car, she could see Reynolds police car, parked on the bridge. It was not that though that made her speechless. It was the fact that the car had been cut into two pieces, right through the engine. She put her car in park and stepped out of the vehicle slowly. Even though it was before her she could barely believe it. It was impossible to cut an engine half with such precision. Wasn't it?
Upon closer inspection she could see that the bridge was also cut. Sharon began getting closer but a voice stopped her.
"Sharon! Don't! It's like a wall. Invisible but there.", Reynolds warned her. His voice trembling. She guessed that he had been inside the vehicle when this had happened and he was quite shaken.
Sharon raised an eyebrow at him but when his features stayed serious and focused on the car and bridge then she knew he was serious. She got closer to the cut engine and held out her hand, palm outward. She felt a little stupid doing so but she had to see. It took only one two steps closer for her hand to touch a warm, tingling wall of nothing. It didn't let her go through nor did it give to her at all. She removed her hand and replaced it on her hip. It was then that she noticed that a group of people had begun to gather around the cop car.
Taking a deep breath, Sharon turned to face the people that gathered. She had to do something, to keep people calm. Some of the people had already gone up to touch the wall and were whispering and shouting different things. It was beginning to be hard to discern what was being said. She gathered her words and whistled again.
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- Eric in a towel (click here):
Eric Frost, is the kind of guy that will voice his opinion no matter what. He's not going to be the loud annoying guy at a party, but if there's something important he has to say, he will. He is quiet and a bit of a loner but that is by choice. He doesn't like to bring attention to himself and would prefer to stay out of sticky situations. Yet his luck does not allow such a choice to happen smoothly.
A Merc by trade, an assassin if the pay is good and the reason is solid. A man without fear can do many things that others cannot. Moral codes that others live by do not constrict him but he does have a code. Those that deserve punishment shall receive it by his hand if necessary. A bit brooding, dark and mysterious type who has seen the worst in society. The love of his life killed by a mugger in broad daylight because she fought back. Bystanders and onlookers just stood by and watched as she died on the pavement. The man was never caught. He has lost hope in true justice and morality of society.
Eric was currently working as a "bodyguard" to a very unsavory man. Playing a double agent was probably the most interesting job but also the most difficult as well. Maybe it was the complexity of it that Eric liked so much. He was asked to kill a man by the name of Jacob Avery, a known human trafficker, by a man that had lost his wife at the hands of Jacob. Eric was more than happy to comply once the evidence was in his hands. It wasn't like he would just kill anyone without good reason. After receiving payment and doing a bit of research it was easy enough to get a job with Jacob as his bodyguard. Right now they were in the town of Addison Hollows, Jacob was trying to woo some young teenage girl. Probably to get her to be a part of his merchandise. Jacob was a man in his mid thirties but could be consider devilishly charming and attractive to most women. Jacob had let him know that the younger they were the more money he could get. It was strange how easy Eric had gotten information from him.
Jacob was walking ahead of him about fifty feet talking with the young woman who was latched onto his arm as if he would disappear at any moment. She was enthralled and Jacob knew that. Eric watched quietly as the slowed and stopped in a meadow near the edge of town. Eric stood by the tree line, keeping an eye on his victim. The young girl moved in front of him, hands on his chest, asking something of him or possibly begging. Eric wasn't sure which nor did he care. He would make sure that the girl would not be sold into slavery.
Suddenly Jacob stopped talking and the ground began to shake with a great force. Eric was leaning against the tree so was stable amid the shaking but looked around to see if there was a source. Just as he looked back his target the woman was running away from him, deeper into the outlying woods of the city, and Jacob was only standing there. Eric ran forward before coming to a quick halt when he saw what had become of his destined victim. He had been cut in half. Literally, in half from head to toe. There was no way that he would have believed it unless he had seen it.
Eric watched as the back side of Jacob slid and fell to the ground, revealing momentarily the insides of his boss before it too fell to the ground. Eric's mouth was literally gaping open as he moved closer to the body. It was liked he had been cut with an extremely large guillotine. When he got to the body it was steaming from the cooler air around it. It was then that he noticed that the Earth where Jacob was cut was also disturbed and it ran away from the body on both sides as far as he could see.
Eric reached his hand out to try and pass over the line in the ground but was stopped midway. He felt a warm tickling sensation. "You got to be kidding me!", he whispered as he moved his hand in different directions. He removed his hand and rubbed his scruff covered jaw. "Shit just got bad.", he spoke as he looked back down to the severed body laying at his feet. His target was dead and not by his hand, which didn't really matter, the job was done and it was time for him to leave. But he had a feeling that he wasn't going anywhere.
Eric headed about thirty feet from the body and tested the invisible wall again, he did this again and again until he was about two hundred feet away. It was still solid. "Damnit!", he muttered and began jogging back into town. He was headed for the town center, a stiff drink was in order.
After a few moments he got back to the road, but was met with a concerning sight. A police car cut in half, an officer and a woman standing just behind it as well as a gathering group of people.
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Evelyn Bell possesses a relentless curiosity and drive that helps her constantly uncover new facts and secrets of the town of Addison Hollows and its neighboring city of Kingston, a small city with plenty of juicy secrets and news. She was inquisitive and could ask all the right kind of questions in order to either get information or make people squirm. She was also determined to be the best that she could be and her goal was eventually to be a journalist for a big time paper or magazine of some sort.
Eve tended to be intelligent in matters of everything really. She read up on any subject that she could and stayed up on the local and global news so that she was constantly up to date with whatever was happening. If someone asked her about the oil crisis that they were supposedly in then she would be able to talk about it with great certainty.
Eve also knew that journalism did not mean spilling everyone's secrets as soon as she got them. She usually kept a record of them in a notepad with her own encryption so that no one else could read it. It wasn't fair to spill someone secrets just to be noticed. Karma was a hateful bitch.
Most importantly Eve was skeptical about everything until she had proof. It was probably her greatest asset since wrong information can hurt her reputation beyond repair. She knew that everything she reported on had to be proven to be the truth. She had become a trusted source of information in Addison Hollows.
Eve was doing some follow up work on reports of a rise in drugs in Addison Hollows. She was tracking the source and she had a feeling she was getting close. She was going to investigate a closed warehouse today to check on the rumors that they were stationed there. She was just about to leave her office when everything started shaking around her. A few pictures and small ornamental things fell from her shelves, shattering across the floor. She steadied herself as the shaking stopped and sighed heavily at the mess that was made. She could hear screams from outside and shook her head slightly, "It was only an earthquake..." She began picking up her picture frames and other items that escaped destruction and set them back on the shelves. She was going to have to get a broom and sweep the glass up but had other things that were more pressing. She would have to do it later.
Eve left her office and headed out of the building. She was shocked to see all the disruption. Everyone was running out of their stores and homes to see if everything was okay. Kids were crying, scared of what was going on, Adults were yelling, frightened though they were trying to hide it.
Someone was driving really fast towards them. They came to a sudden halt and stepped out of the car, fear plastered over the feminine face. "A... A car... slammed into a wall.... it was an invisible wall... nothing there... just crashed...", the voice was shaky and tears were welling from the woman's eyes. A few people rushed to her side to help. Eve looked around for someone that could actually help them.
Eve spotted one of the officers, an old time friend of hers, and waved him down as he was driving past. He slowed and stopped right next to her and rolled down his window, "Don't have time Evelyn. I got to meet Sharon over at the bridge."
Eve nodded seriously, "That is fine Jared. Take me with you." She jumped in the front seat as Jared sped off to their destination. She wanted the story. an invisible wall. That definitely had to be top news.
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"Everyone! Please quiet down. I know you are all scared.", Sharon spoke loud enough for everyone to hear.
"No shit! Who the hell did this and what the hell is it?", an older man yelled, graying beard and straggly hair.
"There's no cell phone service nor internet.", a young woman spoke up.
"I don't know what's going on. All I know is that whatever it is, it is dangerous. I would advise no one touch it. I will be working on figuring out what it is.", Sharon responded.
"We already know what it is. The military did this. Or Koreans.", Jerry shouted to the group.
"No it's aliens.", Eric's voice was heard from the back of the group, dripping with sarcasm.
"Everyone! We don't know what it is. We will though. I want you all to go around town and tell everyone not to touch it.", she spoke to the group. Turning to Reynolds she pulled him to the side, "Look we need to see what this thing is. Gather the rest of the officers and the chief and see how far this thing goes."
Reynolds nodded and tried his radio and to his surprise got a hold of another officer then another. He told them all to come to them immediately. The only person he couldn't get on the radio was the Chief. Someone would have to look for him.
Eric made his way to the woman in charge and cleared his throat to get her attention. "Ma'am? In the meadow about a mile from here the wall was still there. It cut my boss in half when it came down...", he spoke to her with respect typical of military.
Sharon closed her eyes at his comment and nodded. "Okay... Reynolds. We need to know where this goes and who else is hurt.
A Police car pulled up and out stepped Jared Thomas and Evelyn, the journalist. Evelyn hurried to Sharon's little group. "I got a report that a car crashed into an invisible wall....", she spoke quickly and was halted by the sight of the police car behind them. "Oh shit.."
"Yeah... that about explains it.", Sharon responded.
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"Everything is in place Sir", spoke a young man in military uniform. "A few casualties occurred but that was expected. Everything is a go!"
"Excellent. Start Surveillance immediately. It is time to start the project.", spoke an older gentlemen in uniform that was decorated with various medals.
