David Leadbeater
The Plagues of Pandora
CAST LIST
Matt Drake, Torsten Dahl, Mai Kitano,
Hayden Jaye, Mano Kinimaka, Smyth,
Karin Blake, Komodo, Yorgi, Lauren.
Alicia Myles, Rob Russo,
Michael Crouch,
Zack Healey, Caitlyn Nash.
Aaron Trent, Adam Silk, Dan Radford
Claire Collins.
Tyler Webb — Leader and Founder
General Bill Stone — U.S. Army
Nicholas Bell — Owner of Sanstone Building and Builder.
Miranda Le Brun — Oil Heiress
Clifford Bay-Dale — Man of Privilege
Robert Norris — Principal SolDyn Board Member
PROLOGUE
Some said that age clung to the crumbling relic like a filthy, protective shroud. Others likened it more to a house of insanity, and that the shroud was protecting the villagers from the place itself rather than the other way around. Over the years it had represented many things to the maturing community; from the proverbial haunted house with its rambling, untended gardens to a symbol of their own steady decay to a representation of hate in harder times — the dying, blazing sun setting behind it, pouring its terrible fire through the jagged, cracked windows straight down into the center of town. The children harbored many a fear and undertook dares and monster-quests nearby, but they were fine and their parents were fine and the place eventually passed beyond their concerns, its illusory image overshadowed by responsibilities and life changes, television and wine. And of course most children are always fine… until maturity makes the dares and the challenges they set themselves take on a darker, more adult nature.
But when the sun started to go down, and the darkness sent its black fingers creeping like giant spiders across the land; when the devil’s fire — as the elders called it — started to glimmer and glow through those knife-edged windows and ragged cracks, it was easy to remember why the place was shunned, why nobody ever bought it or chose to visit, and why every member of the population harbored the same uncanny thought deep, deep inside their hearts where most feared to go.
The house on the hill had always been there, and for one purpose only.
Its purpose was to kill.
The village was aghast when, in 2014, the house was purchased by an unknown buyer. A public meeting was held, its attendees so shocked they could barely offer speculation. Comment and gossip was rife throughout the community; the main consensus being that bulldozers would soon roll in and raze the eyesore to the ground. And one day heavy machinery did indeed roll in, on the back of huge Mack trucks, but not a wall or even a brick was disturbed.
What were they doing up there?
It was always they—the faceless, shadowy owner or organization behind any new project. And there was always a faceless, shadowy organization. The money men rarely kick-started anything without some kind of profitable agenda.
In early March 2014, the village was brought to its knees when each household received an invitation to attend a celebration up at the house — an opening ceremony of sorts where the new owner would meet and explain his plans for the prominent place.
It is widely believed that the phrase “curiosity killed the cat” didn’t exist before the world’s first woman, Pandora, was given a box and told, by the very real gods themselves, never to open it. Upon doing so she released all the sins of the world, including sickness, crime, vice, poverty and plague. Pandora’s Box is an origin myth — an attempt to explain the beginning of something.
The villagers, although horrified, amazed and fretful, were hugely curious. What could go wrong on a warm and sunny afternoon in America? What could happen when a man or woman was surrounded by hundreds of their peers, in the course of celebration?
The only odd thing about it all was that no children were specifically invited. The cards all read: Anyone between the ages of 16 and 100.
Odd, they speculated. Maybe the new owner was a touch eccentric, with a smattering of loon in his nature. A movie star perhaps or a writer. Nay, an ex-president. The speculation continued.
But curiosity compelled most of the township to accept the mysterious invite. Only the die-hard pessimists and worrywarts held out. And human nature obliged many of the attendees to believe the blanket invites had been misspelled — why shouldn’t they take their children to what amounted to a Sunday afternoon barbecue?
The day arrived; the night before one of those blood-red sunsets that sent swords and lances of dripping red light stabbing and piercing toward the heart of the township, straight from the cracked and crazy visage of the house on the hill. The Sunday itself, though, was one of those days when even the brisk breeze warms your heart, the children’s laughter is light, and the unexpected smile of a stranger can lift your spirits. Many were nervous and laid off the caffeine, perhaps wishing for something a little stronger. Kids of all ages caught the mood of their parents and became more somber as the time approached. Like a funeral procession the villagers began to march through their town, each person looking up at the ever-nearing fractured glass eyes that had watched over their town for at least fifty years. In one form or another they had all visited the house before and although experiences differed between the timid and the daring, heads were filled with trepidation, expectation and most of all — curiosity.
And just like the world’s very first woman, made of clay, on the command of the god Zeus, they would go forward and open the box.
Into the newly landscaped grounds they marched, amazed by the splendid remodeling, which served only to make the house’s continuing ugly and threatening visage all the more hostile. Several turned away at that point, to the indecisive looks of their friends that stayed. More eccentricities followed, as a sumptuous banquet had been laid out, a rich and wealthy buffet, but no waiters to serve it.
And no host.
Only the townspeople and their fascination.
As the sun blazed down from on high, as the townsfolk ate and kept watch on that legendary house, as their children drifted inexorably toward the goblets of red wine and platters of assorted chocolates — their parents more concerned with keeping them away from the haunted bricks and mortar than the everyday alcohol and sugar — as conversation passed and frustration began to set in, a voice finally boomed out from within the house itself.
“I will be with you shortly,” a voice that clearly belonged to a well-manicured, well-educated man spoke out. “But first, won’t you join me in a toast to celebrate the passing of the old regime and the beginning of the new?”
The villagers thought they understood. A drink to represent the house’s upcoming demolition. What a good idea, they thought. Many poured wine and champagne, fruit juice and glasses of water. They were about to meet their benefactor, a symbol of their future, a man that would now be inextricably entwined with the name and renown of the place where they were raised.
As one, persuaded by the promises of the unseen man, the attending township raised glasses to their lips and drank.
After a while only the cries of babies remained.
CHAPTER ONE
Tyler Webb, a weapons billionaire well on his way to establishing his own notorious, murderous and immensely powerful secret order, studied the faces of the men and women seated around him.
“We are the Pythians,” he said. “What news today?”