Spasm (Jack Stapleton & Laurie Montgomery #14)

Chapter 1

Essex Falls, Hamilton County, New York

Once conscious of the shrill, disagreeable clamor of the alarm, Ethan sat bolt upright, grabbed the offending phone off the night table, silenced it, and then, in a fit of transient rage, had to restrain himself from throwing the blasted thing against the far wall.

Still holding his phone, Ethan glanced across the bed, expecting to see the sleeping form of his girlfriend, Janet Huber, as it was her house and he was a relatively recent invitee.

But the light cotton covers were turned back, and she was nowhere to be seen.

Cocking his head to the side he was just able to hear the shower going, which reminded him that she’d planned on heading into her parents’ convenience store early that morning.

During the school year, Janet was a third-grade teacher, but during the summer months, she helped in the family store as she had from an early age.

Both Ethan and Janet had grown up in Essex Falls, Ethan a year ahead.

Back then they’d had little to do with each other, mainly due to Ethan’s reputation as an antisocial, carelessly groomed, unathletic “bad boy”—whereas Janet was the opposite: outgoing, traditionally attractive, blond, and popular.

On top of that, Janet had been a good student, particularly compared to Ethan, who was more into hunting and fishing, online gaming, and dark web trolling than anything to do with academics or social interaction.

Nevertheless, when Janet returned to Essex Falls after obtaining a teaching degree at nearby Hamilton College, they reconnected.

Ethan had never left Essex Falls, finding employment after high school with the American Pest Control Company as a technician servicing the local apple and dairy farms. To both Janet’s and Ethan’s surprise, they had clicked when they’d unexpectedly run into each other, and Janet—after a few weeks—had invited him to move into the cottage she’d rented just outside of town.

The stimulus for the abrupt change of heart as adults was the recognition that both of them, along with most of their friends, had shared an emotional trauma from the major economic and social upheaval that had befallen their isolated town when they were in the fourth and fifth grades, respectively.

At that time the Bennet Shoe Company had closed with little warning.

Although it had been common knowledge the business had long been struggling to compete with the avalanche of cheap, foreign-made footwear flooding the country, the town and the Bennets themselves had firmly believed their quality would prevail.

For nearly a century, the Bennet Shoe Company had been a rock-solid fixture in Essex Falls, with the Bennet family considered something akin to royalty.

In many ways the company and the town were synonymous, as it employed—at any given time and over multiple generations—nearly three-quarters of the community’s working-age population.

Bennet Shoe had been founded by Ambrose Bennet in what was previously a one-horse town sited in the gorgeous wilds of New York State’s Adirondack Mountains a year after the California gold rush, presumably with the help of some California gold.

Its founding had required damming the Roaring Fork River to create a reservoir, both for waterpower to run the factory’s sewing machines and as the domestic water source for what was to become a rapidly expanding population.

The creation of the company also necessitated the construction of what would become the largest multistoried, red-brick mill north of Albany, complete with an impressive clock tower modeled after the bell tower in Saint Mark’s Square, Venice.

As expected, the new industry spurred the town’s explosive growth, including the formation of an impressive Main Street lined with two-story brick buildings with storefronts below and employee apartments above, as well as a large tract of single-family employee housing.

Within ten years, Essex Falls had a population nearing five thousand, which matched the combined total of the entire rest of Hamilton County, the most sparsely populated but arguably most beautiful county in all of New York State, replete with densely forested mountains, crystal clear, unspoiled lakes, and wildly cascading rivers.

The social consequences of the precipitous loss of Essex Falls’ largest employer were monumental, particularly because of the town’s remoteness.

A few families were lucky enough for their breadwinner to find a job twenty-six miles west at the Rubington Paper Mill in Eastham or twenty-eight miles north at the Schorgers Lumber Mill near Ducksbury.

The rest of the laid-off workers went without or moved away, which is what most were forced to do.

Those who stayed and couldn’t find work suffered—mainly from alcohol abuse and one of its shameful effects: domestic violence.

This common legacy fueled Ethan and Janet’s reconnection, as both their families had suffered hardships, albeit significantly different, with Ethan’s faring much worse.

Although initially happy because of their shared history, Janet was lately coming to fear two aphorisms: “Like father, like son” and “Leopards don’t change their spots.

” Two weeks previously she’d been shocked and dismayed when Ethan had lost control and struck her during what was a rather insignificant disagreement, evoking disturbing memories of her father’s behavior.

Although Ethan had effusively apologized, the episode undermined Janet’s confidence that their relationship would work.

It did the same for Ethan’s, making him aware he was living on borrowed time psychologically with such a strong woman unless he did something rather dramatic to reestablish his sense of masculinity.

In truth the episode had surprised him almost as much as it had Janet, and although he promised her and himself he was going to control his fiery temperament, he wasn’t entirely confident it would be possible.

As a teenager he’d been in his share of fights, and even though he was 100 percent smarter now, he didn’t know for certain how he’d react when pressed.

Besides, deep down Ethan felt the entire country of America was on the wrong track in just about every way.

Shrugging his shoulders at the unknown, Ethan tossed his phone onto the night table, threw back the covers, swung his legs and feet over the side of the bed, and stood up.

After peeling off his pajama top, he raised his arms skyward over his head and stretched to relieve the tightness of his shoulder muscles.

Over the last year he’d gotten into bodybuilding as part of his dedication to the Diehard Patriots, whose interests had come to completely dominate his life.

As a result he’d become noticeably more buff with bulging pecs and biceps and remarkably less belly fat—all of which he was able to appreciate at the moment in the mirror over Janet’s bureau.

But his contentment was short-lived. As his sleepy mind cleared, he recalled with instant clarity and irritation exactly how angry he’d been when he’d gotten home in the wee hours from the militia maneuvers.

Although there was no doubt the operation itself had gone well, the fact that once again only two out of the four Russian paramilitary specialists had shown up to observe and provide feedback on the Diehard Patriots’ performance was infuriating because that was why they were there and why the Diehard Patriots were monetarily supporting their visit by paying their rent and supplying them with the use of a truck.

Ethan had been the major founder of the Diehard Patriots.

The idea of forming a homegrown paramilitary group had occurred to him after watching with a combination of shock and awe the storming of the US Capitol in 2021.

What he’d immediately recognized from that disturbing episode was just how vulnerable the citizens of Essex Falls were in their self-imposed isolation, tucked away in the Adirondack Mountains, especially considering how the US government had essentially allowed and even helped the Chinese destroy the Bennet Shoe Company.

Within days of the Capitol storming, Ethan had begun a massive online search of everything there was to know about militias.

Because he had spent countless hours online as a teenager, he didn’t have any problem learning what he needed to know and then some, especially on the dark web.

Armed with what he’d been able to put together, he and two of his closest friends then founded the Diehard Patriots and began the process of soliciting members and outfitting them, meaning obtaining AR-15s, Glocks, and lots of ammunition, along with various military gear, including night vision goggles and camouflage apparel.

In six months he’d recruited a dozen eager and equally disillusioned members, and within a year he’d reached the current total of seventeen.

For Ethan, the payoff had been immense. The Diehard Patriots offered him a sense of identity that he and his fellow militiamen would be able to protect their community from potential future threats from a system that he believed had betrayed the town in the past and might do so again.

Struggling with another sudden, intense wave of anger at the Russians for not showing up the night before, particularly the commander and his lieutenant, Ethan stared out the window with unseeing eyes while his mind churned and his irritation deepened.

There was something about the Russians, particularly the commander, that didn’t make sense, and it involved the marked difference between his original expressed interest in coming to Essex Falls compared to his behavior once they had arrived.