Evelyn ascended behind Phoenix and Missy, who now held hands everywhere they went, with Lindsay to her left. April and Darren followed behind with Jill and Mare bringing up the rear. When she reached the crest, she could see a cloud of snow rising behind the advance of a large vehicle. Standing atop the knoll, she raised a hand to shield her eyes from the assault of flakes, watching as the yellow cab of a semi-truck came into focus. It was nearly brown with accumulated ice and dirt from the road, the front windshield completely absent. The driver slammed the brakes when he saw them, the trailer jackknifing sideways, kicking up a spray of sand until it stuttered to a halt.
Norman jumped down from the rock formation first, followed by Adam, who headed straight for the driver’s side door, which opened outward, nearly knocking him back. The sludge-coated headlights stared blankly at the others as they slid down the hill of sand.
The driver leaned to his right and lifted something large and heavy from the passenger seat. He climbed down with whatever he had grabbed across his chest. When he stepped out from behind the door, it became obvious what he was holding. Lifeless legs dangled over his right arm, while a head lolled over his left, arms hanging down so that the backs of the hands grazed the powder.
He looked back over his shoulder as a kid dropped down into the snow behind him.
“I need to bury my wife,” the man said, his emotions finally tearing through and dropping him to his knees. He nuzzled his face into the corpse’s chest and began to sob.
V
Salt Lake City
RICHARD STOOD AT THE FRONT OF THE LOBBY, PREPARING TO ADDRESS HIS followers. How had he allowed everything to get out of his control? The boy’s mother had been a necessary casualty, one he had planned on from the start. It had happened far sooner than he had predicted, but it was a contingency for which they had been thoroughly prepared. The others had been instructed to keep to the lower two levels from the start, and even though they weren’t physically on the same floor, he had known they would hear the shots. Of course, none of them would know in which order the killings had transpired, so they would easily be able to enact his plan. He and Garrett would say that Susan had cracked under the strain, the same overwhelming pressure that each and every one of them felt, and had attacked Peckham. As newly anointed Chief of Security, they could claim that he had tried to calm her down, but he had underestimated her deteriorating state of mind and approached her too casually, allowing her to wrest the shotgun from him. They could then say that she had blown his head off. After all, the evidence of that would be everywhere.
That was the first big problem they were going to have to deal with.
The second stemmed from their plan for Susan’s death. The idea was that after she shot and killed Peckham, Garrett would overpower her and accidentally shoot her in the process of trying to subdue her. That would leave Richard as the humanitarian hero who would swoop in and take her orphaned son under his wing to raise as his own. In his suite, away from prying eyes. Now that the boy was gone too, that created the biggest problem of them all. Not only would he be unable to play the role of the good guy, but without the child—and more importantly, his precognitive abilities—his power to rule the cattle was now tenuous at best. They would expect more visions and he would have to indulge them with fiction. And when his predictions didn’t come to pass…
He hadn’t had the time to sufficiently prepare the official account that everyone was waiting to hear, but he knew that the others would accept no delay. Everything that had transpired had done so for all to see. If given enough time, even these people would be able to align the events and piece the story together. He needed to produce a plausible account to keep them from even beginning to wonder. Give them facts to gnaw on so there would be no room for speculation, but at the same time, he needed to use the day’s events to galvanize them, not just together, but together under him. They needed to know that he could protect them. After all, their Chief of Security had been shot to death in their midst. That in itself didn’t inspire much confidence. He needed to be proactive, show them that he would not stand for violence against any of his followers. They needed something tangible at which to direct their mounting anger, the source of the fear he could already tell they felt building inside. He needed to give them an enemy to hate. A face to embody the source of their rage. It wasn’t until he opened his mouth to speak and all eyes were upon him that he knew precisely what to say.
“Please, ladies and gentlemen, we have much to discuss.” He held out his hands and waited for the rumble of conversation to cease. Instead of allowing the smile he felt to cross his face, he feigned concern mixed with anger, mirroring the looks on all of their faces to draw them to him. “It’s important that we open a frank and honest dialog in hopes of not only understanding, but preventing a recurrence of what happened here today, inside this very shrine housing our hopes and dreams for the future. The future of mankind.
“It all happened so quickly that even now I am still trying to comprehend this tragedy and the even more staggering implications. I will try to explain what I witnessed as I remember it, so please reserve your questions and comments until the end.”
He studied them from where he stood, this time opting to stand on the floor just outside the entrance to the restaurant while they sat in the chairs and on the floor surrounding them. It was important in this instance that they see him as one of the people, on their level rather than above.
“I’ll be the first to admit that I was naïve. I am human after all, looking for the best in people rather than the worst. When we abandoned Mormon Tears in search of a better life, those we left behind became jealous. They wanted the power that you entrusted in me. I was blind to their envy. In fact, the last thing I said to them was that they were welcome to join us when we arrived here if they wanted to better their overall circumstances. I invited them into our sanctuary.” He paused, reading their confused expressions with practiced ease. “But they wanted more than to be accepted among us, into the safety and prosperity that our new home promised. They wanted more and I…I didn’t recognize it in time. My visions told me to be wary, but I didn’t heed their warnings. I believed that we could rally together as a species and approach the future with a shared sense of hope. I erroneously believed that we who were spared from the mass casualties that befell nearly our entire race were all inherently good, that together we could make our stand against the forces of evil lusting for our extinction.
“I was wrong…and I failed you.”
He lowered his head and pretended to wipe his nose, instead pinching a pair of hairs and yanking them from his nostril. Listening to the soft genesis of voices, he allowed them not only a moment to wonder what he had done so wrong, but to sympathize with him as he absorbed the entirety of the blame. When he raised his face again, there were tears in his eyes.
“The others, those who exiled themselves to the caves, sent a spy among us and we drew him to our bosom with open arms. Surely you all recognized him, for he wore the face of one of us, but beneath he was a conniving demon sent to infiltrate our ranks and throw us into chaos. His goal was to assassinate me, to destroy our very way of life. Sergeant Peckham, our fallen Chief of Security, was the first to discover his nefarious plan. That poor, courageous man. He confronted my would-be killer on the third floor and a scuffle ensued, right outside my quarters even as I was in the process of planning for the battle to come. The ruckus drew the attention of a young mother named Susan, who tried to help Sergeant Peckham, only to be gunned down when the shotgun discharged during the fracas.
“I came out of my room at the sound of gunfire, barely entering the hallway in time to see the good sergeant relinquish his firearm to use both hands to try to save the woman. I ran to his side, as did my most trusted confidant Garrett, the sight of both of us startling the killer, who ran into Susan’s room. When he emerged a moment later, he was holding her young son in front of him. Using that innocent child as a human shield.”
A spontaneous groan arose from the masses, their features betraying the repulsion they felt on the most basic, fundamental level.
“None of us dared to move, for what kind of men would we be to jeopardize the life of a young boy? We would have been lowering ourselves to his level, metamorphosing ourselves into monsters like him. So we allowed him his retreat, all the while with Garrett shielding me from the assassin’s bullet with his own body. It was Peckham who seized the opportunity to try to save the boy when it presented itself. He managed to chase the man down the hallway, where he paid for his nobility, his ultimate sacrifice, with his own life. From there we had no choice but to allow this demon to escape. He had already demonstrated not just a willingness to take life, but an unquenchable bloodlust that demanded it. Coward that he is, he ran away down the stairs and compromised our defenses by crippling the iron gate securing our compound.”
“Hey!” someone shouted. “I saw that guy!”
“Me, too!”
A rumble passed through his people as they compared their stories of witnessing portions of his account. Some saw the man dragging a little boy through the lobby, while others saw him tossing that same child into a truck that was already idling in wait outside. The fevered tales escalated as Richard had known they would in a classic exercise of one-upmanship, until there were some who claimed to have seen him shoot Peckham through the window from outside and still others who heard that man plotting something devious when he thought he was out of earshot.
“Please forgive me,” Richard sobbed, falling to his knees and burying his face in his hands. His shoulders and back shuddered as he wept.
The gathering became quiet. None dared to speak, barely able even to watch him until one woman rose from where she knelt on the floor and walked over to him, gently placing her hand on his back.
“It’s not your fault,” she whispered, tears in her eyes as well. “He fooled all of us.”
“Don’t blame yourself,” a man said, following her lead. “If you had tried to do anything more, that kid would be dead now too.”
“You can’t beat yourself up,” someone else said. “You did everything you could.”
More soothing words poured down on him until after a moment there were hands all over him, trying to comfort him. They didn’t blame him, they said. He was braver than any of them. They needed him. They loved him.
They worshipped him.
Richard rose to his feet, standing in the middle of the flock that had swarmed over him.
“I made a promise,” he said, wiping away his tears. “I made a promise to that woman.”
They were all silent, hanging on his every word.
“I promised that if anything ever happened to her I would look after her son, that I would treat him like my own and see that no harm ever came to him. And I failed her, as well.”
“We’ll get him back,” a man with a gruff voice said from the back of the room, followed by a chorus of assent.
“This is my responsibility,” Richard said. “I made a vow that I intend to keep, and I refuse to risk any of your lives in the process.”
“We will get that boy back,” the man at the back said again. “Whatever it takes.”
Richard smiled.
He would have the child back, and nothing would stand in his way.
VI
Mormon Tears
JILL SAT ATOP THE ENORMOUS PILE OF SAND, TEARS STREAMING DOWN HER face. Watching that man commit the love of his life to the earth was more than she could bear. Gray stood down there on the beach at the foot of the hole they’d helped dig while he said his goodbyes with her body curled in his lap. The others maintained a respectful distance from him, allowing him all the time he needed before burying her beneath the mound piled above her head.
“This is my fault,” he whispered, his breath wrenched away and downwind. The snow was already piling on his head and shoulders, but he was oblivious.
The child walked up beside him and took his hand, joining him in mourning.
“She’s with God now,” the boy said, knowing the words would be of no comfort, for they were of no help to him either. “And my mom.”
Gray looked down at Jake, giving that small hand a gentle squeeze before lifting the boy to his chest. Together they stared at his wife’s body until he could take it no more and turned his back on the grave. The others moved in behind him, shoving the sand into the hole by whatever means they could. He walked off toward the cave and sat down in the snow, pulling Jake’s blanket around both of them. The child leaned into his shoulder and together they looked out across the lake at nothing in particular.
Jill had to close her eyes. It was both the most tragic and most beautiful thing she had ever seen in her life. It positively hurt to observe, even from the distance, but she knew that she would only serve to increase the man’s suffering were she to be down there too. There had been so much death on such a grand scale that it seemed surreal, but the death of one woman, a wife whose husband had loved her more than anything else in the world, brought the reality of it crashing down upon her. So many lives had been snuffed out with casual disregard… Mothers. Fathers. Children. Not just casualties of war, but of a cosmic indifference that broke her heart. Their lives had mattered to those who had loved them, but taken as a whole of the world’s population, their deaths hadn’t.
She opened her eyes at the clapping sound of Mare brushing the sand from his blazing-red bare hands. He sat down beside her without a word, joining her from her vantage, where she could see the others dispersing from the mound of sand, which would eventually be hidden beneath feet of snow, the woman’s life marked by only a bump on the beach over which they had planted a thin cross made from a broken pike, lashed together by a shred of fabric.
Several small flowers bloomed from the snow beneath the cross, droplets of blood against the ethereal whiteness from afar.
“Please hold me,” she whispered, leaning into him, allowing him to slip under the Indian blanket with her. He offered no sarcasm or insecure wit, only a warm body to absorb hers and chase away the cold, if only momentarily.
Her breath on his neck, Mare held her tight, wishing more than anything that the sun would part the clouds and shine down upon them. He wished he could say something to make her feel better, to offer some semblance of hope, but his life had been an exercise in hiding from the physical and emotional pain inflicted by a father who couldn’t find a way to love him, burying his feelings beneath an impenetrable shell. He didn’t know the words to console her, having conditioned himself to mask his feeling with humor. Maybe his silence would be enough for now.
“He loved her so much,” Jill said. “She was everything to him.”
Mare raised her forehead with his chin, summoning her eyes to his.
“Love like that can survive even death,” he whispered. “They’ll be together again.”
He hadn’t planned it, but before he could stop himself he leaned in and kissed her, tasting her salty tears on her lips. Her hands moved against him as her lips parted for their mouths to join. He’d felt passion and lust before, but never such an all-consuming emotional bond. He didn’t just want to get her out of her clothes, but rather to become one with her, to make everything all right with her world.
Her tongue touched his, softly, inviting his to pursue. He raised his hand to stroke her cheek, caressing it down the side of her neck. Her tendons grew tight, straining against his fingertips as her muscles flexed, her body becoming rigid. He barely had time to withdraw his tongue from her mouth before her teeth snapped closed.
Mare opened his eyes and stared directly into hers. The lids fluttered over not her beautiful blue eyes, but the vessel-streaked whites.
“Jill,” he said, shaking her gently.
His voice faded as she was absorbed in the blinding white light, peeling back to reveal the blizzard over the frozen lake. Again, she was standing on the shoreline with the barricade at her back, accosted by the scent of burning fles
h, but this time something was different. Two figures, black shadows against the sheeting snow, staggered toward her. One supported the other as best he could, while the one who could barely walk had both hands pressed to his face, blood streaming through the gaps between his fingers.
“Hurry!” she screamed at them as a wall of darkness rose behind them. Golden eyes shined like captive suns and she screamed—
Her voice still trilled as her eyes snapped down. She was lying on the sand with her head propped on Mare’s lap, staring up into his frightened face.
“Tell me you’re okay,” he whispered.
“Yeah,” she said, raising her hand to wipe the tears from his cheeks. “I’m fine.”
“You scared me pretty good.” He forced a weak smile.
Her frame of vision expanded and she saw that most of the others were now standing over her.
“Was it another vision?” April asked.
Jill could only nod.
“What did you see?” Darren asked.
“The same thing as before. Only…” She scanned their faces until her eyes settled upon Ray’s. Blood poured from his black eyes. She blinked and the image was gone.
“Only what?” Ray asked, uncomfortable under the weight of her stare.
Jill was too scared to speak.
“It’s me they want,” Jake said, stepping out from behind Gray. They had come running when Mare had shouted for help, hovering at the rear of the crowd. “They’ll kill you all to get me back.”
“No one’s getting killed,” Gray said. “And no one’s ever going to take you away.”
A sad smile spread across Jake’s lips. “They won’t stop until they have me all for themselves. The bad man needs me to control the others. They would be lost souls without him.”
Blizzard of Souls Page 14