Quickly, people realized that time was up and began slamming furniture against the stained-glass windows, shattering and destroying statues of saints and images of the sacraments. Brightly hued colored glass lay in jagged shards on the ground, much of it getting crushed by the heavy, panicky footsteps of terrified people. Smoke completely filled the air by this point. Jeremy’s mother held him tightly, both coughing and struggling to breathe. His eyes burned and watered, but he could still see shapes of about a hundred adults run, curse, and fight for their lives. Numbness overcame him and he felt helpless in his mother’s arms, ever helpless. If the grown-ups couldn’t handle the situation, neither could he. Jeremy prayed silently, hoping that the fires would suddenly vanish or that he was only having a nightmare.
The windows gave way between their iron framework, each of these only a foot apart. A fat man clogged one up, all by himself, until the mob pulled him free and beat him down. They stood on him and continued trying to escape, but none of them could fit between the iron supports.
Jeremy remembered the heat, beads of sweat pouring into his teary and smoky eyes, and listening to the shouts and cries of his own mother. Her screams sounded like they didn’t even come from her. She let out a long moaning, deep and full of shock, like a wounded dog. He heard language from her mouth that had never before heard her utter. All sounds began to run together between cries out to God, Christ, and all the Saints and angels. But all of that secondary to the terror growing inside him as he saw the flames grow until the holy sanctuary became an infernal hell.
His grandfather broke the glass on another window and began feverishly passing the children to the outside. They were the only ones tiny enough to fit through and became the first survivors, contrary to the actions of the incapacitated fat man. Elizabeth carried him forward to the window, stepping over a few bodies of the frail, and he remembered feeling hope and relief. Young Jeremy believed that he and his mother were going to make it outside and that all of this wouldn’t be quite as bad as everyone imagined.
Elizabeth started to push him through the iron railing, her voice hysterical, but still full of intense motherly affection, "I love you, my sweet boy. I love you, Jeremy." Shards of glass, still clinging to the sides of the frame, cut his little face. Streaks of blood dripped from his jaw and brow as he fell to the cold ground.
“Mommy! Follow me, climb through the window!”
Jeremy saw figures emerging from them, in front of the inferno, but they were small screaming children, their faces twisted in horror as the adult on the other side forced them out of the windows. Jeremy stood and ran to the window he dropped from, dripping blood clouded the vision in his right eye.
“Mommy!” he screamed as his hands reached into the hot railing, not tall enough to climb back through. Right then, a shrieking Debra came through, knocking Jeremy back onto the ground. He helped her up and stood at the edge of a tree line, eagerly waiting and holding her, thinking that his family would follow soon after.
However, as Jeremy and the many saved children stood crying, they could hear the screams of the dying from within. They could see the arms and hands wailing along the outside of the windows, until after a short while they flailed no longer. The arms became limp as massive amounts of smoke billowed from the shattered windows. With the fire still burning and the screams of the adults dying away, young Jeremy was filled with confusion. Why are they not following us? He kept asking himself this question over and over.
He learned later that night, after help finally came to extinguish the fire, that they all asphyxiated, a word his tearful nurse described as falling asleep and not waking up. Still Jeremy watched the church doors, knowing that his mother would eventually fling them open and run back to him from the smoking building. She did come out eventually, but an unmarked bag covered each body completely, concealing her face and the faces of about a hundred others carried from the bricked ruins.
Jeremy concluded his story, “The rest of it…burial, counseling, and orphanage…all as you’d expect.”
“Horrible, man. I’m so sorry to hear that.” Stone wished he could think of anything, absolutely anything, better to say, but he had no more words. Nothing came to mind, because out of the millions of words and ways he could use to describe happiness, language still had not evolved enough to accurately describe the worst imaginable things. Things that only those with first-hand experience and memory could imagine remained elusive.
…
“I brought you here today, to show you just how ready the world is to see us gone. How little they care, to bury the dead, to leave this building unfixed…these items on the ground, like debris. We’re unimportant, irrelevant, and when we are considered relevant we’re called the remnants of bigotry and hate, superstitious. To them, the things most sacred to us are comparable to the philosophies of barbarians. We’re forced to live by their rules, pay for their atrocities, and when we refuse them, they hunt us like criminals. We wear invisible shackles and live in an invisible prison, because if they can make us invisible…then it’s as if we don’t even exist at all.”
Jeremy stood from the burnt pew and continued, “This church building is a lot like us now, scarred and ruined, hidden behind fallen trees and kudzu. But, the building remains, after all, and we will rebuild it one day. As long as we live, we’re capable of growth, capable of reestablishing ourselves in this putrid cesspool of a world. They wanted us gone- they wanted us gone, and they continue to push those of us that remain. The final obstacle before their perfect degenerative world.”
“What about Unity?” Stone asked as he stood and began looking at the fine detail in the scorched and weathered stations of the cross upon the walls. “It seems we’ve zeroed in on STORK. Why not destroy the very foundation?”
“Unity definitely ain’t off the hook,” he replied, shaking his head, “but I have other orders to fulfill first. Trust me, I’d much rather destroy that abomination, that demonic thing, as much as the next guy, but we live next door to STORK and, thus, it’s our focus.”
“What’s your vision of the world, once we’ve won?” Stone stood solemnly before the station depicting the Pieta, a famous sculpture created by Michelangelo. The awe-inspiring statue depicts Christ’s lifeless body placed over the Blessed Virgin’s lap. Her child, destined for greatness, lay limp in her arms once again, but this time beaten, disrobed, and crucified. The grief on Mary's face seems palpable, as she gazes down into the many lashings, which split His skin apart, His body broken and torn.
“Victory isn’t always the way people imagine during the fight.” Jeremy’s passion cooled and his voice became soft again as he spoke sitting in the pew, “It's likely to be chaos if we succeed. Our suffering might have just begun, but at least we’ll be free. Our beliefs, way of life, our ambitions will have no bounds. No longer will some tyrannical bot dictate what we can and can’t be -- because of who we are.”
When Stone first joined the Zealots, he overflowed with the same rebellious spirit shared by many others his age. A glorified version of teen angst, it makes for shallow rebels without a clear understanding of their true purpose. But, as Jeremy spoke, the answers to his questions of direction and purpose began to take shape in his mind. Each statement brought him closer to internalizing the truth Jeremy spoke, once feral and strange to him, now transformed into a beautiful light -- the only light -- that drew him to it.
"So, what of making buildings crumble?" He tried to take the conversation to another level. The destroyed chapel began to wear on him and he wanted to leave.
Jeremy stood up, also ready to leave. He and Stone walked to the charred exit at the back of the chapel and through the clingy kudzu vines, which snatched at their legs and arms from every direction, like the cloying hands of some fantastical creature. A while ago, the last time Jeremy visited, he cut it back, but it grows rapidly and took over again in just a couple of months. It took more effort to pull free of the vines when leaving than going in, but Stone finally pulled
himself free, enjoying Jeremy’s laughing grin, greeting him upon his triumph.
…
What a relief to hike down the mountain this time, Stone thought. He felt a lighter mood come upon him immediately as they left the decay and ruin; overcast skies never seemed so uplifting before this. Clouds swirled and twisted as they raked against the air at high speeds. The sight made him dizzy, so he made his way down the hill as quickly as he could, the downward trajectory forcing him to look away from the cloud show.
Eventually, they made their way to the workshop, and to Stone's surprise, took a train out of town. He expected just a quick walk from the house, to which Jeremy explained that you never crap on your own lawn. They unloaded in Woodlawn, a neighborhood in Birmingham, then stopped for a quick bite before setting off on foot to the workshop that Stone was so eager to enter.
He followed Jeremy along the cracked and uneven sidewalks, shifted by erosion into tripping hazards for unfamiliar pedestrians. He certainly didn’t need a twisted ankle, so stone kept his eyes on the ground. They trudged over tufts of weeds that fought their way through the concrete and holes filled with mud and debris.
Eventually, Stone's tired legs stopped moving and he realized Jeremy turned to walk up a set of brick stairs leading to a house. His eyes quickly scanned over the structure, taking all in. Much to his disappointment, he saw yet another broken and partially dilapidated building. He saw signs that past owners had attempted to reconstruct and reinforce the home a couple of times. Built and rebuilt, it sat neglected and abandoned time and again. Repetitive attempts to mend the vicious toll of many years by people who longed to see its original beauty failed under the weight of everyday life.
Vulgar images, blasphemies, and gang-related symbols covered the wooden siding. Iron bars covered the outside of the windows and boards covered them from the inside, making it impossible to see in or out. Stone watched Jeremy fit and turn a key into the backdoor knob. He replaced the knob assembly one night when he first started using the sad old house. He also brought gloves for the two of them to wear at all times, so it remained free of their prints in the event someone discovered the house’s dark purpose.
…
As they entered the condemned house, Stone joked internally that some evil mold and mildew entity followed him everywhere because his nose filled with its familiar foul odor. Decaying wooden floors greeted them; a leaking ceiling caused an abysmal hole in the sheetrock. When staring into its depths, Stone saw reflections of light glinting off of the hard-armored exoskeletons of insects and spiders that made it their home. He turned to see Jeremy already at work, removing items from the squeaky kitchen cabinets and placing them onto a workbench sitting beside the counter.
“How long have you used this place?”
“Ah, I don’t know…maybe six or seven months. Why you think it’s nice?”
“Oh, of course!” Stone laughed, “Women must love it.”
Jeremy began unpacking metallic boxes from a bag also stored in the creaking cabinets. He typically kept everything they needed stocked there, limiting any contraband held on his person or in his home.
“Yeah, you should send your love an invite sometime.” Jeremy’s joke fell on deaf ears. His focus centered on getting answers to his questions.
“What you do when it gets dark?” The overcast sky that lingered throughout the day now grew darker by the second as Earth continued her spin at a thousand miles per hour.
“Candles.” The now somber man pointed to the dozens of places where candles had, evidently, stood before. “No power here, obviously. Which is okay, because we wouldn’t want any light escaping any unseen cracks or holes this place may have. Might get discovered.”
“Ah, I understand. Women must love that too.”
“Lighter is in the drawer, beside the sink. Just whatever you do -- listen to me -- whatever you do,” he emphasized, “keep those flames away from the workbench. Been a minute since I went for a confession.”
“I hear Purgatory’s lovely this time of year.”
“Psh, place is a resort compared to where they’d cast me if I die before confessing.” As devout as his plans and intentions, making it to Mass proved difficult for him. Over a year ago, his priest disappeared into what seemed like thin air. The collection of daily sins from his lustful eyes and drunkenness added layer upon layer of grimy dirt to his soul; stained and unpurified he waged his war carefully.
Stone’s anxiety shot through the roof as he held the tiny flame in his gloved hands. Their lives hung entirely at the mercy of his steady hand. He lit the massive candles and set them about the room. They stood level to his chest, some of them on stands, others on windowsills, glued into place by the incredible amounts of wax that had fused between them and the wood.
“That’s good enough,” Jeremy ordered, almost completely illuminated by the flickering lights. “Put it back in the drawer and come over here. Everything is in place and ready.”
Stone’s heart quickened, still slightly weighed down by his conscience. This night, he would learn how to carry out his part of their mission. Whenever the guilt visited him, he immediately extinguished it with memories of the horrible stories others told him and the disgusting things he had seen firsthand. In his mind, he redefined the word ‘terrorist’ and thought of himself as just another soldier in a war that he increasingly perceived as right and just. Bombs will act as messages that the two of them will write and then deliver to their oppressors. The resulting deaths will become the words they scream into the face of Unity. STORK will crumble and the weight of it will groan and whine as it fell to the earth. The tumultuous roar will beacon the others, the silent and starving, reawakened by its sound.
“These two are never to be mixed, always keep them separate," Jeremy explained about the chemicals that sat apart from one another on opposite benches. “They get packaged and sealed. Once we’ve done that, we’ll screw the two halves together in these containers.”
Stone’s nervousness grew and seemed to leak from his shaky hands. He thought of the many possible accidents with potential to send both of them sky high at any moment, blown to bits.
Jeremy, on the other hand, remained entirely stoic in his speech and manner. His experience making the explosive devices played a small part in his calm demeanor, but the majority of this ability was due to the horror he witnessed as a child on that fateful Easter Vigil long ago. How that man was capable of even standing near flames was a mystery to Stone, let alone messing with the combustibles.
Even the branding, why choose to burn himself like that? Stone thought that perhaps that was the meaning behind it all; Jeremy covered pain with more pain. He remembered, recovered, and stored it on himself to one day distribute back to its givers.
Followed closely by Jeremy and concentrating on his instructions, Stone poured the materials into their proper containers. He stirred chemicals for another, tested their consistency, and repeated the steps again and again until hours had elapsed. Once his thoughts fell away and his mind became fully occupied by the steps and meticulous measuring his concentration remained unbroken. Time passed swiftly under these conditions. The candles shrank, their white wax rolled back onto itself in the dimly lit kitchen that flickered into the night.
“You’re not so bad, I don’t care what they say about you.” Jeremy laughed, patting Stone’s shoulder after he locked the door. The cold and fresh air nourished the two of them. Their work finished for that night, they could joke around.
“What did they say?”
“Only the nicest things, I’m joking. You really did do a great job though. Pretty soon you’ll be the one teaching new recruits.”
A smile forced its way onto Stone’s face from his mentor’s compliment. His weak efforts to subdue it failed and he felt far too delirious from the work to care about any embarrassment.
“Thanks. Felt like I was wasting away, living at Michael’s. You’ve really given me a new purpose, Jeremy. I’ve never felt so honored
and valued in my life and I’m here for anything you ever need.”
“How’s the arm feeling? Should change the bandages once we get home.”
“It’s good. Looked pretty gross this morning and still reeked.”
“Well don’t sniff then, silly.”
They could see the city ahead of them and once Stone made it past the obstacle of crooked pavement, he gazed upon the slender and sparkling STORK spire that pierced the clouds above. It seemed so far away, yet he easily made out its detail and opulence amongst the dull buildings surrounding it. He imagined then, the number of bombs he would need to assemble before it no longer stood there to taunt him with a fear of failure.
CHAPTER SIX
The house in Irondale was fully awake and the men stood talking in the kitchen over mugs of coffee. The chill in the house caused an unusual amount of steam to curl up from the hot drinks as they warmed themselves.
Each caffeinated sip the men took pushed them further out of the morning’s melatonin-induced grogginess. Their lethargic faces still puffy from sleep, but their smiles and laughter indicated an overall jovial mood as they talked about work. John planned to start working with Michael that morning as a technician repairing solar panels and perhaps even installing new ones before too long.
He knew nothing of the trade and asked Michael a barrage of irrelevant questions, many of which only received head shakes and more laughter. Awakened by the building volume of the raucous laughter, Cole sat nearby and tried to shake off the night’s sleep. He yawned, offering nothing to their discussion as he thought about last night’s dreams.
Amelia and Maria paced around upstairs, trying to decide what to wear for the day and applying their war paint. Still not properly blended, the makeup left a few fingertip streaks on their young faces. Amelia pondered quietly as she finished her face. Something just isn’t right with Maria lately, she thought, furrowing her brow in concern. What’s with all these random crying jags? She was never like this before. And those mood swings.
Sowing Season Page 8