The Prophet's Daughter

  “You lied to me,” I tried to shout, but Jess’s hand muffled my words and she laughed at Isaac’s statement.

  “Yeah, sure, she’s strong and yet here I am with her at my mercy,” Jess chuckled, squeezing her hand tight around my mouth, digging her nails into my cheeks. I cringed as the pain began to radiate through my face and, without thinking, I stuck out my tongue and ran it along her hand. It tasted like blood and dirt.

  “Oh, that’s disgusting!” Jess cried, releasing me and stepping backwards, wiping her hands on her shirt. I flung my leg, kicking her and turned around, shoving her chest. She stumbled backwards, her feet tangling as she lost her balance. I watched as she fell backwards, I saw the rock before her head connected – I did nothing to stop it.

  A loud, sickening crack echoed around us. Blood began to pool beneath Jess’s head, her face locked in an expression of surprise. I stared at the body, the blood, the lack of any movement.

  “Oh my God,” I whispered, bile rising into my throat. I swallowed hard and put my hand to my mouth, shaking my head. “Oh my God.”

  “Jess!” The old man cried, taking a step forwards before thinking better of it and remaining against the trunk, glaring at me with an expression of pure hatred. The snow began to pick up then, the wind howling around us.

  I turned towards Isaac and he watched me, eyes sad. I glared at him, feeling a burning rage toiling in my stomach. I bent down and grabbed the gun, not taking my eyes off the pair for a second.

  “I’m all you have, Arin,” Isaac warned, putting his hands up.

  “Why are you doing this?” I barked, pointing the gun at Isaac and glancing over Neil, who had sunk to his knees and was staring at

  Jess’s still form. “I have no one, not anymore.”

  “I don’t have a choice, you need to understand that.”

  “There’s always a choice!” I stormed, putting my hand on the trigger.

  “No, not for me there isn’t. I don’t have anyone else, Arin. I have the other disciples; I have to do what the Prophet wants.” Isaac stared at me, his eyes beginning to water. I looked down at his hands, unable to bear the pain written all over his face. “I’m sorry.”

  “The Prophet? Disciples? Who the heck are they?” I asked my voice sharp and demanding. “Don’t spout your pathetic apologies to me.”

  “He’s your father, your real father. The disciples are his followers, my brothers and sisters, Raiders as you called them.” His answer was slow, his wording careful.

  “My father is dead,” I spat, having to show great restraint not to charge at him. “Your ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’ killed him.”

  “Arin, tell me, how much do you know about your mother and father from before?”

  “I know they met when Mum was in High School, I know that he got her pregnant with me when she was seventeen. I know that she had me just months before the outbreak,” I answered, staring at Isaac, curious about why he would ask. Every part of me screamed to attack, to kill - to make him pay.

  “Those people I told you about, the ones who killed the sick and the poor? Your mother was one of the people, Arin. Why do you think you never lived in one place for too long? The government wanted your mother and they wanted her dead for the crimes she committed.” Isaac spoke in a soft voice, each word chosen with great care. I could tell he was trying not to upset me, however his effort were fruitless. I was ready to put a bullet through his skull. “She was a fugitive.”

  “We-well...” I stuttered, rejecting the information. “What does that have to do with the Prophet or whatever being my dad?”

  “Because she took you from him. He met her while she was in high school. They were never together, but they did have you – and then he found out what she was doing. Your mother and the group she was in? They are the reason this world has become the hell it is and he wanted you back – he wanted to protect you from the corruption of this world. Your mother? All she wanted was to rid the world of anyone that wasn’t perfect in her eyes – of everyone gay, black, sick, poor… If they weren’t white, they were wrong to her and her society,” Isaac continued, staring me dead in the eye.

  “How do I know you aren’t lying to me?” I asked, the pistol in my hand twitching.

  “You don’t. But I know I’m telling the truth and my word is better than any.”

  “You’re not a very trustworthy person anymore, Isaac. You lost that right.” I looked at the gun, shoving it between the band of my underwear and my pants. “And I still don’t know why you want me.” “The Prophet needs you and that’s all you need to know,” Neil broke in, snapping at me and grabbing Isaac by the arm. “Get the cow in the car, or I’ll do it and leave without you.”

  “Hold up – what happens if I go with you?” I interjected, taking a step towards the two of them.

  “We won’t need to keep looking for you,” he said. “And we stop killing anyone who gets in our way.” I looked at each of them, gaze dancing from Isaac to Neil, before I nodded.

  “Let’s go meet my Dad, then.”

  Chapter 8

  Isaac and Neil had shoved me in the trunk of the car, my hands and feet bound as tight as they could be so that I couldn’t open the door or crawl over the seats. I wasn’t going to try and escape, anyway. If I did, people would die because I was selfish – and I didn’t have anywhere to go as it was. No, I would never be free from Isaac and the group he was with. They would look for me until my heart stopped beating, and even then I doubted that they would ever give up.

  “So, where is this big fancy man you claim to be my father?” I asked after we drove in silence for a few minutes.

  “Cobalt,” Neil answered his voice gruff.

  “And why do you call him Prophet?”

  “Because he is the Prophet – he delivers the messages of God, the prophecies we must fulfill to restore purity to this world,” Neil continued, his voice filled with admiration.

  “You’re telling me the Prophet is a deranged lunatic who hears voices in his head and you follow what he says?” I laughed.

  “Do not mock the prophet,” Neil growled, turning to peer at me. “He is more of a human than you will ever be; born of God's will, and you? You were born out of wedlock, a bastard, a mistake and the reason the world went to shit I wouldn’t doubt.”

  “If there was a God, would he have let this happen?” I pushed, raising an eyebrow.

  “He works in mysterious ways to teach us our lessons.” “Okay, sure,” I snorted, leaning against the side of the trunk.

  “If it wasn’t for the Prophet and the Messages of the Lord, we would all have perished, anyway,” Neil continued, sighing.

  “How so?” I figured I’d humor him – the silence was dreadful, it was better to listen to his mindless ravings.

  “He protects us from the disease. Those who defy him always die; always get infected by the disease.”

  “And what of those who do not defy him but die anyway?” I questioned, curious.

  “They defy him in some way, or they lose faith in him or they commit an act so evil that they are destined to die, even if their faith remains strong.”

  “If that’s how it is,” I said, moving to glance at Isaac. He looked at me through the rear view mirror, narrowing his eyes. “Then what did your father do, Isaac?”

  “He wanted to save you,” Isaac grumbled in response, tearing his gaze from mine and focusing on the road before him. “Now he’s dead.”

  “Oh, that’s how he went, Isaac?” Neil asked, chuckling. “He deserved it, then, if he wanted to save the little bastard in the back.

  Shame, though, he was a good man.”

  “Mhm,” Isaac grunted, fists clenching tight on the steering wheel. “Really? Don’t the good die young? Your dad was pretty old…”

  “Arin, I will shove a sock down your throat if you don’t shut up,” growled Isaac, slamming on the car brakes. The tires squealed and the brakes cried in protest as the hurtling metal Sentra came to a stop. My head slam
med hard against the backseats and I groaned, putting my head back.

  “Ow. Warning understood.” I closed my eyes, squeezing them tight as my head began to throb.

  “Where did you get a plane, Neil?” Isaac asked as the car began to roll along again.

  “Found an old one, managed to get her working. Prophet gave her to me so that if we found her and she wasn’t within an hour or so walking distance we could fly ‘er,” He said.

  “And how did you find us?”

  “Petey told us. We saw him in Toronto, he told us and we hopped on the plane and booked it this way as soon as we could. We figured it was a better idea just meeting you here than trying to stop a moving train.” Neil shrugged.

  “I’m assuming you know how to fly it, then?” Isaac coughed, shifting in his seat.

  “I should hope so! I was a pilot for twenty years of my life, after all,” Neil bragged “Air force for a few years, too.” “Miss it?” Isaac chided.

  “Every damn day,” he sighed.

  “Why?”

  “There’s something about being up the air, a freedom you just can’t find on land. Don’t think I could have survived another year had we not found this beauty. I lost my wife, my kids, even my damn dog. I can’t lose my planes,” Neil spoke, his voice octaves lower than its already gruff, dark tone. He sniffed, and though I could not see his face, I could tell he was struggling to keep it together.

  “I’m sorry, Neil,” murmured Isaac, but I could hear in the way he spoke, see in the way he shifted his body, that he really didn’t. Isaac and I had lost just as much as Neil, if not more. It sounded selfish, but if anyone had a reason to cry, it was the two of us – and we hadn’t, not in a long time.

  “Do you ever wonder what you would be doing.. if this whole thing hadn’t happened?” Neil said, clearing his throat.

  “I do, sometimes. I would have just graduated high school, I think. I’d be going to college or university this year, going for some kind of job that I’d hope makes good money,” Isaac replied, shrugging.

  “Your dad used to say he wanted to see you as a doctor, cliché as that sounds. My son was going to be a teacher,” Neil stated, sighing.

  “I’d be an author,” I piped up. “Or one of those people that wrote movies.”

  “What do you know about a good story?” Neil snorted and leaned around his seat to look back at me.

  “A lot, thank you very much. Vampires, werewolves, zombies, fairies and talking cucumbers – hell, even a vampire rabbit!” I huffed, squirming in my bindings. It was uncomfortable, to say the least.

  “None of that is real,” Neil stated, raising a brow and sneering.

  “Neither was a world taken over by a disease that made people slaughter anything in their path,” I pointed out, looking at him and sneering right back.

  “Touché,” chuckled Isaac, and Neil just grunted and spun around, glowering out the window.

  Silence ensued and we sat with very little noise. The car rumbled along the gray pavement, bumping along potholes and groaning every so often. It was a surprise to me that it hadn’t decided to stop working before it even started. However, despite our luck, it called the quits – with a loud roar of the engine and a quick put-put, the car rolled to a stop and refused to start up again, no matter how many times Isaac tried to hot-wire it into cooperating.

  “Never said I was a mechanic,” coughed Neil as he climbed out of the car. “We’re not far, anyway.” He slammed the car door and came along the side, lifting the trunk and leaning against the door.

  “How do you expect me to walk with my feet tied?” I muttered, shimmying out of the trunk and planting my bound feet on the grassy ground.

  “You can hop,” he laughed, turning away and walking out of sight. Isaac, however, didn’t find his comment as funny and shook his head.

  “I’m sorry, Arin,” he began.

  “Save it. Get these things off of my feet so we can go,” I spat, lifting my feet. Isaac just nodded, trying hard to hide a look of sadness that crossed his face, and untied the knotted fabric. He stepped away from the car to give me room to climb out of the trunk. I just looked at him, unable to hide a fleeting look of disdain.

  “What?” Isaac murmured, averting his quivering gaze.

  “I wonder,” I began with a slight laugh. “Just how disappointed do you think your father is? I mean, he dedicated the last days of his life to saving me, and you repay him by bringing me to the exact people he tried to keep me from?”

  “Shut up,” Isaac murmured, fists clenched, the vein in his neck popping.

  “It’s the truth!” I continued, shaking my head and staring at him, not taking my eyes off of his reddening face.

  “Shut up! You don’t understand!” Isaac boomed, stepping towards me. “I have no one else! They’re all I have!” He looked at me with a burning hot rage in his gaze; and I stood up to face him, leaning towards him until our noses were almost touching. Standing on the tips of my toes, I could see every wrinkle, every pore and every hair lining his face. The flecks of gold were made clear in his green eyes - something I hadn’t noticed before. I could even see a small scar just under his eyebrow and another thin line stretched along his nose. I held his gaze, remaining silent for a brief moment as we stared. I could tell he was holding his breath, his face growing even redder. “No... you had me,” I breathed, keeping my position for a long moment before I set my feet flat on the ground and backed away from him. Our gaze remained locked for seconds to pass before I spun around, turning my back to him and heading in the direction Neil had gone.

  I found Neil around two dozen footsteps away, standing by a large metal object with red lines.

  “Ain’t she a beauty?” Neil cooed, patting the side of it. “Smooth flier, too. Controls are all good – it didn’t take too much maintenance to fix her into working condition.”

  “That’s a plane?” I murmured, staring at the plane. I couldn’t be bothered to hide the look of shock that crossed my face. I had never seen anything so large that wasn’t a tree, it was… “Amazing.”

  “Yes, yes she is. She’s a crop duster.” He moved and patted the wings. “Not much room for the three of us, but we’ll make do.” Neil climbed up into the plane and I watched him, eyebrow raised.

  “How am I supposed to get in with my hands bound?” I asked, lifting up my bound hands and putting them as close to his face as I could manage.

  “Uh, Isaac will lift you up, I guess.” Neil shrugged and settled back into his seat, grunting.

  “Or throw you in,” Isaac grumbled, stepping up behind me and wrapping his arms tight around my waist. I jerked, pulling free of his sudden grasp, flashing him a glare.

  “I say we take these off and let me climb in myself,” I stated, forcing my voice to sound calm. “After all, where am I going to go? I have no one and nowhere to go, thanks to your band of murderers.”

  “What do you say, Neil?” Isaac grumbled, peering at me through narrowed eyes. He raised his hand at my jibe, but I sneered at him and he turned his gaze upwards, keeping his gaze off of me.

  “I don’t care, I just want to go,” Neil said, moving in his seat and pressing some buttons. Isaac grabbed my hands and, with unnecessary roughness, untied the fabric around my wrists.

  Clunk.

  Grinding sounds echoed around us, and I pivoted around, glancing at the front of the plane. The propeller had sped to life, moving at such high speeds that I couldn’t pick out a single one – each of them looked to be on circle. I kept my gaze locked on the movement as I climbed up into the vibrating plane. Isaac climbed in right behind me, hopping into the seat beside Neil.

  “Where am I sitting?” I murmured, noticing that only two seats filled the entire area. Our supplies sat on the ground behind Neil’s seat, torn open and missing a few items. I opened my mouth to question the boys, but instead decided on remaining silent.

  “Behind Isaac,” Neil stated, jabbing his thumb behind him towards Isaac. I sighed and settled down
beside him, shaking my head.

  “Is it safe?” I questioned, stretching out my legs and leaning my head against the seat.

  “Safer than strapping you to the wing,” Neil chuckled, and the plane began to quake beneath me. It wasn’t long before the violent quivering calmed and Neil let out another deep laugh. “And here we go!”

  Terror snaked through my body as if it was a venom swimming through my veins during the first few minutes of the flight. It was far more terrifying than the train, with a roar and rumble that could not be tuned out. For the duration of the first few minutes I remained pressed against Isaac’s seat, eyes squeezed shut and stomach aching.

  “Hey, lighten up back there. It’s not so bad,” Neil said, rolling his shoulders as he glanced back at me.

  “Neil, just leave her be. She’s just going to complain anyway,” Isaac drawled, crossing his arms and pushing back against his seat.

  “Shut up, Isaac,” I spat, glowering at the wall of the plane.

  “Told you.”

  “You two are very much alike,” Neil snorted.

  “How?” I hissed. “He’s a traitor.”

  “And you’re an idiot for trusting him,” he pointed out, raising an eyebrow.

  “What the hell does that make me?” Isaac questioned, looking appalled at the comparison.

  “An idiot for falling in love with the girl you know has to-”

  “I don’t love her!” Isaac interrupted, his tone sharp and body tense with anger.

  “Of course you don’t,” Neil sighed, shaking his head. “Tell it to yourself boy, she’s goin’ no matter what you want. Tell me, what do you want?”

  Isaac hesitated, mouth parted but no words leaving. He glanced back at me and I just glared back, resting my chin on my knees. “I want the ritual to be completed,” he said finally, sighing.

  “Sure.”

  “What is the ritual?” I asked, twiddling my thumbs and staring at my feet.

  “Something,” Isaac started as Neil opened his mouth. “Just something.”