Midnight Is My Time

by Mike Dellosso

  Missy stopped moving.

  Andy let out a primal scream and jammed his thumbs even deeper into the man’s eye sockets. The man’s grip loosened, and Andy shoved him away, following that with a powerful upward blow to the nose.

  The man staggered back, wavered on rubbery legs. His head teetered loosely on a swivel. Finally, his legs gave way, and he crumpled to the ground.

  Andy rushed for Missy. She no longer choked or gurgled. She’d given up the fight. Her hands lay limply by her sides. The right side of her neck was torn open, the artery severed. Blood no longer flowed.

  Missy was dead.

  Chapter 31

  Andy cradled Missy’s limp and lifeless body in his arms and allowed the tears to flow. Questions, like smoke, swirled through his head. How could he allow this to happen? How could God allow this to happen? She was supposed to be special. She had a purpose. All of this had been about her. And now . . . and now she was gone. Her neck ripped open and the life drained from her.

  He sat like that for nearly half an hour, holding her, crying, questioning. He’d failed her. He alone was supposed to protect her. Get her to Maine, to Portland. That was his only job and he couldn’t do it.

  Finally, Andy allowed Missy’s body to slump to the ground. He got up, went back to the truck, rummaged through the cab, and looked for the Bible. Maybe it held the answers to his questions. There, under the seat. He flipped through the pages until he came to the book of Revelation. Chapter eleven.

  Andy placed a shaky finger on the page and read . . .

  Then I was given a reed like a measuring rod. And the angel stood, saying, “Rise and measure the temple of God, the altar, and those who worship there. But leave out the court which is outside the temple, and do not measure it, for it has been given to the Gentiles. And they will tread the holy city underfoot for forty-two months. And I will give power to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy one thousand two hundred and sixty days, clothed in sackcloth.”

  Three years. But what did that have to do with Missy?

  These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands standing before the God of the earth. And if anyone wants to harm them, fire proceeds from their mouth and devours their enemies. And if anyone wants to harm them, he must be killed in this manner.

  Andy swallowed past the tightness that had constricted his throat. Heat spread up the back of his neck and settled into the base of his skull. Fire proceeds from their mouth. Devours their enemies.

  Fire.

  His hand shook harder, so hard, in fact, that he had to stop reading for a moment to steady it.

  These have power to shut heaven, so that no rain falls in the days of their prophecy; and they have power over waters to turn them to blood, and to strike the earth with all plagues, as often as they desire. When they finish their testimony, the beast that ascends out of the bottomless pit will make war against them, overcome them, and kill them. And their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.

  But how could this be Missy? How could she be one of these witnesses? She was dead now. The prophecy was void. It couldn’t be her.

  Then those from the peoples, tribes, tongues, and nations will see their dead bodies three-and-a-half days, and not allow their dead bodies to be put into graves. And those who dwell on the earth will rejoice over them, make merry, and send gifts to one another, because these two prophets tormented those who dwell on the earth. Now after the three-and-a-half days the breath of life from God entered them, and they stood on their feet, and great fear fell on those who saw them.

  Andy’s heart thumped in his throat now. Dead three days and rise again. But she was dead now. This prophecy had not yet happened. Again the questions were there, swirling, swirling, swirling. Andy suddenly felt dizzy and had to sit on the ground.

  And they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, “Come up here.” And they ascended to heaven in a cloud, and their enemies saw them. In the same hour there was a great earthquake, and a tenth of the city fell. In the earthquake seven thousand people were killed, and the rest were afraid and gave glory to the God of heaven. The second woe is past. Behold, the third woe is coming quickly.

  Andy closed the book and held it in his hands as if it were made of the most fragile Chinese porcelain. He looked Missy’s body over. There was no life in her. He’d checked her pulse several times to make sure he hadn’t missed anything. The bullet had hit the carotid artery in her neck, and she’d bled out. Simple as that. Clem must have been wrong. Tony too. Missy was not the one.

  But what about the fire? People didn’t breathe fire. There was no natural or scientific explanation for it. She wasn’t some freak of nature, some genetic mutation gone weird. She could breathe fire and devour her enemies, just like the Bible said.

  But she was dead now. No getting around that. Maybe she was one of the witnesses it spoke of. Maybe it was Andy’s job to protect her, and since he’d failed, the prophecy was now obsolete, or someone else would fill her position.

  Andy crawled over to where Missy’s body lay and put his hand on her head. Her flesh felt cool. For the first time since his mother died, he bowed his head and prayed.

  If the Almighty had been expecting something terribly insightful and moving, he would have been disappointed. Andy’s prayer was simple and quick, but it was a prayer nonetheless. And it was a start.

  When he finished, he felt no different. The earth did not move under his feet; the clouds above did not part. No sunshine warmed his skin. His flesh did not break out in goose bumps, and he experienced no palpitations of his heart. If he had been expecting any of that, he too would have been disappointed. Instead, he sat on the ground and stared at nothing in particular. How long he sat there he did not know. But when the sun began its downward arc, he decided it would be best to get out of the woods and continue his trek north. Maybe Amos would know what to do. Maybe he would have answers.

  Andy stood, bent at the waist, and scooped Missy’s body into his arms. He couldn’t take the pickup. It was too banged up. The driver-side front tire was bent at an odd angle, and the engine still puffed a steady stream of smoke. He’d have to take the rig.

  Inside the cab of the truck, he carefully placed Missy’s body on the back seat, stretched out the legs, and placed the arms across her waist. He stepped back and shook his head. She appeared to be sleeping—except for the gaping wound in her neck and the dried blood covering half the body.

  Andy got behind the wheel, donned his Stetson, and started the engine. It grumbled and growled and finally came to life. The rig vibrated from the rumble of its six massive cylinders. He put it into gear and steered onto the road. During his time on the ranch, he’d learned how to drive a rig and even got his commercial driver’s license.

  The truck had a nearly full tank of fuel and was equipped with GPS navigation that guided Andy back to I-95 headed north. Portland. Amos.

  Andy drove a little over two hours before reaching I-295, which would take him into Portland. In the back seat, Missy’s body lay still. Faux sleeping.

  Andy turned off the highway and onto Route 1. There, he stopped at a small local diner, Alice’s Treats & Eats, and forced food into his belly. He was not hungry. He was not tired. He felt nothing. He chewed the burger he’d ordered, drank the soda in the glass. He thought of nothing. He stared at the couple across the aisle until the older man stared back at him with an unfriendly scowl.

  When he’d finished the food and used the restroom, Andy returned to the truck, climbed in, and sat behind the wheel.

  He needed to keep moving. Needed to get to Portland. Needed to find Amos. If Amos even existed. Maybe Missy’s death had thrown the whole thing off. Maybe there was no Amos now. Maybe his very existence depended on Missy’s survival and arrival in Portland. And now that she was gone, the whole thing was a bust.

  What would he do if it was a bust? If he had no purpose? What purpose did he
have now that Missy was gone? And what was he going to do with her body? He couldn’t just dump it somewhere. He couldn’t bury it. Or could he? Maybe he could find a funeral home in Portland or a hospital and leave it by the door. But that didn’t seem fitting either. He hoped to find Amos and recruit his help.

  Andy turned around in his seat to make sure the body was okay, that it hadn’t, unbeknownst to him, rolled off the seat and onto the floor.

  But the body wasn’t there. Missy was gone.

  Chapter 32

  Missy found herself seated in a patch of dry, brittle grass. She wasn’t sure how she got there. She’d been shot. In the neck. She remembered the pain, the blood, the struggle to breathe.

  The feeling of suffocating.

  And then . . . she was in the field. She felt like she should be tired or hurting or scared, but she was none of those things. In fact, she felt great. Physically, she couldn’t remember a time when she felt better. She felt her neck. There was no injury, no entry wound, no torn muscles or blood vessels. Just smooth, soft flesh. Mentally, her thinking was clear and sharp. She understood what her purpose was; she saw the path she needed to follow. Spiritually, peace enveloped her like a warm blanket. She was secure and confident. She was not alone and never would be.

  Missy held her face toward the sky. She would not be afraid. She had something to do, and Andy would be part of it. He didn’t know it yet but he would very soon.

  .......

  Heart banging against his sternum, Andy slid out of the truck and looked around the parking lot. Thoughts raced through his head like a roller-coaster at full speed. Did someone take the body? And if so, why? Where would they take it? Had the police caught up with him? Were they waiting for him? Watching him even now to see what his next move would be? Maybe she wasn’t dead in the first place? No. She was. He was sure of it. She had no heartbeat, her flesh had turned as blue as her eyes, and when he’d lifted her into the truck, rigor mortis had already stiffened her head and neck.

  There were a few cars in the parking lot, a motorcycle, and a full-size pickup with oversized tires. Behind the diner lay an open, dry grassy field and beyond that, a wooded area. A gas station and auto body shop sat across the street. A couple of men perched on stools and talked outside the station. One drank soda out of the bottle.

  Andy crossed the street and approached the men. The sun had yet to dip behind the horizon, so he thought maybe they had seen something.

  The two saw Andy coming and stopped their conversation. One of the men had a full beard and the other a mustache. Both appeared to be seventy or older. They looked Andy up and down and awkwardly tried to avoid his face.

  “Excuse me,” Andy said.

  Neither man spoke. Instead, they both stared at Andy as if they’d never seen a man with half his face melted off. At least not this close.

  “Did either of you see a woman come out of the truck over there? Or anyone go into the truck?”

  They both shifted their eyes to the truck, then back to Andy.

  The man with the beard nodded his head slowly. “She with you?”

  Andy could see it in their eyes. The doubt. The accusations. Freaked-up guy with a young lady in the back of his truck. Now wondering what happened to her. If human trafficking was bad before The Event, it had become exponentially worse afterward. With local, state, and federal law enforcement’s numbers drastically reduced and the government as a whole in disarray, little attention had been invested in matters such as trafficking and prostitution. One would like to think that citizens would band together to put aside such immorality and lawlessness. But too often, these kinds of national tragedies only brought the rotting apples to the surface of the barrel and emboldened them to increase their depraved activity. The Event seemed to have served as a booster shot for immorality.

  “Yes,” Andy said. “She’s a friend.”

  “A friend,” the mustached man said.

  Andy glanced back at the truck and scanned the surrounding area again. “Look, fellas, I know what this looks like—”

  “And what’s that?” the bearded man interjected.

  Andy paused long enough to look each man in the eyes. “She’s a friend, nothing more. There’s nothing weird going on here.”

  The bearded man waved a hand in the air. “Nothing weird like you got a little thing goin’ on with the girl? You holdin’ her as your plaything or something like that? Nothin’ weird about that. Nope.”

  Andy tensed his jaw.

  The bearded man stood and went chest to chest with Andy. He was every bit as tall as Andy and probably had him by at least twenty pounds. “Look, mister, I don’t like to presume things about folks, but you’re makin’ it very temptin’. When I see a young lady come stumbling out of a truck covered in blood, I get to wonderin’. Wouldn’t you?”

  Young woman covered in blood. Stumbling out of the truck.

  She was alive? Missy was alive? And walking?

  Andy’s mind went blank, and numbness spread all the way down to his fingertips.

  The man must have noticed Andy’s confusion and shock. He leaned to the side to keep eye contact. “Wouldn’t you?”

  Andy snapped back to the present conversation. “Uh, yeah. Yes.”

  The man turned and looked at his friend, then faced Andy again. “Did you think you killed her? Beat her to a pulp?”

  Andy shook his head but barely noticed his own movements. How could she be alive?

  “Hey.” The bearded man poked Andy in the chest. “Did you do that to her?”

  “Uh . . . no. No way. I thought you didn’t like presuming things about people.”

  “Not presumin’, son, just askin’.”

  “She’s, uh, she’s injured. Badly.”

  “And you stopped for a casual meal with an injured woman in the back of your truck?”

  Again, Andy saw how this looked. But he didn’t care anymore. He needed to end this conversation and find Missy. “Which way did she go?” He quickly checked up and down the road but saw no sign of her. She couldn’t have gone far.

  The man stared at him and said nothing.

  “Did you call the police?”

  Still, he said nothing. The mustached man crossed his arms and drilled Andy with a narrow-eyed glare.

  Andy motioned as if he was going to put his hand on the man, but the mustached guy unfolded his arms and stood, took a step toward Andy. Andy backed off. The last thing he needed was to get into a brawl with these two guys and draw more attention than he already had. Instead, he turned and walked away. He had to find Missy, get her cleaned up, and get out of there.

  When he’d crossed the street, Andy glanced back at the two men. Both were still standing, arms crossed, watching him. He went back to the truck to inspect the interior. Maybe some clue there would lead him to where Missy might have gone.

  The interior was undisturbed, nothing out of place. No obvious footprints or handprints to even show which door Missy had exited. The blood covering her neck and chest had dried, and there weren’t even any dried flakes on the truck’s flooring.

  Andy climbed down from the truck and looked around. Across the street, the men were still there, arms crossed. They hadn’t moved. They wanted him to know they were still keeping four watchful eyes on him.

  The parking lot was empty, and no one could be seen for several blocks in either direction. Andy then headed to the back of the building. Rounding the dumpster that sat at the corner of the diner, he stopped; his breath caught in his throat.

  Missy was there, on her knees, hands clasped in her lap, face turned skyward, eyes open wide. Andy took a step toward her, and dry grass crunched beneath his foot.

  Missy turned her face toward him.

  “Missy.”

  She did not seem surprised at all that he had found her.

  “I’m back,” she said. “And it’s about to begin.”

  Chapter 33

  Andy approached her cautiously. He’d never talked to someone who’d
died and come back to life. His skin felt all prickled and tingling. She faced him, her eyes shifting back and forth, mouth slightly open. Something was different about her, something . . . more. He sensed an energy emanating from her. This was not the same Missy he’d allowed to be shot and killed. She was Missy, of course, but . . . more.

  Andy knelt next to her and gently touched her face. “Missy, what happened?”

  “I was shot. You were there.”

  “Yes. Yes, I know, and I’m—”

  She grabbed his hand. “No. You don’t have to apologize. It was part of the plan.”

  “What plan?”

  “The plan. It’s all different now. I see so clearly.”

  “Can you see now?”

  She smiled. “Not with the eyes of man. With the eyes of faith.”

  “But you . . . you were dead.”

  The smile grew bigger. “And now I’m not.”

  “How is this possible?”

  “How is any of this possible? I know who I am.”

  “The witness.”

  “Yes. His witness.”

  Andy helped her to her feet. “We have to get to Portland, find Amos.”

  “We need to act quickly,” she said. “The enemy is here and his army is growing. They’re all around us. They’ll try to stop us.”

  “They’ve been trying to stop us all along.”

  She stopped and took Andy’s face in her hands. “But this will be different. It’s about to begin and we must be ready.”