Sarah knew why, though. They’d brought the devil into the house when they abducted the boy and locked him away in the darkness. He’d been just a child, a tiny human being who screamed and cried for but the most transient moment of kindness, for the kind of touch an infant needed from his mother. She’d begun to doubt what they believed him to be. Could he really heal wounds and work all kinds of miracles, or were they simply deluding themselves? The longer he lived beneath them, the longer he went without summoning the angelic armies of the Lord to his aid, the more she started to wonder if perhaps her father had been wrong.
Her father was a man of God; of that she was sure. He lived and breathed the Holy Word, embraced poverty and denied sin, but he was still human after all. Was it possible that he’d misread the prophesy? The child and his mother had been there in the alley as he had predicted; the child was born beneath a caul, but what if he wasn’t the son of God? What if he was simply a child delivered by normal means into a world where he’d known no love and been held prisoner like an animal in his own filth?
Perhaps they were all damned.
If she was indeed cursed to spend eternity in hell, then what could it possibly matter if she committed one final affront? Or perhaps this was the mission she needed to set her soul free.
Her father and the others were occupied with their indignation and fear. None of them so much as looked at her, let alone acknowledged her existence. They had learned to see right through her.
Sarah eased back into the kitchen and removed the last batch of unleavened bread, setting it atop the grungy stove to cool. Silently, she drew the drawer to the left open and removed the sharpest knife, lifting it from the clutter and sliding it carefully beneath her smock. Turning on dirty bare feet, she walked back to the doorway between the kitchen and the main room, her heart trilling like a hummingbird’s wings, drumming against her temples. They were all still in the center of the room, the threadbare couches pushed back against the walls to allow for their large circle. Naked, glistening in the thin rays of the light that crept around the seals of the boarded windows, they held hands, chins hanging against their chests. Absolutely quiet. It was as though they had all fallen asleep standing there.
Pressing her back to the wall, she inched sideways, her sweat pouring down her face, wet bangs slapping her skin, until she finally reached the thin hallway leading down into the darkness. Carefully easing her weight down upon the aged wooden planks, she descended, planting her feet all the way to either side by the walls to keep the bowed boards from moaning. She couldn’t risk turning on the light and drawing attention to herself, so she felt her way toward the small landing and down the second, steeper flight of stairs to the closed door.
Hands trembling, she gingerly turned the locks one at a time, the bolts slamming back into their housings far too loudly. She held her breath as she opened the door, the stench of rotting gruel and human waste accosting her immediately.
“Child,” she whispered, her nerves sharpening her voice.
“I’m ready,” he said softly, palming the roach-sharpened pick, the lance running up the underside of his forearm.
She pulled her black smock over her head and shoved it at him.
“Hurry and put this on!” she whispered.
“I don’t…” he started, turning it over in his hands.
She took it back from him, found the neck, and slipped it over his head, letting the long fabric fall over his chest, hanging to the middle of his thighs. At first, he panicked at the sensation of the cloth draped all over his skin, constricting him. Fighting against it, he finally shoved his arms out through their designated holes, which helped to calm him.
Sarah immediately took his hand and jerked him toward the doorway. He’d left many basements through the years, but never with his eyes wide open and without being tightly bound and carried. His heart leapt at the prospect of freedom, but he was simultaneously frightened nearly to the point of paralysis. He shook uncontrollably, barely able to keep his feet beneath him as she tugged. Finally, as they reached the threshold to the staircase, he stopped.
“What?” she gasped.
“Thank you,” he whispered. “For everything.”
That caught her off guard. They’d kept him locked away in the darkness all of his life, and yet here he was, thanking her. It finally dawned on Sarah that this was the only life the boy knew. He’d seen nothing of the world outside, his frame of reference completely skewed. All he knew of the universe outside of his walls was what she had told him…and she hated herself for it. The sin of keeping him as their prisoner was unforgivable, but turning him loose into the outside world was so much worse.
“Don’t thank me,” she whispered, tugging harder.
He resisted.
“What will happen to you?” he asked.
She smiled sadly. The truth was that she really didn’t know. If it was indeed this child who brought the end of the world, then he’d already fulfilled his destiny. What more could he possibly do? Millions upon millions of people were dead, and the boy had never taken a step outside of his room. Was it possible that this entire time they’d been wrong and simply torturing an innocent boy out of religious fear and superstition?
“Quietly,” she whispered, deliberately planting her feet to either side of the staircase to show him how, easing him slowly upward. Each slightly audible protest from the rickety old stairs was amplified a thousand fold. She cringed with every movement, releasing the wobbly railing. With each step, she felt her burden growing lighter. This was the right thing to do. She was sure of it now. Her father would understand. He was a man of God after all. He could see through her flesh and to her soul. There he would find the truth, and he would undoubtedly forgive her, and together they could ask the Lord for His forgiv—
“Put on all the armor that God gives you, so that you will be able to stand up against the Devil’s evil tricks. For we are not fighting against human beings but against the wicked spiritual forces in the heavenly world, the rulers, authorities and cosmic powers of this dark age,” her father said.
She closed her eyes, her right hand instinctively clasping the handle of the knife tucked beneath the top of her overalls. With her left, she pulled the boy behind her onto the landing. There was no exit behind her; the only one was through her father.
“Try to understand—” she started, but he cut her off with the booming voice of a giant.
“Hold thy tongue!”
He barred exit from the top of the stairs, legs firmly planted against the wall to one side, the banister to the other. His naked flesh glimmered as though coated with glitter, all but a wash of blood that flowed freely from holes on the tops of his feet, running down the stairs toward them like twin waterfalls. Blood poured from the matching wounds in his hands, draining in ribbons down the white wall and the banister rails. His forehead was covered with scratches and puncture wounds no larger than had the damage been inflicted by needles, but a skein of crimson covered his face like a mask.
The others crowded in behind him, smears of blood crossing their chests and legs from where they’d wiped their palms after laying their hands on him. Their eyes were hollow, soulless.
“He’s just a boy, father,” she whined, tears flowing freely. Her fist tightened on the hilt of the blade, but she kept it against her belly.
“Even Satan can disguise himself to look like an angel of light,” he spat.
“I know the scriptures,” she sobbed. “You just want to keep him for yourself!”
She’d said it, the words hanging in the air between them like a wraith.
What little skin showed through the rivers of blood on his face turned red, his eyes growing impossibly wide. His entire body trembled with the rage building beneath his taut skin, teeth grinding like gravel.
“We no longer need the child,” he growled through gnashed teeth. “The End of Days is at hand. Bring him before me, girl. Let the child meet the righteous welcome of the Lord.”
“No, daddy,
” she whispered in a voice from her childhood to the father he’d once been.
Her eyes fixed on his, she slowly drew the blade from beneath the bib of the overalls.
The rictus of anger spread to a toothy smile that threatened to tear his cheeks, his eyes narrowing to slits.
"You have become estranged from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace!"
He slapped a bloody foot down a step.
Sarah slashed at him, the tip of the blade opening a bloody seam beneath his kneecap.
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled,” he said, taking another step.
“Don’t come any closer!” she screamed, slicing across his stomach, which opened like a mouth preparing to yawn. Freshets of rich crimson spilled over his groin.
He flopped backward, grabbing at the lips to keep them closed for fear of what might fall out.
Two of the others bounded down the staircase to his side, grabbing him under his flexed arms and hauling him to the top of the stairs. The swarm of bodies closed around him, the floor now positively drenched with his cooling fluids.
“Come on!” she shouted, yanking on the boy’s arm.
She led him up the stairs at a lumbering sprint, careful not to slip in her father’s blood. The front door was ten feet to her right, but it might as well have been a mile. The moment she took her first stride in its direction, the group of faceless zealots erupted from the cluster around her father. She slashed at the hands reaching for her, but there were far too many of them. Arms wrapped around her legs, bodies flew at her from the side. She heard the knife clatter to the floor before she even knew it had left her hand. Her wrist was broken, as her useless fingers would painfully confirm. Fists pummeled her from all sides, driving her back toward the stairs. Teeth tore into her flesh, yanking it away in meaty bites.
Sarah screamed as they knocked her from her feet and hauled her by the hair into the kitchen.
Everything was happening so quickly that Phoenix couldn’t even think. He held the sharp spike out in front of him, but the action before him was a blur of motion. His hands shook and he couldn’t breathe. He could only stand by and watch as wounds opened up on her like blooming flowers. The only sound he could hear was her screaming. He searched for the man on the floor, the one she called “daddy,” but the others were already carrying him, arms draped over their shoulders, to the kitchen behind the tangle of glistening bodies splotched with his blood, which covered the floor like a slug’s trail.
Phoenix staggered around the corner, hardly able to see through the mass of humanity packed into that room. Barely able to steal his eyes from where they were hauling the woman up onto the countertop, he glanced back at the front door. There was only one man standing guard in front of it, a hairy man with a grizzled beard that hung nearly to the middle of his chest, the coarse gray and black strands tangled into a ratted mess. His long hair framed his head like rays from the sun, his body an ugly, patterned mess of wiry hairs slicked smoothly over his flabby, sagging skin. The man looked at Phoenix like a starving dog eying a steak.
Phoenix was sure he could get through the man. If he ran at him and drove the dagger through any part of his body, he’d be able to pass, and once he hit the door, he’d just run as fast as he could and…
And what? He didn’t know where he was any more than he knew where he’d go. His memories of the world outside were fuzzy at best, glimpses stolen from beneath a shifted blindfold. Images swirled together. He had a vague understanding that the grass was green and the sky was blue, but he couldn’t recall his mother’s face, let alone anything beyond the car’s trunk. The muted sunlight that slanted into the dimly lit room around the plywood boarded over the windows cast a viscous red glare over everything and felt like pins prodding his eyeballs. And if the light in this room hurt to look at, then what did he expect from the radiant sun outside?
This was his chance and he knew it.
The hairy man locked stares with him, but Phoenix turned quickly away and started to force himself through the maze of bodies into the kitchen. Feet pounded the floor and there was the raucous roar of indistinguishable voices. He shoved through the slick bodies, all of whom shrunk from his touch. Able to see neither over nor through them, he followed the woman’s pained wails. Finally pressing close enough to see her, he lunged forward near where one of The Swarm held her head in the sink, neck hyperextended acutely over the rim. Behind her head was a long spike, dripping with blood. A similarly soaked hammer had been cast aside on the stovetop. Crimson poured from the counters, draining down into the basin, and puddling on the floor. Dear Lord, the man’s wounds were no sign from above, no stigmata. He’d driven that enormous nail through his own hands and feet to keep his followers in line, to keep them from doubting him.
“Please!” the woman screamed, before her jaw was forcibly closed. She tried to flail her legs on the countertop, tried to buck her body free, but she was held firm.
They brought The Man to her side, his human crutches stepping away and allowing him to sway there on his own. Someone pressed the knife the woman had used against the old man into his bloody right hand. He could barely close his fist around it. His entire body was now either blood red or stark white, like a hellish candy cane. Phoenix had to wonder if there was now more blood outside the man than within.
“A soft answer turneth away wrath,” he said, his voice faltering. The room around him fell silent, save for the muffled screams of the woman through the hands clasped over her mouth. The man cast the knife aside, unconcerned with where it landed. “This is not the way of the Lord.”
“Please don’t, fath—!” she screamed, biting a pinch of flesh to momentarily free her from the hands pinning her head, but they struck like vipers, squashing her head into the sink and forcing her mouth closed.
“We must purge you of this evil, child,” he whispered, raising a dripping hand and bringing it over her face. Her eyelids reflexively closed against the blood spattering all over her face.
The hands relaxed their hold and she screamed, which was precisely what they wanted. The man slapped his hand over her mouth. More hands immediately fell atop his to hold it there. With a muffled cough, she patterned their hands with a mist of blood from her nose. Another hand quickly pinched it closed.
“This is the new covenant in my blood—” the man started.
“Stop it!” Phoenix yelled.
He raised the pick and slammed it into the shoulder of one of the men holding the woman, jerking it back with a slurp and an arc of warm fluids. The man didn’t even seem to notice.
The woman tried to thrash, her eyes inhumanly wide. As Phoenix watched, her irises rolled back beneath her bruised lids, her face an eggplant. Her legs twitched, her fingers curling into claws, but they soon relaxed and she stopped moving, blood pouring from the sides of her mouth.
“See, I am sending an angel ahead of you to guard you along the way...”" the man whispered.
“No!” Phoenix screamed, raising his pick.
The man turned to face him as Phoenix swung the weapon.
A humming sound arose from somewhere beneath the genesis of frantic voices and the clamor of movement.
The man didn’t have enough time to react. The tip of the blade split his forehead in two, then opened his eyebrow and eyelid like a butterflied shrimp, before clipping his cheekbone and gouging through his cheek. The implement stood from the side of his head, his mouth opened in shock to reveal the silver spike driven clear through his upper gums and into his tongue.
He dropped to his knees, the metal lance poking out from his cheek like a snaggled tooth.
The others fell silent, all movement ceasing.
Humming. From all around.
“Get him back to the basement!” one of The Swarm shrieked, followed by another.
Before the man even toppled forward into the black pond of his own blood, Phoenix was wrenched from his fee
t. Hands pinned his arms behind his back and ground his ankles together. Bodies raced past, and then he was at the top of the stairs and bounding downward over the rumble of feet pounding the hollow steps.
Mosquitoes infiltrated the room above, their humming growing deafening. They filled the air like smoke, pouring through the gaps surrounding the windows. Phoenix could see them combing through the men’s hair, covering their naked bodies.
They launched him through the open doorway into the basement and slammed the door.
He landed soundly on his back, ferocious pain blossoming from his shoulders and head when they pounded the concrete. The entirety of the house above him was buzzing, the walls and floor positively vibrating.
Screams pierced the darkness.
Phoenix scurried back to his bed of straw and buried himself in it.
The humming was everywhere around him, all of the insects swirling the air around in the room like a fan. They filtered through the straw and seethed over his skin in a living sheath. They crawled all over him, and then as one, speared him with their stingers. He screamed and bucked against the violent pain, his voice blending into the roar of pain from above.
III
Dover, Tennessee
NEITHER KNEW HOW LONG THEY’D BEEN IN THERE, BUT THEY WEREN’T GOING to be able to last much longer. Between the heat and humidity, they were starting to feel as though they were slowly roasting, basting in their own fluids. Each wet breath brought with it a little more of the finite air. It was only a matter of time before they ran out. Mare could no longer tell whether he was soaked because of the wet blanket or the massive amounts of sweat that leeched every last ounce of moisture from his rapidly dehydrating body. He’d resorted to licking the salty fluid from his upper lip to keep from passing out.
“I can’t stay in her much longer,” he whispered, eyelids fluttering.
Missy was able to open her eyes just enough to acknowledge him in the darkness beside her with a glance. At first, they’d huddled together, just so they didn’t feel quite so alone in the pitch black, but as the temperature had risen inside of the closet, they’d moved further and further apart until they were pressed against opposite walls, osmotically absorbing the last of the coolness from the drywall.
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