by A N Sandra
“This is why people commit suicide,” Molly mused to herself. “The promise of glory.”
The idea that Molly was only enjoying the “glory” because she could see it from her television was lost on her completely as she relished in the emotional banquet before her. Real suicide victims never got to enjoy the vision of an adoring public laying roses beside caution tape. But then, real suicide victims were actually dead.
“I want more apple cider,” Molly said out loud. No one responded because the house was empty except for the sound of the television and Molly herself. Part of her self-imposed penance for losing the ivory box she had taken from her father’s safe was that she was now alone, with no servants to attend to her. It was almost an adventure for Molly to pause the television and meander through the house to heat the apple cider in a kettle on the stove. The kitchen was so unfamiliar that being there felt like a field trip in her own vacation home. There was a small pile of dishes to be washed. Molly was sure she could figure out how to wash them when she needed more, or she would order new ones online and throw the dirty ones away. That would mean ducking out of sight when the Fed Ex truck came, but Molly could handle it if she needed to.
Over the years the Hollister family had spent many vacations in the huge house on the coast of Maine. Molly’s room was still filled with favorite toys she’d enjoyed as a child. It felt like a time capsule. Even on vacation her parents had pursued their own interests, so Molly had spent hours listening to music and taunting her classmates on social media platforms during her vacation time. There was still a Barbie doll Molly had fixed up to look like Sugar Simpson in junior high perched on a shelf in the old room. The Barbie had acted out many craven displays on various internet venues, causing Sugar great anguish. Sugar’s mother had tried to put a stop to it, but as rich and important as the Simpson family was, they held no real power compared to Melissa Hollister, who would not allow Molly’s capricious desire for importance to be curbed by the needs of her peers. Boundaries were meant for children who were not Hollisters.
Next to Molly’s room was her father’s Apocalypse Library where he had spent most of his vacation time when the family got away. From the ancient Assyrians to Rwanda, tales of genocide in all forms filled the library. There were countless memoirs of survivors of the holocaust and memoirs of Nazi perpetrators of the same crimes. Pictures of heaps of corpses taken of Bosnian men and boys were interspersed with pictures of dead Soviet Jews exterminated during the cold war era, and accounts of Mao’s exploits were tucked among Idi Amin’s personal journals kept in spiral bound notebooks on teak shelves.
Blaine Hollister had spent hours at a time in the library planning his own movements toward world domination. Even Stalin himself would have dropped his jaw at the scope of Blaine’s plans. Joe Stalin could never have comprehended the power that Blaine and his cohorts were able to amass by consolidating the internet after net neutrality became a thing of the past. Mao could never have comprehended the scope of authority a private citizen could obtain in a modern era. Blaine had bypassed all government controls meant to keep ordinary people safe by pretending to be concerned for people that no one wanted to bother with. The addicted, the mentally ill, those young people unable to afford college but willing to work for it in the Hollister Youth Foundation and Global Forces had been easy for Blaine to manipulate in ways Joe and Mao could not have dreamt of. Of course, both had loved force. Plundering the happiness, possessions and personal safety of others had been what made them tick. Without stealing the pursuit of happiness from others they had no serenity.
There was a large map in the Apocalypse Library, and as Molly wandered back to the TV room with a steamy cup of apple cider in her hands, she ducked into the library to look at it.
“Where are you, Maddy?” Molly fretted, squinting at the map as if it could reveal mysteries if she knew where to look. “You didn’t use a passport to go out of the country…” Molly knew that didn’t mean much. Before the Hollister Addiction Recovery came into being, drug dealers had come and gone from the East Coast at will. Maddy didn’t own a car, and Maddy’s mother’s car was in her possession. In fact, Maddy’s mother’s house had been rigorously searched, but there was no sign that Maddy had been there since leaving One Tough Customer. Sadie’s family home had been searched also, and a Hollister operative was keeping track of Kellyanne, Sadie’s sister who was studying outside the US. No one in Tilly’s family knew where her grandfather or her brother were. The Hollister IT people thought Daniel was involved with the Dark Web. They would dispose of him when they found him.
“I haven’t hated anyone as much as I hate them since junior high,” Molly reflected on Tilly, Molly and Sadie. “It’s so satisfying!”
Making Sugar’s life miserable had given so much substance to Molly during her early adolescent years that Molly felt oddly sentimental about her. There had been other targets, but none who had lived such charmed lives and were so surprised to find themselves bullied as Sugar. She had been the ultimate target. Until now. Maddy, Sadie, and Tilly had all been confident, self-reliant young women with bright futures, and even though Molly had known that none of them were going to live to see another year anyway, it had been exciting to stretch out her hand and take their futures from before their eyes. Taking control of their lives brought a sense of purpose to Molly as she waited to become truly loved and famous. Which had happened, according to what she had just witnessed on television.
The map in front of Molly didn’t reveal the whereabouts of Maddy no matter how much Molly squinted at it. If she wasn’t so thrilled about all the personal attention she was getting for dying, Molly would have been distressed over the loss of the ivory box. Her father didn’t know it was gone yet, or she would be suffering his wrath. Molly had an impressive imagination, but it did not extend to possible consequences of losing something so important.
“She’ll surface when she feels secure,” Lee Reeves, the second in command of Hollister security had told Molly regarding Maddy. “All three of them will. They have lives and families. Maddy is already missing her fall term of school. Tilly missed the winter collection shows. Sadie’s agent is still flooded with offers for her. They can’t opt out of life forever. They’re young and impatient. When they are sure you don’t want to hurt them, they’ll come back to the lives they led.”
There were two problems with what Lee said. The first was that they would just try to go back to the real world at some point. Being famous changes people’s reality and Molly just now understood how much. They might not be comfortable back in the real world before they were dead from the EMPs and the coming virus. If that happened, the box that Lee didn’t even know about would be irretrievable. The other problem was that Molly did want to hurt them, and all of them knew it. She’d taken their lives, their money and their privacy. Although the small amount of money in their Global Bank accounts had been laughable. Maddy had had the most in hers, fourteen thousand dollars. Molly had often spent more than that in an hour of shoe shopping.
The fake death was the only way Molly could think of to get the three of them to reenter society because they would never feel secure as long as they knew she was alive. The hardest part of her plan was leaving Doctor Justin alone during this time. He was going to be very busy with some research, however, and Molly knew he wouldn’t be chasing other women. Molly had told him that her disappearance was just part of a publicity stunt. He hadn’t understood, but he hadn’t criticized her either, which Molly felt was the sign of true love.
“I’ll make it up to you the second I get back,” Molly had promised Doctor Justin, running her finger over his hand as they sat at Marbles, a wine bar near his office. He’d shivered and she’d felt powerful. Flirting with the most desirable man in New York was more intoxicating than any amount of wine.
“It’s a good thing I have so much work to keep me busy,” Doctor Justin had answered her softly. “I’ll be thinking about you.”
Molly had shivered with ant
icipation of their reunion. Rose petals, diamonds, Dom Pérignon, and Silver Alpine bubble bath were sure to be involved.
“I’ll have to worry about his pleasure too,” Molly pondered to herself. That was something she had never done before. The men in her life serviced her, sometimes for hours, but she had never put a man’s personal pleasure on an equal par with her own. Well, the time was coming soon. She’d read some books and apply her new knowledge in the moment. She had ideas, but thinking about it for too long got her too worked up, so she kept herself reined in.
If her father had known the box was missing, Molly wouldn’t be sipping apple cider and relishing her newfound adoration by indulging in cable news footage of the shrine people were flocking to outside her family home. He had two ivory boxes that he kept with him, although he sometimes left one with people doing special projects. The ivory box Molly had taken was kept in a safe in his bedroom, along with several unusual crystals. The things in his bedroom safe were things he wanted to keep from other people, not things he used himself. Molly had only been brave enough to take the box when her father had been on an extended trip to Europe and Asia with her mother. They had been back for weeks and hadn’t noticed the missing box, and they might not miss it at all if Maddy would simply go to her mother’s house once she believed Molly was dead. Molly had people watching Maddy’s mother’s house twenty-four seven.
If Maddy didn’t surface, Molly didn’t know how she would handle her father’s rage when he discovered the box was missing. After New Year’s Day, her parents were moving from their New York home into this house until after the Armageddon. Packing up the house would mean packing up the contents of the safe, and Molly would be busted. Wide open. Finding Maddy was key to a happy new life.
Meandering back to the TV room, Molly dropped into her normal chair—even though her father was hundreds of miles away, sitting in his would have been unthinkable—and un-paused the documentary about her family.
“My grandfather always said that Hugh Hollister really came home from the war a different man,” an apple cheeked farm wife explained to Mark Jackson, the interviewer. “He waited a bit, but he started his first construction company and worked really hard—”
Plenty of footage of the Hollister’s humble hog farm were presented while the narrator went on and on about Hugh’s first construction efforts. Molly knew the farm didn’t look the same as it had in Hugh’s lifetime. A team of Hollister Youth Foundation workers had meticulously scoured it and made it more into a park than a farm. They had been careful to leave the correct equipment in place, as though it were about to be in use at any moment.
Molly imbibed apple cider and watched as the Hollisters moved to New York under her grandfather’s watchful eye. The Hollisters had removed powers and principalities to enlarge their territory the same way a pride of lions would operate.
“The really good interviews in this part would all be with the guys wearing cement shoes,” Molly said out loud. It was the truth. When the Hollisters had come to the Big Apple, they’d come to take all the bites. Businessmen who had been convinced they were untouchable had left widows who never understood their sudden “aloneness.” Few people grasped the real scope of what her father had done in such a short period of time. Blaine’s real secret to business was not building things. His real secret was that he embraced destroying other businesses and people. Even the Hollister charities were really demolition systems in disguise. The Hollister Youth Foundation restored natural habitat after removing man-made structures, but most of the work they did was annihilation.
“My daughter, Molly, is really the inspiration behind the Hollister Homes for Homeless initiatives,” Blaine said. The interview had been filmed in his office, the same one he’d killed Barry in earlier that year. “The concern Molly showed the homeless in our neighborhood was so touching. She kept asking why no one was helping them. I knew I had to become involved.”
Molly could remember being small and complaining about the homeless who roamed the streets around her family home. She hadn’t been sorry for them, she had been annoyed that no one had removed them yet. The real reason for Hollister Mental Health’s existence was not to provide a safe environment for schizophrenics to receive help stabilizing their meds, or formerly abused young people to decompress in warm, caring group homes, no matter what the promotional materials showed. The real reason those people were rounded up was to test pharmaceuticals for the coming changes in the world. But it was nice that her father made her sound like a compassionate child.
Thanks to the research done on the helpless, the Hollisters were entering the new world with antibiotics that were more powerful than any researcher could have imagined even ten years before. The antiviral medicines could stop any strain of cold or flu even before symptoms were visible. The sleep meds that had been created were beyond anything that could have been imagined. They were not addictive, worked in minutes, and had no hallucinogenic side effects. The cancer drugs were the greatest achievement of the deviant Hollister researchers. Chemotherapy was now a thing of the past. Thanks to medical research techniques that would have been distasteful to Hitler, the Hollister medical staff had access to cancer fighting power that was beyond what anyone would have believed possible.
“The vaccination chip was really the idea of Melissa Hollister from the beginning,” a young man in a lab coat spoke into the camera clearly.
“If Christina Harris saw this she’d really flip.” Molly grinned. Christina Harris was still hiding. As far as Molly knew she might not be found before the virus her father’s best research teams had created was unleashed. Would Christina die from the virus? Molly didn’t know or care. Once Blaine’s security people found Christina Harris, she was not going to be a problem.
The slices of the Dark Web that the Hollister IT was able to infiltrate didn’t show that Christina herself was out stumping to let the world know what the Hollister family was up to. She’d made an effort, but had gone into hiding and the people who had helped her were all dead now. Too many things were happening on the Dark Web that the Hollister IT people were not able to track. The skill of the people working the Dark Web had outpaced the best Hollister people months ago. If the best Hollister people were really the best, Christina Harris would be in Texas under the illusion that her vaccination chip was saving the world. They had been a weak link, but they would only be necessary a short time.
“Please, make sure to get your vaccination chip today,” a Hollister affiliate said into the camera. “You can do it at any local drug store, anywhere you are. It only takes ten minutes of prevention to save your family's health for generations.” Footage followed the words. A grandmother playing with a toddler at a well-groomed park. Just the sort of thing that was almost finished for good.
A flood of people pressing the caution tape to mourn Molly Hollister followed the advice to get a vaccination chip as soon as possible. The people were almost in a trance as they dropped flowers and blew kisses to Molly’s supposed spirit.
“It’s hard to know if I should be touched, or embarrassed to be adored by people so dumb,” Molly said to herself. Her apple cider was done, and she checked her phone, making sure no one had called with news that Maddy had been apprehended. The screen was void of notices and Molly heaved herself out of her chair. She’d get some sleep and check in the morning. Even the best of intentions didn’t see her through. However, she kept checking the phone, determined to be ready to get that box back, no matter what.
Chapter 13
Ancient Times
To become nothing… If you are nothing, did you ever exist? How can something become nothing at all? Can nothing become something again?
Questions flitted through Golda’s mind as she woke. She had fallen asleep from exhaustion, but four hours later she was in full problem-solving mode even though she was still in bed. With a sigh she got up to pull on her garments and get food to fuel her mind and body. She would pursue quiet concentration and contemplation, and a
fter that, she and Jurgon had six hours of work to do. Leaving the quiet room where she slept, Golda crept along the grounds until she came to the dormitory for the mortal girls where Cattu spent her nights. As soon as Golda cracked the door to the dormitory Cattu was on her feet, and Golda opened the door wider for Cattu to leave so the two of them could breakfast together. Cattu came right inside the refectory and the two of them sat by each other, basking in each other’s company.
“Good morning.” A young mortal girl, eleven at the most, set down cold water for both of them. Raw fish for Cattu, and a thick porridge made from many grains was placed before Golda.
“Thank you,” Golda told the girl. Her name was Brenna. Golda had helped care for her when she first came to the colony as a willful toddler. Rarely did Golda work with small children anymore. The quarter-Eternal women were a better temperament for it once they passed their adolescence and let their maternal instincts kick in. Brenna ran her hand along Cattu’s neck before retreating back to the kitchen. “I know you should be eating with the other totem animals, but I miss you when we are not together.”
“Are you having a pleasant morning?” Celeste looked down at Golda with bright flashing eyes and her lips pursed. “You took Cattu before the mortal girls were dressed and there was a fight over some underwear.” Celeste rolled her eyes at the weaknesses of mortals. They could even manage to behave selfishly and deceptively over undergarments. “They can’t be left alone.”