Marcus didn’t die. He lay curled like a fetus, his hands covering his head, arms protecting as much face as possible.
Glass broke. A thousand bits of space shrapnel pounded the parking lot and pummeled the wall next to him. It sounded like someone had pulled the trigger on an automatic rifle and refused to let go.
“Marcus! You okay, dude?” Big Bennie the bartender stood over him. “Talk to me, man.”
Slowly, Marcus opened his eyes and then sat up. Behind Bennie stood the rest of the pub’s patrons.
“You hurt, pal?” Gary’s voice. It sounded distant. Marcus’s ears rang and felt as if someone had packed a pound of cotton in each ear.
Without speaking, Marcus stood, wobbled, and looked at his auto shop across the street. Its roof and two walls had collapsed. The sheet-metal wall facing the street that separated the bar and shop bowed out.
Turning, Marcus saw dozens of holes in the wall of the bar and several broken windows. Fragments had hit the wall like pellets from a shotgun blast. That raised a concern with Marcus. He looked at his arms, legs, and body. No blood. No pain.
“It missed me. Not a scratch.”
“You’re one lucky drunk,” Bennie said. “You fared better than my bar.”
“Not so lucky, guys.” Gary pointed at the shop. “You won’t be salvaging much from that mess, Marc. That big rock ruined you. What are the odds?”
Marcus felt something well up inside of him. It took a moment to realize what it was. He bent and placed his hands on his knees. His shoulders began to shake. His head bobbed.
“It’s all right, dude.” Gary put a hand on Marcus’s shoulder. “Let it out. Ain’t no one here gonna blame you for crying.”
Marcus straightened, unable to hold back the emotion. A loud guffaw erupted from deep inside him.
“What’re you laughin’ at?” The bartender seemed offended. “Maybe you’re drunker than I realized.”
Another roaring laugh filled the night. Marcus wiped a tear from his eyes. “Don’t you bums get it?” He pointed at the burning remains of his shop. “I’m rich, boys. I am rich.”
Andrew Morgan never rushed anywhere. Not anymore. In high school and college, he had been so impatient that he jogged across campus to whatever place he needed to be at next. When he drove, he drove fast, as if he didn’t want to waste one moment of his life.
He read fast, he spoke fast, and once he became an executive in his father’s oil business, he conducted meetings fast. He was a race car with only one pedal-to-the-metal speed.
The day he learned of the plane crash that took his wife and son, Morgan slowed. At first, he dawdled because he didn’t want to face life. Why get out of bed? What reason was there to answer the phone? Morgan Natural Energy had the best executive team in the business, men and women smarter than he and more conscientious. If he never stepped foot in his CEO’s office again, the firm would continue to grow and pay hefty dividends to investors and stockholders.
It took less than a day for him to realize he was unneeded: no wife to love and support and no son to guide. The rushing whitewater river that had been his life had declined to a slow-moving, muddy, polluted creek.
Morgan hadn’t decided to slow his pace. His grief and confusion had shackled his legs and thickened the air around him so much that it pressed him down.
The Tinsel Town Theater displayed art deco on the outside, as was popular for theaters of this age.
Just as Morgan laid a hand on the angular door pulls, a woman stepped to his side. Without thinking, he opened the glass doors and moved aside to let the woman in. She was rushing. Like Morgan, she was five minutes late.
“Thank you.” The words came without a smile.
“My pleasure.” He followed her through the doors.
The woman was, he judged, five-foot-six, slim, and well-dressed in a tan pantsuit with a bright, decorative scarf. She had shoulder-length auburn hair that bounced as she walked. She wore bone-colored flats. The shoes indicated she was a sensible woman who cared more about the condition of her feet than how shoes made her legs look.
The lobby was empty except for two beefy men with arms the size of redwoods who paced the worn carpet. Morgan recognized security when he saw it.
Pale colors accented the geometric shapes on the walls and ceiling. The carpet, which had to be decades old, proudly displayed its faded designs. At one time, the colors must have been bright. Now, they were difficult to distinguish from the beige background. Although the snack bar was closed, the place smelled like popcorn.
The woman fast-stepped to the doors. Morgan followed a few feet behind. Soft New Age music wafted from the theater.
Just over the threshold stood a teenage blonde holding a thin stack of folded paper. He saw her hand one to the impatient woman. Then, spying him, she held one out for Morgan to take. He took the program.
“You’re just in time.” The blonde sounded as if she’d been taking in helium. “These are the last two seats.” She motioned to movie-style chairs in the last row and next to the aisle. “No one is allowed in once the program starts.”
The woman slipped into the first chair, saw Morgan sanding there, and moved over one spot. He smiled and lowered himself into a seat a thousand other fannies had used over the years. The cushion had lost the ability to cushion long ago. A chunk of plywood would have been more comfortable.
He glanced at the woman and saw a lovely face with bright, blue eyes and a serious expression. He knew better than to ask, so he guessed: mid-thirties. Her face, her body, and her confidence were everything necessary to attract a man. The ring finger of her left hand was naked. So why didn’t that matter to him? His marriage had been a happy one, and he had been a faithful husband: no dalliances, no flirtations, no liaisons, no affairs. Other women didn’t tempt him. In those moments, when he was especially honest with himself, he’d admit to allowing his gaze to linger on the form and faces of other women, but he likened it to admiring art.
That was then. He was a widower now. He had the right to pursue romantic interest. And yet he never did. He felt no inclination to start.
He watched as the woman rifled through her purse until she found what she had been searching for: an identification badge hanging on the end of a neck strap. She slipped it over her head. First, Morgan noticed PRESS/MEDIA emblazoned in large red letters across the top of the plastic card. Just below that, he saw a photo of the woman and the name LISA CAMPBELL.
“It looks like we just made it, Lisa.” Morgan paused a half second. “May I call you Lisa?”
“How do you know my…” She pursed her lips. “My press pass. Of course.”
“I’m Andrew Morgan.” He held out his hand, which she shook.
“As you’ve already surmised, I’m Lisa Campbell. I’m with—”
“The media.” The words came out harsher than Morgan intended.
“I take it you don’t like the press.” She turned her eyes forward.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to…” He sighed, then smiled. “I’ve had a couple of bad experiences.”
“With reporters? So you’ve been in the news.” She returned her gaze to study his face. “Your name is familiar. Why?”
It was his turn to look away. “So you’re covering the UFO festival?”
“An evasive change of subject. You have dealt with reporters before. To answer your question, yes and no.”
Morgan chuckled. “Now who’s being evasive?”
“I’m not trying to be. I’m not covering the UFO junk. I’m here to cover this meeting.” A second later, she added, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have called it UFO junk.”
“Doesn’t bother me. It is junk. At least most of it. Like you, I’m here to hear what Robert Quetzal has to say.”
She nodded and started to speak, but then the lights lowered. Morgan looked over the heads of several hundred people to the front of the theater. The movie screen had been raised so the area behind it could be used as a stage. Another screen—the rear
projection, Morgan assumed—hung at the back of the platform. A pair of high-backed, red-leather chairs faced each other and had been angled so people in the theater would be able to see the faces of those who sat in the chairs. Next to the chairs were end tables, each with a glass and a pitcher of water.
The audience applauded as the lights grew low. Their wait was just about over.
The stage lights grew brighter, and a man in a three-piece suit stepped on the platform. Morgan had seen pictures of Robert Quetzal, and this man wasn’t him. The man on the stage was painfully thin, his cheeks drawn. His suit hung on him as it would on a closet hanger.
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Charles Balfour, executive assistant to Robert Quetzal, prophet and priest.” He paused to allow applause. “It is my daily pleasure to travel with Mr. Quetzal and help him share the ancient and contemporary message. It is a message at which many scoff, but we know the truth. The world as we know it is coming to an end.”
Morgan glanced at Lisa in time to see her shake her head in disgust. He concluded she wasn’t a believer.
Balfour continued. “You know the world will end in 2012, and I know it. Because of that we know, we’ll survive while others… don’t. But enough of me. You came to hear wisdom from the one who carries the knowledge of ancient times.” Again he paused, this time raising his left hand and pointing to the right side of the stage. “Ladies and gentlemen, Robert Quetzal, final and exalted Mayan priest.”
The crowd shot to its feet. The applause was nearly deafening. Music poured from the wall-mounted speakers. It reminded Morgan of Native American songs. The drumbeat vibrated his bones.
Standing, Morgan looked over the heads of the others and watched as a man in a charcoal gray suit walked onstage. His hair was long, raven-black, and hung down his back in a ponytail. He had shoulders as wide as a linebacker’s and stood six-foot-six. His skin was the color of pale leather. The references to Quetzal being the last Mayan priest made Morgan expect a serpent headdress. Instead, he was looking at a man who could have sat in one of the seats of his boardroom.
A video camera zoomed in on the man, and his image was projected on the screen behind him. Morgan saw a pin on the man’s lapel: the snake god Quetzalcoatl and two feathers.
Quetzal placed an open hand over his chest and bowed deeply, an action he repeated several times. He did nothing to stop the applause. Morgan imagined the man enjoyed the adulation, and why not? If he was right, he deserved it.
“Welcome, my friends. Welcome.” Quetzal’s rich baritone thundered from the speakers. “Welcome to the end of the world…Welcome to the beginning of the world.”
“Oh, brother,” Lisa said. Morgan looked at her. Lisa didn’t look back.
DECEMBER 28, 2010
Morgan had insisted. It went against every desire, severed every fiber of logic and reason. Still, he went.
The southern part of Utah was barren, desolate, devoid of important life. Just like Morgan. The Jeep pulled to a stop fifty yards from the charred remains of what had once been a 2009 Falcon 200EX corporate jet. The once sleek-white aircraft rested in a crater of its own making. Jet fuel had fed the fire that turned the aircraft from a flying object of art to a scorched hulk of twisted, blackened metal. It had also reduced the bodies of his wife, son, and the plane’s crew to burned bone. Authorities had removed the bodies the day before and sent them to the nearest coroner to determine the official cause of death. Not much work involved there.
Morgan had already made arrangements to have the remains moved to the cemetery where his mother and father were buried. Marybeth and Hunter would be entombed in the family mausoleum. When news of the death reached Morgan’s town news service, friends and acquaintances began to call. Pastor Johansson of Berkley Street Baptist Church had been one of the callers. Berkley Baptist was the church Hunter had taken an interest in. For the last six months, he had been attending services and activities for youth.
“Are you sure about this?” Ranger Reid Tasker sat in the driver’s seat of the Jeep. “I don’t see how this can help you.”
“You say that as if it matters.” Morgan released his safety belt and popped open the passenger door. Tasker sighed and followed suit. Together, the men traversed the red soil and rocks of the desert area, Morgan’s boots pressing rocks into the sandy soil. He kept his head down. As they neared the wreckage, Morgan could see signs of previous activities. The parched ground had held the images of boot prints and tire tracks in place as if waiting for his arrival.
He and Tasker walked over a circular area blown free of loose dirt and sand. Helicopter landing area.
Morgan continued forward, ignoring the nagging plea deep in his gut to turn around. He had already seen too much to be able to forget.
A yellow caution ribbon attached to wood stakes surrounded the aircraft carcass and the crater. Morgan stepped beneath it.
“Hey, Mr. Morgan, this is a crime scene. I can’t let you walk around—”
“Try to stop me.”
Tasker didn’t. He slipped beneath the legal barrier and joined Morgan as he stood by the airplane. The craft had hit with such force that the tail section had compressed in on the cabin area like an accordion. The sides of the cabin had split apart like the husk on an overripe watermelon.
Morgan had always been good at math. He wished that wasn’t true. An image—garish, brutal, and impossible to scrub from his brain—rose to the surface of his consciousness: the faces of his wife and son as they watched the ground five miles below racing toward them. Dying was unfair; to know you’re about to die and have time to think about it was soul-scorchingly cruel.
He closed his eyes. The tears burned.
His ears filled with the whine and roar of seizing engines—the banshee scream of wind rushing past metal hull.
Morgan tasted copper. He was biting the inside of his cheek.
A hand rested on his shoulder. “Has the NSTB and FAA come to any conclusions?” Tasker’s words were solid and encased in kindness, the way one man comforts another.
Morgan shook his head. “Too early. They tell me it might take months before we know anything conclusive.” He paused and let his eyes scan the debris. “The pilot reported complete engine failure in his Mayday.”
“Complete? Both engines?”
“Yes.”
Tasker lowered his hand. “That’s odd. Bird strike?”
Morgan shook his head. “They were flying at thirty thousand feet. Not many birds fly that high.”
Tasker started to speak and then stopped. Morgan knew the man was doing him a favor by not asking for full recounting of the events.
They stood in a silence broken only by the wind and the cry of an eagle circling overhead.
“I lost my wife a little over two years ago.”
Morgan looked at him. His brown eyes seemed to melt in their sockets. “You’re not going to tell me that it will get easier, are you? I don’t think I could stand to hear that again.”
“Easier? There’s nothing easy about it. Time makes it manageable—most days.” He gazed into the distance, seeing only what he could see. Morgan could almost smell the sorrow on the man. “Every time I look at her side of the bed, someone stabs me in the gut.”
“I’m sorry for your loss.” Morgan wished he sounded more sincere.
“She lost control of her car on a snowy day. It rolled. They say she died quickly.” Tasker took in a noisy breath. “Sorry, I should be trying to encourage you, not drag you down. I just wanted you to know you’re not alone. It won’t change anything, and it won’t make you feel any better.”
Morgan was surprised to feel a smile cross his face. It didn’t rise from amusement, just the knowledge that the man standing next to him had endured the good intentions of others who offered a balm of kind words.
“I can walk away for a while. You know, answer nature’s call if you want to…” He motioned to the crumpled hulk.
“No need. I’ve seen everything I need to.
” Morgan walked back to the Jeep.
“I welcome each of you to our humble gathering.” Quetzal’s voice filled the theater. Lisa thought the man could be an actor on a Broadway stage. He stood near the edge the platform and slowly paced like a man considering a leap into a bottomless abyss.
He held no notes but spoke like a man who was well prepared.
“I am the last descendant in a line of Mayan priests. Does that sound odd to you? Perhaps you assumed we Mayans dropped off the face of the earth centuries ago.” He paused, and nervous titters rolled through the room. “Well, I have something to tell you: Weee’re baaaack.”
By Lisa’s estimation, it took a full second for the crowd to get the joke. She glanced at the man sitting next to her to see if he appreciated the humor. His face bore a grin. It took only a moment to see that, but she let her eyes linger and then snapped them away when he returned her gaze.
“The truth is, congregation, we never left.”
Interesting. He addressed us as “congregation.” He’s working this priest thing.
“Let me be honest: We have been a small religious group, but it may surprise you to know that we have over fifty thousand adherents now. I know, I know, that’s not much when you compare it to the many millions claimed by the Roman Catholic Church worldwide or even the millions of Baptists. But that doesn’t matter. We are not for everyone. We are for those who appreciate the past and want to change the future.”
He paused. The audience applauded.
“We are here for people like you—people who know that everything will change on December 21, 2012. I am here to guide you.”
Quetzal continued with his opening remarks as Lisa jotted down notes in a small, spiral-bound notebook. She also held a digital recorder with one hand, hoping it was picking up the audio from the speakers.
As Quetzal spoke, Charles Balfour, the man’s rail-thin assistant, received a note from a worker who stepped forward from backstage. He read it quickly and approached Quetzal, who paused mid- sentence. If the interruption irritated him, he didn’t show it.
The Mayan Apocalypse Page 2