Storm Front (Collapse Book 3)

by Riley Flynn

  “But I’ve just met a man I trust even less.”

  The candle did nothing to help Krol. He was an ugly man. A stray dog, all beat up, mangy, and tough. Rotten teeth. A head full of scars and wrinkles. In so many ways, he was the opposite of Levine. Alex didn’t trust either of them.

  But at least Krol was honest in his lies. There was a brutal honesty about him. An ugly truth. Levine was slippery, a snake with a silver tongue. Alex had decided which one he liked better. Or, to put it better, the one he hated least.

  “You met Levine.” Krol’s words were a question, not a statement.

  “I did.”

  “You went into the town.”

  “I did.”

  “And you came back here, not caring at all about your contamination.”

  Alex had thought about the contamination. He had thought about the virus. But he was immune, he knew. And no one in the compound seemed to be sick. In fact, the only people who seemed to care about the Eko virus were Krol and his people. Right now, in Alex’s mind, they seemed expendable. The realization brought with it a stab of guilt, though not strong enough to slow him down.

  “You and I both know there’s no disease there, Krol. They kept it away. They’re not sick.”

  “Maybe they’re still standing. Smiling. But those people are more infected than anyone.”

  Alex didn’t have time for Krol’s cryptic answers.

  “Why didn’t you tell me? That there was a community of people so close by?”

  Krol waited a moment before he talked. The light danced across his face. The candle was about to die. Alex knew that everyone else who lived on the farm would be gathered outside, straining their ears and trying to listen in.

  But Krol spoke softly.

  “Levine is a dangerous man. He is not to be met on equal terms.”

  “He would say the same thing about you.”

  “He would be lying.”

  Alex laughed. It wasn’t funny. But there was nothing else to do.

  “I don’t think you should be lecturing anyone on the truth, Krol. Would he be wrong?”

  “I suppose not.” Krol shook his head slowly, with all the speed and power of a tectonic plate. “But then, if you are not able to see quite how dangerous Levine is, he has already worked his magic on you, Alexander.”

  Speaking to both men, Alex had begun to recognize their same vocal tics. Both of them used his name constantly. They spoke carefully, without pauses or stutters. But for all of Levine’s charm and florid language, Krol could only muster a callous force. One was a surgeon’s scalpel, the other a sledgehammer. Both could leave a man broken on the floor.

  “And what did Levine tell you?” Alex could sense Krol’s curiosity, even if the man wanted to keep it hidden. He’s obsessed. He has to know.

  “We talked. He invited me to live with him.”

  “And how did you reply?”

  “I’m standing here, aren’t I?”

  “For now, at least. You seem prone to leave at any moment, to fly the nest when your emotions run wild. You are lucky, Alex, that we did not shoot you on arrival.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “No.”

  “Because you know I’m right.”

  Krol, sat in his chair, leaned back. The desk behind him was piled high with scraps of paper in every size. A mess, illegible to anyone else.

  “You are not right, Alex. This is your first mistake. This is not a world of right and wrong. Of good and evil. Of black and white. We do not deal in such matters. We knew you would return. You would have wanted to see your friends. Fundamentally, I believe you are a good person. If a misguided one. You tell me you are immune and, I have learned, this might even be true.”

  With a lazy hand, Krol gestured to the piles of paper on his desk.

  “I have been looking through these names. Noting them down. The information on that computer you brought was interesting, to say the least.”

  Alex had entirely forgotten about the computers. The flash drives. Everything else. He’d fought so hard to keep them and then, in the excitement of arriving back on the farm, he’d forgotten about them. But Krol hadn’t.

  Krol had been hard at work.

  “What did you find?” Alex felt his own curiosity piquing.

  “Nothing that I am capable of understanding. A small puzzle piece. But an important one, perhaps. An edge or a corner. The real discovery, Alex, was that you were not lying. That you were telling the truth. Or, at least, that you believed you were.”

  “And you still didn’t decide to share anything with me?” Curiosity gave way to a fresh wave of anger. Alex had hoped that his revelations in Athena would help diminish his annoyance with the occupiers on his farm. But no one else seemed to have changed while he was away. The anger wasn’t just for them, but it was a personal kind of self-reflection and wrath, annoyed that he hadn’t quite solved the difficulties of the world in one fell swoop. “You didn’t think to tell me anything? The arsenal of weapons in the shed? Where are you getting all these extra supplies? Don’t think I haven’t noticed.”

  “These are not simple matters, Alex.”

  “Maybe they are to Levine.”

  “He is not to be trusted.”

  “And you are?”

  Again, Krol paused before he answered. Every word, Alex could sense, was being parsed for meaning before being released into the world.

  “We are just moving in circles, Alex. The same thing, over and over.”

  “Then tell me. Tell me the truth.”

  “You’re not ready.”

  For once, Krol’s voice raised a few decibels. He sat up as he spoke, two pinhole eyes glaring at Alex.

  But this wasn’t a time to acquiesce to the man. Alex had to find out the truth. He wasn’t going to wait anymore.

  “Tell me, Krol, so help me God.”

  Determined, Alex walked forward. He didn’t move fast. Instead, he placed himself in Krol’s vicinity.

  The other man was larger. Stronger. Any fight would be over in seconds. Alex had landed a sucker punch once but he didn’t like the chances of doing the same again.

  Krol began to stand. A long, deliberate procedure. At all times, he kept his small round eyes fixed on Alex. When he finally reached his full height, he shook his head.

  “No. You are not ready. We are not ready. We need more time.”

  Now, Alex stared up. He could smell Krol’s breath. A rotting, fetid stench. The man’s teeth were dying in his mouth.

  “Tell me.” Alex kept staring. He didn’t blink. “Tell me now.”

  “I cannot.” Krol looked away. “You do not want to know. You must trust me on this matter.”

  “Tell me.”

  “You will regret this, Alex, if we continue down this path. There is no turning back.”

  Alex didn’t reply. He just stared into the abyss.

  “You must decide,” Krol was almost whispering, “if this is what you really want.”

  “I want the truth.”

  “What truth?”

  “About the man living on this farm. Tell me what happened to Eames, Krol. What did you do to him?”

  Krol turned away. The smell of death drifted for a moment. Alex could breathe again.

  “See, you have been talking to Levine too much. He has infected you. Poisoned your mind.”

  “Tell me now, Krol, or you won’t leave this room alive.”

  Alex knew it was bluster. An empty threat. But those little black eyes burned into him. Then they turned away.

  “You will regret this.” Krol’s voice was a murmur. Barely audible.

  Buckling up his long, weathered coat, picking up his oxygen tank, Krol pinched the flickering candle. The room fell dark.

  “Follow me.”

  18

  It was dark out and cold.

  As they walked across the courtyard, Alex wondered whether it might start to snow. Christmas had passed without so much as a frost. It felt like a blizzard was lu
rking on the horizon, waiting to hit.

  Krol walked in front without saying a word. The oxygen tank swung back and forth. Alex followed a few feet behind, his teeth beginning to chatter.

  The front door of the farm house opened and closed. Without having to turn around, Alex knew they were being followed. He wasn’t the only one who wanted to know the truth. Timmy, Cam, and all the other people living there had an interest. They were invested. They had to know.

  Find out what happened to Eames. Find out what happened to the farm. Bring this curtain of secrecy down once and for all. Shivering, holding on to his own arms, Alex knew it had to be done.

  They stopped in front of the barn. Krol didn’t seem to feel the cold. He stood, feet shoulder width apart, black eyes staring down at Alex, black teeth disappearing behind a cloud of hot breath.

  “These are difficult times, Alex.”

  “I thought they were interesting.” The emphasis was entirely on the final word.

  The heavy padlock still hung between the two chains on the barn door. Alex moved on the spot, trying to keep warm. Krol didn’t seem to be in a rush at all.

  “This is your home.” Krol’s speech seemed to have slowed down in the cold, even more than its usual deliberate, cryptic pace. “You’ve demonstrated that much. It is our home, too. Now. You deserve to know why.”

  “I know all this, Krol. You’re telling me what I already know.”

  There was an audience behind them. Gathered around, listening in. Krol was speaking to them as much as he was speaking to Alex.

  “We were not always here. Not after the virus broke out across the country. We have come together from many places, as I am sure you know.”

  Alex didn’t know. He hardly had time to talk to Nelson or Reni or Jenna. He’d hardly payed them any mind. For too long, he’d been so blinded by his anger that he’d purposefully ostracized himself. Timmy, Joan, and Cam – even Finn – seemed to be making friends. They knew the strangers. This, he now understood, had been an error. But he played along now.

  “I know.”

  “We did not arrive together here. We arrived together – at first – in Athena.”

  “You knew Levine.” Alex had pieced together this much of the story already. “You and him, together.”

  “I trusted him, once.” Krol didn’t move. He stood statuesque in the cold night, hands by his sides. He bowed his head. “We all did. But I knew him best. From before the arrival of this new world. I had come to him a broken man, when he was little more than a televised priest. A commercial for late night television. A magnet, drawing in the weak and vulnerable. I was that weak a man, that vulnerable a person.”

  Alex had never seen Krol as anything more than brutally self-assured. Direct and vicious, honest in his own way. An admission of vulnerability stood out like a blood splash across snowy ground.

  “I arrived at his church. I began to know him. To listen to him. Levine spoke of how things would get better, improve, and change. This rapture, this end of the old world, he told us, would make all of our lives better. He filled a hole in so many hearts. I would have died for him. I would have killed.”

  Krol looked up, his skin red around his tiny eyes.

  “And then, the world changed. Just like he’d said. My faith- our faith – in him hardened. He offered guidance, knowledge, and safe passage through the most challenging of times. At least, he said he did.”

  “What happened?” Alex could hear his voice. It sounded distant, as though it was arriving from another place entirely.

  “Levine clashes with men. He loves women. As he gathered us together, as he found Athena and worked it into a vision of his own Eden, those who believed him in were tested. There were those who only began to believe more and more in his vision for a rapturous future and there were those with doubts. People who did not believe…”

  Alex had stopped feeling the cold. He was rooted to the spot, listening. Krol’s voice was barely audible over the wind.

  “What happened to the non-believers, Krol?”

  “They met difficult ends. Those who arrived in Athena, or who were there before, they had a choice. To follow Levine or to die. Those columns of smoke which rise up over the town are little more than funeral pyres. They burn everything in their path. Furniture. Books. Possessions. People.”

  His throat retching, Alex remembered the taste of the town. Acrid.

  “Even as the world fell apart, I could never stop myself from doubting. From doubting myself to doubting the future to doubting humanity. I went along with everything Levine said. He seemed to know the truth. He seemed so assured. Eventually, I began to doubt him, too.”

  “You escaped?”

  “I gathered together people. I had begun to notice doubts in them, too. I was among the most trusted of Levine’s lieutenants. To voice these doubts to me would have been suicide. To try to escape would have been certain death. But we tried. We managed to escape.”

  “You came here? How did you escape?”

  “A story for another time. A painful memory. Not all of us survived. The fighting was particularly vicious. The believers, they will go to their deaths for Levine. He needs only speak one word and they will act on his every whim. Not all of us survived.”

  Even though he knew it was cold, Alex could not move. Frozen to the spot. Hooked on the story.

  “You ran away?”

  “The people on this farm, the ones you have met, we fled. We knew this place. Levine had been spreading his sphere of influence, burning his way through every home in the town and nearby. This farm was on the edge of his thinking. The Instruments, Levine’s people, had visited it before. They’d found an old man who didn’t let them near. With everyone so scared of the sickness, who could fault him?”

  “Eames.”

  “I do not know this name. But, from what you and your friends have said, it was likely him. We arrived one night, broken and wounded. We sought out a friend, someone who might share our hatred of Levine. But this man, Eames, he did not trust us. He thought we were either sick or believers. As we approached the house, he shot at us. He fought like a lion.”

  Krol raised a hand, gesturing at the wooden walls of the barn. High up, Alex could see the marks and holes left by stray bullets. Seemed like one hell of a fight.

  “You shot back? You killed him?”

  “Before we could enter the house, he turned the gun on himself. He did not want to be caught. I saw it, the man stood on the porch, firing his rifle in the dark. We only wanted shelter. Sanctuary. But he could not trust us. And I do not blame him for that. He preferred to die than to be captured by believers or to be infected by the sick.”

  “He died on the porch? Of the farmhouse?”

  “We painted over the stains. We covered up his sacrifice. But his paranoia was impossible to shake. It was born again, in us. We never knew how to trust anyone who arrived at this farm. They might be sick. They might infect us. Worse, they might be Instruments of the Passion, arriving to poison our minds with Levine’s words.”

  “Why didn’t you leave? Why stay around here if you were so scared of Levine?”

  “I cannot leave this place. I cannot. I have blood on my hands. I am, in many ways, responsible for Levine. I cannot allow him to flourish outside of my sight. There are too many secrets buried here for me to leave. I am sure it is the same for you.”

  The truth hurt, Alex knew. The long-forgotten ghosts of his past. He’d driven his friends across state after state, leading them to one place he was sure would be safe. His childhood home, a farm built on the foundation of his own memories, his own past.

  Alex would never be able to leave this farm behind, not really. He knew exactly what Krol meant and he hated the man even more for it.

  It wasn’t just that the man was living on his farm; it was that Alex could see so much of himself in the man he despised. Krol was a mirror, reflecting back the dire consequences of Alex’s actions. The detachment from humanity, the commitment to
a greater good. It was easy to hate a person who so readily revealed the vulnerabilities at Alex’s very core, who embodied everything he did not want to be but everything he was working toward. The worst possible outcome and the best, all at once.

  “What happened to Eames afterwards?” Alex had to know, slicing the words between deep, self-loathing breaths. Already, he worried, he knew the answer.

  “He is buried here. Inside the barn. Along with the others.”

  “The others?”

  “You think you were the first to arrive here, Alex? Other people came. They died. In quarantine or in agony. Some were strangers, like you and your friends. We tried to treat them with compassion. But we were scared. So many who arrived here were from the church, saying they had been exiled or they had escaped from Levine. They wanted sanctuary. They wanted to be safe from sickness. But we could never trust them. Not entirely.”

  “They’re inside?” Alex pointed at the barn. “You locked them up inside?”

  Krol began to fit the oxygen mask over his face. Behind them, a crowd had formed. They were being watched.

  “The fields are for growing. The ground inside this place was soft. Eames, I am sorry, is inside this barn. As are the others.”

  With the mask fitted, Krol’s voice had once again become metallic. Scratching. Seething.

  “You’re lying.” The truth was too much. Too horrible. “You’re lying again, Krol. Manipulating the truth to make me see everything your way.”

  “It’s true, all of it.” Nelson called from behind. “Alex, please...”

  Rather than reply, Krol simply shook his head.

  “Then why bring me here?” Alex still had so many questions. “Why not just tell me this inside the house?”

  “Sometimes, we must see the world with our own eyes. Exactly as it is. The truth.”

  Krol put a hand into his pocket and took something from inside.

  “Alex, you must see this for yourself. You must see how dangerous the world has become.”

  The hand opened up. Sitting in the palm was Krol’s zippo lighter.

  “You need to shine a light in the darkest places. You see to see it all with your own eyes.”