by Riley Flynn
Going in the front, all guns blazing, sounded like suicide. Not just for Alex, but for Joan’s little girl. Krol, too, though he seemed to have vanished.
It didn’t matter. Alex knew better than to rely on the old man.
There was another way into the church. A side door on this side of the fence. It hadn’t been bricked up. Probably for priests to slip out unnoticed after a service. It would be the perfect way to sneak in unnoticed. But getting there meant crossing twenty feet of open ground. A big risk with so many people around.
Subtle and silent. It was the only way.
Alex gave one quick look up and down the compound. Coast was clear. He ran. His feet left prints in the snow. Hopefully they’d be covered up quickly. No time to care.
The cold air swam into Alex’s lungs as he ran. There was no bending down, no crouching. Just cross the ground as quickly as possible. The twenty feet seemed like a mile. But he made it.
Alex came to a halt right beside the door. He looked around. No one had spotted him. No shouts. No people running. He’d done it. The door wasn’t even locked. Striding forward, his confidence raised high, a sudden thought arrived. These people were insane. Devoted. Maniacal. Taking the baby wouldn’t be as easy as just walking in through an open door. People would have to get hurt.
Alex could taste the trepidation on his tongue. He didn’t know what he was prepared to do to get Joan’s baby back. But he was determined to find out.
Trying the handle, springing it open, Alex stepped into the church. It was warm. It was dark. People were singing in a distant room. This was it.
26
It was a hymn but Alex didn’t know which one. It was coming to an end, the voices in the nave were erupting. What had been a quiet, restrained harmony began to unravel. Shouting, bellowing, and screaming of the final words. Not all of it in English. Somewhere, an organist played.
Slipping through the shadows, Alex was in a store room, separated from the congregation by a curtain. He could see the light from the main church breaking through gaps and holes.
He edged closer and closer, so close that he could press his eye up against the curtain and see through into the room beyond.
It was a big room filled with people. The walls rose up on either side and then bent around, forming the room. Every surface was covered in a smooth plaster, painted white. Candles lit everything, lined along the pews and sat in holders.
There must have been fifty people, all arranged in rows. The long wooden benches lined both sides, arranged like the veins of a leaf. They all led up the aisle to a single point, a place where a golden pulpit had been placed. It glowed in the candle light, coated in decorative eagles and cherubs. But no one sat down. Every single person was standing. Some still singing. Some shouting. Almost every hand was lifted up, pointing towards the heavens, eyes closed.
Everything, Alex realized, was pointing at Levine. He stood there, leaning against his pulpit, smiling, with his arms spread wide. Even from behind the curtain, seeing only a fraction of the church, it was possible to note the adoration of the crowd. They worshipped the man in the magnificent robes.
As the final notes of the singing died away, Alex heard another sound. A familiar sound. A baby crying. Then he saw the cot. It was next to Levine. It was next to the baptismal font. The crying came from inside. Joan’s baby.
“My children,” Levine began to speak, his honeyed voice ladling sugar on every syllable. “My children, welcome.”
Members of the congregation called out. Guttural noises of support. Roars.
“My children, we gather here today – tonight, I say – to welcome our newest member. The latest soul we’ve delivered from the clutches of evil and brought over into the land of the good and the land of the Lord.”
More cheering. Levine had begun to move toward the cot. He bent down and collected the child.
“I thank you all for coming out at such late an hour. I can only ask for forgiveness from you. But some things cannot wait. Evil, you see, does not wait. It does not linger. It does not allow us a second to breathe.”
“Praise him!” A voice called out from the audience. “Take him to the Lord!”
Levine smiled.
“All in good time, my friends. All in good time. But we must understand why we do this. The act, itself, has meaning. Meaning we give it. For every single second that we leave this blessed child untouched by the Lord himself, we ourselves sin. To let him live on like this? To deny him God’s knowledge? Why, that’s a sin itself. We may as well kill the child. Hand it over to Satan.”
More voices came from the audiences. Shouts, bellows. They wanted Levine to continue.
“Exactly, my friends. Exactly. We must climb up the Lord’s ladder. We must become the instruments of the passion of the Christ himself. But – and I tell you this as it was told to me – we must bring as many people as we can. If we arrive at the pearly gates of heaven alone? Well, what good would that do? No-sir-ee. We take every soul with us. We bring every person along. Young or old, tall or short, man or woman. Every. Single. Soul.”
Levine almost shouted the last words, slapping one hand against a golden eagle carved out of the pulpit. The baby was in his arms now. The crowd roared their approval. They loved their leader, Alex realized. They were devoted to him. No matter what he said, as vacuous and as empty as it was, they were feasting on the man’s words. They were drunk on the baptism, enthralled by the purification of it all.
Standing in the shadows, even with only half a view of the whole scene, Alex could feel the enthralling energy playing out on the stage. The theatricality, the words, and everything else. Levine was a showman, leading his followers on a rapturous dance. A crazy and tempting scene, it was easy to see how people could fall sway to the preacher.
Levine was walking toward the font, about to baptize the baby. There was no way of knowing what would happen next, but Alex didn’t want to wait around to find out. Time to move.
But how? Running into the congregation, grabbing the child? He was more likely to do harm than good. There were fifty people in the room, all of them ready to kill on command.
He could use the rifle. It wouldn’t be hard. From this distance, hitting Levine would be routine. The believers would be stuck, their leader dead in an instant. But what would happen to the baby? She’d fall from the dead man’s arms.
Levine nodded to two of his followers and they removed the metal disc from the top of the font. He held the baby up above his head. He opened his mouth.
A booming sound echoed through the church. Everyone fell silent.
A knock at the door. It came again. A third time. Then stopped. Slowly, the door creaked open. The entire room had stopped. They stood still, watching the door. Levine lowered the child and smiled.
A man walked in. A deliberate, shuffled gait. An oxygen tank swinging from one hand. It was Krol.
He took his time getting here, Alex thought. Some distraction.
Krol marched at his own pace. He was limping more than usual, Alex noticed. There was blood on his shirt. The oxygen mask was fitted tight to the face. Even from behind the curtain, it sounded like it was working overtime.
The believers began to gather. They blocked the aisle, forcing Krol to come to a halt. The old man adjusted his neck and stretched his arm. He was ready to fight.
“No,” Levine’s voice was soft. The crowd turned their attention from Krol to the preacher. “Let him pass.”
The congregation stepped back. Staring through the hole in the curtain, Alex’s view became obscured. Krol still towered over everyone else, however. The sight of his bald, scarred head traipsing down the aisle was unmistakable.
“My children, you all know this man. Krol has returned to us on this special night. He once turned away from God. He turned away from us.”
The crowd began to boo and jeer.
“But no. Do not mock him. We must listen to him. Does the Lord not preach forgiveness?”
While Levine
had been speaking, Krol shuffled farther and farther forwards. Now he was beside the preacher. Krol’s metallic inflections bounced off the plaster walls of the church.
“It is snowing outside tonight, Levine.” The preacher grinned as Krol spoke. “This is a time for new beginnings. For fresh starts.”
What the hell? Alex was confused. Krol should have been attacking Levine. He should have been, at the very least, creating a distraction. Instead, he could hear something entirely new in the old man’s voice: regret. Something sounded wrong.
Alex moved position. He had to see better. Staying in the darkness, he began to crawl through the back rooms of the church. Behind him, he could hear Krol speak.
“I have my regrets, Levine, as I am sure you do. I have come here tonight to make that right.”
The crowd had shifted. From the anger and the bile they’d felt minutes ago, to a stifled applause. Alex arrived in a room behind the altar. Through a half open door, he could see it all. Levine, the baby in his arms, standing over Krol.
“I come to you tonight in peace, Pastor. To make peace. To drive out my demons.”
Alex could only see Levine’s back but he knew the man was smiling. So much so that he put the baby back in the cot.
“My children.” Levine spoke over Krol’s head, engaging the crowd. “This man has come to us, asking for forgiveness. Do we accept?”
They cheered.
“I did not hear you. Do we accept?”
The crowd cried out with joy.
“One final time, let the Lord hear you. Do we accept?”
The whole building was shaking. People screamed and stomped their feet.
“Very well. Kneel, my son.”
From his hiding place, Alex tried to look at Krol. This couldn’t be happening. After he’d given the man one tiny modicum of trust, he had betrayed everyone. The betrayal was real, it was gut-wrenching. Alex had trusted the man, allowed him to become part of his plan and now it was all blowing apart like so much bonfire smoke. He had gone crying back into Levine’s arms. This couldn’t be real.
Krol began to kneel. Alex stepped back into the darkness and raised the rifle, ready to rage. Things were going to hell anyway. He might as well speed them up.
Staring through the scope, Alex watched Levine raise his hands. Every eye in the room followed the preacher’s movements. Except for Krol.
Seeing a flicker of movement, Alex turned his gaze back toward the kneeling man. One hand rested on the oxygen tank, the other had vanished into the coat.
He’s reaching for the gun, Alex realized. It doesn’t have any bullets.
The rifle dropped down. Alex had to see this with his own eyes. Krol, reaching for his gun, Levine about to bless him. The baby in the cot cried. The people screamed with delight.
“Do it now!” Krol’s words.
“We will forgive you, my child!” Levine beckoned to the whole church. “We will forgive him!”
“Do it now!” Krol said it again. “Now!”
The entire congregation had lifted up their heads and their hands towards the ceiling, mimicking their leader.
“Now!”
The words are meant for me. Alex didn’t think twice. While everyone else looked towards the heavens, Alex ran into the church, arriving at the altar from behind. The sound of the delirious shouting covered his footsteps and he moved straight for the cot.
As he moved, Levine lowered his hands. The preacher bent down towards Krol’s bald head, the patchwork of creases and scars, and laid a kiss on the crown.
Alex could see Krol’s coat twitch as he reached for the gun. The cot was only a foot or two away now. Almost there. If everything stayed the same, he could snatch the baby and run.
The crowd, enraptured, were shouting in tongues. Alex was close enough to hear Krol’s breathing.
He could hear Levine bend down towards the weathered ear, he could see the preacher’s hand disappearing into the splendid robes, and he could hear the words whispered into Krol’s ear.
“I deliver thee unto God.”
Levine’s hand shot from his robes and into Krol’s chest. The preacher raised the same hand up in the air, brandishing a bloody knife before his people. Their screaming grew, their heads still turned towards the heavens.
At the cot, Alex reached in, about to take the baby. He stopped. Carrying the child meant not having a hand free for a gun. He had to move fast. But Krol watched him. Those tiny black hole eyes. Alex froze. Sacred.
Blood seeped across the floor in front of Krol. The old man started to laugh.
The moment wouldn’t last forever. All it took was one believer to look away, to bow their head down and see Alex by the cot. For Levine to turn around and see the baby being taken. But Alex couldn’t leave Krol.
He was torn, between the mission and the guilt. Save the baby or try to save the man as well. The child, tangled up in all his guilt, or Krol, the battered reflection of his own self-loathing. Alex was caught between two choices, horrified he would get it all wrong.
A bloodied hand was disappearing into the depths of the coat. He’s reaching for the gun.
Alex acted fast. He felt for the pistol tucked into his pants with one hand and tried to grab the baby with the other. Once he had a grip on the gun, he threw it to Krol. It landed on his lap. The old man laughed harder through the mask.
Snatching the baby from the cot, Alex saw Levine turn. Those big blue eyes fixed on the child. The pistol fired.
Levine threw himself to the floor, ducking behind the golden pulpit. Alex looked past him, saw Krol’s hand wildly waving in the air. The old man jerked his head. He’s telling me to run.
Alex understood. The last thing he saw was Krol’s spare hand reaching for the oxygen tank and lining up the pistol with the gears which connected it to the mask. The old man’s head nodded again.
All around, the believers were moving. They had heard the gun shot. The spell had broken. They had seen Alex. They started to move.
But Alex was already gone. Running straight for the side door, he cradled the baby in his arms and felt the rifle jostle on his back. Shoulder barging one of Levine’s men out of the way, he burst through the door of the church as the second gunshot rang out.
Behind him, everything exploded.
27
Alex rolled across the snowy ground, clutching the baby to his chest. The ringing in his ears was deafening and he couldn’t hear the child crying. Rushing to his feet, he started to run.
There was no time to look back. The explosion had been a shockwave, a gust of solid air knocking everything to the floor. Alex could still feel the reverberations in his bones. Another person, dead because of him. Krol’s sacrifice would have to mean something. He didn’t want another pointless death on his hands.
People would be following him. He knew it. Levine and all his believers. They had been caught in the blast, but they couldn’t have been far behind.
Running as fast as his legs would carry him, Alex tried to think about where he was going. Slowly, his eyes were adjusting to the outside. For now, he just headed directly for the darkest part of the night. There was one thought on his mind: get back to the farm.
The baby was heavy. Far heavier than Alex had expected. Carrying the child, he could feel his arms tiring by the second. Energy was leaking from his body. Hot breath formed a huge cloud in front of him. He wouldn’t be able to run for long.
Navigating the compound was hard. Alex kept the bonfires behind him, aiming for the shadows. He ran around the rows of tents, also keeping an ear to the wind and listening to the shouts and screams of the people behind him.
God only knew how many of them Krol had killed. Alex didn’t even know oxygen tanks could explode like that. The pressure waves had blown apart so much of the church, could Levine even have survived?
Alex didn’t care. He ran. Keeping to the fence, he could see the guard hut ahead. He must have done a complete loop and arrived back where he started.
As he approached the hut he slowed down. There should have been two guards there. Alex still had the rifle. He could lay the kid on the ground, take them out and pick her up again.
Putting a baby on the snowy ground felt wrong, though. Besides, there were no signs of life. No one was moving inside or beside the hut.
Slowing down to a walk, Alex didn’t dare stop. Edging up to the hut, he thought he saw movement. But it was nothing. Just a shadow. Scanning the guard hut and the gate, he saw someone. Lying on the ground. They weren’t moving.
Picking up speed, Alex began to move faster. It was a body. Two of them. A pair of guards in pools of blood. Wounds which could have come from an oxygen tank hitting them square in the face. Krol had shown no mercy.
He was dead. The thought struck Alex in that moment. Krol. The bane of his life for so many months, the man who had told so many lies and hidden so many truths. He was dead.
There was no time for sentiment, however fleeting. Alex charged through the guard hut, picking up speed again. The baby began to cry.
“No, no. Hush, please!” Alex tried to run and comfort her at the same time. It was cold. It was windy. Her ears were probably still ringing. He didn’t know how to explain the complexity of the world to such a young mind. But her crying could attract Levine’s believers.
Alex pushed on through the gate and into the streets of Athena. Just about, he could remember where he’d parked the car. He remembered the streets where he’d followed Krol’s footsteps. All he had to do was retrace them. But he had to move fast.
The streets all looked the same. The snow was measured in inches now; Alex could feel his sneakers kicking it up as he moved along. It was slowing him down. It was leaving tracks. Already, he could hear shouts and yells from back at the compound. They wouldn’t have to try hard to track him down.
Block after block went by, Alex trying to remember where to turn. He made one error, he knew, passing by an old store he remembered from his youth. He had to duck through an alley, finding himself on another street. He didn’t know this one. They all looked the same.