Fall of Adam

by Rusty Ellis

  Several in the group called out.

  “You, Adam!”

  “We would follow you, Adam!”

  “Please lead us, Adam!”

  Adam held up his hands to hush the voices. A saddened expression coursed across his face as he met the looks of his followers.

  “Oh, you lost souls. Who among you will stand and dust off the filthy ashes of the world and follow me into the Holy Garden?”

  Megan watched as several individuals jumped to their feet and raised their hands to the open sky above.

  Anna hesitated then jumped to her feet, “Adam, take me! I will follow you to the Holy Garden!”

  Adam's initial look of sadness switched to an expression of pleasure and content. He scanned the group of standing followers, as if contemplating who he would save and who would stay behind. He turned back to face the opening leading out of the circle and began walking back the way he’d entered. He locked eyes with those standing as he passed, leaving the unchosen behind him, their shoulders slumping and arms dropping back to their sides. as if Adam’s unwillingness to select them were a direct condemnation back into the arms of the world.

  Megan watched as Adam drew closer and closer to where Anna was standing. As Adam neared, he slowed at their row and stopped next to Anna. Panic consumed Megan’s chest. A surge of fight or flight exploded from her core and coursed through her body, screaming at her to grab Anna and run. Adam smiled at Anna and raised his hand. Anna began to step forward and take his hand when Adam reached around her to point at a woman just on the other side of Megan.

  The woman, in her mid-20s, shook with excitement. She reached out as she slid past Megan and Anna to Adam’s waiting hand.

  A guilty sense of relief doused Megan’s panic as she watched Adam lead the woman away from the group and down the path. Megan glanced at the head of the path where the man had been standing, but he was gone. She squinted and attempted to peer into the denseness of trees to no avail. The man had disappeared. Megan watched as Adam escorted the willing young woman down the path, through the veil of trees, and out of sight.

  12

  Chase pulled into the single row of gas pumps at the quick stop. An old farm truck was parked on the opposite side and the driver gave Chase a friendly nod as he pulled the lever from the pump and unscrewed the gas cap to his truck. The town had definitely been passed over by a generation of technology. The lack of a credit card machine on the gas pump was a strong sign.

  After topping off his tank, Chase walked over and pushed the door to the convenience store open and was met by the tinkle of a small worn bell attached to the top of the door frame. The sound alerted the woman behind the desk who grinned at Chase.

  She looked to be in her 60s and a tad weather worn.

  “Can I help you find anything, young man?” she asked.

  “A restroom?”

  The woman pointed to the back corner of the store and nodded her head. Chase thanked her and weaved his way through the two rows of shelves between him.

  After the bathroom break, he headed for the cooler and a bottle of water. The store carried a generic water brand and a square-shaped water bottle claiming to be smart water. The irony of paying twice the price for “smart water” caused Chase to shake his head. He put his money on being smart enough to know the better deal was in the generic water.

  Chase wandered to the snack aisle and found a man kneeling in front of the chips, stocking the shelf from a large cardboard box next to him on the ground. He looked to be about the same age as the woman behind the counter. Not a stretch to assume the couple owned the store and had been running it for some time.

  “Help you find anything specific?” the man asked and continued to stock the crinkly sounding bags in front of him.

  “Just something to knock the edge off,” Chase said.

  The man stopped momentarily and looked up, “Hunger or hungry?”

  “Is there a difference?”

  “To knock the edge off hunger I’d go with pork rinds or chips. To deal with hungry, I’d skip the snacks and go over to Millie’s for breakfast. She makes a great stack of pancakes, but make sure and top it with a fried egg.”

  “You’re sending my business elsewhere?” Chase asked.

  The man returned to stacking bags of chips and answered, “Nope. We take care of each other around here. Millie sends them to us for gas and hunger and we send the hungry ones to her.”

  “Still, that’s pretty generous, since I was about to spend some money here.”

  “It also helps that Millie’s my sister-in-law,” the man admitted and chuckled.

  “Fair enough. How about some sunflower seeds to stock up my truck?” Chase asked.

  The man pointed to his left toward the end of the aisle.

  “Thanks,” Chase said.

  The man nodded and stood with the empty cardboard box in hand. He headed toward the restroom and disappeared into the back of the store.

  Chase grabbed a bag of sunflower seeds and stepped to the front counter where the woman was waiting with a smile. He set the seeds and water bottle on the counter.

  “Is that it?”

  “Yep, and the gas,” Chase said.

  The woman began to ring up the items and Chase continued, “Your husband told me to go over to Millie’s for breakfast.”

  “Did he tell you to order the pancakes?”

  Chase nodded, to which she shook her head.

  “Something wrong with her pancakes?”

  The woman raised her hands, “No, it’s not that. Let’s just say that Frank is not the most adventurous eater. He could live on pancakes, potatoes, and beef.”

  “Sounds good to me. I can’t hate him for that.”

  She dropped her hands to her hips, “You, too? You need to live a little. Once in a while try something other than the steak and potato plate.”

  Chase conceded and held up his hands. The last thing he wanted to do was get in between this couple and their ongoing menu arguments.

  “Sorry, it’s a little bit of a sore spot after 43 years of marriage,” she said.

  “If that’s the biggest dilemma in all those years, I’d say the two of you are doing pretty good.”

  “That whole thing came out wrong. I’ve never seen you before and I just dumped that on you. Sorry about that.”

  “It's okay, really,” Chase said.

  Chase looked at the dollar amount on the cash register display and pulled the bills out of his wallet.

  “I guess you just need to decide what makes you happy and do it,” the woman offered and hit a key on the register causing it to ding and the drawer to pop open. She placed the bills into the drawer and handed the change to Chase.

  “So, is that what’s happening up the road? The people up there just trying to do what makes them happy?” Chase nodded in the general direction of the compound and gate.

  The woman’s face went sober. Chase watched intently as he’d mentioned the compound, wanting to see her uncontrolled response. Either the locals liked it or they didn’t. She obviously wasn’t keen on it.

  “I’m not sure what’s going on up there, but it doesn’t feel right,” she answered in a lowered tone.

  “Everything all right over here?” her husband reappeared and stepped behind the counter to stand by his wife.

  She turned to her husband, “He’s asking about the Community.”

  “You some kind of cop or something?” the man asked.

  “No.”

  “So what’s your interest in the Community?”

  “You keep calling it the Community. What type of Community is it?” Chase asked.

  “What’s your name?” the man asked.

  “Chase Harper.”

  “Not from around here, are you? From Boise or Mountain Home or somewhere else?”

  Chase skipped the question and took a chance, “I’m looking for my sister and my niece.”

  The man turned back toward his wife and they exchanged saddened look
s.

  “I’m sorry to hear that, son,” he said.

  “Is there something I need to know,” Chase pressed.

  The woman said, “You’re not the first one to come through here looking for a relative.”

  “Why did you think I was a police officer or something?”

  “High hopes, I guess,” the man shrugged. “They’ve never been able to get inside their gate.”

  “So, what’s going on up there that the cops want in?” Chase asked.

  “Nobody knows. Every time the police show up it’s for the same reason. Someone’s missing and the police have tracked the person to the Community.”

  “So no one’s ever been charged with kidnapping or anything like that?”

  The man and his wife shook their heads in unison. The woman looked weary on her feet. Not from working, but from the topic. Her husband directed her to a tall stool against the wall and had her sit down. He turned back to Chase.

  “No charges are ever filed because no crime was ever committed, or so they say.”

  Chase’s eyebrows furrowed, trying to make sense of the comment. The man continued.

  “When the police go up to the gate to the Community, they ask about so-and-so and the guard calls up and sees if the person was on site. If the person was, they would then have them come down to the guard gate and talk to the police.”

  “And…,” Chase encouraged the man to continue.

  “And the missing person would verify who they were, and that they were at the Community by choice.”

  Chase took a moment to run the information through his mind and pair it up with Megan and Haley. Were they both at the Community? If so, were they staying there on their own volition? It made little sense. Chase could imagine his niece—given her age and being in college—somehow deciding to ‘check out’ the place, more a curiosity than anything else. But Megan? Not likely.

  Megan wasn’t one to go for any of this hippie-life hug-a-tree stuff, or whatever they were doing in there. It wasn’t her thing. Maybe she met a guy and followed him there? Even that didn’t hold up. She wouldn’t do that for any guy.

  “Do you think she’s in there?” the woman pulled Chase from the rabbit hole he was tumbling down.

  “I’m not sure. But what I’ve found so far connects her to that place.”

  “You obviously care about her very much, I’m so sorry,” the woman shrugged.

  Her husband patted her on the knee and looked up at Chase’s face.

  “So, what is that place? Any idea?” Chase asked.

  The couple looked at each other and the man spoke, “It’s called the Holy Light Community. We just call it the HLC. It’s some sort of religious group, I think. The only people we deal with from there are the security guys. Not a very cheerful bunch.”

  “Nobody else stops in here? No one else from the Community?”

  The man shook his head, “Nope.”

  The woman reached up and touched her husband’s forearm, “There was that time we saw someone in the back of that dark SUV.”

  “Dark SUV?” Chase asked.

  “One of the security guards, a big guy, close cropped hair and some kind of thick accent, he bought a water and handed it through the rear passenger window to some guy with shaggy hair, a beard, and glasses. It was just a quick look though. As quick as the window came down he took the water from the big guy and rolled the window back up,” the man said.

  Chase guessed it was the SUV he’d seen at the gate this morning.

  “The shaggy-haired guy must have been important,” the man said.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Well, besides the fact he was riding in the back, like it was some kind of limousine or something, it was odd the big guy came and paid for the water and returned to the car, then he filled the gas tank and came in and paid for the gas. You gotta have a little pull make the big guy make two trips into the store, and to get your water before anything else.”

  Chase smiled at the man’s train of thought, a fair deduction.

  “Thanks for the supplies and the information,” Chase said and held up the water and sunflower seeds.

  The man stepped forward and offered his hand across the counter, “Frank and Alice Jones.”

  Chase slipped the bottle of water under his arm and shook Frank’s hand.

  “I hope you find your sister and niece,” Alice said.

  “Thank you, I appreciate that.”

  “So what are you going to do?” Frank asked.

  Chase raised an eyebrow, “First, I’m going to get a plate of pancakes with a fried egg on top.”

  13

  The disturbing part was that Adam’s actions didn’t disturb him at all. What Adam did was up to Adam. After all, his followers were all willing. The front door to Adam’s cabin was always unlocked, so they could walk away whenever they pleased. But Viktor didn’t care one way or the other. It was a paycheck. A good paycheck.

  He drew the line at his security staff. That’s where he ‘cared’—picking who he hired and fired—and he trusted his current staff. Not necessarily with his life, that would be foolish, and unnecessary. His greatest faith lied in his own hands and decisions. Of everyone he trusted, he trusted himself the most, his men a little less.

  Viktor took up the post outside Adam’s room, his orders were simple—Adam wasn’t to be disturbed. Any of his men could handle the assignment, but this assignment was specifically delegated to him, a non-negotiable by Adam. And Adam held the purse-strings.

  In fact, Adam never spoke to the other men on Viktor’s detail. Technically, the men worked for Adam but he wanted nothing to do with them. If anything needed handing down, Adam would tell Viktor and then expect it to get passed along. Adam wasn’t interested in the details, only that his instructions were followed, without question, and without delay.

  Adam’s cabin was separate from the rest of the compound. In the very northeast corner of the property. The furthest Adam could get on the 411 acre property that he’d bought, or better yet, HLC Limited had purchased. One of the best features of the cabin’s location—according to Adam—was having no neighbors to the north or east of the building. In essence, the cabin was secluded.

  Viktor had suggested a six-foot tall perimeter fence, as a greater overall safety precaution.

  “From what?” Adam had asked. “Everyone here is welcome to leave at any time. They’re not prisoners.”

  Viktor could do nothing but agree. Whatever Adam said was simply an answer backed by his revelation, a direct form of guidance from God. And who was Viktor to disagree?

  A week after his suggestion and denial to put up a fence, Adam came back with a revelation to have sensors installed around the perimeter of property. No small feat, considering it took over 425 underground seismic sensor units to cover the outside edge of the property, including two hubs to connect all the sensor units into one manageable location.

  An expensive revelation.

  Viktor sat in a chair on one side of Adam’s bedroom door, the spot where Adam expected to find him when he eventually came out of his room. Viktor watched as the rest of Adam’s selected followers chatted and moved about the cabin. He counted twelve in all. Always twelve. If Adam returned one of his girls to the general population—they were definitely closer to girls than women—they were quickly replaced at the next Enlightenment Circle.

  The current group of girls wandered the main areas of the cabin, curled up on the sofas and milled about the lower floor. When Viktor first came to the cabin and did a once over security check, room to room, to get a feeling for the layout of the place, he raised an eyebrow at the 3,000 plus square foot cabin and its single bedroom.

  The cabin comprised a single enclosed bedroom, taking up at least 1,000 square feet by itself, including an elaborate oversized shower and bathroom. There was a second story consisting of a straight set of stairs leading to a loft filled with bunk beds and large beanbags.

  Eve quarters, Viktor was plea
sed with his own clever labelling.

  Having such an emphasis on the single bedroom, it had surprised Viktor that the outer walls to the room were not better insulated. He’d discovered this by having a seat too close to the bedroom door—unfortunately. He learned that Adam preferred for Viktor to hear him and act if there was an emergency in the bedroom. What type of emergency, Viktor hoped never to find out.

  A crackling voice sounded on the mic attached to front of Viktor’s polo. The noise from the girls in the room made it next to possible to hear what was being said.

  He leaned closer to the mic, “Repeat that.”

  “I’ve got a woman outside the Garden.”

  “Roger, be right there,” Viktor said.

  14

  Megan was left consoling Anna after the Enlightenment Circle. Anna had been repeatedly raising her hand the past few days, committed to being chosen by Adam.

  “Are you okay,” Megan asked as they walked away from the Enlightenment Circle toward the main cabins.

  “I’m fine.”

  “You’ll feel better after a short nap, sister.”

  “You’re probably right. I just felt inspired that this was my time. That Adam would pick me,” Anna said. She dropped her head and muttered, “It’s not my time. I’m not pure enough yet.”

  The comment stirred an ember of rage in Megan’s chest. It hurt her to know this man has caused Anna to feel less than worthy for him. Her thoughts switched to Haley. If Anna felt this way, what was going on in Haley’s mind? How much Kool-aid had she drunk? Her questions about Haley had led her to think Haley was at Adam’s cabin. The thought ached in throughout her, burning a hole in her stomach. She needed to at least see Hailey, to know she was safe, at least physically safe.

  “Let’s get you back to the cabin,” Megan said.