Prophet

by Frank Peretti

  But Carl sank into the seat he’d paid twenty dollars for, dying in a way, falling like a single tree in a thick forest. The question still pounded in his head and not even the sound could drown it out: Where are we going? Where are you taking us?”

  But there was no answer. There was only this moment. There was only the sound.

  JOHN FELT A cold draft moving through the mall as if a huge door or window were open somewhere. Well, he’d just had a cold orange drink, and he’d been sitting still. He got up and got moving. That would warm him up again.

  Now he was part of the throng, just moving along with it, being careful to watch for cross traffic buzzing from window to window, store to store.

  It seemed so noisy in here. What was everyone talking about anyway, and did they all have to shout like this?

  Oops! He lost his balance and staggered sideways, almost bumping into some junior highers, their startled faces as close as his nose. He made it to a wall and stood still for a moment. Did the ground really move or was it his imagination?

  There! Again! An earthquake! He could feel the ground stirring to life under his feet. He stayed right there, close to the wall, looking about. Some hanging light fixtures were rock steady. Maybe this was hallucination as well.

  What about the people? Had they felt anything? They were walking faster, exchanging concerned looks, talking more loudly. Maybe they’d noticed the shaking, maybe not.

  More cold. That draft had become a breeze blowing toward the far end of the mall. There had to be a huge door open.

  What in the world—? He pressed against the wall, trying to find a handhold of any kind. The floor was shaking again, and now, like a sinking ship, the whole mall was tilting, settling at one end!

  Steady, John, steady. It’s happening again. Get over to that bench and just sit down. Wait for it to pass.

  He set out across the floor, heading for the bench, working his way through the people passing by, trying to look normal, trying to walk a straight line.

  But now . . . was it really just him? The people were acting strange. They were noticing it, looking at each other, looking excitedly around, up, and down the mall, talking faster, more loudly.

  A rumble. He was sure he was really hearing it—a low rumble—building, growing louder, like an underground train approaching. He looked toward the far end of the mall. The people, the storefronts, the displays had disappeared in darkness as if the lights had gone out.

  He made it to the bench and sat down to watch, to listen, to wait. The mall continued to sink, to tilt. The far end grew darker.

  Then he heard screams, cries for help, wailings, shrieks of pain. The voices! The voices were crying again, just like the other night! He gripped the edge of the bench tightly and strained to see.

  This was no show. This was no amusement, no silly hallucination. This was the worst of nightmares.

  Now the darkness at the far end of the mall was growing, rising, beginning to spin like a deep, black whirlpool, a bottomless vortex. It was drawing, pulling, yanking people toward it. The whole mall was sliding in!

  At this end, where John sat, no one seemed to notice. They kept walking, talking, laughing, teasing, buying. Well, of course this had to be an illusion. Surely these people would see the same thing he was seeing if it was really there.

  John gripped the bench. The floor lurched again, tilted some more. The monstrous throat was coming closer, consuming the mall, sucking in the people.

  Wow, he thought. I remember having bad trips, but this one’s a doozie! Just hang on, he told himself. Take it all in. It’ll be over soon enough.

  Oh-oh. The people around him were starting to notice. That was not encouraging. John would have preferred to be crazy just by himself. But the shoppers were starting to hurry, to talk more loudly and more quickly, to tug and pull at each other in all directions. A weird panic was setting in, and the people were getting frantic.

  But they were not frantic to escape, to get out of this place, to flee the other way. They were frantic to buy things, see things, hear things, handle things. They ran into the stores, began grabbing the first items they could get their hands on and shoving money and credit cards at the merchants. They talked more loudly, they laughed, they mocked, they teased in desperation. In the home entertainment store they turned up the volume on all the stereos and televisions, and hundreds of voices and little talking faces shouted and sang deafening bedlam. The shoppers laughed with relief, cowering among the shelves and rows, looking toward the screens and listening to the booming speakers, looking away from the darkness approaching.

  John kept telling himself he was having a delayed drug trip, a hallucination. That vortex, that monstrous swallowing tunnel, wasn’t really there.

  But it was so big, so terrifying, and so very close now that he was getting unnerved. He could hear it swirling and sucking, roaring like a tornado. He could see unwary people disappearing into its depths, tumbling headlong down its throat, screaming, clawing to get away, their bags and packages flying from their hands.

  And as far as John could tell, the mall was still sliding into the vortex, just like a ship going under or, worse yet, like a log being fed into a gigantic grinder.

  Now the people who would not look began to fall and tumble down the sharply inclining floor, grabbing onto benches, posts, planters, doorways, each other.

  John couldn’t hold on to the bench any longer. He slipped off the end, slid along the crazily slanted floor, and grabbed hold of a post, where he hung on for dear life.

  Shoppers, still clinging to their packages, went sliding by him. Two girls were comparing prices and colors of their new clothes as they slid by, and here came those three high school toughs, still tormenting the little guy: “Mold—ee! Mold—ee! Mold—ee!” One woman came rolling by and grabbed hold of a quaint jewelry stand in the middle of the mall. She frantically waved money at the young salesgirl, who let go of the stand to grab the money and went tumbling toward the vortex.

  Half the mall was gone now, and the vortex kept sucking, swallowing, destroying. The cavernous throat was getting closer, closer, wider than the whole mall, higher than the ceilings, unrelenting, insatiable.

  Tables, chairs, dressers went sliding by, then cameras, computers, Tim and Hank the computer salesmen still on the phone, whole racks of clothing, jewelry, knickknacks, clocks, televisions. Here came a huge portable tape player, tumbling in time to the rock music it was playing.

  John wrapped himself around that post in stark terror. Please, God, please make it stop!

  CARL BURST FROM the doors of the arena and grabbed a light pole, trying to steady himself. He’d come here to enjoy this concert, to rock out, to be a part of it.

  But he’d been scared to death.

  “HEY, MISTER, are you okay?”

  John awoke with a start. “Huh?” He was clinging to a post in the mall. A security guard was nudging his shoulder.

  The mall was still there. People were still passing by, though now the crowds were starting to thin down. There was no tilting floor, no cold wind, no black, gobbling vortex.

  Well, of course not.

  “Are you okay?” the guard asked again.

  John let go of the pole and looked himself over. “Uh . . . sure, sure . . . I’m fine.”

  The guard was looking at him suspiciously. “Well, it’s getting close to 9, closing time. If you’ve got any more business here, you’d better get done with it and then head for home, okay?”

  “Sure . . . right . . . I was just on my way out.”

  “Good.” That sounded rather emphatic.

  John looked up and down the mall. It was back to its usual, peaceful bustle, and yet . . . if he stood still, if he listened not just with his physical ears but with his soul, he could hear that rumble. It was faint, distant, behind the scenes, but it was there.

  Enough. He got out of that place and out to his car. But he wouldn’t be going home tonight. Not yet. He wondered if Mom was still awake. Pro
bably. He had to see her.

  CHAPTER 12

  JOHN SAT AT the big, round, oak table that had been in the family since he was a child. He could still see the scratches he put there with his tricycle, then his model spaceship, and then the tape deck from his car. The silverware Mom placed in front of him, and the cup from which he drank the freshly brewed coffee, were as old as his memory.

  “Can I get you anything else?”

  He couldn’t think of anything. He wasn’t thinking too well anyway.

  “How about some toast?”

  “Yeah. Okay.”

  “Peanut butter and jam sandwich?” That sounded better.

  “Yeah. Yes, please.”

  She went into the kitchen—it was divided from the dining room by a counter and some stools—and started making the sandwich. It was a special picture, her standing there at the counter, slicing the homemade bread with that same bread knife and dropping it into that same old toaster. How many times in his life had she done that for him?

  And this old, faithful kitchen! There’d been some changes over the years—new wallpaper five years ago, a microwave about that same time, and a light fixture to replace the old white globe that Dad broke with a ladder he was carrying through. But overall it hadn’t changed much. The dark walnut cabinets that Dad put up years ago still gave the kitchen its warm atmosphere. And the smell of the place, that smell John associated with home, with love, with growing up, was still there.

  Mom seemed the same too. Her hair was silver now, and her shape a little rounder, but her glow, her spirit, the depth of her love and convictions were always the same. And just as always, she was there when her son needed her.

  She finished the sandwich, sliced it in half on a plate, and set it in front of him. Then she sat quietly across the table from him just to be there. She knew he’d speak when he was ready.

  He took one bite of the sandwich and realized he wasn’t hungry. With a sigh he set the sandwich down and attempted conversation. “I’ve been having some real problems, Mom.” All right . . . Now how in the world do I describe what’s been happening to me? “I think . . . well, you remember how when I was in college, the things I was doing . . . the drugs and all that . . . well, I think—”

  The front door opened and in came Carl. John stopped abruptly, resenting the intrusion.

  Carl was visibly surprised to see his father there and didn’t seem entirely comfortable about it. “Oh . . . hi.”

  John said curtly, “I thought you were at a concert?”

  Carl crossed the living room and plopped into a chair at the table looking tired, worn, even shaken. “I walked out.”

  “Who was playing?”

  “Bloodie Mary.”

  John felt his stomach turn. Bloodie Mary. He’d seen them walk by on a T-shirt more than once tonight. His disfavor showed plainly on his face. “You’ve got nothing better to do than put your money in their pockets?”

  Carl was immediately defensive. “I left early . . . I got out of there.”

  That calmed John a little. “Well, that was a wise move.” Then another thought, brewing in his mind, broke to the surface, and he spoke it. “Boy, if I ever catch you using drugs . . . !”

  Carl got mad. “I don’t do drugs.”

  “Well, you better not or there’ll be hell to pay.”

  Mom asked quickly, “What happened tonight, John?”

  Suddenly he wasn’t as willing to talk about it. “I . . .” He looked at Carl again. “I think I had a flashback. I heard once how, if you took LSD years ago, the effects could still pop up again years later. I don’t know, but maybe that’s what’s happening. I started seeing things, having hallucinations.”

  Mom seemed intensely interested. She leaned forward and asked, “What did you see?”

  John wasn’t ready. “I don’t think I can describe it. But it scared me spitless.” He paused to gather some thoughts, any thoughts. “Maybe what triggered it was seeing all those kids virtually living in that mall, buying up all that . . . that junk as if their lives depended on it!”

  Carl asked flatly, “What else is there?”

  John gave Carl a quick warning glare and kept going while he still had the thought. “I saw . . . it seemed like a huge . . . well, there was this black hole or something, and the whole mall was sliding into it, and people were being sucked in. But it was like they didn’t want to know it, they didn’t want to see the . . . the black hole. All they wanted to do was keep buying things and keep watching the televisions and listening to the music, and they didn’t want to see what was happening, and so . . . they never got away, they just got sucked in.” John looked at them and shook his head. “I can’t describe it. It was weird, that’s all.”

  He couldn’t say any more. He took a bite from his sandwich just to fill the gap in the conversation.

  Carl thought about it for a short moment and then spoke quietly. “They’re all running. They know the black hole’s there, but what can they do about it?”

  John glared at Carl again. “What are you talking about?”

  “It’s death . . . annihilation . . . the whole universe going down the tube, and people know they can’t do anything about it, so they try not to think about it. They buy stuff—they try to have fun any way they can before they get sucked in. That’s what I meant when I said, ‘What else is there?’”

  John wasn’t in the mood for this. “Carl, I don’t want any big . . . message here . . .”

  “I just think that’s what you saw.”

  “What I saw was a hallucination.”

  “Yeah? Well, I saw something tonight.”

  John said, “Yeah, I’ll bet you did,” and took a sip of coffee.

  Carl looked away in anger. “You don’t even give a rip, do you?”

  John was ready to grapple. “Hey, I know what you saw, Carl. You’re looking at an old Hendrix fan, a Doors fan. My money helped get all that crap started. I know what you saw.” Then he added, “And yeah, maybe you’re right . . . maybe I don’t give a rip. Why should I care if you devote your time and money to . . . to cheap exhibitionism . . . contrived thrills . . . outrageous conduct and antisocial behavior?”

  “Hey, now hold on, man . . .”

  “Why should I be upset when I sit in the mall and see a nonstop parade of kids all wearing that stuff and wandering around with ten-second attention spans and then find out my son’s part of the same great tradition?”

  Carl slammed the table and cursed. “Are you going to listen to me or not?”

  “Boys!” Mom tried to caution them both.

  Carl held back on the volume but still held his finger in John’s face. “Don’t you talk to me about exhibitionism and . . . and contrived thrills and outrageous conduct! Not when you’re the one showing us the kook in England shooting everybody and the lady keeling over in the zoo and cops beating up blacks night after night and dead, burnt bodies from the war—”

  John was riled and ready to fight. “Carl, that’s news!”

  “Oh yeah? Then Bloodie Mary is art!” Carl dropped back into his chair in a huff.

  John devoted his attention to his cup of coffee.

  In that one moment of brooding silence, Mom tried hard to find something to say to build a bridge between her son and grandson. “Well, I’m glad you two are in such strong agreement.”

  Carl calmed himself and started over. “I saw something at the concert tonight and that’s why I left. Well . . . I didn’t see something . . . I just . . . thought of something.”

  John had put a check on his temper as well. “So what did you think of?”

  “You really want to know?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, tell me. I’ll listen.”

  Carl stared at the table and kept control of his voice. “Bloodie Mary . . . They were taking us somewhere. We were all going with them, we were following them, but nobody knew where.” He was playing back the memory in his mind. “Everything they told us to do, we did. Everything they did, we did. We di
d it all together. We were like one big . . . one big organism, one big machine. And I kept asking myself, Where’s this machine going? Where is it taking us? And I didn’t know. I kind of felt trapped. I just had to get out of there.”

  John mused quietly, “Use enough wattage, lights, volume, show biz . . . and brown gets moldy when it rains.”

  “Huh?”

  “They follow you.”

  Carl thought about it, then nodded. “Maybe we’re all following something and don’t even know it.”

  “And we don’t know where either.”

  A sad despair filled Carl’s eyes. “Maybe down that big black tube you saw.”

  John looked at Mom. “So you weren’t just being sarcastic, were you?”

  Mom shook her head. “I think you’re both upset about the same thing.” Then she added, “But you know what I really think? I think God’s talking to you.”

  John loved his mother. He wasn’t about to hurt her feelings. “Yeah, well, maybe so.”

  She wasn’t bluffed. She repeated, just as sure of herself, “I think God is talking to you. He’s trying to get through.”

  John smiled at her. “Okay, Mom.” He wouldn’t let himself consider what Dad had said about the cries of lost souls.

  Carl was more interested. “Grandpa was into that, wasn’t he?”

  Mom only replied, “He was very close to the Lord, yes.”

  John was quick to respond, “Well, I’m not Grandpa. I’m his son and I’m proud of it. I believe in God, but I don’t think God does things like this.”

  Mom smiled, actually amused. “Well . . . Daniel saw four great beasts coming up out of the sea, and Ezekiel saw dry bones come together to form a nation, and Peter saw unclean animals lowered from Heaven in a big sheet, and the Apostle John saw the glorified Christ and the whole book of Revelation on the Island of Patmos. Why wouldn’t the Lord want to show my son a shopping mall being gobbled up by a big vacuum cleaner?”