The Last Peak (Book 3): The Darwin Sacrifice

by William Oday

  “Take me to him! Now!” Maria said as she finally calmed down enough for Mason to release his grip. She stood there tensed like she was about to hit him again.

  “Follow me,” Mason said. He turned to Theresa. “He’s going to be okay, honey.”

  Theresa looked away. A burning fire in her chest made her want to help Maria finish the job.

  Her mom slipped in to hug her dad. “How are you doing?”

  Mason’s lips pressed together in tight lines. “Been better. Let’s go.”

  The four hurried around the edge of the crowd. The chanting rumbled through the ground underfoot. It wasn’t like anything she’d ever seen.

  The last two months had been full of new experiences.

  All of them bad.

  A ginormous crowd demanded the death of her boyfriend. You’d think it was Frankenstein in there and the townspeople had brought out their torches and pitchforks.

  They raced around to the south side of the building. The chanting quieted as they rounded the corner. The ramp of steps on this side was empty except for a few cops standing at the top by the doors.

  “He’ll be coming out there. Come on,” Mason said.

  They marched up the steps. The countless steps. As they reached the top, the doors opened and four officers led out Elio with a big purple bruise on his cheek.

  “Oh God! My baby!” Maria said as she ran to him.

  Two officers stepped forward to block her path, but Mason waved them off. They nodded and stepped aside.

  “Can you give us a few minutes?” he asked the lead officer.

  “Transport will be here soon. Until then, yes.”

  Maria touched the purple blotch on the side of Elio’s face.

  He winced in pain.

  “Oh, baby. What have they done to you?” She hugged him and he couldn’t return the gesture with his hands cuffed behind his back.

  “I’m sorry, mom,” Elio said. The words came out weak and dry.

  “Oh, my baby boy. Look at you.” She choked down a sob and turned to the surrounding officers. The tenderness vanished. Her eyes turned venomous. “What have you done to him? You should be the ones in jail!” She raised her fist to strike the nearest officer, but Mason grabbed it from behind.

  “Please, Maria. You getting arrested won’t help Elio.”

  The lead officer looked beyond them seeing something. “Time’s up.”

  Theresa turned and saw a black SUV pull up at the bottom of the steps. The vehicle that would take Elio away.

  That was bad. But it got worse.

  Because coming around the corner from the front of the building was the leading edge of the entire blood-thirsty mob.

  “Shit,” the lead officer said under his breath. “Let’s go. Double time!” He pushed Maria to the side and jerked Elio forward by the arm.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Theresa jumped in front of Elio and flung her arms around him. She pressed a kiss into his lips before strong arms encircled her waist and pulled her away. Hot tears spilled down her cheeks. She struggled against the unyielding arms. She glanced back and saw the face attached to the arms.

  Her father’s.

  The traitor.

  She fought and squirmed, no longer to escape but to claw her father’s eyes out.

  The officers charged by dragging Elio by the elbows. He stumbled and lost his footing, but they kept on going letting his shoes bump down each stair as they went. He looked like a rag doll with his head hanging low and feet dragging along behind.

  An officer emerged from the backseat door of the SUV. He glanced to his right at the approaching crowd. He waved frantically for them to get Elio down faster.

  Their haste had exactly the opposite result though because one of the cops carrying Elio hit a step wrong and sprawled forward with his arms extended out. It was like Superman, but without all the grace and ability to fly.

  With Elio no longer supported on one side, he tumbled over the feet of the fallen officer. The officer holding up his other side got pulled over and all three ended up tangled together on the steps.

  The remaining cops yanked Elio to his feet and continued the headlong rush to the SUV below. They made the last step and threw Elio in headfirst. The cop by the door dove in behind and slammed the door shut as the mob arrived.

  Bodies curled around the vehicle like a river around a boulder. Only this boulder was more like a drain because all the current flowed toward it.

  The SUV began to sway back and forth as people shoved it side to side. If it tipped over, some of them would be injured or killed, but they didn’t care. They chanted as one like they were all hypnotized.

  Kill. Kill. Kill.

  A pipe raised above the heads near Elio’s door. It hit the window again and again. A web of cracks fractured the glass. Another hit and it caved in like a sheet of aluminum foil.

  “Oh no,” Mason said. He spun her around. “Stay up here.” He turned to Beth. “All of you stay here.”

  Mason flew down the stairs taking them six or seven at a time. His feet barely touched before they sprung off again.

  Theresa started off to join him, to help Elio, but a hand grabbed hers and squeezed tight. Her mother. She pulled away but her mother held fast. “I have to help him!”

  “Trust your father.”

  Trust him? How could she?

  “Trust him.”

  With her hand still clamped onto Theresa’s, it wasn’t like she was giving her much of a choice.

  People got the door open and hauled out the officer inside. He yelled as they passed him along over their heads. He fought against their irresistible force, like a sailboat in a hurricane. A wave of tearing fingers and beating fists washed over him.

  He sank out of sight as the crowd roared.

  Kill. Kill. Kill.

  Mason crashed into the edge of the mob, now spilling up the stairs some twenty feet from the SUV. He drove through and over them like an enraged bull.

  His elbows spun in tight, sharp arcs. His fists lashed out cracking jaws and noses.

  They fell like wheat to the scythe.

  Now slowed by the press of bodies, people in his path turned to face him only to crumble under the assault.

  The cruel aggression shocked her.

  She’d never seen him like this.

  A dark force of nature. The closest echo had been when he killed Cesar.

  But that had been a reaction. An unavoidable answer to the direct threat Cesar posed. It made sense.

  This was different.

  He savaged them without mercy.

  The people next to the SUV dragged Elio out.

  The crowd chanted faster and faster as Elio appeared. They lifted him above their heads like a sacrificial offering. A raising to the gods before they bore him down and beat the life out of him. Hands ripped at his clothes and skin leaving both tattered and torn. The grasping hands pulled and passed him overhead.

  He ended up behind the SUV when her father finally broke through.

  Mason beat the people clinging to Elio until their desire to live overcame their desire to kill. He pushed Elio up the back of the SUV and onto the roof. He scrambled up behind and knelt beside him. He drew a gun from inside his torn suit coat and pointed it into the air.

  BANG.

  BANG.

  BANG.

  BANG.

  Those nearest the SUV surged back as the gunshots drowned out and ended the bloodthirsty chant.

  The cops in black riot gear rounded the corner of the building and charged into the rear of the mob. Protected behind clear plastic shields and swinging heavy, black batons, they soon drew all the attention.

  The will of the mob dissolved to chaos.

  The cops drove forward in an arrow formation. The point thrusting through and the edges sweeping aside bodies.

  Mason banged on the roof of the SUV. “Go! Go! Go!”

  The SUV lurched forward into the open space created by the gunshots. It rolled forward as p
eople fought to avoid being run over.

  The tip of the arrow drove deeper and the officers behind created an open corridor facing outwards on each side, still swinging at those that challenged them.

  With the lane cleared, the SUV surged forward. Mason grabbed the roof rack to avoid being thrown off. He kept the pistol raised and ready to fire, his eyes scanning all around. The SUV jumped over a curb and disappeared around the corner.

  Relief washed over Theresa.

  Yet, horror did too. Her jaw hung open in disbelief. All of the people her father had mauled lay below in varying degrees of recovery. Some were getting up. Others were moving but not trying to get up. And a few were not moving at all.

  She turned to her mother with a question in her eyes.

  Did you know this about him?

  Beth nodded. “Your father did what he had to do.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  ELIO stared out the side window of the SUV as the towering arches of the Golden Gate Bridge swept by. He’d never cared enough to wonder before, but shouldn’t it have been called the Orange Gate Bridge or Rust Gate Bridge? After all, it was somewhere between orange and brown, not yellow or gold like the name implied.

  It was like the old joke about who was buried in Grant’s Tomb. President Grant, of course. But if the people that named this bridge named his tomb, it would’ve been Lincoln’s Tomb, or anyone else’s that didn’t make sense.

  The odd thought skipped by and faded away. He had more important things to consider.

  Like why was his life cursed?

  Like why every time it felt like things were getting a little better, they suddenly went to shit again?

  Like where the hell were they taking him?

  Like why did Mason save him only to let him be taken away?

  He had a lot of questions, and no one was offering any answers that didn’t involve a slap to the head and a threat of worse if he didn’t shut up.

  They followed the highway north another fifteen minutes and then exited. They drove through an abandoned town and then drove past a sign that read Muir Woods National Park. The road curved back and forth winding deeper into a forest of towering redwoods.

  In no time, he lost all sense of direction.

  Call it the curse of a city boy, but he didn’t know directions without a nearby highway carving up the landscape.

  This was forest. Deep forest. Endor style.

  And it was dark. Spooky dark.

  He stared up at the canopy hundreds of feet above. Green leaves rimmed in gold soaked up the evening light leaving little to find its way to the forest floor below.

  You’re being moved for your own security.

  That’s what the DA had told him and, considering how close that mob had come to tearing him apart, he had to agree. But getting shipped off to some unknown place that reminded him of Jurassic Park didn’t exactly inspire confidence that his situation was improving.

  They followed yet another bend in the road and a closed metal gate appeared ahead. They slowed to a stop as an old man wearing brown robes with a shaved head stepped onto the road to meet them.

  What was a monk doing out here in the middle of nowhere?

  A hand-painted sign nailed into a huge redwood next to the gate said Divine Mercy Monastery. Below that said Where the Penitent Earn Forgiveness.

  They were going to keep him at some kind of monastery?

  That couldn’t be too bad. Could it?

  “Fucking fruitcake,” the officer driving said under his breath. He rolled down the window as the old man in robes approached.

  The aged monk leaned in and looked around the interior. He spotted Elio and nodded. “We’re expecting you.” He turned and waved at the gate as if expecting it to open by magic.

  Two more monks materialized out of the forest like water colors bleeding over canvas. These two were different. They were much younger and carried none of the feebleness of the old one. But they did carry something else.

  Guns.

  Black, military style rifles hung from slings over their shoulders. The ease with which they held their weapons combined with the explicitly belligerent look in their eyes sent a chill down Elio’s spine.

  What kind of a monastery was this?

  One of the younger monks unlocked the gate and dragged it out of the way. The SUV pulled forward and Elio swore he caught the other armed monk flash a wicked grin as they passed.

  They followed the winding road deeper into the forest until they came to a large clearing with numerous single story buildings. All of them looked like they’d seen better days. Warped siding bubbled up where water damage had gotten into the walls. Numerous faded and peeling layers of different colored paint recorded their age, much like the rings in a tree stump.

  A dozen bald monks stood in a half-circle, each holding a blazing lantern in hand. The whole scene looked straight out of a Hollywood horror flick.

  The SUV eased to a stop. The officer sitting next to him got out and dragged Elio out. He looked around nervously holding him at arm’s length. “Who do I turn him over to?”

  It was obvious he wanted nothing more than to get the hell out of there.

  Elio couldn’t have agreed more.

  None of the monks spoke, but they turned as one and stared in the direction of one of the buildings as a door screeched open. From the darkness within, a ghost in black robes appeared. He stepped into the circle of lantern light and turned to Elio.

  And that was when Elio knew things had gone from desperate to doomed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The warm light of the lanterns revealed a face that left Elio trembling with fear. His legs were numb and rubbery, like they were at once both detached and yet humming with feeling. He tried to swallow but the rock clogging his throat wouldn’t budge. Crickets chirping in the surrounding forest grew louder and louder, until their thunderous racket bore down on him like a suffocating weight.

  The air itself thickened into sand.

  The flickering light cast a horrifying relief on the apparition in black. Like all the others, he was bald, though his lack of hair didn’t appear totally voluntary. The skin on some of his head and half his face was blotchy and warped. The lesions wept clear fluid in places, blood in others.

  The man wore a leather cord necklace with a small gold cross hanging down over the inky robe. None of the other monks sported adornments of any kind. Their bald heads and brown robes made them almost interchangeable.

  “Go,” the man in black said in a hard voice.

  The officer jumped into the SUV and it spun around kicking up dirt. One minute they were there and the next they were gone.

  He was all alone.

  No. Worse.

  He wasn’t alone.

  “Praise the Lord,” the scarred man said as he kissed the cross hanging from his neck. “I am the Burned One, He who died and yet lived, the one true prophet of the Almighty. You may call me Father Roberts.”

  He paused, his gaze boring into Elio like a diamond-coated drill bit.

  Elio tried to look away, to cast his eyes in any direction other than the current one. A voice in his mind screamed to turn away before it shattered. Before his sanity cracked like an egg.

  And yet, he couldn’t move. His will was not his own.

  “You are here to repent of your sins. To seek His Divine Mercy. It is only through His grace that redemption can be found.” Father Roberts turned and gestured at all the monks gathered round. “As are all who live in these, the End of Times.”

  “Amen,” the brown-robed monks spoke in unison.

  “What is your name?”

  Elio stood there in frozen terror.

  A searing white pain lanced across his cheek.

  He blinked in shock and touched his fingertips to the wet warmth there.

  Father Roberts held out a long whip that ended in a thin strip of leather. He touched the tip to Elio’s forehead letting it cascade down his face. “You will answer when ask
ed a question.” He lowered the whip to his side. “What is your name?”

  “Elio Lopez.”

  A lance of fire streaked across Elio’s other cheek. He moved so fast Elio barely saw it, much less had time to respond.

  “No,” Father Roberts said. “Your name is Beelzebub, the Fallen One. You come to us with the devil in your heart, with black stains upon your soul.”

  Despite Elio’s terror, despite his pain, despite the multitude of reasons that said he should remain silent and subservient, an indignant fire flared in his chest.

  Why was he here?

  He’d done nothing! Nothing!

  It wasn’t that he didn’t care that people got hurt or killed. It was just that he didn’t do it and nobody seemed to care about that fact.

  If the briefcase had been involved in the bombing, it wasn’t his fault. He’d done nothing more than do his job by delivering it as directed. Unfortunately, the DA didn’t agree and the crowd that nearly killed him definitely had him pegged as guilty.

  And now he was here—wherever that was—getting whipped by a disfigured lunatic?

  “I didn’t do anything, Goddammit!”

  The monks surrounding Father Roberts sucked in their breath as one.

  Good. The heat of his anger warmed his chest.

  The lashing whip cut across his shoulders with speed and ferocity. Elio shrieked in agony. The whipping continued until he crumpled to the ground.

  “Blasphemy will not be tolerated in this holy place!” Father Roberts stared down breathing hard from his exertion with the whip.

  “Brothers, prepare the altar.”

  A couple of the monks pulled Elio to his feet and then dragged him across the clearing. He couldn’t see where they were taking him because he didn’t have the strength to lift his head. He was done. Drained. Ready to die. Wishing he was already dead.

  The two monks holding him up stopped and Elio managed to lift his head. Icy dread settled in his gut.

  The altar was some kind of rudimentary table propped up at an angle. The naked figure strapped to it had the caked hair and filthy body typical of a delta. But the resemblance stopped there. This recently deceased woman, delta or not, spoke a silent tale of unimaginable suffering before the welcome release of death claimed her. Her legs ended in gory stumps above the ankle. A brown cross that looked like dried blood anointed her forehead.