The Darkest Path

by Jeff Hirsch

  A helicopter came in over the treetops, heading for the front. I stepped back and then made my way quickly through the streets, past the houses and the woods and the ragged little town. The next thing I knew, I was crouching in the brush outside the perimeter of Kestrel. I found the break in the fence and slipped through and across the silent camp.

  I fell into a bunk and lay there sleepless, hoping I had the strength to carry out the plan that was clicking together in my head.

  22

  When Beacon Radcliffe arrived at the Lighthouse the next morning, he found me feigning sleep at the tent’s entrance.

  “Son?”

  His hand touched my arm. I leapt away in terror. “I’m sorry, sir,” I said, cowering away from him. “I didn’t mean to—”

  “It’s all right,” he said, backing off with his hands up to reassure me. “Don’t be afraid.”

  He took a step closer and held out his hand. I regarded it warily for a moment and then reached out to take it.

  “Rough place to sleep,” he said as he pulled me up. I shrugged and kept my eyes on the ground. “There’s a little time before services still. Why don’t you come in?”

  Radcliffe threw aside the tent flap and I peered inside.

  “Come on,” he said. “It’s all right.”

  I stepped through the tent flap, moving hesitantly like I expected someone to come along and strike me at any moment. Radcliffe followed and let the opening fall back into place. There were already a few lanterns burning, filling the Lighthouse with an amber glow. He set his copy of The Glorious Path on the altar and said a prayer.

  The place had changed since I’d been there just the night before. A stage had been built beneath the altar, raising it high above several added rows of pews. Racks of folding chairs sat in one corner, ready to be placed behind them. When they were, I guessed the Lighthouse would hold a hundred more people than usual.

  “Is there something going on tonight?”

  Radcliffe looked over his shoulder. “Oh. Yes. There’s a… special service. I’m sorry to say that very few novices will be invited.”

  “Oh. Okay. Well, I can go if you need to—”

  “No. Please. How can I help you, ah…”

  “James,” I said.

  “There’s no need to be afraid, James. Sit down. Please.”

  I took a seat in the second row of pews, and Radcliffe sat in front of me. He was a kindly enough looking man, plump, and bald on top with a weathered face. I looked up at a brand-new Glorious Path symbol hanging over the altar. The old one had been brass and aluminum. This one’s gold and silver curves gleamed in the lantern light.

  “Couldn’t you sleep in the barracks?”

  I kept my eyes on the altar and made my voice far away and dreamy. “It was fine, I just — I guess I felt… drawn here.”

  The beacon smiled. “Yes. I feel like that too,” he said. “I used to be an accountant. Can you believe that? I sat at a desk all day long, looking at pages of numbers and fiddling with a computer. Now I never want to be more than ten feet from this place.” Radcliffe looked down at my cast and my old bruises. “You were badly hurt when we found you. Sick too.”

  I nodded, cradling my broken wrist and wincing as I did it.

  “What happened?”

  “There was a battle,” I said. “Not far from where I lived. After it was over, there were so many injured people but there was only one doctor. He used to work for my dad, so I got this cast, but everyone else… they waited for more doctors to come, from the Army or the government, I guess, but no one did.”

  Radcliffe shook his head. “It doesn’t seem fair, does it?”

  I stared at the floor and answered him with silence.

  “Why did you come here, James?”

  My head throbbed at the sound of the name. Why had I chosen it? “Some of the other men said they had to make a… a…”

  “A choice.”

  “Yes. They said when it came time for me to do it, I should just tell you whatever you wanted to hear because you’d hurt me if I didn’t.”

  “And do you think that’s true? Do you think that’s how it works?”

  I raised my shoulders weakly. “The doctors told me I might have died if you hadn’t been there to save me.”

  “Well, I’m glad we could be, then,” he said. “There are a lot of rumors about the Choice. But do you know what it really is?”

  I shook my head, and Beacon Radcliffe turned toward me on his pew.

  “We believe there is a light inside all of us that comes from God. The Choice is simply you committing yourself to following the path that it illuminates.”

  “How do I… ?”

  Beacon Radcliffe returned to the altar for his copy of The Glorious Path. He kissed its cover and whispered a prayer before opening it in his lap.

  “All you have to do is repeat after me.”

  Radcliffe read from the book, and I repeated all he said back to him, making sure to fill the words with all of the cautious reverence I could muster. As I spoke, I felt a strange doubling inside me, like past and present were synching together.

  When I was done, Beacon Radcliffe smiled warmly and I returned his smile in kind. He said I should go get something to eat before duty but that I’d be welcome in his Lighthouse anytime. He left me then, returning to his book and his altar.

  I stayed in my pew, staring up at the Path symbol. “I am the Way and the Path,” I said, full of devotion, and just loud enough for Radcliffe to hear. When he turned back to me I left my pew and headed up the aisle.

  “Wait!”

  I froze in place, making sure to erase my smile before I turned back.

  “The service tonight,” he said. “I think perhaps we can make an exception. Be here at seven.”

  • • •

  After morning mess and prayers, Corporal Connors led us up the hill to the site of our newly dug pit and set us to building the latrine structure around it. On one trip across the hill to fetch a bucket of nails, I found myself looking down at the Lighthouse.

  Thirty or forty soldiers had surrounded it, followed close behind by several horse-drawn wagons. As soon as the wagons were parked, the soldiers threw themselves into the task of unloading them. More canvas. More folding chairs. The walls of the Lighthouse were taken down and half the soldiers set about expanding it to nearly twice its size.

  Even though no announcement had been made, everyone knew something big was happening. An electric tension jumped from person to person in the camp.

  Was Nat watching the preparations too? Or was she serving meals and tending to the sick with the vest strapped under her robe, sweating beneath the weight of the explosives? Was there any part of her that wished she’d be caught and stopped before she could step into the Lighthouse and press that trigger?

  I worked the rest of the day in a dream, floating from one assignment to the next. It felt like barely any time had passed before the sun began to sink into the trees and Corporal Connors led us off the hill and down to the barracks.

  The Lighthouse towered in front of me. The flaps were drawn back, and inside I could see the ranks of chairs, split by a razor-sharp aisle that led to the raised altar. The Path insignia glowed in the candlelight. I shuddered and imagined Nat standing before it in her white robes, her finger falling on the trigger, felt the breathless moment before the detonation.

  “Okay, everybody. Showers. Let’s go.”

  The men around me moved with a weary groan, but I was distracted by a flash of white as a group of companions moved across the camp. They were heading toward the soldiers’ barracks, and as they passed a wooded rise near the outer fence, one companion drifted away from the group unnoticed. As the rest continued on, she climbed the hill and disappeared among the trees.

  “Hey. Kid. Let’s move.”

  “I… I’m having a hard time, sir,” I said, looking up at Corporal Connors, with one hand clutching my middle. “I’m wondering if I might run to the med ten
t.”

  “We got a schedule kicking into high gear here.”

  “I know, sir. I won’t miss anything. I’m on Path, I promise.”

  Connors considered a moment, then waved me away. I moved slowly until he got the men into the barracks and then I skated around behind the med tent and climbed the hill.

  The trees at the top were few but thick and gave a small umbrella of shade. I crossed into the shadowed ground, and Nat turned at my footsteps. She was still in her companion’s whites. The backpack lay at her feet.

  “My mother trained me to fight since I was six, Cal. If you think you can take it from me—”

  “I don’t.”

  “You can’t talk me out of it, either.”

  “I know.”

  “So why are you here?”

  I took a step back and then found a place near the edge of the hill among the roots of a nearby oak. Below, soldiers poured from their duty stations to the barracks and the mess. Lit from within by scores of flickering candles, the Lighthouse glowed. There was a pause and then a rustle of fabric as Nat crossed the hilltop.

  “Where’s Bear?”

  Nat was standing alongside a nearby tree with the backpack at her feet.

  “Had to give him up.”

  “Oh,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

  She sat down and pulled the backpack close to her. It was gray with black piping and a small logo, no different from one a thousand kids threw on their backs before jumping onto a school bus.

  “Did they make it out?” she asked. “Alec and the others?”

  I shook my head. “Alec is dead. Two of the soldiers too. I think the others made it.”

  There was a sharp draw to her breath but Nat said nothing. Her fingers went white on the straps of the pack as she pulled at them and looked down at the camp.

  “How did you get into the service?” I asked.

  “They always want a few companions around to do their bidding. I played the pious game until I got an invite.”

  Bells within the Lighthouse began to chime and the first wave of soldiers responded, flowing from the mess toward the open tent. Soon the novices would follow and then the companions.

  “Do you know when you’ll do it?” I asked.

  “As soon as he gets on the stage.”

  “Too many people will be watching then,” I said. “After he speaks he’ll probably do the Receiving. Security will be expecting people to come up, and by the time the companions get there, they won’t be paying as much attention. That’s the best time.”

  Nat stared at me a moment and then she nodded and hooked her fingers beneath the backpack’s straps. When she stood, she pressed one shoulder into the oak beside her to steady herself. I followed her into the copse of trees, where it was nearly dark and smelled richly of grass and honeysuckle. Nat set the pack at her feet. Her hands trembled as she unzipped it and lifted out the vest.

  “Let me help you,” I said.

  Nat hesitated a moment and then handed me the vest. She lifted her arms up over her head and I stepped forward, lowering it onto her shoulders. I tightened each strap until it fit her like a second skin. Next came the explosives. I lifted each brick and slipped it into its slot in the vest’s pockets. I did the sides and the front and then the back.

  “The detonator,” Nat said. “It’s in the front pocket.”

  I pulled out the battery pack and a tangle of wires that ended in the trigger. Nat turned around and I paused, staring at the connections. Maybe if I could find a way to disable it now, then I wouldn’t have to—

  “Is everything okay?”

  “It’s fine,” I said. “I’m just adjusting the—”

  “Let me.”

  Nat turned around and took the battery and trigger from me. She stepped away and finished up herself, tucking the battery into a pocket at the small of her back and running the wires into their channels. When she was done, she pointed to her robe and I helped her with it. Once it was back on, the bomb was invisible beneath its snowy folds.

  Nat looked up at me. She was shaking now, her veil in one hand, and the bomb’s trigger in the other. Down below us the Lighthouse bells chimed. There was no breath in my lungs. My blood had gone still.

  “Do you believe in God, Cal?”

  My throat tightened. I didn’t know the answer. Didn’t know what to say.

  “I thought after Mom and Dad and Steve, I would stop,” Nat said. “But I didn’t.”

  Nat’s tears came silently, sliding down her face and darkening the collar of her robe. I put my arms around her and pulled her toward me. She dropped her forehead onto my shoulder. Her breath was hot on my neck and ragged. I could feel her heart pounding through the plates in the vest.

  “Maybe we can still go,” I said. “We know the way out. Maybe there’s still time to—”

  “No,” she said. “There’s no more time.”

  Nat raised her head and kissed me, her fingers curled into my back as she pulled me tight against her and I pressed her closer to me. When the bells rang again, Nat broke away. Her eyes closed tight as if she was making one last desperate wish. When she opened them again, they were dry and clear. Her hands no longer shook.

  Nat lifted her veil and set it down to cover her face. Her robes fluttered behind her as she descended the hill and walked out into the camp.

  23

  I fell in behind a few citizens crossing from their barracks toward the Lighthouse. They were all talking excitedly, but I was thousands of miles away in my head.

  “Have you heard, brother? They say he’s come to see us. They say it’s Nathan Hill.”

  “Glory to the Path.”

  “Glory.”

  And then I was inside and the flaps were closing, trapping us in air that ran thick and hot. The first rows of pews were already full with soldiers, all of them with board-straight backs and heads held high. Only three other novices were considered devout enough to attend and I was moved with them into a precise row behind the citizens.

  The temperature inside seemed to mount every second along with the waves of voices rising and falling. You could hear the intensity packed behind every word. The soldiers and most of the novices were practically vibrating, threatening to shake the very walls down to the dirt. It became harder and harder to breathe.

  A blast of cool air washed through the space. Everyone turned as the tent flap lifted and a band of veiled white moved into the theater and took their places behind the men. Nat was standing on the aisle. There was no bend to her; her shoulders were thrown back, her head was up, staring resolutely at the stage. Her right hand, the one that held the trigger, was down by her side, closed in a fist.

  Behind the companions, two armed guards stood on either side of the tent flap, their hands on the sleek black of their weapons. Weapons outside of the ops center, much less in the Lighthouse, were forbidden. They clearly weren’t taking any chances. I turned, sure to keep a look of religious awe on my face as I searched out the rest of the guards.

  There were three along each wall and one at either side of the stage. I recognized some from Kestrel, but others were strangers to me. Hill’s private security forces, I guessed. I scanned their faces, all of them filled with the same unyielding focus, until one stopped me cold.

  He was standing at the edge of the stage. Average height, sunburned skin, dark hair. Unremarkable. That was, until he turned and I saw the scar along his cheek. Then, I saw him not as he was but as he had been, standing in the midst of a desert, a mad gleam in his eyes as he raised a baseball bat to his ear and let it fall.

  Rhames.

  My skin went cold. Of course. Cormorant housed the top special forces the Path had, most of whom were focused singularly on the overthrow of California. Now that it had fallen, where else would they be but by the leader’s side?

  Cormorant is here, I thought, and then, with a jolt, Is James?

  I had no time to wonder. There was a rustle of uniforms as the soldiers snapped to attention. T
he theater fell silent. Every eye was on the stage.

  There was no fanfare. No warning. He simply emerged from the darkness at the back of the stage and walked toward us, the glowing Path insignia over his head. No one clapped. No one breathed.

  I had seen Nathan Hill in pictures and had heard him described in awed detail by the people who had been in his presence, but still I wasn’t prepared for the experience of being less than fifty feet from him. I don’t think anyone was. I heard a sharp intake of breath beside me, and when I turned, a bald man I had entered the theater with was weeping.

  Hill had the kind of face that seemed ageless. It was unlined, almost boyish, but wise and deeply troubled at the same time. His eyes were dark blue beneath gently curving brows and waves of red-brown hair. Peaking out from the collar of his uniform I could see the topmost edge of the burn scars he received in Saudi Arabia. Everyone said they covered the whole of his back and arms and chest.

  But none of those details really meant anything. He could have been tall or he could have been blond. It would have made no difference. Something radiated off of him — a force, gentle as the wind, but overwhelming. Even I felt calm descend upon me as he looked out over us. It was a feeling of rightness, of certainty, of being one of the few people who had the honor to be standing at the axis of the world.

  I held my breath as he began to speak.

  “With these words, I consecrate my life to the Glorious Path.”

  The congregation repeated his words back with one voice.

  “God, lead me to my Path. Let me be a light in the darkness and the rod that falls upon the backs of the defiant. The lives of my brothers and the lives of the Pathless are in my hands. If I allow them to fall into the darkness, then so must I. Their loss is my loss. Their death is my death.”

  Hill opened his eyes and looked up at us again, his full lips turned up in a smile.

  “A lot of very smart people told me not to come here tonight,” he said. “And since I know they’re smart, I guess it follows that I must be monumentally stupid.”