by A. M. Geever
“Finn is your son,” Connor said.
“He is. Like all young men, he is headstrong, but he will learn.” Jeremiah turned to Finn. “See that Our friends are given baths and sustenance and left to rest undisturbed.” He returned his attention to Doug. “I welcome you and your companions to New Jerusalem. With Our guidance, your eyes will be opened to Heavenly Father’s plan for you.”
“If Finn and Dalton had not come when they did, we’d be dead. We’ll never forget that,” Doug answered.
Jeremiah’s smile was small and tight. “You are most welcome, but any praise belongs to the Heavenly Father alone.”
When he didn’t say more, Finn said, “I will see to providing for Your guests, Father. If—”
“Finn,” Jeremiah interrupted. “I trust you saw Tamara?”
Finn went rigid. The change in his body language was so marked that for a moment Connor thought he was having some sort of fit.
“Yes, Father,” he answered, sounding like he was trying to keep his voice neutral, but he wasn’t able to pull it off.
Jeremiah regarded his son with a nasty gleam in his eye. “Tamara seems troubled. We would have you bring her to Us in an hour’s time. We desire your presence as We pray with her to discern what might be amiss with Our daughter.”
Finn looked stricken. The color drained from his face. His lips pressed together so tight that they barely moved when he said, “As the Prophet commands.”
They stopped at the infirmary to drop Seffie off; she had started to feel faint, and co-ed facilities were not an option in New Jerusalem anyway. Both Miranda and Mario were asleep; checking in would have to wait until morning. Back in their guest quarters, Connor literally had to bite his tongue to keep from speaking before the attendant left them alone to go check on the promised baths.
“What do you think?” Connor asked
Doug started to laugh, but without mirth. “Apart from the obvious?”
“Do you think he might be immune?”
“I think he had a psychotic break that included a one-way ticket to Cuckooville,” Mike said.
Doug bit his bottom lip. Connor had noticed he did so when he was thinking.
“Well,” he said, “either he had a psychotic break and is immune, or he had a psychotic break and went on to become your garden variety megalomaniac cult leader, which I think is more likely. I think it’s safe to say he’s never going to get the mental health care he needs.”
“Those Hollow Man symbols are everywhere, on every door and gate,” Connor said. “What the hell is that?”
“Reminders,” Mike said.
“You’re right,” Doug said, nodding his head. “They’re a good way to reinforce his appalling theology and keep people scared. I didn’t think we could be more screwed than when we were trapped in that house.”
“Did you see the way Finn reacted when his father started talking about that girl?” Mike asked.
Doug nodded. “Finn might be helpful. We’ll have to sound him out.”
Mike said, “These people blew up the road. I’d bet my life on it. Anyone taking 17 to Santa Cruz has to turn back at that point and take one of the mountain roads if they don’t turn back. Roads that just happen to push you in this direction.”
“And if you abandon your vehicle, there are traps set in the forest,” Doug added. At Mike’s quizzical look, he added, “When Connor and I went into the forest he was almost caught in a net. If there’s no one else up here, they must belong to these people.”
“He assumes we’re staying,” Doug continued. “How else have they kept their existence secret unless anyone who ends up here can’t leave? He’s so fucking nuts he probably believes God is sending people to him.”
“He can’t be holding everyone here against their will,” Mike countered.
Below, the moans of the zombies swelled and receded. A shiver tickled down Connor’s spine.
Doug shuddered. “I guess it’s background noise for the people who live here but that moaning…” Doug’s voice trailed off. “Son of a bitch, they don’t have to force people to stay! Think about it. You’ve just been miraculously rescued and there are zombies down below, moaning day and night. I couldn’t believe it when I saw there’s no palisade around the area underneath the village. That’s one of the first things I’d do, but they don’t have one.”
Connor looked at Doug, then Mike. “I guess it goes without saying that we need to get out of here fast.”
Doug shrugged his shoulders, a helpless gesture. “I don’t see how we can. Miranda’s leg, she can’t walk on it. And Mario… The guy’s been shot, exploded, run a half marathon, and almost dislocated his shoulder trying to keep himself and Seffie from falling off a roof in the last forty-eight hours alone. If he doesn’t get some rest, I don’t know how long he’ll stay in one piece.”
All three men jumped when a knock sounded against the door. A moment later it opened, and the attendant’s head appeared.
“The bath is ready, sirs, if one of you is ready.”
“I can wait,” Connor said to Doug.
“You’re the fearless leader,” Mike added.
“And it’s such a glamour job,” Doug muttered as he headed for the door.
Connor unbuckled the weapons belt that held his handgun, machete, and hunting knife, casting it aside. He lay back on the cot and turned the discussion over in his mind, wondering what they had missed and what they did not know yet as he fought the pull of sleep.
“Mike, do you—” he began, then stopped. Mike was already out cold.
Being horizontal made Connor aware of just how exhausted he was. It was definitely better being here than ending up as zombie fodder, but New Jerusalem had lost its Swiss Family Robinson charm. Connor thought about the girl and Finn. He didn’t know how they fit into all of this, but it was part and parcel of the Prophet’s insanity. Connor was sure of it.
41
A bright sunlit room and a damp piney smell—definitely not home. Mario opened his eyes a little more and looked at the roughly hewn timbers of the ceiling. Right, tree house people. He pushed aside the woven wool blanket and sheet that covered him and sat up. His ribs screamed.
In the corner, a fire crackled inside the wood-burning stove, the radiating heat making the room almost comfortable. Two more cots were lined up perpendicular to the wall before a screen blocked Mario’s view. Above every cot hung a flat wooden figure with arms held high, outlined in white, a crucifix of some sort. Mario looked around but did not see Miranda anywhere.
He cradled his injured arm, now in a sling, against his body. His arm and shoulder hurt even more than before, which he had not thought possible. He shuffled to the other side of the screen where he found three more cots. A young girl lay asleep in the cot farthest away from the screen. The middle cot had the blankets tucked, but not neatly. Maybe Seffie had slept there, but she was not around now. Miranda slept in the cot next to the screen.
Her leg was propped high to help the swelling. He remembered something about no ice, and he’d bathed after being examined, then changed into the pajama-like clothes he now wore. He must have conked out almost immediately after being steered into bed because he did not remember anything after finishing a cup of bitter-tasting tea that the doctor had given him. He’d drunk it only after being assured that the others would at least stop by the infirmary again after meeting this Prophet.
Miranda’s foot stuck out beyond the edge of the blanket, but a thick wooly sock had been put over it. Even with the sock, he could tell the swelling in her ankle was bad. Delilah opened a curious eye from where she lay under Miranda’s cot before her tail began thumping against the floor. She rose and nuzzled Mario’s hands and knees in greeting. Mario fussed over her quietly, scratching her ears and getting a few kisses in return, before she went back to guard her mistress.
You always were a faithful one, Liley, he thought, a faint smile touching his lips as he sat in the cot opposite Miranda.
Mario studied M
iranda’s face as she slept. Dark smudges ringed her eyes, her cheeks flushed bright pink. Her brow furrowed slightly and her lip pursed in a pout, like she was figuring something out as she dreamed. The buzz cut cast her head in a red-gold glow. Mario resisted the urge to rub his hand over it. He’d only wake her up, and with how things were between them, she’d likely break his hand.
“You’d never think she’s such a pain in the ass to look at her now,” he sighed.
“Really?”
Mario startled, then looked up to see the doctor standing beside him. “I didn’t think anyone was here,” he said, rising to his feet. The doctor motioned for him to follow her to the examination area.
“How is she?” he asked.
“A severely sprained knee and ankle, maybe some ligament involvement. I’m pretty certain she has a hairline fracture of the tibia given the severity of swelling, and since she can’t tolerate any weight, but without an x-ray that’s just an educated guess.” The doctor shrugged. “Either way, she’ll be off her feet for at least a week to ten days.”
“A whole week?”
“At least. I didn’t design the human body. I just give the bad news.”
She directed him to an exam table and helped pull his shirt over his head. “How are you feeling?”
“Better, but still exhausted,” Mario answered. “How long was I asleep?”
“Almost twenty hours.” She grinned at his surprised expression. It made her look almost pretty.
Mario submitted to pokes and prods, requests for deep breaths, and to follow her finger with his eyes without moving his head. Bethany (she had to remind him of her name) seemed to be in her forties and told him she was a pediatrician. Her blond hair was shot through with gray, but the silvery, pretty kind, pulled back in a bun. She was friendly and even displayed touches of humor, but the smiles never quite reached her faded denim-blue eyes.
She found more tender spots than the night before as she palpated the shoulder and elbow of his injured arm, pointing out how swollen they were. Mario had not noticed, but it seemed like every part of his body hurt.
“Your elbow and shoulder are some of the worst sprains I’ve seen. Is this the arm you used to catch the girl who fell off the roof?” Bethany asked as she inspected his gunshot wound.
Mario nodded rather than try to talk around the mercury thermometer Bethany had stuck in his mouth.
“Any longer and I think your shoulder would have dislocated. You’re going to have to wear this arm in a sling for a week or so. I’ll irrigate this wound again in a few hours.”
She took the thermometer from his mouth, then frowned. “Hundred point two. Your temperature hasn’t gone down.” Her voice quieted to almost a whisper. “If I had antibiotics, I’d give you some.”
“I have some in my pack.”
“Shh!” Bethany’s face clouded over. She shot a furtive look at the far side of the room, where Miranda and the girl slept. “Keep your voice down. Pills or injectable?”
“Both,” Mario answered, beginning to feel wary.
“Don’t tell anyone you have them,” she said, her voice just shy of a whisper. “You have syringes? Are they glass?”
Her voice brimmed with tempered hope. At his nod, her face lit up just for a moment before she shot another furtive look at the girl in the cot, then at the door. “Where are they in your pack?”
“I’ll get them,” Mario said, now fully on guard. He began to climb down from the exam table.
“No. Stay there in case someone comes in.”
It was the look on her face that made him agree. She looked scared. Mario told her the color of the antibiotic vials, since they were different than the serum vials. Bethany pulled two mugs from a cupboard and put a spoonful of what looked like dried herbs in both. She filled a small camping-style enameled kettle from a pitcher on the windowsill.
She spoke softly as she walked by. “To sterilize,” she said, leaving what needed sterilizing unsaid. At a regular volume, she said, “Let’s have tea.”
Mario’s mind raced as he watched her cross to the wood-burning stove and set the kettle on it before continuing over to his cot. Bethany was making tea as cover? She had been excited that the syringes were glass. You can sterilize glass and use it again, he thought. Plastic syringes were impossible to sterilize but had been cheaper in the old world, the disposable world of single-use everything. Bethany spoke softly but never whispered. She must know that whispers carry more than a lowered voice.
First Doug’s warning about not leaving Miranda or Seffie alone, and now a doctor who acted as if she was being spied on and didn’t want anyone to know about antibiotics and syringes.
What the hell have we gotten ourselves into?
Mario heard Bethany rifling through his things before she reappeared from behind the screen a moment later with her hands tucked in the slightly bulging pockets of her smock. She crossed back to the counter where the cups were, gave the sleeping girl a quick glance, using her body to block the drawer she opened. Mario craned his neck and saw her remove a false back. She stuffed everything inside, including a flash of red.
She had taken the serum vials.
Bethany looked over to him, as if she sensed the angry protest he didn’t dare let pass his lips.
“I took everything,” she said when she was beside him again. “I’m surprised they haven’t searched your packs already.”
Mario glanced at the sleeping girl. Bethany’s paranoia was infectious.
“Where’s Miranda’s pack?”
“She didn’t have one.”
“Yes, she did,” he insisted.
Bethany shook her head, adamant. “She only had the dog.”
She’s right, Mario realized, his heart sinking. Doug had her pack.
Bethany slid the false back into place and pushed the drawer shut, then rejoined him at the exam table.
“You have more than antibiotics there.”
Mario didn’t reply.
She let it go, willing to let him keep his secret. She picked up the wraparound smock he had been wearing and said, as if the last two minutes had never happened, “Let’s get you back into this.”
Mario grabbed the smock. “What the hell is going on here?”
Bethany shook her head. “I can’t, not here.”
She pulled the smock from his hand and held it up. Mario stuck his good arm through the sleeve and let Bethany wrap and tie the smock shut around his bound arm. She looked over at Miranda, then back again.
“You two had a fight?”
“What makes you think that?” Mario asked, utterly bewildered at the abrupt change of topic.
“Besides the spectacular bruises on your face and her banged-up hand? She sat on the cot next to yours last night after you went to sleep. She had the same look on her face that you did earlier.”
Mario looked over at Miranda, still asleep, her head sunk deep in a pillow. She had watched him last night while he slept? After the way she had flipped out on him yesterday—who was he kidding, after the way he had flipped out on her—he found that hard to believe.
“You could say that.”
“So you and she—”
The door to the infirmary opened. Bethany turned toward the new arrival. A pale man, about six feet tall with a wiry build and wearing a white long-sleeved tunic, entered the infirmary. His garments were made of a finely woven linen-type fabric, not the homespun everyone else seemed to wear. Mario could tell he was accustomed to getting his way. When he smiled, Mario’s skin began to crawl. He had the same golden eyes, tawny hair, and sharp cheekbones and nose as Finn—they had to be related. But unlike Finn, this man’s smile had no warmth.
“Prophet,” Bethany said, bobbing down in a half-curtsey. She looked down at the floor.
“Healer, leave us.”
“As the Prophet commands,” Bethany replied. She walked straight to the door and left, never once raising her eyes.
“You must be Mario,” the man said, extending
his hand. “We are Jeremiah Butler, the Prophet and leader of New Jerusalem. You are welcome here.”
“Thank you,” Mario said. He slid down from the exam table and shook Jeremiah’s hand. “We’re thankful to be here.”
“Yes,” Jeremiah said with a self-assured nod, “a sentiment your companions also expressed. We have met the others already but left you and the woman here to rest. Are you feeling better?”
“Yes.”
“The healer tells Us that you were quite banged up…broken ribs, fever, and a wound on your arm. But not a bite, she assures Us. Your path here has been a difficult one.”
“Yes.”
Jeremiah waited for Mario to elaborate. Mario stayed silent. He did not want to give more information than absolutely necessary, but Jeremiah stayed silent too. Mario didn’t want to risk being rude. They were guests, after all, and it was not smart to alienate your host. Especially when the host in question had saved you.
“Finn mentioned something about you seeing that we would come.”
“Indeed.” Jeremiah nodded his head, his expression grave. He spoke with an intensity that demanded attention. Mario could see how he had ended up in charge.
“But We only saw five,” he continued. “The red-haired woman was not part of what the Heavenly Father showed Us, but We have learned patience when interpreting His will. Sometimes not all is revealed. We must accede to His wisdom, trust that His Revelation will reveal itself in His time. God is perfect, after all, and We, just a man.”
“It must be difficult,” Mario said neutrally. Talking to Jeremiah felt exactly the same as navigating the treacherous currents of the City Council.
The prophet’s eyes narrowed. “Is it true that she is your leader’s second?”
“Yes,” Mario answered. Judging from Jeremiah’s tone, Mario didn’t like where this might be going.
“Does it not bother you to have a woman outrank you?”
“It’s not my call.”
A small sound, part yawn, part sigh, came from the cots. Jeremiah turned to look as Miranda blinked her eyes and began to stir. She yawned, stretching her arms overhead before wincing and stopping mid-motion. She moved her left shoulder gingerly as she sat up.