After the Dark

by Max Allan Collins

  Abruptly, Alec entered the conversation: “The Christmas star of Bethlehem . . .”

  Bostock bowed, just a little. “Very good, young man.”

  Max swallowed. “And, uh . . . how exactly do I become the new messiah, out of a comet passing over the planet . . . two thousand years after the last messiah was born?”

  He held the pistol steady on her, his gaze as steady as it was crazed. “Hard for me to believe you've had no signs . . . that Sandeman didn't find a way to tell you.”

  The markings!

  Over the last year, runes that had started popping up on her flesh—new, instant tattoos unwantedly decorating her body, markings Logan had tried to translate, with no luck.

  Bostock was wrong—Sandeman had found a way to let her know! She just hadn't figured it out, till this moment . . .

  “With the coming of the comet,” Bostock was saying, in a hushed voice worthy of church, “there will be a release of a biotoxin. It will wipe out the ordinaries—all those too weak to fight, too weak to be part of the new, pure order.”

  No need to stall him, she thought. Bostock was a zealot—he loved the sound of his own voice expressing the “sacred” beliefs of his cult.

  “Only luck has prevented the catastrophe from repeating itself,” he went on, using the bully pulpit that was the gun in his hand. “The comet is on an elliptical orbit that has brought it close enough for the biotoxin to reach Earth only once before—what do you think wiped out the dinosaurs? That time around, the ice age destroyed the toxin.”

  Max asked, “And this time around?”

  “Christmas Eve—midnight, when the twenty-fourth becomes the twenty-fifth . . . that will be the next time the comet passes this close to the planet.”

  Alec said, “Close enough to drop off the biotoxin.”

  “Yes,” Bostock said. “Death to the dinosaurs that walk the earth today—the ordinaries. The weak. Life to the Familiars. The strong.”

  Alec asked, “Which makes Max the Messiah how?”

  “She is the only person on Earth completely immune to the virus.”

  Max said, “Because of Sandeman.”

  “Yes,” Bostock said. “Even those of us with our special breeding face a small risk, as do the transgenics, but all of us—Familiars and test-tube mutants alike—should emerge unscathed. You, on the other hand, Max—there's no ‘should' about it.”

  She arched an eyebrow. “Because I'm the ‘Messiah'?”

  “Because your unique DNA assures you that you will suffer no side-effects, no illness. Sandeman found a way to defeat the toxin, using frozen samples recovered from the polar ice cap. Your blood offers the ordinaries the same sort of vaccine potential that we have obtained through thousands of years of selective breeding.”

  “My blood,” she said, not knowing whether to laugh or cry or do Daffy Ducks around the room, “could save the world?”

  Bostock nodded, as if what she'd said was eminently reasonable. “Those ordinaries who don't die immediately upon exposure to the biotoxin might overcome it, given a vaccine developed from your blood. But when I kill you, Max, that possibility evaporates—the dream ends for humanity, and ours succeeds.”

  She held her palms out. “Sure you don't wanna drag me back to Snake Cult Central, and be the big man, for bagging lady Jesus?”

  “It's tempting,” he said with a tiny smile. “But you're a gifted young woman . . . and making the journey with you might be too great a risk.”

  Bostock's finger was poised on the trigger, and starting to squeeze.

  Behind the Familiar, a window shattered . . .

  . . . and Mole flew through, rolling once and popping up next to the stunned secretary; the pistol Mole had lifted from the Gulliver house was now scant inches from Bostock's skull, minus the silencer. They all stood frozen for a second, then Bostock, realizing the futility of his position, dropped his gun.

  “What the hell took you so long?” Max asked Mole. “If this crazy son of a bitch wasn't so chatty, I might be dead by now!”

  Mole had a big fat half-smoked cigar in his teeth, which had survived the trip through the window. He said, “I was listenin' on the ledge—entertaining BS, too. Anyway, you were about to jump his shit, weren't ya?”

  That was true, but Max said, “Where the hell did you get the cigar?”

  Mole shrugged. “Found a box of Havanas in Snake Boy's office downstairs.”

  “You took time to look for cigars?”

  “Chill, Miz Messiah—Popeye needs his spinach, Mole needs his smokes.”

  If the lizard man hadn't just saved their skins, she might have been tempted to whale on him.

  Puffing happily on his Havana, Mole jabbed the pistol into Bostock's ribs and said, “Sounds like Nixon here knows where Logan is.”

  Bostock stood silently, sullenly. He didn't seem particularly afraid, which bothered Max.

  Mole got right on that, raising the pistol from the man's ribs to six inches from his left eye, thumbing the hammer back.

  The tip of his stogie waggling an inch from his captive's cheek, Mole said, “Your problem, Bosty ol' boy, is it's Max here who thinks the sun rises and sets on Logan Cale. To me, he's just another annoying ordinary, which I'm sure you can identify with.”

  Sweat began to pearl Bostock's upper lip.

  Mole went on: “Of course, I ain't crazy about you, either—though I do appreciate the Havanas. Even so, I'd just as soon pop one in your eye as not. So, asshole—you ready to die for the Conclave?”

  Joshua finally entered the conversation, growling, “Take one for the team.”

  Bostock remained stoic.

  Mole turned an eye toward Max.

  “Screw it,” she said. “When White calls next, we'll tell him everything and gamble he'll play ball.”

  Bostock said, “White will never—”

  Max said to Mole, “Shoot him.”

  The secretary's eyes widened and his hands shot up, palms outstretched in front of him, pushing the air in a “be reasonable” fashion.

  “Wait!” Bostock blurted. “Wait—I do know where Logan is . . . I can show you the way.”

  Mole eased the gun back a few inches.

  Max came over to the pair then, her face less than a foot from Bostock's. “Selective breeding, and you're what they came up with?” She got out her cell phone, punched some buttons.

  The voice in her ear was reassuringly sassy: “Original Cindy. Whatchu want?”

  “It's me, Cin.”

  And Max outlined the situation for her friend.

  “So,” O.C. said, the sounds of Jam Pony in the background, “all I gotta do is rent a boat, drive it out to some godforsaken island in the middle of nowhere and babysit some old coot who's a vegetable?”

  “That's all, Boo.”

  “No problem. But you gonna owe me, girl.”

  “As usual. And I need you to hook up with somebody else.”

  She gave Cindy the number of Sam Carr. Max was confident that once again Logan's doctor would make a house call.

  “And tell Sam to bring Bling and/or other support. Couple guys who can handle themselves and are Eyes Only friendly.”

  “Hostile territory?”

  “Yes—secured hostile territory, but hostile.”

  They searched the mansion one more time, making sure all of the security force was out of action; the survivors were rounded up and locked away in the basement. Then the little commando squad took a few minutes to grab some food—for now and later—in the Cale mansion kitchen.

  But they couldn't afford to wait around for their friends to arrive and take charge of Lyman Cale. Max was confident Original Cindy could handle the situation, and the X5 would check in with O.C. and Sam Carr by cell phone.

  They took the boat back, got the car, and—following directions supplied by a suspiciously cooperative Bostock—hit the road.

  “How do we know this button-down bastard ain't leadin' us on a wild goose chase?” Mole asked Max as he guided Loga
n's wheels down a back country road.

  Hands and feet bound by duct tape, Bostock chuckled in the backseat, jammed between Joshua and Alec, who had the pistol pressed into the private secretary's ribs.

  “You're easily amused,” Max said to their prisoner.

  Shaking his head, Bostock said, “I'm not leading you on a ‘wild goose chase.' Not at all—I'm taking you right where you want to go.”

  “Yeah,” Max smirked. “You're a great guy, Bostock. Class act.”

  He grunted a laugh. “You think you've won. You're only making my own inevitable victory that much easier. By hand-delivering you to the Conclave alive, I will not only shame White and his family, I . . . I . . . will become the chosen one. Ames White's defeat will be complete, as will my ascension.”

  “Sorry, Franklin,” Max said, “but there's only room for one messiah in this car, and according to you, I'm it.”

  Everybody but Bostock laughed. Even Joshua got the joke.

  “When we crucify you,” Bostock said nastily, “you won't be coming back.”

  “Pretty cocky,” Max said, “for a man on his way to see the father of the child he had murdered . . . Boy's body is in the trunk, by the way.”

  Bostock's smug facade faltered, but only for a moment. “White must be even softer than I thought if he lost to the likes of you.”

  Alec jammed the gun in the man's side. “Yeah,” Alec said. “Takes a real schmuck to let transies like us get the better of him.”

  Her cell phone chirped. “Go for Max.”

  “It's Sam, Max. I'm with Lyman Cale.”

  “Can you do anything for him, Doc?”

  “I'm arranging to have him taken out of here by private medivac—but I don't hold out much hope. The man has been nearly starved to death.”

  “These the medivac people Logan has used?”

  “Strictly Eyes Only ops. Bling's with me now. We need to not hang around here, you know—you left some . . . trash.”

  The mansion and the grounds were littered with dead security guards. And of course a few live ones were salted away in the basement, and might get frisky, over time . . .

  “You're right, Sam. Get out of there, ASAP. Get Logan's uncle some help, and you and Cindy to safety.”

  “Got it. Good luck. Stay safe.”

  “You, too, Sam. 'Bye.”

  She broke the connection.

  “Dr. Carr?” Alec asked.

  “Yeah. If Mr. Cale lives to see the New Year, it'll be a miracle.” She turned to Bostock in the backseat, her voice icy. “By the way, if White doesn't kill you, I'm going to.” Their eyes met for a long moment, and he kept his face impassive and proud; then she turned back—and heard a little gulp behind her.

  They drove for hours and, as midnight passed and the temperature turned cold, Max wondered what exactly she and her friends could do to stop a comet that was supposed to wipe out mankind come Christmas.

  The weirdest part was that she cared. Most of the ordinaries had shared nothing but revulsion and fear with her and her kind. If she was their damn messiah—and she'd had a sort of virgin birth, hadn't she?—she couldn't say she was wild about the idea of dying for their sins.

  “That's it!” Bostock said from the backseat. “Just up ahead!”

  Mole slowed.

  At the mouth of a blacktop lane that cut through dense trees was a large white sign that said in bold black letters:

  PRIVATE

  NO ADMITTANCE

  NO TRESPASSING

  STRICT ENFORCEMENT

  “Somebody doesn't have the Christmas spirit,” Mole growled.

  “That's the only way in,” Bostock said, an excited edge in his voice.

  “And out,” Max said. She turned and looked at their captive, pointedly. “You'd just love us to go driving down there—a gate? A guard?”

  Bostock was smiling. “Don't worry—when they find out it's you, the welcome will be warm.”

  Max's eyes went to Mole, who was shifting his latest stogie from one corner of his mouth to another.

  “I don't think so,” she said. “Keep driving.”

  Mole kept driving.

  Both he and Max had a good sense of direction, a Manticore-tuned grasp of geography, and after a while she nodded to the lizard-man chauffeur to turn right onto a dirt road, which was little more than a path. It wasn't wide and didn't look like it had been traveled on for a good long time.

  Still, something about the road had set off Max's radar, and she pointed to a grove of trees off to the left. “Pull in over there and park it. Kill the lights.”

  Mole eased the car off the road, onto the grass, and let it glide under the cover of the trees.

  They all got out, Alec still holding the gun on Bostock, the bound secretary hopping along awkwardly.

  “You're wasting your time,” Bostock said.

  “Gag him,” Max ordered.

  Joshua held Bostock while Alec went back to the car; soon Alec returned to give Bostock half a smile before jamming a rag in his mouth and circling his head with duct tape.

  “I'm going up ahead to have a look,” Max said. “Hang here—if I'm not back in half an hour, bail.”

  “I'll just tag along,” Mole said.

  “No. Stay with the group.”

  Joshua raised his hand like a school kid wanting to be excused, and said, “Me, then.”

  She shook her head. “It's just a recon—better off alone. I'll be back soon.”

  Before they could put up any more fuss, she took off.

  She traveled less than a mile through the silent, dark woods, the evening chill making the temperature crisp again. The trees were close together, the grass not too tall, and above her, small meteors streaked across the sky, giving her a sense of foreboding.

  She'd read in that rag Sketchy wrote for about the end-of-the-world comet, but hadn't taken it any more seriously than the vampire bat boy story or “Bigfoot Had my Baby.”

  But the comet was coming . . .

  Still in the woods, she reached the top of a short hill and peeked around a tree to see what lay beyond.

  Down the other side, past another patch of trees—alone in the middle of a wide, well-trimmed, sparse landscape—sat a three-story white stucco building and two outbuildings. Even from this distance she could see that bars covered the windows, and something C. J. Sandeman, the nutty brother of Ames White and evidently her half brother, had told her—when was it, a year ago?—came back to her.

  “I'm not going back to their loony bin,” C.J. had said.

  From here the building indeed looked exactly like a no frills mental hospital. Below her, she knew, sat the stronghold of the Conclave.

  Logan was in there somewhere—White, too; and God only knew how many Familiars, and what horrors . . .

  But they had to go in. If they were walking into a trap, so be it; at least she'd be near Logan one last time.

  The people in that bare-looking building—whether directly or indirectly—had been screwing with her since before she was born. It was too close to sunup to do anything now; they would sit tight during the day, and then tomorrow night it would be time to take the asylum away from those madmen.

  Chapter Ten

  * * *

  SHOWDOWN AT BIG SKY

  CONCLAVE STRONGHOLD

  DECEMBER 24, 2021

  They took turns watching the Conclave stronghold from Max's spot atop the hill, facing the northwest rear corner of the building complex. Max had scouted all the way around the place, and this seemed to be the best, most easily defensible vantage point.

  Though they couldn't see the front entry, they could monitor the parking lot and most of the compound; the lot had a dozen cars, plus a couple company vans, which was promising—it indicated the size of the staff, which would seem manageable, though she wouldn't have minded knowing if these Familiars were car-pooling.

  Her foray around the far side of the building had provided little more than knowing that the sign out front identified thi
s as BIG SKY RETREAT. When C.J. called the place a “loony bin,” Max had no idea he was being this literal.

  On the other hand, it made perfect sense for the Conclave's purposes: an ideal front, and a wonderful cover for both their sub-rosa activities and the keeping of any prisoners . . . Should any state inspectors come 'round, the only protestations they might hear would be courtesy of the inmates.

  Of course, with the snake cult in charge, the lunatics really were running the asylum.

  By dawn, Max and her minicommando squad had a pretty good idea of the Conclave's movements around the facility. Roving patrols of three took circuitous and seemingly random routes around the edges of the valley, into the woods surrounding the grounds of Big Sky; however, none of them came as far into the woods as the hill.

  By Mole's count there had to be at least a dozen Familiars serving on patrol duty alone.

  The four of them, up against an unknown number of selectively bred soldiers whose chief hobby in life was to wipe out transgenics—and Max was the snake-cult poster child of all transgenics, the “Messiah” the Conclave must smite.

  Yow.

  Funny thing was, troubled though she might be by the prospect of the apparently lopsided battle ahead, she didn't feel particularly frightened. They had faced long odds before and accomplished their missions; Manticore had instilled that ability, that attitude, within them.

  But being up against an army so close to being their equals, and being decidedly outnumbered, did give her pause. This would definitely take a plan that didn't suck. They would need not only a solid scheme, but a diversion that would allow her to get Logan out.

  She sat next to the car. Bostock, trussed up in duct tape, lay on the ground next to her, Alec sitting Indian-style, loosely training the pistol on their prisoner. Joshua was taking his turn at the watch post, and Mole was reclined in the front seat, catching z's before the fun.

  “Cooperate with us,” Max said to the gagged Familiar, “and I might help you stay alive.”

  He stared at her defiantly—or at least that was what she figured he was trying to do; mouth duct-taped like that, it wasn't really clear.

  “You give me a rundown on the inside of that joint,” Max said, “let me know how many of your fellow Snake Scouts of America are in there . . . I'll help you survive this. Interested?”