by Dan Kemp
"Chief," he greeted her.
"Hey, Kristof," she said.
Dorian took his place at the head of the table, in front of a large rolling bulletin board with a map affixed to it. Across the table from her sat a young man and woman. The man casually rested his chin on his fist and stared off at nothing in particular.
He looked familiar, Jess thought, but she couldn’t place him. His eyes were what struck her most though, as they were an unnatural neon green that almost glowed in the dark room. She had seen similar eyes before, on a member of the Church who had abducted her. This could only be James, she assumed, and so he must have something to do with them after all.
The woman next to him sat with her arms under the table and looking down at the floor. When she finally glanced up, Jess saw she bore the same strange eyes.
"Alright," Dorian said. "Everyone's here. Introductions. You all know me. This is Kristof. Head engineer of Black Creek, second in command of the guard. My right hand man in the town. Next to him is Jess, former Pittsburgh detective, now our town's new Chief of Police. Happy to have her here." Jess nodded and smiled.
"This is James, a good friend of mine for many years. You may or may not remember seeing him, Jess, on the day we met at your police station way back when."
Of course, Jess thought. She had barely noticed the man accompanying Dorian that day, with her attention primarily on her suspect.
"Who exactly he is, and why he's here, will take a bit more explanation. So we'll get back to that. Finally, with him is Skye. I'll let you try and explain that one, James."
"Might as well get it out of the way, yes," James said. "This is Skye. A friend of mine. And former member of the so-called Church of James." He spat out the name with an almost palpable venom. Jess sensed Kristof tense up next to her, his hands gripping the edge of the table.
"Skye, it's time for you to tell them your story, from the beginning. And then I’ll tell mine. I understand for you, Dorian and Kristof, some of this will be very unpleasant to listen to. But I ask that you let her speak."
Skye looked very nervous, but after a moment she shifted in her seat, cleared her throat and began to speak.
"I lived in Pittsburgh, before all this happened. I was a news anchor. My whole life, I was always the pretty girl, the cheerleader, the prom queen. My friends were always jealous, even when we grew up. But I was never happy. 'You're so lucky,' they would say. 'How could you possibly be depressed?' They were my friends, and I knew they meant well. But it wasn't so simple for me." Skye had started hesitantly, but now the words were flowing quickly, and she didn't stop.
"My parents tried their best, but they didn't understand either. The counselors they sent me to only helped me learn how to hide what was wrong with me. So I grew up, now the beautiful woman on TV that all my friends were jealous of, but I wasn't any better. I could have had any man, but I chose the one that was going to beat me. Even then, my friends didn't understand. Eventually, I tried to kill myself. I took a bunch of tylenol, and I meant it. It wasn't a fucking cry for help. I downed that whole bottle and I went to sleep, and if it wasn't for my friend finding me, I'd be dead.
"I made nice with the doctors at the hospital, told them how I wanted to get better, but I didn't. I knew the next chance I had I was going to do it again, and do it right this time. And then we're driving home from the hospital when the world ends. Our car gets thrown across the highway, but somehow we both survived. I crawled out of the wreck and there was Mark, sitting there with just a sprained ankle or something. He would have been totally fine. But I picked up a rock and I smashed his fucking head in, and I laughed as I did it."
Her eyes were welling up, but she kept going. "I felt so strong. For the first time ever, I felt like I was in control. I'd never felt so good. So I left, and I did alright on my own, for a couple months. But it wasn't long before I got rounded up. They stormed the little town I was staying in, killed most of the people. I didn't even try to fight. Turned out I wasn't so strong after all.
"There's no point in telling you everything they did to me. But they broke me down to nothing, and then when I was at my lowest they showed me something. A man, who they called James. Not just a man, but a god. And he had true power. To heal, and to destroy. He wanted us to be strong, they said. And they taught me how to be.
"So I joined the Church. I did terrible things. And I was good at it. I killed with my own hands. I led others to senselessly slaughter whole towns. I watched as my own Church abducted women and children, used them in every horrible way. How could I have stood by and let that happen? Helped it happen?
"No settlement angered us more than this one. We wanted nothing more than to tear down every attempt to rebuild civilization, but Black Creek was thriving. So I went to the man they called James, against the orders of the Church. We weren't supposed to speak to him unless invited. But I went, and he was so impressed with my nerve that he infiltrated this place, kidnapped one of your guards."
"What?" Dorian interjected, and Kristof suddenly sat up straighter as well. The two shared a glance.
“Hensley?” Kristof suggested. “Figured he ran off.”
“Why would someone run away from here?” Jess asked.
Kristof shrugged. “Hell if I know. Happened before. Had too many other problems to worry about it too much.”
"I tortured him,” Skye continued. “And he gave you up. He told me how to get inside the power compound, through the water runoff pipe. So we did. My men killed everyone inside, then we opened the gates to let more of us in before we burned the generator building. What happened next, you know."
There was a screech and a bang as Kristof stood up suddenly, his chair toppling over. Before Jess knew what was happening, the man was scrambling over the table in a howling rage.
Skye leapt up from her seat, trying to get out of the way. Next to her, James simply raised a hand and Kristof slid off the edge of the table and landed with a thud on the ground, motionless.
"Let me up!" he screamed, his face red and his one good eye bulging with effort, though his body wasn’t moving at all.
"I’ll release you when she’s done talking," James said.
"This cunt killed my girlfriend!" he yelled, his voice wet with spittle.
James cast a glance first at Skye, then at Dorian. The latter man, smirking and leaning back in his chair, merely raised his hands as if to say 'I told you so.'
Skye began to speak again, but her voice finally broke. She sobbed, and tears fell onto her lap. "I'm sorry," she finally managed to say. "I'm so sorry."
"I don't give a fuck if you're sorry," Kristof shot back. "I'll kill you, and this motherfucker too if he had something to do with it."
"Go on, Skye," James said.
"I—I went back to the Church. They promoted me, did this to my eyes," she waved a helpless hand at her own face, tears still running down her cheeks. "So again, I spoke to 'James.' His name wasn't actually James, he said, it was Martin."
"Fuck," Dorian murmured at the end of the table.
"It was him, not James, who had ended the old world. But the reasons were still the same. To cull the weak, to empower the strong. He said that James was the true enemy, and he asked for my help to defeat him. I told him I would be honored. But it all shattered, my whole illusion of that place, and of him. So I ran away, as far as I could, and the further I got the more I realized it; I had been brainwashed.
"I didn't know what else to do, so I decided I'd find the real James. I knew he would give me answers. When I finally did find him, he told me he had no answers for me. But he was wrong. I know what I want to do now. I want to destroy Martin and all the rest of the Church. And then I just want to be normal."
She raised her hands up as a plaintive conclusion. James rested a hand on her shoulder and turned to Kristof, still paralyzed on the floor.
"I'm going to release you. But you will not harm her in my presence. I wouldn’t bother trying again." Suddenly Kristof was writhing on
the floor, getting back on his feet. He stared first at James, then at Dorian, then at Skye. Then he took his seat, his body still radiating anger.
"I know Martin,” James said. “This is what he does. He manipulates humans for his own amusement. But there’s nothing he wants more than to destroy me. He can’t, so he settles for trying to make my life a living hell. Unfortunately for him, he has no idea what tortures I endured long before he ever existed."
He sighed. "Skye once asked me what I am. If there is a God, I am him. I’ve walked the earth for millions upon millions of years. I can’t die, nor suffer any lasting harm. For unknowable amounts of time I simply wandered the earth. When I got bored, the world made itself exciting for me. Life flourished, and died off, all around me. When I got lonely, humans appeared. Did I create them, or did the earth create them for me, or was it all a coincidence? I don't know.
"Martin is my greatest mistake. For though I may be a god, I’m a man as well. And the first time I saw a human woman, I was so overcome by my own primal instincts that I took her by force. After, filled with nothing but shame, I fled. It wasn't long before I learned this terrible act had borne me a son. Martin is a creature of only bitterness and anger. But he’s a monster of my own making.
"I can’t kill him, just as he can’t kill me. But I’m fairly certain we can die, if we only choose to. My time on this earth is coming to an end. Before I go, I’m going to undo the evils I’ve wrought by bringing him into this world. And then, I’ll make sure we both leave it forever. These cults in my name, whether his doing or not, I’ll free those who can be freed and purge the rest. When I'm gone, it will fall to men and women like all of you to remake the world you deserve."
He stopped, and a heavy silence fell over the table. Kristof was the first to speak. "This is fucking crazy." He looked first to James, then to Dorian, who shook his head.
"It's true," Dorian said.
Jess's mind was in a whirl. It was all a blur as Dorian led the rest of the group through an explanation of their plans for tomorrow. There was something about a convoy heading north, Jess going with Kristof to scout a dam for parts, if she was okay with that, and she nodded that she was. Dorian, James, and Skye would attack the Church, then all would meet back at Black Creek. James put up a fight about Dorian coming along, but he insisted and James conceded the point.
Finally they all left, and Jess plodded back to her apartment in silence, the night summer air washing over her as the sounds of chirping insects rolled in from the forest. By the time she stepped through her front door, it was all her body could do to make it to the bed before collapsing alongside Rachel, who scooted up alongside and slipped an arm around her.
"What happened?" Rachel asked, and Jess told her. Every bit from start to finish. Except, of course, for the part where she might be the granddaughter of a god. Because how on earth could she even begin to explain that?
***
They left Black Creek at sunrise, the roar of their engines cutting through the quiet stillness of the morning.
Jess climbed into the passenger seat of a van and Kristof took the wheel. He hadn't spoken a word so far, though he rolled down the window when Dorian approached.
"Careful out there. It's just a scouting mission. Unless it's totally deserted, don't go in alone."
Kristof replied with a grunt and a nod before rolling the window back up. Dorian mounted his motorcycle and tore ahead, past the barricade and onto the road. James and Skye followed close behind, driving a large truck. Kristof just stared straight ahead, but they didn't move.
"You ready?" Jess asked.
Kristof reached down and grabbed a portable radio from his pant leg. "Come on up," he said. Within seconds, the sound of more engines could be heard approaching along the road behind them.
"I'm not going on a scouting mission," he said. "I'm going in and we're getting what we need. You don't have to come."
"I'm going," Jess said.
"Alright."
Two other vans pulled up alongside them, and a large flatbed truck behind. Kristof hit the gas and the convoy passed beyond the walls, the guards falling in behind them.
They rode in silence. After leaving the little forested back roads near Black Creek, they went north on an empty expanse of highway. The steady hum of the road beneath them and her exhaustion lulled Jess to sleep, and she dozed on and off. After a while, she saw the Pittsburgh skyline pass by on her left. It looked much the same as it had when Jess last visited.
It wasn't long after that before they arrived. Kristof pulled off the highway and onto a dirt access road which ran alongside the river. Here the water flowed a nasty color of brown, and up ahead she could see the dam stretching across the river. It appeared to still be functioning, at least.
Kristof accelerated and the van smashed easily through a small wooden barricade. The parking lot was filled with ordinary cars, most of which were faded and rusted as if they hadn’t been moved in years. With a squeal they slid to a stop and Kristof was out of the van in an instant.
Jess scrambled to follow him to the back of the van. Kristof hauled open the back door as the rest of the vehicles lined up behind them. Inside the trunk was an array of weapons. Jess holstered a pistol at her hip and took a pump shotgun in her hands.
The parking lot was deserted, and the only sound was the rumble of their engines and the crash of the river over the dam. Jess led the way to the door of the power station as the six armed men behind them fanned out across the parking lot and around the building. When she tried the door, it opened without resistance.
Jess took a quiet step inside the entryway, where the lights overhead were on. A long hallway stretched out before them, but still there was no one to be seen. Jess crept forward with her shotgun aimed ahead. She could hear a sound at the end of the hall now. The closer she got, the more she could make out the heavy thrash metal music that was playing somewhere nearby. Jess and Kristof exchanged a glance and continued to the end of the hall.
There was a single closed door here. Jess grabbed the handle and twisted it slowly, letting the door swing open on its own and shying away from it for fear of a sudden attack. None came. Jess took a deep breath, but Kristof stepped through the door before she was ready, so she followed.
What had clearly once been an office now looked more like a living room. Along the far wall a sofa sat across from a flat screen television. There was another closed door on the far wall. Bookshelves lined one wall, and the music was blaring from a stereo on a shelf near the door. On a carpet in the middle of the room, a man was doing pushups, facing away from Jess and Kristof.
The song ended, and in the brief quiet she could hear the soft beeping of a microwave, and the man got to his feet and opened the microwave, which sat on a small table nearby. Facing away from them all the while, he pulled the top off of a bowl of soup and blew on it before taking a sip. The next song began, and Kristof hit the power button on the stereo.
Startled by the sudden silence, the man turned toward them. He was middle aged, balding, but fit. Sweat stained the tight white shirt he wore. He stared at Jess and Kristof in disbelief for a moment before he dropped the soup and dove behind the couch. Kristof walked forward, his rifle leveled toward him.
The man was crouching on the other side, his shaking hands struggling to load a revolver.
"Drop it," Kristof said, and the man did.
Now, Jess could hear the steady hum of what must have been the hydroelectric generators in another room.
"Please, don't hurt me," the man said.
"Not planning on it." Kristof stepped around the sofa and scooped up the man's gun. "Are you alone?"
"Yes," was the man's reply.
It was then that the other door creaked open. Kristof wheeled around, taking aim.
"Daddy, who's that?"
"Get back inside!" the man shouted.
Kristof lowered his rifle. In the doorway stood a little girl, maybe six years old. Behind her, Jess could see another g
irl peeking out. The two looked like twins.
Jess put her gun down, showing her empty hands to the man before stepping toward the door. She peeked inside what was another office, this one now a bedroom. A few dolls were scattered about on the floor. Other than the two children, there was no one else inside.
"What's your name?" Kristof asked the man.
"Bruce," he said. He stood up and moved into the doorway in front of his daughters.
"Have you been here all this time by yourself?" Jess asked.
"For over a year. Nobody has ever come here before."
"How did you maintain the generators?" Kristof asked.
"I was an engineering professor at MIT."
Kristof glanced at Jess. "Let me show you something," he said, fishing in one of his pockets and retrieving a small handheld camera. He handed it to the man, who flicked through the stored photographs.