by R. J. Spears
“You certainly are,” I responded, looking around at the room we were in. It wasn’t as big as the dining area but still seemed roomy. There were several small tables circled by chairs. The walls were lined with tall wooden cabinets that looked custom built. There were two breaks in the lines of shelves, where chalkboards were mounted. I could see the faint outlines of words, partially wiped away.
Billie Sue must have noticed me looking at them and said, “This space serves as our classroom for the kids.”
“It looks like you planned for the long haul,” Kara said.
“We are burrowed in for a long time,” Donovan said. “We were just glad it wasn’t a nuke because we can still hunt. That gives us plenty of fresh meat.”
I decided to change the direction of the conversation and asked, “Billie Sue, how did you know who we were and why did you call me a prophet?”
She turned and stared at me with the same smile she had she had greeted us with and said, “Well, because you are a prophet. I’ve seen you in my visions.”
“You have visions, too?” I asked, trying not to act surprised. I guess it was presumptuous of me to think I was the only one. Well, including Jason and Naveen.
Kara interrupted and said, “We were talking about that before you got up. Billie Sue has had some slight visions, like second sight for a while now. Right, Billie Sue?”
Billie Sue nodded and said, “Most of the early ones were hard to follow.”
“Oh yeah,” I said, “God’s mystery movies.”
Billie Sue didn’t look happy with my description and Kara nudged my leg under the table. These were people who had a serious view of these things instead of my morbidly warped perspective. They hadn’t come to know and love me yet.
Billie Sue continued, “Some of them included you. And then Jason showed up. These were just glimpses, but lately, they’ve intensified. And they’re clearer. I saw you and the rest of your people showing up here.” She brightened when she said that. It seemed to be only a one-way, private vision because I had no advanced information that we would end up there.
“And what else did you see?”
She paused and considered her response. “I saw little peeks at first. I got glimpses of things. You at some church in the city battling soldiers. Then I saw you meeting Jason.” She smiled at this recollection. “I got some flashes of the battle at your home base.” The smile faded. “Then I saw you running through the woods at night. That one was really clear. I guess that meant you were close to finding us.”
“Or you finding us,” I said.
“Or that, yes,” she replied.
“Did you see anything other than me?”
“Oh heavens, yes,” she said. “I’ve seen a couple of visions of people coming close to our place here. I’ve seen a massive horde of zombies walking in the cities.” Her brow furrowed in concern. “I’ve seen some trouble for us here, too. These are just snapshots and not specific.”
“Don’t you that God’s subtlety?” I asked.
This time Kara went with sharp kick against my shin bone. Being a part of the man club, I refused to acknowledge the pain.
Kara chimed in with a question, “What about the future? What do you see about what will happen?”
A dark cloud seemed to pass behind her eyes before she spoke. “These are not very clear at all. I see you on the road. There is some sense of trouble, but I can’t see what it is. I know God’s watching out for you.”
“Oh yeah, I love how sometimes you only get scary glimpses of something that might happen,” I said. “It’s like a teaser trailer for a horror film. I can never get why God doesn’t just spell things out?”
“He doesn’t always do that, Joel,” Billie Sue said in a chiding, but gentle way. “It’s all about taking a leap of faith and trusting.”
I considered myself chided and shut up.
“Do you see anything about a hospital?” Kara asked.
Billie Sue looked to the floor, her face hidden from view for several seconds, but then she looked back up, and her eyes were rimmed with tears. “I see something dark there. Bad things happen. I don’t really want to talk about it. It’s clouded and....”
“But you might have some insight that we don’t have,” Kara said.
Billie Sue put up a hand in surrender, “I’m sorry. It’s just a jumble of dark images. I don’t want to even think about it.”
Oh great, was all I could think. Let the good times roll.
We were all silent for a moment, and Donovan asked, “Why, all of a sudden, are you guys getting these visions? You didn’t have them before, did you?”
I said no, and Billie Sue just shook her head.
Kara said, “I have a theory on that. I think --, no, I know there are big forces at work here. I think of this as more than just some big natural disaster or something that happened by accident. I fear that most of the forces at work are dark and evil. I think, with so much evil in the world, God has to change the rules and shine His light somewhere, somehow. In the darkest times in the Bible, didn’t God speak to His people more?”
Billie Sue nodded her head.
“I think He’s decided He has to become more actively involved because the world has become so bad and I think that the enemy has done likewise but in opposition to God. It’s like he sees his opportunity and has decided to take it and God has decided He needs to block him.”
“Like in some cosmic chess game?” I asked, but Kara shot me a heated look.
“These visions shared between Joel, Naveen, and Jason and now Billie Sue are showing that God is speaking to His people again. Directing them. Like He used to in the Bible.”
“But why does He have to be so cryptic?” I asked, and I knew there was a sense of frustration in my voice. It was a question I constantly asked, knowing there was no answer, but like the idiot I was, I kept on asking it. “Why do we only get murky images and symbolic dreams? I mean, this would be a hell of a lot easier if He would just come out and say, ‘Hey idiot, do this.’”
“It doesn’t work that way, Joel,” Billie Sue said. “He wants us to do it. He could do it all in a blink of an eye.”
“You people always say shit like that,” I said.
“You’re one of us, whether you like it or not,” Billie Sue said, leaning across the table and putting a hand on my arm. “You and Jason are the most important ones. You, more so, because you’re the leader. The one that has to get them where they’re going. The one God picked.”
“I didn’t ask to be,” I said, knowing I sounded like a sulky little teenager.
“But you are, and you know it,” she said and smiled with that ever-present glow returning in her eyes.
She kept looking at these visions as a blessing while I’m sure I considered them a curse. One of us was wrong about our interpretation, and I was pretty sure it was me. That didn’t mean I had to like it.
Chapter 17
Death Match
Kilgore stood, breathing hard, while he recovered from the lopsided fight. Jo watched, not knowing what Kilgore meant by what he had said about there was some lesson greater than being beaten down, but it left her feeling uneasy.
She stepped forward and said, “You’ve made your point. We know you’re in charge. Let us take him to our doctor.”
Kilgore pivoted toward her and said, “No, no, no. I said this wasn’t over. You people think you can stonewall me and put up resistance at every turn. Well, that ends now. You have to learn what it is to play with fire.”
“You’ve beaten him to a pulp. What else can you prove?” She asked.
“Oh, there’s a lot more to be taught and a lot more to be learned,” he responded and waved toward two of the soldiers, who broke from formation and moved toward Aaron.
Jo didn’t want to beg, but she said, “Please, please, he’s had enough. Let us take him.”
Kilgore turned fully toward Jo and held her in his gaze. “You’re done. This is done. You need to shut up or else you�
��ll get what he’s about to get.”
“What are you talking about?” she asked.
“Excuse me, Colonel,” Jones broke in, “what are you planning?”
“Enough questions!” Kilgore shouted, and Jo jumped back a half a step from the force of his yell.
He wheeled on Jones and said sharply, “And that means you, too.”
Jo started forward again, but Russell stepped out of the crowd and grabbed her arm, gently, but firmly, pulling her back into the safety of the fold. The two soldiers hoisted Aaron to his feet, and he groaned in pain, half out of it, while his head lulled on his shoulders.
Kilgore nodded to the two soldiers and they half-dragged Aaron toward one of the back doors of the room.
“Where are you taking him?” Jo shouted after him.
“You’ll see,” Kilgore said, a knowing glint in his eyes. “Everybody,” he said raising his voice, “follow along.” He didn’t wait to see if they did but started toward the door the soldiers carrying Aaron had just passed through. The soldiers came into the room moved in a flanking maneuver and got in behind the crowd. Without saying a word, they moved in on the people from behind. Tacitly, the crowd started pushing forward toward the door in a tight bunch as if their numbers and closeness might protect them. They all knew better, and if the soldiers opened up on them, they would be massacred. No one would come out and say it, but it was like they were being herded like cattle. They, like livestock, seemed tentative and anxious, hoping the journey wasn’t to the slaughterhouse.
The hallway seemed too tight as all the bodies pressed into it, moving along like a single organism. No one spoke, and everyone seemed to be holding their breath as they moved along. There were no lights in the hallway, so it was like navigating through a cave.
Sergeant Jones stayed at the head of the crowd, walking a few steps ahead. Jo could tell he seemed out of sorts as he looked back to the crowd and then ahead to the soldiers leading the group. She felt that he was holding back on some questions.
They came to a T in the hall, and a soldier was positioned there, motioning with the barrel of his rifle that they take a right and keep moving. Jo could tell they were moving toward the south side of the complex where there was a large open field. She hadn’t been out in that area for several days, and this gave her pause. Her throat felt dry, and she had trouble swallowing.
The hallway stretched on for nearly twenty yards, ending at two large windowless metal doors. Two soldiers with sober expressions stood at either door, their rifles held at the ready across their chests. Dim lights from above, cast shadows across the soldier’s faces, masking their expressions. The crowd once again knew, without being told, that they were supposed to come to a stop just before the door and they did.
Jo couldn’t see to the back of the group but sensed the soldiers pressing in behind them.
“Soldier, what is going outside these doors?” Jones asked.
“Colonel Kilgore asked that we not reveal that information to anyone,” one of the soldiers replied.
Jones bristled at the reply. “Soldier, I’m asking you now, do you know what is outside those doors?”
“No, sir, I do not.”
Jo could tell that Jones liked this answer even less.
“Well, open that door now, soldier,” Jones ordered.
“Sergeant, we have strict orders that no one exit these doors before the Colonel says so,” the soldier replied in a loud, but neutral way that people with orders sometimes do.
“You better listen up, soldier,” Jones said leaning down and getting in the soldier’s face, “You had better open up the door if you know what is good for you.”
The soldier opened his mouth to reply but was interrupted by two large raps on the door which startled several people in the crowd, making them jump.
The soldier doing all the talking looked relieved and turned to open the door, and his fellow soldier followed suit and did the same. The doors flew open, allowing the brilliance of the sunlight to burst inside. The crowd blinked for several moments, partially blinded by the intensity of the light after being in the darkness of the hallway. After they saw what was outside, several of them wished that they had stayed blind.
Jones said, “What the hell?”
The two soldiers gave way as Jones moved through the door and Jo rushed forward and what she saw caused her to choke back a scream.
The two soldiers who had carried Aaron out of the room, stood twenty five-feet away from the door, still holding a wobbly Aaron between them. A chain was affixed to a band around his ankle and led to a small metal circle sticking firmly out of the ground. Blood streamed down his face and onto his chin. His eyes blinked exaggeratedly fast, and his hands sat limply at his side. She could tell he was nearly out of it.
Just fifteen feet to the left and right of Aaron were two metal poles, standing twenty feet apart from each other. They were used to hold power cables headed into the building. On this day, they served a dual purpose. A single zombie was lashed to each pole with chains around their waists, holding them fast. Soldiers stood a safe distance behind the poles holding something in their hands that Jo couldn’t make out.
Both of the zombies strained at their chains, arms out, reaching for the flesh that was denied them only a few feet away. They grunted and moaned, their mouths closing expectantly. Aaron seemed oblivious, but the soldiers nearby were very jumpy, their heads jerking back and forth trying to watch both zombies at once, while Kilgore didn’t even flinch.
Kilgore stood off to Aaron’s right, watching the reaction of the people pushing through the door. There was a self-satisfied and half-crazed look on his face.
Jo knew it would be bad, but not this bad. An icy knife cut through her gut, and an explosion of goosebumps popped up all over her body.
“You can’t do this!” she shouted.
“You don’t seem to realize the position you’re in,” Kilgore said, crossing his arms.
“This is crazy,” she said. “That man has done nothing to you.”
“That man has done nothing for me,” Kilgore replied. “You could all have made our lives easier, but you decided to clam up and keep your secrets to yourself.”
“What do you want to know?” Jo asked.
“Why does it have to come to this for you to come clean with me?” Kilgore said, taking a step around Aaron towards Jo.
“Okay, okay,” she said, her voice quavering, “what do you need to know?” She took a step towards him, moving out of the safety of the crowd.
“Where is Jason Carter?”
Jo knew that would be his question. It was the same question he had been asking since the soldier’s had arrived. There had been no pussyfooting around it. It was the one and only thing he wanted and everybody knew it. The problem was that no one knew where Jason Carter was. When Joel had smashed the walkie-talkie before he had taken off for parts unknown, it had made knowing where he and Jason were at that moment or at any time impossible. The problem with this very real truth is that it wasn’t what Kilgore wanted to hear.
She searched for any explanation and even considered an elaborate lie, but she knew that the hand would eventually play out and that would be it.
“We have told you, we don’t know where Jason is,” she said. “He left with some of our group and they didn’t tell us where they were going.”
“You know, I don’t believe you,” Kilgore said.
“Please, you’ve got to believe me,” she said pleadingly. “They purposefully didn’t let us know because they thought you would try to force it out of us.”
“And that’s what I plan to do,” Kilgore said, turning toward the soldiers who held Aaron.
“No, please wait!” she yelled. She looked back at the others in her group, but they all seemed frozen in place, either by fear or shock. Some had their mouths open, stunned, while other looked at the ground, guessing or knowing what was going to happen.
“Kilgore wheeled around and shouted back at her, �
�For what? More lies? More stonewalling? No, the time of being soft on you has passed.”
She ran out of rational arguments and resorted to the age-old schoolyard excuse. “But this isn’t fair. Aaron’s injured and unarmed. You have him against two zombies.”
Kilgore had the perfect retort, though. “Life isn’t fair. If it were, we wouldn’t have a billion of these things running around the earth,” he said, pointing at the zombies. “I tell you what. If your man wins this fight, I’ll let him live.”
“But, but, but,” Jo responded, but she ran out of words because she could see that no matter what she said Kilgore couldn’t listen to reason. Or wouldn’t. She stood, helpless, ready to throw herself on the ground and beg for Aaron’s life when something big moved by her. That something was Sergeant Jones.
“Sir, this isn’t the way to go,” he said in a calming tone and the crowd grew quiet, thinking that he could sway the black tide about to overwhelm them.
Kilgore paused for a moment, eyeing Jones. “Jones, you surprise me. I’m beginning to think you’ve gone soft on me.”
“No, sir,” Jones responded. “But whatever you have going on here, it’s not what we should be doing. We should be protecting these people.”
Kilgore sighed loudly and said, “You’re going native on me, son.” He stopped and shook his head the way a disappointed elementary school teacher might. He added, “And you’re missing the big picture.”
“What is that big picture, sir?” Jones asked.
“It’s bigger than you. It’s bigger than me,” Kilgore said.
“I think it is about you,” Jones said, taking a step toward Kilgore. “It’s about whatever is driving you. It’s about what is making you afraid.”
Kilgore took a half step back and looked down at the ground. When he looked back up, there was a lost expression on his face. He glanced back down at his feet and then back up. His face twitched several times and a tremor ran through his body. He brought up one of his hands and swatted at something next to his ear that wasn’t there. To Jones, it looked as if he were trying to push someone or something away.