by Rysa Walker
One small arm hangs over the side of the left-hand pew, two rows from the back. Unlike in the black-and-white newspaper photos, I can now see that the head resting on that arm is reddish-blond. Another flash of the exact same color is just barely visible a few feet to the left, one twin slumped against the other.
At the front of the church, Sister Elba is on the small bench, facing the congregation. Even in death, her posture is exemplary—she’s sitting upright, arms crossed in her lap, her head tilted back toward the ceiling.
I watch for about thirty seconds, but the image stays the same. I’m about to check and see if something is frozen when I remember the image isn’t changing because everyone is dead and corpses generally do not move.
A few seconds later, the door on the right side of the chapel bangs open and the afternoon sunlight floods in, framing the dark outline of a man standing in the doorway. As the man advances a few steps into the chapel, the door slowly swings shut behind him.
When my eyes adjust to the change in lighting, I realize there are actually two people. Martha is directly in front of Saul, pulled close against his chest, facing the bodies in the pews. He seems to be lifting her up so that only her toes touch the floor. I can’t tell whether it’s because he dragged her through the door or because he’s worried she’ll faint. Maybe both. She’s in the same dress as before, but it’s now caked with dirt, and her hair is mussed. Her mouth hangs open as she stares at the bodies, and then she brings her hands up to her face and begins to scream.
For once, I’m very glad CHRONOS didn’t add audio. This is horrid enough as a silent movie.
It’s the first time I’ve seen Saul without the odd facial hair from the 1800s. I now see why Katherine—and apparently others—thought he was handsome. His dark hair contrasts with his pale skin and sharp, almost chiseled features. And dressed in jeans and a plain white shirt instead of an ancient suit, his thin but muscular body is evident.
The creepiest thing is that Saul is smiling, even as Martha screams and pulls at her hair. It’s not one of those grins that you see when the villain comes on-screen, with manic eyes and an evil bwah-hah-hah laugh. His expression is one of . . . bliss, I guess. His face is tilted upward, like he’s basking in the warmth of the sun on a beautiful day in the park. One sleeve of his shirt is partially ripped away, and it flaps to the side as he drags Martha toward the pulpit. Two long stripes that look like fingernail scratches are visible on the exposed skin of his shoulder.
He drops Martha behind the pulpit, which partially obscures my view. She rolls to her side, covering her head with her arms. Saul just stands there, looking around at all of the dead bodies, smiling his horrible, peaceful smile, and a shudder runs through me. It’s not just the idea anyone could wear that expression when faced with the sight before him but also the knowledge that this inhuman creature formed one-quarter of my DNA. I want to dig inside my body and claw out every speck of me that is Saul.
Any doubts about whether I can kill him are gone. If I could reach into the display, I would kill him this very second.
Saul closes his eyes for a moment, still smiling, and pulls in several long, deep breaths. Then he crosses to where Martha is curled up. He yanks one of her arms to the side, forcing her to face him. Her mouth is open, so I think she’s still screaming. And although a moment ago I would have sworn that he couldn’t possibly disgust me more, my hatred surges when he leans down and begins to kiss the side of her face, working his way down her neck.
Then he does something I can’t see, but whatever it is, it breaks through Martha’s shock, and she begins to fight him. His hands clamp down harder on her arms to hold her still, but he persists with kissing her shoulder as she struggles to break away.
After a second, Martha relaxes and just lies there, perfectly still. Saul leans back a bit and smiles at her. Then he goes flying several feet to the right as she plants both of her feet into his stomach. His head bumps against Sister Elba’s legs, and her body slides to the left.
Martha crawls for a few seconds and then manages to get her feet under her and starts to run. Now Saul is up, and he follows, still slightly hunched over. As he starts after her, his foot catches on one of the legs of the chest holding the armonica, and it crashes to the ground. The lid pops open, and pieces fly off the spindle, shattered bits of glass tumbling onto the floor and under the front pews. One of the smaller bowls bounces down the two steps, miraculously still intact. It rolls under the corner of a pew and then several feet down the center aisle before it flips onto its bottom and spins slowly to a halt in front of the stable point.
In her panic, Martha runs toward the far left side of the chapel, where there is, unfortunately, no door. He’s too close behind, so she sprints down the outer aisle, hoping to reach the front before he does. Saul takes the center-aisle shortcut and comes barreling toward the stable point. The last thing I see is the white of his shirt, and then they’re both past my field of vision, and it’s just the dead bodies, the chapel, and a small mound of crushed glass in the aisle where the armonica bowl had been.
“Is that it?” I ask Kiernan, my voice shaking.
“She runs past the stable point you set in front of the church. Saul is right on her heels.”
“Maybe she got away—”
“No.”
“You can’t know that for certain!”
“Yes, I can.” He leans over and wipes a tear from my cheek. I didn’t even know I was crying. He gets up from the couch and limps over to grab the box and the article from the table.
“I could have gotten that, you know. All you had to do was ask me.”
“Leg gets stiff if I stay in one place too long.” He sits next to me and removes the top of the box, pushing the CHRONOS diary up on its spine so that he can dig through the articles beneath it. Then he pulls out the article with the photograph taken from almost the same angle as the stable point I was just watching.
Even before I look down at the picture, I realize something is very wrong. When I was inside the chapel with Sister Elba, the view was so similar to the photo I’m holding that it gave me a touch of déjà vu. When I first pulled up the stable point, before Saul and Martha arrived, I had the same thought.
But the chapel I was watching just now was in disarray. A broken armonica case, shattered glass everywhere . . . In this photograph, the armonica case is still standing, its contents unbroken.
Kiernan places the second image in my lap, the one that had been outside the box on the table. In this version, the armonica is again in pieces on the floor. “The CHRONOS field from the diary shielded the one that you’re holding. I went back and picked up another copy the day the story broke in the local paper. If you read the text, you’ll see there’s another change.”
He taps the third paragraph down, and I read:
A shallow grave was found at the rear of the church, containing the body of a young woman who had been strangled, her body showing evidence of other assault.
The murdered girl appears to have died several days earlier. As no report of an attack was made to county law enforcement, she is assumed to have been assaulted and killed by a resident of the Six Bridges community.
The bodies found inside the church are assumed unrelated. Authorities stress that there is no evidence that the illness is in any way contagious.
“Martha.” I just sit there for a moment, staring at the two articles side by side, unsure what this means.
“She wasn’t supposed to die, Kate. Martha escaping was the mistake that Saul told Simon about. She has to be. It’s the only way this makes sense.”
I shake my head, still not sure what could have changed her fate. “Do you think we did something when we were there? Something that—”
“No,” he says. “I think it’s what we didn’t do. What I didn’t do.”
“So . . . you think we’re supposed to save her.”
He shrugs. “I don’t know what you’re supposed to do, Kate. I think the safest thing fo
r you to do would be to stay here. But, yeah, I’m going.”
I lean back and rub my eyes, trying to think. What sort of ripple effects could this produce? Did knowing he made a mistake change Saul’s actions in any way? And if so, how did it change them?
“If you go, I go. We clearly have to set this straight. But we can’t kill him, Kiernan. As much as I really, really want to right now, and as hard as it’s going to be not to when I see him, we can’t. And he can’t know how she gets away.”
“I know,” he snaps. “I don’t need a lecture.”
“I wasn’t lecturing you. You don’t have to be a jerk about it.”
He’s silent for a good five seconds. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I’ve been sitting here for the past four hours, going over this, examining it from every angle and watching that sick—”
“And that’s why I asked you to wait until I was here!”
“What did you expect me to do, Kate? Just sit here in this cabin, thinking of you back there with him?”
I clench my teeth to avoid saying anything I’ll regret, because this is really beginning to piss me off. “You can’t keep turning this back around on me. I’ve been honest with you about Trey.”
“And I’ve been honest with you!” He bangs his hand on the table so hard that the cigar box jumps. “I didn’t promise to wait. You just assumed, once again, that I would follow your stupid directions.”
“Stupid? I’ll tell you what’s stupid. Stupid is—” I’m up out of the chair, in his face, before I realize what he’s doing. “Ha. Good try, Kiernan. Make me mad, and maybe I’ll storm off. That way you can claim I left you no choice but to do this on your own.”
A long silence follows, so I’m pretty sure I nailed it. He finally says in a softer voice, “I know I can’t kill him, Kate. I do intend to hurt him, however. And I’ll take great pleasure in it.”
“I get that. But, Kiernan?” I try to think of a way to word it diplomatically but then decide to just be blunt. “You couldn’t hurt anyone right now. You can barely walk. Are you sure it’s not infected?”
“I’m sure. I have antibiotics.”
I glance down at his leg. The jeans seem even tighter around his leg than they were yesterday. Either he’s replaced the bandage with a bulkier one or the leg is swollen, and from the way he’s walking, I’d bet it’s the latter.
“If you don’t believe me, you’re welcome to take a look.”
“I’ll pass,” I say coolly. “But even if it’s not infected, you need time to heal. Do you have food in the house?”
“Campbell’s Soup. Crackers. Pickled eggs. Maybe some canned beans.”
“Bleh. What do you want?”
He raises his eyebrows. “I wouldn’t say no to a pizza.”
I’ve discovered two things that make me a little sad about eventually having to give up the CHRONOS key. The first is that I can get pizza almost instantly. You place the order, set a stable point at the front door, jump forward thirty minutes, and scan in sixty-second increments until the delivery guy shows up. One minute and twenty-four seconds from the time I picked up the telephone.
The second is that you can go back five hours, plug in your iPad, and then jump forward to find it fully charged. Same goes for downloading movies.
Of course, none of that outweighs the negatives, but it’s nice to find a silver lining.
Katherine would give me all kinds of grief about bringing Kiernan the iPad. But he’s by himself in the middle of nowhere. And if anyone does show up at the cabin, he’s smart enough to shove the thing under the sofa cushions. I pop back in twice daily to bring supplies and recharge the tablet. In this fashion, six days pass for Kiernan in a little over an hour for me. He makes his way through five books and half the movies I own. I can tell he’s still sore, and I argue that we should wait a few more days, but he’s losing patience.
I make two final jumps before we go. First, it’s back to the townhouse to drop off all forbidden technology and a trash bag filled with various takeout containers. Then I set the key for my room at Katherine’s at 1:00 p.m. this coming Wednesday so that I can pick up the biohazard equipment that Connor express ordered. It’s by my desk as promised—a small, clear kit with biohazard transport bags, several pairs of latex gloves, an oversized glass dropper, along with two shiny white suits and bizarre-looking face masks.
I hold them up for Kiernan’s inspection when I jump back to the cabin. “Our chemistry set has arrived.”
He snorts but doesn’t look up from the sketch he’s making. “Fortunately, neither of us will be doing any experiments. I collect the sample, you take it back to Connor. Any ideas what to do with it after that?”
“Connor bought a tiny fridge to go inside Katherine’s safe. He’ll store the sample there until we can locate someone trustworthy to examine it.”
Kiernan slides the paper he was drawing on across the table to me. “Take a look at this.”
It’s a detailed map of God’s Hollow, with the church, the well, and the chicken coop. Smaller squares line both sides of the road that runs through the center of the village. Two of these, the squares that are three and four doors down from the church on the opposite side, are marked with an X.
Kiernan taps the page near the two buildings that are marked. “Saul goes between those two houses, stays about two minutes, and then comes back that same way when he brings Martha to the church. That’s the only time I see any activity between the two of them, other than the one I mentioned before, when Saul is wooing her.”
That seems like an odd choice of words, but I guess hitting on her might not be in Kiernan’s vocabulary, so I just nod.
“They get about ten yards down the street, toward the church, and she sees something off to the side of the road that frightens her. I’m thinking maybe it was the dog’s body. It looks like she’s screaming, ‘Bull.’ Anyway, after that point he has to basically drag her. She’s fighting him hard . . . rips his sleeve and scratches him up.”
“Go, Martha.”
Kiernan points at the house on the far side of the two marked with an X and says, “I watched from each of the points you set and never saw Saul take her inside either of those houses. Given the mud on her dress and legs, I’m guessing he had her in a root cellar or something. We should go in at night and set up a stable point between these houses. That way we can see exactly where Saul takes Martha and get her out ahead of time. Before Saul comes back to get her.”
“And what do we tell her, Kiernan?”
“To get the hell out of there, what else? We can show her where the motorbikes are hidden.”
“I think she’d run, but I’m also sure she’d come back. She’s restless, but it’s her home. And if she comes back quickly, I think there’s a good chance she’d contact the authorities. Based on what we know, she didn’t do that, right? They just put two and two together on their own when no one from the village showed up to do the weekly shopping.”
“So what’s your plan?”
“We hide in the chapel. That’s the only way to be sure that we change this but nothing else. Martha will see there’s nothing to come back to, Kiernan. She’ll know she has to leave, find someplace to start over. When she breaks into a run, we stop him from following her.”
He shakes his head. “You really want the kid to see everyone she loves dead in that church?”
“No,” I say. “It’s going to haunt her for the rest of her life. But don’t you think she has the right to know? Once she sees what he’s done, she’s going to want Saul to pay, and I’ll do my best to convince her that we’ll make him pay.”
“And you think she’ll be quiet? That she won’t talk about two people who appear out of nowhere and save her while the rest of her village dies?”
“We’ll just have to convince her that talking would be a very bad idea.”
GOD’S HOLLOW, GEORGIA
September 15, 1911, 2:42 p.m.
We look like aliens, covered from head to toe in the
biohazard suits. Even though the masks are supposed to block most odors, the place reeks of vomit and human waste.
I watched the scene three times through the key, trying to build up my resistance. I don’t look at the faces, just keep my eyes on the ground. If I think of these bodies as people, I’m going to lose it, so I push emotion aside.
Pipe wrench in hand, Kiernan walks past the bench where Sister Elba rests and climbs over the wooden divider that separates the choir from the platform holding the pulpit and the armonica. He presses his back against the wall, partially shielded by the red curtain hanging from above.
I take up position on the other side of the pulpit. The curtain won’t hide me, since the door where Saul will enter is directly opposite, so I crouch down behind the choir bench and pull the Colt out of my pocket. This was one debate that Kiernan won, and although it makes me nervous to carry it around, he’s right. I can’t actually shoot Saul, but a few shots could provide a useful distraction if a whack across the head doesn’t slow him down.
I take some deep breaths as we wait, trying to calm down. Then a scream cuts through the silence. After watching everything transpire through the CHRONOS key, I’d forgotten we’ll have audio this time.
As the sound moves closer, I make out a few words. She’s screaming about the dog, just as Kiernan suspected.
“Bull! That’s Bull! Let me go!”
There’s a scuffle outside the door, and Saul, whose voice I’d imagined as deeper, says, “Oh, no, you don’t. Come on, Martha.”
The door swings inward, and their heads, which are all I can see from this position, are silhouetted against bright sky. “Why are you fighting me? I’m just taking you to Sister Elba and the others, as I promised.”
He kicks the door, and it closes behind them. The smell must hit Martha first, because she coughs and turns her head away. When her eyes adjust to the dimly lit church, her mouth falls open, and her eyes glaze over. There’s no sound for several seconds—I don’t think she’s even breathing. Then she makes a keening sound, soft at first, and then it builds as she brings her hands to her face and begins to scream.