“Trust me, I won’t.” Beck positioned himself directly in front of me. “And you’re right; there is something different about those kids. I can’t put my finger on it.”
“Kids are resilient, I know that. They seem way too tough. Has Michael said anything about them to you?”
“No,” Beck said, “but then again, they just joined us, so maybe they’re just shy. You heard Alex’s opinion, right?”
“No. I didn’t talk to Alex much today.” I said. “What is it?”
“He thinks this church group that went into the mountains was like a cult. Isolate the kids and all. He thinks that’s why all the girls wear dresses. Bonnie found them in South Dakota. Supposedly they were in Montana when the Event occurred.”
“That makes sense, with their demeanor and all.”
Beck nodded and drank, refilled my glass.
“Thank you for taking me away.”
“Not a problem. I was glad to.”
There was a brief pause in the conversation, and then thoughts about things Alex had said swirled through my mind, and I laughed out loud.
Beck smiled. “What?”
It took a second for me to get the giggles under control; the mixture of emotions and alcohol was taking its effect. “Alex …” I laughed again, “called you Papa Bear.”
Beck laughed. I enjoyed when he did that, he rarely smiled widely or laughed. “Alex is funny. He has the best one-liners.”
“Oh my God, what he doesn’t say to Michael. He takes the Savior thing as far as he can.”
“And pushes it,” Beck added. “I thought for sure Michael was going to kill him when we were discussing the flat tire on the bus, and he asked Michael if he could levitate the bus or something.”
“I wasn’t there for that,” I snickered. “But you know there’s something about Michael too. I know you’re convinced he’s a mutant Sleeper, but I don’t know.”
“You think he’s a Chosen?”
“I don’t know anymore.” I lowered my head, looking at my drink. “There is something special about him.”
Beck used his index finger to lift my chin. “Mera, there is something distinctive about every single person here. All of us, good or bad, survived for a reason. There’s a dying world out there, yet we live. We lost everything, yet we keep moving forward. We all have a reason for living, and that makes us all unique.”
“You’re pretty quiet,” I whispered. “You ought to speak more often. You have some valuable things to say, Gavin Beck.”
His mouth dropped open a little, and the corner of it rose in a smile. “You said my first name.”
“It surprises you that I knew it?”
“Uh … yeah.”
I laughed. “Did you think I thought your first name was Major?”
“Yes.” He smiled, laughed a little, and then turned serious.
In that quiet moment, our eyes locked.
His index finger was still on my chin. It slid to my cheek, and then his whole hand cupped my face. His fingers stroked my skin then slipped to the back of my neck. He pulled me closer.
I felt his thumb brush my face. He was so close to me, only a breath away, waiting for some kind of approval.
Our lips brushed. A mere hair’s breadth separated us.
I trembled.
There was no way I had ever envisioned myself that close to Beck in that way. In my pain-filled world, there wasn’t time for fantasy or to think about a human connection.
He was waiting. I could tell he was waiting on me.
My heart had been broken by grief, by tragedy, so much so I didn’t even know if I had a real heart to feel with anymore.
Never did I imagine that, for one brief moment in time, the pain would subside, and a rush of peace would take its place. Never did I imagine, for an instant in time, that the world hadn’t ended.
However, that was where I was.
Right there. So close.
I closed my eyes and allowed my lips to meet his.
Right decision? Wrong decision? I didn’t know. Wrong time? Wrong place? It didn’t matter.
He kissed me.
A slow, soft kiss intensified in a heartbeat, bringing a moan, an intensely human sigh that came from my soul. At the same time that our lips locked in that kiss, we both stood, and then we embraced.
It was like nothing I had ever felt.
After all the heartache that I had experienced in the previous months, his arms were the first real arms to hold me. I felt almost happy.
I loved how it felt to be held by him, and I know he felt the same way. His arms moved around me, feeling me, holding me, his body pressing tightly against mine, taking me in, almost as if he wished he could consume me.
And I tried, oh, God did I try to let him to consume me.
Time was suspended. Everything was suspended, the hurt, the pain, the world.
Everything felt right. For as long as I could, as long as he would, I would stay in that moment … with Beck.
28. ALEX SANS
Finding a way to the roof from inside the warehouse was like looking for a needle in a haystack. Not that I minded going outside to climb the outer portion of the building; I just thought it would be safer to go to the roof from inside.
Sonny and I searched for a while after everyone else went to sleep. We found it the last place we looked, naturally. I found the stairway in the closet of the office that I assumed belonged to the big boss.
I was a little irritated by that point. I had Jillian and her actions on my mind. I supposed we’d have to discuss it as a group. What she admitted to did warrant being ousted from our group.
I briefly checked out the roof, climbed back down, and shook my head.
“What?” Sonny asked.
“Just a pain in the ass.” I looked at my watch. “I’ll take first watch; come and get me in three hours. Beck will be your relief. We’ll do round the clocks between us all from here on in.”
“Sounds good.”
“And uh, find Beck, will ya? Wherever he went.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, find him. Let him know he’ll be on watch in a few. Since, you know, he disappeared with Mera.” I headed back to the ladder. “I told him to walk her, not leave for the night.”
Sonny laughed. “What the hell are you talking about? Guy, they came back a while ago. They weren’t even gone that long.”
“How did I miss that?”
“You probably were outside with Mike looking at that ladder,” Sonny said.
“Okay. Thanks.” I started to climb again.
“Jealous much?”
“What?”
“Just calling it as I see it …. green’s not your color.”
“Thanks for the tip. But I’m not jealous.” I reached the top o of the ladder.
Jealous.
I wouldn’t call it that. Irritated would be more like it. It wasn’t over an interest in Mera, it was over the fact that if they paired off it would upset the balance of our group.
I didn’t know. I’d have to soul search for that one, and I wasn’t in the mood to do it.
The roof was perfect for our purposes. I had a good view of the surrounding area, and a keen eye and ear would hear a Sleeper coming from a long distance.
The roof was also a good place to think. It wasn’t my responsibility to take care of everyone, yet I felt it was. I felt the pressures of where to go, what to do next. Sonny talked to me a lot about it, and that helped. He was a dependable source.
I was also confused.
While I was outside the warehouse, walking the perimeter, Michael joined me. I thought it was a good opportunity to bring up again what he tried to tell me about his notes and the Doctrines. I needed information.
As much as I hated to admit it, the Doctrines, even if they were fictitious, were a good set of guidelines.
“Don’t rely on them, Alex, really,” Michael said. “Follow your heart and instincts.”
“What was
it that you wanted to tell me?”
“It’s hard to explain. See, when I originally read them, I was taking notes on what I read. They go decades beyond what happens now, you know that, right?”
I nodded.
“Well, it dawned on me that the Doctrines mention Keller.”
“By name?”
“By name. But he’s older, twenty I think.”
“That’s impossible. Keller won’t survive that long.”
“Kind of an odd coincidence though, huh? Keller isn’t a common name.”
“Who is he in the Doctrines?”
“I don’t know. I missed something, it doesn’t make sense. We need Randy to explain them.”
Randy.
Randy was a virtuous man, a sensible man, and, in addition to his knowledge of the future, he had a considerable gift of giving advice that worked.
We needed him back, but I didn’t even know if Randy was alive.
He had warned me to run. The same man who gave up his life to ensure Phoenix made it to the ARC was telling me to run.
If Phoenix or I was in danger, then it was safe to assume that Randy and maybe everyone else was, too.
I believed we were all alive because of Randy. And because of that, I had to make it my priority to do everything in my ability to get him back.
29. ALEX SANS
The radio broke silence for the first time in a while, other than transmissions from the ARC, and it was from those claiming to be the New Jerusalem. Unfortunately, our enthusiasm was short lived over the fact that Michael said it was the same statement that had been broadcast earlier:
This is the New Jerusalem. We are with people from Project Savior. We are a second facility. We seek others and believe with the right elements we can create a strong future…
It was a recording. It had to be.
It was no wonder they didn’t respond to any calls he had made. I was left to conclude that the recording was played automatically, and there wasn’t a New Jerusalem.
There was something familiar about it, however, I couldn’t put my finger on it. I had only caught the tail end. Michael, on hearing it the second time stated, not only was it a recording, it was also vaguely reminiscent of the voice on the holographic message Randy played.
To be honest, all I recalled about that man from Project Savior was that he said they had erred, and their germs were too strong for our time. His voice was like a computerized recording. Randy attributed that to the age of the recording and the fact that it had been processed to make it clear. In other words, edited to save it.
“The same man?” I had asked.
Michael was sure it wasn’t. Because he, unlike us, had listened to the message on Randy’s tablet more than once. No, it wasn’t the same man, but it was done by the same process, electronic and repeated.
Then more we discussed it the less we believed in the existence of a New Jerusalem. In a way, that made our decision easier, at least as far as where to go.
One decision wasn’t going to be that easy: What to do with Jillian.
I wasn’t her judge, jury, and executioner. While I believed that her actions were morally reprehensible, was it my place in this new world to say she was wrong? It hadn’t been her hands that tore the boy apart, it was her motives.
Still, with her actions, there was the possibility that others didn’t want her around.
It was time to make that decision and stick with it. There was a lot of tension the next morning. After I grabbed a limited amount of sleep and dived into hot instant coffee, I told the others we would gather to decide.
I sought out that bright little girl with the knotted hair. I figured she was miles above a normal girl in wisdom and would use her to entertain the others. I almost didn’t recognize Marissa; her hair was smooth and combed.
“Look at you, all pretty with your hair done.”
She smiled. “The mother woman fixed it. She sprayed this stuff on it, and it combed right through.”
“Looks good.”
“Thank you.”
“I have a favor,” I said. “Can you gather the kids, take them off to play?”
“We play all the time.”
“Yeah, I know, but I need you to keep an eye on everyone, and if you can, take Jessie.”
“The pretty, tall girl that doesn’t talk?” Marissa asked.
“Yes, her.”
“And do what?”
“Hide and seek?”
She tilted her head. “Why would we do that?”
“It’s a fun game.”
“But isn’t ‘Hide and Seek’ our lives? We live that; why would we play that? Besides playing the Paler game is much more fun. It’s like freeze tag.”
I laughed. Hide and Seek was real, but the ‘Paler’ game wasn’t? And man, Paler must have been the backwoods term for Sleeper.
“Well, play whatever you like,” I said. “I need to have a meeting with the grownups and need the kids to stay away.”
“So you can decide Miss Jillian’s fate?”
Hearing her say that made me stop for two reasons. One, how did she know? And two, her manner of speaking was off, as if she was too mature for her age. The cult she was in must have thoroughly schooled their young.
I took a moment and replied as best as I could. “Something like that.”
She stepped back. “I’ll get the others and the tall girl.”
“Thank you.”
She started to walk away but stopped. “Will the man of God be part of the decision?”
“Yeah he will be.”
“Oh, good. He’ll be just. He knows God personally, you know.”
I scratched my head. “So I heard.”
As she darted away, her hair swaying as she ran, all I kept thinking was, Man, what an odd little girl.
My short time with her was a pleasant distraction, but it was time to get to the serious matters.
There were seven of us, so no chance of a tie: Me, Beck, Michael, Danny, Sonny, Bonnie and Mera.
Jillian didn’t get a vote.
I wished with all my heart that we could just move on, but in the back of my mind, I knew it would stay with us until there was an agreed-upon settlement.
“This isn’t a trial,” I told Jillian. “Really, it’s not. See, we’re a group, and we have to stick together. We have to be able to trust everyone.” I stared at her for a second looking up at me, unfazed, unemotional, almost as if she expected what we were going to do. “I’m not cut out for this. Anyone else want to take the reins?”
No one stepped forward.
“We’re gonna take a vote, whether you stay or go,” I sighed, looking at Jillian. “Majority rules.”
Jillian nodded. “I understand.”
“Some people,” I said, “think you … they think Calvin’s death wasn’t an accident. Or rather, was avoidable. Now, obviously, you didn’t kill him. What happened, Jillian?”
She looked at Mera. “It wasn’t a diversion. I didn’t send him out to save my own life. I didn’t…” She stared down to her hands, fingers touching, then looked back up. With each sentence, she glanced at a different person. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this. It wasn’t. There was no forewarning, you know. Just the wooded area, a camp site, wait it out, emerge after a while. Well, after a little bit, every day, those things … some guy on the radio with Ray called them Palers, they’d make their way into camp. Every day, more and more. I thought it was a death trap up there.”
“So you were part of the original group of kids?” I asked.
“Yes, but we didn’t go there to die,” Jillian said. “We stayed there to wait out the plague. People got sick, society broke down, the virus was in the air, people would die for a long time. Ray said we had to wait six months. No one knew about people turning into those things.”
“None of us did,” Bonnie said. “You left the camp to protect Calvin. Did you think you could do the same again?”
Jillian shrugged. “It seemed where there w
ere groups of people, those things went to them. I saw the adults of our group torn apart trying to protect the kids. At first I thought, Calvin would grow up. He could live beyond forty. However, every day I saw it wasn’t getting better. It was worse.”
I crinkled my forehead. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about this isn’t a life for him. He’d run today but die tomorrow. He’d eat today, starve tomorrow. That isn’t a life. Some mothers would do anything to ensure their child lived.” She stared at Mera. “At the cost of running, being scared, having no food, never settling. But is that living? And for how long? Calvin came into this world to live a long life with no one running.”
Sonny then asked, “Did you intentionally send him out to the Sleepers?”
“Not at first. We didn’t go into the trailer because I don’t believe in safety in numbers. Numbers attract. Then …” She paused and quickly looked at Michael. “I gave it to God.”
I turned to Michael. “What does that mean?”
“She simply put it in God’s hands,” Michael answered.
Jillian nodded. “I told Calvin to run. If God intended him to live, he would lead Calvin to hide somewhere. If not… then he would call Calvin home. Calvin didn’t go quietly. I think he thought I was going to follow him, so he started calling for me. And then I panicked and tried to find him. But the Palers were on him; before I could reach him, they surrounded him. There were too many. I gave to my son to God, and He gave him to the Palers.” Her head lowered.
I had one more question. “If we let you stay, do we have to keep you on suicide watch?”
“Suicide watch?”
Beck clarified. “Do you want to die now?”
“No. My son is better off dead, but why would I want to die as well, when we all went to so much trouble to live?”
I peered around the faces of the circle. “Jillian, is there anything else you want to say.”
“No.”
“Anyone else have questions?” I waited. After a few seconds of silence, I said, “Then we vote. Bonnie?”
“Stays. It was her son, her choice.”
“Agreed. I vote we let her stay as well,” I said. “Beck?”
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