by Bill Myers
“And when they have finished their testimony, the beast that comes out of the abyss will make war with them and overcome them and kill them.”
Brandon spun around. The wind blew her hair as she continued to recite the Scripture from memory.
“And those who dwell on the earth will rejoice over their dead bodies and make merry; and they will send gifts to one another, because these two prophets tormented those who dwell on the earth.”
Brandon swallowed. When he finally found his voice, it was afraid and angry. “Why — why didn’t you tell me?”
“I wasn’t …” He could barely hear her over the wind. “I wasn’t sure.”
He took a step back from her. He had to get out of there. But where? He stepped toward her again, then turned away. He began to pace, struggling, trying to make it make sense.
“Brandon,” Momma shouted over the wind. He heard her but would not look at her. “It doesn’t have to be you. Someone else will be chosen. You can refuse it.”
He spun back to her, staring. What was she saying?
“It doesn’t have to be you,” she repeated. “You don’t have to be the one!”
He opened his mouth but could find no words.
“It’s true,” she shouted. “You don’t have to be the one. You don’t have to be anything, if you don’t want. We always have a choice. You don’t have to be anything at all. Nothing at all.”
The phrase struck him to the heart. Had she any idea what she’d just said? Did she know that this was the very issue he’d been battling with? He took another step away from her, and then another. But she continued to plead, driving the stake in deeper.
“We can live like we’ve always lived. You don’t have to be the one, you don’t have to be anybody. I can take care of you, it can be just like it’s always —”
Brandon grabbed his head, trying to make her stop, trying to make it all stop.
She moved closer. “Sweetheart, you don’t have to get involved. We can go somewhere else. We can —”
Suddenly she quit talking. A low rumbling had filled the air. It rattled the windows behind them, shook the ground at their feet. But it wasn’t an earthquake. It was an eerie resonance, a deep moaning that rapidly grew in intensity. Brandon turned, searching, making sure it wasn’t his imagination. But other people had noticed it, too. Some pointed, others stared. He followed their gaze up the street and to the left. There, eight, maybe nine blocks away, hovering in the sky, a dark, swirling cloud was forming — a cloud exactly like he’d seen in his visions. As it condensed, it slowly approached the earth. And, although he couldn’t see the source, he saw that its bottom surface was reflecting light that could only be from —
“The church!” He turned back to his mother and shouted. “It’s the church!”
“Brandon!”
He turned and started down the street, first at a trot, then at a run.
“Brandon!” Momma called. “It doesn’t have to be you. Brandon! Don’t leave. You’re all I have left! You’re all I have! Brandon, don’t leave me. Don’t leave me!”
CHAPTER 16
THE GURNEY WHEELS CHATTERED as the paramedics hustled the unconscious Sarah down the emergency hallway of St. John’s Hospital. They were already running an IV of Lactated Ringers into her right arm. Sterile gauze was pressed firmly against the cut on her face.
A nearby elevator rattled open and the on-call surgeon, a Dr. Hibdon, joined them as they continued down the hall. He was an older man, tall and lean, with unruly puffs of gray hair sticking out from both temples. “What do we have?” he asked.
“Compound and depressed skull fractures, fracture of the right clavicle, severe facial laceration.” The first paramedic ran down the list. “BP increasing, pulse and respiration depressed.”
The doctor pulled a penlight from his shirt pocket and, as they continued moving down the hall, opened her left eye. “Left pupil mid-position and unresponsive.” He glanced up at a nurse who had just entered through the swinging doors. “Start eighty milligrams of Manatol. I want a CT scan and then I want her prepped. Stat.”
The nurse nodded as the doctor peeled off from the gurney to enter the scrub room.
Explosions pounded the air, one after another. Brandon watched as he ran, but the bottom of the cloud was now obscured by tossing and blowing trees. He bore down harder until he rounded the final corner — just in time to see the last of the church windows blow out. Glass flew in all directions, and piercing light blazed from each of the openings. The wind was gale force, whipping and bending the trees, throwing all manner of dirt and debris into the air. Directly above the church, the black cloud’s swirling vortex drew closer and closer to the steeple. By now even the bravest of onlookers was backing away, starting to run. Brandon doubted that they could see all that he saw, but whatever they’d experienced was obviously enough.
“Brandon!” He looked across the street to see old man McPherson yelling, his thin gray hair blowing wildly. “Your father!” he shouted. “When the storm hit — I’m not sure, he still might be in there!”
The steeple exploded. Brandon turned just in time to see the cloud envelop it, spewing pieces of wood in all directions. He held out his hands to protect his face. The exposed skin of his arms and hands stung with flying splinters and rubble. He looked back at McPherson, but the old man was already gone. Lowering his head into the wind, Brandon struggled forward.
From the steeple, the cloud’s vortex snaked its way across the roof toward the back of the building, where it tore out another hole and entered the church.
Brandon fought his way across the street as the trees blew wildly. Limbs snapped and cracked. A power line suddenly dropped in front of him, leaping and sparking a crazy dance on the asphalt. He veered to the right, giving it a wide berth. A minute later, he reached the church steps.
By now he had recognized something else in the howling wind. Voices. Human voices. Agonizing voices from his previous visions — crying, screaming, tormented voices — wailing voices.
He started up the steps. The wind was so strong that he had to cling to the railing. A ripping crack was followed by a whoosh-thud as a giant cottonwood crashed to the porch, missing him by mere feet. He arrived at the double doors and struggled to open them. The right one gave way. As he pulled it open, he was struck by a light so bright that it practically blinded him. Covering his eyes, he inched his way through the door and into the foyer. He could not find the source of the light, but as his eyes adjusted to the brightness he saw the same water fountain he’d seen before. It was in the center of the foyer and already bubbling red liquid. The sanctuary doors lay directly ahead. On each side there stood an olive tree and a lampstand.
Dreading to look up, but knowing he had to, Brandon raised his eyes. Above the entrance, just as he expected, hung the sign:
Enter Not Without the Shield of Faith
He hesitated. He knew the warning and the implication. Worse yet, he knew that he did not qualify. But he also knew that his father was in there. Cautiously, Brandon took hold of the doors. He paused one last moment to gather his courage, and then he threw them open —
The wind inside had virtually stopped. The light was nearly normal. But at the front of the sanctuary, spiraling in through the hole in the roof, hovered the swirling cloud of contorted faces. And not six feet above the altar, these misty apparitions had tightened and condensed until they formed a distinct image — the same image Brandon had seen in his earlier vision: a giant, multi-horned head.
Brandon gasped.
And there, sitting in his wheelchair, halfway down the aisle, where he had no doubt been left in the panic, sat his father. Brandon knew that if the poor man could see even a fraction of what he, Brandon, saw, he must be terrified.
He started down the aisle toward his father when, off to the right, he noticed movement. Another man. The reverend. He rose from a place of protection behind the pews and started to approach the altar. He looked up at the hole in the r
oof but seemed totally oblivious to the cloud swirling through it, and to the monstrous head hovering just above the altar.
“Reverend!” Brandon called. “Reverend, look out!”
The reverend turned to him, then looked back up at the roof. “I’ve never witnessed anything like it. The twister came, ripped off the steeple, then tore open this hole, and —”
“That was no twister!” Brandon shouted.
The reverend shook his head. “And at this time of year, too. A single cloud with no other storm activity. I’m sure there is a natural explanation for the phenomena, but …”
As the reverend talked and approached the altar, the beast’s head slowly opened its mouth.
“Reverend.” Brandon could barely find his voice. “Look out.”
The reverend followed Brandon’s gaze to the altar but saw nothing. He was six feet away now, looking directly at the head, but he seemed totally unaware. “I’m sorry, what did you —”
Suddenly, a dense, pencil-thin mist shot from the beast’s mouth. It entered the reverend’s own mouth with such force that he staggered backward, his eyes bulging in surprise. He coughed and choked, trying to catch his breath. When he finally looked at Brandon, it was with bewilderment. His hands began to shake. Then his arms. He looked down at them, confused, staring at them as if they were foreign objects. The shaking grew more violent. He looked back at Brandon, his confusion turning to fear. “What’s…going on?”
Brandon could only stare as the man’s entire body began to bounce, then to shimmy and gyrate. Now the reverend’s fear turned to horror. “Help me!” he cried to Brandon. “Please, help —”
Suddenly his head flew back, and mocking laughter echoed through the room. Brandon spun around, looking everywhere for its source — until he turned back to the reverend and realized that the laughter was coming from the man’s open mouth.
Reichner had eased his tall frame into the calfskin armchair of his living room. With some difficulty, he tucked his stocking feet under until he was sitting cross-legged. He was not pleased with what he was about to do, but he saw no alternative. The e-mail waiting for him when he had returned from Gerty’s house was quite explicit:
We must talk at once. Use my god-name.
It had been forty-five minutes since his encounter with Lewis and the good Dr. Weintraub. He knew Sarah was upset over what had happened, but he also knew it wouldn’t last. She was his — if not personally, then at least professionally. She belonged to the Institute; she belonged to her work. In a day or two she’d be fine, and then they would resume their pursuit of Brandon Martus.
He looked up at the computer monitor. The message still glowed:
We must talk at once. Use my god-name.
He could try answering by phone or return e-mail. But the instructions were specific. Very specific. Reluctantly, he reached up to the brushed aluminum lamp that arched over his head and dimmed it to low. He had half an hour before the pre-med from the supermarket was to show up. That should give him enough time.
He stared at the piece of paper, the one from Nepal with the so-called god-name written on it. It had worked before. At least something had happened up there in the Himalayas. But here, in Indiana, the environment was considerably different. And, to be honest, Reichner wasn’t particularly thrilled about subjecting himself to the python experience again.
Still, the initial reciting of the mantra had proved relaxing. And with the current level of stress he’d been under, as well as his weak heart, it might not hurt to start practicing a little meditation from time to time. Then, of course, there was the other matter — the fiscal survival of his Institute.
He read the eight syllables of the god-name quietly, barely above a whisper. Then he read them again. They were as smooth and calming as he remembered. He closed his eyes and repeated the sounds two, four, half a dozen times, letting the syllables roll from his tongue. He shifted, trying to relax, to empty his mind of the week’s events.
He repeated the syllables over and over again until, ever so softly, he heard the breeze, the delicate wind. As gentle as a baby’s breath. The sensation was pleasant and relaxing, allowing him to release even more of himself to it.
As he did, the sound grew louder, melding, merging into those lovely sustained chords, the same wondrous music he had heard back in Nepal. It surrounded him, gently lifting him, welling up inside and washing over his mind, his body, his very being. Once again the light pulsed in his feet, then rippled up through his chest and into his head. Wave after gentle wave followed, until his entire body was again breathing and resonating in this lovely, euphoric rhythm. Until he was again becoming one — one with the music, one with the wind, the light. One with something far greater and vaster than he could ever imagine.
The reverend danced, legs and arms flying in all directions like some out-of-control marionette. His laughter echoed through the room, tying an icy knot deep in Brandon’s stomach.
Brandon ran the remaining steps down the aisle to join his father. Whoever had abandoned him there had at least locked the wheels so that he wouldn’t roll down the gentle incline to the front. Brandon faced him, momentarily turning his back on the reverend and the head. “It’s okay, Pop, I’m here now. I’m here. Let’s just hurry and get you out —”
Sensing movement, he spun around to see the reverend’s body propelled rapidly up the aisle toward him. He braced himself, preparing for impact, but the reverend suddenly came to an abrupt halt. The man stood less than six feet away. His eyes were rolled back into his head, and his arms and legs continued their wild dance.
“I HAVE WAITED A LONG TIME FOR THIS.”
The voices were multiple — just like the kid who had attacked him, just like the woman at the lab. They came from the reverend’s mouth, which opened and closed as if he were speaking, but they did not belong to him.
Brandon stiffened, recalling his past confrontations with the multiple voices — particularly the one with the kid outside the church, and later in Jenny’s bedroom. He remembered the authority with which Gerty had controlled the red-headed kid that night — the same authority she kept insisting he had. The same authority he’d tried back in Jenny’s room but with little success.
Unsure what to do, but left with no alternative, Brandon cleared his throat. He would try it again. “Leave him!” he shouted. “I command you to leave him, now!”
The reverend’s head shot back as more laughter filled the sanctuary. Then he spoke. “HE DOESN’T EVEN BELIEVE I EXIST!”
Brandon swallowed and tried again. “I command you to leave him!”
“AND YOU BELIEVE IN NOTHING.” More laughter.
Brandon steadied himself, remembering all too well how his bluff had been called back in Jenny’s room. “I — I do believe.” He centered his voice, trying to give it more authority. “I believe and I command you to leave. Do you hear me? I command you to leave. Leave him now!”
This time there was no response. No words. No laughter. Brandon held his breath and waited.
Gradually the macabre dancing slowed, then stopped altogether. Brandon watched, saying nothing.
At last, the reverend’s eyes rolled down. He blinked and looked about, confused and disoriented. When he saw Brandon, he frowned. “What …” It was a single voice now. The reverend’s voice. “What happened?”
Brandon stepped toward him. “Are you all right?” The reverend nodded but wobbled slightly. Brandon reached out to steady him. “It was that head.” He motioned back toward the altar. “It —”
Without warning, the reverend’s body twirled. His arms flew out; his right hand smashed into Brandon’s face. Brandon staggered backward as more unearthly laughter filled the sanctuary.
Holding his cheek, angered at the deception, Brandon took a step forward and braced himself. “Leave him!” he shouted. “Leave him! Now!”
More laughter.
“I said, leave hi —”
Suddenly, the reverend’s body was picked up, drag
ged between the pews, and violently hurled against the left wall. Brandon started toward him but stopped when he noticed the beast’s head leaving the altar. Its vaporous faces swirled faster as it moved up the aisle toward him. Trembling, Brandon forced himself to step back into the aisle, taking a stand between it and his father.
“Stay away!” he shouted. “Stay back!”
The head slowed to a stop. It hovered at eye level less than a dozen feet away. Brandon could see the horns clearly now. There were ten, counting the new one that had grown back — the hideous-looking one covered in moving eyes. The head did not open its mouth, yet it spoke with the same voices that had spoken through the reverend.
“YOU HAVE NO AUTHORITY.”
Brandon’s heart hammered in his chest. He had tried everything he had known, everything he had seen the old woman do. And nothing had worked.
As if reading his thoughts, the head resumed its advance.
“Stay back!” Brandon ordered. “I command you to stay back!”
The voices repeated themselves. “YOU DO NOT BELIEVE.”
“I do.”
“LIAR.”
Brandon pulled back a step. Then another. The creature was right.
“YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW WHO YOU ARE,” the voices hissed. “NOT THAT IT MATTERS. LOOK WHERE SUCH BELIEF BROUGHT YOUR FATHER.”
Brandon couldn’t resist looking back at his father in the wheelchair. Once again the thing was right. His father had been a strong believer, and look where it got him. But as Brandon stared, something caught his attention. Was it his imagination, or were his father’s vacant eyes actually registering emotion? Was it fear? Pain? He couldn’t tell, but something was definitely going on inside of him.
“Brandon!”
It was his mother’s voice. He spun around to see her entering from the back of the sanctuary. But before he could respond, the beast shot another stream of mist, this time to the wall opposite the reverend. From it the human wolf of the lab experiment suddenly materialized. It crouched low, baring its teeth and snarling.