“It sounds like it’s coming from the pool chemical section,” Chuck huffed.
When we got there, flames were licking up the sides of the walls. The two Weaver boys were standing there gaping at the destruction. With their mouths hanging open and their eyes wide, they looked like fish waiting for the baited hook.
“What did you do?” I screamed at them. “Where’s your father?”
The boys looked at me and laughed. Jesse Weaver caught up to us in time to see his sons snickering.
“What did you two do?” he roared.
Kenneth spoke up. “We heard that you could make a bomb with pool shock and a Dr. Pepper. We didn’t really think it would work.”
“But it did,” Jake Weaver said, echoing his brother’s enthusiasm.
“Both of your hides are mine when we get out of here,” Jesse growled. “Your mother is dying in front of your eyes and all you can do is pussyfoot around out here in the store.”
The normally defiant boys seemed to physically shrink in the presence of their father. I still didn’t like any of them, but I definitely gained a little bit of respect for Jesse Weaver at that moment.
Although the fire wasn’t out of control yet, it was steadily climbing the walls and
inching toward the doors.
“You guys got anything to put this out with?” Jesse asked, a hint of fear creeping into his eyes. “We got enough problems without a campfire.”
“The sprinklers should kick in soon,” Steven replied. “Don’t worry. The building won’t burn down.”
“I’m not worried about the building burning down,” Jesse hissed. “I’m worried that the fire is going to cause those glass doors to explode and let in whatever’s turning everybody to dust. After all, the generator was supposed to kick in too, and look what happened there.”
“He’s right,” Wayne said, pointing at one of the glass doors. The frame was already starting to warp and buckle from the heat. It wouldn’t be more than a few seconds before the glass shattered.
“Do something,” Ashley whimpered.
“Run,” Chuck said. “Back to the break room, hurry!”
We all heard the explosion of glass behind us as we rounded the corner. Ironically, it was then that the sprinkler heads decided to kick in.
“Great timing,” Chuck muttered under his breath.
His words took on a whole new meaning once we saw just how bad things really were. Vera Weaver wasn’t breathing when we exploded through the door.
“Vera?” Jesse Weaver said in a high strained voice. “Oh God, Vera.”
Vera’s eyes were open, and it was obvious that she was straining for air. Her face was a light shade of blue, giving her the look of someone who has spent too much time in subzero temperatures. Jesse shook his wife hard, hoping his love and desperation would be enough to save her. One corner of her mouth was drawn and her eyes stared at some mystery on the ceiling.
“Alastor,” she gasped. “…is here. Seraphim.”
“What?” Jesse Weaver pleaded.
“Please change, Jesse,” Vera whispered as she took her last breath. “I want you to be in Heaven with me.” Jesse cradled her in his arms like a rag doll.
Obviously the threat of dying wasn’t enough to scare Kenneth and Jake Weaver. They were still goofing off when they came through the door. However, they stopped at the sight of their father crying. Undoubtedly, it was something they had never seen. I’m sure not many people had.
Soon, all three of them were kneeling in front of Vera Weaver’s body, spilling their tears onto her still-warm skin. Although it seemed pitifully inappropriate, we stood there and watched.
Chuck, it seemed, was the only one of us who kept his wits about him. In the ensuing chaos, we had all forgotten about the broken glass doors that the Weaver boys had destroyed. Even now, the atmosphere was probably seeping into the store. Who knew how long it would take to reach us?
“I know this isn’t a real good time to bring this up, but we’ve got to find something to seal the doors,” Chuck exclaimed, running a hand through his thinning blonde hair.
None of the Weavers looked up from Vera’s body. All of them, Jesse in particular, were probably regretting the way they had treated the matriarch of the family while she had been alive.
“Leave them,” I said. “They won’t be any help to us right now.”
“The longer we wait, the more likely it is that we’re going to die,” Chuck reminded us.
“The supply closet,” Steven said. “We can probably make it there in time.”
Both of them rushed out without another word, knowing that time was of the essence.
They returned a few moments later with a couple of boxes of garbage bags, some tape, and a bagful of discarded cleaning rags. Immediately, we went to work, plugging the space underneath the door with plastic and rags and sealing it all up with tape. It was a pitiful defense against biological contagion, but it was all we had. At that point, I was hoping that this was some sort of Biblical curse rather than something manmade. Under that scenario our odds seemed slightly better. Still, I couldn’t help thinking about the way Vera Weaver had spoken in tongues and all the things Pete had said about angels and plagues and the end of the world. When you looked at things from that perspective, it became clear that we had lots of reasons to be depressed. The fact that one of the doors to the outside world wasn’t there anymore to keep the atmosphere out didn’t help matters either.
“We’ll suffocate in here,” was the only thing Wayne Richards had to say as he watched Steven and Chuck seal the space underneath the door and around the jamb.
I spoke for everyone when I said, “Either shut up or help.” Wayne turned his back on me, refusing.
It didn’t take us long to seal up the room. Once we were finished, we still had enough flashlights among us to see, but not nearly enough to make us comfortable. We still had the snack and drink machines which was about the only advantage to being stuck in the break room. And all of us were still alive. That was something to be thankful for.
Nobody really said much after that. We had said all that we needed to. There was no need to discuss the possibilities anymore, only the inevitabilities. We were all going to die. It wasn’t a matter of if, but when.
“Maybe Leland will find some way to rescue us,” Ashley said at last.
“He’s the reason we’re in this mess,” Wayne muttered. “Besides, he’s probably already dead.”
“I’m going to try talking to Leland one more time,” Chuck said.
“Leland,” he spoke into the radio. “Can you hear me? If you can hear me, please speak up. Tell us what’s going on.”
Leland didn’t reply at first. “Something’s wrong,” Chuck said.
Then the radio squawked, and Leland’s voice came through. “I’m here,” he muttered. “I got dizzy and lightheaded.”
“What happened?” Chuck asked as the rest of us huddled around him.
“I guess I just overdid it. I’m not in the shape I used to be. I’m fine now though.”
"How many others are there in the restaurant?" Chuck asked.
"Eight, not counting me. They're mostly cooks and waitresses. They're actually doing pretty well, considering. I guess whatever’s keeping you guys alive is keeping them alive too."
"Does anybody know what's happening?"
"Not really. But they've got their theories just like you had yours. They are convinced that this is the end of the world. They think this is God's form of judgment."
"I don't believe it," Wayne Richards said, slamming his hand down on the table. “This guy is in on whatever is going on. That’s the only reason he’s alive right now.”
“Tell him to let us speak to one of the other survivors,” Pete spoke up.
I think all of us were a little surprised by his suggestion, but Pete seemed to have a lot of insight into our problem. Although I had no reason to suspect Leland Kennedy of any sort of involvement, I had to consider the possibility
.
“I’d like to hear someone else’s voice too,” Jesse Weaver chimed in. “He could be making all of that up.”
Everyone looked at me for final approval. “Go ahead,” I told Chuck. “Get somebody else on the line.”
“Leland, I want you to do something for me,” Chuck said. Leland, however, didn’t reply. The only thing we heard from that end was the sound of a woman screaming.
“Leland?” Chuck shouted into the two-way radio. “Are you there? What’s going on?”
The screaming woman began shouting incoherently. The radio went dead before she could finish the first sentence, yet it was clear that she wasn’t speaking English. She was speaking the same sorts of words that Vera Weaver had spoken before dying.
“They’re speaking in tongues there too,” Pete sighed. “That’s proof enough for me that God is involved in this somehow. I don’t know about the rest of you guys, but I think it’s time we started praying. Our lives depend on it at this point.”
"I don’t think God has anything to do with this," Wayne said.
“Nobody cares what you think,” Steven fired back. “You haven’t exactly been a wealth of information thus far. Why should we listen to you?”
“Because there is the possibility that I’m right.”
“There’s also the likelihood that you’re wrong,” Pete said. “You’re ready to blame terrorists for everything, but there’s a lot that points to the supernatural.”
I shot Pete a dirty look, hoping he wouldn’t tell the group everything we had found out. But he didn’t look at me.
“People are speaking in tongues,” he said, “Matt and I found feathers in the generator. Something had completely demolished it despite the fact that it was in a locked room. That’s why it didn’t come on. And don’t forget what Vera Weaver said about Alastor, the executioner.”
Jesse Weaver took a deep breath and stood up at the mention of his dead wife. He went from a shrunken, shriveled widower to a force to be reckoned with. Pete was a big man, but Jesse towered over him.
“What else did you hear her say?” Jesse grumbled.
Although the rest of us heard her tell Jesse to change his ways just before she died, none of us, Pete included, decided to mention it. “Nothing,” Pete said. “That’s all I caught.”
Jesse’s face collapsed before our eyes, and he put his hands up to hide his grief. It was like watching him transform from a man into a shell of a man.
“She told me to change,” Jesse confessed as he wept. “She didn’t like the man I was. She loved me but she hated me too. Don’t you see that?”
“I’m not so sure that’s what she meant,” Ashley Richards said. “Look.”
It just looked like an ordinary feather, but it was so utterly alien and out of place here that it gave me chills. I immediately looked at Pete, and he looked at me. It was clear that we were both thinking about the feather we found in the wreckage of the generator. This was too much of a coincidence to be unrelated.
“Where did you get that?” Wayne hissed, grabbing the feather away from his wife.
“I found it in my shirt pocket,” she said. “I didn’t realize I had it until after I gave Leland that kiss on the cheek. I didn’t think much about it until now.”
“Are you saying that Leland is to blame?” Jesse asked.
“I don’t know what I’m saying,” Ashley admitted.
“What would an angel want with us anyway?” Steven asked. “I’m not sure that explanation makes sense.”
“I don’t think that’s a question we can answer right now,” I said. “I think the most pertinent question is what we should do for a defense.”
“What can we do?” Jesse said. “Pray? Recite The Lord’s Prayer over and over again? Say the books of the Bible in order? I don’t know what the rest of you are going to do, but I don’t want to make myself a sitting duck. I’m not going to let some angel get away with killing my wife, and that’s what happened when you get right down to it. Vera would still be here with us if the world had stayed the same.”
“If this is happening because of God then there’s nothing we can do,” Kenneth Weaver said. “We may as well open the doors and walk out to our doom. It might even be better that way. Mom’s probably doing better than any of us right now.”
“Speak for yourself, wuss,” Jake said, giving his brother the evil eye. “I’m not ready to die yet.”
“I agree,” I said. “We’re obviously alive for some reason. Maybe it’s God’s will that we stay alive.”
“Maybe we’re the instruments that God is going to use to bring down this angel,” Chuck added.
“And maybe you’ve been sniffing too much diesel fuel, Rambo,” Jesse said.
“Mom believed in God,” Kenneth Weaver interrupted, drawing a hard look from his father. “Maybe we should too.”
“It didn’t do her a lot of good in the end,” Jake reminded his brother. “She’s dead.”
“You shut up,” Kenneth said, smacking his brother in the face with his open palm. “Don’t you talk about Mama like that.”
“Stop it! Both of you,” Jesse Weaver roared like an injured bear. “I don’t want to hear anything else about your mother right now. We’ll remember her later when we can pay proper respect.”
“Maybe your sons are right,” Ashley said timidly. “Maybe trust in God is what we all need right now. It certainly couldn’t hurt.”
“You’ve got my vote,” I said. “In fact, I think we should start to confess. If there is some divine intervention going on here, it might not be a bad idea to get all of our sins out in the open so we can ask for forgiveness. I’m sure some of the dead wish they would have gotten that chance before they turned into a pile of salt.”
We all looked at each other for a moment, wondering if baring our souls was the best course of action at the moment. Chuck was the first to speak.
"I stole some money from one of the registers last week," he blurted out. We all looked at him in amazement.
"What are you talking about?" Steven asked him.
"I want to confess my sins and let you judge whether or not I'm fit to go outside. I want to know if I genuinely stand a chance of surviving once I walk out those doors."
“None of us are fit to judge that sort of thing,” Steven replied. “We’re no better than you. I’m sure there’s something in everyone’s past that they’re ashamed of, something that would be better told to a priest.”
“I’m sure there are some things we all need to get off of our chest,” Pete added. “It doesn’t bother me to hear any of this.”
“I certainly won’t think less of anyone for confessing,” Ashley said.
“This is a complete waste of time,” Wayne grumbled, moving away from his wife. I don’t think anyone heard him. Everyone else was too busy filtering through the memories of the things they had done and deciding what to tell and what to keep to themselves.
And then we began to talk.
One by one, we opened up about our sins, spilling our guts to the world with the hope of staying alive. Jesse Weaver admitted to spending his wife's prescription money on beer and gambling. Steven admitted to cheating on his first wife. Ashley Richards confessed to running into someone else's car at the grocery store and fleeing the scene of the accident. I told them all about all the times I used to shoot cats at the city dump for fun. The Weaver boys perked up when I mentioned that. It was clear that they were guilty of that as well. The only one of us who didn't confess was Wayne Richards. It was clear he still thought the whole purging process was foolish.
"Don't you have something you want to get off your chest?" Chuck asked him.
"This is ridiculous," he said. "You obviously believe that this is God's punishment for the wicked. What makes you think that there will be any mercy shown to you?"
"Ever heard of a little thing called confession?" Jesse Weaver spoke up. “My wife may have been a lot of things, but she wasn’t stupid. This is something she believed
in. I didn’t want to believe it myself at first. I guess I’ve done so many bad things in my past that I was scared. But I feel better now that I’ve gotten some of my secrets out in the open. I don’t feel like such a terrible person now that I’ve heard some of the things the rest of you have done. We’re all human, and we’ve all made mistakes. Of course, maybe you’re better than the rest of us but I don’t think so.”
It was surprising to hear a man like Jesse actually stand up for something that didn't have to do with boozing, gambling, or women. But the fear of death will change people sometimes. We found that out the hard way.
"What if you die, Wayne?" Ashley asked him. "Are you that confident that there is no God and no heaven?”
Wayne made a face that was equal parts fear and indecision. He chewed on his bottom lip as if to keep the words from coming out. “There’s more to it than that, Ashley, and you know it.”
None of us were quite sure what he meant by that, and by this point, none of us really cared. Wayne was a thorn in all of our sides. True enough, the situation was bad, yet Wayne made everything worse.
Putting her face in her hands, Ashley began to weep. It was a pitiful longing sound, exactly the kind of mewling lamentation that should accompany the end of the world.
"Fine," Wayne muttered quickly. "You want me to confess something. I'll confess something. I slept with Julie on our wedding day. We've had an on-off relationship ever since. I’ve been cheating on you behind your back for the past two months."
Ashley looked up at her husband with the most hate-filled expression I've ever seen outside of those old pictures of Nazi Generals in their concentration camps. Somehow, I think if she'd been capable at that point, Ashley would have skinned Wayne Richards right then and there and shoved him headfirst into one of those same industrial sized ovens that took the lives of so many Jews. But she couldn't do that. All she could do was rush at him with her fingernails poised to take out both of his eyes.
Jesse Weaver knew what was going to happen before any of the rest of us did and acted accordingly. He was the first to pull Ashley Richards off of her husband. She pretended to calm down only to rush at Wayne again. This time it was all Steven and I could do to get her under control. When all was said and done, Wayne looked like the loser in a prizefight. His lips and nose were both bleeding, and his left eye was starting to swell up. None of us felt sorry for him.
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