Winter's Storm

by Mary Stone

  Will wasn’t sure what to think or say, so he settled on, “Oh.”

  “Fascinating, isn’t it?”

  Will was still bewildered. “Sure.”

  “In fact, spiders are all around you all the time. Some studies show that you’re never more than four feet away from a spider. Just think, one is probably staring at you right now, its black, glistening eyes sizing you up, wishing his friends would come so they could gang up and devour you, tiny bite by tiny bite. They could, you know. It would only take about two thousand of them to consume you in a day’s time.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  Jaime sighed, a drawn-out exhalation of breath. “Because there’s a moral to this story, Will. Don’t you get it? The moral is that the weak can outnumber the strong. The few overtake the many. The improbable can become possible when the devoted join forces and work together. You get it now?”

  Will nodded, even though he knew Jaime couldn’t see him. “Yeah. You know, you missed your calling. You really should have become a preacher.”

  Jaime laughed, the sound going on and on. “That’s funny you should say that because I am becoming a preacher.”

  Will sat up in surprise. “You are?”

  “Oh yes,” Jaime said, his voice more a whispering hush. “I’ll baptize the unholy, inspire warriors to kneel at my alter and worship with me, to me.”

  The hair on the back of Will’s neck raised in alarm. “Worship to you? You’re not God.”

  “Yes, I am, Will. Don’t you see? I was born from the blood of a preacher man, baptized on his knee. I was raised for a single mission, and only death will stop me from achieving it. There are those who wish to stop me, punish me, nail me to the cross of man’s law. Not God’s law. My law. Sound familiar?”

  Will pulled the phone away from his ear as the roar of the last two words pierced his sensitive eardrum.

  Jaime was insane. He was either joking or insane. And the hell of it was, Will couldn’t tell the difference.

  Did that make him insane too?

  “Um, Jaime, I need to go.”

  He did. For so many reasons he couldn’t even articulate.

  But before he tapped the button to end the call, Jaime said, “Yes, you do, William Hoult. You very much need to go.”

  The lights went out, creating a darkness so complete that Will froze where he sat. He fumbled with his phone, but it slipped out of his suddenly damp fingers.

  Creeeeak.

  Every single cell in Will’s body responded to the sound that was little more than a hiss. He scrambled backward, falling off the bed in his haste.

  Spiders.

  All he could think of was the tons and tons of spiders that had to be scurrying all around him. In the old carpet. Under the bed. In the cracks of the wall and the ceiling. In the—

  Something whispered across his skin.

  Will screamed, and he tried to run, tried to hide, but the darkness was so disorienting that he only turned in circles. His gun. Where was his gun?

  “In the name of the Father…”

  Will whirled, trying to find the source of the voice.

  “…and the Son…”

  He began to cry, deep, chest-rending sobs that shook his entire body. Where was his gun?

  “…and the Holy Spirit…”

  He lunged in the direction he thought the bed was in, but only landed on the floor. He began to crawl, his fingers clawing at the carpet. Try as he might, he didn’t make it very far.

  The hand that gripped his hair yanked his head back so far that his neck cracked and popped, the roots ripping out of their protective follicles.

  “…for dust thou art…”

  The blade of the knife was cold against his throat, then hot as it took its first bite.

  Will screamed, but no sound escaped. Only a gurgle as he swallowed a mouth full of blood.

  “…and unto dust shalt thou return…”

  He thought about the girl, wondered if he looked as terrified as she did. Had she pissed her pants as he was doing now? Had she mentally begged him for her life, even as that life leaked out of her?

  I’m sorry, his mind screamed. Please forgive me.

  Was he asking for forgiveness from the girl? From God? Or the man who was taking his life?

  Lips pressed to his ear as the knife moved to his chest, the very tip breaching his skin. As it drove deeper, Jaime whispered one last word.

  “Amen.”

  31

  I blinked as my eyes adjusted from the green of the night vision goggles, then I blinked some more when I tapped the app to turn the lights back on.

  The place was a mess. That didn’t matter. It would be even messier soon.

  I took off the bloody rubber gloves that had grown damp on my hands. Dropping them into a plastic bag, I wiped my sweaty palms on the disposable white jumpsuit I wore before slipping into a new pair, snapping them in place.

  I needed to be careful. Much more careful than I’d previously been.

  But I couldn’t think about the past and the mistake I’d made. I couldn’t regret the momentary joy of licking the tears from Sandy Ulbrich’s face, although Grandfather wouldn’t be pleased at my lack of willpower.

  “Devil’s in the details,” he’d often told me.

  The mistake could be fixed, though. It was always a good idea to have a hacker on the payroll. After I spoke to Phil, I didn’t think he’d have any trouble deleting my DNA results from the appropriate databases.

  If I could ever get ahold of the man, that was.

  I closed my eyes, feeling the anger build. People were so trying, and I cursed myself again for not focusing more time on honing my own hacking skills. I was a fair hacker and could break through many firewalls, but not the ones I most wanted to break through.

  That was Phil’s job, and until then, I’d just have to be extra careful about sharing my DNA with the world.

  It was passion that had made me do it, taste her tears. Passion and the joy of doing God’s work that had precipitated that poor decision. A man couldn’t be faulted for his good work, could he?

  But I knew there were few who would see it that way. Few who could take off their blinders long enough to view the world as men like Kent Strickland and Tyler Haldane, like my grandfather, had been able to. Like I did.

  There were many others, I knew, who also shared my view but were too afraid of modern law to do more than type 160 characters at a time on places like Twitter and in forums, spouting their truths behind the cloak of anonymity.

  I wished to change that. I wished to reach out to those who felt muzzled by society, bring them into the light of day to stand together as one so that the vile disbelievers would cower…would learn…would see the truth and kneel down in gratitude to me as I showed them the way to salvation.

  Couldn’t they see that?

  Couldn’t they see the overpopulation that was draining Mother Earth? Couldn’t they see the liberal thinking that had turned the people from the church? See the way modern women were destroying their children one day at a time? Feel the heat of climate change and do more than toss a plastic bottle into a recycling bin, thinking they were making a difference?

  No. Not yet, I knew. That was why I needed to be careful, leave no more traces of my DNA until the day I too could step into the light and preach the word of God to the masses.

  The world needed a good shaking. An earthquake that was beyond all measure.

  It needed a storm strong enough to wash away the sin.

  It needed me.

  I was the storm. The storm brewing on the horizon, gathering strength as I gathered latent heat and energy from those who believed. Those who were willing to do. Those who didn’t cower in the face of the tasks set before them.

  In disgust, I kicked Will in the face, then kicked him again just because it felt good to do so.

  He had failed me, but it wasn’t fury at his betrayal that brought my foot back to kick him a final time. It was fury at
myself.

  How had I not seen this coming? How had God failed to put the right men in my path? How had he not opened my eyes to the treachery that was bearing down on me?

  It was those questions that boiled and churned in my gut.

  It was…fear. Yes, I could say that word now.

  “I was afraid,” I said aloud to the man on the floor, bending low so that I could look into his vacant eyes as I said the words that had been burning in my soul.

  I would never say them again.

  Didn’t Jesus Himself lose His faith as He hung on the cross, turn His eyes from His Father, ask, “Why have you forsaken me?”

  Yes, he did, and I stood in this depressing motel room and raised my face to the heavens to ask the same question. “Why have you forsaken me?”

  My phone rang, and I wasn’t even all that surprised to see Phil’s name come up on the screen.

  I smiled, raised my face to the heavens in gratitude for this blessed sign before accepting the call and lifting the phone to my ear. “Perfect timing, Phil. Tell me that you have what I asked for.”

  There was a stuttering silence, followed by, “Yes, I have it. Where, um, can we meet?”

  Meet?

  I looked at Will’s body. “Sorry, I seem to be indisposed at the moment. Load it onto the secure server as I requested.”

  “I…I…I…”

  What was with all the stuttering nonsense today?

  “Speak!”

  And why was he so nervous?

  “I need to meet with you, point out some, um, things that you’ll find interesting.”

  I pulled the phone away from my ear and looked at the screen. I’d been on the call for twenty-four seconds. Not that time mattered in this digital age.

  I knew immediately what had happened. Phil was betraying me, betraying the cause. After our last meeting, our only meeting, when I deposited him in that remote location, I knew he hoped to never see me again.

  The coward.

  Hollywood still tried to make their flock believe that it took sixty seconds to trace a call. I called bullshit on that. Ma Bell had gotten savvy and traces happened near instantaneously. Grandfather told me that, and I believed him. I believed everything he told me. He loved me.

  “He’s dead,” I told Phil as I started moving. “You just killed him, you know that? You just killed your father.” I ended the call, then texted the damn hacker a picture of his father handcuffed to a radiator that had seen better days, adding, If you don’t follow orders within the next 60 mins, he’s dead.

  Kevin Rossway was a mess too. But alive. For now.

  He had refused to be taken the easy way, and I’d been forced to shoot him in the shoulder and haul him to a secure location to use as leverage. From what I could ascertain, Phil’s father was the only person in the world the hacker cared about.

  Not waiting for a response, I powered off the device and popped the SIM card out for good measure. I had work to do and very little time in which to do it. I couldn’t get caught. Not now. Not before the message was sent.

  Dipping a finger in Will’s blood, I wrote a single word on the wall before stripping off those gloves and pulling on a new pair. It wasn’t how I’d envisioned it, but it would do.

  More quickly now, I searched the body, taking Will’s identification and the phone I’d purchased. I also took the cash, dropping the empty wallet onto the floor.

  Moving to the door that adjoined this room to the next, I stepped from Will’s room to mine, keeping my feet carefully planted on the plastic I’d laid down on the dingy carpet before placing a final call to the bastard.

  Had he felt me on the other side of the door, so close? Had he shivered as I told him the story of the spiders, not knowing I was the one spinning the web?

  I hoped so. I hoped his skin had crawled and shivers had raced up his back in the final moments before my knife ripped his head nearly off his neck.

  Stripping out of the disposable suit, gloves, paper cap and shoe covers, I changed into a pair of tennis shoes that actually fit instead of being two sizes too big.

  No DNA.

  No shoeprint.

  Devil’s in the details, boy.

  As I pulled a hat down low onto my forehead, then yanked up the hood of the jacket I wore, I added an ugly pair of horn-rimmed glasses to my face. Tugging on the leather gloves was as necessary to combat the cold weather as they were for fingerprint coverage.

  I’d already checked the surrounding area for cameras and blocked all that I could see. Grabbing my laptop, I stuffed it in my backpack. Killing the lights of the entire hotel had been brilliant. I added the night vision goggles to the pack, then shoved all the dirty plastic on top of it all.

  I had to go.

  Checking my watch, I was pleased with my efforts. One minute and twenty-seven seconds was probably my new record. I was out the door, my ears alert for any hint of a siren.

  But all was quiet as I jogged across the parking lot and into the forest beyond.

  Something howled in the distance, and I was tempted to howl back.

  A small laugh escaped me instead, then another, then more.

  Devil’s in the details, boy.

  Oh, how I missed him.

  Oh, how glad I was that he was gone.

  Oh, how happy I was to take his place. Expand his mission. Preach to the world.

  I jogged the entire two miles, not stopping until I tossed my pack into the passenger seat of the car I’d stolen just that morning. I changed out the plates again, just in case, before pulling out onto the empty street.

  From there, I’d find a place to destroy any evidence, then I’d pay Phil’s daddy a visit, take some of my frustration out on him.

  It was all good. I had more faith than a mustard seed, so I knew everything was working out as it should.

  That was the problem with this human form I inhabited. This form had fear, doubts, moments of uncertainty.

  But if I believed in the good book, then I had to believe every single word of it.

  If God so loved the world, so did I.

  Oh, how I envied Noah and his ark. How I wished I could lift my hands and cause the rains to fall for forty days and forty nights, leaving only my people to safely join the animals to repopulate our earth.

  One day, when this human form no longer served me and I was raised to the heavens, to my throne, I would do just that. Or maybe it would be fire this time. Or famine. I hadn’t quite decided the most fitting punishment.

  Maybe I would cast down a spell that forced women to clean toilets for all eternity. I snickered, clearly seeing those females in their business suits kneeling in front of a different type of throne.

  Those thoughts kept me entertained while I went about my business. I fed the bloody evidence containing Will’s and my DNA to a barrel of fire. His phone followed it inside, but my phone had one more chore to do before it met a similar fate.

  Another hour, and I was at my last stop. I opened the cooler in the passenger floorboard and grabbed an ice-cold energy drink, popping the top. It burned my throat as it went down, but soon my heart was pounding with the additional strength I needed after an especially tiring night.

  The house was but a shack, really. There was no heat, no power, no water. No anything.

  The radiator was rusty. The man shackled to it was rustier still.

  His lips were blue, the pile of blankets I’d tossed on him clearly not warm enough.

  He was alive, for now, but he was at the end of his use. His message needed to be delivered first.

  Powering on a different disposable phone, I checked the secure server one last time. It was empty. So disappointing.

  Pointing the phone at him, I tapped the video app. “Hi, Daddy,” I said to the man. “Your little boy failed you.”

  Kevin Rossway began to cry. For such a big, burly guy, the tears were especially funny to witness.

  “You d-don’t h-have to do this?”

  I closed my eyes, irritation
clouding my reasoning.

  “I d-d-d-don’t? T-t-tell me why n-n-n-not?”

  I moved closer, watched him try to shrink away.

  “I d-don’t want to die.”

  “But you’re the message. You were born for this moment. Rejoice in the knowledge that your name, Kevin Rossway, will be written in the history books.”

  “No…please.”

  He was still pleading, but behind the horror in his eyes was resignation. Deep in his very being, he knew I was right.

  Sheep were slaughtered to serve the needs of man. Cows. Chickens. Animals of all kind.

  How arrogant was the human race to believe that we two legged mammals were no different? Pure arrogance. Just one of the many negative traits I needed to correct.

  After changing into a fresh set of disposable clothes, I took my time carving my message in his meat, letting his screams increase my energy as no caffeine-infused drink could ever do.

  There was no rush this time. I could play as long as I wanted. And play I did.

  When I was finished, I burned the clothes and all possible evidence. After leaving the shack’s doors open so that the forest creatures could more easily access their next meal, I drove three hours before uploading the video onto my favorite forum.

  Only ten bitcoin to watch the snuff film. A man had to finance his mission, after all.

  As the money rolled in, I sent a message to Phil Rossway, letting him see what his betrayal had caused.

  After that, I reset the phone, took out the SIM card, and tossed it all into the lake. As it sank, I yawned. I needed some sleep.

  But not yet. I had more to do before I could close my eyes.

  Devil’s in the details, indeed.

  32

  Winter gave Noah a dirty look as he opened the pastry box filled with a mix of donuts, bagels, and yes, chocolate croissants.

  “No,” she told him in a stern voice. “Take that away from me this instant.” She was still pissed at how out of shape she’d been while chasing Phil Rossway through the woods.

  Noah wiggled his eyebrows. “I’ll work the calories off you later tonight.”

  She forced her scowl to deepen, although she found it hard not to laugh. He was just so goofily adorable. And the croissants did smell awfully good.