The Watchers

by Mark Andrew Olsen

  Resentful of Lloyd’s rough tactics, Abby looked up to see battered Nike shoes strike dirt just five feet away. Then, as she stared at the machetes and AK-47s dangling from their belts, the Islamic symbols stenciled on white headbands, she vowed never to find fault with Lloyd’s tactics again.

  Abby cringed, for her sense of cozy safeness in the jungle had just been dashed to pieces. The killers were actually on their trail!

  The unthinkable happened—a loud shout, and then she looked up into a row of gun barrels trained at them. Faces staring into hers, filled with hatred. The truth sank in with a bitter tug at her insides.

  They’d been caught!

  The shouts multiplied into a storm of angry voices. The barrels motioned upward. Stand! The three slowly rose to their feet.

  The disk of light from the helicopter found them, blinding them and beating their heads with the downdraft from its rotor blades.

  Abby felt fear. And once again that smell assaulted her nostrils— so strong now that she could taste it like a bitter, metallic tablet on her tongue.

  Sister Okoye met Abby’s eyes and grabbed her hand. Abby blinked and then peered closer at the row of guerrillas. She almost jumped back at the horrors that greeted her sight. Every one of these men was almost wholly consumed by a group of the most grotesque and revolting evil spirits she had yet seen.

  The middle guerrilla moved forward and leveled his machine gun at his waist, preparing to fire on them.

  “Stop!”

  It was Lloyd. He had his hands held high as though the gesture might stop the bullets. The guerrilla smirked at the desperate stall tactic and tensed his muscles again.

  “Brotherhood!” Lloyd shouted.

  The man relaxed a bit, scowling at Lloyd. “What you say?”

  “I am the Brotherhood’s man. The inside source.”

  “Then what you doin’ out here with them?” he said with a confused expression.

  “Finding out the Iya Agba safe house,” Lloyd replied. “The old woman’s taking us there.”

  The guerrilla said nothing but stared at Lloyd through an angry sneer. “Who’s your boss?” he asked.

  “Shadow Leader.”

  The man rolled his eyes, apparently placated. But not enough. He then asked, “What’s the sign?”

  Lloyd stepped forward, closer to the lead man, and pointed to the sickle blade that hung loosely at his waist. It was the last thing Shadow Leader had taught him about the Brotherhood before his departure for Los Angeles. The name of the Brotherhood. Their symbol and the instrument of their harvests.

  “This,” said Lloyd, pointing. “This is the sign. The scythe.”

  The man’s face relaxed, and he nodded to Lloyd. He then made a sudden arm motion to the hovering chopper overhead. The spotlight blinked out and the chopper flew away. Next, he gestured to Lloyd to leave the two women and join the other men behind him. Lloyd quickly complied.

  “What does this mean?” Abby whispered to Sister Okoye.

  “It means he is a traitor,” Okoye answered in a flat voice. “Could you not sense it? Did you not feel the darkness around him?”

  Abby turned to the older woman, shaking her head. “I felt nothing of the sort,” she said. Inwardly she chastised herself for having allowed her latent attraction to blind her to Lloyd’s true character.

  “So, if you are Shadow Man,” the lead gunman said, “your final test, then.” He tossed Lloyd an AK-47 rifle. “You do the harvest.”

  CHAPTER

  _ 32

  Still holding the machine gun in his left hand, Dylan held up the scythe in the other. The men had made a mistake. For a true Brotherhood harvest, he only needed the scythe, not the gun. He gripped the scythe by its handle in the proper manner, turning and examining its blade with a pensive expression on his face.

  Then his arm recoiled suddenly, sending the blade whistling through the shadow. It struck the lead gunman across the throat and sliced open his jugular vein.

  Before the others could react, Dylan swung the AK-47 into both hands and opened fire.

  Abby shut her eyes from the scene and turned away. Sister Okoye did not flinch at all but stood without blinking and gazed steadily at men who would have surely killed her as they now jerked wildly and crumpled to the ground.

  The gunfire ended. No one spoke as the smoke swirled upward in the humid air. One of the bodies twitched; Dylan stepped over and watched the dying man carefully, his weapon aimed at the man’s neck. But he expired soon after, sparing Dylan from having to shoot him again.

  Satisfied that all the men were dead and that he could relax his guard for at least a moment, Dylan lowered his barrel and glanced around him. His look landed right in the hostile glare of Abby Sherman. He did not meet her gaze, but his face hardened again into a professional veneer.

  “Come on, let’s get going,” he said, motioning toward the forest’s interior and hoping neither woman would want to hash things out just then. “We’ve made a lot of noise and you can count on serious pursuit.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” said Abby. “I’m confused, and I’m not moving until I get an explanation.”

  “You deserve one, Abby,” he responded. “But we don’t have time for it now. We really have to go.”

  The thunder of not one but two helicopters rolled overhead, their speeding shapes banking low and hard over the treetops. Undeniably looking for them once again.

  The three stepped back against thick tree trunks. The choppers climbed and flew away.

  “We don’t have to go anywhere with you,” added Sister Okoye. “I’m the only one who knows where we’re headed. I’m the only one who can help us avoid your colleagues’ patrols.”

  “Look, if things really were like those guys said, then why would I have killed them? Why would I have signed my own death warrant?”

  “I don’t know,” Abby replied flatly. “That’s exactly why I want an explanation.”

  He squeezed his eyes in frustration and glanced wearily at the embers of dying sunlight streaming through the trees.

  “Okay. Short version. Am I a trained killer? Yes. Have I performed some unusually harsh missions on behalf of my country? Or for the cause of freedom? You bet. But was I reconciled to carrying out this particular mission and killing a girl? No way. Not even before I met you. Afterward, it got even worse. I’ve been delaying the moment of decision ever since I met you in that hospital room. I’ve saved your life a half dozen times today, ranging from the tarmac at Lagos to a minute ago in this very place. And I’ve made my choice—I’ve rejected the assignment and in doing so I’ve turned my back on every oath or principle of my profession. I’ve chosen something else, something I don’t even know, instead of the pinnacle of my whole career. In the process, I just plopped my own head on the chopping block. The people I work for will never settle until I’m dead.”

  “So what’s your real name, Lloyd ?” Abby asked.

  “Dylan . . .” He hesitated, realizing it had been over a decade since he had simply, plainly, given a new acquaintance his real name. “Dylan Hatfield.”

  “So, Dylan Hatfield, having come here with the express intention of killing me, what exactly changed your mind?”

  Emboldened by her question, as well as the answer he knew he harbored, Dylan explained, “It all started with you, Abby. The more time I spent with you, the less I could picture you as the mortal danger I’d been told to expect. But that was just the beginning. The real clincher was what I saw when Sister Okoye laid her hands on you.” He turned to the older woman. “I saw it, the moment you healed her. I saw them first. The angels, I guess you’d call them. They were standing and staring right at me. And then this flash of light flowed from your hands to Abby’s side. I saw proof, Abby, and I just don’t know what to make of it. None of it squares with what I believe. I feel unhinged. Afraid too, I mean at the implications of it all. But I decided then and there I wasn’t going to kill you but instead try to save you. All I know now, though, is t
hat I’m lost and confused. I’m completely over my head . . .”

  With the fading of that sentence, Dylan’s cheek began to twitch, his breathing to race, and his chest to heave of its own accord.

  It took Sister Okoye to break the awkward impasse. “I believe you, young Dylan,” she said. “I’ve searched my heart and tried to sense the spiritual firestorm raging around you right now. I see your soul, and I believe you are truly broken. But also on your way home. You made a good choice just now, actually several good ones today. For that reason, Dylan Hatfield, I will allow you to venture farther in with us.”

  “Thank you . . .” he said.

  Abby could see him struggling to shed the pain and weakness from his face, to force a little of the former pride and competence back to his features.

  “And now let us go,” said Sister Okoye. “I have no cause to belittle this moment, but you made enough noise for three counties, and as you said yourself, there will be pursuit. So please, follow me.”

  And with that she began walking down the trail at a fast clip. Late afternoon had now turned to night, and by the time Abby could even fall into line behind her, the Nigerian had disappeared in the brush. Dylan, for his part, had a flashlight, and he was currently using it to see as he stripped the dead gunmen of every useful weapon and tool they’d had on them.

  “Are you coming, young man?” came Sister Okoye’s voice from somewhere in the gloom. “You were so anxious to leave.”

  “Yes, Sister, I thought I was,” he called out to her between breaths. “But then I remembered the weapons these men were carrying. We may end up needing these more than food.”

  “We have no need of those whatsoever,” she said sharply. “If you really wish to learn about God’s power, then please set those aside. Let us rely on Him to rescue us. There has been far enough shooting of guns for one day.”

  Reluctantly, he let the bigger guns fall to the ground, then slipped the small sickle around his belt and a revolver into the back of his pants. With the flashlight in hand, he ran to catch up with the two women.

  Abby found that her former misgivings about the jungle had come to roost after all. At night, the jungle turned into a deafening echo chamber of animal calls, exotic birds and wild beasts. If she looked up at the distant canopy and squinted, she could make out the friendly disk of a full moon. But focusing on the trail ahead, precious little of that yellow dribbled down to where she stood.

  On one hand, Abby reveled in the feeling of newfound vitality in her limbs, the chance to exert herself and be a fully physical being after so many weeks of stagnation. On the other, the darkness and unfamiliarity of her surroundings oppressed her so deeply that if it had not been for the proximity of her companions, she might well have sank into a fetal position and whimpered in a ball until dawn.

  Yeah, great security that would have been, she admonished herself at the thought. You’d have been leopard bait inside the hour.

  CHAPTER

  _ 33

  Abby had run distances before, so she knew to send her mind down a fruitful and engaging line of thought as a distraction to the pain. But even as she tried, the sound of gunfire echoing across that precious ocean of people kept reverberating in her memory. The sight of all those faces suddenly splitting apart like the Red Sea before Moses’ staff, their retreating feet and legs revealing the shapes of abandoned bodies, prone and bloodied on the ground.

  Her thoughts traveled back even further, to the death of Narbeli.

  All of them, she could hardly bring herself to admit, had been her fault, one way or another. Because of her. On account of who Abby was, or what she’d done, or some sorry combination of the two.

  What was it, she wondered, about this primal flight into a dark jungle that’s releasing such painful thoughts?

  She almost bumped into Sister Okoye, who had stopped running all of a sudden. But instead of leaning forward with her hands on her knees, the old woman was ready for her. With a forceful right palm she grasped Abby’s forehead, and with the other, cupped her neck.

  “Sister Abigail, I can feel you getting attacked back here,” she said. “Making the hairs stand up on the back of my neck! I mean, you are feeling oppressed, aren’t you? In your thoughts? Just now?”

  Mystified at the immediacy of the woman’s gift, Abby could only nod.

  “Well, then . . .” Sister Okoye’s hands tightened around Abby’s forehead and neck, and she began to pray in a loud, singsong voice. “My Lord, through your almighty power, take these little familiar demons and cast them so far back into the void from whence they came that even their own master will never remember anymore, ever again. I ask you to free young Sister Abigail from the dangerous invitation of her dark thoughts, and return to us the woman she can be, and will be again. I ask this in the most holy and mighty name of Jesus Christ, amen.”

  She released Abby, then turned back toward the path. “Now back on the road, you children. We have much more escaping to do before the light returns.”

  Indeed, it still felt like escape to all of them. Most of all to Abby, who felt breathless and grateful for having avoided another day in the hospital ward. She did have to admit that in her current famished state, even the horrid hospital food sounded like paradise. Yet starvation was not a compelling enough reason to regret being here. Her most compelling reason to rejoice in these surroundings was the sense she still harbored of a vast, homicidal army pursuing them from the forest’s edge, just a few missteps away. In fact, thinking about it made her want to run that much faster.

  Eventually jogging turned to brisk walking as the three followed the ancient path from thinner outlying groves into a far denser portion of the rain forest. Every few minutes the vegetation struck Abby as having thickened discernibly, along with the oppressive humidity. Now, over two miles in, they found themselves in genuinely stuffy, mosquito-infested jungle. Thankfully, the path proved well-worn and quite passable through even the thickest and blackest tunnels of vegetation.

  Some time later—how long was unclear, as the mad escape was beginning to blur into an eternity of running in darkness—they descended into a broad moonlit valley along the opposing ridgeline. At its heart ran a narrow but lively stream whose waters struck Abby as alive in the evening light, cascading in briefly glimpsed silver splashes.

  After following the creek for a while, Sister Okoye paused, glanced around her, then turned and began walking uphill through a lessening of undergrowth. Abby and Dylan found her crouched next to a small natural basin of glistening water.

  “A spring,” she said through a mouthful that dribbled from her chin as she spoke. “It’s the only safe water source for miles. Drink up.”

  As they were all dying of thirst, her words were the only permission they needed. Soon both were on their knees, scooping up bracingly cold handfuls with sighs of contentment.

  Satiated at last, the three sat still, breathing deeply and enjoying the sensation of being safe. For Abby, the jungle was provoking a set of contradictory reactions—at once fear and intimidation, but now, increasingly as time wore on, feeling welcomed into an infinitely rich and reassuring hiding place. A refuge.

  “So what I want to know, Sister, is what happened when we were captured?” Dylan said. “I thought you could see dangers like that ahead of time!”

  The old woman turned to Abby with a quizzical look, then back to him with a dose of hilarity playing across her features. “I am a human being, Dylan. The Sight comes and goes. It especially goes at times when I am overly fatigued.”

  “Well, thanks for telling me. I thought you were fail-safe; I’d stopped looking.”

  “You did just wonderful. If not for you, I’m sure Abby and I would not have been so lucky.”

  “I don’t understand,” he said. “I mean, here you’ve led us without a scratch through a live battlefield. And now, just when it looks like we’ve escaped, you imply that you have no guarantees.”

  “That’s right,” she replied. “That’s
because there is no substitute for a walk with God. Without Him, none of these giftings mean anything. The Sight comes from Him, and so do extra warnings that reach me when my body is otherwise engaged or deeply worn. Remember too that He uses everything and everybody. You, Dylan, gave us a warning. Who am I to say that it did not originate with Him?”

  “Because I don’t believe in Him,” he said sharply.

  “Oh, that doesn’t matter. God can use you anyway.”

  “I seriously doubt that. So far I’ve only been used by the kind of people who would kill you rather than acknowledge they even exist.”

  “Dylan,” Okoye continued, “if you don’t believe in God, then why have you placed your trust, your very survival, in the hands of someone who depends utterly on Him?”

  “Because you’ve proven yourself, that’s why. I’ve never seen an ordinary street magician get it right as many times in a row as you have.”

  Okoye fell silent for a moment as though listening to a voice from far away.

  “What is it?” he interjected. “Another danger?”

  “Yes, I believe so,” she said. “Sister Abby, do you feel it? Do you see what I am seeing?”

  “No, I don’t,” Abby conceded. “I see nothing.”

  “What’s the danger?” Dylan broke in again. “Please tell me what it is.”

  Abby looked at him strangely and backed up a step. She knew precisely what Okoye was about to say. But the import of it was shocking, even catastrophic.

  “It ’s you, Dylan,” she said, clearly and without inflection. “It’s you.”

  “But I thought I’d made the right choice. Taken the right path.”

  “You did, but that was merely the beginning. You still do not know God, or anything of His ways. You still have no idea what it is to be a warrior in the realms of the Spirit.”

  “Sister Okoye,” he said with a tinge of exasperation in his voice, “when it comes to being a warrior, please don’t presume to teach me.”

  The older woman fixed him with a challenging gleam of the eye. “Oh, but I will presume, young man. And do not forget who is leading you right now, lest I send you to find your way back by yourself.”