Come to Dust

by Bracken MacLeod

  He peered to his left through the archway and saw the backs of several parishioners, hands raised in exaltation of Roper’s words. In front of them, a golden flickering light. Like a bonfire. He forced himself to face ahead and continue on.

  There was no door in the arctic block on the courtyard side. The front of the building faced away from the center of the compound toward the archway. A floating deck platform extended out from the north side of the thing. To reach the door they had to pass close to the assembly. He whispered over his shoulder at Liana, asking if she was really sure. She said she was. He guided them around. The front of the building was clear glass, three stories up. A pair of doors in the middle opened into a bright lobby, where a central statue similar to the one standing guard near the entrance to the campus stood. On either side of it staircases wound up to the second and third floor landings. The sun had set more, and now it was brighter inside than out. Once they penetrated the ice, there was no more hiding; they’d be lit and on display like curios in a cabinet.

  “Shouldn’t we look for an entrance in the back?” Nicholas asked. Alexa beside him nodded.

  Amye said, “This is the only way in I know.”

  “What is this place?” Mitch asked.

  “It’s the theater. He shows movies here. They do plays sometimes.”

  As she said it, the shape of the building changed in Mitch’s eyes. It went from a block of prehistoric ice to a grand luxurious cinema on Hollywood Boulevard. The Deco-style elven archway of the outdoor amphitheater reflected in the great glass façade of the indoor theater, and he saw how tied together they were in both appearance and purpose. This part of the campus, Roper’s stages, were the way to salvation—the gates to Paradise. If the outdoor setting was unavailable due to rain or snow, the great glass theater stood in as its second.

  The floating deck ahead of them was thigh high, too high to climb with just a casual step up. They’d either have to scramble over the side, or walk around in between the two entrances and ascend the stairs in the center. Walking around front was less conspicuous than scrambling up like a kid climbing a counter to get at the cookie jar. As Mitch led them around he felt naked and exposed. All it would take for them to be seen and stopped was a single parishioner getting bored, or deciding like the warehouse “guard” to sneak off to check his sexts. He reached back and Liana’s hand slipped into his, warm and dry. They held on to each other as they climbed the landing. Mitch turned to count heads. Mike, Izzy and Steve, Nicholas and Alexa, Kristin and Amye were all behind him. Behind them, he could see the pulpit stage at the end of the amphitheater. Tall wooden beams rose on either side, mimicking the trees that once occupied the clearing in which the compound had been built. To one side stood a tall cross draped in white, in the middle an altar, and at the end opposite the cross, instead of a baptismal font or a choir riser, there was the flickering light of a fire beyond. The light from the flames glinted and reflected off the clear glass walls of the sanctuary like fireflies. And in the middle of it all stood Pastor Roper, hands raised, crying out into the microphone extending from his ear-piece, his voice booming and echoing. Without a building between them, Mitch heard his every word. The preacher’s eyes were closed as he called to the heavens for help banishing the demon from the body of a child. “Already come home Lord to you, but whose remains are an unwitting vessel for Lucifer’s evil! The Sun of Righteousness is risen. The Lord, our God, has promised a fire for the wicked, and we shall trample the ashes of the evildoers under our feet!”

  “IÄ! IÄ!” the congregation shouted.

  “Who then commends this abomination to the fire?”

  Roper opened his eyes and seemed to look directly at Mitch. His guts churned as he waited for the preacher to stop calling out to his god, and start calling out to the armed men among them to stop him from invading the theater. Instead, the preacher took a breath, measured for dramatic effect, and continued on. Spotlights, Mitch realized. He’s standing in spotlights and can’t see past the first row.

  He rushed to the door and punched in the code. 1229. The red light turned green. Mitch couldn’t hear the latch click over the sermon, but with his hand on the handle, he felt it. He held open the door and ushered the others in as fast as they would go. He followed Amye through, pulling the door shut behind them.

  Inside, it was almost quiet. The walls shut out most of the sound, but the droning baritone of Roper’s voice still vibrated the tempered glass, surrounding them in a resonant hum. Above them loomed a three-story statue of the now familiar faceless god seated on a throne. He wore a diadem of stars and held a long scepter topped with an orb and cross. Instead of the symbol of salvation sitting in authority atop the globus cruciger though, the sword end of his warrior’s cross pierced the world. He pointed accusingly at them with his free hand. It reminded Mitch of the fire and brimstone religious tracts he used to find as a kid stuffed in the horror novels at the library. The ones that made it clear in no uncertain terms, everyone was going to Hell. D&D players, metalheads, kids who went trick-or-treating or read Harry Potter. All condemned by a jealous, vengeful god who brooked only adulation and supplication. He remembered the deity depicted in those comics had been faceless too. The thing looming over them was gilt in gold leaf, reflecting the dancing light outside, looking like it was made of fire.

  Liana pointed toward a door in the back of the hall off to one side. Mitch was all too happy to make a direct line for it. Anything that got him out of the blind-eyed sights of Roper and his gargantuan Crusader god. All the rest followed, except Amye, who stood staring up at the accusing stone finger pointing at her. Her face was wet. Mitch turned around and went back for her. “Come on,” he said, grabbing hold of her hand.

  “Are we... Are we doing the right thing? How will we be judged for this?”

  Mitch gently turned her face toward him. “Your child needs you, Amye. How would the loving God you know judge you for abandoning Brendan to a mob and a bonfire?” She looked at him blank-faced and blinked at his question, processing it. He gestured toward the others waiting at the door. Mitch wanted her to come along freely, because they couldn’t let her leave the other way. Not when they were so close.

  Kristin came over and took Amye’s other arm, whispering, “Come on. It’ll be all right.” Amye took a faltering step toward the others. And then another. And then she was running to them. While the Parents’ Ministry embraced her, Mitch circled around them and grabbed ahold of the theater door. He held a finger to his lips and pulled.

  • • •

  The dark theater possessed a kind of primal obscurity, like a Platonic space in which shadows were paraded on the wall while captive viewers uncritically accepted them as reality. The impression gained strength by the appearance of the dark shapes of solid forms on the stage ahead of them—a looming row of black rectangular silhouettes like tablet stone grave markers. As Mitch’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, the forms resolved into clarity. They weren’t tombstones. It was a row of gun lockers.

  The “safe room” was a cruel pun.

  An unseen figure in the seats resolved out of the gloom, turning to face them. With the jovial voice of one ready to serve, it asked, “Which one you ready for next?” The man scowled at the sight of them and his tone quickly changed from deference to hostility. “Who the hell are you?” As he started to stand, Mitch caught sight of the pistol hanging under his arm in a cross draw holster. He launched himself at the threat. The man leaned away from Mitch’s swing and he missed. Over-extended and off balance on the downward sloping theater floor, he stumbled over the row of seats ahead of him. He caught himself on the folding seat in the row in front of his target and fell over the rigid chair back, leaving him breathless and vulnerable. He scrambled to right himself before the guy had a chance to jam a shiv under his ear a half-dozen times—or, more likely shoot him in the back of the head. Instead, he heard the man grunt and the sounds of a struggle. He pushed himself off the seats and twisted around to see Izzy,
Steve, and Nicholas grappling with the man, keeping him from drawing his weapon. The man punched Izzy in the nose, and she staggered away, blood gushing from between her fingers, black in the darkened room. Steve’s face flushed with rage. He hauled the man up off his feet by his throat and slammed him into the hard floor. Steve was on him, kneeling on his arms and laying into his face like a berserk mixed martial arts fighter doing a ground and pound. Mitch heard something snap, and the man screamed, only to be silenced by the thud of another heavy fist in his face. Nicholas and Mike pulled Steve away while Kristin ducked into the fray and disarmed the man. Steve shook off the others holding him, and went to help Izzy up from where she’d landed on the floor. She pulled her hands away from her broken nose, appearing ready to take over for her husband, ready to do worse than he’d done. Steve held her back, asking if she was okay. She snorted loudly and spit a red wad onto the floor in reply.

  Liana turned to Mike and said, “This is why I can’t breathe.” She took a deep gasping breath. “Sophie isn’t buried; she’s locked in one of those.”

  Kristin rushed up to one of the safes and began spinning the handle trying to open it. The wheel turned freely, but the door didn’t budge. “What’s the combination?” she shouted at the man. “What’s the god damn combination?” Mitch climbed the stage and tried entering the building door code into the keypad of the box she’d picked. Nothing happened. He stared at the door for a moment, as if he was trying to see through. On the surface, the boxes appeared new and untouched. Again, he imagined the decayed lock on his apartment door, and pictured the children inside trying to rot their way out. This was how you kept children who could decompose things with a touch from getting away. Whatever it took to get them in there, once inside the doors were too thick, and no matter how much corruption was inside, none of them were strong enough to break out. The logo “DeepWater” was engraved in silver filigree script on the front. He read them again and again trying to find meaning, as if there were secrets that could be understood by solving the riddle of the brand name. But, there were no secret incantations other than a string of numbers that would open the door.

  Liana touched a safe two over from his right. “This one,” she said breathlessly. “She’s in this one.” Mitch ran over and tried the code again. A red light flashed on the keypad. He spun the wheel and pulled. It remained shut tight. A fresh panic made his heart beat faster.

  “Hang on, Sophie!” he called into the box. “It’s Yunka! I’m going to get you out!” He turned, scanning the stage for anything that could help him get the box open—an ax, a crowbar, something. But he knew these containers were built to be impenetrable. The only things on the stage other than the safes themselves were a couple pair of welding gloves and a small collection of empty sterile injection bottles and needles. He realized how they got the kids in, but that didn’t help the parents get them out again. There was only a single way he could imagine to open the doors: the combination. No matter how close they were to success, without the codes, the boxes might as well have been on the other side of the Earth. “Bring him here,” he called down to Nicholas and Steven.

  They lifted the woozy man by his armpits and dragged him up the stairs at the house right side of the stage apron before dropping him roughly on the boards in front of Mitch. He knelt, cradling his right arm hanging limply at his side. That was the snap, Mitch guessed. Steve breaking his arm when he landed on him. Good. Nicholas prodded at the man’s shoulder. He flinched and rocked forward before regaining his balance, but didn’t say anything. He looked up at Mitch with his swelling, bruised face and smirked. It was a horrific expression to behold. “What’s the combination?” Mitch said.

  The man spat on Mitch’s shoe.

  Mitch gritted his teeth. “It doesn’t have to be like this. All we want is the fucking combination so we can take our kids and go.”

  “You can go to the Devil, right behind your hellspawn.” The man rocked back on his heels and tried to stand. Mitch slapped him hard across the face, open handed. The crack echoed in the quiet theater. Amye yipped a little. The man dropped back to his knees. Mitch stepped forward and slapped him a second time before shoving down on the back of his neck until his face was pressed against the shoe he’d spit on. He squeezed the back of the man’s neck until a couple of his knuckles audibly popped from the effort. The top of the balding man’s head turned bright red as he struggled to sit up, but with only one arm to push, he couldn’t move. Liana laid a soft hand on Mitch’s back, encouraging him to let go. Mitch gave a last shove before he let go and stepped back, breathing heavy and wide eyed. He looked at Steve and said, “Just fuckin’ shoot him.”

  Steve pulled back the slide on his gun to check if a round was in the chamber.

  “What?” the man hollered. He rocked up, raising his good arm in front of his face. “You can’t kill me.”

  “You’ve made it clear there’s no point in talking to you. If you’re not going to tell us anything, there’s no point to leaving you alive either. I can’t have you putting us in danger, trying to get the others’ attention. So, fuck you!” Mitch nodded at Steve, who put the gun to the back of the man’s head.

  “Five-five-six-four-five!” the man shouted, his voice cracking.

  Mitch raised a hand to hold off his execution. He held his breath an extra second, unsure Steve actually would wait. When the gun didn’t fire, he returned to the safe Liana said Sophie was trapped inside. He turned to look at the man and said, “If that code does anything other than spring this door wide open, you’re a dead man. Understand? I’ll kill you myself.”

  Steve shoved at the back of the man’s skull with the barrel of the gun. He nodded. He was breathing heavy. However tough he had been with a pistol in his shoulder holster, he was ready to piss in his pants with one pressed to his skull. “The combination is the same for all of them. Five-five-six-four-five. Jesus forgive you.”

  “You better pray someone other than Jesus shows you some mercy, motherfucker,” Izzy said.

  Mitch entered the numbers into the lock. Nothing happened. He tried again, slower, pushing the buttons on the keypad as carefully as his trembling hand would allow. He hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath until the light turned green and he gasped with surprise at the sound of the tumblers inside the door moving. He spun the handle and pulled open the door. The heavy door swung smoothly and silently on its hinges. Sophie fell out and Mitch dropped to his knees to catch her. She weighed so little in his arms, he thought he’d missed her. Her skin was pale as paper and he could feel the bones of her ribs move under his fingers as she took in a slow, deep breath. Her face was drawn and she looked up at him with cataract-shaded eyes. They seemed blind, but still beheld him with relief. She wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him. Her fingers were so cold against his skin. He squeezed back, terrified he would break her if he held on too hard. His vision blurred with tears as he cradled her. Diminished as she was, being reunited with her made him understand what wholeness felt like. Liana knelt down next to them. Mitch pulled her closer. Sophie reached over with an arm to hug them both, and there they stayed, crying together and happy for a perfect, ecstatic moment.

  Kristin typed the numbers into the keypad on the next safe in the line and opened the door. Alexa shouted, “Jack!” She and Nicholas dashed forward to claim their boy from his prison. Kristin moved down the line, opening the remaining safes, one after another, freeing the rest of the children until she found her daughter in the second to last locker. Cassie’s body fell out, still and limp. She sobbed, repeating her name again and again, trying to get her to sit up or even just look up, and demonstrate that there was life still in her. “Look at Mommy, Cassie. Cassandra, please wake up and look at Mommy. Please,” she sobbed. The child lay in Kristin’s lap, dead again. “She was doing better. She was almost all better,” she cried. Her wail pierced through Mitch, breaking him out of his reverie.

  He gently passed Sophie to Liana. The girl resisted at first, c
linging to his neck. Liana shushed and told her it was okay. The child came away and Mitch took the bat from Liana in exchange. He stood and looked at the parents reunited with their children. Nicholas and Alexa smoothed down their son’s hair and kissed his face. They’d mentioned a second child—the neighbor’s kid. By the count, she wasn’t here with these children. Is she the one in the fire? Izzy and Steve released their daughter, Michelle, from the last safe, clinging tight to her as she crawled into their arms. She was diminished and weak, but moving. Next to them, Amye cradled her son. He was the oldest looking of the children, tall and lanky, maybe nine or ten. Where his shirt had pulled up, Mitch could see a roadmap of purple veins and large lividity bruising on his back. Inside each safe was a spider web of blackened and rusted steel. The interior of Brendan’s prison looked the worst. A stinking metallic pile of black rust spilled out from it onto the floor. Mitch’s intuition was right: all of them had tried to get out, but none had the strength to rot through six inches of steel completely. And for their efforts, every one of the kids had given up a piece of themselves trying to be free. Some more than others... Cassie had given all apparently, and if there was any life left in her, she didn’t show it. He wondered if kids who were closest to being fully restored to life—and Kristen had said she was almost better—were most vulnerable. The air in her tomb didn’t go as far as it did in Brendan’s or Sophie’s. And only his niece had a piece of someone else with her inside, and was able to call out for help beyond her confinement. Because of her, they had their kids back—plus one more: Byron’s unnamed son, lying still on the stage floor in front of his safe, suffocated back to death like Cassie. No one cradled or mourned him. No one claimed him. He lay there, an example of what awaited them all if they let this reunion linger too long.

  “What do we do now?” Steve said. “We can’t take them out the front doors. We’re lucky nobody saw us come in that way.”