Dark Rising

by Monica McGurk

  Guiltily, I nodded.

  “The riots you saw in France? Well, they were everywhere. Only calling them riots doesn’t do them justice. Whole cities turned into outright battlefields. It seems almost unfathomable that the damage done wasn’t done by an organized military force. Yet nobody knows how or why it started. All sorts of kooky groups—cults and terrorist organizations and God knows what else—have come out of the woodwork claiming responsibility, but none of the claims are credible. And the freak accidents on top of it? Tornadoes and floods and house fires? It was crazy. A wave of devastation swept the world in twenty-four hours and then poof! Just like that, everything started calming down again. The damage left behind is huge, but the violence itself seems to have dissipated. It’s not all back to normal, yet—most big cities are still under martial law or have patrols sweeping around constantly—but the worst seems to have passed. You’re lucky we got you out of Paris; we really had to pull some strings to get a flight approved.”

  I mumbled my thanks and turned back in my seat, pressing my forehead against the cool glass of the window.

  So, the Earth had gone quiet. That meant the Fallen had taken their battle to the Heavens. And, in the meantime, we were approaching the close of the second day. Two days nearly gone since Michael’s soul had slipped away.

  I drifted into an in-between state, neither sleeping nor awake, as the plane hurtled us across the sky. The rattle of the beverage cart, the slight tinkling of glass, and the occasional ring of a passenger’s call button against the backdrop of the artificial air circulating through the cabin lulled me, almost fooling me into forgetting. But I couldn’t forget. I didn’t want to. And if I slipped, I would stare at my hands and see the bloodstains that no amount of soap and water would ever eradicate.

  As we approached Atlanta, the terrain below me began to take shape. Little patchworks of freshly tilled soil and early crops made tidy grids along the earth. Ribbons of dirt and asphalt snaked through the lush green of trees and red clay soil. Slowly, the green gave way to rows of houses and fields of parking lots, the roads filled with cars so tiny they looked like toys.

  Home.

  Our arrival was a whirlwind. We parted from the crowd before Customs, my escort’s flashed badge signifying none of the rules were for us. We ducked down a long, lonely hallway and then into an elevator. As we descended, he turned to me.

  “Sorry about this.”

  “About what?” I asked, but the doors were already sliding open, revealing a wall of cameras and reporters. The crowd surged as if to swallow us. Instinctively, I threw my hands up over my face, hiding.

  “Hope, can you tell us about your ordeal?”

  “Hope, how did you escape your captors?”

  “Over here! Hope, look over here!”

  My guide clamped his lips down into a hard line. “Don’t answer them. Come with me,” he muttered, clamping onto my arm and pulling me close with one hand while he shielded my face with the other. “Out of the way!” he yelled into the mob, as we began pushing our way through to the cart that was waiting for us.

  We were barely seated when the driver hit the gas, leaving the reporters in the dust.

  “Hang tight,” the driver shouted over his shoulder to where we sat. “I’m taking you to a private exit.”

  “Will my parents be there?”

  He ignored my question. We flew through the hallway, turning into a tunnel that seemed to cut through the length of the airport. I clutched my backpack and began to strain, eager for my first glimpse of my mother and father, pushing my feet against the floor of the cart as if I could make it go faster by sheer will.

  We were approaching a dead end. The cart slowed, then settled into a firm stop.

  The man from the embassy stepped off the cart and held out a hand to help me off. I pushed it aside and jumped down, looking around. There was a single door, an emergency exit protected by a keypad.

  The cart’s driver walked over to the keypad and punched in some numbers. The light above the door began flashing its red light of warning.

  “They’re waiting for you outside,” the man said, but I was already pushing past him through the door and onto the sidewalk.

  A dark SUV was parked against the curb. A muscular black man stood waiting, leaning against the vehicle.

  “Hope?”

  I looked around, confused. We were alone, except for my embassy escort, who hung back, wary.

  “Who are you?” I demanded, eyeing the man with unease. “Where are my parents?”

  “I’m Arthur.” Relief flooded my body as I recognized his name.

  “The guy who drives my mom,” I said. “Is she in the car?”

  “She is,” he smiled, but his eyes were sad. He swung the door wide, and I ran to the car, climbing in to where she was waiting for me.

  I threw myself into her arms. We clutched at each other, both of us bawling like babies, neither one of us able to stop ourselves from inspecting each other as if to make absolutely certain that this was real, that I had truly found my way home.

  Arthur pulled away from the curb, discreetly leaving us to our homecoming in the middle seat. Mom gripped me fiercely, holding me close as if afraid she would lose me again.

  “Thank God you are safe,” she said, kissing the top of my head.

  “I don’t want to talk about it, Mom, not any of it,” I gasped between sobs. “I just want to be with you and Dad for now. Okay?” I mumbled against her shoulder.

  A spasm shook her body, and she pulled me in tighter. An anguished cry, like a bird taking flight, escaped her.

  “Mom?” I pulled away from her grasp. She was trembling, a new vale of tears flooding her face. For the first time, I noticed how ravaged her face looked, how thin and drawn she’d become. Streaks of silver had sprung up in her rich chestnut hair. She shook, forcing her eyes closed against obvious pain.

  “Mom?” I asked again with dawning fear, shaking her shoulders. “Mom, where’s Daddy? Why isn’t he here with you?”

  “Oh, Hope,” she said between choked tears. She opened her eyes. They were ringed red from too much crying. “Those men in Las Vegas, they were very angry with you. They thought that your father … at first we all thought your father was the one who’d taken you. And those men, they didn’t know the difference …”

  “Mom, what are you saying?”

  She held my hand, just a little too tightly. She was crying so hard I could barely understand her. She managed to choke out her words.

  “Your father was killed, Hope. The night that all the rioting started. Whether it was random, or the Triad syndicate targeted him, it doesn’t really matter. He’s gone, Hope. Gone.”

  She pulled me in close, as if she could comfort me. I felt numb, unable to process what she’d just told me, my mind registering only the wracking sobs that shook her body.

  Gone? Killed?

  She said it didn’t matter what had happened—random violence from the rioting or a planned murder by the traffickers. And she was right. Either way, it was my fault. We’d laid our tracks deliberately so that anyone investigating would know that, despite all appearances, it couldn’t possibly have been my father who had taken me. But we hadn’t figured on the Chinese hunting him down. Nor had I known that the violent celebrations of the Fallen would reach across the world, snaking their way into a little town in Alabama.

  My chest constricted. I couldn’t breathe.

  “Stop the car.” I said.

  My mother just pulled me closer. “I know. It’s too much to take in all at once, but …”

  “Stop the car!” I screamed shrilly, pushing away from her. “Stop the car, Arthur, now!”

  He was pulling over, not even parked, when I threw the door open and jumped out. I ran to the weedy edge of the road where I hunched over, trying to force the air in and out of my lungs.

  Don’t think about it, I told myself. Just breathe.

  The air was acrid and stung my throat. A fit of coughing overtook
me. I looked up to see the burned-out shell of Turner Field. I looked around and realized that I was standing in a wasteland, an urban desert the Fallen had left in their wake.

  “Hope, it’s not safe out here. There still might be people roaming the streets.” Arthur had followed me out of the SUV. He placed a gentle hand on my arm. “Come back into the car.”

  “It’s not fair,” I argued, shrugging away his hand and turning to face him. I could feel my self-control slipping away. “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

  “I know, sweetie, I know,” he said, taking my hands in his, “but your mother needs you now. She’s taking your father’s death really hard. It’s a miracle that you came back to her when you did. God must be watching over you both.”

  I cracked. How could I be there for my mom? I needed to tend to my own wounds, to fight off the darkness that was pressing in all around me.

  “I need my dad,” I demanded. “He isn’t dead. He can’t be. Take it back!” I swung wildly at Arthur’s massive chest. It was like hitting a brick wall, but I didn’t care. I kept swinging. “Take it back! Take it back!”

  “Shhh,” he soothed, catching up my hands in his. “It will be okay. I promise.” He pulled me into a bear hug and held me until, like a rag doll, all the fight left my body, leaving me strangely deflated. His body heat seemed to sink into my bones, relaxing me into a strange, disembodied state of denial. When he thought I’d calmed down enough, Arthur led me back to the SUV, each step mechanical, my mind barely able to handle the simple task of walking. I climbed back into the middle row next to my weeping mother, who sagged against her seatbelt straps. Arthur buckled my own belt, checking it was secure, before quietly closing the door on us.

  We were silent the remainder of the drive to Dunwoody. My mother, exhausted, fell into a troubled sleep on the seat next to me. I watched her, her eyelids dancing as she struggled against her nightmares, knowing what was likely causing her fitfulness.

  The same thoughts kept going through my head.

  My father was dead.

  Because of me.

  My mother was heartbroken.

  Because of me.

  It was too much to bear.

  I kept an eye on the scenes flashing past the dark windows of the SUV. The Fallen—or the rioting crowds they’d inspired—had cut a swathe through Atlanta, leaving destruction and vandalism to mark their trail. From the anxious looks Arthur kept darting about and the sounds of helicopters monitoring from above, I realized that the uprising perhaps was not yet finished, that the city might still be in the grip of violence.

  Because of me.

  “They were supposed to enter Heaven in peace,” I whispered to myself as I leaned my head against the window. “Forgiven.”

  What did the violence mean? Did it mean that the Fallen had rejected Michael’s sacrifice? Was Heaven’s army—leaderless now—fending them off at this very minute, trying to prevent their storming of the gates?

  Were all our sacrifices to be for naught?

  I clutched my hands together tightly, refusing to accept it.

  One more day.

  If Michael were to rise, it would be tomorrow morning. Then, I would know for sure.

  We exited the freeway and weaved our way through barricades to enter the town of Dunwoody. There was less damage evident here—more like simple vandalism than the utter chaos and destruction I’d seen downtown. I looked at Arthur, about to ask him why, when he began to speak.

  “The Atlanta police force turned on itself. Seems that it was rotten at the core. In the heat of the moment, the bad ones thought their time had come and rose up, bringing it out into the open. People around the stadium and on the South Side had to form vigilante groups to defend themselves. We were lucky up north to have our own police system. Our guys held the line and kept Dunwoody safe.”

  We whizzed past one subdivision after another. Arthur was keeping a close eye on his watch.

  “Have to get you home before curfew,” he said, never taking his eyes from the road.

  Curfew. So it had come to that. I looked apprehensively at the gates in front of the neighborhoods as we drove by. Would gates keep us safe now? I shrugged in my seat. I might not ever feel truly safe again.

  Arthur guided the car into our neighborhood, flashing his license at the guard who had been temporarily stationed at the entrance. We weaved around curves and side streets, not stopping for stop signs, never slowing until we eased into our cul-de-sac. We pushed through the small crowd of reporters that had been waiting, like vultures, for a sighting, before pulling into the driveway. Arthur idled the engine and looked up at me in the mirror.

  “Are you ready to take your mom in?”

  I looked at her, slumped in her seat, and realized I would need his help. I jumped out of the car and ran to the keypad to open up the garage, shielding my face from the snapping cameras. I ran in, giving him a wide berth to pull his SUV in next to mom’s Audi. When he was in, I pushed the button, closing out the world, at least for now.

  Together, we half carried my mom out of the car and up the stairs to her room. Mom’s doctor had prescribed her something to help her sleep, so we coaxed her into swallowing the little pills and some water and settled her into bed, hoping that now she could get the dreamless rest she so desperately needed.

  I wanted the same.

  I wanted to go to sleep and for one night, forget that any of this ever happened. Forget the horrible things I’d witnessed in Las Vegas. The abuse that had been heaped upon Ana and Jimena. The slick blood running over the stones in the tiny church in France. The violence that was still gripping the world.

  But tonight was my night to keep watch; my night to wait for Michael to return.

  I pulled the covers up closer under my mom’s chin and turned off the light.

  Quietly, Arthur and I walked downstairs, winding through the rooms back toward the kitchen. I noted the piles of mail; the pillows and blankets pushed aside, haphazardly, on the couch; the stacks of dishes in random places throughout the house. Trash tumbled out of an unemptied can. My mom’s whole world had turned upside down. All you had to do was look at the shambles that had become of her normally organized house to see it.

  “Hope,” Arthur said, standing with one hand on the back of a kitchen stool. “This wasn’t the kind of homecoming you wanted or deserved. And I know it must feel strange to have me here, but you know,” he said, his voice cracking with the effort, “I knew your mother and your father since just after you were born, when Mona had to start traveling again. Every week she’d recite to me your latest accomplishments. I remember when you lost your first tooth. When you learned to ride your bike. When you learned to read. You were such an itty-bitty thing, and she had to pretend to be stern with you when she caught you reading under the covers. But she was busting at the seams, she was so proud of you. Reading, at age three.” He closed his eyes, gripping the back of the stool even tighter.

  “I remember when you were stolen away, and when the Good Lord brought you back, safe and sound.” He paused, taking a deep breath to compose himself. “It tore me apart to see what it did to your mom and dad, back then.

  “Since then, we’ve gotten even closer, your mother and me. Mona is like a sister to me. And I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say I don’t think she could have survived this latest blow if you hadn’t come back to her.” He looked at me, teary-eyed. “I guess what I’m trying to say is that you feel like family to me, even if I don’t feel like family to you. So I’ll do anything you need, anything at all. If you want me to stay the night, I will, even if it means sleeping in the garage in my car. If you want me to call and check on you both in the morning, I will. You just say the word. I’m here for you.”

  I smiled, grateful for his kindness, happy to know that someone had been here to take care of my Mom.

  “I appreciate it, Arthur, but you don’t have to stay. Maybe just run over some of those reporters on your way out.”

  He l
aughed, a hearty laugh that filled me with warmth. “You’ve got your dad’s sense of humor.”

  I looked at him, puzzled and saddened. I had no memories of my father laughing. He was referring to someone I’d never known, someone who’d been lost to us all, many years ago, well before his death.

  “Come here, girl,” he said, opening his arms wide. I fell into them, burrowing into the warmth of his embrace, letting myself take the little comfort I could, knowing that for what I needed to do, for the vigil I would keep, I preferred to be alone. He squeezed me again, and I felt a strange pulse of heat. Startled, I stepped away.

  “What is it?” he asked quizzically.

  “Nothing,” I said, shaking away the fleeting question that had come and gone. “Nothing at all.” He shrugged and, turning, began to make his way to the back door—the friend door, my mom had always called it.

  “Hey, Arthur …?”

  He stopped and turned. “Yes?”

  “Maybe you can come over tomorrow. You know, when it’s convenient. Just to check on her.”

  He smiled a gentle smile. “I’ll check on her every day until you tell me not to, young lady.”

  After Arthur left, I went around the house, performing the kind of security check that would have made my father proud. Satisfied with my lockdown, I looked in on my mother one last time. Her body lay still beneath the covers, only the slight rise and fall of the blankets reassuring me she was alive.

  My room was where I would wait. When I turned on the light and took it in, it looked strange and foreign to me, even though everything was exactly as I had left it. The schoolbooks that lay scrambled on the floor, the clothes that were strewn here and there—none of it seemed familiar, let alone important.

  Then I glimpsed something tucked against the foot of the bed. My stuffed Georgia Tech Yellow Jacket. Someone had dug it out. I reached down and buried my face in its plush. My throat caught as I imagined my father here, worrying about me, maybe even comforting my mother as they struggled through, for a second time, my disappearance.