SelectionEvent (2ed)

by Wayne Wightman

  “Presenting a false choice, the animal way or his way,” Charlie whispered to Martin. “I learned that in high school.”

  Martin put his arm across the boy's shoulders. All of those sitting in front of them seemed entranced by Joshua's words.

  As Joshua explained how humans were flawed, Martin saw that heads were beginning to nod in agreement... Dora and August, of course, but also Jan-Louise, one of April's girls, and Ross. And since we are flawed, Joshua went on, we need help that can come only from outside ourselves, we need divine help, and it can only come from one source, which he could offer them and which they could accept if they only asked. “No money down, no money required,” he said, lowering his voice to a hushed whisper. “It's the greatest bargain in the universe, and all you have to do is want it, and it's yours. Nothing lost and everything gained.” His voice took on more of an edge as he spoke further, and his gestures became quicker, made with a slash of his hand or with his fist smacking into his other hand.

  “Yes,” someone was saying, “yes.”

  “You may think your world is beautiful now,” he said, “and it is — it truly is — but after you see the power and the glory that I see, the power and the glory that is hidden from you, after you see that, my friends, you will wonder how you ever managed to live as you are now, and the world around you, grand as it seems, will then appear as only a faded shadow of glories to come.”

  “I don't want to have to die to win,” Charlie muttered.

  “When you lie in bed in the dark, if your life seems empty, void, or pointless, then it is empty, void, and pointless, and I pray you will not wait until your final breaths on that day of death to find out how empty, void, and pointless your life is.”

  More people said their yeses and their amens and more heads were nodding hard. Martin heard someone weeping.

  “They're believing him?” Charlie murmured.

  In great detail Joshua described the pain of fire, how the flesh would sear and blood would foam through the skin, how eyeballs would boil and spill down the cheeks of the damned, and one's heart would cook inside the chest. And this would go on eternally, one day after another forever. There were moans from his listeners.

  “This guy really likes the torture part. Even Nazis just killed people once,” Charlie whispered.

  After more details of torture by fire, he explained his solution. “Come with me,” he said. “Just come with me! Follow me into the knowledge that transcends reason! Follow me into the light and the way, or suffer the consequences!” He looked across their heads at Martin. “And now it is time for me to leave you,” he said. “But my message will remain, even as the heart within your breast stays with you. You can follow now, yet I will return soon. Prepare for the day when your heart is dark! Prepare, and I'll help you find the way.”

  He drew himself up to his full height and his followers rose from where they were sitting, and together they left, gone into the night, the sound of their footsteps fading as soon as their ghostly shapes vanished in the darkness.

  The remaining people stirred slowly, none of them uttering a sound. Only Land gurgled softly. Catrin stood and half turned, lifting the baby. Martin caught a glimpse of her disquieted face in the lantern light. She had been weeping. What had happened?

  Others stood and wordlessly began to depart. Martin took Winch's arm. His mouth was down-turned and his eyes troubled.

  “Winch,” Martin said, looking into his face. “Winch, what is it?”

  He shook his head. “Don't know.” He looked up at the sky. “Honest to god, Martin... I don't know. Joshua may be right.” He walked away, pulling his arm loose and went with Xeng and Jan-Louise back toward their house.

  “What's everybody so glum about?” Charlie asked Martin.

  “I don't know. Goodnight, Charlie. I need to be with Catrin.”

  Inside their cabin, for twenty minutes, she didn't say a word and Martin let her have her silence.

  “Tell me,” he said to her, once Land was in his bed, “tell me what happened to you when he talked.”

  Catrin sat in candlelight on the edge of their bed. Her shadow on the opposite wall wavered though she sat without moving, her hands clasped between her knees.

  “I understood something,” she said in a small voice. “How insignificant and helpless we are. How alone we are here, perched on the edge of the ocean... a few people in the dark, around the light of a few candles.” She turned her tear-glistened face up to him. “What hope do we have? We're alone!”

  He sat next to her and pulled her against him. “We could have died a hundred ways in the last year,” he said. “We could still be in Santa Miranda, waiting for rain, but we're here, we have a home. And we have hope today will be a good day — we have Land, Solomon, Missa, Ross, our friends, and we have each other. That's our hope. Every time the sun comes up, there's hope.”

  Catrin held her face in her hands and wept. After several minutes, Martin began undressing her, turned back the covers and helped her in. When he blew out the candle he realized that her breathing was suddenly inaudible. He quickly relit the candle and saw that she was already asleep.

  He held her until late into the night, until finally he could think no more. He could come to no conclusion about what he might have missed — but he missed something... something... and finally, with the far away ocean's slow crawl along the shore, blending with his own breathing, he slept.

  Chapter 74

  Martin got up just after sunrise, made himself a pot of tea and sat outside drinking it out of a glass, waiting for others to appear. The sun grew warm before he saw Rusty come out of his house down the road stand on his porch. Rusty rubbed his head and then looked sleepily around. Martin waved at him and Rusty half-heartedly lifted his hand and went back inside.

  Half an hour later, Charlie walked up and sat down next to him. “Where is everybody?”

  “Sleeping, I guess,” Martin said.

  “Did something weird happen last night?” Charlie asked.

  “Something weird happened,” Martin said. “But I'm really not sure what it was. Aside from being told that we'll be tortured for eternity if we don't share his supernatural beliefs, I don't think there was much else in the message.”

  “Maybe the weird part wasn't in his message,” Charlie said. “Like maybe it was in that fruit juice Dora was so generous with. I was watching them. Dora and her pal Josh only drank the red stuff.”

  “After everyone was gone, I collected this.” Charlie reached inside his shirt and took out a flat plastic bottle filled with the yellow juice.

  Martin held it in his hand, watching the bubble run from end to end. “You're an amazing kid, Charlie. I'm glad you're on my side.”

  “Well, now that we've got it, what do you think we should do with it?”

  “I suppose someone should drink it and see what happens.”

  “That's what I was thinking. And who might you think of?”

  Martin considered the possibilities. If he drank it and found it had some kind of psychotropic effect, he would know, but why should any of the others take his word for it? On the other hand.... “Dora,” he said finally. “The starchiest person here.”

  “Dora? What if it's just fruit juice? Or what if she gets loaded and manages to fake being normal?”

  “The worst thing that'll happen is that I'll look stupid and everyone but you and I will run off with Joshua.”

  “Are you going to hold her down, while I pour it down her throat?”

  Martin wished he had a good answer. “I'm thinking,” he said.

  ....

  Winch had just got up and was still foggy-headed, but he came along with them. Jan-Louise said she would follow them over to Rusty's as soon as she dressed and washed her face. August refused to let Martin speak to April and demanded to know what was going on. Martin left without answering.

  “Yeah, Martin,” Winch said as they walked up the street, “what is going on?”

  “It'd be bette
r if you just watched. You may just get to see me do the dumbest thing in my life.”

  “Well, that would wake me up,” Winch said as they turned up Rusty's driveway.

  Rusty let Martin and Winch in with a brief “Morn'.” Dora stood in the kitchen folding towels at the counter and they saw Christie cross the hallway in a nightshirt, her hair in tangles.

  “What's up?” Rusty asked.

  “Everyone seems pretty bleary-eyed this morning,” Martin said.

  “I guess. Long night. A lotta food. That venison gave me a heartburn like a son of a bitch.”

  Dora stopped her folding and shot a disapproving look toward the men.

  “Don't care if I never see red meat again,” Rusty said. “What's up?”

  “We came to ask you about the fishing.”

  “Oh.” Rusty let himself half-fall into an armchair that creaked loudly. “I don't know if I'm going to get out there today.”

  “And while we're here,” Martin said as an afterthought, “Dora?” He took a folded sheet of paper out of his shirt pocket.

  Dora came to the kitchen door, holding a folded towel against her full bosom.

  Martin took the paper to her. “Rusty mentioned one time that you did some accounting.”

  Charlie and Winch barely managed to hide their puzzlement.

  “I kept books for a wallpaper store once.”

  “Well,” Martin explained, showing her several columns of numbers, “this is a little beyond me, but I was interested in our winter food situation. This is how many pounds of dried pasta we have, this is how many cans of food we have, and this is how much flour Jan-Louise has.”

  She pointed to an unlabeled column. “What's this over here?”

  “Well, not everyone eats the same amount. I mean we have kids of various sizes and adults.” Martin explained that the numbers or fraction beside each person's name represented his guess of the proportional amount each might be expected to eat. “Now if we figure each adult ate two pounds of food a day and one can of food represents a pound, could you figure how many days we can last on what we have now?”

  Dora looked over the page and up at Martin. “Is this really necessary?”

  “It would be helpful for our winter months,” Martin said.

  Dora sighed and took the paper.

  “Multiply the pasta weight by three, flour by two.”

  She trudged back into the kitchen.

  Martin asked Rusty and Winch what he knew about salmon and within five minutes, Dora came into the room and handed him the paper. “Here. A hundred and twelve days.”

  “Thanks. Oh.” He took the bottle out of his jacket pocket. “This was left over from last night.”

  She looked at him as though he might have lost his mind. “So?”

  Martin went into the kitchen, got a glass from the counter, emptied the bottle into it and pushed it down the counter toward Dora.

  Winch was watching very carefully from the doorway, and Rusty was on his feet. Keeping his voice down, Rusty said intensely, “Martin, what the god damned hell are you doing here?”

  “How'd you feel this morning when you got up, Rusty?”

  “Plugged, and I'm feeling worse every minute because you're pissing me off, Martin. What is this stunt?”

  “Would you say you felt hung-over?”

  Rusty looked steadily at him, thinking hard. “Yes,” he finally said, “I guess I could say that.”

  “Well, Charlie and I were having a disagreement about whether the fruit juice Dora brought last night had anything in it besides juice. The way people were acting, and the way they're hung over this morning, I thought it might have been a possibility. I didn't really think Dora would do a thing like that, and Charlie said for sure he didn't think so. But it's a possibility, and we wanted to find out.” He nodded at the full glass. “I thought she could settle the argument for us.”

  “You think it's poison?” she said, almost spitting the word. “You must've woke up stupid this morning,” Dora picked up the glass and drank it down. “Happy? Now I have work to do. You can watch if I drop dead.” She went back to her laundry folding.

  Rusty looked at Martin, half angry, half puzzled.

  “I'm probably just being overly suspicious,” Martin said.

  The conversation was awkward and strained, but Martin persevered and kept it going until he could see Dora in the kitchen, standing beside the table she had stacked with laundry, simply staring at it.

  “Dora?” he said, standing up and going in to her. Her eyes rose slowly to meet his. “I apologize for my suspicions. Now, about these numbers, I realized it's multiply the pasta times two and the flour by three. I had it backwards. I'm sorry to bother you with this, but, we need to know where we stand with food before winter.” He gave her back the sheet of numbers.

  She snorted and snatched it from his hand and turned to the counter and picked up a pencil.

  Martin watched her through the kitchen door. She sat at the counter, her head deeply bent over the page of numbers.

  “You timing her?” Rusty asked.

  “Just watching.”

  “You think she and Josh got us screwed up before he gave us his big talk.”

  “High likelihood.”

  Rusty and Winch were both also watching Dora.

  After ten minutes, Martin called to her, “What'd you come up with this time?”

  She didn't answer.

  Martin strolled into the kitchen with Winch and Rusty following but hanging back. On the paper she had written what appeared to be long strings of complex equations that trailed off into scratch-outs.

  “I must've figured something... wrong here,” she said, still in full concentration.

  Martin turned to Charlie and nodded.

  “Are you sure you still want me to do this?” Charlie whispered.

  “Yes. Now.”

  “I'm going to feel really dumb.” Charlie went to the front door, opened it and slammed it shut and stormed back into the room, panting in full desperation, waving his arms in every direction. “The sky!” he shouted. “My god! The sky is on fire! Orange flames, red flames, blue flames, it's an inferno! An inferno! We're all doomed! We're doomed!”

  Dora stood petrified in the kitchen doorway, her hands across her mouth and her eyes showing white around her irises. She ran to the door, Winch and Charlie lunging aside to get out of her way. The sky appeared to be its normal blue, though hanging far overhead there were a few filamentary cirrus wisps.

  On the front porch, Charlie kept up the description, “... streaks of boiling fire... a flaming apocalypse....”

  After one upward glance, Dora cringed and cowered against the door, crushed, moaning and praying incoherently.

  “I'm sorry, Rusty,” Martin said. “I'm really sorry. Let's help her inside.” When they got her up, Martin brushed her hair from her face. “I'm sorry, Dora,” he said, but she probably didn't hear.

  Still weeping and pleading for mercy, Dora lay across the bed, tearing at her clothes. Rusty closed the door to her bedroom.

  “I guess you had to do it,” Rusty said quietly.

  “I didn't enjoy it.”

  “Unlike someone we know, who seems to enjoy screwing our heads around,” Winch said, “and making us think he's our only ticket to the happy life. Why don't I just go up and shoot the son of a bitch, Martin. This is like some kind of scam out of the old times, and we don't need it.”

  “Shooting him would be like old times, too.”

  “The offer still stands. All you have to do is ask, now or later. I knew I shoulda shot him.”

  “Now that we know his secret power,” Martin said, “we can talk to the others. Then if we can wait a week, if he keeps his side of the bargain—”

  Winch spat on the ground. “FFC.”

  “—no one will have to get hurt. What does that mean?”

  “Fat chance. My offer still stands. I know where they are.” He looked at the clock on the wall over the dead television.
“We could be finished in twenty minutes.”

  “I don't know,” Rusty said.

  “Winch, if I asked you to wait....”

  “I'd think you were making a big god damned mistake, but I'd wait.”

  “Let me talk to Catrin and the others.”

  Winch nodded and the room filled with a smoldering silence.

  Chapter 75

  The others were astonished, but they listened through their hangovers and believed what Martin and the others told them. All but August.

  “You lured us all to this place,” he stormed, “telling us we could do what we wanted, and now when you get a little competition, you go nuts! You go nuts! I don't know what you made that poor woman drink, but I know Joshua, I know Dora, and I think you want to be our god damned dictator, that's what I think!”

  “That's what you get for thinking,” Winch said .

  To the others Martin said, “Now you know what Joshua is capable of. Please be careful.”

  Several of them nodded minutely. Several looked away. All of them looked embarrassed.

  ....

  After speaking with Catrin, Xeng, Roy, Charlie, and Rusty, the decision was that they should wait. Everyone agreed. Joshua would hear that his deception had been discovered, and he would soon leave — Martin hoped — probably taking only Dora and August with him. That would be a good thing. As usual, Catrin had spoken the words that stuck with him: “We don't want our history to begin with killing.”

  “Hmh,” Winch grunted. “Let's just make sure we have a history.”

  ....

  For two days, nothing happened.

  Then, early on the third morning, Joshua moved through the village, appearing at the front step of each of their homes with Dora and August standing quietly behind him. This day he was serious, all business, without his charming smile.

  “I have only a brief message,” he told each person who answered the door. “I have been told by the Lord that there is soon to be a second judgment and that those who reject his offer of salvation will surely be lost.”