by Rob Mclean
Inside the temple, alongside the main doors, John saw the spot, complete with the obligatory warnings and instructions where the fire extinguishers should have been, but there was just an empty hook. Maybe someone was already using it. He frantically looked about for another.
“They’ve cut the freaking fire hose!” Grace screeched in disbelief as she held up a severed hose. “They must’ve planned it all along.”
It fitted - the old Buddhist, Kodo, guiding them away from the temple as fast as he could – it had to have been planned all along. John gave up looking for any help inside the temple, instead, he ran back outside.
The crowd had moved back from the burning bodies as the heat had grown. Their mourning wails had subsided to a heart-wrenching, pitiful, undulating, collective moan as they knew, like John, that there was not much chance that any of the monks would survive.
Most of the monks were still sitting upright. Their robes had vanished long ago to reveal patches of raw, pink, weeping flesh, blistering and peeling away from the blackened bodies. Others had collapsed into smouldering, unrecognisable heaps.
Some squaddies had arrived with fire extinguishers from their vehicles and were valiantly trying to fight the flames, but it was all too late. Fuelled by gasoline soaked robes, the flames had been too quick.
John stood dumbfounded. How could these people do this? What sort of iron-willed craziness was needed to subject yourself to this sort of intense torture?
‘Not crazy,’ his father’s voice spoke, ‘devoted.’
‘Devotion gone too far is its own form of madness,’ John thought as he watched helplessly while the monks died.
Suddenly one of the monks let out a high-pitched scream. He wretched his blackened hand from the corpse next to him and staggered to his feet, all the while frantically swatting at the flames. The squaddies rushed to douse his flames, trying to engulfing him in hissing, white clouds, but the monk ran wild, shrieking, heedless of the help.
He fell to the ground at the feet of Daisojo Kodo Rinzai and rolled about in a desperate attempt to smother the flames. The old Buddhist stood by impassively. John thought he saw a look of sorrow and disappointment on the old man’s face before they were all engulfed in clouds of fire retardant.
Moments later, after the flames had been extinguished, the monk lay on his back. His naked, seared body lay at an awkward angle. The burnt skin had shrunk, pulling what remained of the fingers and toes into contorted, silent expressions of agony.
John watched wordlessly as the paramedics arrived and examined the body.
One searched cautiously for a carotid pulse with one hand, the other held her nose closed against the smell of cooked flesh.
“I think he’s gone,” she said.
“Thank God,” the other said, then when he realised what he had said, sheepishly added, “Sorry, old habits.”
There was an awkward silence for a moment as all eyes went to the old Buddhist, but a wheezing croak from the incinerated monk interrupted anything he was going to say.
“Hell, no,” John heard himself say.
“The poor bastard,” one paramedic cried.
“Morphine, stat,” the other ordered.
Kodo, his hands pressed together in prayer, backed away from his dying acolyte.
John shadowed him suspiciously.
“Better if they let him die,” Kodo said quietly to John.
With all the horrific burns and injuries, the endless skin graft surgeries and treatments, all the while in excruciating pain, John was inclined to agree.
“He won’t reach the Other Shore if he lives,” Kodo added.
John couldn’t believe what he was hearing. It wasn’t about the suffering, he was more worried about the monk’s soul and its journey.
“This he knows,” Kodo nodded towards the incinerated monk before them. “Pain of failure is worse than pain of flames. Stays with him for the rest of his life.”
John turned away, his fists clenched in rage against the futility he felt. The wind changed and smoke swirled about him stinging his eyes. Tears streamed, carving fresh tracks through his soot-smeared face. He knew his squads would see it as a weakness, but he didn’t care. He didn’t care what they would think, or what Eloise would put in his file, or anything.
He sank to a knee and wept.
Chapter 40
Angela woke curled up, still clutching the bedspread she had used to stifle her tears as she fell asleep.
Sleep had been a pleasant escape, but she woke with a sore neck and the painful memories of what she had done. She rolled her head about and stretched, but the guilt of how she had treated John would not go away, nor would the feeling of loss.
She checked her phone and saw with surprise that she had slept for over twelve hours. At first she was amazed that she had slept for so long, but she had felt so drained and tired.
The hard decision she had made to let John go returned to haunt her - an empty, drained feeling, like the times when she fasted. She felt hollowed out and hungry without John, but, she reassured herself, like fasting, it was for the best.
Then she wondered what her mother was up to. She didn’t normally let her daughter sleep in for so long, with sloth being one of the many sins, so why hadn’t she come to see if her daughter was okay? Was she feeling guilty about how they had treated John too?
A fresh wave of remorse swelled around her, but she swan above it, telling herself that there was nothing she could do about what had already been done. Zeke was the right choice, she reaffirmed as she swung her feet out of bed to face the new day, at least as far as her Christian walk was concerned.
She was brushing her hair as she went over her decision when a snatch of a dream came back to her. At first there were only fleeting glimpses and a lingering feeling of contentment, but the more she remembered, the more that came back to her in a gathering rush.
She was with John, somewhere far away from everyone and all the worldly problems. They were together, happily together, close and she had felt so content and fulfilled. They were in control of their own lives and everything was right with the world – the AntiChrist alien thing had gone away - and everything felt so right.
Zeke was there too, devoted and attentive to her every need – and there were children – two heart-achingly beautiful, gifted children. But, she sighed as she reminisced; she was with John, completely and so blissfully contented.
She smiled to herself at the way such paradoxes never matter in a dream. It was a lovely dream, but that’s all it was - just a fanciful dream.
On an impulse she reached for her phone to call John. She wanted to say sorry for how she had treated him, but part of her ached just to hear his voice again, no matter how cross he might be with her.
Instead, she sent a text. A ‘Dear John’ text, she smiled ruefully. It was a cop out, she knew, but she also knew that if she did hear his voice again, her resolve mightn’t hold. She felt a little better, having said sorry. She hoped he would understand.
She had a quick shower and finished getting ready. She tried to keep John from her thoughts by working out how she should approach Zeke. By rights, he should come to her with a suitable apology, which she would eventually accept after much persistence on his behalf and a show of having been affronted from herself, but she didn’t really think that likely. Her best approach might be through Chelsea. She certainly didn’t want to talk to Mrs C, but if Zeke’s parents were no longer part of the church that might not be so much of a problem.
They were selling the bookshop. Her job there would be gone soon, but that didn’t matter. They were all supposed to be moving away to some religious area somewhere. Maybe Pastor Greg and the elders had worked out where that might be and would let them know this Sunday. Hopefully Zeke would be happy to go along too.
Downstairs, she found her father at the kitchen table, reading the newspaper. His half-drunk cup of tea had gone cold.
“Where’s mom?” Angela asked. The place was unusually q
uiet.
“Out,” he said distractedly, without looking up.
“Why didn’t she tell me? Who’s looking after you?”
“I’d call if I needed anything.” He tapped a new phone in his top pocket.
“You’ve got a phone now?” Of all the changes happening in her world, her father getting a mobile phone was disproportionately disorientating. “Since when? I thought you were all so anti-technology?”
“Gotta move with the times,” he shrugged. “Your mother, ever practical, thought it might be useful.”
“Oh, okay.” Maybe they too had come to see how useful a cell phone could be, especially now as society got more unstable. “But how’d you know if I’d have mine with me?”
He looked up and raised one eyebrow. “You always have your phone on you.”
She was about to protest, but she felt her phone in her back pocket.
Her father gave a satisfied grunt and returned to reading the paper.
“Will you look at this? They’re running a series of stories on different alien planets and the critters on them. A different one every day…”
“Yeah, it’s all lifted straight from the Envoy’s website,” Angela said as she put bread in the toaster. “It’s all there, along with a whole lot of other stuff.”
Her father grunted and frowned. “They’ll print anything these days. I mean, how do we know it’s real?”
“How do we know it’s not?”
His frown deepened into a scowl. He closed the paper and folded it over. “So has he rung yet?”
“Who?”
“Zeke.”
“Zeke?” She was sure he had been talking about John. “Why would Zeke call?”
“Because you and that John fellow are through,” He sounded both annoyed and disappointed, “or at least that’s what I’m told.”
Angela felt like she was being told off, like she had come home late and drunk.
“Is it true?” he persisted.
She didn’t want to talk about John, it hurt too much, so she just nodded.
“And you think you’ll be happy with Zeke?” His tone flat, weighed down with disbelief.
“‘Happy’ is fleeting. Love lasts.”
“You sound like a Duracell commercial.” Geoff crossed his arms. “You’re telling me you love Zeke, after all he’s done to you?”
“What’s he done? If you mean the nightclub thing, well we don’t know for sure it was him. He says it wasn’t him and he might be telling the truth.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Geoff waved away her words. “But do you love him?”
Angela faltered for a moment.
“Of course,” she said. She felt it wasn’t really a lie. She really did love him, or felt she could, if John wasn’t around. Kind of like how the moon isn’t so bright during the day.
“And what about John?” Her father fixed her with the same look she imagined he had used when questioning suspects at a crime scene.
“What about John?” She tried to make it sound light and carefree, but it came out as short and abrupt.
“You’re telling me he doesn’t rate anymore?”
“No, it’s just…different.”
“Uh, okay…” her father waited for her to elaborate, but she turned away and busied herself spreading avocado on her toast.
Her father said nothing more and went back to reading the paper. Unlike the way her mother would have persisted until she had ferreted the entire story out of her, Angela liked the way her father was patient enough to wait until she was ready to talk.
“Zeke’s okay,” Angela said at last. “And it would’ve been all fine with Zeke if John hadn’t come along.”
She smiled to herself. If Zeke hadn’t insisted they go to that nightclub that night, she would have been still trailing along after Zeke as his devoted girlfriend. What was it John had said? – ‘a taste of honey is worse than none at all’ – well, that’s what John had been, a taste of delicious, sweet, royal honey that she will now savour for the rest of her life, but would never have. Her smile fell from her face.
“But, no, Zeke… he’ll be a good husband, a good Christian husband.”
“You sound like you’re settling for second best,” her father ventured.
“Sometimes you don’t get what you want,” Angela forced herself to smile back at her father, “You get what you need.”
“You’re quoting the Rolling Stones now? A bit before your time, aren’t they?”
“I thought it was Biblical…” Angela shook her head. “Besides, why should Zeke ring anyway? As far as he’s concerned, I’m not his trophy girlfriend anymore.”
“I was thinking he might ring because that’s where your mother went – to talk to him.”
“What?” Angela couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “You’ve got to be joking.”
“I wish I was.” Geoff frowned. “She’s gone to talk terms, negotiate a ceasefire, make a deal.”
“Dammit dad, she can’t do that.” Angela stood and stormed about the table. She wanted to throw something or scream. “I’m not something to trade. This is not some third-world arranged marriage.”
“Now settle down,” he said. Angela could hear that he was trying to sound reasonable and conciliatory as he waved her to sit. “No-one’s saying it is, but if you care for Zeke, like you say you do…”
“But he should come to me. That’s how it’s supposed to be.”
“He will, if that’s what you really want.” He let his words hang, waiting for some confirmation from Angela.
“I wish she wasn’t so interfering…” Angela felt her anger had found its source. “So controlling…”
“She’s just doing what she…” he paused to correct himself, “that is, what ‘we’ think is best.”
“Is that what you think, dad? Do you think Zeke is the best choice?”
“Now, you have to understand, you’re lucky… no, blessed, in that you have two fine young men interested in you. A lot of young Christian women don’t have that luxury.”
"Yes, but Zeke? You’d be happy to have him as your son?”
“If it were up to me – which it isn’t – John would be your man.”
“But he’s not a Christian…”
Geoff held up his palm to interrupt and forestall her protests. “When you first meet someone, you don’t know much about them, so some people tend to fill in what they don’t know with what they would like them to be like. Then they get all disappointed when they find out the new person doesn’t fit the ideal they had imagined.”
“But he has to be a Christian…”
“I think you knew he wasn’t when you first met him.”
“But that was before…”
“Before you felt anything for him?”
Angela sat at the kitchen table and buried her head in her hands. In a small voice, she confessed, “I love him, dad. I can’t help it. I know it’s wrong…”
Her father put his hand on her head and stroked her hair as he spoke. “You make his faith a precondition, a prerequisite. Give him time…”
“But we don’t have time. We’re being forced to move away.”
“I know, I know, but if you don’t love Zeke and you want to be with John, then maybe you should stay here to be with him.”
Angela lifted her head to look at her father anew. She had not given this possibility more than a fleeting thought before dismissing it.
“But that would mean giving up on God. That won’t be happening.”
“They want you to renounce religion. It’s not the same thing. God is in your heart, not in a church.”
“But what about you and mom?” The thought of staying in L.A. with John played about in her head.
With all the religious people going, the whole city had been changing for the worse. She had been shocked and angered to see confronting graphic sexual images appear, looming large on bill-boards across the city and on electronic media. They competed for attention in escalating advertisin
g campaigns, each vying to out-do each other in a downward spiral of animal iniquity. Without the religious, moral people around to complain, and with any other ‘good’ people too afraid to be outspoken, for fear of similar persecution, any resistance to the changes was muted.
Just last night, on the radio – a worldly station, all the Christian ones had been shut down by the state government soon after the referendum results had come – she had heard how Madonna, the iconic rock queen, who had once been so popular, had been dragged from her mansion by security forces for her outspoken stance in favour of her Kaballah religion.
Angela knew she didn’t want to live in a city where these sorts of things happened and didn’t want to be with someone who did.
“Don’t you worry about us,” Geoff assured her, “we’ll be fine wherever we end up. It’s you we worry about.”
“I’ll be fine. We’ll all move to wherever it is they let us go and work it out from there.”
“But what about the Zeke or John problem?”
Angela sat back. A new clarity came to her. “We’ll see who wants to come with us.”
Angela savoured the curious, novel feeling of empowerment the decision gave her. It made perfect sense; if they wanted her, they could follow her to wherever she went.
She was about to announce how happy she was with her decision when her phone rang. She checked the number.
It was Zeke.
Chapter 41
Rear-Admiral Karl Schwartz watched the familiar silhouette of his battle group, outlined against the dying rays of the Egyptian sun as they skimmed over the calm, dark waters of the Red Sea.
Battle plans and thoughts of strategy, logistics and capabilities should be filling his mind, but all he could think of was Lieutenant Gray. Now, as his return hastened, he had to admit to himself how much he had missed her, not just the intimacy, which he knew was a large part of it, but also as a friend and confidante.
He hadn’t heard from her since before his arrest. He had tried to call her, several times since being granted his freedom by the Saudi Lieutenant-Colonel Haziz, but she had been too busy with some sort of medical emergency. He hoped she wasn’t avoiding him. They hadn’t spoken properly since his attack on the alien spaceship.