Chosen

by Barbara Ellen Brink

Miriam and Jesse waited silently in the SUV after Jesse pulled off the road onto the shoulder. Night pressed in around them like a heavy wool blanket, dense and suffocating. With daylight still hours away, they knew their only recourse was to follow Jael’s plan, but the thought of something going wrong was enough to temporarily paralyze them.

  Miriam clasped her hands in her lap and closed her eyes, a prayer for safety for her only child playing over and over in her mind like steady rain. She felt Jesse cover her hands with a warm, calloused palm. His fingers pressed tight and safe around her knuckles, strength she could depend on.

  She turned and met his eyes in the dark cab. “Have I told you how much I love being married to you?” she asked, diffusing the seriousness of the situation with a teasing lilt to her words. “Other than Harrison Ford, you’re the only man for me.”

  “That old guy? He’s not even in the same league.” He raised his arm and flexed his bicep. “Can he bench press three hundred pounds?”

  “No, but I bet he has someone to do it for him.”

  He snorted. “Figures.”

  She turned toward the window and gazed out at the empty road. “We should have stayed away. Left everything and started over. Jael wouldn’t be in this situation right now if…” She choked off, tears filling her eyes.

  Jesse reached out and pulled her close, caressing her cheek with the pad of his thumb. “We can’t change what’s meant to be. Nothing you or I did or didn’t do makes a lick of difference in the long run. They came for her and she must fight. She’s strong. She can do this. We have to believe it’s the will of God.”

  She twisted away and wiped at the tears spilling down her cheeks. “And what if she’s hurt, or worse? Is that God’s will as well?” she demanded, hoping desperately for a different answer than what she knew he would give.

  He sighed heavily and leaned his head back against the seat. “Faith is never plain or simple, despite the life we came from and once knew. It’s a daily ritual of taking self and sacrificing it on the alter of obedience – trusting that the Creator knows what we need more than we do.” He cleared his throat. “I refuse to think He brought her this far just to see her fail now. Jael is the Chosen One and by God she will slay these bloodsuckers before morning breaks!”

  Miriam lifted his hand and kissed the inside of his palm, then pressed it to her cheek and held it there. “Forget Harrison Ford. You’re the only man for me.”

  Her cell phone vibrated against her side. She reached inside the pocket of Jael’s old hooded sweatshirt she wore and pulled it out. “Honey, we’re in place,” she said, glancing at Jesse, “waiting.”

  “Okay, head for the railroad station. I’ll call in five minutes. Do exactly what I said and I’ll take care of the rest. Tell Dad to wait in the truck. Seth has my back. You two take off as soon as the first arrow hits its mark. Promise me,” she said, her voice low and fast. “I can’t do what needs to be done if I’m worrying about you, Mom.”

  Marian closed her eyes and nodded, the phone pressed close to her ear. “We understand. Be careful.”

  There was a pause. “Love you, Mom,” Jael whispered and disconnected.

  Miriam swallowed her fear and pulled the hood of the black sweatshirt up over her hair. “It’s time,” she said.

  Jesse turned the key and pulled back onto the two-lane highway. He only had to drive a quarter mile before turning off onto the dirt track that led down to the deserted railroad station. Driving with the headlights off, they bumped over dark, rough terrain. Something darted out of the brush and scurried across the road in front of the truck. A Roadrunner. Jesse tapped the brake, but it was already long gone, disappearing into a gully on the other side.

  Miriam released a quiet sigh. The next few minutes would determine the future for so many. She had been selfish, wishing only for a normal life. But Jael’s path had already been determined long ago. As the mother of the chosen one she had no right to expect normal. They couldn’t fail. Their daughter must survive this night in order to go on and fulfill her destiny in Loon Lake, to destroy the evil that had taken hold of the Amish community.

  The moon slid slowly behind the branches of an Olive tree up ahead, backlighting each and every gnarled and twisted limb. For a moment she thought she saw someone standing beneath it, but when she blinked they were gone. They slowly approached the dilapidated station. The crunch of gravel beneath the tires seemed loud in the stillness of the clearing and gooseflesh broke out on Miriam’s arms.

  Jesse pulled the gearshift into park but left the motor running. “Where are they?” he whispered.

  “There.” Miriam pointed toward the west side of the building, now more rubble than walls. Five dark figures separated from the shadows and moved into the clearing about thirty yards ahead of the truck. The tallest of the four had an arm around the neck of the shortest. “That poor girl,” Miriam murmured, fingers tightening around the cell phone in her lap. She glanced down. Jael would be calling any second.

  “Step to the front of the truck but don’t get any closer,” Jesse warned, “They can’t see your face.”

  She tightened the strings of the hood so it hid her features even more. He reached out and clasped her hand for a second, and then she pulled open the door and stepped out.

  Miriam released the last of her doubts to the God she had put her faith in many years ago. There was no room for doubt now. Only trust. She moved toward the vampires holding Brianna hostage. They calmly watched her approach as though they were confident of the outcome.

  She pulled out her cell phone and pretended to make a call. It began to vibrate. She pushed answer and lifted it to her ear. Less than a second later a rock-and-roll tune rang out from Brianna’s phone across the clearing. Miriam stopped just in front of the truck and waited for the leader to answer. He stared down at the phone in his hand while it continued to ring.

  Brianna’s voice, shrill and scared but still defiant, rang out. “Push the answer button, stupid!” And then she screamed when the vamp shoved her to the ground. She lay crumpled in a ball at his feet, arms covering her head, prepared for more.

  Miriam cringed at the brutality. A second later a deep voice spoke in her ear. “So sad that you are on time, Miss Chosen One. I was just about to kill your little friend. She is rather annoying.”

  Jael’s voice responded over the three-way call, “You touch her again, your second death will be a heck of a lot more brutal than your first.”

  He laughed. “I was mauled by wild boars and in excruciating pain when the Bishop found me and offered immortality. Can you top that?”

  “Try me.”

  “Let us not squabble. I know you believe you are chosen to kill those such as we. But you are young and inexperienced and will never live to see that destiny come to fruition. You are one, and we are many. If you are as wise as the prophecy states, perhaps you will listen to the Bishop’s offer. He has given me permission to grant you the same gift he has extended to thousands throughout the centuries. The gift of immortality. There is no need for your friend to die here today. Although, as a sister in the Loon Lake family you will no longer desire ties with outsiders.”

  Miriam stared hard at the vampires surrounding Brianna’s figure on the ground. They wore black suits and hats, jackets fastened all the way up, exactly the same as the suits and hats all sober men wore to church in the Amish community. Plain and simple with no frills, buttons, or fancy stitching. Despite their similarities, none but the young man standing just behind the leader’s left shoulder seemed vaguely familiar. She was sure she knew him from before. But he looked so young. He would have been a small child when she left Loon Lake. The young man pushed the hat back on his head and scratched at his temple. Her heart sank.

  Jacob. Her brother. He hadn’t aged at all. He’d become one of them.

  She barely registered the continued conversation taking place on the cell phone pressed to her ear. Guilt hit her like a freight train. If only they’d taken Jacob with them w
hen they left Loon Lake. If only they’d done something besides run to save their own skins. No! They did what had to be done. Jacob was already in the hands of the Bishop that night.

  “Let Brianna go and we’ll talk,” Jael said, her voice confident and sure.

  “I do not think that you are in a position to set the rules.” He bent down and dragged Brianna back to her feet, his hand clamped around her throat. “Raise your hands out to your sides so that I know you are not armed and I won’t break this quarrelsome female’s neck.”

  “All right,” Jael said.

  Miriam played the game. She raised her arms and even turned around and lifted the edge of her sweatshirt so the vamps could see she was not concealing anything.

  “I’ve done what you asked,” Jael said, “Now please release Brianna and let her go. I give you my word I won’t leave here until our business is done.”

  He shoved Brianna toward the trees. “Go! Before I change my mind.”

  Brianna stumbled away, glanced back once to check and see if he was playing with her and then took off running wildly past the scraggly trees and down the gully toward the highway in the distance.

  Miriam held her breath as she watched the child disappear into the brush. Suddenly there was a loud thunk and one of the vamps went down. An arrow protruded from his chest and then poof! – his body crumbled into dust. All that remained was a pile of clothes. She whirled around and ran to the truck door, jumped in and barely got it closed before Jesse gunned the motor in reverse. She saw another vampire fall to his knees, grappling at an arrow in his forehead. The leader instinctively took after Brianna, obviously knowing he’d made a huge mistake in letting her go. Before he could disappear into the gully, an arrow hit him in the back. He fell to the ground with a blood-curdling scream, the sound of a demon banished to hell. The truck turned a bend in the road and the scene disappeared from sight.

  Jesse kept his foot pressed to the pedal, his arm across the back of her seat as he watched the road behind them. The truck spun out of the dirt track and into the highway, tires squealing as he shifted into drive and slammed his foot down on the gas pedal again.

  Miriam twisted around to watch the road behind them. “Did you see him?” she asked, her voice shaking. Headlights turned out of the dirt road behind them and followed. “He’s coming.”

  He glanced in the rearview. “That’s probably Seth. He was supposed to pick up Brianna.”

  She shook her head, eyes glued to the glare of headlights gaining on them. “It’s not Seth. It’s Jacob.”

  “Jacob who?” Jesse demanded, his voice louder than usual. He pressed his foot down harder. The truck accelerated past eighty miles per hour.

  “My brother.” She turned around and pulled the seatbelt across her chest, snapping it in place. “I saw him. He looked exactly the same as the day we left.”