But she couldn’t wait outdoors. It was too cold. She was too weak. So she returned to the house.
The front door was shut and locked. This surprised her and made her more angry than afraid. She went around to the kitchen and tried the arctic entry.
It too was locked.
Unchristian rage filled Ginger’s heart, but she damped it down. Rage made you stupid. They were trying to freeze her to death, and there was no margin for stupidity. She was scanning the snowy yard for something to break a window with when she saw the bathhouse. Of course.
The old, gasoline-powered washing machine stood on the bathhouse porch. A load of hastily abandoned laundry was slowly freezing in its tub. Ginger paused to open the drain. No sense allowing the old machine to be broken by freeze damage.
It was warm inside the bathhouse. Clean laundry sat in plastic baskets on the sorting table. There were embers in the barrel stove, and she coaxed them back to life with sticks of kindling. A window overlooked the yard. She pulled a chair next to it to shiver herself warm while she kept vigil for the return of her rescuers.
FD9 1.0
“TELL ME, BROTHER,” Corny said, “why we don’t just up and leave?”
Ranger Masterson was pacing back and forth, back and forth in the entrance area. He came close to their bench, made an about face, and continued in the other direction. Back and forth. Back and forth. This had been going on for two hours. In that time, three of the eight lanterns had dimmed and blinked out. The cavernous space was filling with shadows.
“See?” Hosea said to Adam. “The batteries are bad too.”
“Now, brother?” Adam said. “You want to talk about that now?”
“Why don’t we just get up and leave?” Corny asked again. “We’re not under arrest, are we? We got constitutional rights or don’t we?”
“Sit still,” Adam said to him, “and shut up.”
“I can’t sit still.” He strained against the plastic restraints. “If I don’t move, my ass will fall off.”
“Language, brother.”
“Oh, bullshit.”
On the ranger’s next circuit, Corny stood up and silently followed in his wake halfway to the far wall before peeling off toward the gate. He moved swiftly and made it to the sally door before Masterson turned around. The ranger was startled to see him at the door. Corny fumbled with the bolt with hands bound behind his back. The bolt was difficult enough to open even when you could see what you were doing. He wiggled it as he pushed it with his thumbs, and it gave little by little — before going all at once.
“Halt!” Masterson shouted. He sprinted to the gate as Corny was pushing the armored door open with his shoulder. The ranger caught him by the arm and yanked him backward off his feet. The boy went sprawling, but he didn’t stay down. Despite his bound hands, he sprang up and charged the ranger head first. Masterson changed his grip on the shotgun and struck the boy’s skull with its maple stock. Corny’s knees buckled, and he went down on the cold stone floor.
Masterson spun around. The other two Prophecys had catapulted themselves from their bench to charge him from behind. But he pumped a shell into the chamber of the gun and leveled it at them. Adam and Hosea slowed down and shuffled to a halt not ten feet away. Adam’s whole body shook with fury. “You killed him!” he cried. “You killed my brother.”
“He ain’t dead.”
Hosea pleaded, “Let me help him.”
Bright blood was pooling on the floor of greenish stone beneath the unconscious boy’s head. Masterson’s action had been justified. Nevertheless . . .
“Turn around,” he told Hosea, “and I’ll remove your cuffs.”
Masterson pulled a small pair of snips from his belt, but the big man, who only a moment before was desperate to aid his brother, now hung back and stared at the ranger with open mouth. Adam, too, was transfixed.
Masterson felt a draft of frigid air on his neck from the open door behind him. He glanced around and found Proverbs, armed with a carbine, coming in.
FD10 1.0
POPPY DID NOT doubt the agents’ resolve to go through with their threat. He trusted in the evil that was lodged deeply in the hearts of men. He trusted the angel, too, to do everything necessary to protect the key. She had made it clear that everything Poppy had — even the lives of his children — was expendable in its defense. She had advised him to put up token resistance but to give the feds unfettered access to the keep. But she didn’t say anything about letting them destroy it.
“Which one you prefer.” Nabor asked Poppy, holding up two brightly labeled packages. Bertolli had commandeered a wheelbarrow on the second level and used it to schlep common household poisons he found in the storeroom up one level to the cistern. Now they were debating which ones to use.
“Suit yourself,” Poppy said. “The power of the Lord will turn the bitter into sweet.”
Bertolli asked Nabor, “Was that one of those quick-draw Bible verses?”
“It sure sounded like one.”
“Excellent.”
The agents settled on a foil bag of garden insecticide that Poppy had instructed Adam to buy on their supply run. There was certain to be an explosion of pests during the Last Days, and Poppy was anything but an organic gardener. Pests were to be massacred, not reasoned with.
“Let’s see,” Nabor said, reading the label. “Active Ingredients: Acephate [O,S – Dimethyl acetyl . . . acetyl . . .” He showed the package to Bertolli. “Read this.”
“Sure. Acetylphosphoramidothiote 97.0%. Easy-peasy.”
“Easy-peasy for a nerd.” Nabor browsed the rest of the label. “‘This product contains a cholinesterase inhibitor.’ I don’t know what that is, but it doesn’t sound good.”
“It’s not. You never want to inhibit your cholinesterase. Period.”
“Let’s see. ‘ . . . may result in incontinence, unconsciousness, convulsions, and death.’ Great. It not only kills you but makes you piss yourself first.”
“That’s pretty typical for any kind of poison.”
“‘Call a poison control center or doctor immediately for treatment advice.’ That’s always good advice — call an expert — but you can’t call anyone when you don’t have phone service this far out.”
“Who you gonna call?”
“Nobody, I guess.”
Nabor took out a jackknife and slit the top of the package, holding it away from his face. “Here,” he said, handing it to Bertolli. “You do the honors.”
Bertolli accepted the foil bag. He weighed it in his hand. Shook his head with regret. “Believe me, Marvin, when I say this: I get no pleasure out of doing this. I’d much rather just waterboard you, you know? But sadly the president has removed that tool from our kit.” He extended his arm and held the bag of insecticide over the water. “Uh, last chance.”
Poppy choked with anger.
“What was that? You say something?”
But Poppy calmed himself. The key to the bottomless pit was certainly more important than this water. Certainly, the angel would have the means to purify the cistern again, if not immediately, then after her host of angels arrived.
Bertolli began to tip the package, but he stopped. He just couldn’t bring himself to do it, and he sheepishly handed the poison back to Nabor. Nabor replaced his partner at the water’s edge and held the package out.
He locked eyes with Poppy and said, “My colleague here is a little soft-hearted, as you can see. But you know that I’m not similarly afflicted. You know that I can and will do this. I’ll pour this in and chase it with everything else we got. This pool will be dead for a generation. That’s what you want, Mr. Johnson; that’s what you’ll get. All right then, on three: One . . . Two . . .”
“Stop!”
“You want me to stop.”
“I’ll tell you what you want to know.”
Nabor withdrew the poison. “You’ll tell us where the trumpet is.”
“I already told you it’s gone. I had it, but it tu
rned to dust.”
Nabor held out the poison again.
“But it left something behind. It’s what melted all those trees and brought down that airplane. It’s not a weapon by design, but it’s got tremendous power. If you wanted to use it as a weapon, there’s probably no reason why you couldn’t.”
“Now we’re talking,” Nabor said, dropping the package of insecticide back into the wheelbarrow. “Take us to this thing.”
FD11 1.0
WHEN PROVERBS COMES through the sally door, the ranger is standing on his right side, in the blind spot of his eyepatch. It’s all the advantage Masterson needs to swat aside the short barrel of the Winchester and jam his own shotgun into the boy’s gut.
“Drop the weapon!” Masterson screams in his face. “Drop the fucking weapon!”
Proverbs rears back in surprise, but, instead of dropping his weapon, he swings it around to aim at the ranger.
Masterson braces himself as he pulls the trigger. The firing pin strikes the primer with a hopeful click, but the expected, satisfying jolt never comes. Misfire!
Now Proverbs has the advantage. “Stop!” he shouts at the ranger. “Don’t move!” But in the time it takes him to say this, Masterson has pumped his gun, ejecting the bad round and chambering a new one. Fuck you!
Both men pull their triggers at the same moment, but only the boy’s Winchester barks. Masterson staggers backward off his feet. He lands next to Corny in shock and disbelief and with a .30-30 slug buried in his armored vest. He struggles to clear his head. What are the odds of two bad rounds in a row? Men are shouting, but he can’t altogether follow their meaning. The shotgun is still clutched in his right hand, but when he tries to raise it, a boot pins it to the floor. He lets go of the shotgun and reaches for the pistol at his side. But as he wraps laggard fingers around its grip, the Winchester pokes him between the eyes.
Do I have any regrets? Yes, quite a few, actually. Was it a happy life? Not particularly. More lonesome than anything else.
And then it’s over.
FD12 1.0
ADAM WAS SHOUTING, “Cut us loose. Proverbs, cut us loose.” Over and over again until Proverbs looked up from the ranger’s ruined face.
“What?” he said.
Adam turned around and showed him his bound hands. Proverbs reached into his parka, searching for a knife, but Adam told him to use the ranger’s snips. They were lying on the floor where the ranger had dropped them. Proverbs used them to free his brothers’ hands, including Corny’s. The boy was coming around and trying to sit up, but Hosea ordered him to stay down while he tended to his head.
Adam, meanwhile, picked up the ranger’s shotgun and ejected the dud cartridge and two more, emptying the magazine. He weighed the cartridges in his hand. The ranger’s ammo was light, just like their fuel supply, just like everything was coming up light these days. On a hunch, Adam retrieved the ranger’s Super Redhawk Alaskan. Now here was a man’s pistol. Its hard rubber, finger-grooved grip fit his hand perfectly. He cocked the hammer, pointed it into the far corner of the entrance, braced for a powerful recoil, and pulled the trigger.
Click.
He pulled the trigger again.
Click.
Six pulls, no joy. Adam opened the cylinder and extracted the bum rounds for later examination. He collected the shotgun rounds too and dropped them into his pocket.
Hosea said, “Search him for the sno-go keys.”
Meanwhile, Proverbs shucked off his heavy parka and leggings. He took a hard hat from a peg and picked up the Winchester. “Where’s Poppy?” he said.
Adam said, “Wait. I’ll go with you.” Quickly, Adam stashed the ranger’s guns out of sight in one of the galleries. When he returned to the entrance, Proverbs had already gone without him.
“Stay with Corny,” Adam told Hosea. “And be ready in case the feds come out before we do.”
FD13 1.0
“WHAT WAS THAT?” Bertolli said, pausing to listen down tunnel. They were still on the third level, beyond the cistern chamber.
“I don’t hear anything,” Nabor said.
“Could’a been a gunshot.”
“Let’s hope those young men aren’t giving the ranger a bad time. That one’s got a short fuse, I’m told.” He said this to his partner, though it was intended for Poppy.
But Poppy was too busy listening to his conscience to pay much attention to the agents. It wasn’t too late to turn back; they hadn’t reached the rock pile yet where he’d hidden the key. But if he changed course now, the soulless bastards would only go back to poisoning his cistern. Where was that pesky angel when he needed her? He thought she had said she could take on an entire army of men.
When they came to the backfilled excavation, Poppy stopped. It was decision time, but the decision was already made. “Up there,” he said, pointing.
“Uh,” Bertolli said. “Where exactly?”
“See that boulder up there?” The agents raked the rock pile with their searchlights until they found it.
Nabor laughed. “You’re fucking with us, old man.”
“That’s where I put it.”
“Show us.”
The three men climbed the rock pile to the boulder, and Poppy located the crevice into which he’d dropped the golden marble.
“This weapon of yours must be kinda little to fit in there. A hand grenade wouldn’t fit.”
“It is small. It’s a marble, but heavy, like a sack of cement.”
That gave the agents pause. Bertolli pulled out a small digital instrument and passed it back and forth over the area. He checked the display and said, “It’s not hot, but give me a sec.” He fiddled with the controls, swiping pages, checking boxes, and passed the phone over the crevice again. He and Nabor switched off their searchlights, throwing the alcove into total darkness.
Gradually, as their eyes adjusted, the crevice began to glow with an eerie purplish radiance, the same weird color Poppy had first seen on the river flats.
“Well, I’ll be,” Nabor said. “There is something down there after all. Any reason we don’t dig it out.”
“None I can see.”
They switched on their lights again and began to pull the rock cover away by hand. Poppy’s legs were shaky on the uneven surface, and he sat down nearby to watch. The agents wouldn’t have to actually move the boulder, but they did have to pry loose rocks wedged beneath it to reach the key. There was one large stone in particular that would not budge. They decided to leave it and try to dig around it. After ten minutes of finger-stubbing labor, the two agents paused to straighten their backs and shuck off their heavy parkas. They piled them out of Poppy’s reach. Their machine pistols hung at their sides.
“We should get those boys to come do this for us,” Bertolli joked.
Poppy said, “You want me to fetch the boys?”
The agents ignored the question, and Nabor tipped his searchlight to look at its display. “You bring spare batteries for this.”
“Yeah, back with the snowmobile.”
“That’s a fine place to keep them.”
“Why? These had a ten-hour charge when we started.”
“Mine’s at thirty percent, and we haven’t been here all that long.”
Bertolli checked his own searchlight. “So’s mine. I don’t know what to tell you. I’ll conserve mine.” He turned it off. “We only need one.”
They resumed digging, and when they cleared all but the large stone wedged under the boulder, they took another breather, and Nabor said, “You bring anything to snack on.”
“Only just a candy bar. You want it?”
“Yeah. I could use a boost.”
Bertolli checked his pockets but found only empty wrappers. Odd.
When they resumed work, they crouched behind the stone to give it a final push. Straining, farting, swearing, they managed to tip it slightly out of the way.
“Hold it there,” Nabor said. “I can see it. You got this.”
“Yeah, but
hurry.”
With Bertolli supporting the stone, Nabor tried to let go of it, but his hands wouldn’t come free. His fingers and palms were stuck to bare rock.
“The fuck,” he said.
“What’s wrong?”
“Let it down a sec.”
“Just grab it if you can see it. I got this.”
“No, no. I said let it down.”
They allowed the rock to settle into its previous spot and quickly discovered that neither of them could let go of it. The flesh of their hands seemed welded to the stone surface.
“Booby trap,” Nabor said. “Superglue of some sort. Where’d he get that from.” To Poppy he said, “Well played, Marvin, but this is no game. Release us from this rock immediately, or you won’t like what happens to you.”
Poppy was just as stunned as they at the suddenness of their setback.
“Now how’m I supposed to release you?”
“Whatever you used on us has a releasing agent. Use it to release us.”
“Releasing agent?” Poppy drawled. “All I see are special agents. Did another agent sneak into the picture while I wasn’t looking?” Poppy had a mad urge to gloat in righteousness, but he stifled it. The wisdom of Obadiah: never get ahead of yourself.
“Cut the crap. You can’t win this.”
Poppy got up to assess the situation. The key to the pit was buried again, and the agents’ hands did appear to be held firmly in the angel’s grip. So he reached for Nabor’s machine pistol. But the agent was still able to use his legs and shoulders to block him.
“I swear you don’t want to do this,” Nabor said. “They’ll find us no matter what you do, and you’ll get a dose of lethal injection. Your whole family will suffer. That’s what you’re asking for. Release us this instant.”
“It’s not me holding you but the angel.”
“Angel? What angel? What are you talking about?”
“I told you, when you asked about my son, that we were alone here except for the angels. Well, one angel anyway. Her name is Martha.
“Watch this,” Poppy said, leaning over to place his hand between theirs on the stone. After a moment, he removed his hand just as easily. “See? No glue. Only angel spit or something.”
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