The Beginning of the End

by Lorana Hoopes

  The image of her governor filled the screen, and Raven’s hand flew to her mouth. It had been so long since she’d seen them that she had begun to wonder if they’d been a dream, but there behind the most important man in Washington state was a dark shadow. Why was she seeing them again now? And what did one behind the governor mean?

  Raven jumped from the couch and retrieved her laptop from her desk. After signing in, she took a deep breath and placed her fingers on the keys. She was about to do something she hadn’t done in a long time. She was going to enter the dark web.

  The dark web was not a place she went often. When she was young, its taboo name and reputation had lured her to find it, but once there, she’d been appalled by some of the things she found. Coming from an abusive house herself, she’d been sickened by posts requesting children as if they were property. Raven knew what would happen to those kids if they got delivered to the sick requesters and it was nothing good. Briefly, she wondered if those kinds of posts had fallen away after most children under the age of five and many under the age of ten had disappeared.

  At first, Raven hadn’t quite understood why some children had been left behind, but she’d managed to find something about the age of accountability in Kat’s journal. It was as close to an explanation as she could get - some kids reached it faster than others and those who reached it had faced the same opportunity to accept God as she had. They had either accepted Him and been taken with the others or rejected Him and been left behind.

  Shaking her head to clear the rabbit trail, she focused back on the task at hand. While the dark web was a hangout for sickos and weirdos, it was also where confidential information sometimes lived. Information that the government didn’t want to get out. And that was what she was searching for.

  She began by typing in NCAV though she didn’t think it would be that easy. She was right. A few posts appeared, but they were mainly conspiracy theories about how aliens were behind this. Shaking her head, she scoffed lightly at how aliens seemed to be the catchall for anything not easily explained. She supposed she had once been one of those people, but she wondered now how people could believe in aliens and not believe in God.

  Her fingers tapped at the keys as she chewed on her bottom lip. What should she be searching for? Fault? A coverup? What? Suddenly, the image of patient zero filled her mind. He’d been a lab technician in China, but he’d been unable to explain how he’d been infected. In fact, he’d claimed there was a period of time that seemed to be blank for him, though the media had dismissed it as a symptom of the virus. What had his name been?

  Liu Wei Chang. Like a firework, the image of his name flashed in front of her eyes, and her fingers quickly typed the correct keys. Dozens of stories filled her screen. She clicked on the first one and scanned it, her fear increasing as she did.

  Liu Wei Chang had been seen being pulled into a vehicle the morning of the day he appeared to not remember, yet his employer claimed he’d been at work the entire day. Even more disturbing was the fact that the woman who reported the abduction turned up dead a week later, supposedly from the virus.

  Liu, though he had recovered from NCAV, had been placed on medical leave after continuing to speak out about his memory loss and was now being treated at a psychiatric hospital. His family members had disappeared.

  Raven blinked at the screen, unsure of what to make of this. Was this some crazy conspiracy theory or was there some nefarious play occurring that no one knew about? Though not prone to follow crazy theories, Kat’s words continued to rattle around in her head.

  Could this virus have been planned to allow some savior to rise to power? And if so, were the US leaders accomplices or were they simply pawns in the game being played?

  Though she knew Candace wouldn’t have all the answers, Raven also knew she was on the front lines and would at least be able to verify what the media was saying. Hoping that she wouldn’t be busy at the moment, Raven dialed Candace’s number.

  “Hello?” Candace’s voice sounded breathless on the other end.

  “Is it as bad as they’re saying?” Raven decided to forgo the pleasantries; she knew Candace had caller ID and would know it was her.

  “Yes and no. Hold on a second.” There was a pause, a shuffling noise, and when Candace came back on the line, her voice was much quieter. “It doesn’t appear to be as deadly as the media is claiming, but it is certainly contagious. We are working twenty-four hour shifts here without much of a break, but so far, we’ve only lost about ten patients and all of them were over the age of seventy.”

  “What happens to the younger patients?”

  “For some, it’s little more than flu-like symptoms. A few have come in needing breathing treatments, but generally they’re released in a few days. Something weird is going on though.”

  “What’s that?” This whole thing felt weird to Raven, like something out of a sci-fi movie, but she had a bad feeling it was something she would get used to.

  “We’ve been giving patients this drug called Ramidil. Basically, it just boosts the immune system to help recognize and fight the cytokine storm that some of the severe patients we’re seeing here have.”

  “Okay, pretend I understand all that,” Raven said, jotting down notes to research later. “What’s going on with it?”

  Candace’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Well, it’s been helping the patients we’ve been giving it to, but now we’re getting orders not to use it.”

  “What? Why?”

  “I don’t know. Look, I have to go, but I’ll try to get down Sunday, okay?”

  “Okay, stay safe and keep me in the loop.”

  “Will do.”

  Raven stared at her phone for a minute. What did all this mean? The virus wasn’t as deadly as the media was saying, at least from Candace’s viewpoint, so why spread that it was? Fear was the only answer, but why keep the people in fear? And why stop a treatment that could help people? It looked like Raven was going to have to spend a lot more time in the dark web.

  She’d just put in a search for Ramidil when a knock sounded at her front door, sending her jumping and quickly backtracking out of the dark web, erasing her footprint as she did. It was doubtful someone was onto her already, but she had no idea if anything she’d been looking into was dangerous or not.

  After closing the laptop and placing it on the coffee table, she crossed to the door and opened it to find Jason standing on the other side. She knew him well enough by now to know that the long expression he currently wore did not mean good news.

  “Jason, what’s the matter?” she asked as she ushered him into her living room.

  “I think I’m about to be unemployed,” he said, his shoulders dropping.

  “Yeah, I heard.” Jason worked part time as a bartender and part time at Brian’s gym as an instructor, but with schools closing, he must assume, like Raven did, that bars and gyms wouldn’t be far behind. Raven hoped he would want to do more with his life one day, but she could see that the gym was his passion, and he had confided to her that he was hoping that Brian would leave it to him when he retired.

  “What am I going to do if they close, Raven?” he asked as he plopped down on her couch. “I don’t have much money saved up.”

  Actually, that was probably an exaggeration. Though she cared for Jason, maybe even loved him, he had an awful habit of spending money as soon as he got it, sometimes even before he got it. She’d heard him ask Brian for a draw a few times, and he’d even borrowed money from her a handful of times though he had appeared to be making progress on that area the last few months.

  Raven sat down beside him and placed a hand on his arm. “We’ll figure it out, but I’m worried, Jason. I think this may only be the beginning.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Let me show you.” Raven grabbed her laptop and pulled up the information she had been looking into before. “Remember patient zero?”

  “Yeah, what about him?”

  “He’s i
n a psych hospital now and his family has disappeared.” She pointed to the story as if indicating he should read it.

  “Okay, that’s a little weird, but it could all be coincidental,” Jason said slowly.

  Normally, she liked that he didn’t jump to conclusions, but this time it was important he understood what this might mean. “Right, but remember how he claimed there was a part of his day he couldn’t remember and the doctors all claimed it was a symptom of the virus?” Jason nodded, but it was clear he still wasn’t following. “Well, there was also a woman who claims to have seen him taken that morning. She came forward and days later, she wound up dead.”

  “Okay, we’re getting into a weird category now,” Jason admitted. “What are you thinking?”

  Raven held up a finger before grabbing Kat’s letter from the coffee table and holding it out to him. “Honestly, I’m thinking this.”

  An expression of exasperation that she’d rarely seen cross Jason’s features contorted his face now. “Raven, not this again.”

  “I’m serious, Jason. When I was watching the news about this virus last week, I felt like maybe it was something more, and I was reminded of Kat’s letter. She said hard times were coming and they could be anything. Anything that would send people looking for a savior. Plus, I just got off the phone with Candace.” While Jason hadn’t officially met Candace as Raven hadn’t convinced him to join her at church yet, she had spoken of the woman often. “She told me that they’re being told not to use a treatment that appears to be working. She also said that the virus doesn’t seem as deadly as the media is claiming.”

  “Okay, but what does that have to do with Kat’s letter?”

  “What if this virus, the media coverage, all of it, what if it’s to create enough fear that people begin to look for a savior? What if this is the beginning of the end she spoke about?”

  Jason shook his head and sighed. “I don’t know, Raven. We went down this path before, after she left, remember? And we came up empty.”

  Raven placed her hand on his knee. She knew that nothing had seemed to happen right after the disappearances. At least nothing like “the tribulation.” “I know, but what if it was because the time wasn’t right?”

  Jason’s brows knitted together. “The time wasn’t right? Everything had fallen apart; how could the time not have been right?”

  Raven wasn’t exactly sure what she meant. It was just something that had been tugging at her brain. “Kat told me once that God worked in His own time. I didn’t start seeing the dark shapes until Kat came into my life, and maybe that was so I would believe her. Then they left, or at least I stopped seeing them, but maybe that was because whatever was being set in motion hadn’t happened yet. I think I saw one again today. Behind the governor at the press conference.”

  “Okay,” Jason said with a sigh, “Let’s say that’s the case. What are we supposed to do about it?”

  “Yeah,” Raven bit her lip again, “I still haven’t figured that part out yet.” She’d been posting videos weekly on the TruthSeeker site, and she knew people were watching them and finding local churches, but she felt like she should be doing more. But what?

  Gabe Cross looked up from his microscope and motioned his associate over. “Look at this.”

  “What am I looking at?” she asked, pushing up her thick black glasses. Celia was no supermodel in the looks department, but she was smart - the smartest associate he’d ever worked with.

  “I don’t want to tell you yet. You just tell me what you see.” He hoped he was wrong. He was tired after all, having spent the last two months in a deep depression over the loss of his family and the last two weeks working nearly nonstop studying the NCAV. The first few samples they had received had been too small or too damaged to see much. Thankfully, or perhaps unfortunately depending on how one looked at it, there were now many more cases of NCAV in the states which meant more samples to analyze.

  Celia lifted an eyebrow but obliged his wish and leaned into the microscope. “Whoa, what is that?”

  So, he wasn’t going crazy. Gabe ran a hand through his dark hair and sighed. “I’m not sure, but that doesn’t look like any natural virus I’ve ever seen.”

  She pushed back from the microscope and chewed on her lip. “No, it doesn’t, but what are we going to do about it?”

  “We have to tell someone, right? Everything I’ve heard is that they think this came from an animal, but this proves that’s not true. Won’t that change the way we need to combat it?”

  “Maybe, but…” her eyes shifted to the floor and she twisted her hands together in her lap. The moment of silence dragged out until she finally looked back up at him. “Did you lose anyone in the disappearances?”

  Gabe tensed as if she’d pulled a knife on him instead of posing a simple question. Yes, he’d lost someone, three someones to be exact. The love of his life and his two children. He never spoke of them anymore though they plagued his thoughts constantly. He still wondered what had actually happened to them. The only scenario that seemed to fit was the one that sounded craziest to most people - the rapture. He knew Melinda had attended church as had his kids, but he’d attended church with them on occasion, so why would he have been left behind? Perhaps it was his scientific mind - the mind that had grappled with the idea of God’s existence and now grappled with the thought that God had taken his family away.

  “I can see by your expression that you did,” she said, continuing, “I’m not surprised. I think almost everyone did. I lost my whole family.”

  “I’m sorry, but what does that have to do with this?” Gabe didn’t mean to sound heartless, but he didn’t want to hear her story or reopen his own wounds. It would do neither of them any good.

  “Do you remember how after they first disappeared, some people were claiming it was due to the rapture?”

  Gabe would never admit it, but though many dismissed it as rubbish, he still found it the most plausible explanation. “Yeah.”

  “Well, do you remember what happened to those people?” She pushed up her glasses and stared pointedly at him.

  Suddenly, he understood where she was going. “They were labeled as crazy people.”

  “Not only labeled. They were vilified and discredited. Some of them will probably never get a job again. I’m not saying we shouldn’t say something eventually, but we need to think about the best way first. I don’t know about you, but I’d like to keep my job.”

  As would he. It was all he had left, really. “Okay, we’ll sit on it. For now.” But Gabe wondered how long he could agree. He might have a lot of faults, but integrity was one thing he prided himself on, and the churning in his gut told him he wouldn’t be able to stay silent for long.

  7

  “I’m sorry, sir. The virus isn’t quite as deadly as we’d hoped.” Fear billowed around the demon who cowered before Samael and Daman, and his eyes stayed glued to the ground as if he was afraid even looking in their eyes would mean instant death.

  “And why is that?” Daman asked. He’d wanted the virus to be a force, to run through the population at will, so that no one felt safe, but now this man was telling him otherwise.

  “I’m not sure, sir. The scientists have said that it might be that some people already had immunity to part of the strain they used to modify it. Evidently, they had to pull from old viruses to make something that would work. And it is still working,” he added quickly as if to soften the blow. “The elderly are hit especially hard as well as anyone with immune disorders. It just isn’t affecting the young and healthy in quite the same way.”

  “I see.” Part of Daman wanted to rip the demon to shreds right then. He did not like being disappointed, but perhaps there was a way to play up what they could. “You say the elderly are affected?”

  “Yes, sir.” The demon finally lifted his eyes as if sensing the change in Daman’s demeanor.

  “And humans love their elders, correct?” Daman stroked his chin as he ran through scenarios i
n his mind.

  “Most do, yes.”

  “So, most would do anything to try and save them?” Pieces were falling into place for Daman. If the deaths alone didn’t break them, maybe he could find another way.

  “I suppose so.” The demon glanced to Samael as if looking for a clue as to what Daman was thinking.

  “What would inconvenience them to the point that they’d be willing to do anything to get back to quote normal?” Daman flicked his bony fingers in the gesture of quotation marks that he had seen the humans do time and again.

  “Besides the lockdowns? Most places are shutting down businesses to try and stop the disease.”

  “Not all places though,” Daman said quickly. “Make sure they leave the right places open. Abortion clinics, bars, drug shops, anything that appeals to the base nature of humans. Those must be allowed to continue.”

  “Of course, sir,” the demon said, bowing again.

  “Now, what else can we do to make life unbearable for most? If we can’t make the disease worse, can we at least make the cure unbearable? At least until I step in with the real cure?”

  The demon cocked his head as if thinking back through the years. “In 1918 when what they called The Spanish Flu hit, doctors required people to quarantine and wear masks. The people agreed for a time, but eventually, they revolted. Is that something along what you are thinking, sir?”

  “Possibly,” Daman tapped his fingers on the edge of his throne, “but we don’t want any revolts. How long might we have before a revolt might occur?”

  “It was over a year in 1918, sir.”

  “A year. That would give us long enough to come up with a cure, correct?” He probably wouldn’t even need the whole year, especially as some of the humans were still suffering due to the rapture.