by Onley James
Her face was red to the tips of her ears. “That was Dinah. Samuel knows he’s under surveillance. I don’t know how he knows but he knows. He’s tellin’ everybody that it’s time to ascend and that his Father is callin’ them all home. She said he asked her to prepare the children’s drinks with some kind of bottle filled with a weird brown liquid. He told her not to worry, that everybody would just fall asleep. I have to go.”
“No. You can’t just go. What are you going to do? It’s not safe.”
Rebecca pulled a gun from her bag and chambered a round like she was in some kind of action movie. “I have my safety right here. I’m not lettin’ him kill a bunch of innocent people. I’m certainly not lettin’ him kill a bunch of helpless children, especially our brother.”
Recognition ignited a fire in Robby’s bloodstream. Ezra… His baby brother. The one born after Robby had left for Hollywood. He’d known the name was familiar. His mother had said it was her favorite name and she’d saved the best for last. Her last baby. “Why would Ezra be with you and Samuel?”
“Because Father found out the baby wasn’t his. Apparently sharin’ Mama with Samuel was one thing but let his spawn be a part of Father’s creepy church was another altogether. So, he ditched Ezra with us. I’ve raised him since he was a week old. He doesn’t know nobody but me. Even though Samuel doesn’t let us see the kids too much. He said it makes them weak, that it makes us weak too.” A tear slipped down her cheek as she stuffed her gun back in her backpack. “It’ll be fine. We’ll be fine. I’ll call you.”
“What? No. You aren’t going to confront him alone.” Robby’s insides churned. “I’m coming with you.”
Rebecca shook her head. “No. No way. You have enough troubles, you don’t need ours too.”
“I’m not letting you go face Samuel alone. We’ll call Calder on the way, and he can get help and send them to us. It’ll be okay. Where’s your car?”
Rebecca shook her head like she didn’t want him to go but that she understood it was a fight she would lose. “I parked down the block around the corner. This is a terrible idea, just so you know.”
Robby nodded. “Yeah, of course, I know.”
As they took the stairs to the garage exit, Robby punched Calder’s number on his cell phone, making a noise of frustration as it went straight to voicemail. He didn’t know what else to say so he just started rambling, “Oh, my God. Seriously? You turned your phone off now? Listen, Rebecca and I are on our way to the farm to get the kids. Samuel has gone full kool-aid drinking Jonestown crazy and may actually be making everybody drink literal kool-aid. Rebecca has a gun and a car, and if you get this, please come save me because I don’t want to die the same day I find out I’m not going to jail. Bring your A-Team or the X-Men, whoever, and please find us. My phone is on. You can trace it, right? Oh, God, please tell me you can trace it. Oh…and I love you. I really love you. Just in case you don’t get this in time.”
Calder sat in his truck, just staring at the front of the funeral home for longer than he’d ever admit. He didn’t know why this was so hard. Jennifer was gone. She’d been gone for years, and no amount of wishing or prayers had been able to wake her up. He wished she would haunt him, haunt him or scratch him or shriek like a banshee in his nightmares. Something. Anything. He deserved that. He’d sent her back into hell on a hunch, knowing what might happen to her. Hell, knowing what already had happened to her. He’d put the mission in front of a single girl’s life. He’d chosen Megan over Jennifer and Megan was already long dead.
If he’d known… If he’d known, he probably would have made the same choice anyway, and that was it, that was what really tore at his heart. He betrayed Jennifer again and again every time he played it back. He deserved some kind of punishment for that. He didn’t deserve Robby. He didn’t deserve happiness, but he would take it, which was so much worse in Calder’s mind. It was the selfish thing to do. He should be willing to suffer, at least a little bit, for the one he couldn’t save. The one he chose not to save.
He scrubbed his hands over his face as he noticed the parking lot beginning to fill, people leaving their vehicles and entering through thick wooden double doors. A funeral? A viewing? Fuck. He sat waiting and watching. People came and went, kids played, running between cars in the parking lot, dresses wrinkled and suit jackets carelessly tossed onto the hoods of cars to allow for ease of movement as they chased each other, laughing. Grief was a fleeting thing as a child. They often had no concept of death until it tucked itself in close enough for them to really feel its icy breath, for it to pluck a parent or a sibling or a friend. It was good. Children shouldn’t be burdened by grief. There would be enough time for sadness and pain in their lives. Eventually, death came for everybody.
“Christ, Calder. Stop being a moody son of a bitch and just go get it done,” he muttered, his voice stolen by the rumble of his diesel engine.
He looked down at his tattered jeans and faded t-shirt, wishing now he’d thought better of how he was dressed. He was relieved to see there was another entrance to the building, one that read ‘office.’ Once he stepped inside, that relief vanished. He stood in a small wood-paneled lobby that smelled like butterscotch where there was a small pale green couch with tiny pink flowers and a row of chairs. On the small table sat a lamp, some pamphlets, and a flickering candle that Calder suspected had to be the source of the overly sweet scent.
There was a man with a receding hairline and a black suit sitting at a desk with a couple on the other side. They seemed far too young to be there. The woman held a tissue in her clenched fist, her hands balled at her knees. The man was pale and stared blankly ahead as the man behind the desk pointed at a book with his pen. Calder felt like he was intruding. When the man in the suit noticed him, he appeared to excuse himself. He came to the door.
“Somebody will be with you shortly, sir.”
“Yes, that’s fine,” Calder managed, just as his phone buzzed in his pocket. Calder fumbled for it, knowing any minute it would start ringing loudly. He pressed down on the volume button with too much force, silencing the call, before sticking it back into his pocket in time to see the man close the door on him. Calder walked to the couch and sat, shoulders collapsing, as he sat counting the knotholes in the fake wooden panels.
Calder wondered how Robby was getting along with Rebecca. He knew how much Robby had missed his siblings, had missed having a family. Calder wanted Rebecca to be everything she seemed, for Robby’s sake. He’d had so much pain and disappointment in his life. He deserved a little comfort and happiness, and even though Calder wished he was enough, he knew Robby needed his family.
Calder was reaching into his pocket when the door opened and a girl with green hair and black lipstick entered, wearing a black dress with a white Peter Pan collar and the biggest shoes Calder had ever seen. They looked like baby shoes but for babies who wanted to be four inches taller. The girl’s face fell when she saw him sitting there, her eyes taking him in from head to toe as she sucked on the straw of her black Starbucks cup. She clearly was going for a look.
She glanced at the closed door and sighed. “Can I help you?”
Calder stood, shifting nervously from one foot to the other. “I’m here to pick up some remains.”
“Cremains.”
“Uh, what?” Calder asked.
“If the body has been cremated, they’re called cremains,” she clarified, tone bored.
“Oh. Okay, then. Cremains. Her name was Jennifer.”
“Last name?”
“Seton. Jennifer Seton.”
“Oh, it’s you,” she said. “We wondered what you looked like. Who you were. We even had a bet going that you wouldn’t ever come pick her up. She your dead wife or something?”
Calder gaped at the girl before shaking his head. “What? Do you talk like this to all of your customers? Clients? Whatever?”
“I’m the makeup artist here. Daddy doesn’t really let me talk to the customers-clients-whatevers.
He says I lack…people skills. Luckily, I don’t need them for my job. My clients don’t tend to be super chatty. Usually,” she added with a smirk.
Calder felt like he’d entered the twilight zone. “Who are you?”
“Evermore Rollins. Who are you?”
“That is not your real name,” Calder said.
“No, it totes is. My parents run a funeral home and crematorium. Big fans of Poe. Most people just call me Ever. You didn’t answer my question,” she said, taking another sip of her drink.
“Calder Seton,” he said.
The girl nodded, her green hair falling into her overly-lined eyes. “So, was she? Your dead wife, I mean?”
“No. She’s my…” He hesitated. She’d never been anything to him before Elizer had found her—his informant, his snitch? But he’d given her his last name when none could be found for her. “She was my sister,” he finally said. It felt right, even if it wasn’t true.
“Did you guys have a fight or something. Before she kicked it, I mean.”
Calder laughed in spite of himself. “You are very direct.”
“So they tell me. Aspergers, what are you going to do? It’s why my parents don’t like me up front.”
“Yet, here you are,” Calder mused. “Can I get my sister’s ashes, please? I’m on a bit of a time crunch.”
She rolled her eyes. “You wait like months to pick her up and now, suddenly, it’s an emergency. Typical.”
He laughed. “Please?”
Megan would have found this entire exchange hilarious. She was always blunt, kind of like Robby. Calder suddenly felt like he’d been mule-kicked, the pain pulling the air from his lungs and causing him to drop into his seat. He’d give anything to see his sister again, to hear her voice, to listen to her do impressions of the muppets as she read to him. Why was he losing it again? He’d cried all his tears the other night.
“It’s normal, you know,” Ever said before clarifying, “To be all over the place, emotionally. Like, sometimes, even if you didn’t like the person, you cry because you’ll never have the opportunity to fix it. You cry because maybe you had the opportunity and you didn’t do anything, or maybe somebody stole that opportunity from you. But none of that matters to the dead, you know. No matter what you believe, their troubles are over. Whether it's because they are just gone or whether you think they’re chilling on some white fluffy cloud in heaven, the only one whose feelings matter are yours.”
He hadn’t thought about God or heaven or any of that bible school stuff since his family had stopped going to church all those years ago, but he believed that his parents had found peace, that they’d found Megan and maybe, somehow, they’d even stumbled upon Jennifer up there somewhere. The thought brought him some measure of comfort. He nodded at the girl. “I suppose you’re right.”
“Yeah, I know. I gotta go downstairs to where we keep the…leftovers. I’ll bring them right out since you’re in such a hurry and all.”
Calder shook his head. Would anybody believe this story if he told it? He doubted it. Jennifer’s remains were in fact in a cardboard box. It was heavier than Calder had thought and it was stamped ‘temporary.’ It would be nice if that were true. He signed the papers and paid the bill before tucking the box under his arm.
As he was leaving, Ever took another sip of her drink. “See ya, Calder Seton.”
“Maybe so, Evermore Rollins.”
Once in his truck, he seatbelted the remains into the passenger seat, shaking his head at the thought of possibly being pulled over. He tugged his phone from his pocket to text Robby that he was on his way back when he saw he had ten missed calls and half a dozen voicemails, all from Robby.
Calder’s heart dropped into his shoes as he dialed his voicemail. His blood whirred in his ears, deafening him to the recording prompts, but somehow, he managed to get the message to play, stomach lurching at Robby’s frantic voice.
“Oh, my God. Seriously? You turned your phone off now? Listen, Rebecca and I are on our way to the farm to get the kids. Samuel has gone full kool-aid drinking Jonestown crazy and may actually be making everybody drink literal kool-aid. Rebecca has a gun and a car, and if you get this, please come save me because I don’t want to die the same day I find out I’m not going to jail. Bring your A-Team or the X-Men, whoever, and please find us. My phone is on. You can trace it, right? Oh, God, please tell me you can trace it. Oh…and I love you. I really love you. Just in case you don’t get this in time.”
Adrenaline sent a shock of panic along his spine. He didn’t bother listening to the other messages. He found Webster’s number and dialed.
“Sup.”
“I need you to trace Robby’s phone.”
“Trouble in para—”
“Now, Webster. I don’t have time for this shit. I also need a location on this place called ‘the farm.’ The one Linc talked to the ATF about. Drop everything and get me that fucking address. Tell Linc and Connolly to meet me there. This gets critical priority. I’m serious. Don’t fuck this up.”
“Yeah…okay. Yeah. What do we need to know?”
“Samuel is accelerating some kind of end of days Jonestown timeline. Robby and his sister are en route and the sister’s armed. They said they are going to save ‘the kids.’ I can only assume he means the kids at the compound. There are weapons and bombs on this property. Everybody needs to keep their head on a swivel. Linc should probably let the ATF know too but I’m not waiting.”
“Calder—”
Calder disconnected, tossing his phone onto the seat and turning over the truck’s engine. He didn’t even know which way to go. Until Webster got him a location, he was stuck there, doing nothing, while Robby was driving towards a man who had no fucks left to give. He pounded his fist on the steering wheel once and then again.
“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!” he shouted. He tilted his head back and closed his eyes. “Shit. I don’t even know how to do this anymore, but please, please, please, God, please don’t take him away from me. Not now. Fuck, please. Please, let him be okay.”
His phone began to light up with Webster’s name on the screen. “Yeah.”
“I’m sending you the coordinates now. We’re seventy minutes from the location. We’ve got backup en route. We’ll meet you there.”
“I’m not waiting for you,” Calder said, already tearing out of the parking lot, leaving the small group of kids still playing staring.
“We never thought you would. Stay alive, brother.”
That’s the plan, Calder thought as he hung up. For all of them to get out alive.
Robby’s body felt numb. He’d never imagined a scenario where he’d be forced to attempt to break into the farm, much less in broad daylight, but there they were, ducked down low in a crouch, creeping through the trees along the fenceline. Since he’d never been to the new farm, he had to rely on Rebecca to lead, which wouldn’t have worried him so much if she wasn’t clenching a gun in her right hand as she crept along in front of him.
To their left, just beyond the fence, there were nothing but rocks and pebbles, bleached white from the sun. Robby shivered. He remembered those stupid fucking rocks. Having to pick up handfuls at a time, having to dig the larger ones from the earth until his fingers bled, just to carry them to another pit. Then, once the one pit was empty, they’d go to the pit they’d filled and do it all over again. It was painful, it was demoralizing, it had made him feel helpless.
But there was nobody out there now, and that was almost worse. Samuel would never let the children stop working before the sun went down, and it was hours before sunset. Had he taken them all into the great hall? Was he currently encouraging each of his loyal followers to drink poison? If so, they were too late. The thought of a small boy, barely six, with his mother’s hair and eyes, drinking poison had his stomach clenching. Would he get to meet his brother? “We need to hurry.”
Rebecca gave him an exasperated look. “We need to be careful. We got no idea what we’re walkin’ into.
If Dinah didn’t manage to get the kids to the barn, we’re screwed. I have no idea how we’ll get them out without usin’ the tunnels, and if they’re already in the hall with the adults…” She broke off, her voice catching. “Then I don’t know what we’ll do.”
“Don’t panic. We’ll find them. We will. Calder will come for me. He’ll bring his team, and we’ll be fine. All of us.” He wished he believed his own pep talk. Calder had never called him back. It wasn’t like he wouldn’t try to save Robby. Of course, he would. But there just might not be enough time, and Robby had to make peace with the fact that this was probably a suicide mission.
They stopped outside what looked like an old miner’s shaft with a board leaning across it. Rebecca pulled a necklace out of her shirt and yanked it off. There was a key dangling from the end. It was no key Robby had seen before.
“Here, help me,” she said, gripping one side of the board and dragging it out of the way.
That’s when Robby saw the grate with a large padlock holding it closed. Rebecca unlocked the iron grate, swinging it open, before plunging into the darkness. Robby followed blindly, his shoes splashing into ankle deep water. He really hoped this wasn’t a sewer. Robby fumbled for his phone, flipping on the flashlight, swinging it around wildly as he took in the concrete walls and the dirty water at his feet. It smelled like rot and mold, a fungal smell that made Robby feel like just breathing in there might actually kill him. It would suck to save the kids for all of them to die from toxic black mold or some kind of weird disease carried by rodents.
At the other end of the tunnel was another grate. Rebecca unlocked it and carefully swung it open. She gave Robby one last look and stepped into a small closet sized room before climbing up a steel ladder and pushing up the door at the top. When she disappeared, Robby scrambled after her. He stumbled as he lost his balance. He would have fallen if there had been any room to do so. The whole area was stocked floor to ceiling with crates with only a narrow path between them. Both Robby and Rebecca had to turn sideways to squeeze by, stopping just short of an opening that led to what Robby assumed was the actual barn.
