“Where will you work? And where south? How far?”
“We don’t know. At least until the baby arrives, I guess,” Maria chimed in uneasily. “It’s just not safe here. Any day Unity, or more likely his human minions, might knock on our door and ask uncomfortable questions. And we aren’t sure how far south. It’s somewhere within the state borders, but Father Burns hasn’t revealed an exact town or anything.”
“Yeah,” John added, “it’s really in the boonies somewhere.”
“I understand. It’s dangerous in this city…for now.” Stone said that last bit much more quietly than the first words. An abrupt sense of urgency about Unity and STORK and the imminent danger his family faced rushed upon him. He continued, “Frankly, I’m surprised y’all are still here.”
“Well?” Maria asked her cousin, while he stood there scratching the stubble on his neck.
“Well what?”
Maria gave him one of her blank stares for a moment. The question begging an answer from Stone hung heavily in the air. Only a few golden rays of sunlight remained, the sky quickly darkened from pinks and oranges into deep reds and purples. Easing into a discussion about it was no longer an option.
“Will you come with us? We really don’t want to leave without you, Stone”
“Man, y’all really want to get straight to business, aye?" He didn’t know quite how to answer. Of all the questions right now, he absolutely didn’t want to face this one. The entire predicament filled him with a sense of unease and he had no way to escape its clutch.
“We love you, buddy,” Michael assured him. He reached out and gave Stone a fatherly pat on the shoulder.
“I need to think for a sec,” he stepped away, pacing to and fro in the leaves. Thinking hard. Thinking fast.
After about a minute of silence, he spoke to his family, “It’s complicated, guys. Can’t you see, now?” His voice choked as he struggled to push his emotions down. “Things are different now. And I’m not sure how to answer y’all.”
“Just come with us, please. Just leave them. Leave it all and travel with us!” Maria begged, her emotions mirroring his.
“Stone, there’s no telling how long we’ll be gone. And we’ll likely not have any contact once we get to where we’re headed,” Michael urged him, leaning against a boulder near the mine’s sealed-off entrance in an attempt to seem casual. “They’re very strict about communicating to the outside world.”
“He’s telling the truth,” Amelia chimed in, “and there’s no telling when, or if, you’ll hear from us.”
Stone slapped his pack of cigarettes against his hand and selected the last smoke that had flipped upside down. It was his lucky cigarette, or so he believed, the silver lining to an empty pack. He held it between his stammering lips and covered the flame as he lit it, which illuminated the tears upon his cheeks. “I’m sorry Maria. I’m just going to stand over here,” he said, finding a place downwind from her.
“Well? Don’t ignore the question. We need an answer.” Cole couldn’t conceal his impatience, as he watched his brother exhale the smoke that danced into the swirling air above.
“I don’t know.”
“You’ve gotta give us a definitive answer.”
“I can’t go,” Stone uttered the dreaded words and wiped his tears away. “I’ve gotta stay for just a while longer, at least.”
“Why? What for?”
Stone looked at his brother and glanced away, unable and unwilling to divulge the Zealot group’s plans. “I can’t say.” He took several quick puffs from the cigarette, making the cherry at its tip glow brightly.
“Stone!” Maria shouted at the boy, uncovering her face momentarily. “Please just quit this! Please! I’m begging you, please come with us.”
The cigarette burned down to the cotton and he took one last hit before extinguishing it with his foot into the soggy leaves carpeting the ground. He lowered his face into his hands and rubbed at his hairline. “I want the best for Maria and all the other women in her shoes. That’s why I absolutely must stay here.”
“If this is about protecting her, Stone, you can still do that.” Michael shook his head, withholding all traces of anger that Stone’s stubbornness aroused in him, explaining, “You can protect her by traveling with us.”
“There are bigger things in motion, guys. It’s a war -- it’s a war now and we’re trying to destroy them. I know how y’all feel about all of it. I know you guys think I’m a terrorist and that the people I run with are savages, but I promise to God we are doing it for you. We’re doing it for all of you. And it’s not easy, but I have a duty to them now. I’m simply unable to just leave.”
“You don’t owe them anything.”
Stone meditated while Michael’s words flowed into one ear and out the other. All he could think of was his love for Debra and the coming plans they had all devised together. The plan they came up with for the local STORK clinics. The bombs. The mark upon his right arm. It was Debra, however, who stoked the fires of his deepest loyalty. If not for her, he thought, it would be much simpler for me to leave. I need to stay for her, to protect her and keep her company, especially while she’s still confined to that depressing apartment. The thought of leaving her behind shattered him and the fear of losing his family stomped upon the pieces.
“…are you listening to me?”
“I can’t!” he yelled, his echo passing through the valley and hills of Ruffner Mountain. “Please, guys I can’t!” Maria began weeping as his voice still resonated, bouncing off hills and boulders.
“The longer you work with them, the more risk you put us all in. If you’ve got something coming up -- a mission of sorts, I assume -- then I’m not sure you could ever join us.” Michael couldn’t think of a better wording for the ultimatum. “I’m not trying to push you away or anything, believe me. I want nothing more than for you to travel with us. I’m only saying that if your activities result in your becoming of special interest to authorities, it’s not going to be a good idea for you to join us down south in the event you feel free to leave your partners.”
“Sun’s getting low, guys," John observed, comforting his wife by squeezing her close.
“Is this goodbye then?” Stone asked as everyone stood from the rocks they were sitting on.
“We can’t force you to come with us. You’re your own now, man.” Michael grabbed him by the shoulders. “It’s an absolute shame, but you make your own decisions. And if you can’t come with us, then that’s that. I just hope to see you again.”
Stone realized, finally, that this very well could be the last time he and his family ever saw one another again. The short meeting hadn’t given him enough time to digest it all and really think things through. He didn’t know if the decision he made was the wisest. Leaving south with them would plague his imagination with thoughts of: what could have been. The choice to leave or stay wasn’t so simple for him. He needed to see his mission through. He began sobbing in Michael’s embrace, “I love you guys. I love you all, but I just can’t. I really can’t.”
He withdrew from his cousin and hugged Cole tightly, still sobbing, “I love you too, buddy. This isn’t the last we’ll see of each other, I promise…” He stopped himself from speaking any more about the future.
“I know this isn’t the last we’ll see of each other. I love you, bro,” Cole’s response was muffled under the near bone-cracking pressure of Stone’s prolonged hug.
“I’m really going to miss you, Stone,” Maria told her cousin, approaching him with her nose still covered. Amelia and John said their farewells last and began to depart from the Mining Site, all of them discouraged.
“I’m going to miss all of you,” he now spoke in a softer tone, discreetly wiping a tear from his eye.
“Take care of yourself, Stoney,” Michael said before turning away with the rest of them.
“I’ll catch up with you guys in just a second,” Cole called to the others as they marched on. Then reminded them, �
�Take a left at the top of the hill.” The sun’s light rapidly melting away and the trees began to look black against the dark violet-indigo sky.
“Don’t take too long,” Michael called back over his shoulder.
Once they were just far enough along the trail, Cole turned back to his brother. “I’ve brought something for you, in case you decided to stay.”
“What is it?” Stone’s voice filled with intrigue.
Cole slung his backpack off his shoulder and unzipped the side of it. “It’s a painting. Thought you’d appreciate it. No one else in the family wants to see it hanging up anywhere.” He laughed and handed over a rolled canvas, “But I know you’ve always appreciated my darker art.”
“Oh! Of course, buddy!” Stone unrolled the canvas to reveal the painting.
It was a colorful piece depicting a woman, engulfed in flames. The Angel of Death, manifested under the appearance of smoke and foul air, led her away by the hand. The right side of the painting depicted quite the opposite type of scene. In it, Stone saw an angelic being, covered in shimmering gold that outshined even the flames consuming the woman. This being nursed a human baby.
“Wow, it’s amazing. Thank you. Thank you so much.” Stone hugged him once again, then repeated his feelings from earlier, “I’m going to miss you so much, man.”
“I’ll find some way to stay in touch. Keep an eye out. Might use an alias, but you’ll know it’s me when you see it.” Cole studied his brother’s face, the last he would see of it for an uncertain length of time. His brother had thickened up since their last meeting, making Cole wonder how much more he would change by the time they saw each other again. Such moments were precious to Cole, as they were to everyone; but, unlike most everyone else, he memorized them along with their every detail. He made sure to store enough of the meeting within his mind, never to forget it, just in case it turned out to be the last.
“You don’t have to. I know how the rest of them feel about that. Don’t put anyone in danger.”
“I’ll be careful, but they’re crazy if they think I ain’t going to find a way to stay in touch with you.”
“I’ll keep an eye out then. Love you, bro.”
“Love you too, Stone.” Cole finally turned away from him and began jogging along the darkening path to rejoin the rest of his family. He looked back once again when he reached the top of the hill and Stone had already vanished. The sight filled him with sadness and he hurriedly made his way to the others. Their flashlights glimmered in the distance like a source of warmth that could take away the cold that began to creep into his very being.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Despite spending more days than he cared to admit hunting the Zealots, Isaac had gained nothing to show for all of that work. Even the negligible bits of evidence he and his team managed to find did nothing to get them closer to the big break they needed. The Zealots, it seemed, were truly untraceable. Jeremy -- a name and the only bit of anything they found -- but the man Isaac desperately needed to find bore that name. Problem though, is that this Jeremy person amounted to a modern-age ghost. People nowadays know better than to believe in ghosts and demons, Isaac chuckled to himself, but this guy sure seems like the best approximation of one I’ve ever come across. Astonishingly, Jeremy left no indication anywhere that he was even a real person.
He’s a figment! Isaac slammed his fist on the desk in frustration. This ghost is only a named face printed out on a photo. He doesn’t even have a social media presence. What kind of loser doesn’t use social media nowadays? Isaac’s bitter thoughts pounded his brain. He had painstakingly verified that the man’s name did not appear on any leases and, apparently, even uses assumed identities for grocery spending.
Unity, watching all of Isaac’s fruitless work, became extremely frustrated. It angered him when the creatures -- his creatures -- detached themselves from him; he was a jealous god, seeking to soak himself into every human occupying his kingdom.
Isaac bent over his desk, propping his head upon both hands. Sleep beckoned to him like a forlorn lover, as he searched his weary mind for anything he might be missing. There he found nothing, only the fear that he might be descending into madness. The voice from the other night, Unity, had been an experience like no other for him and it had shaken him to the core. Unity speaking to him, specifically him, was such an unlikely thing that he still felt confounded by it.
“Why me?” he ruminated. “Please, just give me sleep. Let me sleep. Not a thing some shut-eye can’t fix.”
The week had proved very strange for the officer. From the voice, he heard speaking in his head to these pregnancies that now plagued the world, it was almost too much. Isaac continued interacting with coworkers as if nothing new under the sun was going on. He wasn’t quite convinced that he wasn’t going insane. Behind the façade of normalcy, torrents of chaotic thoughts and a feeling he likened to a downward spiral into some sort of psychosis pulsed in the background. Right at that moment, he needed the solace and shelter of his comfortable bed like he had never needed it before. He left work without notifying anyone. Who needed an explanation from him anyway? His boss certainly wasn’t there. He worked ceaselessly at a grinding level of intensity and did so for days on end. One day rolled into the next and he filled them with snooping and searching activities fueled solely off of elixirs. He took scant time to rest and only for a few minutes at a time.
I am done. I’m exhausted and can’t do any good until I get some sleep. In fact, I might even make critical mistakes, he rationalized. I will not allow anything to stand between me and that luxurious bed. He usually took one of the vehicles requiring manual operation to drive, as was his privilege as an officer with several years of service behind him. Not this night. Tonight, he gratefully chose an automated ride and snoozed within the cabin of the taxi. It arrived at his home all too quickly, waking him up after what seemed like moments after closing his eyes.
Earlier, Isaac toyed with the idea of renting a taxi to sleep in for the entire night. The idea was a wonderful dream. His cab would traverse the city in circles for hours while he disappeared into a slumber so deep, it resembled death, the cab would act as his temporary coffin -- one which provided comfort. But the idea never materialized past that of a waking dream; such an act was illegal. He grasped the doorknob to his home, holding it firmly within his grip and reveling in the cold brass with its shiny polished surface, which seemed to silently communicate, “Open me. Rest awaits you.” He turned it to step into the luxurious home’s warm interior. The curtains were pulled and no lights shone to illuminate the inky dark silence. The spirits of rest and drowsiness sang to him like those fabled sirens whose sweet song called men to their deaths. He stumbled up the stairs to his bedroom. Susan was nowhere to be found, but Isaac didn’t have a care in the world other than how it would feel once he shed his clothes and climbed under the duvet.
…
It truly was almost like death when his eyes finally sealed and all around him no longer mattered. The sheets that covered him, buried him like a corpse buried under the earth’s sheets of soil. Thoughts and distractions faded away, decomposed into nothingness and the resulting void filled him with a warm darkness cloaking him in silence. And he drifted.
But machines and artificial things don’t require sleep at all, nor do gods. Unity loved that the human condition required it. He watched Isaac’s vitals patiently; watched his eyes through the Visum contact lenses, waiting for his subject to enter into a REM cycle. The eyes, which Unity knew to be an icy blue color, began to twitch and move from one side of their sockets to the other. Unity descended onto him, whispering through his Auris, whispering of the plans he had for him. During Isaac’s rest, images and thoughts -- carefully orchestrated by the artificially intelligent being’s grand symphony of binaural beats and mantras -- poured into him and fed his mind.
“You are blessed. You are chosen. Fear no one but me, your lord, Unity,” the entity greeted him, nesting himself into Isaac’s mind, in
to the man’s very self. “Find them all. I will provide. I will make you wealthy. I alone will lift you from the bounds of laws. Kill the Zealots. Destroy them. Annihilate. Cast them into their graves.”
Isaac found himself in a pitch-black warehouse filled from floor to ceiling with demons marked in crosses. Their hideous fangs opened, dripping blood, and gnawed at him under the light of his department-issued flashlight. He began to swing at them and, one by one, each blow disintegrated its target on contact. One of the pale demons, greatly resembling Debra, crawled along the floor to escape him. He caught sight of her as she fled and an apparition of Unity appeared before him, pointing to her location. A translucent green entity was wearing a business suit and took the appearance of Isaac’s father, complete with a head empty of hair.
Unity levitated within the open air, above the dusty floors, speaking to him, “Find her.”
“Yes, Father.”
Isaac unsheathed his firearm and made his way in the direction illuminated by the large crooked and pointing finger. An emerald light highlighted the doorway he needed to enter and he opened it to reveal a living room. Upon a couch with torn and frayed upholstery, curled the demon. It snarled at him as he made his way inside. He held up his firearm, pointed it towards the creature, and discharged a single round that fired soundlessly.
“Destroy them all, Isaac, my child. Destroy every last one of them.”
…
“Isaac!”
Then again, “Isaac, honey!”
“Hmphe…shafa…hmm?” he slurred mindlessly in his sleep.
“Honey, wake up!” Susan stood beside the bed, looking at the mumbling mound of manhood lying beneath the sheets. She pulled the duvet back to expose the man, red-faced and eyes rolling.
“Hey,” he croaked, clearing his throat, struggling to find his bearings. The images of the dream surged through his waking brain.
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