He led Everson out of the woods, making sure to keep him slightly to the side as they walked toward the gravesite, in case he tripped. Safety or not, he didn’t want to risk being shot in the back. As they came closer, the voices, which had faded away once the trio had dropped from sight, came back to him, along with an occasional blink of the flashlight. Peter removed the black cap and tucked it into his back pocket, then worked his fingers through his hair, putting it back into some sense of order.
He forced himself to breathe steadily, clearing his mind. So close, but not there yet. In whispers, he used the Voice to instruct Josh Everson what he must do.
Chapter Fifty-Two
The whole room was barely twice as large as the area in which the three of them currently stood. There were no furnishings save one significant slab of concrete raised a few feet from the floor, with matching slabs acting as supports. The setup reminded Elizabeth uncomfortably of an altar. Most of the room lay under the base of the angelic statues. On either side of the concrete altar, from floor to ceiling, rose two cylindrical supports like she had in her own basement.
What drew everyone’s attention, however, was what sat on top of the slab.
In the beam of her flashlight, the gold trim of the Ark glittered as if freshly washed. The dust that permeated every corner of the room seemed not to touch it. It was a chest with elaborate gold designs of multi-faced figures staring out from the ornate sides. The lid was trimmed with more gold along its edges, but was simple in its design. She remembered again the memory of the chest in Gram’s attic. The entire vessel was no more than a yard wide, rectangular, much smaller than the images she’d seen once or twice in pictures from her old Sunday school books. She thought there should have been something atop the lid, statuary or some such decoration. The word “seat” came to mind but she wasn’t certain why. Overall, the structure seemed too small. Something occurred to her, then. She wasn’t sure what that something was, but the Ark’s size and details no longer seemed wrong. It was just, well, different than she’d imagined.
The gold reflected more light than could have come from her flashlight. Even so, when she lowered the light experimentally, no additional glow emanated from that side of the room. She scratched the back of her neck with her free hand. The air felt... itchy. Like it was filled with static electricity.
Knock it off, she thought, trying to regain her composure. It’s just a fancy box. Nothing more.
Nate, however, must have thought otherwise. He slowly fell to one knee, with an expression of wonder and awe. He said, “How can this be? How can this possibly be?”
Tarretti shrugged. “It’s God’s will that the Covenant not fall into the hands of anyone but His followers. It’s been a long race, a long struggle. We cannot understand the why of it, except for the reasons I’ve already explained. More than that, we’ll never know. Not until we’re with Him in paradise. Someday you can read some of my translations of earlier caretakers’ theories, I guess. There are references to the Ark of the Covenant in the book of Revelations, but in those, it appeared within the glory of heaven. Nothing earth-bound.
“But the adversary is close, and its time for the treasure to leave this place.”
Elizabeth turned the flashlight onto the caretaker’s face. Vincent squinted and raised one hand to block the light. She said, “What exactly do you want with Nate? If you want to take this thing away somewhere, just take it.”
“Please take that light out of my face.” When she didn’t, he sighed and nodded in the direction of the altar. “I’ve already explained that only an ordained priest of God can transport the Ark.” He looked at Nate. “You know what I’m saying is the truth, Reverend.”
Nate rose up. One knee was caked in dust. Tarretti was somehow enchanting him, playing on his faith in order to manipulate him. She aimed the light back at the box. “This is getting ridiculous. What’s inside that thing? And don’t tell me the ten commandments or I’ll hit you with this flashlight.”
She walked up to the altar and reached out. Tarretti tackled her from the side, arms around her waist. She felt something else as well, but before she could think much about it she was in the dust with Tarretti on top of her and already struggling to his feet. The flashlight had rolled to the corner of the room.
“Don’t,” he said, almost pleading, trying to catch his breath and move away from her at the same time. “If you touch it, you’ll die!”
Chapter Fifty-Three
Nathan ran to Elizabeth and took her arm, helped her up. Tarretti’s sudden move had broken the reverential spell he had fallen into when he saw the Ark. It looked much smaller than he’d expected, but the shape, the detailed gilding along its face and lid, was very much like what he had envisioned. His mood had shifted decidedly at seeing Elizabeth attacked, however, and for the moment, he let himself forget everything else except his own anger.
He turned toward Tarretti’s rising form. “Keep your hands off her, Mr. Tarretti. Maybe what you’re saying is true, but if you do something like that again, so help me—”
Vincent raised his hands. “I apologize, but you know the Bible, Reverend. You know what happens to anyone who touches this vessel.”
Nathan did understand. There were incidents in the Old Testament of people reaching out for the Ark only to fall instantly dead. Many scholars theorized that perhaps the structure was built such that it was hyperconductive to electricity, a battery of sorts built before such a thing was ever conceived of. Nathan never bought into that idea. Batteries didn’t win wars.
But something in how Tarretti said it made Nathan think, for the first time that night, that the man was lying. In some way. He looked back at the gold-laden chest.
“Is that why you need me? I’m supposed to be the only one who can touch it, is that it?”
A dust-covered Elizabeth walked to the corner and retrieved the flashlight. When she returned, she moved it alternately between the Ark and Tarretti. “Maybe you should try Saint Malachy’s across town.”
“Elizabeth, please,” Nathan said, letting impatience slip into his tone. He pointed to the table. “Where do you think I’m supposed to take this? I have a ministry to support. People need me here, not hiding in some graveyard in Kansas or Missouri.”
Vincent brushed dust off his sleeve and said, almost sadly, “God will lead you to the best place. This is your ministry now, Reverend. He will take care of your old flock somehow.”
Nathan swallowed. The dust was beginning to make him choke. He couldn’t accept this; even now, he needed to be certain. “Like Elizabeth said, is what’s inside there the tablets of the ten commandments? The actual ones Moses brought down from the mountain?” He thought, perhaps hoped, saying this out loud would sound ludicrous. It didn’t, not to him, not at this moment. Perhaps God was putting this acceptance in his heart. Or maybe he was just tired of fighting. Time to just go mad himself and live out the delusion.
Tarretti moved toward the altar, but did not touch it. Elizabeth shined the light into the center of his jacket. “I thought I felt something when you landed on me. What’s in your front coat pocket, Tarretti?”
Vincent put a hand to the front of his windbreaker and sighed, like a man who’d just eaten something that did not agree with him. “It’s a gun, Miss O’Brien.”
Nathan and Elizabeth stiffened.
“Please,” he continued. “I’m not going to shoot you. I didn’t think you’d like the fact that I came here armed. Believe me, it is purely for our protection.” He turned toward Nathan. “Reverend, I feel strongly that our time is running out, and I need to tell you one more thing.”
A light thump behind them was followed by a man’s voice. “Please do not move, or I will be forced to shoot you.”
The words were spoken in a monotone, like a person learning lines in a play. The shock of the new arrival was so surprising no one moved, except to shift themselves on the dusty floor to look back toward the ladder.
Before Elizabeth’s fl
ashlight beam landed across him, Nathan knew who that voice belonged to. Josh Everson stood at the base of the ladder, a small black gun in his hand. He held it with a steady assurance, though Nathan could not remember his friend ever holding one before.
Josh stared with sorrowful eyes, almost the look of a sleepwalker. He raised the gun toward Elizabeth. “Move the light away now, please.” His voice grew in urgency as he said this. Everyone in the room came to the same conclusion. He was preparing to shoot someone. Elizabeth lowered the flashlight to a spot on the floor between her and Nathan. Josh stood no more than five feet from him, but to Nathan, it seemed a hundred miles. This couldn’t be Josh. It was too much to accept that he was involved in this.
Then again, he hadn’t known about Josh and Elizabeth’s relationship either. He hadn’t known this... thing... was buried in his home town. No, his best friend was not about to shoot Elizabeth.
“Josh,” he said, almost sadly. Josh moved his head toward him in a jerking motion. Nathan continued, “Josh, what’s going on? It’s me, Nate. And Elizabeth.”
Josh’s head did a robot turn toward her. No recognition, in what expression could be seen in the dust covered light.
There was a sudden scrunch! from across the small room. Vincent had opened the front of his jacket and was reaching inside.
Josh aimed his gun at the caretaker’s chest and did not hesitate when he pulled the trigger. The room exploded with sound and one bright, blue-white flash. Nathan put his hands to his ears, feeling pain in his head from the shot’s reverberation. Elizabeth reached out and pulled him to the floor.
Josh did not fire the gun again.
Elizabeth whispered, “Vincent?” The fact that she used his first name, and in such a tentative way, filled Nathan with a terrible premonition. In the suddenness of what had just happened, the fact that Josh had shot the man hadn’t registered until now. He added his own, “Tarretti? Vince, you OK?” He wanted to ask Josh why he’d done it, but now he didn’t want to draw his friend’s attention their way.
Elizabeth shined the flashlight toward where the caretaker had been standing.
Vincent Tarretti slid along the wall, the jacket bunching up against his back. His hands were pressed against his stomach, just above the oversized pocket. Blood spilled though his fingers. He moaned once, landing in a spread-eagle sitting position.
Vincent blinked rapidly in the flashlight beam, looking more confused than anything, then whispered, “I’m sorry.” He closed his eyes and he fell sideways until his head tilted onto the dusty floor. He tried to reach out, managed to get his right arm raised, then it, too, fell to the floor. He did not move again.
Elizabeth’s shaking hand aimed the flashlight’s circle across the dark streak on the wall. It dripped a path to where the caretaker lay slumped and unmoving on the floor. The spot on the wall glistened in the light.
Nathan looked away, his throat tight, fighting down a nausea building in his stomach. He tried to speak but couldn’t. Everything was gone. Nothing was real anymore. Nothing.
Someone climbed casually down the ladder. Nathan could not see who it was because Elizabeth kept the flashlight fixed on the far wall.
“You did the right thing, Mister Everson. Remind me to give you a cookie later.” The speaker laughed. The sound was tight and without amusement.
“Reverend Dinneck, I presume,” said the voice—Peter Quinn’s voice. “And his lovely sidekick, whatever your name is.” Another chuckle. “Sorry about all the dramatics. But rest assured, Mister Tarretti will get a fine burial. In one of the nicest spots in the cemetery.” The figure raised its arms to the room. He moved forward, crossing into the beam of Elizabeth’s light, and stood before the concrete altar. Almost as an afterthought, he added, “If either of them try to move toward you or me, Mister Everson, shoot the woman. I need the good preacher.” He never took his eyes from the prize before him.
The prize which was now his own.
Chapter Fifty-Four
Elizabeth couldn’t turn the flashlight away from the blood on the wall. It’s not blood. No one’s blood. She was doing it somehow, with the flashlight. An optical illusion.
She needed to aim the light somewhere else. But to do that would be to reveal what she knew in her heart to be true. That there was nothing left besides this one red streak, a starburst of color quickly darkening along the wall. Nothing left of the world, her life, of reality. If she were to move her right hand, even just a little, then this last solid piece of the universe would crumble and fall away.
The logical side of her brain reflexively tried to step in, take control, berate her sudden confusion. You’re an RN! it screamed. Help him; he’s been shot! …shot by one of her dearest and oldest friends. That was beyond logic.
Josh had not just shot a man. He hadn’t just killed Mister Tarretti. He hadn’t. That would not happen in the world she came from. There was no one else involved in this little charade of Tarretti’s. Just him, Nate, and her.
Someone walked past, temporarily obstructing her view of the last vestiges of the world. She gasped, waited for the ceiling and the sky to collapse on top of her.
Josh had not just shot a man. There was not a stranger now staring at the box on the table.
”Elizabeth....” A soft voice; Nate’s voice.
“Elizabeth, are you OK? Look at me, but do it slowly.”
Do it slowly? Why would he want her to do it slowly? What did he want?
Slowly, she turned her head toward his voice.
There he was, still with her, looking scared. Scared because they were in a crypt, underground, and Josh had just shot someone. No, no, no. She began to shake. A gasp caught in her throat, became solid, tried to work its way out of her, a moan, a scream. The darkness shifted as she turned, revealing Nate’s features. Now he was fading. No, nothing is fading, I’m OK. There’s an explanation.
Nate was holding her shoulders now. She expected him to shake her, tell her to snap out of it, but he did not. Instead he pulled her into a hug, held her close. She heard him say, as if from a distance, “Shoot her and you hit us both.”
Another voice, the stranger’s, “Hold your fire, Mister Everson.”
Everson, she thought. Josh Everson. He shot the caretaker. Vincent Tarretti is dead.
She buried her face into Nate’s chest, feeling the shock of what had happened clear a little, enough to let in the realization of their situation. She had to hang on, keep it together. Nothing was making sense, but Nate was here, holding her. And they were in trouble.
God, what have you done to me now?
For a long time she kept her eyes closed, face pressed into Nate’s white buttoned shirt. The ladder creaked, and a third voice joined them. Nate gently nudged her. Time to rejoin the real—if completely upside down—world. She looked up.
The light was more intense than she remembered. Josh stood in the same position as before, gun held loosely in his hand but still pointing at her. On the floor beside him sat a plastic camping lantern, bright with twin fluorescent lights. Its glow washed away all remaining shadows. A man she recognized vaguely, perhaps from town, stood at the bottom of the ladder behind him and talked quickly with another guy with white hair. This latter individual was the one who had approached the altar a minute ago.
She tried not to look at the opposite wall again, but instead looked into her friend’s face. “Josh,” she whispered. “Josh, what’s wrong with you? Why did you do that? Who are these people? Why did you shoot him?”
Something changed in his expression. The blank stare widened. He blinked. For a moment Elizabeth thought she had overstepped some boundary and tensed, waiting for him to pull the trigger. She stared at the open muzzle. The gun slowly lowered.
“Please, Miss,” the white-haired man said, moving away from the ladder and walking up to Josh. “Don’t talk to the help. Mister Everson, keep an eye on these two, and when they speak, you will not hear what they say.”
Something turned over in E
lizabeth’s stomach. The last time she’d felt such a sudden rush of fear she was walking across the parking lot of the mall in Worcester, alone save for one other dark sedan parked two spaces from her car. As she approached, the front doors of the other car opened and two men stepped out. They simply changed positions—the one from the driver’s seat moved to the passenger, and vice versa—and offered only a subdued nod to her as she approached, perhaps realizing too late the bad timing of their mysterious game of musical chairs. But that could not alleviate the quick and sudden rush of adrenaline that had filled her, realizing it was far too late to stop whatever madness was about to happen. On that occasion, the feeling, though justified by the events, proved unfounded. Now, hearing the man’s voice as he spoke to Josh, feeling the power in its cadence, this same fear screamed its existence in her head. The man with the white moustache was controlling Josh with only his voice, even to the point of getting him to kill someone.
No, that made no sense, not in the normal world she once lived in. He must be drugged. But there was power in the man’s voice. She had felt something. Seeing Josh’s expression fall slack, the gun raised again toward her, she knew there could be no other explanation. That kind of thing just wasn’t possible, was it?
The man turned to her and smiled.
Oh, God, help me, please help me. Her prayer was without substance. She did not believe in the God she was praying to.
“Tell me your name, Miss.” His words issued from his mouth like a snake’s tongue, reached out and clutched her face. The feeling was not a bad one. It was comforting, to know she could answer him.
“Elizabeth.” She saw Nate look down at her. What was his problem?
“Elizabeth, I would like you to come here and stand beside Mister Everson.”
“OK.” She worked herself out of Nate’s confused grip.
“Elizabeth, hold on.” Nate’s voice was powerful of its own accord, and for a moment it was stronger. She walked back to him, waiting to see what he wanted.
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