The Forsaken - The Apocalypse Trilogy: Book Two

by G. Wells Taylor

  The other forever kids were settling into sleep all around her. The noises they made relaxed her and might have helped her sleep, or been funny in other circumstances. Bedtime was always fun back in Nurserywood when the kids settled down after Arthur told his stories. They farted and giggled before drifting off to dreams.

  She was more and more wishing she’d behaved, and not followed Mr. Jay. They’d visited Nurserywood as they did from time to time. The magician called it an intermission. He liked to sit and talk with Arthur the giant. And Dawn loved visiting with the other forever kids. But the last time, Mr. Jay wanted her to stay behind because he had to go somewhere important and he had to go alone. But his look worried Dawn so much she snuck out after him. When she caught up to him far from Nurserywood, she’d never seen him angry before. Finally, he calmed and brought her along. “I should have known better, little shadow,” he’d said.

  But that was too long ago to help and listening to the settling in noises did make her think about sleep if they couldn’t stop her from thinking about everything else. Meg claimed the Doctor put something in the food so the kids could sleep—and something to help them keep calm because they were all a bit crazy from their unusual lives.

  And Dawn had to admit that maybe something like that was going on because she had managed to drop off to sleep quickly each night. Tonight she had hardly eaten because of all the worry though. She thought and listened for a while longer and then for only a minute, it seemed she was caught up in a cozy warm swirl of sleep.

  Then the grownup voice in her head whispered: Something moving! Coming this way!

  And Dawn opened her eyes and listened. Nothing at first, and then she caught the sound of something—yes, a quiet rustle like cloth or material moving and the quiet whooshing sound of something sliding over something else—maybe shoes.

  And she immediately thought of Nursie. Was the awful creature coming to spirit her away? And then she wondered where Meg was, and listened closely, and heard her friend’s quiet breathing on the next bed.

  Listen, said the grownup voice in her head. It’s getting closer.

  And Dawn tensed up in the bed, her knuckles clenched painfully in the sheets. “Oh Mr. Jay,” she whispered to herself. “Where are you?”

  But the question was barely spoken before a dark shape moved beside the bed, and then shifted into the dim back light of the dormitory nightlights.

  “Please,” a voice hissed. Dawn saw it was the Doctor, face slick with sweat. “I’ve got to get you somewhere you safe.” He cast nervous looks left and right. “Nursie is coming!”

  And Dawn’s whole body went rigid at mention of the name.

  The Doctor pulled her covers back and grabbed her arm. She winced when his fingers dug into the area he’d already bruised that day.

  “Hurry,” he hissed. “Power is shifting. She’ll kill us both!” And he caught Dawn’s nervous look at Meg. “Don’t worry about your friends,” the Doctor said. “Nursie’s not interested in them tonight.”

  And Dawn’s grown up voice was silent, even though she listened for it. Perhaps it was thinking and gauging the situation. Dawn slipped out of bed at the man’s urging and put her slippers on. The whole time the Doctor moved and shifted foot to foot quite nervously. His hand was soaking her arm with sweat, and his fingers twisted spasmodically.

  “Hurry,” he said, teeth chattering and in moments they were away—moving quickly between the beds away from the main entrance. Instead, he led her through a door to a kitchen and preparation room used only by their workers.

  Dawn thought it was strange passing by them where they sat against the wall in chairs just watching. But it was clear to her that they would not interfere with the affairs of the living: especially the doctor’s business.

  They passed through the kitchen. It was dim with low-watt emergency lights—and they came to another door where the Doctor fumbled keys out of his pocket and unlocked it. And they were out in the brightly lit hall and moving quickly over the tiles. It was all dark and so new to her that Dawn could barely tell where they were going.

  “You see,” the Doctor said, sweat shone on his forehead, “I couldn’t let this happen.” He shook his head, hand now twisted in the material of her nightshirt. “See, I’m a doctor.” He stopped at a door and paused to unlock it. “And I have a Hippocratic oath and I joined the Prime before he set up the Orphanage in the Tower—before when I worked for Authority.”

  He led Dawn through the door and past a curious set of metal tables and instruments. “And I was helping kids, and doing things for kids…”

  He nodded and his hands trembled. “Only until,” he said and paused at a heavy steel door covered with rivets, “I came here and saw what the Prime was doing and he can speak…oh he’s convincing. And he outlined his vision for me and I understood.” The Doctor worked a multiple lock with his keys. “And it looked so right in the early days.”

  The Doctor paused with his hand on the door. “That was before the Prime wanted to know what made you little people tick—before he had me do things—experiments.” The man shook and his hands trembled. “I’m a doctor and I refused…” he nodded idiotically. “Until he showed me what he could do if I did not help him…” The doctor leaned in close. “He has Powers—worse than death. I know death; I’m a doctor. But this is worse.” His eyes gleamed. “So I helped him.” The Doctor balled up a fist and punched it into his temple, held it there as though he had to push to keep his head from exploding. He sniggered, “And the Principal is quite persuasive too—he helped expand my horizons.”

  The he sighed and dropped his fist. “I found a way to do his experiments.” He nodded. “And soon I developed some of my own.” He started pushing the door aside. “Can you keep a secret?” The Doctor’s breath smelled like chemicals. “Going crazy really helped.”

  The Doctor pushed the door open and pulled her in. The lights were out. She heard water bubbling, and an electrical hum. “You’re the First-mother after all.” And he turned the light on.

  A stainless steel room appeared around Dawn. Glossy and glaring on her eyes at first, she saw cages built into one wall. Forever children tugged at the bars. Some were bandaged; others were missing limbs or eyes. All bore scars and injury on scalps and naked bodies. There were two steps down from the door to a tile floor.

  In the center of the room was a low steel table with a pair of forever boys lying on top—wrists and ankles bound and apparently asleep. Dawn was still reeling from the caged kids when she realized the horror of it. Someone had sutured the boys together torso to torso, and their arms and legs at the joints were sewn and bandaged. The skin color varied too, giving the impression of many donors, made them look like poorly made rag dolls.

  A silent scream burned in the forever girl’s chest.

  “I just thought…” the Doctor said, turning to her, “it would be better if I treated you.”

  Dawn screamed and jumped back, her action catching the Doctor off guard. She stumbled against the counter, knocking her head and making her ears ring.

  “See whatever I do,” the Doctor chuckled, hurrying toward her. “It will be better than what the Prime plans.” And he leapt for her. Dawn rolled aside, barely avoiding his heavy hands and came up by the door. She jumped for the handle, but it opened.

  Nursie stood there, backlit and grotesque without her skin.

  “Nein!” the monster shrieked, slapping Dawn on the face. She rolled across the room into the steel cupboards. Nursie turned to the Doctor who froze in his tracks, his lips working to form an excuse or a command, his brow wriggling feverishly. Nursie’s oversized teeth ripped the air as she spoke.

  “Der Doctor lie.” She shook her head and gobs of spittle splattered all around Dawn. “Der Prime, hem say, Nursie, NO!” The monster stepped forward—thick, foul fluids poured from her many nipples, left a slick trail on the floor between her legs. “But hem say no Doctor touch girl too. Nein!”

  And Nursie grabbed the doctor by
the neck. His muffled scream was silenced as she pulled his head and face close to hers. His eyes were wide and disbelieving as she bit down on his face. Her foot-long incisors dug into the Doctor’s forehead and tore up under his chin. The action sheared the man’s face off and exposed his brain in a single bite. The Doctor’s gory body kicked and struggled blindly.

  Dawn looked away as blood and fluid sprayed down the monster’s long chest. Nursie chuckled over the spatter of blood, and there was another horrific crunch, and then a vile sucking sound. After a moment, something hit the floor with a bony thump. Dawn tried to shut it out. The forever children in the cages were crying out in fear, and others in encouragement. And Dawn was running so deep into herself that she barely understood that the kids were telling her to run away.

  She flipped over and got her hands under her, but Nursie was already standing there; thick red blood poured from her mouth.

  “Der his doctor time no more,” the monster’s spittle rained down like sick dew. “Hem and Der Prime soon, no more. Kaput!” The thing reached down for her with long bony arms. “It Nursie time now. Es ist meine Zeit!”

  Dawn screamed with terror as Nursie’s long fingers slipped around her waist.

  65 –Karen’s Love

  A change came on Karen during all the violence. It insulated her from it, and so the Marquis’ murder happened in a muffled world at an extreme distance. At first she feared it was the result of the many blows she’d received to the head—or the “spell” that the Marquis and the thin man claimed to have put upon her. She theorized it might even be an effect of the drugs that the movie men slipped into her drink—how long ago did that happen? But she realized, after a few hours of waking that she was able to see things she was blind to before. Certainly no one else in the party was witnessing anything unusual. I rushed about wildly searching for You like some monster loose in Your beautiful world…

  Sister Karen had a mission. While the others bickered and menaced their way through events and maintained their malevolent harmony, she had slipped into what she at first believed to be catatonia. As the gunman, Tiny, manhandled her in the car, the sensation of his fingers on her slipped away—the pressure took on muted qualities separate from her awareness. The catatonia was not so much a falling away from awareness, as it was a redirection, a sharpening of her perceptions. She had read stories about people who could read auras. She could see them now. You sent my blindness reeling.

  Since her abduction, she had been entirely at the mercy of others. Despite her best efforts to bolster her courage, she knew that she lived and died by the wishes of the men who held her. This new perception allowed her to see past their boisterous personas to the emotional men beneath. This challenged her, because it was easier to hate them when she evaluated them on their actions alone.

  Grant that the sick Thou hast placed in my care may be abundantly blessed…

  She knew judging them was wrong. They were God’s children and deserving of compassion until He judged them. Murderers obviously, and worse, but they were no different from her in the eyes of God.

  She corrected herself. These men, though they might be God’s children, had too much power for their own good. And until their power was taken away, they would be dangerous. They’d never learn while they controlled—while they were closed. Seeing their emotional underbellies might give her an edge. She corrected herself. Grant me the required insight and wisdom to thoroughly digest Your mysteries…

  If it were God’s plan to allow her to see her enemy’s humanity, then she would have to learn to use the gift. And Karen quickly understood that it was a powerful gift because it acted as catalyst to reviving her faith. These men needed love. They needed compassion. They’d missed it on the road to adulthood and that brought them to these evil ends. Felon had murdered Able, but Able would have found a way to love him. That was his job as a shepherd and teacher—and hers: to see past the humanity and love the soul.

  So Karen used this gift from God, this new vision, to teach herself to love them too. Wasn’t this the reason for her self-hatred? The reason she behaved like a self-destructive harlot? If she believed she did not deserve love, how could she love God? And how could anyone love her? How could she teach these men to love themselves? Perhaps that was the reason for this gift of sight. With it she could learn to love herself in her enemies, and free God’s love to flow through her to heal them.

  I love my neighbor as myself for the love of You. I forgive all who have injured me and I ask pardon of all whom I have injured.

  She realized now that she had closed her heart to the world and made herself vulnerable. She saw that if she chose to open herself, be vulnerable, she would have control. She wouldn’t feel overrun by life. Instead, by opening herself to it, she could see the avenues open to her. She was not a plaything of life; she was its voice. Only when she resisted her connection with it, did she feel overwhelmed and want to hide. Karen realized she had powers yet. And that seemed to be the instinctive key to her vision. She had love to give and she wanted it.

  She opened herself to Driver and saw his competition with Tiny and Felon. But it was not a green with envy that she saw. She simply recognized or deciphered what had been hidden by actions. She saw Driver “flare” at Tiny. The “flare’ she read was rebellion—a light blue flame flickered over his body, undulating around his movements. The color didn’t tell her more than the feeling that went with it. It was antipathy. With Felon, Driver “flared” envy, but there was coldness, and youthful enthusiasm. She knew that Driver cared for Tiny but didn’t want to be like him, and he disliked Felon but wished to be him. Karen realized she was reading two perspectives of the ambiguous emotion of love.

  Tiny, on the other hand, had an overpowering flare of his own. It was red, pulsing at its perimeter with tongues like flame. It was dangerous. It flickered out menacingly between his companions and back upon himself. Tiny’s flare was that of ambition. He was ruthless—and capable of anything. And something else came to her that she had only guessed at before: Tiny rarely said what he felt. She could see the colors of his manipulations. Tiny specially colored or “coded” his words for each individual he spoke to. His ambition was reckless.

  Her study of Bloody revealed a mystery. He behaved in an aloof but menacing manner, yet his aura was a pulsing orange envelope—it hugged his form like a second skin. He was wrapped in his own self-pity. And by its feral self-destructive movements, she knew he would go to extremes to extirpate it. Incline, O Lord, Thine ear to our prayers, in which we humbly beseech Thy mercy…

  The Angel had no aura—even when he died, she saw nothing. He was beyond her perceptions. At times he would turn his old man’s face to her catatonic eyes and smile—as though he understood her new sight and thought it quite a joke. He was an Angel, but he was empty.

  Felon, on the other hand, had an aura that would have made her scream if she had not decided to love him. It appeared in many ways—and disappeared as often as it changed forms. She watched his aura burst upward like magma—murderous and hot as flame—watched it boil down around his skull like volcanic ash. As Felon moved, it changed shape and consistency. At other times—it took on near solid form—scaled—emerald like the back of a snake. It was monstrous, this man’s aura. It was powerful, and dangerous. And it was ancient. Your own Son was delivered into the hands of the wicked, yet He prayed for His persecutors and overcame hatred with the blood of the Cross.

  And she remembered waiting in the car with her newfound vision, while Felon left to speak to Lucifer in the sewers. She closed her eyes and watched through the bricks and imagined the scene anew. She saw them standing by a group of derelicts. A fire burned in a drum. The Marquis fanned his face and blushed. Felon’s aura burned white hot. And one of the derelicts around the fire broke free of the grouping. He was like the Marquis and empty to her eyes. And then the distance was gone, and he stood by the car and met her gaze. A voice inside her head said, “Go to the Tower.” She could only see his ou
tline, nothing more. It was a man’s shape. His features were obscured. “Love will free you all.” Neither Driver or Bloody reacted, so she assumed only she could see the man—the vision. Let me be a holy sacrifice and unite with God in the sacrament of His greatest love.

  But to the Tower? Sacrifice? Was it her turn? Was that why she’d been given the new sight? Why her heart had been opened? She knew that great powers were loose upon the earth—it was plain. Whatever had happened the morning Able died had started a fire that threatened to consume the world. One look at Felon told her that. Great Power had a claim upon him.

  And now he was gone. The last time she saw him he had killed an Angel. Then ugly shapes overpowered him; their bodies were bloated and pale against the streetlight. Their auras were orange like Bloody’s—self-destruction dripped from them too. Felon had fired one vicious glance at her before going down beneath the glistening, grappling arms. He would not ask for help. He would bring about his own destruction.

  At first, Karen felt a loss. With Felon gone, so too was her primary threat—but also her only connection to her former life. Any thought of escape was lost before it was formed when Driver, Tiny and Bloody ran out of the diner.

  Felon was gone. And as she let her perceptions flow outward she tried to love him, but found she ached for him. His power was formidable and his extremity attractive. Everything about him was concentrated, heavy hatred. And that was just a negative form of love. She could find a way past it. You who are so worthy of my love…

  The men talked briefly after Felon disappeared. They returned to the car. The doors were opened and they looked in. Their auras were a rainbow of emotion. She found it in herself to smile.

  “I have keys to the Tower,” she said. “I’ll help you.” She had kept a passkey on a chain around her neck. O Sacred Heart of Jesus, I fly, I come to Thee, throwing myself into the arms of Thy tender mercy.