Rise the Phoenix

by Ely Page

  “Something is not right,” Rodan said with a very concerned look on his face. “With the warming of temperatures, people should be out more, enjoying spring. Instead, they stay in their homes and no longer like to have any conversation.”

  Dylan hadn’t been as observant as Rodan; he couldn’t be with the new baby and his military academy. But after hearing it from Rodan’s mouth, he started to see things the same way. Some of his students didn’t seem to care as much, and a few stopped showing up.

  The three men went on a casual walk around town. They talked to each other and said hello to anyone they encountered, but they were on a mission to see who specifically was acting more withdrawn, more isolated.

  Most everyone seemed to be having a normal day, doing their assigned jobs or sitting at the diner having some tea. That was where the three men decided to take a break and have lunch.

  “I hope when this is all over, we can get a nice settlement started in Central America,” Jim said after they all ordered hot tea.

  “Why is that?” Dylan asked.

  “I really miss coffee. Tea is nice and all, that but it’s no Folgers.

  Dylan smiled. “Maybe someday we will go to Oklahoma City and raid a bulk warehouse store and stock up on it. Thanks, Abby,” he said after she put his potato soup down in front of him. “Where is Carmen today?” he asked.

  Usually Carmen was the server, while Abby stayed behind the counter. “She didn’t show up. I sent Mike over to her apartment after church and she didn’t answer.” Concern was all over Abby’s face, but it didn’t show in her voice. “I don’t know what to do.”

  After lunch, Rodan, Jim, and Dylan all went to Carmen’s apartment to check on her. Dylan knocked but there was no response. Rodan put his hand on the door and closed his eyes.

  “Something is not right in there. Something is holding her inside,” he said, keeping his eyes shut as he removed his hand from the door.

  “We need to go in?” Jim asked uncertainly.

  “Yes, we must go in and extract what is in her,” Rodan said.

  Dylan managed to slide to the back of the pack.

  “Muscles,” Jim said to Dylan.

  “Huh?” said Dylan, looking sheepish.

  “The door is locked. We need you to break it open,” Jim said, moving out of the way to give Dylan room to push the door in.

  Dylan, having never broken down a door before, tried to look like he knew what he was doing. He sized up the door then kicked it in with what turned out to be more force than necessary, as he got his foot stuck in the door and had to hop with it as it opened.

  “Carmen?” Jim called softly as he walked into the apartment. The men could see her head over the back of the chair she was sitting in, facing the wall. “Carmen, is everything OK?”

  Jim, Rodan, and Dylan looked at each other, knowing something wasn’t right since she hadn’t reacted to the door being broken into.

  Rodan made a sign with his hands telling Jim to split to the right side and Dylan to stay behind the chair. Rodan rounded the left side.

  Jim and Rodan looked at each other briefly after they saw Carmen’s face. Her eyes were open and rolled to the back of her head, and a black, tarry substance was coming out of her nose.

  “Carmen,” Jim said, speaking as a father would to a sleeping child. “Are you in there?”

  Jim looked at Rodan, who in turn looked back at Jim, and then they both looked back at Carmen. She didn’t move. It didn’t even look as though she was breathing.

  “Carmen, can you hear me?” Rodan asked, taking half a step toward her.

  “Help me!” came Carmen’s disembodied voice. Her mouth didn’t move, and the voice almost sounded as if it was coming from the space around her body, instead of from it.

  “Where are you, Carmen? Can you describe it to me?” Rodan closed his eyes.

  “I don’t know where I am,” Carmen’s voice echoed. “It seems like I am surrounded by nothing. I can’t tell if anything is around me or not.”

  Rodan spread his arms out as far as they could go, and then turned his palms up. He stiffened and seemed to fall into a trance.

  “Carmen, come toward my voice,” Rodan said, now his voice sounded disembodied.

  Jim and Dylan looked at each other in amazement.

  “I don’t know how. I don’t think I can move,” Carmen’s frightened voice rose with concern.

  “It’s just like in water,” Rodan spoke with a reassuring voice. “Swim to me. You will not be able to see me, but once you start to move, I will be able to see you.”

  Carmen brought her arms up and made breast stroke motion. All of the sudden, the black nothingness around her turned a dirty gray. Straight in front of her, she could see a hand emerge from the void. She moved toward the hand. It was as Rodan described, just like swimming.

  “Carmen!” Rodan grew concerned. He could see Carmen move, but she wasn’t getting any closer. That was when he realized they were not alone and that he had to act fast.

  “I don’t think I am getting any closer to you,” Carmen said, growing more worried.

  Back in Carmen’s apartment, Dylan and Jim were watching and listening in amazement. For a second Rodan seemed to snap out of the trance that he was in. He walked over to Carmen’s body and reached out to grab her hands. Rodan looked up at Dylan. “Put your hands on her shoulders. When you feel her pulling away, I need you to hold her as still as possible. Her spirit can’t reenter her body if it is not at rest, got it?”

  Dylan nodded in acknowledgement. Rodan kneeled on the floor in front of Carmen, holding her hands in her lap while resting his arms on her knees. Rodan turned to Jim.

  “Jump in where you see fit and start to pray,” Rodan said, then closed his eyes and went back into a trance.

  “Carmen, I am going to try and come to you. You might feel some tugging and pulling from the other side. Do not go with it, but do not fight it. I need you to be as calm and relaxed as possible.” Rodan walked forward until he could make out the form of a human figure. It was Carmen, but there was a larger figure surrounding her from every angle.

  Rodan was going to have to do everything he could to take on a purgatory demon. He also knew that there was a demon for every single townsperson who was behaving like Carmen and that he would be completely drained by the end of this ordeal.

  Rodan made it within a few feet of Carmen before he felt the demon’s resistance. The demon wasn’t what most people would consider a demon; it didn’t have the power to possess a human, it only had the power to hold people from their own bodies.

  “You shall not have her,” Jim was shouting, doing as Rodan had directed, praying and jumping in where help was needed.

  Dylan felt Carmen’s shoulders pull away from him, and he pulled her back against the chair. Jim noticed what was going on.

  “Release her! You will release her back to her body or you will face the wrath of the almighty God!” Jim commanded with great force behind his voice.

  Rodan waded through the purgatory demon’s muck and finally reached Carmen. “Hold my hands,” he said, extending his own hands out toward her. “We are going home now. It might be a bumpy ride.”

  Rodan held Carmen, and it seemed like they were rushing through a wormhole. The gray nothingness around them moved rapidly, making it feel like they were moving over a hundred miles an hour. Carmen and Rodan were shaking hard; it was all Dylan and Jim could do to hold on. Finally, Carmen relaxed. It was over, and she was back in her body.

  Carmen cried and embraced Rodan. “Thank you. I don’t know where I was, but I am so happy to be home.”

  Rodan, Dylan, and Jim spent the entire day going around Hope and finding the others whose souls were stuck in purgatory while their bodies did whatever the demon could manage.

  The last person they saved from purgatory was Aleck. He was a
little more difficult than the others. The demon that possessed him was more powerful than the others and gave Rodan quiet a fight.

  After extracting Aleck’s soul and placing it back in his body, Rodan sat down on the church floor and leaned up against a wall.

  “I am exhausted,” he said with strained breath. “As soon as I have the strength, I need to go home and rest for a few days.”

  Dylan knew how to get Rodan home and comfortable right away. He left and quickly came back with a wheelchair.

  “Let’s get him in here, and I will wheel him to the elevator.”

  Dylan rolled the chair next to where Rodan was resting. With help from Jim, Dylan lifted Rodan off the floor and into the wheelchair.

  Jason, the lead elder, saw Dylan pushing Rodan in the wheelchair through the window of the elevator office and came out to see what was going on.

  “Rodan is tired and worn out,” Dylan explained. “He needs to rest is all.”

  Jason walked with them. “I will help you get him out of the wheelchair.”

  Dylan walked into his house after a very long and hard day. He poured himself into the recliner in the living room. Leah walked in, having heard him come home.

  “Hard day?” she asked as she leaned in to give him a kiss.

  “How have you and the boys been?” Dylan asked, exhausted.

  “We were good.” Leah sat on the couch closest to Dylan’s chair. “We went to go see Hanna and the girls, and a little later Jenny came over with Tank and Serena.”

  Dylan smiled. “Tank. What a classic Porter move right there. I still can’t believe Jenny went along with that.”

  Leah got up. “Oh, she is not happy about it and will never let Porter have his way again.”

  Leah came back a few minutes later with a glass in her hand. It was full of a dark red or purple liquid.

  “What is that?” Dylan asked as Leah handed him the drink.

  “It is wine. Jim brought it over just before you got home. He said you need to have a drink on him.”

  Dylan had never drunk alcohol before, and after sipping the wine, he didn’t know if he wanted to ever drink again.

  “Come on, you can drink the whole glass and then you need to take a shower and say goodnight to your sons.” Leah held back her laughter at the disgusted look on Dylan’s face.

  After his shower, Dylan walked down the hallway to his bedroom where little baby Frankie lay in the basinet, just one week old. Leah still hurt from giving birth to the little guy, but she was moving around better every day.

  Leah and Dylan lay in bed together kissed each other goodnight, then Leah leaned over her side of the bed and kissed Frankie goodnight before laying back down. When she looked over to say goodnight to Dylan again, he was already fast asleep. He hadn’t even managed to pull the sheet up over his body. Leah covered him up and rested her head on his chest.

  Chapter 12

  As summer began, it became apparent that almost every woman in Hope who could become pregnant was. Almost all the people had found someone to love and marry, all but the old who were set in their ways or the teenagers who were too young to take on such serious relationships. Although Cael and Emily seemed to hang out a lot, it may have been because they were closest in age to each other.

  Annie, a sweet old lady, watched Tank, Willow, John, and the three babies during the day so Jenny could get back to the power station, Hanna could get back to the medical clinic, and Leah could get back to sewing and making weapons.

  Dylan introduced Leah’s crossbow design with the wide arrows meant to sever a wambei’s spine. His training academy was looking more and more like a military school, which was what he was going for. Rodan had books on West Point and on marine training, which Dylan read front to back over and over until every word was burned into his memory.

  Even though he had never served in the military, Dylan kept his academy as militaristic as possible until the day was over. Then, he would relax with everyone in the academy. When he noticed someone taking it easy, he doubled down on them, telling them that if they didn’t give all they got, the wambei would kill them in an instant.

  One night after the sun had set and Tank was sleeping, Jenny and Porter went to their porch to sit and relax after their long days at work.

  “We managed to finish that new power line—” Jenny said, but Porter cut her off.

  “Shh,” he hushed her, then slowly got off the porch swing without moving his feet.

  Jenny didn’t hear anything, but Porter had trained his ears to hear beyond the wall, which was only two houses away from them.

  “I hear howling. I’ve never heard howling like that before,” he said.

  Jenny got up off the swing. “I don’t hear it,” she said, trying to listen.

  The noise came again.

  “Did you hear that?” Porter asked Jenny, getting off the porch and walking quickly to the west wall.

  Porter was joined at the wall by his good friend Greg. They walked up on the platform without saying a word to each other. They looked out, scanning the area looking for what could have made such an eerie howl.

  It was silent for a while, and all they could hear was the sound of the livestock in the barn just a few hundred feet away. The guys waited, observing, but nothing was happening.

  “I guess it was nothing,” Greg said, stepping back from the wall and heading to the stairs.

  Porter stayed for a moment longer before he too went back home.

  At the diner the next morning, Greg told Dylan and Jim what he and Porter had heard the night before.

  “It was weird,” he explained. “It didn’t sound like a dog or a coyote or a wolf. I have heard their howls, and this was different. Something I’ve never heard before.”

  Although he didn’t say anything, Dylan was concerned about what Greg was telling him. After breakfast, Dylan went to the grain elevator to check on Rodan and tell Jason what Greg had shared.

  Dylan went to Rodan’s room. Rodan was still sleeping. Even though it had been a few weeks since Rodan went to purgatory to save the lost souls, he had yet to fully recover and had been resting a lot. Dylan left without disturbing the ancient man.

  “Dylan, good morning,” Jason said as Dylan walked into the elder’s office. “What’s going on?”

  Jason always tried to smile and make everything as easy and comfortable as possible. He had been a psychiatrist in the old world.

  Dylan sat down in a chair in front of Jason’s desk. “Well, Greg told me that he and Porter heard some strange howling last night coming from beyond the wall.”

  Jason perked up a little bit, slipping into more authoritative posture.

  “They went to investigate,” Dylan continued, “but they didn’t hear any noise once they reached the observation deck.”

  “Hmm . . . ,” Jason muttered. “I see this concerns you, as it does me. So how about we post a couple of guys on the platforms tonight and see if they hear anything? And let’s talk to whoever was up in the crow’s nest last night and see what they have to say about any noises.”

  Andy had the night shift up on the crow’s nest the night before. When he woke up, he saw the note that Dylan left on his front door telling him to see Jason about his shift.

  Andy went to Jason’s office. It was empty at first, but then Jason came out from a back room with a stack of copy paper.

  “Ah, Andy. I’m glad you could make it in. I take it Dylan got a hold of you, then?”

  Andy nodded his still sleepy head.

  “I will make this quick,” Jason said without sitting down. “Did you hear anything abnormal last night when you were up on top of the elevator?”

  Andy thought about the question for a moment. The idea that it was some sort of trap crossed his mind, but quickly faded. “All I heard all night was the new wind turbine going slowly. I noticed w
hen it goes slow, it makes more noise than when it goes faster.”

  Andy thought that was a good enough answer, and it looked like Jason thought the same thing.

  “All right, that was all I needed. Have a good day,” he said.

  As Andy started to walk out, he turned to Jason and said, “Might want to have Jenny check that out.”

  Jason looked at him. Something was wrong with the way Andy spoke. It wasn’t what he’d said; his voice was different, slurred. But Jason didn’t say anything, and Andy walked out the door.

  Andy closed the door behind him. As he stepped outside, he didn’t feel right. He felt kind of fuzzy. He took two steps and a deep breath of fresh air, and heard something fall on his boot. He looked down and saw blood from his nose had dropped on his boot. Then, without knowing what was going on, he collapsed in the middle of the street.

  “What happened? What is wrong with him?” Dylan demanded after Hanna ran to the training academy to get him and tell him that Andy had been brought in by Jason and Martha.

  A weary Chris looked up at Dylan. “I can’t tell for sure, but he might have suffered an aneurism or possibly a stroke.” She put her hand on Andy’s forehead. “He also has a fever, but that seems to be breaking.”

  Dylan only had one question. “Will you ever be able to tell what happened to him?”

  Chris slowly nodded her head. “Yes. If he wakes up, I can ask some questions and see how he responds and how his speech is. I can tell then with certainty what happened.”

  Dylan walked and left the confines of the town’s walls. To him it felt like his brother was laying on that clinic bed. He and Andy had drifted apart over time, but that was just the nature of things.

  Just a year ago, Andy had married Gina, a girl from the Canadian tribe. She was at Andy’s side back at the clinic, but she didn’t say a word.

  Before Dylan knew it, he was out at the lake. It was calm this time of day. All the fishermen had gone in for the morning, but they would be back for a few hours before supper.

  Dylan sat on the shore. His feet were within inches of the water. He looked at his reflection in the lake’s calm surface. His reflection almost looked like the old Dylan, the boy he’d left behind that day he was trapped in the freezer. He threw a rock at the water, wiping away his past and the person he never wanted to be reminded of.