by Jonas Saul
He ran down Jarvis so he could get a couple of blocks ahead of Sarah’s position and find a restaurant or coffee shop to hide in until she passed by.
Police were everywhere, but he brushed it off. Now that he was looking for cops, they were on every corner. They were probably always there, but he’d just never noticed them before.
Or maybe they knew what was going to happen today. Would Sarah have called them for backup?
Today was a big day for Sarah. Aaron would be there when she needed him the most.
Nobody hurts one of his students. Especially not one he has fallen for.
Chapter 25
Simon and Philip had rented a room in a small hostel-like residence last night, downtown Toronto. When Simon went out for two coffees that morning, he had noticed numerous police foot patrols. It was a bad day to be hunting Sarah downtown Toronto, but Matthew’s note had been specific. Simon would see Sarah on Colborne Street near Church Street during the early afternoon. They were to follow her. Once inside the building, wherever it was Sarah would take them, Simon would get his chance to plunge his needle into her flesh and end her human existence.
Matthew had said he saw the needle in Sarah’s neck. Matthew had never been wrong since he had started sending Simon messages. There was no doubt that Sarah would be Raptured today.
They just had to wait. She would show any time. Simon and Philip sat on the bumper of a car in a city parking lot that looked out on Church Street and the length of Colborne. It was a great spot to keep an eye on the area without raising any eyebrows.
They had counted six patrols of police officers doubled up and walking the length of the street. Two of them had talked into their radios. They had to have been tipped off somehow, but it didn’t matter to Simon. When this was all over, he would be the hero. Once everyone saw what he could do, they would grow to love him. Philip would be dead and could never testify against him.
He only had to deal with Thomas. But he figured he could. Matthew would help with that. Maybe he would claim that he was brainwashed and Thomas was behind the whole thing. With the current state of the Canadian court system and laws, they wouldn’t get more than a couple of years in jail if everything went against them. Then he would start his new life as the savior.
“I’m happy you decided not to use the rice powder,” Philip said.
“We would stand out too much.”
“After we’re done with Sarah, we’re heading home anyway.” Philip fiddled with his fingers. “Do you think it’ll hurt when we die?”
Simon turned to him. “We’re already dead, Brother Philip.”
“How so?”
“The real death is coming here. We live on the Other Side. We die when we come here. We wake up, alive, when we go home. That little indent under your nose, just above your lips is where the angel touched you before you were born on earth.” He demonstrated by touching his own upper lip. “They touched you here and said, ‘Speak not what you know.’ That’s how 99 percent of us just go about our day-to-day lives, not realizing or thinking about the fact that we’re only here for a short time while we wait to head home and begin living again. Except us, of course.”
“Except us?” Philip asked.
“Yeah, us. We know. Matthew has told us. We’re the privileged ones. We’re on a mission from God. Rapturing people has been an honor and all we have left to do is Sarah. Once we do Sarah, we’re done and can finally go home.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the salve. The cracks in his fingers were hurting again. After rubbing a liberal amount on, he shoved the salve away and stepped out of the shadows to get a better look up and down the street.
“How many needles do you have on you?” Simon asked.
“Three.”
“I remember asking you to run down to the storage unit and grab as many as you could carry.”
“I know, but once Sarah’s gone, we’re done, so I didn’t think we’d need more than three each. One for her, one each for us and a couple spare in case we run into trouble again.”
Simon wanted to turn around and smash a couple of needles into Philip’s eyes, but controlled himself. He may still need him.
Then he saw her.
Sarah Roberts walked south on Church Street as if she didn’t have a care in the world. Every time Matthew’s prophecies came true, he was still mystified.
“I got her,” he said to Philip.
“Where?” Philip moved close.
“Walking right there, about a hundred yards from us.”
“Okay, good. Let’s end this.”
“We will, but we have to wait.”
“For what?” Philip asked.
“For her to pass us. Then we follow her. We’ll do it when we’re alone somewhere. Less witnesses.”
“What do witnesses matter if we’re going to Rapture ourselves as soon as she’s gone?”
“Good question, Brother Philip. Just trust me. We do it my way.”
Philip shrugged.
They stepped back to remain concealed behind the vehicles in the parking lot.
“Check my hair and eyes,” Simon said. “I’m good?”
“Yeah. Me too?”
“Yeah.”
They both checked the street again. Sarah stopped at the corner of another parking lot across the street and pretended to tie her shoes, but Simon could tell she was watching her back.
Then she moved close to a vagrant sitting on the side of the street with a German shepherd wrapped in a blanket. She pulled something out of her pocket, fiddled with it and then held it in front of her. It looked like she was talking into it. After a moment, she reached down and gave it to the vagrant.
Then she started across a parking lot.
“Come on, let’s go,” Simon said. “It’s time Sarah Roberts died.”
Chapter 26
Parkman sat in the lunchroom as long as he could. He’d called Sarah’s parents and assured them Sarah was fine and that he would probably be seeing her later in the day. He found out Dolan and Esmerelda would be buried in the same cemetery in three days. He told Sarah’s parents that he would do what he could to be there and that he would bring Sarah, if at all possible.
Then he called his HQ to get all the information he could on whatever the ugly suspect suffered from. While he waited for a return call from a medical professional that owed him a favor, he went into the video room and got the technician to bring up the mall security tapes to see if he had missed anything.
Mostly the footage covered the mass movement of the shoppers as they tried to get out. Parkman watched as panic broke out. He slowed the images racing across the screen to watch for Sarah. After she moved away from Hank, she ran for the sporting goods store.
Good thinking, Sarah. Weapons are in there.
The glass broke beside her. She dove to the floor and then, on her belly, crawled into the store.
How did the glass break? Random gunfire?
Parkman asked the tech to mark the time to the second on the camera that showed the glass breaking and then set up the other tapes to see if he could catch what everyone else was doing at that second.
It took two different cameras before he saw Detective Waller hiding inside a food court booth. He got the footage fast-forwarded until five seconds before the glass broke in the sporting goods store.
He leaned forward as the camera inched along, watching Waller’s every move. At two seconds away, Waller seemed to search the area or watch something. At one second, Waller raised his weapon and aimed across the food court. At the exact second the glass broke, a flash appeared at the tip of Waller’s weapon.
“Holy shit!” Parkman shouted as he dropped back in his chair. “Waller shot at Sarah. He tried to kill her.”
He told the technician to print all the images of all the footage at that second and stick them in a manila envelope for him. He would be back later to pick it up.
Then Parkman ran out of the building, heading for his rental car. Wa
ller was after Sarah and they were both downtown somewhere. He was new to Toronto, but he knew Waller was focused on the area where he lost Sarah last night. He would drive his rental to Yonge Street and then call Waller to find out where he was. Waller would tell him too, once he knew what Parkman had discovered.
Attempted murder of an American citizen, and the security footage at the mall would verify it.
Waller was finished.
Parkman smiled.
Chapter 27
Sarah saw his forehead first. He had leaned out of a parking garage across the street. A moment later, she saw a yoga studio on the second floor of a building on the other side of the parking lot in front of her.
She stopped in front of a bum sitting on the sidewalk, her back to the Rapturites. The cell phone battery slipped inside the back of the phone easily. She powered it up and called Detective Waller’s number. She put the phone on speaker and told him she was downtown and about to be followed by two of the white-faced guys.
“Where are you?” he asked in his husky, heavy voice.
“I don’t know exactly. I’m not from this area. I think I’m on Church Street. I was on Jarvis. But I’ll leave the battery in the cell. Triangulate its signal. You’ll find me across the street in the yoga studio. But hurry. I don’t want to use your gun on these guys and I don’t want to be touched by them.”
“I’m five minutes away. I have men closer.”
“Find the phone, you find me.”
“I’ll call it in on my way over.”
“Bye, Waller. Can’t talk anymore, but I won’t turn the phone off.”
Sarah bent and proffered the cell phone to the bum.
“Here, take this.”
“For me?” he asked.
“Yeah. Just don’t turn it off for at least five minutes. Can you do that?”
“Why?” he asked. “Am I in trouble?”
She needed to go and she had no idea what kind of explanation a street bum would need. She tried a version of the truth.
“There are men with white faces following me so they can Rapture me. This cell phone signal is beaming up to the cell towers, telling the people who are going to stop the fight for Armageddon from happening. Beings from the Other Side are involved. This is important to the future lives of many. Can you handle this?”
His eyes widened. He nodded slowly, looking at the phone as if it were a bar of gold.
“I’ll protect it,” he said as she moved away.
She dodged through cars and vans in the full parking lot, hurrying to the far corner where she could cross the street and enter the yoga studio.
She had no idea what would happen next. All she had was Vivian’s note and a hope that surpassed her instinct of self-preservation.
She would live if she did exactly what Vivian told her to do.
At least she hoped so.
Simon and Philip stepped from the garage into the afternoon sun. The heat hit Simon right away. He wavered on his feet, but it didn’t matter. His target was close. They were almost done. Nothing would get in his way this time. Matthew had told him so.
They ran across the street when there was a break in traffic and approached the vagrant Sarah had stopped in front of.
He took a quick look to see where Sarah was going and saw her enter the front doors of a yoga studio between a men’s fitting store and a restaurant.
He turned back to the vagrant.
“What did that woman give you?” he asked.
“Nothing,” the man said as he moved a hand along the back of his dog.
“Don’t lie to us. We saw her give you something.” Then he had a thought. “It’s a matter of national security.”
“What?” the man said. “She didn’t say anything about that. This cell phone is to help track the white-faced guys—”
Simon reached down and snatched the phone out of the man’s hand.
“Hey!” the vagrant yelled. “You can’t do that.”
Simon turned toward the traffic. A long semi flatbed was passing them. He tossed the phone onto the back of the truck.
“Sorry. Misunderstanding. You can have your phone back, if you can get it.”
Simon took off after Sarah with Philip on his heels. The vagrant shouted about end times as Simon and Philip ran through the parking lot Sarah had just traversed.
He has no idea how right he is.
Aaron got the text from Benjamin that Sarah had stopped to talk to a bum on the sidewalk. She handed him something and took off through a parking lot. He couldn’t handle it anymore and called him.
“Yeah?” Benjamin said as he answered his phone.
“Where is she now?”
“No idea.”
“What? How could you have no idea? You were the closest to her.”
“She stopped and talked to this bum. Then she gave him something and ran away—”
“Where are you exactly?”
“Near the corner of Church Street and Colborne.”
“I’m on my way but tell me what else happened.”
“I stayed back. About two blocks away when she stopped. After handing the bum something, she ran off to the right through a parking lot. I lost sight of her but thought I’d pick her up again when I got to the bum.”
“And?”
“When I started running, two guys ran across the street and talked to the same bum.”
“What? Those are probably the guys that are after her.”
“One of them grabbed what looked like a cell phone from the bum and tossed it onto a truck that was going by. Then they ran in the same direction Sarah had gone.”
Aaron was running now, the wind making it hard to hear on the phone.
“What else?” he shouted.
“When I got to the corner, the two guys that stopped at the bum were gone too.”
“I see you. I’m a block up. Text Alex and Daniel to join us.”
Aaron ran the rest of the block, passing two sets of foot patrol cops on the way, but neither paid any attention.
He got to Benjamin and put his hands on his knees to catch his breath. Seconds later, Alex and Daniel joined them.
“What do we do?” Benjamin asked.
“We find Sarah,” Aaron said.
“I know. But how?”
Daniel stepped inside their circle. “How about calling the police? There seems to be quite a few down here today. If it’s the same guys from the mall massacre, then Sarah’s in more trouble than we can probably help her with.”
Aaron frowned.
“Maybe he’s right,” Benjamin said. “Did you read what the witnesses said? All those guys had to do was touch someone and they died.”
“We can’t call the cops,” Aaron said between breaths.
“I hope this isn’t a recurrence of last year,” Benjamin said. “Doing it all on your own shit.”
Aaron frowned at him. “No. Sarah talked to the cops in the back of the dojo. I overheard her talking to a cop named Parkman. She said she trusted him. When she was talking to Parkman, she told him to watch out for Waller.”
“Who is this Waller guy?” Alex asked.
“He’s the guy all over the news the last few days looking for Sarah, claiming she had something to do with the killings at the Allandale Centre. At least that’s how it sounds.”
“Okay, then it’s solved,” Daniel said. “We don’t call the cops. We call this Parkman dude.”
Aaron told his three-man team to spread out and look around the area for any sign of Sarah or the two thugs as pulled his cell phone out and dialed the police, hoping they could transfer him to a cop named Parkman.
Then he remembered something else Sarah said. She would buy Parkman a box of toothpicks when this was all over.
The police operator picked up.
“Hello,” Aaron said. “I’m looking for a cop by the name of Parkman who is up from America and who may be assisting on a case with Detective Waller. He’s the one who loves toothpicks. It’s regarding S
arah Roberts.”
