by Ryan Green
The van takes off down the street and three police cars lead the way. Mother and Megan get into an SUV trailing behind the van providing an escort to ensure they get Blaine to the sanctuary uninterrupted. They are sitting in silence for several minutes before Mother begins to speak.
“I am very proud of you Megan. You have done everything that has ever been asked of you and your time of true power and glory is soon approaching.”
Megan is staring at Mother and Mother grabs her hand and begins to caress Megan’s cheek with the back of her hand. Megan closes her eyes and she begins to have a flashback to the first time she and Mother met.
Megan is sitting in her bedroom and she hears footsteps coming up the stairs headed toward her. The door opens and a woman walks into her room. Megan’s parents are standing behind the woman in the doorway as if they are preventing her from running out..
“Do you remember me, Megan? From when you were little?” the woman asks.
Megan looks at her closely, she looks her up and down and examines every detail of her face.
“I don’t think I do maam” Megan replies to the woman.
“That really is a shame. How about from the ceremony Megan? I was the conductor. They call me the Harbinger, but you can just refer to me as Mother” the woman tells Megan.
“I think I might remember you now, that all sounds familiar.”
“We have very big plans for you Megan. I know you are only sixteen now but you have been chosen. I have a son Megan, his name is Blaine. He is nearly twenty years old. In a few years he is going to be ready to marry and have children and become the new Harbinger and we want you for his wife. You don’t have to acknowledge me or my offer and agree to this now but it is something you need to think about, and you absolutely cannot tell anyone else. If anyone inside or outside of the Order of Azoth were to find out it would create exceptional levels of jealousy and dissension toward our regime and what we are trying to create.”
Megan sits in silence. Mother stands up and she gives Megan a kiss on the cheek.
“I look forward to meeting with you again in a few years Megan.” Mother walks out of the room.
Megan opens her eyes and she and Mother are still sitting in the back of the SUV and Mother grabs Megan's hand. “I chose you for a reason Megan. You are strong. You are kind. You are smart. You are beautiful. You are everything that the Order of Azoth needs in a Harbinger.”
This conversation causes Megan's brain to rapidly begin to replay hundreds of past memories of her and Mother but one especially stands out to her, this one not too far in the past.
Megan and Mother are sitting together at a coffee table in Megan’s childhood home.
“Blaine is going to turn on us Megan. We have people in place to take him away and place him into protective custody. Once he is placed we need you to move with him. You will organically run into him at a coffee shop or something and ask him out. He will instantly fall in love with you. When you begin to think that he plans to ask you to be his wife we will go from there. We need you to constantly check in with us and keep us filled in on details. You must completely appeal to him in every way. It is essential to the Order of Azoth that both prospective Harbingers come together and our time to complete this all is starting to get extremely thin Megan.”
Mother and Megan hear a loud screeching and grinding and the SUV slams to a sudden stop.
“Why the hell have we stopped?” Mother asks the driver.
“The van in front of us slammed on its brakes” the driver of the SUV looks back and explains.
Mother scans the road up ahead of her. She sees a railroad crossing has been activated and the only vehicle in front of them is the van that Blaine is in stopped about five feet away and all she can make out is the back of the van with no ground in between.
“The police cars in front must have gone through the crossing before it activated and the van stopped for some reason” the driver tells Mother .
“Well then get out and see what the hell is going on” Mother shouts at the driver.
Mother sees the driver get out of the car and he starts to walk toward the back of the van and suddenly he disappears.
Blaine pulls the driver to the ground between the two vehicles and he begins to choke the driver until he passes out.
Blains gets into the front seat of the SUV where Mother and Megan are sitting in the back and they take off.
“Mother, I see you and Megan have already gotten to know each other, but something tells me this isn’t the first time that you two have gotten to meet and if things go my way now you will get to spend eternity together in hell.”
Blaine stomps on the gas and drives through the railroad crossing arm and slams on the brakes to stop on the tracks. He presses the lock buttons on the doors to ensure that neither Mother or Megan can escape. He slowly turns the SUV toward the train and he looks back at Mother and Megan. Megan has begun to cry and frantically pulls at the door handles as she is begging for Blaine to let her out.
Blaine floors the gas pedal again and races down the train tracks to meet the train head on. He looks back at Mother and Megan one more time before the lights from the train blind everyone inside of the SUV.
The train is blowing its horn and the sound is getting louder and louder until it's too late for any of them to get out of the way.
The train horn is blowing, Blaine can see the conductor motioning for them to get out of the way until the man disappears into the blinding lights of the train and all he can see is an out of focus blue force he can only assume to be the front end of the unrelenting pissed off locomotive.
The 150 ton steel locomotive cuts through the SUV with ease as it travels well over 100 MPH and everyone inside of the SUV is torn to pieces and any identifying characteristics of living and breathing human beings practically evaporates into thin air from the impact.
Chapter Twenty Two
Blaine is jarred back into consciousness as his fabricated act of revenge and destruction is enough to awake from his temporary coma and he comes to feeling disheveled, distraught and physically sickened with an overwhelming sense of betrayal.
He begins to roll around to feel his surroundings and he is still in the back of the van and is not sure if his consciousness is a figmented version of reality from the drugs or an actual living nightmare as he feels aching all over from the beating he took shortly before being stuffed in the back of the van.
The door opens and Blaine sees a slight outline of a hand reaching toward him as the cover is pulled from his eyes. He sees Megan and Mother standing outside of the van looking intently at him.
“Megan, you knew about this all along, didn't you?” Blaine asks Megan.
“I did Blaine.”
“Why would you go along with this?” Blaine asks.
“She will not be made to feel ashamed for doing what she was born to do, Blaine. You and her were meant to rule together and you turned your back on that. You will not try to make her feel guilty, you are the one who should feel guilty for letting thousands of us down.” Mother says to Blaine. She turns to two men who are standing nearby awaiting their arrival “take him inside and put him in the Harbinger suite.”
Megan looks at Mother standing next to her “you are letting him stay in the Harbinger suite?”
“Not just him Megan, both of you. We still have to go forward with this sacrifice, the future of this depends on it. He may not want to rule but someone still has to Megan, you know what you have to do.” Mother says to Megan.
“I understand Mother.”
Blaine is taken into the house and walked down a long hallway dimly lit with pictures of prior Harbingers lining the walls. The floor is a hardwood covered mostly in a red runner that ends at a large white French door at the end. The men open the door and Blaine is carried into a bedroom. His hands and feet are untied and he is thrown onto a bed.
“Don’t move until we leave this room or you’ll get beaten even worse than the first time”
one of the men says as they walk out of the room.
Blaine hears the door lock from the outside and he runs to the door and tries to open it. He punches and kicks the door and throws his shoulder into it several times but the door doesn’t move an inch. Blaine is locked in the room.
Blaine begins pacing back and forth in front of the bed planning a way to possibly escape from the room. The room is very large with dark gray walls and white wainscoting around the entire area. There are several windows but as Blaine tries to open them he sees men standing outside of each of them guarding from his escape. He opens a door that leads into a large bathroom area with a big jetted marble bathtub, the floor is marble, the shower is marble and the vanity is marble, Blaine looks up and there is a large skylight window at the top of the vaulted ceiling about 15 feet up. Blaine scans the bathroom for a chair to stand on but quickly realizes it is too high. Blaine walks back out of the bathroom and sits on the bed and tries to think of another way to escape for several minutes until he hears footsteps approaching the door. He looks around the room and picks up a chair sitting in front of a nearby night stand and prepares to use it as a weapon.
Blaine hears a lock open and the door handle turns and the door opens, Megan walks through the door and stands in the doorway. “Oh would you please put that chair down Blaine, we both know that you don’t have it in you” Megan enters the room to talk with Blaine.
Megan walks over near Blaine and she sits on the end of the bed. She pats the bed next to her to motion for Blaine to sit down next to her. He begrudgingly does so.
“Look around you Blaine, this bedroom is gorgeous and it could be ours. This bedroom is just the beginning of what would be ours too Blaine. This is just one small room in one small home in one small city in a world that we own. We have to do this Blaine. This is our destiny. Yes all of this was planned and yes I did trick you but I love you Blaine and we owe it to ourselves to take what is rightfully ours..”
Blaine sits in silence.
“All of this is going to go forward whether or not you agree to it. If you agree to it then you and I can share the power, we can both make decisions together. We can rule with love and compassion and we can make changes for the better, we can do that together. But if you don’t agree then you will force me to turn everyone against you once we assume power, which won’t be hard to do. They might kill you or they might just take you away forever and torture you, I’m not sure to the extent of what this crime would call for.”
“Megan, why do you want this so badly? I told you what these people do. I told you who they are, why would you want to be a part of that?” Blaine asks Megan.
“They molested me Blaine. They inserted a blade inside of me and they cut me. They cut me open and they tasted me, but that’s not just it Blaine, they stole every bit of innocence from me that they could and I want to get back at them. I want them to suffer for doing that to me. I know it was not only me that they hurt Blaine. I have to kill Mother and Father for what they did to me as a child. I knew this was the only way to get revenge for it. By assuming the role of the new Harbingers we get to kill the old.”
“So your plan is to get back at them by joining their cult?”
“Get back at them by killing them by taking from them the only thing that they ever really cared about. Then after I kill them or we kill them we can kill everyone else that is not worthy of this great blessing.”
Blaine is now realizing Megan’s plan.
“Once we are in charge we can kill everyone involved in the order? Is that what you think will happen? They have been around for a very long time Megan, people are not just going to listen to us right away. Even if they do eventually listen to us do you actually think they will just let us start killing all of their members? This is their parents, their siblings, their spouses and their children were talking about.”
“I promise you they will Blaine. These members are loyal to the Order and to the Harbingers and that is it. Once your parents surrender their power to us the members will have no choice but to follow our new directives. Every time a new Harbinger comes into power they sculpt the Order to the image that they believe best for all of its members and if that image means that some people have to die then they will die. Whether they choose to take their own lives or they are forced into the fire, they will die.”
“But do we really want to take over this cult, Megan?”
“We will be two of the most powerful people in America. We will have to overhaul what this all stands for. We can kill all of the people who have harmed children, kill everyone who uses violence against children to make money. We can really do good Blaine. We will be in charge and no one can question us.”
Blaine agrees with Megan “It is sickening they have sunk this low. We have our hands in politics, in banking, in sports and nearly everything else in this country but my parents have let pedophilia go on this long for what?”
Megan kisses Blaine on the lips and stands up “now you are starting to see, I'll be back shortly my love.”
Megan leaves the room, she goes through the house and outside where Mother is waiting for her.
“He has agreed to wed me Mother, he has agreed to take over.”
“He knows he must kill his father and I in order for you both to become the new harbingers?”
“I think that is the only reason he agreed to do it, Mother.”
“After all of this time you still don’t see the plan here do you Megan?”
“The plan to put Blaine in charge?”
“Don’t be so naive Megan. He loves you, he will do anything for you but you are the one we want to lead, you always have been. Blaine is just a pawn. Megan when we abducted Blaine it was because we knew a male needed to be the figurehead for all of this, but it has always been the women harbingers that have been in charge. Did your parents ever tell you how they came about raising you?”
“No? What do you mean?”
“Megan. You are our first birth child. Sadly because you were born a female we could not leave the fate of the order in your hands. We gave you away to your parents to raise you with the agreement that when you were of age we would find a male for you to be with. That is why we took Blaine. We took Blaine and we raised him to be a perfect submissive spouse for you. Someone who would never challenge your lead. We love you Megan and everything we have done has been to ensure you will truly lead as the true Harbinger of the Order of Azoth.”
“If you were the true Harbinger yourself why didn’t you just change the rules so that a female could lead?” Megan asks Mother.
“It’s not that simple Megan. There are rules that are in place and have been in place for a very long time. Times are changing but certain things are expected of the women that stand aside the men in place.”
“You gave me away because you were too afraid to challenge these men and their outdated chauvinistic views? Then you kidnapped some innocent boy and you brainwashed him? All so you could hope to make it up to me in the future? You are truly crazy, do you know that?”
“It is not that simple Megan. I love you, and you deserve to take your rightful place. That is why I did this. Maybe by the time your reign comes to an end you can change some things but I could not and I did what I could to ensure that you would be here today. Now go get ready, the ceremony is about to start. Go and take your rightful place as the true Harbinger.”
Two men in red cloaks enter Blaine’s room and they grab him. Blaine is blindfolded and led outside by the men. The men walk him outside with Blaine and remove the blindfold.
Blaine is standing before a collection of men and women in cloaks, half of them are red and half of them are black. Mother and Father are standing at the pulpit in red cloaks with Megan in black and everyone is staring at Blaine waiting for him to approach.
Mother motions for the men to bring Blaine to them.
“There will be a sacrifice tonight. A man and a woman must die in order for the new Harbingers to assume total control. As
the custom has always stated, in order for the new regime to have total power and control the old regime must perish in flame. That is why we are here tonight. Our son Blaine after all these years and through numerous obstacles has finally decided to acknowledge his place as the heir to the Order of Azoth. Alongside his soon to be beautiful wife Megan they will be the new Harbingers.”
Father steps forward “My son, take your wife hand in hand.”
Megan takes his right hand and Blaine grabs Megan’s hand across from him.
Father pulls a dagger from his cloak and he slices open Blaine’s left palm. He reaches to Megan and grabs her right hand and he slices open her right palm.
