Early Release

by Jason Michelsen

  As he walked slowly toward the Temple to meet the Prophet, Adam thought about life. In particular, he wondered how in the hell he had come to a place that required him to meet a normal guy they called "Prophet" at a normal building they called the "Temple." He couldn't buy completely into this cult, but it paid to be on the winning side. From what he had seen so far, Prophet's team wouldn't be in danger of losing anytime soon.

  And all it costs to join is my soul....

  That thought almost made him laugh. Here he was, questioning his leadership because of their flamboyant language, and at the same time putting himself on some cosmic balance between good and evil. Why did everything have to be so dramatic just because the world ended?

  Whatever the reason, it was the world he had to live with now. And that meant religious terms and talk about souls and evil triumphing over good. With the Temple doors in front of him, Adam took a deep breath and prepared to lie his way into hell.

  An armed guard let him in to the Prophet's personal dining room, where the boss waited rather impatiently. Before an excuse could be given -- or made up, even -- he spoke.

  "Saul escaped."

  Adam felt the blood drain from his face -- a strange sensation that left his body as numb as his soul.

  "How...?" He couldn't finish the question. Dead men didn't ask questions. All that mattered was that he had been found out; all the pretending was over.

  "Lionel tried to guard him alone and ended up stuffed in a closet for his trouble. He admitted it happened late last night, so he could be anywhere by now. You knew him, though, better than anyone here. Where would he go? Would he stay for revenge, or run for safety?"

  Black eyes regarded him coolly, like a buzzard waiting for its prey to give up and accept an inevitable demise. It took a moment for Adam to realize that he hadn't been caught in betrayal. He really was here only because he knew David best.

  But how to answer? If he said he would move on, they might follow and find him and the girl. That would be bad for everyone involved. But if he said the man would stick around, Adam was the obvious choice to find him. Something he couldn't do because he had already let him leave. Why is being evil so damn complicated?

  "He'll stick around," he replied slowly, making up his mind only as he spoke. "David's not the kind of guy to leave things unfinished. You tried to capture him, he'll want you dead so he doesn't have to keep looking over his shoulder."

  The big man sighed wearily and leaned back in his chair. "It's a pity, really. We had such a nice chat, I thought he might actually come around.

  "Take some of the men and find him. Top priority. I want David Saul dead and his body on display in the square in twenty-four hours."

  Adam tried to control the shaking he could feel in his gut and meet the eyes in front of him. "I'm not sure I'm the guy for this job, though. Saul is former Army, he knows how to move without leaving tracks. There have to be people with similar training in our crew that would be better for the mission."

  Prophet stood up and smiled. "Good thinking. Find them. Put those guys on your team, but you're still in charge."

  He paused as the smile faded. "Unless there is a conflict of interest here? Do you still have some loyalties to your old pal Saul?"

  "No, sir!" the young man answered immediately. "No, I just want to make sure we use the best team possible to deal with this threat."

  The Prophet stared hard at Adam, weighing him with empty eyes. After what seemed a lifetime of excruciating examination, the disarming smile returned and he nodded, apparently satisfied.

  "Great!" he exclaimed, clapping the younger man on the shoulder. "Son, you've been coming through for me, and that kind of production needs to be rewarded. You finish this job successfully and I'll have a little surprise for you. How does that sound?"

  Adam smiled with an elation he didn't feel. "Thanks, boss. I'm just glad to be part of the team."

  It sounded cliche, but it widened the smile on his psychotic leader's face, so it worked for him. Adam took the opportunity to bow out with the excuse of needing to assemble his team. As Prophet walked him to the door, both men expressed their confidence that David Saul would die tonight.

  Only Adam knew that his target had left town the night before. Only Adam knew how thoroughly screwed he really was.

  85

  Eve slept soundly while David kept watch and -- more importantly -- planned an impossible rescue. Talking about her mother had emotionally exhausted the little girl, and his weak attempts to talk about his daughter just seemed to depress them both. All in all, the loft was not a cheerful atmosphere.

  To keep his mind off his family, Saul concentrated on the problem at hand. Pulling Lisa and Eve's mother -- he still couldn't think of her as Rachel -- out of the gym was going to be difficult. How do you sneak through a hostile town, past armed guards, and into a gym full of scared hostages? And then how do you do all that in reverse, with two untrained women? David looked to the corner at Eve. And what do I do with a ten year old during that time?

  Broken down into basic parts, he considered each obstacle separately. First up was getting around town. Traffic through the trailer park picked up as the sun rose and last night's celebrations wore off, making daytime movement nearly impossible. Most people moving around were concentrated along Main Street, while those not quite recovered lounged outside whichever trailer they had commandeered. It looked like the best he could hope for was another wild party tonight. The earlier the better.

  With the town free to roam through at night, he could move on to the guards assigned to the containment area. These guys would be more sober than the rest of the gang and could make a lot of trouble with just one shout or shot fired. Time was too short for extra reconnaissance; it was far from an ideal situation. People coming and going from the gym during the day made it hard to get a count of guards, leaving Saul to rely on the previous night's memory. Roving patrols had been irregular and consisted of two or three personnel. They moved inside the fires, limiting their visibility and destroying their night vision. That would be useful. From this vantage point he couldn't see any other practical entrances, just the main double doors. That would be less useful.

  David imagined there would be guards posted inside the building as well, but there was no way of knowing where or how many. Uncertainty was not reassuring in situations like this. Drawing them out was an option, but that would probably cause some kind of alert that made his escape more difficult. He would have to get inside the building and improvise from there. This mission just keeps getting better and better, he thought wryly.

  At this point he knew the timing of the plan, and nothing else. Which led naturally into contingencies. Eve needed to be safe before this commenced; he wouldn't leave her to be captured again. Where was safe for an innocent child without parents in a world of unrestrained sociopaths? There had probably been an after school special on it, but he missed that one. Must have been one of those days he was drunk at a seedy strip joint instead of at home with his angelic wife and daughter.

  Turning away from the window, David caught the recently awakened Eve watching him curiously.

  "Did you sleep well?" he asked.

  A blond head in complete disarray nodded in response. Eve moved to the window, careful to stay hidden along its edge. Something in her caution was heart-wrenching; no one so young should take hiding from the bad guys as a natural state. The fact that she was unconsciously cautious instead of childishly carefree was an indictment of an entire society that failed their children.

  "When are we going to get mom?" the girl asked with all the innocence of asking when they were going grocery shopping.

  "Tonight. I don't want to push our luck by waiting too long. I have to be honest, though, I don't know how we're going to pull this off." Lying was something he had never been a fan of.

  To her credit, the kid took it well. Instead of the tearful breakdown he had feared, she simply gazed out the window with a thoughtful look.


  "Is there anything I can help with? You don't have to do everything yourself, you know."

  "Actually, Eve, I do. When I go after your mom and Lisa, I have to do it alone. We need to find a place that you'll be safe while I go in." David watched her carefully, trying to judge how she'd react to the next part.

  What am I worried about? he thought, She's handling this better than me so far.

  He went on. "Worst case scenario: We need a plan for you if the rest of us don't make it."

  She didn't respond, so he waited. For another minute she just watched out the window, expressionless. When she finally turned to face him, there were tears in her eyes. Saul mentally scolded himself for dropping that on her.

  "You are not leaving me alone." Her voice trembled, and for once the vulnerability of youth emanated from her. "We will bring mom and Lisa out of there together."

  "How is it going to look if I save your mother, then she kills me for bringing you along into a dangerous situation?"

  "NO ONE ELSE IS GETTING KILLED!"

  Else. The volume of the shout shocked him, but that one word ripped through him. Else.

  While he thought he had been careful and considerate with her because of her missing mother, the memory of her father's murder had completely slipped his mind. This girl was enduring far more than even David had given her credit for. In less than forty-eight hours, her father was killed, her mother kidnapped, she was abducted, and she was shot at. Now he was telling her that she couldn't be involved in the attempt to rescue Rachel. Yeah, I'm great with kids, he thought with a humorless sarcasm.

  Tears streamed down as her shoulders shook. At her sides, her hands were balled into fists like she was going to take on every guard between her and her mother. Fierce eyes dared him to die on her.

  "I'm sorry, Eve." David apologized -- as much for forgetting her pain as for upsetting her with his words -- through his own misty eyes. "We're in this together, and we will win."

  Tentatively holding out his arms -- had he really forgotten how to hold a hurting child? -- Saul half expected her to turn away. Instead, she rushed to him and flung her arms around his neck, squeezing with all her might. So many nights he had imagined his own daughter greeting him like this. So many nights he had convinced himself he didn't deserve it.

  Now, holding a little girl who needed him, David allowed himself to believe that he just might have a chance at forgiveness from his daughter.

  "Tonight, Eve. Tonight we get your mom back."

  86

  Lisa Brittsen was still in shock. The news, delivered so gently, of Eve's murder had flown through the prisoners in the gym like a wildfire. Even the small groups of octogenarians near the stage looked ready to go to war. The oompa-loompa looking fool who had told them still smiled idiotically in one corner. He seemed oblivious to the energy he had given the once-defeated people of Webster.

  Lisa's plan would go ahead as scheduled, except now she suspected the uprising would be much more violent.

  She looked over at Rachel and laid a hand on her shoulder. "Tonight, Rachel. Tonight we avenge your daughter."

  "And my husband," the young widow replied with blazing eyes. "Tonight we avenge my daughter and my husband."

  87

  The team was assembled from the Prophet's suggestions for competent trackers. Three were former military and one was a local hunter with experience in reading tracks in the sparse vegetation of the region. Then there was Adam. Placed in charge after a successful hunting and elimination of a particularly troublesome little girl. Now the stakes were raised and the challenge greater. He would hunt an old friend with a decade of military training, who had a head start and was hiding somewhere in town.

  The problem was, only Adam knew that he had let the supposedly eliminated girl leave town with the supposedly hiding old friend. There was a certain irony to leading a wild goose chase based on your faked past success.

  Yep, Adam thought as he led the men out of the jail. Tonight is going to be a very interesting night.

  88

  Quietly he moved through the remains of the small town's residential area. Here the quakes had destroyed the houses with much greater efficiency than along Main Street. Here he could think clearly in the silence of the moonlit night. There was a lot of thinking to be done.

  Surrounded by the ruined homes, he wondered about the lives that went with them. Had they escaped? Died in the collapse? Were they killed by the gang?

  Many were probably tucked away in the makeshift prison, waiting for someone to decide their fate. As time raced along, it looked more and more like he would be that someone. It really was not a job he relished, but sometimes there was no choice. Left to themselves the people would sit and wait indefinitely, ever afraid to take the next step.

  He came to a small park with a tree leaning on the swingset. For a moment his mind was filled with children -- much like his own little girl -- playing under their parent's watchful eyes, laughing and unaware of the cruelty of the real world. How beautiful would it be to return to those days when family was familiar, and carefree didn't mean careless? Those days were long past now, and the world had a long way to go before they would be able to live that way again. Too many people now believed that life was all about self-actualization. "Pursuit of" had been dropped, now they felt entitled to happiness without the work.

  Parents once believed it took a village to raise their children, and they appreciated the help. Now they didn't care if it took a village to keep the undisciplined little runts out of jail while mom and dad went clubbing. Ask them to take responsibility for their offspring, or maybe participate in their education, and you obviously didn't understand the pressures that society put on young people. There's no time for discipline when your child is acting up but the party is about to start; just give the kid a pill. Today it was a disability called attention deficit, in his day it was called not enough spankings.

  No, parks like this would remain empty for a long while.

  He had spent so much of his life waiting for people to wake up, but they didn't. Instead they locked up the ones they didn't want and showered them with blame. They wanted criminals like him to be the source of all the evil in the world, including theirs. Bad parenting didn't make hustlers and thugs, hustlers and thugs made parenting impossible. If the bad guys wore black hats, the good guys could wear white; there was no need for shades of gray to get everyone dirty.

  But there was a problem with that theory. He knew that concentrated evil was worse than they thought it could ever be. For future generations to have a chance, someone had to warn them. Someone had to let them know what they were creating. Another unsavory job, but he had to show them what they were doing. It was his mission. It was his Calling.

  He was the Prophet.

  89

  Waiting for sunset had been nerve-wracking for David, especially once he spotted a group of convicts conducting what appeared to be an organized search of the area. The truly worrisome part was that Adam led them. Had he changed his mind about letting them go? It was more likely that he was still trying to help; the search still concentrated near the jail he had escaped from instead of the last place they were seen. Most likely the poor guy's bad luck continued and he was ordered to head up the search because of his familiarity with the target. If that was the case, he was playing a dangerous game by trying to sabotage the search.

  However far gone Adam was, the fact that he had let Eve walk away showed there was still hope for him. As long as he was going to stick around and play hero, the Soldier would like one more chance to help him.

  But Eve, Lisa, and Rachel first.

  By the time darkness fell, Saul had memorized the group's search pattern and had a good grasp of the timing. He also stashed most of their gear and did his best to erase signs of their use from the barn. The sun had been down for maybe an hour when he slipped out into the night with a very determined ten year old in tow.

  Their plan was still fluid -- which was a more o
ptimistic way of saying he didn't have a clue what he was doing. For now they would sneak into town and see what kind of equipment they could loot. With a bit of luck he would find something that would inspire a creative plan.

  Staying clear of the well lit areas required the pair to move around the west end of the trailer park. They crossed Main Street in a crouching run past the garage and found themselves in a decimated neighborhood. Eve froze as she gaped at the extent of the damage, but the rigid backbone he admired so much would not leave her in shock for very long. David led them east through the service alley behind the shops.

  Only a few steps in, he saw a shadowy figure approach the rear of the Town Hall. The Soldier instinctively dropped to a crouch behind a trash can and signaled Eve to do the same. Obediently she hid behind a beat-up pickup on the other side of the wide alley; probably a holdover for the mechanic's lower priority vehicles. David watched as the figure moved slowly to the edge of the building, then paused. For an instant he seemed to grow inexplicably. When he continued around the side and out of view, Saul realized that he he had simply stood up straight and lifted his head. The cocky strut that followed, combined with the impressive size, could only be the Prophet. But what would that madman be doing out here alone? And what could possibly bother him so much he walked with shoulders slumped and head hanging?

  Filing the question in his memory for later, he waved the kid over to him. Having his charge separated from him -- even just by the width of the alley -- did not sit well. With Eve once again at his hip, David led the way farther into the shadowy corridor.

  As they passed the service entrance of the hardware store, a muffled crash drifted out to David's attentive ears. Eve ducked into the shadows of a dumpster, breaking his heart again with her premature world-wariness as she did so. He didn't allow the emotion to slow him; he quickly placed himself between the door and the girl's hiding place.