The back of the moderator’s head suddenly appeared just above the bottom of the picture, informing the bearded man that he had five minutes left before his rival received the floor again. The man nodded his acknowledgement without pause.
Kristen’s heartbeat accelerated.
“Allow me to quote the Reverend Fleming,” he continued, turning to pick up a piece of paper from off the desk. He held it up but didn’t seem to need it, the words rolling off his tongue unashamedly. “‘When we find that, in the four passages in which it occurs, the expression (sons of God) meets us without any explanation of its meaning — this, at least, in the time of the writer, being well understood — and that, in three of these, it can designate only angels: when we see that to assign to it, in the remaining passage, the same signification, is consistent at once with the facts which are there related, and with the connection in which the passage stands — that it accords with all the circumstances, and meets the requirements, of the case — and that, only when we thus understand the term, can these ends be attained — we cannot but think that, to reject this signification, and substitute for it that of pious men, is, not merely to set aside the true and natural meaning, but it is, further, to propose an interpretation, which is not supported by the usus loquendi, and which, moreover, involves not only improbabilities, but even some absurdities.’” He then walked back around the table and sat down, replacing the microphone in its stand.
As soon as the man sat, the spell that had enraptured Kristen to his strange aura, felt through both time and space via the recording, was shattered. She quickly threw her finger at the stop button, immediately sending the picture to a sheet of blackness that stood reflecting her position before it. The series of chills trembling through her body was almost a welcome response simply because they spoke on behalf of her true purity, evidence that whatever had just happened to her was something that her soul did not welcome but, in fact, despised. She ejected the tape and turned it over in her hands. Somehow, captured within the plastic box, was a sense of lingering sexuality, a primitive instinct cloaked within a body of sophistication that had drawn some part of her toward the mysterious speaker. She dropped the unmarked cassette tape on the floor, suddenly afraid that even touching it might welcome back the overtaking of her senses. More than just her senses… her very body. Standing up, she went to the small table and fumbled with the remotes until she found the one that would shut the television off. As she began longing for the safety of her bed, wishing even more desperately that John would call, the tape stared up at her from its position on the floor, its two white-spoked wheels the eyes taunting her, asking questions she had no way of answering.
She fled the room, heading for the steps that would lead to the bedroom. But as soon as her foot touched the first step, the radio in the kitchen turned on, the house suddenly filled with music. It stopped her in mid-motion. Slowly, she removed her foot from off the bottom step and placed it gently back on the wooden floor, as if the music itself might detect her presence. She walked carefully toward the kitchen, her fingers tracing the wall beside her and offering some semblance of balance. As she grew nearer, she was able to identify the song echoing throughout the house.
“Bodies in the sand… we’ll be falling in love to the rhythm of a steel drum band…”
Her mind snapped at the song’s audacity, its significance allusive but not so much so as to prevent her from applying it to her situation. Standing in front of the radio, she listened shakily to the message it sought to communicate — from where or from whom, she didn’t know. Though the hair on her neck standing to attention suggested she had at least some idea.
“Aruba, Jamaica ooo I wanna take you to Bermuda, Bahama — come on pretty mamma…”
She wanted to believe that it was just some fluke, a coincidence targeting an emotional overreaction already in progress.
And then the song, though it was playing from the radio, began to skip.
Kristen reached out to turn it off.
But it was off.
Gasping, she yanked the cord out of the wall.
The music kept playing.
And then her hands went to her mouth as she further realized that the skipping was actually rearranging the words of the song.
“Bodies in the sand, I wanna take you… We’ll get there fast… Bodies in the sand, in the sand, that’s where you wanna go to get away… Falling bodies in the sand, out to sea… mystique, falling out to sea, that’s where we wanna go… Way down to a little place like… a place like… Bermuda, Bahama — come on pretty mama… Bermuda… Bermuda… falling bodies in the sea, out to sea, in — to the sea… Bermuda… Bermuda…”
She grabbed the radio and flung it across the room, smashing it into the wall. Pieces of plastic bounced and skipped across the floor. But the Beach Boys just wouldn’t shut up. Kristen covered her ears with her shaking hands, crying, prayer-filled tears streaking wet lines down her face. A few seconds later, the music came to a sudden stop, plunging the room into eerie silence.
Her cell phone rang.
The sudden loudness of the digitized tone destroyed the creepy silence, and she screamed out in surprise. Trying to recover by placing a hand over the drum solo her heart was pounding out, she answered the incoming call with the other.
Her hope that it was John finally calling was dashed when the sound of Pastor Brian’s voice came over the line. But at least it wasn’t the hard and steady breathing of some masked villain wordlessly claiming responsibility for both the movie and song.
“Are you okay?” he asked, hearing the tremble in her voice.
“No,” she blurted out, sobbing into the mouthpiece.
“What happened?”
She put a hand to her head. “I don’t know,” she cried.
“Are you alone?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want me to send Tabitha over?”
A pause to compose herself. “Can you both come over?” She wasn’t in a condition to care how presumptuous the request might sound.
But there was no hesitation on Brian’s end as he assured her that they’d be right there.
****
It was only fifteen minutes before Brian and his wife arrived at her front door, but those fifteen minutes proved to be enough time for Kristen to at least begin reacquainting herself with the reality she was used to. After hugs were exchanged, she explained John’s failure to call (which had caused Brian to frown rather deeply) and then she showed them the cassette tape, trying to explain its contents while refraining from divulging the strange affect the movie had on her. Next, she took them into the kitchen, to the radio she had thrown against the wall.
Brian studied the shattered remains, his mind trying desperately to appreciate what Kristen told him had happened. Was she mad? Had she imagined the song? Was there something else going on here? He had to consider the possibility. But then…
“You believe me, don’t you?” Kristen asked, suddenly wondering if she made a mistake calling him.
The look in her eyes was all the convincing that Brian needed. Of course she believed her story about the Beach Boy’s remix, but something told him that there was more to it than just a psychological fracture, that it had been real. There was an electricity in the air he could just sense fluttering on the periphery of their realm. “Yeah, I believe you.” He moved a speaker with his foot, half expecting it to blast music at him. It didn’t. “You know,” he said, looking up at her, “John called me the other night. Late.”
She shook her head. She hadn’t known that.
“He had some interesting questions that seemed particularly weird at 2:30 in the morning.” He put an arm around his wife. “Do you mind if I take a look at the tape?”
“No.” And she led them back to the TV. “What was John calling about?”
“I think that whatever was on the tape stirred a curiosity. Not sure why, though.”
She pointed to the VCR and the tape. “I’d like to leave the
room while you watch it. There’s something about the man in the video that’s…” But she didn’t finish the statement, just turned out of the room. Tabitha followed her.
Brian picked up the cassette and pushed it back into the machine, rewinding it to the beginning. With great curiosity, and picking up a strange vibration from some otherworldly sphere, he hit PLAY. He sat down in the chair facing the TV and settled in for whatever was to come.
When the tape ended, he found himself glued to the chair, deep in thought.
Once she knew the tape was over, Kristen brought a cup of coffee into the room for him. “So what was it?” Try as she may, she couldn’t hide the anxiety from her face. She was still shaken.
“It’s an old debate on the sixth chapter of Genesis, on whether the phrase ‘sons of God’ should be taken to mean ‘angels’ or ‘sons of Seth.’”
“Oh.”
“It’s all the stuff John was asking me about. He even texted me from Bermuda last night and this morning. I called you to see if you’d heard from him because he isn’t texting me back.”
“Do you think he’s okay?” A hand reached to intercept a tear.
“I can’t see why he wouldn’t be.” He left it at that, at a logical assessment.
She sat on the sofa next to Tabitha. “What about the guy in the video?”
“What about him?”
“Did he seem… strange to you?”
But the look that crossed his face made it clear that he didn’t know what she meant. “No, why?”
Her eyes went to her feet as she whispered dismissively, “I did.” But then she looked up, eager to change the subject. “What about the radio? That’s weird, isn’t it?”
He nodded, not knowing what to say. Yeah, it was very weird. Horror movie weird. But he put the cup hastily to his mouth in order to escape such a need to clarify.
“Well, what should we do?”
“I think we should pray and keep you company until you feel you’re okay to be alone.”
She sighed. She didn’t know if she’d ever feel like being alone again.
He set down the coffee. “Do you mind if I use the restroom?”
She shook her head, of course not.
He used the short walk to clear his mind. This was an odd situation that required a different approach than anything he was accustomed to dealing with. When he flicked the light on in the little bathroom, he found himself staring at the mirror across from him.
At what was written on it.
Two words took up the entirety of the glass.
SILLY WOMAN
The accelerator to his heart was thrust to the floor as he reached out to touch the letters. There was no substance he could detect beneath his fingertips, as if the words had been seared into the glass. He knew exactly what the phrase inferred — Paul’s second epistle to Timothy, chapter three, verse six. For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts.
And then he noticed something else in the mirror. The reflection of the wall behind him, above the toilet. It, too, had something written across it.
COVER THY HEAD,
It was a reference to Second Corinthians 11:5-10. And every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head… for this reason, and because of the angels, the woman ought to have a sign of authority on her head.
His heart in his throat, and his skin on fire with trepidation, Brian spun back around to the mirror and took in all the words together, taking special notice of the comma after “head.” In this case, it was a grammatical mark indicating who was being addressed. And so it read, COVER THY HEAD, SILLY WOMAN.
Forgetting that he had to actually use the bathroom, Brian walked as calmly as he could back into the living room, praying the whole way. He motioned for Kristen and Tabitha to get up, and then looked into Kristen’s swollen eyes. “I think you should spend the night at our house.”
ELEVEN
There’s more rubble piled up at my feet, spilled both from the adjacent wall and the roof above. It stretches to the ceiling, almost completely concealing that whole side of the room — if it can be called that. As I begin to climb up the hill, loose rocks shifting underneath my weight and bouncing down to the floor, I notice some kind of entranceway buried behind the debris. I don’t know what I’m doing, why I need to get through the rocks. I can hear voices in my head coming from the other side, encouraging me to enter. I’m at the peak of the pile, just two feet from the top of the chamber, and I’m clearing away as many of the rocks as I can, tossing them one by one to the stone floor below. Finally, I have enough of the blocks cleared to make out the top of what can only be a giant door. Made of iron, it must be almost twenty feet high and up to six feet wide. I detect through my night vision strange markings on the stone surrounding the door, some kind of hieroglyph. It certainly isn’t Arab. I can’t stop myself from digging out the entire door. I need to know what’s behind it.
John awoke to someone shaking him. “Time to move,” the voice said. But the words slipped in and out of his cognizant grasp until the hands of comprehension could finally snatch them out of the air. He sat up and stared into the fire before him, but its dancing flames only entranced him more. A tall, shadowy figure was moving around the small fire, and for a second, John didn’t know what it was. Indeed, he didn’t even know where he was or, at the moment, who he was. With great effort, he turned his eyes away from the crackling spellbinder and tried to focus. He saw his backpack resting beside him in the flickering light, and the familiar sight proved to be his first step back to reality. Slowly, the steps compounded, and past events began to catch up with him. Until they mercilessly ran him over, the shape of a million mysteries speeding away behind mystical taillights and a license plate shouting vulgarities that further mocked his confusion. He pressed his palms into his eyes and moaned, wishing that, nightmare aside, he could simply return to sleep’s delightful state of ignorance. Even dreamworld wasn’t as bizarre as the place he was currently drawing his breath.
It was Jackson who was going around the fire, shuffling everyone else awake, prodding them urgently toward the forest. And, judging from the moans that resulted, John was not the only one who had trouble making the transition back to the tropical Oz.
A silhouette appeared in front of the fire, kicking dirt at it. “You okay?” It was Paul’s voice.
John wasn’t sure if he was the intended recipient of such concern, so he didn’t respond, just stood up to stretch. With his head tilted back and his eyes facing the sky, he could tell immediately that the angry cloud covering was still above them, blocking out any light the night sky might otherwise have had to offer. And then a raindrop struck him on the forehead and detonated all the weary trappings still imprisoning his senses.
Hours ago, Jackson had instructed them to get some sleep before nightfall, because for reasons he wouldn’t specify, they were going to be traveling through the night. And because Jackson had seemed rather eager to get to wherever it was they were headed, John figured it couldn’t have gotten dark all that long ago. He guessed it was probably ten or eleven o’clock.
By the time Paul finished quenching the fire, they found themselves surrounded by such a near-perfect blackness that their quiet voices and the earth beneath their feet actually became a source of surprising consolation, letting them know that a physical world still existed and hadn’t really fizzled out with the fire. And then a beam of light pierced the darkness, sweeping back and forth and illuminating their surroundings.
“Let’s go,” Jackson’s voice commanded from behind the brightness.
They could hear him walking away, the flashlight’s glowing head moving with him.
The location Jackson had approved for their campfire rested some thirty yards into the tall cedar forest. He had warned against fires on the beach that might signal to the others their presence, something Chadwick received a scolding for — the needless discharge of
his firearm (which was how Jackson tracked them after returning to The Gegenes and finding it deserted). But as to who or what it was that might discover their presence, he offered no such clarity. His silence, however, had not been taken to kindly, and it prompted a confrontation among the ex-SEALs that, for the most part, concluded with Jackson still not having to divulge much of anything.
Even as he moved further into the darkness, John began reciting what had been revealed in the confrontation. One — they were, in fact, on the same land mass as that of the Bermuda islands, though there were obvious differences that Jackson didn’t attempt to explain. Two — Henry was here somewhere, and they were going to find him. Three — Jackson had worked with Ronald to get them here, though he didn’t seem to completely trust Ronald and was slightly bothered by Chadwick’s presence. Four — Jackson was sorry for deceiving his Teammates but didn’t think they would have taken him seriously if he’d disclosed everything from the start. Five — there were things on the island that would be looking for them, specifically “Johnny.” And six — they couldn’t return to The Gegenes because “they” had already taken it.
These were the useable pieces that had spilled out of all the pushing and shoving, everyone seemingly resigned to the fact that it was all the information they were going to get for a while. But now, walking through the darkness and trying to avoid a thousand different unseen obstacles, John could sense the men around him growing impatient once more. And it was Chris who finally served as the mouthpiece for their fuming frustration. He began asking questions about the village, Henry’s license, the wall that Chadwick claimed to be from some unknown but advanced era, the sword… But Jackson didn’t respond. Not with shock at hearing such fantastic things, or with an explanation that might explain them.
Progeny Page 19
