by Jerry Ahern
“Perhaps I am, John. You were always able to subordinate your humanity to your logic. And you did it one time too often. You wanted to love me— physically. But you would never allow yourself to. But because of your humanity, your perfect logic hurt you. In trying to do what you logically deduced was the impartial, the correct thing, you made the most subjective decision any man has ever made.”
Rourke laughed—a short laugh. “I kinda
Ql
screwed up, huh?”
“I love you with all of my heart. I’ll always love you that way. And I’ll do your will if that is what you choose.”
“Michael.” Rourke smiled. “He’s, ahh—“
“Not you. He couldn’t be. No matter how like you he is—no matter what he looks like, Annie said he looks just like you. No matter what is in his heart or his mind—he’s not you.”
He raised his eyes—he’d been studyjng the toes of his combat boots in detail, the added coats of polish he’d given them before the last sleep had preserved them perfectly. Some of the spare pairs of combat boots in storage—he should look to them, he reminded himself.
“I never planned for falling in love with you,” he told her simply. “It changed so—it—“ “Sarah will be so happy when she sees Michael, when she gets to know Annie.
She’ll—“
He closed his eyes. “No, she won’t. He’s a man now—I took her little boy. I took her little girl.”
“You and Sarah, you can have—“
“I don’t think so,” Rourke answered, lighting one of his new cigars in the blue-yellow flame of his battered Zippo. “I don’t think so.”
“But she loves you—“
“If we’re going to make any time while there’s still daylight—“ “John-“ Rourke looked away from her. He didn’t know what to say and there wasn’t much point in say-ing anything at all, he felt. “No point at all,” he told the wind.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Rather than going back to where he had hidden the Harley, they had walked, the girl—she was very pretty—telling him the Place was less than a day’s journey from the spot where they had spent the night. The snow and the cold made more permanent shelter imperative, Michael Rourke had reasoned—and his curiosity at finding the nature of her people was something he realized to be insatiable. She had had no clothes and from his things and with his help she had fashioned some. His spare pair of Levi’s was too hopelessly large for her; but with a cut of rope she had fashioned a belt and the Thermos blanket had become an ankle-length skirt. She wore one of his spare shins and his sweater against the cold, his sleeping bag like a coat. With part of the butchered Thermos blanket and a little more of the rope, she had fashioned coverings for her feet, and in addition to these wore two pairs of his boot socks. She seemed physically fit, healthy—the pace she set was a quick one as they moved out of the woods, widely circumventing the clearing where the cannibals had held her and nearly killed her.
He watched her hair as it caught in the wind—it was a golden blond color, like the yellow of the sun and cascaded in waves to the middle of her back. She turned around suddenly—he guessed she somehow knew he was watching her. She smiled and the pale blue of her eyes struck him.
“You’re very beautiful,” he told her.
She laughed. “The Archangel Michael is very kind, but I am not beautiful.” Her face was thin, but not unpleasantly so—it was youth, he decided. “How old are you?”
“I have nineteen years—that is why it was my time.”
“Your time?”
“To be sacrificed to Them.”
Michael had no idea what she was talking about. He suddenly realized that he had never asked her name. “What’s your name?”
She laughed again. “Only the Families have names.”
“You have to have a name. What do they call you?”
“Who?”
“Your friends—the other people?”
“Oh, I am Madison. But then so are many others. The numbers change when one goes.”
“What do you mean—goes?”
She stopped walking, putting her tiny, long-fingered hands on her hips. “The Archangel Michael must know what it means when some person goes. You laugh at me.”
They were coming into some rocks. They had been walking for two hours by the position of the sun. He glanced at the Rolex on his left wrist—it was two hours and fifteen minutes. “Let’s rest for a few minutes before we go on,” he decided, starting toward the rocks, talking to her still.
“And I told you—I’m not an archangel, my name is Michael, but it’s Michael Rourke.” She laughed. “That must be why you do not know what it means when someone goes. In the language of heaven, Rourke must mean Arch-angel. In the language of the Place, goes is like—
well, whatever it would be in the language of heaven.” He found a flat rock and sat on it, the girl dropping to a slightly lower rock beside him, tucking her knees up almost to her chin, gathering the improvised skirt around her legs.
“When someone goes,” he persisted. “What happens?”
“You joke with me again, Archangel Michael.”
“I’m—“ He started to tell her he was not an archangel. Instead, he said, “For convenience sake, just call me Michael.”
“Like, ohhh, like you called the other angel Pilate. I feel this is disrespectful for me not to call you Archangel Michael.” “It isn’t disrespectful, believe me.”
“Michael—Michael,” she repeated, smiling. “I like the sound of Michael.”
“What do they call you?”
“When I learned that Madison twenty-four goes I became Madison fifteen.”
“Madison fifteen?”
“One is born a Madison and assigned an immaturity number, but then at the age of eight one is given a maturity number. I was Madison twenty-nine, then I was Madison nineteen, then I was Madison four. I am now Madison fifteen. But I am probably not Madison fifteen anymore. When someone is sacrificed to Them, the person goes and their number is reassigned.”
“Then you’re just Madison.” Michael Rourke smiled.
She appeared to consider this. “Yes, Michael. I am Madison.”
“What are some of the other names at the Place?”
“Among the Families or among the people like myself?”
“Like yourself, for openers.”
“There are Hutchins, Greeleys, Cunninghams —many like that. There are many Cunninghams but they work in direct contact with the Families.” “Madison—who are the Families?”
“The Families own the Place.”
“What are some of their names?”
“One of the Families is called the Vandivers. Another is called the Cambridges.
Another is—“
He cut her off. “And these people have first names. I mean like Michael is a first name.”
“Oh, yes, Michael—once I served Elizabeth Vandiver in her suite. I carried in her wedding dress along with several of the other Madisons.” He puzzled over this a moment. “What do the Madisons do?” She laughed. “What Madisons always do. Make the clothing, clean the clothing, repair the clothing, take the wrinkles from the clothing, fit the clothing. But only two of the Madisons do this—fitting.”
“Just for the women or—“
She laughed again. “The Hutchins do this for the men—they fit the clothing. But the Madisons do all the rest.”
“You’re a servant.”
“Of course. I am a Madison.”
“All Madisons do this?”
“Yes, Michael—what else would a Madison do?”
“Who does the cooking?”
“The Callaways.”
“The Place—who cleans it?”
“We keep things clean among ourselves—but for the Families?”
“Yes—for the Families.”
“The Cunninghams—they clean and serve and—“ “What do the Families do—like this Elizabeth Vandiver?” “Do?” and she laughed.
“Yeah—what do they do?”
“Miss Elizabeth Vandiver paints, and she raises orchids. But, of course, she is Madame Elizabeth Cambridge now. She supervises her household.” “You have two classes—the masters and the servants.”
“Yes.” She nodded.
Q
“Why?” Michael asked her.
“Why?”
“Yeah, why?”
“It is always this way.”
“When someone goes—it’s always to Them?”
“No,” and her face lost its smile. He noticed her dimples by their absence from the corners of her mouth. Her lips were thin, pale. Her hands trembled and he didn’t think it was the cold. “A very little one goes sometimes—it is not known why. And the very old ones. When it is time, each of them goes. And when a new one is born someone always goes. When Madame Elizabeth had her baby, I thought it would be my turn for sacrifice, And it was.” Michael Rourke closed his eyes, opened them, focusing on the toes of his combat boots. “How many people live at the Place?”
“One hundred,” she answered.
“About a hundred, huh?”
“Exactly one hundred.” It was the first time he had heard her use any word even similar to exactly.
“What do you mean—exactly a hundred?”
“There are never more than a hundred—except for a few hours after a young one is born. Sometimes there are less than a hundred, but then new ones are born.” “Exactly a hundred. Young and old, male and female?”
“Yes—why do you take such interest, Michael?”
Cannibals lay outside the Place. Inside, he realized, there was likely something much worse. Systematic genocide with willing victims. He reached out his left arm, putting it around the girl’s shoulders, drawing her close against him as they sat beside one another on the rocks. “You’ll be safe, Madison,” Michael Rourke almost whis-pered. “Safe.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
John Rourke ran his bare fingertips across the ground—it was the faintest of tire impressions. He stood to his full height, stiff still from the cryogenic sleep but feeling his strength return. He didn’t look back. “Michael’s been this way. He must be following a straight northwesterly course.” “He cannot—the mountains,” he heardNatalia interject. ‘ ‘It doesn”t matter which way he picks around an obstacle—he’ll pick up the same course on the other side. If we lose all track of him, Paul can go one way, you and I the other,” he told her, pulling on his gloves against the cold, turning, walking back toward the bikes. Natalia stood beside the jet-black Harley. Paul rode his own bike. The blue Low Rider Rourke had taken from the Brigand camp was the machine Michael rode. “You’ve gotta remember,” Rourke told them, mounting the Harley, putting his dark-lensed aviator-style sunglasses back to cover his eyes. “I taught him land navigation—I taught both of them. But this is his first time any great distance from the Retreat. He’ll be smart enough to stick to the basics, even if it means going out of his way a little. Anyway— he’d stick northwesterly because he’s trying to pinpoint that crash site or whatever it was.”
“The messages on the tapes—or whatever they were. Could you figure out the language?” Paul asked.
Rourke looked at Rubenstein, feeling Natalia mounting the Harley behind him, feeling her arms circle his waist. “Yeah. It was some sort of computer message. I’d need the access code to figure it out.”
“The Eden Project?” Natalia’s voice asked from behind him. Rourke twisted in the saddle, looking at her. “No, this is something else. I don’t know what— not yet. But if something crashed out there, well, we’ll see,” and Rourke shoved the CAR-15 back on its sling, gunning the Harley, feeling the machine as it vibrated under him. “Let’s go, Paul,” he called. There were still a few hours of daylight. After the cryogenic sleep, he would not feel he needed sleep, but he was tired from the exertion. So long without exercise or proper nutrition.
He let out the Harley—to follow his son.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“I have never eaten flesh—it is forbidden. Them, they eat flesh.” Michael looked at the jerked beef stick in his right hand. “Used to be, I remember it a little— before the Night of The War—“
“Between the angels?”
“No, there weren’t any angels involved.” He smiled, watching how the glows from the firelight played across her little girl face. “But before the Night of The War, you could go places—fast food restaurants they called them. You could get hamburgers and chicken sandwiches and fish sandwiches. I always liked hamburger. But there aren’t any animals now. When the Eden Project returns, they should bring back animals and after a while, there should be meat again. But it’s a delicacy now.”
He extended the jerked beef stick to her—Annie had processed some of the less appealing cuts of meat in the freezer into jerky. The darkness around them was cold, forbidding, but it was warm near the fire in the shelter of the rocks. He had given up on reaching the Place before dark, and had not wanted to come on it after the light was gone. He had worried over the fire, that guards from the Place might see it, or the cannibals. But the cannibals would be glutted and he had beaten them off once. And Madison had told him there were no guards at the Place.
She sat close beside him and he gnawed away a piece of the jerked beef. “Come on—I can’t see where it’s against your religion.” “The angels eat flesh?”
He avoided the remark. “This isn’t flesh like you’re thinking of. The people I call cannibals—
the ones you call Them— they eat other people, the flesh of other people. This is the flesh of cattle. They were raised specifically to be eaten even-tually. That was their function.”
She licked her lips. She had eaten half the supply of dehydrated fruit and vegetables he had brought as trail food, the fruit and the vegetables from the garden. It had been only the last few years that they had actually gotten the fruit trees to bear, pollinating the trees themselves. She had eaten five of the fingers of cornbread Annie had sent with him. “I will try the flesh.” “That’s a girl.” Michael felt himself smile. He handed her the beef stick. He watched as gingerly she placed it near her mouth. “Think of it as meat—like hamburger or something.”
“Hamburger,” she repeated, touching the tip of her tongue to the rolled stick. Her tongue moved as rapidly as the tongue of a snake was supposed to move. He had read of snakes, seen thousands of them in a very famous movie his father had the videotape of. But the comparison to a snake was wrong somehow, he thought. Her tongue moved like the wings of a hummingbird. He remembered actually seeing one during the times he and his sister had been on the trail with their mother after the Night of The War. Her tongue moved like that. He asked himself why he was watching her in such detail. She placed the stick of beef in her mouth. Her nose wrinkled up a little and he laughed as she struggled to tear the bite she had taken from the stick. She handed it back to him.
He watched as she held it in her mouth. “You don’t have to eat it if you don’t want to—I just wanted you to try it.”
“It—is—is very tasty, Michael.”
His arm was around her. He watched her mouth as she chewed, her throat, the movement there as she swallowed. “Why do you know so much about angels and archangels and so little about hambur-ger?” It was a stupid question, the way he put it, he realized.
She smiled, the firelight in her eyes, changing the shade of the blue there. “We read the Holy Bible. The Families—they read other things sometimes. But we read the Holy Bible and the Holy Bible is interpreted for us by the Ministers.” “Who are the Ministers?”
“The heads of the Families—men from each of the Families are the Ministers. It is always this way.”
She shivered in his arm and he couldn’t quite understand that because she was very healthy seeming and she was dressed more warmly than he, the sleeping bag she had used as a coat earlier when they’d walked now swathed around her beside the fire.
He held her more closely against h
im.
“Do these Ministers—do they tell you about other things, besides the Bible?”
“Oh, yes, they tell us everything that we need to know.” “Have you ever wondered if there’s maybe something you needed to know that they didn’t tell you?”
“But the Ministers know best for us.”
“You’re beautiful, Madison.”
She looked away. “You joke with me. I am not beautiful. Madame Elizabeth Cambridge is beauti-ful. Miss Genevieve Vandiver is beautiful. I am—“ “I said you’re beautiful. May I kiss you?’
She raised her eyes, looking at him, the fire making shadows there one instant, the shadows gone the next.
“But you are an archangel and I am only a Madison.”
“Then there shouldn’t be anything wrong if I kiss you,” Michael Rourke told her.
“I have never—I am not a breeder.”
“A breeder—a breeder?”
“Only some from the Madisons can breed and I was not selected.”
“To breed with whom—another Madison?”
“That is forbidden.”
“To breed with whom, then?”
“With one of the Ministers, or someone ap-pointed by them from the Families.”
“And who do the male Madisons breed with?” nu
“After the first time—they may breed with any of the female breeders if the permission is given.”
Michael Rourke felt a tightness in his throat he had never felt. “Breed with me, then.”
Her eyes seemed suddenly so wide. “An arch-angel would not—“
“I told you, I’m not an archangel. I’m a man. And suddenly I want to breed with you very much. But we don’t call it breeding. Although I guess that’s what it is. I’ve never done it before either.”
“If it is not breeding, then how would one say it then?” He watched her face, her eyes—her lips. He touched his lips lightly to hers. She didn’t move away. “It’s called making love. And you’re the first woman I ever kissed besides my mother or my sister or some relative years ago I can’t remember.”
“Michael.” She whispered his name, saying nothing more. His hands moved, almost independent of thought, under the sleeping bag that was around her, her arms folding around his neck. He felt her breath against his skin, his face.
