by Jim Heskett
CHAPTER ELEVEN
12 DAYS UNTIL
Micah stood in front of the hardware store’s glass doors as the sun inched over the mountains to the east. The sky was a blaze of purple, which would become pink, then yellow, and finally blue. One nice thing about getting up at the butt-crack of dawn to come into work was these sunrises. He’d never been one to pay attention to them before.
He sipped his mug of coffee and unlocked the front door. The first customers didn’t wander into the store until eight or so, but Walter the store manager was adamant that those doors should be unlocked at seven on the dot. Walt seemed like a good guy most of the time, so Micah didn’t mind.
Micah flicked the switch to unlock the doors and took one last look at the ever-changing sky before dropping his mug off in the break room. A dozen people, including Hannah and Magda were in there, and those two were sitting side by side and whispering to each other. The backs of their green vests like conjoined twins. They did not acknowledge his presence as he let his mug clatter into the sink and then ran some water over it.
“I’m off to my station,” he said in a loud, clear voice, and a couple other coworkers wished him well while the two he wanted to speak with said nothing to him. Didn’t even glance in his direction.
Micah took up his usual position along the aisle with the power tools. He’d finished training with no problem. He could tell a customer the difference between an 8-volt drill and a 12-volt drill, and recommend one based on the job they wanted to undertake. He knew whether gas-powered or pneumatic nailguns were better for certain tasks. He had a reasonable idea which aisles contained which things. Micah Reed, small town hardware store employee.
He hadn’t had too many jobs in his life, since he went from high school to college to flunking out, then found himself in Luis Velasquez’s employ in the Sinaloa cartel. A few restaurants, a couple short-lived office jobs, temping here and there, and other nomadic gigs like that. And since moving to Denver, the government had gotten him the job working as a skip tracer and assistant to Frank Mueller, which was less like work and more like a daily education.
Micah owed a lot to Frank. A retired cop who became a bail bondsman, a man who refused to move out of his poor black neighborhood, even though he had the money to do so. A curmudgeon of an old man who looked much sterner than he actually was. When he flipped the switch from boss to AA sponsor, Frank became even less of a curmudgeon.
As Micah waited for his first customer in that boring opening hour, Magda drifted in front of him, and he left his station to follow her. She breezed into the plumbing aisle, her neck-length brown hair swishing behind her. She was pretty, and had been since puberty mutated her from the gangly tomboy who played in the mud with her brothers into a complicated thing with curves and mood swings. His friends in high school made all the usual hot-little-sister jokes, and Micah threatened more than a few times to crack some heads if they ever laid a finger on her. Not that he ever actually had or had needed to. Seemed like the big brother thing to say.
When she paused in front of a rack of nuts and washers to note something on a pad of paper, Micah halted a few feet behind her and cleared his throat.
“Magda.”
She stopped writing for a second, frowned, then resumed, her head down and eyes focused on the pad. A chunk of hair slipped from her ear and fell over her face, obscuring her eyes.
“I know you’re not going to talk to me, but you can listen. Maybe you don’t think you owe me that, but it’s important.”
She pursed her lips and scribbled faster, and took a few steps down to study more bins of parts. Micah inched along the aisle, still keeping his distance.
“I don’t understand what you’re doing here, in this town, with these people. I don’t know what happened to you that you would go from college and a regular job to living with these religious nuts.”
A scowl crossed her face, but Micah didn’t let up. “There’s something going on with Lilah and the rest of them, and I don’t think it’s safe for you to be here. Why don’t you come with me back to Denver, and I’ll help you get set up somewhere? You can go anywhere you want.”
Her face turned beet red. “You never gave a shit about me before, so why should I believe you now?”
He was so surprised that she’d spoken that he didn’t take in what she’d said at first. “Magda, I…”
“College and a regular job?” she said. “Tell me, where was I working two years ago? Three years ago? What year did I graduate from college?”
He didn’t know. During each of those time frames, he’d been wallowing in a drunken stupor, doing horrible things for the Sinaloa cartel. Things he’d like to forget.
He shrugged, even though he knew it would only alienate himself from her. But it’s not as if he could make something up.
“That’s what I thought,” she said.
Then, a flash of a green vest appeared out of his peripheral, and he caught Hannah lurking at the end of the aisle, watching them. Her gaze was curious and hesitant. But it contained a lot of power, if Hannah decided to tell Lilah what she’d seen here.
Magda saw this too and her face bled from angry to neutral. “Tools are three aisles over. That’s where you should be.” With that, she shoved the notepad into her vest pocket and retreated down the aisle.
When Micah looked back, Hannah was gone. He returned to his spot at the front of the tools aisle, defeated. Magda had apparently gotten over her shock at realizing he was alive, and now that old anger at him resurfaced. Her comment stung, but it was fair. Micah hadn’t been a good brother. But how was he supposed to repair those old wounds if he couldn’t talk to her about it? How could he show her that he’d changed when they lived in a house where you could only speak of the goddamned Bible?
Was he going to have to burn down the house or murder everyone in it to make her leave? Was he even still capable of such extreme measures?
He pondered this for thirty minutes until the first customer wandered into the tools aisle. Salt and pepper beard, trucker hat, work overalls. There was something familiar about him. Micah resisted the urge to swamp the guy with offers to help and instead hung back, ready to assist if called upon.
The man was looking over the power drills, and Micah took a few steps in his direction when a puzzled look appeared on the man’s face. He turned around, holding a Makita in one hand and a Ryobi in the other. “Do you know which one will hold a charge better?”
Micah opened his mouth to answer, but the guy cocked his head and spoke first. “Hang on a minute. Don’t I know you?”
For a split second, a swirl of panic surrounded Micah. That this guy was someone from his old life, someone that knew Michael McBriar from Oklahoma and had magically appeared a thousand miles away in this tiny mountain town outside of Denver. After all the deliberate distancing from people Micah had forced himself to endure so this wouldn’t happen, and now it could all fizzle.
But it was impossible. Coincidences like that didn’t happen.
“I don’t think so,” Micah said.
“No, I definitely know you.”
Micah considered it, then it came to him. “You showed up at our house for Bible study.”
The guy grinned. “Oh yeah. Bible study, or whatever they were calling it. I heard about that freak show and I had to see it for myself.”
“What did you hear about it?”
The man was about to answer, but he caught himself. “Wait. Our house? You live there?”
Micah hesitated. He had to be careful, since Hannah or Magda might be listening nearby. He lowered his voice and asked, “what did you hear about that house?”
The man shied away, trepidation on his face. He dropped the two power drills onto the rack and escaped the aisle, his eyes tracking Micah the whole time.
What about the house would make this guy flee like that?
CHAPTER TWELVE
11 DAYS UNTIL
Micah sat in the hallway before dawn, waiting to use
the bathroom. He shivered as the chill seeped from the hardwood floor into the khaki pants he was required to wear for work. The antique baseboard heaters were struggling against the winter morning temps.
The fact that there were only two bathrooms in a house this massive made it seem like people who knew nothing about houses had built it. Five or six bedrooms, two bathrooms. And since one of those bathrooms was solely for Lilah, Micah usually ended up having to wake extra early to shower before work.
So he twisted the little plastic head of his Boba Fett action figure, running his fingers along those familiar triangular contours, and stared at the walls. Even Boba felt cold in this arctic house.
Hannah was in the bathroom, so he waited a few feet down the hall to give her some privacy. She was always quick in there, but this morning was taking longer than usual. When she finally came out in her bright blue terrycloth bathrobe, her mouth hung open and her skin had a greenish glow. She looked ill.
“You okay?” Micah said, out of habit. She didn’t answer him, of course, only leaned forward to obscure her face with those golden locks, and scurried down the hall to her bedroom. The door closed and locked behind her.
Micah went into the bathroom, and immediately noticed the smell. Rancid, sour, a bit like old food. Maybe a dead animal trapped in the walls, or someone had left a trash can too close to one of the baseboard heaters downstairs to scent the house with garbage potpourri.
As he stepped into the shower, shuddering from the cold, he forgot about the smell and turned his thoughts to new ways to get Magda to talk to him at work. Maybe if he could wait until Hannah was on break and not in the vicinity, Magda might be more willing to listen. Or maybe not. He might need something more drastic than words.
But how could he persuade her to leave town with him if she wouldn’t give him an audience? It’s not as if he could forcibly remove his sister by having her committed… that wouldn’t exactly win her over to his way of thinking.
When he finished his shower, he dressed for work and strolled down the stairs to a dark house. Usually, Lilah would be up making breakfast, but maybe she was sleeping in today. Instead, Micah found Garrett standing next to the front door, car keys in hand.
“Can I take you to work today, Micah?”
There was something in his eyes, a kind of desperation jittering behind his pupils. Micah had spent virtually no time with Garrett since coming here almost two weeks ago. The kid was quiet, and since he worked a night shift, was usually sleeping when they weren’t in Bible study.
“Sure,” Micah said, trying to disguise his suspicion. He followed Garrett outside. They slid into Garrett’s truck, an old and clunky Ford with torn-up seats and a rumbling idle like the labored breathing of a sick elderly person.
Garrett’s car rolled along the driveway in silence, and Micah was about to offer to open the gate near the road, but Garrett hopped out and did it himself. Once he was back in the truck and they were out on Caribou Road, Micah asked, “I guess there’s something you want to talk about?”
Garrett’s breaths sped up. He took a small case from his jacket pocket and stuck a joint in his mouth. “Do you mind?”
Weed wasn’t Micah’s main drug of choice back in his pre-sobriety days, but he’d definitely smoked his share of the stuff. As long as it didn’t get in the way of shoving a bottle in his mouth, he’d try anything.
But his drinking and drug history wasn’t a good topic to get into with Garrett. He shook his head and said, “could you roll your window down, please?”
Garrett obliged him as the cold air rushed in from the open window. “Smoking pot is against Cyrus’ rules, but right now, it’s the least of my problems. You know that Hannah and I are together, right?”
“I heard that, yes.”
“And you know that she and I have separate bedrooms.”
At first, Micah didn’t understand where this was headed. Then, like a smack upside the head, he put it together. Garrett and Hannah were a couple, but not allowed to sleep in the same room. And this morning, that had been a puke smell in the bathroom.
Morning sickness.
“Uh-huh,” Micah said, keeping the surprise out of his tone.
“You saw her coming out of the bathroom this morning. We’ve tried our best to hide it so far, but sooner or later, someone was going to figure it out. And I think the first person might have been you.”
“It’s none of my business,” Micah said. “I’m just trying my best to keep my head above water. But, since you brought it up, you’re married, right?”
Garrett chewed on this for a moment as they entered Nederland proper, then he tossed the joint out the window as he exhaled a cone of smoke. The stars above were fading, replaced with the charcoal haze of pre-dawn.
“Lilah used to babysit me a long time ago, back in Castle Rock. I grew up around her. She let me move in with her to study the Bible and learn about the lamb on the condition that we would remain pure. We… haven’t been able to do that.”
Micah thought of a few responses, but nothing that wouldn’t seem like he was badmouthing Lilah or this imprisoned Cyrus person who was supposedly Jesus Christ in human form. But when Garrett kept flashing looks at Micah out of the corner of his eye, he thought he should say something.
“You don’t have to worry about me. Like I said, it’s none of my business.”
“If Lilah finds out…” Garrett said, and trailed off.
Micah gathered that Garrett was looking for advice, not a person to confide in. With all the isolation Micah had imposed on himself over the last couple years, those kinds of social cues sometimes went above his head.
“Sorry, Garrett, but it’s more like when she finds out. I won’t say a word to anybody, but that’s not something you can keep a secret for long, if you know what I mean.”
They pulled into the empty parking lot of the hardware store, and Garrett idled. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
“Can’t you two leave?”
“It’s not that simple. This is our home, you know? And even if we wanted to, there’s a… passport problem.”
Micah frowned. Why would there be a passport problem?
Another realization. Hannah, in the few words that she’d ever spoken around him, did seem to have a hint of an accent. Micah had thought her inflection could have been from northern Michigan or maybe Minnesota, but it could have as easily been Canadian.
So Lilah was holding her passport hostage, the same with everyone’s cellphones and laptops. This seemed to conflict with what Rodney had told him about how she was more likely to turn people away than invite them to join the True Manna. Why were these people not allowed to leave?
“I don’t know what to tell you,” Micah said.
Garrett nodded. “There’s nothing to say. I just wanted you to know that I appreciate you saying it’s none of your business. It’s all so messed up right now. And with Cyrus coming home soon, it’s getting worse. Not everyone in the house can be trusted, but you’re probably finding that out for yourself.”
Micah patted Garrett on the arm. “Thanks for the ride.” And as he got out of the car and slogged through the blustery cold of the parking lot, he considered Garrett’s last words. Had Micah been an idiot to talk so openly with Rodney when they were snowshoeing the other day? What about Garrett, even? Possibly, that whole car conversation was some kind of spiritual test that would find its way back to Lilah.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Father Benedict pulled his jacket close as the wind picked up, swirling the snow around him and turning tree branches into whips. Through the trees, he spied the house off Caribou Road. As darkness descended, lights flicked on and a few stragglers left cars parked in the front yard to enter the house. They were having some kind of party or gathering inside.
One week had passed since young Hannah had come to give him a scattered and vague confession, and he’d thought of her every day. Worried about her. At first, he’d hoped she would come back, but with
each passing day, he increasingly believed that her confession was a one-time happening. She had stolen away from the house somehow to meet him in secret.
Whatever her circumstances, he knew he had to help this woman. It was his duty. A note sat folded in his pocket with his plan to help her, but the note was hazy and without direction, since he didn’t know what kind of trouble she was in. Only that she felt trapped living in this house, and he would do whatever possible to assist her.
He could have called the authorities, but didn’t want to get her into trouble if they visited, found nothing, and the woman keeping her here suspected her of dissent. That powerful and angry bald-headed woman. He didn’t even know her, but he knew these things to be true.
No, he would have to aid Hannah on his own, unless he could prove that something illegal was happening.
As his eyes adjusted to the growing darkness, he crouched to move through the trees. He had to be careful, since he’d heard a bear had been spotted in the hills near town not three days ago. God might not be so willing to intervene and save his life if he put himself in the path of one of those beasts.
The last of the house guests had gone inside, and the front door swung shut. He couldn’t enter the house, and that wasn’t in his plans, anyway. He needed to find whatever bedroom belonged to Hannah and get this note to her. And only to her, because if someone else saw it, she might be punished. Benedict needed precision.
He kept working his steps in an arc around the front, keeping a wide berth to avoid the motion sensor lights illuminating the area in the yard that flicked on and off with the movement of the trees. He spotted three windows on the east side of the house, and decided to check those.
The first of the three windows was open a few inches, and he ducked low beneath it and then rose as close as he could, straining his ear to focus on the jumbling of sounds coming from inside.
A woman speaking. “The lamb took the book from God’s hands, and he intended to unlock each of the seven seals, one by one. When the seventh seal is opened, then it will be time to be counted.”
