Dark Advent

by Brian Hodge

“You have a rare depth, and insight. Not everyone would notice this, but it doesn’t go unappreciated by me. And, in fact, I feel it takes someone like yourself to really appreciate someone like me.” He spread his hands wide. “I’m offering you a lot here. Power and glory and love. Yours for the taking.”

  She was laughing in his face before she could stop herself. All at once he didn’t seem nearly so menacing as he did a spoiled brat who bought friendship with shiny toys.

  “What could you possibly know about love?” Erika said. “I bet you’ve never loved anything in your whole miserable life but yourself!”

  His hand came up from his side and cracked across her cheek, and wow, could he hit. It happened before she had a chance to react and, by the look on his face, before he had a chance to stop himself. A tooth had taken a nick out of her lip and she saw stars, but she still smiled. That look…he’d lost every shred of composure. That glacier of self-assurance and total control had melted.

  “Got you where you live, didn’t I?” she said.

  His face froze over again, tight-lipped and steel-eyed. “If you want to make it harder on yourself,” he whispered, “that’s your right.”

  Solomon gripped her upper arm, his thumb seeking out the reddened injection site and pressing in. Grinding slowly, so slowly. Erika clenched her jaw and whined deep in her throat, tears springing to her eyes. After a moment he let her go.

  “Okay.” He leaned back in the chair and laced his hands behind his head. “If you have no use for me, I still have plenty of use for you. See, I want Jason. I know he’s coming back. Oh, don’t look so innocent, don’t try to put another lie over on me. I know what the plan is. And I doubt he’d leave town again without you. And him I like. I want to see what he’s really made of.”

  Her eyes slid shut, her head rolling to one side. Every good time she and Jason had shared seemed to hit her at once, and then she imagined an especially distressing scene in which Solomon crushed Jay as he might crush a roach. All for fun, all for himself. She wanted to cry for the mixed emotions that had curdled inside her these past weeks, for the seduction she could’ve given in to. If she never walked out of here alive, okay, maybe she’d drawn that to herself. But the last thing she wanted was to lure Jason back among these human monsters.

  “Speaking of what people are made of,” he said, suddenly rising and clapping his hands together once. He lifted the towel draped over her hips and peeked beneath it. “Very nice. As above, so below, eh?” With a flick of the wrist, he sent the towel to the floor.

  She scrunched her eyes tighter. The idea of unwittingly betraying Jason had quelled her earlier shot of defiance. She knew it. Surely Solomon did too. Worse, he thrived on that sort of thing.

  Erika’s breath quickened and chilly sweat broke out across her as she felt his hands gliding over her belly. They slid lower, his fingers twirling between her outstretched legs. She wished she could spit those fingers out the way she could soured food. No amount of straining against the ropes would bring her legs closer together. If there was anything more humiliating and degrading than being invaded like this, she didn’t want to know what it was.

  Abruptly, he withdrew his fingers. She expected to hear the zipper of his pants next, and then she did hear one, but upon opening her eyes a crack, to verify that it was really going to happen, she saw that his pants were still up. Instead, he had opened the nylon bag and had pulled something from it. A curved metal cylinder, perhaps a foot long. Then he was coming for her, peering at the juncture between her thighs, advancing like a gynecologist from a nightmare.

  “I used to work for a man in Wyoming. He made all kinds of wonderful things. We hadn’t tried this one out yet.”

  “What…what is it?” She hadn’t meant to whisper.

  “Pretend it’s my cock,” Solomon said.

  Well, it was phallic enough, if thinner, half an inch in diameter, of bright stainless steel. The upper half was of jointed segments, as if designed for flexibility. But were it a penis, it could only have come from an H. R. Giger painting. Before her widening eyes, Solomon coated the ugly thing with K-Y Jelly.

  He sat on the edge of the bed, tracing the tip of the cold metal up along the inside of her right leg, from toes to ankle to calf to thigh. It left a cool, greasy trail behind. Up, up…

  “Open wide and say aaah,” he said, and thrust the thing into her.

  Erika went rigid then, falling inside herself, muscles taut, her breath locking in her throat before rushing out between clenched teeth and then locking again. Flecks of spittle hit her lips, her chin. The nylon bonds dug into her wrists and ankles. She could hear the helpless whimpering noises her traitorous throat was making, and willed herself not to cry, not to cry, he’d only enjoy this all the more if she did. The sweat trickled cold as Solomon worked the cylinder inside her, exploring at his leisure, and she’d never felt as wholly ugly as she now did. Her own flesh, the place that could offer so much pleasure and could even bring forth life, was now loathsome, repugnant. It too was a traitor, allowing this invasion in the first place. So open, so vulnerable. She felt the thing probing deeper still, as if Solomon wanted to defile everything he could. The metal felt icy, and the cold inhumanity of it was just as bad as if he’d done this the conventional way.

  Just as she was beginning to think it would never end and her mind would snap, he held the cylinder still. She felt a sudden sharp pain within, a sticking sensation like a bee sting or insect bite. Then the hateful tube was withdrawn and the pain diminished.

  She opened her eyes. Saw him at the table again, putting his horrid toy away. Took a deep breath, then another. She didn’t want to speak in a helpless sob.

  “What did you just do to me?”

  “A little insurance policy,” Solomon said without looking at her. “Consider it a gift. Or consider yourself with child, my child. I don’t care which.”

  And then he was gone, out the door as brisk and businesslike as a doctor on call. She hoped she would be left alone for a while now, so she could let the tears come. No more fighting them.

  What has he put inside me? WHAT’S HE DONE TO ME?

  She dreamed awake, wishing that Jason would come, kill them, let her kill her fair share, and then they would leave. She wished she could read his mind from afar, if only to assure herself that he was still alive and still cared and was somewhere on his way back to St. Louis.

  Then she recalled the recurring dream, that sense of being at a roadside in late summer. Jason and his love somewhere nearby. It hadn’t happened yet, but it would. Somehow she’d get out of here, back to people who knew what love meant.

  It wasn’t much to hang on to, but it was the best she could manage. And for now, in this place, it was enough.

  2

  Jason awoke by degrees, and each one brought with it a new surprise. First there came the overall ache in his body. Next came thirst, then hunger. Finally, he realized that he had no idea where he was. For all he knew, it might not even be Texas anymore.

  It was a bedroom, the most cheerful room he’d seen in months. The bed beneath him was large and soft, and at his right, blue gingham curtains fluttered over a window. Wallpaper with a brown and blue pattern covered the walls. At his left, a mammoth dresser sat against the wall, topped with an old-fashioned stoneware water pitcher and bowl, and a vase with flowers beside them. When he sensed movement at his left and looked down into the eyes of a huge German shepherd, he tensed. Just as suddenly, a sense of safety returned. Because, best of all, in a chair in the far corner, sat Tomahawk. His face was dotted with tiny scabs, but it was a familiar face, and he was among the living.

  “Welcome back,” Tomahawk said.

  Jason acknowledged him with a low grunt. He checked himself over, finding a thick mushy pad bandaging his left shoulder. After he pulled back the sheet covering him, he found another one on his thigh. They smelled awful, bitter and ac
rid at the same time. He wore only a pair of undershorts, and didn’t recognize them, and figured some kind soul had simply had the decency to provide him with a clean pair.

  “Thirsty,” Jason whispered.

  Tomahawk plucked a glass from the dresser, filled it from the water pitcher. He stepped around the placid dog and sat beside Jason, tilting the glass to his mouth.

  “Easy, not too much.”

  Jason took the first sip and swirled it around his mouth, let it sluice down his throat. Relief, sweet relief. He sipped a little more, as much as Tomahawk would let him have, then eased back onto his pillow.

  He looked down at the German shepherd, whose warm friendly eyes stared up from the floor where its head rested on its paws. “Who’s this?”

  “They call him T Rex. He must like you. He’s been hanging around a lot.”

  “T Rex,” Jason said, and the dog swished his tail on the hardwood floor. Then Jason looked back into Tomahawk’s nicked face. “Could you fill in some gaps for me?”

  “What do you remember?”

  Jason shut his eyes. “The highway, the guys in the red truck. Getting shot.” He looked at the thick bandages. “Both times.”

  “Well, first off, the highway was four days ago. You’ve been out since Tuesday afternoon. This is Saturday morning.”

  “And I never woke up since?”

  Tomahawk twitched one shoulder. “Nothing to speak of. You’d come around every now and then for a little, before I got you here, and you’d cuss me out ’cause you hurt. It wouldn’t last long.”

  Jason made an attempt at stretching, wincing at sore muscles that had tightened up in the interim. No two ways about it, he ached. But at least he was breathing.

  “Where are we?”

  “Heywood, Texas. It’s the place we told you about earlier, me and the Highway King. It’s about twelve, thirteen miles from where we wrecked. We’re here, Jason. The kind of place you’ve been looking for all along.”

  He lay there and let it sink in. Here, I’m here. It had been so long in coming. So many miles, so much time. So much lost. So much yet unknown. He’d thought he would turn cartwheels if the King and Tomahawk managed to find the place again. Instead, he felt a numb wall of disbelief. Maybe because he’d almost given up hope that such a place really did exist.

  “How’d we get here?” Jason finally asked.

  “I carried you.”

  Jason felt a lump in his throat, a smarting at his eyes. “You asshole,” he whispered, clasping one of Tomahawk’s hands.

  “There’s an old woman here who knows more about folk remedies and natural medicine than anyone I ever heard of. She sewed you up, made some kind of wicked-ass poultices to slap onto you. Said they’d draw out the infection, keep you from being so sore.”

  Jason’s nose crinkled. “Smells like something I ate and lost. What’s in them?”

  Tomahawk shook his head. “Molly told me I didn’t want to know, and if I don’t, you sure don’t.”

  Good point. Jason breathed deeply, held it, let it slowly out. Molly, he’d said. His first impression of this new place, this Elysium. A warm, kind, healing human being. Probably Caleb’s kind of lady. He grinned at the thought of fixing the old guy up with someone.

  And at last, a gentle warmth began to creep in, a feeling that he’d fought the good fight and had made it, that the end of the road had been in sight and he hadn’t even known it until he’d awakened at the finish line.

  Thank you, Tomahawk.

  “You ready to meet a few people that live here?” Tomahawk asked.

  Jason nodded. “But I’d like to take a leak first.”

  Tomahawk bent down beside the bed and pulled up a dull metal chamber pot. And turned his back.

  * *

  Heywood, Texas had been a quiet village of a few hundred souls in the northeastern quadrant of the state. It was tucked between Waco and the Dallas-Fort Worth area, snug against the western shore of Lake Whitney. Like everywhere else, few of its citizens were left after the plague swept through.

  In this place, though, the aftermath had been different. One of the town’s sons had returned, a Lieutenant Gil Reems of the United States Army. He’d been stationed at Fort Hood, working with a canine corps being mobilized as a result of the president’s escalating fight against terrorism. Lieutenant Reems brought with him to Heywood a handful of fellow soldiers who’d survived, as well as the German shepherds they’d been training at the time.

  Gil found a few of the townsfolk left alive, most of whom he’d known since childhood, and together they set about the task of starting over. Burying the dead and conducting a mass memorial service had been first on his list of priorities.

  Geographically, a better location would’ve been hard to come by. The winding Lake Whitney provided fish as well as water. A number of old-fashioned pumps tapping underground springs also dotted the town. Farmland and pastures were plentiful. They had enough open space and sun exposure to set up a number of solar panels, and two of the soldiers from Fort Hood rigged a network of storage batteries and power inverters to convert it into AC. Homes were wired one by one as they became occupied again.

  Gil had left his authority behind at Fort Hood, just as he’d left his uniforms, a dead wife and twin fifteen-year-old sons. But his men still looked to him as their leader, as did the survivors of Heywood. And it was a deference that was more or less adopted by those who came to Heywood later: from surrounding towns, or drifters, and those he encountered on scavenging trips and thought might fit in.

  As Jason lay in bed sipping from a glass of water and listening to Gil explain how-it-had-all-come-to-be in Heywood, he thought he wouldn’t mind deferring to this man’s leadership either. He may have still been army at heart—you could see it in his ramrod posture, hear it in the no-nonsense way he talked—but he didn’t seem to let it go much further than that. He was a civilian again, and he seemed fair. He laid out the guidelines for anyone from St. Louis who wanted to make Heywood a home: no free rides, and they’d work their butts off. But if what they needed more than anything was a chance, then he’d see they at least got it.

  “I don’t know you, I don’t know your people,” Gil said, then cocked a thumb at Tomahawk. “But this man here helped me out when he didn’t have to. That was a thing that made me trust him. And if he vouches for you, then I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt.”

  Jason nodded. He felt self-conscious and endlessly scruffy with his untrimmed beard and his hair hitting him below his shoulders. Especially since Gil kept his own wavy salt-and-pepper hair sidewalled over his ears. But maybe the days of judging books by their covers were over.

  “So let’s leave it like this, Jason,” Gil said. “Once you’re up and around again, you’re welcome to bring your people down. We’ve got the room. There’s fewer than two hundred folks here, so the town’s not even half full.”

  It was as simple as that. The acceptance, the offer. The culmination of months of searching.

  And so far, the only thing he’d seen of the town was this bedroom, and the only two residents he’d met were Gil and Molly Silva, the woman who’d patched him up. For that matter, it was her home he was staying in. She was a Heywood native, born and bred, with a walnut-brown face and hands like cool iron. Her gray hair was pulled back into a bun that trailed long wispy strands, and she puffed from a small pipe clenched in her teeth.

  “Hope the new undies fit you fine,” was the first thing she’d said upon meeting Jason, after he’d awakened.

  “You were the one that changed me?” He’d felt himself blushing from the toes up.

  “Cleaned you, fixed you, and changed you.” She’d laughed loudly, showing the gaps where she was missing two lower teeth. “I raised one daughter and eight sons. I’ve seen more peckers than you’ll ever have.”

  Molly. Gil. This room. As much as he knew o
f Heywood, Texas. But if Gil could trust Tomahawk enough to accept someone he might carry in half-dead, then Jason could trust him enough to believe he’d gotten him to the right place.

  * *

  “Convalescence,” Jason said. “I wonder where that word came from. It’s a weird sounding word.”

  Tomahawk shrugged and didn’t appear to care much one way or another. He took a pull from a longneck bottle of Coors. “Don’t question it. Just do it,” he said in a gently chiding tone.

  Jason let the origin of the word slide. He had his own bottle to nurse. He held it up for inspection, the brown glass, the khaki and gold label, and best of all, the beads of moisture as it sweated in the sun. “This is the first cold beer I’ve had since winter. I think I’m a new man.”

  It had been a week since he’d been shot, and he was now mobile again. His arm was in a sling, and he walked with the aid of a fiberglass cane brought over from a local drugstore until his left leg strengthened. But it wasn’t as bad as he’d been expecting. Whatever had been in those vile-smelling concoctions Molly had slapped on to him, they’d done the trick. Yesterday he’d felt good enough to venture forth into Molly’s bathroom and shave off his beard, since he’d never really wanted it anyway. Now he wore gym shorts and an unbuttoned cotton shirt, and thought he looked like a beach bum who’d met with a surfing accident.

  Molly had finally consented this morning to let him out of the house so he could see more of Heywood than what her windows showed him. Picturesque little place, he had to give it that. The town belonged on postcards. Lake Whitney helped a lot, and that’s where he and Tomahawk had ended up, sitting under a tree at a lakeside picnic table with a couple beers Tomahawk had smuggled out of Molly’s refrigerator while she was fussing over Jason and his cane.

  A hundred yards away, a group of kids played on and around a jungle gym and swing set in someone’s back yard. Around the kids bounced six of the German shepherds. High-pitched laughter and the happy yip of a dog floated over on the wings of a breeze. A blue jay screamed from the branches of their tree.