Beauty and Dread

by Nicki Huntsman Smith

  “You know what we need to do,” Amelia said, turning her back on Calvin. Her arms were crossed as she sought to impale Steven with her eyes from a foot below.

  “I tend to agree with you,” Steven replied. “But we need more. He has a point, as much as I hate to admit it. What else can you give me?”

  She would not reveal the true nature of the child under her protection, even if everyone in town were in danger. She had a better idea. Whether it had come from some subconscious part of her brain or her scythen, she didn’t know and it didn’t matter. She remembered the story Fergus had told her during one of their clandestine couplings about meeting Sam and Dani for the first time. She had already put the pieces together: the Smiling Man that Jessie and Maddie saw in their dreams was of course that nasty piece of business, Isaiah. The person he was ‘gunning for’ was Dani. All these facts she realized upon hearing Jessie’s and Maddie’s visions. But the crucial element that would win the support of the town’s leaders and therefore the townspeople was something she learned just this morning.

  She turned away and walked the ten feet to where Dani leaned against a wall. The young woman had yet to say a word, but there was an expression of keen interest on her face. She would understand better than anyone the danger that approached their town; she’d had a taste of it in Texas, according to Fergus. But first she must believe that Maddie’s vision was more than a bad dream; must see it, not as some mumbo jumbo psychic nonsense, but as the remote viewing that it was.

  “Maddie saw something on the arms of the dream soldiers. I’ll tell you what it was and then you pull back your sleeve. Do we have a deal?”

  Dani gave her a curt nod.

  “She said it was a brand. Not burned, not tattooed, but carved into the skin. The shape is a wheel with spokes. All the members in the army are required to endure this torture as some sort of initiation. I’ve seen this type of behavior before in tribal cultures. Now, young lady, may we see your,” she closed her eyes briefly, “left forearm, please. Come closer, gentlemen.”

  The young woman removed her leather jacket and slid up the thermal sleeves of her layered t-shirts. She grinned broadly now.

  “Is this what you wanted them to see? It’s a Dharmacakra, the Buddhist symbol for order. That’s what the psychotic fucker told me right before he sliced and diced it into my arm.” The scar was pink, raised, and ugly.

  “Are you saying Dani is one of them?” Steven asked, alarmed.

  “No, of course not. Steven, use that big brain of yours. Dani, perhaps you should explain now what we’re facing. Something tells me you know better than anyone.”

  The next ten minutes were filled with a terse recap of Dani’s adventure with Isaiah and his followers in Texas, followed by Steven’s rapid fire questions.

  “I don’t see how this proves anything. Dani could have shown that scar to her before now,” Calvin said. “Or told her about it, at least.”

  “But I didn’t. The only person who’s seen it is Sam. Isn’t that right, Sam?” Dani’s eyes were on the preacher, who hadn’t been aware the young man had entered the room. Nobody else had either.

  “That’s right.” Sam’s honest smile was for everyone in the room.

  “So Maddie saw Dani’s scar in her vision as well as the scars on the soldiers?” Steven asked.

  “Yes,” Amelia lied smoothly. “I’m sorry, I forgot to mention that earlier. That’s how I was aware of it, of course.” No surface dwellers had known about her relationship with the odd red-haired man. He had been the only person besides Sam and Dani themselves who knew about the brands, and he had ‘died’ before he could have had told anyone else.

  “Why haven’t you mentioned this person as a threat before now?” Steven was beginning to get angry.

  Dani shrugged. “How was I to know he’d follow us? It doesn’t make sense that he would pack up his little army and head north just to seek revenge. He didn’t know where we were going. Hell, we didn’t know where we were going. There’s another motivation: Liberty. He seems to know a lot about what we have here. It would be much easier to take over our town, his new ‘Rome in the Midwest,’ than build it himself from scratch like we’ve done.”

  “Can you all hear yourselves? We’re making decisions and legislating action based on dreams. And not just dreams of one of our own, but now we believe this supposed psychopath has psychic visions too? Visions of our town and the very sign that tells him our location? This is beyond absurd!” Calvin paraded about the room, gesticulating with his hands like he was giving a hellfire sermon.

  Steven sighed. “If what Dani and Sam are saying is true, then the other sticking point is the validity of the visions. Amelia, I hate to ask this and please know that I believe that you believe everything you’ve told us, but before making such an important decision, we need to hear from Maddie herself. Is she well enough to come talk to us?”

  “No, she’s not. But I guess she’ll have to be, if that’s what it takes. I’ll go fetch her.”

  “No, we’ll send someone else. Sam?”

  “I’ll be back in two wags of a donkey’s tail.”

  Amelia’s mind raced. She wouldn’t have time alone with Maddie beforehand to explain the situation. She would have to resort to other measures.

  An uncomfortable twenty minutes later, Sam reappeared with Maddie and Pablo in tow. In the meantime, a few more citizens had wandered in to catch the last part of the unscheduled meeting. A biting northerly wind kept most people at home.

  “Can we make this quick, please?” Pablo said, his voice low and angry. “She isn’t feeling well. She should be in bed.” He shot Steven a venomous look.

  Steven nodded. “Amelia has told us about your visions, Maddie. We would like to hear it from you directly. A lot is riding on this as you must know, so please be as detailed as possible.”

  For the next five minutes, Maddie spoke of her dreams while rubbing pale fingers against her temples.

  “Is that all? Anything else? What about the sign?”

  Everyone’s attention was focused on Maddie, not on Amelia who had become motionless where she stood next to Dani. Her eyes were closed and furrows of intense concentration appeared between her brows.

  Maddie frowned. Her lashes fluttered, then the china blue eyes took on a dreamy quality.

  “Yes, I’m sorry. I left that part out. The man saw our sign, the one posted outside one of the barricades. He talked about it to the other people who were around him. He told them the name of our town.”

  Calvin made a non-verbal sound of disgust.

  Steven ignored it and nodded. “Anything else? It’s important.”

  “Yes, the scars. I saw them on the soldiers and,” she paused, frowning, “and on her too.” She pointed to Dani.

  Amelia sat down abruptly on the bench behind her.

  “Very good, Maddie. Thank you.” Steven addressed everyone now. “I’m convinced, but I think we need something more tangible to go on.”

  “Like what, tarot cards? Chicken bones? Should we conduct a séance to communicate with these figments?” Calvin drawled.

  “I find it ironic that a person whose mission in life is to convince others to believe in some invisible all-powerful, all-knowing supernatural being can’t accept a little psychic phenomenon,” Steven replied.

  Calvin opened his mouth to respond, but wasn’t given the chance. “We’re going to send out a scouting party,” Steven continued. “We need visual confirmation.”

  “I’ll go,” Dani said. “The douchebag is after me, so I should be the one to go. Sam can stay here. He’ll handle the security crew while I’m gone. And we don’t need a party. Just me. I can travel faster and lighter by myself.”

  “No. You’ll take two others with you, for reasons of safety, and also so multiple people can validate what they’ve witnessed. One person can be doubted, discredited. But I will let you pick the other two members of the scouting party. Do you agree, Calvin?”

  “Agreed. But until
they return, we don’t change anything we’re doing.”

  Steven arched an eyebrow. “I’m sure there are some steps we can begin taking that won’t have an adverse effect on our productivity,” he said, clapping the preacher on the back. “We don’t know how long the scouts will be gone. Worst case, the actions we take will strengthen the town against any threat, whether it comes from this Isaiah person or someone else.”

  Before Calvin could respond, Steven directed his next question to Dani. “You’ll be traveling south on I35, I assume?”

  She nodded. “Yes. We’ll take motorcycles. More fuel efficient and better for off-roading.”

  “Good idea. How long do you think it will take?”

  “No more than three days. Fewer if we don’t have any problems. It’s less than two hundred miles to the Oklahoma border from here.”

  “Yes, but who knows what you’ll encounter. Who will you take?”

  “I’ll take the Creeper – Logan – and Pablo. His experience from the supply forays will be helpful. And he proved that he can be a bad ass when he wants to be,” she added with an evil grin. “I don’t want to pull anyone else off the security crew. You’re gonna need us more than ever.”

  “What a minute,” Pablo said. “I don’t agree to this. I need to stay here with my family.”

  “Sorry, dude. You make the most sense. If you truly want to protect your family, help me prove this threat is real.”

  Amelia saw the internal struggle play out on the young man’s face. She watched as Maddie whispered something into Pablo’s ear. He frowned, nodded. “Fine. Let’s get this over with.”

  She was exhausted from utilizing her scythen to influence Maddie’s testimony, but there would be no time for even a cat nap today.

  Chapter 30

  “Amelia, I don’t have to tell you that what you did was against just about every rule there is,” Tung said in their singular language. Now that Thoozy was gone, the pink walls and frilly curtains seemed more depressing than ironic.

  “I know, I know. Trust me, the headache I have now may be the death of me. I had to do something though. This Isaiah person is the second biggest threat the people face.”

  “I realize that, but it’s not our place to interfere. Manipulating Maddie’s memory could count against them in the end.”

  “I don’t regret it. They have to prepare for the coming battle. If they don’t survive it, it won’t make a difference whether the Ancient Ones decide to bring the floods. Or the pestilence. Or ignite the super volcano under Yellowstone. Or whatever earth cleansing they have in mind.”

  Amelia had been recruited before the last great flood, as had Tung. There were others, though, who had seen several apocalypses. She knew of these events through their memories; her scythen showed them to her when she was in their proximity. Not that she rubbed elbows with them much. Each generation of recruits gravitated to their own kind, those whose DNA was similarly engineered and who had been ‘harvested’ during the same ten or twenty-thousand year period. It was usually the youngest recruits who chose to go above most often, especially after a recent culling; to mentor, to watch, to report. Through their observations sent via scythen or the occasional in-person summons to disclose more detail, the Cthor would decide whether the current batch of humans was worthy of proliferation.

  They were exceptional in many ways, as they had been designed to be. They were the elite – all carrying the same DNA molecule that had kept them from succumbing to the disease. They were the culmination of genetic engineering combining the most desirable, evolved traits of the all those humans who had come before; those who had lived during one or more of the many rises and falls of civilization on planet Earth and whose very existence had been removed from the fossil record by the Cthor. Evolution wasn’t the ongoing linear event contemporary scholars believed it to be, nor was technology. Before the supercontinent Pangea had broken apart, there had existed a small populace profoundly more advanced than that annihilated by the recent plague. The Cthor had orchestrated the creation and genocide of every hominid species since they had first unlocked the secrets of genetics. Those discoveries and others had effectively extended their own lives to a degree that, while not eternal, was nearly so.

  But not all the survivors were shining examples of human exceptionalism. Engineering humanity tens of thousands of years into the future didn’t result in consummate perfection every time. Within the current population there were evident glitches. There always were.

  If Amelia, Tung, and the others could convince the Cthor there were more positive results than negative – that there was more good clay to be shaped and formed than bad – humanity might have another twenty thousand years to live and evolve. But if they decided to wash the slate clean and start over, which was not unprecedented, new qualifying recruits would be brought below for genetic harvesting, and the rest of humankind would be destroyed.

  The Cthor would begin their work anew, seeding the world with fresh, improved bloodlines as they had done countless times before.

  Amelia was invested in the current population. She had been making pilgrimages above ground for millennia. She could still remember her first journey to Sumer, where she had almost gotten herself killed, a common problem with neophytes on their inaugural sojourns. Two thousand years ago, she was a hand maiden to Cleopatra, covertly observing her for months and nearly recruiting her before deciding the beautiful, clever, extraordinary woman was also a sociopath. Amelia had dwelled among the aboriginal humans in Australia. Watched in tears while the Aztecs engaged in human sacrifice. As an adopted member of the Mohawk tribe, she witnessed America’s Revolutionary War as seen through the eyes of the indigenous people.

  She had been on the surface for five years now, much longer than at any other time. She had known that Chicxulub, as these new humans had dubbed the genetic genocide, was imminent. She wanted to witness it for herself. It was the reason she had gray strands in her dark braids. Those who dwelled below only aged while they were on the surface; that physiological process didn’t occur while living underground in what was essentially a massive hyperbaric chamber. Her devotion to the newest members of her family – family because they shared her own harvested DNA, but also because she had grown to love them – was the reason she came back to Liberty, even though her body wept for restorative sleep.

  To her knowledge, the only human who qualified for recruitment was Jessie. The child would be safe if she survived long enough to meet the Cthor’s age criteria. There was a place for her when she was old enough. And because of her exceptionalism, she would be allowed in sooner if there was to be a cleansing. Others who were exceptional, but not enough so, would not be spared. As long as she had breath left in her body, she would do everything in her power to get Pablo and Maddie and Steven and Julia and Sam and even the abrasive Dani...all the other good people...a fighting chance.

  She had stayed too long and gotten too close. And Tung knew it.

  He studied her with an air of annoyance mingled with affection. To a small degree, he empathized with her. He felt a kindred spirit with these people who also shared his harvested DNA, but he hadn’t lived among them as long as she had. His scythen was stronger than hers, so much of his observation had been done remotely, below ground. He had only come to the surface this past year after Chicxulub had ravaged the planet. Now that Thoozy was gone – losing the last member of the first generation had been a devastating blow to everyone – Tung’s burden was weightier. Thoozy’s vast experience was their greatest treasure. His accumulated knowledge had been acquired during a prodigious lifetime that had begun a hundred million years ago in what now-dead scientists termed the Cretaceous period. Humans, and the giant reptile-mammal hybrids modern paleontologists called dinosaurs, had actually lived together for a time, but that evidence had been removed per standard Cthor protocol. Amelia loved hearing his dinosaur stories, some of which had likely been embellished purely for entertainment value. Having Thoozy taken away by one su
ch as Logan had been nearly unbearable, and it was one of the reasons Tung’s assessment was less compassionate than hers.

  The Cthor expected reports to be accurate and unbiased, not tainted with one’s personal feelings. But when your scythen was as well-controlled as Tung’s, certain events might be shrouded...cloaked...hidden among other images and thoughts. The question was, would he choose to do so? Amelia’s scythen wasn’t as sophisticated. They would find out what she had done, but not until she appeared before them in person. However, Tung could send news of her violation to them immediately. Or he could deem it low priority, able to wait for an in-person communique.

  She would never ask him to do so; not with words, at least. Her expressive, old soul eyes were a different matter though.

  Tung smiled at the small woman whose empathy and love was so strong it almost felt like a force field surrounding her.

  He sighed. “We’ll keep your indiscretion between us for now.”

  She launched her small body into his arms, kissing him with passion born of great relief.

  “Thank you, my friend.”

  Chapter 31

  “You know he will torture you. He will do some kind of horrible Apple Anguish thing to you.”

  Dani barked a laugh. “It’s Pear of Anguish, Sam. You’re adorable. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned that lately.”

  He wouldn’t be mollified so easily. “He wants to skin you alive. You know that. Maddie’s dreams proved it.”