Beauty and Dread

by Nicki Huntsman Smith

  “One fifty over a hundred and ten.”

  He stood in the hospital corridor outside of Maddie’s room. He had agreed to move her there so Cate could keep an eye on her. Maddie fought it at first, but after collapsing in their living room the evening before, she acquiesced. The headaches were back, the high blood pressure was back, and Pablo’s anguish was back after a two-day reprieve during which time Maddie had been the picture of health. He had been so deliriously happy that the loss of Jessie and the mystery surrounding her disappearance didn’t penetrated as deeply as it otherwise would have. Of course Maddie had been beside herself with worry. It was an uncomfortable juxtaposition seeing a healthy Maddie so distraught.

  Now that she was ill again and Jessie was still gone, he felt like the world was imploding all around him.

  “We’ll have to move her to the basement when the time comes.”

  What Cate meant was when the town’s security cameras revealed the invading army was at their doorstep.

  Pablo wouldn’t be down there with her. Steven had insinuated that any able-bodied person who chose the basement option was a coward...especially any of the young men, even though his official position said otherwise. Steven had been a mechanical engineer in his old life, but he was the consummate politician these days. He gave great lip service to the unwashed masses, then engaged in backdoor deals and manipulation to achieve his ends.

  “I’ll be down there with her, Pablo. I promise I won’t leave her side,” Cate continued.

  “Did you leave Marilyn’s side?” he said.

  Marilyn’s death would have made bigger headlines if the entire town hadn’t been so consumed with preparing for the invasion and worrying about their own survival.

  Cate had been shifting from one foot to the other, looking everywhere but into Pablo’s eyes. The offhand remark snapped her focus back to him.

  “That was a low blow. I’m not a miracle worker, young man. Nobody could have done anything for the woman.”

  “Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sure you’re doing the best you can.”

  Cate gave him a curt nod. “I’ll watch over her every second when we’re in the basement. You have my word.”

  “I appreciate that. I have to go, but I’ll be back this evening.”

  He peered into Maddie’s darkened room, looking for the rise and fall of her chest beneath the blanket. There it was. Perhaps a little faster than it should be, but that was a good thing. Better too fast than nothing at all. When he turned back, Cate was walking away down the corridor. He watched the diminishing blue hospital scrubs stretched tightly across the round shoulders and plump torso.

  He thought of Steven again and what he must be going through now, having just lost the woman whom he had been courting. It wasn’t possible that Steven could have cared for Marilyn as much as Pablo did for Maddie. People like Steven didn’t experience emotions on the same level as people like himself. It was a theory he had never shared with anyone, but he believed it utterly. There was a reason creative types...the artists, the writers, the poets...were less emotionally stable than the mathematicians, scientists, and engineers of the world. It was because they were more sensitive. They felt emotions more intensely, both good and bad.

  Steven was also juggling Liberty’s governance and the town’s defense on top of the loss of his girlfriend. It was a lot for one man to bear and Pablo did feel empathy for him. But Steven signed up for the job...campaigned for it, actually. Burdens came with the territory.

  He felt a hand on his shoulder, startling him from his dark thoughts.

  “Amelia, you scared the crap out of me.”

  “Any change?”

  “No.”

  She frowned and shook her head.

  “Still no news about Jessie?” he asked.

  Another shake of the braided head.

  “It’s crazy, you know. Tung seemed like such a good guy. I can’t stand to think what he might be doing to her.” The last few words caught in Pablo’s throat.

  Amelia took both of his hands in her own, forcing his attention from Maddie’s hospital bed down to her.

  “I’m going to tell you something that will make you feel better. You’ll want to ask a lot of questions that I won’t answer. You may want to talk to Maddie about it or perhaps share it with others. You can’t do that. Now, do you want to hear it?”

  “Something that will make me feel better? Of course.”

  Amelia took a deep breath, then said, “Tung is not a monster. He’s no pedophile. He has taken Jessie somewhere safe. I know this because I know Tung well, and have for many years. You have much to worry about, Pablo, but Jessie should not be among those worries. I promise she is in no danger.”

  “How could you possibly know Tung for many years? You came here with us. He showed up later and he’s from this area. You’re from Arizona. This doesn’t make any sense.”

  “What did I say about no questions?”

  A memory surfaced suddenly; floated to the top of Pablo’s conscious thoughts. It had been a minor event that resonated as odd at the time, then was buried under a mountain of more immediate and pressing issues.

  Months ago, Amelia had disappeared for a short time and so had Tung. Pablo remembered one of their early town hall meetings when the man had mysteriously reappeared. He remembered that upon Amelia’s return at roughly the same time, she had been uncharacteristically silent about her whereabouts.

  He released the small hands and took a step back from the woman he had grown to love almost like a mother. He recalled those occasions when the Amelia mask had slipped and he had seen glimpses of something else...nothing malevolent or distressing, but something that didn’t fit with the veneer of the Amelia he knew.

  “I know that look and you can stop right now. We had a deal. No questions,” she said before he could begin an interrogation.

  “Come on. You can’t expect me just to accept what you’re telling me without even a semblance of an explanation.”

  “Of course I can. Why wouldn’t you? What have I ever done that would make you question my honesty? My loyalty? My devotion? My integrity?”

  “It’s not about questioning you so much as needing to understand what the hell is going on.”

  “When you and Maddie came across me in the cabin in Arizona, do you remember our conversation over tequila about whether we would live our lives differently if we knew how and why the plague happened? This is part of that. It’s something you will never know and don’t need to. It serves no purpose for you to pull back the curtain searching for the wizard. Some things are just not meant for you to know. Accept it. Be strong. Live your life, with or without Maddie, because in the end the whys don’t matter. All that matters is that you lived and lived beautifully and generously and kindly for the years you were given in this world.”

  Pablo opened his mouth again to argue, but was cut off by a noise he had heard several times since their arrival in Liberty and only twice during his life in Prescott. If the Four Horsemen of the apocalypse had a harbinger of their own, it would sound exactly like Liberty’s emergency siren. As the speaker rotated on its pole in the center of town, powered by windmill energy stored in a lithium ion battery, its dreadful song waxed and waned. One moment it might have been broadcasting its eerie resonance outward, to some other town full of frightened people; the next moment, it seemed to be calling to him personally.

  Something wicked this way comes...

  He locked eyes with Amelia, sharing a moment of mutual fear and dismay, then said, “It’s time.”

  “Go,” she replied. “I’ll see to Maddie before I join you. Blessings on you, Pablo. Blessings on all of us. Be careful, young man. I want to see your handsome face across my breakfast table in the morning.”

  He kissed her cheek and was gone the next moment.

  ###

  A million thoughts flew through Amelia’s mind as she listened to the emergency siren and watched Cate double-timing it back up the corrid
or toward Maddie’s room. A gurney was set up next to the hospital bed for easy transportation to the basement in the municipal building. She would help the woman get Maddie situated down there, then regroup with those who planned to fight for their world, their lives, and their tenuous grasp on this fledgling civilization.

  She would participate in defending the town, despite the persistent nausea she felt at the sight of a sick Maddie; the nausea having sprung from the bottomless reality of what she had sacrificed in order to assure the health of Maddie and her unborn child.

  At least Jessie was safe. And Tung. And Fergus, wherever that lascivious rascal might be. She would focus on those happy thoughts, rather than think about how soon her own life might be over.

  During the act of moving the unconscious Maddie from the bed to the gurney, Amelia’s hand brushed Cate’s. Something passed between them; a minor one-way missive of which Cate seemed unaware. The message was incomplete yet bothersome on some level. If the emergency siren hadn’t been blaring, Amelia would have insisted on further investigation, but delaying Maddie’s move to relative safety was not an option at the moment.

  If she survived the ordeal, she vowed to get to the bottom of the mystery that was Cate. At least to the best of her scythen’s ability...

  Chapter 51

  “That’s not going to happen, Calvin. Don’t waste my time. Not now. Not when everything is on the line,” Steven said to his co-mayor.

  A small group of Liberty’s citizens stood behind the town’s southern barricade – a seemingly haphazard pile of debris built a mile from the town proper months ago and reinforced days ago. It was positioned on state highway 281, which ran north and south. Isaiah had opted to approach Liberty on this smaller two-lane highway rather than the wider Interstate 35, which ran east and west.

  Steven had anticipated that decision after a thorough analysis of all possible routes and current weather conditions, thus the extra time spent securing this particular pile of ramshackle junk that housed a number of deadly surprises for the would-be invaders. More Punji traps had been dug in this vicinity than elsewhere. It seemed that Steven’s reasoned crapshoot had paid off. According to the security camera placed a half mile south of the barricade, the first of Isaiah’s army were coming from that direction. Some on horseback, as Steven had also anticipated. He regretted the injuries the traps would inflict on the horses, but he didn’t feel even a twinge of dismay about the human suffering. People had free will. They had chosen to be there.

  He expected the parley group to break away from the advancing line, which consisted mostly of infantry with a smattering of cavalry. When that happened, he and his ‘second’ would circumvent the barricade on foot – carefully – and meet them, looking as beaten down, weak, and helpless as possible; looking like people who’d given up and were resigned to their fate.

  He had chosen Ed to be his second for a number of reasons, but mostly because he trusted him. If something happened to the man, the loss to the town would be significant – he was brilliant at designing effective, efficient plans for infrastructures of all types – but his awkward social demeanor would mask any deception Isaiah might sniff out. He had a quick mind that could process unexpected deviations from Steven’s plan. Most importantly he was motivated to succeed. There was a pretty blond Ed wanted to keep safe; she was armed to the teeth and positioned by the greenhouse. It was appropriate that Lisa would be included in the last line of defense near the lifesaving crops for which she was largely responsible. Steven knew she would die before walking away from that greenhouse. It was a thought he did not share with Ed.

  “Please, just hear me out,” Calvin was saying.

  “Yes, Steven. Just listen to him.” Natalie added with a squeeze of Steven’s bicep. He glanced down at the hand on his arm, then to the woman herself, wondering again why in the hell Calvin had brought her. She should be down in the basement with her daughter or standing by with one of the armed groups in the town square.

  “They are expecting Liberty’s leader. Does this Isaiah demon know there are two? Probably. He’s most likely tortured the girl and extracted all the town’s details. But we’re still abiding by his mandate, sending out a person of ‘supreme authority’ to collect Dani in exchange for relinquishing the town and all its bounty.”

  “Get to the point, Calvin.”

  “Yes, yes. My point is this: why should we risk you?”

  Steven didn’t know what he had been expecting to come out of the mouth of his rival, but it wasn’t this.

  “Let’s face it. Your value to this community exceeds mine, at least on a corporeal level. Whoever goes out there is walking right into the lion’s den. If the worst happens and the emissaries are killed, the town won’t have lost its keystone...its life’s blood.”

  “See, Steven? He’s right. You can’t argue with that kind of logic,” Natalie said. Steven brushed away the slender hand that still held his arm.

  He pondered Calvin’s words while studying the man’s face, looking for any hint of duplicity in the intense eyes or in the mouth that wore a relaxed smile. As for all important events, Calvin had dressed in a pristine white shirt, and even though he wasn’t freshly-shaven as was his norm, the five-o’clock shadow didn’t detract from the image Steven suspected the preacher always tried to project: I have the ear of God...you can trust me and believe everything I say.

  When he put aside the hostility he had felt upon Calvin’s arrival in town, he could understand why the man inspired such a loyal following. He imagined the crowds his sermons must have drawn before the plague. Calvin was charismatic and suave, and passionate about his message. Steven had always assumed he was a just another hypocritical, bible-thumping, evangelical phony. So the sincerity he now saw caught him by surprise.

  Could it be possible the man was truly willing to sacrifice his own life for the greater good?

  “What’s your angle, Calvin?”

  The preacher gave a hearty laugh. There was no enmity in the rich sound nor the kindly expression.

  “Steven, you’ll just have to take this on faith. I know that isn’t your nature, but it is mine. Let me do this. Let me be God’s emissary in this dangerous undertaking. He doesn’t want to risk you. I know this. He has important plans for you. As for me.” He was grinning now, “I’ve done all I can do. I know I have a place in heaven, so I’m not afraid to die. You on the other hand, you’ll probably want to stick around down here as long as possible.” The wink was playful and unaffected.

  Steven found himself convinced. He hated the flood of relief he felt at not having to venture out there, knowing that whomever did may not survive the encounter. He would have done it, but Calvin’s plan made sense. Why risk the person who could do so much for the town and its people when an acceptable proxy had volunteered? And happily so. Hell, was downright insistent.

  Steven turned to his second. “What do you think?”

  Ed didn’t hesitate before answering. “He’s absolutely right. And if he pulls any shenanigans, I’ll kill him.”

  Calvin’s chuckle was slightly less enthusiastic, but there was no trace of animosity in his bearing.

  Steven gazed at each individual in the small group as he considered the change to his plan. Julia was frowning at him with big-sister disapproval written all over her face. Seeking her opinion was pointless; all she cared about was getting Dani back, so of course she would want Steven to handle the prisoner retrieval himself.

  Natalie stood uncomfortably close, staring at him with a come-hither smile. He wanted to slap it off her face. The loss of Marilyn was newborn pain; still in the early stages of developing, mushrooming inside the emotional compartment to which he had banished it. His wife always said he could compartmentalize better than anyone. That talent was serving him well now. There wasn’t time to wonder what motivated Natalie to encourage Calvin, her lover, to take on the risk Steven had intended for himself.

  His focus came to rest on Amelia, who stood off to the side with h
er eyes closed and a frown of concentration between her dark brows. With her braids and knee-length leather moccasins, she looked like a doll he had seen years ago at a souvenir shop in Colorado. Her lips moved like she was talking to someone. Was she praying? He had never seen her attend any of Calvin’s sermons; she treated the preacher with disdain rather than reverence. Maybe she was praying to some Native American god.

  He shook his head, clearing his wandering thoughts.

  Pablo stood next to her, a death grip on the ancient shotgun he always carried and a grim, disconsolate expression on his face. The golden eyes locked onto Steven’s, projecting vague disapproval. Or perhaps it was disgust. Whatever Pablo felt for him, Steven knew it wasn’t good will. He burned a bridge with the young man when he had used Liberty’s gasoline as leverage to get him to stay.

  Steven moved on to the next face.

  Now that Logan was gone, the security crew’s best shooters were Jeff and the eighteen-year-old standing near the barricade, ready to scramble into her sniper’s lair. If the girl known as Annie Oakley – a nickname she liked so much she wouldn’t answer to her former name – could get a clear shot at Isaiah’s head (she would not risk anything lower which would probably be protected by Kevlar), the invading army might immediately fall apart without their charismatic and terrifying leader.

  Steven estimated the odds of that happening were less than fifty-fifty. It depended on how far away from the sniper-hiding barricade the parley group stopped. It depended on where the members of the parley group stood and how still they were – a moving target was exponentially more difficult to hit. It depended on the wind, the curvature of the earth, whether the bullet had been manufactured identically to all the others Annie Oakley had been practicing with.

  The most important ingredient in the mix was whether Isaiah would be anticipating what they had planned.

  Steven figured he would be, which is why the girl would not take a chance on anything less than the perfect kill shot. He had drilled that directive into her head, made her repeat back to him all the conditions under which the shot would be taken, over and over again.