Winds of Change

by Jason Brannon

  "So what are we supposed to do in the meantime?" Wayne Richards asked.

  "How about taking care of your wife," Pete suggested. "A wife as pretty as yours needs to be taken care of. I haven't seen you doing much of that since all this started happening. Maybe I could help."

  “You watch yourself,” Wayne shouted, pointing his finger at the burly plumber. “Keep away from her. You hear me?”

  “Jeez, man. Lighten up. It was just a little joke.”

  “It’s not funny,” Wayne said, “none of this is. You don’t know me. You don’t know her. Why you’re even taking sides in something you know nothing about is beyond me.”

  “Enough,” I said, shouting to be heard before things got completely out of hand. “We don’t have time for this.”

  “I agree,” Chuck said. "If we’re going to try to survive, then we’re going to have to rely on each other. I don’t think we’re much of a team at this point.”

  “So what do you suggest, Chief?” Wayne asked, his voice oozing sarcasm.

  “I think the first thing we should do is to get some real lights going. Flashlights are fine, but I'd rather have my hands free in case I need them. I'll go get one of the generators out of hardware. Steven, you gather up a few lamps from the lighting department. Matt, round up some gas. Look around the lawn mowers, there's probably a can lying around. Once we can see a little better, it might be easier to think."

  “I don’t think lights will have anything to do with anybody’s ability to think,” Wayne smarted off.

  Chuck headed off to find the flashlights and then stopped. “Oh, and Wayne, I almost forgot. While we try to do something constructive, you keep acting like a jackass. We’ll consider that to be your contribution to the group.”

  Both of the Weaver boys started laughing at that. I could see Steven smirking in the darkness too. Wayne, understandably, didn’t seem very amused. None of us really cared. We left him standing there, without waiting for a reply.

  As we started going our separate ways to gather up the items on our scavenger hunt, a huge explosion outside shook the panes of glass. I think all of us hit the floor, the possibility of a terrorist’s bomb seeming more and more realistic by the second. Yet, after several seconds, it became clear that the building was still intact.

  Vera Weaver, however, didn’t fare quite as well as the store. We had just gotten to our feet and were about to go investigate the source of the explosion when Jesse Weaver started shouting for help.

  At first I was sure that the woman was dead given the amount of panic in Jesse’s voice. She didn’t appear to be moving at all. But her eyes were open and she was breathing despite the pasty pallor of her cheeks and the thin line of drool that was trailing out of one corner of her mouth.

  "It's her heart," Jesse said in a tremulous voice. "Kenneth, go in your mom's purse and find her pills. She needs 'em."

  It was the first time I'd ever heard a trace of humanity in Jesse Weaver's voice, and I felt sorry for him. The possibility of losing his wife scared him more than whatever was outside waiting to turn all of us into piles of salt. To look at him, all tattooed and biker-chic, you would never guess that Jesse Weaver was frightened of anything. Somehow, the fact that he was scared made him a little more human, a little more fragile than before. Given the nature of our situation, I wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

  “Hurry up,” Jesse yelled to Kenneth, desperately needing the medicine that would keep his wife alive. Kenneth was doing all he could. A woman’s purse is a labyrinthine place, full of nooks and crannies and abysmal places that could double as the hiding spot for a pirate’s treasure. Vera Weaver’s was no exception, full of change, mints, Kleenex, car keys, a cell phone, cough drops, tampons, and all sorts of other paraphernalia.

  “Here, let me help,” Ashley Richards said, dumping the contents of Vera Weaver’s purse onto the floor.

  It was during those few frantic seconds when Kenneth and Ashley were rummaging for nitroglycerin pills that Vera Weaver spoke and took us all by surprise. Nobody was really sure what she was saying. The words were indecipherable and obviously part of a foreign language. Her eyelids fluttered like the wings of hummingbirds and she twitched a little with each syllable, as if she were holding a live wire in each hand.

  “Not now,” Jake Weaver muttered, thrusting his hands into his pockets and turning his back on the whole situation. “Not now. This isn’t even Sunday.”

  I think I was the only one who heard him, and I had absolutely no idea what he meant by that. Yet, it was clear by the way he said it that this wasn’t the first time Vera Weaver had done this sort of thing.

  “What’s she saying?” Steven asked.

  “I think she’s speaking in tongues,” Pete said in a shaky voice. “This sounds a lot like what used to happen in those services my grandmother took me to.”

  “She’s done it before,” Jake replied.

  “Hush, boy,” Jesse Weaver snapped at his son. Wisely, Jake closed his mouth.

  “Here are the pills,” Kenneth exclaimed, fumbling with the top of the medicine bottle. After a few seconds with no results, Ashley took the pill bottle away from him and popped the lid.

  Once they had gotten one of the nitroglycerin pills under Vera Weaver’s tongue, the convulsions and strange mutterings stopped. She was able to sit up after a few minutes of lying there. She was still a little pale and trembling like a geriatric in a nursing home. Nonetheless, she was alive. Given the amount of death around us, that was no small feat.

  Vera Weaver obviously needed immediate medical attention, but that was out of the question at the moment. Jesse Weaver looked relieved to see that his wife was still alive, but it was also clear by the worried expression on his face that he knew she wasn’t out of the woods yet.

  “What are you people looking at?” he shouted. "My wife's sick. Haven't you ever seen anyone that was sick before? This ain’t a freak show."

  Wisely, we gave him all the space he needed. Kenneth and Jake stayed by their mother’s side, looking solemn and hardly like the delinquents they were. In fact, none of them, Jesse included, seemed quite so tough or menacing anymore now that Vera was on the verge of death. We walked away from them, going in search of whatever had made the explosion. I waited until we were out of earshot before grilling Pete.

  “Explain what just happened back there,” I said. “You thought Vera Weaver was speaking in tongues. What does that mean?” The group stopped, waiting to hear what the plumber had to say.

  “It’s hard to explain,” he replied. “Speaking in tongues, from my experience, is usually an ability of those who are most dedicated to their beliefs. It usually happens during an extreme religious encounter, and it’s generally thought that the words spoken are a message from God. The person speaking is simply the conduit used to transmit the broadcast. Some denominations think that the language is the language that the angels speak.”

  “If that was a message from God,” Terry interjected, “it won’t do us much good. We don’t speak that language.”

  Pete sighed. “I’ve had only limited contact with this sort of thing. I got my exposure to religion while spending summers with my grandmother. I’m really no expert. However, the way it usually works is that one person speaks in tongues, then another person in the congregation gives a translation of the message. That, too, is given by God.”

  “So where’s the translation?” Steven asked.

  “I thought you knew all about God,” Chuck said.

  “I was raised a Baptist. We never spoke in tongues at our church, but -”

  It was almost like Steven had given God permission to use his lips. He immediately began to speak without even realizing it. “Alastor, the executioner, walks the earth,” he said. “Woe to those who stand in his way.”

  Pete, Chuck, and I all saw Steven faint in time to catch him. He stayed unconscious for a couple of minutes, and none of us dared to touch him. I think we were all a little frightened of h
im at that point. Then his eyes popped open, and we all jumped.

  “What happened?” he asked, clearly not remembering. Hesitantly, I told him. At first, he didn’t believe a word of what I was saying. Then, seeing the expressions on the faces around him, he realized that it was all true.

  “I translated the message,” he said, hardly believing it. “How is that possible, and what does it mean?”

  “I think it means we need to steer clear of anybody named Alastor,” Pete said. “Anybody in here by that name?”

  We all looked at each other nervously and shook our heads.

  “Something’s on fire outside,” Leland Kennedy interrupted, drawing our attention away from Steven.

  “That’s where the explosion came from,” Chuck said, putting the pieces of the puzzle together. “It looks like two cars collided head-on.”

  “Somebody must have rolled down their window,” I said. “The air got ‘em.”

  “That can’t be it,” Chuck said as a car sped by. “There’s always a way for air to get in. The air conditioning, the windows, the exhaust. Look at that car that’s still going. The driver would be dead by now if air was completely responsible.”

  Seconds later the car slid off the road and hit a tree. Clouds of smoke rolled lazily into the night sky.

  “Then again, I could be wrong,” he added. “Maybe it’s prolonged exposure to the atmosphere that does it.”

  “I’m tired of talking about this,” I admitted. “Go and get the generator. Let’s get some lights going and try to find a comfort zone that doesn’t involve talking about death every second.”

  “That might be the best thing,” Chuck agreed, walking toward hardware with his flashlight held out in front of him.

  “You might as well get some rest,” I told everybody else. “We’re not going anywhere for a while.”

  For once, everyone did as they were told. Chuck soon returned with a Honda generator. I managed to find half a can of gas stashed behind the riding lawn mowers. Steven lugged two of the brightest halogen work lights down the aisle, their cords trailing behind them like entrails.

  The generator was new and started on the second try. From that point, it was just a matter of plugging the lights in. Soon, there was no trouble seeing everyone and everything around us. It was certainly a lot better than being stuck in the dark with only a couple of flashlights that worked off of D-cell batteries.

  Of course, in the light we all saw more than we wanted to see. There beneath our feet was the same grit that was piled up in mounds outside the door. We had all mistaken it for the dust and dirt that can always be found on warehouse floors. But it was more than that. It was all that was left of the people who had walked out of their houses that morning, never suspecting in a million years that they would be reduced to something out of a crematorium urn by the end of the day.

  Nobody really said anything about the dust underfoot. We all just kind of moved to another part of the floor and wondered how the flesh-colored ash had found its way into the store. None of us wanted to consider the possibility that we weren't entirely safe, that the glass doors we felt so secure behind weren't actually anything more than microfilters, screening out only a small portion of the contaminant from the atmosphere.

  “I’m hungry,” Kenneth Weaver announced, ignoring the dust underfoot. It was obvious by the boy’s girth that he wasn’t kidding.

  “Is that all you can think about?” Jake asked his brother. “We’re all going to die here, and all you’re worried about is stuffing your face. That sort of attitude is the reason you’re such a whale to begin with.”

  “You shut your mouth, fag,” Kenneth retorted, his blubbery cheeks turning red from rage and embarrassment. “I still get more girls than you do.”

  “Shut up, the both of you,” Jesse Weaver roared. “Show your mother a little respect. She ain’t doing so good, and the last thing she needs is to listen to you two yammering on and on about nothing.”

  Of course, the fact that Kenneth was hungry brought up a whole new set of problems that nobody had considered yet. The only source of food and water in the entire store was the snack and beverage machines in the break room.

  “But I’m hungry, Dad,” Kenneth whined.

  “Get what you need if it will keep your trap shut,” Jesse said. “Just smash the glass.”

  Steven, Chuck, and I all looked at each other. We knew that this approach would never work. The only question was which one of us was going to speak up. Chuck didn't seem nervous at all about confrontation.

  "Hold on just a second," he said, running over to Mr. Weaver. "We've got to be rational about this. Those machines are the only source of food we've got. Who knows how long we'll be trapped in here?"

  Jesse Weaver spit on Chuck's shoes and crossed his tattooed arms. "Are you telling me that my boy can't have something to eat?"

  I could tell that he was itching for a fight, and I knew that Chuck wouldn't back down. That's why I stepped between them.

  "Nobody's telling you anything," I said, "but Chuck's right. We've got to ration this food and plan for the worst."

  Jesse Weaver took a step forward. We were close enough that our chests were touching.

  "Ain't no need of that," Pete, the plumber, said. "Your boy don't deserve to eat any more than the rest of us."

  I think everyone was a little surprised at that, but I, for one, was relieved that Pete was on our side. He was a big, burly plumber who did physical labor for a living. Jesse Weaver knew that as well as I did and seemed in no mood to face him in a physical confrontation.

  "At least let me get a drink for Vera," he said irritably. “She’s not doing too hot.”

  Thankfully, the snack vendor had been in earlier that day and filled up the machines. There were plenty of sodas, sandwiches, chips, candy bars, and the like. Plenty, of course, if we were going on a picnic or having an afternoon snack. But each piece of food was like a grain of sand in an hourglass. Eventually the food would run out and so would our time on earth. Maybe it would have been easier for all of us to run outside and surrender ourselves to the fury of the wind.

  As I looked at the cooler I realized that there were certain things that would spoil if allowed to sit there. Granted, we needed to preserve our food supply. But the food would do no one any good if it ruined. I borrowed Pete’s sledgehammer long enough to smash the glass front of the machine.

  “Go ahead and get a sandwich, Kenneth,” I told the boy. “Everybody should go ahead and eat. This may be the last time your stomachs are full for a while. Enjoy it. That stuff won’t keep for long. We may as well go ahead and eat while it’s still good.”

  As any overweight person can attest, eating is a comfort, a solace during troubled times. We were a group in sore need of comfort. The majority of the sandwiches were gone within the hour, leaving the candy bars, chips, and drinks for later.

  Typical of any kind of cafeteria we all sat in our own subdivided groups. Chuck, Steven, Pete, and I sat together. The Richards’ and Leland Kennedy sat together. And, of course, the Weavers sat in a corner all by themselves.

  “What are we going to do?” Steven asked around a mouthful of ham sandwich. Even in the glow emitted by the work lights, I could tell that Chuck was looking to me as well for answers.

  “How should I know?” I replied. “It’s not like I’m skilled in crisis situations involving speaking in tongues, chemical warfare, and end-of-the-world scenarios. They left out that chapter in my training.”

  “You usually think logically when there’s trouble. You haven’t thought of any other explanations this time?”

  I sighed. The truth was I had been thinking. “What if this is, in fact, some sort of judgment on mankind?” I said. “Is this really any different than the Great Flood or the rain of fire and brimstone that killed everyone in Sodom and Gomorrah? Maybe this is God’s way of cleansing the world. The fact that Vera Weaver spoke in tongues suggests that God may have something to do with this.”

>   Steven, Chuck, and Pete looked at each other but didn’t say anything.

  Chuck finally broke the ensuing silence. “Well, if God’s responsible, then there is no escaping. We’ll just survive until we die. Game over. End of paragraph. Lights out. There’s not a person here who can outlast the Almighty.”

  “Maybe we’re in the group God intended to live,” Steven suggested. “He saved certain people in the other two cases you mentioned. Maybe we’re like Noah and his family.”

  “You sure are a pretty Biblical guy all of a sudden, Steven,” Chuck said sarcastically. “Maybe we should just pray to you for our lives. You seem to have a direct pipeline to God.”

  “You think I was faking that?” Steven said defensively.

  “I didn’t say that,” Chuck replied. “It’s just a little weird that I’ve gotten drunk with you more times than I can count, I’ve watched skin flicks at your house, I’ve shot rats at the dump with you, and now all of a sudden, you’re quoting Bible verses, and God’s using you for a mouthpiece. You just don’t seem like the most likely candidate for divine intervention.”

  “You’re just jealous,” Steven said.

  “Enough of this,” Chuck murmured as he left the table. “I’m going to go and have another look at what’s going on outside.”

  “I’m coming with you,” Steven said, stuffing the last of his sandwich into his mouth. “Maybe a little of my holiness will rub off on you.”

  With the two of them gone, that left just me and Pete. Pete waited until Steven and Chuck were out of earshot before speaking.

  “I don’t know how this works but Jerry, my partner, deserved to die,” Pete said solemnly. “He beat his little girl, abused her. He didn’t think I knew but his wife told me. I was trying to help them find a way out. If this is God’s way of judging sins, then I think he hit the mark where Jerry was concerned. He got exactly what was coming to him. Maybe your friends have some secrets they’ve been hiding too. It’s something to consider.”