by Ray Wallace
“Nothing worth having is ever easily taken, Thomas. This is all a test, nothing more.”
“A test?” Thomas noticed that they were drawing a crowd. The other Reborn were gathering behind Gerald. It seemed that he had taken on some sort of revered status among them. The messiahs, the men with the answers, or the ones who at least said the things that people wanted to hear, usually did, Thomas figured.
“A test of our faith, our commitment, our desire to persevere and claim what is being offered to us. You will see. Soon, all of this will pass. The great time of judgment will come to an end. And we will go forth and create a Heaven where there is only emptiness in the world beyond the barricade.”
Thomas had heard enough. Gerald and his fellow Reborn had lost touch with reality. Not that Thomas could really blame them, considering what they had been through. But he had a strange feeling where this kind of zeal, this level of mania led. Nowhere good. He started to walk over toward where Dana and Tanya were standing a short distance away. All he could think of right then was getting them out of there, the three of them leaving as quickly as possible. He still wasn’t sure where they would go. The police station seemed like his best option, all things considered. The place was stocked with weapons. It had to be the most fortified building in town. They could scavenge supplies, ride things out for a while, see what happened. It was as good a plan as any. Whatever got him away from the group of lunatics currently staring at him a bit too intently for his liking.
“Running away solves nothing, Thomas,” Gerald said. “Until you join us, until you become one of us, you will always be running.”
So Ron was correct all along.
It was the last thought Thomas had before the sound of booted footsteps came up behind him and then something hit him, hard, across the back of the head.
Darkness descended...
*
I can recall being knocked unconscious on only two occasions in all the days leading up to the morning that my family disappeared. Both events occurred in my youth. How careless we are as children, running about like little maniacs, all but unaware of the dangers inherent in such behavior. When I look back upon my childhood and think about half of the ridiculous stunts my friends and I pulled, I have to wonder how I ever made it to adulthood at all let alone in one piece.
Once—I believe I was in the fourth or fifth grade—I was spending the weekend with a cousin who lived about twenty minutes away in one of the myriad Pittsburgh suburbs. My cousin, one of his friends and I were out riding our bikes. We all had BMX’s and envisioned ourselves as professional BMX riders when we grew older. Mine was a chrome and blue Diamondback. God, how I loved that bike. I can still remember the day I took it home from the shop, sitting in the passenger seat of the family car, my mother driving, smiling in response to the big smile that refused to leave my face. I kept looking into the back seat where we had just managed to fit the bike inside the car, how shiny and new and sleek and just plain awesome it looked. Visions of ramp jumping and curb endos danced through my head…
Six months later, there I was, riding along with my cousin and his friend. We were crossing a school parking lot. I had fallen a little behind. We weren’t going all that fast, kind of coasting along. I looked away from where we were going over toward the street that ran alongside the parking lot. Don’t really recall why. Maybe someone had shouted or beeped their horn. I didn’t see my fellow riders duck and pass just beneath the length of metal cable that had been run between a couple sets of Bob’s Barricades, placed there to mark the edge of a section of the lot that had been recently paved. I didn’t notice the wire at all until it caught me across the top of my chest and pulled me right off the back of my bike. I landed flat on my back, my head striking the pavement. I was only out for a few minutes. Once I had regained consciousness I had to walk, pushing my bike for a few blocks until I felt steady enough to mount the pedals and ride once more.
Ah, the resiliency of youth.
The other time was only a year or so later. I was with some friends at a local playground. It was summer and there were quite a few people there riding the swings, playing basketball on the courts, kicking a soccer ball out on the field. A rather spirited game of “tag” was underway and I found myself running from the person who was “it”. Sprinting all out, I looked back over my shoulder—it seemed I had not learned from the incident on the bike—to locate my pursuer and ran into a set of monkey bars which gave me a solid shot to the side of the head. When I came to there was a group of children standing in a circle around me, two adults I didn’t know kneeling beside me asking if I was alright. As I was helped into a sitting position and then eventually to my feet, I assured everyone that I was fine. Then I made my way home, feeling a bit dizzy and nauseous for the remainder of the evening. After seeing the angry bruise forming below my hairline, my parents called a doctor friend of theirs who came by the house and looked me over “just in case.” It turned out to be nothing too serious. “Mild concussion” was the diagnosis.
Fortunately, I had no further accidents resulting in loss of consciousness. Nothing similar would happen again until I was quite a bit older—my college years—and then it would have more to do with drinking to excess than any form of blunt force trauma to the head. But that, as they say, is a story for another time.
*
When Thomas awoke he was convinced his head had been cracked open like a piñata at a children’s birthday party. He hadn’t felt this kind of pain rattling around inside his skull since one or two of the more epic benders he’d survived back in his college days. When he opened his eyes, the light made him moan and quickly close them again. He was hot, too, could feel the sweat soaking his skin beneath his clothes. And thirsty. God, was he thirsty. He needed water. And painkillers. A cold bath seemed like a wonderful idea too. When he tried to move one other rather important little detail came to his attention: He’d been bound at the wrist and ankles and around the waist, too. He wasn’t going anywhere. And that’s when the fear and the confusion overrode the pain and the discomfort afflicting him. He opened his eyes again, blinked against the light and the stab of agony that lanced into his head like a railroad spike being pounded into his skull. Gritting his teeth, he forced his eyes to stay open, to take in his surroundings, to see exactly where the hell he was and what had been done to him.
His assailants had been busy while he was unconscious. Or maybe some of the work had already been done before he’d been attacked. Maybe they’d been doing more than just visiting the pit during the night. Maybe they’d already built the cross to which he was now tied and they’d only had to erect it once the time came for them to put it to use. But, then again, it was quite possible it had been built while he was under for he had no idea how much time had passed. The sun was still out, sitting high in the sky. So it was sometime around noon. Noon of the same day? No way more than twenty-four hours had passed. He would have been much hungrier, for starters. The joints of his shoulders would have ached much more terribly than they presently did, even with the small section of wood that had been attached to the front of the cross for him to stand upon, greatly alleviating the stress placed upon that part of his body. How thoughtful. But why this small mercy? To prolong his ordeal? Hard to understand the mindset of those who had put him there. As of right now the pain wasn’t too bad so he reasoned that he couldn’t have been up there for long.
His feet were elevated about three feet off the ground. Ankles, wrists, and waist were bound tightly to the thick beams of wood that supported him. He took some comfort in the fact that they hadn’t nailed him to the damned thing. God was it hot. The red sky and the deeper scarlet of the sun felt to Thomas as though they were slowly sucking the life out of him and the world around him.
The cross had been planted in the section of grass between the parking lot and the stretch of SR 60 where the great worm had died. Almost exactly upon the spot where Ron had been killed. Ron’s body was gone. Had it dried up and blown away?
Or had the demons done something with it? The demons. When would they come to torment him as he hung there, suspended and defenseless, a perfect victim for them to torture? And just like that, it became obvious what the intentions of his assailants had been. They did not want his blood on their hands, no matter how much they believed in the process of rebirth. He was being offered up for the demons to kill. Undoubtedly, it was the reason the hellish creatures had been sent here in the first place. To torture and maim and eventually destroy, send those that remained in this world to the Hell that Thomas had seen in his bug-induced hallucination. In spite of himself, he laughed, if only a little. What had been done to him, all that he’d been through... The more he thought about it, the funnier it became. It was just so ridiculous: bloodstorms and mutant bugs, snakes and haunted reflections and zombies, for Christ’s sake! And now this… Hung upon a cross like some ancient Roman criminal or some wannabe messiah’s co-conspirator. It was all too much. The physical and mental and emotional toll of it all. He laughed harder, right there, bound and waiting for God knew what torments to befall him. But he didn’t laugh for long because the outburst caused the pain inside his head to flair and the motion of it caused the sockets of his shoulders considerable discomfort.
Got to calm down, he told himself. Conserve your strength. Because, ridiculous as it all seems, the fact remains that it’s all really happening. So you’ve got to keep your head on straight, stay in the game, play it out to the end, try to survive and find your way back to your family, wherever they might be.
That did it, the thought of Julia and the children, like a slap in the face which curbed his mounting hysteria. He took in a few deep breaths, as deep as he could manage in his rather awkward position, went about the task of assessing his situation and trying to figure out just what, exactly, he was going to do about it.
The demons were over by the hole. He could see them by turning his head to the left. They were a good thirty yards away, their backs to him, completely ignoring him for the moment. He tested his bonds only to discover that whoever had tied him to the cross had done a good job of it. Try as he might to pull his wrists and ankles free they wouldn’t budge. Doubtful he’d escape his current predicament unless someone came along to set him free. Dana maybe? How did he know that the bastards responsible for tying him up hadn’t done something similar to her? He imagined that a full scale coup had taken place, that the Reborn were now in control of things within the Wal-Mart, that after they had knocked him out they’d incapacitated anyone else they saw as an immediate threat.
How could Gerald, a man he’d considered a friend, betray him like this? Did he honestly believe that this would be good for Thomas? So it would seem. At least the decision to not kill Thomas outright, to allow his death to occur by other means, boded well for the true friends he did have within the sprawling building behind him. Since the Reborn hadn’t killed him he doubted they had killed Dana or Tanya either. He had to count his blessings when he could.
The heat was a terrible thing. Sweat ran in rivulets down his body. The red sun loomed large and oppressive above him. As the day wore on the temperature would only continue to rise. If the demons didn’t get him then dehydration would. He tried to work up some spit to soothe his dry throat. Not much luck there. By day’s end his skin was going to be cooked like a Christmas ham.
Time passed. How much, he wasn’t sure. He drifted off. For a moment there he could have sworn that Julia had come to him, a knife in one hand with which to sever his bonds, a cold glass of water in the other with which to slake his thirst. But when he awoke he was still bound, still thirsty. Only a dream. The ache in his shoulders had morphed into a deeper pain. The sun seemed larger still. He spent the rest of that day drifting in and out of consciousness. No one came for him. The demons left him alone too. Eventually, there came a time when he opened his eyes, the lids puffy from the heat and the sun, and saw that the world was darkening. The air was cooling. Night approached. For that he was deeply grateful.
Again he slept. On and off. He would drift away only to have the cool night air wake him. And then the stress of his ordeal would once more usher him into unconsciousness. Water images filled his dreams, cool and restorative, drenching his entire body, soothing the whole of his sun-wracked flesh.
A great rumbling sound forced him to open his eyes. The sky was brighter now and filled with clouds. Dawn had come and with it another storm had rolled in. Rain fell and he opened his mouth to drink greedily of the fat, warm droplets falling from the sky like a benediction, unconcerned for the moment what effect this water—and, yes, it was water—might have upon his body, mind, or soul.
“Yes, drink,” said a voice from nearby over the tumult of the tempest. “Bask in the healing waters. A gift, from those I serve… to you.”
Thomas lowered his gaze from the clouds and the rain pouring down to the man standing on the grass before him. “Ron?” he said, or tried to. Nothing much beyond a barely audible croak emerged from his chapped lips.
His friend was smiling, standing there, naked in the storm except for some long piece of cloth tied around his waist like a kilt. Behind him stood the demons, towering over him, their spine weapons held loosely at their sides, doing that weird flickering thing they did. The very same creatures that had recently dismembered the man who now stood so casually before them, his back to them as if he had nothing at all to fear in their presence. As if he now trusted the creatures. Or controlled them. Thomas found the latter possibility more unsettling for some reason. Filled with a deep sense of trepidation, he watched as his friend haughtily gestured to the demons behind him.
“What are you waiting for?” asked Ron of the creatures. “Get him down from there.”
*
Thomas spent most of that day asleep on a cot inside the auto repair shop across from the Wal-Mart, the place that Ron and Tanya had used as a home and makeshift base of operations. When he finally decided to get up and move around a bit, he found Ron in the office sitting behind a desk that took up about a third of the room. He motioned for Thomas to sit in the simple but comfortable chair across from him.
“Hungry?” Ron asked him.
“Starving,” said Thomas.
After they finished eating—canned goods, of course—Thomas leaned back in his chair and stared at his friend, wondered what it was that seemed so different about him. He also marveled at how well he felt, like his earlier ordeal had never even occurred.
“The storm was sent to heal you,” Ron said as if he could read his thoughts. “A little favor I requested. My gift to you. For being a friend when I needed one.”
“Well… I…” Thomas fell silent as a blast of thunder shook the walls of the room. “I don’t know what to say. Thank you.”
“You’re quite welcome.” While Thomas had rested, Ron had changed into an outfit consisting of dark pants and boots and a camouflage green tank top. He and Tanya had done their share of hording non-perishable goods and clothing while they had been staying here. There was even a small generator outside the shop which powered the electric hot plate used to cook the food and lit the small lamp standing atop the desk.
“These… people… that you serve…” Thomas threw it out there just to see what sort of a response he would get.
Ron smiled. “All in due time, my friend. All in due time. Relax. Enjoy the fact that you’re no longer up on that cross, that you’ve been healed. Life can be good, you know. Even here. Even now. If you’re on the right side, of course.”
Thomas had a sinking feeling he knew which “side” Ron was referring to.
“How do you communicate with them?”
Ron just looked at him, tilted his head a bit.
“The storm. The little favor you asked for. How did you ask them, exactly?”
“When I came out of the hole and saw you there, I offered up a prayer.”
Thomas waited for more of an explanation. When none seemed to be forthcoming he nodded his head and said, “Oh. I see.�
��
He sipped at the plastic cup full of grape juice Ron had poured for him after politely refusing the wine he’d been offered. As he did so he tried to find some reassurance in the other man’s words: The right side... All in due time... And found that he could not.
“I should bring Dana over here,” said Thomas. “Tanya too.” He was worried about them, worried about what might be done to them. They were known associates of his, after all, and neither one was Reborn.
“I will send for them,” said Ron.
“I’d rather go and—“
Ron shook his head. “It’s not safe. Please, let me do this for you.”
Thomas didn’t like it but what choice did he have in the matter? Ron was being polite enough—maybe too polite—had even said “please.” But there was something in his tone that Thomas didn’t like, something that let him know there was really no point in arguing with him. Ron had the power here. Ron was the one in charge. He’d been through death and back. He’d been changed. He could command the demons. Who knew what else he was capable of doing? It was smart to stay on his good side, wasn’t it? Again, what choice did he have in the matter?
“Thank you,” said Thomas. He drank some more of his grape juice.
Outside the thunder roared, the rain lashed at the room’s lone window, and the day faded toward night as darkness claimed the world.
CHAPTER 9
Tuesday, July 20 to Monday, August 23
Thomas was up early the next morning. A glance outside through the front window of the shop showed him that the world was just shedding its blanket of darkness. Dawn was breaking. What would the new day bring? Nothing good, surely. Nothing good. Although he felt good. Physically, that is. Better than he could remember feeling in a long time. Minutes earlier he’d sprung up from the cot upon which he’d been sleeping in the main area of the shop, wide awake and exceptionally refreshed, no doubt an aftereffect of the “healing storm” of the previous day. Whatever the cause, Thomas rather liked the feeling, found that it was difficult to maintain a bleak outlook when he felt as though he could run a marathon without breaking a sweat. Or possibly even take on the entire group of Reborn singlehandedly in a fistfight. Or maybe even the demons themselves.
