Storm Horizon

by Brian Switzer

  The guards stood in a semi-circle between him and the road. None of them met his gaze- they looked over the top of his head and off into the distance.

  "Great fucking job you assholes have." Coy smoothed out his shirtsleeves and gave them one last dirty look. He snorted and turned away from them. "I'm going back to the church."

  They reassembled their diamond around him and everyone made the short walk to the entrance in silence.

  A short, squat man in street clothes met him at the door. "Good afternoon, Coy. I'm to get you upstairs to Chet."

  Coy gave him a sideways look. Who's Chet?"

  "He will explain everything upstairs. Follow me please." The man turned and headed down the hallway to the sanctuary without awaiting a response.

  Coy shrugged to himself and followed- down the hall, through the sanctuary, and in the elevator up to the third floor.

  When he got off the elevator, a balding and trim little man who looked like a storekeeper in the nineteen-fifties waited with the pair of elevator guards. The dapper stranger dipped his head in greeting. "Good afternoon, Sir. My name is Chet Holzworth. I am here to help you get cleaned and dressed for your dinner with Miss Wiegel this evening."

  Coy glanced at the guards. They didn’t stare at the floor as they did with Kayla. In fact, they eyed him with avid curiosity. He sucked a tooth smiled at Chet. "Hold on there, partner. I've cleaned and dressed myself since the age three. I'm pretty sure I can handle it."

  "Of course, Sir. I won't assist you as you get prepared. If you follow me, I will show you to your room, the shower, and some clean clothing."

  "Oh. In that case, lead the way, Chet."

  Chet led him down the hall in the opposite direction of Kayla's office. They turned the corner, passed several closed doors, and stopped at the last door on the right.

  Inside, Coy found a small sleeping room with room for a bed, a chair, and a mini-fridge. A doorway led to a bathroom with a sink, a toilet, and a stand-up shower. A toothbrush, tube of toothpaste, travel-size shampoo, stick of deodorant, and comb were lined up on the back of the sink, each in unopened packaging. An expensive-looking bottle of cologne rounded out the toiletries. A pair of khaki pants and a shirt with a button up front hung in a tiny stand-up closet, and unopened packages of tee-shirts, underwear, and socks sat atop a cheap three-drawer dresser.

  Coy took in the items, impressed. "You guys didn't miss anything, did you Chet?"

  "We strive not to, Sir. May I have your boots cleaned for you while you're showering?"

  Coy looked at his scuffed and dirty work boots. Mud from that mornings romp in the woods caked the soles and the left one had a dollop of blood splattered across the toe. He shrugged his shoulders. "If you think you can do anything with them."

  "Certainly, Sir."

  "Okay. I'll leave them outside the door."

  "Very good, Sir." Chet turned to leave, got the door, and stopped. "Might I suggest, Sir- regarding the cologne, a light touch manages nicely. Also, they program the showers to shut off the hot water after three minutes of usage. I would hate for that to take you by surprise."

  Coy thanked him; the little man dipped his head again and left. Coy disrobed, toyed with the spigots in the shower until he found the perfect temperature, and stepped in. It was luxurious. He closed his eyes and let the hot water pound his body for the first time since before the outbreak.

  He stayed under the water for a sixty count, then lathered up and shampooed his hair. He didn't want to be under the spray when hot water quit coming out of the pipe.

  After toweling off he laid on the bed, naked. The bed was nice- a double or a queen, he couldn’t tell which, with soft mattresses and an intricate headboard. The sheets were silky and clean, the comforter thick and warm.

  Curious, he sat up and ran his toes through the carpet. It was soft and lush, but not thick and luxurious like that in Kayla's office. Troubled but unable to say why, Coy laid back down, pulled the sheet up over his naked waist, and fell asleep almost as fast as he could close his eyes

  Seventy

  * * *

  At ten minutes before seven, there was a light rap on his door. "Come in," he yelled from the bathroom as he buttoned his shirt cuffs. He stepped into the main room and met Chet coming in with a brown paper grocery bag under his arm.

  He set the bag by the head of the bed "Are you ready for dinner, Sir?"

  "I just need to put my boots on."

  "In the container, Sir.”

  Coy pulled his boots from the bag and admired them; they gleamed and looked almost new. Chet stood at the doorway, ramrod straight, while Coy pulled them on. As he pulled his laces tight, he looked at the older man. "Where do you guys get all this stuff?"

  Chet's forehead wrinkled. "I'm sorry, Sir?"

  "The brand-new deodorant and toothpaste, new clothes, underwear still in the package. Where do you come up with that?"

  Chet glanced at a watch on his wrist. "We have teams, Sir, many teams that specialize in forays into town after supplies."

  "No, it's more than that. We have scavenge teams too. But they don't bring back stuff like that. At least not in a quantity where we have enough to give one of everything away to a stranger.” Chet sole another peek at his watch. "I'm afraid that's all the information I have on the subject, Sir. I'd invite you to ask Ms. Wiegel during your dinner this evening. Right now, we must be off. It would not do to be late, Sir."

  Coy rose from the bed. "I'm coming."

  Check pulled the door open, and Coy stopped next to him as he walked through. "How'd I do on the cologne?"

  Chet smiled and bowed his head. "First-rate, Sir."

  Seventy-One

  * * *

  A short time later, Coy sat at one end of a small, intimate dinner table; Kayla smiled at him from the other side. The top table was made of lacquered hardwood with eye-catching swirls of gold in the grain. Each table leg ended in a golden, jewel-encrusted orb at the joint where the leg met the table. Coy figured this one piece of furniture cost more than most people made in a year.

  After delivering him to Kayla, Chet donned an apron and shifted into waiter mode. He’d just cleared their salad dishes, promising to ‘return with the main course posthaste.’

  Kayla played her part. She had changed into an evening gown, a strapless burgundy affair dusted with sequins that shimmered in the candlelight. The dress barely covered her nipples and clung to her hips and legs. She’d put her hair up, showing off the graceful curves of her neck and shoulders, and painted her long nails the same scarlet as her glossy lips.

  She took a sip of her wine and regarded Coy with the hint of a smile. "What did you think of what you saw today?"

  Coy considered his answer with care. He walked his tightrope as long as he remained unsure of the reason for his being here. "It‘s a very impressive operation. I don't understand the reason for the holes, but the fence, the storage system, your livestock- that's way beyond anything we've done."

  "We'll get to the holes in a minute, and then you'll understand why you're here and why we had to grab you to get you here."

  "I don't understand a word of what you just said, but tell me this. How did you even know I exist? How do you know about me, know my name and where I would be this morning? You have somebody inside our community, don't you?"

  Kayla's smile turned a shade less cheerful. "Why Coy, I could tell you that, but then I couldn’t let you go home."

  Chet’s entrance cut off the conversation. He carried a big platter in each hand and a new bottle of wine bounced in his apron pocket. He served Kayla first, a grilled chicken breast with sides of squash and zucchini. Next, he set a plate in front of Coy. His mouth watered when he looked at the meal- a juicy, buttery Kansas City strip cut an inch thick, baby new potatoes and a small pile of peas. He stared at his steak while Chet opened the wine.

  Kayla eyed him with compassion as Chet left the table. "Look at you. You must be starving, poor boy. Enjoy your meal, and we’ll pick up o
ur conversation when you're ready."

  The strip was cooked to perfection- the outside was seared to a delicious crust and the inside was red and warm to the touch. He popped a piece in his mouth and chewed, closing his eyes and almost moaning with contentment.

  He inhaled half the steak and all the potatoes before coming up for air and a drink. Ignoring the goblet of wine by his plate, he chose a glass of water instead. His face grew warm as he drank; he set the cup down and ducked his head. "I apologize. I've eaten a lot of beef jerky and canned spaghetti over the last year. There’s been more venison and chicken lately, but it doesn’t taste like this."

  "No need to apologize, dear boy. I love to see a man eat. Go on- finish your meal."

  He smiled his thanks and dove back to his steak. He ate the second half slower, taking in the meal and his surroundings between bites. The glasses were crystal. The cutlery was heavy, perfectly balanced and no doubt expensive. His napkin was cloth and matched his placemat- both thick and soft, and inlaid with gold stitching

  He ate the last piece of beef and gave her a speculative while he chewed. "I've got a question," he said, as he wiped a bit of grease from his chin.

  "Oh?"

  He drained his water glass and set it down. He didn't answer her right away, but looked around the room again instead. Finally, he met her gaze. "Do you ever feel guilty about this?"

  "This what?"

  "All of this." He made a large circle in the air with his index finger. "This whole room, your clothes, this food. Are the guys spent the day out there digging dirt eating steak and drinking wine out of a crystal goblet tonight?"

  "God, that's got to be a relief."

  He gave her a quizzical look. "What's a relief?"

  "To ask that question, finally. You've wanted to ask it all day."

  "Not all day. Just since we went downstairs and outside."

  "Coy, my husband was an enormously wealthy man. Do you know why?"

  "It's been my experience that when somebody has money, it's because they were born with it. Now you'll tell me your husband wasn't born rich."

  "His parents were a wonderful couple who gave him as middle-class, middle-American an upbringing as you could've had in this country. His father was a lineman for the telephone company and his mother worked as a middle school secretary. He most definitely wasn’t born into money.

  "Randy accumulated his wealth by taking risks. He left a good, safe job to build a business everyone said would fail. He expanded it three times, increasing the size of his plant and his sales territory. It was a risk, all three times. He invested the earnings back into the company, rather than take on partners when he was small, or go public as he grew in size. When he needed capital, he sat across from his banker, he didn't search for investors to give him money for a piece of the company. Every one of those moves was risky, Coy, and they all paid off. So by taking risk and succeeding, he was rewarded."

  "That sounds a lot like my dad."

  "Indeed. Even your journey from… Where was it, Nebraska?"

  "Close. North Kansas."

  She dipped her head. "North Kansas to here was risky. Most people would've hunkered down and tried to make a go of it close to home. He took a risk and led his people here. And his reward for that risk is to live in quite possibly the safest place from the dead in the entire Midwest."

  "All right. I follow you, so far. How does that apply to your situation?"

  She gave him one of her tinkling laughs. "I built this. Everything you saw out there today exists because of me. This was my church, the church I attended, before. My husband was a deacon and an Associate Pastor. When I got here, after the third week of the outbreak, this building was stuffed with seven or eight hundred people living in filth and squalor. Babies starved to death, men died of thirst, women were raped in the classrooms."

  She took a long pull on her wine glass, emptying it. She poured herself a refill, took a sip, set it down, and took a deep breath. "This place was a hellscape, and I turned it from that to what it is today.

  “I didn't do the labor, but that doesn't mean I didn't sweat. My muscles didn't ache, but that doesn't mean I didn’t pour myself into this place. I wasn't sweaty and dirty at the end of the day, but that doesn't mean that I didn't put every bit of my effort and concentration into getting to where we are today."

  Coy listened with rapt attention. He had a feeling he was on the verge of finding out why they grabbed him.

  "I thought of and fought for everything you saw today. When everybody else said it couldn't be done, I argued it into existence. I pushed and pushed and pushed and debased myself in ways a man would never understand to get this church and its land and my territory where it is right now.

  "I took all the risk. I didn’t rule as Queen from day one, Coy. I haven't always had a team of bodyguards at my beck and call. I earned those things.

  "That was the risk. The things you see around you are my reward. It's that simple."

  Coy was quiet for a long moment as he gathered his thoughts. "There are several arguments I could make in response to what you said, Kayla. But I don't live here and none of this is my business. So why don’t you tell me why I'm here, and then I'll get back home."

  She looked at him with a surprised expression. "I thought you had figured it out by now. The holes you keep asking about? They’re why you're here, Coy."

  Seventy-Two

  * * *

  "It didn't work, you see? It was a fine idea, but it didn't work.

  "I need to expand, Coy, God wants me to expand. God has great things in store for me. But, you can't fence in an entire city, or county, or the state. Not now, not with finite materials and a diminished labor supply. And even if you could fence in, say a whole town, where will you get the manpower to police the fence and keep the demons from piling up outside it? I simply don’t have enough people.

  "I mulled it around and thought and thought. I wasted entire weeks trying to come up with a solution, a way to keep my people safe. There are sixteen hundred of us Coy, and we need to grow. That many people need a lot of room.

  "That was my vanity- trying to fix the problem on my own instead of giving it to God. God always works on his own time, Coy- the Bible tells us that. And finally one day, he put the idea in my head. And it was so simple! 'Dig them passages, Kayla' He told me. Passages underneath the ground, so people can walk from their home to the church or the church to the food pantry. So they can go anywhere they want and never see a demon.

  "I was so excited after He told me, I didn't sleep that first night. I stayed up all night working on the plans and drawing out ideas. And those are jobs I rarely involve myself with anymore, Coy. I delegate that work to other people. But I was on fire with God's word!

  "I sold my lieutenants on the idea and together we convinced the masses. I had to preach on man's dominion over the Earth and his duty to heed the word of God four Sundays in a row, but I finally got everybody on board. We dug a practice tunnel from the back of the church to the road, and it worked fine. Next, we dug the first real tunnel, from the front of the church to the agricultural center. The men made steps out of cement and strung lights across the top so people could see where they walked. I was the first person to go in and I walked from one end of the other.

  "My goodness, did the masses party that night! They had fires, alcohol flowed, I even donated a couple of pigs for them to roast. It was a grand celebration.

  "Alas, as it turns out, God's not an engineer. Or maybe we didn't do it right, that's always a possibility. We started digging the main tunnel, one running from the housing complex to the church. And it didn't go well.

  "Everything was perfect for fifty yards. Then the tunnel caved in on the workers. We lost men, I don't know how many. They dug out the bodies and cleaned up the mess and I gave a speech about how the lost men were heroes who gave their lives so the rest of us would be safe from the demons. And we went back to work.

  "Four days later, it caved in again. An
d two weeks after that, and ten days after that. At that point, I would have had to order the men beaten to get them back to work. And I was willing to do so, my dear, that's how important this project is.

  "But then, some idiot playing around on equipment he didn't know how to work caused a cave-in at the original tunnel and killed a bunch of workers in it.

  "That was the end of the G-CORE tunnel project. And not only did I still have my original problem — no way for people to move around in safety — I had a new problem. For the first time, people questioned my rule. I suffered things you used to see in third world coups- people plotted to overthrow me, filthy graffiti about me appeared overnight, and my security staff told it wasn't safe for me to go out anymore."

  For the first time since she started her speech, Coy interrupted with a question. "What caused the tunnel to keep caving in?"

  "Something about an equation. The longer the tunnel, the deeper it has to be, and they were unable to go any deeper because of the bedrock, or something. It doesn't matter. What matters is I had to do two things, fast. I had to make the masses fear me again. And I needed a new plan.

  "I handled the fear." The easy way she said those words and the implication it held sent a shiver down Coy's spine.

  "And, as a lifelong resident of the beautiful town of Carthage, The perfect place came to mind. A place where my kingdom could grow in numbers and be safe from the demons as it grew."

  Coy’s eyes narrowed. A band tightened around his chest and he slumped back in his chair.

  "The problem was people already lived there. Not a lot of people, just a few hundred. But my understanding is they are not the kind of people I could successfully coexist with.

  "That being the case, and not desiring to murder a few hundred strangers, I tried to drive them out. The word I got about the people living in my future home is their leaders are nothing if not resourceful. And that turned out to be true. Every time I tried to run them off, they overcame my efforts- despite the fact they didn’t even know they had a fight on their hands.