Babylon (Eden Saga Book 2)

by Matthew C. Plourde

  “You a demon?”

  With surprising speed despite her near-crippled state, Alexandra rose to her knee and plunged her sword into the man's stomach. The weapon slid through him effortlessly, fulfilling its grisly purpose. Freeing one of her hands, she grasped the rifle and pointed it away from her, towards the ground. He squeezed the trigger and the bullet sprayed water and mud into the air.

  Shaking and weak, Alexandra looked into his eyes and said, “Drop it.”

  He groaned and fell backwards onto the soggy earth, like a sponge dropped into a full sink. Rain fell between them in sheets. Alexandra flung the rifle to the side and panted. She knew she had lost a fair amount of blood. What was the limit to her endurance? Was she invulnerable like Koneh?

  She reasoned she was about to discover some of her limits.

  With her shoulder and stomach still ablaze from the gunshot wounds, Alexandra limped towards the man’s backpacks.

  Time to deal with the flotsam of the wasteland, she mused humorously.

  In the moments before she sank her sword into him, she calculated the risk of keeping him alive. She just wasn't equipped to travel with a prisoner. That stark fact sealed the man's fate. In that split second his life was deemed forfeit and Alexandra acted. She only wondered for a moment how the decision came so fast and natural to her. Her new path justified her actions. Justified her killing, sated her guilt and doubt before such emotions could gain ground.

  She rummaged through his backpack as he helplessly watched her.

  While gasping for air he said, “You... Who... Are you...?”

  With the cascading pain under control, Alexandra ripped open her shirt and wiped her stomach with a disinfecting pad from the man's supplies. The bullet hole was ragged and raw. Alexandra wondered why she wasn't revolted by the likelihood of her next logical step - cauterizing the wound with heat. Was the bullet still inside of her? Would she need it removed?

  Unfortunately, all those questions needed to wait in line. Other matters were more important.

  As she wrapped some of the man's gauze around her shoulder, she said, “Did you travel with Padre Hernon? Why are you out here?”

  For some reason, as she tended to her wounds, their pain dulled. She considered attempting to heal herself but she wasn't sure that would work. For now, things were manageable.

  “Why should... Tell you anything?” he asked.

  Alexandra grasped the handle of her sword, which was still pinning him to the ground. “Because I will end your pain,” she said surprised at her callousness. When did she become this person?

  He considered her offer and said, “I was... Finding wood... For Babylon. Padre has many... Searching. Supplies to build. The water is back. I... Know you.”

  “What do you mean, the water is back?” Alexandra asked.

  “I know you,” he repeated.

  “No,” she said, “you don't. Tell me what you meant by that? What water?”

  “Ocean... Back...”

  He closed his eyes and his chest stopped heaving. Like the rain a few moments prior, the man was now gone. The guilt finally came like the rush of a wave. It threatened to force vomit from her throat and she gagged.

  Did I really just kill someone? she asked herself. What have I become?

  She stumbled towards the delivery truck and fell to her knees in a murky puddle. Drenched, frozen, sore and drained she examined her distorted reflection upon the surface of the water. The dirt-smeared face that stared back held no answers. The guilt hollowed a hole through the center of her, expunging her humanity like a massive drill. Did anything remain? Was this her path?

  “We are all destined to follow the paths we choose,” a familiar voice intoned from over her shoulder.

  Alexandra wearily turned to the speaker. Of course, she would dream of Father Richard Callahan at a time when her guilt waxed. He appeared much like she remembered, gaunt and determined, his roman collar a beacon in the blandness of the wasteland. Was she dreaming? Yes, Richard had died at the cruise ship when Alexandra failed to heal him. His body was still under the mound of dirt they dug for him.

  “Have you found your path yet, my dear?” he asked as the lines around his face responded to his warm smile.

  Alexandra collapsed into his arms and clamped her eyes shut. She missed him more than she allowed herself to admit. He was her adopted father in the mess after the quake and he was taken from her much too soon.

  “I'm so sorry,” she said. “I couldn't heal you. I didn't know how.”

  As he stroked her wet hair, he said, “Shhh, no need to retrace steps already taken. It was my time.”

  Content in his safe arms, she allowed a few minutes to pass between them. Then, she asked, “You are in Eden?”

  He nodded. “I think they let us martyrs in no matter how awfully we've sinned.”

  She chuckled and looked into his eyes. “You weren't that bad, were you?”

  “Kiddo, I once told a nun to piss off. True story.”

  “Ohh, look out Iblis. We have a new player in town!”

  They shared a laugh and Alexandra recalled all the time they spent by the campfire together during their journey to Eden. She missed his company on the return trip. His quiet wisdom and light demeanor may have saved her from some of her darker moments.

  The dark of isolation. Though she reveled in his dreamtime company, the stark contrast of her loneliness cast a shadow over her joy. This moment, like the ones with Koneh, would end. Too soon, she would face the cold, lightless life she now led. In a way, she was forced to relive the loss of her friends and loved ones repeatedly through her visions.

  What a rotten deal.

  “I've been trying to watch you, but there is so much to do in Eden now,” Father Callahan said.

  “So much to do? What do you mean?”

  “Well, though the land is vast, many souls and walkers now inhabit Eden,” he said. “I have much to discuss with all of them!”

  “Walkers?”

  Father Callahan smiled again. “It's just a term we use for a human who has passed through the gates to walk among us deceased. It was all there in the Bible and I missed it. The descriptions of those first humans living such long lives. Eden was around for much longer than we thought. Oh, Alexandra, this is how life should have always been!”

  “Just, slow down a sec,” Alexandra said, amazed she was able to rein her guilt and sorrow concerning Richard. That, and the intense pain. “These dreams of mine have a tendency to end before I want them to, so let's focus here. What happened to you? Where did you go after the cruise ship?”

  “Well,” he said, “it's still a tad fuzzy, but I'll try my best.”

  The landscape was beginning to waver again. Alexandra realized she was half awake like the last time Koneh visited her. How could she be sleepwalking like this? What were the rules? She pondered her questions as Richard spoke.

  “I was surrounded by stars and I felt like I was falling,” he said. “Falling farther and farther into some sort of darkness. Just when I thought I would be torn apart, I stopped. There, inside an invisible box amongst the stars I waited. I was aware and terrified. Then, my mother's voice came to me and soothed me. I don't recall if she said anything specific, but I knew she was there.”

  “Wow,” Alexandra said.

  “Indeed. And then I awoke in Eden some time after. I’m still having difficulty with all the raw emotion, but this is a nice little diversion.”

  Alexandra smiled.

  “And I meant what I said – we all follow our own paths,” he said. “Yours is turning out to be a difficult one, I see? The road less traveled, as it were?”

  She grumbled. “Something like that. Though more gunshot wounds that I was expecting.”

  Concern on his face, he said, “Just remember – the path is yours alone. Though you may be taking me along for the ride for a few moments here, you are the one to decide who you become.”

  Barely audible, she asked, “And who do you see now
? A murderer?”

  “You don’t have murder in your heart,” he said, “only survival. Though I sense a shift in you. No longer do you simply struggle to live. You are becoming so much more than that.”

  She didn’t see it, but the dream’s conclusion came nonetheless.

  “And now I sense I'm leaving you,” he said.

  “That's how it works,” she said. “I get to lose you again.”

  Tears filled her eyes but Alexandra forbade them to fall. They embraced again and she held him tightly to attempt to keep him with her. However, she knew her efforts to be futile.

  “Miss you,” she said, unable to face the pain of their separation.

  He kissed the top of her head and said, “Miss you too, kiddo. Go. Walk your path now.”

  Some time later, she awoke near the delivery truck. Mud caked one side of her face and body. Talla panted nearby and watched her. The man she killed remained in a shallow pool of recent rainwater, her sword still planted in his chest like a makeshift grave marker. Orange light from the unnatural sky painted the area and the frosty breeze chilled her bones. Her wounds throbbed and she swished stale blood around in her mouth.

  Was this really the life she had chosen to lead? Was this to become a common scene?

  She rose to her knees and held her pounding head. She spat some blood. Time to begin another relentless day in the wasteland. She was about to stand when something glinted in the sand. Squinting, she spotted the object and lifted it from the ground.

  It was a bloodstained, crushed bullet.

  Her heart racing, she removed the hasty bandage around her midsection and found the wound in much better shape. The edges were less angry and the hole had closed. Did the bullet push its way from her stomach to the ground? What about her shoulder? She unwrapped the gauze there and noticed that her flesh had begun to scar over the open gouge from the bullet that passed through her.

  At once, the realization fell upon her like the recent rainstorm - she and Koneh were cut from similar cloth. Both of them seemed to have the ability to heal their own bodies. Superior material indeed! How far did the similarities run? What did this mean? Was her fate the same as his? Scarred and forever a vagabond of the earth? Was that her path, as Richard had said?

  She finally stood and stretched her sore shoulder. As she examined the dark horizon to the south a new thought danced in front of her, taunting her.

  Was Koneh also a child of Elah?

  Chapter 14

  Alexandra's musings on her own strange abilities and Koneh’s origins had to wait in line. Before she could resume her trek southward, she needed to sort through the dead man's backpack and consolidate her supplies. Once that was finished, she redressed her gunshot wounds. After that grisly affair, she coaxed Talla back to her.

  Like before, the hours stretched into days as Alexandra and her companion marched across the bleak landscape. The chill air, though different in a way she couldn't quite decipher, kept her clothes damp. She wondered when pneumonia would visit her. Though her stomach ached and pulled with every step, the wound no longer seeped blood. Her shoulder remained stiff but she stretched each morning to keep herself limber.

  During one of those mornings, barking shook her from her walking reverie. She looked ahead and the scent preceded her visual confirmation. She widened her eyes at the sight.

  The ocean!

  Alexandra ran towards the lapping waves and marveled at the dark blue expanse that stretched outwards. This must have been the subject of the man's babbling about the water returning. Talla sniffed the water and yipped his annoyance at the salty aroma. Dropping to the dark sand, Alexandra allowed tears to fall this time.

  The ocean signified familiar and powerful images from the old world. Not everything was destroyed. Perhaps hope still lurked amongst them. Maybe the Earth could return to its former splendor, as the Crone had said during Alexandra's first encounter with the enigmatic woman.

  She trapped Talla during one of his jogs past her and hugged him.

  “Do you know what this means?” she asked.

  Talla tried to squirm from her grasp.

  “Look,” she said. “I almost forgot how beautiful the ocean is!”

  Since the quake her world was full of darkness, pain and loss. With her previous life so distant, she had lost sight of the things that moved her. The massive ocean reminded her of many things she missed. The sound of birds in the morning. Thick forests. Snowcapped mountains. Sandy beaches full of playing children. A quiet sunset.

  Could it all return?

  She finally let Talla free and he resumed his curious examination of the shoreline. As orange filtered from the sky, Alexandra noticed something on the distant horizon. It appeared to be a boat, but the darkness obscured the object before she could determine much about the shape.

  “Interesting,” she said to herself.

  When morning came, she embarked along the shore in the direction of the unidentified object. As she neared she realized it was indeed a small wooden craft. She darted behind some large rocks when she noticed the other feature of consequence: people.

  Alexandra watched them from her hiding spot for a few hours. Men and women, about a half dozen in number, secured the small boat and unloaded some boxes onto a makeshift dock. A lean-to provided shelter for them as they rested and continued to work. They appeared to be expanding the size of the lean-to and dock.

  Around midday she sat on the ground and opened a can of soup, courtesy of the man she killed. She digested both the food and the scene.

  “They are probably from Babylon,” she said to Talla. “Maybe making it easier to reach the city. I suppose it's fair to assume more people are on the other side. Do they expect many visitors?”

  The question was absurd. Of course people would flock there. With the promise of eternal life, and a possible reunion with their loved ones, the remnants of this world would come. Like she calculated before, Babylon would become the center of everything.

  “Well,” she said as she scraped the bottom of the can with her stolen spoon, “I wonder if I'd be their first customer here at the docks.”

  She turned to Talla. “Think they'd be surprised?”

  He just looked at her with one ear erect and the other flopped over itself, anxiously awaiting the discarded can.

  “What's our story?” she asked. “Newlyweds on vacation?”

  She smiled and let Talla lick her spoon. Was there any danger in revealing herself to these people? Did Padre Hernon place “wanted” posters with her sketch on them, like in the Old West? Would they recognize her?

  “I could just kill them and take their supplies.”

  She wondered from where such thoughts originated. Was she really capable of such atrocity? When she witnessed Koneh slay those men intent upon raping her, Alexandra was revolted. Though they meant her harm, she didn't feel qualified to be party to their swift executions. Now, after so many months in the wasteland, her willingness to deliver vigilante justice wandered into her comfort zone.

  “Well,” she said, “until they try to kill me I guess I have no cause to harm them. I just wish everyone gunning for me would be quicker to announce their intentions.”

  Talla barked. He wanted more food.

  “Yeah,” she said as she allowed him to bury his snout in the empty soup can, “I'm talking to a coyote. I know.”

  By the time Talla had finished, Alexandra had decided there was little chance for harm at the hands of these people. They didn't appear to be the fighting type. So, with dim orange light left in the sky, she made herself visible and approached. Wary of the strangers, Talla kept his distance.

  Alexandra was close enough to hold a conversation with them but they hadn't noticed her.

  “Hello?” she finally said.

  One of the men, a Brazilian, whirled and jumped in surprise. Alexandra smiled to make herself appear as nonthreatening as possible. Maybe they wouldn't recognize the length of metal strapped across her back was a sword.<
br />
  “Oh!” he said.

  “I didn't mean to startle you,” Alexandra said. “Comprende anglais?”

  “Sim,” he said. “I know English.”

  By now, the others had stopped working, cautiously watching the exchange. They were all dressed in dirty clothing and they reeked like they had only bathed in the ocean of late. Alexandra assumed her odor was a tad fouler.

  “I heard about Babylon,” she said as she prepared to spin her story. “Is this the way? The men in Brasilia told me to follow the tire tracks.”

  “Sim,” the man said, nodding, “this is way to Babylon!”

  Playing the part, Alexandra feigned overdramatic relief. “Oh, thank God!” she said. “My truck broke down weeks ago and I've been walking ever since. I can't believe I made it!”

  As she spoke, Alexandra realized she didn't need to act as much as she first thought. She was genuinely relieved to finally be so close to her goal, whatever that was. At least she was close to Eden again - that was something!

  “I can take you across?” he asked eagerly. “I'm Manuel.”

  “Nice to meet you, Manuel. I'm Lex,” Alexandra said, deciding her nickname was safest until she knew what to expect in Babylon. “And that would be terrific!”

  After much coaxing reminiscent of the pickup truck, Alexandra finally got Talla into the boat. She resorted to holding him until they pushed away from the dock. The coyote was as unsure about the endless water as the rocking boat, so he refrained from jumping.

  “Where do you come from?” Manuel asked as he rowed.

  Alexandra squinted and spotted the other shore. It was only far in their new world, as motorboats were likely not plentiful. And neither was gasoline.

  “I was on a cruise ship near Veracruz,” Alexandra said. “News of Babylon has spread.”

  “Sim,” Manuel said as he nodded. “The angels carry the word of God to all.”

  So it was angels, like Erzulie had assumed. The outcast survivors from Heaven, like Zaph, were serving the church. Their reach would ensure the news spreads like a brush fire. There was no stopping it now.