Destroying Angel

by Michael Wallace

  No! You’re dead!

  Jacob almost lost his balance. Only a sliver of doubt remained, the impossibility of the situation, the feeling, somewhere in his core, that he’d stumbled into some shared madness inspired by terror. Only that kept him from throwing himself backward to get away from this thing, this man from beyond the grave come back to kill him. He dug in his hands.

  The man’s features shifted. It wasn’t Gideon but a man with a shadowed face who wore a white robe and a black apron around his waist that glinted in the moonlight like a sheen of dirty oil floating on a pool of water. The man twisted at Jacob’s wrist to pull his hand off the rock.

  “You bastard,” Jacob said through clenched teeth.

  His arms and shoulders ached, and he struggled to keep his grip. The man pried one of Jacob’s hands free and then grabbed for the other, but that grip was already failing on its own.

  Jacob swung his free arm up and seized the man’s robe where it brushed his bare feet. He got a fistful. And then he let go with his other hand. He would drag his enemy down with him.

  The man let out a cry of alarm and rage and grabbed at the edge himself as he fell. Jacob got his other hand around the man’s ankle. He bounced off the sandstone and twisted his body around, pulling and tugging. The other man lost his grip. The two of them fell.

  They hit sand. It wasn’t as far or as hard as it might have been, with two men scratching and clawing at the stone as they fell and with a dune of sand at their feet, but the man landed on top of Jacob and drove the air from his lungs. By the time Jacob recovered, the other man was on top of him, knee at his belly and hands wrapped around his throat.

  “You fool, did you think you could defeat me here?” He bore down, choking until Jacob’s lungs screamed for air.

  And then Jacob got his elbow up into his opponent’s chin. He forced him back and then wrestled him to the ground. He clawed his thumbs at the man’s eyes, but his enemy had turned slippery. Jacob couldn’t get a grip, and every time he grabbed for hair or ears or throat, the man squirmed free like a wet bar of soap squeezed too tightly.

  Jacob brought his elbow around and caught the man on the side of the head, then took a knee to the jaw. One moment he was on top, fists free and flailing, and the next he was fighting for his life. At last he got clear and rose to his feet, heaving and shaking with exhaustion. The other man stood a few paces away, still and watching.

  “What do you want?” Jacob asked.

  “Worship me. Bow before me and thou shalt live. Worship me and I shall place thee at my right side. Thou shalt have kingdoms and principalities. I shall cast thine enemies down, even unto ruin.”

  “Who are you?”

  “An angel of the Lord.”

  “You’re no angel,” Jacob said.

  “And you’re no prophet.”

  Jacob lifted his arm to the square. “In the name of Jesus Christ,” he began.

  The man threw his head back and laughed. “No, Jacob Christianson. That will not work. Maybe for another man, maybe a man like your father. A man of faith and honor. But you? You can call on your god if you will, piss in the wind of your own doubt.”

  Jacob faltered. “Then finish it. If you are so powerful here, come at me. Kill me if you can.”

  “We don’t have to be enemies, Jacob.” What was that in his voice, doubt? “But you cannot defeat me here. This is my land, my kingdom. And it is spreading. Soon it will cover the earth, and no man will oppose me or stand in my way.”

  “Go!” Jacob said. “If you come back here, whatever and whoever you are, I will find a way to kill you, I swear it.”

  He felt suddenly light-headed, and a wave of nausea rolled through his body. He lifted his hand to his head and staggered, then fell in the sand. He couldn’t move, and the dizziness swirled around him. The ground bucked and swayed. Blackness encroached on his mind until he thought he’d pass out—or maybe he did pass out for a moment.

  “Daddy?”

  He opened his eyes to find himself on his back. Daniel looked down at him, the moon over his shoulder. Relief surged through Jacob. He struggled to his knees and grabbed his son in a tight embrace.

  “I’m sorry, Daddy, I’m sorry. I didn’t try to—I’m sorry!”

  “No, shh.”

  “I was scared,” Daniel said. “You were turning on the ground. Are you all right now? Are you having bad dreams?”

  Jacob touched the throbbing pain at his head. A bloody lump rose from his crown. “I’m okay now. Let’s go back—Mom will be afraid.”

  “Was that an earthquake?” Daniel asked.

  “A what?”

  “I don’t know, I’m not sure. I was outside. I think I was sleepwalking.”

  “You were. But what do you mean, an earthquake?”

  “I woke up on top of that big rock and the ground was shaking. You tried to jump across. But the ground was shaking and you tripped and fell.”

  “You saw me fall?”

  “Yes, you hit your head.”

  “An earthquake?”

  “The ground was shaking,” Daniel repeated.

  Jacob had his doubts. Daniel was in no shape to give a reliable account of what had happened. But then the ground gave a little tremble. An aftershock, nothing strong, or else it was far away. But it was enough. There had been an earthquake.

  He felt a surge of relief as he realized what must have happened. The earthquake hit as he was jumping. He slipped and fell and then hit his head halfway down and brained himself unconscious. Only the sand kept him from breaking his back too. While he was unconscious, his fevered mind must have crafted a narrative to explain everything. There was no angel.

  Except that it all seemed so real—the yawning gap, the angel prying him loose from the rock, the struggle on the ground. He lifted a hand to his throat. Nothing there, no pain or tenderness from where the man tried to choke him to death. His muscles, aching during the struggle, didn’t seem particularly tired. There was only the dull reminder of his stubbed toe, the scraped hands, and the throbbing goose egg.

  One thing was for certain. Fernie would be awake and terrified, no doubt raising a search party. Time to get back before they roused the whole valley into a panic. He took Daniel by the arm and led him from Witch’s Warts.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The house was in an uproar when Jacob and Daniel got back. David was on the porch, handing out flashlights and organizing the wives and older children into a search party. Younger children gathered in clumps on the lawn outside the porch, herded by Father’s widows. They chattered about the earthquake that had rolled through town. A few children lay sleeping on the grass, wrapped in blankets.

  “Thank heaven,” David said when Jacob and Daniel came up the sidewalk. “Here they are, everyone!”

  He sent Diego running toward the chapel to tell a search party the two had been found, and then turned to Jacob. “Fernie is in the kitchen.”

  Jacob looked around—at the women giving soup or hot chocolate to the searchers, at Stephen Paul’s wife Sister Carol with a clipboard and a walkie-talkie—and then turned back to his brother. “You organized all this?”

  David gave him a strange look. “It’s a search party, not the Olympics. Your wife is in a panic—I wouldn’t make her wait.”

  Jacob and Daniel went inside. Fernie sat in her wheelchair in the kitchen with the phone in her lap and the receiver at her ear. Relief washed over her face when she saw them. “Thank heavens,” she said into the phone. “They’re back.”

  Daniel ran into Fernie’s arms, where he broke down and sobbed. She kissed his forehead and, even though she looked terrified, sounded calm as she said, “It’s okay. Daddy got you, you’ll be okay, I promise.”

  “Mommy, there was a man.”

  “Shh. It’s okay now. Jacob, what on earth—wait, hold on.” She lifted the phone. “Give me a second. I’ll tell him.”

  “Tell me what?” Jacob asked. “Here, let me talk to them.” He reached for the phone.
“You can call off the search, but thank you.”

  “Heard about your son,” came the grim voice of Stephen Paul from the other end. “Glad you found him, but this isn’t about the boy. There’s other news. Fernie can fill you in. I’ve got calls to make. Stay by the phone. I’ll call back in five minutes.”

  Jacob hung up, confused, and turned to Fernie. “What’s that about?”

  She still held Daniel tight against her chest. “Multiple things.”

  “You mean the earthquake? Is someone hurt? Did someone’s house collapse?”

  “I have no idea. I hope not.” She shook her head. “It’s not that. Steve Krantz called on his satellite phone. Maybe ten minutes after the earthquake.”

  “Ten minutes?” He recalculated. “How long were we gone?”

  “Two hours.”

  “Are you sure?”

  She glanced at his father’s grandfather clock, marking its regular, unhurried time. It was almost midnight. “One hour and fifty-two minutes.”

  Five minutes into Witch’s Warts. Five minutes to chase Daniel up the sandstone fin and make his bad jump—presumably when the earthquake hit. His unconscious nightmare might have lasted another five minutes, but then Daniel was standing over him. And now Fernie said two hours, and while he couldn’t remember the time when he noticed Daniel was missing, around ten sounded right.

  “Jacob, are you okay? What happened out there? Where were you?”

  Now he understood David’s confused expression. Jacob assumed that David had organized a search, together with multiple points throughout Blister Creek, women with clipboards and hot chocolate and soup, in ten or fifteen minutes. But if two hours had passed…

  “I don’t know.” He looked down at Fernie in her chair, her expression worried. “I’m okay. We’ll talk about it later. But what did Krantz want?”

  “Steve, Eliza, and Miriam found Taylor Junior’s camp—or close enough to it. Four men drove off in a Humvee, loaded with guns and ammunition. Krantz and the girls think they’re on their way to Blister Creek. He couldn’t get anyone at the FBI to help. Krantz and the rest are coming back, but he doesn’t think they’ll arrive in time. We’re on our own.”

  It was a lot to absorb. Jacob’s hand went to the matted blood and sand at his scalp. It ached and he still felt dazed, his thoughts moving as slowly as the brass pendulum bob on the grandfather clock.

  A year since the last attack. He’d known another was coming, unless the FBI arrested Taylor Junior first. And they hadn’t. But now that it was upon them, he found he wasn’t ready.

  “Jacob?”

  He shook his head to clear it. “How long have we got?”

  “Hard to say. I talked to Eliza, and she said maybe two hours by Humvee to get to the ranch road—they’ll be there by now—plus another hour, hour and a half, to the highway. Then a couple more hours, maybe three or four, depending on whether they risk a drive through town or take back roads.”

  “So we have a little while.” Jacob considered. “But only four men? Only one Humvee?”

  “Four that we know about,” she said. “And four is enough. That’s all they had last time. Taylor Junior was with them.”

  The phone rang. It was Stephen Paul again, who spent a few minutes dancing around the same information he’d already shared with Fernie and then got down to business. Jacob found Fernie and Daniel distracting, so he stepped across the kitchen toward the dining room. His feet crunched on broken plates shaken from the cupboards by the quake.

  “Wish we had heavy weapons ourselves,” Stephen Paul said.

  “You mean illegal weapons.”

  “When someone comes after you with machine guns, you don’t worry about what’s legal, you want a fair fight. You want your hands on the same hardware. Going to call the FBI?”

  “Krantz already did. They’re not coming.” Jacob didn’t quite understand this, but he didn’t have time to call and find out why, not now.

  “Want me to try the sheriff? Highway Patrol?”

  “We should try,” Jacob said. “But we’d better not count on any help. Who have you raised so far from the quorum?”

  “Almost everyone. Still missing Elder Simpkins and Elder Smoot, but I’ll get them. Told the men to take positions. Is that right?”

  “Yes, perfect. Meet me at the reservoir in one hour. I’ll grab David.” He told Stephen Paul his plan for the women and children. “Your wife is here already. I’ll send Carol with guns and have her hole up in the church. I want everyone east of Main Street in the chapel with her, and everyone west at my house under Fernie. Spread the word.”

  “You sure that’s safe, collecting everyone in a couple of places? Doesn’t it concentrate the target?”

  “Yes, but they’re also defensible buildings, with thick walls, and centrally located on main roads for easy reinforcement.”

  After hanging up, Jacob made his way into the front room to find his wife with Daniel and a few of Jacob’s younger half siblings, who began to come back into the house. He sent everyone but Fernie and Daniel outside again. “I need to check the foundation to make sure it’s safe from the earthquake,” he told them. He waited until the others had cleared out of the house, and then said to Fernie, “That’s an excuse. I don’t want everyone riled up. This will be easier without panic and gossip.”

  “Are you okay?” she asked. “You look pale. What’s wrong with your head?”

  He lowered his hand from where he’d been fingering the goose egg again. “I hit my head in Witch’s Warts, but I’m all right. Listen, I’m meeting Stephen Paul at the Ghost Cliffs, and I’m taking Daniel with me. David and Diego too. Daniel, can you be brave?”

  His son nodded and made as if to come with him.

  Fernie’s hand tightened on Daniel’s arm. “Jacob, what are you doing?”

  “Every shoulder to the wheel,” he said. “Every man with a gun.”

  “He’s not a man.”

  “He’s old enough. This is the time when boys become men.”

  This was true, but it wasn’t the whole truth. He was thinking about the insanity settling into Daniel’s head. Out of his mind at night and, with that incident in the shower, suffering during the day as well. Fernie was in a wheelchair. Who would stop Daniel if he simply walked out the front door and returned to Witch’s Warts?

  He gave her a look and hoped she understood without making him say it. “Fernie, you’re in charge of everyone living west of Main Street. I want them in the house—anyone younger than twelve in the basement, and everyone else armed with guns. I’ll leave you with enough guns to defend yourself. The women—some of the girls too—know how to shoot. If the enemy breaks through, fight to the death.”

  Fernie looked pale. “That sounds like something the Kimballs would say.”

  “Last time they came for the women and children. Think about those people under Taylor Junior’s thumb. What do you think it’s like for them? And their children. Imagine our children being raised by Taylor Junior. Whatever you do, don’t put down your guns.” He pulled Daniel with him as he turned to go.

  “Be careful,” Fernie said. “And you know how I feel about revenge.” She hesitated. “But nobody will cry for Taylor Junior when he dies.”

  Another curt nod, and then he set off. Outside, he filled David in on the plan, and the two men took their sons and went to raid the gun safe while Fernie organized the Christianson household for its defense. Jacob, David, and the boys filled the back of a pickup truck.

  David heaved a box of rifle shells into the truck bed. “Welcome to Blister Creek, you son of a bitch,” he said in a low voice. “I pray to God that one of these things has your name on it.”

  They loaded Daniel and Diego into the backseat of the extended cab, and David climbed behind the wheel.

  “One second,” Jacob said. Then he ran back to the house, past the crying, anxious children. He found Fernie in the living room and bent to kiss her. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have run off like that.”
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br />   “‘Whatever you do, don’t put down your guns’?” she said. “Those were your last words?”

  “They’re not last words. We’ll see each other soon. You’ll see—everything will be all right, and we’ll be rid of Taylor Junior forever.” Another kiss. “I love you. Stay safe.”

  “You too.”

  Jacob ran up to his bedroom to find Grandma Cowley’s diary, which was sitting on the nightstand where he’d tossed it after noticing that Daniel was missing. His brother honked his horn from the street below.

  Jacob hesitated, then grabbed the diary and tucked it into his back pocket before running back downstairs to climb into the truck. David drove while Jacob called Krantz.

  Jacob had seen plenty of floods in Blister Creek, but he couldn’t remember seeing the reservoir in the Ghost Cliffs this full before. It submerged the grassy bowl where people picnicked in the summer to escape the heat of the valley floor. The place where he’d planned to set up sniper positions was also flooded, with water lapping at the base of the cottonwood trees that shaded the road on the west side of the reservoir.

  David pointed out a place where the road passed between a pair of trees on one side and the reservoir on the other. Jacob pulled across the road to block it, then killed the engines and lights. They pulled on hats and gloves and unloaded the back of the truck. Jacob didn’t give the boys rifles yet.

  Stephen Paul showed up a few minutes later, coming up the switchbacks from the valley floor, and Jacob blinked his flashlight to warn him about the roadblock. The man parked his own truck behind David’s. He’d packed the back with rifles and handguns, boxes of ammunition and flares, and assorted tools from shovels to axes.

  “You never know,” he said when Jacob and David came over to look. “You want to take up position behind the trucks?”

  “We need better cover,” Jacob said. He’d spent a few minutes on the phone with Krantz, who told him about the poison gases vented out of the pond and asked for Jacob’s medical opinion before sharing a few thoughts about how best to fight against Taylor Junior’s military gear. “That .50-caliber machine gun will cut right through our trucks. We need something more solid, like a rock ledge or a dirt berm. Let’s hike up the road and see what we can find.”