Come to Dust

by Bracken MacLeod

  Mike said, “There’s got to be an emergency exit.” He slipped through the curtains at the back of the stage and disappeared.

  Mitch walked up to the kneeling man. Unlike the other parishioners in their God Warrior shirts, he wore a golf shirt with an emblem over his heart depicting an eagle perched on top of two crossed rifles. Below that, it read “LOUIE’S FIREARMS AND SPORT.” Mitch wondered if he was in here watching the safes because he’d been the one to supply them. His knuckles were white from clutching the bat, and his arms trembled with the desire to swing it and swing it and swing again. “What’s your name?”

  “What does it matter to you?”

  “It doesn’t, I guess.” Mitch glanced back at Liana. She looked at him with a transformed face framed by salt and pepper gray hair and fresh crow’s feet. Sophie’s touch had aged Liana, but given them a bond stronger than that shared by any “natural” mother and child. He recalled the woman in the cemetery, broken by the loss of her daughter, who’d reached out for Sophie and got a withered arm in return. He had an idea what Sophie could do if she had nothing holding her back. She could form a physical bond of love that transcended all obstacles, or she could cripple a person with her rejection and judgment. Rebirth had given her the power of a parent. What had the detective said to him? Children begin by loving their parents, then they judge them. No one asked to be small and weak in a world that favored the big and strong. And when they needed devotion and fierce protection, some of them learned exactly how hard the world was. Sophie, Michelle, Jack, Cassie, and Brendan all had the ability to really hold them accountable. They had the kind of power to love or harm, typically the exclusive privilege of adults. And as comforting as Mitch found that thought, he could see the man kneeling in front of him was terrified by it. He was terrified of being judged. This place—the entire compound—was devoted to it. A sprawling palatial estate dedicated to a fierce parent meting out punishment. Mitch understood why the man was frightened.

  He didn’t want to be vulnerable. Like a child.

  He raised the bat. The man shook his head and sweat flew off his face. “I did what you said. I gave you the combination! Have you seen what they can do? Do you know what they are? They’re monsters! Demons!”

  “I know what they are. I know what you are.” Mitch reared back.

  The man flinched, raising his unbroken arm again to protect his face. “No! Don’t! My name is David Louie! My wife’s name is Paula. We have kids,” he said.

  “So do we!” Mitch swung low under Louie’s upraised elbow. The meaty thud echoed with a loud cracking of the man’s ribs snapping. His arm immediately dropped to protect his side and he doubled over, exposing the back of his skull. Mitch already knew what kind of sound that was going to make.

  “Stop!” Amye shouted. Mitch turned to look at the parents gathered behind him. They stared back with a mixture of tacit approval and seeming horror at Mitch embracing the work he intended to do. The bat in his hands suddenly felt too heavy to swing again. He let his arm fall to his side. Liana beckoned him with an open hand to step away from the man.

  “Come back to us,” she pleaded.

  He took a step away. Amye pushed past him, carrying her son in an embrace, his heavy head on her shoulder, limp arms dangling at his sides. She knelt down in front of the gasping man. “What are you doing?” he asked. She didn’t answer. She knelt in front of David Louie, and with her free hand, touched the side of his face, guiding his head up to look at her. The dead boy reached out in a mirror of his mother’s gesture and placed his hand on the other side of the man’s head. He leaned forward and opened his mouth, breathing in. The bright red flush in David Louie’s skin went pale. His mouth dropped open and no sound came out other than a low long breath. He wrinkled and dark blotches grew and spread on his skin. Liver spots. The boy’s cheeks filled out, becoming less gaunt. His skin pinked and his thin lips, which had pulled back, eased down over his teeth again until his red lips met. David Louie toppled over and shuddered. With a sigh, his body relaxed and the smell of his bowels and bladder releasing floated up into the room. The boy threw his arm back around his mother’s neck and embraced her. He looked over Amye’s shoulder at the others. His cornflower blue eyes, the same as hers. She stood and turned. Tears spilled over her cheeks, but she was smiling the same wide smile her boy wore when she set him down on steady feet. Alive, he looked just like her.

  Liana cried out, clutching Sophie tighter. Wide eyed, Nicholas and Alexa whispered their horror, while Steve and Izzy didn’t say a word at all. Mitch felt his stomach knot at the sight of the man’s body beside Amye and her restored boy. An animal reaction to watching a man die.

  In the lobby, the sounds of Roper’s sermonizing and the crowd cheering swelled in volume for a moment, and then died down, muffled again by the lobby doors. They were coming for them.

  Mike reappeared through the curtains. “I found the exit,” he said. “Let’s go!” He pulled back the drape and nodded for them to follow him through. Izzy and Steve ran through the gap clutching their child, followed by Alexa and her family. Amye, her healthy son Brendan beside her, holding her hand like they were racing to catch a bus to school went next.

  “Come on!” Liana hissed. She held out an arm for Mitch.

  Kristin remained sitting on the floor. Mitch waved for her to join them, but she stayed put, softly singing to her child. She caressed Cassie’s hair, trying to smooth it down. Mitch skidded over to her and tried to pull her to her feet. “You have to get up,” he said. “We have to go.”

  She looked up at him and shook her head. “No. You go.”

  “We can’t just leave you.”

  The door to the theater opened and a man called out from the shadows under the mezzanine. “Hey, Louie! We’re ready to see what’s behind Door Number Two.” Another man with him laughed.

  “Please, go.” Kristin shoved at Mitch and pulled David Louie’s gun from her waistband. She aimed it at the approaching men who hadn’t seen them yet and were still joking with each other.

  Mitch ran. Liana grabbed his hand tightly and pulled him along, refusing to let go.

  “Hey you! Where are yo—”

  Kristin fired.

  The rest was Hell.

  40

  The bang of the emergency exit door slamming shut contained more finality than the gunshots it muffled. There was no handle or latch on the outside, just a flat circular plate and a keyhole for which they had no key. In the theater, he heard Kristin wail and empty her pistol while the men who’d come to claim their next sacrifice fired back, shouting in confused rage. The muted chaos tore at Mitch’s guts. As badly as he wanted to rush back in, there was nothing he could do to help. The door was shut. Liana pulled him away from it. Together, they ran along a cobblestone walkway leading toward an asphalt lot behind a neighboring building to escape. On the other side of it a pair of tour busses were parked at an angle to the sidewalk. Beyond them was a large parking lot half-filled with cars and pickup trucks. Liana jerked at his arm, pulling him in a different direction, away from the lot. He skidded to a stop and pointed toward the others. “What about them?”

  Liana watched the rest of The Parents’ Ministry prisoners run for the lot without looking back. “I think we’re on our own,” she said.

  Mike’s eyes widened at the sight of the assembled congregants flooding out of the amphitheater, howling with something far different than the religious ecstasy they’d enjoyed only moments ago. He turned to flee across toward the courtyard. Liana let go of Mitch and barely caught hold of his shirt collar, stopping him. “Not that way.” She nodded toward the tree line on the other side of the road running behind the compound.

  Mike protested. “But the car is that way.”

  “You want to run through the middle of this place?” Mike shook his head and reversed direction.

  Mitch took Sophie from Liana and hefted the child up in his left arm. He handed the bat back to Liana so he could get a better grip on Sophie.
She wrapped her arms and legs around him as tightly as she could, but he could feel how depleted she was. His thoughts flashed to Brandon and the man in the theater. One of his therapist’s mantras intruded in his mind: His name is David. He is a living person. Was. Fuck him! He wanted to kill us. He looked back and saw his first glimpse of a dark pursuer in the gloaming. His heart beat faster.

  Around them, the amplified sound of Roper’s voice shouting, “FIND THEM!” echoed through the compound. It pushed them into motion better than any pep talk or starter’s pistol. It took away Mitch’s breath and his last shred of hope that they could slip away unseen. They made a direct line for the woods. He hazarded a look back just as they shoved through the tree line. People were fanning out over the courtyard. The tall sidewalk lights were coming on, glinting off of rifles and guns. A few parishioners jogged out into the street they’d just left, pausing to squint and stare into the trees. He saw Junior among them, face contorted with rage. He shoved on, hoping they hadn’t been spotted. The sound of the shot registered at the same moment he saw a cloud of maroon mist erupt from Mike’s back. Mitch skidded to a stop and doubled back. He dropped to his haunches and grabbed at Mike’s shirt with his free hand to drag him behind cover.

  “Li! Help!” Whatever concern he’d had for giving away their position was gone; it was known. More shouting rose from the street. And then more shots. Pieces of bark peppered his face as a bullet impacted in the tree next to him. He couldn’t help Mike with only a single hand. He couldn’t put Sophie down. Another bullet, this one in the dirt, kicking up grit and pieces of rock. He worked to hold on to both of them, and accomplished little until Liana appeared, grabbing Mike under his arms. She and Mitch dragged him behind a tree with a thick trunk. There wasn’t room for all four of them behind it, so Mitch scrambled on to the next one. He felt a bullet whip by his face as he darted for cover. At least he thought it was a bullet. It was hot and fast and felt like death and inevitability. For a second, he regretted not taking at least one of the guns he’d had in his hands along the way. But then, he’d rather die holding hands than a weapon. He’d never dreamed of being a soldier and had no desire to die in a proverbial pile of brass. Still, if he could return fire, the people shooting at them might feel compelled to also take cover. There was none in the road, and that would mean moving farther away. But wishing for a gun he didn’t have was useless.

  “Is he...?” he called out to Liana.

  “There’s blood everywhere!”

  “Imma kill you MEEE-SHELLL!” Junior screamed. Gunfire punctuated his threat.

  The screeching tires and the sound of bodies thudding against metal and breaking glass interrupted the shouting and shooting. Mitch hazarded a peek out from behind cover and saw the moment the silver minivan careened to the side of the road, mounted the curb, and smashed into the side of one of the sword-engraved obelisks near the bonfire pit. As it hit the standing stone, the driver over-corrected and the minivan yawed wide, tipping up onto two tires and rolling over. It flipped once, coming to rest on its side after a short, screeching slide. The clatter of breaking glass and a revving engine sounded for a few seconds after the vehicle stopped moving. And then there was a short moment of terrifying silence punctuated by the lone wail of a child. The sound made Mitch feel like crying out, joining it with his own wail of terror and desperation. He forced his mouth and lips shut, clenching his jaw and holding back the need to scream at the madness of it all.

  Aside from the child’s wail, there was a lull in the noise, as if the parishioners couldn’t believe what they were witnessing. The gunshots had ceased. Mitch couldn’t see or hear Junior anymore. And then it began anew. “Over here!” someone called out. A crowd of people gathered around the minivan. Their bellows blending together in an incomprehensible cloud of anger that swelled and ebbed and swelled again into a terrifying crescendo. One man climbed the roof rack and peered into the window. A single shot cracked and he fell back, landing heavily on the road, dead. The wind of rage became a storm beating at the sides of the vehicle.

  Another group of people appeared to help the shooters struck in the road. They knelt around their fallen friends and tended them. The woods into which they’d been firing forgotten in the moment. Mitch tried to get a better look at one of the shadowy lumps, wanting to make sure Junior was dead, but he couldn’t see any of them well enough to tell. Mitch heard another car motor revving up and tires screeching. The helpers in the road popped up, looking like meerkats searching for a predator. The car left the parking lot headed in the opposite direction around the roadway circle. A couple of parishioners stood and ran toward the sound, snatching up their fallen comrades’ guns as they went. The others that remained dragged the broken bodies out of the road, into the grass.

  Mitch crept over to Liana and Mike and whispered, “Can he move?”

  She pressed her hands against Mike’s shoulder. He gritted his teeth and looked like he was suppressing a scream. Tears streaked her face. “We have to get him to a hospital.”

  “Mike? Can you get up?” Mitch said.

  Mike gritted his teeth and nodded. He tried to stand, failed, and fell back against the tree, yelping in pain. Mitch’s head whipped around. No one looked their way. No one heard. They were focused on the chaos out in the open. Whoever had been driving the van had saved them, whether or not they intended to. Liana helped Mike to his feet again and they began making their way through the woods, away from the commotion.

  Disregarding the tales he’d heard of people turning back for a last look and regretting it, a love falling into Hades or turning to salt, he looked behind them one last time. The crowd was pulling someone out of the minivan through a smashed window. Steve struggled and they dropped him on his back on the asphalt. The crowd closed about him with violent undulations. A moment later, they dragged Izzy out the same window. She lashed out and screamed, kicking one man down. Another jumped forward and struck her in the gut with the butt of a rifle, driving her from the others’ hands into the ground where she landed with a flat thud and a strangled groan as all the air in her lungs was forced out. The crowd stepped back instead of stomping her. She rolled over on her side and got up onto her hands and knees. Gasping and coughing, she put a foot on the ground to stand. The man she’d kicked shoved her back down while the other one leveled his rifle at her.

  Mitch hadn’t turned to salt, but he did get a glimpse of Hell and regretted looking back all the same. He turned away, hunching over and cupping a hand on the back of Sophie’s head to hold her closer to his shoulder and avert her eyes. In the distance, he heard Izzy’s voice carry up over the din. “Go fuck yo—”

  BANG.

  A cheer.

  The world went dark for a moment. Steve and Izzy had saved them, and he’d done nothing. There was nothing you could have done. Go! “Where is it?” he asked.

  Liana turned. “I don’t know. I was following Sophie when we came in. I wasn’t really paying attention.” She pointed toward a rise on the other side of the parking lot. “That way, I think.” She pointed at the statue at the end of the courtyard. “Yeah, that way!” They circled around, staying in the concealment of the trees.

  More screeching tires and rifle fire echoed in the dark. They heard the loud crack of something snapping, followed by a howling engine that grew fainter as it moved farther away. Mitch pictured Nicholas, Alexa and Jack getting away. He hoped Amye and Brendan were with them. He hoped they’d be following behind soon.

  Mike stumbled over a root. Liana tried to keep him upright, but he fell. He opened his mouth in a breathless groan of agony. Mitch took a moment to crouch and scan for a sign that anyone was following them. He couldn’t see anyone in the trees, though the sounds of the frenzy continued to echo through them. He heard a loud whump and saw an orange light glowing in the growing night. A faint “amen” followed. The minivan burned brightly in the distance. He doubted anyone had lifted Michelle out of that car before setting it on fire. They cheered while a child bur
ned. He closed his eyes and listened for her screams. All he heard was Sophie breathing next to him. She is a living person. She is a living person. She is a living fucking person!

  “What are they doing?” Liana asked.

  “You know what they’re doing. We gotta get him up. They’re coming for us next.” He helped her right their friend and they moved on. They stepped carefully. There was no one left to come screaming out of the parking lot to distract the worshipers of the New Life Church. The four of them had been left behind.

  41

  Disorientation and the deepening dark led them to the gatehouse instead of Liana’s car. A group of parishioners had gathered, spiritedly discussing the smashed sentry arm that lay in pieces in the road framed by the tire marks of a vehicle that had almost lost control. Through the trees, Mitch could see Pastor Roper at the head of the group. They were too far away to hear what he was saying, but that Roper was furious was clear. His voice carried over the sounds of dwindling chaos in the compound, though the meaning of his words were lost in the rustle of wind in the trees. He pointed down the road in the direction of the skid marks before turning his finger back toward one of the gate guards, jabbing it in his chest.

  A pair of cars pulled up to the gates, and Roper waived them through, shoving at the guard standing in their way. Instead of a line of dieselpunk-style war machines with enraged albino madmen dangling off the sides, a pair of suburban soccer mom SUVs pulled through, slowing down enough to safely pass by the crowd, before taking off. There was no shouting or honking, no sense that anyone was giving spirited chase, other than the gravel kicked up by spinning tires.

  While he wanted to hide and wait for the rest of Roper’s congregation to quietly disperse and head home, Mike was still bleeding heavily, and every minute they spent sitting still put all of them in more danger. He turned up his palms. Where now? She nodded over her shoulder, got a better grip under Mike’s good arm, and turned them as quietly as she could away from the compound entrance. Mitch hefted Sophie up in his left arm and followed. This time he didn’t look back. He couldn’t bear the thought of it.