Rayden breathed a sigh of relief and nodded his head. "Thanks."
Andy smiled at him. "Why don't we stop at Liberal, Kansas for lunch? It's not too far off the beaten path."
"Fine. That sounds great." Maybe God hadn't abandoned him.
* * *
Gisa
Gisa lay on her bed, curled up reading the book of Esther. Rayden had called out that name for a reason. She was determined to find out why. Rayden had mentioned Esther on the day they had seen the rainbow. But she had not been listening, because of her anger at him for daring to speak of the Bible.
She read through the book but saw nothing that helped her, nothing to indicate why Rayden had called out the name. She stared at the screen for a few seconds and then clicked the commentary.
The first thing she saw was a note on the name Esther. She read:
While most scholars agree the name Esther comes from the Persian word for star, the name may also have derived from the Aramaic word "shiara" meaning moon. The moon's beauty harmonizes with the beauty of Esther.
She raised her head. Esther—moon; keshet—bow.
Moonbow. Where had she heard that before? The Pierces? They had said they wanted to see the moonbow... where...? Somewhere in Kentucky... Cumberland Falls?
That had to be why Rayden had called out those words...it had to be! He wanted her to go to Cumberland Falls. She looked around at the walls. Yet, the knowledge wouldn't help her. She had searched and searched again. There was no possible way out. She was stuck in this room...at least until she had the baby. After that...
She didn't know what would happen, but right now she would block it from her mind. She would go crazy if she let her mind dwell on what would happen when she was released from her prison.
She got up to prowl the room like a caged lion. Her life existed inside these four walls. Only her newfound biblical interest might keep her from succumbing to despair.
She had read how Joseph was imprisoned for years before he was released. He never lost his faith in God. That was a little hard for her to believe. Surely he became disgusted at being forgotten? Had everyone forgotten her? Had they forgotten she had ever existed? Did Mason and her other students ever think of her?
Rayden...surely, he remembered her. But what good would it do? He would have no idea where to find her.
* * *
Rayden
They arrived on Andy's farm around midnight. Even this late, Andy's wife came out to meet them, not at all taken aback when she saw Rayden and Prometheus emerge from the car. Perhaps Andy had called and told her about him.
The overflowing garage had flood lights, exposing a large, old-fashioned farmhouse with white boards and red shutters.
Andy gave his wife a peck on the cheek before turning to Rayden. "This is the fellow who helped me change the flat tire. Richard, this is my wife, Betty."
She was a short woman who barely came to her husband's shoulder. Her eyes were a warm, friendly brown. “It's nice to meet you, Richard. It's so late, you're welcome to use our spare room tonight.”
“I appreciate the offer, but, no ma'am. I wouldn't want to intrude. Maybe I could stay in the barn with my dog?"
“Sure you can. Do you need anything? A blanket, pillow?" She placed a hand on Rayden's arm, peering up at him.
"I've got a sleeping bag in my pack and also a hammock, all that I need."
"Well, if you need anything else, just give us a holler."
Andy smiled at his wife. "I'll be inside in a bit. Let me get Richard settled in."
“Okay. Good night, Richard.”
She turned toward the house, and Rayden and Andy headed for the unpainted barn with grayed boards. Cows lowed in a field nearby. The earthy smell of the farm wafted around them.
Inside the musty barn, they managed to tie the hammock to two beams in a large room. Sacks of feed were stacked neatly in the corner.
In another corner of the room stood a large utility sink stained with rust. It only had cold running water, but Rayden assured Andy it was fine. Andy bid him goodnight and left, his step slightly faltering. He was tired, Rayden was sure, as he was. It had been a long drive.
After washing up, Rayden turned off the light and lay in his hammock. Prometheus curled up on empty feed sacks.
It felt good to be moving toward a destination. If only Gisa would be there when he arrived. Rayden was just dozing off when he heard "Richard" being called. He went to the door of the barn and looked out.
Mrs. Anderson motioned to him frantically. He ran across the lawn.
“Andy is having a stroke or seizure—I don’t know what to do. Can you help?” she asked, her hand clutching at his arm.
He rushed into the house. Andy was lying near the front door, his eyes open, curled in a fetal position. Rayden knelt beside him. “Can you speak?”
Andy mumbled an unintelligible sentence and the right side of his mouth drooped.
“Call 911,” Rayden said.
Mrs. Anderson fell to her knees beside him. “I’ve already called.”
“Good deal. Mr. Anderson, can you lie on your back?”
Andy moved his right arm but otherwise did not respond.
“Mrs. Anderson, help me. He needs to lie flat to help the blood flow.” Rayden and Mrs. Anderson, dry eyed but with shaking hands, straightened him out on the floor.
She patted her husband's hand and glanced at Rayden. “I’ll get the aspirin. I heard that that helps.”
“No, not for stroke. For heart attacks. If the stroke is caused by a ruptured blood vessel, it could make it worse.”
They heard sirens and Mrs. Anderson climbed to her feet and ran to the door, flinging it open. “In here,” she called.
Rayden stepped back as the paramedics came in and began evaluating Mr. Anderson. One medic quickly strapped an oxygen mask on while the other took his vitals.
He was then lifted onto the stretcher and loaded in the ambulance. Mrs. Anderson climbed into the ambulance with her husband, calmer now that the medics were in control. She managed to weakly smile at Rayden.
He gave her an encouraging nod. “Do you have anyone to call? Do you want me to meet you at the hospital?"
"Please stay until my son arrives, if it's not too much trouble?" She settled back, out of the way of the medic.
"Sure. Don't worry,” he told her as the ambulance door closed. He felt uncomfortable to stay on someone's property, someone whom he had just met. But he couldn't turn her down.
The ambulance drove away, and Rayden stood on the porch watching the taillights fade down the road. Prometheus nudged his hand, and he let it rest on the dog's head.
"C'mon, boy. We'd better get some rest."
They slowly walked back to the barn. Rayden lingered outside for a moment, allowing the sounds of the night to calm him. He was eager to be on his way, to see if Gisa had made it to Cumberland Falls. But it would only be another day or two. The stars shone brightly this far out in the country, with no street lights to dim their glory. He absent-mindedly stroked the German Shepherd's head before going into the barn to climb wearily into his hammock.
* * *
Gisa
Every day, Gisa strained to hear if anyone else ever entered the house but never heard other voices. It was as if she, Oberste, Tom and Ralph were the only humans left on earth. And most days, she never saw Oberste. He seemed to come and go on no particular schedule. She heard no sign of civilization from outside—no traffic sounds, sirens, or children playing.
She outgrew the regular scrubs, and each morning Ralph awakened her with a freshly laundered pair of maternity scrubs in a garish pink.
Occasionally a thunderstorm brought wind and the patter of rain. Birds sang outside her window.
Besides the sounds of nature, the only other noise she heard was a car crank once a week, in the early morning hours. Oberste was strangely quiet. Perhaps he did not leave the house but just didn't enter her room to see her. On the days the car cranked, she figured Ralph
was going to town for more supplies. Tom was the only one she saw on those days. The house had to be far from the nearest town, because the car did not return until night had fallen.
She sighed. God had been with Joseph even in his imprisonment. Perhaps he could be with her. Gisa had read a lot about prayer but had never prayed before. What could it hurt? And if, if her prayers were answered, would she then believe? She didn't know.
It felt strange to kneel by her bed and close her eyes. She didn't know what she was doing, but all she had to do was talk, right?
She began to pray.
GISA CONTINUED SCRATCHING marks by the bed. The marks on the wall were not the only indicators of passing time—her stomach steadily grew. One morning Gisa counted up the marks and found six months had passed. She was at least eight months pregnant—perhaps almost nine months. She didn’t know how long Oberste had kept her sedated, so she had no way of knowing for certain.
Surely they would kill her after her job as a human incubator was over. Or shortly after. Or...and the thought was even more horrendous than death to her...use her again. How many monsters would she be made to carry before she was discarded? Or... before she went crazy?
She climbed onto the treadmill and began her daily five miles. However, after only five minutes, a muscle in her thigh cramped. Grimacing, she switched off the treadmill and walked around the room a bit, stretching the muscle as much as she could. The pain didn't alleviate.
She lay down on the floor to better stretch the muscle, doing a couple of leg lifts. The cramp in her leg eased, and she rolled to her side, her eyes unseeing. There seemed no way out. The baby would be born. They might keep her around for a while, perhaps to breastfeed the monster. All this talk of Germany...the clone had to be Hitler. The thought of having such a vile creature inside of her made her shudder.
She rolled to her side and slowly her eyes focused. She realized she had never lay here on the floor before. Her brain began to understand what her eyes were seeing. The underside of the antique bed. Her heart leapt in her throat. Why had she never looked under here before? The bed was an old-fashioned kind with the mattress lying on slats. Wooden slats. Remembering the cameras, she rolled to her other side and closed her eyes and breathed thanks. God had answered her prayers.
Now to figure out a plan.
* * *
Rayden
Rayden stayed on the farm until Andy recovered from his stroke. Andy's son had arrived, but he was only able to take a couple of weeks from work and had asked Rayden to stay. Rayden reluctantly agreed but asked if he could borrow the farm truck for a day or two. He had to go to Cumberland Falls, to make sure Gisa was not there waiting for him. It was wasted gas. He had walked around Cumberland State Park for hours but found no sign of Gisa.
A couple of more times he had made the trip but still found no sign of her. How had he expected her to escape her captors? He remembered the symbol. Perhaps it would summon help, and someone would know something, or at least, a way to find out information about Die Auserwählten. But he was reluctant to use it. Andy needed him. To test his theory of the symbol would take time. He would have to remain on the farm, to help the Andersons until Andy recovered.
After Andy was released from rehab, he came out to the fields for an hour or two a day and watched Rayden on the cotton picker.
Rayden enjoyed being on the machine. Being outside in nature was calming. The cooler temps and the blueness of the sky helped relieve his restlessness.
The weather was supposed to be clear and cool for the rest of the week. Rayden pulled the machine over to the side of the field and turned it off. He hopped down and surveyed the amount of work left. Andy had said a little cotton but actually had close to two hundred acres.
Andy waited for him, leaning on a fence post, and joined him on the walk back to the house. Rayden refrained from helping the older man, knowing his struggles would help strengthen him. One arm hung at his side, although he was slowly gaining use of it. He was expected to make almost a full recovery. It would just take time.
Carefully, trying to enunciate each word clearly, Andy spoke. “Richard, I would like to talk to you. Betty and I have decided that I can't keep farming." He looked away for a moment before continuing in a slightly slurred voice. "We'll be moving to town."
He stopped, and Rayden came to a halt beside him. He wasn't surprised. Andy and his wife were in their late seventies and farming was laborious work. Rayden and Andy were standing at the top of a hill, the farm land spreading around them. Andy surveyed his farm for a moment.
“Been a good life.” He pressed his lips together, nodding his head, remaining dry eyed.
"Planting seeds, watching them break the ground, growing into something useful..." Rayden nodded. "I can see how fulfilling that is."
They continued standing at the top of the hill, watching the few clouds and the red and orange of the setting sun deepen into dark purples.
"Son, do you think you can stay until the farm sells?" Andy swept his good arm out toward the cotton fields.
"Sure." God had his reason for Rayden to be here. All would go according to God's plan. He simply had to keep telling himself that.
Andy clapped Rayden on the back. “Betty’s frying chicken tonight.”
“I’ll get cleaned up and be there in a minute.” Although Andy, and especially Betty, had been insistent that he move into the spare room, Rayden still preferred the barn.
Andy walked away while Rayden remained looking at the fields. He whistled for Prometheus, and he came bounding from the woods.
Gisa needed him. He felt it in his bones. But if she wasn't at Cumberland Falls, where was she? He absently scratched the dog's ears and sighed before going in to wash up.
GISA FOUND IT difficult to be patient. The carpet became worn in places from her constant pacing. She had decided to wait for Ralph’s weekly excursion. At least it would be one less person to deal with. She had never heard or seen anyone else but who knew? There could be others—if not in the house itself, outside, patrolling the grounds.
She didn't know but she hoped they did not watch her while she was supposedly sleeping. The night before Ralph's weekly run, she quietly removed one of the slats and then repositioned the others so that the bed would not sink. She hid the slat beneath the covers and crawled back in bed.
Adrenalin surged through her. She counted silently in the dark and waited, almost certain the door would swing open and they would take the slat away. But the minutes passed with no response. Perhaps they thought she didn't need watching at night.
Convinced the danger was past, she breathed deeply and slowly. Afraid anything unusual would give her plan away, she feigned sleep. This was her one chance—she knew she would never get another one. She had to act as naturally as possible and not raise any red flags.
The seconds slowly ticked by and the darkness outside gradually grayed. Had she miscalculated the days? Had Ralph decided, today of all days, to change his routine?
Almost giving up and wondering how to hide the slat, she finally heard the muffled sounds of a car cranking and the crunch of gravel under tires filtering through the windows. She breathed a sigh of relief. Now, she only had to wait for Tom to bring her breakfast. Her hands ran over the slat, gripping the top. She could do this.
She waited silently, the slat tightly gripped in her hands. Occasionally, she would flex her fingers and concentrate on relaxing her muscles. This would be easy. When she played tennis, she had a mean backhand. This was no different, was it? But what if other men were in the house? They would rush in before she finished the first swing.
Yet, she had heard no one, seen no one, except Oberste, Tom, and Ralph since she had been here. Oberste had not been in to see her for the past two weeks. Surely, Tom was the only one here.
The bolt clicked, and the doorknob turned. Tom stepped into the room. Gisa opened her eyes a crack, peering at him from hooded eyes. She watched him approach the bed. She could do this, had to do th
is. There was no other way.
When he stopped, still holding the tray, she threw back the covers and struck with all her strength, the blow catching him in the chest. The tray hit the floor first, scattering eggs and bacon. He staggered back, his hands reaching behind him, finding the wall for support.
Gisa leapt from the bed and charged him, slamming the slat at his head. His knees crumpled beneath him. Could she find something to tie him up with? Was he ready to give up?
But as he slid down the wall, his hands clutched her ankles. She screamed, and her heart stopped for one terrifying moment. She staggered backwards, twisting out of his reach.
She swung the slat again, striking Tom across the back of his head, and he stilled. With shaking hands, she searched for his keys, found them, and stumbled to the door.
Still holding the slat with one hand, she unlocked the door and rushed from the room, quickly searching for signs of Oberste or anyone else. But, thankfully, the house was empty. She returned to her bedroom and checked Tom.
He was so limp that she was frightened. Surely she had not killed him. But when she checked, she could not find a pulse. He was dead.
Tears flowed down her cheeks, and she brushed them away with the back of her hand. She had no time to grieve for a man who had kept her captive. Still, he had been human, and her Bible studies had taught her she had to love even her enemies. She would have to resolve her feelings later. Now she did not have the time.
She searched his body and found a cell phone and a walkie talkie and carried them with her out of the room.
The house was small—three bedrooms, only one other bathroom, and a living room that opened to the kitchen. A monitoring station took up one side of the living room. Thankfully, the two monitors only showed the bedroom. She glanced at the ceilings to be sure, but there did not seem to be any other cameras in the house, not even in the hall.
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