by Mark Mathews
The man was trying to preach to the crowd, quoting Bible verses to them and talking about expelling the demon in their midst. Something told him it wasn’t just a church meeting, however, because a simple church gathering didn’t need guards. He looked down at his pistol and drew it, wondering what in the world this sort of meeting could be. A cult meeting? Was he preaching their values to the crowd? Did they have some kind of animal sacrifice planned? What the hell was going on here? Tom was out there, like a sitting duck, and there was nothing Wade could do from where he was to help. Even if he could break through one of the windows in time, the two of them would be seriously outnumbered and more than likely outgunned. Not to mention all the weapons that were hanging around in the barn already; scythes, axes, blacksmith hammers, the list went on and on.
The crowd was getting more and more unruly now, and Wade cursed himself for losing focus on what the man behind the podium was saying. He was inciting the crowd into a mob mentality, but Wade couldn’t figure out what exactly he was trying to get them to do. The man was quoting Scripture and something else Wade didn’t recognize, and he wished for all he was worth that he could figure out what this man was spouting. Wade searched the crowd again for Tom. Tom was beginning to look nervous now. Maybe he understood what was going on around him, maybe he just felt the growing tension around him. Something was starting to make Tom second guess why he’d gone in there, and as much as Wade would have loved to have said, ‘I told you so,’ now was not the time. Unfortunately, he couldn’t promise he’d be able to say it later, either, because he had no idea what was going on.
“The demons among us blend in and try to corrupt us! We must stamp them out where they stand. We must send them back down to the fiery depths of Hell to fall victim to their own punishments.” Wade never had gone to church, so he never knew what the preachers could do when they really wanted to perform for their audience, but this was beyond the usual dog and pony show, he felt.
The thought of a cult came back into his mind, and for a moment, he could envision the crowd falling on Tom and using him as a sacrifice of some sort to whatever god they worshipped. The man was getting more and more passionate with each line of his sermon, and now Tom was even more nervous. Even from where Wade was hiding, he could see beads of sweat standing out at Tom’s hairline. The younger man was twisting his hands together so much that had he had a towel between them, it would have been shredded. Wade started mapping out a way of getting into the barn.
If something went wrong, he wanted to make sure he had a plan. The farming tools that could double as weapons were hanging in the back, where not very many people were sitting. If he could get into that back corner, he could grab one and use it to keep the crowd from getting their hands on the remaining ones. Then all he had to worry about were guns. With that many people pressing in on him, he was hoping that whomever had guns would stand down for fear of shooting their friends. If he didn’t get that lucky, maybe some of the shots would find townspeople instead of him. He was waiting for some kind of cue from Tom, simultaneously trying to catch his eye to let him know he wasn’t alone, but nothing seemed to be going his way right now.
“We will be baptized in the blood of the evil! To save the innocent, we must become the evil ourselves!” With that line, everyone in the barn got to their feet, cheering and screaming at the man behind the podium. For a few seconds, Wade lost sight of Tom, and his heart started racing. Had something happened already? Was his plan all for nothing now?
Chapter Ten
Wade still was trying to figure out what was going on in the barn when his keen ears picked up movement behind him. He repositioned his pistol and got himself ready to face the new and much closer threat. He got himself into the perfect position to pounce, but when he saw it was Sarah sneaking through the undergrowth, he reigned himself in. To be honest, it took a weight from his shoulders to see it was someone he knew he didn’t have to fight. For a split-second, he thought it was one or more of the men who had been standing guard at the front door.
“Wade! What’s going on? Where’s Tom? Emily says we need to get out of here.” Wade made a shushing motion with his finger and Sarah immediately dropped her voice.
“I’m not quite sure. Tom and I found this building after we’d found some supplies, and he was bound and determined to go in there and find out what was going on. He walked right by the guards, and they didn’t seem to care, but when he got in there, all the people around him had these secretive smirks, like they knew he was there. I have a really bad feeling about this. I think this is like a cult or something, and they might be looking for someone to sacrifice. They looked pretty happy that Tom was sitting there.” Sarah’s heart thudded faster. Emily had been right to tell them they needed to get out of there. This was beyond crazy.
“How the hell can we get him out of there? Emily has this sixth sense about danger, and it’s kind of hard to explain, but it’s true and it’s never been wrong. She’s terrified of something right now, and I think we need to get him out of there and get the hell out of here.” Sarah was starting to get nervous, too. Something about the way that Emily was manifesting her fear was starting to catch on, and Sarah just wanted to get away from here.
“If the people in there didn’t already know he doesn’t belong, I would say just barge in and grab him, but they all know.” Wade was irritated because he couldn’t come up with a plan to get Tom back and the group to safety.
“Well, if they know that Tom is in there, do they know that the rest of us are here, too? Do you think they’ll try something with him just to pull us out of hiding?” Wade shook his head, looking over at Emily, who was holding onto herself like she had a stomach ache, and hoping that something would present itself.
“We need to go. We have to get out of here. Bad people are here. We need to leave.” Emily barely could get the words out because her teeth were chattering so badly.
“I know, honey, but we can’t leave without Tom. We need to figure out some way to get him out of there.” Sarah and Wade put their heads together, but nothing was forthcoming.
In the meantime, Tom was listening to the man on stage in the barn, who now was gripping the podium so hard his knuckles stood out white. Tom was glancing around at the congregation, and he was picking up on something he’d never felt before. It was a hard feeling, like a protective coating to something that wouldn’t let anyone in. It was almost sinister, and he wasn’t sure anymore that coming in here was a good idea. He really was starting to regret it, in fact, because the hair on the back of his neck was standing on end. The preaching aspect was over now, and the man behind the podium was starting to talk about things that scared him. He was talking about this town going it alone, and starting to take over the other little towns in the area, killing off people one by one.
“We will rise above this! The world is being punished, but we are still alive, and we will take over the world, inch by inch!”
A cold sweat had broken out on Tom, and he now was afraid of what this group meant to do. He’d seen a few farm tools hanging in the back of the barn, and he was afraid that someone might grab them to start a fight right now. The man on stage was very charismatic. Tom didn’t doubt the crowd might break up and begin fighting each other, if commanded, as much as the man was egging them on. The way the people were acting, they believed their town was now the Utopia of the rest of the world, and they wanted to mold people in their image. “And there sits the first sacrifice to the New World!” Suddenly, the man was pointing directly at Tom, who sat there, frozen in place.
Wade and Sarah had been watching through the window of the barn, hoping that something the maniac on stage said would help them come up with a plan to get Tom out. Now that everyone was staring at Tom, however, they had no choice but to do something to get him out. Sarah grabbed Emily by the shoulders and made her look into her eyes.
“Okay, honey, listen to me. I need you to go hide in the woods until we come back, okay? Wade and I are go
ing to try getting Tom out, but if we can’t, then I want you to get as far away from here as you can, okay?” Emily only could nod. She turned on her heels and ran away as fast as she could. Sarah watched her until the darkness swallowed her up, then she turned to face Wade. “What do we do?”
Tom was now up on stage, having been forced there by the pressing group of bodies that had pushed and prodded him like a pack of cattle. He stood with the man on the stage, and he was trembling. The man was talking to him, but he couldn’t register what he was saying. It was almost like the teacher in the Peanuts cartoons on TV. Tom forced himself to snap out of it, and finally heard what the man was saying.
“We won’t string you up like the days of old, and we won’t throw you to a pack of feral creatures. We aren’t animals. It will be a firing squad, a squad of one. A single bullet through the head will get the job done. There’s no need for pain or torture, and we aren’t animals.” He was doing his best to reassure Tom that everything was going to be okay, but it wasn’t. How could he stand there and talk about murdering someone so nonchalantly? What was wrong with him?
“We’re running out of time, and we have no plan. What are we going to do?” Wade was pacing and shaking his head. He had no idea. No plan magically had come to him while he was trying to brainstorm, and that was what was bothering him so much. He really had no idea what to do.
“I don’t know! We might just have to wing it. If they want to kill everyone who doesn’t think like them, we might just have to pull a John Wayne and go in guns blazing.” That wasn’t much of a plan, but it was all they had.
“Alright, let’s get in there.” Wade took a lighter out of his pocket and lit a strand of straw that had been sticking out between the cracks of the barn. It caught fire quickly, and it barely took any time at all for flames to start licking the wall of the barn.
He was hoping it would draw everyone’s attention while he and Sarah snuck around to the front of the barn. The guards were nowhere in sight, so they must have rushed inside when someone discovered the flames. Sarah burst in first, firing a few shots from her pistol to throw a little more chaos into the mix. Now people were running around all over the place, falling over one another in the cramped quarters of the barn. People ran past them to flee, and that was what set the sheep apart from the wolves that were trying to lead them. A small group of men at the front of the barn started firing back, and that was what caught Wade and Sarah’s attention. These people were their real adversaries.
Tom threw himself at the man who had been talking behind the podium, and the two wrestled back and forth. They knocked over the podium as Tom fell on top of the man, landing a blow to the cheek that snapped his head back and up. The two of them toppled out of sight as the makeshift stage collapsed with a deafening cracking sound. Sarah and Wade momentarily held the upper hand as the group that was shooting tried to get off of the splintering wooden death trap that they suddenly stood on. Sarah was able to get one in the chest, cutting down the numbers, but then she had to duck out of the way, as his swinging arm came around with the gun in hand, squeezing off rounds as he fell. She looked over at Wade, and saw that he, too, was on the ground, but he was holding his shoulder. He might have been shot, or a bullet might have grazed him. It made something rear its head in her that she hadn’t felt in a long time.
Sarah rocketed to her feet, running up to the ruined stage, and looking for someone to shoot. A man popped up in front of her like a target at a shooting range, and she felled him easily. Another started shooting at her from the left, and she swung around to shoot him in the chest as she passed. A third man stood up, dazed, but still aiming at her, two sharp clicks sounded, and he was down for the count. A hulking figure came at her from the direction of the podium, but she quickly dropped her weapon because it was Tom. He came running over to her, blood pouring down his face from a cut in his forehead.
“Where’s Wade?” He was brusque and businesslike, doing his best not to panic. Maybe Sarah would have to give him a little more credit. She pointed vaguely behind her.
“He’s back there. I think he’s hurt. Get him out of here, and I’ll cover you.” Tom did as he was told, looping an arm around Wade and taking most of his weight as he started to walk the older man out of the barn.
The man from the podium now was screaming at his flock, telling them to come back and fight, fight for their new order and what they believed in, but no one was around anymore to hear him call for help. He was smart enough to stay down and covered, so Sarah couldn’t put a bullet in him. They managed to get out of the barn and head back toward the back where Wade had started the fire. It was burning merrily, smoking out whomever still was hiding in the barn, and also effectively covering their getaway. It was hard to see shapes or shadows with just the candles and gas lights anyway, but with the added smoke, it was damn near impossible. At least they had something working with them for once.
“Emily? Emily, it’s okay. You can come out now.” As soon as they got under the cover of the trees, Sarah was looking for her little girl. No one answered her, and there was no rustling of grass to let her know that anyone was nearby. Sarah’s heart started pounding, and the blood was rushing through her at twice the speed it normally would. She was starting losing herself in a daze where she couldn’t see or hear anything properly, and fear was choking her. Sarah started running through the trees, looking for any sign of Emily in the dark.
“Wait! What’s that?” Wade was still conscious, and doing his best to ignore the pain that was wracking him with every movement. Sarah froze, pricking up her ears like a wild animal to try hearing whatever it was that Wade was hearing.
“What? What is it?” Sarah was impatient, and she wanted Wade to tell her what was going on rather than listening and try to figure it out herself. In that respect, she sometimes reminded herself of Clarice Starling in Silence of the Lambs.
“It sounds like motorcycles. Like old-fashioned motorcycles that we might already have met on the road once before.” Wade was being honest, but Sarah didn’t want to hear it.
“You think they followed us and now they have Emily?” Wade shrugged. Tom stood to the side, completely quiet. He hadn’t wanted to volunteer any ideas or any information for a long time. Everything he’d tried had backfired, and that meant he now was shell-shocked and a little on the shy side.
“It might be exactly what they did. Where was Emily hiding?” Sarah wasn’t exactly sure were Emily had hunkered down, but she knew it had to be somewhere in this area. She’d watched Emily disappear into the cover of the trees.
“Somewhere in this area.” Wade took another glow stick out of his vest and cracked it.
Putting the stick as close to the ground as he could, he started investigating. He moved methodically back and forth, with Sarah biting her lip anxiously. He stopped, put the glow stick even closer to the ground and swore. Sarah rushed over, got down on hands and knees, and put her face almost in the dirt, just to see what he had seen. Sarah swore and punched the ground. There, in the dirt, were motorcycle tracks. There were some drag marks, and then one tiny little foot print that only could be Emily’s.
Tears welled up in Sarah’s eyes, and she stood up, turning her face away from Tom and Wade. She didn’t want to look like she was weak, but she cared about that little girl, and there was no way she was going to let her go. Not after they had been through so much together. Sarah took the sleeve of her shirt and quickly wiped away the tears that had escaped and betrayed her. She had to chuckle when she unconsciously thought that she was glad she hadn’t been wearing makeup. Her face surely would have been a grisly sight with eye liner and mascara running down it.
“Sarah, are you okay?” It was the first thing Tom had said, and she wanted to lash out at him for it. She was trying to find the strength to compose herself, but her pain was making that difficult. Since Tom had spoken up first, it made him the target of her wrath.
“No, I’m not okay. We have to get her back.” Sarah’s fa
ce was so fierce-looking no one dared to brook an argument with her. Tom simply nodded, knowing his opinion wasn’t really worth beans anyway. Wade opened his mouth to argue, but when Sarah glared at him, eyes flashing red-hot lightning, he quickly closed his mouth and changed his mind.
“We’ll go after her first thing in the morning.” It was the only safe answer, because Sarah was going to go after Emily no matter what anyway, and there really was safety in numbers. Wade didn’t want to split apart his little group any more than it already was, so he stood by Sarah’s side.
Chapter Eleven
The mood in the woods was somber indeed. Sarah was shaking, near tears, and her slender body was covered in goosebumps. Her long, brown hair was sticking up in all directions from the amount of times she’d run her hands through it in despair. Her face, usually just a little too sharp-featured for beauty, looked softer now because it was puffy from crying. She’d found a little girl named Emily after the EMP attack had hit their town, and now Emily had been kidnapped by some jerk on a motorcycle. She and Wade had been looking for any clues they could find as to which direction the motorcycle had gone, how many people were involved, and whether Emily had been hurt. Sarah blamed herself for Emily’s kidnapping because Sarah was the one who suggested Emily stay behind in the woods by herself while she and Wade went to save Tom. If she really thought about it, all the trouble had started with Tom. She already didn’t like the young man for being a spineless jellyfish, this just added to it.
