Back with their blue clad superiors, the adepts were given cloths, brown ones, and they dressed. Now everyone stepped forward to clap their shoulders and play-wrestle with them, like buddies at a beer-party. All of them, except the three leaders. These three had turned their backs on the group and one of them waved toward the other side of the pasture. From underneath some trees a group of people were herded toward the others. They must have been survivors. There were women and children, all huddled together, some holding hands, some carrying their children. When we saw them, we all froze in terror because we instinctively knew what was coming. And it was horrible! I almost couldn’t watch, but then I felt that I owed these poor people that much. That I witnessed what was happening to them; a kind of respect to the doomed.” Winter’s voice broke and tears were streaming down her cheeks.
“It’s alright, love. It’s alright, Flo.” Rob held her in his arms for a while.
When her sobs abated a bit, he looked up and continued their story in her stead.
“They shot them there and then. The adepts were given guns and revolvers and killed these people one by one. The ultimate initiation ritual. Now they were implicated in the crimes and dark deeds of the Nemesis collective and couldn’t back out anymore, even if they wanted to. One of the victims wasn’t dead right away and as one of the adepts strode forward, holding his revolver to the woman’s head and pulling the trigger, the others cheered. Then they stood around the victims and emptied whatever ammunition they had left into the pile of bodies. All the while cheering, laughing, clapping each-other’s shoulders and generally behaving like on some party. Drinks were doled out and the adepts were the first to drink, then came the three leaders and when everyone had drunk their fill, the leaders stepped forward and handed something small to every adept who in turn bowed to these three men and then stood back and saluted. It was all utterly horrible and we sat there behind those rocks as if frozen in time and horror. Even Paul was speechless.
I don’t know how long this gruesome, utterly primeval ritual went on down there. We didn’t dare move. Eventually, they seemed to reach the end of the ceremony. The blue clad people bowed to the three leaders and received some papers from them. Then they turned and called to their group to follow them. Everyone except the three leaders headed to their cars and drove off. Eight cars headed our direction and we momentarily froze. A wave of fear rolled over me. I guess the others must have felt the same. At any moment I expected to be found out. Yes, we had hidden the car from view, but still. We waited. But nothing happened, the cars drove over the hill and we heard them disappear in the distance, nobody stopped. We were safe. We heaved a collective sigh.
Meanwhile, the other cars had driven away, too, only the three leaders with their dogs remained. They stood together for some minutes in a relaxed manner while their dogs roamed the area. Some of them headed for the pile of bodies and no one stopped them, even when they started to tear at some of the dead people. It may sound strange but this last act of utter brutality seemed even worse than what had happened before. The casual way the three men watched their dogs eat their victims was beyond anything I had ever imagined possible. What could make humans do such things? How could this happen? Who were these Nemesis and what were their intentions, other than seemingly killing everyone? Rage, an almost primeval rage surged up within me. I wanted to avenge those poor innocent people whose bodies lay down there. Nothing, absolutely nothing could ever justify such brutality. It was utterly inhumane! I, for one, was trembling with anger, fear and sadness. Only when Winter wrapped her arms around my neck, did I realize that I was sobbing; as were Winter herself and Josh. Paul just watched intently what was happening. Had I not known him for so long, I might have thought that he was unmoved by all this horror. But I saw how he had tensed up and how his fists clenched and unclenched. He was as angry and shocked as we all were , weren’t you, Paul?”
It looked for a moment as if Paul might scoff off Rob’s words with a rude remark, but Alice stopped him dead. She tugged his sleeves and whispered. “It’s horrible what they do, these Nemesis people, isn’t it? I saw how they killed people, too. Now I am afraid to go out. And I wish Mum and Nate were here.”
A strange emotion flickered over Pauls face. He reached for Alice, lifting her to his chest and holding her in front of him. He looked into her eyes, and his eyes held hers as he spoke in slow, almost hesitant words. “I’ll bring you to her. Never fear. That’s a promise. And, you will never have to be afraid anymore, little one. I’ll be there and I will look after you. Promise. Always will.”
Alice scrutinized his face, then she touched his cheek with one hand and a smile lit up her face as she whispered “Thanks!”
I was touched beyond anything and tears were rolling down my cheeks now. I had misread Paul. He had seemed to be the boisterous unconcerned frontman, a bit mad and certainly not only enjoying risk and danger but actually seeking it out and courting it. But obviously, underneath all that bragging and hard shell there was a soft core, and Alice had found a way to it, straight away. Good. It felt reassuring to have this maverick’s attention focused so utterly on Alice. Sweet little Alice for whom I would do anything. Apparently we were now at least two with the same determination.
Josh touched my arm and looked at me inquiringly; he had obviously seen me scrutinizing Paul. I shook my head and smiled at him. Later, my eyes said, later I will explain everything. He raised my hand to his lips and pressed a kiss onto my palm.
“Love you, too,” I whispered back.
Yuki had been watching us from the other side of the sofa and she was clearly very pleased with our behaviour, because a big, sweet smile spread over her face.
But Rob wanted to finish his story and he effectively stopped all the collective happiness that had suddenly started to spread with his next words.
“As I said, I don’t know how long this all took. How long those three men stood there talking and casually watching their dogs tear apart their victim’s bodies. I wanted it to end, I wanted them to leave. So that we might be able to get away from this horror. But we had to remain hidden and wait for them to disappear. And then we had to wait some more before we could dare to continue our journey. And so we sat there huddled behind those rocks and waited. Eventually the men called their dogs to heel and walked to their cars. Which way would they drive? Please not over here! Were my thoughts. But I shouldn’t have worried. They got into their cars and drove off on the road leading westwards. In less than five minutes they had disappeared and we couldn’t make out the sound of their retreating cars anymore. But we would have to wait some more, to be sure that we were safe.
Paul started to debate with Josh which way to drive. All of the cars had either headed toward us or had taken the route westward. Which left the road heading eastward, the very direction we were heading. However was it safe to travel that direction? Or should we retrace along the road we had come? Eight cars had taken that road, all the other had taken the westward road. Paul was itching to get to the car and have a look at the map. Finally, after about an hour, we deemed it safe to get to the car, but we didn’t drive on until after sunset. We spent the waiting time going over the map and discussing possible routes and alternatives. In the end we continued as we had planned all along. When it was finally getting dark, we headed over the hill and down into the valley. We couldn’t get out and bury the dead, it would have been a dead give-away. So we just slowed down as we passed them and bent our heads in respect. Every-one of us murmured a prayer or a vow. And we were silent for a long time thereafter.
“It felt very, very weird to drive along on this road, not knowing what we would happen upon and feeling so totally and utterly exposed. I, for one, expected some nasty surprise any minute and Josh who was still driving, seemed to be very tense, too. It was Paul, who broke the spell. Who else?”
Paul grinned at him, all the while still holding Alice’s hand. “I just voiced what you were all thinking anyway, too, dude. And you know it.”
“Well, maybe. But it sure was crude of you,” Winter answered.
Seeing our surprise, she added, “He broke our collective silence by saying, ‘You know, this whole affair strikes me as a typical in-group versus out-group situation. I mean, the whole ritual we witnessed was aimed at instilling respect, then fear and then utter horror. No-one can convince me that these people, those murderers, didn’t feel fear, maybe utter panic when they shot their victims. In such a society as theirs seems to be, you can never be sure to live to see the next day. Very obviously the individual doesn’t count a thing there. It’s just the collective and the hierarchy within. But what beats me is why anyone would want to join them. I mean, it’s atavistic to the core and brutal and senseless. Why would anyone want to be part of this? And, I wonder who their victims were.’ When he saw our stunned faces, he shrugged his shoulders and went on ‘Don’t look at me like that. I am just trying to analyse the situation. We have to find out as much as we can about how these Nemesis idiots tic and function. If we want to beat them and make it all the way down to Kenya, we had better conduct some character analysis here. And to me, it looks like they can only hold it together with a reign of fear and terror. This may work fine at the beginning, but honestly, have you ever heard of a civilisation which prospered on such a trip for long. Nah, sooner rather than later, their society will fall apart. At least disintegrate and fraction into subunits. If you bank on terror and status alone, you’ll lose eventually. Don’t you agree?’ Again, none of us quite knew what to answer, but Josh tried. ‘I guess, put like this, it sounds right. Do you mean to say that their weakness is immanent in the build-up of their society? If so, it seems an awfully optimistic view. Nothing, absolutely nothing about what we witnessed today spoke of weakness. Much as I wish you were right, I can’t see this reign of terror fall.’ But Paul didn’t let go and he drew on several historical parallels to show us what he meant. That maybe not in the short term, but in the medium or long run this societal system wouldn’t succeed, couldn’t. ‘Because in the end, what we want and crave for is human closeness, togetherness, love, support, not terror and fear. You may maintain such a system for a while, I grant you that. But on this big, basically global scale it won’t work for long. No way, no how, never.’
“And I could begin to see his logic. After all, he was right, what we crave most in life is happiness, to be with someone we love, to share a common goal and life, don’t we? And that’s innate, not something we actively choose. We go for it instinctively. Of course, there are those whose main aim in life may be more materialistic – money, status, power – but at the end of the day, even those people want love, a family, some kind of safe haven, don’t they? And a society build on terror and fear just doesn’t cater for those basic human needs. So, maybe there is hope. Not immediately, maybe, but eventually the reign of the Nemesis will fail because of that inbuilt failure of catering for the basic human needs of its members. You can’t force humans into something they aren’t, not for long, not on such a scale.
“And, after all the horror we had witnessed that day, this feeling of hope was almost overwhelming and I burst out the question before I had time to think, ‘So what do you think, how long before their system crumbles? How many months?’ Rob laughed at this and so did Paul, ‘Not so hasty madam, not so hasty. I said eventually not immediately. This will take time; we are not talking months here, but years. Or what do you reckon, Rob?’ Rob agreed with him, all the while embracing me. He thought that it would take a lot more to shock people into the realization that this just couldn’t work. ‘And don’t forget there aren’t that many around who could kind of set another, better example. No, just by themselves they won’t change. It will happen, of that I am certain, but it will take time. My hope, though, lies with the fact that apparently there are more survivors than we dared hope for. Prof Papadopoulos feared that between 99.999% and 99.9999% of the entire human population may have been killed off by that pathogen. But maybe, probably, hopefully, it was less. We have always assumed that there were between 500’000 and 1’500’000 Nemesis people around, globally. Let’s just hope that the survivors outnumber them by a factor of ten, at least.’
“At that point Josh, who had been driving on as fast as was possible and feasible during the night, suddenly interjected, ‘To think that we should number among the one to ten million people who have survived! It seems utterly incomprehensible. I still can’t fathom that more than nine billion people have died within these last few weeks. It’s incomprehensible. And,’ he added while pressing down on the gas, ‘to think that we haven’t heard from Lia, Nin, Alice and Yuki for so many days! Please, please, let them be alive! I wouldn’t know what to do …’ We all fell silent at this. No-one had dared voice that possibility so far. We all knew,” she shot a knowing glance over at me, “that Josh would be utterly devastated if something were to happen to you or worse, you were dead, Lia. We had seen the toll it had taken on him when you did that crazy stunt of yours, you know. By the way, were you mad to try this! Didn’t you think of Josh?” Her voice changed suddenly, she sounded angry and protective.
It made me blink, but before I could answer her, Josh intervened. “Just leave it be, Winter, will you. Lia did what she had to do. You know full well. And, at the time, she didn’t know about how I feel for her. She’d no way of knowing that my heart and soul were at stake here, too.”
I couldn’t leave it at that. Still clutching Josh’s hand and feeling his strength, I glanced over to Paul, Winter and Rob and said. “I never meant for these things to happen. When I left here, all I had in mind was the safety of my family. For all I knew, my life was at stake, but mine only. What I feel about Josh had never been discussed and he had given me no more than a few tentative and rather obscure hints just prior to this crisis. It wasn’t an easy decision, never. But I had to take it. You don’t know Steve. He’s a psychopath! He has delusions about his grandeur and importance that are beyond anything. And he is charming and knows how to get his way, make people do what he wants. When he realized that he couldn’t get what he wanted via me and dumped me, I at first felt simply ashamed that I had let myself be tricked so easily. I who had always prided myself that I could read people better than average had been had like a naive baby. It hurt and I felt ashamed. Plus, and that was worse, I couldn’t trust my feelings anymore. All I wanted was to withdraw from that game and leave it be for good. Mum made me see that Steve’s not normal, that he is a psychopath. And once I had realized that, I understood that the hate and utter rage he had thrown at me in that last meeting. He had quite literally gone berserk with rage, you know! Ranting at me, our family and mostly Dad. Swearing revenge, terrible revenge and no mercy. He had specifically mentioned Mum and Alice. Knowing full well that I would do anything to safe either or both. So, you see, when he actually came for us, I had no choice. Knowing how he is, I had to try anything to make Alice, Nin and Yuki safe. And I couldn’t consider a dream; my dream that Josh might like me more than he had so far let on. Do you understand?”
They all sat there in awkward silence. Yuki winked at me, but Nin looked embarrassed, and Alice was just utterly confused.
I had spoken to Winter, but I had meant my words just as much for Josh, because I still felt sorry for the pain and despair I had caused him.
And he saved the moment. Of course he would.
Taking me by my shoulders and forcing me to face him he smiled.
“Hush, Lia, don’t be upset. It’s alright. I have long understood what you did and why. And, if anything, I love you more for it, you know. You brave fool. You can’t know how wonderful it was to see you today. All the anxiety, the fear, the torment of imagining the worst while hoping for the best finally over. There you were, brave and crazy as usual, willing to risk your life for Alice, Yuki and Nin. How much I loved you that moment! There aren’t words to express what I felt. Never, never have I been more relieved than when I saw you standing there by the trees, gun at the ready! I felt weak wit
h relief and at the same jubilant with joy that I had made it, that you were alive and well! Whatever was before, whatever actions you felt compelled to take. It all doesn’t matter anymore to me. As long as you don’t go off on another crazy stint to safe somebody now! I can take just about anything but that. You know! You are my life now! And we belong together in a way, I never imagined possible.”
Lia's files 2_Heading down south Page 4
