(Wrath-08)-Evil In The Darkness (2013)
Page 14
TWENTY-FIVE
Michael walked, the mountain sloping up before him, the trees swaying two hundred feet over his head. It was a perfect morning. It had rained the night before, and the air was cool, damp and smelled of rain, wet grass and flowers in bloom. He reached a break in the trees and looked up. The morning sky was so deep and blue it felt like he was looking into space. As he worked his way across the clearing, his steps were strong and quick, and though he didn’t fail to see the beauty of the morning, his thoughts were somewhere else.
He sensed it now. No, it was more than that, he knew it, what the future had in store.
Looking up the trail, he doubled his pace.
Would his good friend be there waiting? Had he the wisdom to sense it, too?
The mossy trail wound up the back of the mountain, spongy and giving under his feet. Higher and higher he climbed, never growing weary, never slowing down. As he ascended, the trees grew smaller and then thinner, then completely disappeared, leaving a well-defined tree line as the backside of the mountain opened up. There were more rocks along the trail now, less greenery and more low brush. An expansive meadow lay before him, the slope much more gentle. Granite peaks, snow-capped and steep, jutted out on both his left and right. The trail cut across the meadow and then stopped suddenly.
Michael looked but didn’t see him. He kept walking toward the cliff and was almost upon him before his friend finally came into view, sitting below a large boulder. The man was looking out on the enormous valley. The low clouds hung over the shoreline where the rising sun cast a golden line across the water, a billion diamonds flashing from the cresting waves. The father looked up, then stood as Michael drew closer.
“I knew I’d find you here,” Michael said.
The father gestured to the morning. “I’ve been waiting here a long time.”
Michael put his hand on his shoulder. “I knew you would.”
The father looked at him as if awaiting his instructions, and Michael broke into a smile. “Come, we’ve got to hurry.”
Without another word, the father turned and started walking.
They were his children, and he loved them. He watched over them. He shared their pain and joy. And he knew they needed him now.
COMING IN EPISODE NINE...
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Local time: 0314. A little less than four hours until sunrise. Above the underground complex, the night was dark. To conserve energy, but mostly to avoid highlighting their capabilities to the local population, the base commander had ordered all lights extinguished after sunset. There were already hundreds of civilians at the gates. No reason to make it thousands. The time for riots and gunfights along the base security perimeter would come soon enough without publicizing the fact that the military had electricity. And water. And communications. And pretty much everything else.
* * * * * * *
Looking at the group of evil men, he realized the ugly truth.
The battle wasn’t starting. It was almost over. There was nothing he could do now, no way to stop the coming wave from crashing down. He had walked into a throng of murderers and thieves, a den of predators so full of jealousy and fury that they couldn’t reason anymore. These were no comrades here, no friends or patriots who loved their country or a just cause. This was a group of men who’d been hating for many years, each of them having long before made the decision to betray their country. And, in a sad way, he realized they were not really traitors, for none of them had ever pledged allegiance to their country, not in any real sense of the word. They were outsiders on the inside, the cancer next to the bone, the disease that would kill the nation after having lain dormant all these years.
* * * * * * *
The old man smiled, his crooked teeth yellow with age. “Do you understand what you’re up against? The oaths we have taken are more powerful than the earth. More eternal than the stars. Do you see that you can’t defeat us? We’re totally committed to this cause. You have no hope. You have no power. There is nothing you can do.
* * * * * * *
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