by Samie Sands
The night seemed to go by in a blur, later Mike could not really recall all of the information given, only that he felt happy and content by the time the evening ended. He bought the books that were available for purchase and went home lighter than he had been in a long time. During the following week he read the books that the Prophet had written. He took assessments in them, he did the “homework” assignments. Mike even cancelled dinner with his son so that he could read and prepare for the meeting the next Thursday. It was time he did something for himself he thought, there would be time for family.
Everyone greeted him with enthusiasm when he showed up the next week.
“Hey Mike! Welcome back.”
“Good to see you again friend.”
“Mike! I’m so glad you made it this week.” Mary said as she gave him a quick hug. “Didn’t I tell you that you’d like this group?”
“You were right. I’m actually making friends, at my age that is quite something.” Mike said, smiling like he hadn’t in a long time.
The Prophet came out and started speaking and once again Mike would have been hard pressed to tell anyone what was said, all he knew is that he felt better than ever at the end of the meeting. He felt a sense of belonging, he no longer felt alone. When he heard that the Prophet was hosting a weekend retreat, well of course he signed up just like everyone else.
“Will I can’t make it to dinner again this Sunday, I’m going on a retreat with my new group of friends.” He called his son to cancel for the second week in a row.
“Dad, what kind of group have you gotten involved with? Don’t get me wrong I’m glad that you are out and about and making friends, but it sounds like you are spending a lot of money and with you being on a fixed income...” His son trailed off, concern evident in his voice.
“They are call the Prophet of Change and yes I am making friends. Most of the people are older and alone like me, we have so much in common. I’m learning about myself and how to be happy rather than lonely. It’s great. And don’t worry about my finances, I’m an adult after all.” Mike said.
“The Prophet of Change? Dad that sounds a little like a cult, especially if they are recruiting only lonely older people.” Will said.
“Nonsense. I thought the same thing at first, but I am not a member of a cult. We are a New Age group that is all.” Mike said with confidence.
The next day Mike packed and headed just out of town to a compound that the Prophet owned up in the mountains. “Wow, this place is huge. Look at all of the cabins!” Mike exclaimed when he saw the compound. “How can the Prophet afford all of this?”
“A lot of people live up here. That way they can help spread the word of the Prophet of Change. When my lease is up at my apartment I plan on moving up here. Imagine living next to like-minded people? After years of feeling invisible and alone, it’s a dream come true for me.” Mary said.
“He lets us actually live up here in all this peace?” Mike asked in awe. He had always loved the mountains, but thought that he could never afford to live there. Not to mention that he felt all alone himself in his small and bland apartment. Maybe this was the answer to the question he didn’t even know he had been asking.
The weekend went by in a blur and by the end of it Mike had indeed signed a contract stating that he would move to the compound as soon as his lease was over or sooner if he could. He would be provided room and board including a small allowance, all he had to do was sign over his pension and social security check each month. Sounded like a fair exchange to Mike.
When he got back to town and told his son and daughter of his plans, both were less than happy for him. His daughter told him to just move in with her and her family, but Mike didn’t want to move there. His son went back to his cult talk. “Dad, they are asking you to sign your retirement checks over. I don’t even know if that is legal and I sure as hell know that it’s not right. This is a cult, you need to get out of it now before you get in too far.”
“We are not a cult! You are just a non-believer!” Mike got mad and hung up on Will. He refused to answer his son’s calls and just started getting ready for his big move in a couple of weeks. He would just break his lease and move on with his life.
By midweek he had broken his lease and given away or sold most of his furniture, he wouldn’t need much other than clothes up at the compound. Thursday he went to the usual meeting of The Prophet of Change. As usual he left with a feeling of euphoria, but that all came crashing down when he got home and found his son Will waiting for him. “Holy shit Dad! You are nothing but skin and bones. Are you even eating or do you just listen to your cult? We need to get you to the doctor and make sure you are okay.”
“Oh stop being so dramatic. For your information I am eating more than ever lately. I feel better than I have in decades.” Mike walked past Will and unlocked his door.
“What the hell happened to all of your stuff?” Will exclaimed as soon as he saw the mostly empty apartment.
“Gave it away. Sold it. I am moving to the compound to be with my friends. I didn’t need that stuff any longer. Material things only hold us down you know.” Mike said.
“Dad, when are you planning on moving?” Will asked, speaking slowly.
“Soon. I broke my lease and just need to finish a few things up and then I head to the peace of the mountains.”
“What about me? And Sally? Don’t you care about your family anymore? Do you plan on coming to see us sometimes?” Again Mike wondered why Will was speaking so slowly and calmly.
“Of course I will come see you. I am not a member of a cult, I can come and go as I wish.” Mike said.
“Dad, I still think that you need to go see a doctor if you are eating as much as you say and dropping weight rapidly. I’m worried about you.”
“And I told you that I am fine. Never felt better.” Mike said stubbornly. “Now I need to head to bed, I have a busy day tomorrow.” With that he ushered his son out and locked the door. He didn’t know why, but Will’s calm demeanor made him want to get out of the apartment sooner rather than later. He made the decision to be out of there tomorrow and up at the compound before noon. That meant cleaning and packing through the night, but it would be worth it.
The following day as soon as the office opened he handed in his keys and then drove his meager belongings to the compound. As soon as he got out of his car and talked to the Prophet, he remembered no more.
THE NEXT THING MIKE knew his eyes blinked open. He looked around and determined that judging by the machines attached to him he must be in the hospital. As his eyes adjusted, he noticed Will sitting in the chair next to him. “Dad? Are you awake? Are you there?”
Mike nodded, his neck feeling stiff. “Yes.” He croaked, his throat dry and hurting. “What happened?”
“You disappeared to that damn cult and it nearly took me and the police too long to find you. I went to you apartment and you were gone. No forwarding address. All I knew was the name of the cult and that you were in the nearby mountains. It took three days to find it and then another day to get a warrant so the police could raid the place. You and dozens of others were in comatose states, hooked up to weird machines that seemed to be draining your essence for lack of a better word, the cream color solution that was found is being analyzed as we speak. We thought we were too late. We were for some.” Will looked away.
“People died?” Mike asked.
“We found nine bodies in the cabins. That’s not the worst though, they found a trench at the back of the property and they have no idea how many bodies are back there.” Will said, looking pale just talking about it.
“And the Prophet?” Mike asked.
“Disappeared. No one know who or what he really is. And he is free and probably killing more people as we speak.” Will said disgusted.
“Am I going to make it?” Mike asked.
“They said if you woke up you stood a good chance. Once you are out of here you are coming to live with me and Lynne, no ar
guments.” Will said.
Mike only nodded. He really couldn’t argue that plan considering he had given everything to a monster, a monster still loose in the world. Now that his mind was clear, Mike wondered what the Prophet really was. No matter what, the man was a mad genius prey only on the lonely. If not for his son... Mike shuddered to think of his end and there were so many people all alone in the world.
Sheri Velarde
Sheri Velarde lives in New Mexico with her spouse and their dog.
Being an avid reader since an early age, she has wanted to be a writer for as long as she can remember. She has been writing all her life, but only recently started to actually try to pursue her dream of writing for a living. She specializes in all things paranormal and that go bump in the night. Her heart truly lies in exploring unknown worlds or adding the supernatural to our world. If it goes bump in the night or has magical connotations, Sheri writes about it.
She is constantly putting out new material with various publishers, so it is best to keep up with her on her website www.authorsherivelarde.weebly.com.
During the day she works in accounting and in her spare time Sheri is an artist, independent comic writer/artist and freelance non-fiction writer. She can often be found with her nose in a book, or playing various games with her spouse and their friends. This includes D&D and Warhammer. Yep, Sheri is a nerd and proud of it.
Links:
Website/Blog: http://authorsherivelarde.weebly.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorSheriVelarde/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Sher_V
Street Fail
Thomas M. Malafarina
“Well, I try not to think about the general public since I have no idea what the general public is and I don't think anybody does.” - Elliott Smith
“Unfortunately, science cannot be reduced to short, catchy phrases. And if this is all that the general public can comprehend, it's no wonder that we spend so much of our time in the interminable debate about belief in God, or lack thereof.” - Greg Graffin
The air was full of the many strange and wonderful smells of the street fair. There were a variety of sandwiches available for sale along with French fries, funnel cakes, ice cream candy cotton, candy apples, pizza, hamburgers, hot dogs and just about every such food you could imagine.
The unhappy-looking man sitting under the shade of the pop up tradeshow tent behind the metal and plastic folding table was starting to question his decision. As he sat squirming on his rickety folding chair staring across the expanse to the milling crowd of people he wondered if the girl was really worth this effort. In fact, he wondered if any girl was worth the effort.
After all, she may have been a girl and his friend but Elsa was not yet his girlfriend. In fact, Quentin hadn’t even mustered enough courage to ask her out. But when the beautiful young blonde librarian batted her gorgeous blue eyes at him and asked if he’d be willing to volunteer to man the local library’s informational booth at the small college town’s annual street fair, he was unable to say no. Quentin wrongly assumed for at least some of his four-hour shift Elsa would be accompanying him but to his displeasure she was nowhere in sight. The surface of the table in front of him was covered with a variety of free brochures and other such items promoting the library and reading in general but so far, the crowds had not showed even the slightest interest.
Quentin Steadman was an Assistant Professor of English Literature at an area university and was most definitely out of his element this day. For one thing, he didn’t care for people in general and especially hated crowds. His life was one of quiet academia, dealing only with those who were on or at least close to his own intellectual level. In his classroom, he was king. He was at home at small, intimate academic events. He tried never to have to deal with the general public, what he referred to as the “great unwashed”. Yet here he was among them. He felt like an anthropologist researching some never-before seen primitive civilization.
The town had cordoned off several blocks of its main thoroughfare to allow for a variety of local businesses, organizations as well as food and craft vendors to set up their tents along both sides of the street. There were also a large number of food service trucks set up, although Quentin thought the word food was a bit of a stretch for what he had seen and smelled so far. It seemed as if every ounce of air around him reeked with the stench of a variety of burning meats and greasy fried garbage. Several such food preparation tents were set up nearby and whenever a light breeze blew he was accosted with the odor of fried, something or other. Quentin had never experienced anything so revolting in his entire life. Now sitting alone in the shadow of his tent looking out through the opening at the spectacle unfolding before him, it felt to him as if he was watching wild animals roaming about the African planes, while he was safely hidden inside a protective blind.
Yes, that was it, he suddenly realized. These so-called people, members of the “general public” didn’t fit into what Quentin thought of has real humans. He knew the idea was snobbish, bigoted and downright ridiculous since of course they were human. Still, when he looked closely at them he had to wonder. They weren’t the typical, well-educated, well-dressed intellectuals he was accustomed to but were... well... they were just regular people. Quentin suddenly realized just how regular such people were.
This event was a very popular one for the town and from what Elsa had told him more than sixty thousand people attended throughout the day. But from what Quentin could determine, he wasn’t sure if “people” even was exactly the right word.
“Where do they come from?” He asked himself, “I swear, I’ve never seen such a collection of misfits in my entire life.”
For Quentin as he watched the scores of people walking left to right while others walked right to left they seemed more like cattle being corralled through shoots rather than individual human beings moving along a street. Not one of them even looked over at his library display table, and why should they? Quentin suspected none of them could likely read above a fifth grade level anyway. He thought if anyone ever wondered why the Japanese, Chinese and Indians were killing us academically, all they had to do was look at this pathetic crowd.
“Pearls before swine.” Quentin thought as he looked at the items on his display table.
The sights he saw walking by on this warm summer day were beyond his wildest imaginings. He noticed more than his share of morbidly obese scantily clad people in cheap thrift-store clothing, which didn’t even attempt to hide the acres of undulating flesh and cellulite. Others were far too thin for the tattered clothing they wore, which hung on their frames like shrouds on ancient skeletons. He suspected several of them put together couldn’t come up with a full set of teeth. Then there were the thousands of tattooed arms, legs and God only knew what else not to mention the countless body piercings. Again, he wondered what rock these creatures crawled out from underneath. Last but far from least were the lame and the crippled. He had never seen so many individuals with limps, twitches, wheelchairs, crutches, canes, short limbs, missing limbs and virtually every other abnormality one could imagine.
Quentin was astonished by the general lack of intelligence he perceived in the slack-jawed, hangdog, hooded-eyed faces of these... these freaks. Yes, that was it. He suddenly realized with complete clarity. Sitting there looking out from under his canopy at the hordes of twisted deformed creatures dragging themselves back and forth and stuffing their hideous faces with the grease-soaked swill of this bizarre carnival, Quentin felt as if he were front and center at a private screening of some sort of freak show. These mutants were not true representations of the general population, they simply couldn’t be. This must be the sort of event that attracts the lowest of the low; those who barely qualify as human beings like some sort of psychic magnet. Surely, that had to be the answer.
Then sadly, he realized he was wrong. These were not the dregs of society; they simply were society. He understood that had seen people like this all of his lif
e at department stores and gas stations and virtually everywhere. He had just not considered them relevant enough to really see them. He had his circle of close friends and his life at the University where even the worst of his students seemed to be light-years ahead of this rabble. No, he suddenly understood what the problem was; there were just so many of them gathered in one place. He’d been accustomed to seeing them in passing yet not seeing them; one or two here or there. But now... now they were in mass. They seemed to be everywhere at the same time. They were like a herd of shambling zombies walking back and forth in front of his tent, completely unaware he was even watching them and ridiculing them with his unspoken assessments.
As he sat on his chair studying the parade of aberrations he suddenly thought to himself how lucky he was that these sub-humans were unable to hear his thoughts. The last thing he’d ever want was for a massive crowd of so many lumbering creatures to suddenly realize that he had placed himself up on a pedestal much higher than they were and he was looking down his overly educated nose at them. That was when they all suddenly stopped.
It was as if he had been watching a movie and suddenly someone had pressed the pause button. Every one of the dozens of beings in front of his tent had simultaneously stopped in mid stride. Quentin found it both confusing and fascinating at the same time; there they were as if frozen, captured in a still picture. That was, until they all started to turn.
Quentin felt a lump begin to form in his throat as his stomach clenched. There was something very wrong going on here. Every single one of the people stopped in front of him were now facing him and looking at him with what could only be described as eyes dead of all emotion. Then like a flash of lightning Quentin saw something that made his heart almost stop beating in his chest. All at once, their faces changed to some sort of horrifying hideous demonic beings with insanely angry bulging eyes and mouths filled with hundreds of needle-like teeth. Then in an instant, they were back to their original appearance. It was as if the things wanted him to see their true nature, even if just for a millisecond. He understood then that somehow, impossibly they had heard his thoughts and knew how he had been demeaning them. He felt a cold sweat break out on the back of his neck and trickle down his spine. Likewise, perspiration began to bead on his forehead. What the hell was going on?
