The Beginning of the End

by Lorana Hoopes

  Her father’s office had been closed, but he was still working. Mainly in his bedroom with the door closed, the cell phone glued to his ear, and the computer open less than a foot away. She almost felt like she saw less of him now even though he was in the same house with her all day.

  Her mother wasn’t much better. Her office had transitioned to working at home as well which meant that she was now fielding calls from the house and then looking up the information she needed on the laptop. The woman shuffled around with a headset on, randomly spouting out, “Thank you for calling Insureman, how can I help you?” in between other tasks.

  Both generally left her alone until noon when her mother would take a break from work, pop her head in Lily’s room and ask about her school work. Lily normally had it all done by then as the teachers had assigned much less work than she would have done in school. While she welcomed the break, she also couldn’t help but feel like she was getting cheated out of her education. Sometimes, her teachers would schedule Zoom meetings, but they were mostly just to answer questions, and Lily didn’t have any. The majority of the work was simply reading an article or watching a video and answering a few questions with a paper thrown in here and there. Even if she didn’t watch the video, she could search the answers quickly enough online.

  The end of the school year was approaching, and it would end without fanfare. Everything had been canceled including The Spring Fling dance and graduation. Bryce had slipped out of her life, due to the virus or something else, she didn’t know, and around the town, businesses were closing their doors forever in record numbers. Now, with the new mask mandate, there would be even fewer places to go as Lily held reservations about masks.

  Most of her reservations came from the fact that for the last few months, every doctor on TV had been saying masks wouldn’t help and people needed to not wear masks. Now, they were saying the exact opposite, but as far as Lily could tell, nothing had changed. They certainly weren’t sharing any data that backed up this new claim. In addition, she didn’t understand how breathing her own carbon dioxide could be good. She couldn’t stand smelling other people’s breath, so she was pretty sure she wouldn’t like smelling her own all day either. It appeared outings to get groceries were even on hold for now. Unless she did the pickup option that allowed her to buy online and have someone bring the groceries out to her car.

  Bored and frustrated, Lily picked up her phone and scrolled through her contacts. There weren’t many left she could call. When school first let out, everyone had been agreeable to wanting to get together, but as the lockdowns continued, more and more of her friends began locking themselves inside their houses out of fear. Katie had told her that one of their friends had even refused to visit her grandfather on his birthday for fear she might be sick and not know it and give the virus to him. How had the media managed to convince healthy people they were dangerous so quickly?

  Even the few who would still meet up required that it be outdoors and that everyone remain at least six feet from each other. Only Katie remained constant. A few times a week, the two would meet up and jog around the neighborhood.

  Lily didn’t enjoy running as much as she enjoyed hitting the bag at the gym, but it was still closed with no end in sight, so running had taken its place. In fact, that’s what she needed to do today. Get out and run off her anger and clear her head.

  She fired off a quick text to Katie asking if she wanted to join and then changed into workout wear while she waited for a reply. Her phone beeped as she pulled her hair into a ponytail.

  Still working, but swing by when you’re done and I can do a quick walk.

  Lily sighed as she texted back a reply. Maybe it was a good thing though. Her pace was always a little slower when Katie ran with her, and today she needed to run out her frustrations. She grabbed her earbuds and headed downstairs to tell her mother where she was going.

  Like normal, her mother was on the phone, so Lily scrawled a quick note and held it up for her mother to read. After a quick glance, her mother flashed a thumbs up sign, and Lily headed for the front door, turning on her music as she went.

  The run started well, and Lily enjoyed the rhythm of her feet pounding on the pavement along with the beat in her ear, but as she passed the park a half mile from her house, a chill ran down her spine. The park had been roped off with yellow caution tape for as long as Lily had been out of school, so she wasn’t sure why it was affecting her now. Once, someone had torn down the tape and Lily had hoped that meant the restrictions were easing, but the tape was back the next day. Maybe that was it. Maybe this lifeless park was a symbol for life as she knew it from now on.

  Shaking her head to try and dispel the gloom that suddenly surrounded her, Lily turned her music up louder and decided she was ready to see Katie.

  “Whoa, are you okay?” Katie asked when she opened the door.

  “I don’t know,” Lily said. It was weird, but she still couldn’t shake the depressed feeling that had cloaked her at the park. It was like it had marked her somehow and was following her wherever she went. “I ran by the park, and it just felt weird. The empty swings and the structures all taped off. I know it’s been that way for weeks, so I don’t know why it bothered me today, but it did.”

  Katie nodded and led the way to her room. “I understand. That park being empty of kids really shook me up after the disappearances, but now it feels almost sinister or something. I don’t even know why the park is closed. Haven’t they been saying that the virus couldn’t be spread outside and that it didn’t live long on surfaces?”

  Lily chuffed as she sat on Katie’s bed and folded one leg beneath her. No matter what channel one watched, the rules and regulations behind what the virus did and how they should combat it changed daily, but those two points had remained relatively constant. “Yeah, they did say that, but it seems that doesn’t matter anymore. They also said masks wouldn’t help and now the governor is mandating them. I don’t know. Everything just feels off.”

  Katie sat against the headboard and pulled her knees to her chest. “You know what? You’re right. It does feel off. They also said the shutdowns were only to flatten the curve, but we haven’t had a week with more than five positive cases, so exactly what curve are we flattening?”

  “Exactly,” Lily said, sitting a little straighter. She wasn’t prone to conspiracies, but there had been questions circling her mind for a while now. Ones that the media and government didn’t seem to be able to or want to answer. “So, our hospitals aren’t overcrowded and haven’t been at any point. Do you think this is a power grab by the government?”

  Lily hadn’t known much about the governor until recently, but what she knew now did nothing to improve his image in her eyes. From everything she’d seen, he seemed to care more about climate change than anything else and routinely spent thousands of dollars trying to save a snail but openly supported the killing of babies in abortion. Still, she couldn’t understand why he would want to decimate the state on purpose. Thousands were now out of work, and the unemployment numbers and payouts just kept rising.

  Katie was silent for a moment, her lips mashed together. “Do you remember when we read 1984 and how we didn’t understand at first why the government felt the need to rewrite history and things like that?”

  Lily nodded. She hadn’t made the connection before, but suddenly life felt a lot like 1984.

  Katie continued, “I don’t understand the government’s purpose for keeping us locked down yet, but I feel like we are living in those times.”

  “I don’t know if we’ve gone that far. Yet. But I am tired of all this shut down.”

  “I think we might be.” Katie’s voice was soft, almost hesitant. “Did you hear the governor state that people should just do drive-thru church services? I don’t think he’s ever been to a church service. Can you imagine a pastor giving a sermon like a hundred times?”

  Lily’s forehead wrinkled in confusion. “There are still churches? I thought they d
ied out with the disappearances.”

  “A lot did,” Katie said, “but I started looking for answers after the disappearances because none of them made sense. Aliens, terrorist attacks, none of it. I mean, maybe if only people in America had been affected, but that wasn’t the case. Anyway, while I was looking, I came across this website called TruthSeekers. Evidently, others were searching for answers too, and the people who run TruthSeekers claim the disappearances were the rapture that is talked about in the Bible. They post videos every week, a preacher’s sermon along with a woman sharing her thoughts about what’s happening in the world today. After watching a few of them, I started attending. The church is small, nowhere near the size it used to be, but evidently similar churches have started popping up again all across the world.”

  Lily wasn’t sure which piece of news shocked her more, the fact that churches existed and she hadn’t known or the fact that Katie had been attending without telling her. “I’m sorry, did you say you were going to church? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Katie sighed. “People who spoke out about the rapture were vilified, and I wasn’t sure I believed it. I wanted to go a few times to see what it was all about before I told anyone or asked anyone to go with me. Then these lockdowns happened, and the church was closed anyway, but the website put out a message about a meeting coming up. I think I might go.”

  “Why?” Lily asked. It had been a long time since she’d been to church and she wasn’t sure how it played into any of this.

  “I don’t know,” Katie said with a shrug. “I just know I felt better when I was there, and who knows, maybe they’ll have answers for this too.”

  Lily tilted her head as she considered her friend. Katie was definitely prone to crazy ideas more than Lily was, but she seemed serious about this. Serious enough that Lily found her curiosity piqued. “Okay, I’ll go with you.”

  The image of Daman Caturix smiling on the TV sent a shiver down Gabe Cross’s spine though he had no idea why. He didn’t even know who the man was though that was something he was going to remedy right now. He stood and crossed his small living room to grab his laptop. Then he settled back on the couch and began his search.

  Daman Caturix was in fact a wealthy billionaire, one who had generally stayed out of sight except for his philanthropic work in delivering vaccines to poor countries. Vaccines? Suddenly, Gabe’s stomach churned as if he’d just eaten a piece of moldy cheese. Was that what this was about?

  He clicked into the patent registry and searched for Daman Caturix’s name. Nothing, but there was some link. He was sure of it. He brought up a new search and looked for any companies that Caturix owned or was associated with. The list was long, and he was about to bookmark it to return to later when a name caught his eye. Natas Corporation.

  Gabe had gone through a period in high school when he’d been into death metal and tried a few drugs. It was not an experience he liked thinking about, but the name of the corporation triggered a memory in his mind. It had been his senior year and he’d been high on dope and out of his mind. He couldn’t even remember who the band had been, but he remembered very clearly the chant of Natas ringing out around him as the lead singer urged it on. It was after he sobered up and met Melinda that the significance of that day became clear. Natas - the word that he and others had been chanting was Satan spelled backwards.

  Gabe clicked back to the patent registry and entered Natas in the search bar. After a moment, a box appeared on the screen. Patent pending it read, but it was not those two words that sent the hairs on Gabe’s neck standing at attention. No, it was the number assigned to the patent that sent ice flooding his veins. 060606. Six, six, six - the mark of the beast. He may not have believed all of what Melinda had told him, but he had been listening. Enough to know that the mark of the beast was bad. Very bad. Now, he just needed to figure out what to do with the information and who to tell.

  He moved his cursor to the X to close the window, but as he did, a message popped up on his screen.

  Are you searching for the truth?

  He glanced around, looking for a hidden camera or someone to step out of the shadows, but it was just him in the house.

  He placed his fingers on the keyboard, unsure of what he was going to type before it appeared on the screen. Yes. It was just one word, but Gabe found himself holding his breath as he waited for a response.

  Visit TruthSeekers. They can help.

  TruthSeekers? What was that? Gabe clicked in the box to type his question, but as he did, the box disappeared. He yanked his fingers from the keyboard and stared at the computer for a moment, waiting for whatever else might come, but the computer did nothing and the single horizontal line continued to blink, waiting for his instructions.

  What did he do now?

  10

  “Finally, it looks like we might be able to get back to some semblance of normal.”

  “Huh?” Raven pulled her attention from the message on her screen to look up at Jason. He was a few feet away in her easy chair watching the latest press release from Governor Smythe.

  “The governor finally agreed to open the counties who are seeing fewer cases. That means us. It means working out with a mask on and taking the temperature of every person who walks in the door, but it’s better than nothing. I wonder if Brian knows yet.” He pulled out his phone and began tapping on the screen.

  “Yeah, that’s great,” Raven said, and she was happy. Mostly. She was getting tired of take-out food and actually getting to sit down in a restaurant again held appeal if only because she’d been denied the opportunity for so long. However, she wondered how that information fit with the information on her screen.

  “It is great, but you don’t sound excited,” Jason said, coming to sit next to her on the couch. “Why don’t you seem excited?”

  “I just received this in the TruthSeeker account.” Raven had started the webpage shortly after meeting Pastor Ben. It had been the quickest way she knew to start spreading the word of the rapture, and though she’d met few of the people who visited the site, she’d exchanged emails with many of them. This one, however, was new. “The first part is a letter from a virologist, Gabe Cross, who says he has proof that the virus was man-made. He says he’ll be making a public statement soon.”

  “Man-made? So, like it was planned?”

  “Yeah,” Raven said. “So maybe Kat wasn’t so crazy after all, but there’s more. He included a few links in his email. The first link is to the patent registry. You know how Daman Caturix has been in the news lately?”

  “Yeah, the guy is funding the vaccine companies so we can get back to normal sooner. So what?”

  “Well, that guy owns a company called Natas Corporation.”

  Jason stared at her as if she’d lost her mind. “Okay, and? A lot of people own companies, Raven, and considering the man’s a billionaire, I’m sure he owns many companies.”

  “I’m sure he does own many companies, Jason, but Natas is Satan backwards.”

  Immediately, she could see his walls going up again. “Raven, we’ve been through this.”

  She held up her finger to stop him. “There’s more, Jason. Natas Corporation took out a patent on a way to disburse the vaccine. The patent number is 060606.” She stared at him, as if waiting for the light bulb to go off in his head.

  “Okay, so what?” He was clearly not following the trail she was making for him.

  “Zero six, zero six, zero six, Jason, like six, six, six - the mark of the beast.” She emphasized the last four words so their impact would not be wasted on him.

  “Okay, that is a little creepy,” he conceded, “but maybe it was just the next number in line. Do you even know how patent numbers work? Because I don’t.”

  She rolled her eyes at him. Sometimes he was so dense. “I don’t know how patent numbers are assigned though I can’t imagine a system that would start with zeros at the beginning, but regardless, I’m pretty sure that’s not the case, especially with the oth
er link that the message contained.” She clicked an open tab and a picture of some strange chart filled the screen.

  Jason leaned closer and squinted as he tried to figure out exactly what it said. “What is that?”

  “It’s the name of Natas Corp’s vaccine delivery system. Look, he named it the Human Implantable Quantum Dot Microneedle Vaccination Delivery System.”

  Jason shrugged. “So, he likes long names. I still don’t see the connection, Raven.”

  “Someone assigned the number of the alphabet to each letter in the words. For example, A is the first letter, so it gets the number one. Every A is one. B is two and so on. Do you understand?”

  “I understand that someone has too much time on their hands, but yes, I get it. So what?”

  Raven sighed. “So, when you add the numbers up, they equal six-six-six.”

  The slight teasing grin on Jason’s face slid off as he leaned closer to the screen. She watched his eyes track back and forth as they read over the same information she just had. Someone had spelled out the super long name down the side, then assigned the number to each letter. At the bottom, they showed it added up to six-six-six. It was that picture that filled her screen now.

  “Okay, that is definitely weird, but it could still be a coincidence.”

  A coincidence? Jason had been there the day of the disappearances. He’d gone with her to Kat’s house and read the letter with her. He’d listened to her tell him what the Bible said was coming. How could he still find any of this a coincidence?

  “That would be two huge coincidences, Jason. How many coincidences does it take before it’s no longer possible to be a coincidence?”