Foreword

Seems I’ve melted into the North woods and returned after a lengthy absence. Again. It’s part of my modus operandi, I guess. Never intended, but it happens. I’m a restless person. Travel. Social circles. My influences and my goals. I very much live in the moment and right after blasting out the Fort Black Thrillers, that moment certainly changed for our nation and the world.

The bus is sold. Our home on wheels is off to new adventures. I have some guilt as I sold it with a full tank and told the new owner it was the last tank of $3 diesel to be had. I don’t intend to prophesy, I just watch the world around me closely.

This story of mine was first published over fourteen years ago in the anthology, Carnage – After the End from Siren’s Call press. It is the story of a man separated from his family who must complete an ill-advised drive from the West Coast to the East Coast on the eve of a truly apocalyptic event sparked by a theocratic regime in Washington D.C. reacting to a surprise attack by Iran on Israel. An undisclosed event has already devastated the Midwest and fractured the country. And while I never go into detail, the idea was simply a devastating extraction of resources.

Admittedly, I didn’t have AI on the mind at the time. But there is a politician named Graham. (No, not that Graham, whichever one you’re thinking of…)

I feel much like Marcus. Every time I revisit this story, more of the prophecy is revealed.

The anthology is now sadly out of print. I’m reposting it here to share. In some ways, it achieved the goal of delivering a prophecy. Can’t say I’m proud to make that claim. Pardon any errors. This may be a copy just prior to the final editorial pass. Another fair warning: this is horror and a man descends into madness so don’t expect a happy ending.

###

“As you can see, this first year of peaceful secession in these once United States should prove to be an outstanding success, not only for Safari Jack’s Outdoor Emporium but for sporting and camping goods retailers nationwide.” Marcus smiled, directing a practiced sweep of his hand toward the large projector screen. A headline above a series of charts read ‘Risk Management in a Risky World’.

Applause crackled dully across the room. The convention hall was well apportioned with brass lamps regularly spaced along the walls in gold gilt alcoves. The floor was covered by a sturdy carpet with intricate designs that filled the expanse from wall to wall like an enormous Persian rug. The gold trimmed recesses on the walls were repeated on the ceiling, their panels painted with the serene image of a cloud scattered sky. 

Faces looked back at Marcus from the neat rows of padded chairs, some familiar, some new. Mostly though, it was the empty space that held his attention. Many of his colleagues from back East had refused to make the trip. They cited family reasons or prior commitments or flatly refused.

For Marcus, the CEO had promised him a handsome raise. Not to mention, he was the keynote speaker. 

Several hands hung in the air. A gangly young man in a crème-colored convention center blazer headed for the closest participant with a microphone in his hand. 

“Brett Gentry with Affiliated Sports. I see where you’re going with all this. Nuclear aspirations in Iran, our own political turmoil, we’ve all seen a steady increase in sales, but do you really think we will break triple digits?”

“Yes sir, and that will have us running a shortage before the end of the year unless we act now.” Marcus smiled, resting one hand on the podium and waving a finger over the crowd as the young man with the microphone weaved between the rows. “Over there, Jeffery if you can.”

“Can my office have a copy of your data?”

“Absolutely. Nothing proprietary here. The whole idea is to open up stronger lines of communication. With our respective governments distracted as they are, it is going to take an industry-wide effort to keep supply running alongside demand. If we can do that, it will be a sales engine that can’t be stopped.”

“You don’t have concerns about President Zachary Graham’s silence on these global issues?”

“The market in general will take a hit until he makes a statement, but until then, my President is my new best friend. Forget the second amendment; he’s nearly made carrying a firearm the eleventh commandment!”

Nervous laughter filled the room.

“Next question?” The assistant with the microphone threaded his way through the seats.

A portly man with a widow’s peak and narrowed eyes wriggled to his feet. Wiping his hand on his suit, he took hold of the microphone.

“Sam Bishop here of Cartwright Dehydrated Foods. Marcus, what do you make of the souring trade relations between the Western Federation and the Fundamentalist States as they’re calling themselves nowadays? Your projections look nice, but I don’t think you’ve accounted for that in your figures.”   

Maintaining the crowd winning smile which he had painstakingly groomed at his local Toastmasters chapter, Marcus leaned forward on the podium. “Mr. Bishop, that’s a great question. In fact, it is such a great question, I think I may need to retire to my new home on the hotel’s ninth floor and ponder it a bit.”

A smattering of laughter filled the room. Making light of a bad situation was his go-to public speaking tactic. This morning, he had learned that all flights to the East Coast had been grounded due to worsening relations. 

In fact, he had tried to account for the fluctuating political issues, but not simply to explain the projections. He had been up all night running the numbers and analyzing the events that surrounded a massive short term sales spike. He kept coming to the conclusion that the numbers were trying to tell him something other than the fiscal position of Safari Jack’s. There was risk. Undeniable risk that was so far, incalculable.

Marcus glanced down at his planner which was open to his notes for the presentation and his attention drifted to a series of numbers scrawled along the visible edge of the inner cover. 

Lottery: 095589 had been crossed out. Lottery: 095413 remained. 

He forced his eyes back to his notes.  

“To your question, Mr. Bishop, my report was in fact drafted prior to the strained relations. However, so far the secession has remained non-violent -“

“What you’re calling uncertainty, some people, especially on your side of the continent, are calling the beginning of the end. Have you put any thought into shoring up military agreements before war breaks out?” Mr. Bishop wagged a thick finger toward the podium.

“Sir, we need to put politics aside and focus on what’s best for the industry. While these may be politically troubling times for our country, maybe our world, I assure you they will be most profitable for our trade. Believe me, they’ll smooth out the issues soon enough. The almighty dollar always triumphs.”

Murmurs of agreement and applause floated up from the crowd.

“I’ve seen the end of the world come and go three times in the last two decades. In 2000, things were supposed to fall apart as technology destroyed itself world-wide. I predicted a twelve percent gain in gun sales that year which ended up being closer to fifteen. In 2011, a southern preacher with an internet following caused a five percent bump in gun and ammo sales by declaring the imminent Rapture. In 2012, urban legends about Mayan calendars helped a boom in ammunition and freeze-dried food sales as Americans stocked their ‘Doomsday Shelters’.”

As Marcus spoke, the data collected and analyzed from those events swirled in his mind. The short term spike, the political events, the general sentiment in the country. Things began to fall into place, numbers cascading down to fill in the empty void of incomprehensible risk that had vexed him for weeks now. Could all of these past trends simply be the long tail of a massive curve upwards?

Marcus shivered.

“Sorry, a bit of a chill there, thinking about those sales figures!” Scattered laughter floated into the air again and he allowed himself to relax. “The current situation is no different. If we keep our heads, there’s money to be made and in the long run, we all win.”

“Ok, next question?” the assistant called out, craning his neck to scan the room. 

Marcus’ eyes were drawn once again to the number scrawled on the edge of his planner. He leaned toward the microphone on the podium, “No thanks, Jerry. It looks like I’m not going anywhere for a few days so I’ll be around if there’s anything else,” another smattering of genuine and nervous laughter.

He jogged toward the steps of the stage giving several brisk handshakes to his fellow panelists without breaking his stride.

#

Marcus stared at the television screen in his hotel room. Numbers from the Fundamentalist Lottery slid by on a ticker at the bottom of the screen. He scanned the first in each series. Three, then six, then four, then five, then eight, then five, then, zero. 

Zero. He leaned closer.

Second number: nine. 

He held his breath.

Third Number: one.

He looked again. Zero, nine, one. Not a three, a one. He exhaled.

He turned on his laptop to setup the video chat session with his wife and daughter. At the start of his trip, they had attempted to talk while the lottery numbers ran in the background. The silence between them was unbearable so now they waited until the numbers were revealed. 

“Hi, honey.” Marcus smiled as he looked at his wife in the tiny video window. “Hold on.” With a click her face filled up the screen.  Courtney was smiling, happy, possibly ecstatic. The odds were so slim; it didn’t seem real that you or even someone you knew could be called. However, there was always a flood of relief once you were certain. 

Her green eyes were overcast with the bluish light of her monitor and her dark, straight hair reflected the glow in shiny streaks. She was dressed in an old threadbare t-shirt but Marcus could tell her hair and makeup were still fresh from her workday. 

“How did your presentation go?” She was asking, but Marcus could tell she wasn’t that interested. 

“Oh, it went fine. Same old stuff.”

“You look tired.”

“Yeah, I was up late. You know, finishing touches. How’s my munchkin?”

Courtney looked over her shoulder. When she turned back her expression was flat. “I heard about the flights.”

“Yeah, yeah. It’ll blow over by morning.”

“Why don’t I believe you?”

“Look, I’ll get home somehow. I can get a car, ride a bus. Maybe hop the border and have someone smuggle me back in through Texas.”

“Not funny, Marcus.”

“Look, they’re working on it. I hear even the CEO is making calls to try to get me out of here. I’ll be home soon.”

“You better be!”

A blur of motion and bouncing curls slipped in front of the screen as Courtney leaned back, the smile returning to her face.

“Daddy!” Katy was beaming, her mouth open wide and her eyes bright. She leaned in, filling the camera with mismatched teeth while her finger explored a tiny gap between them. “I lost a tooth!”

“Katy! Where did you put it baby?”

“No, I didn’t lose it, it fell out!” Katy bounced backward, jarring Courtney as she plopped down in her lap.

“Oh, I see. Well, can you put it back in?”

“No! It’s for the tooth fairy!”

Marcus exchanged a worried glance with Courtney.

“Honey, you know we don’t talk about the tooth fairy anymore. We don’t believe in magic and fairies, right? There’s only…” Courtney sighed, “God and Jesus. Ok?”

“Fine. I still want a dollar from the Mommy Fairy.”

“Ok, baby.”

Katy turned toward the screen, her tongue flicking around the gap in her teeth, “When are you coming home?”

“Soon, munchkin. I’ll be home soon. I promise.”

#

There was no resolution for the airlines. Service to border states was overloading the flights within the two, now separate, countries. A need to flee the coming storm had settled into the collective subconscious. Statistics or not, people somehow knew.

He began tracking things by rental car company operation reports. He started doing this after finding absolutely nothing available the next morning after air service was shut down. People were refusing to return their rentals or breaking into the lots late at night.  

Not that getting hold of a car mattered if the news was to be believed. Finding an open route all the way across the country would be impossible in the patchwork secession of states and the reverse flow at international border crossings had caught everyone by surprise.

Marcus tried to focus on his work to mask his desperation, but even then, the data curve that had come to mind during his presentation was restlessly gnawing at his thoughts. He flicked on the television and found his focus wandering more and more to the news reports.  

All this information had to be a part of his Risk Management now. The entire Risky World. He needed a prediction, a series of figures, an equation, which would get him home, safely. He reached for the stack of hotel stationary and began to work.

Eyes glassy and sparkling with the television’s flickering light, Marcus sat furiously scribbling one equation after another, feeding countless numbers into his laptop. One hour, two hours, a day. Time was lost behind the thick hotel curtains and the flashing digital clock. His room began to take on a stale odor. He accepted room service only to deliver food and replenish the supply of coffee. He paused only to check the lottery numbers at eight in the morning, noon, and eight in the evening. His mid-afternoon video chats with Courtney and Katy became numb and routine. Repeated calls to the office, or the rental car services, or the airport made the hold music a constant companion under the blaring television. 

All the while, sales figures continued to rise, just ahead of the escalating political situation. It was as if the country had tapped into a universal consciousness. They could see the danger on the horizon but it was an amorphous thing with no clear end. As he watched and analyzed, Marcus believed he could read the patterns with perfect clarity. 

The phone rang sometime on the third day. It was the CEO of Safari Jack’s.

“Marcus, look, we’re doing everything we can to get you out of there. We’ve got a request in with California Air Administration to okay a flight plan for the company jet, but it’s taking forever to get approval and the chaos in between the states isn’t helping. We’ll get you home.” 

Marcus listened with disinterest. Had he calculated the risk properly in the first place, he never would have come. Everything he saw, the formula, the analysis, the evening news, all told him that it would take divine intervention for him to see home anytime soon. 

“In the meantime, I can’t use anything you’re sending us. I need solid numbers before this company collapses around my ears! Is there any way to give me some figures that at least shift the risk to the smaller outlets until this clears up? Close a few doors to lessen the strain?”

“No.”

“What do you mean, no?”

Marcus barely debated his next words.

“The company is on a death spiral. There is a 98.3% chance you are looking at shutting doors by the end of the month. Assuming we make it that far.”

Silence on the line.

“I’ll fax over my resignation,” Marcus offered. He set his cell phone on the nightstand and reached for the remote. Turning up the volume, he dove back into his work.

#

He knew what the announcer was going to say before the breaking story even aired. It was there. In the calculations. Iran had nuked the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

Even before it happened, cell service was overloaded. Nothing was going in or out. Digital packets flowed like boiling tar in the worldwide scramble for bandwidth. The Western Federation was demanding a statement from the Fundamentalist President Zachary Graham. His position was clear to Marcus. 

This too was in the calculations, spread out across Marcus’ hotel room. 

It took hours to get the video chat connected with his wife. When he finally got through he had expected a rush of excitement and adrenaline. But he felt empty as he spoke. “Honey, you’ve got to leave. Now.”

Courtney gave no response aside from shifting Katy on her lap and gripping her tighter, the child’s small head pillowed against her breast. It was a scene from a painting, maybe a television drama, it wasn’t real. 

“Get some things together and go.” Marcus repeated. He didn’t want to explain how he knew it was only going to get worse. How he knew things were ending. 

Her expression was frozen, “We can’t. We can’t Marcus. They’ve started watching now. They never release the numbers until they know where you are. They’re outside the house. Right now.”

“What?”

Marcus felt his chest tightening and he clutched at the invisible noose as though he could tear it off and hurl it across the room. His mouth was dry, face numb. The woman staring at him on the laptop screen looked like a complete stranger. His wife of nine years clung to his seven year old daughter with eyes of pure desperation that he had never seen before.  

He rummaged for his planner in the sea of papers surrounding him. 

He had missed the last numbers.

Today was it. The final numbers were called, the lottery over. The odds of hers coming up were astronomical.

One hundred nineteen million three hundred sixty five thousand two hundred and three to one. 

It was a voice, no a chorus of voices. He looked up  at the television while the anchorman prattled mutely. Sliding off the bed, he walked to the door of the hotel room, looking through the peephole into the empty hallway beyond. He scanned the room, slowly, taking in every dark corner.

“Who’s there?”

I am the immutable truth, the answer to all calculations, the source of all numbers, the bearer of all risk. 

Katy’s voice whimpered from the laptop, “Daddy?”

Marcus slid to the bedside still looking up to the ceiling and scanning for concealed speakers, hidden cameras, anything.

“Yes honey, I’m…I’m here.”

“Mrs. Appleby says we go to heaven Daddy. Daddy, why aren’t you coming?”

Courtney’s expression didn’t change.

Marcus glanced around the room.

“No honey, no. No one is taking you to heaven today. Everything will be fine.”

A muffled knock drifted out from the laptop’s speakers. Courtney stiffened.

“Tell…tell them you don’t believe. Tell them you aren’t what they think you are.” Marcus was reaching now, anything to make the scene unfolding on the screen stop. 

“It’s better than the Re-Birthing, Marcus. It’s better this way.” Courtney’s voice was detached, a monotonous drone that issued incongruously from her terror wracked mouth.

Originally the Rapture Lottery was a volunteer lottery instituted by the Fundamentalist States, but it soon became apparent that if you didn’t volunteer, you were rounded up as a “non-believer”. They shipped you to a Re-Birth Facility.

Marcus had seen footage on the Western Federation news sites – emaciated souls clinging to wooden crosses draped around their necks with loops of barbed wire. If the underground figures were accurate, only two percent were ever reintegrated into society. Courtney was right, it was better to surrender to the Rapture Fulfillment Group when they came. No one knew what happened to the “fortunate” ones.

If you were a believer, you would understand the necessity of the Rapture Lottery. You would crave to be sent into heaven to return as a soldier of the Lord when the time came. It was nothing to fear. It was right there, in the Bible. The reign of peace only happened after a rule of death and violence. 

A rule that could begin once the lottery had been fulfilled. Once the final number was read. 

“Are you sure it’s your number?”

“I checked Marcus. I checked and checked and checked again. 095413, exactly what they said on the TV. Exactly what they said on the website.”

The knock became a deep hammering and Marcus jumped.

Courtney was reaching forward, her movements stiff and robotic. “Tell your daddy you love him Katy. Tell him you’ll see him in heaven.” 

Everything went black. 

Marcus started to flail wildly for the laptop cord and noticed it wasn’t just the screen. The entire hotel room was submerged in darkness.

No power, no connection, his life had faded out with the laptop, swallowed up in the coal black depths. Like Katy. Courtney. He couldn’t move. He would sit here he thought, in the dark, until he died.

Then, his world became nothing but a blinding white that engulfed the drawn curtains and flooded the room in a tsunami of light. 

Rise up Marcus! Prophet of the Holy Number! Angel of the Apocalypse! Revel in your calling for the final calculation of the Holy Equation shall come to pass!

#

The entire city had sunk into anarchy as the light swallowed it and spit out the rubble-strewn, radioactive remains. The hotel had been mostly abandoned by staff and travelers, though Marcus would occasionally hear whispered conversations from behind closed doors. Each time, he would cringe, expecting the Voice to once again hammer the core of his skull with the upper tip of his spine.

He had no reason to believe the Voice. No reason to follow its wishes. It had instructed him to leave the hotel room and return to the convention center. He did so because it was the only thing he had left. 

Yea, you are stripped bare before me Marcus. You shall be re-numerated for your duty to me.

Crossing through the lobby, Marcus hid behind faux marble pillars, straining to see into the darkness. As he reached the glass doors, he realized the walkway across the inky city street to the convention center provided no cover. He took a deep breath and stepped forward.

Hold Marcus. Wait here and your chance of survival increases seventeen percent.

Marcus exhaled and held his eyes shut in concentration. He was going insane, he knew it.

Your process is not clouded, it is clear. 

He heard a car zoom past on the street, screeching around a corner. Gunfire popped somewhere in the distance.

Now.

“My wife. My daughter. Are they alive?”

They are.

With a frantic dash, Marcus disappeared into the darkness.

#

Marcus wandered the empty halls of the convention center. Displays from the First Annual Interstate Sporting Goods Trade Show sat empty along the walls. Some had been neatly covered with table cloths borrowed from the hotel, others stood in silent vigil, the first relics of an apocalypse.

It was a scene taken from a week ago and crystallized in the deepest obsidian. There was no power. Lights were out all over the city. Wherever the bomb had detonated, it had been close enough to shut everything down but far enough away that he wasn’t vaporized in the searing brightness. Or was he?

I am your light, Marcus. Turn left, along the wall.

He obeyed. Groping forward in the darkness, he could see a stark table cloth spread over an incongruous shape. That was where the Voice wanted him to be. He felt his way forward, pulling back the cloth. There was only a difference from dark shadow to pitch blackness so he ran his hand along the exterior of the object. Smooth, sleek, it was metal of some kind. He continued tracing the outlines with his hands as his mind filled in the missing pieces. He smelled gasoline and the sweet chemical odor of rubber. A switch, handlebars, the top of a knobby tire.

Behold, your chariot, Marcus.

Finding the hybrid ATV untouched on the showroom floor was the first of many miracles Marcus experienced. 

The convention center had been unscathed by whatever madness had ripped open the outside world. While crossing between the hotel and the center, he had heard an occasional gunshot in the distance, the crash of cars, glass, and an out of place siren. There was pandemonium, looting, and worse on all sides.

The next miracle was that the ATV had a full tank of gas and the batteries appeared to be fully charged. On the road, a combination of braking and solar energy would keep the little quad runner going, even without fuel. Marcus hopped on and engaged the engine, riding through the broad hallways with the headlamp casting long shadows into empty space. 

Several dealers had firearms on display. One was even showcasing the latest crossbow. There was, however, little in the way of ammunition as per the rules at the convention center. He would have given anything for a single bullet. 

Do not fear for I am your shield, Marcus.

He was nearing the exit when the Voice spoke again,

Hold.

Marcus came to a stop. A small brushed aluminum sign hung over a trade booth on his left. ‘Razer Saw and Knife’. The word ‘Razer’ ran at a sleek angle with the bottom edge of each letter polished along a vertical mid-line. A table below the sign held a black stand bristling with hunting knives.

Your weapon, Marcus.

#

Highways were choked with what amounted to gas powered tombstones. Side streets patrolled by gangs of armed thugs. The wild spaces between cities were hunted by small groups of survivalists, patrolling large tracts claimed as fortified fiefdoms. That is, in the places where people hadn’t been burned to ash and de-constructed into the cosmic dust from which they were born. 

The ATV was truly the only way he could have gotten this far. That and the Voice.

Marcus followed the calculations of prophecy, of numerical surety. He was one with the Voice. His thoughts were its desires. Everything else was grainy and insubstantial. 

The world was in chaos. Men, women, and children, they would all kill for food, water, or gasoline. He had run into it many times on his three week journey across the war torn Western Federation and he had been guided out of it enough times to no longer doubt.

No doubt, no questions, no thought.

He’d averaged thirty miles per hour since leaving Los Angeles twenty days ago. With five hours of travel each day, the rest spent foraging for food, gas, whatever he could find or that the Voice would provide, he might have made a thousand miles. 

Nine hundred and seventy six miles Marcus. 

His hands were raw and bleeding from gripping the rubberized handles. A corona of peeling skin encircled his mouth, his lips chapped and split by the wind. Along the way, he had lost feeling in his back and his knees strained painfully when he dismounted. Nine hundred and seventy six or five thousand, it was immaterial. 

He wasn’t sure where he was but he knew it was where he needed to be. Texas, maybe New Mexico judging by the terrain. Most of the highway signs had been torn down for scrap. Yet, something here seemed, familiar, and Marcus struggled to recall his memories from the chorus of calculations.

His wife, his daughter.

Marcus, increase your speed to fifty miles per hour. Now.

Marcus gunned the engine of the hybrid ATV and it whined as the gasoline engine kicked in. He bounced down a rubble strewn side street lined with shattered houses on one side and a weed choked drainage ditch on the other. 

There was a tiny “ping” as a bullet ricocheted off the metal gas can strapped to the rack behind him. Glancing back, he saw a motorcycle tear out of an alleyway. 

It was a big, gas hungry hog. The seat was slung so low the rider could almost touch the ground with an outstretched hand. The bike was weaving erratically as the rider jammed a pistol into his jeans with one hand and torqued the throttle with the other. Once he regained control, there was no way Marcus could out run him.

Top speed of the ATV, top speed of the motorcycle, even factoring in the street’s condition, his odds of survival were low at best.

Forty two percent Marcus. It is unacceptable. Exit the road.

Marcus complied, swerving off into a ditch and bouncing high into the air as he crested the upward slope. There was a screech of tires behind him followed by the firecracker rattle of gunfire. Ahead of him was a dirt track that plowed north into the desert.

Keep to the north, the dust will conceal you.

A bullet whizzed by his ear, but Marcus didn’t flinch. The Voice said nothing about flinching.

The ATV whined across the desert, following dirt ruts as they wove between dark spiny mounds of vegetation, no longer green under the swirling charcoal sky. Hills of sand and loose rock erupted from the landscape, pockmarked with clusters of cacti and wiry brush. The trail cut east and as he veered in that direction, he looked back. The biker was trying to pursue on his low riding chopper.

Keep driving Marcus, it will soon be clear.

As he rounded the corner, a small chapel slid into view nestled in a hollow between the sandy hills. It rose from the yellowed landscape like a gleaming white fang, the steeple point set to pierce the dark sky above. Red shingles dangled from the roof, dripping down as if the wound were already opened. 

#

Marcus could sense a familiarity about this place. The last few weeks had been nothing more than the buzz of an angry hornet trapped in the back of his skull. However, he knew the probability of blindly stumbling across a church in the desert was slim. 

Thirty million eight hundred sixty seven thousand to one. Park in the back, Marcus.

Marcus complied. He entered the gleaming white building through the back door. The lights flickered on. No, there simply was light. Stained glass windows blazed like colored fire along the walls as though the gleaming exterior of the church blasted through their hued panels.

Marcus found himself to the left of the pulpit staring at row after row of roughly shaped wooden pews full of curious onlookers. All ironed and pressed in their Sunday clothes; the congregation was staring mutely at him, their expressions benevolent, even amused. The preacher, preened and polished, wrapped in a shining purple stole stood with his back to the door and he gently turned his head with a smile.

Marcus walked forward, inching his way toward the preacher under the eyes of the congregation. They continued to look ahead with silent, knowing expressions on their faces. Their focus rested softly on Marcus, not the preacher. They were here to see him. 

In the front row, a familiar wrinkled face caught his eye and two rows back, it was a friendly glance that had set upon him many times before, and at the end of the aisle an elderly woman whose tender eyes and proud smile he would know anywhere. He began to move closer and then the music started.

With a deafening blare, the organ on the far side of the church burst into the long low chords of a wedding march. Marcus froze, his eyes darting down the center aisle. A well-worn red carpet stretched full length down to two dark mahogany doors, their golden brass handles shining like distant stars in a chocolate night sky.

Marcus rushed for the doors. The smiling congregation turned politely in the pews with a silky rustling. Light tore the chocolate sky asunder as the gleaming handles began to diverge and disappear into that same blinding whiteness he had seen the night this all began.

A figure emerged. A white dress was being spun out of the light around it, stitching itself together as she came forward. Her face and body was a thin silhouette. He stopped, at the edge of the door, waiting for her to step forward, wanting nothing more than to see her face, touch her skin.

Marcus, ready the knife at an eighty five degree angle. Turn sixty five degrees to the right, now.

A sharp crack rang out. Marcus barely shifted. 

As she stepped forward into the light Marcus saw her face, cold, and dead, eyes milky and hollow. A wooden cross hung around her neck, threaded onto a razor wire chain that had splayed open the flesh leaving the collarbone visible through ragged chunks. And he saw his knife. Driven deep in her throat just below the jaw line. Dark blood pumped out in a coursing stream.

“Courtney?” Marcus lowered her to the ground, gently, tears streaming down his face. “Somebody help her! Somebody!” 

Pleading, he looked up into a once vibrant room now robbed of color. Dust hung thick in the air like a fog settling on splintered pews and the fractured remains of a pulpit. The church organ, gone. The only sound was the rattle of a motorcycle engine idling outside the church’s gaping doorway. There were no doors, just an open void that stared into the empty expanse of desert.

On the ground before him was the motorcycle rider. From a distance he had been an amorphous blob of blue jeans and leather with a white and black speckled bandana. Up close, his slack mouth spewed dark blood onto grey speckled stubble. His waning brown eyes stared, buried behind his upper eyelids. A pair of sunglasses, now askew on the bridge of his nose, reflected Marcus’ own face. 

It wasn’t her, thank God, it wasn’t her.

He didn’t recognize the man. Either man. The one lying in a pool of dark fluids that dripped between the battered planks of wood or the one that stared impassively back from the mirrored sunglasses.

Marcus continued to examine the balding middle aged face peering out from the surface of the glasses. Dark circles ringed his eyes and what was left of his hair was matted and tousled. Burnt and weathered, his face was a mask of trail dust and grease, thick stubble sprouted on his chin and cheeks. He wondered what had happened to him to change him so much. Was this the price of being called to God? Would she even recognize him?

Marcus, your side, the gunshot wound. Apply pressure.

“Heal me.”

Apply pressure to the wound to increase your chance of survival by seventy six percent.

“No, heal me. My face, my wounds, my sins. Wash them away. Take me to her.”

You must have faith Marcus. 

“Wash this blood from my hands.”

Marcus, he was one of Them. He did not believe, you believe don’t you Marcus?

“My wife, did she believe?”

The odds were one hundred nineteen million three hundred sixty five thousand two hundred and three to one that she would be called. Do you believe?

“I do, I do.” 

Then apply pressure to your wound. Your survival rate is diminished to eighty five percent Marcus. That is unacceptable. Dying here is not part of the equation.

Marcus ripped his knife from the man’s throat and tore the shirt from the corpse as the limbs danced and twitched. Pressing the shirt around his side, he held his hand firmly over the bullet hole.

Rest Marcus, you have a long journey yet.

#

It may have been another week, maybe more since the church. Sleepless nights, scavenging, more brushes with death, all accompanied by the Voice. The ATV had given out days ago on the west bank of the Mississippi. The engine seized and smoked as he forced it down a silty trail. He was almost relieved. His palms were stripped and bleeding, his back hunched and twisted.

The gunshot wound hadn’t healed properly. It no longer dribbled blood, but his right side had begun to slowly swell and thick green pus oozed up to the surface. Turning his waist brought fiery pain and the thrashing jolts of the ATV were not missed.

Walking wasn’t much better. 

As he slogged through ankle deep mud, up and away from the banks, it was only eight minutes before Marcus found a 4×4 pickup along a dirt trail through the woods. Until then, he thought the Voice had told him to ride the banks to keep out of sight. Not so. The ATV was dying and what were the odds of stumbling across a working vehicle? Marcus knew better than to question. It was another miracle. 

The body in the driver’s seat looked fresh, not even the animals had been given a chance to dine. The face was pale, but intact. It was almost normal aside from the smooth barrel of a .45 locked in a rigor mortised jaw. The back glass of the cab was webbed around a plug of meat and brains caught in a bullet hole. 

Marcus considered breaking the jaw to retrieve the gun, until he figured out there wasn’t any more ammo. The selfish driver had saved his last bullet for himself. Instead, Marcus pushed the body out the door and slid into the driver’s seat. A bumper sticker on the dash read “Graham 2020” and the after-market shifter knob was made to look like what Marcus could only assume was a woman’s breast.

Keys, still in the ignition, he turned over the engine and started off down the dirt road, ignoring the sticky feel of the blood-coated vinyl seat. 

#

Marcus rumbled across West Virginia in the truck, riding a two lane highway somewhere on the eastern side of the state. 

The scenery rolling off the windshield was not scorched like the western half of the once United States. Still, he had heard rumor that a few military bases in the Western Federation had escaped unscathed and fired a return salvo of nukes toward the east coast. 

He also saw signs of survivors. Organized groups locked away in rural and suburban compounds, the streets and highways a maze of hastily constructed barricades and hazards. At one point, he passed by a lone gravel road leading out to a ranch. A farmer leaning on a fencepost simply raised a weathered hand and waved. Waved. Like there was nothing wrong.

Marcus didn’t wave back.

The Voice was silent for days, replaced by an urgency that pulled him further along his path. The truck’s previous owner hadn’t burned much fuel, maybe a quarter tank before sending a slug on a tour of his brain. Marcus figured he could get where he needed to go on fuel siphoned from the interstate graveyards. If not, he’d walk the rest of the way. 

With open roads and a lack of surprises, Marcus drove. And drove. It was a simple road trip now; perhaps the farmer had the right attitude. It was like nothing had ever gone wrong. The world hadn’t gone crazy, he hadn’t lost his wife, his child, his job and everything he knew hadn’t been replaced by the unrelenting Voice. 

It was a simple business trip just like before all Hell broke loose on Earth. Except he was driving the open road exactly as he always wanted to – the sole vehicle for miles, a world full of lanes and no obstacles where that meditative trance of humming tires and disappearing lines could wash everything away. Just him, his destination, and that lingering sense of someplace he called home.

The signs of life continued up until the suburbs of Washington, D.C. There, the roads had been marked, sprayed with fluorescent paint by whatever patchwork authority existed now. It was the universal three lobed symbol of radiation; a trinity of death.

Rumors confirmed, he drove onward.

#

The house in front of him was a typical suburban home and like most of the homes in this neighborhood, it had been stripped down nearly to the frame. Light colored boards hung haphazardly on the facade. Some had been ripped completely off and carried away. The windows were shattered or missing entirely. The front door was also gone, torn from the hinges. 

What remained of the exterior was covered with angry white bubbles, burst into raw blisters that exposed the wood beneath. A thin layer of gray ash had settled on everything. Skeletal landscaping was dressed in bone white while what remained of the roof had every appearance of a light dusting of snow.

Marcus walked toward the house, his knife in hand. After so much certainty, an unfailing beacon driving him to this place, he now felt lost.

A hot breeze blew across the lawn, dust scattering in feeble clouds.

He climbed onto the porch, his side aching with each step. Here was a place where the pain would stop, or maybe a new pain would begin, he wasn’t certain. 

“That’s far enough,” a scratchy voice called from the house.

“My Lord?” The voice sounded so close this time, so real.

“I ain’t God but you are shortly to be introduced.”

Marcus looked in through the empty door frame. The entry hall spilled immediately back into a kitchen with a set of stairs on the right hand side. Knelt down at the top of the stairs was an elderly woman, staring at him from behind a rifle barrel. She was dressed in rags, something that might have once been a floral patterned shirt and shredded khaki pants. Her face was hard to discern. Marcus’ attention was on the gun barrel.

“Put down the knife.” 

No instruction from the Voice came. Marcus stood, looking at the ruined house before him, unsure what to do. Then, realization flooded through him. He stood, threw his face to the heavens and smiled, his arms outstretched, the knife dropping to the porch. 

There was a gasp from the stairs. “It’s you, ain’t it?” 

Marcus only smiled. He heard the woman clamber to her feet, huffing and wheezing as she squeaked down the stairs. “It’s really you? You’ve come for me?”

He looked at the elderly woman. Her gray hair was patchy and mottled, half stuck to an angry burn along her forehead and right cheek. Her bloodshot eyes peered out of swollen pockets of skin that was raw and ruined.

“I kept wondering, how long? How long for an old woman like me?” Her beady red eyes flared to life; the twinkling of stars on an ocean of blood, “But here you are, come to deliver me! Come in the flesh!”

The woman practically danced with excitement gripping the rifle barrel tightly in one hand. She reached out with her free hand, taking Marcus by the wrist, “Come now, come in, oh Lord, please come on in! I can’t believe I nearly shot you! We don’t have to hurry do we? I’ve been waiting eighty six years. Surely we can have a bit of tea first?”

She tugged eagerly on his arm. Marcus didn’t budge. Concerned, she looked down at his open hand and shivered as her eyes fell upon the wounds across his palm. Gingerly, she took his other hand, opening it next to the first. She looked up again, tears streaming down her cheeks.

“I’m so sorry. I forget all the things you’ve been through.” 

Marcus.

He didn’t respond He only looked up to the sky swirling above him through a hole in the shattered porch.

Take the rifle Marcus. You will need it soon, to fulfill my works.

“Please, come inside.” The woman stepped back, bowing her head. 

Marcus crossed the threshold, his eyes scanning the hall. The antique gunstock oak had been part of a restoration project. It had taken him several weeks to match the original finish. The sage paint on the wall which Courtney had picked out their second summer here was barely visible under a film of ash. Familiar faces stared up from broken frames like the remnants of a half-finished puzzle. There, he and Courtney, standing outside a small chapel in the desert.  

The old woman smiled, her sunken cheeks drawing up into knotted dimples in a labyrinth of creases. From her pocket, she drew a slip of paper. 

“I found it right here, on the floor by the door.” She pointed animatedly near a pile of splinters swept into the corner. “I recognized it right away. I used to watch and pray every day. When I saw it, I knew it was a sign. I mean, who would leave that lying around? You would take it with you. You would take it right up to the pearly gates and hand to Peter, right? Isn’t that what you do? The last one, that was the last one and then the fighting and the bombs and I thought I was trapped here, I thought I was left behind. But no, I always said my prayers. Always. I always went to church, every day. I knew I was one of them, I knew it. And when I had to leave my home after the wars, when the survivors evacuated the cities, I stayed behind. I knew you would come for me, I knew it was a sign!”

She slid the piece of paper in Marcus’ hands and he looked down, knowing precisely what it would say.

Rejoice! Rejoice for Rapture is Nigh! 

095413

“The woman that lived here. Her child. Where are they?”

“Oh, how do you not know? She didn’t believe. Didn’t believe in you, no, not at all. That’s why.” The old woman shook her head, satisfied with her answer. “They took them away, to be reborn.”

Marcus could feel tears welling in his eyes and he tightened his grip on the rifle. The old woman’s expression became pained and she brushed his cheek with her hand.

“President Graham began to scour the earth of its evil. Wash its sins in fire. Then the fire came upon us, from somewhere out West.” She stepped back, holding out the paper with a trembling hand and looking pleadingly into Marcus’ eyes. “Things went wrong. They went wrong because prophecy was not fulfilled proper! So I’m ready. Ready for you to take…” 

Her eyes grew wide as the rifle blared out an angry report.

Categories: Free Fiction

Tags: books, fiction, horror, short story, Writing