After the Ending (42 page)

He slid out from the sleeping bags, looking like an
underwear model who’d just finished a photo shoot, and joined me in the search
for warm clothes. Eventually we found everything we needed, including thick
down jackets, boots, gloves, and wool hats, and we stepped out into the
blessedly snow-free morning. Jason glared at the sky, like his menacing scowl
alone could frighten away the chance of snow. Everyone except Ky was already
sitting around the campfire, looking…nothing. Not hungover. Not laughing. Not
talking. They were blank.

“They look weird to you?”
I asked Jason as he spat
toothpaste onto a low shrub. He nodded. I continued brushing my teeth beside
him, pondering the reason for my friends’ odd behavior. Maybe they’d discovered
something really disturbing about these people. Or maybe they’d all
participated in an orgy and were too horrified to admit it. I didn’t know, but
I was sure as hell going to find out.

“Where’s Ky?”
I asked everyone after I’d stowed my
toiletries.

“Oh, Ky?”
Chris
replied.
“I think he’s with—”

“The Prophets are ready for you,” Jen, the eerie woman,
unknowingly interrupted. “You’ll need to leave your dog here,” Jen said.

Mark explained, “The Prophet Cole has outlawed dogs from
the camp entirely.”

“Jack comes,”
I growled in Jason’s head.

“He’s a service animal,” Jason said, holding up my hand.
“You see, she’s a deaf mute, and he’s her hearing dog. Either we all stay out
here, or the dog comes with us. The Prophets are more than welcome to—”

“Mark,” the woman said. “The Prophet Cole is reasonable.
I’m sure he won’t mind.”

“Lie,”
Ben told me, and I shared the information
with the rest of my people.

“Does she have a leash for him?” Mark asked while I
smiled at him dumbly.

“Make sure he sticks to you like glue,”
Jason told
me. “I’ve never seen her use one, but I’ve also never seen him leave her side.
It’s unnecessary.”

“Very well,” Mark stated. “Follow us.”

While we meandered down a narrow, zigzagging pathway
between tents, I asked Chris,
“What’s up with you guys. You’re all acting
sort of zombie-
ish
.”

“I don’t know what
you mean,”
she said.
“Everyone here
was really welcoming last night. I’ve never felt so free…so at peace.”

I didn’t say anything more and just looked around at the
others.
Free? At peace? Now?
As nice
as it sounded, it was one of the most ridiculous things I’d ever heard. I
passed my concerns on to Jason. He agreed.

I wasn’t sure what I was expecting—maybe not a step
pyramid or a colonnaded Greco-Roman temple—but definitely not a yurt. Resting
on an outcropping of sand near an expansive lake, the rough, octagonal, log
structure had a steady stream of smoke rising from its center. It didn’t really
have a roof, but instead was more dome-shaped, and was maybe thirty feet in
diameter.

“This is the Temple of the Prophets of the New World,”
Jen proclaimed, holding her arms out wide like the yurt was a magnificent sight
to behold.

Mark urged us forward, shooting a surprisingly irritated
look at his companion. It was the first show of real emotion I’d seen on anyone
besides Jason all morning. “Come. It is not good to keep the Prophets waiting.”

As we followed our guides through the structure’s arched
entrance, we were wrapped in unexpected warmth. A substantial fire burned in
the fire pit in the center of the yurt, and three oversized, rough-hewn chairs
were arrayed on a small platform beyond it. Their occupants—a man and old woman
on either side, and a short, rotund woman in the center—sat in the chairs like
they were thrones.

The man, evidently the Prophet Cole, was an attractive,
middle-aged gentleman of average height and build. In the previous world, I
would’ve marked him as a lawyer or a corporate businessman. The far woman was
so elderly and frail-looking that I couldn’t believe she’d survived the Virus.

The middle chair was larger than the other two, as was
its occupant. She was obese, or what Grams used to call ‘dumpy’ out of
kindness, and had a splotchy face that was simultaneously round and saggy. Her
sheer unattractiveness was at odds with the two gorgeous, shirtless men
kneeling on either side of her chair, petting her arms, hands, legs, and
whatever else they could reach.

“Oh my God,”
I
said to Jason.
“Is that—”

“Ky.”
Jason completed my observation with
appropriate disgust. Ky was one of the partially naked men fawning all over the
grotesque woman.

“Chris knew…this
morning…she was about to tell me where he was…she didn’t care.”
I paused,
and my stomach clenched.
“Jason,
something’s really, really wrong.”

In perfect harmony, the three seated people spoke, “We
are the Prophets of the New World. We have foreseen your arrival and desire you
to join the followers of the One True Religion. With us, you will find safety,
and above all else, peace. We welcome you.”

“Rehearse much,
” I thought sarcastically to all of
my companions, hoping the cynicism might break through their fog.

“We would like to stay with you and your people for a few
more nights,” Jason said, “but then we really should continue on our way.”

“A few more nights…are
you nuts?”
I asked him.

“No. Just wait.”

The fat woman eyed Jason appraisingly and smiled. “I am
the Prophet Mandy, and these are the Prophets Mary and Cole. You are more than
welcome to stay with us for as long as you like. Let us dismiss this talk of
leave-taking until you’ve seen everything we have to offer,” she said, her
voice turning throaty.

“Why’s she talking
like she stepped out of a Jane Austen novel? And why’s Ky fawning all over
her?”
I asked the group. Nobody responded.

Watching the two young men caress the repulsive Prophet
was making me feel sick, and not only because the display disgusted me—I was
pretty sure I knew what was going on.

“How do you all
feel about the Prophet Mandy? Anybody feeling warm and fuzzy?”
I asked my
companions.

“You’re kidding,
right?”
Jason said.

Chris, standing on the other side of Jason, said,
“She doesn’t seem too bad. But…I don’t
know…something seems…off.”

“I think she’s beautiful,
” Holly said, and Hunter
and Mr. Grayson echoed her thoughts.

Ben’s response was the most conflicted, convincing me
that my hypothesis was at least semi-accurate.
“She’s not entirely truthful, but I want to trust her. She’s just so…I
don’t know. I want to stay with her. I feel at peace around her.”

“Jason!”
I said
frantically in his head alone.
“She’s
doing something to everyone. Like what Cece did to some of the guys,
controlling their minds or something…except it’s working on everyone. I think
I’m safe because you’re unconsciously shielding yourself from her, and I’ve
been touching you since we arrived, so you must be protecting me too. And Chris
is standing closest to you so she’s not quite so…enamored. But Holly, Hunter,
and Mr. Grayson are practically in love with her! Plus Ky…that’s just wrong!”

“Shit…,”
Jason said silently.

“Can you use your
Ability on them…you know, null them or whatever?”
I asked Jason.

“I don’t know how to fucking control it!”
he
snapped. Out loud, he said, “Prophets, do you mind if I speak with my people
for a moment? Your kind offer is very persuasive.”

The hideous Prophet Mandy inclined her head regally, and
Jason gathered the others close to him. He carried on a show of bland
conversation, discussing the many benefits of staying with the obviously
mind-controlled cult—leaving out the mind-controlled cult part—while I
explained the situation in their minds. Once everyone was within a few feet of
Jason, the “Mandy fog” started to clear from their heads, and they grew
panicked.

“Tell them to keep
calm, and stay close to me if they can. I’ll try to…I don’t know…I have no idea
how to use this fucking Ability!”
Jason said.

“It’s okay. It’ll
be alright. I’ll tell them. We’ll figure it out…you and me, okay?”
I
replied, attempting to calm him down.

“What is your decision, Jason?” Mandy asked with husky
familiarity.

“We’ll stay indefinitely, of course,” he answered,
smiling. He was so good at masking his emotions; it was unnerving.

“Very well,” she said. “Everyone may leave—except you.”
She looked at Jason. “And my Pretties, of course.” She patted Ky’s shoulder as
she spoke. To my surprise, the other two Prophets rose to leave with the rest
of my companions.

“She’s got to be
the one…I don’t know, controlling everyone,”
I told Jason, and he silently
agreed.

When the yurt was empty of nearly everyone—only Jason,
Jack, Ky, the other shirtless man, Mandy, and I remained—the fat woman
simpered, “Why is that stringy little thing still here? Send her away.”

Jason nearly choked on his words. “Oh…great Prophet…she’s
harmless, and she’s only comfortable when I’m around. Besides, you can say
anything around her, and she won’t hear a word.”

Mandy stood, flinging the hands of her worshipers away,
and I watched with avid fascination as her lumps and folds rearranged under her
weather-inappropriate chiffon gown. It was emerald green, strapless, and way
too tight, and with her hair teased into a
poofy
up-do, she carried an uncanny resemblance to Ursula.

“I said, send her away. If you refuse, my Pretties will
kill her,” Mandy threatened, motioning for Ky and the other man to approach us.

From behind them they drew long knives with blades that
shimmered like mirrors, reflecting the fire’s flames.

“Over my dead fucking body, you fat bitch,” Jason
growled, drawing his sidearm and aiming it at the self-proclaimed Prophet.

At my side, Jack was snarling ferociously, his hackles
raised and his lips retracted to show his gleaming canines.

Abandoning my vow of silence, I pleaded, “Jason, wait!
What if—”

But Jason didn’t have the luxury of waiting. Ky and the
other man would be on us in seconds. Without hesitation, Jason pulled the
trigger, and slimy chunks and crimson ribbons erupted from the back of Mandy’s
head, coating her throne and spattering the wall behind her. It took her
massive body a few moments to collapse onto the dais, and by the time it had
settled, the fog of her control had lifted completely from Ky and the other
man.

Ky looked at us, his face frozen in horror, and his knife
slipped from his fingers. “Oh God…What am I…Fuck!” I had no idea what he’d been
through over the past nine hours, but I could tell by the horrified look on his
face that it was bad—like scarred-for-life bad.

More than a few blood-curdling screams sounded from
outside the desecrated Temple, and I wondered what atrocities the “followers of
the One True Religion” had endured under Mandy’s manipulation.
What would
Cece have done in Mandy’s place?
I shuddered, hoping I never found out.

“Holy shit,” Jason muttered.

The second “Pretty” had launched himself onto Mandy’s
corpse and was ferociously mutilating it with his knife. The three of us just
watched him, unwilling to interrupt what we could only assume was well-deserved
retribution.

“You’re always telling us you want it harder, deeper…is
this hard enough?” he cried out as he stabbed again and again, and blood splattered
onto his body. “Do you want it deeper,
Mistress
?” It was almost a mercy
that the monstrous woman was already dead.

I grew instantly nauseous, both from the verbal
confirmation of how Mandy had been wielding her mind control and from the
sloppy sound the knife made as it ripped through her seemingly endless layers
of flesh. Parts of her body no longer resembled anything human, looking more
like ineptly butchered cuts of meat. Finally, when his blade was clinking
against bone with every strike, the man dropped his knife and crawled and
scooted away from the decimated corpse awkwardly. He was headed straight for
me, and I was too stunned to move.

Jason’s hands gripped my upper arms painfully as he
picked me up and flung me toward Ky. I stumbled into my friend right before the
man’s gore-covered body collided with Jason’s legs instead of mine. Jason
staggered backward from an impact that would have sent me sprawling on the
floor.

As soon as I’d fallen against Ky’s solid torso, he’d
caught me in a fierce hug—he seemed to need the comfort as much as I did. The
abruptness of being manhandled shocked me out of my horrified trance, and my
brain finally processed the slaughter I’d just witnessed.

Slipping out of Ky’s desperate hold, I lurched to the
yurt’s wall and vomited. It was all too much—too much blood and carnage, too
much cruelty, and too much messed up behavior. The world had just become too
much.

Tears streaked down my face, and as the convulsive heaves
ceased, my body trembled. I wiped my mouth, welcoming the white-hot rage that
had slowly overpowered my need to vomit. That woman, that vile
thing
,
had enslaved innocent people, scarring them, claiming their lives—she deserved
worse than she’d received.

When I turned to face the others, I saw Jason helping the
bloody, shell-shocked man to his feet. I approached them, voicing my anger.
“Jason, these people were enslaved. Not just their bodies, but their minds…she
took their will.
Ky’s
will. This is goddamn mind-rape.” My words were
dripping with revulsion. No doubt, my fury at what Mandy had done was fueled by
my intense hatred for Cece, the only other mind-controlling bitch I knew.

Reaching Jason’s side, I desperately wished for a way to
clean out my mouth—it tasted of bile, and my throat burned. I stared up into
Jason’s eyes to find him looking at me with such despondency that I could no
longer hold in my disbelief. “She wasn’t even a Crazy. She was just mad with
power. God, Jason…she probably wanted to make you one of her toys.” The thought
of him being used—controlled—spurred me on. “Promise me, if we find any more
like her…we stop them.”