Come Into The Light (4 page)

When the four had gotten as far away as their breath would take them they stopped and looked back. They no longer had the feeling that they were in danger though they kept walking. Harold knew by the way he was slowly surrounded by the three men that he wouldn’t be going back to his Piedmont address. Jacob explained that he couldn’t trust him not to snitch and he wasn’t about to try anything with them armed.

“I know you don’t like me but I like you. You’re a good kid. Just a little screwed up is all. I like to believe in happy endings but eventually you have to face the facts. You have to take charge.”

Harold was brought to Amanda’s house on Colder Avenue where he was escorted to an upstairs room. The room smelled stale but not offensive and had a laminated wooden floor, plain blue wallpaper, and was bare. As clean of dust as the rest of the house.

Amanda asked him if he wanted his shirt cleaned making him aware that he still had Nora and Bill’s blood on him. With a frenzy of nervousness he took off his shirt and gave it to her.

A wet washcloth was provided for his face and neck. His pants and shoes had tiny pinpoints of blood and he ended up removing them as well leaving him in his underwear. His face flushed as he handed over the items but Amanda took no notice of his embarrassment.

He wiped the blood off his face and neck with extreme care. The cold water was refreshing, stimulating, but he was happy to hand the soaked red cloth back to Amanda. Ross went and got him a towel to dry his face. When he was finished he handed the towel back to Ross and the door to the room was closed and locked. They wouldn’t answer his questions.

When he thought they were well away from the door he tried to jimmy the lock with his fingers before backing against the door to think. He listened to the conversation milling up to his ears from the ground floor but understood little of it. Jacob was doing most of the talking. And as the conversation ceased and he heard a door closing he suddenly felt alone. What was he going to do? The windows were blocked and there was no other way out. They left him with an illuminating glow stick that gave off a subtle blue light and not much else.

Out of sheer frustration and exhaustion he slid to the floor, sitting and waiting for what he did not know.

How long were they going to keep him there? Someone at Piedmont was bound to notice him missing. Seth, Adam, John, Rosa, even Sara would wonder where he was, or maybe they have been made prisoners too. Was this Jacob’s plan all along? Adam had his suspicions but Seth closed his ears to them. It was known that Adam didn’t trust Jacob, and why did any of that matter now. The fact is he was a prisoner and he had no idea of what was going to happen to him. He should have told Jacob that he wouldn’t say anything, but even he believed that was a lie. Jacob was no fool.

It was dark, even with his eyes adjusting to it, the room was much too dark. He thought by now he would have gotten used to darkness. It was expected given the situation they all were put in but it’s never an easy thing to overcome.

The whole house was quiet and the silence had a presence all its own. He could hear every creak, every groan the house was making as if shifted in its frame. Eventually all those groans and creaks became a type of lullaby soothing him into sleep and even as his eyelids began to droop he thought he might as well rest, what else could he do? He was their prisoner for now and he might as well make the best of it.

CHAPTER 5

He felt the glare. There was light burning against his eyelids. That was impossible. He was in a darkened room. Where could the light be coming from? He opened his eyes and there he saw it, there was light pouring out between the cracks in the boarded up windows. Light seeping through every pore as it flowed like liquid golden syrup down off the windows and into the room. The golden syrup formed pools that narrowed into rivers, slithering in serpentine fashion across the floor toward him. He followed its progress with curiosity and then with alarm. The liquid light was climbing up his feet, through his toes, and onto his legs, his mid-section, thickening over him with unbelievable speed, covering him in a golden cocoon. He could feel a hundred tiny touches on his skin, a thousand, like there were legions of centipedes tracing a pathway up through his body. The light was all the way up to his chest by this point, yet when he tried to move, to push himself up, he couldn’t. He felt weighed down, stung, numb. He opened his mouth to shout but he couldn’t make a sound. The tiny touches were becoming more aggravated, more insistent as the light reached his neck and encircled it, strangling him. He opened his mouth for air as tiny golden spiders broke free from the cocoon of light and swam into his mouth, filling up his throat, his lungs until his air passages were cluttered with their tiny wiggling bodies then blocked altogether. He strained to breathe, strained to cough out the golden terrors but he couldn’t. They were planting eggs inside him, distributing them along the lining of his stomach. Soon they will breed and devour him. He was suffocating. It was the worse feeling imaginable. His heart beat fast with the loss of oxygen and he felt himself slipping, passing out. He was going to die and yet the golden light kept pouring in, engulfing him in its immensity. Seeping up his nose then blinding him. Wrapping itself across every inch of his skull until his head felt like it was going to crack open. There was this beating sound, beating, beating, and then-

He jerked awake. He was in the room. The room that had become his prison and nothing had changed. There was no light, no tiny bugs crawling along his skin, just him curled up on his side against the door with the blue glow stick now barely registering a glow near his open hand. He sat up feeling woozy, unable to figure out what happened. Was he dreaming? Yet it didn’t feel like a dream. It felt too real to be a dream, more like a vision of some kind. And then as he thought of this he became all too aware of the pain in his head. It was powerful and bad as if someone had rammed a rod through his skull and twisted it. He didn’t know he was screaming until he heard Amanda’s voice on the other side of the door asking him if he was alright.

“My head is killing me! God, it hurts so bad!”

“This better not be a trick.”

When Amanda unlocked the door moments later she had to ask him to move, yet even the little bit it took for him to roll away from the door put him in agony.

He was crouched in a fetal position holding his head and praying for the pain to go away when Amanda and Circe came to him. Circe held him roughly in her arms and straightened him up against a wall so that Amanda could feed him the pills and the cup of water to swallow them down with. He was sweating, dripping with moisture.

“You don’t look at all well.”

She was holding the glow stick in her hand when he opened up his eyes to look at her. She had twisted the stick back into life so there was proper illumination once again. She was holding the stick in her hand and the blue glow that bathed her face gave her the appearance of a ghost.

“Those pills will do the trick. They’re not the useless crap Primrose has been supplying us with.”

When Harold heard her speak of John in that unflattering tone he had the notion to ring her neck even as the pain in his head, though subsiding, was still formidable.

“Just look at him. He’s like a weak little puppy.” Circe said, from somewhere above him. She seemed to be enjoying his pain.

“What else can you expect? Jake is a fool for thinking he is worth the bother.”

“What is in those pills?” Harold asked.

“You sound amazed. I bet you didn’t know you could feel so good.”

Harold had to admit. The pain was going away pretty quickly and the relief that followed in its footsteps was nearly orgasmic.

“I do believe our boy wonder is one glad puppy. Now you know how it feels to be on the right side of things. Let us know if you need anything else.”

Harold closed his eyes and smiled, riding the wave of relief as Amanda and Circe left him alone. One half of him heard the door close and lock while the other half of him still wondered what was in those pills.

CHAPTER 6

Quite a few unchanged humans still managed to be curious about the god who came out of the sun despite what they had heard, and different numbers of these curious folk came each day to the sunbies stronghold at the northern end of the city to witness this god. It was said that this god was the one and true god of all the people, the god of legend, the maker and destroyer of all things, and that he had left his heavenly abode to be with his people in their time of need so that he could salvage souls for the coming apocalypse.

Many now were standing in a long line with stark, curious, oddly wondrous faces. They had ended their pilgrimage and were now at the rudiment of his glory: the public square. His presence could be uniquely felt and seen there. It’s where the sunbies gathered to worship. And as the pilgrims flooded in they were welcomed by an excited throng of sunbies who smiled and spoke of the admiration they felt for the pilgrims. Their forbearance and faith was held as a shining example of good will in a time of ugliness. The pilgrims smiled in embarrassment, a bit overwhelmed by the attention given to them, saying that everyone needs faith especially now, and that the true spirit that resides in all people will eventually be recognized.

The sunbies nodded in delirious agreement and couldn’t wait to show the pilgrims just what they had achieved under his guidance and leadership. The progress they’ve made in rebuilding. The home schooling. Their stockpile of supplies and food. Their random forms of electrical power. All of which astounded the pilgrims. The sunbies were living in luxury compared to what they had been facing. So much of what they had been told was wrong.

Amy watched from afar as these pilgrims were being guided about. Though her nature was to mock them she couldn’t do it. Instead she felt sad and lost; worried that she didn’t have their faith and never would. They wanted so much to believe that their fond wishes had finally been realized that the goodness of God’s love would protect and nurture them against the horrors that they face. Yet they had no idea of what they have walked into, of what they would be giving up. They sat in assembly with the sunbies in the public square to watch the sun god appear and take human shape, reciting his vow in a powerful, mesmerizing voice to be a good caretaker of his people before stepping off the stage and milling among his people, projecting a charming smile as he welcomed the pilgrims into the fold and touched hands and faces, bathing those hands and faces in the warm golden light that was pouring out of him.

The pilgrims were so impressed by his golden presence that you could see some of them crying and some singing, raising their hands up to him to be blessed. They had no idea that they would never be allowed to leave, and even as some were happy to stay, a few were forced to bow to his presence and be rendered hollowed out puppets to his parasitic intrusion. And if they prove useful they could be chosen for the right to ascend.

Amy has seen this feeding ritual clothed as an ascension done many times and it never got any less creepy. The ascension begins with the chosen ones being laid out on constructed wooden stages in the public square where they are injected with a serum that puts them into a deep hallucinogenic sleep. There they await their ascension as the other sunbies stand in a circle and watch as well as pray. When the sun god appears he opens his arms out to the chosen ones with a bright flourish producing an intense ball of blinding light that engulfs the sleepers and once the light has been lifted the sleepers are then supposedly lifted up into that light, but Amy knows this is not what happens, she knows of the monstrous golden spider that leaps down on the sleepers and devours them because the light is not always blinding, not that the sunbies would notice. The sunbies hear, see, and believe only what the creature allows them to hear, see, and believe. In their minds, the chosen have been given an early ticket to heaven. A blessing brought about by their unwavering obedience. Even when the chosen realize they are not hallucinating and call out in anguish, their cries are heard as praise, as expressions of ecstasy, giving the sunbies reason to rise up and cheer.

Until most recently the pilgrimages, the rebuilding, and the ascension rituals have become common practices but lately there have been disruptions, disruptions that have left the sunbies in a foul and angry mood. Terrorists have upset their very existence, their religious faith and a war has begun as Amy had anticipated and this war has lowered her options, forcing her out of her role as spectator where she must hide in the midst of gunfire and explosions. And when the time is right the jungle cat will reemerge again.

CHAPTER 7

He swallowed a few more doses and dropped his head back to wait for the relief that would wash over him. He was asking for the pills more than he was asking for food or water now but he didn’t care. The relief he felt was unexplainable. His head was abuzz and dreamy and anytime he felt threatened by headaches or by nightmare visions the little oval pills would come to his rescue.

They had found new clothes for him to wear and he was let out to wash in an upstairs bathroom sink or to relieve himself. Amanda and Circe couldn’t stand it when he stank. He was visited by Jacob and a few of his supporters on occasion. Sometimes they would gather inside his tiny room and tell him of their efforts why he sat there glassy-eyed. Tell him what results their campaign was having. How surprised the sunbies were. How they were taking over their northern stronghold piece by piece. How the city would one day be free of their kind. That they were not afraid.

No mention was made of the creature. How they expected to defeat it. And no mention was made of setbacks, of troubles that had come up, even though Harold could see the nervous looks he got, the attempts to smile and pretend everything was fine while their minds plagued them with thoughts.