Come Into The Light (7 page)

“And who’s this ‘us’ Adam? Where are they?”

Adam became furious, lifting and pointing his rifle at Harold with menace.

“And where were you?! Tell me that coward!”

Harold eyed the nozzle that was pointed at his face and didn’t flinch.

“Go ahead, shoot me, if that’s the only thing you know to do.”

Adam sneered and lowered the rifle, pushing Harold away from him, “Go on, get out of my sight! You make me sick!”

Harold stood there for a moment before giving up. In his mind he could hear and feel the blast as if he was reliving it over and over again. It would never leave him, all those people who died trying to protect him, but he couldn’t express how he felt to Adam. Adam had names for people like him and he was through listening.

As he left Colder Avenue he happened to run into an ongoing battle being waged in the main section of the city. Both the changed and unchanged were armed and fighting at full bore intensity, unafraid and assured of their cause, yet the unchanged were outnumbered and in amongst the fighting a giant golden spider roamed and pounced on the newly dead to feed and to give encouragement to its troops. Living or dead, it thrived on the energy humans could provide and while Harold saw the spider the sunbies saw a golden man praying over the dead.

The horrific sight laid waste on Harold’s soul. So much had changed in two months but he should have known this was the way it was going to be, he had seen it in his grandmother’s vision. Yet imagining such a possibility wasn’t the same as seeing it. Seth was right, they didn’t have much time.

A rifle shot cut close by. He could hear the zing of the bullet zip past him shattering a window. He leaned in to catch a sniper on the shopping plaza’s roof and swiftly sped for cover as another bullet grazed the brick cornice of a building he took cover in. He’d have to get out of there real quick or he would become one of the dead being chopped to bits and tossed into the belly of that monster. There was no rest for anyone, even the dead. But getting out from his hiding place proved harder than getting in and once out he had to zigzag like mad and use the vehicles on the street for additional cover but he finally found an alley then a cross street that got him out of the mess though he was out of breath when he was finished and had to rest.

CHAPTER 10

Seth said that Liam could come with them if he wanted to and Harold felt he owed his uncle the chance to decide even if he wasn’t sure the old man was capable of leaving what had become his full time sanctuary. Harold would have to convince him somehow. After all he was the only family Harold had left. Yet as he stood in front of the bar and looked up at the windows something was nagging at him. He couldn’t figure out what it was but something was telling him to turn around and go, to leave before it was too late, and when he later unlocked the door to the apartment that something pressed against him yet again and if he hadn’t witnessed the chaos before him he might have backed away. The apartment was in a terrible mess. The table was overturned and the camera was smashed. The mirror on the other side of the table was shattered into pieces. There were trails of blood on the carpet and dust and old torn up corpses of mice peppered about, but the most horrendous sight of all came when Harold saw the body lying on the floor in a fetal position. He gasped as he got a good look at it and wanted to cry. The whole side of his uncle’s face was bloodied and the gun that had shattered his skull was still in his hand. It’s no wonder he didn’t want to come in. Something had indeed been trying to warn him; perhaps it had even been someone. Hadn’t he felt that pressure that push as he first came in, and hadn’t he also heard a voice, a voice that sounded an awful lot like his grandmother’s telling him to go back. Could he be mistaken? He didn’t think he was.

There was a piece of paper lying beside his uncle’s shoulder. He didn’t think he had the strength to lift it into his hands but he eventually found the strength.

Sorry nephew,

It’s time I joined Adelia. I hope I’m sent to the right place. I should have done this long ago. I can’t live this way anymore. This was the only way it couldn’t get to me. My mind is mine now and if I’m cold by the time you read this then I’ve succeeded in fooling it. Take care and if you can find it in your heart to forgive me please do. You know I loved your mother and you and I always will.

There was no signature but Harold didn’t expect there would be. His uncle hated the use of unnecessary words. Besides the love part was all that was needed. If only he had got here a little earlier.

He could hear his grandmother weeping at his back and as he heard her he felt the tears welling up in him as well. He made no effort to stem the flow that poured from him as his whole body shook from the tenderness and the sadness he felt for his uncle. He remembered how he was and maybe how he’d been at the end. A good soul all in all who had been twisted into something unrecognizable like so many of us have.

As Harold reached out to his uncle to be able to touch him one last time he could feel how cold he was. He had got his last wish. Leave it to him to find an angle that was both crazy and dignified.

Harold decided there and then that he would bury Liam next to his Aunt Adelia at Hope Cemetery come what may but he would need a vehicle first.

It took a lot of convincing by Seth to get Amy to agree to steal a Ford Ranger for the task. Seth helped Harold lift Liam into the back. They covered up his head the best way they could. He was stiff and heavy but they managed it. Amy powered up a backhoe at the cemetery and Harold dug the hole with directions from Amy. Apparently she had been trained to operate a backhoe as well. Afterwards Harold said a few words and prayed for his uncle’s soul. Seth came up with an appropriate passage from the bible and they stood around in silence and respect. The wind heating at their backs as the distant sound of gunfire disturbed the silence.

Amy surprised Harold when she grabbed violets from a nearby gravesite and distributed them on his uncle’s and his aunt’s grave. It was a kind thing to do even if it wasn’t ethical.

When she stood up from the grave her eyes caught on his as if seeking approval and when he smiled she smiled in turn. Maybe it hadn’t taken all that much convincing after all.

Harold spent all of the next day in search of John and Rosa. Amy helped even though she knew Rosa had become an earth mother of sorts to the sunbies while John was heading the faction seeking peace among the group. It was a small faction but their god was playing the two-sided card most gods play in encouraging the separate ideals. A god must be merciful and ruthless if he is to maintain credibility and since the faction on the wrong side of the equation in his view was so weak he saw no need to change his stance as long as there was still a ripe supply of human energy for him to consume.

Maybe it would be the right thing to do to tell Seth and Harold the truth but she would rather spare their feelings. They had so little to believe in so why not give them this one thing.

When the whole day had gone by without success Harold had finally told Seth he was ready. They would leave once Amy found a replacement for the Ranger which had a bad fuel pump.

In the meanwhile, Harold was doing all he could to gain Amy’s attention, trying to extend that smile he saw on her face into something bigger. So he would purposely stand in her way and wouldn’t let her pass until she made eye contact with him. She had punched him in the gut one time for doing it when he became an expert at forecasting her moves and she couldn’t slip past him, but he could see that she was weakening. He could even catch a smile here or there though he dared not touch her, not just yet anyway.

Seth heard their squabbles and was delighted by them. There was nothing better than young love even in this twisted and distorted state. And though he was familiar with her anger and his acts of innocence he told Harold when he should let up. He knew Amy’s limits better than Harold did. He could sense them in the tone of her voice and in her movements. The little mumbling terrors that sometimes left her frozen, almost distraught.

She had her comfort zone and it was beginning to fray but she didn’t want to go back to the way things were. She found that she didn’t like being alone, not entirely, that maintaining her distance had become tiresome, distressing, and a part of her wanted to try and be different from the way she was but it was the hardest thing she ever had to face, yet Seth told her not to be scared and she tried her best not to be. Seth said that Harold wouldn’t do anything that she didn’t want him to do, that he could talk to him if she wanted him to. Yet the mere mention of those things would cause a frenzied feeling to bubble in her gut. Still it was like exploring new territory and she has always been willing to do that. And all Harold was doing was trying to be cute, funny, even when he was asking her all these questions. It was that idea of new territory all over again. Besides, he wasn’t as bad as she first thought. Maybe not the person she dreamed about but that was okay. He did have a lot of good qualities. He admired her abilities for one.

CHAPTER 11

Adam was in trouble, he just knew it. Seth could see him trapped by that thing with an army of sunbies advancing on all sides. He was plagued by the thought daily but he never let on because of the headaches that came in advance of the thought. That sun thing could be planting the thought in his head but that didn’t make him any less worried about Adam. Even if his son wanted nothing to do with him he had to know he was alright. He couldn’t leave without knowing and even though he was frantic he would disguise his feelings to Harold and Amy. They wouldn’t allow him to see his son. They’d be concerned about his safety. And besides having Harold with him would only upset his son and he wouldn’t risk Amy’s life. He had to do this on his own. Somehow he knew he had to do this on his own for everything to turn out right. Adam and Sara would have to come with them. He’d convince them. He had to. The headaches would go away then and he would be able to sleep. Nothing was going to stop him.

CHAPTER 12

Harold wasn’t crazy about the choice Amy made given the truck’s color. To him the Toyota Tundra stood out like a beacon and would create undue attention but Amy pushed aside his criticism saying the truck would light up like a fire ball burning through the streets, cleansing everything it came in contact with, so what was so wrong with that.

“I thought you were the type that didn’t like attention.”

The matter was closed, red it was and red it was going to stay. Harold shook his head, admiring her spirit.

“I’ll help you load up if you want.”

Amy said she could handle it. She would rather have him keep an eye on Seth, his memory lapses were getting worse. Harold didn’t think the lapses were all that bad believing Seth simply needed time to rest. He was just stressed, that’s all, they all were stressed. The sooner they left the city the better.

“Just do it, okay?”

“Whatever you say, ma’am.”

Harold watched her work in open-mouthed wonder as she circumvented the computer and started the engine. Was there anything she couldn’t do? She was sweating by the time she finished. That was the first time he saw her sweat, he kind of liked it.

When they returned with the truck Seth wasn’t where they left him in the storage area of the library. He said he was going to fill the time while they were gone with assessing their inventory but he wasn’t in the storage area, though this didn’t seem to be a big deal since they knew he had a tendency to get bored, needing a new stimulant to spark his interest, they went exploring. It was near the end of the day so they guessed he had probably gone up to the language section to continue brushing up on the Mandarin he was learning through one of the instruction books in braille. But he wasn’t in the language section or anywhere else. Usually he saw every part of the library as his own little home away from home and Harold hadn’t taken his wandering all that seriously even if Amy had. And now he wanted to kick himself for being so casual about Seth’s absences.

They searched outside the building and along the street, hoping he might have stepped out or lost his bearings, but Seth has never just stepped out without notifying them or lost his bearings and the search proved futile.

“He has ever done something like this?”

Amy was too occupied with bad thoughts to answer Harold’s question and Harold didn’t really want to know in any case. The Seth he knew would be incapable of simply disappearing, but he has had moments when he has been testy and irritable, even acting like he didn’t know who Harold was, and those moments had become more frequent lately. Harold had thought that his sleeplessness was responsible but what if something else was bothering him.

That was just the thing. At one moment he would be enjoying Harold and Amy’s company and at the next his face would twist strangely and he would be irritable, saying he was suffocating and needed to be alone.

Amy had to remind him to take his inhibitors. The testiness and the irritability were resulting from the headaches, and short of her feeding him his pills directly which he would have taken as an insult she had to live with his assurances that he was keeping up with the dosages.

“C’mon, let’s get in the truck and search the neighborhood. He couldn’t have gone far.”

A few minutes after they started out Seth was spotted turning down Delaware. They were immediately relieved to see him even in his current dogged condition. He was shambling along on tired feet looking distraught as he called out to his son. Seth didn’t respond to them as they pulled up beside him. He returned to shouting as Amy parked the truck and they got out.

“Stop it, Seth! What are you doing?”

Seth held back from his hollering to turn to Harold. His face had changed slightly beneath the shades. He seemed to be disoriented, straining to concentrate, “Is that you, Harold?”