Heckel Casey (12 page)

The next week passed smoothly and without any trouble, either natural or supernatural. As I rode Hope, I kept thinking of the attack from the wolves and what had happened afterwards. My mind reeled from all the unexplained occurrences and question after question put up billboards in my brain.

As we progressed south, warmer weather thankfully tagged along. A few of the days were unseasonably hot and the nights offered cool, pleasant sleeping temps. There was an occasional shower, but no severe storms.

Along the way, we cautiously stopped at small towns to scavenge for anything useful, but we mostly looked for food. The pickings were slim. Jerky found us a rabbit again and we triumphed in her hunting skills. And of course, I started looking at my traveling companion in a new light.
Was she indeed more than just a cat?

Sela and I avoided talking about the wolf attack. The last time she brought it up, I got a bit testy. Why? I don't exactly have an answer for that. I think the flood of emotions associated with the real answer or answers most likely caused my snippy retort.

Sela always rode ahead of me and kept the pace fairly steady and fast. Jerky traded off riding with both of us. Today, she was on Sela's shoulder. Sela slowed down and pointed to a creek off in the distance.

"Looks good to me. I could use a break too," I shouted. As we got closer to the water, Jerky jumped off Tempest and ran ahead. "Guess she needs a break as well."

After we dismounted and led the horses to the water, I said softly in my most apologetic tone, "I'm sorry."

"For what?" Sela asked looking down at me.

"For…um…snapping at you. That was rude of me."

"No need. I understand how you must feel," she said caressing my cheek.

"It's just that…well, I've never been a very religious person or thought much about the whole supernatural stuff." I could tell Sela chose her words carefully so as not to rile me up. I resisted the urge to get defensive.

"You have to be open to the possibility that for some reason…you've been…"

"What…the 'Chosen One'? That sounds like a cliché from a movie." I sniggered. "Something Kung Fu or Buddha."

Sela looked hurt. Damn, I did it again. Quickly, I said, "Oops…there I go again. Just punch me," I said offering my arm.

"Just put down your defenses and sarcasm, so we can talk calmly as well as intelligently."

"Okay," I replied, taking her hand and walking toward the stream. Jerky and the horses drank from the clean, fresh water. We stood under a tree that sported the fall look with colorful orange leaves with an occasional one cascading to the ground.

The slightly salty scent of Sela smelled wonderful. I wanted to pull her down into the tall grass and make love to her so I could avoid talking about the whole topic of my being some superhero destined to save humanity and the world from the forces of evil. Softly under my breath using my best Darth Vader voice, I muttered, "Luke, it is your destiny."

"I heard that," Sela said, laughing as she spun around and hugged me. "Yes, maybe it is your destiny."

Suddenly, a cold breeze slammed into me and made me shiver. Either it was destiny validating what Sela just said, or there was a cold front coming.

"Fine. Let's, for a moment, just say that I am some sort of superhero or religious icon poised to confront Madeline and her army of evil. What's the game plan? I mean look around…there's you, me, our two horses and my incredible knows-when-evil-approaches super sidekick, Jerky! It's not exactly an awesome menacing militia."

Sela nodded her head slowly to confirm my sarcasm-tinged statement. "Yes, but we have to put our trust in—"

"God?"

She looked me straight in the eyes, nodded her head a few times and I knew she was dead serious.

"That brings up an interesting question. Why did God let things get so out of hand in the first place? I mean, for Chrissake, so many people died and died horribly. For what?"

"Don't know, but I do know there has always been a battle between good and evil. Guess evil got an upper hand over the last decade or two."

"Do ya think?" I said with my best Steve Martin voice. The minute I said it, I realized my sarcasm went a little over the edge.

Sela socked me in the arm. Both horses looked up for a second and then went back to drinking.

"Ouch," I said. "Okay, I deserved that one."

The horses walked away from the stream and started to munch on the nearby grass.

"We can continue to discuss this more tonight at dinner. We should get in a few more miles before calling it quits for the night."

"You da boss," I said jokingly.

"And you just remember that," she said poking me in the arm and snickering.

Jerky decided this time she wanted to ride with me. The warm cat perched on my shoulder acted like a soft fleece scarf. The wind occasionally contained hints of something colder in the forecast. Our luck with warm weather was most likely going to change.

"I don't suppose you have a tent in that magic bag of yours?" I asked as we slowed the pace for a while.

"No, I've been looking for something like that every time we find a town."

"I think we are going to need one pretty soon. There's a change in the weather coming around the bend."

"Yeah, it's inevitable. There are a couple of towns that we are going to go through tomorrow. Hopefully, we can find a small backpacking tent or at least a tarp."

That night around the campfire, we talked about the events that had happened leading to what we called the collapse.

"Where were you the day that the president and his whole cabinet were murdered?" Sela asked as she threw another log on the fire.

"I nearly forgot about that tragedy. By then it was beginning to get hard to hear any reliable news broadcasting. Most of the television and radio stations weren't even broadcasting."

"That made things so difficult. The just not knowing what was happening. So, where were you?"

I poked a stick in the fire, trying to remember where I was. After a few minutes of stammering and umming, I said, "I think I was in Virginia, still trying to teach. As time went by during the fall after the horrible events in that spring and summer, fewer and fewer kids were showing up at school. Word of the president's death and all his cabinet got to the school. Several parents came and got their kids. People felt it was the final straw. That was the last day I went to teach."

"Seems to me that was when Madeline seized power."

"Yeah, she had been head of Homeland Security and declared martial law with her calling all the shots. No one objected and if they did, well, that was the last we heard of them."

Sela put several large logs on the fire, which cast a warm orange glow. Jerky was curled up in a tight ball on my backpack. "Speaking of shots, isn't that when the National Guard flipped out?"

Nodding my head vigorously, I recounted how the army was given orders to shoot during any rioting or looting. More of the American population dwindled. "That's when I hit the road and got out of the city and walked way around any towns that I passed."

We continued to describe how anarchy prevailed, and from that late fall when the collapse began, day-to-day living became a matter of survival.

Sela put her head on my lap and we changed the subject. We talked about loved ones…some that we lost and others that we wondered where they were.

As the night wore on, the fire began to burn down to coals. Sela was drifting in and out of sleep. "Are you ready to call it a night?" I asked softly.

"Yeah, I'm bushed. Put a couple of big logs on the fire and it will keep us warm for a while," she managed to say between yawns.

As I got up to reach for a log, I noticed a blue swirling light off in the distance in the middle of the road we had been following. The light was on the horizon and I could tell it was creeping slowly toward us.

"Sela, quick…get the horses packed."

"Why?" she asked, sitting up.

"We have a problem. Quickly, we've got to get going…now," I said nervously, pointing in the direction of the blue light. "That doesn't look like the northern lights."

She stood up, stared at the approaching preternatural light show and gasped. "Oh, shit."

We both scrambled to pack up our meager belongings. Sela readied the horses. I kicked dirt on the fire. Now the ominous lights picked up speed and were nearly upon us.

"Are you ready?" Sela yelled.

"Just about."

But it was too late. The encroaching blue lights began to circle us and I could see that the swirling luminescence was, in fact, flames. They reminded me of the flame one would see on a gas burner. We began to feel the heat. The horses skittered nervously. I held onto Hope's reins. Sela was already mounted on Tempest.

"Come on. We can make a run for it," she cried.

"No. Madeline and I are going to have it out right here and now," I yelled. The searing circle tightened. A thought suddenly edged its way into my thinking.
What if this is all an illusion? She's just trying to scare me. She's using fear to try to break me. I bet Madeline isn't even here.
As I stared into the bright-blue dancing flames, my courage strengthened. I could feel my insides seething, turning, and twisting.

Sela shouted again that we should make a run through the flames. As she spun around, trying to keep Tempest from bolting, both she and the horse stared at me.

Softly, she said, "Heckel, what's wrong?"

I went up to Tempest, took hold of his bridal, and whispered to Sela, "Don't worry." She looked down at me with eyes laden with concern, but with a confident loving smile. With my head held high and a huge assertive grin, I marched us straight toward the Madeline-infused inferno.

The flames heightened and swirled faster as if someone were turning up the knob on a gas oven. The heat we felt originally wasn't there. We didn't feel anything. The hairs on my neck bristled. I could feel that power inside me build to an even greater fevered pitch. At one point, I looked around me and could see what appeared to be a dome.
A force field? Was that coming from me?
I stifled a small grin and kept up my defiant appearance.

As we passed through the light and made it out into a clearing, I turned to see the menacing circle of fire morph into a ring of the childlike Madeline avatars. A hundred identical little girls in dirty white nightgowns stood staring at us with a mocking grin.

"Now that's pretty creepy," Sela said tentatively.

"She's not really here. It's all a ploy or…or…chimera. She's trying to scare us."

"Well, she's doing a pretty good job for me. What the hell is a chimera?" she queried.

"Basically, it's something that is just an illusion," I replied staring at the disturbing, evil-looking tableau.

Still holding onto Tempest's reins, I took a few steps forward to confront the illusion.

"Madeline, if you want to talk to me or…whatever, you do it face to face with me. I'm not afraid of you. Stop sending your annoying storms, demon dogs, and silly blue light shows. And, for the love of God, we are really getting tired of these eerie, freaky little girls, who look like they belong in a John Carpenter film or something. They're a nuisance," I yelled and waved my hand at the circle of demon images.

With a flash of bright light, the Madeline apparitions dissipated as if someone extinguished a fire with a bucket of water.

Sela gasped and then clapped her hands in appreciation. "You did it…again!"

With a grin that was part humility and part pride, I muttered, "Hmm…I guess I did."

"Now do you believe what I've been saying?" Sela said, dismounting Tempest.

Apprehensively, like a little kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar, I nodded my head slowly and replied, "Yes."

She kissed me and hugged me.

Softly in her ear, I asked, "Now what?"

Sela remained silent for a long time, holding me tighter and tighter. "I don't know, but for now, we just keep going."

We decided that we would stay in the campsite that we were already in. I had a gut feeling that Madeline's threats were over for the night. As Sela got out our blankets, I started the fire again. It didn't take us long to fall asleep. The last image I had before drifting off was of one little girl, Madeline, in a dirty white nightgown. The evil demon child winked at me.

The next morning was chilly when we woke up. A few patches of frost dotted the field in low-lying areas.

"Brrr. I'm freezing," I said snuggling closer to Sela.

"Me too. We've got to find better sleeping bags, a tent, or lodging in deserted places," Sela said, pressing her body closer to mine. The closeness made my insides do flip-flops, and I felt like I was going to start hyperventilating.

After my breath returned to normal, I whispered, "Sela, you make me feel so…I…um…my feelings for you are…well…"

She smiled at me with the warmest expression I'd even seen and said, "Me, too." She leaned forward and kissed me for the longest time.