DUSK 2
Leonard Reed watched as a group of dissidents stood in a line which forked off into a set of five wooden platforms. The subordinates had received a lighter punishment than their leaders, whose reanimated corpses squirmed on a line of crucifixes across the street. That is, they got a lighter punishment unless they tried to fight or escape. They had betrayed their faith and now they had to face judgment in front of their lord.
The executioners grabbed the next five sinners and led them each up a separate wooden stair case. This group consisted of a young soldier who refused to fight, his parents, younger sister, and another sinner’s wife. None of them struggled, but fear showed in their eyes. The platforms were only four feet in the air, enough to provide elevation for the crowd to see and to make sprinting away from death an even harder task. Each prisoner was forcibly bent over a table, where another executioner tied their necks down. Their hands were fastened behind their backs, just like the remaining twenty prisoners.
When each prisoner was secure, the executioner who tied his prisoner to a table snatched a sledge hammer from the floor, raised it over his head, and swung down on his sinner’s skull. Sometimes the first blow would miss or glance, eliciting cries of shock or pain form the condemned. Sometimes the blow would land perfectly, all but shattering the skull like the victim’s head had been blasted by a shotgun.
The crowd did not cheer, scream, or shout. Instead, they watch with solemn expressions knowing that if they’d have lost the battle mere days before, they would be the ones condemned to death and damnation for failing their lord.
Harsh thuds accompanied the crashes of the hammers. The blows killed all but the teenage girl and her father. The young soldier spammed and flopped off the table when the executioners unstrapped him. The others were still and had to be pushed off of their tables. The girl screamed. Although the executioner’s blow had not been fatal, the hammer had peeled away a section of her scalp. The executioner raised his hammer and silenced the girl’s screams. The remaining executioner slammed his hammer. Though the sinner’s head did not explode, Reed heard his skull crack.
“Sir Reed,” a voice called from behind as the executioners removed the bodies. “One of the scouting teams has returned.”
*
Ty Cooper waited in the cathedral where the once revered elders had been shot down mere days before. When he’d returned, Cooper witnessed another mass execution. Though he figured they’d have rooted out the cowards and traitors, the attrition continued. He wondered if any of the other three scout parties had abandoned their missions and retreated towards the mountains, which Ty would have done had it not been for his deceased guide.
During the battle to hold the cathedral and draw out anyone who would fight against Reed, Cooper had lead one of the reinforcement units, cutting off an escape route. Though he was not a true believer, he’d seen Reed win in a dream. Had it not been for the premonition, Ty would have bet on Reed anyway. At thirty-two, he was the youngest of the messiah’s elite guards and he their leader. Before then, Reed had been their youngest general. He’d been able to outmaneuver groups of heathens whose leaders had years of military experience even before the dead started to walk. Cooper knew that standing against Reed then would have resulted in death.
Since the firefight, the long table in the middle of the room had been replaced, along with the chairs. The blood stains remained, and the moaning corpse of General Fitzsimons had been crucified over the front door. Had the elders not been prevented from reanimating for strategic reasons, Cooper had no doubt that all of their bodies would have hung from the cathedral walls as well.
Milo Ortiz, the soldier who had escorted Cooper back to the compound sat across from him. He wore a smile and his hair was shaggy and unkept. He looked weary, and had informed Cooper that he’d been out on patrol, searching for deserters. Reed wished to drop the hammer on all who would not fight along side him. Apparently he’d scared more followers away than kept at his side. Because they were unorganized and ununified, the deserters posed no direct threat to Reed’s army, but they fled faster than the remaining troops could hunt them down. If the holy army was to be large enough to destroy the heathens, they’d need to strike soon. Ortiz estimated that of the three thousand followers who’d been with the flock three weeks before, only a thousand remained.
Ortiz stood and turned towards the front door when it opened. Ty followed.
“You must have had a hell of a journey,” Leonard Reed said. “I am eager to hear about it.”
Reed cleared the front door with Griffin at his side. Two guards dressed in black shut the doors. When Reed and Griffin took their seats, Cooper and Ortiz followed. Lenux had told Cooper to leave out the details of his visions, especially who he saw so he paused, considering how to tell his story.
“I started on the main road, you told us to drive but I was compelled to drive off course.”
“The lord guided you.”
Ty nodded.
“We found a compound that looked like it could accommodate close to six hundred,” Ty said. That part was true. “There was activity so we went in on foot for a closer look. We were taken by a motorized cavalry. Everyone else was killed.”
“So you found them?”
Reed didn’t seem to care that it had taken Ty days to return. If the issue didn’t come up, then he wouldn’t have to fabricate a story to cover what he’d really done. He could have told Reed that Jud had tried to run, but he didn’t see a point in sullying the subordinate he’d mudered’s name. He’d had a good unit with good men. Though he had to sacrifice them, he wanted them to be remembered as fallen heroes.
“Yes, but they looked like they were getting ready to move out,” Ty said. He knew that the people he saw in the compound weren’t the original occupants. There weren’t nearly enough people there to make the place function and they seemed to be searching the inside of the compound for something. He remembered the helicopters with the search lights and figured it would be best not to mention what he really saw.
“I would have followed them, but they’d spotted me. I though it better to return home and give their location.”
“Griffin, give me the map,” Reed said, then turned to Cooper. “Show me where it is.”
Ty had expected such a question, but hoped Lenux would not abandon him. He’d been almost pulled towards the compound, maybe experiencing something like a bird’s migration. Past the main road that crossed through the farmland, he could not remember any road names or what his rout had looked like. He suddenly wished the rest of his men had been in on the secret. Rowley had been able to capture a flawless mental picture of roads, paths, and routes. He’d been the best navigator Ty had ever worked with. Then he realized that although he could get Jud to side with him in the struggle, Rowley and Coeyman had been true followers. They would have sided with Reed no matter what. Although Reed was intimidating, Ty would have been more afraid of fighting his silent comrade. Jud was loyal, but he was no good at keeping secrets.
As Griffin handed over a rolled up map, Ty hoped he wasn’t alone.
Have faith, he thought. Ty Cooper hadn’t been led this far to falter when he was about to serve his purpose.
He unrolled the map and flipped to the page which showed their current location and began inking a route.
*
“This shouldn’t be more than a two day drive even with a thousand warriors,” Reed said. Ty braced himself for the question that could have gotten him crucified. “Why did it take you so long to return?” Ty expected to hear. Instead Reed said “Good work.”
Reed handed the map to Griffin and turned his attention back to Cooper.
“I want us to be ready to leave by sunrise tomorrow,” Reed said. “You said this compound could accommodate six hundred?”
Ty nodded.
“You’re dismissed. You do not have to return to duty until tomorrow.”
“Thank you, sir.”
*
Ty spun around as he heard someone following him out of the cathedral. He saw Milo Ortiz, staring at him with a wide-eyed grin. The young soldier’s rifle hung on his shoulder and he ran a hand through his hair as though wondering how he looked.
“Yes?” Cooper asked.
“Sir, I would like to be under your command when we go to war. Your quest was inspirational!”
Ty continued walking and the boy followed him.
“Why do you suppose the heathens were getting ready to leave?” the boy asked.
“Maybe the Messiah gave them a little taste of what’s to come.”
He hadn’t the slightest clue why the original residents were gone, but Cooper assumed it had to do with the men searching the compound.
“If they’ll let you, you can serve under my command,” Ty said.
“Thank you.”
With that, the boy departed.
Ty had been hoping to gain some support before his coupe, but he knew none would come. Ortiz wished to serve Ty because of how he’d helped Reed’s cause. If he’d had the slightest inclination that Cooper was planning to turn on Reed, the boy would have attempted to gut Ty himself. No, he needed to make Reed look like a casualty in war. He’d become a martyr, and the flock would need a new shepherd.
When he reached his building, Cooper climbed on top of a dumpster at the side of the building and pulled the fire escape down. Since he’d never trusted the rusty fire escapes on old buildings, Ty entered through the second floor. The room was not empty, but baron. The only furniture was a metallic trash can which had probably been turned on its side in the doorway twenty-two years ago. He walked up four flights of stairs, and left the stairwell at his floor.
The walls were lined with electric lamps, but they had been shut off because it was daytime and sunlight poured into the hallway from a window at each end. Ty entered his room and shut the door behind him.
With the curtains drawn and the window closed, his apartment was dark and hot. They had generators for light, heating water, food storage, and some other essential functions, but air conditioning had died along with the federal government, Monday Night Football, and the local telephone network. After removing his shoes, Ty walked across his room, reached over his bed to the window, popped the latch, and let the stagnant air escape.
On his way up, Cooper had thought about taking a shower, but now he was too tired to bathe. Instead, he allowed himself to collapse face down on to the bed. He instantly noticed a pain in the front of his head as if someone had gouged his eyes with the business end of a bicycle pump and began inflating. Sleep didn’t seem to want him, so he let his mind wander.
Until the day he’d killed his wife and one of her flings, Ty’s father had been an accountant for a small law firm. He volunteered with the church and had been involved in the neighborhood committee. He’d lived a life of honest and hard work. He’d been liked, but never respected. The encounter with Earl hadn’t been the first time Mr. Cooper had caught his wife in bed with another man. It wasn’t even the first time he’d walked away from the encounter with a black eye or bloody lip. Ty’s father had always avoided confrontation until he’d found his true faith.
The Cooper family’s last drive together ended at a camp in the woods. The site was dotted by several tents, and figures in white, black, and red robes wandered about. Ty’s father told his son to stay in the car, while he talked to his new friends. Two of the white robes moved towards the car.
As they exchanged words with his father, the white robes looked friendly but concerned. Years later, Ty assumed they had asked his father if he’d left anything that might link him to them. Since he’d made sure to take their pamphlets with him, there was no problem. The men walked with Ty’s father to the back of the car, and the trunk opened. Ty hadn’t been able to see what was going on, but minutes later, two of the black robes dragged something heavy away in white sheets with red seeping through them. Again, years later Ty assumed that the men had buried his mother away from the camp.
In the years that followed, the Messiah had helped Ty’s father change from the accountant who hated confrontation, the man who quaked with uncertainty as robed strangers disposed of his wife’s murdered corpse, to the man Ty had seen enter Earl’s shop with a tire iron, and so much more. His face had been plastered on wanted posters, so they relegated him to organizational work and some low level recruitment.
Everything changed when the dead started to rise. Ty didn’t know much about what had gone on in the years before the dead walked, but he knew that they’d already acquired a stockpile of weapons that would have made a few organized militias jealous. They’d had construction materials on hand, so building a barrier around the Messiah’s remote ranch had not been a problem. Once the reports of the violence and mayhem around the world reached them, they had days to prepare. The first wave of refugees hadn’t found the ranch until three days after the first corpse sat up and the first mob of lepers hadn’t hit them for a week. They’d seen a few lone zombies before, but for the most part they’d been alone.
When the survivors came, they were welcomed with open arms, provided they could sit through regular sermons. If anyone tried to leave, they were branded as heathens and either crucified or burned alive. Soon new comers were held in deprogramming rooms, where they were tortured into accepting the word of their lord. If they did not accept salvation they were cleansed.
Six months later, the first winter after the death of civilization ended. No refugees had reached the temple in the past three months, so the Messiah called a meeting. He said that a great exodus lay ahead. He told his followers that they were to venture out and spread the word to anyone who would listen and to slay all who resisted.
No longer endangered by the law, Ty’s father had been allowed to rise through the ranks. After only five years of service, Mr. Cooper had become one of the Messiah’s favored enforcers both inside of their compounds and on the battle field. He’d been charged mainly with finding nonbelievers in the Messiah’s army and routing them out.
Ten years ago, Mr. Cooper had discovered a heathen who’d been one of the elder’s personal body guards. He’d confronted the sinner, cornered him, but before he could arrest him, the heathen blasted Mr. Cooper’s face through the back of his head with a .44. That night Ty had been presented with his father’s heart so he could gain the warrior’s strength through a feast.
Although Ty had never been a believer, and knew his father would have turned him in without hesitation, he always remembered the feast with pride. He’d been proud at the strength and will his father had found. He’d been proud to have come from such a man’s seed.
*
Reed had ordered his men to leave him alone. The Messiah hadn’t talked to him in days, but he’d led one of his soldiers straight to the heathens. Reed knew he should have been ecstatic, but instead he felt was anguish and rage. Why did God abandon him for another disciple?
Balling his hands into fists, Reed kicked a chair. It tumbled after hitting the ground. He stomped on the frame, breaking on of the chair’s legs off. He then slammed his balled fists on the table in the center of the cathedral.
Then he wondered. Was Cooper hiding something? Had he been led to the heathens by the devil? Had he been in league with them all along? Why had it taken him so long to return? There was no way he could know the rest of the team had actually died in combat. Maybe they’d been murdered. Or worse. Maybe they were coordinating with the heathens that very moment.
“Talk to me, my lord,” Reed said. “Please.”
A tear escaped his eye as he waited for a response.
Your god is dead, a familiar voice said.
Reed spun around, looking for whoever spoke.
“Show yourself, heathen!”
Nobody stepped out of the shadows. Nobody spoke.
“My god shall rise again!”
With spittle spraying from his lips and a shaking fist, Reed nearly forgot about the quaking in his knees. The devil, he thought. It’s only the devil. The devil can’t harm you unless you let him.
Reed calmed himself. Maybe the devil had planted his seeds of jealousy and doubt. He thought for a moment, then called to Griffin.
“I want someone to keep an eye on Cooper. If he’s telling the truth, then he should be rewarded. We need more people like him, but if he’s hiding something, we must make sure he dies the death of a sinner.”