The border of Tucson was marked with burned-out house frames and punctuated with obliterated trailer parks. It reminded Lead of Kingman in its charred abandonment. Past the destruction, camp fires glowed and broke the evening black and attested to life in the town.
“We need to leave the highway now,” Terence whispered.
“Middle Tucson is a haven for lepers, resilient virals, and madmen. The Church dumped them here.”
Beyond the rows of buildings Lead looked to the bonfires and lit buildings. An inhuman whooping rode the night winds.
Terence pulled Lead’s six-shooter from his knapsack.
“In case there’s trouble you’ll want this.”
He handed the pistol back to Lead, handle first.
“You’re out of bullets.”
“I know.”
The gun felt comfortable in Lead’s hand, like the return of an appendage. He gripped the handle and felt its weight. He had relied on this tool for so long that it had become part him.
The ex-Preachers followed the edge of Tucson south, avoiding the noise and movement of the inhabitants. They lurked silently in the darkness. Lead clutched his gun and looked to the villagers circled in the fire light.
“We need to talk to them,” Terence whispered. “Without fresh water we won’t make it to New Pueblo.”
“What about plague?” Lead was worried. He had not forgotten his hard lesson about savage villages.
“No choice. We can’t live on cactus water. We need this.”
Lead followed Terence to the outskirts of a bonfire fueled by house lumber and furniture. His mind returned to the fire of the Jimson eaters near Havasu.
Around the bonfire stood men and women whose faces and bodies were cracked and twisted by mutation, radiation, and disease. They resembled the living dead; eating, speaking, and laughing in the flickering light. Faces stood without eyes, arms without hands, legs without feet. What skin showed was pocked and marred by sickness or scar. The villagers fell silent at Lead and Terence’s approach. Lead held up his gun, visible to the fire light.
“We mean you no trouble. We’re here on the Lord’s business,” Lead said. He rested his gun against his right thigh.
The nearby men stood up. Those who had hands clutched planks of firewood. One of them hefted a shovel. Terence stepped forward in haste.
“My friend misspoke. We are not here on the Lord’s business. We are men on our way south, looking to leave behind the Church. Let us pass without delay or violence.”
The man with the shovel approached Terence. He was dressed in dirty blue jeans and a red flannel shirt. Half of his face had lost shape and resembled melted wax illuminated by the camp fire. Thin arms held the shovel over his left shoulder.
“Look at these lovelies,” the man said over his shoulder in a strange, slurry accent.
“All dusty from the winds. Coming up from the sands like desert djinns. Who are you, rags?”
The man’s mouth twisted into a half smile, the disfigured side of his face remained solid, immobile.
“I’m Terence Wood, Terence the Dead if you recognize the name. This is Lead, he travels with me,” Terence said.
The twisted man’s face grew serious.
“We’ve heard of the Dead, but we hold none here. The ones passed through went south to New Pueblo or the grave.” His half smile returned. “What brings you to our gorgeous, God-given paradise, our Eden of monsters and half-men?” The man asked sarcastically.
“We’ve come to trade or barter. We’ll be headed south from here soon as we can,” Terence said.
“Good for you old man, we’re glad to trade. The Church won’t let a man who enters leave this camp. Says we’re unclean and they’re unclean, but that’s all bullshit. I say if God takes your life, in here is no more likely then out there.”
Terence nodded and held out his right hand. The leper let go of his shovel and shook Terence’s hand firmly.
“Be comfortable.” The man said and gestured to his seat near the fire. “Please, accept the hospitality I can give. I’m still human.” His face tightened in pain. “But please sit near my fire. Get comfortable. I’ll return with our representative and you can talk price and barter.”
The ex-Preachers sat on the ground and warmed themselves in the fire’s glow. Villagers stared at Lead and Terence with curious eyes. The men and women were horrifyingly misshapen, but something else separated them from the parishioners Lead was used to. He suddenly realized that they were not afraid. These men and women, bandaged, warped, and dying, creatures living in perpetual death had nothing to fear from the Church or gun.
Lead tucked his pistol into his jacket pocket.
“Thank you for your hospitality.” Terence announced to the villagers. “Thank you for the warmth of your fire and the comfort of this seat.”
Lead clutched the remnants of his trench coat closer to his body. The villagers continued watching the newcomers, making no noise. The man with half a face returned with an old ghoul, the obvious leader.
The ghoulish man was tall and lanky with a shock of white hair revealing his age in ways his rough horned hands couldn’t. He wore a black suit peppered with dust and sand. His black silk tie stood in contrast to a clean white dress shirt. The campfire’s light made the silk tie gleam. He faced Terence and Lead. A black silk cloth, the twin of his tie, covered his eyes. The blindfold also gleamed in the fire light. The leader’s face was a road map of burns and scars.
“I welcome you newcomers. My name is Reverend Richard Bell. Everyone here calls me Reverend Greek. You may as well. My associate tells me you’re here to barter.”
He held his right hand up in a welcoming gesture.
“I hope you find our accommodations to your liking, humble as they may be.”
Terence spoke. “We thank you for the hospitality. I did not imagine Tucson so civil and well ordered.”
“Aye, civil we are. We make the best of our abandonment and imprisonment,” Reverend Greek said.
“You’re prisoners of the Church, then?” Terence asked.
“The Church gives us supplies enough for survival. The Pueblo folk want nothing to do with our diseased, and we’re surrounded by miles of desert. We’re nature’s prisoners, not that I complain too terribly. We have food and water, and we busy ourselves with the care of the dying and infirm. A life of purpose and the means to continue it is more than I deserve.”
The man with half a face led Reverend Greek to the empty throne near the fire.
“What does that mean, Greek?” Lead asked.
The Reverend smiled. His smile was unnerving with his lack of eyes.
“It’s a type of people. They lived on an island on the other side of the world. Tan skin, big noses, kind of hairy, best warriors and philosophers for a big part of history. I’m Greek, or at least my ancestors were.”
The Reverend turned his face to the fire.
“What news do you bring of the world outside?”
“Don’t you have a radioman?” Lead asked.
“No, a radioman is too valuable to for the Church to risk on lepers and virals. We receive news from guardsmen sometimes, but most won’t come within speaking distance,” the Reverend said.
“My news isn’t fresh. The skirmishes with the Southern Utah militias ended a couple of months ago. Guards wiped out a few of large camps. There was talk in the Flagstaff Parish of pushing the Zona border north into Utah proper,” Lead said.
“Hopefully just talk,” the Reverend replied. “The Church would do well not to cross the border into Utah. The Mormons were one of the few groups ready for the end of the world, that being part of their belief structure and all. Soon as the Storms hit they circled up and closed off everything from Provo to Salt Lake. I’ll bet you a silver note they even got plumbing and electricity up there.”
The Reverend rubbed his hands together and turned his face to the night.
“South Utah militias weren’t nothing but non-Mormons. Found themselves excluded pretty quick. I’m surprised they only got put down a couple months ago.” The Reverend chuckled to himself. “I know all about Utah. I was in Las Vegas when Utah military regulars gave me this face.”
The Reverend took his blindfold off and turned his face back to Terence and Lead. His eyes were a milky white and without pupils.
“We were in Vegas,” Terence said.
“Everyone was in Vegas, or a part of it,” the Reverend replied and tied the cloth back over his eyes.
“Every man comes from his past, and often enough our lives cross paths. The world we live in was forged by the Storms, but the men who live today, those men are defined by what happened in Vegas, and I am no different.”
Christ Church of Equality was based in a walled-off compound outside of Rancho Cucamonga, California. Reverend Richard Bell’s flock numbered one-hundred thirty, but he only really counted fifty-three. They were the producers, the money-makers, the rest of the flock were just breeders and relations. The producers canvassed six days a week, spreading the holy word and collecting the holy dollar. They brought the funds; Reverend Bell converted the funds into food, guns, boats, cars, homes, land, necessities for his flock, and luxuries for himself.
In his heart, Reverend Bell was an atheist, a man of worldly possessions and lusts, but his words told a story quite contrary. He preached God’s love to the flock and they were happy to serve. They found order and purpose in the compound. Bell rationalized that he was providing a service, fulfilling a need to sheep who repaid him in labor and wealth. He rationalized it as being no different from any other business or religion. Anyway, the Reverend hadn’t started the Church of Equality; he had inherited it from his father, who had proclaimed Bell the next Messiah.
Every evening Bell preached to his flock. He followed his father’s model. He spoke of the horrors of the modern world, he spoke of murder and theft and rape and war. He also made up stories; conspiracies of the government and how powers behind powers were trying to control the flock or destroy them. The flock readily believed, for it is easy to believe the horrors of the world when they are listed in volume. It is easy to find the world frightening and without redemption and even unimportant men can believe they are center-stage to world-wide conspiracy, for every man is the central character of his own story, and holds the weight of that importance. Men of belief find it easy to believe, right or wrong.
Bell followed his horror stories with words of God’s will and love. He spoke of God’s decency to man, how Jesus preached equality and forgiveness, and how the flock will hold themselves separate from humanity until the world fully acknowledges equality and love for fellow men and women.
“My themes were simple. The world is bad, the government is bad, we are good; you are safe with us.”
The Reverend smiled again.
“I made so much money. The compound capacity was three-hundred, and I owned it free and clear. My dad built it with his first followers. The canvassers were told the money was to cover our expenses, with the rest going to help charitable causes furthering equality. I kept the money. The beauty of the church was that the outside world was as bad as I claimed. There was no real convincing required. Most of our members came to us from low and middle class neighborhoods of Barstow and Los Angeles. They had seen riots and violence.
After a similar church in New Mexico got torched by the old Federal government, we invested in guns and a first rate surveillance system.
I don’t have to tell you what happened next. Everyone knows this part. One day it started raining and it never stopped. The cities flooded, homes and hills slid off into the ocean, waves pummeled the buildings. Men and women fled the coast in droves.
It was funny to me, ironic if you think about it. I rationalized gun and food hoarding to my flock by hinting that end times were near, never expecting that the end times were actually upon us.
My dad once told me that people need convincing, and the end of the world is the best convincer.
He said, ‘Son, people are only going to follow what they fear or love, and by God we can give them both.’
So I had guns and I had food, and I had medical supplies, not because I needed them, but because I wanted my flock to think we needed them. And then the fucking apocalypse happens!”
Reverend Greek clapped his hands together.
“I didn’t know whether to shit or go blind, as they used to say.”
The waterline on the coast rose and tornadoes chased tsunamis through Los Angeles. The National Guard did their best in rallying the hordes of survivors. They raided supermarkets and gas stations for food and supplies. The soldiers pulled back to Orange County and set up tent hospitals and refugee villages above the waterline, but then most of the guardsmen were pulled away to repel the Mexicans near San Diego and Calexico. Everywhere was descending to chaos and the nation’s protectors were spread thin. Los Angeles and the surrounding suburbs went lawless in the course of about twelve days.
“There were about eight million people in the greater Los Angeles area and something like thirty percent of it was completely underwater. A lot of people died in the Storms, but there were survivors trapped under the waterline, too.
Elders in my flock suggested that we use my boat to hunt for people marooned on their roof tops and apartment buildings, to do God’s work in a real and tangible way, to act like Christians. For the first time since I was thirteen, I actually thought maybe there was a God and he was playing his hand. That maybe it was a good time to start acting outside of self-interest, just in case.
So I left with the stronger men of my flock, the long-distance canvassers. We loaded up a van with rifles, ropes, food, and first aid supplies and hitched my boat to it. We launched at the waterline. Huntington was like an all-access marina. You should have seen my craft, a beautiful sixty foot fisher with all the bells and whistles.
We spotted our first castaways about a half mile in, poor folk on their rooftops, half dead from exposure and dehydration. The water stank like sewage and oil, which was a large part of it. The top layer glistened oil rainbows in the sun.
At our third rescue a fat blond guy in a wife beater pulled a .38 and demanded we jump ship, like he was a pirate or something. Before I could get a word out, Jericho Ericson, one of my flock, put two 30-06 rounds in the guy’s chest. The stranger spun and sprayed and hit the water. The funny thing was nobody flinched. Not my flock, not the castaways we’d just taken aboard, no one. Everyone was sort of numb, like nothing could surprise us after the days of storms.
We went through the day like that. We filled the boat. We ferried the castaways back to Huntington. They waded through the filthy shallow water up to our van, where the flock was waiting to taxi them to the compound. Order was easy to keep, the flock had guns, and the refugees didn’t.
Out on the water we saw other boats rescuing folks, same as us. You wouldn’t believe it. Row boats, yachts, wave runners, fishing craft. Whatever was not destroyed in the tsunamis or storms. At one point I saw a yacht, a full-on luxury craft, with a famous movie star. Can’t remember his name, he played a cop in all those action movies, not the disgraced governor but the other one. And there he went, pitching in with the rest of us. Sometimes we saw people too far gone for help, people dried out and waiting to die. Jericho shot and killed three more men that day. He had developed a knack, I guess.
For me, it was a long day of work in contrast to what had been a pretty soft life. I refueled the boat at the van, set back out, and the boat filled up in an hour or so. The whole thing was like spitting in the ocean. I saved all the people I could, but before turning back I saw thousands more, laid out on their rooftops. They moaned and called for help, some fired shots at the boat, some shot flares into the sky, but there was just too many of them. I remember one family refused to get on board, said that they would rather wait for a military rescue operation to come. They’re probably still out there, their dried out bones waiting for what don’t come.
We worked through the day and into the night. We took the castaways who shined flashlights from their roofs. We worked until there was no spare fuel, until we had just enough to get ourselves home. On the last run I watched flashlight beams and torches extended to the horizon, a thousand specs of light from people who I’m sure died waiting.”
Reverend Greek’s hand shook in front of the fire.
“We returned to the compound. The flock sang hymnals to the refugees. It seemed like a good idea, though the refugees didn’t sing along. They looked empty, like the world was over and they were caught in a dream. We made a tent city in our courtyard and converted the main house into a kitchen and eating hall. All in all we saved three-hundred forty-six people. One of them died that night. He was far gone with fever and infection when we found him.”
Reverend Greek spat in the fire.
“We had a lot of food, plus generators, guns, and tall concrete walls. This gave us an incredible advantage over the rest of humanity. Tornadoes landed north and south of us, but Rancho was left largely intact. What nature left alone, scavengers and gangs stripped bare in weeks. But scavengers couldn’t touch us. The best thing about old, pre-Storm California was its restrictive gun laws. They’d done such a good job keeping the citizens gun free in good times that scavengers had little to work with in bad times. Gangs came to breach our walls with maybe a couple of handguns, or a rifle or two if they were lucky. Jericho equipped our tower guards with scopes, night vision, and Barrett rifles that could explode a man within a mile. Our security ran like clockwork. A gang would come for our goods, our boys would erase whoever was the loudest, whoever looked like the leader, and the gang would move on to easier meat.
After the rains subsided a bit, Rancho heated up. Not a normal heat; a moist, sweaty heat. Like a swamp. The sand turned green with algae and muck. Then came locusts, mosquitoes, flying bugs I couldn’t name if I wanted to, eating everything leafy that wasn’t covered up, or sucking the blood off the animals.
We had greenhouses and water catchments. Rain came and went. The first few months were actually pleasant aside from occasional skirmishes with gangs. The refugees for the most part integrated with the flock. We took in lone survivors and refugee families if they came to our walls looking sane and safe. Many adopted our religion with the understanding that those who didn’t were free to go when the federals restored everything. Television and radio were still up with emergency broadcasts, but the messages were old. Cell phone service, internet; they all went out with the collapsed infrastructure. The news we got was from wandering refugees and the occasional people we took in. News in those days was all about hope. Everyone wanted to believe that the rebuild was coming. The government would come back and relocate the refugees, rebuild the economy. They would reclaim the United States and regain their happy lives.
The seasons changed with no word from the federals. Everything was so hot and balmy with goddamn bugs everywhere. It was in the first summer that the sick broke out.
One day our gate guards let in a family that had come from the south, Chula Vista or Del Mar. They carried a little boy, eight or so, covered in angry red bumps. The boy was pocked and feverish and the family swore it was chicken pox. We put him in the medical tent with other refugees, those with heat stroke or broken arms; the parents were fed and housed as best we could.”
“Was it small pox?” Lead asked.
“Of course it was,” Reverend Greek said bitterly.
“It was new small pox, virus one on the Zona list.
It tore through the compound for two weeks. Sickness moved like the devil’s snake, eating men and women whole and all we could do was isolate the virals and watch them die. We lost eighty-three. We buried them out past the south wall of the compound. The dirt was like muck and clay. The graves were wet, but we dug them as deep as the land allowed and, prayed over them. We stopped taking new refugees after that.
The scavengers just about vanished after the pox really took hold. The wild men were too sick to throw rocks at our walls or swing clubs. Even cut off from other humans, even after the new pox had run its course; we’d still get sick. I guess it was the bugs; mosquitoes, lice, God knows.
From a rifle tower I watched the smoke of funeral pyres run three hundred and sixty degrees. All those roving gangs and wannabe villages fell sick and burned their dead. I swear to Christ it got so bad the clouds rained ash and everything reeked of smoke and burnt meat.
I fought for the lives of my flock. Every sickness was like a challenge from God. I received these people and sheltered them and I felt the obligation of leadership. We had no doctors. Two of my flock were registered nurses before conversion. They ran the sick tent. One of them died four months into the calamity. She caught pneumonia and it took her apart. On her last day it sounded like she was breathing through glue. She whispered words we didn’t catch and then closed her eyes forever.”
Reverend Greek pulled a silver flask from his jacket pocket and took a sip.
“She was one of my wives. Her name was Ellen Dannon Bell and she was a believer. She was thirty-five years old, pretty face, thick-bodied but still good to look at; a real solid woman.”
Reverend Greek put the flask back into his jacket.
“I’d offer you some of this hooch, but I probably have leprosy and it’d be a shame for you to leave here with that.”
Lead looked past Reverend Greek out to the navy blue morning sky. The sun would soon come.
“How did you come to Tucson?” Lead asked.
“I walked.” Reverend Greek said with a laugh. “Though not straight away; we stuck it out in Rancho for about eight years. Aside from the viruses, it wasn’t difficult to stay put. We’d been an isolated community before. The refugees tolerated our religion and we tolerated them, lest they broke our laws. Families were formed, children were birthed. People worked together. The one punishment was exile. It didn’t take long for everyone to get in line. Plagues reduced our numbers pretty quick; the deaths bonded us, surviving bonded us, belief bonded us. We gardened in the compound. We rationed food and water best we could, but our stores dwindled. I told the flock to still themselves and wait for God’s deliverance. We’d given up on the government.
Worry rippled through my people like a current. Then came murmurs and whispers and quiet words of fleeing, of starting somewhere else. I refused to discuss the abandonment of my compound. From where I stood, the outside world was populated by feral men and animals. From the towers I watched them scavenge through the husks of the old world like coyotes, lean and desperate. There was no proof of better grounds. Humans stayed behind stone walls, to risk our safety was to risk those of us who had rightfully earned our lives by enduring the days of plague and sick.
Then one night I dreamed a dream. I was sitting on a hill immersed in long grass. The sky was blue again, not the dusty mess it had become. Out of the grass a rabbit appeared and sat next to me. The rabbit cleared his throat and I looked down at him.
“There’s not going to be any rain,” the rabbit said. “The weather is broken. Take your people across the desert, for they will die here.”
I woke happy. God had revealed himself to me. I gathered the flock and told them of my divine message. We were to cross the desert east. Las Vegas was the logical choice. City like that was built to accommodate three million, maybe more. Shelter wouldn’t be a problem. All those resorts were bound to have canned reserves, bottled water, swimming pools. We were destined to turn the city of sin into a city of holy gathering.
Preparation took very little time; we had been idle in our shelter and took enthusiastically to meaningful labor. We repaired our vans and got them to running condition. We hallowed out the cabs to better fit people and supplies. We stuffed the vans with sixty-three of my flock plus scant provisions. Twenty-four, including Jericho Ericson stayed in the compound to await our eventual return. The waiters trusted that God would provide or accept them into heaven shortly. They were martyrs in their minds. They’re probably still out there.”
Reverend Greek barked a sudden laugh and took another drink from his flask. He wiped his suit sleeve across his chin.
“I’ll bet Jericho is standing in one of my towers, old and mean, that same 30-06 strapped across his shoulder, waiting to shoot the devil himself.
Highway Fifteen to Vegas was an absolute mess. The parts that weren’t clogged with derelict cars were broken to rubble by bad weather and lack of upkeep. We traveled at a near crawl in the dirt next to the highway. We had eight vans in a line, like cowboy pioneers on the Oregon Trail. We’d cut portholes into the roofs with mobile platforms for riflemen. I was in the lead van, standing out on the platform, swinging a birch staff I’d fashioned from a table. I was Moses leading the chosen to the promise land.
We got to Barstow as the sun dipped into the horizon. The light refracted orange through a dusty sunset, and all was quiet except the hum of our engines.
Unfortunately, our calm didn’t last. A horn blast cleaved the evening stillness. The blare echoed off of empty cars and buildings and drowned out our engines, and then Barstow came alive.
Hundreds of men and women ran out of broken homes and buildings. I hesitate to call them men and women; they were caked in filth and rags and looked the very jagged edge of humanity. They were barbarians without leader or direction; they just swarmed us in a dead blind run over broken cars and debris.
My riflemen did their work. They opened fire without hesitation. It was like firing into the ocean. The bullets did nothing. A man would fall dead to the ground and the crowds would implode around the body while others ran past. Each implosion was a collapse of hungry mouths and hands; they were eating the dead and wounded.
I yelled for the vans to punch it. We bounced through the rubble and rocks, swerved around overturned cars. I waved my staff at the sky and yelled to God for deliverance. Rifle shots punctuated the mindless screams and that infernal horn and they just kept coming, and coming. One of the rear vans overturned and was overrun. I watched as those monsters pulled members of my flock from the shattered windshield and tore them apart. The van’s rifleman gave up on the attack and pumped rounds into his own people to save them from the barbarians. The scavengers stripped him of his rifle, his clothing, his flesh, all in a matter of seconds.”
Reverend Greek spit again into the fire.
“His name was Frank Holister. I found him on a roof in Inglewood eight years prior. He’d converted and took a wife in the flock. Her name was Elise James Holister. She was in that van. They had a little boy named Richard Bell Holister. He was also in that van.
We didn’t turn back. We didn’t try to save them. We kept driving,” Reverend Greek grimaced in the dying firelight. “The human swarm consumed everyone and everything in that van and we fled. We took off and left them to a brief and horrible fate.”
Reverend Greek was silent for a moment. The heat of the rising sun touched the back of Lead’s neck. In the distance, a steady thump signaled the start of the corn grinder workday.
“We made it to Vegas the next morning. We drove into the part of the city once called the Strip. The hotels stood tall and intact, a monument of what was.
Our road was soon blocked by the stalls of an outdoor market. The Vegas folk looked at us cautiously but no one rushed the vans. They looked fed. They looked like humans. We stopped near the market. A black man in a cop’s uniform approached us. He held out his palms to show he had no weapon. He explained to us that a lot of people lived on the Strip, but if we were looking for shelter, the Downtown area was still pretty empty. He explained how the market was for food and sundry traders, for people who hunted in the hotel stores and traded their wares with residents and other hunters. He showed us the operational town wells and warned us not to approach them armed. He introduced Vegas militia men who guarded the wells. He was a good man. His name was Anthony Jackson. The Vegas militia had designated him as an ambassador to new people, a sort of greeter for Las Vegas. It was his job to contact the new residents and direct them to a part of town that had room. Fifty-three of us arrived in Vegas. Anthony told us about ten-thousand lived on or around the Strip.
We chose the Vesper Hotel, a golden twenty-story structure. The lobby was a massive casino floor of white marble, buttressed with red velvet walls. Slot machines, hundreds of them, were smashed open. Silver dollar coins coated the floor; whoever broke the machines left the money. I guess the destruction was done for its own sake.
The children of my flock invented a game of who could throw the coins the farthest across those vast empty halls.
From the roof of the Vesper, I saw the desert on all sides. Anthony followed me and my people up there. He told me the story of his people. He told me how Vegas was empty when he and division of the California National Guard came here years ago. The streets, the hotels, the homes, were full of dead bodies, dried out by the desert air and heat. They removed the bodies. They made room for a civilization.
One of my flock spoke, a quiet young man named Joseph Barnes, who asked, ‘What about Barstow? Are we safe here from them?’
Anthony gave a long silence to this. He looked us over. I’ll never forget the shake in his voice.
‘You went through Barstow?’ He asked.
‘They took one of our vans, and everyone in it,’ I replied.
‘There are no people in Barstow,’ Anthony said.
His jaw got real tight, so you could see the muscles working in his chin.
‘No one in Barstow, but if an animal comes to us from the desert, we’ll shoot it dead soon as anything else.’
Anthony drove a stare right through me. He looked to the flock.
‘Don’t go telling anyone you drove through Barstow. People here have funny ideas about that place.’
Anthony left us to get settled in. We rifled our way past the hotel room mag-locks. More times than not the room had a body, sometimes two or three; dried husks of men and women settled into bed. We burned the bodies in the street. I said a prayer for each one.
The basement of the Vesper was a kitchen of volume and expanse, like a warehouse. The pantry made my eyes water. Canned hams, bags of dry beans, any kind of canned fruit or vegetable, row after row after row. I saw that and knew the flock could live here, in this hotel, for years. We were safe. God’s prophecy had come true. We’d crossed the desert and been tested and found salvation.”
Reverend Greek stood up from his throne and stretched his arms and legs.
“Come, follow me to the shade. It gets so hot I can’t work my head right.”
Reverend Greek limped around the ashes of the fire; nimbly avoiding sleeping lepers and debris. Lead and Terence followed him into a mission church. Reverend Greek felt his way to a couch in the reception lobby.
“Not what I expected, being blind,” he said.
“I always imagined I’d see nothing but darkness, black. Instead I see nothing but white. Why do you think that is?”
Neither Terence nor Lead responded.
“So, the condition of our lives was much improved in Vegas. The wells pumped clean water. The well guards demanded food for use, but there was so much food in the Vesper and all the other hotels that it was no loss for us to trade. The people in Vegas were friendly, mostly just wanted to be left to themselves, they were rattled by the end of the world and sought peace in response. The residents rarely fought, if they did Anthony and the guards would exile them, which was the punishment for most offenses. The guards would round up the offenders, give them a jug of water, some food, and send them north, east, or south. They never sent them west; never towards Barstow.
Our daily lives eventually fell into routine. Every morning I gave a sermon on the roof. The flock created jobs for themselves. Some scavenged books and magazines, some acted as traders, and some foraged for food and supplies. We even had a team who appointed themselves beautifiers of the Vesper. They were equal part artist and janitor.
Vegas residents intermarried with our flock, and our numbers swelled. Everyone was from desolation, a lot of people had lost family members to the storms or plagues or hunger. Vegas was quiet, peaceful, a place to rebuild lives. When I was a kid my dad taught me about the idea of utopia, a perfect society. Vegas after the storms was the closest thing to a utopia I imagine I’ll ever see.”
“How long were you there before the attack?” Lead asked.
“About a year and a half. We had no idea they were coming. There was a guy in town, Jack, who owned a functional two-way radio. He caught chatter about governments reforming in the ruins of the states. He told us about the Reformed Arizona Theocracy, later renamed the Zona, North and South Utah, the Peoples Republic of Northern California, the Colorado Colony, the Revised Confederate States. It didn’t matter to us. Whatever was not within our immediate sphere seemed not to exist at all.
Everything was broken; cars, planes, trains, cell phones, computers, television, they were just garbage. One of the beautifiers built a wall of flatscreens in the courtyard of the Vesper. He cemented them together in a twelve by twelve cube with screens facing out. It was impressive. Kids used it for shade on hot days.
We didn’t think anyone would threaten us. The thought of war never entered my head. After the beating humanity took in the apocalypse, why would any man wage war? How can you justify the loss when there were so few of us left?
I found out later that the states attacked Vegas to purge sin from the world. We were without sin, our society was pure and good, or as close to it as I can imagine. That slaughter filled me with a rage so all encompassing that I haven’t felt anything else since.
I was on the roof performing a sermon when we heard the helicopters. I hadn’t heard the sound of a chopper in so long I assumed it was weather, but there they came, up the Strip, a swarm of black helicopters. Their engines churned and blades spun and the noise of it disturbed all peace far and wide.
One of their numbers detached and hovered in front of the Sedgewick Hotel, north on the Strip. The chopper stood there for a moment, like it was in contemplation, and then its guns went off. I couldn’t hear the gunfire over the swarm’s cacophony, but I watched the muzzles flash and the side of the Sedgewick imploded and glass rain down upon the earth. The keepers of the Sedgewick fled out onto the street and were run down by men in trucks, who seemed to slip in during the distraction of the helicopters. They looked like ants and toy cars from where perched. It was ugly, a butchering. The Sedgewick held thirteen families, all survivors of the Plagues who had traveled together in caravan before they settled in Vegas. They joined the Vegas colony two weeks before my flock had.
I looked back to my flock. They stood in still shock at the carnage. I broke the spell with a call to arms. I screamed and slapped and shook men and women alike.
‘Go to arms! Defend the Vesper!’
I thought for certain they had come to take our beautiful city. I thought they had come for our food and buildings and our wells. I could not imagine they would kill us for some antiquated imagined debt.
My flock took to action. The world had gone so bad for them, and then to find peace, and then to lose it again. They left me on the roof, swinging my birch Moses staff in the air, screaming commands to the wind. A helicopter took notice of us and flew over. It fired into the broadside of the building with missiles, punching holes across the front. The air filled with return fire of my flock, pops of rifles, the shouts of the wounded and dying, and glass, fucking glass raining to the streets from all those majestic shelters. The helicopter hovered and pounded the Vesper relentlessly. I strode to the edge of the roof and pointed my staff at the helicopter, willing it to fall apart. It just kept tearing into our beautiful building, with all of my people inside. I shook my staff at the sky and yelled at God. I remember that. I yelled at God. I thrust my staff at the helicopters strafing the families on the Strip and swung it to the one hovering just below me. I commanded the Lord to strike these murderers from the sky, to smite the slayers, to slay them!”
Reverend Greek wheezed and fought to clear his throat. His face darkened and his hard breathes turned into a ragged cough. He slumped over the side of the couch and let his lungs regain the air to breath. Terence and Lead watched the Reverend. They both were lost in the memories of Vegas, in the memories of the roles they had played.
Reverend Greek gripped his bench and pulled himself into sitting position.
“I’m sorry,” he gasped. “I asked God to smite the helicopters and the trucks, to destroy the machines of war. Of course my wish was granted in the worst possible form, you know what happened next.”
“The nukes,” Lead said.
“Yes, the nukes,” Reverend Greek said.
“I shook my staff at the helicopter and yelled to God and the sky was suddenly illuminated. The chopper was washed in a light so white and pure that it was literally the last thing I ever saw, or rather, it’s the only thing I see anymore.
The helicopter crashed against the side of the Vesper, it screeched and twisted and dropped out of the sky. A scorched air blew against my face and everything rumbled and vibrated. I dug my staff into the ground and leaned against the winds.
Another explosion took me off my feet. I spun directionless in the air; the skin on my face and arms tightened and blistered. I was flung into a stairwell and struck my head.
I awoke to silence, nothing. There were no noises from my flock, or from helicopters or guns or bombs or trucks or anything but wind. The wind whistled in the stairwell and through broken panes of glass and across the desert, ignorant of what was and what became.
I picked myself up. My eyes saw nothing but pure white light. The skin from my hands and face felt torn off. I imagined pink sun burnt flesh. I was sore to the touch of air. To my surprise, the staff was still in my hands. I used it to guide myself down the stairs, over human bodies and rubble. As I said, the hotel was silent, everything was silent. I found my way to the pantry and locked myself in. I ate canned food. I drank from our water barrels. I sat and thought, and sometimes I slept. Nobody came for me. I stayed in the pantry for a long time, eating, drinking, and thinking for days and days and days. Eventually I grew tired of sitting and listening for ghosts. Apparently, the destruction was complete. I packed food and water, and I walked away.
I traced roads with my staff. I traveled south, guided by the heat of the morning sun. I walked for days. I walked in the sun and through the night. Eventually I came upon the town of Needles. Quiet men took me in. I didn’t speak so they assumed I was mute as well as blind. They couldn’t tell if I was viral given my eyes and scars, so they restocked my supplies and sent me on my way. I followed the roads and the sun and eventually came here. I give leadership to lepers and virals. Once a week I give a sermon. That’s it. That’s my story. So you tell me, in Vegas, were you soldiers or were you people?”
Terence spoke.
“We were soldiers. I would ask for your forgiveness, but it is not required. Just know that our acts were the acts of men lost and hungry, and no more a dangerous thing exists than men who are lost and hungry.”
Lead sat silently. His mind listened to memories of helicopters firing upon his truck and friends.
“Forgive me,” he said.
The Reverend was thoughtful and somber.
“I don’t bear a grudge against either of you. Any payment for sin is between you and the Lord. I’m sorry to bring old memories better forgotten. Let’s trade goods. If you’ll be traveling in the night you can sleep in this church.”
“Offer the man your gun, Lead,” Terence said.
Lead pulled the pistol from his pocket and reluctantly placed it on the table in front of the Reverend.
“We offer this for water and food, we don’t have anything else,” Terence said.
Reverend Greek traced the gun with his fingertips. He felt its grip and pocked barrel.
“Oh my,” the Reverend said. “You must be a couple of hard cases.” His hand brushed what was left of rawhide grip. “At least one of you is a Preacher, was a Preacher, or killed a Preacher.”
“We,” Lead began but was swiftly cut off.
“Don’t tell me,” Reverend said. “I don’t want to know. I’ll take the gun. I can give you supplies for a couple of days, which is all we have to spare so there’ll be no haggling.”
Reverend Greek hefted the gun and rolled the cylinder between his hands.
“We don’t have any bullets to give,” Terence said.
“I didn’t ask for any,” Reverend Greek replied.
The Reverend stood and pointed the gun up to the church ceiling with a straight arm. He pulled the trigger and listened to the dry click.
“Like I said, you can bunk here; your supplies will be rounded up and left at the door before sunset.” Reverend Greek licked his lips. “You’re going to New Pueblo, right?”
“Yeah, what do you know about it?” Terence asked.
“They turn away any of my people who wander too far south. They want nothing to do with the virals. I don’t know where they are exactly, just that they appear in the wind and turn us away. They don’t offer barter, don’t socialize, most of my colony thinks they’re magic folk; spirits or such,” Reverend Greek said.
“Does the Church know about New Pueblo?” Terence asked.
“If they do it’s not by our doing. Like I said, most Church guards don’t want to get close to virals. Anyway, it’d hardly be kind of us to give away the knowledge of a people so secretive,” Reverend Greek said.
“Where do they turn your people away?” Terence asked.
“They show up down the Highway Nineteen. Follow it south. The signs are there, the cars are still lined up and it’s easy enough to follow.”
Reverend Greek put the gun in his pants pocket.
“I’ll leave you to your rest.”
Reverend Greek exited the church in his slow deliberate manner.