They were lying in rows. Peaceful and still at last, free from the trials and treacheries of life. Very orderly. Lined up by age, with the youngest first, the babies leading the others.
David had been gentle with them. He could have snapped them in half, but he chose to let them drink the medication instead. His was a pure love full of mercy and compassion. Yes, Kincaid told himself, he had chosen wisely when he’d appointed David to be his aide. He had chosen well.
Kincaid turned to face the group. “They have crossed over before us. They will meet us on the other side. We use the term ‘death’ to make the transition sound final, but really it is an awakening. And their awakening marks the beginning of a greater awakening throughout the world.”
His family shouted their agreement. All of them did, except for Marcie, who stared past Kincaid toward the library with vacant, cloudy eyes.
“The people of Jonestown died because they would rather choose their own destiny than have their destiny ripped from them by the very government that hunted them like animals, that planned to destroy them like dogs!”
The murmur of agreement rippling through the room grew louder, awakening at last into frenzied cheers. Aaron Jeffrey Kincaid, the focused and passionate man, the loving man, the beneficent man, let himself form a fist with his hand. Some acts were so terrible that it was a greater crime to hold back emotion from having its rightful place. “Birth is the death of the old. Death is the birth of the new. We have planned for this. We have prepared for this journey. The time has come to set destiny right at last!”
Kincaid lifted his hands to the sky. The people stood as one. The anticipation in the room rose to a fever pitch.
“He is our Father!” shouted Aaron Jeffrey Kincaid.
“He is our Father!” the men and women repeated in unison.
“His vision, our vision! His future, our future!”
“His vision, our vision!” they chanted. “His future, our future!”
“It’s a cruel world!” In his mind, Kincaid was no longer at the ranch with his family, he was beside the whirlpool with Jessica.
“It’s a cruel world!” he heard his family say, and he remembered the jungle and the men with the guns and Jessica’s trembling hands and the shore of a hungry river. His first family. The pavilion. Those who laid down and never rose again.
“But our love will unite us forever!” he cried.
“Our love will unite us forever!” Blood curling through the water. Swirling toward the future. Love that cannot die. Distant dreams and dying babies. A journey through the fabric of the night.
Aaron Jeffrey Kincaid handed the needles containing the CCHF-spliced Francisella tularensis to his family. This time the world would pay. This time the revolution would find its inevitable completion. And this time so many more would be part of the revolution.