Children of the Apocalypse Complete Trilogy, page 29
part #1 of Children of the Apocalypse Series
“Your father’s not afraid of Death either. War is locked in a field of pure peace. Something that is so pure and quiet it is literally Hell for him.” I rubbed my eyes. “I’m sure you two are very much alike.”
Kaleb snorted. “You have no idea. You’ll meet him and know exactly where Aeron gets his impressive personality.”
“Thanks guys.” Aeron ripped into a piece of beef jerky.
I tore open my rations and started nibbling at the overly dry crackers. “I wish I would have known you guys through my childhood.”
“It would have been nice to see you grow up and known what was going on.” Kaleb agreed. “We all thought Death just didn’t want someone to pass his legacy down to.”
I shrugged. “Let’s all remember that he was just as surprised as I was.”
“That he was and we were all shocked that you were a girl.” Aeron pointed out.
I thrust a finger at Kaleb. “He thought I was going to bring about the apocalypse.”
“In a way, you did, just not in the way I expected.” Kaleb took a drink out of his canteen.
I finished my food and then spread the blankets out. “I didn’t mean to. It wasn’t like I expected Lust to kidnap me.”
“And be used to blackmail your father into walking into a seal.” Aeron lay down on his blanket and pulled one over him. “No one expects to be used against their loved ones, but it happens.”
I lay down on the side that wasn’t hurt and curled the blanket around me. “You’d think we’d all learn by now.”
I had drifted off at some point during the night. A squeaking in the yard drew me out of REM sleep. The dream I had about dying cattle drifted off as another squeak echoed in the night. My heart pounded and I reached for my weapon. The scythe came to my hand, an ever-faithful blade. I crouched in the darkness and waited for either of the boys to stir, but they didn’t. They remained on their backs, their chests rising and falling with the deep breathing of much needed sleep.
The crunching of gravel drew my attention to the side door of the house. It led into the kitchen and from there the living room could be seen. It was a good vantage point in the one story farmhouse. The creaking of that door sounded through the house and this time Kaleb woke up and I saw the slight gleam of his blade as he summoned his weapon. He motioned for me to move forward.
I crawled in my crouch towards the kitchen, sticking to the shadows created by the moonlight. The threat hadn’t been confirmed, but my heart pounded and my eyes scanned the area. A shadow of a person appeared on the floor.
“Hello, Death? I saw you come here today. I just want to talk to you.” A tiny voice caught me off guard. It wasn’t what I had expected and judging by the look on Kaleb’s face he had expected something much more sinister.
I looked at him to see what I should do. He shrugged and motioned me forward. “How do you know I’m Death?”
“Because I’ve seen pictures of you.” She turned into the kitchen and looked at me. “I’ve seen you on television shows and in books.” She turned her eyes to me and I saw the white lights in her irises and my heart shattered. I put a hand to my chest. I didn’t see any black on her limbs for the plague and I didn’t see any blood on her to indicate that she had wounds.
“Come sit with me.” I said gently and moved out to the side porch with her. “What did you want to talk about?”
She put her tiny hand on mine and looked up at me. “I wanted to know where you went. Why aren’t you taking people to Heaven?”
“I’m not Death, I’m his daughter.” I squeezed her hand. I knew if I wanted I could look into her soul and see what she had been through. I’d see it through her eyes, but it didn’t feel right to do that to her. She was seven at the most and I didn’t want to know what horrors she’d seen when the world ended. “My dad was taken away by a bad woman and because of that he can’t do his job.”
She looked up at me. “And you? What is your job then? I just want to leave this horrible place and be at peace. Mommy always told me that when my time came, I would no longer suffer.”
I could barely breathe past the lump in my throat at her words. “My job is to bring him back and stop all this bad stuff from happening. I have friends that will help me. When Death is free, he’ll come for you and you’ll get that peace you long for.”
She lifted up her shirt and showed me the scar on her chest. “The doctors said I got a bad heart and it stopped beating. I didn’t leave though. At first mommy and daddy were happy, but then I told them about the monsters that I saw. They were afraid of me, but they still loved me. They just wanted more time with their little girl. When the people came to take all the healthy people from the city, I got left behind. They didn’t have a choice.” She sniffled, but there were no tears in her eyes because most of her body stopped working when her heart did.
I wrapped an arm around her. “I’ll find Death and bring him back. Have you found others like you?”
“I have, but they are all scared of you. They were taught to fear Death, but when you welcome it, you’re not as scary.” She smiled up at me and it gave her the appearance of a healthy girl. “Do you fear anything?”
I nodded. “I fear a lot of things, but don’t worry. That won’t stop me from doing my job.”
“I’ll see you then. Please tell Death that I’m not scared of him and I hope you get your daddy back.” She jumped up and skipped away. I sat there for a moment and watched her disappear into the shadows of the night.
Kaleb came and sat next to me. “That was kind of creepy.”
“It was, but it amazes me that a child that young has so much more bravery than adults who have lived well past their lives.”
“Now that you’ve seen someone young like that wishing for Death, does it make you rethink your fear of taking his spot one day?” He stretched his legs out.
I thought about it for a moment and how much she must have suffered through the pain of her heart failing and yet was still alive. “A little bit. I’m still terrified of what I’ll learn and see as Death.”
“What do you mean?”
I looked at him. “I learned with Pete that if I try I can read the souls of the walking dead. I can see their memories in first person and know what their intentions were in all choices. It’s terrifying and I’m sure that ability only gets worse with the actual job of collecting souls.”
“When were you going to tell us?” Kaleb flexed his hands and then looked back out at the night. “That means that your abilities have come in.”
I stood up and turned to the door. “I don’t know. I wanted to see if I could use it on someone other than a horseman’s child. I didn’t want to let you guys know that I had an ability that I couldn’t really control.”
“Why?”
“Because what if you depended on me to use it? I’d screw it up somehow and someone else would be killed, that’s why.” I stood frozen with my hand on the door. “I don’t want to be the reason someone else gets killed. Not again.”
Instead of pointing out that Death couldn’t happen he stood and spun me around to face him. “You can’t focus on that. You’ve improved since Lust took you. You’ve improved since you waltzed through Hell and back with Ruthie. We’ve expected a ton from you and you’ve managed to show us up almost every time.”
“Maybe I’m still scared of the responsibilities I hold and will hold.” I sighed and walked into the house.
I didn’t want to think about how much more I had ahead of me. I didn’t know who I was, I didn’t know who I’d become. Ever since I had left home, all I’d been known as was Death’s Daughter or Little Death. I felt like there was no Sammy left to find myself. Everything had been taken over by this responsibility of helping them save the world. When I signed up for college, I didn’t think this was what would happen.
20
I was still awake when the sun broke over the horizon for the day. Its rays spread over the land and I closed my eyes to soak up the growing warmth.
“Couldn’t sleep after our visitor last night?” Aeron came out of the house. “I heard you talking to her. I don’t think I could have handled her that well.”
I smiled without opening my eyes. “I have more people skills than you do.”
“That is very true, but it’s not a requirement of mine. I have to be able to make choices and lead without someone questioning my every move, that doesn’t require people skills. It requires respect. Kaleb told me about your new ability.”
My smile faded and I looked at him. He sat down next to me as he spoke. “You think that hiding it was a good idea?”
“No, I don’t, but if Kaleb told you then he told you my reasoning behind it as well.” I looked back towards the sun. “I’ll work on being able to control it, but that requires me finding some walking dead.”
“Then you can do it while we wait for your lines to go away. You can tell us exactly what happened if you can pull memories from a soul.”
I thought about purposely pulling memories from a soul and cringed. I couldn’t imagine what my father went through every time he touched a soul. I didn’t want to imagine what it would be like when I had to send the soul to their ultimate judgment. “What’s your ability?”
“Hm?”
“I mean, if I have some great ability then everyone else must too, right? I thought mine was simple enough at first, being able to tell the death toll of a situation with a single thought, but now, being able to see the memories of souls. That’s big, so you have to have some big ability too.”
“I know the outcome of every squabble and every war. I can tell you that humans will win this one as long as we all make the right choices. The moment someone makes the wrong choice, I’ll know because the balance will shift.”
“What happens then? How do you shift the balance back?”
Kaleb came out with food packages for us. “Simple, we find who made that choice and we try to persuade them to get back on the right track. Kind of like guardian angels, but whereas they have one person to watch and convince, we have an entire race of smart beings to convince.”
“So you have to sway the war so that there is balance. What if the bad guys win?”
“In this case it destroys the world and that disrupts the balance. The world isn’t black and white. Sometimes the bad guys need to win in order to set certain things in motion. So if that’s how it’s supposed to come out, then I have to let it play out.” Aeron ripped open his package.
Kaleb sat next to me. “We’re more here to help the horsemen out right now, so we have limited capabilities of what our fathers have. Yours is a great example, you can see the souls but you can’t reap them. Aeron can see the outcomes and when they change. He can go try and help, but unlike his father, he can’t just march onto the battlefield. War...think of all the great warriors who have changed the outcome of a war. That’s him. He’s there to make sure that the war ends in a way that keeps life balanced.”
“What about the evil people like Hitler, how was that balanced?”
“That’s where Lucile comes in. She whispers into ears and tempts humans. The only way War can counter balance that is to make sure that the outcome is how it should be.” Aeron bit into a cracker.
I sighed. “So Kaleb, what about you?”
“Mine isn’t nearly as great. I know when drought and famine are going to strike. If it’s like the one we have now, I know how many people will be affected. The only thing I can do is work with those who predict and research outcomes. That’s why I’m always keeping track of things when it comes to media and making sure that what is reported is true.”
“Like when we came here that one day to make sure it wasn’t a hoax.” I opened my beef jerky. “So what’s Pete’s then?”
“He can control rats.” Aeron laughed. “He knows which ones carry the infection and which don’t.”
I snorted. “Pete’s the Pied Piper. So we’re just a bunch of odd misfits.”
“Something like that.” Kaleb finished his rations. “I have to get going. I left you guys two thirds of the supplies. You might need to find water to boil at some point, but you should be fine on food.” He stood and picked up his bag. “I’ll see you in a week, hopefully sooner.” He hesitated slightly. “I also left you some of the antidote just in case Sloth shows up.”
“Be safe.” I said. “Aeron and I are going to do what we can from here. Hopefully Ruthie and Pete catch up with you and we can start getting the Sins locked away.”
Kaleb walked down the pathway and let himself out of the squeaky gate. I finished my food and sighed. “I would kill for a nice steak dinner.”
“Me too, but this is enough protein and calories to keep us moving.” Aeron stood. “Shall we go start trying to find you some walking dead?”
I wrinkled my nose. “So early?”
“Yes, I want to see how long you can keep moving before the pain gets to the point it was last night.”
“I managed about two hours yesterday before I started feeling it.”
“We walked for almost eight.” He shook his head. “We won’t push that hard, but the sooner we find out how your ability works, the better.”
“What good is this going to do us if I can’t reap the souls?” I stood and brushed the crumbs off my lap.
He turned to me. “Sometimes in war the most valuable thing is information. You won’t torture to get the information, so you use what you have at your hands, your ability.”
I started walking out of the yard. “The walking dead are scared of me, but maybe, just maybe I can catch one off guard.”
“How do you expect to do that?” He followed me.
“Find someone that’s not scared of death.” My feet carried me onto the asphalt. Unlike in Mesa City, the streets here weren’t torn up. Occasionally a crack showed through, but nothing as devastating as the other city.
Aeron walked next to me. “And where do you expect to find someone who isn’t afraid of Death?”
“A church.”
If there’s one thing you can depend on in a small town, it’s that there’s at least three churches. The denomination doesn’t matter, there’s always a few of them. We came across a tiny one down the road. The steeple held an old fashioned bell and the white siding had long turned gray. Large wooden doors hung a bit crooked next to colorful stained glass glistening in the sunlight.
“I’m going to let you handle this. I’m right outside if you need me.” Aeron stopped right at the steps.
“Are you scared of churches?” I walked up the steps.
“It’s a place of peace, I’m not really allowed in them.” He shrugged. “You go ahead and go in.”
He was going to be a divine creature and yet he wasn’t allowed in a holy place. I didn’t second-guess the rules, but I pulled open the door and walked in.
“Hello?”
The bright colors of the windows splashed onto the old wood floor. I’d expected the floor to creak as I walked, but it was solid under my feet.
A huge crucifix hung at the front over a perfect and clean dressed altar. Pew after pew led up to the front and in the first one, a figure knelt, his back to me. White traditional robes clothed him and a green sash was draped over his neck. His head was bowed and a whisper of words drifted from him. He crossed himself and stood before facing me.
“So you have finally come. I always thought Death was an angel.” His eyes glinted with the white lights of the walking dead, dark circles formed under his eyes and from here I could see the rotting flesh on his arms. “God has forsaken us.”
I didn’t know what to tell him. “I’m sorry to tell you this Father, but this is not the work of God, it is the work of the Devil. I’m not Death, I’m merely his daughter, fighting to put things back to balance.”
He met my gaze. “The Devil is not stronger than God.”
“But the Devil can tempt men into horrible things. We are here to set things right.” I repeated. I didn’t know what else to say to him. “I don’t think God has forsaken you. He sent us.” Everyone referred to God differently, the higher being tended to be the Children of the Apocalypse’s favorite.
“Can you appear no other way? I will admit your appearance frightens my heart.” He motioned to the pew. “But please come sit with me and let us talk of God and the Devil.”
I closed my eyes and remembered what Pete told me once so long ago. We appear as people need us to, but we can control what we looked like to them if we needed to. I imagined what I looked like the first day of college. My pixie cut clean and styled, my clothing not torn and most of all my face not looking like a skull.
His eyes widened a bit. “That’s better, thank you. Amazing what a divine creature can do.” He patted the seat next to him and I sat.
A strange sense of peace rolled through me. “Were you not taught that Death was a Horseman of the Apocalypse?” I looked up and studied the crucifix. I’d never been told if it was God or not that I answered to. The others always just referred to a Higher Power, but it was not my place to break this father’s heart. No, his beliefs were probably what had kept him sane through everything.
“There are many interpretations of the Apocalypse, and Death is the last horseman to be released. Which means that we have not yet been called home.”
I wasn’t going to explain to him how that worked and how it was backwards, but I guess in a way it wasn’t. The horsemen would be released again. “When the time is right and we’re able to restore balance, we will and that includes releasing Death back into the world.” I turned towards him. “I’m sorry Father, but you’ll be called home.”
“I know. Most of my parish will be.” He let out an exhausted breath. “They all hide in their homes cursing God, but I have held strong. Occasionally one comes to mass, but they fear the government. They take those of us who are this way and no one knows where. Those who were lucky enough to still be healthy went to the city and were walled in.”
I took a deep breath and touched his hand. The cold wrinkly skin came as a shock to my warm living hand. Much like the little girl last night, but I willed myself to find the priest’s soul. I demanded it show me what had happened here.
