The Seventh Seal (13 page)

The rest of the survivors living in the back room of the BP
took care of the mess created by Jake.  Morning came and washed the memory of
the night away.  Jana sat on the floor by Sally and Jay, who cuffed up his
jeans and buttoned his shirt all the way to the top.  Jay had a crayon attached
to his hand, scribbling on any scrap of paper he could find.  He made a note
for Jana, signed it, and dated it.

“Why thank you, Jay!  It says, ‘To my new friend Jana I like
you Jay November ate’.  It’s wonderful.”

“I drew a picture of me and you holding hands,” he replied.

“Yes, I can see that.  Maybe you can be my boyfriend.”

Jay blushed without knowing why.

Ruth paced about the back room and looked out the door. 
Sally noticed her unease.

“What’s wrong, Ruthie?” she asked.

“Honey, how long we gonna stay here like animals?  Worse
than animals, ‘cause we know we’re caged.  I realize it was the first place we
felt safe since they attacked us, but I don’t know how long I can stay here. 
You know they’s gonna come back for us.  It’s a matter of time.”

The BP Crew, as they had begun calling themselves, looked
around at each other.  Peter’s absence cast a pall over the group.

“I know,” said Sally.  “I was thinking the same thing.  We
don’t have much food left here, and the stuff we do have is mostly salty junk. 
Nothing to keep us sharp and in the game.  My ex has a beautiful house out in
Geauga County.  There isn’t another house for miles and it sits on acres of
farmland.  There are even old barns and equipment left over from the time it
was a working farm.  I’m not saying it’s perfectly safe, but I think it would
be easy to spot a threat coming from a distance.”

“That sounds nice, Sally, but I think I’m heading south
toward Kentucky.  I’ve got a brother in Lexington.  Nothing says that’s any
safer than South Euclid, but I can’t sit here and wait any longer.”

The others stopped, surprised by the verbosity of Andrew’s
response.  He’d spoken very little since the ordeal began.

“Well, you’re all free to do what you want, but I think Jay
and I are heading east.”

Jana lifted her head and spoke.

“I’ll go with you.”

“I’m gonna head into East Cleveland to see if my cousin is
still around,” said Ruthie.

And that was that; the discussion came to a close.  They
each stockpiled bags and purses with as much food as they could carry, but waited
until nightfall before departing.  Chances of being seen would be much less on
the dark streets of the city.  The group spent the rest of the day giving each
other pep talks and building their courage to leave the safe haven.

The low sun set behind the empty buildings on the horizon. 
Ruth stepped out of the BP first.  She hobbled through the parking lot and onto
Mayfield, heading east into the city.  As she approached the edge of the
sidewalk, she turned and waved to the group.  Andrew left next.  He went due
south on Warrensville Road in hopes of picking up route 271 and taking that
southwest toward Kentucky.  Sally, Jay, and Jana stood in front of the
shattered windows of the BP.

“Now or never,” said Sally.

“Let’s go mom,” Jay replied.

“Stay as close to the buildings as possible.  There’s less
of a chance we’ll be seen that way.”

The two women and young boy maneuvered through a number of
residential streets until they stood on Wilson Mills Road.  If they traveled
uncontested on this road, it would take them east out of Cuyahoga County toward
the more rural areas of northeast Ohio.  They had a long way to go to escape
urban sprawl.

Jay picked up a rock and threw it over the guardrail.  It
tumbled through the weeds and struck something metal.  The sound echoed through
the still night.

“No rock throwing, Jay,” said Sally.  “Jesus, I never
thought I’d see Cleveland like this.  It’s a ghost town.”

“Don’t say that Sally.  Let’s hope there are more people
like us, waiting for their chance to move on.”

***

“Sir, I’ve got movement on the street.  Do you want me to
engage?”

“Give me the night vision.”

Commander Byron looked through the infrared binoculars,
wincing as they rested on his tender nose.  He smeared a trickle of blood from
his upper lip as he spotted three distinct shapes.

“They’re traveling with a kid.  They can’t be that
dangerous.  Let’s move down and get an eye on them.”

The commander hobbled down three flights of steps to the
bottom of the apartment building.  His combat boots smacked the marble-tile
floor and rang throughout the lobby.  His forces had stormed this building and
secured it for the Holy Covenant on the night of the First Cleansing.  He’d
been using it as a barracks and command central ever since.

With two soldiers to his right, Commander Byron slid out the
back door and looped around toward the main entrance facing Wilson Mills.  His
drew a pistol, and his cane supported a battle-scarred body.  The three figures
moved further east.  They stopped under the awning of a corner store.

“Follow them, but do not engage without my permission. 
Understand?”

“Yes sir,” the soldiers replied.

They ran to the opposite side of the road and disappeared
into the silent gloom of the evening.

***

“I remember these places from my own childhood.  This store
used to be an ice-cream parlor.  My parents would drop us off with a buck or
two and we’d spend most of our time trying to decide what flavor milkshake to
get.”  Tears welled up in Sally’s eyes as she spoke.  “He’ll never have that
experience.”

“Sally don’t.  Jay needs you to be strong.  If we start to
get emotional and break down, we might as well give up now.  Hold it together.”

Jana’s words gripped Sally.  Her eyes widened and she shook
her head.

“Sorry, you’re right.  Let’s move through.  If I remember
correctly, there should be a sandwich shop up here a bit further, on the other
side of Wilson Mills.  If we can get to it, might be a good place to sleep.”

“Maybe, but we’re going to need to cover more ground if we
only venture out at night.  Otherwise, it’s going to take us a long time to get
out of the county.”

“True, but what’s the hurry?  I don’t think our old lives
are waiting for us to return.”

“Let’s get to the shop, Sally.  Maybe we’ll luck out and
find food.  Whaddya think Jay?”

The boy put his head down and did not respond.

The number of shops and buildings defaced with the pentagram
astounded the trio.  Jana tried not to imagine how many people had been
captured or murdered during the recent ordeal.  Her mind continued to struggle
to keep it all in perspective.  If it hadn’t been for the superficiality of her
flesh wound, she would be one of the damned too.

Alley cats hissed and whined in the distance, sending a
stray dog into the street.  The dog loped down the middle of Wilson Mills Road,
flaunting his newfound territory.  He grasped a hunk of flesh in his jaws.  The
dog stopped to look at them, but then continued on its way.  Sally pulled Jay
close to her leg until the mangy beast entered an open door on the other side
of the street.

The sub shop Sally described stood on a corner.  A stone
bench sat out front on the sidewalk.  A video-rental store stood on one side of
the sub shop and a chiropractor’s office stood on the other side.  Empty doors
guarded both of the adjoining businesses.  Glass sparkled in the diffused glow
of the moon.  The wooden door to the sub shop remained on its hinges, but
barely open.

“Take Jay and go around the corner.  Wait there until I come
for you.  If you hear a struggle or gunshots, run and don’t stop.”

Sally nodded and led Jay by the hand around the corner and
out of sight.

Jana took the handgun from the back of her jeans and held it
in front of her face.  She did not know how to fire it, but hoped its
appearance might scare off potential threats.  She slowed her breathing and heartbeat. 
Jana took in deep breaths, as if preparing to deal with a trauma victim in the
ER.  With her left foot, she pushed the door to the sub shop.  The door swung
in and disappeared into the gaping mouth of the store.  A pungent,
unidentifiable odor washed over her.

Jana stood on the threshold for a couple of minutes, waiting
for her eyes to adjust to the total darkness inside.  Overturned chairs
materialized in front of her, with tables pushed against the wall opposite the
counter.  Other than the chairs, the rest of the shop looked untouched.  Jana
could make out the outline of wire shelving units that held chips and other
snacks.  A dead cooler stood in the corner, full of warm soda.

Feeling secure, Jana removed a penlight from her bag.  The
LED beam cut through the inky blackness, revealing the store through a tight
cone of blue-tinged light.  Paw prints and a pile of feces appeared underneath
the cooler.  Jana thought she may have found the private stash of the stray dog
they had passed earlier.  As she moved the flashlight around the shop, it
became apparent to her that this particular spot had been spared a fight. 
There were no bodies, no bullet holes, and no bloodstains.

She walked through the shop.  The counter sat on her left
and the tables on her right.  She went to the very end of the counter and
paused.  Jana watched enough action movies with John to know it made sense to
put her flashlight above the handgun.  She winced and paused at the thought of
John, but fell back into her training and pushed him from her mind.

In one motion, Jana spun and stood behind the counter,
facing back toward the front door of the shop.  The area behind the counter was
empty.  She turned back around and faced a door that read “Employees Only”. 
She gathered as much courage as possible and placed her hand on the doorknob. 
The cold shock made her pull her fingers away.  Jana heard her heartbeat in her
ears.  She tightened her grip on the knob and turned it to the left.  The door
swung open and inward on cranky hinges.  The beam on her flashlight zipped
across a collage of boxes, papers, and trash cans.  She saw the outline of a
desk in one corner and the glare of porcelain behind another door.  Jana spun
in a complete circle two or three times until satisfied that nobody hid in a
dark crevice.

Jana dropped the gun to her side, which felt like a thousand
pounds.  She pulled a metal folding chair from the wall and opened it.  Jana
dropped into it while her body’s surge of adrenaline faded.  She sat for a
minute in complete silence.

After shutting the office door and moving back into the
shop, she stopped at the cooler and helped herself to a sixteen-ounce soda.

So much for sleep tonight
, she thought.

Jana walked back through the shop and around the corner,
where Sally and Jay sat against the side of the building.  Fatigue and stress
had dulled their sense of self-preservation. 

“C’mon, let’s make ourselves a hoagie,” Jana said.

“We call’em subs in Cleveland, Miss Pittsburger,” Sally
replied with a tired smile and wink of an eye.

“I need to find my wife.  I’m tired of running around this
fucking city with soldiers shooting at me.”

John tossed his bag to the ground to punctuate his
statement.

“I dunno man.  Do you really think she’s alive after all the
shit that has gone down?”

Another helicopter circled overhead.  Alex and John paused
and held still against the empty window frame.  After the blades faded into the
distance, they resumed the conversation.

“I’m going to find her.”

“And what are you going to do about Father?  You think he’s
going to let us waltz right out of Cleveland to our new happy sinner’s camp?”
Alex asked.

“If he’s responsible for this, for all this death, I’m going
to put a fucking bullet in his Mad Hatter head.”

Alex shrugged and stood up.  He walked back into the
darkness of the factory with a flashlight.  Water dripped over the red-rusted
beams, while streams of plaster hung like stalactites from the ceiling.

“What are you looking for?” John asked.

His voice carried through the damp darkness and echoed off
the walls.

“Anything made of wood.  It’s going to be freezing in here
tonight and I’d like to have heat.”

“Don’t you think they’ll see the fire?”

“Not if we build it in an interior room.  The smoke should
diffuse enough by the time it escapes.”

John stood up and followed Alex.  They came upon what used
to be a storage room.  The two steel doors kissed behind an ancient padlock. 
John took the butt end of his machine gun and slammed it down into the lock. 
Pieces of rotting metal hit the ground and the door swung open.  They dragged
old office chairs from the room and broke the spindles off the back.  John
carried the wood to a secluded room near the back wall.  The grimy soot hid
brilliant, white tile.  A bathtub on four legs stood in the corner across from
the gaping remains of a toilet.  A missing pane scarred a window near the top
of the wall.

“Put it in the tub.  This will help us keep the fire and
light contained.”

John threw the spindles inside while Alex positioned the
newspaper underneath it.  Within ten minutes, the warmth from the fire
reflected off the walls, raising their spirits at least a little.

“I need sleep,” Alex said.

“Go ahead.  I’ll keep watch.  I’ve got a lot to think
about.”

Alex nodded and spread out on the tile floor desecrated by
grease and industry.  The acidic air of manufacturing tainted his taste buds,
but did not stop his body from slipping into sleep.

Alex arrived on a vast, red plain.  Massive outcroppings of
rock jutted up from the desert floor.  The sky beamed a deep blue, which fought
against the red horizon.  Alex sighed and took his shirt off.  The sun in
Sedona, Arizona burned through his clothes with a quiet intensity.  He reached
for the canteen on his hip.  The refreshing water electrified his parched lips,
its coolness burning all the way down his throat.

Alex walked along the dry creek bed and crossed an arroyo. 
He stared at the red rock, craning his neck upward a thousand feet.  A gray
lizard crawled onto a pile of rocks to his left.  It sat there, flicking its
tongue at Alex, and twitching its tail back and forth.

From every direction, the red rock spread out to the
horizon.  In the distant east, Alex spotted a road snaking through low
sagebrush.  High above, under a ball of white gauze, Alex saw hawks circling.

“She was yours first.”

The voice startled Alex.  He dropped his canteen to the
ground and attempted to look in every direction at once.

“Who said that?”

“Jana.  That is the girl he wishes to find.  Your Jana.”

Father looked at Alex from a red-rock perch embedded in the
canyon wall.

“You have no right to speak to me after what you did to my
family.”

“Calm down.  I did not harm them.  Your wife and children
are pure.  They have asked for admittance to the Holy Covenant and have been
accepted.  They are safe and living in God’s light.”

Alex fought the tears welling in his eyes.

“Where are they?”

“Safe.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Don’t you want to rejoin them?  We are building a new life,
a new nation, a new world.  We are eliminating the forces of Satan to open the
way for God’s love.  You can be a big part of that, Alex.  We need brave,
honest, and God-fearing people like you?”

“God-fearing?  You don’t have any clue what you’re talking
about.  You can’t hold my family hostage and use them as leverage to get me to
join this insanity.”

“Does that mean you are abandoning your family?”

“I’m doing nothing of the sort.  You stole them from me.”

“I see we are not ready to broker a deal.”

Alex squinted.  Father’s white robes reflected the powerful
Arizona sun.

“And Jana?” Father asked.

“She is my past, not my future.”

“Oh Alex, don’t be so coy.  We know the nature of your
relationship and the circumstances of its demise.  Does your wife know about
your child with her?”

“Enough!”

Alex sat on the dusty ground and began to cry.

“I assure you that neither your wife nor your children know
about the past indiscretion.  Not yet, anyway.”

Alex tilted his head up and could not see Father’s face. 
The sun glowed behind him, showing Alex a silhouette.

“What do you want from me?”

Father walked over and sat next to Alex.  He put an arm
around his shoulder.

“Bring John to me.  I don’t care how.  Bring him to me
alive.”

“But he is only concerned with finding Jana.”

“Then lead him to her,” Father replied.

“Does John know, know about her and I?”

Alex struggled to get the words out.  The Arizona desert
faded from deep red to black.  The open sky fell and collapsed around the two
men.  The desert turned into an interrogation room.  An armed guard stood near
the door and Father sat on a rickety folding chair next to him.

“He knows of her past, but I don’t think he knows that you
are her ‘Alex’.  I would not reveal that unless you forced my hand.”

“And if I bring him to you, what of my family?”

Father smiled and hugged Alex.

“They will welcome you into the Lord’s Kingdom with open
arms.”

Alex opened his eyes as the burning embers in the tub
flickered on the wall.  The empty room let the remnants of the dream pass.

He stood and felt the cramps grab his thigh and foot.  Alex
collapsed to the floor and flexed both legs until the pain subsided.  He heard
movement beyond the bathroom.  Alex stood and pushed the door open, and saw
John sitting in the broken window, staring out over the dark city.

“Hey,” Alex said.

“Hey,” John replied without turning to face Alex.

“Thanks for letting me sleep, man.”

“Sure, no worries.  You must’ve been having a nightmare
because you were babbling all kind of shit.”

John felt something tug at his stomach but decided to ignore
it.

“Yeah, don’t quite remember what it was,” said Alex.  “It’s
no wonder my subconscious tortures me.”

John handed Alex a book.

“I found this on a shelf back there.”

Alex turned the cover and angled it so he could read the
title.

“
The Catcher in the Rye
.  Damn.”

“I loved that book.  I must have read it a dozen times
between the ages of thirteen and eighteen.  ‘When a body meets a body coming
through the rye.’  That line still freaks me out.”

“I think I read it in seventh grade English class, but I
don’t remember much about it.  Didn’t the main character run away or
something?”

“Yeah, Holden Caulfield.  Typical teen angst, but written at
a time when teens weren’t supposed to have angst.  Old J.D. Salinger was never
able to recapture the magic of that piece of literature.  Nothing else he did
could touch it.  Do you think we’re like that, Alex.  In life?  Do you think
our first encounter is the best, most intense one?”

Alex squirmed and avoided eye contact with John.  He looked
at the expanding cracks in the concrete floor.

“Not always.”

“First kiss, first piece of ass, first fistfight.  You
telling me those aren’t more memorable than ones that follow?”

“I think they’re more memorable because they were firsts,
not necessarily because they were more intense or better.”

“Yeah, I hear what you’re saying.  You know Alex, Jana was
my first real relationship.  I know she had others before me, but she was my
first in many ways.” 

Alex stared out toward the lake, but did not respond.

“I screwed around with chicks and stuff, but she was my
first serious relationship.  I’m hoping she’ll still be my first and last.  I
gotta find her man.”

“Feels like you got a lot of guilt driving you.  Something
happen the last time you two were together?”

“Yes.  No.  Sort of.  I don’t wanna deal with that yet. 
Let’s leave it be for now.”

“John, it’s your life and none of my damn business.  I want
to find my family and end this holy fucking nightmare.”

“Can you keep watch?  I think I need to get some sleep too. 
Maybe first I’ll crack the binding and get reacquainted with my old friend
Holden Caulfield.”

“Okay.”

“Let’s plan on moving out at daybreak.  I’m going back to
our house to look for Jana.  If she isn’t there, I’m going to do everything I
can to find her.  You with me?”

“Yeah, John.  I’m with you.”