The Lost and the Damned (37 page)

In a moment I figured it out. This is where the pillar of light was. The pillar itself created the hole as it pushed out or maybe even disintegrated the ceiling. This place seemed quiet now, but now I knew that some very heavy mojo went down here.

I approached the center of the room, looking around. Katie had opened the book and seemed pretty engrossed in it, so I took this moment to figure things out. Around the table had been draw a pattern of white lines, each connecting to a small three foot circle. Each circle was on a different side of the table. There were five circles. With disgust, next to each circle I found something that used to be a person. In a normal situation I would have screamed, stepped back, or somehow had a reaction, but I had seen so much death, that I just couldn’t bring myself to have a reaction to it. Some other day, some other time.

Each person appeared to have been killed in a different way. I had not noticed the bodies at first because the one closest to the door had been incinerated into the shape of black ash scorched on the floor. I had seen that before. One person had his neck snapped and his body broken. Another was ripped to shreds, one’s head had exploded, and so on. I felt no desire to catalog the ways these men have met their deaths, for each the way had been horrible. The one fact of note was they all wore strange ceremonial robes. Underneath those robes were the white coats of doctors.

Without fanfare or ceremony, I went through the pockets of the body that was missing the head. I found a wallet and a clip-on nametag. The nametag said “Dr. ASHBORN,” and that question was finally answered. The megalomaniacal doctor had met his end a long time ago, probably before I set foot in hospital. One of the Five, his own creations, had killed him and his associates before leaving the hospital. I dropped the wallet and the nametag. I didn’t need to know anything more.

“Katie, this is a pretty fucked up place,” I said, though I realized the irony of saying that after all we had been through.

I waited for an answer, but she was engrossed in the book. I reached out and grabbed her shoulder gently, but she didn’t respond. I shook her arm gently, “Katie?”

I stepped up beside her. The book was a large tome, big and wide like an atlas. It was leather bound, but not with one piece of leather. It was made of multiple pieces of leather stitched together like patchwork. The pages looked old and full of strange text. In the brief glance I gave it, I saw that it was written in languages I couldn’t understand and full of strange diagrams. I turned my attention back to Katie, forcibly pulling her away from the book.

She was dazed for a moment but snapped back to consciousness. “Huh?” she said.

“You okay?”’

“Yes,” she said, but she didn’t seem sure. “It was… speaking to me…”

I was about to ask her what she meant, but there was no time. The doors flew off their hinges, flying a few feet before crashing to the ground and skidding. Max stood at the door, glowing gold and smiling.

I cursed. I had hoped the door would delay him for at least a minute, giving us some sort of warning. What I expected to do in that time I had no idea. Hide and seek perhaps?

He strolled into the room, looking around like he owned the place but had not seen what the new tenants had decorated it with. “Hello again, John, Kate,” he said nodding. “Nice place you got here. Is this your inner sanctum sanctorum? You ran here so quickly, I wondered what you had here. Nice place, though. Needs cleaning up, however,” he said, poking a knife at some debris.

“What do you want from us?” I asked.

“Oh John, dear Mr. Keats,” he said, “I thought that would be obvious. I shouldn’t really need to tell you. But since you had the audacity to question a god, I figured I would give you an answer before I get to work.” I didn’t like the sound of that. I tensed, but didn’t know where to run. He continued. “You are going to die, of course. I’m sure you knew that. That’s the easy part of the answer. But what happens before that, now that is special. The world has a new god, a God of Knives. But unlike the utilitarian gods of old, this god is an artist. An artist in the flesh, an artist with the blade. I admit that I flexed my muscles too quickly with my new godhood, killing so quickly, just as a thirsty man drinks deep from his first draught. It satisfied a basic hunger, but did not satisfy aesthetic, it does not satisfy the deeper hunger for art.”

He paused, kicking a random pebble. “So that is what you are. The two first works of a great art career. The first two works of a blending of divinity and art. You should feel honored. As Michelangelo made the Sistine Chapel to praise Jehovah, I shall make you both art to praise myself.” The knives flexed in a fan around him.

“What about Ashborn?” I asked, trying to buy time.

“Ashborn?” he said, faltering. “There will be time for Ashborn. My consciousness has not yet filled all of reality yet, but it will soon. I am still growing into my godhood as it were, though I am far beyond a normal man. I will take my revenge on Ashborn soon enough.”

I reached down to Ashborn’s body while Max looked at me with interest. I picked up the nametag and tossed it at Max, the nametag sliding across the floor and coming to a rest at his feet. “Too late on Ashborn, somebody beat you to it.”

His eyes darkened for a moment, red light appearing in their depths, which quickly faded. “No matter,” he said, “No matter. I wish I had the opportunity, but it is gone. It wouldn’t do for a god to hold a grudge. That is such a petty emotion. For a god there is only wrath.” His eyes glowed red again, and his knives flexed and breathed in their fan around him, quicker than before.

Lost for any other action, I pulled out the gun again, pulling the trigger. It clicked, but nothing happened. It was as if the gun failed to function.

Max laughed. “Do you really think that will work on a god? I simply will it not to function and it does not.”

I looked at the gun I held in my hand, useless.

“Now,” said Max, “let’s begin.”

“Here’s your godhood!” screamed Katie, swinging herself around, tossing something big. I saw that it was the same book from the table.

Time slowed as the volume sailed through space, tumbling end over end, white sparks shooting off it as it turned. We all watched it with interest, even Max. He did not move or dodge, even though he watched the book’s whole path. The book sailed through space to hit Max in the face. He moved his head slightly as if a balled up piece of paper hit him, but otherwise the book bounced to the ground in front of him.

He smiled at us. He took a step forward, grinning.

Then the radiance around him flickered like a failing light bulb. In a moment it disappeared. The knives all dropped to the ground with a clink. Max’s expression changed dramatically. Now his face showed fear and dismay.

I knew I had my chance.

“Does this work on a god?” I asked as I raised the gun and pulled the trigger.

This time there was a reaction. There was a deafening noise as the gun jerked in my hands, the muzzle spark exploding from the front. A single bullet flew from the gun, straight at Max. Without resistance, without magic, without any special effect, the bullet flew at Max. A single red spot appeared on Max’s forehead where the bullet entered.

Then there was silence. Max’s eyes were wide as his body fell to the ground with a thump. His body lay there, inert, unmoving.

Silence again. I stood with my arms still out, ready to take aim if he got up again. But after a few moments, nothing happened. I finally relaxed, letting my arms drop.

That was one helluva book. Was it the one that Ashborn had stolen from Max? I turned to Katie. “What was that?” I asked. She shrugged.

I looked back at Max’s body. I suddenly knew there was a problem. That same golden radiance now flickered around his body, once again like a light bulb, this time turning on.

“Oh fuck,” I said.

I expected Max to get up. I expected him to say something. I expected something bad to happen.

In retrospect, it was very bad.

Max did not get back up, but the golden light got brighter. It kept getting brighter. I stepped closer and looked at the body. Golden light was pouring out of the bullet hole in his forehead like it was leaking water. Instead of the unearthly chorus we heard before, there was a staticky buzzing noise. The buzzing was growing louder, but I could just make out behind that a deep voiced, distorted chanting. With each second the light was growing brighter, the body was a very bright gold. As the light grew brighter, the buzzing sound also increased.

“I don’t think it’s going to stop,” said Katie behind me.

I nodded. This was bad. I can’t describe how we knew we were in danger, we just knew. Something in the sound triggered some type of instinct in us. Things were simmering to a boil and the pot was about to overflow. I grabbed Katie’s arm and we ran through the doorway. We had to get away. We just had to get far enough away that we would be safe.

We had just barely made it around the curve in the corridor when there was an explosion behind us. We were thrown into the air and then tossed to the ground.

I rolled over immediately, my lower back aching from where the blast impacted me. I wanted so much to just lay and relax for a minute, but that time was not available. The explosion had harmed the already fragile structure of the building. The walls were creaking, the structure shaking, fragments of ceiling were falling down. I looked over to Katie.

“Are you okay?” I asked urgently.

“I think so…” she said.

“No time to rest. This whole place is coming down!”

She pulled herself up, her eyes wide, as if just now noticing the place falling down around us. “Where are we going?”

That was the question, really. We needed to run someplace, fast. But where? Toward the explosion site, away from the explosion site? Hide in a boarded up room? I ultimately decided to make the decision to run toward the other wing. I hoped that the other wing would far better than this wing. This was boarded up and still ruined. Maybe the other wing would not fall apart.

We started running, dodging pieces of falling masonry. Behind me I could hear beams crashing down. Were we going to make it? I was suddenly not sure. Our already-tired muscles ached as we ran. Plaster flew into my face, blinding me until I rubbed it outside of my eyes.

I finally saw the exit, the doorway to the corridor between wings. I felt a small amount of relief seeing it, pushing myself harder to reach it.

There was a creaking sound from in front of us and then a large crash as the door we ran toward collapsed. Rubble and masonry rained down, first smashing the door frame and then blocking the corridor. I slowed down, stopping in front of it.

“It’s blocked!” said Katie. “What do we do?”

I stood there, not knowing what to do. The place was collapsing around us. I had no plans, no ideas. We couldn’t go forward and the place was crashing down around us.

“What do we do, John?” she asked. “What do we do?”

I looked at her, completely useless. I had no answer for her. The ceiling above us began to creak loudly.

I said to her in a barely audible voice, “I’m sorry.”

Katie screamed as the ceiling collapsed on us.

It was the most selfless thing I had ever done in my life, and at the same time, the most impossible. I’m not sure how I did it, I’m not sure how I didn’t die or end up with all my bones broken.

But I did it.

When the ceiling fell, I stepped close to Katie, pushing her down as I shielded her with my body. I put my arms over her and hunched my back. A moment later all I knew was excruciating pain as a beam fell on my back. It should have crushed me, paralyzing me and letting all the rubble fall down on the both of us, pinning us or killing us outright. But that didn’t happen. Somehow the beam hit the sweet spot, its entire weight evenly distributed enough to not break my back. I somehow was holding up all of the rubble with my back. There was rubble all around us, so we were in a pocket of space sustained only by my pain.

In the darkness, I heard pebbles falling and bouncing off rocks behind me, as well as my own ragged breath. I listened, waiting for more movement. I was sure something was going to shift and bring it all down on us. But that never came. After a few moments the pebbles stopped and my breathing slowed. There was silence. The pain was still enormous, but somehow I was able to sustain my position.

I became conscious of Katie’s breathing below me.

“Are you okay?” I forced out, gritting my teeth.

“Are
you
okay?” I heard her voice say.

“I think my back is broken,” I said.

“Really?” she said.

“No. Maybe. I can’t tell. Somehow I’m standing. Somehow I’m holding it all up.”

“Wait, you’re holding everything up?” she asked.

“Yup,” I said, my voice hissed as one of my muscles suddenly throbbed.

“That’s fucked up,” she said.

“Tell me about it.”

“It’s dark,” she said glumly.

“If you can, reach up into my jacket pocket, there’s a flashlight.”

I felt her hand reach up and fumble around me, trying to find my pocket. I should have really enjoyed a beautiful woman fumbling around my body in the dark, but at the time all I could feel was the pain. She found the flashlight and turned it on. The light came from below her face, so she had the underlit face of a campfire storyteller.

“Hey stranger,” she said with a weak smile.

“Hey yourself,” I said.

“Whoa,” she said, looking at me. “You really are holding everything up. That’s amazing.”

“It isn’t easy.”

“For sure,” she said. “So what now?”

“Well,” I said, wincing again, “the way I see it, there are two options. We wait for someone to find us, or we die.”

“That’s positive thinking for you,” she said.

“At the moment, I’m in so much pain that I can’t really sugar-coat the truth.”

“I understand,” she said. There was a long pause. “So do you think we’ll actually get rescued?”

“Well, there is the Army…” I said, my voice trailing off. I remember the Army gunning down the nurse that left the hospital. Were they really here to help?