Foretold (6 page)

I lead Sam through the forest in silence. The only sound is our feet shuffling through the carpet of yellow and orange leaves. I’m lost in thoughts and plans for the dreadful future, and he’s staring at me. They used to be shy and furtive, these looks of his, but now they’re more open. Yet the reason is the same—he’s waiting for me to lead him, to guide him. Father always said I was a model to all the children in the compound. I can’t let him down now that I’m all that’s left.

Mist still clings to the tops of the trees and pools in the hollows along the path. Tree trunks the same pale shade of
gray stand like ghosts in golden gowns and watch us as we walk. I used to love the trees, and though I know they have no souls, I’m sorry they will be lost when the world goes dark. I’m sorry for the animals, too. I wonder if there are forests in heaven.

“Where are we going?” he whispers at last, and in the stillness of the forest, it sounds like a shout.

Father’s stockpile is stored in the side of a hill three miles into the woods. He made all his children memorize the location in case the police ever came and we needed to protect ourselves. In case they ever took him away. I bet he never thought we’d have to use it like this. Or maybe he did—a gift for those of us left to fight. A final miracle for the righteous to carry us through the end of days. After all, he was granted the prophecy. He must have known there would be some of us left behind after it was fulfilled.

Maybe he even knew it would be me.

There’s food and water there, medicine and fuel and blankets—enough for the entire congregation to last six months, and I’m sure longer when it comes to supplying only the people who are left.

Sam’s eyes are wide as spotlights when I unlock the door and he sees the shelves and the cans and the storm lanterns arrayed along the wall. They go even wider when he sees the guns.

“What are those for?”

I shrug. People used to say horrible things about Father and the rest of us. They called us a cult. They accused him of lying to us, and made all these dire and false predictions about how he planned to make us all commit suicide with poison pills or lethal Kool-Aid. It was ridiculous. Why would we commit suicide and risk the eternal life we were promised?

Sometimes they even made threats. I remember times
when Father had to lock the gates outside the compound against people who wanted to break in and kidnap their family members or friends who had heard the truth and decided to come live with us. They wanted to hurt our followers, to kill Father. We needed to protect ourselves, protect what we’d created out here.

Of course, it never came to that. And the government left us alone, no matter what the critics said. Father always supposed it was because at least some of the people in the government knew his prophecies were true.

And though the occasional doubter did manage to turn a follower away from our righteous path, it never led to violence. In fact, the worst violence I ever heard of was from one of the followers who had been kidnapped by his family. They’d locked him in a room for weeks, interrogating him, starving him, trying to break him. He finally recanted all his beliefs in Father and in us so they’d let him free. As soon as he was able, he came home and told us what had happened to him.

People on the outside can be so evil. No wonder this wretched earth needs to be washed clean.

Obviously we can’t carry too much with us, but at the same time, we need to bring enough to fulfill any immediate needs, as well as to convince the remaining people on the compound that I have their best interests at heart, and that I’m fully prepared to provide for them. Sam watches me gather supplies for a little while, then places his hand over mine.

“You know, Bright … maybe we shouldn’t go back right away.”

“Why not?” I ask. “What’s to gain from letting people suffer?”

He looks at me. “You don’t think you can stop their suffering, do you?”

He has a point. The end times will be terrible, no matter what I do.

“And,” he continues, snatching his hand back and looking about the storeroom wildly, “everyone is so angry right now. I think maybe it’s not safe.…”

Safe? Sam must have seen something awful to run away. How fitting that the violence everyone assumed we were capable of arrives only after our truth has come to pass. My father was right to teach me how to use the guns.

“Like if we wait a few days, maybe people will be calmer, more willing to listen to what—to whatever you plan to tell them.” He meets my eyes. “Do you know what you plan to tell them?”

I bite my lip. “No. But you’re right. A plan would be good.”

A plan
would
be good. Unfortunately, I don’t have one either. It’s been two days since Bright Child led me into the woods. Two days of camping out in Jeremy’s stupid storeroom, watching Bright pray and plan and eat, and two nights of lying beside her while she sleeps, listening to her breathe and feeling the heat pour off her skin and smelling her hair when I pretend I’m just rolling over.

She wants to go back to the compound. I don’t know what I’m going to do. I wasn’t thinking ahead—I don’t even think I know
how
. Before, there was no point. Bright’s father, Jeremy Child, already told us what was going to happen. Don’t bother studying—the world will end before we ever go to college. Don’t bother brushing your teeth—you won’t have to
worry about cavities in heaven. Don’t look at that girl—you’ll die long before you ever get your first kiss.

Lies. All lies.

Being here with Bright has pushed it out of my mind, but in the night, when all is still and the earth is turning and I can hear the sound of helicopter blades whirring high above the treetops, the truth comes blaring back to me. Everything is a lie. I’ve been lied to by everyone—my parents, my teachers, my friends. And they’ve been deceived, too, by Jeremy Child. We were
supposed
to be in heaven. We were
promised
heaven.

But instead, I’m in hell. Hell is Bright Child, two inches away from me, softly sighing, with her shirt riding up as she tosses and turns on the hard ground. I can see the strap of her bra and the curve of her back.

I should be mourning the destruction of everything I’ve ever known, and instead all I want to do is touch her.

It’s night number three and I give up. I sneak out of the storeroom once I know she’s asleep. Today has been the hardest yet. All she wanted to do was rehearse speeches to give to the congregation about our new mission, but the longer we’re away from the others, the more sure I am that I can’t ever lead her back. Even now, still dressed in her jubilation clothes, with matted hair and smudged skin and the sickly sweet smell of old sweat, she’s more like an angel than a girl.

Her father named her well. There’s a flame inside her. Her faith is almost blinding in its intensity.

The trip through the woods is treacherous in the dark, but I can’t risk turning on a flashlight and leading them back to our hideaway. As it is, I don’t know how long we have before the others come for the contents of the storehouse. All things I haven’t considered—all very important pieces of
information that go right out of my head whenever I’m near Bright.

Because when you listen to her talk, her steadfast belief, her dire and glorious convictions, it’s easy to agree.

I cross the creek and see the lights glinting off glass panes in the buildings on the compound.

Easy, but not true.

No one is outside at this time of night, and no one sees me creep up to the windows of the prayer house and peek inside. The elders are all in their little folding chairs, their faces dead and hollow. Shadows lie heavy on their cheekbones and they sit slumped, defeated, and watch Jeremy Child with eyes devoid of the righteous flame I’ve seen in Bright.

This is why I’ve taken her away. I can’t bear to watch the fire extinguished in her.

Jeremy is at his lectern, and he’s in full pounding mode. But this time, his words are not about the End of Days.

They’re about Bright.

“And is it any wonder that she, the most dutiful and righteous of all of us, should have gone ahead? My dear little girl, our darling angel, is even now making a place for us in heaven.”

Is he like Bright, steadfastly clinging to his belief despite his disappointment? A lot of the elders are missing from the congregation—including my mother. Where are they? Where does my mother think I am? I wonder if anyone even cares.

I keep listening for a few more minutes, hoping to hear a word about the other people missing—maybe even about myself—but it’s all about Bright. Our angel, Bright. Our savior, Bright. He argues his prophecy was correct—at least in part. Bright will guide us, Bright will lead the way.

When Jeremy finally releases them, I duck into the bushes.
Before, the elders would burst out of their prayer meetings, on fire to share with all of us Jeremy’s newest revelations. Tonight, they’re more subdued, talking among themselves in low voices.

“They don’t believe me.” The voice is very close and I flatten myself against the wall of the building. Jeremy Child is standing at the window, watching the elders walk away.

“Yes, they do.” Bright’s mother, her voice the usual soft whisper at her husband’s side. She’s nothing like her daughter—Bright takes after Jeremy. “They’re just disappointed. We all are.”

“If they don’t believe me, they’ll keep leaving. So many have already gone.”

Is my mother one of them? I wonder. Did she leave the compound without me? Did she leave looking for me?

Or did she leave because while her son vanished along with his daughter, Jeremy could only allow that
Bright
was holy enough to make it into his imagined rapture.

Above me, Jeremy’s voice grows firmer. “But I suppose it is their loss if they wish to brave the world without my guidance. Their loss if they wish to give up their place in heaven.”

His wife is silent for a long moment, and when she does speak, her words sound more like a shout carried over a great distance. “And … Bright?”

“Bright is in heaven,” Jeremy says firmly.

No, she’s not. I want to pop out of my hiding place and say it out loud. I want to tell Mrs. Child the truth.

“Jeremy—”

“She’s in heaven,” he repeats, and the window slams shut.

This is his new deception, his new lie. Rage flares within me, but it’s tamped down as I realize that I’m no different. He’s lying to the elders, to all of them, telling them that
Bright is in heaven while we’re all stuck here on earth. I’m lying to Bright and telling her the exact opposite.

It has to stop.

When I wake, Sam is gone, and for a second I’m scared he’s been swept up to heaven with the rest. It’s hard enough imagining doing this with his help—I don’t know how I’ll ever be strong enough to do it alone.

Why have I been chosen for this task? They’ve always told me I’m as strong as my father, but I don’t know how anyone could be strong enough for this. It was hard enough to get people to see the light before. Now, when the world is falling apart, how can I get the survivors to keep their faith alive?

Out here in the woods, safe with my father’s stores and security measures, I’ve been filling my head with visions of what is going on out in the world. Each idea is more terrifying than the last—those who remain of my father’s followers, dying of disease or starvation, tearing each other apart as the world falls to pieces around them. How will it end? Will the sun bake the earth? Will the seas rise up to drown us? Will we succumb to a plague and wither where we stand?

Or is it worse than that? With most of the righteous gone away, evil now walks free on this earth, poisoning the hearts and minds of men. The end times will be brutal, filled with demons and monsters. Maybe they’ve already infiltrated the compound. Will the end come through some new horror the likes of which even my father didn’t foresee? The thought sends me back to my knees, praying for guidance, for strength to stand firm against whatever trial lies before me.

One thing is clear. I can no longer afford to sit in the woods and leave my father’s followers to fend for themselves against whatever the end times have to offer. I must return to them, bearing supplies and a message of hope. It’s what my father would expect me to do.

I’m packed when Sam returns. He stops on the threshold of the storehouse, staring at me with my bag filled with food, medicine, and yes—protection. “It’s time to go back,” I announce to him in the voice I learned from my father.

“Y-yes.” His eyes are wide. “I came to bring you back. I was wrong, Bright. Wrong to bring you here. They need to see you—”

I nod.

“And—and you need to see them. It’s not what you think, Bright. I—I didn’t know how to tell you. I didn’t want to—”

“Don’t worry, Sam.” I put out my hand toward him. “I understand.”

He looks ready to cry. “No, no, you don’t. It’s just … your faith is so strong, Bright. I can see it now, shining all over you. You think you can save everyone.”

“I can.” I wave to the storehouse. “Look at all of this. It will be easier for us to keep the faith if I can ease some of the physical suffering.”

“No, Bright.” Sam’s head is down, his voice cracking against the words. “The world’s not ending. We were all wrong.”

I bite my lip. Poor Sam. “I understand that’s what you want to believe, Sam. I truly do. I would give anything not to have to face the trials before us. But we’ve been set a sacred task. We have to keep the faith of my father’s followers. We have to help them.”

He tries to speak again, but he erupts into sobs and he splutters, covering his face with his hands. “No, Bright. No.
You don’t understand. I—I lied to you. Everything. Everything is a lie.”

He’s so distraught, he can hardly breathe. He stands half crumpled, collapsing under the weight of his despair. Living through these times will not be easy. I step forward, dip my head to meet his, and press my mouth against his lips. “It’s okay, Sam,” I whisper, and kiss him again.

We stand like that for a long time, our mouths pressed together. I don’t think he’s even breathing, and when I pull away, he says nothing at all, just stares at me with eyes like Armageddon.