Moriah (6 page)

“Sorry.”

“Something happened,” Tris was telling her story, “…The pilot lost control, the helicopter bounced off a building, and the next thing you know it crashed in the street behind me and everything went up. It was like a wall of flame just, just washed over the street. All those zombies—” she snapped her fingers “—like that. And there I am, hanging on to that fucking lion in a sea of fire.”

“And Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire,” quoted Fred Turner. “…And if anyone’s name was not written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.”

Tris was silent for a moment before she continued.

“I burned there. The flames were all over me. My clothes, my hair…” She reached from the grenade to her locks, but stopped her hand before touching them. “And still, there were
thousands
of them coming. Like an army of ants or something. I reached for this…” Her fingers brushed the grenade “…and my skin came off on it, I was burnt so bad.

“And that’s where I should have died, on top of that lion, on fire and overrun.” She looked Riley in the eye. “It would have been a righteous death, a
worthy
death.”

“But you didn’t,” Riley surmised.

“I didn’t. I don’t know where he came from. I don’t know how he got there. But the next thing I know, this big hand was wrapping around my wrist, pulling my hand off …” Tris moved her hand away from the grenade. “…and there he was, this mountain of a man, this…this monster. He pulled me clear of the flames. He came out of the fire and it was like…like the flames weren’t even touching him. And he was carrying this mini-gun, from the wreckage of the chopper.

“You have any idea what a mini-gun weighs?” Tris didn’t wait for an answer. “He shouldn’t have been able to lift that thing. He opened up on them, and all I saw was the fire comin’ out of the end of it. All I heard was the shell casings on the steps, the whir of its motor. And they were falling all over the place.”

“Bear was just mowing them down,” enthused Bruce.

“That’s where we came in,” added Kevin.

“The cavalry.” Bruce smiled.

“Tris was in bad shape.” Kevin’s tone was grave. “We didn’t think you were going to make it, Tris. Bear stopped long enough to tell us to get her some help, and then he went at it again.”

“And when the mini-gun was empty,” Bruce remembered, “he went at them with his bare hands.”

“That’s the type of motherfucker he was.” Tris licked her lip. “That
motherfucker
.”

“But he saved you.” Riley couldn’t comprehend the woman’s resentment.

“No, he
cheated
me!”

Bruce said, “Tris passed out from the shock,” and Tris immediately replied, “No, I didn’t pass out. I died.” The way she said it, all of them—even Riley—knew the matter wasn’t debatable.

Tris looked at Fred. “And I didn’t see shit. Just black.
Nothing
.” She looked away from Fred to Dee and Riley and the others. “Not my husband, not my kids. Not Saint Peter at the Pearly Gates or Lucifer at the other end. Because there’s nothing.” She said this to Fred, who merely smiled benevolently in return. “And the next thing I know, I’m on my back, and they’re bandaging me up and the pain—like you wouldn’t believe. And they wouldn’t let me fight.”

“We had to sedate her,” remarked Kevin.

“See, woman?” raspy-voiced Bruce smirked. “You’re so bad you escaped death.”

“Fuck death. And fuck that big one-eyed bald-headed bastard.”

“How can you talk about him like that?” Dee demanded.

“That son of a bitch…” Tris muttered almost to herself. “…Son of a bitch. I should have died…I was
supposed
to die then.”

“But how can you say that?” Riley was thinking of Anthony and how she would give anything for him to be alive, how she would switch places with him if she could. And here was this bitter, scarred woman who
wanted
to be dead. “What makes you say that? What makes you think you should have died then?”

“Look at me. I ain’t died since, right?”

“She’s got a point,” conceded Kevin.

“There was a time,” Carrie had crossed her arms and was holding her shoulders, “when I thought Zed was going to get us all.”

“Before Bear,” noted Victor.

“Zed can’t kill Tris.” Bruce sounded convinced.

“Death’s come knockin’ a thousand times, and a thousand times I’ve slammed the door in its face. ‘Cept that one time.”

“Death can’t catch you, Tris,” said Bruce. “One day you’ll surrender on your own terms.”

“You goddamn right. Twenty-five years. Twenty-five years I fought. And now what?
This
? I’m supposed to pack it up and bring my shit to Africa? Die there? Bullshit.”

“Come on, Tris…” Victor tried to soothe her.

“Don’t worry.” Tris fingered the grenade around her neck. “I know how I’m going out.”

“A righteous death?” Dee scoffed.

“That’s right.” Tris’ reply was curt. “And you just want to be sure you’re not too close when I pull the pin.”

“Tris is just angry that she never got a chance to throw down with Bear himself,” said Carrie. “Aren’t you, Tris?”

The black woman didn’t disagree. “
He
would have been a worthy opponent.” Tris looked at Riley. “But he’s gone.” She glanced towards Dee as she spoke. “I happen to think it was the cancer—that he knew what was about to go down. And like one of them big fucking elephants he went off, on his own, to do his thing.”

Before Dee could say something to the contrary, Tris addressed him. “There’s others think different on that.” Victor placed his hand on Dee’s shoulder. “All these years, Zed
couldn’t
kill me. I mean—maybe that one time they would have if Bear hadn’t…I think
he
could have. Killed me, that is.” The thought didn’t seem to concern her. “But he didn’t, and he wouldn’t.

“When it was his time—to die, or whatever the fuck some of you wishy-washy motherfuckers want to think—you know what he did?” She addressed this last part to Riley. “He went off into the woods, into the wild. Alone. Without a word to anyone. He just disappeared. The same way he showed up.”

“Like he was delivered to us,” said Fred.

“He ain’t dead.” Dee didn’t sound convinced.

“Uh-huh. Sure he ain’t. And every once in awhile, D.L. goes off on his own, like the good son, a good little boy, looking for him.”

“I keep hoping,” admitted Dee, “that he’ll come back. So every year since he went away, I go out there, and I wait for him.”

“Kind of sad, you ask me.” Tris didn’t sound sad.

“Yeah, well, look who I found this time.”

“The Lord works in mysterious ways…” Fred smiled as Tris scowled at him.

“D.L. was the last one who saw Bear before he disappeared,” noted Victor.

“Oh, yeah?” Riley asked Dee. “What’d he say?”

“Dee doesn’t talk about that,” Victor replied.

Dee shrugged.

* * *

“For almost twenty years I was silent.” Fred was rubbing a stick back and forth in the dirt. “That is true.” He stopped with the stick and sat up straight. “I did not speak a word, because I was listening.”

“Listening?” Bruce looked at Kevin.

“That fuckin’ cat of yours talk to you?” shot Tris.

“Listening to Him,” replied Fred.

“And what’d he have to say?” goaded Tris.

“He didn’t say anything. But don’t you see? He said everything.”

“What’d he say?” Bruce croaked to Kevin.

“I saw my son, John, die,” Fred offered, unbidden. “And I saw him born. I was in the hospital with his mother. I was standing there by her side, next to the doctor, when she pushed and I saw the top of his…this little head.” The look on Fred’s face said he was seeing it all over again as clearly as when it’d happened. “And she pushed once more and there he was. He turned his head, and he looked at me…at me and the doctor, and I cried. Oh, how I cried. I’d never seen something so beautiful in all my life.

“And when he…when they killed him…Well, I’ve never seen anything so terrible.” No one said anything, not even Tris. “I was there when he came into this world. And I was there when he left it. I witnessed the entire arc of his being.”

Riley thought about Anthony.

“We’ve all lost people, Bishop,” Carrie said. “I know how it hurts. We understand your pain. I’m sorry.”

Fred looked up at the group. “I’m not talking of pain, here. I’m speaking of miracles. What else is birth? Think about it—from nothing,
something
. Have you ever watched a child born?”

“I have.” Tris sounded unimpressed. “I squeezed ‘em out. That shit hurts like fuck.”

“A miracle brought you,” Fred was looking to Riley, “brought you here to us. Do you understand how many wheels had to have been set in motion for this moment to pass? Mickey finds you, you find us. Here we are. And some would dismiss this as coincidence?”

“My brother died, horribly.” Riley disagreed with him. “My friends are probably dead. I don’t think it’s some kind of miracle.”

“But don’t you see?” Fred insisted. “Their deaths meant something!”

“Oh yeah,
what
?” Dee rested a hand on Riley’s arm immediately after she’d asked it.

Fred looked not the least perturbed. “I am a Knight of Faith. Have you ever heard that term before?”

“Weren’t you guys the secret society that supposedly ran everything?” Bruce asked.

“No,” Kevin answered him. “That was the Masons.”

“Let me tell you a story,” Fred stood up. “God wanted to test Abraham…” As he spoke, he used his hands to emphasize certain parts of his tale. “So He told him to go to the land of Moriah with his son, Isaac. The Lord told Abraham that he was to sacrifice Isaac. And Abraham did not question his god. He took Isaac—making the boy carry the wood for his own sacrifice—and together they journeyed for three days.”

“Isaac have any idea what was going on?” asked Tris.

“None.” Fred held up a finger. “Isaac even turned to his father on the way and said, ‘Dad, we’ve got the coals and the wood, but where’s the lamb for our sacrifice?’ And Abraham told his son not to worry, that God would provide them with one.

“When they got where they were going, Abraham built an altar, tied Isaac up, put him on the wood, and raised his arms.” Fred clasped his hands and raised his own arms. “In his hand, he held a knife, ready to kill his son. And just like that…” Fred lowered his arms and unclasped them. “…The Lord appeared and commanded Abraham not to kill Isaac. ‘I know you honor and obey me, Abraham,’ God told Isaac’s father, ‘because you have not kept back your only son from me.’”

“And then what?” Victor looked expectant.

“And then Abraham untied Isaac and they went back home.”

“They went home?” Victor was disappointed. “That’s it?”

“And they all lived happily ever after?
That
—” declared Tris “—is a fucked up story.”

“Parents are supposed to sacrifice
themselves
for their children,” Bruce pointed out, “not sacrifice their children.”

“And just exactly what’s the moral of your story supposed to be?” Riley looked aghast.

“Oh, it’s not
my
story…” Fred looked at Riley as if she had misunderstood him.

“Just another sordid tale of child abuse from the Good Book,” Tris said disdainfully. “May it rest in motherfucking pieces.”

“I mean,
what
does that have to do with me, with my brother, Anthony, dying?”

“I wasn’t thinking of you and your brother—may his soul rest in peace.” Fred crossed himself. “I was thinking of
my
son, John. I was thinking of Soren Kierkegaard—have you heard of him? Any of you?”

None had.

“He was a Danish philosopher who lived a long time ago.” As Fred spoke, Tris exhaled and looked away. “Kierkegaard wrestled with Abraham’s act, and Kierkegaard argued that Abraham, in his willingness to sacrifice his only son, was transgressing the ethical.”

“And that means…?” Bruce invited clarification.

“Abraham’s entire life was structured along a very simple injunction. A rule. A law, if you will. That a father should love his son, the way God loved him. Like you said, Bruce. Abraham’s society said the same thing: A parent should sacrifice himself for his child, never the other way around. But here he was…Abraham, asked by this very God, who he knew loved him, asked to kill his boy.”

“So if a motherfucking voice in your head tells you to do it,” Tris was disgusted, “then its okay?”

“Everything Abraham knew and felt,” Fred continued, undaunted, “everything told him that murdering his son was wrong. But
faith
urged Abraham to ignore what he knew about human morality. Do you want to know how Kierkegaard defined faith? He said that faith is the paradox that a lone individual can be higher than the universal. Do you understand?”

No one answered. Riley wasn’t sure who the question was meant for so she did. “No.”

“Kierkegaard argued that Abraham could never justify killing Isaac in terms any human being would understand or agree with—”