The Harvest (Book 1) (36 page)

Austin walked hands folded in front of him. Under his robe he carried his AK 47, a hand gun and his knife. In his pocket he had the mini taser Zack had given him weeks ago. He was ready. And as long as Chase kept up his end of the bargain bloodshed could be kept at a minimum. 

“Brother Austin.” Roth called to him from his office.

Austin glanced at Chase, who shook his head and shrugged.

“Brother Austin.” Roth called out louder this time.

“On my way father.” Austin frowned, and headed for Roth’s office. “Yes father.” He paused inside the doorway.

“Come in. Come in. You join us as well Disciple Morgan.” Roth waved them inside.

“Is there a problem father?” Chase asked, hoping this wasn’t going to be about Reynolds’ damn kid.

“Yes there actually is a problem.” Roth stood and walked around to the front of the desk. “The problem is trust. Or rather the lack there of. It is so very important that a leader be surrounded by those he can trust. Not just trust, but those who are undeniably loyal to him and his beliefs. Do you understand this Brother Austin?”

“Of course father. Trust is paramount to the success in any relationship.” Austin replied. “Loyalty compliments trust. One without the other is impossible.”

“Yes that is what I believe and it pains me to know one of my disciples dishonored me, dishonored my beliefs through his lies and deceits.” Roth’s gaze shifted from Chase to Austin. “Alas,” Roth suddenly smiled, “that messy business is over with, but I’m still in a quandary.”

“What can we do to help Father?” Chase asked, hoping his voice didn’t give away his shaky nerves.

“I’m so glad you asked Disciple Morgan. For it seems Thomas’s act of treason has handicapped my inner circle. I cannot carry out our Lord’s will with only eleven disciples.”

Chase’s eyes lit up. “I beg your pardon for speaking out of turn Father, but perhaps you would consider Brother Michael to fill the vacancy. He’s a most loyal servant and would serve you well. I’ve personally...”

Roth held up his hand. “Brother Michael would make an excellent choice, but I’ve selected another.” His gaze moved over onto Austin. “Brother Austin I would like you to join my inner circle making it complete once again.”

“Father I’m honored, but won’t this upset those who have been here longer than myself?” Austin replied, but didn’t give a damn. He’d play Roth’s game, for everything Roth did was a game or test.

“Selfless. This is why I chose you. I know you will always put the cause before your own desires. Even those for your own son.” Roth smiled at him.

“Your purpose is my purpose Father. If you wish me to know about my son I will wait for the time you see fit. If my son does not serve your purpose I will honor your decision as I honor you.” Austin bowed his head.

Roth clasped his hands together. “Excellent!” He proclaimed. “I am an excellent judge of character and I judged you as a man of virtue from the moment I laid eyes on you. Welcome to new world order my son.” He held his arms open and Austin had no choice but to accept his show of affection.

“Congratulations Disciple Austin.” Chase gave him a brief hug. “We will prepare for the formal ceremony.”

“Yes. Yes. We will have it three days from now, on Saturday.” Roth returned to sit behind his desk. “You may carry on with your business.” He dismissed them with a wave of his hand.

Austin departed from the office, and wasted no time heading for room sixteen. They’d been underground for three hours. Each second that ticked by increased the odds of Luke and Madison being discovered. Each second increased the odds of Chase losing his nerve and pulling the plug, or worse turning on Austin and blowing his cover. He hoped the latter didn’t happen. He didn’t want to kill Chase, not yet, not until he gained access to the portal. The portal was going to be the key to finding his family.

Chase punched in a code on the key pad next to the door to room sixteen, placed his thumb in the fingerprint reader and turned his eye to be scanned by the retinal scanner. The locking mechanisms turned with a single click and the door’s hydraulic system swung it open. Chase waved Austin inside following behind him after a short delay. The door closed with a solid thud locking them inside.

***

The door swung open. Having heard them coming, Eve was already standing at the front of her enclosure. She’d waited over a year for this moment, for Austin to arrive, the man who would provide the answer to her question. She watched with her normal passive interest, not breaking from routine. The general was watching as well. He was very interested in seeing the captain’s reaction to her.

Statuesque, she waited for the captain to look her way. When he finally turned his gaze upon her she held her breath. He walked towards her. Never before had she felt this fever of anticipation. He stopped in front of her. His eyes never leaving her face. For a long moment they stared at one another. The corner of his mouth turned up for a split second.

A strange feeling emanating from Austin rushed through her body. He was happy to see her, to finally have found her. She forced her mind still, her twitching muscles to relax, her hand to remain limp at her side rather than making a fist and breaking through the glass. The general was watching, she repeated over and over until her insides were again as passive as her outer appearance exhibited.

Uncertain of what was to happen next, she turned away and went to sit on her bed. The captain planned to save the prisoners. It was a good plan and many were going to die. This mattered not, for she’d decided she was leaving her glass prison. And she would do so with or without the captain’s assistance. He was just a human. Although an exceptional specimen, one of the finest she’d come across ever, she did not need him for her escape.

Images of the frozen, uninhabited landscape that awaited her above ground filtered into her thoughts. By all accounts her food source had been annihilated by the Sundogs and without this she would eventually starve to death. A slower more agonizing way to die was unimaginable. When in Siberia, she’d gone three months without feeding. The pain it had rendered upon her every nerve was excruciating, but even then she’d known death was far from being hers to claim. These thoughts of wandering the Earth, dying a slow death caused her to reconsider leaving the mountain. At least down here there was no immediate shortage of food.

She lay on her bed counting air bubbles in the glass. Soon the chaos in her mind dissipated, allowing her to focus. She turned her attention not on the captain, whose thoughts were hard to read, but on the sniveler, who with his inferior brain was easy to follow.

Surprising to her was that Chase’s thoughts were not on the usual depraved path, or the various ways he could degrade the girls, but rather they were on the captain. Interested to know more, she went deeper into his mind. As the sniveler’s thoughts became her own, an animalistic growl threatened to escape from her throat. The muscles in her hands twitched as she envisioned sinking her nails into his neck and ripping his head off.

The sniveler was about to breathe his last breath of air. There wasn’t time to think only to react. She flipped her legs over the side of the bed and strolled to the door of her enclosure. The men were coming. The general was coming. And she was hungry, but not starving. For the first time since being captured, she allowed herself to smile.

Across the room Austin felt the hairs on his neck rise. He turned and looked at Eve. She was smiling. Her head moved towards the door. Looking in that direction, he saw a brief view of the pandemonium about to take place. Armed soldiers were going to come through the door in less than thirty seconds.

Austin pulled off his robe and pulled out the radio. “Do you read? Do you read?”

“Loud and clear.” Madison’s voice came over the mic.

“Were in. Head for the command center. Shoot on sight. Do you copy?”

“Copy that. On our way. Over.”

Chase rushed over to Austin’s side, glancing at the door as he approached. “What are you doing? Have you gone mad? This was not the plan.”

Without a word or indication of what he was thinking, Austin stuck the end of the taser against Chase’s neck, jolting him into unconsciousness. Chase sank to the floor just as the locking mechanism clicked and the door began to swing open.

Yelling at the girls to take cover, Austin opened up fire on the first soldiers who entered the room. They died before even getting off a round. Having full view of the dead soldiers lying in the doorway, the second wave hesitated to charge into the room. They didn’t fire on him from the doorway as he expected. After several seconds they parted and General Roth entered the room arms folded in front of him.

“I’m unarmed.” He announced, strolling towards Austin unafraid as if he truly believed divine intervention would keep him from bodily harm.

“Stop right there.” Austin ordered, but the general kept coming. Austin pulled his hand gun out and shot Roth in the right leg.

Roth went down to his knees grabbing his thigh, howling from the pain. “You shot me.” He cried out as much in indignation as disbelief.

“I told you to stop.” Austin stood over him, placing the barrel of his handgun next to Roth’s temple. “Where’s my son?”

“I don’t know.” Roth whined.

From the corner of his eye Austin could see the soldiers edging closer to the doorway. He fired off a few rounds in their direction. “Stay back. I don’t want to kill anyone else, but I will.” Austin yelled out.

“Stand down. Stand Down.” Roth cried out to them. His followers stopped in the doorway.

“I’m gonna ask you once more. Where are my wife and son?” He nudged Roth’s head with the gun barrel.

“I don’t know. I don’t know” Roth reached out for Austin’s leg. “Please you have to understand. I had no choice. They gave me no choice.”

Shrugging Roth’s hand from his leg, Austin pulled the trigger without ceremony. Blood and brain matter splattered across the concrete, Roth’s torso teetered and fell over backward. “That’s for Charlie.” Austin stared down into Roth’s dead eyes wanting to shoot him again, only refraining out of concern for the young minds huddled not twenty feet away.  

“He killed the Father!” Someone yelled from outside the room. “He killed the Father!”

The din outside the door grew frenzied as the news spread. Austin holstered his handgun and brought his rifle back around as he waited for them to charge the door, certain they would allow emotion to override logic.

34 FREEDOM

The metal door slammed shut before the soldiers could charge to their death. Behind Austin a loud cracking sound filled the air. He spun around in time to see sheets of glass rain down crashing on the floor. Where the glass prison had hung suspended in the air, only the cables remained, underneath, thousands of glass shards glistened in the light. Standing in the middle of the gleaming pile was Eve.

Unfazed by the glass crunching beneath her feet, she walked over the pile and across the room towards Austin, but passed by him without a word. He followed her with his eyes over to where Chase lay moaning a few feet away. The possibility she might not be real crossed his mind.

She paused to look over her shoulder at him. To the casual observer her expression appeared blank, but Austin saw, or rather felt, her thoughts. A powerful wave of hunger, followed by nausea, washed over him. He gripped the rifle’s stock tighter, squeezing to release her hold on his senses, to regain control of his mind.

Her lips curled up at the corners, as if she was smiling at his naivety. The smile collapsed into a straight line and with a blink she turned away, freeing Austin to breathe. Air rushed into his lungs making him light headed, but mercifully the overwhelming hunger racking his body diminished. He rubbed his hand through his hair and down over his face, peering over his fingers at Eve.

Chase rolled over and opened his eyes to find Eve staring down at him. His mouth opened to scream, but a gurgling noise was all he could emit. Chase tried to back away, but she grabbed him by the shoulder, pulling him to his feet. Having his feeble mind pushed to the limit, he found his voice and screamed like a little girl. Eve held her arm above her head, curling her fingers to strike, her nails sharp like daggers.

“Wait.” Austin’s voice cracked. “We need him.” He added when she cast pitch black eyes upon him. Her hunger was evident without having to experience it firsthand. “We need him.” He repeated with more force, feeling more in control.

She hesitated. The sniveler’s sweet scent filled her head teasing her senses, making it difficult to let him go. She turned back to Chase, tempted to taste him. The tantalizing scent of his blood filled the air, swirling about her head, saturating every breath she took. A memory suddenly flooded her mind, overtaking her ability to reason. The walls of the room crumbled away revealing a rugged terrain that lead to a cliff overlooking an ominous thrashing ocean.

On the ground, a few feet in front of her, was a man crawling towards the edge of the cliff, behind him, a trail of blood. The wind gushed up and over the cliff, dousing the man with sea spray and blowing the scent of his blood upon her. The memory invoked by the smell caused her to falter.

Was this her first kill? The existence of up until that very second had been unknown to her. The details leading up to the event stayed out of reach, leaving her recollection of the event fuzzy at best, but it was a memory and she wanted to see more.

She glanced over her shoulder. Austin anxiously watched her from the concrete room. His lips moved forming words that were lost in the roar of the waves. The awareness that the man might succeed in plunging himself into the sea before she was finished with him pressed her to take action. She sprung forward, grabbing the man by the ankle, dragging him to her.

A tremendous clap of thunder exploded around her. Mighty chunks of the cliff fell into the sea, tossing screaming seagulls from their perch and into the dark skies above. Walls of concrete rose up around her reforming her present reality, but not blocking out the screeching birds. The noise was maddening.