The Hole (29 page)

“She’s right,” the woman said. “I am supposed to help you. In fact, helping you is all I’ve been able to think about lately. I can’t get it out of my head, actually.”

Evajean stepped forward. “Who are you?”

“My name’s Cassandra Burns. You can call me Cassy. Everyone does- Or did. Everyone did before all this happened.”

“Have you been here all this time?” Elliot asked.

Cassandra nodded. “Since it all started. I couldn’t get out if I wanted to, anyway, because of that thing in the sky.”

“The barrier?” Evajean said.

“That’s what it is,” Cassandra said. “I didn’t go all the way to it, but I could see that there just wasn’t any way through. Except- The two of you must’ve gotten through, otherwise you wouldn’t be here.”

“It was a house,” Evajean said. “The barrier went right down the middle of it and we were able to walk through to the other side.”

“And now you’re here. And I’m supposed to help you.” She suddenly sounded uncertain.

“Have you been into the city?” Elliot said. He’d opened the water bottle and taken a sip and now he held it out to Cassandra.

“Thank you,” she said, and drank. “And no, I haven’t been all the way in. There’s too many of them for that.”

“We need to get there, though,” Evajean said.

Elliot opened another bottle of water. “You know where this museum is?”

There was no confusion. Cassandra had expected the question. “It’s downtown. It’s not going to be easy to get to.”

“Still, we have to,” Evajean said.

“You certainly do,” Cassandra said. “It’s where you find the journal.”

“What journal?” Elliot said.

“Joseph Smith’s.”

“Who’s that?” Evajean asked.

Cassandra Burns rolled her eyes. “The mighty and the strong indeed…” she said. “He’s the one who started all this.” She pointed in the direction of the city. “He was led to the golden plates by the angel, translated them, published the results, and founded the Mormon church. He’s their prophet.”

“And he’s involved in all this?” Elliot said.

Cassandra nodded. “I don’t know how, but yes, I think he is. I know I’m supposed to help the two of you find his journal-”

“Which is in the museum,” Evajean said.

“-and then I don’t know what happens from there.”

“Let me ask you something,” Elliot said. “You say you’re supposed to help us, that you knew we were coming. How? How did you know we’d be here? Did someone tell you?”

“God did,” Cassandra said.

Elliot blinked. “God?”

“I heard his voice in my dreams. He kept me alive and safe when everyone else died or went mad. He lead me here, showed me the way that avoided the dangers. Speaking of,” she said, “we should at the very least go inside. I’m not ready to take you to the museum now but I’m also not terribly comfortable standing out here in the open, no matter how much protection I’m getting from God.”

Cassandra used one of the unopened plastic bottles to break one of the panes of glass in the the house’s back door. When the three of them were inside and had done a search of the place to make sure it was empty of crazies, Elliot returned to his questioning.

“How do you know it was God?” They were sitting around a table in the kitchen.

“How do you know anything?” Cassandra said. “I just do. When the Lord speaks in your dreams, you’re left with little room to doubt.”

Evajean nodded, but Elliot hoped it was only to be polite. “That’s not good enough for me,” he said. “A lot of terrible stuff has happened recently, a lot of people are dead-”

“And you wonder how God could have allowed that to be?”

“No,” Elliot said. “I just want to be sure that this thing you heard in your head, that told you to find us and help us, isn’t the same thing that’s behind all of it.”

Cassandra laughed. “You doubt?” she said. “Everything that’s happened, everything you’ve seen, and you doubt whether it was God?”

“Yes,” Elliot said. “How do we know it wasn’t-” He turned to Evajean.

“The Mad King Moroni,” Evajean said.

“There is a God,” Cassandra said, “and he spoke to me. I have faith in that deeper than the two of you can understand. I
know
.”

“What do you know?” Elliot said. “I guess, see, I’m still having trouble wrapping my mind around all of this. People started getting sick, elderly and… and children. Nobody knew what it was but the government told us to stay in our homes and remain calm, and when more people started dying, they began picking up the bodies and taking them somewhere.”

“To the Hole,” Evajean said.

Cassandra was watching Elliot and didn’t turn when Evajean spoke. Elliot continued. “As far as we knew, Evajean and me were the only people left in our town, in our state-anywhere. And so we decided to go find this Hole because that seemed like the only thing left to do. Up to that point, you could say it all made sense. I mean, how many times had we heard a plague was going to wipe out the human race? That this one happened to drive people mad before they died-who knows? It could’ve been infecting the brain.”

“Yeah,” Evajean said. “That’s why the crazies were shocking but not a total shock, you know? But then we found that town where everyone seemed okay and things just got too weird.”

“And this has made you doubt God?” Cassandra asked.

“It’s made me doubt-or be ready to believe, for that matter-pretty much everything,” Elliot said.

“My knowledge is limited,” Cassandra said, “but I can try to explain as much as I know. My dreams have helped me to learn about these events, and my studies have provided slightly more.”

“What studies?” Evajean said.

“That museum you need to get to?” Cassandra said. “I worked there. Early American history. Albeit with a Mormon slant, but that’s to be expected in this town. Not that I bought into any of that-I was raised Methodist and remain to this day-but it was work and I just couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. Now I know why.”

“That’s one of the things I’m unsure about,” Evajean said. “What does Mormon stuff have to do with all this? You mentioned Smith and his angel, but how’s it all tied in?”

“Ultimately, I can’t tell you. But there are strong signs of connection,” Cassandra said.

“What can you tell us?” Elliot asked.

“Do you know how Mormonism was founded?” Cassandra said.

“Smith found the book and translated it,” Evajean said.

“Yes, but do you know how the Mormons say their faith came to be? The underlying mythology, I suppose?”

“No,” Elliot said. Evajean shook her head.

“Thousands of years ago, a lost tribe of Israel came to America and settled. This was to be the promised land, where God’s kingdom would be established. Jesus, after his death, showed up in the States to tell the people that. Eventually the people split into two warring factions, however-the Nephites and the Lamanites. The former were the good guys, but they were defeated. God cursed the victors and the Lamanites’ skin darkened and they became the Native Americans.”

“That’s absurd,” Evajean said.

“Yes,” Cassandra said, “I believed so, too. But now, the signs make me think differently perhaps. I think the Nephites and the Lamanites were real.”

Elliot laughed. “Fair enough,” he said. “I mean, that angle, Moroni, gave the book to Smith and we learned he’s got something to do with this. So why not the Native Americans, too?”

“How do you know they’re real?” Evajean asked.

Cassandra shook her head. “I heard them. In my dreams at first, I heard them talking. See, Smith said that the plates he got from Moroni were written in what he called ‘reformed Egyptian.’ People, outside of the Mormons, tend to think that’s just something he made up. But I spent a year in Egypt during college as part of my anthropology degree, and while I never learned to speak it, I came to know what the language sounded like. When the dreams started, when God began talking to me, I’d get these images, of war and horrible things. The people fighting, the ones killing each other, spoke in something that sounded almost exactly like Egyptian, but not quite.”

“You heard it in your dreams?” Elliot said. “That hardly means those people exist.”

“You’re right,” Cassandra said. “I wouldn’t at all mean they were real. However, my dreams are the only place I heard it. I’m sure, during your encounters with the mad people outside, you heard them talking, to themselves and to each other?”

“Yes,” Evajean said.

“I don’t know what they’re saying,” Cassandra said, “but I can tell you with absolute certainty that they’re saying it in reformed Egyptian.”

Elliot found he didn’t care anymore. The world had gone mad, true, but he had the feeling this woman beat it to the punch. He knew she was important, that she’d take them to the museum to find whatever was in there, but he was tired of what she had to say. It didn’t even matter whether any of it was true.

“Evajean,” he said, putting his hand on top of hers, “we should either leave now and try to get to the museum before daybreak, or sleep. If we sleep, I want to wait out the day, though, since it’ll be easier to avoid the crazies in the dark.”

Cassandra pushed back her chair. “Mr. Bishop has a point. I suppose I’m up for leaving now.”

Evajean nodded. “Might as well,” she said.

The crazies were thicker closer to the city. Several times during their journey, the three of them had to duck into a house to wait out a pack wandering down the road. Fortunately, most were unlocked. “They’re trusting folk,” Cassandra said.

She had a good idea of where they were going and Elliot let himself follow, though he remained concerned about just where she might be leading them. A museum, that they all agreed on, but relying on this woman to find it-and to find it safely-had him nervous.

Without electricity, the city was lit only by the stars and moon in the huge Utah sky. But that wasn’t much, and more than once they almost bumped into a group of crazies before seeing them and had to madly dash to find cover. Elliot was glad they’d left Hope in the trailer.

“We’re almost there,” Cassandra said after some time. “A couple blocks more and then it’s up to the two of you.”

“You’re not coming with us?” Evajean said.

“No, I’m going to wait outside. This thing you have to find, it’s for the two of you alone. I’m not meant to see it.”

“How do you know that?” Evajean said.

“The same way I know all of it. Dreams and feelings. I’m quite sure that’s how you two know what to do as well.”

Elliot nodded. She couldn’t come with them. If he cast his mind forward, imagined what might be inside the museum, he sensed Evajean’s presence, but not Cassandra’s. This was up to them, the Mighty and the Strong-whatever that meant.

Downtown Salt Lake was odd. Elliot realized he hadn’t been in a large city since this all started, and the total emptiness of it made the buildings feel both larger and closer together, like the walls of a deep and narrow canyon. He’d never been claustrophobic before, but all this glass and steel and stone was making him feel that way.

“It’s right up there,” Cassandra said after another block. She pointed and Elliot saw it.

“The art museum?” he said.

Cassandra shrugged. “I don’t know-but I know that’s it.”

“She’s right,” Evajean said. “That’s where it is. Where we have to go.”

“Okay,” Elliot said.

Cassandra let them go on without her then, saying she’d stay close to watch. “If anyone comes,” she said, “I can try to find you, to warn you.” They left her, standing on the corner. Elliot knew she’d be gone with they returned.

They glanced around, one more scan for approaching crazies, and ran across the street. He started up the step to the main entrance but Evajean said, “Wait, no, this way,” and took him around the side instead, to a service entrance. It looked like a loading area for trucks, with a metal vertical sliding door-open just enough for the two of them to squeeze through.

He stood up inside. Evajean had their flashlights and handed one to him. Elliot turned it on and swept the light across the garage. A few boxes and drums were stacked randomly, but otherwise it was empty.

“Where do we go?” Elliot said.

“I don’t know. Do you know?”

“No.”

Evajean looked around. “I thought I’d just feel it,” she said. “Like back in the house at the barrier.”

“Yeah.”

“But I don’t.”

“I don’t either,” Elliot said.

Evajean walked ahead of him, to the back of the garage where a railing ran along an elevated concrete walkway. Two doors were along its far wall and, as Elliot swept his light across them, he could see that the one on the right was partially open. “There,” he said.

“It’s where I’m going,” Evajean said.

The garage lead to a large office space, filled with cubicles, and then into the museum proper. They came out behind a ticket desk.

“You’re not going to like this,” Evajean said.

“What?”

“What we’re supposed to find- I’m getting a feeling about it.”

“Yeah?”

“From the basement.”

Elliot sighed.

“I’ll come with you this time,” Evajean said.

“Yeah, you will,” Elliot said. “Do you know what it is? What we’re looking for?”

“No.”

“But it’s in here, in the museum.”

“I’m pretty sure it is. Actually, no, I’m positive it’s here.”

“Then let’s find the basement.”

Their shoes were loud on the polished concrete floor. The museum wasn’t as claustrophic as Wal-Mart had been, but Elliot still wished there was more light than just the pair of beems from the flashlights they carried. There wasn’t any sign of crazies, no noises or shuffles. Elliot kept their pace up, walking through the wide halls, scanning for signs marked “Basement” or “Storage.”

“It’s getting stronger,” Evajean said when they gone the full length of one hall and turned left into another.

“The feeling?”

“Yeah,” she said. “It’s this way, I think.”

A smaller passage branched off the main hallway, an alcove of bathrooms, drinking fountains, and a door at the far end without a label. “It won’t be locked,” Evajean said as they approached.