The Big Dark Sky (67)
The symbolism of him standing here with the historian’s shotgun will profoundly influence those enlightened apostles who eventually will follow him on his mission. He is a revolutionary unlike any other, for he is in revolt not merely against a political system or a ruling class, but against all of humanity, and not only all of humanity, but against all of human history. Killing one historian is an important step toward killing them all. Xanthus Toller is a fine mentor, but he is an inadequate revolutionary because he’s content if it takes a hundred years—two hundred, even longer—to eradicate humankind. Asher intends to inspire ardent legions of more impatient and aggressive true believers. There are numerous tools with which dedicated agents of universal genocide can achieve their goal: pandemics, contamination of the food supply, nerve gas . . .
He pockets the camera and steps back from the sign and brings the shotgun to bear on the name of the town. The weapon is loaded with slugs, not buckshot. The recoil nearly rocks him off his feet, the buttstock hammering his shoulder, and the report echoes through the trees like the roar of a dragon with seven heads announcing Armageddon. A portion of the sign is missing. Ears ringing, he squeezes off a second round. No letters remain except the Z.
He shoulders the 12-gauge and retrieves his camera and takes another selfie with the sign. He finds it meaningful that nothing but the Z survives the shooting. Z is the symbol in mathematics that represents an unknown quantity. At the moment, with Asher’s manifesto not yet completed, he isn’t recognized as the monumental figure that he will become. To the rest of the world, he remains an unknown quantity, but not for long.
When his manifesto is released and his testamentary necropolis proves his righteous commitment, he will gain passionate followers, but there will also be enemies, despoilers of the Earth intent on stopping him. At some point, he might have to go underground. If one day he needs to use a nom de guerre, something as stark as Z is just right for the leader of the greatest and last revolution, a slash of a name that suggests power and mystery.
The breach of the shotgun now contains a shell, and the three-round magazine holds one other. The dead historian had three spare shells in his backpack. Asher loads two rounds in the magazine.
He should have brought such a weapon to Zipporah when he first decided to write his manifesto. A pistol has served him well; but the power of the shotgun is a special thrill.
Of the two prisoners in the church, it’s likely that Colson will be the first to lose hope, because he is young and racked with grief and because Ophelia is one tough bitch. If the boy’s spirit dies in despair, making him ready for the death of his body, perhaps even Ophelia will fall into hopelessness if she is forced to watch young Colson take a slug from this shotgun in his face at point-blank range.
54
Escaping from the church, Colson saw the river undulating like a silver serpent of infinite length. He and his father had followed it into this town. He was tempted to run to the water, fling himself into those swift currents, and keep afloat as he was carried downstream and away—to where didn’t matter, to anywhere that Asher Optime wasn’t. Although this desire shamed him, it was compelling; he might have succumbed to it if Ophelia Poole had not grabbed him by the arm.
“Gotta scout this place,” she whispered, “find where he is. Or maybe the keys to the Land Rover are in it.”
“They won’t be in it.”
“They have to be somewhere.”
The light was diminishing in value from gold to copper and deceived the eye almost as much as did the long shadows. Colson followed Ophelia, hurrying from one point of cover to another, the river to the right, the backs of buildings to the left, heading for the Land Rover that was parked next to the saloon.
Step by step, Colson felt watched. He sensed—or imagined—a finger curled around the trigger of a pistol in the possession of the green-eyed observer.
In the rising wind, the dead town rattled, creaked, groaned, murmured, and muttered in an imitation of life, so it was possible to believe that the distant fall of bricks, when it had occurred, might not have drawn Optime’s attention.
The Land Rover proved to be locked.
At the back of the saloon the windows were boarded over. One cracked and weathered door had been fitted to a new frame with modern hinges and a lever handle.
Colson didn’t want Ophelia to open it. However, if she wasn’t fearless, she was at least bold. She tried the door, and it was not locked, and she opened it.
Beyond lay darkness as deep as if the coming night were stored in there and waiting to emerge. Because Colson and Ophelia were backlighted by the dying day, there should have been an immediate response from Optime if he waited inside.
Ophelia hooded the Tac Light with one hand and switched it on. Warily, she crossed the threshold. Colson followed, closing the door behind him, stepping into a back room, where the maniac evidently stored supplies. At a glance, nothing here was of use to them.
A doorless doorway led to another darkness, to what had been the public room of the saloon.
Approaching it, Ophelia whispered, “He’s not here. There’d be the glow of a gas lantern.”
Colson figured that if she’d been certain Optime was gone, she wouldn’t have whispered. Nevertheless, he stayed close behind her.
The bar was still here, from behind which Ezra Enoch Fielding had served P. H. Best beer and harder liquor, while elsewhere in the room drunken gamblers cheated one another at poker and sometimes were shot dead. During the smallpox epidemic, the place had been commandeered to serve as an infirmary. Colson might have imagined the air of menace that flooded the room, but he suspected it was real. Many people had died here either of violence or disease. If spirits of the dead could cling to a place—he wasn’t sure about that—then this building might be haunted by more than a few angry ghosts who, if they manifested, would have horrific gunshot wounds or be covered in a pox rash of pus-filled blisters.