Chapter 20
“Hello, friends. This is your humble messenger. I am so very glad to talk with you again. As I record this in our mountain home, the sky is blue and the sun shines brightly on the greenhouses. Progress continues on the new cabins. We are almost ready.”
The voice was round and rich and full of warmth. The tape hiss gave it depth and gravity. KT’s sound system was pretty good.
“Each of you has found the message in your own way. Perhaps your religious tradition no longer spoke to you. Perhaps no religion spoke to you. Perhaps your faith still carried you, but it was not enough. You craved something that was profoundly missing. A community of like-minded people. True friends who know your fear, your pain, your anger, your loss.”
The words spilled forth effortlessly, like water from a spring, the most natural thing in the world.
The voice of a radio announcer late at night, Peter thought, but without the careful consonants.
Instead it was folksy and friendly. Maybe a pastor at a country church, untrained but born with a gift for connection.
Certain of his gospel, and his audience.
“For we have all suffered under the yoke of modern life. Even those who appear prosperous face the struggle to put food on the table, to maintain our dignity, our humanity, in the face of the industrial machine. You all know what I mean. Prices are through the roof, but most people’s pay has not gone up in years.
Once upon a time, you could feed your family through the skill of your hands, the strength of your arms. Now two jobs are not enough to pay your bills, let alone build a life, buy a home of your own.
The world has changed, and it’s going to keep changing.
The future will not be better than the past. The industrial machine wants everything we have to give. It will take from us until we die.”
The voice rose and fell, one moment a hoarse whisper, the next a battle cry. With the tape hiss, it was hypnotic, like a message from another century. And so intimate, as if the speaker’s words were for you alone. The combination was undeniably powerful, Peter thought. You wanted to believe it.
“And this, friends, is why we have chosen to step away.
We are survivors, plain and simple. We choose to make our own lives, together.
Not as cogs in the machine, interchangeable, disposable.
Used up, one by one, bones crushed, flesh torn from flesh, so that the mechanical beast is lubricated by our very lifeblood.
That is not who we are, not who we will be.
When the time comes for the beast to grind to a halt, we will take all necessary action.
“But not yet, friends. I am thinking of you all. I know we are not all together yet. Wherever you are, I am certain you are doing what must be done to make this community strong. It would not be possible without your efforts. I do not say this lightly. I know it to be true, as do we all.”
Ellie’s eyes were wide. Her mouth hung open. Her hands fluttered up from her sides, moths rising to a flame. “What is this?”
Peter put his finger to his lips. Ellie clamped her mouth shut. The voice continued.
“It is difficult to spend your days in the bowels of the machine, away from the warmth and kindness of our community.
It is all too easy to feel small and powerless.
A single stick, thin and frail, is easily broken.
As we have all been broken before. But if you take many such sticks and bind them together, as we are now bound together, we are stronger than steel.
Stronger than the machine. Stronger than the change that is coming for us, inexorable and unyielding as fate.
“I know your tasks are not easy, friends.
You are afraid. You feel alone. But you were chosen to join us because you are special.
You are capable. And you are needed. So I am certain you will prevail, no matter the hardships.
No matter the cost. We all rely on you to do your part to help us prepare for what is coming.
“And the dark time is coming, friends. The time of undoing.
The time of remaking. Soon your messenger will call you home.
We will survive the coming darkness together.
More than survive, we will thrive, by going back to the old ways.
We have prepared for this. We have made a place for ourselves.
A kingdom. Where you are loved, without hesitation, without condition.
“Soon we will be together. I cannot wait to see each and every one of you. Until then, please stay safe, and stay ready. Remember the protocols. Check your messages twice a day. I may call on you at any moment. Because together, we are one. Together, we are Legion.”
The hairs rose on the back of Peter’s neck. We are Legion. The same phrase from the threat letter. Not a misquote from the Bible. A quote from this recording.
“Thank you, friends. As always, I am your humble messenger, signing off. Until next time, please know in your heart that I love you all.”
The voice ended. The recording hiss went on for another fifteen or twenty seconds, then abruptly cut off.
Ellie bounced from one foot to the other, as if standing shoeless on hot asphalt. “What the heck was that?”
Peter bent to peer at the cassette player. The tape was still passing from one spool to the next. He stopped the tape, then pressed rewind. “I think we just found the reason your mom was murdered.”
He pressed play again. The second time, he still had no idea what to make of it. The message or the messenger. The dark time is coming. The time of undoing.
Whatever that meant, it couldn’t be good.