Chapter 50
Durant removed the handcuffs, but because Peter was so cold, he could barely dress himself.
His naked body was covered with mud and there was no way to clean it off.
His trembling fingers fumbled with the zippers and buttons.
The boots were several sizes too small, and he almost fell trying to cram his feet inside.
Vance had to hold him up with one arm. The lack of laces was irrelevant because he could never have managed to tie them.
Disappointingly, once he had the coat on, Durant put the cuffs back on, this time with his hands locked in front of him. Still, cuffs or no cuffs, even with the mud coating the inside of the boots and pants and coat, he felt himself beginning to warm under the heavy clothes.
The Messenger looked at him as if pleased with what he saw, then held out his hand like a game show host toward a prize. “Your female friends are this way. Vance, Hollis, Captain Durant, please join us.”
With the others close behind, Peter and the Messenger walked side by side down a wide gravel path strung with lights between two long rows of simple cabins.
The first ones were new and built for the ages with stone walls and metal roofs.
The last cabins were older and sinking unevenly into the mud.
Raw stumps poked up where big trees had once stood.
Every south-facing roof was covered with solar panels. Light blazed from every window.
As they walked, Peter saw people heading toward the cabins, clothes and hands dirty from physical labor. They stopped and lowered their heads. Like the crowd in the parking area, Peter could see the weight they carried.
As the Messenger passed each man or woman, he touched their arms and shoulders, his voice soft and warm and gentle.
Something in them eased at his touch. They believed in him, Peter saw.
Of course they were willing to believe in him, in anything, for even the thinnest promise of relief from the hard realities of a fast-changing world.
But Peter had known men like the Messenger before. At bottom, they were all the same. They were bullies who talked about fairness but all they really wanted was power for themselves and retribution against their enemies.
They continued on, Vance gripping Peter’s arm again, his hand like a vise. Hollis was silent.
After the cabins came a square field of green grass, perhaps fifty yards across, ringed with pole lights.
At the far side, at the end of the path, stood a large log building with a wing on each side, a deep front porch, and a bare patch at the eaves where a sign had been removed.
As with the cabins, every window shone brightly.
“This was the lodge for the former Boy Scout camp,” the Messenger said.
“Now it’s our main headquarters, with staff offices, rooms for counseling and medical care, and classrooms for the children.
Beyond it are the group living facilities and more cabins.
” As if Peter had signed up for a tour and the Messenger was his guide.
Maybe he thought Peter would become an investor.
“Here we have our armory and food storage,” the Messenger said, nodding at a broad stone building.
With its bulletproof exterior, steep metal roof, and tall narrow windows, it was built for minimal maintenance and would be easy to defend.
Like a nondenominational church built by Stalin’s favorite architect.
“Beyond are various shop and maintenance facilities,” the Messenger said, pointing at a row of three hulking, utilitarian boxes clad with galvanized sheet metal, stretching away into the haze of falling snow.
“Of course this is only a fraction of our land. We have dozens of greenhouses for year-round food production as well as livestock barns and grazing areas. A creek comes down the mountain, giving us abundant water. We are four hundred strong. No matter what happens in the outside world, we have everything we need to be completely self-sufficient.”
“Tell me about the Dark Time,” Peter said. “How will it happen?”
The Messenger’s eyes twinkled. “That information is held close. Only a few can know the details. You are not one of them.”
“That sounds like a man hedging his bets. The police know about you. They’re coming.”
The Messenger smiled and clapped his hand on Durant’s shoulder.
“Tom is my eyes and ears in law enforcement statewide. Thanks to him, nobody even knows we exist. And after tomorrow, the police will have more to do than they can handle. In a week’s time, most will no longer report for duty.
Make no mistake, friend, the Dark Time is coming.
All the lights will go out for a very long time. ”
“You’re full of shit,” Peter said. “Just like every other nutjob predicting the end of the world. When it doesn’t happen on schedule, your followers will leave. Your movement will fall apart.”
“Respect the Messenger,” Vance growled, then backhanded Peter across the face again, this blow harder than the last. He saw a bright flash and fell to his knees on the cold, wet grass.
The Messenger looked down at him with pity.
“You are blind to the truth, friend. Economic mobility is at an all-time low. Inequality is higher than it’s ever been, worse than the time of the robber barons.
Drug companies are addicting us to their products.
Artificial intelligence is coming for our jobs.
The government has been captured by moneyed interests.
There is no will to change when officials are busy lining their pockets.
In the years to come, nothing will get better for ordinary Americans.
They will only get worse. So I ask you, which is better, to be dead or to be enslaved? ”
He shook his head gravely. “I think you and I would have the same answer to that question. In fact, you appear to be exactly the kind of person we need in our Movement. Strong, brave, loyal, relentless. Like Hollis here. Unfortunately, Hollis believes your loyalty lies elsewhere. He does not think we could ever trust you. Sadly, I must agree with his assessment.”
Peter got one foot under him but Vance put a heavy hand on his shoulder, keeping him in place.
The Messenger didn’t seem to notice. “Don’t you see, friend?
The industrial world is on the brink of collapse.
Storms and wildfires grow more severe every year.
Heat waves and droughts last longer. Disease is rampant, one epidemic after another.
Our civilization is impossibly fragile. The end is inevitable.
All it will take is a nudge to bring it all crashing down.
We are simply getting a jump on the apocalypse.
When the lights go out, people will get hungry and cold.
They will turn on each other. Humanity will devour itself, as it has been doing for centuries, ever since the industrial revolution.
But those of us who are prepared, those with the strength and vision and will to survive, we will thrive by returning to the old ways. ”
“You have a pretty dim view of humanity,” Peter said.
“I’ve been to war. I’ve seen the worst that mankind can dish out.
But I’ve also seen the best of humanity, who we can be when we’re part of something larger, when we’re needed.
I’ve also read my history. People aren’t perfect, but they usually do the right thing eventually.
Whatever you have planned, all you’re doing is robbing us of the chance to make things better. ”
“I wish I could agree with you,” the Messenger said sadly. “Unfortunately, you have the wrong reading of history, the wrong reading on humanity. Men are animals. We will only ever be animals. The Dark Time will prove me right. Sadly, you won’t be here to see it.”
“You talk about the end of civilization, but you’re only four hundred people,” Peter said. “What about the rest of the country?”
The Messenger smiled. “Our Movement is not alone. I am in contact with a hundred movements just like ours, across the continent and across the world, providing advice and assistance. Each has a plan and stands ready to execute. We are at the forefront. Once we begin, the others will follow our lead toward a simple, honest life on the land, the way it was meant to be.”
“Ah, the good old days,” Peter said. “Measles and dysentery, women dying in childbirth, a life expectancy of forty. You really are crazy as a shithouse rat.”
Vance raised his hand to hit Peter again, but the Messenger shook his head. “Over the years, many have thought as you do. I will prove them wrong. Sadly, you won’t be here to see it.”
The Messenger gestured to his right, where a small cinder-block building stood aligned with the near corner of the armory. “You will spend the evening in our stockade.”
But Peter was staring to the left where a wooden wall stood facing the meadow.
Built of heavy planks nailed to a pair of thick posts, the whole thing was maybe ten feet wide and eight feet tall.
The raw planks were stained dark in places.
A half dozen ring bolts had been installed at the wall’s top and bottom.
Round rocks of various sizes lay in small piles at each side.
Half the meadow’s lighting seemed directed at the wall, as though it were a stage.
The Messenger saw him looking. “Ah,” he said, as if seeing a birthday cake made just for him. “That is our punishment wall. At midnight, you will be chained to it. Your life will end as the Dark Time begins. You will be our blood sacrifice to the gods of our new world.”