Notes from the Future: Prophet's Reckoning, Part II

The Ezekiels drag me away toward an outbuilding I didn't see, it's down behind the Hospital house. It must have been a barn, it looks like stables have been made into cells. I am taken to the cell at the far end, the door is open, I am shoved inside and the door is slammed and locked behind me.

I expected dirty straw and rats. What I find is a small bed, almost a cot, with a writing table and chair, a stainless steel bucket in the corner and fresh flowers in a little vase on the table. Just when I think these people are going to be exactly what I expect, they veer off into new kinds of crazy. There is straw on the floor, but it's almost homey. Like set dressing or something.

I sit on the cot and realize that I am really, really tired. I want Tad, I want Max and I want to get out of here. If they cook and eat him, I will murder them all. I swear to God. You do not fuck with the people I love, and Max is our boy (sorry, Taralyn, you abandoned him; he's ours, now). I think about trying the door or seeing if I can get out the high, barred window. But I'm too tired. I stretch out, close my eyes and

Tad and I are walking in Downtown Livermore, there's something I want to tell him. Max is carrying Christmas presents, he does his shopping early and I think he must be hot in that tuxedo but that's how he dresses when he walks upright, he says people respect him more and there's the Prophet there behind that wisteria arbor and he's got knives in his arm for storage

 I sit up, I'm scared, it's dark. Where am I? Did I hear something? Is there someone in the room with me? Then I see a shadow move near the door and I yank my knees to my chest, remembering where I am. My right knee hits me in the jaw and I bite the tip of my tongue, I gasp at the pain and the shadow near the door moves again and something slides under the door. Oh, okay: the shadow is on the other side of the door, and some paper has just been slipped through the crack. The shadow is gone.

I don't think there's an electric light in here, so I grab the paper, kneeling down to read the first lines in the light coming from under the door:

There is a small lantern under your bed, and matches. Light it carefully, do not drop it: you would burn alive if this building caught ...

Feeling around under the bed I find the lantern; it's a Dietz No. 5, Tad's favorite -- weird again -- and I lift the top and tilt the glass, turning the wheel to move the wick up the way he showed me, then I strike the match and light the lantern and, oh, it's so nice to have light in the darkness. I adjust the wick  and hang the lantern on a hook to the left of my cot, then settle back to read.

It's handwritten, a few pages long, on clean resume paper. Weird to think about resumes, when the last time I was at work, these weird Mean Greenies were outside in the darkness. I shake my head to clear it and focus on the paper.

There is a small lantern under your bed, and matches. Light it carefully, do not drop it: you would burn alive if this building caught. There are things you need to know, now, before sunrise. For now, be warned: the "Prophet" believes you, your dog and Edward are all emissaries of local government come to shut down "his" compound. If he finds any proof of this, he will eat and rape you -- in that order. Probably myself and the Rachels who are helping us, as well. The Ezekiels he will probably just murder.

Therefore, as soon as you finish reading this, burn it in the stainless steel bucket, away from cloth or hay.

This Monastery has been here since before the Spanish. How this came to be has its roots in the story of Father Robert, and the fate of the Abbess of the lost Abbey so high in the Pyrenees. You must simply trust that we have been here for a very, very long time, living in peace with the local tribes and then presenting the illusion of a ranch when the area began to be settled by Europeans. Land can be made to seem to change hands, but we have held this land for so long, we know it as family. It was always a holy spot, it drew us here from so far away and we intend to hold it. We will need your help.

We have many beliefs, and among those beliefs is a Prophecy that a man shall come from the outside in the time of fire and that he will bring peace, wisdom and an end to tyranny. Pretty vague, I know, but I'm trying to keep this brief. There is much more to the Prophecy, and several months ago a man came wandering up our hillside, lost and dehydrated and near mad with hunger. We nursed him to health, as we do, and he seemed to be full of kindness and wisdom. We invited him to stay here among us and all was well.

Then one night he started having dreams, terrifying apocalyptic visions of devastation and death and fire. His dreams were paired with uncanny predictions of how national and local elections would go, and many among us began to believe he was the man of whom the Prophecy spoke. I was never entirely certain that he was to be trusted; his first dream came on the night I believe he overheard me discussing with one of the nurses that I felt he had overstayed his welcome. Not that he knew or knows my status here as Abbess -- I have kept that secret closely-guarded since his arrival -- and he believes that we are just a very earth-friendly commune. But many were frightened by his visions, and in order to placate them, I agreed in secret with my people that we should prepare for any eventualities. If this meant building up our defenses, buying more food, so be it.

He was also recruiting people from the local neighborhoods, going to community meetings and churches and slowly our numbers grew. You can tell the difference between our people and the newcomers simply: our men and women are nurses, doctors and healers of every persuasion, and the men have full beards.

I feel no shame in admitting we are all staunch Muirists, and that we stand with our Bretheren in Oregon who maintain that John Muir did not assassinate President Theodore Roosevelt in Yosemite Valley, and we will forever speak to the innocence and wrongful execution of Ansel Adams for his so-called "seditious" photography and acts of "landbank espionage." If you disagree, that is your choice. But I can't have you help us if you don't know who you're helping. We are good people, please remember that: we help the sick and broken, we heal the wounded. Not just their bodies, but that is something for later, if later ever comes. Back to the subject at hand:

Some of the newcomers may be healers of excellence and skill, but they believe the "Prophet" and cannot be trusted: the men are clean-shaven and the women are fearful, vapid things who cannot start a fire, chop wood or defend themselves. All of these people believed that the "Prophet" is the man who founded this place, and those of us who have given our lives to this Monastery -- many of us have been here since birth -- have been forced to hide in our own home.

Slowly, he has been eliminating us. At first, there were accidents. An Ezekiel named Dr. John Frazier was crushed while changing a tire on our SUV, alone on a backroad here. A Rachel named Louise, one of the senior nurses, fell down some stairs. You saw what has been done to Becky, the girl he began to devour before your blessed Max did what humans are too scared to do; all Becky is guilty of is fidelity to her fiance, who is due to return from Iran next month.

When the earthquake came, the "Prophet" threw himself down upon the ground and shook and pooped and peed on himself off and on for eight hours. He calls it his Holy Travail. He has been shouting so-called Prophecy ever since: if the wind changes, he will say, "Lo, the wind did change, and the Prophet did say it was so!" He uses this to control his followers more than ever before. He directed them to get uniforms and set up roadblocks, and at every roadblock he has been offering people the chance to pay the toll and pass, or to not pass. The toll is a bite of their flesh, and as you may have noticed today, it is the only thing that sexually excites him. So once he takes a bite, he takes another bite. And another, and once he is aroused, he may as well satisfy both appetites at once. 

God help me, I was glad when he began to go down to the roadblocks to feed, as my Rachels were spared any further torment. But then he got hungrier. He sent people out with green glowsticks around their necks to wait in areas where the lights have gone out. You may have seen them, they break the glowsticks and surround the car and stop it, if they can. Their job is to herd people to the roadblocks, but many of them, desiring to be like their "Prophet," have begun to attack and eat people as well.

Yours was the last car to get across Bollinger, only the center of the center island remains, at last report. Anyone coming across must do so on foot. The Prophet was down there, eating a pregnant woman, when you drove across. It enraged him because he hadn't predicted it. Which is why his followers combed the area so thoroughly to find you. I have no idea what happened to the people still waiting after you crossed. I hope they went away, and that they are safe.

There are hundreds of his followers, now: possibly a thousand. Every time one person pays the toll, the "Prophet" has the rest of the occupants of the car brought here. And what do they see? Food, light, a place to sleep. As long as they do what he says, they live. 

Mt. Diablo's eruption has given him too much power. The night you arrived, he instructed a new Ezekiel to bite off his own penis and thus be cleansed of mortal want. When the young man could not succeed at this task, he threw himself from the balcony of the main house and died. Severed spinal cord. I think he was a lifeguard before he tried to leave the area with his parents and sisters. Now they are here and they are not permitted to grieve, lest they appear to un-believe the "Prophet."

Here is what you need to know: tomorrow morning, he will eat your Max, if they catch him. If not, he will try to eat you. Key to his power is the mystery of his origins; only I know his name, his history and his weakness. Learn it, memorize it, and use it! Speak the Prophecy if he tries to eat you, shout louder, shake harder -- it's all illusion. You have some theatrical experience, this I know. Improvise.

His name is Torvald Mayberry. He is 56 years old, never married. Former Pastor of Three Square Christian Church and Missionary Bible School, in Castro Valley. Left under a cloud of suspected sexual misconduct and embezzlement, surprise surprise. Here's the kicker: he is utterly, completely terrified of rabbits.

I hope that's enough for you to go on; from what I heard about Edward's performance in the car on the night you arrived, I trust that you have similar improvisational skills. Living with such a talented man, how could you not?

I believe in you, Veronica. I believe you are our salvation. I no longer look to prophecy, I look to the human race. If you can out-preach him, you will save us all.

Burn this now, please.

Yours sincerely,

Mother Henrietta

I put the papers down next to me on the bed, lying back in shock and dismay. She wants me to improvise some preachy prophecy shit to save them all? Mother Henrietta just signed everybody's death warrant. I am the last -- let me repeat that -- the last person anyone should ever ask to improvise anything. I freeze up. I get the shakes. I get dizzy and I feel like puking. 

I need to think about this. I need to think, to plan in advance what I will say. I need to say something planned, and clever and make it good so that everyone believes me and not him. Oh God, this is fucked up. But I'm fine. I'm okay. I am okay. I can do this. Man, I am tired. I need to think. 

I keep yawning. I think Tad would be better at this. I'm going to re-read what she wrote about Torvald McCreepydick and think about what Tad would say. He would say Jesus told him some things. Jesus told him a story. That's good. A story. I'm cozy now. Mmm, I like being cozy. I wish I could snuggle up with

We are walking from Hayward Bart to Oakland along an East Bay Shoreline boardwalk made of waxed cardboard. There are old ladies dressed as pelicans doing interpretive dance. One of them is saying, "Trickle, trickle, trickle ..." like the lady from The Music Man. Hermione Gringotts. Now she's got goblins dancing around her. We are at the Claremont Hotel, Tad is showing me how to levitate but there's a scary man watching us. The scary man keeps getting closer. He has bird claws for eyes and he wants to look at us. Max is high on a hill, galloping like a horse. Max is a horse, he's galloping toward us. Toward me. The horses are making the earth shake

I open my eyes. It's light outside. Very smoky. 

I remember I have to burn the papers, I sit up.

The papers are gone.