Adrian's Undead Diary (Book 5): Wrath (6 page)

“Again Shelly, I guess that’s as good a name as any. Although I’m sure you can understand it is a lot more complicated than just a fallen angel, a lake of fire, and a pitchfork.” Her father sighed deeply.

“Evil, right? We’re talking about pure evil?” Oddly enough, that made sense to her.

“Something like that. The Divine isn’t evil, but through course of action, it can bring evil into existence, and sometimes, to cure a cancer, you need to give up a pound of flesh. Evil can carve that pound of flesh easily.”

“Evil is doing all this?” She gestured around the room in her dream as if she was pointing out the horrors she’d witnessed with her own eyes in Africa.

“Mankind has brought evil upon us. So in a fashion, we have done this to ourselves. Evil powers the instruments that are judging us. Evil manipulates those it can to get at those it can’t. Evil brings out the part of us that we wish we didn’t have, and evil tempts us with the things we want, but are unwilling to earn. The Divine is protecting you from the evil it unleashed on the world using Oudry now, and the rest of the Trinity will later, when you are united.”

“So who is the third member of the Trinity? You’ve spoken of the Warden already. If I am the second, who is the third?” Michelle leaned forward, eager to learn the identity of the last person.

“The Soul. Some of us have called him the Scribe as well. He is the chronicler of mankind’s struggles. He will write of your success, or your failure.” Her father’s tone changed as he talked of the third. The darkened room suddenly filled with warm white light again. She felt buoyed by the essence of the room.

Oudry’s little frame even looked energized. “I wish I could meet him. He seems very nice. If he could forgive himself, he’ll make for a good leader. They will tell the most tales about him, if you all survive.”

Michelle’s curiosity was peaked. “Why is he called the Soul? If he’s writing everything down somehow, and he’s the Scribe, how did he earn two titles? And for that matter, who am I? What do they say about me?” She was confused.

Her father answered. “Second question first. We call you the Savior, but some also call you the Soul as well.” Her father’s pride showed through again. “It is your role to guide humanity to a better way, and to accomplish that, you must ensure that the Scribe, or the Soul if you prefer, redeems himself, thus proving that humanity is not beyond redemption, and is worthy of a new chance at life.”

She nodded, understanding somewhat. “Wait, I’m the Soul too? What does that mean?”

Oudry chirped up, “We think you two will fall in love. Everyone is wondering if you’re soul mates. I think you are.”

Michelle was unable to speak. Angels or ghosts were looking into her future, and had deemed that she might fall in love with a man that desperately needed her assistance to be redeemable. It was an unbelievable tale to say the least. It was certainly not the fairy tale she had dreamt of as a child.

“I can see you are skeptical, and that is understandable. I can tell you one last thing before the morning sun breaks and you need to leave. Your beliefs define you Shelly. You have walked amongst the temples, the shrines, the mosques, and the churches of almost every religion mankind has had faith in, and your ability to see the best in all of them has appealed to the Divine. Your faith had guided you your entire life, and now you have the opportunity to let your faith guide all of mankind to a better future. Trust in your beliefs, and you shall be rewarded.”

That comforted her. One last question rose to the top of her mind as the light of the room grew in intensity, and took on the power of the rising sun. “You’ve said ‘we’ several times. Who is we? Angels? Spirits? Ghosts?”

Oudry and her father looked at each other with wise, sad eyes. She regretted having asked the question immediately.

“Heaven and hell are shut to us until the catechism is resolved. We sit in a restless world of pugratory until we are brought here to The White Room. Some say they have found the ability to enter the dreams of those they were closely tied to in life, but that seems rare. Those of you in the Trinity are special, you are closer to us than the others. A bright light in the darkness. We can reach out to you easier.”

Michelle nodded sadly. “What happens to you if we fail? What happens if we are judged unworthy for all time?”

“Then humanity will disappear forever, we will be cleansed off the Earth, and our souls will be scoured from the record of existence, and the Divine will begin anew without us.”

The blinding light of the dawn sun pierced her eyelids, giving everything a rosy hue. This morning for this first time since they started their journey together, she’d woken up before Oudry tapped her. It was a whole new day.

*****

It seemed to Michelle in the days after the dream in The White Room that the world made a lot more sense. Sometimes the greatest fear is the fear of the unknown, and having even a small amount of the story presented to her brought her solace. Knowledge was power.

It also helped that she no longer feared the boy guiding her to her destination. In fact, she had grown quite attached to him, or at the least attached to the memory of who he used to be. Michelle now walked beside him, instead of twenty paces behind him.

Michelle’s attitude shifted dramatically towards her plight, and it seemed like the world shifted to reward her. No longer did she dwell on the massacre of humanity. Instead she filled her days with thoughts of how this would be, or how this could be a clean slate to start society and life anew, without hatred, without misconceptions, and without bias. Her mind was filled with hours and hours of recanting what she could remember of various religious texts, and tales of deeds both good and bad, and parables filled with insight from all over the world.

As she became more and more comfortable with her situation, she found herself telling Oudry’s walking body all of her ideas. From afar, it would look like madness incarnate. A tall, radiantly beautiful woman wearing dirty clothes, covered in filth talking to the reanimated dead body of a little African boy. Some days she would be so excited about her ideas she’d gesture as if she was reciting a long prepared speech to a gathered crowd. One might even imagine that she could be practicing a sermon, or a chant of inspiration to a gathering of imagined believers.

Oudry pointed out far more food to her after the dream of The White Room in Ghana. Michelle noticed this, and was deeply thankful. Her belly full far more often meant she had more energy, and could walk farther, and faster. She didn’t know where they were headed, but she knew who would be there when she arrived. The Warden.

Oudry took her to the coast where they walked for many a long day. She found the majesty of the dark blue ocean a comfort. Always to her left on the journey it reminded her of the immensity of the world, and the grandeur of the power that guided it along its path. She felt small next to it, and yet because it was so close, she felt like a part of something massive, beautiful, and powerful.

The odd duo walked for weeks and weeks, skirting the dead and living alike. Michelle trusted little Oudry to keep her safe, and instead of being angry and feeling controlled when he stopped, she felt protected. It was liberating to put her fate in the hands of the Divine, and to know that something was looking over her through the boy. All was well until their last day together.

The moist heat of equatorial Africa had been abandoned weeks before that day for the dry heat of the African desert. Michelle was grateful that the time of year was heading into the autumn, because if it were the middle of summer, she would’ve roasted alive. Even so, her skin had burned, blistered, peeled and eventually bronzed over in the constant sun. She didn’t have the map memorized, but she could read many of the remaining road signs, and she knew they had crossed into southern Morocco.
 

Oudry took them abruptly inland late in what Michelle believed to be November, though she wasn’t sure of the date. The road they followed had signs saying they were approaching a small Moroccan city called Tan-tan. Michelle had never heard of it. She asked Oudry if they were going through the city, or around it, but Oudry never answered her. He simply put one bare, black foot in front of the other, and pushed forward.

They had walked underneath a massive pair of sand colored statues hanging over the road in the shapes of kissing camels when Oudry abruptly changed direction. The afternoon sun blazed behind her, cooking her back and stretching her shadow fifty feet in front of her. It would be dark soon, and shortly after that, very cold. A long arrow-like road extended inland further, and yet another sign sat on the sandy corner alone, telling her where the road headed. Aeroport Plage Blanche de Tan-Tan it said.
 

An airport.

Oudry walked slowly now, choosing his steps deliberately, almost as if he were leading her through a deadly minefield. Michelle’s anxiety rose when she realized that she was feeling worry coming off him in waves. She’d never felt this way around him before. She had always been the one afraid, and now, she knew he was the fearful one. But fearful of what?

What could scare Oudry? He was already dead, he had so little to lose.

When the sun dropped into the ocean far behind her Oudry stopped. The night sky was nebulous above her, filled with a billion twinkling stars, and vibrant swathes of color from clouds of gases floating a lifetime away. She could see more constellations in the night sky than she’d ever imagined existed, and that comforted her. There was so much majesty she’d never experience it all.

She had her head tilted back, eyes fixated on the sky above, her long blonde hair brushing against her bottom when she realized Oudry had put his lone hand on her arm. It was telling that she simply looked to him, and didn’t pull away sharply. It had been a long time since she’d jerked from his touch, having come to grips with what he was, and what he represented. Michelle looked down at him, wondering what he wanted.

The night air had a brisk chill to it, and her skin puckered against it. As she asked her friend what he wanted, she caught that familiar essence of flowers once more. “Oudry what is it? Something wrong?”

They had more or less come to a stop in the middle of nowhere. She couldn’t see the airport ahead, or the original road behind. The flat, featureless terrain in every direction gave her no bearing. With the enormous blue-black speckled sky above, she could’ve been floating in space.
 

As Oudry inhaled a deep breath, she smiled, awaiting more words from the Divine.
“We cannot go further. We shall rest here, and have a final talk. The Warden is close, but Evil is closer.”

Michelle’s heart suddenly thundered in her chest.

*****

Oudry gathered several small piles of sticks over the course of a few hours while Michelle sat on the edge of the airport road in the flat featureless night. She pulled the thin zip up sweatshirt she’d found a month ago around her to fight the cool air. It was a feeble effort, and she knew it would be a very long night, devoid of rest. She was kept warm and mildly cheerful only because Oudry had spoken of The Warden, and that he was near.

She tried to forget that he’d said Evil was close too.

Oudry moved about her setting up small piles of the dry wood he’d gathered. Almost in a ritualistic fashion he put the sticks down in three piles, spaced equally a few paces apart. She shivered and watched him intently until he’d arranged the fire piles to his mysterious satisfaction. When he finished, he took a seat on the ground in front of her, and looked at the pile nearest her. She knew he wanted her to light them.

When Michelle and Oudry were walking through what she thought was the former nation of Liberia, she’d rested in a small shop that sold tobacco products. Before she’d left the next day, she found a single remaining lighter on the floor, and she scooped it up. Michelle fished the small tool from her tattered pant pocket and went to work on getting the sticks to take the flame.

Surprisingly the tinder caught with little effort. Once she had the first small pile of sticks burning on its own, she sat back down, and looked to the patiently waiting Oudry. The dead boy turned his head and leveled his eyes on the second pile of sticks, and she put two and two together, and began to light the remaining piles of branches. Much like the first pile, the final two piles took the flame from the lighter almost immediately, and burned warm and bright. Surrounded on all sides by golden yellow flame, she was cocooned in warmth. The night’s chill was shooed away as she sat down cross legged on the cool dirt across from Oudry.

She watched the flames flicker across his face for some time, waiting for him to do something, anything. Oudry’s pale white eyes took on the light of the flame and for the first time in a long time, she started to feel fear again. Oudry’s expression was blank, and distant, but as the golden light of the flame lit up those white eyes, she started to feel as if something was wrong.

“Oudry, you said we needed to have a final talk, what did that mean?” Michelle asked the immobile child with one arm. Putting the words out there made the pit of her stomach knot. For months now she’d been with him in one fashion or another, and the idea of this being a night of endings for that relationship scared her. It frightened her. She didn’t know how to be alone anymore.

Oudry turned and looked over his shoulder in the direction Michelle thought the airport was in. His white eyes fixated on the horizon, she couldn’t help but look to where he was. She saw nothing but the flat, empty terrain of western Africa. There was a slight bump where she thought the airport might’ve been, but it could’ve easily just been a mountain in the distance.
 

“Michelle Annabelle Lewis, tonight is the last night you will ever spend in Africa.”

Michelle’s chest caught in surprise. She didn’t expect him to speak so suddenly. Especially not in The Voice. She replayed the sentence in her head and realized that just like the first time she’d heard it, The Voice was not aloud, but inside her mind. She didn’t know what to say, or how to respond, so she remained silent, and watched the boy as he continued to stare over his shoulder at the dark horizon.