Sleepers (Book 5) Read online

  We didn’t. His room wasn’t unlike anyone else’s. He kept it tidy, a half-eaten bag of snacks on the table next to his bunk. In fact, it looked as if nothing was missing at all.

  “This is odd,” Randy said. “Is everyone in this community accounted for?”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Well, it looks as if he had no idea he was leaving.”

  “Nah, he knew. He’s a mastermind. It’s here somewhere, the insight to him.”

  Everyone was making Ed out to be this great guy when the truth was, he took Mera, drugged me, Alex, and Danny. He wasn’t all that good. Most importantly if we could figure out the why, perhaps we could figure out where he took her.

  We had to find answers. Beck was going to be home and if we didn’t have Mera, we better damn well have something to tell him.

  He left us, trusting us to take care of his family, and we failed him.

  There wasn’t much to check in Ed’s little cell. I opened up the nightstand drawer and in it were three curious items.

  “Okay, this guy is weird,” I said, pulling out the items, and I knew when I saw them, what kind of person I was dealing with.

  “What is it?” Randy asked.

  “Small bible.” I laid the hand sized book of scripture on the bunk. “A book, The Scarlet Letter.”

  “I’m not familiar with that book.”

  “It’s an old one. About… aw man ….”

  “What?”

  “It’s about a woman who cheats on her husband.”

  “Okay.”

  “Mera is pregnant by someone other than Beck. I think it's my baby, not sure, she won’t tell me.”

  “You’re Mera’s baby’s father?”

  “I think so. It makes sense. I don’t remember because it took place during the Beck is Dead time frame, and I don’t recall that. She’s isn’t saying, but I think it is. We’ll know if that baby has blond hair. Anyhow… the Bible, the book, and this …” I tossed the magazine on the bunk. “Gamer magazine. Look at the cover story. The game is called The Rapture.”

  “Oh, that’s really odd,” Randy said.

  “I know.”

  “No, I mean that’s really odd. You ever get to meet Bill Logan?”

  I shook my head. “No, why?”

  “He traveled with us. He was Mera’s neighbor. Bill created the game The Rapture.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s a coincidence.”

  “Sonny, it’s an awfully big coincidence. Ed takes Mera and he leaves behind a magazine that features Bill’s game.”

  “It was reading material, he probably it picked up here,” I said. “I think it’s just a coincidence.”

  “I think it’s more.”

  “Well, then you work on that. For now, bible, adulterous woman, and the Rapture. I think we’re dealing with someone that took her because he was religiously delusional.”

  Randy laughed.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “You’re really reaching.”

  “No, seriously, what if he’s some religious nut job, who thinks all this was God’s end? What if he follows the bible? The rapture, the pregnant woman. The pregnant woman in the Book of Revelation is carrying the chosen child. She needs to be protected from the demons and the Antichrist.”

  “Demons meaning Sleepers.”

  “Yep.”

  “It still doesn’t tell us where he took her.”

  “Yeah, it does.” I lifted the bible. “Right here. We read about the woman and think about what the bible says. That’s where he’s taking her.”

  “It sounds farfetched.”

  “Randy,” I huffed, “you came hundreds of years from the future. How farfetched does that really sound?”

  “True, but–”

  “But nothing. We have a book, a bible, and a magazine all in the same theme. It’s something to go on and I’ll take it,” I said. “It’s more than we had before.”

  40. Alex

  I was falling apart.

  Despite what I tried to project, inside I was a mess. My heart was broken and I never thought I’d say that. Losing Jessie was too much for me to handle, then to find out Beck may not come back. I was already at the end of my rope when Mera disappeared.

  Where was she?

  Come on, Mera. Tell me something.

  I searched the deepest corners of my soul, fully believing that she and I had a connection and somehow I could figure out where she was.

  I know it was only the first day out, but I hated the thought that we came up with nothing.

  What did I expect? To drive out a hundred miles, see them camping out, pull my best Captain America and be the hero?

  Yeah, I guess I did.

  I had already lost one member of my family. I wanted them back, needed them back, or damn it, I wanted to be with them.

  Was it possible that she was gone for good? That I would never see her, Danny, Phoenix or Keller again?

  I hoped not. The thought of that plagued me and I was dying inside.

  Filled with high hopes when we left, I was at the other end of the emotional spectrum when we headed back.

  Maybe that was the reason I had no patience for the Sleeper on the road. He stood there and I hit the gas.

  “Alex,” Michael scolded. “What are you doing?”

  “Hitting it.”

  “You can’t.”

  I stopped. In fact, I hit the brakes so hard, we jolted back and the Sleeper was inches from my front end.

  “You care to tell me why I can’t run him down?”

  “He’s still a human being. One of God’s children.”

  “Fuck that.”

  “Okay, then,” Michael said. “Do you really want to take the chance of hitting him, having him bounce up and smash into the windshield? Or worse, damaging the vehicle?”

  “You’re right.” I put the car in park, reached down, grabbed my revolver, and stepped out.

  “Alex!” Michael yelled, following me. “Did you learn nothing when Sonny got hurt?”

  “I learned I hate them even more.” I raised my weapon.

  “Yeah, well, look at him. Doesn’t it seem odd to you?’

  The Sleeper stared through me as if I weren’t even there. He didn’t try for me at all. He was pathetic and looked it. He smelled bad too. They all did.

  “Get in the car and go around,” Michael kept looking over his shoulder. “You’re not thinking clearly. Look at this situation. Get in the car.”

  “I am looking at the situation, are you?” I asked. “Look at him. He pisses and shits himself. He stinks, he hasn’t eaten. I’d say not only has he lost his mind, he’s dying. Would you want to live like that? I wouldn’t.”

  “That’s God’s decision.”

  “Yeah, well, on this Earth, I believe God gave me authority and he’ll forgive me.”

  No more arguing with the padre, I fired a single shot into the Sleeper’s head. When I turned to go back to the car, I heard it.

  Michael did too. His eyes widened. “What is that, Alex?”

  It sounded like thunder, rolling thunder, and as it grew louder, it sounded more like a stampede.

  I looked over my shoulder and to the east of us, racing across the field was a wall of Sleepers, moving fast and together.

  Both Mike and I jumped in the car. It was still running, that was a good thing. I shut my door, threw the car in reverse. We couldn’t go forward, that was home and the last thing I wanted to do was lead them there and be the pied piper of death.

  As fast as I could, I backed up and turned the car around. The second I straightened out to go forward, they hit the road and I hit the gas.

  There was no turning back, not yet. Not until we had led them far enough away.

  Michael didn’t say anything, he just glared at me as if to say, ‘I told you so.’ My look to him was no less than apologetic.

  Yet, again, I had screwed up.

  41. Mera
<
br />   The batteries had finally died on the camera, of course, that was after continuously watching videos and looking at pictures, rewinding to hear my children say, ‘I love you, Mom.’ Ed had more batteries, however, I opted to wait until the next day.

  I was exhausted and I had barely touched the surface of what I wanted to see in my home.

  Phoenix and Keller adjusted well. Phoenix never once asked why we were there. I dug up the old Dr. Seuss books and sat with boys and read to them.

  Keller had yet to make a sound. Ed said we’d work on that while at the house. He said Keller could hear, and never told anyone except those close to him. He advised me to do the same, it was better that way.

  The boy was an amazing source of information the older he grew. Ed said not everyone that joined our group was good and Alex smoked them out because of Keller.

  Ed talked a lot about Alex. Then again, he claimed he was like him. But what of Beck? He mentioned he wasn’t dead, but there weren’t many stories about Beck. I’d ask him about that when I had a chance. A part of me just didn’t want to know.

  The babies didn’t fall asleep easily. Phoenix, in all his intelligent glory, kept asking why would someone want to eat Green Eggs and Ham. Question after question, sparked Danny to say to Ed, “This baby is super intelligent. You don’t come across that way.”

  “Neither will he, once he learns it gets him nowhere nor the attention the other kids get. It became much more fun to play ball than recite math facts,” Ed stated.

  “You're still smart.”

  Ed smiled. “Yeah, I think so.”

  We dined on a stolen jar of hog stew and some delicious honey bacon jerky that Renee had made, a meal that would suffice.

  One thing I did was store my blankets in those seal a bags. Daniel used to think I was insane, shoving the blanket in the bag and sucking out the air.

  It was a good thing I did because the blankets were clean. I had just put them away for the warmer weather when the world collapsed.

  I cuddled with the babies on the couch, dozing off, listening to Danny and Ed in the kitchen.

  “We planned this one out,” Ed said. “At least compared to what I read in the other letters.”

  I heard the shuffling of paper. Danny was probably reading the future letters. “Looks that way,” he said. “Seems like you just popped back in time without a real plan.”

  “Yeah, but we didn’t know what we knew this time. Plus, our number one course of action was to get you and your mom out of Haven.”

  “You tried to save Jessie.”

  “I did. We never knew what happened. No one told us, only that it was a horrible accident with the fence. We never knew when.”

  Listening to them took my breath away. Ed did try, he really did.

  Ed said with a heavy breath, “At least I got to meet her and know her. I didn’t think I'd get that chance.”

  “She was different before getting the Sleeper virus. I honestly think it was a curse for her at times. She’d look at me as if she knew what was going on but was trapped in her body.”

  I closed my eyes. I, too, thought that about Jessie. Was her survival more for me? Did she truly have a real quality of life? A part of me believes she did, at least at the end.

  Then Danny asked, “What am I like when I get older? You don’t have to tell me my fate.”

  “You’re the best big brother. And I look at you and still see my big brother.”

  “How did you get so much done?”

  “Aside from a few time trips to prepare the house, I had to expose my identity to two people in Haven. Apparently I never did that in the past, so it couldn’t hurt. One is hiding who I am, the other helped us get out.”

  “Why didn’t you just come out and tell Alex?”

  “Like you,” Ed said, “he needed to see the truth, not hear it. He wouldn’t believe it. I left blatant clues to where we are though. He’ll find it if he searched my room. Plus, telling Alex removes the disarray. Disarray is vital because the source can’t inadvertently cause trouble. He doesn’t just want the Sleepers to take over, he wants me and Keller. If we live amongst them, grow up with them, then Keller and I can’t be a weapon against them. Man won’t survive long enough to reach Randy’s generation.”

  “How do you know that?”

  Ed laughed. “I couldn’t tell you how many times we were taken. The source was always with the rescue party. Keller used to call him the Sandman, because he would see him in his dreams, he just couldn’t figure out who he was.”

  “Maybe that’s what we should call him from here on in,” Danny suggested. “If we call him by a different name, we’ll see him differently.”

  “Then I think we should. It’s better than ‘the source.’”

  Danny chuckled. It was a good laugh. I enjoyed hearing my son’s happiness over his anger and grief. Then the sound of a squeaking chair rang out.

  Danny asked. “Where are you going?”

  “Just checking for Sleepers. I got rid of a lot of them, even if they can’t hone in on us, they can still come.”

  “Want some help? I would love to be able to do that cool sword thing you do.”

  “Wanna hear something funny?” Ed said. “You taught me.”

  “Dude! No way, that’s awesome!”

  “You’re the master.”

  “I love it,” Danny said.

  I did too. Not so much the sword wielding but the fact that my son was focused on something other than his bitterness. Even not surrounded by high walls or electric fences, oddly enough, for the first time in years, I felt one hundred percent safe and at ease..

  42. Sonny

  I felt like someone from the future. Totally dependent on the words of wisdom found in the Doctrines. Yet, there I was, reading them daily, to have assurance that Alex was still alive.

  It had been three days. I was a roller coaster of emotions. Scared that he wouldn’t come back, worried that he was hurt and pissed off that the people in the community seemed to be more concerned about Michael without a mention of Alex.

  What the hell?

  Bonnie had said it wasn’t Alex that found this place, that it was me. Had it been me or Miles out there, then probably the community would use their resources to find us.

  Why the anger at Alex?

  How fast and easily they forgot all that he did for them in Grace. How he pretty much, despite what he said, single-handedly ran the community. How many people heard his voice over the radio, calling to them? He was their guiding light.

  Of course, these same people didn’t mention much about Beck. Maybe I was misguided in my thinking and believed them to be more to the good of all because I knew them both so well.

  I would have gone out looking for Alex, but all of our working vehicles were gone.

  The kids missed Mera, Randy had taken over the educator position along with his other duties, and I was trying my best to keep things going along with Miles. I was at my wit's end.

  It was just after breakfast when I was running around doing ‘checks’ that the tower radioed.

  “East back gate,” they said. “Alex and Michael. They’re alone.”

  At first I was relieved and then I grew furious. Where were they? What took them so long? They were supposed to return at nightfall.

  I hurried that way and by the time I met up with them, they were already at the cell block buildings. My intention to yell at him fell through when I saw Alex.

  He wasn’t injured, at least physically. His face was drawn and he appeared to be on the brink of a breakdown.

  “You guys okay?” I asked.

  “We’re fine,” Michael answered. “We ran into a huge Sleeper mass that first day and had to lead them a good distance away. Then we ran out of gas. We walked a lot. We found transportation but that ran out of gas last night. We’ve been walking since dawn.”

  “Alex?” I prompted.

  He lifted his eyes. They were dark, tired, and glossed over. “Sonny, I don’t kn
ow what to do. Where to go. They’re out there, Sonny. Somewhere. I have to find them.”

  The first thing that went through my mind was that Alex was a wreck. Did Michael not do his ‘Man of the Cloth’ therapy thing to him? Then I remembered if Michael tried, he would have used the 'God angle' and that wouldn’t work on Alex.

  I reached out my hand. “Alex, look. Keep it together. We’ll find them, we will. There’s something you—”

  “Sonny,” Miles called, trotting quickly to us on one of the community horses. His voice was excited. That filled me with hope.

  He made his way to us. Miles caught his breath. “Beck’s back.”

  *

  It was the first time I ever recalled seeing a look of fear on Alex’s face. I didn’t blame him. I was scared too. It was like waiting for your father to get home and having to tell him that his car had been totaled. Except, Beck’s life had been totaled.

  Every single person had been instructed to not say a word to Beck until I did. What I didn’t expect was for everyone to avoid him like the plague. There wasn’t a person to be seen near the main building. We arrived as Beck was coming out of the main building and obviously heading to find Mera.

  My insides tangled and twisted. “Who tells him?” I asked.

  Michael said, “I think I’m the best one to do so.”

  “No,” Alex said gravely. “We all do it. It’ll come out of one of us.”

  Beck had a huge smile across his face. One I could see at a distance.

  “Hey!” he shouted out. “What the hell? Where is everyone?” He jogged our way. “Sorry for the scare, but we really were victorious over…” The smile dropped from his face.

  “Beck,” I said softly.

  “Oh my God. What happened?” Beck asked.

  “We tried to radio you,” Michael said. “We tried to reach you. We did, Beck.”

  “What happened?” he repeated. “Alex?”

  Michael reached for him. “We need to go inside, sit down and—”