“That was nice,” she said.
“You ever think about ‘the end’?”
“The what? What do you mean?”
The fire drew him in again. “The end of everything.”
“Like 2012?”
He chuckled. “Maybe.”
“Do you really think that will happen?” she asked. “Like in that movie? The ground will just break open. The Earth will be flooded?”
“People always think the end will be some kind of epic showdown with fire and explosions and tsunamis. It’s because we think so highly of ourselves that we can’t possibly fathom that our end might be quieter, more drawn-out. That humanity will pass on so gradually most people won’t even realize it. Then they’ll be gone and that’s that.”
“Like The Stand?” she asked. “Some kind of super flu?”
“Even a super flu has a grandness to it. No, it won’t be anything so marvelous. Though it will be spectacular in its own way.”
“Then what? What will end everything?” She asked him like a disgruntled school girl.
“The world seems to be falling apart. Uprises in countries everywhere. Death in the streets. The end has already started.”
“So, global unrest? That ends it all?”
“When I say ‘the end,’ I don’t mean eternal darkness, though it will seem like that. The end of the world will be the end for most people and things. It will be the beginning of a new time. An age of enlightenment unlike any Man has experienced since he first walked the Earth.”
“You mean cavemen?” she asked.
“The people who survive the Great Shift will be one with their atavistic selves. They will be able to harness from nature everything needed for life and happiness.”
“So, cavemen?”
“Enlightened beings,” he said.
She said nothing for several minutes and he let his words begin to seep into her. He added more wood to the fire and watched the flames attack it. Fire was greedy. Never satisfied. Almost perfect in design except it lacked self-control, making it vulnerable. It didn’t know strategy. It only knew hunger. The fire in his soul would soon be unleashed and the conflagration would be unstoppable.
“How do you know who will survive?” she asked.
The sun was almost gone now and Victor felt the shadows dancing on his face like ghosts. Like promises from the universe.
“This is going to sound crazy,” he said as if he didn’t really believe it himself. “There are people out there who have a mission to sort it out. Meaning, people.”
“What?”
“They’re called cleansers. They free the chained minds and souls of the destined survivors and they help purify the world for the New Time.”
“What do you mean, ‘purify the world’?”
He stared at her. This was the moment. If the last several hours meant anything, it would be determined now. She would either be his or he would ravage her and throw her away.
He hesitated. His palms were hot, his heart beating rapidly.
“It means--”
From off in the dark, a man called, “Hey!”
Mercy turned and jumped up, headed toward the shout.
Out of the darkness came an older man with the slumped shoulders and heavy gait of a weary traveler. The bobbing dot of a flashlight rocked with his steps.
“Dad!” Mercy shouted.
When she hugged him, the other man appeared as if he had materialized out of the night.
THIRTY-TWO
She didn’t care about anything Victor was saying. She just wanted that kiss again. His lips had been so soft and the sensation rippled throughout her whole body. She fought the need to go after him. She couldn’t let him think she was so easy. He would kiss her again.
But he didn’t. He started talking about the end of the world.
Alarms went off in her head but she didn’t panic. So, the guy was eccentric. Just look at his mud-stained feet, which, by the way, she was overlooking for the sake of a little romance. Maybe he had weird theories but that didn’t mean he was dangerous. Besides, she wanted some kissing not a marriage proposal. Was that so horribly wrong?
When Dad arrived, however, she was relieved. Not only because it meant he wasn’t lying hurt somewhere but because it meant she wasn’t alone with Victor anymore and that made it safe to see how far she wanted to go.
She hugged him tightly around the neck like she used to do when she was little. Unlike back then, he did not pick her up and swing her around, singing some idiotic children’s rhyme. He sagged against her for a moment, chest heaving, and patted her on the back. When she broke the hug, she saw the man standing next to him.
“Hi,” he said. He was tall and broad shouldered and wearing well-worn hiking equipment over a sweatshirt. His flashlight was shining up into his chin, accentuating his high forehead and wide eyebrows. It took Mercy a moment to realize he was the guy she had seen this morning heading up the trail. She had imagined him as some lonely guy who would gladly hike along with them because all he really wanted was a quiet girl with whom to laugh and spend his life.
“What took you so long?” Mercy asked her father.
He sighed like he had expected this question but hoped she wouldn’t spring it on him immediately. He shared a glance with the new guy and Mercy wanted to grab Dad’s face and tell him that he had to be more considerate of her and of his own health and she had a right to know why it took so long up there--had something happened? Was he feeling okay?
She stopped herself, hugged him again instead.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m fine. I met Caleb here and we got to discussing things. Didn’t realize the time had slipped by so fast. Caleb’s quite the experienced hiker. He knew right where to go. You should have seen the view, honey. From the top, our town looks like a pimple.”
“I’m sorry,” Caleb said. “He told me about you but I didn’t realize you were down here waiting. Looks like you had company though.”
All eyes turned to Victor and he glanced away. She felt bad for him. He was a quiet guy, maybe a bit strange, but he had opened up to her over the past several hours and now he was on display like something at an auction. She nearly forgot he had been talking about the End of Everything.
“This is Victor,” she said. “He came out of the woods.”
“Did you leave your boots in the woods?” Caleb asked and smiled the way so many jocks back in high school smiled. Joel had smiled that way sometimes, too.
They all moved back toward the fire and Dad and Caleb turned off the flashlights they had been carrying by their sides. It hadn’t quite been dark enough for them to do any good.
Dad shed his equipment and sat near the fire. She offered him water and he drank it. “I ran out,” he said.
“I offered him mine,” Caleb said, “but he refused.”
“Dad.”
“It’s fine. I’m here. Aren’t I?”
She offered him a displeased glare, thought of Mom, and shook it away. She hugged him again as if she hadn’t seen him in weeks.
“It’s lucky Caleb found me,” Dad said. “I could have been lost up there for hours. The path seems pretty straight but it’s really not.”
“There’s actually several paths,” Caleb said. He looked like the host of some nature show on Discovery. Taming the Wild, perhaps. “For a newbie, it can get daunting real fast. You think you’re near the peak and then you’re staring straight up at a vertical rock formation. You are near the peak, sure, if you’ve got your climbing gear.”
“It’s a mess,” Dad said. “But it all turned out okay. Have you just been sitting here the whole time?”
It was like he had asked if she had been eating chocolate bars while watching Olympic gymnastics. “We were talking,” she said.