“I guess we could have been more proactive,” Victor said.
“Victor was telling me about the End of Everything.”
Dad and Caleb made amused, oh, how morbid noises.
She started to explain some of what Victor had said, something about humanity slowly dying off and the survivors reverting back into primal beings, like cavemen.
“As in shoeless?” Caleb asked.
The laughing faded quickly.
“It’s something I believe,” Victor said. “It’s hard to disagree that the time is near when you look at everything going on right now. We are no longer on the cusp of great change: we are in the midst of it.”
“There have been so many times just like the present throughout history,” Dad said. “People thought the world was ending back in the sixties. Then the eighties. Every global crisis carries with it a sense of apocalyptic doom. People cling to that for whatever reason. Maybe it makes the daily grind easier knowing it will all be over soon. Course it never is over.”
“Humanity will devour itself and only the eaters will survive,” Victor said.
“You mean the violent?”
“The people who embrace our true natures.”
“Meaning the uncivilized brutes who believe violence is the answer to all problems? If that’s who is going to inherit the Earth, I don’t think humanity has very long to go at all.”
“You’re right about one thing,” Victor said. “Humanity, civilization, as we know and understand it, doesn’t have very long left, but the world you imagine is far too pessimistic. The approaching New Time will be one of enlightenment.”
“Living as cavemen?” Caleb asked. He smiled, so amused with himself.
Victor considered. “Not everyone is going to survive. People who refuse to accept what must be done will be cast aside.”
“That’s rather Biblical of you, Victor,” Dad said.
“God has nothing to do with this.”
“He’s merely watching the great debacle transpire?”
“The forces at work are greater than God. Much greater.”
“Now that sounds interesting,” Dad said. “What could be greater than God, assuming He exists, of course?”
“Do you know how many people there are in the world?” Victor asked.
“A lot,” Caleb said. Mercy thought of all the smart ass kids she ever sat near in school.
“Almost seven billion.”
No one spoke for a moment, the number weighing on them. Mercy couldn’t really imagine several billion of anything. The number was more like a random statistic than anything tangible. As if this whole discussion were philosophical.
Wasn’t it?
“How many people do you think will survive the Great Change?” Victor asked.
“Worldwide?”
Victor nodded like a wizened sage.
Dad toyed with an answer, a smile playing at his lips. “Why don’t you tell me.”
“Fewer than one hundred thousand,” Victor said.
“And what happens to all those other billions? They vanish?”
“Most will probably starve to death,” Victor said. “The rest? They’ll be cleansed.”
“As in bathed?” Caleb asked.
Victor stared at Caleb for what felt like a while and Mercy tried to think of something to say to break the tension, lighten the mood that had turned dark uncomfortably fast. She could not think of anything.
“They’ll be killed,” Victor said.
The slight smile that curved his upper lip made Mercy think of deranged madmen stalking the streets for vulnerable women. Men who carried knives underneath long, slick jackets.
THIRTY-THREE
Victor couldn’t help but grin. A lesser man, someone who believed he controlled his own success, would be gushing with masturbatory self-congratulations. Everything was falling very perfectly into place. Victor, however, knew he was only a servant to a grand, amorphous master. If he did what was expected of him, did not fight against it out of some misguided self-assurance that he knew better, but fully embraced his destiny, all things would come to him.
They were practically in his hands already.
Mercy’s father glared at Victor for a moment and then burst out laughing. “Of course they’ll be killed. The question is how.”
Victor shrugged. “How many ways are there to die?”
“Now, there’s a discussion,” her father said.
“Maybe for weirdos on the Internet at two in the morning,” Mercy said. “But I really don’t want to get into that now.”
“Okay,” her father said. “You’re right.”
When his eyes met Victor’s again, however, he said, “If billions of people are going to die, it’s got be some kind of global climate apocalypse. Thousand-foot tsunamis or unprecedented hurricanes or--”
“Systematic murder,” Victor said. “One at a time.”
Her father seemed to consider that. “Sounds like it’ll be a while before the Great Change then.” He laughed and so did Caleb. Victor joined in after a moment.
“Maybe not as far off as you think,” Victor said. “This process started a long time ago.”
The fire made crinkling, snapping noises and the darkness weighed on Mercy’s father like a foreign hand, slumping his shoulders, bowing his head. His face fell into shadow and the firelight set his hair aglow. It almost looked like a halo. As if angels actually existed.
Above, a crow cawed.
“You’re a very interesting man,” Mercy’s father said. Something more lingered on his lips but he kept it to himself as if afraid to voice those thoughts.
“You want to take a walk?” Mercy asked.
Her legs were pulled up to her chest, head tilted so it was almost resting on her knees and her hair cascaded toward the ground. It would be so easy to wrap his hand in that hair and yank her head back and forth. Yank it hard enough to snap her neck.
“No,” Mercy’s father said. “You shouldn’t go walking in the woods after dark.”
“Dad. There’s nothing out here. We’ll be fine.”
He turned to Caleb. “How about you show me that tent you’ve got over there. Some kind of fancy thermal igloo thing?”
“Sort of,” Caleb said.
The men stood. Mercy’s father nodded to Victor and then winked at his daughter. Caleb simply turned around and walked to his single-size tent. Before their forms could vanish completely into the darkness, flashlight beams shone from their sides like sabers and they became walking ghosts.
Victor didn’t believe in ghosts, not as most people thought of them anyway. Ghosts were manifestations of the universe’s will. They were messengers. He had never seen one but if ever there were a time and place to encounter one it was tonight on this mountain. Such a sign would be further vindication that he was not only right in what he was doing but empowered to keep going and going until the reward was his. Until Mercy Higgins was writhing beneath him, moaning or screaming in pleasure or pain. It didn’t matter which.
“I feel bad,” Mercy said.
“Why?”
“My dad is trying to be so nice while he’s . . .”
“He’s what?”
She licked her upper lip. “He’s got cancer.”
“I guess the conversation about the end of everything wasn’t exactly what he wanted to hear,” Victor said.
She shrugged. “He actually seemed interested. I don’t know. He only just told me today. I don’t know how he’s feeling. We come up here because my mother died of cancer a few months ago and he thought we needed some time or something.”
“You poor thing,” he said, sounding sincere and empathetic. For a moment, he wondered if he actually had been sincere.
She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get all sad.”