“Diablo! Diablo demonio!” The man pushed himself back in the dirt.
“He thinks we’re all demons….” Jane stopped, looking over her shoulder. “Do you hear that?”
“Mary, madre de la gracia,” the man continued, tears in his eyes.
“Hear what?” Quincy asked.
“That buzzing. What is that?” Jane asked.
“I don’t hear anything.”
The sound of tires tearing across dirt came from the near distance. “Someone’s coming,” William said. “Jane, can you tell him—”
“William Chance!” came a voice on a bullhorn from deep within the trees. “Drop to your knees and put your hands on your head!”
They looked to the grove, seeing the shapes running. Soldiers in camouflage, their weapons out, barreling towards them.
A drone then buzzed over, just as the approaching vehicles grew louder and greater in number.
“Get behind that truck!” William ordered.
In the increasing noise came the sound of helicopters, lifting over the swell of hills nearby. From the road, Marauders came to a grinding halt, the doors flying open and more soldiers rushing out.
“William Chance! The entire perimeter is surrounded. Please put your hands on your head and direct the others with you to do the same.”
The soldiers in the groves were quickly approaching, the others that had swarmed around Quincy’s rented truck were lining up as well, their weapons fixed on them.
“Mr. Chance! This is your final warning. We do not want to hurt you or any of those people. Your family is here. They want you to stop this,” boomed the voice.
He saw it then. The soldiers waved four people out from one of the Marauders.
William’s heart dropped, seeing his aunts Kate and Stella surrounded by soldiers. He watched them both turn back to help two women out.
At the sight of Roxy and his grandmother, his chest tightened.
“No!” he bellowed.
They had them. All of them. Regardless of everything he did, everything he’d done, they were still in harm’s way.
“Mr. Chance! Now!” the bullhorn bellowed.
He saw some of the weapons turn towards his grandmother.
William closed his eyes.
Fire exploded, the very dirt erupting in fire, so tall it reached to the tops of the trees. The leaves caught fire next, the fruit exploding with the heat. As the soldiers near the grove stumbled away, the trunks sizzled and began to ignite.
The flames encircled William and the others, now rising so high that the sight of the hovering helicopters was lost.
William breathed, beginning to walk towards the flames, keeping his connection strong with the immigrant. The presence was there, again on the boundary, angrily trying to penetrate, knowing William was controlling another.
Burn, burn, burn, he could almost feel it commanding.
With the heat of the flames so strong that it began to singe his eyelashes, he again closed his eyes.
Like the sudden shutting off of a gas valve, the flames immediately died, and as if a downpour of rain suddenly fell and then evaporated, the leaves and charred trees smoked but no longer burned.
The only sound was the spitting of dying embers.
“Listen to me!” he yelled. “This can all stop! Right now!”
“Mr. Chance!” the voice on the bullhorn called out. “Your family wants you to turn yourself in—”
“You saw how quickly I put out that fire! Watch your satellites! Above the fires in California!”
“William! Do not move! Drop to your knees!”
William slowly began to step back, holding up his hands. “Are you watching? The fires? There were storms in Louisiana and we stopped them! There’s no more violence in Washington! Watch your satellites!”
He braced for the command to fire, the sting of bullets. The seconds it took to scurry back to the others felt like a lifetime.
The immigrant man cowered behind the truck, and William swallowed, compelling him to come towards him. With fear in his eyes, the man stumbled forward, straining to keep William from touching him.
The man stiffened as William reached deep within their connection with a simple command.
Stop. Stop the flames.
The man slumped, and William knew. All across burning San Joaquin Valley, the flames began to snuff out, as if a torrent of water had been tossed upon it. While he could not see it, William had no doubt that all that remained was scorched earth.
“Did you see? It’s over! The fires are out!” William called out.
He could see in the distance several of the soldiers clustered around large satellite phones, pointing excitedly.
Conferring with a soldier on the phone beside him, the man with the gray hair raised the bullhorn to his mouth. “William. No one wants to hurt any of you. You all need to come forward and surrender yourselves.”
“We can control it! All of it! No more people have to die!” William yelled.
“People are still dying, William!” the man responded.
“That’s impossible,” William whispered to himself. He then cupped his hands to his mouth. “It’s over! All of it!”
“William, whatever you’re trying to do, it’s not working. People are still dying! We just checked with the hospital at the edge of the hot zone!”
“Lily!” William called out, motioning for the girl. She cautiously approached as William let go of the immigrant, who staggered back, running for the truck.
He reached out and took her hand, feeling the furious dark, pounding just beyond their connection. William reached deeper within Lily, commanding her to stop the sicknesses.
Nothing came from her. The weapon inside lay dormant.
“I’m sorry,” he heard Lily say.
William looked to the girl. “Lily, I don’t understand….”
“William, you have five seconds to get to the ground!” the bullhorn screamed.
Suddenly he knew.
It struck him like a hammer. Each time he entered the dream to see the sickness at the hospital, and looked beyond to the stone formations beyond, he would see eyes. Eyes still in the stone. Even though Lily was with him.
He kept his focus on Lily. “That isn’t you, is it?”
“I tried to get Ava out,” Lily wept. “But she was trapped. And I was so scared.”
“Lily, who is Ava?”
“William! Drop now! All of you, drop now!” the voice commanded.
“I don’t know how I got out. I promised her I would come back for her. I tried to tell you…” Guilt and anguish washed over Lily’s nine-year-old face. “My sister is in the mountain. With the monster.”
William wanted to ask more, but a red laser light from a high-powered rifle appeared on Lily’s forehead. He stepped in front of her, the light now squarely on his stomach, and dropped to his knees.
TWENTY-ONE
Through a child’s eyes, the mesas did look like mountains.
They’d arrived by helicopter at the military encampment at the Theodore Roosevelt National Park at dawn, in time to see the sky awaken the silver of the sage, the bluish gray of the sandstone, the gold of the clay. It would have been a breathtaking view: the morning sun on the expansive canyons where broken towers of stone loomed over the vast emptiness. The swath of all-terrain military vehicles, forming a barrier to prevent anyone from entering what the locals had come to call the death zone, was like a camouflaged stain on the earth.
William looked out the eastern window, the other helicopters sweeping in like a flock of blackbirds. As he leaned forward, the soldier in front of him stirred, his finger moving an inch or so closer to the trigger. The four other camouflaged men did the same, their eyes constantly focused on him and the girl beside them.