Grief: Five Stories of Apocalyptic Loss (5 page)

"Shh, shh, shh." Pastor Kostka took Lucile's face gently in his strong hands. "The Lord never asks more from us than we can give, Lucile. I won't make you do anything you can't live with."

Lucile sobbed almost silently as the pastor adjusted his grip.

There was a sudden twist, and she slumped against him and was still.

It was too bad, really. She'd always been the more attractive one.

***

Wendy wasn't a religious woman. She'd been raised Catholic and had gone to church dutifully on Easter and Christmas with her parents until she was twelve, but when she'd told them she didn't want to go anymore at thirteen they'd seemed almost relieved, and stopped attending themselves. She supposed she was still nominally Christian in that she'd never officially declared herself not, but didn't give the matter of God a second thought. Hers was a casual, almost natural disbelief.

What she did believe in, though, was survival. The more time she spent with the New Ark Cult, the crazier they seemed.

That was okay. She could deal with crazy, if it meant a seat on that spaceship they had. She didn't know if they knew how to operate it, or if this "divine providence" would lead them to a habitable planet, but it was a chance. And she'd do a lot for a chance to keep on living.

She'd fuck the old man, for one. That part wasn't really surprising, for a doomsday cult. He went on and on about the need to quickly populate New Eden, trying hard to sell her the idea of taking him bareback, and she didn't feel like educating him on the nature of her IUD.

The cannibalism had been a bit harder to swallow, no pun intended. She was doubly glad about keeping quiet about the IUD after being told that those who were "worthy but not worthy enough" -- less fertile-seeming women, men, children, anyone who couldn't get knocked up -- would travel to New Eden in spirit -- spirit transmitted through the flesh, flesh devoured in a bizarre communion ritual. They didn't have to eat much, just a piece of the heart -- where the soul was thought to reside -- but really, any amount of cannibalism was too much cannibalism.

She didn't have a choice, not if she wanted a seat on their ship. And the runner-up prize for "second most holy" was a guided tour through the cult's gastrointestinal track.

Yeah.

A little cannibalism wasn't so bad. Not if you wanted to live. Next to that, fucking the old man was the best part of her day.

***

The day of the Exodus

"Faithful brethren." Pastor Kostka stood before his twenty-nine brides, some of whom were even now bearing his children, destined to be New Eden's first generation. "Last night I saw, clearly, for the the first time, the doom of this sinful world bright in the sky. This was the sign I have been waiting for, the sign that it is finally time to depart the ruins of mankind's folly for the glory of New Eden."

"Praise Be!" Sister Amanda said.

"Glory to God!" Sister Trudy added. The other women, his wives, added their own gratitudes to the chorus.

Kostka held a hand up. "This is truly God's plan, a new unspoilt world, to be populated by the souls of the worthy we carry within us. We will act as righteous stewards for this new world, caring for it, watching ourselves for sin and corruption, for now the secret of bodily resurrection has been bestowed upon us. A spiritual cleansing is as simple and easy as the Flesh Communion -- those who fall from grace can be returned to the community as newborns with a blank slate, a fresh start, a new beginning."

The chorus of gratitudes returned, and the Pastor basked in the congregation's joy. He started up the slope towards the quonset hut housing their salvation, and they followed.

"God lead us to this safe haven. It was the Lord that revealed to me the craft that its former owner had left behind. It was He who guided my hands, who told me what needed to be done to get it ready for our needs. It was through divine inspiration that I, a simple man, no engineer, knew enough to create the miracle that will enable us to fulfill his will."

He stopped before the hut's massive doors, gripping one of the handles tightly. "Behold. Behold, my children, the ark that will carry us to New Eden!"

***

Wendy stood in mute astonishment alongside the rest of the congregation, staring at Pastor Kostka's ark.

It had been a shuttle, once. Not a shuttle, Wendy absently corrected herself, a bus. A school bus, re-purposed as a corporate shuttle for retreats out to this isolated facility, bringing middle-management types from the city for paint-ball or other team-building exercises. The Pastor's modifications, as far as Wendy could tell, were limited to bolting a few aerials onto the hood, attaching a tin-foil flag to the antenna, and chaining what looked like a half-disassembled jet-propeller onto the back. She wasn't an aerospace engineer, but the ark didn't exactly look space-worthy.

The Pastor looked back towards his flock as he approached it. "Impressive, isn't it?"

The enormity of what she was looking at hit Wendy powerfully, and she fell in a boneless heap to the gravel path.

"What... what..." Amanda started.

"It's magnificent!" One of the other women approached it slowly, a too-manic grin on her face.

"What... what the fuck is this?" Amanda said.

"Gaze upon the glory of God's creation! Praise be!" one of the others said, walking towards it slowly.

Wendy gazed at the cultists in disbelief. How could they be so far gone? Almost half of them were approaching the bus with expressions of ecstatic bliss on their faces. The others shared a similar horrified demeanor.

"You're insane," Amanda said in a whisper. "All those people we killed. Oh God, and we ate them."

"Oh God," another woman said. "What have we done? What did you do to us!"

The Pastor stepped forward, a look of surprise on his face. "Ladies, please... the time of our ascension is at hand. Don't let your doubt cause you to waver. We're so close.."

"Shut the fuck up!" Amanda screamed. "We fucking trusted you! I trusted you! You said we could be saved!"

Kostka recoiled. "You can! You will be! Behold, the ark! It may not look like much, but God's design!"

"Fuck God!" Amanda said. She picked up a rock and hurled it towards the pastor.

He ducked to the side, dodging the clumsy throw, and seemed to shocked to respond.

"Fuck God and fuck you! We trusted you, we fell upon our men, we killed them! Because we trusted you! For... for this?"

One of the other women stepped forward. "You're just having a crisis of faith. Calm yourself."

"What have we done?" Amanda half collapsed with a wail.

Wendy stood shakily. Why had she thought they could save her? She hadn't believed in their God. Why had she thought that they'd have a ship? She knew they were nuts. A crazy doomsday cannibal cult... why had she thought that they might have had a real ship? How could she be so stupid.

"You're a devil!" Amanda was crying.

"You've damned us all to hell!" A woman helping her up cried.

"It's alright," Pastor Kostka said shakily. "It's natural that faith would waver. We can still save them. We can bring their spirits with us to New Eden."

Wendy stooped and picked up a large rock, and it looked like some of the others had had the same idea.

"My sins might take me to hell," Amanda said, glancing at the other girls and picking up her own stone. "But I'll make damn sure you get there first."

"Ladies--" The Pastor stumbled back, falling beneath the hail of stones that seemed to never end.

Depression

"This just in." David Bright's voice did not waver. "Multiple independent agencies have confirmed that Comet X/2014 K2's path will send it directly into contact with the Earth's surface. Based on its speed, astronomers estimate that this collision will occur..."

He stopped, staring at the teleprompter. "I'm sorry," he said, not entirely sure who he was speaking to or what he was sorry for.

He tried again. "In just two weeks..."

His jaw worked, and he tried to say the words. They wouldn't come out. His eyes flickered up to the booth, to the crew, to his producers. All were staring back at him, all trying to process what he'd read. There was no help there.

David had worked in broadcast journalism for over forty years, and was a respected face, well known to the public, well thought of by his peers. He'd covered elections, he'd covered wars, he'd covered revolutions and scandals. He'd never had to lower himself to fluff pieces, scare-mongering, or politicizing. He was, many considered, one of the last few true newsmen, and it was only that name recognition and audience trust that enabled him to keep that professionalism in the sea of news-entertainment. It was a gift, the luxury of integrity, that he was deeply grateful for, and he would not let down the audience that enabled it.

He cleared his throat. "In just under two weeks, Comet X/2014 K2 will impact the earth with a force hundreds of times more powerful than the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Estimations indicate that this will cause both atmospheric and seismic disturbances leading to a climactic shift more severe than that which is believed to have driven the dinosaurs to extinction. We are facing the inevitable extermination of mankind. God help us all."

He'd said his piece. He'd done his job. The horror and disbelief dawning on the faces of his crew and co-anchor... some of them had surely had advance knowledge of the update, but hearing it spoken, hearing it in the voice of the most respected man on network news...

He turned towards his co-anchor, his voice growing conversational, an automatic reaction to dead-air, honed from years of covering for colleagues when necessary. "Do we have any official response to the news yet, Mary?"

Mary blinked and glanced down at her notes. She was a good kid, that one, new to the team and already proving her chops. She was of the new breed of journalists, half show-woman and half talking head, but David didn't hold it against her. She didn't create the system, she just had to live and work in it.

"Not yet, David."

A simple question. Yes/No. Give her time to recover. Professionalism was about making everyone else look good.

"Stunned." He turned back to the cameras. He could see the producers looking through their notes, scrambling to come up with a response. "That's the reaction here in the studio, as I can assume that that's the reaction in homes and workplaces across the country. How does one cope with a loss of this magnitude? How does one even react? This is an event unprecedented in human history, and what we have here is an opportunity for our finest moment. How we react to this crisis is the ultimate determination of who we are, what our lives have been, what we've lead up to."

His eyes stayed locked on the camera as he noticed the producer waving him to cut out of his peripheral vision.

He gave the camera as reassuring a smile as he could manage and nodded. "More reactions to the news after the break."

***

A professional. That's what David Bright was. It's all he knew how to be, on camera. When he was working, when he had a job to do, when he had a nation -- a world -- hanging on his every word, he was cool. Confident. Composed.

Here, though. Here, in his empty apartment, behind closed doors and drawn curtains, here he felt nothing.

Numbness.

His gaze cast across his awards. Peabodies. His UNCA plaque. His Pulitzer. They spoke of a recognized career, but what did it matter, now?

He sat in his chair, across from the big-screen television, but didn't turn it on. Ice clinked in his glass as he sat in the dark, waiting.

***

"Welcome to the 6 o'clock news, I'm David Bright, Mary is out tonight." David was as professional as ever. His suit was neatly pressed, his hair was perfectly coiffed. "Our top story: the upheavals caused by Comet X/2014 K2 as it approaches the Earth. Riots in cities across the world. Here with me is Professor Henry Schmidt, a professor of sociology at the University of New York. Tell me, professor, what can we expect?"

The Professor sat uneasily, uncomfortable in his ill-fitting suit. "It's hard to say at this stage, uh, David. We've never seen a calamity of this scale before. Psychology can give us insight into the stages of grief for individuals, but when it comes to far larger groups -- cities, nations, the whole of humanity -- we can only guess at the effects of the emotional synergy."

"Emotional synergy?"

"People have a way of infecting one another, their moods. It's the 'will of the crowd.' Humanity is an intensely social species, and we're designed to form a sort of emotional gestalt. Normally when an event occurs the gestalt is limited to those who have some sort of personal connection. This event connects all of us, and I think we'll see empathy on a scale never before witnessed."

"Empathy," David smiled. "Really?"

"It's not necessarily a good thing, David," Professor Schmidt said. "The emotions in play aren't positive ones. Rage. Terror. Anguish. We're going to witness a potent mix of negativity."

David's smile faded. "And what do you think the end result of this is going to be?"