The Leader (4 page)

I’m going nuts.

Swallowing the lump in his throat, he
glanced back at Vanessa and asked, “You want to talk about
it?”

She continued to stare out the window,
her head resting against the glass. “85 to 90% of the world’s
population is marked to die, and we’re on the list.”

“
We don’t have to be. There
are still places to hide.”

Laughing bitterly, she asked, “And
where would that be? They have cameras and listening devices
everywhere.” Then she stopped and looked at him. “Are they
listening to us now?”

“
No. I have a way to block
them. They think we’re listening to the radio.”

She sighed and turned her attention
back to the window. “Why did you call the ambulance? Why didn’t you
let me die?”

“
Because I have a hiding
place in Alaska. I’ll take you with me when it’s time to hide. I
have plenty of food and water stored up there. When they start
taking people to the internment camps, we’ll head out. That’s when
things will get ugly.”

For the first time since he’d found
her by the empty bottle of pills in her office late that Saturday
night, a hopeful look crossed her face. “You really have a place
you can hide?”

“
Yes. I’ve been carefully
stocking supplies there. It’s a small cabin in the middle of
nowhere. There’s no plumbing or electricity, but it’s somewhere to
go.”

“
It beats what the
Illuminati have planned.” She wiped the tears that trickled down
her cheeks. “All this time you think the government is there to
help its people, but it’s not. You sign up to help people but you
find out your mission is to scare them into obedience. And all for
what? So they can control our lives and then get rid of those who
resist? We’re like a bunch of lab rats to them.”

“
Not everyone in the
government is corrupt.”

“
No. But a lot take bribes.
I have to wonder if most of them even know as much as we
do.”

He shrugged and turned onto another
street. “Politics and money go hand in hand. He who has the most
money controls what happens at the higher levels.”

“
And no one can stop
it?”

“
How? The world leaders,
the Bilderbergs, the Trilateral Commission, the United Nations...
Even the aliens are in on it.”

Her lower lip trembled. “What are we
supposed to do?”

With a resigned sigh, he said the only
word that had echoed through his head for years. “Survive. Hide,
wait, survive. People are taking measures to hide. I’m not the only
one. We have to be our own hope.”

She closed her eyes and rested her
forehead against the window.

“
When the time comes, you
can go with me to Alaska. You don’t have to lie down and die. You
have a chance.” She didn’t answer, so he added, “Just let me know
if you’re interested, alright?”

She nodded but continued looking out
the window.

How he wished she didn’t have to go
through this. How he wished none of them did. He longed for
innocence. The time when he was young and thought the world was a
happy place where people wanted to help each other. Sure, there
were a few bad guys, but the government was there to help protect
and preserve freedoms. It’d all been an illusion. Once he got his
job, he became aware of so many things.

He rubbed his forehead and thought he
saw a shadow in the backseat when he looked at his rearview mirror.
It vanished as soon as he saw it...or thought he saw it. Maybe he
was going crazy. Maybe he was seeing and hearing things that
weren’t there.

He glanced in the mirror again.
Nothing was in the backseat. Breathing a sigh of relief, he turned
onto the street where Vanessa lived. Once he carried her suitcase
to her apartment, he asked her to call him if she needed
anything.

“
Okay. I will,” she softly
replied, glancing around her living room as if she’d never seen it
before.

“
I mean it. About that
place in Alaska.”

She nodded but refrained from making
eye contact.

Unsure of what else to do or say, he
gently closed the front door and left.

***

In the dark room lit only by thirteen
candles stood the Bilderberg Group, one hundred and thirty of the
most influential people around the world. They surrounded a man who
had his eyes closed as he rested on the table in the center of the
room. They wore cloaks and chanted. The power shifted through the
room, subtle at first but undeniable.

The thing formed, dark at first but
grew lighter until it assumed the image of a man and stepped
forward. “The Master’s DNA.”

He held his hand out and one of the
Bilderberg members stepped forward. He handed the needle to
him.

“
Soon. Soon we shall
inherit the Earth,” the creature said, carefully concealing its
black wings lest the others see them. With slow methodical steps,
it went over to the man lying down. “Our leader. What was started
in Eden, let it now come to completion. Let that which God tried to
destroy be achieved. Let man become as God, knowing both good and
evil and having the power denied him for so long.”

He injected the man with the DNA, and
the Bilderberg group held their breath in expectation. Finally, all
that they’d worked for and sought was about to come to pass. The
air was thick with tension as they watched, waiting to see if their
Leader would accept his host.

A subtle shift wavered through the
group, making them aware something was there, but they were unable
to see it. It, however, wasted no time in assuming its host’s body
and settled comfortably into it. The man had been trained to accept
the Leader, and now the Leader was merging into a physical
existence.

With a smile, the Leader opened his
new eyes and sat up, seeing things through the eyes of a mortal,
feeling things only a man could touch and being confined to a third
dimensional world of existence. The limits were binding but
necessary. The time had come. The final battle would be soon. He
must act in haste. He stood, quickly adapting to the fragile body
that was moment by moment wearing down. Mortals. Such frail things.
Quickly snuffed out. Disposable. Weak. Pliable. Perfect for his
purposes, for as long as he intended to keep them
around.

The one with the carefully concealed
black wings who had injected the DNA into the Leader’s new body
gave the Leader a knowing smile, hiding a chuckle as the Bilderberg
members stared on in awe and worship.

The Leader smirked at the black-winged
fallen angel before saying, “Be gone. Your purpose is
served.”

The creature faded into a faint blue
mist until it left no trace of its presence.

The Leader took in the simple humans
who claimed to be the best of all mankind and said, “Engage the war
between Israel and Iran. It’s time I arrived.”

Chapter Six

Autumn turned to Alicia two days later
at work. They stared at the iPhone in Alicia’s hand and watched the
morbid details on the news via the internet.

“
Why aren’t the aliens
stopping this?” Alicia asked, looking at her friend.

Autumn, who felt frozen in fear, could
only stare at her. “This is World War III, isn’t it?”

Gulping, she returned her gaze to the
phone and watched the video on the live news feed. Israel and Iran
were actively preparing to strike each other, but the question was
who would do it first. There was no longer a question of if they
would go to war but when. And here Autumn and Alicia were sitting
in a department store as if this Christmas season was going to be
like any other.

“
Maybe it’s just talk,”
Alicia weakly said. “How many times have we been hearing about a
breakout over there?”

“
Yeah, but this time troops
are getting ready.”

“
The aliens have to
intervene. They can’t let us destroy ourselves. They have to stop
it.”

Autumn knew her friend was trying to
convince herself of this since she spoke to herself. Not knowing
what else to do, Autumn watched the news on the iPhone. Hampton had
been warning them that a Middle East breakout was going to occur at
any moment, but up until now, she’d hoped he was wrong.

“
Tensions are mounting as
Israel is asking the United States to be an ally. So far the
president hasn’t given an answer. It looks like if Israel engages
in an attack, it might do so on its own,” the newscaster
announced.

Autumn decided she’d heard enough.
“Mind if I smoke?”

“
No. Go for it,” Alicia
replied.

Autumn stood and numbly grabbed her
coat from the employee lounge before she went outside. It was
undeniable. Her life had become a horrible nightmare that never got
any better. One bad thing happened right after the other, and it
was becoming clear that things were only getting worse.

She reached the bench outside and sat
down. Her hands shook and she didn’t know if it was from the low
temperatures or from her nerves.

A warmth came from her right, a warmth
which by now had become familiar enough to be comforting. She knew
no one else saw the angel as it appeared next to her, but she spoke
aloud anyway. So people passing by to enter the store might think
she was nuts. So the security guard who checked IDs might glance
over and think she was off her rocker. So whoever manned the
security camera that scanned the entrance might take a look at the
recording and think she was a loon. So what? What did any of it
matter anymore?

She lit her cigarette and inhaled
before she spoke to the angel who decided to show his white wings
today. “Is it possible that I can die from lung cancer before I’m
nuked into oblivion?” she asked, realizing her joke was too morbid
to be funny.

“
You will not be nuked,”
the angel assured her.

She looked at him, noting the peaceful
expression on his face. “I guess if you’re immortal, you can’t fear
death.”

“
Death only frightens you
because it’s an unknown.”

“
You don’t know fear, do
you?”

“
I do, just not on the same
level you do.”

“
What do you have to
fear?”

“
The choices humans
make.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she was
aware that a woman gave her a bewildered look before passing by.
Autumn took another puff from her cigarette. “You mean whether or
not we’ll blow each other up?”

“
No. I mean, whose side
you’ll choose.”

“
Side? What
side?”

“
God or Satan. I can only
be a messenger. I can’t make you choose, nor can I make you talk to
Devon.”

She rolled her eyes, fighting off her
frustration. “You’re upset because I wouldn’t talk to him at the
hospital.”

“
No. I’m not upset. I’m
worried.”

“
Worried he’ll make the
wrong decision?”

He nodded.

She gave a bitter laugh. “I got news
for you. He’s already made his decision. He works for them. One of
the demons lurk around him.”

“
Not by his
choice.”

“
He’s in league with them.
He sets off bombs. He tells the governor to put people back to
sleep. He was at Area 51 inserting something behind Alex’s
ear.”

“
But he hasn’t made the
choice.”

She shook her head. “Don’t you see
that thing that hovers by him?”

“
It’s by him. It’s not in
him. There is a difference. Influence and possession are two
separate things, and until he makes the choice, it will not
leave.”

“
Unless he makes the wrong
choice, right? Then it enters him?”

“
Yes.”

Frustrated, she took another puff.
“Why don’t you talk to him like you talk to me?”

“
I tried.”

She rolled her eyes. “Tried? You’re an
angel. That makes you powerful enough to do more than us mortals
can.”

“
Angels are limited. I
cannot will myself to contact Devon. He has to be open to it. He
needs help getting there.”

“
And I’m it?” She laughed
again. “Last time I told him about the spirit realm, he said I was
nuts. He doesn’t want to talk to me, nor do I want to talk to
him.”

“
He needs to talk to you,
and he does want to talk to you. He’s trapped. He doesn’t know how
to get out.”

She finished her cigarette and put it
into the trash can. “What about Alex?” When he didn’t respond, she
took a good look at his solemn expression. “Has he made a choice?”
she demanded, aware that as her voice rose, her body grew
tense.

“
No.”

“
So why don’t I spend my
efforts trying to help him? At least Alex is a nice guy who doesn’t
go around hurting people.”

The angel sighed and stared at the man
who walked by. “Devon’s open. He wants help.”

“
Just not enough so you can
talk to him.” She tucked her hands into her coat pocket and fought
off the blast of wind that blew around them. “How is it you could
talk to me in May? I wasn’t seeking out angels. I didn’t believe in
God.”