《Darkness Descending》


 Prologue: No One Is To Blame

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    Her papa lived til ''27, and after that, she mostly kept to herself up until everything started coming apart.


    And when she couldn''t ignore it anymore, she found us. Took us in. Got us ready.

 Chapter One: Careless Whisper

    October 16,  2028


    What do you want?


    As she stood in her galley kitchen, her favorite coffee mug in shattered pieces around her bare feet, Eve choked back tears of frustration, tears of fury, tears for the wet blanket of depression that, she was certain, wasn''t hers to carry.


    Snagging a half-spent roll of paper towels from the counter, she dropped to her knees, her faded sweatpants soaking up Coffee Mate, sugar, and the remains of a perfectly brewed Italian dark roast. Brightly colored ceramic shards punctured the tips of her shaking fingers as her clinched teeth ground together and an oppressive sense of misplaced sorrow threatened to swallow her whole.


    "This isn''t mine," she whispered fiercely to herself. "This isn''t mine, it isn''t mine, it''s not mine..."


    Lack of sleep had frayed her typically dulled nerves.


    Everything, for the past two weeks, was a fight -- from finding the remote to opening her box of Cinnamon Life to making a fucking cup of morning coffee. Little things, routine things she normally executed with her eyes half-closed, suddenly required a Herculean effort.


    She was one stubbed toe away from completely losing her shit, and she knew it.


    She just didn''t know why, and that made her nervous.


    She started again: One Keurig cup of Illy, one fresh mug, one more shot at a not-so-shitty day.


    "And why shouldn''t your day be a good one?" Eve asked herself in that internal headmaster''s voice she reserved for times when she disappointed herself. "What exactly do you have to bitch about?"


    What do you want? What do you need? What is wrong with you?


    The answer, she knew as she sunk into her front porch recliner and squinted at the sun, was nothing.


    She had all she needed. Everyone did.


    After the dust settled on the ''26 special elections and that bastard was dragged out of the White House -- after the wars ended and the supply lines were re-established and people finally just accepted that "normal" was an ever-evolving concept -- ensuring that humanity''s basic needs were met became a global mission.


    A tactical nuke will do that to folks -- regardless of their race, gender, faith, sexual predilections, political affiliations, or passionately held opinions of Taylor Swift.


    From the ashes that still define a sliver of the Middle East rose a cornucopia of sustainable opportunities based on a newly defined hierarchy of needs, and, one by one, they were gifted to a PTSD-saturated population.


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    The last of the tin-foil hat brigade packed away their paranoia as cities began to sparkle and crime was met with swift and soul-shocking justice.


    It was like Western civilization let loose with a collective primal scream and hugged it out over ice cream.


    Yes, prices were paid.


    There are things that are no longer said, questions that shouldn''t be asked, and truths that must never be spoken. Frankly, if you hadn''t lived it yourself, you wouldn''t know to mention those truths to begin with. The desire for a memory hole ran deep.


    Somewhere in the shuffle of NGOs, global governance meetings, and exorbitant legal settlements, the online historical slate was cleaned, and as much as many hated to admit it, no one really, truly gave a damn.


    It seemed better to forget and look forward.


    Even Eve had to admit, it felt better.


    After a nonstop stream of yelling, screaming, sobbing, ranting, wailing, and insulting, the universe at last felt quiet. The noise was gone.


    Until about four weeks ago.


    It was so subtle at first, Eve allowed herself to believe she was imagining it.


    An op-ed in Truthful News accused the Denver Hub of shorting District 8''s wheat supply, which shouldn''t even be possible given the algorithms. The article was later scrubbed, but not before Eve printed it out and tucked it into her scrapbook.


    She later felt stupid for doing it. "Old habits," she told herself.


    But, the next day, some lady slapped the shit out of a teacher in front of the entire school board. Why she did it, Eve didn''t know, but the fact that the local news reported it caught her attention.


    Then, two weeks ago, a video went viral on Twitter (formerly X).


    Two Texans slammed on their brakes in the middle of an Austin rush hour. One of the guys slid over the roof of his car Bo Duke-style and power-punched the other guy square in the jaw. Horns blared. People in the carpool lane cried.


    Before the drones could get there, the second guy spat out a tooth, crawled back into his car, and ran the other guy over as he strolled away.


    He ran him over three times.


    Then he stepped out of his car, flipped off the surveillance cameras, and was in the middle of lighting a cigar when a drone hit him with a taze.


    It took a random hacker less than twelve minutes to snatch the footage and spew it across social media. The son-of-a-bitch Rick Rolled the nation with it. For 17 hours, you couldn''t click a link without seeing that cowboy''s head explode.


    Whispers rolled across timelines.


    Careless whispers. The kind you just didn''t hear anymore.


    And the hair on Eve''s arms stood on end for the first time in years.


    The next morning, she woke up teetering on the edge of a familiar crash.


    She turned on the t.v., but couldn''t decide what to watch. Normally, it was the news, but that morning, every story sounded to her like it was being read by Charlie Brown''s teacher. After an hour of surfing through favorite old sci-fi episodes, the morning talk shows, and funny pet reels, she turned to Twitter, where every word of every tweet annoyed her.


    That morning, they all smacked of insincerity.


    That morning, they were all meaningless.


    The day before, Eve was delighted by her old dog''s smile when she scratched his tummy. That morning, the same goofy grin filled her with the grief of his advancing age.


    How alone she would feel when that dreaded, inevitable day came. How alone she was now.


    It all seemed so pointless, not on an emotional level, but as a simple statement of fact...


    With a gasp, Eve shook her flapper-length, home-cut hair and slammed her palms on the arms of her chair.


    "Awww, hell, no," she growled, startling her dozing dog. "This is some bullshit!"


    In her head, David Bowie cleared his throat and broke into "Fantastic Voyage": We''re learning to live with somebody''s depression; And I don''t want to live with somebody''s depression...


    That morning, Eve began burning sage.

 Chapter 2: Only the Lonely

    Eve wasn''t sure how long she''d been sitting on her porch, breathing in the pine, absorbed in her thoughts, but the singing birds and the always comical bray of a neighbor''s donkey were soothing, so she stayed there, quiet, not moving for fear the noise would resume its taunting assault.


    In the days following the Texas event, the cracks in society''s Stepford-like serenity were too wide and too many to ignore. Random acts of petty bullshit were once again on the rise, as though people were making up for lost time.


    That was the emotional whirlwind, the desperation and depression, Eve was feeling.


    History had taught her that, once she realized her misery was not her own, Eve knew how not to drown in it.


    Like the emotional fishing net that she innately was, Eve had unknowingly flung herself into the collective zeitgeist and was scooping up the bottom-dwelling breakdowns of a frazzling population.


    Her over-achieving sense of empathy emerged, Eve reckoned, at about the same time she emerged from her mother''s womb in 1970.


    She''d always been described as a "sensitive" child. That''s what they called most empaths back in the ''70s . Her intense concern for the feelings of the smallest of things -- Pet Rocks were her misunderstood babies, and don''t even mention the genocide that came from her package of freeze-dried Sea Monkeys -- was seen as a delightful testament to Eve''s budding imagination.


    Every year growing up, Eve insisted on choosing the scraggliest, most-likely-to-be-firewood trees from the Christmas lots. She''d spend hours making them beautiful with individual strands of tinsel, sparkling lights, and cherished family ornaments. To this day, though she hadn''t decorated a tree in decades, Eve swore Charlie Brown''s tree was more glorious than any they''d ever dragged into Rockefeller Center.


    By the time her tween years hit, along with the neon revolution that was the ''80s, Eve''s life goals were set: Be a writer; be a mom; and experience the kind of love Barbra Streisand had with Kris Kristofferson in A Star Is Born.


    Well, Eve often told herself, at least she got one of them right.


    She was never able to get pregnant -- not for a lack of trying.


    And Eve picked her men like she picked her Christmas trees. It took her a lifetime to realize you can make them sparkle all you want, but, unlike an unloved pine, devotion, attention, and a handful of tinsel won''t transform a man.


    Again, an almost masochistic level of trying went into learning that painful lesson.


    Eve was never a casual dater.


    From her angst-filled high school years, she had fully immersed herself in one toxic long-term relationship after another. She didn''t just beat dead horses. Eve mourned their deaths and then resurrected them with her beatings, only to bury the bastards again.


    After two spectacularly failed marriages -- Eve was never one for doing things by halves -- she admitted to herself that she sucked at love. Micky Dolenz was wrong. True love didn''t exist for the vast majority of people, and for those who, like her parents, did find it, it always, inevitably ended in heartbreak, because everyone, eventually, dies.


    She was done pretending it would turn out any differently for her, so she was, she resolved, fucking done with love.


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    And then she met Donnie.


    Ahhh, Donald, the batshit-crazy love of Eve''s unorthodox life.


    That was the novel Eve could never bring herself to write. She wasn''t naive enough to believe a happy ending could still come from that devastating wreckage, but writing it would mean reliving it, and she wasn''t sure she could endure that.


    She had every reason to hate him, but that uncomfortable feeling had faded long ago.


    Instead, Eve recalled her relationship with Donnie with a sorrow that comes from knowing that, despite all her love -- despite all her loyalty, fierce determination, and a willingness to stick around that bordered on suicidal -- she was unable to save him from himself.


    Eve met Donnie in Lake Havasu, Arizona, at the apex of her 20-year-long dance with hardcore drugs.


    She didn''t just leave her second marriage in Vegas. Eve left her professional career, her sense of stability, and a large chunk of her sanity and ran like Forest Gump into a world she knew almost nothing about.


    After an impulsive stay in England and a depressing stint in Los Angeles, she landed, in her early 40s, back in the fucking desert, in a place called Donkey Acres, fresh off an oxycontin habit she still can''t believe she survived and strangely ready for what would be the most self-defining, meth-fueled dip into the crazy end of life''s inflatable kiddie pool that Eve had ever known.


    Eve wasn''t proud of her former drug use, but neither was she ashamed of it. If anything, she was just profoundly grateful that she made it through it -- hubby number two, his brother, and more than a few good friends weren''t so lucky -- and she was genuinely filled with joy in the knowledge that she never had to experience the exorcism that comes with running out of opiates or watch tweakers take apart her television ever again.


    Never.


    But she was up to her eyeballs in it when she met Donnie, and to pretend otherwise would just be dishonest. And Eve was always honest, to a fault.


    Not because she was pious, but because she couldn''t understand why anyone would bother with the drama that always flows from lying. Being truthful was, like many things in Eve''s mind, a black-and-white issue: Don''t do things you''re ashamed of, and there''s no reason to lie about it. Make choices you believe in, and the people who don''t get it can go to hell.


    Nothing else made sense to her.


    In all her time as an enthusiastic drug user, she had never dealt them, stolen for them, or traded sex for them. She was, if nothing else, an honest dope fiend, a veritable Sandra Dee in a world of strung-out Rizzos. That didn''t make her better than the Rizzos in Eve''s mind. In some ways, she envied their indifference.


    The property in Donkey Acres where Eve had parked the 5th wheel she''d bartered away her Karman Ghia for was, when she first found herself there, like a happy hippie commune... if by "hippies," you meant outlaw bikers and the kind of deeply damaged, often violent souls they attract.


    The owner of the property was a gruff, 60-something biker named R.J., who Eve was convinced had to have a heart of gold.


    R.J. was the shot-caller, but the matriarch of the enterprise -- and it was a tri-state enterprise built on Mexican heroin and crystal meth -- was his mother, who lived in an RV next to the main house.


    Every patched-up Harley rider who roared up to do business with her son first paid Grandma, as she was known by all, their respects.


    If Rita Hayworth''s aging "Gilda" ever broke truly bad in Arizona, she would be the brash embodiment of 80-year-old Grandma, and Eve fell in love with her immediately.


    One night, soon after Eve had settled in and as the property''s regulars were gathering for beers by the nightly bonfire, up walked Donnie -- fresh, Eve would later learn, from 30 days in the Kingman County jail -- looking like a glowing Prodigal Son of Anarchy.


    An old coot named Pinky was considered the First Lieutenant on the property, but Donnie was R.J.''s real right hand, and everyone -- including the land''s unpredictable guard dog, Grift -- knew it.


    He was 15 years her junior, resembled a young Johnny Depp, and his mother, Eve already knew, was a profoundly disturbed, proudly psychotic clusterfuck.


    He was also the most powerful empath Eve had ever met.


    They had just exchanged names when Donnie looked at her, smiled sweetly, and said, "You never know if you''re living in the past, present, or future, do you?"


    The undeniable truth of those words, spoken so matter-of-factly in a way she had never before considered articulating them, pierced her like a dagger, and Eve was well on her way to falling in love all over again, whether she wanted to admit it or not.


    For ten years, longer than the combined years of either of her two official marriages, Eve and Donnie were inseparable. They fought the world together... when they weren''t fighting each other.


    Grandma had once told them, "You two can''t live without each other, and, if you stay together, you''re going to kill each other."


    But together they stayed, clawing their way out of Donkey Acres, out of jail, out of joblessness, out of homelessness, and, at last, out of Arizona.


    And when they had achieved. with a lot of loving help from Eve''s father, a dependable income and a paid-for little home -- when they had nothing left to do but be happy -- Donnie went back to meth, and everything Eve had believed God had finally blessed her with imploded in a meaningless heap of heartbreak.


    That happened just weeks before California''s COVID lockdowns began.


    For all her faith, Eve was alone during a global pandemic, raging at a God she no longer believed existed.

 Journal Entry: March 20, 2030

    It''s spring solstice.


    I thought for fucking sure she''d be back today.


    Donnie''s losing what''s left of his cracked-up mind.


    Eve wrote about him in her journals... a lot. I knew he could get ferocious, but I never seen it for myself. It took Chet and Brady and a whole lot of Eve''s moonshine to keep him from charging off to nowhere. Six shots in and he still managed to punch a tree. I don''t think he cares who he beats at this point, so long as he gets his hands around some poor fucker''s neck.


    Those two are like fire and ice when they''re together, and you never know which one''s going to be which. She says she don''t love him anymore, not like that. But... I don''t think someone like her could just turn off emotions that ran that deep for that long. Not for the guy she still says is the love of her life.


    For ten whole years, they were never out of each other''s sight for more than 24 hours or so. Well, except when they were in jail, but even then, they figured out the guys'' pod was right above the girls'' pod, and they''d yell messages to each other through the toilet plumbing. I swear that shit is true. How do you even figure something like that out? But they did.


    Still, ten years. That''s more than half my whole life.


    I asked her once why he was the way he is.


    After all that time together, and as smart as she is, Eve said she still didn''t know for sure.


    From what I can gather from her journals, he was one fry short of a Happy Meal when she met him, and she knew it. He''d barely say a word to anyone and he was constantly working on some chore or another around the Donkey-place property. It didn''t take long before he was living in Eve''s 5th wheel, and he worked his ass off so R.J. would let them keep it there.


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    I guess he has mad skills. He''s a hell of a cook, I''ll give him that. But to hear Eve tell it, he can do everything from sales to tile to fencing to fixing wells to restoring furniture. Hell, I guess he and her dad built this place from the ground up.


    And he can fight. He''s like Ninja good at fighting. You wouldn''t think it to look at him. He''s lanky, like a swimmer. But I''ve seen him sparring with some of the guys -- the big ones, not the runts. He can bring them to their knees just by squeezing their fingers in the right place. ''Pressure points,'' he calls them.


    And he''s crazy fast. Like a cat.


    But sometimes he comes out with stuff that just makes no sense. Things everyone knows isn''t real. In the beginning, Eve thought it was the meth that made him that way. ''Meth-induced psychosis,'' I think she called it. But when he started seeing things and hearing voices, she was pretty sure he was schizophrenic and probably always has been. The meth just turned it up to eleven.


    He''s like her, an empath, but she''d write about how it was almost like he could manipulate energy and make things move. And he knew stuff. Not quite a psychic, but close.


    If he''d had a better life, Eve wrote one time, maybe he''d have been able to handle the gifts he had, but I guess he had a pretty fucked-up home. Lots of drugs, lots of abuse, and lots of crazy. He never knew what normal was til he met her, and it sounds like he didn''t know what the fuck to do with it once he had it.


    At some point, it was like sensory-overload, and he just shorted out, like a hot wire wasn''t connecting right in his head or something.


    But it didn''t matter how crazy he got or what he was doing, they had some weird connection that didn''t get broken even after she threw him out. She had too. He was getting violent and he was lying to her.


    She''d show Jesus Christ himself the door if he lied to her even once. With Donnie... well she wrote that if she didn''t let him go, she''d lose her own mind.


    But Eve said she still always knew when he was in trouble. She could feel it. She described it like that connection that twins have, where they suddenly know the other one died halfway across the country or something. She said she''s only had that kind of connection with a couple of people her whole life.


    Two days before he showed back up, she wrote in her journal that she wished she could shut it the fuck off. She hadn''t seen him in over a year, but she knew it was only a matter of time.


    Now, that thing''s got her, and he''s babbling on about bank accounts and kabillions of dollars and James Bond computer shit no one can even follow let alone make sense out of.


    It''s the exact same kind of bullshit Eve described not long after they first met. And it''s why she doesn''t let him get near an iPad or a smartphone. Apparently, if he gets his hands on one, he''ll play on it until it either runs out of juice or he gets into the operating system and fucks it up.


    Fuck. I really thought she''d be back today...


    --L.M.

 Chapter 3: Voices Carry

    Eve dragged herself inside, made a fresh cup of coffee, lit a joint, and eyed her computer.


    Marijuana -- her own, home-grown-from-seeds weed -- was the only drug she ever needed, Eve learned about a dozen or so years ago,


    After a lifetime of anti-depressants, anti-psychotics, valium (yes, they actually prescribed her that when she was 15, for "extreme PMS"), Xanax, hydrocodone, oxycodone, liquid oxycodone, Soma, Ambien, heroin, speed, and the occasional hit of ecstasy, pot was the one thing that fixed her. It allowed her to analyze her emotions with objectivity, handle her advancing arthritis, ground herself more securely, fine-tune her emotional radar, and connect more deeply with what she believed was the purposeful path the universe wanted her to be walking.


    Stay on your path, and let the universe do its thing...


    That was the mantra she adopted after she picked herself up from Donnie''s absence -- it took about a year for her to decide she was done crying -- and started to heal herself.


    This time, she vowed to give herself the kind of attention she''d always wanted from a man. She went all-in on embracing her own colors of crazy.


    For the first time in her adult life, she focused her energy not on adapting to the needs of others, but on learning what she liked when no one else''s opinion mattered. She threw herself into whatever struck her fancy at any given moment, from learning to play guitar to brewing her own booze (which she never dared to drink, but still keeps in a crystal decanter in her grandmother''s hutch) to painting, sculpting, crocheting (the pitbull-sized Halloween hat was an immediate no-go), and playing with gallons of epoxy resin and glitter, Eve indulged in whatever sparked her imagination.


    And she started writing again.


    Not the high-pressure serious stuff she used to do a lifetime ago, but just enough remote content gigs  to cover the few bills she had, with enough left over for the simple things that amused her. That''s the other thing she vowed after Donnie: If she couldn''t pay for it upfront, she didn''t need it. If the universe wanted her to have it, she wouldn''t have to owe anyone a dime to get it. So it didn''t take much for her to crack her monthly nut.


    While the world was sinking headfirst into chaos, Eve dedicated herself to learning things that had for too long eluded her, like emotional balance, mindful discernment, and how to trust her traditionally ignored intuition. By the time everyone started singing Kumbaya, she was proud of the life she had created for herself and of the person she had finally allowed herself to start becoming.


    The only pill she still popped was Excedrine Migraine. She''d never give that up. She practically horded it.


    And, by the looks of things, it was a damn good thing she did.


    This, whatever this was that was happening to people all of a sudden, felt like the planet was pitching pretty far from balance, and she was determined not to get dragged down with them.


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    She lifted Lilah, her tiny black cat ¡ª tiny, but fearless ¡ª off her laptop and cracked it open.


    If she was going to get a handle on the surge in nasty attitudes, she''d have to go beyond the sanitized headlines on social media and onto a chat board that was still floating in a conspiratorial corner of the dark web.


    Eve, like many rebellious thinkers, learned how to cloak her i.p. address and access the covert bulletin boards the day the newly appointed Disinformation Committee first convened in Washington D.C. There was always a risk of having her internet privileges revoke for a month, but she''d found one board she convinced herself was relatively safe from the feds.


    The folks who posted there weren''t like the intentionally offensive anons who seemed to enjoy the attention they drew. They were a small group of mostly low-key "diggers" ¡ªmiddle-aged, GenX Constitutionalists who refused to rely on official narratives. They kept tabs on little-seen headlines and researched what was left out of the mainstream reports.


    Eve had become friendly with the group''s moderator, a no-frills former Marine named Brady who''d lost his wife to the vaccine during the original Warp Speed rollout. Turned out, he lived less than 50 miles away in a neighboring rural county. At least he did the last time she spoke with him about seven months ago. Brady tended to move around a lot.


    She logged on to the board and scanned the most recent posts.


    What she saw startled her.


    Vax injuries were no longer recorded ¡ª at least, not in any format that was available to the public ¡ª but Brady had found a report that claimed all cause mortality rates had inexplicably jumped an impossible 33% in the last fiscal quarter.


    Meanwhile, births around the world were far lower than reported by the World Heath Organization, according to one report out of Munich.


    The planet''s projected population had shrunk to the lowest point in three decades, and nobody fucking noticed.


    At U.K. hospitals, nurses were anecdotally reporting a jump in what was presenting a lot like early-onset dementia. Prions associated with the spike protein were suspected by some. One E.R. attendant said it was like a "Zombie Apocalypse" in Hertfordshire.


    And, back in the States, overwhelmed social compliance officers were swamped with strings of domestic violence calls, B&Es, and smash-and-grabs.


    The acids in her stomachs churning, Eve backed out of the site and clicked on Twitter, where the only topics trending had to do with the breakthrough in neural network downloads and the upcoming "Truth to Power" awards.


    She hesitated.


    As a rule, Eve detested the virtual community spaces that purported to cater to empaths.


    Most of them were filled with clich¨¦ fairy memes and bumper-sticker affirmations.


    For those members, being an empath meant spreading unconditional love and interpreting each other''s always-optimistic horoscopes.


    But, Eve found, if you were willing to scroll through enough sappy schlock, you could spot the "highly intuitives" ¡ª they were the ones quietly freaking out and wondering if anyone else was "feeling it, too."


    It was an easy way for Eve to determine whether her own private freak out was warranted.


    And, as was too often the case, Eve''s  triggered "Spidey Senses" were validated. In place of the typical "cleanse your pineal gland with this third-eye-opening frequency" posts, she found clusters of exhausted sensitives who couldn''t stop crying, couldn''t figure out why, and couldn''t, they were certain, "take much more of this."


    She shut her laptop and her strained eyes and inhaled deeply, searching for a soul-steadying breath.


    She focused on the energy emanating from the rotating earth and imagined a circle of golden light surrounding her and her property. She called on her inner voices, the spirits, she liked to believe, who guided her through tumultuous times.


    Instead, her brain unconsciously conjured the image of a single red rose and the razor-sharp thorns that surrounded it.


    She felt her pulse jump, and the image dissolved as quickly as it had appeared.


    It was, she knew, a calling card of sorts, from an ethereal nemesis that, like the legendary Mothman, always signaled for Eve impending doom of one sort or another.


    It was Darkness, and he was waiving hello.


    Her eyes opened wide and darted to the porch, where Corona was whimpering with barely-contained excitement.


    Eve''s tense shoulders slumped slightly.


    "Hello, Donald..."

 Journal Entry: March 23, 2030

    Have you ever seen someone not just spittin''mad, but full on Insane Clown Posse, Biblical mad?


    That was Donnie when he found out she was gone.


    I didn''t have the heart ¡ª or the balls ¡ª to tell him.


    It wasn''t just that it took her. It was that Eve let it take her.


    She went with that thing. Willingly.


    She grabbed me about 20 minutes before it happened and gave me a key on a chain and took me down to a safe in the forever place.


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    She said those were all her journals, going back to when she was younger than me.


    She told me to keep them, read them, to never take them out of the bunker ¡ª she hated when I called it that for some reason, but that''s what it is ¡ª and to put them back in the safe as soon as I was done reading.


    "That''s my life," she said of the volumes of binders and leather-bound journals. "That''s my proof that I existed, that I did things, that I thought things and felt things and learned things. Don''t fuck them up."


    She told me not to share them, with anyone, not even Donnie, until the time was right.


    "I should be back long before that time ever comes," Eve said. "If, not, trust your gut. You''ll know when the time is right. Until then, and until I get back, you will literally have my life in your hands. And if for any reason this place is in trouble or you gotta leave, if I''m not here, you take them with you. Okay? Promise me that. Until it''s time, you guard them like it''s your life."


    I nodded and she saw that I understood.


    "And one more thing," she said. "You have to start writing your own life. You have to, every day or two, write something down. Anything. Whatever comes to your mind. Starting tonight. And you keep those in that safe, too."


    She had encouraged everyone here to keep a journal, but this was different. She made me promise.


    It scared me.


    ¡ªL.M.

 Chapter Four: Home Sweet Home

    "Why so serious?" Donnie asked her, his eyes twinkling.


    It was a longtime inside joke. They practically had their own language.


    "Sit down, Donald," Eve told him. "Coffee?"


    He nodded.


    She rifled through the back of her java drawer for the flavored selections and retrieved a raspberry chocolate blend. A purist, she hesitated to even call it coffee, but who was she to judge?


    "Roll us some cigarettes," she told him, watching as he went to her hutch, opened the bottom doors, and retrieved the tin of tobacco, the rolling gizmo, and the filtered papers.


    "Fourteen months, six days, and¡ª"


    Donnie stopped mid-sentence, dropped the tin, and pulled out an empty bottle of Jack Daniels. In the bottom of the bottle was a rolled up piece of paper tied with a purple piece of yarn.


    Holding it up, grinning, he said, "You still have this?"


    That one, and about a dozen more, Eve thought.


    There was a time when they''d spend the night laughing, playing naked Monopoly, and draining those bottles dry. Before they''d pass out, they''d always write down the date, along with a message to their future selves, tie it up with whatever was handy, and screw the cap on tight.


    Neither had ever re-read their scrawled, shit-faced notes. Those were time capsules that needed to stay shut.


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    "Anyways," Donnie said, returning the bottle to its dusty corner and taking a seat at the wooden table. He pulled a generous pinch of loose tobacco from the tin. "That''s how long it''s been."


    "Yup," Eve replied flatly, handing him his sickeningly-sweet beverage. "Sounds about right."


    She took the rolled cigarette from him and leaned in as he lit it for her.


    "Why are you here, Donnie?"


    He lit his own cigarette and took a sip of the hot liquid, a look of forgotten pleasure creeping across his slightly drawn face.


    "Just wanted to make sure you were okay," he said, his eyes fixating on Eve''s laptop.


    She exhaled a stream of bluish smoke and grimaced. It was easier to humor him, and, given the current state of affairs, Eve thought he might just be right.


    She stood from the table and placed her iPad and laptop gently in her microwave. As an afterthought, she grabbed her cellphone and added it to the pile before closing the door.


    "Okay," she said, reclaiming her seat from her elderly tuxedo cat, Hanna. Hanna had been slowly stalking Donnie since he came in. She always was his baby. "Why are you here, Donnie?"


    He smiled and nodded approvingly. "That''s what I''m talking about."


    Hannah made the leap of faith and landed in Donnie''s lap, where she''d remain for the next hour.


    Eve tried to gauge Donnie''s state of mind.


    He was engaged and he wasn''t trying to swipe a malevolent spirit from her shoulder, so, that was a good sign.


    But after the first few separated months, Donnie had never shown up at her door unless he was desperate. It was like, in his darkest times, some part of him knew he could always reach for the lifeboat of her sanity, her light.


    And a desperate Donnie was almost always a tweaking balls Donnie.


    This time, though, she wasn''t sure. The jury in her head was still out.


    A decade of the never-settled life he''d chosen for himself was taking its toll. He never had the "care-free" look. He''d never truly known a care-free life. When he wasn''t scrapping for basic necessities, he was battling demons, both real and imagined.


    Because, Eve would go to her grave swearing, if demons did exist, they dwelled in the cold, conniving heart that beat for far too long in the bitch that was his mother.


    She wouldn''t lie ¡ª not even to Donnie: She did a happy dance when that woman finally dropped dead.


    Now, a spidery fan of creases crawled from the corners of his golden-green eyes. His auburn hair and the stubble on his chin were sprinkled with white. He was in his mid-forties now, and it showed in his sun-roughened skin and almost haunted gaze.


    His eyelashes were still impossibly long, she noted. And his smile still felt warm and familiar.


    He took a long drag, holding her gingerly with his eyes as he exhaled.


    "I''m not sure," he replied. "I was kind of hoping you knew."

 Journal Entry: March 24, 2030

    Seven days.


    Today is seven days Eve''s been gone.


    I don''t even know what to think anymore, but I still don''t think it''s the "time" she was talking about. She said to trust my gut. But what if I''m wrong?


    I told Chet I knew she was gone, that she wanted to go, not even an hour after she left. It''s not like he wouldn''t have seen it all over my face anyway.


    I didn''t tell him about the journals, but as soon as Donnie found out she was missing, I had to tell Chet and Brady. Brady talked to Steve, and all of us finally decided we had to tell Donnie before he started tearing up the town looking for her. Last thing we needed was him in jail.


    He shocked the shit out of us. He got all calm for a minute and just kept saying, "Okay, okay, okay."


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    Then he did a round kick and snapped Steve''s old sawhorse in two, said, "Okay, okay," again, and went and sat on the porch and rolled a cigarette.


    He stayed there for almost two hours, then he got up and started rearranging the storage rooms, taking an inventory of every last thing in there, down to the last grain of rice. He made shopping lists, ration lists, wishlists, and, no shit, a list of other lists he needed to make.


    It was going on 28 hours before he stopped. He walked out the door with a bottle of whiskey, guzzled a third of it in one go, yelled MOTHERFUCK! to the sky, went back into the storage room, laid down on the floor, and went to sleep.


    It was when he woke back up that he started babbling about bullshit and getting all weird. Not meth weird. Brady made him take a piss test and he was still clean. Just... weird, saying things like he''s done this a hundred times already and he knows how this fucking ends 93.7 percent of the time. WTAF?


    It''s been seven days now, and he barely talks or eats. He''s been chopping wood, working on his bike, changing the seal on the toilet, picking weeds... anything to keep going, and Corona hasn''t left his side.


    Me, Chet, and Brady talked about asking Steve if Trevor could take a peek. He''s a strong kid for 13. He''s smart. I mean, he''s an actual viewer. A fucking dreamwalker. We thought maybe he could tune in on her or whatever the fuck he does. But then Chet pointed out that, if he did do it, if he was able to zoom in on her, we had no idea what he might see. None of us wanted to say it, but she could be... it could be really horrible. Trevor already found his mama. He didn''t need to see that, too.


    Will write more later... fixing Chet the lasagna he was asking for. He must love me. Nobody likes my cooking.


    --L.M.

 Chapter Five: Come Together

    Eve didn''t just roll over and hand the t.v. remote and all her progress to her ex.


    She had boundaries. She had conditions.


    For starters, he wasn''t getting his socks anywhere near her dresser.


    Papa''s side of the duplex had been empty for years. It took Eve one full year to be able to go through a lifetime of memories and treasured belongings and, after selecting those things ¡ª photos, mostly ¡ª that she wanted to keep close, she carefully packed the rest away and rented a storage unit in town for the rest.


    She wanted a storage unit built on her property, and she wanted to turn the now unused unit ¡ª connected to her place via a shared laundry room ¡ª into an organized space to keep the things she couldn''t stop thinking ¡ª even as food was federalized and hunger in the States became for most a shameful memory ¡ª would someday mean the difference between survival and certain death.


    Donnie could help her with a lot of the projects that were increasingly needling Eve''s sense of complacency. And the vacant bedroom would feel like the Taj Mahal to him after years in shared motorhomes and makeshift tents.


    The day he''d shown up, he was, she confirmed, meth-free. He had been for 90 days ¡ª the amount of time he''d spent in county lockup on what must be his hundredth misdemeanor trespassing charge. When they decided yet again that meaningful mental health help was just too much damn trouble for a county low on resources, they swung the bars open and turned him loose with a monthly remittance schedule for fines he''d never pay and a single bus token, good for anywhere within a 30-mile radius.


    It got him within five miles of Eve''s front door, and he casually walked the rest in few hours, stopping only to examine some rocks near the rushing river that forked at the neglected road that led up to her place.


    Trust, but verify...


    Eve called the jail and got his arrest date and release time. It tracked. And, after he peed on command and came up clean ¡ª she kept a couple of tests in the back of her closet for moments just such as these ¡ª she believed he was telling the truth.


    He hadn''t used in at least three months. The drug was well out of his system, and, for the most part, he was, she thought, thinking clearly.


    She also believed him when he said that, for a week, something in his gut had been telling him he had to get his ass over to her house the second they let him go.


    Thoughts of Donnie had been gnawing at her gut, too. She wasn''t surprised in the least to see him on her porch. On some level, she''d been expecting him.


    In the two months that had since rolled by, much had been accomplished and the bond between them was becoming almost telepathic.


    It reminded Eve of the first year they were together. It was the dragon she''d chased ever since... minus the sex.


    Sex, she firmly told him, was out of the question. As was "just snuggling" and walking around naked. He would knock before he entered her home ¡ª every single time, without fail.


    And forget about bringing bitches onto this property.


    No one, and Eve meant no fucking one, was allowed to spend more than ten minutes on her land without her express permission. Period. So if he planned on wooing the ladies, he better just keep on walking. This was a no-drama zone, and he was not going to fuck that up for her.


    And, as she almost never left her property, Eve assured Donnie, he''d forever regret trying to keep something from her. She''d know, and her revenge would make jail look like a sanctuary.


    To that end, he would submit to her drug tests once a week and whenever the fuck else she wanted him to take a leak.


    "Zero tolerance, Donald," she told him. "And I mean, zero. Do not make me throw you off this land a second time."


    Donnie just smiled.


    He was pretty sure she''d practiced this speech more than a few times over the past few years.


    And, seriously, fuck sex. Even with her.


    Especially with her.


    He never thought he''d think that and mean it, but, from the second he heard he was supposed to go to her, he had to play this out from every angle, and 86.9 percent of the time, sleeping with her got one or both of them killed. Sometimes, not right away, but it never fucking failed. It messed everything up ¡ª for good, this time.


    Forever. For, like, all of fucking eternity...


    Yeah, for once, he was happy to keep his dick in his pants.


    From there, things ¡ª important things ¡ª moved quickly, though, why they were important was often unclear to both of them.


    Soon after the terms were established, in front of the cast iron, Art Nouveau parlor stove in her living room, over a game of cribbage, they pinky-swore to listen to their intuition and to discuss whatever made their Spidey Senses tingle, the minute they started buzzing.


    And they stuck to that oath. Pinky swears are serious shit, and they both sensed this was no joke.


    No matter how crazy, how out-of-left-field the idea, they proposed whatever they suddenly felt compelled to do. They discussed it, weighing the pros and cons like they were buying a car. And then they decided whether to act, together, though they both knew, ultimately, Eve had the only vote that mattered.


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    And once they decided upon a path, it seemed the universe cleared out the brush and lit the way.


    There was luck, and there was serendipity. But this was an alignment of such unconnected parts ¡ª a synchronicity of events on a level that often made the two laugh.


    They knew they were being guided by something, and they committed to going with it.


    One night, Donnie, with an almost giddy face, knocked on the door and, once welcomed, burst into her kitchen like Kramer from Seinfeld.


    "An ark!" he yelled, sliding in his socks over the tile they''d laid together more than a decade before. "It''s an ark! We''re supposed to build a muthafukkin badass ark! How big''s a cubit?"


    Her jaw dropped, hanging open as she tried to decide if he was serious.


    "WE''RE GONNA BEDAZZLE THE SHIT OUT OF THAT BITCH!" he hollered before calmly stealing a hot cocoa package from her coffee drawer and returning to his side of the duplex.


    Eve heard him laughing for five minutes straight.


    The following week, they started clearing ground for a lead-lined, concrete bunker, to be carved into the terrace above where Eve''s greenhouse stood, just to the side of Donnie''s bedroom window.


    Eve''s inheritance from her parents ¡ª a tidy sum of savings that, if managed properly, along with the continuing royalties from a steamy romance novel she penned under a pseudonym one very stoned weekend in ''25, meant Eve didn''t have to work if she didn''t feel like it.


    Now everything in her was screaming at her to buy the things she needed - or thought she might need ¡ª the big-ticket items she really, really felt she should secure, before it was too late.


    A nuclear fallout shelter, able to sleep twelve ¡ª Eve insisted it had to be twelve, and Donnie trusted her ¡ª with enough room to keep a dozen cramped people fed and breathing for up to two weeks. There''d need to be a toilet and a sink and space for water and supplies. And it would have to have air circulation, backups, generators, and probably a lot of shit she hadn''t thought of yet, so this wasn''t going to be a weekend job.


    She called Brady first, and he headed for her property in his converted van. He''d know all the tin-foil shit: how to hide its true purpose on building permits, whose palms to grease, and all the prepper stuff, like "analog coms" and surviving "off the grid."


    He parked his van down by the greenhouse, alongside the creek, where it was hidden from pretty much everything, and he hasn''t left since.


    And dontcha know, that''s about when a family of educated hippies ¡ª mom, Patty, a self-taught "herbologist" with an unused PhD in something to do with rocks and tectonic plates; dad, Chuck, an engineer professor at a community college in Sacramento; and their twin 12-year-olds, homeschooled Samantha and Jacob ¡ª broke down in front of Eve''s property, on their way back from a musical festival at the Gibson''s event center down the road.


    You''d never know that place was out there, but, every year, it attracted scores of free-spirited, fantastically creative potheads. It was one of the things Eve loved most about her quirky little community.


    Over a handblown bong repeatedly filled with homegrown weed, Chuck rattled off bunker requirements and scribbled a surprisingly doable, remarkably detailed blueprint on a scrap of paper, below Eve''s running cribbage score.


    The Johnsons'' conversion van and collapsable yurts joined Brady''s van on the lower terrace.


    It was then that Eve reckoned she''d better invite Steve, her easy-going neighbor and only constant friend in the town, over for a chat. His property backed up to hers on the other side of the creek, and he needed to know ¡ª he deserved to know ¡ª what was happening.


    As his son, 13-year-old Trevor, gabbed easily with the twins about whatever teenagers gab about these days, Steve learned of Eve''s new friends and their big bang bunker. Donnie, he already knew from before the split, and the two instantly clicked once again.


    That inevitably led to "why we''re building it" discussion, and Eve was relieved when Steve didn''t look at her like she''d lost her mind.


    Steve knew everyone and everything that was either happening now in their community or did happen a hundred years ago. He spoke like a surfer and a biker had a baby, and he was the easiest guy to talk to about pretty much anything.


    He was a walking historian who''d been raising Trevor on his own. The kid came to live with him when he was seven or eight, after Baby Mama killed herself during the second round of lockdowns.


    By trade, Steve was into construction and was known around town as one of the few handymen you could trust to do shit right. He and Trevor, a notably bright kid who was usually reading when he and his dad weren''t out hunting, fishing, or racing their dirt bikes, had been living off the grid for years.


    Steve said he''d been hearing "crazy shit" going on all over the place. His nephew, Chet, a 21-year-old rookie cop in nearby Jackson, had been warning him to "get ready, ''cause shit was gonna hit the fan soon" for months.


    That night, with a handshake, Eve and Steve, for all intents and purposes, joined their land and resources, and the group grew by two acres and two more people. They were, each of them, all-in, but couldn''t tell you why if you put a gun to their head.


    Two weeks later, Chet retired from the force and joined Steve on his land. He was down helping Donnie and Brady dig trenches the next morning.


    The weather was kind to them that winter, with only a few dustings of snow and just enough rain to keep the creek running.


    Everything, everything, flowed like a well-oiled machine ¡ª so much so that they stopped talking about it for fear of jinxing their good fortune.


    By Donnie''s birthday on New Year''s Day, the skeleton of the "Forever Place," as Samantha had dubbed it, was taking shape. It would, everyone agreed, survive the next Hiroshima.


    Eve and Patty devoted themselves to canning and dehydrating foods, bottling water, and trimming the pounds of marijuana that was still hanging in Eve''s "Weed Wagon," once home to her and Donnie when the duplex was being built,


    Donny and Brady went through the collection of military knives, swords, and handguns left to Eve by her father. They''d send the whole group to jail if they were discovered, but out in these parts, that was unlikely to ever happen. The local sheriffs, deputies, and business owners were, like the residents they served, primarily libertarians, and the Second Amendment still meant something to them.


    Everything was coming together, and slowly Eve began to suspect she knew what had drawn this group together.


    Patty''s knowledge of everything that grew from the ground soon produced a natural medicine cabinet that could handle most any emergency. She was almost Middle Earth in her depth of knowledge.


    Jacob and Samantha were straight-up witches. Not in the Harry Potter sense. Those two were schooled by mom in medieval grimoires, forbidden alchemy, and the natural sciences, and they already knew how to take what Patty foraged and turn it into calming tinctures, powerful "cleansing" smudges, and "conscience-raising" grown-up teas.


    Chuck, meanwhile, could McGyver goddamn near anything mechanical into doing his bidding. Anything but cars. Car engines, he explained, "bored the shit out of him."


    For the most part, the Johnsons kept to themselves. Not in a reclusive way. They were just happiest when they were meditating together or doing yoga or inventing an organic cocktail that would blow the door off a ''57 Chevy if heated to the proper temperature.


    Brady was a plain-talking bottomless source of reliable information about secret societies, Deep State conspiracies, and ancient prophecies. And he was, to the core of his being, a passionate American. He didn''t give a rat''s ass about politicians, but he believed in his country like a Southern Baptist believes in the Holy Scripture.


    He knew the way this country was supposed to work, and watching it "all get twisted" damn near killed him.


    Steve, Eve knew, was sensitive to bad juju. He reacted to negative energy like a red-lined Geiger counter. And Trevor... well, young Trevor first started having out-of-body experiences about a month after his mother''s suicide. Now he''s a surprisingly accurate "viewer," capable, like those long-employed by the CIA, of projecting his conscious mind out of his bed and into the county''s only strip club, almost at will.


    They were building a compound, Eve realized one night, and filling it with old-school rebels ¡ª rebels who each brought a unique gift to the communal table.


    And then there was Luka.


    Eve opened her computer one January morning to a Facebook press release from the Amador sheriff about the arrest of a 17-year-old girl, a runaway, who was caught up in a raid on an illegal pot grow. In all, four were arrested, but Eve was drawn to the unnamed teen, who was being held, as far as Eve could tell, while they figured out what to do with her.


    Chet made a few calls and learned she was being released, her charges dropped. She was, authorities decided, a working kid who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. She had no folks to call, Chet learned. They''d both been murdered in a Halloween home invasion in Merced.


    Less than six hours later, Luka Makaly was sitting in Eve''s kitchen.


    She was important, Eve somehow knew.


    And then, they were eleven.


    But they weren''t done yet.


    One more would join their group. She didn''t know who or when, but Eve knew there''d be one more and then no more.


    She knew it, just like she knew Darkness was watching her every move, even pushing her to the next step toward wherever it was they were all going.


    She''d come to believe it was Darkness that stopped the Johnsons in front of her home and led her like Pavlov''s dog to Luka.


    She knew, as irrational as it was, Darkness had some interdementional hand in all of this. Something supernatural had to have for it to all coalesce so effortlessly. And, as much satisfaction as the developments had brought her, she knew this wasn''t all leading to a happy ending.


    This, she knew, would all end in tears

 Journal Entry: March 24, 2030 - 11:58 pm

    She''s back.


    Sweet Jesus, she just walked out of the woods, in front of the bonfire. We all saw it.


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    Her hair wasn''t even messed up. Her clothes weren''t wrinkled. Nothing! Not a mark on her.


    She looked at each of us, and I thought she was going to burst into tears.


    The whole forest was absolutely quiet when she spoke.


    "Oh my god, you guys. We are so fucked."


    ¡ªL.M.

 Chapter Six: Here Comes the Rain Again

    Donnie stopped just short of tackling Eve.


    He threw his arms around her and his eyes dared anyone to get near her before he was done making sure she was real.


    Brady didn''t say a word. He just handed her his flask.


    Fireball.


    She pushed back far enough from Donnie''s clutches to take a slug.


    "Welcome back," Patty said with a wry smile.


    Steve passed her a cigarette, and Chet rushed to light it.


    Then they all stared at each other. Long enough for it to get weird.


    What do you say in a situation like this? No one knew, least of all Eve.


    She had so much she needed to tell them, but she couldn''t find a starting point, a way into such a... She could feel hysterical giggles bubbling up her throat and choked them back down.


    "I''m sorry," she said at last. "I know... I know y''all..."


    "What was it?" Luka demanded.


    She wasn''t gentle or sympathetic or sweet.


    She was pissed, and she didn''t care who knew it.


    "What the fuck was that thing, and why the fuck did you go with it?"


    Not pissed, Eve thought. Scared.


    She should be...


    "What did you see?" Eve asked. She took the tone of the gentle one.


    Tears pooled in Luka''s furious eyes and she batted them away with the cuff of her sweatshirt.


    "It was a fucking shadow, Eve," she spat back. "A seven-foot-tall, dark-as-fuck Shadow Man, and you just..."


    Chet''s hand stroked Luka''s back the way a preschool teacher soothes a toddler at nap time.


    This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    "I''m sorry," Eve stammered again.


    That wasn''t what Eve saw.


    She saw a man ¡ª tall, yes, but not abnormally so ¡ª and she almost shot him.


    Eve and the other adults on the property had taken to strapping on a gun whenever they went outside. All except for Donnie. Eve wasn''t nuts. She gave him one of her dad''s World War II Ka-Bars and a bear horn, and he seemed happy with that.


    The weapons weren''t for people, though there had been chatter about roving bands of thieves breaking into places and setting up shop. Jacob had found fresh mountain lion scat down by the creek, and it was better to be safe than sorry with those big kitties, especially with kids around.


    But when Eve was taking a walk that day, away from the construction and endless stream of things she needed to get done, what she saw was a black-haired, forty-something man, absurdly dressed, like some New-Ro reject from the ''80s, in black leather pants and one of those white flowing shirts with the ruffled sleeves that Adam Ant always wore.


    He was perched on a fallen log and he looked at her with an almost relieved smile, like he''d been waiting for hours for her to come out of an arrival gate at LAX.


    Eve''s hand went for her holster, but when he held out a red rose, like a knight to a maiden before a jousting tournament, she knew exactly who he was, and she knew a bullet wouldn''t stop him.


    In that moment, Eve knew she had two choices and only two choices: Accept that her imaginary Bearer of All Things Bad had leaped out of her disheveled head and was sitting before her...


    ...or listen carefully as her sanity snapped like a saltine cracker.


    The former seemed slightly less painful.


    When he spoke, she almost crumpled with the laughter of a woman literally on the brink of a nervous breakdown. He sounded, to her, a lot like Alan Rickman.


    "Hello, Eve. I think it''s time we have a talk, don''t you?"


    "You''ve got to be fucking kidding me." It wasn''t a question, and the words flew out of her mouth before she could edit them.


    "Charming," he responded, standing in a way that wasn''t menacing so much as it was impatient. "You need to come with me ¡ª"


    "If I want to live?" She really needed to stop laughing. It was a thing she did when her brain was fritzing, and she thought it might just get her killed.


    If he ¡ª IT! ¡ª ohdeargodimlosingmymind ¡ª caught the reference, he didn''t let on.


    "Not quite," he replied, "but do we have a lot to discuss, and there is, unfortunately, a clock that is very much ticking."


    "Anything you have to say to me ¡ª"


    "¡ªI can say to your blah blah blah," he interjected sternly. "No, Eve. I''m afraid that isn''t how this is going to work. I am the watcher. You are the scribe. This isn''t a group activity."


    And then it became starkly, without any humor at all, very fucking real for just a moment.


    "You''re Darkness," Eve whispered hoarsely. She felt her knees wanting to buckle.


    "Yes, about that... you''ve always had that detail a bit sideways, my dear."


    "I don''t know what you are." She spoke the words as she was sharply inhaling, like a runner with a stitch in his side, so they came out scratchy and shrill.


    "I have a name. A name you know."


    He bowed. The motherfucker bowed and made a sweeping gesture with his foppish hand.


    "I am Gabriel."


    Ka-pow! Boom! Bazoinga!


    Eve wasn''t dreaming, she was stuck in a dime store comic book, which sucks because I hate comic books and I just want to go home because I really have to pee and I''d like to take a nap now please.


    "You''re an archangel," she said, her face, expressionless, her brain exploding like a glitter bomb.


    "Also not entirely accurate," he answered. "I am Elohim, and I''ll be happy to explain the difference ¡ª later. We. Must. Go."


    He looked at her. In her. Through her.


    "Eve," he implored her, "she''s pregnant."


    And that''s when she knew she had to go with him.


    She found Luka, told her to start reading her journals, to keep them safe, and to write everything down, and then she turned and reached her hand out to what Luka thought was a giant evil shadow demon and disappeared.


    Eve looked at Luka''s flushed face through the crackling fire and loved her fiercely.


    "Look at me, okay?" They locked eyes. "I''m sorry. I''m okay. We''re okay. And I''m really, really sorry."

 Chapter Seven: Heaven Knows Im Miserable Now

    Eve couldn''t answer their questions that night. Or the next.


    It was like her brain was buffering.


    Donnie rescued her. He wrapped her arm around his and walked her away from the fire, to the comfort of her bedroom.


    "We''re done," he abruptly told the group.


    Hannah, Lilah, and Corona greeted her with surprising restraint, wanting only to tell her how grateful they were that she was back, how desperately they missed her, but somehow sensing she was fragile.


    He sat her on the edge of her bed, dropped to the floor, and gently tugged off her worn hiking boots as tears silently slipped from her exhausted eyes.


    "Bath?" he asked.


    She shook her head. She might drown, if not in the water, then in her thoughts.


    Donnie nodded.


    He went to her dresser, pulled out a flannel nightshirt and a pair of pink fuzzy socks, and sat them beside her.


    "Change," he said and went to the kitchen.


    She obeyed, and when he returned with two mugs of hot cocoa, she was under the covers. He sat them on the nightstand and shooed her over, before kicking off his shoes, sitting on top of the comforter, and leaning back against the headboard, a massive blue tufted velvet monstrosity that she adored.


    They sat that way ¡ª his eyes closed, hers wide and tormented ¡ª sipping their cocoas in silence until their cups were empty. He took hers and set it next to his on the nightstand, and she fell into the space under his arm, where she knew her head fit perfectly.


    "It''s all ending, Donnie," she whispered meekly.


    ''I know," he replied, and she thought that maybe he did. "We got this."


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    He raised his pinky and she drifted off to sleep clinging to it with hers.


    ***


    When morning pushed its way through her drapes, Donnie was in the kitchen.


    She listened intently to the sounds of the refrigerator opening and closing, the whisk against the Pyrex bowl, the clacking sound her coffee maker made when the lid pierced the little plastic cup...


    Normal sounds, she thought, knowing that when she inevitably shared with him all she now knew, nothing would be normal again.


    Donnie entered the room with two cups of coffee and a plate piled high with scrambled eggs, sausage, and melted cheese. He sat the plate on the bed between them, reclaimed his spot from the night before, and handed her a fork.


    "We need potatoes," he said.


    She took a bite. It was delicious.


    "Luka''s pregnant, and she''s going to give birth to the last human soul in the place where God stashes them, and then He''s going to wipe out almost everyone on the planet, and there''s not a damn thing we can do about it," she said.


    She meant to tell him the fucking eggs were good.


    "Do you want ketchup?" he asked.


    "No, thank you," she replied, reaching for her coffee.


    "So... like that Demi Moore movie?" he asked.


    She''d asked that question, too.


    "No. The guff is real. The rest, not so much," she said, stabbing a hunk of sausage with her fork. "Demi sacrificed herself and the guff was refilled."


    "So, Luka''s gotta..."


    "No. It wouldn''t matter," she said. "Apparently it doesn''t work that way."


    "There''s no Hail Mary martyrdom pass here," Eve added. "Nothing is going to stop this."


    "When?"


    "I have no idea. Gabriel doesn''t even know, exactly."


    "Gabriel?" Donnie chuckled. "Awesome."


    "Yup."


    "But about nine months, give or take?"


    "It won''t be before her baby is born," she said. "Beyond that... hard to say. A lot of fucked-up humans are trying to hurry the whole thing along, so according to Gabriel, this is unchartered territory."


    "How?"


    "He doesn''t know," Eve replied. "There will be enough of us left to repopulate. That''s it."


    Just like last time.


    "Who?" Donnie asked.


    "No way of knowing," she answered. "Whoever''s left. After the last ice age, after the flood, there were less than 2,000 humans wandering around, but he thinks the plan is for about 500,000 this time."


    "God''s plan?"


    "No. That''s the problem."


    "Well that... sucks." Donnie moved the empty plate to the nightstand and replaced it with an ashtray. He lit a cigarette and passed it to her, then lit his own.


    "Why?" he asked.


    She knew why, but she didn''t know how to explain it yet. She hadn''t found the words, and she told him so.


    He nodded, pulled the cribbage board and a deck of cards from the nightstand, and started shuffling. "And we''re supposed to...?"


    "Survive," she said, picking up the cards he dealt to her. "We are supposed to survive."

 From Eves Journal: March 26, 2030

    Oh, my dear and faithful journal...


    I don''t know how to do this. It''s too much, and I don''t know where to start. Pull even one of these threads, and you unravel the history of mankind.


    I''m a stoner chick on a mountain, pushing 60, and I don''t know how to do this.


    What I do know:


    In the beginning, God created a whole bunch of shit.


    Worlds, species, things we have no clue about and wouldn''t understand, spread out over a universe so vast, it appears to many of our best minds to be infinite.


    And He did it, all of it, as Part One of a two-part Divine Plan.


    Above all that we on this tiny spinning rock have seen or imagined, outside the fabric of our universe and all its quantum mysteries, there is God''s true masterpiece: A paradise where the souls of all of his creations ¡ª every plant, every animal, every mammoth and microbe, dog and dragon, big-eyed gray and long-extinct giant ¡ª from every world that is or ever was ¡ª end up.


    There they dwell, perfect reflections of God''s love and wisdom and creative flair, freely sharing with each other their origin stories.


    To Paradise they bring their proverbial cheeseburgers along with an unabridged historical account of their journeys to get there.


    In Paradise, The Above, all the souls that have inhabited all the worlds in God''s great universe, The Below, now eagerly exchange with each other the recipes, dad jokes, and pop culture crazes that defined their existences.


    Adam and his wifey were never kicked out of the Garden of Eden for wanting to know about shit.


    They, like everything that sprang from God''s sometimes whimsical mind, were designed to be curious. Without curiosity no creature would evolve, and all creatures must evolve, spiritually, if not physically.


    In The Below, things like, "Hey, I wonder what the insides of that thing that just fell out of that bird''s coochie tastes like?" meant the difference between a thriving, growing human species and a bunch of hungry mouth-breathers.


    Banishing them from His paradise for being curious would be like not giving them eyes and then punishing them for tripping over the furniture.


    And in The Above ¡ª in His crib, where everything exists in perfect balance as growing, thinking, playing, singing, building, delightfully unpredictable extensions of His omnipotent power, grace, knowledge, and, above all else, love ¡ª curiosity is the very essence of joie de vivre.


    God doesn''t punish. God doesn''t condemn souls to burning pits. There is no cosmic Naughty Or Nice list.


    But God does do do-overs.


    Lots and lots and lots of do-overs.


    They are an integral part of His grand design.


    Not the flashy part. Not the supernova, aurora borealis, red-shifting, Big Bang part.


    The Guff is the place where souls stay after one life on Earth ends and before they are reincarnated into another. It''s ran like the administrative, accounting, and HR offices of a multidimensional assembly line. It''s where the numbers are crunched, progress reports are presented, and epoch-ending decisions are made.


    Some call it Purgatory, but despite what the church told medieval humans, you can''t buy your way in and it doesn''t provide a safe space from God''s so-called "judgment."


    Gabriel said that it''s like humans in this epoch took bits and pieces of all they ever knew about their reason for existing, chucked it in a blender, and spread it like Marmite across the globe.


    In roughly 11,000 years, humans forgot ¡ª or were forced to forget by the most power-hungry souls among them ¡ª what took the species millions of years and countless epochs to learn.


    It was, Gabriel said, "a disappointing turn of events."


    So, what exactly is Gabriel?


    Well, he said their names have changed from epoch to epoch, era to era, religion to religion. He also said I''d never be able to spell his actual name, so "Gabriel" works for him.


    He and those of his species are God''s first creations, assigned at the subsequent creation of those worlds which followed theirs to monitor the progress of each of the new species that is to inhabit them.


    We know them best as the Archangels, the Watchers, our Spirit Guides, and our pantheon of gods and demigods.


    They are the Elohim, and Earth, when it was formed, was assigned seven of them. They have been keeping the soul train moving on Earth since the dawn of its time.


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    And Earth, from its inception, was a premier gig.


    "For the first time," Gabriel said, "God decided to create a species for us to watch that was created ''in our image.''"


    He used giant air quotes when he said that.


    With humans, God was going old-school, taking inspiration from the first beings He created and those most closely tuned to His ways.


    Humans, Gabriel said, would be "a species that had, tucked away in its circuitry board, the ability to flip a switch and level up."


    They would "possess the innate ability to tune into the collective unconscious of the universe in which they exist," Gabriel explained. "They, like the Elohim, would have the tools to communicate without words; to physically feel each other''s joy and struggles; to glimpse their future in the cosmic consciousness of everything God has ever set into motion."


    Unlike any other creature, humans had at their disposal the transcendent energy of the Elohim, and the Elohim are so old and witnesses to so much, they may as well be God''s walking Akashic record.


    Humanity just had to figure out how to use their built-in toys ¡ª and to their credit, Gabriel said, many in our epoch have, "though those who are not yet up to speed have typically institutionalized them, dismissed them, or burnt them at the nearest stake."


    God saw humanity, one of His youngest creations, as a species that would bring to Paradise an inherent understanding and appreciation of those already there.


    We were born ¡ª all of us ¡ª on a fast track to Heaven.


    And yes, He looked at what He had made, and He was pleased.


    "Don''t look so superior," Gabriel said as he watched ¡ª because he always watched ¡ª my reaction. "I believe that was also the day He cooked up the platypus. He''s quite chuffed with them, too."


    At the end of the last epoch, when ice still covered our planet, it looked to the Elohim like humans, bless their little hearts, were so close to God''s paradise they could almost touch it and Him.


    Graham Hancock can take a bow. There absolutely was an ancient civilization, very advanced, and its inhabitants were scattered like dandelion puffs when the ice suddenly melted and the earth was engulfed in water.


    The Atlantians were all that has been written about them and more, and before the freeze, they were not unique.


    Humans, for the most part, had embraced their potential, which, in the end, is the entire point of everything.


    They had learned how to view the sun and the moon and the path of the stars and the lines of Earth''s God-given energy grid ¡ª the flora, the fauna, and all the elements ¡ª not as commodities to harness or things to wish on, but as symbiotic partners in a glorious conscience-driven dance.


    They met their civilization''s needs, but they celebrated its dreams.


    They existed not to maintain their lives, but to expand them, and their "harmonic frequency," Gabriel said, resonated with such a steady, soul-lifting hum, some among the Elohim believed the species would be raptured at last.


    God''s light shone from them... most of them.


    But there''s always those few bad apples, and, to mix metaphors, humanity is only as strong as its weakest link. That''s true of every species. It''s literally one of the Universal Laws.


    Because souls don''t journey to Paradise one at a time, no matter what any religion tells you.


    And think about it: If you''re honest, did you ever really believe that, after living 80, maybe 90 years, you somehow deserved an eternity of being told "that''ll do, pig" by God Himself whilst chillaxing in pure, unbroken, unimaginable bliss?


    And, for what? For telling God we like Him better than anything we made? We didn''t kill our neighbor or fuck his wife, and, if we did, we''re super sorry, so we''re golden?


    In what world does any of that make sense?


    Well, in ours, it turns out. To a lot of people.


    "That so many of you now genuinely believe that the God of all that is Perfection wants above everything else for you, His youngest children, to tell Him how wonderful He is?" Gabriel asked me with a laugh. "It is shocking to us, frankly. Do you really think Him so shallow? So vain?"


    But those other guys...


    The ones that built the pyramids and moved monolithic stones and acknowledged the stars and their small but significant place among them;


    The ones who explored their world and spread their message and their balanced way of life with the curiosity and hearts of children, innocent in their eagerness to widen their understanding of their fellow humans;


    The ones who ¡ª even after a society-ending cataclysm, in the face of a new power structure in a new epoch ¡ª devoted themselves for generations to venturing into the world yet again to remind their fellow humans of the old ways and, for their efforts, were crucified and burned and demonized and ultimately relegated to the realm of myth and conspiracies...


    Those guys. They got it.


    "But when the world froze, as worlds sometimes do," Gabriel told me, "there were so few of them left, so few of any of you left. And that''s when we knew. We weren''t one-hundred-percent certain, of course, not yet, but we began our preparations."


    So few humans left that it didn''t take many converts to make a majority among them.


    The "Ancients," let''s go ahead and call them (with a totally intentional nod to Stargate SG-1), knew, or at least, had a 5th-grade understanding, of another Universal Law:


    No species ascends to Paradise incomplete.


    "How did Immanuel put it?" Gabriel asked. "Ah, yes: ''I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.''"


    "But," he added, "since the flood, how has the church so often described its relation to Immanuel?"


    He was prompting me, certain I knew the answer, because, come on!


    "Who?" I replied.


    My dear journal, I am not lying when I write that Gabriel, a divine creature of infinite knowledge and light, rolled his fucking eyes at me.


    "Jesus," he said. "Jesus. The church declared itself to be the very body of Jesus Christ, and therefor, by proxy, ''the way and the truth and the life.''"


    "What became the most powerful, epoch-defining entity on planet earth," Gabriel said, "taught billions of human beings that the only way they would know God''s grace, the only way they would see the fruition of His plan for them, the very point of His creation of them and the only way to avoid an eternity of desolation and damnation, was to obey not God''s order of things or even the spark of God that dwelled within them, but the church they built and appointed themselves world leaders of because they are the literal body of God''s gatekeeper."


    "And then it fractured into different sects and denominations, and suddenly the ''body of Christ, supposedly a direct conduit of the Holy Spirit, began cutting itself for bragging rights and random patches of dirt," he recalled. "With the understanding that they worship the same God, the devout followers of the three major religions you lot created turned on each other, rather than on their mortal leaders who led them astray."


    And now I understand the real problem with that, faithful journal, the problem with any religion that proclaims to know the mind of the Creator ¡ª to be the only way you, too, can know the mind of the Creator ¡ª to the exclusion, and, all-too-often, to the obliteration of anyone who disagrees:


    There can be no human soul excluded.


    "It''s all of you, raptured to Paradise in one glorious celebration of the fulfillment of humanity''s potential," Gabriel said, "or every human soul remains, some on Earth to carry on the species, the rest in the Guff, where they will be reborn on Earth at a later, carefully chosen time, to live, to learn, to die, to return to Earth and live again."


    Wash, rinse, repeat, until...


    Until my head stops throbbing, dear journal. I can''t see what I''m writing anymore.


    It''s not from the burden of what Gabriel shared with me in those seven days, but from the sheer volume of it ¡ª of all the information that I have to make the entire group understand, really important information ¡ª and I can feel the details starting to slip away.


    The major points, I know. I mean, really know. Like "burned-into-my-fucking-soul" really know.


    But details, the details I never want to forget, the 21 Questions and the names and dates and the references. The literature and the societies and the goddamn DETAILS!


    They are fading.


    I remember him explaining why they would be fading, why they had to fade, but damn it, my head is throbbing and I need a couple of hours...

 Chapter Eight: Unwell

    Eve dropped her pen and buried her forehead in her hands.


    She fought ¡ª really fought, like Uma Thurman in Kill Bill ¡ª back the tears.


    Brady was knocking at the door.


    Thankfully, Donnie answered it.


    "Hey, how is she? You know, we''re all pretty worried and anxious to know what the hell happened. I just need to ask her, you know, so I can tell the others, when she might feel up to talking to us?"


    Donnie smiled politely, nodded vigorously, shut the door in Brady''s face without saying a word, and went back to watching Ridiculousness reruns on fubo.


    He needed, Eve knew, to go dig a trench or something. Donnie got cabin fever. He had no idea what to do for her, so sitting there, feeling helpless, indoors, was going to make him twitchy.


    She couldn''t imagine how he''d manage two weeks in a fallout shelter with ten people.


    Ten people, and a baby, Eve reminded herself. She scribbled "crib in bunker!" on a piece of paper and underlined it three times.


    As for Donnie, he had no intention of leaving her side. Not until that douchebag showed itself again so he could snap its collarbone.


    Do Elohim have collarbones? He wasn''t sure. But if Gabriel could stand, he had kneecaps. And Donnie could fuck up some kneecaps.


    Eve understood better now what made Donnie... Donnie.


    It was yet another needed conversation she didn''t know how to start.


    Essentially, Gabriel explained, he exists in a state of quantum superposition.


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    Apparently, it''s very rare ¡ª maybe once or twice in an entire epoch ¡ª but it is one of the many possible combinations of souls, vessels, and God''s spark of life that can occur. Not a mistake, but a simple mathematical probability that occasionally pops up.


    In every lifetime, every soul experiences every possible outcome of every choice it makes, from walking the dog now rather than after The Kelly Clarkson Show to world domination.


    Shoutout to the geeks who looked at wave patterns and realized that quantum entanglement and Schr?dinger''s cat are a thing.


    An instantaneous, autonomic function of the knowledge-hungry soul is to play out every reaction to every action and seek out the most likely effect of every cause.


    In a process "far too complex" for Eve to "currently begin to comprehend," Gabriel told her, when you are deciding whether to go right or left, parts of your soul split off, simultaneously experiencing the consequences of going left, going right, standing still, going straight, going left then changing your mind and doubling back, etc. etc. etc..


    After all possibilities are explored ¡ª allowing the soul to truly understand every situation from all angles ¡ª the most likely outcome is identified and it plays out on Earth where human vessels are anchored.


    Humans are not consciously aware of this function, in the same way they aren''t consciously aware of what has to happen almost instantaneously for their hand to move just because they unconsciously willed it to do so.


    In the same way that the human brain chooses not to acknowledge the annoying fact that it can see its nose ¡ª and for much of the same practical reason ¡ª the soul keeps from the conscious human the fact that, while some furious housewife was thinking about what to say to her cheating spouse, in that instant, at least one part of her soul just pierced her hubby''s neck with a meat thermometer in an alternate timeline.


    That''s quantum reality, and it''s an ingenious way, if your goal is perfection and you literally have all the time in the word, for every human soul to experience all its options so that it can come to an informed decision, or at least properly reflect in later contemplation on why the decision they did make was a shitty one.


    But humans would go insane if they saw the quantum doors open all around them. It would paralyze them, like deer caught in Heavenly headlights. It''s simply TMI for the human brain at this stage of its development.


    Just ask Donnie.


    For reasons unknown, he remembers a good deal of those quantum soul excursions. From his perspective, he has gotten stuck in more than one decision-making loop and has fully experienced the often horrible consequences of many of those possible outcomes.


    To put it another way, Donnie is lucid dreaming in the quantum field, and he can''t wake up.


    If Occam''s razor is the most likely, correct outcome, Donnie is Occam''s butter knife.


    Knowing that made Eve feel like an asshole. He''d tried so many times to tell her, but he just didn''t know how, especially when he was forced to analyze all that could go tits up if he did tell her.


    She pulled herself up from the table, went to the hutch, grabbed a full bottle of Jack and the Monopoly board, and headed for her bed.


    "Clothes on!" she barked over her shoulder.


    "Daaaammit," he replied and quickly followed.


    As she spread out the board and he made his dog hump her top hat, Eve knew they had to make some decisions. With a quickness.


    Starting with Luka.

 From Eves Journal: March 27, 2030

    My dear journal ¡ª and to whoever may find this sometime in the future ¡ª humanity in this epoch has been the victim of the greatest psy-op ever perpetrated.


    It''s almost admirable in a Marvel Villain sort of way.


    First, let me stress, because Gabriel stressed it repeatedly to me, what is coming our way is not a punishment from God.


    We are neither the body of Christ nor God''s footstool.


    We are the adolescent version of a species destined, like all species, for timeless, ageless perfection ¡ª a wholly unique, sparkling facet of the infinitely-faceted Oneness that is "the kingdom and the power and the glory" of God forever.


    Killing off all but a handful of vessels and resetting the Guff isn''t vengeful. It''s the souls that matter, not the vessels, and this reset, like all the others, will mean a fresh start for the children God loves after a very long string of really bad choices.


    God doesn''t reward bad choices with two tickets to Paradise any more than a good parent rewards a tantrum with a lollipop.


    The good parent stops the screaming child from banging its head on the table and smacking a puppy because it didn''t get its way or doesn''t want to eat its veggies and then the parent puts their little shit in time out.


    A parent then forgives their little darling and gives it the tools and the space to find a better way to be.


    And a good parent never, ever stops loving or believing in their offspring''s potential for greatness.


    It is the good, loving parent who knows their child must sometimes fail and commits to inspiring them to believe they have within them the power to overcome that failure.


    All the wars, all the cataclysms, all the crops that fail and hearts that get broken and children that get buried and civilizations that crumble are all brief but necessary and, yes, often painful, teaching moments to an infinitely patient Father who knows, with absolute certainty, that all of His naughty, impulsive, obstinate children will ultimately succeed.


    Just not quite yet.


    Because it''s almost that time again, folks, when the only soul green-lit for reincarnation in the Guff is pulled off the bench and sent to Earth.


    When that child is born, all human souls in existence will be in one of two places: On the planet, or in the case of the more "recently departed," in the Guff, still reviewing the life they just lived or awaiting the conception and birth of their next vessel.


    As the mind-bending laws of probability dictate, there is a time in every "turn" when this will, with certainty, occur. A time when there will be, on all of Earth, one woman in labor with the last human soul who will be born in their epoch.


    When that happens, when that child breathes in its first gulp of Earth''s air and announces its arrival with a mighty cry, it triggers a cosmic sound check.


    Hermes Trismegistus, with a major assist from Thoth, got it right: As Above, so Below.


    If the harmonic resonance of human souls matches the harmonic resonance in Paradise, all human souls will be raptured and will walk through the pearly gates together.


    If, on the other hand, the frequencies are off, by a hair or by a mile, the reset mechanism is triggered.


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    Earth finds the most efficient way to drastically reduce the number of people stomping on her lawn, and the majority of human souls gather in the Guff to debrief with the Elohim.


    There, all questions are answered, and, after a brief pause for Gaia''s to adjust her attitude, the remaining humans on Earth start getting their groove back, new vessels are conceived, and the reincarnations begin again.


    Trismegistus''s "Emerald Tablet"¡ª once common knowledge ¡ª would prove in the new epoch to be a cosmic spanner. It would be weaponized and hurled into God''s great works, where it would threaten to bring the evolution of humanity''s souls to a screeching halt.


    Just before the flood, as freezing humans were wondering where God''s infinite love was hiding, a leader in what would eventually be dusted off and re-named G?bekli Tepe, took his 5th-grade understanding of the soul''s long journey, and decided that he really didn''t give a shit about what was Above.


    Screw God''s plan. Humans, with their little spark of God''s grace, their opposable thumbs, and their obviously superior intellect, could create their own paradise, right here on Earth.


    That leader, whose name has been lost either to time or to the musty bowels of the Vatican, began amassing some local power. In this unprecedented time, when what was left of mankind was huddling together for warmth, what was needed, he said, was a benevolent central, ruling body that would protect the citizens of the world from any more of God''s nasty tricks.


    Enough with the astrology and "whole world in His hands" crap, the bitter man told anyone who would listen. That happy-happy-joy-joy mentality stopped being relevant when the ice sheets ate half His planet.


    That''s about the time that Noah started building his ark.


    Not long after that angry, rebellious man and his army of pumped-up narcissists slaughtered the residents of G?bekli Tepe and buried the buildings as an added F.U., a baby was born to a shivering woman, Earth''s harmonic resonance hit a flat note, and, just like that, the ice melted.


    By the time the waters had receded and the circle of life started spinning again, the seeds of a plan began to sprout: If God could sway so many people from His mighty Lazy-Boy in the sky, imagine what people would do if they thought God could be keeping tabs on them from a building down the street?


    For it to be effective, all that Ancient rhetoric would have to be stricken from the record ¡ª not such a hard thing to accomplish considering most of them drowned and the tone-deaf few that were left were out wandering the jungles, the deserts, and more jungles telling everyone to "trust the plan."


    With their cities and libraries underwater, their nifty toys broken, and their supply chain floating away, it wasn''t hard to convince people that their outdated ways were what got them in this mess to begin with.


    New religions ¡ª ones that tried to explain why God suddenly went psycho on them ¡ª were emerging everywhere, but one among the desert dwellers was gaining traction.


    Hijack those followers and, with some clever editing and a few thousand years, the opportunistic elites would soon be erecting temples, building churches, and ordering the masses to tithe for "the greater good."


    With the invention of an apple tree and a talking snake, those cunning humans controlled much of the world with the fear of God.


    By the Middle Ages, the power of the Catholic Church over the world was absolute, and those who held the reins were stuck.


    All the fortunes, all the control, all the playing of humanity like puppets on a string hadn''t solved one critical conundrum: At some point, the Guff ¡ª now seen by the compliant devout as an expensive pitstop between Heaven and a nightmarish Hell ¡ª would empty out again, and with a snap of his fingers, God would unleash a new cataclysm to level the playing field.


    Secret societies were formed to go back through the Ancient texts that had survived the flood and were now under the ruling class''s carefully guarded lock and key. Alchemy was born, drawing from the natural sciences that were now forbidden knowledge.


    Turning lead into gold was the intentionally leaked reason for the pursuit, and, officially, those who dabbled in it were heretics in need of a soul-cleansing barbecue.


    But the Philosopher''s Stone offered a greater reward: The ability to influence where the soul would go when it left the Guff.


    Imagine if one soul could purposefully reincarnate into vessels that were, by their prestigious bloodlines, destined from birth to inherit all the money, thrones, research, and resources of the same ruling class it helped to build?


    What the alchemists were seeking was a way to ensure they would always be in control ¡ª an unbroken line of authoritarianism, with just a few hundred privileged, recycled souls running the entire show.


    And, with the help of the unabridged Emerald Tablet, encoded grimoires, and a whole lot of patience, the bastards figured it out. A few families became more powerful than any of the humans before them.


    Children were born into blinding wealth, taught to access that subconscious sliver of their soul that remembered the Guff, groomed and initiated into the proper societies, and, with the memories of what they were working when they died, by adulthood, they were ready to pick up where they left off.


    Flash forward to the 20th century, and those in the know had worked out how to stall the soul spinner forever.


    "A thought experiment," Gabriel proposed to me.


    What would happen if a very powerful group dedicated a good portion of its energy to ensuring that human souls never united long enough to harmonize with God''s Paradise?


    What would happen if those with nefarious goals had a ballpark idea of when the Guff would empty?


    What if they had planned for it, down to the last dirty detail, and taken all the necessary precautions ¡ª even constructed a cataclysm-proof private reserve of the world''s seeds ¡ª to ensure that they and they alone would survive the next turn with all their toys intact?


    "What if they emerged from the devastation a technological army with an iron grip on the Tree of Knowledge and the unfettered ability to control the population, control the world''s food supply, restrict movement, manage just enough strife to keep human souls captive, and erase all dissenters from the global zeitgeist with the flip of a switch?" Gabriel asked.


    And then he brought me home.

 Chapter Nine: Games Without Frontiers

    The last ¡ª and toughest ¡ª decision Eve and Donnie had to make over that Monopoly board was what to tell Luka and Chet.


    They knew, by all indications, what Luka and Chet didn''t: They were pregnant, and her baby almost certainly will be the last human soul to enter an Earthly vessel before the turn.


    Donnie drew a Chance card.


    "Going to see my homies!" he exclaimed, dropping his dog in jail.


    "So, Gabriel doesn''t know for sure, though, right?" he asked as Eve rolled the dice.


    Fuck. Illinois. Again.


    She took a swig from the half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels and forked over half of what was left of her dwindling colorful cash.


    "It''s a math thing," she answered. "He can''t be a hundred percent, any more than we can. He said, at the very last second, right as the kid is crowning, Godzilla could eat her, and then it could be ages before it all lines up again."


    Well, Gabriel didn''t put it quite like that.


    The details were foggy, but Eve remembered him saying that free will and quantum uncertainty dictate that nothing is truly decided "until it is."


    Eve was just way too buzzed to try and explain that to Donnie.


    The important part was that Gabriel was as sure as an Elohim could be.


    "When you''ve been doing this for a few billion years or so, you tend to get a feel for it," he told her dryly.


    On every world, with every species, there were always signs the turn was approaching: sudden spikes in mortality rates, sharp dips in live childbirths, unrest ¡ª there was always unrest ¡ª and then it was just a matter of running the numbers.


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    Souls are assigned at conception and take ownership of the vessel at birth. During those months, when the baby vessel is completely reliant on its mother for sustenance and secluded from all but her soul, the awaiting soul is encouraged to "watch" the miraculous process, to begin bonding to the vessel and to its future mom.


    So, as soon as Chet''s little swimmer found Luka''s egg, Gabriel knew the soul that would inhabit the bouncing baby boy growing inside her.


    Yes, it was to be a little boy ¡ª another detail Eve and Donnie had no business knowing.


    It didn''t take much for Gabriel to extrapolate the available data and narrow down the likely moment of the birth of Luka''s baby and the total number of mothers that would be in labor at that precise moment ¡ª information he wouldn''t divulge.


    "That algorithm is above your pay grade," he told an inquisitive Eve.


    Regardless of the equation, the result was enough to convince Gabriel and his Elohim brethren that the "trumpets" of humanity''s temperament would sound with the first breath of Luka''s first child.


    Some would say giving birth to that child is Luka''s destiny, but in reality, it was just the luck of the draw.


    If humanity''s hum was synced with Paradise''s, it would be the most significant, most celebrated moment in all human history.


    Unfortunately, given humanity''s current collective mood, the harmonic resonance that is all but guaranteed to emanate from Earth on that day of birth will likely sound to the universal expanse like a stray wet cat in heat.


    Within moments, Earth will stretch and yawn, and somewhere ¡ª could be anywhere on the planet, really ¡ª millions of people will be flicked off her creaking bed like a smelly pair of socks. Or she might stomp her foot and tear apart the Pacific Ring of Fire.


    There was just no way to know.


    Now, none of that will be Luka''s fault, or the fault of that beautiful baby and its eternally precious soul.


    It just is what it is.


    So, Eve argued, Luka and Chet deserved to experience the joy she knew they''d feel of being new, expecting, first-time parents and feeling the baby kick and all those things Eve never got to experience.


    Luka should have the chance to pee on a stick and watch it change her life and figure out the perfect way to tell Chet he''s going to be a daddy.


    "What am I supposed to tell them, Donnie?" Eve asked. "You''re preggers, and, oh, yeah, if the Earth didn''t move when you made the little bundle, it''s gonna fucking boogie when it''s born? Is that really what I''m supposed to tell them?"


    That, Donnie thought, would be hilarious, and the two of them snorted with drunken, desperate laughter for a good two minutes.


    "Ohhhh, this is so fucked up," Donnie groaned at last.


    "But they gotta know," he added. "They need all the facts. What fucking crazy-ass story would we have to come up with to keep it from them? And how pissed would they be if they figured it out?"


    "We gotta get these fuckers ready," Donnie said. "It sucks, but the baby shower is going to have to wait. I don''t know, maybe it''ll make them stronger, but if it makes them fall apart, we have to know that, too."


    He was right. She knew he was right. And with a stop on Marvin Gardens, she was broke.


    Game over.

 Chapter Ten: (Dont Fear) The Reaper

    If Eve could remember the details of their seven days together, she would know that Gabriel found her amusing.


    Questions. She had so many questions.


    Once she calmed down and her brain processed her new reality, she rattled them off with enthusiasm.


    "Who shot JFK?"


    "The CIA."


    "Who killed Marilyn Monroe?"


    "Same answer."


    "Did we land on the moon?"


    "Yes, but not when you think you did."


    "Why are you dressed like Adam Ant?"


    Gabriel laughed at that one.


    "You can''t see me in my true form," he told her.


    Eve''s head spun to reruns of "Supernatural."


    "My eyes would burn out of my skull?" she asked.


    He laughed again, a full-bodied laugh that struck Eve with its honesty.


    "No," he assured her. "You literally wouldn''t be able to see me. I am..."


    He struggled to find the simplest terms.


    "Energy, light... it can behave in surprising ways, correct?" he asked.


    Eve nodded. "The double-slit experiment," she said.


    "Right," Gabriel replied. "Good."


    "Well, there are some frequencies ¡ª many of them, truthfully ¡ª that humans have yet to discover, mainly because they cannot yet perceive their existence," he explained. "I am mostly made of one of those frequencies, the same way that human vessels are mostly comprised of water. You haven''t yet developed the senses needed to fully see me."


    She took a second to absorb the information, then circled back to her original thought. "But why Adam Ant''s wardrobe?"


    "You really don''t know?" he asked, smiling again. "Think back..."


    He wanted to know if she could access memories like that at will. It could prove important later.


    Eve searched her mind. She loved Adam Ant, for sure, when she was a kid. She was, what? Thirteen when "Strip" hit the charts? And that New Romantic look. She went all-in on that for a while...


    And that was about the time...


    "I first saw you when I was 13," Eve said.


    Thirteen was the first difficult year Eve could remember having.


    With the onset of her period, Eve went from a "sensitive" child to a hormonal hurricane. More than a week before "Mr. Monthly" arrived, she would teeter on the edge of an emotional black hole. When it finally "visited," she spent a full week crippled with cramps and migraines. And for at least three days after, she was struggling to gain her energy back, only for the PMS to start pummeling her again.


    Her body, Eve was convinced at the time, was betraying her, and her mood swings grew increasingly...


    "Dark," Eve whispered aloud. "I was really in a dark place, and..."


    "In all that internal chemical chaos," Gabriel reminded her, "the neural pathways to your more intuitive gifts went through a growth. Suddenly, you sensed me."


    "And it scared the shit out of me!" Eve gasped.


    "I was ''Darkness'' from that moment on," he chuckled.


    "Because you looked like a shadow person," she said. "Like a big shadow watching me."


    "That''s about as closely as your brain can approximate my form," he said. "So, I looked at the posters on your wall..."


    "And you chose Adam Ant?" Eve shook with laughter. "From then on, I imagined you as a pirate."


    "Boy George seemed less ideal," Gabriel chuckled.


    "Do you watch everyone?" Eve needed to know.


    "Yes," he answered simply. "I am Elohim. It is what we do."


    "Why?"


    "Because you wouldn''t leave a bunch of mischievous children unattended, would you?" he asked. "No telling what they would get up to."


    It really is that simple. Gabriel wanted her to understand that.


    Humans in this epoch had an extraordinary penchant for overcomplicating everything, and he needed Eve to know that they do it because they were conditioned by some wayward souls to do so.


    Eve, meanwhile, wanted to dish.


    "What is the one thing that humans have ridiculously wrong that really irks you?" she asked.


    "Elohim don''t get irked," Gabriel replied, knowing she knew that wasn''t a real answer.


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    He sighed. It was a delicate thing, deciding what he should share and what information humans needed to gather on their own.


    Nothing was off-limits in the Guff, and anything already known to humans on Earth was fair game. But there was a wide gray area that was left to the Elohims'' discretion, and you never wanted to divulge something that could knock human development off course.


    The "Prime Directive" Gene Roddenberry imagined was a remarkable insight into the way things operate. The souls of science fiction writers, like the scientists who inspired them, were among those who often honed in on the natural order of things. They, along with the musicians and actors and poets and painters of their world, were the ones most likely to access memories from their respites in the Guff.


    Consciously, they likely remembered nothing of the unknown things they learned while there, but, as with souls of all species, everything was recorded for them on a deeply subconscious level, available to them once they were evolved enough to access it.


    Described as "epiphanies," "deja vous," and "your conscience," the information that is recalled often manifests both in times of great need and great creativity.


    Of course, the Elohim, having known every one of those human souls for millions of years, knew which to go to with a whisper in the ear if they needed to get a message out to humanity.


    It was always hit and miss, and the message would almost always get garbled, like a child''s game of telephone, but eventually, someone ¡ª an Albert Einstein or a Nikolai Tesla or a Bob Dylan ¡ª would credit an ethereal "muse" and say what needed to be said.


    Eve, Gabriel could tell, was genuinely interested in his opinion on something, and it was so rare that a wide-eyed human, confronted with what so many of them think is a myth, ever cared to know how he felt about anything that didn''t directly relate to their eternal well-being...


    She likely wouldn''t remember his answer, so really, why not enjoy the moment?


    And if she did retrieve the memories on her own, Gabriel thought, would that really be such a bad thing? Doesn''t she already sense it on some level?


    "Fallen angels," he replied, enunciating each syllable with a smirk. "The entire premise is preposterous."


    "Details," Eve pressed. "Be specific."


    "Alright then," Gabriel said, warming up to his favorite rant. "Why did God supposedly flood Noah''s world?"


    Eve thought for a moment. "The angels coveted the human females, went all Barry White on them, and their offspring ¡ª the Nephilim ¡ª were giants who started eating them? Which is weird, because didn''t David take one out with a slingshot?"


    "See, there is so much wrong with that statement, I don''t know where to begin," Gabriel huffed. "First, it''s a physical impossibility."


    "What part?"


    "All of it," Gabriel said. "We. Are not. The same. You were created in our image, as we were created in God''s image."


    "Image," he stressed. "You were based on us, given versions of our abilities and traits tailored to your unique being. But you are a completely different life form, wholly incompatible, especially on a reproductive level. It would be like you trying to mate with a palm tree. It would never occur to us to even attempt something so absurd."


    That made Eve giggle, but Gabriel was just getting started.


    "And if it were possible, which I assure you, it isn''t, why would our offspring be vile, cannibalistic, bloodthirsty beasts?" he asked.


    "Well, that''s easy," Eve said. "You broke God''s rules when you banged our bitches. Nothing good was going to come of that."


    She was enjoying this.


    Was it weird that she was enjoying this? Shouldn''t she be awestruck and terrified? But Gabriel was astonishingly easy to talk to, and he was funny. That tickled her no end. Archangels are funny fuckers! Who knew?


    "We would never ''bang'' you," Gabriel told her. "I don''t want to bruise your delicate human ego, but you''re not exactly our type. Beautiful. Humans are beautiful. But I suspect we believe you to be beautiful in the same way you believe a kitten is beautiful, or a daisy, or a really fluffy bunny.


    "And the idea that we would be jealous of God''s love for you..." Gabriel''s voice trailed off and he looked down. "It''s really so tragic that so many of you''ve been led to believe that.''


    "Eve," he said, looking at her in earnest, "God Himself looked upon us, we who had been at His side for the birth of every wondrous thing He has created, and He loved us so that He created you and allowed me and six of my brethren to be witnesses to your magnificent journey to Paradise.


    "Search your heart, Eve. Can you think of a greater honor, a greater responsibility, or a greater show of appreciation from the One who created All?"


    Eve felt tears welling up in her eyes, and she wasn''t sure why. It was just such a breathtaking thought.


    "We could never be anything but humbled and proud and profoundly moved by God''s love for you, because it is a reflection of His love for us," he said softly.


    "Only the developing mind of an Earthbound child would be so arrogant as to think an ancient being of light would betray not only his Lord but his own soul for such a primitive pleasure," he said gently.


    "Which is why pride is a sin?" Eve was thinking aloud again. "But you just said you took pride in us."


    He smiled patiently. She was asking the right questions, as he knew she would.


    "Pride is another word whose meaning has been manipulated," Gabriel answered. "And ''sin'' is a human construct.


    "Are there behaviors that are less desirable in an evolved human soul? Of course. And in time, you will all come to realize that and will act accordingly. But the notion of a ''mortal sin'' that will condemn your soul for eternity? You only believe that because you are still incapable of seeing the larger picture.


    "You still cling to the merits and failures of a single lifetime," Gabriel said. "You still believe that the fate of your eternal soul rests only on you and what you do, typically, in less than 100 years of living. You are disconnected from each other, and you''ve forgotten that the Butterfly Effect is very real.


    "We have watched each of you live so many lives, and there are so many still to come for you all. What you see as unforgivable, we see as a difficult misstep from a much broader lesson that you will, in time, master. What you see as your own mortality, we know is nothing more than the changing of a pair of shoes in the grand scheme of things.


    "Pride in a job well done, pride in those around you, pride in your own ability to accomplish any goal or realize any dream... that''s not a bad thing," he said. "Hubris, on the other hand, the belief that you are superior to others, that you could flirt with an angel of the Lord, for example, and start a heavenly war between those who see you, for the most part, as precocious teenagers...


    "That is a trait that is neither appealing or helpful to anyone," Gabriel agreed. "But even that, we know, will eventually fade from cognitive human behavior, the same way I knew you''d eventually grow up and stop picking your nose."


    Again, Eve found herself laughing. Then another dot floated through her mind, and she needed to connect it while she had the chance.


    "Lucifer?" she asked.


    "The greatest wrap-up smear ever conceived and executed on the unsuspecting masses," Gabriel said with more than a tinge of... irkiness?


    Yes, Eve decided, this irked the Elohim.


    "Lucifer is no different than I," Gabriel said. "He was chosen to watch humanity just like I was, like Michael, Uriel, Chamuel, Raphael, Jophiel. He became quite close to his charges at the end of the last epoch. He believed more than any of us that, at most, in another turn or two, humanity would be raptured. He enjoyed being among them."


    "After the flood, he encouraged humans to remember all they knew, to embrace the challenge they were facing and stay the course," he continued wistfully. "And that made him a problem for the humans who wanted to take humanity on a different path."


    "Eve, you are familiar with the idea of projection, right?" he asked. "You''re doing something you know is beneath you, so you accuse others of doing the same?"


    Familiar with it? It had been elevated to a sport in America.


    Eve nodded.


    "Every self-indulgent obsession, every tantrum they wished to throw before God, every untamed desire for control and debauchery the newly established ruling class on Earth craved," Gabriel said, "was projected onto Lucifer.


    "His name became synonymous with torment and manipulation. He became the reason for all that held humanity back. It was he who wished to trap souls away from God''s grace. It was he, not them, who rejected God''s plan, who challenged God, and who would, without their protection, possess human souls and break their spirits, with the sole purpose of ''irking,'' as you put it, his Creator.


    "It was so ridiculous, we honestly thought it would blow over," he admitted. "Who could believe that God would create a creature that was destined to do the things they accused Lucifer of doing? Why would God Almighty wish for such a thing to exist ¡ª an irredeemable creation of such power, capable only of destruction and chaos and pain to everything He loved?


    "Cui bono?" he asked. "Ask yourself who benefited from such dogma?"


    "Lucifer''s very name struck fear into the people he was to guide," Gabriel said. "His reputation was, it became clear, unfixable. He knew he could never successfully carry out God''s purpose for him or for humanity when they ran screaming from him in terror or crawling to him out of some twisted sense of rebellious allegiance.


    "So he did what was best for the humans who hated him ¡ª he put in for a job transfer," Gabriel said. "Zadkiel joined us, and Lucifer is in another world where he is faithfully serving the souls in his keep."


    Eve blinked. A lot. Rapidly.


    "They are stories, Eve, stories that, if analyzed unemotionally, with logic, fall apart," Gabriel said. "Stories that have been told by people who created them as a means to insert themselves between the rest of humanity and their connection to God, to us, and to each other.


    "And they have become the stories that have informed a great deal of genuinely well-meaning, faithful human souls for a very long time," he said.


    "Understand, this isn''t about one religion," Gabriel told her. "The Jewish, Christian, and Muslim faiths represent nearly four billion human souls, and they have been cajoled and coerced, sometimes on pain of death, into believing they are each other''s mortal enemy.


    "To unlearn that now, much of humanity will have to unwind all they believe they know of their Creator, of their Savior, of their prophets and ''holy'' texts, and of their enemies. They will have to question the things they have come to know are true as plainly as they know the sky is blue.


    "And how will they begin that process if they are prevented from ever learning anything different? If they do not know to question what they are told?" he asked. "Because that, we fear, is what is at stake for humanity in the coming turn.


    "The same obstinate souls ¡ª the same few who cannot imagine a Paradise more glorious than the material comforts they have amassed for themselves; who cannot conceive of a God more powerful than the power they wield on Earth over His creations ¡ª


    "They will decide in large part who will survive the cataclysm, and when the dust settles, they will swiftly emerge from this turn intact, and with the means to ensure the only knowledge available to any who are left to repopulate the planet will fall from the fruitless branches of their rotting tree.


    "So you, the little family you have embraced, and those like you, elsewhere... you must survive this turn. You must take what you know into the next."


    "You must be humanity''s teachers," Gabriel told Eve, "because there is a very real, very human Darkness descending on the souls in your world, Eve. So you few who know the true way have got to be their light."

 Chapter Eleven: Cry Little Sister

    Eve took the empty bottle of Jack from the nightstand and smiled at the two little scrolls, bound with two pieces of dental floss, resting at the bottom. She made a mental note to be sure all those bottles made it into the Forever Place.


    She felt grounded. Hungover, but grounded and strangely at ease.


    They had an actionable plan to get them through what needed to be done now, and what to start them working on for the next seven months.


    Eve wanted everything ready, that shelter good to move into, at least two months before Luka¡¯s due date. And with what she knew now, adjustments needed to be made. She was planning for a nuclear attack, not a string of natural disasters. That changed things, though she wasn¡¯t entirely sure what those changed things were.


    As for how to tell everyone, how to get them up to speed, Eve and Donnie ultimately decided to just make copies of what Eve had written in her journal and let them ingest it quietly, at their own speed. Tonight, they¡¯d build a bonfire and they would all be on the same page to talk it out.


    They would delegate tasks to everyone ¡ª projects that would keep all of them focused and busy. Eve was afraid if anyone had too much time on their hands to think about what was coming, panic could set in, and there simply wasn¡¯t any room for that.


    It was also decided that the children would sit tonight¡¯s bonfire out.


    That one took a lot of trips around the Monopoly board to get to.


    Donnie was against keeping the kids out of any of this, because ¡°there wasn¡¯t time to pussyfart around.¡±


    Trevor, Jacob, and Samantha are older than he was when he was handling his cracked-back mom¡¯s business, Donnie stated, so he was pretty sure they could handle the straight truth now.


    But Eve felt strongly that their parents were the only ones with the right to have this conversation with their children.


    ¡°There are some things you don¡¯t talk about with kids who aren¡¯t yours,¡± she finally snapped back with a tone that made it clear Donnie wasn¡¯t going to win this one.


    But before anything else, Eve would sit down with Chet and Luka and do her very best not to break their hearts more than she had to.


    ***


    The bonfire was lit by eight,


    ¡°So that¡¯s just fucking it, okay?¡± Luka proclaimed sharply to the assembled group, the orange and yellow flames dancing with the shadows behind her.


    Her eyes blazing, she forced, one at a time, Chuck, Patty, Brady, and Steve to meet her defiant glare and agree.


    ¡°Okay then,¡± she said, as Chet stood like the Rock of Gibraltar by her side. ¡°This baby is going to come into this world knowing love. I don¡¯t give a fuck if the San Andreas fault opens up right in front of us, this baby¡¯s first emotion will NOT be fear, do you all understand?¡±


    ¡°And until then, I don¡¯t want any fucking pity, okay? I don¡¯t want that near me, because I know he will feel it, and I will be FUCKED if my baby is going to be born with a guilt trip.¡±


    Everyone nodded and mumbled things like, ¡°Of course!¡± and ¡°Whatever you need.¡±


    Luka¡¯s shoulders relaxed. Her ragged nails released their grip on her palms. ¡°Alright then,¡± she said, her voice quivering. Tears clouded her vision, and suddenly, the fierce Mama Bear was a seventeen-year-old girl again.


    She reached for Chet¡¯s hand and dug the toe of her scuffed boot into the gravel.


    ¡°I¡¯m gonna be a mom, y¡¯all,¡± she said, a shy smile forming behind her tears.


    Patty was the first to respond. With a beaming smile, she rose from her lawn chair, her arms outstretched. ¡°Congratulations,¡± she said, as she embraced Luka tightly. ¡°Don¡¯t you worry, okay? I¡¯m a midwife, so we got that covered, and I¡¯m going to make you tinctures for morning sickness and we can make baby clothes and¡ª¡°


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    ¡°Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you,¡± Luka whispered back, squeezing her tightly.


    And for the next thirty minutes, it was a celebration.


    Eve¡¯s heart swelled with gratitude as she watched Steve, Brady, and Chuck rush to clap Chet on the back and shake his hand. Donnie ran inside and came out with two shopping bags.


    Earlier, as Eve sat with Chet and Luka and slowly, calmly told them all she knew, pausing frequently for tears and questions and reassuring words, Donnie snuck out for a quick trip to the town¡¯s family-owned liquor store.


    From the bags, he pulled two bottles of sparkling wine, one bottle of sparkling apple cider for Luka, a bunch of plastic Red Cups, and a handful of the most expensive cheap cigars the store had on hand.


    It surprised Eve as much as it did the expecting couple. She¡¯d put away the tobacco, replacement bottle of Jack, and frozen pizza he¡¯d said he went out for, but she had no idea he¡¯d done this, too.


    I could kiss him for this, she realized. That could actually happen.


    ¡°I love you guys,¡± Luka said, raising her cup of cider as Chet topped off everyone else with the remaining bubbly. ¡°I can¡¯t think of a better bunch of crazy aunts and uncles for my son.¡±


    The group toasted her back with table thumps and claps.


    ¡°Now, let¡¯s figure out how we¡¯re gonna keep those assholes from fucking up his world,¡± Luka stated, squaring her shoulders. ¡°Eve?¡±


    Eve drained her cup, took a deep breath, and stepped forward.


    ¡°Okay, so you all now know everything I know,¡± she told them. ¡°I know there are probably a thousand questions ¡ª I have them, too. But we aren¡¯t completely alone with this. Gabriel told me that each of the seven Elohim has been ¡®encouraging¡¯ seven groups like ours to form around the world.¡±


    ¡°Encouraging?¡± Brady asked.


    ¡°It¡¯s complicated,¡± Eve answered. ¡°They can only ¡ª will only ¡ª present humans with knowledge and opportunities ¡ª like a broken down minivan,¡± she said, eyeing Chuck and Patty. ¡°What we do with that is up to us. Free will is an immutable law.¡±


    ¡°Then why are they getting involved at all?¡± Steve asked. ¡°Aren¡¯t they changing things by telling us any of this?¡±


    ¡°I think they feel the game has been rigged,¡± Eve tried to explain. ¡°What has happened in this turn goes against the natural order of things.¡±


    ¡°Then why didn¡¯t they stop it back when it started? Right after the flood?¡± Chuck wanted to know.


    ¡°Seems awful passive-aggressive to step in at the last minute,¡± Patty agreed.


    ¡°Because, at the last minute, anything could change,¡± Eve said. ¡°The ghouls who are doing this ¡ª the ¡®elites,¡¯ the ¡®globalists,¡¯ the ¡®transhumanists¡¯ ¡ª call them what you want ¡ª¡°


    ¡°¡®Ghouls¡¯ works,¡± Chet interjected.


    Eve nodded. ¡°Well, the Ghouls could, in theory, decide they don¡¯t want to give God the finger after all. Or, in giving God the finger, they could trigger a spiritual uprising among the survivors, and their ¡®Pinky and the Brain¡¯ plan could backfire.¡±


    ¡°You have to remember,¡± she said, ¡°the Elohim aren¡¯t trying to prevent the deaths of billions of people. That¡¯s going to happen, no matter what. They are only trying to make sure that, going forward, human souls have the ability to ¡®grow¡¯ from the experience. They play the long game. But if the Ghouls make sure the only survivors are their handpicked sheep, that the only information available is their narratives, the whole path to enlightenment gets a permanent detour.¡±


    ¡°Paradise Lost,¡± Patty mused aloud.


    ¡°Exactly,¡± Eve said.


    ¡°So what¡¯s our move?¡± Luka asked.


    ¡°Well, first, we need to get the shelter ready,¡± Eve stated. ¡°Look, I keep running this in my head, and if I¡¯m the Ghoul Grand Poobah, and I know Mother Nature is going to be doing the heavy lifting on the depopulation angle, I¡¯m not sure I¡¯m going to want to leave the culling completely up to her unbiased random selection process.


    ¡°I¡¯m going to want to be absolutely certain specific targets are taken out before she gets pissy, and the people left standing are somehow funneled into containable, controllable corners of the continents by the time she lets loose,¡± she said. ¡°I¡¯m going to want to know that their communications are unsalvageable, that information supply lines are completely cut off, and anything left is in my hands when the dust clears.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re thinking they¡¯re going launch a preemptive strike?¡± Brady asked. ¡°Beforethe turn?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s what I¡¯d do,¡± Eve nodded. ¡°And I can only think of a few ways they could swing it.¡±


    ¡°Nukes,¡± Donnie said. ¡°Drop a few in the right places, and you can herd a lot of people into your barns and slam the doors.¡±


    ¡°Right,¡± Eve said. ¡°So, Chet and Brady, I need you guys to start identifying the likeliest targets, the places that would force the most people into the biggest corrals. And we need to know where the Ghouls plan on riding this out. Keep in mind, they¡¯re going to want to be online as soon as it¡¯s over. They¡¯ll have guarded their gear against EMPs. How are they going to manage to reboot? We need to know."


    ¡°And the shelter,¡± Eve continued. ¡°Steve, you and Donnie have to figure out how to store as many supplies as we can in the smallest amount of space. We don¡¯t know how long we¡¯re going to have to be in there, because even if we don¡¯t get nuked, we could be hit by tornados or rocked by quakes or anything else Mother Earth can throw at us. And we¡¯re going to have a newborn, a dog, and two cats in there with us.


    ¡°You two need to binge every tiny house, ¡®organize your shit¡¯ show you can find and get really, really clever with space,¡± she said. ¡°Donnie is like a damn savant when it comes to storage.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll Tetris the shit out it all and get it in there,¡± he said, grinning.


    ¡°I know you will,¡± Eve said, shooting him a smile. ¡°Everything we¡¯re going to need, we¡¯re going to have to make sure is protected. And we¡¯re going to need security all over this property. Chet, Chuck, Donnie ¡ª that¡¯s on you guys, too. It¡¯s going to ALL have to be low-tech. We have to plan on no power, no gas, no running water, no internet ¡ª we¡¯ve got to go old school on everything.¡±


    ¡°And, if volcanos start blowing their stacks,¡± Brady noted, ¡°the ash will block the sun, so don¡¯t count on solar.¡±


    ¡°Damn,¡± Eve groaned. ¡°Good point.¡±


    ¡°Steve,¡± she said, ¡°you know everyone and everything around here. We need to know what resources we¡¯ll be able to count on ¡ª big supplies of water, weapons, food, gas, propane, medicine, fallback shelters, backroads in and out of places. We need to know where survivors will head first, where we can restock after it''s over, and what we can scavenge if we have to. We start with what¡¯s available locally and we¡¯ll go from there.¡±


    Eve turned to Patty. ¡°We need the biggest, baddest medicine cabinet you can put together for us. Everything Luka and the baby will need, and a way to treat everything from hemorrhoids and headaches to broken limbs, fevers, whatever gets thrown at us.¡±


    Patty nodded. ¡°On it.¡±


    ¡°Brady,¡± Eve said, ¡°we¡¯re also going to need to suck out every bit of ancient lore, Illuminati, sacred knowledge, UN agenda crap you¡¯ve got crammed in your gorgeous conspiratorial brain. I want to know the name of every Inquisition queef and Davos dickhead who would be into world domination.


    ¡°Remember,¡± Eve said, ¡°these fuckers figured out how to reincarnate directly back into their cults, so it¡¯s likely we¡¯re dealing with people today who made history in the past. I want to know their names.¡±


    ¡°Can do,¡± Brady answered.


    Eve then reached out and took Luka¡¯s hand. ¡°You and me? We need to put on our digger hats and jump down some rabbit holes. Seven months isn''t far away. There has to be chatter happening now, money changing hands, preparations being made. We need to connect those dots so we know who and what we¡¯re up against after the turn.¡±


    Luka squeezed Eve¡¯s hand. ¡°Color me fucking Alice,¡± she said.


    ¡°Good,¡± Eve said, looking at her little family. She took another deep breath and blew it out in one quick blast. ¡°Good,¡± she said again, her body filling with a love for each of them she''d never felt for humans who weren''t her blood.


    ¡°Let¡¯s do this.¡±

 Chapter Twelve: Burning Down the House

    It didn¡¯t take Brady long to decide that Mother Nature would likely go scorched earth on humanity this time around.


    A second flood, according to the Bible, was off the table.


    ¡°And I will establish My covenant with you: Neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth.¡± Genesis 9:11 reads.


    ¡°In 2 Peter 3:10, the Good Book is pretty clear,¡± Brady told Eve and Donnie over a cup of morning coffee. ¡°¡®But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare.¡¯¡±


    ¡°And Christians aren¡¯t the only ones who think that way,¡± he said. ¡°To the Zoroastrians, fire represents the creator¡¯s energy. The sun is a manifestation of Ahura Mazda¡¯s divine light. Fire is seen as the embodiment of Ahura Mazda¡¯s son. And, come Frashokereti, they believe fire will consume the universe and purify it once and for all.¡±


    ¡°They believed that 1,500 hundred years before Christ,¡± Brady noted. ¡°Zoroastrianism is one of the oldest religions out there. Hell, the three wise men who were at Jesus¡¯s birth were Zoroastrian magi.¡±


    ¡°And, closer to home,¡± he continued, ¡°the Hopi believe fires and earthquakes will signal the start of the Fifth World.¡±


    ¡°So, who¡¯s the pyro that¡¯s gonna light it up?¡± Donnie asked.


    ¡°Not who,¡± Brady said. ¡°What. If I was a betting man, I¡¯d say Mama Earth is gonna play with her supervolcanoes.¡±


    ¡°Supervolcanoes?¡± Eve gasped. ¡°Plural? You mean, like, Yellowstone?¡±


    ¡°Yellowstone, Campi Flegrei in Italy, Lake Toba in Indonesia, Lake Taupo in New Zealand, or Japan¡¯s Aira Caldera could blow its top again,¡± Brady answered with a sigh. ¡°And right here at home, there¡¯s also the Valles Caldera in New Mexico. It¡¯s been more than a million years since that one went off. Let¡¯s just hope it isn¡¯t the Long Valley Caldera. That one detonated 16,000 years ago.¡±


    ¡°Where¡¯s that?¡± Donnie asked.


    ¡°About 200 miles south of us, next to Mammoth,¡± Brady replied flatly. ¡°That baby blows, and we¡¯re gonna be buried in ash.¡±


    Donnie stood from the table, coffee mug in hand, and, in his Scooby Doo pajama bottoms and his MyPillow slippers, walked out the door and into the main yard.


    He squinted toward the front of the property, near the road, where the well house stood. His eyes followed the length of the concrete duplex, past a patch of garden, to the entrance to the Forever Place.


    The bunker was built into ground that backed up to BLM land. The government, disguised as a forgotten logging forest, bordered the length of Eve¡¯s property before spreading across the land for as far as the eye could see. The only other property that touched hers was Steve¡¯s, across the creek.


    The privacy was one of the property¡¯s best features, Eve recognized the moment she stepped foot on it.


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    ¡°What the hell is he looking at?¡± Eve wondered aloud.


    She and Brady grabbed their mugs and joined him in the yard.


    ¡°Whatcha doing?¡± Eve asked Donnie.


    ¡°Measuring my give-a-fuck,¡± he said, his eyes scanning the duplex¡¯s metal roof.


    ¡°Your give-a-fuck?¡± Brady asked. He¡¯d been up all night for damn near five nights straight going through geological surveys and ancient prophecies, and he just didn¡¯t have the patience to decode Donnie-speak.


    ¡°Yeah,¡± Donnie replied. ¡°The world is ending, right? I mean, we know that. So¡­ I¡¯m just wondering if I give a fuck about money and building permits anymore.¡±


    And so it was decided: They would enclose as much of the top terrace of Eve''s property as they could, starting at the well house and stretching back to the bunker¡¯s support walls.


    The Forever Place would make for a great panic room if the nukes do start flying, they reasoned, but they¡¯d likely suffocate or starve if volcanic ash circled the planet. If they were to survive the turn, the group quickly agreed, they¡¯d have to plan on a shelter that would sustain them for months, if not years.


    The new structure would branch off the existing duplex to form, essentially, a self-sustaining, covered concrete villa, complete with its own water supply.


    The engineering it would require to keep clean air circulating and electric essentials running would mark the single greatest accomplishment of Chuck¡¯s racing mind.


    Patty would design a vertical grow room that would be lit by generator-powered LED lights. They would order pallets of bagged soil, free from the toxins that would soon choke the life from the land. And a chunk of space would be devoted to the needs of two miniature goats, some hearty hand-picked chickens, and one proud cock. The eggs and milk would be invaluable in the new world.


    Once enclosed, the duplex doors would come off, and the two homes, with their two kitchens and two bathrooms, would become common areas. Eve¡¯s side would house a library of everything they could get their hands on before the clock ran out. The other side would largely remain a storage area, with the exception of Donnie¡¯s bedroom. It, at Patty¡¯s suggestion, would become a meditation room ¡ª a quiet space where anyone could, day or night, escape everyone else for at least a half-hour, no questions asked.


    In the center of the new structure would be a large family-style table and an industrial-sized, vented fire pit that could, for example, be used to convert reclaimed water into steam to power the grow lights. An attached enclosed patio on the side of the building would house as much firewood as they could chop and gather, the largest stash of gasoline they could safely store, Donnie¡¯s motorcycle, and two ATVs, to be purchased and maintained by Steve and Trevor.


    It would be cramped, but the remainder of the fortress ¡ª because that¡¯s exactly what they would make it ¡ª would be divided into tiny, private living quarters, including one each for the teens. Each would be the size of a master bedroom, and a nursery space would be added to Chet¡¯s and Luka¡¯s. Without words, Donnie and Eve agreed they would bunk together, each with their own bed.


    Each room would have its own vented wood-burning stove and a small, porthole-sized window that could be sealed behind an iron hatch in case of an emergency.


    And it would, both Brady and Donnie insisted, be defensible.


    ¡°Let¡¯s not sugarcoat this,¡± Brady told the bunch. ¡°When the shit hits the fan, the folks left standing are going to become savages real fast. And I¡¯m not even talking about the turn. If we¡¯re right, and the Ghouls are planning some sort of first strike, people will be starving before the first volcano belches, and places like these are going to become targets.¡±


    ¡°Ours, especially,¡± Eve added. ¡°Building this now is going to bring eyes on us, and if the Ghouls get wind of what we¡¯re prepping for¡­ That BLM land behind us could go from buffer zone to staging zone in a heartbeat.¡±


    ¡°Look, I don¡¯t want to get morbid, but we ran these kinds of scenarios on the force,¡± Chet said. ¡°Your fucking neighbor will slit your throat for some bread when things go sideways. Now, we¡¯re better off up here, because people tend to be somewhat ready for bad shit to happen, but we¡¯re going to have to make some really hard decisions, and I think we should make them now, before things get crazy.¡±


    ¡°Like?¡± asked Steve.


    ¡°Like what are you going to do if a bunch of starving locals show up at the front gate?¡± Chet said. ¡°We might be able to take care of ourselves, but we sure as hell won¡¯t be able to house and feed anyone else.¡±


    ¡°He¡¯s right,¡± Donnie agreed, holding up a hand to silence the protests he knew would spill from Eve¡¯s lips.


    ¡°No, he¡¯s fucking right,¡± Donnie said firmly. ¡°We have got to keep our eyes on the bigger picture here. We¡¯re not trying to survive this for shits and giggles. We have a mission. We¡¯re supposed to help save humanity¡¯s souls, right?


    ¡°So e-fucking-scuse me if I¡¯m not gonna get broken up over a few dead vessels,¡± he stated. ¡°They¡¯re going to be the lucky ones, I guaran-fucking-tee that.¡±


    It was a solemn point no one could argue.


    The fortress would have gun turrets, an arsenal, and rooftop watchtowers, accessible through lockable hatches in the ceiling.


    Every cent every one of them either currently had or could get ahold of in the next seven months would go into bringing this project to fruition.


    And nothing, they agreed, would stop them from building it.


    Nothing, and no one.

 From Eve鈥檚 Journal: April 16, 2030

    Six cities were shut down this week, Dear Journal.


    Phoenix, San Diego, San Francisco, Boise, Portland, and Denver. They slammed the digital doors on all of them. Cars trying to leave were deactivated five miles outside of the towns and everyone inside was reportedly taken to some ¡°processing facility¡± outside Bullhead City.


    In Denver and Boise, it was the farmers who started the trouble.


    Denver has definitely been skimming off the wheat supply, and the farmers in Idaho have been ordered to keep their mouths shut about it.


    One poor bastard was found in Boise swinging from the town hall gazebo with his tongue cut out.


    Damn near everyone in that 15-minute monstrosity gets bussed to one wheat farm or another. The ones who aren¡¯t farmers are accountants.


    The anon boards lit up over that one. The farmers were carrying actual pitchforks down Main Street when they cut the internet off.


    In San Francisco, San Diego, and Portland, it was all about the latest energy equity adjustment. Who says big government doesn¡¯t have a sense of humor? They just shut the lights off.


    All of them.


    They¡¯ve all been dark for going on three days now. And for every night the protests continue, every household will be docked fifty bucks for preventing the businesses and schools from ¡°safely¡± opening.


    Phoenix¡­ Phoenix was something completely different.


    Some crazy bitch went on a stabbing spree.


    She was walking down the middle of the street in her underwear, stabbing anyone she could with a corkscrew.


    Witnesses say she yelled ¡°Repent!¡± right before burying it into somebody¡¯s back.


    When the drones caught up to her, she plunged it into her jugular.


    The city was closed pending an investigation, grief counseling, and an independent study to explore red flag restrictions on kitchen utensils. Internet access has been restricted to approved family-friendly sites,


    It¡¯s ¡°out of respect for the traumatized town,¡± a spokesman said, ¡°so they can start the healing process.¡±


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    Bullshit.


    The woman was an Inclusion Officer. They don¡¯t want anyone shaking up that hornet¡¯s nest.


    Luka is trying to follow the money trail on the wheat scam. Her gut is telling her Denver isn¡¯t the only hub holding back on their district.


    She¡¯s not quite showing yet. She figures she¡¯s about four weeks in. But she is glowing. And morning sickness is starting to kick in. Seems the only things she can keep down at the moment are strawberry yogurt and frozen waffles. Patty¡¯s concocting some kind of tea for her. Not gonna lie. The smell damn near made me gag.


    Luka¡¯s a natural-born digger, though. If something¡¯s going on with that food chain, she¡¯ll find it.


    I¡¯ve been trying to hunt down the other groups like ours, the ones Gabe¡¯s crew have been ¡°nudging.¡±


    It¡¯s a needle in a haystack gone haywire.


    Even as I write this, faithful journal, I know, on some level, Gabriel is watching me. He sees these words.


    I know you see these words, Gabriel. You always have.


    We need to know who we can count on. We need to be able to share information.


    If you can¡¯t tell me who they are, then at least point me in the right direction. We need to find each other.


    If the other groups are like ours, they¡¯re a bunch of nobodies. Nobodies who are probably just as good at flying under the radar as we are. If they don¡¯t want to be found¡­


    But they have to want to be found, right?


    If they know what we know, then they know we need each other.


    I guess a Bat Signal is too much to ask?


    The foundation¡¯s damn near ready outside. I can¡¯t believe how fast they got it leveled and framed up. Donnie says they¡¯ll have the walls up and be ready for the big pour on Thursday.


    Chet¡¯s seen a couple of inspectors cruise by, but so far, no one has stopped.


    Pretty sure that¡¯ll change when they bring the cement trucks up.


    I¡¯m trying not to feel like there isn¡¯t an anvil hanging over our heads 24/7.


    People are feeling it all over.


    You can almost smell the fear simmering, even up here.


    In town, everyone is looking at each other like they saw a UFO and are too afraid to ask if anyone else saw it, too. Instead, they just grin like wallflowers and mumble something about how glad they are they aren¡¯t in a city.


    I keep expecting the Ghouls to try and run us mountain folk out of here.


    Brady said they don¡¯t need to. They know where folks like us live. As long as we¡¯re not poking holes in their smart-city bubbles or looking for a government bailout, they can afford to leave us alone for now. As best as he can figure, the Ghouls have already silenced us online and we¡¯ve all but cut ourselves off from the new world order.


    In a very real way, people like us have neutralized themselves.


    He said they¡¯ll come for us later, when we¡¯re more of a threat to them. They won¡¯t come in shooting. They¡¯ll just close down the highways and wait for us to either starve to death or freeze.


    They are either really patient or really ignorant.


    I don¡¯t know of anyone else around here that¡¯s doing what we¡¯re doing, but people are prepping for something, even if they don¡¯t know what it is.


    Steve was at the lumber yard and said the garden section was all but picked clean, and a ton of stuff is on backorder. Vandals have been tearing up Rail Road Flat and Pine Grove, and now there¡¯s talk of forming a volunteer patrol group to keep an eye on things around here.


    It goes without saying, they¡¯ll all be armed to the teeth, and half of them will probably be drunk.


    Course, none of that will matter if the bombs start flying or the grid goes down, which makes worrying about any of this feel pointless.


    I think I¡¯m numb to almost everything.


    I¡¯d rather feel horrified or pissed off or ¡­ something.


    But I¡¯m just numb. I¡¯m going through the motions, getting shit done, and it¡¯s like I¡¯m totally dead inside to the slaughter that I know is coming.


    I¡¯ve accepted it the way I accepted Tax Day and Daylight Savings. Either I¡¯m in some sort of dissociative daze, or I just don¡¯t give a shit.


    God help me, I¡¯m not sure which is worse.

 Chapter Thirteen: All Along the Watchtower

    ¡°Can do!¡± Brady sneered aloud.


    He rescued his spiral notebook and pen from the bottom of a fallen mound of dusty books and shoved his laptop into about the only open corner of bed left in his cluttered van.


    ¡°Caaaaaaan do!¡± he quipped again, reaching for his Fireball.


    Sure Eve, I can totally sift through thousands of years of creation myths, inquisitions, medieval grimoires, world wars, billionaire hedge funds, and internet conspiracy theories and come up with a top ten list of recycled bad guys.


    No problemo!


    That I caaaaaaaaaaan do!


    Brady squeezed his eyes shut and ran his hands through what was left of his hair.


    Shit, he¡¯d been at this for days, and he still didn¡¯t know where to begin.


    Do you start with the Persians and ancient Egyptians and work your way forward? Or does it make more sense to deal with today¡¯s assholes and follow them back in time?


    One thing he felt sure of: The real masterminds behind this shit show, the ones who¡¯ve been pulling all the strings since all this started, aren¡¯t posting selfies on Instagram.


    Sure, there were politicians and UN stakeholders and Big Tech bozos, but even the spookiest among them weren¡¯t at the top of any food chain.


    Names like the Rockefellers, the Vanderbilts, Bill Gates, the Soros clan¡ª Even they, Brady believed, were, ultimately little more than very committed, well-connected foot soldiers, motivated, he suspected, more by greed than ideology.


    Powerful? Yes. But they, too, answered to superiors.


    Those, Brady knew, were the true leaders, the ones who have been plotting this cosmic coup for two thousand years. And they were way too smart to advertise their evil plan.


    If we know something today, it¡¯s probably because they¡¯re okay with us knowing it.


    Brady, he told himself, you¡¯ve hitched yourself to a historical hamster wheel.


    The way Gabriel described it to Eve, religion before the turn wasn¡¯t something you did on Sundays. They lived it. It was part of every aspect of their lives, inseparable from medicine, architecture, agriculture, education, administration, and entertainment.


    There¡¯s no clear consensus on how the oldest religions we know about worked in the new epoch, but Brady assumed the older they were, the closer they resembled the enlightened ways of those who came before them.


    But there¡¯s a huge gap between the Great Flood and the Sumerian account of the event. Before there was Noah, there was Gilgamesh, and the similarities are too close to dismiss.


    The roots of Hinduism go back to 3300 BCE, and to this day, people disagree on how to classify it. Some would say they worship a ton of gods, but others would argue that all the gods are really manifestations of Brahman, a single divine deity. And then there are those who say you can decide which of their gods to make your supreme higher power.


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    Same thing with the Egyptians. Loads of gods, but they also had Amun, the god of the air, and Ra, the ancient sun god, who took center stage.


    Later on, the Greeks and the Romans would roll out their gods, with Zeus and Jupiter at the top of the heap.


    Around 1500 BCE, give or take a few hundred years on either side, something changed.


    All the gods who represented, in one form or another, all the forces of nature, were being whittled down to a single, all-powerful deity.


    In Persia, a celestial messenger from Ahura Mazda ¨C the Lord of Wisdom ¡ª visited the prophet Zarathustra and the world¡¯s first monotheistic religion was born: Zoroastrianism.


    Prior to that, priests were getting rich off the sacrifices required too keep all the gods happy. So, clearly, organized religion was monetizing mercy.


    There was only god, Zarathustra was told in his vision, and Ahura Mazda wasn¡¯t into animal sacrifices. After the prophet miraculously healed a king¡¯s horse, Zarathustra¡¯s new religion took hold.


    In Egypt, something similar happened, but with a very different result.


    Pharaoh Amenhotep IV changed his name to Akhenaten and, much to the horror of Egyptian priests, he and his queen, the notorious Nefertiti, cancelled all the ancient gods and declared Aten, the light of the sun, to be the only deity in town.


    The old shrines were shut, the old monuments were torn down, and even the art changed. Images of the royal couple in family settings adorned the pyramids, and Akhenaten was depicted as an almost androgynous, oddly shaped ruler.


    For their efforts, Akhenaten and Nefertiti were nearly erased from history.


    Akhenaten¡¯s reign ended, and his son, King Tutankhamun, led by power-starved priests who missed the way things were, undid all of his dad¡¯s hard work.


    It¡¯s pretty clear the Jewish faith borrowed heavily from the Canaanites¡¯ gods, El and Ba¡¯al to form their monotheistic religion, and for awhile there, it seemed like there was still a tolerance for all the faiths and their many versions of a supreme ruler.


    But it didn¡¯t take long for that tolerance to crumble.


    Just a 100 years or so after Akhenaten, the only god of Moses would demand the deaths of those who worshipped the Golden Calf in what some scholars say was the world¡¯s first holy war.


    Meanwhile, as far as Brady could figure, the Greeks were building a civilization that, by all accounts, carried on the ancient traditions.


    Plato wrote about Atlantis around 360 BCE, so we know the old ways were still remembered. Sacred geometry, the study of the stars, the reverence for nature, and the ancient traditions, though tweaked through time, were still openly practiced. If anything, they were enjoying a comeback.


    The Greek god Hermes merged with the Egyptian god Thoth and somewhere around the first century BCE, Hermes Trismegistus began discussing the connection between the Above and the Below.


    That fucking Emerald Tablet.


    A work of profound beauty and wisdom that, in the wrong hands, would reignite a revolution against God Himself ¡ª the one who doesn¡¯t give a damn what you call Him as long as you know His spark of perfection is in everything and everyone you see, including the flawed mess that stares at you from the mirror.


    It hurt Brady¡¯s heart to think of how backward everything became.


    Ironically, it¡¯s when large groups of people began believing in a single, unified God that humanity started slaughtering each other in whatever name they decided to give Him.


    It was bound to happen, Brady realized. If your god is The God, then every other god is a pagan poser that must be eliminated.


    Convince enough people that killing heathens is the Lord¡¯s work ¡ª that consorting with nonbelievers puts your soul in danger of a good smiting ¡ª and you¡¯ve got a mob that can be wound up and set loose on anyone you want to conquer.


    The exclusionary nature of an all-knowing god created earthly opportunities that would be weaponized to great effect for the next two thousand years.


    The big question Brady had to answer was, how many of the savage wars were waged not out of good, old-fashioned, organic human bloodlust, but because a select group of psychopaths willed them into existence? How many religions were created or destroyed for the express purpose of bending faithful, devout people to their godless will?


    It was such an inversion of everything good, it made Brady nauseous to think about it.


    What really pissed him off was that humanity fell for it, hook, line, and sinker.


    At some point you have to stop blaming the evil geniuses, Brady¡¯s brain kept telling him, and start holding the ones who listen to them like drooling lapdogs accountable.


    Was it really necessary to use early Christians as screaming candles in Nero¡¯s court? Didn¡¯t anyone tell the sick freak, ¡°No, Emperor, we¡¯re not going to dip them in wax and set them on fire for your amusement.¡±?


    Didn¡¯t anyone tell the Christians, ¡°No, Se?or Conquistador, we¡¯re not going to go genocidal in a jungle we didn¡¯t know existed last week.¡±?


    Didn¡¯t anyone think to mention that beheading people in the street and streaming it on YouTube may not be the best way to spread the glorious love of Allah?


    There may very well be puppet masters, but we haven¡¯t exactly been trying to cut the strings. The truly religious don¡¯t ask questions, and the rest would rather not get involved.


    Aren¡¯t we as guilty as they are? Brady kept asking himself. Exactly what are we trying to save here?


    It was 3 a.m., and Brady wanted to launch the nukes himself.

 Chapter Fourteen: Angel Standing By

    Witnessing a turn was always a mixed bag of emotions for Gabriel.


    On the one hand, he looked forward to welcoming so many of the souls back to the guff.


    It really was a reunion of sorts. And a celebration.


    Yes, it was an epoch filled with subterfuge, but they really did accomplish a lot this go around. They left the planet, for goodness sake! That was, the Elohim all agreed, truly remarkable.


    In the guff, souls would find one another and lifetimes would be discussed and debated, and everyone would learn how far they¡¯d really come.


    There¡¯d be the food pageants and the costume pageants and the Epoch Awards¡­ It was a joyous time of quiet reflections and regenerative revelry.


    For those in the guff, that is.


    It pained Gabriel to know those comparatively few who remained on earth would endure so much fear and pain in the coming months.


    The Elohim knew that this was the true meaning of dying for the so-called ¡°sins¡± of others. Those brave souls would bear for a time the weight of all humanity¡¯s struggle to evolve.


    They would see their magnificent cities crumble. Which ones, Gabriel did not yet know, but it could be any of them: London, Paris, St. Petersburg, Dubai, Venice, Tokyo, New York, Los Angeles, Vancouver¡­ they were all beautiful in their own ways, and he knew it was unlikely that all of them, if any, would survive. He was silently hoping the Great Wall of China would make it. That bit of human engineering still took his breath away.


    The pyramids and Stonehenge survived the last turn, Gabriel thought optimistically,but humans just didn¡¯t build things like that anymore.


    It was, he admitted (if only to himself), easier in the earlier turns, back when humans were still finalizing their current forms and mastering walking upright. Watching them construct their first homes and taste their first berries was a delight. And until they learned to defend themselves, the guff was like a constantly revolving door. You didn¡¯t have time to miss anyone before they were back again for another go.


    But, in the last few hundred thousand years, watching the global Etch A Sketch get shaken like a rag doll had not come without some grief. They made such pretty things when they wanted to.


    In truth, Gabriel knew, more of their accomplishments, their knowledge, would survive this turn in one form or another than in any previous epoch. In the last few years, nearly all they¡¯d ever written had been copied onto their computers.


    The ¡°Ghouls¡± as Eve¡¯s little group have taken to calling them, have already ensured their greatest works of art, their most significant documents, and much of their music and films will be protected to the best of their considerable ability. And, with shielded satellites and the gizmos they powered, it wouldn¡¯t take long for them to flip the internet back on and reestablish communications with the survivors.


    And it wasn¡¯t just the Ghouls preserving human history. One radio host, Gabriel knew, had been for decades procuring and stashing some of America¡¯s most iconic cultural knick-knacks in a vault he calls ¡°Mercury.¡±


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    Between vigilant caretakers, powerful rulers, and greedy collectors, much of this epoch¡¯s journey would be saved. The question was, how much of it would be shared with future generations?


    It was a disturbing thought.


    Gabriel fervently believed that, even if those Ghouls succeeded in all he knew they had planned, ultimately, they would fail.


    Ultimately, they would yearn for the warmth of God¡¯s soul. They figured out how to banish that piece of His spirit to the deepest recesses of their subconscious minds, but they could never excise it, and one day they would reach for it again.


    To do what they have done ¡ª to turn the natural arts inward and essentially imprison God¡¯s light behind mental walls ¡ª would, eventually, prove untenable. Even if they ignore it in themselves, it requires too much energy to ignore God¡¯s presence in everything and everyone they see. And Gabriel knew that, once you saw it, you wanted more of it. You hungered for it.


    Ultimately, even the most hardened Ghoul would beg forgiveness for just a glimpse of God¡¯s love. Everyone would. That, too, was part of human nature.


    The old adage that God "knows the number of hairs on your head and every bird that falls" is grounded in a reality that few humans understand.


    He knows when a bird dies and falls to earth because a piece of His soul resides in every soul He creates. He lives every life, every turn, every heartbreak, every triumph, every love, every quantum field possibility, and every single loss with all of them.


    ¡°God is with us¡± wasn¡¯t just a name Isaiah dreamed up. ¡°Immanuel¡± was a statement of fact.


    The famed Trinity was and always has been the melding of God¡¯s soul and a human soul in an earthly vessel: The Conscious mind; the Human body; and the shared spirit -- which, by its very existence is Holy -- that dwells within.


    It is no more mysterious than Anatomy 101.


    To deny the existence of His soul would be like denying you have a kidney or a lung. They remain whether you believe in them or not, and when ignored for too long, they make themselves impossible to ignore.


    So, yes, eventually even the most stubborn of the stoics will tear down the walls they¡¯ve built within themselves and turn to the light that never for a moment ceases to shine.


    Eventually even the most sheltered of those they will try to control will throw off their shackles and embrace what they intuitively know they are: reflections of their Creator¡¯s love.


    But ¡°eventually,¡± Gabriel knew, could take thousands and thousands of years. Turns could come and go before humanity wakes up to their oppression, finds the courage and strength to overthrow their oppressors, and relearns all they will have by then forgotten.


    Paradise will never be truly lost, but it can be placed on pause for a very, very long time.


    It would be one thing if humans had consciously chosen to crumple up the Ancient knowledge and toss it in the bin. Had they been given the facts available and chosen this path willingly, the Elohim would have let it play out, just as they did when a few of them started taking metaphysical scalpels to their souls.


    That, arguably, could have gone a different way.


    It still could, Gabriel thought wistfully.


    They could, even now, realize the futility of their endeavor and abandon their quest. The darkness in their souls could fill with the Lord¡¯s light at any moment.


    They only have to want it to.


    And, to want that, they have to know it¡¯s an option.


    That¡¯s why Eve and her little group, like all the little groups Gabriel and his brethren have quietly nudged together, were so important.


    And that¡¯s why their current emotional state was so distressing to Gabriel.


    He couldn¡¯t blame the poor dears. They were waiting for their world to end. They were experiencing all five stages of grief at once, and they were struggling to see the point of it all.


    They needed to remember they weren¡¯t just preserving God¡¯s light, it dwelled in them, too.


    They needed to believe there was a much bigger picture, and it was glorious.


    After the whole Lucifer fiasco, the Elohim had elected not to engage so directly with the humans in their care. Like parents who had become too friendly with their children, they decided they needed more formal boundaries. They couldn¡¯t afford another smear campaign. The Satan spin was, in the truest sense of the word, epic, and another like it could do no ends of damage to their reputations.


    But they were so close to the next turn, Gabriel reasoned. There wouldn¡¯t be time to mount a serious campaign against them, and maybe, just maybe, a visit would lift the spirits of those who were now so burdened.


    A pep talk, Gabriel decided, wouldn¡¯t be too intrusive.


    If he couldn¡¯t comfort them, at least he could let them know they weren¡¯t alone.


    Gabriel was their angel. He existed for them.


    And he needed them to know, he would never abandon them¡­

 Chapter Fifteen: We Close Our Eyes

    ¡°Damn it, Eve, I don¡¯t even know what I¡¯m supposed to be looking for anymore,¡± Brady said, pushing away his laptop and cracking open a beer.


    They were gathered on the lower terrace around a splintering picnic bench.


    Since construction on the fortress began, Donnie and Eve had been camping on air mattresses in one of the kids¡¯ yurts, in between Brady¡¯s van and the Johnsons¡¯. Hannah and Lilah were set up in an outdoor cat enclosure, and Corona couldn¡¯t get enough of the teens.


    The weather had, so far, been nice, and Eve had to admit she was enjoying the outdoor life with Donnie. It reminded her of their Havasu days.


    For months after they were released from jail, they lived down by the river in a tent gifted to them from some anonymous angel in the Salvation Army store. The stretch of desert dunes bordered the highway on one side and the muddy banks of the Colorado on the other. Locals called it ¡°Body Beach,¡± and it was inhabitedalmost exclusively by the homeless.


    Deep within the brush, Havasu¡¯s unhoused built their own homes, pitched their tents, and lived their lives by their rules. One group had even set up a library, filled with whatever paperbacks they found or lifted.


    Donnie carved out a hobbit¡¯s space and tucked their tent into a well-hidden, well-protected little nook. They¡¯d take whatever day work they could find, and soon, there was a little light-up Dollar General disco duck hanging above their sleeping bag and a freshly filled hummingbird feeder on an outside branch.


    They were happy there.


    They didn¡¯t have electricity or running water, but they had a campfire, a cast iron pot, and a five gallon jug of Sparkletts they¡¯d stolen from the backdoor of a dentist¡¯s office. Donnie would make Eve coffee every morning, and, there, they found happiness.


    She turned to Brady.


    It had been a long day.


    Eve had been staring at her own computer screen for hours.


    The ¡°Walking Sickness¡± that had overtaken much of Europe was making its first appearances in America, and Eve had been digging for every bit of sauce there was on it.


    The official narrative was non-existent. The media was simply ignoring it.


    But a few months after hospitals abroad began reporting an unusual spike in a newly-emerging prion disease, videos of dementia-driven city dwellers walking aimlessly down roads, through shopping centers, off bridges, and onto more than one subway track started going viral on the dark web.


    And these weren¡¯t senior citizens having senior moments.


    They were young, healthy adults. They ranged in age, so far, from 28 to 67.


    Last week,in the middle of a televised game, an MLB pitcher walked off the mound, into the dugout, out of the stadium, and was about to cross in front of a speeding Uber when the medics caught up to him. Even in his hospital room, he wouldn¡¯t stop walking. A nurse uploaded a video of him striding across the room until he bumped his forehead on the wall, doing a military-style about-face, and starting back in the other direction.


    What everyone knew and no one would say is that this had Warp Speed written all over it.


    In some Kuru-meets-Lewy body dementia fog, otherwise healthy people were walking themselves to death.


    To be honest, at this point, Eve didn¡¯t know what Brady was supposed to be looking for, either.


    Luckily, Donnie was back with a fully-loaded bong and Samantha, Jacob, and Corona were approaching with food.


    Eve shrugged and took a deeply appreciated hit of pot.


    ¡°I have been dragging my eyes over every obscure grimoire I can think of, looking for some hidden fucking clue to how the Ghouls are pulling off the designated soul shit, and I got nuthin¡¯,¡± Brady growled.


    He shoved his laptop another inch closer to the edge.¡°Hell, some of this shit ain¡¯t even in a real language!¡± he snapped.


    Samantha reached over Brady¡¯s shoulders with a platter of Patty¡¯s guacamole and squinted at the computer screen.


    ¡°What is that?¡± she asked.


    ¡°Bullshit,¡± Brady said. ¡°It¡¯s a bullshit book, written in a bullshit language, with bullshit naked bitches swimming in nasty baths with each other.¡±


    Eve laughed the smoke out of her nose.


    ¡°It¡¯s called the Voynich Manuscript,¡± she told Sam. ¡°Early 15th century codex. It¡¯s like, 200 pages of that shit. Bathing beauties gone wild, plants that don¡¯t really exist, bunches of¡ª¡°


    ¡°Yeah,¡± Sam said, pulling the laptop to her. ¡°But those aren¡¯t bathing beauties,¡± she said pointing to the screen.


    ¡°What the fuck are they, then?¡± Brady asked. He was already a little tipsy and it was starting to show.


    ¡°Well, that¡¯s Venus,¡± she said, pointing to the nude ladies. ¡°Duh¡­ alchemy much? That¡¯s copper.¡±


    ¡°Samantha, scholars have been trying to decode that thing for centuries,¡± Eve told her. ¡°No one, not even AI, can read that.¡±


    ¡°Read?¡± Samantha asked. ¡°Who said anything about reading it? The writing is nonsense. Very pretty nonsense.¡±


    Jacob elbowed his sister over and snagged the laptop.


    He pointed to something on the screen and tipped his head to Sam.


    ¡°I know, right?¡± Sam replied.


    ¡°She¡¯s totally right,¡± Jacob informed the group. He scrolled through more pages of the online PDF. ¡°This is like a how-to guide for dummies.¡±


    Brady grabbed the screen and went back to the naked ladies.


    ¡°You got that from this?¡± he asked. ¡°A how-to guide for what, precisely?¡±


    Jacob shrugged. ¡°How the hell should I know. Build it and find out.¡±


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    ¡°Build it?¡± Eve asked. She was the perfect color of stoned for this conversation. She squeezed in between Jacob and Sam on the bench.


    ¡°Yeah,¡± Sam said. ¡°Look. There¡¯s one Venus looking right. Then three facing the other way.¡±


    ¡°Maybe polarities in a battery?¡± she asked Jacob.


    ¡°Boom!¡± her brother shouted back.


    Sam air-dropped a mic and continued.


    ¡°So, one positive, three negative joined together¡­¡± The teen noted Eve¡¯s confusion and stopped. ¡°They¡¯re holding hands, see?¡±


    Eve nodded, incredulously.


    ¡°So, one copper positive thingy, three negative, and¡­ Jacob? What¡¯s the copper thingy doing the reach-around?¡±


    Jacob leaned in. ¡°A transformer?¡±


    The siblings bumped knuckles.


    ¡°And then the output increases, see?¡± Sam said, pointing to two naked doodles, both on their backs, one slightly smaller on top of the other, which, she noted, was wearing a crown. ¡°Probably need to wrap some gold around the bottom copper thingy,¡± she said.


    Jacob took over from there.


    ¡°Then you distill the mercury¡ª¡°


    ¡°Mercury?¡± Brady asked.


    ¡°Yeah,¡± he grinned. ¡°They aren¡¯t taking bubble baths. Blue represents mercury in alchemy. They thought it was a bridge between life and death and heaven and earth. It also represents¡­¡±


    ¡°The soul,¡± Eve whispered.


    Jacob nodded. ¡°The life force, or, in some translations, the spirit of life, but yeah, basically.¡±


    Brady began to chuckle. Then laugh. And it felt so damn good to laugh, he laughed some more.


    ¡°You kids just cracked the Voynich Manuscript,¡± he said, shaking his head.  "That''s..."


    Laughter overtook him again.


    ¡°Aren¡¯t you two clever!¡± exclaimed a cheerful, new voice.


    Jacob dropped his spoonful of guacamole and stared at the man standing before him.


    ¡°Dude¡­ where did you come from?¡±


    Before Gabriel could answer, Donnie came charging out of the yurt, over the top of the picnic bench, and straight at the Elohim¡¯s neck.


    Gabriel caught Donnie¡¯s lunging head gently between his hands and stopped his assailant in his tracks. His palms against Donnie¡¯s temples, he looked deeply into the human¡¯s wild eyes.


    ¡°Don¡¯t, child,¡± he said softly. And Donnie stopped.


    ¡°You hold on,¡± Gabriel said, pulling Donnie into a bear hug. ¡°You will see Paradise,¡± he whispered firmly into Donnie¡¯s ear. ¡°Do you hear me? This will end, and you will see Paradise. That is a promise from an angel of the Lord, so you hold on.¡±


    He squeezed a stunned Donnie once more and handed him the bong from the table. The bowl was smoking when Donnie took it and sank onto the bench.


    As he sat, Eve rose, a smile shining from her tired face.


    She went to him, hands outstretched.


    ¡°Gabriel,¡± she said. She turned to everyone. ¡°This is Gabriel.¡±


    ***


    He looked different than she remembered, Eve thought as she watched Gabriel explaining something about a pine cone that must have been mind-bending to a mesmerized Trevor.


    The whole family had gathered around, and a crackling fire had been lit. Patty, Luka, and Eve laid out a spread of fruits, vegetables, fresh apple pie, and Chet¡¯s to-die-for enchiladas.


    In the background, ¡®70s tunes were playing from Steve¡¯s iPhone, and Eve spotted Gabriel¡¯s toes frequently tapping in time with the beat.


    ¡°Chet, that was magnificent!¡± Gabriel told him as he dragged his finger across the sauce on his plate and popped it into his mouth.


    Chet blushed red. ¡°I¡¯m still kind of surprised you can eat it,¡± he admitted.


    ¡°Well,¡± Gabriel laughed, ¡°it won¡¯t nourish me the way it does you, but absolutely! Eat, drink¡­¡± He gestured to Donnie for the bong. ¡°Smoke. Yes, we can do all those wonderful things.¡±


    ¡°You have to be kidding,¡± Luka said, louder than she meant to.


    Again, Gabriel laughed. ¡°Don¡¯t be so shocked,¡± he said. ¡°Did you know God created this plant to help you all talk to us?¡±


    ¡°Really?¡± Sam gasped.


    Patty arched a Mom eyebrow her daughter¡¯s way, and Sam giggled.


    ¡°Yes,¡± Gabriel replied. ¡°Among other things. Just think of it! A plant that can be clothes, rope, or paper, and it lets you talk to angels. Truly a wondrous thing.¡±


    Gabriel inhaled the sweet-smelling smoke and smiled. ¡°You did well, Eve,¡± he said, exhaling as he passed the bong to her.


    ¡°Everything that God has provided is good when properly used,¡± Gabriel said. ¡°In moderation,¡± he added, looking at Sam.


    ¡°You and your brother,¡± he said, nodding to Jacob, who was still huddled with Steve, Brady, and Chuck around the computer. ¡°Very, very well done. There is a lot to be learned from that manuscript, for those with eyes to see it.¡±


    Eve watched Gabriel rise from his cross-legged position on the grass to his full standing height with the grace of Baryshnikov. He was so relaxed, she thought, like he didn¡¯t have a care in the world.


    Even his clothes were relaxed. He¡¯d ditched the pirate look for what appeared to be linen yoga pants and a loose-fitting shirt. Moccasins covered his bare feet.


    ¡°Better,¡± Eve told him with a nod of approval. He seemed to genuinely appreciate that she had noticed.


    ¡°Brady,¡± Gabriel called out, ¡°may I show you something?¡±


    He held out his hand for the laptop.


    Brady scooped it up and passed it to Gabriel like he was making an offering to an ancient Titan.


    ¡°You know how to use that?¡± Jacob asked, fascinated.


    ¡°I¡¯m confident I can figure it out,¡± he smiled, quickly scrolling through the Voynich pages and stopping on a circular drawing that spread across the fold of the notorious codex.


    He handed the computer back to Brady.


    ¡°I just want to leave you with that image,¡± Gabriel said. ¡°Just let it float around in that beautiful brain of yours. It may, at some point, provide another dot or two for you to connect."


    Brady scanned the image intently. Concentric circles with two fish in the center. Naked women, holding wands with stars at the end of them, stood beside what appeared to be green tubes of some sort in the inner circle. In the outer circle, the gals were sat in various decorated barrels. Notes in the fanciful script filled the spaces above and between them.


    ¡°Don¡¯t hurt yourself, now,¡± Gabriel laughed, leaning close to him. ¡°Just tuck it away for now.¡±


    ¡°And be kind to yourself, Brady, okay?¡± Gabriel added quietly. ¡°You really are so appreciated by all of them. They don¡¯t need you to be more or do more. They just need you.¡±


    From the iPad, John Denver began his acoustic affirmation of love to a girl called ¡°Annie,¡± and Gabriel began to softly sway, as though every note soared through him.


    ¡°Sublime,¡± Gabriel sighed, allowing Denver¡¯s ¡°sleepy blue ocean¡± to wash over him.


    When the final notes danced into the night air, Gabriel said his goodbyes.


    He gazed at each of them, frail little things capable of unimaginable strength and kindness and creativity.


    ¡°Remember this night,¡± he told them. ¡°Look around. Under the stars, in the middle of chaos, we found music and laughter. We broke bread and learned new things and we created together the one and only thing that God allows all His creations to create from nothing; Love. There is love in this circle, and I¡¯m so very proud of you all.¡±


    ¡°Remember this moment," he urged them, "because at any time you need it, no matter where you are, you can create this feeling that you have right now. What we have shared tonight is what matters most. This is what you are put on this planet to do. And no matter what happens, no matter what comes your way, you can manifest this, God¡¯s most powerful force, whenever you wish.


    ¡°Always remember that.¡±


    ¡°Will you come back?¡± Luka didn¡¯t know why, but she needed to know Gabriel would be coming back.


    Gabriel took Luka¡¯s hands and squeezed them gently.


    ¡°I¡¯m a Watcher, dear girl. I¡¯m never really gone.¡±


    He released one of Luka¡¯s hands and took one of Chet¡¯s.


    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t miss the birth of your beautiful baby for anything,¡± he told them softly. ¡°You two will be spectacular parents to this child. Don¡¯t doubt it for a moment. And your son¡¯s soul is brave and wise and funny!"


    ¡°And it is strong,¡± he added, before turning to Trevor. ¡°It is a strong and gentle soul.¡±


    ¡°Keep making music, young man,¡± he told the teen.


    Trevor, never one comfortable with attention, was flustered.


    ¡°Oh yes, I know you play late at night, when no one is ¡®watching,¡¯¡± Gabriel said, drawing quotes in the air. ¡°You¡¯re quite good on that guitar, you know. Share your music. It should be shared.¡±


    He embraced Patty and Chuck. ¡°Your children are extraordinary,¡± he said. ¡°As are their parents.¡±


    ¡°Steve,¡± Gabriel said, clasping his hand, ¡°you are like a beacon to the people you meet. You know that, right? The light that shines from you is a lifeline to so many. You, sir, are a very good man, and that is a beautiful thing to see.¡±


    ¡°And you two,¡± Gabriel said, whipping around to face Sam and Jacob. ¡°What can I say?¡± He high-fived them both and, over their shoulder, gave Brady another encouraging nod. Brady nodded back, mouthing the words, ¡°Thank you.¡±


    He bent to scratch Corona''s ears, and, at the enclosure, Hannah and Lilah rubbed against his fingers.


    And then Gabriel turned to Donnie, meeting his eyes with equal parts love and admiration.


    ¡°Donald,¡± he said, taking his hand, ¡°they simply can¡¯t know what you experience, but I can. You are doing an impressive job, son. I am very, very proud of you.¡±


    Donnie had only heard those words directed his way a handful of times in his entire life, and this was the first time he had ever believed someone meant them. He had no words, so he pressed his lips against Gabriel''s hand.


    It was a gesture that touched Gabriel to his core. He squeezed Donnie¡¯s hand once more and turned to Eve with a warm embrace.


    ¡°Don¡¯t get me all sappy,¡± Eve warned him.


    He pulled her in for a hug.


    ¡°Call on these emotions, Eve,¡± he told her. ¡°When humanity¡¯s pain and grief and anger and fear assault you, these emotions are your shield. These are the ones that won¡¯t only ground you, they will lift you. And no one, no one can take them from you.¡±


    Eve sniffed and nodded. Damn it, she really didn¡¯t want to start sniveling.


    From nowhere, Gabriel produced a rose, its just-unfurling petals a sumptuous shade of red, and placed it in Eve''s hand.


    He turned once more to the group.


    ¡°I love you all,¡± he told them. ¡°The blessings of God are with you, always.¡±


    And, like a breath of smoke, the Elohim became a shadow that reached for the sky before fading among the stars.


    On the iPhone, Whitney Houston¡¯s crystalline voice cut through the group¡¯s reflective silence.


    I believe the children are our future; Teach them well and let them lead the way¡­