June 16, 1:22 pm
Susan Jarvis didn't think she was going to die. At least, not at first. Sutton had a strange sense of humor, but pulling a gun on her seemed beyond the pale. Her first instinct was to tell him that this wasn't funny, and that this was no time to be fucking around.
But then she saw the look in his eyes, and the absolute lack of even an ironic smile on his face, and her blood ran cold. She sank back against the door, struggling to keep her blossoming terror from making her black out.
But she didn't faint, and she didn't die. And slowly, she raised her hands in the universal gesture of submission.
As her surprise faded, she wanted to yell at Sutton, to ask him what the Sam Hell he was doing, but something in his strange expression told her she needed to stay silent, and that anything she might say could push him to pulling that trigger.
For what she saw was madness—cold, calculating, and complete. So instead of railing at him or even just screaming for help, she stood there mute, as he used the barrel of the gun to indicate he wanted her to sit in the heavy wooden chair across from his desk.
"Right here, if you please," he said, in a voice that seemed unlike the man she had known and worked with for so long.
He forced her back into the chair, and she watched helplessly as he used two pairs of handcuffs from his desk to secure her. He snapped the cuffs on the back legs on each side, which left her hands pulled uncomfortably down over the hard wooden arms. Her shoulders began to ache immediately. But with the sound of the handcuffs clicking, she breathed a sigh, realizing that he didn't mean to kill her. At least, not right away.
How could I not have seen this? she wondered, desperately searching Sutton's face for a clue. People don't just go mad all of the sudden. It takes time. How could I not have seen this in him? With a start, she realized the only plausible answer. Something horrible happened to him in Salt Lake. Something that snapped his mind like a piece of chalk... Or is that too easy?
Finally, she allowed her tongue to unglue itself from the roof of her mouth, and she realized she had been clenching her jaws so tightly that it hurt to open them.
"Sutton, what..." she said, not sure how to continue. Finally, she just said, "Sutton, what are you doing? What happened to you in Salt Lake City?"
To her dismay, her boss didn't even bother to acknowledge her question. She thought she heard him humming a tune under his breath, and that scared her more than the handcuffs or the gun. The thought that Sutton had lost his mind seemed like a conclusion she could not help but draw, and if that was true, then she had no idea how this might end.
Finally, Deary sat heavily in his chair and propped his feet up on the desk. From one drawer he pulled out a well-worn pipe and a pouch of tobacco. Susan had never seen Deary smoke, not once in all the years she had known him. But to her shock, he filled the pipe and lit it with a match, like an expert. She stared at him, dumbfounded, as he blew smoke rings up at the ceiling.
Oh my god, she thought, a new conclusion rushing through her brain in a torrent. Maybe this is what is happening to people in Salt Lake City! Sutton's brought it back with him! It must be what they said, some kind of virus. And now he has it! The thought of catching his insanity now terrified her as much as the gun on the desk, and the smug and homicidal expression on her commanding officer's face.
Sutton continued to puff on the pipe, his feet on the desk. The smoke curled lazily around his head in the midday sun, which was streaming in the window. He didn't speak, but he watched her.
"Sutton, listen to me," she said, keeping her voice as steady as she was able. "I think you're sick. I think you have this... thing. They think it's a virus. We have to get you some help."
A sly, knowing smile crept across his face. "Is that what you think, Susan?" he asked. "Really?"
"Sutton, I..." she began, but he interrupted her, his voice calm and steady.
"Susan, did you truly not have any idea, in all the years you have been with me, that you were working for God?"
Nothing the man could have said would have surprised her more. She just stared at him, her mouth hanging open. After a moment, she could do nothing but repeat his words back to him.
"Working... for God?"
"No need to pretend, my dear," the man said with a little laugh. "You didn't know. There is no way you could. If God wants you to know something, you know it. If God doesn't want you to know, you don't. It's as simple as that." He puffed the pipe, then gestured at her with the stem. "You didn't know, because I didn't want you to know."
Perhaps if I can turn the chair over, I can slip one handcuff off the bottom of the leg. If I can just stretch my arms and shoulders that far...
It seemed like a rash thing to try, at least while he was staring at her, with the gun just a short reach away. She suspected she'd be dead long before she could get free of the heavy chair.
She chose her next words carefully. "What does... God want of me?"
He smiled and seemed genuinely pleased. "That's the spirit, my dear! And it's so very, very simple, really. God wants you to fly a helicopter!"
Again, she was confused. Her eyes narrowed, and she tilted her head, like a dog trying to understand a confusing master. "Sutton, you know I can't fly. I'm regular army. I'm not a pilot."
"Oh, don't worry about that," he said, his smile now making her skin crawl as if she was covered with ants. "I guarantee that soon you'll be flying over the desert like an eagle. You'll be looking down on what is left of Salt Lake City. And you'll be happy, because you'll know you're the good left hand of God."
She said nothing, and he finally took his feet down from the desk. Gesturing again with the stem of his pipe, he leaned close to her face. "I'd say you would be remembered forever for the sacrifice you're going to make today, but I'm afraid there won't be anybody left here to remember you. Do you have relatives outside of Utah?"
"My parents," she said, slowly. "They're in the Midwest."
"Oh, then don't worry. They'll remember you, I suspect. They'll be safe there." He looked up at the ceiling, where the smoke was now undulating in lazy waves. "But maybe that actually makes you one of the unlucky ones. Have you ever heard the old legend that a spirit must walk the Earth until the last person alive forgets their name?"
"No, I haven't heard that."
"It's just a legend, of course. In reality, I'm the one that determines if a ghost walks the Earth, and for how long. And I think enough of them are here now. There will be no need for you to stay."
"Sutton, I... don't understand."
He continued, as if he didn't hear her. "There will be no one to remember me, of course. And that is how I want it. There were people here once, you know. On this very spot of desert. Good people. But they're all gone now, and nobody remembers them. Their bones have long since crumbled into the dust of the desert. Even I don't remember them. Not really." He smiled and sat back in his chair once again, still looking directly into her eyes.
"Isn't that strange, Susan? That even God forgets?"
She didn't speak. Somehow, this new rambling about God and forgetting was even more terrifying than the idea that he was just sick with a virus.
"Well, no matter now. We're almost done. This valley will be clean. And with time, the city of Salt Lake will be as forgotten as all the other old bones in the desert. This valley will be crystal clean and sparkling, and not even the wind will remember those who lived here. It will be sealed off, a no-man's-land more forbidden than Chernobyl. The very memory of this place will be so terrifying that adults won't speak of it, and children will use its name to scare each other at night. The buildings will rot and fall, and eventually, the wild horses will run through the overgrown streets. Perhaps, in time, the world will forget what happened here. But even after they have forgotten why, they will never enter Salt Lake City again."
The look on Sutton's face was dreamy now, as if he was finding peace in his vision of devastation and destruction. He closed his eyes, but just for a moment. When he opened them again, there was new fire in them.
"You'll like my Dark Angels," he said. "They're just passing the Stone in the Stream. They'll be at the guard station in a few minutes, and they'll be at the Ditto shortly. They're bringing me someone that you will remember. Bradley Seward. He was a pilot here."
Susan felt what little hope she had left draining away. Yes, she knew Bradley Seward. He was the pilot who had murdered all those people in the theater in Salt Lake City a couple weeks ago and then killed himself. She'd fielded all those calls from the police. If Sutton was convinced that Bradley Seward was on his way to see them, then he really had lost his mind. She quivered under the hard gaze of the mad thing who used to be her commanding officer.
"Once you get acquainted," he said, "we can begin."