Chosen, Christine Pope [e reader pdf best .TXT] 📗
- Author: Christine Pope
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But the guns didn’t reassure me as much as I’d thought they would. Maybe it was more that I’d begun to pick at what the voice had said to me, how he’d said that “we” — meaning him and others like him, I supposed, whatever or whoever they were — hadn’t controlled who lived and who died of the Heat, but that they did have some say in what happened to the survivors. That was a frightening thought. True, everything he’d done so far seemed to have been for my benefit…but why?
I realized he hadn’t called me “beloved” for a while. Was that an oversight, or had all my questions and my ignoring of his advice annoyed him enough that I wasn’t quite so beloved anymore? The thought bothered me a little…but not as much as contemplating what it might mean to be the beloved of some incorporeal being who spoke to me only in my thoughts.
If he was even real. I really could just be imagining the whole thing. After all, there were accounts of mothers going ballistic and lifting trucks off their toddlers or whatever. Wasn’t it possible that I’d been the one to fling Chris Bowman away from me, and my mind had just embellished the event so it seemed as if some kind of supernatural force was involved?
I didn’t know. And the worst part was, I had no one to talk to about my situation, except a disembodied voice that might or might not be merely a figment of my imagination. For most of the day, I’d managed to push to one side the pain of losing my family, my friends, but now as I sat there in the dark, one candle flickering on the coffee table, it all seemed to come back in a rush, like a great, gaping wound in my middle where my heart had been torn out. I was twenty-four years old, but right then all I wanted was my mother. I wanted her to hug me and tell me it was all going to be okay.
And then I felt him there, as I had earlier, like a wash of warmth moving over me, strong arms around me, the touch of an unseen mouth against my tumbled hair. Ah, beloved, you do not believe me now, but it will get better. Sleep now, and leave the pain for another day.
I opened my mouth to speak, but I found I didn’t have the strength to form any words. Instead, darkness washed over me, taking me along with it. In that moment, I knew I lacked the strength to fight the inevitable.
Dutchie’s growling woke me. I startled awake, sitting bolt upright and blinking against the darkness. Only it wasn’t completely dark, as the pillar candle still burned bravely in its dish on the coffee table. Thank God for that, because the dog was sitting in front of the door, teeth bared in a snarl, a deep, bone-rattling growl rumbling within her throat.
Without thinking, I pushed back the blankets that covered me and grabbed the shotgun. Yes, the .357 had great stopping power, but I knew anything I hit with that shotgun would go down and stay down. Well, except for the parts that got splattered on any nearby walls. And if I did somehow manage to miss, that Remington would make a pretty decent club.
My heart was hammering away in my chest, but I made myself go to the peephole in the front door and attempt to peer out. Fat lot of good that did — the night outside was pitch black, with not a hint of a moon. I couldn’t even see the rose of Sharon bushes on either side of the doorway.
But the whole time Dutchie didn’t stop growling, although as I backed away from the door, shotgun still clenched in my right hand, she moved as well, padding toward the back of the house.
Great. The front door was much bigger and heavier than the back door. Anyone sufficiently motivated could kick in the door off the service porch.
I had a feeling that if he was still ambulatory, Chris Bowman would be feeling really motivated right around now. Maybe I was just being paranoid, since I had no idea how he could have even found me. We weren’t exactly what you could call listed in the phone book; cops tended to be circumspect about that sort of thing. Then again, Chris seemed like the type who might have mastered the finer points of hacking into secure databases, and considering his apparent obsession with me….
Shit.
Dutchie trotted ahead of me. Her ears were up, nose pointed directly toward the service porch at the rear of the kitchen. And that was when I heard it, too — a faint scratching noise coming from the back door. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought it was one of the other neighborhood dogs trying to get in. But after seeing that whole “peaceable kingdom” bit at the PetSmart up in Sandia Heights, I knew Dutchie wouldn’t be growling like that if it was simply another dog on the other side of that door.
I’d already loaded the shotgun before I lay down to sleep, so all I had to do was pump it to bring a shell into the chamber. Even though I could feel my heart still wailing away in my chest, I managed to call out in what sounded like a reasonably steady voice, “Whoever that is, back away. I’m armed, and I will not hesitate to shoot.”
There. My father would’ve been proud, if he’d been around to hear that.
No reply, of course. Dutchie sat down on her haunches, then looked up at me and gave a questioning whine. It seemed obvious she thought she’d done her job in warning me that something was out there, and now it was my turn to do something about it.
Not unreasonable of her, but no way was I going to reach out and open that door. If I had to stay here all night with the shotgun pointed at the back entrance to the house, I would.
That odd scratching noise started up again. I gritted my teeth, wondering if I should send off a warning shot. But all that would do was mess up the back door, and what if that scratching noise was coming from an ambitious rat or something? I’d look like an idiot, and worse, I would’ve completely compromised my home’s security.
I dragged out the step stool and sat down on it, shotgun still pointed toward the back door. Dutchie stayed where she was, although she did send me an inquiring look over one shoulder. I shook my head at her, and she settled down in a sphinx-like position, still at attention, snout in a direct line with the doorknob. In that moment, I wondered whether I should even be trusting Dutchie’s instincts. Obviously, she was a very good dog, but she wasn’t my dog. I didn’t know if she was a great watch dog or the type to go off half-cocked at every random sound. Yes, there was something outside, but it didn’t necessarily have to be anything threatening. For all I knew, it could have been a branch from the willow bush just outside the back stoop scratching on the doorframe or something.
But then the door creaked open, and my breath caught in my throat. Standing there was Chris Bowman, face puffed and bruised, pale eyes glaring at me. Something glinted in one hand, reflecting the faint light from the jar candle I’d left lit in the kitchen.
Lock picks. Son of a bitch. Trust a maladjusted bastard like Chris the Creep to know how to pick locks.
Slowly, I got to my feet, the gun still trained on him. “Get out, Chris.”
His eyes were still fixed on my face, as if he hadn’t even registered the Remington pump-action shotgun in my hands. “No. We’re the only survivors. We’re meant to be together.”
My finger was resting on the trigger. Just the slightest squeeze, and he’d be splatter on the doorframe. Could I kill someone, though, just like that? Before, when I’d thrown the rock at his head, I’d only meant to slow him down, to give myself enough time to get safely away. The shotgun was an entirely different story.
“I don’t want to hurt you, Chris,” I said, forcing my voice to remain steady, just as I willed my hands not to shake as I gripped the shotgun. “The two of us being immune? It’s
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