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They did their work in pairs. Two by two, striding across the parking lot, the duos fanning out from the convoy of old Chevy pickups, Hyundai Elantras, and the odd Ford Escort.
It was a rule, per the gospel of Elias Kain. Every action, even the smallest of them, had to be loaded with intention, typically rooted in the Bible as every man “sent by God to save the world” had a proclivity to do. Like Noah’s animals on the Ark, preparing to begin the world anew, we too will do everything in twos, Elias once proclaimed over their cluster, answering the question of why before anyone could ask.
At the time, Lydia thought it was so profound, back when she was both in awe and in love with Elias.
Distance has given her the perspective that those two feelings may have actually been one, or at least shared the common source of infatuation, delusion, and manipulation.
Now, the thought of him spewing Biblical metaphors makes her scoff, smoke leaving her mouth in a puff before she takes her next drag of her cigarette. The real reason they operated in pairs came down to retention. It was harder to escape with someone watching you and who would more than likely rat before they even returned to the compound. It was the quiet part everyone knew, but no one said out loud. To do so would be to give up the game, and Elias Kain was no quitter.
From her steering wheel, Lydia watches the couples disperse to their locations, one set to Austen’s Grocery Store, another to the hardware store at the end of the lot, one to the Best Buy, and one pack heading straight in her direction for the gas station at her back.
They couldn’t all go into the same place at once. It would draw too much attention, be too conspicuous and too easy to pick up on security cameras when a swath of inventory went missing at one time. No, they had to be better than that, to think smarter. If you counted divvying up the stores inside the local strip mall, committing your thefts simultaneously, and returning to the same fleet of cars smarter.
As the gas station pair approaches, Lydia recognizes them: a slight man with shaggy black hair named Rufus (real name: Ron) and a tall, willowy woman with literally feet of tungsten curls, who is unfortunately named Willow (real name: Marcel). Neither are Lydia’s target. They’re too deep in, residing in the upper echelons of the strange hierarchy of henchmen that Elias established. If the first step to world domination—other than creating the ideology by which you’re going to dominate—is to surround yourself with yes-men, then Elias had succeeded in spades with Marcel, Ron, and their groupies.
Sinking low in her seat, Lydia pulls her fake Ray-Bans high on her nose, as if a pair of black lenses can make her invisible, or at least erase her most recognized feature.
The two pass, dressed in what they consider to be the clothing of normal people.
For Rufus, khaki cargo shorts and a beige tee from an Army Surplus Store, and for Marcel, maroon Corduroy bell bottoms, a white tank top, and checkered “fashion” robe brought to you from the darkest 1970s timeline. Because that won’t draw attention to anyone.
“Dumbasses,” Lydia sighs and as they pass by, she dangles her cigarette out the window, taps it on the edge of the half-down glass, and watches the leaning tower of gray ash blow in their direction.
“Hey, watch it,” Marcel hisses over her shoulder.
Stifling a laugh, Lydia deepens her voice, intoning a gravel that she’s sure she’ll reach in 10 years if she and the cigarettes maintain their addictive cycle.
“Whoops, sorry about that.” She keeps her eye on her side mirror as the figures recede into the gas station horizon, and when they are nothing larger than two little ants carrying on the mission of their king, Lydia breaks out of her slumped posture, pushes her sunglasses atop her honey hair, and refocuses her attention across the lot, her gaze flicking back to that mirror every few seconds or so. To be caught here is to have her dreams turn to the same ash as her cigarette, and she’s watched too many things crash and burn in her lifetime to hand someone the flame.
Within 30 seconds, Lydia spots them, the reason she’s here, and cranks the key in her ignition.
The engine revs, ticks, and chugs as she throws her Jeep into drive. Like Marcel and Ron’s clothing, her Jeep doesn’t do much in the way of blending in, but as her only form of transportation, Lydia bears its flaws. Perfection, or at least the guise of it, lost its attraction for her long ago.
At a snail’s pace, she creeps across the blacktop, parks, and follows her target into the literal Target. When she didn’t see them right away, she thought that they may have stayed behind this time around, but unlike their counterparts, their style of dress is closer to modern fads than those left behind for good reason, and her eyes skipped over them as a normal couple, about to do their normal shopping.
They’re not too far away from her, close enough that it takes her upping her normal speed just slightly to fall into step ten feet behind them. Surprisingly, they pay her no mind.
Then again, when you’re focused on stealing something and getting away with it, you can block out certain things, in this case, logic and anyone not wearing the trademark Target red t-shirts.
Finally, when they’ve made it down the aisle of light bulbs and wall mounts—because whoever comes to Target looking for them?—Lydia makes her move.
“Meg, George,” she says from the end of the aisle beside a display of eco-friendly lighting. George doesn’t react, but Meg cocks her head without slowing her pace back towards whatever they are searching for. Lydia’s stomach twists. Maybe they’re too far in for this to work, to recognize who they once were.
Done with inconspicuousness, Lydia hustles down the aisle, and halfway to them, cups one hand around her mouth. “Jade, Damon,” she calls, the names given to them by Elias in their initiation ceremony. Somehow, the words manifest the sourness she feels for them on her taste buds.
Meg and George stop, as Meg clasps onto the jean jacket sleeve hanging around George’s wrist. They turn in increments, first their heads, then their shoulders, the motion reaching down into their hips and their feet. Lydia guesses their minds are working through two scenarios: that they’ve finally been caught for their crimes or they’ve finally been found. In the unified brain of the compound, the latter is preferable, and Lydia sees the proof of this when their eyes meet. George startles, stepping back as far as Meg’s grip will let him, while Meg’s jaw plunges.
These are reactions to encountering a predator, just as Elias had taught them to react to defectors.
But amidst that fear is some joy, happiness, and dare Lydia say it, relief.
Lydia tracks Meg’s gaze across her cheek and the thin white scar beneath her eye, a gift from Elias when she misbehaved, and by misbehaved, he meant asking a question he didn’t like. In recognition, Meg’s lips lose their tautness, and that gives Lydia hope that she’s not DOA.
“Long time no see,” Lydia says, approaching them cautiously as if they were a skittish stray dog, ready to dart at the first sign of trouble.
“What are you doing here?” Meg asks, her voice straddling the line between rattled and firm.
“I came to talk to you.”
George shakes his head, chin-length black locks swaying like the fringe of a flapper’s dress. “You’re not supposed to do that.” George twists towards Meg, latching onto her arm, the two of them effectively chained together. “We’re not supposed to do that.”
If there is one thing time hasn’t changed, it’s George’s flair for the dramatic, although in this case, it may be merited. “I realize that, but this is important. I wouldn’t do this if it wasn’t.”
“Important enough to put us at risk?” George retorts, his neck starting to match the ombre red tee beneath his jacket. “You know what they’ll do if they find us talking to you.” He tugs again on Meg’s arm. “We need to go.”
But Meg just blinks. “What’s so important?”
Meg.
While the air is heavy with tension, Lydia exhales relief. She knew Meg would listen.
It’s one of the reasons she chose to make Meg her first attempt. The other? That Meg had always been kind to her, even as her punishment earned her judgment from others, because Meg, like Lydia, had not completely succumbed to Elias’ tale. There were parts of the outside world that Meg still loved, and talked about, and Lydia believes, missed. For Lydia it was the places, and for Meg, it was her people.
“All of this,” Lydia says, throwing her arms out wide. “Everything outside of the compound, it’s not like we thought. I’ll be honest with you, it’s not great. But it’s better than we gave it credit for. Then we were led to believe.” Lydia steps closer until all that separates them is a single floor tile marred with black scuffs and a discarded granola bar wrapper. “The government, it’s not out to get us. They’re not taking things away to stockpile them. They’re not raiding houses or rounding up people and putting them in prison.They’re not shutting down churches. There are plenty of issues, but coming after us is not one of them.”
Lydia extends a hand to Meg, her fingers grazing Meg’s flower peasant top. Meg came to the compound with it, and while she turned over most of her clothing, per Elias’ rule, this piece she had stowed away, and lied to keep.
“Remember how we were told that you would never be able to play your music again? That the police were starting to crack down on that, and wouldn’t let people do it anymore, play on the corners or in the clubs?” Meg was a beautiful violin player, enticing them all at their services as she played old religious standards, like “Amazing Grace,” and the overly saccharine and waxing poetic originals by Elias. Looking back, Lydia couldn’t understand how Elias had sunken his teeth into Meg, this person who had traveled the world, lived and loved, unlike Lydia. Until she remembered that Elias had one playbook, one pitch: he was the cure-all for anything that ailed you, and what the music couldn’t give Meg, he told her he could.
“Really?” Meg asks.
Lydia nods and slips her phone from her back pocket.
Going into her photo album, she selected the folder marked “Meg,” filled with clips of performers sharing their art out in the open, no repercussions. “Look at the dates. These are all within the last two months. This is real.” Lydia stops her scroll on a video of a woman with a short blonde bob and ruby lips playing a piano. “Do you recognize her?”
“Oh my God,” Meg breathes, her nails, flaky with yellow polish, hovering over her lips. “That’s my sister.”
Lydia could feel the pulse of her heartbeat throughout her entire body, as if she was standing beside a speaker thrumming with bass at one of the clubs on her videos. She could save Meg. She could save her.
“Yeah,” Lydia says. “This was last week. I talked to her. She and your family miss you so much. I have a message from her—”
“That’s not possible!” George says, bluntly, pushing the phone away from him and Meg. “Those aren’t real. They’re those deep fakes or whatever. A scam to make you believe her. Elias told us一”
“Elias is lying to you. All he has done is lie to you.” Lydia wants to scream it, but that would be an unforced error. Instead, she lets the word escape through the bars of her teeth, any emotion limited to that which squeaks its way through. “Why are you here? Stealing for him? Why isn’t he here?”
Elias told them that the only way through life was to make an honest living, but he also hated the capitalistic system, so shoplifting was not only permitted, but encouraged. It’s not dishonest if you’re stealing from the people who stole from you first. It’s righting a wrong, evening out the scales, helping them reap what they sow. Remember, a rich man getting into heaven is like a camel walking through the eye of a needle.
However, like many things, Elias never lived up to his word.
What he should’ve been saying was:
Remember that by committing these crimes on my behalf you are helping keep my criminal record clean, which will only make me more believable to authorities when you realize this has all been a scheme, and not the salvation I made you believe in.
“Why isn’t he ever where he sends you? Why is it always you on the line?”
“This is what we do in return for him. After all he has done for us一”
“And what has he done for you?” Lydia asks. “Given you a shack to sleep in? Told you the world is this horrible, irredeemable place set on a course for self-destruction and wants to destroy you? All he’s done for you, really, is made you afraid. Your fear serves him.”
She believed it all once, up until 18 months ago when she began to find more filler in his stories and diatribes than substance. Without him, Lydia knows all of it isn’t completely untrue, but also that no one is trying to kill her or drive her out. She knows enough that horrible and irredeemable are a matter of perspective, and to have your own perspective, rather than one calibrated for the benefit of a single soul, is a freedom that should not be underestimated.
“That’s not true. It’s not true,” George says, sounding like emotion has a chokehold on his vocal cords. Beside him, Meg’s eyes well and Lydia wishes she knew if they were in defense of Elias, or in remembrance of the life she left.
“It is.” Lydia taps on her phone screen again, this time to a folder marked “George.” To be honest, she knew George was going to be a hard sell, but a necessity if Meg was going to leave. Of their fellow compound mates, he had been the most fearful, the most worried about repercussions. Understandably. His dad, holding no weapon, had been killed by police when George was just seven, and few things stick harder than lessons learned in childhood, especially those that are brutal: if you can’t trust the people who are supposed to protect you, who can you trust?
But Lydia prayed she had enough persuasion to bring George back.
She taps the top video, and a man that is a mirror image of George, except for the hair that is cropped and the beard that is patchy, fills the screen. With one more tap, he moves and speaks, and Lydia shoves the phone back in George’s face.
“Georgie, it’s Bennie. I hope you know this, but I miss you so much. Mom and I and Gina, we’re all okay. We’re all doing well, except we don’t have you, and we need you back, man. Please…”
Squeezing his eyes shut tight, George grimaces. “Turn it off. Please turn it off.”
“No,” Lydia says. “You need to hear this. These are the people that love you. Not Elias.”
Since fleeing, Lydia had spent her time tracing her way through the family trees of those Elias held onto tightly, connecting with them, telling their loved ones stories of them, doing her best to keep them alive in their family and friends’ minds, and to let them know that their families and friends were still alive, too. That they were waiting for them despite what they had been told. It was her mission in life to rebuild as many bridges as she could, in the hopes that one day they may be crossed again. Even if it was just one, she would count it as a success.
“I promise, things are okay. No one has hurt us. You can come back with us and it will be safe, and we can be a family again.”
“No!” George slaps the phone out of her hand, and it lands on the floor beside the wrapper.
“George,” Meg starts as Lydia bends to retrieve it, grateful to see that aside from a scratch on the screen protector, the phone is intact.
“That’s not my name!” he shouts and grips Meg by the shoulders. “She’s lying to us, Jade. She’s telling us what we want to hear, just like Elias said people would, but none of it is real. She’s the temptress. The serpent. We need to leave. We need to go back.”
“I’m not lying. I swear. I have nothing to gain by this. I just want to help you,” Lydia says, but George is already dragging Meg down the aisle. As they round the corner, Meg makes eye contact with her, the tears that had welled overflowing, and Lydia chases them. “Meg, you don’t have to go because he is. Let me help you. I’ll get you far away. I’ll keep you safe.”
But Meg is like a limp doll in George’s arms, making no effort to break away, no effort to speak.
While Lydia’s mind races, her pace slows. Meg didn’t want to leave. Her sister. George’s brother. It didn’t matter.
Lydia knew that this was a strong possibility, much more likely than her succeeding, but her heart cracks all the same. She knows you can’t save someone who doesn’t want to be saved, but she had hoped that you could give them a reason to want to try, to help them see that their savior wasn’t all they had believed him to be.
Maybe they really were too far gone.
Lydia follows them out of the store, giving them a wide berth as they leave through the automatic doors and cross back onto the asphalt.
Sliding her sunglasses back on, Lydia returns to her Jeep, and powers it up as in her mind she creates a list of next steps, alternate ways to convince Meg and George, and hopefully others. She turns on the radio, and just as she is about to flip the station, needing a reprieve from the peppiness of pop, she hears a pounding on her window.
Cautiously she turns towards it, adjusting her frames to ensure they are covering her scar, but for the figure on the other side, it’s unneeded.
The name comes out in a breath. “Meg.”
Jamming finger down on the unlock and the window down buttons simultaneously, Lydia speaks before the glass has given an inch. “Meg, what are you doing?”
Meg whips the door open, and practically jumps into the passengers’ seat. “Let’s go.”
Even as Meg closes the door with a thump that shakes the Jeep’s frame and snaps her seatbelt into place, Lydia is having trouble computing what is playing out before her and reconciling it with the outcome she just had been trying to accept. “Go? You’re—”
“Coming with you and if I am, we have to go now. George is going to tell them about you, they’re going to come looking,” Meg finishes. “Can you take me to my sister? Can I see her?”
Lydia feels as though she is caught in a frozen moment, time stilling around her, while the air remains charged with the possibility of what is to come. Except this isn’t just a possibility. This is reality. Nodding, Lydia beams and works the gear shift into drive. “You bet your ass you can,” she says, throttled and grateful and disbelieving. The sunglasses for all their disguising power cannot hide her tears and nor does Lydia want them to. “I’ll take you to her right now.”
One down. Ninety-seven to go. Game on, Elias Kain.
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