Denouement: David and Laura are living together happily, falling in love.

David crested the hill and watched the sea of green below him shift in the wind. The tide was coming in, and he could hear it now, like distant thunder.
The tide was brown, the animals that it consisted of moving like waves, gracefully crossing the plains. It was like a dream in many ways, the bison he thought would have been extinct by now running in a huge herd below him, trampling the waist high grasses, a single white one at the front.
The Movement’s primary community in Canada was simply amazing to David. They hadn’t so much given up on civilization as moved beyond it. They had fashioned a new mythology to live by that David was eager to explore.
For now, though, he turned and headed for home. His new home. He and Laura were falling in love, and the feeling welled in him like new life blossoming in his chest.
As he walked down the hill, he was overcome with the feeling of John’s presence. It only happened every once in a while now, and disappeared as quickly as it came. He took it as a reminder that past, present, or future, there was more to him than his current consciousness. He was at peace with this, knowing he would have a lifetime to explore its meaning.
For now though, he had a new life to begin.

Denouement: A New Beginning

Only a sweet and virtuous soul,
Like season’d timber, never gives;
But though the whole world turn to coal,
Then chiefly lives.
-George Herbert, Virtue

Epilogue: Another doctor at another company perfects the procedure to defrost patients.

Abner Wagner picked up the magazine that had arrived in the mail. Only way to know what’s really going on in the world, he thought as he opened it.
He read about a fire. A terrible fire. Hundreds of children dead everywhere. Abner could barely look at the pictures, they were so gruesome. What a tragedy, he thought. The Church again.
He turned the page. Another catastrophe. He flipped another page. Another disaster. The magazine seemed to Abner like it was ten feet away from him, like he was looking at it through the wrong end of binoculars, the pictures and the print on it too small to see clearly. Fuckin’ world’s going to hell, he thought, throwing the magazine aside.
He picked up his gin and tonic and took a deep drink, feeling the bubbles caress his throat. Thinking about the state of the world and putting his drink down, the thought was replaced by another.
Oh well, what can you do?


Xiau Ping looked at her patient. She had come so far, yet over the last few days she was losing hope. Once she had overcome the physical aspects of waking her patient, she had passed off the rest of the delay as a side-effect of the long quiescence her patient had endured. She didn’t know what to expect. After she had gotten a heartbeat, she waited patiently for consciousness to return. With every hour that clicked past, she grew a little wearier. With every day that passed, her expectations diminished slightly more.
Although she knew her thoughts should be focused exclusively on her patient, they were currently wrapped up in one egoistic sentiment – she had finally caught up with the Church.
Then it happened.
Her patient’s eyelids fluttered, their eyes opened. Her patient looked up at her. Her patient asked her a question.
“What the hell’s wrong with me?”

Epilogue: The Revelation

What fortitude the Soul Contains,
That it can so endure
The accent of a coming Foot –
The opening of a Door.
-Emily Dickinson

Chapter 84: Ralph Bishop blows the Lab up. He's captured by the Eco-Assassins.

Ralph Bishop ran out of the building like a scalded dog. Screw the bodyguards, he thought.
As soon as he felt he was far enough away from the Lab, he opened his briefcase. He was twenty feet inside the security fence.
A row of buttons, perfectly labeled, greeted him. He found the one that read “Cryonics Lab.” It was yellow. He pushed it.
Nothing happened – or so it seemed. Bishop knew the system was in place. A lethal gas should have filled the facility by now. Everyone should have been dead. Yet, he could still see people moving about. Those...things are not dead, Bishop thought. They are not alive either, he reasoned.
He looked down into his briefcase again. Under a protective cover there was another button, this one red, also labeled “Cryonics Lab.” Bishop convinced himself that the building was disposable. He congratulated himself on his forethought in getting the security system into place in time, and also on always putting all the Church’s main computers in demolition-proof rooms. I am still in control, he thought as he pushed the red button.
The building erupted. Shrapnel flew in the gust. Bishop stared in momentary awe. Watching the fallout, he scrambled back, up to the fence.
The building was ablaze. Bishop heard a voice from behind him.
“You may be worth more alive than dead.”
Bishop heard the sound of metal bending. Turning, he saw a gaping hole in the fence.
“Give me that briefcase,” a man demanded, while another grabbed Bishop by the elbows.
“This might come in handy,” the first man said, smiling and looking inside the briefcase. “Looks like Judgement Day has come a little earlier than you expected.” He turned to the second man. “Put him in the van. Maybe we can get him to answer for his sins.”
Bishop looked at the men as they dragged him through the hole they had cut in the fence and put him in their van, his mind fastidiously turning their thumbprint-size sketches into flesh.

The razor wire lining the top of the security fence was slicing into his flesh, and Victor Grey could smell his blood. He was nearly clear of the silver coils when the blast from the Lab exploding had him reeling, arms spinning as he fell. He heard an audible crunch as his face slammed into the ground. The smell of blood filled his head as his crushed nose blared in agony.
Glancing toward the remains of the building through moist eyes – the pain setting off the tears – he was now glad he had gotten out, glad he had finally reached the limit of what he was willing to endure. The freakshow the Church had on parade blocked the only exit, and the thought of Johnny Rotten’s inhuman grip around him again was too much.
He turned, eyes now blinded by wet dollops of pain, and saw Ralph Bishop being pushed unceremoniously into a van. The world was prismatic through his drenched eyes, and he could see streaks of rainbow in between flashes of red.
He felt the heat from the blaze at his back, and loped away from it. His legs like stilts at first, eventually they understood his commands, and he was at a full run in moments, his mind filtering through the pain to listen to its own command: Get the Hell out of here.

David woke up from an explosive noise. He tried to determine if he felt John’s presence, and felt the same way he did after the quarry – he wasn’t sure. He looked out of the window of the Bug. The Lab was in flames.
“Oh my God! What’s happening?” he cried at Donna and Laura, running to them.
“The bastards,” Laura said.
“Look at the gate. What are they doing here?” David saw a van drive through the security gate. He couldn’t believe what was written on the side of it. It read In These Times.
“Looks like the Church isn’t going to be able to keep this one quiet,” Donna said.
Laura pointed. “Look over there.”
“Is that Ralph Bishop?” David recognized him from the magazine Donna had given him. “What’s he doing here?”
“I don’t know, but he’s probably regretting his decision to come right about now. I recognize a few of those people. They’ve probably been following Bishop around for a long time, waiting for him to slip up. They’re the ones I told you about. The Eco-Assassins.”
“Jesus,” Laura said, looking back to the gate. “Look at them.”
More Others were coming in through the gate. They seemed confused, but ran into the building nonetheless. It reminded David of the hornets. Flying into their nest even though it would surely destroy them.

Chapter 83: Bishop sees the newly arrived Beast at the Lab's doors. He runs.

Father Dante missed Tracy. It was so lonely in the room he had been drawn to. What was happening? he wondered. He was sick. He knew he was sick. Good God, it was like everyone there had some sort of disease. Everyone looked so anemic.
He looked at the bed. Except her, he thought. She doesn’t look that way. He turned on the light. A young woman, about eighteen, lay in bed. She was sleeping, but it was a restless sleep. Her arm stuck out from under the covers. It was covered in tattoos – spider webs, crosses, skulls.
Father Dante walked over to her. She’s beautiful, he thought. Like Tracy. He lay his head near hers. Where is Tracy? he wondered. He looked at the girl. He noticed her lips. They were pink with the blood that coursed through them. She was waking up. Maybe it was the light, Father Dante thought. He got up and turned it out.
That’s better, he thought, laying down beside her.

Tracy saw a young man on the bed in the room she had been drawn to. This isn’t right at all, she thought, this can’t be right. The man was waking up. He had short, spiked hair, and a red tattoo that said “Ozzy” on his arm.
“Baby,” he said, “I had no idea they were gonna do this. You wanna lay down?”
“No, there must be some mistake. I think I’m in the wrong room.” She ran to the door. It was locked.
“Mistake or not, I’ve been in the freezer for sixteen years and there’s one thing I miss more than anything.”
In a rush of excitement, he was out of bed and across the room before Tracy turned around.
He grabbed her just as her energy left her, leaving him holding her limp and vulnerable body.

Wow, she’s cute, Rob thought. She looked about his age, too. This was so cool. He walked over to her. Man, she’s cute, he told himself again. He bent down to kiss her.
He had her lower lip in his mouth and felt a strange compulsion. His mind echoed his sentiments – that’ll get rid of that empty feeling inside you, that’ll fill you back up. Rob couldn’t tell if this feeling came from within him or from some external force. Either way, he didn’t argue.
He pinched the girl’s nostrils closed, put his mouth over hers, and started sucking the life out of her.

Juliet Ward was already in bed with the patient she had come all this way to see.
She had found her appetite again.

Rudy Johnson felt like shit. What the hell’s wrong with me? he thought, I must have the dt’s somethin’ fierce.

Melvin Waters didn’t like the look of things. He had sent the boy in alone while he sized up the situation. Something was wrong here, he thought. Something was very wrong. He decided to get a closer look when he heard a noise behind him. It was a crazy sound, like an enormous dog was shambling up behind him.

What in Hell is going on here? Bishop thought as he walked swiftly toward the nurse’s station. He’d had enough. The hallways were crammed with sickly white children. A cacophonous symphony of screams sandpapered what was left of his nerves. Some of the rooms he had passed contained terrible sights. Patients were being outright killed by the Others. Where in Hell was Persey?
He finally reached the nurse’s station. The doors at the end of the hallway were wide open, jammed with pallid children. Behind them, he saw something that at first he thought was a trick of the light. Looking closer he saw that it was not. A creature stood outside the doors of the Lab that had seven heads and ten horns. One of its heads looked like it was wounded to death, but the wound was healed. A man stood beside it with the mark of the Beast stamped on his forehead.
Bishop turned around and ran.

David relinquished control over John and let his mind wander. He found himself back on the hillside in the graveyard. The hill was alive. People, mostly children, were swarming it. He found John, who looked happy to see him. John took his hand and led him to the top of the hill. The solitary tombstone on the very top grew as they approached it. It became a large, square structure resembling a mausoleum. John led David inside through the door that appeared as they approached it.
The mausoleum seemed larger on the inside than it had from the outside. The wall opposite the door was divided into dozens, then hundreds, of rectangular sections. There was writing on each panel, but David couldn’t understand it. John could read the writing, though, and after shaking David’s hand and then dropping it, he walked toward the wall. As he did, a section moved forward. As it slid toward him, David realized that it was a drawer. It stopped when it was six feet from the wall.
John lay down in the drawer. As soon as he did, the drawer began to close. David ran over to it, but he was too late to stop it: he didn’t know if he could – didn’t know if he should. It closed all the way, and John was gone from view.
The entire structure seemed to fold in on itself, transparent to the mind and eye, and David found himself staring at the solitary tombstone on the top of the hill again. He descended the hillside, sidestepping the throng of children gathered on it. He walked to the gates and turned around once he was outside of them. The gates swung closed.
The children on the hill started to run around on all fours, like sheep. As if to answer for this bizarre behavior, a shepherd appeared on the top of the hill where, just moments before, John had accepted his destiny. The shepherd was cloaked in a long white robe, the hood of which covered its face. It carried a long, wooden staff, curved at the top. While David studied this solitary figure, the children did, indeed, turn into sheep, as if David were dreaming within his dream. He looked back at the shepherd, and it, too, transformed. The white robe went black as the staff was turned upside down, becoming a metal scythe. The lamb-children ran to the top of the hill where the shepherd-reaper stood, and it methodically sliced them open with the scythe, their mangled, broken, all-too-human bodies littering the hillside, their blood turning the green grass crimson.
David found himself rising from the planet. From the air, he could tell that what he had seen on the hillside was only a fraction of what was going on in the cemetery. Children were everywhere, hundreds of them, covering the planet, all running toward the top of the hill, and their fate.
David saw the tombstones in their circular patterns moving and turning, going round and round, like great wheels.

Chapter 82: Ralph Bishop finds his son in a room sucking the life out of a patient.

Ralph Bishop saw the lights in the cafeteria flicker. He reached for the phone, calling Patty. Dr. Persey answered.
“The lights just flickered down here. What is going on?”
“Nothing, sir. Everything is under control.”
Bishop knew the man was lying. In the background, Bishop could hear people, what sounded like hundreds of them. They sounded like an out of control mob.
He got up and walked toward Patty’s station. As he walked through the hallway, he looked into the rooms. He immediately stopped. He saw a patient lying in bed asleep, and another person, white as a ghost, poised over the patient like a vampire, gasping for breath.
He went to the next room and saw the same thing. The next room revealed more.
In the next room was his son. He had somehow gotten onto the bed and was on top of the patient in it. Bishop opened the door and turned on the light. His son cringed, and turned his head to face his father. The boy hissed, letting out an extravagant, sated sigh, and Bishop saw the patient in the bed underneath him – dead, blue in the face. He closed the door quickly and locked it.

“Look at them all. It’s so sad.” Laura was wishing she didn’t have such a great view of what was unfolding before her. Young people, children and teenagers mostly – only here and there a young adult – were swarming the Lab. They had bottlenecked in the doorway and spilled out into the parking lot.
“They’re so young,” Donna added. “I had no idea it would be like this.”
“Goddamn Church,” Laura muttered. “What the fuck do they think they’re doing?”

Chapter 81: John destroys the computer system, and the procedure to defrost patients.

Grey was out cold. John turned his attention back to the box with the toggle switches. What was I doing?

As if in answer to his question, he felt his arms go out to the switches, continuing to turn them off. When he flipped the last one, the room grew much quieter. He immediately turned to the box on the facing wall and repeated the motions, clicking off all the toggle switches he found inside. When he was done, the room was silent.

There was a smaller box inside each cabinet, and John saw himself open one, then the other. Inside each was something labeled “SURGE PROTECTOR.” The letters meant nothing to John. John saw himself remove the devices. He then dropped them on the floor and smashed them with his boot.

Picking up the crushed devices, he pulled two wires out of each of them, and connected them inside the areas where the devices were previously. He looked at Grey, who was still passed out.

“Come in, come in. Welcome.” Dr. Persey swung the doors wide open to welcome his guests.

“Hi. My name is Tracy. This is Father Dante.”

“My name is Rob.”

“I’m Juliet Ward.”

“Rudy Johnson.”

Dozens more filed past Dr. Persey. Then dozens more again. He had Patty lead them to the conference room, which was the only place large enough to hold them all. There, he was going to have the doctors pair them up with the person they were there for. The doctors didn’t need to do anything, though – each Other was drawn to a particular patient’s room, wanting to go inside.

Dr. Persey quickly realized they were overwhelmed. With only the doctors and his paltry staff, the Others he had waited so long to see were inundating the Lab. Some came alone, some came in groups. Dr. Persey didn’t know what to do with them all. He ended up letting them go into the patients’ rooms that they were drawn to. He then had the doctors lock the doors to the rooms.

He told himself it was a temporary solution until they could get things under control.

John connected the wires in the areas that previously held the surge protectors. They sparked when he slid them into place. He then found himself switching the toggle switches back on, all at once, using both hands to span the alcove with his arms outstretched. Sparks flew from the wires he had put into place. He reached into the areas where they were and slid the wires out until the contacts were broken.

Then he pushed the wires back in simultaneously. The wires more than sparked, they melted, fusing to the boxes. John noticed smoke coming from both his outstretched hands and his boots, and physically didn’t feel a thing. But mentally –

For a moment, John was back at the office party. He had just been congratulated by the Chief Executive Officer on his “stellar accomplishment” of being the youngest VP ever at the company. This time, though, John didn’t go along with the charade. He made sure everyone was paying attention to him, and then he started berating them – all of them. He told them what a bunch of self-satisfied assholes they were. How they didn’t give a shit about anything but their own greedy desires. He was pounding on the table with his shoe. He told them how they could all go to hell and take their goddamn company and shove it right up their assholes. He then went to the elevator, pressed “L” for lobby, and let the doors close on their ghastly, pallid faces. In his mind’s vision of the events, he was smiling widely –

John pulled his arms away from the electrical boxes, and looked out at the room. The metal boxes on the floor weren’t silent, and they weren’t humming. They were whining. The noise was growing, the whine becoming a wail. John looked toward the door and ran to it. He got out of the room and pulled the door closed. It hissed into place. Behind the door, John heard a series of explosions. Coming through the heavy door, they sounded almost comical, like firecrackers.

It was then that he realized Grey was gone.