“He could be at the temple,” Evajean said. They were standing in the hotel lobby, looking out at the dark and empty street. “The big one you see in pictures.”

Elliot thought about this. Back in the hotel room, they’d quickly come to the conclusion that gathering weapons for some sort of assault would be meaningless against an enemy such as Moroni. Instead, the two of them would have to rely on prophecy, taking as truth what they’d read in each of the Smiths’ writings. They were meant to destroy Moroni and everything they’d done until now lead them to that confrontation. Guns wouldn’t matter, neither would strategy or tactics. If they had within themselves the power to defeat this otherworldly being, then they would defeat him. But if he and Evajean were not the Ones Mighty and Strong, then no amount of preparation would make any difference.

“I don’t think that’s where he’ll be,” Elliot said. “When the Mormons came here, when they built this city, they were coming to something.”

“The salt lake.”

“There could be something special about it.”

“The Hole,” Evajean said.

“What about it?”

“In the earth. The great salt lake is what, Elliot? An enormous hole in the earth.”

That sounded right. Again, “right” was a product of a deep feeling, a sense of what was and always had been proper, like being drawn to water when you’re thirsty. “That’s where we have to go,” he said.

“Yeah,” Evajean said and her voice sounded both excited and small.

They left the hotel and with it the journals, which remained behind on the bed in the room. Neither noticed their absence but, if they had, they would’ve known that those messages from the past had fulfilled their purpose. Now the only purpose left to see completion was the one that had driven the lives of Elliot Bishop and Evajean Rhodes.

“Is it far, do you think?” Evajean said after they’d walked west for several minutes.

“It probably is.”

“Will we make it by morning?”

“Yes.”

The city was empty. They neither heard nor saw any sign of the crazies and, the further they walked, the more convinced Elliot became of Evajean’s theory about the Hole. That’s where the crazies had gone and that was where they’d find Moroni.

They stopped after a couple of hours to rest. Evajean pulled her jacket tight in the night chill. “Are you scared, Elliot?” she asked, looking not at him but out across the city and in the direction of the lake.

“Yes,” he said.

“I am, too. I keep thinking how insane this all is, everything that’s happened. I don’t want to believe it. I want to think that I can just turn around and go home and Henry will be waiting for me–and that we can bring a bottle of wine over to a barbecue in the evening at your place, with Clarine and your daughter there. You’ll cook some of those steaks and maybe I’ll have a drink, but not as much as before. I think how wonderful that would be, and it makes me scared and sad.”

Elliot didn’t respond. His stomach had twisted as she spoke. He turned his face away from her.

“It was all so beautiful then,” Evajean continued. “Before. But I know that if all this is true, if everything we read isn’t just stories made up, and if we really are the Ones Mighty and Strong, then that beauty was false all along. Because no matter how good things were, there was still Moroni and there was still Yahweh. And all of this was going to happen no matter what we did.”

“Except stop believing,” Elliot said. He turned to face her and she did the same. “It’s belief they needed to do this. If we’d stopped believing…”

“Stopped believing in what, Elliot? They were there. They were real. You can’t stop believing in something if it’s really right there in front of you.”

“That’s not what people believed in,” Elliot said. “They didn’t go to church worship Moroni and Yahweh, the demons from outer space. They went because they believed in God. That’s what the demons used–that faith. They needed it to keep people’s minds open so they could make the crazies when the time came. If we’d rejected that belief…”

“I just want things back the way they were. I really do.”

“Yeah,” Elliot said.

“But I don’t hate them.”

“Who?”

“Any of them. Any of the people who believed and, I guess, kind of caused this to happen. I can’t hate them. They believed what they did for love.”

“A lot of people have believed a lot of things for love,” Elliot said. “That doesn’t make any of it right.”

Evajean nodded. “But it makes it more okay,” she said.

Elliot shook his head. He didn’t know how to respond and he didn’t want to. What mattered now was just the road in front of them, the last miles until the water–and whatever they might find there. “We have to see this through,” he said, standing up. “Come on, let’s go.”

She followed him, and kept any further thoughts on the matter to herself.

Some time later–Elliot had lost track of the hours, and distance was impossible to judge in this unfamiliar city–they saw the first of the crazies. It was a young girl, and she stumbled down the middle of the same street they were on, in the same direction toward the lake. Elliot noticed her when they came around the side of a van abandoned across the road. They’d emerged out of the city proper and were following a two lane highway that arced in the direction of the salt lake. Elliot had broken the glass door of a gas station and found a map of the city. It showed this road taking them right up to the shore and then along it.

Elliot grabbed Evajean and pulled her down to the curb. Startled, she called out, but he pressed a hand to her mouth. “There,” he said, pointing.

She looked. The girl was perhaps ten or twelve years old, in a green dress torn up the back. Her hair was dirty and matted. As they watched her, she was joined by two more, an elderly couple, who came out of a row of office buildings off to left. Then three male crazies in jeans and novelty t-shirts climbed out of the cab of an overturned semi. None appeared to notice Elliot and Evajean.

“Where are they going?” Evajean whispered.

“The lake?” He lifted himself part way up from the gravel. “But why haven’t they seen us?” He crawled forward.

One of the men who’d come out of the cab, a fat, middle aged guy, fell down from the top of the truck and hit the road with his shoulder. Elliot heard the bone break. The guy pushed up with his other hand and got to his feet, stumbling after the others. But, as he’d fallen, his face had been pointed directly in Elliot and Evajean’s direction and Elliot was sure he’d seen them. Still, the crazy gave no sign of noticing.

Elliot turned back to Evajean. “I don’t think they can see us,” he said. “Or, if they can, they just don’t care.

She shook her head. “Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“Where do you think they’re going?”

“I don’t know.”

They lay there until the flow of crazies diminished and then stopped. When Elliot could no longer see any of them, he stood up.

“Who’s do you think they were?” Evajean said, when they’d continued walking.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean who’s side. Yahweh’s or Moroni’s? I figure Moroni’s because I think that’s what most of them have been, but you can’t tell.”

“No,” Elliot said.

The sun had just begun to turn the sky behind them orange when they discovered where the crazies were going, and who’s they were.

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When God speaks, you have no choice but to listen. I know. I’ve seen his face and felt the heat it radiates. I have believed.

Kill him. That is what you were made to do. The One Mighty and Strong is eternal weapon against the darkness. Moroni cannot stand against it.

I remain ignorant of the weapon’s genesis. I do no know who created you. But I perceive your purpose. And, because I am not a bad person and because I recognize the horrors I have helped to advance in this world, I today set in motion events I hope will lead to Moroni’s destruction at your hand.

A small group of my followers have been informed of the truth. They have been taught the secrets. They and their descendants will harbor and protect those who might become the One Mighty and Strong. Moroni will do everything in his power to stop them, but he will fail. I have enough faith left to know that.

Only you can read this. Only you can use my seeing stones. You are Mighty and you are Strong.

I tremble as I write this. I feel Moroni’s forces gathering. He is coming for me. I fear I have little time left.

Kill him.

Your humble servant,

Joseph Smith, Jr.

****

Elliot finished reading. They both sat, silent and terrified.

After some time, Evajean said, “How did you come to Charlottesville, Elliot?”

He looked at her, confused.

“Just tell me,” she said.

Elliot shrugged. “My wife. It was Clarine’s idea. She wanted to move and we did.” He shook his head. “But we talked about this already.”

“Yeah,” Evajean said. “But it was Henry who suggested Charlottesville for me. He’s the one who said we should move there and he’s the one who picked out that house. I didn’t even like it very much but Henry insisted. Do you see what I’m getting at?”

“No.”

“Who told you to buy that house on that street?”

Elliot thought about it. “I guess it was Clarine.”

“Right,” Evajean said. “Of course it was. Don’t you see, Elliot? Smith said there’d be people who’d protected the Mighty and Strong and that’s us. We know that. It’s us and, for it to work, we have to be together. We couldn’t fight Moroni if we never found each other. You think it’s just coincidence we ended up living right across the street? I sure don’t.”

“I don’t–”

“Think about it. We have to be together, we have to meet. And we live totally apart, in different states. Out of now where, my husband says we have to move to Charlottesville. I mean, who’s ever heard of Charlottesville? And your wife does exactly the same thing. She tells you to pack up, that the family’s moving to Virgina? That’s not the kind of thing that normally happens. Henry and Clarine were in on it. They were part of Joseph Smith’s little secret.”

Elliot was quiet. He knew she was right but he hated believing it. Clarine was his wife. She’d given him Callie. She wasn’t some secret agent, damn it, wasn’t a religious lunatic. But it all made sense. She’d come to him, after all. She’d asked him out.

Evajean was pacing. “And that explains Melvin and Cassandra, too. How far does it reach?” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, the journal told us it’s not just Moroni, but Yahweh, too. And Yahweh’s the name of God for Jews and Christians, right? How many people are Jews and Christians, Elliot? How much of the population?”

“A lot.”

“Yeah. Almost all. And that means almost everyone in the government, too.”

“The Hole…”

“Right.” She sat down on the bed. “What if the government, the people in it, somehow knew what was happening. What if they knew Moroni’s army was coming back, that it was taking people over. Then they’d try to stop that from happening. Because they’re Christian and Jewish, after all. Not Mormon. How many Mormons are there in the government?”

“I don’t know.”

“But there’s way more Christians and Jews.”

“I’m sure.”

Evajean stopped. “But hold on, that doesn’t make sense. They were taking the bodies to the Hole, the people who were already dead. So why even bother? It’s not like dead people are a threat.”

“Those dead people weren’t Mormons,” Elliot said. “The journal told us Moroni started the religion to make his faithful open to the arrival of the army. My guess is that means the only people these Nephites could possess would be Mormons–”

“Yahweh!” Evajean said. “What if the people who died were on Yahweh’s side? What if they were possessed by the other ones, the–”

“Lamanites.”

“Them. And, here, think of it like this: Sure they’re dead, but that could just be the bodies. The Lamanites might still be in there, trapped or something. They could get out. So Moroni’s people took them to the Hole to be destroyed.”

“You’re saying the whole thing was engineered by his people? That the collection of bodies and transporting them was a big plot?”

She nodded. “It has to be, Elliot. What other explanation is there?”

Elliot shook his head. “It’s an awful lot to buy. And it leaves open the question of the crazies.”

“They’re– We’ll, there’s some who tried to help us, but other ones, like the lady in Wal-Mart, tried to kill us.”

“Are they the ones who survived the possession?” Elliot said.

“Yeah, maybe. You think some of the crazies are Lamanites, on Yahweh’s side, and some are Nephites on Moroni’s side?”

“Could be.” Elliot stood up. “But regardless of any of that, we have to decide what we do now.”

Evajean looked at him. “Are you serious, Elliot? We know exactly what we have to do.”

He stared at her.

“We have to kill Moroni,” Evajean said.

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Let me begin by telling you what I know of Moroni, called “The Angel” by the modern church, but elsewhere granted the title “The Mad King.” He–it–is an awful creature, a demon birthed on a plane far removed from our own. He is not of this world, but he desires absolute power over it, and drove Joseph Smith to create the Mormon faith so as to further that goal.

My grandfather was a pawn in Moroni’s plans. I have every reason to think the stories he told of angelic beings coming into his room, of meeting them in the woods, and even the discovery of the golden plates, were true as far as he had knowledge of them. Moroni showed him the untranslated Book of Mormon, except that the story contained within was nothing more than a fictional account designed to launch a great religion. By opening themselves up to him, making their minds available through faith, the subsequent generations of Mormons could function as conduits through which Moroni’s hoards might return to this world.

I have come to learn that the conspiracy reaches farther than that single Christian sect, however, and in fact includes the whole of its mother religion, and even those related to it by the book of Yahweh. You see, it was Yahweh who first moved to solidify a hold on the earth, and he did so by spreading his name via the lips of countless faithful.

Neither Moroni nor Yahweh are gods as we use that term. (I have come to doubt whether such a thing as “god” even exists.) Instead, they are best described as demons: extra-dimensional beings who have warred for eternity and have, in part, used our world as their killing field. More about their nature I do not know and I imagine grasping it fully would prove impossible, just as it is impossible to understand the whole of the heavens. Our minds reach only so far.

What little more I can state of the matter is that there exists two competing armies, one under the command of Moroni, the other lead by his nemesis, Yahweh. Moroni’s legions are the Nephites, a people key to the Book of Mormon, though very different than their portrayal would suggest. They are not the original inhabitants of this continent but, instead, alien creatures who have walked these lands in the past and hope to do so again in the near future. Yahweh’s armies are the Lamanites, those cursed and declared evil in Smith’s text. Neither Nephite nor Lamanite is likely the true name of these varieties of creatures, but I’ve discovered no others and so am forced to continue to use them. We should not fall into the trap of placing our faith in Yahweh simply because we know Moroni’s nature. Both beings seek only our subjugation, and both would destroy us all if given the chance.

Hope instead rests with the One Mighty and Strong, a term out of Mormon scripture for the one who will come to see the faith through the end times. I have been able to discover little more except that Moroni appears terrified of him. This I learned from a drunk I spoke with in a back alley in Boston, a man of considerable years who had spent most of them staring into the end of a bottle. I’d found him when my inquiries reminded a visiting professor of a story he’d once heard about an elderly tramp who’s mad rantings had caused terror throughout a sizable portion of New England. After meeting the man, I have to wonder about the sensibilities of the region, if they are so easily spooked by such a seemingly harmless merchant.

Regardless of his reign of terror, the drunk, when I met him, exhibited all the usual signs of excessive and prolonged alcohol intake. He mumbled through his interview with me, but I was able to extract enough information to recognize the significance of this prophesied savior Joseph Smith, Jr. first spoke of in 1832. It is my view now that the One Mighty and Strong is not meant as a hero to Mormonism but is, in fact, the ultimate weapon against the tyranny of Moroni and Yahweh. Moroni sent the particular vision to Smith, working the myth of this person into the Mormon belief structure, so as to excite believers and, in a sense, place them on a lookout should the One appear. Identifying him would then make him easier to dispatch, thereby preventing Moroni’s downfall. Unfortunately, that is all I can say. The drunk man was found dead the following morning, his frozen body propped among some trash in one of the many alleys he called home. I have no evidence, but I suspect foul play.

I implore you, reader, to search this being out. Find the One Mighty and Strong and take whatever actions necessary to assure his survival and victory.

Enclosed with his journal is a document sent to me by post just two weeks ago. It is my grandfather’s handwriting, I’m sure, but, as is clear, the text is not a language currently known. I’m inclined to believe it is the same alphabet as the purported Book of Mormon and, if so, only my grandfather’s seeing stones, the Urim and Thummim, can read it–for these are what he used to do his translating. Find them. Discover his message. And put a stop to the conquest of Moroni and Yahweh. This I beg.

****

“Jesus,” Elliot said, letting the journal fall.

“It’s us, isn’t it?” Evajean said. “That’s what Melvin said. The writer has is wrong. It’s not the One Mighty and Strong, but the Ones. You and me.”

Elliot nodded. “We were meant to find this. Everything, all your hunches, all those times when what we did just felt right, it was all to lead us to this.”

“The glasses!” Evajean said. She jumped up. “Where are they? The ones you found in the house.”

Elliot reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled them out. The two large lenses, one gray and the other blue, caught the moonlight from the hotel room’s window.

“That’s them,” Evajean said, excited. She leaned forward, taking the glasses from his hand. “The Urim and–whatever the other one was.”

“Thummim.”

“Give me that,” Evajean said, pointing toward the folded sheet of paper. Elliot picked it up and handed it to her. She put the glasses on, the huge lenses bulging out from her eyes, and held up the sheet. She studied it for a moment, turned it around, then turned it back. “I don’t see anything,” she said.

“Nothing?”

“I can’t see through these things,” she said and took the glasses off.

“Here,” Elliot said, and took them from her, along with the paper. He set the sheet in his lap and was lifting the glasses to his face when he stopped.

“What?” Evajean asked.

Elliot was silent. He leaned down, the glasses still in his fist. “I can read it,” he said.

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When the sky began to deepen in color, I set about preparing my camp for the night’s sleep. The unsucessful stakeout of the previous night had me worried, but I remained convinced that proximity to the scar would assure a supernatural experience, if one was to be had at all. I ate a small meal, my nerves forcing my stomach to reject anything more, and then lay awake, staring up at the glow of the moon through the canvas of my tent.

I must have fallen asleep, because I can remember being awakened by the odd and terrifying sensation of the ground shifting underneath me. I sat up, startled, and realized what was happening: the mouth was again opening, with me on top of it. I scrambled out of the tent, for a horrible moment getting caught in blankets, and was then outside, dashing up the hill to safety. While my back was still turned, my palms and knees muddy as I crawled, the light came, erupting upward from the mouth.

I forced myself to crest the hill and duck into the coverage of some low bushes before turning to take in the sight. The mouth had opened fully and my tent consumed, with only a corner flap of canvas protruding. As I watched, the mouth finished its growth and that awful tongue Bear described climbed forth, carrying its expected passenger.

I will apologize now for the potentially incoherent nature of what follows. As a man of science and history–and, more significantly, a man without religious faith–I had long believed that the human mind was capable of wrestling down anything nature might confront it with. The intellect eroding beasts and gremlins of the supernatural were only pits in our understanding. With sufficient tools for learning and the degree of knowledge they afford, we might come to grips with the paranormal–the unexplained–and expose it for baseless mumbo-jumbo.

This conviction, so crucial to my own sense of place in the universe, was deeply shaken, if not outright destroyed, by the events I witnessed in those woods–and the terrible research and exploration I conducted following. You hold in your hands the result and it is my hope that reading it will not do the same to you as has been done to me. These are terrifying times in which we live and, if what I’ve learned proves true, there are only greater terrors in our future. I pray to whatever good may be out there to stand strong against the evils I’ve only recently discovered. Humanity, no matter our countless faults, deserves better than what I fear is coming to us all.

But that is enough. The best way to prevent an apocalypse is to share my knowledge and share it quickly. I’ll let the proceeding pages provide their own reason. I only ask that you believe their words. I am not insane, nor am I a fantasist like I so often accused my grandfather Joseph of being. I’ll tell my tale as I remember it.

The sheep–or goat, it being deformed enough to make identification difficult–ignored me, instead walking off in a direction my compass briefly indicated was east. I say briefly because the magnetic pull of the earth had suddenly become inconsistent and the needle swung erratically before settling on east for only half a minute. Then it resumed its apparently random rotation. I waited until the demonic beast had gone a good distance before I worked up the nerve to follow.

Its path was not straight, nor was it entirely random. Instead, the creature seemed to be following some unknown purpose, looking for something hidden. I remained as far back from it as I could manage without losing its trail. There were several times I had to convince myself to continue, for the thought of what the beast might do if it turned around and saw me intruded constantly. What was this thing? Was that opening what it immediately appeared to be, a terrible mouth leading to the very stomach of Hell? I still cannot say, even after my subsequent research, and I now imagine there are certain questions none of us are meant to have answers to.

The beast carried through its exploration for a good hour, stopping only once to leap upon a deer foolish enough to wander near its path. The poor animal was not so much eaten as consumed, the demon sheep falling on it and pinning it down, while its hellish flesh seemed to burn through the deer, giving forth an awful cloud of smoke and a grayish seepage that ran out and soaked into the earth. When the beast finally stood, all it left behind was wet earth and a few nubs of corroded bone. I felt sick at the sight, but forced the bile down, mouth held tightly closed to keep from making even the smallest sound. Finished with its meal, the beast continued its search and I followed as before, though with perhaps a degree more fear troubling my bowels.

Eventually the beast found what it was looking for. We emerged over a low hill–fortunately tree covered to keep me safe from accidental view–and into a surprisingly gorgeous valley, the overflow from a small and clear spring trickling through it to the east. At the bottom, nestled into the side of the opposite slope, and beneath the roots of a huge and ancient tree, was the mouth of a cave. This last was hidden, however, and I noticed it only because the beast made right for it, digging at the overhanging vines and creepers with its nose until it had exposed the dark opening.

I crouched low, watching this scene, wondering what could be in that cave that such a monster would spend so long searching for. Surely not just food? After a minute of rooting at the entrance, the beast pulled back, kicked its feet, and then charged forward, running through the opening and squeezing the whole of its terrific bulk inside. I gasped. Surely the beast was too large to fit in that cave. But equally surely, that creature was not of an entirely natural sort and so could not be expected to abide by the laws of nature and science–and size–as I understood them.

I was not going to follow it in. No matter how great my curiosity, no matter how burning my desire to find out where it had gone, I could not justify the risk of finding out what horrors might await me just past the mouth of that cave. Instead, I decided to wait, for unless the passage beneath the hill lead to another exit somewhere else in the forest, the beast would have to emerge here again and I could then resume tracking it.

I sat for hours. I can’t say exactly how long it was, but the sun had begun to come up, the sky turning a faint bluish orange, before I saw anything from the mouth of the cave. I sat up at the first shaking of the leaves and leaned forward. I’m not sure what I expected but it certainly was the not being that emerged from that small opening.

A man in white walked out of the cave, seeming to grow in size as he did until he stood perhaps twice my height. I was backing up, trying to get away from the thing, when it looked directly at me and held out its hands, gesturing me to come forward. I did. I can’t explain why, but like sleeping on the mouth, going toward that phantom man seemed exactly the proper action to take. I climbed down the hill until I stood at its feet.

The creature–demon or angel, I knew not–seemed surprised at my presence. It asked me if my name was Smith and, when I said it was, the being appeared to relax. “I had thought you dead,” it told me, and I realized it had somehow mistaken me for Joseph Smith, Jr., my grandfather. There is a strong family resemblance, I admit, but I believe that, too, the creature had little experience with humans. In effect, we all look very much the same in its eyes.

“Why have you returned?” it asked me. “The time has not yet come.” Its voice sounded broken and muffled and forced, as if it were speaking through a mouth that had only recently come to be used for a such a purpose. I could feel each word deep in my stomach.

“I was searching,” I said, stumbling through the short sentence. I had to answer it satisfactorily or, I was convinced, it would kill me–or drag me to whatever awaited on the other side of that awful mouth from which it had come. “For… For you.”

“The time is too early for that, Smith,” it said.

“Too early?” I asked.

“You grow impatient, as your kind so often do. You cannot wait the necessary time for what is prophesied to come about. You feel the need to rashly drive events forward.” And then it laughed. I fell backwards in horror at the sound. “You will be dead before I return again,” it said. “You will not experience my glory.” It paused. “Have you done as I asked?”

“Yes,” I said, for it was all I could think to say.

“The message spreads then.” It nodded. “Good. Your flock will grow. Your faith will cover the earth and shall make my return–my victory–all the more grand. A god needs his followers, no?”

“Of course,” I said. “He definitely needs them.”

“There shall be war,” the creature said, ignoring me. “I will have need of a great army. It is you, Smith, who have provided it. Your faithful will be the vessels for my minions. And for that I shall give you prime place by my side as I rule this world. When I and my army have eradicated the scourge of my enemy, driven out that foul demon Yahweh, murdered him, and desecrated his corpse, then I will furnish you with your deserved reward. You shall witness the rebirth of Moroni’s kingdom. Can you wait? Can you be patient?”

“Yes,” I said. The creature nodded and turned away, but I stepped forward. “Where are you from?” I asked it.

The being looked at me for a moment before answering. Then it said, “Worlds beyond these.”

I did not know how to respond, nor did the mysterious being give me the opportunity to. Instead, it walked away from me, shrinking in size, until it vanished through the mouth of the cave. I didn’t bother running to look for it. It was gone.

Entirely unable to return to sleep–and missing my tent and bedding–I began the hike back to the village. I let my path take me by the scar and that was again all it was: the mouth had closed with no trace of its supernatural occupant. The journey was not easy and I started and jumped whenever some unseen thing in the forest snapped or rustled.

But I did survive the experience, even if my mind was irreparably shaken. I made it back into town, found a comfortable room for rent, and fell almost immediately into a long and dreamless sleep.

And that is where I shall end my tale. The remainder of this journal is not my continuing adventures, so to speak, but instead a summation of my discoveries in the subsequent months, an exposition of what I learned as I sought to make sense of what I’d seen. I cannot speak to the entirety of its truth, for none if it is corroborated outside of my own rather mad experiences and similar ones from potentially untrustworthy characters such as Bear. But the story I have managed to piece together is terrible enough that, if even a portion is true, I can manage nothing but pessimism for the future of my race.

It all begins with my grandfather, Joseph Smith, Jr., for whom I was named. It is the true and hidden history, as I understand it, of that great religion he founded, the Mormon faith. I do not know who will read these words, when they will be read, or even if this journal will see human eyes again. I can only hope that its contents find a sympathetic ear and that you, reader, will take them seriously, for the very future of humanity–mine, yours, and everywhere we exist and thrive–is at stake. The Mormon Church is a fraud built upon a horrible lie. Its very mission, one undreamed of by all its living followers, is the subjugation of this realm, this universe, to an evil of unimaginable scale.

Fear the Mad King Moroni, for his return is at hand.

****

Elliot stopped and looked up.

“Is there more?” Evajean asked. She was leaned back on the bed, propped up on her elbows, and the room around them was quiet and dim.

Elliot set the book down on the stretched bedspread next to him and stood up. “Yeah,” he said, “there’s more.”

“Are you gonna read it?”

“In a minute,” he said.

“Okay,” she said, and pulled her arms our from underneath herself, falling back until she was lying across the bed. “I don’t know how much of it to believe, how much of it is just made up. I mean, it could be the whole thing.”

“I believe all of it,” Elliot said. “Every last word.”

“But you really think he’s right about even the church? That all of Mormonism is caught up in this Moroni’s plans? I mean, I remember seeing commercials for them on television.”

“I don’t think they know,” Elliot said.

“That’s nuts.”

“Yeah, it is.”

“And is that what the crazies are? Moroni’s army?”

“They came back and took over the vessels,” Elliot said. “That’s what we saw in the caves under Nahom. Those ghosts floating behind and above the people–those were Moroni’s soldiers.”

“They were possessed.”

Elliot nodded. “I think so.”

“What are we supposed to do, Elliot? Are we still the ones mighty and strong? I mean, what are those? We’re not supposed to fight Moroni, are we?”

“I have no idea.”

“Will you do the rest now?”

“Yeah,” Elliot said. He sat down, picked up the journal, and continued to read.

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Bear shook his head. “I pulled my leg out and I ran fast as I could away from there. Hid in a little cave I know about and waited for it to get light again. It was a long night, I’ll tell you that.” He went quiet again. When at last he began to speak, his voice was lower, nearly a whisper. “I saw it again that night,” he said. “I tried to sleep but I couldn’t and I kept seeing it, walking through the woods. Once it chased a deer not more than twenty paces from me. The beast was hunting. And even when I couldn’t see it, I could see that light.”

By morning, the creature had gone and when Bear returned to the place he’d seen the mouth, there was only a burned scar. He collected his belongings and decided to end this particular stint away from civilization. He hiked into Manchester and spent the next week drinking away the remainder of his modest savings. It was during those drunken days that he told the story to everyone who would sit long enough to listen, and it was through those who remembered his tale that I’d found him.

That was all Bear could tell me. He never went to that section of the forest again and, beyond that week of intoxication, kept the story to himself. Three years had passed without another incident of that sort, though Bear had encountered several more of the usual occurrences, such as the phantom sounds and mysterious lights. These were common enough to the section of New York, however, to raise not even the smallest concern.

I asked Bear if he could take me to the place where the terrible events had transpired. Initially he refused, saying he’d sworn an oath never to return. The offer of one-hundred dollars–far more than I could afford, but a reasonable sacrifice I convinced myself–changed his mind. “I can take you there,” he said, shaking my hand to seal our agreement, “but I won’t stay the night. That there’s no making me do, no matter how much money you professor folk are willing to hand over.” I told him that would be fine, that all I needed was the location and guidance to it. I’d manage the rest on my own.

We set a date four days from then for our expedition and I paid Bear a handful more to procure me the necessary equipment for what I hoped would be a fruitful conclusion to my search. Here I must mention that, while I hadn’t quite felt it at any conscious level yet, panic had begun to gnaw at me. My grandfathers stories, I was sure, were simple fabrications and my attempt to find the hill Cumorah, the place he had supposedly dug up the golden plates containing the Book of Mormon, was a means of proving that to myself as well as, in some fashion, reconnecting with my heritage. I am, after all, just two generations removed from a man countless hard working, honest, and intelligent Americans believe is a prophet as significant as Jesus or Muhammad. Joseph Smith may actually be little more than a charlatan who convinced himself of the truth of his own lies, but he’s a charlatan with a following greater than any in recent history. And he’s my grandfather. No matter how far I remove myself from his legacy, I am still a part of it.

The idea, then, that there might be some truth to Joseph’s claims–that the woods between Manchester and Palmyra where he writes of his supernatural experiences occurring could, in fact, be filled with mysteries beyond the comprehension of man–shook my foundations as a man of reason. What was out there in that terrible world where Joseph had his visions? I confess I was nervous about finding out.

I met Bear at the prescribed time and, true to his word, he brought with him the implements I’d need to last several days alone in the forest. We packed these into large sacks and lashed them to our backs before beginning the march towards whatever might await us. Bear told me the journey would take us the rest of that day and the better part of the next. He’d likely leave me with only a few hours of daylight left to make camp and prepare. The prospect of the loss of daylight without preparations for the night completed was not encouraging.

We set out and I must admit Bear’s company had a certain rustic joviality, an unlettered coarseness I found immediately appealing. He told me of his time growing up in the near wilderness, of his father, a preacher who’d died young, and his mother, as hard working a wife as one was likely to find. Bear received no schooling to speak of, but his uncle on his father’s side was a seasoned trapper and he’d take his nephew out with him, teaching him the trade. “Good thing, too,” Bear said, as we sat drying in the sun after stumbling through a small stream. “My mother, bless her to the ends of the earth, she decided one day she’d had her fill of the hard life and when another preacher came through, she dropped it all and ran off with him.” He laughed. “Can’t blame her.”

Bear’s story continued through most of our journey in a wonderfully told series of anecdotes and tall tales, until eventually we had to cease our trek for the night. The following morning was much the same, however, and, by the time Bear announced we’d arrived at our destination, I was finding myself anxious for the approaching solitude. Bear offered to stay with me until darkness came, to show me around the area. I declined, telling him I didn’t want to force any particularly terrible memories upon him, not so near to the place his brush with the supernatural had occurred. He nodded, relieved, and took his leave of me. My afternoon was spent walking alone through the immediate area, enjoying the sights and sounds, and occasionally making notes in my journal.

When night came, I made camp, erecting the tent Bear had provided and following his instructions until I had a healthy fire going to ward off the night’s chill. While I was excited at the prospect of witnessing some occurrence similar to the one my grandfather wrote of, a part of me held out hope that my fire pit would be the only I’d see that night.

As luck would have it, that’s exactly what happened. I kept myself awake for as long as I could, walking a small circuit around the crests of the hills my tent rested at the center of, but it quickly became too much for a body used to the finer accommodations and relaxed lifestyle academe affords. I fell asleep. My dreams were troubled with images of faceless people talking and running and fighting while what I can best describe as ghosts floated nearby. None of them saw me, but I remember the feeling of terror at the thought that they would. I awoke just after dawn, still tired, my muscles aching.

I wish now that I’d been better able to sleep, because it would have made the events of that day easier to cope with. I made myself a small breakfast and decided to move my camp to the very spot Bear had seen the mouth. I couldn’t be certain any new display would happen in the same location, but then the only thing lost would be the time and effort involved in packing and unpacking my equipment.

The scar was as Bear had described it. The ground looked long ago burnt, like a huge fire had been build and the ashes partially grown over. I pushed away the vegetation and cleared the area of broken branches and one moss covered log. Then I setup my tent, with the canvas floor resting right across the top of the damaged earth. I knew this might be an imprudent decision, for what if the mouth opened again, directly beneath me as I slept? I cannot tell you why I refused to take the risk seriously, only that I was aware of something I can’t describe telling me it was the right thing to do.

It was. I explored the woods that day, finding nothing except for several strange carvings on perhaps a dozen trees. They appeared to be runes of some sort, in a circle, and ranged from relatively fresh–the exposed wood browned, but still noticeably lighter than the surrounding bark–to ancient. I had no reason to think they were related to the purported experiences of my grandfather, but I made careful drawings of them, nonetheless.

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“Can you describe it?” I asked him. “Tell me in as much detail as you can remember.”

The story he told was horrific indeed and, as I listened, I was dismayed to find myself believing him.

Bear routinely spent a large portion of each year living in these forested hills, hunting and trapping, feeding himself from the spoils and selling what remained to the locals in exchange for occasional shelter and frequent drink. Two years ago had been a particularly warm and plentiful summer and Bear had been living without human contact for nearly a month.

He’d made camp at the center of a circle of low hills, a place he’d used before since it was sheltered from the wind and fed by a small stream of clear spring water. The sun had just gone down and he was drinking the last of his whiskey before turning in for the night when he heard a terrific cracking sound close by.

Knowing the danger of falling trees, Bear hauled himself up from his sleeping furs, lit a torch on his campfire, and set out to investigate. Over one low ridge, he thought he could make out a glow of sorts, a pale yellow light defusing through the mist.

“It could’ve been fire, is what I was thinking,” Bear said. “Fire like that it’d easily bring down trees and be mighty dangerous to a fool like me camping right near it.” He said this with the awareness of one who recognizes his own propensity towards unjustified risk and his eyes flashed at the excitement of the memory. “Times like that,” he said, “I wish I kept a dog. Animals can smell a fire before we can.”

I poured him another drink. “What did you see when you looked over the crest of the hill?” I asked.

That glitter of remembrance disappeared from his eyes, which now went hard and cold. “Not a fire,” he said. “It was a pit, you’d probably call it, but to me that thing was nothing but a huge mouth, opening in the dirt. It had teeth of roots and broken logs, lips of moss. It opened–I watched it do that. Wider and wider. And that glow, what was fire when I was in my tent, wasn’t fire but the stuff on it’s tongue. Spit, I guess it was. The tongue licked out of that mouth and it shone like the forges of hell.” He reached for the glass and drank its contents in a single swallow. “That’s not the worst,” he said. “No, it only gets more awful after that.”

The mouth, as it turned out, was only a portal through which something else came into this world. Bear stayed low along the ridge of the hill, shivering in the wet grass, his torch dropped and forgotten, as the maw continued to expand. The tongue, a fat appendage writhing like some injured beast, lashed at the lips, teeth, and the earth beyond, spreading its luminescent saliva in pools and spatters. After several minutes, this conflagration ceased and the mouth was still. The tongue pulled back inside and the glow began to fade. Bear, focusing whatever nerve he had left, crept closer. He had heard tales of mysterious occurrences in these woods between Palmyra and Manchester, stories of phantom lights and voices, or ten foot tall men walking among the trees. Most of these he never doubted, raised as he was in the backwoods superstition of this burned over district, but even for his decidedly credulous mind, the spectacle he now witnessed was very nearly maddening. The tongue was only gone a short while. The yellow glow dimmed just noticeably before it reappeared, climbing out of the throat, carrying its horrific passenger.

Here Bear stopped, took another drink, and crossed himself. “You of a religious sort, Mr. Smith?” he asked me. I told him I wasn’t and this seemed to relieve him. “I’d say that’s good for you–if it didn’t mean damnation,” he said. “Good here, at least, because what I’m about to tell you–what I saw come out of that mouth–would wither the heart of any good Christian.”

At first, all Bear saw was an increase in the strength of the glow. But as it got closer, he could tell that this new light, instead of the prior eerie yellow, was a hateful and malignant purple, like a bruise stretched thin over a candle flame. He pushed himself backwards, away from the opening, but his leg caught and twisted in a thick, rotting branch. Bear sat up to pull his foot free when he heard the sound, a whimpering moan that increased in volume to a thunderous warble not of any animal or man. As he stared in terror, the source of that cacophony rose from the open mouth, riding the tongue like a patriarch on his palanquin.

“A vicious and terrible beast it was,” Bear said. His complexion had faded to nearly that of a corpse. “A sheep, but none like I’d seen in the fields. This one was monstrous, bigger than even the largest bull in a fair.” The wool hung in mangy clumps, spread unevenly over great knots of muscle. The creature’s mouth was open and the purple light poured forth, along with that awful baying sound. In the still present glow of the tongue, Bear could see that the animal–if it could be called that–was wet with blood. Its eyes were closed as it screamed at the sky. When the full creature finally came into view, Bear saw its sickly white teats.

Then the tongue stopped and the beast opened its eyes. “And that’s when I began praying,” Bear said. “That’s when I begged God and Jesus to save me from this abomination. Because when those eyes sprung open, they showed the same purple flame and, worse–God so much worse–was that they weren’t the only spot. No, more holes opened, all over the thing’s head, each one with that same light. And I called to God because this thing, this bloody beast, had a wretched halo. This blood anointed lamb was a perversion of the Lamb of God. It was a sick impostor of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

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They’d left the museum without encountering any trouble and come outside to find Cassandra gone, as expected. That was her mission, Elliot thought. She did it but she didn’t stick around to see how it turned out.

Evajean had led them down the street to a hotel and Elliot broke the glass front door to let them inside. Only when they’d found an open room and locked themselves in did Elliot feel comfortable taking out the package.

Evajean took it from him and turned it over in her hands. “What do you think it is?”

Elliot shrugged. “Open it.”

She sat down on the bed and began peeling the tape off the box. “Why’s it wet?” she asked.

“Basement damp,” Elliot said. “From being down there so long.”

“But it wasn’t damp down there,” Evajean said. “At least not that I could tell.” She removed the last piece of tape and pulled the box flaps open. She reached inside and took out a black rectangle, a quarter of an inch thick and the size of a paperback book. “It’s a journal,” she said, thumbing back the cover. As she flipped through, a folded paper fell from between the pages, landing by Elliot’s foot. He bent and picked it up, unfolding it across his lap.

The paper was a large square, eighteen inches on a side, and covered, on both sides and except for a slim margin, with tiny, handwritten symbols in narrow rows. Elliot looked at it briefly and then set it aside. “Who’s is it?” he asked Evajean.

She turned to the first page and shrugged. “It doesn’t say.”

“It’s in english, though?”

“Uh huh.”

“What does it say?”

So Evajean read from the small book–and, in the time it took her to do so, many of those questions that had for so long nagged them were horrifyingly answered.

****

“Your grandfather was the prophet of the one true faith.” That was my esteemed lineage, or so my mother told me time and again, whenever the anniversary of his death brought its day of mourning. “Your grandfather was chosen by God to redeem His church and gather His flock in the name of His only begotten son, Jesus Christ.”

As a child, hearing those words, there was always a degree of disappointment and shame. Why had I not been called to a similar mission. Why did God shower all this attention on my grandfather and none on me? Perhaps it was this resentment that lead me to reject Joseph Smith’s faith, that started me on the path from Mormonism to deism to agnosticism to, eventually, atheism. I admit that as a possibility, but ultimately I must reject it’s truth and hold to the power of my reason. I gave up the faith of my grandfather and of my mother not out of resentment or anger but, rather, because I came to see it as simply false. The fantastic stories they told were just that and the grand cosmology, with it’s three levels of heaven and plethora of gods nothing but flights of the imagination as wonderous as anything from Mr. Wells.

I was excommunicated on my twentieth birthday. No longer a Saint, I left Utah and moved to New York to attend university. Whatever their degree of truth, the stories of the ancients my mother had read to me from the Book of Mormon found lasting influence, and I decided to dedicate my studies to archeology and classical languages. I found I had a knack for it and rose quickly through the ranks of scholars, eventually securing a professorship at one of the major northeastern colleges. It was years later, during a summer sabatical, that I decided to travel to where my grandfather’s legacy began: Palmyra, New York.

I am not sure why I did this. Mormonism itself held little lasting interest for me and any spiritual pull it may have had was long usurped by a rationalist world view. Perhaps it was only that consanguineous call so many of us feel when we reach a certain age, the desire to go back to where we came from and see it through older and, in a way, newer eyes. Whatever the reason, that summer saw me renting a small cabin in the forests of western New York, visiting first my grandfather’s home and then–unfortunately, as events would have it–searching for the mythical Hill Cumorah, where he supposedly found those crucial golden plates.

Knowledge of the location where the untranslated Book of Mormon was dug from the earth died with my grandfather, or at least that was the accepted wisdom of the time. Many argued that there never had been such a place and that the Hill Cumorah was nothing more than another fabrication in a long line by Joseph Smith. This view was the one I held until that summer and it is one I wish I could still hold on to today.

I will not bore the reader with a detailed account of how I began to track down that legendary spot in the hills outside of Palmyra. Suffice it to say that the process entailed numerous conversations with increasingly country–and unsavory–folks who pointed me to further peers, all wanting some kind of compensation, though usually offering me the choice between turning over money or alcohol. The former seemed to be roundly prefered. This process occupied me for weeks, during which time I was able only to work sporadically on my translation duties for the university. It all came to a climax, however, when an old and dirty trapper, who the locals called Bear, informed me of the things he’d seen while making camp one night at a location deep in the forest. He was sure he could direct me and said he would if only I’d listen to his tale and feed him whiskey while he told it.

We met on a Thursday evening in an empty farm house Bear claimed was owned by his brother. The house appeared to have not seen use in some time, though. Dust coated the furniture, what little there was, and all of the ground floor windows were cracked or broken. I smiled at Bear and let him seat us at the small table by a cold and empty stove and decided not to press him on the actual owner of this sad dwelling.

After he’d finished three shots of the relatively cheap drink I’d brought with me, Bear began. “It’s a right nasty thing,” he said, “to see something so awful when you’re all alone.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

He leaned toward me, his breath harsh with my whiskey. “Nature. That bloody mother bitch. Horrible, it is, when she tears herself from the earth to hunt.”

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“I don’t know. Do you know?”

“No.”

Evajean looked around. “I thought I’d just feel it,” she said. “Like back in the house at the barrier.”

“Yeah.”

“But I don’t.”

“I don’t either,” Elliot said.

Evajean walked ahead of him, to the back of the garage where a railing ran along an elevated concrete walkway. Two doors were along its far wall and, as Elliot swept his light across them, he could see that the one on the right was partially open. “There,” he said.

“It’s where I’m going,” Evajean said.

The garage lead to a large office space, filled with cubicles, and then into the museum proper. They came out behind a ticket desk.

“You’re not going to like this,” Evajean said.

“What?”

“What we’re supposed to find– I’m getting a feeling about it.”

“Yeah?”

“From the basement.”

Elliot sighed.

“I’ll come with you this time,” Evajean said.

“Yeah, you will,” Elliot said. “Do you know what it is? What we’re looking for?”

“No.”

“But it’s in here, in the museum.”

“I’m pretty sure it is. Actually, no, I’m positive it’s here.”

“Then let’s find the basement.”

Their shoes were loud on the polished concrete floor. The museum wasn’t as claustrophic as Wal-Mart had been, but Elliot still wished there was more light than just the pair of beems from the flashlights they carried. There wasn’t any sign of crazies, no noises or shuffles. Elliot kept their pace up, walking through the wide halls, scanning for signs marked “Basement” or “Storage.”

“It’s getting stronger,” Evajean said when they gone the full length of one hall and turned left into another.

“The feeling?”

“Yeah,” she said. “It’s this way, I think.”

A smaller passage branched off the main hallway, an alcove of bathrooms, drinking fountains, and a door at the far end without a label. “It won’t be locked,” Evajean said as they approached.

Elliot looked at her. “You know that?”

“This feeling, it’s– Elliot, it’s the weirdest thing ever. I’ve done this before, that’s what it’s like. I’ve seen all this or lived it–dreamed it, maybe. You’re not getting it, too?”

“No.”

“I wonder why not.”

“I don’t know,” Elliot said. He remembered her in the middle of Nahom, standing with the golden box over her head, the crazies dying all around them. He remembered what she’d said and the burst of light that followed. What was she? “Let’s try it, then,” he said and reached for the door.

It fell open at his touch, swinging back on silent hinges. Beyond was a set of stairs leading down.

“Told you,” Evajean said.

“I’ll go first,” Elliot said and started down. Unlike the basement of that terrible house, these stairs were solid, industrial grade. They didn’t squeek and they didn’t give under his weight.

At the bottom, the room opened out onto an expanse of six foot high shelves in rows, filling an area that had to be close to the size of the museum’s entire first floor. On the shelves were cardboard boxes, metal cages, and plastic bins. Stuff between all these were rolls and sheets of paper, some new and others faded and crumbling.

“Storage,” Evajean said, taking a step past him and looking around.

“I hope you know where this thing is.”

“I will,” Evajean said. “I just need to get closer.”

She walked out into the room, along one of the rows of shelves, and Elliot followed. “You think it’s all the stuff they couldn’t fit in the exhibits?” Evajean asked.

“Maybe,” Elliot said. He pulled a bin out from a shelf and looked inside. It was filled with packaged of various sizes, from a small as a golf ball up to perhaps a human skull, all wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine. He lifted one and found it heavy. “I bet these are rocks,” he said. “Maybe all this is for research. Palentology, archeology, that sort of thing.”

“There sure is a lot of it.”

Elliot dropped the package and slid the bin back into place. “You getting anything?”

Evajean turned to him and shrugged. “Maybe. It’s hard to tell. I wish I knew what it was, what I was looking for.”

“I don’t think that’d help much,” Elliot said. “Not in all this.”

“Let’s keep going,” Evajean said. “It’s here, I know that.”

They’d made it to the end of that room and two-thirds down the next one when Evajean held up her hand. “We’re close,” she said. “It’s like… a tingle, in my hands and stomach. I know we’re close.” She walked to one of the shelves, stopped, shook her head, and headed to another. “Where are you?” she whispered.

Something crashed upstairs. A bang rattled the ceiling, kicking up dust, and then a tremor went through the room. Evajean stumbled and fell against a shelf before Elliot could catch her. “What the hell was that?” he said when the shaking stopped.

Evajean stared at him, eyes wide. “Was that– Is there someone here?”

“Quiet.”

But there was no further sound. Elliot gave it at least a minute, crouched next to an enormous cardboard box, leaning close to Evajean, a hand on her knee. He tried not to breathe. And he heard nothing. Finally, he said, “It was just an earth–”

“No,” Evajean said. “No, if it was an earthquake, why’d it start upstairs? Why didn’t we feel it and then have the crash, instead of the other way around?”

Elliot shook his head. He had no idea. He stood up. “Let’s find this thing before it happens again. I want to get out of here as soon as possible.”

“We’re close,” Evajean said. She began searching the shelves once more, though faster this time.

A couple minutes later she called out, “It’s here! Elliot, I found it.” He rushed over. She was pulling a box out from a shelf. Like all the rest, it was cardboard, and about the size of thick hardcover book. The box had been sealed with packaging tape, gone yellow and crackly with age.

“Open it,” she said, holding it out to him.

Elliot took it. The box was light and felt slightly damp. He tucked it under his arm. “Outside,” he said. “We’ll open it then. But I want to get out of here, first.”

Evajean looked disappointed, but nodded. “Okay,” she said.

They ran back to the steps and up into the little alcove.

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“How do you know they’re real?” Evajean asked.

Cassandra shook her head. “I heard them. In my dreams at first, I heard them talking. See, Smith said that the plates he got from Moroni were written in what he called ‘reformed Egyptian.’ People, outside of the Mormons, tend to think that’s just something he made up. But I spent a year in Egypt during college as part of my anthropology degree, and while I never learned to speak it, I came to know what the language sounded like. When the dreams started, when God began talking to me, I’d get these images, of war and horrible things. The people fighting, the ones killing each other, spoke in something that sounded almost exactly like Egyptian, but not quite.”

“You heard it in your dreams?” Elliot said. “That hardly means those people exist.”

“You’re right,” Cassandra said. “I wouldn’t at all mean they were real. However, my dreams are the only place I heard it. I’m sure, during your encounters with the mad people outside, you heard them talking, to themselves and to each other?”

“Yes,” Evajean said.

“I don’t know what they’re saying,” Cassandra said, “but I can tell you with absolute certainty that they’re saying it in reformed Egyptian.”

Elliot found he didn’t care anymore. The world had gone mad, true, but he had the feeling this woman beat it to the punch. He knew she was important, that she’d take them to the museum to find whatever was in there, but he was tired of what she had to say. It didn’t even matter whether any of it was true.

“Evajean,” he said, putting his hand on top of hers, “we should either leave now and try to get to the museum before daybreak, or sleep. If we sleep, I want to wait out the day, though, since it’ll be easier to avoid the crazies in the dark.”

Cassandra pushed back her chair. “Mr. Bishop has a point. I suppose I’m up for leaving now.”

Evajean nodded. “Might as well,” she said.

The crazies were thicker closer to the city. Several times during their journey, the three of them had to duck into a house to wait out a pack wandering down the road. Fortunately, most were unlocked. “They’re trusting folk,” Cassandra said.

She had a good idea of where they were going and Elliot let himself follow, though he remained concerned about just where she might be leading them. A museum, that they all agreed on, but relying on this woman to find it–and to find it safely–had him nervous.

Without electricity, the city was lit only by the stars and moon in the huge Utah sky. But that wasn’t much, and more than once they almost bumped into a group of crazies before seeing them and had to madly dash to find cover. Elliot was glad they’d left Hope in the trailer.

“We’re almost there,” Cassandra said after some time. “A couple blocks more and then it’s up to the two of you.”

“You’re not coming with us?” Evajean said.

“No, I’m going to wait outside. This thing you have to find, it’s for the two of you alone. I’m not meant to see it.”

“How do you know that?” Evajean said.

“The same way I know all of it. Dreams and feelings. I’m quite sure that’s how you two know what to do as well.”

Elliot nodded. She couldn’t come with them. If he cast his mind forward, imagined what might be inside the museum, he sensed Evajean’s presence, but not Cassandra’s. This was up to them, the Mighty and the Strong–whatever that meant.

Downtown Salt Lake was odd. Elliot realized he hadn’t been in a large city since this all started, and the total emptiness of it made the buildings feel both larger and closer together, like the walls of a deep and narrow canyon. He’d never been claustrophobic before, but all this glass and steel and stone was making him feel that way.

“It’s right up there,” Cassandra said after another block. She pointed and Elliot saw it.

“The art museum?” he said.

Cassandra shrugged. “I don’t know–but I know that’s it.”

“She’s right,” Evajean said. “That’s where it is. Where we have to go.”

“Okay,” Elliot said.

Cassandra let them go on without her then, saying she’d stay close to watch. “If anyone comes,” she said, “I can try to find you, to warn you.” They left her, standing on the corner. Elliot knew she’d be gone with they returned.

They glanced around, one more scan for approaching crazies, and ran across the street. He started up the step to the main entrance but Evajean said, “Wait, no, this way,” and took him around the side instead, to a service entrance. It looked like a loading area for trucks, with a metal vertical sliding door–open just enough for the two of them to squeeze through.

He stood up inside. Evajean had their flashlights and handed one to him. Elliot turned it on and swept the light across the garage. A few boxes and drums were stacked randomly, but otherwise it was empty.

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