Overture by Mark Wandrey

Author:Mark Wandrey [Wandrey, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Theogony Books
Published: 2017-12-05T05:00:00+00:00

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Chapter Eleven

April 25

Victor’s church had grown far faster then he’d thought possible, from a tiny handful of followers to thousands who called themselves his followers. It was mind numbing. For a time, he managed to happily sleep on a cot in the back of the old theater. That is, until his inner circle felt it was unseemly. They’d rented him a small apartment next door (for next to nothing, actually), and one night he found all his possessions moved there. He could either sleep on the floor in the church, or move to the new apartment. Like many leaders before him, he bent to his assistants’ wills.

On the morning of April 25th, Victor entered the rear offices of the church to find it all but empty. There were morning sermons planned, and they had been talking about dispatching people to the street corners for some good old-fashioned soap-box preaching, only no one was there. A young member of his church was passing by with some donated food, on his way to the pantry. Victor caught him by the arm and received the kind of look you got when you turned up somewhere you weren’t supposed to be. What he was about to say died in his throat.

“What’s up?” he asked instead.

“It’s just…I thought…” the man stammered. Victor was getting extremely worried now.

“What is going on?” he demanded, his voice becoming angry. Now, the young man was obviously scared. With a visible effort, Victor calmed himself with several deep breaths to avoid completely freaking the kid out. “Look, where the fuck everyone be?”

“T-they said to have you call this number when you came in,” he stammered and handed Victor a note. The handwriting was simple and blocky, just like Duke would write. Call us when you get this. If you don’t get through, keep trying. His will be done.

His will be done, Victor thought. Completely forgetting the young man who’d given him the note, he dug the phone out of his pocket and quickly accessed the internet feature. He’d never owned a phone like this before, another luxury his disciples had forced upon him, so it took him a minute to figure out how to get to the local news.

“NYC Center of Terrorist Attack Again” read one headline.

“Oh, Duke, damn man, what have you done?” He flicked over to the phone and dialed the number. A message alerted him that all circuits were busy. He tried twice more before giving up and running into the kitchen. Grabbing a bagel and a can of Coke, he raced out the back door and into the street. As a homeless drug user, he’d never used a cab. He never had the money to use a cab. He had money now, but didn’t like to use it. There were so many other things that required the church’s money. Normally, he took the money that his disciples left in his room and dropped it back into the donation tray every day. Today, he hadn’t had time to do that yet.

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