The Taking

Defended.

Molly glanced at the pistol, the shotgun.

On the muted television, spectacular video from some far city showed buildings burning in spite of quenching masses of falling rain.

On the phone, Paul said, “First Peter, chapter four, verse seven. Does it feel that way to you, little brother?”

“Truth? It feels like Close Encounters to me,” Neil admitted, at last putting into words the thought that neither he nor Molly had been willing to express. “But where it’s ultimately going—who knows?”

“I know,” Paul said, his voice firm and calm. “I’ve accepted with good will all the anguish, pain, and sorrow that might come.”

Molly recognized his stilted words as a paraphrasing of Acceptance of Death, one of the Church’s evening prayers.

She said, “It’s not going to be like that, Paulie. There’s something … I don’t know … something positive about this, too.”

“Molly, I love your sweet voice,” Paul said. “Always the one to see a rainbow in a hurricane.”

“Well… life’s taught me to be optimistic.”

“You’re right. Death is nothing to fear, is it? Just a new beginning.”

“No, I don’t mean that.” She told him about the coyotes on the porch. “I walked among them. They were so docile. It was miraculous, Paul, exhilarating.”

“I love you, Molly. You’ve been a godsend to Neil, made him happy, healed his soul. That first year, I said hurtful things—”

“Never,” she disagreed.

Neil took her hand, squeezed it gently.

On the TV, in yet another city, no buildings were afire, but looters smashed store windows. The cascades of shattered glass glittered no more brightly than the spangled rain.

To Molly, Paul said, “This is no time for lies, kiddo. Not even the polite kind meant to spare feelings.”

Initially Paul had not approved of their marriage. Over the years, however, he adjusted to it, eventually embraced it. He and Molly had become fast friends, and until now they had never spoken about his early antagonism.

She smiled. “All right, Father Paul, I confess. There were times you really pissed me off.”

Paul laughed softly. “I’m sure God felt the same way. I asked His forgiveness long ago—and now I’m asking yours.”

Her voice thickened. She wanted to hang up. She despaired over the inescapable implications of this conversation. They were saying good-bye. “Paulie … you’re my brother, too. You can’t know … how I treasure you.”

“Oh, but I know. I do. And listen, kiddo, your last book would have made your mother proud.”

“Sweet melody, good rhythm,” she said, “but in the service of shallow observations.”

“No. Stop beating yourself up. It rang with the same wisdom as Thalia’s best work.”

Tears blurred Molly’s vision. “Remember … this is no time for lies, Paulie.”

“Haven’t told any.”

Silently, a rain-drenched, wild-eyed mob raced toward and past the TV camera. They appeared to be fleeing in terror from something.

From the phone, Paul said, “Listen … I have to go. I don’t think there’s much time left.”

“What’s happening there?” Neil worried.

“I finished saying Mass a few minutes before you called. But not everyone gathered here is a Catholic, so they need a different kind of comforting.”

On the screen, the cameraman was knocked over by the panicked throng. The point of view swung wildly, crashed down to pavement level, revealing running feet that splashed up luminous sprays from darkly jeweled puddles.

Holding tightly to the handset even though the speakerphone feature was engaged, as though he were keeping his brother on the line sheerly by the intensity of his grip, Neil said, “Paulie, what did you mean—the courthouse can be more easily defended? Defended from who?”

Interference distorted the reply incoming from Hawaii.

“Paulie? We didn’t hear that. The line broke up a little. Who’re you expecting to defend against?”

Although audible again, Paulie sounded as if he were speaking from the bottom of a deep pit. “These are mostly simple people, Neil. Their imaginations may be working overtime, or they might see what they expect to see rather than what really is. I haven’t seen one myself.”

“One what?”

Static fizzed and crackled.

“Paulie?”

Among the broken, twisted words issuing from the speaker, one sounded like devils.

“Paulie,” Neil said, “if this line goes, well call you right back. And if we can’t get through, you try calling us. Do you hear me, Paulie?”

On TV, in a city now identified by caption—Berlin,Germany—the last of the soundless, running feet chased across the streaming pavement, past the fallen videocam.

Suddenly out of distant Maui, as clear as if originating from the adjacent kitchen, Paul Sloan’s voice once more swelled loud in midsentence: “… chapter twelve, verse twelve. Do you remember that one, Neil?”

“Sorry, Paulie, I didn’t catch the book,” Neil replied. “Say it again.”

In Berlin, captured blurrily through a wet lens, legions of luminous raindrops marched across the puddled street, casting up a spray more glittery than diamond dust.

A prescient awareness of pending horror kept Molly’s attention riveted on the muted TV.

The action seemed to be over, the mob having moved on to other territory, but she assumed that the accompanying audio must be telling an important story. Otherwise, the network would have cut away from Berlin when the camera struck the pavement and was not at once snatched up again.

She still held the remote. She didn’t press mute and summon the sound again because she didn’t want to risk blotting out anything that her brother-in-law might say.

On the phone, Paul’s voice fell into an abyss, but just as Neil was about to hang up, the connection proved intact, and Paul rejoined them briefly again: “‘… having great wrath because he knows that he hath but a short time.’”

The line finally went dead, transmitting not even the click and scratch of static.

“Paulie? Paulie, can you hear me?” Neil pumped the disconnect bar in the phone cradle, trying without success to get a dial tone.