treetops. Suddenly he froze his arms straight out and squeezed off three shots in quick succession.
Small branches and leaves blasted in all directions. But Zack could see no one—just scrub and trees and small birds flapping away. Still in a two-handed stance, the man swiveled to another position and emptied the clip, then shoved in another from his pocket.
Zack pulled Sarah to him. “What’s he shooting at?” she asked.
Zack had no idea. The guy was tracking something unseen in the trees, swinging this way and that. He fired off more rounds, emptied the clip, then slammed in another. More flashes of tree debris, and the only sound was that of startled birds. If there were hunters or even police, they’d have made themselves known or returned shots.
With the last wild volley, a shriek rose up. And out of nowhere, a large hawk shot out of the sky, wings fully extended.
In reflex, the gunman took aim and fired.
The bird flapped awkwardly out of the sky and hit the ground with a muffled thud maybe twenty feet away. One wing was spread unnaturally, the other half-folded under it, maybe broken, its head at an odd angle. Zack glimpsed a flash of red, but he couldn’t tell if it was blood or tail feathers. From the rumpled heap, an open eye stared at Zack.
Without thinking, he raised his hands toward the bird.
“What?”
“The hell’s he saying?”
“He—he’s…,” Sarah began.
“It’s Jesus,” she whispered.
“What?”
“It’s Jesus. He’s speaking through him.”
“Cut the shit.”
“No, for real,” she said. “Jesus is speaking through him. Those are his words. It’s Jesus.”
Zack heard the syllables trip from his mouth, not knowing where they came from or how he could pronounce the alien sounds, but he continued uttering the incantation, while the gunman stood before him, stunned in place, the pistol in his hand still aimed at Zack’s heart.
As the words continued flowing from Zack, the man gazed at him in wide-eyed wonder, as did Sarah. Perhaps to test him, the gunman raised the gun to within inches of Zack’s face and poked the air before his eyes. But Zack did not flinch, he did not cry out, but continued reciting the ancient prayer.
“I don’t know if he’s in a trance or fucking faking it.” Then he aimed the gun at Sarah. “This is some kind of bullshit act.”
“Son of a bitch.” He poked the gun at Zack’s heart.
“No!” cried Sarah.
Suddenly rising from the ground, the hawk flapped up toward the man. In reflex, he wheeled toward the bird and fired. He missed, and the bird flew off. But before he could turn on them, Zack leapt for the machete and with all his might he swung. The blade snapped through the man’s gun arm. In disbelief, he cried out as blood geysered from the severed stump, his dead hand lying in the weeds still gripping the gun.
Zack stepped on the gun and drove the man back with the machete. Gripping his stump, he stumbled down the path toward the cabin, yelping in pain.
Zack helped Sarah up, then they moved after him. They cut down the path, still heavy with morning shade. Because of the thick brush and the man’s camouflage, they couldn’t see where he had gone. Nor could they hear him.
And all was silent.
Soon they came to the clearing where the cabin sat. No wind in the trees. No twittering of morning birds. No buzz of insects. The place looked like a still life. Nothing moved.
Nothing but the dripping of blood.
Sarah made a faint gasp, and it took a moment for Zack’s mind to catch up to what had startled her. The gunman was draped across his father’s splitting stump. His arms were splayed by his sides, his legs open, blood pooling on the ground from the severed hand.
From all appearances, he had stumbled over the stump, impaling himself on the exposed spike of his father’s ax.
For several minutes they searched the area where he had unloaded his clips. They found white scars on the trees and shattered branches from the bullets. But no footprints. No trampled new growth. No signs of any other presence. From what they could tell, the man had been shooting at nothing.
Nothing visible.
EPILOGUE
SEVEN WEEKS LATER
“To Zack, on the acceptance of his thesis,” Maggie said, raising a flute of champagne. “Congratulations.”
“To Zack.”
And six glasses clinked over the table.
It was a mild August evening, and they were sitting at an outside table at Daisy Buchanan’s, a trendy restaurant on Newbury Street. Zack had gotten the good news from his adviser two days ago. And celebrating with him were his mother, Sarah, Anthony, Geoff, and Damian.
“So, you get your degree in December, then what?” Anthony asked.
“Then I find a teaching job,” said Zack.
“I’ll drink to that,” Maggie said.
He knew that would make her happy, since she had spent twenty dedicated years in the classroom. Although his adviser encouraged him to pursue his doctorate, he decided to apply to high schools and community colleges within an hour’s drive of Boston to be close to his mother and Sarah.
For nearly two months, he and Sarah had been seeing each other exclusively, and in that time Zack had felt warm possibilities fill his soul. It helped that Maggie had grown fond of Sarah.
“To education and a life of poverty,” Zack said.
“Well, there’s that,” Maggie said with a chuckle.
“At least some things won’t change,” added Damian.
“But the hounds are off my back.”
“And you don’t have to sell your blood and soul for the good folks at Discover.”
So much had happened since the events in Magog Woods.
Elizabeth Luria left no formal suicide note, just the blood and neuroelectrical activity recorded during her self-suspension. Although she would never know the diagnostic results, the analyses of the data indicated that she had experienced momentary transcendence. As an act of redemption for all the harm done to others, she had left most of her estate to a homeless shelter in Boston. She also had sent Zack a Treasury check for $10,000. It was Zack’s hope that she had found the union she had long sought.
Because Byron Cates and Sarah had joined the lab after the deaths of the street people, they were not incriminated in the police investigation.
