Batteryville

Rendez-vous

We walked through the campground and then across some sand dunes to the beach. All along the way more and more people joined us and when we finally got there I figured there had to be a few hundred people.

Beth held my hand all the way there. I liked it. She was so happy. I was happy, too.

At the beach there was a kind of a stand. I think it had been a lifeguard stand but it had been added to and now it was like a big stage. It was covered with candles and everyone in the crowd had a candle. There was probably just as much light as if they'd had a few solar cells and light bulbs but they sure seemed happy about the candles.

Beth found us a spot, "Near the front," she'd said. I'd lost track of where Erin was. The last I saw her she was walking with Jason, beside his wheelchair. I couldn't imagine how they'd get it over the sand dunes to the beach but maybe there was another way, there must have been a road or something that came around."You're lucky you were here today," Beth said. "You have good timing."

I said, "Yeah, I'm lucky," and usually that would have been sarcastic but sitting beside Beth on the beach, among all these people I did feel lucky.

I felt good.

There was a commotion in the crowd then and Beth said, "It's starting." She was staring up at the platform, the stage, and I was expecting something big, a bunch of people with musical instruments or jugglers or something but all that happened was a man walked out.

And the place went crazy.

People cheered and screamed and whistled and clapped.

Beth clapped.

The man held up his hands and everyone quieted down.

There was a lot of tension in the air, though, as if people were ready to start screaming again.

The man held up his hands and looked up at the stars.

Everyone looked up at the stars.

I looked up too.

"Can you see it?" the man said. He didn't shout or proclaim or anything like that, he just said it.

"Can you see it." He said it again.

It was quiet. It was really, eerily quiet.

"I can see it."

Someone in the crowd yelled, "I can see it, too," and then other people started saying it, "I see it," and "There it is!"

Beth said, "Can you see it?"

I didn't say anything. I could see a lot of stars and some wispy clouds. I thought I saw Mars, too, but I was never very good at that. Marco could find planets. Before he got into the conspiracy stuff he was pretty good at that.

The man on the stage said, "It's right there. And it's getting closer."

People cheered.

"Now that the power is off. The false power. The destructive power. Now that it's turning off all over the world they're coming back."

Beth said, "They're coming back for us."

The man on stage said, "They're coming back for us."

The people cheered.

Someone shouted, "Hallelujah"

He was pacing across the stage then and he looked away from the sky and down to the crowd. He looked over all the people on the beach and he said, "They're coming back for us, for those of us who turned off the evil power."