Gary Braver - Elixir

Roger braced himself to be shot dead. That was also what they wanted. Death to the Antichrist. He just wished it didn't have to happen in front of his wife and son.

Fisk shook his bible at him. "'And I heard the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunder saying "Alleluia, for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth."'" And he stomped his foot onto the vials, the contents splattering.

That was the cue. Instantly others began to smash the vials under their shoes.

As Roger stood there, they crushed each of the ampules until all that lay on the tartop were shards of glass and wetness.

When they were through, they dropped their weapons and embraced each other across the shoulders, forming a circled wall around Roger and Fisk.

It was insane: They had just killed a bunch of people, and now their faces were glowing with beatific light as if at any moment Jesus Himself would materialize.

Spontaneously they broke into a chant of "Alleluia" and kicked and stomped the smashed glass.

It was then Roger noticed the red backpacks they were wearing. Fisk, too.

"Alleluia."

"ALLELUIA."

The chant got louder, and the Witnesses began to jerk as if the syllables were being pumped out of them by unseen forces.

"AL-LE-LU-IA."

"AL-LE-LU-IA."

"AL-LE-LU-IA."

Over the chanting, Fisk's voice rose: "'And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth, and their armies gathered together to make war against Him that sat on the horse and against His army…'"

"ALLELUIA."

"ALLELUIA."

While Fisk bellowed on, his people looked to the sky with beaming faces and jabbering mouths, all locked in unison, impervious to the police gathered on the banks of the lake and the media people behind them and the sound of sirens approaching from both sides.

"'And the waters shall run red with blood…'"

"ALLELUIA."

"ALLELUIA."

Fisk's face was huge with intensity, the tendons of his neck swelling, his long red hair flowing like tongues of flame as he recited the doom and gloom and pumped with the rhythm of the chant.

In the movement Roger noticed something small and black in his hand.

"'…and death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. And whosoever was not witness was also cast into the lake of fire…'"

"ALLELUIA."

"ALLELUIA."

Some kind of remote control device.

Of course, Roger thought. Of course.

THIS is how it will end.

This is my death.

In a feverish pitch, his tongue slashing out the words with a spray, his eyes bulging in their sockets, his body appearing to swell into its huge white folds-Fisk reached his crescendo:

"I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last."

As Fisk raised his left hand, still howling in verse, Roger considered bursting through the Witnesses to make a flying dive off the bridge. He saw an opening between some women and children-a fast sprint could do it. He might even survive the sixty-foot plunge. In a flash he ran through the moves in his head.

No.

He looked back over the heads to the Hummer.

Laura and Brett were out of the car. Brett started to run toward him, but Brown caught him. He, too, saw what was coming.

Thanks, thought Roger.

"DAAAAAD."

Laura was holding onto him, crying for Roger to get away.

His eyes locked on them. For a brief moment, all time seemed to stop, as if the world had turned to a still-life.

"I love you," Roger said.

Before the final syllable was out, the moment exploded in a brilliant concussion of light.

Brett's body burned as he pumped the last two miles of the bike path that took him around the southern shore of Lake Mendota.

It was a splendid April afternoon. The sun was high and the air sultry, and a gentle breeze swept off the lake, churning the tender new leaves of the trees along the path. It was a wonderful day to be alive-the kind of day that should last forever.

He had been in lab since eight that morning, antsy to feel his muscles hum. He completed the last test around two, changed into his helmet and tights, and took to his wheels. He felt so good that he added an eight-mile detour to the usual thirty-five-mile ride.

At twenty-one years of age, Brett Glover was in peak physical condition. He had kept up with wrestling right through Pierson Prep, making UW varsity in his freshman year. His senior season ended with a 24-and-2 record and a defeat of last year's champ from Michigan State at the MWC Conference last month. With the season now over, he kept in shape on the bike and inline skates. He had to because the rest of his days were spent in class or labs.

Occasionally Carolyn would join him on a ride, though he usually did these fast runs by himself. Carolyn, a senior psyche major, was his girlfriend of two years. Next year, they would be staying on for grad school-she in clinical, he in biochem like his dad. They talked about getting a place together, but it was just talk, because Brett wasn't sure he was ready for cohabitation. He liked his privacy.

On the southeastern stretch of the path, the slant of the sun on the water made him think of that other cold-water lake a thousand miles from here.

His father's death had left a void in Brett's life that could not be filled. It was something he had over the years learned to live with, falling back on the memories that at times would relieve the pangs of sadness.

He could still see his father lying beside him in his room, hear him reading about Jack getting the best of the giant. He could still recall them playing catch in the yard, jogging around the Pierson track, running Town Day races, practicing wrestling moves, doing school projects together-images as warm as yesterday's sunshine.

He could still hear Roger explain to the press that he wasn't immortal. That he didn't have X-ray vision. That he couldn't heal the sick or raise the dead.

He could still hear the explosion that left a gaping hole on the bridge and in his soul.

He could still hear his mother sobbing. She had endured so much in that awful week. They all had.

He steered off the path and over to Lake Street, then cut across the library mall to State.

Students milled about, thinking about finals and papers and summer vacation.

For a long time people had asked him about Roger:

If that hadn't happened on the bridge, would he have gone on forever?

Why didn't he make a run for it? He could have made it. The cameras had caught the whole thing. He seemed to have just waited for the end, as if he knew.

Did his dad ever tell him the formula? And was it true that all you needed to make the stuff was a couple drops?

And, of course: Did he have a supply buried someplace?

What Brett could answer he did so vaguely. After seven years, the spell had broken-as in fairy tales. Eventually people stopped wondering, accepting the conclusion that the world's only fountain of youth had been destroyed in a monstrous moment that had claimed his father.

Likewise, nothing more was heard of Antoine Ducharme and his associates, who were convicted of complicity in murder and sabotage and sentenced to life without parole.

Brett's mother was back in Eau Claire and writing. Her pen name was Wendy Bacon, but everybody still called her Laura. She had successfully finished the second of her mystery series to good reviews. The third was nearly done. Luckily, Roger had taken out a large life insurance policy, leaving them enough money so she could write full time. Besides, at sixty-three, she was not a hot commodity in the job market, as she said.

Six years ago, they had received a letter addressed to Roger from a missionary in a village in Papua New Guinea. Sadly, his old friend Iwati had been killed in the eruption of the ancient Omafeki volcano the year before. Destroyed, too, was the small lake island and the only known locale where grew the tabukari orchid with the odd scent of apples and rotted flesh. No age had been given for Iwati. But Brett had an idea.