Arkadium Rising Read Online Free PDF Page A

after all.
    Claudia and Jim Urlander, both face down on the living room carpet, writhed against the duct tape hogtying them. Their sons, Jim Jr. and Michael, were between them, both similarly bound. Jim Jr., all of fourteen, wriggled away from his family, wriggled until he came within a foot of Marcus. The boy looked up at him, the band of duct tape across his mouth forcing his face into a sinister mask.
    "Water is your salvation. It will purify you. It will set you free," Marcus said, as he had said to many people since yesterday.
    As if on cue, the Urlanders screamed as one through their gags, their voices cracking from the effort. Marcus lifted his boot and slammed it into the boy's temple.
    "Stupid kid. Look, now you've gone and upset your family."
    Marcus exited through the front door. The Urlanders' blood-curdling screams were muffled by their gags, and soon to end.
    "Next stop?" Marcus asked Austin Collins, who stood in the driveway with an old, bearded man named Eldon Pointer, the "Brother Abel" of their group here in Concord. Every group of Arkadium had a spiritual guide to help during the weakest moments in their faith. This person's secret avocation, besides comforting the other members of the Arkadium, was to memorize the eternal word of God, the Book of Genesis, the true, unaltered Book, as it was recorded so long ago.
    "The next two houses, then we're all set," Austin said. "The others should be about ready, too. Then we'll regroup at the dam."
    Marcus checked his watch. "When you plan for millennia, things have a way of falling into place."
    "I couldn't agree more," Eldon said.
    "And once we're done here, it will be your turn, Brother Abel."
    Eldon smiled broadly. "I've been waiting my entire life to hear those words."
     
    2.
     
    Delaney spent the rest of the drive to Concord facing the open window, her arms crossed in front of her. Jason could feel the anger rising from her like heat waves off a hot tarmac. He didn't know if the anger was meant for him or for herself. He had his own anger building, but he knew just who to direct it at: Marcus. Only his brother could so thoroughly capture a young woman's heart. Only his chaos could insinuate itself into the core of a person until it changed her DNA. Delaney had certainly changed in the last few years, but Marcus's manipulations still distorted her decision making even when he was nowhere to be seen.
    After seemingly endless cornfields, they finally reached the outskirts of Concord. The passing farms got smaller, the houses newer. Before they got any further, Jason pulled the car to the curb.
    "Listen, Delaney, we don't have to do this."
    She looked at him for the first time in an hour, her eyes bloodshot. "Please, not now, Jason. Especially not now. Just keep going... please?"
    "We can go home, forget we ever came here. Marcus doesn't even know we came this far. No harm, no foul."
    "And then what, you'd be my boyfriend?"
    "Maybe. Or... no. I don't know! I just know that this won't end well."
    "That could never happen. We both suffered a moment of weakness. Nothing more."
    "Delaney, I might not be Marcus, but you're no longer the Delaney I remember, either. You've changed. I've changed."
    "Jason," she said, and waited a beat before continuing. "It's never going to happen. What happened back at Happy's—that never happened, either. It was a mistake."
    "But—"
    "I belong to Marcus."
    She said this last with such finality that he could do nothing else but pull the car back onto the road. The eye-high cornfields gave way to suburban-type homes on either side of the road.
    Despite the situation, Jason couldn't help but wonder at seeing Concord's hominess, especially when comparing it to the dives to which Marcus typically gravitated. A wooden sign indicated they were now entering Concord, Illinois. Population 1573. Incorporated 1867. Home of the Illinois State High School Baseball Champions, 1960. He laughed as he put the sign in the rearview.
    "Must have been a