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“And you have the nerve to tell me what I shouldn’t be doing. You don’t even know what you need, Sam,” I seethed. “Just sit back and let me rescue fucking everyone and then judge me for it.”
I wasn’t crying. My old self had taken hold, and I was becoming an expert at holding in my tears. My body shook with fury. Sam continued to stare at me, speechless. I kept on, “Don’t you forget who dragged your bloody, lifeless ass across land and ocean so you could lie there and tell me what I shouldn’t do for my family. Fuck you, Nico. Excuse me while I whore it up to keep us all alive. You just stay right there. I’ll bring you back a snack, you asshole. Anything else you need? Would you like my body again, or is it too loose for you?”
I turned and started through the door as he called my name. That ungrateful piece of shit.
There weren’t a lot of places I could go in my ferocity. The boat was huge, but BeLew had to be picked up in a few hours, so getting lost was not an option. The deck would have watchdogs, and I had already showered. Lori was my only choice. I would come offering helping hands. She could always use those.
Sure enough, I found her running around the kitchen barking orders. I stepped through the swinging doors. “Need any help? I need to keep my hands busy.”
She ushered me to her side. “Is it alright?” I asked. “I don’t know much about a kitchen.”
“No health inspector is coming,” Lori chuckled. “We are flying by the seat of our pants here.” She was pouring flour and water into an industrial mixer. I grabbed the bags from the corner and started carrying them over to another mixer on her left. “Speaking of pants and busy hands, I would think you would want the time with your husband. I saw him getting around better this morning. And sorry, not sorry, I would climb that man like a tree. Shit, you are one lucky lady.”
I slammed a bag of flour on the floor. “We got into a fight.”
Lori raised her eyebrows. “I’ve been there. How long have you been married?”
“Oh, long enough for him to know better.” I made a mental note that we had to get our love story in line as soon as I was ready to speak to him again. “I’m embarrassed to say I don’t know, but are you married, Lori?”
She scribbled baking instructions on a whiteboard in front of us. There was a third mixer, so I gathered I would make dough for the duration. “I was,” she muttered. “He joined the Assembly of the Eternal.”
My agitation left me at that moment. No one had spoken about the Assembly of the Eternal since we boarded. I was all too familiar with that cult. Some liked to think it was a religion or a way to handle the unknown, but it was a damn cult. Most of them were long gone, at their own hands.
“I see,” I mumbled.
“I won’t change the subject right away, as you love to do,” she chided.
I gnashed my teeth and poured the increments she had written out into the mixer. “Why, whatever do you mean?” I sneered. There was a thick layer of sarcasm letting her know I picked up her meaning.
Lori continued. “He took the tonic, but we were separated at the time. I left him to stay with my family, which was close to the coast. They went inland, and I came here with the boys. He was long dead by then. Fucking coward.”
My stomach dropped. My outburst with Sam seemed stupid after Lori told me about her husband. Terrible men were everywhere, and in my heart, I knew Sam wasn’t one of them.
“I’m sorry, Lori. Truly, you are a strong woman. You and the boys deserved better. We all do, and I’m not trying to be distant. I want to be a good friend to you. I’ll do better.”
“Did you know anyone in the AOE?” Lori asked. She stepped over to fiddle with some dials on my mixer.
“Didn’t everyone before they took the plunge?”
“I suppose,” she deadpanned. I’d disappointed her. I was too candid with Sam, but not honest enough for my only friend. I shook out my wrists and dragged another bag of flour to the third mixer. She shifted to the counter and started chopping something with the aggression and the precision only a chef could pull off.
I took a long exhale, steadying myself for the conversation. “The Assembly of the Eternal was the most despicable gathering of dumbasses I’ve ever seen. They preyed on weak and scared people. I heard leadership took everyone’s money and built some crazy bunker in Idaho or some shit. I’m sorry your husband fell in with them. I know what it’s like to lose someone you love to that special brand of crazy.”
Lori sat her knife down and turned to face me. She crossed her arms and tilted her head. “Well, we all knew someone in it before they took the plunge, as you say.”
I ripped open the flour, lifted it, and poured. “My brother-in-law joined the ranks early on. He loved feeling powerful. Anyway, it killed him and my sister in the end. Almost killed BeLew.”
She lowered her eyes and took a step toward me. “Did they take the swim? Did they try to take your sons?”
“No, they didn’t get the chance.” I struggled with how to explain the next part. She took my silence as pain, which was partly true, but it was too soon to confide in her that BeLew were not mine. Not yet.
This topic made my skin prickle. It felt wrong to discuss things like this. The Assembly of the Eternal had become folklore or urban legend, and speaking about it somehow brought it back to life. I never said Bloody Mary in the bathroom mirror with my girlfriends. Fate was unkind enough without pushing her limits.
The cult started after a few tragic back-to-back weather events. They acted like a church at first, and millions live-streamed their so-called sermons. They would predict a catastrophic event, and like clockwork, it would happen. At that point, anyone could foresee the next hurricane or flood, but people were losing control. They wanted something to trust, and it wouldn’t be the government. For millions, it was the Assembly of the Eternal.
The influence started slow. First, they all wore only blue, the color of the water, to pay homage to mother earth. The only jewelry they could wear was a pin of the AOE’s symbol. When food went scarce, they gathered by the hundreds and took over entire warehouses to feed their collective. My sister left offerings for me hidden in the barn. She went along to get along, but she knew she was in over her head. Her husband rose in the ranks of the AOE, and it trapped her. This place helped me understand that feeling – being trapped by a man and scared for your life.
There were late night hushed talks about escaping with BeLew, but we didn’t know what was coming. No one knew. We never imagined it would end in mass suicides across the globe. They called it ”The Swim“.
