HUMAN

Chapter Ten

This Must Be The Place – Iron & Wine, Ben Bridwell

***

"Be prepared. Doomsday is coming. Your government officials have set this all in motion and no soul is safe. The Lazarus Safe House is open to all who inquire."   

It was silent and still. Was this a real hint to what could be happening? It certainly seemed like Doomsday. This was, at the very least, suspicious as fuck. 

"No soul is safe," Kirstie repeated. 

"Do you think that's where she went?" Scott asked. He turned to Avi, who immediately stood up and went upstairs, without saying a word. He was always good at taking action. He hated idle talk. 

"What the hell is The Lazarus Safe House?" Mitch asked. "I've never heard of that before. It sounds like a fucking cult."

Kirstie sat down after dropping the poster on Nicole's lap.

"No soul is safe," she again repeated.   

Nicole placed her hand on Kirstie's back, "Lazarus? I-I haven't either. I guess we weren't important enough to be aloud to inquire."

"Or maybe we were lucky enough to... NOT be asked," Esther said. She looked at Kevin, who was staring at the poster in Nicole's lap, attempting to make sense of it. He was hoping he would notice some more obvious signs and symbols, but the rest of the page was completely blank.

Avi sprinted down the stairs, nearly out of breath.

"She had to have gone," he said. "I noticed earlier that all of her family photos were missing from the house. They were on the wall... on the side tables... I just checked the master bedroom now. A bunch of the drawers were opened and completely empty. I also searched her closets for this $60,000 luggage set that she was constantly bragging about getting in an estate auction about a year ago. I couldn't find it anywhere."

"Was it the one by Louis Vuitton?" Mitch asked.

"Uh, yea..." Avi answered as he squinted his eyes and turned his head.

"What?" Mitch asked, awkwardly glancing around the room, puzzled by Avi's confused expression.

"Why am I not surprised that you knew that?" Scott said.

He earned an eye-roll from Mitch. 

"I wonder WHAT exactly this safe house is," said Kevin, cutting off the useless chatter. "There's no hint or explanation. Is there any location listed on the back of the paper?"

Nicole scanned the poster, front and back, and didn't see any sign of a location or additional information. They all sat and soaked in this news, unsure of what to make of it or how to respond.

"How great would it be if millions of people received these and are all safe here? Or maybe there are multiple safe houses we were unaware of," Scott said.

"Being that we didn't hear anything about this, us or people we knew," Avi considered, "maybe this was something exclusive and secret. It could have been something exclusively for the mega-rich, who had to sign a non-disclosure agreement or something. I've heard of shady things like this happening... not to this extent of course."

"You're saying you think the government had a hand in hiding this from the poor?" Mitch asked. "That's some dark conspiracy shit. That would be horrible. Almost believable... but horrible. They would've have had to have known about it pretty early on too, to have set up safe houses... to plan for THAT."

Esther stood up, "I for one am exhausted right now, but I won't be able to relax until I know more. Does anyone want to search the other houses for more information? We know they're clear. It's the only thing I can think to do right now."