by Elle Hill
Marcus nodded. “Some of the rooms are pretty warm, but none seem dangerous. I think we’re all safe to look around if we’d like.”
The other groups arrived shortly thereafter. One had found even more stores of food, all canned, packaged, and dehydrated. Another found dozens of tiny bedrooms, more like an imrabi’s cell, they joked, and several people glanced at Josh. Every hallway contained two more bathrooms, both sitting side-by-side and probably sharing a wall with another hall.
“We found a staircase!” Lynna exclaimed as her group rejoined them in the large room. When everyone shifted to look at her, she dropped her eyes and shuffled to her seat next to Josh.
“Where does it lead?” Crutch Woman demanded.
An older man, long, white hair pulled into a neat ponytail, responded. “It’s more a ladder,” he amended. “It leads upward into another level with a plethora of machines.” Plethora? Josh had never heard that word used outside a book. “It continues from there but is blocked by a locked cover. Yes, someone tried it and yes, it is definitely locked. It’s a heavy steel cover. Probably a test of some sorts to gauge our compliance.”
“May we strive to remain blameless,” someone nearby said.
“I didn’t mean by Elovah,” the older man clarified.
Marcus and some others looked thoughtful. They would probably be trying the locked door within the hour.
“Anything else?” Marcus asked.
“Some cell-like rooms with cots in them,” the man said. “And by the by, since we’re stuck here together, allow me to introduce me. My name is Avery Abel d’Ijo.”
“Good, plan, Avery,” Marcus said. He straightened from his lean against the shiny gray walls. “Shall we share our names?”
“You know what?” Crutch Woman snapped. “Who made you leader?”
Marcus raised his eyebrows. “I don’t presume to be any kind of leader. If you’d rather hear your voice than mine, speak up.”
“Okay, then. My name is Hollyn Meryth d’Ijo. I’m from Apple Valley. I’m forty-three years old and lost my leg to diabetes. I don’t eat sugar, so don’t offer me anything sweet.” She looked around and then pointed at Josh. “What’s your name, Ima?”
“I’m not Ima anything,” Josh said. “My name is Joshua Barstow.”
After waiting a minute for her to continue, Hollyn offered to the room, “Joshua can read and has read the Bitoran more times than she has hair in her armpit.”
Josh glared at the woman. Everyone stared at her, perhaps in wonder at her literary skills or, more likely, wishing they could lift her arm and count the hairs.
“How old are you?” Marcus asked.
“Twenty,” she ground out. “How about you?”
“Thirty-two,” he said. “My name is Marcus Adelanto.” Another orphan. How interesting. “You want to go next?” he asked the ex-factory worker.
She shrugged. “Whatever makes you all happy. My name is RJ.” She gestured with her right hand to Emmel.
“Emmel,” he said.
Lynna Fahra d’Ijo went next.
They traveled around the room, and those who could volunteered their names. They skipped rather awkwardly over those whose physical or mental capacities sealed their lips. Her crazy, footloose townsperson was named Pius. She tried not to smile.
Josh almost instantly forgot everyone’s names, not because she had a poor memory but because, as RJ’s reluctance implied, there really seemed no point to remembering everyone. If they survived another hour or another week, they’d eventually and organically learn the others’ names.
“So, now that we’re all cozy,” Hollyn, formerly known as Crutch Woman, snapped. Rather, that seemed her normal manner of speaking. A truly angry response was likely to blast like a sandstorm. “What’s next?”
“I suggest public prayer,” the gray-toned woman—Josh thought her name might be something flowery like Heather or Poppy—offered.
“I’m hungry,” Izel, the little girl from Barstow, muttered while biting the first knuckle of her pinky.
“What, sweetie?” someone asked.
“Hungry,” she repeated.
“Are others hungry?” Marcus asked. A few people, no more than seven or eight, raised their hands. “Do any of you want to make a meal? Better yet, do we have anyone who cooks?”
“I cook,” Hollyn said. “But I don’t feel real motivated to cook for sixty-nine others. I say we gnaw on crackers and peanut butter till, you know, whatever happens.”
Josh shook her head. “That may be a good plan for tonight, but if we’re going to be here for a while, I think Blo—Marcus is right. It’d be chaos to have seventy of us cooking for ourselves. I say whoever wants can contribute to meals. Those who don’t want to, fine, but don’t monopolize the kitchen.”
“You like cooking so much, why not trot into the kitchen and make everybody some dinner?” Hollyn demanded.
Josh smiled toothily. “Eating food I cooked really would make you ponder the extent of Elovah’s wrath. But if someone needs veggies chopped, I’m your girl. Luckily, you don’t need to worry about it, since you said you’d prefer crackers.”
“I can cook,” RJ, the ex-factory worker with the broken spine, said. “My kitchen at home was made special for me so I could reach. If some of you wouldn’t mind helping me access stuff, we can cook together.”
Three others volunteered, including Josh. She struggled to her feet as RJ wheeled by, only to have the woman mutter, “Sit yourself back down. We got lots of people willing to help out. You need to rest and think up more sarcastic responses.”
Surprised into a genuine smile, Josh did as commanded.
“Make a little extra for all the kids. There are sixteen of them,” Marcus called after them. “I promise to do dishes. Like Joshua, the only thing I know about skillets are that they hurt when they make contact with your skull.”
She really hoped he was kidding.
Shortly thereafter, a little over twenty of them, including the children, ate scrambled eggs and toast. Josh enjoyed eggs as much as anyone, but she demurred, still full from the unusually sumptuous lunch she’d had earlier in the day.
After the meal, some of the Tithes asked Marcus if they could claim the tiny bedrooms and grab some sleep. How funny they deferred to him without even questioning it.
After discussing a few more living logistics—breakfast, morning roll call (Marcus called it “checking in,” but Josh had lived a strictly regimented life for twenty years and understood the mechanics), and the suggestion that the least mobile of them should have the rooms closest to the bathrooms—Marcus agreed bedtime was a good idea.
Six of the seventy, two children, two older men, a very young woman who hadn’t regained consciousness since arriving, and a paralyzed woman with blazing eyes, could not move at all. A few of the Tithes offered to watch over them once others carried them to their rooms.
One tiny older woman, who informed them she had sustained a head injury that limited her mobility, refused to “leave the Great Room until Elovah comes for me.”
Apparently, the largest room had acquired a name.
“Maybe we can be bedroom neighbors?” Lynna asked Josh, smiling and looking down.
Josh shrugged but accepted the other woman’s hand when struggling to her feet. Thanks to the aspirin and rest, her feet and legs had quieted to a persistent ache.
Most of the Tithes made their way toward the two hallways on the right side of the room. Josh proposed heading into the single hallway on the left, and Lynna bobbed her head in enthusiastic agreement. As they walked toward the hallway, her new companion stayed abreast of Josh till she snapped at the redheaded woman to stop condescending. Still, Lynna waited at the opening of the hallway, her constant smile tucked into her shining, pleasantly round face. Josh and a handful of others moved slowly toward her. She imagined the others remained behind her in respect of her association with the beloved (at least in Barstow) imrabi. Izel and Pius, the girl and would-be escapee from Bars
tow, trailed behind. Behind them came two more men, one a tall, dark man with a bored expression and the other the boy who’d heckled Lynna. Emmel the Giant, well over a foot taller than her own five-five, lumbered behind them all.
They entered the hallway, Lynna once again attached to Josh’s side. This time, Josh remained silent. Weak, orange-ish light oozed from round overhead fixtures.
They reached a bathroom first. Some vague memory about children’s bedtimes prompted Josh to turn to Izel. “Do you need to pee?” she asked.
The little girl nodded and ran to the bathroom.
“You, um, you can do this—” Josh began, when the orange lights went out.
The group stood for a moment in confusion.
“Maybe the lights go out at a certain time?” Lynna proposed.
But light still streamed into their narrow hallway from the Great Room. Josh could still see her friend’s pursed mouth and furrowed brow.
“Technical . . .” Pius’ voice faded as a loud, whooshing sound snapped against their ears. The sound quickly repeated, a rhythmic susurration of displaced air.
The sound came from somewhere down the hallway. It grew closer.
“Back,” Josh snapped, pointing to the Great Room. The others whirled and fluttered away from the sound.
The sound grew louder, the hiss and snap more clearly defined. It sounded like wings.
The angels have come, the angels have come, Josh babbled silently.
The others moved more quickly, all except the tall man, who trailed his hand along the wall. And Josh and Izel.
Izel insisted on joining hands with Josh, the one person whose legs couldn’t manage anything beyond a slightly quicker shuffle. Josh tried to shake the child free, but she held tight.
The sound grew even louder, now encompassing Josh’s senses. It must be right behind her.
Josh and Izel reached the end of the hallway just ahead of the tall man. With a grunt of terror and frustration, Josh shoved Izel, sending her hurtling into the Great Room.
A warm wind stirred the hair around her head. The angels. Breath snagging, Josh reached out for the tall man. What striking eyes, she thought before shoving him forward and into the Great Room behind Izel.
She saw a glimpse of a scarred left hand as the door to the Great Room slammed close. Before her. With her on the wrong side.
Trapped. In the utterly dark hallway.
Trapped with the angels.
The sound crescendoed behind her. She closed her eyes.
Wind, cool like the desert night, swirled around her head, breathed across her flushed cheeks.
She felt the brush of a feather against the back of her neck. Her heart slowed to its normal rhythm, and she sank with a weak smile to the smooth floor below.
Chapter 3
Really, her back was killing her. Asceticism was one thing, discomfort quite another. She would requisition a new cot the very second morning prayers ended.
Josh yawned and stretched. Her right hand scratched against something rough, something completely unyielding. Her cot wasn’t quite that firm.
Without opening her eyes, Josh extended her hand and patted the surface. Cool, smooth, and hard, it felt much more like . . .
Her eyes creaked open. She lay on her side on an expanse of gray cement. She’d slept on the floor, her head pillowed only on her arm? A sparse green blanket covered her from the shoulder down, and a thin pillow lay inches from her head.
She stretched again and groaned. Slowly, heavily, eyes still half open, she pulled herself to a sitting position and scooted herself against the nearest wall. Ah, back support. Where was her aspirin bottle?
What in heaven? Josh shook her head and wiped the gumminess from her eyes.
I’m a Tithe, she remembered, and yesterday was Tithing Day. Ah, yes. The festival, the bus ride, the seventy of them in their underground bunker, performing their everyday niceties even as the end loomed.
The sound in the hallway. The angel. The door in her face.
Josh snapped her head to her right. Sure enough, she still sat in the hallway, mere feet from the Great Room. The door, slammed with such finality last night, lay open and she could see several individual chairs, some of them occupied.
Eyes squinted in confusion, she glanced absently forward. And jerked in surprise.
Directly opposite her, propped against the wall, sat the tall man with the startling eyes. The man she’d hurled out of the hallway. And he was staring right at her.
She stared back, eyebrows raised. His chest rose and fell with each breath, but otherwise, he sat motionlessly before her, peering at her tired face. He really did have unusual eyes, beautiful in their uniqueness: a light, impassive, icy blue gleaming from a dark face.
A minute passed, then two. Really, didn’t this man ever get embarrassed? Heaven knew she was uncomfortable, and she was the one trying to challenge his rudeness.
“Didn’t your parents teach you staring is rude?” she finally snapped.
“No,” he said. His deep voice, without inflection, sounded exactly like the voice of someone with those eyes.
“Allow me, then,” she said sweetly. She looked down, shaking her head, and noticed her feet were bare. Someone had taken off her boots! Her eyes swiveled before finding her footwear a few feet away, tucked against the wall.
A cool, scratchy feeling crawled across her chest. People had come and gone, gawking at her feet while she slept? She considered throwing the blanket over them, but Blue Eyes had undoubtedly already seen his fill.
Teeth grinding, she glared once again at the man. He stared back, his face wiped of any expression. His wavy black hair, which just brushed his shoulders, stirred a little in the air conditioning.
“What happened last night?” she asked.
He took a moment before responding. “You got locked in.”
She waited. “Yeah, I know that,” she said slowly. “What happened after that?”
“You slept.”
“But the . . . I mean, what happened before that? What was the sound that we heard?” She remembered the brush of a feather against the vertebrae in her neck.
“A thumping sound.”
“My word! Getting you to tell a story is like asking a minnabi to make services interesting.” She waited, and when he didn’t respond, she sighed. “Did the . . . whatever made that sound . . . touch you, too?”
“Yes.”
Breath catching, Josh leaned forward. “Really? What happened after that?”
“You pushed me out of the hallway. I slept until morning.”
She slumped against the wall as her back cramped briefly. “Okay. So when did the door open?”
“Almost two hours ago.”
“Huh. What happened when they opened it? No, let me rephrase. Would you please tell me in a slightly extended version what happened when the door got opened?”
“Your friend opened it. She told us you were safe. When you wouldn’t wake up, she covered you with a blanket.” The man continued staring at her, eyes bright and empty.
Josh nodded. She did tend to sleep quite heavily. Hence, awakening with back pain. “Why did you come in and stay here after Lynna opened the door?” She remembered hurtling him and Izel through the doorway. “Are you okay?” she asked. “The little girl?”
“We’re fine,” he deadpanned. “I wanted to be with you when you woke up.”
She twitched, and her eyebrows crimped. Not just “be here,” but “be with you.” “Why?” she asked slowly and with some reluctance.
“You tried to save me,” he said.
“Nah. I was trying to get you to hurry up,” she said.
The man stared at her for a long moment before saying, “I don’t believe you.”
She ducked her head, embarrassed and annoyed. Head lowered, she glanced at him to snap something about not caring if he believed. He stared at a space an inch or two above her eyes. Josh slowly raised her head until she locked once again into his gaze. Then, she lea
ned to the right. His eyes did not track her.
Oh, heaven, she was an idiot. The man wasn’t looking at her, didn’t want to win any staring contest, hadn’t seen her feet at all. Idiot.
“What’s your name?” she asked him.
“Blue,” he said.
“Blue? Like the color?”
“Yes.”
