Joad and Rebecca in the narthex at the Nelson wedding. Standing in a receiving line. The room is bright and colorful. Paintings adorn walls, a mural covers the ceiling. Sunlight trickles through tinted skylights. Beside Joad stands Jolie, a girl he had gone through pre-K, elementary, and high school with, now blonde, beautiful, and all grown up, beaming next to her college sweetheart Charles just moments after Joad had blessed and pronounced them man and wife. They greet family and friends, celebrating the joyous occasion.
The paintings were gone. Only half the mural remained as the roof had partially caved in, presumably from the impact of the spacecraft crash. Sunlight poured in more brightly than intended, as the tinted skylight was long gone.
Joad repressed a sigh. Hardly a good beginning. For a split second, he considered heeding Sayers’s warning, exiting the building, and getting back on his horse. But he immediately rejected that. He hadn’t traveled this long and far to turn away now.
Which didn’t make going into the sanctuary any easier.
Joad moved through the massive doors where congregants, brides-to-be, mourning families, Sunday Schoolers, and a host of others had walked for decades.
U2’s “One” fills the air, sung in appropriate unison by three dozen voices ranging from soprano to bass. Joad stands at the pulpit and watches with pride as the choir, spanning seven decades (Sandra Radoff, senior member at eighty-plus, sings alongside Jackson Summers, the youngest at thirteen) takes Bono’s prayer for peace on Earth and converts it into a joyous celebration of life and hope. Becky sits in the first pew, beaming, as Joad thinks she absolutely should be. After all, Becky has worked her tail off for months overseeing the church choir for this performance. Each pitch-perfect note reaffirms how worthwhile all the effort was as the packed sanctuary sways back and forth, moved by the words and harmonies.
If there were music, Joad thought, only a dirge would be appropriate.
Half the pews were missing. Joad presumed someone had used them for kindling, which made him furious and simultaneously sad. Art, statues, and plaques that once covered the walls were missing. All the sacraments were gone from the altar; none of the colorful robes and trappings were anywhere in sight. The confessional booth still stood in a corner, but was so dusty that Joad figured a rag hadn’t touched it since he left on his goodwill tour.
And all was overshadowed by what ominously hung above.
The front half of the Strangers’ ship.
It had burst through the church wall and hovered over the sanctuary like a doomed dirigible. Joad moved gingerly forward, afraid too heavy a step would dislodge it from its precarious perch and send it crashing to the ground, bringing the church down with it into the dust.
Joad stared until his eyes began to cloud with emotion, then turned and left the sanctuary, his heart in his throat.
This time he avoided looking at the walls and ceiling when he went through the narthex. He was feeling broken enough.
Joad stepped through the opposite doors leading to the first floor of the rectory.
Busy office. Becky stands at the head of the table in the center of the meeting room. Every church worker, dozens of volunteers, and a handful of eager kids crowd around her, eyeing the exquisite diorama displayed on the table. It’s a replica of the church garden, with mockups of booths, food stands, and carnival games Becky has arranged for the upcoming annual fundraiser. Joad sits at his desk going over budgets with the church secretary, while making revisions to his Sunday sermon. He spends more time watching his wife put her loving touch on every facet of the fundraiser; he is the luckiest man in the whole wide world.
The office looked like a tornado had swept through it. Broken chairs lay on the floor. The table was nowhere in evidence; scraps of paper lay strewn throughout like a garbage collector’s forgot-to-takes. As Joad walked through the room where he once planned functions and counseled families on love, life, birth, and death, he wondered if this had been a gradual disintegration or something that happened with a wipe of Purple light. Whatever the answer, his heart sank deeper when he spotted a familiar object lying in a corner. He picked up a squished papier-mâché bandstand that shredded to slivers in the palm of his hand, and with that, Rebecca’s diorama became obsolete.
Joad stepped through the abandoned office and headed for the staircase leading to the rectory’s second floor. At the foot of the steps, Joad hesitated yet again. Not sure how much more pain he could bear, he thought, why torture himself further? Sayers was right: No one had occupied this church for a long time—at least months or, more than likely, many years. Upstairs were the rooms where he’d spent the happiest years of his life, living with his darling Becky. Perhaps it was best to leave them as snapshots in his imagination, as he was certain what waited at the top of the stairs would crush his soul even more.
Joad walked up the steps.
He didn’t even pause at the landing.
Joad comes up the stairs carrying Rebecca in his arms. She squirms and giggles.
You know this isn’t necessary,” she says between fits of laughter.
“I’m an old-fashioned type of guy.”
“My favorite type,” she sighs.
He reaches the landing and makes a huge production of carrying her across the threshold.
“We’ve been married two years already,” Becky says.
“But it’s the first time you’ve been in my home,” Joad explains.
He kisses her as they enter the bedroom.
Within seconds, they’ve tumbled to the bed.
She giggles again as he fumbles with her way-too-complicated buttons.
“Am I supposed to call you Reverend?”
“Only if you want,” he says, making good headway on the unbuttoning and everything that goes with it.
“I’ll think about that… .”
One more giggle. More than one pleasurable sigh.
He moves up to kiss her sweet lips.
“How ’bout Forever Yours?” he asks.
“Becky?”
Joad couldn’t help himself. He had to finally call her name. At least once.
He got the answer he expected.
None.
The room was empty except for the bed—like it had been the only thing left behind to taunt him should he ever return. Only the humongous crack that spread clear through to the other side of the wall—where the sanctuary played host to a ship from another world—betrayed that something catastrophic had occurred.
Joad stood stark still. He had no idea for how long. Truthfully, he didn’t really care. He felt the fight slipping out of him.
Finally, he crossed to the bathroom and the connecting dressing area.
She sits in front of the mirror, combing out her hair in one hundred deliberate strokes—never more, never less. She reaches for her creams and lotions and applies them in the same pattern and order, as she does each and every night.
She looks up in the mirror and sees Joad leaning in the doorway.
“You don’t ever get tired of this?” she asks.
“It’s my favorite thing.”
“What’s that?”
“You know what,” he replies.
“Tell me again.”
“Watching you.”
Her grin in the mirror’s reflection captures Joad’s heart.
He went no further than the dressing room entrance. He saw the things he never wanted to see. Just more reasons he should have stayed downstairs.
The mirror was cracked down the middle.
One of Becky’s brushes lay on the dressing table in three crushed pieces.
Joad turned and started back through the bedroom.
He heard Laura’s voice coming from below and reversed course. He crossed and peered through the cloudy glass.
The garden has never looked prettier. Becky has outdone herself. It reminds Joad of the multicolored singing and dancing flower patch that enthralled Alice on her jaunt through Wonderland. The diorama on the office table is now
a reality, the fundraiser a resounding success that neither Becky nor Joad could have imagined. Children bob for apples, lottery tickets sell by the scores, and people stuff themselves with every type of potluck dish available.
Becky stands in the back corner of the garden. She is showing Dr. Peabody and his wife a packet of apple seeds and Joad figures she is telling them about the tree they just planted. She spots Joad and waves. He blows her back a kiss.
He couldn’t wait until the tree bloomed.
The garden was practically nonexistent. It was scorched earth with the random weed; even worse than the church’s front lawn. Sayers, Fixer, and Laura were huddled in the back corner beneath the only living object in what Joad once considered his own little slice of heaven on Earth.
A fully grown apple tree.
For the first time since arriving back in Nemo, Joad felt a bit of promise. Ever since he entered the church, he had been searching for something, anything, to give him just an ounce of hope.
He went down the stairs two at a time and burst out the back door into the garden. Fixer and Sayers bolted toward him and tried to block his path.
“What are you doing?” Joad demanded.
“You don’t want to see this, Joad,” said Fixer.
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Joad pointed at the apple tree. “That’s the first good thing, the first beautiful thing we’ve seen since we got here.”
The two men tried to put their hands on him, but Joad shoved them away. He kept moving toward the tree—and then it was only Laura standing in his way.
“Don’t, Joad,” she cried. “Please listen to them.”
Joad paid no heed. He gently eased her aside and kept on course.
Right on over to the magnificent fruit-bearing apple tree.
He noticed what looked like a stone at the base of the hefty, sturdy trunk.
Getting closer, he realized it had letters etched upon it.
His pace slowed while his heart pounded.
He bent down and saw it was a marker with a simple inscription.
REBECCA JOAD. LOVING WIFE.
Joad felt everything inside him die with her.
36
Aurora’s heart pounded so loudly, she was convinced Primo could hear it.
Even though he seemed to be fast asleep next to his brother by the campfire.
But that might have been wishful thinking on her part. He could very well be faking it. If so, and he realized Aurora was free from her restraints, there would be no stopping him this time. He’d absolutely finish what he had tried to start. She made more noise than necessary, crunching on stones, figuring that if Primo stirred, she would make a beeline back for where they’d tied her up. But the eldest brother didn’t budge an inch.
She was more frightened than she could ever remember being.
Well, except for two hours ago—when she was certain she was going to die.
“Dogs can’t talk.”
“I’m not an idiot,” said Primo. “I know that.”
“Then, what the hell was I hearing?” asked Secundo. “Some sort of ventriloquist?”
“A ventriloquist,” repeated his brother. “Seriously.”
“It’s a reasonable question.”
“No. It’s a stupid fucking question.”
Secundo was getting really tired of Primo treating him like shit, especially in front of other people. Even worse, he continued to put up with it. Secundo looked over at the woman, tied to one of the many stones sticking up in the vast field; he felt himself start to redden.
“Haven’t you learned anything?” asked Primo.
“About what?”
“The Strangers.”
“You’re telling me it was the Strangers talking. Not the dog.”
“Did you hear me say that?” barked Primo.
Secundo rubbed his burnt blond locks. “I’m confused… .”
“That’s an understatement.”
“Forget I asked,” said Secundo. “I’m checking on the woman.”
He walked away from Primo and entered the field. The woman, Aurora, had obviously been trying to listen in. She motioned back toward his brother.
“Is this what you guys do in your spare time? Sit around and bicker like old hens?” Her tone tried to sound nonchalant, but Secundo could detect the nervousness beneath it.
“You hang out with someone for seven years and see how you get along,” Secundo suggested.
“That’s why I never got married,” she replied.
Secundo didn’t respond and bent to make sure the ropes around her wrists were snug, but not so tight that they cut off her circulation. He could feel her eyes on him, but he was still smarting from Primo’s dress-down too much to make small talk.
But that didn’t stop Aurora.
“Fixer saw that dog too.”
Secundo couldn’t help but ask the obvious question. “What kind of dog?”
“Husky. A red one. Fixer said it was as big as him.”
“Bigger.”
The next thing Secundo knew, he was asking her all about the mysterious mongrel. He was astounded to learn it had led Fixer to him and Primo.
“Which is really bizarre because I’d never seen it before that dream I had about the pool,” he told her.
“But your brother had.”
“Evidently.” Secundo recalled the stories that Primo had only recently revealed to him. “What do you think this has to do with the Strangers?”
“Nothing. Everything.”
“You’re starting to sound like Primo.”
“All I meant was anything you can’t explain tracks back to them. The way the sky looks at night. Fixer’s Gift. Your brother’s ability to control the weather. The moment The Strangers left, everything began to change.”
“Including dogs that talk.”
“Or at least seem to,” said Aurora.
Secundo chewed on that for a while. He stared at the woman, thinking she seemed remarkably calm for a hostage. He wondered if there were more to her than met the eye.
“Anything change about you?” he finally asked.
“Not as far as I can know.”
“Consider yourself lucky.”
“Why? Is something different about you?”
Secundo hesitated, realizing he had been talking way too much. But he was tired of keeping it bottled up, and it was getting increasingly difficult to talk to Primo. Especially since the start of his hell-bent quest to avenge the deaths of Quattro and then Trey.
“I’m stronger than I used to be.”
It felt good to say it out loud.
“How much stronger?”
“A whole lot.”
The Oaf.
The name had plagued Samuel since he was in grade school. With hair so blond it could make a supermodel jealous, and an oversized frame he didn’t quite feel comfortable in, he was incessantly teased by other kids. Always a head or two taller than anyone in his class, he had a penchant for clumsiness, so the nickname rolled off his tormentors’ tongues on a daily basis.
High school was no different. He got cut from the football team because he didn’t hit hard enough and kept missing tackles. He tried to ignore the name-calling, but it hurt deep down, especially when his three brothers joined the chorus, with whispered “sissies” and “wimps” slipping out the corners of their mouths.
Put simply, Samuel was a gentle soul. Which didn’t sit well with his siblings; but then again, they’d spent hours as kids fascinated by what they could fry with refracted sunlight through a magnifying glass.
Then, he’d met Darleen a few years out of college, and couldn’t believe his good fortune. A beautiful girl falling for a lug like him. What were the odds? He wasn’t complaining—hey, maybe he was finally getting that long-deserved break. A few years later, while sitting on Death Row, he’d look back on a decade of presumed wedded bliss and realize it was just a Big Cosmic Tease.
Think things are finally going your way, Sammy Boy?
&nbs
p; We’ll show you.
More than once while strapped to Ol’ Sparky those hellish weeks, he thought about the moniker that had hung over his childhood.
Won’t be calling me The Oaf much longer.
The Human Skeleton, maybe.
He wasn’t sure which was worse.
When his brother found him dehydrated and dying by the prison gates, Samuel still measured six and a half feet from head to toe. But The Oaf, who used to weigh in at two-fifty, wouldn’t have tipped the scales at a buck and a quarter.
Once on his feet, Samuel began to put the weight back on.
Within a couple of weeks, he started to look like a human being again.
But a funny thing happened.
Muscles that had previously taken him years to develop came back in no time.
And three times as big.
He looked like a model plucked right out of a bodybuilder ad. It wasn’t like he was working out—the only thing Samuel had been lifting was a fork to his mouth, when they were lucky enough to find food. Within two months, he looked ready to win the Mr. Universe contest.
His newly ripped torso was just the start. It was what he was able to do with it that caught him by complete surprise.
It started with the fire truck.
More specifically, what was left of it.
Trey had been the first to spot it sticking out the back of an abandoned fire station. It was missing a couple of wheels in front, causing the engine to dip to the left. Norman was immediately suspicious, wondering why the truck was still around.
“Must be damaged goods,” Norman said. “Otherwise The Strangers would’ve taken it.”
They’d been on the road long enough to know anything valuable had been gobbled up by the Retrievers—mechanical stuff being the first to go. If something was left behind, it was usually broken. This didn’t stop Trey from jumping off his horse and racing to fulfill the childhood dream of getting behind the wheel of an honest-to-goodness fire engine. Samuel thought it a good thing their eldest brother was off hunting dinner—he would have kicked the ever-curious Trey’s ass for sticking his nose where all it could do was get hurt.
And boy, did that end up hurting.
Samuel shouted out a warning. “Trey! Don’t touch it!”
It fell on deaf ears. In a matter of seconds, Trey had thrown open the fire engine door and climbed inside. Immediately, there was a gigantic creak and crunch; the ground began to tremble. The truck started to tip like a capsizing ocean liner. Norman, being closer, sprinted over to try to pull a suddenly scrambling Trey out of the truck cabin.
The Seventh Day Page 29
