by Jen Blood
“Ready for an adventure, Danny?” she asked, her voice husky and rich. She took a black hood and started to put it over his head. He shied away.
“You’re gonna kill me anyway, ain’t you?” he asked. “What does it matter if I can see or not? At least have the guts to look me in the eye when you pull the trigger.”
“Relax,” she said soothingly. “Nobody’s pulling any triggers just now. The reverend just wants to have a little chat.” He kept fighting her, scooting backward until his back was against the wall. His daddy taught him never to fight a woman, but it seemed like this might be an exception to that rule. He kicked out, catching her in the shin.
She swore, and everything soothing or soft about her just fell away. She dropped to her knees beside him, grabbed a hunk of hair at the back of his head, and pulled hard.
“Don’t fight me, little boy,” Jenny hissed. She kept a good grip on his hair, forcing his head back. Then, she pulled a gun from the back of her jeans and pointed it just under his chin. She put her mouth to his ear. “It’s not a safe game. Trust me.”
She pulled the hood over his head and pulled him up.
There were footsteps outside—heavy, loud steps, like some giant was headed into the room. Danny tried to stay calm, but his breath wasn’t coming right and the inside of the hood smelled like old wool and sweat.
“You ready?” a man’s voice he didn’t recognize asked. Like Jenny, he didn’t sound like he was from around here.
“Watch him,” he heard Jenny say. “The little bastard’s a fighter.”
They grabbed him by both arms and led him outside the room. Once they were past the doorway, he could see a change in the light outside, even through the hood. They walked along a dirt floor, then stopped and somebody opened a door.
“Step up,” Jenny said.
Even still, Danny tripped on the first step. They kept climbing until they reached another door. Somewhere distant and just above them now, he could hear Dylan playing: “Temporary Like Achilles”—one of those deep tracks Diggs introduced him to. He’d always liked that song.
“Where are you taking me?” he asked. The man had a tight hold on his arm, like he was afraid Danny might make a run for it. He might, too, if he had any idea where in hell he was.
“The reverend wants you to make your peace,” the man said.
“I don’t want to make my peace,” Danny said. “All I want is to get the hell out o’ here. I don’t—”
They walked a little longer, their feet echoing like they were on concrete in a closed space now, and then went down a few steps. Another door opened. A blast of warm air hit him, and he smelled sweat and sickness and a kind of darkness he couldn’t put a name to. For the first time since he’d been taken, Danny felt a jolt of fear so pure it just about knocked his breath loose.
“Keep moving,” the man said, jerking him forward.
“Where are we?” Danny asked.
They guided him to a chair and made him sit, then took their hands off him. The door opened and closed again; Danny sensed they’d gone.
Someone took the hood off his head.
He blinked in the sudden harsh glare, lights pointed directly into his face. When he looked past them, he spotted Reverend Barnel. The reverend wore his usual suit, his right arm in a sling. He didn’t look right, though—like maybe he was on something. His face was red, sweat running down his cheeks. He moved a music stand close to Danny, a piece of paper set on it.
“I’m sorry it has to end this way, boy,” Barnel said. “The Lord works in mysterious ways—this isn’t the path I would’ve chosen, but it got chose for me. I tried to turn around the evildoers that come to me. I really did.”
The reverend’s eyes were black, and his hands were shaking. Danny realized that the sweat and sickness he’d smelled was coming from Barnel himself.
Once his eyes had adjusted, Danny tried to figure out where he was. A boiler room of some kind—that much was obvious from the pipes and controls and steam all around. He could just barely hear the music over the sound of the big old furnace. A video camera was set up a couple feet in front of him, just to the side of the lights. When Danny didn’t look at the paper Barnel had set out, the reverend pushed the music stand a little closer.
“What is this?” Danny asked, staring at the words.
“You done what’s on that paper—don’t try and deny it. I led you to the Lord, but that’s as far as I could get you. It ain’t my fault you turned your back. Now, I need you to read that. Folks need to know. They got to understand.”
“Understand what?” Danny asked. He felt sick.
“Why the Lord’s pushin’ me to end this,” the reverend said. He mopped the sweat off his forehead with a damp handkerchief.
“Read it,” he said again. “Read it right to the camera.”
Danny shook his head. His eyes filled with tears. He couldn’t stop them from falling, no matter how hard he tried. “I won’t read this,” he whispered.
“You will,” the reverend said. “And maybe, if I believe you’re sorry for what you done, you won’t end up like your daddy did.”
Danny wet his lips. Cleared his throat. A tear rolled down his cheek.
“God is good,” he began, reading the reverend’s words.
<><><>
Once he’d read everything the reverend told him to, Barnel put the hood back over Danny’s head and the others came back in. Jenny and the man Danny didn’t know led him out like he was a damned dog, but he didn’t complain—he was too happy to be out of that boiler room. He heard music again: something older this time. Chuck Berry, he was pretty sure. It had a good beat, and he thought somewhere in the back of his head that somebody out there—wherever they were—had good taste.
“Can’t you shut that off?” the man asked.
“Not now we can’t,” Jenny said. “You know that. But we’ll shut ‘em down later—don’t worry your pretty head.”
The man grunted. Danny didn’t think it sounded like he cared much for Jenny.
They hauled him along, not talking anymore. Finally, after they’d gone back down the stairs and concrete gave way to dirt floor again, he heard a door open. People were talking inside the room. He made out two voices, then three. Jenny pushed him and he stumbled in the doorway. Somebody said his name.
Jenny kept the hood on him while she tightened up the zip tie around his wrists. It hurt now, the plastic cutting into his skin until he knew he was bleeding. He just stood there. He heard another voice, then another. It should be a good thing that he wasn’t alone anymore, but all it did was make him more nervous. What the hell was the reverend playing at?
Once he was secure, Jenny took off his hood just before she slipped out the door. He’d thought there would only be two or three people in there, but instead he counted half a dozen—all ages, everybody looking ragged and scared. They all sat with their hands tied behind them, backs against the wall.
“Fine mess you got us into,” a girl’s voice said. It took him a minute before his eyes adjusted and he realized who it was. He fought the urge to break down and cry like a baby.
Casey sat in the far corner, almost totally out of the light. A couple of sketchy-looking druggies Danny knew from around town were sitting on either side of her. Danny shuffled over and plopped down beside her, almost sitting on one of the guy’s laps to get him out of the way.
“Hey!” the junkie said. “Back off.”
“You back off,” Danny said. “I’m sittin’ here.” He was a little bigger than the junkie, and even though Danny wasn’t much of a fighter, he knew he could hold his own. He stared the guy down until he slithered out of the way a couple feet.
Once that was settled, he took a second to get a look at Casey. She didn’t look good—there was a burn on her face, and some cuts and scrapes and bandages. Her eyes had shadows the size of bruises under them. When he looked at her, he thought for a second she was about to cry.
“You okay?” he asked, quiet
so nobody else would hear them.
She nodded, then took a second to pull herself together before she finally managed to get a word out.
“We’re gonna miss our gig,” she whispered, her voice hoarse.
He couldn’t help it—he laughed out loud. She smiled at him, that smile that always made him feel like things might actually work out for the best in the end after all.
“You get your confession done for the reverend?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Danny said. “You had to do that, too?”
“We all did,” Casey said, nodding toward the others. Danny met eyes with the junkie he’d just pushed out of the way. The man nodded, serious and slack and shaking.
“He’s got somethin’ planned for us,” the man said. “And whatever it is, it ain’t good.”
“I kind of figured that about the time they knocked me out and tied me up,” Danny said.
“I’m Biggie,” the junkie said. “I’d shake hands, but I’m a little tied up right now.” Danny smiled at the joke. “What’s your name, kid?”
“Danny Durham,” he said. Biggie nodded, then looked at Casey. “No offense, but you’re not looking so good. You was one of the ones in that explosion, right?”
“Explosion?” He looked at Casey. She wouldn’t look back at him. “What’s he talking about?”
“The Dairy Queen—Sheriff Jennings went psycho,” Biggie said, “and blew the whole damn place up.”
Panic ran through Danny in a sharp, sickening wave. He looked at Casey with the question in his eyes. “Sophie?” he asked. The word came out choked.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered to him.
He felt dizzy. He couldn’t get worked up about things right now, he knew, but for a second all he could do was sit there, feeling sick and lost and hopeless. He looked at Casey, studying all those cuts and scratches and burns with new understanding.
He knew he ought to be more sorry about Sophie, with her grin and her pierced eyebrow and that way she had of saying his name when they were together... But all he could think was, Thank you, God. The world wasn’t a good place without Sophie, but he’d make it through.
He didn’t even want to think about the world without Casey.
Danny looked at her, and her eyes held onto his in a way he couldn’t remember them ever doing before.
“I’m getting us out of this, Case,” he said. He sounded a lot more confident about that than he felt.
Casey was the kind of girl with an answer for everything. Today, she didn’t say a word. They’d never been too touchy-feely, but she didn’t complain when he scooted a little closer. She just leaned against his arm, her head on his shoulder, feeling smaller than he remembered Casey being in the real world.
He started thinking up a plan.
Chapter Twenty
SOLOMON
11:50:08
It was just after noon when Diggs, Juarez, and I got to the Justice Sunshine Resort—a surprisingly nice place considering it cost next to nothing and was in… well, Justice, Kentucky. Blaze had given us until three o’clock to get some sleep and try to regroup, since we’d been running on pure adrenaline for as long as I could remember. With the electricity still out, the hotel was dark and felt every bit as creepy as you’d expect a hotel in a nowhere town on the brink of oblivion to feel. I lugged my suitcase along shadowy corridors with Diggs behind me and Juarez leading the way.
There were guards posted at the hotel entrance, rifles at the ready, while agents and soldiers and cops who’d flown in to fight the forces of evil milled around in the hallways. Diggs got a room on the second floor, and we parted ways at the stairwell after an awkward “See you later.” Juarez and I retired to our room alone.
Our new safe haven came complete with kitchenette, sitting area, and bedroom. When we got there, Grace and Einstein were curled up on the couch in the living room together like an old married couple. I was secretly relieved when Stein at least had the decency to get up and feign enthusiasm when I walked through the door, his butt wiggling happily. Grace lifted her head and whined, tail thumping slowly, but didn’t move.
I went in the bathroom, pulled off my clothes, and got in the shower. Without electricity, there was no hot water. I didn’t care. I rested my forehead against the tile wall and let the cold water wash over me until every thought in my head was frozen out. When I emerged, shivering, I went straight to the bedroom and collapsed on the bed. Juarez came in and lay down beside me, stripped to his jockey shorts.
I thought of Diggs, in a room somewhere above us. I thought of the small, lifeless boy under the blanket; of what it would be like for his brother to wake up alone. I thought of Jessie Barnel’s tears, and the blood soaking her ankle-length dress.
I really wanted to stop thinking.
“You tired?” I asked Juarez without moving.
He grunted. He really isn’t the grunting type. I opened my eyes and rolled over.
“What are you thinking?” I asked. Juarez is the first man I ever met who actually answers honestly—or appears to—when I ask that question.
“I’m thinking you’re cold,” he said. He ran his hand over my shoulder and along my back. I shivered for an entirely different reason. “Jesus, Erin, you’re freezing.”
“I’m all right.” He pulled the blanket up around us both and put his arms around me. He didn’t tell me what he’d been thinking, though. “It was a rough day for you,” I said quietly. “Lots of heroics.”
“Not that heroic,” he said. “A lot of people died today.”
And he was the one who pulled the trigger on more than one of them, I reminded myself. I propped myself up and tried to smooth the lines from his forehead. He looked at me with dark, sad eyes—as though something heartbreaking was happening. I just hadn’t caught onto what that was, exactly.
“You did what needed to be done,” I said. “That’s a hard thing to take on.”
“Sometimes it is,” he agreed, still quiet. “And we’re still not any closer to finding Barnel or figuring out what’s in store for tonight.”
“Maybe Jessie will talk,” I said.
“If she wakes up in time. At least we got to the kids before it was too late, though,” he conceded. “And probably put a pretty good dent in their explosives supply.”
“You think?” I asked.
“They had enough stored down there to blow up half the forest. I can’t imagine there’d be much left after that.”
“Well… there you go,” I said. “Not bad for a day’s work.”
I laid my head down on his arm. He rolled over to face me, eyes still serious. He smelled like sweat and gunfire. There was a streak of someone else’s blood on his arm that he must have missed when he was cleaning up. He ran a hand through my hair, toying with the strands. I moved in and kissed his neck, then his chin, before I finally found his mouth. I thought of the fires we’d put out in the night: of the picture of Dora the Explorer on the refrigerator in a meth lab; of the chained hound dog and the broken cherub.
Before the kiss could go anywhere, Juarez pulled back. He kissed my nose, looking seriously conflicted about whatever was going on in his head. Then he sat up and nodded toward the bathroom.
“I’m gonna grab a shower, then I just want to check in with Allie,” he said quietly. “Try and get some sleep, okay?”
I nodded numbly and watched him walk away.
Sleep was elusive after that. After Jack left to go find Blaze, I went out in search of some kind of sustenance, even though I knew the vending machines wouldn’t be working. There had to be something out there, though.
Somehow in my travels, I found myself on the second floor. Private Abbott was stationed by the stairs, seated with a rifle across his lap and his head back against the wall.
“Hey,” I said. “Don’t they ever let you people sleep?”
He smiled. “You’re the ones that’ve been on for days. I just got here last night—I figure I got a good forty-eight hours before I start achin’
too much.”
“Oh, to be young again,” I said. Then, I just stood there awkwardly for a minute, wishing I’d never come up here. I assumed everyone knew I was dating Juarez, so I really shouldn’t be sneaking into some other guy’s room during nap time.
“Diggs is in 206,” Abbott said. “Just down the hall there.”
“Oh,” I said.
“Agent Juarez said you might be up,” he explained. “He said it was fine for you to go on in, if you wanted.”
Of course he did.
“That’s all right,” I said. “He’s probably sleeping.”
“He was just out here a couple minutes ago, actually. I doubt he’d go under so fast. He looked strung pretty tight.” Abbott was unnervingly helpful.
“Ah. Well… I guess if I’m already up here, I should at least check in.”
“Whatever you think’s best,” Abbott said.
It was idiotic for me to stand in the hallway freaking out about it, so I cut it short and went to Diggs’ door. Then, I walked past his door. Twice. I finally stopped just outside with my hand hovering an inch from the wood.
It opened before my knuckles ever hit.
“What the hell are you doing?” Diggs asked. “Don’t you know you’re not supposed to lurk outside people’s doors in the middle of an Apocalypse? You’ll freak someone out.”
“Sorry. I’m rusty on the etiquette.”
I waved at Abbott to signal all was copasetic, then went into Diggs’ room without being invited.
Where Juarez and I had a whole little suite all to ourselves, Diggs’ had just bed and bath. His clothes were draped over a chair in the corner. He went back to the bed and lay down on top of the covers, his arm over his eyes, his right hand resting on his stomach. He wore shorts. Very little else. There was no doubt about it: Diggs had been hitting the gym since our adventures over the summer.
My mouth may have gone a little dry.
