Beth did. She very, very much did. All at once it was alive again, that part of her soul she’d shut down when a flying egg struck her face and words leapt out at her like rats—Beth’s been whoring with Cory Jameson. Burn in hell.
They’d tried to kill the best, most world-loving part of her. But guess what? They’d failed. They’d praised the Lord, taken their shot, and missed. Now fair was fair, and it was her turn to play. She made a conscious effort to calm herself—deep breaths, Agnes always said, and it was so annoying how she was always right, even here—and set her mind to saving her own life.
She needed light, water, and to get the hell away from Magda. But before she could even think of those things, she needed to fix her arm. Somewhere, she’d heard foxes caught in a trap would bite their leg off rather than wait to die.
Well, she was at least as tough as a fox. Or had been once.
Carefully, she took a nip of her sleeve between her teeth. The old material ripped easily. She needed her skin bare. She couldn’t take the chance her hand would slip when she tried to shove her shoulder back into place—she wasn’t sure she’d have the stomach to try it twice.
She tore the sleeve free at her collarbone, ignoring the wave of dizziness that flushed up from the pain, and then, remembering all the reasons she didn’t want to scream, rolled the fabric into a ball.
“Oh, Magda,” she said, before stuffing the dirty dress sleeve into her mouth. “You’d better pray for me. Because this is really going to hurt.”
26
AGNES
Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers: the snare is broken, and we are escaped.
—PSALM 124:7
Hope burned in Agnes’s chest almost unbearably bright. She’d driven these unfamiliar roads in the dark, and here was the dawn she’d earned, dawn in a town called Gila.
GILA—according to the map and the welcome sign.
What a beautiful, foreign-sounding name. After breathing Red Creek’s suffocating air, she craved everything exciting and new.
So this is Outside.
On her way into town she’d recognized a post office, restaurants, a stable, and a school. It was all shuttered and abandoned now, with ominous flyers peppering the sidewalk like autumn leaves—REPORT SIGNS OF INFECTION IMMEDIATELY, DON’T WAIT!—but the Outsiders would get Petra under control soon. She was sure of it. Then the people would return, and Agnes and Ezekiel could set about making Gila a home.
She parked outside the library. She’d spread the map over her brother’s sleeping form. He was muttering something, tortured even in dreams.
“Ezekiel.” She nudged him awake. “We’re here.”
“Where?”
“The library, remember? We’ve come to meet our friends.”
She helped Ezekiel out of the car. He stumbled, lurching clumsily, like running from the bunker had aged his poor soul.
“Sam,” he insisted. “I want Sam.”
Grief rumbled up from between her ribs. “I know. Be brave.”
He wiped his runny nose with his sleeve.
“Now, wait,” she said. “Before we leave the truck. What are you forgetting?”
Confusion clouded his face. “To pray?”
She shook her head. “Your insulin cooler. Now that we’re Outside, I need you to be responsible for it. You’re old enough to understand: It’s life or death.”
He reached into the back seat and tucked the cooler under his arm.
Then, together, they gaped at the old brick library building.
It was larger than their church, stately. On the lawn, an American flag flapped in the wind. A symbol the Prophet had hated enough to describe in detail. A weathervane spun at the roof’s apex. It looked like some kind of dark bird, a grackle or a crow.
“Can I wait in the car?” Ezekiel asked.
“What? No,” she said. “We’re here to find a new home. Like the Hebrews out of Egypt.”
“The Hebrews never saw the promised land,” he reminded her. “They ate manna in the desert and then they died.”
Okay, that was true. “I oversimplified. Their children’s children made it home.”
“And is that us?”
She stiffened because she didn’t know. Beyond the faith that had raised them, who were they?
“Come on, Ezekiel. Let’s go.”
Hand-in-hand, they tackled the granite steps that led to the library’s double doors.
She raised her fist, preparing to knock. Before she touched wood, the door creaked open, startling them. An Outsider stood at the threshold. Not Danny. Not Matilda.
A stranger.
Face-to-face with a brightly pretty girl in shorts and a strappy blue top, Agnes knew she should say something, but the sight of bare shoulders had stunned her silent. Sinful. A dire, Red Creek thought.
She was also thinking, Danger.
Ezekiel yanked her hand, urging her back to the safety of Father’s truck.
“Are you Agnes?”
Her name in the Outsider’s mouth—but where were Danny and Matilda? Had this girl done something to them? Stabbed them in their sleep?
She smiled, showing off the whitest, straightest teeth Agnes had ever seen. She couldn’t read the stranger’s smile, because Outsider manners were so alien. She didn’t look like a murderer—her shiny lips candy pink—but who knew?
On the Outside, Agnes felt helpless as a child and resented it.
“Danny said you might be coming. He’s walking the perimeter with Matilda, checking for infected. Want to come inside?”
It sounded sane enough—Danny and Matilda, keeping them safe. Only Ezekiel’s eyes pleaded, Don’t make me do this.
She glanced back down the rural road, debating. She wished someone were here to tell her what to do. But if she ever hoped to live among the Outsiders, she must get comfortable making decisions for herself.
On their family trips to Walmart, Father had always ordered them to avert their eyes from Outsider women. Flashes of color and bright white teeth were all she knew of them. Now free from Father’s control, she could look more closely.
Despite her garish clothes, the stranger’s eyes were mild, a pleasant maple-syrup color. She was Agnes’s age, only thinner and more coltish. And she looked nice. Like she’d help you fold your laundry, maybe, or bake you cookies.
Outsiders are devious as snakes, whispered the Prophet.
Get out of my head, she thought back.
“We’ll come inside. Thank you.”
It felt like triumph to say it, but when she tried to step through the doorway, Ezekiel jerked her arm again.
Looking into her brother’s anxious face, she thought of the prayer space. Wouldn’t it warn her if danger was near? She slipped into it, briefly closing her eyes. It was getting easier. Some mysterious spiritual muscle grew stronger with every use.
Gila’s quiet washed over her. She sensed a lawn behind the library and beyond that the dry rustling not of ponderosa pines, but of cacti and mesquite. Somewhere to the north, she heard the steady thrum of rushing water.
She also sensed a Nest. It ringed the town in a semicircle, vibrating and humming like Red Creek’s crows, except this Nest was human, composed of dozens upon dozens of people. She could hear the shivering, human shape of them.
She tried to ignore her mounting dread. Nests couldn’t hurt you directly—unlike the walking creatures. If what Danny had said was true, half the Southwest had likely Nested now.
And Gila could still be a good place. A safe place.
She only wished she could convince Ezekiel of that.
“I want to go home,” he insisted, while the stranger looked on.
He clutched Sheep to his chest, his eyes wide.
Agnes swallowed. “I know it’s odd to be with Outsiders, but—”
“I want Father. I want Sam.”
“We can have a fresh start here. A new life. Maybe, one day, you can even start school.”
This was a dream,
fragile as spun sugar. She voiced it quietly, like a prayer.
“I don’t want to meet Outsiders! I just want to go home.”
“Will you trust me, Ezekiel?” She felt desperate. “Please.”
He stared at her. For a horrifying instant she pictured him bolting down the stairs and running headlong into the desert.
The Outsider interrupted. “Hey. Do you guys like macaroni and cheese?”
Ezekiel cocked his head.
“It’s his favorite,” whispered Agnes.
The girl put a hand on her hip and her top rode up, revealing another inch of bare skin.
Sinful, Agnes thought again, and hated herself for it.
“We’re having macaroni for breakfast, because we’re fresh out of oatmeal. We’re happy to share.”
Ezekiel studied Agnes, who kept her face carefully neutral. He had to learn to make decisions, too.
He marched inside the library like a condemned man, but at least he was moving forwards, not looking back.
The Outsider girl caught Agnes’s eye and winked.
Thank you, she mouthed, and the girl shrugged. Don’t worry about it, the gesture said.
It was a small moment of understanding between them, fleeting as a summer breeze. But to Agnes, crossing the threshold of Gila’s Third Municipal Library with her brother, his insulin, and all her hopes in hand, it meant the world.
“It’s not the right color,” griped Ezekiel, staring down at his macaroni.
“Really? It’s Kraft’s,” said the girl, who’d introduced herself as Jasmine.
Jazz, for short.
Her boyfriend, Max, hunched beside her. Even slurping his macaroni, he was easily the most attractive man Agnes had ever seen. He made handsome Cory Jameson look like a muddy sneaker. She’d have blushed if he’d so much as looked at her, but he showed no interest in anything but eating.
She blinked down at her food, which was shockingly orange—a neon, artificial color. She dipped her fork into her bowl, chewed, and swallowed.
“It’s amazing.”
She looked straight at Ezekiel, willing him not to be rude. Hunger got the best of him, and, doubtfully, he tasted his first bite. Then he smiled, his own sweet, boyish smile, and a knot inside her chest released.
They ate in a makeshift kitchen, an alcove that had once been an office, complete with filing cabinets and wire wastebaskets. The Outsiders had filled it with gadgets—hot plates, a coffee machine, a water filter—and turned a cabinet on its side for a table.
“There’s no electricity, of course,” Jazz explained. “But Matilda has a battery-powered camping stove with outlets. We use it to charge our phones, power the coffee machine, stuff like that. You can charge up, if you want.”
“For what good it will do,” Max mumbled through a mouthful of orange.
Agnes looked questioningly at Jasmine.
Jasmine jerked her thumb at him. “Max is convinced cell service will black out any day now. But as long as the towers stand…” She trailed off, looking suddenly anxious. “Anyway.” She shook off her pall. “No one really knows what will happen, so it’s better to look on the bright side, right?”
Right.
But Agnes felt like she was drifting in some surreal dream. Everything about their surroundings was just a little off, from the slick, shiny floors, to Jasmine’s pierced ears, to Max’s very un-Red-Creek-like slouch.
Strangest of all, though, was the library itself.
When Danny mentioned it, Agnes had pictured Mrs. King’s small collection of instructional volumes—N is for Noah, who saved the Naughty world. But more books packed this building than she ever could’ve dreamed of. Both she and Ezekiel gaped, but the Outsider girl chattered away like it was nothing.
Thousands of books. Thousands.
Now Jazz poured herself a cup of coffee. She offered Agnes one, but she declined. Her nerves were shattered as it was.
“We got here a few days ago.” The Outsider girl seemed determined to keep the conversation going. “We walked all the way from Arid and hooked up with Danny and Matilda by accident. Lucky thing, because we were all out of food. How do you know Matilda? Did you drive far?”
Agnes took a break from eating, not sure how much to tell.
Handsome Max gazed sleepily at them. His oversize T-shirt was emblazoned with the inscrutable phrase MODEST MOUSE.
Agnes was quiet a touch too long and the Outsiders exchanged a glance.
“We came from—up near Holden,” she hurried to say. “We’ve never been to Gila before. How many people live here?”
“Is that a joke?” Max barked. “Obviously, we’re the stragglers. Everyone is long gone.”
Long gone.
Agnes suppressed a shiver.
She’d done her best, as they sped past barns and water towers and abandoned single-family homes, to imagine a future here. But it unnerved her that silence draped over everything, heavy as a wool blanket.
They ate manna in the desert and then they died, Ezekiel had intoned.
Also unsettling: In the corner of the kitchen someone had heaped a mountain of emergency supplies. Canned food, tents, flashlights, sleeping bags. Everything you’d need to sleep and travel rough. Everything you’d need if the world were ending.
Dread licked her like a frost, cold. “So—” she couldn’t help asking. “When will everyone be back?”
Another fast, unreadable look.
“Didn’t you hear about the evacuation?”
While Ezekiel scraped his bowl, Agnes struggled with the word. Evacuation. She only had the shadow of a guess for what it might mean.
Jasmine’s eyes widened. “Oh my God. You’re from Red Creek, aren’t you?”
How did she know?
Was there something in her face that separated her from normal people—or possibly, something in her eyes?
“I wrote a report on fundamentalist cults for school,” Jazz continued. “I read about the clothes you wear.”
Agnes glanced down at her prairie dress, sweat stained and wrinkled after their long night, and touched the messy plait of her waist-long hair. So different from the girl’s cropped boy cut.
Max, now grudgingly interested, raised a chiseled eyebrow. “What happened? Infection smoke you out?”
The bunker flashed before her eyes. She felt tears rising, but Ezekiel beat her to it, erupting into helpless, quaking sobs. He was seven years old, exhausted, and headed for a full-blown tantrum. In a moment, she knew, he’d be writhing on the floor.
“Shh, Ezekiel, shh.”
“I want to go home,” he hiccupped. “I want to go home, I want to go home!”
As the Outsider teenagers looked on, a horrible idea sprouted in Agnes’s heart: Wherever you go, Red Creek goes with you, and you’ll never escape, not truly.
Then Matilda appeared in the doorway, wearing pale green scrubs and a rifle slung over her shoulder. Ezekiel spotted the nurse who’d saved his life—his mother’s age but looking at him with such tenderness—and his tears stuttered to a stop.
He flew wordlessly into her arms.
“Zeke, baby Zeke.” Matilda enfolded him. “You made it. You’re here.”
Agnes stared at the two of them, her hand at her throat. Then she jumped up and threw her arms around the older woman, who smelled of lavender and good clean soap. Matilda wept, but tried to hide it, looking anywhere but directly into their faces.
She didn’t think we’d make it, Agnes realized. She thought Red Creek would catch us and kill us, as it was meant to do.
Or failing that, the red creatures.
“Where’s Danny?”
Matilda pulled back, her face grave, and terror crept up Agnes’s spine. Watching, Max and Jasmine snapped alert.
“Was it an infected? Are they here?” Max’s voice rumbled darkly.
“No, nothing like that, just the flu. He’s checking his temperature. He’ll be along.”
Agnes shifted, agitated. Danny was the Outsider she knew best, an
d the intensity of her fear shook her. She couldn’t imagine this Outside world without him in it. If he were gone—
“Agnes?”
She whirled like she expected to see a ghost, but it was Danny: a little worn, a little thin, but the same. A starry bridge of freckles over his nose.
And he was grinning.
To her sleep-deprived eyes, he looked like the opposite of the bunker. The opposite of the dark. She had to clench her fists at her sides to keep from running into his arms—a ridiculous, and ridiculously indecent, urge.
Having only ever seen each other in the land of her captivity, their meeting at the Third Municipal Library felt electric. In her mind, she imagined the bright sound of iron breaking.
“I knew you’d make it.” He beamed at her. “I knew you would.”
Then he tumbled into a chair, coughing like he’d die of it.
27
BETH
For the enemy hath persecuted my soul; he hath smitten my life down to the ground; he hath made me to dwell in darkness, as those that have been long dead.
—PSALM 143:3
Magda Jameson was changing.
Beth had been trapped in the small closet for almost twenty-four hours with nothing to eat or drink. Since she’d popped her shoulder back into its socket, the thirst was an ever-present voice in her head, threatening to drive her insane.
In the perfect dark, she saw only shadows, but still she knew exactly where Magda was—the girl was emanating heat like the coils of a stove. All night she’d shivered with fever, thrashing and writhing before she finally stopped moving entirely. She went so still Beth assumed, with guilty relief, that she’d finally died.
But she wasn’t dead. Beth flinched at a dull, raking sound, like teeth grinding. Wide-eyed, she watched as the shadows in the corner tightened into a predatory crouch.
Magda—or the creature who’d been Magda—wasn’t turned inwards towards her agony any longer.
Beth froze, thinking of the dog in church—how its nails clicked against the floor, how it lunged with snakelike speed for Mrs. King. The Prophet shot the dog, but with no one to stop Magda, what would happen? Would she just pass on her disease and leave it at that? Or would she keep biting and biting? Would she swallow what she bit?
Agnes at the End of the World Page 14
