Beside her, Danny twitched.
“No running water, but there’s a well nearby,” she continued, ticking points off on her fingers. “No gangs or thieves we’ve seen so far. Most people think the military havens are safest, but I’ve heard awful stories about violence in the camps. Then there’s the journey to consider. Gasoline is scarce, and I wouldn’t want to travel on foot.”
“Even better,” Danny cut in. “We haven’t seen many active infected in Gila, and the library’s boarded up tight. I think if we just stay put…” He coughed. “Sorry. I feel like death.”
Matilda patted her son’s arm. “Our best shot is to hunker down until the CDC gets a handle on Petra. There’s a vaccine in the making, I heard, and… other plans…”
Her eyes wandered in a way that wasn’t reassuring, at all.
“Matilda.” Agnes tried to stop herself even thinking it, but fear had sunk its claws deeply into her. “Is this the end of the world?”
Her head snapped up. “No, dear, don’t be silly. It’s an epidemic, and a bad one, but the world’s seen those before.”
“Like the Spanish flu,” said Danny hoarsely.
Great. Something else she’d never heard of. But she felt bolstered by their certainty. What a sick irony it would have been, if she’d stumbled into the arms of the Rapture after all.
“Civilization will recover. We only have to wait.” Matilda smiled at her. “And here’s as good a place as any, if we’re going to be stragglers.”
That word again. Stragglers. Was that what she and Ezekiel were now?
A look flitted across Matilda’s face, reflecting all the burden of being the only adult responsible for many children. A feeling Agnes knew well.
Her eyes settled on Danny. “You. Rest.”
Agnes’s heart sped, watching him stand, revealing his astonishing height. She knew that next he’d look at her, and all their Red Creek familiarity would be in his eyes—and their new distance, too.
“I’m really glad you’re here,” he said.
“Me too.”
He opened his mouth. Closed it. It was strange to see such a large boy so tentative. All her life Agnes had been a workhorse, but he treated her like a little lost kitten, frail and delicate. All at once, Agnes wanted to cry.
“I was afraid—” He stopped. “Well. I was afraid.”
Jasmine tilted her head, watching them quizzically. Then Matilda made Agnes the best offer she’d had all day.
“I bet you’re exhausted, sweetheart. How about we find you a sleeping bag?”
As soon as the words left Matilda’s mouth, Agnes’s eyes were already drooping.
Matilda led her through the stacks to a narrow storeroom.
The door was ajar, and she could see Ezekiel inside, sleeping with his cooler beside him. Quietly, Matilda opened its lid and slid a few blue plastic ice packs inside.
All you had to do was snap them, and magically, they became cold.
She smiled at Agnes, whose eyes were wide. “At least you don’t have to bury it in your garden anymore. Rest well, dear.”
A sleeping bag piled with pillows looked like heaven. Someone had left out candles and bottled water.
Ezekiel was out like a toddler, Sheep flush against his chest.
But Agnes didn’t sleep right away. She waited a few quiet moments, listening to the Outsider’s receding footsteps, then snuck back into the lobby.
She wanted another look at that astonishing collection of books.
She wanted to hear what sounds they made, in the prayer space.
She closed her eyes, searching for that special place inside that was wiser than herself alone. She found it, like a gem on the lakeshore, and let its light spread through the library, rippling out. She stood stock-still a long time, listening to a sound like pages turning, crisp and autumnal, and a sound like many voices singing in hushed chorus.
The Prophet always said Outsider books were filth, but to Agnes the library felt like a church. A place where people came in search of truth.
She pictured the Outsiders who’d come here before Petra took hold, the men and women and children moving quietly through the shelves or sitting reading at the long metal tables. Such joy. She’d only ever read printouts of the Prophet’s sermons, two or three preachy picture books, a hymnal, and the Bible.
But there were thousands of books here, every one of them singing an earnest melody, agreeing, contradicting, and bickering with one another. It all combined into a symphony of unimaginable complexity. A web of knowledge and learning both ancient and new. A song as timeless and as vast as God Himself.
Think of all I might’ve learned if I’d been allowed in a place like this.
She backed into the dust-soaked shadows, feeling an invisible wound opening.
She hadn’t known, and she couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d run Outside too late, and among the rustling whispers, she felt lonely, sorrowful, and ashamed. But Ezekiel still had a chance. She poured all her faith into picturing him as a learned Outsider, like Danny with his medical books.
She shut the storeroom door.
They’d be safe in Gila. All day long, Ezekiel could read and learn, readying himself to join the world. When things finally settled, she’d have done more than just save his life.
She’d have given him a better one.
29
BETH
Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence.
—PSALM 91:3
Of all the places in all the world, the church where she’d married Matthew Jameson was the last Beth ever wanted to see. But it was the building nearest to the forest’s edge and Cory couldn’t stand. She’d dragged him by his armpits through the undergrowth, scraping his mangled leg across fallen branches and rutted stones. It took an hour that felt like years—an hour she’d never forget as long as she lived, punctuated as it was by Cory’s screams.
She had no choice but to use her bad arm, a torture with every motion. Pain spread into her chest, neck, skull. Her vision grayed. She feared she’d pass out, leaving Cory to bleed to death. But she didn’t pass out.
In the end, her face was dirt smeared, her wedding dress a rag. She was covered head to toe in her boyfriend’s drying blood, and even yet, she was still standing. Who could’ve guessed she had such strength of will inside her? All her life, she’d been flighty Beth, pretty Beth. But there was more substance to her than met the eye. More strength, more darkness—and more rage.
On Red Creek’s abandoned street, quiet but for Cory’s pained gasps, she stared at the church’s wide-flung doors—in their hellfire hurry, the faithful had forgotten to shut them—and shook with fury.
“What the hell was it all for?” she demanded of the church. “What the hell reason could there be for stuffing your own people inside that awful bunker? What sense does it make?”
Cory swallowed convulsively. “The Rapture—”
She exploded, gesturing to the calm sky, the undisturbed street. “What Rapture? Where?”
“Please,” he groaned. “I’m dying. I know I am.”
Beth looked into his pain-dulled eyes, and her anger cooled. Cory hadn’t run because he’d stopped believing in the Prophet’s God—he was still talking about the Rapture, even now.
No, he’d run because he loved her, truly loved her, and the proof was that he’d been willing to brave a Rapturous hellscape for a chance to save her life.
It was a stunning thing, that kind of love, and Beth thought she’d probably never feel it herself. She was just too selfish. But she could pay Cory back by helping him see another dawn. And if she wanted to do that, she had to think carefully, because every choice was going to matter.
“Beth, I want you to know—”
“Shut up a minute,” she interrupted. “I need to think.”
He shut up, and she tapped her bottom lip with a bloodstained finger.
The church—safe or not?
None of
the faithful would notice they’d gone missing until morning. Then it was a coin toss whether they’d bother to send out a search party or simply start praying for the destruction of their souls.
And there were supplies inside. Bandages in the basement, maybe. At the very least, she’d have clean rags and a stove to boil water.
With a pang, she wished for Agnes.
If you come back, I’ll forgive everything. Just don’t make me do this alone.
But Agnes wasn’t coming back.
It took forever to get Cory across that road. Moaning, he struggled like a fish on a line, and she kept glancing at the wide-mouthed church doors that never seemed to get any closer. Her back ached, her shoulder screamed, and her dress caught underfoot. Cory kept trying to unburden his soul. But she refused to stop and listen, because that would mean admitting he wasn’t going to make it.
Eventually he passed out. Though his body felt heavier, Beth’s heart lightened. The sound of his heavy-breathing pain had been too much, especially when she remembered the sounds he used to make when they kissed at the canyon’s edge. Those sounds had been heavy, too, but they were rough with pleasure, not pain.
My marriage was supposed to be consummated last night, she realized as she pulled him across the threshold. I was supposed to be his father’s wife.
An alien thought, like a memory from another girl’s life.
Inside the church, she noted the dusty footprints of the faithful, the bronze cross. Air whistling through organ pipes made a ghostly, incomplete sound.
Beth let out a breath. Cory was bleeding, her mouth tasted of ash, and she couldn’t bring herself to shut the doors behind her. After the bunker, she might never close a door again.
She settled Cory into the third pew; his pant leg was sopping black with blood. She needed something, anything, to stanch the bleeding.
Think carefully. Don’t let your feelings get the best of you.
She repeated this to herself as she headed for the basement stairs.
A rusty tooth had snapped off in the shredded muscle of Cory’s thigh. While Beth clumsily tried to clean it, he woke screaming.
“Holy hell,” he shouted. “Christ on a bike, just let me die.”
“Quiet. Someone might hear.”
He cackled. “Who? Everyone we know is waiting for God.”
Her shoulder blades itched. She glanced towards the wide-open doors. Outside, the wind blew like it was any other summer night, whipping up the scents of wildflowers and prickly pear.
In the church kitchen, she’d found towels, soap, a paring knife, a pot to boil water, and duct tape. After she’d washed the wound, she shredded the towels. Blood pulsed in oily gushes from Cory’s leg, his hair was matted with sweat, and by the maudlin look on his still-handsome face, he was becoming delirious.
“I love you, you know that?” he mumbled. “I’ve been in love with you for years.”
“Sure, I know.”
But it worried her that he felt he had to say it now.
“Love you so much. More than anything. I was so blessed.” An edge of recrimination crept into his voice. “But then you married Father. Never even spoke to me first. And I was ready to run away with you.”
Beth said nothing, ripping duct tape with her teeth and laying strips out in a row.
“But you wouldn’t give me the time of day, because you don’t love me, do you? You never did.” He sobbed once. “Jesus, don’t squeeze so hard, I just want to die!”
She studied his face, knowing what he’d have her say. Another girl might lie to him. Heck, Agnes might lie; it was kinder. But Beth was done shaping her life to anyone’s wishes but her own.
“You’re right, Cory Jameson, I don’t love you.” She leaned back, the duct tape strung between her hands. “But I like you enough that I’d never lie about it. That’s something.”
She thought he smiled, but it was hard to tell. She picked up a steel-gray strip of tape. His eyes rolled back. He fell unconscious again.
This time Cory stayed out.
Once she was sure she’d stopped the bleeding, she went looking for something to occupy her mind. If she stayed still longer than a moment, memories of the bunker flooded her. She considered trying to sleep—God knew she needed the rest—but that was a fool’s errand if there ever was one. So she channeled her energy into shamelessly breaking into the Prophet’s private office. And why not? He didn’t deserve privacy, after what he’d done.
The lock was easy to break. A solid crack with a wooden broom handle was all it took.
Inside, it was just so depressingly male. Leather books, a smoky smell, and in dawn’s gray light, a stag’s head mounted gruesomely on the wall. Dead, glassy eyes tracked her as she moved cautiously about the room.
I can touch whatever I want, because he’s not coming back. Maybe not ever.
Papers cluttered his desk—maps, blueprints, and dozens of newspapers with headlines: VIRUS THREATENS CITY, AUTHORITIES AT A LOSS; UNCONTROLLED EPIDEMIC; EVACUATIONS ORDERED.
Beth glanced through the papers, but they didn’t much interest her.
What she wanted to know was what had happened here. Why had the Prophet condemned his own people to darkness and, probably, death?
In her mind, she heard Mary, Faith, and Sam. They were crying out her name.
She hunched over, thrusting her head between her knees. After a moment, the nauseating guilt faded to a dull roar. But her anger redoubled.
Furiously, she slammed open the Prophet’s desk drawers—letter openers, used gum wrappers, a plastic flyswatter—and finally uncovered a leather-bound book.
A diary.
In fact, there were two diaries. Handsome, old-looking volumes with sprawling cursive inside. She remembered all the hours she’d spent recording every taboo, secret thought in the pages of her own journal, and felt a flare of excitement.
Brazenly, she settled into the Prophet’s fine leather chair. The stag watched her.
Beth read breathlessly. The history of Red Creek was contained in those books, and she was astonished that she’d never heard any of it before. But then, Red Creek was about the end of history, not history itself. Why tell the stories of the past if it would soon go up in smoke?
The story began with the first diary, which didn’t belong to the Prophet at all, but to his grandfather Jeremiah. She read on the edge of her seat, because she recognized this tale. Or some of it, anyway.
And she wasn’t at all surprised to find that all roads led back to Agnes.
Agnes, at last.
My name is Jeremiah Rollins, the book began. When I was small, the earth, and the trees, and the very stars began to sing…
Beth froze, remembering way back to early childhood, when Agnes used to tell her strange stories—about sounds, of all things. She used to tell her about the hum of the earth. About how rocks and stones sang differently from soil, how soil and water combined into a murky, muddy moan. How clouds whispered and sunshine chimed. She’d assumed it was a game, a fairy tale invented to amuse her.
And eventually, Agnes grew up—and the stories stopped.
But some thoughtful part of her always wondered if Agnes really could hear those things—and if, just maybe, she still did. Beth had remembered every bit of those fairy tales, storing away memories like a squirrel gathers nuts for winter.
Now winter had come, and she knew every word was true.
Agnes was a prophet.
A real one.
And maybe Jeremiah Rollins had been, too.
“Holy shit.” Beth cursed in honor of the now-unconscious Cory, her hands clenched into claws around the diary’s leather spine. “Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit.”
30
AGNES
The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.
—PSALM 19:1
On her third day Outside, Agnes woke early with a strong desire to brush her teeth.
She wandered into the makeshift kitchen and f
ound the water filters dry as bone.
It was Max’s turn to ferry buckets from the well, but she wasn’t surprised to discover him lingering inside, watching a movie. She’d quickly discovered that Outsiders weren’t accustomed to physical labor and would avoid it at all costs.
“I have a headache,” he explained without looking up from his phone.
At the library, there were plenty of chores to be done. The well needed visiting twice a day, and Matilda insisted the water be boiled, then purified with iodine. They washed laundry by hand and had to get creative with the cooking, with few supplies and only the battery-charged camping stove for power. They took an anxious daily inventory of all they had, from candles to the last can of beans, and periodically Danny and Matilda—who always carried her rifle—patrolled the area for red creatures.
The chores were light compared to Agnes’s duties at home, but the Outsider teenagers complained ceaselessly. In a way, it was refreshing. They didn’t seem to think God—or a patriarch—would smite them for it.
In other ways, it was annoying. Like when she really needed, more than anything, to wash her face and clean her teeth.
Wires dangled from Max’s ears. She could just hear the pattering of tiny movie voices, whispering make-believe dramas. The phone’s screen flashed with kaleidoscopic colors.
She’d had no idea how attached the Outsiders were to these devices. And this despite the fact that the Internet was down, cell service spotty, and the social media sites long since shuttered. Max watched pre-downloaded movies, Jasmine played a vast collection of video games, and Danny constantly piped music into his ears while he hunched anxiously over his medical books.
“Ezekiel and I can go for water,” Agnes said shyly.
Max eyed her while the movie flickered, not bothering to remove his earbuds. His handsome face was vulpine, his eyes black and wide. He and Jazz were both seventeen. It was hard to believe, because Agnes knew fourteen-year-old wives with more gravity than the two of them put together.
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