Lies (Gone #3)(37)

“I’m not a zombie,” Brittney said calmly. “I’m an angel.”

“Ah.”

“I called upon the Lord in my tribulation and he heard me. Tanner went to Him and asked Him to save me.”

Brianna considered that for a moment. “Well, I guess it’s better than being a zombie.”

“Give me your hand,” Brittney said.

Brianna hesitated. But she told herself if Brittney tried to bite it, she could snatch it back before she sank her teeth in.

Brianna extended her hand. Brittney took it. She pulled it toward her, but not toward her mouth. Instead, she placed Brianna’s hand against her chest.

“Do you feel it?”

“Feel what?” Brianna asked.

“The quiet. I have no heartbeat.”

Brianna felt cold. But not as cold as Brittney. Brianna kept her hand in place. She felt no vibration.

No heartbeat.

“I don’t breathe, either,” Brittney said.

“No?” Brianna whispered.

“God saved me,” Brittney said earnestly. “He heard my prayers and He saved me to do His will.”

“Brittney, you’re…you were down there in the ground for a long time.”

“Very long,” Brittney said. She frowned. The frown made creases in the mud that smeared her face. The mud that could not be cleaned off.

“So, you must be hungry, right?” Brianna asked, returning to her primary concern.

“I don’t need to eat. Before, I took water. I swallowed it, but I didn’t feel it go down. And I realized…”

“What?”

“That I didn’t need it.”

“Okay.”

Brittney smiled her metal smile again. “So, I don’t want to eat your brain, Brianna.”

“That’s good,” Brianna said. “So…what do you want to do?”

“The end is coming, Brianna,” Brittney said. “It’s why my prayers were answered. It’s why Tanner and I came back.”

“You and…okay. When you say ‘the end,’ what’s that mean?”

“The prophet is already among us. She will lead us from this place. She will lead us to our Lord, out of bondage.”

“Good,” Brianna said dryly. “I just hope the food’s better there.”

“Oh, it is,” Brittney said enthusiastically. “It’s cake and cheeseburgers and everything you would ever want.”

“So you’re the prophet?”

“No, no,” Brittney said with modestly downcast eyes. “I am not the prophet. I am an angel of the Lord. I am the avenger of the Lord, come to destroy the evil one.”

“Which evil one? We have a few. Are we talking pitchforks?”

Brittney smiled, but this time her braces did not show. It was a cool, wintry smile, a secret smile. “This demon does not have a pitchfork, Brianna. The evil one comes with a whip.”

Brianna considered this for several seconds.

“I have someplace I have to be,” Brianna said. She left as quickly as only she could.



“What do you want for your birthday?” John asked Mary.

Mary shook poop from a napkin that was doubling as a diaper. The feces dropped into a plastic trash can that would be taken out later and buried in a trench dug by Edilio’s backhoe.

“I’d like to not do this, that would be a great birthday,” Mary said.

“I’m serious,” John said reproachfully.

Mary smiled and inclined her head toward his, forehead to forehead. It was their version of a hug. A private thing between the two members of the Terrafino family. “I’m serious, too.”

“You should definitely take the day off,” John said. “I mean, you have to get through the whole poof thing. People say it’s kind of intense.”

“Sounds like it,” Mary said vaguely. She dropped the diaper into a second bucket, this one half filled with water. The water smelled of bleach. The bucket rested in a little red wagon so that it could be hauled to the beach. There, laundry workers would do an indifferent job of washing it in the ocean and send it back still stained and itchy with sand and salt.

“You’re ready for it, right?” John asked.

Mary glanced at the watch. Francis’s watch. She’d taken it off while she was washing. How many hours left? How many minutes until the big one-five?

Mary nodded. “I read the instructions. I talked to a person who’d been through it. I did everything I was supposed to.”

“Okay,” John said unhappily. Out of nowhere, John said, “You know Orsay is lying, right?”

“I know she cost me Francis,” Mary snapped. “That’s all I need to know.”

“Yeah! See? Look what happened from him listening to her.”

“I wonder how Jill is doing with them,” Mary wondered aloud. She was on to the next diaper. With Francis gone and no one entirely trained to take over for him, Mary had even more work than usual. And not the best work, either.

“She’s probably okay,” John said.

“Yeah, but if Orsay is this big liar, maybe I shouldn’t have let her take Jill,” Mary said.

John seemed baffled by that, not sure how to respond. He blushed and looked down.