Lies

THIRTY-SEVEN

“I DIDN’T WET my bed or anything,” Justin said. “At my house I mean.”

Mary ignored him. Instead she watched Astrid’s performance. It made her bitter. Of course Astrid had found a way out of the hole she’d dug for herself. Smart, beautiful Astrid. It must be great to be Astrid. It must be great to have so much confidence that you could just stand up there handing out a set of rules and then blithely walk away, with your pretty blond head held high.

“Can I go see Roger after we eat?”

“Whatever,” Mary said. She’d be out of it all soon. Done with this awful place and these awful people. She’d sit outside with her mother and tell her stories about it.

Astrid was lining up now for barbecue. Astrid and Little Pete together. Kids were clapping her on the back. Grinning at her. Liking her more than they had in the past. Why? Because she had admitted she had screwed up and then she’d quit and left them with a new set of rules to follow.

In her own way Astrid had taken the poof, Mary thought.

How many minutes left until Mary had her own chance at escape? She pulled Francis’s watch from her pocket. Half an hour.

After all the worry and anticipation it still seemed to rush up at her, the time.

John was looking at her now, even as he herded the kids toward the front of the food line. Looking at her. Expecting something from her. Just like everyone else.

Mary should go stand in the food line herself, of course, show Astrid up as a liar for calling her anorexic.

But really, what did Mary have to prove to anyone?

She ignored John’s wave, ignored kids around her, and headed back into the day care.

It was quiet and empty.

This place had been her whole life since the FAYZ. Her whole life. This messy, stinking, gloomy hole. She stared at it. Hated it. Hated herself for letting this define her.

She didn’t hear anyone behind her. But she felt it.

The back of her neck tingled.

Mary turned. There. Behind the milky translucent plastic that covered the jagged hole between the day care and the hardware. A shape. A form.

Mary’s mouth was dry. Her heart pounded.

“Where are they, Mary?” Drake asked. “Where are the snot-nosed little monsters?”

“No,” Mary whispered.

Drake looked at the edges of the cinderblock with detached interest. “This was clever, the way Sam did this. Burned right through the wall. I didn’t see it coming.”

“You’re dead,” Mary said.

Drake snapped his whip hand. The plastic was sliced from top to bottom.

He stepped through. Into the room where he and the coyotes had threatened to kill the children.

Drake. No one else. No one else had those eyes. No one else had that python arm the color of dried blood.

He was dirty, that was the only difference. His face was smeared with mud. Mud was in his hair. Mud was on his clothes.

The whip writhed and curled like it had a life of its own.

“Get out of here,” Mary whispered.

What happened if she died here in the FAYZ? No. She had to get away. And she had to save the children.

Had to. No other choice. She’d been a fool even to think of any other choice.

“I think I’ll wait for the kiddies to come back,” Drake said. He grinned his wolf’s grin and Mary could see mud in his teeth. “I think it’s time to finish what I started.”

Mary wet herself then. She could feel it. But she could not stop it.

“Go,” Drake said. “Go get them. Bring them here.”

Mary shook her head slowly, her muscles watery and weak.

“Go!” Drake roared.

The whip hand lashed out. The tip drew a line of fire on her cheek and she ran from the room.

Zil was frozen with indecision. Astrid had directly threatened him. The Ninth Law? She hadn’t even pretended it wasn’t about him. She had turned her icy blue eyes on him and threatened him. Astrid! That treasonous, freak-loving girl!

And now? Astrid had laid down the law and laid out her threat and now everyone was eating fish and venison and actually talking about Astrid’s laws.

Yesterday Zil had burned down a big piece of the town. The result was supposed to be chaos. But now Albert was dishing out meat and Astrid was dishing out laws and it was as if Zil had done nothing, as if he was not someone to be feared and respected.

Like he was nobody.

Threatened! And once Sam decided to reappear…

“Leader, maybe we’d better get back to the compound,” Lance suggested.

Zil stared at him in amazement. Lance was suggesting they slink away? Things must be as bad as Zil feared if even Lance was scared.

“No,” Turk argued, but not very loudly, or very forcibly. “If we run away, we’re done for. We’ll just be waiting there for Sam to come around and finish us off.”

“He’s right,” a girl’s voice said.

Zil spun around and saw a dark-haired girl, a pretty girl, but not someone he knew. Not Human Crew. The thing to do was tell her to take off, stop presuming to speak to him. He was the Leader. But there was something about her…

“Who are you?” Zil asked, eyes narrowed, suspicious.

“My name is Nerezza,” she said.

“Weird name,” Turk commented.

“Yes, it is,” Nerezza allowed. She smiled. “It’s Italian. It means darkness.”

Lisa was standing behind Nerezza. Zil could see them both. The contrast did not work to Lisa’s benefit. Nerezza was more beautiful the longer you looked at her.

“Darkness,” Zil said.

“We have that in common,” Nerezza said.

“You know what Zil means?” Zil asked, amazed.

“I know what darkness is,” Nerezza said. “And I know that its time is coming.”

Zil remembered to breathe. “I don’t understand.”

“It will begin very soon,” Nerezza said. “Send this one”-she nodded at Lance-“to bring your weapons.”

“Go,” Zil ordered Lance.

Nerezza tilted her head a little and looked at Zil curiously. “Are you ready to do what has to be done?”

“What has to be done?” Zil asked.

“Killing,” Nerezza said. “There must be killing. It’s not enough to build a fire. The bodies must be fed into the flame.”

“Only the freaks,” Zil said.

Nerezza laughed. “Tell yourself whatever makes you happy,” she said. “The game is chaos and destruction, Zil. Play it to win.”

Edilio saw Nerezza with Zil. He couldn’t hear what they were saying. But he could read body language.

Something was wrong there.

Zil rapt. Nerezza flirting just a little.

Where was Orsay? He’d never seen Nerezza without Orsay. They’d been inseparable.

Lance went tearing off in the direction of Zil’s compound.

Edilio glanced at Astrid, but she was paying no attention. Her little brother had a piece of fish in one hand and his game player in the other.

Little Pete stared at him, as if he’d never seen Edilio before and was surprised by what he saw now. Little Pete blinked once. He frowned. He dropped the last of his fish and went instantly back to his game.

There was a scream. It cut through the chatter and drone of a crowd of kids eating.

Edilio’s head snapped around.

Mary was running from the day care. Screaming a word, a name.

“Drake! Drake!”

She tripped and sprawled facedown on the concrete. She rose to her knees and held up scraped, bloody palms.

Edilio raced toward her, none-too-gently pushing wandering kids out of the way.

There was a bright red line on Mary’s face. Magic marker? Paint?

Blood.

“Drake! He’s in the day care!” Mary screamed as Edilio reached her. He didn’t even slow down but leaped past her, swinging his gun into firing position as he ran.

Someone coming out of the day care. Edilio slowed, raised his weapon, aimed. He would give Drake one chance to surrender. He’d give him to the count of three. And then he would squeeze the trigger.

Brittney!

Edilio lowered the gun. Stared in confusion. Had Mary just lost it? Mistaken a dead girl for a dead monster?

“Is Drake inside there?” Edilio demanded.

Brittney frowned in confusion.

“Is Drake in there? Is he in there? Tell me!”

“The demon is not in there,” Brittney said. “But he is near. I can feel him.”

Edilio shuddered. Her braces were still flecked with mud and tiny fragments of gravel.

He pushed past her and stopped at the day care door. He heard two of his soldiers rushing up behind him.

“Stay back unless I call you,” Edilio said. He shouldered through the doorway and swung the barrel of the gun left and right.

Nothing. Empty.

Mary had seen a ghost. Or more likely she was losing it, just like Astrid had said. Too much stress, too many problems, no relief.

Losing it.

Edilio let go of a shaky breath. He lowered the weapon. His finger was trembling on the trigger. Carefully he unclenched and rested his finger against the trigger guard.

Then he saw the plastic sheet, sliced straight down the middle.

“Mary,” Nerezza said. “Terrible things will happen here, and soon.”

Mary stared past her. Eyes searching the crowd. She saw Edilio emerge from the day care. He looked like he’d seen a ghost.

“The demon is coming,” Nerezza said insistently. “All will burn. All will be destroyed. You must take the children to safety!”

Mary shook her head helplessly. “I only have…I’m almost out of time.”

Nerezza put a hand on her shoulder. “Mary. You will soon be free. You will be in the loving arms of your mother.”

“Please,” Mary pleaded.

“But you have one last great service left to perform. Mary: you must not leave the children behind to the madness that is coming!”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Lead them now to the Prophetess. She waits in her place. Take the children there. To the cliff above the beach.”

Mary hesitated. “But…I have no food for them there. I won’t have diapers…I won’t…”

“Everything you need will be there. Trust the Prophetess, Mary. Believe in her.”

Mary heard a terrible scream. A wailing sound of terror that shifted to agony. From the far side of the plaza, out of view.

Children were running. Panicked.

“The FAYZ for humans!” Zil shouted.

A gun went off. Mary could see the littles cowering, terrified.

“Children!” Mary commanded. “Come with me. Follow me!”

Children who had lost parents and grandparents, who had lost friends and school and church. Who had been abandoned, neglected, starved, and terrorized had learned to trust only one voice: Mother Mary.

“Come with me, children!”

The children rushed to her. And Mary, a stumbling shepherd, led them away from the plaza toward the beach.

Brittney had come to the plaza, drawn there not by the smell of food, or by the crowd, but by a force she didn’t understand.

Now she saw children running and screaming.

“Is it the demon?” she asked her angel brother.

“Yes,” Tanner answered. “You are.”

Brittney saw children running. Running. From her?

She saw Edilio, his face a mask of dread, coming out of the day care, coming toward her. He was staring at her, eyes wide, the whites visible all around.

She did not understand why he should be afraid of her. She was an angel of the Lord. She had been sent to fight the demon.

But now she found herself unable to move. Unable to will her limbs to walk where she wanted, unable to look where she wanted to look. It was so like being dead, she thought, memories of cold earth in her ears and mouth.

Edilio took aim at her.

No, she wanted to say. No. But the word would not come.

“Drake,” Edilio said.

He was going to shoot her. Would it hurt? Would she die? Again?

But a mob of fleeing children rushed between them. Edilio raised the gun skyward.

“Run,” Tanner urged her.

She ran. But it was hard to run when her arm was growing so long and her consciousness was shriveling as another mind shoved hers aside.

Astrid saw and heard the panic.

Saw the littles running with Mary, a panicky gaggle of stumbling, screaming preschoolers, babies in the arms of Mary’s helpers, all racing from the square toward the beach.

In a flash too many images to process.

Zil, with a shotgun in his hands, aiming it in the air.

Edilio just emerging from the day care.

Nerezza smiling calmly.

And Brittney, from behind, facing away from Astrid.

Little Pete playing his game with feverish intensity. Fingers frantic. Like he had never played before.

And then, Nerezza moving quickly, straight toward Astrid, determined. She had something in her hand, a crowbar.

Was Nerezza going to attack her?

Insane!

Nerezza raised the crowbar and brought it down with sudden, shocking force.

Little Pete toppled forward onto his game without making a sound.

Nerezza bent over and yanked Little Pete onto his back.

Astrid cried, “No!” But Nerezza didn’t seem to hear her. She raised the crowbar again, this time aiming the pointed end at Little Pete.

Astrid stuck out a hand, too slow, too clumsy. The crowbar came down hard on Astrid’s wrist.

The pain was shocking. Astrid screamed in pain and fury. But Nerezza had no interest in her, pushed at her with her free hand like she was a minor irritation. And once again aimed the crowbar at Little Pete. But this time Nerezza was off-balance and her blow went wild. The crowbar stabbed the dirt beside Little Pete’s head.

Astrid was up and shoved Nerezza back a step.

“Stop it!” Astrid cried.

But Nerezza wasn’t going to stop. And she wasn’t going to be distracted. She was after Little Pete with fanatic focus.

Astrid punched her as hard as she could. Her fist connected with Nerezza’s collar bone, not her face. Not enough to hurt the dark girl, but enough to once again throw off her aim.

Now at last Nerezza turned with icy rage on Astrid.

“Fine. You want to go first?” Nerezza slashed horizontally with the crowbar and hit Astrid in the stomach. Astrid doubled over but rushed at Nerezza, head down like a bull, blinded by pain.

She hit Nerezza squarely and knocked her on her back. The crowbar flew from Nerezza’s grip and landed in the trampled grass.

Nerezza, quick, squirmed to grab it. Astrid punched her in the back of the head. Then again and again, but Nerezza’s hand was nevertheless just inches from the crowbar.

Astrid hauled herself along Nerezza’s back, her weight slowing the girl down. Astrid did all she could think to do: she bit Nerezza’s ear.

Nerezza’s howl of pain was the most satisfying thing Astrid had ever heard.

She clamped her jaw together as hard as she could, yanked her head back and forth, ripping at the ear, tasting blood in her mouth and pounding with her fists at the back of Nerezza’s head.

Nerezza’s hand closed on the crowbar, but she couldn’t reach behind herself to get Astrid. She stabbed blindly with the edged end of the tool, grazing Astrid’s forehead, but not dislodging her.

Astrid wrapped her fingers around Nerezza’s throat and squeezed, now releasing the ear, spitting something squirmy out of her mouth, and put all her strength into squeezing Nerezza’s windpipe.

She felt the pulse in Nerezza’s neck.

And she squeezed.