World Memorial (33 page)

Timothy opened his mouth and Joel leaned in to listen. With a loud crack Timothy's head snapped violently to one side, like something had shoved it. Timothy jerked as bone jutted from his neck, white and streaked with blood. He gasped, then slumped to the floor for the last time.

Joel and the others pulled back, horror and confusion jolting through them. Joel's mind stumbled for answers. What had done this? What had happened?

The blonde woman lifted her head and stood from the pew. "Enough. I tire of this."

Joel looked at her from his kneeling position. He had never heard the woman speak. Several times he had entertained the notion she was mute. "Sister?" he asked. "Do you know what happened here?"

"Hush primate," said the woman. The pews around her slid away, grinding across the floor of the chapel. Neither the woman nor anyone else had touched them.

She stepped into the open space, her bare feet silent on the floor. "You want to know where the children are?"

The older man who’d been mopping came down from the stage. His wife trailed behind him. The man stepped over to the blonde woman, his face excited and expectant. "Has the Lord given you a Word?"

The woman held up one hand. The man stopped as though he'd walked into a plane of glass. He looked startled and confused. His muscles flexed as though trying to move. He did not.

"No," said the woman. "And neither did the Easter Bunny. That's one you have here, right?"

"Sister?" said Brother Joel, confused now.

"I said be quiet!" yelled the woman. She closed her hand into a fist. The old man convulsed and pulled into himself. His screamed as his bones broke and flesh tore. He kept contracting inward until he was a bloody ball of pulp and bone, suspended in the air. Bones cracked and blood drained to the floor. The flesh stretched horribly, splitting apart as the woman squeezed her fist tighter. She had never touched him.

She dropped her hand, opening her fist. The mass that was once the older man fell to the wood floor. It hit with a wet splat, sending a corona of blood outward.

The man's wife screamed.

The flock pulled away from Joel and the woman, horrified. The woman stepped across the chapel, heading for the stage. Pews slid away as she moved.

A cold realization went through Joel. An agent of the Enemy was in their midst. Now that they were so close, the Enemy had sent a monster to stop them.

"Demon!" he yelled, pointing at her. "I cast you out in the name of—"

The woman flicked her hand at him. His arm snapped violently to one side with a loud “pop.” Joel felt bone snap and pierce his skin, and then saw the bone jutted out from his shoulder. He screamed and dropped to one knee, his arm limp at his side.

The woman kept walking, slowly, across the wood floor. Her bare feet trailed through the blood of the old man, leaving red foot prints behind. She seemed to not notice or care.

"In the name of whom?" she said as she walked. "Zeus? Odin? Horus? There is only me. There has always only been me."

A man broke away from the flock, rushing at her. "Blasphemer!"

The woman held out her hand, palm up. He stopped in mid-run, frozen in place. The woman lifted her hand and he rose up from the floor. She twisted and contorted her fingers. The man bucked, screaming as his spine rippled and snapped. He jerked violently as his neck broke and his head went limp. She twisted her fingers further and the man's spine jutted out from his mouth, trailing blood and stringy tissue over his lips. Blood spattered to the floor. She dropped her hand and let him fall. She kept walking as he crumpled.

She stopped when she reached the stage. She looked up at the darkened stained glass. One large window held an image of the crucified Lord. It had always given Joel great comfort.

"This primate?" she asked, looking up at the image. "I do like the violence of the imagery. You things need to remember you're meat. Still...."

She flicked her hand at the window and it exploded outward, sending shards of colored glass into the darkness. Cold wind whistled through, blowing in bits of snow.

"Stop her!" yelled Joel, struggling through the mind-killing pain from his shoulder. "Everyone! Stop her!"

As one, the remainder of the flock ran for the stage. Toward the horrible woman. Joel stood from his knee and ran as best he could. His arm bounced, sending waves of pain through his neck and shoulder.

The woman held up one hand, stopping all of them in their tracks. It felt to Joel like he had run into an invisible wall of thick glue. He tried to move but couldn't.

"Now," said the woman, "let me introduce myself. My name is Sharon, and I have been here since long before you all dropped screaming from your mothers’ gut sacks. "

Joel struggled against the force holding him in place. He made no progress.

"Look at you," said Sharon, looking at each person in turn. "You think you're anything in the face of me? In the face of the real ways of this world? You think your miserable plans and stupid lives amount to
anything
in the face of the forces I command? The forces I
am
?"

She fell silent, looking them over a moment longer. She kept her hand up, holding them all in place. Joel wanted desperately to move but couldn't.

"You should be thankful, really," said Sharon. She raised her free hand and pointed to Elizabeth. "You especially. You want to know who gave you their faces? So you could make your scribbles? It was me."

Next to Joel, Sister Elizabeth's eyes grew wide. Joel could see her straining against the force holding her in place. Her muscles tensed and flexed but she didn't move.

"That's right," said Sharon, nodding and smiling. A cold, cruel smile. "I've seen the images that spark around that mush in your skull. I've seen how you long for him." Her icy eyes flicked to Joel, then back to Elizabeth. "How you dream of him sweating and grunting above you like the pigs you are. How you want him to put his seed in you so you can make another disgusting slug."

Elizabeth’s eyes looked at Joel, her face still locked in its forward position. Joel looked back, not knowing what he would say if he could speak. Elizabeth looked back to Sharon.

"But it won't happen," said Sharon, shaking her head. "First, because he actually believes the nonsense he says. And second, because of this."

Sharon clenched the hand she'd been pointing at Elizabeth. Elizabeth's stomach twitched violently, in spite of the force holding them all in place. Her eyes went wide and her skin grew pale. She clenched her teeth as tears ran down her frozen face. Blood poured from her mouth, through and around her closed teeth.

Joel looked down, twisting his eyes in their sockets as best he could. Her stomach was twisting. Blood stained the bottom of her denim skirt. It was dribbling from between her legs. Then it came in a torrent. A mass of flesh and tubing fell from between her thighs. It splatted to the floor, followed by a gout of dark blood.

"So there's that," said Sharon, dropping her clenched hand. She shifted the hand holding them all in place and Elizabeth crumpled to the floor, falling into her own blood and ruined insides. She was dead.

A groan came from behind the still flock. Joel couldn't look behind him but recognized the voice. Timothy was back as one of those things. One of the dead.

Sharon sighed. "Not know, please." She held up her free hand, the one she'd just used to kill Elizabeth, and pulled it toward herself. Joel heard movement behind him and struggled to look. He couldn't, but after a few moments a shape appeared at the edge of his vision. Then it passed in front of them all and was clear. The corpse that had been Timothy was floating a few inches off the floor, gliding toward Sharon. He groaned and clenched his mouth open and closed, his head hanging limply from his broken neck.

When Timothy's corpse was between her and the flock, Sharon turned her free hand around. Timothy's corpse spun slowly until he faced them. He moaned and reached at them, his feet moving through the air underneath.

"You fear these things?" she said, nodding to Timothy's corpse. "These are nothing." She flicked her free hand and Timothy's head exploded. Chunks of skull and thick gobs of dark muck shot out across the stage. She let the rest of him fall to the floor.

"And so we aren't interrupted again..." said Sharon, twitching her hand. Elizabeth, still lying on her own insides, jerked as her head exploded. Blood and brain flew across the floor, splatting into the pews.

Sharon smiled at them. It was a cold, predatory smile. It chilled Joel, all the more because she clearly made no attempt to mask it. "I have given you the visions! I have protected you! And now, I know where the children are! I can lead you there! I can give you what you
truly
desire! Their blood. Their flesh. Follow me and you shall have them! We will take them from their hiding place and bring them back here! They will scream and you will consume them! As it once was! As it will always be! The strong eat the weak and gain power! You will gain this power! We will show the world true power! We will show the world chaos again!”

She smiled, looking over the flock. “So,” she said, “those who would follow me, prove your loyalty."

Sharon dropped her hands, releasing them. The flock stood there, staring. Silence and shock hung over all of them. It crushed Joel's spirit.

One by one, his flock began dropping to their knees. First just one, then more, then many more in quick succession. All but Joel bowed to Sharon.

Dismay washed over Joel. He had lost.

Then he noticed Sharon's breathing. It was subtle, but there was effort there. Like she'd expended energy and was regrouping. The fact that she grew weary gave Joel his last tiny spark of hope.

"I will never serve another!" he yelled, running for her.

Sharon held up her hand to stop him. He froze in place, the wall of glue returning. She lifted him up, reminding Joel crazily of when his grandfather had carried him as a child. How old and wise the man had seemed then, and so full of knowledge. Of God's Word and of the world around him. Joel had always hoped he'd do him proud. Joel shook the thoughts from his mind and tried to struggle. He could not. He flipped back and over, so that he was prostrate to the floor and hovering above it. He drifted forward, out over the kneeling flock.
His
kneeling flock. They looked up at him. Joel could no longer read their eyes.

He couldn't see what she was doing behind him. He didn't have to. He felt his bones start to shift. His flesh compressed inward, like huge weights were crushing him from all sides. His bones snapped and his flesh split. It was pain such as he had never experienced. If he could move, he would have screamed like he hadn't since childhood.

He crumpled and broke, his vision blurring. His own blood fell from his hovering body, raining down on his kneeling flock. They looked up at him, his blood pattering on their face.

"Come unto me," said Sharon. Then there was one more agonizing, searing crush of pain.

Then blackness.

Park leaned back in his chair. The kitchen table in front of him held a deck of cards and three piles of pennies. The pile in the center was the largest.

He looked down at the cards in his hands. He was still mad from earlier, but he felt comfortable. As comfortable as he could with armed guards out front and a living room full of magic children. All was quiet for the moment. Angie was up in her room, planning something. Park hoped it was good.

Across from him, Lilly pulled two cards from her hand and set them down. "Give me two," she said. She was sitting on two old rotten books, giving her just enough room to reach the top of the table.

Park pulled two cards from the deck and passed them across the table to her. "Shouldn't you be playing Go Fish or some shit?"

Lilly took the cards and put them into her hand. "Maybe if I was a pussy. Call!"

"Okay, but don't start crying." He put his cards down, spreading them out on the table. "Two pair."

Lilly considered his cards. She set hers down. Park could see the arrangement before she spoke. "Full house!"

He sat back in his chair. "Shit."

She leaned over the table. "Damn right, shit," she said, sliding the pile of pennies over to her.

Park watched, bemused. "Not much to spend money on anymore, you know?"

"You're just jealous of all my pennies, fuckstick," she said, smiling as she arranged her coins.

A shot rang out from upstairs.

* * *

Maylee tromped through thick snow, weaving around frozen trees and picking her way through hidden brush. It was already dark. A beaten flashlight in her hand provided meager light. She wasn't sure where she was going. She was mad at herself for this. It didn't bode well for her to be out on her own with no plan. Maybe she was too reckless. Maybe Mom was right.

Mom.

Anger and hurt made her push the thought down.

She focused on the ground ahead of her, of her boots crunching in the snow and ice. She knew she was headed roughly toward West's place. Maybe she could stop in there for a while. She'd have to be gone by the next time Mom came for supplies, but it would give her some time to collect herself.

Then, she'd move on. She could find supplies. She could find a house and set up there. She'd fought enough corpses and wild animals to know how to take care of herself.

Right?

She wondered if she was being childish. She hated herself for wondering that. She hated herself for it being true. She
was
being childish. She thought of Carly, of Dalton, of Mom. She was mad at them and missed them at same time. It was a horrible, empty feeling.

She tried to ignore the feeling and pressed on, plodding through the snow.

She knew she didn’t have any real plans to survive. Was she really just heading off to die? Was this her plan? Wander into the woods alone, fall prey to something and finally be able to stop worrying? To stop screaming and fighting?