Page 182 of The End of the World As We Know It

“Madness,” Benjamin said, just as he turned to leave her, and—

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—Jacob turned to see the monstrous thing revealed from behind the sheet, a massive wooden cross whose shadow fell directly upon him, a thing of such impossibility that he couldn’t at first comprehend exactly what—

Ted Lomm gripped him on one arm.

Mitchell Detroit gripped him on the other.

Several more men came up behind Jacob, wrapping their arms around him, squeezing the air from his lungs, and lifting his feet off the floor of the stage.

Jacob’s suitcase fell off the stage, as—

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—Zarah ran back to the join the crowd. Her heart was pumping, and that electric energy was surging through her system again. She was smiling, laughing, and tears were beginning to stream down her face. She was joined at the front of the stage by all the other women in white dresses—women who had, over and over again, filled that field with their dead offspring—and they joined hands, sweaty palm to sweaty palm. Squeezing.

On the stage, Jacob Cree screamed. The cross was lowered to the floor of the stage and he was dragged down onto it. He struggled, but it was futile. His clothes—

(That tweed jacket!Zarah’s mind prattled, recalling the author photo on Cree’s book.)

—were stripped from him, everything but the wreath of flowers, and then men approached carrying heavy mallets and iron spikes.

Sweaty and breathing hard, Ted Lomm approached the podium. Against the background of Cree’s screams as the spikes were pounded through his wrists, Ted said, into the microphone, “We’re a community that has looked out for each other since inception. We take great care—”

“—to take great care!” the townsfolk finished.

“Today, my friends, we send this harbinger of doom back to hell! And we will live in peace, prosperity,and good health for us and our children, from here on out!”

The women on either side of Zarah raised their hands, taking her hands with theirs. Those tears of joy kept spilling down her face, and she squeezed the hands of her sisters tightly… until she spied Cree’s strange black suitcase lying on the ground.

She broke away from her sisters, went over to it, opened it up, and found that it was—

Empty.

A final scream pierced the morning air. Zarah looked up in time to see the cross being raised again, this time with Jacob Cree nailed to it, naked and streaked with bright red streamers of blood, his head limp on his neck, that incongruous string of flowers hanging across his chest.

They watched Cree die, and when the prophet was done dying, one of the men who had killed him tossed his hammer in the dirt.

Zarah rushed to it, dropped to her knees, and bowed her head.

AWAITING ORDERS IN FLAGGSTON

Somer Canon

There were sweat bees crawling all over her again. She ran her hands over her wet, greasy skin, hoping to get them off without getting stung, but a couple got their final say before being bounced from their salty revelry like belligerent drunks from a bar. There were many drawbacks to being forced to sleep alone and without basic creature comforts in a shack made of rusted corrugated steel, but Amy liked the bugs the least.

Weak morning sunlight, still golden-hued and teasing her with the promise of a lovely day, seeped through the cracks of the metal panels. Zeke would be along soon to unlock the heavy chains that secured the single door.

She sat up and put her back to one of the four metal walls, hoping to absorb some coolness, but in late July, the only thing that the metal held for her was a disgusting warmth that paired horribly with the humidity that caused her to sweat even in the night. The simple cotton nightgown she wore was filthy from the dirt floor, and she ached to have a dip in the creek to get the stink of old sweat and body oils offof her. Amy hadn’t been thankful when they’d first shaved her head before sending her to the shack, but at least she didn’t have long hair sticking to her to add to the misery of the wet heat.

“Rise and shine, princess,” Zeke announced, knocking on the metal and producing a hollow, sad sound, startling her. He fumbled with the lock and chain, and when the piece of metal that served as a door slid to the side, he poked his face in and smiled at her.

“I hope you like dry toast and Treet meat!”

“I don’t care either way. I’d eatyouI’m so hungry,” she said, stepping out into the heavily wooded area. The shack wasn’t tall enough for Amy to stand in and she always relished a long morning stretch.

She sat on the big rock that served as her eating place and accepted the food that he’d wrapped in a towel. He also handed her a plastic cup with a sippy top on it. Boiled water had a taste she didn’t care for, but it was just on the right side of cool to be refreshing. Zeke watched her with a kind, but antsy energy. When she finished and handed over the towel and cup, he gave her a serious look.