Page 185 of The End of the World As We Know It

“You don’t need to hear it…”

“Yes, I do,” Amy asserted. “Yes, I fucking do, and you knowit’s not fair to keep this from me. I deserve to know what he’s saying about me.”

“Okay. He thinks you’re a sign or something. No… maybe sign isn’t the best word. He thinks you’re like an oracle, and that you’ll be the answer to all of their questions regarding Flagg and Las Vegas.”

“Huh?”

Zeke rubbed a hand over his forehead and seemed to be thinking of how to explain the situation to her.

“He’s convinced that because you didn’t dream like the rest of us, that you’ll be the one to receive new dreams, new orders. He thinks that Flagg will tap you to be the new conduit for his plans.”

She looked into her friend’s face in the low candlelight, longing for his features to give sense to what he’d just said. He’d tried to simplify it for her, but while the individual words connected, it was ultimately a jumble of nonsense that she couldn’t parse to save her life.

But there was no time to ask Zeke to try and explain it again. At that moment, their front door crashed open, and many heavy footsteps entered their peaceful home and several people flooded into Zeke’s bedroom. He shouted for them to leave, but he was shoved back onto his bed and held down by one of Mal’s larger followers, a rough and greasy fellow they called Tinker. Mal, who was the shortest of the assembled mob, strode through the crowded bodies and looked around casually. His shaved head gleamed in the weak light.

“We’re here to fetch you, little girl,” Mal said, standing over her.

“Why?” was all Amy could get out.

“We need to get you away. Solitude and quiet is what you need. I know it, I just know it. I’ve still got a line to the big man, you know. I feel it,” Mal said, gesturing wildly.

“I don’t want to live in that church with you,” she said, scooting along the carpet. Amy wanted nothing more than to get away from his crazed gaze and heavy breathing.

Mal laughed and looked at those around him to make sure theywere laughing, too. After some hesitation, they all joined him with wide, open mouths.

“Little girl, you’re getting special accommodations, I promise you that!”

She was dragged out of her cozy, safe home, the first she’d known since leaving her dead parents, and then taken to the metal shack in the woods. Mal ordered that she was to sleep alone there at night so that her mind would be clear enough to receive the dreams needed to tell everyone what the next step in the plan would be. She was to have little to no interaction with the others, spending her days in meditative solitude.

That had been four long months ago, when the nights were still cold enough to sink an ache in her bones that kept sleep elusive. Now it was summer, and the heat and humidity kept Amy sticky with sweat and covered in bugs. But at least sleep came to her most nights.

She took one last look at the blackened bones in the burn pile, a permanent example of Mal’s paranoia, and made her way to the creek so that she could wash the stink off of her.

The creek wasn’t deep enough for her to submerge completely, but she could sit on her rump and splash water on her head and face. She was lost in the moment, enjoying the sensation, her worries washing off along with her rancid sweat.

Something splashed in the water next to Amy, startling her out of her reverie. Zeke was on the bank, waving wildly, but not speaking. Curious, she stood and started to make her way to her friend, but shouts from the trees made her pause.

Mal emerged from the dense woods and pointed a finger at her.

“Get your ass outta that water and come here!” he screamed.

Terror gripped her, but Amy obeyed, catching Zeke’s stricken face as she passed him. Mal grabbed her roughly under her chin, jerked her face up to his, and his reddened eyes bored into hers.

“Why won’t you dream?” he growled in her face. “Why ain’t you on the frequency?”

She tried to look to Zeke for guidance, but Mal jerked her chin again. She whimpered.

“You’re the only one,” Mal said quietly. “All of us, we all dreamed of one or both of ’em, and you never did. It has to mean something—ithasto.”

“Mal, she’s just a kid,” Zeke began, stepping closer to her. “Maybe the kids just didn’t dream—”

One of Mal’s followers kicked Zeke, hitting him in the side of his knee. Zeke cried out and fell to the root-turned ground.

“I think I know why you ain’t dreamin’,” Mal said after a glance to her injured friend. “We were all in danger so many times. We weathered Captain Trips, we survived the chaos, and we made our pilgrimages to Vegas. Butyou”—he shook Amy violently at this—“youdidn’t surviveshit. You ran away from your dead family and hid in a dorm for a year. You didn’t have to survivehalfthe shit the rest of us had to. We need to fix that.”

“Leave her alone!” Zeke said from the ground.

“You shut up now,” Mal replied lightly. “I have important work to do. Glorious, biblical kinda stuff, you see. He’s out there, waiting to tell us what to do next. He always had a plan and we need to know where we fit in that plan, how we can be of service to it.”