Michael Grant - Lies

Sam had instructed her not to tell anyone. She was fine with that.

Brianna respected Astrid and Albert and the others on the council, but she and Sam, hey, they had been in battle together many times. He had saved her life. She had saved his.

Jack was also at Brianna’s, but she didn’t think that was really Sam’s business, or anyone’s. Jack was doing a little better. The flu seemed to have a short shelf life, just one of those twenty-four-hour things. Jack had stopped coughing quite so spectacularly. The walls and floor were safe again. Besides, one of Jack’s charming quirks was that if it wasn’t on a computer screen, he pretty much didn’t see it. So she doubted he would notice their new roomie unless she came with a USB port in her head.

Sam had also asked Brianna not to do anything other than feed Brittney, maybe help her wash up a little, though the closest thing to a shower now was walking into the surf.

“Don’t ask her questions,” Sam had said quite clearly.

“Why not?”

“Because we may not want to hear the answers,” he had muttered. Then, he amended that. “Look, we don’t want to stress her, okay? Something very weird has happened. We don’t know if this is some kind of freak thing or something else. Either way, she’s been through a lot.”

“You think?” Brianna had said. “What with being dead and buried and all?”

Sam sighed, but tolerantly. “If anyone’s going to question her, it probably shouldn’t be me. And definitely not you.”

Brianna knew what he was saying. Despite keeping Brittney under wraps, Sam probably figured it would all have to come out soon enough. And he probably figured if anyone was going to question Brittney, it should probably be Astrid.

Well…

“So, Brittney, how are you?” Brianna asked. She had been up for a few minutes, which was a long time for Brianna. In a few minutes she had been able to run down to the shore, fill a gallon jug with salt water, and run back to the house.

Brittney was still in the room where Brianna had put her. Still on the bed. Still lying there, eyes open. Brianna wondered if she’d slept at all.

Did zombies sleep?

Brittney sat up in the bed. Brianna set the water down on the nightstand.

“You want to wash up?”

The sheets were smeared with mud, which wasn’t much dirtier than they usually were. It was amazingly hard to get things clean by swooshing them around in the ocean, even when you could swoosh at super speed like Brianna.

Things still came out kind of dirty. And crusty with salt. And scratchy. And they gave you rashes.

Brittney sort of smiled, showing her dirty braces. But she showed no interest in cleaning up.

“Okay, let me help out.” Brianna took a dirty old T-shirt off the floor and dipped it in the water. She rubbed at some mud on Brittney’s shoulder.

The mud came off.

But Brittney’s skin did not come clean.

Brianna rubbed some more. More mud came off. No clean skin showed through.

Brianna felt a chill. Brianna wasn’t scared of much. She had grown accustomed to the fact that her super speed rendered her almost invulnerable, unstoppable. She had gone toe-to-toe with Caine and walked away laughing. But this was just plain disturbing.

Brianna swallowed hard. She wiped again. And again, the same thing.

“Okay,” Brianna said softly. “Brittney, I think maybe it’s, like, time for you to tell me what’s going on with you. Because I’d like to know whether you’re sitting there thinking you’d like to eat my brain.”

“Your brain?” Brittney asked.

“Yeah. I mean, come on, Brittney. You’re a zombie. Let’s face it. I’m not supposed to use that word, but someone who rises from the dead and climbs up out of their grave and walks among us: that’s a zombie.”

“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.