“Jenny and her family moved away today,” I said to Dad. “She was the last of my Christian friends to leave.”
Dad knew exactly what I was talking about. Each of the five friends who had been attacked at the party that Dad kept me away from when I was thirteen had left the area in search of a community where The Washed could feel safe.
“I’ve never asked you about that night …” I continued, “but now I’d like to know some things.”
“You want to know why I didn’t warn the other families of your plan to go to that party.”
“That would be a good start,” I said.
“I’ve regretted that decision for over four years, Jocie. If I had known…”
“Didn’t you? Isn’t that why you stopped me from going to the party?” I asked. “You had everything else about that night figured out. Didn’t you put the pieces together and know they’d be attacked?”
He stared at me for a long while.
“I’ve been accused of being a monster, Jocie, and given the things I did for The Corps when I was your age, I deserve it … but I don’t remember any accusation ever hurting as much as this. How could you think that I would consciously decide to let your friends be assaulted?”
“You consciously decided to let yourself be beaten and almost killed inside the mountain,” I said. “Maybe in your head, my friends were just another necessary sacrifice in some greater plan.”
“Bad things sometimes happen to good people, Jocie.”
“Don’t give me the answer you’d give an eight-year-old,” I snapped. “Just tell me if you knew what was going to happen, and let them go to the party anyway.”
“I gave up on making my own plans long ago, Jocie,” he said. “If I thought for a moment that my plans were better or wiser, then I’d…”
He trailed off into that well-known expression of bottomless sadness. Usually when he did that, I’d feel sad, too, but this time was different. For the first time in my life, I looked into my father’s eyes, and instead of wanting to know all of the secrets running around in his head, I was afraid that he might tell them to me.
******
J.W. leaves with a grunt, and I hear the door to the next apartment in the line open. I pray and read the bible for the next hour, until I hear a car drive up and someone shout “J.W.”
For twenty minutes, I have to listen to J.W. as he lies to his gang friends about what happened after they left. He weaves a tale in which he woke up, and then escaped by beating me in hand-to- hand combat, followed by a long chase by the police. All the while, Mrs. Haddad is moaning louder and louder in pain, while I continue to hold her hand and pray.
“Hey, J.W., is the lady next door almost dead?” one of the gang asks. “Does she have any good stuff?”
“Leave her alone,” J.W. replies.
“C’mon, man. She don’t need it no more.”
The door begins to creak open.
“I said, leave her alone,” J.W. repeats.
“I’ll just see how close she is.”
A head peeks in the door. I’ve taken off the hat and don’t try to hide my face.
“We will not mark the passing of this good woman with the breaking of a commandment - Thou shalt not steal. Not while I’m here,” I say.
“J.W.? What is she doing here?”
The door opens farther, and the rest of the gang poke their heads in.
“You’re going to pay, little girl!” the big guy says.
“We will also not mark the passing of this good woman with violence,” I say, then return to praying.
Mrs. Haddad is beginning to shake and lets out a loud groan from the pain. The cloth that J.W. found for her is still in her hand, and she stuffs part of it into her mouth, which muffles her cries.
I run through every prayer that I’ve memorized, which is a lot. Her eyes open, and although they’re blind, they appear to be pleading with me … begging me to somehow end her suffering. When I look deeper, I see something I didn’t expect: Joy.
“My prayers are done, my sister. Let go of this world,” I say, softly. “Go home.”
When her shaking stops, I pray for a while, then gently close her eyes and place her hands onto her chest.
When I look up again, the gang is still outside, staring at me.
“Remove your hats and show some respect,” I say
Much to my surprise - and I think theirs - they do it.
“How do you call the coroner when someone passes?” I ask.
“The red switch on the wall will turn on a light on the top of the apartment,” J.W. says. “They’ll see it, and come running.”
I turn on the switch and exit the apartment, passing through the group.
“You’ve got a lot of guts to turn your back on me,” the big guy says. “This time I have a metal bat, and I don’t see your fancy stick anywhere.”
I turn.
“I feel like I’ve been praying for hours, but I’m sure I have one more in me,” I say, and bow my head. “Lord, these men just witnessed the passing of your child, Mrs. Haddad, into your loving arms. I pray to you: please don’t wait until the end to take these men into your arms. Open their eyes and their hearts. Show them that you are with them, always, and lead them onto the path of everlasting life.”
“Are you done?” the one with the bat asks.
I turn and start to walk down the row, looking ofr an empty apartment where I can sleep.
The one with the bat follows me and I hear the rest follow him at a distance.
“Don’t you turn your back on me, little girl!”
His steps are awkward. The streetlight casts a shadow telling me that the bat is already above his head, ready to come down. Apparently he doesn’t want a repeat of me ducking under one of his wild swings. I continue to watch the shadow as he closes the gap.
“Let it go, Jake,” J.W. says. “Let me tell you what really happened after you guys ran out on me.”
Jake gets closer, and I watch the shadow of the bat go up an inch.
“C’mon, Jake. We were robbing that dude. She was just doing the right thing.”
As Jake swings the bat down at the top of my head, I sidestep. The ringing of the bat on the ground alone must hurt his hands terribly, but I kick his wrist to make him release it, just the same. It’s easy to catch his ear and force him to his knees.
“Don’t pinch my ear!” he says. “My grandmother would do that, and I hated it.”
“Clearly, you all need someone to minister to you,” I announce. “Everyone be back here tomorrow at ten o’clock for morning services.”
They all look to J.W.
“You heard her,” he says, “It looks like we have a minister.”
******
I sleep soundly in the abandoned apartment, until the sun wakes me through the skylight, which also serves as a fire escape. There’s an old broom in the corner, which I decide the former resident didn’t know how to operate, based on the amount of dust and dirt in the place. I open the door wide and give the place a thorough cleaning
There are two broken chairs, next to a small wooden table, so I set them up neatly and spread an old blanket over the table to act as a tablecloth. Outside, I pick some small, purple wildflowers and arrange them in an old bottle as a center piece. I beat the sleeping mat until the dust coming out of it subsides, and then toss it on top of the apartment - hoping the sun will disinfect it.
When everything is as tidy as I can make it, I walk down the row of containers until I reach J.W.’s apartment. The door is ajar; so I knock lightly and look inside.
J.W. is sitting at a table, wearing a pair of magnification goggles. In front of him is some sort of air purification system that he’s studying under magnification. Every now and again, he sprays the filter with a liquid, and then continues the inspection.
“Got you,” he says, as he carefully picks something off the filter.
“Thought you could get into my lungs unnoticed, did you? Well, you and two of your little friends didn’t make it today, did you?”
He uncaps a vial of a yellow liquid and drops whatever he picked off the filter into it. He takes the vial to a small bookshelf and places it inside a hollow book.
I ease my head out of the door and knock harder.
“Just a minute,” he says.
When he opens the door, the filtration unit is back to work, purifying the air.
“Hello, neighbor,” I say.
“Shouldn’t you be writing a sermon?”
“Jesus never wrote sermons. He just spoke from His heart,” I reply.
“Good. I never much liked sermons.”
I look at the apartment where Mrs. Haddad lived. The red light is off.
“They came for her ten minutes after you went into that abandoned apartment,” J.W. says. “I’m surprised you didn’t hear the arguing and come out.”
“Arguing?”
“Two coroner vans saw the red light at about the same time. Their monthly bonus is based on the number of bodies they collect, so they were fighting over Mrs. Haddad.”
“They’re lucky I fell asleep. How could anyone be so ghoulish? She was a human being who died a horrible death. Her remains deserved honor and respect.”
“Can I give you some advice, Jocie? I know you only knew Mrs. Haddad for a couple of hours, but it’s not smart to get close to people here in The Zone. I left last night, as she died, because I couldn’t watch it again. I’ve seen it too many times.”
“Are you going to do the same thing, as each of your friends die?” I ask. “You’d let them die alone? And what about you? Do you want to die alone?”
“I’d rather die alone than make a friend watch. Luckily, I have a better plan.”
As he says it, Jake’s truck drives up. Every member of the group showed up. Some put on clean clothes, and did their best to wash the grime off their hands and faces. I appreciate the effort. This is the first time I’ve seen them in daylight and I realize that they are all showing signs of toxin exposure. They all bear open wounds from the cumulative genetic damage.
Like Mrs. Haddad, I see that they all have pieces of cloth. Some are tied around their heads or their arms, and some are just sticking out of pockets.
We all walk to my new apartment and I ask them to sit on the ground outside the door. Behind them, I see two girls emerge from an apartment. They say something into the door and many more heads emerge. They, too, all have the same pieces of cloth somewhere on their bodies.
“How many of you are Christian?” I ask.
Three hands go up, one of which is J.W.’s.
“How many of you are Jewish?”
Two hands go up. Once again, one of them is J.W.’s”
“What about Muslim?”
Two hands.
“What about no religion?”
The last two hands.
“I can’t pretend to know much about the Jewish or Islamic faiths,” I say. “I will say that I’m glad to see that so many different types of believers have chosen to be friends. Maybe it’s because of the one thing you all have in common: death. You all carry the gene. The fact that you’re here tells me that you all have something else in common, too. You all have love and hope inside you. As a Christian, I call that love and hope ‘the Holy Spirit.’ I’m not going to promise that the Holy Spirit will save any of your lives here on earth, but I hope you’ll all consider that the Holy Spirit can do something much greater. He can save your soul.”
As I’ve been speaking, a dozen young men have been walking up the street towards us. The girls all scurry back into the apartment.
They’re led by a big man who has a cloth tied around his neck, and many more toxin wounds than the rest. Although it’s a cool morning, he’s sweating heavily. He probably has only days left to live.
“I wouldn’t have believed it, if I hadn’t seen it for myself,” the big guys says. “The Masonville guys are begging God to save them.”
The members of my little congregation jump to their feet and reach for weapons.
“Get lost, Slash,” J.W. says.
“Why don’t you join us?” I say. “The Lord has enough love for all of you, too.”
‘Slash’ spits on the ground.
“That’s what I think of your Lord,” he says.
“I can understand why you think the world is full of nothing but hate,” I say. “You came here for a fight. What if I told you that His love is stronger than your hate, even in a street fight?”
He spits on the ground again.
“Here’s the deal,” I say. “The strongest fighter in my group will take on the best three fighters in your group. If you win, the Masonville territory is yours, and these guys will act as your servants for a month. If Masonville wins, you come and listen to me talk every day for a week.”
“Three against one?” he says. “With or without weapons?”
“You get weapons, we don’t …” I reply. “… but if you drop one, it’s fair game for anyone to use.”
His jaw drops.
“You’re going to be my servant around the clock, J.W.,” Slash says.
The group backs off a few steps to decide which three of them will be fighting.
“It’s going to be me, Wings, and Babe,” Slash announces when they return. “I don’t know who this girl is, J.W., but her mouth is going to put you into a world of pain.”
“I’m not fighting,” J.W. says. “She is.”
Slash watches me, as I walk past my “congregation.” There are several light posts and a small boulder, but otherwise the area is clear. The three of them walk towards me, shoulder-to-shoulder.
Dad once asked why the world seemed to be constantly putting weapons into his hands. I’m starting to understand what he was talking about.
As I assess their weapons, their nicknames make perfect sense to me. Slash is holding a short knife; Wings has a half-meter section of chain that he’s spinning like the blades on a drone; and Babe is holding a wooden bat.
Babe decides to step up first.
“Hit a homerun for us, Babe,” one of the guys in the gallery yells.
“Did you go to church as a child, Babe?” I ask.
“My parents took me sometimes,” he says, then takes a few practice swings.
“I don’t know what sort of church you went to …” I say, “…but my Lord is the prince of peace. So, I’m pretty sure attacking me with a bat wasn’t part of their teachings.”
“Religion is dead,” he says. “It committed suicide when it decided to drop bombs. Islam and Judaism are dead. Christianity is dead. We’re all dead.”
“My Lord is very much alive,” I say. “He will protect me from your bat.”
He runs forward and takes a hard swing at my head, which I duck under.
“Don’t hurt me,” I shriek in a little girl voice, then run.
The rival gang all starts to laugh. J.W.’s group stands with their mouths open, but J.W. is smiling.
I reach the closest light post, with Babe on my heels, and use it to swing around and kick him in the chest with both feet. He staggers back, but doesn’t fall. The laughing and jaw-dropping switches groups.
“God loves you, Babe,” I say, as I kick his wrist to make him drop the bat.
His eyes go to his bat.
“Leave the bat, Babe. You think it’s your source of power, but it’s not. You think it gave you your name, but it didn’t. The Lord protected me from that bat. If you want true power, let it go and join Him.”
He lunges for the bat, but I kick it away from him and watch him fall into the dust. I pick up the bat and toss it to J.W.
“I need my bat!”
“It’s mine now,” I say. “You can have it back, when you’re ready to write your real name on it - the name that God gave to you. Now go sit down.”
In the background, the girls are appearing again.
Wings decides to step up next. He swings the chain over his head, where it makes an impressive whirring sound, but will force his attacks to be slow and choppy to ensure he doesn’t hit himself in the head in the process.
“The Lord loves you, Wings,” I say. “He wants you to know Him.”
The spinning of his chain slowed by a few revolutions per minute when I spoke.
He advances and takes a few exploratory swings at me. It’s easy to jump back. With each attack, the chain loses most of its momentum, causing a lag as he gets it back up to full speed.
“You went to church as a child,” I say. “You remember singing the songs. You remember how happy and peaceful you felt. Swinging that chain doesn’t make you feel peaceful.”
I begin to slowly sing an ancient song that Mom taught me called “Jesus Loves Me.” It should be well-known here in 2039.
“Jesus loves me, this I know …”
As I sing, I back towards the light post on my left. He’s sees what I’m doing, and smiles. He knows his chain will be less effective if I put the post between us, so he runs to beat me to it. To run, he stops spinning the chain over his head and spins it vertically on his right side. He realizes to late that my move was a fake, made to open his left side up to attack just as I reach “They are weak, but He is strong” and connect a kick to his left knee.
“Yes, Jesus loves me!” I sing at the top of my lungs.
He starts the chain spinning over his head again, and has it up to full speed as I finish the refrain and start the next verse as I back towards the boulder.
“Jesus loves me, this I know …”
I jump onto the boulder as he makes his next attack, and then use the height advantage to jump over the chain. He was so sure the chain would connect that he’s thrown off balance. He has no choice but to release the chain or it will come around and hit him in the back.
“Taking children on His knee…” I sing, as I plant my knee into his stomach and then into his face as he doubles over. Using a knee at that line in the song was a touch obvious, but gets a good laugh out of the Masonville guys.
I casually pick up the chain and start spinning it over my head. Wings runs to the light post as I return to the refrain. I spin the chain as fast as I can and hit the post, breaking the chain in half.
“This is nothing, Wings. The Lord can break the chains that are binding your soul. Now, go sit with Babe.”
I turn to face Slash.
“You can’t get into my head with your religion talk,” he says. “I never went to church.”
“Me either,” I say. “It’s never been a question of walking into a box with a cross on top of it. It’s a question of what’s in your heart.”
He points his knife at me and takes a fighting stance, but it looks half-hearted.
“Have you looked in a mirror, Slash? You’re sweating, and you have a lot of open sores. Don’t spend your last days filled with anger.”
“Yeah … me and three million other Americans, and a billion others around the world. We’re all angry. Who wouldn’t be?”
Even after three years, they still don’t understand how bad it’s going to get. Twelve million Americans, and over three billion worldwide, are going to die from the toxin before it’s over.
“Anyone would be angry,” I say. “It’s easy to be angry when we have no control. What we have a hard time understanding is that we’ve never been in control.”
He takes a weak swing at me with the knife.
I could disarm him. I could hit him three times before he felt the first one.
“You should save your breath, Ginger. I’ve seen people like you come into The Zone before and preach about love and forgiveness. What do you know about us? What do you know about what it’s like to be dying, when you’re standing there with your perfect skin?”
“I know a lot more than you think, Slash.”
I leave my fighting stance and roll up my sleeve, revealing a small, open wound.
“I have the gene.”
I wish it was another synthetic scar, oozing polymer, but it’s very real.