When I was seven years old, our entire family went on a summer vacation at a wonderful old hotel on a lake in Maine. All of my aunts, uncles, and cousins were there, as well as lots of other children. The kids would play all day, but Mom and Dad and most of the other adults spent the whole day inside a big room in the hotel, talking.
On the second day, I wanted to show Mom and Dad a cross that I had woven out of the long grass that grew near the lake; so I snuck away from the other kids, and into the hotel. The door to the big room was closed, but I could hear people arguing on the other side. They were talking about how there were not enough washed samples to give to everyone who wanted to have a baby. They couldn’t seem to agree on what to do about it.
One man, with a mean voice, wanted to stop giving any samples at all because he wanted to keep The Washed pure. Other voices wanted the opposite, to increase the samples so there’d be as many washed children as possible. Everyone seemed most concerned about the safety of their children, and how kidnapping of The Washed was on the rise.
That evening, I went for a walk with Mom and Dad while Austin played with our cousins inside the hotel. We heard some shouting on the other side of a big hedge, and Mom and Dad stopped to see what was happening. Soon we could hear what sounded like someone being beaten up. They didn’t want to leave me by myself; so we all crawled under the hedge at a spot where it didn’t quite reach the ground.
Five men were standing around a man who was on the ground, moaning. They were taking turns kicking him and calling him names because he was marked.
“Stay right here,” Dad said to me.
“That’s enough,” Dad said, to the men.
One man kept kicking, and Dad kicked him in the back of the knee, which sent him sprawling. He sprung back up and the five washed men assessed their situation. They seemed to know what I already knew: that the five of them were no match for Mom and Dad. Three more washed men came running along the hedge. From the look on everyone’s face, I knew that Mom and Dad’s odds were not improving. Nobody was watching me, so I slowly slipped a com into my ear and whispered “call Aunt Cindi.”
“What’s happening here?” one of the newcomers asked.
It was the man with the mean voice that I’d heard earlier.
“We caught this guy spying on washed children through the hedge,” the man Dad had knocked down said. “The animal was probably planning to grab one of them.”
“Now do you understand what I’ve been trying to tell you, Cephas?” the mean-voiced man asked. “The Washed are vastly outnumbered. Even here, we’re being stalked. How long will it be before we’re all hunted down and used like breeding stock? Where will it end, if we don’t do something?”
“We found your guys kicking a helpless man, Tyrone. Where will that end?”
Daddy knows something.
“It’s not your concern, Cephas. We’ll take our prisoner now.”
Mom and Dad shifted to fighting positions.
“You would fight your own kind to protect this marked animal?”
“You and I are not of the same kind, Tyrone.”
Uncle Cameron and Aunt Cindi burst through the bushes. Uncle Cameron started laughing when he saw the eight men.
“Jocie called us,” he said. “We thought you were in danger.”
He turned to Tyrone.
“Next time, bring at least ten more.”
We helped the marked man to a hover bus and watched until it was gone.
“Daddy? Were they right that the marked man was here to take children?”
“I don’t know.”
“What if he was? We helped him to escape.”
“Maybe so, but Jesus didn’t teach us to only protect the weak and helpless people we like.”
******
We’re praying in a large circle, when a young member of a gang from the south end of The Zone runs up. He looks scared to be here.
“I don’t want trouble,” he says. “I’m looking for Jocie.”
A member of the circle named Christopher jumps up and runs to his apartment. He returns a minute later with food and water for the young man.
“There’s no trouble here, friend,” Christopher says. “Rest and pray with us.”
The young man turns to me.
“Jocie? It’s Mrs. Wilkes. She’s asking for you. It won’t be long.”
“Jocie’s tired,” Timothy says, and stands. “I’ve got this one.”
He takes a step away from the circle, then looks back at Slash’s body. I turned off the red light; so it still hasn’t been collected.
“Slash traded some food for an old bible,” Timothy says. “He was reading it day and night. Do you think he’d mind if I took it with me to pray with Mrs. Wilkes?”
“I think he’d be proud,” I say.
******
Over the next two days, I have one or more prayer partners with me wherever I go, taking my place when I need rest. Someone starts a list of the people who are showing the worst toxin symptoms and organizes “prayer patrols” to ensure that nobody will suffer or die alone.
I’m nearing my apartment to get a few hours of rest, when I notice that one of the girls who watched me on my first day here is sitting outside of it. I approach slowly.
“Hello,” I say. “I’m Jocie.”
I sit in the dirt with her.
“Everyone in The Zone knows who you are,” she replies. “My name is Hannah.”
So this is Hannah. The note from the tiny time machine said that Hannah is the key. I wonder why I need her.
“Hannah is also my grandmother’s name,” I say. “It means merciful.”
Her eyes finally meet mine, and I see that they’re the same icy blue color as mine. As I look deeper, I can’t help but smile, because it’s clear that she’s not beaten down and broken like everyone else I’ve met in The Zone. She’s definitely full of life.
“You’re not afraid of me,” I say.
“I was at first. We moved here because J.W.’s gang was the best of the bunch. He wouldn’t let them go wild and rape anyone. When we saw you, we thought he’d changed his mind. Guys sometimes change when they’re close to the end, like he is. Then we saw what you did to Slash, Wings, and Babe, and we knew that nobody was controlling you.”
I look her over carefully.
“You don’t have the gene, Hannah. Why do you live here?”
She’s startled by my observation and looks around to be sure nobody heard me.
“Nobody knows. I came here with my family and they all died, but I was adopted. I don’t have any other family, so where would I go?”
“Somewhere happier?”
She’s silent for a long time.
“I heard about what happened when Slash died,” she says. “I heard about what you did and said.
The other girls and I have been talking, and we want to help you too. We want to be a part of it.”
“We go everywhere in The Zone,” I say. “What about the rape gangs?”
“Timothy’s bat took care of that,” J.W. says, from the front of his apartment.
He looks awful, but Hannah blushes slightly as he approaches.
“This morning, he was in Stonehouse turf on a prayer patrol, when he caught five of their guys who had cornered a girl. He told them that the girl was under the Lord’s protection and then he stared them down.”
“I heard that he gave them a choice of facing his bat or facing Jocie,” Hannah says, and giggles.
“Choose the bat,” J.W. whispers, and Hannah giggles again.
Now it’s J.W. who’s blushing slightly.
“I really need to get some sleep …” I say, “…but you two keep on talking.”
When I wake up, several hours later, I find them sitting in J.W.’s apartment, with the door wide open, still talking.
“It’s J.W.’s turn to rest,” Hannah says, when she sees me.
“Good idea,” I say. “Let’s go talk to the other girls who live in your apartment.”
We close the doors as J.W. lies down. Hannah lets out a long sigh.
“Why do so many good people need to die?” she asks. “He’s the kindest person I’ve met here in The Zone. I think you’re right, Jocie. I think I should leave.”
I notice a large black coroner’s van parked near the apartment where Hannah lives with at least a dozen other girls.
“What are they doing here?” she asks. “Nobody in our group is even close to death, and the red light isn’t on.”
The coroners are three young men. Two are pounding on the door and another has climbed onto the roof.
“Open up for a safety inspection,” the oldest-looking one is yelling at the door.
“Since when do you do anything other than pick up bodies,” Hannah asks.
“Since we said so,” he replies. “But now that you two are here, we’re going to do a safety inspection in the van, instead.”
“These two don’t look sick at all,” the one on the roof says, as he starts to climb down. “I could see us coming back here for a lot of safety inspections.”
Apartment doors are opening and people are looking out.
“Yeah, we have a new therapy right here in the van,” the shortest one says.
“The only thing that’s going to happen in that van is that you’re going to drive away in it,” I say. “You try anything more than that with me or any of the girls in this apartment, and they’ll be sending a coroner for you.”
“Apartments?” he asks. “Stop acting so high and mighty and call them what they are - coffins.”
“High and mighty? You think asking for normal human decency and respect makes me high and mighty?”
I should hang my head in shame. He’s treating me like I’ve treated The Marked in my own time.
“Humans? You people are barely that anymore … but if you want to feel human for a few hours, how about if we take you two back to my place for a while. You’d need a shower to get the stink of this place off before I’d let you sit on the furniture though.”
They all laugh.
“C’mon, Ralph,” the one who was on the roof, says. “Let’s stuff these two into the van and go somewhere quiet.”
Most of the neighborhood is now watching and listening. They’ve clearly see coroners force “safety inspections” on the women of the zone before.
“You’re supposed to be here to help us,” I say.
“Help you?” Ralph asks. “There is no helping you. You’re all dead; so you might as well have a little fun with us before you go. Now get in the van.”
He takes a step towards me.
“I wouldn’t do that,” Hannah says, and Ralph laughs.
“This isn’t your first time attacking women in The Zone,” I say. “But it may be your last.”
In what seems like just ten seconds later, all three are on the ground. There are two bloody noses, a sore jaw, bruised abdomens and maybe a cracked rib. There is also applause from the residents of The Zone.
“Answer one question, and the bruising stops,” I say. “Has anyone ever survived the toxin?”
“I’ve heard rumors about a case in England and another somewhere in Asia,” Ralph says, “but I think people say it just to give hope to the hopeless. You’re getting more toxin with every breath. It’ll get you all, eventually.”
“Mark my words,” I say. “There will be a survivor, and it’s going to happen right here in the Baltimore Zone.”
A murmur goes through the crowd.
“It’ll take a miracle,” Ralph says.
“Yes,” I say with a smile. “Yes, it will.”
******
“Why did you do it?” J.W. asks me, that evening. “Spreading false hope is even worse than having no hope at all.”
He’s so weak; he can barely sit up in a chair.
“I did it because I believe in miracles,” I say. “There will be a survivor in The Zone. He’s going to suffer greatly, but his survival will bring hope to this place and all the other zones.”
“You mean me, don’t you?”
“Of course I mean you. I’ve been watching your symptoms and they definitely progress slower than anyone else’s. All the scars you have are proof of just how much toxin you’ve inhaled, yet here you are - still alive.”
“All that proves is that I’m going to have a slower death, just like the doctors said I would.”
“Then maybe it’s time for you to believe in miracles.”
“It’s impossible, Jocie.”
“Impossible? You mean impossible, like parting the Red Sea? Or impossible, like bringing Lazarus back to life? Is that the sort of impossible you’re talking about?”
Hannah knocks on the door, then sticks her head in.
“J.W. should be sleeping,” she says.
As I close the door behind me, I see J.W. reach for the hollowed-out book that contains vials of toxin and the magnifying glasses that will allow him to pick more off his air filter.
“I’m glad you’re here, Jocie,” Hannah says. “I don’t want to go through watching him die all by myself.”
“Do you believe in love at first sight, Hannah?”
She seems startled by the change of subject.
“Why would you ask that?”
“My family has a long-standing habit of experiencing love at first sight, even if they don’t always recognize it until later. My parents actually beat each other up and Mom twice held Dad at knifepoint before they both came to the realization that they had been in love all along.”
“That’s not an easy way to start a relationship,” she replies.
“Maybe not, but now they’ll stand back-to-back with knives pointing outward, ready to face anything. They’ve proven that they would sacrifice anything, including their lives, for each other.”
“Do you remember when I said I’m not afraid of you?” she asks. “I’m getting ready to take it back.”
I stop walking and face her.
“I’m going to ask you to do something that I have no right to ask, and it’s going to take the sort of commitment to a person that I just described, because I think you fell in love with J.W. at first sight - and I think he did the same.”
“You want me to be there all the way through watching him die.”
“No. It’s going to be much harder than that. You’re going to be there all the way through watching him live. With your help, J.W. will be the miracle of The Zone.
The look on her face instantly brightens.
“I’ll do it! Anything you say, I’ll do!”
“Hannah, I need you to understand something that I’ve only recently come to understand. It’s hard to explain, but here goes. My parents were once forced to watch a man as he was being tortured to death. They were powerless to stop it, just like we’re going to be powerless to stop what happens to J.W. There was a point during the torture where Dad said he wanted to end it himself, where he would have thought of it as an act of supreme mercy and love to drive a knife through the man’s heart and end the torture.”
“If you’re suggesting I’ll be tempted to kill J.W.…”
“No, I’m suggesting that the only thing J.W. will find more painful than the toxin will be watching you being tortured by the experience. I think he’ll be tempted to drive a knife through his own heart, just to end your suffering.”
“So you want me to plaster a smile on my face?”
“He’d see through that, and even if I thought you could pull it off, I wouldn’t ask you to do that. There’s nothing wrong with suffering together. As long as he can always see that fire of grace and hope in your eyes, he’ll keep fighting along with you.”
We walk in silence for a while.
“Jocie? The man your parents watched being tortured … did he live?”
“He did more than just live. Much, much more.”