Brittney hesitated. “Why, Tanner?”
He gave no answer.
“Are we doing the Lord’s will, Tanner?”
Tanner did not answer.
“I am doing what’s right. Aren’t I?”
“Go toward the flames, sister. All your answers are there.”
Brittney lowered her arm to her side. It seemed strange, somehow. All of it. All of it so very strange.
She had burrowed up through the wet dirt. How long? Forever and ever. She had burrowed like a mole. Blind. Like a mole. No. Like an earthworm.
Tanner began chanting in a singsong voice. An eerie poem that Brittney remembered from so very long ago. A class assignment, a thing memorized and quickly forgotten.
But it was still buried in her memory. And now it came from Tanner’s mouth, his dead mouth gaping with black-edge fire dribbling like magma.
But see, amid the mimic rout
A crawling shape intrude!
A blood-red thing that writhes from out
The scenic solitude!
It writhes!—it writhes!—with mortal pangs
The mimes become its food,
And seraphs sob at vermin fangs…
Tanner smiled a ghastly smile and said, “In human gore imbued.”
“Why are you saying that? You’re scaring me, Tanner.”
“Not for long, sister,” Tanner said. Soon you will understand the Lord’s will.”
Justin woke suddenly. He immediately rolled to one side and felt the spot where he’d been sleeping. Dry!
See? He’d been right all along. He didn’t wet this bed.
But just to be safe he should run out to the backyard and pee because he could feel a little pressure. He was wearing his same old pajamas; they’d been in his same old drawer. They were so soft because they were still from the old days. His mommy had washed these pajamas and made them all soft.
The floor was cold under his bare feet. He hadn’t been able to find his old slippers. Roger had even helped him look. The Artful Roger was nice. The only new thing in this room was a picture Roger had colored for him. It showed a happy Justin with his mommy and daddy and a ham with sweet potatoes and cookies. It was taped on Justin’s wall.
Roger had also found the picture album for him. It was downstairs in the cupboard in the dining room. It was full of pictures of Justin and his family and his old friends.
Now it was under Justin’s bed. It made him feel pretty sad looking at it.
Justin crept down the stairs so he wouldn’t wake up Roger.
The old toilets didn’t work anymore. People all peed and did number two in holes in their backyards. No big deal. But it was scary going out at night. Justin was scared the coyotes would come back.
It was easier than usual to find the hole. It was kind of light out, a flickery orange light.
And it wasn’t quiet like it usually was. He could hear kids yelling. And it sounded like someone dropped a glass and broke it. And then he heard someone screaming, so he ran back in the house.
He stopped, amazed. The living room was burning.
He could feel the heat. Smoke was pouring out of the living room, swooping up the stairs.
Justin didn’t know what to do. He remembered he was supposed to stop, drop, and roll if he ever caught on fire. But he wasn’t on fire—the house was.
“Call 911,” he said aloud. But that probably wouldn’t work. Nothing worked anymore.
Suddenly a loud beeping noise. Really loud. It was upstairs. Justin covered his ears but he could still hear it.
“Justin!” It was Roger yelling from upstairs.
Then he appeared at the top of the stairs. He was choking from the smoke.
“I’m down here!” Justin yelled.
“Hang on, I’m—” Roger started coughing then. He tripped and went falling down the stairs. He fell all the way on his face. Roger hit the bottom and stopped.
Justin waited for him to get up.
“Roger. Wake up. There’s a fire!” Justin said.
The fire was coming out of the living room now. It was like it was eating the carpet and the walls. It was so hot. Hotter than an oven.
Justin started choking from the smoke. He wanted to run away.
“Roger, wake up! Wake up!”
Justin ran to Roger and tugged on his shirt. “Wake up!”
He couldn’t move Roger, and Roger did not wake up. Roger made a moaning sound and kind of moved, but then he fell back asleep.
Justin pulled and pulled and cried and the fire must have seen him there crying and pulling because the fire was coming to get him.
TWENTY-THREE
14 HOURS, 7 MINUTES
TAYLOR WAS STARTING to worry by the time she popped into the hallway outside Lana’s Clifftop home.
She would never bounce straight into Lana’s room. Everyone knew that Lana had been through an unspeakable hell. And no one believed she was totally over it.
But more than concern for Lana’s possible delicacy was deep respect and affection for her. There were far too many kids buried in the plaza. But without Lana the number would have been four or five times as high.
Taylor knocked and earned an instant barrage of loud barks from Patrick.
“It’s me, Taylor,” she called through the door.
A voice that betrayed no sleepiness said, “Come in.”
Taylor bounced in, ignoring the door.
Lana was on the balcony, back turned to her.
“I’m awake,” Lana said unnecessarily. “There’s some trouble.”
“You know about it?”
“I can see it,” Lana said.