I knew he was trying to convince himself of this more than me. But at the same time, I
“Just hold me, baby. Hold me tight.”
He hugged me then and we sat there in the middle of the barn, slowly rocking back and forth as our tears moistened one another’s shoulders. How long we sat like that, I don’t know; but eventually tears turned to sniffles and then then to a silence so complete that I could almost hear the sound of his heart breaking.
“You keep going.” I finally said. “You find that church and whatever it was you were looking for there, you hear me?”
“No, I’m not going anywhere. I’m not leaving you, Josie.”
I reached up and managed to stroke the side of his face this time, my fingertips trailing over the lines so gently I could feel the peach fuzz on his cheekbones.
“You promise me, Carl. If you love me, then promise me this. Find what you were looking for, baby.”
“No, I…. ”
“Carl, promise me.”
He was starting to cry again and he bit his bottom lip as he squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head back and forth.
“Promise me, baby.”
“Okay,” he finally blurted. “I promise. If that’s what you want, then I promise.”
I managed a slight smile and tried to ignore the way the pain seemed to be creeping up my leg. It was all too easy to imagine the infection surging through my veins, poisoning healthy cells as it slowly made its way toward my brain.
“Good. Now sit with me a while, okay? Sit with me and, when the time comes, don’t let me turn into one of them. Don’t let me do this to someone else, okay?”
His lips were thin and taut, his teeth clenched together so tightly that tears were squeezed from his shut eyes like water from a sponge. But he curled up beside me anyway, pressing his body against mine so closely that I could feel his heart beating within his chest. He slung one arm across my waist and buried his face into my hair as he kissed my scalp and I was reminded of an old married couple bedding down for the night.
We stayed like that up until the very end. Up until I could feel the last of my life channeling its way up through my body, ready to escape into the ether with that final breath. And, just before that moment, I saw a beautiful light radiating from everything around me: a light that was as soft and gentle as a butterfly kiss; a light that warmed my spirit and assured me that, somehow, everything really would be alright.
Everything was so clear.
Everything was so beautiful.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: THE CHILD
I don’t really remember a whole lot about all the time Mr. Carl and me were in the church. I think we were there a long, long time but after a while it’s like my memories just turned off or something. I remember thinkin’ about shootin’ him with his own gun; I remember him readin’ Bible stories, only he read them in a voice that made ’em sound kind of creepy, like they were bein’ told by a demon or an old, old, old man. But after that it’s like there’s this dark spot in my mind and no matter how hard I try to look into it, I can’t see nothin’.
Except for bein’ sick. I remember that real good. I remember how the inside of my belly felt like it was hot and cold all at the same time and I kept tastin’ throw-up in my mouth only I never did really puke. And then it started feelin’ like my muscles were turning to stone or something cause they got really hard and it hurt so much just to move a finger or blink an eye.
Mr. Carl was somewhere close by and his voice sounded super loud and made my ears hurt every time he’d talk. He kept sayin’ over and over that it was all his fault, that he shoulda been better prepared, and that he shoulda never left me all by myself. It kinda sounded like he was angry and crying all at once and I wasn’t really sure if he was talkin’ to me or if there was someone else there with us.
I tried to ask if I could have some water cause my throat and lips was burnin’ really bad, kinda like that time I snuck a drink outta Uncle Bobby’s special bottle and got in all that trouble. Only when I spoke, my words didn’t sound right which was really scary. It was like I could hear them in my head and knew what I was tryin’ to say but when they came outta my mouth the sounds were all wrong and didn’t make any sense at all.
So I concentrated real hard on the words and tried asking again, but this time it was even worse and I don’t think I was actually sayin’ anything at all… unless it was in some language I didn’t understand.
By this time I’d got this really bad headache that felt like somethin’ was inside my brain and beating on it with a hammer. I wanted to scream ’cause it hurt so bad only my throat felt like it was gettin’ smaller and smaller and it was hard enough just to breathe so it was like that scream was just stuck somewhere in my body and couldn’t get out.
Since I couldn’t scream, I tried kickin’ my legs but that made it feel like my muscles were bein’ ripped in two so I just ended curling up into this little ball and holdin’ my stomach, hopin’ that the pain would go away.
Mr. Carl was still talkin’ but his words were all messed up now, too but I knew he’d started throwin’ stuff at the wall cause I could hear the crashes as he broke stuff.
And then I really did start throwin’ up and it seemed like once I started I couldn’t stop. It was comin’ outta my mouth and my nose and stung really bad and I wanted to lift my head but couldn’t do it. So I laid there with all this puke around me and every time I would stop throwin’ up for a second I would open my eyes cause it hurt to keep them squeezed shut so tight.
My throw up looked kinda like foamy water only there was these bright red streaks in it and the more I vomited the redder the puke got and it was all thick and sticky.
By this time, I couldn’t hardly move at all. I tried to see if maybe I could crawl backward so my head wouldn’t be laying in all that throw up, but my legs didn’t wanna listen to my brain and when I tried to use my arms the only thing I could do was wiggle the ends of my fingers. And even that hurt so bad that I just stopped tryin’.
Mr. Carl was kneelin’ beside me and he kept makin’ the same set of noises again and again and then he started shakin’ me. I tried to look at him t’ see if he was finally gettin’ ready to kill me but it was like this real thick fog had somehow rolled into the church. I could see his hands comin’ outta the fog but everything else was like shadows and stuff.
And I started gettin’ really, really tired right about then. It was like all that throwin’ up had taken up all my energy and all I wanted was a nice, long nap. Mr. Carl put two of his fingers on my neck for a bit and it’s hard to describe how it felt. It’s like I knew his fingers were there only it seemed like everything was really far away. Like it wasn’t really my neck at all, but someone else’s.
But that didn’t even really matter. All I wanted was to just go to sleep. To just close my eyes and hope that maybe when I woke up I wouldn’t be sick and it wouldn’t hurt any more.
And I remember how the darkness kinda slowly closed in around me. How everything just felt farther and farther away the darker it got. Until finally, there wasn’t anything other than the dark.
Me and the blurry people are still in the woods and it’s started rainin’ on us only no one really seems to care. The rain is comin’ down really hard too and lightning keeps flashing every few seconds and the thunder booms so loud I can feel it in my feet. We keep walkin’ even though it’s all muddy and some of ’em keep falling down and tripping over old logs and stuff.
And I still got that feeling like I’m being pulled. Everyone else seems to be heading in one direction and part of me wants to follow them. But it’s like I don’t really have no control over my own actions and I start breakin’ off from the others and walkin’ toward the left.
The other people around me kinda stop for a second as they watch me start t’ walk away. A few of ’em even turn and start to follow me, like I’m the new leader or something. Once they start following, the others turn around and they begin walkin’ with me too. And I don’t think they can feel the pulling like I do; I think they didn’t really have nowhere in mind that they were going so my way was just as good as anything else.
We cross this big road and there’s all these wrecked cars all over the place only they look like maybe they
