Lies

“I bet that was tuna,” a boy said.

“I don’t know what it was, but it was good. I wouldn’t mind eating another few slices of that.”

“Hey, we have plenty of octopus,” someone joked. Octopi weren’t something you had to catch; they sort of caught themselves, a lot of the time. And no one liked them very much. But everyone had eaten them on more than one occasion.

“Octopus this,” someone said, accompanying it with a rude gesture.

Qui

Sam’s plan had originally been to follow the barrier all the way. Foot by foot, over water and land, looking for an escape hatch.

That had not quite happened. Other events had intervened.

“You know what we should have done?” Qui

Big Goof said, “Explore what? You mean, looking for fish?”

Qui

Big Goof considered it carefully. He was not the sharpest pencil in the box; strong and sweet, but not very curious. “That’s a long row.”

“Yeah, it would be,” Qui

He pulled the visor of his floppy hat low and considered taking just a brief snooze. But no, that wouldn’t do. He was in charge. For the first time in his life, Qui

“There are islands up there,” Katrina said.

“Yep.” Qui

FIFTEEN

29 HOURS, 51 MINUTES

BRIANNA TOOK BRITTNEY in, as Sam asked. She gave her a room.

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

Bria

Jack was also at Bria

Sam had also asked Bria

“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?” Bria

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

Bria

Well…

“So, Brittney, how are you?” Bria

Brittney was still in the room where Bria

Did zombies sleep?

Brittney sat up in the bed. Bria

“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 Bria

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.” Bria

The mud came off.

But Brittney’s skin did not come clean.

Bria

Bria

Bria

“Okay,” Bria

“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. Ta

Bria

“Give me your hand,” Brittney said.

Bria

Bria

“Do you feel it?”

“Feel what?” Bria

“The quiet. I have no heartbeat.”

Bria

No heartbeat.

“I don’t breathe, either,” Brittney said.

“No?” Bria

“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?” Bria

“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, Bria

“That’s good,” Bria

“The end is coming, Bria

“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,” Bria