Contents ( 64)
- PART ONE
- ONE
- TWO
- INTERLUDE
- THREE
- FOUR
- INTERLUDE
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- INTERLUDE
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- INTERLUDE
- TWELVE
- PART TWO
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- INTERLUDE
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- INTERLUDE
- TWENTY
- INTERLUDE
- TWENTY-ONE
- INTERLUDE
- TWENTY-TWO
- INTERLUDE
- TWENTY-THREE
- PART THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- INTERLUDE
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- INTERLUDE
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- INTERLUDE
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- INTERLUDE
- THIRTY-ONE
- INTERLUDE
- THIRTY-TWO
- INTERLUDE
- THIRTY-THREE
- INTERLUDE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- INTERLUDE
- FORTY-ONE
- About the Author
- Acknowledgments
- CHUCK WENDIG in conversation with Adam Christopher
"With the case, I presume."
"Dat case is vuckin' heaby."
"The girl escaped. She stabbed me in the leg with this… flea market knife."
"Gahdabbit."
"I'm calling Ingersoll. He's going to want to come here. He'll want to attend to this personally."
"Gahdabbit!"
"Let's go before the police arrive."
INTERLUDE
The Dream
She knows it's just a dream. It doesn't make it any better. Or easier.
Louis hangs on a dead oak tree like Jesus on the cross. He's illuminated by a single shaft of moonlight: God's own spotlight on the stage. His outstretched arms play host to a row of crows and blackbirds. One blackbird – a little one with a dab of red at the fore of its wing, like a drop of blood – hops over and clings to his collarbone. It pecks at the electrical tape pressed over his left eye.
Miriam stands at his feet looking up. She falls to her knees. She doesn't mean to; it's what the dream demands she do. It's like she's lost control. No autonomy at all.
"I die for your sins," Louis says. In between the words is a throaty chuckle.
"You're not dead yet," she protests.
He ignores her comment.
"The cross. The crux. The horizontal line is the line of man. It's the temporal world, the world of matter and flesh and dirt. Mud, blood, stone, and bone. The vertical line is the divine line. The ascendant. It runs perpendicular to the world of man and is the axis of the otherworldly and unknowable."
"That's super. I want to wake up now."
"In a minute. I'm not done talking to you, little lady. The cross is also representative of the crossroads. A juncture of choice. Decisions, decisions. It's time for you to start making some choices, Miriam. It's time to rock out with your cock out. It's time to jam out with your clam out."
Louis grins. Earthworms play between his rotten teeth.
"Now I know you're just a manifestation of my own voice," she says, almost laughing. "No divine figure, no future ghost, would use the phrase 'jam out with your clam out.'"
Even crucified, Louis manages to shrug. "If you say so. Then how do I know so much about crosses? Did you take a comparative religion course that I missed?"
"Go to hell."
"Decisions, decisions, Miriam."
"I have no decisions. I'm fate's hand-puppet."
"Remember. The cross – the crux, the crossroads – is about sacrifice. Jesus stands at the crossroads, and he chooses not the horizontal line of man but the vertical line of God."
"This is fascinating, but–"
The blackbirds and crows take flight. They screech and holler. Wings flap; all she can see is dark shadows fluttering. Talons claw at her eyes, tearing them out –
TWENTY-THREE
What Fate Wants
It's one of those mornings. Sky's just a Vaseline smear of formless clouds – a bright, greasy layer of gray. Doesn't look like rain. Doesn't look like sun. Doesn't look like much at all.