End Times (10 page)

“I’m starving,” she said, turning back to him. “Let’s go get breakfast.”

• • •

THEY drove up the road to a restaurant they’d passed on the way in, a log cabin with a long lunch counter and a few small tables. From the wool hats and flannel shirts of the grizzled regulars sipping coffee and polishing off stacks of pancakes, Owen could tell it was a popular spot among the local loggers.

“Mmmm . . . fluffy blueberry pancakes, golden waffles with butter and strawberries and whipped cream, sausage links, cottage cheese and cantaloupe,” Luna read off the menu. “I just might get one of everything.”

“Yeah, well, try and control yourself,” Owen said. “I’ve only got fifty bucks to last me till the next race, and we need thirty for gas.”

“You worry too much,” Luna said as the waitress came by, pulling a pencil from a bun as frizzy as cotton candy. Luna waited until Owen had ordered his omelet, then asked for the Lumberjack Special with extra bacon, waffles, and hash browns, plus an extra-large orange juice and a side of fresh fruit. Owen found himself scanning the menu while she talked, trying to add up all of her extras. He realized with an unpleasant shiver that she’d just totaled close to eighteen dollars in food.

“You know we’re not going to have enough leftover for gas,” he hissed when the waitress was out of earshot.

Luna grinned. “I told you, don’t worry. I got this covered.”

“How?” Owen asked. Luna had told him that she’d worked for Ariel Crow in exchange for festival tickets and food.

“I have my ways.”

The waitress set down two mugs of coffee, and Luna busied herself pouring packet after packet of sugar into hers, leaving a pile of empty white wrappers on the table.

Owen took a quick sip, grimacing at the scalding heat on his tongue. It was strong and bitter, the way he liked it, and it helped clear his head. With the final cold fingers of his dream retreating and a new day shining bright and clear ahead of them, he was ready to stop letting Luna lead him around like a puppy on a leash, evading his questions whenever it felt like he was starting to learn something about his past. He was ready to get some answers.

“Do you remember Murdock?” he asked casually, propping his chin in his palm. He was taking a chance, he knew—it was a name he’d only read online, that the race organizer back in Olympia had mentioned in passing.

“Who?” Luna stopped mid-stir.

“You know, the leader,” Owen pressed. “Of the Children of the Earth.”

“Oh—you mean Galen. Murdock was his last name, but none of us called him that. We didn’t believe in last names. The only reason I know his was that it was in the papers later. My mom saved the clippings.”

“In the papers?” Owen asked. “For what?”

Luna shrugged, sending the thin strap of her tank dress slipping down one shoulder. “A couple of people who never should have been there in the first place filed a lawsuit, and he went to jail. I think the government was just trying to silence him, though. They couldn’t stand how he always spoke the truth.”

“What truth?” He was getting closer. He could feel it.

“That we’re raping the earth. That our endless quest for possessions and enlightenment will bring about the end of the world—and when that day comes, the God of the Earth will summon us, and we’ll all come together to rule a beautiful new world.”

“What do you mean,
us
? Are there others?”

But even as he said it, Owen knew. They were the shadowy figures dancing around the bonfire in his dreams, the faceless ciphers with the green eyes.

“Thirteen of us.” Luna raised the mug to her mouth, and steam swirled dreamily around her face. “We were all conceived on the same night, in a magical ritual on the summer solstice under the full moon. We had a festival to celebrate it every year when I was growing up on the commune.”

“All conceived on the same night? How?”

Luna smiled mysteriously. “I don’t know all the details. Only that it marked us forever.”

A sick feeling began to brew in Owen’s stomach. “Was everyone there?” he asked as the waitress staggered back to them under the weight of a tray piled high with food. “All the Children of the Earth? The night we were . . . conceived?”

Luna licked her lips as the waitress set plate after plate in front of her. She grabbed the pitcher of syrup and poured it generously over everything, even her toast.

“I think so,” she said. “Galen said they summoned the God of the Earth that night, and we were created by the power of community—and the earth—and magic.”

“It sounds like an orgy,” Owen said flatly. He pushed his omelet away, repulsed by the mounds of cheese vibrating gelatinously on top.

Luna crunched loudly on a piece of bacon, continuing to talk around it. “It was a ritual. It was sacred. This is where we come from, Earth Brother, like it or not.”

“What do you mean, ‘Earth Brother’?” Owen felt ickier by the second. “Are we related?”

She shrugged. “We were conceived in the same ritual, on the same night, by the same group of people, and we have the same eyes. Call it whatever you want, Earth Brother, but we’re here for the same reason.”

He sat back and put his head in his hands. “So my real father could be anyone,” he said to the rutted wooden tabletop. “Yours, too. It could be the same guy, or someone totally different. And I’ll never know.”

He felt an old dream from his childhood slip away, the dream of someday finding his biological father, of looking up into a face that he could finally, honestly call “Dad.” It was yet another thing he’d learned to stop asking his mom about, knowing that it made the softness in her face go hard.

There was a touch like feathers on his hand, and he looked up to find Luna’s fingertips on his knuckles. Her eyes were vernal pools basking under a spring sun.

“It’s okay,” she said, not unkindly. “It doesn’t matter. Don’t you see? The God of the Earth is our father. And once we carry out his plan, we’ll meet him face to face, and it’ll be more beautiful than any experience you can imagine.”

Owen shook his head disbelievingly. He had the same sad knot in his stomach as the Christmas Eve he’d snuck downstairs to catch Santa in the act, only to find his stepdad placing presents under the tree. The more Luna talked, the more it sounded like the Children of the Earth were just a bunch of dirty hippies making up excuses to do perverted things in the woods.

No wonder his mom had always refused to talk to him about the place he was born. She’d been young, and stupid, and probably on drugs. He suddenly regretted all the times he’d pestered her for answers: She was just trying to keep him from turning out like Luna. The strange, troubled girl across from him—his Earth Sister, or whatever—had grown up on the commune his mom had escaped, believing that their orgies were beautiful rituals and Galen Murdock’s hackneyed hippie dogma was the truth. She’d been duped.

Stop it!
a gravelly voice thundered.

Owen sat up straight, his heart pounding as his eyes darted around the restaurant. Everyone else was oblivious, the waitress trading gripes with the line cook while the lone lumberjack at the end of the bar quietly drank his coffee and Luna drowned a forkful of hash browns in ketchup.

“Did you hear that?” he asked.

“Hear what?” Luna cocked her head.

Blood slammed through his veins. There was no question that someone had spoken to him—or that it was the same deep and terrible voice from his dreams. But he was the only one who had heard it; it had almost sounded like it was coming from inside his head. He gulped down the dregs of his coffee, not caring that it was still hot enough to scald his throat, and wondered if he was going crazy for real.

“Nothing.” He looked down at his plate, trying to shake away the echo of the voice still vibrating in his mind. “So, any idea how we’re going to pay for this feast?”

“Leave it to me.” Luna winked, then slipped out of her seat and onto a stool at the end of the bar, next to the lumberjack. Owen watched as she tapped him on the shoulder and he turned to look at her, his gaze registering surprise and then something more opaque, a cross between curiosity and desire. Luna’s skimpy dress hung low on her chest as she said a few words in his ear, casting her eyes downward as scarlet blooms of embarrassment rose in her cheeks.

Owen stared, shaking his head. He’d known Luna for only a few days, but she’d told him the most bald-faced, shocking truths about herself—like how she’d lost her virginity at thirteen, about the older man she’d met at a show who sent her a hundred dollars each month in exchange for mailing him a pair of her used panties—without even the slightest hint of shame. But as she talked to the lumberjack, her whole face seemed to transform, from a self-possessed seductress with a banging body and a free-love vibe to a lost and innocent waif who’d gotten herself in over her head.

The lumberjack nodded, the desire in his eyes fading to pity—but not, Owen noticed, disappearing entirely. He placed a reassuring hand on Luna’s bare shoulder as she looked up at him gratefully, a single tear slipping chastely down her cheek. With his other hand, the lumberjack reached into his back pocket and extracted two twenties, folding both into Luna’s palm.

Luna’s face blossomed into a smile of gratitude. She planted a kiss on the lumberjack’s cheek, turning his cheeks pink with lust and pleasure before she flitted back to their table.

“See?” she said, tossing both twenties on top of the bill. “I told you I got this. Now stop doubting me, and let’s hit the road.”

TOWARD the end of a lazy June afternoon, Daphne borrowed Uncle Floyd’s truck and made a run to Elmer’s Gas ’n’ Grocery, promising to return with the jalapeño Doritos Janie had been craving. Golden light radiated off the cars on Buzzard Road, and Daphne felt loose and content after spending the better part of the day down by the swimhole, relaxing away the aches and blisters of her first week as a roustabout while Janie and Hilary giggled over Janie’s gossip magazines.

Elmer’s parking lot was more crowded than she’d seen it since she arrived in town, all of the spaces up front packed with vehicles that had out-of-state tags, prospectors come to try their luck at striking oil. She pulled into a spot near the road and started toward the entrance, shielding her eyes from the sun’s low, late-afternoon glare.

As she passed the gas pumps, the sun caught a flash of silver that seemed to leap up and blind her, so that she had to stop for a moment and rub her eyes.

“Blinded by the light?” an unfamiliar voice asked.

She stepped forward, and the sun disappeared behind the gas pump, revealing a stranger with a shock of thick, oil-black hair gassing up a silver pickup. A smile played over his lips as he regarded her with eyes so clear and green she almost expected them to ripple. He was slim but well built, his shoulder muscles straining against a plain black T-shirt. Dizziness rushed to her head as his strange green eyes bored into hers, and she wondered if she’d taken in too much sun down at the swimhole.

“It must have been those.” She pointed to the bundle of brightly colored hula hoops in the back of his truck, some covered in holographic tape that reflected the sunlight.

“Oh, those.” He laughed lightly. “They aren’t mine. The bike is, though—that’s my baby.”

“You and everyone else around here,” she said.

“Really?” He scrutinized her so closely she felt her face go hot. “Is there a track in town?”

She nodded. “They have meets every Friday. It’s like a religion around here.”

He crossed his arms. “And you don’t buy into it.”

“Oh, I don’t buy into anything.” She took in a big gulp of Wyoming air, hoping it would help clear her mind. She felt suddenly hot and tingly, like she’d sat too close to a roaring campfire for way too long.

“So, you live around here?” he asked. The gas pump clicked, and he removed the nozzle and replaced it with one fluid motion, his eyes not leaving hers.

“Yeah. And, let me guess, you came here to find oil and get rich quick?”

He tilted his head, one hand on his hip. “Is that an option?”

“Are you kidding me?”

He shrugged. “Listen, I don’t know anything about anything. I just rolled into town and—well, you can say a little voice told me to get off the highway here.”

He sounded genuine, though it was hard to believe that anything but oil or family would draw a guy like him to Carbon County. Still, she could play along.

“Believe it or not,” she told him, “you’re looking at America’s next oil boomtown. The rig’s a few miles down that way.”

“Really?” His look of blatant surprise was enough to convince her that he really didn’t know. “Is there work there?”

“Are you looking for work? Around here?”

“I might be.” The corner of his mouth twitched into a smile.

“Well then, yeah. If I can get a job there, you should be fine—just tell the foreman you have two hands and you’re not afraid to get dirty. It helps if you can lift a hundred pounds without dying, too,” she added.

“You work on an oil rig?” He looked impressed.

“I do.” She allowed herself a small, proud smile.

“Well, hey.” He reached over and tapped her forearm, leaving a small, tingly spot on her flesh where his fingers had been. “Thanks for the tip . . . I’m sorry, what’s your name?”