Rise Again Below Zero (40 page)

On the way back to the room, she announced she was hungry again.

•   •   •

The relatively good rest and the multiple doses of nutritious food seemed to have filled Danny’s cells with energy, as if she was made of billions of microscopic batteries all charged up. But this revitalization only served to increase her feeling of being trapped in the schoolroom—and more so, Happy Town in general. It might only be a matter of time before someone figured out she’d already made a move in the church—the Architect guessed as much, but had given her a pass, and Patrick and Dr. Joe certainly had their suspicions. Nor had her unexpected interview with the Architect gone unnoticed by the Risen Flesh and his minions, she was certain. This was no time to lie around. She’d only forced herself to stay idle the last few hours because Dr. Joe was right: The more people thought she was ill, the more room she’d have to maneuver. It didn’t occur to her that she
was
ill.

But enough time had passed so that it was clear that she had not been identified by the general population as the killer inside the church, which meant the crucified monster hung up inside it was true to his word. At least so far. He might claim infinite patience, stuck in place as he was, but Danny
suspected if she didn’t make some move in the Architect’s direction very soon, he might decide to reveal her, just to get things moving along. She tried to focus her mind not on her own uncertain fate, but on the plan.

•   •   •

Dr. Joe Higashiyama came by in midafternoon to find Danny getting dressed to go out.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going for a walk,” she said. “Maybe do some shopping. Do you need anything?”

“I don’t think you understand,” he said. He had a clipboard in his hand and kept looking at it as if his lines were written on it. “Your brain is bleeding. This isn’t a joke.”

“I didn’t say it was funny, Doctor,” Danny said. She finished knotting her laces and stood up. If he had something to say, now was the time.

“We need to discuss your condition.”

“I don’t want to,” Danny said.

“I have to because I’m your doctor.” When Danny folded her arms together and leaned against the wall, he continued, “I’ll keep it brief. I told you your brain is bleeding, way down inside beneath the two big lobes, near the stem. If it doesn’t get worse, you could remain functional, except for the headaches and the blackouts. If it gets better, you might still experience the occasional headache, but probably not. I’ve been reading up on this. I’m not an expert.”

“If it gets worse?”

“You have a stroke and you’re paralyzed, or die. Short form. A lot of ways that can happen, but it’s not good.”

“So what does anybody do about that?”

“Don’t hit your head. Like not even a little bit, ever again. Don’t drink a lot of alcohol, hang upside down, get into fights, or use speed. Basically retire and live somewhere quiet and you should be okay.”

“Is that it?”

“There’s a lot of stuff happening here,” he said. “People are freaking out. You turned up at a time when I think things are changing kind of fast . . . And from what I hear, that’s where you’re at your best. Don’t go for it, okay? Whatever happens, keep out of it.”

“I’m not interested in your town or your politics or any of that. I want the Silent Kid back. You can have this shithole all to yourself. Can I ask you a personal question?”

He was taken aback by this change of subject, but nodded. “I guess.”

“Which one is worse: the Architect, or the Risen Flesh?”

As she spoke, the church bells began to ring for the afternoon service.

Dr. Joe tipped his head in the direction of the bells.

“Why don’t you make that call yourself?”

D
anny’s heart was kicking as she approached the church. The overnight snow still survived in the angles of buildings and against the curbs, a rime of dust left in the corners by an indifferent housekeeper, and it looked and felt like another snowstorm was on its way. Danny found she was one of hundreds walking up the street; the shuffle of the worshippers reminded her uncomfortably of the undead. Now she found herself wondering how many of them were infected with this new poison, half-dead, half-living. Was that the future? Or was it something so rare all the infected had already been isolated from the general population?

She saw that many women had covered their heads beyond the purpose of warmth—a measure to ensure modesty or an attempt to conceal their identities, maybe, so their neighbors wouldn’t judge them for joining a cult that in another time would have been considered blasphemous, unthinkable. It occurred to Danny to pull the brown sweatshirt’s hood up over her own distinctive head; her notoriety was going to be a problem when it came time to act. Anonymity was always an asset. For the first time in her life, Danny considered dyeing her hair.

By the time she made it in past the big, sullen-looking ushers on the steps, the place was packed. She saw the Risen Flesh down at the far end of the nave, rolling his cloudy eyes and moaning like a common zero. The sight of the thing was even more hideous by daylight; she could see the permanent bruises, the peeling skin, the ragged apertures where the nails pierced its limbs. It was standing room only on the ground floor, so Danny allowed herself to be pushed along with the rest of the latecomers into the upper gallery where the organ pipes were. She struggled to a point near the railing of the balcony, determined to see what kind of system they had
going, how many acolytes there were, and whether the crowd seemed convinced by what they were doing or not.

The Risen Flesh’s followers were crammed into the pews, chairs, and benches of the church; they filled the aisles and the balcony and the stairs. There were others massed at the windows outside, their silhouettes visible through the stained glass, and still more stood beyond the front doors, massed on the steps, stretching their necks for a glimpse within. Except for the grotesque centerpiece of the scene, it reminded Danny of the refugee food distribution centers she’d done security on in Pakistan, Iraq, and Afghanistan: countless hungry, unwashed faces all turned to the same spot, bodies pressed together, united by desperation.

But where the deuce-and-a-half truck laden with bags of rice ought to have been, there was an altar. Danny hadn’t been able to see much during her nocturnal visit, so the fixtures were new to her eyes. The altar was older than the church, battered and blackened; it had probably been one of the props used by the preacher when he was still on the move with his sideshow religion. Behind the altar stood four of the acolytes, presumably half-living infected, as the Architect claimed; they were costumed in hooded sweatshirts after the fashion of monks, heads bowed, hands clasped in front of their groins. Behind them, overspreading the scene, was a tall wooden cross made of thick timbers with gilded edges. A ladder was set against the right-hand crosspiece; atop the ladder waited a fifth hooded acolyte.

It was the Risen Flesh from which Danny could not take her eyes. In daylight the thing was so hideous as to invoke pity, mouth working without words, beard wagging. Its milky eyes roamed hungrily over the crowd below. The thing had been nailed firmly to the cross, hands and feet, and upon its head was set a crown of rusting barbed wire that had scraped the flesh down to the skull. In its side was a wound; black fluid had run from the gaping cut all the way to the zero’s feet, and spattered the wood of the upright beneath. The zombie writhed against the nails. Danny saw there had been more than one set of nails—a couple of secondary holes in feet and wrists must have been from earlier attempts to keep the thing in place.

All eyes were upon the inhuman effigy. And then their heads turned in near unison, in the way a flock of birds will change course in midflight, as a new actor walked upon the stage at the front of the church. A pale-skinned man with dark eyes, a narrow beard, and long hair parted carefully in the center. He looked like Rasputin, Danny thought. One of those Russian mystics.
He was dressed all in black leather, except for a white silk scarf at his throat; on the back of his jacket was painted a crimson X with a white cross over the top of it, in rough strokes like Japanese calligraphy. It was the Preacher, come at last to minister to his flock.

He took his place in front of the crucifixion, his fists thrust against the altar. There was a massive leather-bound book on the altar that might have been a Bible, or it could have been the register of an old hotel. To Danny’s suspicious eyes, the entire thing was pure theater; there was no question that everything had been composed for maximum dramatic effect. She wondered who had first conceived of this obscene ritual: the Preacher or the Risen Flesh?

“Children,” the Preacher said.

“We are all but children,” chanted the monks and a number of the most fervent worshippers at the front. “O Lord, save me!” someone shouted.

“God visited his wrath upon us again, as he always does, for these are the times beyond the end. One of our very own, murdered here at the foot of the Risen!” Here he thrust his finger at the spot where Danny had slain the acolyte; a dark stain still marbled the floorboards.

“And although our humble church was spared, yet it has been wounded, as was the Son of our Lord. Yet look you upon the Reborn: He was untouched. He was untouched. He was untouched.”

As the Preacher chanted these words, he shook his open hands up at the creature transfixed above him.

“This was no miracle,” the Preacher continued, turning suddenly on the congregation. “No no. We used the word ‘miracle’ too easily before the end. We cheapened it. No, this one of all the millions of reborn was chosen to guide us, but he is not God. He is not Christ. He is
nobody
. We know not even his name. He could have been you, or you, or you”—here he stabbed his fingers at people in the crowd—“or anyone here. He is reborn. That is the only thing which matters, can’t you understand? And that is why he hangs there still, when the murderer who came among us, who slew one of our own brethren right here on this spot, could have destroyed the Risen Flesh as well. Why did the killer stay his hand? Why did he not cast our Savior to this bloodstained floor?”

People actually looked at the floor when the Preacher said this, as if trying to identify the spot upon which the crucified thing would have fallen. Danny couldn’t believe their stupidity. They were emptying their minds and letting this man fill them back up again with—what? She remembered
a word Harlan had used back in the war before he got his own brains knocked out. He’d been speaking of a camel spider at the time, but it was a good word and Danny remembered it.
Abomination
. This preacher was filling his congregation’s heads with abominations. Danny wasn’t versed in the Bible, but she had a feeling this wouldn’t go over very well with God. She expected there should be lightning blowing the steeple off.

“This animated clay that hangs above you is the living flesh of the departed soul, as predicted in every book of religious wisdom ever written in every religion there ever was. On this they all agree. There shall come an end to the world, but not an end to suffering, not yet! Not at the same time. Only in this time after time shall we determine whether our suffering shall end. If we yet struggle against the will of God, he will give us the gift of suffering. And there hangs proof. Proof! Our mortal frames continue while our souls burn in hell, so we may suffer here on earth and in the fires of Hades at the one and very same time.”

Danny looked at the crowd, searching for familiar faces. There were a few Tribespeople there. Not many. Maybe a dozen. There would be others who didn’t follow this weird cult, but latched on to something else—whatever allowed them to fit into the group. Some would mold their very minds to conform. Give them time, and most of them would eventually believe the hideous effigy gnashing the air above their heads was a sacred being resurrected for their salvation, if they had to.

“But there are sinners among us,” the Preacher went on, his eyes coincidentally sweeping over Danny’s position, “among the citizens of this blessed town. They are the enemy. They would destroy the Risen Flesh, if they could. But they could not. They are outside these doors, the Architect and his minions, his killers, his whores to Mammon. They did this thing. They sought and failed to destroy the Risen Flesh. They could succeed, brothers and sisters. They could yet succeed. Vigilance! Vigilance. Watch them, and know that they rule by force of violence when the only true strength in this world that is left to us miserable sinning shitheads is
faith
. Vigilance, and a hard right hand, will save your souls when the time fucking cometh.”

As grotesque as it all seemed to her, Danny had to fit in, or seem to, until she knew what was going on. Nobody appeared to have recognized her in her civilian clothes—her “chook costume,” as she thought of it—and with the pendulous sweatshirt hood pulled down low, she was fairly sure to remain anonymous. Besides, nobody was looking in her direction,
up in the gallery. All eyes were on the Preacher and the moaning autopsy above him.