just a few hours after the crash, when those creatures began overwhelming the city. The injured were on the first buses, and you could hear the soldiers fighting downtown, trying to clear a way through for the buses, but Jack was so calm, so brave, when they were loading him onto that first bus.”
“So you’ll be seeing him soon, then,” Michael said, trying to cheer her as her voice trailed off. “Also, I think you’re doing pretty good in the bravery department.”
“Thank you, Michael,” she replied. “But I just mean, such incredible things have happened in this world. I’ve always prayed: it’s like talking to yourself, then it changes. And I used to think that God answered all prayers—that if you honestly gave yourself to His grace, and if you treated people with kindness, you’d be safe and carried through whatever was to come. I still pray. But with all the terrible things around us, now I’m finding . . .”
“What are you finding?”
“I’m finding that I don’t want God to speak back to me,” Bobbie said. “I do not think that I’m prepared for what He has coming.”
Michael didn’t believe in what Bobbie was saying, but he couldn’t help it: chills crept up his spine.
“I know those people in the mountains believe this is The End, too,” Bobbie said, so softly it was almost as if she were speaking to herself. “But I think I understand them. I grew up in a coal town; I know what it’s like to have all your hope tied up with the mining company. Then they had a little boy die in their mine.” Michael remembered the newspaper he’d found in the coal company trash can, the article about the accident that killed Cady Gibson, the young boy with the ragged, crooked haircut. “And then the dead rose. And I believe that the people in that town needed hope, and the only thing they could do was try to believe that these awful things meant something, even if the meaning is something terrible. Their priest took their pain for his own purposes. And I believe that makes him a dark man.”
The idea gave Michael pause. It struck him that, if Bobbie were right, then the Rapture’s situation felt uncomfortably like Patrick’s and his own: after all, Michael was using The Game to shape meaning out of their pain. But no, it’s totally different, Michael thought. When The Game is over, Patrick’s going to be fine. The Rapture’s only goal seemed to be destruction.
“But Miss Bobbie, there’s no reason to believe that anything bad is coming.”
She looked back to Michael, seeming to snap out of the small reverie. “Oh. No, of course. I’m so sorry to go on like this,” Bobbie said.
Michael nodded, and then Bobbie, still looking distant and shaken, headed for the door. He felt a need to interject again, to repay her for her being kind to Patrick—to feel useful again after the moment with Jopek, which had made him feel so small.
“Miss Bobbie?” She turned to him. “You know, you’re not going to have to be ‘waiting around’ too much longer with the soldiers on their way.”
Bobbie nodded, but didn’t look reassured.
“And you don’t even have to just ‘wait around’ at all. I don’t pray, but you know what did make me feel better when I was out in the mountains? Keeping busy. That’s the big thing. And carrying a gun didn’t hurt, either.”
Bobbie smiled, said jokingly, “Maybe I’ll try that sometime, honey.”
“Heck yeah. Maybe those soldiers will recruit you; I just hope your husband will recognize you in camo.”
And, finally, looking like her bright self again, Bobbie laughed.
A reminder that soldiers were coming back soon; the obvious truth of the awesomeness of Bobbie’s survival mirrored back to her: these things added up, slightly refocused the world, to give her a picture of happiness. And not just her.
I’m good at this, aren’t I, making people feel better? Michael thought as he headed out of the kitchen.
But you never saw any soldiers, Michael, something in him whispered.
He felt a small pang of guilt. Well . . . even if I didn’t see them, soldiers really are coming. And if this little not-even-half lie makes Bobbie feel better, isn’t it worth it?
Yes, he responded, with warmth in his ribs. Yes, yes.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The rest of the day passed quickly. Michael ate a couple cinnamon rolls for breakfast, which gave him this mostly pleasant mix of sleepiness and sugar-jitters, and afterward, he asked Bub,