Over Your Dead Body by Dan Wells Page B

said.
    Brooke watched me for a moment, parsing this sudden change in direction. “Most people would beg for a chance to talk to their dead.”
    “Most people haven’t done it,” I said.
    “I thought you loved her.”
    “Stop using that word!” I shouted. I looked around, worried that people would hear us, that people would look out their windows and watch us, that Paul would come around the corner and start talking to us again. I needed to run, not toward anything, but just run, as fast as I could. I squeezed my arms tighter around my chest.
    “You’re having a panic attack,” said Brooke. “Dr. Trujillo taught me about them. Take a deep breath or you’ll hyperventilate.”
    “An hour ago you didn’t even remember Dr. Trujillo.”
    “Is that supposed to hurt me?”
    “Of course not,” I said, closing my eyes and crouching on the sidewalk. “I never want to hurt you, I’m sorry, but I can’t…” I didn’t know what to say.
    I heard Brooke’s shoes scraping on the pavement, felt the soft puff of her breath as she crouched next to me. “You can’t what?”
    “Nothing you can help me with.”
    “Just saying it out loud can help.”
    I shook my head. “Marci was the most important thing in my life.”
    “I know.”
    “Now you are,” I whispered.
    She paused a moment. “I know.”
    “And I can’t have one without losing the other.”
    I heard footsteps and opened my eyes to see the pastor walking toward us with my backpack in one hand and Brooke’s in the other. We’d left them in the church. I stood up, grateful that I hadn’t been crying—and then a part of me grew disturbed that I hadn’t been crying and filed it away as another inhuman fault. “Thank you,” I said, trying to keep my voice from trembling. “We’d just noticed we’d forgotten them.” It wasn’t true; it was another knee-jerk lie. Why did I do that?
    “Are you okay?” he asked again. “Is there something I can do?”
    “No thank you,” I said, taking the pack. What if he’d looked through it? What if he’d found the gun, or my notes about the Withered? What if he’d found something that could link us to our real identities?
    “You said she needed medicine,” said the pastor softly, “but you don’t look well, either.”
    “I’m just sad, is all.” That was true enough, though I realized that might be the first time I’d ever admitted the emotion out loud. “Someone very close to us died.”
    “I’m sorry to hear that,” said the pastor. “Is that why you’re … traveling?” He’d hesitated just a moment before saying the final word. What had he almost said instead? Running? Hiding? He’d definitely guessed that our story wasn’t true.
    “David and I…” Brooke said the names carefully, as if she were testing strange waters with her toe. “Our friend passed away last week—my friend, his brother. John.”
    “Something you said in there reminded us of him,” I said, continuing the story. “That’s all.”
    He eyed us carefully. “Is there something I can do to help? Even if it’s just listening while you talk about it?”
    “‘For a time is coming,’” I quoted, “‘when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out—those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned.’”
    “John 5,” said the pastor. “Verses twenty-eight and twenty-nine.”
    “What if they’re trapped?” I asked. “What if they can’t rise to go anywhere?”
    He paused a moment, as if he was trying to figure out what I was really asking, the question behind the question. “The world is full of terrible things,” he said at last, “but I’ve never seen anything so terrible it could stop God from saving his own child.”
    “Sure you have,” I said, thinking of the Withered hiding somewhere in this tiny, idyllic community. “You just didn’t recognize it.”
    “Where is Beck Street?” asked Brooke, then she tilted her head.