by Tim Waggoner
“I don’t care if my brother is inside that giant blob of fat,” Kate said. “I won’t do it.”
“Of course you will,” Simon said. “You’ll want to. When the Quidam repaired the damage to your body and restarted your biological functions, it made a few adjustments to your brain. It strengthened the psychic link you share with your brother. You are now the sister of God.”
Kate wanted to protest further, but a feeling of calm and well-being suffused her then, and she no longer felt any urge to resist. She understood the Quidam’s plan, and she saw the beauty and wonder in it. Joy, purer and stronger than anything she’d ever experienced, welled up inside her, and she reached out and clasped Marie’s cold hand.
Marie smiled lovingly at her. “I was thinking we could write a new Bible too. We could call it The Way of All Flesh. I don’t think Dr. Rothschild would mind if we used his title, do you?”
“No,” Kate said, smiling back. “I don’t think he’d mind at all.”
She turned to Simon to thank him for all that he’d done, but the boy was gone.
Kate and Marie returned to the high school after that. The building had sustained significant damage as the Quidam was being born, but that was all right. It wasn’t like they were going to live here anymore. There was no blood left over from the zombie attack, though; the Quidam had absorbed it all.
They took their time selecting and gathering supplies, and then they spent the night in Kate’s room, making love and talking about the wondrous adventure that lay before them.
In the morning they rose, dressed, ate breakfast in the deserted cafeteria and prepared to leave. They donned heavy clothing and winter coats, slipped on backpacks filled with the minimum they would need to begin their journey. They didn’t take any weapons. They thought carrying weapons would send the wrong message to those they would meet on the road ahead. Besides, the Quidam was all the protection they would need.
They found the Quidam where they had left it yesterday, resting before the ruins of the groundskeeper’s shed. It was no larger than before, for it was sincere in not forcing the Joining on anyone—unless absolutely necessary, of course.
The rain had stopped sometime during the night. The sky was clear and the sun was out, and while it was still a bit chilly, all in all, it was a beautiful morning.
As they approached the Quidam, two tendrils emerged and gently caressed their faces.
“Good morning, David,” Kate thought.
“Morning, sis. Ready to go to work?”
“You know it.”
The tendrils returned to the Quidam’s main mass, and Kate and Marie turned and began heading toward the road. After several minutes, the Quidam starting sliding across the grass after them.
An hour after their departure, Simon reappeared in the shed’s ruins. He squatted on his haunches to get a better view of a single tooth that lay nestled between two shingles.
“Hello, Nicholas. Sorry things got a little messy for you toward the end, but I promise to make it up to you. I need your help with Phase Three. You see, in order for an organism to reach its full potential, it needs something to strive against. A competitor. Or to put it more poetically, every God needs a Satan.”
He reached down and touched the tooth, and the tiny shreds of tissue attached to it began to grow.
Other books by Tim Waggoner available now or coming soon from Crossroad Press
A Strange and Savage Garden
All Too Surreal
Darkness Wakes
Pandora Drive
The Nekropolis Trilogy
Nekropolis
Nekropolis: Dead Streets
Nekropolis: Dead War