The End Is Her

by H. Claire Taylor

Jessica paused, looked out over her audience, taking the temperature of the crowd. They were still listening, so that was something, and the cameras continued to roll, so maybe the viewers at home could hear her words and understand.

  “I’ve spent my whole life trying to learn this simple lesson. But it was Jesus who finally taught me that until we can love the ones society has ignored, cast aside, and devalued, our love is cheap. Until we can—”

  A loud buzzing came from behind her, and she turned just in time to see the clock at zero before another deafening explosion knocked her to the ground.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  The glass front doors of White Light Church were blown clean out in a rain of glass, but thankfully they were far enough away to keep from causing deadly injury.

  When Jessica finally looked up from her prone position on the stage, she saw flames bellowing from the front of the building.

  Jimmy. The bastard.

  He lay facedown on the stage, spread out like a starfish and not moving at all. She would deal with him in a minute.

  The stampede had begun, but whether the hogs had kicked it off with their inevitable escape from the shoddy corral or not, she might never know.

  Courtney emerged from the sea, hoisting herself up onto the front of the stage. She wasted no time, sprinting to the shame circle to grab her mother and twin under their arms, attempting to lift them to their feet. Each only stared up at her blankly, though. “Get the hell up,” she ordered, and with an effortful shout, she deadlifted Trent until he got his feet under him.

  Ruth continued to flop. “Leave me.”

  “Oh, you wish.” Destinee grabbed the woman’s ankles and nodded for Courtney to take one of her arms. “You’re no one’s fuckin’ martyr.” And then Destinee and the Wurst twins carried Ruth across the stage toward safety.

  The contingency. Jessica had almost forgotten about it. But Courtney’s efforts jogged her hazy memory. It was why all the priestesses had been asked to attend this hellish spectacle, and surely it was still in place. They hadn’t known what kind of crazy Jimmy had in store, but they knew it would be something. Even as she stood there, the blast from White Light ringing in her ears, her friends would be guiding the most frightened and vulnerable to a secure place.

  And that left Jessica free to handle the one thing she’d needed to handle for her entire life.

  Jimmy bled from the cheek, no doubt from shrapnel of his own creation. Perhaps his age was catching up with him, because he was slow to get back on his feet. The effort appeared painful, and he grimaced as one of his knees buckled on his initial attempt to put weight on it.

  They locked eyes for only the briefest of moments.

  And then he sprinted for the stairs. The sole of his snakeskin boot found the asphalt an instant before a rampaging hog swept both his legs out from under him. With a pearly flash, he involuntarily somersaulted over the hog, who carried on as if it hadn’t even noticed, and grunted sharply when his back collided with the parking lot.

  She felt the heat from the burning church on her back as she rushed forward. She may not have Miranda’s speed in a 90-foot sprint, but she had the wrath of God inside her. Jimmy Dean wouldn’t slip away this time.

  He was almost to his feet again, gasping, holding his side, when her fingers curled around his suit collar and yanked him backward onto the stairs.

  Dirt spoiled his suit, and the thin red stole twisted tightly around his neck, the hoof on the end dangling over his shoulder and down his back.

  “Not this time, Oscar Meyer,” she said, stepping over him. “I know about Hatch, Utah, the centurion bunnies in the clouds, the way it all burned down. And everyone knows about John Sonville and the underage brothel you had in Elbow. Your fraudulent ass is not getting away again. This time, you get to stick around and deal with the mess you’ve made.”

  He yanked at the stole, loosening it around his neck. “I could kill myself right now, and you’d have to bring me back.”

  “I wouldn’t.”

  “Oh, but you would. Otherwise, you clearly can’t see God in white men.”

  “Shut up, Jimmy!”

  “You know I’m right. But don’t worry. I won’t do that.”

  “You won’t?”

  “No. I don’t need to. Everything I’ve been working toward, you’ve just completed.”

  “I’ve … What?”

  He seized upon her moment of confusion and pushed himself up. Around them, the rushing crowd began to thin, and the first distant echo of sirens could be heard. “You’ve done it, Jessica. You’ve planted the seed, and it will grow. Trust me, I know a thing or two about that.” He was grinning now. She wanted to kick the smug expression from his face.

  “Hold on,” she snapped. “I know what you’re trying to do here. No, Jimmy. Absolutely not.”

  “Just because you don’t want to face the truth doesn’t mean it’s not real. I created the crowd you need. I built the church that drove you to build your own. If it weren’t for me, you never would have come forward to claim your story. You would have hidden your whole life.” He cackled, and it wasn’t the voice of any Jimmy she’d met before. “You’ve succeeded in what you set out to do, and you couldn’t have done it without—”

  “Suck my knucks, asswipe!” Destinee’s fist came out of nowhere, smashing into Jimmy’s jaw and knocking him out cold.

  “Mom!”

  Destinee looked like she’d recently seen the underside of a few stampeding hogs. She shook out her wrist and snorted in what Jessica could only assume was a steady flow of blood from her nose before looking away from Jimmy’s limp body to her daughter. “I know, I know. Shouldna done that. But it was just too good to pass up. Besides, we got no idea when we’ll get another chance to hit him without anyone carin’. Hell, he probably won’t even remember who did it when he wakes up. Free pass!” She glanced down again at the unconscious Jimmy Dean. “Happy birthday, baby.”

  And from behind Jessica: “YEAH. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BABY.”

  She whirled toward the source, and the giant sow trotted forward.

  “Damn, the whole family’s here,” said Destinee, taking the talking pig in stride. And why not? It made about as much sense as anything that had transpired in the last ten minutes. “The three of us oughta make ourselves scarce. Those sirens are close, and he ain’t waking up anytime soon.”

  And so, as their first act as a flesh-and-blood family, the McClouds fled the scene of multiple crimes.

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  January, AGC 24

  There was a time when Jessica would’ve said that the only way she’d see Rex in a Philadelphia Eagles jersey would be if she unknowingly walked in on him and her mother in some kinky humiliation role-play. But here he was, not only wearing one, but wearing one openly, outside the bedroom, hosting an NFC Championship blow-out party. It was like he’d lost a bet with himself.

  This would never have happened if the name Riley weren’t emblazoned on the back of the jersey. But as it was, she sported a matching jersey (underneath a midnight green hoodie). So did most people at the party, except for those who were only there for the food, not the football.

  Speaking of Judith, the scribe made her way over from the elaborate snack table on the patio, a beer in her hand, and stopped just shy of where Jessica was parked in a canvas chair on the lawn. “The center is all locked up. Found a couple teens messing around on one of the benches in the garden. I let them be.”

  “Good. Thanks. Were they students of ours?”

  The McCloud-Archer Community Center, formerly the Church of Girl Christ, had, in conjunction with Dr. Fractal, begun hosting free sex education classes for anyone whose school program had taught them nothing of any use. As it turned out, that was twelve hundred students over the last four months alone. Plans were in the works to expand to adult classes as well.

  “Yeah, I recognized them. Keira Flannery and … I don’t know the boy’s name.”

  “Keira?” Jessica said.
“Must have been Forester.”

  “Nope, not him.”

  “But I just caught her with him last week.”

  Judith shrugged. “Dunno what to tell you. He must not have been any good.”

  On the big-screen out on the back lawn, a singer Jessica was pretty sure she’d met through Jameson once before belted out the national anthem. After holding “brave” for much longer than was warranted, the singer grinned up into the stands, waved, then added into the mic, “She is good!”

  Judith cast Jessica a curious glance, and she wasn’t the only one. A few gazes set on Jessica, and she could only shrug. “I didn’t tell her to say that.”

  Jameson. Or maybe the singer truly believed it.

  It was a phrase heard round the country. Started as a hashtag following the melodrama on the last of days, it was a simple yet precise way of pronouncing that you believed God was a woman.

  In the seven months since her birthday, multiple news outlets had theorized the origin of the hashtag, but none of them had come to a definite conclusion. It was like the thing had been immaculately conceived in cyberspace. An internet miracle!

  Except it wasn’t, and Jessica had paid Cash Monet a hefty bonus for their covert effort.

  Yes, the revolution was gaining momentum, and she couldn’t wait to ignore all the think-pieces that would follow this singer’s ad lib at the end of the National Anthem. She was sure “Jessica Antichrist, Anti-American” would be included in its fair share of headlines.

  She didn’t care anymore, though. The movement had started. More and more people were openly supporting the idea of a She God and eagerly awaiting the next in line. And more than that, they were living it with their charitable donations.

  But though her job has stopped being about her, it was far from over. Someday, perhaps soon, perhaps years from now, the real work would begin.

  On the back porch, out of earshot of the TV, Destinee held court with the former priestesses, now community liaisons. Jessica couldn’t tell what they were talking about, but she did overhear her mother say, “limper than a jellyfish on muscle relaxers,” so she had a pretty good guess this was one of Destinee’s legendary high school stories.

  While preliminary plans were to invite all kinds of folks from Destinee and Rex’s jobs, friends from the community center, and even some of Jeremy’s exec buddies, in the end, that hadn’t felt right. Destinee had been the first to mention it. “Ya know, Rex, I kinda feel like Chris is the son I never had, and I’d like to celebrate with just the people who know him.”

  Rex had become immediately teary-eyed and agreed, heaping praise onto his girlfriend for her generous emotional insight and the courage to speak her truth.

  So it was that the guest list whittled down to fifteen people, but they were the people Jessica most wanted to have around her in this world while cheering Chris on in his championship debut. Win this, and it was off to the Super Bowl.

  The odds had the opponent favored by twenty-four points, but Jessica had called in a favor with her Mother and had received confirmation that things would go Chris’s way. The best part of the exchange was that she didn’t feel the need to specify that she didn’t want Chris to win at the cost of his opponents suffering life-threatening injuries, not because she was callous to the health of others, but because God wasn’t. God, as it turned out, had more compassion than ever.

  Standing by the refreshments, the former priestess Stephanie Lee cackled with glee at the conclusion of Destinee’s tale, and then took over as storyteller.

  Jessica needed a drink, and for once it wasn’t because she wanted to forget anything. This one would be celebratory.

  She approached the drink bucket where Quentin stood with his back to her. On the other side of him, Miranda raised her longneck at Jessica. “One hell of a party.”

  DON’T SAY IT.

  I wasn’t going to.

  YES, YOU WERE. JUST ACCEPT THAT THEY MIGHT END UP FRIENDS AND MOVE ON.

  But they’re meant to be together!

  THEY ARE NOT. IF THEY WERE, THEY WOULD BE.

  Miranda and Quentin shared a curious look. “God,” he said. Miranda nodded, and they returned to their conversation about neuroreceptors.

  “KICK OFF!” came Jesus’s excited shout from near the TV. “THEY ARE ABOUT TO SPAR!” He’d stood from his chair to make the announcement and clapped his hands in frenetic excitement.

  Rex shushed him as those partygoers who’d been milling around descended upon the lawn chairs gathered round the TV. Jessica did the same.

  The smell of barbecue was stronger over here, and the wind changed suddenly, flooding them with smoke, but she didn’t care.

  The ball sailed through the air, sparking a strange pining deep inside her for her own kicking days. Fair catch. Whistle blown. Commercial break.

  “Look away!” Jeremy hollered from his seat. “Don’t watch the commercials. I happen to know they all contain subliminal Soviet propaganda! Don’t allow yourself to be exposed!”

  “This is a toothpaste commercial,” Rex pointed out.

  Jeremy leaned forward, furrowing his brows darkly. “I know. I own the parent company. Believe me when I say they cannot be trusted.”

  “But why—” Miranda began, but Quentin placed a hand on her arm and shook his head, and she dropped it.

  A series of grunts from the back fence caught Jessica’s attention fifteen minutes later, after the Eagles’ first drive had ended in a punt. “Mom, I think Aper wants some grub.”

  With a similar grunt, Destinee lifted herself from her seat “Course she does. She probably smelled the barbecue from a mile away.”

  Theirs was a temporary arrangement with Aper, she knew. The wild hog whose body her second Mother had inhabited for End Times stayed in the area for now, rooting up the creek bed behind Rex’s property. She’d taken a shine to the McClouds after they’d scooped her up and tossed her in the back of the XL rideshare, fleeing the fiery shindig before the cops arrived.

  Of course they couldn’t keep her, she was feral, so they’d cut her loose in the brush behind Rex’s property. But she’d turned up at the back fence daily for whatever leftovers she could get and sometimes a head scratch.

  It wouldn’t be long until someone shot her. It wasn’t technically legal in the city limits, but the local government had a way of turning a blind eye to that sort of thing.

  God had assured her that whoever did carry the bullet with Aper’s name on it would not be damned to Hell for killing one of God’s former outfits.

  Destinee approached the sow, it jumped up onto the fence and waved. God enjoyed an occasionally romp like this. Helped Her feel grounded, apparently.

  It was halftime and the Eagles had a two-score lead when the chain-link side gate flung open, swinging all the way until it clattered back on itself. The sound was like a small bomb going off, and everyone’s attention turned away from the pharmaceutical commercial aimed at those suffering from occasional nervousness and toward the source of the sound.

  A stout woman stood just across the threshold and appeared surprised to find everyone staring at her. “Oops! I didn’t expect it to be so flimsy.”

  Jessica jumped to her feet and felt the ground lurch beneath her.

  The rest of the party: silence.

  The television: “Consult your doctor if you experience sexual disfunction, suicidal or homicidal thoughts.”

  Dolores Thomas held up her hands defensively. “I’m sorry, I realize I’m not exactly welcome here, but I just wanted to talk.”

  Jessica whirled at the sound of the shotgun rack. “Mom, no!” Where had she even gotten that thing from so fast?

  But Destinee kept the butt of the rifle against her shoulder, sights on the Devil. “Get off my lawn, Dolores. I have every right to shoot you this very second.”

  The Devil pursed her lips impatiently. “I’m well aware of Texas laws, Destinee. And it’s only if you can claim self-defense. You have quite an audience watching right now. Ar
e you sure every one of them would lie for you?”

  Destinee shrugged her free shoulder. “Pretty sure, yeah.”

  Jessica inched closer to her mother as she addressed the Devil. “Why are you here?”

  “I wanted to apologize.”

  That was obviously bullshit.

  “I know what you believe me to be,” Dolores said, “and I think for a long time, I was that. But it’s left me now. I’m just … me.”

  She thought of Aper, the way God could jump in and out. Could the Devil do that, too?

  NO. IT’S ANOTHER TRICK, BABY!

  Jessica addressed her mother now. “Don’t do it. This is another play of hers. She wants you to shoot her so you’ll go to jail.”

  “How do you know?” Destinee murmured, the tip of the barrel lowering a fraction of an inch.

  “I don’t know exactly what her plan is, but why else would she be here if not to screw us?”

  Destinee adjusted her aim again. “You get the hell off my property, Satan!”

  “Jessica,” pleaded Dolores, and Jess felt a nauseating wave of sympathy wash through her.

  “Mom, please put the gun down. We’ll just call the cops and have them deal with it.”

  For a moment more, nobody moved, then, with a muttered string of cursing, Destinee lowered the shotgun. Rex was there in an instant, taking the weapon from her and setting it safely out of reach against a keg.

  Jesus set a comforting hand on Destinee’s shoulder. “That was the right thing to do. It’s not our job to kill the meanies, even the ultimate mean—”

  “Die, you atrocious bitch!”

  Stephanie Lee grabbed the shotgun and marched straight for the Devil.

  “You think I forgot the things you used to say to me? The threats, the abuse, the implications that nobody loved me?” It was clear by her slurred speech that she was already a few drinks deep. “You knew my parents died in an earthquake in the Himalayas when I was young. You knew it and you made that our science lesson the first week of kindergarten just to hurt me. All the years of it. Did you make Sandra befriend me just so you could torture me? All the horrible things you said to me, all the quiet comments to make me feel unloved. I can’t believe I ever confided in you! You used me as a punching bag because you knew I wouldn’t say a word! Well, I’m saying something now, you bitch! Even if I didn’t know you were the Devil, I’d have guessed it.”