Exit Kingdom

claw-like instrument from an ice bucket to dig the bullet out. At the first thrust of the knife
intothe bloody hole, Abraham screams loudly then passes out. The rest of the operation takes place in silence, the Vestal compressing the wound firmly so he won’t bleed out. Then they wrap
the thigh tight in ripped towels and let Abraham sleep it off.
    He’ll be hurting when he wakes up, the girl says. Do you have anything for the pain?
    Aspirin, Moses says, but not much.
    It’ll be bad.

    We’ve been through worse.
    Then Moses goes to the olive jar on the night stand and uses the pressure of his thick paws to wrench the lid free.
    There, he says. Thanks for the help with him.
    My pleasure, says the Vestal, her eyes going wide at the green oblongs floating in oil. She plucks one up between her thumb and forefinger and pops it in her mouth. Scrumptious, she says.
    You take the other bed, Moses says. I’ll sit here in this chair tonight. I ain’t used to sleepin much anyway.
    Are you kidding? she says. We’re in a hotel. There are beds everywhere.
    Safer to stick together, says Moses. Don’t worry, I ain’t gonna touch you or make any untoward advances. That’s more Abe’s thing, and he’s down for the count
tonight.
    So she settles onto the bed and leansback against the headboard and eats olives from the jar.
    You did good with him, she says to Moses after a silent while. What were you before? You know, before all this happened.
    Me? Moses replies. I was a no-good. I didn’t do much of anything. I think maybe I was just waitin on the apocalypse so I would have something to occupy me.
    So are you occupied now?
    More or less. What aboutyou? What were you?
    I was just a little girl. I don’t remember much. Just a lot of people everywhere.
    What about after? What were you before you were part of Fletcher’s sideshow?
    Lots of things, she answers in a sleepy voice. Lots of things. Many lives. I wasn’t even always a redhead.
    But she doesn’t want to talk any more and falls asleep on top of the blankets. Moses goes overto the bed and takes the jar of olives out from between her embracing arms, sets it on the
night stand and puts the lid back on. Then he returns to his chair and lets his mind wander wide – though his thoughts don’t get very far before he, too, is lost to sleep.
    *
    When Moses wakes again, it is because his brother is calling to him from where he is sitting up in the bed.
    Mose – up and at em, big brother!
    Bright light floods the room, and Moses pinches his eyes closed. He turns in the chair he has slept in all night, and his bones creak, his muscles complain. He realizes it frequently these days:
after four decades on the earth, he is getting to be one of the aged things.
    The nun’s gone, Abraham says.
    What?
    The red nun. She’s gone.
    His brotherpoints to the other bed in the room, which is empty save for a pad of paper with something written on it
    She’s not a nun, Moses says and rises to take the note from the bed. The paper has the hotel’s logo on the top of it, and her note is scratched onto it with pencil in the curlicue
handwriting of a young girl.
    Thanks for the lift.
    You are two souls litby heaven.
    Bon voyage!
    Peace and love,
    The True Vestal, Canoness Amata
    What’s it say? Abraham asks.
    She left, Moses says.
    Left where? Out there? Slugland? Without any protection?
    I reckon she don’t need protection from the dead.
    You really believe it’s real?
    Moses looks away from his brother to the window where the sun feelshot and good on his face.
    It ain’t an issue of belief, he says. She’s took off. Whether she’s gonna be et or not, she ain’t here any more.
    So what now?
    Now we try to find her.
    Goddamnit, Abraham says. Seems like we’re settin up to spend an inordinate lot of time pursuing a girl we ain’t allowed to bang when we find her.
    Moses looks at his brother’s leg, stretched out straighton the bed with a towel wrapped around it.
    Can you walk?
    It hurts like straight damnation, Abraham says. What’d you do, gnaw the bullet out of there with your teeth?
    Are you able to walk on it?
    If you ain’t in the mood to carry me, I could hobble.
    Fine. Let’s go.
    *
    Outside, in the car, they drive slowly, looking for traces of the Vestal Amata. The dead aredense and easily riled, but there are no signs of a wake – a tide of dead all
moving in one direction, at the head of which you usually find some poor fool running for his life. It seems